January 2004

Prophetic Word for the year 2004

“MY PRESENCE SHALL GO WITH YOU
AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST!”
(Ex 33:14)

PART THREE

        The hour has come when God’s sons are entering their appointed “Rest”! But there is still much confusion and misinformation about the purpose and nature of this Rest. While it does mean the cessation of human endeavor and fleshly enterprise; it does not mean the end of earthly activity! If that were not so, this next verse would be at the end of the Bible, instead of near the beginning!

“On the seventh day God rested from all the Work He had made;
then He blessed and sanctified the seventh day because He had
rested in it from all the work He created and made.” (Ge 2:2-3)

        After this text are 48 more chapters in Genesis, plus 65 other Books replete with “works” of God and man! Now if “God had rested” at the onset of Scripture, how could His“works” fill several thousand more pages of text? And what about these arresting words in Jn 21:25?

“There are also many other things that Jesus did, which
if they were all to be written down one by one, I suppose
even the world, itself, could not contain the books that
would be written!! Amen.”

        If such voluminous “Works” succeed God’s “Rest”, that divine repose bears closer study! The root given for the word, “rest” (Heb 7673) is the same for Sabbath- whose definitions include: “To desist from exertion and celebrate!” This is why carnal-minded men lust and strive for wealth! To men of flesh, only an abundance of riches allows them to “desist from exertion, and celebrate”! Not so for spirit-minded men who realizes, “Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask Him...therefore seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you!” (Mt 6:33) Only as we seek the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8) can we know true and lasting peace of mind! Remember Jesus’ invitation in Mt 11:28-30-

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden
(that is, greatly burdened with futile, fleshly exertion)
and I WILL GIVE YOU REST! Take upon you My
Yoke (of unquestioning trust and obedience in God).
Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
YOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS!
For My Yoke is easy and my burden is light!”

        Here is the Rest of God: that, without exception, every thought, word and deed that ever has, or ever shall, manifest in this universe was “finished from the foundation of the world!” (He 4:3) All true sons of God celebrate this great Truth!

ALL CREATION IS A FINISHED AND SEALED WORK!

        Nothing God has ever created can be altered, amended or aborted in any way! And only the Holy Spirit safely activates this Work of Love so it brings pleasure and glory to God! Creation is a manifestation of God’s Goodness, which is why He looked at all He made and proclaim 7 TIMES [7 = perfection], “IT IS GOOD!” (Ge 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31) And why do we say Creation is a Work of Love? Because it was created by, for, and in the Image of the God of Love! (1 Jn 4:8) For this reason, God sent His Son of Light to overcome the world of darkness in every man’s soul! One Word of Light and Love can swallow up a million words of darkness, destruction and death! And as we are strengthened by the Faith of Jesus Christ we can boldly cry out:

“Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ? Shall tribulation?
Shall distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword?
...No, in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS
THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US! For I am persuaded that
neither death nor life, nor angels or principalities or powers, not
present things or things to come, not height or depth, or any other
creature (not even the devil); NOTHING SHALL BE ABLE TO
SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD WHICH IS IN
CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD!”

        One prototype that shows how we can “rest” and still perform Divine Enterprise is Noah. We shall better understand this if first we would first hear this prayer Jesus prayed for His Body, “Father, As You are in Me, and I am in You, let your people also be ONE IN US, that the world will believe You have sent Me!” (Jn 17:21-22) In the same way Christ is united in God, so are His people to be united in Him! As goes the Head, so goes the Body! Thus when we read Mt 24:37-39 that says, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be in the coming of the Son of man; for in the days before the flood, before the day Noah entered the ark, people were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, totally unaware of their fate until the flood came and took them all away!! And so it will be in the coming of the Son of man (Christ, the Head, and the Church, His Body)!”
        Since Noah is the prototype to herald this great event [first for the Head, now for the Body] God’s sons will, at that time, shall have “ceased from our works and labored to enter His Rest.” (He 4:10) So it stands to reason that the life of this great patriarch should paint a picture of the Rest God has prepared for His people! And so it does! The name, Noah, is translated in Heb 5146 as “R-E-S-T”! Now if you think that “resting” in the Lord means to be idle, apathetic, and alienated from the constructing of His Kingdom here on earth, look closer at the life of Noah! In Ge 6:1-9, a 500 year old man undertakes a 120-year construction of a massive 3-story ark; all the while he preaches repentance [albeit, in vain] to the earth’s perverse people! If a 500 year old carpenter/ preacher was given the strength and stamina to do all this and still be the symbol of Rest, I happily enter such a productive Rest, even as Jesus Christ, Master Carpenter/Preacher, rests in His Father as He raises up His Church, while preaching to all men (not in vain) the Gospel of Peace!
        The building of Noah’s ark may seem to some as a work of human hands; however, those hands were divinely empowered and sustained because “Noah found Grace in the sight of the Lord ...for he was a just man, and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God!” (Ge 6:8-9) Noah’s life is a template for one who trusts in God as he walks upright, at rest with God, among a perverse generation. That is how God knew Noah could be trusted to obey instructions, and rely on Divine Enablement to perform such a heroic and historic feat!
        God saved not only Noah from the flood, but also his wife, their three sons and their wives; for a total of eight people [8 = new creation, new beginning] preserved to repopulate the earth. God has always saved a remnant-seed like Noah in every generation. And exactly what is this “seed”? “The Seed is the Word of God!” (Lk 8:11) “The Good Seed are the children of the Kingdom!” (Mt 13:38) But more specifically, “The Seed is Christ!” (Ga 3:16) If God likens the coming of the Son of Man to a man with a name meaning “Rest”, it stands to reason the Son of Man typifies that “Rest”- which is why Jesus Christ is called the “Prince of Peace”! (Isa 9:6) We are, therefore, the sons of Rest and the sons of Peace, and most especially, the sons of Love!

[TO BE CONTINUED]