There is a sound in the earth today
I hear it everywhere.
It is the sound of loud travail,
Men's hearts reaching out in prayer.
Another sound is also clear
Ringing through the land,
The sound of the earth crying
Out to God for freedom.

'O where are the sons?' the cry goes forth,
'When will they left the bondage?'
And stealing softly on the breeze
I hear the word 'shortly'.

I do believe in this hour that this is the cry going forth. I also
believe that the answer from God to creation is in the word 'shortly'.

Many of the people of God are feeling the call to go on in God,href="http://www.gospelcom.net/bible?language=English&version=KJV&passage=Colossians+3+1">(Col 3:1).
There is an air of expectancy in the people. God is speaking more clearly
to His people than ever before. Many are moving into the realm of the
Holy Spirit and the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit.

In view of this, God is calling a group of pioneers to move on in Him,
and these are called the firstfruit company. in this company God is
calling not many wise, not many prudent, not many rich of the world. Not
many of those who thing they 'have it' in the things of the Spirit, those
who are following Jesus quietly without fanfare of 'here I am'; those who
taken His yoke upon them and are learning to be taught of the anointing
that abides(I John 2:27),
- whether it abides in them or others - always seeking to know Him in
every situation. They are being put through the furnace of affliction
(Isa 48:10).
They are eating the bread of adversity and drinking the water of affliction
(Isa 30:30),
and growing strong in the power of His might in them.

It took the bread of adversity and water of affliction to make Jesus the
Perfect Man He was. It became transformed into His nature as He ate it.
It became the Word made Flesh. So shall it become with us as we eat His
flesh and drink His blood. That which was used to make Him what He was
shall be used to make us like Him. Praise the Lord. Jesus said to James
and John 'Can you drink of the cup that I drink of and be baptized with
the baptism the I am baptized with?'(Mark 10:38).
Unless we can grow spiritually on what He grew on, Unless we can be cleansed
by the baptism that He went through for us, then we cannot join this
firstfruits company. He said 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.'(John 15:7)

If we desire to be like Him, then let us set our faces as flint(Luke 9:51 &
Isa. 50:7)
as He did, knowing full well that the same things that happened to Him
will happen to us. We also are sustained as He was. He had a joy set
before Him and it was this joy that kept Him (Heb. 12:2).
We have a joy set before us(John 17:13)
and he desires to give us a vision and foretaste of that joy to sustain
us that we might endure the cross and despise the shame.

God today desires, longs for and is waiting, to give us that vision He has
that we may know how big and how great He is. if He did not slowly prepare
us for this it would stun us. All that we can see is the awesomeness of
the suffering of our flesh. How much we are oriented to this earth realm.
How He longs to get our feet off the ground of natural things and into
the realm of the spiritual! He would have us see the glory of being found
in Him as a fullborn son. We look at our daily trials and say 'Lord, I
can't make it'. He wants us to look at our light affliction in the light
of the glory that shall be revealed in us.

The water of affliction washes off us those qualities that are unlike Jesus.
In our daily trials God desires to send us teachers but we say 'This
couldn't be God', and refuse to listen. If we recognize that these trials
are indeed of God and open our spiritual ears to hear the voice of our
teacher, then we are prepared for a deeper working of the Spirit. In seeing
and hearing our spiritual teacher we have then made progress. This causes
a cry to go up from us in groans and travail 'Oh that He would work that
out in me' and God then tries His Word to us. Psalms 12:6
says 'he tries His Word in us seven times'. if it stands the test and is
still in the vessel, then we know for sure it was His Word.

God is going to bring us to the realization that He means what He says.
As we grow in confidence that it is His voice speaking, He will begin to
allow circumstances to go against what He has spoken; this is called
adversity. I have watched lives grow when all circumstances seemed against
them. I have seen them grow in the Spirit and His nature. The Lord was
being gracious and feeding them the bread of adversity. It is this bread
that He asks us to eat, and in eating we gain strength in knowing His voice,
His will and His desires for our lives. It is His desire to bring us to
a place where, once we have heard His voice and are confident it is He who
is speaking, nothing will stop us from doing His will. It is this
confidence and implicit trust, the trust of a child, that He wants from
His sons.

We cannot grow in God without these two vital ingredients in our experience
- the bread of adversity and the water of affiction. This is why Paul
could declare with the utmost assurance that not only did he glory in
tribulation but nothing could separate him from the love of God. He had
come through enough experience in God to know that this bread and water is
extremely necessary for growth.

As in nature, though all the elements are there to make bread but only
someone who knows how can measure them out to make bread properly, so in
the Spirit, only the Lord knows just the proper combination to feed us of
the elements to cause us to grow in Him. In this day of God's great
restoration, God is restoring to His children that which will grow them
up to be sons of the King. If we are willing to eat His flesh and drink
His blood He will take us on in maturity. Amen.