Samuel Morris – The African Mission to North America

Samuel Kaboo Morris

A Wall of Fire – Divine Protection

Prophetic Vision of Joseph Ayo Babalola

This is from Oluwadunni’s Blog:

The Christian faith is fraught with many questions and arguments relating to doctrine, one of which is the seeming conflict between the Old Testament and New Testament, especially pertaining to the character of God. Many think the God of the Old Testament is angry and fearful while the God of the New Testament is loving and merciful, which begs the question, “So did God change?”

In an attempt to resolve this argument, there is a school of believers that posit that some authors of the Old Testament did not have a complete revelation of God, thus they sometimes failed to present a correct image of God, filling in the blanks with their own ideas. The teaching is often characterized by negating Old Testament passages that attribute inflicting death, plagues or some adverse circumstance to God.

This teaching, though well-intentioned, finds no support in Scripture and is flawed for reasons I will outline below.

The Old Testament Is Inspired Too

The major flaw of this line of thought is that it forgets that the Holy Spirit is ultimately the author of the Bible, and thus negates and assaults the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God. This doctrine teaches that the Bible was totally inspired by God through the Holy Spirit working in human beings, and is consequently inerrant, that is, true and trustworthy. This doctrine finds support in two main passages:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” – 2 Timothy 3:16

“for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” – 2 Peter 1:21

“All Scripture”, that is the Old Testament and the New Testament, (and in fact, when that letter was written, the Old Testament was the only part of Scripture in existence), was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every word that was written was intended to be there by the Holy Spirit who superintended the process. If Scripture expressly records that “the Lord killed him”, as in the story of Er & Onan, or God shut someone’s womb, as in the story of Hannah, then we must take these words as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, to argue that the author was wrong to say that God shut Hannah’s womb or killed Uzzah for touching the ark, as God could not truly have been responsible for those acts, is to cast doubt on the divine authority and veracity of God’s Word. The implication is that the process of writing Scripture was tainted by man’s inclinations and limitations, thus exposing Scripture to errancy. If Scripture is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit who is perfect, shouldn’t the Holy Spirit be able to ensure that the authors only recorded what was true, free of error and portrayed the correct image of God? Undoubtedly, the human aspect of the writing of the Bible means that the styles, personality and cultural influences of each author seeped into the text (and same is true for the New Testament); however, I believe God, in His Sovereignty, did not allow this taint the truthfulness and reliability of His Inspired Word. Moreover, this school of thought opens the door for all kinds of subjective interpretations as one is forced to wonder what parts of the Old Testament correctly portray God and what parts do not, ultimately leading to cherry-picking.

A common rebuttal is that the people of the Old Testament did not truly know or understand God, neither did they have the full picture of Him, as the image of God is fully revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ, hence Old Testament authors inadvertently portrayed a distorted image of God. This is not altogether correct. Here, it is important to distinguish between the sacred writers of the Old Testament and the people of Israel. The people of Israel were constantly rebellious and unfaithful, and did not know or understand God’s character. Right from when God delivered them from Egypt, and led them into the Promised Land, till the lifetime of Jesus, they were a stiff-necked people whose eyes were blind and hearts were hard. For example, in Numbers 14:3, the children of Israel murmured against God saying, “Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”, depicting a lack of knowledge of God’s faithfulness and goodness. Similarly, God, through the prophet Jeremiah, said concerning them, “For my people are foolish, they have not known Me….” (Jeremiah 4:22). Jesus himself gave the same report about the Jews saying, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)

However, among these people, God revealed himself to some select few, upon whom was His Spirit. These were priests, judges, kings, prophets – people who had faith in God and were commended for it as shown in Hebrews 11:39, some of whom are the inspired writers of Old Testament books. Through his prophets, He issued messages to the rebellious and disobedient people of Israel that they may know Him, however they did not heed their words. So, although the children of Israel did not know God, did not obey Him nor listen to His messages issued through His prophets, the inspired authors were people of faith who knew God, to the extent that He spoke to them and revealed Himself and His will to them. Of Moses, God Himself said, “I speak to Him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and He sees the form of the Lord.” (Numbers 12:8; see also Exodus 33:11; Deut. 34:10). In fact, the psalmist says, “He made known His ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7); the Israelites merely saw God’s powerful miracles, but to Moses, He revealed His character. Isaiah had such a powerful vision of the Lord that he became aware of his sinfulness (Isaiah 6:1-5). Ezekiel had several visions of God that could barely be put into words. And although, David did not traditionally appear to be a prophet, the New Testament affirms in several passages that many of his psalms were prophetic.

How then could these saints of old go beyond the revelations of God shown to them and include their own notions about God, bearing in mind that their prophecies were often given in first-person as God Himself speaking? No, the Bible does not say so, Jesus did not say so, the apostles never taught so, and it is presumptuous to say so. In essence, although the OT revelations are fragmentary, the Old Testament authors portrayed God as He revealed Himself to them, within the confines of human language, exactly as inspired by the Spirit, and these portrayals are true and do not contradict the image of God that Christ presents – because Christ is present, though veiled, in the Old Testament.

It is unarguable that, in Christ, God reveals Himself in his fulness. The Apostle John writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. (John 1:14, 18) The writer of Hebrews also says: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2). To borrow the words of Jamieson Fausset Brown, “In Christ, the revelation of God is full, not in shifting hues of separated color, but Himself the pure light, uniting in His one person the whole spectrum.”

Thus, one of the things Christ did here on earth was manifest the character of God to mankind. A.W Tozer puts it this way: “Christ walked with men on earth that He might show them what God is like and make known the true nature of God to a race that had wrong ideas about Him.” Did these wrong ideas emanate from Old Testament teachings about God’s character? No, because the inspired Word produces no wrong ideas about God. The wrong ideas the people of Israel (and humanity) had about the character of God was because of their lack of knowledge and understanding about God, ultimately traceable to the sin-nature that is alienated from God. Heb. 1:1-2 evidently tells us that God spoke through the prophets first, the same prophets that the people of Israel did not listen to, same prophets they murdered (Luke 11:47-49). The purpose of Jesus’s coming was to embody and fulfill the prophecies, not to negate them.

If we deeply study the teachings and life of Jesus, we will find that He never invalidated what was written in the Old Testament about God’s character nor did He depict a different character from what was written about God in the OT; what He did was reveal that character and establish God’s perfect standards of righteousness and holiness, revealing the inadequacy and imperfection of the permissive and provisional Law given by Moses under the old covenant, in making a man pleasing to God.

Who Defines Good and Evil?

Another flaw in this teaching is its subjection of the Uncreated God to human and simplistic notions of good and evil. In its human understanding, it says, “killing is evil; God is good and does no evil; therefore, God did not kill”, failing to understand that what constitutes evil is not just the act, but the intent, the disposition behind the act, and that God transcends our own fallible views of what is good and evil. Aren’t there unbelievers who think, “How could God give up His Son to die? That’s evil.” Yet as believers we understand that God gave us His son and Jesus offered up Himself because He loved us (John 3:16, Romans 5:8) This shows us that what humans consider to be evil and what God considers to be evil are not the same. Yet, God remains the epitome of all moral excellence.

Rather than refuse to confront seemingly uncomfortable and unsettling portrayals of God in the Old Testament by presuming the writer was mistaken, we must take the written Word as it is and ask ourselves, “The Bible records that God did this and this, why did He act that way and what does this tell me about the nature of God?”

In every passage where it is recorded that God killed persons or sent a plague or delivered the Israelites into the hands of their enemies, it was preceded by a narration of the people’s iniquity and sinfulness. We see statements saying their acts “displeased the Lord” (See Gen. 38:10, Numbers 11:1, 1 Chron. 21:7) or was “evil in His sight” (Gen. 6:5, Num. 32:13, Judges 2:11). And so, we see God’s righteous judgment against sin/evil, and not an evil or malicious God going on a killing spree out of hatred for man or for morbid pleasure. We see an absolutely holy, just and perfect God who detests sin and must deal with sin decisively, because sin corrupts, pollutes and degrades His creation. God’s wrath stems from His holiness and His desire to preserve the spiritual wellbeing of His creation. This was why none of the people who rebelled against God in the wilderness made it to the Promised Land; only their children “who had no knowledge of good and evil” did (See Num. 32:13, Deut. 1:35-39). It was to preserve the moral health of His chosen ones in the “good land” they were about to possess. God’s holiness and righteous judgment, therefore, does not negate His goodness and love. The wrath of God does not reflect poorly on His loving nature. Is he truly a good and loving God if he allows sin and its evil consequences persist?

A correct understanding of these Old Testament passages actually enables us new creatures in Christ appreciate the redemptive and saving work of Jesus. It is that very wrath we see in the OT that Jesus saved us from. Just like the people of Israel, we had the sinful nature and were ‘children of wrath’ (Eph. 2:3) By the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lord laid on Him all our sins and the wrath of God was satisfied (Isaiah 53), ushering us into the dispensation of grace where forgiveness is available for all. And for everyone who believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have right standing with God and are saved from the wrath of God stored up on the Day of his righteous judgment upon the children of disobedience (Rom 2:5, Eph. 5:6). This is the true basis for our unshaking assertion that God will not kill or inflict calamity on anyone because their sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ; God has poured out mercy and grace upon humanity through Jesus Christ, and is patiently calling on mankind to be reconciled to Him (2 Corinthians 5:19). These passages also give us an in-depth understanding of how much God hates sin, that we may walk in a manner pleasing to him. This was the emphasis of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 – “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” After an exposition of the presence of Christ in the Old Testament, Paul cited examples of the Israelites’ sin from Exodus & Numbers, affirming the authority of Old Testament Scripture; if the writer was incorrect to attribute the punishment the Israelites suffered for their sin to God, the Holy Spirit would have moved Paul to say so. But he says, “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness”, confirming that they were judged by God for their sin.

Apart from God’s holiness, the Old Testament also establishes God’s sovereignty. God is the Source of all life and can determine when life begins and ends (See Psalm 90:3) So, when you say Hannah was wrong when she prayed, “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up” (1 Sam. 2:6), you focus on a myopic view of God’s goodness and lose sight of a precious truth: God is sovereign and all-powerful. God Himself had said earlier through Moses, “Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.” (Deut. 32:39). Jesus teaches this same truth about the Father: “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:5)

It is important to note that the aforementioned passages refer to physical life. People have defended this teaching with John 10:10 saying, “It is the Devil that kills, steals and destroys; Jesus only gives life.” And to that, I pose this question: “when God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did they die physically?” They suffered spiritual death, and Jesus died and was raised to life that we may enjoy spiritual/eternal life; this is what He meant when He said “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” And for everyone who believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are quickened and made spiritually alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5). John 10:10 must first be understood in the spiritual sense: Satan seeks the separation of man from God so he brought about spiritual death, he stole man’s authority and power, but Jesus has destroyed his works. Undoubtedly, Satan, being the evil being he is, also wreaks havoc by causing physical death and all kinds of calamity, but God is ultimately in control of all life. That was why God could expressly command Satan not to take Job’s life (Job 1:12)

Conclusion: There Is No Conflict

So how do we reconcile the revelation of God in the Old and New Testament? Well, the error is in thinking that there is a conflict, that the Old Testament only portrays God as a God of anger and judgment, while it was first in the New Testament, through Jesus Christ, that we come to know God as a God of mercy and grace. Before time even began, God has been and will always be merciful and good. The Old Testament narrates many instances where God withheld his anger and showed forgiveness (Exodus 32:14, 2 Sam. 24:16, 1 Kings 21:29, Jonah 3:10), and contains symbols of God’s mercy that would later be fully fulfilled in Jesus Christ. For example, after exacting judgment on Adam and Eve for disobedience, God made garments for them and clothed them (Genesis 3:21); also, when venomous snakes bit the Israelites due to their rebellion, the Lord instructed Moses to make a bronze snake and hang it on a pole, so that whomever is bitten can look to it and live (Numbers 21:8-9). Here are some OT verses that speak of God’s mercy and grace:

“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin…”– Exodus 34:6-7
“But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” – Psalm 86:15

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” – Psalm 103:8-10

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” – Micah 7:18-19

“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23

“So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.” – Joel 2:13

In Jesus Christ, we see all these Scriptures fulfilled. We see the actualization of God’s mercy, goodness and love towards humanity.

And here are New Testament verses that speak of God’s justice and judgment, apart from those earlier cited.

“Therefore, consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness…” – Romans 11:22

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…” – 2 Corinthians 5:11

“For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” – Hebrews 10:30-31

It is evident that God is portrayed as kind, loving, gracious and merciful, alongside the portrayals of His holiness, righteousness and justice in both the Old and New Testament. He is revealed as truly in the Old Testament as He is in the New Testament; both unify to reveal God and His Son, Jesus Christ, in fullness.

We must be careful not to have a one-sided view of God that fits our own mold of what He should be. As believers, we study the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, and we do this without sitting in judgment over what has been written or objecting to what we erroneously and fearfully think paints God in a bad light. He does not need you to make him look good; He is good in Himself. The Bible reveals many attributes of God and they are not inconsistent with each other at all. As Tozer writes, “Between His attributes, no contradiction can exist. He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all attributes are one.”

I implore us to take time to study all the Scriptures stated here, even as we maintain an open, humble and teachable spirit. The Holy Spirit will help us understand His Word and guide us into all truth. Amen.

*All A.W. Tozer quotes are from his book The Knowledge of the Holy.

The Man Christ Jesus
Enoch:  The Seventh from Adam
Time, Timelessness and Jesus Christ

The Cross Found in the Old Testament

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Jude 1:12:  “These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.”

Water in spiritual parlance refers to the life of God.

Moses while speaking of the future to the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:1-2), said may his teachings drop as the rain. The word of God and water (in a spiritual sense) has been closely associated.

The purification of the bride of Christ, according to the teachings of Paul, is done by the washing of water via the word (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Blessings and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit have also been associated with water in the word of God, both being an extended and intensive expression of the life of God. The rivers of living water illustrates the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-38) and the well of living water like the one Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman about (John 4:10. 13-14), is about the life of God in people.

Paul said let your words be seasoned with salt, ministering grace to the hearers (Ephesians 4:29). The life of God and his grace are alike. If they are not one and the same thing. I see the former as the potential energy and the later the kinetic energy, the former the raw material while the latter is the product. Jesus was said, in the bible, to be “full of grace and truth” and, “in Him was life” (John 1:4, 14, 17).

Peter said ministering to others is about being a conduit of the grace of God, the blessing of God, whether in spiritual or physical form (1Peter 4:9-10).

Therefore to be a cloud without water, as the accusation of Jude against some people goes, is to be bereft of spiritual value maybe because your attention is on accomplishing some other things rather than being a blessing. You may want to be make money for yourself, or achieve a name for yourself, or have gotten swallowed up by fleshly drives.
A cloud without water is a contradiction. This is a person who, like a cloud, is in an elevated position. He is so positioned that people look up to him for spiritual value but they meet nothing but frustration and retrogression.

Jesus cursed a tree because he expected a “blessing” from it and he got nothing (Mark 11:12-14). A cloud without water is all sound but no anointing, no fire from the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).

Don’t be a cloud without water.

The number one thing to do is to value the presence of God. There, one on one with him, you soak in his rains as it falls on you so that you are full of water to rain on others (Hosea 6:3).

The king’s spokesman must hear, from the king before speaking for him. The task of speaking for God is so solemn that a declaration of woe is made upon anyone who says, “Thus says the Lord,” when God has not spoken (Ezekiel 13:1-3).

Since Jesus is full of grace and truth, it means that there is no grace (divine ability) anywhere else apart from in full fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit. And any attempt to proclaim truth without Christ first expressing it (also by fellowship and sometimes hardship) in you, it is merely expressing an opinion.

Since truth makes free, therefore its expression is more than being articulate (and that is good [Proverbs 16:21]). You must have been actively engaging truth the person, to communicate truth in your message.

What I am saying is that you may say the right things (any parrot can do that) but you cannot communicate the truth that make people free without being in active fellowship with the truth. The quantity of time some pastors spend in the presence of God in prayer is so pitifully small. That is because being a pastor is just something they do and not who they are, therefore, they are pastors made in the church organization not made from the heaven.

They become a disappointment both to themselves and to the people they are meant to serve. They fall into depression, they burnout, and they mess around because they tried to output what they can’t. They are clouds without water. They want to give spiritual nourishment when they neglect the Father of spirits.

Sometimes some of these clouds have water to give but the volume of water is not more than a splatter, more a nuisance than a blessing. They move the people momentarily but there is no lasting impact for God. Not for lack of sincerity on their part, it is lack of familiarity with the ways of God which they can only learn when living your life from the presence of God.

These set of people suffer from underdeveloped capacity, they spend scanty time in the presence of God and therefore have scanty rain to give the people.

Moses was described as a person who knew the way of God (Psalm 103:7). God used him to sustain a nation in the wilderness. He had enough spiritual clout to command the deliverance of nation. But everything started from the presence of God (Exodus 3:1-5) and he continued in that form throughout his lifetime. Moses was one to spend extended periods of time with God.

His value for the presence of God borders on obsession. Moses was not moved in his resolve even when it was suggested that, not the Lord, but an angel would lead the children of Israel (Exodus 32:31-35, 33:12-16). He refused to settle for the second best. Is there such hunger in you that says, “for the presence of God I will give it all it takes?” For Moses God himself could not stand in his way. He’ll rather die than not see light, the light in his presence.

Many want to begin to show people the way when they have not experience the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ (2Corinthians 4:5-7). Moses said to God, “Show me your glory.” You can only lead the people of God to glorious place when you have experienced God’s glory in the place of seeking.

God rebuked certain prophets in the book of Jeremiah, saying they prophesied but not according to him and have led the people astray (Jeremiah 23:16-23). But the solution was simple: God said if they had taken the pain to find out what He has to say then they would truly speak for him. And not be clouds without water.

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
27 November 2008

Last night I had a dream about Barack Obama. In the dream, I was reading an article in a newspaper. In the article, it said that Barack Obama had taken some United Nations money that was supposed to be used for a certain African nation and used it instead for his own purposes. During the dream, I saw a map of Africa–probably central Africa–and I saw this line drawn from one nation that went north to a neutral nation–maybe this was a highway. I am not sure what “neutral” means. The neutral nation was colored white–the rest of the map of Africa was a dark color–maybe a lighter shade of black. In the lower right-hand corner of the newspaper article were six thumbnail photos of Barack Obama. The photos definitely looked like Barack Obama except for one thing–his skin color was much blacker in the photos than in real life. In the photos, Barack Obama looked more like an African black man than an American black man.

Obama
Brian’s Dream about the United States and Africa
King Ahab, King Jehoiakim and Barack Obama
Barack Obama and the Media
Vladimir Putin on Barack Obama
Dead in the Water
Obama is Fallen, is Fallen
ObamaGate

Presidential seal falls off podium as Obama speaks

Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world

Tomi Arayomi – Dream about Barack Obama

Barry Wunsch – Vision of Deep State – Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton (29:00 – 40:00)

Former US President Obama to relocate to Kenya in June

Obama BANNED from Russia after release of Durham Report

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Ezekiel 1:1: Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

There are seven types of visions of God that we can experience: mind picture; Dream vision; waking dream vision; trance vision; spiritual vision; transportation vision, open vision.

A vision generally defined is a divine communication. In the words of Joel quoted by Peter: In the last days the Lord will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh and the result will be speaking revelation (prophecy), seeing revelation (vision), dreaming revelation (dreams) (Acts 2:14-21). By the Spirit of God visions are multiplied, the communication between heaven and earth is enhanced.

Vision is what is seen/observed in a spiritual sense. Vision is a spiritual thing. This is different from what is referred to as “vision” for a corporation or a person, which is self-generated based on knowledge wisdom and understanding as possessed by the individual, family, organisation or business. The word vision, as used in the focus verse is about creating a link between our spirit and our mind for a period of time. Vision is not self-constructed or initiated; it is directed by the Holy Spirit. It is a reflection of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

To be able to see the visions of God we need to clean up our inner eye, the eye of our imagination. We need to increase our meditation on the word of God, prayer and fasting. Praying in the Holy Spirit which is praying with our spirit (speaking in tongues) serves to sharpen us; because it is through that that we build up ourselves spiritually to be ready to experience spiritual vision.

Vision can come in the form of direct message (clear instruction [Matthew 2:13]), figurative message (full of symbols [Acts 16:9]), and word of knowledge (knowing facts in the past [John 1:47-48]), word of wisdom (knowing the future [A lot of the book of revelation]), and encouragement (Matthew 1:20). In whatever form it is, we need God to tell us the meaning of the revelation. It is erroneous to jump to conclusions when it comes to visions.

An example is the spiritual vision that Jeremiah had (Jeremiah 1:11-16). (In a spiritual vision we are fully aware of our physical surrounding, but we are also enabled to see something spiritual as well, as the spiritual realm [in 3Dimensions/video] is opened to us).

In that vision, he saw an almond fruit, and the meaning God gave was: I watch over my word to perform it. Any other interpretation would have been false. You need God to give you the interpretation to that vision.

Joseph who was a dream interpreter (a dream happens during sleep; waking dream happens at the point of coming from sleep to wakefulness, to enhance retentiveness), interpreted three dreams that were recorded in the bible.

At each point, he says the source of right dream interpretation is God. Also Daniel, who interpreted a number of visions and dreams for kings while he was in exile, always acknowledges God as the true interpreter, since the dream/revelation came from him in the first instance.

The first one he would interpret is the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. God revealed both the original dream that the king refused to share and the interpretation to Daniel. And that came as a result of corporate prayers (Daniel 2:16-30).

Daniel himself had revelations, for which that he prayed with fasting for the interpretation to come from God. He did not try to be smart, deciding to use his experience (Daniel 10:11-14). He fasted and prayed for interpretation. And in that story we know that if the devil cannot prevent us from having the visions of God, he wants to prevent us from having the correct interpretation. The only valid interpretation is the one God gives you not what you come up with by conjecture and hearsay.

It is a mind picture when you see a still picture that you are see within yourself (it is so close to the imagination, that if you are not careful you will miss it); when you are seeing it in form of internal pictures while awake but also fully aware of your surroundings. In a spiritual vision (video), you are aware of spiritual occurrence/events within you at the same time you are aware of physical events around you.

The vision that Elisha and his servant had of angels in chariots and horses of fire fall to the category of spiritual vision. They were still aware of their surrounding when they saw what they saw in video (moving pictures) (2Kings 6:12-18).

Seeing that vision made a difference in the perspective of the servant; before he was afraid that a foreign army was going to destroy them, now he was fearless; He was sure that greater are they who are with them than any army of the enemy.

Paul spoke of having a revelation when he was taken up to heaven (2Corinthians 12:3-4); he said that he does not know if that was in the body or outside the body, where he heard things which were not lawful for him to declare. If it were in the body, that means it was transportation vision, where time is temporarily suspended for you and you are taken to another place, in split seconds, in the time of the earth but maybe hours in the timeless zone of the heavenlies that you are taken to.

But if it is outside the body, in which your senses, awareness of your environment is suspended and you are seeing things. It happened to Peter, while staying in the house of Simon the tanner (Acts 10). God used that to prepare, Peter to go and minister to gentiles; what he would never had done on his own accord.

In the trance (a trance also have audio, a spiritual vision is only video), God showed Peter a platform descending from heaven full of ceremonially unclean animals according to the Old Testament. He was told to arise and eat them, to which he said he can’t eat what is unclean. And God told him: what I have cleansed, don’t call unclean.

After that the Holy Spirit told him that certain people are coming to fetch him, and he was to follow them compulsorily. So through a trance vision and an instruction from the Holy Spirit, Peter was led to where he does not want to go. He was brought to a new understanding of God and his plans based on that vision. That vision helped him to take the right action along the path of the will of God.

There is also the open vision which has to do with the opening of the eyes to see and interact with the spiritual world as if, it is natural world. What Moses saw in the wilderness in the burning bush was an open vision (Exodus 3:1-5); also interactions with angels (in this natural realm) are open visions. Philips was told by an angel to go in a specific direction to meet an Ethiopian enough to preach Christ to him (Acts 8:26). When Paul said that an angel of his God was beside him giving him God’s word, it was an open vision.

The revelation of John was transportation vision. He was taken to another realm to experience things and write the book of revelation. It started with an open vision, seeing Jesus on the island of Patmos, and it ended with a transportation vision- he was taken to the heavenly realm of God.

So in increasing intensity, we have dream (possibility of forgetting is high and it may just be as a result of multitudes of activities during the day, but it can also be a message from God), waking dream (you have it in between waking and sleeping [greater retention]), inner picture (still photo), spiritual vision (video inside yourself), trance (video and audio, senses suspended), open vision (video and audio, interacting with the spiritual world as if it is natural, senses intact), transportation vision (there is video, audio, senses fully aware in the outer spaces/the timeless realm).

This is from the Singapore Christian blog:

Love of the World is Like Marrying a Beautiful But Dead Woman

The late great Nigerian evangelist and revivalist Joseph Ayo Babalola once had a prophetic vision which highlighted to him the futility of chasing after the world:

I saw a man dancing and rejoicing because he was getting married. When we got there, we saw a dead woman, most beautiful in the world. This man was dancing and rejoicing greatly. When I asked the Lord for the interpretation, the Lord said the dead woman represents the world and the joyous man represents the people in the world that love the world. Whoever loves the world and its riches is married to a dead. Don’t love the world or anything in it because the world has died and a dead cannot do any good thing. There is nothing to enjoy in the dead.

This prophetic vision, and others that were given to Babalola can be found in the book Great Revivals Great Revivalist by Abi Olowe.

Joseph Ayodele Babalola, 1904-1959
Deception of the physical eyes
Samuel Kaboo Morris
A Wall of Fire

Samuel Morris – The African Mission to North America

Mysterious Legacies and Facts about Apostle Joseph Ayodele Babalola

Paisios:  “When the heart is drawn to earthly beauties”

Joseph Ayo Babalola

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Isaiah 1: 9:  “Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”

Jonathan, Saul’s son, said that it is nothing with God to save with a few or with many (1Samuel 14:6-15). And he went into the camp of Philistines, with his armour bearer, just the two of them, with that understanding. Definitely, he was a man of strong faith.

He did not wait to get permission, to get a consensus, he did not call for volunteers and he caused such a commotion. After killing a few in direct combat, God sent an earthquake to back up his audacious initiative.

In the time of Gideon, God told him to go and deliver Israel as one man, but he thought he was very small (Judges 6-7). He thought he was the least person in Israel that should be considered for that job. Eventually with only a few hundred people he led the people to strike the enemy. God said he did so that Israel will not think that she made it happen by her own strength and so become puffed up.

David as one man defeated the army of Philistine (1Samuel 17). Goliath has put himself forward from among the them are a representative, as a champion, and asked that someone from Israel come forward for a one-on-one battle, instead of the full armies confronting each other. He was so sure of himself, sure of his war experience, sure of his big spear and his giant stature.

But David showed up as someone without those credentials. But he came fully kited with trust in God and at the end of his encounter with Goliath, David stood with his cut-off head in his hand and the remaining army of the Philistine fleeing, not believing their eyes.

The one in whom they trusted was downed by a young lad barely weaned from his mother’s breast milk. They did not know that out of the mouth of babes and suckling God has ordained strength to silence the enemy (Psalm 8:2).

God used a young man, with only a stone and a sling, with virtually no experience on the battlefield to give Israel victory at that time over their perennial enemy, cause to flee the battlefield in total disarray.

God is not so enamoured by the crowd as he is with the state of people’s heart. He sees the heart and not the appearance. He said though many people call him lord, lord; he only regards those who do what he says (Luke 6:46). Many may shout Jesus is Lord, but a few live it.

He said there are two roads, one to life and the other destruction. The one to destruction has popular appeal, it is a broad road, many find it; it is the place for the crowd. But the road that goes to life is narrow, and a few find it. It is the path to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14). The high calling is highly costly. Few can pay the prize.

God asked a question: Who shall I send, who shall go from us (Isaiah 6:1-8)? Isaiah answered: here am I send me. He decided to choose what God chooses, leave his own preference to embrace God, to speak the words of God, while others speak their own words, he chose to represent God while other represent themselves. He represents the remnant. And God told him not to fear what the people fear nor come to their ungodly conclusion (Isaiah 8:12-13).

The bible says, everyone do proclaims his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find (Proverbs 20:6)? Those who look out for themselves are many but those who look out for the things of God are few.

David prayed, help lord, for the godly man ceases and the faithful perish among the sons of men, i.e. they are going into extinction, getting fewer and fewer in number, those who hold to moral values are diminishing in number (Psalm 12:1). They are a remnant, rear breed and hard to find.

Paul wrote that in the last days the Spirit expressly says that many shall become lovers of themselves; abandoning the love of God (2Timothy 3:1-2). But there will be a remnant. Will you be one of those who stay true to the end? Jesus said he who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13).

When in the wilderness and the children of Israel fell into idolatry, Moses was angry and the wrath of God was burning against the people. And Moses called out: who is on the Lord’s side (Exodus 32:20-35)?

And the tribe of Levi stood up to be counted. Though one of the tribes of Israel, that day they began to journey to distinction in that nation.

Moses asked them to do something dangerous, something that will make them hated by men, hated by their brothers. Moses said they should take up dangerous instruments and kill their brothers and sisters from other tribes. And they obeyed. They chose relationship with God over relationship with their brothers, obedience to God over social expectations, similar to what Jesus said that if you do not hate your brothers and sisters you cannot be his disciples (Luke 14:26).

On the discipleship gate, there is no sign saying: everybody qualifies. Everybody is called but not everybody is accepted, not everyone qualifies (Matthew 22:14).

When Gideon blew the trumpet, in the time of the Judges, over thirty thousand showed up for war, but when the screening was done, only 300 were left.

These passed the test of fearlessness and the huddle of inner dispositions which was reflected in their physical posture when they wanted to get water from a river. You will think you have more chance of victory with such a crowd when you want to defeat an enemy, but in God’s calculation, having a crowd is not always linked to victory.

That means when you want to go forward in the will of God, you cannot act based on consensus, it is not about who agrees with you or who does not, who supports you or who does not, who sees things from your point of view or not.

When Jesus said he was going to die on the cross, his best pal, Peter was firmly against it (Matthew 16:21-23). Jesus did not say that he will go and think about it. He was harsh to Peter, telling him: get behind me Satan. He surely did not walk based on consensus but the will of God.

Similarly, when God asked Noah to build an ark to prepare a remnant when he planned to send a flood to the earth to destroy every living thing (Genesis 7). The only people saved were Noah and his family. Jesus revealed what happened at that time will repeat itself, in which people will continue in their previous lifestyles and normal social engagement when a major catastrophe was coming on the earth. The majority were blinded from the import of the moment while Noah and a few people member of the family was saved. Only a remnant was saved.

The Nakedness of Noah

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Job 13:5: Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!

Silence was used as a weapon of warfare when the children of Israel wanted to take over Jericho (Judges 6). For days they marched on God’s instruction around that impregnable wall, not saying a word.

They allowed their feet to speak of their intention to conquer Jericho and not their mouth. That is why it was said that action speaks louder than words.

When you act on the word of God, you do not need to shout for you to have result. Jesus told some servants to fetch water into certain containers to resupply wine to a wedding party. They did not need to say anything, except obey that instruction (John 2:1-11). They did not argue, wondering what their efforts have to do with the result they expect. They expected wine, but Jesus was asking them to walk and work, carrying burdens. And to carry burdens is the biblical symbolism for intercession.

The children of Israel wanted to conquer Jericho but they were asked to walk about it with the soldiers with their weapon, with the priest with the ark and some people ready to blow trumpets.

All of which means confrontation, but not of the verbal but spiritual kind. The soldiers with their weapon, reflects what happens in the realm of the spirit with the angelic warriors against the enemy.

The ark stands for the presence of God which is for the nation of Israel and against their enemy. And the trumpet is the divine word released for a change of season for the children of Israel. The three shows what is happening in the realm of the unseen. They are weapons of warfare, which the children of Israel were executing while their mouths were shut. It was spiritual. They acted on the word of God and those were the forces released through their silence. It creates the atmosphere for God to work. Silence says you trust God to act. It is a statement of faith in God. And the bible says that this is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith.

The servants were to fetch water in six pots, and the children of Israel were made to go round Jericho for six days. The number six is the number of creation, standing for the six days the earth was made with man in it. Therefore in silence the creative force is unleashed.

What happened with the water turning into wine was nothing less than creation. And what the children of Israel got at the end of the journey around Jericho was negative creation, they needed something that had been formed, created/setup by the enemy to become non-existent. The needed the wall to fall before them.

It takes the force of creation to destroy what is. The enemy wants to keep the children of Israel out of what God had ordained for them. But they got in through the gate of silence.

Silence was wisdom, because it was what God commanded. They acted on God’s word and that made it effective. The silence was in obedience to God and they moved mountain because of that.

The wrong use of the mouth is sometimes worse than no use. That is what the story of Zechariah taught. Angel Gabriel came to Zechariah to announce the birth of his children, but instead of receiving the good news with excitement, he was sceptical (Luke 1).

He said how can these things be? Though he had prayed, he had stopped waiting, and when the gift of the child wanted was brought by the angel, he almost worked in disagreement. But to prevent that from happening, he was made dump.

God used the silence to move him from using his mouth wrongly to not using it well. And the next time he opened it to speak, he spoke the name of the child, which was followed by prophecies about the child. He was fully aligned with the mind of God. Silence (though enforced) changed him.

When Job was sick, and he complained against God, at the end of it all, when God had his own say, Job said that he had said things he did not understand, and thought he needed to repent. That would not be necessary if he had shut up earlier on (Job 42:1-6).

David prayed that the words of his mouth and the meditation of his mouth should be acceptable to God (Psalm 19:14). Sometimes what is acceptable is silence.

When Jesus was arrested and was being prosecuted for doing nothing wrong, he refused to put up a defence of himself, he did not attempt to try to get out of the situation. He was silent as a lamb before his slaughterer as it was prophesied he would (Isaiah 53:7).

His silence was a weapon of warfare which led to the end of the devil as an authority on the earth, at least in the ultimate sense. Through death he destroyed him who has the power of death, the devil.

If Jesus had defended himself the whole plan of salvation would have been aborted. Remember he is the creator, the word through whom the world was created (Hebrews 11:3, John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:16).

When the soldier came to pick him up at the garden of gethsemane, and Peter in defence of him took a sword and cut off one ear of someone there, Jesus put back the ear and said he could pray to his father to release more than twelve legions of angels there and it would be done (John 18:36, Matthew 26:47-56).

Later he said, this is the hour and power of darkness (Luke 22:47-53). He allowed himself to be walked on in order to fulfil his calling to be the Lamb of God, and make us walk in the high places (Ephesians 1:3).

So his silence is a symbol of sacrifice. So also you are called to make sacrifice to be all God wants you to be. If Jesus had his way maybe he would not have gone all the way to the cross, but he was commitment to the will of God and that demanded sacrifice.

There are direction you will not go, things you will not do, because of your commitment to the will of God.

Paul said everything is lawful to him but not everything is necessary, not everything edifies, not everything is beneficial, helpful, and not everything moves you in the direction of the plan and purposes of God. You cannot be everything, you cannot do everything. You therefore have to be “silent” to many things (1Corinthians 6:12; 10:23).

The bible recommended that wives use the weapon of silence to win over their unbelieving husbands (1Peter 3:1-6). They are to use the ornament of a quiet spirit, not being quarrelsome but submissive as a force of attraction. So in the battle to win the soul of the husband the “weapon of silence” is recommended. It is wisdom.

When you are quiet not agitated it means you are trusting in God. Those who trust in God are like mount Zion that cannot be removed (Psalm 125:1). That means there is no defence like silence. The bible rebuked those who trust in man as against trusting in God, saying that there place will be in the parched places of the earth, they cut themselves from the help of God (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

Paul wrote that the God of peace will soon crush the devil under our feet (Romans 16:20). When we walk in peace we have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and that is part of the armour of God that we wear in our conflict with the principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:10-12). Peace is a weapon of warfare. Silence is holding your peace (Exodus 14:14), which gives the platform for God to fight for you.

Why Silence?
The Art of War

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Joshua 5:13: When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” (ESV)

Standing with sword drawn, is a posture showing readiness for action. We all need to live emotionally, mentally and spiritually at alert.

In the focus verse, it was an angel who was with a sword drawn at the beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan gives a lot of confidence to the earthly captain of the host, Joshua (Joshua 1). With that revelation, it was the icing on the cake of the words that he has heard from God that he should not be afraid in his new assignment.

But naturally-speaking, he had every reason to be afraid. Moses, the “backbone of Israel” the man of signs and wonders, the man with unalloyed communication with God, with the amazing track record of the supernatural was now off the scene.

It was a new season for the children of Israel and Joshua, the new leader of Israel, who had experience with Moses (being his minister, servant) of how difficult the children of Israel can be, felt that he really had his plate full. Added to that is fact that the Israelites were largely inexperienced in battle. And there they were, about to take on entrenched and well developed nations.

He needed all the help he could get to successfully carry out the mind of God. And just as he was going to have to take the initiative to take over Canaan land, he was encouraged by the revelation of the angel with a sword drawn, ready to help in the battle.

To keep the sword sheathed in the time of battle is to commit a crime, and to risk God’s rejection. It means you do not want to move at God’s command.

That was what happened a few decades before Joshua became leader in Israel. Then when God wanted the children of Israel to move on the land of Canaan to battle the people for their land, the majority of the people were more fearful of their lives than they were of not disobeying God (Numbers 13-14). And they experienced the wrath of God, wondering for years in the wilderness, till that generation wasted away.

When God calls us to the battle front in any area, in any context, we should obey, prepare and take prompt action. We cannot afford not to be ready when God is ready, when God is on the move and we are also on the move, we take delivery of his abundant grace.

Otherwise we would be rebels. When Jesus called a man to follow him and he said that he wants to first bury his father, he was told to let the dead bury their dead but that he needed to follow immediately (Luke 9:59-60).

Prompt action when God gives instruction should be the norm (Genesis 22:1-3). That is what it means to walk with God. Anyone in a relationship with God is called to walk with him, to line up with his word, with his dictates.

When we do that we become God’s agents of change just as Joshua was when he led the Israelites to conquer of the land of Israel. Realise that you are serving a king Jesus who have been promised the ends of the earth for his possession (Psalm 2). In this age, the church does not conquer by the use of arms, but spiritually and by knowledge. By being the light we vanquish darkness (John 1:1-5).

The bible is a book of battles. There was a spiritual battle in the Garden of Eden, but Eve did not have “her sword” drawn and was conquered by the enemy (Genesis 3). Fast forward to the wilderness where Jesus was in a temptation battle with the devil just as Eve was (Matthew 4:1-11).

Jesus, equipped with the word of God, the sword of the spirit (Ephesians 6:17), came out victorious. At the end, Jesus told the devil, depart from me. He put the devil in his place, not giving him any inch of space, or influence in his life because he had his sword drawn.

The first law of combat is to recognise who the enemy is. If the enemy can successfully disguise himself, or if he can get us to focus on the wrong enemy, then defeat is almost sure.

Paul informed that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and all other wicked forces (Ephesians 6:10-18) arrayed against the knowledge of Christ, arrayed against us (2Corinthians 10:1-4). He said: I fought with beasts in Ephesus (1Corinthians 15:32), adding that if we are ignorant of the devices of the enemy he might deal a deadly blow to us (2Corinthians 2:11).

We need to live with our sword drawn, with our spiritual sensitivity heightened, to gain divine direction and to defeat satanic opposition.

Sword drawn means you are ready to take more territories for God. The bible says that we need to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. God told Joshua: everywhere the sole of your feet touches, I have given to you. In another place we read: the God of peace will soon trample underfoot the enemy (Romans 16:20).

As mentioned earlier, the bible says that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit. So while I quote the scriptures, what may be seen coming out from my mouth in the spirit is a sword. Jesus was depicted in the book of revelation as having sword in his mouth (Revelation 19:15). So the victory is through the mouth.

How did Jesus send demons oppressing people packing while he was on earth? It was not by being silent, but by issuing words of command. We bear that same authority as we have been given power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the powers of the enemy (Luke 10:19), through the words of our mouth (Mark 16:15-18).

Jesus said that all powers have been given to him, as he sends us forth to preach the gospel to all creatures. Paul said that it pleased God to save some through the preaching of the gospel (1Corinthians 1:21). Those people so saved are like territories taken from the enemy.

How are they saved? Through the preaching of the word, which is the sword of the spirit which cuts away at the web of lies that the enemy had them in, and free them to come into the light from the darkness.

Light is a weapon to fight darkness. The sword of the word of God is a sword of light, sword of truth, because what the devil has are lies, darkness. Jesus called him the father of lies whose very nature is lies (John 8:44). The battle with fight is with truth (Psalm 45:1-6), through which we get the people to submit to Christ as they are saved.

Strongholds

This is from the Daily Meditation blog:

Leviticus 4:6: and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the LORD in front of the veil of the sanctuary.

There is no running away from the blood as the means of salvation. It does not matter what you feel about it, and how offensive you think that is.

There are three things about the blood of Jesus that makes it important. Where it is from, what it conveys, what it buys.

It is the blood of God (Acts 20:28). It is therefore an eternal statement of the commitment of God to humanity.  The impression you may get after God chased man out of the garden because of sin, may be that God wanted to wash his hands off the case of man, as he chased him out with words of judgement, the judgement of death. You may think that was the end, that the holy God has separated himself from man because of sin for good. But with the incarnation of Jesus and the shedding of his blood, the life of God, his acceptance and commitment to man were eternally accented, to make manifest to man.

God is love, and because of that he sets out to make a way for man to come back to him, opening the door, His Son (John 10:9-10, 14:6). And Jesus because he shed his blood became the way. And understanding the truth about the blood is nothing less than liberating.

The earth received life coming from the blood of Jesus (Genesis 9:4), heralding a new dawn for it. Whatever is in Jesus is made available to humanity, which the dust on the earth represented (Genesis 3:19), on which the blood of Jesus which was shed fell.

He had on him a crown of thorns, which those who are persecuting him thought was punishment but they did not know that he was being crowned king indirectly (John 19:3).

Note that the authority which put the crown on Jesus was the number one ruler on the earth at that time, based on the revelation of Daniel about the kingdoms that would dominate the earth, was the roman empire, the iron kingdom (Daniel 2:31-49). When the Roman Empire put a crown on Jesus, and its army bowed to him in mockery, they transferred rulership on the earth to him. What they did was a prophetic act though they were ignorant of that fact.

Pilate inscribed these words on the cross of Jesus: “the king of the Jews (John 19:19-22).” The Pharisees protested against this, but Pilate refused to budge.

You might think that it was just something written in the bible for the story interest, but everything written about Jesus, e.g. events surrounding his death, have prophetic purpose. It was not for fun.

As the “truth” everything about Jesus manifest truth. Even the inscription on the cross communicated truth. He was truly the king of the Jews and the king of the world.

In the book of Zechariah, the bible says that they children of Israel will realise in the future that they have crucified their promised king and they will weep in regret of their action (Zechariah 12:10).

So Jesus, at his lowest moment, nearing the time of death, was “declared” king. He became king by death. This is because the one from whom he wanted to take over at that time was not really the man who was the emperor in Rome, but the devil. He went into the grave, triumphing over the devil in the cross (Colossians 2:15), and came out to declare that all power in heaven and on earth is given to him (Matthew 28:18), because he shed his blood.

He shed his blood to take on another life, another identity. He became a life-giving Spirit (1Corinthians 15:45). He is the Lord of life, rescuing people from death and hell, from damnation.

We are redeemed by the blood of Jesus (Revelation 5:9). What exactly is the purchasing power of the blood of Jesus? It is unlimited, because it is the blood of God. Paul warned the leaders of the church to know how to handle the Christians because they have been purchased by God with his blood. The blood was the ransom paid for our release from the bondage of death. Since the rule of sin was via the dominion of death, offering his son to death, God exhausted the power of death on him (Hebrews 2:14), death was swallowed up (1Corinthians 15:54-55), making all of us free, delivered from the fear of death.

Death was spent on Jesus (displayed by the fact that he rose up from the dead), and now sin and death no longer have dominion over us, we therefore enter into life.

Jesus said that what shall it profit a man to win the whole world and lose his soul (Mark 8:36-37)? This means that the value soul of a man which is saved by the blood of Jesus cannot be quantified. That goes to show that the only kind of blood that can redeem the billions of people on the earth is the blood of Jesus. Jesus had to be God or else the redemption work was not going to work.

If a soul is really precious, how much value do we have in the blood that saves us?

Therefore we cannot sing enough about the blood of Jesus. How precious it is, its cleansing power, its limitless power. The writer of the book of Hebrews while describing the church says that we have come to mount Zion the city of the living God, to the blood of sprinkling which speaks better than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24).

If the blood speaks anything, it is life, because life is in the blood, its life speaks power, because the spiritual power that led to our deliverance is packed in the blood. Jesus walked in the power of the Holy Spirit on earth to set people free from the oppression of the devil, but he needed to take his blood to heaven to buy up a place with his father. He has told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them so that where they are he may be also (Ephesians 2:13). The blood brings us to God.