And yes, note the flag. That’s the flag of Iran. The date was July 7, 1987, nearly three years into my wrestling with the enemy from the last post. I was standing outside of a building somewhere in Jacksonville, my birthplace and one of the cities I love.
Standing outside that building, my eyes fell to a newspaper vending machine, and the headline featured some story featuring a Marine Colonel being asked to testify concerning some scandal. The headline said something about Iran, and I, not knowing what it was, heard a voice saying “pray for them”.
From that day to this, my eyes and my heart have been filled with a deep yearning for the people of that place. And though I am Jew, my heart is with them.
That Christ is the Son of David, shows He is also the Desire of David. The Desire of the Beloved. The Lover. The Compassionate. The Son of the Tender-Hearted Mercy. The one who seeks in the street for someone to follow the Voice of Wisdom, with treasures that are not cheaply-gotten. Priceless are these gifts and this understanding.
Not only Is Christ the Son of the Steward Abraham, but He is the Son of the Mercy David. And David believed G-d with a Mercy and a Kindness and a Revelation of His complete Covenant, of His Covenant as embodied in the Desire of the Tenth Commandment. Governing the internal, the interior place, by his spirit, David engaged, with desire, the enemy.
For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living G-d?
From 1 Samuel 17:26
And, though David’s unbridled desire fostered destruction later, it was his zeal and desire for the King’s love that drove the King and the Judge of All the Earth to build David the Beloved an everlasting house.
Beloved, I know how the text is often taught that Persia will fall.
But I also know the text that reads there will be a place in eternity where sundry nations will be honored in the City of the King.
They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
Revelation 21:26
That glory and honor of the nations will include the ways in which the L-rd has honored a large group of nations. and I am of the point-of-view that dispensationalism will not account for all of these nations being numbered in the museum of eternity.
Only the King’s tender affection for the Ruler/Judge/Deliverer (China, Russia, England, the District of Columbia), and for Persia will bring their glory, a glory that maybe only He knows about, as well as those who will discern it, into eternity.
This zeal for the L-rd to have a gathering of EVERY nation is embodied in the reality that one day, He will wipe away every tear. And it never says in that text that the only tears He will wipe away will be human tears. A Father honoring their child’s wish to separate will always bring tears out of the heart of that Father. There will be people from every nation that will bring Him to tears. But there will also be people from every nation that bring a fire to His eyes.
Where do we think David and the Son of David get this zeal for compassion from? Rather sounds like a Chip off the Old Block.
Desire of the Nations has a Desire FOR the Nations.
Gang, ponder what needs to be done, and consider not just the Day of His Vengeance against His ancient enemy, but also the simultaneous Year of His Favor upon those children of His in nations that are not yet His, pre-Christian Uyghur Muslims, Shiite Twelvers, Soon-to-be-former-Communists, and embittered former sons and daughters who, out of woundedness, walk as practitioners of witchcraft. Those who would, like the separated AHS’s, when they saw the Affectionate King’s face, as did my beloved daughter, Amberle, on the day of her visitation two years ago this past January 2, would turn in a moment toward Him.
The love in His silvery eyes on that day will cause those who will turn to turn in a moment.
For He is Heaven itself….
And His desire, well-stewarded and managed, will cause even the most-pained child of His, who has even the slightest chance of turning, but who ran away because of religious boxes, dead man’s bones, other man’s standards, and fouled man’s programming and destruction, to come running back to Him.
I come back to this now, at the end of some things, and the beginning of others.
Having read an old post on transformation and metamorphosis, I recognize that, via my YouTube channel, I have partly stored the lessons I spoke on the Gospel of Desire (Matthew). But I realize that the other portion of those lessons were downloaded from BookFace, so in the interest of providing access to my thoughts about the central theme of Matthew, namely desire, I will attempt to start a process of chronicling those thoughts here.
And to those who are irritated with the rerun of old content, I offer an apology. And now, given the woman formerly known as Peaches is gone, and Tirzah is running with the horses and speaking with the Naiads and Dryads, in accordance with the King’s desires and her design, I realign those thoughts here in keeping with the new season.
Desire
Why do I use the word “desire” to describe Matthew’s central theme? Because too much of the teaching of this gospel’s texts are devoted to talking about how Yeshua was giving them new ways of interpreting the Decalogue.
I do not think Yeshua is doing anything new. I think too much of the church’s obsession with the New Covenant or being a New Testament Church has kept them from seeing the wholeness of the covenant Father has given His children, and the grace Father gives us, as well as His concern for the internal workings that is found in the Tanakh.
The frame that leads to the execution of the first nine commandments is the Tenth Commandment: the work done in the three hearts (Brain, Myocardium, Reins all three think and act and desire). It is our desire internally, our zeal, and our passions that lead us to act externally. They color our interaction with the King; our days of rest; our parents; and our interpersonal ethics touching life, sexuality, property, and verbal integrity. That commandment is all about the internals. No desire for things G-d has forbidden shall even be permitted to enter your heart. “Guard your heart with all dilligence”, saith the Exhorter Solomon. It is the execution of this Mercy commandment that shows the other commandments have stuck in their place. It is the yearnings of our hearts that show Whom we have chosen to be our G-d.
So, what Yeshua is trying to do repeatedly throughout Matthew, with sharp focus on Matthew 5-8, is to get his audiences to handle the heart of the matter and encourage us to see execution flow from our inner man.
Matthew 1:1
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…
Matthew 1:1 ESV
Genealogy. Legacy. Those things that began in the heart, flow into a cascade of elements on the timestream. The intense reaction of those visceral elements lead to the creation of new humanity. Desire. In the case of the Matthew text, we consider the desire of Abraham and David.
Are we genuinely blocked or do we just feel blocked? So let’s look at Abraham. Was Abraham blocked? No. G-d assured him several times, “Everything’s on course. I got this wired. I know what I am doing.” But he felt enormously blocked because he was using a human grid. There’s this pesky little thing called menopause that was bothering him…but he’s looking at this situation and saying “according to the human grid that I know, I am blocked”. G-d operated outside the human grid. He was not the least bit concerned about biological time clocks ticking, because he had a bigger plan. The problem was that Abraham and G-d had very different objectives for his life. Abraham had a small grid; he wanted to be a dad. That’s all he wanted…. “Just give me a son”. He’ll even settle for the son of a slave, and be a happy camper. And G-d said, “well you may be a happy camper, but I’m not.”
Arthur Burk; When Your Call Is Blocked; Disc 1, Cut 4, Timestamp 0:13-1:24, Toronto City Church, Toronto, ON; 19 March 2016
Abraham was willing to settle because his desires were in a different place, and G-d in His mercy, forced His agenda onto Abraham whether or not Abraham agreed.
Sometimes, G-d is a gentlemen, and sometimes, He’s downright pushy. Some places on universal timestream from the vantage point of Gallifrey are fixed and cannot be moved, and some can be moved. And the good Doctor is intent that those places that are fixed come to pass, come hell or high water.
And our small grid may get in the way of the execution of that fixed point.
Building into Abraham the superstructure that was necessary for laying the foundation for an entire nation of priests was a tall order; it was more than the mere passage of sperm into ovum. It was the careful setting in place of 100 years in Abraham, followed by the interaction of that which is spiritual by design with that which is also spiritual in the womb of Sarah. That zygote/baby knitting, gestation, and birth was followed by 75 years of G-d’s intent Abraham would pour ONLY into Isaac, followed by Isaac begetting and then pouring into Jacob, and then the promise came to pass with the birth of twelve sons.
Likewise, we have to take our agendas and set them into alignment with His agendas. Desire. What are our internals saying to G-d, and are they listening to Him and receiving not only G-d’s word spoken to us, but also our reins, cleansed and set into alignment delivering right counsel in the night seasons? Both the interaction between us and the King, and between us and our reins must be operant, especially since He has designed the reins, the kidneys and adrenals, to give us counsel while we sleep (Psalm 16:7: in the night my heart (Hebrew for “reins”: AKA: the kidneys and adrenals) instructs me).
Is it any wonder the enemy assaults our dreams as children in one of the first overt attacks of our lives?
For example, consider the following. Starke, Florida, in the small neighborhood of Saratoga Heights. Sukkot 1984, though no one in this home knew it was Sukkot. This family of sometimes three, but usually four (these days) is getting ready to carve pumpkins and welcome the annual neighborhood romp with some 20-50 of their best friends. Many of the families are knitted together on some level. These are families that embrace the rhythm of fundraisers, and the county fair, and Dan and Cleo Harley’s watermelons in the summer, and campouts in the backyard belonging to Wayne Wynn, just a year before Shigeru Miyamoto throws their non-education seasons into all-night digital raves, complete with soundtracks that will deeply mark this generation, causing them to thank the L-rd in Heaven above for the presence of a Japanese Sapphire Company with enough petty cash and legal armies to choke every T-Rex on earth.
And they know their neighborhood will be visited, as happens every year, by families who travel from as far as 20 miles away. And to their knowledge, not a practicing witch in sight.
No thoughts of anything horrid cross the mind of the youngest of this family, a small boy, hair blond as the vaults in Kentucky and Sutter’s Mill five generations ago.
He only knows he hates writing and loses his 16-count Crayola boxes every other week. He also knows the autumn days in Northeast Florida are their usual just crisp and getting ready to turn for the cooler, and though no Berkshire festive oranges and browns and candy-apple reds will cause leafers to commence their peeping in these sub-tropical lattitudes, he knows there is enough chill in the air for the aroma of bacon, Velveeta, and corn to commingle on the gas-powered stove. And that glory is the work of this woman.
This night, October 10, sets itself to mark the boy permanently, because on this night, the Man From Nazareth appears in the boy’s bedroom in a plain white linen robe with brown beard and long flowing brown hair and asks him what he wants. Blank check. Keys to the kingdom. Maserati. A little boy who knows only to believe what he sees without questioning if there are hidden motives blurts out the first thing he feels: a deep longing for a father, for what reason he does not know. Except he knows something (masculine?) has been missing from his short existence. And though he knows there is currently a man in the house, he also intuits the man cannot give what he does not have. But this Man, Himself a Son, can.
And he hears words that awaken his spirit.
“I will be your father.”
And for a few minutes, the Gardener and the boy discuss the most important item of the moment: the boy’s pillow and the Sesame Street pillowcase.
And following that night, the boy knows without anyone telling him so, and confesses as such, that this Man was the Son of G-d.
And then the very next night, he is visited by another, but strangely dark, female entity, who shares no name. And for the next 14 years: abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, mental) by that entity and her fellows.
With no explanation, and no solution, for he does not know how to repel or fight those attacks, the boy has to, in his spirit, grasp for whatever he can find.
But he still knows about the Son, and refuses to stop looking for the Son, though some seasons are easier than others. And several months after the initial encounter with the son, the boy’s father leaves with little understanding.
So, what happens to that boy?
Well, he grows with a huge amount of pain without explanation, but he also is given a keen capacity to memorize huge chunks of Scripture and teach those chunks. He is also able to remember all kinds of things the L-rd shows him. And, while he is not taken too seriously by those around him, because of his age, yet he knows there is something awake in Him that most people live their entire lives without.
The King’s embrace and intimacy in that fight are tangible assets for this young boy in the fight against the forces of darkness.
Past year 14 of the spiritual abuse in his dreams, he meets another teenager in college who was the victim of childhood epilepsy, and was delivered by the L-rd from the enemy and a spirit of epilepsy with not a single instance of the dreaded disease past the age of seven. And this friend, this college roommate, teaches our young lad, now 18, how to respond to these very unjust assaults. Our young lad learns how to fight, and fight he does.
The Desire of David will come in the next post. But I want to leave you all with the following.
Aligning of Desires With the Author of Desires
Gang, no matter what happens, your life with the King is one of aligning your desire and drive to find what you were made to do, so that you can leave a legacy. And to you is apportioned a group of gifts and tests designed for you. And you are made to be forged so that “no weapon that is fashioned against” you can prosper.
We are each placed into a forge so that we can handle the gifts and the tools the King gives us with sobriety and a ready mind, heart, and set of reins.
The key to Isaiah 54:17 is found in the desires that are encouraged in Isaiah 54:1-16.
Sing, oh barren woman.
Break forth into singing
Your children, o desolate one, will be more that those of she who is married.
Enlarge the place of your tent.
Stretch out your curtains.
DO. NOT. HOLD. BACK.
Lengthen your lines
Strengthen your stakes.
Spread abroad to the right and the left.
Your offspring will possess the nations.
And people the desolate cities.
Do not be afraid.
For you will not be ashamed.
Do not be confounded.
For you will not be disgraced.
For you will forget the shame of your youth.
And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband (brides make better warriors than subjects).
The L-rd has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit.
For a brief moment I deserted you
But with great compassion I will gather you.
Know that even should the mountains be removed and the hills depart, that His steadfast love will not depart from you.
And these are the promises, o afflicted one.
Stones of antimony
Foundations of the sapphires like to the appearance of the Shammayim
Pinnacles of Agates.
Gates of Carbuncles.
Walls of precious stones, and not walls of text.
All your children shall be taught of the L-rd, and great shall be the wholeness of your children
In righteousness you shall be established
You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
If anyone stirs up strife with you, they shall fall because of you.
SEE I HAVE CREATED THE BLACKSMITH
WHO BLOWS THE FIRES OF COALS
AND PRODUCES A WEAPOM FOR ITS PURPOSE.
The point is that the blacksmith, the Paraclete, takes His hammer and forges us and tempers us in order that the weapons forged by the ancient enemy, the clowns, will not ultimately prosper.
Gang, no matter what has happened to you, there is a center and a core of you that the enemy is incapable of touching or molesting.
So, I bless you each to receive HIS desires and that the design and desires HE put into you, you would reflect those desires back to HIM and WALK IN THE DESIRES YOU HAVE WHICH HE PUT INTO YOU.
I bless you to see the key to Isaiah 54:17 in the previous 16 verses, and the necessity of being proven and refined and forged so that you do not fall apart at the first sign of trouble, but rather that you become a trouble to the enemy of your souls.
I bless you to hold your peace as best you can while you are being fashioned and forged, and I bless you to grow into the safe place to hold that treasure in the earthen vessel that you are.
When you vacillate as to your design because you want to get it right, and layers of the alien, the foreign, the formerly-accepted-way-of-looking-at-you have buried you under like layers of silken Saran Wrap….
When the abuse of your childhood makes its way from a former “union” to a true union.
When the alcoholism of your father causes you to act the same way toward the one you swore otherwise.
When the design for the nations rots around you and within you.
When the pregnancies turn to Edenward populace.
When the kids turn from the path of their design.
When you speak one language, and she hears another tongue transposed and backwards.
When the clowns challenge you by impersonating his voice, saying, he’s just like your father.
When death truly means death, and love hangs by a thread, and seasons leaving you feeling as though you are roommates.
When you are given permission to leave one another, and the Father follows that up with the name of your close friend who was also given a choice and a promise of blessing either way.
When the enemy assaults you so much you wonder if you have lost your sanity.
When pastors call you a terrible shepherd, and friends call you the unrepentant of Matthew 18.
When all has gone to “worse”…….
Where do you go when all you want to do is curse the day of your birth?
What do you say, when the clowns are attempting to call your bluff, and a witch rubs it in by sending flowers to the place where you buried your beloved?
I will tell you.
You let Him prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, and you let Him anoint your head with oil.
You let yourself walk with grief, and you observe that grief, and then you ask Him to cover you with the shadow of his wings, and you get back into the fray, and you do the things you know you are supposed to do.
And you remind the Clown Prince of his tininess, and of the King’s greatness.
And you ask Father to minister from His storehouses.
And feed on His faithfulness, even if you are reduced to repeating the refrain, G-d, you’re faithful, you’re faithful.
And you allow Him to cause you to float down the river of His reality and of His rest.
