August 21, 2015

 

 

One thing that is a certainty in God's economy is the fact that if you hear a genuine Word from the Lord in one part of the country -- or the world -- you are going to hear that same Word somewhere else.  It has been fascinating to me to see others in the prophetic community who are sharing nearly the identical Word that God has given to me; and that's something that lends tremendous confidence to the fact that we are hearing and sharing exactly what Holy Spirit wants His people to hear.

 

When Jesus began His ministry, he faithfully shared that what He spoke was what Father was saying.  What He did in the way of miracles, signs and wonders, He did what He saw Father do.  I'll get into this more as we progress in this series, but one thing that is very clear is that the Glory of the Lord will NEVER be released to, nor allowed to be revealed in folks who put limits on their responses to the dealings and drawing of Holy Spirit.  Let me give you a couple of quick examples.

 

The body of Christ has been plagued with what we refer to as "Cessationism."  That is a description for doctrines which do away with the gifts and miracles of Holy Spirit.  It relegates them to the life spans of the original apostles and prophets of the first and early second century, declaring that they died out with the death of those early leaders.  Correspondingly, those who espouse cessationism believe that one is automatically filled with the Spirit when they are saved, and that there is no need for anyone to speak in tongues in this day and age.

 

The problem with those doctrines is that there isn't one shred of evidence in the Word to support them.  At the same time, they miss completely the fact that what we refer to generally as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" is a door-opener into a realm of the Spirit that cannot be accessed any other way.  Those who espouse the idea of these things vanishing for this modern era do so because they themselves have never walked in this realm and have no idea what they are talking about.

 

We absolutely CANNOT place these kinds of limits on the operation of Holy Spirit if we expect to work the works that Jesus worked -- never mind the greater works that Jesus promised -- or even begin to see the Glory of the Lord revealed in the earth through the Bride of Christ!

 

That said, let's move on where we left off last week.

 

As I said last week, there are literally dozens of names given to the Lord to describe His various attributes, and I won’t take the time here to try to cover all those names; but let’s take a look at just those four letters that make up what we generally refer to as “the tetragrammaton” — four Hebrew letters that are words all by themselves with distinct meaning and character.

 

Yod : this is the smallest of the Hebrew letters, considered the “atom” of all consonants — the form from which all letters begin and end.  Jewish scribes treat Yod as a divine point of energy  Since Yod is used to form all other letters, and since (according to Jewish Rabbis) God uses these letters as the building blocks of creation, Yod indicates and depicts God’s omnipresence.

 

In fact, the letter/word, Yod, depicts the geometry of creation.  It begins with the Yod itself as a dot, and then moves downward from the divine to the created to form Vav, which is the hook of creation.

 

Yod literally means “arm” or “hand”, and in its form suggests a hand reaching toward heaven.  It forms something resembling a cupped hand, and is representative of care, provision, mercy and tenderness.  I don’t want to get into the weeds trying to deal with everything that Yod represents, so the last element of this letter/word that we will discuss its numerical value, which is 20 — a number which is revealed in the word, chazah, and represents vision — the capacity to see far into the future.

 

Hey: the Talmud states that God used the letter, Hey, to create the present world, and Yod to create the world to come.  Thus, Hey is the breath of creation.  The meaning of Hey is, “look” or “behold”!

 

Hey has always represented the divine breath of God, with revelation and light (and we see “light” mentioned five times in the Creation narrative.

 

Psalm 33:6 tells us that: By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

 

The Talmud states that “the breath of His mouth” refers to the sound of the letter, Hey — the out-breathing of His Spirit.  Uniquely, in Genesis 2:4, the Hey takes a smaller form than in the rest of the words denoting the “Son of God” and indicating that the Son was the actual breath and sound of Creation.

 

Hey has a prophetic connotation to it.  Whenever we see God changing names — such as changing Abram to Abraham, or Sarai to Sarah —  He inserts the Hey into their names as prophetic of what He is changing their character, nature and makeup to be.  Abraham and Sarah were changed from impotent, aging individuals into youthful, virile, life-giving people capable of producing a son of Covenant.

 

When we see God breathing life into Adam, and Adam becomes a living, speaking spirit, the Ruach breathed into him.  Thus, Ruach begins with the letter, Resh — which is representative of outward force — and ends with Hey — breath.

 

An interesting side note is that where the letter, Hey, has a dot (or Mappiq) inserted into it, that wind, or breath, carries a sound with it.  Thus when God spoke, His breath carried that prophetic sound which created the heavens and the earth.

 

Finally, we come to the letter, Vav.

 

Vav: this letter looks somewhat like a tent peg, and has the meaning of “hook.”  Vav is the divine connector between Heaven and Earth and represents the binding between the realm of the Kingdom of God — that which is spiritual — and the earth.

 

When we are told that God said, “Let us make man in our  image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion…. etc.” we see this in the letter, Vav, since this letter has the numerical value of six (6) and also resembles the form of man.

 

The way this letter is used throughout the Old Testament is rather extraordinary.  In Numbers 25:12, God makes a statement concerning Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, in which He says, “Behold I am giving him my covenant of peace.”

 

In this instance, the word, shalom, (for peace) has a broken letter, Vav, indicating the brokenness of man after the fall.  Not until we see the birth of Perez (from the union of Tamar and Judah) do we see the Vav re-joined together.  The Vav, therefore, becomes the symbol of Covenant.

 

Perez was the great-great (five generations) grandfather of Salmon, who married Rahab, whose son, Boaz, married Ruth, who gave birth to Obed, the grandfather of David.  The lineage of Perez, was representative of the restoration of the coming Covenant between mankind and the Lord Jesus Christ — that Covenant that would repair the breach between mankind and God, caused by the sin of Adam.

 

The restored Vav, therefore, is the connector between God and man, and is representative of God and man in union.

 

I remind you of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 in which He prays:

 

John 17:21-23: That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the                  Glory that thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one:

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

 

Thus, Vav is that part of the nature and makeup of God that makes His personality, His authority and power accessible to us, in us, and through us, through the New Covenant with Jesus Christ.

 

The letter, Hey, repeats as the fourth letter of the name of God, giving us Yod Hey Vav Hey.  The secondary application of Hey in the name gives us the picture of transcendence — authority and power — absolute dominion!

 

It gives us a picture of Holy Spirit and is indicative of why it became necessary for the believers on the Day of Pentecost to be filled with Him — for the breath of God to be given voice in them in the form and sound of the tongues of men and of angels — languages not previously learned, along with the accompanying evidence in signs and wonders and miracles to follow.

 

As an aside to the above, I know that there are folks who believe that it isn’t necessary for them to speak in tongues in order to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, but what they don’t realize is that the resistance to speaking in tongues is tantamount to a resistance to the breath of God breathing out of them with life-giving authority and power.

 

What they also miss by their resistance to allowing their voice to become an extension of the breath and voice of God, is that they also cut themselves off from the Glory of the Lord being revealed in and through them.

 

If we can’t allow our voices to be used by Holy Spirit and to be under His control as we speak things in languages we have no knowledge or control of, then we break the Vav in the name of God and reject the Covenant of Hey.

 

Let’s wrap up this discussion on the Yod Hey Vav Hey by noting that the last part of God’s “name” is Hey Vav Hey — pronounced, “hayah” in the Hebrew.

 

It is a literal picture of the Aleph—Tav, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.

 

Hayah is one of those extraordinary picture words which begins with: “to come into being.”  It is followed with, “to be established,” then “to remain,” “to continue to exist.”  That is followed with, “to accompany,” or “to be with.”  It wraps up with “to come to pass,” “to be done,” “to finish” or come to completion.

 

Remember what Paul wrote to the Philippians?

 

Philippians 1:6:  Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

 

THAT’s the picture of “hayah!”  God never begins something that He doesn’t bring to the finish.

 

And that brings up an interesting element of the Hebrew language and Hebrew thought, versus the Greek language and Greek thought.  Hebrew thought AND the Hebrew language are circular.  There is a beginning to something, but it always come back around to the completion and fulfillment of what began.

 

Greek thought, on the other hand, is linear.  All of our Western thinking and reasoning is based in linear Greek.  We have our reasoning and rationalization in Greek thought, and while the New Testament was written in Greek with frequent use of Greek similes and metaphors, it is entirely based in Hebrew thought.

 

Western images and concepts of Glory just don’t get it.  Consider the struggle that most Christians have today with something that Paul wrote concerning Jesus.

 

Philippians 2:5-11: Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]  Who, although essentially being One with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness and attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.

 

And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the Cross!  Therefore, [because He stooped so low] God has highly exalted Him and given Him that Name (onoma) which is above every name, That in and at the name of Jesus every knee should (and must) bow, in Heaven and on Earth, and under the Earth, and every tongue [frankly and openly] confess and acknowledge that Jesus Christ IS Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.  (Amplified Version)

 

I’m cutting this discussion short because of where we need to go next, but we wrap up with the fact that the promise of Glory comes both in the confession that Jesus Christ IS Lord of Lords and King of Kings — AND the literal fact of being IN Christ, and He being IN us.  Without those factors in place, we have no promise of Glory!

 

I remind those of you in need of ministry that our Healing Prayer Call takes place on Mondays at 7:00 PM Eastern (4:00 PM Pacific). Again, the number to call for healing is (805) 399-1000.  Then enter the access code: 124763#.  We also want to alert you to the fact that come September 14th, our prayer call number is going to change.  Our current conference line has experienced drop-outs and periodic audio quality issues, so this is needed!  We will keep you apprised of the new number in the days ahead.

 

At the same time, in case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:45AM Pacific.  That conference number is (559) 726-1300, and the access code is 308640#.  We hope to make these gatherings available by Skype or Talk Fusion before long.  If you miss the live call, you can dial (559) 726-1399, enter the same access code and listen in later.

 

Blessings on you!