The David Apostle: Apostolic Training
Last time we dealt with dealing with Saul, and I am sure I surprised quite a few of you by saying, "If you want to deal with Saul, you're not going to be confronting the System, you are going to be confronting the Saul in you." This time though I am going to be saying, "If you want to be dealing with Ishbosheth you are not going to be confronting you, you are going to be confronting the System that is without."
Whereas before we looked at what you needed to deal with in your own life and in your own heart in the way of recognition and acceptance and all those other issues that the System met the needs in you, this time we are going to get a more practical look on how to confront and deal with the System, because the Davidic leader has come to displace the System.
David came to displace Saul, but it didn't come without a price as I am sure you have realized by now if you have begun to live some of the teaching that we have presented to you. I am sure you have come to realize that the price of apostleship is not the pain of having to put a title in front of your name. The price of apostleship has to do with taking the title away from your name, and becoming as a servant and becoming as a nothing. And as you have come to that place of nothingness, as you have come to that place of being a worm, you are now ready for your final stage of training, and that is standing up to begin displacing the System, which is Ishbosheth.
Start From Nothing
I made a mistake when I was preaching the message 'Stones to Boulders' in the Way of the Anointing. I was trying to say, "To become a butterfly you need to start out as a worm." However, instead of saying that I said, "If you want to be a caterpillar you have to start out as a worm."
That is pretty much what it is to be an apostle. You just never seem to get beyond the caterpillar stage. You are just kind of hovering between worm and caterpillar a bit, and you wonder, "Lord, am I ever going to get to butterfly? Everybody else seems to be flittering around me and I just seem to be in the chrysalis forever. Whenever the chrysalis breaks I think, "Here it is, here it comes," but the Lord says, "No, sorry to break it to you, but here's another death."
Perhaps that is how you are feeling today. You are feeling, "Lord, I'm just from caterpillar to worm, from caterpillar to worm, and then to earthworm, and then Lord, every now and again I feel like a slug. It would just be nice if a resurrection could last longer than a day, five minutes, anything! I've seen so much dirt, I don't know what sunlight looks like!"
Well, I am very encouraged to present the first stage of your resurrection to you, because this final stage of training is the most exciting, the most active and one that involves much resurrection and many steps forward. Up until now you have been feeling like you have been walking backwards. Well, from this stage onwards is when you start walking forward and now accomplishing the task that the Lord has put in your heart, for very likely many years now. Now is the time of implementing that pattern that has been burning in you all this time.
So how do you know when you are ready for this final stage of training? How can you take a look in your preparation as we have viewed it over these last few teachings and say, "Okay, I'm ready now. This is where the Lord is leading me."
Signs of Readiness
Well firstly, you have seen the System through real eyes. You do not have a dependency on the System any longer. Saul has been dealt with in you. Your need for recognition and acceptance and to be looked upon as something special does not hold water with you anymore. You don't care what people think, not in arrogance, but in confidence. When you stand up you are not standing up in your own strength, you are standing up under the strength of the Almighty God, and you are confident in that.
Your image is firmly in place. You do not flinch when you are faced with opposition. You do not flinch when you are faced with temptation, because you know who you are in Christ. You know who the Lord has called you to be, and you are confident in that image. You have a very clear picture in your mind of who you are, who the Lord has called you to be, and what He has called you to do. You don't care who is going to help you or who will stand by your side. You don't care who is going to pat you on the back, but you are going to do the work that the Lord has called you to do, and even if you have to do it on your own you are going to accomplish it. When you come to that kind of resolve, whether it is all or nothing, you have started to be ready for your final stage of training. You are confident, and the resurrection is coming.
Been in Isolation
Firstly, you have completed spending your time outside of the System. If you have not spent time outside of the System yet, then you are not even anywhere close to being ready for this final stage of training. You have spent your time out in the Cave of Adullam. You have spent your time being chased by Saul and running away in obscurity. You have likely stopped going to church altogether or even fellowshipping with any other believers other than those whom the Lord has brought you to train.
You have spent your time in the desert. Just as Moses spent his time in the Wilderness with the sheep and the goats there, you as the Davidic apostle have spent your time in the Cave of Adullam, in obscurity, unnoticed, perhaps even despised and looked down upon by the status quo System. You see, that is when the Lord was dealing with the Saul in you and giving a good death blow to all those needs for recognition and acceptance.
Next, you must have trained your mighty men. If you have not come to the place of having trained your mighty men, don't even try to enter into this phase of training, because you will fall flat on your face. As I shared before in the Cave of Adullam, David's mighty men made him who he was. They put him on the throne. God ordained David, but He used David's mighty men to seat him on the throne, and He used those men to keep him there. Without your mighty men you are nothing. Without those backing you up and giving you the support, you are going to stand up, and at the first opposition you will fall, because you are not going to have that backing that you need.
Now not just anybody can be your backing. They need to be those men and women that the Lord has brought you, that you have poured everything into. They know the way you think, they know the pattern that the Lord has put in your heart. That pattern and that same vision burns in them also, so they are ready to defend it with their lives. Not just anybody will do. It has to be the mighty men and women that the Lord has brought you to train. Once your mighty men are trained and you have spent your time in obscurity, then you are ready for this final phase of training and the beginning now of displacing the System.
Ishbosheth - Image of Weakness
We all know who Saul was. He is the System. He is dealing with the System in your own life. So who is Ishbosheth?
You are thinking, "I don't even think I've ever heard that name before. Who is he?"
Let's take a look at 2 Samuel 2:7. This was David talking to the house of Jabeshgilead. It says:
7 Therefore now let your hands be strengthened, and you be valiant: for your master Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah have anointed me king over them.
8 But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim;
Ishbosheth was the son of Saul. He is the one who came after Saul. You know, just when you thought all your troubles were over and Saul was finally dealt with, now you have to face Ishbosheth. But I have good news for you. This is not a battle that you have to fight. This is a battle that the Lord is going to fight on your behalf. And as I share with you now you will see that the Lord moved in miraculous and wonderful ways on behalf of David for him to displace the System.
David just had to be the leader that the Lord had called him to be. He just had to stand in the image that the Lord had given him and the System was displaced automatically. It followed a plan and a pattern. It followed stages as the Lord had set them. And as David was to just continually obey the will of the Lord and be who the Lord had called him to be, the doors opened up before him. David did not have to bash the doors down. He did not have to kill Saul. He did not have to try and take over the Government. He did not have to stand up and shout his mouth off. No, the doors opened before him, because he was in the Lord's will. The Lord opened every single one so that he displaced the System as a matter of course. It was according to the pattern that the Lord had laid out.
Shaky Foundations
The Ishbosheth's are all those leaders in the System that have sprung up overnight. They are weak leaders. They are leaders that have built upon the foundations of other men and women and have not been through the preparation and training themselves to stand up in their own authority as king. They like to wear the title of king. They like to wear the robes. They like to drive the Mercedes and have a nice big church with a wonderful name and the best looking web site, but their foundation is useless, because they built their entire ministry on the foundations of others. They have not faced the preparation. They have not faced the training for office, and they rose up in the public eye by natural means entirely. You know the kind I am talking about. One night you have never heard of them, and the next day they are splashed all over the popular Christian magazines.
You think, "Where did this guy come from?"
He has so much to say. The next thing you know he has disappeared off the scene again and you are wondering, "Well what was that?" That was an Ishbosheth. He was a leader who rose up overnight, but didn't have what it took, because he had not been trained the way that you have been trained and the way that the Lord trains His generals and His gladiators. He didn't have that solid foundation himself. He tried to coast on the teachings of other men. He tried to stand on the foundations of other men. And what happened? When the going got tough and he had his first bit of opposition, he fell down.
Ishbosheth was a weak, pathetic king. It wasn't his fault entirely though. Saul had not trained him up to be king. Saul had not taught him anything, so no wonder he fell the way he did. He was weak and he was full of fear, and he didn't even know how to run a kingdom. This is the kind of leader you are coming up against, and really, next to David he doesn't look like very much at all.
Can you see how dangerous the big mean System is? Next to David, the big mean System is nothing. It has no foundation, it has no solid root. What do you have to fear? Why do you fear it so terribly much when it is emptiness? The Lord speaks of walls that are built up with plaster and they are white-washed to make them look strong, but just one blast of His nostrils and they are down. There is nothing to them.
That is what the System is that you are confronting. It may look white-washed and it may look strong, and it may wear the crown of the king, but really it has no foundation. And unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it, and those walls are coming down. As those walls come down you will step in as the leader that the Lord has called you to be, to displace that, and to give the people a God, an image that they can rely on and trust and follow into the Promised Land.
Leave the Cave
The second phase of your training is leaving the Cave and stepping out. David was finally crowned king over Judah. He had been spending all this time in the Cave in the poorest of circumstances, in the dirt and the mire. He probably didn't even get to wash his clothes that often, and here he came to be the king of Judah. This was the perfect opportunity for David to now start implementing all those patterns and plans that had been brewing in him all along.
If I were to say to you, "What is it about the System that you don't like? What would you like to change?" you would probably give me a long list. Well guess what? Your time is coming for you to try that list out. Let's see if you have what it takes. Do you have what it takes? You are about to find out in no uncertain terms. You are about to find out if you are going to make it or if you are going to drown. The Lord is very gracious though. He lets us try these things out in a secure environment where we don't hurt ourselves or too many people near to us, so you can breathe a sigh of relief there.
David was chosen just to be king over Judah. They were his brothers, they knew him, he was their family, so if he messed up it was just one little tribe and it wasn't that much of an issue. That is where the Lord is going to take you. He is going to lead you now from being outside of the System, and you will be offered an opportunity to get back into the System, to take charge of a leadership position inside the System.
Now perhaps you have been at the stage in your life right now where you have become quite comfortable with the Cave. You know, you and your mighty men have been hanging out and singing some camp fire songs, and you are just getting on well and having a little bonding session, and now somebody comes and offers you something, perhaps somebody from the System offers you a position and an opportunity to step in and lead a group or a church. It could be anything in that genre.
You say, "Well not me. I'm not part of the System. I don't need to deal with that."
Don't be stupid. What do you think the Lord trained you for? Do you think He trained you to sit in caves all your life? When He anointed David to be king over Israel He didn't anoint him to be king over the dropouts and over the sheep. He anointed him king over Israel. I have some news for you. You are going back. You thought you were going to be a rebel all your life? No, that was just to break you. Now that you are a caterpillar, worm, caterpillar, worm, now you are ready to start looking like a butterfly.
This was taken from Chapter 15 and begins describing some of the phases of training that the Apostle must face for his call.
Responses Posted For This Page | Post A Response To This Page |
|
