The House of Prayer

Jesus adventure in His Fathers house has marked us all as His aggressive and violent nature came out when He observed a house of prayer become a den of thieves. Although people were not stealing from each other in a criminal way. Jesus choice of words have always been exactly what He meant to say. A house of prayer being something other than that is criminal. It steals from people.

How do we evaluate His judgment in light of today's Fathers House known as the church.

Ever since we have been in pursuit of the restoration of the tabernacle of David, we have had to re-think so much as we were confronted and convicted on what we thought Christian assembly should be. Our historical experiences have been that of the current model of church. A well organized presentation of music, Sunday School, pulpit preaching, communion and the benediction (prayer for departing the meeting).

We have a momentary visitation of the presence of God (sometimes) that usually lasted about 10 to 15 minutes. Leaders called this the warm up so that the preacher could give some type of message. Usually an evangelistic message when most of the congregation was already evangelized and converted. They said that they did it for the 1 lost sheep. That somehow made it justifiable. Consequently in today's churches we have people sitting in pews who have approximately a two year growth in their Christian walk. I think it must have been Jesus who named the place where these people sit....pew!!!!!

By our actions in our Sunday gatherings only, we obviously do not have a concept of the house that we assemble in being a house of prayer.

Prayer moves the hand of God. Imagine if every congregation would devote their one to two our meeting to prayer each Sunday. What would be the effects of the Christian Community if, let's say the city the size of Milwaukee Metro area, about 2,000 churches would pray that long on Sunday, there would be about 2,000 to 4,000 hours of prayer per week.
Yes....here it comes...104,000 hours of prayer per year. I wonder what our communities would look like. We might even have a second meeting during the week for just prayer to see what else could happen if we tried to double the amount of prayer for the community.

Now, I am not naieve to think that people would come to church if that's all they did was pray.

Mike Bickle wrote a piece for Charisma Magazine that I have posted on my web site. He understands how hard it is to just pray for long periods. What was refreshing in the article was the concept of mixing prayer with music. Making musical prayers! What a concept ! Actually it was not and original idea. King David formed a prayer meeting in his day that went for about 33 years 24/7/365. 4000 musicians and 288 singers skilled in prophetic singing.

Have you ever been in a place like that? If you have, you probably told a lot of people about it because the presence of God is so thick you can cut it with a butter knife.

Today's concept of prayer has been a place of boredom. However God is doing a new thing in the earth by combining musical worship with prayer. It is actually pretty awesome to be in such an environment.

One of our ladies noted in our musical prayer meetings that she counted more men than women present. That is a complete flip from the typical prayer meeting that I have attended. Why is that do you suppose?

I think that the main reason men are attending musical prayer meetings is because it is something they feel comfortable participating in.

When we see men participating in prayer meetings we know that something good is about to happen. It's unheard of !

My Father's House shall be a house of prayer! It's not revolutionary, it's a commandment.

Visits that bring us closer

How often do we think of revelation concerning HIM as visits from heaven for the express purpose of bringing us closer to HIM. Often our terminology and concepts of Him define whether He is distant from us in some far away eternal place called "heaven" OR His kingdom has come and His will is being done "now" on earth as if it was heaven. Revelation from the Lord brings us into heavenly experiences that can be both individual or corporate. Examples are found in Matthew 16:13-19 and Exodus 5. In both scriptural experiences revelation of who the Lord is brings devastation to the work of the enemy as consequential. In Matthew 16 for example, Peter's blurting out "you are the Christ, the son of the living God!" led Jesus to identify that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail agains Peter or those who receive diving revelation from the Father who is in heaven...but visited Peter right there while engaged in a conversation.

Binding and loosening things on earth, just do it and it will also happen in heaven. That's powerful! There is a lot said in this short segment of scripture including the revelation that Jesus must die. This revelation was the seal on satans grave. Jesus removed the keys of the kingdom from satan through his death. Then Jesus gave the keys to us so that we would dominate satan while living here on the earth.

In Exodus 5, the Lord appears to Moses and tells him his eternal name, "I am." This name is so profound as it speaks of God being eternal and being just who He is when we need HIM to be that. Through revelation of that name, a nation was delivered from evil taskmasters, the Egyptians. 3 million people of promise rose up in the night and walked out of a country. 3 million people did this together through the revelation of "I am" to one man...Moses.

His Presence - I'm Undone!

In my history with the Lord of 31 years (since Oct. 1974), I have always been the guy that judged the quality of a church meeting by the level of and manifestation of the presence of God in it.

The presence of God in a persons life and ministry tells me volumes about their history with God. Perhaps using the word "judged" is the wrong word. It's more like an evaluation of where a ministry is at and where it needs to go for God to show up. God showing up is my bottom line. Whether it's music being played for the sake of the kingdom, the preaching of the word, giving of a testimony, the manifestation of the presence of God that fills, surrounds or follows helps me.

It helps me enter in and see the historic to present day activity of the Lord. I love watching the Lord work. That has been my life long quest...to see Jesus in action.

In my 31 (plus) years of walking with the Lord, I had many, many life changing revelations that made the last season of my walk with the Lord seem dry and lacking. I believe this should be the testimony and course of the Lord in every Christians life, to be experiencing revelation of Jesus that causes you to rethink a lot of your personal theology, view of sin, love for all that is His, etc.

Isaiah's testimonial recording in Isaiah 6 :

Isaiah 6 1IN THE year that King Uzziah died, [in a vision] I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the skirts of His train filled the [most holy part of the] temple.(A)
2Above Him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two [each] covered his [own] face, and with two [each] covered his feet, and with two [each] flew.
3And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!
4And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!
6Then flew one of the seraphim [heavenly beings] to me, having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with tongs from off the altar;
7And with it he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity and guilt are taken away, and your sin is completely atoned for and forgiven.
8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

How does a person evaluate a vision like this in the intensity of what Isaiah really saw? We can see by Isaiah's testimony that he glanced into something very powerful in heaven and caused conviction to come all over him. Yet this discription is still at the mercy of the interpretation of the Bible student and pursuer. The intensity of the vision of the Lord in a believers life is the intensity of revelation of Isaiah might have seen. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

The undone-ness is like the word of the "day." Another word that I've heard thrown around as of late is the word "undignified." At a recent conference in Kansas City, a friend of ours saw about 50-100 youth or young adults dancing in an undignified rythymn. They were reputation-less, completely abandoned to the Lord and oblivious to who was watching or not watching.

The Spiritual climate has changed, many are running ahead not waiting for the church to catch up to what God is doing with His people. They are breaking rules that the church has held as a standard. Without regard they are passionately pursuing the presence of God and God is meeting them at the level of surrender. Even God is breaking the rules of the church to meet with His people in new ways. We speak freedom over your church and over your people Lord!

His Presence - His Glory

2 Corinthians 3:18 has been a place of explanation for me in the last 4 years of my walk with the Lord.

18)But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

In these last four years, through worship/intercession we have had numerous encounters with the glory of the Lord. The "glory of the Lord" used to almost be an abstract term for us, but now has been full of new understandings. There are a lot of words that compliment the "glory" and are used synomonously. Those words or phrases are:

1. The weightiness of God
2. The revealed excellence of His personality
3. The heaviness of the Lord
4. The "Shikinah"
5. The cloud of the Lord

All of which are words used by those who experience Him during worship. They are used to desribe what they feel, see or hear. His appearing or manifestation of His presence causes our human/physical senses to become aware of activity that would be considered invisible to become more visible because of our human senses detect that He has crossed over into an earthly realm.

Often times there are insufficient words to explain what we see, hear or feel. It requires contemplation or could be said that we "wonder" about it. We allow a devotional thinking process. This wondering is also connected to the terminology of "signs and wonders." Signs from God detected by our human senses bring us into this state of wondering.

Other evidence that people have experienced the "glory of the Lord" is that they do not want to hurry up and leave the facility that they experienced it in. They linger as if they have no other place to go. They spend more time talking to the people that they collectively experience God with. As if they they are looking for more clues from conversations that might help them understand more of what has just happened.

In our meetings, both in the 2 hour Sunday morning meetings or the 24-48 hour gatherings, we provide places for people to fellowship and talk. As a director and overseer of such gatherings, it doesn't bother me when more people are in the fellowship room talking than in the hall where the worship is taking place. The need for people to digest and further investigate the glory is an important part of the "glorious life" of the pursuing Christian.

Since we have recognized this process as described in 2 Cor 3:18. I have relented from public teaching while the "glory of the Lord resides." I especially observe this practice when you are left "wordless" because of the glory of the Lord being so present. To be honest, that happens every week. With some exceptions I rarely teach. It seems like the interaction of those who have just witnessed the glory of the Lord, along with their reports of things they felt, seen or heard in the spirit while the Lord was visiting is the best way to close these meetings. The human interpretation of the glory gives others insights that they might not come up with. It often becomes and "unfolding of the heart of Jesus" and once it concludes we felt like we have been instructed by Him. A much better teacher than what I can contribute.

This practice is developing the ministry of the saints as they play an active part of church life.

The first several words of 2 Cor 3:18 describes us with "unveiled faces." This is understanding dervived from the interpretation of the restoration of the tabernacle of David. The "veil" was a part of Moses tabernacle that was ordered by God for Moses to include as a wall of serperation between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Two seperate compartments of the tent. the Holy Place was a place of ceremony for the priests. It contained the golden candle stand that the Jews today call the "Menorah." It is used for the Jewish celebration of Hanukah. Another article used in the Holy Place was the "altar of incense" where the apocathery was kept and burned while the High Priest ministered before the Lord. The apocathery was a certain mixture of incense that had a sweet pleasing smell to it as it burned. The third and last article in the Holy Place was the "table of shewbread." The shewbread was a bitter tasting bread that the priest had to eat while there ministering. Each article has prophetic symbolism related to the 1) light of the Holy Spirit (golden candles), 2) prayer (altar of incense) and 3) The Word of God (shewbread).

The "veil" was two feet thick and spanned across the width of the tent. The reason it was so thick was to protect the priest from the Glory of the Lord. The High Priest was to go beyond the veil only once a year in order to make atonement for the sins of Israel. Behind the "veil" was the ark of the convenant. The ark has a lot of history to it as it was a box that almost resembles a coffin. It has two carved figures of cherubims (angels with wings) on the outside top of the box which the angles seem to be protecting what is inside of the box. The two tablets know as the 10 commandments, sit inside the box. These are the two tablets of stone that God wrote the 10 commandments on for Moses while He was on the top of the mountain communing with God. It was the place where the Glory of the Lord passed him by while the Lord kept His hand over Moses face so that Moses would not die while the Lord was revealing the His glory. This was a request by Moses in dialogue with the Lord when the Lord told Moses that He favored Moses. Moses response was that if you favor me, "show me Your glory."

There is so much more to describe about the tabernacle activity of Moses. It all has significant symbolism that is later understood and explained in the New Testament. The book Hebrews describes it as patterns and shapes of things to come.

Through the disobedience of the high priest name Eli, the Phillistines, who were enemies of Israel, came and took the ark of the covenant and kept it for themselves. They believed that posessing the ark would bring them military domination in the Land. Under King David's rule the Ark was recovered and brought back to Jerusalem. This story records how David danced once the Ark was safely brought back into the city.

David, not knowing the practice of Moses and Moses tabernacle had to look up the writings of Moses to figure out how to get the Ark back into the city. One man was struck dead for reaching out and touching it when the was tipping. Once David realized that there was an order to handling the Ark, the ministry of the Levites was also re-understood as they were the tribe designated by God to handle the Ark of the Covenant.

Once the Ark was safely in Jerusalem, David had the Ark placed in a tent that did not have the two foot thick veil. Instead he raised up 4000 musicians and 288 singers who were skillful in the song of the Lord to sing and pray to the Lord in shifts so that 24 hours per day was covered with worship and prayer. This is the place of many of the recordings of the psalms of David. They were songs filled with praise, prayer, poetry and prophetic words.

The musicians, singers and prayer warriors were the "veil" of the tabernacle. They absorbed the glory of the Lord that formerly the veil would absorb. In David's tabernacle the people did not die, instead they changed, the land of Israel changed and all of Israel's enemies were subdued because they feared the strength and power of Israel in the land.

So, we with unveiled faces today in the 21st century restoration of the tabernacle of David are being similarily changed. Changed into what? The image of Christ which in this day is a preparation for the great harvest before the appearing of Jesus once again in the earth. This great harvest will come with unusual outpourings of the presence of God that will completely captivate entire cities that God has chosen before hand to visit. These cities of prayer will act as a covering for Israel in a very volitile and dangerous Middle East.

This restoration of David's tabernacle will also shape and release the greatest end time spiritual army the earth has ever seen. This army has been described in Joel 2. This army will confront on of the most evil human governments formed as recorded in Daniel 9. God will use Martyrdom of lives totally surrenderd to Him to bring an end to human government on the earth and segway the second coming of Christ as King of the Earth where He will establish His Kingdom on Earth commonly refered to as the Millenium Period or the 1000 year reign of Christ on the Earth.

So God is using visitations of His glory that is being facilitated by worship/intercession interaction with Himself and the church hungry for the next coming move of God. In the exposure of humans to increasing levels of His glory to people with unveiled faces, a great time of preparation is taking place with His people.

In His Presence

In His Presence is where I want to be.

I grew up not knowing HIS presence. Today, I love spending time in HIS presence. I remember the first time I felt it. It became very addicting to be near Him. I became a church a holic because of His presence. Many people know (not all unfortunately) that church in itself and all the buttons and bells that come with it, do NOT necessitate an encounter with God and His presence. There are certain individuals with a certain spiritual chemistry that attract and sustain the presence of the Lord.

Many in church today have not had any experience with the presence of the Lord. They wouldn't recognize it if it swept their assembly and knocked out all the lights in the building. There are also many today that would be offended by the presence of the Lord. They would feel threatened by it because the presence of God does not without a price tag attached to it. That price calls for death to self. It requires a surrender of control. It asks for a future without human planning.

I have been honored to have met a number of people who have experienced the presence of God and completely re-aligned their lives so that His sovereign control would be something they could easily submit too.

Just thinking out loud.

Dave
www.warriorbride.com