7. How Moses Was Trained
The war that the powers of Darkness wage against God’s living Word rages continually. People who are not under the Word’s Authority are, wittingly or unwittingly, Head-less. Thus, by default, they enhance the agendas of the Serpent that decapitated them. As long as God’s Word is not their true Head, the Serpent is free to manipulate and keep them separated from God’s Kingdom and His people.
In that decapitated, radically independent state, they do not experience inner warfare. It’s true they still have consciences, but they are mostly ‘seared’ and desensitized, driven by the delusion that Sin is actually nothing more than simply being ‘human’ and ‘normal’. So although God continues to maintain their existence and blesses and provides for them as much as they will allow…because they continually ignore or reject God’s Word, the Serpent prevails. Thus they experience minimal conflict in their hearts. They virtually have one operative option on their mental and emotional ‘menus’ – disobedience to God’s living and written Word.
But as soon as redeemed people receive a regenerated Spirit-filled spirit, everything changes internally. Their spirits are regenerated so now they are new spiritual creations that continue to inhabit their mortal, Sin-corrupted bodies. Now their flesh wars against the Spirit of God that abides in their spirits, and the Spirit wars against the rebellious appetites, desires and compulsions that the Sin residue generates within their flesh. So they must continually choose between obedience or rebellion against God because now, their new spiritual equipment makes them free to choose not to sin.
God’s indwelling Spirit can now make the risen Lord, Yeshua, present, real and actively alive within them. But their fallen, Sin-corrupted souls and mortal bodies create an opposing pull within their minds and wills. Before God’s Spirit can transmit the Life, Presence and Obedience of Yeshua into them, they must forsake their original self-life and defer to and make room for the Life of their Master to prevail.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:16-24)
So the Spirit of God abides in the regenerated spirits of Yeshua’s disciples. He is ready at all times to impart and reveal the eternally perfect Humanity, Love, Obedience and Faith of their risen, glorified Master. The Spirit makes Him alive, active and real…to…in …and through His disciples. But the disciples must choose which life they will feed, protect and enhance…and which life will be forsaken, starved, crucified and nullified.
“‘Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.’ But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.” (John 12:31-33 Emphasis added.)
“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’”? (James 4:4-5 Emphasis added.)
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)
God’s Holy Spirit gives regenerated people the opportunity to unite with humanity’s true Head and serve as His disciples. When that happens, Yeshua’s Life, Perfection and Eternal Inheritance become available. But disciple training is required to make sure His Reality remains present and accessible to their conscious awareness at all times. If that doesn’t happen, the disciple is not equipped to serve as His image and likeness.
We must be trained, equipped and prepared to make an actual Exodus from our former living dead self life state of decapitation into a state of abiding habitually in and out from our Lord’s abiding Presence within the regenerated spiritual part of our being. We must learn to live by supernatural, God-given faith and no longer rely on the soulish, fleshy areas of our makeup to direct us. Soulishness and flesh are the Serpent’s domain…that’s his ground…the area from which he dominates us through our own natural perspectives, thoughts, feelings and rebellious urges. What is Heavenly and of the Holy Spirit comes into our spirits from the Eternal Treasury of the Word’s Perfect Finished All-Sufficient Work. We are to remain directly connected, Spirit-to-spirit, with Almighty God even while our souls and bodies remain confined within mortal flesh in this fallen, demon-possessed world.
Our spirit is now one with God who abides in the Throne Room of His Eternal Heavenly Kingdom. But in and through our Master Yeshua we can be there with Him in Heaven, and He can be here on Earth with us. Thus God can send His Word and Spirit to do His bidding on the Earth…through us. So we must learn to overcome the negative pull of the flesh within us. Decapitated people have no choice but to operate out of the flesh; but disciples have to choose deliberately…between flesh or Spirit…between feelings and opinions and sensations…and obedient faith in the Word of God.
“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.” (Joshua 24:14-15)
“For we know that the Law (Torah) is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law (Torah), confessing that the Law (Torah) is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but Sin which dwells in me.” (Romans 7:14-20)
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” Galatians 5:16-17)
“But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, ‘Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the (Word-enlivening) Spirit,” (Ephesians 5:13-18 Emphasis added.)
“And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:37-38)
Disciple boot camp equips us to hold our Covenant Ground and allow God’s Word to do what God’s perfect nature requires of us. Our Master does it through us, despite that inner conflict and the pressures exerted upon us by our own flesh and the Serpent-dominated world around us. If we do not overcome in the battles that rage within our own hearts, how will we withstand the powers of Darkness in the Arena of Testimony? We won’t; instead, we’ll cave in and serve the Serpent’s purposes by default. But if we learn to embrace and abide in our Master’s Presence, we can appropriate what He gives us from His own Perfection, and own and identify with it. He is our Strength and Fulfillment. He empowers us to hold our Covenant Ground and operate as Heavenly citizens and His co-heirs. By remaining one with Him, we draw continually from the Heavenly Treasury of Grace that is ours and God arms and equips and empowers us to stand and hold our Ground and overcome any onslaught the enemy tries to throw against us. Thus we prevail in the battles that take place within us…and also overcome whatever comes against us from without:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!’ For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.
“You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent. For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down.
“Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him and let him see My Salvation (Yeshua).” (Psalm 91)
Our True Inheritance and Covenant Ground
This is our Inheritance…the Covenant Ground…that God’s Lamb has won for His own. His disciples must be trained to KNOW His Perfect Presence and ABIDE in Him at this triumphant level. We must allow His Resurrection Life and nature, character and disposition to live and operate within us. The Almighty, Eternal, Perfect All-Sufficient One abides within us…to keep us under the ‘Shadow of His Wings’…in total security, safety and endless provision. Trained disciples are able to know and interact with Him at this level. So they can be trusted and commissioned to wear His uniform and abide under His continuous Command and follow Him into The Arena of Testimony…to dance with Him…and perform the commandment ‘dance steps’ He teaches us. (See our Genesis meditation No. 3 ‘The Arena of Testimony’) When we’re properly trained, we can follow His lead, with precise, faithful obedience in the Arena…to the helpless consternation of His demonic enemies. Our share in His Life and Perfect Obedience to His Father’s commands enables us to maintain and protect the Blood Covenant Ground entrusted to us. As long as we allow our indwelling Master to rule over and live through our yielded, crucified flesh, we can deal with all things in a way that glorifies our Heavenly Father. Boot camp trains us to do this no matter what it leads to and no matter what temporary, shakable things it may cost us to do it.
This Eternal Covenant Identity and Connection with God and the endless Inheritance and Triumph that the Word shares with His own is what God intended to reveal and demonstrate to Moses and to the nation of Israel for the instruction and salvation of the rest of the world. And this is why He uses impossible situations by which to train us to embed ourselves deeply within the Eternal Covenant Love Bond we have with Almighty God, through His living Word. This is the Spiritual Inheritance we are called to enjoy and demonstrate and share with the rest of the world, so that the Spirit of God can engraft the entire human race into it. All men must repent of their radically independent ‘self-life’ and surrender it to continuous crucifixion to keep it out of God’s way and out of the picture. So our obedience to God’s Word enables the Holy Spirit to transform us into the Word’s ‘points of entry’ through which we usher in the Spirit-given Power and Glory of God’s resurrected Eternal Word…our Master, Yeshua. This also enables us to serve as His permanent bases of operation from which He can continually ‘water the human desert’ with God’s Holy Spirit and cause what was once dead to come to Life and bloom with His God-glorifying Fruit. (See Ezekiel 47:1-12; John 7:37-39.)
“A voice is calling: ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for 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 of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5; Matthew 13:10-17)
This is what God had to teach Moses and the original generation of Exodus Israelites. They were to learn and demonstrate it to the rest of the world. God’s Word called them to be His original demonstrator-disciples. Eventually they were to transform into trainers and teachers for the rest of us! Had they obeyed, they would have been trained and equipped to stare down the Serpent’s lies and bypass his traps and take full possession of the Promised Covenant Land God had promised to their forefathers. But because so many have disobeyed, to this day the Covenant Land of Promise is still not fully theirs. The Land is waiting for that Last Days generation of disciples that will be empowered to hear and obey God’s Living Word fully. They will take all that our Messiah is and claims and promises, to heart. And they will usher God’s risen Word back to Earth in His Glorified Humanity. When Father says it is time…He will be installed and enthroned as King of kings and Ruler over the whole Earth, just as He already reigns in Heaven. And since the Last Days are already bearing down upon us…it is time for the current generations of disciples to begin to be fully trained and prepared for that Day.
“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.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
We learn to stand our Covenant Ground and overcome the enemy when we no longer allow the Serpent’s lies to gain entry to our fallen souls and brains. Demonic lies inflame and arouse the Sin-residue within us. If we allow the powers of Darkness to recapture the acceptance and focus of our fallen souls, they’ll keep using created beings and things to drag us off of our Covenant Ground. Then they’ll smother and dominate us with ease. That is why they continually dangle various forms of ‘bait’ before us…trying to keep our fallen appetites enthralled and aroused so they can lure us back into the Darkness, back to the ‘quicksand’ of Sin…‘Decapitation’…and Death.
All Authority belongs to Yeshua
But God’s living creative, sustaining Word actually and rightfully holds every speck of Authority that exists throughout the created universe! He is the true King of the Kingdom of Heaven and true Lord over the entire created universe. But the Serpent, who is also called ‘Satan,’ eternally refuses to accept His Truth and Reality. So his rebellious activity is described in Scripture as ‘the spirit of Anti-Christ’ (Anti-Messiah or Anti-Word). He and his powers of darkness contradict and disobey God’s Word and endlessly try to erase and annul God’s living and written Word from our minds and hearts…to usurp His place of absolute Authority over us. The Serpent always tries to be ‘like God’ and to get us to follow him in that ridiculously futile pursuit (Genesis3:4-5).
But once we heed our Master’s call, we must repent of and forsake our former life of radical independence, unbelief and disobedience. When He becomes our true Head, He will also be our Eternal Life! And by His authority and the Holy Spirit’s Power, what pertains to Him who reigns at the Father’s side in Heaven will be continually transmitted into our regenerated spirits here on Earth. But His Heavenly Provision is only deposited into and through, Blood-purified, regenerated spirits. And as God’s Word is transmitted into our spirits, His Authority and Presence must also be allowed to prevail over our minds, wills and brains (See Romans 9, 10, 11 & 12). We must reconfigure our souls and bodies until they are realigned and retrained to forsake and crucify the Sin residue that still abides in our fallen faculties and become fully aligned with our Master’s Perfect indwelling Presence:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)
The warfare that must take place within us will be temporary. In God’s perfect timing, the powers of Darkness will be totally done away with and our souls will be fully renewed, restored and at peace. We will also receive glorified, perfect, eternal bodies to replace the fallen temporary Sin-prone ones we currently inhabit. But for the time being, the warfare continues. So we must remain fully aware that even now, our utterly Perfect God is abiding with us, in our spirits, to be whatever we need Him to be. And it is our privilege and glory and responsibility to serve as His willing ‘points of entry’ through which His Holy Spirit and Living Word can transmit all that pertains to our Inheritance in Heaven…into this fallen Earth…through us.
Of course the Serpent and the powers of Darkness will oppose this Heavenly invasion. That’s why they try so desperately to exploit our ‘weak points’…our still-fallen, Sin-contaminated souls, brains and nervous systems. They do everything they can to arouse our sinful appetites once more…to confuse and discourage our Sin-corrupted senses and emotions and highly-limited perceptions and awareness. They try to overcome us from within our own fallen souls and physical feelings and emotions…to destroy our resolve and pull us off of the Ground of faith in and obedience to, God’s Perfect Word.
But as long as we remain focused on God’s Truth and indwelling perfect Presence, we can operate according to the true Laws of His Creation. We can maintain our spiritual Heavenly connection with our Master, the King of kings and Lord of lords. As long as we are connected and we trust and obey Him as our one and only Head and Source, He easily exerts His Dominion over anything the enemy tries to do to us. That’s why we must be trained to remain focused on God’s living and written Word. The Word equips us to hold our Covenant Ground against any and all demonic attacks. Our Master taught us to parry satanic lies with God’s Eternal Truth. We can cut through all demonic onslaughts with the two-edged Sword of God’s living Word and All-powerful Spirit. (See Matthew 4:1-11)
True God-given Life comes into our regenerated spirits from His living Word and Holy Spirit. But what comes into us through our souls and bodies is from the Sin-corrupted, Serpent-dominated world. We must learn to recognize the difference between those two sources, and make sure that our intake is only from God’s Word so we can remain pure and undefiled. God endeavored to teach these principles of spiritual purity and integrity to the first Exodus generation when He led them into their wilderness boot camp training. In a variety of ways, He taught them to avoid mixing spirit with flesh and what is Heavenly with what is alien and derived from our fallen flesh:
“You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together. You shall make yourself tassels (that will perpetually remind you of the Covenant we have with each other) on the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.” (Deuteronomy 22:10-12)
“And a woman (a daughter of Israel) who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak (the Covenant tassel of His prayer shawl); for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well.’ But Jesus turning and seeing her said, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.” At once the woman was made well.” (Matthew 9:20-22 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Throughout the bloody, failure-prone checkered pasts of Israel and what we call ‘Christendom’, God Truth has remained constant:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus (God’s living Word) knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.” (John 6:63-64 Emphasis added.)
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12 Emphasis added.)
Keep Your Eyes on what is Eternal!
Abraham ended his life as a Bedouin-like nomad and never fully possessed the Land God promised him. And Isaac, Jacob and Joseph did not truly possess it either. Nevertheless, they continued to trust God’s Word, knowing that God has all of eternity in which to fulfill His promises! The Word of God planted His Covenant Promises into their spirits. But their physical conditions, geography, circumstances and human feelings and impressions came from the fallen, temporary, demon-dominated world around them. All that information was processed through their fallen soulish intellects and physical senses. The Holy Spirit was telling their spirits one thing; but the Serpent kept using the fallen world system and its circumstances and their own fallen flesh to try to contradict and cancel out God’s Word. But Satan was not able to get those fathers of the faith to go for his bait. They finally learned to remain focused on God’s Word and continued to follow Him…and so they prevailed. Now they enjoy the Eternal Fulfillment of everything God once promised to them. And that is the same test and outcome that are before us as well.
Only well-trained disciples can remain permanently focused and rooted in God’s Perfect, Eternal Word. Proper training embeds God’s Eternal Truth deep within our hearts. God thus becomes the granite-solid Covenant Rock upon which we learn to stand and proclaim Him and His Eternal Faithfulness and Perfect Character and Integrity. We learn to abide perpetually…in His Perfect Presence…through His Eternal Perfect Word and Perfect, All-Powerful Holy Spirit. Instead of believing, trusting and being deceived by the dim, distorted and fleeting impressions of our fallen faculties, we rest peacefully, in eternal possession of His absolute Credibility, Reliability and Eternal Assurance of the Covenant promises God has given to us through His eternal, Blood-sealed, Covenant Word.
This was the training that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph received. And Moses received it too. Like the Fathers of the Faith before him, he too would not live to possess the Land of Promise physically. But yet he was Abraham’s Covenant descendant! And thankfully he learned to possess the Fulfillment of God’s promises in his spirit…where the Word and the Spirit of God abide perpetually. He knew the difference between what is Heavenly and Eternal and Pure, and what is earthy, temporary and Sin-corrupted. So he was able to stand his Covenant Ground, to the very end. And we can see the beautiful result of his faith revealed in the earthly life of Yeshua the Messiah. When the Word of God Himself became flesh and lived in the Land that had been promised to the spiritual forefathers of Israel, Moses appeared with Him on the mount of Transfiguration:
“Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.” (Matthew 17:1-3)
Moses was abiding in the Messiah’s eternal possession of the Land…he was one with His Lord and Master, the living Word of God. So the knowledge of God and His eternal Perfection and infinite, airtight eternal Lovingkindness is what sets disciples of God’s Word apart from the rest. This keeps them from remaining like the decapitated people around them…enslaved victims of temporary earthly circumstances, perceptions and feelings. Disciples learn to abide and rest with God in His Eternal Shabbat Shalom (Sabbath Peace)…thanks to their airtight knowledge of God’s Eternal Perfection and their oneness with God’s Word and Spirit. Yeshua is their Eternal Fulfillment. The Treasury that comes as a result of His Perfect Finished Work is theirs for all eternity. God promised that the work of His living Word is already done and is also already ours. It is completely paid for…in Eternity…in our name! (See Ephesians 1:3-6)
What Well Trained Disciples Must Learn and Live
What is eternal cannot be affected or changed or stopped by anything created or temporal. And so knowing this, trained disciples trust in God’s Eternal Perfection. This sets them free from the tyranny and deception of corrupted, highly-limited, temporary human hunches, opinions, perspectives, fears, threats, sensations and passing feelings. These are battles we cannot avoid and this is the war in which we must be trained to overcome at all costs.
Moses learned this. His forefathers ended their lives as nomads. But Moses began his life by being firmly embedded within the highest echelon of the Egyptian establishment itself! His was not the perspective of a victimized slave; it was more like the perspective of an exalted courtier of the Pharaoh! That could have been why Moses, from the universal perspective of our common fallen flesh, felt compelled to take matters into his own hands when he saw an Egyptian overseer abusing one of his Israelite brothers. He was so outraged that he killed the Egyptian, assuming that if he didn’t do something about the terrible plight of his people, no one else would. Instinctively he knew God had called him to liberate Israel. And now, when he saw the abuse taking place before him, his soul and physical senses compelled him to do something. He naturally went by the temporary, fallen perspective, attitude and knee-jerk feeling impulses engendered by the Sin-corrupted data the Serpent uses to manipulate all fallen flesh. Just as Abraham had once done with Hagar, and Jacob had done with Esau, Moses also took matters into his own hands. He tried to fulfill God’s promises for Him, by his own strength and devices. So Moses produced another ‘Ishmael,’ another false result born of his own radically independent initiative…a ‘child of the flesh,’ a decapitated dead work that flowed out of dead, Adamic ‘flesh.’
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6 Emphasis added.)
“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!But his delight is in the law (Torah) of the Lord, and in His law (Torah) he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.
“The wicked (Torah-less) are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter, the one that remains faithful. The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an everlasting Rock!” (Isaiah 26:2-4 Emphasis added.)
God saw to it that what Moses thought he did in secret became known, far and wide! That of course brought the wrath of the Pharaoh down on Moses. Thus we see that it is impossible to beat the Serpent at his own game! He is the prince of Head-lessness. If we too are Head-less, the Serpent dominates us. But if God’s Word is our Head, the Serpent’s head is crushed regarding what pertains to us! That’s why we must learn to allow God to deal with all of our radical independence. We dare not try to face and overcome the Prince of Decapitation when we ourselves remain decapitated! As long as we’re decapitated, he is free to do what he wishes, to us and through us (See Exodus 7; Acts 19:11-20).
So God used the threat presented by the Pharaoh’s wrath as the means by which to motivate Moses to ‘enlist’ and follow Him willingly into the wilderness ‘Boot Camp’ for his induction into forty years of ‘basic training.’ And there, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph before him, Moses learned to allow God to crucify his fallen, controlling, ‘do it yourself’ Adamic flesh. Over those forty years, he learned to wait…and wait…and wait upon God, drawing only from the Perfect Original Blessing and the Perfect Finished Work of God’s awesome living Word…whom we know as, ‘Yeshua’ (Salvation).
Yes, even from the beginning, Moses truly was God’s chosen instrument for Israel’s deliverance. But first he had to be rigorously ‘weaned’ from the natural addiction that flesh has of acting on its own initiatives, in radical independence from what God has already provided. God does not need any help from puny, Sin-corrupted men. He needs their total submission to His living Word and their total trust in His absolute Perfection. When we take matters into our own hands, it isn’t done out of real love and submission to God…it is done out of fear and mistrust of His Greatness and unbelief in the credibility of His Word! So it was only after forty years of intense boot camp training had passed, that God sent Moses back to Egypt to deliver His people. And by now, Moses knew very well that he could do nothing in his own strength. And that’s why he felt completely overwhelmed at the thought of being sent back to Egypt to actually face the pharaoh and defy his power:
“But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 Emphasis added.)
Indeed, how could he, a man who had been stripped of His former Egyptian position, status and clout, and who had no powerful earthly connections or military power or resources to back him, how could he face, oppose and overcome the frightful, majestic, totally intimidating presence and humanly invincible will, resources and power of the current Pharaoh of Egypt? How could a sheep herder lead the entire nation of disgruntled, resentful Israelite slaves safely away from the Serpent-dominated Pharaoh and his enormous military might and utterly hostile, deadly intentions?
And even if he did manage to lead Israel safely out of Egypt…once they were in the wilderness, how would he be able to supply two or three million people and their animals, with adequate supplies of food, water and the many other needs that such a huge, unruly, terrified mob of former slaves would surely experience? How could such a pathetic man pull off this impossible feat amid the harshest, most impossible of wilderness environments? It was all totally impossible…wouldn’t you agree?
But that is exactly the point that disciple boot camp is meant to get across to our fallen flesh and our addiction to radically independent, God-less behavior and pursuits. When God tells us to do something…He makes sure we know that it is impossible for us to do it. So we must be trained to look to Him at all times to do it…to us…in us…and through us…by His Perfect Word and Holy Spirit:
“They who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But He said, ‘The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.’” (Luke 18:26-27 Emphasis added.)
Exodus Boot Camp Training is for All Disciples
So, as He always must do, God led all of His Chosen People into their Exodus Boot Camp training. He led them into one impossible situation after another, to prove to them that there is nothing that we or any other creature like us can do, in our own strength and by our puny human devices, to save or provide for ourselves or make ourselves ‘good enough’ in any way whatsoever! Those who are born in Adam’s Sin-corruption are the living dead. And the dead, although they believe they’re radically independent, cannot do anything for themselves, by themselves, in actual Reality. And even when they wallow in the lap of worldly luxury, they are still always dead in Sin…just as weak and helpless as if they were part of that original company of ex-slaves in the wilderness. Whether it is a pharaoh or the lowest slave, the Truth is that we are all as weak and helpless as ‘dust.’ And everything real, true and good that any of us will ever enjoy must first come to us from God, through His Word and Holy Spirit. There is only one God, and one Source. And we must all depend on our Creator and receive everything from Him, at all times…with no exception!
This is what the wilderness Boot Camp is meant to teach to disciples. It spells out the true meaning of the first and foremost commandment in the most graphic, gut-wrenching terms. And this is what disciples that will be required to operate in the Last Days must be prepared to demonstrate and proclaim to the rest of the world! God’s chosen demonstration-people must be the first to learn this because they are commissioned to teach, demonstrate and share this with everyone else. But you can’t teach what you yourself have not learned; nor can you give what you yourself do not yet have, nor can you lead anyone else one inch beyond where you yourself chose to stop following God’s living Word. So God first leads every generation of His chosen ones, into impossible situations to train them to overcome any situation and circumstance…by relying solely on Him and the Perfect Finished Word of His living Word…by the infinite Power of His Holy Spirit:
“So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said to me, ‘Do you not know what these are?’ And I said, ‘No, my lord.’ Then he said to me, ‘This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:5-6)
What can dead, Sin-corrupted dust do? What resources do the Headless, living dead have that would enable them to even lift a finger to do anything that would pass God’s infinitely perfect standards of Righteousness? Are we not all as helpless as piles of dust? Are not the dead utterly unable to do anything to save or maintain themselves? Must they not be connected to their Head, so that He can be Life to them and provide everything that they are not, on their behalf?
“Jesus (the living Word of God) said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’ When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go!’ (John 11:40-44)
For forty years God led the ex-slaves of Egypt unfailingly, seeing them through one impossible difficulty and situation after another. He led them safely in the wilderness just as effectively as He had freed them from the Pharaoh’s slave pits and delivered them from his elite military forces. He led them safely through a vast expanse of sea water without the benefit of ships. He supplied their needs without the benefit of fully stocked warehouses or shopping centers or medical facilities or man-made resources of any kind. God’s living Word provided everything Moses and the others needed. And He protected each one who believed and rested in His Perfection…from His Perfection!
“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the Lord your God has destroyed them from among you. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.” (Deuteronomy 4:1-4 Emphasis added.)
God’s Word proves continually to those who believe and obey, that He is God’s Original Blessing…given to Adam and Eve. And He contains in Himself, all of God’s almighty power and perfect nature and faithfulness. Everything God revealed through Him to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph was absolutely true. And His living Word was and is, always with His own…to continue to prove His awesome Reality to each generation, through them (See Deuteronomy 28). And that’s why Moses received such a rigorous, demanding, utterly humbling period of training:
“And the one on who seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the Word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the Word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” (Matthew 13:22-23 Emphasis added.)
So in the beginning, before the entire nation’s Exodus could begin, God first had to prepare their leader Moses…as an individual. Then, through His trained disciple, He’d be able to begin to train the rest, as a nation.
“Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, ‘Why are you striking your companion?’ But he said, ‘Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and said, ‘Surely the matter has become known.’
“When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.” (Exodus 2:11-15)
This is how Moses’ forty year ‘boot camp’ disciple training began. And when his radical independence was truly crucified and left behind, God sent His Word to lead the nation of Israel, through Moses’ crucified flesh, into the very same training camp so they could learn to be His living Word’s disciples too! And so the rest of the world could learn from their example:
“Therefore, let us 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; but the Word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, ‘As I swore in My wrath, They 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 shall not enter My rest.’” (Hebrews 4:1-5)
Later, God prompted Moses to write the training steps down in human words so that their Truth would not be diluted, twisted or forgotten by succeeding generations of Israelite disciples. So the Torah of Moses is a written revelation of God’s living Word and His Perfect Finished Eternal work of Salvation and Restoration. That Heavenly Perfection is what He was sent by God to reveal, embed and establish in the minds, hearts, wills and lives of men. Through what was written, God continues to reveal His living Word’s mission and significance to every succeeding generation, so that the rest of the world can see, by observing where God led Israel, what and where the path is that they too will have to follow, if they hope to be saved from the eternal consequences of their ‘living death.’
The Torah reveals God’s perfect, changeless nature and His perfect ways and perfect standards of Righteousness. And by coming to know God and His nature, we can learn all about ourselves, and about Sin and what it has done to us. We learn about the fall of the human race through unbelief and disobedience to God’s Word…and our ensuing dreadful, hopelessly bankrupt living death condition before God. And we learn about God’s Perfect, already-given Eternal Solution and the vast difference between what it is to be decapitated and live a God-less lifestyle, and what it is to be rejoined to God’s living Word who is the True Head of the entire human race. Torah teaches the righteous, supernatural, Spirit-empowered lifestyle that God’s Chosen ones are equipped to live out and demonstrate to the rest of the decapitated, lost world!
Eternal Stakes and God’s Perfect Provision
This is how God intends to make sure that all humans realize how desperately they need His Salvation. Then His Word acts on their behalf and becomes that Salvation to them. The eternal stakes involved are enormous. So our meditations on the Book of Exodus will continue to focus on these all-important underlying issues and try to unpack them so the Lord can give us deeper and fuller understanding of His ways. We will focus our considerations on what is actually in the written Word of God. And the main issue throughout, will be man’s obedience or disobedience to God’s Word. If we obey, God’s Word is truly our Head and His Life truly abides and works within us. If we disobey, the Serpent decapitates us and drags us off to our temporal and eternal Death.
All of this started with our first parents. All descendants of Adam and Eve must clearly understand what God’s Word must do to rescue and restore us to the original image and likeness obedience specifications for which we were originally created. And the New Covenant Books (the apostolic Gospels, the Book of Acts, the Epistles and Revelation of God’s living Word) bring the original revelation forward, to the New Covenant generations of His Chosen People. At the end, they will beautifully fulfill this Truth. The original apostles elaborated on the same life or death issue about which God’s Word warned Adam and Eve in the Garden. Their Master, God’s living Word, appeared in Israel as the Son of Man, to cover the same ground that He first revealed in Genesis and Exodus. And He did it most effectively and clearly with words recorded in Matthew 7:15-27. In that text, He exposed the same old delusionary lies and the self-life trap the Serpent always tries to set before unsuspecting humans. He brings out the differences between flesh and Spirit and continues to explain the need for the ‘Exodus Pattern’ and its narrow path by which we make our escape from Sin and Death. He does it in terms that help us all understand more clearly the issue that He first brought up in the Garden in Genesis:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17b-19 Emphasis added.)
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.
“Not everyone 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 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)’” (Matthew 7:15-23)
The world system we must leave behind is under the domination of the powers of Darkness. Its citizens are dead in Sin, alienated and separated from God, and condemned to live in a demon-dominated Hell. In their alienated, rebellious state, men create and maintain a world system in which the real God, as revealed in the Torah, is ignored and rejected, and in which people conjure up vast arrays of substitute imaginary gods (alternate sources) that they use to conceal their self-adoration and rebellion against the true, living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel). Scripture gives a symbolic name to the world system that comes out of that demonic state of decapitation. He calls it ‘Egypt.’ It is the God-less fallen world that began to emerge as soon as our first parents believed and obeyed the Serpent’s lies:
“The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil!’” (Genesis 3:4-5)
God keeps sending His eternal, never-changing Word to rescue us and cover our nakedness and show us the true Way that leads back to ‘The Tree of Life,’ God’s Eternal Life. That is why the Serpent, the spirit of ‘Anti-Christ,’ does everything he can to blind and deafen us to God’s Word so that he can keep us trapped in the Darkness of his decapitated disobedience to God.
So in the Book of Exodus, Israel is enslaved by the Serpent who uses Egypt as his means of enslavement. At the same time, God uses what Egypt is doing to teach and train His people…and the rest of the world what will not pass His Judgment. And so when God’s living Word became flesh and dwelt among us as Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth (The Living Torah), He began to teach and instruct His fellow Israelites about the true meaning and importance of what is contained in the written Torah, the Word which prophetically revealed and explained His significance so that when He finally arrived in the flesh, Israel would be able to recognize and receive Him through their understanding of the Torah…and realize that He had finally come to fulfill everything the Torah revealed and promised:
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to Him…I will raise up a Prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which He shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’” (Deuteronomy 18:15; 18-20)
Our Master Yeshua, whose disciples we are called to be, was first revealed in Genesis. Now He is further revealed throughout Exodus, and the other three books of Moses. They prophetically reveal Yeshua and what He will be like and what He will do and fulfill when He finally appears as Israel’s Messiah. And once He appears, everything He does and teaches must fulfill every ‘yud’ or ‘taggim’ (‘jot or tittle’) contained in the Hebrew words that the Spirit inspired Moses to write concerning Him. This is why He said to His contemporary Israelites:
“…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?” (John 5:46-47 Emphasis added.)
And on another occasion, He added:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the (Torah) Door into the fold of the (True Israelite) sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But He who enters by the Door is a Shepherd of the sheep (The Messiah promised in the Torah and also in Isaiah 53 and Ezekiel 34). To him the Doorkeeper (the Holy Spirit) opens, and the sheep hear His Voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out (of Egypt). When He puts forth all His own, He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice. A stranger (someone Moses and your forefathers did not know) they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers (Deuteronomy 13).’ This (Torah-explaining and fulfilling) figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.” (John 10:1-6 Emphasis and amplification added.)
In Genesis (the first book of the Torah), God sent His Word to cover all naked, spiritually decapitated humans with the skins of substitute animals whose Sin-less lives were sacrificed to provide the covering they could never supply for themselves. This prophetically revealed the redeeming role of God’s Word, who is humanity’s Eternal, Heavenly Covenant Representative, Sacrificial Lamb and High Priest. God gave His perfect, spotless ‘Passover Lamb’ (as revealed in Exodus) to us from eternity, to cover those who would be His, in space and time. If we receive and identify with and become one with Him, we can offer this Perfect Gift back to God…and know that because we accepted His beloved Son (the Word), God will certainly recognize us as His image and likeness and will accept us and fill us with His own Holy Spirit!
This was the germ or seed of God’s awesome Self-Revelation that God gave in the Torah’s first book, Genesis. The Word then brought His self-revelation forward to Cain and Abel and the generations leading up to Noah. And He continued to bring it forward from Noah to the generations that led to Abram and his family. And now, He comes to reveal Himself to Moses and his Exodus generation. He reveals Himself so that through them, He can bring God’s Self-Revelation and Standards of Righteousness forward to the entire world, generation after generation, until the end of time.
This is what Exodus and all other books of the Bible are about. And Israel is to be the ‘vehicle’ or ‘instrument’ through which this revelation and its fulfillment are demonstrated, proved and then conveyed to the world, generation by generation. As various Bible commentators have pointed out, God’s Eternal Covenant Plan of Redemption as revealed to and through His Chosen People can be compared to a scarlet thread (the Eternal Covenant sealed in the Blood of The Eternal Passover Lamb of God) that is woven into and runs throughout all of Israel’s history…from Genesis to Revelation.
So when God’s living Word finally appeared again, in the humanity of Yeshua of Nazareth (the long-awaited Messiah of Israel), He didn’t come to invent a new religion or give a different kind of revelation that deviated from what came before. He came to continue the same story and unpack more of its revelation and fulfill it to its perfect God-intended conclusion on behalf of the human world and the rest of God’s Creation.
And His New Covenant disciples will fulfill the Exodus legacy in the Last Days, to perfection. They will allow God’s living Word to fulfill it completely in and through them. And with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, they too will enjoy the Land of Promise. It will be completely, entirely and forever…their true Home!