Every believer desires Love and Mercy from the Lord, but His Love and Mercy always bring along with them His rod especially while we are spiritual children… and He beats us with it to deliver our SOUL from hell. (Pr. 23:13,14)
Our Father is looking into our eyes and He says to us “YOU KNOW NOTHING YET ABOUT MY LOVE… AND YOU KNOW NOTHING YET ABOUT YOUR OLD SINFUL NATURE”. Is Our Father right or is He wrong? Let us allow Him to grant us the following necessary Light in spirit.
WHEN GOD FORMED DARKNESS AND CREATED EVIL, WHEN HE CREATED LUCIFER AND SUFFERED HIS FALL AND CHANGE INTO SATAN, WHEN HE CREATED MAN AND SUFFERED HIS FALL AND CHANGE INTO AN EVIL CREATURE AND SINNER, WHEN HE THEN SENT HIS SON AND SUFFERED HIS DEATH AND SACRIFICE… HE DID IT ALL BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE!
GOD HAS HAD A GREAT AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR ALL THOSE SOULS THAT WILL BE WILLING TO FULFIL HIS WILL AND HIS GREAT DESIRE EXPRESSED IN HIS COMMANDMENTS AND WILL OVERCOME ALL THE POWERS OF DARKNESS AND EVIL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF THEMSELVES SO THAT GOD COULD FINALLY HAVE HIS DESIRED ETERNAL FAMILY.
No creature could satisfy Adam but a woman created in Adam’s own image and of his bones. (Gen. 2:18-23) EQUALLY, no creature could satisfy God but MAN created in God’s Own Image and of His “bones”. (Eph. 5:30) “Therefore shall the MAN leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his Lord, and they shall be ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT. And they shall be both transparent and will not be ashamed to be brethren.” (spiritual transcript and meaning of Gen. 2:24,25// Eph. 5:31// Heb. 2:11)
Many Angels that served God faithfully had fallen and followed Satan. Therefore MAN MUST BE TESTED by the very same evil, deceptions and temptations that God’s Angels were tested with, and MAN MUST BE PROVEN, dependable, faithful, loving God more than himself. God the Son will never “marry” anyone, who in time might again embrace evil and fall and become unfaithful to Him. Hence, MAN must become absolutely NEW in his SPIRIT, SOUL and BODY having no spot or wrinkle from the old creation, or any such thing. Man (Church) must become absolutely holy and without any blemish of sin, evil and darkness. (Eph. 5:27)
Furthermore…
MAN MUST BECOME MUCH DIFFERENT THAN LUCIFER, WHO WAS ALSO PERFECT IN HIS BEAUTY AND WISDOM AND ALSO “WITHOUT SPOT OR WRINKLE OR ANY BLEMISH OF SIN”! MAN MUST BECOME MORE DEPENDABLE, MORE FAITHFUL AND MORE LOVING OF GOD THAN LUCIFER EVER WAS! OTHERWISE, GOD WOULD HAVE NO GUARANTEE THAT HE WOULD NOT FOLLOW THE PATH OF LUCIFER EVEN AFTER HIS MARRIAGE TO HIS SON! DO WE SEE THIS TRUTH? OR ARE WE BLIND TO IT?
SURELY WE CAN ALWAYS TRUST OUR LORD, BUT HOW MUCH CAN OUR LORD TRUST US? CAN WE ASSESS IT? NO!
We must repeat and SEE that when we believe and are born-again and redeemed, we are NOT the sons and daughters of God as yet. We are potential sons/daughters. As redeemed, we are spiritual toddlers that know nothing about their Father and about themselves! At that time and at that spiritual stage, we only receive the POWER TO BECOME the sons of God, as it is written: “But as many as received Him (as their Saviour and became redeemed) to them gave He POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD…” (Jn. 1:12)
THAT POWER becomes absolutely necessary for us when we decide to grow up and follow the Lord on the narrow way. Why? In our own power we cannot even dream about following the Lord and becoming His true sons and daughters. Without THAT POWER we cannot be formed into His Image.
j) WE HAVE NEVER truly comprehended the TRUE PURPOSE OF GOD, OUR FATHER. We have never recognized the true ways and forms of His Love. We thus have never SEEN and understood the mighty difference between a person being redeemed and forgiven, and the true son/daughter of God! We have never SEEN and understood in spirit why God did what He did in the Old Testament and that it all shows and proves the spiritual truths in the New Testament. This includes this MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE that we are dealing with in this book – the true difference between the SOUL and the SPIRIT.
THEIR SEPARATE SALVATIONS are clearly illustrated by Our Father in His sovereign acts in the Old Testament. There is yet a mountain of knowledge and wisdom we could draw from the Old Testament and its fulfillment in the New Testament in the spiritual world, but our time is now short.
So, let us SEE what Our Father would show us in the Old Testament concerning this MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE of our Christian life. God had brought His chosen people out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Egypt typified the kingdom of Satan and Pharaoh typified Satan himself. The people of Israel were taken out of the power and possession of Satan and that, by the blood of the lamb, which was killed in each family. (Ex. 12:5-11) Of course, the lamb typified the Lamb of God, which took away the sin of the world by His Blood. (Jn. 1:29) This crossing of the Red Sea was a sheer miracle that no man can do in his own power or wisdom. It represents our Redemption from the kingdom of the powers of darkness and evil and the resurrection in our SPIRIT… which is also a sheer miracle that no man can do in his power or wisdom. Hence, “not by works of man that any man should boast” proves this fact. (Eph. 2:9)
After this crossing, God did not bring Israel to their Promised Land, but to a wilderness where there was nothing to eat, drink or to enjoy for their souls. WHY? There God began to deal with their SOULS, which “remained in Egypt” and murmured and complained and were dissatisfied and refused to obey God. THEY GOT OUT OF EGYPT-THE KINGDOM OF SATAN, BUT EGYPT WITH ITS KINGDOM OF SATAN DID NOT GET OUT OF THEIR SOULS.
God showed them that He was all sufficient for them in any wilderness. He “rained bread on them” from Heaven that people would go out and gather a certain rate every day “that I may PROVE THEM whether they will walk in My law or not.” (Ex. 16:4)
He also gave them drink from the Rock, which Rock was Christ. (1Cor. 10:4) And when they spoke against God and Moses, the Lord sent fiery serpents to bite them and much people of Israel died. And then the Lord showed mercy and commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass and raise it upon a pole so that anyone who was bitten and would behold it could live. (Num.21:5-9) OBEDIENCE WAS NOW REQUIRED from them to recover-save their SOULS from Egypt and from the kingdom of Satan, but people failed to do the required works of obedience.
But the Lord desired that now Israel would LEARN OBEDIENCE and enter the Promised Land soon after crossing the Red Sea. He showed them the Promised Land that it was the land that indeed flowed with milk and honey by sending there spies who searched the land for 40 days. But the people refused to believe and to go in and possess it! Therefore, the Lord let them wander in the wilderness for 40 years (one year for each day of searching the land by the spies) and die there. None of them was allowed to see or enter the Promised Land. Only their children who were 20 years of age and younger at the time of this Judgment of God, and Joshua and Caleb were all brought to the Promised Land. (Num. 13:25-33; 14:1-6,29-38)
Now, let us come to the New Testament and SEE the spiritual reflection of this fact, namely, that…
THIS IS PRECISELY THE SAME CASE WITH CHRISTIANS! THEY HAVE BEEN REDEEMED FROM THE POWERS OF DARKNESS AND EVIL, THEY “CROSSED THEIR RED SEA” AND GOT OUT OF THE KINGDOM OF SATAN (WERE REDEEMED)… BUT THE KINGDOM OF SATAN DID NOT GET OUT OF THEIR SOULS… THEY KEEP LUSTING FOR THE “DELICACIES OF THEIR OLD LIFE (WINE) EVEN FOR THEIR RETURN TO IT”. (Lk. 5:39)
AFTER OUR REDEMPTION, WE HAVE EQUALLY NOT ENTERED THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, BUT HAVE BEEN LEFT IN A (SPIRITUAL) WILDERNESS OF THIS EVIL WORLD WHERE THERE IS EQUALLY NOTHING TO EAT, DRINK OR ENJOY FOR OUR SPIRIT. HERE GOD DEALS WITH OUR SOULS THAT WE MAY LEARN OBEDIENCE TO HIM! BUT MANY MURMUR, COMPLAIN, ARE DISSATISFIED AND MISERABLE, HUNGRY AND THIRSTY. MANY DESIRE TO LIVE THEIR OLD LIFE AND REFUSE TO OBEY THE WORD OF GOD. NOTHING HAS CHANGED!
Our Father has sent to us Bread from Heaven (Jn. 6:31-35) in a similar way to PROVE US whether we will walk in His Spirit or not! (Gal. 5:25) Do we walk in His SPIRIT, or do we walk in OUR SOUL? Can we discern this difference and answer this question before the Lord? Those that walk in their soul cannot answer it because they have no conscience of what it is to walk in His Spirit. Only those that walk in His Spirit can distinguish and answer that question.
We are also expected to “go out and gather a certain portion of His Bread (Life) every day”. Our Lord came that we might have Life and have it more abundantly. (Jn. 10:10) THAT does not mean that we have that Life and even abundantly just by His coming for that purpose! Do we “gather and eat His Bread daily” or do we spiritually starve? The Lord says that WE DO NOT come to Him to “gather Bread (that we may have Life), a portion every day… here a little and there a little”! (Jn. 5:40// Is. 28:10) Our Lord has also given us a drink in His Spirit. Do we drink His Spirit or do we spiritually thirst? We may not know this answer either.
We can also “speak against God”, not necessarily verbally, but with the attitude of our natural soul, through our “flesh”. When we do so in a prolonged manner, the Lord similarly allows us to be “bitten by fiery serpents”, evil spirits which HE either sends to us (1Sam. 16:14,15) or allows them to come to us and do their evil work in us through deceptions and temptations and many of us might die (be separated). But Our Father has raised on a pole (Cross) His Son (Jn. 3:14), who was made sin and a curse (brazen serpent – Gen. 3:14) for our sake (2Cor. 5:21// Gal. 3:13), so that when we “look at Him”, we may live. When we are not looking at Him, there is NO FAITH IN OUR SPIRIT AND NO LIFE IN OUR SOUL. (Heb. 12:2)
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To be continued next week in chapter 5 – part 8
brother Hanola
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