Tag: harvest

Vision Destiny 2016

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Seven messages by Mike Parsons delivered at Freedom Church in January and February 2016. A review of 2015 and what to expect in 2016.

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122. The Power Of Testimony

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Gen 2:15).

God intends us to cultivate and keep our place of connection with heaven, so that we will be able to bring heaven to earth. We still have the mandate to cultivate the garden of our hearts. The garden does not just grow of its own accord. We have to plant seeds in our hearts if we want them to grow into trees which will produce fruit and ‘leaves for healing’ (Ezekiel 47:12).

What to plant

You may be asking, ‘what seeds do I plant?’

You can take the encounters you have had with God, the victories you have had in your life, the revelation He has given you, the testimonies you have, and plant them in your garden. It does not take a long time for them to grow into trees, because you can water them from the River of Life, and you can speak to them and call forth fruitfulness.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
(1 Cor 3:8)

There will be a reward from that planting, if we cultivate and tend the garden in our hearts.

The power of testimony

If you have a testimony that is sown into your garden, you can go back and take the fruit of that testimony and re-live it, and see it multiply. That is what it is for. Everything we have seen is a seed we can plant and it becomes a tree of that testimony and bears fruit. That is why we have trees with fruit in our garden in our hearts.

I do not want to see healing just once, I want to see healing over and over again. In fact I want to see every one of God’s promises over and over again. So when I have experienced something from the hand of God, I can be thankful, rejoicing, plant it in my garden, cause it to be watered and it will produce fruit that I can go back to over and over again.

I can draw from that on the inside, in order to produce it on the outside of me. So if I need an anointing of the Holy Spirit when I am praying for someone, I can draw it from within. I am not dependent on the atmosphere being filled with the anointing. I can draw the anointing from the inside of me using the testimony of what God has given me. What He has done before, He can release again. That is the power of testimony.

Watch over your heart

But if I want to be able to draw on it in the future, I need to plant it, to look after it, and nurture it. And I have to watch over my heart.

Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life
 (Proverbs 4:23).

Remember the four types of soil that Jesus spoke about in the parable of the sower. He explained to His disciples that the soil represents the heart. What is our heart like? Hard, so that no seeds can go in? Rocky, so that they cannot take root? Full of weeds, that choke out the new growth? Or good soil, that will produce a tree of life on the inside of us, that we can pick the fruit from, and eat?

If my heart is good soil, what I plant can grow and bear fruit.

What is in your garden?

My garden is full of things God has given me. There is a river, pools, and a waterfall. There is a door into the heavens. There is a green pasture with a big tablecloth set with all kinds of food I can go and eat from. There are trees. There is a yoke – I yoke myself to Jesus daily. All of those things are what God has given me by revelation in the heavenly realms, and I have planted them in there. There are even mountains. The mountains which represent my spheres of authority in the kingdom of God are now there in my garden.

Some of the things in my garden will also be in yours, and some will be unique to me. You can develop your own garden, in your own heart, and you will have things in there that are particular to you, precious to you; the things God has given to you, to enable you to draw on them every time you need them again.

What is in your garden?

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76. A Generation Of Forerunners

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

As we saw last time, God will have His way: His will is going to be done, and our choice is whether we want to be part of it or not. All the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

The Moses generation

Moses’ generation came to the borders of the land… and chose not to go in. As a result, God told them, “your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb… and Joshua” (Num 14:29-30).

Those aged 20 years and up were responsible. There were a whole lot of people under the age of 20 who wandered round in the wilderness with their elders; but when their time came to make a choice, they chose to embrace their destiny. God is calling that people forth today. Caleb and Joshua were of the older generation; but how they lived, how they believed, how they acted, what they did – that was what set them apart from their contemporaries and inspired the younger generation. They are a key to understanding what it takes to inherit, what it takes to become a Joshua generation.

A billion labourers

The Moses generation failed to receive their inheritance, and died in the wilderness. The Joshua generation, I believe, are going to equip a harvest of a billion labourers in the supernatural. I say ‘in the supernatural’ because we cannot succeed by natural means in all that lies in store for us; it is going to have to be achieved by supernatural means, and by a people equipped to operate in the fullness of God’s kingdom power.

That is why we have to take back ground that has been given to the enemy. Occult and New Age people are operating in spiritual power and doing things most of the church would not begin to know how to do, but they are occupying ground in the counterfeit that we should be ruling in the authentic if only we were operating in the true power of God.

We need to stand up and be counted. We need to take back that territory, in the face of intense opposition (and most of that opposition will come from within the church). If we are to see this next generation raised up, we need to begin to operate in the realm of the supernatural beyond what any of us have experienced so far. We have to make ourselves ready for a whole new revelation of the supernatural, and when we are ready God will lead us into it.

We need to equip a generation who will see Jesus return. To see a final harvest in which everybody who is going to be saved will be saved. The Joshua generation will be forerunners who have spied out the land. Many of us have already been forerunners. We have experienced a foretaste of some of the things which are going to take place. We have glimpsed it. In our spirit and in our heart we know there is more. We have been hungry for more, some of us have been that way all our lives. And there are more forerunner experiences still to come. It will be like spying out the land. We will not yet have received the complete fulfilment of all that God intends, but we will have glimpses of it, get a taste for it, begin to realise what it is going to be like.

Crossing the Jordan

The Church is crossing the Jordan, and it has been happening for a while. I look back into the eighties and I can see the beginnings of it. I remember some of the things that were prophesied then (and people didn’t really know what they were prophesying): about Joel’s army; a whole different breed; a nameless, faceless army of God’s people who were going to be raised up; no superstars, just ordinary people, operating in the supernatural power of God. They were prophesying some of the very things we are now beginning to see take place.

This generation has been entering in over that whole period of time, but we have not progressed far beyond the other side of the Jordan. The church is still at that place called Gilgal. For Israel that was where the reproach of the past was removed, where they were all circumcised again, where they took the Passover again: the things which were necessary for them to do as preparation to going in to fight the giants and take the whole land. I believe that this is where the church is in these days, days of preparation.

We have experienced the Wine, Fire and Wind of God, but there is more coming. We have to be able to lead and equip the Jesus generation to possess – the Hebrew word means ‘to inherit by seizing, dispossessing, and become heirs of’ – the land of promise. This is about the violent taking the kingdom by force. The Joshua generation is a warrior generation who will fight on behalf of others and bring them into the land. They will bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven: fulfilling Adam’s mandate in both realms. They will rule in the spirit realm and influence in the natural realm, to see God’s glory fill the earth (Num 14:21).

The Joshua generation will experience the land for themselves, but will also equip others to be able to live in the Promised Land and to fully possess it. It will mean living in a completely different dimension in terms of the supernatural.

We are all called to enter: some of us are called to go before, and to equip, but all of us are called to enter. Or you can choose to be like those who turned down God’s invitation and died in the wilderness. Everyone has that choice, but God is inviting people to enter in. Even in Joshua’s day, there were people who crossed the Jordan, were part of fighting the battles, and yet they chose to go back and live on the other side. Two and a half tribes, or nearly a quarter of them.

There are some ministries who have been forerunner ministries, who have been in the forefront of what God is doing, but who will choose to go back, and as a result will miss out on the fullness of their inheritance. I do not want to be one of those. I want to be part of a generation who enter in, possess, and enjoy the land; and who equip others to come in and do the same.

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74. God’s Kingdom Fills the Earth

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Resurrection

We have been looking at the Millennium, or thousand years, and I just want to clear up one more point from that passage in Revelation, and then sum up what we have said.

Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years (Rev 20:4-6).

What is this ‘first resurrection’? Well we know Jesus was resurrected, and His was a physical resurrection. As a result of the fall there was spiritual death and physical death. The consequence of Jesus’ physical resurrection was a spiritual resurrection for us. We have been resurrected spiritually, and that spiritual resurrection deals with the spiritual death.

It is signified in our baptism: …having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead (Col 2:12).

Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:5). We have been made alive with Christ: a spiritual resurrection.

That is the ‘first resurrection’. It deals with the spiritual death, so we can be born again, and come back into life; the second resurrection (when everybody gets resurrected) deals with physical death, which also came as a result of the fall.

And here is an interesting passage. It is only a couple of sentences in the Gospel narrative, but it must have caused quite a stir:

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. (Matt 27:52)

So at that time there was an actual physical resurrection of all those Old Testament saints who came back to life.And don’t imagine that they then died again – what happened was that Jesus led them into heaven, and that is where they are now. They ‘came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years’.

The rule of Christ is now

Let’s wrap this up. We are a kingdom of priests, and the millennial rule is now. In heaven, and on earth – because we can live in both places, as we have begun to understand. We bring heaven to earth through our lives and the kingdom of God is manifested on the earth through us.

But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD (1 Peter 2:9).

… And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Rev 1:5-6).

The reign of Christ began at His ascension, and continues until all things are subdued under his feet. The return of Christ and the bodily resurrection of all men will occur after (or post-) the millennium: that is to say it will happen after the period in which we now live, the period in which Jesus rules in heaven and on earth through His people.

This is really what we need to have faith in. We need to be expecting these things to take place, and expecting ourselves to be part of the process of bringing them about. “But indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Num 14:21). That is what we want – and how will the earth be filled? Through us.

For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14). People will know about the glory. It will not just be a few people going around glowing a bit. God’s glory will be clearly demonstrated for all to see.

Remember how in Daniel 2:35 the Stone [Jesus] that struck the statue [the kingdoms of the world] became a great mountain [God’s kingdom] and filled the whole earth. The earth will be filled with glory, and that will happen before Jesus will return:

…That He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time (Act 3:20-21)

mount-everest-276995_640Now it will come about that
In the last days
The mountain of the house of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains,
And will be raised above the hills;
And all the nations will stream to it.
(Isa 2:2).

These are the last days (and have been ever since Jesus first came). God’s kingdom is already established as the chief kingdom, because we know that Jesus is above all rule.  His kingdom is already above every other kingdom. The nations have been streaming to it throughout church history, and we want to see that prophecy completely and finally fulfilled.

I believe we are called to be a Joshua generation. The Joshua generation will raise up and prepare the following (and final) generation to receive their full inheritance and to usher in the end time harvest, ready for Jesus’ return.

We are fast approaching the end of this series on God’s Prophetic Timetable. It is based around the series I taught in Freedom Church during the spring and summer of 2011, and lays the groundwork for some of our more recent teaching both on this blog and elsewhere. The audio of those original sessions is available on our Apostolic Resources website. As we have noted elsewhere, some of the views we held at the time have been challenged by God in the intervening period but these blog posts (particularly #64-67) have been updated to reflect those changes (the audio recordings, of course, have not).

In the closing posts of this series I want to look at 40 characteristics that mark out that Joshua generation, because many of us will be part of it.

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65. Left Behind?

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Important note: as with the previous post, our view of this has moved on some since this was first written.

There is nothing in what Jesus says in Matthew 24 that we would now see as referring to the ‘last day’.

Below is the original post, largely as first published. Most of our comments about the ‘rapture’ still stand, but we would no longer apply Matthew 24:40-41 to the ‘last day’ at all, but (as with everything else in this chapter) to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

As we have seen, the Last Day is just that – the last day, and there are no more days after it. It is also the day of resurrection, and the day of judgment.

“He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day” (John 12:48).

We could be the generation which sees that last day. That is why removing stumbling blocks and being purified by fire is so important for us right now: we need to be ready, we need to be prepared to face judgment.

Holy and blameless

This is how Paul describes the church as she will be at that time: …that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless (Eph 5:27).

Holy and blameless? He has some work to do, then. That is what this purifying is for. We must heed the warnings. He will suddenly come to His temple, purifying and refining like fullers soap. We can fall on the Rock and be broken, or if we choose to remain stubborn and rebellious, the Rock can fall on us and we will be crushed (Matt 21:44).

Jesus wants to come back to a church which demonstrates the kingdom in fullness, a church which does what Adam and Eve would have done if they had not sinned: a church which subdues and overcomes (Gen 1:28).

Coming with the clouds

How is He going to come on that last day?

And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11).

Jesus levitated before their eyes, in a cloud of glory (we are not talking about a fluffy white cloud here). That cloud is the same cloud He will return with: a cloud of witnesses. Nowhere does it say He will set foot again on the earth. In fact, as we shall see another time, there will be no earth for Him to set foot upon. We will not need to be gazing intently into the sky in order to see His coming. His coming will be visible, sudden, glorious and noisy. There is no ‘secret rapture’ here.

The rapture of the saints

‘There’s a talking donkey in Shrek, and a talking donkey in the Bible (Num 22:28), so that makes Shrek more biblical than Left Behind‘ (Benjamin L. Corey).

The whole idea of a secret rapture of the saints is just not there in the word of God.

At all.

The word ‘rapture’, by the way, is just from a Greek word meaning ‘caught up’. But a whole demonic doctrine has been built up around this concept, and has infiltrated the church like leaven – and you can easily tell it is demonic because it robs the church of power and effectiveness. It teaches a secret taking away of the church to be with Jesus and then everyone else being taken to judgment at some time later. The actual length of time between the two may vary, depending on the eschatology. But it means the church is expecting rescue, not victory.

What does scripture say?

Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left (Matt 24:40-41).

But who is taken first, and who is left? This is a trick question, so watch out!
Let’s allow the Bible to interpret itself:

Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’  But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’ (Matt 13:24-30). 

…and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age (Matt 13:39-40)

So what Jesus taught was that the first people to be gathered up and taken at the end of the age would be the tares. It would be sudden, it would happen in the midst of normal life…

And you would want to be ‘left behind’.

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All scripture quotations are taken from the NASB.

41. The Kingdom of God is Filling the Earth

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

The Kingdom of God is filling the earth.

You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth Daniel 2:34-35 .

Daniel is interpreting the dream the king has had, in which he has seen a statue representing four empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. In the time of the Roman Empire, a stone was to be cut out. That stone is Jesus and the mountain is His kingdom, which will fill the whole earth:

In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever (Daniel 2:44).

So God is setting up a kingdom which will not fail. It explicitly tells us that it is not going to be left for another people. It is going to overcome all the other kingdoms. These are truths that the enemy has fought hard to keep from us, because if we really get hold of them we will no longer be sitting around saying, ‘Jesus, come and rescue us’. Instead we will be saying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, empower us to play our part in seeing this victory, the kingdom of God filling the earth’.

Here is another passage about the same kingdom:

I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.

And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed’
(Daniel 7:13-14).

Now, is this all just pie in the sky? Let me give you some facts and figures about how the kingdom is advancing. Let’s look at what God has done since 120 people in an upper room were empowered by the Holy Spirit and fire, spilled out onto the street and eventually into the whole world.

  • In AD100, there were 360 non-Christians for every true believer, a ratio of 360:1. Today, the ratio is less than 7:1. That means that the kingdom of God is filling the earth. It really is.
  • No Christian was officially allowed to live in Nepal until 1960. Now there is a church in every one of the 75 districts of Nepal with estimates of over half a million believers in that nation.
  • Every day, 20,000 Africans come to Christ. Africa was 3% Christian in 1900 but today it is over 50% Christian.That is a whole continent where more than half the people are Christians.
  • In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church and the country was deemed impossible to penetrate. Today Korea is 30% Christian with 7000 churches in Seoul alone (and several of those churches have over 1,000,000 members each).
  • Every day 50,000 people in countries served by Asia Access come to Christ.
  • There are currently 60-80 million Christians in China with up to 25,000 converts a day. That is thought to be a very conservative estimate indeed. The church there is growing fast, under persecution.
  • 35,000 conversions occur in Latin America  daily

If only 1 out of every 6 believers reproduced themselves one time each year, that is if just one in six of us made a single disciple each year (and one in six of those did the same), the entire world would be reached for Christ in 8 years! That is even without a massive outpouring, even without the River of Life being released into the earth as we believe it will be.

Jesus said the kingdom was going to be like leaven spreading through the dough. He also said it would be like a little seed that grows into a massive tree.

Make no mistake about it. We are winning. The kingdom of God is filling the earth. We belong to that kingdom, and that kingdom belongs to us.

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33. The Day Of His Power

Mike Parsons –

Ever since the Garden of Eden, man has been trying to do things apart from God. All we like sheep have gone astray – we have all done things our own way. The whole world system has been set up to provide an alternative to God, but it is coming down.

The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of men will be abased; and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols will completely vanish. Men will go into caves of the rocks and into holes of the ground before the terror of the LORD and the splendour of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble’ (Isa 2:17-19).

God is going to arise and make the earth tremble, shaking it to its very core. When it crumbles and falls, what is left? The kingdom which cannot be shaken (Heb 12:28), the kingdom of God which is within us (Luke 17:21).

This is what is going to take place:

Now it will come about that In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. (Isa 2:2)

The house of the Lord is the church, and the mountain is kingdom authority. It will be established over and above all those other hills and mountains, over every authority that exists in the world, and everyone will stream to it because the church will have the answers that the world is looking for. Are we really up for that? We need to be. At the moment, evil spirits are controlling those world systems: those spirits need to be dethroned, and God is going to use His people to dethrone them.

Light and darkness

This is a word that has been given over and over, here in Freedom Church and worldwide:  Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you (Isa 60:1). Jesus is coming for His church, and His church is supposed to be light to the world: we are to be children of light. There is going to be a period of great light where the harvest of harvesters is going to come in. But read verses 2-3:

Behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

When there is nowhere else to go, when we are shining in the darkness, when the glory of God is manifested through His church, when the Presence of God is manifest, then people are going to start to come. And then, in a great period of darkness, we are to shine even brighter for that end-time harvest. That is what God is calling us to. That is what He is preparing us for.

We need to start shining. We need to start getting the glory of God in our lives; we need to start letting the glory of God out of our lives. We must manifest the presence of God in our daily lives, not just in meetings, but everywhere. God’s glory must be so evident in us that people will start coming up to us saying ‘what must I do to be saved?’ They will come to us in desperation because everything they have put their trust in has come to nothing.

Choose

What must we do? It is time to choose who we are going to serve. A Joshua generation is being raised up, and we can be part of it. It was Joshua who said to the children of Israel:

Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served, and serve the LORD. Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:14-15).

It is time to get rid of the idols, time to decide to serve the Lord. At Freedom, as a church, we have made that decision. We are going to serve the Lord. No matter what it costs and no matter what it takes; no matter how much we have to do that we might rather not do, we are going to serve the Lord. And we want other people to be part of that, because God is going to raise up churches and ministries around the world to be part of this move, to equip this end-time generation.

It is also time to choose individually: who am I going to serve? Am I going to serve the idols of my past, or am I going to surrender and serve the living God? Have I been serving myself, have I been serving the enemy, or have I been serving God?  Who am I going to serve?

As for me, I am going to serve God.

He is going to pour out His light, pour out His Spirit: He is going to equip us beyond our wildest dreams. Honestly, some of the things I have seen, some of the things the other prophetic people have seen coming – that shaking of the world’s systems – it will be like nothing in history, nothing that has ever taken place before, and we have to be ready for it. But God is asking, are we ready to volunteer in the day of His power (Ps 110:3)?

He is looking for those volunteers, because the day of His power is surely coming.

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31. Authentic Supernatural Power and Authority

Mike Parsons – 

We have seen how Joseph was called from the dungeon by Pharoah to interpret his dreams, and how he used the harvest of the years of plenty to provide food for the years of famine (Genesis 41). Joseph was able to do this because he had a relationship with God, and knew how to operate in the supernatural. In our days, God intends us to operate in the same way, and intends us to do signs and wonders just as Jesus did, because of our relationship with Him.

Supernatural

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father (John 14:12).

The reason we need to be doing the greater works, and to train others up to do them too, is because as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man (Matt 24:37). We have already written a little about how it was in the days of Noah, how there were manifestations of evil in heavenly places which were then worked out on the earth. Those times are going to come again, and we need to be ready with supernatural power.

Purified

I have seen pictures and visions of fires burning in the atmosphere of the earth, the kingdom that is in darkness. The fires are purifying those realms of authority, the principalities and powers, presently occupied by the prince of the power of the air.

We are connected to the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven in the heavenly realms. We can go and meet with God: we can meet Him face to face, we can have encounters with Him in that heavenly realm. We need to be familiar with what heaven is like, if we are to bring it here on earth. We do not need to go through the atmosphere of the earth to access the heavenlies: we can access them via a direct connection, because the door is always open to us. But when we come back to the realm of the kingdom of the earth, we can go back through the kingdom in darkness to bring the light; dispel the darkness and take authority there. Some of you have already had revelation of thrones and how you need to be seated in places of authority in the heavenly realms.

God is going to cause the kingdom in darkness to be purified. I have seen fire going up into the atmosphere realms from this realm: I have seen maps of places with fire going up from them and just engulfing and purifying that realm. That realm was never intended for the enemy: it was intended for God’s people, for Adam and Eve, for us. We should occupy that realm and rule from there.

The counterfeit and the authentic

So we need to reclaim everything that has been counterfeited and lost. New Age people and occultists are operating in realms of the spirit in ways that actually put most Christians to shame: they can do things supernaturally that most Christians wouldn’t even dream about. Now I completely agree that they are doing so from totally the wrong source of power, but in fact they are just counterfeiting what God calls His people to do.

We have to be a supernatural people: we need to demonstrate true spiritual authority. Light is going to triumph over darkness, but darkness is going to be seen. There is going to be a challenge just like with the prophets of Baal, there is going to be a calling down of fire from heaven; where we challenge the forces of evil, we challenge the demonic realm – and we win. You need to know that: we win. He that is in us is greater than he that is operating in those realms and in the world.

We win, but we are going to have to be ready to win. We are going to operate in authentic supernatural power: there are going to be transportations and translations and so on; and although just now the church seems to be saying “stay away from that stuff”, in reality much of what we see in the occult is only a counterfeit of how we should truly be operating. Where a counterfeit exists, it proves there also exists an authentic original.

Yes, we “stay away” from the power source that they are tapping into, but we need to reclaim what has been counterfeited and demonstrate to the world what true spiritual power and authority looks like. We need to use the keys of the kingdom effectively, and God is going to teach us how to do so.

I know that some of you are engaging these realms already: some of you are engaging the courts of heaven; some of you are engaging these thrones; but they have a system of authority that we have to deal with and we have to break down. God is going to train us and equip us to do this, so that we can bring light; so that we can occupy those realms of authority and release that authority on earth.

In releasing that authority on earth, we release the gospel to go out, and bring in a harvest.

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30. Centre of the World Stage

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

centrestage 

People from past generations have longed to see what God is doing in our day, and we have the privilege of being able to be involved in it. It is not something to be taken lightly: we must embrace who we are, we must embrace who God is calling us to be.

God is beginning to raise up a Joshua generation, who will bring in that harvest of labourers who in turn will bring in the final harvest at the end of the age. The Joshua generation will be a people of a different spirit; we will look at that in due course. The scripture that God is using to introduce this is found in Genesis 41: it is the story of Joseph.

We see in this chapter that Joseph was in the dungeon when Pharoah called for him They brought him up out of dungeon, and he shaved and put on new clothes so that he was fit to be brought into Pharoah’s presence. Pharoah sent for Joseph because he had had some dreams, and he had heard that Joseph had a supernatural ability to interpret them.

Supernatural

The church worldwide is going to be brought out of the dungeon – the dungeon of irrelevance, the dungeon of obscurity – and is going to find itself placed in the centre of the world stage. God is preparing us for that right now. It is a supernatural people who will be given this place of prominence: just as Joseph could interpret dreams and visions, they too will be a people who operate in the supernatural.

And it is a supernatural church that is required, not an institution, nor a religion, but an ekklesia which enjoys a relationship with the Living God in which He is saying ‘Come out of the dungeon’. He is saying that to some as individuals: come up out of the pit, come into the shining light, and let God use you. He is calling the church out into the light: just as it was said of Esther (Esth 4:14), we have come to the kingdom, come to royalty, for such a time as this. Our calling is to be royalty, and it will be clear that we are the sons of the King. We have a destiny in God, and we are called for such a time as this.

A time of preparation

Pharoah had two dreams which Joseph interpreted. They predicted a seven-year period of abundance followed by a seven-year period of total famine. And in the seven years of abundance, they would need to do something to prepare for the seven years of famine. In our days, God is saying that there is a period of abundance coming to the church in which a harvest will be coming in. This will be a harvest of labourers, and we need to be ready for that harvest. That harvest is what will be needed in the period of famine that will follow.

Pharoah said to His servants, “Can we find a man like this in whom there is a divine spirit?” (Gen 41:38). God wants us to know His Spirit is in us, that we are a habitation of God, of His Presence and power; that His kingdom is within us, manifesting through us. That is what it is going to take, around the world, to be prepared for this harvest.

As we read on, we see what Joseph did: he gathered 20% of all the food that was harvested in the years of abundance, and placed this food in cities: in every city he gathered the food from its own surrounding fields. I have listened to lots of prophetic words and voices about this recently and I believe that what God is saying is that we will see 20% of the population of the planet gathered as the first stage of the harvest: 20% of the people around the cities of refuge that God is establishing around the world are going to come in and be saved.

That adds up to quite a lot of people – about a billion or so – which is why we are going to need a much bigger building, in fact we are going to need this whole site that we have marked out, this whole campus that we have been believing for. There are going to be plenty of others like us too, in other places. A harvest, a billion people to be trained up as labourers in the even bigger harvest to come. Others have seen this billion people: some believe that it is the whole of the end time harvest, but I cannot believe God will be satisfied unless there are at least far more people saved than not.

Cities Of Refuge

When the famine came, as predicted in Pharoah’s dream, where did all the people of the earth go to get what they needed? They came to Egypt, they came to Joseph: there was no grain anywhere else. The whole world was in the grip of famine. And this is what is going to happen when we are ready, when the harvest of labourers is gathered into the cities of refuge. Those cities of refuge are the apostolic resource centres, regional centres which God is raising up around the world. They will have relationship with each other and responsibility for the people around them in their own area, to draw in that 20%.

I am not saying that is going to be just one church: it will be God’s people coming together in an area, in unity, in order to release this. So we need to be ready, to be prepared for that harvest of harvesters to come in. That is what God is doing with us here: He is calling us to be an equipping centre, to help train up all those people.

Prodigals return

Prodigals are going to return: that is one of the first signs of this, that we see the prodigals start to come back, people who have been hurt, disappointed, disillusioned, and who have walked away from God as a result. Angels are going to go out and draw them back in (in all this we are going to be working alongside angelic reapers). Family members, our children, and others, are going to be coming back.

We need to be ready for them, to train them and equip them in the supernatural, to do the works of Jesus and the greater works too: nothing else is going to be enough. All the nature miracles, walking on water, stilling storms, supernaturally multiplying resources, signs and wonders: all the things Jesus did, God intends us to be doing. And it is for all of us, not just for specialists, it is for every single individual Christian to be doing the works of Jesus. “Those who believe will do the works that I do” (John 14:12). That is what Jesus said: all we have to do is believe.

Soundtrack: Jake Hamilton – The Anthem (opens in new tab/window)

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22. He Disciplines Those He Loves

Mike Parsons –

God is making us ready for the conflict that is inevitable if we are to bring in the harvest He is looking for. In the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew chapter 13, you will see that tares have been deliberately sown by the enemy to cause confusion and dismay. We are sons of the kingdom, but the sons of the evil one are out there and they are determined to oppose and obstruct us all the way.

Sons of the evil one

I am not just meaning worldly people. Jesus explained about these ‘sons of the evil one’ in Matthew 13:36-43: “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”  And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear’.

We are the good seed: we are the sons of the kingdom, so we need to manifest the kingdom. We cannot afford any longer to live like worldly people. The sons of the evil one have been planted on purpose to come into direct conflict with us as we seek to carry out God’s purposes. Some of them are sitting there on the tectonic plates even as you read this. They are operating in the atmosphere of the earth, with power and authority that is rightfully ours, and there will be conflict as we confront them and take it back.

Stumbling blocks

Jesus says that the harvest is at the end of the age, and that angels are involved in reaping it with us. And He says that ‘The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom’ – not ‘out of the world’, you notice – ‘all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness’. The stumbling blocks are right there, in His kingdom, in His church, among God’s people.

This is serious. We could be a stumbling block. We could be opposing Him by doing it our own way. If so we risk Him saying, ‘Away from me, I never knew you’. There are people who have died and found themselves in a fiery place, which the Bible properly calls Hades (Greek) or Sheol (Hebrew), who thought they were going to heaven; I have seen them.. They were stumbling blocks. Stumbling blocks can be people; they can also be things in our lives that will cause us to trip up and fall. The dictionary defines a stumbling block as a ‘hindrance, offence, snare or trap’. The Greek word in the New Testament is ‘skandalon’, which gives us the word ‘scandal’ but actually means ‘the bait in a trap’. A ‘skandalon’ is something that leads us into a trap, it can be false faith, something that draws us into sin or error.

God wants to remove stumbling blocks from His kingdom; He wants to remove them from us personally. During this period we will see ministries that will fall if they are not working according to His Kingdom; churches too, however big or successful they appear to be. Jesus is looking for a church that is holy and pure in the Kingdom of His Father.

‘He who has ears, let him hear’. That is a phrase Jesus uses when He wants us to pay particular attention to what He is saying. It means He is saying something especially serious that we need to get hold of properly. God is issuing a challenge to us. He wants to remove the stumbling blocks, so He is sending His angels, and for now they are watching and waiting for us to say, ‘Yes, God, do it. We submit, we agree to you removing those things that hinder us’. But they are not going to watch and wait much longer. This is our window of opportunity to say, ‘I do not want to be a stumbling block that gets in the way of God. I can see there is a rock fall coming, one way or another (Matt 21:44). So deal with me, change me’.

Judgment begins

It is time for judgment to begin with the house of God (1 Pet 4:17). The sword comes to bring judgment, to divide right from wrong. God will tell us what is right and what is wrong today, if we will listen. He is looking for those whose hearts are willing. That is why He wants us to know Him intimately, because He loves us so much that He wants to make us ready for what is coming. He doesn’t want us ensnared or entrapped. He doesn’t want us to stay as we are because the way we are just will not do on the next level.

He disciplines those He loves – disciplines, not punishes – and that speaks of both correction and direction. Ours is not the best way: He wants to show us a better way. Hebrews 12:11 tells us that ‘no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness – in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living]’ (Amplified Bible). We need to display that righteousness, so that it is not just that He calls us righteous but that we outwork it and that it produces righteousness in us.

He wants us to be conformed to His will, conformed to the image of His Son; He wants us to be revealed as His sons. And as we will see next time, He wants a bride for His Son, radiant in beauty; for that to happen we have to face up to the fact that some preparation is needed.

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