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The same will have to happen for everyone who goes through a similar “time of Jacob's trouble”.
At the end of his struggle the supernatural Messenger gave him a new name which meant “overcomer”. According to Revelation, we become overcomers by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. What does this really mean?
When we grasp the truth about God, the true revelation of His character through a correct understanding of what God was trying to convey to us by dying on the cross and and allowing us to shed His own blood, we will be transformed and empowered to see sin as repulsive and will reject it ourselves. Then as we confess what has been revealed to us about God with our mouth and give thanks for who He really is our minds and hearts become synchronized and locked into a true perception of God and we overcome our false beliefs about Him. When that takes place we will live in a vital relationship with Him and will reflect His beauty, humility, compassion and completely selfless love. That is our testimony about God. That is what an overcomer is, not one who determinedly keeps the seventh-day Sabbath and believes the truth about the state of the dead in defiance of men's laws.
Those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus is the same as speaking according to the Law and to the testimony. These are in contrast to those who are agents of evil spirits who peep and mutter and utter all sorts of false ideas about God. (see the context of this reference)
The commandments of God are the principles of God's ways of operating, the left-brain facts upon which the universe is founded. The faith of Jesus is our heart connection with God, the vital connection that links our right brain/heart to God's heart.
Judas was addicted to force, as was all the other disciples. But Judas refused any alternative to his religion of force to the point of using it against Jesus in an attempt to force Him to become King through his presumed resistance to being arrested. When instead Jesus revealed His true character of humility, meekness and forgiving kindness in the face of overwhelming force and meanness, Judas saw his own selfishness exposed in the process and could no longer live with himself. He was experiencing hell and had to die to escape the inner pain and dissonance.
Peter too was very addicted to force. He too tried to employ force in his own way by using the sword to begin the revolution that Judas was trying to start. He was very close to following the same route as Judas, but he had allowed his heart to become attached enough to Jesus that he was saved from completely giving up and killing himself as well. The kindness of God led him to repentance instead of total despair and suicide, although after the resurrection Jesus had to meet with him privately to bring him out of paralyzing despondency and self-loathing fear. It not, he too may have followed the path of Judas to suicide.
These two men had both been referred to by Jesus using Satan's name. Judas was identified quietly as a devil and Jesus had openly confronted Peter with a rebuke to “Satan”. The spirit that primarily identifies the character of Satan is that of force. It is the “strange fire” that God was so adamant about in the Old Testament that His people not bring into His sanctuary. When we try to mix the use of force with God's ways we create a false religion that deceives people into believing the Lie about God created by Satan himself. It is a deadly mix for anyone attempting to create this mixture as Nadab and Abihu found out the hard way. (see Lev. 10)
Fire is the very essence of God and is the passion of His selfless love and character. God is always the same – He never changes despite our opinions to the contrary. He is humble, meek, loving, patient, kind, compassionate, forgiving, merciful and far more intense than we will ever be able to imagine. He never employs force to overcome any of His creature's freedom of will and choice to serve and love Him. He has been misunderstood by many of His representatives and has been drawn into displaying power on their behalf when He would rather have done things differently, but that does not change His inherent character. It only muddied the picture and created yet another opportunity for people to misunderstand Him even at the hands of some of His most famous servants.
But those displays of power did not accomplish what those servants had hoped – the changing of people's hearts to love and cherish their God. It only got them to pay attention and respect His great power more astutely. Are these methods of trying to win souls for God a mixing of the strange fire of human passion and force with God's fire of pure, selfless passionate love?
The penchant for displays of power and the desire to use force is the spirit of the kingdom of darkness. Whenever the devil is mentioned in the Bible it revolves around the three things that make up his spirit: fear, falsehood and force. God's kingdom is diametrically opposite of these things and we must learn to not attempt to mix any of Satan's weapons or methods in with God's ways.
Likewise we have to learn the lesson internally that we cannot become overcomers by mixing our own human passions with the passion of God in our heart to live a righteous life. We must not employ force to bring about righteousness, even in our own lives. “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, ...work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13) God's Spirit burning like a nuclear reactor inside of our hearts must be the pure and holy passion that powers our lives, our words, our actions and permeates our spirit. If we try to add a little good-looking, righteous-sounding passion of our own we will contaminate the witness of God's work in our hearts and will misrepresent Him before others. The process of sanctification means letting go of our own ideas, our addictions to power and force, our false notions about God and all of our fears and instead, growing in grace and maturity into the perfect relationship with Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, Savior and Lover.
Isa. 28:21 talks about God's “strange work” and His “strange act”. I believe there may a connection between His strange work and the strange fire that He warns us against. Whenever strange fire comes into the presence of God it causes the death of the person possessing it. Death is a strange thing to God who is the Source of all life. So for death to be the result of coming in contact with life is indeed strange – but very true.
