Flames of consuming fire

AUDIO MESSAGE

 

In pt 2 of this message, I share how the Spirit is calling the remnant to recalibrate and arise and complete the blueprint of Heaven. The month of Elul is the period of time where there is grace to rightly align our hearts and be equipped to complete the decree that is still resounding over His temple remnant.

I want to share more with you about the prophetic significance of the month of Elul, the sixth month of the Hebrew year, which we have just entered. God released certain very significant prophetic words that are part of the Old Testament in the sixth month. And He used two different prophets to speak in the six month. The one I want to attend to first is Haggai. Chapter 1:1

 

‘In the second year of Darius the King, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest...’

 

I want to just first stop there and say that the word of the Lord came to two specific people; the Governor and the High Priest, in other words, the one was in a ruling authoritarian position and the other was in a priestly position. So prophetically, this is speaking of the word being specifically directed at the Melchizedek Priesthood - Kings and Priests. I also want to point out that Zerubbabel was the Governor of Judah; you remember, a few posts back, I spoke about Judah going first. And in Psalm 114, it says that when God brought His people out of Egypt, (or out of Babylon and the Babylonian system, in our case), Judah, became Gods sanctuary or His dwelling place or home. And it was within the tribe of Judah that He manifested His glory in such a way that the Jordan River opened up and let them cross and so did the Red Sea. This prophetic word that Haggai brought was addressing a specific situation in which God had, strangely enough, used a pagan king, Cyrus, to issue the blueprint for the return from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple that had been broken down. This blueprint had been released many years before Haggai, the prophet, brought his word from the Lord. In fact, I think it was 18 years before Haggai brought this word that Cyrus had both funded and commissioned God’s people to come out of Babylon & return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple that was lying waste. And yet here we are, 18 years later, and Haggai is still coming to address the situation. If you read an Ezra, it describes in detail the leaving of Babylon, the funding of the trip by Cyrus, the protection of those who had to go and carry out the blueprint - and the opposition that they received from the enemy; so much so that there were legal decrees passed that forbad the rebuilding of the temple until the second year of Darius. This is when Haggai came to speak a word from God that convicted and galvanized the people of God to rise up and to complete the blueprint that God had released.

 

So, these people say the time is not come that the Lord's house should be built. We see that the people are leaning on their own understanding; they're assessing the situation that they find themselves in, the prevailing circumstances of the time and saying, no, we discern that the time is not right to be completing the blueprint. And God speaks straight into that situation and says via the prophet, “Your focus is completely wrong!” God speaks quite sternly and says, “Is it time for you to dwell in your panelled houses while this house lies waste?” In other words, God is rebuking them for their priorities. And He is saying, ”You’re attending to your own houses instead of completing what I've given you to do at this time”.

 

Now let’s look at the word ‘panelled’. The Strong’s Concordance translates it as ‘cieled’. That's an old-fashioned word, and it can mean ‘panelled’, but it also means ‘roofed’. In other words, the people of God were building their own houses; they were decorating them. The houses were built of stone, but then they were cladding the insides of the houses. They were putting roofs on their houses. So, their own places of shelter were well taken care of, but the house of God was without its panelling and without roofing.

 

Now we know that the House of God originally had panelling and roofing made of wood because 1 Kings 6:9 says that Solomon built the house and finished it and covered (or cieled - that same strange old=fashioned word), cieled the house with beams and boards of cedar. And we also know that the Holy of Holies had a number of coverings on the walls - the wooden panelling made of cedar wood, and then another layer of gold on the inside. So, when you came into the Holy of Holies, it was completely covered with gold on the walls, but under that gold was the cedar panelling. God is addressing two things here: He's saying, “Not only are you paying minute attention to your own shelter; your own dwellings, to making yourself feel safe, secure and well surrounded with beautiful things, but also your house has roofing and shelter from the elements”. In other words, you've been spending your time and attention on making a shelter for yourself, instead of using your energy to complete the blueprint that was released! God calls them to consider their ways and to look at the fruit of their lives in Haggai 1:6; they've put in a lot of effort. They've sown much. Yet they've had small harvests. They've eaten, but they don't ever seem to have enough food. They managed to clothe themselves, but they are not feeling warm and their wages are just evaporating away! In other words, they are not thriving, in spite of all their efforts, they are not living in a place of plenty. God says to them, “It's because your priorities are all wrong!”

 

The month of the Elul is a transition bridge between the year that's passed since the last Rosh Hashanah and the upcoming Rosh Hashanah of the new Hebrew year that begins in the seventh month. So, it is a month of bridging. I wrote a word some years ago, which you can find on the Storehouse page of my website, it's called ‘the Transition Bridge’, and in it, God gave keys for how to traverse this bridge of transition or season of transition. He said to me that there are three stages. The first stage is disorientation. So, you separate yourselves from where you have been; the season you have been through; the things you've been involved in, and you're cutting the ties and becoming disconnected with what has been before - Disorientation. Then the middle section of the transition bridge is Recalibration to Heaven's blueprint, the plumbline of Heaven-given standard - Heaven's blueprint. And after Recalibration, you get Reorientation, which, now that God has tweaked you on the inside so that you are functioning according to Heaven's blueprint, He reorientate you and face you forward in the direction you're supposed to be going - and you can see your target. Finally, as you step off the transition bridge, manifestation comes! So the transition bridge is disorientation, recalibration, reorientation and then manifestation, and we can see this whole thing playing out in Haggai Chapter 1. God is disorientating them from the wrong focus. He says their understanding of the times is wrong. This is not the time to just be comfortably dwelling in your panelled, roofed houses when My blueprint is not complete. Stop focusing on yourselves. And then He says in Haggai 1:7, “Consider your ways; weigh things up, assess the situation, how have you been living? What have you been spending your days doing?” And when you do that, Melchizedek Priesthood, you discover that you have still been focused upon yourself; on preparing for the end times; preparing for the time when you can't buy or sell. Or making sure that the dwelling place that you're creating for yourself for these endtimes is going to be comfortable, secure, and you are going to have enough provision. God says, “Look, just look at what you've been doing and all the effort you've been putting in, and still you do not have enough to sustain you for this period that lies ahead, when you disentangle yourself from the spirit of Babylon and come out of Babylon and its financial supports and provisions, and you move out of that womb of preparation into the time of being the Church in the wilderness - completely dependent upon God. God is saying, “Too much effort, too much focus on your own needs, your own comforts; Your own future & own shelter, your own safety from the elements. Because you have been thus focused, I have closed the heavens over you, and withhold the dew and the earth withholds its produce. I have called for a drought upon the land and the hill country, on the grain, the wine, the oil.” The word ‘dew’ in Hebrew also means ‘sparkling light’ (there is a scripture in Isaiah that says ‘your dew will be the dew of sparkling light’), so prophetically, dew always represents heavenly revelation and light that is released to you in the early morning hours. Like the natural dew, it falls very quietly. And if you're awake early and spending time with the Lord, it is the dew that brings the daily manna of revelation with which you are fed. God is saying, “Because your focus has been too much on self instead of upon completing My blueprint, I have withheld the revelation that you need to move to where I'm wanting you to be going in the next season”.

 

Many people are seeing and feeling the urgency of the hour – “God, where do You want us to go? I know we need to come out of the cities. I can feel the noose tightening as I move down the birth canal. I need to get that off over my head and not look to Babylon for provision. But at the same time, where am I going? God, I don't know where you're pointing and I don't know what to do next”. And God is saying, “Because you haven't been focused on My blueprint and My house, which needs to be completed, I am withholding revelation and there is no fruit of your labors”. So, Zerubbabel and Joshua, along with all the remnant of the people who had come out of Babylon, hear God. (Obviously, this is the endtime remnant in our case, that is being referred to here). There were three waves of God's people that came out of Babylon and returned to Jerusalem and. remember, Judah goes first! Zerubbabel and Joshua, along with all the remnant of the people who had come out of Babylon, listened and obeyed the voice of the Lord - the Amplified says ‘not vaguely or partially, but completely, according to the prophetic words that had been given by Haggai’, since they knew that the message was from God. And it says in Haggai 1, ‘and the people feared and turned to the Lord’.

 

Now, Haggai, 1:12 describes the recalibration part of the transition bridge. They recognize this is a word from God that pierces their heart at their wrong focus. And they immediately recalibrate and realign themselves, according to the prophetic word that has been released. The next part of the transition bridge would be Reorientation. What is really interesting is that the transition bridge has three phases, and these people who listened to and obeyed the prophetic word to bring realignment to the blueprint, actually took three weeks to complete the realignment! Haggai received the message on the first day of Elul and verse 15 tells us that everybody was ready to labor on the House of the Lord of Hosts on the twenty fourth day of the sixth month (three and a half weeks later).

 

So, when the people of God recalibrated and realigned to God's will & blueprint, then there is like a kiss from the Lord after their obedience: Haggai 1:13. ‘Haggai, the Lord's messenger, spoke the Lord's message to the people saying, I am with you, says the Lord”. Do you remember in part one of my message on Elul, I spoke about how it's the month when the king is in the field and very much available to His people, and that it was a prophetic declaration of Tabernacles to come. When God says through Haggai ‘I am with you’, it's like Him saying ‘the king is in the field, it's Elul and the King of kings is in the field with His willing people’. Psalm 110, so prophetic for this end-time, verse 3

 

‘Your people will offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in the beauty of holiness, out of the womb of the morning. To You will spring forth Your young men who are as the dew’.

 

So, people will offer themselves willingly. Yes, Lord, we realize as part of your remnant company, as part of your Melchizedek Priesthood, we realize that our focus has been wrong and we repent. We offer ourselves and we are willing in the day of Your power, out of the womb of the morning.

 

Because of the wrong focus, God says He has withheld the corn, the wine and the oil. This is a veiled reference to Tabernacles as well, because although wheat is harvested at Pentecost, there is another wheat crop that is harvested at Tabernacles. And when God discusses corn, wine and oil, you know He's talking about the fall harvest; the Tabernacles harvest. Elul is the beginning is the month in which they begin to harvest the grapes and the wheat, the figs and all the species that are offered at Tabernacles. The last harvest that is completed is the olive harvest. So, when God says, “I've withheld the corn, the wine and the oil”, basically, prophetically, He's saying, “You're not going to experience God in the midst of you and a wall of fire round about you until you realign to My blueprints; until you realign to what I released and called to be done many years before”. When you realign and are recalibrated to the plumb line of the blueprint of Heaven for the 9ndtime Remnant, then immediately upon that realignment, God says, “I am with you. The King is in the field”. And therefore, the drought is called off and the dew of revelation begins to be released.

 

Now, the last thing I just want to talk to you about is the panelling, because that was the first thing the Lord had emphasised; these cieled houses. What does that represent? Prophetically, obviously, yes, it's a completion. I mean, a house is not complete until here is a roof. But the panelling on the inside of the Holy of Holies also speaks about something. Note the gold that was put on top of the wooden panelling could not be put in place until the wooden panelling was there. Isn't that interesting? Because gold represents glory and the Holy of Holies cannot be fitted out and apportioned the glory that it is supposed to have until the panelling has already been laid down.

 

So what does God say? What is this instruction to this remnant that has come out of Babylon? “Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house. And I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified”, says the Lord. These are His instructions. Come up higher, remnant of God. Come up higher, Melchizedek Priesthood; come up higher, tribe of Judah; the forerunner company. Go up to the mountain of the Lord, acquire wood and build the house. Now we know, from what I've shared about the paneling, what the wood was to be used for. So, if we look at the Hebrew word for ‘cieled’ , it means ‘to hide by covering, specifically to roof, or wainscot (which is panelling on the bottom half of a wall). And figuratively, this word means ‘to reserve, to set aside, to mark and to keep in reserve for later, and to cover’. And it also means ‘seated’.

 

Now, that's very important because when we're talking about finishing the blueprint of the Lord's house, (obviously we are the house of the Lord), the Temple of the Lord had three areas; an outer court, a holy place and a Holy of Holies. And the holy of holies is what had the panelling. So what we are going to be doing when we are recalibrated and refocused upon the Lord's house is going to be completing the preparation and the building of the place within which the manifest presence of God is going to be expressed and experienced. It was the Holy of Holies that contained the Ark of God with the cherubim covering it. It was the Holy of Holies which was called the Oracle, or the ‘speaking place’ by Solomon. So that is what God is calling us to in this month of Elul, endtime remnant. He is calling us to take our focus off providing for ourselves a safe and a comfortable dwelling place in the times we're moving into and focused on completing the blueprint of His Holy of Holies. Why? Because God wants to dwell in the midst of us as His temple, but the place where He manifestly dwells is the Holy of Holies, and that place is not fully rebuilt spiritually. The panelling is not in place because God's endtime remnant have not come up higher. They are focused on earthly things, on earth provision; on temporal things. Yes, they're doing this because they understand the urgency of the hour with the umbilical noose around the neck as they start to move out of Babylon. But God is saying, “You're looking at Babylon, you're looking at what they're going to do to you. You're looking at the possible suffering and lack that you are going to have instead of coming up higher, aligning to My blueprint, receiving the dew of heaven and allowing Me to move you forward to full birthing into the wilderness season. Here is where I will provide for you because I am going to be in your midst in glory. And I will be a wall of fire round about you:

 

So this message from Haggai is part of taking the noose off the neck, because we have been looking at the provision of Babylon and we're trying to work out a way to be provided for. But as we focusing on that umbilical cord of Babylon, instead of saying, “God, You are my provider and I've never seen the righteous forsaken, or their seed begging bread? You fed a million people in the wilderness, every day for 40 years, with manna and with meat. And God, You are the same yesterday, today and forever, and You are able, I do not look to Babylon. I do not look to Mammon as my provider. I look to You. I receive my portion from Your hand. I am fed from Your hand and I trust You. Now, what is it You want me to do to complete Your blueprint in the earth? I am Your bond servant. You provide for me. You take care of me. I delight to do your will”.

 

In Haggai, it says in verse 14 that after they had realigned and recalibrated, ‘the Lord stirred up the spirit of the Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah and the spirit of Joshua and the spirit of the remnant of the people’. Isn't that beautiful? When they recalibrated and realigned and offered themselves as willing in the day of His power, He did a work in their hearts, and He began to stir up their hearts. I was reminded of stoking the coals of a fire. The Lord that stirs up the fire in the hearts of the governor and the high priest and the remnant of the people God fans into flame the zeal in our hearts for His purposes in this month of Elul and that word ‘stirred up’ in the Hebrew means ‘to open the eyes, to awaken and to lift up and raise up’. So that takes me right back to Song of Solomon, Chapter 8:5:

 

‘Who is this that comes up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved.’

 

There we have the full weight of all that concerns us being put upon our Beloved. And he says, “I raised you up”. It's the same word used in Haggai. Raised up under the apple tree; I mentioned in a blog post at the beginning of this year, 2021, about word for Appletree being ‘tappuach’, coming from a root which means ‘to kindle, to breathe’, and how it is the breath of the Bridegroom upon us that awakens us; that raises us up. And I spoke about hand pollination, how there is a taylor-made word for each remnant saint, as they spend time saying, “Lord, breathe upon me”. For some of you, this will be a familiar message. But what we have found is that in the months since I gave that message, because of the unfolding things on the world front with the lockdown's, the restrictions, the persecution, with the bringing out of the hexine and it being made compulsory, left, right and center in many nations, there's so much pressure. “What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? How will we survive? We know that we do not want to give up our temples to be defiled or our DNA changed. But God, how do we make a plan?” And there's been a loss of focus on the receiving of the breath of the Lord. This breath of the Lord and the word it carries is what raised Adam up. God had to breathe into him. The breath of the Lord has resurrection power. It has the ability to impart zeal and fan the flame. We need to complete the blueprint. Remember, Jesus said, “Zeal for Your house has consumed me”. And zeal for God's house can only consume us and be like a burning fire in our hearts if God stirs up our hearts.

 

God is jealous over us, beloved. He is jealous for our attention. He wants our hearts to be full of the consuming fire of zeal for His house and His blueprint, and He will take care of what unfolds down the road. So this month of Elul is the time of disorientation and recalibration as we move through the transition season towards Rosh Hashanah. They started working on the completion of the building of the temple and the paneling and the roofing on the 24th day of Elul. That is when they were all assembled, all in place, offering themselves willingly. They had dealt with their fears. They had dealt with the issues. They had come up higher to the hill country and the mountain. They had acquired wood to come and to complete the task.

 

Now, what does the wood represent? Here is where it gets interesting, the panelling that was in the Holy of Holies was cypress. In 2 Chronicles 3, it's describing the work that Solomon did for the House of the Lord.

 

3:5 ‘the greater house, (which was the holy of holies), he sealed with panels of cypress’.

 

Some translations say ‘with fir tree’, but it's actually in Hebrew is ‘berush’. It is the cypress tree and that word also means ‘musical instruments’. And so that's talking about worship, isn't it? We are musical instruments. We all  have voice boxes and we can release a sound of worship. As we come up higher to the mountain of the Lord and as we worship, as we are figuratively cutting down the cypress trees on the mountain of the Lord to panel the Holy of Holies. We do it by releasing a sound of worship. The wood panelling was overlaid with fine gold, with pure gold. In other words, first must come the panelling, first must come the laying down of our lives as musical instruments that release worship. You know, when you worship something, you have to focus on it. Haggai brought a rebuke word about wrong focus/ Focus and worship go together. In other words, God is saying, “Focus on Me, worship Me, let the sound of your mouth not be the sound that discusses what Babylon is doing with the hexination. Let the sound that comes out of your mouth and out of your being, be one of worship”. When we come and recalibrate and realign to the plumbline of the blueprint of Heaven, where we offer ourselves willingly in the day of His power, then our lives become a living sacrifice, which is our acceptable worship. Right alignment and right positioning release the sound of worship and that sound of right alignment and surrender is what panels the Holy of Holies, so that the gold can then be overlaid on it. And the ark of His manifest presence can be positioned.

 

So Hagai 1 is an incredibly powerful, prophetic scripture for the end time preparation in this month of Elul, before we go into 5782. The Hebrew word translated ‘wood’ here also means ‘a gallows’. In other words, the bringing of the wood speaks about death to our own plans. If someone builds a gallows, there's going to be a death involved - a death of self. There's a death of trying to panel your own house and put a roof on your own house, and zeal for God's house just consumes you. And a sweet fragrance to the Lord is released in this month of Elul released by dying to self and the living to the blueprint of Heaven. When we go up to the mountain and bring wood, the tree that we chopping down is ourselves. The Bible says that man is like a tree of the field and we need to take up our cross daily to follow Him. In this month of Elul, we're saying, “Lord, I die to self. I chop down the tree of my own life and I offer it as paneling to complete the building of the Holy of Holies and to what the kingdom of Heaven wants to do in and through the temple of God”. It's very important that the Holy of Holies portion of the temple gets completed, because those who know their God shall be strong and do exploits. But you can only know your God and do exploits if you are part of the endtime Remnant that has the manifest presence of God within you - you are a portable ark of God in the earth. But none of that gets puts in place; the outpouring of glory, the outpouring of equipping, the dunamis power will not be poured out in our midst until the blueprint is completed, until the panelling is completed. So, I'm calling you. remnant of God, to refocus, to come up higher, to become a musical instrument that releases worship through being a living sacrifice and offering yourself willingly aligned with a blueprint of God in the earth.

 

Those who seek to save their lives will lose them. But those who lose their lives for the sake of the Bridegroom will have much more - you know that scripture! Our efforts must not be put into saving ourselves in this month of Elul. Yes, He does have personal blueprints for each of us. And yes, He does have plans and revelation that He wants to release about what your entire positions are and where He's taking you and what He's going to do with you. But that He only releases in the reorientation section of the transition bridge, because He cannot reorientate you until you are rightly recalibrated to the blueprint of Heaven. That recalibration is ultimately a complete lack of focus on self and a complete, utter fixing of your eyes on Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of your faith, so that you can complete the race.

 

May the Lord bless you; may the Holy Spirit make connections with what He's been saying to you personally, may He increase the amount of light and of understanding you receive through reading this message and may you be stirred up within by the Spirit of the Living God. May He awaken and kindle and breathe upon the fire of zeal within your hearts for His house in this month of Elul, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen