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Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Matt. 5:5.

In the Beginning, all things were created together in Christ Jesus (Col. 1:15-16) . There were no divisions, no schisms, no partitions. Everything was in perfect union. Harmony reverberated, no doubt, as a majestic symphony with everyone and everything rejoicing in Him and exulting their God. That is the way it is when everything is together in the One where all things began.

Man was first created male and female. They were one. However, shortly afterwards, we see the first division. When they were united they were commissioned to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth; but it was not until the woman was taken from the man that they embarked upon a grave struggle of fulfilling their commission. This perilous journey began, not while they were together as one spirit, soul, and body, but after the separation. It was during this early dawn, or should we say, setting of the sun, that the man and woman became carnal and not spiritual; for Adam said as much, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Gen. 2:23-24.

I believe it is worthwhile to note that he did not say, “Therefore shall a man remain in union with his Father and Mother.” Neither did he say, “This is now soul of my soul and spirit of my spirit, and we shall be one spirit.” But rather, upon leaving the household and oneness of his Father and Mother, he said, “they shall be one flesh!” This suggests strongly that after they were divided that there was a declaration of in independence made from God. In their newfound freedom, the man and woman became carnal and not spiritual, and immediately the subtle serpent of the field was entertained. Thus began man’s ruin and his debacle in having dominion in the earth.

Man became double minded. His kingdom was divided. He left his Head (his Father and Mother). Although he said that a man should cleave to his wife, she was also separated from the man. The lamb was no longer one with the lion, the child and the serpent were estranged, and the subtle, ravenous beast nature in man began its rule. The balance of the scales was tipped toward the flesh, and so it continued for millennia. But praise God, in Jesus Christ things are reconciled and made one. In Him dominion over all things does not remain mired in flesh! In Him the lions, leopards, wolves and bears will certainly rule, there is not doubt about it; but they will be meek lions, leopards, wolves and bears. Their dominion will not be with the sword alone, but coupled with the cord.

The Spirit shall cleave to the soul. The Bridegroom and Bride will be one. The Lamb and the Lion will lie down together. And the earth will be inherited and ruled by the meek. Our angered passion will be restrained and trained. We will truly be meek. We will be angry for the right reasons, against the right people, in the right way, and for the right amount of time. It will be then that “...the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” Dan. 7:27. For it will be then that we can be angry and sin not. Without meekness, we cannot be angry and not sin. Without meekness, we will miss the mark, and will be disqualified from inheriting the earth. In our personal anger great harm would be brought to His holy mountain. Without the gentleness of the child coupled with the cunning of the serpent, the venom of the asp would be injected into the Kingdom, as it was with the world when the beast and serpent in man were unleashed in the earth.

In the Mountain of God, no longer will the lion, leopard, bear, wolf, and serpent kill and devour the balancing factors of the lamb, the calf, the kid, and the child. Everything that was separated from another will come together in the End, which is Christ Jesus, and the killing will be no more. “And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.” Isa. 11:8. All killing ends in He who is the End. In Him, all strife ends. The slayers are made meek, and peace rules forever in God’s holy mountain! When the sword is in the hand of the lion it will cut with the compassion of the lamb, and there will be healing by its keen judgment.

If the cord is in the hand of the lamb, it will smite unto correction with the wrath of the lion. It will cleanse the Holy Temple and clear it of corruption and man’s carnal gain. In the End, when the two become one — great power, compassion, justice, reconciliation, restoration, and resurrection life will be the fruit thereof. The garden of God’s Kingdom will overflow with the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance Gal. 5: 22-23, and also, righteousness and truth Eph. 5:9. This, brethren, is the sweet fruit for which we all long to share and to eat, which I believe comes to those who are meek. We do not have this, however, when there is an imbalance. With the spirit of the lamb alone, we don’t have the backbone to say no to anyone, to correct, to right any wrong, to scold or to admonish. Our love is too wishy-washy to be of any worth to the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, with the spirit of the lion alone, anyone who offends our laws, creeds, ways, beliefs, standards, precepts, or our person will pay the harsh price. They will be cut to pieces, and this has no place in the Kingdom of God. But when the two come back together in the End, harmony and balance ensues, and has great worth in the Kingdom.

We have certainly had our share of imbalance, which would mar our vision and understanding of things. There were times when we may have declared that the Kingdom of God had arrived, that there was no delay, that there was no reason to wait for it, that it was already here to be had. But although we know that we have been delivered into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, and it is within us, we failed in our attempts to draw it forth, and try as we may, all of our pseudo fruit failed. Our love failed when we were hated and not loved by others. Joy failed when the darkness of winter’s tempest wore on. Peace eroded with the perpetual onslaught of adversity. That which we thought was longsuffering turned to revenge after continually being falsely accused. Our gentleness was overtaken by hostility when buffeted by persistent, perilous winds of injustice. Our goodness became not so good after daily being afflicted with evil. Our faith fell into doubt and despair after it appeared that the substance we had believe for would never come. Our meekness either surrendered to despondency or turned to raw anger after witnessing the sacrilegious profiteers working the church. For some reason our righteousness never proved to be right. And that which we called truth brought people under bondage and never set them free.

With impatience setting in, we made feeble attempts to declare that there is nothing left to wait for, while we ignored some of the primary characteristics of the Kingdom of God, which were made clear by Jesus, the prototype of every son. Those characteristics do not come easily to us, but were commonplace for Him; namely — healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. When the world sees these wonders, they will know that the Kingdom of God is upon them. When these ancient landmarks rise up and sweep over the earth, no one will have to be told or convinced that the sons of God are being manifested. “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” 1 Cor. 4:20.

The Kingdom of God is power, brethren! If the Kingdom of God is in the earth, where is the power? I don’t see it! Do you? The simple fact is, to date, we have only seen such power and glory very dimly. The power of the Kingdom has not been on a wide scale, and presently it is practically nonexistent. We may see a lot of fanfare. Bold claims may be made, but the reality escapes us. Sadly, mixture, not the oneness and balance of the Lamb and Lion, but mixture, and it is the norm today rather than the exception. Wheat and tares are growing hand-in-hand. For instance, let us note the piercing words of one of the vanguards of truth, J. Preston Eby:

“According to our Lord’s parable of the wheat and the tares, the kingdom of heaven during this past age was to be an age of mingled blessing when the seed of the kingdom of God would be planted and begin to grow and develop in the hearts of a chosen company who would believe on Christ. It was to be an age when true and false would be side by side in the same pew, when wheat and tares would grow in the same field, when sheep and goats would roam the same pastures, when good and bad fish would be caught in the same gospel net. So alike were the tares and the wheat that the Lord Himself declared that men should not try to separate them, but that both should be permitted to grow together until the time of the end when God would send forth His angel-messengers to divide the wicked from the righteous, the spiritual from the carnal, the sheep from the goats, and the wheat from the tares (Mat. 13:36-43).

“This mixture in the church — the wheat and the tares — becomes, later on in the Revelation, the gaudy harlot riding astride the beast of the carnal nature and worldly government. This great whore is described as ‘arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication’ (Rev. 17:4). Ray Prinzing draws our attention to the fact that even as the seven infant churches were ‘golden’ candlesticks, though beset by flesh, error, carnality, and abominations of various kinds, so this wanton harlot carries in her hand a ‘golden’ cup. Ray wrote, ‘Golden bespeaks of things of intrinsic value, or, spiritual things. There is no doubt that religious Babylon has held in her hand a golden cup — treasures of truth, spiritual enrichments, revivals, times of divine visitation, but she has also mixed in of her own abominations, gross manifestations of the flesh, idolatry, carnality, spiritual adultery, whatever filthiness can be mentioned, it is all found in that cup, and then it was given to men to drink, until all the earth has become drunken with this awful mixture of flesh and spirit.

“‘Again this is noted in Daniel 5:2-3, as Belshazzar ‘commanded to bring the silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple, and they drank wine in them.’ They would take hold of the cup and place in it their own wine, and dishonor the true by mixing it with the false. As the spirit of man is joined to the spirit of the world, the spirit of self-aggrandizement, stroking their own ego, yet all the time claim to be doing it for the Lord. It’s Babylon — CONFUSION — taking the things of intrinsic value, the songs of Zion, the quickened Word, the precious blood of Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and mixing it all up with the frivolity of the flesh, equating loudness as the anointing, emotional outbursts are thought to be spirit-movings, and it is amazing how many are ready to drink from this cup — to become drunken with spiritual fornication, party-time mixing of the holy with the profane. Yet the Word speaks loud and clear, ‘Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot partake of the Lord’s table, and the table of devils’ (1 Cor. 10:21). Participation in Babylon’s cup must end!’” (FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE, Part 30).

It is such a common factor for us to do what we can to rush things along; but when our hands are put to God’s agenda, we very often declare from the Outer court or Holy place that which can only be lived in the Holy of holies. There are no substance to our words when we move in our Pentecostal spirit and say that we stand in the Holy of holies. Moreover, when one abides in that highest realm of the holies, one will not be making proclamations of who he is. His presence speaks for itself.

We have a tendency to declare from the feast of Pentecost that Tabernacles is here, while we forget there is no need of boisterous claims of reality when it comes. As precious as Pentecost is, the reality of Tabernacles speaks for itself. It needs no help from Pentecost. We can declare the vision of Tabernacles night and day, meeting after meeting, but it will avail nothing until the appointed time. When the time comes, nothing can stop it; for it will speak for itself, as the prophet so clearly tells us:
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Hab. 2:3.

Ah, wait for it! That is so hard to do, especially when we have had such a vivid vision of the manifestation of the sons of God, and to be servants when we know we’ve been called to be lords is next to impossible. Nevertheless, they who wait for their Lord and the vision to speak will not be disappointed. They will be the vision that speaks.

At times we become a little confused and suppose our ideals are the reality of the vision. Or, in the dimness of what we see, we try to make the vision come to pass by declaring it into existence. The vision may or may not be authentic, but if it is authentic, this does not necessarily make it a present reality. Boasting in the flesh does not manifest our hopes, regardless of their seeming merit.

A true vision is one thing that is lacking greatly in the churches, and “Where there is no vision, the people perish....” Prov. 29:18. Other things have been introduced. Interpretation of the scriptures has been prolific, tons of eschatology is freighted daily to the people, and supposed decoding of God’s mysteries are pandemic; but a vision? — it is scarce. Let us not, however, cast this entire shadow on the churches alone. We have also had our vision impaired. The religious systems don’t have a corner market on not seeing beyond what their pastors tell them. For we have been blind-sided a little ourselves, and very often see through a glass a little more than darkly.

The New International Version sheds this light on the verse: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint....” and the Message Bible also gets the point across very well:
“If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Hasn’t there been a casting off of restraints? Without scriptural or spiritual soundness, there is not much that has not been embraced or discarded, and it seems that there is a headlong race toward the ditch Jesus said the blind would fall into. We can’t help from wondering how such a thing could happen? Could it be that there is blindness in the body? If so, the blind would certainly have a problem seeing the vision. Supposing this is true, we would have to say that the blind are leading the blind as they cast off restraint. Of course, they may say that they see, and it is the others who can’t see and don’t have a vision, that they are lagging behind and will not venture into the light of what is happening. Whichever view we might have, be sure to know, the vision will not speak until the time comes for it to speak, and to attempt any other scenario is foolish and will be utterly fruitless and grievous to the Spirit. For instance, coming together in the spirit of Pentecost and agreeing that Tabernacles is here will not manifest the goal, but may merit a sharp rebuke. Note the words of the prophet:

"I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religious projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice--oceans of it. I want fairness--rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.” (Amos 5:22-25, Message Bible). This transliteration takes a lot of evangelistic license, to say the least; but I believe it speaks very well of this day due to restricted vision and personal wants.

Now, with the above verses having been written, does this mean that we will no longer attend meetings and conferences? If they were all of that sort, that is exactly what it would mean. But there are still gatherings where the people sing unto and worship the Lord in one mind and one accord. Their music stems from the heavens and not the ego-nomics of man. These people are just and fair to all. Frankly, they are meek, or at least, they are becoming meek. Gathering with them is a pleasure. However, I have no desire to indulge, or endure, meetings which grieve the Spirit.

There is one thing, however, that I do desire! I desire that we can be angry at these dear people, for the right reason, and for the right amount of time! In doing so, we would be meek, and the wrath of the Lamb would set aright that which is wrong. In being meek, we would inherit their earth, the base elements of their meetings, even their lives. With a three-fold cord of the Lord, we would drive the carnival spirit from the courtyards of their temple. In the power of meekness we would also draw them into the Holy place, and onward to the most Holy place and into the Shekinah glory of God. We would be one with them in the rich Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is my desire, and I believe it will be a reality. We will not be separated one from the other as it was in the beginning when beast and serpent were unleashed in the world. We will not cleave to that which makes one flesh. But rather, the Spirit shall cleave to the soul and be one Spirit. The Bridegroom and Bride will be one, the Lamb and the Lion will lie down together and be one, and truly, the Meek will inherit the earth. Praise God! “...The kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” Dan. 7:27. There will be no hurt in His holy mountain; for we will be angry and sin not!

To be continued...

Elwin R. Roach

From the mailbag:

Good morning Elwin, I trust that you are well. I was just noticing something, and it quickened in me to share it with you as it goes right along with what you are currently writing about. In Isaiah 11:2, we have a description of the 7-fold Spirit of God. The spirit of might (ghebooraw-force, valor, and victory) is listed, but it was interesting to note that it is a feminine passive form of gibbowr, which means powerful, warrior or tyrant. The tyrant is brought into submission, the lion lies down with the lamb, but the force is still there. The victory is still there, and the courage to walk this walk is still there. You may already know this; but I felt quickened to share. You came to mind instantly, so there it is , in a nutshell. Say hi to everyone there, joy and peace to you all in Christ Jesus...Larry Hakala
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Dear Elwin,

Day before yesterday I received #173.04. The day before that, Rita called and asked if I had received it yet. She hadn’t either; but Diana had called her and said it was wonderful. I read it yesterday and it has meant so much to me and is very timely. I greatly appreciate the note in the back to read #’s 171.04 and 172.04. I had read 171.04 when it came and thought it was wonderful and it was also very timely for me; but I hadn’t read 172.04 until right now — and now I can’t contain myself and must write to thank you so much and Praise the Lord!
When I say timely, it is because I am so convicted of my total lack of meekness and because the Lord is showing me all of this just as the “orge” in me was about to do some damage that I certainly would have regretted. I was in a state of confusion, and this profound teaching has cleared things up beautifully. The truth is so beautiful. I know I need to meditate on this and pray that the Lord will really “bring it home” to me and work it in me. Thank you, Elwin! God bless you and Margit!

Anne Hallowell

P.S. In addressing the envelope and noting the name of your publication as The Pathfinder, I am reminded of how easy it is to get off of the path without realizing it, and then when realizing it, not always knowing how or when it happened and how to get back on it. I have known that I was off it lately, and have been asking the Lord to show me how to get back on it. I had lost my joy and was full of anger and criticism and dissatisfaction. Then I realized, I had ceased being thankful and really trusting Him, and then the teachings on meekness came! Hallelujah! He never lets us go!

These teachings blessed Johnny also! He hasn’t read #172.04 yet. That one is my favorite and will answer his question about meekness not being used in reference to God, but is used in reference to Jesus. He will rejoice in the whole message, I know!

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Dear Elwin,

I’m writing to thank you so very much for your teaching on the real meaning of the word MEEKNESS in your Pathfinder Part 12, #171.04. Being a bit a Type A personality, I had despaired of ever attaining to that quality in this life. I had accepted the general belief that meekness meant spineless, demure, and the like. In my efforts to try to be meek, I have squashed my natural enthusiasm, passion, and expressiveness. For some reason, I seem to be surrounded by phlegmatics who prefer me to ‘tone it down,’ especially if I am angry or upset over something. I don’t get out of control — I am simply vivacious. For years I have complained to God for giving me this stupid personality. I felt that if I could not act meek like so many of my friends, then I was not a good Christian.

Your explanation of true meekness set me free from self-condemnation. I can be free to be me — to use the personality God gave me for His service. I was so busy squashing my LION and trying to be all LAMB that I just was driving myself crazy.

Thank you and thank God!

That whole Part 12 teaching was particularly enlightening. I have spent a long time over it. It also answered my questions of how could Jesus say he was meek and act and say some of the things He did. Now I understand. Yeah!

God’s blessing on you and yours,

Love in Jesus,

Barbara Kuniholm

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Thank you, Elwin, for Part 14 (#173.04) about the meek — a message we all must read and heed. I will not be the same.

Sincerely,

George Howe

In The Beginning Directory
 

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