Saturday, April 5, 2008
beautiful &&& glorious.
i have such an eagerness to express
but i have written much
and each time i look at its absolute insignificance
or trivial nature
- i erase it.
i will try again...
but i am sure i will end with the same feeling.
maybe i'll post it anyway.
why?
dunno.
thoughts from excellencies of christ class with allen hood.
i encourage all to get it.
you can buy the online class at ihop.org under FSM
i think it's 100 bucks.
it's like 30 sessions, full book of notes, and more...
i think every human who wants to know Him
should take it
because when you do
you realize how little you really know Him at all.
anyways.
Thought #1:
First prophecy in the Bible is located in Genesis 3:15.
It says, "And I will put enmity between you (satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed (coming Messiah); He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."
Now imagine Eve, once walking in the cool of the garden in fellowship with God Transcendent HIMSELF... fully viewing His glory, bearing His glory to creation in all purity and submission... walking out the full meaning of life, gazing into the beauty of God.
Then, in an act of joining the rebellion against the Loving Father with the enemy himself, she becomes separated from God, bearing the weight of guilt and shame, walking in death rather than the perfection of life, and viewing, for the first time, injustice in the created order.
But! As God calls both satan and Eve to account in Genesis 3, He prophecies the hope of His plan from before the foundations of the world... Adam! Eve! satan! - THERE IS COMING A SEED... One from HUMANITY itself, the race of man that left perfect fellowship to join darkness, One from this race will come a SEED that will destroy the works of darkness, make all things new, and establish a kingdom that welcomes me BACK to my creation.
THIS WAS THE PLAN.
Now we know, because it's said and done, that the Seed was Jesus, from the Tribe of Judah, from the lineage of David... and He came generations AFTER Adam and Eve - but EVE did not know... imagine what it was like when Eve bore Cain and Abel, thinking ... HERE IS THE SEED. This must be the seed. This one will unite us back to where we were.
Imagine the desperation and longing, to be in the place before their falleness and separation.
But satan, he is watching the seed... because he heard the prophecy just as Adam and Eve did... the seed would bring him to ruin. And so we follow the story as the enemy attacks the seed. He brings Cain into sin, and cuts off Abel - in attempts to disqualify both the potential seeds...
Now think of Eve's misery - both her seeds are cut off from the potential of bringing forth the promised redemption. But, we see in Gen 4, she bears another seed, Seth, saying, “For God has appointed another SEED for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.”
She was looking for the Seed.
Thought #2
Now right after this it states in Genesis 4:25b "Then men began to call on the name of the LORD."
Can you imagine?!
The first prayer meetings, with Adam, and Eve, and Seth (and Seth's son Enosh)... two potential seeds (or so they would have thought), and Adam and Eve themselves CALLING ON THE NAME OF THE LORD - the One whose hands they had been formed by, who they KNEW in the glory of Eden and the clarity of eyes pre-sin... Groaning for Him to return to them.
CAN YOU IMAGINE?!
Thought #3
Now we get to David... still following the Seed. We have more revelation about it: The Seed will come from the tribe of Judah, He will be a King on the Throne of David, and then we enter into the season of the greatest prophetic Words yet recorded about the coming Seed (this HUMAN King who would actually be GOD).
David, in a great prophetic act, decides to set up the Tabernacle, and unlike anything ever done in Old Testament history, he REMOVED the veil and he set singers and musicians around the arc of the covenant (house of prayer...), and they would SING and WORSHIP the glory over the mercy seat that would manifest.
And David, modeling the destiny of mankind (to peer into the beauty and glory of God, through the protection of worship and intercession [lest the glory would break out and kill imperfect and unholy mankind]) he would PROPHECY things to come - which we find in the Psalms.
Little David, gazing into the glory of God, and proclaiming Psalms 2:
There is a coming a King, and all the nations will rage against him.
But there is a God who sits in heaven who will laugh at them...
because He has set His King, His Anointed on the HILL OF ZION...
and from there He will rule.
for I have given the earth My Son (the Seed of not only man but God Himself),
and He will ask of me
and I will give Him the nations of the earth as His inheritance...
So serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling,
KISS the Son in intimacy and devotion...
lest He be angry and you perish under His judgment...
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
David, in the house of prayer, worship, speaking out the mysteries He sees,
prophesies the End of the Age, and the Millennial Kingdom.
He brings clarity to the Seed and to how the Seed will crush satan's head and the rulers and kings of the earth in agreement with wickedness, bring forth the full revelation of God and establish His kingdom, and redeem humanity unto Himself.
and then David prophesies Psalm 45:
about a King who will not only rule them with a rod iron, but love them and call them into fellowship and co-laboring.
David sees a King and a Bridegroom...
the picture of the Coming Seed becomes more clear...
and the people of God wait eagerly for Him.
and then Psalm 110 - David says, I've seen... I've seen...
"The Lord says to my Lord..."
I saw GOD SPEAK to GOD.
And I don't know how it works exactly...
but God SPOKE to GOD about coming HERE and ruling...
and He will crush kings on the day of His wrath...
He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead...
and He'll be a PRIEST FOR US, and a KING, just like Melchizedek.
David's thinking, "This thing is getting crazier and crazier..."
and all while He's in the house of prayer, gazing upon the beauty and knowledge and glory of God.
and then the prophets build this beautiful picture of the King, the Seed, the God-Man.
Isaiah says in Is. 4...
not only will He be a King who subdues the nations and establishes righteousness from His literal throne in Zion, but He will be a HUMAN King, who will draw the hearts of men unto Himself... being both beautiful and glorious and appealing.
Is. 6...
He actually peers into heaven and SEES this coming King, high and lifted up, which John 12:41 tells us is JESUS HIMSELF...
Isaiah SAW Jesus, before He ever was born of Mary, HIGH AND LIFTED UP.
And not only will He make all things new, and restore all the death that came with the fall but He will command the armies of heaven.
What king has all men in subjection, yet also the angels of heaven?
It's the Commander of the army of the Lord that Joshua caught a glimpse of in Joshua 5:13-15.
It keeps getting better and more glorious and the destiny of men who serve this coming King will be beautiful.
imagine!
Is. 7...
Now right after Isaiah sees this King, spoken about to Eve, longed for up through Abraham and Moses, through David's reign, high and lifted up, he finds out this Glorious Redeemer King will come as a BABY!!!
Not only will He be full of all power, wisdom, honor, and strength -
but He will make His first appearance on the scene in the most humble garb known... the flesh of a meek infant in the poverty of a manger.
THE GOD MAN... born to serve, and born to die.
ISAIAH IS THINKING, "WHAT IN THE WORLD?! THIS DRAMA OF GOD IS UNHEARD OF.... (oh the scandal of heaven!)"
Then in Is 9...
he find out the baby will grow up to be a King, and the government of the earth shall rest upon His shoulders, and He will be called:
• WONDERFUL COUNSELOR
• MIGHTY GOD (a baby who is GOD!)
• EVERLASTING FATHER (a King who is a Father!)
• PRINCE OF PEACE (who will dash to pieces the nations, all for the sake of peace)
and OF HIS GOVERNMENT and PEACE THERE WILL BE NO END. This human, God-Man, King will cause all things to come into newness and perfection INTO ETERNITY all for the sake of fellowship with MAN.
THEN in ISAIAH 11
Isaiah sees He'll be the Branch of Jesse - the human God from the lineage of David's father... yet in verse 10, He is ALSO the ROOT! A God-Man, high and lifted up, surrounded at the throne with angels, meek, lowly, full of zeal, coming to reign, coming to reverse death, coming to destroy satan, who is a BRANCH and a ROOT.
It gets crazier...
and the 7 spirit will rest upon Him...
the fulllllness of God resting upon the frame of a man.
and He will cause the earth to change...
He will change ecology...
the child shall lead the bear,
HE'S CHANGING EVERYTHING... wait... HE IS COMING.
---
and THEN Is 42...
This one will not raise His voice in the street... He is going to bring forth this promised justice through meekness... through death and suffering...
and Is 49...
Isaiah sees it will all look like it was done in vain..
but in Is 52 and 53 tell us why it looks like it will be in vain...
because He is going to come and DIE FOR THE SINS OF HUMANITY...
this GLORIOUS KING, whose beauty and majesty has been building through the visions of David and Isaiah, is going to be a
man of sorrows
familiar with suffering
stricken by God
bringing pleasure to the Father by being crushed
bearing the sins of many
and MAKING INTERCESSION for the transgressor...
yet God shows Isaiah ---
HE WILL RISE AGAIN
and we see HOW He will bring the plan prophesied back in Genesis 3 about the seed INTO fulfillment...
it's scandalous
it's unprecedented
it's glorious
it seems impossible that it will ALL fall into place
and then Is 63
we see Him ruling and judging in wrath the nations
as one would tread a winepress...
the unfulfilled words
we still wait for...
---
and the prophets are seeing and declaring the HOPE OF THE NATIONS, revealing the true nature of God until Luke 1...
where He brings forth the SEED... the prophesied One...
through the womb of mary, a little girl, HE CAME.
the God-man.
AND THIS IS WHERE OUR JOURNEY BEGINS...
we get to see the Glory of Heaven come to EARTH.
AMEN!!!!!!
that's all for today.
LOVE YOU all and happy spring!
and i am glad this is not trivial as presupposed at the beginning of post, mostly because it isn't my own material.
it's good for me to retype what i'm learning,
because it enters my heart deeper.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
hi! you asked for my address, i'm late, so i don't know if you still need it ( i hope you do ). it is:
5504 welkin court
durham, nc 27713
:-*
hi john piper is a poet. read my latest blog love you
Post a Comment