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 Eleven
October 11, 2005
In this chapter of Exodus, God announces that there will be but one more plague. This is the countdown chapter, comparable to the countdown of the launching of a space shuttle. This past final half of the last century has been a picture in the natural of what is happening in the spiritual. The believers are being prepared for their heavenly destination as though being strapped into place in readiness for blast-off. As they depart heavenward, nothing shall be seen but fire and smoke behind them. It is the fire judgment from which they will be separated as they depart from the earth beneath. In their spiritual capsule, the heaven-bound are protected from the immense heat of judgment, which otherwise would burn them up.
We have watched men and women being chosen for the space program in accordance with the special attributes and superior coping skills, which they demonstrate. After having completed the necessary training, the moment has arrived when they are appropriately dressed for the occasion and ready for the moment of departure. They have their own bubble or ark of protection from the elements surrounding them and the heat, which would consume them. It is comparable to being in a vessel of salvation, dependant on a covenant with its control center in heaven. It is from there that the mission is guided by the command center with a secure and safe destination.
Astronauts simply carry out their duties once their voyage begins. It is a ‘control-from-central-to-astronaut’ trip all the way; the directions come essentially from control center and the astronauts are simply the vessels chosen to carry out the work. Do they set out on their journey with their own agenda? Their training has been focused on learning obedience to instructions and getting their body in fitness, ready for the job ahead. They must be in right relationship with their fellow astronauts, for they are in very confined quarters, indeed, which allow no room for individual grandstanding or sensitive personalities prone to offenses. This is a mission, requiring true sacrifice to self, for the common good of all.
The Lord has surely given us a picture of the times and His church. Few are they who are taken into the training program and fewer are they who make the flight into space. But the difference between the astronaut and the bride is a matter of qualifications. It is the difference between what the world sets for its standard and what God sets for His standard. Jesus is the point of division between standards and, unfortunately, Houston’s measuring stick is not the same as His. We have just seen the need for those involved in the space program, along with the other citizens of Houston, being required to evacuate the city before the judgment of God rained down upon it. What followed was a monumental traffic jam, which left people stranded and others without power. For the exodus from the city brought disaster for those who had waited too long and had not taken advantage of the early warning signs to get out well in advance of the storm of judgment (reference is to the events of Hurricane Rita).
This chapter warns of the final plague at the midnight hour of departure. This is the promise of the Lord that there is one more plague to come when, at midnight, the Lord walks among the Egyptians or those of the world who would not listen. This is the moment when complete separation of Israel will be put in place, for God is saying in this chapter that the moment has come for the door to close on the ark of the covenant, the ark of salvation, in the same way as God closed it on Noah’s ark. Before the rain came down the door had to be sealed, separating forever those within from those left behind in the world of sin to die in separation from God, forever.
The Lord God said that the departure would be a complete one, for the Israelites were to be taken out altogether. There was to be absolutely no compromise with wives, children or animals being left behind to remain victims within Pharaoh’s clutches any longer. The voices of Moses and Aaron were to represent God as His voice calling for complete separation of Israel from Egypt, as will the Spirit and the bride be the voice for the Lord at the time of history’s midnight hour. God will make it clear in the following chapters that if the world refuses to listen to their voice and to obey them in every detail, then it will suffer the same fate as that of the Egyptians. Until the actual moment of midnight, when the plague of death comes, the door is open for one to choose direction in the same way that the cross offers two different routes – one, the way, and the other, the broad road. He was the thief on the cross beside Jesus who received salvation from Him, because of the choice he made in the final hours of his life.
The voice was to be heard in the hearing of the people. Moses and Aaron had been given sole authority to speak for God. Others will try to take this authority away from the bride to serve their own purposes, in the same manner as they tried to take it away from Moses. They will run into the same problem Korah faced in the wilderness, when he tried to interfere with God’s plans for the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt; the earth simply opened and swallowed him up. Nothing will interfere in God’s seven-day plan of creation, a process in which we are called to participate. God is preparing a new dwelling place for His family, beginning with Jesus and His bride, who will inherit the paradise under God, which Adam and Eve rejected.
The first command for Israel was to ask their Egyptian neighbors to give them articles of silver and gold. It was not as though they were asking for a free hand-out, for the Israelites had been laboring as slaves for years to serve the Egyptians – labor for which they had received no compensation. What the Lord is showing us here is how valueless the monies of this world, in which it has put its trust, really are. This message points as a warning sign for the latter days, when the money system will fail, and man’s dependency upon it will be seen for what it is. Money will become worthless, when the judgment begins to fall. It is at this point the gold of worship pays off, the good gold, which will form the street of the New Jerusalem, paved in worship, in spirit and in truth. Yes, the gold of Egypt accompanied the people into the wilderness, but it had no purchasing power whatsoever, where the provisions were provided from above.
There were two events surrounding this gold, which would serve to illustrate the difference between what the people of Egypt were required to worship as opposed to what the people of Israel were called to worship. First, the Israelites used the gold to melt it down and form a golden calf, which they worshiped in pure idolatry, as harlots to their God Who had just delivered them from their captivity to the world system. Then God had them offer their gold to be melted for the vessels and fixtures of the tabernacle, as well as for a pure covering of the ark of the covenant, all associated with the worship of only Him. What is it that you want to do with your gold today? Does it serve your worldly desires or does it serve God’s purposes?
The gold being taken from the Egyptians speaks of a worldwide economic crash. It is then that the difference becomes evident between the powerlessness of the gold of Pharaoh’s Egyptians, or of the world, and the power of the Lord Who will give His voice to the one commissioned to speak for Him. This is the true Jew and His bride, an army of believers, clothed in spiritual armor, with its dependency upon Him for its provisions and its victory. The difference between the army of the Lord and that of the Antichrist will be as significant as it was between the Israelites and the Egyptians at this point in time.
The midnight hour causes us to look at the differences between the gold and silver, which the world has worshiped, and the good gold of Havilah, which existed in the Garden of creation. Man rejected the power and provision of this good gold of God at creation for the powerlessness of the gold of the world. In the final analysis its utter uselessness can be seen in how readily the Egyptians were willing to part with what had previously been so important to them before the plagues occurred. Nothing will ever show the contrast more clearly between the economic system of the world and the provision of God than did the differences between the two nations of Egypt and Israel, at the time of the Exodus. As God was then, so shall He be today – our only Strength and our Provider. It would behoove us to note very carefully every prophetic detail of the Exodus, which is of enormous importance to us today. It is all about what we choose to worship, and the manner in which we do it. It will determine on which side of the great gulf we choose to reside eternally – either with the children of God on one side or with the children of Satan on the other side.
This is the situation we will be facing; if one is born once, as a son of Satan, he is doomed to die twice – once, in the judgment on the world and a second time, after the resurrection to the white throne judgment. There the books will be opened before the throne of God. All men were created to serve the Creator, and these will be judged according to how well they carried out their given work, if indeed they served Him at all. In contrast to this, if one is born twice in this world, first, as a son of man doomed to die, and secondly, born again of the Spirit of life, saved from the captivity of the death through salvation offered by Jesus, then one will not die a second time, but rather will inherit eternal life in the kingdom with Him. The born-again believer will be judged with respect to the treasures he has stored up for himself in heaven. Jesus will be the Judge of the positions received in the kingdom of God, according to how well one served Him while here on earth.
The Lord said that from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, even to the firstborn of the maidservant behind the handmill, and the firstborn of the beasts in the land of Egypt, all would die at the hour of midnight. It will be zero hour for countdown to blastoff and the coming of the Antichrist, following a world-wide economic collapse. A great cry came up from Egypt, the like of which had never been heard before, nor will be heard again, except at the time to which this points in prophecy. Will they not cry out to God from the pain of end-times earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and plagues, asking why He has allowed this to happen to them? Will they not gnash their teeth and blame Him for the disasters, which they have brought upon themselves? Having no understanding, they flounder about in the darkness, which religion has brought into their lives, along with its accompanying spiritual blindness and ruination.
One is reminded of the fate of Queen Jezebel who brought so much religious idolatry into Israel that she was ultimately fed to the dogs. God is clearly showing that as religious idolatry was a problem at the time of the Exodus for God’s people, so, too, will it be a problem for the exodus of the bride today with the coming of the One World Order and its United Religion. Unless she makes a full departure from religion so that the truth will not be compromised, she too, could be fed to the dogs as was Jezebel, a woman of the same feminist controlling spirit, which first appeared as rebellion to God in the Garden of Eden.
The time will come when the world will bow to the will of the Lord, when the judgment becomes so severe that all resistance to Him will cease. The people of the world will beg for no further judgment to be brought upon them. The bride will be recognized as the Lord’s spokesperson of the truth, as was Aaron recognized to be Moses’ voice. Those who have ears to hear will be told to depart from the One World Order of things to come, which will require the mark of the beast to be placed upon them. It will be evident that the bride will take no such mark, when they recognize that she is not suffering under the plagues from which they will suffer. It will be very evident that she is under the protection of the Lord, with Satan having no control over her. This secure position of the bride will be a witness in itself to the power of God over all flesh.
Even with the final warning signs of the final judgment at hand, with there no longer being a way to escape death, the heart of the world leader, the Antichrist, will harden toward the true church, the bride. The gentile world will care less about its eternal destiny than it cares about its comfort and its possessions, on which its security has rested. The threat of approaching disaster seems to be no deterrent to the drug pusher, the sexually immoral, those involved in witchcraft, or to government leaders and courts of liberalism, which denounce God’s supremacy in America.
No matter what the miracle or how many wonders God performs, men will continue to fight the goad in the darkness of their hardened hearts, right to the last breath of life left within them. It is this breath of life, which man has so purposely thrown back into the face of God, having no gratitude for His incredible gift, which made man into creations in His own image rather than into gods in their own right. Because of the striving of men for the treasures of this world they would prefer death to life under a God, Who is the only One Who cares about their eternal future. The book of Revelation tells us that, for a brief moment in time, power to speak is given to the image of the beast so that it will cause as many as will not worship his image to be killed. It causes all to receive the mark of the beast on their right hands or on their foreheads, allowing no one to buy or sell without the mark.
We are looking at shades of the revelation given to Daniel, along with that given to the apostle John and the events they saw now coming to pass. Along with the prophecy of the book of Exodus, the prophecy of these books is being fulfilled before our eyes in these latter days, the signs of which are with us, as they were with the Egyptians when God began to release His judgment through the plagues, which He brought upon them.