The Clearing Podcast - Where Eagles Fly

The Sovereignty of God, Part II

This video reinforces the theme of last month–that true Revival is an act of God bringing the Presence of the King to bear on the transformation of nations. It is not a church program, as the word “revival” is often used today.

Let me announce, finally, the completion of my Glory Through Time series with the publication of Volume Two, subtitled, “The Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals.” UPS delivered my first five boxes of books yesterday.

If you live anywhere near me, I will be scheduling a series of book-signing events where you can purchase copies a little more cheaply than the $30.99 price-tag on Amazon. I will try to inform you of these events soon.

This is a much bigger book than Volume One, bigger in every sense of the word. It conveys the transformational nature of the Kingdom of God, and the ultimate burden on the shoulders of Yeshua the Messiah, who comes “to restore all things.” Revivals are an arrabon, an earnest or downpayment (Eph. 1:14, 2 Cor. 5:5), of what Jesus will do when He returns to “rule on earth for 1000 years.” We, His Royal Priesthood, are purposely positioned on earth to pray these things in, which He has decreed in heaven, according to Mt. 18:18-19. When He comes back, will He find faith on the earth?

I would so appreciate it if those of you who can get a copy of this book would, as soon as you read it, give me a review of it on Amazon. Would you do that for me? Word of mouth and positive reviews are an important way to spread the word, which is my main need right now. Also, please pray for me, that, as I approach 80 years of age, I will properly discern what God has for me next!

Doug McMurry

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Exactly 40 years and eight days ago, my wife and I were called to begin praying daily toward the next Great Awakening. At the end of the forty years, we had a sense of “well done” from God. A week later, Revival broke out at Asbury University, and began spreading out from there. We believe this will become the next Revival tide. We believe this is the beginning of the next Great Awakening. This experience reaffirms what we have sensed all along. The Sovereignty of God.

He calls people to pray into His will for our nation, our cities and our families–and His world. That brings to mind those two places in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18, where it says, “Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” Many Christians think these verses give us blanket authority to speak whatever we want and, because we are Christians, God will do it for us. But that is not the way it works. Instead, God gives us authority to pray on earth what the King of kings is commanding from the heavenlies. It’s a wonderful plan, in which the High Priest gives us His will, and we pray it into being on earth, and then it happens on His timetable. We have seen this Kingdom pattern worked out once again, which we have seen many times before.

This video explains the biblical basis for this way of His: that God uses prayer to advance His kingdom. I hope you like it.

By the way, I am told that my next book, Glory Through Time, Vol. Two: The Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals, will probably not be out until May. I am going to try to get copies in advance to sell locally at book-signing events. We’ll see. It seems like this book has taken longer to get “out there” than the last one.

Doug McMurry

It was a mystery to me at first. As I researched the history of God’s mighty deeds, I found story after story from eyewitnesses and Revival historians going back centuries. And yet practically every one of these stories has been forgotten by the Christians of today. Hundreds of stories tossed casually away into the dustbins of history, utterly forgotten. “How could Christians be so forgetful, so careless with the memory of God’s power?” The answer, I discovered, is located in The Matrix.

In this video, I give my best answer to the forgetfulness of the Christian Church.

Doug

When Revival Doesn’t Happen

We in the United States have a unique history. We live in the only country in the world that has enjoyed a steady stream of Revival tides from God during its entire history. The first of these was known as The Great Awakening because it was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit much deeper and broader than anything that had been seen before. (But then there have been several other outpourings that have been even greater–much greater by far.)

Yet this “Great Awakening” of 1735, as surprising as it was, was only half of a great awakening–because it only covered the northern half of the emerging country, soon to become the United States of America. It spread throughout New England; but it didn’t touch the South at all. Not even a little bit. Why?

What was the difference between these two regions that made the north so receptive to the Great Awakening, but not the South? Can we learn something from our history to clue us in about why some parts of the world are receptive to God’s outpourings, and others, not so much? And do you suppose that this vastly different spiritual climate might have had further implications for the budding United States of America?

These questions and many others are addressed in my next book, Glory Through Time, Vol. Two, The Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals, soon to be published by TBN. If you are interested in these thoughts about transformational Revival, please drop me a line and let me know. I really do want to hear from you. Just email me at [email protected].

~Douglas~

A major theme of my next book is that the kingdom of God advances by moves of the Spirit of God, not by worldly power. Most of us look back at the Protestant Reformation as a transition from “Catholic” doctrines and church government to “Protestant” doctrines and church government. But in my research I discovered that, especially in Scotland, there was a much deeper transition happening: Jesus was introducing the Holy Spirit, inviting the Scottish Kirk into a whole new lifestyle. He was inviting them to walk in the Spirit.

One evidence of this new and revolutionary transition was that the leaders of the Reformation were often gifted to minister prophetically to their generation. Yes, you heard me right: for 150 years, key leaders ministered the spiritual gift of prophecy, a fact which has been largely forgotten today. My book presents this aspect of the Scottish Reformation in detail, but in this video, I give just a few quotes to prove the point.

During each of four Revival tides in Scotland beginning with George Wishart, prophecies flowed more and more powerfully as God spoke to leaders who were often risking their lives for Jesus. The prophecies demonstrate a major point I am trying to make in this book: that Jesus was trying to re-introduce the life-in-the-Spirit to Christian people–who had largely adopted an alternate lifestyle, which I call “Power-and-Might Christianity.”

This new generation of Scots were privileged to experience four Revival tides prior to the onslaught of the Enlightenment (so-called), each one becoming more and more broadly transformational to Scottish life. Between 1550 and 1680, Scottish people were learning how to truly surrender their lives to the King, because King Jesus was genuinely revealing Himself during these Revival tides. Prophecy was an important part of the transformation during that entire period, as I show beyond a shadow of a doubt in my book. (“Just the facts, ma’am,” as Jack Webb used to say on Dragnet.)

Several of you have enquired when this book will be available. It is in production at TBN, and I hope to have it in hand by the end of January. It will be available on Amazon kindle, and “wherever books are sold.”

~Douglas~

Classroom of the Ages

I just passed a milestone yesterday: I completed my second volume of Glory Through Time, the series that traces the movements of God’s power down through the ages. I have a sense of a major task completed, which I’ve been working on for years and years. All that’s left is to work our publishing details with my publisher, Trilogy Books at TBN.

This book is not just a rundown of the great revivals of the past, though the subtitle might imply that: “The Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals.” It is a narrative with a plot and a great conflict moving toward a culmination in our time. It began with Jesus pouring out His Spirit at the start, and it ends with Jesus returning “to restore all things.” In between, Jesus is scheduling Revival tides, during which He holds classrooms of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of these classes is to woo us all away from the “Power-and-Might” lifestyle that comes so naturally to us humans–and teach us how to walk in the Spirit instead.

In this video, I give some examples of how each Revival tide differs somewhat from the last, because in it, Jesus opens up a new classroom to teach us some aspect of the Spirit-filled life described in the Bible. The Holy Spirit is a many-faceted wonder, and learning to walk with His power at the center of our lives is not a simple or easy matter. Also, to be frank, we humans are slow learners. So each Revival has emphasized some different aspect of His character and power. So, in this video, I am excited to introduce to you a major feature of the plot of my new book, Glory Through Time, Volume Two: The Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals.

Best!

Doug

Opposition!

You would think that Christians would be in favor of Revival. After all, Revival tides are where King Jesus becomes wonderfully present, attracts large numbers of new Christians to Himself, writes His laws on many hearts—in short, He advances His kingdom during these seasons as at no other times. And yet, every Revival tide is opposed— not by pagans, but by Christians. It has been so consistently through the centuries. In this video, I tell the story of the first man to establish this pattern of opposition: King James I of England, who was also King James VI of Scotland. Yes, that’s right—the very man who loaned his name to our King James Bible. One of the great ironies of Christian history. But there it is.

By the way, all my newsletter stories are intended to give you brief glimpses into my next book: Glory Through Time, Volume Two, the Forgotten Legacy of Transformational Revivals. Hope to produce this book by Christmastime.

Doug

There is one feature of Revivals that makes them worth remembering and studying: During Revivals Jesus becomes present in a way that He is not present at other times. You could almost define a Revival as a season of the manifest Presence of the Lord.

In this video I have an example of what that is like. I describe the third Revival tide in Scotland, which happened in 1638. We have almost completely forgotten what happened to cause Scotland to form a national covenant with Jesus. After that, the Christians were called Covenanters.

The book I am soon to publish with TBN is full of accounts where Jesus became present in this heightened way, giving me the title for my series: Glory Through Time. Look for it at Amazon around Christimastime.

If you like my teaching, please help me get it circulated. Perhaps you can think of someone you could send this video to?—someone who would like to know more about past outpourings of the Holy Spirit? IF SO… have them go to our website and sign up for our podcasts, our mailing list.. or BOTH! TheClearing.us.

Thank you kindly,

My newer book, Glory Through Time, Vol. One (A Narrative of the Kingdom of God) is published by TBN. It is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and wherever books are sold.

RELIGION? OR KINGDOM?

When I was a kid I had a very different idea of what Christianity is than I do now. It went like this:

Long ago Jesus started the one true religion. Then He died, rose, and ascended to heaven, leaving us people to manage the religion He had started. This religion is like a self-perpetuating machine that we are in charge of until He comes back. (The return of Jesus, however, was unimportant because it had no bearing on this self-perpetuating religion. )

In 1972, I stepped across an invisible spiritual divide into the kingdom of God. I was now standing in a new reality— the Presence of Jesus the King. I realized that Jesus didn’t come to start a religion, but a kingdom. I find that Jesus has to awaken all of us out of a religious spirit—the false notion that Jesus came among us merely to start a religion. There is no evidence for this in the New Testament at all.

In this video I show how the “religious” Christians have a long history of actually resisting the kingdom of God while pretending to be all in favor of Jesus.

Doug

THE FIRST REVIVAL TIDE

Looking at the big picture, God has been working with us Christians over the last 500 years, to wean us away from a Power-and-Might lifestyle, and teach us His By-My-Spirit ways. He started opening up this classroom in Scotland aeons ago, by introducing a whole new pattern that I call Revival Tides. (See my last video.)

By looking at these Revival tides from start to finish in history, we can learn a great deal about God–some of it really quite surprising. Didn’t Jesus say that, at one point, His “virgins” would “wake up?” Well, He has tried to awaken His people for quite some time now, by sending Great Awakenings and Revival Tides.

In this video, I describe the first of these, which happened in Scotland nearly 500 years ago. He’s been shaking the Church ever since, shouting to us, “It’s time to wake up!” Many Christians just want to go back to sleep

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But the study of His awakenings is really quite fascinating. And it helps us to hunger for a fresh awakening today.

Doug