Friday 31 May 2013

Here's a Great Idea : Sand Dams

Introducing the Charity called:
Excellent  - The Pioneers of Sand Dams

Sand Dams bring clean water to a family's doorstep - saving them hours of time and creating the
opportunity to launch new enterprises.

Sand Dams unleash huge potential for families living in drylands. Due to the sheer time and effort taken to fetch water, a community who were previously overburdened by the task are now able to create new industry and enjoy the fruits of their hard work. For the members of the Mumbuka Self-Help Group (SHG), this has revolutionised their way of life.

In fact, since the Mumbuka SHG began in 2006, they have built four Sand Dams. This has changed their lives. Although they drove the project forward themselves, they were supported along the way by Excellent Development and our partner, Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF). We provide materials and fund design costs which are intrinsic to dam building. With the new source of water the dam provides, people can manage their livestock, improve their farms and grow more food. In addition, with the time saved in collecting water, many have also launched new initiatives to raise income.

We are appealing to you today, so we can reach other families who need your support. Only
with your donations can they make new enterprises become reality.

Sand Dams are the most cost-effective method of rainwater harvesting and the Mumbuka SHG prove it is money well spent. With the new water supply, people can now grow vegetables such as tomatoes, kale and spinach and sell the surplus. Not only this, but Mumbuka have also established their own fish pond. Kitavi Matu, a member of the group, said:

"We are very happy to have this fish pond here but this project would not have survived if we didn't have this sand dam in the first place, because fish survive in water... l have eaten the fish and they are very delicious"


Sand Dams have created a wealth of new opportunities for the Mumbuka SHG
 
They began with 1,000 fingerlings (small fish)which have now
 multiplied.
 
 Daniel Mutika, another member of the group, shared Kitavi's excitement for the project:

"The fish are multiplying. We will eat the fish and sell the surplus. "

The fish provide food for families, giving them strength and vital nutrients, especially important for growing children. The surplus also provides a source of income, which allows them to improve their standard of living.



And it doesn't stop there - the group are now planning to establish a goat breeding project too. The goats will provide four times the milk of local goats - further improving nutrition and incomes. Daniel outlined their plans:

"We will build a big shed to allow breeding and multiplying so that the kids can be accommodated. We will cross-breed our local varieties with Toggenburgs during breeding season so that we can improve the local breeds. "

With your help, we can support more groups to launch similar projects. Your actions will
precipitate change. Please make a donation, and we will transform more lives.

It takes a great amount of effort and hard work to achieve what Mumbuka have, but their legacy will continue for generations. As Daniel told me:

"As an old person I will be settled while my grandsons are satisfied with everything ... I am working for them.

Please join us. Just like Daniel, we are committed to supporting many more children and grandchildren. Yours sincerely,




Their  Website
Their Address: Studio 59

The Market Building 195 High Street Brentford TW8 8LB United Kingdom



Telephone

+44 (0)20 8232 9050 Website

excellent.org.uk

Email team@excellent.org.uk
Patrons: Lord Joel Joffe CBE, Sir Edward Clay I Excellent Development Limited is a Registered Charitable Company is Registered in England and Wales No. 4432166 
Registered Charity No. 1094478
Registered Office: 2 Water Court, Water Street, Birmingham, B31 HP I 

Covenant Series P11: The Ark of the Covenant by Daniel Yordy

Acacia wood cross section
Original Article with PDF and Audio

Order the Book Here

11. The Ark of the Covenant
And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around . . . And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you. Exodus 25:10-16
And they shall make a “box” of acacia wood. The Ark of the Covenant IS a wooden box.
We must begin here. Wood is a symbol of human flesh.
acacia nest of tables

At all times and in all ways, this box pictures for us the Lord Jesus Christ. But as we see Him as He is, we are made just like Him. Therefore, in all ways and at all times, this box pictures us in our present state of perfection moving out from God.
The wooden box is Christ as us. In recent writing I have suggested the idea of “God as us.” I am now backpedaling from that thought. Christ is as us; our flesh is His flesh and His flesh is our flesh. We are one flesh with Him.  God is not the box;  Christ is.  God fills the box.
Writing the article “Filled with All Fullness” has changed everything for me. Since writing that, I no longer wake up in the middle of the night feeling “awful.” That is gone. I wake up in the night, now, knowing that God Himself fills me full. More and more, I know nothing else. How do I know this? I know it by faith. I choose to believe absolutely that what God says is true and personal in me. I speak of myself ONLY to set before you that you as well ought to be seeing God Himself in Person filling you in all fullness all the time as well. See Him just as I see Him – by choosing to do so first, and by practicing that seeing second, because He says.
More than that, everything looks different, especially everything God says in the Bible.
I am writing two articles at the same time. In fact, all through this series, I have been following two large metaphors, going back and forth between them. One of those metaphors is the path from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies; the other is the path of the Atonement from Gethsemane to the right hand of the Father.
I arrive at the cross at the same time as I arrive at the Ark of the Covenant. The connection is astonishing!
Everything looks entirely different from what I have ever seen before. Here is the difference. Always before, I had placed myself on the outside looking on. Now I see myself on the inside looking out.
Let's bring in the Word: In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in You.
I did not include this statement of Jesus in my list of “the most important verses in the Bible.” But I see now that it must be placed alongside of Galatians 2:20 as its necessary counterpart. Galatians 2:20 is incomplete, only half of the seeing of our salvation; John 14:20 is the vital second half of our seeing.

 But as we see Him as He is, we are made just like Him. Therefore, in all ways and at all times, this box pictures us in our present state of perfection moving out from God.

Let's make a statement of reality based on John 14:20. I will expand on this statement in my letter on “The Cross.” Put your own name in the blank instead of mine.
I am inside of God, and God is inside of me. There is no God without   Daniel Yordy   inside of  Him; there is no   Daniel Yordy    without God inside of him.
Look at the Ark of the Covenant – remembering that Hebrews 10:19-22 says that we enter boldly into the Holiest of All. That means that we are that Ark. It is a box of Acacia Wood, at this point open to the heavens. We are not yet considering the Mercy Seat. But as a symbol or metaphor, the Ark has a major flaw, a flaw intended by God as part of “The Veil.”
You see, gold is visible; God is not.
Acacia grain in flooring

And so, I always heard the Ark of the Covenant fulfilled in our lives explained in this way: man, covered on the inside with the nature of God and covered on the outside with the nature of God. That way of seeing was good for that time, since it drew us on into God. But as time went on, it became the very thing that kept and still keeps so many out of the Holy of Holies, laboring forever in the Altar of Incense, blocked entirely by the Veil.
It became the block of the Veil because we focused our eyes, then, on the need to make ourselves the “nature” of God, inside and out, visible gold, a desperate and impossible task.
Now, God does send out from Himself the Holy Spirit whose task is to reveal Christ as us inside of us. But that is the ONLY thing God gives us OF Himself. He will never ever give us His “NATURE.” That's not the deal.
The Covenant is not a package of things we get from God. The Covenant is God HIMSELF in Person, filling us full. God sends us nothing; He comes in Person to be Himself our insides and our outsides.
And that is why faith IS the central quality of the Ark of Acacia Wood, the central quality of the human.
Because, you see, God is invisible.
When you looked at the outside of the Ark, all you saw was gold. When you looked on the inside of the Ark, all you saw was gold. Wood was simply not visible. You would not know there was any wood involved, let alone that it was actually a box OF wood, unless you had been told. And that is the “problem” with the metaphor.
God is invisible. When you look on the outside of man, you see man. When you look on the inside of man, you see man. God is invisible. Yet God fills us full with all of Himself, and He flows out from us in Person as mighty rivers of living water. We look like God because we can't look like anything else.
We are the face of God. I am inside of God and God is inside of me AND flowing out from me, touching all; I am the face of God. This reality is absolute and Today.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
So what if I am still “being sanctified,” I am first perfected forever – just as my Father is perfect.
So, looking at this equation between God and the face of God, me, we see that God has no problem being Himself. God is very good at being God; it's what He does best. God knows exactly how to be God in me and how to be God flowing out from me. God's side of the equation is set and certain. All we have to know is that the largest part of who and what we are on the inside and on the outside IS God in Person.
We know that by faith.
The real question before us, then, is this box: an ark of acacia wood.
You may have noticed that Alexander Pope is my favorite poet. Let me bring in a third line from him that rings with truth. “Know then thyself. Presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.” We thought once that this was a statement of “humanism.” I no longer think that. Pope was aiming directly at what has been termed England's second greatest literary work, Paradise Lost, by John Milton, written a generation before him.
Let me bring in a rabbit trail. I always teach from rabbit trails for two reasons: I like rabbit trails, and I am convinced that rabbit trails connect us with truth in surprising ways. I am always amazed years later when I visit with a former student and discover that it was the rabbit trail they remember as the thing that cemented whatever I was teaching into their minds and hearts.
Someone mentioned my comment that Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is among the greatest works of literature; I would place it in the top five, defining literature here as any great creative fictional story in any form that causes us to think deeply on this object God calls His image. That comment immediately set me off once again creating my list of the top ten greatest literary writers in history. The top five are fairly easy, though some would debate the order in which I will list them. Here they are.
Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
Miguel Cervantes – Don Quixote
William Shakespeare (Edward de Vere) – Hamlet/Othello
Homer – The Iliad/The Odyssey
Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice
Everyone of these individuals explores deeply, with much thought, an understanding of who and what the image of God, this box of acacia wood is, how he/she works and operates maneuvering through a dark and fallen world.
The second five are a bit harder to choose, since so many crowd up into the top twenty to thirty. (I have a purpose for my rabbit trail.) Let me have a go at it, though the “order” is not important.
Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings
Sophocles – Oedipus Rex/Antigone
Geoffrey Chaucer – Canterbury Tales
?? – ??

 In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in You.


The problem with the last entry is that many vie for that spot. So in trying to fill it, I pulled Milton's Paradise Lost off my shelf and in a few minutes understood why I would never include it or Dante's Divine Comedy in any list of great creative literature, why I would agree fully with Alexander Pope.
The difference between the nine authors I have listed and Milton/Dante is huge. The nine (and at this point I would likely stick Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in that tenth spot as a study of the image of God) all knowingly wrote fiction with the intent of unveiling the truth. Milton and Dante imagined they were creating a work describing the truth – scanning God – and instead became the two powerful minds behind the realms of Christian fantasy that hold most of our brethren in bondage to nonsense.
The images of Paradise Lost rule the Christian picture of “heaven” and “hell,” and they are darkness.
By studying man, the image of God, the great authors unveiled truth while “pretending” to write fiction. By scanning God, the other two created lies and fiction while “pretending” to write the truth.
Now, it is really easy to read any literature of any kind and see nothing but the folly of man upon the earth, filled with darkness, though the same is true of reading the Bible. At the same time, the pure in heart see God. We can read these same works and see a groping for, a desire to understand the image of God, and thus understand God Himself.
The Bible itself is, primarily, the telling of many human stories. In fact, Jesus said that everything said in the Bible “about” God is only figurative, that the only way we can see God is to look at a Man laying down His life for His friends. The only way we can know God is by story, His story and ours.
We do not create a god in the image and likeness of man, as so many do. We know God by knowing His image and likeness in the earth, first the Man, Christ Jesus, and then by knowing the God who fills us full, though He forever remains unseen.
I have read/watched all in my top ten, except Othello and some of The Canterbury Tales.
I find the same deep longing call inside of me reaching for knowing this One who fills me full when I contemplate these literary works as I do when I read the Annie visions or Hind's Feet on High Places or even the Bible. It is the heart of man God is engaged with, not some outer form. That is not speaking against the Bible; everything I see, I see out from what God says in the Bible concerning Christ our life.
And that brings us to the Ark, to the acacia wood. I want to approach that Ark from the mindset of Alexander Pope's counsel, “Presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.” God can be who He is inside of us and flowing out from us without any help from us other than our firm confidence that He IS. What we desire to know is who and what is this man that God calls His image.
“I have found Me a man after My own heart.”
One of the most important verses in the Old Testament is 1 Samuel 13:14, an incredible verse, almost beyond our limited ability to accept.
The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart . . .
Paul said it this way in Acts 13:22: He (God) gave testimony and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.”
First, God spoke this word through Samuel in 1063 BC. David was neither born nor known. David was born  eight years later in 1055 BC.
To understand the powerful and unbelievable implications of this verse, we must see the Ark of the Covenant.
What is Acacia wood?
If you want to see a picture of an Acacia bowl, go here. Read the short description below the image as well.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-acacia-wood.htm#lbimages.
The variety of Acacia used for the Ark of the Covenant, also known as “Shittim-wood,” is, in fact, a thorn tree. It is called the “tree of life” in Egyptian lore, and Christian lore states that Jesus' crown of thorns was made from that same Acacia. Note that it is also used for medicine and for incense. Interesting, but this is the first I knew this fact. When I talked about the tree of life as a thorn tree, I was simply surmising.
I have not worked with Acacia wood, though I have worked with desert cedar and have some knowledge of Texas Mesquite, both of which are very similar in appearance and quality to the Acacia wood. Had I the extra money, I would have my woodshed filled with all three woods. I suspect now that Acacia wood would be my favorite.
I don't know that there is any other wood more beautiful and more a pleasure to work with than these; I have worked with walnut, which itself is wonderful. However, all three grow only in desert conditions, they are twisted and gnarled in trunk and in branch, and to obtain a large plank from them is rare and expensive.
Here are some more pictures of Acacia wood products: http://www.surlatable.com
Remember that the gold, God Himself, is never actually seen. All that is visible is the beauty of the Acacia wood.
What is Acacia wood? What is a man after God's own heart?
We will know who and what God is only when we know who and what we are.
“He who has seen Me, has seen the Father.” The Man, Christ Jesus, the first One of our kind.
“I have found Me a man after My own heart.” God, who is seen only through His image.
God placed David at the center of the Bible. David and his Psalms fill more pages of Scripture than any other person. A study of David is a study in brokenness, in the shaping of a man's heart. I have a course on my college transcript titled, “The Life of David,” 45 hours of teaching by one of the best Bible teachers I have been privileged to sit under, Ernest Watkins. I have another course on my transcript titled “The Tabernacle of David,” another 45 hours taught by Ethelwyn Davison, another wonderful teacher, a woman of praise and of God.
If I could draw back into myself every word that they said, I would do so with tears. How many times over the years did I cry out to God, “God, please, my mind is finite; I forget so easily. Please, somehow, write these things upon my heart. Make them become me, that I might never lose the reality of You that is in these words.”
Yet here it is not my purpose to give a “study” of the life of David. I could, however, point you to Gene Edward's book, A Tale of Three Kings, a book I have studied deeply, having turned it into a play for my college Creative Writing course. (Gene Edwards uses the human story to unveil, just a bit, this One who fills us full.)
Rather, I am very interested in this thing we and God call “heart.” And I am very interested in the nature and characteristics of those human beings who are in the present moment the elect of God, through whom God is preparing to reveal Himself in the manifestation of the sons of God, and through whom God is preparing to cover and nourish His woman.
To start, I bring in a line from John's vision on Patmos.
These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Revelation 14:4-5
I prefer, here, the King James for the important line: And in their mouth was found no guile . . .
The sin of that other guy, the one long dead and buried, is forever gone. The firstfruits of God simply do not pretend. They are utterly real and thankful for themselves exactly as God made them.
Acacia grows slowly, twisted and gnarled in the windy and dry desert climate. It is a tree of thorns.
If you would like to purchase the fruit of the Acacia tree, you can do so here: Wattle Seed, 5 Oz Unit In the natural, one could call this “the fruit of the tree of life.” (This seed is the Australian version, not the same species of Acacia that grows in the Sinai, a description of that can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_seyal) It has no power in the natural, of course, except that it is highly nutritious.
We are speaking here of symbols and metaphors.
In Augustinian Christianity, there is a great desire to call Jesus, “God the Son,” something God never ever says, primarily to sever the Lord Jesus far, far away from us. By this means, the serpent relegates the core promise of the Covenant, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” into a meaningless oblivion.
Jesus said two things – among many – that do not allow us to join in that darkness.
I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. – Whatever you do unto the least of these My brethren, you ARE doing it to Me.
What is heart?
It is harder to define “heart” from the Bible than it is to define “heaven,” which is nearly impossible.
I suspect that heart is found only at the junction of God and dirt. God is not a man, but Jesus IS. Jesus, the Image of God, the pattern by which we were formed in the beginning, and are being made just like, now, in the end, is a Man. Jesus is the first One of our kind.
Man is God revealed. And God revealed is, primarily, heart.
“I have found Me a man after My own heart.”
These are incredible words, impossible to grasp or to admit. We will never know God until we are comfortable with “blasphemy.” (That is, with what religious man calls “blasphemy,” fleeing in horror from a God who always reveals Himself through weakness.)
 There is only one way by which I can talk about what is this “man after God's own heart,” and that is to draw from story, whether the story of Jesus, David, and Abraham, or the stories of great literature, or my own story. Heart is known only by story; it can be known no other way.
Let me get at this reality more closely. In the Great Books series, four authors only are granted two books each. The largest by far is Thomas Aquinas. His Summa Theologica numbers over 1900 pages in the Great Books, which would likely be more than 5000 pages if it were printed the same as my books. (If I keep writing at my present rate, I might surpass him in twenty more years!)
Now, let me say this about Thomas Aquinas. First, though he quotes Augustine a lot, I find him to be more honest, less offensive and more “likeable” in his search for understanding God than Augustine. Second, Thomas Aquinas clearly had a heart to know God because we discover that in his later years he had an experience with God that we would call the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, after which he had this to say about his Summa Theoligica, “All that I have written is like straw in my mouth.”
Thomas Aquinas based his great “study of God” on this definition of “image.” – “Hence it is according to his intelligence and reason that man is said to be according to the image of God.” Thus it's not hard to see, looking at all that he says about God, about Christ, about salvation, and about us, most of which is considered good “Christian truth,” that Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, is looking AT God from the outside.
You could spend a lifetime studying Summa Theologica – AND the Bible, and never know God.
God is known only in the dealings of the Holy with the heart of a man. Intelligence and reason, though useful and important servants, can never know God. Only heart can know God.
So what are the characteristics of such a man with such a heart, a man or woman who is the Acacia Wood of the Ark of God. (Though I use the male term, I am always speaking of women equally with men.)
There is no guile in the mouths of God's elect, no pretending, no grand-standing, no need to prove one's self “superior” to others.
From their hearts flow a sheer delight and love of all others – as they are real and honest in the light of God.
But also in their hearts is found an abhorrence of pretending and masquerade, of bullying and manipulating others for self-pleasure.
We all stumble and fall flat on our face in the mud, including Jesus – but that's just it, the elect of God know that about themselves. They do not hide. They are simply real and open before one another.
But we're talking about the end; let's go back to the beginning. How is a heart prepared to contain the Living God? Two things: Desire and Battering. The call of the deep and the Hound of heaven.
 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Hebrews 12:6
The lives of God's elect are always filled with both, never one without, fully, the other.
They honor His word; they speak only what He speaks concerning Christ revealed in them; they tremble when God speaks. They are concerned about His heart alone; they speak only for Him.
Like David, they sing His praises in the nighttime when they feel lonely and cut-off. Like David, they turn to Him when everyone else abandons them. Like David, they grasp for God when they are attacked by bullies. Like David, they run straight into the Holy of Holies when they are caught in their sin. Like David, they turn and walk away when someone challenges their place and their honor. They do not defend themselves. And they have done these things for years. In “The Grace that Is to Come,” I included these thoughts:
~~~
I live in a grace I already know. I have seen His grace in my life innumerable times in all the years I have walked with Him. I have seen His grace in the power of the Holy Ghost upon me and upon His people. I have watched Him heal physical bodies and deliver myself and precious friends from the agony of demonic assault. I have known His hand guiding my steps, preparing the way before me, bringing goodness and mercy into my life.
I have known His love in the midst of my bitterness, His strength in the midst of my weakness, His faith welling up in the night watches when all I could feel was loss and emptiness and missed opportunity. I have watched Him deliver me from physical death more times than once.
I know His grace that has never let me get away with anything that was not His purpose for my life, constraining me, blocking my way, keeping me from evil. I have known affliction and sorrow and great grief, and in the midst of all of it – Jesus, in tenderness and in grace. All my life is seized in the grip of His determination; I know His grace.
~~~
The elect of God live with their faces upon the ground before the Presence of the Holy. At the same time they look God in the eye, face to face, heart to heart, shoulder to shoulder. They worship and command, both at the same time, both 100%.
They love one another.
They love one another.
They would find it easier to hurt themselves than to inflict pain on one of these little ones. Yet they speak the judgment of God as the only thing that will set people free. They are clothed in sackcloth. They walk in unending grief; they walk in overflowing joy.
They prove with their bodies the will of God in the earth.
But here I am at the end of the path again. What about the beginning? Where do we find the first evidence of Acacia Wood in the heart of a man or woman?
We find it in the hearts of two 16-year-old boys, John and Andrew, who run away from home because they heard that God is speaking to Israel once again and they CANNOT be anywhere else.
We find it in the heart of a hero, bold and ambitious (Odysseus), who contends with “the gods” until they win and the deepest of thankfulness and humility now rests in the core of his being. Though he still exhibits strength, he no longer trusts in it.
The elect of God simply do not fit into this world. They try, occasionally, and there may be periods in their lives where they “appear” to be making a go of it in the world, but it never works. They never fit. They always look around themselves and see others filling their minds and hearts with emptiness and they just don't understand how they can do that.
The elect of God awake in the middle of the night, all through their lives, seized by a great horror, that God is doing something in the earth, and they have not yet found it.
They know the limiting hand of God all through their journey.
They must know Him; they must. No other option is available to them. Yet He batters their way with difficulty.
We find the Acacia Wood in the heart of a little girl, Much-Afraid, who cannot rest until she knows her Beloved, though she walks long with Suffering and with Sorrow.
We find the Acacia Wood in an old man, John, who thrusts out his hands to us and says, “Do you see these hands, here, these rough and hoary hands. These hands have touched God.” We find it in another old man, Andrew, preaching for three days from the cross while many, many who hear him rush into the kingdom.
Why? Why is the Ark that contains the fullness of Almighty God made of Acacia Wood?
God has many, many who know great power, anointing, and authority from God. They move in mighty ministry with certainty. I'm sure you've known such people. They always begin their introduction by presenting to all the great calling God has placed upon their lives. They describe moments of visitation, divine revelation, powerful heavenly visions. They speak with strength and authority. They say, “Follow me,” in one form or another.
Why does God not give these capable people the revelation of Jesus Christ? These ones whom you never witness crying. You never seem them weak and tired and afraid.
Let me quote, here, a chapter from Gene Edward's A Tale of Three Kings – concerning David as he fled from Saul.
~~~
Caves are not the ideal place for morale building. There is a certain sameness to them all, no matter how many you have lived in. Dark. Wet. Cold. Stale. A cave becomes even worse when you are its sole inhabitant. . . and in the distance you can hear the dogs baying.
But sometimes, when the dogs and hunters were not near, the prey sang. He started low, then lifted up his voice and sang the song the little lamb had taught him. The cavern walls echoed each note just as the mountains once had done. The music rolled down into deep cavern darkness that soon became an echoing choir singing back to him.
He had less now than he had when he was a shepherd, for now he had no lyre, no sun, not even the company of sheep. The memories of the court had faded. David's greatest ambition now reached no higher than a shepherd's staff. Everything was being crushed out of him.
He sang a great deal.
And matched each note with a tear.
How strange, is it not, what suffering begets?
There in those caves, drowned in the sorrow of his song, and in the song of his sorrow, David very simply became the greatest hymn writer, and the greatest comforter of broken hearts this world shall ever know.
~~~
David cried, a lot.
In my letter on the cross, I will explain more fully why we NEVER see the chastisement of God as something “bringing us to the end of ourselves,” as if we are “bad,” and “bad” me must die. That thought is the core and center of darkest rebellion.
God fills our hearts with Desire and then Batters those same hearts all the days of our lives for one purpose.
That we might KNOW Him.
You see, He is the One who weeps; He is the One who is silent when He is mocked; He is the One who walks away when everything He ever did is challenged and ruined and lost. He is the One who never fights back. He is the One who lays down His life for His enemies. He is the One who carries inside Himself even those who are spitting on Him – all the way into life. He is the One who stumbles and falls under the weight of a cross He cannot carry, a cross He must ask another to carry for Him.
Very simply. How can God reveal Himself through us unless we are just like Him?
I am convinced that we will never call the Battering of the Holy we have known all our lives, “Chastisement.” We will call it “Glory.”
There are two elements that go perfectly together in all ways –  gold and acacia wood.
God will never be seen, never be known, except through the hearts of those who KNOW Him.
I have found Me a man after My own heart.
If you WANT TO BE this man or woman, then your Desire is sufficient. Let God make you just like Himself – The Ark of the Covenant. Let Him teach you to cry.

Thursday 30 May 2013

Covenant Series P10: Cast Out the Bondwoman by Daniel Yordy

The PDF and Audio can be downloaded here 
The whole book can be ordered here

10. Cast out the Bondwoman
I go out on a limb and saw it off in this letter. Please grant me the kindness to impute Christ to me as you read.  Understand that I speak only out of His love and kindness for each individual person on this planet. Please weigh these things carefully in your own spirit before God with an open Bible and a heart filled with the desire to know the living God in all fullness.
Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Galatians 3:15-18
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:26-29
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children Than she who has a husband.”
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Galatians 4:21-31
Again, I find myself including much Scripture in this exploration of the Covenant. Yet the truths in these verses have been obliterated from the Church of Jesus Christ in our day. More than that, few things we could teach will be more likely to get us into trouble than the truths Paul establishes here at the heart of the Covenant.
He begins by stating the irrevocable law of God and men that a Covenant, once established, cannot be added to or taken from. Not one word from Exodus Chapter 1 to Malachi Chapter 4 is capable of altering any element in the Covenant God made with Abraham.
That Covenant God made with Abraham is the New Covenant. It is not a Covenant God made with any of Abraham's natural seed apart from Christ. It is a Covenant made only with Abraham and Christ, period.
More than that, the moment I was baptized into Christ, I “put on” Christ. That word is Absolute and Today. When you look at me, all you can see is Christ. There is nothing else to see. That baptism was a baptism into death, thus there is no Jew and no Gentile in Christ. They do not exist. More than that, because of my faith in Christ, I am Abraham's seed, singular, and heir.
The entire covenant God made with Israel on Mt. Sinai, and all of His dealings with that natural people from the Exodus to John the Baptist, all of it is symbolized in Scripture by Hagar, the bondwoman. In complete contrast, the New Covenant that began in Genesis Chapter 15 is symbolized in Scripture by Sarah, the free woman, and all who put their faith in Jesus, regardless of whether they were once Jews or once Gentiles, are in that free woman.
God has no plan for the natural Jew outside of Christ. There is no salvation outside of Christ. There is no relationship with the Father outside of Christ.  The moment any individual, Jew or Gentile, enters into Christ, they put on Christ, they become a new creation. The old “Jew” and the old “Gentile” are gone forever. Now, there is only one new man in Christ.
Every so-called Jew from the resurrection until today who rejected Christ continues in open violation of the covenant given through Moses. Moses gave as the center piece of that old covenant the requirement to hear Christ, and that all who do not hear Christ are cut off from the covenant and from Israel. (Deuteronomy 18)
I repudiate completely the idea that the natural Jew is in line to inherit anything from God out of the Old Testament simply because he is a natural Jew. The New Testament is utterly clear on that issue. Those who say that the natural Jew is still in line for the promises of the Old Testament because of his natural descent are doing two things. First, they are repudiating the gospel of Paul here in Galatians that says that all of the promises of God belong to Christ and to those who enter into Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, and second, they are displaying extreme hatred against the natural Jew. The only promise that the old covenant gives the natural Jew is death. That’s the only promise it gives anyone. Every individual person, Jew or Gentile, who places himself under the Old Testament, is condemned to death by God without hope.
God PROMISED the natural Jew in the Old Testament that if they rejected the One whom He would send, they would not only be cut off from the Covenant He had made with them, but that God Himself would make them into a curse and a reproach throughout the whole earth.
THAT IS the Promise of God in the Old Testament to the Natural JEWS outside of Jesus!
There is nothing from God for anyone outside of Jesus. NOTHING!
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us . . . was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes. For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 2 Corinthians 2:19-22
That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:14
Every “good” promise from the Old Testament comes only through Jesus. And Paul sums up that promise as one thing – the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He calls that fulfillment a “guarantee,” yes, a guarantee of all of God in all fullness, the Father in Person, inside of us who are the flesh of Christ, revealed for all to see.
These truths are incontestable and absolute. There is no “other truth.” Now, I go much more into these things in my article, “God's Promise to the Natural Jew,” an article that will likely fit next into a book on the Covenant. I recommend that you read it.  I have a different purpose for this letter, however.
Paul says here that the present city of Jerusalem is a city of bondage. John called it “Sodom.”
Two mighty falsehoods have ripped this truth right out of Christendom, even though our forefathers understood these things perfectly. One is the creation of what men call “Israel”; the other is the holocaust, the great wound of the Beast.
I contend that this is the beast that has crawled up from the abyss. By saying that, I do not mean the individual people involved, I mean the worldly structure ruled over by spirits of darkness.
More than that, Jesus is Savior, and He does all things well. Every single person on this planet is utterly in His hand, and He is guiding all things to a glorious purpose. While I speak of present-day “beliefs” that are of the spirit of anti-Christ with strength, yet I receive each one in the same way that Jesus receives me. They are beloved of the Lord and of me. He will win every heart, and sometimes, He may even use me as a little part of that.
I would not bring hurt or see hurt come to any individual person. Yet the truth is a sword that cuts everyone wide open. God wounds and He heals. An unhealed wound filled with puss cannot heal unless it is cut open and the pus allowed to drain away. (I am speaking spiritually – do not alter my words to make it seem as if I am speaking of carnal warfare – this, not to my readers, but to those who do alter our words.)
The darkness hates the light. Natural man on this earth simply does not tolerate God showing up in the flesh. Yet it is the Word made flesh that is the center of the Covenant.
Paul's words here in Galatians are the Covenant; thus we must include them in this series. The inheritance is central to the Covenant – and that inheritance is openly contested right now today. This is God's doing and central to His purpose.
For this letter, I want to use a paper sent to me by a friend asking for my response. The paper is from an outfit in Redmond, Washington called Media Spotlight: A Biblical Analysis of Religious & Secular Media. Now, this is not something I do often. I am not here to “set anyone straight.” Neither do I want to twist their words to prove some point of my own. I suspect that were I to meet the brethren who wrote this, we could easily find common ground in the Lord Jesus, and I suspect that they love Him as I do. Nothing that I say should be construed as saying anything “condemning” against the writers of this piece. I speak against spiritual strongholds that rule in the imagination of the mind in this darkened world.
We are all deceived; we are all seeing reality bit by  bit for the first time.
Nevertheless, I choose to use this piece because these issues must and will come to the forefront as God proves the Covenant in our lives upon this earth. There is nothing else that could happen.
The article starts with the question, “Are we living at the end of days?” I agree that we are at the turning of the ages and that the days of human folly are finished. Then:
“One of the revelations given to the apostle John and recorded in the Book of Revelation is that of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars (Rev. 12:1-6). The woman was about to give birth and Satan stood ready to devour her child as soon as it was born. This was a prophetic vision of Israel as a nation in the last days. The sun represents Jacob (called “Israel by God) . . .” and so on.
In the past Christians have claimed that the manchild is Jesus only. Now that symbol seems to have been transferred to the modern nation of  Israel and not to that heavenly woman who, Paul says, is the mother of us all.
Now, it is not possible to present a different view of things point by point. We will do that in part, but the problem is that the underlying assumptions are HUGE! It is not the point-by-point that must be addressed, but those underlying issues.
I would like to build to the most important underlying assumption behind the argument in this paper, but alas, it is the whole assumption. Thus I have to present it here first; then I will build towards it again at the end.
The underlying assumption beneath this paper and  beneath most Christian view in the present world has three parts. The first part is that we are “saved” by Jesus' sacrifice two thousand years ago, with no view of being saved by His life inside of us now.  The second part is the complete giving up on God, that He just does not do what He says in the New Testament concerning the believer in Jesus Christ – thus everything is relegated to some future experience in a place called “heaven” to be known only after we either die or are raptured.
Then, because the “Christian” fulfillment is in “heaven only,” everything God says about this earth must mean the natural Jew and the nation of Israel. Christ AND the Jews, not Christ in us.
The final statement of the paper is this: “Mortal men will never rule over God's kingdom.”
Here is what God says: “That the life of Jesus might be revealed in our mortal flesh.”
You see, man simply does not understand the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is no relation to the kingdoms of Satan in this world. There is no part of “rule over” inside God's kingdom. The Kingdom of God is God being Himself through us, the One who lays down His life, who becomes His enemies, who carries even those who hate Him all the way into life. The kingdom of God is lifting up not “ruling over.”
The Jews did not reject Jesus nor did they work on the Romans to kill Him because He was the Messiah. They murdered Him BECAUSE He was a man just like them. They hated Him because He, walking in MORTAL FLESH, had the audacity to claim that He and the Father were One.
And it wasn't even Jesus in particular that they hated. They hated God showing up in mortal flesh. NOTHING gets people's hatred inflamed like God appearing in human flesh. They killed the flesh of God because they could.
It's God humans can't stand. It's God Christians can't stand. The idea of God far away up there is acceptable to most everyone. But God walking on this earth in human flesh is not tolerated. He must be murdered forthwith! And if we cannot murder Him, then He must be called a heretic and shunned by all.
There's only one problem, of course. God showing up on this earth IN human flesh just can't help doing kind things for others. And there are so many who are weary and heavy laden who gladly respond to His real and joy-filled kindness. And that very popular response to God's kindness threatens the entire “rule over” of those who define God and His kingdom with Satan's self-definition.
“Rule over”? Where on earth does that come from? We know exactly what God does when He shows up on this earth in human flesh. Where is there ANY “rule over”? They killed Him because His kindness threatened their false “rule over.” And all of His ire was directed, not at the sinners, but at those who miss-defined the Kingdom of God as “rule over.”
The Jews, that is, the descendants of Jacob, have not returned to the land of Israel, nor have they re-established the nation of Israel.
Twelve hundred years ago, the ruling elite of a Turko-Mongolic tribe called the Khazars, who ruled over a country stretching across all the plains of southern Russia, straight north of Jerusalem, converted to Judaism. They became “Jews.” Eight hundred years ago, the Mongols under Subodai conquered all the way to the gates of Vienna. For two hundred years the western world knew almost nothing about Russia. When the Russians finally reasserted themselves in the late 1400's, the largest “Jewish” population on earth was now found living in southern Russia.
Look at any Sephardi Jew. They are of eastern Mediterranean stock, Semitic in appearance, just like the peoples of the Middle East. Look at any Ashkenazi Jew, Khazars, they are clearly of north Asiatic stock, Japhetic, just like the “Scythians” from the plains of Russia. Human DNA tells the same story.
Ninety percent of the people in today's world who call themselves “Jews” are Khazars. They are not descended from Jacob; they have no relation with the God of Israel – unless, of course, they receive the salvation of Christ offered to all mankind without prejudice.
I suspect that the majority of those who are actually descended from Jacob are either Muslim or Christian and do not even know they are descended from Jacob. I suspect that there is almost no “purity of blood” anywhere on this planet. ALL of creation, including ALL of natural humanity died upon the cross. All. God doesn't give two figs about “racial purity.” Yet He does plan to honor Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by bringing in a remnant of their actual seed. And I suspect that most of those who are primarily descended from Jacob speak Arabic today.
Yet the Khazars who believe themselves to be “Jews” are obsessed, not with the Old Testament, per se, but with their identity as “Jews.” That identity comes out of two things. It comes first out of an endless rehashing of the Talmud, that is, the doctrine of the Pharisees written down in Babylon – the exaltation of innumerable “laws” ruling over every aspect of the human. And it comes second out of a story that those who are “Jews” tell themselves and their children over and over.
The first identity is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil taken to the most extreme form of pretending the human is capable of. To understand what I mean, to really grasp the human element of this identity, I would recommend that you read three books, all by Chaim Potok: The Chosen, The Promise, and My Name Is Asher Lev. Truth and reality are understood best by story, not by explanations such as this.
Let me insert again this absolute. Each individual person is precious beyond measure and beloved by both Jesus and us. Each individual person is unique and special and does not answer to any stereotype of a “group.” In reading books such as Chaim Potok's, we read to understand and to love with all the compassion of God. It is spiritual strongholds that operate in the imagination of people's minds, strongholds that hold these dear precious ones under a horrific bondage that we seek to break that they might walk free of all that, free to be themselves inside the tender love of God.
The greatest curse sitting upon both Khazar's and real Jews is their identity, their belief that they are “Jews.” Jesus would set them free of that identity. He does that by the cross. There are no Jews in Christ, no need to pretend any other identity.
The second part of that identity is the story that those who believe they are Jews, whether real or not, tell themselves and their children all the time. I give it here in my own words; yet I have heard these things expressed endlessly in Jewish homes and synagogues. As we drove away from the synagogue, I was compelled in my spirit to share with my children that the story they heard was darkness; we tell a story only of victory in Christ.
“We are good people, a blessing to all other people's on earth – THEY all hate us for no reason. We are God's gift to mankind – Never trust THEM, no matter how “nice” their words may be, THEY are always trying to kill us. Jews do not need any salvation; they're already wonderful – Why are all of THEM so despicable and low?”
The THEM and the THEY are all non-Jews, that is Gentiles, with the greatest distrust, with some reason, held for “Christians,” not Muslims.
Consider these words, spoken by George W. Bush: “They hate us for our freedom.”
Those are really strange words. They have no relation to the American mind of my youth. Not one American prior to the 1990's would ever think such a strange thought. Yet that thought is perpetual inside the horrific bondage of Jewish identity. The fact that the President of the United States uttered it and that “Christian” America accepted those words shows how far “Jewish” identity has been imposed on this country and on the church.
I do recommend that you read Martin Luther's essay on the Jews; you can find it on the Internet. I have read all of it and find it to be 100% accurate both to the Gospel and to the reality of life in this world. It is not anti-Semitic; no more than Jesus and Paul were. But then, by today's definitions, Jesus, Peter, and Paul were all vicious anti-Semites. That's why the New Testament is an illegal book in almost all nations today including the United States.
I do not “believe” in the Holocaust. In fact, I do not “believe” in anything except what God says concerning Christ in me. Everything else I study, and for everything else, I require evidence. I am staggered at the utter lack of forensic evidence there is for a “holocaust” of the Jews during the years 1942-1945. And I am appalled at the fact that any individual, going to Germany or Poland seeking such evidence, is immediately thrown into prison. Even the lawyers who attempt to defend those who do seek valid evidence are thrown into prison without defense. What are they hiding? What is it they cannot allow into the light of day?
In complete contrast, no nation on earth today is a greater threat to America than the nation of “Israel.” America has never faced a more dangerous or deadly enemy. The paper berates Barack Obama for not siding 100% with Israel in all of its lust for blood, even though Obama is a “Jew” – since his mother's mother is a Jew, then by Jewish definition, Obama is a Jew, and even though he has surrounded himself with Israeli Jews all through his administration. I am convinced that Obama's so-called “resistance” to Israel is 100% a paper show, but if it were actually true, it is the first thing of which I have heard that would make me think favorably of his presidency.
The United States cannot oppose Israel. If we attempt to do so, we will die in conflagrations of nuclear fire. Every president knows that. Most simply attempt to stall Israel's madness, if possible.
The paper also presents the incredible idea that Obama is really a Muslim. I wish that were true; if it were, we would be much safer. I know of no evidence whatever for that idea.
The paper makes this claim: “It was necessary that the modern state of Israel come into existence as a prelude to the Lord's return . . . Even before modern Israel was born, it's enemies mobilized to destroy it. Vastly outnumbered and lacking support from any other nation, Israel was supernaturally helped by God to destroy her enemies' forces.”
This is the story that is told, endlessly repeated. “THEY are always out to get us.” It is simply not the truth. The opposite is. Every “war” Israel/Khazaria fought was perpetrated by them for the sole purpose of demonizing the Arabs and extending their own reach and power.
In 1937, David Ben Gurion, first prime minister of Israel, wrote this line in a letter to his son: “We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow should be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.”
The picture of the man who wrote those words shows us a “Scythian,” not a descendant of Abraham.
Let's look at something the media does, something that we endlessly repeat without thinking, the phrase, “Muslim terrorist.”
Do you ever hear “Jewish terrorist”? Or “Christian terrorist”? Or “atheist terrorist”?
Never. Only “Muslim terrorist.” When Jews gun down people in cold blood, like the Jewish terrorist from her own synagogue who attacked Jewish Senator Gifford in Arizona, or the Columbine school massacre, or the Springfield, Oregon, or Minnesota or Arkansas school shootings. Did you hear the news person announce: “A gang of Jewish terrorists gunned down several Christian children in cold blood at a school in Colorado today”?
No you did not. It's called “brainwashing,” and it works – powerfully – on all.
Most terrorists in today's world are atheists, and most of those are Jews. Many “terrorists” are Christians. Most terror, however, is deliberately executed by governments, primarily, today, the American government. The US government in today's world is the primary executor and sponsor of terrorism. And all who support that evil MUST give an account to God.
Israel did 9/11 with the full collaboration of American officials. That truth will come front and center before this thing is over. All vengeance for 9/11 that America wreaked upon innocent Muslim families is a war crime.
“Come out of her My people, that you not be part of her sins, so that you not partake of her plagues.”
The Muslim people's of the Middle East do not hate us or the Jews. They just have a difficulty with being burned to death in their homes. They don't like being bombed!
On the one hand, I do not view things such as hurricanes as “God's wrath against sin,” though they are the natural consequences of living in a world laboring under the curse. But on the other hand, God says, “Do not be deceived. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” If you were to walk among the streets and by-lanes of Libya three years ago, and then walk those same streets and by-lanes today, visiting with people, sharing meals together with them in their homes, the same people, you would leave with a deep sense of horror that if God is just, if people – and nations – do reap what they sow, then what must America and Britain now reap?
Now, we find next that there is a false balance both in this paper and in the general Christian thinking concerning the two covenants.
 – The Old Covenant, shattered by Moses upon the mountainside and nailed by Christ to the cross is now binding on God? As He closes out the age of human folly? And the New Covenant in His blood, it's fulfillment in all that it says in our lives upon this earth is incidental and not binding on God? This is a false balance.
You see, because God did not do what He said He would do in the gospel in the first century of the church age, in the first generation of believers – Paul expected fully not to die – then Christianity has concluded that it means that God simply does not intend to fulfill the terms of the New Covenant on this planet. Thus all of those terms are almost violently relegated to heaven. Just raise the question of any of those terms being fulfilled in our lives now before any Christian pastor or theologian and witness the shut-down that immediately comes against you.
NOT ON THIS EARTH.
The fullness of the New Covenant fulfilled IS God in Person revealed in human flesh and flowing out of our bellies across the earth as rivers of living water.
Anti-Christ is a spirit, not a person, a spirit whose primary message is that God does not ever show up in human flesh. Yet the New Covenant is not fulfilled until He does.
There are many voices hostile to the revelation of Jesus Christ. As He appears in us, more and more, just as He said He would, as the Daystar, arising from the east and shining to the west (a metaphor), as the Daystar arising in our hearts, so the hostile voices speaking against God manifest in the flesh will also rise.
The assault will come against us from all directions and in many forms, yet all the voices boil down to the one word of the spirit of anti-Christ. Who do you think you are? Who are you kidding? God in you, perfect and complete? NOT ON THIS EARTH!
How will they prevent God from showing up on this earth again in mortal flesh? Just like He did the first time? They cannot keep God out of the earth, but mortal flesh is very killable. Not being able to kill the God who reveals Himself in mortal flesh, they will seek to kill the mortal flesh in whom God dwells.
When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Revelation 11:7-10
Now, this word is Christ. All things God speaks are Christ. And Christ is the only life we are. We are one flesh with Him.
The beast that ascends out of the pit is the natural man, the natural Jew, whether real or pretend, moving in the fullness of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, laying claim to the inheritance by violence. The “two prophets” are the second witness of Christ – His revelation inside of us.
I do not analyze this word with an analytical mind. It, along with all things God speaks in the Bible, is a Spirit word. It is life. It comes into us as we receive Christ, as a seed carrying the very life of God inside of it. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life. Jesus in John 6.
I want to look at the last phrase, “tormented those who dwell on the earth.”
Always, we bring in the other word of Christ that walks alongside this word: 
Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.” Romans 12:20
“Those who dwell on the earth” is a metaphor for born-again Christians who do not walk in the Holy Place or who have abandoned walking in the Holy Place. Let me bring in the opening line to this chapter.
Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, “Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it . . . Revelation 11:1-2
The altar is the altar of incense. Sadly, it seems, that those believers who have once entered the Holy Place, walking in the gifts and operations of the Spirit, if they do not press on into the altar of incense, it seems that the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit fades into the background in their lives and worship. Those who have never entered the Holy Place, but live only in the thinking of their own rational minds, by the light of analytical reason, “dwell in the earth.” They believe they will one day “go to” heaven; they do not believe they live in all heaven right now.
The “torment” is simply the lights turning on.
A close friend of mine who has many family members working in the medical profession, made a comment to them about the dangerous and deadly toxins found in vaccines. He is still reeling from the response.
The entire medical profession, millions of hard-working people who imagine they are “helping” others, is built around vaccinations. The evidence against vaccinations is scientific and sound. The arguments for vaccinations are, when searched out, found to be entirely hot air. Vaccines are a death-giving assault against innocent infants that are altering permanently the entire human DNA. They exist solely so that wicked men can profit from the suffering of many. If this be true, how can anyone in the medical profession face the reality that they are evil's “willing executioners”? They cannot accept such a thing.
And so the speaker of truth MUST be ostracized, condemned, and, if possible, executed. I heard one highly credentialed medical doctor proclaim openly that other doctors who speak against vaccinations should face the death penalty.
This is how the chains of darkness sitting upon all people on this planet and upon all of our brethren operate.
To set them free, we must strike the chains. But they will defend their chains, and we must be prepared for that, just as Jesus was.
Our great desire to know God in fulness inside of us IS the nemesis of the curse upon this planet. We cannot traipse into all the knowledge of God without knowing that we are sending shock waves all through the world. But this reality is in the New Covenant in His blood, which Covenant we signed when some preacher ducked us under the water of baptism. It's all part of the package.
Yes, God showing up in mortal flesh upon this planet will cause our bodies to transform in the resurrection. But before that happens, the Scripture MUST BE fulfilled: He that says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as Jesus walked.
Yes, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, but before that happened, for three and one-half years, He walked as a manifested Son of God, revealing the Father as the tender, kind, caring, involved Person that He is.
God revealed in the flesh was just too much for those whose stake was cast entirely in pretending.
Yet the New Covenant MUST BE fulfilled, and it must be fulfilled on this earth and in this age.
God in Person in Fulness in us revealed for all to know. The life of Jesus apocalypsed in our mortal flesh.