I Saw You Once So Long Ago

Removing the Road Kill of the Carnal Carcass off the Streets of Gold

“For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matthew 24:28 KJV). 

“The foe has devastated and desecrated everything in the sanctuary …They said in their hearts, Let us make havoc [of such places] altogether. They have burned up all God’s meetinghouses in the land” (Psalm 74:3, 8 Amp.).

“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19 KJV). 

“You crushed the heads of Leviathan…You did give him as food for the creatures inhabiting the wilderness” (Psalm 74:14 Amp.).

The guilt and/or sin offering in Israelite Law history ended up being about the “fat tail” of the animal, inclusive of the fat that was on the  entrails (or intestines) and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and their fat; basically the visceral parts of the animal.

The “sweet smelling savor” which was the fat burning off these visceral parts was not naturally a sweet smelling anything; but spiritually, in obedience to God, it was, indeed, a sweet smelling savor in God’s nostrils (because of what it represented): the final stage of removing all the fat away from the visceral gut, from the Christian’s spirit, from around his “feeler” and “knower” parts (that these spirit parts might function better).

The daily sacrifice we make of our bodies (inclusive of all our inner and outer parts [our whole man]), is to keep us in the flames of purification, to keep the fat from accumulating on our inner man.  Indeed,

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.  (Romans 12:1 Amp.).

It requires that we remain fervent in spirit to “feel” or “know” God as we should, that we might better hear God’s still small voice when He whispers to us.  Removing the carnal mind is removing Leviathan; the eagles, God’s prophets are made to eat eyes out of heads and feed upon the carcass of the many headed monster.  The false arguing and vain imaginings of the wretched multi-membered man is corrected by the spirit of prophecy; the mind of Christ is conferred to His body in manifested form through much correction and discipline.  A sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is developed via this process.

The spirit of man is at the heart or center of man, and is spiritually visceral, just as the correspondingly naturally visceral parts of man are near his center.  And the functions of the natural visceral parts are to purge the body of waste and keep the mortal lifeblood pure; likewise, the functions of the spiritual visceral parts keep the eternal lifeblood pure.

The burning away of the fat off the natural parts seems to represent removing those things which hinder its functionality.  Spiritual fat or carnality is removed by placing our visceral man upon the altar, not just once for all time, but daily; the sacrifice of our life burns away the hindrances to hearing His still small voice, first there at the center of our being, and then in echoes outward into our souls and ultimately even into our bodily senses.

For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons.  For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds [ONE OF WHICH IS LEVIATHAN], [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing [ESPECIALLY LEVIATHAN] that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).  (2 Corinthians 10: 3-5, insertions mine, Amplified Bible). 

THE DAYS OF COMMERCIAL FISHING ARE OVER WITH

Some years back the Holy Spirit whispered to me that “The days of commercial fishing are over with.”  I was reading this excerpt of Scripture when God spoke that to me:

“It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.  AND IT WILL COME ABOUT THAT FISHERMEN WILL STAND BESIDE IT; FROM ENGEDI TO ENEGLAIM THERE WILL BE A PLACE FOR THE SPREADING OF NETS. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many” (Ezekiel 47:9-10, emphasis mine, NASB).

I believe the water which flows out from beneath the threshold of the entrance to the temple which faced east represents the Holy Spirit in varied depths of coverage upon this earth culminating in these end times of ours when, as Habakkuk said, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (2:14).  And here at the end of the end of time, salt marshes are being made as the Holy Spirit moves on, and also the days of big tent meetings and theatre halls are beginning to dry up.  To flow between Engedi and Eneglaim, is to flow between one well and two wells; there the lone or twain fisherman spreads his nets and fishes for his kind (gathers in his family).  TODAY IS ABOUT GATHERING IN THE REMAING ONES OF YOUR OWN PERSONAL FAMILY.  It is nearly the end of the harvest even as we speak; this poem I wrote not long back is apropos:

 A-tributary

We, desiring an uninhibited flow

of form both liquid and solid

in matter and matters beyond

our capabilities seeking and probing

unexplored topics and topography

everywhere our heads dictating our feet

where we move unabashed and bashing

every party and funeral visiting

those gone and going inside

scurrying about like insects

squashing and treading wrath

grapes of our wine and whines

fueling the hollows of our thought patterns

breaking and static waving riding

to the shores and store windows

shopping and peeping through glasses

beyond mannequins into a sea

where the living swelling and cresting

souls’ content is near finishing

populating the earth.

I also wrote this about 2-4 years ago:

I believe, that like a sunspot eruption, a sudden flash of brilliance has just shown forth as a clarion call to our generation; this brilliant explosion of light is the emanation of the golden crown upon our Lord’s head and is a sure sign that He is about to execute His authority and punish any subject that is not really a subject, e. g., those that feign subjection but are not genuinely subject to Him from the heart.  He has arisen from off His throne and is about to either hold the scepter up or down in favor or disfavor, mercy or judgment, concerning this generation.

I also believe that that brilliant flash of God’s Glory has just reflected off His shiny and sharp sickle blade, that end time sickle that the Angel of the Lord will, with one fell swoop, harvest the entire earth.

THE END IS IMMINENT; ARE YOU READY?   

God’s Inversion Law

Though vastness is, and grandeur its appeal,

Smallness is a greater is,

Or so it is I feel.

The highest peak of pride is lower than the lowliest form of worship:

Prostration at His feet.

The word inversion is a multi-definitional word, but the way in which I am using it is as follows: “A CHANGE IN THE POSITION, ORDER, OR RELATIONSHIP OF THINGS SO THAT THEY ARE THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY HAD BEEN” (Merriam-Webster dictionary online, emphasis mine).  We see this law all throughout Scripture and His creative works.  Because we are so enamored with largeness we often fail to realize the grander grandeur in smallness, in those things more humbly sized.  As great as a mature and mighty oak is, how much more extraordinary is the idea that that great tree came from the small and supposedly insignificant acorn?

Though God no doubt designs, desires, and accomplishes with us our adult version of ourselves, the potentiality inherently born into our infant person is the foundation of, and the greater part of, that which eventually matures and grows large.  Indeed, “You (God) formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb.  I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; WONDERFUL ARE YOUR WORKS” (Psalm 139:13-14).  “I know everything God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it, for God so acts that humans might stand in awe before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).   

Perhaps the best example of this inversion law—that God uses always to instruct man—was made when the Almighty God expressed Himself as a powerless and puny infant human, when the omnipresent God was found wholly present in but a few pounds of human flesh.

Another example: “He (Jesus) said to them (in response to His disciples asking Him why they could not drive a demon out of someone), because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:20).  Also, “And He said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to illustrate and explain it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all seeds upon the earth; yet after it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all garden herbs” (Mark 4:30-32).

Throughout the years I have heard much preaching on faith, and most talk about increasing faith, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying here.  Perhaps the translation or the wording is misleading.  The phrase Jesus uses, “littleness of your faith,” cannot possibly mean the size or quantity of faith because He follows up that statement immediately with statements about how only a mustard seed quantity of faith is needed to move mountains.  It is not the size as concerning quantity, but the size as concerning quality.  Creator God made the mustard seed both the smallest and the largest; smallest in inception-al size but largest in exceptional potential.

The Example of Paul’s Life and Ministry

“Who hath despised the day of small things?”—Zechariah 4:10

It is not coincidental that the name Paul means small, and that from a name, Saul (which means desiring) of Tarsus (which was a city of great consequence, a place of high education), and from which I infer the lofty idea of AMBITION, he fell to a humble and often maligned-as-insignificant apostle of Jesus Christ.  It is he, above all other apostles, who glories in his weaknesses.  That great religious zeal, that mighty ambition to know God and to purge the whole world of heretics and false arguments and vain imaginations, is more personified in him than perhaps anyone else. 

His very press, the strain of his life, was always there; before he knew God really, as he pressed so hard as to curse, as he zeroed in on Damascus to eradicate the Christian sect there, he instead encountered the utter and inverted truth, the Lord Himself as Jesus Christ in effulgent glory.  Damascus, which represents material completeness, the furthest extent of the human mind and eye, also represented the goal of Paul’s ambition.  But the intervening reality, the pin-prick effect of God as Jesus Christ, popped his delusional bubble.  The height of Paul’s pride, which could never have elevated him to the place his ambition drew for him in his imagination, was now being accomplished in him, but in its inverted form.

I would suggest to you that Jesus Christ was always what Paul wanted, as many do, BUT they, like him, go about it in the throes of their own ambition and in the pride of their own separate elevation; they try to become all they can be in way that will really diminish them, a way that will, if accomplished along that track, snuff them out completely.  The intervening Christ is the inverted truth, and always, humility comes before honor.    

Beyond the Narrow Gate

No matter how much tolerance is shown, no matter how inclusive love is, until tolerance and love are pressed through the narrow gate, their expression is threadbare and misguided.  Christians are often accused of being exclusive or narrow-minded, and some, no doubt, are so in the wrong way, but there is a right way, a way that is, indeed, VERY narrow.  BUT on the other side of that narrow gate is a table-land of understanding, a place of abundant nourishment: of wide, rich, and expansive pastures in which to graze and freely roam about.

The paradoxical truth is that that which is most refined, that definition which is most resolute in its stubborn refusal to deviate a whit from its exact meaning, and is the most populated with pixels (resulting in the best resolution—the best and brightest depiction of truth in pictorial form) is the clearest and most expansive knowledge.  All definition narrows to a point and thereby sharpens the understanding which in turn broadens the perspective.  Though it is true that to focus too hard and too long on one tree fades the forest from view, seeing many trees in the proper bounds of their sharp and true relief populates the forest.

      

When Jesus Christ is defined as the narrow and only way, the only gate by which one might legally enter the presence of God, and when He is described as the complete embodiment of all wisdom and knowledge and understanding, He too is paradoxically representing both stricture and boundlessness.  Another way this paradox is expressed is in those who choose the wide road to destruction.  Whereas the narrow and dark path of sorrow on earth leads to the wide and full effulgent plain of joy in heaven, the broad and riotously and raucously expansively gay spirit way on earth leads to the narrow, dark, and confining prison cell of hell.         

Jericho: the Heart (part 8 of 8)

The Aftermath

After they captured and subsequently destroyed Jericho, “Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, ‘Cursed before the Lord is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho; with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he shall set up its gates’” (Joshua 6:26, NASB).  Then, about 500 years alter:    

In his days [wicked king of Israel Ahab’s days] Hiel [“God lives”] the Bethelite [a person who lives in the house of God] built Jericho; he laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram [“father of loftiness”] his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub [“elevated”], according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.  (1 Kings 16:34, NASB).

It is noteworthy that Abiram is also the name of the mountain or range of mountains from which Israel descended from into the plains of Moab before they crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land.  It is also from where the Promised Land could be seen in its entirety from an overviewing perspective, and where Moses died.  It is also noteworthy that the city of Jericho (as defined by its walls and gates only) is what God and Joshua seemed to have meant by it not being rebuilt; its existence today and in Elisha’s day (as evidenced by Elisha and a school of prophets which lived there [2 Kings 2:15-22]), suggest that it had only to do with its former form or construction, i. e., about those manmade high and thick walls.  Indeed,

But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.  FOR IF I BUILD AGAIN THE THINGS WHICH I DESTROYED, I MAKE MYSELF A TRANSGRESSOR.  For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God (Galatians 2:17-19, emphasis mine, KJV).

In the end, Jericho existed without walls and without limits, with eternally sweet waters that nourished all the land of its area.  From here Joshua continuously went in and out using it as the base of his operations, the place where he planned his strategies for conquering the rest of the Promised Land.  Thus what began in seed form, God’s still small voice spoken into the heart of man, is expected to echo and escalate in volume in the soul, and eventually reach the pitch of a scream to the five senses of the body.  Jericho must enlarge and fill the entire Promised Land.  The miracle of a breathing moon, a fragrant moon, is about a moon inextricably tied to its source of emanation, Jesus Christ.  

Jericho: the Heart (part 7 of 8)

The Battle for Jericho

“Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in” (Joshua 6:1).  And such is often the case with those whom God is calling; they are afraid to be vulnerable.  Even if they don’t have a cognizant reason for protecting their heart, they intuitively know there is an impending destruction of all that they think and believe coming after them.  While in this state, they do not come out, nor does anyone come in.  But God stands at the door of their heart and knocks; indeed as the Captain of the Lord of Hosts he persistently and insistently pleads, and as the psalmist said:

Open up [Lift up your heads], you gates.  Open wide [Be lifted up], you aged [ancient] doors and the glorious King [King of glory] will come in.  Who is this glorious King [King of glory]?  The Lord, strong and mighty.  The Lord, the powerful warrior [mighty in battle].  Open up [Lift up your heads], you gates.  Open wide [Be lifted up], you aged [ancient] doors and the glorious King [King of glory] will come in.  Who is this glorious King [King of glory]?  The Lord All-Powerful [of Heaven’s Armies/Hosts]—he is the glorious King [King of glory].  Selah [Interlude].  (Psalm 24:7-10, Expanded Bible).

Just as God hovered over the surface of the waters in the time of Creation before a declaration of light was made, so God hovers over the heart and woos it till it is time to enlighten it.  Likewise, God, as represented by the ark being carried by Joshua’s priests, circled or hovered around Jericho six days (representing man); then on the seventh day, they circled the city seven times (representing spiritual perfection) and then the whole of Israel shouted, the walls came down, and they conquered the city.

Thus they encircled the city 13 times total, and 13, according to E. W. Bullinger (“Number in Scripture,” 1967, p. 205) “stands in connection with rebellion, apostasy, defection, corruption, disintegration, revolution, or some kindred idea.”  Ed Vallowe (1984, p. 102), in his book “Biblical Mathematics,” also associated 13 with depravity.  Thus the human heart, in Jericho is judged, and for the most part destroyed thoroughly; the 13 is the primary thrust, but not of primary importance: that belongs with the spiritual perfection represented by that sliver or thread of hope found in Rahab and her family. 

When the trumpets blasted and the people in unison shouted, the walls came down flat, and they went straight into the vulnerable stronghold.  Their message was without ambiguity, straightforward, as is the gospel message.  The 6, 7, and 13 numbers associated with Jericho was about man, the spiritual perfecting of man, and judgment against his evil deeds.  The ban Joshua (representative of Christ) made concerning the things of value held inside the confines of Jericho (representing the human heart) were now either completely destroyed by sword, fire, or confiscation (to be placed into the Lord’s coffers).

Anything animated by flesh was thrust through or hewn by the sword, all precious metals, already refined and/or purified by God’s processes was confiscated and placed into the treasury of the Lord for the maintenance of His house.  Finally, they burned the city with fire thus eliminating all flammable remains and purifying the city for a better inhabitation.  In the years to come a school of prophets resided in Jericho and Elisha the prophet finalized the cleansing process by sweetening the last vestiges of its bitter water ways.

Thus even after conversion the perfecting of the saints continues, and most often by the corrective and instructive words of prophets.  The bitter and sweet waters running together through one faucet that James speaks of, is unfortunately, the experience of many Christians.  But God ever works, sending us prophet after prophet to correct and perfect us, until he sends one powerful enough to accomplish His ends in us, to sweeten our embittered souls, and fit us indeed for His kingdom.

Jericho: the Heart (part 6 of 8)

Between the Jordan and Jericho

So Moses is dead (representing how Law and its edicts are dead too in the sense of their external dictating way) and Joshua (representing Jesus Christ, the personification of Law obeyed entirely, eternally, and internally) is about to cross the Jordan (about to descend to the bottom of despair and sorrow and redeem mankind from the depths of hell) and restore paradise (obtain for them their Promised Land, flowing with milk [contentment, peace] and honey [sweetness, joy]).

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River the waters gathered up into a heap and rolled all the way back to a city called “Adam.”  Their stream of descent unto death, their polluted lineage stream, was parted and brought all the way back to its origin for a healing all the way back to the root; they crossed over on dry land at the point of this division.  A distinction is made between that which is cursed and that which is blessed; the battle for Jericho, which only happened after a second circumcision, a circumcision of a whole new generation, is symbolic of that circumcision made without hands, a circumscribing away of the natural man (Adam) from the spiritual man (Jesus).

Securing Jericho is the first and foundational victory of the new creation man, but it is only secured based on the work of Christ (as symbolically prefigured in some noteworthy things which happened first, just prior to the taking of Jericho).  After the sign and wonder which occurred at the Jordan (like as God performed at the Red Sea) there were more signs and wonders which all prefigured aspects of salvation and the salvation processes.

The Red Sea crossing, for instance, was symbolic of the Passover feast of being born-again, being removed from the kingdom of darkness and placed into the kingdom of light; the Jordan crossing was symbolic of the Pentecost feast of being baptized in the Holy Spirit, being empowered to obey the Law not by external fiat, but by internal governance.  The wilderness experience, the divine provision there (manna from heaven and no clothing wearing out while wandering) is a proving ground and a graveyard for carnality.  The heat, the travel, the barely enough water to sustain life, and the minimally acceptable tasting and monotonous-like quality of eating manna every day, was all designed to develop their spirituality (humbling their souls with fastings and hardships) prefiguring the trials and tribulations one must overcome before entering into the kingdom of God (or the Promised Land).

Though a generation just prior to these Israelites actually left Egypt, it was to these Israelites that God said (after their circumcisions healed): “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you” (Joshua 5:9).  Consequently, they named the spot where God spoke to them, the spot they were circumcised at, and the spot where they remained until healed up, “Gilgal,” which means “liberty” or “rolling away”; perhaps this prefigures the stone which would one day be rolled away from the tomb (to first reveal emptiness), and then that which materialized later in various ways: a live forevermore risen Christ.

Liberty at first is shocking and near unbelievable in what it suggests; likewise, the born-again creature is often like Ephraim who didn’t even realize the freedom which God provided for him when He removed the yoke of bondage from his shoulders and healed him of all his diseases.

Then, while still in Gilgal, the sons of Israel observed the Passover; then the following day, they “ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain” (Joshua 5:11).  Then the day after that, the manna ceased.  Then still later, Joshua sees a man with a drawn sword, and discovers he is either an angel or a theophany; he tells Joshua to remove his sandals because the place where he is standing is holy.  When Joshua asked whether he was for them or his adversaries, the angel or the preincarnate manifestation of Christ, said: “No, rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord” (Joshua 5:14).

This Passover is the third Passover in Israelite history; the first was in Egypt, the second at Sinai, and now here in the Promised Land.  Thus God’s favor is shown by having the death angel pass them by while in three different vulnerable states, while they were dead and in the world, under the Law with its demands punishable by death, and just after they became dead to themselves as they entered paradise.  The divine provision of manna ceased to be gathered because the uncursed ground of heaven produces its own food.  The manifestation of Christ is not particular to anyone (God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to anyone who would); The Captain of the Hosts of the Lord fights for anyone who agrees or joins Him, for Joshua and Rahab both.