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Watch the Smoke

In The Gift Horse newsletter, we located the spiritual gifts the Bridegroom gave to Israel as a result of her gifts to build the Mishkan. Two main points emerged:

·     The Bridegroom’s spiritual gift is a re-gifting. Having received the Bride’s gift into the Heavenlies, He completes it in spiritual realms, and returns it to her completed in splendid beauty. For that matter, the Bride re-gifted as well, for the earth was created by the Bridegroom and her resources belong to Him.

·     The bridegroom doubles his gifts. If she gives this much, he gives that much doubled, or even more, because it’s not just a doubling. It’s an eternal bounty. It’s way more than a double portion. It’s a forever portion.

The forever portion is mentioned by the Bridegroom in Is 4:2-6. It will occur when “The Lord will wash away the filth from the daughters of Zion and purge the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning.” Jerusalem and the Temple Mount will be maintained in a state of perpetual holiness so that her covering of glory gift is never lost, nor does it decay.

So how will the Bridegroom remove those who aren’t fit for this most holy place?

I read a news article that stated since the war began on October 7th, 82,700 citizens have left Israel. People have gone to other nations. They just didn’t want to be there with the war going on. It wasn’t worth fighting for. He’s washing away some unbelief and godless motivation. He’s washing it off of us as well in the nations where we’re exiled. Judgment and burning has and will expose our own relationship with The Holy One of Israel.

He’s purging bloodshed even though we’re right in the middle of heavy bloodshed. Sometimes to purge something, it takes more of it in order to remove it. Let any unrepentance go up in smoke. According to so many of the prophecies of Scripture, filthiness becomes more exposed and bloodshed increases before we see the filth washed away and removed. When this process is complete, there will be those who are recorded for life in Jerusalem, not simply visitation.

The nations will be recorded for life in their assigned coastlands. They’ll have visitation rights, especially at the feasts. They’ll want to go up. They’ll want to be instructed and know how to go up to experience His Presence at those appointed times. But there will be a Bride who is not required to return to her nation because she is recorded for life in Jerusalem. She will have an inheritance in the land. She is a permanent citizen by the gift of the Bridegroom. The eternal gift passage in Isaiah says,

·     Then at that time the Lord will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies…

Assemblies. That’s what we emphasize all the time, Shabbat. The moedim. This is why we observe them, to rehearse living under the holy gift.

·     …over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy and [like a wedding chuppah] there will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.

This is the eternal gift that the Bridegroom gives to the Bride. She has more than eternal protection from the elements of the natural earth; she has eternal privileges in His Presence, for the cloud represents His hovering, covering Presence. She won’t have to go out from it anymore. She might be dispatched with a mission to the nations, but it is entirely possible that an individual so designated would never leave the Holy City. The land itself, according to Ezekiel, will extend from Egypt all the way up to the Euphrates.

The Land will be stretched out to accommodate the population of the obedient, protecting them from the natural elements. The cloud of His Presence may extend over that entire full territory of Israel, not the limited area that defines it today. Since the cloud protects even from the natural elements of wind, fire, water, and storm, those who farm the Land will enjoy it as the Garden of Eden descended, kissing the earth with the spiritual gift perfecting the natural resources.

Let’s return to another prophecy of the Bride’s garments of glory:

·     In that day, the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.

There are different kinds of fruit. One kind is that from the natural earth, but these fruits will be so glorious because they are Edenic fruits just like the spies saw when they prepared to cross into the Land. They didn’t believe they could live in that state of holiness, for Moses had asked them if they saw a “tree.”* Well, they saw lots of trees! Why one tree?

What about the Tree of Life that Moses saw on the mountain when he saw the perfect pattern?

It is from THE tree that all kinds of good fruit trees grow. The original tree, the Branch!

On either side of the river was the tree of life,

bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Re 22:2)

What Ezekiel described as many fruit trees, John sees as THE Tree. The Word of Elohim.

The ten evil spies did not believe that Israel, the Bride, could ever live in such a holy place according to the Tree of Life, the Word. Caleb and Joshua knew they could, and they survived, just like Isaiah prophesies of the “survivors” (4:2) of Israel who will live and cross over with the believing assembly at the appointed time.

There was a Mishkan (tabernacle) where the Bridegroom’s Presence dwelled between the cheruvim, who protected the entrance to the Garden and the Tree of Life, but His extended Presence hovered over the entire camp in a cloud. As the tribes are assigned to their places, if this cloud extends over all their dwellings, they never go out from His Presence. They never really have to go out from the Temple, in a sense, because His Presence that defines it will hover in such a dramatic way, like Isaiah described in his beautiful turn of phrase for the eternal gift that the Bridegroom will give the bride.

 How important it is not to give or attend begrudgingly into the assembly! Everything we have, everything we are, belongs to Him. In fact, Yeshua said nobody can even come to him unless the Father draws him. The fact that we even found THE Tree of Life, the Torah, is not to our credit! Torah is a gift for the holy assembly of the Bridegroom’s appointed times, the Bride.

The Father drew us to the Torah. It’s up to us what we do with it, but He drew us there, so no one can say the Torah is his or her own original work of righteousness. No, indeed. The Torah first dwelled with the Father, but now that it’s a gift in our possession, we must let Him dwell in us with the continuing cycle of the Torah gifting transaction. It’s an eternal relationship. We must never forget the origin of the gift, and when we give gifts of obedience, sacrifice, thanks, tithes, or first fruits to Him, it’s because He first gave to us.

Don’t just walk away when the smoke rises from your gifts you’ve placed on the altar of obedience. Watch the smoke rise. See your gift touching the spiritual realm just above the earth. See the enormous fruits your gift will transform into when you give with a willing heart…when you give because you want to know Yeshua and simply be an extension tree of righteousness from him, the Tree of Life.

Yeshua taught a rich young man that the Bridegroom does not desire humankind to simply check off commandment boxes. Selling everything to be with Yeshua on this earth would be like becoming a living prayer. The twelve disciples did this, not a random number. They prophesied of the twelve fruit trees that bear every month in the millennium because they are in relationship with THE Tree. The righteous Branch.

The Bridegroom uses mitzvot and prayer to draw us into the eternal gift transactions of growing, abiding holiness. The mitzvot help us to remain in close relationship with Him. Don’t just dump off an act of obedience. Don’t just mumble a blessing so you can eat or the Shma so you can sleep.

Linger. At least a few moments.

Watch the smoke.

*Numbers 13:20 is often mistranslated. The Hebrew text etz is singular, not plural.