PREPARED TO PREPARE
(c) Morris Ruddick
Note: After publishing my “Something More” book, I entered a time when my need for the “something more” spiritual dimension was so far beyond myself, that I frankly regretted putting out a book with such a title.
As I entered this time the Lord spoke a very clear word to me that it was in my weakness that His strength would be manifested. What has unfolded since then has been humbling with challenges exceeding my level of faith and ability to overcome. Yet, through this time, the Lord has been birthing new dimensions in my calling, as I have found myself in uncharted territory being prepared: with a preparation that required reaching past the familiar and the known for something more: depending on a guidance that could only come from the Lord.
That something more pivots on the Kingdom and it bears on our priorities and view of success. The Kingdom view of success is very different from the way the world ranks success. The West is enticed by the illusions and vicarious followers of superheroes and the glitter of the limelight. However, genuine success is judged by a radically different standard, as the majority of the world faces realities that are the fruit of the bondage of corruption.
All this has led to the need for greater clarity for what lies ahead. The spiritual tension underway in the world today has us poised before a time paralleling when Pharaoh recognized Joseph’s prophetic wisdom: a time of preparation preceding judgment. Recent spiritual shifts unveil the reemergence of a creeping evil that bears on the necessity to more strategically understand the times and to begin preparing: preparing not just spiritually, but in the natural.
Morris
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“Justice is turned back and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. So truth fails and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. But the LORD saw it and it displeased Him. He wondered that there was no intercessor. So He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation; He put on the garments of vengeance and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds He will repay fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies. So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun. So when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.” Isaiah 59:14-19
There is a fire many righteous of our day have been encountering. It has been a time requiring much more than what the best of human effort could achieve. It has been a pathway of preparation into a time of much greater purpose.
The words below are ones I originally wrote in early 1996. They point to a time of preparation for ones who bear a mantle like Joseph to prepare. The preparation to prepare involves walking through a fire, not unlike what Job, Joseph, Daniel and many other heroes of faith went through.
“A time is coming soon when there will be changes in the infrastructures of the world’s systems that will create reversals resulting in discontinuities such as the world has never seen. In the same manner that Joseph the patriarch was sent ahead to prepare for what was coming to the earth, God is today sending individuals ahead to prepare for a time of great change that will precede the shift of all ages. These will be individuals who clearly hear God’s voice and who possess a unique understanding of the times, who will be thrust into positions of influence within the economic, governmental and business infrastructures that guide the course of world events.”
Morris Ruddick, The Joseph-Daniel Calling, 2000, Xulon Press, pg 20
The Realities of the Times
Recent articles from the European and Asian editions of the WSJ uncover the creeping evil underway in Eastern Europe and Asia. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304724404577290853371300614-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwNjEwNDYyWj.html?mod=wsj_share_email_bot
Another WSJ article reveals the challenge for the soul of Africa.
In each of these cases, there are compounding ripples of impact on the Body. Religious freedoms that have been taken for granted since the fall of the Iron and Bamboo Curtains are being challenged. The article on Hungary points to a shift in liberties that adversely impacts religious freedom in former CIS states. The piece on Hong Kong points to the response to a Christian family, a family who has come to be considered too powerful and too Christian. The one on Africa points to the struggle underway for the soul of Africa, where on one continent are found the resources sought by the rest of the world.
The resurfacing spiritual realities ultimately will affect the entire Body, but should now be a wakeup call that provides a sobering perspective that tempers our priorities. The times have experienced a shift and it is time to prepare.
The Fire of Preparation
The story of Job’s path through the fire unveils truths pertinent to the righteous being prepared.
Job was a righteous man in the sight of God. He was a spiritual forerunner and business leader of his day. As with Job, the evil one’s encounters with today’s righteous face a barrier of protection represented by the anointing of God’s presence. The barrier was there to enhance God’s plans for something more.
Not surprisingly, Satan found access to counter this divine protection. It was through the blindness of ones Job regarded as friends. Contemporaneously, the evil one has employed gateways through the soulish nature of those closest to those being prepared to prepare.
These are inside affiliations the devil can easily provoke with his undermining objectives. These are relationships reflecting a spiritual blindness marked by uncontrolled, spiteful or simply misguided tongues that the enemy can harness to serve his diversionary and destructive tactics.
To accomplish the purposes God had for Job, there was a spiritual level Job had to penetrate. It was a level that superseded his position in the community, his wealth and even his family. It was a spiritual veil leading to a far more mature and richer revelation of not just the Lord, but of Job’s high calling. Its pathway involved a fire of preparation.
The Blindness of Job’s Friends
Job’s friends didn’t understand what God was doing in his situation. In their ignorance they spoke of God without true understanding and aligned themselves with the accuser in their conjectures concerning his terrible circumstance. In so doing, they all but pushed Job over the edge. Even before his “friends” showed up, Job’s wife had already failed in her role by concluding that Job’s only recourse in the face of the onslaught against him was to “curse God and die.”
The accusing spirit seeks to find flaws and ultimately destroy. The accusing spirit operates through soulish seedbeds that take root with idle words; words that have an element of truth with the wrong conclusions; words of judgment without the maturity or authority to judge. Job’s accusers added to the pain of the fire he walked through. Some might conclude that it well may have been wagging tongues that precipitated Satan’s appeal and access to sift Job in the first place.
Scripture tells us that “life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). James 3 points out that the tongue can be a fire, ignited by hell. So James, speaking to believers, ties tongues of fire to uncontrolled wickedness within the soul, which has a contaminating, depraving and blinding impact on the whole body.
Soulish seedbeds from among “friends” provide the soil for seeds of accusations to take root. Beware of the charmers. Beware of associations marked with issues and hidden agendas, and a track record of providing “inside information” about those operating under the protection of the anointing of God’s presence. Beware of the charmers planting accusing seeds that line up with the enemy’s intentions to create distraction, division, undermining, and destruction, against the truly righteous.
Evil words have an impact the devil is only too happy to capitalize on. It is the reason Jesus admonished that we will have to give account for every idle word. It is the reason we must look beyond and reach beyond our peripheral cultural vision and give heed to standing in the gap for those outside our spheres of cultural reality, who are undergoing the fire of preparation.
Discerning Evil Words
2 Kings 5:25-27 (Amplified Bible) tells the story of how Elisha discerned the evil intentions of his servant Gehazi, who sought to profit from his master’s gift by manipulating Naaman, the Syrian. It indicates that Elisha, by the Spirit of God, discerned Gehazi’s actions and words. “Elisha said, where have you been, Gehazi? He said, your servant went nowhere. Elisha said to him, did not my spirit go with you when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money, garments, olive orchards, vineyards, sheep, oxen, menservants, and maidservants? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave to you and to your offspring forever. And Gehazi went from his presence a leper as white as snow.”
2 Kings 6:10-12 (Amplified Bible) illustrates another dimension tied to the spiritual dynamic of words spoken with evil-intent. It is the story of Elisha’s role in spiritually discerning conversations and evil plans the king of Syria had against Israel. “Then the king of Israel sent to the place of which Elisha told and warned him; and thus he protected and saved himself there repeatedly. Therefore the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing. He called his servants and said, will you show me who of us is for the king of Israel? One of his servants said, none, my lord O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.”
Evil words spoken in secret will be spiritually discerned and uncovered.
Many years ago while in prayer, a couple I knew repeatedly kept coming to mind. Each time this happened there was a heaviness and sense of darkness as they entered my thoughts. Plus there was an intrusive way in which the thought of them was invading my prayers. It was not at all like the times the Lord would bring someone to mind to pray for. Finally, I just asked the Lord what was happening and why they were coming to mind in this way.
The Lord very clearly answered my inquiry by saying: “They’re talking about you, in a negative way.” My initial thought was that my own mind was playing tricks on me, and that I didn’t need to be giving heed to thoughts of paranoia. However, just in case this response was indeed the Lord, I asked Him to confirm this “word” with a scripture. Less than a half-hour later I was reading the Word and came across the following scripture in Ecclesiastes.
“Curse not the king, no, not even in your thoughts, and curse not the rich in your bedchamber, for a bird of the air will carry the voice, and a winged creature will tell the matter.” Eccl 10:20 Amplified Bible
What this principle in Ecclesiastes points out is that backbiting and gossip and negative words have an impact on those they target. In effect they are as curses.
Idle and Evil Words of Insiders
Insiders can play a very damaging role in the release of idle, accusing and evil words. This is illustrated in Psalm 55, 12-14 (Amplified Bible): “For it is not an enemy who reproaches and taunts me — then I might bear it; nor is it one who has hated me who insolently vaunts himself against me — then I might hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend. We had sweet fellowship together and used to walk to the house of God in company.”
Undisciplined, soulishly-driven tongues point to a lack or misuse of leadership and authority. They are signs of spiritual immaturity and unpreparedness. They weaken the unity that God intends within the protective boundaries of community. When the authority of community is undermined, the intentions of evil began infiltrating. The protection of community pivots on the preparedness of its leadership.
The Word comments on the prophet Samuel that: “the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground.” This is the way it should be among God’s anointed. The words of those anointed for leadership have potency.
When righteous leaders are undermined, it not only removes the protective barriers tied to the leader’s authority, but opens the gates for judgment. For Job, the fire was fueled by his wife and then by his friends. When the accuser operates, it seldom is on a single level. It begins with whispers landing at the doorstep of those in close relationship with the one targeted. It can then escalate to levels of judgmental pronouncements unleashing fires of affliction and disarray creating imploding consequences on the entire community.
Note: Part 2 of Prepared to Prepare will include sections on Job’s Friends; The Standard: Righteous Power in a Corrupt World; Honor: The Catalyst to Prepare; and Maturity and Leadership: The Gateway to Prepare.
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