The New Season
Today’s Topic: Introduction Part 3: God’s Preparation of the People
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:18; Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 12:25-28
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
In many of our previous series such as “Seven Spirits of God” and “End of the Age/Return of the Lord” we talked extensively about types and shadows and how the Old Testament has many types and shadows of what is to be revealed in the New Testament. Now this is not new to God, we maybe just coming into understanding this but it is nowhere new to God and God has always done this because of where humanity is and where it has gone since the fall in the Garden. But this is how God reveals and prepares us to enter the New Season and the seasons within it.
Types and shadows point to a reality that is greater than the type and the shadow because the type and shadow’s purpose is to point to the reality. Now as long as you still have the type and shadow then the reality has not come yet. But do not fret because God is preparing you for the reality. Now the reality or the true revelation of the thing is not that which occurs in time. Time is simply a venue where the eternal comes and impacts and affects. Time was created after the eternal existed as we proved in our last message with Genesis 1:1. Time begins and ends, but the eternal simply is.
Let me use this wonderful example of how God does this with types and shadows. Let’s take a jigsaw puzzle. Now God is eternal so He knows the beginning from the end. So God knows exactly what the puzzle looks like and what it is. Now to bring you to the reality of what God is doing or impacting the Earth with, He breaks the pieces of the puzzle up and puts certain pieces in time to start preparing you for the change in season. Now with each piece God teaches us by that piece to anticipate that is something like this thing is coming into time from the eternal. God wants us to learn and experience fully this piece that He has given us to have. Now he holds us responsible for that piece but nothing more. Now His intentions when He brings that piece is to make sure we get it and understand that piece. A great example of this is the movement of seasons in the church in America.
In the early 1900’s the Holy Spirit was introduced to America in Los Angeles, California. This movement that was started was the Pentecostal Movement. This movement re-introduced the Holy Spirit to America. Now what was God doing? He was making the church familiar again with the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues came to be a dominant feature during this time in the church to show the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. So in this season in time the emphasis was not really on Jesus Christ and God being the Father even though all of that is true but the emphasis was empowerment through the presenting of the Holy Spirit. Now even with this God intends for us to grow up from this so He adds on to this and prepares the church for the next season which brings us to the Charismatic Movement.
Now this was a new move of God and not some side-job from Pentecostalism. The Charismatic movement focused on the gifts of the Spirit. So typically you hear people talk about, “what is your gift”? So now the focus was on ministry gifts and people during this time were encouraged to operate in their gifts and most people are still here in time. These gifts were a person’s identity. Now God is making another transition in time and the next move of God was a focus on governmental issues.
During this movement of God we see a focus on what we call the five-fold ministry gifts or “doma” gifts. These gifts are the apostles, evangelist, pastors, teachers and prophets. Now during the 1980’s God began to restore the prophetic movement in America and then in the 1990’s we see the restoration of the apostolic movement. These gifts of the five-fold ministry represent the gifts of the government of God. Ephesians 4:12 says it best:
“For the perfecting (maturing) of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”
Church, all five-gifts are to work together for the maturing of the saints. In other words, a lack of either of these gifts leads to a lack of maturity for the saints in that area. This is no wonder why in some of our churches, we do not recognize the apostolic or the prophetic. Many hold to the pastoral, evangelical and the gift of the teacher. But Paul, Christ-chosen apostle to the Gentiles, says we need all five. But what is God leading us to? Simple, He is leading us to maturation to become mature sons of God.
See if you are stuck in the Pentecostal movement then it is hard for you to understand the governmental gifts because you have not shifted seasons. God is trying to mature us but we have to be in position to take the picture He has given us, learn about it, study it, experience it then when God shifts the season then you are able and prepared to come in and experience what God has prepared you for. God wants us to grow-up and I believe God’s move in this current season is to get us to Return to the Kingdom and Experience the Kingdom and it’s fullness on Earth now! See he has introduced you to the Holy Spirit. Then God got you to understand the various gifts of the Spirit. Now if He can teach us how to live in the Kingdom with those various gifts imagine the preparation and maturity of the saints! And it will happen, with or without you. I have noticed in the past 2 years alone in the ministry God has given me a quick shift in mentality to Understanding the Kingdom. Why would God do this because we have so many other things to talk about? Because in the latter days God will shake the Heavens and the each and the only thing that will not be moved is the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 12:25-28)!
It is time for us to drop religion and study God’s Word so that we can understand the season we are in and experience it because if you have not shifted in your mentality then you will become almost irrelevant and you will began to seek and search for what you had when that season was in place. Is this why when people preach the Kingdom of God, people sit and look baffled? What season are we living in?
In the next message we will look at some examples and show you the various types and shadows God used and the thing that they pointed to.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
