I saw so clearly the reality of the feelings and experiences that Messiah passed through the first time He came. And now, at Messiah's return, to see the identical overlay of experience, was full of significance to me and made You so much more precious to me.
The words of the song came to me, "Ev'n though the path I may not see, yet Master let me walk with Thee." You don't insist on seeing the path. You have no self-consideration at all, no self-consciousness, no self-protection, and no self-interest. You submissively and humbly wait for the Father's light and voice.
The Father showed me so clearly, that the secret of Messiah's noble, selfless life is in being nothing.
I am able to do nothing from Myself, independently, of My own accord; but only as I am taught by God and as I get His orders...As the Voice comes to me, so I give a decision; and My judgment is right because I do not seek or consult my own will. I have no desire to do what is pleasing to Myself, but only the will and pleasure of the Father Who sent Me. John 5:30.
Then the Father unlocked the door to that precious, secret place of being nothing with this key: "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven." John 3:27. Like a lightning flash, came the realization that the gift of being nothing is given from the Father.
From the depths of my spirit, an unspeakable yearning welled up into my mouth, as the Spirit formed words that were borne in a divinely supplied motive: "I want Your unselfish, noble spirit breathing through me all the time."
Immediately the divine response came, "Be it unto you according to your faith."
I am yielding and trusting You, Father, to administer Messiah's selfless, noble spirit, that single focus, continually and uninterruptedly. I was given a taste of it when You came upon me to hold Michael up to You, and You gave me what He needed. You came upon me and moved me by Your Spirit. And I yield to You and trust You for that continued Spirit.
As I took a walk in the darkness of the early morning, the following thoughts were coming to me from the Father:
"One can't know and enter into the life of Messiah or identify and relate to and appreciate His life without experiencing a divine taste of it from the Father. We only know as much of God as we personally experience of Him.
"If one has never personally felt Messiah flowing out of him in selfless, pure, tender, divine love from the Father, he doesn't have the foggiest notion of what Messiah is really like, and really can't humanly imagine what Messiah feels and how He thinks. You can't even know what to want from the Father specifically, until the Father gives that taste in your experience, so you are thinking and feeling and experiencing the thoughts and feelings of God. Then you can intelligently and specifically choose between the taste of His life and your own life. That's what my first love experience was like - I didn't know how it came, and I didn't know at the time how to keep it. But I had tasted God and I knew it wasn't me.
"If you haven't experienced in your own person a real taste of Messiah's life, you will only know what you are thinking and feeling, and put that on Him. You will clothe Him with yourself.
"It opened up to me so clearly how the only way we can understand Messiah's life is to experience it. What blesses Michael is not just someone seeing that He is Messiah, not just acknowledging or confessing Him openly, but someone experiencing His very own life - BEING Him. When He sees His very own life in a soul - from the Father, that blesses Him."
Now we have received the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 1 Cor. 2:12.
To him who is content to receive without deserving, who feels that he can never recompense such love, who lays all doubt and unbelief aside, and comes as a little child to the feet of Jesus, all the treasures of eternal love are a free, everlasting gift. 8 MR 186.
I saw so clearly that when one mentally considers something about God or the truth, but hasn't yet experienced its reality personally, it is only a pseudo contrivance of the imagination, and can never come close to the reality of God, because our knowing of God doesn't spring from our mind. The Spirit of the Father has to enter us personally, and bring us into the very experiencing of the life of God, and then we know in Spirit, in truth and in reality, by personal experience. Truth is born into our life from God, not from our mind. The mental understanding of what is actually happening in your own person comes AFTER the reality of having lived in it and experienced it. The true reality of what you have heard or read about, or seen in Michael's life, comes to you as a gift from heaven, and never looks and feels like you thought it would, in your preconceived human imagining.
I was led to Madam Guyon's words describing this very thing:
Perhaps you have heard that you should think on the different experiences of Jesus Christ. But it is far better for you to bear, to carry, these experiences of Jesus Christ within yourself. This is the way it was in the life of Paul. He did not ponder the sufferings of Christ; he did not consider the marks of suffering on the Lord's body. Instead, Paul bore in his own body the experiences of his Lord. He even said, "I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ." Gal. 6:17. Did he do so by considering such marks? No. Jesus Christ had personally imprinted Himself upon Paul. When the Lord finds a believer who is completely abandoned to Him in all things without and in all things within He will often choose to give that person special revelations of His nature. Abandonment is the means that the Lord will use to give you revelations of Himself. The revelation you receive will come to you as reality rather than knowledge. This was made possible only by abandonment. As revelation comes to you, something happens; Jesus Christ actually makes an imprint of Himself upon your soul. Each time He comes to you, He leaves a new and different impression of His nature upon you. Soon there are many different expressions of His nature impressed into your being." Madam Guyon
I am being awakened to notice a pattern in the way the Father works with me. I began seeing that each new place of experience the Father has brought me into, has come about by Him overturning the last place that He Himself had led me into. Just when it seemed I was getting used to the one place, it was found to not be sufficient any more, and its overturning resulted in freeing me into the next clearer and more peaceful place. This present place too will be outgrown, making way for the next one. "Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end...The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." Isa. 9:7 Amplified.
The Spirit that I felt this morning was a spirit of willingly and knowingly consenting to be one with the unvarnished life of Messiah - the quiet walking in the dark with the Father, the emptiness that has nothing in reserve, the humble waiting on the Father till He sees fit to bring light to the understanding, and Your purpose to obey His instructions without consulting the world view or anything else. Truly, "To be permitted to have a view of God is the highest privilege accorded to man." Precious Faithful Messiah, the Father keeps me very mindful of this highest privilege - of being placed so close to You, to enter into Your mind and feelings as You go forward in Your Anointing. I am so thankful to the Father every day, as He continually breathes the desire through me to be to You all that He has purposed for me to be. As I watch Him pass You through the varied difficult experiences that increase Your capacity to be to us what we need and to touch us deeply with Your feelings of that; and, as I watch how He refreshes and sustains You, my heart is drawn out continually in thankfulness to our precious, intimate Father and Husbandman. You are very tenderly lifted up to Him, precious Friend.
Michal.
The parallel between Nebuchadnezzar's dream of all earthly kingdoms being consumed and destroyed at the coming of the heavenly kingdom, and our own experience in the new land, began to take on more striking similarities. The Father revealed to the husband of one of the witnesses what His heavenly kingdom was about to consume and destroy. As he saw the nature of the earthly kingdom that was to be destroyed because it was no longer serving the purpose for which it was given, he said, "I saw that there was nothing for me to do - just willingly submit." In a prophetic revelation, he was shown in vivid detail the work that the Father was going to do for him personally. These are his words:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good. As time went on, I forgot His instructions. I forgot I was created in God's own image. I became afraid of God. I lost His love.
Now at the end, God saw what I had done to His garden and behold, it was not very good. God said,
I will overturn, I will uncreate his world. I will take off his animal skins. I will burn off his fig leaves. I will take away his hiding places. I won't even let him play church.
And when he was asleep, I, the Lord, opened his flesh and took his wife away. I chose her to be man's Rose of Sharon, but he didn't know how to love her. Only I can love her. I am the Only One who can understand what she needs. The thing he holds most precious I will have. I will be her only Husband. All of her affections will be toward Me. I will leave him with nothing. He will be empty, consumed, burned up. I will not leave one stone upon another. He will be filled with jealousy, humiliated, and brought lower than he ever dreamed possible. His kingdom will be taken away, and given over to another, even I the Lord.
Then when he is finally awake, when I have his attention, he will hear My voice calling him in the garden. He will be eager to listen to My call. He will stand alone. His protections will have disappeared. He will not have a wife to blame; she will offer him no fruit. He will see that he made it all. He will see his own nakedness. It will be just the two of us, no excuses. Only then can I cause him to be drawn to Me. I must have his whole heart. Then he will see I am in control. I am driving, he is only to sit and watch. I will control things in such a manner that he cannot understand. Everything will look wrong, upside down, backwards. I will show him My thoughts are not his thoughts. I will promise him everything will be wonderful. He will see everything as hell. I must do it this way to wake him up. His supports have to be cut off, or ripped out of him. He will bear his cross, or I will find a heavier one.
I will do all of this because I love him and I know his true desire. I will go through this with him. I will be Faithful. I am gentle and loving. He will finally see and be ashamed for not trusting Me. I love him too much to leave him here. I long to hold him and give Myself to him. He will soon be Mine, he will know Me, he will have My child--My very own likeness, born into him. The child will grow. I have said it, and I will do it. His struggles will be over, his chains gone, his plans dead. He will be Me. I will give him a new life. I will bless the latter end more than the beginning. I will breathe into his nostrils the breath of Life and he will become a living soul.
And from the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto me. And the woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, led me back into the garden. And the serpent was driven out of the garden. And Faithful placed angels with flaming swords around the new land to keep the snake out.
And they were both naked, he and his wife, and were not ashamed before Me. And the evening and the morning were the Everlasting Day. Israel
Subseqently, Israel wrote, "He (Father) told me at the very beginning that the consummation would be with my wife and that it would be real, not pretend."
This was at the very same time that the Father gave His Son clear words to describe His own mission and purpose for each soul. The two revealings were a dual witness to the events about to transpire in the new land, and they were given at the time of Tisha B'Av, or the 9th of Av. This memorable day in history marked the destruction of two Jewish temples that had both been ordained and built of God, but which had turned into earthly institutions and had to be destroyed. Before these two temples were destroyed they were both under seige, Solomon's temple by the Babylonians, ending in 586 B.C., and the temple at the time of Christ by the Romans, ending in A.D. 70.
Of the temple and the religious system which functioned in it during the time of Christ it is said, "The ordinances which God Himself had appointed were made the means of blinding the mind and hardening the heart. God could do no more for man through these channels. The whole system must be swept away." DA 36. So it was again.
Michael wrote the following:
As I lay on my bed last night, the Lord opened to Me the depth of man's separation from Him. How earnestly He desires to bring man into union with Him, but man's trust is only as deep as his ability to adjust his affairs so that he will suffer no loss. Man desires no humiliation, and he will not lay down his life when the reality of it strikes home. I was deeply moved at the solution for this dilemma. I gazed in wonder at it and found rest to my soul.
Our Father has a heart of love and knows the depth of our own personal strength. It all must be broken up. I will tear down your strongholds and lay you low. I will make the high places low and the low places high. Fear O earth, for I am about to destroy you in the fires of My love. Your judgment will have no value at this time. I am about to unsettle the complacent man and terrorize those whose righteousness is in themselves.
I will turn and overturn until there is nothing left of you. I, alone, will be exalted in that day. No wall will remain standing when I am finished breaking it down. I will enter you and sweep your room [My temple] of all its clutter. I will drive your voices out of you and have you only for Myself. I will not share you even so much as with the mind of man [your own mind]. All of this will not be forced from you, but happily yielded to Me, from one who has found Ishi - Husband. "And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi 'Husband', and shalt call me no more Baali (Baal) 'my lord'." Hosea 2:16.
I am your Husband. I, alone, will be in your heart. Would you withhold anything from Me? For if you withhold nothing, you will gain everything, but it does not seem so before you yield to Me. I will take away from you the strength of your self-respect. Your hopes and plans I will consume in My chamber. I will even remove your name from the Lamb's book of life for all to behold. I will leave you with nothing, standing bare and with your hands empty, so that I, alone, will be your sole Resource. I will take away your children and leave you with no dowry. I will cause the separation to break into all of your associations. Nothing will remain but a great plain.
Fear and tremble O earth, for I am come down to you and will leave you in terror because of My brightness. You will seek to call for the rocks and mountains to cover you, but it will be to no avail. They will have no power to hide you in this day. This will be seen as the strength of My love. My love will go deeper into you than you could not imagine in one of your most lucid moments. It will consume you and all your house. It will ravish your heart and leave you without strength. "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."
And at that time of the end Michael shall arise, the great angelic prince who defends and has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, straitness, and distress such as never was since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the Book of God's plan for His own. Dan. 12:1 Amplified.
This time is come when I stand up, or take My stand. Those who survive My terrors will be delivered. Those who survive being broken by Me shall not be disappointed. None who believe in Me will be left desolate. All who believe will be taken along side. The hour has come for the time of trouble that never was since there was a nation. Nothing of this kind has ever been seen on the earth before this, for all those who have been set apart will transcend the flesh and break through the fortress of their soul. This time of trouble is one of the soul, when I go in to break down the walls that have confined you.
In your time, I will take you into My chamber and terrify you with My love. My ways are gentle and soft, but there is no hope in there for the fearful and unbelieving. My light will burn away the noise of your mind, and, finally, when you are consumed, you will rest quietly and at peace in My strong embrace. Your mind [Michal] will be quiet and your torments [Taken] will cease forever more. Coming to that place will be your time of trouble, for the old ways of soul protection are annihilated.
I will lead you to the precipice and you will look down into the abyss. I will place a green cord in your hand with which to swing over. If you swing over, trusting in My Word only, delights will be found on the other side. The soul that fails to trust will end up on the rocks below from which there will be no reprieve.
There is nothing to fear at all if one trusts with his whole heart. I am taking My stand, and standing up, as it is written. All of the fearfulness in the land will be broken. All of the voices will be stilled. All of the places of safety but Me will be removed. The culmination of all the ages has come. The consumption of all things is here, for behold, the Lord comes in His glory to be glorified in His set apart ones. Michael
August 28, 2000
I went to bed at 8:30 PM. I was awakened at 10:30 PM, as the Father drew very close, and I felt the strong weight of His immediate presence over my heart. I heard the words very clearly:
I have hidden you in the cleft. I have covered you that you might lay the foundations of Zion. I have hidden you from the strife of tongues.
A brief vision passed before me. I saw my earthly husband give over his right as my husband, to Messiah. Then Father spoke again,
I have ordained that you bring forth much fruit.
The divinely supplied response of the Spirit was a yielding to the Father. All the way my Savior leads me. Father, I yield myself to Your purposes.
I knew now that it was only a matter of time until the Father would bring about what He had been intimating. I didn't know how He would bring it about, but He had shown me that He would. Somehow, He would communicate to my earthly husband that the relationship He was ordaining for me with Messiah, His Son, was of Him, just as the angel assured Joseph in a dream that Mary's pregnancy was of God.
September 9, 2000
On a walk tonight, Father unexpectedly brought back to my remembrance the vision where I saw my earthly husband give over his right as husband to Messiah. When the Father had given me that brief vision, I had simply taken it that He was seeing to His will in this matter, and I didn't give any special thought or prayer about it; but now as He recalled the vision to my mind, immediately He brought the following words:
It is a part of God's plan to grant us, in answer to the prayer of faith, that which he would not bestow did we not thus ask. GC 525.
He has given me those words before. It is always when He is asking me to pray specifically for Him to bring about His will. I knew He was telling me now to ask Him to bring about what He had shown me.
September 10, 2000
I was awakened in the early morning hours. Father imaged to my mind, going and kneeling by the bed of my earthly husband and praying for him as he was sleeping, that he might be fully brought into the Father's divine purposes for this time. I complied, and remained there until Father gave me the knowing that the petition He had put in my mouth was answered. Later, on a walk, as I was thinking about the unction and prayer that was put in me, the divine words came to my mind: From the time that thy prayer went forth, I am come to help. I recognized the thought that was being conveyed. In answer to the prayer that the Father put in Daniel, the angel was sent to Daniel 21 days later with the message:
Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind and heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come as a consequence of and in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the celestial princes, came to help me. Dan. 10:12,13 Amplified.
He is in your hands, Father.
I had never discussed with Compassion, my earthly husband, the unearthly path that the Father seemed to be placing before me. I had been very careful not to intimate anything to him, in any way, because if this was indeed the Father's idea, the only way I could rest in the full assurance of knowing, was for the Father to bring it about providentially, all by Himself.
If the veil had been lifted from the future, I would have seen exactly what the Father showed me in His brief vision coming to pass twenty one days later. I would have seen the Father come down on Compassion, draw him over to Michael's, where he unexplainably layed down his own life and his wife, for the fulfillment of the Father's purposes. He would write to me later:
I could offer no explanation as to why I was doing this thing - giving my wife and the mother of our child to Messiah. I was simply following the Father's inexplicable inner promptings.
Looking back, I clearly see Father's hand minutely coordinating every detail for the fulfillment of His plan. Truly, "His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower."
I relate very much with the experience of Mary's blessed yielding to the Father's will in another "unthinkable" divine plan. "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."
It was not Mary who was the active agent initiating her being overshadowed, she merely consented. In the same way, the divinely implanted inspiration that overshadowed my mind to gift my wife to Messiah, was the flowing of the divine Spirit for the accomplishment of His designs, quite apart from my personal inclinations.
The term overshadow is defined in the Greek lexicon as "the Holy Spirit exerting creative energy upon the womb of the virgin Mary and impregnating it." In the same way, the Father exerted His creative energy to impregnate me with the will to do His will.
An incident in the life of Mary Magdalene when she was led to anoint Jesus with oil at the feast at Simon's house, describes to me this divine outworking of the Spirit that I experienced.
"Mary knew not the full significance of her deed. She could not explain why she had anointed Christ on this occasion. But the Holy Spirit had planned for her, and she had obeyed His promptings. Inspiration has no reasons to give. An unseen presence, it speaks to the mind and soul, and moves the heart to action. Thus many actions are performed by the power of the Holy Spirit. RH 8-7-1900, DA 560. Compassion
