Room 110

We journeyed to Winnipeg, Manitoba this past week to teach and lead worship with our friends from Voice of Torah.  On the way up we stayed at a Super 8 Motel and we were given a key to room 110.  On the way home we stayed at a Day's Inn and we were given a key to room 110.  As you know, I do not take these things as "coincidences."  The Ruach uses them to give us important messages, if we have ears to hear.  So, when I got home I looked up my notes on the Hebraic attributes of the numbers 100 and 10.  Here is what I found:
100 = Holiness, or "to come closer."
10 = Humility
"Come closer to Me in holiness and humility" was the message of the room keys.  The Father was speaking; this is indeed the KEY to this season, my friends.  It suddenly hit me that He has named us "DoorKeeper Ministries" and He is giving us the key to the Door!  "I tell you, I am the door for the sheep.  All whoever came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door; whoever enters through ME will be saved." (John 10:7-9).

In the week before we left for Canada, our town suffered a massive hailstorm.  It hailed for a solid 45 minutes and the sound was deafening.  I stood at the door watching this onslaught of wind and ice and could only exclaim, "Oh, the AWESOME POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY!"  Every tree, plant, and crop in our immediate area was stripped and demolished.  Every roof in our town needs replacing.  Then two days later we were bringing our grandson home from the airport, driving north up the highway, when we saw the great plumes of black smoke billowing over the mountains west of us.  The High Park Fire had just erupted - and my mind recalled the prophecy of the end-time signs in Ezekiel 38: "I will execute judgment...I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstone, and burning fire..."
Hailstones and fire - all within my own eyesight! 

"Come closer to Me in holiness and humility," says the LORD.  "It is a season of judgment.  I AM drawing lines in the sand between "Ammi" (My people) and "Lo Ammi" (not My people)."  This message begs the question: how do we know who His people are?  What are we to be found doing during these days of judgment, these days in which the God of Israel identifies HIS people?  He has not changed; He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  And when He answered this question in the beginning, I believe He gave a timeless answer (Exodus 31:12-13): Then YHVH said to Moshe, "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe My Sabbaths.  This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am YHVH, who makes you holy."  Keeping the Sabbaths and the Feast Days of our God is a Covenant SIGN that marks His people!  We may still be in "Egypt" (the world, the nations), but we cannot look or smell or act like Egypt. We must be SET-APART.  This is the very definition of the word "holy" - to be a "peculiar people," defined in 1 Peter 2:9 as "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God."

Are we ready for this season of judgment and separation?  Will we be found with HIS mark on us?  Our walk is not to be a walk of legalism, or a quest for higher knowledge, or an attitude of arrogance and self-righteousness.  Our calling is defined by room key 110: "Come closer to me in holiness and humility!"  This is the key, this is the room for His chosen ones, His set-apart people.  This is where we are to go, pursuing the LORD with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength, bowed low before Him, in fear and reverence.  He is calling us to abandon man's traditions and man's calendar, and hear the clarion call of the shofar to get in rhythm with HIS time, HIS calendar, HIS cycles, HIS feast days! 

I have never felt more urgency than I am feeling right now, to sound the alarm.  Get ready, for the days of judgment are soon.  "Where shall we flee?" people all across America are asking me.  "Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by."  This is the LORD's answer, found in Isa. 26:20.  Even though America will suffer great judgment for her sins, we do not need to run to another nation.  We need to run to HIM - in holiness and humility.

Shabbat Shalom!

The Conclusion of the Matter

"Father, shall I sell now?" I go to the LORD with all my questions, even those regarding the stock market!  There are dire warnings out there predicting another huge collapse of the market, and although I have very little invested there, I needed some sound wisdom on the matter.  Hearing no response in my spirit, I decided to go to my Bible and open it randomly, hoping for some direction from my Abba, who knows all things.  The Bible fell open to the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, and the passages struck me so deeply that I not only got my answer, I got THE answer for all our questions in this fragile, chaotic, end-time world.

Ecclesiastes 12:
Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”—
² before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;
³ when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim;
⁴ when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when men rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;
⁵ when men are afraid of heights
and of terror in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home , 
    and mourners go about the streets.

⁶ Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
⁷ and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

I paused here to ponder those verses.  Clearly the Teacher who wrote these verses (Solomon) is prophesying about a time at the end of the age, when there is terror in the streets, when food is scarce, and not even water can be found at the springs.  He sees a time when the earth is returning to dust and gold and silver can no longer "save" us.  In fact, this phrase "the silver cord is severed" spoke to me of the "silver lining," or that sweet surrounding of God's love and provision over His creation.  In those days the doors are closed, and I thought of the passage in Isaiah 26, when God's people are told to "go into your rooms, close the doors, and hide yourselves for a little while" as God's wrath passes over.  Yet even in the midst of these dark and gloomy verses, the phrase "when the almond tree blossoms" bursts forth in surprising, unexpected delight!  The almond tree is usually symbolic for Yahovah's authority and sovereignty, just as Aaron's staff that budded with almond blossoms, right in the midst of Israel's slavery in Egypt!

"I am still here on the Throne," our Elohim is saying, "and you must not be in fear in these days, but you must be doing what I have called you to do." 

"Tell me more, then, Father.  What have you called me to do?"

He summed it up in verse 13:

¹³ Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man. 

Suddenly my question regarding whether or not to sell some investments seemed terribly unimportant.  Even though I know our Father wants to be involved in every area of our lives, watching over every step we take, there comes a time when He desires that we would take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  "Fear God and keep His commandments."  This is the conclusion of the matter, this is the whole purpose of our lives!  To "fear" Him is to have a great awe and reverence for the Creator of the Universe, loving Him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our strength.  To keep His commandments is to walk in His ways - not our own - which brings life in abundance!

Will the stock market crash again?  Undoubtedly.  The golden bowl will be broken, the sound of grinding will cease, and the sun and moon will turn to darkness.  But the Light of our God will burn ever brighter, and the sons of God - those who have held to the testimony of Yeshua and kept His commandments - will shine ever brighter.  In fact, as we are told in Daniel 12:3, Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness shall shine like the stars forever and ever.  But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end..."

And so I shut down the investment website I had been consulting, turned off the computer, and sat before my Creator, enveloped in a great shalom!