This morning I remember a line from a song that is for all intents and purposes, scriptural. “… if I can see it, I can do it”. Remember that Jesus said He couldn’t do anything that He didn’t see the Father do. (John 5:19) Many times, even the secular song can come from an influence of God’s hand and God’s word.
It is easy to say that God is doing great things when we can see the things He’s doing. I know… “duh”. During the deliverance from captivity in around 539 BC, we see it written in Psalm 126:1-3: When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
Today as we move farther and farther away from the literal cross and closer and closer to a literal eternity, the enemy really doesn’t want us to be able to tap into the realm of the spirit. It must be a catch 22 for him. He wants to be noticed and glorified, but at the same time, he doesn’t. His glory comes through the flesh of man and through the fall of man.
As time has passed and science and logic have come to the forefront, there is a majority of people in the world who have a hard time believing in a supernatural realm. They fail to realize that there are two worlds coinciding and that very soon these two worlds shall collide.
Because we are a people that are governed by our five senses and have learned to be comfortable with those senses, we have a sense of accomplishment and security in them. We feel no need to go outside our realm… until… a crisis arises which we can not understand, nor do we have any answers for. It is a crisis where our senses are keen to the problem, but there is no comfort from anything we are equipped with.
These limited senses do not have the capability of seeing into or believing into the future. They can only know what has transpired in the past. What we have done, is mastered the art of hindsight. We can see where God has been, how He’s worked, miracles that have occurred, things have been accomplished with no logic or reasoning – and when all reason and logic have been exhausted, then and only then do we spout a statement like… “Maybe there really is a God”.
The children of Israel were standing before an impossible and angry sea in the middle of a dark night. The cloud that was before them removed itself and went behind them as a protection from their past which was even then at the door. The people were frozen in fear, and so the cloud went between their eyes and their enemy. Only then did they turn around toward the sea.
I am very sure that those people who had seen miracle after miracle were saying, “yeah, I know what God did before, but what about this time?” There it is. The failure to walk in a supernatural realm until after the miracle occurs.
Before the miracle occurs… be careful what comes from your mouth. Fear generates horrible consequences when it is stirred up by your five senses. And in this case, the Lord put a cloud to cover their eyes – but unfortunately, their ears still heard the snorting of horses, the chinking of armor and the threats of a very angry enemy.
There was not one person standing before that sea that was proclaiming that they were going to go through it and not get their feet wet. They were a huddled mass of wet mess – fearing for their lives and crying into the night air. They were slaves. They were not allowed to learn to swim. When you don’t learn to conquer something, it can terrorize you.
IN FACT: MOSES PANICKED:
Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
Exo 14:11 And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Exo 14:12 Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.
Exo 14:13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
Exo 14:14 The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
The Lord then stepped in quite quickly and pretty much told Moses to essentially “SHUT UP”. God didn’t want them to stand still… He wanted them to go forward into their miracle! God didn’t want them to never see the Egyptians again… He wanted them to witness the corpses of the enemy for closure and to know that they could never harm them ever again!! (Exo 14:30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.)
Exo 14:15 And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
Exo 14:16 But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
There are times when it looks as if God has abandoned you. When you look ahead and can’t see the glory of God any longer. This angel went behind the camp of Israel. WHY? So that they which were looking back would not be afraid. As I said, they could still hear the chinking of the enemy army – but could not see them. The enemy works in our lives like that today… we can hear him, but we MUST NEVER fear him!
Suddenly Moses stretched forth his hand. His bony old natural blood filled hand over the sea. At least, that’s what everyone saw. But his hand, when moved by the word of God caused each and every one to believe that they could move into a supernatural realm.
And they walked in the midst of a miracle. Trouble on every side in the form of angry waves perhaps some 60 to 70 feet high. (that much water displaced for 6 million people had to stack at least that high) I don’t believe the Bible records one word from one of those millions of Jews. Not one word of praise. Not one word of worship. Silence.
And then… as the last Jew was coming to step into the land of Midian, the dawn broke and it was written: Exo 14:24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.
The enemy thought they were more powerful than they were and began to charge through the immense fog bank toward the Israelites. Egyptian and Israelite alike, watched in the midst of silence as God replaced the water. One thing you must know is that the enemy can not walk in the midst of your miracle! The fire of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah was a miracle fire where the enemy could not go.
The place of the cross is a place the enemy could not hang. Sometimes the most horrible places to the flesh are the most miraculous in the Spirit. But your senses will never have enough courage to take you there.
And what was really revealing to me happened not as this frightened band of senseless people who only relied upon their five senses walked through their silence, but what happened afterward.
In the 15th chapter of Exodus and the first verse… look at the first word of the first verse. The word is: “THEN”. Then and only then did they begin to sing and praise and worship. Oh, they had a Pentecostal praise gathering. Dancing. Singing. Telling of how God “had” triumphed gloriously. They said in the second verse… “The Lord IS my strength and song…” What they were really saying was… “the Lord WAS my strength and song”
Where was that dance in Egypt? Where was that song during the long night of deliverance? Where was that proclamation of God being called “LORD” as they crossed on to foreign soil?
Oh, we will cheer God on after the fact, but what about right now – when you are still in Egypt? What about right now when you are in the longest walk of your life through a darkness that seems to span eternity? What about the ability to jump your five senses and see into the five senses of the spiritual realm? What about the ability to call those things which are not… as though they were?
Rom 4:17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
We can jump all over those poor Israelites for not cheering in the midst of the miracle, but look in the mirror and see that we are related. We have their eyes of fear. We have their mouths of unbelief. We have their hands that hang down. We have their mouths that only taste the bitter. We only hear the clanking of enemy armor.
Faith is still the substance of things HOPED FOR and the evidence of things NOT SEEN. (Hebrews 11:1)
Blessed are they who can believe before the miracle occurs… or in the midst of the miracle… AS WELL AS after the miracle. (yes, it is important to believe AFTER the miracle – because there are those who attribute signs, wonders and miracles to logical circumstances.)
Jesus, after He ascended to Heaven and spilled His blood on the mercy seat came back to let his disciples know that “the coast was clear”. He wanted to rejoice with them that salvation had been secured and that one had crossed over on dry ground to Heaven… making a way for all others; including them.
How His heart must have broken when He returned just as He said, and Thomas was still speaking out of his five natural senses… “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)
People in a five sense realm are proclaiming sadly today… “I will not believe”.
Thomas did eventually believe. He eventually got to the other side of his sea and saw the enemy destroyed. He eventually believed it was true. But not because of faith. Not because of his ability to walk in the Spirit.
Joh 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Yes, we can jump all over Thomas, but again… look in the mirror… many of us are related to him too.
We are like the Jews in Psalm 126 – we rejoice after the deliverance. “Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.”
I believe that God is looking for someone to bless. Someone who will stand on the shores of their Egypt with the past and the darkness threatening them… who will be dancing… who will be singing… who will be proclaiming WHO GOD IS.
God is working. Whether you see Him or not. Whether you see evidence or not. He’s working and He is worthy of praise. I know that I use this scripture many times, but again, we must be people who can dance before the ark gets home. We must be able to sing from inside the inner prison. And we must be able to proclaim in the midst of darkness that He is the Light.
There are five natural senses. There are five books in the Pentateuch. I believe it is no coincidence that God is telling us that we can escape our five senses that hold us captive and prevent us from the freedom we can experience in the parallel realm.
Hab 3:15 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.
Hab 3:16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
Hab 3:17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Hab 3:18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
We must proclaim before we are delivered. We must sing before we are safe in the fortress and we must shout while our feet are still on miry clay:
The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. Psalm 18:2
Worship with me today: These really spoke to me as God put this word together. Please listen.
Streetfire Ministries 