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The BIG Picture
"Collected
wisdom from the journey."
from Doug
Perry - www.FellowshipOfTheMartyrs.com
- May, 2007
Chapter Nineteen
– Stones
Edited Transcript of Video
Ex 20:25 (KJV) - 25 And if thou
wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn
stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
1 Kings 6:7 (KJV) - 7 And the
house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before
it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor
any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.
1 Peter 2:4-10 (KJV) - 4 To whom
coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen
of God, and precious, 5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a
spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6 Wherefore also it is
contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner
stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be
confounded. 7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but
unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8 And a stone of
stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the
word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. 9 But ye
are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a
peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who
hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: 10 Which in
time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had
not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
I wanted to talk to you a little
bit about what's been on my heart - and the Lord's saying that now is
the time to talk about it. You have to understand that the
prophetic symbolism of the Old Testament points to the fulfillment of
the New Testament; whether it's Passover as the blood over the
doorposts and the lintels, or was pointing to the Passover Lamb.
Or Pentecost - which the first Pentecost was on Mount Sinai where
God reveals Himself in a new way to man and write His law on stone
tablets. The next Pentecost was in the Upper Room where God
reveals Himself in a new way to man and writes His Law on our hearts
by putting the Holy Spirit in them.
Anyway, we talk about spirals
around here, about repeating increasing prophetic manifestations or
echoes (however you want to think of them). So when you go
looking for the spirals and the echoes, you can understand how a
whole bunch of stuff from the Old Testament, pretty much all of it is
prophetic, and we can get instruction about how to run the New
Testament Church, from the way that the Temple and the Old Testament
Levite worship was done - when we take it out of the natural and
convert it into the spiritual and apply it that spiral to the New Covenant.
One of the things that I want to
talk about in the Old Testament; whenever the Lord told them to build
an altar, He made it very clear that they were to build an altar with
undressed stones. That means you don't chisel them, you don't
take a tool to them, you take them just like they were, shaped by
God, by the forces of nature, by the river, by the wind, by whatever
- and you make an altar of undressed stones. You just pile up
rocks, and then you offer your sacrifice on there. Now that was
really important because the altars of Baal and other altars to other
gods would be shaped and sculptured and cemented, etc. - and the Lord
said, "That's not appropriate, that's not what I want. I
don't want stones that have been defiled by the tools of
man." If it's an altar to Him, He wants the rocks as He
created them to be used for His altar.
When it came time to build the
Temple, the Lord was really clear that there was NOT to be the sound
of a tool in the Temple. (Please see Scriptures above).
The stones in Solomon's Temple -
these giant rocks - were quarried far away, they were hewn from the
rock and shaped meticulously and then they were transported to
Jerusalem, set in place and you could not even see the seam in
between these rocks anymore. They were shaped meticulously
together in the quarry because there was not to be the sound of any
tools in the Temple.
We are living stones. The
Bible says that we are the temple not built by human
hands. Those rocks on that altar were not shaped by human
hands. The Lord says, "Take them as I made them, and use
them for an altar; as they were shaped in the quarry; as they were
hewn from the rock; but I DON'T want to hear the sounds of any tools
in the Temple. Don't go try and improve on what I made.
Just accept them as I made them, and let them be. And trust My
handiwork, that I shaped them with the river; I shaped them with the
wind. I made them the way I wanted them to be." And
there was not to be any sound of tools in the temple.
Now what we have today, are
temples full of tools; whether it's the "Purpose Driven
Life", or the "Alpha Program" or any other kinds of
programs or systems, etc. - or even implicit things that we don't
even know we're doing. Well, basically what we're
doing is shaping people. We're taking our chisel and hammer in
the church, knocking them into our mold. We're forcing them,
cramming them into the shape we have for bricks, because we want to
build the temple with our hands. We don't believe that
they are living stones that He's capable of shaping, we feel like we
have to shape them ourselves. So we try to cram them into our
model or we knock off the rough edges ourselves, according to the way
we think they should look.
When they come in with their hat
turned backwards, or their purple hair - or maybe they worship a
little to happily, maybe they raise their hands, and we make it clear
to them that it's not okay, that, "We don't do it that way
here. You have to knuckle under, and do it the way we do it
here or you're not going to fit in." Then we take tools to
the living stones that God made, and shaped and we start whacking on
them knocking parts off them that God put there on purpose. He
was wildly creative when He made them!
If we had a true Body of Christ,
in a city, which is the only allowable church in the Bible, when they
came together in that fellowship, if they were shaped by God, and the
stones were chosen by God, and attracted by God, and placed by God in
their proper order, they would fit perfectly, and you couldn't even
see the seams anymore. But because we're shaping these bodies
by marketing, by recruitment, by consultants, by all kinds of other
things, we get all kinds of rocks that don't belong. Some
aren't even part of the Body at all, but we jam them in there, and
try to make them fit, and if they don't fit, we knock edges off of
them, until they do fit our model, according to our way built on the
foundation we chose -- which may not even be Christ Jesus. It's
arrogance, and it's pride. Because we don't believe that He's
capable of shaping them appropriately Himself.
Is He not big enough? Is He
not capable of shaping His people Himself? Is He not capable of
talking to them and teaching them? Why do we have to cram them
into our molds? Why do we have to fit them into some
prescription, or some shape that He never designed in the first
place? We try to get them to fit into our denominations,
our traditions of man, our structures, our style, our music or our
dress code. Who makes these rules? Because it's not
Him! Because He said not to make the sound of tools in the
temple, that He would shape them, and that NO man would be able to
say to his neighbor, "Thus sayeth the Lord", because they
would all hear Him. That's the way it's supposed to work
and the way it's supposed to be: Everybody hearing God.
If you go to a conference or a seminar to hear some prophet or
speaker or some pastor - to hear from THEM what God wants from you,
you're making them an idol, if you haven't asked God first what He
wants you to do. And if you can't hear Him, the problem is with
you, not with God - He's speaking all the time. If you're
clogged up, it's your fault, not His.
The Living Stones, the sheep,
need to hear the Shepherd's voice, and He needs to direct their
paths, and they need to not lean on their own understanding,
or the understanding of any man. We're all flawed and broken,
myself included. Don't listen to me! Take it to God, and
if you can't hear God, then fix it. Get on your face and
repent, even if you don't usually hear Him, there's one prayer you
can pray, and you will hear Him, "Lord show me something
to repent for." He will find a way to answer you
somehow on that question. Get unclogged, hear His voice, and do
what He tells you to do. But stop trying to get people to fit
into your mold, and call it church.
Build an altar with undressed
stones, and see what happens. Have a temple without the sound
of tools wielded by man, hands directed by man, and see what happens.
You may think that you are led by
the Spirit, you may think that your system, that your 24/7 prayer
room or your spirit-led ministry etc, is led by the Holy Spirit and
you're not doing this, but look around, are they all pacing the same
way, are they all bobbing around or laughing the same way? Are
they all wearing the same things, do they all look like each
other? You may not even know you're doing it, but you're taking
tools to them, and forcing them into your own image. Knock it off!
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