Dear Friend,
The Father and His Family!
In the beginning of my new life with Jesus as my Savior I was taught and mentored by an exceptional Bible teacher. He taught me that the Bible is, “The story of a Father whose children were separated from him and the journey to bring them back home.” Simple but profound! From that ill-fated day in the Garden of Eden to the present Satan has done everything he can to destroy the family of God. I would say that his main objective has always been to destroy the very thing Father God loves the most. His children and the relationship he had with them.!
After the fall Satan told Adam and Eve that their Father wanted nothing more to do with them because they were miserable failures and a total disappointment to Him. Yet we know that is not true. From the moment that Satan deceived them in the garden Father God had prepared a way home for his children. In fact, the entire rest of the Bible is the story of that journey back home.
The first Covenant and the Three Promises!
In Genesis we see that God made three promises to Abraham and confirmed those promises by signing a contract with Abraham. We call it a contract but in those days they called it a covenant. This covenant was God’s promise that we would once again be reunited with him. Genesis 15:9-21, 26:2-6
The first promise was that God would make Abraham into a mighty nation. The second promise was that Abraham would possess the land on which he was walking. And the third promise was that Abraham’s seed or offspring would bless the world.
The first promise was fulfilled when the family of Abraham came out of Egypt. They went into Egypt numbering under a hundred and came out in the millions. A mighty nation!
The second promise came when Joshua led the Israelite people into the promised land. They then possessed the land upon which Abraham had been walking all those years previously.
The third promise was fulfilled when Jesus was born. He lived, died and rose again to establish a new covenant with us, his children. The old covenant was the one established with Abraham and the new covenant has been established with us.
The Three Reformations and the Fourth that is to come!
Now we come to an interesting point that I want to add in. Since Jesus died and rose again we have had three reformations. The first was with Martin Luther in 1517, the second with John Wesley in 1743 and the third with William Seymour in 1906.
Though there have been 40 distinct revival moves of the Spirit during the past 2000 years there have been only three reformations. A reformation is distinct in that it revives not only the church but it awakens the culture to live in God’s precepts changing and shaping our society for the better.
The Reformation under Martin Luther came approximately 1500 years after the New Covenant was established with us. For the first three hundred years the church did well but once Emperor Constantine made Christianity the required religion of the day the church began to fall apart. For the next 1200 years the church became lost, in fact historians refer to that 1200 years as the ‘dark ages.’ Why? Because when the church lost its way the world became a very dark and dangerous place to live. The church was lost because the word of God was lost. The only Bible’s available were written in a dead language, Latin, which only a few priests and aristocrats could read and none of the commoners. But when Martin Luther came along the word was once again brought out of darkness. It was like someone found the book expounding on our ‘Family Tree,’ along with the promises that our Father in Heaven made to us. We found out about Father God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The word of God had once again been revealed to the family.
The second Reformation under John Wesley, reintroduced to the church the personhood of Jesus. Even after Martin Luther’s reformation only the priest could lead someone to Jesus. But after John Wesley the common person could now tell people about Jesus and lead them in a prayer in which they could receive Jesus into their lives. Jesus became accessible to anyone who called upon His name.
The third Reformation under William Seymour reintroduced to the Church the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Not some vapor but the third person of the trinity called the Holy Spirit. The reality of the Holy Spirit in the believers life being made manifest in His love, gifts, guidance and power in increased measure.
So we find that through Luther the word, which had been stolen and hidden away, has now been revealed. Wesley brought forth a personal Jesus accessible to everyone while Seymour introduced us to the person of the Holy Spirit. The Godhead is being reintroduced to the children so that we know whom it is we believe in.
Reintroduction of our Father God!
That leaves one missing, Father God! Probably no other place has the Father been reintroduced to us like it was in January of 1994 in Toronto, Canada. The revival that was sparked in Toronto called the ‘Father’s Blessing’ has reintroduced the Father to the church in dramatic fashion.
Interestingly, over the past fifty years the five-fold ministry has been reintroduced to the church as well. The Evangelist in the 50’s, Pastor’s in the 60’s, Teacher’s in the 70’s, Prophets in the 80’s and Apostle’s in the 90’s. The emerging apostolic movement coincides with the introduction of our Heavenly Father to the Church. Which leads me to believe that there is about to be a fourth Reformation movement. This reformation is all about the Father and His family and will affect society and its view on the importance of the family.
Since the last Reformation we have witnessed two World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars. 42 million men have been killed in battle and 19 million civilians. Numerous ethnic cleansings, genocides, famines and small wars, have accounted for another 8.3 million deaths. As we look at these figures we realize that most of these were men. But not all the deaths were on the battlefield. Many of these men came home severely injured in some way. Which has led many sociologists to proclaim the 20th century as being the most fatherless century in the history of mankind.
Statistics show us that 50% of children live apart from their biological fathers. Of those, 30% do not even know who their biological father is. In South America the figure is close to 50% while in Africa it is closer to 60%. Satan is just as intent on destroying our relationship with our earthly fathers as he is in erasing our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
I believe that coinciding with the revelation of what it means to be totally accepted by our heavenly Father will be the return of true fathers here on earth. This includes apostolic and family centered earthly fathers fulfilling the fatherhood God designed for them in the beginning.
Satan has not stopped in his relentless rampage to not only erase all knowledge of our Father in Heaven but also any lineage that would point to him as being our Father. He is also wiping out all vestiges of family here on earth on a scale unprecedented in the history of mankind. Can the family survive without fathers?
Next Issue:
Satan’s plan revealed! The Demographics on the Decline of the family!
Satan’s plan revealed! The Demographics on the Decline of the family!
“It’s happening in rich and poor countries...it’s
happening throughout the Eastern and Western
hemisphere. North and South...Birthrates are
plummeting throughout the world.”Peter Longman, Senior Fellow New America Foundation
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