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Note: This blog post is part of a series titled "Spiritual and Mental Logic." To view all parts, click the link below.
The human mind demands structure. It takes at least 2 points to make structure, because a single point has no size or structure. Thus, the human mind is limited to the dualistic way of thinking and cannot understand the things of spirit. The Apostle Paul makes it clear in 2 Corinthians 1 and 2 that the source of divine knowledge is neither the body's sensory perception nor the carnal mind's perception of the world. It is rather a third source called the spirit and its heart-mind.
Not many Christians have a clear understanding of this. I was raised in a Christian home but was never taught such a thing myself. It was not until God took me out of the ministry back in 1981 that I began to experience a "knowing" that my mind itself did not believe or understand. Only then did I realize that I had another mind within me that was in conflict with my carnal mind. Paul calls these two minds the "new man" and the "old man."
From that point on, I slowly began to learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit (within my spirit). Most of the training took place when I was forced to choose to follow my heart when my mind found such a decision to be illogical and irrational. Believe me, with my love of logic, this was difficult.
Paul says at the end of his great "Love Chapter" in 1 Corinthians 13 that there are three great things in earth: Faith, Hope, and Love. He says that the greatest of these three is Love. Why? Because both faith and hope end with "sight." When you get what you "hoped for," hope ends. When you receive that which you had faith for, faith ends. Only love continues without end.
As Christian believers, we are being led to experience all three of these great principles as we grow up into the full stature (maturity) of Christ. There are denominations who give men the message of hope. They give believers hope in a future, other-world life of immortality. That is nearly their entire focus and message, and it is certainly acceptable to God. It is the message of Passover and the true Lamb of God who is our Passover. This message is enough to bring us out of the house of bondage with the hope of going to the Promised Land.
There are other denominations who bring believers beyond hope into faith. In fact, there is even a movement called "Word of Faith." As one might expect, it is more Pentecostal, or Charismatic, in its character. It tells people to go beyond the hope of Passover and enter into the world of faith. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17), and thus, it is dependent upon hearing God's voice, as opposed to the idols of the carnal mind. To distinguish between the two is the difficulty.
Hope is acceptable, and faith is good. But faith is still not the perfect will of God. Faith is applicable only until the object of faith is achieved or obtained. It then must give way to the greater experience of Love, by which we live and move and have our being. It is not that hope and faith are devoid of love. It is rather that the quality of love in those phases of spiritual development are imperfect, being restricted by the rigid structures imposed upon it by the carnal mind.
Love seeks its full expression through the feast of Tabernacles, even as hope is obtained through Passover and faith through Pentecost. Those who are justified through Passover are being prepared for Pentecost--the leading of the Spirit. Those who are being sanctified through Pentecost are being prepared for Tabernacles. A true Pentecostal is one who is learning to distinguish between the carnal mind and the spiritual heart, so that he may be divinely led toward Love.
The carnal mind has an Adamic perception of the world, and it thus creates god in its own finite image. This mental creation forms an idol, or image--a structured representation of the infinite God--that always falls short of the glory of God. But the mind of the Spirit sees and knows all things. It alone is capable of knowing God as He truly is and is therefore the source of all true divine knowledge.
On April 4, 2006 I wrote a final article on "The Axe Laid to the Root," in which I opened up some things of the spirit that were probably new and even irrational to many of you. I recorded some revelations that we received when I was in Sacramento in late March. I briefly related how we had been shown that we were repeating the pattern of Israel's encounters with Edom (Esau) and his son, Eliphaz.
To see these patterns, one must have some working knowledge of the Bible and of history. It is also helpful to understand the biblical meaning of numbers, along with the study of gematria. These are all helpful tools, and the more tools we have, the better able we are to run the farm.
In the course of history, we are progressing toward the Kingdom of God, even as Israel journeyed to the Promised Land. The final obstacle in their way was Edom, who refused to allow Israel to pass through their land toward Canaan. In modern history, this event has been repeated from 1948 to the present time. The Israeli state is modern Edom pretending to be Jacob, even as Jacob pretended to be Esau so long ago. If you have kept up with the web logs for a while, you will understand this.
At any rate, like ancient Israel, the Kingdom of God was delayed by Edom since 1948, but in late March we came to the end of delay. We had been watching Tom DeLay for nearly a decade, knowing that when he would leave office, there would be "delay no longer" (Rev. 10:6). Last fall when he stepped down as Speaker of the House, we took great interest in this sign. When he made it permanent in January, we again took note of it. But now that he has announced his retirement altogether, at the same time that God was showing us that Edom's delaying tactic had come to an end--we finally understood what the Spirit was saying to the Church.
We were seeing the signs of reaching the brink of Jordan. Remember, these are signs of what we believe will shortly come to pass.
Israel crossed over the Jordan on the 10th day of the first month (Abib) and kept that Passover near Jericho. Then came the battle of Jericho.
We went to Philadelphia for Passover to observe the sign of the Jordan crossing into the Kingdom. For you mathematicians, Philadelphia represents a PHI ratio with all its implications and is the place of the "Philadelphia Experiment" (time travel or interdimentional travel). Biblically, it is the only one of the Seven Churches that is associated with the New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12). This the Kingdom of the feast of Tabernacles.
Essentially, we saw the signs of crossing the Jordan at the time of Passover. We returned home and immediately went to another conference in Wisconsin, where we saw the sign of the fall of Jericho. The planning for this conference was done by others, simply being led blindly by the Spirit. When we arrived, we found that the hotel's restaurant was called "Jericho's." An unusual name, to be sure. God even provided someone to act out the part of the Jericho adversary.
These are things that make as much logical sense to the mind as when Moses threw a tree into the waters of Marah to make the waters sweet. But there is a spiritual logic to these things that transcends the structure of the carnal mind and is incomprehensible to it. When I first began to experience such things in 1982, my mind revolted. But as time passed, and I began to understand the thoughts of the heart and had to subordinate mental logic to the logic of the spirit.
Such things can be addressed, but only through experience can a person understand spiritual logic.
Note: This blog post is part of a series titled "Spiritual and Mental Logic." To view all parts, click the link below.