Through The Lattice

By Michael Barrett

Song of Songs 2:9 "My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice."

Recently the Lord has been speaking to me through the above passage. The lover of the Song of Songs here is representative of the Lord Jesus. The maid, of course, is a picture of the Bride of Christ, the called out people of God. I want to focus on two particular aspects of the referenced verse. The two areas I wish to review are: 1) "he standeth behind our wall" and 2) "showing himself through the lattice."

"He standeth behind our wall." What an interesting phrase. Thinking again about this being an allegory wherein the lover represents the Lord Jesus, this verse says He (Jesus) is "standing behind our wall." A wall is obviously part of a structure-a house. Our lives, I believe, are this house. The walls of "our house", our life, are put in place in order to protect us from that which is potentially dangerous or harmful. The walls keep out all that isn't supposed to get in. However, the walls also keep out the good as well as the bad. The walls of our lives are built of such a wide variety of materials that we could not possibly think to list them all. Think about the material of the walls as the experiences of our entire life. Also, the material in the walls will include the experiences of our parents, teachers, mentors, leaders, etc.

In the natural, houses are built out of a wide variety of materials. The materials vary for many different reasons. For instance, in North America, brick, stucco, concrete, wood and metal are the most common building materials used to build a wall, or a house. In other parts of the world, however, the materials used could be clay, straw, ice, tree bark, and on and on we could continue to list the variety of materials. In many cases, the material used is what ever happens to be the most common to that particular area. We could say, also, that custom often dictates the materials used in the building. Just as we observe the variety of materials used in a natural building, the same is true often in the building of our lives. Geography, custom, ethnicity, and many other reasons often dictate the way our lives are put together. Many times the background of life that we bring into the Kingdom of God only serves to skew or distort how we are able to see the Lord.

The scripture goes on to say, "showing himself through the lattice." Through the lattice is equally as interesting a phrase as "he standeth behind our wall." These two phrases are basically saying the same thing. A lattice is a piece of material made up of many small strips or slats, which are criss-crossed to form the entire piece. Again, the analogy here is that Jesus is revealing himself to us through the lattice of our cumulative experiences. It has been said, "we don't see the world as it is, but we see the world as we are." This idea of the Lord being revealed to us through the lattice of our history, our experiences, is indeed thought provoking. The lattice of our life is comprised of experiences, good and bad. For the believer, it is also comprised of doctrine, theology and religious tradition, again, good or bad, accurate or inaccurate.

Suffering The Loss Of All Things

In Philippians 3:8, Paul states that He voluntarily suffered the loss of all things in order to win Christ. Now it is important to understand that coming up to this statement about suffering the loss of all things, that Paul gives a comprehensive review of his life in the flesh. Paul then goes on to say that his goal was to be "found in" Jesus, to know Him, to experience a daily power which comes through resurrection power and to ultimately experience the resurrection of the dead.

One of the keys to knowing the Lord in reality is to be willing to suffer to loss of anything and everything that stands in the way of truly knowing Him. Paul had so much tradition that had to go. He had so much theology that had to go. He had so much history that had to go. All of this, good and bad, had to go in order for Paul to continue into more and accurate revelation of the Lord. The initial encounter of Acts 9 on the Damascus road was just the hook that positioned Paul for God's grace and the wonderful revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. However, after the initial revelation, there was so much more revelation for Paul. In order for Paul to receive the more that the Lord had for him, it was necessary for him to suffer the loss of all things.

Paul had to give up the wall and the lattice that stood between him and more clear revelation of the Lord Jesus. Paul's history, his theology, his religious tradition had to go before he would be able to see the Lord in a clear way.

The Kingdom Of God Is At Hand

The same truth that opened more revelation of the Lord for Paul is true for us today. The wall and the lattice must go! I believe that the invitation of the Father in this is, "Let go of what you have, and I will give you what I want you to have." Let go of the history, let go of the tradition, let go of the theology. Let go of all that obscures and distorts a true and accurate revelation of the Lord and His Kingdom. Ask the Lord right now to teach you His ways! Let go of the wall and the lattice and watch as the Lord gives you more revelation than you have ever seen before. The Kingdom of God is as close as your hand. Jesus wants to reveal Himself to us in an unprecedented way. Aren't you tired of having old bread and stale wine? It's time for fresh bread and new wine from the Lord. Give up what you have had and the Father will fill you with fresh vision, purpose and joy. You will be filled with more revelation than you ever dreamed possible. May the Lord make His face shine upon you in Jesus' name. 

The Exodus and the House Church

By Michael Clark

In the early days of the Church in the first century there was explosive growth. Under the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit and humble, broken men and women, the Church grew and multiplied until its impact upon the Roman empire was felt right into the very houses of its emperors and leaders. Of these humble believers who poured out their blood as if it was an honor in the service of their savior it was once said, "these are they who turn the world upside down." (Acts 17:6). For three hundred years these humble saints met together as families in their humble homes.

But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them. (Exodus 1:7, NKJV).

I was born into the kingdom during a move of the Holy Spirit that was sweeping the nation of America in the early ‘70s. This phenomenon was known as the Jesus Revolution and it seemed to spring up almost over night everywhere, finally spreading to Europe and parts of Asia. It was an exciting time to be a Christian as we saw "signs follow those who believed." It was like reliving the book of Acts itself. Thousands of young people came to Christ, demons were cast out, and people were healed of serious drug addictions and diseases as we laid hands on them and prayed.

Almost overnight, "Christian houses" started popping up and they all seemed to be given Bible names. In Spokane we had the house of Abraham (where single brothers lived), the house of Sarah (for the single girls), the house of David (where our band lived), and the house of Manna (where we gathered for meals and Bible study).

We found these believers' houses and Christian coffee houses everywhere we went across the country and in Europe by 1974. It was "just Jesus," doing it all, not any organization or by any pamphlet, but the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Everywhere the Church was meeting and eating together in homes. And the meetings were alive and dynamic with everyone able to contribute and be part of the family. Imagine our excitement as we discovered while feeding on the Bible that this was how the early church got started and met, too! (see Acts chapters 1-6).

In the following years Christian home meetings started becoming more and more popular. Institutional Churches, wanting to share in this dynamic life that we were experiencing, started opening up their own "coffee houses," sponsoring house church meetings, and sending their people out on the streets to "witness."

The only trouble was that often their "coffee houses" were in the church basement, their home meetings were a mini-Sunday service dominated by the pastor, and their people on the streets were there without the youthful zeal that we knew as we shared our new found love for Jesus with the lost. What the Holy Spirit sovereignly did among America's once drug-sick youth culture could not be cloned by dead traditional Churches. As time went on, many of the "Jesus People" either joined these institutions or created ones of their own, and soon the light went out. By 1976 the Jesus Movement had lost almost all signs of life. The new wine of the Holy Spirit had turned into vinegar in the old wine skins. As Don McClain sang in his popular song "Bye, Bye, American Pie" it seemed that we had seen "the day the music died."

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