Our Exodus meditations often focus on the Bible’s revelation of Israel’s unique position in God’s Plan of Redemption. He chose Israel to stand between Him and all other peoples. She serves as His ‘template’ for all other peoples. So we spend a lot of time trying to unpack what is contained in Genesis and Exodus. That is where God reveals His Root of Salvation and Restoration. The first two Torah books contain the major issues between the Creator of all things and the human race. And there we also learn about Israel’s God-given purpose… how things will be… when God’s quest to save and restore Creation, and the human race, reaches its conclusion.
To gain understanding of these issues, we’ve considered Israel’s first two Exodus generations. The first was born into a state of slavery; the second into freedom. And Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy fill in more details about what went on between God and His chosen ones.
Now, let’s consider the third generation. The books of Joshua and Judges give us insight into what they turned out to be. They were the grandchildren of the first Exodus generation that died in the wilderness, and the children of the second generation, whose invasion of the Land lost momentum and fizzled out. Then this happened:
Judges 2:8-10
“… Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten. And they buried him… All that (second) generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, how could that happen? After all that God had been to Israel, and all He did for her first two Exodus generations, how could He be so absent from the hearts and minds of the third? Well, each generation has to shoulder part of the blame. The first, despite all they experienced with God, and despite the Torah’s clear instructions, actually neglected to circumcise their children and bring them into Abraham’s Covenant with God! So the Lord had to warn Joshua to make sure to have the second generation circumcised before daring to lead them into the Land. But the laxity of the first generation had a bad effect on the second. After making a good beginning, they failed to thoroughly break the hold that the Canaanites had on the Land. And so the Book of Judges introduces the sad, dismal legacy that was left by the third generation. Like their elders, they knew all they needed to know about God. They had the Torah to guide and inform them. But, when the time came for them to make their personal responses to God and His Word, they sowed the seeds of their personal failure. They turned out to be virtually God-less!
But beloved, this isn’t only about Israel! Remember, she is the template for all the rest of mankind! The Bible is showing us that the second generation inherited a very imperfect legacy from their parents… and, they in turn passed it on to their children. And this is precisely the point I believe God wants us to see! It is the same legacy we have all inherited! It is the pattern of unbelief and disobedience to God that our first parents, Adam and Eve, left to us all! Genesis 3 reveals the root source of the human race’s fall into Sin and Death. Their unbelief and their rejection of God’s living Word, led Eve and Adam to rebel against the Authority of God’s Word. So humanity became radically independent from God. Sin did that to all of us. It severed us from our one and only Source of Life! Beloved, the Serpent killed the human race with one bite! And that explains everything that follows throughout human history.
Genesis 3 reveals the Root of all human frustration, failure, disaster, mortality and desolation. All descendants of Adam are born spiritually dead! And the first three Exodus generations of Israel were no different. They were conceived in and born into, that same state of spiritual disconnection from God! And so, all of us are spiritually ‘decapitated’ from the authoritative Headship of God’s Life-giving Word, who is our Source of Life! We’re all born disconnected from Him; therefore we’re born spiritually dead. Thus we also receive physical bodies that have been mortally wounded even before we have a chance to start using them!
There was nothing in the Exodus Israelites that would have enabled them to change or save themselves by a certain level of performance. Spiritually dead people can’t bring themselves back to life, nor can they achieve true living spiritual results that would meet God’s Perfect Standards of Righteousness and Justice. This is the major Truth that the Torah (and the rest of the Bible) reveals:
Romans 8:5-10
“For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is Life and Peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the Law (Torah) of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
“However (when you are one with Messiah Yeshua, God’s living Word), you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ (even if he becomes hyper-religious), he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of (God’s Word-imparted) Righteousness.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Ephesians 2:1-3
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the (Serpent, the) prince of the power of the air, of the (demonic rebellious) spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too (all) formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
So… why did God give the Sinai Covenant to people who were shackled and imprisoned by this spiritually disfigured and mortally wounded condition? Did He do it to torment us? Was it a malicious prank? No, this was no joke. It was a chilling revelation to spiritually obtuse people about some horrifying things that the human race has no way of knowing save for God’s revelation. The Covenant that our Creator offered to the people who followed Moses was externally imparted. It was merely an agreement, a bi-lateral give-and-take arrangement that God proposed to the people, to teach them something we all have to know. They were truly chosen by God, but there was nothing in their natural makeup that could change or empower them to rise to a higher level of being and doing! The Sinai Covenant did not have the authority and power to penetrate or change their innermost essence and being. That regenerative glory of fullness and perfection was reserved for another Covenant that God had in mind… the New Covenant that He was planning to make with Israel in the future. It is the Covenant that God fulfills Himself, to make sure everything is done to Perfection.
God’s Covenantal Purpose – Salvation for His Beloved Humans
So what was the purpose of the Sinai Covenant? It was given to reveal, or expose, what fallen flesh is and how bankrupt and empty it remains. It shows us what men and women are able to accomplish when left to their own efforts. The result of that always amounts to – Nothing! So the Sinai Covenant set the stage and prepared the way for the arrival of the New Covenant! When Israel’s Exodus was just beginning, the people had no way of knowing what was really going on! All they knew was what they thought they were seeing and hearing during the awesome display of Almighty God’s Power in the wilderness. But the Truth was that the whole world is in need of the New Covenant, in which God assures us that He Himself has made everything right on our behalf. He doesn’t look to our fallen Sin-corrupted flesh to do this. He knows we’re helpless. So He required Himself to do it. He did it by the Absolute Authority of His own Word, and the Omnipotent Power of His Holy Spirit, in eternity, even before the foundation of the world!
God had to prove to us that people in our fallen, mortal, Sin-corrupted condition are utterly bankrupt and hopelessly incapable of meeting His Perfect Standards! He had to show us that lip service and good intentions and the religiosity of organized, man-controlled rituals and externals, can’t change anything. Only a new act of Creation by Almighty God can empower us to do what His Perfect Standards require! So the Sinai Covenant provides an excellent contrast, a backdrop that serves to highlight and reveal the Glory of the New Covenant that God had promised to make with Israel through her later prophets. In that Covenant, God Himself does everything that has to be done!
All the visible, external marvels that took place between God and Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, did not come about because those men had such great character and had managed to exert exceptional superhuman effort! The results came exclusively from God. God was able to apply what He has done in eternity, to Israel’s early fathers… as soon as they came to know Him and His Perfection and airtight Credibility enough to be able to rest in Him entirely. Only after they came to know God intimately, and were familiar with His ways, were they able to abide with Him in His Eternal Sabbath Rest and trust Him wholeheartedly. Then they could draw from His unique Perfect Nature and enjoy the All-Sufficiency of His creative Word’s Perfect Finished Work. They finally stopped doubting God and looking to other, created sources! And that ability to rest, proved that God had restored them to being His true image and likeness; and thus they were declared to be righteous in His sight.
But Torah reveals that most of the first Exodus generation was sorely lacking in what Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had learned. And, through their example of unbelief and disobedience, and the failure that came of that… which also appeared in their children… God began to demonstrate the Glorious All-Sufficiency of His creative living Word, His beloved Son. Through His Torah revelations and Israel’s example, God reveals that those Israelites who had satisfied His requirements before Moses, and those who would satisfy Him after Moses, could only do it by virtue of whether or not they rested, trusted and relied exclusively upon the Perfection and All-Sufficiency of God’s Eternal Perfect Finished Work. This is the Rest that is revealed in the first two chapters of Genesis. And that is what the New Covenant is going to bring down to Earth when every part of the story of Salvation and Restoration is complete! Human effort, striving and religious ritualism, accomplish nothing. Only God’s Word (presupposing that men respond to Him properly) has the power to redeem, cleanse, regenerate and fully restore fallen men. We can’t improve or change ourselves, nor can we fulfill God’s commandments and satisfy His Perfect Standard of Righteousness unless He Himself is doing it from within us! Nothing that is in us, and nothing we desire and strive to do with our best intentions, can change the makeup and spiritual death status of our innermost being. Nothing created is able to ‘circumcise’ our Sin-corrupted, self-absorbed, stony hearts!
Both Testaments of the Bible emphasize this repeatedly: God has already done it all… because we can do nothing to bring ourselves out from among the living dead and restore ourselves to spiritual wholeness and aliveness. Our striving to become more knowledgeable and ‘religious’ accomplishes nothing that God’s Perfect Nature can accept. And, in Reality, there’s no need for us to even try to rely upon ourselves to do it… God has already done it all! So we’re not required to strive to find and reach Him. He has already brought us to His side through our Messiah. Now we must learn to believe, trust and rest in this awesome Reality.
To redeem, cleanse, regenerate and restore us, God had to bypass our Sin-corrupted human efforts entirely. That’s why He requires us to look to His Eternally Perfect Finished Work alone. This Reality will never change! And so God uses the very clear examples of Israel’s first two Exodus generations. Yes, they did some ‘good’ things; but they fell dismally short of God’s Standards. The first generation believed God enough to follow Moses out of Egypt. But even God’s chosen Israelites could not love His Word with all of their heart, soul, might and strength! So God is proving to us that
Only God’s Perfect Uncreated Word Can Obey God to Perfection!
The poor Israelites could not generate within themselves the belief and trust that would equal that of God’s own Word! Instead, they kept doing what the rest of Adam’s children do – they kept looking for a ‘better way,’ a ‘better idea’ that would be of their own choosing. Sin configures men, from birth, to bypass God’s living Word and seek alternate, nonexistent, counterfeit sources of their own making. They look to created sources that are just as empty and bankrupt as they are, and that condemns them to perpetual emptiness, frustration, neediness and grief.
Centuries after the Exodus began, after Israel had had enough time to show what she could do in her own strength, God sent His living Word to His chosen people once again. This time He came in the Person of Yeshua of Nazareth. And the Living Word made flesh lived the perfect Israelite life and died as God’s Perfect Atonement for us. And then, because He was Sin-less, Death had no legal hold on Him. Thus, by the Power of God’s Holy Spirit, the Word made flesh rose again, and serves God, as Israel’s triumphant Messiah. Now it is utterly clear that He is The Preeminent Son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And God has proven that Yeshua is His beloved Son, His Living Word. And not only is Yeshua is the Ultimate Son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… He is also the Fulfillment of everything God revealed through the lives of Joseph, and Moses and David. He is clearly Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. No other Israelite has even come close to impacting human history as He has done, and continues to do. And, in that capacity, He serves as Humanity’s Eternal Blood Covenant Representative, and God’s sacrificial Passover Lamb, and our Eternal High Priest. God’s own living Word is our Guarantee of Redemption, Salvation and Restoration. He is the Fulfillment of all the revelation, and the promises and commandments that God told Moses to write down and entrust to Israel… for the sake of the entire world!
So we must realize this: on the surface, God’s Torah seems to show God commanding Israel to love Him wholeheartedly and to obey and meet His Standard of Righteousness to perfection. But in Reality, it was His own Word that He was commanding to obey His commands to Perfection. The Word was sent to cover those Israelites just as His Father had sent Him to cover naked Adam and Eve in all of their Sin-corrupted mortality in the Garden of Eden. God eternally entrusts the meeting of His requirements and the fulfilling of His commands to His own Uncreated, Perfect Living Word… His beloved Son! The Word is the only Covering we have, and God is revealing… that He is the only Covering we need!
Consider the absurdity of the alternative: How could our poor corrupted fallen flesh meet God’s utterly Pure Standards, Perfectly? Given the Sin-blasted condition of our mortally wounded, contaminated human nature, how could we do what the Perfect Almighty God requires? God wasn’t being naive or unrealistic when He gave the Torah to Israel! He was exposing and highlighting our terrible human condition… and using Israel’s example to point to and highlight once and for all, the Real Solution to the human problem.
God’s Living Word is His Eternal Solution to our Problem
Matthew 3:16-17
“After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he (John the Immerser) saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Ponder deeply these words of Messiah Yeshua:
Matthew 5:17-19
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law (Torah) or the Prophets; 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.” ( Amplification and emphasis added.)
We can’t meet God’s awesome Standards, no matter what we call ourselves or what we do, or how hard we try to do it! This is why God’s living Word must increase in all of humanity’s estimation and expectations, and we and our radically independent ways must decrease! All we have to work with is the weak, unbelieving spiritual bankruptcy and living death of our first two parents, Adam and Eve! Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses finally realized this. Thus they made their Exodus from the slavery to self-reliance, over to the Eternal Freedom of Reliance upon God’s Word. They learned that, even when we desire and strive to believe, love, trust and obey God, our fallen nature prevents it from happening. Our vows, promises and good intentions do nothing to change our hearts. Torah reveals that our fallen flesh is so Sin-corrupted, that deep within us there abides a twistedness that continually turns us inward upon ourselves. It pulls us away from our Creator and drives us to love and serve ourselves rather than God.
Jeremiah 17:9
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Beloved, even when we try to love God and the people closest to us, we hold parts of ourselves in reserve. We can’t give of ourselves all the way. Only God is able to do that! This is why His living Word, who came to us in the Person of Messiah Yeshua, is so important and significant! He became one of us and lived among us, to be our Eternal Blood Covenant Representative! In that capacity, He did everything the Torah requires of the image and likeness of God… to Perfection! He did not inherit Adam’s fallen human nature. His humanity came directly from God’s Holy Spirit! Thus He is the unique Human. And for our sake, He lived out His Perfect, God-given Humanity Sinlessly… and satisfies God’s Standards of Righteousness and Justice… in our name! He fulfills the Torah in our name… and so, because of how Blood Covenants work, as far as God is concerned WE, who are represented by His Word, also fulfilled it… in Him!
It was inevitable that the children of Israel, and the rest of us, would fall short because we all have Adam’s fallen nature! So the best any of us can do is to develop corrupted, watered down life structures. Even if part of it comes from God’s written Word, we mix into it what comes out of our fallen nature and thus contaminate it. That’s what the Bible calls ‘flesh.’ All flesh, even that of Israelites, lacks the power humans need in order to serve as the image and likeness of Almighty God. So, as long as fallen men remain unbelieving and do not repent of their self-centered, radically independent ways, they won’t trust and submit to the Authority of God’s Word, nor will they be willing or able to receive what our Messiah did for us… or learn to follow His Spirit-empowered, New Covenant ways. The true Exodus spirit can’t effectively take root within fallen Sin-loving flesh. It only thrives within a regenerated spirit that only God can give to us. So until we exchange what we began to be, for what only God’s Word can make of us, we cannot and will not enter God’s Eternal Land of Promise as part of His Kingdom.
John 3:3
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God!’”
The second Exodus generation failed to drive the idolatrous Canaanite tribes out of the Land. Why? It was because the two groups were too much alike! They were all children of Adam! And so we see what became of them throughout the Book of Judges. God also uses the example of the third generation… to expose the bankruptcy of all fallen human nature. This highlights the utter necessity for, and the All-Sufficiency and Glory of… His own living Word! God reveals His beloved Son through the written Scriptures. But that’s not enough. His beloved Son must also be free to prove that He is living and working within us! He must be able to reveal Himself as being unmistakably present… through the actions, reactions and interactions of our God-transformed, Spirit-led lives!
Only God’s Word has the Authority and Power that pierces the Serpent and his powers of Darkness and exposes them for the murderous lying frauds they are. Therefore, what happens to Israel, with regard to her response to God’s living Word, will happen to all the rest of men. So Yeshua warned His contemporary Israelites about merely relying on their natural birth, or on self-righteous arrogant reliance upon their inherited Israelite culture and its religious traditions. Those created things will never substitute for Yeshua, and what He has done on our behalf!
Luke 13:28-30
“…There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. And they (repentant, Word-obeying Gentiles) will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at The Table in the Kingdom of God. And behold, some are (now) last who (then) will be first and some are (now) first, who (then) will be last!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, whoever inherits Adam’s DNA is predisposed to ignore God’s commands! And few become willing to forsake and leave the world system and its false gods. And few dare to follow God’s Word along the ‘Narrow Path’ that separates and reserves God’s People for His exclusive service. The legacy we inherit by natural birth hinders us from recognizing and surrendering to God’s Word. We prefer to embody the spirit and mindset of the Serpent. And even when we become hyper-religious and try in various ways to discipline and train and re-educate ourselves in the vain hope of changing what we are, our efforts, like those of the first three generations of Israel’s Exodus, end in failure:
Judges 2:11-12
“Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger.”
If we give lip service to God and His Scriptures, but reject or tamper with His Word, we perpetuate Adam and Eve’s legacy. And despite what we intend, to this day, we contaminate our children, and grandchildren and great grandchildren with the same unholy mixture that permeates the God-less world, and even much of Israel, and much of what is called ‘The Church.’ Some of what Moses imparted to Israel may be embraced, revered and pursued. But at the same time, the flesh within us rejects much that comes to us from God’s treasury of Wisdom and Truth. Instead we substitute our own toxic Adamic ingredients and mix them in with what God revealed and gave to us! And God cannot accept it!
So beloved, even if the first two Exodus generations had done their utmost to teach and model God’s Torah Truth to their children, it would not have been enough! Each generation must deal with what is in its own selfish, deceptive heart! The third generation had to make its personal response to God. They had to forsake and negate their own fallen flesh. It’s never enough to have families and parents who impart the Legacy of God’s Truth and Reality to us. We must become personally wholehearted in receiving, embracing and absorbing or ‘owning’ His living Word for ourselves! But none of us can do that to Perfection, can we? Only Yeshua was able to do that!
John 5:19
“…Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son (the Living Word of God) can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son (the Living Word of God) also does in like manner.” (Amplification added.)
Israel’s God has no Grandchildren or Great- Grandchildren!
He requires each and all of us to become His personal redeemed, regenerated, sons and heirs! This blessed Truth gives hope to every man and woman in existence. Regardless of our origins, we need not remain stuck and trapped. We are free to change – as soon as we choose to believe and embrace the Finished Work the Word did for us… and obey Him, as He abides within us to be our Perfect Obedience to God! Our Messiah is here to set each of us free by regenerating our spirits, and transforming and empowering our hearts. God makes brand new creations of us through His Living creative Word and Holy Spirit. He has sent His Word to impart His Righteousness and Perfect Redemption and Salvation to all of mankind!
Ezekiel 34:20-24
“Therefore, thus says the Lord God… ‘Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you (human leaders) push with side and with shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns until you have scattered them abroad, 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 (Messiah, Son of David), and He (My Living Word) will feed them; He will feed them Himself and be their Shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My Servant David will be Prince among them; I the Lord have spoken!’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
As soon as we believe and obey God’s Word when He summons us to follow Him… the heart changes that God must see in us… begin to take place in our innermost depths. God does this… as soon as His Word and Holy Spirit are welcome and free to fill us and take over. God’s Power takes hold of us… as soon as we take hold of His Word. Our Messiah manifests Himself to us, in us and through us! Even if we were cursed with grandparents and parents who were utterly wicked, ignorant and deceived in everything they did, we can disengage from that and leave it behind, in exchange for the Eternally Perfect Righteous Life that comes from God’s Word. This is the Good News that God’s written Word reveals. This is the True Exodus into which only God’s living Word, Messiah Yeshua, can lead us:
Matthew 10:34-39
“Do not think that I came to bring Peace on the earth; I did not come to bring Peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 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 (original fleshly) life will lose it, and he who has lost his (original fleshly) life for My sake will find it.” (Amplification added.)
God gives us the freedom and ability to make our own responses. We are not condemned to remain victims of our pasts. What others did to us or failed to do for us, and what we did to ourselves in the past, can’t prevent us from becoming one with the infinite Fullness and Perfection of God, today! Messiah Yeshua has fully redeemed us and wholeheartedly embraces us and makes us His own. This is the Glory of the New Covenant that God has made with Israel through His living Word, Messiah Yeshua:
Jeremiah 31:27-34
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. As I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy and to bring disaster, so (through My Living Word) I will watch over them to build and to plant,’ declares the Lord.
“In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. ‘Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not like the Covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My Covenant which they broke, although I was a Husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the Covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after those days,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put My Law (My Living Torah-revealed Word) within them and on their heart I will write it; and (because of what My Word and Spirit will be and do from within them) I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me (personally, directly, in their innermost being) from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Choose Life!
The Serpent tempts each of us the way he tempted Eve. But we are always free to choose Life or Death for ourselves. We can resist and oppose the Serpent, or we can give in to what he tries to lure us into. If we allow him to deceive us, we choose, by default, to reject God’s living Word. But if we follow God’s Word, who is the Source of all Life, He becomes the infinite, eternal Good that God provides for our Resurrection rescue. As the Word works from within us, He crushes the Serpent’s head and breaks his hold over us and strips away his demonic evil. And He reverses and neutralizes the destruction and Death that our former radical independent beginning had imposed upon us. God’s Word is here to be our Full Living Restoration and Eternal Life and Infinite Inheritance and Birthright. Nothing can prevent this from happening. And nothing can take our Messiah from us… except our own Serpent-deceived contrary choices.
Matthew 3:1-3
“Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, ‘Repent, for the (King of the) Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Humans are easily deceived into assuming that they know better than God and have more authority over earthly things than His Word does. But beloved, that is pure delusion. Regardless of how many people strive to gain dominance and superiority and seek to gain knowledge in order to control the world and its systems, this Truth remains:
Matthew 28:18
“And Jesus (God’s Living Word made flesh) came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘ALL AUTHORITY has been given TO ME in Heaven and on Earth!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Adam and Eve received the Light of God’s Life-sustaining Truth from His living Word. His Word taught them what the true image and likeness of God is to be, and how truly united we are to be with our Creator, and how intimate our interactions with Him are to be. He taught them the difference between Good and Evil and Right from Wrong and Life as opposed to Death.
And when He created the woman, He endowed her with qualities that would complement and serve to complete the man. Eve’s assets and qualities were a perfect complement to what God had put into Adam. Together, male and female, they were created to be the perfect image and likeness of Almighty God Himself. Neither one could do it alone; they had to be united and living as one with each other in order to be God’s true image and likeness. We were designed, created and commissioned to be utterly one with God, at all times and in all things, and to abide in union with each other, according to God’s revealed Truth and Order! The laws that govern humanity are unchangeable, like the laws that govern gravity or electricity or chemistry and genetics! If we dare to tamper with them, disastrous spiritual, physical, emotional and relational results will always follow.
God provided Adam with a perfectly suitable, totally equal helpmate… to share with him, humanity’s God-given dignity and stature. Each one was unique; but they were always equal in stature and dignity. God equipped each gender with unique strengths and abilities that would fill in where the other was less capable. He made the man and the woman to need and rely upon and complement each other. The genders were designed to work together, in total harmony and mutual love, trust and synchronization. Thus, men and women are meant to serve and complement their mates.
And in their God-created union, they are to serve God as His image and likeness and reproduce their kind, teaching them God’s ways. Through this God-created union, mankind was commissioned to administrate the world that God had entrusted to our stewardship. And that administration was to be based on and empowered by the self-less Love of Almighty God Himself. That original pristine order and beauty of God’s Creation is what the Serpent’s lies and his Sin of radical independence from God contaminated and disfigured and stole from all of us.
Notice that God gave to women a very sensitive, intuitive nature. For better or worse, that intuition gives women a heightened spiritual awareness and sensitivity. They are often quicker to sense and respond to spiritual influences than men are. They often initiate spiritual interest and foster it within their spheres of influence. And if husbands and wives live and work together in God’s service, as one, the spiritual assets of the wife and mother flourish, and touch their families; and the results are marvelous to behold:
Proverbs 31:10-12
“An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.”
Ephesians 5:22-33
“Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the Head of the Church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of His Body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church (God’s Spirit-filled, Word-embodying, New Covenant Israel) Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Male exploitation and domination over women and children, and female domination over men and children, both of which exist in this world in a variety of ways, are not what our Creator intended. In His plan proper order, union, integration and synchronized teamwork and personal harmony reveal people to be the true image and likeness of God. God is one! He is never divided against Himself; so neither will His true image and likeness be divided against itself. And, in His Wisdom, God endowed women with very sensitive spiritual faculties. But Sin has greatly disfigured our marvelous gifts. Because of our Sin-flawed, mortally wounded senses and faculties, we operate at levels far beneath the level of Glory and Grace that God originally imparted to us. That’s why we all need a Redeemer! God’s living Word is that Redeemer. He fills all of our emptiness; and when He does, He obeys God and fulfills His Revelation, and His Plan, and His will for all of us.
The Serpent’s Most Effective – and Destructive Weapon
Notice the tactic the Serpent chose, by which to ruin all of God’s Creation. He destroyed God’s image and likeness! And that wreaked havoc across all other levels of Creation. And he started all of this by coming after the spiritually sensitive woman first. He presented his carefully crafted and deftly worded lies for her to consider. He injected into her heart the Root Lie that maligns the Nature, Character and Intentions of God. He got her to suspect that God was not dealing honestly with her and her mate and to assume that God’s Word can’t be trusted; that He is not forthright and open with the humans He created. He intimated that God’s Word doesn’t give guidelines and commands that protect and enhance our identity and status as the image and likeness of God. He implied that God’s Word tells us what to do and what not to do… to diminish and deprive us… to keep us under His control and beneath God in stature and rank. In other words, he got Eve to believe that God has a wedge in His own heart against us, and that His interests are separate and opposed to our personal interests and that He didn’t really create us to be His Word’s image and likeness, nor does He want us to be content and fulfilled! But that is the Lie of all lies!
Genesis 1:27-28
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness (as one with Us); and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Amplification added.)
The Serpent injected delusional imaginations into Eve’s mind, which generated anxiety, mistrust and a terrible sense of insecurity in her heart. Thus she withdrew into herself, and become devious before God and manipulative with Adam. But how could God ever be at odds with His own image and likeness? How can He work against those with whom He chose to be one? Is that not an absurd notion?
When the Serpent’s Lie contaminates us, we begin to go crazy! Our minds begin to fragment; one part fights against another part! Then we plot, scheme and seek to control whatever is around us. This destroys the Integrity of God’s Creation! The Serpent separated Eve’s soul from God’s embrace and severed her mind and will and affections from His living, loving Word. Thus she fell under the Serpent’s control. He stripped her of her true, God-given being and nature. And, when he managed to manipulate Eve, the Father of Lies stalked the man, using Eve’s spiritual influence… to sever Adam’s soul from God’s Word. Thus the Serpent succeeded in spiritually and physically murdering the human race. He found an effective way to manipulate human thought processes. And he has been doing it ever since. He separates our intellects, wills and affections from God by injecting his lies into our minds and imaginations. And he does it so deftly that the Light of God’s Truth quickly becomes twisted and distorted… and finally… extinguished. Thus our true identity and destiny lie dormant and fruitless in our hearts and lives.
Thus our world is now enshrouded by the Serpent’s spiritual Darkness. And after destroying our trust in God, we became hyper-vulnerable to even more of his deceptions that drive us to invent and pursue false gods. This is the fruit of the Sin of radical independence from God that drags us into eternal Death. And, beloved, the toxic effect of this Death is in the DNA of every human, including that of the Israelites. The Lie of all lies destroyed God’s image and likeness; but the Living Word of God has been sent to fully restore it!
Romans 5:18-21
“So then as through one transgression (Adam’s) there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of Righteousness (Messiah Yeshua’s) there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One (God’s living Word made flesh) the many will be made righteous. The Law (Torah) came in so that the transgression would increase (that is, so that we could realize we are in a state of living death and spiritual bankruptcy); but where Sin increased, (through the Sinai Covenant, God’s New Covenant) Grace abounded all the more, so that, as Sin reigned in Death, even so, Grace would reign through Righteousness to Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
As long as humanity’s story continues to unfold, the Serpent will keep attacking God’s Truth, Reality and Created Order. Even after we receive redemption and Salvation from our Messiah, he continues to try to derail us, and then he uses us to destroy whatever is around us. No age or era of human history is immune. But now that we’re entering the Last Days of human history, the influence of The Lie will reach its highest point of soul-murdering intensity. So it is vital that what God revealed in His Torah to Israel, about the Perfect All-Sufficiency of God’s Nature and the Perfection of His Finished Works of Creation and Redemption, continue to be proclaimed, demonstrated and passed on, from generation to generation and person to person. God said that His True Israel is His ‘Light to the Gentiles.’ In other words, true New Covenant disciples of God’s Word must not allow anything or anyone to change, distort or extinguish the Treasure of the Light of God’s Truth. It must continue to shine into and obliterate the demonic Darkness:
2 Timothy 3:1-5
“But realize this, that in the Last Days difficult times will come. For (Serpent-deceived) men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” (Emphasis added.)
Isaiah 5:20-21
“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!”
Psalm 119:33-44
“Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your Law (Torah) and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the (Narrow) Path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways. Establish your Word to your servant, as that which produces reverence for You. Turn away my reproach, which I dread, for Your ordinances are good.
“Behold, I long for Your precepts; revive me through Your Righteousness. May Your Lovingkindnesses also come to me, O Lord, Your Salvation (Yeshua) according to Your (Eternal Living) Word; so I will have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in Your Word. And do not take the Word of Truth utterly out of my mouth, for I wait for Your ordinances. So I ( through the Perfect Covering of Your Living Word, My Messiah) will keep Your Law (Torah) continually, forever and ever.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
If God knew how much damage the Serpent did to us, why did He give such stringent standards and commands to that First Exodus Generation, knowing they were incapable of carrying out His commandments? Was He toying with us out of cruel malice? No, of course not! He was teaching us a very hard – and vitally necessary – lesson that is extremely difficult for our arrogant self-reliant flesh to learn. He used our human bankruptcy and inherent love of Sin as a very effective contrasting backdrop that would highlight and set apart the Glory and Lovingkindness of the Word He sent into this world, on our behalf. On the surface, God entrusted the fulfillment of His commandments to the children of Israel. But under the surface, He gave all of that responsibility, which none of us could properly fulfill, to our Eternal Covenant Representative… His own Living Word! Beloved, THIS is the Glory of God! At Sinai, He set the stage for the future revelation and Fulfillment of the New Covenant Atonement… the Lamb of God satisfies God in our name… and He fulfills His True Eternal Covenant with His Eternal Father! God satisfies Himself… for our sake… through His own Word, who is our beloved Messiah!
This is what Israel was to learn, demonstrate, and pass along to their children… and the rest of the world. But Sin blinds us all and makes us arrogant, proud, stubborn, stiff-necked and bull-headed! Nevertheless, God must help us to realize that the Fulfillment of His Perfect Standards can only be made real in us by the impartation of the Perfect Finished Work that God’s living Word has done in our name. So grasp what Moses was really saying: His Torah reveals that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses finally learned this all-important lesson concerning God’s All-Sufficiency and Perfect Rest! And it is the lesson that God commands the whole world to learn!
With God’s living Word, we are to be and to do what our first two parents refused to do regarding Him when the Serpent tempted them in the Garden! Through the Torah instructions and commandments, God shows us that His living Word IS – the True, Complete, Perfect Human image and likeness of God! He is sent to be and do what God requires of us… throughout every moment of our daily lives! He is our Perfect Righteousness and Redemption and Wisdom! God’s Living Eternal, Uncreated Word is the One who contains God’s Perfect Fullness! God is love… and His male and female image and likeness must embody and radiate the Perfect Fullness of His Love, as contained in His living Word. All of our actions, reactions and interactions, male and female, and Jew and Gentile alike, are to embody and reveal Him! God is here to be what we are not, and to do what we can’t even begin to accomplish on our own.
This is the Torah Truth upon which every generation of God’s people must focus: Torah is not revealing and highlighting Israel, as much as it is revealing and highlighting The Perfection of God’s Living Word, who is here to live in and rule, through Israel, and meet God’s Standards on her behalf and that of the rest of the world. He is here to be humanity’s Perfect, Eternal Covenant Representative as Israel’s Messiah and Champion! God’s written Word reveals this… but His living Word obeys, fulfills and imparts it! This is the New Covenant Ground that our God imparts and demonstrates to the world, through Yeshua’s Humanity. And now He intends to demonstrate it through all of Yeshua’s Jewish and non-Jewish New Covenant disciples!
There Can Be No Substitute for Almighty God Himself!
Deuteronomy 4:12-20
“…The Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. So He declared to you His Covenant, which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. The Lord commanded me (Moses) at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any (created) figure, the likeness of (created) male (gods) or (created) female (gods), the likeness of any (created) animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any (created) winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything (created) that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any (created) fish that is in the water below the earth. And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the (created) sun and the moon and the stars, all the (created) host of heaven, and be drawn away (by the created imaginations and products of your own fallen, Sin-corrupted minds) and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from (the self-life idolatry of) Egypt, to be a people for His own possession…” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Against what does the above text warn us? Look at it again. Is God not saying this to us:
Do not look to, or rely upon, or place your expectations on anything that is created, not even yourself and your own ideas, opinions, perspectives, circumstances, or feelings ABOUT God! Almighty God is Transcendent. He is one Reality; but your ideas are something else entirely. So do not mix the two. And He says the same thing in different words, through His prophet Isaiah:
Isaiah 55:6-9
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake HIS WAY and the unrighteous man HIS THOUGHTS; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
“‘For MY THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOUR (Serpent-influenced, Sin-corrupted, grossly limited) THOUGHTS, NOR ARE YOUR WAYS MY (infinitely Pure and Righteous) 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!’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, do you see it? We can only know the living, transcendent God and His ways, by faith and total rest in the Person of His revealed living Word and the Scriptures by which God reveals Him! It is not our job to figure Him out so that we can try to control Him. It’s our job to embrace Him as He really is, and to rest and rejoice in His Perfection. He was sent to abide within us, and rule among us, as the King, Lord, Owner and indwelling Life of His people! It’s not enough for us to rely on our own Bible studies and the concepts we think we see in them through the filters of our Sin-corrupted faculties and concepts and how they make us feel. That always leads to arrogance, pride and strife! The Transcendent Truth lies much deeper than that. We must have God Himself, the incomprehensible Uncreated Transcendent One, the one who cannot be described, defined or contained! He tells us that He is here to live and work and obey God from within us! And we must abide with that and be humbly content with the incomprehensible One, as we rest in His Perfect Presence… by faith! Even though He always remains far above and beyond our ability to grasp, define or comprehend, He is here nevertheless! We must rest in that and rely upon the living Person of God’s Perfect Word, and draw from the Fullness of His Finished Works of Creation, Atonement and Redemption!
We Already have God’s Fullness in our Messiah
God needs no help from us. He needs our trust and obedient rest and cooperation with His Spirit. We can’t achieve anything by huffing and puffing and striving to know and figure out and comprehend and control anything! There is nothing we can or need to add! If we try to control or grasp or add to this, we fall back into self-life… trusting in what we think we can do in our own strength! So God commands us to crucify and forsake our radical independence… and to learn to rest and trust in what His Living Word has already done. Only the Infinite One, the living Word, contains and reveals what Almighty God is and does. This is true even if you and I can’t touch it or figure it out! Only He can reveal God and His ways, to us with authentic integrity. Only God’s Living Word is infinitely Perfect. And only He has absolute Authority and Credibility that are endorsed and backed by the omnipotent Power of God’s Holy Spirit!
Isaiah 55:10-11
“For as the rain and the snow come down from Heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It (HE) will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding (in your name) in the matter for which I sent It (HIM).”
If we can’t even understand what an amoeba is, how could we have what it would take to redeem ourselves and restore the rest of Creation? No, God is revealing what is impossible to us and what is only possible for Him, through His Living Word, in the contrasting context of the New Covenant. What was impossible for fallen humans to achieve through the Covenant of Sinai is freely given to us by God’s Word in the New Covenant:
Matthew 17:5b-8
“…Behold, a Voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, ‘Get up, and do not be afraid.’ And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself (the living Word of God) alone.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
We fallen humans tend to be hyper-arrogant. We presume to be far greater and more capable than we actually are. God warns against that. In our present fallen state, it is impossible for us to know Him by trying to deduce, infer or imagine Him with our fallen human faculties. We have no way of mentally and intellectually or sensually comprehending Him. We can’t get our minds and devices around God, to ‘figure Him out.’ He must reveal Himself to us, just as He is. And this can only happen through the giving of the living creative Word who proceeds from God. The written Word was entrusted to Moses and the rest of Israel’s prophets and New Covenant apostles to reveal the meaning and significance of God’s awesome Infinite Living Word. But only when we rest in Him in faith and gratitude for His Eternal Perfection and Infinity, can we know and connect with God Himself, accurately and authentically and fruitfully. This is why we must learn to rest peacefully and humbly in Yeshua. When we do, we can be confident and fully content in and with His infinite, eternal Sufficiency and Perfection.
John 15:5
“I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides (peacefully and restfully) in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Look closer at what the Serpent did to Eve in Genesis 3. He presented a cheap counterfeit substitute for her to consider, a created concept, a limited product of his own created Sin-corrupted mind. No matter what sources they come from, created ideas always fall abysmally short of God and His Uncreated Reality and Truth! But the Serpent substituted his created, abysmally warped, defective perspectives, his imagined opinions, and placed them before Eve as ‘worthy’ replacements for Almighty God Himself! He created clouds of mental fog that concealed the true Self-Revelation that God’s living Word had given to them, as described in Genesis 1 and 2. And tragically, the humans became fascinated with the grossly deficient and inaccurate fruit of the Serpent’s created mind. So their created minds began to do as the Serpent did… devising highly limited imaginations… false images of God, Serpent-induced images and manipulated circumstances. Thus the Serpent turned Adam and Eve into his own image and likeness, and prevented them from being God’s image and likeness. He led them into the Sin of unbelief and radical independence from God, and idolatry… and Death!
The powers of Darkness dangle the same ‘bait’ in front of each generation. They do everything possible to prevent us from embracing and absorbing God’s Word and His Life-giving Truth. So now we have a lot of lies and delusions to pass along to the children who follow us. And the powers of Darkness continue to prevent men and women (husbands and wives) from knowing themselves and from loving and cooperating with one another. And they prevent them from passing on God’s Word and demonstrating His Life-giving Truth, to their children. So each generation misleads and betrays the next. The Bible calls that ‘Iniquity,’ ‘Wickedness’ and, ‘Lawlessness.’ In Greek, the word for ‘Law-less’ is ‘anomia,’ that is, ‘without the Law.’ And the word ‘Law’ is the Hebrew word for ‘Torah.’ This is why Moses was so adamant in warning Israel against rejecting the living Word that God was revealing, and the commandments that He lists in the written Word:
Deuteronomy 4:5-8
“See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the Land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our (LIVING) God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole Law (Torah) which I am setting before you today?” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Like all of us, Israel’s first Exodus generation suffered from the ‘Eve and Adam Syndrome.’ The Serpent drove wedges into their minds and hearts through the state of Sin that they inherited at conception, and from the influences they picked up from the centuries they had spent marinating in Egypt’s culture and customs. They were separated from the hard-earned Wisdom that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses had managed to learn. And so Messiah Yeshua, God’s living incarnate Word, instructs His disciples-in-training, with these challenging, gut-churning, separating, Exodus-requiring words:
Matthew 10:32-33
“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in Heaven. But whoever denies Me, before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in Heaven!”
Beloved… have you heard Yeshua’s disciple summons? Did He call you to be His disciple? If He did, then even as the war the Serpent declared against God rages all around you and within you, you are commissioned to embody God’s Word and what He was sent to Earth by His Father to do. You must not even believe what you yourself think or assume or feel! You are not at liberty to be self-adoring and self-reliant, like the rest of the world. You can no longer be enslaved by circumstances or their appearances, nor can you believe and rely upon what your Word-resistant gut feelings and hunches and opinions and imaginations and worldly associations and experiences tell you to think and be, and do!
Don’t swallow what your pop culture and its leaders and icons and gurus keep trying to get you to accept. Don’t be swayed by the allurements of public opinion… even when it comes from the most learned, exalted, powerfully persuasive humans who currently dominate the public’s attention. Those are all created things! Creatures must never be exalted and placed above God in our estimation. Even our own pet ideas and opinions and assumptions and perceptions are mere creations! They are like the waves of the ocean that come and go. But the living God, and His living Word and Holy Spirit, remain and abide forever. And so God abides at a level that is much deeper than all of that other temporary man-devised stuff, and the Fullness of His Reality is forever beyond any creature’s reach. But it is fully contained within the Word who became flesh and was sent to cover and abide, and dwell within us!
An enormous showdown will soon take place between Almighty God and His fallen Sin-corrupted Creation! What God has given to us is not created. God, in all of His Truth, is Eternal, Infinite and Uncreated. He isn’t giving us something that is less than what He is. He is giving us – HIMSELF – through His living Word and Holy Spirit! And although most people reject this awesome Gift… and settle for far less than the Fullness of God, disciples must follow the principles God gave in His Torah:
Deuteronomy 13:6-8
“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him.”
Beware of this fallen world’s ‘fad parade.’ Don’t even allow your own ideas to entice and draw you from God. Look only to the Perfection of God! His Finished Work of Creation and Redemption has already provided for all of your needs! The true, Living God is utterly transcendent and unchanging. For those that abide in Him and live as one with His Perfection, there is no lack or frustration or fear. And Yeshua is the only one that can abide with God at that level. So look to Him; cling to Him; and rest in what He has done in your name. Only He knows and contains the Fullness of what is Real, True, Good and Eternal. We can only receive God’s Truth and Life from Him. Only He contains within Himself, the Fullness of the Father who sent Him to us! So the only real, effective thing we can do, is REST AND REJOICE IN HIM!
John 14:1-7
“‘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. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” (Emphasis added.)
John 1:1-5
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the Beginning with God (as the Torah of Moses revealed Him to you). All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness did not (could not, and never will be able to) comprehend it!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Romans 1:16-17
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the Power of God for Salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the Righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith!” (Emphasis added.)
Ephesians 2:8-9
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” ( Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, the first three Exodus generations of Israel were just as needy and in need of Salvation as all the rest of us are! And God knew that, just like Adam and Eve did, they too would fail their children! So, through them, God warns us that as long as we trust in created things, we fall short of God’s Perfect Standard of Righteousness:
“For the sons of Israel (the First Exodus Generation) walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice (the Living Word) of the Lord, to whom the Lord had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they (the First Exodus Generation) had not circumcised them along the way.
Joshua 5:2-9a
“Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed… Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you…’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Israel and the rest of us need to have our hearts circumcised from all self-reliance and reliance on created things. This was what God was emphasizing through Moses and the prophets. And He also proclaims it through His New Covenant apostles:
Acts 17:29-31
“Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the (created) art and (created) thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness THROUGH A MAN (a Representative, His Uncreated Word made flesh, a) whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead!’”
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. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you Rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find REST for your souls. For My yoke is EASY and My burden is LIGHT!” (Emphasis added.)