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 It was all a dream... or was it? A couple of years ago when we were deeply involved in a fellowship that was fast becoming a 'church' and beginning to do the things churches do, the Spirit of the Lord abruptly called us out of that fellowship. He told us to have 'church' with Him alone in our home, which we began to do. Just Reed and myself and the Holy Spirit. It was wonderful with His Presence there, and He taught us as we sat at His feet. One night around that time I had a dream in which I'd spent some time with other women and girls at a church camp. Most of the women were getting ready to go home when the camp time was over. It was late and the lights were being turned out. I waited impatiently until everyone was through with their showers so I could get cleaned up, then removed my muddy clothes and tossed them in a pile on the floor and took a shower... but had no other clothes left to put on my clean body! Oh, No!
I refused to put those soiled church camp clothes back on, yet aware my husband was waiting for me some distance through the woods. What to do? It was getting dark and I had to leave the camp! The woman in charge of the camp facilities was waiting for me to leave so she could lock up. So determined was I that I decided I'd just run stark-naked through the woods to get to where he was waiting for me to join him. As I was about to go out the back door with nothing on, I saw a perfectly clean garment on the back of a chair just inside the door, and it would wrap around me, so I took it for a covering and took off running through the woods.
My path was not far from a highway on the right, and to the left was a large metal building where some mechanics stood smirking as I ran. Recognizing these men as being from the church, I smiled and waved at them and kept running, soon to arrive at a small house in the woods where my husband had come out of a men's fellowship meeting... bored and not interested in what was going on. He was waiting there on the front porch, and joyfully took me in his arms as I ran up to him. After waking from the dream, I realized that it had been so very important to quickly join my husband that I was willing to run naked through the woods, even in the gathering darkness, to get there.
Well, this morning I came across Hebrews 13:13, "Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore". The Lord is working something here! He is waiting for His bride to forsake the soiled garments and darkness of the church camp and run to Him even at the cost of disgrace in the eyes of men. What I ran past was a gathering of church mechanics... "Church mechanics". Get it? The working elements of a church. Except for the clean and ample garment the Lord had apparently provided for me, I would have been disgraced before those 'mechanics', but He gave me a covering! The Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ is my covering, and well able to cover and hide me from the eyes of those who would ridicule or laugh at me. Too many times in the past I've been ridiculed and lorded over by those who claimed to be my leaders and have the rule over me... and they have used this very next verse in Hebrews 13 to try and force me into submission.. "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority," Did God make them my leaders? NO! By my own willingness to join their church and be a part of their fellowship, I was submitting myself to their authority, but it was all in ignorance. Leaders! How many churches are there in just one town being ruled by those who call themselves leaders? How many people... out of tradition and doing what is expected, like lambs... will submit themselves to those leaders who say they have the rule over them?
Jesus Christ the Lord, who bought me with His blood, is the one and only Bishop and Shepherd of my soul. Anyone else who claims to be given the rule over me is an impostor... in my way of thinking. In II Timothy 1 through 5, (NIV) Paul tells about this church. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of Godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them… or as it says in the KJV “from such turn away.”
I know all too well that the organized church, with it's 'mechanics' is not my covering. The Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ is my covering, and well able to cover and hide me from the eyes of those who would ridicule or laugh at me. Too many times in the past I've been lorded over by those who claimed to be my leaders and scripturally have the rule over me... and they have used this very next verse in Hebrews 13 to try and force me into submission.. " Obey your leaders and submit to their authority," Did God make them my leaders? NO! By my own willingness to join their church and be a part of their fellowship, I was submitting myself to their authority, but it was all in ignorance. Leaders! How many churches are there in just one town that are ruled by leaders? How many people... out of tradition and doing what is expected, like lambs... will submit themselves to those leaders who say they have the rule over them?
Jesus Christ the Lord, who bought me with His blood, is the one and only Bishop and Shepherd of my soul. Anyone else who claims to be given the rule over me is an impostor.
Now we can consider my dream. The church camp is self-explanatory. It’s the camp of those who follow the domination of human leaders. My husband, of course, represents my Lord and King, Jesus Christ The Bridegroom. In the dream I represented the Bride. The Bride will wash herself spotlessly clean and then refuse to wear again the garments soiled by participation in the system referred to in Revelations 18:4 “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.”
This church camp in the dream is Babylon the Great, which has fallen… is being shut down. Camp time is over. The Bride is leaving … having shed her soiled and muddy garments; even willing to strip herself naked to hurry to the arms of her Husband. “…Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!” (Rev. 18:2) and “Then I heard another voice from heaven say: Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. (v. 4,5) written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit June 14-17, 2006 |
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