Tag: Joshua Generation

97. Image-Bearers of the Heavenly

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

Purifying, refining fire

For some time now, the church has been at that point in God’s Prophetic Timetable which is characterised by the coming of fire, refining and purifying; the gathering and removing of stumbling blocks from the church and from our lives. It is not an easy time. Those stumbling blocks can be idols, they can be other things – and even people – that are hindering the flow of God’s kingdom. The gathering angels are here, to see if we are willing to open up our hearts and allow them to be removed from our lives. We can co-operate, or not: but it will be less painful if we do.

Raising up of a Joshua Generation

This time is also characterised by the raising up of a Joshua Generation, a people of a different spirit, a generation of people who will inherit the land and bring another generation in with them. Joshua and Caleb brought a whole new generation into a physical, geographical land, and also into a new spiritual land. We have spent some time looking at 40 Characteristics of the Joshua Generation on this blog, and it is important for us to know if we are called to be part of that generation.

That is where we are now. But we know that what God is calling us to do is to move forward. Refining, purifying, coming into the furnace of God’s Presence: that is all preparation for moving on with God.

Refiner’s fire

“And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant .. behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness (Mal 3:1-3).

God wants to prepare us, that we may be the offering of the Lord. A refiner’s fire gets pretty hot: the melting point of gold is around 1064°C (1945°F). As the heat is maintained, the impurities come to the surface and can be scooped off. If you are experiencing this, you will know exactly what we are talking about – when something comes to the surface in your life, you have a choice: you can allow God to remove it, or you can just push it all back under again. The trouble is, until you allow God to remove it, it will just keep on coming back to the surface. And the very worst thing you can do, if you want to fulfil your destiny in God, is get out of the fire.

When gold is really pure, the surface is like a mirror. It gives an absolutely perfect reflection. And God wants us to reflect Him, so that others see Him in us. But during that process we need to know that God is with us in it.

We open our door to Him, He opens His door to us

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20).

In other words, He is offering us an intimate relationship with Him in which He will reveal Himself to us and we will be close to Him. And a few verses later:

After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, He said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”  Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne (Rev 4:1).

As we surrender our lives to God; as we open up our lives to the lordship of Jesus (and submit to the process of refining), He opens up the door into the heavenly realms for us to engage and ‘Come up here’. Some people have been translated physically, I know, but for most of us it will be a spiritual experience, and that is what we have been looking at on this blog in recent posts.

With practice we can learn to turn into that realm of heaven, because it is ‘at hand’ – or as close to us as if we put our hand in front of our face. We step in, and we step out of the heavenly realms. When we step back out, we bring with us what is there and manifest it here. That is what we understand by Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:10). Jesus Himself brought the kingdom, and the will of God, as it is in heaven, to the earth – and He intends his disciples to do the same. If we are to bring heaven to earth, we have to access heaven – and the door is open.

Bear the image of the heavenly

As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor 15:48-49).

Just as we were born in an earthly body, now we have been born again and our spirit is now active and alive to God. So we will now bear the image of the heavenly. We need to be bearing the image of the things that are going on in the heavenlies, and outworking them here on the earth. God is opening up the door for us to engage with the heavenly realms, so that we can both see and reflect what is going on.

Through the church… in the heavenly places

…and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:9-11).

There is so much more to God than we can even imagine. He is infinite and eternal. And there is so much that He is revealing today which has not been revealed before. He is opening the realms of heaven so that His people can see. That manifold, multi-faceted, wisdom of God is to be made known through the church – through us – to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

That kingdom which is in darkness – it, too, is that close to us. We are not to draw from it, but we are to manifest the manifold wisdom and authority of God to its rulers and authorities in heavenly places. This was always His intention:

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (v11).

Adam was to have enjoyed free access to the heavenly realms, but he chose a different path. In Christ, that access is now restored to us.

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95. Manifestation of the Sons of God

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott

Heavenly places

In this series of posts we are considering the heavenly places. We have seen that there are indeed different places or realms in the heavens, and that we can access them even while we are living on the earth, just as Jesus did.

And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude v6).

This is talking about the fallen watcher angels who left their proper place, and came to the earth to produce the Nephilim. Those 200 watcher angels are now bound, in a place called Tartarus. I have seen them there, and they are bound because of what they did.

In quoting Bible verses, what I am trying to show you is that all these different places in the heavenlies have a scriptural background. Sometimes you have to look closely at familiar scriptures to see that maybe they have more to say than we have seen before. So we saw last time that there is a trophy room of Satan which we can plunder, and here there is a domain where angels are bound.

Seven

Now, seven is an important number in scripture. There were seven days of creation, there are seven systems of government. Seven is always the perfect number, the number of completion, the number of God. We have seen that there are seven realms, three into the heavens, three into the earth, and the seventh is the atmosphere of the earth in which there are principalities, powers and rulers.

But the very first realm of government for us has to be in our own life. To rule there we must bring spirit, soul and body back into proper order. We are a house of the Lord, and we rule with Him from a place of our spirit, not our soul, not our body, bringing it back into wholeness and completeness. That is why we need to access our own garden, soaking room, bridal chamber and the dance floor – the four chambers of our heart – to actually deal with things in our own life. There are areas of government: in us, and through us, and in the heavenly realms.

King of kings and Lord of lords

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Tim 6:15).

These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful (Rev 17:14).

Jesus is described as the King of kings and Lord of lords in these two passages. So there are kings of whom He is King, and lords of whom He is Lord. The second passage tells us that those who are with Him are called, chosen and faithful. We are the called, we are the chosen, we are the faithful: we are the kings, and we are the lords.

We need to take our place as lords and kings who rule in the heavenly realm. The warfare is still going on, but we are followers of Jesus, and we will triumph over the works of the enemy and come into victory and dominion.

God’s people have never accessed the heavenly realms properly, or consistently, and so the enemy has had free rein to do what he likes. We are now starting to do so, and the enemy is losing ground as God causes us to overcome and take back dominion.

Rule as Lords

So the heavenly realm called ‘the kingdom of God’ is where lords rule. But in order to rule, we have to dispossess the giants because they occupy the place of our authority. So we have to do just as Caleb did when he went into the Promised Land, into the hill country that was to be his possession, and drove out the sons of Anak. We have to do as David did to Goliath – after he hit him in the head with a stone from his sling, he cut his head off (and that is what caused the enemy army to turn and flee – there was no doubt that their champion had been defeated).

This all sounds a bit gory, I know, but we have to cut their heads off, and we have to split them open so that all the stuff inside them spills out, everything they have robbed from us and that they have consumed. Then we can take it and eat it and place it within us. It was always intended for us, and we are going to need it if we are going to start occupying a place of authority and power.

It is not difficult for us to kill a giant once we know who we are, when we know what authority we have, what belongs to us, and what mandates we hold. We need to know what we are called to, and then we can fulfil that calling. Confident in our identity as sons of God, and knowing what is on the scroll that is written about us, we can enter into our destiny. We cannot take someone else’s scroll, or operate on someone else’s mandate, or take someone else’s throne – it doesn’t belong to us. We need to lay hold of what is our own destiny in God, and then we can go for it.

Rule as Kings

The ‘kingdom of heaven’ heavenly realm is where kings rule, and that is also where the dragons are. They operate in a higher level of authority, and they have more stuff in them. Again, in the realm of the spirit we can go and kill dragons, split open their belly and recover everything that should be ours. I have done that, and so have others here at Freedom. The first time, even though it didn’t seem to take long, afterwards I was really tired! So I knew that I had to get stronger, to build up some more spiritual muscle, and more stamina.

Stand as Sons

And then there is the heavenly realm called simply ‘heaven’, where sons rule. We have thrones there, and it is where we are seated with Christ. When we begin to occupy that place, God starts to cause us to be manifest as sons on the earth – and I’m really looking forward to that. That’s when we start getting transfigured, when we start demonstrating the manifest presence of God in our lives. That’s when things get really exciting.

Most of what is in these realms is to do with manifesting the authority of the kingdom. There isn’t much on our scrolls that is to do with casting out demons, healing the sick, or even doing all kinds of miracles. That is just basic stuff really, that any Christian ought to be able to do. Our scrolls are mandating each of us to do particular things in the realms of heaven, they confer on us particular responsibility for the administration of the realms of heaven.

In the future, we are going to rule galaxies: that is our destiny. If you read in the book of Daniel, you can see how it refers to different levels of heavenly authority. In the same way, when Jesus talked about good and faithful servants who will rule over ten cities, He was talking about much wider dimensions than what we might previously have understood by ‘cities’. Every galaxy has a black hole in it that is just waiting for the manifestation of the light of the sons of God to go and occupy it.

Joshua generation, this is what we are called to: to walk in the way of the Lord, to perform His service, to govern His house, to take charge of the courts, and to start acting as – and standing in the place of – sons (Zech 3:6-7).

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94. The Enemy is Disarmed and Vulnerable

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott – 

Give me the hill country

When the Israelites finally crossed the Jordan under Joshua and began to occupy the land God had given them, Caleb said to him,

“Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out as the Lord has spoken” (Joshua 14:12).

Last time we were considering mountains, and what they represent in scripture. Here again, the hill country speaks of a higher realm. Caleb is talking about moving into that higher authority that God had promised him, that Moses had promised him. He was coming into the Promised Land, and symbolically this represents places of spiritual authority.  There were giants living there in those places of authority, in fortified cities, which speak of rulership. For Caleb and Joshua, the Promised Land was not only a physical, geographical area, but also a matter of spiritual authority to be outworked in the natural.

The Anakim (or sons of Anak) who we see here are part of the Nephilim. They stand in opposition to the purposes of God, and need to be driven out of the place of authority they occupy.

There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight (Numbers 13:33).

Giants in heavenly places

The Nephilim were giants (Gen 6:4), the result of fallen angels overshadowing human women and causing genetic mutation of DNA. So Greek and Roman mythical figures such as Hercules are most likely based on stories of Nephilim before the flood. Those Nephilim did not have human spirits, so when they died (as they did in the flood) their spirits became the giants that rule in the heavenly realms. In the same way, the dinosaurs were a previous product of Satan’s attempts to rule on the earth through creatures bearing his own reptilian DNA. And when they died, they became the dragons that rule in the heavenly realms.

In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea (Isa 27:1).

That is a picture of Satan’s seed, who lives in the sea (which here represents the earth). Leviathan, dragons, these are demonic beings who were formed by Satan after his own image.

And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Rev 12:9).

So there are fallen angels too, a third of the company of heaven, who are part of this pattern of rebellion and rule.

We have the authority now

… in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2).

That scripture speaks of the three levels of the atmosphere of the earth. It speaks of Satan as the prince of the power of the air, having authority in that realm.

The key word though is ‘formerly’. It means that he used to, but he does not any more. Satan has no authority now, except over those who are ‘sons of disobedience’. In contrast, we can identify ourselves as ‘sons of obedience’, so we are not subject to Satan as the prince of the power of the air; in fact it is we who now have the authority in that realm.

Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph 6:11-12).

There are heavenly places from which these spiritual forces exert authority over this realm, and we need to deal with them. Our struggle is not with people on earth: we should be ministering to people on earth and setting them free from the influence of the things that are going on in the heavens. To do that effectively, we need to have authority in the heavens to overcome the spiritual forces of wickedness which are messing up people’s lives. We can go there and obtain that authority, delegated to us by God.

God’s eternal purpose

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-9).

All those things are real, but none of them can separate us from the purposes of God.

… so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. (Eph 3:10-12).

We have to bring God’s wisdom, the authority of His kingdom, to those realms. That is our mandate as God’s people. And we can have confident access to those heavenly places through faith in Him.

Created by Him, and for Him

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him (Col 1:16).

So all these realms were created by Jesus, but they were created for Him, not for the forces that currently occupy them. As we take them back, we can surrender them to Him, and bring them under His lordship and rule.

C.S. Lewis saw these things, and there are many analogies to them in the Narnia books, once you begin to see them.

The enemy is disarmed and vulnerable

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Col 2:15 NIV).

This is a great thing for us. At the cross, Jesus has disarmed those principalities and powers. Our role is to go and take back the places of authority from which they have been operating. They are vulnerable now, so we can go and deal with them.

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armour on which he had relied and distributes his plunder (Luke 11 21-22). Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house (Matt 12:29).

Satan was the strong man in these stories told by Jesus, and he had possessions. Because they were guarded, they were undisturbed. Jesus is stronger than Satan, and overpowered him. He took away all his armour, all his weapons, all that he relied on to defend what he had. So now Jesus can distribute his plunder.

Plunder Satan’s trophy room

The trophy room of Satan is found under the earth, and is the place where all that he has robbed from the church is stored up. Blessings, authority, power, scrolls, mandates, weapons, provision – and more besides! It’s all there. It is guarded, but it is within our power to overcome. We can take back what has been robbed from us in generations past.

We used to sing a song: ‘I went to the enemy’s camp, and I took back what he stole from me’. There are things that ought to be ours which can be restored to us, wells that have been blocked up that can be unblocked. But only if we recognise that we are stronger: only if we are ruling in the heavenly realms, in authority and power.

When we are, then we can go and take it all back.

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91. The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

In this ‘Kingdom Realms’ series we have begun to understand that God intends us to have access to heaven, right now. But to do so there are certain steps we must follow. He said to Joshua, the High Priest:

If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My laws, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here’ (Zech 3:7).

The earth is filled with his glory

Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne.

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isa 6:1-3).

So the Lord sits on His throne, on top of His mountain. And the structure of it is like the temple. There are seraphim who stand above Him (we will look at the angelic realms in more detail in a later post). They are prophesying the revelation they are receiving: that the earth is to be full of God’s glory. And God has chosen the church, He has chosen us, to display the fullness of His glory on the earth.

The Temple

The temple consists of the Outer and Inner Courts, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The veils (or matrices) between the different heavenly dimensions are the way, the truth, and the life.

In the Outer Courts there is darkness. If we don’t want to spend eternity there, we must seek to fulfil our purpose and our call. This is where we will find those who are not faithful to fulfil what is written on their scroll and the destiny they have been given in God.

We have looked at that before: those such as the five foolish virgins, and those who say ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ to whom Jesus says ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you’; they will be thrown out into the outer darkness. It is not the place some think of as ‘hell‘ – how could a place of fire be dark?

The Way, the Truth and the Life

When Jesus described Himself as ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’, He was referring to the pattern of the heavenly and earthly tabernacle, and specifically to the doors or veils between the various areas or dimensions. To those who were listening to Him it was perfectly clear what He was talking about, because they were familiar with those areas of the temple. He was saying that if we follow Him, we can enter in to the holiest place, and find abundance of life. Of course, if we approach this saying with a Greek mindset rather than a Hebrew one, the meaning will be completely lost on us.

There is a process to this, a progression, a series of protocols that God has prepared for us to enable us to enter in.

Everlasting Doors

Let’s look at this diagram again.

Most of the enemy activity that we are experiencing and trying to deal with right now is going on in the atmosphere of the earth. That is where the spiritual hosts of wickedness, the rulers in darkness, and powers are functioning in principalities (or spheres of geographical areas).

The pattern that is in heaven is expressed in us. We are made in the image of God. We are body, soul and spirit. And in us we also have a door into the realms of the heavens, which we can open and experience the kingdom of God in us.

In the same way, there are also Everlasting Doors on the boundary between the atmosphere of the earth and the heavens. We read about them in verses 7 and 9 of Psalm 24. Those doors are ruled by things we need to dispossess. I have seen God open some of these doors, often as a result of prayer and of intercession. When they are opened, revival starts to take place. God’s Presence and His glory become accessible in this earthly realm.

Mountains and thrones

Click the image for a larger, easier to read version (opens in new tab or window).

In the realm of the Kingdom of Earth is where we ‘walk in His ways’ (Zech 3:6-7). In the Kingdom of  God is where we ‘keep His laws’, and where we are to rule as lords. In the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven is where we ‘rule His house’.

There are mountains and thrones in each of those realms, on which God intends us to rule. For example, in the Kingdom of God, we at Freedom have seven mountains as a church, and seven scrolls attached to those mountains. Other churches will have their mountains and scrolls too.

Each of us as individuals also have our own mountains, our own places of rule. These are according to our destiny, our call and our gift, and we are to occupy them as lords. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords: we are the lords and kings that He is Lord and King of. As lords and kings, we raise people up in discipleship to themselves become lords and kings.

The seven spirits of God stand before the throne in the realm of Heaven. They are not God, they are creatures, and they are there as tutors to bring us to revelation of who God is and of His ways. We need to engage them and learn from them if we are to be revealed as the sons of God.

This is another view of the realms of heaven, based on Ian Clayton‘s ‘menorah’ diagrams.

You can see how these realms of authority in the heavens are arranged in the same way as the structure of the temple: Outer Courts, Inner Courts, Holy Place, Holy of Holies. There are protocols we can follow which will help us to access each of these, as we will need to in order to fulfil our destiny. We each need to be able to rule as a lord, and a king, and to stand as a son.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God (Rom 8:19).

And we will be manifested as sons on the earth, just as God always intended.

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SoundTrack: The Way (New Horizon) – Housefires (feat. Pat Barrett) via YouTube

85. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#36-40)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

36. The Joshua Generation will bring revelation that wherever the next generation place their feet they will possess.

That possession includes not only this world but also the heavenlies. Both are their inheritance and destiny.

So Moses swore on that day, saying, “Surely the land on which your foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God fully”(Joshua 14:9).

Now as we know, God did not intend that inheritance just to be a piece of land, but the whole world. ‘For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world…’ (Romans 4:13). And Jesus said that all authority had been given to Him both in the heavens in the earth (Matt 28:18-20).

The whole of creation groans as it waits for the sons of God to be revealed. When you take your place as sons in the heavenly realms, you are beginning to step up into your inheritance, which is the whole creation. And you will find that you can go anywhere in creation, you will see the galaxies – and actually we are supposed to create too. We are supposed to do the works that Jesus did. Who created the stars, the galaxies? Jesus did. You can go and do the same, and you will. Yes, in eternity, but you can actually go and do it now, if you access some of these realms and especially the courts.

The courts of heaven issue papers which confer upon you the authority to act, here on earth. That is sometimes the reason we have been unable to do things we know we ought to have been able to do: we have neglected to go to the courts of heaven to get the necessary authority.

Yes, that was because we didn’t know we were supposed to. We do now.

37. The Joshua Generation will encourage a passion to love God, and walk in His ways, and serve Him will all our hearts and souls.

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Joshua 22: 5).

So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the LORD your God (Josh 23:11)

God hates mixture and lukewarmness – and so will we. It will take diligence, and self-discipline, and perseverance, but the Joshua generation will become so focused on walking in His ways and serving Him wholeheartedly that it will set us apart and cause others to take notice. The love of God will become a passion for us: it will burn in our hearts; and it will be unthinkable for us to offer Him anything less than complete obedience and dedication. Joshua the High Priest was promised access to heavenly realms if he would walk in God’s ways and perform Gods laws: we know the same offer is open to us. Once we have tasted of that, how could we turn away?

38. The Joshua Generation will warn the next generation about the dangers of compromise and going backwards.

There is a real danger if you see all this and choose to walk away from it. Ian Clayton has talked about how the spirit of antichrist is those who walked with the church and then turned away to start sowing false teaching. Once we get here, there is no going back.

For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you (Joshua 23:12-13).

39. The Joshua Generation will charge the next generation to never stop waging war.

The fight goes on until the Kingdom of God fills the earth, until the glory of God fills the earth, and Jesus returns. Meanwhile, we cannot let up, we cannot compromise, we cannot stop fighting, we cannot let down our guard; and neither can the generation that follows us.

Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the LORD, saying, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” (Judges 1:1).

They continued to enquire of the Lord. They did not say, ‘Now that Joshua has gone, we can do our own thing’. The war was still ongoing, even though we have read that Joshua gave them the whole land (Joshua 11:23). The Canaanites were still out there in the rest of the world, and they were still enemies of Israel, and of God. Israel were heirs of the world, intended to be a blessing to it. They were supposed to take that blessing out into the whole world. Obviously, they didn’t do that. They stopped short, even though God had said “but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Num 14:21).

Yet that is still God’s plan – as Isaiah says:

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 mountain, the place of authority; the house of the Lord – these are all in the heavenly realms. Then it is worked out in this realm, as all the hills – all the other earthly authorities – start streaming to the church. Because we are living in the fullness of our sonship, because we start to radiate the goodness of God, because we start to manifest light, and live in creative light, not just created light. There is some awesome stuff coming, but we need to be prepared.

There will be no end to the increase of His government and peace, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this (Isa 9:7).

Justice and righteousness are the foundations of the throne of heaven, foundations of the throne of the kingdom. God is going to accomplish this: He will have His way.

40. The Joshua Generation will set a clear choice before the next generation.

They can choose the past, or they can choose to walk in their future destiny.

There is so much that we already have, that we already know and enjoy, and it is good. People can choose to stick with that – but if they do, they will miss God’s best. We don’t want to take possession of what God has given us, and then settle. Our influence has to increase and grow, because it is the nature of God that He wants to fill the earth with His glory.

Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:14-15).

We are coming to a close now, not just of these posts about the Joshua Generation, but of the whole 15-month series on the Prophetic Timetable. Next time we will begin something new, but for now I want to leave you with this: Joshua was 110 years old before he died, having fulfilled his destiny. There is time for all of us who are called to this purpose to raise up and release the next harvesting generation. Joshua did it: God wants us to do it.

Whether it is to be that Joshua generation who take our inheritance and bring others in, or whether it is to be part of the next generation, the Jesus generation, who will see Him return: God wants to reveal to us our destiny, and to see us fulfil it.

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84. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#31-35)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

We are approaching the end of this series looking at the generation who will possess all that God has promised, and be forerunners who inspire others to do the same.

31. The Joshua generation will be ruthless in the pursuit and eradication of the enemy.

Again, we are not talking about fighting against flesh and blood, but that we must not compromise in dealing with the spiritual forces of wickedness. We have to be ruthless. No compromise. We can’t live alongside them; we can’t share thrones with them; we have to destroy them.

Joshua captured all the cities of these kings, and all their kings, and he struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them; just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded… For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the LORD had commanded Moses (Joshua 11:12, 20).

This is a picture of something they did in the natural realm and we must do in the spiritual realm. When we do, it gives us authority in this realm: authority to rule.

32. The Joshua generation will ensure that nothing God commands will be unfinished.

We need to be faithful in carrying out God’s commands, and carrying them out fully. We need to persevere.

Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses (Joshua 11:15).

We need to fulfil the word of God. If we are to take the commands of God, the counsels of God, and fulfil them, then we must know them. And knowing them involves much more than head knowledge. We need to hear the word God speaks to us, go into heaven with it, get revelation on it, and bring it back down here.

33. The Joshua generation will bring the next generation into their full inheritance and rest.

So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land had rest from war (Joshua 11:23).

He took everything that was promised: the whole of the land. Now that should have been the starting point for them to go into the rest of the world, and bless the whole world. Remember, Abraham was given the whole world as his inheritance, not just a tiny piece of land in the Middle East. They were supposed to go from that place to fill the earth: they never did it. So the kingdom was taken away from them and given to a people who will. Jesus said He had been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and that his followers were to go and disciple the nations. That is the same authority in heaven and on earth: it is authority granted in heaven to be outworked on earth.

This scripture says they had rest. In one of my face-to-face encounters with Jesus, he took me and showed me the seat of rest: what it is to come from a position of rest. He taught me from Matthew 11 and from Hebrews 4. Everything we do must come from rest. From peace, from wholeness, not striving or struggling; not being weary and heavy-laden in our own strength. Everything needs to come out of rest; then we are doing things in the strength of God.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:29).

The word translated ‘gentle’ here is the word for a stallion under complete control, a wild stallion which has been broken and has a bit in its mouth, so that whoever rides it is able to control it. That is like us, knowing that we are a wild stallion, empowered with authority, but totally submitted like Jesus was to the Father: ‘I only do the will of Him who sent Me’ (see John 4:34 and 6:38).

False humility is pride in disguise, saying that I’m no good, that I have nothing to offer. True humility lies in saying, ‘I am a son of God, seated in heavenly places. I have authority and power. And I choose to surrender that authority and power only to do what I see the Father doing.’

In complete surrender you can come from a place of rest.

34. The Joshua generation will have supernatural strength for war.

They will be like Caleb, who at 85 years of age was still going in and out to fight.

So, let’s understand, none of all this is about age: it is about who we are and what we are in the spirit. No matter what our physical age is, in the spirit we can have rulership and strength to overcome.

I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the LORD will be with me, and I will drive them out as the LORD has spoken (Joshua 14:11-12).

Caleb and Joshua, as we saw in characteristic #7, had a different spirit on them. They had an attitude. They were going to rule. They came with authority and power.

Let me ask you this: when Caleb talked about going out and coming in, where do you think he was going out and coming in from? It was the heavenly realms, because that is where his strength for war came from. If you go up and down, you will be able to go to and fro, as we have seen before.

One of the things I really like about Caleb is where he went when he did go out to war: to the mountains! ‘Give me this hill country’. Because in the hills, in the mountains, (in the place of authority, as we now understand) was where the giants were. He wasn’t going to settle for the easy places, where there was no-one much to conquer.

35. The Joshua generation will be giant killers, forerunners for the next generation.

Osmar_Schindler_David_und_Goliath

I have a sword, which enables me to destroy and cut the heads off giants. All of us need to be giant-slayers. You all have giants who are occupying your thrones in the heavenly realms – that is, unless you have already been there and dispossessed them. You have to dispossess the enemy in order to possess your inheritance. In the heavenly realms is where you do it, and then you outwork your inheritance here.

We have to do that in our role as forerunners. We have to take our place of authority. We can’t pass this on as theory: it has to come out of our experience if we are to lead others into it.

I can only talk about giant-killing like this now because I have been and killed one. I couldn’t talk about it before. I am not going to talk to you about theory, I am only going to talk to you about things I have done, and about places I have been, so that you can go there too. And if you go to places I haven’t been, and do things I haven’t done, then you can testify to those so that I can get to go there and do them too. That is how testimony works: it opens up my experiences for you, and yours for me; ours for others, and theirs for us. And so we overcome by the word of our testimony.

Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak (Joshua 15:14).

There are 9 races of giants, which arose from the activity of fallen angels who did not keep their proper place, as we read in Jude. Nephilim did not have human spirits, so when they died they went into the heavenly realms, where they occupied mountains and thrones.

If we are to take our place of authority, we need to kill the giants. And if we are to fully receive our inheritance we will need to kill dragons as well, because if you go into the heavenly realms you are going to come across them too. I know maybe all this is a bit ‘out there’ for you, but I have seen it, and so I can tell you about it. It really is up to you what you do with it – I would suggest you go to God yourself and ask Him to show you.

Dragons are another result of Satan’s attempts to manipulate DNA.

In the garden, Satan overshadowed Eve. That was what the fruit was all about: it wasn’t like eating an apple off a tree; it was an overshadowing where he mixed DNA. Cain and Abel were twins, but one of them had Satan as his father. That is why Cain killed Abel, to stop the line of Adam going forward, so that the reptilian line could fill the earth.

DNA is important, because only DNA could occupy the realms of heaven. Only DNA could inherit. So Satan needed DNA – he had tried to manipulate it in the first creation, where his pollution of reptilian seed outworked in the dinosaurs. When those dinosaurs died, their spirits became dragons, in the heavenly realms.

Dragons occupy our inheritance. When we cut off their head, let’s make sure we cut off their tail, split them open and get out everything that is in their belly: our scrolls, and all that God intended for us to have. That is what they do: they stop the provision and the inheritance of God coming through to us.

We need to kill the giants to take our place of authority; and we need to kill the dragons to receive our inheritance.

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83. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#26-30)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Joshua led the children of Israel into their inheritance. If we want to do the same, what kind of people should we be?

26. The Joshua generation will start to be known and get public attention.

Before the revival we experienced here in 2011, virtually no-one outside of North Devon knew we even existed. Suddenly, because of what God began to do here, all kinds of people noticed us, from all over the country, and began to look to build relationship with us.

And some of the other things which have happened since – not least Ian Clayton coming here, and then mentioning us wherever he went – have made us known in countries all over the world. This blog gets hits from the UK and Europe, but also from Africa, America, Australia, Russia and the Far East. Hundreds worldwide have joined our Engaging God programme, and thousands subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Who would have expected that? It certainly was not of our own devising. God has a reason for it. He wants us to help other people come into the revelation we have received, and He wants us to equip and enable them to enter into their own inheritance.

So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land (Joshua 6:27).

Now, ultimately none of this is really about our fame – it is about God’s fame. We are here to make God known in all the earth. But we will have public recognition along the way, and that will bring public battles. Those battles will happen because what we are bringing will cause a reaction both in the spiritual realm and in this one.

All sorts of criticism and all sorts of accusations will be made because of what we are doing. A lot of people do not understand, yet. They will say we are doing things by New Age or occult power. They said that about Jesus, too, and we need to be ready for it. We need to be confident in our identity and in the revelation God has given us. We will be in the public eye, one way or another. So we have to make sure there is absolutely no pride in what we do. We need to be humble. It is about what God is doing, not about what we are doing. It is all about Him, but he uses us. Therefore we must rule our house, and deal with anything of sin or iniquity in us, deal with any stumbling blocks in our own lives.

If we have a need for affirmation or recognition from men, we are going to have to deal with that, because it is affirmation from God that we really need. And if we do receive affirmation and recognition from people, let us receive it with thanks, but then go and trade with it on the trading floors of heaven. Go and cast your crowns before Him.

27. The Joshua generation will take a radical stand against sin.

Sin is going to get exposed. It is already happening, always has. But the whole angelic realm are going to become active in exposing sin.

“Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, “There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.”’ … It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel” (Joshua 7:13, 15).

We cannot have things in our midst which stop us standing in victory against the enemy. We need to see those things removed. That is part of the function of those gathering angels, who are removing stumbling blocks from among us. Purification, refining: the heat of God’s furnace is being turned up, in order to bring all the impurities in the gold to the surface. Then, when they are skimmed off, the surface of gold is an absolute mirror which is reflecting the glory of God. That is what our lives are there to do: to reflect the glory of God – to reflect what is in heaven – on earth.

We are coming into a time when the story of Ananias and Sapphira is going to become very important to understand. They lied to the Holy Spirit and dropped down dead. When we start to enter into these things which God is revealing, suddenly the levels of responsibility go up. And with more responsibility, certainly there is more authority and power – but the level of purity and holiness required to operate in that dimension also is greatly increased.

I am responsible to enter into the fire of God myself. And I am putting it out there for you too, but it is up to you what you do with it. I have discharged my responsibility, you must decide how you will respond. Are you going to enter the fire? Either way, the consequences are yours.

28 The Joshua generation will be careful to always seek counsel from God before making decisions.

It is dangerous for us to do things here on earth (going to and fro) without first having been in heaven. We must not do it.

So the men of Israel took some of their provisions, and did not ask for the counsel of the LORD. Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them (Joshua 9:14-15).

They made a covenant with a people who tricked them, who pretended not to be inhabitants of the land, but to have come from a long way off. And Joshua did not lift up his eyes into the heavens to see. This covenant with the Gibeonites was a problem for Israel for generations to come. They made a covenant with the enemy, because they did not seek God first.

We must not make decisions based on what looks right. Looks can be deceiving. We cannot trust our natural eyes: we need to see in the realms of the spirit if we are to make right decisions. Getting our strategy direct from heaven is the only course that will keep us safe.

29. The Joshua generation will put the enemy under their feet.

The enemy here is not people. We do not put people under our feet. We do not tread all over people. We do not tread people down. We honour and respect people. We bring people from captivity into freedom. That means we do cast out demons, we do demolish strongholds, we deal with a spiritual reality which is beyond what we see in the natural. We need to see the giants defeated, and the dragons, and all the other principalities and powers and rulers in those dark realms. So we have to put the enemy under our feet.

In this passage, the kings represent those rulers in the heavenly realms:

When they brought these kings out to Joshua, Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, “Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So they came near and put their feet on their necks. Joshua then said to them, “Do not fear or be dismayed! Be strong and courageous, for thus the LORD will do to all your enemies with whom you fight” (Joshua 10:24-25).

Through the power and victory of the cross, Jesus made a public spectacle of all the demonic realms, and they are no longer in authority. We have authority over them. We may not yet have taken proper hold of that authority, but we are beginning to do so.

We have to rule over them, and put the rulers in those realms under our feet.

30. The Joshua generation will operate in great signs and wonders.

Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,  “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar?  (Joshua 10:12-13a).

A supernatural event: time stood still. It gave them opportunity to defeat their enemy.

(The book of Jashar mentioned here, by the way, was excluded from the canon of scripture by the Nicene Council, operating under the authority of the Emperor Constantine. He did not want any of this stuff to be known, because he did not want ordinary believers to know they could rule. He wanted to rule, through the pastors in the church whom he paid; and that gave rise to the institutional structure that we still have to see dismantled today. Get the CD, as Ian Clayton says – he did a whole session on that. They tried and failed to get 1 and 2 Peter thrown out too, and the book of Jude (which says some very interesting things you don’t find elsewhere in scripture). Those books talk about entering these realms, about operating in authority and power in the heavenlies. But there are a whole lot of books that used to be regarded as scripture which did not make it into our canon because the enemy did not want them there).

And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel (Joshua 10:13b-14).

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82. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#21-25)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

The veil is open: in the spirit we can walk through that veil which is Jesus’ flesh, into the heavenly realms. So we can live there. There is a whole dimension here that we need to enter into. The Promised Land is not just about here on earth, it is about bringing heaven to earth. As we saw last time, if we are to be truly effective we have to learn to rule in the heavens and then bring that authority to bear in this realm. Today we will return to looking into the characteristics of the Joshua Generation again, but as we do, I want to encourage you to look at them from that perspective.

Another Joshua

First, though, let me mention another Joshua for a moment, to help us grasp all this. This is a much later Joshua, who was the High Priest, being called to enter the heavenly realms.

‘And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My laws, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here’”’(Zech 3:6).

‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My laws’: those are the things we do here, in this realm. We can read Psalm 119:1-40 to understand more about His ways: His ordinances, His character, His nature. It establishes precedent when we fulfil the ways of God. Then it talks about performing His laws: if we follow the principles of the kingdom, here in the earthly realms, we will see manifestation of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

‘Then you will also govern my house’: ruling the house is something to be done in the heavenly realms. The house of God is a dimension of the realms of heaven. And we are also a house, a dwelling place, for God.

‘You will also have charge of my courts’: the courts of heaven are where God administers justice, and the jurisdiction of God’s kingdom, manifested in the heavens, can be outworked here on earth.

‘And I will grant you free access among these who are standing here’: standing before the throne, in heaven. The High Priest had access to come into the very presence of God. If we are able to govern the house, and take charge of the courts, we will have access to stand in the presence of God. In His personal presence, not just His Presence. It is the difference between smoke and fire. Smoke tells you there is a fire. The Presence of God that we experience here in worship is like the smoke. But beyond that there is his Person, which is the fire. This passage in Zechariah is describing protocols which we must go through in order to be able to stand in the fire.

Let’s get back now to our original Joshua:

21 The Joshua generation will encourage people to hear the word of God directly.

Joshua 3:9 Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, “Come here, and hear the words of the LORD your God.”

It is important for us as individuals to come and hear the words of God for ourselves, and to train up others to do so for themselves too. We need to come before the throne, to come into the courts, to rule the house. My intention in doing so myself, and teaching it to you, is that I bring you into it.

Entering into the realms of heaven is for all of us. Separate to that, I have a role which is to bring signs and wonders and miracles and healing. I am going to pursue that for myself. But you, too, need to find out what is written on your scroll, and pursue that for yourselves. We each need to fulfil the scroll of our destiny (which we can find in the heavenly realms), read it, eat it, get it inside us, into our heart, and start outworking it.

22 The Joshua generation will be honoured and respected by the next generation.

There is going to be a culture of honour. Jesus said, “if you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you will receive a prophet’s reward” (Matt 10:41). We have to receive people in their gift and calling in order to receive the reward in our own lives. We want to honour one another and receive one another, because every single one of us have gifts and calls, and we must look to help one another fulfil those and work them out.

On that day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; so that they revered him, just as they had revered Moses all the days of his life (Joshua 4:14).

23 The Joshua generation will free the next generation from the reproach and effects of the past generations, into new revelation of past activities.

‘Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho’ (Joshua 5:8-10).

There are things we have done, and things that we have within God’s kingdom and within the church, in which we have operated up to the level of revelation we previously had. But now everything is moving up to a higher level.

Here they celebrated the Passover and re-instituted circumcision, which they did not do in the wilderness. They came to consecrate themselves to God; the reproach of the past was wiped away, the stumbling-blocks were removed, the purifying and refining was taking place. When we come into new revelation, even in the things that we have done already we will begin to appreciate new levels of meaning as God opens them up to us in their fullness.

24 The Joshua generation will operate with the angelic realm.

This is something which causes Christians a lot of needless problems and argument. ‘Why do we need angels when we have the Holy Spirit?’ – you know the kind of thing. Angels and the Holy Spirit are completely different. Angels have a completely different purpose and function. And in fact all angels have their own particular functions.

For example, one night when Ian Clayton was here, he dropped frankincense on the floor and the aroma of it filled the room. It took me into the realms of heaven and I saw a canopy, and big angels being released from the throne. They had huge wings, and razor-sharp feathers which I could tell they were going to use as weapons. I knew instinctively who they were: they were the hunter angels. They go out to bring in a harvest. Their weapons are about cutting blindness off people’s eyes, which would prevent them from seeing and responding to the truth. And God is releasing them right now. They are different from the gathering angels, and the watcher angels, and other angels that we see. You notice, we even describe them by their function.

Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the LORD’S host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so (Joshua 5:13-15).

When you read that he ‘lifted up his eyes’, it means he was looking into the heavens, and seeing into another realm, another dimension. As you read the scriptures again, you will see examples of this in other places too, such as when Abraham ‘lifted up his eyes and looked’ and saw the three men standing opposite his tent (Gen 18:2). And in this passage, the captain of the host goes on to give Joshua strategy that will help him be victorious and successful. When we praise God, that high praise releases some of these angels. Read Psalm 149 and you will see more about that, how we execute judgments that are written, how we execute vengeance upon the enemy.

We are not fighting against flesh and blood. Earthly strategy just won’t cut it.

25 The Joshua generation will hear God’s strategy for warfare.

The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead” (Joshua 6:2-5).

When God said, “See”, how could Joshua see that? It hadn’t happened yet. The answer is that God was showing him in the realms of heaven what would happen. It is just like when Jesus said He did the things He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). In what realm did He see the Father doing them? The Holy Spirit will disclose things which are to come, before they actually happen, because we see – and can step into – a different realm.

Again, when this passage talks about a city with its king and its warriors, we can understand that solely in the natural realm. But above and beyond that, in the realms of the heavens, there are also mountains, and rulers and kings. We need to deal with them in that realm in order to deal with their counterparts in this realm. As I wrote last time, that is why we may historically have struggled to overcome in this realm – it is because we cannot do so effectively without dealing with the heavenly realm first.

Like Jesus, we also need to see what the Father is doing, in order to bring it to earth. If that is how Jesus operated (and He told us it was), then surely that is how we must operate too. Jesus lived constantly in two realms, in relationship with the Father.

The strategy God gave for taking Jericho was very clear, and very detailed. And the strategy that Joshua received in the heavenly realms, he had to carry out in this earthly realm. We need to be able to do that, every day, all the time.

That is what it means to be living in dual realms, to see what the Father is doing, to be constantly connected.

And that is what it takes to bring heaven to earth.

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80. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#16-20)

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

God is raising up a Joshua Generation in our day: a generation who will enter into their inheritance and enable others to do the same. We have been looking at some of the defining characteristics of such a generation and considering to what extent those characteristics can be seen in our own lives.

16. The Joshua Generation will be obedient to God’s direction.

Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go (Joshua 1:7).

We know our God, and love Him; and because of that we want to serve Him. We want to do everything He is calling us to do, and to do it out of our love, our passion and our desire for Him.

But we do need to be careful: with greater revelation comes greater responsibility. We cannot mess around with what God shows us. If we are to operate in the fullness of God’s power in the coming days, then the level of holiness required of us is going to go up, off the scale. That is both because of the level of revelation we are beginning to enter into and because of the kind of people we need to be.

For those who hear, but turn back (rather than being ‘careful to do’), there is a danger – and we need to be aware of it. To avoid the danger, we must be ready to do all that God is calling us to do.

Yet not out of fear, but out of love.

17. The Joshua Generation will be prosperous and successful.

You see, if we are able to meditate and obtain that revelation from God, and if we are careful to do the things that God reveals to us, it will give us success. This generation are willing to press in and receive. We will learn to overcome and we will learn to prosper.

Prospering is not just about financial things: the word means ‘to succeed to the highest level’. And we need to succeed to the highest level in the spiritual as well as in the natural realm. If we are receiving wisdom and revelation to the highest level, then as a result of that we will be prosperous and successful. Everything around us may be falling apart, and it will do so when the world’s systems crash, but we need to be able to operate in God’s systems, in God’s kingdom.

The financial system is just one example of this, in which we may well need to learn to do miracles and to multiply things as Jesus did. Jesus told Peter to find a coin in a fish’s mouth to pay their taxes. There may be occasions when we too can do something like that and supernaturally find finance. And we must stop saying, ‘Oh, but that was Jesus’. Everything Jesus did, He did as a model for what we should do. He said we would do the things He did, and greater things (John 14:12).

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success (Joshua 1:8).

18. The Joshua Generation will know that they walk with God.

We need to walk with God as our daily lifestyle.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).

When we are walking on the path that God has prepared for us, when we are walking in our destiny, then we know God is with us. And we need to know what is our destiny, what is written on our scroll: and if we do not know, then we can ask God to show us.

Psalm 23 is a key to this lifestyle of walking with God, to finding rich nourishment in those green pastures, to seeing our true image in those quiet waters of reflection. And we need to know that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death – which is just daily life, really – that God is with us all the way. His rod and His staff (His word spoken to us and His Spirit leading us), they comfort us. He anoints us; our cup overflows. I want to encourage you to get hold of this psalm, to meditate on it and draw out the truth from it; because God is with us, and His goodness and mercy and lovingkindness will follow us, and will be identifying features of the way we live our lives.

19. The Joshua Generation will be equipped to prepare provisions, to live by faith.

Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, “Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, to possess it” (Joshua 1:11).

We have to be able to teach people to live under the provision of God. Each one of us is responsible to possess our own inheritance. We each need to be equipped with the weapons we will need, the revelation we need, the lifestyle we need. God will provide everything we need to take the land, to take possession of all that He intends for us and has promised to us. We need to know how to access that provision, to take hold of it for ourselves, and to teach others to do the same.

20. The Joshua Generation will equip the people to be consecrated (or sanctified) –  set apart, dedicated and holy.

Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).

This is where many of us are in the process. When Israel were at Gilgal they dealt with the things from the past, embraced fresh revelation of the truths they had lost sight of, and were set apart for the purposes of God for their generation.

Do you want to hear ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’? Do you want it said of you that, like David, you served the purpose of God in your generation? I do. I want to serve the purpose of God in this generation that I am called to be part of, and I believe that God wants to raise up a whole people who desire to do the same.

Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.

We are halfway through this mini-series on the Joshua Generation.
Let’s remember the questions we are asking:

  • Are you ready to be part of the Joshua generation?
  • Are you ready to be equipped by the Joshua generation?

If so, I urge you to get hold of these things and press in.
And over the next few weeks, we will look at the next 20 characteristics and begin to press into those too.

Image: The text on the ‘Still Waters’ image at the head of this post is from God Believes In You by Francois du Toit (the author of The Mirror Bible).

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79. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#11-15)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

The Joshua Generation are those who will enter the land of promise, and enable others to do the same. We have looked at 10 characteristics of that generation so far, and there are plenty still to come (so if you are new to this blog, it would probably be best to go back a  few posts if you want to get the most out of what we are in the middle of here).

11. The Joshua Generation will be equipped to enable the next generation to possess the land.

Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it (Deut 1:38).

We have to cause others to inherit. This generation who are going to be saved, who are going to be the labourers for the future: we have to enable them, to disciple them in the supernatural, to encourage them to inherit everything in the Promised Land. We must not sell them short in the fullness of what their inheritance is.

12. The Joshua Generation will witness the awesome overcoming power of God.

We have seen the power of God at work in increasing measure over the past few years, seen quite a lot of signs and wonders, different miracles and so on. Those have just been a taster of the things that are coming.

Do not fear them, for the LORD your God is the one fighting for you…O Lord GOD, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours? (Deut 3:22, 24).

No counterfeit can begin to match the true power and authority of Almighty God. Just as Elijah did with the prophets of Baal, there will be some among you who will challenge the forces of the enemy and call down fire from heaven, you will challenge some of those who do supernatural signs in the occult realm, and in the New Age realm; you will challenge them to a test of authority and power. And our God wins; therefore you win, you overcome, and you demonstrate true spiritual authority and power. It is going to be awesome!

You are going to win if you will step out in the confidence of the things you have already done, having your faith built up by the things you have already seen. That is what it means not to despise the day of small things but to see it as a time of preparation for the things that are coming.

13. The Joshua Generation will be strong and courageous.

If we are going to need to be strong and courageous, it is because there is something to fear or to overcome. And we will find that we too have giants to overcome, who are exercising authority in heavenly places. There are dragons to slay, who are robbing the people of God. True identity and inheritance are being held back from God’s people and it is for us to see them released.

Then Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall give it to them as an inheritance. The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deut 31:7-8).

God is with us. He is going before us. He is preparing the way. He is going to be with each of us and with all of us in this fight and in this battle. But there are going to be things we really do have to face. Some of the spiritual dimensions of things we have to contend with – even in this realm – are going to spook a lot of people.

As I have mentioned before, having been into developing nations where spiritual opposition is much more open, and seen what goes on there when evil is challenged, I expect those things to happen here too. Witch doctors who shape-shift, who change form in front of you? We haven’t seen that here – yet. The big ministry teams in some of those places have what they call the ‘snake-pit’, where they carry out deliverance, because some of the people they are praying for will change into serpents and werewolves and so on.

There is a lot of stuff in the media, films and TV which is beginning to make this seem more acceptable to the Western mind, almost like it is quite good really to have werewolves and vampires; and that is all part of the enemy’s schemes. Some of the spiritual power that the enemy has will operate in that dimension; and we need to know that we have authority over them. We are going to need to be equipped to handle spiritual opposition on a scale we haven’t yet seen.

14. The Joshua Generation will be filled with the spirit of wisdom.

We will definitely need the wisdom of God to know what to do in the face of some of the situations we are going to find ourselves in. Wisdom will be our equipping, connecting us to the God who knows all things. He is before all things. Therefore we can have a heads-up on the future, and on everything the enemy is planning, so that we can take a stand and be ready to overcome it.

Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses (Deut 34:9).

There will be an authority that comes with that wisdom, which is going to inspire people to press in and receive their inheritance.

15. The Joshua Generation will meditate on God’s word day and night.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success (Joshua 1:8).

Meditating on what God has said to us is a key to entering into the spiritual realm; a key to understanding how to access the realms of heaven, seeing the word of God as a doorway into the realms of the spirit. Again, meditation has become a taboo in the church because of Transcendental Meditation and other forms of eastern meditation, which empty people’s minds. Biblical meditation, by contrast, fills people’s minds, fills them with the truth, and teaches them to engage with the eyes of their heart.

As we learn to meditate and to open up our spirit to that realm of God’s purposes, the eyes of our heart will be enlightened. As we engage our spiritual imagination, we can start seeing the Holy Spirit moving on people, start actually seeing angels and other heavenly beings. We can start seeing – and entering into – the realms of heaven.

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