THE HIGH ROAD AND THE LOW ROAD
PROPHECY OF THE GREAT TRIBULATION (#4 in this series)
03-15-15 This message may be viewed live streaming video at www.tabernacleofmoses.org commencing today Sunday at 11:00am, and repeated 24/7 for one week; thereafter, the audio and notes without video are archived.
The depth of our revelations depends upon the correctness of our doctrine. Love joins; Sin separates.
PROPHECY
(Amos 8:11) Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
hear = Heb: to hear intelligently consider, discern, perceive, understand, witness.
(Rom 10:17) So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
(Luke 18:7,8) And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
THE HIGH ROAD AND THE LOW ROAD
(1 Kings 17:17,18) And it came to pass after these things [1], that the son of the [widow] woman [the church in type and shadow] [2,a,b], the mistress [Heb: owner] of the house, fell sick [an allusion to the fall from Eden]; and his sickness was so sore [“so severe” Amplif. Bible], that there was no breath left in him [a type and shadow of unsaved Adam and Eve after the Garden]. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee [What could I possibly have in common, of mutual interest with a man of God such as yourself?], O thou man of God? [Oh yes, we have the Law together, and (sarcastically)] art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance [via the Law], and to slay my son? [3,4]
Commentary: “after these things” = after Elijah and the woman and her son had received daily sustenance from the miraculous barrel of meal (the crushed seeds of God’s word) and the miraculous cruse of oil (the Holy Spirit) for up to and through most of the third year of the great famine:
(1 Kings 18:1) And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year [of the three years and six months of great famine], saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth [(parenthetically stated): which will happen in another six plus months when the unrecorded Old Testament prophecy of “three years and six months” is fulfilled: Luke 4:25,26; James 5:17,18)].
(Jer 3:8) And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
(Jer 31:31-32) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel [the ten northern tribes], and with the house of Judah [the two southern tribes]: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
(Jer 31:33,34) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. [ref. repeat: Heb 8:1-13]
Commentary: Her question “O thou man of God?” indicates that the widow woman (the church in type and shadow), while being sustained during a worldwide famine of (physically) no rain (spiritually) no word of God, over a period of time by the miraculous barrel of meal and the miraculous cruse of oil, still had remaining doubts in her faith. Her question “art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance” expresses her belief and acceptance of the Old Testament Law that sin requires a penalty payment, “and to slay my son?” may well be considered a physical manifestation of her sin (certainly a result), a disclosure of that heretofore hidden sin of adultery, and certainly a spiritual expression of idolatry.
Commentary: Not that the church was entirely faithless, but because of her lack of sufficient faith, the woman (the church in type) travels the low road to God, encountering a somber mixture of faith and fear, and uncertainity, distrust, disbelief, skepticism, and misery and grief and unwillingness regarding the death of her son. Whereas in contrast, Abraham who is full of faith travels the high road to God enjoying belief, certainity, trust, confidence and willingness toward the sacrifice of his dear son Isaac. However, let us not disparage nor belittle the church for we are all of us in the church as functional members of Father God’s lovely flock composed of sheep and shepherds, Gideon’s 9,700 support troops and Gideon’s 300 combat troops, each to his own gifts, each necessary and vital to the creation of the “one” body of Christ from the foundation of the world.
(1 Kings 17:19) And he [Elijah, the godly man] said unto her, Give me thy son [i.e., Give your son to God]. And he took [Heb: seized] [wrested] him out of her bosom [Heb: meaning to enclose], and carried him up into a loft [Heb: something lofty: ascent], where he abode [Heb: to sit down], and laid him upon his own bed [Heb: bier].
(Rev 12:5) And she [“the woman” (Rev 12:1), the church] brought forth a man child [Gk: huios], who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron [symbolic metal of judgment, the Law – why?]: and her child [Gk: teknon] was caught up unto God, and to his throne [Gk: a stately seat; by implication power].
brought forth = Gk: to produce (from seed, as a mother): bear, be born, delivered.
man = Gk: male (as stronger for lifting) /// to lift; by implication to take up or away.
rule = Gk: to tend as a shepherd (or figuratively superviser): - feed (cattle) /// shepherd, pastor.
caught up = Gk: seized: - catch (away, up), pluck, pull, take (by force).
(1 Kings 17:20-24) And he [Elijah] cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn [Heb: lodge as a guest], by slaying her son? [1] And he stretched himself upon the child three times [2], and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul [breath] come into him again. And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived [this is the first recorded instance in the Bible of someone being raised from the dead] [3,a,b,c]. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him [symbolizing multiple us being born-again] unto his mother [the church]: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth [her faith had been fully confirmed, i.e., no doubt at all].
Commentary: Elijah herein is displaying a bit of disbelief and uncertainity himself, but that would be expected because “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are” (James 5:17).
Commentary: “he stretched himself upon the child three times” = an impartation: touching, pressing, weighing down upon the dead son perhaps endeavoring to accomplish a cleaving spiritual penetration of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and/or the cleaving spiritual penetration of our tripartite “spirit and soul and body” (1 Thes 5:23).
revived = Heb: to live: (leave, make) alive, X certainly, give life, (let, suffer to) live, nourish up, preserve (alive), quicken, recover, repair, restore (to life), revive, (X God), X surely, be whole.
(2 Kings 4:32-35) And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the LORD. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
(Act 20:9,10) And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.
Commentary: ideally, hugging is an intended impartation of Grace.
Amen