Church of Tyre Prophecy

Woe to a people who are comfortable and complacent, and who take solace from the destruction of others. You think you will prosper at the expense of your brothers; you think you will replace Jerusalem as the apple of my eye? Have I not made known my salvation to you and revealed my goodness to you, in spite of your many sins? Then why do you delight in the judgment of your brother? Why do you, in glee, lord it over the people of the circumcision group? Why do you dismiss curtly and without compassion? Surely you should be wounded if your brother is injured? Surely you should share the suffering of your brother. But you are higher than he and you think that I am with you. I charge you with callousness and I find you guilty.  

You think I speak through you and yet your heart is far from me. You delight in your status and reputation and you pour scorn on your brothers. You think I am with you? No, I am not; I am against you. Remember what I did to Tyre when I punished her for all her haughty words. I pushed her into the sea, never to rise again. I am sending a dry wind from the east to test you and to sift you. Will I find faith when I come or will I find the rules and the religion of men? 

To those who are comfortable: you will be comfortable no more: the rug shall be pulled out from underneath you and your many buildings will be sold to unbelievers. Your goods will be seized and your broadcasting will come to an end. I am sick of your traffic and trade. You have enslaved your fellow brothers. Did I not call them out of darkness to be my children but you have enslaved them all over again to your teachings and to you gross practices. You excuse yourself and all those exposed in public. You use grace as a cover for wickedness. Not only does this greatly grieve me but I find myself aroused and jealous for my people, the sheep of my pasture. You have interjected; you should have brought them to know me but you have brought them up in your own faith, your own kingdom. 

You have not established my kingdom. Therefore I swear by myself that I am against you and I will not delay in sending this wind. It will scorch you and crack your lips, your tongue will stick to the roof of your mouth and your power of speech will be taken away from you. You shall look for relief but you will find none. You will look to the world but the world will scorn you. All who pass by you will wince at your suffering but none will lift a finger. Your tents will be emptied on the day of your wedding and your campus deserted. You were much vaunted and flirted with by the world. You drew the world into you, for the world saw itself in the mirror you held up. For a while it turned aside to see, but you will be ripped to pieces and my little ones will flood out of you as wine bursting forth from a dropped wineskin. They will escape your clutches for lush meadows and escape your reach. I will bring My People and settle them in a land far from Egypt. Once more they will call on me and I will be their Lord. The sheep of my pasture will come to me for they know me and I will gather them up in my arms. And when they walk through the desert neither their shoes nor their clothes will wear thin, for I will look over them.


Given November 2011

How we know what is in the heart

God brings us to the end of our strength, to the end of our joy, to the end of our resources, to the end of self.

Why?

To know what is in our heart. He pours us out until we are empty, until he reaches the dregs, the rotting detritus left at the bottom that should have been sieved long ago (Deut 8:1-5). A thing is not known to be in your heart until it comes out through the mouth or the hands, for the heart is hidden and deceitful (Jer 17:9); it must be drawn out by circumstance so that it can be seen. You need to see yourself in the mirror of this trial so you are confronted by your own heart. How else can we be disciples unless we are disciplined? God is making us his sons, we are not just sons by birth but by upbringing as well and what son is not disciplined. We are apt to forget that in the midst of the trial our feet did not swell and our clothes did not wear out. (v4)

We are brought into the desert to eat the manna from heaven, to depend entirely upon his word, to know that every blessing is from His hand and not ours, to make you dependent upon him - not your strength, your wits, your skill, your ingenuity: these things come from a man's pride. We are often interested in what is at the end of the journey rather than the journey itself, we cannot wait to get there but you have to isolated, your are on your honeymoon with your beloved. He needs to snap the ties of Egypt and the lust for the blessings of the Promised Land, that you will be dependent upon Him and only Him. He leads us out that we might be led-in once more; He finds what is in our heart so that we would know Him in our heart, and there the convenant is made from one heart to the other, so that we are not just sons by blood but sons in actuality. God is becoming our Father in a way we have never seen before. It would not be enough for one circumstance to expose out heart; the human soul is equipped enough to survive one night trudging through the desert and the Red Sea; one event in public with drama does not make a man and does not expose a man to God. Years of battering and daily weathering only denudes our pride until we come to the end of our tether; 40 years in the desert will do this; daily drudgery in the small things of life is where a disciple is born. Faithfulness and joy in obscurity because you are with Him are what really sustains you. Then you are led by the hand out of the wilderness by the one you truly love (Psa 77:20).

(Based upon, in part, on Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest", 21st October, Direction by Impulse)

Jachin and Boaz: He Establishes in Strength

If a man is to be made by God he must be alone with God: not in a bodily sense but in a societal sense. He must feel the estrangement of those nearest and dearest to him, who have his 'best interests' at heart. He must be rejected and scorned by them; he must be patronised by them. They will think him mad and try to restrain him with derision. Why? So he can stand alone with God without looking for support from 'Egypt' or any other source: his allegiances and alliances must be rendered null and void. Once he is torn away from the familial and societal structure everything is exposed, the soul ties and the affections. He is pulled until something snaps.  But this isolation is NOT self-enforced, it is the result of trying to be near those he loves, of speaking to those he loves of Him whom he loves, and then he finds he is totally alone with God in the heart of all the people. This is what God wanted all along. He wanted that man for Himself, He wanted to see what lay in his heart and now He knows. Then he will be made a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall (Jeremiah 1:18). He will become the embodiment of God's stout word. He will be established in strength (2 Chronicles 3:15-17).

True familial ties are not based on blood but upon obedience to God. This man, who has no place to rest his head, is willing to sacrifice his family for God, he is willing to replace his family and allow his family to be usurped by another, all for his obedience to God. We might say, Jesus has done this. There is no need for me to go through the same suffering. Our limbs do not just belong to Jesus as if we are a separate entity, these limbs are Him Himself (1 Corinthians 6:15). Therefore the privilege of being made by God and being made like God is to walk like God (1 John 2:6); we will go through everything He did if we follow Him. Why would we expect anything else?