30. A Man of Blood

Break the demons, cast their hold off of humanity, and guess what? There is no “world” left to fix, and all the arrangements of the world, nations, constitutions, organizations, groups, all cease and are no more. Remove the demons and the whole arrangement of human society must begin anew by totally different ways and structures unknown by the present world.

That they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. 2 Timothy 2:26

It often seems that God opposes Himself with contradictory verses and truths. We do not throw out anything, but rather hold all that He speaks before Him until we see where it fits. I am convinced that not everything found in the Bible has equal standing, but some verses must lead and others must follow. When we walk with God inside the verses that lead, we then see where the verses that must follow are meant to fit.

As we partake of the absolute completeness of the Atonement, we have turned around. But as we have turned around, we now look out upon our brethren, and beyond them, the entire world.

David was a man of blood; Jesus was a Man of Blood; we are men and women of Blood.

The one earthly work Jesus did was to manufacture a whip of cords and then use it to drive out of His Father's house those who did not belong there. Here is the account of the heavenly piece of work He also did.

Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. Colossians 2:15

David fought earthly enemies in order to free both Israel and Jerusalem from the enemies of God. David's role, however, was that of foreshadowing, of giving us a visible earthly picture of heavenly realities. Jesus opposed only those who abused other people in the name of God or who extorted money from people seeking to worship the Father.

(Selling a book, etc. that contains a small profit margin is not extortion, neither is receiving a pastor's salary. The people whom Jesus drove out of the temple were running a scam wherein they forced the people to buy sacrifices only from them and then they forced them to use only temple money to buy their sacrifices – all at exorbitant rates. The people could not worship God without passing through this financial gauntlet.)

Beyond that, Jesus disarmed the powers of heaven and placed them in chains of captivity. Jesus' actions did not remove demons from human affairs, rather, His work, in all things, was as the Seed. God did not change the universe through Jesus' time on this earth. God planted a Seed in the expectation that the Seed would grow up into a Plant, the Church, and through that Plant, bring forth many seeds just like itself.

Then, through the many seeds, God will unfold Himself as the Victory of Christ in its full expression.

Demons still operate in human affairs; however, they do so with much less ability than before the cross.

There is a belief arising all through many different facets of the Church concerning the world. That belief states that we use the prophetic word of Christ (usually disconnected from Jesus in Person in us) to speak positively into this world in order to restore the world, gradually bringing it into its “rightful” state by positive Spirit power. This belief is based on a denial of the existence of spiritual, personal evil.

At the same time, in other realms of the church, the practice of using the power of the Spirit of God to effect deliverance from demons is on the rise. I rejoice in anyone being set free from demons.

Christ is as me; He is not as the demons that still hover around, attempting to throw their barbs at me.

But I do know this. Being set free from demons without knowing that Christ is my only life becomes just an exercise in futility. In the end, those who remain in the realms of the power of God to cast out demons without entering into the full knowledge of Christ their only life, are not finding what they imagine that they seek.

Speaking positively about this world is the same, an exercise in futility.

Let me define again “the world.” The world is the spirit connection between humans as they relate together. That spirit connection is a connection of demons. Remove the demons and the life will go out of all human group relationships. Christians can make use of demon connections just as easily as non-Christians. Everyone looks elsewhere for demons; demons are as familiar to every one of us as our own breath. We have called demons ourselves too many times.

Let me define heaven. Heaven is the realm of spirit all around us and all through us. Creation has two parts: heaven and earth. The earthly is that which is presently visible at the lower end of the spectrum; the heavens are presently not visible at the higher end of the spectrum. The two are utterly intermingled.

Earth cannot exist without heaven. Nothing earthly can exist without heavenly realities acting upon it.

There is no third place. Hades is not a place; rather, Hades is the condition in which certain heavenly/earthly entities live. Look at the room all around you. There are both demons and angels there in that room with you doing whatever demons and angels do. The demons live in a bubble of not-God, that is, Hades. The angels live in the knowledge of God. Both demons and angels exist in the realm of spirit called “heaven” where our spirits also live. Geographically, they exist side by side; by knowledge, they live in two different realms. The same is true of humans. Geographically, regenerate and unregenerate live side by side. Yet the regenerate know God and walk in heaven, even though they are blind, and the unregenerate do not know God and thus exist in each their own solitary bubble of Hades, which is also spirit, and thus of the heavens.

Just as earth cannot exist without heaven permeating all through it, so the world cannot exist without demons – and the Church cannot exist without the Father all in all.

Those who are attempting to improve the world by speaking Christ things into it are simply attempting to rearrange the orders by which demons and humans relate. Exactly what good is that doing?

Break the demons, cast their hold off of humanity, and guess what? There is no “world” left to fix, and all the arrangements of the world, nations, constitutions, organizations, groups, all cease and are no more. Remove the demons and the whole arrangement of human society must begin anew by totally different ways and structures unknown by the present world.

In the new heavens and earth there will be no United States of America, no constitutions, no political governments, the list is endless. We are not making the world a better place. The world is awful from beginning to end; it is a lie first and  murder second. The world ceases the moment the demons are gone.

God is birthing a new heavens and a new earth, a new arrangement of all things out from our innermost beings. I am speaking of the fulfillment and outflow of the Feast of Tabernacles in the life of the Church.

The order by which humans will relate together, in just a few years time, will be an order that comes out from God's perfect order for His Church as that order flows out from the fulfillment of Tabernacles.

I now know what the river of life is. Cool! Cool!! Cool!!! (But that comes on the final Day of Tabernacles.)

Two things must come together simultaneously, now, for the first day of Tabernacles to be fulfilled in the life of the church – and I am suggesting that Tabernacles is fulfilled in two parts, possibly with three-and-one-half years in-between, Jesus Himself having fulfilled the first half of seven, thus cutting the time short. Those two things are the timing of God on the one hand and judgment upon darkness on the other hand. Here is part of God's judgment on darkness merging together with the seasons of God.

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”Revelation 12:7-12

I want to talk about these things, for they are utterly a part of our present reality, here, in between the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles itself, inside these four days of judgment. You see, it is clear from these verses that Tabernacles corresponds directly with the “short time of great wrath.”

Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come. . .

Before we consider Michael, we must know what God's judgment at this end of the age IS.

Then Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world . . . He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. John 12:44-48

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Hebrews 11:7

Noah prepared an ark foreshadows the fulfillment of Tabernacles in the life of the Church. Let me explain.

The Bible is filled with negative words, with harsh statements of God's anger against iniquity and with vivid pictures of wrath. Part of that reality is from God and part of it is from Nicene Christianity in the minds of the translators as they made their decisions over what English words to use in the translation of the original Greek and Hebrew. In other words, the enemy sowed his seed all through even the translations of the Bible. Many times, the translators took neutral terms in the original and made them negative and dark, etc.

For instance the negative New Testament word “destruction” is the neutral Greek word meaning “cessation.”

Almost every view of the ending of the age of human folly is cast in a negative light. That's why so many today reject “the end of the age,” and prefer a gradual, progressive transformation of the world.

As I have shared before, the Bible is a door. It stands there closed as a barrier to keep out those whose hearts do not belong to God, and it stands there wide open as an invitation to those who would feely enter in.

Here is another example. Most see the following line as negative: And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy (cause to cease) with the brightness of His coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:8. I see it as 100% positive; I have quoted it over and over except I have paraphrased it in this way: – Christ is always all before anything not Christ could ever vanish away.

Noah built an ark. Noah building an ark was an act of faith in the Salvation of God. Then, Noah and his family entered into that ark. You see, the destruction set in motion by Adam's rebellion was already proceeding down the Birkeland currents towards our sun with a power surge that would blow to pieces the binary star, Saturn, which the earth revolved around before the flood.

The judgment of God was this: Noah in the Ark, everyone else not in the ark.

Anyone who wants the age of human folly to continue because they don't want humanity's present condition to “end” is hostile against God and mankind, carrying a definition of “God” as if He were Lucifer. Anyone who wants the age of human folly to end in the destruction of everything human with all Christians escaping that destruction by being whisked off to heaven is hostile against God and mankind, carrying a definition of “God” as if He were Lucifer.

HOWEVER, in spite of the dark picture the Bible seems to convey concerning the “end of the age,” all throughout the Bible a picture, a view of something entirely different, something no one is looking for, is hidden away. That something different is the fulfillment of Tabernacles in the life of the Church.

Here is the judgment. The elect are in the House of God walking here on this earth; everyone else is not, for this momentary season.

As you and I walk through what is descending upon the experience of humanity on this earth, a darkness that is so obvious that people have to be willfully deluded not to see what is hitting this world right now, we will walk through it in the full reality of John 14:20, the ark of God, the place of safety, the Body of Christ revealed, the House of God, the fulfillment of Tabernacles in the earth.

As all other Christians whose hearts are not given wholly to Jesus walk through the same human experience, they will not know what we know until we show them by our laid down lives. That is the judgment. Jesus said, “Now is the prince of this world judged,” then He laid down His life.

I know well from long experience. Two people can walk through the same experience together. One sees God from beginning to end; the other sees God not at all.

Everyone is looking for power. Everyone imagines that God with us MEANS power to force WILL upon others, superhero power. Everyone defines “God” as a “glorious heavenly being emanating perfection,” that is, as an angel. Everyone believes that power is the proof of “God,” thus they seek power rather than Heart.

Here is the highest heavenly angel, filled with mighty power and great glory, exuding lights and perfections. Here is a man clothed in humility on his knees to serve. Which one is the highest? Which one reveals God? Which one shows us what the glory of God LOOKS LIKE?

Here is a verse from Daniel chapter 12. Then I heard the man clothed in linen, who . . . swore by Him who lives forever, that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time; and when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.

Everyone views “the power of the holy people being shattered” as a negative. I view it as the victory of the Word God speaks in creation, victory over the false image of God embraced by Adam.

Moses spoke of the fulfillment of Tabernacles in the Church in Psalm 91: He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Consider what I shared in “God's Heart in a Man.”

– What if God anointed me together with you as the second witness of Christ because of the testimony of Christ which we speak? – When God does anoint with manifest display those of us who believe and speak this Word, the clash of discord reverberating throughout the entire Christian world will be like nothing ever known before upon this earth. – This word that I share, if it be true, if it be the counsel of God, must shatter most everything most Christians cling to as “the truth of the gospel.” –

It is not so much “our words” that God will anoint with the same outward expression by which He anointed Jesus, but rather us as the manifest House of God – yet before the resurrection, at the beginning of Tabernacles.

Yet this reality of the manifest House of God must be entirely by faith on our part, just as it was for Jesus.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail – And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

These two lines cannot be separated; Michael is an angel, that is, a servant of the heirs of salvation. Notice that these two are two sides of the exact same thing. God-filled human weakness laying down its life in the earth, Godly angelic strength wielding power in the heavens.

Let me first dispense with the idea that “the devil has already been cast out of heaven onto the earth.” Heaven is the realm of spirit; earth is the realm of physical matter. The devil, at this present moment, is the prince of the powers of heaven; he is not yet limited to the earth. More than that, the alteration of Christian reality (Now is come the kingdom) that comes by this circumstance has not yet been revealed on this earth.

There is no question in my mind that right now, in this summer of 2014, Michael and those with him are fully engaged, released to do what they do BY you and me, as we, going forth from our full BELIEF in the Atonement completed, cast down all accusation. All accusation.

We destroy the accuser by causing his words to cease. This is the judgment – a people who will not speak anything but what the Father speaks: Christ.

He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.

Paul said that Word is in our mouths, this Word of faith which we speak.

Here is the fulfillment of all the judgment of God.

For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is age-abiding life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak. John 12:49-50

The Word God is always speaking, standing in manifest triumph against all accusation, speaking,Father, forgive them, out from a life laid down and love poured out.

The second greatest accusation against God, filling the world, filling the church, is not just that God lies, but that God is responsible for all the destruction coming upon human folly. Instead of God foreseeing the destruction that sin causes and warning man against causing that destruction, rather, the destruction is blamed on God with these words: “If God were love, if God were all-power, then God would not allow these awful things to happen.” Notice that those who want only a positive progression of human history becoming “the New Jerusalem,” do so only out from this same accusation against God.

God's true judgment is God carrying all inside Himself, forgiving all, laying down His life for all through a people who love Him alone.

Let me quote George Orwell, author of 1984, in his comments on C.S. Lewis's warning against the power of human science in his book, That Hideous Strength, (which I would recommend that you read).

All superfluous life is to be wiped out, all natural forces tamed, the common people are to be used as slaves and vivisection subjects by the ruling caste of scientists, who even see their way to conferring immortal life upon themselves. Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself.

There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand people to fragments, it sounds all too typical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.

Notice the definition of “god” as an angel of the highest heavens. Notice the absence of a Man, God-revealed, on His knees to serve.

The great battle of the ages is between these two definitions of the image of God. Man or Satan. Which one is God-revealed? Which one is like God?

Michael and his angels fought OUT FROM they overcame him.

I suspect there are as many species of angels as there are of animals. God always gets carried away with Himself when He creates. We know from the Scriptures of at least several. There is not much in the Bible concerning angels, though they are actively involved in our lives as servants in the heavenly realms in just the same way as certain species of animals serve man in the physical realms.

One of the angel species is creatures of great power, magnificence, and perfection. As such, these creatures reveal aspects of God in the same way that plants and animals reveal aspects of God. To the limited human mind, however, these mighty creatures are gods. That's why God has limited our knowledge of and interaction with the angelic realms. If you came face to face with Michael as he is, you would have a difficult time believing that you are the image and likeness of God, not Michael. Most Christians would insist that Michael is the Messiah, because he looks like what they think God looks like.

The face-off between an angel and a man plays itself out in exactly the same way as it did between Adam and the serpent every time it occurs. The greatest of the angelic species, called either cherubs or archangels, simply looks to everyone, men, angels, and animals, exactly what God “ought to” look like. Thus, a severe identity crisis occurs inside of a human, including Jesus, when faced with a cherub.

I am seeing more and more that the pattern of the Feast of Tabernacles corresponds directly with the pattern of Jesus' time of ministry. I am convinced that the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles IS the ministry of the second witness of Christ, 3 ½ years long, added to Jesus' 3 ½ years of ministry to make the seven years spoken of by Daniel.

The first thing God did with Jesus as He began His ministry as the pattern of Tabernacles, was to drive Him into a devastating identity crisis.  I really do see that this is the point of God. Jesus began His ministry in the face of the dragon.

Michael and his angels fought OUT FROM they overcame him.

THEY – weakness, the image and likeness of God – OVERCAME – the boldness and audacity of faith: “I AM the one who shows the universe what God is like” – HIM – the mightiest and most glorious of the cherubs.

Why they? Because they are filled full with the speaking of God, the Word God speaks, and they believe with all abandonment that God speaks only the truth, that they ARE what God looks like, that God fills them full.

Michael and his angels fight successfully ONLY as they fight out from you and me, sitting here decrepit, foolish, dying, weak, and tired, BELIEVING that God is telling us the truth, that we ARE the image and likeness of God, His dwelling place, revealing God as He IS forever as we are, human beings, simple and complicated, tame and wild, timid and adventurous, loving and oblivious, fully of heaven and fully of earth.

The image of God stands in the face of a cherub and says “I am the image and likeness of God, not you.”

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.Matthew 4:1 – Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. Mark 1:12-13 – Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. Luke 4:1-2

Luke and Matthew chose neutral terms in describing the action of the Holy Spirit in leading/driving Jesus into the wilderness, into the face of the serpent, but Mark (likely recording Peter's memories) chose a harsh word, ekballo, to throw out, to drive out, to cast out.

Thus three things mark the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and the beginning of Jesus' ministry marks for us the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles in our experience. The first is being baptized by John, representing the entirety of the Old Covenant and all the voices and hopes of Israel, under the waters of the Jordan, the lowest place on earth. The second is being filled full with the Holy Spirit, accompanied by God's approval spoken upon Him. The third is being driven by that same Spirit into forty days of awfulness in the face of the accuser.

Again, we are facing the question – Does God need the accuser to fulfill His purposes? Somehow, I no longer see that question as I once did. Somehow, a statement Jesus made is all the answer I need.

For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak. John 12:49-50

The Words coming out of my Father's mouth, directing my way, those Words are life; they are all that I need.

The three temptations of the serpent appear outwardly to be different, but they are not. They are all three the same thing. The outward form of the temptation is related directly to an individual person's place and experience, but the inward reality, the real challenge, always remains one thing alone for Jesus and for us.

The inward challenge of the temptation is along the same lines as the lie, as it was both implied and spoken in the garden. But Jesus is different than Adam. Jesus walks in union with God, having eaten of the tree of life. Adam had not eaten of that tree and knew nothing of personal, intimate union with the Father.

The purpose of the serpent with Adam was to detract him from ever eating of the tree of life. The purpose of the serpent with Jesus is to break the union Jesus enjoys with the Father.

“If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

“All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him,“If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”

If You are – The serpent is a master psychologist. Only God knows human/angelic psychology and how to work with it better than the serpent. The words of the serpent are designed to penetrate and to shatter. There is a principle in fighting that, if one plans to strike the first blow, than that blow must be the hardest battering ram one can produce. The serpent has three first blows; each of those blows penetrate more deeply into the soul of Jesus, battering everything human inside of Him.

The purpose of the serpent is to shatter, to break, to sever the union between Jesus, the man, and Father God.

Notice that the serpent is using the definition of “God” that he has perpetrated in the human mind, that “God” is outward power rather than inward life, that angels are the image of God, not man. The words “If you are the Son of God,” shook Jesus to His core. He was a man. What “proof” did He have that He was the Son of God walking in union with God? No proof – except His faith. Satan spoke out from the power definition of God – the proof of God is outward power – DO something extraordinary! – PROVE who you are!

Outward power is not the proof of God. This is the same taunt that was hurled at me, “Hey Yordy, if you are a manifest son, then come over here and heal some people I know!”

The second temptation was a desperate ploy coming out of the overwhelming ego of the serpent. When it did not work, he tried an even more penetrating psychological attack, this time using words of Moses, out from one of the most important passages in the Old Testament, Psalm 91, words of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The thing the serpent wanted to accomplish inside of Jesus' mind was to plant the thought, the very human thought, that “Since I am weak and incapable, since I am a man, the only “proof” that God is with me MUST be some demonstration of Bible verses, some outward display concerning the word God speaks.”

James said that Jesus, his half-brother, was tempted in all points in exactly the same way we are tempted. You can be sure that the words of the serpent affected Jesus just as David was greatly distressed when finding Ziklag in ruins and his men blaming him.

These words were not “spoken at” Jesus from outside of Him. These words were formulated inside His own mind, inside the deepest recesses of His soul. Every Man is tempted when He is taken by His own lusts and enticed. Jesus Himself saw Jerusalem out from the heights of the temple in His own mind and heart. These desperate questions, “Am I really God's Son,” were questions posing as Jesus' own thoughts.

We can be sure of this, deep inside His distress, Jesus also encouraged Himself utterly inside of His Father just as David encouraged himself in the Lord. 1 Samuel 30

Notice that the third temptation is focused on the House of God in the place God had chosen. Notice as well the tenor of the serpent words. They are words of scorn.

Scorn versus zeal. Zeal comes and replaces all scorn in our hearts.

In the last letter, I spoke of the calling of leading God's people into the Feast of Tabernacles fulfilled in the church. Here is the next part of that calling.

We break the hold of the serpent and all his angels over God's people. We do so by being the revelation of Jesus Christ in weakness.

Everyone is convinced that the proof of God is the outward demonstration of power. Yes, the demonstration of power is certainly an aspect of God. But Jesus was not about doing power; the demonstration of power was the work of the Holy Spirit, incidental to Jesus' heart.

The proof of God is a Man laying down His life for His friends, AND  WE ALSO!

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16

Those who seek the power of God have their faces set on angels. Those who seek the heart of God fulfilled in them, see power things happening as God flows out, and as angels do what angels do, yes, but their face is not set there. They see God; they see a Man on His knees to serve.

And the thing that fills their hearts overwhelmingly and to overflowing is the Jerusalem of David, the Jerusalem of God, the Jerusalem which is above, the city of peace, the mother of us all, the Bride of Christ.

Oh how our hearts yearn over her with great desire to see her free, to see her in peace, to see her gates flung wide, to see her streets filled with laughter and joy.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord.” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Psalm 122:1-2

When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Psalm 126:1-2

For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns.Isaiah 62:1

Whatever it takes, my sword, the word of my mouth, is with You, Lord Jesus.

I will see God in my flesh on this earth.