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Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out  …from a different perspective

                                                          by Elinor Montgomery

From Planned Extinction to the Passover
(Exodus – Chapters One To Twelve)

Chapter Twelve (part one)

October 14 – 17, 2005

All of the signs and plagues, to this point, have been a display of the Lord’s judgment upon Egypt, representing the world system, for man’s rebellion against his Creator. Killing another man is the ultimate expression of rebellion, for the preciousness of Creation is life and with life was given the opportunity for a close relationship with the Lord God, the purpose for which we were created. Man’s relationship begins with the truth of the Word bringing forth light and life as recorded in the book of Genesis. It concludes in the book of Revelation, with a two-edged sword of truth going out from the mouth of the Lord, bringing judgment upon the wickedness of men. The Word of truth creates, and the sword of the Word of truth judges.  As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end.

 In Revelation, the woman birthing the man child represents spiritual Israel, the bride of the true church, born again of the Spirit of life through truth, no longer a child of the beast, spiritually dead in the lies of religion. Satan gives way to her Beloved as Ruler over her life, with the name of Jesus on the banner over her, under which she will serve for evermore. This is no woman of bazaars, or of make-work programs, while serving religious institutional organizations. This is a woman of substance, submitted to performing her role given to her by the Lord God, free of all such religious programs. But this man child cannot be born again of the Spirit from above, without the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of God.

Jesus pointed to the difference existing between John the Baptist and the apostles. John died before the Passover actually took place, meaning he was born of woman, but never had the opportunity to be born again of the Spirit. However, like Moses and the prophets of old, John was called out, led by the Spirit, and was obedient to his calling. The righteousness of the Lord was imputed to these men, who served Him faithfully. Like all people who have the breath of life in them, John was as much in need of a Passover Lamb as were the Virgin Mary, Lazarus and the twelve apostles. But John did not have that opportunity to be born of the Spirit after the crucifixion. For this reason, Jesus treated him separately from His church, which followed Him as opposed to preceding Him, and described John as having no peer among those born of woman. Though a friend of the Bridegroom, he could never be a part of the church, or the bride. Nevertheless, he will be able to rejoice, as a friend of the Groom, at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

Now, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, who were in the land of Egypt, or in a world to which they did not belong. He identified the times as being that of a new beginning. The month they presently were in was to be the beginning of months and the first month of the year for the Israelites. The month was Nisan, coming between February and March of our calendar year. This was to be the beginning of Israel’s spiritual year, which coincides perfectly with the death of Jesus and the spiritual liberty of a new beginning in Him. Time came down, numbered in years to His advent here on earth and crossed over to begin anew in the years to follow the crucifixion of the Passover Lamb of God.

Note, in the Jewish calendar there is a civil beginning of years, a new year in the month of Tishri. The promise of Jesus’ coming to earth to live with man was incorporated into the Jewish calendar. It will be a new dawn and a new time when the Day of Atonement – the atonement of God for man, takes place and Jesus returns to set up His government on earth, ushering in the Feast of Tabernacles. With Jesus’ first advent, there was a spiritual renumbering of time; with His second advent, there will be a new day, a new time and a new year in which the governments of this world will become the government of God. Liberty will be restored to the world with liberalism being eradicated. The Jewish calendar, rather than being just for the nation, became one of prophecy for the historical events of a spiritual nation.

 The events to come in the latter days are fully incorporated into every event of the exodus of Israel from the land of Egypt, pointing prophetically to the exodus of the church from the institutions of religion. It begins spiritually with Jesus (the month of Nisan), and ends with God’s New World Order of government, the same as the Old World Order of government, which God established under Himself at Creation in the Garden of Eden (the month of Tishri).

This passage sends a message for Israel, to the whole congregation of the nation and the spiritual nation and to each of their households. Every man of the nation was to kill a lamb, whether or not he was among those of the nation, which had gone before, or of the spiritual nation, which was to come afterward. The spotless lamb without blemish, a male of the first year, was as important to the Passover in Egypt, as was the Passover spotless Lamb all-important to the church, which would come after Jesus. It will be the congregation of believers, which the Lamb will serve – those who congregate to come together under His name and covering. Christ was too general a term for this precious Lamb of God; Jesus told Peter not to call Him Jesus the Christ. The name of Jesus is specific, and there is no suggestion of anything generic in it. He is singular and stands alone above all other men as the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.

Christian is not the name on the banner of our Lord; Jesus is His name. He is not one of many; He is the One Who is described here as being a Lamb without blemish, a male of the first year (as they numbered from Him). It could be either from the sheep or the goats, for in Jesus there were no national boundaries dividing His church or His house. Anyone who believes on Him, Israelite or gentile, alike, has access to the household of God by passing through the cross. The separate houses represent the nations of salvation according to every man’s needs, which the Lord will satisfy throughout eternity. The thief on the cross will not inherit the kingdom, but his need to be remembered by God will be satisfied because he chose life in Jesus before he died, in order to enter into the nations of salvation. He will have a home among the tribes of nations, which dwell around the New Jerusalem, and he will be very happy and satisfied, indeed, just to be there.

 Next, we are looking, time-wise, at the twilight period of the fourteenth day. Remember, Jacob had to work seven years for Leah whom he did not choose as a bride, as well as seven years for Rachel, whom he loved. A day represents a year that Jacob worked for the full congregation of his two families, with Leah’s family representing the nations of salvation and Rachel’s, representing the spiritual nation of the king-priest inheritance. It has been a struggle of Jesus with man, symbolized by the struggle of the angel with Jacob through the night, to finally complete His work of bringing forth His bride as the spiritual nation birthing the good fruit for God. Remember that Benjamin, representing the bride, was the only son born in the Promised Land. He is as the rightful inheritor of the kingdom. He is no stranger in the land.

Next, there comes a very important prophetic statement about salvation by the shed blood of Jesus. Each statement is within the order of things concerning God’s family of Israel, which He is preparing to take into His kingdom to dwell forever. The whole world is most certainly not kingdom-bound, nor are all of those who call themselves Israel kingdom-bound. When God’s judgment comes down in these final hours, unless it is upon the blood of Jesus that we place our faith for salvation, we will not see the kingdom. In this passage, God is showing that there is no other way to get there. He is saying it does not matter whether you are of Egypt or of Israel; unless He sees the blood on the spiritual door posts of our lives, we shall not escape the fate of the Egyptian firstborn.

The Egyptian firstborn is the fruit of Satan, one rejected by God. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they became children of the beast in a spirit other than that of the Spirit of life. The Prince of Darkness, Satan, became their father, in place of God. It is the fruit of Adam and Eve, to which the firstborn of Egypt points. The blood on both doorposts represents first, the doorpost to the Promised Land for Israel, and secondly, the doorpost to the kingdom of life available to the spiritual nation Israel. The animal sacrifice was the shadow of the shed blood of Jesus on the doorposts of our lives, which is the only sacrifice of salvation for both nation and spiritual nation. Regardless of whether or not one has Hebrew blood running through one’s veins, or is a member of a denomination of the institutional Christian church, neither holds any weight for salvation, only the mark of the shed blood of Jesus has any power in it.

 God did not save the Egyptians from the plagues of judgment, nor is He going to save the gentile nations today from them. He is going to save only His spiritual nation of Israel, as He declared in the words of John, chapter seventeen, when He prayed, not for the world, but for those given to Him by the Father. Those given to Him were the apostles of His apostolic church. He also prayed for those who would believe in Him, through their word concerning the truth of the gospels and the message of salvation through Jesus only. The believers may come from the gentile nations, but they must cross over at the cross, into the spiritual nation of Israel, to join those traveling the narrow path of salvation. The lintel represents the bride, the revived apostolic church, which enters the kingdom through the gates of Israel, resting on the foundation of spiritual Israel – the early apostolic church. The bride could never stand alone, without the supports under her from the dual nature of Israel – the two doorposts surrounding the Door to salvation.

 The flesh shall be eaten on that night just before the Passover. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and a special new, pure feeding of the Lamb will be given to mankind, for those who have ears to hear. Understanding, unknown before this time, which was sealed to Daniel and the apostle John, will be opened only by Jesus, and not by any man, for no one else is able to open it. It comes in the form of a seven-sealed scroll, with a better translation for the word ‘scroll’ being the word ‘book’, suggesting seven sealed books.

 The lamb was to be roasted in fire and served with bitter herbs. The roasting of the lamb in fire speaks of judgment time, and of Jesus, the Lamb of God, taking the fire judgment of His Father’s wrath on the cross, where you and I should hang in place of Him. The Word will undergo worldwide rejection in this midnight hour of darkness, when the bitterness of the world toward the believer will be severely felt in a way it has never been felt before in all of history. It is the best and worst of times to be the bride of Jesus, with all the joy it brings, while, at the same time, becoming the subject of scorn and ridicule, which is the bitterness of eating the scroll. It is like a bitter pill she must swallow immediately after the joy of discovering who she is in Christ, having been liberated by Him from the curse of death, which hangs over all mankind.

 The world has seen the water judgment of the Flood of Noah’s day, and it was a judgment upon the evil that sin brought into the lives of men. Yet, it never removed evil from the world; it simply allowed the Lord God to save a man of righteousness, called Noah, in separation from the judgment. The salvation of Noah represents that of all men who lived prior to the time of Jesus and were deemed to be righteous for their acts of faithfulness to God (of such men are the elders listed in Hebrews, chapter eleven). In the latter days, there will not be a flood covering the entire earth in judgment, as promised to Noah. The final judgment will be of fire, which will burn up evil men at the end of the age, allowing all men to make the same choices as Noah made when he acted in obedience to God by going against the prevailing culture of his day.

The Israelites were told not to eat the head, legs or entrails, for they were rejected as the symbols of religion. Jesus said to eat His flesh, which is equated to the truth by His declaration that He is the Word made flesh. Not only will there be a pure feeding of the Word to the bride in the latter days just before the judgment, but also religion will go down with that great harlot, Babylon, into the pit of hell’s fire to be burnt up. There must be no religion left in the pure light of Israel, which will emerge at last as the voice of the bride, which will rise up to witness only to the truth of the gospels. At the dawn of a new day truth, and truth alone, will reign in Israel, which has seen nation and spiritual nation go the way of the world. With the emergence of the bride, Israel will finally produce the good fruit of the marriage bed, which God had intended man to do from the beginning. The Word, entrusted to the apostolic church, will be back in the hands where it belongs – in those of a pure church, which has donned her spiritual armor in preparation and readiness for the ensuing battle. She is girded with the belt of truth; her feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel.

 Truth is what the gospels are all about, and the bride needs to be prepared for the coming battle as no other soldiers or armies have ever been prepared before. The Lord, at the time of Passover into the kingdom, not only selects those who are worthy to serve with Him in battle, but He also destroys those who refused to listen and act in obedience by burning the head, legs and entrails. Those who serve Him can no longer participate in any way in the religious idolatry of the gods of Egypt. The Lord is going to execute the fire judgment upon those who want to have a share in both camps – a share in the liberation of God’s people, while carrying the idols of Egypt under their skirts, so to speak, as they depart from there. The Passover is all about being prepared spiritually for separation from the world, with which we are so familiar, to enter into a wilderness journey before entering into the kingdom of God.

 The Lord depicts Israel as being in different houses – one could say, in different degrees of religion, having varying degrees of understanding. But if He sees His blood on the doorpost of our hearts, it will serve as His protection over us, with the plagues having no power to harm us when they fall upon the rest of the world. Today, we are just beginning to see those world-wide plagues and their devastation within the nations. We have felt the serious effects of AIDS, Mad Cow Disease, SARS, West Nile Virus, the Avian Flu, and Legionnaires Disease. The whole world is not only seeing the signs in the weather, in the heavens and in the plagues, but earthquakes are striking the earth with a rapidity and severity hitherto unknown in world history.

 www.voiceofthekingfisher.ca