Stop Going to Funerals

Early Pentecost Sunday Morning I had a vision of the Church on the Earth. Father said, "Stop Going to Funerals".

He reminded me what a funeral feels like. It's somber. People standing around. The deceased looks good. Is in a beautiful box. Dressed up. The undertaker has done his job. She lays there in all her glory. Of course there's no life there. She's just an empty shell.

People talk about how wonderful she was when she was alive. All the good memories. All the nice thoughts they have. Then after the time of remembering there is the funeral. Someone stands and gives a historical review of the life now gone. Born, lived, died - end.

Then a few songs are sung, old songs usually. A few familiar scriptures are read. A few written prayers are prayed and then the service is over. Then there is a fellowship time, a church lunch.

After the funeral, when it's all over, when she has been pronounced dead and gone they do an essential thing. They bury her. Forever. Seldom dug up again.

If they kept her around for a few weeks she would start to stink. Like Lazarus in the tomb. Even though Mary and Martha loved their dead brother, they didn't want him back because he stinkith.

Of course, the Master, Jesus, sometimes comes along and speaks life to the one lying in the coffin. She could rise up again, but I know this, if she did she would not be the same as she was. She would be different. Much different. She would be changed, radial. There's something liberating about someone who has been dead and then raised up again. They get reckless, radical, restored and reborn. They have another chance. They won't go back again to the old life they had. It's all new.

This is a picture of the Church of Jesus on the earth. Much of what passes for Church is a funeral remembering a not yet buried corpse that is beginning to stink. Even in Pentecost. We look to the glory of the former house rather than the glory of the latter house.

Father is saying, stop attending, stop conducting, stop participating in funerals. The day is long past. Bury the dead. Move on. There is no more life there.

Father is saying that there will be lots of burials in ministries and churches in the years to come. That is not the enemy, that is ME. Only by putting away the past can the glory of the latter house be revealed. The remembrance of the former house blinds us from seeing the destiny he has for us his church on the earth.

Father says: "Look up, your salvation draws nigh, I will put to death and bury everything NOT of me. Do not mourn for them. Let the dead bury the dead. Come FOLLOW ME I say. I am taking you places you did not expect to become salt and light for a world who needs new life. Don't mourn for, don't long for, don't even remember the former things. I do a new thing in the world and My glory I will share with no man nor anything man has devised. I alone am the Lord God. There is NO OTHER!"