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Dr Hollisa Alewine – Footsteps of Messiah Part 142 (Watch the Smoke)
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.
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Dr Hollisa Alewine – Footsteps of Messiah Part 140 (A Gift Horse)
THE GIFT HORSE
This week we will do more work with the gift exchange between the bride and bridegroom. These exchanges occur from the time between their betrothal at Mt. Sinai and when the Bride is drawn into the Cloud of His Presence at the resurrection. To review from last week, the Bride sent gifts to the Groom to build a place for His Presence to dwell. In return, the Groom gifted Betzalel and Oholiav with the Divine ruach to transform those gifts into the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The Bride brought the Bridegroom thirteen items as gifts for the building of the Mishkan:
Gold
Silver
Copper
Turquoise wool
Purple wool
Scarlet wool
Linen
Goat hair
Red-dyed ram skins
Tachash skins
Acacia wood
Shoham stones
Stones for the settings
This list does not include items that were depletable, such as olive oil and spices for anointment. Then the Bridegroom gave her similar gifts, each mirroring one of her gifts to Him for the preparation of a Mishkan to make a place for His Presence to dwell with her:
“I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 16:10-14)
Enumerated for easier reading:
Embroidered cloth
Tachash (porpoise or badger) sandals
Fine linen (priesthood)
Silk (“cloud of glory”)
Ornaments
Bracelets (tablets of Ten Words)
Necklace (words of Torah bound around the neck/heart)
Nose ring (justice)
Earrings (Shma)
Crown of beauty (Divine Presence Is 60:19)
Gold (purity of Torah)
Silver (redemption)
Fame (of the Groom’s Name)
Again, the pattern is that the Bride brings earthly gifts, which the Bridegroom matches with spiritual gifts. The Bride contributes earthly resources, and the Groom mirrors them with Heavenly resources.
If she understands that that are two realms, and she understands He is Creator and she is created, she realizes the gifts weren’t hers at all. It was because of Adonai that the Hebrews plundered the Egyptians. He redesignated the wealth of the Egyptians to the Hebrews. The gifts Israel gave were His. He created them. It’s all His.
Adonai puts wealth in our pockets, so we can’t think when we contribute something to the congregation that it’s coming out of our pockets. It’s coming out of His creation. He even gives the ability to earn that money or that gift. Without His giving the ability to earn, we could bring no gift. Lots of people on this earth do not have the ability to earn anything at all. They have disabilities. Some can only earn a little. Simply to be born with the ability to go out and earn, labor, and collect that paycheck is a gift from Heaven.
We are brought up to believe we earn our paychecks, but they all originate in His Creation, and Elohim chose to make us able-bodied and healthy so we could give back to Him. He lets you put it in your pocket as if it’s yours. But we can’t be too sassy because He created both the Bride and the earth that yields its resources to her. That’s hard to acknowledge when we associate reward with the work that we do.
Yes, you contributed. You contributed your earthly natural resources to that paycheck, and you contributed some of that treasure back to Him. This made it holy. Designated. Just like the Bride. She is holy to the Groom. Designated to Him alone. The Groom rewarded you with the spiritual resources so that its status changed. It’s no longer secular, mundane, but a holy offering or tithe. The earth and its fulness belong to Elohim, yet He wants His unique creation, human beings, to take from that earth and offer a fine gift to Him. By passing the resource through the human being, it is elevated to holy status as the gift completes the circle back to the Creator.
Some believers, for whatever reason, choose not to give gifts to their Creator, or they give only sparingly…even though they have enough to do so, like Kain. Whatever the reason, they are limiting what the Groom will give them. The pattern is that He responds with a similar spiritual gift to the natural gift the Bride sends Him. Worse yet, there are non-workers. They have the ability to earn, they are believers, yet they have a pattern of not working at all or being such a lousy worker that they ensure they cannot hold a job to provide for their families, much less give holy gifts to the Creator. While the stingy believer withholds what he has, the non-worker refuses to even earn anything that could lead to the willing heart decision to give.
The Bridegroom wants us fully involved in the gift transaction, contributing to the welcoming of His presence. When we contribute earthly resources, we draw down His presence. He responds with similar gifts from the spiritual realm.
The future temple is the way that the Bridegroom imagined His creation. Every creation starts with an imagination, and so He imagined a creation that would be a fusion of earth and spirit, a perfect fusion that would be willingly obedient. Not spiritual beings, not more angels, but rather, messengers of obedience that would also respond from the earthly side of them. He would respond again with the spiritual, and it would be a marriage of realms.
Isaiah’s list of spiritual gifts to the Bride is an example of how the bridegroom in this interim sends gifts to the bride. She also sends gifts to him, and it heightens the anticipation. You get to know the other person sometimes by the gift. If somebody gives you a gift who’s never given you a gift before, you might be a little anxious because you don’t really know what kind of gift they’re going to think is a gift compared to what you think a gift is. I knew this sweet little old lady years ago, and she would go to thrift sales and bring me the moldiest smelling used clothes when she cleaned her closet. To her, it was the greatest gift of all, and I had to respond as if it was the greatest gift of all, because I understood the heart that was behind it.
There’s some trepidation when someone we don’t know well says, “I brought you this gift,” and we have no idea what’s going to be in the package when we open it! It will tell you a lot about the person, though. When we open the gifts of the Bridegroom, and when He opens our gifts, it tells us a lot about each other. We’re learning the nature and the character, the likes and the dislikes of one another in this interim period.
There’s times when I love to open these spiritual gifts because they’re awesome. They’re splendorous. They’re wondrous. I wouldn’t have even imagined to ask for the gift because I didn’t even know it existed until He gave it to me.
And then there’s other times the Groom gives a gift, and I have some reservations, because, it’s like a gift horse. If you look that gift horse in the mouth, you know that with this gift is going to come greater responsibility, greater demands, greater tests, greater trials. And you know that’s the reason it’s a gift is because those tests and trials are going to take you to another level of holiness, not because He’s unloaded some worn out old nag on you and called it a gift.
There’s going to be a price to pay for accepting this gift, but who would refuse a spiritual gift? We’re supposed to earnestly covet them. That’s a thing we’re allowed to covet, but they do sometimes come with a price when we open them. The bridegroom’s spiritual gifts are designed to increase our holiness because this fusion of heaven and earth called the New Jerusalem will be a completely holy place. Many people will visit from the nations; they will come up and visit at the feasts, but they go home.
Those who are recorded for life in Jerusalem will be called holy:
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. It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and 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. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. (Is 4:2-6)
There will be people recorded for life, but life somewhere else.
The Bride is recorded for life in Jerusalem, because, remember, there’s no rebellion in her. She has completely embraced the pomegranates (mitzvot) of the Bridegroom, the customary gift of the Bridegroom to the Bride while she awaits his coming. She has completely embraced His will, and there is no vestige or shred of rebellion left in her that would cause her to violate His will in this extremely holy place. If you violate His will in this extremely holy place, we have the pattern in Genesis. You get kicked out.
You can be recorded for life somewhere else, but not in the most holy place, where there must be 100% obedience and submission. “We will do, and we will hear” is the agreement of the Bride to the Bridegroom’s conditions of the marriage. Through the power of the Ruach HaKodesh, Yeshua is “grooming” the Bride to conform her will to his and the Father’s will.
This gift horse is no nag, but it can be a challenge to ride because it constantly transforms our earthly gifts into holy gifts of willing obedience. Accepting that gift horse is the only way to complete the circle of personal holiness required for residence in New Jerusalem, a place where natural and spiritual have a perfectly harmonious marriage.
In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “HOLY TO THE LORD.” And the cooking pots in the LORD’S house will be like the bowls before the altar. (Zech 14:20)
As she prepares, dedicating her earthly work to Him, allowing Him to turn it into a sacred offering, the Bride transforms more and more into the image of the Creator.
Just as He imagined.
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