Prepare the Way of the Lord
We are to usher in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 40:3-5, the word says, “the voice of him that cries in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it”. Of course, this scripture refers to John the Baptist and the first coming of our Lord. But we need to see that it also refers to us, at this time, preparing the way for the Lord to come again. When it says “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” it speaks of now. The glory of the Lord will be revealed in His glorious church as it says in Romans 8:18: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us”. The glory of the Lord will be revealed through a multitude of believers who have submitted to him, died to self, and have become led of the spirit, the sons of God. This, combined with the great outpouring of His spirit upon all flesh, will result in all flesh seeing it together. And keep in mind, there are more people on this earth right now than the sum total of all who have gone before us. It is up to each one of us to take our place in this upcoming move of God by submitting ourselves to Him and seeking Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We see this promise of victory and overcoming in Leviticus 26:3-9: “If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will give rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.”
Now let’s translate this scripture. All promises of God are conditional upon obedience, so the Lord gives three requirements here: to walk in His statutes (laws), keep His commandments, and do them. We are not to be hearers of the word only, but doers of the word. If we do these things, then He will give rain in due season. Rain in the natural is necessary for life to produce water for all manner of purposes, all pertaining to life and fruitfulness. Rain in the spirit also produces life and fruitfulness, as it is the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon us to bring change in us, impart to us wisdom, revelation, understanding, etc., and conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works in us to produce these things and make us fruitful, He also comes upon us at various times for similar purposes. And pertaining to this scripture, we are talking about a great outpouring which will affect multitudes. The result being the land yielding her increase - meaning many coming into relationship with the Lord and the church growing exponentially, and the trees of the field (individuals) being impacted by the Holy Spirit yielding their fruit - or becoming fruitful.
And your threshing - the separating the wheat from the chaff, or rather, the purging of sin from the lives of each believer, shall reach unto the vintage. Vintage has two interesting meanings: one; fruitfulness in the producing of a vintage crop of grapes or new wine, and two; from a primary root word in Hebrew also means to fortify, become strong, restrain, or withhold. We are to become strong as a body as a result of cleansing ourselves, or rather, allowing the Holy Spirit to cleanse and purge us of all that has previously hindered us from entering into the fullness of His calling for the church. This, in turn will reach unto the sowing time - a time of planting and sowing righteousness throughout the land and preparing the land for even greater production and harvest. During this time we shall eat our bread to the full - the bread of life, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, and have life - and that more abundant. He will protect us and we will live in the land safely. His enemies will be subdued as we chase them and they fall by the sword - the sword of the spirit - tearing down strongholds of the kingdom of darkness. And He will make us fruitful, and multiply us, and establish His covenant with us. The word establish here means to accomplish, confirm, perform, or uphold. Notice how this relates to Genesis 1:28 - the Edenic commandment - for us to be fruitful, and multiply, subdue the earth, and have dominion in it. Here we see each of these elements as He confirms His covenant with us and fulfills the command given to man in the garden of Eden.
We also see this outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Hosea 6:1-3: “ Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”
In order to understand this scripture, we need to gain an understanding of the pattern of the tabernacle given to Moses when he was with God in the mount. There are three parts to the tabernacle - each one directly relating to a person of the Trinity. The outer court is the place of the Holy Spirit. When we are born again, we are born again of the Holy Spirit and it is He that we first come to know if we will seek truth and pursue relationship with Him. The outer court is the place where the people would come to bring their sacrifices for forgiveness of their sins, a foreshadowing of present day where we confess our sins and receive forgiveness of sins based on the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross. Sadly, many believers never grow out of this cycle of confession and false repentance, thinking that or being errantly taught that that is all there is to living the Christian life. What many don’t realize is that the Holy Spirit is working to bring you into an intimate relationship with Jesus - who resides in the inner court or Holy place - where only priests can enter. In order to grow into priesthood and enter into the Holy place, we have to allow the Holy Spirit to mature us and become obedient to Him. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself, but only speaks of Jesus. It is His job to bring us into intimacy with Jesus. He does this by drawing our attention to the laver and the brazen altar. The laver is where the priest would wash before ministering, and it is here where spiritually the Holy Spirit draws us to look into the laver and see our reflection - to see the impurity of our countenance and see our need to be delivered of our carnality. He then draws our attention to the brazen altar where the priests would burn the sacrifices. Spiritually, this is where He leads us to become living sacrifices - and the refiner’s fire begins its work of destroying that which is attached to the world. As we grow and mature, allowing the Holy Spirit to purge us of much of our carnal thinking, He will change our garments and bring us into the Holy place where the priests minister to the Lord. Spiritually, this is the place of entering into priesthood. The Holy place is the place of the golden lamp stand, the table of shewbread, and the altar of incense all signifying the person of Jesus. The golden lamp stand represents Jesus as the light of the world and also represents the Holy Spirit in His fullness - the seven-fold flow of the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of council and might, and the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2). We have now come into a fuller revelation of the Holy Spirit as we are now learning to be led of Him. The golden lamp stand consists of a main pipe and six branches all flowing from the main pipe. This represents Jesus as the vine and us as the branches (six is the number of man) in John 15. The lamp stand is filled with oil (the Holy Spirit) and produces the light of truth which is Jesus (the Way, the Truth, and the Life). This light of truth, by way of the leading of the Spirit of Truth, will bring us to the table of shewbread where we enter a more intimate relationship with Jesus and know Him as the bread of life - our source of life. Here, we taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:8). Knowing the goodness of God is knowing His essence – His glory. When Moses said “Show me your glory”, God answered “I will make all my goodness pass before you” (Exodus 33:18-19). At the table we have deep communion with the Lord and fall in love with Him, desiring nothing more than His continual presence. It is like enjoying a romantic candlelit dinner with our Beloved. At the appointed time, Jesus, as our Great High Priest, will then take us to the Holy of Holies by way of the altar of incense. According to the law, once a year the high priest would “take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony” (Leviticus 16:13-14). In Matthew 21: 42-44 Jesus presents Himself as the stone which the builders rejected which is become the chief cornerstone and said “whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder”. In the process of the outer court, we are broken and humbled as we become living sacrifices. But at the altar of incense - Jesus “falls on us”, grinding us to powder (we are the incense), and consumes the last bit of carnal nature in us on the altar. He then takes us and presents us to the Father. This is the place of transfiguration where we fully die to self and the glory of the Lord is revealed in us. Notice in scripture that Jesus always points to the Father, for it is His job to bring us into relationship with our heavenly Father. We now know the fullness of the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Since no flesh shall glory in His presence, this step requires dying to self. It is a place of intimacy and entering into His rest - where we cease from our own labors and do only that which we see the Father do and speak only that which we hear the Father say. It is a place of being a manifested son of God - led by the Holy Spirit and thereby no longer fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. We now go forth to walk as Jesus walked in this earth in power and dominion, destroying the works of the devil and setting the captive free.
With this foundation laid, let us now translate Hosea 6:1-3. Here we see three days which are the three stages of entering into the fullness of relationship with God. Day one: we are torn and we are healed, we are smitten and our wounds are bound up. This describes the process that the Holy Spirit takes us through to break us and humble us so that we become obedient, learn to walk by faith and not by sight, and begin to mature in the things of the spirit - allowing our carnal nature to be dealt with in our “outer court’ experience. Day two: He will revive us. In this stage we are quickened and made whole as we come into intimate fellowship with Jesus and we receive ministry from Jesus and learn to minister to Him as priests in our “inner court” experience. Day three: He will raise us up and we will live in His sight. In this stage we die to self and become manifested sons of God and enter into the presence of God the Father. We are raised up in the power of His resurrection and now live in His presence.
We also need to look at this scripture from the perspective of the church. God is calling us as the church, as one body, to go through the same process. It is time for us to be healed of the wounds that we have inflicted upon each other and learn to walk in love for one another. “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another”. (John 13:34-35). We are to be known by our fruit - and the first fruit listed is love. By loving one another and receiving one another as members of the same body, we can then begin to mature as a body and open the door for the Lord to breathe life into the body of Christ and revive us. Then He will raise us up in power and we will experience His presence like never before.
This requires action on our part. We must choose to believe. We must choose to seek Him and make decisions based upon what we believe He is leading us to do. We must choose to trust Him no matter what circumstance and our natural senses are telling us. In other words, we must lay down the carnal mind and “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Let this mind be in you - it is a matter of choice - and belief. We choose whether to allow this to happen or not. We choose to believe if this is possible or not. If we make the right choice to believe the Lord and allow this to happen, then we open ourselves to His working in us to perform His word. We are changed from the inside out and only He can change us. We are the clay, the vessel - He is the potter, the One who fills the vessel. It takes time for the master to shape the vessel and conform it to His image. The amount of time it takes is very dependent upon our obedience. We must be patient in the process, for it is His process not ours. It is His plan for our lives not ours. The path that leads to life is not unlike the path our Lord walked on this earth, it is filled with suffering and leads to the cross, and the cross leads to resurrection and the abundant life. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4). This is the plan of God for your life - that you be perfected and made complete in Christ.
I have often stated that if I had to condense the bible down to one scripture, it would be Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths”. Your own understanding is the carnal mind. If you depend on your understanding you will be deceived, you will make wrong decisions, and you will fail. And better yet, the enemy will convince you that it was God’s fault. But if you acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, then you seek His direction and seek to gain understanding from His perspective. He promises to lead and guide you, and He knows all things - so He certainly knows how to get you to the place of fulfilling His plan for your life - which, by the way, will be a place beyond your wildest dreams. “But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him” (I Corinthians 2:9).
“But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). It is not all about pain and suffering - for even that comes from God’s love for us, to save us from ourselves (self), but it is also about knowing God’s desire to bless us and for us to enjoy good things. He desires to be our treasure - and where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength then He will hold no good thing from you - and He will keep you from evil.
Isaiah 61:1-7 shows us who we are to be in Christ and the inheritance that He has for us. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowman and your vinedressers. But you shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves. For your shame you shall have double (a double portion of blessing like Job or a double portion of the spirit like Elisha), and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them”.
This is a description of how the church should be and the works we should be performing by and through the Holy Spirit. This is a description of the Edenic commandment to subdue the earth and have dominion in it. Brethren, it is up to us. We cannot continue to remain idle. The trumpet has sounded. There is a call to those who have ears to hear to awaken from your slumber, to seek Him while He may be found for the time is short, to be led of His spirit, and to do great exploits in the power of His might. There is a great darkness on the land and we have been given the power and authority to bring light to the darkness and set the captive free. The cries of those in bondage are growing - and they are calling out for a deliverer. They are crying out for Jesus - and we must prepare the way for Him to be made manifest and His glory revealed - in us. May you “be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:9-12).
“For many be called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16). The word chosen in Greek, ‘eklektos’, means favorite, chosen, or elect. It comes from a root word meaning - ‘completion’. I believe Jesus was saying that few will go on to completion - meaning to become sons of God. There is nothing easy about this. It is truly the road less traveled. But the whole earth is groaning and travailing and a great cloud of witnesses are cheering you on to fulfill your calling and your destiny. There is nothing stopping you - but you. Let go of everything that is of this world and embrace all that is of the Lord. You will find life … the abundant life. And multitudes will be blessed for your faithfulness.
“If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear (in you), then shall you also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4).
