Month 6:8, Week 1:7 (Shibi'i/Sukkot), Year:Day 5940:155 AM
2Exodus 3/40, Yovel - Year 50/50 - Teshuvah 8/39
Gregorian Calendar: Friday 9 September 2016
Who is at Your Helm?
Visions of The Imminent Storm
Introduction
Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and mishpachah and may the grace of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) be upon us all. We are once again taking a pause in our series, Futile Religion, to address another matter which the Ruach (Spirit) has urgently brought to my attention in these last days of 'spiritual prepping' before the 1-3 October event(s).
Breathtaking Visions and Surrendering the Self-Life
In mulling ideas over in my mind as the Ruach (Spirit) was dropping them in for today's sermon (which I have postponed until next week) while I was really having a deep exmination of myself and my motives for doing things, especially in surrendering that cursed self-life which hampers us all, I began to see some of the most intense and beautiful visions I have experienced for a long time. And when I say 'beautiful', I mean breathtakingly beautiful. It is hard to describe, let alone explain, the depth and sweep of these visions which moved from, as well as dovetailed with, one to the other. As I had no pen and paper handy when I saw them, and as I now record the experience nearly ten hours after the event, some of the 'edging' has become blurred. But the essence is moreorless as follows.
Hampering Communion With Yahweh
We are cut off from Elohim (God) in proportion to our succumbing to the self-life. Not only is this self-centred life ugly and wicked, not only does it generate misery in us but it severely hampers our ability to commune with Yahweh and discern His will. For such a time as this, discernment is going to be absolutely critical. We cannot afford not to be in close communion! We have to be able to hear His voice as our ability to hear or not to hear Him could so easily become a matter of life for ourselves and our families.
Our head is the radar for numerous voices. We all know that. Identifying and untangling them so that we can hear the voice of Yah'shua (Jesus) is one of the chief occupations of a talmid (disciple) so that he can be about His will and not the will of the flesh or the Enemy (which are synonymous). Yesterday I wanted to target any areas of my thinking where the Enemy might have gained control and to produce, as it were, a 'rule of discernment' that is simple to apply.
Two Sets of Voices
There are only two sets of voices in the heads of the sheep (us) - the Voice of the Shepherd (Yah'shua/Jesus) and the voice of the Butcher (Satan). The voice of the Enemy is deceptive, imitating our own voice, the voice of loved ones and the Voice of the Shepherd Himself. So the voice of Satan is many voices. But we will treat them as a single voice because they have a single origin and singular purpose to deceive and undermine.
The Elements of the Voices
Here are the essences or elements of the two voices:
- 1. The Voice of the Shepherd tells the believer that he or she is acceptable and loved;
- 2. The voice of the Butcher tells the believer, usually imitating his or her own voice so that he or she believes it is him- or herself talking, saying, 'I must work to please Yahweh, but I know I will fail Him, and soon He will be displeased with me' [1].
Seeing, Hearing and Feeling Elohim
In other words, any voice that undermines #1 is false, whether it sounds like us or purports to be Yahweh, Yah'shua (Jesus) or the Ruach (Spirit). I mention this because I was critically looking at my own experiences and wanted to be sure that I was not being deluded in any way. Normally I don't listen to voices as I am more accustomed, as a seer, to seeing visions. However, the enemy is as easily able to interfere with the seeing aspect of the spirit as he is of the hearing. Emotions are even more dicey and unreliable as spiritual barometers for, as I have remarked before, we can have an identical emotional reaction to something false as well as true. The foundation of our hearing, seeing and feeling Yahweh must always be scripturally-based emet (truth). And the emet (truth) about what Elohim (God) thinks and feels about the true believer is key.
Trust in Yahweh's Judgment of You
If you have really given your life to Yah'shua (Jesus) and are trusting in Him - clinging on to Him - you know, because He says so in Scripture, that at spiritual ground level He accepts and loves you, and any voice, vision or feeling that contradicts that is of the father of lies. If you are deliberately and willfully disobeying His mitzvot (commandments), then Satan is going to have legal rights and your discernment is going to be proportionally worse. And if you persist in rebellion, well, you can only expect your condition to worsen until you can't hear Him at all. So repent, trust Him and trust what He says about the way He views you. If you are in Yah'shua (Jesus), you are covered by the blood and when He looks at you, Yahweh sees Yah'shua's (Jesus') righteousness as though it were your own.
Declaring Truth Opens Up the Visions
It was with such thoughts and meditations in me that I was carefully examining my own thoughts, visions and beliefs about my relationship with Yahweh that the sequence of visions suddenly burst upon me very early in the morning. I was declaring most emphatically that I was accepted and loved, in spite of any fleshy doubts occasioned by personal weaknesses that I am all too conscious of. And so as I started making this declaration of His love and acceptance of me, the first vision is open.
Vision of a Glorious Body of Water
It's hard exactly to describe what I saw, the first word that comes to my mind is 'big' followed by 'intense' By 'big' it felt as though I was in the middle of something enormous. I found myself in the air, high up, looking at an enormous body of water close to the land. I could see everything in microscopic detail, down to the tiniest wavelet. The scene was so 'rich' as to overwhelm my spiritual senses. It was incredible. It was just before dusk, the waters were relatively calm, and all was as it should have been.
Second Vision of the Ship in the Storm
The vision abruptly switched to a very different scene. I was in the middle of a storm at sea, the waves were high and crashing all around, but my eye was not on the storm but on a woman in her late 20's or early 30's, I would guess, with shortish dark blonde hair about neck length, holding and steering a ship's wheel on the deck of a wooden ship. She was intensely focussed and alert but at the same time clearly in control and without a trace of fear or panic. The storm did not seem to matter in the least because the overwhelming sense was that this, too, was 'in order' and that the ship would reach its destination in safety.
The Recent Camping Trip
This vision immediately took me back to our recent family camping trip in which we experienced something similar and at the time I remarked that this seemed to be a prophetic picture of the world right now (the calm) and the world as it is about to be (the storm). Now I was being shown in vision the same thing as pertaining to myself and that the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), represented by the woman, would be at the helm on behalf of Yah'shua (Jesus), steering myself and my family through whatever is to come. All I had to do was not look at the storm but at Elohim (God), declaring that He was at the helm, in control, through the Ruach (Spirit).
The Promise and the Four Guidelines
For all of us, the promise is extended of a safe delivery through the coming storm if we will trust that Yahweh accepts and loves us in spite of our many mistakes. If we don't believe that, the Enemy will take the helm of the ship of our life and steer us into treacherous waters until we repent, surrender and start trusting and obeying again. The alternative is to be shipwrecked and possibly forfeit our lives. Expanding this thought a little further, may I suggest, along the lines of Walt Heyer, that we covenant with Yahweh to:
- 1. Be honest before Him in prayer;
- 2. Make biblically- and revelation-based decisions;
- 3. Be accountable in Torah-based lifestyle choices; and
- 4. Accept the freedom that comes with Yahweh's grace and tenderness.
Conclusion
I am still not sure what to call the first three days of October, beginning with Yom Teruah this year, other than to take our cue from the meaning of Yom Teruah itself. This 'Day of Trumpets' or 'Day of Shouting' signals, at the end of the age, the Second Coming of Messiah and Final Judgment of the world prior to the Millennial Reign; but in our day - now, very shortly - it is the signal of the beginning of a spiritual coming in Judgment of the World by Messiah - the last dress rehearsal for the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones). You have 22 days to be ready. Amen.
Endnotes
[1] Michael Wells, Sidetracked in the Widlerness (Devotional Life Press, Littleton, CO: 1991). p.82
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