HEARING GOD'S VOICE

HEARING GOD’S VOICE

                                The three main feast days recorded in the Bible represent three levels of faith in our journey to the Promised Land. They are Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Passover represents our new birth. We have been called out of Egypt (the world) and we are baptized in the Red Sea (Baptism) and there the vast majority of Christians stay. They build a house or (denomination) on the far side of the Red Sea and there they take up life as a born again, baptized Christian. This is Passover and it corresponds to the outer court of the tabernacle of Moses. They are saved by the blood of the Lamb and washed in the laver and then they set up their household in the outer court, “Just an old sinner saved by grace.”

                By far the vast majority of Christians have built a house on the far side of the Red Sea. They do not really trust in the  providence of God, nor do they really believe that prayers work in any tangible way and knowing very little about the voice of God or the leading of His Spirit beyond lip service, they settle down to life on the shores of the Red Sea.

                But among those who decide to enter into this journey of faith, we are next called to Mount Sinai and the feast of Pentecost. At the foot of Mt. Sinai we are given a choice. We can listen and hear the voice of God directly so that His voice can transform us by writing His Law in our hearts, or we can run from the Mountain with all of its fire and smoke and tell Moses to speak for us.

                Many Christians are unwilling to hear the voice of God, because hearing His voice results in the death of the flesh and a new and all-consuming life in the Spirit. Very few want to actually die to their flesh or to the world and so we reject the voice of God and we ask Moses, or our pastors or teachers to go to the mountain and into the fire and then come back and tell us what God said. And while this ministry of Moses was good and powerful, it could not prepare them to enter into the Promised Land.

                Since they refused to hear the voice of God, the Law had to be written on stone rather than on their hearts. It became an external control rather than a fully changed heart and or death to the flesh.

                We are in the Pentecostal age now. We have spent 40 years (That is 40 Jubilees=2000 years) in the wilderness and while we have a certain amount of faith so as to somehow maintain our present level of experience, very few are actually pursuing the feast of Tabernacles. Many are satisfied to simply keep the Law and to otherwise build their homes in the wilderness. They have parked in Pentecost and Pentecost involves either those who keep the Law on stone or those who have the Law written on they hearts by the Spirit of God so that they are being transformed from faith to faith.

                Many Christians seek to live, at least on occasion in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle where the Word of God and the Spirit of God and prayer should and could prepare us for life in the Most Holy Place, or the Promised Land, but we too have stalled out and built camp in the wilderness asking Moses, or our Pastor to speak for us so that in actuality we are not personally diligently seeking God or working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, nor are we even growing in our faith or hearing God’s voice enough to kill our flesh.

                Today among Pentecostals and Charismatics there has been a turning of the message from death to the flesh, to prosperity. God wants to prosper us and so if there is any adversity in our lives it certainly must be the devil. We no longer see God as refining us by fire or burning up the wood, hay and stubble in our lives. We no longer embrace suffering for Christ as being a good thing and so we are parked in Pentecost awaiting the rapture with very little concept of the  work that needs to be done in our hearts to qualify us for Tabernacles.

                There is a growing number of people today that think that the way to continue our journey is to go back and begin to observe the Feast Days… but these are only types and shadows of a much greater reality and so maintaining those rituals will do nothing to prepare us for the Promised Land. We have traded in our living realities for traditional physical rituals that cannot in fact transform the hearts.

                I mentioned this the other day, this amazing return to Judaism where many disillusioned Christians are turning back to Old Covenant types and shadows simply because they came to the mountain and refusing to hear the voice of God that would have killed their flesh. So they try to live this Christian life without the death of the flesh and it is indeed a powerless life where prayers seldom get answered and victories seldom get won. We have entered a holding pattern in which the vast majority of those who actually had the faith to travel to Pentecost, did not have the faith to move on towards Tabernacles where God fully dwells in our hearts as described in Galatians 2:20.

                We have not really been crucified with Christ. Our flesh is still very much alive and we are quite comfortable in the world, (thank you very much) and we are unwilling to press into God to the point where flesh can die and the Spirit of God can actually animate our lives. We want to hear the voice of God, but we don’t want to die and so we remain satisfied to have someone else do the pressing in for us while we sit in our air conditioned comfort and prosperity and hope for a good word.

                So the feast days of Israel and the Tabernacle still speak to us today, but not in the way that many think. It is not in observing the actual Feast Days that our journey is made complete, but rather a return to Sinai with the decision that we will hear the voice of God this time even if it does kill us. We want to be transformed by His presence in our lives and God can’t do much of anything with us as long as our flesh is still alive.

                The Prosperity message and the new paradigms of church growth that is accomplished by lowering the standards rather than discipling people into the disciplines of Christ, has basically derailed most of Christianity changing the way we even look at the Christian life. We want to have our cake and eat it too and so we cry out to God trying to bend His will to fit our ideas and it isn’t working.

                Flesh can never tell God what to do, for it is those who are led by the Spirit of God that are the sons of God. (Romans 8:14) God isn’t sitting up there in heaven waiting for us to tell Him what to do. He is waiting for us to hear His voice and to die so that we can actually become functioning tabernacles of His Holy Spirit.

                Even as we pretend to keep the Law we are lawless because it remains on stone and even if we claim to be Spirit filled, how many are actually living by that Spirit? We are in a holding pattern in the wilderness and we have become occupied with making ourselves as comfortable as possible in this wilderness.

                There are those… a small percentage… that are pressing in, who live in a dynamic realm that even most of the Christian world no longer understands. People hear something in their words or see something in their lives. They somehow perceive that these have crossed over into that Tabernacles realm. They see it. They yearn for it, but they don’t know how to get there. They don’t want the death that comes before the life.

                Paul died daily because he heard God’s voice daily. It killed his flesh so that God was able to mightily use Him. This is why Paul spent so much time telling us the difference between the Law on Stone as verses the Law in our hearts. We have allowed too many mediators to stand between us and God. We want them to speak to God for us because we fear the death that would be the result if we were to hear Him for ourselves.

                We keep holding up the Law on stone as being a transcript of God’s character, when in fact it has been adjusted to fit our characters. The royal law of freedom is to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves, whereas the Law on stone Paul says was ordained by angels.

“The Law Was Given By Angels. When the apostle Paul surveyed these historical facts, he was inspired to write that the old Law given to Israel at Mount Sinai was much inferior to “the Law of Christ” taught by apostles commissioned by Christ.” (See Hebrews 2:2, Gal. 3:19)

                Paul explains to us that the Law was added because of transgression having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator UNTIL the seed should come to whom the promises were written. So the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ and once we have received Christ the Law has finished its work for we are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Read all of Galatians chapter 3.

                Why do we have such a hard time understanding this? The truth is we prefer the Law on stone over the voice of God which would kill our flesh… and yes, the Letter kills too, but it can offer us no Holy Spirit life to resurrect us. We truly need Jesus Christ both to die and to be born again, for the Law on stone can kill us but it can’t provide us with a New Birth.

                Personally I believe that persecution is coming to America to force us out of our holding pattern… to burn up the chaff in our lives and the wood, hay and stubble and to cure our lukewarmness, because, like it or not, we have developed a wilderness mentality.  Right now we don’t have the faith to enter into the Promised Land and we are not ready to be raptured either. Flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh has to die and for that reason we also need to hear the voice of God. He is speaking, but we aren’t listening… for we have traded a living relationship with Him for mediated religion and rituals and types and shadows in preference to the real thing.  

                Can you imagine just how dynamic a church could be where nearly everyone is dead to the world and alive to God? Can you imagine the power that God would pour out upon us if we became satisfied with nothing less than His voice… not only in our Pastor, but in our own hearts and lives?

                We need to return to Sinai and this time we need to face our death in order to hear His voice.

                “And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, (Jesus) explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Luke 24:27. Yes, we need to return to Sinai, but this time, we need to deny self and take up our cross and follow Jesus. When we hear His voice we will die… but in the process, we will also receive His resurrection life. Sinai will never prepare us for the Promised Land until we are willing to hear His Voice.