This is an interesting Jewish blogpost about Noah building the Ark.
Notice the rabbi quotes freely from Cabbalists showing how intermingled both faith camps are, despite the Cabbalists secret wishes to annihilate their brethren while posing as just another Jewish group.
The Church,the Boat,the other Ark,the Ark of testimony in the holy of Holies,our lives,the Word, notice how they are all tied into what the cabbalists here refer to as the dual meaning of Noah's Ark: taiva - Word.
Word is what is being built into us under the guise that we are building something. My generation left the religion of our forebears for a greater Light : Spirit-filled Christianity. So I left my parent's Methodist Church for a newly renewed Baptist Church in Old Amersham, a fore-runner among our early Spirit-filled churches in the UK.
Then we saw more light about how God was building His church. It was a Vision. A light in itself.I moved to Emsworth, an independent Spirit-filled church with a greater Light about how we move corporately in the Melchizedek Order, we gather in the Living presence of God. We started to leave man's control behind and increasingly left God to set the agenda. I am in a church now in Havant which seeks to do the same.
If it seems odd to you that a whole 30 years has passed between the last two churches, and both are seeking much the same, well let it remind you of the Israelites wandering round and round in a pointless wilderness, which was actually, on foot, only eleven days journey. Why the holdup?
The Israelites didnt want to make the inner journey. The New Testament says "Do not be like the Israelites in the wilderness who mumbled and groaned, who became bitter and hardened their heart."
Unless the soli of our heart remains clean and fresh, we cannot remain through channels of the faith of God, for Him to put His great plans through by us. We are given so much grace, then if we persist, He moves on to another people or another generation, but the outworking of His Plan is ceaseless.
What is really being built is TAIVA. WORD.
We are becoming a people of Word.
It's not really being built either.
More uncovered.
It was always in the DNA of our spirit, but just had to develop. And the devil's job, his name is Satan or resister, is to try to stop it.
This extra layer of resistance acts as a piece of weight in a gym. All it does in the long term is build a more genuine, stronger form of manifestation.
But talking of Satan's work as a piece of weight resistance is to speak lightly of something that is building to fill the whole Earth.It is huge, and the glory of God among His people will be correspondingly Mighty. And we saw a blueprint version in Gideon's 300 men in the Book of Judges.
But this blogpost is about us being called to build an Ark whereby we will be saved.
It's not the boards of wood that are going to save us now. We are called to build communities of Spirit and Word.
To be blunt, we have communities of no Word at all, the world system.
We have communities of Spirit, but little Word.
We have communities of Word but little Spirit.
We have individuals coming into Word and Spirit.
BUT at present We have NO Communities of Word and Spirit. Which was our calling.
So put simply......we have not fulfilled the command to build an Ark. To build places of refuge, like Cities of Refuge.
Numbers 35:The cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be the six
cities of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee to;
and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. 7 All the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall be forty-eight cities, together with their pasture lands. 8 As
for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the sons of
Israel, you shall take more from the larger and you shall take less from
the smaller; each shall give some of his cities to the Levites in
proportion to his possession which he inherits.”
9 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 then you shall select for yourselves cities to be your cities of refuge, that the manslayer who has killed any person unintentionally may flee there. 12 The
cities shall be to you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the
manslayer will not die until he stands before the congregation for trial. 13 The cities which you are to give shall be your six cities of refuge. 14 You shall give three cities across the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan; they are to be cities of refuge. 15
These six cities shall be for refuge for the sons of Israel, and for
the alien and for the sojourner among them; that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.
16 ‘But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 17 If he struck him down with a stone in the hand, by which he will die, and as a result he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 18 Or if he struck him with a wooden object in the hand, by which he might die, and as a result he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 19 The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death when he meets him. 20 If he pushed him of hatred, or threw something at him lying in wait and as a result he died, 21 or if he struck him down with his hand in enmity, and as a result
he died, the one who struck him shall surely be put to death, he is a
murderer; the blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he
meets him.
22 ‘But if he pushed him suddenly without enmity, or threw something at him without lying in wait, 23 or with any deadly
object of stone, and without seeing it dropped on him so that he died,
while he was not his enemy nor seeking his injury, 24 then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the blood avenger according to these ordinances. 25
The congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the blood
avenger, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge
to which he fled; and he shall live in it until the death of the high
priest who was anointed with the holy oil. 26 But if the manslayer at any time goes beyond the border of his city of refuge to which he may flee, 27
and the blood avenger finds him outside the border of his city of
refuge, and the blood avenger kills the manslayer, he will not be guilty
of blood 28 because he
should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high
priest. But after the death of the high priest the manslayer shall
return to the land of his possession.
29 ‘These things shall be for a statutory ordinance to you throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
30 ‘If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 31 Moreover, you shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death. 32 You shall not take ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to live in the land before the death of the priest. 33 So
you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the
land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is
shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel.’”
In these passages we are getting to God's heart on all this within an Old Covenant format.
We are NOT building leftbrain forms here.
We are not making rules which mean every church has to set up an external format which does the same as a city of Refuge. In a sense we tried that in Bible House with some of the French and Argentinian Street people.
But then we discovered we were something "other than that" in form. At that stage we were a people seeking God for the next stage in His Divine chapter of setting up the Kingdom in the Earth. which was a forerunner to the present light of this blog, and to the many online who are now sharing the same type of things.
The real City of Refuge, or Ark boat we run into is Word. Word that is layered inside us, as we share, as we listen, as we laugh, as we fellowship ,as we seek God, as we worship. Jesus is the City of refuge. His Name is a High Tower, the righteous run into it and are safe. (Please I am not decrying those who are called to faithfully work among those who need a city of refuge...since it is in the heart of God to restore, ALL of us get called to this in some shape or form. For me, one part has been taking on a family that isnt mine, and sweating the heat of both how useless I am at it, and them resenting every minute of this new intruder.)
We have now isolated the the true building brick of Church building. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ in your form as a human being. It is NOT just going forward once in a meeting to accept Jesus as your Saviour.
It is not just being filled with the Spirit, so you can go to the front of many meetings and dance and sing.
It is the CONTINUING revelation that the Lord Jesus Christ wants to come again in you, in your form, AND in whole groups of people like you. Because those corporate forms are NOT TO GET IN THE WAY of the revelation of Jesus Christ in you
they are designated as
FLIMSY BOOTHS WITH NO CEILING. The Lord God is YOUR ROOF.
The Taiva, the boat,the Word, within each one is the Church. Do you get that? Anything else gets in the way. So if we gather it is to impart Word in song,speech or other activity. It may be to gather once. It may be to gather regularly for a while. It may be to gather regularly for a whole lifetime.In whatever form, you are the local manifest presence of the Body of Christ on the Earth while doing so. The corporate form.
We remain ever the corporate form , even when not physically together.
And ofcourse we are ever the individual form of the Body of Christ once believers.
The religion (ie NOT the GENUINE form) of christianity, like Judaism, gathers around special places to be together.
The initial form of Christianity was 12 disciples living, breathing, being around Jesus Ministry of proclaiming the Kingdom on Earth. God used persecution to break the old Jewish habits, and start to get the new priesthood in Acts , used to the new way of thinking. It's people transplanting Christ. PERIOD.
It's not buildings, procedures, human offices like Pastor , vicar,priest, that determine this Ark.
It's the Word that IS THE ARK.
That Ark governs the particular format for that set of people , in that location, in that time of their lives.
Without Word you have no Ark.
At the moment we have church when there is no Word. When the inscription reads "Ichabod", the glory of God is departed.
We gather to purpose by the Word.
When Morris Cerullo gathers saints, it is always to purpose. He prays before each gathering to "see" what the Holy Spirit is doing in that meeting, then to speak it forth, which is the manner in which Jesus moved. This is what is meant by moving in the Melchizedek Order. It is "Jesus seeing what the Father is doing"...and "if He is working , I must too..."
However, if as I maintain, Morris Cerullo, David Hathaway and other 70-80 year olds approach God in a blinkered Light, and dont really pick up anymore what God is really building today, they may well move in some measure of the Melchizedek order....but "by your standard of measure, be it unto you".
Morris Cerullo and David Hathaway need to "purchase" new measuring rods from the House of God Licensing Committee at the throne.
What is building the Boat?
If it's not nipping down the woodyard.
If it's not the same as getting involved in all the old church activities, but much more of a bottomline approach in these days....like....Are you believing Galations 2:20 in every part of your living day? Do you see how much of church this shortcircuits, and gets you straight into believing in the Christ that is personally being formed in you. If you are not just in a pipe dream, fairytale form of Christ being imagined in you, but the real Christ,
you will find the world hates you...or better put...the spirit that lives in unbelievers hates you....and you will also find, the same Christ building your version in you, dovetails in with the Living Christ building all the other versions, in the myriad of believers across the earth. And NONE OF THIS looks very much like what is out there at present. Because, as much as what is built out there was built on genuine revelation, inbuilt into our previous worldly thinking is a complete religious blueprint which has nothing to do with the way the Melchedek order actually operates. To give you an idea, think about all the outer forms and patterns of the believers in the Old Testament....not one the same....yet ALL the SAME WORD being brought forth in the Earth.
So at it's basic level, Building the Boat, is believing ON the very life within you according to what the Word of God now says about us.
But individually, it's finding how that LIFE works for us.
Matthew 25
1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. 3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. 5 Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.
I have not got too much light on this passage, but there is a distinction between what we are kitted out with through Christ's death,burial,ascension and crowning.....which is like the actual EQUIPMENT of the oil lamp,
and the continued supply of oil.
To our generation of Pentecostals and PostPentecostal charismatics, any reference to oil is going to mean partaking in the Holy Spirit. Knowing how to wait on Him. Familiarizing ourselves with how He moves.Knowing how He brings us into the throne room experientially. Knowing and recognizing when He is teaching.
Perhaps then this is part of the difference. It's not relying on a one time experience, and other "priests" to stir up the gift within....we should indeed know how to get our own supply.
There is obviously effort involved, or else all the virgins would have had a ready supply. But it's not flesh effort. And it's a strange oil shop, because we don't buy with money. We buy with believing.
But this supply of oil means something like it has been allowed to permeate our whole being, our whole soul.This is the "going up in secret" that Jesus speaks about in John 7. This is the same "going up in secret" that enabled Ruth to gain blessing from Boaz, and be married to him. This is the same "going up in secret" that is us NOT HEAPING UP words like the Gentiles do anymore....(anybody remember evangelical prayer meetings? and sadly many charismatic ones too) but going into the secret Psalm 91 place in the Shadow of the Most High, the inner room with the Father where we "close the door", that Jesus talked of.
What is "closing the door"?
By the Spirit, shutting down all the ceaseless leftbrain chatter. All the false dreams. All the shameful burdens. All the condemnation. All the false loftiness. Every single aspect of leftbrain thought that doesnt have a pre-tagged Kingdom label saying, this one passed through customs.
proverbs 3;5-6 directs us to change our "manner of being". Not trust in our insight with all our heart, but Trust in the Lord with all our heart and not to rely on our insight. In all our ways we are to acknowledge Him, knowing He WILL make straight our paths.
As the Rabbi was saying, there is a strange parallel with the BOAT, in that it is the most inclusive thing in the universe.Jesus stretched out His wide arms for every human on the Cross. He was raised up as the serpent of Genesis 3, to take this whole form of existence down with Him. But for those who in the Old Testament did not look upon the serpent raised up, the serpents came and killed them all. Only Noah's family were saved, because that was all that bothered to enter.
The Hebrews 4 Word is a two edged sword dividing between soul and spirit. It is the Word of total and complete freedom for every single serpent infested human.....but if we don't build that boat for us, we surely will be swept away.
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