Open Letters to Roger and Joellen

These are two letters written to Roger and Joellen Griffin, who lived in the Community for many years. It was our hope that these letters might speak to others who have left the Community, as we desire with all of our hearts that those who are willing to do our Father’s will would return and build with us.

Jump to the Second Letter

Hi, Roger and Joellen,

I thought I’d write to both of you, since Joellen in her recent letter to me mentioned how the both of you poured out your lives for twenty-one years to support the vision that’s behind our life in the Community. Almah and I don’t know much about the specifics that led up to you leaving the Community, so of course we can only communicate in a more general way. Maybe that’s why you feel that you can talk to us without us feeling threatened by you. I am glad that you feel like that about us, as we really do care about you. However, that feeling should not just be confined to Almah and me, as we are merely representing the heart of the Community in this. But as I have already said, I am glad that you feel comfortable with us.

I do hope, though, that you likewise wouldn’t feel threatened or put on the defenses in our communication. In doing so, you would certainly miss our intentions towards you. I hope what I am writing will offer some explanations to the questions raised in your last two letters to me. But before reading on, please understand this one absolutely essential prerequisite in order to move towards any promising results in this kind of exchange. Know that in your twenty-one years in the Community you were exposed to a spiritual life, and as spiritual things can only be appraised spiritually, it takes spiritual discernment to judge any matters surrounding this life.

Many have tried to understand the heart of God intellectually and ended up shipwrecked in their faith (Lk 7:23), because in doing so, they completely missed His kind intentions in all He does and allows (Ps 145:8; 84:10-12; 18:25-27). Only those who are willing to do His will, will have the needed spiritual illumination to have discernment in spiritual matters. Only complete honesty about any uncooperative motive towards God puts a person on spiritual and objective ground (Lk 8:15). And only from that place can anyone hear Him and truly understand His heart. That’s why only the humble will hear and as a result of it be glad (Ps 34:2). Hence, the reverse also applies: if someone is not glad about what God is saying, he obviously must not have heard Him (although he may have heard of Him) due to an unyielding heart (as Yahshua expressed in Jn 5:37, or Paul in Eph 4:17-21).

Yes, I am attempting to offer some explanations to the questions raised in your last two letters to me. I am not trying to judge the matter or to convince you of anything or prove anything to you. I am simply sharing what I am learning in my own life. Hopefully you can read, consider, and profit. But, although I put quite some effort into the content of this letter, I would ask you to please not go on reading beyond these lines unless you have first settled this extremely important question of absolute, even painful honesty with yourself, because I fear it will bring great damage apart from doing so.

During our visit with Joellen a few months ago, I think we acknowledged your sincerity in giving your lives to the cause, so to speak, when you lived with us for more than twenty years. In Lk 13:23-30, Yahshua explains a very perplexing phenomenon — the difference between merely living in the Community and actually living in the Body. I say perplexing, because it was never meant that there would be such a difference, but it seems that many will either not understand this or lose their understanding about it. Somehow they thought they were in the Body and building it up, while all along they merely lived in community, trying so hard to make it work.

It’s like the blind man, who after he’d been touched by Yahshua, saw people like trees. It was great progress from not seeing anything at all. Suddenly, he saw the Community, and it was so exciting to him. But, in a sense, he needed that “second touch” to see the Body. The Ephesians, who, judging by the letter Paul had written to them, seemed to have greater revelation than anyone else, had to be told that the eyes of their heart needed to be enlightened (Eph 1:18). Obviously, there was something they didn’t quite see yet or had lost sight of (2 Pet 1:9).

Later on, in the letters written to the seven churches in Revelation, it is clear that they all had gone down that road, and that the revelation of the Body was vanishing and was being replaced with mere communal living. This was, of course, only the first step in a development, the outcome of which we know today as “going to church.” The Ephesians had lost their first love; and without love — which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things (speaking of relationships) — the Body degrades to community, which, in turn, most likely will disintegrate very fast into individual living.

The Laodiceans obviously didn’t overcome as Yahshua overcame by going to the throne of grace to get the strength needed to do His Father’s will. Somehow they found other means to cope with life in community. Yahshua, fully aware of this tendency, mentions food, dissipation, and drowning yourself in the worries of making a living as enemies of the Body, however not necessarily of community, although undoubtedly in the long run the selfish nature of these pursuits will break down community as well.

You find in the gospels the passages to forsake your life and possessions for Yahshua’s sake and the gospel’s or Kingdom’s sake. You see, Yahshua comes first. First the messenger, then the message. Judas, in a certain way, was devoted to the message but obviously not the messenger. This became clear when the very costly perfume of spikenard was poured on Yahshua. Judas was unwilling to give that amount of glory to Yahshua. He didn’t see His value, while on the other hand, the woman kissed His feet without ceasing. You know that the kiss is synonymous with surrender in a real way. However, it has to be a continual surrender. That’s the gospel, and that’s what it means to do all a person can do, just as this woman did. It takes that complete devotion.

Remember Peter in the storm on lake Galilee. He had no hope in his own or his friends’ ability to maneuver their boat through this storm. In the natural, anyone would desperately hang on to the last plank or oar of the boat; however, Peter would rather be with Yahshua, even if it meant to walk on the water of a tossing sea in the midst of a violent gale.

There are so many scriptural examples to illustrate the point. Look at Gideon’s army. In the first selection, 22,000 out of 32,000 were sent home. They came seeking their own glory. They may not have been aware of their motive. They may have been devoted to the cause. They received the message but not the messenger (remember, “A sword for YHWH and a sword for Gideon.” You have heard these things). Surely, they didn’t like the Midianites oppressing them. However they weren’t motivated by fighting YHWH’s battle. They came in their own strength, and after victory they couldn’t have helped but acknowledged their own glory. Acknowledging YHWH would have been mere lip service, because it wasn’t the reality of their life. The motive deep down was fear, which is the expression of self — self-concern.

How many will be able to serve the Most High without fear or self-concern (Lk 1:74; 1 Jn 4:18)? This is the only acceptable service. This is the most difficult work of the Holy Spirit, to bring a person to the point of true surrender — meaning a person’s desires, strength and abilities, his whole being, to only see His name be made great, His will being done and His kingdom being built. Unfortunately, so many who have been with us have not endured in this process, which is what salvation is all about, as any other desire or wish, even if it would gain a person the whole world, in the end would cause him lose his own soul. Perhaps he didn’t understand that the gospel is really a calling to priesthood (1 Pet 2:9-10).

Anyway, Paul called this process a “pressing on to know Yahshua,” a knowledge he considered as “surpassing anything else” in value. That kind of surrender is a very real part of salvation. Yahshua very clearly put forth in the gospels that the requirement of discipleship, and following Him consists in picking up one’s cross daily. Hence Paul’s statement of “being conformed to Yahshua’s death” in order to know the power of His resurrection, which is what it takes to live and function in the Body.

A person can function on his own strength in the Community for many years, as Isa 40:31 teaches. But eventually even the strongest will faint and grow weary (Mt 11:6). Somehow, in the trying circumstances, they never learned to sprout wings (NASB margin in Isa 40:31) and rise above them. Isaiah 58 teaches what it means to grow these wings so that we can ride the heights of the earth.

I was reading an amazing story about eagles to my two youngest boys, and we came across the following passage: “Growing feathers taxed all the young birds’ strength, and they were constantly ravenous. If an eaglet is forced to go hungry even a few hours, his body sucks in the blood nourishing the feathers. When he is gorged again, the feathers resume their growth, but white lines appear across the webbing. These hunger streaks weaken the feathers. The young female had no hunger streaks, the more superior male a few; but the little brother’s feathers were covered with them.” It was a batch of three eaglets, and of course the weakest one was the first to go. He didn’t even make it out of the nest. And so we see that some grow very weak feathers, and some even none at all, and some grow what it takes to mount up and take flight.

We are not merely building a community, but a kingdom that is made without human hands. That’s why it will endure forever and ever. That’s why “the things we think are breaking us are really making us,” if we let them break us from our natural strength. This has always been the problem whenever our Father started a work. Eventually His people always (we don’t really want to use this term, as it is a “bottom-liner” and puts people in a box, but this is precisely the term the Holy Spirit used in Heb 3:10) went astray in their heart and didn’t come to know His ways. And so He is still looking for a people He can lead into all the truth.

Joellen, you were quick to say during our visit that you know what is in your own heart. I am sure you said it as a result of reflecting the matter over and over. I tried to caution you by telling you that I am in the process of coming to know what is in my heart. Of course, I made a basic decision for my life — not just to join a community, but to actually follow Yahshua in His Body; I am settled on that — but to walk it out is another thing, for as Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, or incurably sick. He goes on to ask the question as to who can know it, for who can understand his errors, the things that are hidden deep within, iniquities and inner workings, apart from having it revealed by the word of God, the only means to judge the deepest motives and thoughts of a human being. That’s the process of coming to know the truth.

Remember, the goal is “that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” It’s a coming, a process. It’s a guiding of the Holy Spirit into all the truth. This is surely not talking about some abstract doctrine. This is talking about coming to know the truth about yourself, your deepest motives and thoughts, your deepest inner workings. That’s why I told you, Joellen, that you will know the truth to the degree you are honest with yourself (Ps 51:6).

The hardening of the heart begins with not being honest as to your motives, and leads you to live in denial of your own inner workings. This is actually what makes a person a liar. This spiritual principle is the context of Pr 17:4, that an evildoer gives heed to false lips and a liar listens eagerly to a destructive tongue. This, of course, speaks of listening to lips that justify the evildoer, and of the tongue that will destroy the liar who is not willing to own up to his own condition, without which a person cannot be saved and delivered from death. It all starts with not being honest with yourself, and ends with losing altogether any discernment as to what is true and what is false. And this actually sets a person on a course that is not good. Ps 36:1-4 graphically illustrates this process.

A righteous man hates lying, but a wicked man is loathsome and comes to shame (Pr 13:5). The righteous person is honest about his inner workings, where the wicked man lives in denial and consequently is turned over to loathsome and shameful behavior. Pr 14:8-9 are also very explicit. Fools mock at guilt because they’d rather deceive themselves by some psychological explanation, rather than having the wisdom of the prudent and understanding their inner workings. (Supposedly, one of the men who had the greatest influence on the 20th century was Sigmund Freud with his psychoanalysis. Consider!!) Pr 15:28 — “The heart of the righteous studies how to answer when called to account, while the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.” Also Pr 19:3 or 21:8.

Ps 18:25-26 expresses it so aptly: “To the merciful He shows Himself merciful, with the blameless man He shows Himself blameless, with the pure He shows Himself pure, and with the crooked He shows Himself crooked.” It’s the same God, the same Holy Spirit. He shows Himself the same to everyone. It’s obviously according to a person’s (subjective) perception of the One who shows Himself the same to everyone He shows Himself to! To some, i.e., those who have the ability to blame themselves, it’s absolute mercy to be able to live in the Body, understanding that this is the only place where one can come to know his inner workings and be healed from his wrong ways. This is only possible in the controlled environment of the redemptive community, where the One who is in control is greater than the destructive forces within every fallen human being that will eventually drag them down to death. And of course, I am not saying that your situation was understood completely and handled perfectly (I am not trying to speak for ha-êmeq as to the comment that we may have failed you in some way, the comment she supposedly made after you left; possibly it was a good groping or soul-searching to see whether we lacked in any way and could have done better), but I am saying that it was handled in a controlled way, although you subjectively may not have understood that.

In saying that it was a controlled situation I am saying that it was a test. It was a test from the One who is in control of everything, and it was test with due consideration to where we were at spiritually as a Body, and for our growth, and where you were at spiritually, and for your growth as well. I am not saying that it was an easy situation, as it is not easy to go through this process. It’s not easy to face yourself in this manner. Yes, the Body is a very exposing environment (but maybe we shouldn’t get offended at what or who is exposing us, but rather at what is being exposed, lest we take identity with the latter rather than the former), but at the same time it is an environment of love, encouragement, sympathy, understanding, and acceptance.

God doesn’t expect this kind of self-judgment from people that never had a chance to live in this environment. Of course, they are held responsible to restrain themselves from the wrong bends that constitute the inner makeup of every human being as to not realize the tremendous potential to do the evil a person is capable of. However there is no context and means of healing from these deep and very destructive moral disorders outside the environment of salvation. And the truth is that if we are no better than our fathers, we will end up where they ended up, as Elijah said to YHWH after he ran away from Jezebel: “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

If a person is willing to do YHWH’s will, which is nothing short of living entirely for Him and being consumed with restoring His reputation, something that has been slandered and dragged into the mud, then this is the place, for He can only be glorified by those who serve Him with the strength He supplies and in the place where He is. His Body is the only place where this can happen, as it is the ground to fall into and die.

Whenever Yahshua faced hardship, His response was simply: “Father don’t deliver Me from it, but let Your name be glorified through it” (Jn 12:27-28). And He knew that could only happen by falling into the ground and dying. All those who have that attitude will understand His word and come to the knowledge of the truth, for it takes precisely that kind of attitude to abide in His word and to be truly be set free from anything that would cause a person to go to death (Jn 8:31-32). Apart from that attitude, a person (in Hebrew, you call that state of heart and mind qashab) loses his ability to hear. Another desire of a selfish nature has come in (Jn 8:43-44).

Really, such a one has been touched by the evil one as 1 Jn 5:18 describes. The correct translation here is the NKJV, which says that we know that whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself, because he has the ability to judge his own desires, and the evil one does not touch him. That touch is like a stupor, a modifying influence upon a person’s soul and spirit, to make him insensitive to his own inner condition. (The apostle Paul encountered many in his day who were in that condition of having lost that kind of sensitivity, their senses, as he said in 2 Tim 2:25-26). It’s like a narcosis, a spiritual drug that dulls that pain of guilt, which only truly can be removed by confession. But how many prefer the dulling of their symptoms to true healing?

So we live in the days of preparing for the Race. I remember when Yônêq first introduced the concept in a teaching in Island Pond. He looked around the room and told us that you can’t run a race with excess weight, and that many would be excluded before we would come up to the starting point. Looking around the Maples living room back then, you couldn’t even imagine that anyone in that room would be disqualified. I am pretty sure that both of you were in that room. How many others who had been in that room back then are gone?

You know that if anyone competes in athletics, he has to compete in such a way as to win. This requires self-control in all things, and a strict following of the rules. In sports, there is something they call doping. It’s the taking of illegitimate substances to make one perform beyond his natural ability. In our life it’s the touch of the evil one, once a person stops accessing grace. That touch could be things like Phil 3:18-19 or Lk 21:34.

I wish you would have endured. I felt I may have gotten a clue when you, Joellen, told Almah and me that Roger wouldn’t have a problem coming back, because he liked what he was doing in the Community, being involved in what you considered the more exciting aspects of the Community, i.e., the governmental and organizational processes of our life. Surely that might be exciting if you live in community. However, if you are a functioning member of the Body, everything is exciting because it is done for YHWH’s sake and by his grace.

You also said that you were dying when out in Arizona, until you started taking drugs, and that you weren’t ready to submit your decision in this matter to the Body because you didn’t want to die. I say this with all respect to you as one who hasn’t been tested in this manner yet. (I did live, though, with someone who’s gone through this kind of testing and who came out on the other side.) Could it have been that you were chosen as a forerunner for all of us in preparing for the race (which is not to the swift, Eccl 9:11, as YHWH doesn’t delight in the legs of a man, Ps 147:10) and ultimately, of course, to qualify as an honored member of the Stone Kingdom, which is made without human hands, as someone whose natural strength the Holy Spirit could break? This is the only way the barley loaf, that represented Gideon and his army, will be able to stay together, as barley doesn’t have much natural gluten content.

We are a colorful bunch, as we say in German. We don’t have much to stick together naturally. Only those who serve YHWH by the strength He supplies in the place where He is will be honored by Him, meaning they will be given the glory that causes the respect of all others who serve Him in the same way, thus causing the unity in the Body (Jn 12:26). You left where He is, and He is surely not there where you are. You have to come back to the place where Mal 1:11 describes. Could your reaction to hold on to your life in this very trying life-and-death situation reveal something deeper? I wish you would reconsider.

Joellen, if I understood you correctly, you thought it was a superficial remark to equate the wearing of earrings with the love of the world. It didn’t sound as if it was a judgment, but more of a groping as to what happened to her one-time good friend. Just consider that sometimes even little outward things point out a great deficit in a person’s spiritual condition. Like in the second test of Gideon’s army: The manner of how most of the men drank the water revealed that they didn’t exercise self-control in all things, which disqualified them from being part of the tight-knit army of Gideon and consequently from the battle.

And as I already said, and I will reiterate, that you have to judge a tree by its fruit. Somehow all those who received the word and the spirit that came through Yônêq in our very beginnings understood that it was not just the word of man but actually the word of God, as was proven by the effective working in all of those who truly believed, as we began to imitate the pattern of the Judean churches — mainly, of course, the church in Jerusalem in Acts 2 and 4 — without being aware of these scriptures. Later we discovered Acts 2 and 4, but then it was only confirmation for what had already been going on in our midst. The forming of the Community according to pattern of Acts 2 and 4 is the qualification, according to Paul in 2 Ths 2:13-14, that the living word of God is a reality in any place where this kind of life is being established and maintained.

I’d better stop here, but not without saying in closing that in spite of all the lacks, admittedly obvious lacks, as you seem to be well aware off, the love that I have seen when I first met the Community 30 years ago, and that I have experienced ever since, is enough for me. We are still going upstream, still fighting against the strong current to just surrender to living for ourselves, the current that wants to take us all down to futility and ultimately to death. I wish you were here, side by side in the good fight, helping us with our lacks, and growing in love and togetherness.

I really wish that for both of you, and I don’t think it’s too late.

Obadiah

Back to top

The Second Letter

Roger and Joellen,

Although some time passed since we last communicated, I have definitely not forgotten about you. As a matter of fact, what you’ve written in your last couple of letters to me has been very predominantly on my mind. Honestly, I have had many thoughts and I have deliberated quite a bit as to the best way to respond to you, especially after you mentioned that you didn’t understand my letter to you and Roger. I thought about how our Master Yahshua always had the right response. He always had that perfect sensitivity, the love and care to meet people right where they were at. There are such wonderful examples about that. He knew what was in all men.

Your description of the last part of the 21 years you lived with us sounds like a tremendous, traumatic nightmare. As a matter of fact, I have the feeling that you are still traumatized from the experience. You mentioned physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual anguish. I’d call that being greatly afflicted. The person in Ps 116:8-11, in a time of severe affliction, said in his alarm that all men are liars, disqualifying the whole Community. In his affliction, he actually believed that the Community is a completely untrustworthy place to give your life. And then he gave into the almost irresistible temptation to use his mouth as a release valve for the turmoil within, and spoke from the bitterness of his soul. Who cannot identify? But he spoke in alarm, in haste. It makes all the difference. Or did he speak his faith that through all he was going through his soul would be delivered from death, his eyes from tears and his feet from stumbling, and that he would enjoy life again before his God in the land of those who don’t live for themselves anymore, but for the One who died and rose again on his behalf? Once again, what did he believe and what did he speak? It makes all the difference.

A similar experience is recorded in Psalm 73, where a person underwent affliction of such a degree that he considered it too painful for him to bear up under. However, that person did not give into the temptation to speak from his embittered heart and pierced soul. He knew in doing so he’d be untrue to the generation of His children, his brothers and sisters who gather in the circle with him. Instead he went into the sanctuary and understood that for a person to never see death he’d have to be saved from even the wish to save his own life. Any trace of selfish desire has to be replaced with only desiring Him. That’s why He made a covenant with all those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, for all of their salvation and all their desire (2 Sam 23:5).

Actually, this covenant is secured and ordered in all things. Although in times of affliction it is easy to lose that sense of order and security, but reality is that the covenant is absolutely trustworthy, and that for those who are in that covenant all things work out for good (Rom 8:28). That doesn’t mean that it won’t be a fiery ordeal to achieve that end. Even after having been in the covenant for many years Peter still reminded the disciples to not be surprised when it happens.

I know you voiced some serious grievances. I am learning that if we let the things grieve us that come our way as we follow Yahshua and serve Him in the place where He is, we might end up grieving the Holy Spirit. I am firmly convinced that if you could have given thanks always for all things, even for the things that put great (di)stress on you (that’s when our thanksgiving really means a lot to our Father), you would have laid hold of the good end that all things in Messiah work for. I knew that you understood that following Him would require more than a leisurely Sunday morning stroll to church (although, before I met the real one, the few times in my life I had to take that dreaded walk, I really loathed it). Ever wonder why He said that blessed is the one who doesn’t stumble as they follow Him. Of course I am facetious, but I know that you couldn’t stand that kind of following as well. I know that you know better than to settle for that, as you said that you can’t even read your Bible since you left. Little wonder, what would you find in there anyway?

After all, Yahshua was a man acquainted with much grief and sorrow. What does that mean for those who aspire to follow such a man? There were times when he felt like a worm (Ps 22:6). But He, the man, took it. What is possible for one human being to do, no matter how difficult the feat, shows that it’s humanly possible, and therefore must be possible for others to do as well. In Yahshua’s case, I’d rather say that what He did is possible for other humans to do as well, however, only by doing it the way He did it. After all, He’d be a harsh taskmaster to call others to follow Him if it weren’t possible.

Did Job get disoriented in the midst of his afflictions? Did he stop giving thanks for and acknowledging his Creator in the things he suffered? After he endured, he understood the intended end of his kind and merciful Creator in all the things He had allowed to come upon him.

The writer of Psalm 119 says that it was good for him that he was afflicted (Ps 119:67-75). Apart from that, he’d never seen and turned from his wrong ways and always gone astray. Somehow afflictions reveal the true inner person. Who’d ever have thought that the tender and refined man and woman in Dt 28:53-57 would display such horrible behavior as mentioned there? The right kind of pressure merely brings out what’s been there all along, the good and the bad.

So here is our Father, who in His goodness and uprightness wants to turn us from our wrong ways and teach us His way. Everything He does is full of mercy and truth (Ps 25:8-22; 145:17-20). He wants to break the covenant that all men have with death, not desiring for anyone to perish. He knows exactly what connects us to that horrible place and will cause us to go there one day after we’ve lived our lives, if we never severed these connections. Do we know these connections? It goes beyond natural understanding. It has to be revealed. That’s why our Master said that if you abide in His word, the word that is sharper than any two-edged sword and can reveal the deepest thoughts and motives of the heart, then you will know the truth and the truth in turn will set you free. He is the light of the world, and unless a person allows Him to shine into his heart like that, he will die in his sins (Jn 8:51).

Of course, our Master Yahshua took our place in death and suffered the agony that we would have had to suffer, and still will suffer if we are not being set free from our selfish, hurtful ways. It cost Him suffering to become our Savior, and we corporately will have to suffer comparably in order to be saved. There is an equation there. That’s the point Yahshua was trying to make in that Passover meal, when He instituted the breaking of bread, when James and John told Him that they could drink the cup of salvation.

So our Father knows that it will take affliction for us to come to the knowledge of the truth about what is in our hearts. The more hidden, the more it takes. So in His mercy, He creates the perfect environment for this process to take place. Just as it says in Pr 17:3, the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but YHWH tests the hearts. I am not going to ask you if you did, because from what you’ve written it is clear that you most certainly did identify the Community with that furnace of much affliction, the only place where the human heart can be refined. I am sure you have sung that song and danced the accompanying dance many times.

Jeremiah, the prophet, saw it so clear. He knew that the heart of man was fatally flawed, incurably sick. There is no cure known to man to remedy its defects. It’s a fatal disease inherited from birth, unless the One who tests the heart and mind intervenes. He knows the deepest thoughts and motives of every person. Only He can give each one according to his particular wrong ways so that he could come to understand his deepest thoughts and motives. Apart from that, a person will never see his connection to death. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from the Father of lights, even the afflictions it takes to see and understand our fallen selfish desires. Unfortunately, that knowledge began to wane at the end of the first century in the twelve tribes to whom James addressed his letter (Jms 1:12-25). In the end, they all became senseless (2 Tim 2:25-26; Ps 92:5-6).

So the smelter sits down at the crucible. The sitting down indicates that it is a long-term process, but it also indicates that it is a very controlled process. It’s a controlled environment. Remember, all things work for good. “The Lord is in control,” as we used to say in our beginnings, when things appeared to be already out or about to go out of control. Rejecting the process and leaving the environment is being out of control. The lead is added to the ore and bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed, but the impurities have not been drawn off. Then it’s called reprobate silver.

In the smelting process, lead was added to purify the ore. But instead of consuming the impurities, the lead was consumed. The lead is all the ways, all the amazing circumstances, hardships and afflictions, the seemingly and outrageously out-of-control situations every disciple faces in his life in the Community, so that whatever needs to be reached in us would be reached, so that we could be healed. I would include in the lead also all the counsel, wisdom, forgiveness, mercy, and friendship we are blessed with in our common life. The lead is simply whatever our good Father gives to all of His children according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings, so they could come to the knowledge of the truth about themselves and be saved (Jer 17:9-10). Enduring in this life of discipleship in community is the most merciful way to be saved. Lead has a very low smelting point and is very flexible. But the lead can also be consumed. So what if a person cannot be reached by anything? The purification process fails. What is there left? Slander? It actually says “walking as slanderers” (Jer 6:27-30).

Please don’t be like those who reject the smelting process and then go around as slanderers, and are rejected. Don’t be like those it talks about in Job 36, who turned to iniquity because they chose that rather than affliction, who are filled with the wrath and indignation that comes from an offended heart, whose life will end among the perverted persons (Job 36:14,17,21). That’s not why our Father brought you here. He saw the silver. Others saw it too. Almah saw it. I got glimpses of it in the few personal encounters I had with you.

When your heart and flesh were aching, did you forget the path you were taking? Did you lose your senses and turn to an unfeeling heart (Ps 17:10; 119:70) when you felt it was too painful (Ps 73:16)? I am not throwing stones. I can sympathize. There was a purpose behind what you suffered. It was a good purpose, but you failed to lay hold of it. The testing of your faith didn’t result in the salvation of your soul (1 Pet 1:7,9). You did not let Him bring you into that broad place (Job 36:16). You didn’t let Him enlarge your heart (Ps 4:1).

Our Father doesn’t despise your affliction. He is not turned away by it one bit (Ps 22:24). Neither are His people. You shouldn’t either. Don’t let these things cause you to quit. You can be a ruler and surmount. Don’t let the 21 years you lived with us be in vain.

There is a connection between Jacob and Mount Zion. Mount Zion’s altitude taken from sea level is about 2500 feet. However if you ascend from east, from the Jordan valley, it’s quite another story. It just goes up and up and up, for the simple reason that you start at negative 1300 feet, way below sea level. The Dead Sea gorge is the lowest place on earth. So it takes a lot of climbing to get to zero. We started at a great deficit. As a matter of fact we haven’t gotten there yet. Some have despised the slow work at the beginning, when you can’t see much, when a lot of work takes place underground where the foundation is being laid.

Starting at the lowest point on earth also means that our Father had to begin with the worst. In His righteousness He had to do that to prove that anyone can be saved, and that no one has a reason to boast. (If anyone can be saved, that must include you. Are you interested that He would be glorified through your life?) Then He can be glorified.

For the same reason, He set His love on the smallest nation on earth (Dt 7:7-8). Some have completely overlooked the tiny mustard seed. Some have despised it and attributed no significance to it. (Do you understand the miracle that at one point you could recognize it?) But He promised in Jer 30:18-19 that He’ll bring back the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and that He will multiply them and they shall not be small and insignificant.

Look at Jacob. What did he have going for him? There is his twin brother Esau. Same father, same mother, same environment. What’s worse, to not care, or to strive and use cunning and deceit to obtain? There is wonderful Isaac, who in total trust at his father’s command, willingly laid down on the altar to become a burnt offering for his God. How come it took Isaac the longest time to get it? It must not have been so obvious as it seems to us who know the outcome of the story. Surely Isaac saw Esau’s lack of caring, but he also clearly saw Jacob’s deceit and strife. Their character should have disqualified both. Esau was the first-born, but our Father said that He loved Jacob but hated Esau. And He is not partial. There was obviously something in Jacob’s heart that He could work with. There is something in Jacob’s character that would ascend. And although he started at that extremely low place, our Father knew that He could change him and make him into Israel.

You know well that ever since we began to understand more as to who we are, we’ve completely identified with Jacob. So what did you expect? A perfect community, Utopia? The apostle Paul actually calls us a foolish nation. I wonder if ever any one of the many that have read the Scriptures down through the ages have claimed that for themselves. We most certainly do.

Did you stop wanting to be identified with the foolish nation? Did you get offended at the severely afflicted people we are? We could all go through the communities of the twelve tribes of Jacob and point out the lacks. So disqualify Jacob. Fine. Some have done that. That could be speaking in haste. But don’t disqualify the One who qualifies Jacob (Col 1:12). That would be calling Him a liar, because He will save an afflicted people (Ps 18:27, NASB). That will be fulfilled. Saviors will ascend Mount Zion (Ob 1:21). Saviors, when faced with the many afflictions that trouble Jacob, will lay their life down, just as our Master laid His life down for us in order to become our Savior. These saviors will help Jacob with his lacks and deficits, and bring healing and restoration to the many needy areas in the communities of the twelve tribes, that you so compellingly pointed out. But as I said, they lay down their lives. Otherwise, it’s just intellectual discernment, wisdom from below that doesn’t do anything good, and for sure can’t deliver the needed healing touch. And so the bleeding just goes on, for twelve years or even longer, until a savior comes.

Ever wonder where you’d be if you’d continued to ascend? If you’d fallen into the ground and died? How much would that have improved the soil for others to flourish? Somehow He called you at the beginning and He knows perfectly your frame. There are certain plants that have to take over the soil first and prepare it for others. What if you would have endured? What would you have gained and what would we have gained as a people.

So who may ascend? It’s Jacob, those who seek Him, who open up their heart to let the King of Glory come in. We’ve always said that He can knock, but the doorknob is on the inside (Pr 18:19). Is that when you stopped ascending? You wanted a sabbatical. You became a camper and then a quitter. Is that how the story goes?

Do you know that you didn’t need to do that? Our Master, the man Yahshua, made it to the top. He endured through all of His afflictions. What did it gain for us? What if He hadn’t? Others made it to the top as well. What do we owe to them? They showed that our Father delivers the righteous out of all his many afflictions (Ps 34:19). Ps 24:6 says that there will be a generation who will do it — a whole nation. That’s why the person in Psalm 73, in great personal affliction, said that he’d be untrue to that generation to say otherwise (Ps 73:14-16). None of us has arrived, but all those of us who remained are still doing it. We’re still here learning to love each other. We hope to be that generation of Ps 24:6. But it’s only possible if you set your heart on pilgrimage, on ascending.

There is an end to Baca (Ps 84:5-6; 30:5). You could have reached that end. You still can. It was our Father’s heart when He called you that you’d be part of that generation that will succeed. He saw the silver in you. He actually made a promise to Abraham based on those who will ascend Mount Zion. He knew He couldn’t keep it apart from them. But He had the confidence that He will have a people that He could save from the gutter-most to the uttermost, that He could change from Jacob to Israel, those who can rule with Him. And He wanted to give us as we go through this tremendous change unshakable confidence that we can make it. That’s why He, although it is impossible for Him to lie, confirmed the promise with an oath. In effect, what He said to Abraham was that He’d give this land to him (Gen 15:18-21, which Abraham to this day hasn’t received), because He knew that the twelve tribes of Jacob in the restoration of all things at the end of this age would overcome and gain it for them. He swore based on us, based on you, knowing that we would do it. That should give you confidence that you can do it. He knew exactly that we needed that anchor for our soul to not be blown away by the winds that sweep the threshing floor of community life.

I believe you spoke in haste, judging from the conclusions you drew in your communication with me. You didn’t think it through. I am not saying that you didn’t spend a great amount of time thinking about these things. You most likely did. But you didn’t think deep enough. His thoughts are very deep. It’s not a matter of intelligence to understand them. Otherwise, He’d be partial. A deep thought is simply a thought that genuinely considers the welfare of others. That’s why a fool or a senseless person will never understand His thoughts. All a fool does is be concerned for his own welfare alone, while the senseless can’t sense how they affect those around them.

Our Father’s thoughts are continually on man. He thinks about him all day long. He can’t even think about Himself. He thinks about you. He thinks about how He can win you and bring you back to your senses. Like a persistent beggar, He is actually pleading with you to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor 5:20).

Do you see who you are, what you were called to? I believe that if you can see the silver in the twelve tribes, you can see the silver in yourself.

Don’t just settle for living for yourself (2 Cor 5:15). It never will fulfill you, believe me. A selfish desire, by its very nature, never can be fulfilled. You were called for something greater, even as you told Almah and me that you don’t live anymore for the great purpose and vision you used to have for your life. But just like all of us, in order for our true desire to be fulfilled, we will have to let Him save us from any other desire but Him (Pr 18:1). Don’t let the 21 years you’ve invested in this life be for nothing. Please reconsider. I don’t want you to have regret.

Obadiah

Back to top