KNOWING IN THE SILENCE

 KNOWING IN THE SILENCE - AUDIO

As you know, Father has asked me to go on a fast.  Normally I would not tell anyone when I go on a fast, but when it is for so long and with no communication with the outside, it is best to let people know you did not vanish off the earth. Unlike the normal fasting of food, the “food” I was required to fast from has been from words.  No communication.  

Originally when He showed me that He wanted me to fast with communication, I thought that it only meant that I was to fast from speaking to others.  However, He showed me later that it was more than that.  It was no communication between the Lord and I as well!  This seems contrary to His words to the enemy that man shall not live from bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God - that living relationship where the Spirit daily speaks to you in all things. The mere thought truly overwhelmed me!   Not speaking to my Lord for 40 days... crazy, I know.  That took me to a serious level of, “What?  I would rather fast from literal food for 40 days than from not speaking to Him!” That’s it.  No ifs or buts about it.  Just total shutdown.  

The reason for the silence, not only between Him and I, but as well with others, was vital for what He was about to teach me.  When I finally found the nerve to contemplate this, His wisdom as usual just amazed me.  You see, I have grown very sufficient in my spirituality.  I am not talking about a religious spirit.  Rather, these gifts and talents and even all that I have become have been for His glory and honor.  They are part of who I am, but not who I am.  Like clothes.  You dress a certain way and that is in some degree part of your personality or character.  Only part, not the whole.  But remove that, and you are left naked.  He was not showing me that my spirituality was wrong or religious, He was drawing me to a greater death in Him.  Which was a greater dependence on Him.  Think about Jesus.  Everything about Him was both human and spiritual when He walked this earth.  At the cross He was stripped from everything and left naked.  And His disciples were scattered with only a few that stood at the cross.  They were heartbroken, because they thought that He would be the One to save them from this cruel world.  A more pathetic and broken person on a cross you cannot imagine!  Quite the opposite of how they imagined His victory.  The Lion of Judah reduced to a slain lamb and dying. 

The wisdom of Father in this silence was that He was teaching me not to depend on what I have learned through all the years.  That though what I have learned through the years were right, there was in fact something that I needed to understand about them.  You may recall a word He gave me a while ago in which He asked me whether I am willing that He strips me of everything, especially the spiritual, to stand before Him alone.   He was teaching me to walk by faith, but in a whole new way.  This all was at the heart of the fast of silence.  He told me in my previous 40 day fast last year that in order for me to hear His voice, I have to silence all other voices.  And in order for Him to speak through me I have to silence my voice.  And as you know He has been talking about sackcloth and ashes, because He needed to reduce me to ashes…to nothing, so that He could speak and I would hear.  Ashes do not speak.

Isaiah 50: 3 – 6

³ I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

⁴ The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as the learned.

⁵ The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

⁶ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Just before the fast He said, “Be still and know that I am God” – Ps. 46.10.  He was teaching me to be still, but not just physically still, but still in my very being.  For that, everything else had to become still itself.  My doing, and my being.  BE still.  I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was in the beginning.  Waking up every morning for me is to greet Him with a smile and say, “Good morning Lord!” No good mornings.  Or just thanking Him for the good meal I was about to eat.  Not to mention the way I just speak to Him right through my day.  He is my best friend.  Or when I saw a need, wanting to pray for someone.  Or my daughter with tears in her eyes about the next “major” outfall with her best friend, knowing that she needs my prayers.  Not to mention when she goes into her panic attacks.  Or when I discover something amazing that I just want to lift up my hands and worship Him, but “no can do”.  So in intimate and stressfull times, I was to be silent.  He is my morning, noon and night and everything in between.  

At the end of the first week, someone contacted me wanting to know if I was available and willing to do something that is time sensitive.  They needed an answer, and my answer was, “I will have to pray about this first”.  Well, there was no praying.  This was what you would call a “catch 22” situation where I had no real way of knowing what to do.  But is was also the very provision of me understanding to what He is calling me to in this fast.  I needed to know whether it was His will that I should do this, but most importantly I needed to know whether this would derail that which He has done in me thus far in the fast, being very jealous for Him to have His way with me.  How was I going to get the answer I so desperately needed and so quickly?   Somehow I knew that He was not going to talk to me.  He made that clear.  He was not going to give me something palpable and factual and undeniable.  And yet I had to come up with an answer. 

I decided to listen to a sermon of one of my mentors, Art Katz called Hearing God’s Voice.  I have listened to it many times before, but somehow found myself drawn to listen again.  He started out with the following words that arrested my attention immediately.  In fact, this devotional is birthed out of the first 5 minutes of that sermon, because Father was speaking directly to me through this wonderful man.

He said, “What was profound of Jesus was His silence in His thinking", quoting P T Forsyth.  He said the reason we do not hear, is because of our lack of simplicity, our own agitation, fears and insecurities.”  Well, that brought me right back to the sleepless night I had before with regard to the answer I needed to give.  He said that our noise is the opposite of simplicity.  You will remember that I spoke in my previous devotionals of three words, SIMPLICITY, SOLITUDE and SILENCE.  I mentioned that these three are intertwined and influence one another.  So in this one sentence, Art Katz used the words simplicity and silence and I knew I was on the right track.

This reminded me of the scripture of Isaiah 50 where He says that He gives me the tongue of the learned and morning by morning He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.  I knew in that instance that this fast was about learning to hear from God.  Now, I have learned to hear from Him through the years, but this was something new.  Art further says, “Any demands from me, even subconsciously, impedes in my hearing the way I should.  That which I have already presupposed or logically thought out, that which constitute fear or even a sense of duty, impedes on my ability to hear from Him as I should.  These are the noise that He was addressing and therefore the need for silence and solitude in simplicity.  These noises dismiss the still small voice of God. 

And that is just it.  He was teaching me how to listen to His still small voice.  It is still.  Now, most of us see this as a whisper.  That still is the Strong’s word H1826, which means:

to be silent, be still, wait, be dumb, grow dumb

How do you hear that?  This is what He was teaching me in saying to me “Be still and know that I am God”. This still is another type of still that is required of me.  It is the number H7503 in the Strong’s Concordance and it means:

to sink, relax, sink down, let drop, be disheartened

This is where the part of the fast comes in.  To get myself in sackcloth and ashes.  To sink low and down and see myself as the nothing I am.  Because let’s face it…what are we without Him and everything He has given us?  He was not asking me to just stop doing things, but stop in my being.  To put on sackcloth and see myself as I truly am and that He required of me to stop doing all the wonderful things I have been doing for Him so that I once again I can be stripped bare before Him in order to hear Him speak.  Because unless I am “still” the way He intended, how will I know?  Still and know goes together.  You cannot have the one without the other, not in the degree He intends for us.  This stillness is an essential condition in the absence of any determination from my part for anything.  In other words, my will must be given over to Him even at great cost, even if it means rejection by those I love.  The absence of self-awareness, or self-preservation.  No agenda of my own, completely free from my ends. 

This made me think of Lazarus and how he was completely shut up in the grave, with no hope, dead to all, until He heard the Lord say His name.  Can you believe that this is the extent that He is willing to go with you should you want to hear the still small voice of God?  That there is a death needed for you to have the ear of the learned? 

P. T. Forsyth, one of my favorite writers of the early 1900’s said the following of Jesus in the emptying of Himself referring to Philippians 2. 

“Jesus was silent in the agony of knowing only the Father’s will and not even the Father’s way.  His self-emptying meant self-limitation and the limitation of knowledge.”

In other words, not a clear directive.  Similar to what He said to Abraham in following Him and THEN He will show him the land.  “Leave everything, and follow Me”.  Not because you know the Bible or doctrine so well, but out of a lifetime of obediences, that causes you to know the will of the Father in a given situation.  Without having to hear His voice in a situation that demands that you have to have the answer and clear directives.  Jesus emptied Himself not only of knowing, but the principle of knowing.  Why is this important for us to know?  Because to be still, means to empty yourself of all your preconceived ideas of how God should speak to you and when, even your past experiences.  To forgo the “right” in this relationship that He should and must speak to you as He has done thus far, and to trust Him.  This was exactly what I needed to do when I got up and were not allowed to just say “Good morning Father”.  I had to know that He knows that I love Him and that He knows that He is the first thing on my mind.  When my daughter needed prayer, I had to know in that moment that prayer was not to be given, but trust to be had, that He loves her and will look after her, even if I did not ask a single thing.  I had to know that He knows and trust that He will do what needs to be done.  I had to do this every day and I am still doing it. It has been both scary and liberating to say the least. 

And this is also what lies so close to the essence of self.  Self, the “I” wants to know.  Eve wanted to know what the fruit of that tree tasted like.  We like to be in control.  We want to know what is expected of us, when and how.  We want to know what our odds are, our future and what others think.  We want to know that we know and therefore all the boxes are checked and nothing can go wrong. Because we made sure we did that we knew what to do.  We want the security of knowing.  This is our safeguard against disappointment, even disappointment towards God.  And so, if we can say, “God has said”, who then can argue that we acted in obedience, because He has spoken.  But what if He is silent and He requires of us to act?  What will you then say to others when they require of you a reason for your actions?  We want hard facts, or at least something close enough for ourselves and others.  We want to know. Only He can bring you to this place of hearing.  And it will be through the cross.  The cross is at the heart of hearing, at the cost of silencing all the noise.  But, in knowledge do we trust.  In knowing the outcome, even if it is just a fair guess.  

The tree of the knowledge of Good and evil is something that has puzzled me.  We know it was not an actual fruit.  I like fruit, but I do not desire it.  The part that came to my mind was the fact that in this act, their eyes would open and they would know the difference between good and evil.  Well, I don’t know about you, but isn’t that a good thing?  Why would Father want to protect them from this knowledge?  My suspicion is that it had to do with the “seed” of independence that was sown in that moment into their hearts.  For this independence is nothing short of rebellion and witchcraft that cries out against God that I will trust in my own understanding and knowledge.  I will in fact not need Him to make it through life.  I myself know now and therefore nothing will be impossible for me.  I will be my own god.  Who needs God when you can be god?  Well, you may think that this does not apply to you, but I submit to you that the word says clearly that the flesh, that animal nature in you that exists without God, is in enmity with the Spirit.  This seed of independence knows how to grow and form deep roots into our being and from birth it grows within us producing the self-same fruit they saw in the garden.  In fact, your heart is the garden.  And this is the reason He came.  To lay the ax to the root of the tree – Luke 3: 9. 

This is why Paul said, “I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”.  Let us consider Paul.  A man with his credentials has all his proverbial ducks in a row.  All his files in alphabetical order, knowing what is required according to the law and experience.  But he says he is determined not to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Which is to say that he is determined to “To walk by faith”.  He had to restrain from leaning on his own knowledge, for at the heart of self and the depravity and sinfulness of sin, lies the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The ability to make decisions from out of yourself, your own self-dependency, which is self-idolatry.  God wants us to have no confidence in the flesh.  He wants to deal with all our categories, especially our spiritual categories, because “self” hides in the spiritual.  He has to show us our dependency on self.  

His desire is to lay the ax to the root, so that we no longer live by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but from the Tree of Life.  From that incorruptible seed of life of the Word of God, not living by our life, the self, but by His life. 

“The need to know has to be crucified.  There has to be a willingness to proceed with the absence of knowing.  Trust without knowing is at the heart of the moral personality.” – Art Katz

We do not sufficiently understand the depths of our desire to know.  We do not see how it is rooted in that horrible tree called self.  Self wants to know what the fruit tastes like.  The will to know is what drives the rebellion to not relinquish control in God’s hands.  And Jesus gave up that will to know by emptying himself and that in itself was His provision to walk by  great faith.  At the heart of it, we want to be in control.  And “self” desires to rule no matter the cost, even if it is through religious means.  There it will hide and from there it will rule, looking moral and ever so poised, but still in control.  This is why all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags, because “self”, the very heart of hell, resides in the fiber of those rags. 

I am not advocating that we should all throw caution to the wind and not ask Father for confirmations or scriptural ‘back up” in our decision making.  With all things in the spirit there are degrees.  What I am saying is that we are all at different levels in the spirit, but that this is the place He desires to bring us all to.  A place of knowing.  Whilst we still need to be told, we are still maturing in our hearing, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But matured sons know.  Not by hearing, but by being silent, by being still so that you may hear the still small voice and therefore have the ear of the learned.

And maybe this is part of being a eunuch for God, being cut off from that which are your crutches, even the voice of God.  We, as children of God, live by what we hear from Him.  How would you like that mode of being, that life support to be cut off?  We live by voices, whether it be our own, the enemy’s, the Lord’s or other people.  We live by these voices.  And too many voices drown out the still small voice of God.  The reality is that once we become silent, His still small voice will be heard, but not in the way we have always known.  It will not be mixed with all the other voices.  It will not have the clutter of other voices, even our own, because we have been cut off.  So that like little Samuel we may hear him call us, when we rest.  From out of this rest, the stillness of the voices and a life of obedience comes a walking in knowing.  This is the true rest of God.  This faith that works not by the hearing, but by the knowing.  That like Jesus we can say, “I only say what the Father tells me to say, and the works I do, He does through me”.  And how can we fully obey if we do not first let go and crucify the need to know, the reliance on our own understanding. Especially our spiritual understanding.

Trusting the Father with all your heart lies at the very nexus of walking by faith, which is a knowing in silence.  Knowing Him who knows.  A confidence and a trust that does not require a knowing of what needs to be done or the outcome of our obedience.  Not just for a moment in time, but a moment by moment way of life.  This is the faith He is calling us to and also working in us.  This faith is childlike faith, because at the heart of it is trust. 

John 16: 13 - 16 

13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.

There are times when He has to "go away from us" as we have come to know Him, so that He may reveal Himself to us afresh.  These are the times when He does not speak, but shows us by His Spirit.  Silence is a gift of immeasurable value, and the gift is Him.

For those who are going through this season, or who will one day go through this season, I would like to leave with you a word that He gave me 5 months ago, in which I now see and experience the fulfillment.  May you be richly blessed by learning to walk in the "knowing of silence".

Word received 18th September 2020

My child, you are in a new season.  This season will require of you to trust me inextricably without boundaries.  More than ever to be as a child.  To not doubt, but always believe.  Do not concern yourself with this world, but as I have said, 'Look unto Me".  Stay focused, stay committed to the way I have chosen for you.  You may not understand, and this is good.  For I do not desire for you to understand, but to trust.  Trust and obey.

I have said that I will guide you with My eye upon you.  Not with My mouth, not with reasoning, but with My eye.  Though you may not understand, you may know this.  I love you.  I know you love Me.  Never doubt these two facts.  For love is the fulfillment of the law.  Draw near to Me, stay near to Me.  Not by doing, but by a disposition of love.  For love conquers all.  Love endures all, hopes all and believes all.  So come and do not fear.  I am always with you.

There will be times where you will feel that you can no longer endure, but as I said, "Love endures all".  Nothing more is required but love.  Not your love, but Mine.  I will pour out My love into your heart at the right time.  Will it be as you expect?  No.  For you cannot put Me into a box.  Faith has no limits, neither does love.  So come, come in the ensurance that I will never leave you and remain in the posture of hope, faith and love, of which the greatest is love.  

Hope does not disappoint, faith has no boundaries and love endures forever.

I am your rewared.  Not a crown, not souls, nor anything else.  I am.  Have I not said that I am able to do super abundantly above all that you could ask or think?  Know then that I am your all in all.  That I fill all and so I will fill you.  This is your reward.  I AM your reward. 

I love you My child, I love you. 

PLEASE READ:

Psalm 32

Proverbs 3: 5 – 8

Isaiah 50: 3 – 11

Jeremiah 17: 5 – 10

LAZARUS

 

LAZARUS

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The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

The last few posts that I have posted all lead to this one post.  It stands to reason that this post is important.  As with all the other posts, nothing I write is just for the purpose of writing, but it is two-fold.  The first is that it is an outworking of what He is doing in me.  For me it is not just words, but a reality.  The second is for the edification and exhortation of the Bride.  Those who are consciously choosing to die to self on a daily basis.  From all these posts there is a continues theme of resurrection life from out of death. 

My last post was about crying out.  It was about judgment on the virgin of Babylon referring to Isaiah 47.  First He calls her virgin, referring to her purity as His Bride, but then calls her daughter of the Chaldeans.  She goes from virgin to daughter.  The process is of removing her veil and her trail when you search out the meanings in the Strong’s Concordance.  The message is clear…Sit down in sackcloth and dust.  This dust is the word ashes.  She is to exchange her beautiful wedding dress and veil for sackcloth and she is to sit in dust, or ashes.  She is to lament and repent of her sins and wickedness.  My suggestion is that you return to the word Father gave me that I recorded on the audio, called PUT ON SACKLOTH.  It is a sobering word for the USA, but first and foremost for the Bride.  I mentioned previously in my post “Enough is Enough”, that judgment begins at the house of God.  I am concerned about how many are truly recognizing their hour of judgment as the virgin of Babylon, thinking that this is only for the wicked and not the Bride.  Indeed His judgement now is a mercy extended to us.  Would you rather have it now or later? There are two verses that I would like to draw your attention to in Isaiah 47 that will form part of this post’s subject.  

Isaiah 47: 7 - 8

⁷ And thou said, I shall be a lady forever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

⁸ Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwells carelessly, that says in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

The “Sackcloth and Ashes” post flows from the previous post called No Jordan, No Jericho.  And in the understanding of the essence of the Jordan, which is to enter into His death, one can understand why the post following it is a call to sackcloth and ashes.  But what does this constitute?  How is this Jordan theoretically and practically different from the Red Sea and wilderness experience?  These are questions we need to ask, because the correct doctrine does not make it a reality, but only that which is birthed in you through the process of death.  So in essence, what does this death look like in the Jordan?  What does this sackcloth and ashes mean practically? 

In Isaiah 47 He is requiring the removal of the Bridal veil.  This removal of a veil is the very veil that Paul speaks of that needs to be removed for us to gain understanding, or revelation (2 Corinthians 3: 16).  The revelation of our true state.  So whilst the Bride has the attitude of being virginal and that she will be a lady forever, His purpose is to remove this deception and show her the truth of her real disposition.  Only the truth sets us free.  Not doctrinal truth, but reality.  He has to remove the veil for us to see, to discern.  This in affect means that she is to be made naked and be exposed so that the only garment fit for her would be that of sackcloth.  This Bride who has gone through the wilderness has learned how to bear her cross and has died numerous deaths along the way.  She has died to her desires to attain things in life.  She has died to family and friends and fortunes.  She has died to this world.  Indeed her Bridal gown is embroidered with precious pearls and gold and she is a beauty to behold.  Her Bridegroom does delight in her and He loves her beyond measure.  And yet it is to her that He is speaking and pronouncing a judgment over.   Why is she, who once were His precious jewel become one that is hunted?  One whom He desires to destroy?

When I realized that this is the process He is taking me through I asked Him, “Lord, your coming is so soon.  I have prepared my bridal gown.  I have set all things in place and my desire is for only you.  Yet now you come as one who slays, as the Lion of Judah, the High Priest of my faith, desiring to slay me on the altar as a lamb?  Do you not desire that I shall come before you as your beautiful Bride, but instead as a lamb slaughtered, bloodied and torn?  Why do you want to devour me?”  His reply to me was that He who stands before the Father, is as One slain before the foundation of this world.  The only One worthy to open the seals.  That as His Bridal Company we too are to be slain, not by this world, but by the judgment of God.  The Lover has become the Lion and the Bride the lamb.  There will be no place to hide.  How will He do this?  He has to lift the veil, especially the beautiful spiritual veil that she has draped over her eyes.    

I spoke about this veil in my post called The Rented Heart of God, in which I explained that although the veil has been rented that separates us from the Holy of Holies, that there was another veil that needs renting, which is the renting of the veil of our own hearts.  When you look at the structure of the tabernacle, it has an outer and inner court, and then the Holy of Holies.  The entrance to the outer court is the rebirth, the washing with water.  The entering into the inner court is the wilderness experience, also entered through a veil.  But the last veil is the one before the Holy of Holies.  In there no flesh can dwell.  In there one finds the Ark of the Covenant and the only light is the glory of God.  In the wilderness you are circumcised, still able to do works within the inner court that constitute priesthood.  But in the Holy of Holies one is cut off like the Eunuchs and have to first stand within the Jordan, in order to enter into Canaan, which is into the rest of God where you seize from your own works.  You enter to abide and to live from this place by faith (Hebrews 3 – 4).  To have your being from out of death.  The veil has to be rented and removed.  He has to show her who she is.

If what He shows me of who I really am, the “I”, and the lifting of the veil only discomforts me, only breaks my heart and disgusts me.  If I don’t really see with eyes that see reality, the eyes that see the enmity against God that is “I”, that hates Him, then what will happen from out of this seeing will not be eternal.  It will discomfort me, sadden me, but it will not devastate me.  It will not leave me as dead, but after some time, “I” will pull myself up and think that He has raised me and I will go on, slightly changed, but not from death unto life. 

Once the veil is ripped off, it stays off and I have to then look at the horror that is “I” and hate my life.  Hate the “I” with a pure hatred as it is the very essence of that which crucified my Savior.  That veil can never be put back on again.  I have to stay on that cross, receive the just deserved smiting, the pulling of the beard, the spitting of the face and die on that cross.  And after that I have to wait.  Wait in the grave for four days.  The reason why Lazarus was dead for four days before Jesus came to resurrect Him was because the belief was that after three days, the soul was still able to return to the body.  And so the waiting is for four days until there is no more hope.  No hope for me to raise myself up as I have done all along.  And once I have reached that point of hopelessness and start to rot and stink, I wait more.  Until I hear the voice of the Resurrection and the Life call my name…”Come forth!”

 As long as there is self-consciousness, self-pity, self-awareness, self-consideration, I have not yet died, no matter what I profess.  Self-consciousness is still self, even if it is a spiritual self-consciousness.  Self will still be embedded within the fiber of our spirituality and we will forfeit the glory of God, which is His resurrection life. 

Art Katz says, “The glory of God is a merciful provision of God to lift us up to a higher plane of being and consideration.” 

But instead we operate from our self-dependence and spiritual efficiency and do what we need to do from out of our own wisdom and call it God’s wisdom.  All the while it may be godly and spiritual, but lacks the essence of God, which is His glory.  And it is not that He does not use us.  The reality is that what the Israelites experienced in the wilderness was miraculous and spoke of the love of God for a rebellious people for whom He died.  But Canaan speaks of a rest that comes from a death where Jericho fall because man has not lifted one finger!  Entering into death is all about the glory of God.  The glory of God was Paul’s foremost consideration and because he knew that requirement, he could exclaim, “Who is sufficient for these things!”  Unless He brings us to this death, this ultimate devastation, self will be in our doing and subconsciously take God’s glory.  The real question is, are you willing to go that far?  To that kind of death and devastation, to ashes?  I ask myself, am I writing this post in my strength or His?  In my power or His?  For my glory or His?  In my wisdom or His wisdom?  The issue is not whether it is true, but out of what life it springs forth?  Out of the essence which constitute “I” or out of the resurrection life?  Because only that which comes from death constitute resurrection life.  This is why He includes that if we are to be His disciples, we are to hate our own life.

 

Luke 14:26

²⁶ If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Some look at this as a mere sense of what we have in life or have achieved.  Our gifts, talents and friends and loved ones.  The reality is that He is speaking of that which constitute your very being.  That seed that has entwined itself around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we still cling to.  That lurks in the branches of our minds saying, “Have God really said that you would die?  Surely you shall not die.”  But die you must and not just that which constitute life around you, but the very life in you which is that vile serpent’s seed that is in enmity with God.  That life, that “I”, the seat of pride in you has to die and be brought to ashes.  If you think for one moment you can do this from out of your own wisdom and spiritual understanding you are still thinking from out of the context of what you can do.  For those who carry their cross cannot crucify themselves on the cross, but unto another it is given to do.  By the hands of the soldiers, those who pierce your hands and side.  Those who smite your back, pull your beard and strips you naked, heaving for just one breath, until you cry in authenticity, “Father, into Thine hands I commit my spirit!” 

It is only He that can bring us to that death.  Very few go all the way and die on their cross.  They deny friends, family, fortune and all that they have done, but they do not hate their life.  And the reality is that the last resort of that life, that “I” is to hide behind the priestly garments of saints, having died a thousand deaths, but yet still alive.  There yet remains hope of resurrection.  There yet remains hope for a future, even a spiritual future of great exploits. 

But Lazarus died.  The friend of God died and after four days in the grave he began to stink and there was no Jesus. This is the very example of righteous Job.  And as with Job and Lazarus, the cry will come out from those believers around you crying, “Where is God?  What have you done?”  They will look on you as dried up branches, eunuchs cut off and no longer producing seed and only see death.  They will say, “Lord, he stinks!”  And this will not only be from a perception of no more life as you know it, but no more spiritual life.  All has died, even the spiritual in all its categories.  This is the God who devastates of which righteous Job testifies.  God is an ultimate God and He will not share His glory with any man.  He is the same God of Job who does not change.  The same God who waited until there was no hope for Lazarus.  It is a mercy and a grace to be brought to this place, and it is the glory of God to be resurrected.

Art Katz also says, “For us then the issue of resurrection is more than a correct doctrine, but the source of our being.” 

Galatians 2:20

²⁰ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The moment you think this to be works, you still do not get it.  Who can raise you from death unto life, save Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life!  This is not something your life circumstances bring you to.  The wilderness experiences and the cross you bear there are your identification with His suffering, through your own suffering.  But you enter into the Jordan by choice so that you may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death (Phil. 3: 10).  In the one you walk with Him, in the other you die in Him.  And only He can bring you to the brink of this Jordan. 

Jesus said, “No man has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends.  You are My friends.” (John 15)  Lazarus was Jesus’ friend.  And John the Baptist was known as the friend of the Bridegroom.  And in this death there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, even if He does not make one move to save you, but waits for four days, that He may raise you up. 

If you desire this death above all else, you will have to lay that life that lives in you, that constitute the “I” in you, down.  At the right time as you end your wilderness journey, He will bring you to the Jordan and baptize you in His death.  You will not be able to do one single thing to raise yourself up, because there will be no more “I”.  Like Paul, you will be able to authentically say, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”.  You will have your being from out of Him.  You will be able to say, “Oh death, where is thy sting?” for you would have gone over from death unto life. 

After everything that Job went through, we hear him saying the following in chapter 42:

Job 42: 2 - 6

¹Then Job answered the Lord, and said

 ²I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withhold from thee.

³ Who is he that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

⁴ Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

⁵ I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye sees thee.

⁶ Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Job was restored with twice as much as what he had and was taken from him.  But it was not until he came to this place of abhorring himself and not only his ears opened, but his eyes opened that he could repent in dust and ashes.  It took total devastation for Job to see himself and God as He truly is and therefore he could not but cry out that he abhors himself and repents in dust and ashes.

I am not sure how to end a post like this.  It is such an ultimate place He takes us to, to be completely devastated.  It is indeed the fulfillment of the word He gave me…”Will you stand before me alone, which you can read in the post No Jordan, No Jericho.  May the God who devastates so that He may receive the glory, receive all the glory not only through this post, but through my life.  All I can say is that until we know Him as this, our fear of God will be limited to what we have experienced till we stand in the Jordan.  Only then will we know Him as He truly is. 

I am adding to this post a link to a 16^th Century writer called Joseph Salmon.  This writing is called “The Anti-Christ in Man - The Whore of Babylon”.  You will remember that I wrote that we need to face the Haman within before we face the Haman without in this world that seeks to destroy and kill God's children.  It is a brutal truth of the true state of the “I” in us and I have not come to any writing in all my reading quite like this.  Hasten through it, and you will do it at your own peril, for I believe this is a provision given for those who wish to enter in.  I do not share these pearls lightly and therefore it should not be read lightly.  The truth is that she starts in Isaiah 47 as a virgin bride, but He exposes her as the whore of Babylon that she is.  The devestation is in part in the realization of who she is, and then the fact that He loves her knowing this.  This love causes her to give her life to Him.  May He devastate us to the core so that He may raise us up. Amen.

The Anti-Christ in Man - The Whore of Babylon

Please Read:

Romans 8

Isaiah 47

Isaiah 50: 3 - 11

 

CRY OUT!

CRY OUT! - AUDIO

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The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

CRY OUT!

(Please note that this word was unedited.  I spoke from my heart, that which He burdened me with.)

I have woken up this morning disheartened realizing that so many words of prophecy go out and that we as a people of God has heard so many prophecies.  And so many of them have not come true and we have lost utter respect for prophets whether they are true or false. The point is that in general the connectation to prophets in these days is that of, "Well, let the chips fall where they may and we will see." 

The fear of God is no longer a crucial element in listening to the prophetic word.  Rather it is kind of like opening a fridge and deciding which meal would you like, because there is just so much to choose from.  And so we become overfed with prophecies and we become used to them and the Word of God, the spoken word of God and the written Word of God, falls to the ground and it dies there. And it is interesting, as per usual, Father always talks to me in my day to day life.  I was having a discussion with my daughter yesterday about how Father looks at how we look upon and treat authority in general.  And how we treat those who are in authority over us, whether it be your boss, whether it be your husband, father or mother.  How we treat them is an indication of how we treat Him.  And sometimes it is an indication, often it is in stark contrast to Him, because it disqualifies us before Him.  Because He says, how can you say you hate your brother that you can see, and at the same time say that you love Me whom you cannot see?  He also says that, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength.  And the second commandment is as the first.  You must love your neighbor as yourself."  What He is saying is that the two goes hand in hand.  

Now what I want to do, is to bring the two, the written word and the spoken word of God, parallel next to each other and our attitude in general, with regard to the written word of God and the spoken word of God.  I realized that when I spoke to my daughter yesterday about authority, I explained to her the importance of listening.  That in the small things that she was disobeying me with regard to her routines, her little chores that she has to do, the fact the we as parents often have to tell our children over and over the same thing to do, which is so easy for us to see as just a teenaged thing or a child thing.  It is interesting that her neck was sore yesterday.  This reminded me this morning when I thought about the word that I gave yesterday about the sackloth, it reminded me of Israel, that God said they are stiffnecked, which means they hardened their will.  

I have realized that there are many people out there that harden their will, they harden their neck, they refuse to submit and humble themselves to either the written word of God or the spoken word of God.  Because as many as there are different prophecies, in the same way there are so many different teachings.  And we have become fat and obese in the spirit.  And it is an assembly line.  We get to choose who we want to listen to, how we want to listen and if we want to listen.  We take our word from the Lord, whether written or spoken and we decide whether we like staik, or veggies or potatoe chips and whatever it may be. And that which we are not particularly interested in, we just push to the side.  Well, it just does not work that way.  It just does not work that way that we get to choose what we will receive from God.  

When I spoke to Father this morning about it, we know that the Word says that in the last days people will only listen to that which tickles their ears. That which affirms them, that which is exciting, even if it is bad news, that which builds them up.  But to be reprimanded, to be told that your obedience will cost you something, well, they have the attitude of, "We will see, that is not necessarily what God is telling me." There is just a general lack of the fear of God.  So when I spoke to Father about this, this morning, being dispondent, realizing that the words that He gives me, I cannot take responsibility for how other people listen to it.  I can only take responsibility for how I listen to it.  Whether I am obedient, whether my neck is stiff or not.  Whether I look flippantly at a word given, whether by me or somebody else.  

Even His written Word.  I can only take responsibility for me.  I had to repent before Him this morning saying, " Father, I don't think that I can on both my hands count, because I do not have enough fingers, how many times I have listened to a word spoken by a prophet, somebody I consider as truly prophetic in character, not just in words, but in character, not just giving out words, but a person living the truth, living the message, who is the message.  I cannot count how many times I have listened to it, acknowleged it and thought it was good, realized it was for me and just moved on to the next message.  I cannot remember how many times I just simply did not wait on You and obey."  

And so this morning I feel compelled to leave this message to say that in this day and age that we find ourselves in, it is incumbent on us to search out the true words of God and to wait on Him and to ask Him to sift us. To ask Him to show us our hearts.  To ask Him what is required of us and to humble ourselves and do His will.  Because we will be held accountable for every idle work we speak.  But not only that, we will be held accountable for every word He spoke.  Because He says in His Word that it is not He that came to judge us, but the very words that He speaks will one day judge us.  

So this is a warning that I am putting out there, a warning to the Bride.  To take note, to consider, not only what she speaks but what is spoken as well and to see if she has lost the fear of God and walks in arrogance, in pride over the word of God.  Because we will be held accountable and we lack the fear of God, we surely do need to seek His face afresh for the Fear of God.  For our God will not be mocked.  He deserves all the honor, He deserves all the glory, He deserves all the praise.  He deserves it because He is God.  Without even having died for us He already deserved it.  Because He is Almighty, Omniscient, Omnipresent.  He is God and we treat Him like a man.  We treat Him as a mere man.  I think our arrogance is a stench in His nostrils.  My arrogance towards His spoken Word and His written Word is a stench to my nostrils.  And today I repent.  Today I repent of how I treat His Word.  Because His Word is life.  His Word carries His essence.  His Word is almighty.  It is exalted above His Name.  His Word will one day judge us and yet we go flippantly with it.  Because we open ourselves up to every single person's "prophetic word".  We do not fear and tremble at His Word anymore.  And He says in His Word He is seeking those who will fear and tremble at His Word.   

I for one want to do that, especially because He uses me to speak.  I pray that you will not hear me speak, but that you will hear the heart of God.  Because the Word says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God.  And if the righteous are barely saved, how much less the wicked.  The righteous are barely saved.  

May God forgive us and may He work in our hearts to such an extent that we will turn back to the fear of God.  Because the Word says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is understanding.  And in all your getting, get understanding.  We need to know that God is not playing with us, we commercialized His Word, we have made money out of His Word, we have travilized His Word, we have trampled on His Word like swine.  In our own personal lives, who of us can truly say, "Lord every time a prophetic word has gone out, or everytime I have listened to Your Word, I humbled myself and I obeyed.  I did what You asked of me."  How many of us can truly say that?  Do we not have reason to put on sackloth.  To cry out for mercy!  This is the Word Father has given me.  I had a hawk crying out endlessly yesterday, and I knew Father was saying something to me.  And I did not know what it was.  Then we had a mouse that were drowning in our pool.  I thought of the connection because hawks eat mice and when I looked up the meaning of it, the meaning was CRY OUT.   For both a hawk, but also a particular mouse in the Word means to CRY OUT.  And God is saying to me, "Cry out! Cry out to My people. Cry out that I will hold them accountable for the words that I speak."  I pray that you will hear what the Spirit of God is crying out to you personally and that you will no longer be stiffnecked, but that you will humble yourself as I am going to do first and foremost as He speaks to my heart. 

Please Read:

Jeremiah 7: 21 - 28

21 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.

22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.

28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.