THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE SAY, “COME” – A Day of Awakening
by Paul & Gwen Hanssen
In Revelation 22:17, we see the Spirit and the Bride saying, "Come". This is a call to the people of God to draw near to God. However, before the Bride can be joined to the voice of the Spirit; screaming the same words as the Spirit; proclaiming a wake-up-call within the spirit; sounding the alarm and cry of the Spirit for the end-times, she herself must first be awakened.
Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. (Isaiah 52:1-3)
In these verses, the LORD is beckoning Judah, the captive daughter of Zion, His Bridal nation, the inheritors of the Holy City, the captive people of Jerusalem, to awaken. Judah had been taken into Babylonian captivity. As well as being the history of God’s chosen, these words are also prophetic of God’s bridal people in the end-times.
In this generation, the very remnant of God is found in the sleeping captivity of Babylon. Some have settled in, as it were, and found a comfort and a lifestyle within the chains of the world and its system. In Judah’s case, after 70 years having been spent in the dregs and chains of Babylonian captivity (which is a picture of being bound to the world, its ways, its customs and all that it has to offer) the call of God went out for God’s people to awaken. It is interesting to note, that not all of the people of the nation of Judah returned to Zion. Some chose to remain in the captivity, while others awakened, shook themselves from the dust of Babylon and returned to their inheritance in Zion.
This is the day of AWAKENING! Awake, awake! I believe that this is where the people of God stand in this prophetic season. We cannot scream, "awake, awake" to others until we ourselves are awakened. We cannot join the voice of the Spirit as a Bridal people, and beckon others to come, unless we, ourselves, have arrived back to the promised place of spiritual inheritance in Zion. The promised inheritance is where the presence of God dwells; where His Holy Temple is established within our hearts, and where the throne room of God is once again the central focus among us. Then, and only then, can we join the sound of the trumpet of the Spirit that is bellowing out the cry of awakening.
A very interesting thing about all of this is that we do not know that we are asleep until the voice of the Spirit awakens us. Even though these are perilous times, naturally speaking, they are exciting times, spiritually speaking. There is a call that is going out to the remnant to return to Zion, return to our first love, return to the days when we gave ourselves over totally to Him, body, soul and spirit, withholding nothing. Have you been awakened?