6. The Laver and the Door
Audio Only6. The Laver and the Door.pdf
The Scripture bears witness concerning Me (John 5:40).
The bronze laver is FOR the Door, for entering through Jesus into the knowledge of Spirit and of heavenly realities. – Let us go on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3).
Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth (1-3).
Let Us Go On. We must understand this principle and pattern of God through the three entrances. – He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
You were trying to be your own “god,” in control of your own life, but there was a tearing inside of you that bent you to your knees to accept God as Savior. The moment you accepted Jesus as the Way, that tear was healed.
The same thing applies to the Door and again to the Veil. God must strike before He can heal. But always – let us go on to know the Lord.
A Covenant with Abram. Here is the same picture.
So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. – And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram (Genesis 15:9-10 & 17-18).
A ripping open three times – but after that, no more.
Our Entrance. Your cow, large and bulky, bone and gut, is cut open at your entrance through the Gate. Your goat, wily, conniving, and obstinate, is cut open at your entrance through the Door. Your ram, yielded and submissive, is cut open at your entrance through the Veil.
And each time, God Himself passes between all your bloody pieces, hurting and desperate, and each time, God enters into a covenant with you.
Then, “His going forth” is God with us as the Holiest, always the aroma of Christ in every place. This is the two birds that are not cut open, the true sacrifice, a body for God forever.
A Distraction. At every step along the way it is a heart issue. And at every step along the way, the same choice remains. Knowing Father VERSUS position and place.
God cannot share His Heart with any abuser. God must, for His own safety, screen every human seeking to enter into Him. Humans are abusive, and we abuse the Father most. If you abuse His word, what would you do with His heart?
And so God places a distraction, and He places ministries of distraction whom He anoints with His Spirit just in front of every entrance into Life.
A Dividing Line. God set the laver in front of the Door as His dividing line, His point of separation among many.
I have been sitting here for some time pondering that dividing line and how I might share it with you. I have many thoughts, and it is my hope that, as I weave them together, you will see this same dividing line inside of you, the call deep inside to go on to know the Lord.
What is it, then, that beckons to us on the other side of that Door? On the other side of that Door is knowing God by the Spirit, walking in Spirit/heavenly realities, and knowing the Bible by John 6:63 – the words I speak to you are Spirit…
Afar Off versus Hidden Inside.
| …and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” …So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was (Exodus 20:18-21). | One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me… (Psalm 27:4-5). |
Word and Spirit.
| The word enters into the mind and is understood by normal human thinking. The entrance of the word spurs human performance. Spirit is defined as nothing more than a form of thinking. |
The word enters the mind and is understood in the same way. However, that word passes through the mind to enter the heart, where it becomes something, not different, but further. The entrance of the word creates a knowing of life arising from inside one’s heart. Spirit is a realm of life and power, known by our spirits and resulting in a closer knowledge of heavenly realities. |
A Place In-Between. We do not take this comparison into the Holiest, to compare our knowledge of God in the Holiest with the intellectual knowledge of the outer court. The Holy Place is in-between, and we must remember that it is only a beginning knowledge of living and walking inside of Spirit.
Nonetheless, we can understand the Holy Place by the experience of those who remain there, seeing the Holiest, but not believing they already live in it. As Paul implied in 1 Corinthians 13, in the Holy Place, we know in-part, but inside the Holiest, we know as we are known, that is, as God knows us (John 14:20).
Effects in the Believer.
| A study of “correct ideas” about God. A devotion to works coming out from human action only. Ignorance of the heavens and of any walking or living inside of Spirit. |
Adding to that study, the practice of the qualities of Spirit, praying in tongues, prophetic utterances and the seeing and interpretation of visions. Adding to human works, an in-part experience of being led by the Spirit, and of being anointed by the Spirit to minister Christ to others. A slow development of Spirit qualities and understandings. A growing confidence in God here and now. |
Spirit and Knowing. Let’s compare four verses.
The natural man, however, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them because they are spiritually distinguished (1 Corinthians 2:14).
We know that the Son of God IS presently and actively come and has given us an understanding, [a spirit-mind capacity], so that we might know [Him who is] the true; and we are inside of [Him who is] the true, in His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).
This is age-unfolding life, that they might know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
A Sliding Scale Concept. As you can see, the concepts of “Spirit” and “knowing” go together.
More than that, “to know” is a sliding scale concept, going from a mental awareness of something all the way to living inside of another Person as part of that Person. The path through the Tabernacle shows us an increase of the knowledge of God, of things already true.
The initial knowing of Jesus alive inside, as one stumbles through the Gate, remains the same all the way through. What grows is an understanding of what that means, resulting in a slow change of how one lives.
Profitable towards Instruction. Then here is our fourth verse. Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable towards instruction, towards inner conviction, towards being set straight, towards training inside of justice, so that the man or woman of God may be complete, having been fully equipped toward every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
When an outer court teacher explains what this statement means, I agree almost entirely. Nonetheless, if I were to teach it to you out from our place of being turned around upon the Mercy Seat, that same outer court teacher would not understand what on earth I am talking about.
Back to David. A teacher in the Holy Place, on the other hand, would be able to understand, if they are willing. The question, then, is one of heart. The outer court individual cannot know; the holy place individual can know, if their heart desires to know.
And that brings us back to David. God set David in the center of our Bibles and gave him more pages of the Bible than He gave to Jesus’ life. And God did that because David is the pattern of heart, that which this whole thing is about.
It’s not about “correct” knowledge or outward human doings; it’s about the desire and determination of the heart.
One Thing I Have Desired. And God introduces David to us with these words. – “Do not look at his [Eliab’s] appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me… (Psalm 27:4-5).
David desires to live only inside of the Holiest.
What Do You Want? When we passed through the Gate, we were in a total fog and understood nothing of the great issue. But from then on, God takes us forward only out from our heart decision, a human decision based on knowing.
What do you want?
Someone questioned my doctrine by email once. I replied only with the words, “What do you want?” meaning, “at the core of your heart.” The person replied (my paraphrase), “I want to know what your doctrinal beliefs are.” The terrible truth is, this outer-court person was expressing the core desire of his heart.
Father at Home in Me. The fundamental reason why I left the move-of-God fellowship was that I had absorbed all that it had to give me as my own and found that what I desired, to know Father at home inside of me, was not there.
I did not leave to “get away.” I left as a bold and desperate move to go on to know the Lord. It was a sideways move for a season, until God could heal me. But when He showed me the open Veil, I ran, with David, and with all my might, into knowing myself living inside of my Father and knowing my Father living inside of me.
This is the one thing I have desired of the Lord, and you as well.