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Israel Watch
Applying
the dimensions of our authority
Author:
Jim Regan
November 2008
When we look at the verse in (Matthew
17:20) where Jesus teaches on the subject of speaking to the mountain you
get the sense that it is a spiritual act that we can do in Him that has far
greater implications and possibilities than when you compare it to (Matthew
7:7-11), Ask and you will receive… In this second verse, we are humbly and
reverently drawing near to the thrown of grace and laying out our request before
the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and asking him for a response. We can even
ask boldly as we drawn near to this throne of grace. Yet when were taught to
stand up and speak to the mountain which Jesus directed his disciples to do
there seems to be even a much greater boldness and participation of faith on our
part, required.
Jesus was teaching them and us, that when you come up against impossible
circumstances and situations that appear immovable in the natural, similar to a
mountain that is immovable, than if you have faith enough, and do not doubt, you
can stand up, speak, and command the mountain to move, and it will move. Jesus
personally demonstrated this principle with an even greater impact toward his
disciples when he stood in front of Lazarus’ cave and said to a four day old
dead body, “Lazarus come out”!!! (Jn
11:1-44) When the Creator’s Son who had his Father’s God like faith in him,
that is more solid than the greatest mountain ever made, things will move!
Jesus did not ask permission to see if it was ok, and he did not check in with
his disciples to what their opinion was on whether or not he should do it. Nike
could have gotten an early start as he “Just
did it”. Yet he did not do it alone as he did it in accordance
and agreement with His Father and the Holy Spirit. It is easy to see how our
faith can be easily destroyed if we are wondering about if we can do it, or if
we are worthy enough that we can receive it, or whether or not it is God’s will
or not for something to happen. That kind of faith, is about as solid as a wet
noodle. In order to solidify our faith like a mountain, and then move the
mountain, we must solidly resolve inside ourselves that Jesus will do what
we believe and say by faith,
because he said in his word that He would do it. (Ps
37:5) Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act. Just
think of what we could do with our prayers?!!!!
Joshua, who was Israel’s leader after Moses had died, seemed to understand this
principle of faith very well. If we look at the following passage, and please
read it, (Joshua
10:7-8), not only had God just told him, don’t worry, I am on your side, but
He declared that no one would be able to stand before him. Wow, what confidence
would that instill in someone. This was not a self confidence that Joshua
created in himself, it was a confidence that God instilled in Him because God
reassured Joshua that He would be with him wherever he went in his mighty hands
of power!
Can you, in your mind, visualize and go down to the battlefield and get into the
living forensics of the fray and
hear its overall intensity (example of sounds of battle) and charge of these
armies? Can you picture the boldness of a faith filled Hebraic army being led
by a commander in chief, who is supersaturated with faith? Do you hear the
swords clang, and the grunting and struggle of these highly muscled men of
valor, as they push back against their enemies in this battle? Sure, wounds may
have been incurred by them in battle, and sure, some may have even fallen, but
this faith filled army just seemed to be bulldozing its way slowly, but surely,
through their opponents.
Yet, this all did not happen in just a few minutes. This battle went on for
hours as the enemy was not a pushover at all. Little by little progress was
being made on the battlefield, but then Joshua as Commander realized something
in the midst of the contention. He saw that it was about mid-day and he
estimated that it would take much longer to finish this job off. It seemed like
it was to go into the middle of the night and Joshua was concerned that he would
lose important advantage if he and his men could not see.
So, now here is where it gets good. Joshua stood up, made up his mind, and
looked intently at the sun and said” SUN stand still!!!! (Joshua
10:12-13) Wow is that bold. In the midst of battle he ascertained he needed
more sunlight or more time in the sunlight and came to the conclusion inside
himself that God had already declared the victory and that whatever he needed
was his and the battle would be won. So he stood up in faith on the promise of
God that God was with him and spoke to the sun expecting that God must act!!!
Can you hear this tsunami command and shout of victory in the very midst of the
battle literally shook through everyone’s ears? The bold fighting continued…,
and continued…, and continued. It went on for many hours longer than a regular
day.
The men knew how long a day of battle would take. They knew how their muscles
felt during and after battle, but this battle had gone long beyond what was
usual. It was if they had an extra set of hours. (The book of Joshua makes
reference [“Is it not written in the Book of Jasher?”] to in the apocryphal book
of
Jasher 88:63-64, which states that the battle went on for 6 and ½ moments.
I do not know what this means, but my guess is that it is 6 and ½ periods of
time. Could it be a referencing of time in the terms of hours?) For sure, it
was a very extended day as it is stated, that the Sun waited to go down
for a full day.
Yet here is the thing that is truly amazing. Not only did Joshua speak to the
Sun, but he spoke also to the Moon, and he mentioned their locations where they
would affix over. This means there were specific earthly reference points to
observe both of these heavenly bodies being fixated in the sky. They did not
move. They did as Joshua had commanded. Now that is awesome in itself, but
when you think of what God had to do in order to bring this to pass is just mind
boggling.
So what did God have to do to bring this command of Joshua to pass? The first
thing is that we have to look at the fact that Joshua and the Israelites
perceived that the sun and moon circled the earth. They did not have the
scientific perspective that we have today. If you look at this verse in
Ecclesiastes you can see this is how they saw it and believed it. Yet, the
truth is that the visual effect of the moon and sun revolving around the earth
is really due primarily to the rotation of the earth. The earth rotates at 1000
mph. So how did God do it? If God suddenly stopped the earth,
scientists say all on the earth would jump forward like in a major car
accident. If a vehicle suddenly stops the people continue to move forward.
(That’s why we are supposed to use seat belts by the way).
Now this is where it becomes fascinating. The moon is rotating around the earth
every month but the earth is rotating around the sun. If the earth was stopped
in a fairly abrupt manner we would lunge forward as described before. However,
there would also be disruption of the winds and therefore the clouds would
perhaps change direction. That would have been noticed in the battle, but
there is no mention of a wind change. In fact the only things that seem to
affix were the sun and the moon to the background landscape locations that were
described in the verses. Now it is possible of a gradual slowing down of the
rotation to where it would not be noticed could have very well have happened,
but the fact that there would be potential detrimental changes to the earth
leads me to believe that the stopping of the earth’s rotation may not have been
what actually occurred.
One way of doing it would be that the whole universe rotated with the earth in
that time frame. The one who framed the worlds with the word could rotate the
universe at the same pace of the rotation of the earth with the word. Yet, for
some reason I tend to think God’s supernatural action was more localized. What
I mean by this is that you could have had time layers within the
time-space continuum going on within time by which you could have a
localized area allowed to move ahead in time, where another area would be
fixated in time (Similar to those computer photoshop programs that allow you to
edit art and photos by
editing a particular layer within the total composite art allowing a scalpel
precision editing of the picture without affecting the other layers). The
reason why I think this way is that nothing else was altered except the sun’s
and the moon’s fixation of position.
Now the Sun and the moon were created by God to mark the times and the seasons
in
Genesis 1:14. If, however, you temporarily lose your reference points then
you have no real way of telling time except by your senses of what you’re used
to. Their senses and experience showed them that the sun waited.
Another possibility is that there was excruciatingly accurate angular tilt that
was put in place on the earth so that a temporary condition existed where the
apparent fixation of the sun and moon’s location occurred. This way is a way it
could of happened, but other things could have notably changed from Joshua’s
perspective, such as temperature and wind changes.
If we look at the other scriptures of documenting similar events where the
space-time continuum was either stretched, bent, disrupted, or changed, than it
might shed some light on what happened here.
-
Phillip was
translated by the Holy Spirit over a long distance of space in the book of
Acts after God used him to minister to the Eunuch. (Acts
8:39-40)
-
Upon Jesus
calming the sea, they were immediately at the other side. (John
6:16-21)
-
Jesus
appearing in the flesh, in the room, suddenly, to his disciples. (Lk
24:29-48)
-
Jesus moving
through the Pharisees, as they were attempting to throw them off the cliff.
(Lk
4:28-30)
All of these apparent displacements of time, space, and other quantities seemed
to be quite simple for the master and constructor of the universe. His ability
to supercede, superimpose and edit change upon the natural laws of gravity
became very evident, when He upheld Peter by the solid substance of his word
over the liquid raging sea. His ability to expand matter instantaneously from a
smaller substance amount to a resultantly huge amount, in the miracle of the
bread and the fish story, demonstrates another dimension of physical altering
which implies an ability to effect anything in anyway in which he chooses, if
chosen and spoken.
Like a regular author will insert a new paragraph into his work and then
completely change the story dynamics, the author of life, and finisher of our
faith, can cut and paste, dissolve and reform, our realities. Like a chemist
will yield a solid from a liquid as a new precipitated plastic, or refine a thin
and yellow gasoline from a thick and black crude of oil, I have seen the master
many times in my own life cause something to happen after prayer. It somehow
happens, and yet I have no clue or understand, or even attempt to understand,
how it happened. It just did. I am only awesomely left with giving Him the
thanks and glory.
On one occasion whether you believe this or not, I had just listened to a tape
on developing your faith and speaking to the mountain by our Pastor Henry Adams
Jr., and it got me so fired up I was ready to exercise that kind of faith. When
I began driving home on 281 from Floresville to 37 in Texas, the sky was
overcast and grayish cloudy from a previous rain so it was just a blanket of
clouds overhead. The sky was covered completely with this grey over cast except
for this one lonely isolated medium size cloud far underneath the overcast.
I thought why can’t I speak to the cloud to disperse and so I decided to speak
to the cloud. I said “cloud” you no longer exist in Jesus’ name, you must
dissolve and disperse. A few minutes went by and nothing happened. I said
that’s ok, I’m waiting…
Nothing happened. I said “I don’t care what you do you must disperse. After
about 7 minutes it started to break up. Within five minutes it was gone. You
might say Oh, that’s coincidence, but there was no reason for it to break up but
for the words I spoke. You have seen many clouds completely transverse the sky
and the may slightly change their shape, and I mean very slightly, but they will
not dissolve and disappear.
Joshua stood up and spoke to both the sun and the moon and the fabric of reality
changed. The sun and the moon were affixed to their place, affixed against two
separate landmarks on the earth so as to prove that God had performed the signs
and wonders, using the
two land marks to testify of the event.
Invisible spiritual reality, where the living Word of God is enthroned and
reigns therefore is truly the solid foundational substance behind the
liquid-like physical reality only appearing solid to us. Circumstances that
appear to us as solid and immovable and well fixed and unchangeable are truly as
solid as a liquid when it compares against the solid Rock of Christ and word of
God.
So the next time you see an impossible situation such as a looming over of
apparently certain financial collapse, or a terminal cancer, or an incessant
drug addiction, or a jail sentence that seems it will never end. Perhaps we
should look at our realities the way they really are and see that what seems to
be so solid is as bendable and changeable as liquid when the solid reality of
the living word gets applied and spoken to that situation. It all truly depends
on how solidly and firmly we believe it, doesn’t it?!
Disclaimer: The content, ascertains and conclusions of this article may or
may not reflect the opinions of Eastern Gate Ministries International
Incorporated.
For
further information and writings by this author follow the link on EGMII Home
Page entitled God and Science.
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