Exodus 20:18-21
“All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.’ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.’ So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.”
Beloved, try to grasp all that is implied in the overpowering manner in which God’s Word now reveals Himself to all the newly-freed slaves in the wilderness. What does God do when He sends His living Word to ‘test’ us? And did you catch the reason why He caused Israel to ‘fear’ Him? He did it to impress upon them the horror and enormity of Sin and what it does, and how much Almighty God intends to destroy and eliminate it. And when it comes to ‘testing’ people, one thing is certain: He doesn’t test us for His sake. He already knows everything about us. But we do not know ourselves, or our true state of living death into which Sin trapped the human race. And we know next to nothing about the depth of Sin-corruption that comes along with our state of living death. We do not know how truly weak, helpless and totally dependent we are because the Serpent infected our DNA with the delusionary virus of ‘radical independence.’ We assume that we’re okay and fully alive, and able to get by on our own and meet our own needs.
So instead of being led by God’s Word and Holy Spirit, we’re led by our own fallen souls and highly limited, faulty imaginations, thought levels, habit patterns, and perceptions. Our fallen souls and those of others like us, along with God-less worldly movements, trends and circumstances are what rule and run our lives. In that sense, we are all idolaters! And as long as we abide at that decapitated level of existence, we will remain spiritually blind, without any suspicion that we are hopelessly caught within the Serpent’s coils! Nor will we realize, that as long as we remain in that deluded, clueless state, we remain deprived of our image and likeness of God destiny and share instead, in the dismal, eternal, desolate fate of the Father of Lies.
To awaken and snap us out of that demonic trance, God puts us to the test. He ‘tests’ us the way assayers ‘test’ ore to see whether or not it really is gold or silver. We go through some sort of ‘fire test.’ The fire of tribulation exerts tremendous pressure on us and brings out the truth about what is truly in us. It will either be the ‘gold’ that proves that God’s Word and Spirit are truly at work within us, supplying, empowering and guiding us while we receive from God and follow His Word, or it reveals the slag of our decapitation and independent alienation from God’s Word and Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:11-13
“For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.” (Emphasis added.)
God shows us what is actually going on within us so that He can deliver us from all of our delusions, false assumptions, misconceptions and condemnation. He does it to make sure that we are properly informed and prepared to face Him when it’s time for our final Judgment. And so as this revelation takes place, and God reveals Himself to us as He really and truly is, we begin to wake up and realize the Truth. And as that happens, God’s living Word increases mightily in our estimation; and, correspondingly, we decrease tremendously!
Isaiah 6:1-5
“In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His Glory!’
“And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’”
John 8:31-32
“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.’”
This Exodus generation of Israelites had been born as the ‘property’ of Egypt. They were regarded and treated as beasts of burden by the idolatrous system of this fallen world! The God-less perspectives and priorities and conditioning forces of pagan idolaters had dominated, conditioned and formed their minds from conception! And that robbed them of their true image and likeness of God identity and purpose in this world. The demonic delusions of the Serpent were put into them at conception and intensified and driven home by the way their Egyptian oppressors treated them. So their ideas of themselves were riddled with victimization, shame, inferiority, disenfranchisement, subjugation and abasement. Because they clung so tenaciously to that identity, no matter what signs God gave them, and no matter how drastically he changed their situation and circumstances, most insisted on seeing themselves and thinking as they were used to doing in the past.
Yes, they had their oral tradition concerning Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph that had been handed down from previous generations. They knew something about the dim, distant past of their family heritage. But what had they personally experienced? What had their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents experienced? Had they ever had even a taste of the glory that those Covenant promises contained? No…slavery…forced bondage…toil, brutality, misery and injustice…those were the only things they knew.
They only experienced the negative, disadvantageous parts of being God’s chosen Covenant Family. The bread of affliction was the only diet they had known; but those glorious, exciting portions contained in God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… the promises about possessing the Land of Promise as their own and being so blessed that they would actually be a God-given redemptive blessing to the rest of the world, were realities that not even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had experienced with any fullness, throughout the many years they spent on earth.
Hebrews 11:9-10; 13-14; 16
“By faith he (Abraham) lived as an alien in the Land of Promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise…All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own…But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a Heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for HE has prepared a City for them!” (Emphasis added.)
Even to this day, God’s chosen people cannot fully enjoy true and full possession of the ‘Land of Promise.’ And even Yeshua, God’s living Word, the risen Lord of Glory Himself, must also wait, along with His Israelite brothers, for the total Fulfillment of the promises His Father made to Him and to Israel, and to the rest of the world!
Psalm 110:1-2
“The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand UNTIL I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’ The Lord WILL stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of Your enemies.’
So what were those poor, beaten, disenfranchised ex-slaves to think? How many of them do you suppose truly believed, in the depths of their hearts, the ‘folklore’ that their ancestors had passed on to them? How real were the wonderful-sounding promises made by the living God of Abraham…to them? Of course they were skeptical, derisive and downright mistrustful of Moses and what God sent Him to announce to them about their impending deliverance from the pharaoh and his taskmasters! Who would not have been cynical at hearing such outlandish-sounding claims? And what did it do for their ability to trust Moses and Aaron when, the more they tried to confront the pharaoh and demand the Israelites’ release, the more the pharaoh commanded his taskmasters to mistreat them and impose even harsher, more insanely unreasonable work quotas for them to meet?
As We Embrace the Revelation of the Word…Our Exodus Begins…
That first Exodus generation of Israelites was a very tough audience to convince. So God revealed His living Word to them in the most spectacular, unmistakable, overwhelmingly gut-wrenching ways possible. This generation HAD to be given unmistakable proof. But even after God gave it to them, most remained unconvinced. Even after God gave them every opportunity to see for themselves and to experience, how real and alive and present and dynamically active He truly is, they continued to doubt and maintain separation from Him in their hearts. God was proving to the entire nation that He was real, and that He really means whatever He says, and backs up every one of His claims and promises. They saw with their own eyes, and experienced in their own lives, the Lord’s unmistakable, absolute Authority and the living Presence of His utterly authoritative living Word. Egypt was no longer a factor in their lives. God had removed every speck of their past…except for the enormous amount of material wealth He forced the Egyptians to give to the Israelites, prior to their departure, in payment for four centuries of slave labor. But instead of willingly following God’s Word to the end of their Exodus, and allowing Him to take them into the awesome future for which He had destined them, most of them yearned to return to Egypt! Egypt was harsh…but at least, to them, it was familiar and predictable.
But Egypt itself was no longer the same. Israel’s entire situation and status had transformed! By the working of Almighty God’s awesome, omnipotent, world-changing Power and Authority, they were no longer slaves; they had become intimidators in their own right! Their God was truly there with them…over them…all around them…and throughout their midst. He was in every detail of whatever they had to experience throughout each day and night. This is what He wanted them to see and accept about Him in the wilderness. For forty years, He demonstrated His Lovingkindness to them. He cared for and protected them in living color! He proved that earthly circumstances, situations and conditions, no matter what they might be, are never what truly matter. The only Reality that mattered for them, and all that matters for all of us is that our God is the one true, real, utterly Perfect, Omnipotent God! And when He is with us and for us – our natural, worldly, temporal circumstances, and the powers of this world and even our own perceptions and feelings do not count!
Are you a disciple? If you are, then this same Almighty God is your eternal Covenant Friend and Ally and Protector and Provider and Redeemer. What He once was and once did for the nation of ex-slaves in the wilderness, He is ready to be and do for you, as well! He is with us ALWAYS, at every level and in every detail. He is more than able to overcome anything that any demon or disobedient human or group of humans that depend on Him for their existence may try to do to override His will and thwart His plans concerning anything He creates.
The Bible testifies to this Reality, over and over again. God is revealing that He never changes, nor will He ever take back the promises He made and sealed in Covenant Blood and gave to the physical and spiritual children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Despite any set of circumstances, despite anything that may be going on around us, and despite what the world may be trying to do to harm or eliminate us, our Covenant God is with us always…He always has the first and the last Word. His Word abides in absolute, total Authority…forever! So God is always honoring and fulfilling His Covenant and His Word. And, when this Exodus process in our time and space dimension is finished, He will have made good on every promise He made to His Word, the Son, and to the fathers of our Faith, and to all of Israel, and to each human being He has created. Everything will be done…to PERFECTION! Everything in fallen, Sin-corrupted Creation will be fully and perfectly restored when He finally takes us across the ‘Finish Line’ of our Exodus. This is the Exodus message.
None of this awesome Fulfillment depends on our personal weaknesses or disabilities or character flaws or sins and failures. That was true for those former slaves, and it is true for all the rest of us. God had already committed Himself eternally to the entire human race; In Eternity, He had already settled all the issues and matters that once stood between us in time and space, as a result of our fall into Sin and Death and Darkness. He settled it by making a unilateral, promise-filled Covenant with Himself, and by bringing our father Abraham into that Covenant. And He renewed His promises to Isaac and Jacob…and to all of their physical and spiritual descendants. And now that He has done that…and it is written and recorded and sealed in Blood, we can expect with certainty that each and every one of us that join Him in the Covenant can realize and know, just as surely as we know our own names, that our Covenant God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is real and true and present and ETERNALLY PERFECT in every way. The Fulfillment of whatever He reveals and promises through His Word, is contained within His Word. His Word IS the Fulfillment! We can know God and become one with Him, and live and operate as His regenerated ‘sons,’ in and through and by His living Word who became flesh to become one with us and join us all to the beloved Father who sent Him to us.
And we can do that even now, while we’re still on the journey…by Spirit-given, Biblical faith in God’s Perfection and absolute Credibility and Reliability. Even as we continue the journey, God’s Word is with us and He is the Fulfillment of everything God expects and requires of us. Those ex-slaves had to learn and accept this in order to be equipped to fulfill their God-given commission and purpose. So God revealed Himself to them in spectacular fashion so that they could change their attitudes and thinking and become prepared to persevere through the intense boot camp type training their true identity and calling would require them to have. He revealed Himself so they would be able to know that He is their airtight Perfect God and that they could afford to trust Him with airtight perfect human faith…no matter what might be happening in this brutal fallen world, and no matter how bad things might appear to be around them, and no matter how they might be feeling in their Sin-damaged, fallen souls. They had to know that because their Covenant God is always with them, earthly circumstances will never matter, nor will any opposing demonic forces ever be able to prevail over them and stop the fulfillment of God’s Plan in their regard! God has all of eternity in which to fulfill His promises to us! And He will! We have His Perfect Word on it.
Becoming One With God’s Living Word
The great challenge for Israel and the rest of the world, is to become one with God’s living and written Word. Anyone who will dare to believe and embrace, identify with and follow the living Word of God, MUST get to know Him to such depths, that He becomes our true, authentic and exclusive Lord and Master! We must be able to identify and bond with Him to such an intimate, profoundly unified degree, that our minds, wills and imaginations, will not only believe the Word intellectually… but we will go much further than that. Our entire being, spirit, soul, body and past, present and future must actually be plunged into and submerged, or baptized, into Him and be thoroughly marinated in and suffused by, His living Reality…so that we can actually be as one with Him in wholehearted, deliberate, unconditionally absolute union of heart and mind, identity and purpose!
This union with Him enables disciples of God’s Word to remain filled to overflowing with airtight, supernatural confidence that comes into us directly from God Himself and has nothing to do with this fallen world, or the conditions that exist within it, or the fallen human perceptions to which decapitated people are limited. Once we come to know Him, the Presence and Reality of our Perfect, Eternal, Changeless and Omnipotent God is all that matters! And when we can know and receive Him through His Word at that level, then we are equipped to stand and hold our God-given ‘Covenant Ground’. The Holy Spirit of God equips and empowers us to believe, obey and follow God’s Word truly and consistently, with the level of perseverance that will confound the powers of Darkness and overcome any delusion or trap or opposition they try to place before us. He equips us to know God to such a depth, that we can actually embody all that He is and does, in all of our thoughts, actions, reactions and interactions. We can embody God’s Word as His Holy Spirit abides and works and reveals His Reality, from deep within our yielded minds, hearts, wills and flesh.
This is why we disciples must die to our original, former, radically independent, worldly identities and perspectives and original independent priority systems and empires and agendas. When we become one with God’s living Word in God’s Covenant, we are baptized into Him and His Reality. We are fused together with Him, Spirit to spirit, and through Him, we become one with the Perfection and Fullness of God Almighty Himself! And when we are truly one with God in our heart and soul and will…Almighty God becomes the preeminent Factor in everything we think, do and say. We embody Him in all of our actions, reactions and interactions. Thus God, through His Word, is revealed and enthroned as Supreme Lord over us, and over all of our situations and circumstances. He is our King; and we become His Heavenly Kingdom. And no longer are we part of this disintegrating, perishing world.
Beloved, this is not a game or a joke. This is utterly serious, eternally consequential Blood Covenant Reality! You have been called to interact and abide with the Supreme Creator and Maintainer and Protector of the entire universe! Only this level of identification and union with what He reveals about Himself will empower us to complete our Exodus from the fallen, demon-possessed world system. And only this level of identification will completely deliver us from all former ties to, and dependence upon, the Serpent-dominated promoters and custodians of the Titanic-like, living death system that is all around us.
We too were born slaves to that system. But to be a slave to this world, is to be caught up in the coils of the Serpent! This is why that original generation of ex-slaves that we learn about in the book of Exodus, serve as a perpetual reminder and example. And this is why God has warned us through His Torah, that Death permeates this fallen world’s system, and that at the end of our grace period, during which we can be reconciled to Him, He will demolish and destroy every last trace of this Sin-corrupted Creation and completely replace it with something so beautiful, perfect and eternally pure, that we cannot even imagine it at this point of our journey. God has revealed to us that it is so:
Revelation 21:1-5
“Then I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth; for the first Heaven and the first Earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away!” (Emphasis added.)
Isaiah 64:3-5
“When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your Presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved?” (Emphasis added.)
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
“…But just as it is written, ‘things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” (Emphasis added.)
So beloved, the ‘Wilderness’ of the Cross is the instrument God uses to prune and strip away all worldly residues and delusional assumptions from us, to make room for what our Redemption, Regeneration and completely Fulfilling Restoration have waiting for us. This is how God’s precious, awesome living Word was commissioned to free and prepare us all…to truly submit to, agree with, and allow our God to make us into brand new creations – His image and likeness that will be utterly one with Him, in Spirit and in Truth!
An Overwhelming Revelation of God’s Living Word
At Mt. Sinai, God’s living Word could have revealed Himself to the Israelites in any number of ways and forms. He could have done what He did for Abraham in Genesis 18. At that time, He revealed Himself in a very gentle human form, as one of three men traveling through Mamre, where God’s chosen Covenant friend, Abraham, had set up his camp. We can see in Genesis that Abraham recognized the Lord immediately from the previous interactions they’d had with each other. That text said that he worshipped his Lord as Almighty God, and he offered Him the best he had, according to the Middle Eastern Bedouin form of hospitality common to that time and region.
So the Lord’s revelation at Sinai could have been personal, cordial, quiet and intimate. In Genesis, He had even allowed His Covenant friend, Abraham, to serve Him a meal! Genesis reveals that, because of the Blood Covenant relationship that had already been established in chapter 17, God’s living Word and Abraham already knew each other, and so they interacted as close personal friends. And later, the Lord interacted with Isaac in similar friendly terms and reiterated and brought forward to him the same Covenant promises He had made to his father Abraham. And the same Lord appeared again to Jacob. And this time, God’s living Word was so thoroughly human in appearance, that He actually wrestled with Jacob throughout an entire night and revealed Himself to him in such a personal way that poor Jacob was never the same again! And the Lord was also present to Jacob’s son Joseph, throughout each phase of his fascinating life. With Joseph, the Lord’s Presence was quiet, subtle and invisible. Nevertheless, it was obvious that He was always with Joseph, protecting and guiding him and serving as his continual Companion, Teacher, Guide, Protector and Provider. He abided with Joseph and empowered him to fulfill his God-given commission to perfection. And so Joseph served as a prophetic revelation of God’s living Word who would one day become flesh, and suffer, like Joseph suffered, to redeem and save the entire human race, the way Joseph was used to save Egypt and Abraham’s family!
Thus the other sons of Jacob, the patriarchs of Israel, thanks to Joseph’s protection, survived the coming famine that engulfed that entire region. God’s Covenant people were able to survive along with their Egyptian hosts. And their numbers increased and they continued on the journey that would lead to the total fulfillment of their destiny. Throughout the centuries they continued that journey. And despite all of her failings and despite the dreadful things the powers of Darkness tried to do to destroy and eliminate them, Israel succeeded in becoming the Hebrew cultural matrix out of which the living Word of God Himself appeared once more, in their midst. At that time, He appeared as their incarnate Covenant Lord and Passover Lamb and High Priest and Messiah and Redeemer. And later, He will return as Israel’s King and the Lord of all Creation. And then, in Him, Israel’s identity, purpose and ultimate destiny will most assuredly be fulfilled to Perfection!
But at Sinai, it was time to begin the transformation of Abraham’s Family into God’s ‘firstborn nation.’ So there was much more involved now, than just the personal relationship God had with Israel. Now it was time for God to begin to reveal Himself to the rest of the world, through His dealings with Israel. Now, it was time to separate this chosen nation from the world system completely and to establish and commission them to serve Him…as His personal staff of priestly Household Servants on the Earth.
And what was their Covenant Representative, God’s living Word, sent here to do? He was sent to glorify His Father and restore the Glory of His Name. Thus He came to destroy the works of the Serpent and to undo and reverse the lethal damage he had done to God’s Creation, and in particular, to His human creation. He is here to disprove the lies and slander of the Serpent against His Father. Those lies have been embedded into the DNA of humanity’s fallen, Sin-murdered, twisted, corrupted flesh.
In other words, the Word of God is not here to be overcome by the Serpent and by the Evil of Sin and the death, destruction and desolation that he caused. He is here to prove that He is Supreme Lord over all of Creation. He is here to display the Fullness of the Perfect Good that God’s Word contains within Himself. And so, any of the Word’s disciples that are ‘baptized’ or plunged into Him, share in this awesome Blood Covenant union and Restoration and Fulfillment Purpose that our Messiah requires us to embody and share with Him. Thus we must see ourselves as being one with Him and one with His God-commissioned purposes. We are regenerated…brand new creations…sons of God and vice regents of the Kingdom of Heaven! And we too are here, not to be overcome by evil, but to learn to overcome it with the Good… the Fullness of the Word of God with whom the New Covenant makes us, forever, ONE!
During Moses’ time, God revealed His living Word to the Israelites, not just as their Betrothed Spouse, but more than that. He revealed His Word in the most awesome, world-shaking, Power-demonstrating terms imaginable. He appeared with stupendous gut-wrenching bone-chilling Authority, Power and Majesty! He established His Absolute Dominion and Holiness in their eyes in a way that was so unforgettably powerful that not only did Israel get the message of who He was, but the rest of the surrounding, decapitated, idol-worshipping world, also began to know Him!
All men must know His Reality and His Divine, Majestic Authority. So through this awesome, overwhelming display of God’s Transcendent Holiness and humanly unattainable Righteousness and Power, God also established His Name and His Word in the eyes of the nations that populated that entire Fertile Crescent region. Through what He did on behalf of His chosen people, Israel, the surrounding peoples came to know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that He is the one and only True, Living God! He revealed Himself in unmistakable manifestations of His Power and Holiness and Authority, before all of those terrified Israelites, with the intention of making His Father known, through Israel, to the rest of the entire human race that was also beginning to experience the ‘fear of the Lord’.
The generation of Moses’ day saw Him crush the mightiest nation in that entire region and expose and discredit and topple their thousands of false gods. Nothing created had been able to stop Him once He began to set His chosen people free and lead them into the wilderness. And when the pharaoh had a change of heart and tried once more to overtake and destroy Israel in the wilderness, God’s Word destroyed and disposed of the might of that foolish man, completely!
So God continued to reveal more of Himself to the Israelites in order to make them His own exclusive possession. And through them, He also began to reveal Himself to the rest of the world. No false god created by human imagination could ever do what the Lord did then. God proved that He alone is God and He needs no help or assistance from anything or anyone that He has created. And this is what He began to teach Israel when He began to set up ‘housekeeping’ with them in the wilderness:
Exodus 20:22-26
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from Heaven. You shall not make other gods besides Me; gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves. You shall make an altar of earth for Me; and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered,I will come to you and bless you. If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.’ ( Emphasis added.)
God now had to teach His chosen people a very basic lesson that they, and the rest of the nations of the world would have to grasp and never forget. Here is that lesson:
All fallen children of Adam, regardless of ethnic background or color or culture, or religious background, are the same in the sight of God. They must all repent of their Sin-corrupted radical independence from Him. They must submit to, become one with, and obey and follow His living Word. If they do, the Word will free them from the Serpent and reunite with them, as their common Head. Then His Righteousness will be theirs and He will redeem and save and restore them back to His image and likeness.
But if they choose to reject God’s Word, they are choosing to remain in the Serpent’s clutches and share in His enmity against God and in his eternal condemnation.
And so Joshua presented the Israelites that were about to cross the Jordan River and finally begin their invasion of the Land of Promise, with this final challenge:
Joshua 24:13-15
“I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods, which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!” (Emphasis added.)
So, regardless of the awesome identity, purpose, function and destiny to which He called the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God had to impress on them that none of what He was doing with them, and for them, was essentially about them. They were not to allow their egos to become inflated and proud and arrogant before Him and before the rest of men. What He was doing with them and through them was not being caused by them or by what they were or by anything they did. It was not because of any unique qualities that they had in themselves, or because of anything they could be or do or say. They were not better or more worthy or more pleasing to God than any other human group. So none of what was happening between God and Israel could be allowed to twist and distort Israel’s thinking. What was happening was not meant to create a wall of partition between Israel’s ultimate destiny and the destiny of the rest of the human race. That was not why He was setting the Israelites apart from the world system. He was setting them apart so that He could work in and through them…to reach out to the rest of the world and deliver all of mankind from the coils of the Serpent! In that sense, everything that was going on between Israel and the Word of God, was all about God and His intent to set things right and restore His Creation!
The Issue Between God and Man Is Incompatibility, Not Rejection
So despite their awesome calling, God was making sure the Israelites realized that, although they were His chosen nation, they too lived on the fallen, Sin-contaminated side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence with the rest of mankind. They too had fallen, Sin-corrupted human nature. And that caused an infinite gap to exist separating their fallen, Death-ridden human nature from Almighty God’s Eternally Alive, infinitely Holy and Righteous Nature! All fallen human flesh is completely incompatible with the infinitely Perfect and Holy Nature of its Creator, despite the fact that He is intent on redeeming and restoring us all to Perfection. Therefore, this is not about God abhorring and rejecting us; it is about Him loving us and doing whatever is necessary to save and restore us! This is why all humans, Jewish or otherwise, must repent of what Sin has made them all to be in God’s sight. None of us are able to bridge that gap by any means available to human flesh and its wits and devices. We can’t meet God’s infinitely Perfect Standards perfectly. Only God Himself would be able to do such a thing. And that is why this is all about His living Word, our Covenant Representative and Redeemer and Shepherd.
This is the revelation that God had to impart to Israel from the very beginning of their commissioning as God’s chosen demonstration nation. Through them, God could then teach, instruct and deal with the rest of the human race, and reveal His terms. The only way by which God would be able to bridge the gap was by Him coming after them to effect their reconciliation, redemption, regeneration and full restoration. The only way that could happen would be through and by and in His living Word… the Word who became flesh in order to legally represent us all in God’s Eternal Blood Covenant. And this is what Yeshua impressed upon His personal New Covenant Israelite disciples:
John 14:1-6
“‘Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.’ Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me!’”
So, by watching what takes place between God and His chosen nation at Sinai, the rest of the world can begin to know what they too can expect in their dealings with Him. God has to impress this Truth on all flesh… in shocking, unmistakable terms… so that the revelation will pierce, penetrate and get into the very marrow of our bones. He has to impregnate all fallen, Sinful, living dead flesh with His Eternal Life in order to save us all from the Serpent and his Darkness, and restore us to His own image and likeness. Nothing short of that can save any of us. And that is why the Torah of Moses that gives us this revelation, can never be forgotten, replaced, altered or ignored…not by anyone!
The Israelites represented all other people. So God was not elevating them to their preeminent position because of any unique qualities they had in themselves. He placed them above and beyond the rest of the human race as His firstborn nation; but they too were children of Adam and part of ‘the race of the living dead.’ And so God revealed the vast difference between what He is, and what we fallen humans are. He revealed the difference between His Perfect Nature and our fallen, Sin-murdered nature through the minute, specific details of how Israel is to abide in the Presence of Almighty God. He showed them how they were to establish and set up their camp with His tent right in their midst, and the purifying boundaries and cautions that regulated how the Levitical priesthood was to act and operate in God’s Presence and how their ministry to God was to be regulated, ordered and consecrated. God enumerated their priestly duties… and how the Tent of Meeting and its utensils were to be fashioned…and the precise way in which the priests were to use them as they ministered before God. And He prescribed how the altar, the brazen laver, the sanctuary and the Holy of holies were to be constructed and maintained and by whom. You can see this revelation throughout chapters 21-31 of Exodus. Read them and ponder what God is revealing about the Perfection of His living Word, as contrasted with the Sin-corrupted weakness, frailty, inability and inherent failure that we have all inherited through our fallen human nature.
The Son, Revealed Through the Torah
In all of this, God is revealing Himself, through His beloved Son, His Perfect Image and Likeness. By contrasting what His Word is, with what we know, in our hearts, that we are, we see that there is no comparison between what God’s Word is, and what we are. It is the difference between Life and Death and Light and Darkness. Thus we can come to know God’s living creative Word more and more throughout every page and commandment and restriction and specification given in the Torah. God reveals His Word to Israel and the whole world in a way that strikes terror, awe and total respect in human hearts. God reveals His living Word to Israel first… and then through her… He reveals His Son to everyone else.
Although Israel was isolated in the midst of a vast wilderness, the wilderness was not a vacuum. Many Bedouin-type peoples inhabited that huge expanse. And they would visit each other and trade with the nations and cities and highly populated areas that were scattered throughout that region. So the news accounts of what God was revealing about Himself and His living Word, through His dealings with Israel, spread like wildfire. The events surrounding Moses, as recorded in the Torah, began to establish the foundational revelation concerning Himself that God had to give to the whole world!
The surrounding peoples quickly got the message of the awesome overwhelming Power that God was exerting on Israel’s behalf. So, by the time Israel’s extended boot camp training in the wilderness was drawing to an end, the time came for Joshua, Moses’ successor, to send scouts into the Land of Promise, to gather reconnaissance data regarding the terrain, and the military opposition they would encounter from the Canaanite city of Jericho. This is when the scouts learned that Israel’s fame had arrived long before they were sent to reconnoiter. Rahab, the Canaanite woman that the scouts encountered in Jericho, told them that the news concerning their awesome God was already well known throughout the region. So Israel’s arrival was no surprise. The inhabitants of the Land of Promise had been expecting them with great trepidation and dread:
Joshua 2:8-11
“Now before they (the Israelite scouts) lay down, she (Rahab) came up to them on theroof, 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.)
So can you see that, essentially, what God was revealing to Israel about His Perfect Nature, was not just for them? It was also for the rest of the human race! And can you also see that what He was revealing was not for the purpose of glorifying Israel? This was not about them; it was all about God, and the living Word that He sent to do His bidding! All of this was happening so that God could reassert His rights as the one and only true God, and deal mercifully with every Sin-corrupted, Serpent-trapped human being that would ever come into being! And Israel, as she learned to rest and rejoice in His absolute Perfection, Authority and Fullness, was to be His message and example for all the others:
Genesis 12:2-3
“And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you (through the Work My living Word does from within your midst) ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH WILL BE BLESSED!” (Emphasis added.)
So, because Israel was also numbered among the ‘living dead’ children of the first Adam, they were the first to be taught the Truth – that the self-centered, radically independent perspective with which the Serpent had infected and decapitated the human race, and the selfish, self-adoring, God-less lifestyles that the world of men had developed as a result, had to be placed upon the altar and forsaken and sacrificed and totally consumed before God’s Holy Presence. Israel was to embody and demonstrate this Truth to the rest of the world. That’s why they had to learn and obey God’s restrictions, first.
Romans 1:16
“…I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the Power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
God does not need any advice or assistance from any fallen child of Adam. It doesn’t matter what color we are, or to what ethnic family or race or religion we belong. It doesn’t matter what philosophy or religious rituals we follow or ethnic genetic line we come from or what cultural imperatives we create, follow, and promote. We must all realize that the living God is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel… He is the God of all Creation and all of humanity! The one True Living God is revealing Himself to us all, because He has to save, redeem, reconcile with and restore us all! And that is why His living Word is so important and preeminent in every human being’s existence:
Colossians 1:13-22
“For He (the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) rescued us from the domain of Darkness, and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son (His living Word), in whom we have Redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also Head of the Body, the church (God’s New Covenant Fulfillment Family); and He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the Fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the Blood of His Cross; through Him, I say, whether things on Earth or things in Heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach!” (Amplification and emphasis added)
This is why God demands of all men and women, without exception, that they submit their fallen flesh and God-less, radically independent lifestyles, to the Authority His Word and the Resurrection Power of His Holy Spirit. We must place our self-reliance and presumed autonomy on the altar before God, as a living sacrifice that is joined to the Perfect Atonement that has already been made in our name by the Lamb of God. Before God’s Holy Righteous Nature can have anything to do with any of us, we all must repent of our radically independent Sin-twisted perspectives, mindsets and idolatrous worldly priority systems. We must all forsake what Sin has made of us and surrender ourselves, and what originates from within us, to His Word’s Absolute Authority and Perfection. All of what we are by our original nature, and all that dead nature produces, must be surrendered to God’s Word, who was sent to represent us in God’s Eternal Blood Covenant. We must allow what we are to be completely joined to Him, as His sole property, so that His Fullness can serve as our Covering and only Hope.
We must identify with our Messiah, just as profoundly and totally as He has identified with us… and together with God’s Infinite, Passover Lamb, the Word, we and our delusions and errors and false gods – all of that –must be consumed on the altar of sacrifice so that God’s Perfect Justice and Standards of Righteous can be fully met and satisfied. Then we will be purified completely and God’s Perfect Nature is free to reach out to us and begin to fulfill our complete Redemption from Sin and Death and destroy their power over us. This happens as soon as His living Word is united to us as our True Head and Redeemer and Restorer. Then God’s Word can lead us on our Exodus…out of the Darkness of the Serpent’s Delusions…and into our full and eternal restored Destiny as God’s authentic image and likeness. This is what is implied in the following two verses:
Step One:
“You shall make an altar of earth for Me.
Step Two:
“…you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen (which are taking your place and representing you before Me); in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.
But Israel too must always remember their own limitations:
Exodus 20:24-26
If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for IF YOU WIELD YOUR TOOL ON IT, YOU WILL PROFANE IT! And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, SO THAT YOUR NAKEDNESS WILL NOT BE EXPOSED ON IT!” (Emphasis added)
No Contamination Allowed!
Can you see the message God is giving to the whole world here? He will never allow His Salvation Initiative to be mixed with, and contaminated by, the addition of any Sin-corrupted human initiative or effort. It can never be God…plus something from us. The addition of anything that comes from our created, Sin-corrupted, living death ‘nakedness’ will always contaminate and defile the purity of the living fruit of God’s Holy Perfect Work. There is only one God, only one Source, and He needs no help, however well-intentioned it may be, or advice or interference from us! He has already done whatever was necessary, through His living Word and Holy Spirit! So, in order to be free to embrace and receive and be one with Him, we must first place whatever keeps us from Him, upon the altar (Cross) of Sacrifice. When that is removed…the way to union with God opens!
Every speck of our Sin-corrupted human arrogance and radically independent initiatives must be sacrificed on that altar (that is, they must be crucified with God’s atoning Word) and completely removed from the picture. God’s Works of Creation and Redemption are Perfect and Completely Finished. Nothing more is needed. So we must look to Him and depend on Him 100% of the time for 100% of our needs! This revelation, that there is only one true God, only one Source, is being given throughout Genesis and Exodus. It permeates all of the other prophetic writings and all other Scriptures in the Bible. And this is what the apostles tried so hard to get across to the believers of the New Covenant Era who were commissioned by God to allow Him to fulfill Israel’s part in His Covenants that God’s chosen people had continually failed to fulfill throughout their history:
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
“…When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the Testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, BUT ON THE POWER OF GOD!” (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 (demonstrate and walk) 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.)
Unless God Almighty Himself does all of the work required to reconcile with us and redeem and restore the living dead human race, we cannot be restored to our original image and likeness of God purpose and status. An image and likeness of someone else cannot ever take the initiative with any legitimacy. Whatever is to take place between God and mankind in terms of reconciliation, redemption and restoration, must be initiated and done 100%, by God! And conversely, the humans for whom God does this work must be on the receiving end of any such transaction; they must be a pure, accurate, image and likeness reflection of God and what He has done, 100% of the time! For us to be God’s image and likeness…He must be our one and only Source!
Can you see it beloved? The dead can do nothing in, and of, and for, themselves. Death cannot produce life. Only the Lord, who is the Life and Source of all Creation, can supply what we all need! And He has already done everything necessary for us to have it! In ourselves, we are only God-made products. He created us out of nothingness! So clearly, unless God continually sustains and supplies us, we have nothing to offer! Nothing plus nothing equals nothing. But Almighty God, the Uncreated One, and His Perfect Eternal Living Word and Holy Spirit is Everything! This is Changeless Reality and Eternal Truth! And this is why we can’t give anything that is real or of any value to God unless it first comes to us from Him! In this sense, we are created to be His image and likeness! This is how we FOLLOW God’s living creative Word. And this is at the heart of the message that Israel was commissioned to be and to give to the rest of the demonic, idolatrous world:
Exodus 20:2-6
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Yeshua Our Messiah Is the Message. He Is Everything to Us!
There is only one true, living God. He alone, through His living Word and Holy Spirit, is the one and only true Source of whatever is real, true and good! And it is the same message that the New Covenant disciples… the true Remnant of Israel… must demonstrate and proclaim during the Fulfillment stages of the Last Days of the New Covenant Era…as this world’s fallen system begins its ‘final descent’ into total disintegration and oblivion.
Many Israelite members of that generation of freed slaves failed to receive this message. They continually doubted and rejected God’s living Word. They could not bring themselves to believe and trust the visible demonstrations of God’s Reality and Truth that He displayed before their eyes. They could not bring themselves to embrace God’s Word and plunge their whole being into Him and become one with Him in Blood Covenant union. They could not allow Him to live and work from within them to overcome the evil that was in them and all around them with the Good that the Fullness of God which He contains within Himself. Instead, they believed and trusted in their former earthly circumstances and fallen perceptions and thoughts and habitual urges and anxiety-driven feelings. And so, except for Joshua and Caleb, that whole generation serves as a negative example and a template from which all other generations must learn, as they decide how they will respond and react to God’s living Word, and what He was sent to reveal and be to us, and for us, and in us:
Deuteronomy 32:3-5
“For I proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock! His Work is perfect; for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
“They have acted corruptly toward Him; they are not His children, because of their defect; but are a perverse and crooked generation.”
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 (in His Perfect, Eternal Rest). Set your mind on (identify with) the (finished, perfect) things above, not on the (grossly imperfect, Sin-mangled) things that are on earth. For you have died (to this world and its radical independence) and your life is hidden with (baptized into) Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory! (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Colossians 3:1-17
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self (Christ-in-you) who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is ALL, and in all.
“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, DO ALL IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Emphasis added.)