Leaving Ur of the Chaldeans

“If … the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23).

“And … Abram … went forth … from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go into the land of Canaan … Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Gen. 11:31; 12:1).

There is more meaning in this LEAVING UR OF THE CHALDEANS than most understand.  It is monumental in its scope and foundational for all subsequent revelation that God enlightens man with.  It has nothing less than the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ in it.  Breaking down some of its definitions, we get: 

“Ur” means “shine or flame,” and “Chaldeans” means “as it were demons” (rooted in a word meaning “to lay waste, to destroy”) or “magicians” or “astrologers.”  Essentially, God called Abram to leave the flame or shine (the natural light) of alluring magic and demonic deception derived from the stars (a secondary light) or the inner light of self (which is energized by Satan rather than God).  In other words, come out of the smoke-and-mirror-reality of natural familial ties; come out of the natural light that family, ethnicity and country give to a place where God enlarges vision, influence, and reality.  Come out of the natural connection to the supernatural connection; come out of the earthly to the heavenly. 

This is no less than the gospel according to Abram/Abraham and the pattern of the gospel according to Jesus Christ. 

In contrast to where God is taking us, our family, ethnicity and country reality is delusional.  That is why Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).  Assuredly, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

To leave the shining flame of one’s own fire is to be reignited and fueled by another source; natural light is darkness and delusion compared to spiritual light and reality. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If … the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

“Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant?  Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.  But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.  This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment” (Isaiah 50:10-11 NIV).

LEAVING UR OF THE CHALDEANS is leaving the light of one’s own fire; the gospel of Jesus Christ is leaving off one’s own natural light in order to follow the light of Christ.  I would suggest that Abraham—at least on some level—became the first Christian because “Abraham rejoiced to see My [Jesus’] day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

 

A Commentary on One Verse (Psalm 68:6)

“God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,

Only the rebellious dwell in a parched [dry] land” (Psalm 68:6 NASB).

Many years ago I prophesied loudly from the back of the sanctuary a portion of this verse.  I declared boldly that “Only the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”  It seemed to crack across the ceiling like lightning and thunder.  I began to weep.  I have prophesied much through the years, but I can hardly remember a word more powerfully demonstrated.

Today (9/8/2019) my pastor preached a theme that spoke to this fragment of verse six.  At the end of his sermon I quoted this to him and our congregation (also from the back of the sanctuary).  At the time, I did not remember where it came from excepting that it was from one of the Psalms.  A brother near me looked it up and told me the verse.

This idea that God makes a home for the lonely and leads prisoners out of privation into prosperity is something I am currently experiencing.  I also know that my rebellion against some aspect of God’s leading was the cause of my spiritual dryness.  ONLY the rebellious dwells in dryness; this presently cursed earth (where we dwell in our present but temporary body of death) is spiritually vacant and dry, but also, like as Christ is depicted as “a root out of a dry ground,” so we too are bodily deprived and without spiritual comeliness in these vessels excepting that spring of living water which springs up into eternal life.  In other words, our context is dryness (in our earth-bound body), but our reality, spiritual saturation/wetness (as we also live in the heavenlies).  If we find ourselves dry—since ONLY the rebellious dwell there—we must have at least some measure of rebellion in our hearts.  Let us repent and get back to our first works and whatever else God requires of us.

I love Charles H. Spurgeon’s take on this verse; he wrote—in his classic “The Treasury of David”—the following:

“‘God setteth the solitary in families.’  The people had been sundered and scattered over Egypt; family ties had been disregarded, and affections crushed; but when the people escaped from Pharaoh they came together again, and all the fond associations of household life were restored.  This was a great joy.  ‘He bringeth out those which are bound with chains.’  The most oppressed in Egypt were chained and imprisoned, but the divine Emancipator brought them all forth into perfect liberty.  He who did this of old continues his gracious work.  The solitary heart, convinced of sin and made to pine alone, is admitted into the family of the First-born; the fettered spirit is set free, and its prison broken down, when sin is forgiven; and for all this, God is to be greatly extolled, for He hath done it, and magnified the glory of his grace.  ‘But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.’  If any find the rule of Jehovah to be irksome, it is because their rebellious spirits kick against his power.  Israel did not find the desert dry, for the smitten rock gave forth its streams; but even in Canaan itself men were consumed with famine, because they cast off their allegiance to their covenant God.  Even where God is revealed on the mercy-seat, some men persist in rebellion, and such need not wonder if they find no peace, no comfort, no joy, even where all these abound.  Justice is the rule of the Lord’s kingdom, and hence there is no provision for the unjust to indulge their evil lustings: a perfect earth, and even heaven itself, would be a dry land to those who can only drink of the waters of sin.  Of the most soul-satisfying of sacred ordinances these witless rebels cry, ‘What a weariness it is!’  and, under the most soul-sustaining ministry, they complain of ‘the foolishness of preaching.’  When a man has a rebellious heart, he must of necessity find all around him a dry land.” 

          

The Peril of Unbelief at the Brink of Breakthrough

“...the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died” (2 Kings 7:20 NIV).

“Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb” (Hosea 13:13 NIV).

 

A narrowing and constricting time is upon us and to the blind and unbelieving it spells disaster rather than the birthing victory it really is.  But for those whose eyes are open and who have hearts with even a modicum of faith, the floodgates of heaven are opening and changing everything in a sudden and bursting moment.

“Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate” (2 Kings 7:3).

How provocative is the word of God!  According to Vallowe, “Four stands for weakness found in the world and man [and] trial, testing and experience derived from the fact that the earth is the scene of man’s testing.”  “At the entrance of the city gate” is symbolic of the portal between life and death; “leprosy” is representative of uncleanness and the cause of ostracizing in all its applications to the outcast.  They must remain outside the city, and if they even approach the gates, the gatekeepers/watchmen are to cry aloud, “Unclean!  Unclean!”

Here we are at the brink of breakthrough, either to disaster or victory, we can hardly tell.  Our faith has been battered nearly to oblivion.  Where is God?

The guy who was “trampled...in the gateway, and ... died” was “the officer on whose arm the king was leaning.”  The king of Israel’s obligation was to never lean on the arm of flesh, but on the expressed will of God (as made clear by His prophets).  Elisha therefore soundly condemned this arm of flesh, this officer who dared to doubt the word of God above his natural perception.  A famine so grievous as to make the king of Israel doubt God consumed material fruitfulness completely away and eventually even spiritual fruitfulness by faithless choice.

Utter unbelief causes utter spiritual blindness, depravity and insanity; these in turn make meat of donkey heads and bread of boiled children.  Cannibalistic subsistence on one’s own flesh and blood is a manifestation of death run its course.  Our weak and leprous soul can either die of starvation or rise and take a chance in the camp of pride (where the Syrian spirit reigns).  The brink of disaster is therefore also the brink of breakthrough. 

          

“The king said, ‘This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ Then Elisha said, ‘Listen to the word of the Lord’; thus says the Lord, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.’  The royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, ‘Behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?’ Then he said, ‘Behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat of it’” (2 Kings 6:33 NIV; 2 Kings 7:1-2 NASB).

Lepers are social outcasts.  God caused eight leprous feet to sound like a mighty and advancing army.  Eight is the number of new beginnings.  Our Lord is the ultimate outcast, made leprous and unclean outside the gate.  We are commanded to also live outside the gate.  Indeed, “Jesus … suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured” (Hebrews 13:12-13).

The conclusion of these four lepers contained hardly a mustard seed amount of faith, but the incredulous “officer on whose arm the king was leaning” had none.  At the near end of this age, we must “bear the reproach he endured” outside the confines of carnal thinking and religious mindsets.  The Lord asked if there would be faith in the earth while the great falling away removes many souls; I believe we are already experiencing this ancient prophecy.

But be encouraged!  Four lepers—exiles from society (religious and secular)—with hardly a whit of faith, took down the mighty Syrian affront.  Even if the best your heart can muster is to reason as these desperate lepers did: die here of starvation or die at the hands of our enemy, choose wisely (as these lepers did)!  Who knows if God will magnify the sound of your coming to make you sound mighty and unstoppable?

THE PERIL OF UTTER UNBELIEF AT THE BRINK OF BREAKTHROUGH is likened to that unwise baby which would rather die in the womb than face the enemy of reality.  Do you have no strength?  Is your faith weak and near gone?  Are you about to give up the ghost?!  Why not go down in battle rather than die in the womb of your destiny.

The brink of disaster is also the brink of miracles and victory.  God’s way is like Judo, wherein the victor vanquishes his opponent by redirecting that opponent’s force back onto himself.  God does this regularly with Satan.  Ominous clouds of destruction loom on the near horizon, but wait on God beyond what seems reasonable to you, and watch those same ominous clouds pour down blessings instead.        

    

The Sacrifices of God

“THE SACRIFICES OF GOD are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

Another way of saying that THE SACRIFICES (plural) OF GOD are a broken spirit (singular), is to say that the sacrificed Lamb of God (singular in Jesus Christ, but multiplied in His body, the church), is a singular event pluralized throughout history.  Thus THE SACRIFICES OF GOD, being a broken spirit, is simply the singularity (or oneness) of our spirits attached to the Lord’s Spirit, and then broken or divided like bread to a starving world.

The good news—which is Jesus Christ being given to the world—is obtained by mere acceptance with contrition; the only cost is a soft and compliant heart, which is really no cost at all, merely the means whereby someone is conditioned to receive that good news.  Though man mocks meekness and considers it weakness, from God’s perspective, meekness, repentance and contrition are strengths; God not only “will not despise” brokenness and contrition, He encourages and applauds them.

Brokenness—as perfectly exampled by our Lord and Savior—is ultimately THE SACRIFICES OF GOD, and we participate insofar as we share in His sufferings and distribute ourselves to others in like manner as Jesus did and does.      

The Glory of His Grace

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:3-6).

In Greek, the word “glory” in this verse means “very apparent … dignity, honor, praise, worship.” It has its root in the idea of “to think … be of reputation” (James Strong [1391 & 1380]). The word “grace” in this verse means “the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude … benefit, favor, gift” (James Strong [5485]).

If we were to rewrite this small snippet of scripture using these two word meanings it would read something like this: “The very apparent dignity, honor, praise and worship of the Lord’s thoughtful reputation that divinely influences our hearts—and which reflects and emanates from our changed hearts—is the cause of our deep gratitude, benefit and favor; what a precious gift we have been given!”

This is the reason we are “accepted in the Beloved”; because our Father blessed us “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” “THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE” is the glory of His very Person, and what gratitude ought we to reflect by acknowledging that incomparable gift of the Lord Himself (not merely that He graces us with material and “spiritual blessings”—which He no doubt does—but that the very grace of His own life is given to us, making us look like Him and reflecting His glory rather than our own corrupted glory).

The weightiness—in Hebrew, “kabod”—of His Presence is implied in these verses of scripture; the “good pleasure of His will” is to manifest the weightiness of God in and through His people wherever they go, to deeply influence people wherever we are. It is Christ Himself, the Savior of all mankind, that is the heaviest and most influential moment in everyone’s life; and we are uniquely designed to be as Christ in the world. We are called to rightly represent Him wherever we grace; if His Presence does not go with us, we are but clanging symbols, making noise without distinction, cacophony rather than harmonious symphony. “THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE” is that He goes with us wherever we roam.

Removing the last vestiges of the Amorites

The Promised Land is distinctly on the Canaan side of the river Jordan, that land that corresponds symbolically to the idea of heaven and heavenly bliss.  In Joshua, chapter 24—in Joshua’s last address before he died—he mentioned the land of Canaan, which had seven nations that had to be displaced in order to enjoy the milk and honey that that Canaan-land promised to yield.  But one nation—THE AMORITES—are highlighted in this chapter, being mentioned five times in the course of a mere 10 verses (Joshua 24:8-18).

I believe the significance of its emphasis lies in the meaning of that nation in regards to the church of this hour (a church poised and ready to completely possess their inheritance in the Promised Land).  But before I convey my thoughts about this hour in church history, let me first define who THE AMORITES are, and what they represent.

Firstly, according to Thomas Bromley (his words lightly edited by me),

“This nation [THE AMORITES] signifies the SPIRITS OF BITTER FIERCE-TALKING AND JUDGING.  These spirits judge this or that, and all from the root of bitterness.  Additionally, these bitter spirits do much hinder the sweet Lily of the Valley, from springing up in the soul, even the soft, meek, gentle nature of the Lamb, from acting out its virtue to ourselves, or to others, either friends or enemies.   These perverse spirits, rather incite us to require eye for eye; they only practice revenge.  They despise forgiving mercifulness, and in their fierceness, rage against meekness, and the law of love and tender-heartedness, and gentle soft behavior.  In a word, the spirits of envy, enmity, jealousy, and rash judging, are AMORITISH spirits, which Joshua, that is Jesus, comes to cast out.”

Secondly, James Strong defines THE AMORITES as “to say...with great latitude, in the sense of publicity, i.e. prominence; thus a mountaineer.”  Alfred Jones agrees with Strong, but with this minor addition: “to speak, to bring to light.”

THE AMORITES were known to be a strong people that dwelt in rugged mountainous regions.  The bitter judgmental attitude of THE AMORITES—as specified by Bromley—is indeed very specific, because in general, THE AMORITE personified pride.  Of course, to bitterly judge others—to speak expansively and fiercely dogmatic about “this and that”—is grounded in high-mindedness or high-browed pride.

Their rugged lifestyle and consequential strength are something the world admires and approves of, but speaking loud and wide in high thin air from a mountaintop only magnifies foolishness in the eyes of God.  Assuredly, “Man, with all his [self] honor and pomp, will not endure...This is the fate of those who are FOOLISHLY CONFIDENT, and of those after them who approve [and are influenced by] their words” (Psalm 49:12-13).

“The heart of [over-confident] fools proclaim foolishness” (Proverbs 12:23) everywhere they go, and always in presumptuous and misinterpreted ways that ultimately leads to false judgments about all things they assess and articulate.  Ultimately, “A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind” (Proverbs 18:2).  Bitter judgmental people are those myopic souls that are either unwilling or unable to see themselves as they really are.  Perhaps more than most, those who judge others and things incorrectly, and in bitter tones at that, are those identified in Scripture as “lovers of self.”

In scripture, self-love is attached to a litany of grievous sins, and the last days are particularly marked by this wanton and misguided love.  “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be LOVERS OF SELF, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). 

   

All of us have endured bitter and judgmental people, sad people whose expansive opinion about everyone and everything has to be explicitly and thoroughly articulated as though they were the final arbiter of every matter under the sun.  Of course, they are insufferable, and insofar as the spirit of THE AMORITE influences us, we too are insufferable, and we too are in danger of hindering “the sweet Lily of the Valley” from wafting its soul saving aroma up and out of us to a dying world.

Now, looking again at Joshua, chapter 24, we see Joshua admonishing the elders to serve the Lord exclusively; and during their days, Israel did.  But, when they died, Israel lost their way and began to serve other gods.  In Joshua, chapter 23, Joshua reminded all of Israel about how the Lord had given them complete victory in the Promised Land, but that, in the time of Joshua’s [Jesus’] departure, the full realization of their victory had not been accomplished.  This is because of what was said earlier in Exodus 23:29, that “I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you,” and later reiterated in Deuteronomy 7:22: “And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.”

Obviously, THE AMORITES, being especially accentuated by Joshua towards the end of his life, meant that that “little by little” removal process was still in effect.  We as the church are already seated in heavenly places; the Promised Land is our inheritance, but we realize and appropriate it “little by little.”  And such is the case even in this late hour in history.  Joshua and the elders are gone; Jesus and the disciples are gone.  The church, like Israel, went a-whoring after Jesus was taken up and all the apostles died.  The dark/medieval ages especially accentuated their absence (just as the book of Judges especially accentuated Joshua and the elders’ absence).

Little by little, just as prophesied, the church has been restored throughout the years to its pristine condition.  Yes, much of it is still apostate, but there is a remnant finding its way to their full inheritance.  The church of this hour—the eleventh or possibly even the twelfth hour—is the end-time church, and yes, many are still asleep and Laodicean-like.  But a remnant is awake, hot with Holy Ghost fire and poised to do great spiritual exploits.  The caution here, like as Joshua warned the children of Israel in his day, is that we must finally remove all the ites, but specifically and more deeply, THE AMORITES.

Be careful in this hour not to engage in BITTER FIERCE-TALKING AND JUDGING, both within the church AND outside it.  Our testimony is ruined quickly when we speak rashly, harshly and judgmentally.  I sense—by the Holy Spirit—that this is the emphasis of the hour.  STOP speaking against your fellow man and against church members you disagree with.  Try prayer and love instead of fault-finding.  Let us be diligent to REMOVE THE AMORITE spirit and thereby allow that sweet Lily of the Valley to charge our atmosphere with its fragrant aroma of life.  A dying world is waiting for this, the manifestation of the sons of God!

The Fringes of His Ways

“Yet these are just THE FRINGES OF HIS WAYS [mere samples of His power], the faintest whisper of His voice! Who can contemplate the thunder of His [full] mighty power?” (Job 26:14 AMP).

“The faintest whisper of His voice” sounds remarkably similar to “the still small voice” that God taught Elijah. The Lord is simply not in the commotion and theatrical uproar surrounding His presence; no, at the core of His presence there is a holy stillness something akin to what an eye of a storm is like.

Getting past the crowd—the commotion and theatrical uproar surrounding Jesus—merely to touch even THE FRINGES OF HIS WAYS, is powerful enough to heal. Note how a humble woman, nondescript, hidden among many faces in the crowd, displayed faith in the mere fringes of what clothed our Lord, and how that faith healed her: “As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped” (Luke 8:42-44). She obeyed that still small voice in her heart that said, “If I can only touch “the edge of his cloak,” THE FRINGES OF HIS WAYS, I will be healed. And for her faith, she was!

I love what F. B. Meyer said, “A storm is only as the outskirts of his robe, the symptom of his advent, the environment of His presence. Dare to trust Him; dare to follow Him! And discover that the very forces which barred your progress and threatened your life, at His bidding become the materials of which an avenue is made to liberty.”

The Indomitable Child of God

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4 KJV).

Note this verse in the Amplified:

“For everyone born of God is victorious and overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has conquered and overcome the world—our [continuing, persistent] faith [in Jesus the Son of God].”

I enjoy the Amplified version of the Bible very much, and I usually agree with its transliteration/interpretation, but in this particular instance, it has missed the full meaning of exactly what is born of God.  Sure, “EVERYONE born of God” is His child, and they certainly overcome the world by their “[continuing, persistent] faith” in Jesus Christ, BUT the King James version more accurately renders it as “WHATSOEVER is born of God overcometh the world.”  Whatsoever is more than people; it includes revivals and other such moves and miracles birthed by God.

God Himself is indomitable.  Everything He does, creates, initiates/originates or births overcomes the world; we as His children—simply clinging to Him in faith—cannot fail to overcome this world.  No matter how dark and powerful the lust and lure of this world becomes, so long as we remain one with God (and thereby draw from His Almighty power), we stand as He does, divorced from all lust, evil and corruption.  Simply put, nothing God thinks, acts upon, or puts His hand to, fails; nothing He births, dies.  “He has … made everything beautiful in its time … I KNOW THAT EVERYTHING GOD DOES WILL ENDURE FOREVER; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, 14). 

 

Are spiritual deformities or still-births possible in Christ?  Can someone be premature, and therefore undeveloped in their born-again Spirit?  I tend to think not!  But Paul did say— “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19); this does seem to suggest a need for more spiritual pre-birth development.

    

When so few Christians seem to walk in victory, it puzzles me (even though I find myself too often numbered with them).  How can those born of God walk about defeated and overcome by this world?  I know of no answer excepting youthful-like, immature carnality and/or a lack of genuine conversion.  And the latter—a lack of genuine conversion—is perhaps the cause of my perplexment.  If these spiritual deformities and still-births are really soulical/natural—devoid of a true born-again experience—then there never was (or is) a spiritual malady.  Because “youthful-like, immature carnality” is almost indistinguishable from a lack of conversion—and too much of it reigns in the churches—it is difficult to remedy.

In America—where I live and therefore understand best—we are well-fed, indulgent and idle.  I am reminded of what the prophet said about Sodom: “Behold, this was the iniquity of … Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her … neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49).  The old adage— “Idleness is the Devil’s workshop”—is applicable.

 

Simply put, the gross immorality that marked Sodom is now the mark of America.  My only hope is that those righteous in Christ remain faithful and therefore indomitable.  Our context is now morally filthier than ever before; but “If He rescued righteous Lot [from Sodom], who was tormented by the immoral conduct of unprincipled and ungodly men (for that just man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by what he saw and heard of their lawless acts), then … the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial” (2 Peter 2:7-9).  Our context might be gross darkness, but THE INDOMITABLE CHILD OF GOD “Is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until [it reaches its full strength and glory in] the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). 

The Explanation of the Cross

“For the preaching of the cross … is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

“But, brethren, if I still preach circumcision [as some accuse me of doing, as necessary to salvation], why am I still suffering persecution? In that case the cross has ceased to be a stumbling block and is made meaningless (done away)” (Galatians 5:11).

In other words, natural circumcision—defined as “the surgical removal of the foreskin, the tissue covering the head(glans) of the penis”—is no longer preached; in its place is the circumcision of the heart—which is only accomplished by the power of the cross applied. But natural circumcision removes actual flesh, whereas supernatural circumcision removes merely the works of the flesh. Indeed, “When you came to Christ, you were ‘circumcised,’ but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature” (Colossians 2:11).

Thus, when Paul says that by “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ … the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:4)—“For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16)—he is, by that crucifixion/circumcision, removing the influence of his body of death/sinful nature away from his clean and redeemed spirit. This is THE EXPLANATION OF THE CROSS.

When Paul bemoaned the destiny of those who made themselves enemies of the cross of Christ—“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Philippians 3:18-19)—he saw in their enmity, a throwing off of the only means by which they could be transformed into the Lord’s image and made ready for spirituality and heaven. Ultimately, those who avoid the cross are those who forsake their lives. As is written, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8).

T. Austin-Sparks explained things well when he wrote, “Here is THE EXPLANATION OF THE CROSS of our Lord Jesus and the crucifixion of the old man and all that is related thereto. The explanation is just this, that that Cross represents the bringing to an end, or winding up of what is less than God intended. For things were pulled down to a lower level than God intended. There came in divisions, alienation, circumscribing of man and of things, limiting God and His purpose for man in the world, and the Cross represents the undoing of all that.”

Austin-Sparks went on to say, “The resurrection speaks of emancipation into the limitless—into the universal … The resurrection represents universality because it brings you into spiritual realities—delivered from the flesh and brought into the spirit, delivered from what is of man and brought into what is of God … We have lost every form of limitation … We are now set free and brought into the kingdom of heaven’s emancipation on resurrection ground. Under the anointing of the Spirit we are brought into the universality of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is THE EXPLANATION OF THE CROSS.”

Forsaking All Others

Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house; then the King will desire your beauty.  because he is your Lord, bow down to him” (Psalm 45:10-11).

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1). 

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

A traditional wedding vow: “Will you love and comfort her/him, honor and keep her/him, in sickness and in health, and FORSAKING ALL OTHERS, keep yourself only unto her/him as long as you both shall live?”

John Bunyan, in “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” outlines—through the experiences of his main character, “Christian”—the believer’s journey, with all its pitfalls and obstacles, from the initial salvation experience here on earth to the end of the race in heaven.  Here is an excerpt:

“So I saw in my Dream that the Man [later named Christian] began to run.  Now he had not run far from his own door, but his Wife and Children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the Man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, Life!  Life!  Eternal Life!  So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the Plain … The neighbors also came out to see him run; and as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return.”

The Man (Christian) perceived the Celestial City (heaven), and also, he discerned and determined that nothing would deter him, not even family and friends, from escaping this world of corruption for it. He understood intuitively that it required FORSAKING ALL OTHERS in order to fully devote himself to finish the race.  Many obstacles—of which his family and friends constituted the fiercest obstacle—had to be overcome in order to achieve heaven.

 

Faith, which is the fundamental trait of devotion, is the glue which makes us one with our Bridegroom.  Every genuine Christian must FORSAKE ALL OTHERS and keep one’s self only for Jesus.  Even if faithlessness occasionally slays you, our precious Bridegroom promises to restore purity of devotion.  Indeed, God declares, “I will heal your faithlessness” (Jeremiah 3:22); also, “I will heal their apostasy and faithlessness [their backslidings]; I will love them freely” (Hosea 14:4).

From all peoples that ever existed and will exist, God draws out “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Revelation 7:9) to bear His name in snow-white purity.  These constitute the bride of Christ.  Doubtless, they are those who FORSOOK ALL OTHERS!  They came out as Abram did; they too hated the natural tie in respect to the heavenly tie.  They came out and off of the natural ground or premise of life to the supernatural ground or premise of everlasting life.  They, like Abram, came out to a place where God spoke to them unmolested by the insistent urge to devote themselves to ethnic, familial or national influence.  They perceived by spiritual perception that natural birth is foundationless; like Abram, they found themselves “Looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). 

That Basic Sin of Unbelief

“Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

In T. Austin-Sparks’ book, “The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus,” he explains how the law of life operated in many of our forefathers; ultimately, it culminated in Jesus Christ, but herein this quote below he explains how it operated in Abraham.  But first, this verse of scripture: “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:16).  Now that quote from Mr. Austin-Sparks: 

“Whatever is not of faith is always of the nature of death. Doubt is death, unbelief is death, lack of trust is death, and all things that are in that category.  Questions, controversies, anything that is short of simple faith brings us to a standstill, brings under arrest.  It is death.  So then, the law of life in Abraham is seen operating along the line of faith, which faith worked deeper and deeper, producing life in ever increasing measure.  These two things go together.  The deeper the faith the stronger the life.  Similarly, the greater measure of life implies the deeper faith … Here … we note that we are reversing Adam’s evil.  In … Abraham … God is working backward.  He is reversing Adam’s evil.  When you come to Abraham, you see in him God’s triumph over THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF (emphasis mine).  In Christ Jesus … [Abraham was] … gathered up, not in a figurative or representative way but in a living, actual way, and Satan’s triumph in Adam’s deception and fall was completely reversed, completely undone; for Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil.  But even here it means, you see, the works of the Devil are being destroyed in something more than a merely figurative way.  God is reversing the course of things and undoing Adam’s mischief, correcting things.”

And indeed, faith corrects things!  Our English language inadequately defines faith as “allegiance to duty or person; fidelity to one’s promises; sincerity of intentions; firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust.”  What!?  FIRM BELIEF IN SOMETHING FOR WHICH THERE IS NO PROOF!!!!  Are you kidding me?  That is not faith!  Not even close!  I’ll let Dr. Chuck Missler, after citing this verse of scripture— “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)—rebut this foolishness:

“In our culture, faith is frowned on as mere imagination—the hopes and wishes of the common man.  Evidence is what matters, we are told—and not just any form of evidence.  We’re told we can only ‘know’ things after they have been demonstrated time and again through stringent scientific method, and even then, future experiments might change up what we thought was true … The Bible offers a different position.  True faith IS substance.  It IS evidence.  The word ‘substance’ in Hebrews 11 is HYPOSTASIS, and it means ‘confidence’ or ‘assurance.’  It has the connotation of a foundation or superstructure, something stable and unmoving on which things can be built.  It is substance that gives real existence.”

And indeed, when we look at the meaning of the word “faith” in the languages of scripture, we find that the Hebrew word for faith means, “firmness; security; fidelity; established; trustworthiness”; in the Greek, it means, “persuasion, reliance upon, agree, obey, moral conviction, constancy, make friend.”  Somewhere in my past I heard faith defined as “clinging to.”  Because this is in accord with many of these other definitions, and it’s something I have found true in my experience, I trust it.

And this is saving faith—effectual faith—because it clings to Jesus Christ in holy matrimony; and faithfulness in marriage is the essential tie.  Clinging one to another is the essence of a faithful marriage (and the essence of what real faith means).  Do you doubt that fidelity in marriage to God is the key to real faith?  I offer proof: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4).

The oneness of union with God/Christ is the only hope for glory!  As scripture clearly states, “I am the Lord … and my glory will I not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8).  Yet, “Woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7), and God, being married to His bride/people—even the backsliders—ensures His glory is shared/given to those who are one with Him.  But in a sense, He never gives it to anyone—just as He said; His bride merely walks in it by the phenomena of the two becoming one.  As intimated, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF is so fundamental as to ultimately be the unpardonable sin; the Holy Spirit convicts of sin “Because they do not believe in me [Jesus Christ]” (John 16:9).  To further elaborate, the unpardonable sin is STUBBORN unbelief in Jesus Christ—an unbelief that refuses to relent even in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.  Jesus is all that He claimed to be, and the Holy Spirit is ever dramatically affirming His divinity and role in the salvation process.   Faith saves; unbelief damns.  God damns nobody!  As the unfaithful prophet Jonah learned the hard way, “They that observe lying vanities (looking to falsehood and running away from God) forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8).

I love the way James Smetham characterizes his struggle with THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF: “I think that I can trace every scrap of sorrow in my life to simple unbelief. How could I be anything but quite happy if I believed always that all the past is forgiven, and all the present furnished with power, and all the future bright with hope because of the same abiding facts which do not change with my mood, do not stumble because I totter and stagger at the promise through unbelief, but stand firm and clear with their peaks of pearl cleaving the air of Eternity, and the bases of their hills rooted unfathomably in the Rock of God. Mont Blanc does not become a phantom or a mist because a climber grows dizzy on its side.”

I plead with you all!  THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF is completely unjustified, completely without foundation.  Please, please, please, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).

I Heard Hannah!

Other than the last paragraph and the last verse of scripture quoted, I wrote this article in 2016. Today— (6/9/2019)—I added those extra words. I sensed the entire article (re-written) was pertinent to this hour (prophetic in nature).

The irony that I heard Hannah is that “her lips were moving but her voice was not heard” (1 Samuel 1:13 NIV).  But I definitely heard in my spirit “Hannah” at the end of our church service (5/8/2016).  I knew immediately that it meant a glorious breakthrough was imminent in a similar pattern as the story of Hannah played out—she who birthed the great prophet Samuel.  As it was testified of Samuel—“Not one of his words fell to the ground” (1 Samuel 3:19)—so I testify of what God is birthing now by the resurrecting testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of prophesy: a prophetic anointing so strong as to make not one word of that true testimony fall to the ground.

       

At the near time of the glory departing from Israel a barren woman in great anguish of heart prayed so earnestly that she “poured out her soul before the Lord” until she had nothing left to vocalize.  That of course was Hannah, whose name means “gratuitous gift.”  Peninnah, the other wife of Hannah’s husband Elkanah, whose name means “pearls,” makes for an interesting contrast.  Pearls develop in excruciating pain but in beautiful form and luster when an intruder enters into an oyster’s world and IRRITATES ITS MANTLE.  “Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival [Peninnah] kept provoking her in order to IRRITATE HER.  This went on year after year” (1 Samuel 1:6-7 NIV).  Finally, “In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.  And she made a vow, saying, ‘Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life...and the Lord remembered her.  So, in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.  She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the Lord for him’” (1 Samuel 1:10-11, 19-20 NIV).

The backdrop of Hannah’s time, besides a near, constant and irritating rivalry inside her home, was a blind and impotent religion, government and society.  A famine of the full and true word of God is irritating and provoking many souls to pour themselves out before the Lord until prayer percolates in their hearts and becomes unspeakable to natural ears.  As David—who was anointed by Samuel—said, “I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth while in the presence of the wicked.  So, I remained utterly silent, not even saying anything good.  But my anguish increased; my heart grew hot within me.  While I meditated, the fire burned; THEN I SPOKE WITH MY TONGUE [emphasis mine]” (Psalm 39:1-3 NIV).

Hannah, year after year, watched her antagonist prosper while anguish and barrenness was all she received.  BUT LIKE AS ONE SAMUEL IS GREATER THAN A THOUSAND SAULS AND WORTH THE PROTRACTED WAIT AND PAIN, SO ONE WORD SPOKEN IN SEASON AND UNDER THE ANOINTING IS WORTH MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS SPOKEN OUT OF TURN AND WITHOUT GOD UPHOLDING THEM. 

Not long after Samuel was weened, Hannah fulfilled her vow to the Lord in giving Samuel over fully to the Lord.  Just as Sarah’s womb had to die before the promised child Isaac (meaning “laughter”) could be miraculously born, so Hannah’s womb only came alive from the dead to birth Samuel (meaning “heard of God”) after she died to herself fully by pouring out her soul to emptiness in straitened prayer.  Desperate times require desperate measures, and just as Hannah had to sacrifice her firstborn son in order to have other sons, so we are brought to a sacrificial crisis.  Many are those who quote Revelation 12:11 as “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” without finishing the thought that they also “DID NOT LOVE THEIR LIVES SO MUCH AS TO SHRINK FROM DEATH [emphasis mine]” (NIV).

Spiritual birthing only happens in the dead womb of the natural life sacrificed.  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1 NIV).  Fire only falls on an unblemished and properly prepared sacrifice.  Empowerment is preceded by more than weakness; it is preceded by death! The devil has IRRITATED MANY MANTLES, some to the point of utter failure, but for those who continue to pour themselves out before the Lord to the point of surmounting or overcoming that failure, A Pearl of Great Price will develop inside of them, a pearl with resurrection glow and supernatural luster.

I believe we are the generation that will do exploits, as the book of Daniel prophesied.  But to get to the point where not one word of ours falls to the ground, we must, like Samuel, be FULLY given over to the Lord for divine service.  The gross darkness of our last day requires more power than perhaps even the first church walked in.  The devil has long worn many of us out; he has IRRITATED our MANTLES (our specific calls and anointings); but just as Hannah FINALLY poured out her soul before the Lord (and thereby obtained COMPLETE victory), so we too must exhaust all breath in straitened prayer.  Only when all pretense—all hypocrisy and every facade—is torn down; when we GET REAL with God … only then will we be truly empowered to do exploits in His name.

“After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). 

       

  

The Paradoxical Concept of Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is perhaps one of the most paradoxical concepts effecting the Christian soul.  On one hand, we are unambiguously to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus; on the other hand, we are to love others as ourselves.  In Old Testament Law, no blemished lamb is to be sacrificed; only an unblemished lamb is sacrificed.  Likewise, no soul can be denied before it is first deemed worthy of unblemished sacrifice; denying self is a sacrifice, and only the unblemished/redeemed (washed in the blood of Christ) sacrifice is acceptable.  Only when we get it right, when a healthy version of our soul emerges, do we then sacrifice that soul/self in order to attain something transcendent.

It is clear that we are made for something more than what this lifetime in mortal flesh offers.  Only by denying our full privileges here on earth are we promised full privileges elsewhere.  A true and knowledgeable esteemer of self would forgo its immediate fulfillment while yet mortal and wait to fully orb after their self is transformed and robed in immortality.  Faith and patience of the saint are required and is contrary to the fear and impatience of carnal flesh.  Indeed, “Look at the proud one, his soul [self] is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith [in the true God]” (Habakkuk 4:2).  Faith and patience are required because where God is taking us is well beyond the boundaries of our mortal lifespan and understanding; patience because we are yet within the boundaries of time, and faith because the revelation is larger than our present capacity to grasp it.  Denying self is not an end in itself, nor is God being masochistic requiring it from us.  Just as a parent knows better than a child the perils of eating candy with impunity, so God knows pitfalls we humans cannot yet comprehend.           

As C. S. Lewis so wisely put it, “The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.  We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.  If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised to us in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.”

The Image of God in the Full Expression of Man

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Man is the undifferentiated word used to describe both the male and female expression of mankind.  It takes both the male and female expression to represent the whole of human experience and fully epitomize the human condition.  Just as Jesus Christ represents El Shaddai, the father/mother God, and must be replicated in mankind to save them, so Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster, drawn from both her female imagination and the dead male flesh of the monster, so is the full expression of our human condition outside a salvation experience with Jesus Christ.

Throughout ancient literature and Holy Scripture feminine beauty is that beauty which is derived and defined from a masculine perspective.  This is no commentary about the equality /inequality of the sexes, except to distinguish mankind’s posture from God’s.  We are the bride of Christ, and we need His masculine posture to define our feminine one.  Our eternal beauty is only a reflecting one of His.  He beautifies by His love; we are worthless, unloved, and without our own internal beauty without Him first loving us. This is an unequivocally established principle throughout Scripture and much ancient literature.

I believe George Gordon, aka Lord Byron, in “She Walks in Beauty,” is saying exactly this; the innocent heart at peace within the seat of emotional man is best described as “she” in the “tender light” of “the night” which the “gaudy day denies.”  She walks in beauty which walks in less than the full light of enlightenment, and the feminine posture is the posture of faith—that posture we must all walk in (both male and female)—if we ever expect to arrive at our gender specific and individual destiny (which is only found in context with—and relationship to—God and others).         

The Wicked Land

“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Romans 9:13).

“A prophesy: the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.  ‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.  But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’  ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.’  Edom may say, ‘Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.’  But this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called THE WICKED LAND, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.  You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’” (Malachi 1:1-5 NIV).

Malachi—the consummating book of the Old Testament/Covenant—closes out with this enormous revelation concerning Jacob (loved) and Esau (hated).  But how many understand it?  Too few in my experience.

The doctrine of election, easily derived from the words of Romans 9:10-13— “Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac.  Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’  Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’”—is, I believe, mostly misunderstood.  Sure, God prevails in sovereignty over every person and every will.  He alone is Lord over destinies. 

However, just as Paul used Hagar (Law) and Sarah (the freewoman) as types, so I see types in both Jacob (spirit—Zion/Jerusalem) and Esau (flesh—Edom/the Wicked Land).  Until our full redemption is realized, we walk about in a body of death (flesh—Edom/the Wicked Land).  God hates the works of the flesh!  Likewise, God hates all things birthed by flesh.  Thus, the first Adam is cursed; Esau/Edom is cursed; finally, Amalek is cursed.  Everything derived/birthed from the stock of the first Adam is red, bloody and cursed; ONLY the born-again experience places the soul in the bloodline of blessing.  ONLY the Second Adam (Jesus, and everything derived/birthed from His stock) is blessed!

Now looking at Amalek, Esau’s son, we learn the extent to which God hates Esau (and all that he births). 

Amalek means “a people that licks up” or “exhausts,” and they are a people derived from the stock of Esau (“red-man”; from the cursed bloodline of Adam).  Jacob, the second born, the supplanter, is loved; Esau, the first born, the first of his father’s strength, is hated.  And such it is throughout the divine pattern of revelation.  “It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants” (Romans 9:8 NASB).  It is not Jacob, but Jesus, who supplants our red-blooded and fallen Adamic nature.  Two principles of God’s economy are: (1) “first...the natural, then the spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:46 HCSB), and (2) “The older will serve the younger” (Romans 9:12 NASB).  As the Lord answered Rebekah many years ago in response to her inquiry concerning the turmoil and struggle inside of her, so the Lord answers us today: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated” (Genesis 25:23 NIV).   

“For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other], so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do” (Galatians 5:17 AMPC).  “This is a divine revelation...‘I loved you,’ says the Lord.  ‘But you ask, “How did you love us?”  Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.  I turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the jackals in the desert.  The descendants of Esau may say, “We have been beaten down, but we will rebuild the ruins.”  Yet, this is what the Lord of Armies says: they may rebuild, but I will tear it down.  They will be called “the Wicked Land” and “THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ALWAYS ANGRY [emphasis mine]”’” (Malachi 1:1-5 GW).

THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ALWAYS ANGRY is simply our outer-man (our flesh!).  The Galatians are those that started in the Spirit but ended in the flesh.  To them, the apostle, declared, “If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor” (Galatians 2:18 KJV).  Likewise are those born of Esau, who, like Esau’s son Amalek—though already ruined by God Almighty—redouble their effort to “rebuild the ruins” rather than follow the Holy Spirit all the way out to a complete victory in a city and a home not built with human hands.

“The people with whom the Lord is always angry” and with whom “the Lord will have war with...from generation to generation” are those who defiantly live according to their flesh.  Adam, Esau, and Amalek are linked by sinful nature.  ONCE BORN-AGAIN OF THE SECOND ADAM, TO LAPSE BACK INTO THE FIRST ADAM IS TO “REBUILD THE RUINS” OR LIVE AGAIN IN “THE WICKED LAND.”  So malevolent and unrelenting is the spirit behind “the Wicked Land” of the flesh that it never tires.  Indeed, not until the sun sets on our days in this “Wicked Land” (days lived in our “body of death”) will it cease.  “So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses’ hands were heavy.  Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other.  Thus his hands were steady until the sun set” (Exodus 17:11-12 NASB).  Only true worship—true surrender to the Spirit (and practiced until walking in the Spirit is habitual)—prevails against the strident and incessant Amalekite flesh that never ceases to lick us to exhaustion. 

“Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.  Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; YOU MUST NOT FORGET [emphasis mine]” (Deuteronomy 25:17-19 NASB).  Note the strategy of this cowardly spirit!  It was “stragglers at the rear,” the most “faint and weary” of the children of Israel that were targeted by the enemy.  Therefore “YOU MUST NOT FORGET”—especially after “you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess”—to not only remove all Amalekite influence, but also, all Amalekite remembrance.  Amalek represents—above the many individual works of the flesh—the whole of their corporate strength.  Amalek, therefore, must not only die in reality, but also die in imagination or memory.  It is more often the memory of past sins—and not the sins themselves—which lick us to exhaustion.  The idea that “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24 KJV) is a propositional truth rather than an experiential truth for most of us.  Indeed, most of us often forget (but we MUST NOT FORGET) that we were “purged from [our] old sins” (2 Peter 1:9 KJV).

Regrettably, Israelite and church history are replete with failure.  Nonetheless, our Lord’s victory is indomitable and transferrable; we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS because our victories are inherited rather than bloodily fought for.  At least they become so whenever we learn to rest in our faith rather than strive in our flesh.  The battle is the Lord’s—not ours!  The younger (Jacob) supplants the older (Esau).  First the natural, then the spiritual.  Jacob represents the second Adam (Jesus); Jesus supplants (digs out by the roots the previous tree of unrighteousness [Adam] and plants a tree of righteousness [the Second Adam]—Himself—in its place in the human spirit).  Though THE WICKED LAND still enrobes us, we are not to rebuild on that cursed ground.  Only the redemption of our body—at the consummation of this age (at the final Judgment)—destroys THE WICKED LAND.  Meanwhile, we must mortify the works of the flesh by the Holy Spirit.   

 

Opening the Rock

“He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it ran in the dry places like a river” (Psalm 105:41). 

In the tortuous book of Job, we read of man discovering value deep inside the recesses of the rock of this earth.  Indeed, “Man puts an end to darkness, and to the farthest limit he searches out the rock in gloom and deep shadow” (Job 28:3).  Though he finds copper, gold and sapphires, he does so by hewing rock and damming rivers; “in gloom and deep shadows” he brings earthly treasures to light, but wisdom escapes him (see Job 28:12-22). 

Likewise, we bring treasure to light in pursuit of OPENING THE ROCK, but we too often dam the waters rather than release them; wisdom escapes us!  Oh Lord, have mercy on your blind and foolish servants!  Gloom and deep shadows are not the proper environment in which to seek the treasures of our Rock.

Yes, there is a component of sorrow and deep darkness that often precedes joy and enlightenment; we must through much tribulation and the valley of the shadow of death enter the kingdom of God and the joy of our Lord.  In faith—and therefore in darkness—we study to show ourselves approved unto God, workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth; we hew a shaft through solid Rock in order to mine the gushing and life-giving waters of eternal life.

OPENING THE ROCK is more than opening scripture; many read and study scripture only to wither away for lack of moisture.  The Holy Spirit must lead us and open to us the treasures of the Rock.  And prayer must prime the pump; dry study—without the grease of intercession—burns up the bearings of all penetrating realization.  Study yields little enlightenment without corresponding travail and sensitive communication with our Lord and Savior.   

 

     

The Shadow of Egypt

“‘Woe to the rebellious children,” says the Lord, ‘Who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked My advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in THE SHADOW OF EGYPT!  Therefore, the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation” (Isaiah 30:1-3 NKJV).

A shadow is evidence of an eclipsing substance, but not the substance itself.  In the case of Egypt and the strength of Pharaoh—representing the enthroned ego of man—their substance is inherently unsubstantial (shadowy).  God clearly eclipses all, but many superimpose their rebellious will in the direct Son-light of God’s glory and feign to speak and thunder as only the Most High can.  Rebellious children—who spurn the counsel of God and walk down to Egypt for strength—are those children who talk to strangers and are lured away with the candy of deception.  An inflated and overblown ego (represented by the strength of Pharaoh) and trusting in man and his vain imagination (represented by trusting in the shadow of Egypt) must end in shame (down disfigurement) and humiliation (forced humility).

To be forcibly disfigured by a bowed head is shame and humiliation in perpetuity.  This is not God’s will for His people!  Sure, when sin is discovered and initially repented of, this is the proper posture until forgiveness is secured; but once secured, God is “My glory, and the One who lifts my head” (Psalm 3:3).  Trusting in Pharaoh and Egypt—and the shadows that they cast—are simply trusting in one’s own selfish and phantom mind; to do so automatically down disfigures the head and forces that person to walk in the humiliation of his unbridled carnality.   

Though shadows by nature are unsubstantial and only implies an intervening outline of mass, the glory of God which fills the entire cosmos, unimpeded, would simply be too intense to bear without shadow.  Though the shadow of the Almighty is substantial in itself, and infused with His glory, enough of that glory is hidden to not overwhelm His obedient children.  When it is declared that “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1), it is saying that there is a way to draw near to God—a Consuming Fire—without harm (via the blood of Jesus and the fire-proofing redemption process of Christ).

In summation, let me see if I can really make this simple.  In a nutshell, Egypt represents the ego or self as divine; Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is Egypt in full strength (the maker of all its laws and punishments).  THE SHADOW OF EGYPT means to seek shelter in the shade of intellect, will and imagination.  God is saying here, “Woe to the rebellious children … who devise plans (schemes in their own minds).”  Rather than dwell in the secret place of the Most High, rebellious children use witchcraft (drawing counsel from within their own minds), and thereby trust in the shadow of Egypt rather than the true shadow of the Almighty. 

It is not so much punishments attached to specific disobediences by fiat, but rather the effect of improper causes that must end in shame and humiliation.  In other words, THE SHADOW OF EGYPT is punishment in itself; its shade is deceptive and temporal.