Joseph Herrin (03-16-09)
This post continues the correspondence between myself and Brad Daugherty. Both the content and the spirit of the communications are offered to the saints of God for their instruction.
Dear Brother Brad,
I was very blessed to receive the most recent letter you sent to me. There was so much wisdom in it. I am reminded of the following words of Scripture.
James 3:17
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.
I know that the Father has worked many truths deeply into your heart through the crucible of suffering. The depth of this work is readily apparent to my eyes whenever I communicate to you.
I suppose one of the reasons I am able to recognize the presence of God in the words you have written is that He has been subjecting me to a very similar work with the same end in mind. He desires to have sons after His image and likeness. He wants sons who share His character, His holiness. He seeks sons who will take possession of every last centimeter of the land of the flesh in which they have been called to reside. He wants these mortal bodies which have been so much like Canaan at the height of its sinful history to become a land flowing with milk and honey where truth and righteousness and peace become the new legacy within the land. Yahweh wants His kingdom thoroughly established within each of His sons and daughters.
I find much evidence of this peace and righteousness in the words that you write. It is evidence that I rarely see in the lives of others who have not known the depths of trials and suffering to which you submitted. There is, of course, a very direct relationship between our willingness to suffer, and the formation of Christ within the sons of God. Christ learned obedience through the things He suffered. Yahshua was “perfected” by suffering. We too are Christ, being bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. We are partakers of His Spirit having been born again of Holy seed, and we too are perfected by suffering.
You are always very gentle in your communications, seeking not to offend. This brings another Scripture to mind:
Isaiah 42:2-3
He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish...
I sense this same gentleness in your words to me. At the same time, unless I have perceived amiss, in your last letter I sensed that there was some concern that those things I most recently communicated to you caused you some concern. You can tell me if I have misapprehended the presence of this concern in your words, but the thought has been in my mind that it was present.
What I have envisioned as being your concern is that I might be placing an undue emphasis upon an outward manifestation of the power of God rather than focusing upon the exceedingly important inner work that God yearns to perform in the lives of His sons. I know my most recent writings about the ascension of the manchild did focus much on something that must occur soon in the lives of a corporate body of overcomers, and that this must be manifested outwardly as a much greater anointing, a demonstration of power before mankind, and a much clearer view of the mind and thoughts of God.
I may have erred in surmising that you are concerned about these things, but I felt it prudent to share somewhat further on what my understanding is of these things that you might test them.
As you so clearly have come to understand, I see that our Father is intensely interested in establishing His kingdom WITHIN His sons. This has been the great work we have been involved in. We have known long seasons of humbling circumstances as the Father has labored to break the power that the flesh once held over our lives. He has desired that a spiritual creature might come forth where formerly there was the creature of flesh. He is laboring that those who were first born as living souls might be born again as life-giving spirits.
This process is an inner one. It occurs much like the transformation of a butterfly from the fleshly caterpillar. The metamorphosis occurs out of sight, hidden to the eyes of the world, as if hidden in the cocoon of this flesh. As we are subjected to various trials and suffering, and we come to accept these circumstances, bit by bit a transformation occurs. A spiritual creature is being formed; a creature that does not glory in the flesh, knowing that the flesh can never soar into the heavens. It must completely put off the old in order to receive the new.
This inner work is what you have described in a number of your writings with such precious insight born out of personal experience and patient waiting. Yet, I see that this inner transformation is a precursor to an outward manifestation. The patterns are everywhere throughout Scripture. Moses at the age of forty was a man powerful in the flesh. He thought that this fleshly power would enable him to accomplish the work of God to deliver his people from bondage. Yet he was greatly mistaken.
Yahweh then led Moses to the wilderness for a period of forty years where he knew nothing of power and strength. He ate humility for breakfast, lunch and supper. At the end of forty years his flesh had been reduced, and no confidence in the flesh remained.
This has been where you and I have also been for many years. We have been in the wilderness having all confidence in the flesh stripped away until we readily acknowledge that we cannot do anything. We cannot prosper in this world. We cannot succeed at a chosen career. We cannot open the eyes or unstop the ears of any who are spiritually blind and deaf. We have no power to affect any positive outcome for the kingdom of God. We have been learning through many bitter experiences that we are impotent. The natural man holds nothing of benefit that God can use. Yahweh needs nothing in us, and desires nothing from us. The work He will perform in this world must always be performed by Him.
Zechariah 4:6
This is the word of Yahweh unto Zerubbabel, saying, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says Yahweh of hosts.
With shouts of “Grace, Grace” will the temple of God be built. The offering of Cain is always despised. The kingdom of God is built by His power as it is met with faith in the heart of man, and even this faith is a gift from Yahweh.
Although all this first wilderness period is a completely internal work, wrought in secret by God, it does not remain so forever. There came a day when Moses was met by God on the holy mountain. It was there that power was imparted, being symbolized by the staff in the hand of Moses. This man who had submitted to the refining of the wilderness was to receive power. Indeed, the purpose of the wilderness is to reduce the natural man, fulfilling the words of John, “I must decrease, but He must increase.”
A day will come in the lives of all who have submitted to the wilderness of God when He will appear to them as they stand empty before Him. The sons of God will confess that there is nothing in them that God can use. God never refuted this point to Moses, for apart from Christ we can do nothing. Yet God spoke something Moses found difficult to receive. Yahweh said that He would use Moses to accomplish His purposes. Yahweh determined to outwardly manifest a greater revelation of power before the eyes of men than had ever been witnessed before. Moses could not conceive of such things. He had given up on the dream of being used to effect deliverance for the people of God. It was not in him.
Yet when God has emptied a man, He then fills him with His great power. Moses was to perform signs and wonders before the eyes of an astonished world until the greatest nation in the earth was undone and Pharaoh and his people urged Moses to leave in haste with all Israel.
Brother Brad, this is that which the Lord has been signifying must occur at the end of this age. There must be servants of God who have been prepared through many long and humbling circumstances to bear His power to accomplish salvation in the earth. These ones will undoubtedly respond in a similar way as Moses. They see their emptiness and can scarcely conceive of anything beyond it. They hear God speak of manifesting His power outwardly through them, and they think that such is possibly not right. Their mind declares, “Let us be content to have an inner work, and leave off thoughts of an outward manifestation of the power of God. Is it not enough that His power is manifested in subduing the kingdom within?”
Truly this inner work is a tremendous manifestation of the power of God, but God will not stop there. He has determined to bring all things, whether visible or invisible, under subjection to Him. Those who have been transformed inwardly are also to be transformed outwardly. Moses is a type of this. After being transformed inwardly, we later read of his face glowing with the glory of God, and causing consternation among those who observed this. There is to be a greater glory revealed in the sons of God in this age.
Isaiah 60:1-3
"Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of Yahweh has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples; but Yahweh will rise upon you, and His glory will appear upon you. And nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
I Peter 4:13
To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.
Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.
II Thessalonians 1:10
When He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.
God spoke to me a decade ago, before the long wilderness trek that He has caused me to pass through, that promotion was coming to me as it came to Joseph long ago. I have not fixated on the promotion, but have set my face to pass through the wilderness without turning back. Yet there will be a fulfillment to all that God has promised. There is an hour when Yahweh will bring the Josephs out of their prisons of humility, out of their weakness, out of their bonds, and He will transform their experience. Where there was humility and shame their will be glory. Where there was weakness their will be strength. Where there were bonds there will be great liberty, and authority will be granted unto them.
This will not be for any selfish purpose, nor will they desire it for such, for the wilderness has done its work of reducing the pride of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. It will be for saving many people alive during days of great distress. These ones will have authority over their brothers, but they will say to all, “Am I in God’s place?” They will know that all authority has been given to them for the purposes of God to save His people, not to exact vengeance or seek something for self. Yet they will receive much honor.
Genesis 45:13
“Now you must tell my father of all my splendor in Egypt, and all that you have seen; and you must hurry and bring my father down here."
I do not desire the carnal riches of this world which are passing away, but I earnestly desire those riches which are eternal. We are to taste now in this age the powers of the ages to come.
The church has been so long without power that we have little to compare these things to. We can only look to the testimony of Scripture. What has been, will be again.
I am going to include a writing that I wrote over five years ago titled The Power of God to accomplish His Will. It speaks of the power that God once revealed in and through His people, and will do again.
I believe we must have this power to pass through the second wilderness experience that is ahead of us, and I earnestly desire it.
Brother, you and your family are a great blessing. I was tremendously blessed to receive the photos you sent to me. Brodie has grown tremendously since I last saw him. May it be said of him as it was of the Son of God:
Luke 2:52
And [he] kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
I wonder if the Father looks at us after our years in the wilderness and observes how we have also grown and changed? Surely He does. I do not claim to have arrived. Such a thought is foreign to my mind. Yet I know that our Father will entrust great things to those who have been faithful with the little they have had. May He find us faithful with that little which we have received.
May you be blessed with peace and understanding in these days,
Joseph
Heart4God Website: http://www.heart4god.ws
Parables Blog: http://www.parablesblog.blogspot.com
Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063
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