Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
Born to be a True Judge
March 19, 2008
When God gave us free will, He also gave us the freedom to be judges over our own lives. But before that, the command had gone forth stating, “Let there be light.” From the moment man was shaped from the dust by the Creator into a human form and then into a living breathing being by the breath of the Spirit breathed into his nostrils, the testing process began. It was a test to determine who would ultimately rule and reign with Jesus as judges in the kingdom to come of heaven on earth, that same kingdom for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.
Free will requires us to judge between being obedient to God and succumbing to the lures of Satan, part of another kingdom entirely. The moment we exercise our will to move away from obedience to God, we also exercise our judicial power over life and death. We will place an eternal judgment upon ourselves resulting in a sentence of captivity to death or liberty and freedom in life.
The first son and daughter of God rejected the light for darkness by accepting Satan’s lure and subsequent lies rather than remaining obedient to God’s truth about life and death. They deliberately disobeyed God and, in so doing, rejected His gift of life. They rejected the image of God, which was given to them in life for the image of the beast, which would result in death.
“How in the world could anyone choose death when offered life?” one might ask. And yet in ignorance, for lack of understanding, Americans are choosing death daily.
Adam and Eve judged their options and chose not to rule and reign with God over the earth. So, the sentence they chose for themselves would lead them back to dust, with God taking back His Spirit of life from them. The sentence would be carried out according to their will and according to God’s righteous nature.
Man’s corruption was complete, but in God’s mercy He provided a way back to life, and if man repented of his sin and learned his lesson from history, he could receive a second opportunity to judge himself in accordance with God’s righteous plan.
Wickedness and sin will continually increase and grow if left unleashed outside of God’s moral Laws until it fills the entire earth. So He destroyed man, all except one whom He deemed to be righteous, and who would continue the line of all future men, though still born of the corrupted seed of Adam. Having survived the flood of judgment, Noah and his children could still only bring forth children of their father the devil.
It was through the sons of Noah that all the nations of the world were established. When the ark had barely landed on dry ground again, the first thing men did was demonstrate their insatiable desire for the sin of religion. It manifested itself with man trying to build a tower at Babel, which would reach to God. He divided the languages, and men began to form into nations of divided religions with numerous pagan gods, while spreading across the face of the earth. Here we have the foundation for modern-day multiculturalism.
But then, God raised up for Himself a nation from birth, which was chosen to have a relationship with Him, to hear His voice again as did Adam and Eve, and to walk in obedience with Him so it could be a light to the rest of the nations of the world. It was chosen to demonstrate the power of God, Who gives victory to an obedient and faithful people. These, His own people, were chosen to be the overcomers of the lures of Satan, so that they might travel along the way back to the kingdom, the path set to by-pass the broad road to destruction.
In speaking particularly of Jerusalem, the prophet Ezekiel tells us that her birth and her nativity were from the land of Canaan, with her father being an Amorite and her mother, a Hittite. God passed over her as she lay struggling in her own blood and commanded her to live (see Ezekiel, chapter 16). This nation eventually was called Israel, chosen to become the pattern for a land promise that speaks prophetically of a kingdom reality; but the land was merely the pattern for the principle of kingdom son-ship of God.
History tells the story of this nation called to be a light to the world, first in the natural, and then in the spiritual, as priests, judges and kings of God who will rule over all nations, with Jesus. Immediately, this nation became the hated and the targeted of Satan who laid claim to the world as his kingdom. His desire was to rule over the world like the Most High God, seated at the center of worship. His plan to accomplish this will result in a final One World Order, with men serving and worshiping only him. And for such a purpose as this, the antichrist spirit flourishes.
So, Israel was led by God, Who formed a covenant with her, promising her the land of Canaan as hers to possess in the name of and for the glory of God. He wanted all of the surrounding nations to see Israel as a nation blessed by the true God Who ruled over all false gods.
Not one of the religious gentile nations was to be allowed to remain in Canaan, for the Israelites were called to drive them out. When the Israelites failed to do so, the multiculturalism of pagan gods grew to fill the nation again. The fatal result was that pagan religious idolatry allowed Satan to rule over the Land instead of God. At this point, Israel failed to be the light she was called to be for God.
So, judges were raised up over the nation that became the advisors and rulers of Israel. Some were wise, and some, not so wise. Some were weak men, like Gideon, made strong in God’s power and in their obedience to Him, and some were strong men, made weak for lack of obedience to God, such as Samson.
Then, right in the middle of the 335-year-period of judges, a woman called Deborah was raised up at a time when the men were weak and refused to do battle for fear of the enemy. This woman chose to obey God, and fearlessly led the nation forth to victory in obedience and in His power. To her was credited the victory, instead of going to the men who eventually followed her example and moved into battle in obedience.
Let us now particularly focus on one judge, named Samson, who is perhaps today the most famous of all the judges, born to a barren woman, who cried out to God for a child, like the barren wives of the fathers of the nation, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They all birthed children, who were promised an inheritance from God. We are told the name of the father of Samson, but the mother’s name is never revealed.
Samson is the prophetic picture of Israel’s call to raise up sons and judges for God, who would be pure from birth so they could rule over the kingdom of God’s people with Him. They do not haphazardly appear on the scene, but rather they are chosen and prepared by God for the job. What is required is obedience to His plan for their lives, or face the resulting problems caused by disobedience.
Three times Samson had the wicked Jezebel spirit attack him. For Samson, the lure was that of a Jezebel-spirited woman called Delilah. He allowed Satan to use her in his life when he opened the door by choosing to entangle himself sexually with the Philistine women of the enemy camp. They came from a race of strong, fierce battling men who lived in the same territory occupied today by the Palestinian Muslims, known as the Gaza Strip.
Wake up, Condoleezza! This unity of Israel to the Palestinians is indeed a very foolish unity to be promoting, for nothing good can come of it, as is demonstrated by the life of the fallen judge called Samson.
Three times, Samson did not reveal to Delilah the manner in which he had received his power from God. If he had chosen to be a light to the Philistines by honoring his Nazarite vows and staying away from the Philistine women, they would have had no victory over him, whatsoever.
Three times, men, chosen by birth to be the light to the world of God’s liberty in obedience to Him, failed to serve God by choosing to attach themselves to evil. Adam and Eve rejected the truth for the belief system (religion), and liberalism (separation from the truth of God). In other words, God is misrepresented always by Satan, who leads men away from Him.
Samson’s first unwillingness to reveal to Delilah the source of the power he received from God points to Adam and Eve’s rejection of the truth and eternal life given from God.
His second lack of willingness to reveal the source of his power points to the nation Israel, which constantly chose to serve idolatrous gods rather than serve the one true God.
In his third lack of willingness to reveal his source of power, he actually hinted at it being associated with his hair. It was not in the strength of the fresh bowstrings of Adam and Eve, or in the new ropes of Israel that he derived his strength, but rather it was in his uncut hair, the seven strands of which he had woven into a loom.
As Adam and Eve lost the power and then Israel lost it after them, spiritual Israel became like the hair interwoven into the loom. The church was captive to the loom of religious Christianity, interwoven as the seven strands of the church through the church age. Samson still had power, but only as long as he was able to separate the strands of his hair from the loom.
Just like Samson awakening in time to pull his hair from the loom, the Lord will awaken His bride in time to extricate her from the grip of religion, which has caused her to go into a death-like sleep. She will be awakened in the same manner as the Lord awakened the sleeping Lazarus from the tomb at just the right time, when He sounds the last trumpet call.
It became evident with Samson that his failure lay not in the loss of his hair but rather in his entanglement with the enemy of religious idolatry. He could not have the power of the Master without serving the Master. Samson’s faulty thinking was that the power lay within himself, when it had always come as a gift from God. By joining with the enemy, he had opened the door to the wiles of the devil who beguiles his victims. Samson released his power into the hands of the enemy, which the beguiler always serves, an enemy which lives in temples of religious idolatry.
And so Samson was taken captive by the Philistines and forced to serve them. His judgment failed and, like Saul of Tarsus, he was blinded by idolatrous religious entanglement, just as the religion of the Pharisees had blinded Saul. There no longer was any power left in Samson.
In the same manner as Samson was awakened when his hair was taken from the loom of Satan, so will the bride be awakened when the remnant of Israel is released from its entanglement in the tomb of religion. The true bride of Israel, barren until this hour, will go into labor to produce the child, which will be snatched up to the throne as the son/daughter of God. This is the overcomer who has been given the key of David, the pillar standing on the apostolic foundation of truth like a little child standing in the strength of Jesus.
“He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name (Revelation 3:12).” And the Spirit carried John away to a great and high mountain where he was shown the great and holy city of Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. He was given this vision with the words, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife (Revelation 21:9).” “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son (Revelation 21:7).”
This message makes the picture nearly complete, which takes us back to Samson for the final act of history and man’s role as judge over himself. Samson judged poorly, which found him being forced to work, serve and perform for the Philistines, who symbolize today’s Palestinian Muslims, along with all the other pagan religious systems. As the symbol of man’s disobedience to the Word of God, Samson found himself repenting and begging God for one last opportunity to show, not his strength, for he had been blinded by religious compromise, but rather the power of God this time.
Samson had not had the eyes of understanding, so as the representative of God’s chosen who had judged poorly, he would need the eyes of a child to guide him to the place between the pillars. “And a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).”
And so the woman of Israel, the bride, shall bring forth that child with eyes of great understanding. He/she will be the guide to those seeking God as he/she stands in the midst of the pillars, in the power of God, able to lead the church out of its captivity. The child birthed of the woman will become the messenger of God, leading the way to bring down the pillars of religious idolatry. The whole religious system will be crushed, as was the god, Dagon, the priests of the Philistines and their followers, when Samson, in one last burst of power, brought the temple of idolatry down upon them.
Of course, Samson and the lad were destroyed also in the judgment, but John has given us the beautiful picture of the holy city coming down as the bride. There is no question that she, like her Beloved, has been resurrected to live again in the holy state of matrimony with her Beloved forevermore in the kingdom of God here on earth. And, together, they shall rule and reign and judge in perfect righteousness.
Use your will to judge carefully, my friend, for you have been given an opportunity to choose life through a rebirth in the Spirit. Choose to live in the ‘Light’, rather than receive a sentence of death in darkness.