Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
November 13, 2010
This past week, the Carnival ship called the Splendor, lost power 44 miles off the coast of Mexico and 200 miles south of San Diego, only to find herself adrift at sea. She had departed on Sunday, November 7, 2010, from Long Beach, California, and was on the first leg of a Mexican Riviera cruise, destined for Puerto Vallarta, when fire broke out in the engine room.
It caused a malfunction of the electrical system, which prevented the restarting of the ship’s engines. The entire ship was left without lights. Though the passengers could see smoke, they were told it was a flameless fire. It could have been described as a smoking oven, as easily as a fire (see Genesis 15:17).
They spent a little more than two days adrift in conditions much less than desirable, with nowhere near the kind of accommodation they had expected or for which they had paid the price. There was no hot water, no hot food, no air conditioning, and the swimming pool was off limits because the pumps were not working. Toilets malfunctioned and backed up, causing a terrible stench for the nearly 4500 passengers and crew members on board.
Among the passengers, there was a group of 250 magicians heading for a convention; there was also a young bride-to-be on board, who had planned for her wedding to take place at Puerto Vallarta. She was on her way to what she had anticipated to be the perfect wedding; now it would have to be cancelled, and at best postponed. She was devastated, when she realized that the dream wedding of a lifetime, fully planned by a wedding planner in advance, was not going to take place. What an incredible picture all of this is of the institutional church in America, like a ship adrift at sea, carrying a large number of passengers!
San Diego translates in English to Saint James, being also the equivalent of Jacob, making an etymological link to the Old Testament (see About.Com:Spanish). Here you have a pattern of the Way from Jacob, grandson of inheritance of Abraham to James, brother of Jesus and leader of the early apostolic church. It is the picture of nation and church coming together as one stick in the hand of the Master.
The Carnival ship, the Splendor was due to arrive at Puerto Vallarta, the port named for a Mexican state governor and director of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs. He then went on to become the radical, liberal chief magistrate of Mexico’s Supreme Court during the late nineteenth century. You could say the church is adrift in religion, between the early apostolic church under James, standing on the truth of the gospels, and the now-forming latter day apostolic church, which will again stand only on truth.
In between the two, is a church immersed in radical liberalism, which will never be part of the bride, nor is there any promise of anything but a smoking oven on the seawaters of this world. The apostolic boat must return to her own San Diego port for repairs, due to the adverse effects of liberalism caused by our present-day, liberal judiciary and liberal governments. She is every bit as much adrift and out of control in this age, just before Jesus is about to return for His bride, as was the Carnival ship destined for Puerto Vallarta.
She has been entombed for nearly two millennia in the religious institutional vessel caught in the spiritual seawaters of the world ruled by Satan. It is like a ship of fools wanting to gamble and carry on in a carnival atmosphere, such as existed in Sodom, just before the fire of God broke out. The ‘splendor’ or glory of the church’s early days has disappeared with so little spiritual food available for her people.
As one passenger on board the Splendor indicated, he renamed the floating Carnival ship, the ‘Slender’, for he had lost weight from lack of food and from climbing the stairs without the benefit of the elevators, which did not work. Of course, there is only one access to heaven for the church, and it is upon Jacob’s ladder, the dream ladder that foreshadowed Jesus. There is no easy elevator ride up, without Him, as the Chilean miners discovered; there is only a narrow way.
The bride to be had worked a long time with her wedding planner, and Spam sandwiches were definitely not on the menu for her dream wedding. At the moment the Christian institutions have little more than spiritual Spam to offer to the world. The word ‘spam’ can also be attributed to the abuse of a message system, which sends unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. With the thousands of Christian denominations offering a myriad of doctrines, it all amounts to nothing but spiritual spam – modified meat, bound together by religion, known as apostasy.
The magicians, who entertained the children, could be described like the priesthood of spiritual Israel, running the gamut from pope, cardinals and bishops, all dressed in rich robes like kings and living in fine palaces, to the court jesters of Pentecostalism who try to manipulate the Holy Spirit with their shows. They promote what they call holy laughter from an audience, which sometimes behaves like beasts. They are as children, barely weaned from their mother’s milk, before being deceptively caught in the emotionalism of the moment. These jesters know very well how to appeal to the immature mind, which has known no solid food.
After her departure from the early apostolic church, today’s church will surely need a return to her spiritual San Diego with an enforced docking to remove the magicians, whom the devil has used to lure her into his vessel of Christianity by every trick of the trade. The priesthood has most certainly applied its witchcraft to deceive the people. The truth is the devil has nothing to offer but lies from behind a smoke screen that opens up to the smoking oven.
Consider the institution’s spiritual destination, which is leading to its Puerto Vallarta, as a ship full of witchcraft, resting upon the surface of the seawaters. This is a destination to which no apostolic church would ever want to go. It is a port on the sea of liberalism ruled by liberal judges who have none of the justice of God in them. Consequently, they remove the Word from God’s people to replace it with religion.
Religion is as leaven, and the smallest amount of leaven will grow to fill the whole loaf. God spoke to Moses, as stated in Exodus, chapter 12, telling him to warn the Hebrew children of Israel that they were not to eat any leaven whatsoever, before and immediately following the Exodus. This means God’s truth and religion cannot be mixed together, or fire will break out as surely as it broke out in the tents of the rebellious Israelites who ignored God’s commandments for their own religious belief system.
And so, like Israel in the wilderness, the vessel of the church is adrift in the wilderness of the modern world with leaven filling the entire boat. It means that there will be tough pickings to find appetizing food on board. The inhabitants of the failing church system are going to look back longingly on the days of Ronald Reagan’s ruler-ship and mourn the loss of a good ruler. The passengers and crew members of the Splendor, in its lost glory, looked upon the sailors with envy, who were safely ensconced on the USS Ronald Reagan, the aircraft carrier that came close by, before the judgment day or probe that would look into the cause of the engine fire.
“Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues (Revelation 18:4).” John, the marriage planner, heard a voice from heaven calling out to those going to the marriage of Jesus and His bride. It was a warning, which today warns us to stay clear of this carnival vessel of religion, called the Christian institutional church, with its false claims to good food and entertainment, while, in reality, offering only Spam, witchcraft, and dashed hopes for the wedding.
The apostolic boat of the true church rides on truth, never riding the deadly river waters of the religious empires, which return to the sea. Roman waters are no exception, as part of a Babylonian empire system sitting on the waters of the Euphrates.
Choose this day and choose wisely, which boat it is that you want, for only the apostolic boat will deliver you safely to the wedding of Jesus and His bride, while the ‘carnival-like’ cruise of the Christian religious system will leave you stranded upon the sea.