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Temples of Dan and Bethel
Episode #836
12/11/2022
Walk and talk with John Enslow
Our current culture of church has experienced the Dan and Bethel problem and we often don’t know we’re in it
Hey guys, so I had a beautiful brother, a number of weeks back, visit me from Wisconsin. His name is Tony. And we had just a great time connecting and talking together and just kinda opening our hearts up and it was amazing. But He said something to me that has pierced my heart and I wanted to share it with you. It is something that has just stuck. It pierced and stuck. So you know occasionally you’ll have a word that comes to you and then you just can’t shake free from it. It hangs. And then you start seeing it everywhere. Well that’s what this word that he was sharing with me, did for me. So I want to share with you because it has really, really impacted me and I feel like it’s so key and so clearly a word for this moment. The Lord really spoke this to him and ignited it in his heart and then you shared it with me. And I wanted share it with you.
So the word was about Dan and Bethel. Dan and Bethel were in the kingdom of Israel. They were two cities and the king at that time established two temples for the people to go worship in. It sounded like an amazing idea. He had the best intentions. He didn’t want the people of the kingdom of Israel to have to travel down to Jerusalem to worship. This sounded like an amazing idea. But like many of our amazing ideas, it didn’t pan out. Quite the contrary, it backfired!
In this day, in this time, in this season… Tony really showed me how our current culture of church has experienced the Dan and Bethel problem and we often don’t know we’re in it.
What happened with Dan and Bethel is, there were two temples where the service was the exact same. Where they were looking like they were doing everything in order. But the problem was the presence of God was absent. So you had three identical services, but only one, only one maintained the integrity of God’s design, which was to be around and to dwell in an among His presence…in His blessing.
So how does that relate to our current day? Well as Tony and I discussed it, he really showed me how a lot of churches go through the motions, they go through the activity, they sing the songs, they preach the message, they look like they’re doing it the right way. But what is absent is the present and the life, the exchanged life.
As I’ve written in The Great Exchange without the indwelt presence, there is no life. There may be action, there may be performance, but is there of the purposes and the pleasure of God? I don’t think so! Everything that shows is that it just keeps people in a trap thinking that they’re doing right all the while not doing right. That’s tragic to me. Here’s another thing that we discussed. Dan and Bethel, those fails churches that appear to be doing the work without the Holy Spirit, without the presence of God, are dedicated and devoted to keeping that system going because it’s all I have. I have been shocked at this message and I’m now seeing it everywhere. It’s just like I wrote in my book The Great Exchange. If it’s not His Life, it’s not life. If He isn’t the author and the performer of the life, then it’s man masquerading and attempting to perform without Him. And that just doesn’t work.
That message on the exchange life has just impacted my heart so deeply because I have made false fire. I have struck a match and called it God. And it has never worked out well for me. It has always left ultimate devastation and it’s been death. But as I have surrender to the Holy Spirit, and as I have surrender to the Spirit of Christ, and allowed Him to maintain my life, to live my life, and to present my life. As I’ve gone in as a shell, opening my heart and giving Him free reign to do what He wanted to do, fruit has been the result. Eternity has been the result. And that’s what I’m looking for. That’s what I’m longing for. And that what I know that God wants. He wants His Son’s Life to be multiplied and to be projected and to be performed. Not our life, not our good thinking, not our best intentions. Like the king of Israel he had great intentions, but the problem was it was falsehood and it led people down a path thinking that they were bringing pleasure to God, all the while not bringing pleasure to God. Because they weren’t going, according to His plan and His purpose.
So I wanted to share this with you because I have been so impacted by this message. I’ve been so impacted not only to write a book about it but also now to have a brother come and bring me further evidence that I did not have. An evidence of the false workshop that appears real. How incredible is it that His heart is so that we would experience Christ’s Life that He will bring multiple resources, multiple examples, multiple facets, multiple people to bring that message forth, so that we can see it in reality. We can experience it in reality. So as I walk out this life, I resist and withdraw from the Dan and Bethel model and I want to go towards the exchanged life. The holy life, the real life.
If you have any interest in this message, I’m gonna be putting up a coupon code for my book and we’re gonna use it as just “exchange”. If you will use that coupon code at check out and you can go below and go to the link and click it. If you like the book, I want you to get a copy of it because the messages is teaming with life and I’m so excited about it. And I would love for you to have the opportunity to experience that book. Use the discount code at checkout exchange and you can get a discount on the book today.
I bless you. I thank you for listening and I hope this encouraged you. It is been quite a message that I’ve just not been able to shake free from nor do I want to. Because I believe that in this time we need the real, we need a genuine, we need the Life of Christ to be living the life not the falsehood of Dan and Bethel. So God bless you. I love you and I hope this encouraged you.
Temples of Dan and Bethel – Episode #836 – Shulamite Podcast
Dan and Bethel churches go through the motions appearing like they’re doing it right, all the while in actuality not expressing His Life.
Form wants to be adequate. What is missing in ‘going through the motions’? Saying right things by rote? A form of being present while not present at all? And this before God… This morning I weep over the vacuous language I can fall into…to win…what?! Dan & Bethel ways, empty of life…keeping my heart out of it. The world, the flesh, the enemy can’t refute the world…… LOVE invites the presence & power of the Spirit. Love can’t help but cry out, “not I, but Christ!” Paul: “My language & my message were not…in persuasive, enticing & plausible words of wisdom but were in demonstration of the Holy Spirit & power…so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, human philisophy, but in the power of God.” And this, out of trembling weakness. Who is adequate for these things? The Living God, in us…. I see, not ‘handleable’ sameness, but His formed ones beautifully, uniquely, ordinary, in His Jealousy over each one. And that takes God being God.