The walk of faith is a lonely journey, but it is a road of hope if we continue to overcome. It will all be worth it in the end, and as you will find in the following hopeful message ... "This is the key to everything that is before us." ~Chris Ardern

If you are feeling like the Christian journey is a lonely one then you are most likely walking as a true overcomer for the Lord. In fact if we don't find our walk with God to be one that is very separated and distinct from this world then we would have to truly question if we are honestly walking on the narrow path of salvation with the Lord Jesus Christ. The following message from Steven Jones will bless you and comfort you as you realize that those who truly walk with the Lord will be called to be separate from this world and must bear the same reproach that Jesus bore. You will learn that you are not "crazy" but that this was God's plan all along. This is a study that centers around Exodus chapters 33-34 which parallels Moses' lonely path of faith, to the current similar path of faith that all true Christians must endure. This message ends with a vibrant message of hope for those who continued faithfully on the narrow path with the Lord to the end. 

Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it far off from camp and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. Everyone who sought the Lord went here which was outside the camp.

This is tremendous prophecy and lines up with Hebrews. If we are to follow Christ, we are to follow Him outside the camp and bear His reproach. Outside the camp of those who’ve worshipped the golden calf and in our day it is referring to coming outside the “church” congregation and into the “overcoming realm” bearing His reproach. The minute you start talking about coming outside the church you will get all sorts of fire heaped on your head and not with good motives. Why? They will say “because you have to be under the covering of a pastor” etc. but Jesus said you have to go outside the camp in order to come into His experience and this is bearing His reproach.

Exodus 33 gives the reason for it because the camp of the average run of the mill Israelite (or in our case – the “average church”) is a church worshipping the golden calf, not that they necessarily knew this, but that’s the type and shadow. Because these people refuse to enter into Tabernacles and preferred Pentecost, they therefore remained in the Pentecostal realm instead of going on into the overcoming realm.

Those who are true Christians will want to leave Pentecost and go into Tabernacles. In Jesus’ day, it was the call to get out of the Passover realm and get into the Pentecost realm because there was a new age coming. The day of Pentecost was the division between the Old Testament Passover Age which began when Israel came out of Egypt at Passover. That Passover age went on for 1500 years. And then we had a little transition from the cross to Pentecost and now we’ve entered into a Pentecostal Age. Not very many people were willing to bear the Lord’s cross and go on out of that realm of Passover. Passover at that time was really defined by Judaism with all its corrupted doctrines and traditions of men, but some were able to make that jump and move onto what the plan of God was at that time which was Pentecost.

Now at the current end of the age we are now living in, we find that the “church” has done the same thing. The church of this Pentecostal age has now, just like Passover, made its own traditions of men which have made the word of God of no effect and violated the law and have built the same golden calves as they had back then. Except now it is even worse because it is spiritual and not just physical. These traditions of men have negated and nullified the laws of God! That’s exactly why during Moses’ time they lost the presence of the angel and his face. There’s a direct parallel going on here between this past age and our current age! But now we are not called to enter Pentecost but are called to leave Pentecost and go on into Tabernacles.

Most of the church knows nothing about Tabernacles and never heard of such a thing and they think that Pentecost began in the book of Acts. They have no idea that Pentecost was an Old Testament feast whereby people were supposed to receive the divine law in their hearts. Pentecost was the day when He spoke the Ten Commandments and this was supposed to be written upon their hearts. But yet today we have a realm of Pentecost that throws the law out and they think that if you try to have the law written on your heart that somehow you’re falling from grace. It’s really strange, but it’s no different from how Israel was back then. They did not want to hear the law either and so when they did not want to hear the law and they told Moses ‘you go out there and then you tell us what God said’, they placed a curse upon the whole house of Israel. And that curse has been followed on through except for on those who are willing to come outside the camp. And that curse is that ‘we don’t want to hear the voice of God, we want a professional preacher to tell us what the word of God is so we don’t have to go anywhere near that fire.’ The word of God is a fire, it’s a consuming fire and it will kill the flesh. You can’t hear the word of God unless you’re willing to die to self in some way. The death of the flesh is always going to take place in some way anytime you hear the true word of God.

So Moses took that tabernacle and went outside the camp and that was after the Israelites had sinned in worshipping the golden calf. So then Moses goes back up to God and it says in Exodus 33:12 “Moses said unto the LORD, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people (take them into the Promised Land) and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me.” In other words Moses was saying ‘Who is going to go with me? Is it the angel or the presence of God?’ Well actually God had said so, He said – I’m not going to go with you, I am going to send an angel.’  The verse continues to say “Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.” So Moses is reminding God that ‘God, you have said all these good things about me and if I may be so bold to have found grace in your sight then show me your face.’ Then Moses continues by saying “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now they way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is they people. And he said (God is questioning Moses) “Shall my presence (or face) go with thee, and will l give thee rest?” In other words God is saying ‘in view of your people worshipping the golden calf should my presence go with such a people?’ And Moses said unto God, if thy presence (or face) go not with us, carry us not up hence.” So Moses is saying that ‘what is even the point of going into the Promised Land if we don’t have your face. This is what is the most important thing that Moses knew - how to go in at the feast of Tabernacles. For then Moses says “For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

Here’s what separates us – Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:49 “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” So, as we bear the image of the first Adam, so we bear the image of the second Adam. The first Adam was created from the dust of the earth – it was earthy and Adam even means ‘earthy’. We have borne the image of the earthy but now we need to bear the image of the heavenly. So we have now the face of the earth or the dust of the ground, but with the feast of Tabernacles, we have the face of God. We have the face of Christ, which is His personal presence in us manifested in glory.

So now continuing with Exodus 33:17 “And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he (Moses) said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. So now we get into the next chapter of Exodus 34 and we find out that Moses went up in the mount after getting this promise and he was probably running up there, and then when he came down after 40 days (verse 29) it says “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hands, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shown while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shown; and they were afraid to come nigh him." The face of God was in Moses’ face as he was bearing the image of the heavenly. He was separated in that sense, at least for a temporary time, and separated from all of the people on the face of the earth! He was separated from everybody who had the ‘face of the earth’/the first Adam, because obviously this was a type of transfiguration which we find in Paul’s letter in 2 Corinthians talking about this very thing.

So Moses had to put a veil on his face until such time as he went to talk with God and he could take the veil off. But when he talked to the people he had to put a veil on his face. Now all these things, this concept of the presence or the face of God in us – this is I believe what the New Testament is referring to when it uses the term ‘peruzia’ usually translated ‘the coming of the Lord’. Peruzia literally means ‘presence’ and I believe that instead of in understanding this so much in what the literal Greek might mean, it’s a case where we have to take this word and I give it a Hebrew concept which is the divine presence of the face of God when we bear the image of the heavenly. This is what I think he is talking about when he talks about ‘peruzia’ which is the divine presence which leads us into the Promised Land. And again here the pattern is Tabernacles. It’s the pattern of Caleb and Joshua who wanted to go in but were unable to go in because they had to go in as a corporate body so they had to wait for everybody else – for they without us should not be made perfect. And we will not precede they which have fallen asleep. We had to go in together because we are one body and one spirit. Therefore this is why there is a resurrection of the dead that must take place before this all happens. The dead in Christ have to rise first in order to join those who are alive and remain so that we can all go in as one body – as the body of Christ in the age of Tabernacles. I believe this will take place over the period of 21-22 days because that is the feast day pattern in the Old Testament. It starts out with the last trump/the seventh trumpet – the feast of Trumpets, and it ends on the eighth day of Tabernacles when you have the glorification taking place on the 22^nd of the month. So from the 1^st to the 22^nd of the month, is 22 days and 22 is the number of light – but in between is actually 21 days which is the time of Jacob’s trouble and then it ends. So we have all these types and patterns all through the scriptures and it is really fascinating once you start to look at it.   

One more thing before we end here, go back up to Exodus 34:4 when he was going up to the Mount to get the tables of the law and then came down with his face glowing, it says “And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.” This I believe is where Paul gets at least half his terminology in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 “The dead in Christ shall rise first" - (rising up – Moses rose up early in the morning and he ascended to meet the Lord in the air – because the Lord had descended in the clouds and Moses went to meet Him in the clouds. You see, here is where he is getting the terminology. Moses never left the earth but he did ascend into a higher plane in order to receive the law written on his heart and in coming down, Moses is glorified. But he has to put a veil over his face. Now I believe that when this takes place – which is commonly called the rapture – but I prefer to call it the Feast of Tabernacles, in order to prevent misunderstanding in some weird concept that people have, so when 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 has taken place, and then fulfilled, we too, the overcomers, will be set forth into all the world to preach the gospel and that is when the work really begins. We’ll have to put a veil over our face – the glory of God will have to be hidden otherwise you’ll scare people to death. But when we speak to God face to face the veil is removed because we’re no longer limited by the limitations of the flesh. We will have bodies I believe like Jesus had – we will walk through walls and yet eat with the people. ‘Give me something to eat and I will prove I am not a spirit’. We will have flesh and bone like the people have and yet will be able to disappear as well because he is entering into his Father’s tabernacle in heaven at that time and he takes the veil off his face. But the veil is the flesh you see, and so this I believe is what this is speaking about.

But we’re coming into this time I believe when we need to be aware of some of these things so that when these things are actually fulfilled it’s not that we will have a perfect understanding of it at that time, but when it happens we will say ‘oh, yes, that is what those scriptures mean. This is what was spoken by the prophets. So we’ll recognize what is happening because of the scriptures and we’ll ‘oh yeah, that’s it!’ But I have a feeling that many of the rapture believers (merely leaving the earth type of 'rapture') won’t have the foggiest idea what’s happening because they don’t know the law and they started in the New Testament instead of doing what Jesus did as He began with Moses and He told of all these things that had to take place.

Message by Steven Jones