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Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 7)

STEP 6:  THE SECOND FIRING

With raging intensity, the second fire starts to burn through the kiln. Quickly you move from separation into a time of death. There are impurities within each clay vessel that only the fire can purge.

The Lord and His angels shut down the dampers on the kiln, cutting off the flow of oxygen and filling the kiln with carbon dioxide. Black soot along with heavy smoke and flames consumes every vessel in the kiln as it becomes a black fire, your personal Gethsemane or dark night of the soul.

Abandonment, isolation, and death itself are all around you.  The fire is so intense that you can’t hear or see the dear friends who have been your comforters and intercessors for so many years. Everyone you love seems to leave you as you die in the blazing inferno.

You say, “Lord, the fire!  I’m dying in the midst of it! Everything I’ve built and loved my whole life is being consumed!”

Your heart breaks as your reputation and your walk with the Lord are condemned. Competition, position, jealousy and pride are driven out of your life by the purifying flames.

You feel as if you’re going to explode under the ever-increasing pressure. The Lord tenderly explains, “My child, in the midst of the black fire, a mystery takes place.  Brilliant color is pushed deep into the body of the clay vessel.”

“My mysteries and My revelations are revealed in the tremendous pressure of the high glory fire.  This is a hidden time when the most beautiful colors are formed in the earthenware vessel. The richness and depth of color come from the darkest hours of agony and grief, just as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds come from hot fires inside the earth.  In the midst of the second firing, My glory is being released into the depths of who you are.”

 

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This is the hardest imaginable step to go through.  Has it ever gotten so hot you thought you were going to die?  I have.  This is a step you can only speak about in whispers because it is so intense.

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 6)

STEP 5: THE GLAZING ROOM
Something deep inside you stirs—that first call, that sense of destiny you felt as a new believer. “Lord,” you cry, “I don’t want to just sit in the back pew and die. You made me to be a lover of your people and to go out and find broken vessels and bring them to the Potter’s house.”

“I know it won’t be easy,” you continue. “I know I will pay an incredible price for the anointing I will carry for You. But, Lord, I want to become Your bride.”

So the Lord takes you into a huge glazing room filled with tables. Angels are moving pitchers from one table to another and placing them with cups on other tables in preparation for the high firing. The soft sound of weeping is heard as vessels that have been together all their lives are being separated.

God is sovereignly moving His different vessels to prepare them for His Great Commission. Some will be staying home while others will be going to different cities and nations. The angels continue to carefully pour, paint, and brush glazes onto each vessel before carrying them into a large kiln.

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Have you considered the cost of the anointing? When you say, “I surrender all” to the call of God, you will be immediately put through the processes of God and I can promise you, it will not be easy… but it will be worth everything!

Time Has Come (Pt. 7)

John reported that the stars fell (Revelation 6:13). The word for “stars” that John used is the word aster, from which we get the word asteroid. I believe what John saw was most likely a massive asteroid shower. The phrase implies that the stars not only fall but are strewn all over the sky. To the Jews, this was especially bad news, because the order in the heavens was a clear sign of God’s unchanging attitude. Take away the heavens and there’s nothing left! To the Jews, the ultimate chaos would be for the stars to fall from their place in the heavens—but John said that’s exactly what is going to happen. Before he described the fall of the stars, it was prophesied centuries before by Isaiah (“All the host of heaven will wear away, and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll,” Isaiah 34:4). Jesus concurred, quoting Isaiah: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29).

I sincerely believe that the stars in the heavens will not fall from the sky, because one star alone would literally decimate the entire planet. I always go to the Greek for complete clarity of New Testament scripture. In my studies, I have come to believe these stars John saw were in fact an asteroid shower.

Something like John described has happened many times before. One of the greatest of these occurred on October 8, 1871, when legend tells us that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern. Within minutes, the O’Leary farm was fully engulfed in a raging fire, with the entire city of Chicago, Illinois, soon to follow.

What many don’t know is that, on the same night as the Chicago fire, there was another deadly fire about 250 miles north of the city in a Wisconsin town named Peshtigo. In Peshtigo, fire literally fell from the sky and quickly consumed the entire city, burning it to the ground. Over 1,000 people per­ished in the fire. To this day, Peshtigo holds the title of the deadliest fire in American history.

Several cities in Michigan burned that same night, including Holland, Muskegan, Manistee, and Port Huron. Scientists believe that great fire was started by an asteroid shower, as indicated by the fragments found near Port Huron, Michigan, not long after the fires had gone out.

John saw the sky split and fold up like a scroll that has been stretched open and then suddenly sliced down the middle. After the opening of the sixth seal, John saw the repositioning of mountains and islands (Revelation 6:14). The most unshakable things on earth will be shattered when Jesus opens the sixth seal.

Excerpt from Time Has Come

Time Has Come (Pt. 6)

 

I am a builder.  I have always enjoyed planning and working on new building projects and seeing them come together step by step.  I learned early on that in reading blueprints, if I wanted to get the entire picture, I had to view each individual overlay of the master plan – an overlay for the foundation, one for the infrastructure, another for the plumbing and wiring, another for the interior walls, roofing, exterior surfaces, even an overlay for the landscaping and parking lots – and then lay them on top of each other.  Only after studying the individual overlays together could I get an accurate picture of what ws going to come into existence.

To truly understand the book of Revelation, you must review the prophecies of Daniel, ponder the words of Jesus from the Gospels, and then consider Paul’s writings to the Thessalonians.  As you add each of these layers to the book of Revelation, you can begin to see the entire picture as the Lord intended it to be seen.

One of the most important overlays to understanding Revelation is the Second Coming discourse given by Jesus to His disciples and recorded in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.  Many of the “signs of the times” mentioned by Jesus are similar to those in the vision John received and recorded in Revelation 6.

John Kilpatrick is the former pastor of Brownsville Assembly of God Church in Pensacola, Florida, a place where a genuine revival broke out on Father’s Day 1995 and continued unabated with spontaneous services every night for five years, with more than four and a half million people going through the doors during that time.  For years John studied the passages relating to the Second Coming.  In regard to the words of the prophets and the predictions of Jesus, he said, “These days are not coming they are here.”  John added, “Every major sign of the Second Coming is in motion right now.”

You don’t need to be a Bible scholar to know that the planet is groaning.  Populations are increasing while the resources needed to sustain them are decreasing.  The oceans are dying, clean air and water are becoming scarce, natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, floods, crop failures, bacterial mutations, and shifting weather patterns), conflicts (terrorism and wars), false religions (cults and pseudo religions), and a worldwide economic meltdown are reported daily in the news.

Something big is about to happen.  We need to prepare to see Jesus!  Knowledge that we are living in what the Bible refers to as the “last days” should motivate Christians to live closer to Jesus than ever before and to more actively seek out opportunities to share the gospel with people who don’t yet know the Lord.  The clock is ticking and time is running out.  Yes, difficult days are upon us, but do not lose hope.  Jesus Christ will return, and He will take you to live with Him eternally.  Right now, however, we need to brace ourselves for some shocks.

How do I know this?  Because Jesus Himself said so in Matthew 24.

(Excerpt from “Time Has Come”)

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 5)

STEP 4:  THE FIRST FIRING

Almost immediately, the Lord takes you out of the wilderness and places you in large room with other dried vessels. At first you are relieved but as the fire starts to come through the floorboards and the top of the ceiling, you panic.

The Lord has moved you from the shelf to the kiln, from the wilderness to His consuming fire.  You can sense the heat.  You can feel the relentless blaze. Perspiring yourself, you suddenly look over at the sweaty people next to you and realize you don’t even like them!

The Lord never fires just one vessel at a time.  He takes a church, a family or a group of friends and sets them on fire to expose everyone’s hearts.  In the intense heat, all the impurities of the soul come to the surface. Resentment, bitterness, anger and greed are revealed.

As the fire gets hotter the pain increases, you cry out, “Lord! Everything in my life is dying!” Relationships with family and friends become strained, you experience persecution at work, and you can’t get along with the people at church.

“God, if you love me, You’ll turn off the heat!” you complain.  But the fire continues to blaze even hotter. Finally, the doors open and the Lord removes the clay vessels and places them back on the shelves.

Now you’re actually happy to be in a hidden place.  You decide to sit in the back of the church and not give prophecies or be a part of the prayer team anymore. Oh, yes, you still raise your hands and occasionally pray for people, but you’ve become lukewarm.  When the Holy Spirit stirs your heart to give a word, you say, “No! If I give a word, others will judge me.  No, Lord, find someone else.”

For a while, God tolerates your pulling back.  Then He begins to nudge your spirit.  He says, “Are you willing to settle for this, or do you want more of Me?  Do you want to become My anointed bride?”

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Have you ever been in a place in your walk where the fire got so hot you just wanted to shrink back and rest for a while?  Silly question, I know.  I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Time Has Come (Pt. 5)

Most Christians believe that Jesus will one day return in power, glory, and judgment to reward His followers and to punish those who have rejected God. But the question that divides the hearts and minds of many believers—and sometimes even divides Christians into separate camps and denominations—is whether believers will experience some or all of the tough times described in the book of Revelation and other prophetic scriptures.

For many years I preached that Christians would not have to endure the horrors of the Tribulation, that Jesus would return and take His people out of this world. Admittedly, most of my thoughts on the matter were not original, nor were my views based on years of studying the Scriptures and reaching valid biblically based conclusions. For the most part, I simply believed what I had heard sincere men and women of God teach, namely, that Jesus was coming back before the seven-year Tribulation in an event called the Rapture.

Although the word rapture does not appear in the Bible, we based our ideas on a passage from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. The apostle encouraged believers with these words:

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, nkjv).

Although this passage does indeed describe the Second Coming, we drew some unwarranted conclusions about when and how this event would occur. This “catching away” of the saints, which is what the word rapture means, was to take place secretly, as far as unbelievers were concerned. Only believers, it was thought, would be able to experience and witness the appearing of the Lord. Suddenly, Jesus was to appear in the air, and in the twinkling of an eye we would be gone, whisked off the ground to meet the Lord in the sky. The dead in Christ, believers who had died prior to His coming, would rise first, and together we would all meet Him in the air. From there He would take us to live with Him eternally. Later, Christ would return again, this time in power and glory to judge the world and set up His eternal kingdom. The Rapture was to happen, of course, before any events of the Tribulation began to pummel the earth.

One of my favorite prophetic Scripture verses is, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36, nkjv). I placed a heavy emphasis on the word escape, because I was convinced it went against God’s loving nature to allow His people to go through the horrors of the Tribulation.

My thinking on the subject changed when, in prison, I searched out the passages that described the Rapture that precedes the Tribulation. To my amazement, I could not find any. I found certain scriptures that other preachers .and I twisted and conveniently interpreted to fit my “prosperity” messages, but when I allowed the Bible to speak for itself, I realized that my notions of a pre-Tribulation Rapture were not based in scripture.

(Excerpt from “Time Has Come”)

Time Has Come (Pt. 4)

You are not in Darkness

Many sincere people are asleep at the wheel.  Some are cavorting with the devil, veering increasingly off course toward destruction. Others see the dangerous direction we are heading, but they naively hope that Jesus will come and save us before we hit the rocks.  Escaping the coming tribulation would be wonderful, but I’m convinced that we must go through some of these tribulation events. After years of studying the Scripture, I find little evidence that Jesus is going to return for Christians before the difficult times of Revelation begin to happen on earth. Although I’m certain Jesus is coming, we may indeed be here for what Jesus called the “beginnings of sorrows,” (Matthew 24:8, NKJV) and perhaps much more.  We need to understand the signs of the times and recognize the events leading to the Lord’s return.

In churches all across America, I’ve asked congregations, “How many of you believe that Jesus is going to come for us like a thief in the night?”  It’s a bit of a trick question, but I use it to make a point.

Most hands go up.  Nearly everyone has a vague familiarity with the idea that Jesus will return when we least expect Him.  Those who have made headlines in recent years for their foolish, unbiblical predictions of Christ’s return tend only to further convince us that we cannot know when Jesus is coming.

But if you look at the Scripture carefully, you may be surprised.  The Word does not say that He is coming like a thief in the night for believers.

“For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.  While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.  But you brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day.  We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6 NASB).

Do you see that?  You are not to be in darkness.  You are not of the night.  You are to be watching and waiting, already prepared for the coming of the Lord. You will have advance information, namely, signs you can recognize that His coming is near.  You will not be caught unaware.  Or at least you should not be.

Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice.”  They recognize not just the sound of His voice, but the truth of His words.  If you are a fan of John Grisham novels, you recognize the author’s voice in each of his books.  If you’ve read the great writers from the past, such as Shakespeare, you recognize their style.  Similarly, if you study the Scriptures, you can know the voice of Jesus and recognize the truth of His Word. By becoming familiar with His voice, you will be able to recognize when something is consistent with what Jesus said or whether it is an idea concocted by someone else, well intentioned though they may be. There is no reason for you to be caught off guard by the cataclysmic events that are about to happen. Revelation will help you to be ready.

(excerpt from Time Has Come)

Time Has Come (Pt. 3)

Many first-century believers—including, no doubt, the Apostle John—expected Jesus to return within their lifetime. When He didn’t, some people became disillusioned and discouraged. They did not understand that certain things had to happen in history before Christ’s return. For instance, according to Jesus’ own words, Jerusalem had to be under Jewish control before the end-times events begin to happen. That did not occur until 1948, when the nation of Israel was re-established, and Jerusalem once again came under the governance of the Jewish people, though both Christianity and Islam have sacred sites there.  Consequently, most, if not all, of the prophecies recorded in Revelation, can easily be fulfilled in our generation. Now, when the prophetic mysteries begin to unfold, they will occur in rapid succession. That’s why you need to have your heart right and your house in order now, ready today for the return of Jesus Christ.

At the same time, the Apostle Paul warned that “the day of Christ,” including the Lord’s climactic return, would not happen until the “man of sin” is revealed.  This is the Antichrist who “takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.”

If the Antichrist is going to be on the rise, wisdom says we should prepare to go through some difficult days before the Lord’s return. I know you are hoping that Jesus will come prior to the tribulation period, and so am I.  But what if you are living right where you are today when the “four horsemen of Revelation” begin to ride, when unprecedented natural disasters strike the world, and when the Antichrist appears?  What will you do? Will you even understand the significance of these developments? All of these things and more are definitely going to happen; the only question is when.

Excerpt from Time Has Come

Clay in the Potter’s Hands (Pt. 2)

Finally He stops before you and says, “I’m calling you to come into the high fires and let My glory fall upon you,” and gazing deeply into your being He continues, “but it will cost you. You’ll have to die to your reputation, your theology, and all of your ‘religious formulas’. You will have to let go of your fears and your control. Do you love Me enough to come, or will you be content to live out your life in the back pews of the church?”

You sit quietly for awhile, pondering what to do. You’re afraid to say yes but more afraid to say no. Glancing over at the beautiful vessels, your spirit stirs within you and your heart says yes!  But this seems dangerous … it could cost you everything … even your life!

Then you remember when Jesus said, “He who has found his life shall lose it and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).  You think about some people you’ve known.  They started so well but ended up apathetic and lukewarm toward the things of God; more influenced by their carnal lifestyle than the truth and counsel of His Word.

You believe it’s the Lord’s desire for all to be chosen vessels.  But are you pursuing the high calling and destiny the Lord has purposed for your life, or do you shrink back … not willing to pay the price?

As a clay vessel, you must take a journey.  The steps in this journey can sometimes be painful but they are necessary for you to be transformed from broken bits of clay into an anointed vessel that reflects the glory of God.

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It’s not easy to ‘die’ to what other think of you, your reputation.  Anyone who says it is, is only trying to fool you or worse, themselves.  Your reputation is something you’ve been taught to strive to protect, and losing your reputation is like the worst thing that could happen.

But what if Mary had chosen not to believe the angel who delivered the good news that she was to be the mother of Jesus, even though she knew what that would mean to her reputation?  Jesus would have still been born, but to another… and Mary’s life would have looked much different because she missed the high call.

It would have been much easier for Joseph, or Moses, or Noah to refuse their commissions and just go along with the flow, not causing any waves.  But, they are some of the Biblical greats whose lives reflect the magnitude of the Lord’s anointing, with many other lives and souls set free because of their willingness and obedience.

And what about your theology?  Could you put aside something you learned to receive a greater truth from the depth of the Word?  I challenge you to do a word search on “you have heard it said” in the Bible.  What you will find is the teaching of Jesus that was greater than the teachers of the law.  For example:  Jesus said in Matthew 5:27,28, “You have heard it said ‘do not commit adultery.’ “ “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  In one fell swoop, Jesus called the hypocrisy of the religious crowd to account by exposing their hearts which were full of adultery even though they kept the law and didn’t actually do the deed.

What could be exposed in our own hearts, should we really, really examine them in God’s light?

Time Has Come (Pt. 2)

In some ways, I feel like I can relate to John, the author of the Revelation.  It was through suffering,  imprisonment and the subsequent solitude that John found himself “in the Spirit” and ready to see, hear and record the spiritual mysteries of the Revelation.  John’s dedication to Jesus cost him everything, but his suffering paled in the light of those spiritual mysteries given to him to proclaim to Jesus’ followers – but these mysteries were reserved for another time, another age.

Daniel was instructed to “shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end” and that time is now.  We know it’s now because Jesus told us the signs to look for in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and in the deeply prophetic book of Revelation.  The time has come for the mysteries of Revelation to be revealed and each one confirm and herald the Second Coming of Jesus, Hallelujah!  The Revelation is not bad news – the Revelation is the Good News!

David once said that he would not give to God that which cost him nothing.  If there is one work of my lifetime that I could choose to do again above all others, it would be this book about my Revelation studies.

So today, these ‘mysteries’ that I share with you are a precious thing – a costly thing – that I joyfully give to you and others in hopes that they might help you to be prepared in the days of the Revelation.  We are surely in those days right now, and like the sons of Issachar, we need to understand the times and the seasons in which we live and know what to do.

Even as we see the world coming apart, we don’t have to be afraid.  In fact, we should view the very fact of our existence in this prophetic countdown as evidence of God’s invitation to be an active participant in the greatest event this world has ever seen – an event for which TIME HAS COME – the Second Coming of Jesus!