Rick Joyner: The Church as We Know It in the West Is About to Die
RICK JOYNER CHARISMA NEWS
The church as we perceive it in the West is about to die. This is not something to rejoice over. Even though it may be far from the church that Jesus will build, it has accomplished much and will die in honor. It is a parallel of the life of Rachel, Jacob's wife, who died when Benjamin was born. Benjamin was the last son born to Israel and represents the last sons of God to be born on the earth. Benjamin means "the son of the right hand," and the right hand of God is called "the right hand of power." Like Rachel, the church will give birth to the "son of His right hand," but it will take her life. So this means she will have been a mother to the last-day ministry, and we honor our fathers and mothers.
The Reformation helped the church dig its way out of a deep darkness, but even as far as Christianity has advanced over the last 500 years, we have much further to go. This does not mean it will take another 500 years. As we are told in 2 Peter 3:8, "But, beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This means He could do in one day what we think will take a thousand years.
It probably will not happen that fast, but everything is speeding up. However, what will happen will not happen through the continued reformation of the present model of the church. There is a new breed of ministry about to be released. It will be a people who walk in radical, revolutionary faith and power. This is such a new wine that the old model cannot contain it. For this reason we should not despair when the old model dies, but rightfully honor the Rachel that carried and given birth to the new breed.
Likewise, a new breed of radical, revolutionary patriot will arise in America, and not just America—in nations around the world. God established the nations and gave them boundaries. He said anyone who moved the ancient boundaries would be cursed. That's because He wants the nations preserved. Again, God's unity is a unity of diversity, not a unity of conformity that earthly men are trying to impose on the world. God's unity will prevail, and patriotism is going to win around the world. In this way the heritage and inheritances will be preserved, national and cultural identities will be preserved and the great unity of diversity will be possible.
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Once we see our purpose, we can see how the church in America has deviated from its calling and how the same thing has happened in our civil government. "We the people" are the ones who are primarily responsible for this because here, the people are the sovereign. The government of the republic is designed to be subject to us. The primary blame for having our authority usurped lies ultimately with us for allowing it to happen. The people will also be the ones who wake up and recover what has been lost.
This is a prophecy of what is coming, but it is also a forensic study of what went wrong so we can correct it and don't keep making the same mistakes. If we do not understand this, we will fall again, because what caused the fall has not been corrected. Just as Spurgeon once said that he could find 10 men who would die for the Bible for every one who would read it, we too can find many who would die for the Constitution. Far more may have died for it than have read it.
As I shared before, our ministry lawyer took constitutional law in law school, and the class never once referred to the Constitution. The entire course was spent studying Supreme Court decisions, obviously under the delusion that the Supreme Court was the supreme law of the land and that anything it would do must be constitutional. Those who claim to be "constitutional lawyers" can be the most ignorant of what is actually in the Constitution. When a politician today says something is constitutional, you can almost be sure that it is not. When they claim something is not constitutional, you can almost be sure it is.
That is how twisted things have become and why the Lord's first warning about these times was, "Do not be deceived." Deception is far more common than truth today. This is why things reported in the media are now more likely to be false or at least distorted. Why is this? You can also now count on the same from most of the pulpits in the American church. The message of the typical American church today would be unrecognizable to the apostles of the first century.
The disconnect from truth has come the same way in the media that it has in the church. Of course, this is not true in every church or the entire media. It's easy to see in the media how there is now a tendency to report what they want to be true rather than what is true. Is that not how we have changed the gospel, the church and even our concept of God into what we want them to be rather than how they are?
One of the basic characteristics of true humility is being teachable and responsive enough to change or to expand our concepts and beliefs. This too is repentance, and it is coming. 
Rick Joyner is the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries and is the senior pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church. He is the author of more than 40 books, including The Final Quest, A Prophetic History and Church History. He is also the president of The OAK Initiative, an interdenominational movement that is mobilizing thousands of Christians to be engaged in the great issues of our times, being the salt and light that they are called to be.
This article originally appeared at morningstarministries.org.
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