tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42196590331128353482024-03-18T22:05:08.073-07:00Sober Souls"The end of all things is near; therefore, be...sober" (1 Peter 4: 7).Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.comBlogger238125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-82028854652308285742019-09-10T06:32:00.002-07:002019-09-10T06:33:34.606-07:00Leaving Ur of the Chaldeans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“If … the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness!” </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">(Matt. 6:23).</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“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).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is
more meaning in this LEAVING UR OF THE CHALDEANS than most understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is monumental in its scope and
foundational for all subsequent revelation that God enlightens man with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has nothing less than the essence of the
gospel of Jesus Christ in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Breaking
down some of its definitions, we get:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come out of the natural connection to the
supernatural connection; come out of the earthly to the heavenly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is no
less than the gospel according to Abram/Abraham and the pattern of the gospel
according to Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In contrast
to where God is taking us, our family, ethnicity and country reality is
delusional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Assuredly, “That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit” (John 3:6).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">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!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Who among
you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no
light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment” (Isaiah
50:10-11 NIV).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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 <i>it</i> and was glad” (John 8:56).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-60747846356762972122019-09-09T10:53:00.007-07:002019-09-09T10:54:31.108-07:00A Commentary on One Verse (Psalm 68:6)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the
prisoners into prosperity,<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched [dry] land” (Psalm 68:6 NASB).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many years ago I prophesied loudly from the back of the sanctuary
a portion of this verse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I declared
boldly that “Only the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed to crack across the ceiling like
lightning and thunder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to
weep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have prophesied much through the
years, but I can hardly remember a word more powerfully demonstrated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today (9/8/2019) my pastor preached a theme that spoke to
this fragment of verse six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end
of his sermon I quoted this to him and our congregation (also from the back of
the sanctuary).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, I did not
remember where it came from excepting that it was from one of the Psalms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A brother near me looked it up and told me the
verse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This idea that God makes a home for the lonely and leads
prisoners out of privation into prosperity is something I am currently experiencing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also know that my rebellion against some
aspect of God’s leading was the cause of my spiritual dryness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we find ourselves dry—since ONLY the
rebellious dwell there—we must have at least some measure of rebellion in our
hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let us repent and get back to
our first works and whatever else God requires of us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love Charles H. Spurgeon’s take on this verse; he wrote—in
his classic “The Treasury of David”—the following:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“‘<i>God setteth the solitary in families</i>.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was a great joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘<i>He
bringeth out those which are bound with chains.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>The most oppressed in Egypt were chained
and imprisoned, but the divine Emancipator brought them all forth into perfect
liberty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He who did this of old
continues his gracious work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>‘But the rebellious dwell in a dry
land.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>If any find the rule of
Jehovah to be irksome, it is because their rebellious spirits kick against his
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the
most soul-satisfying of sacred ordinances these witless rebels cry, ‘What a
weariness it is!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and, under the most
soul-sustaining ministry, they complain of ‘the foolishness of preaching.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a man has a rebellious heart, he must of
necessity find all around him a dry land.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-11245283779260230412019-08-29T13:58:00.004-07:002019-08-29T13:58:52.744-07:00The Peril of Unbelief at the Brink of Breakthrough<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“...the
people trampled him in the gateway, and he died” (2 Kings 7:20 NIV).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“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).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Now
there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate” (2
Kings 7:3). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">How
provocative is the word of God!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They must
remain outside the city, and if they even approach the gates, the
gatekeepers/watchmen are to cry aloud, “Unclean!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unclean!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Here
we are at the brink of breakthrough, either to disaster or victory, we can
hardly tell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our faith has been battered
nearly to oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where is God?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The
guy who was “trampled...in the gateway, and ... died” was “the officer on whose
arm the king was leaning.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Elisha therefore soundly condemned this arm of flesh, this officer who
dared to doubt the word of God above his natural perception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Utter
unbelief causes utter spiritual blindness, depravity and insanity; these in
turn make meat of donkey heads and bread of boiled children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cannibalistic subsistence on one’s own flesh
and blood is a manifestation of death run its course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The brink of disaster is therefore
also the brink of breakthrough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“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 <i>sold</i> for a shekel, and
two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Lepers
are social outcasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God caused eight
leprous feet to sound like a mighty and advancing army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eight is the number of new beginnings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our Lord is the ultimate outcast, made
leprous and unclean outside the gate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
are commanded to also live outside the gate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, “Jesus … suffered outside the gate in order to
sanctify the people through his own blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach
he endured” (Hebrews 13:12-13). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the near end of this age, we
must “bear the reproach he endured” outside the confines of carnal thinking and
religious mindsets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But
be encouraged!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four lepers—exiles from
society (religious and secular)—with hardly a whit of faith, took down the
mighty Syrian affront.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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)!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows if God will magnify the
sound of your coming to make you sound mighty and unstoppable?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you have no strength?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is your faith weak and near gone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you about to give up the ghost?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why not go down in battle rather than die in
the womb of your destiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The
brink of disaster is also the brink of miracles and victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s way is like Judo, wherein the victor
vanquishes his opponent by redirecting that opponent’s force back onto himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God does this regularly with Satan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-81182629033918703002019-08-27T16:05:00.000-07:002019-08-27T16:08:52.106-07:00The Sacrifices of God<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“THE SACRIFICES OF GOD are a
broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm
51:17).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-23180094938315029592019-08-08T05:13:00.000-07:002019-08-08T05:13:01.947-07:00The Glory of His Grace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“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).</div>
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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]).</div>
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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!”</div>
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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).</div>
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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.</div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-15443227780315135212019-08-01T07:00:00.004-07:002019-08-01T07:16:03.610-07:00Removing the last vestiges of the Amorites<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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).<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But before I convey my thoughts about this
hour in church history, let me first define who THE AMORITES are, and what they
represent. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Firstly, according to Thomas Bromley (his words lightly
edited by me), <o:p></o:p></div>
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“This nation [THE AMORITES] signifies the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SPIRITS OF <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">BITTER FIERCE-TALKING AND JUDGING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">These spirits j</span>udge
this or that, and all from the root of bitterness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They despise forgiving mercifulness, and in
their fierceness, rage against meekness, and the law of love and
tender-heartedness, and gentle soft behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a word, the spirits of envy, enmity, jealousy, and rash judging, are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">AMORITISH </i>spirits, which <i>Joshua,</i> that
is Jesus, comes to cast out.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Secondly, James Strong defines THE AMORITES as “to
say...with great latitude, in the sense of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">publicity,
</i>i.e. prominence; thus a mountaineer.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Alfred Jones agrees with Strong, but with this minor addition: “to
speak, to bring to light.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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THE AMORITES were known to be a strong people that dwelt in
rugged mountainous regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bitter
judgmental attitude of THE AMORITES—as specified by Bromley—is indeed very
specific, because in general, THE AMORITE personified pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Assuredly, “Man, with all his [self] honor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and </i>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).<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The heart of [over-confident] <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">fool</span>s 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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately, “A fool does not delight in
understanding, but only in revealing his own mind” (Proverbs 18:2).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bitter judgmental people are those myopic
souls that are either unwilling or unable to see themselves as they really
are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But realize this, that in
the last days difficult times will come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, looking again at Joshua, chapter 24, we see Joshua
admonishing the elders to serve the Lord exclusively; and during their days,
Israel did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, when they died, Israel
lost their way and began to serve other gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is because of what
was said earlier in Exodus 23:29, that “<span style="font-size: 16.6667px;">I</span> 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 <i>too </i>numerous for you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And such is the case even in this late hour
in history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joshua and the elders are gone;
Jesus and the disciples are gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
church, like Israel, went a-whoring after Jesus was taken up and all the
apostles died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dark/medieval ages
especially accentuated their absence (just as the book of Judges especially
accentuated Joshua and the elders’ absence).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Little by little, just as prophesied, the church has been
restored throughout the years to its pristine condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, much of it is still apostate, but there
is a remnant finding its way to their full inheritance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a remnant
is awake, hot with Holy Ghost fire and poised to do great spiritual exploits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Be careful in this hour not to engage in <i>BITTER
FIERCE-TALKING AND JUDGING, both within the church AND outside it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Our testimony is ruined quickly when we
speak rashly, harshly and judgmentally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I sense—by the Holy Spirit—that this is the emphasis of the hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>STOP speaking against your fellow man and
against church members you disagree with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Try prayer and love instead of fault-finding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dying
world is waiting for this, the manifestation of the sons of God!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-82972096671657906262019-06-27T06:48:00.003-07:002019-06-27T06:49:57.235-07:00The Fringes of His Ways<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“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).</div>
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“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.</div>
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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!</div>
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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.”</div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-82103540377771178302019-06-26T06:32:00.000-07:002019-06-26T06:32:44.687-07:00The Indomitable Child of God<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“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).<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Note this verse in the Amplified: <o:p></o:p></div>
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“For everyone born of God is victorious <i>and</i> overcomes
the world; and this is the victory that has conquered <i>and</i> overcome
the world—our [continuing, persistent] faith [in Jesus the Son of God].” <o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whatsoever is more than people; it includes revivals and other such
moves and miracles birthed by God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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God Himself is indomitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Simply put, nothing God thinks, acts upon, or puts His hand to, fails;
nothing He births, dies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Are spiritual deformities or still-births possible in Christ?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can someone be premature, and therefore undeveloped
in their born-again Spirit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tend to
think not!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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When so few Christians seem to walk in victory, it puzzles
me (even though I find myself too often numbered with them).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can those born of God walk about defeated
and overcome by this world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know of no
answer excepting youthful-like, immature carnality and/or a lack of genuine
conversion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the latter—a lack of
genuine conversion—is perhaps the cause of my perplexment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In America—where I live and therefore understand best—we are
well-fed, indulgent and idle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old adage— “Idleness is the Devil’s
workshop”—is applicable.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Simply put, the gross immorality that marked Sodom is now
the mark of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My only hope is
that those righteous in Christ remain faithful and therefore indomitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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 <b>(</b>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<b>)</b>, then … the Lord
knows how to rescue the godly from trial” (2 Peter 2:7-9).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-53815775901410592452019-06-18T07:20:00.002-07:002019-06-18T07:20:10.901-07:00The Explanation of the Cross<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“For the preaching of the cross … is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).</div>
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“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).</div>
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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).</div>
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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.</div>
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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).</div>
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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.”</div>
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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.”</div>
</div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-37879594495671264622019-06-16T06:33:00.003-07:002019-06-16T06:33:56.047-07:00Forsaking All Others<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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).<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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“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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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“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).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here is an excerpt: <o:p></o:p></div>
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“So I saw in my Dream that the Man [later named Christian]
began to run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eternal Life!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
obstacles—of which his family and friends constituted the fiercest obstacle—had
to be overcome in order to achieve heaven.</div>
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</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Faith, which is the fundamental trait of devotion, is the
glue which makes us one with our Bridegroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Every genuine Christian must FORSAKE ALL OTHERS and keep one’s self only
for Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if faithlessness
occasionally slays you, our precious Bridegroom promises to restore purity of
devotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, God declares, “I will
heal your faithlessness” (Jeremiah 3:22); also, “I will heal their
apostasy <i>and</i> faithlessness [their backslidings]; I will love
them freely” (Hosea 14:4).<o:p></o:p></div>
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From all peoples that ever existed and will exist, God draws
out “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation
and <i>all</i> tribes and peoples and tongues” (Revelation 7:9) to
bear His name in snow-white purity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These constitute the bride of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Doubtless, they are those who FORSOOK ALL OTHERS!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came out as Abram did; they too hated
the natural tie in respect to the heavenly tie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They came out and off of the natural ground or premise of life to the
supernatural ground or premise of everlasting life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-12956239637241092362019-06-11T15:21:00.004-07:002019-06-11T15:22:00.086-07:00That Basic Sin of Unbelief<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).<br />
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<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that quote from Mr.
Austin-Sparks: </div>
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<br /></div>
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“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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Questions,
controversies, anything that is short of simple faith brings us to a
standstill, brings under arrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These two things go together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The deeper the faith the stronger the
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, the greater measure of
life implies the deeper faith … Here … we note that we are reversing Adam’s
evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In … Abraham … God is working
backward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is reversing Adam’s
evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you come to Abraham, you see
in him God’s triumph over THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF (emphasis mine).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even here it means, you see,
the works of the Devil are being destroyed in something more than a merely
figurative way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is reversing the
course of things and undoing Adam’s mischief, correcting things.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And indeed, faith corrects things!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What!?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FIRM BELIEF IN SOMETHING FOR WHICH THERE IS
NO PROOF!!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you kidding me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not faith!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even close!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“In our culture, faith is frowned on as mere imagination—the
hopes and wishes of the common man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Evidence is what matters, we are told—and not just any form of
evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True faith IS substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It IS evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word ‘substance’ in Hebrews 11 is
HYPOSTASIS, and it means ‘confidence’ or ‘assurance.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has the connotation of a foundation or
superstructure, something stable and unmoving on which things can be
built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is substance that gives real
existence.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somewhere in my past I heard faith
defined as “clinging to.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And this is saving faith—effectual faith—because it clings
to Jesus Christ in holy matrimony; and faithfulness in marriage is the
essential tie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clinging one to another
is the essence of a faithful marriage (and the essence of what real faith
means).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you doubt that fidelity in
marriage to God is the key to real faith?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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, <i>even</i> to
him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”
(Romans 7:4). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The oneness of union with God/Christ is the only hope for
glory!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As scripture clearly states, “I
am the Lord … and my glory will I not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As intimated, “Christ in
you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To further elaborate, t<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">he unpardonable sin is STUBBORN unbelief in
Jesus Christ—an unbelief that refuses to relent even in the face of
incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus is all that He claimed to be, and the Holy Spirit is ever
dramatically affirming His divinity and role in the salvation process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith
saves; unbelief damns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God damns
nobody!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I love the way
James Smetham characterizes his struggle with THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF: </span>“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.”<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I plead with you all!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>THAT BASIC SIN OF UNBELIEF is completely unjustified, completely without
foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-39837504652645946772019-06-10T15:48:00.000-07:002019-06-10T15:49:49.676-07:00I Heard Hannah!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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).<br />
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<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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The
irony that I heard Hannah is that “her lips were moving but her voice was not
heard” (1 Samuel 1:13 NIV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I
definitely heard in my spirit “Hannah” at the end of our church service
(5/8/2016).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That of course was Hannah, whose name means
“gratuitous gift.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peninnah, the other
wife of Hannah’s husband Elkanah, whose name means “pearls,” makes for an
interesting contrast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pearls develop in
excruciating pain but in beautiful form and luster when an intruder enters into
an oyster’s world and IRRITATES ITS MANTLE. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s
womb, her rival [Peninnah] kept provoking her in order to IRRITATE HER.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This went on year after year” (1 Samuel 1:6-7
NIV). Finally, “In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to
the Lord, weeping bitterly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I
asked the Lord for him’” (1 Samuel 1:10-11, 19-20 NIV).</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I remained utterly silent, not even
saying anything good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But my anguish
increased; my heart grew hot within me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While I meditated, the fire burned; THEN I SPOKE WITH MY
TONGUE [emphasis mine]” (Psalm 39:1-3 NIV).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hannah, year after year, watched her antagonist prosper
while anguish and barrenness was all she received.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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Not long after Samuel was weened, Hannah fulfilled her vow
to the Lord in giving Samuel over fully to the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many are those who quote Revelation 12:11 as
“<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The</span>y triumphed over him by the
blood of the Lamb and by <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">the </span>word <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">of</span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">the</span>ir testimony” without finishing the thought that they also “DID
NOT LOVE <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">THE</span>IR LIVES SO
MUCH AS TO SHRINK FROM DEATH [emphasis mine]” (NIV).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Spiritual birthing only happens in the dead womb of the
natural life sacrificed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fire only falls on an unblemished and properly prepared sacrifice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I believe we are the generation that will do exploits, as
the book of Daniel prophesied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gross darkness of our last day requires
more power than perhaps even the first church walked in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“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 <i>and</i> establish
you” (1 Peter 5:10). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-57940186111208793542019-06-05T14:32:00.000-07:002019-06-05T14:32:25.458-07:00The Paradoxical Concept of Self-Esteem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
It is clear that we are made for
something more than what this lifetime in mortal flesh offers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only by denying our full privileges here on
earth are we promised full privileges elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith and patience of the saint are required
and is contrary to the fear and impatience of carnal flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Denying self is
not an end in itself, nor is God being masochistic requiring it from us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are far too easily pleased.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-41096870913128944672019-06-04T08:54:00.004-07:002019-06-04T08:55:18.410-07:00The Image of God in the Full Expression of Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“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).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Man is the undifferentiated word
used to describe both the male and female expression of mankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes both the male and female expression
to represent the whole of human experience and fully epitomize the human
condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are the bride of Christ, and
we need His masculine posture to define our feminine one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our eternal beauty is only a reflecting one
of His.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
I believe George Gordon, aka Lord
Byron, in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She Walks in Beauty,”</i> 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.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-74315733491023564632019-06-02T12:35:00.000-07:002019-06-02T12:35:49.904-07:00The Wicked Land<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Romans 9:13).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A prophesy: the word of the Lord to Israel through
Malachi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I have loved you,’ says
the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you ask, ‘How
have you loved us?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘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.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edom may say, ‘Though we have been
crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Malachi—the consummating book of the Old Testament/Covenant—closes
out with this enormous revelation concerning Jacob (loved) and Esau (hated).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But how many understand it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too few in my experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as it is
written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’”—is, I believe, mostly
misunderstood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, God prevails in
sovereignty over every person and every will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He alone is Lord over destinies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until
our full redemption is realized, we walk about in a body of death
(flesh—Edom/the Wicked Land).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God hates
the works of the flesh!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, God
hates all things birthed by flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus,
the first Adam is cursed; Esau/Edom is cursed; finally, Amalek is cursed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>ONLY the Second Adam (Jesus, and everything derived/birthed from His
stock) is blessed!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now looking at Amalek, Esau’s son, we learn the extent to
which God hates Esau (and all that he births).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jacob, the second
born, the supplanter, is loved; Esau, the first born, the first of his father’s
strength, is hated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And such it is
throughout the divine pattern of revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not Jacob, but Jesus, who
supplants our red-blooded and fallen Adamic nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“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 <i>but</i> are
prevented from doing what you desire to do” (Galatians 5:17 AMPC).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This is a divine revelation...‘I loved you,’
says the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘But you ask, “How
did you love us?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s
brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I turned his mountains into a wasteland and
left his inheritance to the jackals in the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The descendants of Esau may say, “We have
been beaten down, but we will rebuild the ruins.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, this is what the Lord of Armies
says: they may rebuild, but I will tear it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will be called “the Wicked Land” and
“THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ALWAYS ANGRY [emphasis mine]”’”
(Malachi 1:1-5 GW).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ALWAYS ANGRY is simply our
outer-man (our flesh!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Galatians
are those that started in the Spirit but ended in the flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To them, the apostle, declared, “If I build
again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor” (Galatians
2:18 KJV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The people with whom the Lord is always angry” and with
whom “the Lord <i>will have</i> war with...from generation to generation”
are those who defiantly live according to their flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adam, Esau, and Amalek are linked by sinful
nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So malevolent and
unrelenting is the spirit behind “the Wicked Land” of the flesh that it never
tires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, not until the sun sets on
our days in this “Wicked Land” (days lived in our “body of death”) will it
cease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So it came about when Moses held
his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek
prevailed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Moses’ hands were
heavy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus his
hands were steady until the sun set” (Exodus 17:11-12 NASB).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note the strategy of this
cowardly spirit!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was “stragglers at
the rear,” the most “faint and weary” of the children of Israel that were
targeted by the enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalek represents—above the
many individual works of the flesh—the whole of their corporate strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalek, therefore, must not only die in
reality, but also die in imagination or memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is more often the memory of past sins—and not the sins
themselves—which lick us to exhaustion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, most of us often forget (but we MUST NOT FORGET) that we were
“purged from [our] old sins” (2 Peter 1:9 KJV).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regrettably, Israelite and church history are replete with
failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless, our Lord’s victory
is indomitable and transferrable; we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS because our
victories are inherited rather than bloodily fought for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least they become so whenever we learn to
rest in our faith rather than strive in our flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The battle is the Lord’s—not ours!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The younger (Jacob) supplants the older
(Esau).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First the natural, then the
spiritual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though
THE WICKED LAND still enrobes us, we are not to rebuild on that cursed
ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only the redemption of our
body—at the consummation of this age (at the final Judgment)—destroys THE
WICKED LAND.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, we must mortify
the works of the flesh by the Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-73980934439759792522019-05-28T09:50:00.002-07:002019-05-28T09:50:32.071-07:00Opening the Rock<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif;">“He
opened the rock, and water gushed out; it ran in the dry places like a river”
(Psalm 105:41).</span><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;">In the
tortuous book of Job, we read of man discovering value deep inside the recesses
of the rock of this earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, “<i>Man</i> puts
an end to darkness, and to the farthest limit he searches out the rock in
gloom and deep shadow” (Job 28:3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;">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!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh Lord, have mercy on your blind and foolish
servants!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gloom and deep shadows are not
the proper environment in which to seek the treasures of our Rock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;">OPENING
THE ROCK is more than opening scripture; many read and study scripture only to
wither away for lack of moisture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Holy Spirit must lead us and open to us the treasures of the Rock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And prayer must prime the pump; dry study—without
the grease of intercession—burns up the bearings of all penetrating realization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Study yields little enlightenment without
corresponding travail and sensitive communication with our Lord and
Savior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-5432957554206115702019-05-19T14:42:00.004-07:002019-05-19T14:44:15.418-07:00The Shadow of Egypt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“‘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!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, the
strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall
be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i>humiliation” (Isaiah 30:1-3
NKJV).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A shadow is evidence of an eclipsing substance, but not the
substance itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of Egypt
and the strength of Pharaoh—representing the enthroned ego of man—their
substance is inherently unsubstantial (shadowy).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be forcibly disfigured by a bowed head is shame and
humiliation in perpetuity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not
God’s will for His people!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In summation, let me see if I can really make this
simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE SHADOW OF EGYPT means to seek shelter in
the shade of intellect, will and imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God is saying here, “Woe to the rebellious children … who devise plans (schemes
in their own minds).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words,
THE SHADOW OF EGYPT is punishment in itself; its shade is deceptive and
temporal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-81594153840586740582018-12-27T05:17:00.000-08:002018-12-27T05:17:00.230-08:00The Treasures of the Hail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 11pt;">Hast thou seen THE TREASURES OF THE HAIL,
which I have reserved against the day of trouble [for the days of battle and
war]? (Job 38:22-23).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">In reference to this verse of scripture,
A. B. Simpson said, “Our trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on
them as great obstacles. It would be a haven of rest and an inspiration of
unspeakable power if each of us would henceforth recognize every difficult
situation as one of God’s chosen ways of proving to us his love and look around
for the signals of his glorious manifestations; then, indeed, would every cloud
become a rainbow, and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of
transfiguration.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I am in sympathy with Simpson’s
interpretation—wherein out of evil God brings forth good—wherein out of the
fallen first Adam God recreates an upright second Adam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process is undoubtedly messy, bloody—yes even
hurtful and inglorious—but oh what a beautiful, glorious and wonderful end the
way of the cross eventually leads us to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Too many I read and hear today accentuate grace beyond even its
superabundant nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They paint a massless
and weightless picture of grace devoid of terribleness, awe and holiness to
such a degree as to depict God’s grace as all moonshine and puppy dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>THE TREASURES OF THE HAIL are only revealed JUDGMENTALLY (thunderously
and violently); the way of the cross is the REAL way of grace however much it
is experienced in a hailstorm of biblical proportions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened
... and there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an
earthquake and a GREAT HAILSTORM” (Revelation 11:19).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Bonnie Gaunt, remarking on this “great
hailstorm,” said, “Water in the symbology of the scriptures always represents
refreshing truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But hailstones are not
refreshing, they are destructive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus
the hailstorm that John saw in vision is showers of ‘hard’ truth that cuts down
through the myths and false teachings of man, and reveals God’s truth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh yes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though God’s outstretched arms of mercy never tire, they do however
occasionally move into other gestures, and here, into a gesture of rebuke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In just a few verses prior, the kingdom of
the world became the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ ... but “the heathen
raged” about it because they hate righteous rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, God, in divine economy of
effort, opened the temple to reveal his Presence, blessing the righteous and
cursing the wicked in the selfsame event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The refreshing and thirst quenching
truth of water made into hard stones of hail is God’s last resort to wicked and
unbelieving hearts; if you will not drink the waters of everlasting life, then
hailstones will rain down on your life in one last ditch effort to expose the
lies you base your life on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A scathing
rebuke of biblical proportions is merciful if it at last brings a soul to the
realization of its need for redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
amidst the pelting pain of the hard truth, mercy is obtainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Redemption is never dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regrettably, however, we read the divine
record that “they [repeatedly blasphemed God and] repented not” (Revelation
16:9, 11, 21).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">But just as some heard an angel speak to
Jesus and others heard it thunder—when God spoke from heaven and said, “I have
already glorified it [your name], and will glorify it again” (John 12:28)—so always
the Lord differentiates between those who have ears to hear and those who
don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doubtless, this great hailstorm
with its accompanying noise, deeply frightened the raging heathen, but merely
awed his adoring people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time
hailstones reached lethal size and weight (in Revelation 16:21)—just after the
colossal tragedy at Armageddon—God was completely vindicated because plague
after plague elicited no remorse from the inhabitants of the earth; “they
[just] did not deplore their wicked deeds <i>or</i> repent [for what
they had done]” (Revelation 16:11).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Though his grace is sufficient, those
who reject it and reject it repeatedly, are eventually insufficient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before that, however, looking back at the
Lord’s gracious work, we see that “Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies”
(Isaiah 28:17).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In context with this verse
about hail and its ability to remove lies down to their roots is God breaking a
covenant of death—an agreement with death—by the scoffing rulers of
Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These rulers made falsehood
or lies their refuge or hiding place; they hid themselves behind a thick wall
of deception (see Isaiah 28:15).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
truth be told, we’re just as guilty!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
Christ—and specifically the way of his cross—pops the delusional bubble man tries
to hide himself in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In light of—and in context
with—this insipid age, God’s use of a hailstorm to “sweep away the refuge of
lies” seems unduly harsh and extremely judgmental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So soft, effeminate, benign and powerless has
the church become that no use of anything sounding even remotely “judgmental”
can be used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YET GOD USES IT REGULARLY! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact—according to Scripture—“In whirlwind
and storm IS HIS WAY” (Nahum 1:3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But,
the ultimate judgment is a judgment in man’s favor—and that judgment is Christ
in all his SUFFERING and glory!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Look at this carefully: “Behold, I am
laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone <i>for</i> the
foundation, firmly placed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He who
believes <i>in it</i> will not be disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will make justice the measuring line and
righteousness the level; then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and
the waters will overflow the secret place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Your covenant with death will be canceled, and your pact with
Sheol will not stand” (Isaiah 28:16-18).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>THIS IS GOOD NEWS HOWEVER HARSH ITS MESSAGE IS HERALDED!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sin is entrenched in the human soul more than
most realize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Undeniably, whirlwind and storm is God’s
way, but those who believe in Christ “WILL NOT BE DISTURBED” by this blustery
way (in any ultimate sense).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True
believers welcome God’s gracious hail of judgment—that penetrating and
cleansing agent that removes the stain of falsehood all the way down into the deepest
and darkest recesses of the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
who walk out the way of the cross are no longer surprised (or even disturbed)
by the depth of their own delusion and depravity, and consequently, God’s
seemingly harsh way of cleansing them is welcomed rather than rebuffed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">God’s way—“In whirlwind and storm”—is
from where God answered BLAMELESS Job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Out of the whirlwind,” God spoke to Job and said, “Who is this that
darkens counsel with words without knowledge?” (Job 38:1).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God did not rebuke Job for what he knew, but
for what he did not know—YET PRESUMED.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Who can discern his errors?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Acquit me of hidden faults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also
keep back your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then
I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression” (Psalm
19:12-13).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presumption is the premise of
transgression, just as faith is the premise of righteousness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">God’s love and regard for blameless Job
was such as to bring Job to even deeper levels of blamelessness; the extent of
Job’s trials exposed delusion and sin all the way down to the point which
caused him to cry out, “I know that my redeemer lives!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he were truly blameless to the pulp, why
did he need a redeemer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Job
represents the extent to which we must be purged, a frightful day awaits any of
us who avoids the cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, Christ
paid the price—and Job paid one too—but what of our portion in this
matter?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least on some level, we must share
in the sufferings of Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">An excellent cap to what I am saying is
said well by F. B Meyer: “A storm is only as the outskirts of His robe, the
symptom of His advent, the environment of His presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-18287539308819622902018-12-15T20:07:00.001-08:002018-12-15T20:08:32.641-08:00The Duck and the Fox<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“Lest…one should be swallowed up
with overmuch sorrow”—2 Corinthians 2:7<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
August 5, 2009: For many days now,
a mother duck has been laying on her eggs just to the left of my front door in
the underbrush beneath some bushes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While I slept, my housemate was out doing his taxi duties into the wee
hours of the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After his shift,
he drove home, parked, and remained in his car listening to the radio as
someone read from the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he
listened, he suddenly noticed a ruckus in the front yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First he discerned the outline of a duck—and only
after looking more intently—did he also see the culprit, a fox!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stepped out of the cab and shewed the
creatures away; the fox ran off and the duck lay there as if dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a few minutes, the duck got up and
slowly waddled off, dazed and confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It took off down the road, around the corner, and eventually—I
imagine—back into one of the many ponds or lakes nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before my housemate went into the house he
checked up on our mother duck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
suspicion was confirmed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The duck
involved in that open yard ruckus was her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There—surrounded by many feathers—was a bunch of white eggs left
unattended; with the mother gone, the potential ducklings were sure to perish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All was lost!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And the irony is, even the fox failed to secure a meal out of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
After my housemate told me this
story, I immediately thought of that scripture verse in the Song of Solomon
that spoke of little foxes spoiling the vine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mentioned this to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
amazed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incredibly, the radio
broadcaster was reading from Song of Solomon and read that EXACT verse EXACTLY when
the incident occurred!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something
transcendent was being said here!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
my housemate went to bed, I continued to meditate and ponder the incident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While thus engaged—and whilst much sorrow
afflicted my heart from another source—I got a cup of coffee and reached for a
book from my library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book I grabbed
was Jesse Penn-Lewis’ “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thy Hidden Ones,” </i>a
book about—you guessed it—the Song of Solomon!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was amazingly illuminating and pertinent to both the aforementioned
incident and the feelings of my heart at the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Here is some of what Penn-Lewis
wrote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“‘Oh my dove that art in the
clefts of the rock…Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet
is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely’—(SOS 2:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“Hitherto she has known him as her
INDWELLING KING, she has had glimpses of the cross, and has agreed to follow
him in the pathway of the cross; but she has not yet fully apprehended her
position as buried with him by baptism into his death, and therefore separated
from herself, and from all the old life and its claims.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“The well-beloved reminds the soul
of her place in the Cleft of the Rock, because he can recognize her as his betrothed
one nowhere else.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“The bride for the first Adam was
taken out of his side during his sleep; made of his own nature and presented to
him by her Creator—a marvelous foreshadowing of the mystery of Christ and his
Church!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“‘Take us the foxes, THE LITTLE
FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINEYARDS…My beloved is mine, and I am his; he
feedeth…among the lilies’—(SOS 2:15-16).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“She hears the well-beloved’s
voice, sees his attitude, and hearkens to his CALL TO ARISE…TO FORGET THE
THINGS THAT ARE BEHIND.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She listens to
his message about the cross, to his call TO TURN HER FACE TOWARD HIM, BUT—SHE
DOES NOT UNDERSTAND!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is
pre-occupied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She evidently has her eyes
upon the vine…its promise of fruit…the keeping of her vineyard…she has been too
much engrossed in active service, and had NEGLECTED HER OWN VINEYARD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now she goes to the other extreme, and is SO
OCCUPIED WITH HER VINEYARD as not to be able to understand her beloved’s call.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“It is not enough for thee to rest
upon thine old experience, and comfort thyself that thy beloved is thine, or
that he is still in thy heart feeding upon the lilies of his own planting
within thee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thou wilt have to learn
that thou must PRESS ON, and walk in his will in sensitive obedience, if thou art
to KNOW the Lord.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Some of the highlighted words and
phrases are mine and some were hers—but by accentuating these particular
truths—we come to realize something wonderful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The name of my housemate in this story about the Duck and the Fox is
Christopher, which in Greek means, “BEARING CHRIST INSIDE.” Penn-Lewis’ use of
the phrase “INDWELLING KING” and the context in which she used it now seems
even more prophetic and pertinent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
used this phrase as an intermediate position between seeing and actualizing,
one wherein the bride knows her Lord—having an internal sense of him—but not as
yet FULLY<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>discerning her exact and
honored placement at his side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
Christopher that shewed the little fox away and symbolically the one still
tending to the vineyard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I slept, overcome
by much sorrow—and having made all my bed in tears—a part of me was attempting
to salvage a shred of hope concerning my vineyard or fruitfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just as Christ upbraided his disciples
for sleeping the sleep of sorrow when vigilant prayer was needed to overcome the
impending hour of testing, so he was telling me to “AWAKE MY BRIDE!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As accentuated earlier, we are “CALLED TO
ARISE…TO FORGET THE THINGS THAT ARE BEHIND,” and to “PRESS ON” to “KNOW” the
Lord.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
After I absorbed Penn-Lewis’ words
and the prophetic revelation derived from them, I recalled a symbolic play
entitled, “The Wild Duck,” by Henrik Ibsen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The core message—“Deprive the average human being of his life-lie, and
you rob him of his happiness”—is a line from the play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mother duck technically survived the fox,
but her future potential—represented by her eggs—was lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt the Lord spoke to me about impending
doom if I didn’t awake and fight the good fight of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To expose my life-lie is to extinguish
present and carnal happiness for the possibility of future and permanent
happiness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“The Wild Duck” opens with the
grandfather shooting and injuring a wild duck; his dog retrieved it at the
bottom of a pond before it drowned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then
a series of revelations about past indiscretions begins to unravel the entire
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is an excerpt from a
summary of that play—written by someone else (so to give credit where credit is
due)—but unfortunately I’ve lost the name and source: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“He [Gregers] meddles in the
affairs of a strange family, producing disastrous results. Figuratively
speaking, he lives in a house whose closets are full of skeletons. Over the
course of the play the many secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently
happy home are revealed to Gregers, who insists on pursuing the absolute truth,
or the ‘Summons of the Ideal.’ This family has achieved a tolerable <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">modus vivendi</span> by ignoring the
skeletons (among the secrets: Gregers’ father impregnated his servant Gina then
married her off to Hjalmar to legitimize the child, and Hjalmar's father has
been disgraced and imprisoned for a crime the elder Werle committed.) and by
permitting each member to live in a dreamworld of his own—the feckless father
believing himself to be a great inventor, the grandfather dwelling on the past
when he was a mighty sportsman, and little Hedvig, the child, centering her
emotional life around an attic where a wounded wild duck leads a crippled
existence in a make-believe forest ... To the idealist all this appears
intolerable. To him as to other admirers of Ibsen it must seem that the whole
family is leading a life ‘based on a lie;’ all sorts of evils are ‘growing in
the dark.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The remedy is obviously to
face facts, to speak frankly, to let in the light. However, in this play the
revelation of the truth is <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">not</span>
a happy event because it rips up the foundation of the Ekdal family. When the
skeletons are brought out of the closet, the whole dreamworld collapses; the
weak husband thinks it is his duty to leave his wife, and the little girl,
after trying to sacrifice her precious duck, shoots herself with the same gun.”
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
This poignant play is best
described by the symbolism that was the wild duck; the duck’s behavior when
first shot by the grandfather captures the essence of the mood and sentiment of
the play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Speaking of the wild duck,
Ibsen wrote: “She did that, she always does that ... wild ducks do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go plunging right to the bottom ... as deep
as they can get ... hold on with their beaks to the weeds and stuff ... all
other mess they find down there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then
they never come up again.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do enough
damage to a wild duck and it will cling to the last vestiges of grief; rattle
it enough and it will leave off all purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The dreamworld of the Ekdal family was an entrenched delusion that
defined them to such a degree that when it was destroyed by the light of
reality, they never recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Likewise—and as illustrated by the mother duck in the fox/duck
incident—I am in danger of merely surviving a tradgedy, not thriving in its
aftermath.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
At the backdrop of this violent
encounter between the duck and the fox (and Penn-Lewis’ and Ibsen’s input) was
myself nearing both a spiritual breakthrough and a material breakdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attempting to reach a prophesied level of
spiritual maturity and financial prosperity and fighting back enormous reservoirs
of sorrow over natural desires unrealized, I found myself swinging alternately
to the lowest depths and the highest heights (normally the very signs of
immaturity), however, my actual position or equilibrium (centered and sure) was
only being temporarily disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is
moving on my behalf, and many strange things are presently happening that I
believe will speak more clearly in due time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I recently resigned from a good paying job during this weakening economy
to reestablish a Real Estate career that I had previously thrown off.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
About five years ago (2004) I
became lovesick over a young woman that did not return my love; this unrequited
love wounded me beyond a measure I could overcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I subsequently pined away, losing all desire
for any success in any endeavor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without
heart, without the mainspring of motivation or ambition, I went along
listlessly for more than a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly,
I often imbibed, got drunk, listened to sappy love songs and bemoaned what
seemed to me to be an irredeemable situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consequently, I stopped working diligently and consistently; I ran up
all my credit cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just couldn’t
motivate myself to do even simple tasks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But eventually God broke through this dark cloud that enveloped my heart
and set me back on the right path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
object of my desire married another—and when I accepted that fact—the spell was
broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even reaped such a wealth of
sentiment and life from the dead that I became a ministry to others that were
also overmuch sorrowful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then it
happened again!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am still in the throes
of it now (2009); another woman has caught my attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without elaboration, this ended the same
way—she married another!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now—(2018)—I am
past these heart wrenching unrequited loves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I now accept the fact that each of these women represented an idol—a
giant in the land of my heart—that God had to confront me about in order to set
me free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was under a spell, a
delusion, a life-lie!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Ibsen said, “Deprive
the average human being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Now that the backdrop has been
painted, here are the recent (2009 timeframe) events and occurrences that tie
in with this initial fox/duck story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have been waiting on God to jumpstart me, my ministry and my vocation; I have
been pleading with Him to jumpstart me because I am still a bit
disheartened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to be motivated,
work hard and obey His voice instantly; in practice, however, it has been
exceedingly difficult to find my lost mojo. To compound the issue, or to
exacerbate my internal angst, the second woman—though married as I
explained—wants to be my friend and coworker.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
She has heard my dreams and seen
the desires of my heart—she has fed off me personally, ministerially and
professionally—and she doesn’t want that to stop; of course, I never wanted it
to stop either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is too dangerous
for me to work and play close to someone I have feelings for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was willing to lay down my life and support
us both in a tremendous joint venture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
cannot understand how she can dream about us together—and she literally felt an
electrical shock when I first said I loved her—and then dismiss me for someone
not walking with God and obviously not right for her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also had the temerity to claim she had
obeyed God by doing certain things, one of which was marrying someone I had
prophetically told her not to (yes, “The gifts and calling of God are
irrevocable” (Romans 11:29) ... so in spite of my wallowing listless condition,
the prophetic office I was called to still functioned).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Because I knew she was mine (in my
delusional mind), I kept myself at a distance, allowing love and God to prevail
(though delusional in reference to her, I still practiced a patience born of
God; I retained some spiritual maturity).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I made sure I did not speak from what I knew could be construed as an
ulterior motive. Apparently she deluded herself by thinking that I only
prophesied at a 90%/10% accuracy rate; this allowed her to rationalize away the
Word of the Lord out of my mouth (and gave her the license to pick and choose
what was accurate or not—not by the timbre of the word or by weighing if it had
a divine origin or not—but by her own 90%/10% artificial construct of
interpretation and deception that she had erected within her own mind for her
own benefit).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly to say, she failed
the test, failed me and failed God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
course, I’m the REAL failure here! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember, these are merely the rantings of a
delusional heart in love with his idol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
And I keep failing along this
line; I keep placing a demand on God for a wife before success in the field
(business), which is not scriptural (but seemingly impossible for me to
surmount its delusional draw).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see
me working hard for us, but not for me; I want to work hard for God in response
to sheer obedience, but I can hardly know what that means (when all motivation
has been cut out of my heart).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nonetheless, she did not choose me—that is a fact—even though there was
always such a transmission of life between us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have consequently been in much prayer and anguish over this; I love
her mightily, more than a brother loves a sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can I work with her day after day and not be
distracted?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can I play with fire and not
be burned?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our God is a Consuming Fire;
is this how He relates to flesh and blood?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is this fiery trial to test me ever going to cease?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
What does all this have to do with
the fox and the duck incident?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allow me
some latitude and an answer—I believe—will emerge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Back to work and reality!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a Real Estate agent, and just days after
the duck and fox incident, I got a listing out of nowhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The address of the listing—if you can believe
it—is 411 <st1:stockticker w:st="on">DUCK</st1:stockticker> HUNTER Ct!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doubtless, this is a prophetic demonstration;
it must be!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fox which chewed on that
roosting duck outside my personal address is thick with meaning and dripping
with irony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am still trying to put my
mind around it—to interpret the incident prophetically and properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is just too coincidental to not have
divine meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are some of my
initial and miscellaneous thoughts about this DUCK HUNTER address: 411 used to
be the directory number, the number you called to find other numbers (a number
that placed all other numbers at its disposal).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Also, 4 is the world/city number (the number of God’s creative works),
and 11 is the number for judgment and disorder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, the sound of a trumpet—signifying a verdict (judgment) is reached—and
is being heard by all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its message is to
converge at the universal address of material completeness to await
sentencing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every number is up!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every number dialed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every residence is summoned to a higher
vision!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natural sight is filled up;
God’s material creation is near the end of its usefulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is now the hour for true
spirituality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A clarion sound is made
throughout the city, and at my very door—a prophetic demonstration was made—a final
battle of great import played out in dramatic fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Being that this is the first
listing under my new company—a company named after my personal name—is telling,
and knowing I am on the verge of either a breakthrough or breakdown, I cannot
allow the little foxes (those two giant idols ... those two women who stole my
heart) to spoil the vine (of my destiny).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A duck, according to an interpretation found online, “denotes a person
of many resources.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must find those
resources now!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A famous painter of the
1600’s was named Jacob Duck; he painted soldiers, taverns and used symbolism to
convey morality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a soldier,
frequented many taverns, and I am now trying to convey morality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jacob, of course, was the supplanter—the
deceiver—who wrestled with God and was renamed Israel, a prince with God, and
the father of the children that eventually entered the Promised Land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I too must wrestle and overcome/be overcome
by God if I am to birth all of my spiritual potential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have decided to forsake the idols of my
heart in order to worship the Lord in singleness of devotion—with or without a
limp!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
On August 5, 2009—the day I wrote
the bulk of this article—David Wilkerson sent me his Daily Devotional entitled
“GO AHEAD <st1:stockticker w:st="on">AND</st1:stockticker> <st1:stockticker w:st="on">CRY</st1:stockticker>!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here
is some of it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“When you hurt the worst, go to
your secret prayer closet and weep out all your bitterness. Jesus wept. Peter
carried with him the hurt of denying the very Son of God and he wept bitterly!
He walked alone on the mountains, weeping in sorrow. Those bitter tears worked
a sweet miracle in him and he came back to shake the kingdom of Satan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago a woman who had endured a
mastectomy wrote a book entitled ‘First You Cry<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.’ How true! Recently I talked with a friend who was just informed he
had terminal cancer. ‘The first thing you do,’ he said, ‘is cry until there are
no more tears left. Then you begin to move closer to Jesus, until you know his
arms are holding you tight.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus never
looks away from a crying heart. He said, ‘A broken heart will I not despise’
(see Psalm 51:17). Not once will the Lord say, ‘Get hold of yourself! Stand up
and take your medicine! Grit your teeth and dry your tears.’ No! Jesus bottles
every tear in his eternal container.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do
you hurt? Then go ahead and cry. And keep on crying until the tears stop
flowing. But let those tears originate only from hurt, not from unbelief or
self-pity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Also on August 5, 2009, Sandi Freed posted an article online entitled
“It's time for a violent turn toward God!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here it some excerpts from it (with an occasional insertion of mine,
numbered):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Freed: “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day
of the Lord is near in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believers, we are in a season which I refer
to as a ‘Valley of Decision’ ... we ... need a violent turn in the right
direction ... we have decisions to make. There is a turning, a releasing of the
old and a new narrow path for us ... We simply have to choose to turn away from
what is old, familiar and hindering us from walking forward in victory ... God
is releasing a sound which we need to heed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>HE WILL TURN OUR SORROW INTO LAUGHTER AND JOY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When studying the ‘multitudes in the valley’
the word ‘multitude’ actually translates as ‘abundance,’ but it is connected to
a noise being made and a rumbling sound. And, even more interesting is that the
Hebrew word ‘multitudes’ is rooted in the words ‘to make an uproar, tumult, cry
out, to disturb, destroy, crush, and (be) troubled and (to vex).’ In other
words, it is not simply a multitude of people in a valley making a decision; it
is also a multitude of sounds being made while making the decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe the enemy has a sound—his sounds
are destructive, non-productive and are in the form of lies and hope deferred.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Insertion #1: </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Deep calling to deep is the sound of the sea
of God corresponding to the sound of the sea in us; His nature as a sonar and
an emission of sound waves in water reaching out to those who have the same
nature, thus the same appetite and desire for communication on the level of
depth and intimacy. His voice is, therefore, always a test; like at Meribah,
which has several meanings, God weighs our hearts in measure of discernment and
obedience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One meaning, “waters of
contradiction” seems the most illuminating; other meanings, “waters of strife”
or “chiding” only speak of different voices with different opinions, but the
essence is this lack of unity or “contradiction.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, the chiding or strife simply
arises out of voicing contradictory viewpoints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God tests us here; His sheep hear His voice—will we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His sheep parses the chatter and identifies
His true voice from so much bleating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like as God tested Gideon’s army, incrementally whittling away those
called but not chosen, so He is ever testing the mettle of His people, skimming
away the dross of unbelief and removing the chaff of self-reliance; this is
done in the caldron of contradicting interpretations, ideologies and theologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can ill afford to be foolish; we must know
the will of the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too many voices
cause confusion and freezes initiative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We must KNOW His voice!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is our
responsibility alone to have ears to hear and eyes to see; a preconditioning
and predisposition toward truth has already been implanted within every human
heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must overcome the noise—the
clamoring elements—that try so desperately to distract us from our singleness
of purpose with God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Freed: “<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">BELIEVERS, IT IS
CROSSING OVER TIME AND WE ARE CHALLENGED TO MOVE FORWARD, BUT THE ENEMY DESIRES
TO OPPOSE US AT EVERY TURN. WE MUST DECIDE TO MAKE A VIOLENT TURN. TURN TOWARD
GOD WITH A VIOLENT WAR CRY AGAINST OUR ENEMY! THE VIOLENT WILL TAKE THE FUTURE
BY FORCE</span> ... Daniel saw the saints of God being worn down by an
antichrist system; however, because of the Blood of Christ, victory was given
to the saints of God! Hallelujah!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Know
that when making decisions in this season, there is an abundance of disturbance
from the enemy. If not careful, we will murmur and complain rather than remain
focused on God's Word. The Hebrew root word for ‘multitudes’ is ‘hamown’ or
‘hamon.’ This is really close to the name ‘Haman,’ the Amalekite, who set out
to destroy Esther and an entire Jewish nation ... <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ESTHER WAS CHALLENGED WITH A DEATH STRUCTURE. SHE COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO
RUN IN FEAR, YET SHE REMAINED STRONG IN HER DECISIONS TO RISK ALL AND TRUST GOD</span>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Insertion#2:</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> Haman means “solitary” or “alone” and the
close tie to the meaning of “multitudes” is very significant; remember, the
nations are but a drop in the bucket to God, and we are no more than a vapor or
a shadow past!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amalekites are those “who
lick up the dust” or “exhaust” the Lord’s people; they represent carnality
(flesh which never ceases to war against our spirits).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though our Lord was tender toward the
multitudes in his days upon the earth, he said they only came for the
perishable food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carnality will
eventually destroy us; at a minimum, it will rob us of our destiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must fast and pray and breakthrough in
this final push towards our new day and the actualization of our destiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Freed: “In Job 1:8-11, 2:3-5, he [Satan] accused Job of apostasy
(falling away from God). He sent many demonic attacks against Job and the Lord
used it as a test. I believe Job may have considered it a valley also. I know
that there are times when I am being falsely accused by the enemy; it feels as
if I am in a deep, deep valley of despair ... <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">NUMEROUS OTHERS THROUGHOUT THE BIBLE HAVE OVERCOME THE ACCUSER WHO ATTEMPTS
TO SEDUCE US INTO RELINQUISHING OUR ASSIGNMENTS</span>. Satan wants us to ‘come
down from the wall.’ He will say things like, ‘Who do you think you are,
building that church? Why do you feel God would ever use someone like you to
preach the Gospel?’ or ‘You're not worthy to be used by God.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How did ... others press through their trials
and persecutions? I believe it was a ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">VIOLENT
TURNING,’</span> a turning in such a way as to ‘focus’ on only what God says
concerning our lives, our families, our finances ... everything! ... I must
turn away from old thoughts, previous patterns of thinking, religious mindsets
as I make a radical, violent turn to Father God, His truth and His
faithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a season that the
violent rise up with radical warfare and take the Kingdom by force. And, our
mindsets concerning the Kingdom principles need to turn in a violent way toward
the truths of Christ Jesus!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">WE CANNOT MAKE RADICAL, VIOLENT TURNS AND
KEEP LOOKING OVER OUR SHOULDERS TO THE PAST. NOR CAN WE ALLOW OUR PAST TO
INFLUENCE OUR FUTURE.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I would love to water down some of the suggestions made by both David
Wilkerson and Sandie Freed or even from the Duck/Fox debacle and Henrik Ibsen’s
play about the Wild Duck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because no
matter how you slice it, to cry until you can cry no more is to leave off
something you deeply love and can hardly let go of; and a violent turning of
the mind and attitude is simply a painful and thoroughgoing repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And our Duck/Fox war is about leaving off the
good for the best—a repentance not of evil per se, but of yesterday (which has
its own pain)—and a Wild Duck which makes mountains out of molehills and flesh
wounds into spiritual brokenness (exacerbating and magnifying pain out of all
proportion to its real magnitude).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such
are the experiences of the average man; remember, “Deprive the average human
being of his life-lie, and you rob him of his happiness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must therefore transcend the average man!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul speaks of Christians not walking as mere
men, and we must find a way to overcome our “life-lie;” mine that always looks
to a woman to give me support and strength to accomplish my purpose before
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The duck survived the fox and the
little girl’s gun, but at an enormous price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Injured and delusional, the wild duck lives on; injured and bereft of
her children, the mother duck also lives on—both ducks suffering enormous and
irredeemable losses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I must remove
myself from the carnage, from the scene of so much incessant and terrible
sorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cannot go on licking my wounds
and bewailing my losses forever; I have had enough of sorrow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God promised me brighter and brighter days
ahead, but I guess I had more life-lies than I initially realized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, I have decided to obey God and
to trust him for those brighter days ahead regardless of what my eyes tell
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Violently I turn to you O’ my God!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Another amazing coincidence!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
yes, on our same christened date: August 5, 2009!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oswald Chambers, in his devotional for this
date, said: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus
Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them
to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ’s life was an
absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. But what seemed failure from
man’s standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God’s, because God’s purpose is
never man’s purpose ... There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also
... The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the
decree of God. God is working out His purposes ... If we are in communion with
God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer
try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it
gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say—‘Now why did God allow this
and that?’ Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. ‘There’s a
divinity that shapes our ends.’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Does the fox have you down and out right in your own front yard in
front of God and everybody?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it
obvious to yourself and others that you are crippled and undone; that your
wings are broken (you cannot fly), purposes undone (so you have left off
sitting on your eggs of future promise realization) and that you are now
waddling down the wrong road (reeling in pain, disoriented and discombobulated)
to find an oasis—any little reprieve from all the harsh realities of this
suffering life—while you await a permanent solution, a pond or natural habitat
to drown yourself in a never-ending pity bath?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, as vivid as our imagination might be in this horrible picture of
doom and gloom, let our reality be clarified by God showing up and setting us free
from our captivities—those vain imaginations (life-lies) that defined us for
too long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When God turns back our
captivity we will be LIKE them that dream (see Psalm 126); dreamers dream of
better and future days and they actually experience them—foretaste them, so to
speak—while yet in delusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But our supposed
delusional state is itself a delusion; when God looks down, has compassion, and
then decides to make our dreams come true—in spite of all the enemies and
naysayers—we will be justified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Christ Jesus, this is exactly what God does!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He promises to wipe away every tear, but only after he vouchsafes them
in a jar and rewards those who sow them with a wonderful harvest of joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, go ahead and cry today; tomorrow we laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today the lion eats the lamb and the fox the
duck, but tomorrow they lie down together in peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-86155431762692089482018-12-11T18:52:00.002-08:002018-12-11T18:52:53.577-08:00Sobs of Sorrows to Tearless Joy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made glad” (Ecclesiastes 7:3).</div>
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On my road to recovery—from a slavish ruling Adamic nature to a soul gently governed by the divine nature of Christ—I have sobbed many tears of sorrow, been corrected much, and chastised often. During the last stages of my spiritual adolescence—when I, like many teenagers in the natural, felt ugly, awkward and hopeless of ever maturing—I wrote a long and rambling piece I entitled, “Overcoming Overmuch Sorrow.” In it, I bemoaned some deep and personal shortcomings, and despaired of ever overcoming them; in reality, it was hardly more than a pity party in writing.</div>
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I ended that article in as positive a note as I could muster at the time. But after a few years, God brought me out to a large, well-lit and joyful place. Consequently, the Lord prompted me to add one additional paragraph to it. I wrote:</div>
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“My hope is no longer deferred! All external circumstantial evidence to the contrary—my physical health has never been worse, I have no wife beside me, and a bleak financial outlook—God has brought me out to a large place, a Promised Land place flowing with milk and honey, a place of great joy. I am walking on water! I am walking on a crystal sea comprised of all the sobbed tears of my painfully extruded myrrh which hollowed out my heart and opened me up to the fullness of Christ within; a myrrh which began to bloom in the flames of sorrow, but which is now fully flowered as a molten sheen of purified glass, a solid and wave-less emotional-state-of-being-pavement upon which I now live out a joy more permanent than the carnal vagaries of sentimental happiness. My golden years look bright, purified to a translucency so clear as to make my reflection clean, sharp, and Christ-like. Now I understand, O’ my precious Lord, why I was afflicted!”</div>
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But before I punctuated my article with this happy ending, I ended the article quoting Oswald Chambers. He said that “God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. But what seemed failure from man’s standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God’s, because God’s purpose is never man’s purpose.”</div>
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This “unmitigated disaster” which Jesus seemed to come to, is of course along the lines of natural thinking. It is only natural that the animal aspect of our being fight to save itself, but God’s purpose is to reconstitute us along a supernatural line. In order to reach that purpose, we must die outwardly whilst daily coming to life inwardly. Until our mortal bodies resurrect and become immortal bodies, we sew SOBS OF SORROW until TEARLESS JOY is realized. “Though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The devolving nature of our bodies is an evil thing left merely to itself; and it involves overmuch sorrow. But the evolving nature of Christ in our hearts is a good thing left merely to God; and it involves overmuch joy.</div>
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But before we entered into his sufferings, he entered into ours. Jesus—“despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3)—nonetheless endured this disfigurement of sin and shame for our sakes in order to reach joy inexpressible and full of glory for everyone “that believeth.” Because Jesus is innately an endless life, it is impossible for his body to decompose. He was therefore the first of many brethren to model immortal flesh. Death is disgraceful and painful beyond natural recovery, but “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).</div>
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It is easy to think we live our best lives now; it is preached incessantly from sacred and secular pulpits alike. But that is delusion. The truth is that paradise and heaven are where joy is inexpressible and perpetually present; in pilgrim attire—as we pass through this evil context known as fallen earth—we rejoice by faith and eat the fruit of joy by supernaturally encountering the deposit of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing a future experience of fullness. Our capacity for everlasting joy therefore increases in direct proportion to the sorrow we experience and carry here on earth. We scale the heights of joy only to the degree we plumb the depths of sorrow. Jesus, a man of sorrows, knew that even transitory crucifixion is “light momentary affliction” compared to eternal joy. “For he himself endured a cross and thought nothing of its shame because of the joy he knew would follow his suffering” (Hebrews 12:2).</div>
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An example of joy emerging from sorrow is seen in Solomon’s wisdom; first he said, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning of it” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). Then, “If a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all; yet let him [seriously] remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. All that comes is vanity (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility)! ... [Also] remove [the lusts that end in] sorrow and vexation from your heart and mind and put away evil from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity [transitory, idle, empty, and devoid of truth]” (Ecclesiastes 11:8, 10). Indeed—“the beginning of it—“youth and the dawn of life are vanity.” Man is irredeemable within his first Adam caste; “sorrow and vexation” of “heart and mind” is all there is to experience there. “For what does a man get from all his labor and from the striving and sorrow of his heart with which he labors under [this present] sun? For all his days his work is painful and sorrowful; even at night his mind does not rest” (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23). Joy—which is “the end of a thing”—must therefore come in the morning of a new day and a new life!</div>
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The greatly multiplied grief and pain of childbirth for woman and the sweat and toil of man to produce food from insipid soil is cursed Adam in a woeful state of irredeemable sorrow. Endless life and joy can only be realized after death (the last enemy) is vanquished. Resurrection is now Adam’s only hope! In support of these thoughts, let us vest in the afterlife rather than this life. In closing, I wish to highlight Henry Ward Beecher’s comments concerning this verse of scripture: “And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulcher” (Matt. 27:61):</div>
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“How strangely stupid is grief. It neither learns nor knows nor wishes to learn or know. When the sorrowing sisters sat over against the door of God’s sepulcher, did they see the two thousand years that have passed triumphing away? Did they see anything but this: ‘Our Christ is gone!’ Your Christ and my Christ came from their loss; myriad mourning hearts have had resurrection in the midst of their grief; and yet the sorrowing watchers looked at the seed-form of this result, and saw nothing. What they regarded as the end of life was the very preparation for coronation; for Christ was silent that He might live again in tenfold power. They saw it not. They mourned, they wept, and went away, and came again, driven by their hearts to the sepulcher. Still it was a sepulcher, unprophetic, voiceless, lusterless. So with us. Every man sits over against the sepulcher in his garden, in the first instance, and says, ‘This woe is irremediable. I see no benefit in it. I will take no comfort in it.’ And yet, right in our deepest and worst mishaps, often, our Christ is lying, waiting for resurrection. Where our death seems to be, there our Savior is. Where the end of hope is, there is the brightest beginning of fruition. Where the darkness is thickest, there the bright beaming light that never is set is about to emerge. When the whole experience is consummated, then we find that a garden is not disfigured by a sepulcher.”</div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-23926937937216517572018-12-09T13:39:00.002-08:002018-12-09T13:39:46.010-08:00Spiritual Sight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Faith is ... the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]” (Hebrews 11:1).</div>
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“The issue of spiritual sight is the recognition of the Lord Jesus”—T. Austin-Sparks.</div>
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Opening the eyes of the blind is a primary and signature feature of Christ’s ministry, but spiritual sight—spiritual understanding—not natural sight, is the ultimate point. Eye-gates are the windows of the soul, and Christ came to either open or shut them, closing some with parables and opening others with explicit words and a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.</div>
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When Moses complained of his lack of ability to speak on God’s behalf, God interestingly said: “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or SEEING or BLIND? Is it not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11). We can only speak about that which we see—and on some level—understand. Also, our understanding is inextricably tied to God’s sovereignty. But God’s sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to develop the proper internal disposition for enlightenment. Moses—being the meekest man upon the face of the earth—preconditioned himself to see and hear God. Unambiguously, God resists the proud, but draws near to the humble. Since Christ knew the hearts of all men, he spoke in parables to those not internally preconditioned to love truth, but “Explained Him” to those that did.</div>
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All of us—at some time or another—have heard the ridiculous and clichéd assertion that “faith is blind;” hardly anything could be further from the truth. Faith, “the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality,” is sight beyond natural perception; spiritual sight—which is the effect of faith—sees clearer and deeper than even the best and most thorough scientific scrutiny. The kingdom of God—which scripture declares does not come with observation—is no less real because of its invisibility to scientific inquiry and carnal perception. Spiritual or supernatural reality cannot be seen or discerned by carnal or natural man. Jesus made it plain: “Unless someone is born again, he cannot SEE the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).</div>
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Ultimately, faith is obedience and spiritual sight, its fruit. Since “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23), then to not be born again and see the kingdom of God is sin. Faith, or obedience, opens the eyes of the blind; unbelief, or disobedience, sews the eyes shut. As George MacDonald observed, “He who does that which he sees, shall understand; he who is set upon understanding rather than doing, shall go on stumbling and mistaking and speaking foolishness.” In other words, faith sees and does according to what sight suggests without perfect enlightenment; as some light is seen and obeyed, more light is given. Many never see anything substantial—thus they rationalize and justify continuing in unbelief—because they are unwilling to obey the initial light of light. Real faith is dynamic, superfluous and of a whole (sight and action are inextricably linked). Real faith never merely sees; it must also do what it sees. Those who invert the process—demanding to see before they obey—never get past the initial light of life and therefore their vision is never incrementally widened and clarified until the entire picture opens up before their eyes.</div>
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I like what T. Austin-Sparks said on this matter: “As we contemplate the state of things in the world today, we are very deeply impressed and oppressed with the prevailing malady of spiritual blindness. It is the root malady of the time. We should not be far wrong if we said that most, if not all, of the troubles from which the world is suffering, are traceable to that root, namely, blindness. The masses are blind; there is no doubt about that. In a day which is supposed to be a day of unequalled enlightenment, the masses are blind. The leaders are blind, blind leaders of the blind. But in a very large measure, the same is true of the Lord's people. Speaking quite generally, Christians are today very blind.”</div>
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The solution, though exceedingly simple, is lost to many souls because they love darkness rather than light. Jesus made it clear that “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Also, Jesus is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). In other words, every soul is given the initial light of life; even before conversion, we have a responsibility to obey what little light we see. Since Jesus did not come to condemn, but to save—and opening the eyes of the blind was his most prevalent sign—people are without excuse in regards to the unbelief they persist in. And ignorant Christians—enlightened but a little—are also unbelieving in many ways short of full redemption.</div>
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For full-fledged unbelievers and carnal believers alike these words ring true: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John 3:19-21). Spiritual sight must be opened along two tracks: As our eyes open to the holiness and beauty of the Lord, they must also open to the reality of our own depravity and ugliness.</div>
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Spiritual sight—like natural sight—is stereoscopic in nature. Each eye sees its own image that is then reconciled in the brain to make one comprehensive and multi-dimensional image. We are to have a deep and penetrating vision, a revelation about two things in fullness. In our first eye, we are to see the depths of the blackness of our own heart, how it is utterly depraved. In our second eye, we are to see that God loves us more than we could ever imagine. These two lines of sight—this dual revelation—forms one coherent, comprehensive and balanced picture of truth. By reconciling our depravity with His mercy we become both humble and secure, dead to ourselves and alive unto God simultaneously. When our eye is truly single (but comprised of these two pictures in harmonious oneness) our whole body becomes full of light, and in that full spectrum of light, we come to see that mercy really does triumph over judgment.</div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-87346904892950687862018-12-04T16:31:00.001-08:002018-12-04T16:34:58.674-08:00The Error of Balaam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style", serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">“Accursed children; forsaking the right
way, they have gone astray, having followed THE WAY of Balaam” (2 Peter
2:14-16).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“They...have abandoned themselves for the sake of
gain [it offers them, following] THE ERROR of Balaam” (Jude 1:11).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“I have a few things against you: you have some
people...who are clinging to THE TEACHING of Balaam” (Revelation 2:13-15).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">In the above three portions of scripture we see
three different aspects of one truth concerning Balaam: THE WAY, THE ERROR and
THE TEACHING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In John 14:6, we see three
different aspects of one truth concerning Jesus: THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE
LIFE. </span><span style="font-family: "bookman old style", serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">This message is about contrasting error (Balaam)
with truth (Jesus), and that contrast is made along these “three different aspects
of one truth” I mentioned above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">First, the way of Balaam vs. the way of Jesus:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">THE WAY of Balaam is the wide way of unbridled
covetousness and its resulting pleasure for a season that ultimately leads to a
narrow way of destruction and unending sorrow in the outer darkness of hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE WAY of Jesus, by contrast, is the narrow
way of the cross and its resulting pain for a season that ultimately leads to
the wide way of eternal life and joy inexpressible in the expansive and
Lamb-lit mansion of heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Second, the error of Balaam vs. the truth of Jesus:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">THE ERROR of Balaam is specifically “turning the
grace of ... God into lasciviousness” (Jude 1:4), and greedily seeking “the
wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:15).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>THE TRUTH of Jesus is specifically about how he personified truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, “The Word [clearly identified as Jesus
incarnate] became flesh” (John 1:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Secondly, “Truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thirdly, Jesus said “The reason I was born
and came into the world is to testify to the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">truth</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone on the side
of <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">truth</span> listens to
me” (John 18:37). And lastly, in no uncertain terms, Jesus says, “I am the way
and the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">truth</span> and the
life” (John 14:6). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Thirdly, the teaching of Balaam vs. the life of
Jesus:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">THE TEACHING of Balaam (whose father is Beor) is
born out of his innate character; his name means “destruction of the people” or
“swallowing up the people.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beor means
“torch” or “lamp” and is from the root word meaning “to consume, burn up, or to
depasture (to denude of pasture by constant grazing).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balaam is therefore the overwrought seer, the
over-penetrating eye, the flash of too much light too quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is enlightenment without purity—a
dangerous mix!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By molding the Christian
after the Moabite image, the teaching of Balaam taught the Pergamum church an
incestuous and idolatrous lesson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
despoil purity of heart with sexual immorality and idolatrous adherence is to
bring the carnal Christian to the throne of God (where judgment begins).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than being salted by a fire (and thus
preserved) the impure are liable to be assaulted by a Consuming Fire (and thus
reduced to ashes).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast, THE LIFE
of Jesus is also the teaching of Jesus; the moniker “Teacher” is therefore
indicative not only of Jesus’ function, but also of his nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ALWAYS
</i>personifies what he teaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
fact that—“In him [Jesus] was life; and the life was the light of men” (John
1:4)—suggests that enlightenment is caused by looking to the Teacher model
truth in all that he says and does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moreover, Jesus’ teaching is never merely academic; it infuses the
hearer of his words and observer of his life with enlightenment: “I [Jesus] am
the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but
shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">In summation, THE ERROR OF BALAAM is essentially
teaching derived from carnality rather than spirituality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Balaam had the gift of spiritual sight, but
not the righteous character to use it properly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whenever we see God (by the gift of spiritual sight)—but not ourselves
in proper relationship to that vision—we misinterpret his teaching and
misrepresent his intent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When flesh remains
enthroned in our hearts, our spiritual sight is less than partial; it is faulty
even in its partiality!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compromise is
making concession to flesh, and making concession to flesh is to teach false
doctrine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as there are false
apostles who show great signs and wonders and yet know not God, so there are false
prophets who see accurately and speak correctly and yet know not God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the gifts and calling of God are
irrevocable, fruit is judged according to merit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And just as only men who KNOW women know
fatherhood, only those who KNOW God bear good fruit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Balaam—associated with Moab—is someone associated
with incest (how the Moabites were created), someone inordinately absorbed with
self; someone who inverts the river of their life (greedily returning it back
into themselves) rather than distributing it outward in blessings to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE ERROR OF BALAAM is about being close to
the river of life, but not in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first mention of Balaam in the Bible finds him “by the river of the land of the
children of his people” (Numbers 22:5).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This first mention is the telling mark of his nature, and it characterizes
him—and all those who never lay hold of life—as unconverted at worst, and
carnal at best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are near life, but
never <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">REALLY</i> in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is THE ERROR OF BALAAM.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-73090333986725821222018-11-29T19:00:00.000-08:002018-11-29T19:00:41.180-08:00Damascus, 444, and the End of the Age<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few years back (around 2005) I
purchased a book entitled “<i>Number in
Scripture,” </i>by E.W. Bullinger. As I
began to read it, and open my mind to the concepts therein, I was particularly
struck by the practice known as Gematria, where the letters in Hebrew or Greek
are assigned corresponding numbers.
Numerology was still foreign to me and it was vaguely classified in my
head as a taboo subject matter. If
Bullinger had not been its author, a respected and sound theologian (to my
perception and recollection anyways), I would not have purchased it.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
But as I began to peruse its
contents and sat back to meditate on what I was reading I heard an audible
voice speak into my spirit: “Damascus!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My perusal had just begun, but now I redoubled my efforts to understand
exactly what God was saying to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
quickly found the place where Bullinger called Damascus the “oldest city in the
world” and that “The number of its name is 444.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I was thinking about these things, I got
up to get a cup of coffee; as I swiveled off my desk chair and directed
myself<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>toward the kitchen, I was struck
by the emblazoned numbers 4:44 staring back at me from a clock on the
wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt that unique “whoosh” of
God’s confirming Presence, like a sudden breeze, but in another realm (hard to
explain it if you never felt it) wash over me: a sudden Holy Ghost moment of clarity
and realization.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
The voice I heard and the
confirmation surrounding the word Damascus was real; as I studied out its
meaning throughout Scripture I came to realize its tremendous significance, and
especially in relationship to the number four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Before we look at the specific
significance of Damascus, however, we need to understand the significance of
the number four (4) and also what a triplicate number like 444 or 666
means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basically, the number four is
about God’s creative works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bullinger said,
“It is the number of things that have a beginning, of things that are made, of
material things, and matter itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is the number of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">material completeness</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence it is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">world number, </i>and especially the ‘city’ number.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bullinger then cited some examples of four in
scripture and experience: 4 great elements (earth, air, fire and water), 4
regions of the earth (north, south, east and west), 4 divisions of the day
(morning, noon, evening and midnight), and 4 seasons of the year (spring,
summer, autumn and winter).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Ed Vallowe, in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Biblical Mathematics,” </i>said, “The world
in which men lived and worked and died, was conveniently symbolized by
FOUR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A number of further divisibility,
FOUR stands for WEAKNESS found in the world and man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In common parlance we speak of “the FOUR
corners of the earth” and “the FOUR points of the compass.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Important is the indirect meaning of trial,
testing, and experience, derived from the fact that the earth is the scene of
man’s testing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>FOUR is the number of
CREATION and mark’s CREATIVE WORKS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is the signature of the world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, R.T.
Naish, in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spiritual Arithmetic,” </i>explained
that the Greek word “therison” means “reap” and has a value of 444; this is
taken from Revelation 14:15 wherein the hour had come for an angel to put in
his sickle and “reap” the harvest of the earth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Turning now to the principle in
Gematria which intensifies the significance of any single digit number
exponentially by placing two more digits of the same number beside the first
one, let us see how this works by looking at how Bullinger treats the number
six (6).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said: “If six is the number
of secular or human perfection, then 66 is a more emphatic expression of the
same fact, and 666 is the concentrated expression of it; 666 is therefore the
trinity of human perfection; the perfection of imperfection; the culmination of
human pride in independence of God and opposition to His Christ.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, four is the number of his created
works, and 44 a more emphatic expression of them; 444 is, therefore, the
culmination, highest, or most concentrated expression of his created works.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
If four is “the signature of the
world,” as Vallowe contends, then Damascus epitomizes that signature
intensified; it is “the concentrated expression” of material completeness, and
more specifically, material completeness as structured by human hands, hands
which build cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Damascus is first
mentioned in Genesis 15:2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is about
to redeem mankind and to create a child of promise, first in type (Isaac) then
in actuality (Jesus); but just before God states this promise and cuts an
irrevocable deal (covenant) with Abram, Abram spills his guts, laments and
says, “O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the
heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” (Genesis 15:2).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eliezer, whose name means “God of help,”
appears to be the inheritor, but God assures Abram that he is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, Ishmael, whom Abram sired later, is
also not the inheritor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abram, by trying
to help God, birthed a “wild ass of a man”—God’s description of Ishmael—and by
doing so, created perpetual contention between Ishmael’s descendants of flesh
and Isaac’s descendants of spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
It is noteworthy that Damascus is
founded and maintained by the descendants of Ishmael, and being the oldest
continuously occupied city in the world speaks to the intractable entrenchment
of flesh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world number is therefore
also the number of presumptuous and unbridled flesh that thinks to help God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eliezer, in the subservient posture of flesh—in
servanthood—is forever associated with his place of birth, Damascus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“God of help,” is closely related to
Damascus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But erroneous is man who
thinks to help God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Tower of Babel
is a prime example of man deigning to help God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In flaming hubris—not in flaming Holy Ghost fire atop their heads like
in the Upper Room—mankind thought to build into the heavens and make a name for
themselves and secure their future by the mere sweat of their brows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How foolish is man—who cannot help himself—yet
thinks to help Almighty God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Damascus of
Syria is like the Tower of Babel in that it represents the industry of man
devoid of spiritual light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before I get
too harsh, let me digress and identify the essential nature of a few things and
peoples.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
First off, the literal meaning of
Damascus—though somewhat uncertain and not well specified—is “the town of Adama
(Lord Ham)” or “silent is the sackcloth weaver” or “dwelling” or “of his
donkey” or “land mask (red).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
“caravan city” has been suggested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately,
I see enough commonality in these descriptions to tie them together and give
some illumination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Damascus is,
indeed, the town of Ham, it is a town of servants; the silent sackcloth weavers
seem to suggest an unwillingness to put on humility and repentance; donkeys
(wild, stubborn and uncontrollable), red (filled with one’s native nature),
masks (perpetually hiding one’s true nature), and land (constitutionally made
up of terra firma), all depict elements of natural man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A caravan city is likened to a tent city and
a tent represents the outer-skin of things; thus an accumulation of tents
compacted together is the scene or town of superficiality and
temporariness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is noteworthy that
other forms of the word Damascus also suggest a kind of superficiality or shallow
ornamentalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Noah Webster
(in his 1828 dictionary) damask is “to form flowers on stuffs; also, to
variegate; to diversify; as, a bank <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">damasked
</i>with flowers; also, “to adorn steel-work with figures.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Webster defined damaskeen as making
incisions, carvings, and adornments into and upon steel and iron works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another form of the word “damask” was about
raised patterns of flowers and other figures on silk stuffs manufactured in
Damascus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inferences to putting on a
pretty face, adding colors to mimic animation, and hiding beneath a bank of
flowers, are all examples of superficiality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Secondly, the nation of Syria (which
means “high” or “elevated”), and Damascus being its capital city, makes the
shallow ornamentalism of man’s flesh the capital idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Servanthood is an honorable profession, but
not in ascendency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arthur C. Custance,
in his book, “Noah’s Three Sons,” posited the idea that God, through Noah’s
sons—Shem, Ham and Japheth—not only repopulated the earth, but met the needs of
mankind on “three fundamental levels—the spiritual [Shem], the physical [Ham],
and the intellectual [Japheth].”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Custance further elaborated that Ham’s “contribution to human
civilization in so far as it has to do with technology [as applied to practical
ends] has been absolutely unsurpassed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The contribution of Japheth has, by contrast, been essentially in the
realm of thought [philosophies and science directed toward intellectual
satisfaction].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contribution of Shem,
in terms both of true and false religious conceptions, has been in the realm of
spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where Japheth has applied his
philosophical genius to the technology genius of Ham, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">science </i>has emerged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where
Japheth has applied his philosophical genius to the insights of Shem, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theology </i>has emerged. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The interaction of these three contributions
is the theme of history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human potential
reaches its climax when all three brothers (in their descendants) jointly make
their common contribution with maximum effectiveness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Thirdly, Ham being about man’s
physicality, his body (or flesh), makes him especially unfit to lead man into
transcendency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though it seems the
hierarchy of man ought to be, in descending order: spirit, soul and body, it is
clear from scripture that Shem (representing spirit) is first, then Ham
(representing body/flesh) second, and lastly, Japheth (representing soul).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, it is clear that spirit is to be
man’s transcendent trait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lord Ham, and
allusions to donkeys (stubborn asses), is very suggestive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ham was the third and youngest son of Noah
and the father of Canaan; Ham dishonored his father Noah by seeing him naked
and not taking proper measures to cover him up. Ham’s inadvertent happenstance—to
come upon Noah in a vulnerable state of nakedness—was not sin; his publishing
the news of Noah’s nakedness—to magnify Noah’s shame and indignity—was a gross
and malevolent sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exposure for the
sake of exposure is always harmful and unredemptive in nature; we are called to
cover a multitude of sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exposure
before the entire congregation is proceeded by the private appeal of one, then
by two or three, and only then, before all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Noah consequently cursed Ham’s own son Canaan and said the Canaanites
would be a servant to servants, serving within the tents of the descendants of
Japheth and Shem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may explain why
Ham is sandwiched between Shem and Japheth in scriptural accounts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Some final thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saul—who later became the apostle Paul—in his
headlong pursuit to serve God in his own way of thinking, breathed out “threats
and murder against the disciples of the Lord” as he pressed to Damascus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But “As he traveled and was nearing
Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him” (Acts 9:3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know the rest of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as a flaming sword and a cherubim guard
the tree of life so as to keep fallen man from eating its fruit and sealing his
fate in that fallen state of existence, so God blocked Saul/Paul from sealing
his fate atop the superficial heights of Damascus realized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ham in ascendency—Damascus realized—is fallen
man in the full powers of his person (666); man fully developed after the image
of the first Adam is—as Bullinger put it—“the perfection of imperfection; the culmination
of human pride in independence of God and opposition to His Christ [antichrist].”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Also of interest, is some more
thoughts on the number four.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Creative
works, which marks four (more specifically the fourth day of creation), did not
include animals and humans; they were created on the fifth and sixth days of creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Material completeness is therefore
completeness devoid of animation or metaphysical properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even “vegetation, plants yielding seed after
their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seed in them, after their kind”
(Genesis 1:11) formed in the third day, was not yet animated or activated; no
rain had fallen and no man was around to cultivate the ground until the sixth
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus animation, the spirit behind
material, is not a part of the number four, and makes four a most illusory or
deceptive number; to be four-sided or cubed is considered a fully dimensional
object in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is deemed by human or
natural perception to be the fullest expression of dimension: all three space
dimensions (length, width, and height) seen in one precise time dimension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the fullness of the natural eye, the
extent of its natural ability to perceive material reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, of primary significance regarding four,
is the idea that on the fourth day of creation God separated the light from the
darkness, and the day from night, and he did so to be “for signs, and for
seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, 444 seems indicative of the end of this
age in its present construction; the kingdom of God on earth must shortly
manifest—at least to the degree of observation. Also, looking again at Naish’s
statement, “that the Greek word ‘therison’ means ‘reap’ and has a value of
444,” and combing that with where he got it from—“taken from Revelation 14:15
wherein the hour had come for an angel to put in his sickle and ‘reap’ the
harvest of the earth”—well, it seems the hour is mightily late!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-33770968971019043852018-11-26T21:01:00.003-08:002018-11-26T21:02:00.029-08:00The Posture of Obedience <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“As the sun was going down, a deep
sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him” (Genesis
15:12).<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“And when I heard the sound of his
words, I fell on my face in a deep sleep with my face to the ground” (Daniel
10:9).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
“When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Just as an enormous shock of light
blinds before it illuminates, so an enormous revelation blinds before it
enlightens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In each of the three verses
stated above, God manifests himself in such power and presence as to deeply
effect those he came to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To Abram, he
came as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch (covenantal affirmation
represented by the presence of the Holy Spirit and fire which is only given to
those who obey God); to Daniel, he came through an intermediary angel (sent to
those inheriting salvation); and to John, he came as the Son in full regalia
(representing those who consummate their salvation in heaven).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, mortal man is too frail to
see or hear such majesty without effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Weakness, deep sleep and/or death-like stupor was the initial effect of
each of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The presence of the
Almighty reflects light so thick as to seem a solid projection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s glory dispels darkness in a flash and
weakens mortality by the weightiness of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
The responses of Abram, Daniel,
and John, were reflexive on the obvious level of their physical reactions, but
on a less obvious level, they responded to God faithfully and obediently from
their hearts long before he fully manifested himself to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THE POSTURE OF OBEDIENCE was the internal
posture of each of them before they reflected that posture externally by laying
their bodies out in prostration, deep sleep, and death-like submission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To lay prostrate before God is to fully
deflate the ego and defer to him and his wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The accompanying death-like sleep is a
reflection of obedience; it is man getting out of his carnal thinking so as to
hear God above the clamoring noise of carnal wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like as Moses was the meekest man on the face
of the earth before God revealed himself to him, so these three humble saints
walked in THE POSTURE OF OBEDIENCE before God revealed himself to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
I can’t be dogmatic on this point,
but it seems to me that the greater the revelation someone receives, the
greater the humility and meekness that someone walked in prior to that
revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moses, as already mentioned,
was the meekest man on the face of the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Was Moses naturally predisposed to meekness, or did he develop meekness
in response to revelation light?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And did
God reveal himself to Moses because of his sovereign will to do so, or did Moses
precondition his heart by obeying the initial light of life and each subsequent
addition of light throughout his lifetime until his capacity grew large enough
to receive a full revelation of God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since
scripture clearly states that Jesus Christ is the light which enlightens every
man who comes into the world, and attaches to every man a responsibility to
obey that light, does the man who disobeys that light overturn the will of
God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course not!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spite of these words addressed to those
who received the light, that they “were born, not of blood nor of the will of
the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God”—John 1:13 (implying sovereignty
only), there still remains a responsibility for every man—by the exercise of
his free will—to receive or obey that light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My point is simply this: everyone is given the initial light of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obey that light, and more light is added (eventually
leading to God and salvation); disobey that light, and what light there was,
gets snuffed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Adding Moses to the likes of
Abram, Daniel and John, is easily justifiable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moses knew and used THE POSTURE OF OBEDIENCE regularly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One example is sufficient to prove his
posture of prostration and utter deference to God Almighty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accused of exalting himself above his fellows
by Korah and a group of dissemblers, “Moses...fell on his face” (Numbers 16:4)
rather than retaliate or defend himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather than lifting himself up to fight for position and honor, Moses,
as was his habit of humility, deferred to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Prostration is THE POSTURE OF OBEDIENCE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4219659033112835348.post-91833298107204249312018-11-18T11:08:00.004-08:002018-11-18T11:12:51.732-08:00Understanding Terrestrial and Celestial Glory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
“There are celestial bodies and
there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and
the glory of the terrestrial is another” (1 Corinthians 15:40 RSV).<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1 Corinthians 15:35-55, Paul explains
how everything has a body: fish, birds, animals, the sun, moon and stars; and
of course, humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also explains how
each body has a glory, some terrestrial (earthly) and others celestial
(heavenly).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he says—implying
resurrection—“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, death can’t be swallowed up
in victory except through the process of death to our physical body, and only
then, does is a spiritual body emerge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But—according to Jesus—passing
from death to life occurs irrespective of the body’s participation: “I assure
you [Jesus speaking] <i>and</i> most solemnly say to you, the person
who hears My word [the one who heeds My message], and believes <i>and</i> trusts
in Him who sent Me, has (possesses now) eternal life [that is, eternal
life actually begins—the believer is transformed], and does not come into
judgment <i>and</i> condemnation, but has
passed [over] from death into life” (John 5:24 AMP).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless—just as the children of Israel
owned the Promised Land but had to dispossess nations in order to possess it—so
we owned eternal life as soon as believed but are still obligated to wait for the
redemption of our body before we fully possess salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, “We Christians, although we have the
Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory...groan to be released
from pain and suffering. We...wait anxiously for that day when God will give us
our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised
us—bodies that will never be sick again and will never die” (Romans 8:23
TLB).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The Law and the ministration of
condemnation had a glory that faded out when Jesus Christ fulfilled that Law
and instituted Grace and the ministration of righteousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, “If that which fades away <i>was</i> with
glory [Moses and Law], much more that which remains <i>is</i> in
glory [Jesus and Grace and Truth]” (2 Corinthians 3:11 NASB).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, our terrestrial body, having its
own despoiled glory, is sown in weakness and dishonor; it decays therefore it
is intrinsically evil in its fallen state (the Hebrew meaning of the word “evil”
is that which “breaks down, that which decays, that which decomposes, or that
which falls down and off from its original design”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shame, which means “down disfigurement,” is
nothing more than the imploded glory of fallen man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Law and the ministration of condemnation
did nothing but confirm the down disfigurement posture of man before the good
news of the gospel came to lift man up from shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is therefore quite a shame to continue in
shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul bemoaned those who glory in
their shame, citing their avoidance of the cross [death to self and the means to
break up their disfigured life] as the reason they cannot break their down
disfigurement posture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul tells us
that our conversation is in heaven, but they, with heads frozen down in shame,
mind earthly things (see Philippians 3:18-20).<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But thou, O Lord, art a
shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head” (Psalm 3:3 KJV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here in this Old Testament verse is the
gospel glory and its effect on the down disfigurement of man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The psalmist calls the Lord his glory;
consequently, God lifts his head up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
shame is erased and his noble/regal posture restored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Christ in you, the hope of glory”
(Colossians 1:27 RSV) is actualized in advance of its full realization; as
already stated, “We have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future
glory” (Romans 8:23).<o:p></o:p></div>
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In summation, our
terrestrial/earthly body has a fading glory called shame; it is better not to
shine in that state of humiliation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
also, our celestial/heavenly body has a permanent glory which will shine bright
and true in due course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime,
as we wait in hope, let us glory in His glory and be a light shining out of
darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our earthen jar is earthly,
weak and for common (not honorable) duty; nonetheless, a bright, beautiful and
honorable treasure resides inside our hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somehow, until our own glory is perfected in its celestial body
expression, we must unleash His glory from out of our hearts and through our
terrestrial body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As scripture says, “We
have this precious treasure [the good news about salvation] in [unworthy]
earthen vessels [of human frailty], so that the grandeur and surpassing
greatness of the power will be [shown to be] from God [His sufficiency] and not
from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:7 AMP).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Someday, Christ in us, our hope of glory, “will transform <i>and</i> fashion
anew the body of our humiliation to conform to and be like the body of His
glory <i>and</i> majesty” (Philippians 3:21 AMPC).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Edward V. Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084709358791764362noreply@blogger.com0