Spiritual Significance of  Numbers – The Number 19 and The Number 20

[Study Aired March 22, 2026]

The number nineteen consists of the number nine and the number ten. Nine signifies judgment, and ten signifies the flesh. Therefore this number is connected to the judgment of the flesh which is demonstrated by the destruction of the nation of Judah in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule:

2Ki 25:5  And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him.
2Ki 25:6  So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.
2Ki 25:7  And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
2Ki 25:8  And in the fifth month, on the seventh day  of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem:
2Ki 25:9  And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire.
2Ki 25:10  And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

Here are the links to the studies on the number nine and the number ten:

https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/spiritual-significance-of-numbers-nine-the-number-of-gods-judgment/

https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/spiritual-significance-of-numbers-ten-is-the-zenith-of-the-flesh/

The tribe of Naphtali received 19 cities, with their villages, as part of their inheritance in the Promised Land. Their inheritance from God was in the northern most part of what would become Israel. It encompassed the entire western section of the Sea of Galilee.

Jos 19:38  And Iron, and Migdalel, Horem, and Bethanath, and Bethshemesh; nineteen cities with their villages.

Isaiah prophesied that the land of Naphtali and Zebulon would someday see a shining beacon in their lands.

Isa 9:1  Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.
Isa 9:2  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

This prophecy, which only the book of Matthew records as being fulfilled, came true during the life of Jesus within the tribe of Naphtali which inherited 19 cities.

Another significant fact concerning this number is that each year it takes 19 days to observe all of God’s annual Feast days. These commanded yearly celebrations are the Passover (1 day), Days of Unleavened Bread (7 days), Pentecost (1 day), Day of Trumpets (1 day), Day of Atonement (1 day), Feast of Tabernacles (7 days) and Last Great Day (1 day). Nineteen days are required to signify the completed judgment (9) of God, upon all flesh, (10).

That judgment has a negative application for the flesh and a positive application for the spirit because life comes only “through death”:

Col 1:22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

The Spiritual Significance of The Number 20

Positive-Being Prepared For Service

Negative-Being Prepared For Judgment

The number twenty first appears in scripture in the story of Abraham bargaining with Christ to spare the destruction of Sodom. Abraham started out asking the Lord to spare Sodom if 50 righteous were found in the city and ended up asking for the Lord’s mercy if only ten righteous were in the city. Twenty was his next to the last request:

Gen 18:31  And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.
Gen 18:32  And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.
Gen 18:33  And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

This can be seen as a negative application of the number twenty inasmuch as not even twenty were being prepared for the Lord’s service in all of Sodom and Sodom suffered the Lord’s judgment for her sins.

The first positive application of the number twenty, demonstrating that it signifies preparation for service is in the story of Jacob who served his uncle Laban for twenty years:

Gen 31:38  This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten.
Gen 31:39  That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night.
Gen 31:40  Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes.
Gen 31:41  Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times.
Gen 31:42  Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.

The Lord had told Jacob to return to the land of his father and Jacob did so.

Gen 31:3  And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.

If the Lord had not been with him those 20 years in his uncle Laban’s service Jacob would not have been prepared for the trials which he endured on his return. Laban pursued him with the means to do Jacob great harm.

Gen 31:29  It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.
Gen 31:30  And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father’s house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?
Gen 31:31  And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me.
Gen 31:32  With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them.

He was also told that his brother, Esau was coming with four hundred men, and he wrestled with Christ all night the night before confronting his brother, Esau. His twenty years in Laban’s house, suffering “affliction and labor”, serving his uncle, and ‘having his wages changed ten times’ prepared Jacob for the Lord’s service.

Several years after Jacob’s return to the land of his father his son, Joseph was sold by the hand of his jealous brothers to Midianite merchantmen for twenty pieces of silver:

Gen 37:28  Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver signifying that the Lord was preparing him for a life in the Lord’s service, whereas Christ being sold for thirty pieces of silver signifies His service has been offered and the judgment of Christ’s flesh was immediately at hand.

Mat 26:14  Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,
Mat 26:15  And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.

Jabin, king of Canaan, oppressed Israel for twenty years before the Lord used Deborah and Barak to deliver them from that bondage:

Jdg 4:1  And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead.
Jdg 4:2  And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
Jdg 4:3  And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

The Lord always hears a repentant cry, and He sent Israel deliverance via Deborah and Barak:

Jdg 4:4  And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.
Jdg 4:5  And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Jdg 4:6  And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?
Jdg 4:7  And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.

The Philistines, in the days of Samuel, the last judge of Israel, won a battle with Israel and took the Ark of the Covenant back to their land where it was a plague to each of the five cities to which they sent it for seven months. The ark was such a curse upon the Philistines that they sent it back to Israel. It spent a little time in the city of Bethshemesh where it again became a curse to the people because they had presumptuously looked into the ark:

1Sa 6:19  And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
1Sa 6:20  And the men of Bethshemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? and to whom shall he go up from us?
1Sa 6:21  And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjathjearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.

The men of Kirjathjearim came and took the ark to the house of Abinadab where Abinadab’s son Eleazar was “sanctified… to keep the ark of the Lord”:

1Sa 7:1  And the men of Kirjathjearim came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD.
1Sa 7:2  And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjathjearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.

The twenty years the ark was in Kirjathjearim was in preparation for Israel to demand a king of Samuel. The next time we hear any mention of the ark is when King Saul orders Ahiah the high priest, to bring the ark of God:

1Sa 14:18  And Saul said unto Ahiah, Bring hither the ark of God. For the ark of God was at that time with the children of Israel.

In verse 2 of this same chapter we are informed that Ahiah was the high priest in the days of King Saul:

1Sa 14:1  Now it came to pass upon a day, that Jonathan the son of Saul said unto the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over to the Philistines’ garrison, that is on the other side. But he told not his father.
1Sa 14:2  And Saul tarried in the uttermost part of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people that were with him were about six hundred men;
1Sa 14:3  And Ahiah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the LORD’S priest in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people knew not that Jonathan was gone.

We are not given the exact date when the ark was taken from Kirjathjearim to be with the high priest, Ahiah in King Saul’s camp but the twenty years in Kirjathjearim was in preparation for this service to the new king.

In another negative application of this number twenty it is very interesting to notice that the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah starting with the splitting of the kingdom during the rule of Rehoboam the son of King Solomon, both had 20 rulers before they were carried off into captivity. The northern kingdom started with Jereboam, the son of Nebat, and ended with Hoshea. The southern kingdom started with Rehoboam and ended with Zedekiah.

King Ahaz, who is considered to be one of the wicked kings of Judah reigned 20 years before his son Hezekiah, the most righteous king since King David, began his reign:

2Ch 29:1  Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
2Ch 29:2  And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.

Twenty years of witnessing his father Ahaz’s wicked rulership prepared Hezekiah to be of great service to the Lord and to the Lord’s people.

2Ki 18:2  Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.
2Ki 18:3  And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.
2Ki 18:4  He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
2Ki 18:5  He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.
2Ki 18:6  For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.

That is the fruit of being prepared twenty years for the Lord’s service under his wicked father, King Ahaz.

King Solomon spent seven years building the house of God and then spent another 13 years building his own house for a total of twenty years of construction on those two projects. Hiram, king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with raw materials and skilled craftsmen. To show his appreciation Solomon gave King Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. Upon inspection Hiram was very disappointed with Solomon’s gift and returned them to Solomon:

1Ki 9:10  And it came to pass, at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built the two houses,—the house of Yahweh, and the house of the king;
1Ki 9:11  Hiram king of Tyre having supplied Solomon with timber of cedar, and with timber of fir, and with gold, according to all his desire, that, then, King Solomon gave unto Hiram twenty cities, in the land of Galilee.
1Ki 9:12  And Hiram came out from Tyre to view the cities which, Solomon, had given him,—and they were not pleasing in his eyes.
1Ki 9:13  So he said—What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them, Unfruitful Land, as they are called unto this day.
1Ki 9:14  Now Hiram had sent to the king,—a hundred and twenty talents of gold. (REV)

King Hiram was so disappointed with the twenty cities Solomon had given him that he “restored [them] to Solomon”:

2Ch 8:1  And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of the LORD, and his own house,
2Ch 8:2  That the [twenty] cities which Huram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.

Samson judged Israel for twenty years:

Jdg 16:29  And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.
Jdg 16:30  And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
Jdg 16:31  Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.

The scriptures record twenty different messages which are conveyed through dreams. The first such dream warns Abimelech not to go near Abraham’s wife:

Gen 20:2  And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Gen 20:3  But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Gen 20:4  But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?
Gen 20:5  Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
Gen 20:6  And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.
Gen 20:7  Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.

On his way to Haran while fleeing from his brother, Esau, Jacob dreams of a ladder to heaven, which Christ later reveals as signifying Himself:

Gen 28:12  And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Joh 1:51  And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Jacob is given a second dream where the Lord tells him to leave Laban’s employment and return to his father:

Gen 31:10  And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled.
Gen 31:11  And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I.
Gen 31:12  And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee.
Gen 31:13  I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.

Jacob’s employer, his wicked uncle Laban, is warned in a dream to do no harm to Jacob:

Gen 31:22  And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled.
Gen 31:23  And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days’ journey; and they overtook him in the mount Gilead.
Gen 31:24  And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

Joseph dreamed that his brothers would bow down to him:

Gen 37:5  And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
Gen 37:6  And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Gen 37:7  For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
Gen 37:8  And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

Joseph dreams a second dream. In this dream his brothers and his parents all bow down to him:

Gen 37:9  And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
Gen 37:11  And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

The next two dreams are those of the butler and the baker:

Gen 40:2  And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers.
Gen 40:3  And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.
Gen 40:4  And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward.
Gen 40:5  And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison.
Gen 40:6  And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad.
Gen 40:7  And he asked Pharaoh’s officers that were with him in the ward of his lord’s house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to day?
Gen 40:8  And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.
Gen 40:9  And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;
Gen 40:10  And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes:
Gen 40:11  And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.
Gen 40:12  And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days:
Gen 40:13  Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.
Gen 40:14  But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house:
Gen 40:15  For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.
Gen 40:16  When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head:
Gen 40:17  And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head.
Gen 40:18  And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three days:
Gen 40:19  Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.
Gen 40:20  And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants.
Gen 40:21  And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand:
Gen 40:22  But he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them.
Gen 40:23  Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.

The next dream mentioned in scripture is Pharaoh’s two different dreams. In the first dream Pharaoh sees seven fat cows eaten up by seven starved cows. His next dream was of seven fat ears of corn being eaten up by seven very thin ears of corn. (Gen 41)

A soldier in the Midianite army dreams that a cake of barley tumbled into the camp of Midian and smote a tent and overturned it. His companion interprets the man’s dream and tells him the Lord has delivered Midian into the hand of the Lord and Gideon.

Jdg 7:13  And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.
Jdg 7:14  And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.
Jdg 7:15  And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.

King Solomon is told by the Lord in a dream to ask anything and it would be given to him:

1Ki 3:5  In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.

King Nebuchadnezzar is shown, in a dream, all the empires that will rule the world right up to the establishment of the Lord’s kingdom at His appearing:

Dan 2:44  And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Dan 2:45  Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

Nebuchadnezzar’s next dream reveals his own punishment for his self-righteous pride:

Dan 4:13  I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven;
Dan 4:14  He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches:
Dan 4:15  Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth:
Dan 4:16  Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.
Dan 4:17  This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
Dan 4:18  This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation thereof, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation: but thou art able; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee.

Daniel himself has a dream about the four great empires which will rule the earth before the Lord sets up His kingdom on this earth:

Dan 7:1  In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.
Dan 7:2  Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
Dan 7:3  And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

In Revelation 13 it is revealed to us these same four beasts are really one composite beast within every man, and it is this beast which has been reigning in the kingdoms of this world all along, and he will continue his rule until the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands destroys this beast and become a kingdom which will not pass away.

The last five dreams are recorded in the New Testament. The first three are given to Joseph, whom they supposed was Christ’s father. These dreams had to do with Christ’s supernatural birth and protecting Him from the wrath of Herod. (Mat 2:13-23)

The next dream recorded is that of the Magi being informed in a dream to avoid Herod on their trip returning to their home. (Mat 2:12)

The twentieth dream recorded in scripture is that of Pilate’s wife warning her husband that he should do nothing to harm Christ (Mat 27:19)

There are other events which may appear to be dreams but they are not called dreams. The disciples Peter, James and John saw the vision of Christ’s transformation on the mount. In this case we are told it was a vision.

Mat 17:9  And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.

Paul has a vision of a man from Macedonia telling him to ‘Come over here and help us’. We are told this was a vision (Act 16:9). An angel stood by Paul the night before his ship wrecked and assured him that not one person would be lost at sea. But that event was not called a dream. (Act 27:23)

In conclusion, all of the twenty dreams recorded in scripture, and any mention of the number 20, like Jacob’s 20 years of service to Laban, has either a positive or a negative application of preparation for service whether that service is for good or evil.

The number twenty consists of two tens which signifies that our body of flesh (10) is being used of the Lord as a means of being preparing us to be given a spiritual body:

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

The Book of Joel – Chapter 2:28-32, Part 4

For the holy spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus. – Act 8:16.

[Study Aired Sept 7^th 24]

In the last Study of Joel Chapter 2:18-27, it concluded that our Aholibah-like cringeworthy shame for our graphically depicted spiritual whoredoms, is to be somehow cleansed from our hearts when our Lord said,

Joe 2:27  And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. 

In the subsequent verses studied today, the Bride deeply reflects upon her Aholibah-like nature and is given by God to see his mysterious “spirit” is not given to Joel or any other prophet before the cross to see how God’s power might actually work. All Joel and slow-bellied Israel (Tit 1:12  evil Cretians typifying Israel) see is further ambiguity in parables. Just as we once did, Cretians, Israel and our unconverted families today throw up their hands in despair that the Lord’s word is too convoluted to understand and, anyway, parrot the deluded doctrine that they are saved by Christ dying in their stead (1 Cor 15:31 throws another spanner in the gears).

Joe 2:28  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: 

The Lord’s “pity”, currently studied, is best expressed in his giving of himself in the form of the holy spirit, that is, God himself unified as Christ and his Father. That same unity is first bestowed upon his Bride in this age since the cross and for the most part understood by the following verses.

Joh 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments. (1Jn 5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous). 
Joh 14:16  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter [the holy spirit; Christ within!], that he may abide with you for ever [so that we by his power can keep his ‘comforting’ commandments];
Joh 14:17  Even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Joh 14:18  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Joh 14:19  Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
Joh 14:20  At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you [one spirit]. 
Joh 14:21  He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

The holy spirit is NOT an entity or individual spirit being; it is the nature of Christ and the Father, who are one spirit. “He” is a pronoun, and scriptures personalise all sorts of things, such as sin and wisdom being “she,” a fountain being “she,” etc.; as such, the holy spirit is called “he.”  

Joh 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
Joh 16:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

Pro 1:20  Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

Jer 6:7  As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds.

Christ and the Father are the holy spirit as is his word and truth; it is HE that does the work within us and not some third person of the Godhead making up the diabolical trinity lie:

1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

1Jn 2:22  Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son [Facetiously, no mention of an ‘uncle holy spirit’!].
1Jn 2:23  Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
1Jn 2:24  Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father [with no mention of another entity in the Godhead called the holy spirit].

Here is God’s spirit, his intrinsic holy spirit in Christ: 

Gal 4:6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 

Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ [the same spirit as the Father!], he is none of his. 

Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy spirit of God, [That is the Father and Christ!] whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

The Lord’s Elect are the people who are increasingly satisfied by the works Christ does in them through the much-awaited holy spirit that is Christ and his Father, creating the New Man within. The work of the holy spirit, fulfilling the will of God in this New Adam, starkly contrasts with the works of the flesh, which make men dreadfully insufficient and ashamed. Our efforts without the holy spirit always result in the shame of not being able to keep His word.

Joh 5:38  And you have not kept his word in your hearts, because you have not faith in him whom he has sent.
Joh 5:39  You make search in the holy Writings, in the belief that through them you get eternal life; and it is those writings which give witness about me.
Joh 5:40  And still you have no desire to come to me so that you may have life.

Why had we “no desire to come to Christ”? Because we had insisted in our own fabled ‘freewill’ that we are responsible for every action and sin the holy spirit subsequently quenched from doing its progressive work.

1Th 5:19  Quench not the Spirit.

Eph 4:30  And grieve not [restrain its power] the holy spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

However, when Joel wrote his Book, the understanding of this inscrutable spirit of God no doubt remained a talking point among the dedicated believers for another 865 years before the Cross.

Act 8:16  For the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them [Mostly the Apostles; and unidentified believers]; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.
Act 8:17  Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the holy spirit. 

A Frequently Asked Question: “Is the holy spirit a person?”

Study Significations

The Lord Will Pour Out His Spirit

Joe 2:28  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: 
Joe 2:29  And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. 
Joe 2:30  And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. 
Joe 2:31  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. 
Joe 2:32  And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. 

The meaning of the term “afterwards,” stated in the first verse of our Study, Joel 2:28-32, begs the question, after what will God’s holy spirit be poured out on all flesh? In fact, that statement covertly introduces Pentecost, scheduled to be fifty days after the cross in the process of seeding the New Covenant with the spirit of God, enabling “all flesh” to learn to keep all of Christ’s commands.

Here is a link to understanding the meaning of Pentecost: They Were All Filled with the Holy Ghost

The Body of Christ is highly familiar with the physical, termed in scripture as the “natural” that manifests in all created things before all physical things identify the mirror of the spiritual.

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

To all curious believers, upon reading Joel 2:28-30, they are not much further ahead in understanding this nebulously expressed “spirit”. After all, for thousands of years, prophets and great men and women, bonded and free of God, prophesied, dreamed dreams and had startling visions that they directly and fearfully attributed to God. All of Israel and surrounding nations were very familiar with what the Lord demonstrated, most frighteningly with wonders in the heavens, mass killings of Israel’s enemies until their blood flowed, and huge columns of smoke issuing from Mt. Sinai with terrifying signs and astonishments.

There remained a still enigmatic key of clouded understanding in verses 31 & 32 that reads,

Joe 2:31  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. 
Joe 2:32  And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has promised, among the remnant called by the LORD. 

The prophets Zephaniah and Malachi didn’t much help either, but they amplified the reader’s foreboding. The only consolation is Joel’s statement that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved”—but how, when all they ever knew was a physical ‘saving’? Besides, God had ‘saved’ Israel physically heaps of time before, yet He seemed still not satisfied!

Zep 1:14  The great Day of the LORD is near— near and coming quickly. Listen, the Day of the LORD! Then the cry of the mighty will be bitter.
Zep 1:15  That day will be a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,
Zep 1:16  a day of horn blast and battle cry against the fortified cities, and against the high corner towers.
Zep 1:17  I will bring such distress on mankind that they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.
Zep 1:18  Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the Day of the LORD’s wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of His jealousy.” For indeed, He will make a sudden end of all who dwell on the earth.

Mal 4:1  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”
Mal 4:2  “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.
Mal 4:3  Then you will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Hosts.

Vernacularly, who on earth is able to stand before those aforementioned terrifying images? Nonetheless, there is hope in the still-veiled statements of Malachi,

Mal 4:5  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.
Mal 4:6  And he will turn the heart [H3820] of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.” [‘NO! Not another curse; they are endless’, I hear the old Israelites say]

Heart H3820 Leb – Phonetic: labe – Definition: 1. inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding a. inner part, midst 1. midst (of things) 2. heart (of man) 3. soul, heart (of man) 4. mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory 5. inclination, resolution, determination (of will) 6. conscience 7. heart (of moral character) 8. as the seat of appetites 9. as the seat of emotions and passions 1a 2. as the seat of courage.

The hope is in understanding the yet-to-be-ascribed ‘new heart’ of the inner man that we, since the Cross, know as the New Adam drinking in the spirit of God that gradually changes a man’s heart to be one with Christ and our Father.

Eph 3:14  For this cause [being incredibly grateful that we do not have to rely on our own strength] I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Eph 3:15  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is [‘was and will be’] named, 
Eph 3:16  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his pirit in the inner man; 
Eph 3:17  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18  May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
Eph 3:19  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. 
Eph 3:20  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
Eph 3:21  Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

However, Joel, in the final chapter three, continues with a complex hope that generates even a level of faith (Gen 15:6. Rom 4:3) in all who read and cannot perceive that they will be dead in their graves for close to a symbolic and maybe literal 3,865 years before the Resurrection to Judgement (865BC to the cross + 2,000 to the First Resurrection + 1,000 years Rule with the Rod of Iron to the Second Resurrection).

So, are Aholah and Aholibah’s outrageous ‘porneia’ (Fornication: G4202 – Porneia – Phonetic: por-ni’-ah- Definition: 1. illicit sexual intercourse a. adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc. G4203 – Porneuo) connections just to damnably perverted for them not to be condemned to the contemporary (and deludedly) named “eternal hell fire” since in Joel 2:28 the ascribed “afterwards” seems to exclude all before the coming of this mystifying ‘spirit’ of God? And, are they, along with Jezebel, Cain, the sons of Belial (H1100), Judas, and the cryptic ‘man of perdition’ just too evil and ‘worthless’ to be included in the meaning of “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh”?

Belial H1100. Transliteration: B@liya’al – Phonetic: bel-e-yah’-al – Definition: 1. worthlessness a. worthless, good for nothing, unprofitable, base fellow. b. wicked c. ruin, destruction (construct)

The last verse, Joel 2:32, states clearly that “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.” To the Israelites, unwittingly without the holy spirit, the only way they can believe in that deliverance is a physical ‘saving’ from their enemies, being witless of the dreadful irony that their (as are our) enemies are spiritually within. To them, symbolising the contemporary ‘Jews’ of today, covertly identified as Babylonian Christians, unconsciously believing in “another Jesus”, that the Aholohs and Aholibahs of the world are destined to burn forever in the delusionary hell fire. Even the Apostles initially didn’t fully realise that Christ didn’t come to be the mighty force to rout the Romans. But they, along with an undisclosed “remnant”, the Lord’s “little flock”, would, in Christ, go before the rest of the world of old Jerusalem, Egypt, Sodom, Tyre and Babylon in and as spiritual sacrifice exemplars for the world’s ultimate ‘deliverance’ in the Lake of Fire.

(A recounting of Joel 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.)

The point is that there are two primary “afterwards” (Joel 2:28) of many biblical ‘afterwards’ that almost all reflect a spiritual event after its physical representation.

The first is a physical ‘remnant’ under Zerubbabel, who went back out of the captivity of Babylon to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the temple (Ezra 3:1-13). Inscrutabley, they depict the second “afterwards”, a spiritual “remnant” after the cross and particularly Pentecost who are the Lord’s ‘remnant’, a little flock who alone the Lord hears them calling on the name of ‘THE Lord’ as opposed to “whosoever”, implying anyone, suggesting multiple millions of Christians unwittingly calling upon ‘another Jesus’ (as expressed in 2 Cor 11:4) will be delivered.

Rom 11:5  Even so then at this present time [since the cross] also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Rom 11:6  And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Rom 11:7  What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election [the Remnant] hath obtained it, and the rest [the world/earth] were blinded
Rom 11:8  (According as it is written, God hath given them [the world/earth symbolically Babylon] the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day [for the world before the cross and the world after the cross, bar the “remnant”].
Rom 11:9  And David saith, Let their table [the Old Covenant of circumcision without the holy spirit] be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:
Rom 11:10  Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.

1Co 1:23  But we [The Bride of Christ] preach Christ crucified [in the power of the holy spirit], unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

Act 4:10  Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
Act 4:11  This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
Act 4:12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

And so, even to this day, the Babylonian Christian ‘Jews’ and the Greeks who represent the entire world can read that the Lord’s spirit has come into the world but are not given of it to believe in its power through Christ. The final chapter 3 of Joel powerfully states that it will come to pass, that whosoever calls on the Lord’s name will gain understanding to be saved. There is a massive time lag in the statement that “it shall come to pass” and until the deliverance actually comes. Israel remembers endless accounts of them calling on the name of God to deliver them from their enemies, so what is going to be different with this perplexing and expected superior deliverance? Without faith, no wonder the weary physical labourers became cynical when failure to keep the Laws consistently was a chasing of the wind. So, this new and mysterious hope of keeping the Lord’s word didn’t seem to offer any startling consolation.

Gal 3:22  But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Gal 3:23  But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Gal 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

What Israel and Solomon, in his creation of the Shulamite, couldn’t fully appreciate was that their Lord did build Israel’s physical house with intrinsic failure of man’s powerful bias for faith in himself.

Psa 127:1  A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

There in Psa 127:1 lies the double-edged message that the very same “Lord” that built and destroyed Old Israel would come in person in far greater amplification of the same spirit to build the new Heavenly Jerusalem; the still enigmatic “remnant”, as “black” as the curtains of Solomon’s Temple (Son 1:5) in for understanding of the Lord’s New Wife.

Joel and the ‘minor prophets preceded what the Lord told Daniel to “seal up the book until the time of the end” (Dan 12) since nobody could understand how the house of each person could be built without knowing the great “tarrying” in Babylon, Egypt, Sodom depicting Old Jerusalem for the much later “helper” (John 15:26-27), the holy spirit.

And, the last Chapter 3 of Joel next week for Babylonian Christianity, for Jews who say that they are Jews and are not, and say that they see, and don’t, “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” – Mat 13:13, except for the mysterious “Remnant” who see how that last Chapter correlates perfectly with Revelations.

The Book of Daniel – Dan 2:1-30  My spirit was troubled to know the dream

[Study Aired February 15, 2024]

Dan 2:1  And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
Dan 2:2  Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. 
Dan 2:3  And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream. 
Dan 2:4  Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. 
Dan 2:5  The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. 
Dan 2:6  But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof. 
Dan 2:7  They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it. 
Dan 2:8  The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me. 
Dan 2:9  But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof. 
Dan 2:10  The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.
Dan 2:11  And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. 
Dan 2:12  For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 
Dan 2:13  And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain. 
Dan 2:14  Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon: 
Dan 2:15  He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. 
Dan 2:16  Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:17  Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: 
Dan 2:18  That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 
Dan 2:19  Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 
Dan 2:20  Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 
Dan 2:21  And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: 
Dan 2:22  He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
Dan 2:23  I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter. 
Dan 2:24  Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:25  Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:26  The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? 
Dan 2:27  Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;
Dan 2:28  But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; 
Dan 2:29  As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. 
Dan 2:30  But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart. 

We are told in God’s word to “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1Co 14:40), and the order of events in Daniel’s life is therefore significant regarding how the Lord prepared him in advance to be made ready to interpret the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 of Daniel. What the body of Christ has to do in order to be “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” is “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” (1Pe 3:15). The sanctification process is typified by eating the right foods and rejecting the kings food, “the portion of the king’s meat“, which was looked at in chapter 1 of Daniel, and God is the one who is able to sanctify us through Christ who has made that very request of our Father (Joh 17:17) on our behalf so that we can come out of Babylon and be saved by grace through faith, which is a gift of God given to the body of Christ (Eph 2:8).     

1Pe 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

Joh 17:17  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

When God’s word sanctifies us, it prepares our hearts to stand up against the powers and principalities we wrestle against in our heavens (Eph 6:12), typified in this second chapter by king Nebuchadnezzar. Having done all, we stand (Eph 6:13) with a clear conscience and are now able to understand how these next verses in Peter (1Pe 3:16-22) apply to the body of Christ concerning the ‘sanctification of the Lord God in our hearts’ of verse 15 (1Pe 3:15). Daniel’s many fiery experiences in his life, including this one with Nebuchadnezzar, typify for us (1Pe 1:12) what the body of Christ will go through and be blessed to endure through Christ (2Ti 2:10, Php 4:13).

1Pe 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
1Pe 3:16  Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. [your way of life]
1Pe 3:17  For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. 
1Pe 3:18  For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 
1Pe 3:19  By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:20  Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 
1Pe 3:21  The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: 
1Pe 3:22  Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Daniel is a type of the elect who has been made ready to suffer for well doing, and his God-given ability to interpret the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar will deliver him and his friends from the king who was intent on killing those who could not interpret these dreams he had. Satan’s goal is to sift us like wheat, but the gates of hell won’t prevail against the body of Christ. However, that does not stop the adversary from doing all that God’s counsel (Eph 1:11) permits, even to the point that he would deceive the very elect if it were possible (Mat 24:24).

The “very elect” of Matthew 24:24 are also represented by Noah who was one of those eight souls preparing the ark at that time. That preparation of the ark represents the sanctification process going on in the body of Christ, who are continuing in the truth (Joh 8:31-32), making us ready for the storms that will come up against us in this life (Act 14:22, Luk 17:26-28). As always we are not looking solely for some dispensational interpretation of what this second chapter talks about, but rather first and foremost, we are asking our Father for the understanding of how these prophecies and events in the life of Daniel apply to us today, right now (1Co 10:11).

Mat 24:24  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Act 14:22  Confirming the souls of the disciples,[“eight souls were saved by water“] and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. 

Luk 17:26  And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
Luk 17:27  They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:28  Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Dan 2:1  And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. 
Dan 2:2  Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. 

The first signified statement (Rev 1:1) we want to take note of in verse one is that these dreams that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed were in the “second year” of his reign, meaning they are going to witness against something (“wherewith his spirit was troubled“). Sending the word of God results in healing, but as always there is a process that must take place in order for this healing to take full effect in the ones that the words are being sent to and witnessing against (Psa 107:20-22, Isa 55:11).

Rev 1:1  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

Psa 107:20  He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. 
Psa 107:21  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Isa 55:11  So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

The prophecies that are connected to the dreams Nebuchadnezzar experienced had ultimately brought him to acknowledge the power of God working in the life of Daniel, seeing he was able to interpret what no one else was able to interpret. Daniel represents the angel of God that is used to help us understand the truth of what remains a hidden sealed parable in our heavens until the Lord brings His messenger or angel to us to show us that the dream is one, simplifying the message (the ‘dream is one’ principle)  for us so that it becomes clear in our heavens. Christ in us, our hope of glory, is that angel who gives us the ability to speak the truth plainly, and speak no proverb  (Rev 22:6, Act 8:31, Gen 41:25, 2Co 11:3, Joh 16:29).

Rev 22:6  And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.

Act 8:31  And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? [the man Christ Jesus (1Ti 2:5, Eph 3:10)] And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

Gen 41:25  And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. 

2Co 11:3  But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity^G572 [singleness – the dream is one] that is in Christ. 

G572 haplotēs  hap-lot’-ace

From G573; singleness, that is, (subjectively) sincerity (without dissimulation or self seeking), or (objectively) generosity (copious bestowal): – bountifulness, liberal (-ity), simplicity, singleness.

Total KJV occurrences: 8

God’s sovereign hand was upon Nebuchadnezzar causing these very detailed dreams so that “wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him“, which symbolizes the second part of this verse of John 3:36, “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

Nebuchadnezzar typifies our old man of sin who must be troubled in order for God to get our attention. The dreams that Nebuchadnezzar had got him looking for answers, and like all those that God works with, we must first go into Babylon and seek the counsel of those who have no true spiritual insight, typified by “the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans” that Nebuchadnezzar reached out to, to “shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.“

Dan 2:3  And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream. 
Dan 2:4  Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. 
Dan 2:5  The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. 
Dan 2:6  But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.

The Chaldeans coming to the king speaking in Syriack typifies for us how the world hears the world in their own Babylonian language (1Jn 4:5-6). This was a work of God that was not going to be understood or interpreted by the unbelieving who are represented by the Chaldeans and Nebuchadnezzar. Then the severity of God against our old man is expressed through what Nebuchadnezzar says to the Chaldeans, “The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.” These Chaldeans were stopped dead in their tracks with this part of the king’s statement, “The thing is gone from me“, especially seeing the consequence of them not being able to answer it would mean their death. This dream was forgotten and yet the king was insisting that it be remembered and interpreted or they will die. The spiritual lesson for God’s elect is that if the dream that is one is forgotten and not interpreted, we will die in our sins (Joh 8:24).

Then the second part of the sentence, “if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof“, reminds us that the dream can be interpreted by Christ and His Christ who have that great honor, “gifts and rewards and great honour“, of being able to interpret the dream today in order that we might be in that blessed and holy first resurrection as a result of continuing in the truth, enduring to the end of this life (Rev 20:6). The dream will be interpreted by God, and it takes the destruction of our flesh, the “ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill” to happen in order for us to live unto righteousness. Christ has done that for us, and we are now doing that for each other as we follow His exemplary life (1Pe 2:24, Col 1:24). The dream is truly one.

Joh 8:24  I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

1Pe 2:24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Dan 2:7  They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it. 
Dan 2:8  The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me. 
Dan 2:9  But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.

These “magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans“, these four representing the whole world, were feigning not hearing him the first time when he said, ‘the dream has left me’, and so they asked again, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.” The king saw through their delaying tactics and basically said, ‘I knew you would take this approach of asking me again and stall for time ,”because ye see the thing is gone from me“.’ In type and shadow, the king is not going to have any part of this carnal reasoning that is trying to preserve its flesh through the wisdom of men and not the power of God (1Co 2:5), so they are between a rock and a hard spot here for our sakes, to show us that it is only God who can make a way where there appears to none (1Co 10:13).

The king then insists that there is only one fate for these lying messengers who “have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me…till the time be changed“, in other words, until the situation just blows over and is no longer a pressing matter. No, he won’t settle for that and so goes on to say, “Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.“

Nebuchadnezzar was being driven to know what these dreams mean, it seems a matter of life and death to him, as it is a matter of spiritual life and death for the body of Christ, “therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof” (Isa 33:6, Joh 10:4-5, Joh 8:31-32). It is this God-given desire to hear the voice of the only true shepherd that can “shew me the interpretation thereof.”

Isa 33:6  And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.

Joh 10:4  And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
Joh 10:5  And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free

This persistence of king Nebuchadnezzar also typifies the zealousness of Christ who was consumed for the temple that we are, wanting to show us what the dream is and the interpretation of it through the zealous work that He is accomplishing through a peculiar and zealous people, who are called, like Christ, to drive out the sheep, the oxen, and pour out the changers’ money and overthrow the tables within us (Joh 2:17, 1Co 3:16, Tit 2:14, Joh 2:14-16). 

Joh 2:14  And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 
Joh 2:15  And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; 
Joh 2:16  And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
Joh 2:17  And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. 

Tit 2:14  Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Tit 2:15  These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Dan 2:10  The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.
Dan 2:11  And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

These next couple of verses demonstrate for us, in type and shadow, the spirit of antiChrist that is in this world, with such phrases as “there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh” and “there is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter.” This is true; no carnal man can show these things, and we don’t need a carnal man teaching us (1Jn 4:2-4), but we do need to acknowledge that Christ has come in the flesh, and that there is a remnant which God has preserved through His spirit who have the hope of glory within them (Col 1:27) and are, as such, able to interpret the dream and be used of God to overcome the spirit of antiChrist that is in this world (1Jn 2:27-28). Daniel typifies for us just such a man.

1Jn 4:2  Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: [Col 1:27, Rom 8:9]
1Jn 4:3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 
1Jn 4:4  Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 

1Jn 2:27  But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. 
1Jn 2:28  And now, little children, abide in him; [Joh 8:31-32] that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

Dan 2:12  For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
Dan 2:13  And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain. 

Nebuchadnezzar, at this stage of the story, represents the beast with the ten horns that hates the whore, represented by “the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans” typifying Babylon or the church systems of this world, false prophets who cannot be of any help to the king (Rev 17:16).

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 

Dan 2:14  Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon: 
Dan 2:15  He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. 
Dan 2:16  Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:17  Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: 
Dan 2:18  That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 
Dan 2:19  Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

Daniel is now sent forth “with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard“, wanting to stay the hand of Nebuchadnezzar who planned to “slay the wise men of Babylon.” This reminds us that God must send forth His word to bring about healing (Psa 107:20), and He does this through His little fold, typified by Daniel in this instance, who asked this question of “Arioch the captain of the king’s guard…Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.”

Psa 107:20  He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Daniel typifies for us what we must do to stay the wrath of God against us, as we cry out day and night for each other to be avenged (Luk 18:7) and are heard in that we feared God as Christ did on this earth (Heb 5:7). These events with Daniel going to Arioch typify for us ‘kissing the son now lest he be angry’ of Psalm 2:12. Daniel was asking and seeking and knocking, as we should in our pursuit of truth, and his diligence was rewarded, and he was given the audience with the king he needed in order to ask, “that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.“

Luk 18:7  And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

Heb 5:7  Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; 

Psa 2:12  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. 

After Daniel made this request to Arioch (whose name means ‘lion like’), he made the situation known to his three companions, “Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions.” This typifies for us how we need the body of Christ, each member to be a joint supplying in love, praying fervently for each other prayers that will avail much (Jas 5:16). The three men demonstrate that we are in this process together as one body, with the same spirit that is offering up these prayers like incense day and night (Rev 8:4, Rev 4:8). 

Rev 8:4  And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. 

Rev 4:8  And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. 

It is after Daniel goes to his companions and asks of them, “That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon” that “Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” Then and not before! (our old man has to be dead, symbolized by sleep, in order to perceive the spiritual instructions God gives us in this life [Job 33:14-18])

Job 33:14  For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. 
Job 33:15  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; 
Job 33:16  Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, 
Job 33:17  That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. 
Job 33:18  He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

Dan 2:20  Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 
Dan 2:21  And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: 
Dan 2:22  He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
Dan 2:23  I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.

Now Daniel offers up the sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, acknowledging Him as being the One who has given the wisdom and might that are His to give (Rev 7:12). He also acknowledges the sovereignty of God and that He is the Father of lights who gives every good and perfect gift from heaven (Jas 1:17) by saying, “And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding.” He goes on to show how God answers us so abundantly above what we can ask or think (Eph 3:20) with this sentence, “He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.” Daniel then thanks and praises God who has given him “wisdom and might“, and made known to him what he desired of Him; this all pointing to a type of the elect whose praise is continually upon our lips for His mercy and love toward us in this age, revealing great mysteries to us that prophets and kings have desired to know and have not known (Heb 13:15, Luk 10:24).

Heb 13:15  By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

Luk 10:24  For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Dan 2:24  Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:25  Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. 
Dan 2:26  The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? 
Dan 2:27  Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; 
Dan 2:28  But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; 

These last verses we will look at tonight see Daniel going to Arioch whom Nebuchadnezzar ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon beseeching him to “Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.” Daniel is then brought before the king in haste as one of the captives of Judah, symbolizing for us that when we are slaves to Christ, living sacrifices whose whole lives are dedicated to His service, we are then given the spiritual riches we need through Him to accomplish the works God has called us to in this age (Php 4:19).

Php 4:19  But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 

The king asks Daniel if he can make known the dream and the interpretation thereof, and then Daniel gives a very clear witness for our sakes, to make known where this understanding and interpretation are coming from. Firstly, he tells them there is no revelation in the earth that is going to benefit him, “The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king” and then contrasts that declaration with, “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these.“

Dan 2:29  As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.
Dan 2:30  But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

The thoughts of the king were given to Nebuchadnezzar upon his bed, a place that symbolizes where we are spiritually asleep and not able to rightly divide and discern the vision and dream that are one, unless the Lord sends the prophet of God to us who also received his vision in a dream and by the grace of God was able to understand the dream. The king in the earth is receiving knowledge and dreams that he is not permitted to remember so that Daniel, the servant of God, can come along to say, “But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.“

This is the heritage of the saints being discussed here in type and shadow, as Saviors will come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau (Oba 1:21) with the knowledge that they have been blessed to read, hear and keep in this life for the sake of others, to a world that has been spiritually asleep and deceived by the devil (Rev 1:3, Isa 26:9, 2Co 4:4). God ultimately gives us that knowledge for the sake of others “that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart“.

Oba 1:21  And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S. 

Isa 54:16  Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. 
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment [the great white throne judgment (Rev 20:6)] thou shalt condemn [Rev 20:10-12]. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

Rev 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

In the next study we will get into the actual dreams and their meaning for the body of Christ today (Dan 2:31-49).

Song of Solomon – Part 6, The Bride’s Dream

Song of Solomon 3:1-11

[Study Aired December 3, 2022]

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:13)

Before proceeding with the third chapter of the Song of Solomon, it is important to address the questions in everyone’s minds regarding the Song’s covert sexual innuendos. The vast majority of the Body of Christ see those creative references, and none of us can precisely identify their erotic tag; such is the beauty of poetry and elegant anticipatory arousals. For newcomers to the site and for this study to not resolve, the intent of Solomon’s apparent steamy wordplay is to the ‘natural mind’ blatantly missing the most significant aspects of erotica. Because of the curse of blindness, what the flesh doesn’t see and cannot see is…

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Mat 13:15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 
Mat 13:16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

Blindness is one of the symbolic giants inhabiting the nations within the Elect of God’s spiritual land. The Lord drives out that giant of a curse called blindness. Those given eyes that spiritually see are the Elect of God whose judgement is happening right now, as they were of their brothers in Babylon cursed with equal blindness; now they are given to excitedly see and hear like the Shulamite ~ because they are the Shulamite!

Deu 11:22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; 
Deu 11:23 Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. 
Deu 11:24 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.
Deu 11:25 There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
Deu 11:26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
Deu 11:27 A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: 
Deu 11:28 And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known. 

We assuredly do now know that the most outstanding god we all pursued in Babylon. ‘He’ was and is a three-fold god beginning with the lust of the flesh. The lust of the flesh is driven by the lust of the eyes that consolidates our self-ordained right to pursue (as did Solomon) our indulgent glory and is called the pride of life. Even Solomon came to the frustrating conclusion that “all is vanity of vanities” (Ecc 1:1-11). His frustration was born from not having the Lord’s spirit of discernment, as we understand in John 6:63.

We are admonished to not lust after the flesh, to have it rule us, and for the Song of Solomon’s cause not to awaken love (erotica) until it is provided by the Lord in a righteous environment.

1Jn 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1Jn 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

So, the overwhelming rationale for not endeavouring to identify the multitude of sexual innuendos in the Song is that it is of no spiritual value. If the individual or a husband and wife wish to muse on the suggestive symbolism, it has some whimsical value yet ultimately is fruitless.

However, the Shulamite’s erotic spiritual subtleties are infinitely more ravishing.

The Lord made the woman physically and spiritually for the man to fulfil the Father’s plan for his Son (1Co 11:1-16). The entire intricate form of the female gender is a unique phenomenon of intrigue, as is male sexuality; both are to disappear in the Kingdom (Gal 3:28).

The Body of Christ is somewhat exasperated by Babylon’s wholesale degradation of anything related to mankind’s sexuality. Subconsciously, every sexually maturing male (like the Shulamite) knows that the more subtlely and elegantly anticipatory expressed details of a female of his attention are far more arousing than blatant in-your-face flesh. Merely go to the beach (on YouTube for most of us) and view the perversion of righteous lust for the female form, where nano-eye-patch-like bikinis are the norm. A somewhat good thing, reminiscent of a seared heart, is that every male on the beach is a well-practised slaughterman of his awakenings with an internal parody of the Shulamite charging him, ‘do not awaken my lust until I please’.

The Shulamite is undoubtedly well taught by her mother and senior female peers in the fine art of righteous and infinitely more exhilarating male seduction, and it is guaranteed not to involve indelicate displays of skin that scripture describes as nakedness that is sin.

Of course, the Lord-designed juxtapositioning of the other extreme in some Islamic cultures female dress code is pure slavery to both men and women. How can an Islamic man tell if the girl’s eyes behind a jail-like mesh hijab are that of a dove or loving hind? Her hair beneath the ‘tent’ of humidity would smell more like a flock of goats from Mt. Gilead rather than the effect of Solomon’s visual imagery. Nonetheless, that cultural environment has a one-hundred- and eighty-degrees positive effect on a Muslim man’s arousal compared to a Westerner’s, should his eyes be assaulted by a glimpse just above her ankle. No wonder young Muslim men lustfully spin out for the bounty when coming to a Western country full of infidels.

Solomon, the wisest man ever lived, maintains, and builds sexual suspense by compelling the reader to dream as lucidly as the Shulamite. Remembering earlier studies in the Song of Solomon, women’s roller-coaster arousals are generated precisely as the Shulamite fantasises. Likewise, the Bible is a book of turbulent foreplay designed primarily for the Bride of Christ. For Solomon to bluntly identify the erotic imagery would destroy the purpose of foreplay. The Lord could have been just a blunt in the Garden of Eden and dispensed with seven thousand years of spiritually developing ‘foreplay’.

Let’s continue with the Song of Solomon, Chapter 3:1-5.

It is a beautiful thing that all Christ-centric fiancées committed to marriage dream in effusive detail of how their courtship will bloom into their wedding day. That vivacity in Christ is a testament to her commitment. The Shulamite continues to rehearse her vivid dream that constitutes the entire Song as the spousal summation of the Bible. To the Elect of God, that dream is being lived in reality, and hopefully, we, too, are given to unabashedly and deeply experience the same spiritual arousals.

Remembering that the Song is a continuous event in her mind that could be daydreamed in an hour or two ~ yet, the philosophical Solomon could have taken weeks to compose.

Continuing from chapter two, the Bride pursues that dream in chapter three.

Son 3:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
Son 3:2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. 
Son 3:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? 
Son 3:4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. 
Son 3:5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Son 3:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

In verse one, the Bride delights in the fantasy of righteous lust that epitomises the entire Song. She knows full well where her beloved is, and her internal pretend game amplifies the intensity of her arousal with the make-believe of her fiancé’s absence. The adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” holds true.

Verse one is easily seen by the Elect of God as their spiritual event of first love in seeking and finding Christ. In the early dawn of having their eyes opened, they sometimes agonisingly question whether they have found the truth as they continue with a pounding heart beneath their ‘Temple mount’, searching the word to prove all things and stir up the spirit of truth.

Disconcertedly, their flesh sometimes questions the remarkable gift they are blessed with and pray that it is not written in this age that His spirit departs. As with the Shulamite, and many of us in the midnight hour, search for our Lord with troubled hearts.

Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. 

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Psa 51:11 O do not fling me from Your presence, And do not take Your holy spirit from me. (CLV)

Son 3:2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

The Shulamite in verse two continues to heighten the intensity of her arousal with the drama of a seeming classic female-superhero rescue. Christ and men love to ‘rescue’ a genuine woman, as did Boaz with Ruth and Christ with the Bride ~ both parties receive an emotional and spiritual high from the theatre (Ruth 3:1-18). Bards like Shakespeare and the Bible are full of such parables. 

Most women seem to secretly delight in tough and a little scary masculinity, which will fight for them; it amplifies their femininity and subsequent arousals. In today’s world, that romantic drama for women is a paradox since the curse from Eden torturously tears them in two directions ~ that of being submissive to a truly powerful man and her mostly unconscious desire to rule him. The Shulamite is rescued by a powerful and, in a positive sense, scary ‘man’ and kisses from him are immensely arousing! Her ‘Man’ didn’t just step up to the plate; he created the entire event, the love story from the beginning to the end.

A King or Priest serving in the holy of holies must be a perfect sacrifice. Our Lord is not the man in Deuteronomy 23:1 and Leviticus 23:1-24! He never had a blemish in any department of his spiritual anatomy; now, neither does she; she is about to be equally yoked in every way. He is her head and leads with his God-ordained headship symbolised by physically fully functional masculinity. The other spiritually dysfunctional parts of human anatomy, such as blindness, being crippled, deaf, and various diseases, are common to males and females. 

Deu 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Lev 21:17 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
Lev 21:18 For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
Lev 21:19 Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, 
Lev 21:20 Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
Lev 21:21 No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. 
Lev 21:22 He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy. 
Lev 21:23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
Lev 21:24 And Moses told it unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel.

Of course, spiritually, the love ‘game’ plays out precisely as planned. Women delight in the extended love play of a sizzling romance, and men love the sizzle. The Shulamite knows the outcome of her romantic impression and frequently reminds herself ‘to not stir up love until He pleases’. She plays the internal charade of amplifying anticipation by pretending that she can’t find her beloved. Compared to Eden’s curse on women (the world’s churches), she doesn’t have an internal disquiet of her heart being torn with feminine desire by wanting to rule him. She sincerely wants Him to pursue her and find her, and He does.

Son 3:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

Likewise, in the Body of Christ, she goes to many counsellors, the watchmen, to prove everything. She knows full well that she will find her Lord, the pearl of great price, because it was written that He would find her ~ from a babe in the field, budding into a beautiful bright young girl without breasts, to the spiritual stunner she is in the Song of Solomon.

In verse four, the Bride continues her dream and imagines her wedding night.

Son 3:4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

The Shulamite, a classic damsel in distress, searched for her beloved with all of her heart and the pretence that she couldn’t find him. In a little while, and undoubtedly with an immense surge of emotional release, blow me down ~ she found Him! Her aspirations serve to escalate this one-off marriage event, the pinnacle for which a righteous Bride (particularly she) is created. (1Co 11:9 – the woman is created for the man…)

Psa 63:8 My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me. (BSB)

The Shulamite is utterly determined to bring her husband into the sanctity, figuratively of where her mother conceived her, a bed-chamber where marriage in heaven is sealed. She knows her inheritance as the Bride of Christ through the imbued lineage of righteous women, beginning long ago with Sarah, Abraham’s wife, “a mother of nations”.  She clings to her husband, the pearl of great price and dreams of consummating her marriage as the beautiful New Jerusalem above, the final and spiritual mother of us all.

The Shulamite maintains the sanctity of marriage that her mother and all preceding righteous mothers taught and is, to us, a spiritually pure doctrine symbolised by the marriage bed.

Heb 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

It appeared the custom in ancient Biblical times for a bride to honour her mother’s teaching her the art of being a God-fearing wife who, too, honoured her husband and the order of headship. Likewise, a groom performed the same ritual in his mother’s tent or ‘chamber’ to honour the holiness of marriage. Not long after the death of Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah sealed their marriage in Sarah’s tent. The shadow of consummating a marriage in a mother’s bed chamber is in honour of God and the sanctity of marriage that doesn’t necessarily involve one’s mother’s chamber for conceiving. In a God-fearing family, a mother has a massive impact on her sons’ social and spiritual development, as does the Church on the laity. Even though a righteous wife doesn’t rule her husband, she is an immense blessing to him and their family, as was Rebekah to Isaac and all righteous women in scripture.

The Body of Christ lives a major aspect of being positively ravished by Christ, with Him having created her to ravish Him, and thus the marriage bed of pure doctrine is undefiled.

Gen 24:67 And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. 

Pro 5:15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Pro 5:16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
Pro 5:17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
Pro 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Pro 5:19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished [H7686] always with her love. 
Pro 5:20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 

In the negative for the meaning of “ravish” (H7686), we know Israel’s neighbouring strange women lovers embraced her bosom, thus ravishing her in the wilderness H7686 meaning to lead “led [her] astray”, and they did.

Lev 11:44 For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile [H2930] yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Defile H2930
– Original: טמא
– Transliteration: Tame’
– Phonetic: taw-may’
– Definition: 
to be unclean, become unclean, become impure
(Qal) to be or become unclean
sexually
religiously
ceremonially
(Niphal)
to defile oneself, be defiled 1b
sexually 1b
by idolatry 1b
ceremonially
to be regarded as unclean
(Piel)
to defile 1c
sexually 1c
religiously 1c
ceremonially
to pronounce unclean, declare unclean (ceremonially)
to profane (God’s name)
(Pual) to be defiled
(Hithpael) to be unclean
(Hothpael) to be defiled

– Origin: a primitive root
– TWOT entry: 809
– Part(s) of speech: Verb 

The Shulamite and all the righteous women in scripture honoured their mother’s and father’s instructions in every aspect of Godliness, particularly for this purpose, by not defiling the marriage bed. The Shulamite in the SoS is not a filthy dreamer as were the men of Sodom.

Jud 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, [that all are false doctrines] are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 
Jud 1:8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Today, a young groom’s last desire is to have their wedding night in the mother-in-law’s bedroom. However, for spiritual eyes, the biblical custom is for the Bride of Christ’s understanding.

The marital bed is akin to the holy of holies that only the high priest can enter. Solomon is portrayed as Christ, and it is Christ who enters the bed-chamber of the mother-to-be of all nations through the righteous lineage of mothers, with the Shulamite being the final consummative spouse. Taking one’s spouse figuratively or literally into a mother’s bed-chamber signifies the purity of Christ’s wife’s submission to his doctrine. It is the final act for the beginning of delivering her children, the world.

Bedchamber H2315
– Original: חדר
– Transliteration: Cheder
– Phonetic: kheh’-der
– Definition:

chamber, room, parlour, innermost or inward part, within

– Origin: from H2314
– TWOT entry: 612a
– Part(s) of speech: Noun Masculine 
– Strong’s: From H2314; an apartment (usually literally): – ([bed] inner) chamber innermost (-ward) part parlour + south X within.

Gen 17:15 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. 
Gen 17:16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
Gen 17:17 Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? 
Gen 17:18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 
Gen 17:19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

The marriage bed, meaning marriage, is holy, with no place for fornication or adultery, the perversion of pure doctrine.

The following verse speaks of the judgment of Jerusalem, our former selves.

Zep 3:4 Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, [H6944] they have done violence to the law. 

Our bodies are the Temple of God, and the marriage bed is kept holy only through marriage, equally yoked in Christ.

Sanctuary H6944
– Original: קדשׁ
– Transliteration: Qodesh
– Phonetic: ko’-desh
– Definition:
apartness, holiness, sacredness, separateness
apartness, sacredness, holiness
of God
of places
of things
set-apartness, separateness 

– Origin: from H6942 [1. to consecrate, sanctify, prepare, dedicate, be hallowed, be holy, be sanctified, be separate]
– TWOT entry: 1990a
– Part(s) of speech: Noun Masculine 
– Strong’s: From H6942; a sacred place or thing; rarely abstractly sanctity: – consecrated (thing) dedicated (thing) hallowed (thing) holiness (X most) holy (X day portion thing) saint

1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 
1Co 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

The Shulamite is dreadfully alert to keep the sanctity of marriage for her Lord and constantly recalls,

Son 3:5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. 

The Bride is the holy Temple, the city of God, the New Jerusalem where Christ resides.

Rev 21:22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 
Rev 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 
Rev 21:24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. 
Rev 21:25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 
Rev 21:26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
Rev 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Lord willing, the Bride continues her dream next week with her groom arriving at the wedding.

Isa 44:9-20 – Part 1, He [That Builds an Idol] Warms Himself, and Says, Aha, I Am Warm, I Have Seen The Fire

If the Lord wills, we will learn in this study that all the effort put into the construction of a physical graven or molten image is used by the holy spirit to typify the energy we put into constructing and then upholding what the scriptures refer to as, “Idols of [our] hearts… the stumbling block of [our] iniquity.” In other words, physical ‘idols’ in scripture typify the false doctrines we construct by twisting the Word of God into a doctrine which is the product of our own imagination or the imaginations of other men whose doctrines we foolishly accept.

Here are our verses for today’s study:

Isa 44:9 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
Isa 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
Isa 44:11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.
Isa 44:12 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
Isa 44:13  The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
Isa 44:14 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.
Isa 44:15  Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
Isa 44:16  He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
Isa 44:17  And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
Isa 44:18 They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
Isa 44:19  And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
Isa 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

This study is all about giving ourselves over to idol worship and the fruits of such spiritual fornication. This study continues the message of the previous study where the Lord reminded us He is the only true God there is.

This is the thought of the previous verses of this chapter of Isaiah:

Isa 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Then He asks us who besides Himself can call and declare both “the ancient people [of the past, as well as] the things that are coming.” Let any such person present himself and demonstrate that they can declare both the past and the future:

Isa 44:7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them.

Of course, there is no other such person. The Bible, the word of our Lord, is the only book on earth which gives us the name of the very first man who ever walked this earth. It is the only book on earth which gives the genealogy of Christ all the way back to that first man (Luk 3:23-38). Then Christ, who is “The Word” (Joh 1:1), tells us exactly what we are experiencing in this age, and then His Word goes on to tell us what the future holds for mankind.

The one thing we should all know very well is that even the very best pollsters and weather men cannot get it right when it comes to telling us “what shall be on the morrow”, and we are condemned by the Lord Himself for even thinking we can know what we will do “today or tomorrow”:

Jas 4:13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Jas 4:15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Jas 4:16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

We concluded our last study with the Lord reassuring us that we are His witnesses of the fact that He alone has “appointed” the past and Has “declared… the things that are coming”, and therefore we need not fear because there is no God beside our God:

Isa 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
Isa 44:7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them.
Isa 44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.

That is what the Lord calls “strong confidence… in the fear of the Lord”:

Pro 14:26 In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.

If our Lord has predicted and brought to pass the things of the past, then He can and He will continue to do so and bring to pass the things He tells us are in the future. We have seen what He has done in our lives. We see what He is doing to care for us from day to day. Why would we not depend on Him as “a place of refuge” to keep us close to Himself to the end?

All these assurances are never to be taken for permission to become complacent or lackadaisical in our service to our Lord, which is one of the very things He has already told us we will do:

We are told in advance that when we became fat, we forgot our Lord:

Deu 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
Deu 32:16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
Deu 32:17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; ,u>to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Deu 32:18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

This study is the Lord exhorting us not to ‘forsake Him nor lightly esteem the Rock of our salvation’ by giving heed to false gods which “came newly up”.

That is the subject of our study today:

Isa 44:9 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.
Isa 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?

Here we have the Lord Himself telling us that “they [who] are their own witnesses” are they “who formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing”.

What is so very little understood is that, in scriptural terms, an “idol” and “a graven image” and “a molten image” are spiritually defined as meaning ‘idols of the heart’. In spiritual terms, an idol is no longer a physical likeness of men and beasts. An “idol [is spiritually speaking a matter] of the heart”. A Biblical ‘idol’ is now much more than a literal icon or a physical statue made of wood or of silver or of gold. The ‘idols’ with which we now struggle, and which we war against today, are “idols of the heart”. An “idol of the heart” can include a “graven image” but mostly our ‘idols’ are now false doctrines which have twisted and wrested the Word of God to make it mean what is in our own carnal hearts, while “lightly esteeming … that which is written”:

1Co 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.

Many think of themselves as being obedient to the commandments.

Exo 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exo 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Exo 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

To most people ‘idols of the heart’ are an unheard-of concept, and yet that is the very thing a physical likeness of things in heaven and things on earth typify. Physical ‘idols and graven and molten images’ are merely Old Testament types of “idols of the heart” which are far more insidious than an outward ‘molten or graven image’.

The Lord reveals this Truth to us in:

Eze 14:1 Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.
Eze 14:2 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?

“Idols of the heart” are any lies or false doctrines which teach us anything contrary to the words and doctrines of Christ, and all who follow those who do so will be judged accordingly:

Isa 44:11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.

The fact of the matter is that Ezekiel 14 is simply agreeing with and confirming Isaiah 44:

Eze 14:4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD ; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;
Eze 14:5 That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

Look closely at those words. Here we are told that when we come to the Word of God with preconceived doctrines which are contrary to the doctrines of Christ and His Father, “I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.”

That is exactly what Joseph did to His brothers who hated him and his doctrines. He had foretold the very things they were to do, including doing obeisance to him, and they hated him for saying so. Christ tells us we will renounce our will and bow down to Him and to His will, and we hate Him for telling us that Truth. So, He tells us He will “answer [us] according to the idols of our own hearts”. That is what Joseph did to his brothers. He knew they thought he would seek his revenge, and even though he told them it was not they who had sent him into Egypt, their own vengeful hearts had them convinced that Joseph, too, was full of vengeance and would probably take his revenge the day their father died.

Joseph’s brothers hated him and everything for which he stood. They did not believe his dreams were true, and they hated the thought that they might be true. That hatred of the Truth was the idol of their hearts, and when his brothers bowed down to him just as he had dreamed, not knowing to whom they bowed, Joseph deliberately let “their own wickedness [the idols of their heart] judge them”. That is the meaning of “answering [us] according to the idols of our hearts.

Jer 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

In the New Testament Christ says the same thing in the parable of the talents about the man who hid his talent:

Luk 19:20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:
Luk 19:21 For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.
Luk 19:22 And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:
Luk 19:23 Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
Luk 19:24 And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
Luk 19:25 (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)
Luk 19:26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
Luk 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

The Lord had sown into this man’s life, and He has strawed into this man’s life with the talent, the year’s wages He had given him. Yet He answers this man “according to the idols of his heart” which ‘idols’ falsely teach that his Lord is a hard man, reaping where He has not sown. The Lord, therefore tells this man, as He does us, ‘You think I am a hard man, then that is exactly what I will appear to be to you.’ Thereby He “judges [us] out of our own mouth [and] according to the idols of [our] hearts, [and our] own wickedness corrects [us]” (Luk 19:22; Eze 14:4 and Jer 2:19).

The “bitterness” and “gnashing of teeth” is the humiliating reproof which our own ways force upon us when we are made to face “[our] own wickedness” and are confronted with all the lies we have constructed and believed.

Here is the torment of the lake of fire… the second death, as it is typified in the Old Testament:

Gen 42:21 And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.
Gen 42:22 And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.
Gen 42:23 And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter.
Gen 42:24 And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.

This is the New Testament type of our “fiery trials… in this present time” as typified for us in the actions of the apostle Peter:

Mat 26:73 And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.
Mat 26:74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.
Mat 26:75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

Luke adds this very poignant detail:

Luk 22:61 And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
Luk 22:62 And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

The Lord “turned” and looked with compassion upon Peter who typifies the fiery trials of His elect, whereas Joseph, as the type of the Lord’s elect who will judge their brothers in the lake of fire after “the thousand years are fulfilled” (Rev 20:3), also “turned himself about from them” in compassion for the impending judgment into which his brothers who had put him in a pit and sold him into Egyptian slavery must be cast. It is the torment inflicted upon Joseph’s brothers which typifies the torment of the judgment of those who are to be cast into the lake of fire.

Joseph telling his brothers of His dreams would naturally turn them against him. Nevertheless, Joseph witnessing to his dreams before his self-righteous brothers typifies us witnessing to the truth of these verses of scripture:

Rev 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Those who are given to “have part in the first resurrection” are typified by the phrase “the son of his old age” (Gen 37:3). For that reason, the Lord’s elect are beloved of their Father “above all nations”, and they are counted by their heavenly Father to be “blessed and holy” above all men of all time.

Deu 14:2 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

We must be delivered from “mystery Babylon” before we can be given “the first dominion”, which is the kingdom which comes with the “crown of life”, the ‘crown’ being given a part in that blessed and holy first resurrection, also called “the resurrection of life”, as opposed to “the resurrection of damnation” [Greek: judgment]:

Mic 4:8 And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.
Mic 4:9 Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counseller perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.
Mic 4:10 Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

We, as Joseph, must be given to “endure to the end” the hatred and rejection of all men and we must be given the faith to remain faithful to this calling through the severe trials endured while in Babylon and while coming out of Babylon… “There shall you be delivered.” Only if we go into Babylon can we come out and be given “the first dominion; the kingdom”! It was by going into Egypt that Joseph, the type of who we are in Christ, was given “the kingdom of this world” (Rev 11:15) and was given to claim that prize and to hold fast to his “crown of life”.

Rev 2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Rev 2:10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Here is this exact same prophecy given all the way back in Genesis 37:

Gen 37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
Gen 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Gen 37:5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
Gen 37:6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Gen 37:7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
Gen 37:8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

His brothers hated him for two reasons. 1) They hated him because his father “loved [him] more than all his children because he was the son of his old age”, and 2) “they hated him yet the more for his dreams and his words”.

So it is until this very day. Those who are beloved of their heavenly Father more than all His children are hated of this world, which is also “His offspring”, as Joseph’s brothers were also the offspring of their father Israel:

Act 17:24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Act 17:25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
Act 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Act 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

When we are told “Neither is [He] worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed any thing” that especially includes our doctrines which are contrary to His.

This chapter of Isaiah is about idolatry within the Lord’s people, so let’s go back to Ezekiel 14 where we left off and see how closely Ezekiel agrees with Isaiah concerning the fruits of the idols of our hearts:

Eze 14:6 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD ; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Eze 14:7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself:
Eze 14:8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;
Eze 14:11 That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD.

Notice how closely Ezekiel 14:10 follows these words of this chapter of Isaiah:

Eze 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the [false] prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;

Isa 44:11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.

These words are being addressed to us, His own people who will not do the things He says to do. In other words, the entire Bible is written only to ‘He that has ears to hear and eyes to see’:

Isa 29:18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.

Speaking to us about us, we are told in this very chapter:

Isa 44:18 They have not known nor understood: for he [the Lord] hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

But it is all necessary, because before we can be brought to repentance, we must be made to acknowledge our sins, as we were told two chapters earlier:

Isa 42:18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
Isa 42:19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’s servant?
Isa 42:20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.
Isa 42:21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
Isa 42:22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
Isa 42:23 Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
Isa 42:24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD , he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.

The Lord does indeed use evil spirits which He sends to deceive us, but it is still He who “give [us] for a spoil, and [gives us] to the robbers”.

Here are just some of the details of how He goes about doing so. This is what the Lord puts into our hearts for the purpose of demonstrating to us how vain and futile all the ways of our own flesh are:

Isa 44:12 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint.
Isa 44:13  The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.
Isa 44:14 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.

Notice that the emphasis is upon all the effort we put into building this idol. Look at the personal pronouns in these verses… “the strength of his arms… his rule… he marks it… he hews him down cedars… which he strengthens for himself… he plants an ash…”, etc. Not one mention of God and what He does is made in these verses.

This is where ‘Part 1’ will stop for this week, and we will pick up next week our study of the Lord’s strong delusion which has us thinking that because we “have seen the fire” we can ignore the Lord’s words and still have His mind. It does not work that way, but when the Lord has given us a deceived heart, we cannot deliver our soul, and we don’t even realize that we have “a lie in [our] right hand”.

Isa 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

The Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven – Part 10 –

The Dream is One

Gen 41:25  And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.
Gen 41:26  The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one.

Introduction

This dream of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is actually a prophesy of what the Lord is about to do in the land of Egypt and “in all lands”.

Gen 41:56  And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
Gen 41:57  And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.

The Lord would soon bring a great famine upon “all lands”, and that famine would last seven long agonizing years. However, before the famine would come, there would be seven years of great plenty in which Egypt could store up grain to be able to endure the famine.

In this story we are given a vital key to the kingdom of heaven. That key is the revelation Joseph gives the Pharaoh that both his dreams have one message. The ultimate lesson for us in this key to the kingdom of heaven is that all scripture has but one message, as Christ Himself explained to the two men on the road to Emmaus:

Luk 24:27  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

We are dragged to Christ through a troubled spirit

As we are coming to understand, the keys to the kingdom of heaven are the principles we are given to help us to understand how God Himself thinks, how He expresses His thoughts and how He carries out those thoughts. In this particular case, we are being made to understand that the way God communicates with those whom He gives to see the mysteries of His Kingdom is by giving the same one message in more than one way. “The dream is one” principle reveals that Christ is working with all men in the same way.  Solomon confirms this principle with these words:

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

It was Christ Himself who caused the Pharaoh to dream two separate dreams. The first was a dream of seven fat cows being devoured by seven lean cows. The disturbing part of the dream was that after devouring the seven fat cows, the seven lean cows looked none the better for having devoured the seven fat cows. The holy spirit caused the devouring of those seven fat cows by the seven lean cows, which were then none the better, to so disturb Pharaoh that he woke up in terror, and yet he did not know why he had been given this dream or what the dream meant. He went back to sleep only to repeat the entire experience, except this time the dream was about seven ears on one stalk full and good, again being devoured by seven ears on another stalk “withered, thin and blasted with the east wind”. The holy spirit caused both of these dreams to terrify the Pharaoh and to rob him of his peace.

Gen 41:8  And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.

This entire story is repeated in the book of Daniel. In that case it is King Nebuchadnezzar who is terrified by dreams which the Lord gave him. In that instance, while retaining the terror of what he had dreamed, the Lord took the memory of the dream away from King Nebuchadnezzar.

Dan 2:1  And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
Dan 2:2  Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.
Dan 2:3  And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.
Dan 2:4  Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.

The king then decided that his Chaldean magicians, astrologer and sorcerers, if they were capable of giving him a reliable interpretation, should also be capable of telling him what the dream was he had forgotten. In this case King Nebuchadnezzar was determined to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, including Daniel and Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, if they could not tell him his dream along with the interpretation of that dream.

Dan 2:5  The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
Dan 2:6  But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.
Dan 2:7  They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.
Dan 2:8  The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.
Dan 2:9  But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof. 
Dan 2:10  The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.
Dan 2:11  And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
Dan 2:12  For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
Dan 2:13  And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.
Dan 2:14  Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon:
Dan 2:15  He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
Dan 2:16  Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.
Dan 2:17  Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
Dan 2:18  That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 
Dan 2:19  Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

Daniel was blessed by God with the knowledge of what the king had dreamed, and like Joseph, he was also blessed to know what the dream meant. Notice the parallels between these two events which are one more example of the principle of “the dream is one” key to the kingdom of heaven:

Gen 41:17  And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river:
Gen 41:18  And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow:
Gen 41:19  And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness:
Gen 41:20  And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:
Gen 41:21  And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke.
Gen 41:22  And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good:
Gen 41:23  And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them:
Gen 41:24  And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me.

The only difference between these two events is that Pharaoh was given faith in Joseph’s interpretation without having to tell Pharaoh what his dream was as well as the interpretation. The fact is that if Joseph’s interpretations of the dreams of Pharaoh’s butler and baker had not already come to pass exactly as the Lord had revealed their interpretation to Joseph, the Pharaoh would never have called Joseph before himself.

The point being made is that God establishes those upon whom He places His spirit, and no one can deny who they are. This same principle was played out a third time in the events surrounding Mordecai and Esther. If we recognize that prison in Egypt is a type of death, then we can say, without contradiction, that God Himself placed the lives of His elect on the line in all three of these historical events.

Do the scriptures symbolize death as being in a pit?

Job 3:18  There the prisoners rest together [in the grave]; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

Psa 88:4  I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:
Psa 88:5  Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

Isa 24:21  And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
Isa 24:22  And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
Isa 24:23  Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

Isa 42:7  To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

We are all born into the “darkness… of the prison house”, and Christ Himself makes clear the meaning of this symbol of this situation out of which He is bringing us:

Luk 9:59  And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Luk 9:60  Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

If we know the mind of God, then we will know that from His perspective, these “very good… vessels of clay” are really nothing more than “very good prison houses [of] darkness… [and] of the dead”.

I will not take the time here to relate the story of Mordecai and Esther, except to point out that the death of God’s elect was again on the line, and it was again turned by God into victory against those who would have God’s elect destroyed, as was also the case with Joseph and with Daniel:

Est 9:1  Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;)

So this key to the kingdom of heaven is not applicable to just the dreams of Pharaoh. Rather, this principle of “the dream is one” is applicable to every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, as Christ revealed to us through what I call His ‘Prophecy 101’ course which He delivered to the two men on the road to Emmaus. With this ‘the dream is one’ key to the kingdom of heaven, it is as if we were right there with those two men to whom He revealed this principle in these words:

Luk 24:25  Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Luk 24:26  Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
Luk 24:27  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Those who are given eyes that see and ears that hear that “the dream is one” will know just how Christ-centric is the entirety of “all that the prophets have spoken… in all the scriptures… concerning Himself”.

This is just how Christ-centric “all that the prophets have spoken” are:

Rom 11:36  For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

2Co 4:14  Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes [Christ and His Christ], that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 
Col 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 
Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Col 1:19  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
Col 1:20  And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

If indeed “all things were created by Him and for Him”, then it follows that every detail of all things are by Him and for him, and that “all the scriptures [are in some sense] concerning Himself”.

With this dream is one key to the kingdom of heaven, we are made to understand that it is each of us who have been given to reign over all our own land of Egypt, and that God has preordained that it is only by taking away from us the peace and prosperity in our own worldly kingdom and replacing that peace with feelings of fear and anxiety (Job 1-2, Act 9:1-9) that He will gain our undivided attention. Whether it is the story of Joseph, Daniel, or Mordecai and Esther, “the dream is one”. Whether is it the story of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, or Jacob and Esau, “the dream is one”, and the message in every case is the same. That one message is that our old man”, our “first man Adam”, must die, and that through the death of that “first man Adam… [our] new man, the last Adam” is being born into “the kingdom of God… within [each of us]” (Act 17:20-21). Spiritually speaking we are to count ourselves as having died to our old man and having already been resurrected in our new man, all in “earnest” down-payment form, yet in spiritual reality:

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 
Eph 1:12  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
Eph 1:13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 
Eph 1:14  Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

It is only by bringing us “to [our] wits’ end” that we are then in a humbled position where we will listen to “some man”, our own personal “Ananias”, a member of the body of Christ, our own personal Philip, “some man to guide [us]” and to give to us the keys to the kingdom of heaven. When we recognize that “the dream is one”, we will see that all the scriptures are concerned with Christ and His Christ, and how, through Christ and His Christ, God is bringing and will bring “all in Adam… each in his own order” to be in “the last Adam… Christ” (1Co 15:22-28).

Psa 107:25  For he [Christ, the Word] commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. 
Psa 107:28  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

Christ condenses the message of Psalms 107 into this short statement:

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 
Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

The apostle Paul reiterates this same message with these words:

Rom 6:1  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2  God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom 6:3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 
Rom 6:5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Rom 6:6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

The adversary has a forked tongue which contradicts himself and the Words of God. The Truth is that the gospel of the kingdom of heaven is the good news that all men will, “each in his own order”, be saved through Christ and His Christ (1Co 15:22-28). This message is the same from Genesis to Revelation.

Conclusion

Whether it is King David in the Psalms, Christ in the gospels, or in the epistles of Paul, “the dream is one”, and that principle is one of the keys to the kingdom of heaven which is within each of us who have come to know and to appreciate the one mind of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ. This key to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven reveals that the message of “all the prophets have written” is one message, and that message concerns Christ and how all will one day be in Him, and will know the joy and the glory of being in Christ. That message concerns Christ and how, through the death of the old man, all will one day be in Him.

Rev 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Rev 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3  And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Rev 21:4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

[Part eleven can be found here.]

(Key verses: Gen 37:3-11)

Genesis is the book of beginnings or the book of generations, and here God established certain principles which are foundational in our spiritual growth. We know that the end of a thing is better than its beginning, but the beginning initiates the process (Ecc 7:8). Through the first man Adam, God focuses on the generations of certain individuals in this book – among these the names of Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stand out before we come to the last section of Genesis. In this last section of Genesis, we meet one of Jacob’s sons, namely Joseph, and all this man had to endure to reach rulership. Genesis highlights the process in us of being brought from spiritual darkness to the marvelous light of Christ of which the first chapter gives us a general overview (Jer 18:4; Joh 1:1-5; Act 26:18; 1Co 15:22; Eph 1:17-23; Eph 5:8). Here are the first five verses of chapter 1 of Genesis which introduce this whole salvation process through Christ, the beginning and end of this process (Col 1:13-17; Joh 1:1-4; Rev 1:8; Rev 3:14):

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

So with each of these main characters mentioned in Genesis, we see a part of our own spiritual development through the main themes connected to them. The life of Joseph connects with the theme of spiritual glorification, which is the ultimate purpose of God for all in Adam. This spiritual glorification is first reserved for God’s elect, and through Joseph we can see different aspects highlighted for our learning. The first aspect we dealt with in an earlier study was the fact that Joseph was not in accord with the evil slanders of his ten brothers, and he made that known to his father:

Gen 37:2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

These evil slanders of the brothers of Joseph point to all the false doctrines preached by our brethren in spiritual captivity in Babylon, which has a form of knowledge, but they instruct in foolishness to bring insult to the holy character of our heavenly Father:

Rom 2:20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.
Rom 2:21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Rom 2:22 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Rom 2:23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?
Rom 2:24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

Jacob also loved Joseph more than his other children and gave him a special coat which relates to the glorious reward of the righteousness of God bestowed on His elect through the gift of the faith of Christ (Rom 1:17; Rom 3:22; Eph 2:8-10; Gal 2:16; Php 3:9):

Gen 37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
Gen 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

God’s Word is a parable to the natural mind, and the purpose of this parable, and all written in God’s Word, is to keep the multitude away from spiritual truths:

Mat 13:1 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
Mat 13:2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
Mat 13:3 And he spake many things unto them in parables….

Mat 13:34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them.

Mat 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

As with the cloud in the wilderness, all parables bring either light to the few elected ones or darkness to the multitudes, which are those with a fleshly or carnal understanding of things, typified by Egypt:

Exo 14:20 And it [the pillar of the cloud] came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

This brings us to another important aspect which is highlighted in Joseph’s life. God indeed speaks to people in general through many parables, and dreams are but one way of doing this as seen in the life of Joseph:

Gen 37:5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.

Dreams are used by God to either be an obstacle (an idol of the heart) to some, or a light on our path to spiritual glorification. Dreams are therefore a spiritual tool to bring separation in order for God to work with His elect to establish His kingdom in them first of all. The theme of dreams is therefore intimately connected with the theme of spiritual glorification as seen in six instances where dreams were important catalysts in the life of Joseph to bring him to rulership. This also helps us to see how God will establish His rulership through His elect on the earth and “bring into one the whole in the Christ”:

Eph 1:9 (YLT) having made known to us the secret of His will, according to His good pleasure, that He purposed in Himself,
Eph 1:10 (YLT) in regard to the dispensation of the fulness of the times, to bring into one the whole in the Christ, both the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth–in him.

All dreams reveal spiritual symbols which should be interpreted according to other spiritual concepts in the scriptures alone. However, we all start off with understanding the spiritual principles and meanings from the things that are made in the physical creation:

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

Through this knowledge we develop understanding of spiritual concepts, which is then used by the spirit of God to teach us how to compare and connect one spiritual thing with another spiritual aspect in Scripture to keep us safe from going beyond what is written, and prevent us from becoming entangled in carnal and temporal things (Pro 26:11; Luk 5:39; Gal 3:1-3; 2Pe 2:20-22):

1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

1Co 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.

This is also revealed in the progressive nature of the six dreams, and their interpretations in which Joseph was involved, as written down in scripture. This first dream we see in Joseph’s life is an announcement about his superior calling to his brothers. The purpose of this initial dream was therefore not only about his election above them, but also how this calling will bring about the necessary “ingredients” to fulfill his journey to the throne. One of these “ingredients” is the hatred which was caused in the darkened hearts of his brothers which will be used by God to bring Joseph to Egypt:

Gen 37:6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
Gen 37:7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field [Hebrew: “śâdeh” or “śâday” – country, field, ground, land, soil, the wild], and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.

This is a dream which God’s elect are given to see why we are given relationships on the earth first of all and why the elect of God are then taken up to be seated in heaven with Christ (Eph 2:6):

Rev 12:5 And she [the woman whose place God prepared in the wilderness] brought forth a man child, who was to rule [Greek: “poimainō” – tend to/shepherd] all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

It was actually Joseph’s brothers who were used to give the meaning or interpretation of these symbols in the dream of Joseph. Spiritual Babylon has limited insight in God’s words, and that is where we all start, although they have it all from the wrong perspective as if the elect are given to rule according to worldly models of rulership (Mat 20:25-28; 2Co 1:24; Rev 3:9):

Gen 37:8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

Joseph’s second dream witnessed and confirmed his high calling:

Gen 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

With this second dream, a progression is also perceived from who interpreted these dreams. First, it was his brothers, and now Joseph’s father is involved in the interpretation:

Gen 37:10 And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

The rebuke of Jacob against Joseph’s dream places Jacob in this instance as an opposer or adversary to God’s purposes for Joseph. This antagonistic position of Jacob as Joseph’s father typifies the role of our first spiritual father when the truth is resisted:

Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Our spiritual dead mother is our first church experience in Babylon, in the synagogues of Satan, where God’s true elect in His spiritual Israel are rejected at this time, but they will bow to those elected by God one day (Gal 6:16):

Rev 3:9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

The symbol of stars connects spiritually to the offspring of this evil parenthood which is the role Joseph’s ten brothers fulfilled. While there is a second witness to Joseph’s rulership, and thereby a positive progression for Joseph, envy was now added to his brothers’ hatred toward him indicating a negative spiritual growth on their side:

Gen 37:11 And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

While the new spirit man grows in us, the importance and relevance of the old man decreases all the time (Mat 10:38-39; Mar 10:29-30; Rom 12:1-2; Rev 11:15):

Joh 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

Joseph’s glorification was not in the knowledge of these things alone, but more in the doing or application of these dreams and words (Mat 7:24-25). Even when these dreams of Joseph applied in his life, we again see that it was not fulfilled according to the false “free” will doctrine that is also part of spiritual Babylon’s slanders. The effecting of these dreams was all done according to God’s will Who directs all the steps of all creatures (Jer 10:23; Pro 20:24). Joseph’s dreams of rulership also required evil that was to be done toward him, and this evil was under God’s control from start to finish, as Joseph later also revealed to his brothers (Isa 5:20; Isa 45:7):

Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it [the evil] unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

God wanted Joseph on the throne in Egypt, and He gave Joseph the dreams to initiate that desire for rulership as God also will use Joseph’s wicked brothers to fulfill their part in that process:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Spiritual glorification will be established only through bitter trials and suffering which brings the context of spiritual maturity and rulership for God’s elect. This is also how Paul saw glorification in the elected church of God (Eph 1:17-18):

2Th 1:4 So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure.

Joseph’s first two dreams of rulership caused him to be almost physically killed by his envious brothers, and through much tribulation he arrived in Egypt as a slave in the house of Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh (Gen 39:1-6). Through the false accusations by the wife of Potiphar, Joseph was then innocently held in prison (Gen 39:7-20). Here in prison we see how dreams reappear again in the life of Joseph. The third time in the scriptures dreams are mentioned in Joseph’s life was in connection with two other dreams which the butler and the baker of the Pharaoh had while they were also in the same ward in jail where Joseph was held. The theme of dreams in Joseph’s life has now progressed to helping others with their dreams:

Gen 40:5 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison.

No one could interpret their dreams, but when they told these dreams to Joseph, he knew the meaning. First, there was the dream of the butler, and here again we learn so much of how God establishes these meanings and spiritual concepts written down in the book of Genesis:

Gen 40:8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.
Gen 40:9 And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;
Gen 40:10 And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes:
Gen 40:11 And Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.

Joseph gave the interpretation of this dream, which came true precisely as Joseph said:

Gen 40:12 And Joseph said unto him [the butler], This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days:
Gen 40:13 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.

In this man’s dream we also see the process of the road to the throne for God’s elect, indicated by the number three. This also brings to mind how Jesus emptied Himself to come to this prison of flesh to die and to be raised to glory again (Isa 61:1; Joh 1:14):

Joh 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

The elect are the true branches of the true Vine, Christ, and our heads will be lifted and filled with the mind of Christ to bring forth fruits of righteousness (Php 1:11). This is done through a crushing process for us as well (Gal 2:20; Php 1:29). Even as grapes are crushed to bring forth the wine, so we are crushed through the many trials for the furtherance of the gospel and to establish spiritual atonement and glorification (Lev 16:1-34; Mat 12:40; Joh 2:19; Joh 15:5-10; Joh 17:5; Php 1:12-15). This is where the second dream which Joseph heard in the prison, that of the baker, applies and how it connects with the dream of the butler:

Gen 40:16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head:
Gen 40:17 And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head.

Here is Joseph’s interpretation of this dream:

Gen 40:18 And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three days:
Gen 40:19 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.

As the new man is lifted up to the throne, the old man decreased and is crushed (Joh 3:30). Because this baker of the Pharaoh was killed, this dream associates with death and the negative applications of all the symbols in his dream. This includes all in our old fleshly man in “the body of death” and his carnal mind (the white baskets filled with bakemeats) being progressively influenced by evil spirits represented by the birds or fowls of the air (Mat 13:4; Mat 13:19). Although the butler forgot his promise to Joseph to mention his name in front of Pharaoh for two years, his restoration was used as a precursor to what eventually would lead to Joseph’s rise to power (Gen 40:14; Gen 41:9-14). Through all these dreams God was progressively moving toward the ultimate rulership of Joseph, which again came through two dreams which the Pharaoh dreamed one night. This is the third grouping of the six dreams in Joseph’s life, written down in scripture, which also indicate the process involved in the spiritual glorification of the elect. The first dream was about cows (kine):

Gen 41:1 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.
Gen 41:2 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well-favored and fat-fleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass.
Gen 41:3 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed, and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.
Gen 41:4 And the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favored and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.

Then the second dream of the Pharaoh:

Gen 41:5 And he slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven ears of grain came up upon one stalk, rank and good.
Gen 41:6 And, behold, seven ears, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them.
Gen 41:7 And the thin ears swallowed up the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream.

These disturbing dreams were the tools God used to bring Joseph to the butler’s remembrance, as not one of the wisest men of Egypt could decipher the dreams. Through the butler, Joseph was called to the Pharaoh’s attention to give the right interpretation of these two dreams:

Gen 41:25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.

The second dream relates to the first dream, and here the spiritual connections of these symbols are also given by Joseph:

Gen 41:26 The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one.
Gen 41:27 And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine.

All the symbols in these two dreams of the Pharaoh were all connected and had one meaning concerning God’s Word and its complete judgment on all to bring spiritual nourishment through His elect. These last two dreams of the Pharaoh also bring the previous two groupings of two dreams to fulfillment. God also establishes the spiritual insight in His elect to see that He uses different symbols in scripture to say the same thing albeit from different perspectives and experiences. This spiritual principle also applies to so many aspects of the one truth that all things are from the one God, the Father, and He uses His Christ to bring this all back to Him eventually. All six dreams written in the scriptures as relating to Joseph’s life were about this one truth of the glorification in spirit:

1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

Rom 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Rom 11:34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Rom 11:35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Detailed studies and emails relating to these foundational themes in Scripture are available on the iswasandwillbe.com website, including these topics and links:

Numbers in Scripture
Rev 12:1-5
The Kingdoms of This World are Become The Kingdoms of Our Lord and of His Christ
The Biblical Overview of The Plan of God – Part 13
Awesome Hands – Part 30 In The Vines Were Three Branches
Awesome Hands – Part 31 Dreamer of Dreams
Colors – White – Part 1

Hi Mike,

Thank you once again for always replying to my emails. I thank God for people like you who have impacted my life so positively and helped me to grow spiritually.  It is  true that when it comes to God, distance is not a barrier. May God continue to use you to unveil the truths about His word.

Another question I have is: Psalm 126:1 “when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like those who were dreaming.

What led them to captivity<, and why was it like a dream? What happened after that turn around? Did they possess some kind of a promise?

How can I interpret  this verse to my life now?

N____

Hi N____,

Thank you for asking about the meaning of the phrase, “turned the captivity of Zion”, and how that phrase applies in your life.

You reference:

Psa 126:1  A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

Here is a verse of scripture which will give you a very good feel for what the scriptures mean by the phrase “turn the captivity…”:

Job 42:10  And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. 

So it is clear that this phrase “turn the captivity” addresses that time in our lives when God has dealt with us as He dealt with Job, and has caused us to go through months of torment which He brings upon us through the channel of our own sins, which are not our own, but are really God judging our flesh in this age as he did Job. There is a series of studies on iswasandwillbe.com which deal with God’s method of operation in dealing with overt and hidden sins in our lives. Job’s sin was the hidden sin of self-righteousness, and it is one of the most insidious of sins which is common to all men.

Job 7:3  So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
Job 7:4  When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
Job 7:5  My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.

Job 40:6  Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
Job 40:7  Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
Job 40:8  Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

While we all tend to turn the grace and the sovereignty of God into lasciviousness to begin with, it is nevertheless a very central doctrine of scripture that God creates all good and all evil and that nothing that happens does so without His hand sending Satan to accomplish that event:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. 
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Does God agree with Joseph? Yes, indeed He does:

Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. 
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 

God does not pass the buck on sin. He makes clear that sin and Satan are just tools in His hand, and Satan does and can do only what he is sent to accomplish:

Job 1:9  Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:10  Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Job 1:11  But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 1:12  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Satan did exactly what he was sent to do and not one thing more. He destroyed all Job had worked a lifetime to acquire, but he did not lay a finger upon Job’s body…

…until God sent him to do just that:

Job 2:4  And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
Job 2:5  But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 2:6  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. 
Job 2:7  So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Satan again does exactly what he is sent to do and not one thing more. Satan says, “Put forth your hand…” and God tells Satan “He is in your hand”. What does this tell a man of God? This is what it tells us:

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the [captivity of the] tribes of thine inheritance.

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

This agrees with what Joseph told his brothers about their sins against him in Gen 45:4-8, and it accords with what Paul tells us about sin in our lives in Rom 7:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

God is working all things, including all sin, “after the counsel of His own will”. He has deliberately given man an experience of evil, and has made us all to err from His ways, and hardened our hearts from His fear for the express purpose of humbling us and crushing the beastly flesh we all are and bringing us to see our desperate need for a Savior:

Psa 107:21  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Psa 107:22  And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Psa 107:23  They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
Psa 107:24  These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
Psa 107:25  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. 
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Psa 107:28  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. 
Psa 107:31  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

It is God who “commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves” that bring us all “to our wits’ end”, as He did with Job. Then He “turns [our] captivity” when we repent of our self-righteous sins, and we forgive and pray for those who have offended us. “Then are [we] glad because the [waves] be quiet; so he bringeth [us] unto [our] desired haven”. That is the meaning of “we were like them that dream.”

There are several other Biblical phrases which all mean the same thing. There is the phrase “return the captivity”:

Hos 6:11  Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.

The phrases “bring again the captivity” and “return to their former estate” is all saying the same thing.

Eze 16:53  When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them:
Eze 16:54  That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them.
Eze 16:55  When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. 

All of these examples, Job, Joseph’s brothers, Israel, Sodom, Samaria, and you and I, all come to know God, then we “lose [our] first love” because we are all “carnal… babes in Christ”. We all “fall from grace”, and only after we have been humbled and are able to confess our own self-righteousness and our own sins, are we capable of being used to show mercy to those whose unbelief have given us our faith:

Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: 
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. 

What a wonderful blessing is given to those whose captivity God has returned! Just look at the rest of Psalm 126:

Psa 126:1  A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
Psa 126:2  Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
Psa 126:3  The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
Psa 126:4  Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. 
Psa 126:5  They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. 
Psa 126:6  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. 

This is all repeated by our Lord in these words:

Mat 5:11  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 
Mat 5:12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

I hope this helps you to understand how you can apply Psalm 126 in your life.

Your brother whose captivity is being returned,

Mike

Video Links

Awesome Hands – Part 36

“.. every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians...”

Every son of God is destined to be sent into Egypt, so that they can be called out of Egypt. For those with a spiritual mind, this should sound familiar to the calling out of Babylon that we go through as Christians.

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

The Truth of the matter is that we WILL and do partake of the seven last plagues if indeed we are God’s chosen people.

It may seem like a glaring contradiction, but in order for us to partake of the goodness of God, the mystery (Rev. 10:7) of Christ in us, we must go through the seven last plagues being fulfilled.

Rev 15:6 And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.
Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

As was mentioned in the last study, coming from the “land of Canaan to the land of Egypt” and then eventually being called out of Egypt, isn’t an easy journey and the Lord knows this perfectly.

So, He provides for us and “doesn’t put more on us than we can bear”.

Gen 45:26 And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob’s heart fainted, for he believed them not.
Gen 45:27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:
Gen 45:28 And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

The wheat and the tares will grow together until the time of the harvest and as we saw in the story last study, and we are now at that time in our walk with the Lord as we reflect on what the Lord is doing with us.

Mat 13:28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
Mat 13:29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Mat 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

We will be brought to the land of Goshen, “drawing near” to God as He brings us to a point where His remnant can continue to grow into the next phase of His ultimate deliverance.

Israel took his journey with all that he had:

Gen 46:1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.
Gen 46:2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.
Gen 46:3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
Gen 46:4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

There are several striking revelations that are contained within these few verses and I hope you are able to “see” the same types and shadows with me.

First notice that Israel goes to Beersheba to offer sacrifices unto God. Beersheba is where Abraham makes a covenant with the Philistines in the form of Abimelech.

Abimelech is also the king of which Abraham lied to about his wife Sarah and caused Abimelech to take Sarah because he thought that Sarah was just Abraham’s sister.

Gen 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Gen 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Gen 20:4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?
Gen 20:5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
Gen 20:6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.
Gen 20:7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.

Now notice that it is in a dream by night that the Lord comes to Jacob similar to when he comes to Abimelech.

This is all type and shadow to show us what the process is for those with whom God is working directly with. We are being raised up as kings and priests in training and the “course work” for this training is similar to all of us, the same as it was for Christ.

There is going to be a separation between the old and the new man, and that is exactly why we see God speaking with Jacob at this junction of his life.

For us, in type and shadow, Jacob is being dealt with as the old man and the old man must die for the new man to be born.

Here is where the old man goes to commune with God.

Gen 21:1 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
Gen 21:2 For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
Gen 21:3 And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
Gen 21:4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him.
Gen 21:5 And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
Gen 21:6 And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
Gen 21:7 And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.
Gen 21:8 And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
Gen 21:9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.
Gen 21:10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.

And then a few verses later…

Gen 21:14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Gen 21:19 And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
Gen 21:20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.
Gen 21:21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

See, the seed of the bondwoman will not inherit the Kingdom of God. God will not have this, and He has laid a foundation which must be adhered to in order for this process to work.

So, what is this process you ask? We must go into Egypt to be called out of Egypt. Our “marriage” is not with the gods of Egypt, but rather with the God of who controls Egypt and everyone in it.

Joseph, typifying Christ, will put his hands on our eyes upon our death. This is what God promises Jacob (Israel) in Gen 46:4, so how are all of these various ideas and thoughts connected?

The answer is Egypt or to us spiritual Babylon.

Joseph is caused to go into Egypt at a young age and is later taken out via his bones.

Moses is caused to go into Egypt to later be called to come “out” of Egypt so that he can be used as a savior to Israel.

Christ is caused to be taken to Egypt as a young boy to flee the slaughter that Herod committed against all the two year old and under boys, but He too was called up out of Egypt to be a savior.

So, is it any mystery that we too must go into Egypt in order to be used as saviors later?

What does God say to us about this?

Gen 46:2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.
Gen 46:3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
Gen 46:4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

Here is Moses’ story of being spoken to by God for what he is going to be caused of the Lord to do.

Exo 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
Exo 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Exo 3:3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
Exo 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
Exo 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Exo 3:6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
Exo 3:7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
Exo 3:8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Exo 3:9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
Exo 3:10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

We are taken “onto a mountain” in order to be delivered, but this isn’t an easy process.

Instead, it will seem almost impossible and indeed is without the Lord doing the work. The “work” we must do, is to BELIEVE what we are given to see.

After all, it is not everyone who has “Joseph” put his hand on their eyes in death! Here is what we are given to see, Lord willing.

Mat 2:13 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
Mat 2:14 When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
Mat 2:15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

Hos 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

A huge part of the process of salvation is that Egypt is NEEDED to nourish us for a time. When we have our “deadly wound healed,” so that we leave our first love, it is very much when we are contending with a babylonish mindset.

We can NOT fear this process though because the Lord fights for US!

“Jesus…. bringeth them up into an high mountain apart..”

This same process is shown to the very disciples of Christ. There are three disciples taken UP high enough to see this mountainous process.

Mat 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
Mat 17:2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
Mat 17:3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
Mat 17:4 Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
Mat 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Mat 17:6 And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
Mat 17:7 And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
Mat 17:8 And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.
Mat 17:9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
Mat 17:10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
Mat 17:11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.
Mat 17:12 But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
Mat 17:13 Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Do you believe? Do you see? What do you hear?

What I see and hear is that it is out of a cloud that the voice of Lord comes a shouting.

What I see and hear is that it is when we are in FEAR of the Lord and His words that we fall on our face only to LIFT our eyes UP so that we see no man but ONLY JESUS.

It takes a very strong event such as being faced with a mountain in our lives that when we are we are able to cast a mountain into the sea.

It is the faith of the Son of God and the Son of man which will cause us to believe that a mountain can be MOVED.

It is with this mindset that we see at the start of Gen 46 verses 1-4 just what we are being told.

We are seeing the process of the old man being separated from the new man but before the new man can be given life, the “old man” must die.

Gen 46:5 And Jacob rose up from Beersheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
Gen 46:6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him:
Gen 46:7 His sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.

Indeed, the process of going from Canaan to Egypt is just as needed as coming from Egypt into the promised land. During each stage of our walk, we “grow thereby”, but there is going to be a lot of war taking place while we are still in this tabernacle of flesh.

We will “rise up” from the place where we have “digged a well in the earth” (Babylon the great whore), and we will move on to the next stage of progression of coming out of her my people.

It took Israel to go through a lot of war before they were sent David with a sack of five stones to slay Goliath and it will be no different for us.

Of a Truth, it is when we DON’T include Joseph and his seed that we have 66 in “our family,” when what we are made up of is NOT whole unless we add “a few more”.

Gen 46:26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six;
Gen 46:27 And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.

Whenever we see the Lord saying something twice, we know it is important. When we are being called by “our name” TWICE, we know the Lord is working with us… and for the chosen elect in particular, we have a witness that He is dealing with the old man in a particular way.

Gen 46:2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.

Exo 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Luk 6:47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:

It isn’t when we use our name that we are heard as with “the voice out of the cloud”; rather, it is when the NAME of the LORD is used (which is written on our forehead) that He is heard.

Exo 3:13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
Exo 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Exo 3:15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

When we are sent to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” we do not come in our name “here I” but rather we come in the name of “Here I am”.

Do you hear the voice of the True Shepherd? If you do, you have been called to “come out of her my people” for Shepherds are an abomination to Egypt.

Gen 46:28 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to direct his face unto Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen.
Gen 46:29 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.
Gen 46:30 And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.
Gen 46:31 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father’s house, I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, and say unto him, My brethren, and my father’s house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me;
Gen 46:32 And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.
Gen 46:33 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?
Gen 46:34 That ye shall say, Thy servants’ trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

The Way, Truth and Life of the narrow way is that we are placed in Canaan for a season to be called out of Canaan.

We are called into Egypt to later be told to “come out of her.”

However, the lesson of this study today is to reflect on the spiritual concept of the types and shadows that point us to knowing that EVEN while we are in these various stages with our walk with the Lord,

He is with us and places us in a land that only causes us to “draw near” to Him.

No matter where and of us are in our spiritual walk, or whatever trials the Lord is placing us in at any given time, we are the Lord’s people and He is with us.

Appearances can be deceiving just as being given the land of Goshen to dwell in WHILE in Egypt seems like a good thing until we later realize we are thrown into slavery.

Fear not though, because the Lord tells us clearly that this process of our walk with Him is indeed holy ground.

Exo 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

Mike,

I had a dream that I was driving a car with my best friend at the time, on a familiar road. The traffic quickly came to a halt, and I looked in my rear view mirror to see how the traffic was behind me. When I looked, I saw a beautiful women seated in the back. She was very feminine, wore gold jewelry and a purple dress. Everything about her in appearance looked flawless. She gently tapped on the seat and said, to me, “Come sit next to me.” I immediately looked forward because I couldn’t believe my eyes. I looked back again at the mirror and she was still there. Again she repeated the same thing. I looked at her for some moments and then said, “I know who you are – the devil.” Again she repeated the same thing, and I immediately said, “The blood of Jesus against you.” After I said that, she smiled and left.

The traffic began to move, but it took awhile to get to the traffic signal. When driving through the road, the passenger and I noticed that the cars that were in accidents were in regular parking spaces making it appear that nothing had happened to the cars unless you really took a closer look at the cars and could see where the damage was.

The dream ended in that I was waiting for the traffic light to change. I know this was from God, but since I’ve been reading your site, this dream has come to my mind a lot lately. Can you please interpret this dream? I did have it interpreted (by the pastor where I was attending a church and a good friend of the family) when I dreamed it, but I believe in my heart it has so much more meaning. The pastor said that I was going to be betrayed by someone close to me, which did happen. Please help me with this as there still remains a lot of unanswered questions. I continue to wait and believe that God will let me understand the entire dream.

Thanks so much for your time and your site,

J____

Hi J____,

I am very happy to know that you are being edified by what you are reading on iswasandwillbe. com All I can do is give you the Biblical principles by which we should all “try the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1Jh 4:1). The scriptures give us the principles for doing that, and they give us the meanings of virtually every single symbol that appears anywhere in scripture.

One such principle is that the symbols in your dream, like the symbols in Pharaoh’s dreams are one.

Gen 41:25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.

Pharaoh had dreamed of cows and of stalks of corn, and God gave Joseph realize that they were both symbols for the same thing. In your dream you have the symbols of damaged cars which did not at first appear to be damaged, and of a woman dressed in purple who wanted you to “sit by her” instead of being diligent in watch where you were going.

The woman in purple is obviously a false church:

Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Mankind is that “scarlet colored beast” and “the mother of harlots” and all of her many daughters ride upon our flesh, just as that woman wants you to let her do the driving, which always leads to being rudderless and leads to a certain life of damage. The damaged cars are simply the revelation of where you are when you listen to that woman. So the essence of your dream is the call we are given in Rev 18:4:

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

“That you be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues” is actually saying that you no longer partake of her sins and you no longer receive of her plagues, because the truth of “the sum of God’s Word” (Psa 119:160) is:

Rev 15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Rev 15:2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

It is in ‘coming out of her’ that we gain that victory. Your passenger in your car was those who God has placed in your life and to whom your life is a witness.

Luk 24:48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

I hope these scriptures help you to understand the significance of your dream. God uses dreams to both confirm His Word and to keep us in deep deception.

Deu 13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
Deu 13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
Deu 13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
Deu 13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

The “other gods” are the false doctrine of “another Jesus”. That is the “other gods”, and if we know God’s Word, we will never make the mistake that is so extremely common in today’s churches of “thinking above what is written”.

2Co 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
1Co 4:6 And these things, brethren, I did transfer to myself and to Apollos because of you, that in us ye may learn not to think above that which hath been written, that ye may not be puffed up one for one against the other,

When we think of dreams “above what has been written” God has given us over to “the idols of our heart” (Eze 14:1-9), and He Himself has deceived us (verse 9). Read about all the symbols in our studies on the Book of Revelation. Stay in your Bible, and you will be given to try the spirits, and in doing that you will know how to understand you dreams based upon God’s Word. Never ever reverse that order or you will be the prophet of Deu 13:1-5 and:

Deu 18:20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Deu 18:21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
Deu 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Your brother in our Lord’s service,

Mike>