Skinned Alive: How the Nations Shall be Healed 23/10/21 Praying Together Perth
Immediate Context
This audacious teaching comes out of a mass meeting of intercessors (and others) in Perth. When I spotted (Ps.) Richard Tan there the Lord reminded me of a word I spoke over him years ago. “God is going to skin you alive.” Importantly, we were at the home of a mature pray-er Christian aid worker returned from Afghanistan (https://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s669787.htm), and I had called in to see her about a 24/7 mission-prayer house in the city. As Richard is Chinese Singaporean, I thought the word was limited about peeling off matters of race and culture that would inhibit his ministry in Australia, but yesterday more profound things emerged. The Lord is working to strip his people of everything through which they foundationally identify themselves that is not Jesus. As God rebuked Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance…For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”” (1 Sam 16:7), the Spirit wants us to abandon factors of age, position, title, denomination, and spirituality (Pentecostal, Evangelical, Catholic etc.) as primary ways of understanding ourselves. Pastor, marketplace person, intercessor etc. appear in scripture essentially as descriptions of what people do rather than descriptions of who they are. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:27-28). Since God never asks us to go through anything he hasn’t endured, we must return to the work of the cross.
The Stripping of the Son of God
Paul teaches, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ” (Col 2:11). In what way was the fleshy body of Jesus cut off? This speaks of the stripping off of every good element of his humanity as he bore the sin of the world (John 1:29; 2 Cor 5:21). At the height of his dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) Jesus was stripped of everything worthwhile in his humanity. He loses consciousness of “the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.” and of his identity in being “the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” (Rom 9:4-5). This totally devastating stripping has one great end goal. Once all corruptions of our humanity have been stripped off , Jesus willingly dies in the fulness of the Father’s purpose. “Jesus, knowing that all was now accomplished…said, “It is finished”….(and out of his pierced side) came blood and water” (John 19:28, 30, 34). The flow of blood speaks of the cleansing from sin, and the stream of water the life-giving Holy Spirit. The death of Jesus creates a new kind of human race.
One River
Whilst people have prophesied about the many streams of the Church coming together to make one mighty river, I have however heard anyone proclaim how this would happen. I believe the Lord has opened up to me some explanatory scriptures about this how. Proverbs 4:23 strategically teaches, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Prov 4:23). Biblically, the dynamic of life flows not from mind, will or emotions, but from the heart. Years ago http://cross-connect.net.au/down-under/ I was led to Psalm 87 which says the Lord speaks forth that all the traditional enemy nations are now born in Zion/Jerusalem, then the worshippers proclaim of the holy City “all my springs are in you”. Prophetically, this is a picture of the heavenly Jerusalem, who is called the “Mother above” of all the people groups in the Church (Gal 4:26 cf. Heb 12:22-24). From this heavenly city flows the “water” Jesus gives that “becomes in us a spring of water welling up to eternal life” so from our, “innermost being/womb/heart…flow rivers of living water” (John 4:14; 7:37-39). When the Church has one perfectly united heart for Jesus alone (Acts 4:32) the Spirit will pour forth from us in unprecedented power. The final vision of the Bible expounds the purpose of this great river.
Healing the Nations
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Rev 22:1-2). When Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19) he envisaged the discipling of all the world’s people groups (Greek ethne). Not the political nations of today, but the thousands of ethnic “tribes” (Rev 5:9) which by God’s wisdom and arrangement constitute humanity (Acts 17:26-27). (There were, for instance, up to 500 Indigenous tribes in Australia in 1788 each with its own separate and defended territory.) Only a healed Church, one spiritual family under one Father (Eph 3:14; 4:6), can be the means of the outpouring of the one Spirt to bring healing to all the divisions of the world. If Pentecost was intended to be a reversal of the Table of all the Nations “under heaven” (Gen 10-11; Acts 2:5), then the Spirit of God is talking today about a new form of the Pentecostal miracle. A work of the Lord across the earth much vaster than anything ever articulated by the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement! Such a move can be released through the Church in Perth, for Perth is called to be “a city of birth for the earth”. If this is the divine destiny of our city, and all other Antioch cities as well (Acts 13:1-3), what is holding things back?
Fruit Salad or Fruit Bowl Church
In a meeting with a well-known international pastor in Perth, I heard it proclaimed that “we” believe in a “fruit bowl” rather than a “fruit salad” Church. This is totally false; for only a “fruit salad” Church has had all the wondrous pieces of fruit sliced, diced, and their skin peeled so that the rich juices mingle together into one delicious and mystical flavour. Prophetically we are talking about what is called a “rainbow fruit salad”. Ultimately, this is an image of the coming glory of God in the Church (Eph 3: 21cf. http://cross-connect.net.au/about/cross-connect-vision/
Conclusion
The apocalyptic/end of the world Bible writers anticipate a weeping and repentance of “all the tribes of the earth” at the return of Jesus (Zech 12:10; John 19:37; Rev 1:7). This will be preceded by a massive “times of refreshing” for the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:17-21) prior to the Second Coming. When the Lord has completed his “skinning alive” of each of us, so that our core and foundational identity is in Christ alone, these realities will come to pass in our midst. Now is time to ask our Father to raise up men and women, thoroughly stripped people, from across the Church who have an anointing to disciple nations. Remember however, no one gets to choose his/her spiritual father/mother/overseer in the work of God (1 Pet 5:1-5). More could be said, especially about the coming youth revival, but the imperative today is to pray that the Lord will “hasten” his coming (2 Pet 3:12).