Beware of Him...

The further along I get in the journey of being a believer in Yeshua and seeking that City whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10), the clearer I see that many of the generalized cliches so often said in the modern Body of Messiah are failing us and deceiving us.  This statement does not come from a spirit of anger, condemnation, or cynicism, but from simply being an honest observer of the fruit that follows from these cliches.  To be fair I have used these cliches when teaching others and have also embraced them when taught by others only to be let down and left wondering why God seems far away and His blessing elusive.  

Also, when we overgeneralize concepts without instructions and doctrine of how to do them, these scriptural concepts become cliches and wishful thinking at best.  It would be like going to buy a new desk that you really want and really need, but there is some assembly required.  You are more than capable of putting a desk together and all of the parts and materials are available to you for this desk to be a reality in your life.  Maybe you tell all your friends you have a new desk and you think about how this new desk will look and function in your mind.  Then you go to open the directions that will bring the reality of a new desk to pass and all it says is, “Put the desk together”.

Although a silly illustration, how is that any different than when someone says, “Be led by the Spirit”?  We all want the finished result of being led by the Spirit but what does that entail?  Someone may come along and say, “Trust in God’s protection”.  Well, okay, but what is our foundation for trusting in His protection?  

Now please understand I am not trying to cast doubt on the leadership of His Spirit in our lives, nor am I suggesting that God is stingy with His protection of His children. But, while reading the Torah portion for this week, Parashat Mishpatim, I came across this phrase, “Beware of Him”.  What does that mean?  Be aware of Him… acknowledge Him and what He wants to do.  Needless to say, this really got my attention. So, I went back and began to meditate on the verses I shared above and I began to see that when we say phrases like, “Be led by the Spirit” or “God will protect you”, we must understand the conditional aspect we must meet for these phrases to be a reality in our lives.  This is not works, but as you will see the conditions we must meet all revolve around faith.  So let’s examine the verse above so that we are able to gain more understanding and discernment so that we may experience the reality of being led by His Spirit and live under His divine protection as a reality and not a cliche.

Well, the provision of atonement is absolutely different in the New Covenant, because we have the perfect once-and-for-all atonement in Yeshua and not in the animal sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood under the Mosaic covenant. The faith and heart in walking with God has never changed and I hope I can show you that with New Covenant examples as we move through this.

Let’s start with verse 20:

This Angel of the Lord went before them so He was leading them, guiding them in a way in which they would not err out of the way to the bringing them to the promise God promised to them.  This Angel of the Lord was in the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night and according to Shaul (Paul) was the pre-incarnate Messiah Yeshua.

Right before Yeshua died He had a heart-to-heart with His disciples and told them this when telling them the Spirit will come when He goes back to be with the Father to do this:

From my estimation, it is pretty clear that the Holy Spirit in our lives has come to do the same thing the Angel of the Lord did for the children of Israel.  

But the thing is we must choose to be aware and attentive to Him and then do what He tells us to do.  If not, we are in danger of provoking and offending the Holy Spirit.  But here is the thing I find is our issue in the modern Body of Messiah… we are double-minded.  We say we want to be led by the Holy Spirit, but we often do not or are not willing to do what He tells us to do and go where He tells us to go.

Let’s look at the next three verses:

These verses explain why I believe we can be so often double-minded when it comes to listening to and obeying the Holy Spirit.  You see the Holy Spirit is interested in leading you into the Father's will and promise for your life and at times that leadership might lead you right smack into the middle of your enemies!  This is why the conditions of following the Holy Spirit are those of faith and not works.  We have to believe just as this verse says, that if we will obey Him, even if it leads us to confront our enemies, THEN He will protect us.  

I really believe that God is calling His Body to do some amazing things in signs, wonders, exploits, and the stuff of the book of Acts.  But there are two problems: First, we are so distracted even with things that are not inherently sinful. There is just so much noise and so many voices trying to intrude into our conscience fighting for our attention that it is a struggle to be aware of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.  I know there are many things we must attend to in life concerning finances, family matters, and the like but we must come to a place where we decide to be more aware of God than the world around us.  That does not mean to be weird, but to choose our focus. The second thing is to realize that almost all the acts of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts were done by followers of Yeshua in the midst of opposition.  But also remember that His understanding of protection may not be our understanding… His ways are NOT our ways… Stephen, Peter, and Shaul (Paul) experienced this in the New Covenant in the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit led them right into their enemy's hands and even to death.  

So how did God protect them?  He preserved and protected them eternally and they will have a part in the first resurrection, which is much, much safer than us preserving our lives here and now and missing the first resurrection.  Now, that does NOT mean the Holy Spirit will always lead His people to martyrdom, but we have to know the full extent of what it may cost.

The biggest hindrance from clearly hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit and obeying Him is fear of man and fear of our enemies.  It’s a sober reality that we may not realize, but when we yield to that fear in our own efforts to preserve ourselves it provokes the Holy Spirit. Do you know what the word provoke means in Hebrew? To embitter!!!  God does not get embittered you say, but the Scriptures are clear that we can grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesian 4:30) and the most visual example of this is in the book of Revelation when the same Angel in Exodus 23 speaks to the church in Laodicea.

In the geographical location of Laodicia, there were hot springs where water would come out of the earth.  Because the water passed through salt deposits and such coming to the surface it made the water impossible to drink at a lukewarm state.  It could be drunk hot or it could be drunk cold, but if it was drunk lukewarm it acted as an emetic causing vomiting due to the taste.  When we say we want to be led by the Holy Spirit but are unwilling to obey it puts us in a lukewarm state.

Now I do not say any of this to condemn, but to help us stay on track and beware.  For years I often wondered why God had such strong responses and rebukes to mankind's unbelief and doubt, but I have begun to really grasp it in recent years.  

You see, God our Father has amazing plans and promises for us.  He wants to bless us, and give us an eternal inheritance and land in New Jerusalem.  It’s His pleasure to give us the Kingdom.  He is so jealous and zealous for us, our hearts, and for us to be partakers of His promises and blessings, but because of the entrance of sin into mankind we must trust Him and Him alone in the face of a world wholly given over to satan.  Hard honest words come from a loving Father because He does not take lightly losing anyone to sin.