15. God’s Word Invades the Serpent’s Domain

“…Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His (living Word’s) voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.’

“Then they (Moses and Aaron) said, ‘The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.’ But the king of Egypt said to them, ‘Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!’ Again Pharaoh said, ‘Look, the people of the land are now many, and you would have them cease from their labors!’” (Exodus 5:2-5 Emphasis added.)

Notice the reason Moses and Aaron gave to the pharaoh for requesting Israel’s release: ‘Let us go lest our whole nation be punished for disobeying our God’s commands.’

Do you see what Moses was revealing? God does not tolerate disobedience to His Word, no matter which group of humans we may be considering! He doesn’t play favorites or favor one culture, nation, race, government or football team, or person, over any other!

“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us or for our adversaries?’ He said, ‘No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ‘What has my lord to say to his servant?’ (Joshua 5:13-14)

What God requires of every pagan person or group or nation in this world, is what He has first required of Israel! Israel is God’s prototype disciple model, His designated prime example for all the rest that He will summon to be saved. In that sense, she is His Light to the Gentiles…her obedience to God’s Word serves as His instrument by which He can invade the rebellious dark hiding places in which the rest of the decapitated, spiritually naked world, remains (like Adam and Eve) in hiding!

God’s True Israel is to be the image and likeness of His Word, who, at all times and in all things, does everything His Father sends Him to do! When we obey God’s Word, His obedience to His Father is able to save us from the rebellious, disobedient Serpent’s coils! This is the only Way to our Salvation…no child of Adam is exempt!

In light of this, notice the significance of the decapitated pharaoh’s arrogant response: ‘Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?’ The Serpent is speaking through his lips. And that utterly deluded viewpoint that so many others have and continue to embrace, ensured his destruction. The English Bible translators use the word ‘Lord’. But in his original Hebrew text, Moses used God’s personal Name: יְהוָה (YHWH). So the pharaoh actually pronounced God’s personal Name as he made his defiant response. Moses expresses the enormity of this rejection of and rebellion against God’s living Word. Pharaoh refused to forsake the crushing domination under which the Serpent held him and so he dared to reject and disobey the living Word of Israel’s living God.

But beloved, isn’t this always the way it is with this fallen world? Doesn’t it always side with the Serpent? Fallen humans are trapped in the delusive fog of the Serpent’s lies. They continually embody Satan’s attempts to usurp the Word’s true Authority and Supremacy. We’re bred, conditioned and trained to act out the Serpent’s Headlessness from birth! We receive praise and admiration from the world system…when we ignore Him and try to assume autonomy and responsibility for ourselves and live radically independent lives and try to control and manage our own personal outcomes. In the world’s eyes, that is the natural, socially laudable ‘right’ way of behaving. It is to be a prime example of a ‘good, self- determining, fulfilled’ man or woman.

The utter foolishness of idolatry

Fallen humans take on the authority to invent gods of their own design and preference. But when they do, are they not actually acting as if they are gods in their own right? Isn’t it the task of a god to serve as our ultimate source of personal ‘truth,’ ‘wisdom,’ ‘authority,’ direction and provision? So when we assume that level of ‘headship’ for ourselves, are we not in fact deifying ourselves?

But what if that perspective is dead wrong? What if we’re making a fatal error in doing that? What if that is the exact opposite of being liberated, free and autonomous? The truth is that we’re proving that we’re still the trapped dupes who remain entangled within the Serpent’s self-delusion!

“You (Israelites) are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, and there was no strange god among you; so you are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, and I am God. Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” (Isaiah 43:10-13 Emphasis added.)

“…My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”(Jeremiah 2:13)

Many in today’s world…the privileged and highly-placed…as well as those who languish in dismal squalor…embrace the same attitude the pharaoh assumed when Moses was sent to liberate him, and God’s people, from slavery to the Serpent. How many men and women around us perpetuate, model and bequeath that same wretched legacy to their children and grandchildren? How many defy or completely ignore the true, living God and His Word? How many assume they can despise and abuse with impunity God’s chosen people and embody the Serpent’s murderous, relentless hatred and hostility against them and God’s Word? How many have no idea that they are bringing a Blood Covenant death penalty upon themselves whenever they come against God and His ‘Blood brothers’ and force Him to rise up against them in Israel’s defense…for Abraham’s sake?

“I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3a)

That which has been is that which will be; and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

The attitude of that ancient pharaoh toward God and His people was and forever will be utterly, insanely self-destructive. His arrogant idolatrous perspective and the assumptions he drew from it weren’t based on the Truth, Wisdom and Authority of the true Creator and Lord of the universe! They were an embodiment of the demented Serpent’s lies that cause people to wallow in total unreality! It was the spiritual blindness that afflicts all the decapitated children of Adam. Pharaoh heard the spiritual words spoken to him by God’s living Word, but his spirit was dead…and therefore he was unable to discern spiritual Reality!

The Serpent’s lies entrance such people with delusional ‘holographic’ virtual reality deceptions. As long as we remain caught up in them, we can’t grasp or understand real Truth, even when He is standing right in front of us, because we’ve been decapitated. People that are separated from God’s living Word remain trapped in the insanity brought on by the spiritual deafness and blindness of their state of living death! They perceive only one level of reality, but are totally blind to and unaware of the level of reality in which the living God abides and from which He continually acts:

“Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ ‘So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’^’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Strike this people with blindness, I pray.’ So He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.’” (2 Kings 6:15-18 Emphasis added.)

Truth Himself was speaking to the pharaoh…through Moses! But, spiritually speaking, like Cain, the pharaoh remained blind and deaf. His heart was as hard and unmovable as a slab of granite! He would not allow God’s Word to pierce, penetrate and impregnate him with His Eternal Life. Even after God repeatedly proved His Reality to him through each succeeding plague…with world-shaking manifestations of His Reality, Authority and Power, pharaoh refused entry to God’s Word. He kept turning away from His Light exactly like the Serpent. That same terminal resistance continued in Moses’ day, and throughout the days of Israel’s prophets. It was present in the days of Yeshua…and the days of His New Covenant Israelite Remnant apostles and disciples of the first century. And it runs rampant today, all around the twenty-first century world.

The Serpent’s delusion will reach ever more intensity during the ‘birth pangs’ that will lead us into the climactic crescendo of the war between Light and Darkness in the Last Days. At that time, demonic Darkness will be magnified and intensified as never before:

“But realize this that in the Last Days difficult times will come. For 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. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres (the pharaoh’s sorcerers) opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.” (2 Timothy 3:1-9 Amplification and emphasis added.)

Worldly wisdom prevents decapitated people from discerning and understanding God’s spiritual Truth and Reality. It actually blinds and prevents them from even knowing of His existence! The more we rely on mere human ‘wisdom’ and our decapitated past experiences, the more we idolize those counterfeit substitutes for God’s Real Truth.

“…we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written,

“Things which (decapitated) eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the (radically independent) heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love (and tremble at his word and obey) Him.”

“For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ (Messiah).” (1 Corinthians 2:6-16 Amplification and emphasis added.)

The Truth and Reality that flow out of the Word and Spirit of Almighty God can’t be perceived or understood by the fallen natural faculties of decapitated, Serpent-dominated people. No matter how hard they ‘wrack their brains’ or hone and develop their sophisticated, worldly intellects and no matter how many ingenious scientific instruments they devise and use, their spirits remain dormant! So they are not equipped to perceive, much less fathom, Spiritual Reality and grasp the truths concerning our inevitable ultimate death and judgment and the eternal future in God’s Kingdom of Heaven or in the Serpent’s God-less Hell.

God’s Solution for Spiritual Blindness

Decapitated people are always at odds with God’s Word, and excluded from His Kingdom Reality. The state of Sin keeps them out of God’s true spiritual dimension and Personal Realm. And they remain unrepentant and cling to their disobedient, rebellious lifestyles. That prevents them from experiencing the wonders of mercy, forgiveness, cleansing, reconciliation, restoration and the eternal Inheritance that God bestows on those that become His Word’s disciples:

“And the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why do You speak to them in parables?’ Jesus answered them, ‘To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; for the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears they scarcely hear, And they have closed their eyes, Otherwise they would see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, And understand with their heart and return, And I (God’s living Word) would heal them.’” (Matthew 13:10-15) Amplification and emphasis added.)

This revelation is utterly sobering and chilling, is it not? Imagine an entire world and its system being run by people who are enslaved by the ‘Lawless’ (Torah-less) perspectives, priorities and urges of the Serpent. In that case, many leaders, policy makers and judges of right, wrong, good, bad, truth and falsehood are toiling as slaves of the Serpent!

Imagine being born decapitated, and having to be bred, trained, conditioned and prepared for an existence of living death by decapitated parents and family members and professional and religious ‘experts’ that you naturally and instinctively trust and love! How spiritually blind will all of those people be? They will operate out of the same living death mindset and attitude that this pharaoh was using! Imagine having to work for that kind of an ‘employer’ or being taught by professors and spiritual gurus or being married to someone just as spiritually blind as this pharaoh was! Imagine having your future on this earth depend on world leaders that are hopelessly bound and lured forward further and further into the Serpent’s malevolent, destructive traps! Exodus is showing and warning us that the end of such leaders will be just like that of the pharaoh! So is it any wonder why God sends His living Word and His Word’s emissaries…to invade the Darkness that abides in the hearts, minds, wills and lives of such people? And can you see the importance of the job that was entrusted to God’s chosen people, Israel?

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart! You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Emphasis added.)

God, through Moses, shows us precisely what He must do with all the people of this fallen world in order to save them. Is it any wonder why the world habitually operates with such suicidal brutality, injustice, greed and predatory selfishness? Its citizens embody the Serpent and serve him blindly and mindlessly! And as long as the movers, shakers and trend-setters of this world maintain that Serpent-dominated status quo, and try to make living death ‘work’…they will share in the Serpent’s sentence of eternal doom and condemnation. Their doom will descend upon them even while they remain under the delusion that they have ‘arrived’ and ‘have all the answers’ and that they are sophisticated, mature, liberated and fulfilled human beings.

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

“Do all the workers of wickedness not know who eat up My people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, for God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the Salvation (Messiah Yeshua) of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.” (Psalm 14 Emphasis added.)

Fallen Flesh – it’s True State and God’s Answer

Fallen, Sin-corrupted natural flesh is dead in Sin! So it can’t do anything by itself or for itself. And even when that flesh leads us to become hyper-religious, we remain Head-less, bankrupt and incapable of having any real options. We remain stuck with our original, inherited cancerous world legacies. Despite our feigned religiosity and false claims, we cannot transform or escape our state of living death. We remain as we’ve always been. We continue to idolize and identify with our natural, original family ties and cultural and racial, tribal ethnic identities, attitudes and loyalties. We continue to identify with and foster old inherited grudges, prejudices and appetites and we remain stuck in the mental ruts and cultural imperatives imposed by our original natural family backgrounds. We can’t truly identify with, or embrace and follow God’s living Word out of the fleshly, Sin-corrupted brokenness and Covenant condemnation we inherited from Adam’s fall. As long as we give ourselves to the Serpent’s coils, we have no way of moving and growing out of what we were first conceived and born to be. That is why God’s living Word comes looking for us with a sharp, two-edged sword…to destroy our delusions and cut us free from our state of doomed living death:

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” (Romans 12:1-3)

 “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. If you consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:18-20)

God’s living Word was not sent to take sides between human beings. He came to set every human being free from the coils of the Serpent, without any discrimination whatsoever! And depending on the personal responses of those humans, be they Jewish or non-Jewish, the two races will separate themselves from one another. Just as the sheep of two separate flocks separate when their respective shepherds summon them to follow them, so will the two races separate from each other, at the sound of the voices of their respective masters, the Serpent and the living Word of God.

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 (established and protected) his (original) life will lose it, and he who has lost his (original) life for My sake will find it (in My Eternal Resurrection Life and Kingdom Inheritance).” (Matthew 10:34-39 Amplification and emphasis added.)

“I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the (Jewish) sheep. I have other (non-Jewish) sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one Flock with one Shepherd.” (John 10:11-16 Amplification and emphasis added.)

God commands every Sin-corrupted Jewish and non-Jewish person to forsake the original decapitated lifestyle and identity we all inherit from the first Adam. We must forsake and stop identifying with that original, Serpent-induced, Adamic life and the world system that oozes out of it. We must allow God’s Word to cut the natural original covenantal ‘cord’ that ties us to whatever we inherit at conception. To continue to identify with the Head-less people and systems that teach and encourage us to ‘be a success’ in this Serpent-dominated world, is to inherit the doom that surely awaits them.

The pharaoh had a wonderful opportunity to be set free. Moses brought a special God-given summons to him and gave him the opportunity to forsake all he had been naturally so that he and his people with him, could have been grafted into God’s ‘called out ones’…His true Israel. The pharaoh could have become part of God’s Eternal Covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses! But, like Cain, Nimrod, Ishmael, Esau, Dathan, Korah and so many other worldly, clueless people, he too chose to refuse God’s summons to be saved. He was convinced that his living death independence was life…and that Eternal Life in God’s living Word was actually Death.

The original identity, family ties, natural priorities, false gods and loyalties we inherit and develop in this world…are to us what Scripture calls, ‘Egypt.’ Those things keep us entangled with the Serpent and his lies and prevent us from embracing and becoming one with God’s living Word…who became flesh, atoned and died, rose again and now sits at the Father’s right hand as King of the Kingdom of Heaven. All Jewish and non-Jewish humans must forsake that original inherited radical independence from God’s Word and be willing to acknowledge, embrace and follow His Word so that He can lead them out of ‘Egypt.’

My Sheep Hear My Voice

We cannot belong to God’s ‘Flock’ if we refuse to heed the voice of His Word when He calls to us. We are not God’s people until we allow His living Word to burn His Father’s Covenant Brand of ownership into our heart of hearts. If we allow God’s Brand to be burnt into us, His Spirit will regenerate and equip us to know and bond with and follow God’s Word. And the Word will take us into the new life, identity, Family Inheritance and Destiny that await us in His eternal Kingdom of Heaven. That new Life makes us heirs of God’s Family Inheritance. And that is far different from and far above and beyond anything anyone who remains trapped in the Serpent’s coils could ever imagine or anticipate or enjoy.

Those who claim to belong to God and profess to follow His Word must truly die to their former original lives and receive His new Life, before their claims will prove to be true. If we are truly regenerated with that new Life, we’re equipped and free to live only to God and exclusively from Him. We are then true living members and true embodiments of His Word, Yeshua the risen Lord of Glory. When Yeshua truly reigns as our Head – we truly become His fruit-bearing members because His Life now abides and works within us. Then, after our minds are renewed and we’re properly trained, He can reassign and deploy us to live in this world as His true servant disciples. And we will wear His uniform and operate fully under His command with integrity, honor and distinction. No longer will we have any connection to this fallen ‘Egyptian’ world and its God-less systems – in any way or at any level!

Many decapitated people pretend to be ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious.’ But in due time, as happened to the pharaoh, God’s Truth will expose them; and their claims will be discredited. It will become apparent that they are still of this world and have not transformed into ‘new creations.’ The ‘fruit’ that keeps springing up in their lives will be the same fruit they produced in the past. They will continue to see and think of themselves in worldly terms, as they did before. They will continue to identify and side with their natural families and original DNA and cultural and ethnic connections, customs, traditions and worldly lifestyles. There will be nothing truly Heavenly or Spirit-empowered produced by the life that operates in them. Even if they say the right things, in time, that will prove to be nothing more than empty ‘lip service.’ And that’s why Messiah Yeshua gave this warning:

“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 or 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 (God’s living Word) will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness (disobedience to My commands).” (Matthew 7:13-23 Amplification and emphasis added.)

“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you (who are called to become God’s True Israel) walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

“But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard (obeyed) Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

“Therefore, laying aside (self-life) falsehood, speak (Spirit-empowered) truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:17-32 Amplification and emphasis added.)

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law (Torah) is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

“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 (condemnation of God’s pure, holy) 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 5:13-24 Amplification and emphasis added.)

Beloved, can you see how the Holy Spirit keeps bringing forward and reinforcing in the latter parts of the Bible – the wealth of essential disciple-training information contained in Genesis and Exodus? This is a history of two separate human races (‘Egypt’ and ‘Israel’), each with its own kind of life and nature and fruit and destiny. The Torah of Moses shows the spiritual difference between those races and that revelation is the entire foundation and main issue around which our Faith revolves! Everything in the Bible that comes after the Torah has to match and coincide perfectly with what God has already revealed and commanded through Moses. Nothing will be accepted that deviates from or contradicts what is in His foundation. God’s Self-Revelation must remain a Perfect Seamless Garment. Just as God is one…so must His Word be one. Its authentic integrity, cohesion and synchronized unity must be protected and preserved at all costs. The living God is one with His living Word and Holy Spirit…and so the written revelation of this awesome God must also be as He is…one! God’s written Word, just like His living Word, must remain consistent and be one with itself. Therefore it must be interpreted and understood accordingly by those who will be His true disciples. And we must allow God’s Word and Spirit to make whatever changes in us that God demands.

Once we understand this, we will stop trying to remake God into our image and likeness… and will allow His living Word to transform us into His image and likeness. Then we will interpret, with much more integrity and authentic accuracy, the later writings of the prophets and Wisdom writers in the Tanach. And we will also understand the New Testament apostolic writings in the same light and interpret them authentically, accurately and with faithful precision. We must realize that the apostles of the New Covenant were equipped and commissioned by the Holy Spirit to preserve and protect what God had revealed and entrusted to Israel in earlier times, through earlier prophets. From the very beginning, it has all been a revelation, the complete revelation, of our Master Yeshua – the living Word of God. And we must continually receive, embrace, absorb and pass forward the foundational Truth and Revelation that God gave us in the Torah of Moses in its entirety…with true spiritual vision, accuracy and integrity, so that we can embody and proclaim the One we follow, truthfully, authentically and accurately. (See Deuteronomy 13)

The Torah – Our Foundation

The Torah is our firm, unchanging revelatory Foundation for authentic, accurate, precise knowledge and understanding of our awesome God and His Word Yeshua, and His changeless ways! When it comes to knowing God…and His living creative Word…and His infinitely powerful and effective Holy Spirit – the books God inspired Moses to write are absolutely basic and always necessary. Torah is the indispensable starting and reference point, the ‘magnetic north’ that guides and directs the rest of God’s revelation. It is utterly necessary for us if we’re going to have an authentic understanding and participation in God’s Life-giving, world-transforming Truth.

People, like the pharaoh, who disregard the words of Moses and their revelation of the living Word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, will make up gods from their own imaginations that will be of their own choosing. And they will not know the real true, living God of our spiritual forefathers as He really is. They will embrace false gods because they insist on rejecting, ignoring and neglecting the foundational objective revelation that God went to such pains to make available for us all. So if we reject the Torah foundation of the Faith that God gave to the world through Moses, in favor of something else…some human’s subjective opinions and suggestions…we will be left with an enormous vacuum.

And how will human beings fill the vacuum that the Serpent creates when he blots out or distorts God’s written Word? They will fill it by exalting and ‘spiritualizing’ their own worldly, highly personal (subjective) imaginations, hunches, opinions and preferences. They will spiritualize their pet inherited worldly cultural and ethnic viewpoints, biases and self-serving habits, past experiences and customs. In this way they make up their own imaginary substitute god(s) as their worldly minds think best. And that is just what the pharaoh kept doing even after God sent Moses to confront him and reveal His true, living Word to him.

Many people of our day (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) share and perpetuate the defiant attitude and stance of the pharaoh against Moses and what God commissioned him to reveal to the world. Moses revealed the real, true, living Word of the real God. And that is what his written Torah contains. So beware of the attitude you assume toward the first five books of the Bible. They are forever our God-given foundational base. Do not be deceived as the pharaoh was. Do not try to build anything apart or different from God’s foundational revelation. Thank God for the precious revelation in His Torah. It reveals God’s living Word, who happens to be our Master, Yeshua! It reveals the One who called you and summoned you to ‘Follow’ Him! To receive, know, abide with and follow Him, you must come to know Him as He REALLY is… just as His Father chose to reveal Him to you! That’s why the Torah is so important for each generation. Our Master is revealed to us throughout everything Moses was inspired to write. So, to press the living Word to your heart, you must also press the written Torah that reveals Him, to your heart.

When we learn God’s unchanging Truth and His Principles from the people recorded in Torah’s pages (even the pharaoh) and the rebellious sons of Jacob that rejected God’s living Word in the wilderness and throughout Israel’s history, they become our teachers. They too equip us to discern what is True from what is false as we make our way through life in this highly confusing, turbulent, unstable era in which we must live. So through his folly, even the pharaoh can teach and caution us against following in his footsteps:

‘Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice (His living Word that speaks to me through you, Moses)…I do not know the Lord (that you are trying to reveal to me).

“Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. 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. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:11-13)

God knew what the pharaoh and the rebellious, murmuring Israelites would do. He knew they would not heed and follow His Word. He knew there would be many that would not repent. But for the sake of the millions and billions of others who would want to come out from under the Serpent’s rule and sphere of influence, God made a spectacular and unmistakable example of those rebellious unrepentant people. And He also made examples of that precious Remnant of His True Israel that did repent and did follow His Word. So everything contained in God’s Word can serve to teach and train us:

“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.

“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 God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? (Deuteronomy 4:2-8 Emphasis added.)

Through the plagues that God unleashed upon the decapitated system of Egypt, pharaoh’s obstinate nose was rubbed in the inescapable Reality, Truth and Authority of God’s living Word. But through it all, that man stubbornly clung to his state of living death. And the Book of Revelation tells us that in the Last Days, what happened to the pharaoh that Moses confronted, and to the land of Egypt that he ruled…is a prophetic revelation of the catastrophes that will overtake the entire world of decapitated people, in the end. That is why Exodus is so important for the training of the Lord’s Last Days generation of disciples! Exodus and Revelation are also like two ends of one stick! In the beginning, God revealed and planted the seed that is going to produce the enormous harvest that we can all expect to see and experience at the end.

So learn these lessons well, both the negative and positive ones. We can learn from the ‘pharaohs’ of this world and from the ‘Jacob’ element that can always be found within every generation of God’s chosen people. These Word-defying people, despite themselves, serve the function that all ‘called ones’ serve. Some prove God’s Word to be true in positive ways. And others prove His Word to be true in negative ways. But positively or negatively, God continues to reveal Himself and demonstrate the changeless Reality and Truth of His Word to all of the fallen broken people of Earth. Through negative and positive examples, God is getting through to more and more people who see what happens to God’s positive messengers and negative examples as they give their personal responses to God’s Word in the Arena of Testimony.

Israel watched God deal with the pharaoh. She also saw God deal with the Israelites who rejected and betrayed their Covenant with His Word. And the surrounding world watched the God of Israel expose and discredit the people and false gods that dared to try to oppose the Invasion of His Word. Egypt’s false gods were dragged out of their Darkness and exposed, humbled and stripped of all credibility by God’s Light. One false idol after another was dragged into God’s Light and toppled and crushed to dust in the sight of all the peoples that were scattered throughout that part of the world. And the people whose hearts opened to God’s Truth had the opportunity to repent and cry out to Him for mercy and salvation. God was able to save them from the Serpent. So although Egypt was ruled by a blind obstinate decapitated man…and although some Israelites rebelled and refused to believe and obey, their resistance was a negative instrument that positively highlighted God’s Reality and Truth. And this is how it will be in the latter days, as we enter the ‘birth pangs’ era that will provide the warning God promised. They will let us know that the Last Days are at hand, at last.

And because the pharaoh kept abusing Israel, Israel cried out to God for protection against him. And God responded with awesome Power that devastated the pharaoh and brought him down. So any pagan in that region that was willing to get the message behind what happened to pharaoh and his realm was able to repent of idolatry and turn to God so that He could free them from the Serpent. When people accept God’s Word and take His Authority to heart, they no longer share the pharaoh’s blindness and God is able to lead them out of satanic Darkness and into His glorious Kingdom and eternal Light.

And another awesome revelation God gives us is this warning: God always hears the cries of His suffering, travailing Covenant people. When they cry out to Him…His eternal Covenant Loyalty on their behalf is most certainly aroused and activated. His Covenant promises compel Him to keep His Word and come to the defense of His ‘Blood brothers’ against any and all oppressors. God is obligated, by Covenant Blood, to honor and fulfill the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and anyone else that is part of their Blood Covenant Whenever they or their children call out to Him, God will surely come to their defense and stand against whoever dares to mistreat and prevent them from fulfilling their God-given commission on behalf of the rest of the world! This does not depend on Israel’s performance; it depends of how true God is to His living Word and the Blood that He shed to seal and fulfill the Covenant.

“…I will bless those who bless you; and the one who curses you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3a)

This is a terrible warning to the world that remains decapitated; but it is a great comfort to any of God’s people who tremble at His Word and follow Him and do as He commands:

“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.” (1 Chronicles 7:13-15 Emphasis added.)

God revealed in Genesis and Exodus that Israel is His special creation and Covenant Bride. She exists solely because of His will and is commissioned for the fulfillment of His world-redeeming purposes. Yes, He created all other peoples too. But He took special pains to let us know in the Torah that He specially chose and nurtured and developed his chosen people for a unique, inconceivably IMPORTANT and NECESSARY purpose – the Eternal Salvation of every Serpent-bitten and crushed human being He ever created.

By God’s Eternal Covenant decree, Israel is God’s sole property! She is His chosen instrument for loving and saving the rest of the human race. Through the faithful, obedient Remnant that abides within Israel…He is continually cutting the coils of the Serpent from any Jewish or non-Jewish man, woman or child who repents and begins to accept, embrace, and obey His living Word!

“Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly (to the unbelieving Jews) and said, ‘It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; (but) since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us (Jewish people), ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles, That You may bring salvation (Yeshua, the living word of God) to the end of the earth.’” (Acts 13:46-47)

So nothing is as important to God, in relation to the eternal wellbeing of His Sin-blasted Creation, than our complete Redemption, Salvation and Regeneration. The Ultimate Restoration and Triumph over His demonic angelic enemies is what He intended and willed into existence since before the foundation of the time and space universe.

“To me (Paul), the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the (New Covenant) Church, the Jewish and non-Jewish Remnant of Israel) to the (demonic) rulers and the (satanic) authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:8-10 Amplification and emphasis added.)

This is what He sends His living Word and Holy Spirit to do…through each generation of His true disciples…the true Remnant of Israel. This is why He made such an airtight, eternal, Covenant Bond with the spiritual descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the Jewish and non-Jewish disciples of His living Word (whom we now know as, Messiah Yeshua). Because they hear God’s voice (Word), and obey His commands and follow Him to wherever He is commissioned by His Father to lead them, God is as eternally loyal and true to them, as He is to His own Word…for through the Covenant, they have become one with His Word. And for them, God will be whatever they will ever need Him to be. And through them, God’s living Word is progressively redeeming and restoring everything in Creation. All will be done to Father’s eternal Satisfaction and Everlasting Glory. This is why the revelation contained in the Torah of Moses is so important and essential for every generation of the Word’s chosen disciples. Our Master tells His disciples in very clear terms:

“You are the Salt of the Earth; but if the salt has become tasteless (no longer able to overcome and prevail over Sin-corruption), how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the Light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law (the Torah of Moses) and the Prophets (the Tanach or Old Testament entrusted to Israel’s care); 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 until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that (religious lip service) of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:13-20 Amplification and emphasis added.)

The fallen decapitated world, in its blind lack of spiritual awareness, pursues the same demonic attitudes and agendas that the doomed pharaoh once pursued. Just as he refused to heed what God was saying through Moses, so do many other people refuse to heed the revelations He gave through Moses. This is done in every generation.

But God’s living and written Word orders those who willingly, wholeheartedly embrace Him, to heed what His Father revealed about Him through Moses. And as we saw in His stern warnings above, they are the ones that He freely grafts into the Covenantal Root that He and His obedient chosen True Israelites share with one another.

The disobedient humans remain aliens and strangers (pagan Gentiles) and as long as they remain in that state, they are not admitted into God’s Eternal Kingdom. Like the pharaoh, they must first die to what they originally were, and forsake their original worldly, Sin-corrupted lives and connections and priorities, so that He can make them one with Himself and His True Israel:

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: may they prosper who love you. May peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces.” (Psalm 122:6-7)

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’” (Luke 14:26-30)

 ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me!’ (Matthew 25:40b Emphasis added.)