Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (2 page)

New signs and wonders manifested by the Holy Spirit are coming forth. A
sign
is a directional guide that lets us know we are headed in the right direction. A
wonder
is exactly what it says it is. It is a supernatural manifestation of God’s Spirit that goes beyond our mental ability to figure it out. It makes us wonder, it ignites our imagination and lifts our thoughts heavenward. As new signs and wonders flood the earth, some will say, “This is not of God.” What they are really saying is that it has never happened to them. Therefore, if it has not happened to them, then it couldn’t possibly be from the Lord. In whatever ways we may be misunderstood, we must still keep moving forward in love, refusing to be offended, and quick to forgive.

The Western church particularly has done all she can do to bring in the people through programs and top-notch entertainment and has only produced nominal results. But when the Spirit of God really starts moving, then it will make all the previous results pale in comparison.

Get ready, countless souls are praying and crying out for a mighty move of God. Before it’s all said and done, God is going to shake this old world one more time with a mighty revival that will bring in a harvest of souls that is staggering. We must be positioned to pull in the nets from this harvest without breaking the nets. The nets represent the harvesters. The harvesters need to be fully equipped and mantled with all the backing of the Church and the angels so that there is not a collapse in dealing with the harvest.

Many churches and ministries are not prepared for the harvest that is coming. Many people think the Lord is having a hard time bringing in the harvest. That’s not the problem. The Lord is ready to bring in the harvest now, but the Church is not yet ready to handle it. If the harvest came in now I have no question that the boat would completely sink.

Recently I was asked to pray for someone who needed to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I met this person and shared Scriptures from the Word to show her that the gift of the Holy Spirit is available today. I prayed for this person and led her into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Once filled, she immediately began speaking in other tongues.

Unfortunately, as my ministry is getting busier and busier, I rarely have time to meet one on one with people to do individual teaching, and I am dismayed by how many of God’s people do not know how to lead another person into salvation, water baptism, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The job of the five-fold ministry is to equip the saints to do these things. Time is short and the people of God must prepare for the harvest. If you are fully mantled and ready, then God can take note of that and give you a front-line role to play in His Kingdom plan.

With the release of new mantles, we will experience the cleansing fire of God and His glory. This is so greatly needed in the Church today because many saints are not conscious of the reverential fear of the Lord. There is a scriptural pattern for these types of things. When Isaiah received his commissioning as a prophet, it took place during a visionary experience in which he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. Above the throne, Isaiah saw the seraphim who were proclaiming:

The cries of the seraphim as they expressed the Lord’s holiness were so powerful that it caused the posts of the door of the heavenly temple to shake. Experiencing this caused Isaiah to completely unravel as he became clearly aware of his own un-cleanness. He expressed that he was a man of unclean lips (see Isa. 6:4-5), which was partially due to his being around a nation that as a whole had fallen away from God and turned to idolatry.

The overall uncleanness of the people had affected him. Isn’t this true in the day and age we live in? Even if you try watching a good television program, there are those ridiculous beer commercials that come on promoting a spirit of worldliness and immorality. You may be sitting at a restaurant somewhere having a meal and the person at the table across from you has a dirty mouth that you can’t help but overhear. I have noticed that usually those who talk the crudest also talk the loudest.

The challenges Isaiah faced are certainly prevalent today. The world system that is operated by satan is designed to be
unholy, godless, and efficient in desensitizing those under its influence. The enemy of our souls longs to have the slime of his world system splash over on the people of God. This is why the seraphim are going to be much more active in the role of helping the end-time Church. Seraphim have six wings and they are fiery beings. Their name in Hebrew actually means
fiery ones
. What’s interesting about their name is that not only are they fiery ones who burn, but their name implies they have the ability to ignite others with heavenly fire which they possess. Notice how the seraphim ministered to Isaiah:

One of the seraphim took a red-hot coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and touched it to Isaiah’s lips. Just as there was a literal temple on earth that Moses, David, and Solomon erected, so is there a temple in Heaven, which is the one Moses originally copied and used as a blueprint (see Exod. 25:9). It was just after this cleansing that Isaiah was commissioned into the prophetic ministry. Many of God’s people upon salvation have experienced baptism in water. Many more have experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit. But many have no clue or understanding about the baptism in fire.

On Sunday morning, everyone puts on his or her best. Some Christians can shout “Hallelujah!” and talk in tongues and appear to have reached the very pinnacle of spirituality. But because some have never been baptized in fire, they have no idea of what it is to live a “separated” life. This is why we have Christians today who have demon problems. Countless Christians who speak in tongues on Sunday morning and shout “Hallelujah!” were at the movie theatre the night before watching the latest horror movie that glorifies the evil spirits of death and fear. Or perhaps they were seeing the latest action show where human bodies are mutilated and profanity is spewed out by the bucket loads. Along with the violence and profanity, there is a big dose of nudity to add to the devil’s slime. The Church desperately needs the fire to burn out all unholy desires to see and hear things that are spiritually impure.

The lack of Holy Spirit fire is why many churches have pedophiles sitting in their assemblies. The church has become an easy target for child molesters because there is no “heat” to drive them out. The lack of heavenly flame is what allows couples that are having sex outside of marriage to sit comfortably in the pews without any repercussion. But get ready. The fire is coming back into the church! The seraphim are touching many who will be raised up as fiery revivalists who will have
zero tolerance for loose living. If you think Charles Finney was a powerhouse preacher, just wait until you see his mantle fall on hundreds of fresh, men and women preachers who walk in a double portion of what he had! It’s going to be glorious, and it’s going to happen. A Holy Spirit inferno is coming back to the church, and those who burn with the Spirit’s cleansing fire will impart the flame to others, causing spiritual forest fires to erupt wherever they go.

The seraphim will help bring the fire back into the church. Along with the seraphim will come the cherubim. The cherubim are responsible for carrying the glory of God. These are very powerful heavenly creatures that throughout earth’s history have been protectors of God’s glory. They are first mentioned in the book of Genesis where they were assigned to guard the tree of life after Adam and Eve were forced to leave The Garden. The tree of life had to be protected because if Adam and Eve had continued to eat of it in their sin-fallen condition, they would have prolonged their lives. It was actually the mercy of God to drive them out or else they would have continued to eat of the tree and live, while suffering endless misery in their sinful conditions.

The children of Israel apparently had a very good concept of the cherubim. When the Lord told Moses that He had chosen Bezalel as a key artisan for the work of the tabernacle, He gave detailed instructions regarding the many different tasks to be accomplished (see Exod. 3:2-11). Yet, we do not find Moses giving Bezalel any specific instructions in Exodus chapters 25 and 26 involving the exact description of the cherubim. This is
because their features were common knowledge and a detailed description wasn’t necessary.

Speaking of Bezalel, he was a man who walked in a special mantle that certainly needs to be reclaimed for this present age. Creative beauty and God-given genius flowed out of this man as he created exquisite designs with gold, silver, precious gems, bronze, wood, and embroidery work with yarn and fine linen. He was a master craftsman and designer in all of these different trades because the Spirit of God anointed him with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Bezalel’s mantle is available today for those who have a similar calling and who desire to express the wonders of Heaven through their earthly artistic assignments.

The cherubim are also thoroughly described in the Book of Ezekiel. When Ezekiel had his visions of God, he immediately recognized the cherubim because he had seen them repeatedly in the carved work of the outer sanctuary of Solomon’s Temple. The cherubim are different from the seraphim. The cherubim have four wings, four faces, and under their wings they have hands similar to a man’s. Their legs are straight and the soles of their feet are like calves feet. Their four faces consist of the face of a man, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle. The man’s face on the cherubim was positioned forward and the eagle’s face looked to the rear. (See Ezekiel 1:5-11.)

The cherubim on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant looked forward, facing each other with a man’s face. The early church fathers identified them with the four Gospels—Matthew the lion, Mark the ox, Luke the man, and John the eagle. The four faces represent a different aspect and quality of the Lord Jesus. The lion is the chief of the wild animals. The ox stands at the forefront of the serving animals. The eagle is the head of all that flies. Man is the highest among all of God’s creation and will one day even judge angels. Ezekiel’s description of the cherubim certainly doesn’t fit the traditional description of a cherub as being a plump baby that shoots a tiny bow and arrow on Valentine’s Day. I have no idea where some of these people come up with such silly, non-biblical ideas. Cherubs are extremely powerful and can move as fast as lightning.

The cherubim were the ones who carried away the glory from Israel. Ezekiel gives us interesting insight into what actually happened because he was not only a prophet, but a priest in the temple of Solomon as well. In Ezekiel 9:3 he speaks of how the glory of God lifted from off the cherubim that were on the Mercy Seat. The glory moved from the Ark of the Covenant to the threshold of the temple. Ezekiel
chapter 10
describes how the glory leaves Israel completely. The return of the glory is not mentioned again until chapter 43 (see Ezek. 43). The cherubim are protectors and carriers of the glory of God. The cherubim are coming back to the American Church.

Sometime in the 1960s, the glory of God lifted off of the American Church to a great degree. It wasn’t removed completely,
but there was certainly a great loss at that time. I think an important reason for this, among several factors, was the failure of the American Church to embrace the healing revival that swept across America from 1947 through 1958. Although multitudes sat under the large tent meetings and thousands were healed by God’s power, many still did not desire a deeper walk with God. Some only wanted to see a miracle. Others wanted to receive healing and then go on their way without making a deeper commitment to follow and serve the Lord.

Once when Jesus ministered on the earth, ten lepers were cleansed through His healing ministry. Only one out of the ten came back to worship the Lord.

What happened after the glory lifted? Prayer was taken out of the public school system. A counter-culture of immorality, psychedelic drug use, and rock music flooded onto the scene. What many people thought was liberation was actually a deeper enslavement to the rising tide of darkness. Anarchy occurred in universities across the nation. Rebellion against any type of established authority seemed to be in style. When the glory of God was lifted off of Israel, destruction came. America has taken some pretty big hits from the enemy, but she is still standing. I believe the reason America is still standing is because there is still a core group of committed Christians that knows
how to pray and knows how to stand on the Word of God. The good news, however, is that the glory of God is coming back to America! Hallelujah! The cherubim are returning and we are in for some remarkable times.