Exodus 15:22-25
“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.” (Emphasis added.)
People considering marriage (by which a man and woman deliberately commit to join themselves to each other for life), are wise to refrain from rushing into it rashly and mindlessly. Such a terminal, irreversible step requires us to know the prospective partner very well before making that unconditional lifelong commitment. The same is true for the prospective partner. We must honestly disclose ourselves to that person, for our mutual good, because, just as stallions by nature can’t be successfully yoked with oxen, people not designed and destined by God to live and work as one, do not have what it takes to successfully complete and fulfill the responsibilities such a union requires.
Luke 14:28-33
“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” (Emphasis added.)
Obviously, no matter how prudent and wise our steps may be, we still won’t know all there is to know about each other by the time the engagement agreement is made, or the wedding ceremony is over. To discover the profound depths of a person’s makeup takes a lifetime of ongoing interaction and observation. God designs and creates each of us to be His image and likeness! So ponder the depths of what that means! How profound and complex must the capacity and potential abilities be that God puts into each of us, to equip us to fulfill such an awesome purpose? Even angels cannot aspire to what we are made to be!
So what depths of ‘gardening’ and protection must each person require, to be prepared, trained and equipped to grow into such an exalted destiny, so as to fulfill it? Try to imagine the enormous depths of potential and gifting…the awesome traits, qualities, characteristics and capacities our Creator compresses into our makeup at conception, to enable us to fulfill His eternal Plan! Who can grasp the vastness of the potential each of us has…to grow into the awesome purpose and destiny God in His wisdom places within each tiny infant?
Obviously each child requires optimum conditions for his or her proper growth. The caretakers must be sufficiently mature and experienced to discern the specific God-given characteristics and tendencies built into the child so that they will be able to steer, direct and guide their charges in the proper direction that will lead to their authentic fulfillment.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9
“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Emphasis added.)
If God’s chosen Jewish and non-Jewish people obey His directives, their ‘image and likeness’ children will be properly prepared and equipped for life with and in and from the Word of God. The children will be led and taught to know God and to connect with Him so that they can receive His Ultimate Parenting throughout each step of their lives. But if the parents and families disobey God, and neglect the proper training of their children, the Serpent will use their disobedience and neglect, to retard, inhibit, stunt and at times, completely destroy the children’s ability to fulfill their true destinies, for generations!
Exodus 34:6-7
“Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (Emphasis added.)
How long will it take to ‘unpack,’ examine and comprehend all that God compresses within the makeup of any one person? What will it take for any of us to fully develop into the human image and likeness of Almighty God? Can you see that only Almighty God Himself could adequately understand what is required to develop us into His image and likeness? Can you see that only He would be wise and capable enough to parent, guard, teach, correct and guide us and raise us to His exalted level of eternal Fulfillment and Perfection? No fallen flesh has the ability to recognize, comprehend and fulfill such a purpose and destiny. No…we must all, somehow, become personally reunited with God, so that through His living Word and Holy Spirit, He can take us all the way across the ‘Finish Line’ of the course He has set before us.
Genesis 17:1-2
“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.’” (Emphasis added.)
1 Corinthians 2:10-12
“For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God…” (Emphasis added.)
Psalm 8:3-9
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God; and You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!” (Emphasis added.)
Proverbs 22:6
“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Psalm 139:13-18a
“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand….” (Emphasis added.)
The Holy Spirit Trains Disciples in God’s Unchangeable Truth
The proper protection, nurture, growth, direction and wellbeing of each of us are supremely important to God. And only He can teach, train, discipline and develop us until we are no longer trapped in the Serpent’s clutches and are free to transform into His Word’s image and likeness! That’s why, starting with Israel, He takes His own out and away from the fallen world’s system. He has to detoxify the Serpent-deceived hearts of His chosen ones and keep them from breathing in any more of ‘Egypt’s’ idolatrous, spiritually noxious, corrosive atmosphere. And if He intended to do that for Israel, we know He intends to do that for the rest of the human race. Thus we see that God holds each person in the center of His Perfect focus and attention. He never ignores or forgets any of us. He is always with each one, ready to ensure that His Plan and every Covenant promise He has ever made to His Creation, will be perfectly fulfilled on every level, without exception. Only our own rebellious unbelief and acceptance of the Serpent’s lies can stop God’s Word from penetrating and doing what we so desperately need Him to be and do in our innermost parts. Our Heavenly Father yearns to be intimately united to us and to do all things for us, in us, through us and with us…as one perfectly synchronized unit. But it can’t happen unless His Word truly becomes our indwelling Life and Lord and Shepherd, and we truly become His responsive, obedient image and likeness embodiment.
Ezekiel 34:11-13
“For thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I Myself (through My living Word made flesh) will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land.” (Emphasis added.)
Because of the enormous mortal damage Sin did to us, we’re no longer geared and configured by nature to reciprocate and respond and cooperate with God according to His changeless plan and purpose. And certainly our Sin-corrupted human caretakers are not able to do God’s work for Him in the lives of their children. Both parents and children must come to know God for themselves, personally and intimately so that they can walk before Him and He can transform them into blameless embodiments of what He Himself plans to be and do from within their innermost being. That’s why caretakers are required to direct their children to God’s living Word, so that He can draw them to Himself…and serve as their Blood Covenant Representative and bond them to His Heavenly Father. God knew what the Serpent and Sin would do to us. He knew the terrible extent of our ensuing disfigurement and deformities. And He knows that we are but dust…that, as created beings, we are always helpless, bankrupt, needy and totally dependent on Him for all things. But He contains in Himself, the full anticipation, provision and covering necessary to restore us to His eternal Perfection! So we must come to know Him for ourselves.
Sin’s demonic pull to self-destruction, that operates within our fallen human nature, makes us naturally prone to self-sabotage. And if we do not allow God to deal with it, it prevents us from reaching our true, full destiny. The Serpent insists that we can be ‘as God.’ But the fact is, his Sin killed us! We’re all born dead! The Serpent thought, that by killing us he would prevent the fulfillment of God’s Plan! But the Serpent was also blinded by Sin. He too devolved into a grossly deviant caricature of what God first created him to be. God made him to be one of His awesome archangels. He was made to abide in and display God’s Eternal Light! But now, in His decapitated, radically independent state, he has degenerated into a self-adoring, monstrous ‘Prince of Darkness.’
But despite the damage that the Serpent and his powers of Darkness and beguiled, mortally wounded humans manage to do…God has sent His living Word, the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of all things, to be and to do what only He is able to do – restore us completely! God’s Word came looking for Adam and Eve. And He found them and covered their nakedness. Now He seeks after every one of their offspring, in every generation…for the same purpose.
Genesis 3:7-11
“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. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’” (Emphasis added.)
God, in His Perfect, Complete Nature never changes. What He intended in the beginning, He intends today. To Him, we are always His intended image and likeness…still destined to be and do everything, as one with Him, at all times. He still reveals Himself, casting His eternal image and likeness in and through His Perfect living Word, who became flesh to represent us and fulfill our intended purpose and function. Even after we were horribly damaged and twisted and disfigured by Sin…the Word is intent on restoring us all to His own image and likeness. And God’s Word can’t be stopped or deterred from fulfilling His Father’s will. God will restore His own. He will have His image and likeness, just as He has always wanted it to be! So if we are willing to repent of our separation from, and disobedience to, God’s Word, He will accomplish fully, our restoration, by the end of time.
An image, by its essence, reflects and embodies the one that casts it, with impeccable accuracy, truthfulness and synchronized oneness. Whatever the original does, its image does. So consider the magnitude of the restoration process we must undergo to reflect Almighty God with such precision! Consider how far Sin has removed us from what God intends. The humanistic, self-actualizing world blindly assumes that it is ‘perfectly okay’, just as it is. But Sin has severed the Blood Covenant ‘Love-Bond’ that God created us all to have with Him at all times. When the Serpent severs you from your Life Source or ‘Head,’ you are ‘decapitated;’ that is – you’re dead! After that, your sub-human level of existence amounts to bitter divorce and enmity and hostility against God.
So how can that be ‘okay’? How can Serpent-deluded people that are trapped in a desolate, sub-human level of existence (to say the least) be okay? God never intended for us to be born into the state we now actually inherit; nor did he create it. The mortality symptoms we exhibit, such as the spiritual death and mental, emotional and physical sickness, disease, distress and the disastrous strife, brutality and other earthly horrors and desolation and the terror of dying that we currently experience, are all the direct results of Sin. Thus the race that exists apart from God remains condemned to endless frustrating violent strife, hatred, rage, bigotry, and heart-sickening failure. We can’t stop inflicting destruction and desolation upon ourselves and on our children and whoever is around us. These are the signs and symptoms of the Death that is in us…as long as we remain severed from God’s living Word. And only total reunification with God’s Word and reliance upon Him can save and restore us to the image and likeness of Almighty God level. When we’re His image and likeness, His Eternal Life is free to abide and work from within us. And that makes us ‘fully human’.
Our Marching Orders
I ask you to review the ‘Marching Orders’ listed on the Follow Me website. Read them and ask yourself how many people do you know that can actually carry them out with disciple-level authenticity? A minute of reflection will show you just how radically profound our Exodus from Egypt has to be. Spiritual ‘nakedness’ is the absence of the loving, Blood Covenant union we are all made to have with our Creator and Lord, God’s living Word. But instead of acknowledging Him to be our one and only Source and Shepherd, spiritually naked people look to themselves and other things that He has created. Those things serve as their alternate ‘resources’ and ‘securities.’ So although they’re designed to be God’s image and likeness, they live as sub-human aliens, strangers and, even opponents and competitors against their true Creator, Sustainer, Supplier and Protector! How could anyone assume for a minute that such a state is going to be acceptable in the sight of our awesome, Infinitely Perfect God?
That is the nakedness of ‘Egypt’ out of which God must lead His chosen people. And that is why Israel had to follow Moses, who was following God’s Word, out of that demonic atmosphere. But even though the wilderness was now all around them, Egypt and its ways and false sources and deceptive attitudes and viewpoints were still deeply rooted within the souls and brains of most of them. You can see that by the way they continually mistrusted and suspected and railed against the Lord. No matter how much God revealed Himself to them and proved His Reality and Truth and backed up His promises…they were never satisfied or reassured of His perfect credibility and dependability and loving kindness. Instead, they would panic and grumble and fall apart:
Exodus 15:24
“So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ Then he cried out to the Lord…”
Psalm 106:10-14
“So He saved them from the hand of the one who hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed His words; they sang His praise. They quickly forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel, but craved intensely in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert.” (Emphasis added.)
It was not enough that they had been chosen by God. There also needed to be a corresponding choosing God in return type of response, on their part! If He calls us we must respond in a way that reflects back to Him, the wholehearted love-attitude and Spirit in which He calls us. We must allow His Holy Spirit to equip and empower us to give our Father the proper response that is worthy of Him, through our Spirit-imparted faith and obedient attitude.
Psalm 119:17-19
“Deal bountifully with Your servant, That I may live and keep Your Word. Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your Law (Torah). I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me.”
The orgies of doubt, fear and rebellious grumbling, in which Israel indulged, revealed the divorced, resentful distance from God most of them harbored in their hearts. It remained even IMMEDIATELY AFTER God worked an entire series of one amazing, supernatural wonder after another…before their eyes! He devastated the pharaoh on their behalf. They saw Him do it and they personally experienced His tremendous, miraculous deliverance in fulfillment of His Eternal Blood Covenant with them. But His Word was not allowed to pierce, penetrate and enter their hearts. They didn’t ‘get it.’ So they were not able to experience intimate knowledge of His eternal Peace, Rest, Joy and All-Sufficiency that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew and enjoyed with Him.
This Joy, Peace and Rest can only be enjoyed by those who truly know God at the most intimate, personal, marital union experience levels. Only they can afford to REST in His Presence…with total, all-encompassing, outrageous confidence and joy of heart. For them, circumstances and feelings and human opinions will no longer matter. Once God’s Word has penetrated their heart, only He in His eternal infinite Perfection will matter; and temporary created circumstances will no longer be taken into account.
Genesis 2:1-3
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work, which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work, which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Emphasis added.)
What Genesis reveals in the text above tells us that God, and the Perfection of whatever He did in the very beginning, can’t be any more perfect, complete and all sufficient and satisfying than it already is. God got everything right, from the very first instant of Creation…because He’s Perfect! There is no room for error, failure or defeat within the Fullness of His Perfection! And we who are God’s intended image and likeness, are designed and created to enjoy, reflect, embody and share His Perfection with Him…for all of eternity!
God intends to reveal Himself to everyone; but He chose to begin with Israel. And despite her hardness of heart and stubborn refusal to trust and obey Him, God continues, even now, to fulfill His Plan through her. He sent His living Word to be conceived and to emerge from her…to represent us all in the Eternal Covenant. God’s Perfect Word renders the Perfect Human response to God…in our name! God did not choose Israel because she was perfect and capable in herself! She was no different than any of the other children of Adam! But through her, He planned to reveal His beloved Son…the Word made flesh, the Last Adam, who became flesh and represents us all to Perfection in the Eternal Covenant. And so He is here to reveal and impart, in time and space, what has always been finished and given to us, throughout all of eternity!
Matthew 17:3-8
“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him! When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, ‘Get up, and do not be afraid.’ And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.”
Because His work is finished and perfect, the Word of God eternally reigns supreme. By the end of this time and space dimension, all of Creation, rebellious or otherwise, will know and acknowledge this Truth. But the revelation of this fact has begun to unfold in this temporal life. And it is our honor and privilege, as disciples, to believe, live and proclaim what is true in eternity, even now, even while most of the sons of Adam remain beguiled by the lies of the Serpent:
Matthew 28:18-20
“And Jesus (just before He ascended into Heaven) came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in (making them one with) the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Like all Sin-damaged, broken humans, those poor Exodus Israelites had been oppressed and deprived for centuries. They were spiritually immature and could not bring themselves to believe the Fullness of what God was offering to them and the rest of the world. Remember that at first, they did not have Genesis or any other Scripture texts to read, study and ponder. Moses hadn’t written the Torah yet. But, just like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, they did have the One that the written Word tells us about, the living Word. He was with them at all times, revealing Himself to them in real life and in living color. He was there to draw them into oneness with His Father. But in their suspicious mistrust, they kept pulling away, regarding Him as an intruder, a stranger that they beheld with great suspicion.
Isaiah 53:3
“He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom (even Israelite) men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
So actually, many of those first generation Exodus Israelites viewed the God of Abraham as something slightly more than human…greater than the pharaoh to be sure, but still limited and not worthy of their trust. They’d been in Egypt for four centuries…and all that they had come to know of Him led to this doubt-based panicky grumbling and complaining in the wilderness. That was the best they could give back to the God of their fathers. So the level at which they knew Him was a far cry from the way Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph knew Him. So obviously, living in Egypt (slavishly serving the fallen world’s system) had been spiritually corrosive, and a negative, destiny-destroying experience. Life in the world corrodes and disintegrates and strangles everyone’s ability to gain a true knowledge of God. It militates against us being able to know Him at the deep, intensely personal and intimate marital, Blood Covenant level that is required of God’s true image and likeness.
So God began to solidify His ‘Post-Egypt’ relationship with this generation by leading them into an enormous ‘Honeymoon.’ He was dealing with several million ex-slaves. Realistically, there was nowhere to take them except to the silent solitude of the wilderness. No nation in the region would have been able or willing to absorb so many ex-slaves with their alien background, language, culture and heritage. And to move them from one worldly pagan nation to another would have been to keep them in ‘Egypt.’ So the only way to get them out of the world…and the world out of them…was to isolate them in the wilderness. It was time for their boot camp training to begin. Not until they were truly prepared would they be ready to enter the Land of Promise and take possession of it. And not until then, would Israel be established as God’s ‘Light to the Gentile world.’ So the need to keep His people separated was not a temporary thing. It is a permanent necessity that God builds into the very essence and purpose of each generation of His Israel.
God’s living Word led Moses and the others into the wilderness because of their unique calling. There was no other real choice. Whether they liked it or not, the Israelites had to go into ‘no man’s land’…to the strangest, most unique ‘honeymoon resort and suite’ ever seen, before or since. There was ample privacy in which the Husband could reveal Himself to His Bride and she could acquire intimate knowledge of Him, but also of herself. And so they followed Him with great trepidation and doubts and misgivings. They feared because they didn’t allow God to get close enough to them. And so they didn’t get to know Him as He really is. Thus their hearts remained hard, rigid and unyielding, like the pharaoh’s heart had been!
Psalm 103:6-7
“The Lord performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.” (Emphasis added.)
Moses, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph before him, received such a heart-penetrating, piercing, Life-imparting revelation from God that he too came to know God at the fathers’ level of deep, united intimacy. God really pierced, penetrated and impregnated the ‘fathers of Israel’ with His living Word. And they learned to embrace God’s Word and submit wholeheartedly to His Authority. So the Word presided and reigned from deep within their innermost being. Through their crucified selfless flesh, God was able to show them His ways and what was in His heart. And through their obedient flesh, His Word was able to reach out to the world around them, and all the generations after them. He is still producing His fruit through what He was able to impart to, and reveal through, those awesome, obedient, crucified disciples.
We Need to Know God’s Ways, Not Just His Works
Scripture says that God was only able to demonstrate His acts to most of the people; but He succeeded in teaching His ways to Moses. This implies that Moses’ relationship with God, unlike that of most of the others, was an intense, deep, ongoing personal interactive relationship similar to Abraham’s. God’s Word was able to deal with Moses in exactly the same way that human masters reproduce and teach their ways, through the lives of their disciples! The disciple lives with the master so that he can know him intimately. Their continual abiding interaction enables the disciple to grow until he conforms to the pattern embodied for him by the life of his master. They abide with each other until the disciple’s life is grafted into that of his master and the master’s spirit can flow into that of his student. So for Moses to learn God’s ways, much of his time had to be spent in personal communion with the living Word. But most of his fellow Israelites on the other hand, obsessed over other things…over temporary worldly issues. They wallowed in distracting priorities and alien diversions.
But, despite Israel’s inevitable human weaknesses and failures, God chose her to be His special instrument of revelation and redemption for the rest of the world…to be His personal priestly, intercessory nation. But with such inadequate performance on her part, who would make up for her failures? Someone had to do it properly. Before she could be a priestly nation on behalf of the rest of the world, Someone had to be a priest for her! A Perfect substitute representative for Israel had to stand before God on her behalf and fulfill, in her name, all of her God-given responsibility and destiny in a way that our Perfect God could justly and righteously approve.
And that is what God’s living Word was sent to be for her, and also for the rest of us. If anyone repents of being separated from Him and comes back under His Authority, He becomes their Eternal High Priest who abides in our Heavenly Father’s Holy Perfect Presence to minister to Him…as us and for us. The Word ministers to God by meeting His Perfect Standards, as His Perfect Image and Likeness. He does it all in our name, and to minister to the Jewish and non-Jewish world, by demonstrating to them what an image and likeness of God is and what it looks and sounds and lives like. And He makes sure that those who are His own are equipped to embody Him so that they too can receive credit for the Perfect Finished Representative Performance He is here to transmit into them and also to reveal it to the rest of the world, through, them.
Hebrews 2:17-18
“Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Emphasis added.)
Even the highly favored, privileged Sin-damaged Israelites can’t do what God commissioned the human race to be and do. We all fall short and fail to meet and fulfill God’s requirements and Perfect Standards, perfectly. So God’s Word is always with us…to be our Blood Covenant Coverer…and Kinsman Redeemer…and High Priest and All-Sufficient Perfect Shepherd. He sees to it that our work is done…to His Father’s Perfect Satisfaction and that all of our needs are met! He makes sure everything about us is Perfect…by being our Perfection Himself…in us…through us…as us…and for us.
Isaiah 55:10-11
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” (Emphasis added.)
John 5:18-24
“For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of Death into Life.’” (Emphasis added.)
So it is true for Israel, as well as for all pagan Gentiles: God must do all of the work. If it isn’t Perfect, He won’t accept it. So He does it through His living Word and Holy Spirit. But when we try to do it by our devices, it falls far short; it is Sin-corrupted and therefore, unacceptable to God! So, because of God’s Eternal Perfection and His Perfect Standards of Righteousness and Justice, His own Word must cover us and be our All…in all things…the Firstborn of all Creation…the First fruits of the Resurrection, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. He did the work of God THROUGH Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses…and those men were wise enough to reckon themselves to be dead and bankrupt and helpless so that God could work through them without any doubts or arguments, or foot-dragging or negative interference from them to contaminate the finished product. They died to that rebellious, radically independent, humanistic, self-glorifying way of seeing, thinking and living. They finally realized that without God’s living Word abiding and working in them, they were dead!
But not all people know God as they did. Most still put some faith, hope and trust in themselves and in other false gods. They trust in their own flesh, or in that of other Sin-corrupted people, or in other parts of God’s Creation. They trust in governments, religions, armies, economies and false man-made gods and man-centered theologies and philosophies. But when they do, they remain decapitated and unable to know God as the fathers knew Him. When Sin-dead human flesh predominates, it blots God out of our mental pictures of reality; and so His living Word is also pushed out and eliminated. In the vacuum that leaves, men keep striving to do things FOR or LIKE God. And that proves that, at heart, they’re still ‘Egyptians’. Many of us give some trust and faith to God; but also to alternate gods. But if we can’t trust God wholeheartedly and exclusively, we don’t really trust Him at all!
John 3:20-21
“…everyone who does evil hates the Light (of God’s living Word), and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the Truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
God’s Spirit only abides in and works through regenerated, crucified human spirits. He won’t use a speck of what comes from fallen flesh. To be perfect, the work must be utterly Pure, that is, originated by God in eternity and transmitted into time and space by His Spirit who is here to make God’s living Word, and the Fruit that only He can produce, real, active, alive and effective in us and through us. God bypasses our fallen flesh and works only through the regenerated, sanctified spirits of those that truly submit to His Word’s Authority. So when we offer Him something Sin-contaminated, even when it’s very religious and spiritual looking, God backs away and leaves us to our own devices until our failures force us to catch on to what we have to learn.
In their ignorance, worldly people fail to realize that God will never take back the free will He has already given us. He won’t force Himself on hearts that choose to resist and reject and try to bypass His Word. His Love and Mercy do not follow the path of least resistance; they follow the path of most acceptance! The fathers of the Faith learned this. So they were able to believe, accept and obey God’s Word with obedient, faith-filled, RESTING assurance. They rejoiced in God’s Beauty and Omnipotence and Perfection. They knew He had to do everything in order for the result to be Living and Perfect; so they crucified their fallen living death flesh and its perspectives, urges and desires. And they rested in Him and received and benefitted from the Perfection of what He has already done in eternity. And the results were stupendous and enormously exceptional. And they will continue to bear God’s Fruit until time and space disappear into infinity and eternity!
Our Utterly Perfect God
We can’t repeat this too often: God is Perfect in every way! He doesn’t have to change or add anything because everything that He anticipated and did in eternity past…perfectly covers and factors in and fulfills the needs of whatever we need now or will need in the future. It’s ridiculous to assume there could be any other god, or gods or that anything like that would ever be needed! In Eternity, God is everything this space and time dimension will ever need. He has already given Himself, through His Word, to supply and freely dispense and apply it. And it is already completely paid for! God’s love is so comprehensive that it Perfectly fulfills every need and contingency the universe will ever have. God did everything perfectly…from the beginning…before any creature, even the angels, including the powers of Darkness, even existed! And because our God is airtight in His faithfulness and credibility and dependability, all Creation owes Him a corresponding, Perfect Airtight Love and Trust and Faith and Obedience and Worship. And this is what our Messiah Yeshua, the Word made flesh, has given Him in our name.
Exodus 15:11-18
“Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders? You stretched out Your right hand, the earth swallowed them. In Your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed; in Your strength You have guided them to Your holy habitation. The peoples have heard, they tremble; anguish has gripped the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed; the leaders of Moab, trembling grips them; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them; by the greatness of Your arm they are motionless as stone; until Your people pass over, O Lord, until the people pass over whom You have purchased. You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, the place, O Lord, which You have made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever!” (Emphasis added.)
God is not demanding too much of us when He says:
Deuteronomy 6:5-6
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might!” (Emphasis added.)
Nor is He unreasonable when His Word says:
Matthew 5:48
“…you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Emphasis added.)
God is so Perfect that everything He began is also Finished and Fulfilled! He is so Perfect in His Righteousness and Justice that only He can and must do everything…in our place and on our behalf…to make sure His commandments are obeyed and fulfilled Perfectly! Nothing less than Perfection satisfies His Perfect changeless Nature! But only He is Perfect. And we Sin-corrupted piles of dust are by nature incapable of taking His place. So, His Word has taken our place! And that’s why He is our one and only God.
Psalm 103:8-14
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust!” (Emphasis added.)
Philippians 2:12-13
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure!” (Emphasis added.)
This is what God’s Word began to teach to Israel during their wilderness ‘Honeymoon.’ He took her into the most humanly impossible, scary and dangerous situation imaginable. The impossibilities facing poor Israel were vast and endless. So it is laughable to assume that God actually expected such a rabble of fallen flesh to do anything for Him, or for itself. But the human race is very slow to learn. Many still believe they can and must strive to get by without God, and do everything for Him, in His place. But if that were true, our success would force God to admit that we can earn our own way and succeed at trying to be ‘as God.’ In that case, the Serpent’s lie would be Truth and God would not be God. But lies can never become Truth, and Truth will never become a lie!
Nothing about human flesh has changed since the days of Abraham! The Exodus is still excruciatingly difficult for each succeeding generation. We must all learn that if we’re going to be restored to being God’s image and likeness, it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to do it apart from Him! God has to originate and complete 100% of it. And we must reflect His Perfect Covering, 100% of the time. But do we dare trust in our awesome God that much? Do we dare consider ourselves as dead to being able to be or do anything without Him? Will we admit that we’re nothing in ourselves, but are here to serve as His reflection at all times?
Mark 10:23-27
“And Jesus (the Eternal, Perfect Word of God), looking around, said to His disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who are wealthy (with created devices in which they put their faith) to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (that thinks he’s alive and can work his way in) to enter the kingdom of God.” They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?’ Looking at them, Jesus said, ‘With people (who died with Adam) it is impossible, but not with God (who is the one and only Source for all things; for all things are possible with God!’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
The Wilderness was, and always will be, the perfect testing laboratory for God to put Himself and His claims and promises and Blood Covenant faithfulness to the acid test. But it also puts our sincerity, integrity and faith to the same test. In the wilderness, everything figures and seems to be utterly hopeless. That’s how our Sin-damaged faculties see it. So out there in no man’s land, we’re stripped of every natural human resource. The false gods of Egypt and any other part of the fallen world system are nowhere to be found. There are no created states, governments, economies, jobs, banks, armies, or life-support facilities and systems, no safety devices, creature comforts, convenience stores or rest stops! And the Serpent has convinced the world system that we can’t survive without such things! So how could several million people, not to mention their extensive herds and flocks, last out there for even a week? Put yourself in their sandals and in their situation. What would you see and think and feel if you and your loved ones had to go out there to experience all of that with them. Ponder it well, beloved…because the fact is, God has called you and your loved ones to join them!
What is Impossible for Us, Is an Opportunity for Our Mighty God
It is precisely because of the utter impossibility of that wilderness situation that God chose it for Israel’s ‘Honeymoon.’ There were no false gods to deceive and beguile them. The only way so many could survive would be if the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could prove Himself to be real and back up all of His claims! But had He proved to be just another false god invented by men, or to be limited and imperfect and deficient and inept in any way, then their living death would have quickly caught up with them and run its entire course very quickly. And they all would have perished!
But Israel didn’t die. No one starved or died of thirst or went without any necessity of life. By one way or another, without any help from any human device, moment by moment…hour by hour…day by day…God met their needs and they were able to go on, for months…for forty years! And they multiplied and grew in number, and thrived…even though the whole world was convinced that they didn’t have a chance. And Israel is still here, even to this day!
During the forty years they spent out there, caravans and nomadic Bedouins met and passed them. And they saw the Israelite nation, still alive, marching growing and getting stronger. And those that saw them went to the surrounding villages, towns and nation and gossiped about the Hebrews and what their God had done to mighty Egypt …what happened to the pharaoh’s legions of charioteers and archers. And the news spread like wildfire. As Israel moved, the people in their path were overcome by fear and dread. God was revealing Himself and His ways to and through Israel and the rest of the world was stopping in its tracks and taking notice. And the awe and trembling respect for the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob began to spread …and it is still spreading throughout our present generation!
Joshua 2:8-11
“Now before they lay down, she (Rahab of Jericho) came up to them (the 2 Israelite spies) on the roof, and said to the men, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
By the time Joshua sent two men to spy on Jericho, decades had passed. And Israel had thrived and developed her own formidable military force. Their God was obviously real and living and evidently in their midst …providing, protecting and empowering them to rout local kings and warlords who dared try to prevent them from passing through their territories. And so Israel was fulfilling her call to be God’s ‘Light to the Gentiles,’ despite her very shaky start.
God wanted their generation to know Him more deeply and intimately than their fathers had known Him. But it didn’t happen. The ‘faith’ of most sprang leaks at the first signs of trouble. And their panic turned to rage and murderous threats against Moses. But in rejecting Moses, they rejected God’s living Word who was reaching out to them through Moses. Finally, it became clear that they would not change. So God used them as a negative example, an object lesson from which future generations were warned to learn:
Hebrews 3:12-19
“Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said,
‘Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.’ “For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.”
Any Israelite can claim to be an Israelite and a child of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But that’s not enough. Remember: God is Perfect and so are His standards of Righteousness. He has to do all of the work that is necessary for our redemption and restoration…before His Perfect Standards can be satisfied. But nothing can be perfect if God really makes us responsible for meeting His demands! As long as we assume that, we will cave in under the pressure of knowing we can’t do it. And we’ll ‘burn out’ with frustration. But God doesn’t need us! We need Him! We must declare bankruptcy and admit that because we died with Adam…we’re bankrupt and helpless in terms of being able to do anything to satisfy Gods’ demands and Standards. And then God can show us what He has already done!
James 4:5-10
“Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil (who tries to delude you into thinking you can be ‘as God’) and he will flee from you. Draw near to God (in your helpless dependence) and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the Presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” (Emphasis added.)
It takes tremendous, military-level discipline, to wean former Egyptian slaves of their idolatrous addictions to self-life. We must be completely retrained and rewired before we can become focused on and rooted in and dependent upon on God’s Perfect Provision …for ALL things…at ALL times, on ALL levels. It takes profound mind-renewal and brain re-wiring before we can remain permanently rooted in God’s changeless eternal Perfection, knowing that He never fails, never falters and always succeeds, regardless of the event, situation or circumstance. But when we are trained, we can know true peace and rest. Then, even amid dire emergencies and potential disasters, we’re able to remain perfectly calm, poised and at rest. Demonic lies and traps will no longer be able to derail or upset us. And nothing worldly people say or do or threaten, will be able to enslave our souls. Amid the swirls of changing times and circumstances, we’ll be able, supernaturally, to abide with God in the ‘Eye of the Hurricane’ that swirls and roils continually all around the globe. We can abide with God in His Eternal Sabbath Peace, Joy and Rest, knowing that He has us and everything else covered Perfectly, through the Perfect Finished Work of His Perfect living Word who is our Perfect Eternal Covenant Representative.
The commandments God gives are not a heavy burden and bondage that He places on our inept, hopelessly weak shoulders. They are a reminder, a testament to His Perfect Covenant Bond with us. The Husband has kept and perfectly fulfilled the commandments on behalf of and from deep within, His beloved Bride. God’s Word, His Perfect Image and Likeness, has come to dwell within us. And He will do everything Perfectly from deep within our yielded, believing hearts. God’s Holy Spirit is here to make the necessary changes in us and transmit the perfect Humanity of our risen Lord into us. So God has already done all of the necessary work – to Perfection. And He transmits the Fruit of it to us, through the airtight faith, hope and trust that He will impart to His wise, obedient, trusting disciples. The corresponding wholehearted, perfect Obedience and the Rest and Peace of heart and soul God gives to us, will be the image and likeness of God’s awesome Perfection.
And that is how the Word and His disciples can live and act as one, doing everything together like a beautiful Vine and His beautiful, living, fully connected, Fruit-bearing branches. God’s living Word became flesh to serve as our Perfect Covenant Representative. And He applied His Perfection to His Bride, His True Israel, to whom He has bonded and fused Himself…for all of Eternity!
Matthew 28:20b
“…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”