Mike Parsons
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The cloud of witnesses: what do they do, what role do they have?
Part of the problem is that religious people will say, well, you cannot talk to dead people. But they are not dead to start with. They are alive in the spirit and they are in that realm. They are the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, as it says in Hebrews, and we can engage them. And when people say, well, that is necromancy, you are trying to speak to the dead, the answer is no: I am speaking to those who are alive, and Jesus did the same. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus spoke to Elijah, who never died physically, and he spoke to Moses. So Jesus validated the reality that we can engage the cloud of witnesses.
What role do they have? They are surrounding us. They are not visible most of the time, so they must be in the spiritual realm around us, observing, cheering us on, perhaps encouraging us to finish the race that they started. Hebrews 11 talks a lot about those who died in faith not having received the fullness of the promise, and they are part of those who are cheering us on. The illustration of a relay race works well: you pass the baton to the next generation, and then they pass it to the next runner. They have literally passed us their baton to finish the race. But they are not just sitting on a cloud somewhere playing a harp. They are active. They are the church enrolled in heaven, functioning as witnesses in that realm, and God has many things that they do.
When I first went into heaven in 2010 and 2011, I met a number of the cloud of witnesses. They came to me with a message. Jesus obviously sent them. Jacob was one of the first ones I met. He came to me, and I was there, and he spoke to me. And he was digging, which was symbolic of something he was trying to convey. I said, what are you doing? He said, I am digging a well. And I had to think: Abraham dug wells, Isaac reopened them, and what did Jacob do? Well, Jacob’s well is the well of the Samaritan woman, the well that would become that well we could drink from. So Jacob was trying to convey to me, look, this is symbolic of the life that you have received.
And then he said, go and read my story about what happened at Bethel. So I went to read it in Genesis, and it was an open heaven, angels ascending and descending, which is in John as well: none other than the house of God. And all of a sudden it was like, I am the house of God! Angels are ascending and descending, and there is an open heaven over my life.
That changed things significantly for me, into realising that this is not just a one-off event. This is a living way we should live, engaged with the angelic realm who are bringing messages from heaven, guiding us, directing us, protecting us.
But also it is more than that: heaven is open. We have access not just when we die, because we do not need to die. We have access now to dwell in that realm because we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Where is Christ seated? On a throne, next to the Father. And we are also seated on thrones next to the Father.
422. From Rejection to Acceptance | Understanding Your Identity in Christ
I have had a number of encounters with the cloud of witnesses. A couple of them were by my own desire. I wanted to talk to Adam. And then Esther came to me once in a meeting, and I thought, what do you want? And she said, I have come to remind you that you are called to the kingdom for a time such as this. I then thought, well, I want more than that. So I went into the cloud of witnesses, into the court of the upright, and I asked to see Esther and said, can you tell me more? And she went to her life being prepared and said, I did not want what was my destiny. I resisted it because I thought it was a bad thing for a Hebrew girl to be given to a foreign king as a concubine. She said, I was prepared, but I then recognised that God had prepared me for that to save my people. So she said, do not resist what God is doing in your life. Quite interesting.
I have had many encounters, with David and others, but also with some people who have died more recently, like Bob Jones. Bob Jones died on a Thursday. On the Sunday, I was in a meeting in worship, and Bob Jones turned up in front of me with a big scroll in his hand and said, will you receive this scroll? I said, well, what is it? He said, this is the scroll for the billionfold harvest. And I said, yes, I will receive it. But it became clear that that was about raising up a Joshua generation to be ready for the harvest that is coming, ready to disciple the harvest that is coming, pointing them into a supernatural lifestyle.
So it was not that it was just given to me and I am this great person who has a scroll. It was a responsibility. You have been called to participate in preparing to receive a harvest. And there are a lot of people embracing that, thousands upon thousands figuratively, in that they are embracing their identity as sons of God, as part of the Joshua generation, who have a different spirit, who function in a different way, and who are called to be ready for the harvest, to receive it and help it come into an intimacy with God in sonship.
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We are in the middle of looking at some serious issues which require a response from us. We saw last time that Jesus is saying to the church, ‘Repent, or else!’. There are things which God wants removed from His church in these days and if we are wise we will remove them ourselves – because if not, the ‘or else’ is that He will come and remove them.
Sons of Issachar 