I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.  Eccl. 3:10-11

 

You now face the one thing that separates you from the Holy of Holies, which is the second Room of Mystery. You are more than likely ready to enter the next room by reaching down and picking up the hem of the bottom of the Veil, just as you lifted the curtain when you entered the Tabernacle and the screen as you entered the Sanctuary. Up to this point, you entered through each partition by your decision and your action. In other words, at each separating partition by an act of your will you chose to lift the curtain and walk through the opening before you. But, not this time, everything changes here.

THE ROOM

You might remember from previous posts that it was God who spoke the fire on the Altar of Incense into existence. This is the fire the priests were to never allow to go out.  It was from this fire that the Lampstand and the Bowl of incense on the Table of Showbread was lit. Both in creation and in the Holy Place of the Sanctuary God spoke light into existence.

In the same manner, God is about to do something else- He is about to lift the Veil,you are not to lift it. You do not come into the next room but by invitation. At this point, you cannot just lift the Veil and expect God to be there. We see and example of the same event take place with the Apostle John in Revelation chapter four; God opened a door (Veil) and invited John to come in/up.

ESSENTIAL WONDER

It is important to understand this in order to comprehend the fullness of why it is an “essential wonder” that it was God who tore the Veil in the Temple at the death of Jesus on the Cross. I’ll write more on that in another post, but just as it was with the Temple Veil, and with John on the Isle of Patmos, it is with you here. Entrance to the next room is by invitation only. Again I will deal with the tearing of the Veil later. However, if you do not grasp the un-torn Veil the deeper meaning of the torn Veil will escape you.

I hinted at God’s part in lifting the Veil in my last posting when I wrote, “Oh my! Something is happening to the Veil. I’d better go.” When the Veil is troubled or the littlest movement begins to take place, you do not want to be looking another direction. As the prophets wrote, I set my face like flint toward you and I shall not be moved.

REFLECTION

While you wait it would be good to take another look at your surroundings. Close your eyes and take a moment to remember. You are in a small room that is about fifteen feet wide and thirty feet deep. The cloth with Cherubim woven into it is thirty feet above you. Gold walls are to your right and left. The Table of Showbread is to your right (or North) and slightly behind you. The Lampstand is to your left (or South) and slightly behind you. The beautiful four colored Screened entrance to the Sanctuary is directly behind you.

The room has an Amber-esc color caused by the light of the Lampstand reflecting off the golden walls and refracting off the smoke in the air. This is truly a Room of Divinum Mysterium. The Next Room is very, very different and even more mysterious.

PREPARING FOR TRANSITION

When this Veil lifts and you step forward, you are leaving the second phase of Transition in the Three Dark Nights - you are leaving The Dark Night of the Soul. You now enter into a much more formidable time - of deep Spiritual learning. In this next Room of Mystery you will learn and witness that God, who is Spirit, rules over all things. Likewise, you will learn that your spirit, under God’s Spirit, rules over you and all you are.

GOD’S CREATION

You will begin to absorb that it is from here that God directs all of Creation, God’s Spirit in you now directs all of you. You are becoming one with Him. Thus, “Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done on Earth (Me) as it is in Heaven is not just a trite statement designed to take up space in your Bible. It is Transformation at the highest level possible on this side of Eternity. This is what Paul wrote about in First Corinthians II - deep spirituality is only accomplished through spirit to spirit communication. In this room you will become one with God’s Spirit of Understanding, Knowledge, and Wisdom.

Blessings,

John Paul

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“And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Luke 10:18

You are almost ready to get a glimpse of Eternity, which you will encounter in the Next Room of Mystery. I do have to add that one is never fully ready for that moment. However, you have gained important understanding of the Divine through these the last four Golden Pillars. The Pillars of Immutability, Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence are being embedded in your spirit even as you have been reading these posts. That understanding is revealed by - and can only be revealed by - the Holy Spirit of God. And in doing so, it fills you with a powerful faith.

THESE ATTRIBUTES ARE THERE FOR YOU

That faith is not only in who God is, but it is a level of faith that opens the door to a mature realization of the benefit that that knowledge is and will become to you in the future. His power, His presence, and His knowledge are available to you. The added wonder that these attributes are unchanging and they are there for you, they never diminish or fade, increase or decrease, and that means you can have a consistent confidence of spiritual invincibility.  In fact you do - if you keep looking towards Jesus. It’s called everlasting life. No matter what the evil one throws at you, you have the power to overcome and conquer it.

ASCRIBING DEITY TO SATAN

Sometimes, unwittingly, you may give Satan too much authority, and in a”backdoor” kind of way, actually ascribe deity to him. You may, in fear, run from him; you may tremble at the thought of his presence; you may feel every problem you experience is Satan attacking you. In fact you may feel so strongly about this that you inadvertently give Satan far more credit than he deserves and you seem to expose God as powerless to defend you, or at least uncaring in His seeming lack in defending you.

Few realize they do this and fewer still actually pause or stop to ask the deeper question, “Why is God allowing this?” God could stop it, but He’s not. So what is so important to God that He allows these things to happen?

It is very important to your faith and where God wants to take you from this point on that you think through this for a moment. Jesus’ account of seeing Satan fall from Heaven (Luke 10:18) is not just a statement to fill space in the Bible. The grasp of this statement is vitally important to actually living a quality of life that is so consumed with the attributes of the Deity of God that there is absolutely no twinge of Deity ascribed to the evil one. This distinction must be clear and permanently etched in your heart and mind.

FOUR QUESTIONS

Before you enter the next Room of Mystery you must be able to answer the following four questions: “Is Satan Omniscient?” Is Satan Omnipotent?” Is Satan Omnipresent?” Is Satan Immutable?” Before you nonchalantly say a hardy NO! You must also be able to answer “Why?’ Remember, the distinction must be clear and permanently etched in the very fabric of who you are before you pass the Veil just on the other side of these Golden Pillars. I’ll give you a hint as to the answer to each.

• IS SATAN OMNISCIENT?

Is Satan Omniscient? No, because if he was all knowing he would know the future, and in so knowing, he would have known that if he tried to overthrow God he would lose. And Jesus said He saw Satan fall from Heaven, which means he lost the battle with God. So you know he is not Omniscient.

• IS SATAN OMNIPOTENT?

Is Satan Omnipotent? No, because if he was all powerful there would be no power great enough to kick him out of Heaven. Thus the one who kicked him out would by definition be greater. That “One” is God and inherent in that fact is that reality that Satan is not Omnipotent.

• IS SATAN OMNIPRESENT?

Is Satan Omnipresent? No, because to be Omnipresent is to be everywhere. How can you get kicked out of some place if you are always there? By definition, to be kicked out of some place means you are no longer there and in so knowing we logically conclude Satan is not Omnipresent.

• IS SATAN IMMUTABLE?

Is Satan Immutable? No, because of the above points of truth. In each case Satan changed and therefore it is impossible for him to be Immutable.

Only God has all the attributes of Deity and He is on your side. You have a purpose for which He created you. Satan is trying to stop that purpose. God has already overcome Him - and He will help you do what He created you to do … if you will allow Him greater access to you.

Oh my! Something is happening to the Veil. I’d better go.

Blessings,

John Paul

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“For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.” 2Cor. 13:4

Standing here, trying to understand the last Golden Pillar that triumphantly stands before you is a little like trying to tell your child to be quiet when he/she is about to meet the President of the United States for the first time. Your child is excited, but does not understand the implications of the event and in the anxiety of the moment the child squirms, fidgets, and talks and loudly. Perhaps that is what you are feeling right now. I can almost hear you saying, “Come on, let’s get on with it!” I remind you that patience is a virtue of God and you might want to try emulating it.   Smile

THE FOURTH PILLAR

You have one final Golden Pillar of Deity to understand, one final concept between you and the Divine, one final basis from which to gain the faith that God’s Kingdom is eternal in every way and it is worth praying for. The last Golden Pillar upon which Deity is based is the Pillar of Omnipotence.

THE POWER OF CREATING

Omnipotence is more than power, more than authority, and certainly more than preexistence. It is the ability to create that which has never existed in any form. To make something from nothing - literally from nothing.  I am not talking about inventing something, or changing the molecular structure, both of which started with something. I am talking about creating that, which is visible, and invisible; to create that which has free will and as such has a choice whether to love, serve, and obey that which created it. That is true Omnipotence.

RESTRAINT

Perhaps true Omnipotence could be taken one step further, and that might just be that the purest test of Omnipotence is to have the ability to limit your Omnipotence. What is meant by that? Think about this - Jesus - Jesus is the only reason you are not already dead and if not by now, you certainly would be in the Holy of Holies - the next Room of Mystery. God restrained Himself from following His plan of destroying all of those who sin by offering Himself fully as man to cover and forgive your sin. You might remember the very first piece of Tabernacle furniture you encountered on this Journey of Transition through the Three Dark Nights was the Brazen Altar - where sins are forgiven.

Restraint is an attribute of God that few consider. When God, as the Creator of all things you could wipe out all He hates, and make no mistake about it, God hates sin, it takes true power to restrain oneself.

THE CREATOR’S POWER OVER THAT WHICH HE CREATED

Yes, Omnipotence is not just about power to restrain oneself. Right on the tail of restraint is another aspect of Omnipotence that we seldom think about. You see, as the only creator, God knows the infinitesimally smallest thing about you - after all He made it. Inherent in that knowledge is how to take you apart and/or overpower you and He would not have to lift a finger to do it - He would simply think it and it would happen.

SUBTLE POWER

Another aspect of Omnipotence is that of subtle power. As mentioned above, subtle power is the ability to not even move a finger to cause anything to happen - just think it and at the speed of thought it is done. It makes one hope He does not think the wrong thought - and of course He won’t.

RAW POWER

Yet in consideration of the entirety of the above, there is still the aspect of Omnipotence that is spectacular and full of grandeur. That aspect is the expression of His power. Oh how we humans love that panoramic display of raw power. It is what you long to have. It draws the lost to Him, it overcomes the most hostile of spirits, it demolishes that which stands in His way. It is what heals the sick, raises the dead, cleanses the leper, and casts out every demon.

Raw power, it made Kings tremble when God’s people marched into their land. It would do so today - if only … . Well, that is why I write what I write. We have been so culturally anesthetized that we think the life we live is worthy of such endowment. Sadly, if God gave us that level of power today He would end up judging us tomorrow for the pride and arrogance we carried from the adulation of the people who so admire us they would do anything we asked just to be near us. It seems that long gone are the days when men of God tore their garments when the people thought too highly of them. But, that is another topic.

THE BREADTH OF OMNIPOTENCE

Like it or not, at the early and immature stages of our walk with God, it is the raw power of God that creates faith in our heart. Faith that we win, faith that the evil one will not overwhelm us, faith that in His power, God has created another home for us to forever reside in. As we mature, we do not lose that faith in His raw power, but our faith broadens to become more, far more than that. And when it does, we will truly become Romans eight - children of God - not just theoretical children of God. I fear that today we treat God’s power as theory or some level just shy of fact. That too is another topic - but it drives me to keep writing these posts. Some day, one day, we will cast off these cultural restraints and God will reveal His Deity at levels we cannot currently appreciate. It will take a passion, a self-discipline, and perseverance greater than most have to day to witness it.

Omnipotence? I am alive today because of it.

Blessings,

John Paul

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Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”

Even the night shall be light about me;

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,

But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

Psa. 139:7-12

Standing before these four Golden Pillars is a planned “pause” by the Lord. Here we reassess our humanity in light of His deity. We see our smallness in light of His greatness, our weakness in light of His Strength, and our temporal nature in light of His Eternal nature. All this is meant to help us grasp the mere fringe of His Deity. The Gold covering of these four Pillars is meant to remind us of the perfect purity of each of His Eternal attributes. Two Pillars of which we have processed, and there are two others to understand.

THE THIRD PILLAR

The Third Pillar of God’s Deity is His Omnipresence. Meaning there is not a place inside or outside of creation where He is not present. Think of it this way, if God were to be some place that He has never been four things would be known about His Deity.

• First, there is something outside or beyond Him. If there is something outside of Him then that something is grander and greater than He. In other words that something has no boundary and God has boundary. Thus that which is unbounded is greater.

• Second, by the fact that He is someplace He has not been then you would know that God must be still learning. To be someplace you have not been is to, by definition, learn that which you have not seen or known before. Thus God would not be Omniscient nor Immutable because to change location is in itself change and to see what you have not seen is to learn.

• Third, God would not be Eternal. Why? Because to be Eternal is to exist tomorrow, today, and yesterday simultaneously. If God does not exist in all of these three at the same moment then He is bound by time and that would make time outside of God and thus make time pre-existent to God. That would give God a boundary where He is not and in so doing make time greater than God.

• Fourth, to be Omnipresent must mean that one must be boundariless - I know there is no such word as “boundariless” I made it up (smile). But, it works! God must pre-exist everything that exists or has ever existed - visible and invisible.

THERE IS NO PLACE THAT GOD IS NOT

The Psalmist understood that there is no place that God is not. There is only a difference in the measure of His presence. God Himself determines that measure, which is in one accord with His self-existent ways.

In His Omnipresence, He is present with you and present with all your generations before you and after you - all at the same time. Remember all of time is simultaneous to God. Therefore God could be present with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and with Elijah and Moses at the same moment. Did you ever wonder how God brought them to the mount?

If God is not Omnipresent then He would have had to leave Jesus with Peter, James, and John to go back in time to retrieve Moses and Elijah in order to bring them to the mountain. That would make God a time traveler, but not make Him Deity.

And so we now discover how God can be the God of the living and not the dead yet simultaneously be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Matthew 22:32

In addition, that would have also told us a few things about God’s Omnipotence - which we will discuss in another post.

Why is this important to you? Because, God is always there. He is watching you, aiding you, protecting you, and preparing you to be a habitation of the most high. You are never, never forgotten, and you are never, never alone.

Blessings,

John Paul

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