In beginning this writing two words come to our mind that we need to consider and understand to receive and appreciate the full impact of their meanings:
- Zion = a fortress where David restores the Ark of the Wilderness Tabernacle back to Israel and placed it in a tent on Mt. Zion wherein the glory of God manifested. It also speaks of the spiritual people of God wherein His kingdom government abides as His true body in the earth. The Greek word Sion means an elevated place and speaks of those who are spiritually becoming one with Christ throne-room authority. These are the people of God who are His dwelling place on earth as He dwells within the souls of restored men.
- Jerusalem = a word meaning possession of peace, God’s holy city that types for us the “true church” of today. It is within this city that God’s new covenant with man is written upon the hearts of the people and therein it is called a city of truth and God’s holy mountain Zech. 8:2-3, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am zealous for Zion with great zeal; with great fervor I am zealous for her. Thus, says the Lord; I will return to Zion, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, the Mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain”. God declares that a new government, His nature comes from within her, as she is the resurrected soul that becomes the expression of the word of God. Herein Zion and Jerusalem become the apple of God’s eye. Zech. 2:7-8 speaks, “Up Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord of Host: He sent me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye”.
Carnal minded seeds, planted among the Christian community over the generations of time, are now producing the fruits thereof. These fruits are now manifesting in a full measure, fruits that bring much confusion and trouble to that which man now recognizes and calls the church of today. It is God who declared that judgment is coming forth to the church, the results of rebellion, even as it existed among the general populace of Judah and Jerusalem. Their time of trouble expressed itself because chaos reigned. This chaos also reigns today as spiritual immature and carnal Christians are taking the place of leadership.
These are promoting policies that bring iniquity to the forefront as they try to lead the people. These leaders are those who lead without true direction, while often changing direction abruptly and without apparent reason. These have a nature of one moving without the Holy Spirits leadership while going from one carnal fad to another. In this we have, what the world is calling the church. So called Christian communities that are walking in the increasing darkness of today’s carnal mind-sets. Birthing a people that are without any God given spiritual honor and are to now experience the coming judgments of God.
Note that the famine, which exist today, exist because of a people that have no true understanding of the word of God. This famine continues to exist because rebellion against God’s word brings forth the spiritual lack of Godly leadership. Amos 8:11-12 declares, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wonder from sea to sea [religious group to religious group], from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it”.
Why is such a famine now present among those of the Christian community? As we hear from Isaiah the prophet, the church of today finds itself ruled over by those who, spiritually speaking, lack the spiritual qualifications to lead God’s people. These remain spiritually infantile, immature and weak, as we see it manifesting among the ministries of today. Isa. 3:4-5 speaks, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them, the people will be oppressed, everyone by another and everyone by his neighbor; the child will be insolent toward the elder, and the base toward the honorable”.
The greater fulfillment of these above verses is squarely placed upon the Christian community of today. Why, because they have en-grafted among themselves those who are schooled more in carnal religious fads and societies mind-sets while having no insight as to God’s form for spiritual success. As business minded individuals, these spiritually immature leaders find that numbers and the size of paychecks are far more important than a spiritually mature group of people. These have an absence of people who move in the true gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit, the absence of a people who become the manifested righteousness of the Lord. In this, the church, typed by Jerusalem and Judah, must face a certain truth. Isa. 3:8-9, “For Jerusalem stumbled, and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The look on their countenance witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought evil upon themselves”.
A time of judgment always comes because of this rebellion as it manifests from the people. Nevertheless, even among all this spiritual darkness which covers the earth and the minds of the people, God always has a remnant of people who remain righteous. Their righteousness is not a righteousness that comes from the results of obeying man’s order of laws but is the righteousness that comes only through faith in the cross of Jesus and obedience to God’s word. (Read Isa. 1:2-20).
Isa. 3:10-12 states, “Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people [the church], children are their oppressors, and women [carnal soul realm] rule over them. O my people! Those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths”. What is it that God desires from His chosen people? In His desire, what is it that God is willing to do and complete in His people? Remember, God is building for Himself a house in which to dwell. This is a house made up of His people. A house with the heart of God to manifest the glory of God’s presence and nature throughout all generations and ages, eternal without end. This house is to be exalted above every nation and kingdom in that all other nations shall come to His abiding presence. Herein, the nations shall learn the ways of God as they begin to walk in God’s paths.
Isa. 2:2-4, “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”.
With much of the Christian community in the position of having lost their way, God speaks and acts to bring forth a church without spot or wrinkle or having any such stain. Why, could it not be that His great love for His church moves Him toward this redemption? Eph. 5:25b-27, “…just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish”. Note the word “sanctify” being used, a word whose meaning from the dictionary says, “To make holy, to be set apart as holy and consecrated. To be free from sin and become productive of spiritual blessings”. This is that work of the Holy Spirit as He dwells in a people’s life, releasing the work of the cross unto all who ask. The cross takes affect through the person’s submission to the word of God as it works out complete salvation.
Herein, this same Holy Spirit brings deliverance through judgment and spiritual burning as God exercises wrath upon all His enemies. In this, the purified church manifest as that Zion dwelling people of God, a people who now can stand in God’s holy presence to manifest His nature. Isa. 4:2-6 declares, “In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy – everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night [God’s abiding presence]. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there shall be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain”.
Where is such a place and where have the people of God gone? Have they not, for the most part, scattered into carnal mind-sets and run after their own ways? In this, have they not become captives to the carnal, fleshly mind-sets while declaring themselves to be and as having the ways of God. Where is the true knowledge of revelation as given to His people by the Holy Spirit? Isaiah declares the truth that also applies to the Christian community of today in saying in Isa. 5:13, “Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge [therefore they live in darkness]; their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst”. These conditions now exist among the Christian community of today because perverted mind-sets have become the major influence among many of this church going people groups.
These perverted leaders are declaring a gospel other than the one written from and ministered by Christ Jesus on His journeys as well as the acts of the powerful Holy Spirit filled early church. Today’s leadership mostly have been schooled in the art of building large prosperous assemblies while they neither know about or are forsaking the need for God’s divine order, His government. These are not allowing the Holy Spirit to be the leader of the gathering. These see only numbers as being more valuable than having the mature spiritual quality needed, which speaks of a spiritually mature Christ centered people.
These childish leaders are of a purpose driven mind-set that desires to achieve carnal success at the expense of a spiritual mature people, those who desire to receive the mind of Christ which is to be manifested through Christ’ people. The need for Christ’ presence and nature working among and in the people has lost any value concerning manifesting the expression of God. Therefore, a call, a cry does come forth through God’s true prophets for a restoring of that which David’s Tabernacle represents.
Acts 15:16-17, “After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things”. This scripture declares that it is God who shall rebuild and not man. This means, that God shall take out from the hands of carnal minded ministries, the people of God. God shall restore and return them back into a people of His glory. This people shall become the visible manifestation of an invisible God.
Is now the time to retake the land lost by today’s lukewarm church? Is it not time to be restored to a mind-set of a now God who is fulfilling all the promises given to His people? The promise of restoring His tabernacle within His people is that the glory of God might manifest itself again in leading His people. No longer following babes and immature children who lead God’s people to destruction, but a ministry of spiritual leadership, that causes a people to grow up. A ministry of equipping the saints, in edifying the people into the knowledge of God’s Son until perfection comes.
Eph. 4:12-15, “For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness [speaking of sophisticated cunning, unscrupulous conduct, evil treachery, deceptive scheming, arrogant shrewdness, and sly arrogance] of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ”.
Coming forth today is God’s call for a people to become the manifesting temple of God, which we are called to be. That is, becoming a restored and glorious state of Christ-like manifestations. Living in a state wherein the world will recognize a church full of power and glory that again glorifies God and not man. A church likened unto Moses, Joshua, David and the children of Israel and those who built the Tabernacle and the Ark, and now called to manifest Christ and be led by God’s glory. Exod. 40:34-38, “Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses [the type of the law] was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys”.
Is not the church of today called of God and purposed to be the temple that God is building for Himself to dwell? This temple is a people who are maturing spiritually to become that united place of God’s glory, His resting place. 1 Cor. 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you” Eph. 2:19-22, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”.
Can we not see the need for restoration? In this we look not for another, for He has even now come within to build up His temple and occupy it with all His glory. Here we shall see the gathering of the saints as heaven and earth come together to be as one. God dwelling within His temple and manifesting His glory.
“A Voice for the Gathering Saints”
Duane Stewart
www.avoiceforthegatheringsaints.org