THE COUNCIL
OF GOD
BY J.P. TIMMONS
APRIL 1, 2019
©2019 CCI PUBLISHING
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“For who among them has stood in the
Council of the Lord to see and to hear his
Word, or who has paid attention to his
Word and listened? … the anger of the
LORD will not turn back until he has executed
And accomplished the intents of his heart.
In the latter days you will understand
It clearly.” † Jeremiah 23:18, 20
“But if they had stood in my council, then
They would have proclaimed my words to
My people, and they would have turned
Them from their evil way, and from the
Evil of their deeds.” † Jeremiah 23:22
Scripture References: Daniel 9:21-24, 1 Kings 22:19-23, Genesis 15:16, 18:20-21
There have been a lot of books written about people who have gone to Heaven. It seems to be a popular topic. When the Lord allowed us to do a T.V. interview a few years ago that seemed to be one of the main topics that the T.V. station wanted to discuss because they had learned that Eve and I have been to Heaven a number of times. All people, not just Christians, are interested in Heaven. But they’re not so interested in hell or the Lake of Fire testimonies by people who have been there. That’s human nature because the Lord Jesus spoke about hell more than He did Heaven.
Very few people believe that they are going to hell. If you don’t believe me then just ask a few. They will almost always reply something like this: “Well, I’m a good person.” They know that there are a number of things that they are ashamed of—or at least it used to be this way though now with more and more sinful lifestyles being condoned as “okay” I’m sure there are more people than ever before who believe that they are going to Heaven.
But that wasn’t what Jesus taught, was it? Yet I’ve found that Satan is a master at deceiving people. About 20 years ago we had a house in Canada. We were involved in ministry with some Canadian friends on the reserves (reservations in USA) up there. One of the natives from the Okanagan people gave me a DVD testimony by a man who had been the #2 boss in the New York Gambino crime family. This man had gotten saved and his testimony was quite interesting. He got saved through the Gifts of the Spirit by a Spirit-filled pastor who gave him some words of knowledge. Then the pastor asked him if he knew what would happen to him if he died right then? In fact, the crime boss was contemplating murdering the pastor right there in his study as he was fearful after what the Lord had revealed about his lifestyle to the pastor. Yet the most fascinating part of his testimony—which was very anointed—is his response to the pastor’s question about death. He responded without a pause and said that he “would go to purgatory.” Here was a man who had murdered scores of people yet he did not feel that he was bad enough to go to hell. That is the tendency of people because they have been so deceived by the devil.
Almost all of the books about Heaven are from people who had near death experiences, some were even dead for a period of time. But most of them, unfortunately, don’t tell us much about Heaven. Many tell us nothing; they just say that they appeared at the gates of Heaven and Jesus met them and said that they had to go back. Well, why write a book claiming you’ve been to Heaven if you don’t know anything about it?
We rarely discuss our experiences there. Sometimes they come out in brief bits and pieces if they have to do with a sermon message or sometimes when we are witnessing to a person and feel led of the Spirit to share something that will help them. Neither of us has ever felt led to write a book about our experiences in Heaven and, frankly, most of my own are not to be shared—they have often been Throne Room experiences when I was taken into the Council of the Lord or else was taking somebody before the Throne for that person to receive their ministry like Isaiah in Is. 6. One such recent experience happened in 2010 and you can read about it in our archived teaching articles from 2010: “America’s Last Call to Repentance.”
But after feeling led to read Daniel again last night I awoke this morning with an urgency to communicate some things about the Council of the Lord, in particular timing issues. You must remember that timing is important to the Lord’s plans. Often we are impatient to fulfill some prophesied fact or ministry that’s been given to us yet we (and He) have to wait on something else—often other people—before the plan of God can proceed. Many times the Lord is waiting on us to do certain things before His plan can continue.
Now Heaven is composed of three cities built upon one another. The lowest level is called Paradise. That is where the aborted babies and innocent children go when they die before their time. Keep that fact in mind because time is also one of the most important facts you must understand for the Spirit to use you to raise the dead! And you heard it here first. Paradise is a very beautiful place though I’ve only been there a few times. Normally to see a scene the Lord wants me to see such as a family enjoying a picnic lunch by one of the lakes there.
Most of my experiences in Heaven have been in the second and third cities. A couple of these are in our teaching archives on this website. Like earthly cities there are buildings, libraries, a bank and other things there, e.g., as I shared on the T.V. interview there is The Church of the First Born located upon a high mountain. The third city, the highest, is where God the Father and Jesus have their thrones side by side. This is the Throne Room and it’s a very, very noisy place. That is why I believe it’s significant in Revelation 8:1 that “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” If you have The Eye of the Eagle then you would say to yourself, “The seventh seal must be very important; I should spend some time reading, meditating and praying about it.”
There are so many differences between Heaven and the planet Earth as we know it now. Remember, this planet is not the one Jesus created—it’s been deformed through sin and the god of this world who has ruled here since Adam. The Church is supposed to change that but alas we are more concerned with the pleasures of life than doing the will of the Lord. In Heaven the peace of God is the most overwhelming thing—it permeates all of Heaven and is such a sea change to be in that atmosphere that you never want to return.
All the colors are so vibrant; all of the flowers are alive and bow whenever the Lord approaches. Every Christian has a gold Bible and a gold trumpet in their residence. There is so much gold in Heaven—it’s everywhere and, of course, in the Scriptures gold symbolizes purity just as the Father’s color, White, symbolizes purity. The gold in Heaven is also more pure than any on earth—it is almost completely transparent. Everybody, both humans and angels, there has a job that they enjoy. Many humans and angels are involved on the lower level of Paradise teaching the aborted babies in a large class room facility. When you are there you will have an opportunity to dialogue with others—humans and angels. You will learn as I did that the most amazing thing to the angels is that we—on the earth—do not believe the Word of God! They just cannot even fathom this.
In Scripture we learn about God’s prophets, both men and women, and these prophets are divided into two types (for a detailed discussion of the Five-fold Church office of prophet see my book, The Prophetic Voice) although many prophets are both: 1) Nabi—which comes from the Hebrew meaning “fruit of the lips,” were spokespersons for the Lord and we normally see them begin by saying, “Thus saith the Lord ….”; 2) Roah or Roeh, is a seer—a prophet who has visions and dreams (actually as I share in The Prophetic Voice there are 4 types of visions, one of which is called a “night vision,” which is sometimes called a prophetic dream). God speaks to Roah prophets like Daniel mainly through visions.
You need to understand this difference when you read how Micaiah saw the Council of God taking place in Heaven in one of the Scripture references I gave at the beginning, in 1 Kings 22. There is a difference between a spiritual vision of Heaven and being taken there in the spirit or in your body. Paul wrote about this in 2 Cor. 12:1-4.
Now although the Bible is composed of 66 books it reads as one. Scripture agrees with Scripture. And also the Spirit and Word agree. If you believe the Spirit is asking you to do something that is contrary to the Word then that is not the Holy Spirit—it’s an evil religious spirit speaking to you. There are various principles of God—spiritual laws through which He governs—that can be discerned through many years of reading and meditating in the Scriptures. Most Christians, however, don’t spend much time in the Bible. And as I’ve shared in my preaching and writing before, because the Lord revealed it to me 22 years ago in a vision, if you don’t spend a lot of time meditating in the Word then you only have a 25% chance of fulfilling God’s perfect will for your life. It’s the Word of God that acts as a catalyst to bring forth from you—your spirit man—the gifts and callings that Jesus sealed up in your being when He created you before you were placed into your mother’s womb.
And we learn from the Scriptures that the genuine prophets of God often stand in His council, i.e., they are privileged to witness His decision making government functioning in Heaven. No, Heaven is not all fun and games—although there is some of this. And it’s not just rest though those who have undergone extreme trauma while on earth are normally given more time to rest. No, there is business conducted in Heaven. People—humans and angels—have real jobs there. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ruling, reigning and governing the Universe from the Planet Heaven (referred to as the third heaven in the Scriptures).
As I’ve shared before, everything that the Lord has ever said to me whether by word, vision or my being taken somewhere, has always been both very simple and yet also extremely profound! That is the wisdom of God in action and you see it on display if you are ever privileged to stand in His council like Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah and others did.
Time and the Council of God
But the main purpose I feel that the Lord wants to share in this article is not about Heaven or about His council. I never desired nor have asked the Lord to take me to Heaven; He just did it for His own purposes—mostly for my own training I believe. If you want to know more about those things then I’d suggest that you ask Him to teach you—make it “a desire of your heart.” If you truly delight yourself in the Lord then the Word says that He will give you the desires of your heart. But be certain that your heart is pure and that there is no hidden sin (an oxymoron for sure) in your life that you’ve not repented of. Jesus said in Matthew 5:8 that “the pure in heart” would “see God,” so if you’ve never seen Him or seen the Lord then maybe your heart isn’t pure; check up on yourself and judge yourself.
Now let’s look at some things that the Word says regarding the times and seasons that the Lord has set. This is the main thing He wants me to communicate in this teaching article. Apart from the Master, the wisest man who ever lived was Solomon. He knew and wrote: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
We see this principle throughout the Scriptures and I will give some more references but let me just say here that this is why you cannot take Mr. Big Name Ministry’s prophetic announcement that everybody who sends them $500 will receive such and such a blessing or all those goofy postings you see on Facebook that everybody who forwards something will receive a blessing. Their magazines are always filled every year with nonsense such as “2019, The Year of Financial Breakthrough.”
But as I’ve said for decades, you never read “2019, the Year to Repent of Sin.” Remember, today is no different than what we read in the Bible—most prophets are false prophets. And in the early Church the #1 sign of a false prophet was a preoccupation with money. The Balaam Boys and Girls preach prosperity and make all sorts of promises allegedly from God if you will “sow your $250 seed to them” but if you’ve stood in God’s council then you know that money is the lowest form of prosperity. The highest form of prosperity is to be in the Presence of God and they cannot partake of that because the Word says: “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight” (Ps. 101:7). That is why I’ve always wondered who would get in the $1,000 prophecy line at some conference, or even the $5 line if there was one. Are there that many ignorant people who think that you can buy the gifts of God? No, if they are selling prophecies then why would you want one? It’s not from God I can tell you right now.
Now notice what Jesus said in Acts 1:6-7, “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” So again we see this principle Solomon wrote about—there are times and seasons to everything: for nations, people, etc. and this is important for you to know for your own life and when witnessing to others because most Christians have the mistaken idea that God’s grace and mercy goes on forever. That is not scriptural.
In Genesis 15 we learn an important fact regarding the nation of the Amorites who were enemies of Israel. The Lord Jesus appeared to Abraham in a vision and told him that “the sin of the Amorites was not yet complete.” The nation was given a specific period of time to repent of their wickedness. Then in Genesis 18 the Lord Jesus came to earth for several purposes—one of which was to share with Abraham that the time was coming and only a year away that the son of promise would be born to he and Sarah. Another was to share the council of God that included the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their time was up! But we also notice something else about this timing of judgment—it was subject to change! The Lord was willing to postpone judgment based on Abraham’s intercession. Not always, but often, the council and timing of the Lord is subject to change. That is precisely why He sends a prophet to proclaim judgment hoping that the nation will repent. Yet the only evidence we see in the Scriptures of a nation repenting was the heathen enemy of Israel, Syria, at the preaching of Jonah. But the repentance was short-lived and 100 years later the nation had to be judged. Yet we see this principle of God. He is so merciful, kind and gracious. He wants us to live righteous, godly, principled lives and if we will do so we will not be judged.
Yes, the Blood of Jesus will pay the price for your sin but you are expected to live a holy life and stop sinning. Eternal security is not a biblical teaching despite the fact that most evangelicals, especially Southern Baptists where I was ordained to the ministry, believe that it is due to the teachings of respected men of God like Charles Stanley. You have a free will and you can walk away from Jesus anytime you want to and many do.
Now, lest you think that this principle applies only to Gentile nations, consider Daniel 9:24 where the Angel Gabriel is sent to give Daniel the council of God concerning Israel: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.”
So we understand that by His wisdom the Lord appoints times and seasons for nations and people within those nations based on circumstances such as how sinful they are; how much light they have received, whether there is any intercession being made for them, etc. This is an example of His justice. Remember, the “foundation of His throne” is “justice” and “righteousness” (Ps. 89:14).
In our family, the Lord has always shown us whenever a family member is to be born or die. And I’ve discussed this with the Lord—the fact that I expect Him to do the same with me—give me some advance notice of my death like He did to Moses.
But I want to talk about YOU! After all, this teaching article like all the books we’ve written under direction of the Spirit are to help you and give you fresh revelation so that you can run your race and finish your race in the perfect will of God. So let me just pass something along to you—there is a file folder in Heaven with your name on it! I’ve seen these and I’ve seen Jesus hand one to the Father sitting on His throne.
Now I suppose you’d like to know what’s in your file folder. Well, send us $999 and we will pray for you. Just joking, as you know. Nobody can buy the blessings and gifts of God so don’t ever be guilty of this or Jesus will think that you are stupid. And if you are a minister, and I’m especially speaking by revelations to our minister friends in Ghana and Nigeria, and you are guilty of extorting money from people then repent or you will lose your ministry, your life and your eternal life in that order. Jesus isn’t happy if He calls you to a Five-fold office and you think it’s okay to fleece His sheep. If you are having financial difficulties it’s a good sign that you are in the will of the Lord and He is certainly able to provide for you and, in fact, is obligated by covenant to provide for you. I said so. Believe it. It’s true.
Okay, now back to your personal file folder in Heaven. There is a huge records hall like the Congressional Library in Heaven. There are angels there who sit at tables that resemble an engineer’s drafting table—they are tilted toward the angel. I call these “scribe angels” though I was never given their official general name (all angels like humans have a name given them by the Lord their creator; they tend to be divided into categories according to their function such as messenger angel, warring angel, holy angel, Angel of the Lord, etc.).
When you open your file folder there are basically two sections: the first contains God’s plan for your life—His perfect will—why He created you, what He expects you to accomplish, what gifts—both spiritual and physical that He created you with, etc. (cf. Ps. 139:15-16, 56:8). The second section contains what you have done —your deeds of righteousness—for the Lord and what you have been for the Lord—how closely you have worked with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Angels to develop the Fruit of the Spirit in your life and how many people have partaken of that fruit of life that is supposed to grow from each of us who name the Name of Jesus. God expects us to work with His Holy Spirit toward our being conformed to the exact image of Jesus Christ. In fact, as I wrote in The High Calling of God in the chapter on covenant, very few Christians have ever studied covenant and do not know that there are two parts to the New Covenant and part deux is Christlikeness. We should resemble Christ Jesus in our thoughts, actions and our speech. Much of Paul’s theology that he received by revelation deals with this subject.
Now when you are created in the workshop of Heaven the Lord and the Holy Spirit stand over you and they place (seal up) gifts within your spirit, soul and body. These “gifts” as the Word reminds us are given “irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) or “without repentance” as the KJV phrases it. That means as the Amplified Bible perfectly phrases it from the Greek: “For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. [He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call.]”
Unfortunately, this has also led to some error in the Church by so many that just because somebody has certain gifting that what they are doing or saying is approved by God. No! Just get this straight—the two are different. The Lord doesn’t “Pull” our gifts just because we get into sin. The Lord’s gifts and the call on our life is irrevocable; that means our gifting can still work even though we are out of the will of God or even into gross sin. A number of Big Name ministers I could name have gotten into trouble and continued on in ministry to the detriment of people who then received their ministry because they did not receive deliverance from the evil spirits that had caused them to fall into homosexuality or other sins. Their gifts will still work but that doesn’t mean you should have them lay hands on you unless you want that spirit.
So the Lord seals up His purposes, plans and callings for your life. Then, although you will have angels and the Spirit of God to help you (if you are wise enough to ask for it) it’s largely up to you to bring it to pass through prayer and especially reading and meditating in the Word each and every day. The Word of God, He showed me, is like a catalyst which causes a chemical reaction to proceed at a more rapid pace. The more time you spend in the Word and prayer—especially praying in or by the Spirit. The Greek preposition can mean either in or by and because the King James translated it “in” most all translations follow suit but to me by is a better translation because we are praying with our spirits by the help of the Holy Spirit who is giving the words according to the perfect will of God (Romans 8).
When the Lord gave me that revelation back in 1997 through a vision in dark speech, I was already reading through Psalms, Proverbs and the New Testament once a month. I was reading through the Old Testament every 2-3 years. I decided to change that and read through the entire Bible every month. And although we don’t tell people that they should do this in the last 12 years we’ve had two people who read that on our website and say that it challenged them to copy that. Both said that within 1-2 months it had radically changed their lives! PTL!
The fact that the Lord showed me through the vision in 1997 was that if you don’t spend a lot of time in the Word then you only have a 25% chance of fulfilling God’s perfect will for your life. Remember, most Christians have never read through the Bible one time. I hate to tell you this, my brothers and sisters, but if that’s you by Bible definition you are not a disciple of Jesus! (Read John 8:31-32 if you don’t believe me).
Now I’m not telling you to read through the entire Bible every month but I am telling you to be disciplined—be a true disciple of Jesus by spending a lot of time in the Word every single day. If you don’t then you are kidding yourself that the Lord will every be able to use you to any extent or that His plan for your life will be fulfilled. In 1989, in Akure, Nigeria, the night before I was to give an all day teaching seminar to 200 pastors, as I was preparing the Lord spoke to me and said: “Many are called but few are chosen and the reason that they’re not chosen is because they are not willing to pay the price.”
Perhaps you have some glorious prophecies over your life for ministry but if you don’t qualify yourself for ministry, a subject most of the Church knows nothing about that I cover in chapter 2 of The High Calling of God, then you will never arrive at your first phase of ministry. I knew brother Hagin through my pastor, John Osteen, because he used to be a guest minister at our church about once a month. I found out what the Lord told brother Hagin is true: “Most ministers live and die without ever getting into the first phase of ministry that I have for them.”
And that is why I felt an urgency in my spirit to write this teaching article—so that you will make a course correction and judge yourself so that you will be able to complete the work that the Lord created you to do in this generation. Amen! If you are sincere about the Kingdom of God and wanting to make a difference to expand the Kingdom and to learn what God has for you then we will be glad to help you in any way that we can. Write us at Christ_church_int@yahoo.com
MARANATHA
