The Lord's Spruce Goose Dispensations

The Spruce Goose was an airplane built back in WWII. Created and manufactured by the wealthiest man in the world, Howard Hughes, it was the largest of all sea planes, weighing in at 300,000 lbs; it was 218 feet long and had a wingspan of 320 ft with 8 engines, each producing 3,500 horsepower. From the mouth of Mr. Hughes, “The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That's more than a city block.”

This monstrosity was designed to carry 750 soldiers or 2 Sherman tanks quickly to Europe to fight in the war effort. Before it was finished it was tabled because new directions in the war didn’t require such a plane, and also because of possible mismanagement. But Mr. Hughes continued to build it, out of his own funds. Finally, in the end, when it was flown for testing, it did fly.

“By 1947, the U.S. government had spent $22 million on the H-4 and Hughes had spent $18 million of his own money. Finally, on Nov. 2, 1947, Howard Hughes and a small engineering crew fired up the eight radial engines for taxi tests. Hughes lifted the giant aircraft 33 feet off the surface of Long Beach (Calif.) Harbor and flew it for one mile, for less than a minute, remaining airborne 70 feet off the water at a speed of 80 mph before landing.
The H-4 Hercules never flew again.”

That was the end of an era. Since that flight the plane has lain in state, a monument in different museums, the object of musings and amusement.

God designed a means to keep the light of truth in this world, fallen into moral darkness. He chose Abraham, he who God said is “My friend,” and the Lord slowly grew a great nation out of his descedents. But, later He decried to His people through His servant Jeremiah, “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?” (Jer. 2:21).

They had run their test run with David and Solomon and got off the ground for one generation. Once more under Ezra and Nehemiah, they got off the ground again, this time for only a few years. After seeing a great revival begun, Nehemiah returned from the Persian capital to find the moral state of his fellow Jews just like it had been before the revival when God’s curse rested on them for their unfaithfulness and perversity.

What about the new dispensation? Has it fared any better? Begun again with the gospel of friendship with God, Paul worked feverishly to keep the church on the right path. Writing, preaching, ministering, administering, exhorting, rebuking, suffering, mentoring, he carried the heavy weight of the churches on his heart and mind.

Yet, soon after his death, the church slipped away from the truth and became an enemy of God, the greatest feat of Satan’s genius. She got off the ground during the Reformation, but only for one generation. Then Protestant parents began to envy the classical education of the papal schools over the simpler, missionary form of education created by Luther. Romanism regained every inch of ground she lost in the sixteenth century.

Another revival began at the news of Jesus coming again and a soon approaching Day of Judgment. But that one petered out again after the passing of its prophet and left the church in dismal circumstances.

Why the pattern like we see? God’s movement, as a small beginning, glows white hot with purity and consecration. The momentum given by the messengers He sends provides for huge growth. But by the end of that growth spurt, the organizations He planted become huge lumbering Spruce Gooses that can’t even fly. Not until their demise—and then the resurrected body of old Israel flew heavenward in the Early Rain of the Holy Spirit, and the rejuvenated body of the church will rise to holiness in the soon coming Latter Rain.

“So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.” (Deut. 32:12-15).

Here is a key to all this. Not only does a lengthy period of time tend to expose human weakness, but it also exposes God’s strong mercy and justice. It reveals the depth and strength of His love.

“The strength of sin is the law.” (1Cor. 15:56). “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.” (Gal. 3:23). As “perception is reality,” so God’s grace isn’t grace to us until there is faith to recognize it. But faith must be God-given, wholly His creation, a faculty only He can bring to life and develop. It takes His hands, His attention, His effort, His suffering and the communication of that suffering. And it takes our willing admission to our inherent human weakness before we are ready to receive that gift of faith. Thus the long slide into deeper and denser darkness and captivity to Satan, before God acts.

Yes, the church is a lumbering behemoth destined for a museum. But at its entombment, Jesus will send His Spirit to revive the minority worldwide remnant who are presently sleeping, but who are wise unto salvation. Once again they will suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty stone. They will learn the foolishness of separation from God and His righteousness, and they will know full reliance on Him. They will suck His mercy and grace out of His justice and Law.

In the latter rain to come, they will gain such a rich experience in the love of God that the time of trouble will not be able to break them away from Him whom their soul loveth, and they will pass through the fiery day of His returning in power and glory. For them “mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” (Jas. 2:13).