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The following Revelation was received by Paul Davies on 27th Sept., 1998. As with all prophetic words, these must be weighed and tested with a spirit of humility and repentance. Where Bible passages are referred to, the interpretations given are not intended to be seen as the interpretation of the passage, but as God speaking to his people’s current situation by giving an interpretation.

In Job 33:14 the Bible says: “For God does speak - now one way , now another  - though man may not perceive it.” (emphasis mine).

While listening to a sermon in church, the Lord began speaking to me about the film of the year - Titanic, and what it meant to the Church at large. The Spirit drew together things He had been saying to me for many months, and gave me understanding of the bigger picture, with the clear word:

“There are not enough lifeboats!”

The Lord is about to sink (by increasing the water of His Spirit) the worldly structures we have taken as a base of security, in the world and in the Church. The problem is that the church doesn’t have enough lifeboats in place, and our losses will be great if this situation continues.

The Lord gave me to understand that the lifeboats were structures put in place before a disaster to enable people to survive. The disaster will be the Revival that many of us are seeking so earnestly. The increase of the Spirit that accompanies Revival will accomplish wonders, but we will lose many opportunities if we have not trained our people to be ready, and provided a framework in our congregations that will cope with rapid growth. In our churches, the lifeboats are reorganised structures and policies that will allow the people of God to overcome the disaster. We must put aside our pride in our heritage, and our preferences for certain ways of doing things, and especially seek the Lord for His ways and not assume that we already know.

Introduction

God often speaks through events in the World, and significant events often have a spiritual significance beyond what we see with our earthly eyes. The movie Titanic  has broken many records in the last year, and has captured the minds of the Western world with the tale of the fateful trip. Documentaries abound on TV about the search for the wreck, and the continuing exploration, as well as the many unanswered questions people have about the disaster.

In the spiritual, the warnings of the Titanic disaster are just as relevant today as they were in 1912, and we have apparently learned little. It is therefore, important that we understand what the Titanic represented.

The Titanic and the Church

The Titanic  and the events surrounding its fateful voyage are a type of the church today. Consider the following:

* The Titanic  was the largest liner, a floating palace of luxury with the latest technology,and was claimed to be unsinkable.

- The church today is the largest it has been throughout history, the richest and most well-resourced of any period in history, and is so large worldwide that many Christians find it unthinkable that any real threat to Christianity exists.

*Captain Smith was more interested in getting the speed record for an ocean crossing of the Atlantic than in the safety of his vessel, because of his arrogant assumption that the ship was unsinkable.

- The church is full of self-promoting ministries more concerned with their ability to keep ministering than with the real needs of those they are ministering to. This leads to a competitive spirit between ministries rather than a willingness to listen to the Spirit of God and respond to changing circumstances.

* The ship was filled with a cross-section of the rich and famous, and on the surface, was the grandest thing afloat. Yet this was only for First-Class passengers. The vast majority of those aboard were kept below decks, and forbidden to participate in the activities  on the Upper Decks. When the ship began to sink, these were even locked below, so that the more important people could get to the lifeboats first.

- The ministry of the church is supposed to be the ministry of the whole body, not just the paid Pastors. But few who have not “jumped through the hoops” of acceptance into ministry get a chance to minister. How often have you heard a non-ordained but anointed person from your own fellowship preaching on Sunday? It may not be their full-time role but in larger churches especially there are sure to be many who the Lord has anointed, but who are not Pastors, so they are never considered. It is the utmost arrogance to insist that only those trained in seminaries will be able to preach effectively. Similarly, in many churches it is the Pastors and the Ministry Team who are the only ones allowed to participate in praying for the sick, or giving prophetic words publicly, or getting revelation on what the Lord wants to do next. Few ever ask if anyone in the pews has a Word from God (though it is slowly starting to happen in some places). Far more significant is the exclusion of most of the congregation from prayer ministry (discussed in detail below), as this is a direct violation of the Lord’s instructions to the Apostles in Matt 10:7,8 and Matt 28:20, and robs most of the church from participating in doing the works of the Kingdom. Truly, the “lower classes” are locked below decks.

* The Titanic  ignored the warnings of icebergs ahead and continued to sail full steam into the danger zone.

- The church has been ignoring Prophetic warnings for over 20 years, and still prefers to argue whether something is God or not rather than take steps to prepare for the future.

* The Titanic  lookouts were not supplied with binoculars to increase their ability to see ahead. If they had been, the ship would have been able to turn aside in time.

- The church has mostly silenced Prophetic ministries and found excuses not to listen to them, rather than sift through the Words (and the errors) for what the Lord was saying. They have denied their Watchmen the ability to give effective warning.

* The rudder was too small to turn a ship of that size in the time required.

- the church is unable to respond quickly to anything, since most congregations are run, or heavily influenced by several committees with differing political or theological  views. Also, we have hampered ourselves with our particular “policies” that do not allow us to easily make exceptions to suit new situations.

* Instead of taking the hit head-on, when it was clearly too late to turn away, the Titanic  turned, and ripped open its sides. Engineers claim that the ship would have survived a head-on impact at full-speed.

- the church has a problem in accepting responsibility for its actions, and its mistakes. When we finally realise God is serious about our sins, that is, when His judgment has begun (1 Peter 4:17), we try to turn aside, rather than repent and face the music. This causes more damage to our credibility and makes the restoration process that much harder (eg. Priests being exposed as molesters/adulterers). Consider the difference in attitudes to sin expressed by 1. Jimmy Swaggart and 2. Jimmy Bakker. Both were publicly shamed, but their responses were very different.

* Finally, after the impact, it was realised that there were not enough lifeboats. Due to cost-cutting and the arrogance of the builders, and their desire to keep messy-looking lifeboats off the First-Class decks, there were only enough boat seats for under half of the total complement of the ship.

- Jesus told us to count the cost. Sometimes, this means taking unpopular decisions and going out on a limb when there seems no reason to do so, other than the Lord seems to demand it. The Word the Lord gave me very clearly was: there are not enough lifeboats.

The End of an Era

There is a theory, debated hotly by Theologians, that the first 3 chapters of the book of Revelation, where Jesus speaks to the seven churches, equate to seven major periods of Church history. Although exceptions can be found to almost every rule in the History of the Church, I believe the general spirit of each time period is outlined in these passages. Many preachers in the last 20 years have seen increasing parallels between the Laodicean Church and our own.

What concerns us here is the last two passages, concerning the church in Philadelphia (Rev 3:7-13), and the Church in Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22). The Philadelphian Church is the Evangelistic Church, representing the time period from about 1650 - 1900 A.D. The church exploded around the world in an unprecedented period of evangelistic fervour (“I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut” Rev 3:8), which resulted in conversions in nearly all countries around the world. Great deeds and sacrifices were accomplished in the Name of Christ, and missionary heroes from that era have been role models for every succeeding generation.

The biggest single contributor to this outreach was England, through the worldwide reach of the British Empire, as they worked out the God-given favour to take the gospel to the nations. However, by 1900, the pride and arrogance that accompanied the spread of Empire had begun to destroy much of that which had been sown, and the Lord was about to take His blessing off England and give it elsewhere. The Titanic sinking was the symbol in the natural of the collapse of the British anointing, and, in the natural, it has been downhill ever since.

The Titanic was the greatest ship built, unsinkable, built as a floating palace with incredible luxury and speed. Yet all the trimmings were on the surface - the bulk of the passengers (providing the bulk of the money to run the ship) travelled in crowded accommodations below decks, denied the luxury and privilege of the First Class upper crust.The pride in the ship was shown to be just as shallow, and the confidence placed in man’s knowledge and ability, stated in the famous remark “not even God Himself could sink this ship”, reflected the shallowness of the “civilisation” throughout the Empire. The sheer stupidity of not providing enough lifeboats, not providing binoculars for lookouts, having too small a rudder, etcetera, etcetera, can only be wondered at, and the tragic loss mourned. It really did signify the end of an era, and it is plain to see that the lead in Christian Evangelism in the 20th century passed to America, just as the survivors of the Titanic did.

Yet the message to the church is the same today. We have learned little from the disaster, and if we don’t take urgent steps to rectify the problems we will find that WE don’t have enough lifeboats, and our losses will be tragic.

The Legacy of all

The Laodicean church is the Materialistic church, who are “lukewarm”, and about to be “spit ... out of my (Jesus’) mouth” (Rev 3:16). The tragedy of the Laodicean age is that we have for too long thought that it was wealth that made us Laodicean. In reality, the key is in Rev 3: 17: “You do not realise...”. It is our lack of understanding that makes us lukewarm. We have not understood that the last church carries the legacy of all the preceding churches, and we will have to overcome all of the hangups they had, by overcoming our own pride which prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are. Like the lack of binoculars for the lookouts on the Titanic, which would have given time to miss the iceberg, we have not given place and care to the Prophetic Ministry, and the Lord cautions us in Rev 3:18 to buy a “salve for your eyes so you can see”.

Many today are given to a confidence in the World which simply cannot be relied upon - the 1987 stock market crash gave clear warning of this, as does the recent financial crisis in Asia, yet many are confidently explaining that 1929, and 1987, cannot happen again. The church, however, seems to have no answers in preparing for the financial crises which many Prophetic voices are predicting - most are so concerned with meeting their monthly budgets, they have no resources left over to put away for a crisis. Businesses are not heeding the warnings about the “Year 2000 bug”, which could potentially destroy Western society, the Banks are increasing fees and charges almost daily, yet more and more people are getting further and further into debt.

Churches are being rent apart by controlling “Jezebel Spirits” (Rev 2:20 - Thyatira), by compromise with the World (Rev 2:14-15 - Pergamum), by persecution (Rev 2:10 - Smyrna), and by Death (Rev 3:1), yet even the recent moves of the Spirit around the World during the 80’s and 90’s have made little impact. In fact, many of us have “lost” the lessons of the 80’s in the thrills of the move of the 90’s. We are not, in Western countries, seeing large-scale revival (though there are pockets), and the level of power operating in our churches and ministries is less than it was years ago.

Into this scenario comes the movie Titanic, with the warnings it brings, and we must be careful not to let our Laodicean assumptions, or our Philadelphian pride, prevent us from hearing the warnings and acting accordingly.

The Lessons of the Third Wave

I find it very hard to recognise that most of those who were in Renewal in the 80’s have not continued in the basic principles that were taught at that time, and have replaced them with other methods, that are not as effective, and do not have the same priority goals. The Third Wave movement in the 80’s and early 90’s, spearheaded by the ministry of John Wimber, was primarily about one thing - teaching the average Christian to “do the stuff”. This was the ministry they were commanded to do by Jesus when they went out (Luke 9, Matthew 10). Preach the gospel, heal the sick, drive out demons. He commanded the Apostles to “teach them to obey everything I commanded you” (Matthew 28:18). This means quite clearly that every Christian is to be taught to do the basic ministry - praying for others. When Wimber taught this to his church in 1984, they grew by 100 people in three months, as the people had the faith and experience to offer to pray for people’s needs, and many were converted as the Lord answered prayer. The average Christian is like the average soldier - the real work is done by privates.

I find it disturbing that so many Churches have discarded this model for a specialised “ministry team”, which excludes the rest of the body from growing in faith by exercising the gifts regularly. This has been popularised by the actions taken at the Toronto Airport Church to deal with the huge number of unknowns they were hosting, and unfortunately, many churches have copied their practice (the right response to a unique situation), and made it a part of their congregational practice. It is justified as preventing damage being done to people by immature or deliberately malicious

, but is basically an attempt to control the situation, rather than allow the Lord to control, and Pastor mistakes as they arise. Immature people make messes, but they will never learn if they aren’t allowed to make messes (Prov 14:4), and God does permit ungodly people to minister (eg. Judas).

In situations where I have had personal experience of Witches trying to pray for people in our meetings, they were quickly identified and reported and dealt with by the leaders. Satan has got the church so scared of his ability to interfere with God’s people that we have no faith that the Lord will protect and guide His people. This is not to say that we have an “anything goes” mentality, but the responsibility of Pastors and Teachers is to allow the People to have a go, and then deal gently and with wisdom with mistakes as they arise, not to stifle and control the opportunities so that nothing bad can happen. Part of the difficulty is that we read the Bible through Western eyes - in the Eastern world teaching is a process of instruction, modelling, assisting students to have a go, and then letting them do it and dealing with errors as they arise. This is clearly how the Lord trained the Disciples in His years on Earth. We, however, tend to think that a sermon or two is enough, and the rest can happen in home groups, but this is rarely enough. If it is enough, why are our churches not effectively out in the streets doing the work of the kingdom in power?

The defences for a specialised group doing the praying are many, but they all come down to one thing - the body as a whole is not being empowered, and they are therefore not taking the ministry out of the doors onto the streets. We are not providing a safe environment for Christians to have a go, and as a result, they don’t, and we cannot therefore claim to be adequately preparing them for ministry.

If revival is going to come, it has to leave the doors of the church. It does seem a little silly to make such a fuss about preparing for Revival, growing in holiness for revival, praying for revival and so on, when many of our people lack the basic teaching in the fundamentals of gospel ministry, and are prevented from gaining personal experience in their home congregations.

Taking back what he Stole - building lifeboats!

In essence, we have allowed Satan to convince us to disarm ourselves. All he had to do was send a few crazies into our congregations, maybe a few witches, and we react to the fear of pollution by trying to protect and control the situation so that this cannot happen. Thus, we react to Fear spirits by allowing Control spirits a doorway into our churches, and remove the weapons from the hands of our soldiers.

Many have compared Faith to a muscle - it needs to be exercised regularly. If we don’t provide our soldiers with the chance to exercise their faith by involving them in ministry in church, they will never suddenly develop this skill when it is needed outside the church building. Soldiers learn to shoot before they go into battle. If they don’t know how to use the weapon they won’t - they will hide, and avoid the conflict.

Satan has also deceived us about Spiritual Warfare, by many teachings that lead us to fight from our prayer rooms, yelling at spiritual beings in the heavenlies, instead of actually accomplishing anything by doing the work of the Kingdom (which we can’t because we never get to practice). Whilst there is a measure of success in these techniques, they are inherently unBiblical - they are inferred from dubious interpretations of passages and not directly mentioned in Scripture. That they have any effect is possibly more to do with God’s Grace than any affirmation of the technique. We are told that what we bind on earth will be bound in heaven (Matt 16:19, 18:18). We don’t bind in heaven. Like any soldiers, we fight the enemy in the territory he is disputing. We do Spiritual Warfare by doing damage to the effects of Satan’s power on earth.

How did Jesus model this? By proclaiming “the Kingdom of heaven is here”, and by doing the work of His Father (ie.the work of the Kingdom) - healing the sick, cleansing lepers, raising the dead and casting out demons. He then commanded this to be taught to all Christians. If Satan has hurt people by disease, hurt, etc, we take that back by ministering healing and compassion. When the unsaved see this - they will have a reason to listen to our preaching - Wimber called it Power Evangelism.

If we are not teaching this to all those under our pastoral care we are in great danger of ignoring a basic command of the Son, and that will have serious consequences. We must carefully examine our practices, our hearts and our assumptions in the light of the ministry of Jesus revealed in the Gospels, which Paul did not specifically mention as most of his letters were written in response to specific situations that had arisen. we are supposed to be ministering as Jesus did, and doing “greater works than these”, but we have modelled too much of our church life, and our reading of the Gospels, on assumptions we have made about Paul’s teachings, rather than viewing his works from the revelation in the Gospels - we have it backwards!

Finally, and most importantly, we must seek the Lord for specific revelation concerning His plans for our churches, to determine which changes should be made immediately, and which brought in slowly. Most important is timing, as I believe strongly that we have little time to prepare before the Next Wave hits the Church. We cannot ignore the warning of the Titanic any longer.

Website: http://www.ancientwells.org.au/PaulD

Email:     pdaviesoz@optusnet.com.au

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