“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations” (Matt 1:17).
“Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away” (Isa 51:11).
Thus says the Lord of Hosts: though many of my people in these last days have been taken captive by worldliness, modernism, secularism, and religious Babylon, the remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. They shall return, yea, they shall march victoriously unto Zion with high praises of God in their mouths, and two-edged swords in their hands. These shall arise unto my holy hill of Zion, these will be my voice in these perilous days, and will bring my people out of captivity unto Zion; yea, my people shall return unto me, the preserve of Israel in whom my soul delights, yea, they shall manifest on My holy mountain, on Mount Zion, and there shall be deliverance, there shall be holiness, there shall be restoration, yea, I say they shall execute judgement upon the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.
By and large, many of God’s people are in captivity. They are in captivity to the ways of the world. Millions follow the beauty and pageantry of that which appears religious. They follow the modern religious system with all its ritual and ceremonies, its elevation and worship of men, its worshipping of idols and altars, its love for money and power and all things for which the carnal nature lusts. The world’s religious system is man’s system created by man and for man’s glory. It is man exalting himself and sharing or usurping God’s glory, taking the precious things of the Spirit and misusing them for his own purposes and aggrandizement.
But even in the land of captivity, God has always found a voice for Himself. He always has a remnant who becomes His prophetic voice in the land of captivity. These anointed ones represent the Ezekiel company that sees the visions of God and becomes His prophetic voice in Babylon. Though His people are in Babylonian captivity, a remnant shall return unto Christ and shall serve Him. And they shall be accounted of the Lord for a generation.
While worldly-minded men and women are busy expanding their gains, building bigger barns, and making names for themselves, God has always reserved for Himself a people after His own heart. He separates a people apart whose hearts are set upon Him. Nimrod built Babylon, Terah built Haran, and Lot was judge and ruler at the gates of Sodom, but Abraham built altars unto God in Mamre, in Bethel, and in Hebron.
While the Lots are working hard at expanding their territories and possessions in the well-watered plains of Sodom, the Abrahams are pressing forward and upward toward the mark on the mountains of God. They are moving from place to place, drawing closer to Bethel, the house of God, and pushing forward toward Hebron, the place of communion.
Men of God are altar-builders. Whether in the Old Testament, when altars are made out of physical elements such as bricks, wood, and stone, or in the New, when the altar is symbolic of prayer and worship through Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth, men and women of God are specialists. Men of God are not city-builders. They are not followers of Nimrod, who built the first cities, founded the first empire, and was the first ruler of Babylon.
And to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Daniel said, “You are this head of gold.” But Nebuchadnezzar took the glory conferred by God and used it to deify himself. He built his own image and commanded men to worship it. His image was all of gold. All its wealth was the wealth of the world. All its glory was the glory of the world. And was this not what the devil offered Jesus when he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, saying, “All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me” (Matt 4:8-9)? It was the same voice heard centuries ago on the plain of Dura! The same is heard today. The ultimate test for every son of God is this: What will he do with what he receives from the Lord? Will he use it to his own ends, or will he, like faithful Abraham of old, offer it as a sacrifice on the altar of full obedience to God?
In that distant past, upon the plain of Dura, Nebuchadnezzar’s image of gold stood sixty cubits tall and six cubits wide. Today, the church here below is never satisfied with God, but is always building images of organizations, systems, ceremonies, and rituals. And as Nebuchadnezzar did, she requires all her subjects to worship those images. “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six” (Rev 13:18).
Thus says the Lord: “Return therefore, my people. Return to the Lord your God.” And you might say, “In what shall we return?”
Return in true worship and communion. Return in obedience and submission. Sacrifices and offerings are good. Tithes and offerings are great. Hours of service to the church and the needy have significant merit. However, God says: “My child, give me your heart.” It is not your physical stringed instruments, melodious pipes, and rhythmic drums that bring Him satisfaction, but your spirit in worship and your life lived to His praise. That is the offering of worship that rises up before Him as a sweet-smelling savor. “For the days are come, and it is now, that true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (paraphrased).
This true worship and communion is what the Lord God desires of you and me. Yet we spend a lot of time and energy on everything else but what He asks of us. We are like Israel of old, who, while busy sacrificing dozens of bullocks on the altar of burnt offering, would be singing one of the temple psalms that says:
“Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest” (Ps 40:6-9).
Interesting, is it not? They would be singing this song without listening to what they were singing, and would be earnestly and arduously sacrificing bullocks on the altar in Solomon’s temple for hours. How could they be doing that? Didn’t they hear themselves say, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire”? Can’t they hear God saying through their own mouths that He wants an attentive ear and an obedient heart, and one that desires to do His will? Those are the true worshippers!
What God wants from us is not our physical or material property, or just the praise and worship from our lips, but our hearts and lives. He said of the Israelites, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt 5:7-9). Worship acceptable to God is that which comes from the spirit and rises up unto God out of sincerity and truth. God is spirit, and true worship goes forth out of the spirit of a man to Him.
Of course, any outward physical means that can aid and boost this activity of the spirit is of significant help, but it is not worship in itself, for anyone, including those who are not yet born of God, can play beautiful music and sing wonderful worship songs. These will not be worshipping God, for the dead cannot worship Him; only the living can worship Him in spirit and in truth. A man can sing worship songs and not be worshipping Him. But if a man dedicates his life to the praise of Him who has brought him out of darkness into the marvelous light, speaks of His majesty, and sings of His love, yes, that is worship acceptable to God, and a sweet-smelling savor indeed. Our lives, our words, our songs, all together should be the music of heaven that rises from our spirit unto the Lord. This indeed is the smoke of the evening sacrifice that would rise up into the throne of God through our High Priest, a sweet incense of life unto life, and a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing in His eyes.
Lest we exalt ourselves and think little of the Israelites, God will have us know that He’s only showing us, through them, a picture of us, the church of this generation. In fact, we are worse than them for repeating this same error even though we have them as an example to learn from. But here we are, after all these lessons from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and through the Prophets, and after reading the Book of Romans and Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians, and even the Book of Hebrews that specifically teaches about the old things that pass away and the new that has come—we’re still not following the new and living way that He paved with His blood.
We still hear our great prophets and teachers on television prophesying about the restoration of the physical temple and its animal sacrifices in Jerusalem. You hear of news of finding a red heifer, and bringing back animal sacrifices outside the gates, and the ordinances relating to the ashes of the red heifer. If the apostle Paul were to come and visit us today, what would he say? He will have a more descriptive choice of words for us than he did for the Galatians in the third chapter of his epistle. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?”
“Return therefore, my people. Return to the Lord your God. Return to God in true ministry and service that exalts Him only. Return to being a co-laborer with God in building His vineyard and not your empires. Return from Babylon.
“Deliver yourself, O virgin daughter of Zion, deliver yourself from the ‘spirit of Babylon’ and return unto My holy mountain. You have sold yourselves to the world system and have mixed yourselves with the Babylonians so that there is no distinction any more. Yet I said, you are mine, My peculiar people, My own nation, My Royal Priesthood, My own Inheritance; My Generation that I have called and ordained to display My glory and beauty to the nations.
“Yet, My people, the nations can see no difference. I called you and set you apart that I may put a clear distinction between Christ and Belial, between the Temple of God and the shrine of idols, between the clean and the unclean, and to separate between the holy and the profane. I called you to be the light in the darkness of the world, but you have blended. I called you to be the salt of the earth, but where is your savoring power? Return to Me.
“You claim to be serving Me. You claim to be giving Me all the glory for the things happening in the earth. Are you really giving Me glory? Or are you using the power of the gospel of the kingdom to promote yourselves, your ministries, and your organizations? Yes, you’re building a kingdom, all right, but whose kingdom is it you’re building? Whose tower are you laboring so zealously to erect? And why are you coercing My new babes in Christ to sacrifice tremendously in building this Babylonian tower along with you? Return unto Me, saith the Lord your God.”
Dear friends, do not forget where this transgression first started. This spirit manifested itself in men when they said, “Let us build, let us get a name for ourselves, let us reach unto heaven.” This is the Babylonian spirit that can motivate individuals or organizations to build empires, purported to be for the glory of God, that exalt man or human organizations. It’s also the root of all world religions that try to reach heaven by human effort.
“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11:4).
And it’s also what manifested in the plains of Dura, where stood that monstrous image with the head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of silver, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. The goal is the same. It’s to share the glory and the worship that belongs to God with man or with an idol. And the idol is usually a man, or created by man. Essentially, it gives the glory and the worship that belongs to God to man or to the work of man’s hand. “I am the Lord: that is my name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isa 42:8).
But rejoice, O virgin daughter of Zion that dwells in Babylon, for the “remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God” (Isa 10:21). And “the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion.”
The new generation is about to be unveiled on the earth. They will have one and only one desire: “To see the glory of God cover the earth as the water covers the seas.” They will be free of selfish ambition and be noted for one thing—the worship of the Lord in spirit and in truth. They will reflect the glory of the Lord like Jesus in every sphere of life, and it’s His name alone that will be exalted and glorified.
The Lord of Hosts is raising up an army, a generation of willing men and women who will arise in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring restoration to the House of God. He is preparing and raising up warriors who will offer themselves for the deliverance of His House from Babylon as in the days of old. These will be the repairers of the old path and the restorers of the highway for the people of God to walk in. For Scripture accurately describes the current situation of the church in our day: “The highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through byways,” or as the Young’s Literal Translation renders it, “The ways have ceased, And those going in the paths go in crooked ways.”
But the Lord God of the Armies is raising up a new generation who will deliver the people of God from the enemy, bring them back from Babylonian captivity unto Zion, and cause them to walk boldly on the highway of God and no longer in crooked paths. This Gideon and Barak generation will cause the song of Deborah to be heard again in our land:
“Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.
“Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel. LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
“In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.
“The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
“My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the LORD. Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.
“Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam” (Jdg 5:2-12).