Month: December 2021

In the last two years the world has battled the power of Covid. We as the church have also engaged in this battle, though our battle is both with Covid and the spiritual power behind it. There have been conflicting perspectives on it, failed prophecies on when it will end and on and on. Many of us have prayed and not yet received the answer or outcome that we sought and so we live with the certainty of uncertainty, and for many of us a sense of growing weary in the battle.

So, we will take a look at what we are battling against. In scripture horns represent power. In the Old and New Testaments, we see it in both a positive and negative light.

¹ And Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the LORD; My horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, Because I rejoice in Your salvation.” 1 Samuel 2:1 (NKJV)

¹⁰ But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil. Psalm 92:10 (NKJV)

⁸ I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words. ⁹ “I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; ¹⁰ A fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, And the books were opened. ¹¹ “I watched then because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking; I watched till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame. Daniel 7:8-11 (NKJV)

⁶ And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Revelation 5:6 (NKJV)

¹¹ Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. ¹² And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. Revelation 13:11-12 (NKJV)

In the passages where we see a horn or horns representing power. Yet the power of the enemy is always defeated by the authority and power of the Lord. No matter how long it takes or what we have to face we can be confident in something Jesus said.

¹⁹ Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.Luke 10:19 (NKJV)

We also see the extent of Jesus authority in The Great Commission.

¹⁸ And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV)

Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth and He has delegated us to exercise His authority in the earth. To do so we must be actively engaged in the battle that we are all in and the battle is first fought in the realm of prayer. We not have seen the things we would like to see in the last two years. In spite of what we have not seen our response needs to be one of continuing to look to Him. A response of repenting of anything that He has put His finger on in our lives (2 Chronicles 7:14) and coming before His throne seeking His face. The world needs to see a testimony of a church that reflects the Jesus of scripture not the Jesus of our culture. There are pockets of this so let us press in for more and obey what Jesus said.

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV)

Jesus never told us to pray once, never to pray until we are tired, never to pray when we feel good. He told us to pray until the answer comes. In fact, the Amplified Bible captures the Greek tense in the above verses and says to ‘…keep on asking…keep on seeking…keep on knocking.’

What we are facing looks intimidating. We need to face it with confidence in the authority that we carry. When we look at scripture and history we see these strong horns, these horns of power rising up again and again but ultimately always bowing to the authority of the King of kings and
Lord of lords. We are also assured in Revelation that this will continue until consummated in the final outcome!

So, as this year ends and we step into the coming year let us continue to battle to overcome the power of the enemy, persisting in prayer, seeking His wisdom and exercising His delegated authority. Let our lives be an emphatic yes to Jesus’ question, “when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).

I generally listen to worship music. However, I also like some artists from my past. Two who I admire for their lyrical skills are Jackson Browne and Dan Fogelberg. Recently Spotify created a playlist for me so I decided to listen to it while I working out in my basement. While I was listening to an old Jackson Browne song that I was not familiar with (Something Fine) a line in the song caught my attention, “The future hides in the past.” Being intrigued by the phrase I looked up the lyrics, which actually say, “The future hides and the past just slides.” Not at all what I heard.

Be that as it may, what I heard in the phrase highlights one way the Holy Spirit speaks to me. He will often highlight a phrase someone says and give it a different emphasis or twist, or while hearing the actual words I will hear something slightly different that holds spiritual significance. When this happens, I have learned that what I hear points to something He wants me to focus on. In reflecting on ‘The Future Hides in the Past’ I was drawn to a truth of scripture. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul tells us that the things in the past were written for our example – the future hides in the past.

¹¹ Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 1 Corinthians 10:11 (NKJV)

While Paul’s was providing a warning to learn from, he was also pointing to a pattern we can see unveiled in the scriptures. In the Old Testament when Israel was faithful in following Yahweh, they experienced blessing and favour. When they went astray, they experienced calamity. There is a parallel truism in the helping professions, ‘The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.’ Again, for good or bad.

Paul expressed the same sentiment in different language.

¹¹ This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. ¹² If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. ¹³ If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (NKJV)

The basic point – He is faithful. We can trust Him. Anytime we incline our hearts toward Him we encounter His heart

In this coming year, whatever you face, I challenge you to look back. Looking back, not upon errors or failures, looking back upon your history of His faithfulness. When we have truly depended upon and looked to Him, we know He has always been faithful. In your history of His faithfulness, see what is to come, ‘the future hides in the past.’

In scripture there is an interesting shift in the location of the Altar of Incense from how it is presented in Exodus 30 to Hebrews 9. We begin with a little information from scripture showing what the Altar of Incense represents.

“So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.” (Luke 1:8–10, NKJV)

“Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelation 5:8, NKJV)

Here we see that the incense ascending from the altar represents prayer. Zechariah and the other priests took their turns each day offering incense on the Altar of Incense which was positioned before the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies so that the incense wafted into the Holy of Holies to the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. This design is seen in the Tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness. The furniture of the Tabernacle and the design of the priestly garments are described in Exodus 25-30. The placing of the Altar of Incense is in Exodus 30:1-5. We also have clear descriptions of the placement of everything in the tabernacle in Exodus 40 when the tabernacle was first set up.

This now leads us to Hebrews 9.

“Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary; and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;” (Hebrews 9:1–4, NKJV)

The phrase ‘golden censor’ here refers to the Altar of Incense and that is how it is translated in some bible versions. So, we have the author of Hebrews writing something that isn’t true, bear with me here. If you read Hebrews 11:8-11, the hall of faith chapter, you will find what is written there doesn’t appear to be true either. It says Abraham ‘obeyed’ and Sarah had ‘faith.’ In fact, if you read the accounts in Genesis, you have a different story. Abraham was told to leave his father’s house and go to Canaan, instead he went halfway with his father, then after he died continued on with Lot. Sarah laughed and didn’t believe the Lord when told she would conceive in her old age. I think we reconcile these differing accounts by recognizing that in Hebrews we are being given heaven’s perspective. The focus is not on the failures of Abraham and Sarah but the fruit of their obedience. Failure is ignored in heaven’s assessment.

Thus, back to Hebrews 9. From heaven’s perspective the Altar of Incense was moved into the Holy of Holies before the Mercy Seat because of what it represented. Understanding this requires looking at what the furniture in the Tabernacle of Moses represented. The Holy Place with the Lampstand, Table of Showbread and Altar of Incense represents our soul – our mind, will and emotions. The mind is the lampstand which receives light and illumination. The showbread with the ground flour represents a submitted and prepared will. The altar our emotions, from which prayer is to arise. The Holy of Holies speaks of our spirit, the innermost hidden place where His presence is designed to dwell.

This brings us to the implications of the Altar of Incense being in the Holy of Holies. In Romans 10:10 Paul said it is with our heart that we believe. Prior to that he said the following.

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.” (Romans 10:1, NKJV)

As I see it the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament is the transition from prayer arising from our soul to prayer arising and flowing forth from our reborn spirit. While that may not always be our practice, I think it is the scriptural design. Prayer was never meant to be an intellectual exercise; it is to arise from our passions and desires. Our heart is to be engaged.

I remember one time reading the story of a newly married pastor where he shared his journey into fruitful prayer. He said he was faithful to get up and pray an hour each morning. One day his new bride said, “Why don’t you record your prayer tomorrow?” He naturally wanted to know why. She said, “Well then you can just play the tape and you don’t have to get up so early every morning because you always recite the same thing.” While hurting his pride her question and comment also changed his prayer life, which is why he shared the story. Similarly, Charles Finney, a great man of prayer, said that if we can’t remember what we prayed about just after we prayed it wasn’t really prayer.

In conclusion, our prayers are to arise from our heart desires and the message of Hebrew 9:4 is that they are to arise from our being in His presence, not our seeking to arrive there. Let’s develop the habit of presenting our petitions from where we already are rather than from where we would like to be (Ephesians 1:3, Colossians 3:1-3).

When we read the gospels we come across some interesting and challenging statements from Jesus. One of them is found in the following passage.

²⁰ Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; ²¹ nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20–21 (NKJV)

Over the centuries many have sought to find a hidden meaning in the dual ideas of the kingdom not coming with observation and being within us. So a couple of points. The first is that Jesus is saying it isn’t about looking for signs. The second is that the word ‘within’ refers to being among, with or in the midst. Thus, Jesus seems to be saying ‘the kingdom is already here but you are not aware of it.’ This is where context comes in as Jesus then goes on to talk about His second coming and the signs that will precede and encompass His return. This is one of those occasions where if I were among the disciples I would have wanted one of those private conversations afterward where I got Jesus to explain what He was actually talking about!

In light of that a little cultural context is helpful as even Jesus inner circle didn’t get this and still hadn’t after Jesus resurrection and just prior to His ascension. Look at what Luke records.

⁴ And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; ⁵ for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” ⁶ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. ⁸ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:4–8 (NKJV)

In verse 6 they essentially asked the same question that the Pharisees had asked in Luke 17. In essence, “That’s nice Jesus but when do we get to rule and reign over everything as Israel?” Leading up to Jesus earthly ministry was the expectation of a conquering messiah who would restore power to Israel and rule over their enemies, the restoration of the Davidic kingdom. I won’t go over it in detail but even John the Baptist expected this as evidenced by his question to Jesus from prison (Luke 7:18-23). Even John was expecting that his forerunner ministry would usher in the cultural messiah who would restore the kingdom to Israel.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of Jesus hearers in the culture of the day we would have likely been equally confused. They didn’t see two things. The first was that the messiah was coming not just for Israel but for all (Luke 4:18-19) and that the messiah they were awaiting was inaugurating something much greater than the restoration of the Davidic kingdom. Jesus brought the kingdom with Him but the evidence of it was the release of power to heal hearts, restore broken lives and unveil reality. All of this would lead to the spreading of His kingdom in hearts and lives across the earth leading up to His eventual return as conquering King, the King of all creation! So, our looking won’t being the kingdom. Our recognizing when it is moving in our midst will however allow us to participate in and further it. Let’s do that.