Proof of Restoration

Proof of Restoration

3/7/16

Many people who struggle with God and His presence have questions concerning His authority and what makes Him so great.  Often the sticking point for these people is the fact that they cannot get past the point of the relevance and “job” of God.  They always are skeptical about how He works and why He is needed in our lives.  I wish I could state that only people who do not believe in God have these questions, but it is evident that people who are sitting in church walls today have the same doubts.  God does provide answers to these questions and He gives us a huge example in a famous story concerning restoration and just how important it is to Him.  Without restoration, our lives would not mean much nor anything to proceed towards in faith.

Most of you have heard the story and reference that god shared with us a while back of when I was witness to a house fire across the street from mine.  It is an event that still protrudes in my mind to this day and one that I will probably never forget either.  It did not take long for the fire to engulf the entire house and by the time that the firefighters had extinguished the fire the entire house had been torched and burned to the ground.  This is what we expect to occur when a fire is allowed to burn freely with the free fuel that it encompasses and then uses.  Fire is an opportunistic element and will use every available fuel in order to keep itself ablaze and active; in fact, when forest fires occur the firefighters actually claim that fires sleep which adds another dimension to their “life”.  Not many burning objects survive after a hot fire has engulfed their presence and those that do survive, usually are stunted.

We remember that Adam and Eve had held a perfect status before they disobeyed God and allowed sin to enter into our existence.  It was before the fall that God walked with Adam and Eve on a daily basis and had countless hours of conversation about holy and conceptual order that only spirit can understand.  God protected Adam and Eve with His spiritual covering while they lived in this perfect state.  God did not have a covenant per say at that time but because of their perfect standard in place, God did provide the necessary protection around them.  When they fell, God reiterated to them His covering with the skin of an animal sacrifice and this began the journey towards the covenant that God would establish with mankind sometime down the road with Abraham.  When mankind fell, God could not walk on the earth any longer because it was no longer in the perfect state that He had created it.  He cursed it, later lifted the curse but still the earth was not holy, its status had been changed.

Most of us have read the story of Moses and when he encountered the burning bush.  Exodus Chapter 3 tells us of this story and how important it was to Moses and to God concerning the bondage that Egypt had on God’s Children.  This is a powerful command that God personally delivers to Moses and one that will shape the children of Israel for decades to come.  The message that God gives to Moses in this passage has been taught to all those who have been in church but there is a specific detail that I have not heard about until God pointed it out to me a while ago.  While the overall concept of this passage deals with deliverance there is an important detail that needs to accompany deliverance and it is called restoration, for if one is delivered and no personal restoration present, what good has been achieved through such an act?

In the latter portions of Exodus Chapter 2 we see that Moses is now on the run because of the acts that he committed.  This cannot be a very special time in Moses’ life for he is on the run from the most powerful empire on the planet and from a leader who has taken a personal interest in this case.  Moses, being a man of Egyptian status, makes the case for Pharaoh, even more, concerning so a complete “falling off the earth” setting must be achieved if Moses is to survive.  Moses arrives in the land of Midian where while still in hiding his fortunes turn with the priest of Midian.  Moses eventually marries one of Jethro’s daughters and Moses’ family begins.  After a certain amount of time, the king of Egypt died and Moses had heard of this event.  During this time, the cries of the children of Israel became louder to God and God knew that it was time that they were freed.  God chose Moses for this task and chose Him in quite the extraordinary fashion.  Even though Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he knew that he was an Israelite by blood and birth which stemmed the killing of the Egyptian sometime prior in his life. 

When Moses was working with his father-in-law’s sheep, he led them to a certain point in the desert and then he came to the mountain of God.  It was here that Moses began to see a bush burning with fire but did not burn up.  I do not know about you but even though Moses knew who God was and of His presence, seeing a burning bush would literally stir me to the core, so Moses had to be a tad nervous when this act was unfolding before his eyes.  God called out to Moses from the bush and Moses then replied.  What God stated next is the point that He wishes for us to see through His article “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground”.

There are many aspects to the setting which are transpiring in this single verse, but it is the presence of God and what He does to the ground that is what He wishes for us to understand.  When Adam and Eve walked their Garden of Eden and before sin entered into their existence, they were naked.  They had no articles of clothing that separated them from the ground.  Their bare feet touched the ground on a continual basis without any fear of being harmed.  The ground that God created was holy and pure in every way possible, just as the ground in which He formed us when He created our existence.  When I walk through our grass without any shoes on, it is a unique feeling and one that brings nothing but comfort to my feet.  I know that the grass in my yard is not perfect and that at any moment I could step on something that would change my view of my grass, but the majority of my grass feels good to the touch and I can only imagine what a pure and unadulterated grass creation could feel like.  This is the setting that we need to understand when God and Moses met through the burning bush, for God states that the place that Moses stood was holy.

God recognized that Moses did not understand what was going on at that specific moment and that is why God reinforced His law of holiness when the time came for direct conversation.  God wanted to squelch any doubt from Moses’ mind that God was in control of the situation and that there was an important item on His agenda.  But it was the presence of God Himself, on a perfectly created ground, then cursed, then on a flawed platform that God wanted to ensure Moses of what was going on at that moment.  It was through this statement by God concerning the ground that proved that God had the authority to restore a creation that had been damaged by sin, as long as He was allowed to be fully present.  When God was recognized and then accepted, Moses was told to remove his shoes and allow his flesh to touch originally made soil.  It was through the power of a restoration God that allowed the ground to once again live in its perfect state.

Through this detail that we should be able to comprehend what God’s mission is for our lives and through this specific detailed event we should be able to forecast that one day God would provide the perfect conditions for all of the people who wished to place Him first in their lives the touch of perfection and true holiness once again.  God’ presence cannot be anything but holy and that is why once the judgment was completed in the Garden of Eden He could no longer walk that area as before.  God’s holiness and our sin created a separation that can never be united in any way and it is through this separation that our enemy works.  It is also through this separation that God shall reveal His nature if our hearts are willing to listen to His voice and to spiritually display the desire to create, establish and maintain a holy relationship with Him.  God did not tell Moses to step back and get off the ground that His presence made holy He invited Moses into the realm of holiness so that they could talk with each other on level terms.  It is through this process that God demonstrates His restoration process and patterns that we need to incorporate within our hearts towards our relationship with God. 

I am very skeptical about things when people say they have visions and dreams from God, for the most part, they are usually vague and do not contain many details concerning the issues that they are trying to describe, but there is one minister who had a dream about heaven that really stands out and that minister is named Jesse Duplantis.  In his dream, he was conversing with a small group of angels and at some point in their conversation some type of signal occurred in which the angels, and himself, turned and faced in the same direction and began to worship together.  Jesse mentioned that he recognized that the angels were of different heights as was he but when this signal came they all were worshiping God on the same level, their heads were exactly lined up in a straight line.  And this example and the example that Exodus 3:5 gives us correspond perfectly for it is the basic foundation of God that all are created equal according to His spirit realm.

On the other dies of this issue, we must consider what occurs when God is left out of the picture.  There is no question that this country was founded on biblical principles, and there is no question that through human reasoning shortly after this land was dedicated to God humans began to decimate this dominion.  When one looks at the life of Moses after the setting of the burning bush we can justly identify many great acts that God ordained through Moses’ obedience.  But there are quite a few instances where the actions of Moses cost him and the children of Israel dearly.  This pattern demonstrates how we allow our human wants and pressures of the day overrule God and the commands that He has ordained.  Can you imagine what the ground felt like when God removed Himself from that spot?  And what about the bush, it was consumed with the fiery presence of God yet did not burn, how did it feel?

How does our spirit cry out for guidance when times become unknown?  Where does our trust and hope lie and when will we see it surface again?  All of these questions we have asked ourselves both on an individual level and on a national level many times.  And we all can draw the same conclusion and that is we listen to the loudest voice possible and the one who stands out the most; unless our hearts are totally in the presence and will of God these voices will come from the world.  Our spirits continue to cry out even when worldly answers are not satisfying but we refuse to hear the small still voice that God is projecting.  It is this small voice that calls for us to separate ourselves from the world and to once again recognize God for who He is in our lives.  When this occurs, all of our troubles and fears disappear for we will be standing on holy ground once again.  We can take off our shoes and live in the holy state that only Adam and Eve understood and that one day we shall continually live in this existence again.

When we accept God completely, He guarantees restoration for that is what He does, but when God is taken out of our equation then times will become difficult and eventually impossible to stand.  This is why God sent His Son to the earth to provide a true way to which to stand before God on holy ground with our feet touching this pure and exquisite state.  The Church no longer views this act as necessary for she has accepted the world instead of God.  That type of religion God cannot stand and shall spew it from His mouth but to those who wish to seek His ways He shall surely provide holy ground and direct communication. 

God is God and He wishes for every single one of His children to understand the completeness of restoration and how to obtain this glorious process.  Repent, Church! Turn from your wicked ways and once again provide the setting for the presence of God or this land shall be turned into a dung heap with no fertile ground to claim as a mission.  I am reminded of two songs that God wants us to remember and to hide within our hearts, both of them I have mentioned before and they come from the same artist.  The first song is “The Beauty of Holiness” and the second song is entitled “He Covers Me”, with both songs being written by Steve Camp.  The passage of Exodus 3:1-5 is brought to life when one remembers what God did to the ground around Moses and what He shall do for your life if you only commit yourself to Him 100%.

DLB