When signs and wonders break out and when God arises from out the depths of the human spirit, the human soul is often offended, and the flesh is always unhappy about it. Nonetheless, miracles are evidential proof to the flesh (inclusive of the soul—in so far as it is in agreement with the flesh) that her time for death has come.
When “Israel entered Egypt, Jacob immigrated to the Land of Ham. God gave his people lots of babies; soon their numbers alarmed their foes. He turned the Egyptians against his people; they abused and cheated God’s servants. Then he sent his servant Moses, and Aaron, whom he also chose. They worked marvels in that spiritual wasteland, MIRACLES IN THE LAND OF HAM. He spoke, ‘Darkness!’ and it turned dark—they couldn’t see what they were doing” (Psalm 105:23-42 MSG).
Said another way (and with my explanatory insertions), “He (God) turned their heart (of the Egyptians, those descended from the lineage of Ham by way of Mizraim [“two-fold distresses” or “two-fold Egypt”]) to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants. He (God) sent Moses [“saved out of the water”] His servant, and Aaron [“very high”] whom He had chosen. They performed His wondrous acts among them, AND MIRACLES IN THE LAND OF HAM [a land “noisy with the sound of man” or “inflamed to blackness” or “energized by the blackness of the human heart”]. He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they did not rebel against His words” (Psalm 105:25-28 NASB).
The circumcision made without hands (which is performed by the Holy Spirit wielding the word of God inside us by the effectual work that comes only through the baptism of the Holy Spirit), and that which is the cutting of covenant between God and man, and which is expressed as the word of God that “is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit,” is the only power on earth which can differentiate down to “both the joints and marrow,” the very depths of who we are, and thereby “judge the thoughts and intentions of [our human] heart” aright (Hebrew 4:12). Miracles in the land of Ham is about quelling the noisy crowd of man, of silencing his elevated soul and his base flesh, of quenching the flames of his misguided zeal. It is as God taught the prophet Elijah: God is in the quiet and still small voice (in the human spirit), not in the loud and theatrically loud displays of power (in the human soul and flesh). Miracles both affirm the legitimacy of God’s power and the illegitimacy of the power of man.
Egypt is a word which basically means “place of the projection of the soul,” or “place where the projection of a creator god principle manifests.” It is a bastard form of power, a power originating from the soul of man, from within the mind, will, and emotional seat of man. Thus Egypt represents the ascendency of soul, a principle in the world which seems right in the eyes of man, but that which is clearly wrong in the eyes of God. As the prophet Habakkuk put it, and the idea upon which the entire New Testament (based on better promises) is made, is that the “soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4 KJV).
Soul power is often mistaken as spiritual power, just as the soul and the spirit not cleaved away from each other (the uncircumcised man), is the bastard man, the man devoid of the spirit, and the man unfit to come into His presence without being struck down dead in that holy place. Jude described him thusly: “certain men have crept in stealthily [gaining entrance secretly by a side door]. Their doom was predicted long ago, ungodly (impious, profane) persons who pervert the grace (the spiritual blessing and favor) of our God into lawlessness and wantonness and immorality, and disown and deny our sole Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)” (Jude 1:4 Amp.).
Jude went on to say that God “delivered a people out of the land of Egypt,” out of the deception of projecting themselves as God, but that He also “subsequently destroyed those [of them] who did not believe [who refused to adhere to, trust in, and rely upon Him]” (Jude 1:5). They simply do not allow the cross of Jesus Christ, the basis for the work of circumcision, to utterly divorce their hearts or spirits away from their darling souls; they disobey the Lord’s injunction to lose their lives (their souls) in order to gain them back again (only after He has purged it of sin and denuded it of its own life force). Ultimately, they are those who reject the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that the apostle Paul spoke of; indeed, “It is these who are [agitators] setting up distinctions and causing divisions—merely sensual [creatures, carnal, worldly-minded people], DEVOID OF THE [HOLY] SPIRIT AND DESTITUTE OF ANY HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE” (Jude 1:19).
The culminating miracle performed in Egypt, a miracle that was a judgment against all that Egypt represents, was the loss of “the first-born in their land, the first fruits of all their vigor” (Psalm 105:36). In other words, God judged the uplifted soul, those that project or express themselves as the first cause of being and action. Our God is a God of mercy, however, and therefore He brought down upon them a darkness they could FEEL first before He utterly destroyed their vigor. God does not destroy the hopes and dreams of man lightly or without cause or because He is cruel, but any expression of man devoid of Him behind it, is an expression of shame rather than glory. Christ in us, the hope of glory (see Colossians 1:27), is about our spirits beings married in a holy covenantal relationship with His Spirit, and thereby making us whole, or making us what we’re meant to be; people who don’t “know” God don’t know themselves and are therefore less than what they were designed to be in their adulterous state of being. The idea that He will not share His glory with another is resolved by another idea, the idea that “woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).
Miracles in the land of Ham is about the removal of the curse. It is about God making streams in the desert, about making the gushings of our heart pure, clean, and transparent again; at that desolate place at the center of our hearts, that place where we are barren and unloved, God causes life to spring up out of death. What a precious knowledge it is to understand God’s ways! If we are grafted into Him, and He is “a root out of parched ground” (see Isaiah 53:2 NASB), then we can only bloom upwards and outwards (in beautiful fragrance) from that same premise, from that same parched ground. God’s removal of our natural vigor is for the purpose of invigorating our supernatural destiny. But before miracles come, darkness must come; also, before “the earth...be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” gross darkness must cover the people; furthermore, before the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is known, the vanity of vanities spoken of by Solomon in Ecclesiastes must be known: “Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?” (Habakkuk 2:14 & 13 Amp.).
T. Austin-Sparks, in his booklet “The Sign of The Prophet Jonah,” said “The absence of miraculous workings in the realm of the senses where the matter of knowing the Lord is in question is two sided: it is condemnation to those who have had the light and not followed it; and it is spiritual advancement in the case of those who are in the way of knowing the Lord more deeply. The great apostasy of the last days will have as its ground an absence of genuine love for the truth for its own sake; a craving for the demonstrations, sensations, manifestations; and then the satanic production of an imitation apostolicalism “with power, and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9); “a strong delusion” (2 Thess. 2:11), so that “if it were possible even the Elect would be deceived (Matt. 24:24).” He also said, “The further we go on with the Lord, the more inward things become, and the more He Himself becomes the transcendent reality and centre of all things.”
Ostentatious miracles in the land of Ham must become the seemingly benign “day of small things” in the land of Israel (the new creation spirit wherein the “inward” reality of His Person is magnified). Today’s small thing is the new large reality! We are a chip off the old Rock; we are drops of water comprising buckets of waters (corresponding to the composition of nations) upon which, and from on high, His voice reigns. The external signs and wonders which broke new ground with us at the start of this way is now a subterranean and personifying phenomenon. Like Isaiah’s children, we are the signs and wonders! Subtleties are now shouts of warning, and the still small voice is now a loud trumpet blast. “The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Peter 4:7 NASB). “Cease striving [BE STILL] and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
When “Israel entered Egypt, Jacob immigrated to the Land of Ham. God gave his people lots of babies; soon their numbers alarmed their foes. He turned the Egyptians against his people; they abused and cheated God’s servants. Then he sent his servant Moses, and Aaron, whom he also chose. They worked marvels in that spiritual wasteland, MIRACLES IN THE LAND OF HAM. He spoke, ‘Darkness!’ and it turned dark—they couldn’t see what they were doing” (Psalm 105:23-42 MSG).
Said another way (and with my explanatory insertions), “He (God) turned their heart (of the Egyptians, those descended from the lineage of Ham by way of Mizraim [“two-fold distresses” or “two-fold Egypt”]) to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants. He (God) sent Moses [“saved out of the water”] His servant, and Aaron [“very high”] whom He had chosen. They performed His wondrous acts among them, AND MIRACLES IN THE LAND OF HAM [a land “noisy with the sound of man” or “inflamed to blackness” or “energized by the blackness of the human heart”]. He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they did not rebel against His words” (Psalm 105:25-28 NASB).
The circumcision made without hands (which is performed by the Holy Spirit wielding the word of God inside us by the effectual work that comes only through the baptism of the Holy Spirit), and that which is the cutting of covenant between God and man, and which is expressed as the word of God that “is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit,” is the only power on earth which can differentiate down to “both the joints and marrow,” the very depths of who we are, and thereby “judge the thoughts and intentions of [our human] heart” aright (Hebrew 4:12). Miracles in the land of Ham is about quelling the noisy crowd of man, of silencing his elevated soul and his base flesh, of quenching the flames of his misguided zeal. It is as God taught the prophet Elijah: God is in the quiet and still small voice (in the human spirit), not in the loud and theatrically loud displays of power (in the human soul and flesh). Miracles both affirm the legitimacy of God’s power and the illegitimacy of the power of man.
Egypt is a word which basically means “place of the projection of the soul,” or “place where the projection of a creator god principle manifests.” It is a bastard form of power, a power originating from the soul of man, from within the mind, will, and emotional seat of man. Thus Egypt represents the ascendency of soul, a principle in the world which seems right in the eyes of man, but that which is clearly wrong in the eyes of God. As the prophet Habakkuk put it, and the idea upon which the entire New Testament (based on better promises) is made, is that the “soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4 KJV).
Soul power is often mistaken as spiritual power, just as the soul and the spirit not cleaved away from each other (the uncircumcised man), is the bastard man, the man devoid of the spirit, and the man unfit to come into His presence without being struck down dead in that holy place. Jude described him thusly: “certain men have crept in stealthily [gaining entrance secretly by a side door]. Their doom was predicted long ago, ungodly (impious, profane) persons who pervert the grace (the spiritual blessing and favor) of our God into lawlessness and wantonness and immorality, and disown and deny our sole Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)” (Jude 1:4 Amp.).
Jude went on to say that God “delivered a people out of the land of Egypt,” out of the deception of projecting themselves as God, but that He also “subsequently destroyed those [of them] who did not believe [who refused to adhere to, trust in, and rely upon Him]” (Jude 1:5). They simply do not allow the cross of Jesus Christ, the basis for the work of circumcision, to utterly divorce their hearts or spirits away from their darling souls; they disobey the Lord’s injunction to lose their lives (their souls) in order to gain them back again (only after He has purged it of sin and denuded it of its own life force). Ultimately, they are those who reject the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that the apostle Paul spoke of; indeed, “It is these who are [agitators] setting up distinctions and causing divisions—merely sensual [creatures, carnal, worldly-minded people], DEVOID OF THE [HOLY] SPIRIT AND DESTITUTE OF ANY HIGHER SPIRITUAL LIFE” (Jude 1:19).
The culminating miracle performed in Egypt, a miracle that was a judgment against all that Egypt represents, was the loss of “the first-born in their land, the first fruits of all their vigor” (Psalm 105:36). In other words, God judged the uplifted soul, those that project or express themselves as the first cause of being and action. Our God is a God of mercy, however, and therefore He brought down upon them a darkness they could FEEL first before He utterly destroyed their vigor. God does not destroy the hopes and dreams of man lightly or without cause or because He is cruel, but any expression of man devoid of Him behind it, is an expression of shame rather than glory. Christ in us, the hope of glory (see Colossians 1:27), is about our spirits beings married in a holy covenantal relationship with His Spirit, and thereby making us whole, or making us what we’re meant to be; people who don’t “know” God don’t know themselves and are therefore less than what they were designed to be in their adulterous state of being. The idea that He will not share His glory with another is resolved by another idea, the idea that “woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).
Miracles in the land of Ham is about the removal of the curse. It is about God making streams in the desert, about making the gushings of our heart pure, clean, and transparent again; at that desolate place at the center of our hearts, that place where we are barren and unloved, God causes life to spring up out of death. What a precious knowledge it is to understand God’s ways! If we are grafted into Him, and He is “a root out of parched ground” (see Isaiah 53:2 NASB), then we can only bloom upwards and outwards (in beautiful fragrance) from that same premise, from that same parched ground. God’s removal of our natural vigor is for the purpose of invigorating our supernatural destiny. But before miracles come, darkness must come; also, before “the earth...be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” gross darkness must cover the people; furthermore, before the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is known, the vanity of vanities spoken of by Solomon in Ecclesiastes must be known: “Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?” (Habakkuk 2:14 & 13 Amp.).
T. Austin-Sparks, in his booklet “The Sign of The Prophet Jonah,” said “The absence of miraculous workings in the realm of the senses where the matter of knowing the Lord is in question is two sided: it is condemnation to those who have had the light and not followed it; and it is spiritual advancement in the case of those who are in the way of knowing the Lord more deeply. The great apostasy of the last days will have as its ground an absence of genuine love for the truth for its own sake; a craving for the demonstrations, sensations, manifestations; and then the satanic production of an imitation apostolicalism “with power, and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9); “a strong delusion” (2 Thess. 2:11), so that “if it were possible even the Elect would be deceived (Matt. 24:24).” He also said, “The further we go on with the Lord, the more inward things become, and the more He Himself becomes the transcendent reality and centre of all things.”
Ostentatious miracles in the land of Ham must become the seemingly benign “day of small things” in the land of Israel (the new creation spirit wherein the “inward” reality of His Person is magnified). Today’s small thing is the new large reality! We are a chip off the old Rock; we are drops of water comprising buckets of waters (corresponding to the composition of nations) upon which, and from on high, His voice reigns. The external signs and wonders which broke new ground with us at the start of this way is now a subterranean and personifying phenomenon. Like Isaiah’s children, we are the signs and wonders! Subtleties are now shouts of warning, and the still small voice is now a loud trumpet blast. “The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer” (1 Peter 4:7 NASB). “Cease striving [BE STILL] and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
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