THE LIGHTNING, THE THUNDERINGS, THE GREAT HAIL STONES

THE LIGHTNINGS..... THE THUNDERINGS... THE GREAT HAIL STONES...  

Rev 11:19...  

And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were..... lightning, and voices, and....   thunderings, .... and an earthquake, and ..... great hail...  

  “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there were … lightning” (Rev. 11:19).

First, there are seen lightning that flashes throughout our earth!  Undoubtedly, we have all seen, when clouds turn the sky into terrible blackness, how there suddenly flash forth from their awesome darkness almost terrifying streaks of lightning that light up earth and sky.  Lightning is a powerful discharge of atmospheric electricity.    

Spiritually, there is a word and revelation of the Lord that flashes within our consciousness like a bolt of lightning!  When man’s darkness seems impenetrable and unbearable, then suddenly we behold the brilliance of a storm of moving charges as God’s lightning flashes... thus the revelation of the Lord breaks through the darkness of the carnal mind by the swift and powerful illumination of His Word by His Spirit.  

His glory is seen in the “lightning” and we discover where we are in His great purpose!  This declares to us with unspeakable clarity that lightning is the SPIRITUAL symbol of divine illumination... LIGHT.... understanding..... revelation, and reality of truth!  These symbolic lightning are spoken of in Psalm 97:4 wherein we read, “His lightning enlightened the world; the earth saw and trembled.”  The lightning of God bespeaks the illumination of men when the Lord moves suddenly and powerfully by His Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and revelation!  Only the Spirit of truth can take external pictures... natural things like.....  voices.... lightning.... thunders.... hail stones.... thus lifting them "UP" into the lofty and higher realms of Spirit and Truth...  Only the Lord can quicken these things and make them alive..... WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF GOD.... in which we are..... These are vivid spiritual displays of the light and glory of God which earth-men.... carnally minded men..... men dominated by the spirit of this world....  can neither deny nor ignore, and they are changed thereby!

 And the temple of God was opened in heaven… and there were…thunderings” (Rev. 11:19).

John heard out of the temple, we proceed on to the “thunderings.”  The word of the Lord to His people in the eighty-first Psalm is this: “Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the.....   secret place of thunder…” (Ps. 89:7).  This raises the question as to what thunder really is!   Thunder is the noise (a sound) that accompanies a flash of lightning due to the air disturbances caused by the sudden heating and expansion of air during the electrical discharge.  Electricity is power, and in the discharge of power air, which represents the spirit, is heated and expanded with the resultant thunder or the issuance of noise or voice.  Thus the Revelation of the Lord Jesus himself.... this glorious sound.... this divine voice..... this divine declaration of the REVELATION OF CHRIST..... is likened unto .... THE HEAVENLY THUNDERING of power and might.  Also...  Such phenomena as a flash of lightning with its accompanying thunder is awesome, to say the least, and how much more so when this natural occurrence is "caught up"....  with spiritual meaning!”  Our God is a master at taking natural things.... thus lifting them high up into the spiritual realms of revelation and truth.... notice these things a transpiring WITHIN the temple of the lord.... as John by the Spirit saw ..... THE TEMPLE OPENED IN THE HEAVENLY REALM OF SPIRIT... 

Thunder is thus associated with lightning — no lightning, no thunder.   Lightning is power; thus the thunder is the “voice” or “noise” resulting from that power.  Lightning brings sudden and powerful illumination, understanding, and revelation, but the thunder is the voice, the sound, the noise that results from the illumination.  Notice that the Lord said in the passage quoted above, “I answered thee in the secret place of thunder.”  God spoke by the thunder!  The lightning bespeaks the illumination of the word of God, whereas thunder signifies the power of that word or illumination.  Perhaps this simple explanation will aid our understanding: God speaks (lightning) in power (thunder).   Paul calls it THE WORD OF HIS POWER!  That is lightning and thunder together!  The word “thunder” in  the Greek also means “roar.”  It is when God roars out of Zion!   Our church age ministries have often seemed so impotent, but when God SPEAKS HIS WORD and RELEASES HIS POWER to begin His deliverance of the whole creation and restore all things into Himself again, it shall burst forth with a roar, a mighty thundering, getting the attention of the whole world with all its powers and institutions, and awakening new hope in the hearts of the prisoners who have long been waiting under the tyranny of sin and death.  Who can comprehend the power of our God?  Who can tell the workings of His energy force?  We have personally experienced the demonstrations of His might, the roar of His deliverance, as the power of His word turns everything upside down,  and assures us that it is His doing and He will accomplish all His purpose.  Thank God, the temple shall be opened in heaven, the ark shall be seen, and the thunderings shall be heard!  It happens in us, and it shall also be experienced by all mankind!  Bro Eby writes...

  “And the temple of God was opened in heaven… and there was…great hail” (Rev. 11:19).

Hail in its natural state is nothing more than hard water.  When the heavens drop down the hail it always is destructive in some measure, depending on its size and duration.  Water is one of the best-known biblical symbols, used in many places as a type for both the Word of God and the Spirit of God.  The rain is usually perceived as a spiritual blessing and a life-giving power.  The Word of God is quick and powerful, and the Spirit of God is refreshing and life-giving.  

But not so when it freezes in the heaven and falls upon the earth as hail!  Hail is indeed water, and spiritually it is truly the Word of God or the Spirit of God falling upon our land, but it is not a blessing in the way we think of blessing but comes as a judgment from the Lord.  It is a hard word and a hard dealing of the Spirit that beats down all the proud fields of man!  A single word of God’s rebuke will smash to smithereens the strongest vanity of the carnal man.  When this judgment falls upon the earth it does a precise work, not pleasant at the time, but needful and ultimately corrective and redemptive!

In natural man's mind... there are 7-8 billion people upon this earth.... that is how the natural mind of man counts... Not so with God..... God's mind is spirit..... therefore in His wisdom... there are but TWO MEN..... the first man is earthy.... the second man is the Lord from heaven.... the new creation man... God has already passed his judgment upon both men... Adam's judgment is DEATH... There is no hope from Adam's nature in men..... God has sentenced him TO DEATH..... Yes, the HAIL STONES of revelation and truth.... shall kill the man.... thus removing his influence from the heart of creation.   Then there is the new man.... the Lord from heaven WITHIN US HAS ALREADY BEEN JUDGED... unto resurrection, life and glory..... 

Thus when God's spiritual words of truth.... and revelation....  began to HAIL DOWN within us as a judgment against the ..... Adamic nature... His words of truth..... DESTROYS EVERY LIE...  His words become GREAT HAIL STONES to judge every error.... every false doctrine within us.... consuming the works of the flesh... Adam is thus being HAIL TO DEATH with divine truth and glory... By the spirit of wisdom and revelation..... Present truth is falling within us as great HAIL STONES.... destroying everything that is not Christ-like within our lives... The purpose of the .... hail stones of judgment unto to death upon the flesh realm... IS TO BRING CREATION TO THE POINT WHERE..... there is but ONE MAN LIVING AND MOVING.... within us... "ONE MAN"... left standing in glory and might.   Truth is like GREAT HAIL STONES that destroy lies.... the flesh realm..... But the same TRUTH is like..... RESURRECTION LIFE AND GLORY unto the New Creation man.... the inner man of the heart.   

The following words by Ray Prinzing are truly instructive here.  “‘Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the HAIL shall sweep away the refuge of the lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place’ (Isa. 28:17).  Although it is written, ‘My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of the Lord’ (Deut. 32:2-3), yet it is equally true that the truth shall have a SOLID IMPACT upon the lies and the false doctrines of the religions of our day, and shall utterly demolish the refuge of creedal error and the traditions of men.

“Men have built their kingdoms, walls and barriers seem to abound, but when God sends forth HIS HAIL from His temple, it will bring an end to the works of man.  Who can tell of all the ways and methods this shall be fulfilled, for prophecy has amazing ways of fulfillment, far beyond the speculation of man.  But the vision is sure — John saw the temple measured, he saw the finished temple OPENED — and so shall God’s truth be declared, and established in all the earth.  ‘For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’ (Hab. 2:14).  God will have a people through whom this tremendous work shall be accomplished.  His power and glory shall be revealed, and His name shall be glorified in all the earth!”   — end quote.

I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet, and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies…and your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol (hell) shall not stand” (Isa. 28:17-18).  The prophet Isaiah declares that the hail sweeps away the refuge of lies, that is, of all the falsehoods of the doctrines of men, all the foolishness of the religious systems, in which men take refuge, in which they trust for their blessing and eternal salvation.  I am substituting the word falsehoods for lies because lies infer a deliberate, intentional, malicious deception.  Very few preachers, teachers, and church systems deliberately intend to deceive God’s people.  They themselves are deceived and the message they proclaim is laced with falsehoods.  The hail is a strong, hard, corrective word from the Lord which He sends into our lives with such solid impact that it sweeps away our refuge in falsehoods.  I have experienced the hail, and I tell you that in just a very brief period of time the word of God can come to us in such power that it completely lays to ruin all our strongholds of carnal thinking and religious error!  The ultimate result of this wonderful deliverance is that He will abolish our covenant with death and destroy our league with hell!  It is a complete salvation, yet it cannot be wrought apart from the hail-storm of God’s strong and powerful word which sweeps away the falsehoods that have kept us from laying hold upon life and immortality.  

Blessings All...