"AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM"
“AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM”
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Sunday Evening Service, June 3, 2012, The Year of our Lord
John 4: 35-38: Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then comes harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto life eternal; that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true one sows, and another reaps. I sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor; other men labored, and you are entered into their labors.
Rev. 14:13: “…that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.”
The church of the 21st century has “”entered into other men’s labors.
John 4:37-38: “Herein is that saying true, one sows, and another reaps. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
The Holy Bible is one Bible with the living words of God. Those who have gone before us preached and taught the gospel of the Kingdom. We have “entered into their labors.” Other saints from previous generations have watered your ground with their intercession. Their works do follow them and God has not forgotten their work and labor of love. We are reaping where we did not sow, but God says that part of the plan is for those who sow and those who reap to experience the joy of harvest “together”.
Eph. 1:10: “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth even in Him.”
We are “ambassadors” and the church is an “embassy”. In Christ, we can stand between two warring spirits and swallow up the death and hell in both without becoming contaminated! The sacred secret of the Father’s delight and design that He has “purposed” or “set before” Himself is to “gather together,” to “sum up, head up” all things in heaven and on earth in Christ.
Corporate anointing and unity on its grandest scale transcends time and space.
There is a great drawing, a great gathering going on right now. Jesus adds and multiplies; the devil; subtracts and divides. Anything that separates us is an enemy to the Father’s purpose. We are vessels created to carry anointing. Either Jesus will anoint us to mobilize or satan will anoint us to scatter.
The team concept of ministry is bigger than any church staff; We need to remember that as we cross the Jordan ourselves, we are also “carrying the bones of Joseph”! The patriarch wanted to be buried near the family plot. Like Elisha’s bones, these bones still have life in them! The blood of Jesus still speaks and the blood of righteous Able still speaks!! The righteousness of the saints who have gone before us, their words, prayers, blood and bones still speak. When these men and women of God who went before us died, they left us their anointing plus a whole lot more. Their hopes, dreams aspirations, and even their frustrations have been handed down to us through the decades and centuries. The Lord who kept their “tears in His bottle” is about to pour them out upon our unclean lack of vision and courage.
Psalm 56:8: “You tell of my wanderings; put thou my tears in your bottle; are they not in your book?
These works of the saints that follow them is transcendent glory. The countless prayers, supernatural answers to prayers, the corporate anointing that went before us will continue on long after us.
The corporate Son of God and the corporate son of satan are facing off in the Day of the Lord. All hell is breaking loose against men and women who are finishing the Father’s work of reconciliation. By God’s grace, we will tear down every wall! Yes, there is a powerful struggle! But on the other side of every great struggle there is a great harvest.
The Father is heading up everything in Christ. There is a great gathering in the heavenlies that is about to manifest in the earth. This great pressure of birthing the corporate Christ is coming from an army on each side of the veil---those who have died in Christ and we who are alive and remain. This gathering is taking place from one end of Heaven to the other.
Genesis 49:10: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and unto him shall be gathering of the people be.”
We re being gathered into one by the voice of “One”. This assemblage is not taking place in the realm of the body (natural things) or of the soul; it is taking place in the realm of the Spirit. It is not a gathering unto black or white, male or female, Jew or Greek. It is not a gathering unto a building, a choir, a preacher, or a message. Neither is it a gathering unto an experience, or unto knowledge. This gathering is unto Him!
When we let Jesus out of the box, we must come out of the box ourselves. Jesus was never in a box. It is we the people who put him in a box. Some preachers are worried about other preachers stealing their ‘revelations”. Give me a break. It is not your “revelation. The Book of Revelation clearly states, ‘It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him...”
It is a compliment if someone preaches and teaches your material. “Freely I have received, freely I give”. If it came from Heaven, then it is not mine. If it didn’t, then it will burn as wood, hay and stubble. John 3:27: “John answered and said, “A man can “receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” Get over it!!! If you have truly heard from the Lord, you will want the revelation shouted from the house tops and you won’t care who is doing the shouting!! Just shout!!!!
I can tell anyone that when I hear a powerful, revelatory Word of God, I don’t care who is preaching, I just want to hear the Words!!!!!
Most men are enamored with themselves and with their own feelings and desires; that also includes “their revelations”. God is dealing with our souls to bring forth Christ. Men still endeavor to establish their identity in something outside of Christ, but that which is born of the Spirit is essentially Spirit. A Christian is a spirit being of which God Almighty is the Father. Our problem is that we still see flesh instead of spirit.
The works of the Christian that follows us transcends time and space. It surpasses denominational and sectoring spirits. The only reason we have a “Baptist Jesus”, a “Methodist Jesus,” a “Pentecostal Jesus,” a “Kingdom Jesus” (each with its own emphasis), and nauseum, is because all of us (and them) have sinned and come short of the total glory that He is. He is one with the Father in heaven, but we have elected to live apart on earth in perpetual divorce while sharing His name and spreading the blame!
Many today are trying to create their own external, impersonal God who is comfortable with their sin, one whom they can manipulate and adapt to their image. We are to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son, and Jesus is the Sum of all the parts. He is altogether lovely.
Heb. 11: 30-! 2:1: “These all having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise; God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses…”
The Greek word for “compassed about” here is “perikeimai” and means “to lie around, enclose, encircle.”
Every anointed man or woman who ever died and went to Heaven left his or her mantle with the rest of us! Their anointing never left the planet. Previous generations have prayed us into the Kingdom, touching our lives. The baton has passed from them to His end-time glorious Church, one holy nation.
It is disgusting to hear Holy Spirit filled Christians fighting over the mantle of a saint who has gone before us. All born-again Christians have “entered into their labors” and “their works do follow them”.
Who prayed for you? Was it your mother, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather, some old preacher, a Sunday school teacher…?
Someone travailed until you were born from above. Many of those folks are in heaven, but they are not dead. Their anointing (charisma) never left the planet.
Recently I was visiting with Kelly and my grandchildren in Baton Rouge. It was the time of the death of Chris’s niece. We were all seated around the dining room table and very sad at the loss of this dearly beloved family member. Colin went over and hugged Kelly. He said, “Mama, what will we do when Granny dies?” Kelly spoke the Word of the Lord. She said, “Granny won’t ever die”. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
For each of us the life of Christ that we deposit into our loved ones and in the earth will forever speak and our works will follow us.
Jesus prayed for us in John 17:9 “I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which you have given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”
These prayers of Jesus have never left planet earth. They are living words for every born again believer.
Those in the invisible amphitheater of the book of Hebrews are like midwives, cheering us on to the goal. Why do I say that? Because we are birthing something unprecedented in the history of the church; the corporate anointing. This end-time baby is called “Christ”. We are carrying the prophetic “burden” of the Lord.
It was 6 thousand years from the time Jesus was first prophesied in the Book of Genesis until his birth as Messiah. In the fullness of time, it took mankind that long to birth the promise. It has been 2012 years since his birth, and we are still in birth pangs to bring forth Ephesians 4:13: “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
God is so big that He doesn’t work through one gender, person, race, or even generation. From the days of Martin Luther (1517) until the Latter Rain revival (1948-1956), the emphasis was upon the individual. Then God began shifting gears. His burden now is for the Body of Christ, the corporate Man.
Those whose egos have usurped Jesus’ glory for their own glory will surely fall. In year’s past, I may have tried on “ego”, but it just wasn’t worth the humiliation that followed.
The birth pangs of the ages are upon us. We have entered into other men’s labors, and their works do follow them. They being dead yet speak. They without us shall not be made complete, but praise God, they do have us! Jesus said, “the harvest truly is plenteous, bu the laborers are few” (Mt. 9:37).
In the 1990’s the church entered its third trimester of spiritual pregnancy. However, the church must enter labor. Don’t whine. If you do, you will faint. Those who labor and those who are in labor are few.
Isa. 66:9 “Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? Says the Lord; shall I cause to bring forth and shut the womb? Says God.”
Through the years, I have seen all kinds of folks come and go. When the price for corporate anointing dawned on them, they ran. They knew that real commitment and involvement in Body life and ministry was a huge responsibility. It is expensive to eat from that kind of table. Count the cost. It will cost you your time, your talent, and your treasure. When you have been called to finish the Father’s work, your faith will surely be tested.
Are you pregnant? If so, the purpose of God has begun its inevitable march toward full-term delivery in your heart.
There are many people travailing to “give birth”. We must know what it is we are travailing for. Paul knew. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”
Every one of us was birthed by someone else’s travail. Somebody prayed for your salvation because you cannot give birth to yourself.
This corporate unity was inspired and fueled by Jesus’ prayers that we would become unified, even as He and the father are one.
John 4:34: “Jesus said unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.
Jesus’ food and drink, His very sustenance, was to do the “will” of the Father. The Greek word for “will” is “thelema”, and means “a determination, choice, purpose, decree.” Whatever pleased the Father pleased the Pattern Son. Jesus’ ministerial goal was to finish the Father’s work. The Father’s work was summed up by the apostle Paul:
2 Cor. 5: 18-20: “And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to use the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself…”
We have arrived at the apex of the ages wherein the Father has begun to head up in Christ all things in Heaven and on earth. When Jesus died on the cross, the earth convulsed and shook at the thought of holding its Creator. Now He is shaking everything. Tribulation means “pressure,” and we are all under the influence of the pressure of the ages---God is birthing a corporate people in the image of the Pattern Son.
Rev. 12:1-5: “…she being with child cried, “travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. There appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven horns upon his heads…she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”
We are part of a team of priests who are upholding the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord God of the whole earth. Presently, we are standing in the midst of the Jordan in the days of harvest, holding back death until the rest of the nation crosses safely.
As with Nehemiah, it is most tedious to come off this wall just to chat about the spiritual weather. We are not bored; we are tired. But it’s a good kind of tired. We are travailing for the Harvest of the nations of the earth.
God thought of us before our parents did. Like our elder Brother, we came out of the bosom of the Father and we live and breathe for one reason---to bear witness to the truth throughout the earth.
Like Joseph, we have experienced three strippings with our three anointings.
In our earlier days, we told the Father’s dream to half-brothers, but they sold us out, threw us into a pit, and then lied about it. Later when we refused to be intimate with the harlot systems of Egypt, we were put in prison by our Father’s foreordained design. We have stayed sweet all these years, keeping the living Word in our mouths---a word that means life for some and death for others.
As with Joseph, our lives have been marked by sovereign confinement. In the pit, we could but rule our own hearts. In Potiphar’s house, we ruled over other people’s “stuff”. In the prison house, we began to have authority in the hearts of men. But in the King’s court, we will be given a measure of ruler-ship over the nations.
Such is the man or woman who is a mover and shaker in the heavenly corporation. Be strengthened out of Zion in the name of the Lord. You have made a difference. You have walked through fire. Your tears are in His bottle of remembrance. Your prayers have been made a memorial. Now you are about to become the head not the tail. You will live to see Zion’s captivity turned.
We have not passed this way Heretofore.
Everything in the earth is accelerating. It took 400 years to get through the Outer Court (1517-1906). It took 50 years after that for those in the Latter Rain to pass through the Holy Place. It was in 1989, that I crossed that Golden altar into the Holy of Holies. There were many who crossed over with me at that time. I have only been there 22-years. I had a vision that a man-child was born in 1990. I feel that means there are those who have given birth to vision of the “Father’s work”.
However, I continue to labor with those who have gone on before me. One such saint is Rev. Kelley Varner from whom I gleaned large portions of this sermon from His book, Corporate Anointing, published in 1998.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V. Text paraphrased from Corporate Anointing by: Kelly Varner, published by Destiny Image, in 198; Comments and conclusions are my own as revealed to me by the Holy Spirit and not meant to reflect the views of those who have gone on before me.