Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to Destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to Life, and there are few who find it.” (Emphasis added.)
Beloved, let’s ponder this dire warning from our Messiah. It has to do with the Exodus that He requires each human being to make: Will I follow the Lord’s leading, and allow Him to set me free from my present state of Self-adoration and the eternal doom that will follow it, or should I ignore that warning, and settle for what I currently have in this Sin-corrupted, God-despising world? In light of the Last Days Fulfillment of God’s Plan of Salvation, I urge you to take what will happen to you at that time, very seriously! In one way or another, you and I will be deeply affected by the way God’s Final Judgment turns out. So please give this subject the serious attention that your eternal fate so justly deserves.
The Lord describes two different groups that follow two different paths. So let’s try to get inside the minds of the two groups to see what motivates and drives them to establish such divergent priority systems:
The first group is large – a vast throng. They choose to enter through the wide gate and follow the ample, roomy avenue into which that gate leads. This passageway is hyper-tolerant, non-discriminating and totally accepting of anything people may want to bring through it. Thus the fallen flesh of those who pursue this path is sure to be appeased and gratified. There is nothing to challenge or oppose anything they may be clinging to as they enter. So this way seems to be comfortable and effortless… an easy, gradually descending slope, filled with pleasing diversions. And so the people on this path are assuming in their hearts:
‘Because we are so many, we must be safe and secure. There’s no way so many people could possibly be wrong! No, our huge number proves we know what we’re doing… that we’re onto something really good. Who could doubt that we’re on the right road, heading to the right destination?’
Then there’s that other group that follows the ‘The Narrow Path.’ Their number is much smaller. And they are forced to squeeze through an extremely narrow slit-like gateway that leads onto that Narrow Path. The confined space doesn’t allow them to bring anything with them. All that fits is their naked self! So why do they choose this? Are they stupid? Or is it that they see and know something that the other group knows nothing about?
The people who struggle on the Narrow Path have an intensely fierce love in their hearts. They know the living Word of God; and His Beauty, Glory and Goodness totally captivate them. They follow their Master because they know He is making a safe passage for them across a landscape that is filled with hidden spiritual ‘land mines’ and traps that were placed throughout, by the hate-filled powers of Darkness. Their aim is to destroy every human they possibly can! They do it, not because they consider us to be so important. No, they do it because of the eternal hate and resentment they feel toward their Creator! They know He loves us with an everlasting passion! And so, to get to Him, and to hurt Him, they seek to destroy those of us who were created to be His image and likeness!
The Gate and Path this second group follows are extremely narrow because they offer only one option! For these people there can be only one Source, one God, and no other. In this sense, these followers of God’s Word have been ‘crucified’ to any option except the one that requires them to place all of their faith, hope and trust in the one and only true Lord, the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (whom God later renamed, ‘Israel’).
Those who pursue the Broad Path are deluded into viewing a variety of things as potential sources of supply, protection, comfort or wellbeing. But those things are all false gods that put these people in defiance against the one true God. But for those in the other group who pursue the Narrow Path, all other possibilities are stripped away as soon as they squeeze through that Narrow Gate. The Path they follow is so narrow that no other possible substitutes for God’s Word and His Perfect, Finished Work are allowed! These people are the Word’s ‘disciples’. And they are being rigorously trained to look to Him alone and to draw exclusively from the Treasury of His Works of Creation and Redemption that were already complete, perfectly all-sufficient, and they were already in place, in the mind, will, heart and plan of God, from eternity past, long before this physical universe ever came to be!
The Word’s disciples know, that as they make their way through this temporary space and time dimension, God will apply to them here in space and time, whatever they will need, from His awesome Eternal Treasury of Grace that is in Heaven. They know, with certainty, that they need no other source… and that is a good thing to know because, in actual Truth, there really is no other source! Everything that is created came originally from the one God’s Living Creative Word, and it is all sustained exclusively, by Him!
So these disciples must undergo a ‘crucifixion process’ that cuts away all of those other false options from their ‘menu of choices’. And this false god elimination process is at the heart of the discipline and training they must receive in the Word’s disciple ‘Boot Camp.’ It teaches and trains them to join Almighty God in His Perfection, and abide with Him in His Eternal Truth so that they can demonstrate and proclaim the awesome wonder of His Glory… His Perfect Love Nature … and His All-Sufficient Grace that He bestows upon His Creation. This Reality can only be proclaimed and demonstrated if the disciples maintain exclusive focus upon God’s living Word, and His Perfect Finished Work.
Please note: I said ‘exclusive‘ focus! Disciples must learn to ignore all other possibilities and train themselves to abide with God in the Glorious Perfection of His Eternal Sabbath Rest, which He revealed from the beginning of the Torah that He entrusted to Israel’s care. This is the revelation that proclaims that there is only one true God, only one Source… for everything… past, present and future… and He is utterly Perfect and All-Sufficient in Himself!
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,)
“Therefore, we must fear if, while a promise remains of entering His Rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also did (the ex-slaves in the Exodus wilderness); but the Word they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united with those who listened with faith. For we who have believed enter that Rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My anger, they certainly shall not enter My Rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this passage, “They certainly shall not enter My Rest.”
Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who previously had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again sets a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts!” (Hebrews 4:1-7. Emphasis added)
It Is Finished – Just As Yeshua Said!
Can you see the Fullness and Finality of what God is saying here concerning His Creation? He alone is our one true, living, personal God. He is the one and only Source for whatever is past, present or future! The God that Torah reveals is Infinite, Omnipotent, and Eternally Perfect in Nature. Whatever God creates and sustains by His Word is already completely present in the Word, as He abides with His Father in Eternity. So for us creatures, everything has already been supplied, paid for and given, by God, through His living creative Word. All that remains now, is for God to apply the Fullness of His Perfect Eternal Provision and Protection, that are contained in His Perfect Living Word… to us that live in space and time… through the omnipotent Power of His Holy Spirit.
This is the Narrow Path upon which God’s living Word leads His true disciples. He commands them to obey Him and stay in position to receive what God’s Spirit is ready and most willing to transmit to them through their obedient faith. In the other portions of the Bible we see that everything is perfectly contained within, and revealed through, His living Word who became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth, in the Land of Israel. To know and interact with the living Word of God is to know and interact with Almighty God Himself, for God and His Word, and His Spirit, is One!
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 the Master who leads these Narrow Path disciples, and serves as their Head, is the risen Messiah, the living Word of the living God. He leads His own through the territory of time and space Earth and becomes their ‘Way’, because it has become honeycombed by the lethal demonic lies and delusions that deny and contradict what God has revealed and promised. The Serpent tries to obliterate the Word, and all that He contains within Himself, from human minds and lives. And because our first parents believed and obeyed those lies, the human race was devastated and disfigured and mortally wounded. The Darkness caused by the Serpent’s Truth-twisting lies conceals the fact that this fallen world has become his mine-infested death trap. And he uses that Broad Path that is so wide and easy to pursue… as bait… to lure myriads of unsuspecting humans to their eternal Doom!
This is why the Word of God, the risen Lord, is intent on leading His obedient, highly disciplined disciples through the Safe Passage that His Atonement on the cross created for us. His Way avoids and bypasses all the concealed explosives embedded throughout the landscape. The Word has delineated and marked off the Path that leads to Life by lining it with commandments that serve like stone markers which create a Safe Passage Path through that minefield. The obedience of faith is the Ground that lies within the commandment markers. But rebellion, Sin, Destruction and Death abide just beyond those markers. And this is why the Path that disciples follow appears so narrow and confining – it forces disciples to proceed under the Word’s Headship together, as one Body, but… in single file! Each one of them is personally responsible for remaining in proper alignment with what God’s Word has revealed, commanded and promised to us all.
Hebrews 12:1-3
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Emphasis added.)
So the Narrow Path never allows the kind of apparent ease, enjoyment, license and comfort that the much larger group in the distance always seems to have. But don’t be fooled! The carefree ease and comfort that the Broad Path promises are mere illusions. Take a closer look. If you do, you’ll see that the outward gaiety and seeming luxury it offers, are only fleeting shadows. Beneath their thin veneer there is no real substance. Study the faces of those who follow the Broad Path… can you see the fear, anxiety and desperation in their eyes? Can you see how driven they always are to achieve more and more? They do that because they are so empty all the time. Can you see that they never feel safe and can never be satisfied? They have no peace because they can never rest. They are always empty and dissatisfied, no matter how desperately they try to invent false gods for themselves with which to fill their empty hopelessness. Notice all the man-made things to which they become addicted, the mind-numbing substances and activities and endless loops of appetite-teasing philosophies and religions and monotonous ritualistic practices they use, to try to escape the true Reality of the empty neediness of their spiritual living death. Notice how driven they are by chronic anxieties. That’s why they try (vainly) to control everything around them… other people, and circumstances, situations and outcomes. They don’t crave control because they’re strong, happy, satisfied and in control. They do it because they’re weak and full of anxiety, and totally out of control! They try to give the outward appearance that all is well and they are ‘just fine’… but their endless addiction-filled striving to attain more and more, belies the false impressions they strive to project.
The Broad Path hypnotizes people into believing they are ‘exempt civilians’ that are free to live and do as they please. They don’t realize they are caught up in the midst of a deadly spiritual war that offers no mercy and gives no quarter. So they remain totally unprepared and unequipped to withstand and overcome during the combat that always rages. Thus they remain easy prey for the demonic deceivers that lure them onto the Broad Path, which insures that, when they reach the end, they will be torn to pieces!
On the other hand, the Narrow Path that disciples of God’s living and written Word must follow is actually a very effective and successful Boot Camp! It trains and equips disciples to transform into the image and likeness of God’s precious living Word, Yeshua. Yes, they feel the same needy emptiness the other group feels. But instead of chasing after false gods that can supply nothing… these lovers of Truth fill themselves continually with the Spirit of their very Real, Living God who loves and cares for them with His All-Powerful, Endless Perfect Presence and Lovingkindness! This is why they are on Safe Ground, God-given Ground. Nevertheless, they must be trained to maintain and hold that Ground so that they can persevere, survive, overcome and succeed completely in the deadly combat that rages all around. That’s why their Boot Camp keeps the trainees in a state of constant alert and highly focused vigilance. Because of the surrounding demonic danger, they can’t afford to lose their focus and sense of direction; nor can they allow themselves to deviate from the trail that their Master is creating for them to follow. They must learn to abide in, and cooperate with, whatever the Holy Spirit transmits into them that comes from the Word’s Perfect Finished Work of Creation and Redemption.
These disciples are being trained and equipped to prevail throughout this deadly combat with the powers of Darkness. So they learn to defer always to the leading of the Holy Spirit because it is His task to transmit into them all that pertains to our risen Master, Yeshua, against whom the powers of Darkness can do nothing. We must all learn this: As long as we abide in the Perfection and All-Sufficient Grace that comes to us from God’s living Word, He empowers us to persevere and overcome to the very end. This is why we’re learning and absorbing the reality of abiding in our Master’s awesome Spirit-given Presence, and learning to reproduce His Spirit-empowered lifestyle. This is how His character, self-control, courage and obedient faith begin to take root within His disciples as well. Father’s Spirit drills and drills us in the skills we need to allow Yeshua’s Perfect Faithful Love and obedient Covenant Faithfulness to His Father, to abide and work within us! Thus His flawless discipline, courage and self-control begin to appear and work within us too, and thus Yeshua is shown to be alive and working through us… in all of His Resurrection Glory. Yeshua has become our new Life! And His Perfect Righteousness and God-pleasing Obedience are now ours; and He is transforming us into His image and likeness! This is why Messiah Yeshua’s apostle, Peter, wrote the following words to New Covenant disciples that were undergoing this same, Narrow Path boot camp training in their day:
1 Peter 5:6-11
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal Glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you! To Him be Dominion forever and ever! Amen.” (Emphasis added.)
Two Paths, Leading to Two Destinations
Scripture reveals that there’s more than first meets the natural eye in the scenario of the two groups and their two respective paths! The people in the first group are under the illusion that they can lead a leisure-filled existence. With that viewpoint, they pursue the self-life bait that has lured them onto the broad path. And as they chase after that bait, they smirk, gloat and belittle the ‘unenlightened fools’ that follow that arduous Narrow Path they see in the distance. But God’s Truth will soon expose their mistaken assumptions. Their viewpoint is horribly skewed and totally misleading! The Broad Path people are not on their way to some paradise. They are blinded slaves of the powers of Darkness! Their captors do not afflict them while they follow the Broad Path because they use the Broad Path as bait that is drawing and luring them into the Meat Grinder of Eternal Death that awaits them at the end of their journey!
This issue of ‘The Two Paths’ is what underlies Israel’s Exodus from Egypt! God has to make us aware of this revelation. This is what He was beginning to do when He started dealing with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! And through their Israelite descendants, and their negative or positive examples, God is reaching out to the rest of mankind and warning them all:
Isaiah 5:20-23
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness; who substitute Bitter for Sweet and Sweet for Bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight! Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink, who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!”
Jeremiah 2:4-7
“Hear the Word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: ‘What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty? They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of deep darkness, through a land that no one crossed and where no man dwelt? I brought you into the Fruitful Land to eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My Land, and My Inheritance you made an abomination!” (Emphasis added.)
God warns Jews and Gentiles alike that whoever ignores or rejects His living and written Word, and chooses to follow that worldly ‘Egyptian’ Broad Path, is truly spiritually blind and deaf. The Serpent has decapitated, or severed them from God’s living Word. In their ignorance, they remain hypnotized into thinking that their state of living death is actually ‘life.’ Thus they pursue that delusion, until they are forever deprived of being able to follow the Exodus Path, the Narrow Path of God’s True Israel, that actually does set them free of entanglements with the world’s systems and will lead them into His Eternal Life.
People on the Broad Path regard those who struggle to complete their journey out of Egypt, as fools. They are not aware of the deadly war raging at all times between the Hosts of the one and only Living God, and those of His satanic enemies. They have no clue that they have been deceived, blinded and enslaved by the Prince of Darkness! Thus they follow their course… until the Serpent finally drags them into the inescapable Eternal Furnace of the Righteous Judgment of Almighty God, and forces them to share in the Serpent’s eternal condemnation and punishment!
The dreadful blindness and deluded condition of the Serpent’s victims cause them to scoff and ridicule those who courageously endure the rigors of ‘Narrow Path Boot Camp.’ Nevertheless, despite that scorn and ridicule, the disciples continue to train… and they become equipped and steeled to resist the powers of Darkness and serve Almighty God! And as long as the people on the Broad Path remain deceived, they won’t concern themselves with unpleasant subjects such as, spiritual warfare and personal discipline and sacrifice, or the life or death issues that are actually swirling around us all, at all times. Instead, they’ll look down on the Word’s disciples, and think to themselves:
‘Why in the world would those fools choose to go that way? What is wrong with them? Can’t they see how much fun and pleasurable satisfaction they’re missing? Don’t they know how enjoyable life is on this Broad Path? Why do they choose the path that is so narrow, rigid, confining and demanding?’
Life and Death are Set Before Us… Choose Life!
Beloved, can you see what Scripture is telling us? The difference between these two groups is the difference between true Wisdom that leads to Eternal Life, and the spiritual delusion and blindness that lead people to disaster and Death! So this is a matter of supreme importance! The Spirit of God warns that things are not at all what they seem to be to our natural fallen human faculties. The Biblical scenario of the Broad Path isn’t about one group that is wise in the ways of the world, as opposed to a group that is foolish, naïve and given to religious escapism. Rather, it exposes those who labor under demonic influence and draws attention to the reality of their spiritual blindness and deafness. And it highlights those who are privy to God’s Gift of Wisdom that leads to repentance, regeneration and full restoration. They are the people who receive from God the gift of New Spiritual Life and corresponding spiritual faculties that enable them to see the entire range of Truth!
Matthew 13:10-13
“…The disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why do You speak to them (the multitudes) in parables?’ Jesus answered them, ‘To you (My disciples who actually live with Me and follow Me at all times) it has been granted to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has (My Spirit, living and working in him), to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have (Me as his indwelling Life), even what he has shall be taken away from him! Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.'” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Those who follow the Narrow Path endure the rigors involved because Israel’s Messiah is saving them from Death! They see the wisdom in submitting to be fitted, trained and equipped for the deadly combat that no one can escape. They know they must resist the bait of delusions that are offered by the dark powers to lure men and women to destruction. They resist the satanic bait because they have eyes that enable them to see the whole picture, both dimensions of Truth and Reality, rather than just a small portion of what is truly involved. They know that the Broad Path is a death trap because they have the ability to see aspects of spiritual reality about which the other group knows nothing and they see the demonic bait for what it really is:
2 Kings 6:15-17
“Now when the attendant of the man of God (the prophet Elisha) had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, I pray, OPEN HIS EYES THAT HE MAY SEE!’ And THE LORD OPENED THE SERVANT’S EYES AND HE SAW; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha!” (Emphasis added.)
What a ‘before and after’ difference there was in Elisha’s servant! At first, all he could see was the earthly army that surrounded the city. But after God gave him the gift of spiritual wisdom and discernment, he saw the enormous array of God’s Heavenly Host that outnumbered by far those that dared to threaten God’s prophet, Elisha. And that’s the difference that exists between the two groups that pursue the two divergent paths. One can see and the other is blind. From the time of Adam’s fall into Sin, all humans have been born Sin-corrupted, mortally wounded and cut off from our Creator. Whether we realize it or not, all of Adam’s descendants have inherited the ‘wages of Sin’ which is physical and spiritual Death! So this is why God chose one family, the Israelites, from among all of Adam’s descendants through which to begin the Salvation and Restoration process on behalf of the entire human race. This is the Exodus Truth that will set us free from having to face God’s Perfectly Righteous Judgment and suffer the punishment that will follow!
Summoned to Kingdom Life
And this is why God’s living Word summons us with the words, “Follow Me!” He is here to lead us away from the Broad Path that leads to Death… and onto the Narrow Path that leads back to oneness with God. God’s Word and His Holy Spirit are summoning us to choose Life, rather than Death. God’s Word will lead us through and past the demonic mine fields that infest the ground on either side of the Narrow Path. And as long as we follow where He leads, He will lead us away from the Meat Grinder that is at the end of the Broad Path and take us all the way to His Eternal Home, and to our God-given Inheritance in His Kingdom.
So, like Elisha’s servant, New Covenant disciples receive the gift of being able to see the entire Earth AND Heaven picture… then the Broad Path is exposed for the death trap it really is, and we know which of the two paths is the one to take! We can see that there is no real choice. We must choose Life if we hope to escape the clutches of Death which afflicted us all at conception. This is what each human, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, must come to see. And we must realize that we are all making our choices… moment-by-moment and day-by-day. And those choices, whether we make them out of blind ignorance or through God-given Wisdom… are leading us, step by step, along one of those two paths.
Please note that there are Jewish and non-Jewish people in each group! This is not about the DNA we inherit. It is not about our religious theology or philosophy of life. It’s not about our ethnicity, cultural heritage, religious traditions or nationality. It is about our relationship with the living God, through the way we embrace and become as one with His living Word made flesh, regardless of what we started out to be at our first birth! It is about how we respond to God and interact with His living and written Word and Holy Spirit. This is an intensely personal matter! It is about the second birth that equips and empowers us to receive and reflect back to God, His never-ending Love! Scripture is not saying that all Jews are in one group simply because they were born Jewish, and all Gentiles are in the other group because they aren’t Jewish. It’s showing us that the two groups are differentiated by the heart response that each person makes to the living and written Word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! The path that leads to Life is followed by those who heed and obey God’s Word when He calls to their hearts and who follow Him into the new birth that transmits His Resurrection Life into them… as opposed to the people that choose to disobediently reject, contradict or ignore God’s Word altogether:
Matthew 12:30
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”
Luke 6:46-49
“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the (Torah) Rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any (Torah) foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Amplification added.)
We said before that the Bible (all of it) is God’s written Word. We must understand that God chose to reveal His eternal, living creative Word in and through what He says and requires of us in His written Word. So I pray that by this time, you can see the Torah and its utterly essential purpose and significance in this light. Hopefully, our Biblical meditations will show you that the Torah, the Bible’s first five books, as given to Israel through Moses, is the ‘Granite-solid Foundation’ or the ‘Well Spring’ out of which the rest of the Bible emerges. Torah is the ‘Fountain’ out of which all of the Living Water’ flows. It is the Foundational ‘Rock’ upon which all the rest of the wisdom writers and the prophets and the New Covenant apostles of Yeshua, the living Word of God, based their writings and teachings and lives! God’s living Word became flesh and dwelt among us to reveal, demonstrate, embody and properly interpret and fulfill every jot and tittle that is written in the Torah… because, as He said and demonstrated repeatedly in various ways… Moses was writing about Him:
John 5:45-47
“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
Matthew 5:17-20
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law (Torah of Moses) or the Prophets (the Tanach); I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law (Torah) until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees (that reject Me), you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Do you see what Yeshua was saying? He said we must receive and embrace the entirety of God’s Word… the written part… AND the Living Person that the writing reveals! It’s not enough to hold onto parts of God’s written Word. Nor is it enough to cling only to what is written. We must also personally cling to His living creative Word, the one that the written Word reveals! God commissioned His Word to become flesh for the purpose of saving us from our Sin-ridden selves! Yeshua is the living Word we can understand and know and to whom we can personally relate! Through Him, God reveals and demonstrates the Fullness of what the Scriptures foretell and promise and explain! What good is it to cling only to the promises… if we reject the Living One who is the Actual Total Living Impartation and Fulfillment of God’s promises? Can we receive any true Nourishment, Life and Strength if all we do is obsess over the Menu and leave it at that? Can we afford to fail to partake of the real Feast (the living Word) that the words and pictures provided in the Menu (the written Word) describe and promise? No, obviously not. We must have both… the written Word AND the Living Word who was made flesh! One cannot be known without the other!
So, I pray that we will all see the Broad Path… that the majority of the Jewish and non-Jewish children of Adam follow… for what it really is! Those who follow it are choosing to remain blind and deaf. Thus ignorance drives them to continue to reject, edit, contradict or ignore vital portions of the written Word of God. Some choose to ignore and bypass the written foundational Torah portion. Some ignore the other portions contained in Israel’s Tanach. And others choose to ignore the portions that God gave to us through the New Covenant apostles of Messiah Yeshua. But beloved, the human race must embrace and absorb ALL of it… the entire Bible… not just bits and pieces of it! To reject part of God’s written Word is to reject part of God’s living Word! We need ALL of God’s written Revelation… for that is what reveals the living, eternal Word of God as He really is! The living Word created all things and sustains all things. He also serves as our Sin Covering and Cleansing and Passover Lamb and Covenant High Priest. The Word became flesh to legally represent us. He lived among us, died as our Eternal Passover Lamb, in all of His Fullness and complete Significance! And now He is ready to live in us and reach out to the rest of the world through us, as He really is!
So we must receive the Full Picture: The Word of God made flesh created us… and He sustains us at all times… and He made Full Atonement for all of us. Then God raised His beloved Word from the dead… in Total Approval, Acceptance and Triumphal Validation! So we must also know God’s Word in all of His Resurrection Fullness, so God can fulfill His New Covenant with Israel and restore the rest of the world back to being His image and likeness! Therefore, God’s living Word will either be our All-Sufficient Passover Covering and Sacrificial Representative and indwelling Resurrection Life… or… He will be God’s Eternal Standard of Righteousness and Perfect Performance, against which all those that are not His, will be judged!
So… what does this smaller group on the Narrow Path know that the other group does not know? This is the difference: Those on the Narrow Path have the ability to know the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as He really is. They know His living Word… who is revealed through His written Word. These blessed people enjoy personal, interactive Spirit-imparted experience and interaction with Messiah Yeshua, who truly is Almighty God’s Resurrected Living Word!
Intimate Union With Yeshua – Our Birthright
Knowing Him, in His entirety, gives us the ability to know God personally and intimately, in the Fullness of His Perfect, All-Sufficient Selfless Love Nature. Knowing Yeshua as He really is, with His impeccable Character and Perfect Provision and Airtight Faithfulness and Loyalty to His Covenant Family, lets us know that He is infinitely worthy of total trust, outrageous confidence and complete rest. When we truly know the Father, we truly recognize Yeshua. And when we truly know Yeshua, we truly know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and abide with Him as His True Israel, the WHOLE New Covenant House of Judah and Israel. And when we are in touch with God’s awesome Perfection and Fullness, we know there is no need for any other god or source. And so the Narrow Path becomes the only real option on our menu.
New Covenant Israel is commissioned and equipped to rest in this Wisdom and Knowledge, regardless of what the world around her says or does, or fails to do! Now we can see that… regardless of what price we may have to pay in order to remain faithful to our Master, on His terms… it will be eminently worth the cost! God loves and desires to be one with the entire human race! Most of them in this generation do not know God as He is, nor do they have any idea of what it cost Him to redeem us… yet. But disciples know. And that’s why they are commissioned to be God’s emissaries and representatives. They are equipped to embody Him and His Love for the others… through their highly trained, disciplined and thoroughly crucified flesh. They must embody God to the world regardless of the cost… for His sake… because the salvation of the whole human race, generation by generation, is at stake! And that salvation and the eternal Destiny with God it makes possible for us, is part of God’s Eternal Glory.
Disciples are not at odds with other men and women. They are at odds with the Serpent and his dark powers! And they are here to join their Master in the defense of other men and women. That is why we must not become stymied or overwhelmed by the ignorance and malice of our neighbors. Our Lord and Master, Yeshua, is here, to serve them all, through the obedience of our faith, while there is still time for them to turn to Him, and repent of their state of Sin, and be saved!
So, for His sake, we submit to the training, and endure the hostility of people that do not know any better. And we overcome the rigors that following the Narrow Path requires. Our Lord’s Spiritual Wisdom and the vision that Torah and all the rest of the Scriptures impart, assure us, that in His Perfection, our awesome Almighty God has already foreknown everything that will ever be and has covered everything that will ever happen. And… through His living Word and Holy Spirit, He has already provided everything that His obediently faithful people will ever need to fulfill the plan our Father established for our lives in eternity, before He created us.
Every care, concern and necessity that any of God’s creatures will ever face or experience, has already been foreseen, considered and factored into God’s Plan. Everything any of us will need has been provided and paid for, and given. This is the enormous, All-Sufficient Treasury of Grace that God is waiting to apply to anyone who submits entirely and exclusively to the infinite Authority of His Son, the living Word. The Power of God’s Holy Spirit transmits this awesome Legacy to the believing, obedient people who pursue the Narrow Path. The absolute Authority of the Perfect Finished Performance of God’s living Word makes this possible. And this is why we know we can afford to be patient, kind and forbearing. We know we do not need any other God or Source. And we understand that the absolute necessity of having one God and one God only, and trusting in His Perfection, is the narrowest path imaginable! It is reserved for those who know God in all of His Perfection and All-Sufficient Fullness. To the degree that we know Him as He really is, to that degree are we free of the delusion that drives us to assume that God is not enough, and that we need other things besides Him. So… to the degree that we remain ignorant… to that degree will we feel driven to look to other things in order to fill the vacuum that our unbelief and doubt of Him keep creating in our ‘leaking’, ever-empty, treacherous hearts. But the Wisdom that only comes to us from God’s Holy Spirit and Living Word, is what will effectively and eternally separate the Word’s disciples from the rest of the fallen human race.
The True Path is this narrow because there is only One True Source. Only our one true God actually exists! Only He can give us Life. Only He can provide us with all the provision and protection we need. The people on the Broad Path are decapitated in the sense of being cut off from God’s living Word, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Thus they cannot know or trust or follow Him. They are deluded into thinking there are other options. Thus they pursue an independent life of their own and look to themselves and their Sin-corrupted perceptions, hunches, feelings and opinions, or those of other creatures that are just as empty and needy and Head-less, as they are! But they continue to assume that these alternate sources will provide them with what they need and crave. The tragedy is that any so-called ‘alternate source’ they chase after… is only a figment of their darkened imaginations!
So despite our temporary hardships and worldly deprivations, we stay on that Narrow Path, following our Lord Yeshua. We know we can afford to do it joyfully, with the utmost assurance and confidence because we ‘see’ what Rabbi Yeshua really is and we see what He saw, when He walked the Earth, and we see what the prophets and apostles of Israel were able to see. Adam’s ‘living death’ state has no more hold on us. Yeshua’s Perfect Atonement on the Cross and the Glory and Authority of His triumphant Resurrection have set us free from the Serpent and Sin and Death! We know God’s Eternal Passover Lamb and His ways. We rest in the Perfection of His abiding Presence and draw from His Perfect Fullness and Eternal Triumph over Evil at all times! We know He is truly Infinite, Omnipresent, Omniscient, and ready to cover His own with His airtight, eternal Covenant Loyalty and Affection, even if we have to follow Him into the Valley of the Shadow of Death!
Yeshua is our unassailable Fortress who never leaves and will never forsake us. That’s why we can abide with and rejoice in Him. Our Infinite Shepherd is always in and with us, to protect and provide for our every need with unfailing, perfect Wisdom and Grace. We have no need for anything else, so we continue to follow Him on the Narrow Path He is showing us.
Ezekiel 34:22-24
“Therefore, I will deliver My flock, and they will no longer be a prey; and I will judge between one sheep and another. Then I will set over them one Shepherd, My Servant David, and He will feed them; He will feed them Himself and be their Shepherd. And I, the Lord (through My Perfect Living Word), will be their God, and My servant David (who is My Living Word) will be Prince among them; I the Lord have spoken (My Word to you)!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Egypt, or Israel?
This is the difference between the Path of ‘Egypt’ in this fallen world system, and the Path of God’s ‘Remnant,’ His ‘True Israel.’ It is the difference between those who are buffeted, tortured and mauled by the raging hurricane of Sin, evil, wickedness and Death in this fallen world… and those who abide with God… in the ever-peaceful ‘Eye’ of that Hurricane… where there is perpetual Peace, Calm, Rest and the Outrageous Confidence that comes from knowing that you are the object of the God’s Perfect, never-ending protective Love, and a beneficiary of His Faithful Provision.
These two groups embody the vast difference between those who believe and obey God and His living and written Word, as opposed to those who reject, deny, disfigure or ignore His Word. And so, our Master, the risen Lord, continues to teach us to see and know the difference between what men like Elisha could see and know… as opposed to what men like Elisha’s servant and the rest of the world cannot see and enjoy – until God’s living Word and Holy Spirit are able to pierce, penetrate and impregnate them with the Life and Wisdom that can only come from the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:
Matthew 8:18-27
“When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, ‘Save us, Lord; we are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?’ Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, ‘What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?’” (Emphasis added.)
Yeshua’s disciples were not yet able to see into the eternal spiritual Realm that Elisha and the other true prophets of Israel had been allowed to see. All they could see and hear was the fury of the raging earthly storm and its overwhelming waves. But Yeshua was teaching and training them with rigorous intensity and thoroughness because of the importance of the task He would give them, of instituting and spreading the knowledge and practice of the New Covenant Fulfillment of God’s promises to and through Israel. Thus the Lord took great pains to teach and train and drill His first century Jewish disciples in the ways of God’s Kingdom on Earth.
Acts 1:6-8
“So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the Kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive Power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.‘” (Emphasis added.)
In His Eternal Kingdom, God’s Work is completely finished to Perfection. This is part of the granite-solid foundation laid down for us in God’s Torah revelation. Thus, contained in the living Word of Israel’s true, living God, is all of God’s Perfection and Fullness There’s nothing missing, nothing that God still has to do to add to or finish anything. Everything is Done, Complete and Perfect! And now it is time for disciples of our generation to receive the training that will instill the roots of this Truth deep into our innermost being. Then we’ll be able to bear the fruit on Earth that the Eternal Glory of our awesome living God has produced in Eternity… and His Holy Spirit will, with our obedient cooperation, be free to demonstrate the meaning of God’s New Covenant Israel to this worldly, dying, Messiah-less Jewish and non-Jewish world!
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.”
The Perfection of God and what He is here to be to us and for us is the ‘Eye’ that abides in the middle of the worldly, demon-induced, God-doubting ‘Hurricane of Evil and Destruction’ into which all men, both Jews and non-Jews, are born. Through His living Word, God entrusted dominion over the earth to the first Adam. And, His Eternal Word made flesh, the Last Adam, took back that dominion that the Serpent usurped from the first Adam. It has been recovered, redeemed, and is being restored to anyone who becomes as one with God’s living Word, the Last Adam and the Messiah of Israel. This is what Yeshua was teaching to His original New Covenant disciples:
Mark 11:20-26
“As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, Peter said to Him, ‘Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.’ And Jesus answered saying to them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.
“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them (thanks to the Perfect Eternal Finished Work of God’s living Word), and they will be granted you. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in Heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in Heaven forgive your transgressions.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
After Yeshua’s Resurrection and Ascension, the day came when His first century disciples received the Gift of the Holy Spirit. THEN they were fully equipped with the ‘eyes’ to see, and the ‘ears’ that God gives to His Word’s true, fully equipped, New Covenant disciples. They were able to ‘see’ and ‘know’ and ‘abide’ in His Perfect Eternal Presence and the absolute PERFECTION contained in His PRESENCE. And the same Holy Spirit is with us, to equip us to experience the wonderful things God promised to be and do and give to His own. When we can know our God like that, we too will rest… joyfully, peacefully and continually in the All-Sufficient New Covenant Covering that God’s Word gives to His disciples. He is all of the Provision, Protection, Guidance and outrageous Confidence we could ever hope for or imagine!
The disciples of today must be trained and steeled and equipped to face the ultimate ‘last ditch’ efforts of the Serpent Himself. He will do everything possible to stop them from fulfilling their commission! So God’s Spirit is with us… to equip us to succeed… as we follow the Narrow Path. God will continually communicate with us and work from within us and manifest His wonders through our obedient faith. And all the while, we will faithfully keep our eyes focused and trained on the living Word of the one and only God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Israel. This is what Paul and the other New Covenant apostles strove to convey to the post-Resurrection disciples-in-training of their day:
2 Corinthians 4
“Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking (along the Broad Path) in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God, but by the (Narrow Path that is given to the) manifestation of Truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those (on the Broad Path) who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the Light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ, who is the Image of God. For, we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants, for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of Darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Christ.
“But we have this Treasure (concealed) in (our Sin-corrupted, mortal) earthen vessels, so that the surpassing Greatness of the Power (of the Holy Spirit who dwells and works from within us) will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the (Resurrection) Life of Jesus (that always abides and works from within us) also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the Life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death (to radically independent self-life) works in us, but Life (the Spirit-imparted Presence of God’s living Word is at work) in you.
“But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us (in that awesome Day of our returning Messiah’s Triumph) with you. For all things (that God in His Perfection has made and given to us) are for your sakes, so that the grace, which is spreading to more and more people, may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the Glory of God.
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of Glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are Eternal!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved when we truly believe, love and serve the one, true and only God… the path we must walk is extremely narrow! It is like a menu that only offers one entree! People on the Broad Path worship two, three, four or more, false gods! Even many among those who claim to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, can be found among their number. They claim to have faith in God, but their so-called ‘faith’ is full of leaks! It’s not airtight. Even one leak in a container, is like a person who thinks he has to have more than one God! How can you fill such a container? No, to abide in fullness, containers must be air and watertight! Multiple options punch holes in our faith. So our faith in God must be total and comprehensive and airtight as well. Faith that ‘leaks’ isn’t faith at all.
Hebrews 11:6
“…Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him!” (Emphasis added.)
We can’t ‘sort of’ believe and trust God. We either trust Him 100%, or we do not trust Him at all! True faith cannot be partial or ‘part time.’ It must be total, comprehensive and eternal, in order to be genuine. This is what God means by The Narrow Path:
Deuteronomy 6:4-6
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your might! These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.” (Emphasis added.)
James 1:5-8
“But if any of you lacks Wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.“ (Emphasis added.)
Many claim to worship the one true God… BUT… they also put faith, hope and trust in other things, created things, as well. For them, the formula is:
The one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… PLUS:
My intelligence and reasoning power and opinions and feelings.
My creativity and human faculties and what I think I will do and how I will do it…
My financial portfolio with all my investments and properties…
My marriage… or my other human relationships and ‘connections’…
My professional skills, degrees, awards, career, job or avocations…
My government or theology or denomination or church, ministry or organized body…
My preferred charismatic leaders and seers…
My ability to do great things as I pursue my never-ending quest to satisfy my fallen human appetite(s), and puff up my ego so that I can keep trying to allay my chronic fears and deep-seated insecurities… etc. etc. etc.
One God, and One God Only
The Truth is: there can only be one God, one Source, one true, living, Uncreated Creator! And believing, loving and trusting Him is not a hobby among others, or a part-time exercise, or an occasional, intermittent time-filling occupation. My relationship with the one true God requires my full time focus of attention and full time motivation. Depending on Him must be my perpetual state of being. A true relationship with our one and only God must resemble the relationship that a living branch must have with its vine. The branch originates nothing. It cannot supply anything for the vine. The vine originates and supplies everything for each of its branches. So the branches must abide in the vine source, drawing life, strength, support and ability from it, at all times! So too must we look to our one true God, FOR EVERYTHING… ALL THE TIME… with no exceptions, interruptions, or breaks in the continuity of our intimate union with Him!
This is what our FMM Marching Orders, (listed elsewhere on our website), are telling us, beloved. Our God is our one and only Source. He designed and created and intended us to be His eternal image and likeness! An image and likeness always, incessantly, reflects its source. That original source is always the perpetual source of its image and likeness. Whatever the source is and does… that is what the image and likeness must always receive and reflect back. This describes the awesome lifestyle that our Master, the living Word of God made flesh, always lived in relation to the Father who spoke Him forth and placed Him on Earth! The Word of God does this regardless of what form He assumes, whether He abides with His Father in Eternity, or whether He serves and obeys Him in time and space on Earth, as Yeshua of Nazareth:
Isaiah 55:8-11
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. 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 (living creative) 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.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
John 5:19
“Therefore Jesus (God’s living Word made flesh) 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.’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Colossians 1:15-17
“He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him (God’s living Word) 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, IN HIM ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
And this is what we were made to be… the image and likeness of God’s living Word!
John 15:4-5
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am The Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing!” (Emphasis added.)
Can you see what God’s Word is telling us? He is our one and only Source – for absolutely everything! Can you see that the one true God requires all human creatures to narrow their focus down to Him, at all times, for all things, without exception? This is what He told us in Genesis: All of His Word’s Work of Creation is eternally Finished and Perfect! Nothing more needs to be added. It is Finished! All that remains is for us to align ourselves with this Truth that emanates out of the Creator who maintains us in existence. This is what it means to walk the Narrow Path. As long as we abide in our risen Lord on this basis, we remain in position to receive from His Father and His Father’s Holy Spirit, everything that God’s Word has already created and redeemed and earned and given to us. So, can you see what a narrow path that Truth sets before us? Can you see why God orders His people to join Him in His Eternal Sabbath Rest and why they must look only to Him, and nothing else, at every moment?
But which one of us has not been guilty of placing our faith, hope and trust in other things that our Creator has made and continues to sustain in existence? Which of us has not felt the need to travel the Broad Path that is large enough to contain the entourage of false gods that mankind insists on inventing and dragging along behind itself? We are all guilty; there isn’t one of us that has truly observed the first commandment, much less all the others. We cannot bring ourselves to DARE to trust the True God, the one and only, THAT MUCH! Or can we? Disciples know the answer is a resounding “YES!”
So this brings us to yet another revelation: Scripture is also telling us that God’s living Word made flesh, Yeshua our Messiah, is the only Human Being who can and does obey His Father to utter Perfection. He has done this too… PERFECTLY… in our name, as our Representative Covenant Covering! Whether we consider Him in His eternal uncreated Infinity, or in the form of our human Covenant Representative… either way, He is the only one who knows God adequately and responds to Him properly and obeys, loves and serves Him with Perfect Righteousness, Integrity and Authority. He is our Eternal Covenant Representative, and Passover Lamb, and High Priest. It is only from Him and His Perfect Finished Work of Creation and Redemption and Representation from which we are able to draw our personal righteousness, validity and acceptance from God! We must look to Him exclusively. Only He can supply everything we will ever need in order to fulfill our God-given identity, purpose and destiny!
In light of the awesome Perfection of the Finished Work of Creation that God’s living Word accomplished in Genesis 2:1-3, and the Perfection of His Finished Work of Redemption (John 19:30), can we now better understand what Yeshua was saying to His disciples with the following words?
Matthew 11:25-30
“At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
(Therefore:) “COME TO ME, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST! Take My yoke (of believing and trusting and drawing from the Treasury of My Finished Work) upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart (because I know My Father and all of His Infinite Perfect, All-Sufficiency), and (if you practice what I demonstrate before you and teach you to do) you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke (of learning to rest in God’s Perfect Finished Work) is easy and My burden is light!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
This is the Narrow Path that our disciple Boot Camp training is equipping and training us to learn, absorb and follow as we make our way into the Last Days Era of human history. We are being steeled and forged into combat readiness dear ones. What God began in us, He is now in the process of finishing. It is already done and paid for. But now it must be truly, actually applied to each one of us. What is already in Him must now be worked into and through us. Then, in Him and by Him, we will be able to stare down the Serpent. And the Serpent will ‘blink’ and falter and back away, under the irresistible Force of the Total Authority of our indwelling Lord, who is the Authoritative Master, Protector and Shepherd of all Creation, forever.
Mark 3:10-12
“… For He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God!’ And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.” (Emphasis added.)
The Honor of Proclaiming Our God’s Majesty
Beloved, why did our Master command the unclean spirits to remain silent and not proclaim the Truth of who and what He really is? He did it because it is not their duty, honor and privilege to prepare the way for His coming. It isn’t the unclean spirits that are commissioned to usher in the coming of our Lord in the wilderness. God will never commission them to do anything that pertains to Him, or His beloved Son. Their very presence corrupts and contaminates everything around them!
No, it is the glory and privilege of God’s True Israel… the disciples of the living Word of God, to do that. And, in the days of the New Covenant Fulfillment, they will be privileged and honored with the task of preparing the way for His return:
Isaiah 40:1-8
“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. ‘Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’
“A voice (the Father’s Voice) is calling: ‘Clear the way for the (living Word of the) Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for (the Word of) our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the Glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth (living Word) of the Lord has spoken.’ A voice (the Father) says, ‘Call out.’ Then He (His living Word) answered, ‘What shall I call out?’
“‘All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the Breath (Spirit) of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the (living) Word of our God stands forever!” (Amplification added.)
Yeshua was offered to His Father on the Cross as our Eternal Passover Lamb and All-Sufficient Redeemer. So God placed His Son’s Perfect Humanity on the altar of sacrifice, for our sake. Thus God revealed and proved, through His Word made flesh, what His Eternal living Word had already accomplished and done in Eternity. And He also revealed the focus that His Word’s true disciples must maintain as they embody His indwelling Presence and follow their resurrected Lord along that Narrow Path. Our Head went first; and now it is time for His living members to follow where He leads:
John 12:20-26
“Now there were some Greeks (Jews from the Diaspora) among those (native born Israeli Jews) who were going up to worship at the feast; these then came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’
“Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his (idolatrous Broad Path) life loses it, and he who hates his (idolatrous Broad Path) life in this world will keep it to Life Eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me (on Almighty God’s Narrow Path Exodus terms), the Father will honor him.’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
And this is why, after Yeshua spoke of the Broad and Narrow Gates and Broad and Narrow Paths, that He added these words:
Matthew 7:21-28
“Not everyone (among those that claim to believe Me) who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in Heaven will enter. Many (well-intentioned but Head-less religious people) will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and in Your Name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness (Torah-lessness). Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house on the Rock (of Narrow Path of God’s Entire Torah Revelation), and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the Rock.
“‘Everyone who hears these words of Mine (in their entirety) and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand (of idolatrous self-devised lip service and disobedience). The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.’
“When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their (Messiah-rejecting) scribes.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved disciples… MAINTAIN YOUR NEW COVENANT, SPIRIT-GIVEN FOCUS!