8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ac 13:8–12.
I believe the series we are about to embark on is key to understand purposes which pertain to the wrapping up of the age, the trigger to judgments and recompense breakthroughs in our days. Once we understand this we begin to discern these ways of the Lord in our lives. And once we begin to discern them we can fully walk into fulness in any area and see breakthroughs. It is interesting that chaos is erupting in many many nations, we must not see this through political eyes, but rather a result of the resistence to the order God is bringing in more and more. The scandals in Churches is because Jesus is visiting His Sanctuary suddenly. (Malachi 3). He is purifying silver, where there are 7 separate processes: Psalm 12:5.
In this series we have to see Eschatology a present reality where the following equation applies:
Fulness= judgment+recompense.
Once you understand this at work you then understand how the REIGN of Christ is worked out in our lives. Once we understand this much of the Book of Revelation makes more sense.
We are going to try and weave together Revelation 1 and Acts 13 and come to outstanding conclusions.
In the Spirit: Brings the fulness
We have to see that fulness or as the Greek word is PLEROMA, is the key to moving on and advancing when the evil has reached at a certain level. Galatians explains this in terms of the fullness of time. The Exodus is predicated on this principles, that once the iniquity of the inhabitants of Canaan was full did God release miracles to free His people to possess the land.
The Apostle John is at this place also, when the Roman Empire exercised its own full evil judicial might against him, he achieved a place in the Spirit related in verse 10 of the first chapter of Revelation. He was “in” the Spirit, and the Spirit was “in” Him, a distinct reality between the two. The Spirit “in” Him is a reality of who lives for Christ, but he being “in” the Spirit is a distinct experience that opens new dimensions and realities, and here as in verse 1 was to reveal the Testimony of Jesus. This is probably one the most powerful experiences and revelations that not only prepared the Early Church for 300 years of persecution. I sense that we are moving into a time where we have the same elements coming against the Church where former growth is going to be challenged and where empires and political powers are going to exercise pressure to see political power as something to bow down to first. They reject the supremacy of Jesus and will come against those who hold to this view.
God will bring His people to fulness, because we are about to combat with the fulness of iniquity upon the earth. The fulness that John seems to return to is our full comprehension of Jesus as King and Judge. We must see this as a fundamental starting point because the persecution that is coming is to be an opposition to the rule and reign of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
There are arms of this political power that shall come into play in these days, through rule, through finances and assets, food and health. The enslavement of peoples will and is starting to be manifest by excessive taxation. It wears people down who begin to not have enough hours in the day to exercise the spiritual disciplines, like Bible Study and prayer, let alone the congregation of the saints. This is why we need to see that the fulness of God provides freedom through His provision, through His Healing, through Revelation. We must make hand to hand combat to the power of the world and its constraints. For John his fulness comes in the form of God’s miraculous deliverance. It is said that he was tossed into a cauldron of boiling oil. He did not fry and God rescued Him. It seems this deliverance is the open door from the normal earthly ministry to people to have a open door where He ministers from God to the whole Church, bringing such imagery of how Jesus is crowned and exaltation and the rolling out of the eternal programme. So the depth of the deliverance afforded is correspondent to the fulness acquired and the revelation given.
In the case in Acts 13, Paul and Barnabus are with the Proconsul, a man who was certainly a gatekeeper to a harvest field, yet Elymas, a wizard, false prophet came against the Gospel and was an obstacle to the Harvest field. Paul arrived in a spiritual fulness to combat that satanic obstacle speaking out the judgment that Paul himself experienced after being on the Damascus Road, knowing that Jesus confronted him and turned him round. It was blindness that brought Ananias to bring the key to what God was opening to him. For Elymas this was a confrontation and complete confounding for opening up a harvest. In the end days the harvest field of souls is what God will defend. It is the fulness that releases the judgments of the Lord.
The Church as a whole somewhere in history lost this truth. Fulness has been distorted to mean some kind of personal experience and stopped at that.
In the Lord’s Day: brings the Revelation
It is fundamental that being in Spirit prepares us for the Lord’s Day. It is the Day of Visitation. We have referred many times the example of Luke 19, “You did not know the hour of your visitation.” The Visitation of the Lord only happens in the Spirit, and being in the Spirit must happen when we have ceased from our own works. (Hebrews). For us to perceive His Visitation we must first be “in” Spirit, not in religious pursuits, or politicking our way in Church. The fulness brings Jesus on the scene, to reveal to us His person. Its about His Agenda, not ours, its about His Authority, not ours, its about His Destiny, not ours!
We surmise that the Day of the Lord is His final coming. It is not, it is incremental visitations that propel us closer to eternity. The doorway to eternity is through the Person of Jesus, the Son of the Most High.
We need to “perceive the hour of our visitation.” I have personally identified that to perceive this, you need to perceive the great changes in the Heavenlies. One person that took 84 years to perceive these changes was Anna of Luke 2, who for those years of turmoil, and temple works, perceived the secrets of the Lord, and when He came in the form of a baby, she did not miss her visitation. He may come in a form we do not understand but as we have walked in prayer we understand the art of discernment of the moves of God. The “Day of the Lord” is to bring us into the “Hour of His Visitation.”
Day of the Lord brings His Voice
The Voice of the Father is distinct to the Voice of the Indwelling Spirit, as this Voice of the Father responds to fulness we come to walk into by pronouncing His Judgments on the earth. From these judgments come the recompense for them on the saints. He who walks in fulness in the midst of His Judgments will come into His Recompense. It is reminiscent of the Transfiguration, where Jesus is transfigured, a foretaste of His Glory, and we are taken into Glory to hear the Father’s voice. We are coming into this time. We must become acquainted with the Father. Why do you think masculinity is so attacked on the earth? It is because the Voice of the Father assures that we walk out of the judgments into recompense.
I believe we have just taken a first step to understanding fulness and we shall continue to comprehend and as we comprehend we shall be prepared for the days ahead.
Maranatha!
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