Faith

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THE LAND OF CANAAN:
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In looking at the time of the Israelite children, we learn that Moses was a type and shadow of Jesus, Who would come as the Christ, the Messiah to deliver His people out of bondage (Is.61:1-Luke 4:18). Moses was sent to Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let God’s people go so they could freely worship Him. In type and shadow, Pharaoh is symbolic of satan. The night before their departure from Egypt, the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) was applied to the doorposts and lentils of their houses (type of spiritual temple of God). When the Destroyer---an angel of judgment sent from God saw the blood, He would pass-over and their lives would be spared.

It happened as God said it would and the Israelite’s were delivered out of the kingdom of Pharaoh just as we’ve been delivered from the power of darkness and translated over into the Kingdom of His dear Son (Jesus) [Col.1:11-12]. Their deliverance from Egypt’s bondage is figurative spiritually of the Christian being set free and made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus through the new birth. Through the blood they were brought out and set free. They were free now to go and persue and fulfill their destiny. Through the blood of Jesus, we are brought out of the bondage of sin and made free in Christ Jesus also. We have also had a pass-over because of the blood and it put’s us in the outer court of the Temple where we can persue and begin to fulfill our destiny in God.

Being made free, the Israelite’s were on their way to Canaan Land. The Land of Promise God had said was their’s. God made a covenant and guaranteed it in blood to be binding, not only to them but to their descendants on down the line. Just as the covenant between God and Abraham was cut and God swore by Himself in the blood of Jesus (His blood was shed before the foundation of the world)---so was there a New Covenant made between God, the Father, and Jesus the Son, when He went to the cross. The book of Hebrews says, we now have a New Covenant through the guaranteeing blood of Jesus with better promises. Hallelujah! God wants to fulfill that covenant of provision in our lives today, right now.

A lot of people down through the years have looked at Canaan as being a type of heaven that we’re all headed for when we die, and we certainly are. People have looked at it as a place to come into someday in the sweet by and by. I want to tell you that you don’t have to wait for that day, you can come into it that place in the rotten here and now if you want to bad enough. We don’t have to wait until someday. Of course, heaven is a place where milk and honey flows but God told the children of Israel that it was flowing for them now, in this life on earth.

He was saying, come on in and get it, and when you do, you’ll find Me there. In fact, I‘ll go with you. I’ll be your covering through a cloud by day to cool you from the desert heat and a pillar of fire by night to warm you from the desert cold. Again, you don’t have to wait until after this pitiful life you have here is over. A lot of people are just trying to make it in this life.They’re just getting by and trying to hang on until Jesus either comes or they go on home to be with the Lord, which ever happens first. That's not living, it's merely existing and in that case, your life is pitiful and brings no glory to God. It’s not living the abundant life that Jesus said He came to give us (John 10:10).

So, even though Canaan can be a type of heaven where you enter your eternal rest, there is another side to it. The Land of Canaan is a type and shadow of the most holy place, the third level of the Temple of God. It is God’s place of rest where the milk and honey flows straight from the throne from God Himself as you abide in His awesome presence. This is where God wanted His people of Israel to enter into. It is Canaan, His place of rest---the holy of holies but they never made it there. They never moved past the inner court.

In leaving Egypt, the Israelite’s had moved through the outer court, happy and joyous to be there. They celebrated being delivered and in the court of their God. But now it was time to move on. God was taking them up to the next level of faith and glory---the inner court. They were on their way to fulfilling their destiny, Canaan Land, that most holy place. In between the outer court and the holy of holies, they found themselves in a most perplexing place called the wilderness, which is figurative of the inner court.

That place where you’ve been set apart by God Himself. It is the place where you will be separated from your Egypt. Egypt is figurative of the world and the carnal flesh with its lustful desires that satisfy the soul temporarily. It is here that we’re separated from all the fleshly trappings that tend to keep us in the wilderness and hinder us from moving into our Canaan where the fullness of the very life of God awaits us.
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THE WAR IS ON:
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The wilderness is where the Israelite children met their greatest conflict when faced with the enemies that stood in the way of their coming into Canaan. They would have to conquer these enemies before they would be able to enter into their rest in God. The land of Canaan---the most holy place with God. As they faced enemies they didn’t know they had, the experience of the conflict was fierce. So much so that they complained and murmured against God about their discomfort. Like us when we’re facing conflict with enemies of our souls we didn’t know we had, we want to escape the heat of battle.

The Israelite’s wanted to escape this war they were in and go back to Egypt so the conflict would cease and things would be easier. Being in any kind of bondage to the enemy is never easy. You are a slave with no freedom. Therefore, it’s wise to keep pressing forward. These enemies we see by all the “ites” in Scripture are figurative of the enemies we face that are within. Our greatest enemies are not so much the one’s we face on the outside but the one’s we face within ourselves. Thus, you’ve heard it said that we need to be delivered from ourselves. I’ve said this on several occasions, “God, deliver me from myself!” Don’t pray this if you’re not ready for Him to do just that because He will take you at your word.

It is here in our wilderness, the inner court that we must be willing to lay down everything that is of the flesh. It is a place of death to the self-life, but it is also a place where we choose the fullness of the God-life to flow in us and out of us by the Holy Spirit to others. In the inner court is the place where we begin to experience the fire of God that comes by the Holy Spirit. As the Refiner, we are put through the fire to make us pliable in the hands of the Master Potter, Who sets about molding and forming us into the image of Christ. We are on the Potter’s wheel.

It is here in the inner court that we’re purified to come forth from the fire as pure and transparent gold. Once we begin to move into the most holy place, the question might be asked, are we finished with going through the fire of God? The answer really is quite simple, no, we‘re not. Our whole time here on earth is a preparation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re being prepared as a Bride who will have neither spot nor blemish when He, the Bridegroom comes. We are being prepared in righteousness, purity and holiness, going from glory to glory, for we shall rule and reign with Jesus here on this earth.

It is here in the inner court that we must die in order to live. There can be no resurrection except there be a death to everything of the self-life in us. We must come to the place where we can say as Paul did, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me.” Years ago when I had been saved for about six years, in the late seventies, I began having some disturbing dreams that I didn’t understand. I was used to having a lot of dreams and even some visions during that early time but this was different. It was also right in the middle of the “faith movement” that had been birthed.

My husband and I were hungry for more of the Lord and we went to every meeting that we could find to get into where people were seeking for more of God. Within the teaching we heard, we were learning to be more forceful with the devil and rebuking him at every turn when he showed up. The only problem with that teaching was, we could end up rebuking the Holy Spirit who was trying to do a legitimate work in our lives, but thinking we were rebuking the devil.


Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I had two distinct dreams of seeing my husband dead and in his casket. Not having learned yet how to rely on the Holy Spirit to interpret the dreams and reveal it to me, I took the dreams literal. Thess dreams would frighten me so bad because I didn’t want anything to happen to my husband that I would begin rebuking the devil. In my own reasoning and understanding, I assumed that God was warning me of the devils plans to take my husbands life and He wanted me to do just as I was doing. Rebuke it in Jesus name.

I didn’t tell my husband of the dreams to begin with because I didn’t want him to worry. I have to laugh at this now because of all the bumbling around we did back then in all of it but God is gracious. Even when we get it all wrong and do some dumb things. He will use those bumblings and dumb things to teach us what is really going on and and He won’t upbraid us during the process.

God finally got through to my fear about the devil trying to kill my husband when one day while I’d been in prayer, the Holy Spirit said to me, “It’s time for you to die.” I just knew this could NOT be the voice of God telling me that I needed to die. So, I’m like, “Say what? Excuse me?” I knew this had to have been the voice of a lying spirit trying to pull a number on me because God didn’t go around telling people they needed to die. Did He? The thing is, the voice that spoke to me was not an unfamiliar voice. Jesus said, “My sheep know My voice.” It had the ring of truth in my spirit and so and I knew it was the Lord. Feeling a little puzzled over what I’d heard Him say, I asked the Lord to explain to me what was going on.

As it turns out, He was answering a prayer where I had asked to be turned upside down and emptied out of me so I could be filled with all of Him. I had forgotten that I had even prayed this prayer, but God had not forgotten. God DOES answer prayer so be careful what you ask for because prepared or not, He’s going to answer you. He reminded me of what I had requested of Him in prayer and when He told me this, suddenly, I understood the dreams. In those dreams, my husband represented me and the fact that he was dead and in the casket was saying that I was to die to the self-life. That the self-life was to be buried in death with Christ so that the God-life in Him could be resurrected in me.

So, as I said, it’s here that we must die in order to live unto Him in the fullness of His Spirit. It is here that we are refined to the point that the very life of Christ is seen in us and through us as we reach out to other’s with His life and love. It is Christ in us Who heals, delivers, etc. We truly become the willing vessel that He flows His life through to touch others with His healing anointing. This is what God told me a long time ago. He said, “I’m just looking for a willing vessel to pour Myself through to touch My people.”

I believe that every Christian has a desire to do what pleases God. And Hebrews 11:6 says, that our faith pleases God. It pleases Him when we believe (tear into the veil of unbelief) that God is Who He says He is, and that “He is a rewarder of those who diligently (with their whole heart) seek Him.” Romans 14:23 says, that “whatever is not of faith is sin.” That means, our unbelief is sin before God, and it’s a hindrance to us entering our Canaan Land. It’s a hindrance to our entering that most holy place of rest where milk and honey is flowing. Where that river of pure living water flows continually from the very throne of God and is available to all who will come, drink and be filled.

So, let me say again, God is not keeping a veil of separation between Himself and His children. He has given His invitation from His Word, “Come boldly (with confidence) to the throne of grace, where you can receive grace and mercy in time of need”(Heb.4:15-16). Our Father has opened the throne room and said, “Come with confidence into My presence.” He is saying, you don’t have to dress yourself up or dress yourself down. You don’t have to work to try and make yourself presentable, just ‘come.’ Let us all accept the gracious invitation of our Father to ‘come’ into that most holy place and spend precious time communing with Him. Being still and knowing that He is God.

May you be willing to pay the full price in the inner court, your wilderness where you leave the old man in the dust of yesterday and reach out to embrace your new life in Christ Jesus. Freely moving into the holy of holies where your Father God waits for you, His child, with eagerness.


Plain As Day Ministries

Shirley Williams
1-9-03

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