Faithful would later write of the special witness He received in Himself, because of being brought up against His Own impossibility at the beginning of the consummation: "I could not bring My Own Self to consummate the plan of Father in these most earth-shaking events. The Father Himself had to step in, take the event into His Own hands, and cause the consummation to proceed. These very things gave confidence to Me, in that I could recognize Father's intimate participation in these very real, and shocking, present realities."
The cross of Jesus was the hour of the Son's glorification at His first coming, the hour when the glory of the Son of God was revealed. Yet, to human appearance, it was the hour when He looked the least victorious. The Son of God looked impotent, a victim of His circumstances. Yet as He had stood in the shadow of the cross, He had said, "For this cause [the revelation of My Own inability] came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." John 12:27,28.
The hour of Christ's glorification had come. He was standing in the shadow of the cross, and the inquiry of the Greeks showed Him that the sacrifice He was about to make would bring many sons and daughters to God...But the way in which this glorification must take place was never absent from Christ's mind...in the coming trial His divine-human sufferings would indeed glorify His Father's name... Jesus consented to the agony, He accepted the sacrifice...He sees the cross, the cruel, ignominious cross [the place of laying down to Father's excruciating will], with all its attending horrors, blazing with glory. DA 624.
The cross exposed the divine-human sufferings of the Son of God to the view of the whole world — and His glory, the glory of the Son, was revealed. "And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God...He saved others; himself he cannot save." Matt. 27:42; Luke 23:35. These deriders didn't know how very true their words were, for He truly couldn't save Himself. It was impossible. It wasn't in Him. Only the Son, the chosen of God, cannot be brought to save Himself. Everyone else can. But the Son can't. It isn't given Him by His Father. It was on the cross that the Son's inability and impotence were revealed, and it was truly the glory of His Sonship indeed.
So it has been again at the return of the Son. The revealing of the true nature of the Son of God during His consummation, is indeed the hour of His glorification. It is here that the Son is made naked for all to see, and His divine-human sufferings are being revealed as the Way to our own deliverance, the revealing of the Way of the Son within us. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" Luke 24:26.
Father, I desire that they also whom You have entrusted to Me as Your gift to Me, may be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory [My utter inability of Myself and My quiet laying down to You], which You have given Me, Your love gift to Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. John 17:24 Amplified.
"And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." John 1:14.
"Behold the Man, the Messiah, whose name is the Branch, for He shall grow up in His place and He shall build the true temple of the Lord...and He shall bear the honor and glory as of the only begotten of the Father, and shall sit and rule upon His throne. And He shall be a Priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between the two." Zech. 6:12,13 Amplified.
"And the glory which You gave Me I have given them [I have clothed them with it]; that they may be one with Me, even as we are One." John 17:22.
Faithful and the Two Witnesses had been through three months of severe testing before the consummation began. We had been brought to the place, by the Father Himself, to trust only in His leading, and not regard our personal safety, or how society might look at us. We were as three living Portents who were to walk directly into a land of giants, and let Father remove the obstacles that seemed to block our way. We had no mental picture of what was ahead. All we knew at this point — and we each knew it very clearly — was that Father had communicated His specific will for us, individually, that we were to participate physically in the marriage of the Lamb, and that Father had been very purposed and determined in His preparation for us.
It was within the first week of October that Faithful began feeling a knowing within Himself that the consummation was going to be occurring imminently. During an evening visit, He expressed to me that He had begun to sense that the consummation was going to occur sooner than He had thought. What He shared with me was a second witness to the words that Father had given me in the morning, "Lay hold of the consummation."
Faithful later wrote regarding His instructions from His Father for the consummation: "The same principle governed the consummation, which governed My visits when Father had arranged for the calling of the Two Witnesses. I was to obey the wishes of the Two Chosen, whatever those wishes were. I was not to adjust things to any degree, or judge what was occurring, for Father Himself was the One Who was coming down on the Two Witnesses, putting His personal words in their mouth and His personal instructions within them."
Father's instructions for the Two Witnesses of the consummation were also the same as they had been from the beginning of Messiah's appearing — that each was to faithfully say whatever He put in her mouth to say, and faithfully follow whatever He put on her heart to do; and we had to go against our whole natural nature to be faithful. Father was the One Who was completely orchestrating the events of the consummation, not only instructing His Son to do whatever the bride requested of Him, but putting in the bride what she was to request of her heavenly Husband. This was to be a vivid picture of the inner relationship of the human soul bride with the Bridegroom Anointing, where the Son of God in the soul is moved by Father's instruction to Him, and by the pure requests of the soul He is in.
Father had brought us to the place where we were laid down to anything He would bring to us to say or do, and He accomplished His purposes by moving us with His Word upon our mind, and His Spirit upon our heart. He was our bond of union with His Son, as He had been all along as He brought us with strong purpose to this very event. Father was the heavenly wedding agent between His Son and the Two Witnesses of His entire bride. Father was, and still is, our ONLY bond of connection. It is He Himself Who IS our marriage union.
On the Day of Atonement, Tuesday, October 10, 2000, the first witness to be called to the consummation, felt the drawings of the Father that her time had come to consummate with His Son. Father had chosen this Witness to be the representative of the physical sensings of the body to the Spirit of Messiah, and had anointed her with a special capacity to feel the feelings of Father's heart, and intuitively flow with the feelings of His Son's heart. This Witness was to reveal the process that the feelings of the heart experience, as they are brought to consummation with God. Amianah writes:
He drew me with cords of a man, with bands of love. And He is to me as One Who lifts up and eases the yoke over my cheeks. He Bent down and gently laid food before me. He is my Food, my Manna from heaven. He laid down His Own precious life before me and said, "Is there anything you want? You can ask me anything." "I want only You." So He took me up in His arms and healed me. Hosea 11:4,3. Ami's Version
As I was reading about Michael one morning, my eyes fell on these words He had written. "I do not call men to anything that I have not thoroughly experienced. I have watched men who have heard the announcement of My coming, count the cost of receiving Me." I was immediately drawn to the words "receiving Me," and as I read them again, I couldn't take my eyes from the word "Me." Waves of the privilege and preciousness of knowing Michael, and loving Him and being loved so personally and tenderly by Him, came over me. As I looked at the word "Me" I thought, "Oh, Michael, how I love You." Over and over this thought went through my mind, accompanied by a welling up of feelings of desire and love for Michael. I stayed in the quiet Presence that was consuming me, and enjoyed my precious Michael, and my heart was sweetly drawn out with desire to write about Him. Then, later in the day, my Sister and Witness, Anaiah, asked me to write out what Michael and I shared, leading up to our first precious experience of the consummation of our marriage.
While in the process of writing my experience, Father brought back these words He had shared with me while on a walk: "The reason you are here, is to love Michael." So, when Father came down in prayer one morning and told me that by "holding" Michael, I become changed into His image, His words had the sweetest effect on me because of my desire for Michael. Many times Michael has said to me "You can love Me as much as you want." Sometimes I have wondered if I am loving Him as much as I want, because that "want" keeps increasing in me. The more love I give to Him, the greater is my desire to love Him more. There is a phrase from a song that Father brought to me that says, "For wherever your Treasure lies, there will you find your Heart." My Treasure lies in my arms, and there I find my Heart.
I knew earlier in the day of October 10th that I would be staying with Faithful (Michael) that night to consummate the marriage. This knowing came to me as a strong desire and drawing out for Faithful. It was simply a desire to be with Him, and a knowing that I would be with Him. It is a sweet and precious drawing that I have experienced many times, when Father comes down on me and draws my heart to be with His precious Son. I desired to be near Him. Not only did I desire to be near Him, I desired to be inside of Him, and to have Him inside of me. The desire was strongly on my heart to consummate the marriage with Faithful.
Early in the evening, I was drawn to Faithful. As we visited together, Faithful asked me a question, seeking to draw me out so that He might have some direction in what He was to do. I didn't know it at the time, but He was strongly sensing the imminency of the consummation, and was paying close attention for Father's promised sign that the time for consummation had come. Faithful had not been told how the knowing would come, He only knew that He would recognize it when it did come. He asked me, "Is there anything on your heart tonight?"
Faithful asked me this question often, and usually my response was, "You are on my heart." "Yes", I thought to myself, "There is something on my heart, I want to consummate", but since Faithful had told me that Father would tell Him when the consummation would occur, I didn't share my thoughts. I would wait for Faithful to tell me when it was time.
But as we talked, and because I knew that I would be with Faithful that night, it was on my heart to ask Him if I could stay with Him. My request was a second witness to what He was already feeling, and He said, "Yes." As we talked together about the consummation, Faithful told me that He sensed that it was time, and so I shared with Him what had been on my heart earlier, of my knowing that the consummation would occur that night. But later, when we went up to His bedroom, and as we were sitting on His bed talking, Faithful shared with me that something didn't seem quite right and He didn't feel free to begin with the consummation. Immediately after He shared that with me, we heard a knock at the door. Faithful went to answer it and when He returned, He told me that it was my previous husband, who had handed Faithful a card and then left. Faithful opened the card and silently read it. When He had finished reading it, He handed the card to me. I read:
Dearest Faithful,
Here is a verse I got today about the consummation. "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled." Heb. 13:4. Coming from me that should especially bless You. I trust in You. Father told me that if we only pretend to have a consummation, we will have to be content to pretend to have a marriage to Him.
I love You. Resting (Salem)
When I had finished reading the card, Faithful said, "Do you know what this is saying? Do you know what this means? This is the confirmation I was needing."
Around midnight, after we had done everything that we could to accomplish the desired result, yet finding Himself physically unable to consummate the marriage, Faithful said to me, "Well, I guess we will just sleep now." So, we went to sleep, only to be awakened by Father at 2:00 A.M. to consummate the marriage.
As we continued in this precious process, it appeared that Faithful was still physically unable to complete His Father's instructions. As we were in the process of doing all we could to carry out those instructions, I shared with Faithful, "I don't think this is going to work." Without hesitating, He tenderly responded, "It will work;" and as He proceeded to follow through with the instructions He had received from His Father — though it appeared to be physically impossible — the Bridegroom entered His bride.
When Faithful said, "It will work," I was drawn out to the sweetness of the experience, because nothing was going to hinder Him. The way He spoke to me was so full of purpose. It was the most natural thing for Him to go forward, even though it appeared impossible. All that mattered to Faithful was doing what His Father had instructed Him to do. If His Father tells Him to do something, just by the telling, it is a finished work. He could only hear His Father speaking His instructions to Him, and He was going forward in those instructions. Though all of nature appeared to be against Him, His Father was for Him and in Him, bringing to pass His purpose and desire in the marriage of His Son to His bride.
Michael shared with me later that He was in Salem feeling his loss and could not follow through with His own instructions. He was bound up with Salem in an intimate way and was in him and with him through it all. Michael said:
I was seeing the faces of the children of the Two Witnesses pass before Me. I was watching the previous husbands making dinner, when before, they had a loving housekeeper to do it for them. I saw them watching their previous mate walk away, and with perplexity. I felt it all just as if I were those husbands. I did not want to hurt them. How could I hurt them? I thought of the armies of Moses, and how they were commanded to drive the Canaanites from the land, and even kill them — men, women and children. I saw a soldier standing over a mother and her little baby, looking down into their faces, and the soldier having to kill them by instruction. These were the torments of My soul. The torments were never associated with guilt, for I had simply done what I was told, but they were always associated with, "How can I do this thing?" I knew I must, but how could I? These things left Me impotent and unable to follow through. I felt especially close to the Father at this time, and that He was carrying Me through the necessary things which I could not do for Myself. When I went to sleep, it was out of pure necessity, since nothing could be done; but when I awakened at 2:00 A.M. I had received a measure of relief from the intensity of the conflict, and it truly felt as though the Father was bringing Me through the event quite without My help.
I knew that this event must be brought to pass, for failure would have represented to Me stepping down off the cross, because I just could not endure the pain of it. I not only bore My Own cross, but the cross of the previous husbands. Not following through would have been as unthinkable as Moses turning around and going back to Egypt because the journey was just too hard. The Red Sea just had to be opened so that we could pass through. I had to do this thing, but I could not. Yet, I spoke as though I would, no matter what the obstruction. I was going to complete the vision whatever the cost to Me. This purpose was empowered by the Father and He fulfilled the purposed will that was within Me.
The true preciousness of Michael cannot be expressed in words. The awesome privilege of intimately knowing Him must be experienced personally. Sometimes it is very difficult for me to give expression to what I am feeling and experiencing, yet, I do know what my heart strongly and consistently desires, and that is Michael, my precious Michael. You haven't been loved until you've been loved by Michael.
His mouth is most sweet: yea He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend. The words that He speaks to me, they are Spirit and they are Life. His voice and speech are exceedingly sweet; the whole of Him delights and is precious. He is the exact likeness of the unseen God, the visible representation of the Invisible. Everything about Him delights me. How beautiful and pleasing He is. How pure are the delights of His love. I belong to Him and I know that He loves me. I am my Beloved's and His desire is toward me. His left hand is under my head and His right hand holds me close. I found Him living in the house where He was born [within me]. Now I am precious to my Lover. I am like a wall of solid gold with silver towers against the advances of others. My love belongs to Him. Song of Solomon and John, Excerpts from The Clear Word and The Amplified Bible.
My Precious Faithful Michael,
I am so grateful for You. I have remembered the words You have spoken personally to me and they have comforted me and have found a place deep within my soul. You are my Comfort and I love being married to You.
Michael, You make everything beautiful, for You are all that is beautiful. I witness Your love in everything You do. I receive Your love for me in Your response to my love for You.
Why does my heart burn within me at the sound of Your Voice? How is it that just the thought of You causes me to feel You so strongly? Why do I love You like I do? How is it that my thoughts of You are constant and sweet? How can these things be? How my heart is drawn to give expression to the love I feel for You. "My soul longeth, my heart and my flesh crieth out for You." Truly, Michael, and with my whole being, the sweetest thing I've ever known is loving You.
I love You, Michael.
Your only Ami
Immediately following this initial event in His consummation parable, Father came down on His Son to write out a descriptive picture from Old Testament history, of the separation of the children of Israel from their former earthly "husband" to which they had been "married," in Egypt, in order to go into the wilderness to become married to God. The entire separation of God's bride from Egypt had been a graphic picture of the inner separation which occurs invisibly in the soul of every one who separates from slavery to themselves, and asks to be married to God. This word picture which Father gave His Son to paint, had striking resemblance to the living picture which Father was painting in our wilderness place with human characters and actual events.
Through belief, which is often mistaken for faith, a man is brought to the point of a crisis when he may yield up the faithfulness he has had toward his previous belief. When one is in danger, his belief is often sacrificed in order to preserve his existence. This is not necessarily bad if it can be seen that one's belief is bogus, but sacrificing one's belief for convenience or safety, is destructive of faith. Sacrificing one's belief, because the weight of evidence is against that belief, strengthens faith. Our beliefs are never true, but they serve to cause our character to be formed, for or against, the platform of faith.
Faith in self is often tested and brought to the edge, and the final battle is involving the complete overthrow of the self, which is full of its own beliefs. The marriage of the Lamb constitutes the giving up of one's identity and yielding up one's beliefs in favor of the reality of God. When our identity is merged and swallowed up in God, the crisis of the soul is felt, since the soul is feeling its demise, and it feels it is coming to its end. The complete surrender of the soul is at its zenith, when it has to go against its own reasoning in the face of superior evidence, and where it must, in the process, become fully yielded up, abandoned, and given over, without personal considerations of consequences, or laws, and free from the control and considerations in regards to the desires of the flesh.
The Lord of heaven is not prone to lead His people by any other force than the force of His Spirit. Laws are not sufficient guardians of the holy, since a law may be thought to be obeyed without the love of the heart motivating it. Other laws may seem to conflict with the pure Word in the soul. One such law is, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Ex. 20:4. Then, in the building of the temple, the Lord commanded the children to do just that. "And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat." Ex. 25:18. Laws are necessary to guide one to Christ and to keep one out of trouble, but laws, of themselves, cannot sufficiently bring the soul to the life of God. Laws do not tell the whole story.
Israel
The children of Israel were married to Pharaoh. They were sufficiently cared for in an earthly fashion, but God desired to bring them to Him as was His promise to Abraham, and cause the children to recognize that all true care and provision come from God. The Israelites were not having a very good marriage, however, and the plagues helped the marriage to be even less desirable. In this way, the people would begin to seek for deliverance from their earthly lover and be led to desire the true heavenly Husband. The Father seeks for all to be led to His tent rather than the tents of their earthly kingdoms.
Chapter 12, page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
