Deep Calling Unto Deep

[b]Deep Calling Unto Deep[/b]

The Unheard Cry for Reality Itself

I have long suspected that the deepest issues that are at the root of strife and division in the Body of Christ are not at the level of doctrine. Doctrine is often employed as the subterfuge beneath which the real issues of fear, insecurity and mistrust are too often concealed.

Something of the same kind keeps many in the world from a believing unto salvation who are already persuaded of the truth of the faith, but are fearful to relinquish the familiar in order to cross over into the uncertainties (and requirements) of that other realm. Little wonder, then, that it is often desperation, tragedy, or fear of hell (as it was for my own Jewish mother) that precipitates the breakthrough. It ought to be the preached word in the power of the Spirit “that summons us out of ourselves.”* By such a word as that, “not only the sinner but the righteous man is brought to judgment and must cry for mercy.” True preaching, rare as it is, ought always to precipitate such a crisis-a threat which is at the same time a promise! Such preaching is nothing less than a revealing of the true reality of God. It is God seeking to break through so as to beckon us to inhabit His world, “which if God is valid in this fashion, then our world is not.”

How often do we, as God’s people, ‘filter out’ an aspect of a message that threatens the safety of our status quo while, at the same time, we nod our heads and ‘amen’ the speaker as if in total agreement with his preached word! Let us not fall into the category of moral cowards who forfeit the truth, which can only be received as the whole truth. The end result brings a hardening to the very area which God, by His Spirit, would have brought a breaking or a release. So our lives continue as fractured, carnal, shallow and unhappy. Our obese bodies (or its corollary) give testimony of consistent over-indulgence for which we are no longer even embarrassed, nor see it as a contradiction to discipleship! Others of us, equally undisciplined and indulgent in our lifestyles, are saved from its physical evidence by an unusual metabolism, but are equally lacking in self-control. A radical redemption is needed, a “disquietude…that inevitably arises from the word alongside of which that which we call dying [to self] is only a semblance, just play, not understanding at all the seriousness of dying.”

Little wonder then, that many ’sincere’ Christians balk at having to consider another fearful, apocalyptic suffering ahead for Israel as the prelude to the fulfillment of her millennial destiny. Perhaps part of the reason can be found in the same as being loathe to consider a like necessity for themselves! So much then of our world-view is predicated upon our ‘comfort-zone’ rather than the uncompromising truth of God’s prophetic word. Our ‘theology’ is, in the last analysis, proximate to our distance from the Cross, for which, more than we know, many have never really made their peace!

“But who has already walked this way? Who does not need to walk this way again and again? Who can be said to have already passed the Cross and to be standing on the other side in the resurrection? Who does not take offence here? Who does not shake his head? Who dares leave it all to God…at the extremity, where you are and have nothing any more? There, God will glorify Himself through you. There, resurrection and life are waiting.”

May the Lord add His blessing to this word.

- Art Katz

[b]One Thing You Lack [/b]

“A certain ruler” (Luke 18:18), rich, accomplished, noble, Torah observant, full of “great possessions” asked Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That question is undeniably great—not only as the question of what lies beyond death, but for our purposes, the critical enablement for a sustaining, overcoming, last days’ life of discipleship, service and worship.

It is the same life of which Jesus spoke when he said “I have come to bring you life and that more abundantly.” It is the indescribably precious life of God Himself, and it is evidently not given until we also comply with the same requirement made of him: “sell whatsoever thou hast.” For whatsoever we have, however accomplished, is of man and keeps us from an absolute reliance on Jesus for our life. That ‘whatsoever’ is inclusive of our spiritual insights, ministerial ability and even the best of our motives in serving the purposes of God. What we have not fully grasped is that “there is none good but God.” Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest, September 28) writes, “The only ‘good thing’ from Jesus Christ’s point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between (my emphasis).”

“What must I do…” indicates the premium this young ruler puts upon man. Do we know what it means to relinquish, let go, abdicate, cease from ourselves, surrender, renounce, and abandon ourselves to the Lord? There is that ‘one thing’ we lack, and when that is deficient everything is inadequate! Therefore, “go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast”—talent, ambition, spiritual attainment, commendable preaching style—what-so-ever! And thou shalt have treasure in heaven, exceeding the best we have known, that waits upon this totality of renunciation that few are willing to make! Therefore, we don’t enter into the Kingdom, that heavenly dimension of reality and authority, though we prattle about it profusely, because we “trust in our riches”—make them our confidence and our dependence. The eye of the Lord is fixed upon us, beholding us and loving us as He did him; “and Jesus looking upon them saith, with man it is impossible—but not with God”! When will we really believe Him? ”Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

He yearns for the infusion of His Life for us that comes with union with Himself:

The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him. The daily inflowing of the life sap of the Holy spirit is his only power to bring forth [enduring and eternal] fruit…That same Spirit that dwelled and still dwells in the Son becomes the life of the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit and the fellowship of the same life that is in Christ…it is a life union that makes them one (from Andrew Murray’s Abide in Christ, p.36).

This is that Shalom spoken of in Hebrews: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (4:9)—that ultimate hallmark of biblical faith to which too few have come. This is that spoken by Jesus, “If any man come to me and hate not his father, mother, and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26)! You (preachers especially) must “sell all” you have; your impressive soulish verve, your picturesque affectations, your calculated stylisms—all that comprises your “riches”—your own life also, if you would follow Him in the same totality by which He followed the Father, taking up the cross. Murray enjoins us to “meditate on this until your soul bows to worship in the presence of [this] mystery”—it is that very act of bowing that breaks the soulish powers that have had too long sway. Here perfect union between Christ and the believer is found.

-Art Katz

[b]Lying Signs and Wonders: Deceptions of the Last Days [/b]

I would appreciate your sympathy as I try to address a subject that is already dividing many of God’s people into defensive and opposing camps. One is put into the uncomfortable, if not dangerous, even in raising elementary cautions, of seeming to oppose to what in the eyes of many is holy and of the Spirit of God. Precious and mature saints of our own knowledge testify to the indisputable blessing they are assured that they have received. Far be it from us to dispute or denigrate what is from God. Nevertheless, in fidelity to our own call and responsibility before the Lord and to His people, and after much reflection, prayer and discussion amongst ourselves, we offer the following for your thoughtful and prayerful consideration.
I venture out with some trepidation to raise some questions about a phenomenon that is already perplexing many. Unlike such previous moves of God as the Welsh Revival, noted from its inception for its unmistakably holy character, the present revival generates mixed reports from unequivocal enthusiasm to those that are dubious, critical, and utterly rejecting. Some suggest more than one stream with a fleshly counterfeit paralleling the God-given and authentic. What I have been able to observe via video tape of one principal, and evidently original stream, I found entirely repugnant. Ministers of the word were ostensibly so drunk in the spirit that they were unable to be coherent, railing finally into a collapse from their stupor. I found this entirely unbecoming to the dignity of their professed call and felt the preached word to he denigrated by joking references to the feeble results obtained by it in comparison to the effects procured now by the experiences of the ‘power’ to which they were testifying. Was it my imagination that made me sense in watching some helplessly convulsing in laughter, that what had gripped them was already panically beyond their control and was actually causing them a physical pain? It is a moot question if one would describe it as ‘holy’. On the contrary, it appears to be irreverent if not indeed demonic and hellish.
From identical meetings others report unmistakable benefit, instant release from depression and other dogged personality disorders and disabilities upon receiving ‘the blessing’. We are not in a position to categorically condemn as deception the ostensible benefits to which many testify. God is always free to bless whom He will bless. But our point is that if the enemy can succeed in bringing the Church to viewing benefit as the determinant by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself.
For myself, I would choose to keep my distance from such phenomena, trusting that whatever I might be missing is not greater than what I am protecting and cherishing and that the Lord is not offended by a carefulness that would rather err in a jealousy for His holiness than to risk subverting what has already been given as pure and true (the residue of the knowledge of God as holy, obtained through obedience and communion, cherished and guarded over the years). What believer who has once been in that Presence could ever countenance the entertainment-carnival atmosphere that prevailed in the video cited above? I have not yet recovered, and trust never will, from the eerie experience some twenty years ago of being present on the platform at an international conference in the midst of falling bodies (ostensibly ’slain in the Spirit’) in the complete absence of the sense of God’s presence! The visible demonstration of power without the corresponding sense of God in the midst of squeals of carnal excitement and popping flashbulbs was more than could be borne. Whatever the consequence to propriety, ministerial and offended relationships, I had to leave.
Remarkable that though we are explicitly warned about end-time “lying signs and wonders”, (II Thessalonians 2:9; Matthew 24:24) we imagine that it is future and mindlessly trust ourselves in our greed for experiences, empowerments, or releases to dubious personalities who have caught the public fancy in incredible overnight popularity. I profoundly respect God’s use of the weak and the foolish thing, but I cannot for that reason endorse what is garish, cheap, and coarse as being that. “Holiness unto the Lord” is still the standard of God’s House even when it is unspectacular and unassuming in the eyes of the world—or even our own.
Certainly in all of the overwhelming endorsement of the present revival-renewal phenomenon, the sober believer will not fault this modest, hopefully redemptive voice of caution. Perhaps one of the most ominous features of the hour is the note of warning sounded about those who have some reserve as being ‘obstructions’, ‘enemies’, or ‘threats’ to this outpouring of God. The invitation seems to be to abandon all restraint (’The bar is open’)—leap in or get out of the way of others if you cannot! God is well able, I feel sure, to protect as well as perfect what pertains unto Him (Colossians 1:28). I cannot help but wonder if it is man’s interests that are being so vehemently defended and that we are at the inception of what could ultimately be finalized by the warning that “they will kill you and claim that they are doing God a service.” (John 16:2)
I would insert here a caution given by T. Austin Sparks, more appropriate now perhaps then when it was sounded decades ago, in speaking of the Corinthians’ propensity for ’sensational evidences’. How much does it suggest that we may presently be reaping is what was mindlessly and carelessly sown in the decades of the Charismatic Movement. The immaturity of many was fostered in easy ‘decisions’, Cross-avoiding indolence, undisciplined living, the giddy adulation of personalities and in the superficiality, levity and lightness of our meetings:
“We are in that kind of age today. It is becoming more and more a psychic age. It is an age of the soul just spilling over, asserting itself, taking control of everything in Christianity as well as outside of it—a soulish age… Be careful that you are not hankering for this realm again. Are you after the evidence? My, how I have seen dear Christian people just prostrating themselves, groaning and crying, almost screaming for evidence—these ’sign’ things… Christians and dear men of God, who have been greatly used, are creating an emotional, psychic situation that is involving simple Christians in things which are, sooner or later, going to be a great disillusionment and an offense. It will bring ‘offendedness’ with the Lord, and that is just what the devil is after.” (Called Unto the Fellowship of His Son, p. 46, published by Emmanuel Church, 12000 E.14th St., Tulsa, OK 74128)
Personally, I believe myself to be ready to risk all and to dare all for the Lord, but certainly not for a ‘blessing’ or dubious ‘experience’ that confers some seeming good. My own preference, and I believe that of the Scripture, is to seek out the root of depression according to the Word (usually unacknowledged disobediences). This will be accomplished primarily through that part of the Body to whom I am accountable and with whom I am authentically joined. (Ephesians 4:15) When ‘experience’ as a ‘quick-fix’ alternative is preferred to these disciplines, we put ourselves in a place of spiritual jeopardy. Is not the Lord near at hand to all who seek Him? What is the enduring benefit when we have merely received some alleviation from the symptoms that were occasioned by serious defects of character and return with these defects still remaining? Whatever the future will reveal of the present revival phenomenon, perhaps the greatest will be the profound repentance of broken thousands upon recognizing their susceptibility to deception, their lack of elementary discernment, and their haste to run after demonstrations of power in atmospheres so contrary to God’s known holiness and character.
Clearly, a power is at work. The question is, whose? Who is it that is mediating an alternative and lesser joy to the immature, the carnal, and the undiscerning? We are already discomforted to learn of the loss of interest, even the repudiation of apostolic vision once held by those who have received ‘the blessing’—as if the one were somehow antithetical or opposed to the other! Assuming that our fears are exaggerated and that the present phenomenon is of God, though admittedly marred only by certain excesses, in what ways will future ‘lying signs and wonders’ be different from that with which we are presently being confronted? By what criteria will these differences be identified? Are we presently at the level of maturity and discernment by which these important distinctions can be made? By what means shall we come to that place if we are now prone to describe as ‘enemies’ those who are only raising the questions? The very ridicule and censure brought by the advocates of this revival to those who attempt to do so makes suspect the very claims they espouse. The fact that something eventuates in blessing, release, or deliverance is no sure evidence or guarantee that it is of God. (Matthew 24:24) The same powers of darkness which have wrought the oppressions through careless or unclean living can just as easily relieve them—restoring even relationships broken and made miserable by them—in order to bring about a greater deception!
Even the most rapturous ‘love of God’ can be a pseudo-sensation produced by spirits in the indiscriminate and slothful who are unwilling for the sacrifices of seeking God’s face in truth. Is the ‘hunger for God’ in fact that, or a hunger for an experience of God that will assure the insecure soul that they are known and accepted of God? Is this not the unrecognized motive that makes many pant after present day prophets in hope of a ‘prophetic’ word of this kind? Does not this encouraged tendency promote the immaturity of such rather than encourage them in the faith of sons? Do we not prefer to be effortlessly ‘acted upon’ miraculously—rather than diligently seek God on the basis of the promise of His Word? “And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
Are these not the last days in which we have been warned about deception and been exhorted to test all spirits? (I John 4:1; I Thessalonians 5:21) What are our eschatological expectations—the premises of our faith? Surely these views will altogether affect our susceptibilities to every new thing that promises to bless and establish us in this present life and rob us at the same time of the alertness that would and should otherwise be ours. Are we to ignore the prevalence of ear-splitting ‘worship’, high-powered offerings, calculated theatrics, carnival bawdiness, the chilling hellish shrieks and cries that punctuate the proceedings, the conspicuous absence of the preached word (except perhaps in a token way), the relentless spirit-dulling testimonies in a stupor unbecoming the dignity of God—given incoherently even by ministers of the Word? Not for a moment would such ‘phenomena’ be tolerated at the historic Welsh Revival where every care was taken to avoid even the use of instrumental music or any intrusion of man—the very things now being celebrated and employed. That revival was holiness unto the Lord so long as those standards were maintained.
Has He changed from being the God who insisted that His priests mount a ramp to the altar rather than ascend by steps lest any flesh be revealed? (Exodus 20:26) Who had them wear the golden head plate continually on their foreheads (the very place now we so readily make available for the touch that brings the ‘blessing’) ‘Holiness unto the Lord’? Who enjoined about the holy anointing oil that nothing shall be made ‘like unto that’ nor that it shall ever “Upon man’s flesh… be poured?” (Exodus 30:32-38) Our ache is that ‘Holiness unto the Lord’ be ascribed afresh on the foreheads of priestly men and women who will stand for Him in this age of sleaze and vulgarity that even now threatens to seep into the House of God. It is the cry of Isaiah 52:11, “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst other; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord”—Indeed, “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (II Corinthians 7:1). Viewing the world staggering in violence, war, the catastrophes of earthquake, famine, flood, and fire, the Church in its present pitiful state of shallowness and un-preparedness, should we not rather “Be afflicted, and mourn and weep: let[ting] our laughter be turned to mourning, and [our] joy to heaviness?” Forgive us if we are being too cautious. We would be naive to think that deception is only a fear for the carnal and the sensual. Final and last day’s deceptions will be spiritual “for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light”. (II Corinthians 11:14) “The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” (I Peter 4:7).

- Art Katz

[b]Prophetic Reflections for the End Times[/b]

The following are some intimations,prophetically considered, that require sharing at this time:
Concern about decaying environmental, economic and political conditions is moving the world toward global unification. Safety and self-interest will likely take precedence over ideological distinctions between nations, just as doctrinal differences between major church bodies will be eclipsed by the overriding interests of peace and unity. Historic principles, such as international law and the sovereignty of nations, will be sacrificed for the expedience of world order. Major powers will act summarily to maintain peace in their respective spheres of influence with the tacit approval of those who would formerly have opposed them on ideological grounds. The pragmatic urgencies of high-tech global economy will supersede ideology, allowing its rhetoric, but rendering its purposes as merely ornamental and not serious by those who wield power. Thus, with the possible exception of Israel and the Islamic powers, the stage is set for that global federation that constitutes the beast system.

The social character of the world, in its inexorably fallen state, will become more vile and filthy. Through appeals of the uttermost sophistication, both overt and subliminal, merchandise will be fashioned from the very souls of men (especially of children and youth) - corrupting if not absorbing or consuming all who do not consciously and sacrificially resist its power. An impatient, vacuous, inherently lawless, culturally illiterate, sensual world - frustrated and exasperated in its contention for what it cannot materially obtain - will give increasing vent to explosive anger and physical violence. Increasing calamity and disaster will give rise to looting, pillage, deepening chaos, and rape by the new barbarians (Chuck Colson’s apt phrase) beyond society’s ability to control.

Emergency powers, setting aside due process of the law, will introduce a regimentation and curbing of traditional freedoms unknown and unacceptable to earlier generations. What is banal, lewd, and vulgar will be enshrined as desirable - values celebrated as good by the mass-cult of dark, witchy and degenerate media-blitz idols of entertainment. These glitzy non-persons will accrue robber-baron fortunes for themselves, as well as those who package them through the willing, exorbitant sacrifice of ecstatic, blasphemous, Christ-despising millions.

Paradoxically, society will be forced to abandon even what remains of Christian restraint, morality and propriety in its attempt to protect itself from the endemic evils of drugs, AIDS, venereal disease and teen pregnancies. As is already the case in Zurich, the city of the Swiss Reformers, free syringes, prophylactics and AIDS tests will be universally dispensed, in effect sanctioning the very evils being opposed! Such an implicit official endorsement of evil cannot take place without further compromising the very moral constituency of society, thereby ensuring the destitution and emptiness that moves multitudes to mindless experimentation, addiction and death.

Thus, global disillusionment and final dejection will be the portion of disappointed ideologues, (first in Marxism-socialism, and then democracy - secular utopian dreams) making them candidates for Christ or cults. The dreaded nihilism of despair that was the root of Hitlerian-Naziism of the 1930’s will also be the breeding ground for the global totalitarianism of the end-times. The dissolution of contending ideologies and the unification of world economies will produce a blurring of national boundaries, which even now is resulting in a massive shifting and relocation of peoples. This will add to the fears and tensions of ethnicity and race among the unredeemed, but render to God through a transcendent globally-minded, non-parochial Church, the means to sift out and draw to Himself a remnant people from among all the nations. Many from among world Jewry will find themselves increasingly vexed and harassed among all nations, experiencing as the Gentiles in New Testament times, being without Christ…having no hope, and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12).

This emerging true Church will finally grow sick of the hype and the banal predictability of a merely phraseological Christianity. It will seek the deeper reality of faith and relationship, counting the cost and increasingly taking on the visage of pilgrim, stranger and sojourner in the earth. Those that remain in conventional church situations, either impervious to the need or unwilling to pay the price, will settle under a deception of religious unreality, condemning as heretics and agitators those who cannot abide the same.

Centrifugal forces will polarize Christendom ultimately toward two camps - persecuted or persecutors - reminiscent of the opposition of the Reformation churches to the Anabaptists of the 16th century! Finally, impeading unities will drive the religio-political kind to fury against that minority of the Spirit which will not subscribe to their ecumenical designs. So once again, and finally, a man will find his enemies to be those of his own household; yet, one’s love for his enemies in response to opposition and persecution will be the distinguishing mark of this consummating, remnant-martyr Church. Such a response will be the possibility of those whose conscious, determined preparation and sanctification begins now.

The light of His countenance in such a separated people will be the very factor that brings upon them, as it did Stephen, the retribution and assault of those who hate the light and prefer darkness - from without but more so from within the church. Radical apostolicity or apostasy will prove the only options during this polarization in the end-times. Neutrality or middle-of-the-road alternatives will be waste and void. We will be, finally and at last, compelled to be saints, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, in an age when the only other option is to wear the mark of the Beast.

For those unable to buy or sell in the global world economy, Christian community of a creative, productive, life-sustaining kind, however much dreaded by many till now, will prove one of the few, if not only, viable alternatives for sanctity and life. For those sons and daughters who radically separate themselves, not to so much as even touch the unclean thing, the love of the Father, the actuality of God as Father, known by few, will become a sustaining power against insecurity or falling in all the tremulous pressures of the end (2 Corinthians 6:18).

Such a people, a saving-remnant dotting the globe, will constitute in themselves a living accusation against sin and evil. Their presence in an age where iniquity abounds will no longer be tolerated. They will, in many instances, provoke their own martyrdom, thus fulfilling the mystery of the purposes of God in suffering. Through this, the usurping Powers, the false gods of this age, are evicted from the heavenlies by this ultimate demonstration of the manifold wisdom of God! (Ephesians 3:10). In such a manner is that governmental vacancy created to which a glorified Church shall be elevated at the coming of its vindicated, long-awaited King - even the return of the crucified Lord in glory, to fearlessly judge the earth and to rule the nations in righteousness.

- Art Katz

[b]A Prayer of Art Katz[/b] : from message - [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=23588][b]The Veil of Self[/b][/url] -

Thank you, my God, that in the midst of activity, in the midst of tumult, in the midst of last days’ confusion and upset and violence, there is a place that is permanent, where we have our interior and true being. Our life is not ordered by the things that are outward, but by this inward reality. We can be calm in the midst of confusion and perplexity. When others are panic-stricken and walking into walls, we are constant and clear because we are being directed out from that place by a God who instructs us. Come, my God. What a provision! What a shame if we should fall short of it for the lack of faith or desire. Come and work a work to impart that faith to believe, to enter, to come boldly and dwell in that place, to find there our being, our direction, our enlightenment, all that we need, and mercy in time of need. We are continually in crisis. The world is collapsing about us. The issues are great, and we need the direction that comes from that one place where You wait to meet us within the veil. Lord, do something for the church that it will have its life and direction and enablement out from that holy place and no more from its own minds and deliberations. Thank you, my God, for this precious provision. It is Life, it is grace, it is mercy. Thank you, my God, for that peace that passes understanding, for the rest of God. Thank you, Lord. What a provision! Thank you for the Son of God who made such a way once and for all.

!

[url=http://artkatzministries.org/martyrdom/#][b]One of Katz's Best.[/b][/url]

"Provoke onto jealousy."

[b]On Interpreting Scripture[/b]

The Bible is another kind of literature. It is utterly unique. I have been a reader all my life long, but there is nothing like the Scripture for conveying depths of meaning in so few words. The scriptures are terse, compact, and intense, and that puts a great demand upon us to draw out the meaning-which is not the least of God’s purposes for giving us the written Word. He wants us to be students of the Word; He wants us to draw out the meaning by the operation of His Spirit and by our dependency upon Him. So much, if not everything, is the issue of revelation. And revelation is the issue of Spirit. And God is not going to give revelation to arrogant personalities, to those who want knowledge only that they may flaunt it, or exhibit it, or show themselves off. The revelations of God are precious, but they are requiring. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

Who of us has not been guilty of misusing the Word of God? We can do this by not accepting the Word of God on its literal face value, but interpreting it in metaphorical and allegorical ways, which is to say spiritualizing the Word of God. There has been more damage done by this liberty than we can ever understand. Once you take that kind of liberty with the Word, of giving it your meaning because it suits your fancy, or it is in keeping with your mindset, what does that do in terms of your relationship with God Himself? “In the beginning was the Word.” God Himself is the Word, and when man exalts himself as God’s interpreter, he always stands in danger of exalting himself above the Word, which is to exalt himself above God. It is deadly. So this issue of correctly drawing out the meaning of the scriptures needs to be done with the deepest reverence for God. Nor is there a single meaning or interpretation for any one text. The Word of God is so rich that it allows for many different applications and meanings.

You can find allegorical meanings. An allegory is where something stands for something else. You take a literal word and you impart to it a spiritual or significant meaning, and there is a place for that, but not a first place. Our first responsibility is to discern God’s literal intention for that word. Allegorical interpretation must never displace the literal interpretation. For example, in the history of the Church, there has been an enormous rejection of the literal statements of God for Israel. I am persuaded that the early church fathers [and later ones!] did not want to see Israel glorified. They did not want to see a restored nation, or that it would become the locus of God’s millennial kingdom and glory, so they interpreted every such reference as to mean the Church; that Zion does not mean a particular location in Jerusalem, but only something symbolic, allegorical, and metaphorical for the Church. Now you can preach wonderful messages that way and inspire the Church, but it would be a pity that in the process of that we have the lost the literal intention of God.

Another reason why literal meanings have been traditionally avoided is that the implication of the literal meaning is too radical in terms of its requirement upon us. So we want to get off the hook, and one way to do that is to give the scriptures a poetic and spiritualized meaning. And so, we have to fight to restore the original intention of God for His Word. What if the word “glory” becomes for us a cliché? Better that our lips were sealed than that we should speak the word rather than cheapening it or demean it by too much and too shallow a reference. When we say we are jealous for the glory of God, we better have a sense of what that glory means, because if it has only become a cliché and a phrase, we will not be capable of the suffering that precedes it. In other words, if we allow the word to lose its real value, we have lost the only thing that would have been the incentive to suffer to have obtained it. This is the nature of truth in God, and let us be jealous to safeguard His word, both in spirit and in truth.

- Art Katz

"Choose ye this day whom you will serve"

G3144 μάρτυς martus
Of uncertain affinity; a witness (literally [judicially] or figuratively [generally]); by analogy a “martyr”: - martyr, record, witness.

G3144
μάρτυς
martus
Total KJV Occurrences: 34

witnesses, 21
Mat_18:16, Mat_26:65, Mar_14:63, Luk_24:48, Act_1:8, Act_2:32, Act_3:15, Act_5:32, Act_6:13, Act_7:58, Act_10:39, Act_10:41, Act_13:31, 2Co_13:1, 1Th_2:10, 1Ti_5:19, 1Ti_6:12, 2Ti_2:2, Heb_10:28, Heb_12:1, Rev_11:3

witness, 8
Act_1:22, Act_26:15-16 (2), Rom_1:9, 1Th_2:5, 1Pe_5:1, Rev_1:5, Rev_3:14

martyr, 2
Act_22:20, Rev_2:13

record, 2
2Co_1:23, Phi_1:8

martyrs, 1
Rev_17:6
___________________________________________________

Excerpt from Art Katz - [by "apostolic" Art is referring to the first church]

"You are going to be required to choose, you are choosing even now, but you are not conscience of that, where you are going to end up in terms of the church, as the great centrifugal and polarizing forces are going to move us into one camp or the other. We are going to be radicalized and there is not going to be any neutral ground for those of us who don't have stomach for that, who just want to be "Ordinary Christians", just get along, just be a Sunday pew-sitter, mind your business, not irritating anyone and just go on. I want to tell you, that that option won't be available to you. To be an ordinary Christian in this decade and the end of the age, will be to be apostate. And God has never called us to be ordinary, He has called us to be extraordinary, He has called us to be apostolic.

It has always been God's intention for the church, from the beginning, how much more at the end. A church of apostolic glory, of apostolic power, of apostolic integrity, of apostolic character, of apostolic service. These are "they" that turned the world upside down. These are also candidates for persecution and for martyrdom. And we who have clucked our tongues at the reports of martyrdom that have come to us from distant places - the "Iron Curtain" countries and Africa, need to embrace ourselves and to know, that that's not a phenomena confided to the distant places. It's a phenomena that will always take place, wherever God's people break in to a transcendent and real place with God that the world cannot tolerate and abide. If we have got no way with it, it's a testimony to a our shame. It's a scandal of western Christianity, that it has been so thinned, so inoffensive, so "going on with it's own Sunday business", that the world has not been required to take note, let alone to OPPOSE it! But I want to tell you that in a world that is coming to into consummation, in a System that is Opposed to God, in it's very character and nature that is anti-Christ, those who will stand for Christ and refuse to take the mark of the beast, will find themselves candidates for martyrdom.

And if we cannot buy or sell, how then we shall subsist? I think that we should now to begin to consider these things, and God is speaking these things now so as to prepare us and to feed us for the realities that shall shortly come to pass and are already working.

I am not saying 'Thus saying the Lord' but I have suspicion that the issue of 'the mark of the beast' or 'the name of the Lord on our foreheads' is not the designation that is going to come to us in some final hour where we get stamped, but it is even now being formed day by day and moment by moment in the transactions to which we give ourselves for convenience, for luxury, for security, in a System that is increasingly Hostile and Opposed to God. How much attenuated to luxury are we? How much do we need our security and how much we are willing to go with it? As one who has possessed an American Express Card for about twenty years and paid my bills regularly, never paid the 18.5% exorbitant interest if you allow the debt to go beyond a month, I have finally broken it up and destroyed it. Just felt constrained by the Lord to give it up, that there is something about it, that has .... a spiritual weight, a moral implication of a dependency not upon God, but upon a System established by men. I want to tell you something, it's a very naked feeling not to have that card in the wallet.

There is a whole intricate, complex system that has been raised up in the world to which we have mindlessly subscribed! And I suspect in my prophetic intuition that every time we get into that, we condescend to it, we go along with it, we buy and sell in it, we establish our security in it, we find our comfort in it, something is being embossed on our forehead and our hand, and the Day of the Lord will reveal what number we bear.

You know what is apostate about the apostate church? It still continues to speak the vocabulary of the faith! You still continue to use the terminology, you still call "Lord, Lord", but the reality and the power has long ago disappeared, and not only that, it would be offensive with that minority of the Spirit that has not gone along, and call them 'heretical'.

I am not saying these things to scare or to panic, but to prepare and to alert. We need to know what time it is, and it's the Lord's very mercy to speak to us in a such a way as to align ourselves with things as they in fact are. And I am not saying things that none of us don't know, but I'm putting it together, by the grace of God, in such a way that we might get a sense of the totality of this all, the inclusiveness of this and the direction toward which it is going. You know many of us aren't Christians but are really humanists in heart.

If we are scratched deeply enough, we believe in inevitable progress, we think that things will improve or that science has the answer. That is not the eschatological and apostolic sense of things as given in Scripture. Scriptures indicate it's winding down and coming to the conclusion of an age that is helplessly and incorrectibly corrupt."

[url=http://artkatzministries.org/gleanings-from-psalms-18-in-the-light-of-current-revival-phenomena/] [b]Excerpts from: Gleanings from Psalms 18 in the Light of Current Revival Phenomena[/b][/url]

Somehow the apprehension of God is very much affected by our perception of Him. And therein lies the problem. We are bringing a distortion out of our own subjectivity, out of our own twist. We see God out of a prism of our own being. Some people are seeing God as quite cheap, as if He is some kind of a lackey or errand boy. But it does require something from us to perceive God rightly. “With the pure Thou dost show Thyself pure.” If you have any kind of controversy with God this morning, the problem is not He, but yourself. You are projecting something on Him. You are becoming guilty of Israel’s sin. “You thought that I was such a one as you are.” We need to be transformed into His image, and not to project our image on Him. He is not a convenience. He is God. He is the Creator. He is Almighty. I do not have adequate words or adjectives. Unless you know Him in the place that is too deep for words, do you really know Him? Until there is a gasp and a splutter, until you find yourself prostrate and stretched out as dead, do you really know Him? And how many of us will go through an entire Christian lifetime without that knowledge, and be perfectly content, and think that we are doing God service, and that we know Him, and that we can communicate Him?

There needs to be a separation. We need to disengage ourselves from the things that are profane. The whole world is profane. There is a process of profanation taking place everywhere. There is something that is cheapening and degrading in television, in language, in street conversation—especially in the USA. The church needs to be jealous for the sanctity of words and language—and I am not even talking about biblical language, but about language in and of itself. We have the exquisite privilege of being made in God’s image whereby we have the faculty to speak. And to cheapen that, to make our small talk really small, to trivialize our life, to not hold dear the things that sanctify us and make us human in God’s image is to enter the process by which everything is being made profane.

The church is called to be a nation of priests. And the priest has the obligation to teach peoples and nations the difference between the things that are holy and the things that are profane. And how shall we teach what we ourselves do not know, and what we ourselves have not extended ourselves to find out and to preserve and to keep alive in our own consciousness? Can we really pursue this and move in this way except we take the Television out of the house? It is not enough just to shut it off. I used to keep a television for the news. But the news is becoming as vulgar and obscene as anything else—especially when it is interwoven with sordid commercials. It is not worth it to find out what is going on in the world if that is the price we have to pay in having our own spirits being made sodden and dulled. And then we try to come into the scriptures, and we find that we are not profiting. We will find ourselves unable to have a time of devotion that is a delight. Praying is drudgery at best, and often nothing more than mechanical requirement. Our spirits are being made dull. We are being profaned because we have not separated the sacred from the profane. We have not kept it at a distance.

Do we have a residue of God in truth in our inner man? Do we have a precious accumulation of something that has been worked in our inner being in communion with God over the course of our spiritual history? Do we know God in the kind of knowledge that has to do with His sufferings—the kind of knowledge that comes through trials, through breakings, and through dealings? How many are quick to shut ourselves off from those very things because they are too painful to consider? I cherish all the residue of the knowledge of God that has come in those ways, via the work of the Cross. And you know how I test whether something is of God or not? I still my soul. Carnal ministers want you to be engaged in your soul. That is why there is much noise, the unnecessary use of amplifiers, the music, the motion, the activity, everybody moving and getting into the act. Sorry, but the more God-honoring posture is to be still before the Lord. And it is not pleasant to be so seemingly “out of it” when everything is tugging at you to be ‘one of the boys’ and to go along with the carnival show. In fact, can we even distinguish between our soul and our spirit? Or is it one big blur?

Paul says, “O, that I might know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.” There is a knowledge of God in that place that is so exquisite, nor is it to be obtained in any other place. Or have you been inducted into the mindset of the world—the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, protecting your life, your privacy, guarding yourself lest there be any threat, any injury, any pain? No wonder the church is hardly more than a conglomerate of individualities living their privatistic lifestyles. Where is the church of the apostolic kind where “those who believed were together”? “And great grace was upon them all, and with power gave the apostles testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Privatistic life styles are contrary to the ethos, the character, and the genius of true church. True church is a suffering before it is a glory, just by what we are ourselves together in the intensity of that life.

You don’t have to go to any distant city to seek Him. Be ruthless against yourself in finding time, in sending the kids out, in getting those clamoring legitimate things away that are clawing at you always. Lock yourself in a room, throw the key away, do something; but seek God and be found of Him. That is His promise, “If you will seek for Me with all your heart and all your soul, you shall be found of Me.” And when you obtain that knowledge, maintain it, or you will lose it. Pray for the church. In this critical hour, deception is rampant. My Jewish people are perishing. Where is that witness that moves them to jealousy? Jews are everywhere about us totally unimpressed with our best charismatic demonstrations. We need to come into a place that is holy, holy, holy, where God is known as He is and not as men think Him to be. Out of that place, we can then make Him known.

Prayer:

So Lord Jesus, precious God, Holy One, our hearts go out to you Lord. We apologize for the way in which You have been slurred, for the blasphemy that takes place everywhere, not by the worldlings, but by your supposed ministers. The use of You, the exploitation, the employment of Your name to sanctify cheap carnival things. Lord forgive us that we have been saps, that we have gone along with it, that we have paid for it, that we have underwritten it and have not been jealous for Your name and Your honor, and for Your person. We have to say that we ourselves don’t know You as we ought. We have not been diligent to know you and to seek you and to retain that knowledge and to be jealous over it and to be willing, like Paul, to know you in the fellowship of Your sufferings. We have preferred guarded, private lives. And though we have sung the brave choruses, the real testimony of our heart is, “this far and no further.” We don’t want to go all the way. That’s fanatical and upsetting and threatening. We want a measured Christian life, singing the choruses, but having no intention of doing Your will. And Lord, we ask your forgiveness. We have given ourselves to an appearance of something that is not, and we enjoy that appearance, and we even have persuaded ourselves that it’s true of us. Lord help us. Help us in Your mercy and Your great love for the church that was birthed out of Your bleeding side. Wash us with the water of Your Word. Grant us, my God, the gift of repentance. And if we don’t need it for ourselves, may we repent for the church in our identification with it. Come, Lord, stir our hearts and don’t let us get away. Hold us accountable for what we are reading today. And may we be of that generation that seeks You, that seeks Your face, O God of Jacob, is our prayer, in Yeshua’s Holy Name. Amen.

*

[url=http://artkatzministries.org/attaining-to-sonship/]Attaining to sonship[/url]

This is not Bill Britton style tinsel teaching of "sonship" nor the self-glorying elitism of the "manifest sons" teachings that come in many varieties these days.

Unless one is ready for suffering and death to self - this message will not be appreciated.

GOD Bless those who are praying to be "poured out" as HE was ... dead to all that points to ourselves.