Hi all,
Barb and I came to the Lord in the mid-1970's in the Charismatic Renewal, when millions of people in denominational churches came to the Lord. We received the baptism with the Holy Spirit as did millions, and started meeting in home 'prayer meetings' during the week while remaining faithful to the denominational church on Sunday morning.
 
Promises, promises
This was before the Word of Faith (WOF) movement of the 1980's taught the integrity of God's Word. Until then many of the charismatic home meetings lacked balanced teaching - it was like the wild west, anything goes. We had to rely on the Holy Spirit of Truth within to be the referee on all we heard and saw, and that's where I first learned to lean on Him and to know His voice and 'witness' inside. 
 
But the Word of Faith (WOF) had its own issues, human nature being what it is, some people who went extreme in the Charismatic Renewal went extreme in the WOF, and that's where it affected Barb and I. 
 
Those of you who know us know our oldest son is handicapped 
This December he will turn 39, but due to lack of oxygen during labor due to the cord around his neck, he is mentally about 4 years old. He is a joy, and also a heavy load for us. The diagnosis is Cerebral Palsy (CP), which is a brain injury occurring during labor or delivery, and that brain injury can be very severe or very mild: it's a matter of how long the brain was deprived of oxygen. CP is not a disease, but an injury to the brain at birth.
 
The influence of the WOF on charismatics like ourselves in the 1980's went beyond just learning the integrity of God's Word. That part of the WOF brought balance to the wild and crazy 1970's and was much needed. But out of that came an unhealthy church culture too.
 
The off-balanced part relating to healing is the part we experienced with our son 
The culture of many who had been influenced by WOF was to question us as to why our son wasn't healed. They asked if I had fasted. They gave us scriptures to confess and declare. Some noted the brain injury of CP caused part of the brain to die so they offered ideas from hyperbaric chambers to verses about air to confess.
 
Some wanted to cast demons out of him. But CP is an injury and there aren't any demons involved. (The Lord not only told me so in a visitation, but taught me the Word that showed He simply healed injuries as they are just injuries. He showed me injuries sustained from the man with the withered arm to various lame men before Him and Paul (Acts 14: 8-10), none of whom had demons - just injuries that needed healing. 
 
Then there were those specializing in personal prophecy, who said in various ways, 'Thus saith the Lord' - followed by any of the following: You have a secret sin, God is trying to bless you by giving you a handicapped son, God is trying to teach you something. And let's not forget those who put time frames to healing: About a year from now he will be healed, or "I just feel like it's very near" or "right around the corner". And then there was the general culture that looked down their noses at us with "What's wrong with you that you aren't seeing the promises of God come to pass in your life". 
 
What the Lord told Chris
From the evening we first learned of Chris' brain damage when he was about 6 months old, until this day, we have a peace about his healing. Each night when Chris goes to bed the last thing I say to him is "By His stripes" and he responds, "I was healed". His handicap however has kept him from understanding time and past tense, so he responds because we've done it for years, not due to being able to grasp the past tense of 'by whose stripes you WERE healed.' 
 
Chris has another point of view however. When he was about 22 he came crawling down the hall (he can't walk, so pulled himself along on his belly army man style) saying, "Dad! Dad! Know what Jesus said to me?! He said He's going to walk through the mountains with me! Yep, that's what He said! Yahoo! Isn't that great? Yahoo! Yep, that's what He said, He's going to walk through the mountains with me! Yahoo!"
 
Since that moment Chris has said upon seeing children run on TV: "When I get to heaven I'm going to run like that." And, "When I get to heaven; no wheelchair." 
 
Picking up from last week, we can see the Lord gave Chris a promise for the finished, mature vision. Jesus never said His walk through the mountains with Chris wouldn't be in THIS age, but Chris assumes He was talking about heaven. 
 
Because of the greatness of the word to him
Because of the amazing effect of the Lord's promise to Chris, he is at peace with waiting until heaven to be healed. I cannot counter his faith. But we have to go through an awful amount of hardship in this life until that day he is whole. There is always a price to pay before seeing the promise come to pass.
 
I honestly don't know what to do with the peace I've had these 3+ decades about Chris being healed - maybe that peace means it will be as Chris believes, in heaven he will be whole. Maybe that peace means I'll see it this side of heaven. 
 
The key for me and the 'take away for today' is to stay in peace after receiving a personal promise. That promise will be the finished vision, the complete package. Stay in peace and stop looking for the how and when. When Chris was about 5 years old and I had been continually confessing, declaring, quoting scriptures on healings with great focus and intensity every day lots of emotion, firmness in my words for I wanted to show the Lord I meant it, and suddenly the Father asked me something. He interrupted my confession, imagine that! 
 
"What scripture are you standing on?" (We were still influenced by WOF so I had dutifully picked a verse and 'stood' on it). I replied, "I Peter 2: 24." He replied, "What is it?" So I quoted it to Him: "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: By whose stripes you were healed." 
 
He replied: "Very well. Can you just believe the promise, not looking for the manifestation?" That caught me off guard, but I replied after a pause to take stock what He was asking me to do, "Yes. I can." To which He replied: "Very well. Then just believe the promise. Rest in the promise. Get your eyes off the manifestation." 
 
That was where my peace in the matter came - I stopped looking for the manifestation and since that day over 34 years ago, have stayed in peace. Have I fasted for his healing? Yes, 15 days, water only, until I realized I wasn't going to change the Father's or Lord's mind on the matter. 
 
If you know me you know the Lord has been gracious to visit me many times since first seeing Him in April of 1986. Because He usually comes while I'm at home, Chris has been right down the hall and I SO wanted Him to just walk that way to heal my son. I've even had times with Chris right next to me in his wheelchair and the Lord standing next to me within arm's reach of my son - but all He did at that visitation was tell me why it is so difficult for people who have been in a long term condition to be healed. Still, I stay in peace, and haven't left peace, all these years. I guard peace jealously. 
 
I pray you will go back to the last thing He told you about your loved one or situation, and find peace in the promise having taken your eyes off the manifestation - and stay in that peace. Chris as a little child has. I have. So can you. More next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
 

Hi all,
Feel like you missed God's vision for you life, or are searching for His plan? Or wondering what the next age has for you?
 
In Exodus 3: 7-8 when Moses is standing before the Lord at the burning bush, the Lord says this:  "...I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good land and a large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey."
 
And in Exodus 4: 30-31 we read: "And Aaron spoke all the words of the Lord that He had said to Moses, and did the signs in front of the people. And the people believed when they heard the Lord had visited the children of Israel...and they bowed and worshipped the Lord." 
 
But not a single one of them save Joshua and Caleb, saw that land flowing with milk and honey. Did God lie, or can we miss Him to such a degree we never see the promises?
 
What we have here is a failure to communicate - or do we?
Notice that in telling Moses He would bring them into the land of milk and honey, the Lord was sharing the highest and best and most appealing aspects of His plan. He didn't fill in the details about the walk through the desert. He didn't describe the fact they'd have to conquer the people who lived there. He gave the vision in completion, the mature and finished result - a land flowing with milk and honey. That vision was to sustain them. 
 
In Genesis 12 over 400 years earlier, we see the Lord did the same thing with Abraham. In verse 1-3 we are told this: "The Lord had said to Abraham, 'Get out of your home country and away from your father's family, to a land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
 
What a great promise! 
He laid out the complete and mature vision, the end result of a best case scenario. And of course Abraham starts walking. If you look at it on a map it is a distance of over 1,000 miles (1609km). But when he gets to where God wants him, 12: 7 says, "And the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, 'To your seed I will give this land." You've arrived Abraham. Put down roots!
 
And we are told Abraham built an altar to the Lord right there, followed by taking a walk around his new country. While he was still surveying the land v10 says: And there was a famine in the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt to stay there because the famine was so bad in his land." 
 
Having a famine in the land isn't necessarily a sign you missed God. But you may have to change plans to adapt to the famine, and come back to the vision later - as Abraham after some years returned to the land.
 
Do you see a pattern developing?
The Lord will always tell us the finished product, the mature vision, the complete plan in a best case scenario. He will always leave out the details of what it will take for us to see that vision come to pass. He might let you know it will be difficult, but He rarely fills in the blanks in any real detail. After all, we walk by faith, not by sight. 
 
Even the apostle Paul experienced this. When he is retelling his testimony to King Agrippa in Acts 26: 15-19 he says this: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a servant and witness both of these things you have seen, and to things about which I will appear to you later. Delivering you from the people (Jews) and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send you." 
 
The Lord spoke of great things 
I'm appearing to you now, and I'll appear to you later with more information. I'll deliver you from the people and send you to the Gentiles. Wow that sounds amazing. But let us read what Paul went through to see that vision come to pass, from II Corinthians 11: 24-27: 
 
"Of the Jews I've received 5 times, 39 stripes (195 stripes across the back in 5 separate beatings). Three times beaten with rods. (Custom of taking a cane and beating the bottoms of the feet). Once stoned (to death according to Acts 14: 19-20, which most believe he was caught up into heaven/Paradise as per II Corinthians 12). 
 
Three times shipwrecked, a night and day floating in the ocean...and he goes on to talk of betrayals, peril of robbers, weariness, fatigue, fasting, in cold and not having enough clothes to stay warm, plus the emotional toll of care for people.
 
We do know the Lord told Ananias in Acts 9: 16 the Lord was going to tell Paul some of the things he would suffer if he accepted the call on his life - but if the pattern fits, the Lord didn't fill in a lot of details.
 
Do you think Peter knew when the Lord told him that He would make him a fisher of men, that he would one day die a martyr's death? He wasn't told that until John 21: 18-19. At that point he knew too much, was in too deep. Did he know when he left his fishing business in Luke 5: 9-11 that he was leaving it to die a martyr's death? Fishers of men sounds so meek and mild and noble and - just nice. By the way, you're going to die by crucifixion when you're older, people taking you where you don't want to go - still feel like being a fisher of men? 
 
You are normal
I can't think of anyone who has hit the mark perfectly all their lives. Abraham decided to 'help' God by producing Ishmael with Hagar, and look at the mess he left the world with as a result. He is the father of our faith, yet look at him. Moses never got to see the Promised Land. Jonah got swallowed up, Elijah hid in a cave, John the Baptist asked if Jesus was really Messiah or should they keep looking, Peter denied the Lord 3x, and on it goes. 
 
Don't lose sight of the simple fact that you and I are already in eternity. We look at things God has told us and don't see them come to pass, and mark our mortality on a calendar wondering what went wrong, or continuing to repent of sins long since forgiven. We forget we are already in eternity, already living forever. 
 
What doesn't happen in this life, can come to pass in the next age - in fact I think many things He says to us He intends to be for years or decades after this body has died. Our life Jeremiah says, is life in this age is like our breath we can see on a cold morning. That is the Lord's perspective, so He is invested in us for the long haul. 
 
There is a lot of prophecy in the Old Testament that won't be fulfilled until the next age, so why is it so hard to believe something He tells us today will be fulfilled in 50 or 100 of 200 years? His Word will not return void, but will accomplish what He said. Look beyond the life in this body, and realize you're already in eternity. 
 
In this way the pressure if you will, is on Him, not on us. If God ever gives you something and you think, 'I can do that', then it isn't God. If it were, you'd take glory in it yourself and could stand before Him saying 'Look what I did for you all on my own!'. That's not going to happen. The vision that is TOO big, TOO glorious - that is God's vision. The one which requires miracles to come to pass.
 
Miracles? Yes, like a way too old woman and man having a baby. Like a stuttering guy who requires his brother to speak for him and has this wooden staff that does miracles. Like an apostle who had people bring their sick lest even his shadow should pass over them, or a man who had pieces of cloth he had touched heal people. If you can do it yourself, it isn't God. If you will need miracles to see the vision completed, it may be God, that the glory is of Him, not of us. 
 
More next week...how it works, the decisions we have to make, and what about all that lost time? 
Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.co

Hi all,
We all know Matthew 24 is about the conditions on earth at Jesus' return. But Matthew 25 is about what actions He will take at that time. 
 
It is in Matthew 25: 31-46 Jesus says at His return He will sit in His 'throne of glory' and divide the nations between the righteous and unrighteous. That means there will be people on earth who survive Armageddon to see Jesus become King over all the earth, and enforce God's righteousness world wide - and some won't want that. 
 
How people react to His return - geographical changes coming
Zechariah 14 gives us a clear picture of this time, stating in v5: "and the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with you." (Aren't you glad the saints are coming WITH Him, at His return - not meeting him in a U-turn in the air. See also Revelation 19: 6-14).
 
14:8-9: "And it will be in that day living waters will go out from Jerusalem half toward the Dead Sea and half to the Mediterranean Sea. And the Lord will be King over the whole earth."
 
Joel 3: 18 says a fountain will flow from the house of the Lord. This agrees with Ezekiel 47: 1-2 which says that a fountain will start in the temple and flow to the Dead Sea. Verses 8-12 tells us so much (fresh) water will flow into the Dead Sea that it will become a fresh water lake with only the marshy areas left briny. It says fishermen will come and cast nets along the river and lake and that along the river all sorts of fruit trees will grow. 
 
I was talking with an Israeli daughter of a highly respected Rabbi some years ago, and growing up there, she told me she was told under Jerusalem is a great reservoir of water from the days of Noah's flood. She was told when Messiah comes He will release that water from the temple and that is the source of the flow. 
 
Zechariah 14: 10 says at that time the area from Geba north of Jerusalem (modern Jeba, about 5.5 miles/9.9 km north of Jerusalem), to Rimmon (about 70 miles/112km south of Jerusalem) will be turned into a giant flat plateau. That verse outlines the far northern boundary of Judah and the southern boundary, roughly west of the mid-point of the Dead Sea - it is a huge area to be turned into a plateau - but why? 
 
This is why
To accommodate the millions of people from all nations who will come to Jerusalem to visit the King. "And it will be that everyone who survives (Armageddon) from all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go year by year to worship the King the Lord of the armies, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it will be that whoever of all the families of the earth that won't go up to worship the King, then upon them will be no rain. For instance if the family of Egypt won't come up, then they will have no rain, that is the plague the Lord will hit the heathen with if they don't keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment on Egypt or any nation that doesn't come up to the Feast of Tabernacles." Zechariah 14: 16-19
 
He will rule with a rod of iron. But then again...that's for us too. Paul told the Corinthians in I Corinthians 6: 3: "Don't you know we will judge angels? Don't you know we will judge the world?"
 
The word judge means to administrate, not like a guilt or innocence in a court as in our day, but rather as a government official administering the Kingdom of God. Why does this pertain to us as well as these first century Corinthians? Because God knew the Bible would be written and compiled and therefore also knew to whom it pertained -  so we are included here as much as we are in John 3:16 or any other promise in our New Testament. 
 
Hebrews 6:5 calls the gifts of the Spirit 'the powers of the age to come'. This means in our glorified bodies we will have all the gifts of the Spirit to flow in as we decide matters needing wisdom beyond Solomon's. Imagine settling arguments between neighbors having the Spirit of God provide you with words of knowledge and wisdom. Those who love righteousness will love you and it - those with a rebellious heart will hate the enforced righteousness on the earth.
 
In ancient Israel the Feast of Tabernacles was also known as the Feast of Living Waters, in large part due to these passages about the water flowing from the temple upon Messiah's kingdom being set up. All during the week of the Feast of Tabernacles a daily ceremony was held.
 
A group of priests went out of the city to collect willow branches, and then standing shoulder to shoulder and stepping in unison, waved the branches as they walked, make the sound of wind, the Spirit, as they headed to the altar in the temple. At the same time the High Priest's Assistant carried a silver vase with wine in it, and the High Priest had a gold vase where he collected water from the Pool of Siloam, called Living Water.
 
Both groups would converge on the priests in the temple laying the sacrificial animals on the altar, followed by the High Priest pouring wine and Living Water on the sacrifice, as the other priests positioned the willow branches overhead to form a tent over the sacrifice, thus bringing together at one place and time the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice, the water and wine - Spirit and blood.
 
They would then sing with all the people gathered, Isaiah 12: 2-3: "Behold; God is my salvation (Yeshua); I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation (Yeshua). Therefore with joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation (Yeshua)." 
 
Is it any wonder after watching and seeing and singing this all week long, that John 7: 37-8 says of Jesus: "On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, saying: "If anyone thirsts let him come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me will have as scripture says, rivers of Living Water flow out of his inner most being..." 
 
Come quickly Lord Jesus! New subject next week. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com

Hi all,
When I was growing up one of my brothers was the scapegoat, always getting our father's wrath focused on him. Partly because they were so much alike in personality, partly because of issues our dad was working through that he took out on my brother, he always seemed to get the worst of any punishment dad gave out. But where does the word 'scapegoat' come from? Why is it used to this day to describe someone who gets the focus of punishment?
 
This is where it came from
In October of 1536 Englishman William Tyndale was executed by being tied to a stake, strangled to death, then his body was burned. The crime King Henry VIII charged him with was heresy - being a Protestant.  At that time translating scripture into English was punishable by death, so his 1530 Bible in the common English language made him a marked man. Interesting note: His 1530 Bible was the first English Bible to use the name for God as 'Jehovah'.
 
His dying prayer was that the King of England's eyes would be opened, and less than 2 years later King Henry authorized the 'Great Bible' for the Church of England, which was largely Tyndale's Bible. Ironically, some 70 years later at the 1611 release of the King James Bible (KJV), it became known that the 54 scholars who wrote the KJV had drawn heavily from Tyndale's Bible. Amazing. 
 
But six years before his death, in 1530, Tyndale's Bible put 1 word into the English language that survives to this day, and is relevant to this discussion: Scapegoat. 
 
Originally it was 'escape goat', from the Hebrew word 'azazel' of Leviticus 16: 8, which means 'the goat that departs' or 'the sender away of sins'. Along the way escape goat got shortened to scapegoat, and today many offices, many families, many social groups, all know of that one person who gets the focus off anger or punishment - the scapegoat. 
 
The Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur
Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is represented by 2 goats on the Day of Atonement. Not lambs, but goats. I've talked about how Yom Kippur is a type of the return of Jesus, and it is. Whereas Passover (lamb) and Unleavened Bread in the spring detail His sinless sacrifice and the passing over of our sins, the fall fast of Yom Kippur details the final end of sin. This is the point everyone and everything comes to God to be accountable for their lives. At His return, it means the end of the government of man and the physical and literal start of the government of God in the earth. 
 
Leviticus 16: 11-14 details the high priest making a sacrifice of a bull for himself, and then taking incense into the holy of holy's so that the smoke of the incense* covered the Mercy Seat - the place of God's presence. Even 400 years later David knew God as 'the one who lives **between the cherubs' - the golden cherubs being on top of the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat. *Revelation 5: 8, the incense is 'the prayers of the saints'. **II Samuel 6: 2
 
After the priest was forgiven his sins he was now able to stand in the place of the people. There were 2 goats used: The goat of the sin offering, and the scapegoat. Both these are types of the work of Jesus on the cross, and His dual nature as God became a Man. 
 
"Then he will kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil...and he will make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins..." Leviticus 16: 15-16
 
Notice this
The idea that God would require the Holy Place to be cleansed by blood seems foreign to many Christians. The implication is that heaven itself needed cleansing, that heaven or God was somehow tainted by the sins of His people. Notice also God mentions three issues: Uncleanness, sins, and trespasses. 
 
A sin is a vertical offense against God, a trespass is a horizontal sin against another person (which is also a sin against God), and uncleanness is a general sinfulness of mankind. It has to do with the fallen nature of man. Yet the Holy Place, the Ark of the Covenant, had to have the blood of the sacrificed goat of the sin offering sprinkled on it to be cleansed. 
 
Jesus on the cross is the fulfillment of the goat of the sin offering cleansing heaven, for we read in Hebrews 9: 23-24: 
 
"It was therefore necessary that this earthly tabernacle would be purified with earthly things (blood of bulls and goats). But these are just the pattern of the heavenly, so the heavenly had to be purified with better things than these earthly things. For Christ did not enter into the earthly tabernacle which is just the pattern of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us..."
 
Jesus then was the literal fulfillment of 'goat of the sin offering' in that He took His sacrifice to heaven to present Himself to the Father. "For it pleased the Lord (Father) to put Him to grief, when you see His soul as an offering for sin...He will see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied...He will justify many for He will carry their iniquities...because He has poured out His soul to death, and numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of may and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53: 10-12
 
While Jesus fulfilled the sacrifice of the goat of the sin offering, He also at the same time fulfilled the work of the scapegoat - and that is why God commanded on the Day of Atonement there be 2 goats sacrificed - to show Israel the dual nature of their Messiah, and the work of the cross would be done on earth but accepted in heaven. 
 
Scapegoat
After the goat of the sin offering was sacrificed the High Priest turned his attention to the scapegoat - escape goat. Leviticus 16: 20-22 says Aaron was to lay his hands on the scapegoat and confess the iniquities, trespasses, and sins of Israel "putting them on the goat", and then sending the goat away into the wilderness. The text says led by the hand of a young man into the wilderness where no one lives - to be dealt with privately by the Lord. 
 
We see this wilderness experience with Jesus the real scapegoat when He called out, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?!" on the cross. "...the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all..." Isaiah 53: 6
 
Why a goat and not a lamb?
A goat signifies sin and being out of favor with God. In Matthew 25: 31-32 it says when Jesus returns He will sit on the throne of His glory and separate the nations one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He said He will put the sheep nations on His right, and the goat nations on His left. Verse 34 says He will say to the sheep nations to come and enter into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. But to the goat nations He will cause them to depart from His presence. 
 
By choosing a goat for the sin offering and scapegoat, the Father is emphasizing the sin of the people, the death as a transgressor on the cross. Yes, he was the Passover lamb, dying for His people. Passing over their sins. But in the final analysis, He was the goat, the sin carrying sacrifice, both dying in the wilderness by the hand of God privately, and at the same time as the perfect Man appearing in heaven presenting His sacrifice. Amazing grace. 
 
Next week I'll wrap it up with the conditions of the earth during the Feast of Tabernacles. I'll focus on the setting up of His kingdom and His 1000 year reign, starting with the above separation of nations. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com