23. Trumpets
The blowing of trumpets is the prophetic word of Christ, that which calls Christ forth into the human experience. Calling those things that be not as though they ARE.
The blowing of trumpets plays a significant role in Israel's journey, in the conquest of the Promised Land, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. I had imagined that I was making a leap from entering the Promised Land to Trumpets. However, the moment I looked up trumpets, I saw that trumpets were central to the fall of Jericho and the victory of Gideon.
Let's begin, however, with the actual feast itself before looking at that same feast now fulfilled in the life of the Church. Here are the points of the Feast of Trumpets drawn from Letter 5, “The Original Feasts.” These points are limited and almost identical to the other feasts.
• Trumpets is one day long, the first day of the seventh month.
• It is a Sabbath, regardless of what day of the week it falls on, with no customary work done.
• Trumpets is a memorial of blowing of trumpets.
• An offering is made by fire as a sweet aroma to the Lord.
• The offering is one young bull, one ram, seven lambs and various measures of fine flour. Also, one kid of the goats is offered as a sin offering.
• The offerings of Trumpets do not replace the regular daily and monthly offerings.
The symbol of the trumpet, wherever and however it is found in Scripture, is a calling forth of Christ, that is, a call to God to make Himself known and visible in the experience of man on this earth. God comes into our knowledge in response to faith; He comes to the groaning travail of His people.
Yet that sounding of the trumpet is always clear and piercing; it is the sound of faith. There is no “I wish” inside the trumpet of God, no, “God, I wish You would show up.” Most such cries I have ever heard in church services, in praise songs, in preaching, or in prayer, were entirely in this insipid and useless, “I wish” form.
The songs, “Have mercy on me,” or “Create in me a clean heart,” sung over and over, are faith-empty prayers, void of the knowledge of God, though He carries all and works through anything.
The trumpet of God is of faith, that is, it is a specific and direct connection with all that God speaks.
“God, I am Your revelation in the earth. God, I know that You always hear me, and that You are always flowing out from Your words in my mouth.”
The blowing of trumpets is the prophetic word of Christ, that which calls Christ forth into the human experience. Calling those things that be not as though they ARE.
I will give to my two witnesses and they shall prophecy. – The testimony (witness) of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. – Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.Revelation 11 & 12
Those words, “she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth” are just another view of this same Feast of Trumpets, this calling forth of Christ.
In this enquiry into Trumpets, I want to look at three things. First will be a brief look at the calling forth of David and through him the Lord Jesus Christ. Second will be a brief overview of the fulfillment of Trumpets in the life of the Church, and third will be a closer look at the use of Trumpets in Israel's journey. I also will bring in the New Testament verses that are the fulfillment of Trumpets, though you can see already that these are verses I have always used.
Here is the context of Samuel's calling forth of Christ followed by Paul's rendition of that same word.
And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” 1 Samuel 13:13-14
And when He had removed him (Saul), He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’ From this man’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus— Acts 13:22-23
Samuel spoke those words in 1063 BC. Saul had been king only for two years. David was born in 1055 BC, eight years after Samuel stated that the Lord sought for Himself a man after His own heart. Paul, however, restates Samuel's words in this way, “I have found David.” Samuel did not know David, but God did.
David “did not” exist when God called him as if he did. This is not “magic.” All things that God brings forth, He brings forth by the word of His mouth, by calling it forth into reality. Then, after that which was not becomes, God then sees it and in seeing it, calls it good. This is the way by which all things are brought forth and by which all things are made good.
This way of seeing and thinking is central to the thinking of Jesus, the mind of Christ.
Trumpets comes first before any other part of Tabernacles. God places a clear call in the hearts of those who speak His word, calling forth Christ into the human experience. That calling forth of Christ is always an unfolding, for Christ IS a many-membered body.
The trumpet is the boldest, strongest, and clearest sound-maker made by man before modern times. The voice of the trumpet reaches across a great distance as a clear and unmistakable CALL.
But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation, by knowledge, by prophesying, or by teaching? Even things without life, whether flute or harp, when they make a sound, unless they make a distinction in the sounds, how will it be known what is piped or played? For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle? 1 Corinthians 14:6-8
You see exactly where Paul places the trumpet, in the prophetic word spoken by the mouth of the church?
The Corinthian church was an exuberant bunch who spent much of their service all speaking in tongues – and why not, it is a heavenly language they were speaking. Paul was not telling them not to pray or sing in tongues, but rather, that the Word must be also in the known language of that particular church. Christ is not heaven or Spirit only, but God manifest in the flesh.
Speak Christ in your own language, your own words; call Him forth as your very and only Life!
We will see only what we first speak. If we want to see clearly, we must speak clearly what we desire to see. Seeing comes no other way. And there is no in-between. If we do not speak Christ, we will be speaking not-Christ without hardly knowing what we are saying.
Christ comes only by the call of Trumpets.
Here is what we must understand. Passover and Pentecost are transitional feasts only. The knowledge of God found by those experiences is for one purpose – to take us to Tabernacles. God does not intend for Christians to hardly know Him or to know Him a little bit as those who remain in Passover or Pentecost are content to be.
Eternal life is to know God. Why would we not want all that life is? Why settle for a little bit of God when He already fills us full with all of Himself.
HOWEVER! Passover and Pentecost are 100% necessary for us to be able to speak Christ. How else would we dare and how else could we do? Passover gives us the daring and Pentecost the Spirit Word in our mouth.
But Passover is not the beginning of God becoming known; Trumpets is. Passover redeems us and places us back into the path God set for us, but Trumpets is the real beginning of the revelation of God.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good.
You see, Trumpets is clear and unmistakable. A trumpet blowing symbolizes to us the clear and unmistakable Word coming forth from God's mouth by which all things become known and by which all things are made good. God calls those things that be not as though they are.
Please forgive me, but I find that I want to repeat over and over the knowledge of God that I received while writing “The Form of God.” I want to say it and say it and say it until it is the essence and totality of my consciousness and being.
God, invisible and unknown, by travail, becomes that form of God that can be known, Word/Mercy Seat, and that Word is light, knowledge, God manifest in human form through many. Yet this invisible God is also infinite. That means that the unfolding of who and what He is has no end. Thus forever, we will speak Christ into visibility, God by His word in our mouths becoming seen and known in ways no one has ever known before. This unfolding is forever; it is the reason God birthed us again, seizing us in His grip, to make Himself known through us, through Christ in our mouth.
We ARE the body of Christ – Tabernacles.
Trumpets is the only way Tabernacles exists. “Christ coming” is Tabernacles, Jesus bodily upon this earth. WE are His body. Trumpets, the calling forth of the next revelation of God, is forever.
Call forth Christ. Call what is not seen as though it is everything.
It is easy to see not-Christ, a gift handed out by the wrong guy to every darkened soul. All who desire not-Christ “call it like they see it.” They will not speak what is unseen.
You see, there are two “matrixes,” the real matrix and the fantasy matrix. We live in the real matrix, the only matrix there is, that is, the unfolding of God out from invisibility by travail into the knowledge of God filling all things. Everything that exists is found only in that matrix, the unfolding of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
There is nothing else.
The imaginary matrix of fallen men and fallen angels exists in their darkened imaginations only. They imagine they are seeing not-Christ everywhere they look. They imagine that by “calling it like they see it” they are being “honest.” How can “truth” and not-Christ be found in the same mouth?
Regardless of all the screams of the world, their screams exist only inside of each one's little bubble of delusion. No scream ever goes forth from that individual, isolated, and solitary bubble. All their “connectedness” is imagination only. None of it exists.
Each little bubble of screaming misery exists only in the Spirit of God, and it exists only as an essential part of the unfolding of God, that is, the revelation of Jesus Christ, as He comes, one by one, to give full and complete answer to all the cries and accusations of that misery.
Yet to us in this world, the cries of the world sound like a REAL blowing of trumpets. They are not.
There is only one Trumpet. “I have found for Myself a man after My own heart.”
To find the beginnings of trumpets in our day, we must go back to the year 1738, to a man sailing across the Atlantic from the Americas back to England. That man, who had been seeking God by ignorance for some years with all the intensity of his soul, said this of what happened to him that day on that ship. “My heart was strangely warmed.” By those words would come the ever increasing outpourings of the Holy Spirit that came to be known as the outpourings of Pentecost. – The man was John Wesley.
The first Great Awakening came through the mid-1700's out from what is known to us as Methodism. In fact, many of the “great hymns” still sung with great anointing in modern charismatic churches are those written by John Wesley's brother, Charles Wesley.
The second Great Awakening came through the early-1800's, again primarily through Methodist churches, though the outpouring of the Holy Spirit always reached out to include many others. And listen, all the stuff surrounding any outpouring of the Holy Spirit today was there fully in every outpouring of Spirit before now. Some of that stuff is of God and some is not, but the difference cannot be known by outward appearance. The moment one decides God cannot laugh out loud for no reason in church, God will do exactly that through you.
The outpourings of God in the late 1800's are known as “the Holiness movement,” also primarily inside of Methodism. Then, January 1, 1901, the dawn of a new century, something new came into the life and experience of the Church. I will quote directly, here, from an account by Gordon Robertson at CBN.com. The link is here: The Roots of Asuza: Pentecost in Topeka.
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In October 1900 in Topeka, Kansas, a small band of believers led by Charles Parham started Bethel Bible School. The school "invited all ministers and Christians who were willing to forsake all, sell what they had, give it away, and enter the school for study and prayer, where all of us together might trust God for food, fuel, rent and clothing." No one paid tuition or board and they all wanted to be equipped to go to the ends of the earth to preach the gospel of the Kingdom as a witness to every nation. The only textbook was the Bible. Their concerted purpose was to learn the Bible not just in their heads but to have each thing in the Scriptures wrought out in their hearts.
As they searched the scriptures, they came up with one great problem - what about the second chapter of Acts? In December 1900, Parham sent his students at work to diligently search the scriptures for the Biblical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. They all came back with the same answer - when the baptism in the Holy Spirit came to the early disciples, the indisputable proof on each occasion was that they spoke with other tongues.
Parham called a watch night service on December 31, 1900. He assembled about 75 people including the 40 students. One of the students, Agnes N. Ozman asked that hands might be laid upon her to receive the Holy Spirit since she desired to go to foreign lands as a missionary. According to Parham, after midnight on January 1, 1901, he laid hands upon her and:
"I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking in the Chinese language, and was unable to speak English for three days. When she tried to write in English to tell us of her experience she wrote the Chinese, copies of which we still have in newspapers printed at that time."
They continued the prayer meeting for two more nights and three days. According to Parham, "We all got past any begging or pleading; we knew the blessing was ours." The rest, as they say, is history.
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This outpouring continued at Asuza Street in Los Angeles, and from there all over the world including the great Welsh revivals. Inside that experience, those “holiness Methodists” who received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit were no longer welcome in the Methodist churches and thus formed the Pentecostal churches.
A couple of years ago I attended a church in north-east Texas with my two younger children. As we sat down an elderly lady was teaching a small group of adults. I said to my children, “Listen carefully, children, for you are hearing a holy woman of God speaking.” After the service she told me that this church was the first in Texas to receive the Baptism in the Spirit after Asuza, when her own parents were young.
This is all the “known” history. But inside that commonly known history is a lesser known history. Inside that general outpouring of Pentecost there was also a continuing cry for more.
You see, just as the brethren in Topeka saw things in the New Testament they did not know in their experience, so those who received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, among them were those who saw more than Pentecost in their New Testaments.
There were those who saw Tabernacles.
And here is the beating of my heart and the cry of my own soul since I was nineteen years old.
Whatever God does, He does in many across the whole world, though they may never know of each other, tucked away here and there in isolated places. I do not think for one moment that the clarity of speaking Christ as the Feast of Trumpets calling forth the full revelation of God into the human experience is coming through me only. There must be others of like heart and faith speaking the same things. We do not need to know of one another to be members together speaking one Word.
Of course, there is that facet of Christ that is mine only to give to His body, just as there is a facet of Christ only you can give. We are members of one another.
I will point you to one development in the years between 1901 and 1948, the year of the outpouring now known as “Latter Rain.” I know that this particular experience is reflected many times over in the lives of many others. Out of the holiness movement in Methodism in the late 1800's, passing through the Pentecostal outpourings of the early 1900's came a man named Ivan Spencer and his wife, Minnie Spencer. Ivan Spencer founded Elim Bible Institute in Rochester, New York, a Spirit-filled, presence-of-God, radical-worship, earnest-seeking-of-God sort of place. I want to bring in here some direct quotes from his biography, Ivan Spencer: Willow in the Wind, by Marion Meloon. First, from statements of Ivan Spencer in 1931.
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It is clearly recognized that the Church today is in a state indescribably inferior to that set forth in the Scriptures . . . God has recently told us . . . that He will restore the New Testament church in a power and glory exceeding that of Apostolic days.
Brethren, we have met today . . . to ascertain what God desires of us as a fellowship of people whose vision is the same—to see God restore to the Church that which has been lost through the centuries, and to move forward into all He has planned for His Church in this endtime.
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Then I want to bring in an experience with God that happened to Minnie Spencer in 1935.
Then she (Minnie Spencer) remembered the strange stirring in her heart of late regarding the Body of Christ. The more she had sought the Lord, the more her vision of the Church had expanded, and she sensed in a new way the potential of the Church universal—but also its shortcomings in the face of such potential.
An inward groan escaped her lips as her concern deepened into intercession. Suddenly she saw the Church in a vision as a literal body, but oh, so disjointed and sickly. There was even flesh missing from its right arm, and the elbow joint was stiff and inoperable. Then God began to speak to her in a most personal way.
There must be travail to bring forth the members of the Body in unity, and with Christ formed in them, He said, and it seemed He was actually taking her through an experience of childbirth—as physical as it was spiritual, and just as demanding in suffering . . . She sensed she was but a representative of the whole Body of Christ that must struggle in suffering before bringing forth that people who would be without spot or wrinkle.
Minnie was aware that God had given her a revelation of a secret endtime ministry—one for which He had been preparing her, and one that would be shared by many others . . . And there was an expectancy of spiritual blessing that belied the tears and groans of the experience—akin to the joy of a mother upon delivery of her babe.
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Then, as Minnie moved in this same ministry of the groanings of the Holy Spirit in the service:
. . . But her depth of travail, with its unusual manifestations of deep groans and cries, was not understood by all, nor appreciated by some whose joyous celebrating of personal blessings precluded all concern for the needs of the Church universal.
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(This is a typical difficulty, the ability to rejoice with those who rejoice and to travail with those who travail, to go back and forth without imagining that one expression of God is “holy” and the other not.)
All through the 1930's, the brethren at Elim and elsewhere around the world spoke of and looked towards a new outpouring of the Spirit of God that they referred to as “latter rain,” from Zechariah 10:1 Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain. In 1937, Ivan Spencer spoke concerning the death of a Max Moorhead, a preacher who taught fervently that all God speaks must mean all that it means, including victory over death.
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Some may question, 'Why did Brother Moorhead die if he believed in victory over death? . . . A Bible truth is not changed because it is not always experimental . . .
The restoration of the Church to its bloodbought privileges is by states. . . In the last days of this dispensation some will come into their bloodbought privilege of translation and victory over death.
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In 1937 Ivan Spencer spoke about the mess zealous and religious people were making of the work of God:
After watching all this fleshly activity among those Pentecostal preachers, and considering the whole carnal structure that produced it, I felt like asking God to dynamite the whole thing—to blow it to destruction by the dynamics of the Spirit—and over the rubbish raise up the standard of love, holiness, and power, by the coming of the mighty latter rain! Oh, the crying need of a broken spirit in God's ministers. Let this be our prayer – 'Break, break, break me, oh Lord!'
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Marion Maloon then makes mention of a man named J. Rufus Mosely, author of Manifest Victoryand Perfect Everything. I have not read these books, but they sound great. The used book price for them is ridiculous, however. Here is what is said about Moseley.
He added the fragrance of his ministry on union with Christ. He was an early advocate of the way of love, since championed by the Jesus Movement.
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The latter rain outpouring began in February, 1948 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan; the Spencers entered into it that December during a visit to one of the main centers of this spreading outpouring, Detroit, Michigan. Let us go briefly, however, to North Battleford.
Almost all discussion of the latter rain outpouring and the brethren at North Battleford on the Internet is hostile, coming out of the extreme hatred among Christians for the idea that God would show up in the human experience and in the flesh. Even sites that give a favorable view are dismissive of the primary truths that God was trumpeting abroad. I did find one anointed view, an article by Jonas Clark on Reg Lazell in The Voice. Rather than give any quotes, I will attempt to reconstruct what God was doing from a church-wide view.
Understand that I reject absolutely all dividing lines in the Church of Christ or any idea that the Church is divided. Christ is not divided, as Paul said. There is one definition only of the church in this world: All whom the Father has given to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every individual person walking this earth who belongs to Jesus, given to Him by the Father, is a member together with me as the one body of Christ, the Church. Any human or mental or wordly dividing lines are non-existent, found in imagination only and not in substance.
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 – I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. John 10:14
Thus I see the entire church from the Day of Pentecost until today, not as the history books see her, but as Christ has always known her, One glorious woman. All who are of her belong to me, and I to them. Thus I see myself as having more in common with John Wesley than many Methodists do and with George Fox than many Quakers, and so on. Yet in all looking for the evidence of Jesus in those who call themselves “Christians,” I look for two things, I look for the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit and I look for that Word that calls forth Christ in fullness into the human experience.
These lines from the lives of Ivan and Minnie Spencer grip my heart because I see both of those, Spirit and Word, in them. The stories of the people involved in the North Battleford outpouring called “latter rain” are the same. We are part of something big, and every member of that something big has had a critical role to play, a role now focused upon what God is doing and about to do through us.
I believe in the manifestation of the sons of God now upon this planet. I believe in the second witness of Christ and in the birthing of a manchild who sits fully upon the throne of God while still in this age. I believe in the defeat of death; I believe in rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies across this entire globe.
I believe in God manifest in the flesh; I believe in Christ walking Bodily upon this earth.
For thirty seven years I have held this vision in my heart, the heretical belief that God will do what He says; how shall I not persevere in that travail until I see God here and now in my flesh?
George Hawtin was part of a Bible School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In 1947, there came a difference in direction between the leadership there and the majority who were seeking God for His revelation. Thus the Hawtins moved to a more favorable fellowship in North Battleford. The majority of the students and staff followed with them, opening a new Bible School in October, 1947. In November, George Hawtin and others attended a William Branham meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. Inspired by what they saw and heard, they returned to North Battleford and to their knees together before God.
Now, I have never read George Warnock's testimony of his own life story until just now, in writing this. Please, read it; it brought tears flowing out of the same Spirit in my heart. Oh, how I witness to this testimony. I will quote from him what happened next.
http://georgewarnock.com/bio.html
Shortly after this we heard about a move of God starting up in Saskatchewan, in my old hometown. It was a time of great spiritual dearth, and many of God’s people in many places had been earnestly seeking the Lord for revival. In North Battleford a small Bible College had been formed, and the faculty and students alike were constrained in earnest prayer and fasting to seek the Lord for a fresh move of God. This went on for months and in the Spring of 1948 the Lord began to move very sovereignly in "prophecy and the laying on of hands" - with the impartation of gifts and ministries of the Spirit. Then we heard that a Camp Meeting was scheduled for July and some of us in Lethbridge felt to be there. We were not to be disappointed. There was a great emphasis not only in prophecy and other gifts of the Spirit but we were greatly impacted by the evident presence of the Spirit, the anointed Word in teaching, and the spontaneous prophetic utterances that came forth. It was a corporate anointing - with the Spirit Himself very much in control. The people as well as the leadership were participants in this fresh anointing. To myself and many others it was a new day dawning. A day in which the Lord would unfold Truth in a new dimension, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The revival had started in February of 1948, in what was known as Sharon Bible College, and now it was early July. In those 4 or 5 months the word had gone far and wide, and there were probably six or seven hundred people there from different parts of Canada and the USA. The "order" of the Spirit prevailed, and there was much love among the brethren. It was a new visitation and in the days and years to come, many thousands would be refreshed and changed as they discovered new vision and new hope in what God was doing and would yet do in the earth. The Word became "alive." The worship was spontaneous, as those who had long panted for the living waters found new hope and new reality in God.
A few months later, at the request of one of the leaders…I was invited to come and work with them…particularly in the office answering the mail that started to pour in from different parts of Canada and the USA and other countries. I enjoyed those times, and have no regrets for having worked there those four years or so, in what I would call a "deacon" capacity…helping out where I could…ministering at times in the local church…or in the Bible College. It was during that time that I wrote the book "Feast of Tabernacles," which was inspired in part by what one of the young prophets had said in one of his classes; "This feast is still in the future." It was this key that started my own research into this great Feast, and I was aware of much anointing as I wrote about it.
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You know something; I also am a carpenter and a teacher, with no gift for the “great things of God,” but only for writing. I sometimes think how on earth could what I share be inside the present revelation of God in the earth. Yet even more so, how could I be found anywhere else? It is not something for me.
Finally, I want to bring in again two visions seen by Annie Schissler in the ongoing outpourings of God's Spirit, this time in Argentina in the late 1960's. Annie saw these visions about the same time that the communities in which I lived, including Graham River Farm in British Columbia began. I read these first in the late 1970's; my mother had obtained copies of these visions, which I still have. Around the same time, my wife's mother also obtained copies of these visions, which I also have. I read them again in early 1986. Both times these visions sounded all through me as the very Trumpet of God. Though I have heard mighty things through the years, nothing has ever blown a clearer call inside of me.
The Place of A Beginning
Today, when He took me into one of these open places (seen before), which was a place of beginnings, it made a tremendous impact on my spirit. He showed me a certain beginning that was already in process and was coming forth upon the earth, and said, “This is the place of a beginning.” It seemed as though the glorious drama of Mary were about to take place all over again, although I know that the thought is absurd.
Everything in this place of beginnings was covered by a beautiful quality of light that seemingly flowed forth in strong, maternal streams, as if bringing forth a natural birth. What was happening seemed to be something normal and natural, it was neither unusual nor strange.
It seemed as though God, dwelling in His Cloud of excellent glory, was bringing Himself forth into a far more natural, tangible, approachable and understandable form – God Himself becoming far more reachable by man.
That Holy Thing
As I entered His presence, He showed me something so impressive and frightening that I feared greatly. Although He specifically told me not to fear, even so, I could not feel completely at ease, for in almost unbearable pain and in great love, He tore open, as it were, His own spiritual form or body. Even though He had told me to look at it, I feared to and wanted to hide my eyes, for after this great tearing open of Himself I could see within. There I beheld something so terribly perfect in its holiness, that even the word perfection seems to sully it in my memory. This living something was very much a part of Himself, yet it seemed as though He were bringing forth, in a tremendous beginning, a new being from His own person. It was the same beginning in God that He had shown me several days before, in “The Place of a Beginning.” For long eons He has waited to manifest this most Holy Thing which He is about to bring forth.
The tremendous, radiant perfection – the holy glory of this beginning that He showed me – was so far beyond expression and so filled with holiness and God-life, that I felt greatly perturbed, and trembled even though He told me over and over again not to fear. It was something too high, holy and perfect to look upon.
When He said, “The hour has now come,” it seemed that He was about to explode, not in an explosion of terrible destructive violence, but rather a pacific explosion. Then He came forth, as it were, in this explosion, and it was tremendously sweet. From this sweet, explosive breaking forth, He extended Himself over all; that is to say, He desired to manifest Himself, pouring this forth upon those of His own ones who were waiting upon Him. To me it seemed so imminent that it appeared to be right now, yet I know it was not at this moment of our time.
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Annie's limited understanding (God speaks only as much to us as we can know) wanted to limit this revelation of God. We know no limit on God revealing Himself through us.
I tell you what: this trumpet of God blows all through me now as truly as it ever did.
However, in reading through the experience of Ivan Spencer inside the latter-rain outpouring, I began to understand the incredible opposition standing in the way of this bringing forth of God into manifest knowledge. This opposition is appointed by God for this very purpose, that He might be glorified as He is victorious through us.
You see, this latter-rain outpouring and George Warnock's Feast of Tabernacles have shaped and influenced many elements inside what is called the charismatic movement to this day. Yet the thing for which many groaned deeply over many years in travail before God is not yet the experience of the church.
What blocks the fulfillment of the Desire of all the ages?
In the next letter I want to use the trumpets of God in the journey of Israel as a springboard to address the question of what things are blocking this revelation of God in the experience of His church.
The blowing of trumpets signifies the defeat of all that keeps God's people bound in ignorance and unbelief.