“Do you love Me? Do you love me more than your denominational name and church structures that you are all too familiar with? Are you willing to give up all in your church to follow Me without having all the perks of the world at your disposal? Are you willing to lean on Me only and not your own talents or gifts (all of which come from Me)? Are you willing to recognize your helplessness in the face of all that is going on around you and stand alone with Me and let Me be your shield in this battle instead of relying upon your strategic planning (safety in numbers, legal maneuvering, word games, etc.) and spinning to save you in this battle? Are you willing to forgo your fine theology that divides My church into so many splinters that are useless to Me and come together with all your brothers and sisters in the church universal to worship Me with all your heart regardless of your expectations?” Sycamore Dresser
God is reforming His Church. He is at war with denominational thinking and man-made programs. We have been receiving much prophecy in this regard over the past few years. What seems to be emerging is a unity that Jesus prayed for before He faced the cross. Each of us must face our own crosses if we are to catch His vision. We must be willing to give up some of our cherished beliefs while gaining new understandings that we have long resisted.
This much is clear: Christ will be central in His Church. Signs and wonders will take a back seat. The Holy Communion will be restored as Jesus instituted it and be central to worship. There will be a tangible manifested presence of God in His Church. Holiness and righteousness will be evident. Healing and deliverance will flow from the altar because Jesus will be lifted up. People will both flock to and flee from the reformed churches. Repentance and rejoicing will mingle together.
While we were in prayer, I was receiving an image of a field that reaches to infinity. But I was not looking at the ground itself, but instead, I was looking under the surface to the water pipes buried below. Instead of one great professionally laid cast iron or ceramic conduit designed to operate at maximum efficiency — to provide one easy and steady flow of water into every house and building providing all the people with fresh water — there with many very differently sized and oddly shaped types of gerry-rigged and less than professionally laid forms of water pipes buried under the ground mostly in parallel trenches but very haphazardly placed without any rhyme or reason.
There were dozens of them. All of them were old and most were outdated and, more often than not, cracked and even springing leaks. They had lain so long in the ground without proper supervision or maintenance that they were all clogged with generations of built-up silt and sludge and thick layers of mineral encrustations that lined the old pipes so much that most of them only had, at best, a pinhole sized opening left for any of the water to flow through. Where once they may have carried great volumes of water to their appointed destinations, now they produced (for most of them) only a tiny trickle of water in cracked and rusted pipes that were of little value to the people.
These pipes represent the many denominations in the church of every name and description — Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist (of every theological difference and description), Assembly of God, Church of God, Church of Christ, Orthodox (also of every theological difference and description), and every type of the numerous “non-denominational” churches out there who seem to hold onto their own particular form of theological interpretation. They represent every church group that claims to worship the trinitarian god-head — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit — and each has their own separate pipe — made to their special specifications according to their personal spiritual beliefs — to supply them their water that could (or at least is supposed to according to their advertising) supply all the life-giving water needs for the people.
Each pipe considered itself to be the one and only true conduit of the life-giving water, and each was careful to keep themselves distinct and at a distance from the others lest they be contaminated by sources of questionable water sources. But no pipe — regardless of its size or condition — produced any more water than the other ones that they compared themselves with, and all were and tasted the same. In reality, all were sorry conduits of clean, fresh, and life-giving water. The best they could produce now is stale and stagnant water that — because of years and generations of neglect by the church leaders that produced built-up pollutants that have accumulated in the water — is potentially deadly to the people who drink of it, for it was difficult to distinguish their old and stale water from the equally old and leaking sewage pipes leaching their foul fluids into the same field that are found adjoining the water pipes.
Since these pipes were so ancient and poorly maintained from years of neglect, they were all falling apart and springing more and more leaks. At first these leaks were small drips and trickles, but over time — as the volume of the water backed up into the narrow pipes, pressure began to force it through the old pipes until the fragile and obsolete configuration of the pipes burst open allowing the water to flow out in evert direction. It did not take long for these tiny trickles to start flowing into gushes of water that eventually broke through the surface of the ground to flow over the landscape unimpeded. These individual trickles increased in size and volume and then began to merge with the other flowing rivulets of water until they quickly became powerful torrents of water running everywhere. As the power of the water increased all these streams of water continued to meld together so that no one one can tell whose water was flowing where, for they are all one mighty force now.
As the pressure increased on what was remaining of the old and broken pipes, the water became — not just a small easily manageable stream anymore — but instead became a mighty rushing stream that flowed down into the the great living river. Now, this river became a formidable great river running through the countryside. Its tremendous power was carving valleys and canyons in the once serene landscape, for there was no stopping it now. The water was formidable, turbulent, and a very active force to deal with. Those old and ancient water pipes that had provided the life-giving water to millions upon millions of faithful for so long is now obsolete and even deadly to the people. Their day have passed to the “New Thing” the Lord is now doing in His church that cannot and will not be contained within the human confines of any one church or denominational pipe.
I know this image represents the state of the church in theses last days — a church that is so fragmented into dozens of denominations and even more contentious and divisive factions that greatly weaken the power and authority of the church universal in this worldly society who generally see the church as an archaic and useless relic from the distant past. It is a church that has clung tenaciously and stubbornly to its traditions and old ways of conducting worship, and they have refused to listen to the life-giving words from the Lord for His church. Instead they have chosen to carry on as usual with their supposed mission — to justify their self-centered denominational existence in a world falling apart around their proverbial ears. Because of their self-centered ways, the world no longer sees it as alive, relevant, or having any power or authority to transform people or make any impact upon events in this world. The best the church can expect in these last days is contempt or even disdain from the world around them.
But, a new day is coming for the church, and the Lord is breaking open and demolishing these ancient, archaic, obsolete, and decrepit denominational pipes so that any life-giving water remaining in them can be separated from the stale and stagnant water they have been producing can be drained off into the sewers, and this new water can then flow freely to all those who need it. All this denominational thinking will be crushed by the Great I AM so that His church can return its focus upon Him and His life-giving message for all His people.
This is the beginning of His “New Thing” that will usher in His Great Revival to save His people from sin and death — the critical elements of His message that were lost long ago by most of the present churches who have chosen to follow the lead of this world instead of His truth. All these obsolete and ancient pipes and the limited thinking they produced in the church will be erased — to be crushed into many tiny pieces and then dug up out of the ground to be discarded — from the face of the earth, for in the Great Revival people can come directly to the Lord and be in His presence to worship and know Him as the Great I AM. No longer will His people “who call Him by name” be excluded from all of His life-giving living water that, in the past, had been selfishly parsed out by the powers that be in the old churches to maintain control over the church and the flocks to serve themselves and not the Great I AM. Sycamore Dresser
Let us pray and work toward unity in the Church. This does not mean uniformity but it does mean that Christ is central in His Church.
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. (1 Corinthians 1:10)
Jesus prayed this prayer for His disciples and that would include us:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me.
May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
