Tag: salvation

480. The Heart of Evangelism | Meeting People Where They Are

Mike Parsons

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The Importance of Showing Real Interest

God loves people and takes a genuine interest in their lives. If we fail to show any interest ourselves, how will they ever believe that God is truly interested in them? Demonstrating care means asking about their situation and engaging with their story. It is not about forcing a single message upon someone, insisting that they must receive it whether they want to or not.

Instead, it is about recognising that God personally meets each person in their own circumstances. He cares, He desires to help, and He longs for them to discover who they truly are. In doing so, they can understand that God already loves them. This is a very different approach, one that treats each individual as unique rather than as a commodity, project or statistic.

Meeting People Where They Are

In the past, many forms of evangelism tended to focus on strategies and techniques. Courses often emphasised how to deliver a message and how to ensure that people listened. Yet this approach often missed the point. Evangelism should not be about ticking boxes or securing conversions. It ought to begin with real interest in people themselves—the realities of their lives and the struggles they face.

Rather than asking, “How can I insert this message into a conversation?”, we should be asking, “How can I develop a genuine relationship with this person, one that may open the door for them to encounter God for themselves?”

A Personal Approach

People need to meet God in us. They need to see and sense something of Jesus expressed through our lives. This may not always be conscious on their part, and sometimes it may not even be conscious on ours, yet God shines through us all the same. In this way, we carry His presence into every encounter.

As Scripture explains, Jesus was the clear image of the Father, revealing to those around Him what God was really like. Many have no true idea of God’s character until they encounter Christ.

Treating Individuals as Unique

In the same way, we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation. Our role is to represent God’s heart faithfully and to help others to see that He has already done everything needed to restore their relationship with Him.

Summary: When our lives reflect His presence, others can begin to sense His love and discover for themselves the truth of who they are in Him. By treating people as individuals rather than commodities, we embody the message that God cares deeply for them. Evangelism then becomes not about delivering a formulaic message, but about relationship, love and presence.

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307. God’s Unconditional Love For You

319. Face to Face with God

417. Awakening to Love | Finding Your Place in God’s Heart

394. Salvation Isn’t What You Think!

Mike Parsons

Mike Parsons reflects on memes and quotes from social media.

Salvation isn’t what you think. People often view the miracles and healings in Jesus’ ministry as separate from what He accomplished on the cross, as if healing bodies and restoring lives were somehow different from the salvation of our souls. But Jesus’ entire ministry—His healings, His miracles, His death, and His resurrection—are all part of the same mission: bringing us into God’s shalom, into God’s peace.

Shalom, in Hebrew, means wholeness, the healing of all that is wrong. The word we translate as “salvation” is sozo, which means saved, healed and restored—a perfect reflection of shalom. Look at how Jesus shalomed people. He didn’t just forgive sins; He made broken people whole. When He healed the lepers, He wasn’t simply curing disease. He was restoring them to community, dignity, and life itself.

As Brian Finley says, “When Jesus healed, He didn’t just fix the physical; He restored lives in every way.”

Jeff Do writes, “The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the new birth of all humankind. He who is the firstborn from the dead is the firstborn of all creation because all creation has been made alive in Christ.” What Jesus did is for all creation. Everything He created, He reconciled to Himself.

There are so many great and uplifting quotes like these. I encourage you to look for positive and encouraging messages that reflect love and grace. When you see a quote, meme, or post, ask yourself—what frequency does it carry? Does it reflect love and kindness? Is it full of grace? Or does it feel harsh, unloving, judgmental or unkind? We must be cautious not to embrace negativity when there is so much positive encouragement available. Focus on what uplifts and inspires.

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373. Salvation is NOT ‘Going to Heaven When You Die’

Mike Parsons

Wholeness Now

Salvation is not about “going to heaven after death.” Surprisingly, the words “saved” and “heaven” never appear together in the Bible. Salvation means restoration to wholeness in the present, not something that happens after death. The idea of being “promoted to heaven” or “crossing the Jordan” is part of a religious system that has promoted a mistaken tradition.

Salvation is about experiencing wholeness here and now, bringing us into the true identity of who we are. If you have been indoctrinated to think that your salvation depends on your efforts in any way, you will remain stuck in trying to secure it. This was my experience, coming from an evangelical background, where salvation seemed to depend on my ability to trust God, my faith, or what I did in asking God into my life.

Rather than realising what had already been accomplished, I viewed salvation as an ongoing effort—trying to be good enough and acceptable to God through practices like reading the Bible, praying every day, witnessing, and fulfilling the perceived requirements of being a “good Christian.” But who said we were supposed to do those things? Jesus did not—the church did. Deconstruction is the process of removing that indoctrination and replacing it with truth, renewing and transforming our minds.

All of humanity is included

Even if someone does not believe they are saved, they still are; they just do not believe it yet. This is the truth: all of humanity is included in what the Father already accomplished through Jesus to forgive, redeem, and reconcile us to himself. The work is finished, and everyone has been declared righteous, justified, and forgiven. Whether or not someone believes this truth, it remains the truth.

The New Covenant was made between the Father and the Son and included all of humanity. Teaching that we must make a free will decision to be included is ‘a church-invented heresy’, as Don Keithley says. “Our free will decision is simply to accept what has already happened, to realise that we are already included—not to make it happen. If Jesus included the doubter, Thomas, the denier, Peter, and the traitor, Judas, I seriously doubt anyone is excluded from his work today.”

No one is excluded from what Jesus came to do and to finish. He came to take away the sin—the lost identity—of the world, not just a few people but the whole world, and every person in it. What we believe about God does not define him, and our doctrines do not even define us, though they often label us. Many of us have been labelled by what we believe, whether Baptist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Anglican, or any other denomination. But God knows the truth about us, and what he knows, demonstrated in Christ, is what defines us.

Equal Value

Jesus is what God believes about us. The love God has for his Son, Jesus, is the same love He has for us. When we are reconciled to God, it is important to understand that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. The term ‘world’ here is the Greek word kosmos, and ‘reconciliation’ in this sense is an accounting term. The debit and credit must balance.

The value we hold for God is the same value God holds for Jesus. This is a profound truth: we are of equal value to God as Jesus. Understanding this is key to grasping the fullness of our identity and value in the eyes of God.

The truth that sets us free

Adam’s choice to walk independently of God did not change the nature of God the Father. God still desires a relationship with us, just as he did with Adam. The Father still longs to walk with us in the garden, to restore that relationship. We need to see that this relationship can be restored, and this realisation is an essential part of our journey.

Deconstruction takes different forms. Some people reject the conditional love taught by religion and walk away from organised faith, while others discover unconditional love outside of religion. God is love, and this is a fundamental truth. However, God does not deconstruct us by focusing on the lies we believe, but by revealing the truth that sets us free. This process renews our minds to the truth, and in doing so, those false beliefs naturally fall away.

The truth we know through experience will set us free. So let us focus on positive solutions, not negative problems. Do not try to deconstruct your beliefs with the same thinking that created them. Instead, allow God to encounter you in such a way that it changes what you believe, leading to a transformation based on truth, not on doctrine.

The ‘Second Coming’

Many Christians are still waiting for the second coming of Jesus. However, as I have discussed before, the ‘second coming’ already happened, in AD 70. This means that many are looking for the wrong event. Creation does not recognise Christians waiting to be rescued; it recognises sons and daughters who are living out the truth. Religion has deeply ingrained in us a fear of the future—the fear of tribulation, of the rapture, of trouble to come.

But we do not not need to fear the future. The Spirit of Truth was given so that we, as sons and daughters, might shape the future. Fear never comes from God, and perfect love casts out fear. Therefore, let’s ensure we are not operating out of fear, worrying about what might happen tomorrow, but instead live in the blessing and provision of today. There is no ‘Great Tribulation’ on the horizon. There may be personal tribulations, but God will be with us through them. The biblical ‘Great Tribulation’ was the end of the old age, the age of the old covenant, and it has already passed.

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339. Universal Inclusion in Christ

Mike Parsons

Some are in Christ and some are not? I personally don’t believe that because everyone’s in Christ through the resurrection.

Everyone was born from above, so everyone’s included in Christ. That might have been true before the cross, but post-cross, everyone is now in Christ and everyone has been born from above. I don’t see that there are those who aren’t. There are those who don’t know they’re in Christ and wouldn’t go to the Father because they don’t realise their position as sons of God, and there are those who do have that revelation.

Limited atonement

From my perspective, what Jesus did on the cross was reconciling the whole cosmos to himself, not just some. That view is a limited atonement view, or an Arminian view, where only those who accept what Jesus has done are born again after they accept it. This is an old covenant, works-based mentality rather than a grace mentality. Essentially, what Jesus did was reconcile the cosmos to himself, which did not require us to do anything. He did it all; he finished the work before we had to do anything.

When Jesus breathed into the disciples, they were representative of that resurrected, born-from-above, new creation. The reality is most people haven’t realised it yet. I don’t believe in an evangelical view of salvation, where we do something and then we’re saved. I believe we’ve been saved and we realise that we’re already saved; otherwise, it’s works-based.

I don’t believe that only those in Christ are saved, assuming they’re outside of Christ. I would say only those who know they’re in Christ would access the Father. If you didn’t know you were in Christ, you wouldn’t access the Father, would you? It may just be semantics, but I would say that is coming from a very evangelical perspective of “get born again when you pray a prayer,” whereas I would say no, you might pray a prayer that brings a realisation of what you already are, but it doesn’t happen after you do something. It’s already happened when Jesus did what he did.

Who we actually are

Before the cross, there were all sorts of people who were not following God. Although God hasn’t changed, and the Father hasn’t changed towards his creation and towards all people, Jesus came to rescue us or restore our ability to know who we actually are. We lost that ability through walking in independence, which affected who we really are. Jesus came to unveil and reveal who we really are so we can know that. In Corinthians, it says that you can’t really understand anything spiritually unless it’s in the spirit. If our spirit was dead, how would we ever come to a point where we wanted to accept Jesus? But if our spirit is alive and able to enter into that relationship that God has already provided for us, then it comes after realisation.

In an evangelical view, salvation is based on what we do and then God does something if we do something. I believe God’s already done it; the work’s already finished, and we enter into what has already been done by realisation of that. I don’t believe some are in Christ and some are outside of Christ: some know they’re in Christ, and some don’t know they’re in Christ.

324. Complete Salvation in Christ

Mike Parsons

The Finished Work of Christ

  • The finished work of Christ has accomplished everything necessary for our complete salvation. There is nothing else to be done.
  • All the promises and covenants of God are fully and completely fulfilled in Jesus. There is nothing and no one else who could complete or fulfil them.
  • We are all included in Jesus and have received life through him, just as all died in Adam.

The Universality of Salvation

  • As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. All have received life, though not everyone is aware of this reality yet.
  • The ministry of believers is to help people understand this amazing inclusion and reality that all have been given life in Christ.

The Universality of Sin

  • The Bible verse “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) is often used to tell people they are not good enough and need God.
  • The reality is that all have outworked their lost identity, which is short of the glory God intended for us.

Justification by Grace

  • The ‘all’ who have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (in Romans 3:23) are “justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
  • This means that all who have sinned (which is everyone) have also been justified, not by their own merit, but as a free gift of God’s grace through Christ’s redemption.

The Universality of Justification

  • The “all” who have sinned are the same “all” who have been justified. There is a universality to both the problem of sin and the solution of justification.
  • Romans 5:18  states that just as condemnation came to all through one man’s transgression (Adam), so also justification of life has come to all through one act of righteousness (Christ).
  • The condemnation referred to here is not eternal punishment, but the state of living in lost identity apart from God, and the consequences that brings. 

Jesus’ Authority over All Mankind

  • According to John 17:2, Jesus is given authority over all mankind, so that he may give eternal life to all whom the Father has given him.

Eternal Life for All Mankind

  • In John 17:2-3, Jesus states that eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent.
  • God has given Jesus authority over all mankind: the same “all” who were condemned in their lost identity and the same “all” who would be made righteous and justified.
  • Some may try to separate the “all” to whom Jesus has authority over, and the “all” to whom he gives eternal life. That is illogical. The same “all” applies to both – Jesus has authority over all mankind, and he will give eternal life to all whom the Father has given him.

The Supremacy of Christ

  • Colossians 1:15-20 speaks of the supremacy of Christ, and that all things were created through him and for him.
  • Note again the inclusive nature of the “all” – nothing is left out, as all things have been created through Christ and hold together in him.
  • And it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile ‘all things’ to himself, whether on earth or in heaven.

The Universality of Reconciliation

  • Christ has reconciled all things, not just people, but everything that he created.
  • This reinforces the universal scope of Christ’s work: he has reconciled all of creation to the Father through the blood of his cross.

The Universality of Christ’s Work

  • John 1:7 – Jesus came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.
  • John 1:16 – Of Christ’s fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.
  • John 3:35 – The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.
  • John 5:28 – A time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.

The Reconciliation of All Things

  • In John 12:32, Jesus says that when he is lifted up on the cross, he will draw all people to himself.
  • “All” does not leave anyone out, and there are many instances of the word “all” used throughout the teachings of Jesus and the Scriptures.

The Fulfillment of the Law

  • In Matthew 5:18, Jesus states that not the smallest letter or stroke of the law will pass away until all is accomplished.
  • The “heaven and earth” referred to in this verse represent the old covenant system, which was fulfilled; and it passed away when the temple was destroyed in AD 70.

Key Takeaway

All has been accomplished through the finished work of Christ; there is nothing left to be done for the full and complete salvation not only of mankind but of all creation.

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290. Discovering the Reality of Salvation

Mike Parsons

Salvation is not dependent upon a prayer or altar call: Jesus has already accomplished everything needed. Unfortunately, this truth has been turned into a gospel of works, suggesting that specific actions are needed to attain salvation. Instead, let our focus be on making people aware that God already loves and accepts them. The Gospel is not about works but about the grace of God already operating within individuals. The story of Paul’s revelation on the Damascus Road underscores this point, as he discovered that Jesus was already in him, preaching a message of inclusion based on this realization.

Understanding the reality of salvation requires acknowledging that God is already in us, and we need to open the door to let Him fill us: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”  Salvation is not a future event but an ongoing experience of being alive and resurrected in spirit. The Gospel is truly good news, emphasising that God has done everything, and our role as disciples and evangelists is to make people aware of His unconditional love now, not in some distant future.

Key Takeaway

The Gospel is Good News: The essence of the Gospel is truly good news, proclaiming that God has already done everything; and our primary role as ambassadors and evangelists is to make people aware of His unconditional love in the present, not in some distant future.

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225. God Chooses You

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

Our destiny was formed and fashioned in eternity. It continues on into eternity beyond this lifetime, but it is available for us to find here and now.

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book (scroll) were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! (Ps 139:16-17).

One day we will have to give an account for whether the scroll of our actual life matches up with the scroll of what was God’s plan for us. God has provided all we need for our lives to produce the gold, silver and precious stones which make up our destiny. Wood, hay and stubble will not survive the testing fire.

Here is a definition I found: destiny – the treasure that God has set aside for you, designed you to possess (but it requires a battle and maturity to attain). It will enrich your life and bring you fulfilment based on your unique design and will advance the kingdom of God.

Our design matched with our destiny will bring fulfilment, rather than the futility and frustration we often experience when we are trying to do our own thing.

God chooses you

In biblical culture, the firstborn son had the right to a double inheritance. But God was never bound by that culture. He chose Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, David and Solomon, none of them firstborn; he chose Deborah and Esther, though the culture dictated that they could not inherit at all! Everyone has a destiny, regardless of gender, position or any other worldly measurement, and none of those considerations can hinder us if we pursue it.

Wisdom does not hinder us, but it is not why we are chosen. Strength does not hinder us, but it is not why we are chosen. Position does not hinder us, but it is not why we are chosen.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:25-30).

It is ‘by His doing’. We will not find and fulfil our destiny by intellectual understanding, physical strength or willpower, nor by anything of our own doing, but only by His doing: He has brought us into intimate relationship with Him. And in that intimacy of relationship we are able to see, hear, sense and feel His vision, His voice, His heart. We will never find our destiny if we miss our eternal relationship with our Creator.

To know God is our highest calling and the central focus of our destiny. The first step in our destiny quest is for intimacy with the Lord: getting to know Him – Who He is, what He does, how He thinks, and what He desires; His character, His nature, and His ways. All that can only come by the spirit of revelation.

Close relationship

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words (I Cor 2:12-13).

Even though God is often invisible and inaudible to our physical senses we can still get to know Him by developing our spirit and soul senses. Close relationship with Him is cultivated in exactly the same way human friendships are, through spending time together, communication, vulnerability and sharing our lives.

We have access to the thoughts of God, and the tangible spiritual experience of His emotions, by the spirit of revelation. And when we agree together, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words, there is power in that agreement.

Is that the kind – and the depth – of relationship with Him that we are pursuing? He has opened up the door of access to Himself and is asking us “do you want Me?”

Our invitation

Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity (2 Tim 1:9).

Because of His purpose and His grace, all this was ours long before we ever existed.

He has saved us. ‘Saved’ comes from the Greek word ‘sozo’: to save, to deliver or protect (literally or figuratively), to heal, preserve, to do well, to make whole. Bringing us back into our eternal purpose is what our salvation is all about.

He has called us. ‘Kaleo’ means to call, to bid or to invite. He has invited us to participate with Him in our eternal purpose and destiny.

With a holy calling. Holy is ‘hagios’ – sacred, divine, pure, morally blameless, or consecrated. It is something uniquely designed for us by God. And calling is ‘klesis’, which shares the same root as ‘kaleo’ and means destiny, vocation, invitation.

God saves us, restores us to wholeness and invites us to participate in the pure and holy destiny that was established for us in eternity.

How will we answer that invitation?

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101. Filthy Garments and Festal Robes

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

The kingdom of God is all around us. Not separate, not a long way away. So close that we can turn and look into it.

So, too, is the kingdom that is in darkness.

Which will we draw from?

Depending on where we look, that is where we will draw our resources from. Our spirit has access to the kingdom which is in light. God wants us to access all that He has for us in that kingdom and to draw all our power and authority from it every day, so that we can live abundantly.

If we do not, we will inevitably draw our resources from the other kingdom. The soul and the flesh will look to meet their own needs in their own way, and will look to obtain their resources from the kingdom that is in darkness.

Every time we try to do something in our own strength, according to our soul power, it will ultimately prove unsuccessful. We have to get over the fact that we can do nothing in our own strength. So we can turn and engage the kingdom of light or we can turn into the kingdom in darkness. It is a choice we all have, but co-operating with God is much more productive than resisting Him.

God’s desire was for Adam and Eve to be successful in carrying out His plan for them and for the earth. So He made available to them everything they needed to fill the earth and subdue it. They chose to look for resources elsewhere, and failed to fulfil their destiny.

“The Lord rebuke you, Satan”

We have looked briefly before at Zechariah 3, and it is a really important chapter in understanding this:

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.” Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the Lord was standing by (Zech 3:1-7).

This scene is set, not on the earth, but in the heavenly realms. Joshua was a man, a priest just as we are, and he had access to the presence of God. But Satan was there to accuse him. So we understand that we are looking at a courtroom in heaven, because courtrooms are where accusations are made and verdicts delivered.

It is God, not Joshua, who deals with Satan here.The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan!”. So if there are accusations against us it is God who will deal with them.

Filthy garments

Notice that Joshua was ‘clothed with filthy garments’. Surely you cannot come into the presence of God wearing filthy garments? Actually that is exactly what you must do: He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”

God does the cleansing and cleaning up. We do not have to try to make ourselves clean in our own strength, by our own effort and initiative. That is just what Adam did when he messed up. He hid from God in the bushes and tried to cover himself with leaves. It does not work, and it is not our place to clean ourselves up. There is no need to feel guilty or condemned, or try to make amends for our sin in our own strength.

We just have to come into the presence of God, and He takes all the filthy garments off us and gives us a new robe.

Run to Him, not from Him

Now this all sounds very familiar, I know. But what we have maybe not realised before now is where this takes place. It takes place in the realms of heaven. That is why it is so important for us to access the heavenly realms: we can get clean every time we go in there, and when we are clean, we are confident to exercise the authority that God has given us and see the enemy defeated. If we feel guilty and condemned because of the accusations brought against us, then we lose our confidence, and are unlikely to overcome. So when we mess up – and we all do – we can step into the place of God’s presence. We can run to Him, not from Him.

He will deal with the accusations against us. He rebukes Satan. He does so because the blood of Jesus is constantly before Him as a testimony of what Jesus did on the cross:

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them (2 Corinthians 5:19).

From God’s perspective, there is no sin outstanding against any of us. Jesus completely undid the consequence of Adam’s sin which produced spiritual death in us.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22).

Just as we all inherited that spiritual death and blindness from Adam, so we all share in the victory of the cross and resurrection life. When we take the bread and the wine in communion we are partaking of the life of God, His very essence, His DNA, and we are transformed. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sin and all our iniquity is done away with.

One of the enemy’s favourite tactics is to make us believe that we cannot come to God because we have sinned, whereas in fact it is the very thing that we need to do, and as quickly as we possibly can, to benefit from God’s forgiveness and receive His cleansing.

If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  ‘Faithful’ means that He will always do it. He will ‘clothe [us] with festal robes’ (Zech 3:4).

 Free access to stand 

We will never enjoy our free access to the realms of heaven if we think we have to be worthy. The enemy will always tell us we are unworthy. That is how he operates. We need to know the truth, because then we find the promise:

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 service, 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).

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54. Salvation and Judgment

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Stone and Mountain

I want to begin today by looking again at two scriptures we have seen before:

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).

You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands …But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Dan 2:34-35).

This Stone and Mountain are very important: Jesus taught about it, and so did the apostles. The Stone is Jesus and the Mountain is His kingdom; the house of the Lord is God’s people. The kingdom is manifest (or demonstrated) through the church as God’s people, not through the institution called ‘church’.

The kingdom of God is going to fill the earth, in our time. As we have seen, tares have been sown into the church in terms of false doctrine which has put that off to another time or another people.

There has only ever been one people of God: people of faith. Faith is the key: it is not about being born into a Christian family. It was never even about being born into a Jewish family: you were not of the true Israel unless you had faith. It really wasn’t a national thing, as we will see.

‘Two sides of the same coin’

When God comes in righteousness, He often comes in judgment as well as in salvation: they are two sides of the same coin.

‘Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne (Kingdom); Lovingkindness and truth go before You’ (Ps 89:14).

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“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:10-12).

  • The Flood brought salvation for Noah and his family, but judgment for the world.
  • In the Exodus, in the crossing of the Red Sea, there was salvation for Israel, but judgment for Egypt as all their army was swept away.
  • At the Cross there is salvation for believers, and it is open to everyone. But if you do not receive it, there is judgment.
  • In fact in all Jesus’ comings – and there are many comings of Jesus, ending with his Last Coming – there is both salvation and judgment.

Speaking of that Stone again:

This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,” and,  “A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE”;  for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed (1 Peter 2:7-8).

The Stone, we know, was Jesus. Those builders who rejected Him were the Jewish people at the time. Not all of them rejected Him of course: the earliest church was made up of Jewish believers. But for those who did reject Him, those are strong words. ‘Doom’, like ‘woe’ in Matthew 23, is a covenant word.

No peaceful co-existence

Jesus ascended back up to heaven in around the year AD 30. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple happened in AD 70. That 40-year period was a generation in which the old covenant people co-existed with the new covenant people. It was not a peaceful co-existence. Saul, before he met Jesus and became Paul, was sent out by the Jewish leaders to persecute Christians. They were trying to stamp out what they saw as heresy. Later on, in every city where (as Paul) he went to preach, he spoke to the Jewish people there first as God’s people and inheritors of God’s promises. When he showed them that these could only be received in Christ, most of them persecuted him, though some believed. That is why he was beaten and stoned.

So in this period the Old Covenant (with its Natural Country, City and Temple) was still in existence alongside the New Covenant (with its Spiritual Country, City and Temple). Much of the New Testament was written from the perspective of the persecution which arose because of this.

In particular, the whole of the book of Revelation was written about the covenant judgments (‘doom’) that were to come at the end of this period, the consequences of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah and their persecution of the church. It was written to provide comfort to those Christians who were suffering that intense persecution, to reassure them that God had a plan in it and that it would come to an end. It was not written about ‘the end of the world’. We need to get that out of our thinking, and then look at these scriptures for what they actually say.

That is a process we will begin in the next post. I want to look at the whole passage which leads up to the disciples’ question in Matthew 24, because that is essential if we are to properly understand the answers that Jesus gave them.

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21. Conflict for Souls

Mike Parsons – 

One Sunday, as we were singing, I saw Jesus, and He was looking at me. He was the Jesus of Revelation chapter 1, with fire in His eyes; His gaze was penetrating, seeing into my head, seeing into my heart. There was love in His eyes, and fire, and He was looking deep within me.

The eyes of God

The scripture says that the eyes of God are going to and fro throughout the earth (2 Chron 16:9), looking for those who He can strongly support: those whose hearts are completely His. That is what He is doing in this time, looking for willingness; willingness to say, ‘My heart is Yours. There may be stuff in it that needs dealing with, but I am willing for You to do what needs to be done, to restore me and make me whole. I am willing to step out and do Your will’. God’s eyes will penetrate your heart. If He looks into your heart and mind, what is He going to see there? Certainly you are not going to be able to hide anything from His eyes. And because He is also a warrior king, He is coming with a sword in His mouth; His words too will penetrate your heart and life, bringing division between the positive and the negative, the good and the bad, what can remain and what must be got rid of.

God never acts without revealing his plans to His prophets. Some of you reading this, you are on a crash course. You have been saved into this environment, into this understanding of God’s revelation and His purposes in our days. It will not take you the twenty years or more that it has taken some of us to come into the reality of the presence of God. And things are only going to accelerate, if we are willing. We do have that choice – we can resist Him and stop Him having His way in us, prevent Him from purifying and refining us, clearing out the dross and revealing the image of His Son in us. My advice is, don’t hide, don’t resist; allow God to deal with what is in your heart. In what is coming, a level of holiness – a level of being set apart – will be required that we simply do not have as yet. The highway of holiness is higher than we have imagined.

Harvest

Jesus is returning. He will return, at the end, but He is returning all the time. He is coming to us all the time. Open your heart, and He will come to you. The reason He is coming is to prepare us for the conflict for souls. The harvest that is coming is a battle for souls, make no mistake about it, and there will be conflict. People are falling into a fiery pit every day, and they are making that choice to go there.

I had a vision while I was on my 40 day fast, a vision of people, hundreds and thousands of them, walking across a plain. In the distance I could see that fiery pit, and people were just walking straight up to it and falling in. And I saw other people, Christians, standing in front of them and planting a sword in the ground right in front of them and saying, ‘Stop!’ Some of them did stop, but they looked around them, then they stepped to one side and carried on going.

Others did turn around though. With some of them it took 3 or 4 people to plant a sword in their path and cry, ‘Stop!’ before they turned and went back. The enemy has blinded their eyes. Our part is to bring the light. This is a real battle, this battle for souls: we are not playing games, not just having nice times with God for our own personal enjoyment, for the sake of the experience. Yes, He wants us to experience Him, but He wants our hearts and lives transformed for purpose, for His eternal purpose. People’s destiny is at stake, and we must shine so brightly that we get their attention so that they see that God is real and that they too can be transformed through His love.

What did Jesus say? ‘Look around you, the fields are white but there are not enough labourers’. He is seeking out those who have a heart for the harvest, to bring it in. In everything God is doing and planning to do, this is what it is about: bringing in the full harvest, seeing all those people saved, and healed and delivered.

The first stage we have looked at in God’s Prophetic Timetable is that call to intimate knowledge of Him, to really know Love. But the second stage has already begun for some people, even as that first one continues. Every stage of this plan takes us closer to the return of Jesus. We have already seen that God has established forerunners of everything He plans to do, little tasters if you like, to give us an appetite for what he intends to bring about on a much greater scale. So everything we have seen so far is tiny in comparison to what is coming.

That second stage is the removal of stumbling blocks, and the revelation of a generation of those who will bring in and train the harvesters. You have to understand, there are two phases of the harvest. There will be a final harvest at the very end of the age, but first the harvesters themselves need to be brought in. We will consider this next time.

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