Faithful to Keep His Commands
Hi Friends,
Today has already been a day of tears. A Jewish friend of mine just passed, and I had been praying for him and his wife now for 23 years. I had tried witnessing to them and praying for their salvation, but to no avail. His wife, also my dear friend, would call me to ask for prayer, for herself or a loved one, but she would not let me pray with her. She wanted me to pray, but not in her hearing. We had miracles that came through prayer, and she does acknowledge them. And on the day “he took a turn for the worse,” She asked me to have my prayer group pray for her husband. I was out of town for five days before he died. To my knowledge he was not saved. But I know that even in his sleep he might have encountered the Lord in a dream, or perhaps a nurse or chaplain could have prayed with him in the hospital. I know that the Lord heard my prayers, that he would not die until he recognized Jesus as his Messiah. But now I must simply hope and pray that someday I may see him in heaven and that his wife and family will be saved too.
I know that this is simply a test of faith. We have so many things happening at the same time – it is truly a shaking. But God ordains our steps and our days, so all we have to do is keep our eyes upon the author and finisher of our faith: Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
I have three visions to share with you today:
The Visions
The Dowel
I saw a one inch dowel that was about a quarter inch in diameter. It is like those that come with IKEA flat pack shelving or cabinetry. There is a pre-drilled hole into which one inserts the dowel and taps it into place with a mallet or hammer. It is then inserted into the piece to be joined. This becomes a stronger joint than a nail, but is able to be taken apart at some future time, provided it has not been glued. Gluing the joint is the proper thing to do if there is no reason to separate the pieces.
The Two Nails
Next, I saw two nails that were driven into the edge of a panel. These slender nails were standing upright and protruding from the panel slightly more than an inch. It seems that they were to be expected to be used in a similar manner as the dowel, in joinery. However the nail heads were visible and the holes into which they were to go would not be secure for the shaft of the nail was slimmer than the head of the nail. The nail was also driven into the weakest part of the wood - the edge of a cross grain cut.
The Celery
In the third vision, I saw two stalks of celery, one was wider with no segmentation along its length. The other stalk was more slender with a segmentation at two thirds its length branching off with a few leaves.
I had a kitchen knife and I intended to cut off the leaves and its thin branches and throw them away. Then I planned to cut the remaining pieces of both stalks into celery sticks.
What the visions mean
When thinking of of the vision of nails and dowels, one scripture immediately came to mind:
The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. Ecclesiastes 12:11
A goad is a pointed stick used to prod an animal to keep moving. So the words of the wise encourage us to keep going, to search deeper into its meaning. Words of scripture are truth and wisdom, given by God as our Shepherd. The word of God has been recorded by the prophets and apostles which were divinely inspired. It is the Spirit of God that reveals these truths which can penetrate our hearts and our spirits to become part of us. The scriptures are like nails that join things together. Our minds can understand spiritual concepts and apply them to our circumstances when they have been made new, and our spirits are brought to life by the Spirit of God.
When wisdom comes together with the inspired word of God, we can join purpose and principles to help us make right choices. The nails are the collection of teachings that come from both the Old Testament and the New Testament which are given by the one and same Shepherd, which is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. Proverbs 15:22
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel. Proverbs 12:15
Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days.
Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand. Proverbs 19:20-21
The dowel in the vision is alone, it is not paired as in the vision of the nails. I believe that the dowel represents what is of singular importance, and that is the Word of God, the Bible. These are the collected sayings given by one Shepherd. God’s word provides the best counsel.
However, if there were two dowels, as there were two nails, then the joint would not be able to twist right or left. It would then be more fixed and secure. The two dowels for me represent the Word and the voice of God as expressed visually and occasionally audibly. For me, I seek God first in prayer and then I ask him to confirm what I believe I am perceiving, with scripture. I believe that it is best to hear from God for myself, so that I am not swayed by others’ opinions. We may be well meaning in our counsel to others, but it must be confirmed through scriptures that teach and reveal God’s heart in similar circumstances.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
Yesterday as I was praying the Lord gave me a scripture that he had shown me several hours earlier. If the Lord shows me something twice in one day, He is saying “Pay attention!”
Well, he got my attention, and it is all about hearing the voice of God and obeying it! This was the passage that he gave me twice:
Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.” Jeremiah 42:6
This statement was made by the leaders of Judah asking Jeremiah the prophet to seek the Lord’s counsel regarding whether they should seek refuge in Egypt or remain in Judah to face the king of Babylon. So with the statement above, they promise to do whatever the Lord told Jeremiah. So Jeremiah prayed for ten days and then the word of the Lord came to him.
Then he summoned Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest, and said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your plea for mercy before him: If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I relent of the disaster that I did to you. Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, declares the Lord, for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land.
But if you say, ‘We will not remain in this land,’ disobeying the voice of the Lord your God and saying, ‘No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there,’ then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to enter Egypt and go to live there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, and there you shall die. All the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to live there shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. They shall have no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I will bring upon them.
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You shall become an execration, a horror, a curse, and a taunt. You shall see this place no more. The Lord has said to you, O remnant of Judah, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’ Know for a certainty that I have warned you this day that you have gone astray at the cost of your lives. For you sent me to the Lord your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the Lord our God, and whatever the Lord our God says, declare to us and we will do it.’ And I have this day declared it to you, but you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God in anything that he sent me to tell you. Now therefore know for a certainty that you shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.” Jeremiah 42:8-22
And of course, the remnant of Judah did what they wanted to do all along, which was absolutely diametrically opposed to God’s instruction.
Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” Jeremiah 43:2-3
The leaders of Judah’s armed forces took everyone including Jeremiah to Egypt. These people were the remnant that was left in the land of Judah after everyone else had been deported to Babylon. And of course the Babylonians were God’s instrument of wrath to punish those in Jerusalem and Judah because they refused to serve God alone. They chose to serve the gods of other nations, and by doing so, they committed spiritual adultery against God.
Now the remnant left in Judah, did not learn the lesson that they should have learned with the Babylonians, for they are now making the same mistake which is not serving God. They are now embarking on a journey to take them back to the land that the Lord had formerly delivered them from slavery. This reminds me of a New Testament Scripture:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.
Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What matters is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:1-6
Why are we so easily led astray by trying to please others rather than God? The Galatians wanted to “fit in” and wanted to insist on “sacrifice” (as circumcision) rather than obedience, (trusting in what the Lord did on the cross). So they were ready to accept a yoke of bondage, rather than simply trust in the Lord Jesus, and the gospel of peace.
Now, let’s return to the story of those who left Judah to go to Egypt.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: “Take in your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them. He shall come and strike the land of Egypt, giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword. I shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive. And he shall clean the land of Egypt as a shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from there in peace. He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.’” Jeremiah 43:8-13
So now everything that Jeremiah had prophesied, came to pass. The land of Israel was left desolate, with the deportations and the desertion of the Promised Land by the remnant. The sword, the famine and the pestilence followed them. Egypt’s land and gods were destroyed.
Judah’s continual rejection of God now brought the land of Judah no remnant at all.
Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’ But they did not listen or incline their ear, to turn from their evil and make no offerings to other gods. Therefore my wrath and my anger were poured out and kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they became a waste and a desolation, as at this day. And now thus says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and child, from the midst of Judah, leaving you no remnant? Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to live, so that you may be cut off and become a curse and a taunt among all the nations of the earth? Have you forgotten the evil of your fathers, the evil of the kings of Judah, the evil of their wives, your own evil, and the evil of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They have not humbled themselves even to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.
“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for harm, to cut off all Judah. I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to come to the land of Egypt to live, and they shall all be consumed. In the land of Egypt they shall fall; by the sword and by famine they shall be consumed. From the least to the greatest, they shall die by the sword and by famine, and they shall become an oath, a horror, a curse, and a taunt. I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, so that none of the remnant of Judah who have come to live in the land of Egypt shall escape or survive or return to the land of Judah, to which they desire to return to dwell there. For they shall not return, except some fugitives.” Jeremiah 44:4-14
Even after all this, they were still unwilling to repent or listen to Jeremiah who spoke for God. They were rebellious and defiant.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have declared with your mouths, and have fulfilled it with your hands, saying, ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.’ Then confirm your vows and perform your vows! Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says the Lord, that my name shall no more be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, ‘As the Lord God lives.’ Behold, I am watching over them for disaster and not for good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end of them. And those who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who came to the land of Egypt to live, shall know whose word will stand, mine or theirs. This shall be the sign to you, declares the Lord, that I will punish you in this place, in order that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for harm: Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and sought his life.” Jeremiah 44:25-30
God purposefully leaves a remnant in hopes that they will learn from the punishment that follows the many warnings given through the prophets like Jeremiah. They should use the wisdom and what circumstance they find themselves in and make a right judgment. They should have repented, but they deceived themselves, taking counsel, not with God-fear men as Jeremiah, but taking the counsel among themselves. We see this in the rationale of the women who had made drink offerings to the queen of heaven:
Then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands' approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?” Jeremiah 44:15-19
You can see how these people deceived themselves, hardening their hearts towards God, and detesting every word that Jeremiah spoke at God’s command.
As we read this we may say to ourselves, “I have never seen such blatant rebellion!”
But actually, we can rebel against God when we go our own way and do our own thing. Our own hearts can deceive us, if we are not walking in the Spirit.
In the vision of the celery stalks, I was making my own decision as to what to do with the celery. I was going to trim off the larger of the two stalks and cut it into sticks. And with the smaller branched celery stalk, I was planning to cut a third of it and throw it away. With what was left, I would cut into sticks.
In the vision, I made this very simple plan on my own. I did not consult the Lord about such a matter, for it is not a decision that has much effect on my life. But I was choosing to throw a portion away, for I saw it as not needed. I was looking to make fairly uniform sticks and the celery leaves and tiny branches did not fit my plan.
This was a simple decision, having no eternal value whatsoever. However, when we make decisions without consulting God which have greater implications in our lives, are we not going our own way and doing our own thing?
The Lord told me once, “I keep my angels around you but you go your own way.” I was ashamed that I was so independent that I thought I could call the shots. I don’t think so!
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
The Lord wants us to conform to his image, to his purpose and to his ways.
“Be holy for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16
If we were truly purchased by the Lord’s blood, then we do not own ourselves but we surrender to his will. We are to please the Lord. We certainly see what happened to the remnant of Judah when they followed their own deceitful hearts and took flight to Egypt.
They could have learned from Israel (the northern kingdom) having been previously deported, taken captive by the Assyrians. But they feared Babylon more than God. And after Judah (the southern kingdom) was deported by the Babylonians, they were the only ones left. Rather than listening and taking good counsel from Jeremiah, they chose to follow their own natural inclinations, fears and instincts and fled. They did not for a moment trust in the Lord.
We can be like them, when we let our fears and anxieties overtake us. We have to remember whose we are. We are the Lord’s. We belong to him. If we do not trust in him and go it alone, we will regret the decision. We will be out of the will of God. The Lord knows all things, and our hearts can deceive us.
Again, I turn to the book of Jeremiah regarding God’s view, our obedience, and the heart that deceives:
This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes mere flesh his strength and turns his heart from the Lord. He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve. Jeremiah 17:5-10
So let us be obedient to the voice of the Lord, when he speaks to us directly or when we read his word. If we do not understand that we are not our own, we will not know how to please him. We are not our own, we were bought at a price, therefore we are to honor God with our bodies.
Thanks for reading and sharing this with others. God bless you!
