From “Feast of Tabernacles,” Chapter 12- Tabernacles – The Feast of Glory- The Events of the Seventh Month Blend Into One, continued
THE STAVES REMOVED FROM THE ARK
“And they drew out the staves of the ark…” (2 Chron. 5:9). Why? Because the Church’s long wilderness journey shall be over, and now she will enter into her long-awaited rest. “Now, therefore, arise O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness. (2 Chron. 6:41). The great Church victorious is destined to become the Church at rest. Not, however, by way of the coffin. Not by living a life of defeat, and then passing on to be with the saints who have died. But by pressing into her heritage by the Spirit, and appropriating the blessedness which is hers “in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.”
And so this Feast of Tabernacles was probably the greatest in Israel’s history. There was a “very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt.” (2 Chron. 7:8). How little did they realize that they, in their joy and gladness of heart, were merely fulfilling the rites and ceremonies of a fading type and shadow, and that one day it would give way to the unveiled glory of God in the Church of Jesus Christ, and especially in the Church of this great hour in which we live!
JEROBOAM’S SUBSTITUTE FEAST
Let us ever be on the watch for the counterfeit. God’s glory is not going to be revealed without the apostate religious world trying to reproduce the same thing in the power of the flesh. Especially now in this day, with the powers of darkness mustering their forces and bringing forth their secret weapons, the saints are going to find it increasingly difficult to discern the real from the counterfeit. It is not going to be sufficient that we should see signs and wonders and miracles performed in the name of Christ; for Satan is going to empower his emissaries of light to do all the miracles that the Church will do. Jannes and Jambres worked side by side with Aaron, performing sign for sign, and miracle for miracle. But it will not always last. In due course “their folly shall be manifest,” even as the wisdom of the Church shall be manifest. The time will come when Aaron’s rod shall swallow up the rods of the magicians, and their power shall be broken.
Therefore, in this hour of the Church’s trial and sifting, when the real and the counterfeit are going to work side by side–let us be on the alert to detect the false and discern the real. Only the walk of obedience and faith and utter consecration will deliver the child of God from the deception of Satan. Discern the Lord’s Body. Recognize the ministries which He is establishing in the Body. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Not by their miracles, or by their signs, or by their wonders; but “by their fruits.”
And so it is quite evident, even now in this hour of the Body of Christ, that Jeroboam the Enlarger (for so is his name by interpretation) is going to seek the expansion of his kingdom by producing a counterfeit of the real. When people are hungry for God and can see the moving of God’s spirit, the adversary always tries to reproduce what the people are looking for in order to isolate them from the Truth. If there is healing, Jeroboam will heal. If there is a manifestation of the Spirit, Jeroboam will have something similar. If there are tongues in the Spirit, Jeroboam will speak in tongues. If there is prophecy, singing in the Spirit, laying on of hands for the gifts, miracles, words of knowledge or wisdom,–or any other manifestation of the supernatural which God has in store for the saints–then Jeroboam will do all in his power to reproduce these same manifestations in his kingdom. And unless the people have spiritual discernment they will be deceived. GHW
We certainly need spiritual discernment in the day we live. In 2 Timothy 3:1-9 Paul tells Timothy, “1But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.”
It will be obvious! Why, How? In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus tells us, “15Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
Late Harvest Wesleyan Ministries 