At this point in our meditations on the Book of Exodus, I pray that we can begin to recognize and highlight the central position of the Cross and the awesome work God does through it. The Cross is the Heavenly Gateway to the tremendous eternal Fruit that the atoning death of our Messiah has produced on our behalf. It leads us into total freedom from the fate of eternal doom that awaits the unrepentant fallen world, and all Sin-corrupted flesh, and the powers of Darkness that follow the Serpent.
We saw in Genesis that God sent His Word to cover the sinful, Sin-murdered, fallen human nature and nakedness of our first parents so that He could fully restore them. We’ve seen that all of Adam’s offspring inherited the dreadful damage that Sin did to human nature and continues to do to the rest of the Creation within which we exist. We see the effects of that ‘living death’ wherever we look. It is the most potent force in existence in the realms of Darkness. It is always at work, pulling God’s creatures into its abyss. Its damage can be seen advancing within us and around us.
But the invincible Righteousness of God’s living Word made flesh was able to blast through the formerly impenetrable pall of Death that enshrouded the human race. And now, the awesome eternal Resurrection Life and Status that He enjoys and that He made available to the rest of us, is the Supreme Force that will reign and rule for all of eternity. And nothing, not the Serpent, not Sin, or Death or the demonic powers will be able to withstand or stop or overcome the absolute Authority of God’s Word and the infinite Power of His Holy Spirit:
Ephesians 1:18-23
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the Glory of His Inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His Power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the Fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Emphasis added.)
Beloved, note this: the Messiah has been raised from the dead. He, in His capacity as the Sin-less Son of Man, totally conquered the Serpent and destroyed his works, once and for all. And through the ‘birth canal’ of His atoning death and triumphant Resurrection, He leads His repentant disciples on an Exodus that takes them out of the realms of Death and Darkness, and away from Sin’s living death. They leave behind the cursed, broken, fallen world upon which Adam’s unrepentant Sin-corrupted children continue to rely. But the disciples forsake everything that pertains to and comes from that world. The fallen world in which they must still abide resembles a mortally wounded ship that is sinking slowly but relentlessly beneath the waves of an ocean. Regardless of how desperately the deceived human race continues to rely on it and tries to repair, improve, maintain and save the radically independent self-life they pursue on that ship…death continues to be at work within it all. Their fallen world and its systems continue to break, come apart, and tragically disappoint those who put their faith, hope and trust in them. No matter what anyone tries to do to save it, that ship is doomed…sinking…disintegrating…and giving unmistakable evidence that what God’s Word said so long ago about ‘you are dust and to dust you shall return,’ is the absolute Truth. This world, and those who are born into it, died the moment Adam sinned and severed us from our True Head and Life Source, the Word of God:
Genesis 2:16-17
“The Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die!’”
Genesis 3:6-7
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”
But immediately after that disaster, God sent His living Word after them to seek them out and reveal His kind intentions toward them. He came to cover their desperate neediness, and restore them completely:
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” (Emphasis added.)
God Alone Is The Answer
So God reveals that we are all conceived and born into a state of living death that we of course can do nothing about. We did nothing to create ourselves in the beginning; nor can we do anything now to cleanse, redeem, regenerate and restore ourselves. Regardless of what our genes contain or what our skin color is, or what family we come from, or what our culture, religion, theology, philosophy or historical era may be, we’re born dead in Sin. So we’re forced to watch as the seconds of our temporary existence on this earth pass away. And as long as we choose to remain trapped on this sinking ship that harbors and promotes radical independence from God and rebellion against the Authority of His living Word, we’re lost. There’s nothing anyone but the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Himself can do, to save any of us. But it must be done on His revealed terms.
Ezekiel 37:11-14
“Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’”
We’ve seen that although God has clearly revealed that we are all born into that fallen state of living death, most decapitated humans stubbornly refuse to admit this. They insist on calling their state of spiritual death – ‘life.’ And they’re so convinced that their state of death is perfectly fitting, normal and human, they even call it, ‘my life!’ And so they see anything that would dare try to dispel that delusion to be terribly offensive and threatening – even if it is revelation from Almighty God! So to them, the Gospel of True Salvation is repugnant and unacceptable and they do whatever they can to cover their ears and silence anyone who would dare proclaim the only Reality that can save them from Death! This is the Serpent’s most horrible deception of all!
The actual Truth is this: the Cross does not kill our life. The Truth is: we have no life! We lost it long ago, before our entry into this world. So in actuality, the Cross is the best news imaginable. It overwhelms and kills our state of living death. The Cross strips Death away from us and sets us free from its eternal consequences. The Cross is the only key that is able to open the way to Eternal Life with God!
This is what Scripture tells us in so many different ways. So the True Gospel is not at all about the ‘self-improvement’ or ‘self-assertion’ or ‘self-enhancement’ of our living death! The True Gospel is about the death of our living death…and our Exodus from the realms of the Serpent’s Darkness…into total Freedom…into God’s Eternal Kingdom of True Life that only our Creator can be to us and share with us.
The lies of the Serpent drive people to cling instinctively to their state of death and Divine Condemnation. That’s why they try to protect and cling to those things at all costs. And conversely, the Serpent also deceives and drives them to dread, shun and avoid at any cost, the True Salvation and Eternal Life that God’s Word was sent to be to us. Fallen flesh self-destructively assumes that it already has a life and has no need of any other. So it is obsessed with protecting, preserving, improving, educating and exalting that delusion of ‘life’ they try so hard to enjoy while they keep trying to save their obviously sinking ship. Just like the pharaoh who opposed Moses, worldly people of today recoil from God’s living and written Word. They avoid Salvation (Yeshua) as if He were a deadly destroyer, sent to deprive them of everything they love and hold dear in their warped, deluded view of things!
This madness and spiritual blindness afflicts all children of Adam. It is natural for all of us to see things through the warped distortion lenses of the Serpent’s rebellious, Word-rejecting radical independence that we all inherit at conception. So the conflict, confusion, distortion and outright contradiction of God’s Word that those distortion lenses create, is what the disciples…the True Remnant of the chosen family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… must always confront and deal with as they try, faithfully, to carry out their God-given commission to serve as God’s ‘Light to the Gentiles.’
Real Life vs. False ‘Life’
Disciples of God’s Word must be trained and equipped to ‘swim against the strong current’ of delusion that prevails throughout the Serpent’s sinking ship. We must leave that ship and forsake its lifestyles and all of the hope and reliance we once placed upon it. Then, once God unites us to His own Holy Spirit and restores and equips us with the true New Life we receive from His Son, in return for the false life we surrendered to Him and His Cross, our Master, God’s Word, can train and equip us to return for the rest of our fellow humans and faithfully continue to resist and overcome the deadly effects of the Serpent’s delusions. Thus we can serve God by expediting the work He is doing to free more and more people from the Serpent’s dark domain:
Isaiah 42:5-9
“Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it, ‘I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, and I will appoint You as a Covenant to the people, as a Light to the nations (Gentiles), to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison. I am the Lord, that is My Name; I will not give My Glory to another, nor My Praise to graven images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, now I declare new things; before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” (Emphasis added.)
So God’s Scriptures continually reveal the purpose and agenda of His living Word made flesh. He is our Redemption, Righteousness, Wisdom and Salvation. We must allow Him to remove all traces of our original living death from us. Our radically independent existence and all of its rebellious urges and compulsions must decrease in us until they disappear completely…so that our risen Messiah’s perfect, eternal Resurrection Life may enter in and take over within us. The Cross is God’s instrument for making this happen. It kills the living death of self-reliance and self-absorption and takes it out of us. It kills the Sin that originally killed us. And by the end of God’s story with mankind, the Resurrection Power of our Master will have stripped all of Sin’s effects from those who have heard and obeyed God’s Word!
Ezekiel 36:22-28
“‘I will vindicate the holiness of My great Name which has been profaned among the nations (Gentiles), which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations; gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the Land that I gave to your forefathers; so YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE, and I will be YOUR GOD!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
This is why Yeshua, God’s living Word, became flesh. He was thus able to serve as our true, legitimate Blood Covenant Representative. And in that capacity He willingly obeyed His Father who sent Him to save us. He willingly embraced and took up His Cross…to make full Atonement for us…to redeem and set us completely free from Sin, Death and Darkness. God’s living Word is our Perfect Covering! His Death is the ‘Birth Canal’ through which we must pass and cross over into participation in His eternal Resurrection Life…so that He can fulfill God’s New Covenant promises in us and be our New, Everlasting Life and Light. Obedience to, and union with, God’s Word makes this awesome Exodus from living death to Eternal Life possible. That is how the Cross strips away every trace of our former rebellious, independent, living death Sin state from us. There is no other way to the true, living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Only the Cross and the death of the Messiah to which He joins us can cleanse us of all the residue of Sin-contamination that we inherited from the first Adam.
The transition from the first Adam to the Last Adam, from Death to Eternal Life, must be total. Not one cancerous, death-dealing Sin cell can be allowed to remain in us. There is no improving or saving cancer. What is already dead cannot be saved. So we must die to our addiction to Sin’s ‘living death’ and completely renew and reconfigure our thinking, acting, reacting and interacting so that our innermost being can be realigned to receive and reflect Yeshua’s totally holy, pure, perfect Righteousness. The Cross makes us compatible with and equips us to embody, the indwelling Resurrection Life of our Messiah. Oneness with Him is what the New Covenant makes available to us. It actually fulfills God’s Plan and the revelation and promises He made through His living and written Word. God Himself empowers and equips us to host and house and embody and reveal His Perfect Righteous living Word…as He abides and works within us…to the rest of the world, for God’s everlasting Glory.
Romans 12:1-3
“Therefore (in light of what God’s Word has revealed to you in the Torah about Israel and her part in God’s Plan as I explained in Romans 1-11) I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to (the decapitated views and Sin-loving agendas of) this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove (demonstrate conclusively in your own daily lives) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think (as the Serpent and his slaves do); but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Yeshua’s Resurrection Has Completely Won The War!
Yeshua is God’s eternal living Word. But He is also a Man! And as that Representative Man, He defeated Satan and all that he stands for! A Man, the Firstborn of many to follow, sits eternally at the right hand of God’s Majesty! That’s why God is continually separating what is His from what remains enslaved to and dominated by the Serpent. Satan declared war against God and His Word and His Kingdom. And God sent His Word to destroy his works by His death and Resurrection in order to make everything right. So although the fighting rages on, and we’re engaged in a struggle to the death, the outcome is already assured. Yeshua is Lord of all Creation, now and forever. Thus no quarter can be given to Sin, and no mercy shown to it. With God, it is all or nothing! And this is why His living Word, through Moses, had to summon and lead the Israelites of his day, and each new generation of Israelites that emerges throughout world history, into this ever-present, always-necessary Exodus. He is taking us back to Almighty God…back to sharing His Eternal Life, under His Authority…in His Kingdom of Truth and Reality. It must all be done in Spirit and in Truth, according to God’s Word…that is…on God’s terms.
So make no mistake about this issue: We are in the most deadly death struggle imaginable! No disciple of God’s living Word should dare consider himself or herself to be an ‘exempt civilian’ in light of this conflict. Every disciple is under the Word’s Command, wearing His uniform, during wartime. Like it or not, we must choose between Life or Death, Light or Darkness, Heaven or Hell! There can be no exceptions, no wavering and no compromise in this. If we’re not under God’s Authority…we’re slaves of the Serpent!
Romans 12:1-3
“…how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” (Matthew 12:29-3
Joshua 23:6-16
“Be very firm, then, to keep and do all that is written in the book of the Law (Torah) of Moses, so that you may not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make anyone swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them. But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. For the Lord has driven out great and strong nations from before you; and as for you, no man has stood before you to this day. One of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, just as He promised you. So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.
“Now behold, today I (Joshua) am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. It shall come about that just as all the good words which the Lord your God spoke to you have come upon you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the threats, until He has destroyed you from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you. When you transgress the Covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you!” (Emphasis added.)
Revelation 18:1-5
“After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.’
“I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” (Emphasis added.)
So, thanks to the revelation that Genesis, Exodus and the other books of Scripture provide for us, we can see the crucified position and viewpoint that God’s True Israel… the faithful, obedient Remnant… must always occupy. We must realize at all times that in ourselves, we are dead, bankrupt, powerless and helpless. In that sense, we must consider ourselves to be dead to the Sin of radically independent thinking and living. There is nothing in us that we can trust, or rely upon or place our hopes in. Thanks to Adam, we are born dead! So we have no choice but to look to and rely upon and place 100% of our hope and trust in the true Source of Life, the living Word of the one and only, living God. The Word was sent to be everything we will ever need Him to be for us. He will be our obedience to God. He will impart His Righteousness to us so that we too can obey and please God and walk blamelessly before Him, just as God commanded Abraham our father to do:
Genesis 17:1-9
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.’
“Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My Covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
“I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.’
“God said further to Abraham, ‘Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.’” (Emphasis added.)
As creatures that receive everything from our Creator…and especially now, that we are all born into a fallen, spiritually dead state, we are always the epitome of spiritual bankruptcy, helplessness and desperate neediness. So God sends His Word (Son) to rescue and represent us and to be whatever we will need Him to be. It is only by His Strength and Ability and Life working in us that we can be made whole and righteous in the sight of God:
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“…He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (Emphasis added.)
The Cross Kills All Delusions
The Cross keeps us in our proper place. In ourselves we are dead…no matter what we try to do, we cannot raise ourselves beyond that zero point. So the Cross kills our delusions of grandeur. It strips away that radical independence into which we were born. And it trains and disciplines and educates us until we are able to grasp the importance and inevitability of what God must do to save us from what Sin has done to us. What we are in our own fallen nature cannot ever be improved or saved. It is always dead and impotent. So we must stop trying to revive or improve what is dead. We must repent of relying on living death and forsake it entirely. We must surrender it to the Cross and receive in exchange, the Life and Provision that only the one true God can give to us. The Serpent has caused everything in God’s Creation to become Sin-corrupted, including us. All of it must be regenerated (created again). Everything must be made brand new. That is why we must make our Exodus from this fallen world and the rebellion against God upon which it is based, and return to the embrace of our Heavenly Father and be restored to His image and likeness.
Try to fathom the magnitude of the inconceivable gap that currently exists between what Almighty God is in His infinite Perfection, and what Sin has made us to be! The more we can begin to sense the vastness of the separation between His Perfect Righteousness and our Sin-corruption, the better we will see and agree with what God must do to properly prepare His Word’s disciples to do their job of demonstrating His Salvation and manifesting its awesome Word-validating effects to the rest of mankind. God must prepare us to occupy an extremely deep, supernatural, Spirit-empowered level of existence. Our ‘Boot Camp’ training must be relentless and incredibly thorough and specialized in order to prepare us to fulfill our unique and awesome calling. We must transform into the ‘image and likeness’ of our Master, God’s living Word, who is the Perfect Image and Likeness of the Father that speaks Him forth. The relationship God requires us to have with His Word is inconceivable to worldly, decapitated people. In their eyes, we appear ridiculous and utterly mad. Nothing God says makes any sense to their Sin-corrupted perceptions and understanding. The Gospel of death on the Cross and Resurrection Life in our Messiah is utterly offensive, totally inappropriate and outrageously invasive to them! And they resent it deeply.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’
“Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
Beloved, imagine the position in which this places God’s messengers! We are caught ‘in the middle’, between the immoveable ‘rock’ of satanic rebellion and opposition, and the invincible, unstoppable ‘Force’ of God’s living Word and His invasion into this fallen world and its demon-possessed system. Is it any wonder that the world despises and seeks to destroy God’s True Israel? Disciples of God’s Word must learn to acknowledge that we have died with our Master. We must always consider ourselves to be dead to our former ‘living death’ radically independent ways and alive only to God, through His living Word, no matter what it costs or what it leads us into.
Colossians 3:1-4
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory!” (Emphasis added.)
Wilderness Training Is An Essential Part of Disciple Boot Camp
God’s ‘Boot Camp’ training will lead His people into wilderness desolation and place them in impossibly difficult and dangerous situations. They must be stripped of all reliance upon worldly ‘crutches’ and ‘devices’ and ‘alternate false gods.’ Then they must be trained to face and endure contempt, hatred, persecution, and all kinds of extreme dangers and difficulties amid their perpetual personal helplessness! Often our outlooks will appear totally hopeless as we get in touch with our utter personal weakness and bankruptcy. But only then, when all other false gods have been stripped away from us and are no longer on our ‘viewing screens’, will we be in the proper position to come to experience and know the Reality and Truth of the actual living God and His awesome Eternal Perfection and infinite, airtight Covenant Faithfulness. Only wilderness conditions enable us to know and actually experience the Glory of our living God and His awesome Perfection.
That is why God has to put His own…through such terrific testing. He must show us humanity’s true state of living death at gut-wrenching experiential wilderness levels. Only then can we also know the Reality of the living God at gut-wrenching experiential, utterly convincing levels! God must wean us from relying on this sinking Titanic of a world and its false gods and broken, futile systems. He must break us of our ‘Egyptian addiction’ to our inherited radically independent, God-less ‘self-life’ ways. He must get us used to following and obeying His Word and seeing Him as our only Lord and absolute Master, in the power of His Holy Spirit and the changeless security of His airtight, everlasting Truth!
The Word will relentlessly lead us…in a direction that directly opposes that of the Serpent’s lies. God crucifies our natural deluded obsession for personal control and our arrogant cravings to effect and protect our self-exaltation and home made fulfillment. The Cross wrings every last drop of self-sufficiency and worldly craftiness out of our souls and hearts. Thus our urges and tendencies to be independent and self-sufficient are drained dry in utterly barren and desolate wilderness conditions. We are stretched and extended beyond natural human endurance…until our radical independence is totally spent, exhausted, outflanked and killed. And THEN, finally…God is able to take over at last. THEN He can take us far beyond anything that would have ever been within the reach and grasp of our fallen flesh:
Isaiah 40:9-11
“Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’
“Behold, the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.” (Emphasis added.)
God’s living Word must lead the way for His people. He must take them further and further away from the delusional ‘Perfect 10’ hologram that the Serpent places before the deceived eyes of those who believe his lies and swallow his baited hooks. Our Master’s Cross must take us in the opposite direction…to reverse and undo the damage caused by those lies. He must take that delusional state all the way down to ‘Zero’…to the death of our former alienation from God and to the death of radical independence from Him and His Holy Spirit. God’s people will have to become so dependent on and united to God and God alone, that He will thereafter be their one and only Life, Provision, Protection and Treasure…with no interference, opposition or competition from any created person or thing. In this way, what is true and alive in Heaven, will appear also in this fallen world…and prevail at last. Right in the middle of this demonic Darkness…the Light of the World will appear and He will reign Supreme.
Exodus 20:1-6
“And God (through His living Word) spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
This is what Exodus reveals. God must now begin to try to teach to the Jewish and non-Jewish former slaves that are ready to follow God’s Word, as He reveals Himself through Moses. He will take them physically out of the idolatrous darkness of ‘Egypt.’ But then spiritually and emotionally, He will have to cut out every speck of Egypt that they manage to smuggle out with them deep within their hearts and brains. And when they realize that they are now totally helpless and bereft of all natural human resources or assistance, they will get in touch with the deadly peril and hopelessness that abide in the wilderness. And then they will receive a revelation of the one true, living God, and the Authority of His Word and the Power of His Holy Spirit that no human flesh could ever imagine to be possible:
Exodus 15:22-26
“Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. And He said, ‘If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your Healer.’”
Matthew 10:1, 5-10
“Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness…These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: ‘Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your might!” (Emphasis added.)
We Must Abandon The ‘Titanic’ of Self Life!
The decapitated people of this fallen world strive to achieve self-glorification and exaltation. They insist on achieving perfect 10 status and privileges aboard the sinking Titanic. But God must detoxify His people from every trace of those original human traits and desires. He must lead them off of that sinking hulk and take them as far away from it as possible before it undergoes its final, ultimate destruction and demise. It is impossible to continue to cling to what belongs to that sinking ship…and still hope to escape its gruesome fate. Unless you let go of all that pertains to this fallen world and truly get off of that sinking ship, you will go down with it!
This is what God must teach to each generation of His chosen people. He does it through the lessons of the Cross. As they begin to undergo the agonies of withdrawal from their original addictions and natural comfort zones…they begin to experience the wilderness realities of The Cross. It is intended to kill all self-life and cleanse their hearts of it entirely. In that way, room is made within us, for True Life…the Life that comes to us from God’s living Word…Spirit-imparted Messiah Life. God sends His Holy Spirit to abide within those that repent. And then Yeshua, our true and eternal Life, rushes in and takes over. Our faith and obedience prepare the way in this human wilderness for Him to come in and take over…from the Resurrection side of His Cross!
This is the enormity of the second Exodus God requires us to make. This Exodus reverses the primeval exodus from God’s Word that our original parents first made. God’s Exodus takes us completely out of the Serpent’s rebellious, disobedient horizon that excludes God and His Word. God’s Exodus leads us back into total union with His living Word…perfect Covenantal oneness with the Perfect One who has come to transform us into His image and likeness. And His Reality will appear within us to the degree that He is enthroned and established as our true Lord, Master and Head.
Galatians 2:19-20
“For through the (created) Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to (and from our uncreated) God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ(God’s living Word) lives (and rules) in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Disciples are not meant to fixate obsessively on the religious observance of rules and regulations as ends in themselves! They receive from God, new regenerated spirits with a new nature that is indwelt and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. God’s Perfect Presence transforms their innermost being and moves them from within to transform into the image and likeness of God’s living Word. They need no externally placed religious ‘muzzles’ or restraints to keep their fallen flesh in check. Their hearts and innermost desires are actually changed from within, by God Himself! God’s Love is the Cross that kills their fallen flesh and delivers them from its former tyranny. Disciples are filled and baptized with the Love Fire of the Holy Spirit! He works in them to make the living Word, Christ our Messiah, real and alive and active and fruitful from within their innermost parts! We no longer need external laws and restraints to remain aligned with God’s boundaries. God unites us to Himself and abides within us and shares His Love and Righteousness with us to such a degree…that He makes us one with Him and aligns us with His nature. True Reality and Truth begin to work within us and manifest themselves through us. We actually transform into His Word’s living embodiments…the image and likeness of the Lord of the rules and the Giver of the commandments. God Himself, in His unique Perfection, becomes our Righteousness, Holiness, Purity, Integrity and Loving Obedience, by the Power of His Holy Spirit who is given to us for this very purpose!
Many decapitated people in this world become intensely religious. Some go to unbelievable extremes in their pursuit of ritual propriety, behavior modification and perfect religious decorum. Nevertheless, because they remain separated from God’s beloved Son, the Word, their performance is nothing more than shallow, superficial…external ‘window dressing’. It is not a manifestation of a new life and nature and God’s Spirit operating from within them. It is merely a show, a shallow mimicry that gives God lip service on the outside, while deep within they cling as fiercely as ever to their personal self-life independence and control obsessions.
So what good is that? What will it avail to seem religious while actually continuing to cling to a sinking ship? What good can come from remaining separated from God’s Life-giving Word? How can He become our true Head and Life Source under such false and contradictory decapitated conditions? There were people all around Messiah Yeshua that were Israelites…and very religious ones at that! But ponder what He said to them:
John 8:23-30
“‘…You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.’ So they were saying to Him, ‘Who are You?’ Jesus said to them, ‘What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.’ They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.’ As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.” (Emphasis added.)
May there be many in our generation that will not only hear God’s Word, but actually make way for Him to come in and exercise His Perfect Obedience to the Father from within them. If they do allow Him to be that close to them and that much in charge of their hearts…He will surely save them and they will truly share in His eternal Inheritance!