Beloved Family… a few nights ago, after I turned off the light on my bed, I received a download. I have a habit of sitting on the side of the bed in the dark, to commune with Father for a while before I lay down to sleep. And the download that came while I was doing that was unusually heavy, solemn, and sobering. Even now, I’m struggling to try to articulate it. And no doubt, you’ll find it hard to plough through, much less ponder it. But, sooner or later, we’ll all have to face and deal with the reality that lies at the heart of it.
I believe the Lord sent this for us because it concerns something that all Last Days disciples will really need to know. To persevere all the way to the end, we’ll have to be deeply rooted and joined to the Eternal Perfect Presence and All-Sufficient Trustworthiness of our Uncreated God. Only if we’ve been weaned of trusting in created things, and maintain close contact with the Holy Spirit, will we be able to persevere to the end. Those awesome final days will prove, once and for all, that only what is Eternal will be able to sustain us and see us through the horrendous events about which God has clearly warned us. So by then, we’ll have to have already forsaken the temporary created things that God will be doing away with by that time.
“This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt that is not inhabited.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, AND WHOSE TRUST IS (only) THE LORD! For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream, and does not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8 NASB, Amplification and emphasis added)
“Do not think that I came to bring shalom on the earth; I did not come to bring shalom, but a sword! For I have come to set ‘a man against his father, 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 isn’t worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than Me isn’t worthy of Me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow after Me isn’t worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it!” (Matthew 10:34-39 TLV, Emphasis added)
I’ll introduce the contents of this download by first drawing your attention to ‘The Wilderness’ events we read about in Scripture. There’s something about why the Lord leads His people into wilderness situations that is vital for us to realize and accept. It’s only when we’re surrounded by total desolate barrenness that God is finally able get our full attention. Only when there is absolutely no distraction, nothing to divert and entertain us… no rest stops… roadside diners… or amusement parks to capture our attention, can we coax the wilderness to give up its awesome secret that allows us to get in touch with stark, primeval, foundational REALITY! It happens when all we have left is our naked self, and the powers of Darkness, and the immanence of Death bearing down on us from all sides. Only in the face of that ‘death’ are we able to bore through the barrier of temporality and move beyond total desolation… into the Eternal Light of God’s Reality, Truth, and Faithfulness.
When our total vulnerability and helplessness become inescapably palpable, a reflex built into our heart of hearts forces us to cry out to God… and then God responds and begins to reveal His Majesty and Greatness against the backdrop of our abject helpless impotence. And that’s how He ‘weans’ and detoxifies us of our dependencies on whatever pertains to our poor fallen human flesh and its pathetic self-awarded place of exaltation and presumed preeminent importance.
“Cords of death entangled me. Torrents of Belial overwhelmed me. Cords of Sheol coiled around me. Snares of death came before me. In my distress I called on Adonai, and cried to my God for help.
“From His Temple He heard my voice, my cry before Him came into His ears. Then the earth rocked and quaked. The foundations of mountains trembled.” (Psalm 18:5-8 TLV)
When there’s no food, water, shelter, or relief from the blazing sun that pounds and scorches your entire being, you become disoriented and desperate. And that’s when you begin to notice and realize, for the first time, what your true identity really is. When there’s no possible created refuge or comfort to which you can cling… you finally hit rock bottom! And your former delusions of being ingenious, resourceful, and able to walk in self-sufficient radical independence, dry up and die.
“Then Adonai Elohim formed the man out of the dust from the ground and He breathed into his nostrils a breath of life—so the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7 TLV)
TWO VERY DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS
Only when we descend all the way to that primeval level of true helpless creaturely Reality, do we have the opportunity to break through the ‘membrane’ that divides our time and space dimension from the other eternal dimension about which most of us know next to nothing. Then we can break through to a living realization of the Almighty Living God and the Eternal Kingdom in which He abides!
The Lord, in His Mercy, uses this desolation to siphon out of us all the presumption that formerly caused us to believe that we can be radically independent from Him, and operate in arrogant self-assertive pride… and get away with it. Our self-adoring agendas, and lust for Self-exaltation, are then, mercifully, stripped away. And we can see and admit our true state of spiritual bankruptcy and nakedness before it’s too late! Only when we’re truly in touch with how desperate and in perpetual need of God’s sustaining Power we are, can we truly repent of our blind arrogance. And God’s Word gets our full attention; and can finally pierce, penetrate, and impregnate our innermost being with His Life-giving Presence, Peace, Rest and Freedom.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. Oh, that you were either cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spew you out of My mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich, I have made myself wealthy, and I need nothing.’ BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT YOU ARE MISERABLE AND PITIABLE AND POOR AND BLIND AND NAKED! I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white clothes so that you may dress yourself and so the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore, be zealous and repent!
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with Me. To the one who overcomes I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I myself overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Ruach (the Spirit of God) is saying to Messiah’s communities.” (Revelation 3:15-22 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
God’s Word gives this stern, heart-chilling warning to all of us who are inherently humanistic, worldly-minded, and self-adoring. The Lord strives to shake and wake us out of the satanically induced stupor that keeps us spiritually blind and imprisoned. He must awaken and draw us into a glaring realization of how Sin-loving our corrupt hearts of flesh actually are. Then we can enter into a state of heartfelt repentance that leads to faith-filled union with Him, and the eternal Homecoming of Salvation! This is the essential dynamic underlying the reason why God draws people into what Scripture calls, ‘The Wilderness.’
“Afterward, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “This is what Adonai, God of Israel, says: Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast for Me in the wilderness.”
“But Pharaoh said, “Who is Adonai, that I should listen to His voice and let Israel go? I do not know Adonai, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”
“They answered, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so we may sacrifice to Adonai our God, or else He may strike us with pestilence or with the sword!” (Exodus 5:1-3 TLV, Emphasis added)
So, Beloved, let’s go deeper in fathoming the meaning and purpose of that terrifying wilderness atmosphere, that stark solitude, and barren desolation that are so important and necessary for our spiritual wellbeing. Why does this play such a vital role in God’s story of Salvation? What does the wilderness do to our fallen flesh, that no other atmosphere or setting on Earth can impart? To move us toward more understanding, I’ll use two people groups as examples. I’m not picking on any special group or groups of people. These two are only examples that remind us of the Last Days reality that will envelop each and every nation, and people group, and individual. And, as I focus on what I’m trying to convey, the words, ‘wilderness’ and ‘holocaust’ keep coming to mind. They convey the reality of the absolute loss of everything we think we are, and possess, and have ever held dear. They convey the most profound depths of human devastation, disillusionment, desolate emptiness, and the total loss of earth-bound hope.
“So they rolled away the stone. Yeshua lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of this crowd standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.”
“And when He had said this, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” HE WHO HAD BEEN DEAD CAME OUT, wrapped in burial clothes binding his hands and feet, with a cloth over his face. And Yeshua tells them, “Cut him loose, and let him go!” (John 11:41-44 TLV, Emphasis added)
THE INEVITABLE CLASH WHEN IDENTITIES AND VALUES DO NOT LINE UP WITH REALITY AND TRUTH
So now let’s consider what was in that download: As the download progressed, I saw what happened to the Japanese people at the end of World War II, in comparison to the way it was during their earlier eras leading to the year 1945. Before that cutoff point, the people had acquired a unique, highly developed cultural sense of beauty, excellence, and sublime aesthetic sensitivity. They took great pride in their collective ethos, and mentality. And they considered themselves to be superior to the ‘barbarian peoples’ of the West, because of their personal cleanliness, cultural manners, and ethnic values. Over the centuries, these qualities gave the people a great sense of pride and invincibility and reverence for all that their nation represented.
This was especially true of the Samurai warrior class, which, throughout Japan’s strife-ridden history, was responsible for many truly remarkable exploits. They created an ethos of exceptional valor, and a tradition of excellence, artistic beauty, honor, and to-the-death loyalty that became a great source of pride and an especially valued national treasure. Over the centuries, the Samurai honed the art and science of constantly having to look Death in the face with utter fearlessness, devotion to duty, and sublime honor. The courage, nobility, serenity, and unshakable sense of resolve they developed as a result, took them to great mental and emotional levels of loyalty, and singleness of purpose that were seldom equaled in this world. And that, coupled with their religious traditions leading to emperor-worship, convinced the military class that Japan had a divinely appointed destiny of world supremacy and leadership. And they saw the fulfillment of that sublime destiny as their sacred obligation and duty to bring to full consummation.
Their deep inbred beliefs fed into that assumed national identity and purpose. And that, coupled with Japan’s current economic need to conquer other nations and exploit their natural resources, finally prompted them to overrun several other countries and even to dare to inflict an enormously destructive aerial bombardment upon the U.S. naval base located at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. And during the first two years of the ensuing war, their previous meticulous preparations, and warrior spirit, and singleness of purpose enabled the Japanese to make astoundingly rapid and far-reaching territorial conquests. So while the USA was struggling to try to make a hurried transition from peacetime to wartime status, Japan rapidly exploited the massive advantage their prior preparations and surprise attack afforded them.
But, finally, the United States, although reeling from the incessant blows that Japan and Germany kept raining down upon her, gradually regained her sense of balance, focus, and long-term purpose. She began to dig deep into her own reservoir of history, culture, and tradition. And doggedly mobilized, organized, and trained her military, industrial, and civilian warriors to fight back and do what it took to build up momentum, and resources, and to finally defeat the Nazis and wrest the initiative away from the Japanese.
After four years, the United States managed to retake most of the previously lost strategic locations throughout the South Pacific. And was now poised to close in on the Japanese mainland to launch a final invasion that had the potential of becoming a monumental, incredibly vicious, and supremely costly bloodbath. But although she had suffered great setbacks and losses, Japan’s Warrior spirit and culture burned as brightly as ever. And the people were fully determined to fight to the death, regardless of the cost. Their amazing deeply inbred belief in the truth and rightness of their assumed destiny, kept their hopes alive of ultimately overcoming and somehow conquering their enemies, and enjoying total ultimate victory.
So they fought on, and on, and on with dogged, fanatical determination, until that fateful day of August 6, 1945… when the ground upon which they had proudly stood for so many centuries, and the fighting spirit they had nurtured from generation to generation, were blasted out of existence in a matter of seconds. To avoid suffering the unspeakable losses on both sides that an invasion of Japan would have most certainly caused, the American president chose instead to unleash the nuclear age. And two atomic bombs, that America had frantically been striving to develop and perfect, were dropped, the first one on Hiroshima on August 6th, and the other on Nagasaki, three days later.
The ensuing horrific destruction of life and resources shocked and overwhelmed the nation of Japan and the entire world! And the mind-boggling scope of such never before experienced carnage, destruction, devastation, and nuclear fallout, instantly pulverized the ancient aura of invincibility upon which Japan’s Warrior class had always depended. There was nothing in the Samurai arsenal or bag of tricks that could even begin to counter such inconceivable, horrendous, overwhelming force! So, realizing there was no hope, the Emperor of Japan was forced to admit total defeat and swallow the ignominy of absolute unconditional surrender. This was Japan’s wilderness point. And the shocking Reality hit Japan squarely in the face and threw the people into a state of total shock, lack of comprehension… and helplessness.
A LOOK AT THE LAST DAYS TRIBULATION AND DESTRUCTION
As I said, I am only using this inexpressible horror and human suffering to provide a taste of what the Last Days Tribulation and Destruction that Scripture warns about will inflict on our entire planet! Then, what will befall us will not just involve the Japanese people. It will engulf all people, everywhere, all across the globe! It will usher in the end of this age, and the eventual end of the physical universe as we’ve always known it! The Scriptures have been warning about this for many centuries!
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to Life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14 TLV, Emphasis added)
“See to it that you do not refuse the One who is speaking! For if they did not escape when they refused the One who was warning them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject the One who warns us from Heaven. 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 heavens.” Now this phrase, “Yet once more,” shows the removal of those things that are shaken—THAT IS, CREATED THINGS—so that what cannot be shaken (the Uncreated Creator and His Eternal Realities) may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving (in exchange) a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude—through this we may offer worship in a manner pleasing to God, with reverence and awe. FOR OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE!” (Hebrews 12:25-29 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against their parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22 TLV, Emphasis added)
These texts (and several others) clearly warn that everything we know and have revered, desired, and aspired to, that is created, will unexpectedly disappear. And then all of Creation will receive the final defining Revelation that Almighty God intends to give of Himself at the very end of this age! And the people of Israel will be at the center of this cosmic firestorm that will usher in the total Death of Heaven and Earth as we know them now, and a mind-boggling Resurrection will then usher in the arrival of a New Heaven and a New Earth!
So I ask you to try to fathom the magnitude of what such a Transformation will do to our current sense of Reality, and all the ‘comfort zones’ and personal empires we’ve all so proudly constructed for ourselves up to this point! The shock, trauma, and utter devastation the people of Japan were forced to experience, endure and deal with can’t be comprehended by anyone that was not in their ‘shoes.’ The same holds true for the horrors that were inflicted on the Jewish people of that era that historians call ‘The Holocaust.’ How could we even begin to understand, comprehend, and empathize with what they suffered, if we were not personally present and able to see, hear and share in enduring the horrors and devastations that were inflicted upon them?
The rest of the world may hear, or read about, or see film footage that captured images of what happened and what humans had to experience between 1938 and 1945-46. But, Beloved, none of that can compare with the depth, magnitude and overpowering destruction, devastation, and desolation that our entire planet will undergo during the Last Days of human history, when this brutal, strife-ridden, Sin-corrupted, and demon-possessed age… finally reaches its end.
Sooner or later, those who will be part of the coming Last Days Drama, will experience the unspeakable, unprecedented, shocking, mind-numbing, heart-chilling Realities that will suddenly overtake the entire globe. It will be the Ultimate Wilderness Experience of all time! And no one will be able to accuse God of ‘blindsiding’ us. He has clearly been warning us for centuries! But hardly anyone has noticed or taken His Words to heart. We have always been too busy, ‘padding our own temporary nests’ and pursuing our homemade agendas and priority systems, and glorifying ourselves as we kept thinking, choosing, and doing… as we thought best. We’ve followed the religious dictates of the Self-adoring religion of Humanism, and deafened and blinded ourselves to the warnings. We were much too busy to notice God, because we were so absorbed with pleasing, glorifying, deifying, and comforting our flesh!
“For no one can lay any other foundation than what is already laid—which is Yeshua the Messiah (God’s Living Word made flesh). Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear. For the Day (of Reckoning) will show it, because it is to be revealed by Fire; and the Fire itself will test each one’s work—what sort it is.” (1 Corinthians 3:11-13 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
“Unless Adonai builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless Adonai watches over the city, the watchman stands guard in vain.
“In vain you rise up early and stay up late,eating the bread of toil—FOR HE PROVIDES FOR HIS BELOVED ONES EVEN IN THEIR SLEEP!” (Psalm 127:1-2 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Pay attention to Me, My people, give ear to Me, My nation. For Torah will go out from Me, My justice as a Light to the peoples. My Righteousness is near, My Salvation has gone out, and My Arms (My Living Word) will judge the nations. The coastlands will wait for Me—for My Arm they will wait expectantly.
“Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die like gnats, but My Salvation (Yeshua) will be forever, and My Righteousness never wane.
“Listen to Me, you who know justice, a people with My (Living) Torah in their heart: Do not fear the taunt of men, nor be dismayed at their insults. For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But My Righteousness will be forever and My Salvation (My Yeshua) for all generations!” (Isaiah 51:4-8 TLV, Emphasis added)
So now, Beloved I ask you to look at what the download showed me about what the Jewish people had to face and endure during the Holocaust inflicted by the Nazis. Before those horrors took place, both groups of people were extremely proud of, and in touch with, their genealogical and historical roots and traditions. Those earthly created roots gave them a deep sense of identification and sense of deep pride, connection, and identification with their ancestors and past history. And the Jews firmly believed that because they were God’s chosen people, they too were invincible and unstoppable.
But consider the after-effects the Holocaust had on many of its Jewish victims. Many were so deeply traumatized, devastated, and brutalized by what they had to endure, that they even lost all sense of their former connection with the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! They lost all ability to believe, trust and hope in Him ever again! As far as many of them (like Elie Wiesel for example) were concerned, God had proven Himself to be non-existent! So they began instead to rely on their own wits, opinions, and feelings, looking to humanistic excellence as their source of truth and future hope. They became secularized, and modernized. And would no longer abide any mention of God, or their Messiah, or the ancient uniqueness of Israel and her Divine Calling. They reached rock bottom… but they failed to remember and take to heart what God had promised to them:
“Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say: ‘Our bones are dried up; our hope is lost; we are cut off—by ourselves.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Behold, I will open your graves. I will bring you up out of your graves, My people. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. You will know that I am Adonai, when I have opened your graves and brought you up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Ruach in you and you will live. I will place you in your own land. Then you will know that I, Adonai, have spoken and that I have done it.” It is a declaration of Adonai.” (Ezekiel 37:11-14 TLV, Emphasis added)
Many Japanese survivors of the World War II horrors also suffered a total severance from their historical and traditional and ethnic root identification and belief and hope in ‘the Way of the Warrior.’ They experienced the failure and downfall of those who were fanatical believers and proponents of those ancient ways. And so, in their disillusionment, with no past traditions to trust in or take pride in, nothing that could take them into the future… they too became ‘modernized’ and ‘secularized’ and disconnected from their ancient Japanese, militaristic ethos, and former lifestyle and customs and traditions. All of that was suddenly engulfed and pulverized by the immense, ever-expanding, ever rising mushroom cloud of nuclear devastation that no ancient traditions or arts could have ever equipped or prepared the world to contend with! So many from both of these two groups became ‘rootless’ and were thus forced to try to look elsewhere for hope and fulfillment. They began to sink their personal roots into novel plots of humanistic, psychical, modernistic ‘ground.’ And so, the subsequent generations that emerged after those horrific wartime tragedies have a markedly different mentality and ethos from those of their pre-war forebearers. In other words, they were severed from their original, Sin-corrupted roots.
THIS IS THE TIME OF PREPARATION FOR ALL DISCIPLES
But at the very end of this age… when that total devastation of this world finally arrives, no one will have anything else to turn to. We will have no alternate, Sin-corrupted ‘Plan B’ into which to transplant our personal roots. Only God Himself and His Eternal Kingdom will remain. So grasp the enormity and awesome significance of this, Beloved… while you still have time to fathom what ‘being in the Wilderness’ actually means! The Wilderness is meant to sever us from our original Adamic roots, so that we can finally be restored to the image and likeness of the Last Adam, Yeshua our Messiah. He is the one by whom and for whom we were originally created!
“In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Thus says Adonai, behold, I am bringing disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, as in all the words of the scroll that the kings of Judah read. For they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, in order to provoke Me with all the work of their hands. Therefore My wrath has been kindled against this place and it will not be quenched.” (2 Kings 22:16-17 TLV, Emphasis added)
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! LOOK! YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT TO YOU DESOLATE! For I tell you, you will never see Me again until you say, ‘Baruch ha-ba b’shem Adonai, Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!’” (Matthew 23:37-39 TLV, Emphasis added)
So notice this: as far as the entire human race is concerned… the Creator of all things and all peoples has revealed through His Living and written Word, that the Final Events of the Last Days Era will be a cataclysmic, catastrophic Ending of each and every created thing to which we have clutched and that has become so familiar and ‘essential’ to us. We are going to lose every bit of whatever secular or religious thing we have idolized, Beloved! The Ultimate Holocaust of the Last Days will see to that!
But that doesn’t have to be the end of the Story for those who will hear God’s voice, and repent! For those who belong to the Lord, it will also be a Mind-boggling Beginning of something brand new! The destruction of the old will usher in a New Era of Resurrection that will usher in God’s Awesome, Mind-bending ETERNAL REPLACEMENT SOLUTION to our former brutal, tear-filled existence in this Self-adoring, Sin-corrupted, demon-possessed world! None of the new Realities God will supply at that time will originate in and from this fallen Sin-corrupted world! Everything will arrive, brand new and utterly Righteous and Pure from the dimension of God’s Eternal Heavenly Kingdom, from the hand of our Heavenly Father Himself! And we who belong to God will also be brand new creations!
Whatever came before this awesome Exchange takes place was only intended to last for a specified amount of time. Sin has corrupted and contaminated everything in the first stage of Creation! So all of that is destined to run its course, and end abruptly. And, in His Infinite Wisdom and Lovingkindness, our Creator, and Heavenly Father, has always intended to cleanse and purify every stain, and right every wrong, and straighten whatever was crooked and skewed, and replace whatever was missing with a completely Pure and Flawless, New Heaven… and New Earth!
“But don’t forget this one thing, loved ones, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some consider slowness. Rather, He is being patient toward you—not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance!
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will melt and disintegrate, and the earth and everything done on it shall be exposed. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what kind of people should you be?
“Live your lives in holiness and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God. In that day the heavens will be dissolved by fire, and the elements will melt in the intense heat. But in keeping with His promise, we look for New Heavens and a New Earth, where Righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:8-13 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Then I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
“I also saw the holy city—the New Jerusalem—coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband. I also heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is among men, and He shall tabernacle among them. They shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them and be their God. He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Nor shall there be mourning or crying or pain any longer, FOR (all of) THE FORMER THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY!”
“And the One seated upon the throne said, “BEHOLD I AM MAKING ALL THINGS NEW!” Then He said, “Write, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning, and the End. To the thirsty I will freely give from the Spring of the Water of Life. The one who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.” (Revelation 21:1-7 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Beloved, if the Jewish people throughout 1930’s and 40’s Europe, that were suddenly aroused in the middle of the night, hurried, and packed into box cars, and transported to the unspeakable horrors of the death camps into which they were herded like cattle, had realized what was going to happen to them before that terrible time actually arrived, don’t you think they would have taken steps to make sure they, and their loved ones, would not be caught up in that disaster? And the same is true for the Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What would they have done had they received ample warning that within the first two weeks of August 1945, their cities would be entirely incinerated and pulverized in a matter of seconds? Would they not have been sure to relocate in time to escape the horror of what was to come?
THE WARNINGS ARE THERE… DO WE SEE THEM? AND WILL WE HEED THEM?
And what about us? Look at all the warnings God has given and made available to everyone in this world through His written Word and His prophets and New Covenant emissaries! We have all been given access to all the information we will ever need! It hasn’t been hidden from us. It is freely available, without cost! But how many among us are taking it to heart and making the necessary adjustments to repent of our rebellious unbelief and defiance of God and His ways, and worldly mindlessness… so we can be ready to welcome our Lord and Messiah, the Lion of Judah, when He returns to require all of us to give an account for what we have been and done throughout our earthly lives? How many have prepared for that by having let go of our dependence on what is old… in order to be ready to embrace and move into what will come to us in exchange… from the hand of God?
“Now He was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the Kingdom of God was coming, and He answered them and said, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst!”
“And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look there,’ or, ‘Look here!’ Do not leave, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.
“But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man: people were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, and they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, and they were building; but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from Heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed!” (Luke 17:20-30, Emphasis added.)
So, Beloved, the Secret that is buried deep within the desolate, seemingly hopeless Wilderness… is this: No matter what part of the Wilderness you occupy, and no matter what dire need or danger or expediency you may be facing at the time, always remember this: It’s not over! This is not the end! Even though it appears as if you’ve run out of resources and hope, and even if your mortal body is about to be crushed and killed, that is still not the end! It’s not over. There’s more… MUCH, MUCH MORE! There’s another Parallel Reality… It’s called the Kingdom of Heaven… and from it comes the Resurrection Life that God’s Word is coming soon to share and impart to all of us who have repented and turned to Him for forgiveness and salvation!
That Kingdom will come into any heart that truly believes in and acknowledges that God’s Living Word made flesh is his or her true Lord, Master, Owner, and Shepherd! He is the King of that Kingdom, and God has made it possible for Him, through the Power of the Holy Spirit, to abide in and work through our yielded flesh! When the King of the Kingdom lives in us in this way, then we BECOME the Kingdom of God! And this is how we can, even now, break through the membrane that separates God’s dimension from ours, and occupy both dimensions simultaneously.
“Therefore, if you have been raised up with Messiah, keep seeking the things above—where Messiah is, sitting at the right hand of God. Focus your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in God. When Messiah, who is your Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him, in Glory!” (Colossians 3:1-4 TLV Emphasis added.)
God’s eternal spiritual dimension runs simultaneously parallel to the temporal physical dimension our bodies currently occupy. The New Life and Treasury of Resources we all desperately need can be ours even while we’re in the middle of the worst earthly wilderness imaginable! The Treasury is not in the desolation around you. God Himself is the Treasury! And His Fullness abides in our risen Lord, WHO IS HERE TO ABIDE WITHIN EACH ONE OF US!
So believe and press into Messiah Yeshua, and begin continually to draw everything you need from Him! What humans need so desperately does not come from any of the created things that surround them. None of that will last! No, what we were made for is an Eternal Person… the Person of the Living Word of the Living God, who is the Uncreated Creator and Sustainer of all things! He is here to dwell within you and make you entirely His own eternal possession… one with the Father, and His Word and His Holy Spirit for all of Eternity!
“Then Jacob left Beer-Sheba and went toward Haran. He happened upon a certain place and spent the night there, for the sun had set. So he took one of the stones from the place and put it by his head and lay down in that place. He dreamed: All of a sudden, there was a stairway set up on the earth and its top reaching to the heavens—and behold, angels of God going up and down on it! Surprisingly, Adonai was standing on top of it, and He said, “I am Adonai, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your Seed. Your Seed will be as the dust of the land, and you will burst forth to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed—and in your Seed. Behold, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done what I promised you!” (Genesis 28:10-15 TLV, Emphasis added)
What did God promise to Jacob in the middle of that wilderness… as well as to his yet unborn physical and spiritual descendants? He promised to be the most wonderful, all-capable, ever-faithful Blood Covenant Friend to Jacob that anyone could ever hope for! And miracle of miracles… His Seed, Messiah Yeshua Himself… is here to be exactly that for you and me as well!
“But now, thus says Adonai—the One who created you, O Jacob, the One who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, YOU ARE MINE!
When you pass through the waters, I WILL BE WITH YOU, or through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, nor will the flame burn you. For I am Adonai your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:1-3a TLV, Emphasis added)