What is about to be shared could well be the most important message that you will hear in 2012. It is important, but not because it is from this church and not because I am the one delivering it. We have been through a year of testing and challenges. Many of us said good-bye to 2011 during a watch night service and hello to 2012.
This year holds great promise for mighty things, but those things are not automatic. God started dealing with me in a deeper and more serious way then He has in a long while. Much is at stake and we have to be ready. Thus, I am publishing this global prophetic word. I truly feel inadequate and if I let the flesh rise up, unworthy, of what the Lord is telling me. It will not be received at first in some areas and possibly never received in others. That cannot be my concern.
That being said, do you have your sword with you? Turn with me to Daniel 5, and let’s read verses 17-31.
Daniel 5:17 - 31 (NKJV) 17Then Daniel answered, and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. 18O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. 19And because of the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down. 20But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. 21Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses. 22“But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. 23And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. 24Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written. 25“And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. 26This is the interpretation of each word. Mene: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; 27Tekel: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; 28Peres: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. 29Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a chain of gold around his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. 30That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
This is a very prophetic word to the church today. Many ministers have lifted themselves up to a position of power and influence. They have perverted their God given talents and callings into something that makes a nasty smell in the nose of God. They have used pride and arrogance in their ministries and churches to promote themselves and not the kingdom.
Last year every minister was tested. In this year, every minister will be weighed in the scales. What God spoke so very clearly is ‘do not be found wanting.’ Do you understand what that means? This is a final warning. This warning has gone out and now in February the “weighing” has begun.
Some of you reading this are saying, “But, I am not a minister.” Be very careful with that. Better to divorce yourself from pride [and false humility,] than to find out that you are being weighed.
Understand! This is not about salvation; this is about who God will promote and who God will demote. The process is already starting. I believe it will start with those who will be promoted first because God said He would raise up pastors after His own heart. As it was in (the book of) Daniel, I believe that the demotion or pulling down will be swift. That is why I have to get this word out now. Some will say ‘who are you?’ I am a nothing and a nobody in the world, but I am a servant of the Most High God in the kingdom and so are you. We are going to have to be bold, so you may as well start now.
Still have your sword? Turn to John 5. Read verses 1-17
John 5:1 - 17 (NKJV) 1After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. 4For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. 5Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. 10The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.” 11He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’” 12Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. 14Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” 15The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. 17But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
This passage was brought out yesterday morning during prayer and it rang through my spirit. What did Jesus do? What did the Jewish leaders see? All they saw was a lawbreaker.
Pastor Rusty Bowles
Church of the Latter Rain
1456 Beltline #139
Garland TX 75044
new_colr@verizon.net
Nancy’s footnote:
Know this: God IS judging His ministers! If He judged the shepherds of Israel, then how shall the shepherds of His “other flock” (the Church) escape? Whether we stand behind a pulpit in a church, or whether we minister via phone and internet, in written words or spoken words or song… You/we have been measured. What will He decide when you are weighed? Will you be set aside or will you be one who is used by God? In the Great House, there are many vessels of both Honor and dishonor. How sad to have been a vessel of Honor only to now be set aside as a vessel of dishonor! Do not be surprised when you see this happening. It is time to examine our hearts lest as the Word says, “we be found wanting…”
According to Acts 10:38 Jesus went about doing good…
Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Ezekiel (AMP) 34:1-22 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them, even to the [spiritual] shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the [spiritual] shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the sheep?
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you kill the fatlings, but you do not feed the sheep.
The diseased and weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the hurt and crippled you have not bandaged, those gone astray you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought to find, but with force and hardhearted harshness you have ruled them.
And they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild beasts of the field.
My sheep wandered through all the mountains and upon every high hill; yes, My sheep were scattered upon all the face of the earth and no one searched or sought for them. [Matthew 9:36]
Therefore, you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
As I live, says the Lord God, surely because My sheep became a prey, and My sheep became food for every beast of the field because there was no shepherd--neither did My shepherds search for My sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves and fed not My sheep--
Therefore, O you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:
Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My sheep at their hand and cause them to cease feeding the sheep, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more. I will rescue My sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I Myself, will search for My sheep and will seek them out.
As a shepherd seeks out his sheep in the day that he is among his flock that are scattered, so will I seek out My sheep; and I will rescue them out of all places where they have been scattered in the day of clouds and thick darkness.
And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them to their own land; and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be; there shall they lie down in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.
I will feed My sheep and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord God.
I will seek that which was lost and bring back that which has strayed, and I will bandage the hurt and the crippled and will strengthen the weak and the sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong [who have become hardhearted and perverse]; I will feed them with judgment and punishment. [Luke 19:10]
And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between the rams and the great he-goats [the malicious and the tyrants of the pasture].
Isaiah it too little for you that you feed on the best pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? And to have drunk of the waters clarified by subsiding, but you must foul the rest of the water with your feet?
And My flock, must they feed on what your feet have trodden and drink what your feet have fouled?
Therefore thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I Myself, will judge between fat sheep and impoverished sheep, or fat goats and lean goats.
Because you push with side and with shoulder and thrust with your horns all those that have become weak and diseased, till you have scattered them abroad,
Therefore will I rescue My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
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