Exodus 20:14
“You shall not commit adultery.”
If they receive proper, thorough training, disciples will learn God’s Blood Covenant ways from His written Word. And God’s ways will be ‘the narrow path’ on which they will walk out their Exodus Journey. The Covenant of God bonds us to Him. Then He can communicate and interact with us, through His beloved Son, His living creative Word. The written Torah and the subsequent Scriptures reveal God’s creative Word right from the beginning – Genesis 1:1, and throughout all the books that Moses wrote. Whatever God does or says, comes to us through His Word and Holy Spirit. Thus the Word appeared in human form, to Abraham and several others. And later, He appeared on Earth as Messiah Yeshua. So Yeshua is the living Word, or living Torah who assumed human nature and joined us to Almighty God:
John 1:14-16
“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His Glory, Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of Grace and Truth. John (the Immerser) testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His Fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”
The Bible reveals that God’s living Word is our Creator, Sustainer, Covering Redeemer, Restorer and sole Provider. So God is training us to look to His Son to be our primary focus and only source for all things. Our minds wills and affections must remain continually attached to and dependent upon, Him. In our fallen state, we have no Righteousness of our own. It is not in our fallen Sin-corrupted nature, to think, live and act as one with God. We can’t serve as His image and likeness simply by choosing, willing and striving to do it! Our nature was disfigured by our corporate fall into Sin and that disfigurement destroyed our ability to recover our original state and status in God’s Kingdom. So now, if we are to live in God’s Righteousness, according to His Perfect Standards, and obey His commandments perfectly, the living Word Himself, the One who became flesh to cover our spiritual nakedness, must represent us before God, and become our personal Righteousness. By the Power of the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, the Word must be able to live and act from within us, as us, to do, what to the rest of us, is impossible.
Matthew 18:2-4
“And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, ‘Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'” (Emphasis added.)
So the entire polarity and expectation of Messiah Yeshua’s disciples must be vertical, that is, dependent on the Word’s Perfect Finished Work. Nothing earthly or temporal (horizontal) is to be mixed in with what comes to us from Him. This is what we mean by ‘vertical’. Disciples must be trained to think, act, react and interact directly and primarily with our indwelling risen Master, looking only to Him in all things and for all things. He is not merely our ‘Helper’. He is our LIFE! So realize that He is the living creative Word that Almighty God reveals in the Bible. He is our Creator, Master and Owner, who has summoned us to abide with Him and follow Him all the days of our lives. This is what it means to ‘follow’ Him with integrity and Biblical authenticity. We can only be as one with our Master if we abide in His Spirit-imparted Resurrection Presence, and learn to react and respond to His lead and personally interact with Him continuously, in exclusive dependence on Him, throughout our daily lives.
For the rest of our time in this earthly existence, we will be learning and perfecting this unique lifestyle. Our Master will train us to depend on and interact with Him in a living way! In our hearts we must finally realize that He alone is the preeminent, predominant Force, Factor and Consideration that permeates and governs every aspect and level of our existence. This is of extreme importance because the commission of true disciples of God’s living Word in the Last Days’ tribulations will be extremely demanding. Our ability to fulfill our commissions will be severely challenged and tested, and that is why our level of operation will have to be entirely God-given and supernatural! So our conscious awareness must be drilled and trained now, so that when the time of testing comes, we can remain focused on our God-given purpose with relentless single-minded intensity. Our focus will have to resemble the steel-penetrating intensity of laser beams! And what will the purpose be, of such unity and focused personal interaction? The apostle Paul expressed it beautifully:
2 Corinthians 4:5-6
“For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of Darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Paul was amplifying what God said earlier, in the book of Job, about what He does through His living Word:
Job 12:22
“He reveals mysteries from the Darkness and brings the deep Darkness into Light.” (Emphasis added.)
Job 17:11-12
“My days are past, my plans are torn apart, even the wishes of my heart. They make night into day, saying, ‘The Light is near,’ in the presence of Darkness.” (Emphasis added.)
In Genesis 2, God warned Adam that he, and the human race that was contained in his seed, would die the moment he ate of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17). And since he did eat, we became mortal. Our original bodies incurred the Death penalty and the corruption that come from Sin (which is a result of our decapitation from the Headship of God’s living Word). This is why we can compare the Darkness-enshrouded world of fallen humanity and its systems to the famed, ‘Titanic.’ This broken world and its system have been mortally wounded like that doomed ship. And the humans of this temporal world are like the passengers and crew that were aboard the Titanic on that terrible night, when it sank into the dark, icy waters of the ocean.
But God chose the Family of Abraham, to be His ‘Light to the Gentiles’ and to live and interact with Him in the midst of this awful Darkness! They were selected for specialized training so that God’s awesome Salvation and Redemption process could take root in them first, and then spread to the other Sin-corrupted peoples of the world. We are all designed, created and intended to serve as the image and likeness of God’s living Word! So, we were intended for Eternal Life, not living death and eternal perdition! But in order for our Redemption, Reconciliation and Restoration to take place, and regain the level of Perfection that God requires, His living Word MUST live and operate within our innermost being… in our hearts… so that, through Him and in Him, we may receive everything God promised to be to Israel, and the rest of the fallen world!
Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Genesis 12:3
“And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Covenant Provision for our Ultimate Restoration
The New Covenant era will usher in the total Fulfillment of God’s promises to save, redeem, reconcile and restore His Creation to Perfection. His Eternal Covenant Pattern requires the Resurrection Light of God’s living Word to obliterate the Darkness of Death that abides in all fallen flesh. God’s Word is sent to destroy Death and set us free from Sin’s Darkness. This is why God intends to reveal His Son’s Glory in the midst of this world’s hopeless despair. In 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul wrote: “For God who said, Light shall shine out of Darkness…” But to get the full meaning of that, we might interpret what he said like this: “For God who said, Resurrection shall shine out of Death…’”
So New Covenant disciples are to contain and embody their Master’s Resurrection Life amid the Serpent’s Death and Decay! And because we still abide in our original mortal, decaying bodies, that Life is not yet ours. It does not emanate from what we are in ourselves. But because He can now abide within us by the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection Life that is in Him can be the Fountain of Grace from which we are now privileged to draw at all times. Thus our regenerated spirits are commissioned to be His ‘Temple’ because His Spirit-transmitted Resurrection Presence is with us to permanently abide within us. We are equipped to take the Light of His Resurrection Presence with us wherever we go in this realm of living death, and release Him so that He can reach out to the rest of the world. So ponder what Paul is saying in that context:
2 Corinthians 4:7-12
“But we have this Treasure in earthen (mortal) vessels, so that the surpassing Greatness of the Power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the (Spirit-transmitted Resurrection) life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the (Resurrection) Life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So Death (to our worldly self-life) works in us (disciples), but (Yeshua’s Eternal) Life in you (who believe, embrace and rely upon our risen Messiah).” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
God trained Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to abide also in the Presence of His living Word. They had to forsake and die to their original worldly lives and Sin-corrupted, self-originated agendas. The obedience of their faith effectively crucified their self-life and eventually, emptied them of it completely. So God’s living Word was able to abide and reign from within their hearts. He became their new and eternal Life. This is how the Word of God brings His Eternal Resurrection Presence into our Darkness. And through the obedient faith that His disciples place exclusively on Him, He can manifest His world-covering Light, even though demonic Darkness still surrounds His faithful disciples.
This is also how it was with Joseph and Moses and the prophets of Israel. And that is the same mission and lifestyle that God’s Word came to reveal and demonstrate for us when He became flesh and lived among us in the first century. When He put aside His divinity and began to live solely as the Son of Man, as one of us, He lived a truly human life. He, like the rest of us, was weak, helpless and totally dependent in Himself. And so He depended entirely on God and what God had revealed in Genesis through Moses, concerning His Perfect Finished Work and Perfect Original Blessing. Yeshua relied entirely on God’s Perfect Eternal Blood Covenant and His participation in it through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as revealed through Moses. In His Humanity, Yeshua lived as the Perfect image and likeness of God’s Eternal Word, in order to represent us legally and justly and cover our spiritual nakedness with His Perfection.
Redemption in and Through the Eternal Blood Covenant
Yeshua covered us by serving as our Messiah, the Perfect Israelite Human image and likeness of God that He promised to the world. Because the Word is our Eternal Covenant Representative, when He obeyed God’s commandments and served Him to Perfection…so did all those that He truly represents. We can’t do that by our own efforts, but only IN Him. As the ‘Last Adam’, or Ultimate Blood Covenant Representative, Yeshua did what the first Adam failed to do. He never fell into radical independence. He remained one with His Father and the Holy Spirit, and followed and obeyed God’s Word at all times, in all things. Thus, by His Perfect Obedience and Faith and Love for God, and Blood Atonement on the Cross, He completely reversed the damage that Adam caused to us all, as our first representative. And Yeshua’s Resurrection was Father’s resounding response and full acceptance of what His Word had accomplished.
To do this, God’s Word had to become one of us, in order to legally represent us. Thus He rendered to God His Perfect Human Life. His flawless Performance is our Provision that satisfies God’s Perfect Nature and His Perfect Standards of Righteousness and His commandments. And it is PERFECT! He did this in our name and for our sake. And now our Messiah is able to redeem us and lead us off of the ‘Titanic.’ But we must forsake our original radically independent living Death existence on the living death Titanic, and follow Him into His Resurrection Life and eternal Kingdom:
Matthew 10:38-39
“…He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his (Titanic) life will lose it, and he who has lost his (Titanic) life for My sake will find it.” (Amplification added.)
So our Master has made it possible for us to identify with Him at that same Blood Covenant level by which He first identified with us! God’s Word identified with us so much, that He ‘became us’ in that Blood Covenant sense. Thus He gave Himself up and endured the horrible torture-filled punishment and execution we had coming. And He atoned perfectly for us, and removed the curse and Death and Condemnation hanging over our heads. He has done everything necessary to set us free. His Perfect Finished Work now allows us, who believe and repent of Sin, to enjoy with Him God’s Perfect Sabbath Peace and Rest and Righteousness. But we must truly identify with God’s Word, at the same level with which He first identified with us!
Ephesians 1:3-8a
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. IN HIM we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His Grace which He lavished on us.” (Emphasis added.)
And so, disciples are equipped, even while we still abide in our original mortal bodies, to walk in the Blessings of His Perfect Resurrection Righteousness and Authority. But the blessings abide only in our Head at this time. We must receive them from Him at all times. He is with us to bless those that belong to Him. And they can, in turn, serve and bless in His Name, anyone around them that is willing to believe, receive and join them in obeying His summons to follow Him off of the Titanic. And if they decide to follow Him, the disciples can serve as their ‘watch us…now you’ guides, instructors and demonstrators of the Glory of our risen Master, and His ways. This Covenant Pattern is of critical importance for those that will never be able, in their own strength, to obey and observe God’s awesome commandments and meet His Perfect Standard of Righteousness.
This is what our Master had in mind when He instructed His original Jewish disciple/apostles to go into the entire Jewish and non-Jewish world… to ‘disciple’ those who that have ears to hear and hearts to believe and obey what the Spirit of God is revealing to them:
Matthew 28:18-20
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations (disciple the Gentiles), baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”
So our Master’s Spirit-filled, Jewish and non-Jewish disciples are commissioned and required to learn to embody and reveal His indwelling, transforming Resurrection Presence…as the Holy Spirit leads them into the Fulfillment of the New, or Renewed, Covenant God made with Israel. As His True Remnant of Israel, these disciples will usher in that Fulfillment of God’s commandments and Righteousness, and all of Creation will finally be able to enter into the Eternal Perfection God is waiting to impart to it. The risen Word of God will fulfill everything that He revealed and promised in earlier times. And we will all see how true these words that Paul wrote truly are:
Colossians 1:15-17
“He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Emphasis added.)
And this is what God is telling us in this text:
John 3:30
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Everything is about God’s Living Creative Word
Everything flows to us from Him and everything leads us back to Him. And so, as He trains and prepares us, our Master must strip away and cleanse from our hearts every lie, deluded idea and idol with which the Serpent has infected the fallen human race. Those things come from the Serpent and they drag people into Death. But Death must die in us and we must die to it:
Luke 14:27
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
Whoever refuses the cross, refuses to die to his original life of radical independence. And thus he insists on remaining aboard the Titanic. Obviously, such people, no matter how religious they become, cannot be counted among the Lord’s disciples and the Holy Spirit cannot equip them to demonstrate Yeshua’s indwelling Resurrection Life! It is in the light of this overpowering, inescapable Truth of who and what Messiah Yeshua really and truly is to us, that we disciples must understand the depths of what God’s Ten Commandments actually require. Only if we’re equipped and empowered by His utterly Righteous, Spirit-empowered Resurrection Life is it possible for us to keep, or observe, those awesome commandments. We don’t do it because we can’t do it! Our Master is the only Human that is able to do it. Fallen flesh cannot observe the commandments by joining and following man-made religions or by trying to repress all of the self-life urges that boil within our fallen nature. Striving to keep a lot of external rules and regulations is utter futility for us! The Perfect Righteousness and Justice of Almighty God can only be honored and observed by Almighty God Himself! And that is why His Living Word and Holy Spirit must be free to abide within us mortal beings…so that God can be what only He can be, and do what only He can do, to us, in us, for us, and through us!
So Spirit-filled New Covenant disciples are equipped by God Himself to be living revealers and expressions of His Word’s abiding Presence. The Word is our Source and our Destination. He is the Ultimate Fulfillment into which God is taking all of His Creation.
Revelation 1:17-19
“When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.”
There will be no exception or exemption. Our risen Lord must and will be everything to all of Creation, in all matters. And all the angelic hosts and every human being ever created will have to come to grips with this inevitable Reality: There is only one true God. That position is occupied forever. And His Authority will be established by the time the Titanic reaches the end of its ability to stay afloat…and finally disappears entirely beneath the waves.
So obviously, the disciples must be trained NOW to realign and reconfigure all their perspectives, priorities and aspirations accordingly. We must be trained first to place our risen Lord and Master above all created things in every situation. This is the purpose and commission of God’s True Israel… to assist our Master in getting as many people as possible off the Titanic before it goes down. The stakes are eternal and therefore, enormous. This is why disciples must be trained to stop listening to people that do not realize the danger and insist on staying aboard that doomed hulk. We do not follow the ideas and dictates of those that are perishing; we follow the Lord Almighty who is here to save as many of us as possible, while there is still time.
Therefore, we have no time to waste! We must remain focused on our Master at all times and follow His orders. We must place every created person, thing, situation and circumstance into the proper secondary positions they occupy under our Master. Created things must always occupy places of lesser importance to God’s Word, in God’s scheme of things. And since God’s Word is Supreme Lord, the Holy Spirit is with us to teach us to interact primarily and directly with Him at all times, and to learn to interact indirectly, or at a secondary background level, with everyone and everything else that we encounter.
Luke 14:26-30
“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.’”
Each of God’s Commandments, including the seventh, stabs our fallen idolatrous flesh to the quick with the issue of the Supreme Authority and Preeminence of God’s living Word. Fallen, Sin-adoring flesh loves the Sin-filled Titanic and pursues the mind-deadening pleasures it offers. So it refuses to hear any of this! This is the great stumbling block, the razor sharp sword that separates the human race into two vastly different groups. In the corporate, covenantal Hebrew/Semitic mentality and culture that God chose as the matrix from which to reveal His living and written Word, the understanding of Authority and how men are to respond to it, differs greatly from the normal understanding of people born and bred in Western, Hellenistic cultures. Hellenism is totally humanistic. It loves the Titanic and can’t imagine any other kind of existence. And that spiritual blindness creates a race of self-centered people who place themselves and their self-gratifying agendas in the highest place. There is no place in their world-view for the Almighty God of the Bible. But the Hebraic, Biblically formed disciple mind, places the Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, above all else. Hence the conflict between the Serpent’s Darkness and the Eternal Light of God’s living Word.
This is why the Serpent and all the man-made philosophies and theologies that abound in this world categorically reject Israel, and her God, and her Scriptures, and risen Messiah. Yeshua, the living Word made flesh, is the dividing issue, the ultimate ‘Stumbling Block’ that separates the Remnant of God’s True Israel from the rest of the world. But not even a speck of Humanism will be allowed or tolerated in God’s Eternal Kingdom. In that Kingdom, God’s living Word is, and always will be, the Supreme, Preeminent Lord and Determining Factor for everything. Our Creator is not indebted to or dependent upon any of His creatures – in any way! Israel and its Torah and Tanach reveal this. And the apostolic Scriptures of the New Covenant reinforce it. But man-made religions, philosophies and theologies contradict God’s Word and strive to create a vast array of alternate, contradictory substitutes. And so Authority…the conflict between God’s Word and the Serpent’s Lie…is what the commandments are all about. Who actually speaks the Truth? Whoever that is, has the right to wield the Supreme Eternal Authority over all of Creation.
Remember that according to the Torah, God’s Nature is infinite, eternally changeless, and Perfect in every way. And this Perfect Almighty God reveals Himself to be the Designer and Maker of Reality…that is, of whatever is real, true and good. Only He has the legitimate right to establish Truth. Only He can establish the laws and principles that govern how His created universe is to function. Creation is His personal possession and everything in it is required to serve and fulfill the role and function He has assigned to it. So in God’s Kingdom there is no anarchy. And not even the democracy that flows out of Hellenism can be found there! God’s Kingdom is an eternal Theocracy, a place where God’s living Word rules and reigns Supreme.
Isaiah 66:1-2
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,’ declares the Lord.
“‘But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My Word!’” (Emphasis added.)
Matthew 28:19-20
“All Authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations (Gentiles), baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THAT I COMMANDED YOU; and lo, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, even to the end of the age.” (emphasis added)
Ponder the universal commands that the Lord gave to His New Covenant disciples. Does it sound as if He is willing to allow even one human being to go down with the Titanic? Implied in those commands is a most serious, dire warning that is being given to each and every human generation and human individual. But the trouble is that all fallen flesh is geared to be radically independent and self-determining. So this issue of Authority, and who truly possesses it, causes every self-adoring culture and nation and man and woman to stumble. But in the Last Days, there will be nowhere for any created being to hide from this. There will be no way left to escape the doom that awaits this Titanic of a world and its broken, Sin-corrupted systems:
Isaiah 2:17-22
“The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of men will be abased; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols will completely vanish. Men will go into caves of the rocks and into holes of the ground before the Terror of the Lord and the Splendor of His Majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble. In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, in order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs before the Terror of the Lord and the Splendor of His Majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble. Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be esteemed?” (Emphasis added.)
Hebrews 12:25-27
“See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on Earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from Heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.’ This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”
Beloved, you who are called and commissioned to follow and serve this risen Lord, must realize that Almighty God’s living Word is revealing God’s Perfect Nature and Eternal Characteristics! What He says is not up to worldly academic ‘experts’ to debate. It is not up to the media or scientists or pop culture ‘superstar idols’ to assess and vote upon this. This unchanging, bedrock, granite-solid Truth and Reality comes from eternity! It was in effect before any of us ever came into being, and it will still be in effect long after our created bodies crumble and disappear from the scene! God’s written Word has notified the world that we will all have to face and deal with the Reality of the living Word’s Supreme Authority when He returns to Earth. Then it will be established forever that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob IS GOD, and that there is no other! And His Word alone will remain Supreme forever!
God’s living Word continues to sustain the existence of every speck of Creation. He alone provides for the needs of every creature. Therefore, He alone is worthy to be worshipped, adored, honored, acknowledged AND OBEYED! The Lord God created our spirits, souls and bodies for His purposes. He designed everything about us and ordained the purposes and set the boundaries for all of Creation’s systems according to a Plan that He is surely going to fulfill. With that Plan in mind, He created our personal faculties, organs and appetites and set us in our proper places within the workings of His Creation. All of His commandments are given in the context of this Plan! God established all of this by speaking His Word. Thus whatever He has ordained has the force of Eternal unassailable Law, for He alone is Almighty God!
Genesis 17:1b-2
“…‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.” (Emphasis added.)
These considerations are essentially contained and articulated by our Follow Me Ministry Marching Orders. And the Supreme Authority of our Creator, as introduced in the Torah and explained further in the rest of the Bible, is the prime consideration around which our lives must be built:
Matthew 7:24-27
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the Rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the Rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
Beloved ones, Sex is not our God! Our fallen, Death-filled original bodies and their appetites, organs, urges and passions are not our God! Our human mortal scientific experts and political leaders and religious gurus are not our God! Consider this: in each amoeba (one celled organism) it is estimated that there are over two trillion separate electro-chemical processes going on per second! No human mind can begin to comprehend or understand such complexity! So why should the flaky, changeable opinions and dictates of any grossly limited man-made culture or society or political tyrant or military bully or academic ‘expert’ or media commentator or arrogant scientist or pop culture idol, assume, or be given, the authority to contradict, deny or and defy the Lord God Almighty who created and sustains the entire universe with all of its galaxies and solar systems and, yes, even all of the innumerable amoebas that exist on this planet?
All of the fallen Sin-corrupted viewpoints, imaginations and intellects of the people that humans tend to idolize and take seriously, are not even close to being the equal of the true Living God. No creature that this fallen world may exalt, ‘anoint’ or idolize has the capacity to comprehend, much less defy, the One who created and sustains us. No created beings that the world selects and nominates to be prophets, gurus, oracles and ultimate sources of human understanding have the right to defy Him and dictate our morals, customs and priorities in His place. And any humans who do idolize those people and give them authority, do not have the right to decide which of those fallen mortal humans shall be ultimate judges of what is real and true. That radically independent perspective and the attitudes and practices it leads people into did not work for Eve, or Adam… and they will not work for any of us either.
Genesis 3:4b-5
“You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil!”
So we see that there is bitter conflict between God’s claim to Authority, and man’s refusal to acknowledge God’s right to rule over us. This is the way it is with each one of us…UNTIL we receive a revelation from God’s living Word…of God’s living Word that is sharp enough to pierce, penetrate and impregnate our hardened hearts with His inescapable, undeniable Truth.
Psalm 40:2-4
“He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a Rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.”
Moses was the prophet of Israel that God commissioned to put His Torah revelation into human words. One day shortly after Israel’s utter disaster with the ‘Golden Calf,’ he received a tremendously deep revelation concerning God and His Word in the following encounter which he recorded in the Book of Exodus:
Exodus 33:21-23
“Then the Lord said, ‘Behold there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the Rock; and it will come about, while My Glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the Rock and cover you with My Hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My Hand away and you shall see My Back, but My Face shall not be seen!”
In this portion of the Torah, God is revealing something incomprehensibly deep. We will all spend eternity vainly trying to ‘fathom’ and ‘comprehend’ what it contains. Within it is revelation that comes to us all from God’s eternal side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence, the side that God, and only God, can occupy. And from that unreachable place, God sends His living Word across that infinite chasm to give us a tiny opening, an infinitesimal ‘peek’…into Almighty God’s Infinity and Eternal Perfection. The Word gives us a momentary flash of a glimpse of the Reality of the Perfect Presence of The Uncreated One who cannot be comprehended, equaled, or defied. And the rest of the Scriptures amplify and further explain these glimpses that God gives of Himself in the Torah. So in this revelation that Moses received, God reveals Himself…but only through His living Word. Let’s look at that passage again:
Exodus 33:21-23
“Then the Lord said, ‘Behold there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the Rock (that is My living Word); and it will come about, while My Glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the Rock (My Word) and cover you with My Hand (Yeshua) until I have passed by. Then I will take My Hand away and you shall see My Back (the Word who is My Perfect Human Image and Likeness), but My Face shall not be (directly) seen!”
Does this sound familiar to you? Doesn’t it bring to mind another previously revealed ‘covering’ that God provided soon after Adam and Eve fell into Sin and were no longer spiritually equipped to abide in the Perfect, Infinite Presence and Righteousness and Purity of Almighty God?
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”
One Provision, One Way, One Lord of All
We said before that God’s living Word is the Covering and the Coverer for the human race. He is the only Way through which Almighty God reveals Himself to, and interacts with, Sin-full fallen, human flesh! If He were to allow us to see Him directly or Face-to-face, we would instantly perish! So we must be insulated, or ‘covered.’ And the only One who can do that effectively is God’s Word…the Word who became flesh…to be our Covenant Representative Covering before the Awesome Perfection and Holiness of Almighty God. The Word is our abiding, indwelling Life. Only He can obey and serve God in a Perfect, Worthy Way that Almighty God’s Perfection can receive and acknowledge. Only in HIM can we please and satisfy God. And only IN HIM, do we have the ability and privilege of approaching God and being accepted, without fear or shame or guilt or condemnation.
Hebrews 4:15-16
“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without Sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the Throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
There is no other way open to us by which we can approach God. Yeshua Himself is our Righteousness and Obedience and Acceptability before God. He is our Perfect Fulfillment of all of God’s commandments, including the seventh. Thus the apostolic Scriptures reveal the awesome Fulfillment, the New Covenant dynamic, which is revealed and expressed through the Master-disciple relationship our Master is here to have with us. When we abide in Him and live from Him, He is our personal ‘Perfect Covering’ that insulates us and enables us to bond with God in total peace and safety:
Matthew 9:25-27
“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 (of the fallen world system) and have revealed them to (twice-born, Spirit-regenerated) 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.’” (Emphasis added.)
Beloved, this touches upon ‘The Incomprehensible.’ This gives us a hint, a little touch, a trace of a glimpse into the awesome New Covenant ‘Mystery’ that our Follow Me Marching Orders try to articulate and convey to Last Days disciples who are in boot camp training. And so, in light of what we keep struggling to express in our discussion of God’s awesome commandments, and the Blood Covenant Relationship with Israel that underlies them, let us ponder those instructions once more:
1. Take My people further in their understanding of what it is to be a temple of My Presence.
2. Teach them to think along with Me, in all things.
3. Teach them to listen to Me at all times, even as they are thinking!
4. Develop a great tenderness and sensitivity for My Presence within them. Teach them to worship Me in the depths of their spirits and innermost minds, in all things.
5. Teach them to understand clearly and thoroughly, what it means to be faithful to seek, in all things, My viewpoint and the purpose of My Kingdom, Kingship and Righteousness. If they do that, I, for My part, will add all other things for them.
6. Take them further in their understanding of the depths of the New Covenant relationship they have with Me. Teach them what their part is to be.
7. Teach them how to respond to Me in even the tiniest matters.
8. I am with them in all things and in all ways. I want them to be with Me in the same manner!
Can you begin to see how faithfully Abraham, Isaac and Jacob learned to carry out these orders? Can you see how well Joseph learned to do it, while he was in Egypt? Can you see how his early training prepared him to honor God’s Word and always keep His Authority foremost in his mind and heart? This enabled him to face and overcome the fierce temptation that Potiphar’s seductive wife placed before him and all the other temptations that kept trying to get him to despair and give up his God-given identity, purpose and destiny! The question was: would he allow the Serpent to run his life and dictate his fate? Was he going to place his own fallen flesh and its appetites above God? Was he going to look to that woman, who was as Sin-corrupted and mortal and empty and needy as he was, and expect the likes of her to actually fulfill his profound, eternal human needs? Would she actually be able to reach deep enough to ‘scratch’ what was ‘itching’ in his soul? Would she be able to satisfy the terrible ‘thirst’ Joseph was experiencing, the deep sense of ‘homesickness’ for the one true God, that kept causing his innermost being to ache and pine for the Eternal Fulfillment that only Almighty God can provide?
No, of course that poor mortal creature could never satisfy his needs. And Joseph knew it. He knew who he was and why he was there. His brothers meant his suffering for evil…but Joseph knew that God intended his slavery for Good! It wasn’t only Joseph’s Good that God had in mind. He allowed his brothers to betray him…so that Joseph would be brought to Egypt…for Salvation – his salvation and that of his Israelite Family, and also that of the Gentiles that would, through Joseph, very soon come under the Authority of the living Word of Almighty God!
Joseph knew in the depths of his soul and the wiring of his Israelite brain that he was a ‘Blood brother’ to God. That was the identity and purpose and destiny that had been passed on to him by his great-grandfather Abraham, and his grandfather Isaac, and his father Jacob. He was one of those unique Israelites! And his prior training and breeding enabled and sustained and equipped him to pass this test and PROVE that His Covenant Legacy was true and authentic and truly God-given. Joseph had been brought into this Covenant before he was even born! He was included in the Covenant at the same time Abraham was brought into it! Joseph was ‘IN Abraham’ that day. He too was sealed in the Covenant by the blood (life) that was shed. And that blood was mingled with the Blood of Messiah Yeshua, when He was circumcised and when He was crucified and executed! Joseph and the others had been included in and through Abraham…to be made into one…with the living Word of God!
Genesis 15:5-11
“And He (the Word) took him (Abraham) outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. And He said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.’ He said, ‘O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?’ So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.”
Luke 2:22-24
“And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him (Yeshua) up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’), and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, ‘A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’”
Matthew 27:35-37
“And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots. And sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him there. And above His head they put up the charge against Him, which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
This Blood Covenant legacy is what God uses to make all of Israel and all of the families of the earth…one with Him. He does all of this through the Blood of His living Word, our Messiah. God sent His Word to Adam and Eve in the Garden to cover them with it. Then He sent His Word to Abraham, to bring him and his family into the Covenant. And then God’s Word carried that ‘crimson Covenant thread’ forward into human history, through Isaac and Jacob and then through Jacob’s sons, including Joseph. And it kept descending throughout human history through Jacob…and Jacob’s sons, specifically Judah, and his family…to Moses, Joshua, Caleb, the prophets…and…David…and to David’s ‘Son’, Yeshua…who is also Messiah ‘Son of Joseph’.
This is the ‘Covenant Family Legacy’ that God’s living Word is going to fulfill to utter Eternal Perfection by the very end of human history! When you’re a ‘Blood brother’ to God’s Word…you’re a Blood brother to Almighty God and a Blood brother to all of God’s other Blood brothers. The Covenant makes us all one…through God’s living Word! So when we’re one with Yeshua, the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, we’re one with the Kingdom itself! We ARE His Kingdom! Remember this whenever you are tempted by all the lures and traps that lurk in the Darkness of this pornographic world!
Revelation 5:9-10
“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. ‘You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.’”
Because he was a Covenant friend of God, Joseph was trained to think, act, react and interact AS ONE with God’s Word! He took his Covenant Bond with the Word to heart. Unlike many others who share in God’s Covenant but do not really understand or care about it, Joseph never allowed the Serpent to distract or cause him to betray his Divine Blood Covenant Lord! This awesome Bond with God was always in the forefront of Joseph’s mind and heart: he was part of God’s chosen people, a member of His Covenant Family. God had separated and set them apart as His own Segulah. The ‘personal treasure’ that the Hebrew word Segulah expresses is like someone’s personal, private ‘spending money.’ The person can keep or spend this personal spending money in any way he wishes. And so Joseph always remained at the disposal of His Lord. He allowed God to do whatever He wished to him…in him…and through him. And that is the lifestyle of a true disciple. We need not fill ourselves with wine or drugs or pornography…Almighty God Himself is filling us with the Eternal Reality of His living Word and Holy Spirit and His Eternal Fulfillment and Satisfaction!
God had in mind an exalted plan and destiny for Joseph. And the plan required this young Israelite to become a slave in God’s service! Thus Joseph served as a ‘Pre-Incarnational’ revelation or ‘preview’ of the human life of Israel’s coming Messiah. God followed the same principle with Yeshua that He had once followed with Joseph:
John 13:5-7
“Then He *poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. So He *came to Simon Peter. He *said to Him, ‘Lord, do You wash my feet?’ Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.’”
Even through Joseph’s life of slavery, God was revealing His beloved Son, the living Word, who just as Joseph served the Egyptians, Yeshua is serving all of God’s Creation:
Luke 22:25-27
“And He said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.’” (Emphasis added.)
Yeshua was describing Himself, but He was also describing His image and likeness… Joseph…and the True Israel…and every one of His Last Days disciples! God’s living Word creates, sustains and provides for every speck of Creation. He serves more than anyone! Although He is Supreme over everything He has created; yet, among all of His Creatures, He serves the most. He attends to every galaxy, every star, every solar system and human, animal and amoeba in existence. He meets the needs of all creatures and sustains and protects and serves them all – constantly! And because His disciples are to be His true image and likeness, they too are God’s Royal Priesthood, but their lifestyles are those of bond slaves, servants of all those around them, because they are made to be the image and likeness of their Master.
God’s Living Word as Revealed through His Obedient Disciples
And so the lives of all disciples are an embodiment of Yeshua and His ‘airtight’ obedient faith before His Father. And by allowing God’s Word to live and work within his heart and mind and flesh, the Word was able to be Joseph’s Faithfulness and Obedience to God. This is what Joseph was trained and prepared to do. God’s Word became real and alive and actively fruitful from within him. And the Word in Joseph handled the enormous responsibility of preserving the Family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the entire kingdom of Egypt during the famine. Yes, in himself, Joseph was a weak, helpless Sin-corrupted human…and a slave at that. He could have never fulfilled the Plan God had in mind for his family and the rest of the world. But he could allow God’s Word to rule within him and do whatever had to be done to accomplish God’s awesome Life-giving purposes. And that’s what Joseph did; he allowed God’s Word to live and work within him. Thus the Word sustained him and empowered him to remain ever obedient to God. And because he remained under the Authority of God’s Word, then even the pharaoh of all Egypt came under the Word’s Authority…as the Word revealed Himself and touched the pharaoh’s heart, through Joseph! And so, through Joseph’s life, God was able to reveal His beloved Son and His awesome Eternal Significance. And centuries later, Yeshua Himself faced and stared down the Serpent and overcame him exactly the way He had done it centuries before, through Joseph:
Matthew 4:1-11
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
“Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”
“Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
“Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’”
“Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.”
So the Covenant into which God brought Joseph, was intended to help to reveal the awesome glory and significance that Yeshua’s Life has for all of Creation. And that fact required Joseph to remain mindful that God’s Word was His ‘Commander in Chief’ and that he was ‘wearing God’s Covenant uniform’ and that he was continually under His Command and constantly drawing from His Strength and Resources. And that is what was going on, during those bitter, intimidating years during his slavery in Egypt. God’s Word was always abiding within Joseph, and He overcame the Serpent and prevailed mightily…from within Joseph’s heart and soul…and in Joseph’s name.
John 1:43-45
“The next day He (Yeshua) purposed to go into Galilee, and He *found Philip. And Jesus *said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip *found Nathanael and *said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law (Torah) and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’” ( Emphasis added.)
This is why it was so important that Joseph be imbued with a Blood Covenant Mentality and Perspective. He had to be equipped and prepared to stand in the presence of the pharaoh of all of Egypt one day… and to do so from the perspective and mental position of a ‘son of Almighty God.’ It was his commission to capably and faithfully discern God’s mind and heart so that he could work as one with, and serve as a revelation of, His Master. And together with Joseph, God’s Word led and guided the frightened, clueless pharaoh, step by step, through the process that would ensure that Israel and the Gentiles would hear and obey what the Word would say through Joseph, and be able to survive the horrendous famine that was soon to come!
So since we too, are set apart to become revelations of God’s living Word who dwells within us by the Holy Spirit, whatever any of us sees, thinks and does, will also have a direct impact on our future destiny and those of many other people to the Covenant which connects us. And that will greatly affect the entire War between God’s Light and the powers of Darkness. It will have an impact on all the rest of God’s people who are joined to us in the same Covenant that God is sharing with those who have gone before us and those who will come after us! Imagine the destruction that would have taken place, had Joseph fallen for that woman’s Serpent-induced trap and decided to commit adultery with her!
When we obey or disobey any of God’s commandments, we do not merely affect our own personal position and destiny, we affect all of our ‘blood covenant friends,’ past, present and future…by what we choose to do or not do. We are not radically independent individualists! We are living members of the one Body of God’s living Word on Earth! And what happens to one member, affects all of the rest. Remember this whenever the Serpent tries to tempt you. Joseph was connected to God’s Word. Therefore He was also connected to all that had been revealed and done through God’s Word in the past. He was connected to Abel, Enosh, Noah, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By his union with God’s Word, Joseph was joined to those who went before him. This is the Blood Covenant dynamic God has chosen to use with the human race. It is contained in the Bible’s Hebraic Covenantal mentality and Reality. It is a corporate Reality. God sees us as one.
John 17:22-24
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
And in his generation, Joseph was assigned to bring that Covenant unity forward. Through his obedient faith, all that had transpired earlier through God’s Word, was brought into the present through Joseph’s obedient faith. And that is how the Covenant Family progresses through time and space and the story continues to unfold and expand into the future generations. This challenge was presented to Joseph many times. Each time he had to choose whether he would diminish or enhance this awesome Legacy that God had entrusted to his care. He knew that whatever he did or didn’t do in and with his present circumstances, in one way or another, would have an impact on his life, on God’s reputation and also on the future outcomes of Israel. And of course, that would also have an impact on the future of all the families of the earth. Thus Joseph’s obedient contribution added color, depth, meaning and richness to this awesome Love Story between God, His chosen people and the rest of Mankind.
The Covenant is meant to connect and makes us all into one Family, God’s Family! Therefore, we are interdependent; what each of us does in our time, in the present, will have an enormous impact, one way or the other, on the future of all the families of the earth. So ponder our Follow Me Marching Orders in that light. And if you do, you will see how Joseph was trained and disciplined by His Lord and Master in the midst of his rigorous boot camp. God was teaching him, and revealing through him, how His Holy Spirit would empower and equip each and every other future disciple to be the image and likeness of God’s living, creative, world-changing Word…no matter what might happen.
Beloved, can you see what sort of perspective or ‘set of mental eyeglasses’ these orders will train us to develop? And can you see that what God was revealing to and in and through Joseph, is the same thing that He later revealed to and in and through Moses, Joshua and Caleb? And can you see that it was the same thing He had to reveal to and in and through each generation of Israelite prophets, leading up to the day of Yeshua and first century Jewish apostles and disciples? And can you see that what God wanted to do with all of Israel back then…is what He has promised to fulfill in the Last Days…through the final generations of His Son’s New Covenant disciples? And that is where we, and our generation, come into the Covenant picture. We are to add our own ingredients to this awesome Story. But it has fallen to us to add the ingredients that will serve to bring about the Tremendous, Fulfilling Climax to everything that has gone before!
It is always the same Revelation…the Revelation of God’s living Word, His beloved Son, and our Messiah – Yeshua. God is always revealing Him…in the midst of a world filled with Sin-corrupted Serpent-dominated men and women. God is revealing His Son in each generation through His believing, obedient, Word-embodying disciples, because nothing short of His Son is going to be able to save us and set all of Creation right side up again. What we need is going to take an act of Almighty God to fulfill! And so that is exactly what is taking place. Almighty God is the God who speaks and performs and declares and establishes. He speaks His creative Word, to whom all Authority has been given, and the Word does exactly what His Father sends Him to do in our midst. He does it to…and in…and through…those who will believe and obey God’s Word. God is thus revealing Himself through such people!
The Great Exchange
And that is why we are commanded to forsake our original ‘living death’ existences…and exchange ‘MY Titanic life’ for Yeshua Himself. And if we are willing to embrace Him and allow Him to live His Perfect Resurrection Life from within us, He will fill the void that our prior fall into Sin left within us. And He will be free to be our Vine, producing the Eternal Fruit that only He can produce…as we learn to serve as His willing, connected ‘disciple branches.’ God revealed this through Joseph and Moses and the prophets in former times. But now, He is here to FULFILL all of that through His living Word, Yeshua, the risen Messiah, and His faithful New Covenant, Last Days disciples:
John 15:1-11
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
Psalm 73:23-26
“Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your Counsel You will guide me, And afterward receive me to Glory. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Our ‘Marching Orders’ in Light of our Covenant Responsibility
The sixth Marching Order was this: “Take them further in their understanding of the depths of the New Covenant relationship they have with Me. Teach them what their part is to be.”
So what was an Israelite like Joseph to understand about his status and position in the world, as one of God’s Blood Covenant friends? Here are some considerations that are obviously required by the fact that God chose this family to be a ‘Light to the Gentiles.’ To be that Light to Gentiles who were trapped in demonic Darkness, they had to become one with God’s Light. God’s Light is His living and written Word. And although Joseph did not have the written Word to study and ponder, he was very closely bonded in a personal way with God’s living Word! His father, Jacob had introduced him to God’s Word. And thus, the Word, who later became flesh and revealed Himself to us as Yeshua, was with Joseph and his family. He taught them His ways and separated them from the Darkness and made them to be one with God…through their bonded relationship to His Word.
So the Torah is revealing Yeshua, and telling us that Joseph knew who He was. So Joseph continually identified with His Israelite Family, regardless of what they did to him. He remained faithful to the Covenant Bond he had with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So the Serpent couldn’t coax him to forget that and allow himself to be pulled into the Darkness by his own natural feelings of anger and revenge against his brothers or fear of his Egyptian masters, or the arousal of lust that would have enabled his Egyptian temptress to overwhelm him. Joseph faithfully held His God-given Blood Covenant ‘Ground.’ He remained true to his God-given identity, purpose and whatever destiny that might lead him into in the future. Thus we see what a true disciple is and does.
The Covenant brought Joseph into God’s Disciple ‘Army.’ Thereafter, he was always ‘in uniform,’ always ‘on duty,’ under the Command of God’s Word. Nothing the Serpent tried to do succeeded with Joseph. He held his position on the Rock of God’s Truth at all times. Centuries later, Moses wrote the Covenant Revelation and its requirements in the Torah. But Joseph already had a living Covenant knowledge and interaction with God’s Word. That was what the written Torah reveals to the rest of us. Like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob before him, Joseph came to know Yeshua and ‘followed Him’ before He arrived on Earth in human words and in the flesh! During those excruciating years in Egypt, God revealed His Word and what He was sent to do, in and through Joseph and the other True Israelites!
Now It’s Our Turn!
Now we are included in God’s New Covenant with Israel, by our Spirit-imparted union with our risen Messiah. In the past, He was ‘with Joseph.’ But now He abides WITHIN us! He is here, in our era, to fulfill the same Word-embodying commission that Joseph fulfilled in his era. Joseph’s testimony was regional. But now the Lord abides within us to complete His mission of Salvation on a global scale! We can be a world-wide Body and do all over the earth, what that one isolated Israelite, Joseph, did…when he was the only one of his kind in Egypt. Now many of us are being separated and sent to boot camp. And we are being trained to face and deal with much, much more sexual temptation than Joseph had to face! We must endure and survive through endless barrages of pornographic, self-adoring, pleasure-seeking ‘viruses’ that this hedonistic ‘Titanic’ of a world endlessly tries to slip into our innermost being. But we are equipped to persevere and overcome. Yeshua Himself, God’s living Truth, abides within us. Nothing can extinguish His Light in us, except for our own unbelief and disobedience.
If we marinate our hearts and minds in the Blood Covenant Love Bond with Almighty God that is truly ours, and absorb and become one with the ‘son of God’ identity, purpose and destiny that is ours in Messiah, then, like Joseph, we will remain faithful and true to God. Yeshua Himself will be the Faithfulness and Obedience and Love for God that works in us and transforms our existence. And our true Israelite identity and commission will, by the Power of God’s Holy Spirit, faithfully embody the electrifying Reality of Yeshua’s Perfect Fruit-producing Presence. Then, His Light will not only cover all of Egypt; it will light up the entire globe!
The humanistic world won’t repent simply because of our statements of faith, or because we have crafted carefully worded denominational theologies and observe man-made religious traditions. The world won’t turn to God because it sees that we possess imposing buildings and triumphalistic attitudes or slavishly adhere to religious rituals, formulas and man-made traditions and ‘movements.’ The world will not fall to its knees, convicted of its Sin, by any of the things we tried to do in the past and cling to in the status quo! The Fulfillment will only appear when we are truly one with our indwelling Lord who is Righteousness Personified! THEN…when the risen Yeshua truly is our Life and our Head, and we truly are His living members, the world will see us face and overcome the same temptations that are cutting down myriads of people around us and they will see that our advance into the demonic realms cannot be stopped or even slowed. And the world will know that, just as God was with Joseph, so the Perfect God-approved Human Being is here on Earth right now – in the Resurrection Glory that only He has – IN us! And He is here to give everything to all of His Creation. He’s not here to to steal anything, from any of us. He’s here to restore to us the true Eternal Blood Covenant identity, purpose and destiny that His Father always intended to be our eternal birthright and inheritance!