The Tabernacle

Right now Helen is in Manila, her Dad suffered a Massive Heart attack while running a tour there for Wycliffe Bible Translators, he then had a second heart attack soon after she had arrived and he died. The shock of this is enormous he was fit and healthy, we are all stunned.
Then God gave me a good reminder of His sovereignty just two days ago. I was lying in bed and I heard The little voice say “check your Palm Pilot”, I thought no I know there is nothing on everything is cancelled, 2nd time “check it”, then the 3rd. So I did and there was an entry telling me to check my journal from 5 years ago 28-7-03. At the time I was really stressing out about where we were going to live this was just before we left for Germany, here is what I wrote:

28-7-03 Mark rest in Me, know My love I love you so. Abide in Me don’t strive. Rest and be assured of My love and peace for you. Know that I love you. Know that you know that I love you. Don’t compare and don’t fret I am God, remember what I told you about My created, I can sustain you, I can give you everything that you need and much much more, I have always blessed you, always looked after you. Look around you, look at your house and your car, don’t dispute the parking bill just pay it, you are bigger than that, I am bigger than that, trust Me for everything, for your home in Germany and beyond. I have someone to rent your home, someone that I want to bless through the presence that I have built into your home, someone who will benefit from living here, I want them to come to Me to come back to Me and it will happen here, happen here at Lambert st, yes I know your address, I also know your address in 2 months time and also in 6 months time and then in 5 years time. I know them all, I make all addresses, I make them all, the big ones and the small ones I make them all. Know go in My peace.

It struck me very powerfully that 5 years ago God knew that Helen would be in Manila on the 28-07-08 and that I would be here back at Lambert st. ie That Geoff would be in Heaven. I know it doesn’t say that specifically but it was very real to me. It also helped to know that this wasn’t some sort of accident that it was his time, this is how it is supposed to play out.  Very sobering. Very sovereign.

Lord we miss Geoff, we will miss him terribly but we trust you, in all and with all.

Mark

Thank you God for the openess.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/rapture-to-grief-as-christs-last-hours-relived-in-sydneys-outdoor-cathedral-20080718-3hke.html?page=-1

Last night I listened to a podcast from Bethel Church, it was from June 22. During his message, Bill Johnson took the time to endorse his personal friend Todd Bentley who is the main guy for the Florida outpouring. We had seen some of these revival meetings while we were in America on www.God.tv but hadn’t connected again since we had been back.

So I watched the June 23 Florida outpouring on the internet, it was a Commissioning and endoresment by Global leaders of Todd. What an immensely powerful event that was/is. God IS doing something new and fresh here. “Those who seek Me will find Me” said Jesus, we need to be hungry. Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9; John 6:27; Acts 17:27 Nations should seek Him. The Scriptures are full of examples telling us to seek, we must seek God, we need to be hungry for Him and chasing Him. This is how we live in an atmosphere of Faith. We have to want it and chase it. God isn’t going to overrun or overwhelm us. “Behold I stand at the door and knock”, Jesus says. It is there for us to grab and it is free. He IS knocking are you listening? If you hear are you willing to respond?

As I watched Todd on God.tv my hunger was stirred, my passion for God and the things of Him was reignited. I could literally feel the apathy dropping away. We must chase Him. Our lives need to be more about Him than us if we want to truly know intimacy. It just became so clear to me that no one can just sit back and think things will happen for them, we must push into and chase God He is eagerly awaiting us to pursue Him.

I want more of God and I know for that to happen I must pursue it and make it a goal of my life.

Lord I want you to be Lord, not me, not my life, but you.

One practical way I came across today to continue to build an atmosphere of faith was a Christian company installing satellite dishes Australia wide so that people can get the free Christian stations that are available via satellite including God.tv. It is a one off cost of $500 installed or a rental setup so that you could have the latest God global happenings running constantly in your lounge room.This would build an atmosphere of faith. We gotta keep the good stuff coming in.

We met Boris 4 years ago in Tuebingen, Germany. He is an amazing, funny man. He is a Russian Jew. His words articulate our heart’s cry. Yours?

“Right now, God is not seeking after the people who are intellectually in first place; He is seeking after a people who are sick & tired of life without His presence. He is seeking after those who do not want to put their trust in the world, & who do not want to rely on political, economic, or religious systems. He is seeking the people who are desperate and who are seeking the One, the only One, who can give everything. These are the kind of people God seeks. These are the kind God is ordaining & is going to put into the lead of the revival that is about to spread like fire all over the earth. These are people who will allow Hm to come into their midst, who will walk with Him.

Perhaps they will not have a prophet’s understanding of everything. Perhaps they will not always recognise Him at once. Yet these very people will become new men & women because only the renewed people will become the detonators of the revival. Only those who are not afraid of being exploded will be able to explode the nations!”

(except from the Restoration of the Tabernacle of David - Preparing the way for the King of Glory. Published by Jersusalem House of Prayer for All Nations, 2005)

About 2 years ago, I was cleaning the floor of our apartment in Munich Germany, where we lived at the time. I had been mopping other parts of the floor area when I came to the Tabernacle area. As I began, I stopped. The Lord said to me, “Do not make common what is holy. Go, change the water & use fresh water in this space.”

Over the years we have been asked, “What’s the big deal about setting apart a physical space for the Lord? How can that be different from anywhere else? Anyway, isn’t our body now the ‘temple of God?” This is a question we confronted on our journey of discovering Tabernacle. White Australia does not have a concept nor experience of a sacred space set apart for one particular purpose, other than perhaps the football ground! So part of God taking us to Europe was to deposit this in us & give us an experience of this. Interestingly, first nations (indigenous) peoples all have a concept & experience of sacred spaces.

Ultimately, this is a holiness issue, a holiness question. The very word, holy, means set apart, consecrated. To ‘set apart’ & then consecrate to the Lord a room, chair, time, space of some sort, is to make it holy. Our God is a holy God & when He chooses a space of time or place, & fills it with His presence, He makes it holy.

There were two Tabernacles in the Old Testament before the Temple came. The Tabernacle of Moses teaches us about this very issue of holiness. The second Tabernacle (of David) was about worship & prayer. If we do not understand the holiness of God & know a fear of the Lord, we will worship & pray in a way that will be common, ordinary. Likewise if we do not understand that a holy God has chosen our bodies as His place of dwelling, His temple, & set it apart, consecrating it to Him, we will make it common. We can defile what God sees as holy by treating it as ordinary, normal; like mopping a floor with dirty water. Commonness is the greatest enemy of what is holy, special, sacred.

“Be careful not to treat the holy things as though they were common.” Numbers 18:32

Today I met with a guy from Sudan. It is a long story but suffice to say that while we were meeting with a mature Christian couple a few days before coming over here to Adelaide, they told us that they kept on getting the word ”Sudanese”. Then when we asked some other people to pray about anyone that they thought we should catch up with while here, the no1 person on their list was Sudanese.

So I was at the Central Markets waiting to meet Bco, thinking ‘Why again am I here and what are we going to talk about?’. Well what a wonderful time we had together, just sharing about God and how good He is. Being from Africa he was of course a lot more aware of and intelligent about the spiritual realm. His experience of God began before he had any access to the Scriptures. God actually showed up and met with Bco and Bco saw His hands. Wow what a great experience and so God!

I felt strongly to welcome Bco to Australia in the Spirit, to welcome him, his spirit and his message to the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit. This was powerful and such fun to do.

Then we began to talk of some of the differences of western culture and the influence of the European Greek spirit. Bco told me that he went to Theological college here and that at the beginning of the very first lecture he was told that the Bible was NOT the Word of God, and that no one should ever quote it as it will ALWAYS be out of context. My heart sank, my Wycliffe heritage cried, “Oh what a curse and confusion.” We talked of the intellectualisation of Christianity, of how God is dissected, studied and explained. You cannot explain God! He is beyond explanation; we talked about how a Hebrew mindset says God “WoW!” They won’t even speak out His name, let alone dissect their King and try to reduce Him to a set of bullet points. God is to be Worshipped. God is to be adored. God is to be wondered at, and we in humility need to know that we cannot reduce and explain God. God is Love, yet it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We cannot and should not ever think that our intellect is anywhere near capable of comprehending, let alone explaining God. After I settled down a bit, Bco went onto tell me how he had spoken out his testimony of how God met him, and how this was also rejected. It was spoken out ‘that could NEVER happen here in Australia.’ I instantly rejected the curse and invited God to do whatever He wished in this His land. How I hate unbelief.

Australia has been given a beautiful gift. Bco is has come here with his family, he loves God, he knows God and his faith is real and alive. I was ashamed that Australia had offered him so little, that the Great South land of the Holy Spirit had tried to quench his spirit and told him that only intellectual knowledge of God had any value, how my heart cried. We have so much to learn from our friends from the East and from First nations people. They have a way that they view and understand God and His word, that we need. ‘Lord humble us please that we can receive from people like this and stop thinking that we have all of the answers.’

Bco smiled at me at the end of our time and he said to me “they cannot take my Faith or my experience of God away from me, it is inside me. It is mine, they cannot take that.” I was elated to hear this from him yet also so very saddened to be made painfully aware once again of the intellectualisation of Christianity, and the depth of it in Christian colleges. The West has so swallowed the Greek spirit and the Greek approach at the expense of the Hebrewness of Christianity. ‘God please restore to us the beauty and the mystery of your name, the Glory of knowing how superior and ‘above’ that you are. Please forgive us our pride and worship of our minds that wants to come over you and understand you, to explain you. Lord save us from ourselves, humble us I pray in Jesus name.’

Mark Goatley

*There is a difference between using our minds to pursue and to love God, and our pride and self importance taking over. Instead of humbling ourselves to The Superior Creator, we can make ourselves superior, humbling ourselves to nothing at all. Matthew 22:37 “Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ” I would submit that loving God with your mind means, yes chasing after God with your intelect but also surrendering it also to your King. To love someone with something is not to lord it over them.

The Mystery, the unknowness and unpredictabilty of God is very attractive to me.

Mark

Tonight I met with the senior pastor of a church here in Adelaide, at the end of the night I said I have read the book of the beginning of Wycliffe and it was all God this and God that and there were Miracles all through it, the book of the beginnings of WYAM is remarkably similar then I asked this experienced man ‘What is your advice for people to stay there and to not move to an organisation or a monument? His answer was simple and profound. “Don’t ever take possession of that which belongs to the Lord.”

I was just in our Tabernacle hanging out and I was reflecting on the Name Israel. Ok so lets be honest I was dancing around and singing.

When I noticed or maybe that I had it highlighted to me that it ends in EL. In Hebrew El is a name for God, ie Elohim so I wondered what the name meant?

God (Heb. Elohim): often regarded the plural of majesty for God in the OT, the name signifies speaks of His role as the transcendent Creator of all that exists (Gen. 1:2).

So I sent off an SMS to two Jewish friends of mine. The first responce shocked me when I think of the current status or struggle between Israel the Nation and God.

SMS1: Israel > Someone who rebels with/against God.

Then a couple of days later this responce came in from my Jewish friend in Florida

SMS2: Israel > He will rule as God.

After the first SMS I remembered that Jacob had been given the new name of Israel after spending the night wrestling and then having his hip put out of joint. Genesis 32:22-32 Wrestling with God and then walking with a limp for the rest of your existence because of it. Yeah that does sound like the Nation of Israel as well.