What was it like when the Lord Jesus Christ made His appearance in the middle of the Feast of Passover? The Holy Land, Palestine, was small; Mount Zion was a hill less than two-thousand feet elevation and Jerusalem itself was not an impressive city; but whenever one of the Feasts came, it was quite a place.
The main streets were swept daily (though not the little alleys) which helped to prevent disease from the garbage and human refuse dumped onto them. Nevertheless, the Romans called Jerusalem a stinking city. You get an idea what a hot summer was like in Jerusalem when you realize that the inhabitants called the Devil “Beelzebub,” which means “lord of flies,” referring to the billions of flies. Palestine was beautiful, with forests and many wild animals, even lions and an occasional hippopotamus down by the Jordan River. Through the centuries, they’ve long since disappeared.
During the Feast people came from everywhere, clothed in the garb of many countries and bringing with them a quarter to half a million sheep for sacrificial slaughter. You can imagine the noise and the bleating as they would go through the streets, and if a man wanted to be heard he would hire some leather-lunged individual to shout to subdue the people until he could make his announcement. Even in our modern cities the noise can’t equal that which was in Jerusalem with its narrow streets, animals and everyone shouting and yelling.
Here the Lord walked, stopping traffic, with the people pressing in to be healed and going to the temples where He taught. He looked like any other Jew walking through the streets, and if God didn’t reveal it to the heart, one would never know this was the Son of God.
He taught with parables, a style with which people were familiar, though not the way He taught; they were impressed, but still didn’t know who He was. He turned to those closest to Him and asked, “Whom do men say I am?” and Peter replied, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus blessed him because that revelation hadn’t come from flesh and blood, but the Father had revealed it (Matthew 16:13–17).
Life was so different then: everything was produced with great labor; but how impressed the people were when Christ came into a situation and spoke to them. Once, soldiers were sent after Him who returned empty-handed.
“Why didn’t you seize Him?”
“A man never spoke like this man.”
In this walk, we have come into something very similar—we don’t realize and yet we’re impressed—we have never heard a word like this.
We are in the Parousia (the presence of the Lord); and just as He walked in the midst of the people then without their recognizing Him, He’s not recognized now. The world was made by Him, He was in the world and the world knew Him not (John 1:10). How could they recognize Him as the Creator when revelation was required to see it? You say, “If I had lived in that day I would never have been among those who crucified the Lord or the mobs that yelled, “Crucify Him!”But even people who were healed and delivered by Him didn’t know who He was. They could be moved by the arguments against Him unless the Holy Spirit had revealed His Sonship to them.
It took an openness then, and it still does today. You sense that there is no way you can argue with people. Only God can reveal this to their hearts; and it takes that revelation.
There’s a certain openness that has to be there.
It is so easy to miss it, because we work to understand and grasp it and yet it takes a revelation from the Lord. It isn’t like anything we know, nor like some branch of Christianity that promotes itself. We didn’t come into this without the Lord speaking to our hearts and making it real to us. That is why the Lord will anoint us to find those He has marked for this walk and to speak the word for that revelation to come to them. Revelation doesn’t come through reasoning; it’s a quality of spirit that God brings to you. There is no particular class of people above another in this.
The Lord is appearing again. His presence is in this walk, a Parousia, and again He can move in your midst without your seeing Him, or even knowing that He is there, unless the Lord reveals it to you.
The revelation you need now is to keep your spirit open to God, moving in Him, because there will be appearances of the Lord. It will be just as when He came suddenly into the temple in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles: they were amazed as they listened (John 2:13–25). Where did He go at night? They didn’t know. Everyone talked about Him but didn’t know who He was nor where He came from. They argued about Him, but argument and reason never approached what God was doing. The human mind is incapable of developing the truth generated within us. You can’t say, “I’ve finally worked out the truth,” because truth is a revelation.… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6.
The same thing is happening today. The Lord is appearing and will continue to appear to His people. We should look for and anticipate it. We are living in the time of His presence, and there should be a breakthrough upon our senses and sensitivities, not only our five senses but also our spirit and soul.
In the Old Testament it was very simple: when God’s presence was in the cloud, the children of Israel would know something was about to happen.
In the New Testament cloven tongues of fire and a mighty wind had their significance of God’s presence. Some have felt His presence during worship, like little silvery drops of rain. How will He make His presence known to you? One thing that prevents the Lord’s revealing Himself is the wrong focus of an individual’s spirit (i.e. if the Lord stood before you but you were looking the other direction you wouldn’t see Him). No amount of His manifestation will get through to you if you are looking the wrong way; it is how you focus. The same thing is true when you read. You make two or three eye movements in each line because you move across the page two or three words at a time. Rapid reading (or speed reading) is developed as you learn to focus the full span of your vision so your eyes don’t move as often, thus you can read almost as rapidly as your eyes move. You will also notice that the things outside your focus are fuzzy. You’re aware of them but you don’t see them clearly, because what your focus is on is what becomes real to you.
It is easy for one’s life to get out of focus. You can focus on the past until you are carrying the burdens of yesteryear on your shoulders, and that makes a grievous load. You stumble because the present cannot be seen properly when you are living with the burdens of the past.
You can also focus on the future, borrowing tomorrow’s troubles ahead of time, “What’s going to happen to me?” Jesus said not to worry about the future. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:34.
The Scriptures say that we are running with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus who is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:1, 2); and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time.… Hebrews 9:28.
Those who see Him don’t have their focus on the passing scene, the past or the future; but they have an expectation: momentarily expecting the Lord to reveal Himself.
The focus is on the unseen. By faith Moses endured, as seeing Him who is invisible. Hebrews 11:27. Moses’ focus was not on the Israelites he was leading through the wilderness, but on the Lord. He could endure because he was seeing Him who is invisible.
The Lord will appear, but not to those who are not focused on Him. Not that you should stand and stare at a wall asking, “When will Jesus appear?” It’s an expression of your entire spirit, your whole being focused on the Lord. The appearances and visitations will be very real to those who are focused on Him rather than on the past, future, or troubles of the present.
These momentary tribulations and afflictions work for us in an exceeding eternal way of glory when we know how to take the chastening of the Lord, but troubles get through to people when they concentrate on them.
If you focus a pure love on the Lord, everything else will become vague and indistinct; and the devil can’t use that against you, he can only use what you are focusing on.
Therefore, if you focus on the Lord he’s lost all the power of circumstances that can affect you and he won’t be able to use the tribulations or the troubles that are taking place.
Because you focus on Him, nothing else can be effective against you. To them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Hebrew 9:28. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.… I John 3:3.
There’s a readiness in our spirits that is wrought, not because we are diligently battling circumstances but because our focus is on the Lord. Some old advice given to soldiers was to watch the eyes of the enemy when in battle.
A prize fighter doesn’t try to watch the dancing feet or hands of his opponent, but his eyes, so he can anticipate the punch by the telegraph system of the other man’s eyes.
So it is when our focus is on the Lord, the tricks of the enemy are frustrated because we anticipate them. They don’t affect us because our eyes are on the Lord.
I believe that the Lord wants us to come to the place where we love Christ so deeply, with a love beyond any human love, that our focus of everything else blanks out. We won’t hear what the devil is saying or what’s going on around us; all we’ll hear is the sweetness of our Lord in our communion with Him. This should be real to us.
If it is true in human love, how much more should it be on the spiritual plane. This is the focus we are to have with our hearts wholly set upon the Lord with a fantastic love.
The Song of Solomon is a story of Solomon and his true love. This is how the Lord looks upon us, having loved us; and we love Him.
The intensity and the focus of our love leads us until we say of our love, “He’s the fairest of ten-thousand.”
Everything else fades in the focus of our love.
We should look upon this end-time walk as a love affair with the Lord.
All our focus should be on Him and our yearning for Him to appear, wanting Him to be real to us.
We should really desire for a special meeting with the Lord, a special revelation of Him, of a walk with Christ where landmarks aren’t victories that are won over circumstances but are meetings with God, times that the Lord appears and is real to us.
In a walk with God the things that are most vivid in my mind are not the tests or problems but the meetings with the Lord.
The Tabernacle was called the tent of meeting because the people went there to meet God. It was never called the tent of sacrifice, though many sacrifices were made. When the children of Israel went to meet God, they met Him in that tent of meeting.
Do you find yourself wanting to love the Lord, to fall in love with Him all over again?
You’ve lost everything if the love becomes doctrines, spiritual battles, victories over circumstances, abilities or accomplishments. You’ve missed it then, because it’s a walk with the Lord. The breakthroughs are actually breakthroughs to meetings with God.
It’s a tragedy when people are degenerated by the experiences of old order and only seek God desperately when circumstances are unbearable. That is not the basis of this walk, that He beats us into seeking Him.
This is the day of His revelation, the Parousia, and our motivation should not be, “God, help me. I’m in a corner and I must have help.” The Lord can break through for everyone.
Do not seek God to get out of a situation but seek Him to be revealed to your heart. Take down the walls to God’s revelation so that you seek the Lord with all your heart for Him to be revealed to you.
He’s not the one to deliver you from trouble but to deliver you from the walls that are up to prevent you from walking more closely with Him.
We’ve lost it all if it boils down to the gifts being used only to overcome circumstances and heal the sick. I don’t think that was the purpose of the gifts in the New Testament.
They didn’t heal the sick just to alleviate suffering. I imagine the healing of the lame man at the temple in Acts 3 started with his desire to be well, because he leaped and ran to the temple with joy. Peter said, “Why do you look on us as though by our power or holiness we made this man whole?” and he exalted Christ.
There was never a miracle or a sermon that did not bring a revelation of the Lord. Though people would say, “Don’t talk about Him anymore,” they perceived that these men had been with Jesus. It was a revelation and a walk with God.
This walk with God isn’t doctrines, a new move of prophecy, revelation or people coming into ministries. You’ve missed it if this is your thinking because it will bog down to some ambitious exercise of spiritual things, but this is a walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord, the Head of the Body, is revealing Himself through us and to us.
There is something in our spirits that is so hungry, that when the word comes it hits a depth of comprehension beyond reason—Deep calleth unto deep, is the way the psalmist puts it in Psalms 42:7.
Wherever we are, the cry of our hearts is to have a meeting with the Lord. Moses had that. When God met him he could have asked for many things: for a good plumbing system, for a better food supply. Wandering through the wilderness created many problems, but when he came before the Lord on the mountain he had only one desire.… I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. Exodus 33:18. Isn’t that what we’re crying for? That will speed things up.
Instead of worrying about how efficiently you’re moving in a gift or ministry, be more concerned about the revelation of the Lord to your heart.
Everything is enhanced by the proximity of the Lord and the communion you have with Him. Whether you seem to have a gift or not, it will work just by knowing the Lord.