The Stench of the Camp

:Well, friends, we can't help what we dream!  I've been hesitant to share this one, but now I feel the Spirit's leading, so here goes...

On March 26 I had a restless, miserable night because I had continuous dreams that I was confined in a very small area and there were puppies and dogs in there with me, continually pooping!  Like I said, we can't help what we dream; and God reveals things to us in strange ways sometimes!  In these dreams I was covered in disgusting feces and it was piling up in that little area to the point that I could not avoid it or step around it. Eventually it was covering me and the stench was unbearable. I awoke two different times and literally got out of bed, trying to shake the terrible scene, but both times I went back to sleep and the dream just continued.  

Finally, it was morning and I remember being so thankful that the dreams would end, but I cried out, "Lord, help! What does this mean? It feels like a warning that we are descending into a period of horrendous filth - a terrible stench."  The Spirit told me to get my Bible and the first place I was led was Proverbs 13:5: "The righteous hate what is false but the wicked make themselves  stench and bring shame on themselves."

Then I was led to Amos 4:10:  "I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed young men with the sword, along with captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps. Yet you have not returned to Me," declares the LORD. 

The stench of your camps. Is that really what He was showing me?  Is that what I was smelling, that brought me such misery?  In the book of Amos, the LORD was prophesying to a wicked and sinful people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The verses in Chapter 4 make it very clear that God was sending all manner of plagues and hardships on His people, attempting to reach them and cause them to repent and turn back to Him. He specifically spoke against idolatry, immorality and the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor.  Does this have a familiar ring?  Is this not also a picture of the filthy, lawless, corrupt nation we have become?  I believe that God has been overwhelmingly patient and long-suffering in waiting for America to repent and return to Him, but it has not happened. Not only have wicked laws not been changed, they are now increasing in number and in Godlessness.  It has begun to feel like that small, disgusting container I was in, with no way to escape.

John and I attended a worship service this weekend of Firstfruits/Resurrection of Messiah.  When the beautiful worship subsided, the leader got up and read from Isaiah Chapter 6.  I was taken by surprise! I have never heard anyone preach Isaiah 6 as a message for Resurrection Day - but he continued to lead us through this chapter, showing us the fullness of the Resurrection message:
6 In the year of King ‘Uziyahu’s death I saw Adonai sitting on a high, lofty throne! The hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphim stood over him, each with six wings — two for covering his face, two for covering his feet and two for flying. 3 They were crying out to each other, “More holy than the holiest holiness is Adonai-Tzva’ot! The whole earth is filled with his glory!” 4 The doorposts shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 Then I said, “Woe to me! I am doomed! —because I, a man with unclean lips, living among a people with unclean lips, have seen with my own eyes the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!” 6 One of the seraphim flew to me with a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Here! This has touched your lips. Your iniquity is gone, your sin is atoned for.”

What a powerful pre-shadow of the atoning work of our Messiah-King, Yeshua! We don't hear SIN preached about in the pulpits anymore; but as in my dream, we must become aware of our miserable, smelly, sinful state and cry out to Him, "Woe to me! I am doomed! I have unclean lips (life), living among a people with unclean lips (lives)! The stench of the sin is inescapable and I am utterly overwhelmed by it!"  And the Resurrected Messiah, whose blood just flowed from the cruel stake, touches my lips (my heart, my life) and says, "Rejoice! Your iniquity is gone, your sin atoned for."

Let us keep doing the one thing we can do when we look down to our borders at the suffering, abused children, and hear the blood of sixty million unborn babies crying out from the ground and feel trapped in a camp full of dog feces, the stench rising to God's nostrils.  Let us fight this battle of Good vs. Evil with our unceasing prayers and intercession.  Let us pray that the wicked and the "woke" will be truly shaken and awakened to their doom in the hands of the Righteous Judge, and repent, as they meet Him, the Risen Lord, and hear Him say, "Your iniquity is gone, your sin atoned for."
  
More holy than the holiest holiness is Adonai-Tzva’ot! The whole earth is filled with his glory!