He is building a Temple, not made with hands, as a habitation for Himself by the Spirit.
He has planted a Garden, and He, the Husbandman, waits patiently “for the precious fruit of the earth.”
He is mobilizing an Army, that will be clothed upon with the whole armor of God, and that will go forth in the
Day of the Lord, in total triumph and victory.
He is preparing gold and silver vessels for the House of God, refined and precious in His sight, to carry the
incense and the oil and the fragrance of His presence to the world about us.
He is perfecting Sons, in His own image and likeness, that they, like their elder Brother, might be a delight to
His heart, and the expression of His own glory in the earth.
And He continues to cleanse and to purge and to adorn a Holy Bride for His Son, that she might share that
intimate union and relationship with Him for which His heart longs.
God has reserved in His own heart...and cause us to be a people who are watching and waiting and
looking for Him. Are we looking for the “second coming”... or do we watch and wait and look for Him? Are we
looking for a climactic event to take place? Or are we longingly waiting for Him?
God tells us specifically enough when our Lord is coming, and if we would hear what He is saying, we would
be ready and prepared to receive Him when He appears. He is not coming merely because time is running out.
He comes rather when the purpose of His heavenly ministry has been accomplished, and the people for whose
sake He ministers in the heavenly sanctuary are prepared and adorned to receive Him.
He comes to be “glorified in the saints”... in a Body that is thoroughly joined and knit together, and has come
“unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)
He comes to inhabit a Temple, a temple not made with hands, a temple that has been “builded together for a
habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:22)
He comes as refiner’s fire, and as fullers’ soap...to purge the sons of Levi, as gold and silver is purged...that
they might be holy vessels in the House of God, “that they might offer unto the LORD an offering in
righteousness.” (Mal. 3:3)
He comes for a holy Bride... a Bride that is worthy of the Bridegroom, a Bride that is His own complement, His
counterpart, His fullness, His completeness. But notice this: she is going to be ready! She is going to be
prepared! She is not going to be kidnapped the way she is, unaware of what is happening. “For the marriage of
the Lamb is come, and His wife HATH MADE HERSELF READY.” (Rev. 19:7)
And therefore, because He comes for this kind of a people, He is now sending forth into the earth this kind of
Word-to prepare this kind of a people. The servants of God who are hearing what the Spirit is saying, are
declaring a living Word in the earth; and it is this living Word that is preparing His people to receive Him. His
Word, His living Word, is that which makes us ready!
That is why He speaks very explicitly to the hearts of His people in the day and hour when He arises in the
earth to do a new thing. It is not something that His servants have imagined out of their own hearts. It is
something that originates in the heart of God. It is His intention and His desire to bring it into being, and
therefore He declares it. He speaks it forth. He knows that His Word is creative in its working, and nothing that
He says can fail to come to pass, and so He speaks it forth. “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke
1:37) This is what the angel said to Mary concerning the birth of her Son-something that was totally impossible
as far as she could understand. And so He told her, and I believe this is a more literal translation: “No Word of
God shall be void of power.”
