Fresh Bread from the Heart of God

Posted: 2009-04-01 08:09:40

3-26-09

(Some of my own thoughts and some quotes from Frank Viola’s new book “From Eternity to Here”)

There are two themes found throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. One is a love story between Jesus and His Church. The other is God’s desire to be with His people in a place that He can call His house, His home, His dwelling place. He wants to be with us.

This story of love in the Bible begins with Adam and Eve (Adam being a type of Jesus and Eve a type of His Bride, the Church). The apostle Paul says that the oneness of marriage (between a man and a woman) relating to Christ and the Church is a great mystery (Eph. 5:32) that has been hidden from the beginning of time but is now being revealed to us. I will look at 5 women in the Bible to show how they picture Jesus pursuing the Church as His Bride and us pursuing Him that we might know Him.    PART I will show how Jesus and the Church are being drawn to each other in this hour as never before, and that this relationship will culminate in the marriage supper of the Lamb. What is happening is similar to how a man and woman are drawn to each other and eventually become one in marriage. PART II will describe from the Old Testament and the New Testament how God is desiring a house or a home, a place that He might meet with His people, a place where He can dwell in our midst, be with us and us with Him, that He might reveal Himself to us more.

PART I   Jesus and the Church (His Bride)

EVE-  Adam had a DNA hunger in himself (put there by God) to love someone exclusively and that someone  would love him exclusively. Eve was created from the rib of Adam (taken out of his side) with Adam’s DNA in her to be loved by Adam and that she would also love Adam in return. Adam took Eve to be his bride and the two became one. In God, in the Father and in the Son, is also a DNA that we should love God exclusively and that He would love us with such passion that it is also like a marriage bonding us into one. We are to love God with all our heart and strength and soul and He loves us so greatly and unconditionally and wants to take us as His Bride, be one with us, and marry us (the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven that is to come). And so Jesus is wooing us and pursuing His Bride and we are being drawn to pursue Him and be one with Him. (see p. 49 of “From Eternity to Here” by Frank Viola)

REBEKAH-  Here we have the father (Abraham) who is rich in great possessions and who has everything; the son (Isaac), the father seeking a wife for his son, sending his best servant (the Holy Spirit) to invite a woman to be his son’s wife. In Gen. 24 we see the servant guided by the Lord to the right woman (chosen by God). He has been instructed by Abraham (the Father) to go to Abraham’s original home area to invite the right woman who must be willing to leave everything to come to this unseen husband and a new land. She must make a break from all that is familiar to her to marry a man she has never seen, in a land that is new to her. (We must hate our own father and mother, our wife and children, our brothers and sisters, and even our own lives, to leave everything and follow Him, or we cannot be His disciple). It is an adventure and she must be convinced by the servant sent to her that she must go. If she will not come, there will be no wife. Her family tries to delay her 10 days but the servant says, No, I must get back to my master. It is up to her alone (Gen. 24:57, 58), her family says to her, “It is up to you?” She says, I will go. Both Isaac and Jesus had miraculous births and were offered by their fathers as sacrifices on Mt. Moriah (future Jerusalem). The Father and the Holy Spirit are seeking a wife (Bride) for the Son. (see ps. 94 and 95, Viola book)

THE SHULAMITE WOMAN (from the Song of Solomon)-  Solomon (the king) falls in love with the sun-tanned Shulamite shepherdess. She is not royalty but the king loves her so much regardless. She also falls in love with the king. As they pursue one another their love grows. He describes many parts of her anatomy that greatly please him. Just as the Bride of Christ is made up of many individual servants of the Lord, He (the Lord) loves each one individually and has an intimate relationship with each one, as much as He loves the whole Body for all that they are together for Him. Frank Viola explains that the Lord loves His Church corporately and that corporately they will be all that He desires and dreams of, but that He loves each one of us deeply (as though each of us alone was all there was), “loving each part of the Body as much as He loves the whole.” (p. 115, Viola book)

MARY MAGDALENE-  Mary, who was a prostitute earlier in her life and who was delivered from seven demons by the Lord, became a very devoted follower of the Lord. She was at the cross with Jesus’ mother and other women and she was the first one to see the risen Jesus (with another disciple named Mary). (Matt. 27:56, 61 and 28:1) Mary was also the one who sat at Jesus’ feet when Martha was distracted with much serving. Jesus said to Martha, “Mary has chosen the one thing that is necessary, that will never be taken away from her.” At another time, Mary found Jesus and wept in His presence, loved Him much because she had been forgiven so much, kissed His feet, washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, and anointed His head and feet with perfumed ointment from a broken alabaster flask, which was worth one year worth of wages (very costly) as Jesus sat at dinner. The Lord said that wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her. (Mark 14:3-9, Lk. 7:36-50, Lk. 8:2 and 10:38-42, and Jn. 11:1, 2 and 12:3-8) We too are forgiven much, we are unworthy because of our sorted, sinful and even demonic past, we weep and are broken before Him, we love Him much because He first loved us so much. We will follow Him to the cross and we will see the resurrected One. We too will choose one thing, to sit at His feet and hear Him. (ps. 79-89, Viola book)

THE SAMARITAN WOMAN  (at the well)-  Just as Mary Magdalene was marred, not accepted and criticized by others, so was the woman at the well. Jesus knew He must go through Samaria. Usually the path to Galilee was not through Samaria, but the Lord had a divine appointment with one person. The disciples didn’t think that He should even talk to a woman, and even more so, He shouldn’t talk to a Samaritan (mixture of Jew and Gentile). The Samaritans also had unaccepted religious traditions. Jesus asked her to draw Him water at the noon time heat of the day, (just as the servant (Holy Spirit) had asked Rebekah to draw him a drink at a well). In Jn. 4:1-42 Jesus offers her living water saying that if she drinks this water she will never thirst, but it will be a fountain springing up in her unto everlasting life. He also says that she will become a worshiper of the Father not on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, for the Father is seeking her as a true worshiper to worship Him in spirit and truth. When she said, I know the Messiah is coming and he will tell us all things, Jesus said, I who speak to you am He. She told everyone, come and see this Man, could He be the Messiah (the Christ)? Her testimony won the people of the city. They went to see Him and they asked Him to stay. He stayed for a few days. Even more people believed when they met with Christ Himself and they said, we love your testimony and it drew us to Him, but now we ourselves have heard Him for ourselves and we know that He is the Christ, the Savior of the world. She had 5 husbands and she was living with one now who was not her husband, and Jesus was the 7^th man, and she gave herself into His service. We too have met, heard and seen the Lord and we want others to meet, hear and see the Lord for themselves. And so, we tell of who He is becoming to us and He becomes real to others also. He is the One we seek to know and we desire others to know Him also. (p. 119, Viola book)

Every love story that has ever been, whether real or fictional, in a book or movie or real life is just a pale version of God’s love story from Genesis to Revelation and what He wants to do in our lives. This truly is a great mystery revealed, Jesus pursuing us and our turning to pursue a relationship with Him of great depth, love and desire that has never been seen before. (p. 26, Viola book)

PART II   What kind of place does the Lord seek to dwell in the midst of His people? The Lord wants a house or a home where He can dwell, abide, and stay with us.

A HOUSE OR A HOME for God is a place where He can rest and be Himself; where He can express Himself freely; where He can speak and communicate; where He can reveal His mind. There is no place like home where you are free to be yourself. If you really want to know me, see me at home (watch me there). I am comfortable there. How we decorate expresses our personality. All our treasures are there, all our most intimate possessions that express what we like and who we are. It is the place where we are accepted, received, welcomed, celebrated, completely loved there. I am the lord and king there to do as I please (within the law). We must make a place like this for the Lord (ps. 134 and 135, Viola book)

ABRAHAM looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. He didn’t find this city in his life time but he saw it from a far off and he knew what it would be like when it came. He could have returned to his old life (his old country) but he desired a better country, that is a heavenly one. And so, he dwelt in tents as a sojourner waiting for God to bring him into the city that God was preparing for him. (Heb. 11:8-16) To get to God’s city you have to leave everything you know and go where you don’t know. We are foreigners in this world, living in a tent, detached from this present world. We are ready to pick up and go where He leads us and where He sends us. We have no roots in this world. The Lord must show us what to do. (ps. 140-142, Viola book)

JACOB had a dream one night of a ladder stretching from the earth to heaven, with angel ascending and descending on it. God spoke to Jacob there, and when he awoke he said, God is in this place, how awesome is this place, this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven! God wants to dwell on the earth in the midst of His people. He wants us to taste the things of heaven where He lives (and of course we will be there with Him one day too), He wants us to be in His presence more, and so He is going to make a way for heaven to come down to earth and for us to experience Him and His good things. We are going to be His house here, He is making us ready to have Him come. (ps. 142-143, Viola book)

AT MOUNT SINAI God said to Moses on the mountain, tell the children of Israel, I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself. Also the Lord said, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak to you…. Get ready, for on the third day I will come down to you upon Mt. Sinai in the sight of all the people.” (Ex. 19:1-13) But the people were so afraid when God came near that they said, you go Moses and speak to the Lord and then tell us what He said, “let not God speak with us lest we die.” (Ex. 20:19) So, God wanted to be with the people but the people didn’t want it. God still wants to be with anyone who is willing and ready, and so, in Ex 24:1-11 seventy elders and others who were named went up on the mountain, they saw the God of Israel, they saw the pavement under His feet, a beautiful work of sapphire stone, like the very heavens in clarity. They saw God and they ate and drank. God wants to be with us, for us to see Him and be with Him. Our hearts must be right, we must want Him with a holy and pure desire. And then He says to us, “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door to me I will come in and sup with him and he with me.”

MOSES’ TABERNACLE was given to Moses in a heavenly vision and he was instructed to make a tabernacle with a Holy of Holies room where God’s presence would reside, where God sits upon the mercy seat.

DAVID’S TABERNACLE was given to David by the instructions of the Lord directly to David and through various prophets who worked side by side with him. The Tabernacle of Moses existed at the same time as David’s Tabernacle about 7 miles apart (Moses’ at Gibeon and David’s at Jerusalem). Frank Viola puts it this way, “Was the Tabernacle of Moses now a religious program, with no ark of the covenant there, God was not there either? Did that bother them? Apparently not. They continued on with their ritual.” (p. 150, Viola book) On Mount Zion (Jerusalem) David’s Tabernacle was a little canvas tent. Inside was one thing, the ark and the Almighty God sits upon it. There is no veil to go behind once a year (and then only the high priest), all saw the ark, God’s presence is in the open for all to enjoy, they are face to face with the Lord. The New Covenant is smack dab in the middle of the Old Testament era. There are no priests and all the people see God. (see ps. 150-152, Viola book) When David danced with all his might before the Lord, some were offended. But David said I did it unto the Lord (I believe the Lord anointed and inspired David to dance like that). And then David said to his critics, you will see more “outrageous” things than this, and these maidens who see these things will know that the Lord is doing this (though many will not accept and will criticize what the Lord does). (II Sam. 6:12-23) We are to do what God tells us (just so it is not contrary to the Scriptures), He will be in charge of His revival. We will go farther with the Lord than ever before.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY- After 70 years in this captivity a remnant will return to the land of Israel to build again the Temple. In Haggai as the people laid a foundation of the new Temple, their progress was so slow and their work seemed so “worthless” to them. But God encouraged them through the prophet Haggai. The people said, we are so sad, the work looks as “nothing in our eyes.” But the Lord says to them, “Keep working, for I am with you. I will fill this Temple with glory, and the glory of this latter Temple shall be greater than the former.” (Hagg. 2:1-9) I believe what God is going to do now is the greater glory than anything that has been before. It is easy to “despise the day of small beginnings,” but the plumb line is in our hands now and He is guiding us, the Lord will build His Church and we will follow Him. (Zech. 4:6-10)

JESUS says that the house of God “shall be a house of prayer for all nations” but we have made it a den of thieves. Prayer is fellowship, interaction, communion between God and His people. Heaven and earth will be communicating back and forth. Jesus said, “Your house (not God’s) will be left to you desolate.” The glory has departed, the Lord is not in it, Ichabod be written over it. (Matt. 23:38) (see ps. 158 and 159)

THE INDIVIDUAL AND CORPORATE REVIVAL TODAY will bring together living stones (us) into a dwelling place, a spiritual house for God. (I Pet. 2:4, 5) There are people all over the world that are hearing the call of God to a deeper walk with Him and are being prepared as stones (possibly away from the building site), but in God’s time each stone (being chiseled by God) will be shaped just right and will be fitted together with other stones perfectly (as God chooses) to become the Bride of Christ the Lord has always desired. As Frank Viola says, “Scattered stones can never make a home, no matter how many of them there are.” (p. 161, Viola book) Many precious brothers and sisters here and there will eventually have their hearts knit with others that they recognize as kindred spirits who have been touched and changed by God, prepared for His revival. God does not want to visit us (a visitation), He wants to stay and dwell with us. We’re getting closer to heaven, one day we will see His face as we meet Him in the air. God does not want to visit us because a visit to a home means it doesn’t belong to Him. As God increasingly comes to us in real revival, He will have a people to welcome Him, it will be His home, His dwelling place, and He will arrange all the furniture the way He wants to. (ps. 168 and 169, Viola book)