Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el!

I think most in my family enjoy swimming and I certainly did when I lived in a tropical climate. We all start in the toddlers' pool, splashing about with our feet securely on the ground and only as we become comfortable with the water are we progressively graduated to larger pools, starting in the shallow end where again our feet can touch the bottom. There is a point, though, when we learn not to be dependent on the hard bottom and jump into the deep end though at first perhaps wearing water floats so we don't sink. Only when we have enough confidence do we venture into larger bodies of water like lakes, rivers and the sea, and learn to deal with new and potentially dangerous elements like currents and tides.

Here in Sweden, which is a country full of lakes and rivers, learning to swim is a part of compulsory education, as well as knowing how to get out of icy water in winter should you fall in. To be sure, water has its hazzards and there are many who fear it. Many drown each year for a variety of reasons. And yet most are prepared to take the risks involved in order to enjoy what is practically a national way of life here in the summer. The vast majority of the population heads to the sea or lakes. Only the other day I took a couple of my children to one of the thousands of lake-side camps dotted around the country. We all love the water.

In Scripture water is linked to chayim (life). Over 70% of our body is made up of it and were we to completely dehydrate someone what would be left would be a pile of powder enough to fill a half-sized bucket. In conversing with the Samaritan woman at the well Yah'shua (Jesus) said:

"Whoever drinks of this [well-] mayim (water) will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the mayim (water) that I shall give him will never thirst. But the mayim (water) that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of mayim (water) springing up into everlasting chayim (life)" (John 4:13-14, NKJV).

Clearly solid matter is important to life but it isn't the main thing. Water is that mysterious substance which shouldn't exist, that material that doesn't do what other compounds do. When you freeze water it expands but all other substances contract. And as chemists you will know that water has all kinds of other interesting properties. So it is rightly compared to a spiritual element connected with eternal chayim (life). But what element might that be?

I promised that I would today share with you a dream that my wife had yesterday which connects with what we were talking about yesterday too. So without further delay, let's hear her account. And as you listen - though I know most of you already know the answer - I'd like you to ask yourselves what water is here symbolising. There are many emet or truth elements in this dream that are worth noting:

I had a dream last night and in this dream there was a woman and she was in a pool. She appeared restless and anxious, and sometimes bored with being in that particular pool.

There were at least 7 pools, starting with a small one and each one increasing in size leading to a huge ocean. The ocean was crystal clear and moving, very busy - however, at the same time, it was peaceful - calm yet full of life. This ocean fed the smaller pools.

The woman was not happy in the pool she was in, but she, for a time worked hard and tried her best to settle, and she was moved to the next pool, which was bigger. However the same issues surfaced in her in this bigger pool. She could not settle, she could not rest and simply be at peace. She longed to be in the huge ocean and was not content to do all the work to get there. She wanted to skip all the other pools and just be in the ocean, but that was not how it worked. She eventually was placed back into the smaller pool she was just in - she was not happy at all about that. And so she started longing for 'home', for a place where she felt comfortable, a place where nothing was expected or required of her, and so she got her heart's desire and she was removed from the pool altogether.

The moment she left the pool her heart withered and shrank, leaving just a very small space that could be filled - which of course meant that she would never find out there what she thought she needed and wanted, because there was no life outside of the pools. She was in many ways like a fish out of water.

One of many things that I noticed about the pools was that the smaller the pool, the more talking, debating, trying proving one's point was happening, it was just a whirlwind of noise. But the bigger the pool, the less talking there was, and in the ocean talking wasn't even needed for everything and everyone was echad (one), in one accord.

The ahavah of our Father Yahweh is what true chayim (life) is all about. It's what everyone is unconsciously seeking and yet most never find it. The reason is that this ahavah (love) is qodesh (sacred, holy, set-apart) and is only obtainable on Yahweh's conditions, namely, trusting in Him, accepting His Son as Elohim (God), Deliverer (Saviour) and Master (Lord), repenting of sin, and covenanting to live according to His standard or mitzvot (commandments) and precepts collectively known as the Torah (Law, Teaching). And contrary to what this dream shows very clearly, as is amply born out in the Scriptures as a whole, the fullness of that ahavah (love) is not given or received until there is proper surrender of the whole soul which in everyone I have ever met is usually a life-long process.

Many believers, experiencing the exhilaration of the New Birth, naïvely and unscripturally believe that they receive it all in one go. They don't. It is one of the great errors of Evangelical Christianity and has led to so many problems including antinomianism (lawlessness). The New Birth is the most important thing but we must never forget that that's exatly what it is - a BIRTH - the reborn spirit does not become an adult in one second but has to go through a spiritual maturation process requiring many successive 'births' until the fullness is attained. That is what this prophetic dream clearly reveals.

This is not, of course, new to you or to those who follow these devotionals and sermons. For some time now Yahweh has been revealing to us the meaning of the Seven Annual Festivals and it should be pretty obvious looking at the diagram (above) that these correspond to the seven pools. A little over four years ago I discoursed to you at some length on The Seven Wells of Salvation in which I referred to Jacob's Well and to many others. If you have not read this sermon I recommend you do so now for some context. This was my Shavu'ot (Pentecost) sermon for 2008, so with Shavu'ot only six days away now, I feel it is more than coincidental that we are receiving all these revelations at this time. The diagram below may refresh your memory:

To obtain the fullness we must metaphorically dig deeper and to dig deeper we must climb higher to Yahweh. Now in the dream we are studying today my wife told me that the pools not only got progressively larger but deeper also, as one would expect, thus following the same symbology of the seven wells. To deal with issues, which every believer has without exception, we have to dig deeper to those places where we have buried or hidden traumas, pains, sins, and so forth.

The ahavah or love of Yahweh is administered to us by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), our Heavenly Mother(s), whom we know to be sevenfold - to be precise, they are "the seven Ruachim (Spirits) who are before His throne" (Rev.1:4, NKJV), "the seven lamps of fire ... burning before the throne, which are the seven Ruachim (Spirits) of Elohim (God)" (Rev.4:5, NKJV), the "seven horns and seven eyes [of the Lamb], which are the seven Ruachim (Spirits) of Elohim (God) sent out into all the earth" (Rev.5:6, NKJV). What are these seven Ruachim or Spirits doing in "all the earth" but ministering to the saved, bringing them into deeper communion with Yahweh, and prompting the unsaved to come to Messiah? They each correspond to the seven festivals, as you know, the seven bodies of revealed emet (truth) about Yahweh, about Yah'shua (Jesus), about the Creation, about everything (see picture to right). One emet (truth) builds upon the other leading always to the fullness and to the perfection to which we have all been called. As biological entities we go through a sevenfold growth process, a metamorphosis that is paralleled by similar growth patterns in the ruach (spirit), in the mind, in the lev (heart) and even sexually. Today's dream is specifically about the lev (heart) and how this growth process fits into this universally created tavnith (pattern).

Now when you are in emotional turmoil - as we often are when dealing with issues or confronting difficulties of divers thoughts - it is tempting to think that everything else is chaotic as well. But this is an illusion, as common sense tells us. Our percerptions of reality not only include the five physical senses (touch, smell, hearing, sight, taste) but also our mental perceptions and our feelings. Everybody 'sees' the world and life differently because everyone is at different place in their growth and development and commonly we don't realise this and so we have expectations of others that are not always realistic based on what our physical senses, thoughts and feelings tell us. But as psychologists know, our biological age does not necessarily correspond to our mental or emotional ages because we get out of synch, especially when traumatised. And the same is true of spiritual growth.

In an ideal world, body, mind/heart and spirit should be growing in step. But we're not. Satan has made sure of that whenever people listen to him and believe his lies. We get mental blocks - is it any wonder there is so much confusion in the world when it comes to, for example, different denominations (as we discussed the other day) and 'interrpetations' of Christianity/Messianism? This is the reason there is such confusion, because we are ourselves sevenfold beings (three primary parts with overlaps that make up seven) as I have illustrated using Venn diagrams in a number of studies:

Not until there is proper ministry to, and divine healing in, all the seven areas of man - something that obviously requries a spiritually mature and informed ministry that remains sorely lacking today - there will be ministers and churches/assemblies specialising in this or that but never bringing people into unity. We are more complicated than both evangelicals and and messianics usually care to admit in consequence of which disunity and schism exist. That is why the Remnant Ministry must be endowed in these things and teach believers to properly go through all the seven openings for without them unity and gathering are impossible. Oneness or to be echad requires a proper balancing of all the seven spheres of man - only focussing on one or some leads to the distortions illustrated in the diagram (above). Hence complete discipleship programs are required, not pieces here and there willy-nilly. This means bringing believers together from different backgrounds and developmental stages and welding them together, something that can only be accomplished by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) under competent ministers guiding people back into wholeness in Yah'shua (Jesus):

And this can only be done when it is recognised that there are Thirteen Believer Elements (see diagram above) that make up our polychromatic Body of Messiah - these aspects have to be progressively integrated to create the heart-felt, studious, obedient dependence which is the fullness of being a talmid (disciple) of Messiah!

The exact same principles apply in the marriage setting too. Marriages grow in the same way because it is a blending process - the merging of two (or more) together, just as the Body of Messiah is, the former being a type of the latter:

But to do this the patriarchal principle has to be accepted, understood and implemented because this is a shadow of the way the Elohimhead (Godhead) above is organised and indeed contains keys to the Creation itself. Every man must become established as a King(Priest)-Father-Husband over his Queen(Priestess)-Mother-Wife:

This unity - this oneness or echadness - is what is represented by the sea in the dream. You can't just jump into it and expect everything to be just bliss. We have to be prepared and matured for it and that entails restrictions /(as they initially appear) but which are, in fact, training grounds. This was explainjed to me in a vision some years ago showing seven trees in their own pots developping separately in their Divine Husband before being planted together in common soul (the equivalent of the sea in today's dream illustration).

No-one likes to be restricted. Currently we have two litters of puppies and they are all desperately trying to break out of their pens because they want to explore the outside world, oblivious to the dangers there. Just imagine if all the pups escaped and people trod on them or they came across the cat when it was hungry while we weren't around. They could eat poisonous things, not knowing what they were doing, get injured in slamming doors, and so on. You can picture all the hazzards. As with pups growing up, so Yahweh 'contains' us to enable us to safely develop. That safety wall, hedge or net is the mitzvot (commandments), imposed from the outside at first until it is internalised. As the soul is matured, it requires less policing and is given more self-government based in its natural urge to be obedient. The goal is a wall-less ocean for by then artificially-containing walls (the sides of each pool) are no longer required. There is no imposed Torah in the sea (heaven, the post-,illennial world of Shemini Atseret) because it is natural to everyone in it. It is properly written on the lev (heart):

"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their levim (hearts); and I will be their Elohim (God), and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know Yahweh,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jer.31:33-34, NKJV).

In the the dream, the prophetic illustration is about heart-development and the capacity to love in the quality of Yahweh's pure ahavah-love. In the dream the woman did not want the discipline of being restrained (coming under government/law) and when she refused to abide by the limitations imposed for her own good and well-being, she was transported back to a smaller pool. When she rejected that and wanted to 'go home' (in reality, wanting to go back to the womb where there was no responsibility, accountability or indeed anything to do but 'feed'), she discovered to her horror that her lev (heart) suddenly shrank! Her capacity to love immediately diminished. Why? Because in rejecting the mitzvah (commandment) to "put away childish things" (1 Cor.13:11, NKJV), she was choosing to retard her growth and go in the very opposite direction she actually wanted to go! What is true of heart-growth is also true of spirit-growth, as the writer of Hebrews admonishes us:

"Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Messiah, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of emunah (faith) toward Elohim (God), of the doctrine of immersions (baptisms), of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if Elohim (God) permits" (Heb.6:1-3, NKJV).

"The coming of the Torahless (lawless) one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the emet (truth), that they might be saved" (2 Thess.2:9-10, NKJV).

"...looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great Elohim (God) and Deliverer (Saviour) Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every Torahless (lawless) deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works" (Titus 2:13-14, NKJV).

This is the Derech (Way, Path, Road) of the Messiah we are commanded to walk! When we walk it, every part of ourselves is matured and brought to perfection, bringing us daily closer to that divine echad (oneness) we all so much want as represented by that vast ocean of ahavah (love) and simcha (joy). You can no more throw people into the presence of Yahweh without cleansing than you can throw people together and expect them to muddle through and find instant unity. It just doesn't happen. Isn't history moot witness of that? Only through trusting in Messiah, being led by the Ruach (Spirit) and obeying the mitzvot (commandments) as the festival of Shavu'ot (Pentecost) so plainly teach us, can we work through our discipleship and get to the place we all want to be.

Isn't it wonderful how emet- or truth-elements all dovetail? Every part of emet (truth) witnesses of every part and they all effortlessly mesh. My wives prophetic dream is just one more confirmation of this great Emet (Truth) that has been progressively revealed to us over the years. Like a jigsaw-puzzle nearing completion, the pieces suddenly seem to effortless fit together

I love the harmony of theology as much as I do the harmony of spirit with Yahweh. His doctrine is true. We must not be fraid of new truths that He reveals to us because they are all for our echad (oness) and simcha (joy). You can even apply theology to the pool analogy because when you are in the lower pools all is arguing and debate, mostly smoke and little fire. Once you have the emet (truth) there is no need to debate because you have sghalom (peace). All that is eneded is to present the emet (truth) and let people wrestle with Yahweh over it. We are not to climb into the pools below us - that is why we have been graduated from them. To re-enter them is regression and contraction of lev (heart) and mind. Let those who want to thrash around in those waters do so and leave if they want to - many do, to their cost. And do not be provoked by those who accuse you to turning tail because you are silent. Some things are best left unsaid. There is a time and a season for all things.

May you find pleasure in the things I have shared with you today and know that tov (good) things lie ahead for those who will trust and obey, and accept the limitations required for disciplining and growth. Amen.

Comments from Readers

"One thought, the more a heart makes room for others the greater gets the pool. And when we die in the deep, we will be exalted into the high" (SW, Germany, 12 July 2012).