Navigating Dire Straits - Christine Beadsworth
7/27/22
Greetings, precious Saints.
This message is really for the forerunners: those who know that they're ahead of the rest of the Body, breaking through the way and experiencing things that the Body has not yet walked into, and making a way where there was no way for the rest of the Body to pass through. So really, I'm talking to the Tip of the Spear this morning, but what I'm saying will apply to the rest of the Body of Christ in a short period of time, because the direction that the tip of the spear goes, the rest of the head of the spear follows. Remember, I've spoken many times about the tip of the spear passing through heavenly frequencies and hearing words and sounds and messages before the time that the rest of the Body hears them. This is in order for them to be equipped and prepared to lead the way and show the Body where to go.
So, for the last two weeks, ever since I started speaking about the oil and the wine first fruits offering, the Lord has been emphasizing pressing & pressure. In every single time I've spent with the Lord, He's been speaking to me about the pressure and the pressing and the narrow place that the tip of the spear is in at this time. And I kept getting this picture of a strait of water between two high, jagged, rocky cliffs. If any of you have seen a picture of a strait - have a look on a map of the world or search the word ‘strait’, and you will come up with pictures of a very narrow passage from one body of water to another, and it's usually accompanied by very high and treacherous rocks and land masses on either side. I really had a sense that the Spirit was emphasizing the words ‘dire straits’.
Now, if we consider the scenario of a ship having to pass through a narrow strait of water in order to reach the next point in its charted journey, we know that the only way for the ship to pass safely through to the other side (without crashing into the rocks on either side) is to put its rudder in a straight position and keep it there for the entire journey through the narrow, dangerous place. Now, precious remnant, If we lift our heads and look into the spiritual realm, we can see a narrow strait directly ahead of us. We can see that we're going to be going through dire straits. The phrase ‘dire straits’ means ‘very difficult circumstances, a very pressurized, dangerous place, where one wrong move can result in shipwreck and destruction’. And we know from what we see unfolding on the world scene that for Believers there are dire straits up ahead, as the new world order is being rolled out. But for the Tip of the Spear Company; the forerunners, they are beginning to navigate dire straits in their own circumstances. Already, they feel extreme pressure in the spirit from every side and the way forward looks very narrow and very dangerous. So, if you are part of this forerunner company, you probably have a sense in your spirit of great alertness. You may not be sleeping much. The Spirit may be waking you up in the night to pray in tongues, showing you things to pray. You may be very aware of the enemy poised on either side of you, wanting you to make one wrong move and end up in dire straits & destruction. Now, James 4 speaks of the tongue as being a rudder.
‘Behold, also the ships being so great and driven by fierce winds, yet they are turned about with a very small rudder where the impulse of him steering desires.’
I believe that the Lord is issuing a warning that in the stormy wind that is about to hit, we are to align our tongues to His plumb line of truth and bind them there. If He has given promises from the Word concerning our future, which lies in the large body of water on the other side of the strait, then we are to keep on speaking aloud and believing this word of promise, no matter how narrow or how difficult the journey through the strait is.
Paul speaks of a time when he felt pressed on every side:
2 Corinthians 1:8 ‘For brothers, we would not have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, so much so that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves so that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead’.
So, here we see Paul describing himself in such trouble and circumstances that their own strength was not meet for it, that they felt powerless and unable to help themselves. And they felt even that there was a sentence of death over them and that they were not going to be able to escape - such were the dire straits they were in! But he says in verse nine, the reason that they were allowed to be brought into this place was so that they should not trust in their own strength, in their own ability, in their own wisdom and their own understanding, but in God who raises the dead. In other words, they had to put themselves so fully in God's hand in the dire straits they were in, that even should their enemies achieve their goal of killing them, that the resurrection power of God would raise them up.
And that may be also in your circumstances, where God has given you a promise, whether you are believing to build an endtime refuge and have been waiting upon God for finance, and He's even given you blueprints and plans - but yet the finance has not come. You may know that God is taking you into something for Kingdom purposes, and yet the way is just getting narrower and narrower and harder and harder. And you look ahead in the spirit and you think, “Dear Lord, I don't think I have the strength or the power to get through this dire strait I see straight ahead. I do not even know how to come into the place where I walk in the fullness of the manifestation of Your promises to me.” Beloved, the reason why God allows the dire strait and the very narrow passageway through to the next chapter is because He wants us to place our faith so fully in His resurrection power that even death should have no sting for us. He's wanting to deliver us completely of fear.
Now, we are going into a time when we must place our trust completely in God, our Father, no matter whether we always understand what is happening around us. It's time for the faith and the trust of a little child who will sit upon his Father's lap with His big, strong arms around him and know total peace - no matter the intensity of the lashing winds and the lightning strikes overhead, no matter how big and looming those sharp, jagged rocks are on either side of you as you move slowly through the strait. You've got to have complete faith and trust in the character and the nature and the unchanging Word of our Father God.
This is why the Lord is stressing the importance of lashing the rudder of our tongues to the rock solid Word and allowing ourselves to speak nothing contrary during our passage through the strait. If we deviate from the plumb line of His promise to us and we begin to speak other thoughts and act upon those thoughts because we are looking at the sharp, jagged rocks; because we are feeling the pressure of the enemy on either side as they utter foul threats, we will find ourselves veering off course. And because the strait is so narrow, there is no room for error in navigational calculations. We must trust Him no matter what readings our natural senses are giving us! To chart our course using the readings of our eyes and ears at this time is to invite disaster. We have yielded our whole heart lives to Christ. He is the Captain of our ships and we must line up with His spoken word over us in order to traverse safely through this very difficult, narrow place and the stormy weather that is raging as we pass through it.
There is a description of the people of God being in straits in one Samuel 13. It contains a very strong warning for those of us entering the straight ahead of us. The Philistines had gathered to fight the Israelites, and the sight of the enemy arrayed against them made them panic.
1 Samuel 13:6 ‘When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, for the people were distressed, then the people did hide themselves in caves and in thickets and in rocks and in high places and in pits...’
They were doing everything they could to get away from the enemy. And King Saul was waiting for Samuel to come, and he did not arrive within a week. So Saul decided to take things into his own hands and offered up the burnt offering himself. Now that is a complete transgression of the spiritual order of God, because a king was not allowed to offer up the burnt offering. Only the Prophet could do it. 1 Samuel 13:11 says this:
‘Samuel said, ‘What have you done?’ and Saul said, ‘Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and you did not come in the days appointed and the Philistines gathered themselves at Michmash, and I said, The Philistines will come down to me now to Gilgal and I have not made supplication to the Lord and I forced myself and offered a burnt offering’. And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established Your Kingdom in Israel forever, but now Your Kingdom shall not stand. The Lord sought Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him to be leader over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.’
Notice that Saul's rash choice during this time of dire straits caused him to lose his kingdom. He did things God had not appointed him to do because he leaned on his natural understanding and got into a total panic. His natural senses were feeding him panic readings, and he responded in the flesh. And sadly, he did not realize that the narrow strait he was passing through led either to the fullness of his destiny or his demise.
Jesus himself also spoke of passing through a strait in Luke 13:24. He says:
‘Strive to enter in at the narrow gate…’
Now, in the King James version, it says, ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate’. What is that telling us? That's telling us that it's not going to be easy to go through the narrow or the strait gate, it's going to look difficult. It's going to look like there is danger to yourself personally to choose that gate. It's going to look like it's not wise at the time you passing through to go through the narrow gate. But Jesus says:
‘I say to you, many will seek to enter in and will not be able. And once the master of the house has risen up and shut th