Preparation for the Prophetic, Part 2 — David Ravenhill

Gilgal as the Beginning of Spiritual Growth

You see, it was a painful process. But I believe, again, that Elisha had to experience that. But let me also say this about Gilgal, that it was the beginning, not the ending. It was the beginning, not the ending.

It was the very first place that Israel camped, and they made it their base of operations as they went to Jericho, they come back to Gilgal, they go out again, they came back to Gilgal. But eventually, they moved on.

Now we need to ask ourselves this, listen, have I made Gilgal my home? You see, all of us have got to visit Gilgal. It's absolutely essential if we're going to do anything, as far as possessing our inheritance for God, we all of us have to go through a spiritual Gilgal.

Somewhere along the line, if we miss it, God will bring us back to it. But you see, there's a lot of people that have camped at Gilgal. You see, their particular lees, if you like, their particular flavor of wine is a Gilgal wine.

It's sanctification, it's holiness. They know everything about the knife, they're experts with the knife. They can tell you all about the knife, and all the verses about the knife, and all about what it means to be holy, and sanctified, and separated, and so on.

And the whole message is a Gilgal message, and thank God for that. But it's not the whole message. It's part of the pie, so to speak. But you see, it's so easy, isn't it? Terry here, yes sir, we pride ourselves in our message of sanctification.

We pride ourselves in our message of holiness. We've been here now for 30 years. God told us, Terry here, and we sure have. So easy to settle. But Elijah says, listen, let's move on. And they go to Bethel.

Bethel, Spiritual Roots, and Revelation

Bethel, as you know, is an interesting place. Bethel, in a sense, represents spiritual roots. Bethel literally means the house of God. It had tremendous spiritual and historical significance for the nation of Israel.

Their great forefather, Jacob, when he was running from his brother Esau, and going to his uncle Laban's house, settled down one night in a place, took a stone, put it down, began to lay down, weary, exhausted.

He'd outrun, he hoped he'd outrun anyway, his brother Esau. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, again, the heavens opened. And the angels of God ascending and descending. And he wakes up the next morning, he says, this is the house of God.

He's amazed. He anoints a pillar. He makes certain vows. It was a place of revelation. And Bethel is recorded so many times in the Word of God. Again, it had this tremendous historical significance for the nation of Israel.

And I'm sure, maybe again, that Elisha sits there as Elijah begins to expound. Maybe they take a day. Maybe they take two days. He begins to go into all the detail of all that this represents. He begins to say to the young man, listen, you need to have an open heaven.

You need to hear the voice of God, the mind of God. You need to operate in the spirit of revelation if you're going to be a successful instrument in the hands of God. You too, like our father Jacob, you need to know what it is to see the angels, so to speak, ascending and descending.

You need to make certain vows to God. It needs to be, again, a place of separation. All the foreign gods were taken away when they went to Bethel. Many, many things that happened at Bethel. You see, it was rich in spiritual tradition, if you like.

In a sense, it represented some of the past moves of God. You see, there are those that are happy to tarry there. I remember back in 1948. I remember this. I remember that. I was part of the Jesus movement.

You know, tarry? Yes, we tarried. I've never heard praise like it used to be and so on and so forth. You know, we camp around some sort of historical place, if you like, and the cloud has moved on and yet we're back there talking about the great old days.

I've heard people and all they talk about is this revival and that revival and so on. People that believe in, you know, everything that Finney did and their whole spiritual life is a spiritual Bethel, if you like.

Back there in Finney's day, they digest everything that Finney ever did and yet you talk about praying and you talk about seeking God and so on. There's no real desire to move on. They're sort of rooted somehow in the past.

So easy, isn't it, to study all the past records, talk about the good old days, thank God for them, but they were stepping stones. It's interesting too that the sons of the prophets were at Bethel. The sons of the prophets were at Bethel.

These were individuals that moved in a certain realm of revelation. They weren't sons of evil. They weren't false prophets. In fact, they were the ones that came to Elisha and they said, hey, guess what?

We were praying this morning in the early prayer meeting. God showed us something. Oh yeah, what was that? God's going to take your master away today. Oh really? I mean, they had a certain mantle. They had a certain realm of insight that they were moving in.

But you know the interesting thing, I don't know that there was ever anybody ever taken out of that school of the prophets that was ever used by God in the successive years. Why didn't God go to the school of the prophets in the beginning?

Why didn't He say to Elijah, listen, the time of your ministry is coming to an end. I want you to go and I want you to go down to that Bible school down there at Bethel. There's about 50 guys there. I want you to see who's the top in the class.

Check with the dean of men. See who's got the, you know, 4 .1 average. Put your mantle upon him because he's guaranteed to take over. God sort of bypasses the whole sort of seminary of the Old Testament, reaches down to what?

To a man who is plowing. Interesting, isn't it, that God took a man, not who was standing in line for welfare, but a man who is working hard. You know, in fact, as I read through the Word of God, invariably I see men that are involved that God takes.

David is looking after the sheep. Amos, again, he's trimming his sycamore trees or whatever. Was it Amos? Yeah. You know, they're always involved in something. It's even interesting that with the disciples, remember Jesus went down to the Sea of Galilee and the crowd was pressing upon Him.

And so He gets in a boat. He borrows it from Simon Peter. He pushes out, launches out, you know, 20, 30, 40 feet or whatever from the beach. He gives this message. And at the end of the message, all the crowd disperses.

He says to Simon Peter, launch out into the deep and let down your nets. And He says, Lord, we've toiled all night and caught absolutely nothing. Lord, we've been out there night after night after night, hour after hour after hour battling the elements and everything else.

I'm exhausted. I'm tired. We know what we're doing. We're fishermen. We're seasoned. You're a carpenter. Forget it. Don't tell me how to fish. I won't tell you how to make plows or how to make cabinets.

But don't you tell me how to fish. I've done it all my life. My father was a fisherman. I know this ocean like the back of my hand. I know where the fish are, where they are. We've toiled all night and caught nothing.

And Jesus said, listen, take the boat and go out there. He says, okay. They go out and they let down their nets. And what happens? He says they brought in such a multitude of fish that the very nets themselves were breaking.

And then it says the disciples left everything to follow the Lord. That's interesting, isn't it? I'd have been more than happy to leave everything after a night of fruitless labor. Boy, Lord, I'm glad.

I mean, my business was on the rocks. You know, I was wondering how I was going to pay the bills. I mean, we've been toiling for the last week and we've caught absolutely nothing, not even a sardine. I mean, there's nothing out there, Lord.

Somehow it's been fished dry. And now when business is booming, when they literally stand, if you like, to be millionaires because of the abundance of fish, they forsake everything and follow. And I see God invariably taking people that are already actively involved in something.

Not lazy people. See, God's not looking for lazy people. He's looking for men that are committed again, that are willing to work, roll up their sleeves, get involved. See, Matthew, again, a successful practice.

H &R Block, he already had it established. People lining up. And he forsakes it. Luke, again, wealthy doctor. Jesus Himself never went to seminary. Never went to Bible school. Somebody said that there was enough training in rubbing shoulders and dealing with men and women for those 25, 30 years that prepared Him for everything the Master had for Him.

And the interesting thing, I think it was Jack Hayford many years ago I heard where he quoted on that verse, is not this the carpenter of Nazareth? He says in the Greek it means, is not this the carpenter of Nazareth?

The very best that there is. It's like saying in Kansas City, what is the place to see when you're in Kansas City? In other words, what's the very most outstanding thing I can see while I'm here? You know, is not this the carpenter?

There's carpenters all over the place. But Jesus Christ did such beautiful work, such detailed work. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all to the glory of God. That He was known as the carpenter. If you want the cabinet made, the best man in Nazareth to make a cabinet for you, to make a plow for you, or whatever it is, it's Jesus.

He is the carpenter. Why? Because He represented the Father who does all things well. And somehow we've got this attitude, you know, I'll just sit around waiting for my call. God calls men that are already involved, if you like.

Bethel and the True Condition of the Church

But there's another aspect to Bethel. Mike mentioned it. I didn't know he was going to on Monday night, I think. Bethel was the place where Jeroboam had placed one of the golden calves, afraid again that the nation would leave him.

He placed it there in Bethel and another one over in Dan. And I think there was another lesson, if you like, that God was trying to teach this young man again in training, even just a short period of time.

And Elisha was saying, listen, I want you to see the real condition of the house of God. I want you to see what the house of God is like now. This is what it used to be like. A place of revelation. A place of separation.

A place of vows. A place where men and women tithed and so on because it was a place where Jacob said, Lord, if You bless me, I'll give 10 of all that I have. There were so many things associated with Bethel.

It was rich in tradition. It represented sort of a spiritual foundation, spiritual roots, if you like, for the nation of Israel. But now it had deteriorated to a place where the idolatry was rampant. No longer was it a place where the heavens were open.

It was now a place where people came to bow down in idolatry to the golden calf. And he says, if you are going to be a prophet of God, you've got to see the true condition of the church of Jesus Christ.

Not simply to sort of lamb-blast them, but to bring about a restoration. And again, we've heard that so beautifully described this week. That the role of the prophet is not simply to tear down. The role of the prophetic ministry is to build and to edify and to establish.

It's a calling back again to the purpose of God. You see, I think we've got this strange idea. It was, if I remember correctly, I can't think of his name now. Died in the plane crash. Keith Green, who prior to his death wrote an article in Last Days Ministries magazine.

The title of that magazine article was, just because you're obnoxious doesn't make you a prophet. He knew full well. He knew full well. You see, he was rough and sort of, you know, didn't necessarily fit in with everybody's way of doing things.

Didn't cross everybody's T's and dot everybody's I's and so on. And so people say, well, you're a prophet. You know, obviously, if you can't fit in and submit and so on and so forth, you must be a prophet.

And then God gave him a revelation, just because I'm obnoxious doesn't make me a prophet. But everybody told me I was. I remember the day. I don't know if this is in the book or not. I haven't read the book.

But I remember the day being there back from New Zealand. Or maybe we were living there at the time. I can't remember. And Keith Green came to see my dad. And he'd had a revelation about a famous ministry.

He'd been up there for some meetings. And he was determined to go back and stand in judgment and say this is nothing more than just your own kingdom and so on and so forth. God wants to tear it down. And he came to my dad for advice.

He went to Dave Wilkerson living down the road for advice. And they said, hey, hold on. Settle down. And he was a young man. He had that sort of obnoxious thing. He had all the answers and so on. I'm going to go in there and sort of tear that place down.

But God's not looking for people that just want to simply tear down. This is the Word of God. How to establish and build and plant. God is not a God that simply wants to see everybody, you know, laying in shambles.

He's wanting to put the body of Christ together. He's wanting those dry bones to live. He's wanting to raise up an exceeding great and mighty army. And there is a calling out, but there is a calling to, to the purpose of God.

And so he says to Elisha, listen, you've got to see the true condition in order to bring about restoration. These are days of restoration. Somebody helped me a number of years ago. And I guess I've got a little bit of time this morning.

But somebody gave me an understanding that I've kept now for many, many years. Very simple. He says, in the process of restoration, the first thing to go is the last thing to be restored. Let me say that again.

In the process of restoration, which we are undergoing right now in the church, the first thing to leave is the last thing to be restored. And he took me to Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones. And as you know, those bones were scattered lying around that valley.

And the Bible says not only were they dry, they were very dry. But in the process of restoration, you do not have the breath entering into them first. You have the bones coming together. Then you have the sinew on the bones.

Then you have the muscles. And then you have the flesh. And then you have the skin. And then, finally, when everything is in place, the breath of God breathes into it. And they stand up an exceeding great and mighty army.

And you see, I believe the reason God cannot pour out His Spirit, so to speak, on the church of Jesus Christ right now, is that we're at one of those stages. We don't have the skin on us yet. But God is working on that.

And when the skin is on, when the sinews and the flesh and everything else is in place, then the move of the Spirit of God. And we're going to raise up a great and mighty army. But in order for that to happen, He's going to have to restore the prophetic and the apostolic ministries.

And so the last thing to be restored is the first thing to go. We need to be patient. We need to pray and seek God. Press in. Not just simply sit there lethargically and indifferent. But we've got to press in and say, Lord, so be it.

Ask of me rain in the time of the latter rain. Lord, we ask for that rain right now. We're not going to sit back and say, well, you've declared it, it's going to happen. Not necessarily. God declared His intent to the nation of Israel.

Go in and possess the land. It's there. It flows with milk and honey. But it says they fail to enter in because of unbelief. They miss the day of their visitation in the New Testament. See, there's no guarantee that we will be a part of what God is wanting to do.

Unless there is a rising up in faith. Unless there is a wrestling with God in prayer. And say, God, I'm not going to tarry here. If you're going to visit down here, I don't want to be in Gilgal. Well, you do it.

I want to be where the cloud is. Say, I want to be where the glory of God is manifest. So we need to see, again, the true condition of the church in order to do something about it. Again, the prophet's office is one of restoration.

It's one of calling the people back. Remember the pastor that I work with, and I thank God for it, for 15 years in New Zealand, had a tremendous shepherd's heart. And I had a certain causticness, I suppose, maybe inherited.

But he had a tremendous shepherd's heart. And when I first joined him, I was the sort of one that, you know, if I'd have had any sort of prophetic insight or mantle, I'd have been exposing sin left, right, and center.

I never forget, he told me the story once of the woman there with the alabaster box. She went into the house of Simon the leper, you recall, found that Jesus was there. She broke that alabaster box and began ministering to him.

And Simon's attitude was, if this man were really a prophet, in other words, what I consider to be a prophet is that this man would expose sin. I mean, everybody knows what this woman's like, certainly everybody in this town.

She's a prostitute, she's a harlot, she's loose, she's got moral lives messed up and so on and so forth than any other woman in town. She represents the very dregs of humanity. And if this man was really what he claims to be, he would expose that woman's heart.

You see, and for a lot of us, that's the concept that we have of the prophetic office. It's that sort of hard line exposing sin all the time. Jesus turns, he says, daughter, your faith has made you whole.

He knew what was going on, but he poured in the oil and the wine. Again, instead of laying her there open before all those eyes, making a spectacle of it, bringing it to a place of humiliation and so on and so forth, he saw a woman that was desperate, that was reaching out, longing for restoration.

Jericho and the Danger of Settling for Past Victories

And it's so easy, isn't it, to look at the church and say, you know, if I'm a prophet, I'm going to say this and that, instead of seeing again that work of restoration. Okay, they go to Jericho. And Jericho is speaking about past victories and accomplishments.

So easy again, isn't it, to look back and look at other victories, look back in our Christian life, remember all the tremendous times that we've had. I can look back, even in the last 25 years, I can look back on some glorious times.

Remember being down with Youthful Mission in the South Pacific in the islands of Tonga back in 1966 and 1967 when there was a move of the Spirit of God where people literally fell off their chairs one night.

I was just a matter of a few hundred yards away. A couple of the men went to the school and a mighty move of the Spirit of God. Literally, people fell off their chairs as the Spirit of God swept through that building.

People were instantly filled with the Spirit, began to prophesy and so on. It was a girls' boarding school, Methodist boarding school, on a little island called Harpei in the middle of the Tongan Islands.

An island that was not more than maybe a mile long, half a mile wide. It's taken us 36 hours by boat to get to it from Nuku 'l Ophir. Here we were ministering. The power of God hit that place. And day after day after day, those students would stand and testify with tears running down their face about how God had changed their lives, how they were cheating on tests.

They would stand up publicly and say to the teachers, I've been cheating, I've been a ringleader, I've been smoking, I've been doing this, I've been doing that. The headmistress, I'll never forget her name, her name was Ophir, it means love in Tongan.

And she came to us and she said, you know, this is the first time since I've been the headmistress or principal of this school that I've ever seen ripe bananas on the plantation there in front. Because the students used to steal them.

We went to another island, had a very similar experience. And I thought, oh, even though it was a small little island, I tasted something in a very small, small measure of the move of the Spirit of God, of what can happen when the Spirit of God sweeps through a place.

And all of us have got stories of Jericho that we can talk about. I was in this, and I was in that, and I was part of the Jesus movement, I was part of the 48 revival, I was part of this movement. And sometimes it's good, isn't it, to visit those places and to go back just to build our faith, and maybe that was the reason, I don't know.

Maybe Elisha had to go there with Elijah, and he said, you know, this battle was won by Joshua, but not simply by Joshua, but it was won by obedience to the Word of God. It was won by faith. See, we can have all the Jericho marches in the world, and I've been involved in as many as any one of you in this room, I can assure you.

We have a lot of Jericho marches in New Zealand, at least we used to. I've even led a congregation outside, a church of 1 ,500 people, three or four hundred of them out the doors on a Sunday morning, around an entire city block and back inside.

Has anybody else done that? See me afterwards. So I know what it is, but you know, I was reading one day, and it says, by faith, the walls of Jericho came down, not by marching. And I thought, oh, all that energy.

You know, we were just excited. We danced, we skipped, we had a good time, we raised our hands and had our banners and so on. It doesn't really do any good unless there's faith. By faith, the walls of Jericho came down.

And faith, what, comes by hearing? Hearing comes by a Word from God. You see, Joshua heard from God. March around in silence seven times. And then on the last day, seven times in one day and so on and so forth.

I want you to learn to follow, listen to my voice. Elisha, have you got that? That's the reason I brought you here. That's the reason I want to tell you about Jericho. I want you to remember. This is part of your training, Elisha.

Jot it down in your notebook. Remember what happened. It was not simply by marching. It was not by simply patterning somebody else's way of doing things. We're so quick to do that, aren't we? So-and-so built his church by doing this.

I'll build my church by doing that. So-and-so's got 20 buses. If we get some buses, we'll have a good Sunday school. It doesn't happen that way. You see, we don't just simply have a Jericho march. We need to hear from God Himself.

I used to get irritated in New Zealand. It's known for its praise and worship. And everybody used to quote 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Where was it? Rehoboam went out there, and it says he put the Judah, was it, in front.

And they began to praise and magnify the Lord. And when they started to sing praises to God, immediately God sent ambushments against the enemy. And everybody used to begin the passage of Scripture there.

And they say, you know, as we begin to magnify and praise the Lord, God will send ambushments against the enemy. Everybody would get excited, wave their hands, and so on. And nobody ever went back to the beginning of the chapter.

And I used to get so irritated. Maybe it's the sort of teacher in me, I don't know. But it used to bug me that that was not what happened. They spent time in prayer and fasting until they got the mind of the Spirit.

You see, we're so quick to say, well, listen, all we've got to do is do this. All we've got to do is have a Jericho march. All we've got to do is get out on the street. What we really have got to do is hear from God.

But I think He was also saying to Elisha, Elisha, you go from victory to victory. That's the intention of God for each of us. It's not past victory. It's not won victory. This was the beginning of possessing the land.

Don't stop before you get through. There's still much land to be possessed. Thank God for a measure of the prophetic that's already sort of come into the church. But listen, let's possess it. Let's see it come to maturity.

Let's go in and possess all that God has for us. Let's not say, okay, now I'm a part of this prophetic group or whatever it is. This is my Jericho. I'm going to settle here. I'm going to tarry here. No, let's say, Lord, we're going from victory to victory, from faith to faith.

We're going to press into all that you have for us. Then after they'd spent some time there, and again, I have no idea. The Bible doesn't say how long they spent at each of these places. But I'm convinced the more I read it that it was significant in the life of the training of this young man.

It was not sort of incidental. It was not as though, well, tag along if you want to. I've got a certain function that I've got to perform here and here and here. There's nothing that we see Elijah doing other than taking this individual to these places.

Again, going around seemingly in a circle, getting nowhere. But in the last place, he says, okay, do you want to tarry here? He says, no. And then he finally comes to the Jordan. He takes him back to the Jordan.

The Jordan Experience: Descent, Death, and Surrender

In verse 6,. Then Elijah said to him, or Elijah said to him, please stay here or tarry here. But the Lord has sent me to the Jordan. And he said, as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.

So the two of them went on. Again, there's this testing again of his determination. Can I get him to settle for the good? Or is he going to go for the best? Is he going to settle for the silver? Or is he going for the gold?

See, there's a lot of us, we settle, and we settle in some very rich and good teaching. Gilgal has got tremendous teaching to it. Bethel has got tremendous teaching to it. Jericho has got a whole new realm of overcoming and conquering, and that whole realm of teaching, of faith and so on, which I believe God has brought into the church.

It's got distorted and abused and misused, and so on and so forth. But there's a sort of a residue in it that I believe God wanted to take the church to. But you know, there's a lot of people who are willing to camp around the Jerichos.

There's sort of the faith aspect of teaching, and so on and so forth. There are others that want the holiness teaching. There are others that want the rich, historic traditions of the church, like Bethel.

And he's saying, listen, are you prepared to settle here, to settle here, to settle here? No. I want to go all the way. He says, okay, the final place. I'm going to take you to the Jordan. The Jordan means the place of descent.

The place of descent. The cross, again, has got to be applied to your life. Are you willing to do that? Again, most of us, something within us isn't there. We've got that sort of Lucifer spirit. I will ascend, as long as I can ascend, and ascend, and ascend, I'll be all right.

I don't want to descend, descend, descend. I don't like the Jordan, especially after Jericho, and all that that represents. But you know, it was interesting that it was there that he asked him a question.

Verse 9, it came about when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, ask what I shall do for you. I don't want to make more of this than maybe the Word of God says, but I believe that there's, if you like, when we study the Word of God, there's one literal interpretation.

There are many applications. We find that liberty taken even with the Apostle Paul, where he'll take something that is applied literally, but he will apply it to something else. For instance, he says, it is written thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.

Now literally, it applied to not driving your animals without feeding them. In other words, not making them work hour after hour after hour and depriving them of their food. Now that's the literal interpretation, but Paul takes that and applies the principle of that to that of looking after elders and so on.

Making sure you renumerate them, making sure you look after them and so on. Don't make them thrash all day long and not give them anything for it type of thing. And it's interesting here that it is after they descend and after they come to the place of death that Elijah says to Elisha, now you can ask.

You see, it's very dangerous to ask something from God unless you're dead. It really is. I ministered last Sunday morning on the prodigal son and I took that verse of Scripture and you were well aware of it.

There in Proverbs, an inheritance gained hurriedly in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. See, it's one of the most dangerous things that could happen to this present move of God is that God gives us what we're asking for without, first of all, taking us to the Jordan.

And I think in a way, certainly some of the leadership more than myself have known what it is these last few months to experience a death. And suddenly they're the criticism of the nation. All of a sudden the prophetic has gone from a place of fame to a place of infamy where everybody writes and names and so on.

And I thought I'd escaped long ago until my father sent me an article recently and it's got my name sitting right on the top of the sheet. So I've joined them. Glad to be a part of it. But you see, I don't believe that God can entrust us with that which He really longs to entrust us with until, first of all, we're dead to sin.

Until there has been a Jordan experience in our own life. Until we know what it is to descend. Remember Mike saying, sharing, sort of, I don't know if it was privately or not, I hope I'm not spilling the beans, but it's not that bad.

He was saying, you know what God wants us to do at the end of this whole thing that we're going through? He's wanting us to walk with a limb. He's wanting us to walk with a limb. He's wanting to take that area of strength, of self-sufficiency.

He's wanting to bring it to a place of dependency on God. See, the Jordan sort of represents that. It represents, again, a descending, a place of humiliation, a place of brokenness. A place, again, where the cross is applied to our life.

And then, okay, he says, you're finally, you're graduated now. Elisha, well done. You've followed, you've gone through all the necessary steps. Now, ask what you want. Ask what you want, and I'll give it to you.

Elisha says there, in verse nine, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. And he said, you've asked a hard thing. I was musing on this a number of weeks ago now. And for some reason, that stood out so forcibly.

I didn't literally leap out of the page. But for some reason, I found myself coming back to that thing. You've asked a hard thing. You've asked a hard thing. I thought, why has he asked such a hard thing?

Because it was beyond Elijah's ability to give. How can you give double of what you don't have? If you've got $10 in your pocket, and I ask for $20, you're going to say, boy, you've asked for a hard thing.

I've only got $10. He says, I want double of what you have. He said, I don't have it to give. I can give you what I've got, silver and gold as have I none, but such as I have, I'll give you. I'm glad to give you all that I have, but don't ask me to double it because I can't double it.

I've got $10, you're asking for $20. So he says, boy, I didn't expect this. I mean, I expected, you know.