Why I Am Looking Forward to Pentecost this Year.

History of Pentecost

 The church that I grew up in taught us kids that the "first" Pentecost is found in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2, when 120 believers were praying together in the upper room. One can find support for that position with a standard web search. The problem is that one must smushh the definitions to make it true.

It was the first Pentecost of the Christian era. It was the first time that humans were filled with the Holy Spirit for keeps and not just in a temporary visitation. It was the Pentecost that launched the Church.  So if that's your definition, it was the first.

But under a different name, the first Pentecost followed seven weeks after the first Passover, and for that we must go back to the time of Moses. The Festival of Weeks (7 weeks = 49 days, then the 50th day is the celebration), known on the Jewish calendar as Shavuot, also  the Feast of First Fruits, the beginning of the wheat harvest—the Jews had recognized these feasts since the Exodus, and it partially accounted for why so many foreign-born Jews were in Jerusalem.  
During the exodus, seven weeks after leaving Goshen in Egypt, the Israelites were camped in the shadow of Mt. Sinai where the Spirit of the Living God came down in glory and gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Every year after leaving Egypt, the Israelites celebrated the first fruits and the giving of the law with thanksgiving and remembrance.  Roughly fourteen centuries later, this feast, now called Pentecost in the Greek language, was still celebrated 50 days after Passover.
And so it was that in Acts 2 we find 120 heirs of salvation are in the upper room praying, probably reading scripture, and waiting for the Holy Spirit. But let's back up ten days... 


The Last Thing Jesus Said - Acts 1:8

"But you shall receive power—ability, efficiency and might—when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends—the very bounds—of the earth."

And again, I've discovered that my childhood church was fairly selective over what they emphasized. We got the "begin at Jerusalem and spread over the world" assignment part, but the empowerment part.. well, that was treated like a booster rocket, needed for launch but then falls away. Except that you will be hard-pressed to find scripture that supports that concept; it is just a conclusion drawn by people who didn't experience and haven't seen much power since lift off of the Church.
The point of the Holy Spirit's coming, however, was for believers to receive ability, efficiency, and might. There was no expiration date on the promise.

Back to Pentecost - Acts 2

¹ And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place, ² When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting. ³ And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words]. 

No one in my childhood church had a solid revelation of this. That's forgivable—that's some awesomely radical stuff going on. Their explanations deferred to old commentaries; there's nothing sinful about using commentaries either but this resulted in explaining the supernatural appearance more than the actual significance.

I don't remember anyone trying to connect the dots with John 14:26 where Jesus says, "But when the Father sends the Spirit of Holiness, the Redeemer from the curse—the One like me who sets you free, he will teach you all things in my name."

Before you jump up and tell me you've read the Gospel of John many times and never saw 'the Redeemer from the curse' in there, let me interject that that translation is based on an Aramaic manuscript which King James' translators never had access to. English translations of John 14:26 use a variety of words to translate  παράκλητος τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον  and I will list them in a footnote¹ below. I chose this one based on the Passion translation/paraphrase because the Holy Spirit as 'the Redeemer from the curse' is integral to empowering the the Church to take its place as the Standard Bearer in culture and not be reduced to the "optional elective" for individuals that secularists wish it to be. 

I believe that there is a general need for traditional Western Protestant congregations to be more aware of the spiritual battles around us.  Jesus won against spiritual forces throughout his Earth ministry, but we haven't been trained to see it. After Jesus read a messianic prophesy from Isaiah, members of his hometown synagogue tried to push Him off a cliff. The storm that nearly sunk the boat on the Sea of Galilee was not a natural occurrence. These attacks were instigated by malevolent spirits. There are other examples too, and the thing to be aware of is that Jesus addressed them and had victory as the Son of Man,  not as the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is the delivering power for this warfare.

There are three Old-Testament incidents when Evil Spirit-Realm Forces/Entities did a whammy on the human race. My childhood church recognized the first one: the Fall in the Garden of Eden.  It tried to ignore the second one in Genesis 6 when the "sons of god" took the wives they chose from the daughters of men. And it skated over the surface of the third inter-dimensional attack being constructed at the Tower of Babel.  I've found that those were fairly typical responses of the 20th Century Western Christian church; they liked 'scientific' logic and any foray into the mystic made them queasy. In the ancient Near East, however, in the era and region where the Apostle Paul and Jesus' disciples grew up, people saw these assaults as three battles of an on-going war.  Whereas we tend to lay almost all of the blame for mankind's condition on Eve's chatting with the serpent, and see most every foul thing since then as being fallout from that bad decision,  the Jewish weltanschauung (applied worldview) of Jesus day saw a long war against YHWH being responsible for the human condition.

I point that out so that the symmetry of Pentecost's "Undo" is more easily seen. It is not a perfectly mirrored reversal, but some² of the loss of communication at Babel was restored. The Pentecost of Acts 2 was no longer a only a feast-day recitation of Israel's history, but the the birth of the ecclesia moving forward.  The Holy Spirit had come to stay for the next Age. Men could be filled with "power from on high." They could choose to seek and stay in the presence of the Holy Spirit without being dependent upon times of divine impartation.

It was the Pentecost of Acts 2 that began the release of spiritual gifts, spiritual fruits, and the God-ordained³ offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. And with these offices, using these gifts, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, mankind began to realize his authority restored over the devil: the authority to lay hands on the sick and have them recover, to cast out demons and have them leave, to do the works of Jesus and greater works besides.

Pentecost of 2020

By any unit of measure, 2020 has been a unique year, and it is not yet half-over. It may well prove to be a year as monumental for the Church as was 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to to door in Wittenberg, Germany.
Faced with the spread of SARS-CoV2, governments around the world have shuttered church congregations from meeting. Heirs of Salvation have risen to the occasion and used technology to carry on services with electronic media, but...  

At the Acts 2 Pentecost, they were all assembled together in one place.  I believe this is the Lord's perfect will for 2020 too.

Like my blog's name says, we are on a Bootcamp Planet. The church has been tested these past few months and now it is time to graduate. We will see if we hit the mark this coming Pentecost.

The Church has spent years in training, and it is time to deploy.



A Bit of Digging into Language Study

If you like the King James Bible, that's fine, but let me show you something—
In the KJV, Isaiah 59:19b reads like this:
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1949-1956, many of the newer Bible translations move the comma. The original language does not use such punctuation, so the translators reasoned it out as well as they could from the manuscripts available. Comparing with Jeremiah 46:7, the adversary is a flood, so it could be translated that way.  But many scholars today working with additional manuscripts believe that the power of the flood belongs with the Lord, not with the enemy. 
When the enemy shall come in, like a flood the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

And there's the Berean Study Bible for Isaiah 59:18-19, prophesying the Covenant of the Redeemer.

So He will repay according to their deeds: fury to His enemies, retribution to His foes, and recompense to the islands. So will they fear the name of the LORD from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun; for He will come like a raging flood, driven by the breath of the LORD.

The shifting comma nuances (yes, I'm using 'nuances' as a verb; just go with it) a change from our protection to the Lord facing off with our enemy; both are true. 

Is This a Word for Our Time?

There are some contemporary prophets who think so.  Understand that I am not talking about prophets in the Old Testament sense where the Holy Spirit would come upon them with a word and leave again—where if they missed it they were to be stoned. I am talking about the post-Acts 2 Pentecost office of prophet, one of the five along with apostle, evangelist, pastor, or teacher. These are people that God choses to hear what He is saying and confirm what He is doing in His kingdom. 

Many are saying that as the world deals with SARS-CoV-2, that what the enemy intended for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the spiritual lives of many people, cf Genesis 50:20.

At the first Passover, the Israelites were sheltered in their homes waiting for the plague of death to pass over. It has been pointed out that during Passover 2020, Israel was once again sheltered in their homes waiting for the plague to pass—a literal reenactment. Will Pentecost follow suit? Will we find ourselves now assembled together in one place when the Spirit of Holiness comes with a manifestation of power? Will the breath of God be so strong that it sounds like a tempest? Will we see angelfire?  Will you speak in tongues? Will you be drunk with new wine?  ... That will depend upon your expectation and/or resistance to the Holy Ghost. How far do you really want to go? All things are possible.  The Lord wants us to, even plans for us to walk in His Spirit and His Power.  Will we accept Pentecost as an opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to reset our congregations and get us back on course with His plans?

What to Expect

The Acts 2 Pentecost had two main functions. (1) It PROVIDED for the church. Believers could receive spiritual gifts. A governmental structure of five offices would soon be revealed. Spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace. patience. kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance would be able to be grown by all who would be led by the Spirit.  (2) It EMPOWERED the church. Miracles, now done in Jesus' name would continue.  Boldness to witness to the ends of the Earth came upon the believers with the revelation of a Kingdom destiny.  Jesus said the Holy Spirit will teach us all things, cf  John 14:26 above.  We should expect that a God Who Does Not Change would want us to receive His provision and empowerment to disciple nations in a post-pandemic world where fear-mongers and and censorship of truth had become entrenched in our daily lives.  

The residents of Jerusalem thought the believers from the upper room were drunk that day. They were, but with new wine of the Spirit, not the fermented stuff as the world supposed. God had poured out His Spirit on mankind.  In Pentecost 2020 we will have an opportunity to be refreshed with new wine of the Spirit.  How much we can handle will depend upon how prepared we are with new wine skins.  We will not be given more than we can hold, but we can have as much as we prepared for. 

Footnotes

¹  παράκλητος is translated as Comforter, Advocate, Counselor, Intercessor-Counselor, Strengthener, Standby, Companion, Paraclete, Helper, Helper in Court, Helper - the Ruach ha-Kodesh, and from the Orthodox Jewish Bible, the Melitz Yosher, the one who speaks eloquently in someone else's defense.

² I used "some" because pragmatically, we still "see in a glass darkly."  We are entitled to "all" through our covenant, but that manifests in the light of God's glory.

³ God-ordained offices, as opposed to self-chosen "careers." 

Why I am not a fan of Unspoken Prayers - UPDATED

 At the outset, please know that I am not trying to step on anyone's toes.  If you are getting good results with unspoken prayers, Great! Certainly both common sense and the scriptures tell us that there is a time to keep silent. It can be discretion to not pray aloud in a formal pubic setting, and for a variety of solid reasons: It could derail the focus that God intends. It could make people question and misjudge motive. It could spawn gossip.  So, I'm certainly not saying that there is never a time for unspoken prayer.

What I am saying is that I am not a fan of unspoken, unvoiced prayer as the go-to style for prayers that need to effect change.  "Unspoken" is better saved for receiving guidance prayer, because it keeps you quiet enough to hear, and for times and places where spoken prayer would be disruptive, impractical, or sorely advised. And by "sorely advised" I mean something of a nature that results in the proverbial casting pearls before swine— Use unspoken prayer for things dear to your heart when those around you cannot help and will only trample on what you'd say.

But with a few exceptions noted, prayer that moves mountains and changes things is best when spoken aloud. Whispering does not make a request more pious, but over time the enemy has worked that delusion into much doctrine. Our adversary has had two millennia to drain Power from the Church by sneaking in all sorts of faith-draining ideas.
In my nice, emphasis-on-polite, Midwestern protestant upbringing, the churches that I attended had been infiltrated with Timidity.  Verses like Hebrews 4:16 made people nervous. "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace..."  The spirit of timidity is one of the fear spirits; God does not give us spirits of fear. Do the logic. 

Here is a similar precept in Hebrews 10:19 —  And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.
If you had stumbled upon this verse at my church youth group, you probably would have come away with the idea that you can trust God. The blood of Jesus would not be presented as our power source, but as a euphemism for His death. You would not have gotten the notion that Jesus wants you to boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place. That would have been arrogant and prideful, right?  The insidious thing though, is that such a conclusion devalues the blood of Jesus.  
If His blood makes a bold approach possible, and yet you're being told that a bold approach is egotistical and offensive to God...  something does not compute.   
(At the risk of opening a rabbit trail, let me interject that I grew up in churches that believed when Jesus cast out devils, he was curing mental illness or epilepsy. Some probably thought the devil existed only as an allegory. There was little understanding of blood sacrifice.) 

But back to why I am not a fan of Unspoken Prayers— Realize what Jesus did by speaking!  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3 That was an out loud utterance. It is also how Jesus got here in bodily form: Mary answered. "May it happen to me according to your word."  Luke 1:38.  The importance of the spoken word was reiterated when the devil challenged Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4.  And we know from Romans 10:9-10 and 1 John 4:15 that out-loud confession has a role in salvation.

There are many other examples. A spoken word has frequency, literally setting waves in motion.

Job's friends did not always give him the best advice, but because we see Eliphaz's exhortation playing out later on when Job prays for his friends, we can trust this one: You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways, Job 22:28. There are incidents in scripture where deliverance or healing would not come unless a declaration was made. Prophets were raised up to make out loud declarations.  Mark 11:23 instructs us to speak to mountains that we desire to move; we are not instructed to use mental telepathy.  

Truth be told, we need to hear ourselves!
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17 NASB. Faith is more easily come by when we hear ourselves speak it out. Prayer that quotes scripture, the word of the Lord, is full of power.  It is much easier to believe that we are in agreement with the will of God, and harder to pray amiss when praying scripture aloud. 

Hold That Thought — because I am going to come back to it for my final point about Spoken Prayer Activating Angels. But first, because (a) a new corona virus has spread worldwide, and (b) the majority of prayer requests at my church are for healing/health issues,  I want to take a sidebar and focus on Speaking Healing for a bit. 

   All prayer for healing is a form of spiritual warfare because disease entered as part of the curse for disobedience, (and Moses added some details during his Mountains of Blessing and Cursing Sermon). I have already quoted a passage from Hebrews 11:3 that shows a spoken word can be a bridge between the spirit realm and this physical world.  All the "And God said..." incidents of Genesis 1's Creation Week show this.  Spoken words contain power. We see this in the dark realm as people perform curses. We who are in the light should be speaking blessings and the breaking of curses.

   A partial answer for why so many are sick in the church today is found in 1 Corinthians 11:30, a failure to discern the body. I wrote earlier that the church I attended as a teenager had incomplete teaching on the blood of Christ. They, like many other churches, also downplayed the body of Christ. Think of the Passover covenant; the blood on the doorpost was addressed in my Sunday school; the the eating of the Lamb wasn't. I am still trying to find all the missing pieces, but the eating of the Lamb was what caused the Israelites to go out with not one sick or feeble among them. The blood on the doorposts caused the angel of death to pass the house, and my church somewhat taught about blood for salvation. But it was the body of the lamb, also represented by communion bread, that was for healing. 

   Salvation (blood) and healing (body) ought to be twin mercies, but my childhood church taught the first one just a little and the second one barely at all.  Unsurprisingly then, because of the spoken words there, we received a modest level of salvations and very few healings, in proportion to the spoken word that was sown.   

Prayer connects this us in this physical realm to our Father, who is Spirit, by using words. Our need to tap Supernatural power is another reason I am not a fan of unspoken prayers. Spoken prayer activates angels. A quick look at three scriptures will give us a bearing here: 
1. He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Psalm 91:11 command, give charge, issue an order; these are out-loud speech concepts.
2. Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14 If angels are assigned* to guard us and serve us, wouldn't they be used in answering prayers?  These two verses show/tell us about the God side of it, that He commands and sends.  The third verse is about the angels' response. 
3. Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Psalm 103:20  Mighty supernatural beings hearken to, carry out, heed, and obey the voice of His word.  

Most who read my blog will have heard this before, but I will say it again anyway: A Bible on the bookshelf is not a Living Word. It has to be activated. It needs to be voiced.
 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even as far as the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrows, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12  "word" in this verse is λόγος , the logos form meaning spoken word.  Speaking forth is a power boost.

For a variety of reasons, I am not a fan of unspoken prayer.  Plus, speaking is the God-way of getting stuff done:  

  For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. Psalm 33:9

ADDING THIS:

May 14 - I came back to add a bit about the relationship between Faith and Confession.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Hebrews 3:1

 Jesus is the High Priest of our confession.
 
Confession is made with the mouth. Belief resides in the heart, but confession is voiced. The two—confession and belief—work in tandem.

 "The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart." That is, the word of faith which we proclaim, that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him out from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:8-9 

You're probably familiar with the King James Bible's Book of James statement that faith without works is dead. Contemporary translations may say that faith without works is worthless or useless, and at least one uses barren. James is making the point that faith needs to be complemented with action.  Confession, voiced speech out loud, is one way that faith can be activated.  Scripture does not call Jesus the High Priest of our quiet thoughts, but of our confession.

One more thing today—
The War in Heaven; Revelation 12:10-11
…And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God. They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...
Who is the "they" that conquers the accuser?   "They" are not Jesus, although they used His blood. They are people who used a spoken expression.  

===========
* assigned to guard us and serve us - the "guardian" aspect is not only protection of life and safety, but also as sentinels of our destiny.  In Isaiah 43:19 we read, "Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert." Angelic assignments are instrumental in this. 








 

Murmuring and Plague—When Aaron Stood between the Living and the Dead

For many people, if they know anything at all about the 16th chapter of the Book of Numbers, it's probably going to be a memory of Korah's Rebellion— and maybe the groaner of a pun: Korah thought he was in good standing, but he was really at fault, which of course, is a reference to his death when a shifting fault line opened a chasm beneath him.  

The Israelites were serving God's sentence for their obstinance: Forty Years Wandering in the Wilderness.  Korah, from the tribe of Levi, supported by another 250 community leaders and two families of Rubenites, Dathan and Abiram, had never fully repented for their role in causing that situation and directed the blame at Moses.  They reckoned that if Moses had been any good at leadership, he'd have come up with a way for them to be in the Promised Land of milk & honey. After all, Moses had asked God to relent after that other issue with the Golden Calf, but now Moses had accepted the 40-year punishment and wouldn't even try to do anything about it.  They thought Moses was— well, let's say that Korah's opinion of Moses was analogous to Hillary's opinions of Donald Trump. So they planned a coup. Lacking the availability of Russians for bringing a fake collusion charge, they skipped straight to accusing Moses and Aaron of exalting themselves above the assembly of the LORD.  "Arrogant narcissists!" they murmured, "thinking they are better than us."   

I am not going to detail the first 35 verses of chapter 16. It is a thrilling story that you can review for yourself. But the gist of it was that Moses challenged Korah and his supporters to an incense burn-off to be held the next day. Moses also wanted to talk with Dathan and Abiram, but they accused Moses of wanting to gouge out their eyes and refused to hear him out.  The next day, when the Glory showed up and it became apparent the God wanted to put an end to EVERYBODY all at once, Moses and Aaron did some on-their-face negotiating with God. The rest of the assembly was given an opportunity to step away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram before the earth opened and swallowed them alive.  The 250 men left with incense in their censers (firepans) panicked, and the fire of God consumed them.

The coup had failed, and the next five verses Ought To Have ended the sorry affair. The remaining assembly Ought To Have learned respect for and fear of the Lord.  There Ought To Have been an understanding of Righteousness and Holiness. Here are those five verses:

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he shall take up the censers out of the midst of the blaze, for they are holy; and you scatter the burning coals abroad. As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered sheets for a plating of the altar, since they did present them before the LORD and they are holy; and they shall be for a sign to the sons of Israel." 
So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the men who were burned had offered, and they hammered them out as a plating for the altar, as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the LORD; so that he will not become like Korah and his company— just as the LORD had spoken to him through Moses.
~ Numbers 16:36-40   

A wealth of information about holiness, administrative authority, and respect for what is sacred is packed into that passage.  It is not my purpose to unpack it now because I really want to get on with the parallel between that coup attempt of the past and this coup attempt of the present. But do note that the Lord told Moses to have Eleazar collect the censers of the dead; (a) we see the beginning of transference of the duty to the next generation, and (b) Aaron remains ceremonially clean (because he did not touch the dead) and therefore was eligible for what will happen next.

And now...    Murmuring brings a Plague

If you thought the Israelites might have caught a clue, nope. You'd be wrong.  The very next day their traitorous mouths were accusing Moses of murder.  Yes. Seriously. Murder!

Verse 41 But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the LORD.”
 
Go figure! They'd had Egyptians hand them gold and jewels. They'd all been healed at the first Passover. They've seen the Red Sea stand as a wall and walked across on dry ground. They'd seen the awesome lightnings atop Mt. Sinai. They were being fed with manna in a wilderness where there's nothing but rock and sand. Their clothing was not wearing out. If they'd used toilet paper then, their roll would have spun a never-ending supply.  And still they grumbled.

Well, the figuring isn't all that hard these days. It's fairly easy to see the parallels between the Israelites back then and major segments of the population today. Enabled by a Legacy Media with little understanding of God's Holiness, the murmuring against our President runs nonstop, and when the cameras are on, the narrative becomes punctuated with full-out accusations and lies.

Eventually God had had enough. He showed up at the tent of meeting. The cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. God was going to defend His friend Moses. That's what friends do. The Good News Translation has God telling Moses and Aaron, "Move back from these people, and I will destroy them on the spot!"  The chronic whining and criticism had brought on a plague.  The protection had lifted.

Although at first, Moses and Aaron fell facedown to intercede as before, Moses quickly discerned that this time was different. This time there was no begging for mercy. This time he could not pray it away. This time required action. ...and Moses said to Aaron, "Take your fire pan, put live coals from the altar in it, and put some incense on the coals. Then hurry with it to the people and perform the ritual of purification for them. Hurry! The LORD's anger has already broken out and an epidemic has already begun." GNT verse 46. 

Notice that this time it took the authority of a priest to make atonement for the people.  These are Old Testament rules; but the need to have respect for holiness does not change just because we got a New Testament. In 1 Peter 2:5 we are told that New Covenant believers "are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Our authority is in Christ. New Testament believers can be given a priesthood, but that only increases our need to maintain a "fear of the Lord."


So Aaron took the censer as Moses had ordered and ran into the midst of the assembly. And seeing that the plague had begun among the people, he offered the incense and made atonement for the people.
~ Numbers 16:47, Berean Study Bible 

Aaron's censer held live coals and incense.  The censers of the 250 men who died were bronze, indicating that they were used at the altar of burnt offering. The censer used by the High Priest for atonement was made of gold. For both, the live coals came from the sacred fire of the altar, representing God. Aaron's incense also came from the tabernacle, and Psalm 141: 1-2 establishes that incense symbolizes prayer:  
    I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to You.
    May my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.
The picture is Holy God consuming our prayers. The live coal and incense work together to release fragrance. Both were necessary to cover their sin; the $2 phrase is "made propitiation."

He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague stopped. Numbers 16:48

Here, Aaron was a type of Christ. He held the offices of mediator and intercessor as an extension of his priesthood. Under the New Covenant, the provision looks like this: 

 …because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly befits us—One who is holy, innocent, undefiled, set apart from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 
~ Hebrews 7:24-26, Berean Study Bible

I know that there are plenty of people who would happily laugh at me for positing that the likes of murmuring by CNN, MSNBC,  The New York Times, The Washington Post, Google News, and Buzzfeed brought on Covid-19.  "That's not scientific!" they'll chortle. Who you gonna believe, the Living God or Stephen Hawking? … Okay, Stephen's dead, but that's the point, isn't it?
So, tucked in right at the end of Numbers 16, the Bible gives us an example of chronic murmuring against God's chosen leader being the act that precipitated the plague!  "Trump is no Moses!" comes the retort.  Hmm, maybe not, but he is a biblical character!  or technically, he fits the typology of a biblical character.

The truth is that slander and lies can open all sorts of evil doors in the spirit realm. You just don't know what might come out. Contemporary Western culture is often dismissive of that idea, even though the principle that words carry power is found throughout the Bible, and we are told we will be held accountable for every empty, do-nothing word we speak (cf Matthew 12:36).

The rebellious and refractory words and behaviors of many top figures in politics and media have hit levels of recalcitrance against God and against God's will for the United States that is off the charts. The physiological sciences have documented that a daily bath of doubt, anxiety, and fear-inducing emotions can and does stress the immune system. Observed science is not incompatible with the Lord; paradoxically, His invisible qualities have always been observable in His workmanship (cf Romans 1:20).

We are separated from the Ancient Near-East by thousands of miles, thousands of years, and different words using different alphabets, but men are still grumbling against God and rebelling against His plan.  At the societal level, it has surpassed rudeness and gone to full-blown contempt for God's ways. These sins are obvious. You don't need me to list them. They surround us. Yesterday's example was Speaker Pelosi deliberately holding up everyone's financial relief from the impact of a pandemic because she made a power-play to add funding for murdering babies in the womb. Tomorrow Satan will roll out a new atrocity.

The 'Church' has been both deceived and intimidated. It bought into the falsehood that she must remain so totally separate from the state that her influence was lost, and she stood down for the lie that taking a stand for righteousness is wickedly judgmental and mean. How absurd that promoting righteousness is un-Christlike!  
Most Christians don't need to repent for bank robbery and wild orgies; the sins that so easily beset the Church are usually more like those of the Israelites in Numbers 16: Rather than pursue God, they sought His presence at their convenience, and did not delight in the Lord's way of doing things. 

So What's the Answer?  

Moses and Aaron went to the front of the tent of meeting; they positioned themselves in the place where the Lord's presence was.  From this place they took action.  Holy fire and prayer was the antidote to stay the plague of Numbers 16. 

I've seen people quoting Psalm 91 more often since the onset of Covid-19. The pattern is the same: Moses sheltered under the Most High. Regarding God was Moses' lifestyle, not an occasional event. He made the Lord his dwelling place.  Because Moses loved God, God delivered him. Because Moses knew God's name, God protected him.  Moses lived amidst the holy fire and had on-going conversations with God. 

Aaron took his stand between the dead and the living so that the plague was checked, and then he returned to the doorway of the tent of meeting where Moses had remained in God's presence. That should be our model.



============================



For Further Contemplation (because ending an epidemic is not the end; there are still lost who need to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and there are evildoers who need to be stopped) 
   •••   Malachi 3:13 - 4:6
¹³“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’
¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Hosts?
¹⁵So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”
¹⁶At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name.
¹⁷“They will be Mine,” says the LORD of Hosts, “on the day when I prepare My treasured possession. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.
¹⁸So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

¹“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”
²“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.
³Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.  
⁴“Remember the law of Moses My servant, the statutes and ordinances I commanded him for all Israel at Horeb.
⁵Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the LORD.
⁶And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

My Research Results re: Chick-fil-A Foundation Controversy

   I had not planned to write a blog about last Monday's announcement (November 18, 2019) which said that come 2020, the Chick-fil-A Foundation (CFAF) will be "introducing a more focused giving approach."

According to the CFAF's press release, it will "deepen its giving to a smaller number of organizations working exclusively in the areas of education, homelessness and hunger."
We can all do the math: a smaller number of recipients means bigger payouts to those who do receive. They are splitting 9 Million in three areas:

Education - to Junior Achievement - JA reaches five million students annually, and CFAF has supported this group in the past.

Homelessness - to Covenant House International - CHI reaches 70,000 youth annually, and CFAF has supported this group in the past.

Hunger - CFAF will give $25,000 to a local food bank at each new Chick-fil-A opening. 

And Folks, now it is time to read between the lines!  Allow me to highlight:

Education - to Junior Achievement - JA reaches five million students annually, and CFAF has supported this group in the past.

Homelessness - to Covenant House International - CHI reaches 70,000 youth annually, and CFAF has supported this group in the past.

Hunger - CFAF will give $25,000 to a local food bank at each new Chick-fil-A opening. 

Now much of the hubbub has centered on CFAF dropping all donations to the Salvation Army after their contract with them ended. The Salvation Army has one of the best stewardship records for use of charitable funds, getting more dollars directed to the needy and efficiently managing overhead. Furthermore, the ministry hits all of CFAF's initiatives for 2020: education, homelessness, and hunger. So let's dispel the notion that SA would not "qualify" under CFAF's new focus.

When the apologists for Chick-fil-A foundation's new policy say—
"Maybe they want to spread the money around." No, CFAF is giving to fewer organizations in 2020.
"Maybe they want to try new organizations." No, they have worked with both JA and CHI in the past too.
"Maybe they want to focus on other issues." No, again, they are focusing exactly on what SA does well.
"Maybe they want to     (fill in the blank)    .   No, the only legitimate excuse is that they don't want to. That is their prerogative. 

Before I can state why the Salvation Army has fallen out of favor—an explanation easily deduced by examining other actions of the CFAF, and that also makes it unlikely that "They can still select them again in the future," will ever happen—I will need to expose some motives that were revealed in other interviews.

Business Insider
Kate Taylor's article published by the Business Insider on November 18 adds some insight:

 Chick-fil-A has faced backlash for its donations and those of its top executives for years. Before 2012, Chick-fil-A made significant donations to right-wing and religious organizations known for lobbying against LGBTQ rights through the WinShape Foundation.
Chick-fil-A stopped making donations to almost all of those controversial groups after facing backlash in 2012, when CEO Dan Cathy said he did not support same-sex marriage. However, the company continued its relationships with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army.

 So you see, this toad has been in the warming pot for some time before the conservative public noticed. And the appeasement wasn't enough to satisfy the LGBT because nothing ever is. Isaiah 57:20 tells us that "the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt." And yes, God calls that lifestyle wicked because it mocks both His Creation and His plan of Redemption. And in an accidental pun, we have a Chicken & Egg situation with that verse: Does their tossing up mire make them wicked, or does their wickedness cause them to toss up mire? That's a topic for another time, but there is plenty of evidence that many in the LBGT community like to despoil children and have no intention of keeping their lifestyle between consenting adults behind the bedroom door. Yes, the LGBT lobbyists were lying to us three decades ago, and there is no evidence that has changed.

Business Insider also reported that Rodney Bullard, the head of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, believes being "relevant and impactful in the community" is "a much higher calling than any political or cultural war that's being waged."  There you have it: Being in the community is more important than the culture.  It's just business, right? 

It would be just business if it weren't spiritual war.  "Being in the community" has become problematic thanks to LGBT. CFA has had contracts revoked at airports and college campuses. Boston and Chicago have placed hurdles or denials on the construction of new restaurants. Canada will not let them expand into that country, and London pulled its lease after six months of LGBT harassment. And Rodney Bullard, using his politically correct phrasing, has indicated that he believes being in those locations is more important than winning the culture war. 

Who is Rodney Bullard?

Here's his bio from the CFAF website. It is very impressive.

Rodney Bullard leads Chick-fil-A’s community engagement, philanthropic and sustainability strategy as Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility for Chick-fil-A, Inc. and Executive Director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation. Before coming to Chick-fil-A, Rodney served as an Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting complex criminal cases. For his service, the United States Attorney General presented him with the Department of Justice Director’s Award. Prior to this role, Rodney was selected as a White House Fellow, the nation’s most prestigious public service Fellowship. As a White House Fellow, Rodney was placed at NASA working directly for the NASA Administrator. Rodney also previously served at the Pentagon as a Congressional Legislative Liaison in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Rodney is an alumnus of the Air Force Academy, Duke Law School, the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

And here is what they did not tell you: He donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign while at Chick-fil-A.  Some of you will say, "Ohh! That explains it."   Others will ask, "So what if he did?"  I'll come back to this later.  But first...

FrontPage Magazine
Daniel Greenfield, writing for FrontPage on November 22 reports that hiring Bullard would have seemed like a safe bet:

The CFA Foundation and the Christian groups it supported were so entangled that Bullard serves on the Salvation Army’s National Advisory Board and was on the National Board of Trustees of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. But Bullard’s vision was not that of charity, but of corporate social responsibility. And the two things are fundamentally different.

And what does Bullard's idea of "corporate social responsibility" look like in real life? Under his leadership, CFAF has been funding The Westside Future Fund, which is a project of the Atlanta Committee for Progress.  When you look up The Atlanta Committee for Progress, you pretty much find a Who's Who of  Atlanta's liberal Democrats + fairly liberal CEOs of the big Atlanta-based companies + very liberal university presidents.  Sorry if I sound cynical, but the Westside Future Fund seems to be a project to keep the neighborhoods around the four black colleges (Morris Brown, Clark Atlanta, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spellman) from slipping into too much urban decay. In any case, money given there is a community-economic thing with mover & shaker networking, not a charitable work that expects nothing in return.

As FrontPage further reports,

 The $1.7 million that the Westside Future Fund shoveled in last year from the CFA Foundation vastly outpaces the mere $115,000 that the Salvation Army got for its Angel Tree program to provide gifts for poor children during the holidays.  [...]  A less publicized donation of $100,000 went to Sustainable Atlanta. That could have bought a lot of gifts.

When you see the word sustainable it is usually code for "politicians getting rich off subsidized green energy scams."  Okay, maybe to avoid hyperbole I should have said it "can be" instead of "is usually." "Is usually" still works for being compatible with the United Nations' philosophical moorings and New World Order philosophies in general.

FrontPage continues, 

There was also a $10,000 donation to Saris to Suits whose mission is to "advance women's empowerment, education, gender equality, and social justice." There’s money for social justice, but not for the Salvation Army.
There was $25,000 for UNICEF and $75,000 for the Andrew Young Foundation. That last one isn’t a surprise. President Carter’s radical UN ambassador sits on the CFA Foundation’s advisory board. $20,000 went to the Latino Leaders Network, another $20,000 to the Harvard Debate Diversity Network, $45,000 to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and $5,000 was allotted to Friends of Refugees.
The latter boasts of resettling the sort of refugees who would demand that Chick-fil-A go Halal. There’s money for Muslim refugees, but not for the Salvation Army.

Who are these people? Latino Leaders Network is about global education. The Harvard Debate Diversity Network does not appear to be all that diverse; a preliminary search showed it to be a summer debate team for black youth, with the best ones winning a spot at a debate camp at Harvard University. I somehow doubt they will be debating the advantages of traditional 1-man/1-woman marriages. Friends of Refugees claims to work with "church-based organizations." That may sound nice, but these are the liberal Lutheran Services and Catholic Charities which have globalist underpinnings. Most of the refugees served are Islamic Africans, and the "church-based" organizations are not proselytizing for Christianity.

So in reality Chick-fil-A Foundation has been pouring lots of money into liberal social causes even as they get slammed for being "too Christian." Fellowship of Christian Athletes got $25,000 last year,¹ one-third of what the Andrew Young Foundation got and slightly more than half of what was given to the King Center. They won't get a dime next year. 

So now that we know Bullard is a liberal leaning SJW² of the corporate world who favors Democrat causes and globalism, we can understand his support of Hillary Clinton; it's the natural fit for "I'm with Her."   But why should that be disturbing?
If you do not already understand, then here are a few links to enlighten you. Just click to open in a new tab.

How Hillary treated a military dog

Hagmann report of the Clinton's connection to the occult

State Department coverup

What Benghazi taught me about Clinton

Hillary gives a speech to The Wing

Uranium one

The Haiti Files

This is a 10-part series in all;
Hillary Clinton's witchcraft Part 8

The above list does not even touch on being fired for lying in her job as an attorney working on the Nixon investigation, White Water, Cattle Futures investments, knowingly "winning-by-slander" a pedophile rapist's not-guilty verdict and thus denying justice to his victim who could now never bear children, Travelgate, Hillary's Healthcare project, her vicious pro-abortion beliefs, the Clinton Body Count, Oklahoma City Bombings, Filegate (personnel records), Bimbo Eruptions (retaliatory spite), destruction of subpoenaed emails, knowing use of unsecured server, mishandling of classified material, or the Clinton Foundation's Pay-for-Play polices.
When William Safire labeled Hillary a "congenital liar" back in his 1996 New York Times essay, it was not without cause.  

Seriously, anyone who would give money to Hillary's campaign so that she should rule over him is sick.  And Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility Bullard did that. He is not fit to run the Chick-fil-A Foundation in the ways and ideals of its founder. He has "moved the ancient boundary stone."

Do not move an ancient boundary stone which your fathers have placed. Proverbs 22:28

Chick-fil-A can run their business any way they wish. They are a private company, not on the stock exchange, so they don't even need to listen to shareholders. (Although this move of the Foundation to "be like everybody else" makes me wonder how long that can last.)

I'm not all that fussed about what they do with their money. BUT... One cannot break spiritual laws and not have consequences.  And spiritual blessings don't run the same paths as monetary blessings. Most people have seen how this company has done better in six days than most do in seven. While the Parable of the Soils³ is primarily about sowing the Word, not money, there are some parallels to look at. Sowing support and encouragement (via monetary donation) into an organization will yield better returns if that organization has good soil (growing medium).  

That's half of it anyway. The Lord also blesses based on heart motivation, which is what gives some people fits with the prosperity message. They think everyone is giving to a shyster. Seriously, who gives to a shyster?  No, people give for some other reason. Joyful giving as unto the Lord will be blessed; that is promised, although the maturity date may vary.  Others give as an act of faith, some give because they don't want to look cheep to the stranger a couple seats down the row, some give out of a sense of duty, some because they find the hive-mind more comfortable than sticking out; there are endless reasons and they can be mixed in differing proportions, so returns may vary. According to James 1:7 only the doubter should not expect to receive anything, and nearly all grumblers about the prosperity gospel are doubters—funny how that works.

So the thing with Chick-fil-A is—many of the loyal customers suspect that CFAF is giving from a motivation of appeasement. I am one of them. And if we are right, the appeasement-motivation has a very low return rate.  The company may get more locations through appeasement, but the LGBT dissenters will never become loyal customers. They'll probably want to be courted with cotton candy flavored rainbow shakes in June!  And the once-loyal customers will reason, why drive an extra half mile and pay a dollar more when there's a KFC closer and a buck less? Appeasement of the LGBT is a loser.

Honor & Favor

I saved the best for last.  Honor & Favor.  Neither of which is quantifiable, but they factor in to blessings of success.  The company has been receiving seven days of income in six because the founder honored the Lord's day. There are attributes that, when practiced, build a hedge of protection against dark forces. This happens in the spirit realm where the angels minister, so you rarely see any direct cause and effect, but over time it works out that way. 

I'm going out on a ledge here, but, think like Satan for a moment... How could you use the Foundation's decisions to destroy the parent company? Get them to consolidate, to put more chicken eggs in the same basket, and then... after awhile, let them choose a charity that is politically shiny on the outside but rotten at the core.

You don't have to be a prophet to see the danger, just look at the signs of the times. A lot of evil is due to be exposed.  (Don't make false assumptions; I am thinking more Red Cross than Covenant House Intl.)  But what if an organization originally founded to serve one need begins to branch off and becomes involved in evil?  I am not making accusations; I am saying you may need to expand your thinking to realize that the spirit realm is very real, interacts with humans, and has an evil side. It is not being paranoid to believe it is out to steal, kill, and destroy you.  So, what happens to a "good" company when an organization they have invested social capital in turns out to be trafficking other things as well?  It is a question worth asking because this is Satan's modus operandi. And caving on principles does weaken the hedge and make one more vulnerable to a hit.

But, "No one from Chick-Fil-A has said they are pulling support from groups that support traditional marriage," they counter.  Well, Duh!  CFAF is not going to put that in their press release, but actions speak louder than words, and their actions have been to move toward leftist social causes and the globalism of a New World Order, not toward a Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven.

The Salvation Army's Angel Tree project wasn't greedily dominating the CFAF's donation budget, but it was promoting (Oh, the Horror!) a holiday that celebrates the birth of the Messiah.  It is not, as accused, a "purely emotional" reaction to point out that CFAF decided to promote Junior Achievement programs that align with Common Core Standards standard instead. Common Core should be a major red flag to anyone who knows a flying fig about the state of public schools today. Yet that is what CFAF has chosen to hitch their wagon to.

Before I wrap this up, we also need to settle this question, "Is the Salvation Army really anti-gay?"  No rational assessment would conclude that they are. They offer food, and shelter, and help to anyone in need. What they did not do was allow a transgendered man to sleep in a women's dormitory. This is common sense to protect the women. But did the SA kick him out? No, they offered him private room but he got mad and left. (I'm sorry that I cannot find the source right now; I'd have liked to document it with a link, but) that was an incident in the news which the LGBT community was using to "prove" the Salvation Army is anti-gay. It does not prove that. There are a lot of health issues, physical and emotional, that accompany that lifestyle; it would be foolish to endanger many to satisfy one.  🤔 Come to think of it God is both "anti-gay lifestyle" and a "bigot" concerning his commands.  But, I digress.

Chick-fil-A Foundation has demonstrably drifted to the left with its social policy.  Berating those who point this out as uninformed, narrow-minded hypocrites is playing into the devil's hand. Face it:  Chick-fil-A Foundation screwed up with this new "focus."  They are headed toward a divorce with their most loyal conservative customers because they've been enticed to flirt with the progressives. This time, it is not a case of being attacked by outside enemies. This time they are shooting themselves.  

¹ I am using FrontPage Magazine numbers and have not (yet) double checked them. Link is below.

² SJW = Social Justice Warrior, someone who promotes socially progressive views.
³ Parable of the Soils, Luke 8:4-21

The press release:

https://thechickenwire.chick-fil-a.com/News/Chick-fil-A-Foundation-Announces-2020-Priorities

The picture credit:

https://babylonbee.com/news/chick-fil-a-updates-cow-mascot-to-golden-calf

Other sources: 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/chick-fil-put-obama-and-hillary-supporter-charge-daniel-greenfield/

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/384455.php

https://www.businessinsider.com/chick-fil-a-ending-donations-criticized-by-lgbtq-activists-2019-11

https://babylonbee.com/news/lemonade-turning-to-blood-at-chick-fil-a-locations-across-the-country

An Abortion Gradient?

Once again, I am publishing material that I wrote for another message board or forum. I am probably going to do a lot more of this here at Bootcamp Planet.  I've been reluctant to do that in the past because I wanted my blog to be "purely original."  Pragmatically, that's not working; it just builds up a lot of drafts to edit and publish "someday."  
Below is a statement and my response that were part of a much larger discussion comparing present-day Western Planned Parenthood values with child sacrifices to Molech in the ancient near-east. 

It's easier to murder if the victim is dehumanized first-- or just silenced. That's why we have all the "debate" about whether "it's a mass of cells or a human life." Murder is murder, be it by gas chambers or by abortion "clinics"
🙏

RE: "Murder is murder, be it by gas chambers or by abortion 'clinics'."
 Long, long ago, I conceded similar reasoning during a debate. Over the years, it has come back to niggle at me every now and then. If such a statement was entirely true, I don't think I would sporadically find the idea so peevish decades later. Perhaps I need to take some time and specifically, prayerfully research it so that I can have an answer that settles it for me.

But now, for the most part, I think Dante was on to something with his metaphor of rings of hell. Human judgment is largely limited to fruits of actions; occasionally we may get additional revelation if we are walking closely with the Lord. But God can see motivations, and for someone with that skill set, "murder is murder" would have "perceptible gradation," even though for us humans the whole concept of 'gradation' is imperceptibility of the change.

Well, that was my best run at where I am coming from when I say that I don't think 'murder is murder' in God's eyes. I think that He is willing to show far more grace to a scared little girl who knows and admits that she screwed up than He will toward PP executives who promote murdering other men's babies in exchange for a Lamborghini.

Do you believe it is always Gods will to heal?

That was The Question that I was asked this morning.

And since I already spent a good amount of time answering it, I decided to just make it into a blog post.
Here you go:

Ultimately, yes. Heath and prosperity, on Earth as it is in Heaven, is always God's will. And then comes the "but..."
I'm convinced that John the elder was reflecting the heart of God when he wrote to Gaius, "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, 3 Jn 1:2." But there are too many examples of poor, sick Christians for this to be automatic. Clearly there are buggers in the fallen world, and they are individualized.

The Hyper-faith movement has done a lot of harm by promoting an accusation, "You don't have enough faith to be healed." If you listen to the teachings of Kenneth E Hagin, it is evident that he had a revelation of Mark 11:23-24 — that he had the ministry fruits to go with it. But by the second generation out (the students of the the people he trained), a twisting of his preaching had begun. What he'd taught as faith in Jesus that sprung from his personal relationship with Jesus, transmuted into faith in healing, and eventually there rose hyper-faithers who were promoting a full fledged lie. It was subtle at first, and unfortunately, the Christian-ish Glamor Media ran with "faith in healing" rather than distinguishing it from faith in The Healer.
 
At that point, a spiritual gateway opened which allowed many people to be robbed of the faith that they did have—they'd seen too many failures and became frustrared. Having done all they knew to do, the logical next step was to question God's will for healing.  But here, scripture defies logic: Scripture says to armor up and stand. "Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand, Ephesians 6:13."  Accordingly, we should be correcting for that and getting our focus back on what the blood of Jesus accomplished. 

There are three things that need to be fleshed out more if this were a "whole picture" blog post. (a) what the blood accomplished, (b) our position in Christ as a result, and (c) knowing how to hear the Holy Spirit. But this is a lightly edited answer to another guy's question, so some of the foundational stuff is left out.

In listening to actual testimonies of those who have received healing, we see some patterns, but no one-size-fits-all formulas. Like receiving salvation, healing is a cooperation-event between us and God.

My view on healing, to answer your question, is that everyone needs to search his/her own heart and work on this with the Lord. Some healing requires obedience, some takes forgiveness, some just drops in place during full-blown worship (in the presence of His glory where "darkness" must flee), some healing comes after intercession by others and/or united prayer of agreement, some by impartation (a spoken word, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, etc.), some by the casting out of demonic spirits, and sometimes we get serendipitous grace, either when the Father sees his kid struggling and fixes it for him or 'just because'! 
 
It is always God's will to heal, but our role in receiving seems to differ with the occasion.

"What Easter Means to Me"

See? the title is in quotation marks.
That is because it was the title of a presentation at my church this Palm Sunday.
It was a great performance; the costuming, makeup, and stage set were all on the minimalist side with nicely subtle hints at realism, the music was consistent with our normally AAAA standard, and our church has no bad actors!

From this photo of the program you can tell that there were six distinctive characters, each of whom gave a monologue about what Easter meant to him/her. I don't know why the last two were identified by a function or position they hold instead of by first names like the first four were. If I had been editor, I would have been all over that deviation from parallel construction, and in my mind I've named the granny Nana Faye and the young pastor Chuck, just in case you were bothered by that too.

As each character told what Easter meant, I could identify with bits and pieces here and there, but anyone who knows me well would not be surprised to hear me say, "Nice, but it's not my story."

Portions of the drama did do a fair job describing what Good Friday means to me, but none of it came close to capturing the meaning that Easter has for me.

Not to Worry.  I can fix that! 

Here's My Story of What Easter Means to Me:
 

Let's revisit Matthew 27:50-52, because this is where Easter begins for me:

 And Jesus having again cried with a great voice, yielded up His spirit. At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose.

It begins here because, cross-referencing with John 19:30, we know that Jesus had just said, "It is finished," so that was the end of the crucifixion and the start of what came next. My view of Easter is a bit more inter-dimensional than what was presented this morning. The physical rending of that veil in this world was a metaphor for what was happening in the world of the spirit.  Now begins the fulfilling of the Abrahamic Covenant into which Jesus had been circumcised over three decades before. It was now sealed in human blood. A New Covenant would be coming when Jesus reached the heavenly Holy of Holies, but first there was one more place to go: Hell. 

I have heard it preached that Jesus' work was finished on the cross.  Hmm...  yes and no. His this-realm work was finished on the cross, but there was still some spirit-whomping stuff to do. And he had to be dead to do that because He needed to get into Hades. Unless we count visions and such, and I am not, one does not make it into hell alive. 

The disciples who stood near the cross when the preternatural darkness fell (Matthew 27:45) and when the earthquake struck shortly thereafter, were not aware of the events occurring simultaneously in the unseen realm.  They would later get a progressive revelation of this, first when seeing Jesus after his resurrection, more on the day of Pentecost, and yet more as it was revealed through Paul.  Paul would eventually write to the Colossians, "having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him (2:14-15)." In Hebrews, (also 2:14) we see the same thing, "that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." Then at Jesus' Revelation to John He says, "I was dead, and behold I am living to the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades (Revelation 1:18)."  Back in Matthew 16:19 Jesus had told his disciples that he had the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, but after the crucifixion he'd picked up this new set. 

If you ask what Easter means to me, any complete answer is going to have to include the defeat of Satan. Some of the Old Testament authors had seen a glimpse of this, but oddly, in my experience, those prophetic scriptures have shown up more often in Christmas messages than in Resurrection Day sermons!

From my perspective of looking back over a lifetime of Easters, I remember a lot of emphasis being put on the sacrifice part where Jesus is the Lamb of God. That is good and proper, of course. And it makes sense because Easter is inextricably entwined with Passover. I also remember a lot of emphasis on the Risen Lord and the Miracle of New Life. That is good and proper, too.  In fact, the first Easter I attended a church where the songs were projected on the wall instead of read from a hymnal and they skipped Charles Wesley's classic ♫ Christ the Lord is Risen Today ♫, I had to go home and sing it to myself, just so it would feel like Easter Sunday! It is important to acknowledge the "Risen" part. Obviously, the meaning of Easter is multidimensional and encompasses endless insights and new nuances to "that old, old story," but don't skip  this:

THE DOOM OF SATAN

JESUS VICTORIOUS 

Christ's work transcended space and time to overcome evil, and that's the meaning of Easter too.  


_________________
Cast Photo Credit: Jenny Tuggle, Red Locks Photography