EndTime Preparation - Tabernacle, Tent, Temple
	The scripture that God gave me to explain what He is doing was in our day is 1Chron. 16:37-40. In this passage, David had just brought up the ark to Jerusalem and put it under a tent, he then leaves Asaph and his relatives to minister before the ark in the tent and Zadok the priest and his relatives before the Tabernacle of the Lord which was at Gibeon to offer burnt offering etc.
	So at this point in history there were actually three Sanctuaries, -
1) The Tabernacle and all it's furniture and accouterments at Gibeon where the people still went to do offerings, (but ark was gone).
2) David's Tent, (where the ark was) in Jerusalem.
3) The Temple, In the form of a vision that David received from God.
	The Lord told me, "This is a picture of where the church is right now". He is taking us through a progression, like he did with David from the tabernacle to the tent and finally to the temple.
Tabernacle - These are established churches are still standing and most of the people are still suppose to go there for now, but, the presence of God has left. (David left the Tabernacle standing, because until the temple was built, there would be no where for the people to go and sacrifice and there would be confusion. When the temple was built the tabernacle was simply folded up and put inside.
Tent - These are a bunch of little flimsy tent ministries that God has raised up here and there, that are very simple and don't have very much going for them, except for the presence of God.
Temple	- These are end time Apostles and Prophets who have received a vision from God of the new temple wineskin and are right now in the process of laying the foundation for it.
The Lord's instructions to me then were, "Keep going to the important events at the tabernacle (the established church) like David did, but, keep your focus on the real work, which is:
to specifically encourage those in the little tents, so they won't give up, and
Work with others to lay the foundation for the new wineskin (temple), because He won't pour out the new wine into an old wineskin.
	When I asked for confirmation of this I heard the Lord say, "look at Psalm 27: 4-6" I replied "I already know what that verse says" and He replied, "not as well as you think". So I looked it up and was surprised to find all three talked about, T.
	Ps 27:3-6 One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock. And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me; and I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing.
	On top of that the biggest surprise is that David is talking about meditating in the Temple.
Why is that surprising?
Because the Temple wasn't built until after David was dead. The Lord told me, "that the vision of the temple was so real to David that he could speak about meditating in it".
	"But," the skeptical part of me answered, "maybe he was using this term to refer to the tabernacle". So I asked a friend, who was in a bible study with Bruce Waltkie at Regent College, (who is one of the top Old Testament scholars in the world and particularly in Psalms), to ask him if David was referring to something other than "the Temple". His answer was that it is "the Temple" and that specifically because of this verse, they determined that even though it says that it is, "A Psalm of David" at the top, that it couldn't be, because the temple wasn't built, therefore it is a psalm in the likeness of David" or in the "house of David" etc.
	I prefer to believe that the word of God stated it the right way, that it is "A Psalm of David", and that David is speaking about the vision that he had received from God.
	Let me take you back in time for a moment. Imagine you began having visions of a beautiful, immovable temple for God. So not knowing what to do, you decide to go to the elders at Gibeon and ask them.
Unfortunately, they would probably call you a heretic and show you clearly in the Torah, where it teaches that the sanctuary was to be a simple and movable tabernacle. You would probably go away very confused and discouraged.
If, however, you had gone to David, he would have said, "you've got it, it just isn't here yet", and would have encourage you to not give up."
	
It's Time to Grow Small
After God had shown me this verse I started meeting other pastors and leaders who were being lead in a similar direction. One example is a pastor who had been on staff in one of the largest churches in Portland. The Lord began to say to him "It's time to grow small", this he found very confusing, because not only does it go against the norm, but just shortly after this the senior pastor called him into his office and told him, "I've been praying and God has told me, "that it's time to grow big."" At first, he didn't know what to think, so the Lord confirmed to him, that he had heard the right word, it was just different from the senior pastor.
	So through a series of events this pastor, with the blessing of the church, went and planted a new smaller church and is trying to apply the things that God is showing them. When we got together, he shared with me, a word that God had recently given him. He was at a conference grounds that he'd to many times before. The Lord directed his attention to a large fir tree that he had seen gradually dying over many years, to the point, where now it was all dry and brown. Down around the bottom, there were a bunch of small, young evergreen trees.
	God said, "the old tree, (which is a symbol of the established church), is dying and it is about to fall over. My life is now in those little trees around the bottom"
	His response was, "But won't the falling tree hurts those little trees".
	"No," God replied, " the heart of the old tree is dry and brittle and will be shattered into many pieces, but the heart of the young trees is vibrant and flexible, they won't be hurt."
	As we have continued sharing with each other, since then, we have been amazed at the similarity of what we have been receiving from God, even though both of us come from different countries, different backgrounds and had no connection before. Since then we have continued to come into contact with other pastors and leaders and churches who are all hearing these same things.
	
How to Handle being a Small Ministry
Most of you probably recognize that you most easily relate to the small tents, which are very simple and quite flimsy. In fact, the only thing that you have going for you, is your focus and desire for the presence and leading of God. Hang on! The new wineskin is being built and it is almost done.
Remember, don't compare yourself to other ministries, yours is unique and all He asks is for you to "hear what the Spirit is saying to your church or ministry. It took me a long time to realize that God was working this attitude out in my own life.
In particular during the years since we planted Worldshakers Christian Growth Center, a street church, in 1987. I kept having this reoccurring attack from the enemy that I was a failure because our church hadn't grown.
	When we started, according to "my plan" we would start with the 5 people and be well up over 100 people in the first year. Well guess what? It didn't happen, and by the end of the year, we were only up to about 25 people and I was very discouraged. I wondered what was wrong with me, or what was wrong with what we were doing, According to the church growth books I had read, this should be working, but it wasn't. So I didn't know what to do, so I sought the Lord.
	When I did, however, He just gave me real peace that things were on the right track and to just keep going. This felt right, but my mind couldn't seem to accept it,  "Maybe, I'm just deluding myself and this was my way of justifying my lack of success," Was the thought that plagued me many times.
	Then at a point, when I was even more discouraged, I was at a men's meeting and a prophet called me up and said he had a very specific word for me, The Lord says, "Stop trying to be like other churches, what I am doing with your church is unique, so don't compare yourself to others. You are on track, just keep following me."
	This immediately confirmed to me everything that I had been hearing from God, but that I had had so many doubts about. This word set me free and gave me great joy.
	This, however, was not the enemy's last attack in this area. Another jab came when, an elderly Pastor, that I respect a lot, was sharing with me, about a church in Ontario, which had started two years ago (a year after us) and was already over 200 people. I know that he meant it as an encouragement to see what God was doing, but for me it was super discouraging, It made me feel like we hadn't done anything.
	The next Sunday, I had invited a pastor from a church in Delta to share with us. At the end he said, "I'm not often given to prophetic words, but I feel like He has given me one for you, "What I am doing here in this church is unique, this is not like other churches so stop comparing yourself to other churches." I felt so foolish for falling back into doubt and asked God to forgive me.
	You would think that that would have been enough and that I had learned my lesson, but not so, it seems that every couple of years, when we still hadn't grown much, or in some cases even gotten smaller, the attack would start again. God, however, was always faithful and would send someone new, with the same prophetic word. It finally started dawning on all of us that this was from God.
	When I was at peace with this, one time I asked God, "Why did it have to be this way"? He told me that He was totally changing the Church, so that it would be based around His Spirit and not man's programs. His will for us was to be part of developing this new wineskin. Therefore if we had a lot of new people coming in all the time, they would naturally take most of our attention and time and the changes wouldn't be made.   
What about "Church Growth" Teaching
	Since Church growth teaching has come on the scene there has been a major emphasis in the church on growing in numbers. This has had a number of positive results, but it has also brought one major hindrance into the church. It taught us that, the main way we know whether we are on track or not, is based on growth and the more we grow the better we are. This is not the teaching of the scripture. This is one factor, along with purity of doctrine, maturity, character, unity and being in the plan of God.
	William Carey the great missionary pioneer, saw no one saved for seven years, this did not mean he was a poor missionary or out of the plan of God, it was simply because he was in a hard and difficult mission field. In fact, if we use numbers and growth as the yard stick, then the JW's and the Mormons must be really close to God's plan, because in many areas they are some of the fastest growing churches. What about the New age and secular endeavors, they are able to grow very quickly as well. This indicates that it is possible to grow something in the flesh, without God's power, therefore it is not a good indicator that we are on track.
	I think if we could be completely honest with ourselves, we would have to admit, that much of the growth in the last few years has come more from man's efforts than the moving of the Spirit of God. And this is true right across the board, whether the church is Evangelical, Charismatic, Pentecostal or Mainline I believe that there are times and seasons, when God is not growing the church. This is because, at those times, what He is seeing in the church, is not what He wants to be growing. There is a certain quality that God looks for, before He wants it to be multiplied. Many Churches are not a body, but a crowd, who meet together once or twice a week.
The Church that God is Looking for
The picture of the church in Eph 4 is a body that is:
1) - Fitted and held together by that which each joint supplies
2) - According to the proper working of each individual part
	This means that every person in the church is using their spiritual gifts and is properly functioning as the part of the body they have been called to (not just the 20% or 30% of the faithful ones). It also means that those called as the joints between the parts, are supplying what is needed to fit the parts together and hold them together so that everything can function as a whole body.
	The passage then tells us if the above things are happening we will see the following results:
1) - Causes the growth of the body
2) - For the building up of itself in love
3) - To the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ
	Again, if we will be honest with ourselves, we need to admit that there are very few churches that actually have a whole congregation that is functioning as an integral body (in fact in most churches, 60-80% of the members are non-functioning).
	If this is the case, then we should hardly be surprised that we don't see the results listed above. It is rare for us to find a few people who have genuine sacrificial love, let alone a whole church. Instead, we have become accustomed to indifference, gossiping, backbiting and apathy.
	Another aspect that we are missing is "the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ". I don't think anyone would argue that we don't see the fullness of Christ in the church and yet somehow, we believe that we can have "growth of the body" independently.
	Consider this for a moment. Maybe we really don't have genuine growth of the body. Maybe all we have is a bigger crowd brought in by the wisdom of man.
	There is an easy way to figure it out:
1) What percentages of the people in your church are not properly functioning as their part of the body?
2) What percentages of the "joints" aren't supplying what is necessary to fit and hold the body together?
	That is the percentage of paralysis you have and the percentage of the fullness of Christ you are missing. God is looking for a whole church that is fully functioning as His body. He isn't interested in growing a crowd.
God's Covenant with a Ministry
One of the key aspects of a covenant relationship is the commitment of the two parties to fight for each other when they are being attacked. How does this work out in our covenant with God. Well when we are involved in spiritual warfare, we are fighting for God and His Kingdom, that is our part of the new covenant.
Then the question is, "does God fight for us?"
In the Old Testament
Ex. 14:10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."
Here we see that Moses clearly understood the nature of the covenant that God had made with Abraham and told the people therefore, that God would fight for them. The Lord clearly fulfilled His part of the Covenant,
1) First of all He gave them a way out,
By parting the waters,
2) Then He protected them from the Egyptians,
19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front
And stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel.
Next He began
To deal with the Egyptians directly
During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down
From the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion.
25	He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them Egypt."
4) Finally the waters came down on them, and they were all drowned. As we can see, however, the Egyptians knew they were in trouble even before the waters came down, they had finally come to the realization that God was fighting for them.
	This also wasn?t a limited incident, it continued to happen throughout the Old Testament. Many times, when they faced enormous odds the Lord sent angels ahead of them into battle. In some cases causing them to fight against each other, other times in blinding and confusing them or finally at times even directly killing the enemy.
Do you have a covenant with God?
Yes, each of us personally entered into a covenant with God, the moment that we accepted Christ. As such we have the same conditions, we are to fight for Him and He will fight for us. Look at the promise in II Th 3:3 "But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be experiencing this kind of protection, why? Especially because this promise isn?t based on what we do, but on His faithfulness. Which would lead us to think that it should apply irregardless.
For the answer let?s look at Heb 6:12 that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Here we see that all of the promises of God must be inherited and that the way we do it is with faith and patience.
Can a church have a covenant with God
Recently, at the end of a ministry time, the pastor (John Roddam) of the church we were at, asked if they could pray prophetically for us as a church. We thought it was a great idea so, those of us who were still there gathered in a circle on the stage and they gathered around us to pray.
After some of the others prayed, John shared that the Lord had told him to walk around us and pray. There was a problem, however, since we were up close to the communion table, he couldn?t get around us on that side without going around the table. The Lord told Him, that reason for this was that He had made a covenant with us and he couldn?t get around us without going around Him.
	As I heard him say these words, It was weird, because I instantly knew when it was that God had entered a covenant, with us as a church. It was during the final evening meeting of the 1990 "Holiness Conference" in Anaheim CA. It was a very unusual scene. John Wimber had just asked for some kind of sign to let us know that God had truly been part of the conference and the result was everyone broke out in laughter. Everyone it seemed, except for the 8 of us who gone from our church, we were all sitting there a sober as judges. I couldn?t quite figure out why, but then I clearly heard God say, "I have tested you and I have found you pleasing, You are now a new wineskin in the big wave movement that I am bringing upon the whole world.
As I look back at it now, I had always known that that word had been a significant turning point. In fact, when we got back everything began to change, but it wasn?t until John had said those words that I realized that it was at that point God had entered a covenant with us. It blew me away. I felt so protected and cared for by God. The fact that an enemy would have to deal with God if they want to deal with us was unbelievable.
We had another interesting experience as a church about a month ago. We were down in Portland and Tom and Nancy Gilbert and their ministry team was prophetically praying over us. Tom said that there was a verse that he had been meditating on, that He felt applied to our ministry.
Ps 105:12-15 When they were only a few men in number, very few, and strangers in it. And they wandered about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. He permitted no man to oppress them, and He reproved kings for their sakes: "Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm."
He said, the way I feel this applies to you, is that you guys are few in number and you wander about from one place to another and you give prophetic words. It?s interesting, because when I was meditating on this passage, it struck me that Israel didn?t have might or weapons or very much of anything, but they did have the prophetic, and because of it found a place among the nations. Think of how both Joseph and Daniel rose to prominence in secular nations, because they could interpret dreams.
When I got home and looked up the verse I noticed that the three verses (Psa. 105:8-11) leading up to this section are all about God?s covenant with Israel. As well, the key point of this passage is that when they were small and had no land of their own, God was their protector.
It is interesting isn?t it, that Israel had none of the things nations trust in for protection, large numbers, fortified land, weapons, and horses, but they were fine because God was all they needed.
Reread this verse and notice how it would just as aptly apply to Jesus? ministry, to Paul and Barnabas, to David when He
Was in the wilderness,
And to others in the bible. Could this be an aspect of being in a covenantal relationship with God? That He puts us into situations where we don?t have anything to trust in accept for Him.
Then He can show us that He will fight for us.