Fire in our hearts - The Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTSAWAKE O ZION!God come with power (Mark 9:1). It came! At Pentecost itcame! In the power of the Spirit it came! Look at Acts 2 and4. Here is a nation born in a day! Here is the new Israel. Hereis the kingdom!’Noel paused and leaned forward, as if to impart some secret.‘We who believe in Christ, as Paul says, are now the true“Jews” and the spiritual “circumcision” (Rom 2:29; Phil 3:3).These are now the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:15,16). We need tostop behaving as if we were the world’s people. We are not!We are God’s people. God’s Zion.‘“See, I lay a stone in Zion...” the apostle quotes — let’sturn to it in 1 Peter 2. “As you come to him, the living Stone...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritualhouse to be a holy priesthood...” (1 Pet 2:6, 4-5).‘Brothers and sisters, we give ourselves to the perfectingof this Zion. We have barely skimmed the surface. Zion isholy. Zion is distinctive. Zion is beautiful because it is magnificentwith God’s presence and power.‘This is the good news we are seeing. Personal salvation?Yes! But with it the gospel of a new kingdom. Leaders likeErn Baxter and Arthur Wallis are now proclaiming this. Yousee, the church is to inherit the promises. She is to herald theultimate kingdom. In our brotherhood, in our distinctiveness,in our freedom, we are prophesying a new order. Zion is aforetaste of the new earth.’The atmosphere was charged. We sensed something of aweand destiny in it all. Noel was fired with a vision and we werecatching hold of the prophetic word.He spoke of the maturity of such a Zion; her simplicity andpeace and the beauty of her strength and righteousness. Zion,129