AWAKE, O PEOPLE OF GOD
Psalm 91:4 He will cover you with His pinions, Under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulward. (NASB)
AWAKE, O PEOPLE OF GOD, Jew First and Gentile
God is love and His ways are filled with His lovingkindness, justice and righteousness!
A Wooing, A Call to Repentance, Refining, and Readiness For His Imminent Return
Messiah’s Colt exists to bring glory to the King, not replace Him — to invite weary believers back to the Ancient Pathway where the Father is LORD, Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus) is King of kings and Lord of lords, and the bride is prepared for the “Day of the LORD” that fateful day of His emminent appearing.
This is not a call to a better Jewish synagogue doctrine or Gentile church doctrine but rather a calling out of our many religious doctrines that do not fully appreciate the prophetic timeline of God for such a time as this. It is also a careful reflection of the timeless corrective capacity of the Word of God to cause us to know our religious ways have deviated from the direction of God exposing doctrines that do not fully align. When we find these deviations it is so important for our correction, edification, reproof to give us the capacity to repent and draw near God and seek His face. Even the sharp rebuke of God may come for our safety and drawing back into a softened heart if we fail to correct our ways recognizing our own failures as we are confronted.
Religion can corrupt relationship, a known fact that has occurred in the fractionation of the sects of Jewish believers and even unbelievers. It has occurred to even a greater degree of fractionation in the Gentile nations where the distinction between Scriptural based and variations of non-scriptural based entities have blurred the lines of truth greatly. It is this within this failure that I “scribe” and therefore “describe” these postures, using not my words but the Scriptures to clarify. The time is near, the defection great, repentance will be key for all of us to regain our relationship to the fulness God has designed for us, His children.
So this is a call back to the Father,
back to the Scriptures,
back to the Messianic move of God in His first coming to prepare for His second coming,
back to the fear of the LORD through the empowerment of His Spirit bringing all truth,
back to the fire that refines through the washing and regeneration of the Word.
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1. The Crisis of Our Age
Salvation is the gift of God — freely given, wholly undeserved.
Maturity is the lifelong pursuit — costly, sanctifying, transforming.
We have preached salvation as a moment:
“Pray this prayer. Sign this card. You’re done.”
We have treated maturity as optional:
“Do your best. If you feel like it. If it’s not too hard.”
The Synagogues have added books Western church has often taken away books:
Both have move feast and order of importance, traded Scripture for stories,
traded participation and discipleship for club affiliation and entertainment,
traded repentance for relevance and ritualistic relatavism,
traded the fear of God for the flattery of men and leadership of kings like other nations.
The Bible says the last days will be marked by a great falling away, deception, lawlessness, and love gone cold shown in: (Matthew chapter 24, Joel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Hosea, Amos, Malachi).
2 Timothy 3 describes people as:
lovers of self,
lovers of money,
having a form of godliness but denying its power,
always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.
This is not a description of the world.
Regrettably this is actually the description of us as a religious people who refuse refinement.
We are living in the overlap of two storylines:
A world rushing toward prophetic fulfillment ordained of God and unseen by mankind.
Synagogues and churches filled with prophets insisting that God would never let anything harsh actually touch the synagogues or churches, and especially the churches, the Jews know the testings that come.
Both these polar opposites cannot be right, so what is really happening other than history repeating itself?
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2. Salvation as a Gift — Maturity as a Pursuit
Ephesians 2:4–9 announces:
We were dead in our trespasses.
God made us alive together with Messiah.
By grace we have been saved through faith — not of ourselves, not of works.
These are the foundations of our faith:
Righteousness is imputed, not earned.
The Father sees us through the finished work of His Son.
John 3:16 proclaims the Father’s heart which was first fully understood in Psalm 119:41:
He loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son.
Whoever believes in Him has eternal life, the salvation of God for those that persevere until the end.
But the same chapter — John 3 — confronts Nicodemus, a religious leader who knew the Scriptures but did not understand spiritual birth. Yeshua tells him:
You must be born again.
Flesh gives birth to flesh; Spirit gives birth to spirit.
Light has come, but men love darkness rather than light.
Salvation is a miracle of new birth.
But new birth is not full adulthood.
Ephesians 2:10 continues:
“We are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Grace is the gift.
Full formation of the mature person is the journey.
Salvation is entrance into this new life.
Maturity is the pursuit that brings Godly perseverence.
James confronts the idea that a momentary belief is the whole purpose of God for us.
“You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe — and shudder” (James 2:19).
Real faith produces obedience.
Imputed righteousness leads into refining, not away from it.
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3. Infants Without Training, Soldiers Without Battle
A newborn baby is a miracle.
A forty-year-old who still behaves like a newborn is a tragedy.
Spiritually, we have grown generations of infants with access to Bibles, sermons, conferences, worship music — but little training in the actual spiritual battle grounds.
We have often taught:
“God wants you happy” more than “God wants you holy.”
“God wants you safe” more than “God wants you faithful.”
“God will remove every trial” instead of “God will refine you in trial.”
Ephesians 4 says God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers:
not to entertain the saints,
but to equip them for the work of service,
so that they will no longer be children,
tossed by waves and carried by every wind of doctrine.
2 Timothy 3:12 says:
“All who desire to live godly in Messiah Yeshua will be persecuted.”
Not “might be.”
Will be.
But many believers have never been taught:
how to put on the armor of God,
how to stand in the evil day,
how to pray with perseverance,
how to suffer with hope.
Our spiritual armor (Ephesians 6) has been treated like decoration, not equipment:
The shield of faith has rarely been tested against flaming darts not seeking out the night watches.
The helmet of salvation to bring protection, service and delight has become a weight of armor buried in a mental storage box of forgotten sermons.
The sword of the Spirit, “praying without ceasing to build us up in our most holy faith” is dismissed by doctrines that say the gifts are not for today.
The belt of truth is questioned like Pilate: “What is truth?”
The result: soldiers in name, untrained in reality.
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4. Cities That Saw Miracles but Refused to Repent
In Matthew 11:20–24, Yeshua denounces Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.
Why?
Because they did not repent.
These cities saw:
healings,
deliverances,
multiplied bread,
devils cast out,
authority over storms.
They loved the miraculous empowerment and excitement.
They refused the call.
Yeshua compares that generation to children in the marketplace:
John played the “dirge” — a message of repentance, and they did not mourn.
Yeshua played the “flute” — eating and drinking with sinners, and they did not dance.
They judged both moves of God and yielded to neither.
They wanted the Kingdom as an entertainment spectacle, not a personal surrender or calling.
They wanted God to act for them and enjoyed His presence, but not accomplished through them.
They wanted the exuberance of miracles seen, not transformation of God changing them for His good works.
This is religious hypocrisy where they were “emotionally feeling a part” without doing any part but showing up:
enjoying spiritual events while resisting spiritual change.
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5. A Temple Without the Father
Matthew 12:5–7 reveals another layer.
The leaders are indignant that Yeshua’s disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath. Yeshua answers:
Priests work on the Sabbath and are innocent.
Something greater than the Temple is here.
“If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”
They adored the Temple but forgot its purpose.
They protected the institution and neglected the heart of the Father, instead of loving the Son they condemned Him to die.
The Temple was never meant to be:
a badge of religious superiority mandating God with them, though they left relationship with God centuries before,
a monument to Jewish relativism that once knew God, therefore they still “knew” God as well,
a guarantee of protection no matter how the people lived, trusting the mercy and lovingkindness of God alone despite their wayward unrepentant living.
It was meant to be the place:
to seek the Father with all their heart,
to remember His lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness (Jeremiah 9:24),
to repent, to learn, to draw near.
Yeshua, the One greater than the Temple, stands before them —
the exact radiance of God’s glory, the Word made flesh —
and they cannot recognize Him because they love their system more than their God and prophecy was hidden in plain sight before them, for God closed their ears to hear and eyes to see.
This is the same failure as Chorazin and Bethsaida in another form, whereby they miss the context of their failure to see, therefore miss the need to repent, therefore remain faltering for lack of knowledge.
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6. Solomon: The Wise King Who Stopped Bowing
Proverbs 4:18:
But the path of righteousness is like the light of dawn, That shines brighter and brighter until th full day. (NASB)
Proverbs 4:19:
The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know over what they stumble. (NASB)
Proverbs 4:20–24:
“My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to them And health to all their body. Put away from you a deceitful mouth And put devious speech far from you. (NASB)
Proverbs 4:25–27:
Let your eyes look directly ahead…
Watch the path of your feet…
Do not turn to the right nor to the left;
Turn your foot from evil. (NASB)
Solomon begins his reign with humility:
He asks for wisdom to be a king over the nation of Israel, not riches.
He builds the Temple and the king’s palace called the Millo.
He prays a prayer that graciously moves God to inhabit the ordained Temple paid for by his father David.
But later, 1 Kings 11 paints a different picture:
He loves many foreign women 700 wives and 300 concubines.
They turn his heart after other gods, breaks the instruction of God to never marry these many peoples.
He builds high places for his wives and their idols, listening to their petitions.
Historically, these altars then are placed and rise between the Millo and the Temple —
right in the path where the king would walk turning Solomon to the right and to the left.
The message of those idolitrous altars was:
“Come with us instead. You don’t have to go all the way to the house of the LORD. Worship here. Blend a little with us, stay a minute with us, compromise just a little.”
Solomon’s wisdom turned inward.
He used his God-given gift to keep winning the hearts of his women instead of guarding his own heart.
1 Kings 11:9–11 says:
“The LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the LORD… who had appeared to him twice.”
God appeared to him twice —
and he still drifted.
This is the warning:
Even great beginnings do not guarantee faithful endings if we stop bowing, if we stop serving.
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7. The Father as LORD — Yeshua as King of kings and Lord of lords
This is the architecture of heaven:
The Father is LORD of heaven and earth (Matthew 11:25).
The Son is enthroned at His right hand, King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).
The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, teaching, sealing, empowering.
Yeshua filled with the Spirit is impelled (under the King’s command) Mark 1:10-12:
prays to the Father,
obeys the Father,
glorifies the Father,
leads us to faithfully to His Father.
John 14:6 — “No one comes to the Father but through Me.”
John 17 — “Father… that they may be one, just as We are One.”
1 Corinthians 15:24–28 says that at the end, the Son delivers up the Kingdom to the Father, and God will be “all in all.” There is no rivalry between Father and Son — there is a perfect unity and a holy order.
Jeremiah 9:24 reveals the Father’s delight to be known and understood wholly and as holy:
The God of lovingkindness,
The God of justice,
The God of righteousness
Defamed by a people who mocked His authority wanting a king like the other nations.
Psalm 139 shows His perfect knowledge:
every thought,
every word,
every path,
every motive.
He alone can balance mercy and justice without error.
The Father raised Yeshua and seated Him above every ruler. His title:
“King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Every letter matters:
“King” and “Lord” — capitalized for His divine identity.
“kings” and “lords” — lowercase because all human authority is temporary.
The Gentile church has often dethroned the Father in her adulterated and often apostate thinking —
speaking as if the Son has replaced Him rather than revealing Him.
Israel did something similar in 1 Samuel 8:7 —
“they have rejected Me from being King over them” —
asking for a human king instead.
In many places today, the Gentile church has repeated this mistake and prone to historical replication —
replacing the Father’s authority with human system, human comfort, and human control.
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8. Imputed Righteousness and the Refining Fire
Isaiah calls our best righteousness filthy rags so does the book of Romans.
We cannot cleanse ourselves.
The miracle of the gospel is that the Father imputes righteousness —
He credits the righteousness of His Son to us.
But the same Father who imputes righteousness
also remains the refining fire, no unrighteousness or sin can remain in His presence for He is the holy God.
Mark 9:49 — “Everyone will be salted with fire.”
Hebrews 5:8 — the Son learned obedience through what He suffered.
Hebrews 12 — God disciplines those He loves; His discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
1 Peter 1:7 — trials test the genuineness of our faith like fire tests gold.
The Father does not refine us to destroy us.
He refines us to make vessels ready for the smith purified seven times is the flames.
He wants to remove:
the hypocrisy,
the hidden pride,
the secret compromise,
the religious false silver that looks like silver at lower heat in the fire but is “worthless lead”.
Jeremiah 6 and the Lead–Silver Furnace
Jeremiah 6:27–30 presents a striking image:
God sets the prophet Jeremiah over all the nations, as an assayer and tester.
The bellows blow.
The lead and the silver go into the furnace.
At low heat, lead shines like silver.
But at the “actual elevated silver refining heat”, lead turns to toxic vapor and rises as dross.
God says:
“The bellows blow fiercely… the refining goes on in vain,
and the wicked are not separated.”
The people refuse repentance.
They love the earthly glowing shrine of religion more than the presence of God, the all consuming fire.
Lead is counterfeit righteousness.
It is religious spirit.
It is doctrine of men.
It is spiritual posing.
It looks like silver at low temperatures —
under soft preaching, untested life, absent persecution.
But when God turns up the heat voiced through His servants the prophets,
the poison surfaces to overthrow those fellows that disturb their complacency.
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9. Ear-Tickling Teachers and the Soft Furnace
2 Timothy 4:3–4 warns:
“The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but wanting to have their ears tickled,
they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
and will turn away their ears from the truth
and will turn aside to myths.”
This is the Brit Chadeshah (New Testament) form of Jeremiah’s lead.
Ear-tickling teaching:
keeps the furnace soft with a tolerable temperature for the complacent to stay seated,
keeps the temperature low enough to feel uncomfortable but not to displace the crowd,
keeps the lead glowing comfortably out of reach of the fire that consumes, far from the face of God.
Such teachers:
soothe instead of sharpen,
bless without calling to repentance,
preach heaven without warning of hell,
offer grace without transformation,
promise rapture before hardship and blessing without battle.
They grow crowds, not disciples.
They grow consumers, not servants.
They protect hypocrisy instead of exposing it.
Yeshua warned in Matthew 7:21–23 that many will say “Lord, Lord” and recount their ministry works, and He will say:
“I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
They had activity without obedience.
Anointing without submission.
Power without relationship.
This is the frightening fruit of a soft furnace.
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10. The Rapture, the Day of the LORD, and a Sleeping Church
The issue is not whether God will gather His people —
Scripture is clear He will.
The issue is timing and expectation.
A popular teaching says:
The Gentile church will be taken away before any real trouble, God is not a God of wrath.
The Day of the LORD is mainly for others and has nothing to do with the rapture of the Gentile church.
Hardship is not for the bride but is contrary to all prior arrivals of God purging His people first.
But the prophetic Scriptures show:
The Day of the LORD is a day of darkness, shaking, trumpet and battle cry (Joel, Zephaniah).
It is a day when silver and gold cannot deliver (Zephaniah 1:18, Revelation 3:17-20).
It is a day when God shakes what can be shaken (Hebrews 12:26–27).
Paul speaks of the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:51–52).
1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 speaks of the Lord descending, the dead in Messiah rising, and we being caught up together with them but this is to the Jew first, our doctrines miss this realm of God by His design.
The Feast of Trumpets, with its series of blasts, and the “last trumpet” imagery point toward a climactic intervention, not an early exit and Revelation 20:4-6 clearly show that this is the point in this book associated with that resurrection.
Revelation shows:
seals opened: six seals, the seven seal opens the seven trumpets of God,
trumpets blown,
bowls poured out,
Babylon judged,
the bride made ready in Revelation 19:7-10.
When the church is taught that she will never see hardship, she stops preparing her oil. The parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13) shows:
all had lamps,
all slept,
but only some had enough oil to endure the delay becaue they were the very vessels filled with oil (flasks).
The issue was not whether they believed in the Bridegroom.
The issue was whether they prepared for His timing, not their fantasy.
A church trained only to escape as Gentiles apart from the Jews will not endure to the end.
A church trained to stand will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of her testimony, even loving not her life unto death.
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11. Jew and Gentile — One New Man, One Story
Isaiah 56 gives a glimpse of the Father’s heart for the nations as well as Ezekiel 47:21-23:
Foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
who love His name,
who keep His Sabbath,
who hold fast His covenant —
He promises to bring them to His holy mountain,
to make them joyful in His house of prayer.
He declares His house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.
In the same passage, He rebukes “dogs” — watchmen who are blind, shepherds who care only for their own gain.
Ephesians 2:11–22 explains:
Gentiles were once far off,
separated from the commonwealth of Israel,
strangers to the covenants.
But now in Messiah Yeshua:
we have been brought near by His blood,
He has made Jew and Gentile one new man,
built into one temple where God dwells by His Spirit.
Romans 11 describes Israel as natural branches, Gentiles as wild branches grafted in. It warns:
do not be arrogant,
fear,
for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare arrogance in the wild branches either.
Romans 11:22:
“Behold then the kindness and severity of God.”
Severity toward unbelief or this religious spirit that looks like rather than acts like the people of God.
Kindness toward those who continue in His kindness.
The fear of the LORD Proverbs 1:7, 9:10 are not Tanakh (Old Testament) relics.
It is the safeguard of the Brit Chadeshah (New Testament Way).
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12. Nicodemus: A Religious Man Confronted by Truth
John 3 presents Nicodemus:
a Pharisee,
a ruler of the Jews,
a teacher of Israel.
He comes to Yeshua at night, acknowledging:
“We know that You have come from God as a teacher.”
But Yeshua does not flatter him.
He tells him:
“Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
“You must be born again.”
Nicodemus is spiritually mature in religion,
but spiritually dead toward God.
Yeshua connects His coming crucifixion with the serpent lifted in the wilderness —
and then proclaims John 3:16–21.
The judgment is this:
Light has come into the world,
but men loved darkness rather than light.
Nicodemus is an example of someone who must move from:
religious pedigree to true sonship,
knowledge about God to rebirth from God,
position in the synagogue to humility at the feet of the Messiah.
Many in the church today are Nicodemus —
raised in Christian settings,
holding positions,
knowing language,
but never having come into the light.
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13. Laodicea and the Illusion of Blessing
Revelation 3:14–22 describes the church of Laodicea:
rich,
in need of nothing (in her own eyes),
but actually poor, blind, wretched, and naked.
Yeshua’s counsel:
buy gold refined by fire,
white garments,
eye salve.
He stands at the door and knocks —
to a church that has pushed Him outside her fellowship.
This is the picture of a church:
saturated with resources,
wealthy in programs,
rich in information,
and yet spiritually dull.
She mistakes material comfort for spiritual favor, the very displacement theology of the Jewish people.
She avoids the very fire she needs that would cause true repentance and has teachers that tickle ears.
Laodicea is the Gentile church in many nations today.
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14. Prophetic Warnings: Joel and Zephaniah
Zephaniah 1:14–18:
“Near is the great day of the LORD.”
It is a day of wrath, trouble, distress, darkness, gloom.
Silver and gold will not deliver.
Joel chapters 1–2:
calls for fasting, weeping, mourning,
calls priests to cry between the porch and the altar,
warns of a great and mighty army,
describes the earth quaking and the heavens trembling.
Yet both books offer hope:
Zephaniah 2:1–3:
seek the LORD,
seek righteousness,
seek humility,
perhaps you will be hidden.
Joel 2:12–13:
return with all your heart,
rend your heart, not your garments,
for God is gracious and compassionate.
These are not just ancient texts.
They are a mirror for a modern church that avoids the language of repentance and only wants language of destiny.
The Father offers mercy —
but He will not forever extend it to hearts that refuse His hand and have displaced His position as King of Creation.
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15. Returning to the Ancient Pathway
So what does waking up look like?
15.1 Seek the Father
Yeshua came to bring us to the Father, not to replace Him.
Matthew 11:27:
“No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
John 14–17 is a long journey of the Son leading the disciples to the heart of the Father —
promising the Spirit,
praying for unity,
inviting them into glory.
James 4:8:
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
Proverbs 25:2:
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
and the glory of kings to search out a matter.”
The Father hides things not to tease us,
but to train us to seek.
15.2 Invite His Searchlight
Psalm 139:
“Search me, O God…
try me…
see if there is any hurtful way in me…
lead me in the everlasting way.”
This is not a casual prayer.
This is an invitation to refinement.
We present our hearts as metal in the furnace
and ask Him to separate silver from lead.
15.3 Embrace Refining, Not Escape
We stop praying only:
“Get me out of this.”
And begin praying:
“Make me like Your Son through this.”
We see hardship as the refiner’s fire,
not as proof of God’s absence.
15.4 Reject Ear-Tickling and Soft Gospels
We measure teaching by Scripture, not by comfort.
We ask:
Does this message produce repentance?
Does it produce obedience?
Does it exalt the Father, the Son, and the Spirit biblically?
Does it call me to holiness, or just to happiness?
We ask the Spirit to make us lovers of truth, not lovers of flattery.
15.5 Remember the Wedding Feast
Matthew 22:1–14 — the parable of the wedding feast:
The Father is the King.
The Son is the Bridegroom.
Many are invited, but few are chosen.
Some refuse to come.
One tries to stay without wedding clothes and is cast out.
Revelation 19:6–9 shows the marriage supper of the Lamb with Gentiles in righteous robes (white wedding attire).
Revelation chapter 7:1-17 and 14:1-5 show the Jews redeemed in white robes.
We are not just saved from something.
We are saved for Someone —
to become a Bride made ready, Yeshua the head and we Jews and Gentiles made into the temple walls and pillars into the New Jerusalem building of God.
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16. A Prayer of Repentance and Resolve
Father, LORD of heaven and earth,
We confess that we have often loved comfort more than obedience, blessing more than holiness, miracles more than repentance. We have admired Your house and forgotten that its purpose is to seek Your face. We have listened to teachers who tickle our ears and neglected those who call us to the fear of Your Name.
Search us.
Expose the lead and refine us from the deceptive
Refine the silver.
Discipline us as sons and daughters You love.
We receive the righteousness You give through Your Son, Yeshua —
King of kings and Lord of lords.
Burn away what cannot remain.
Make us Your workmanship (Ephesians 2:10).
Form us into a redeemable bride awaked, purified, and readied for the Day of the LORD.
Teach us to walk the Ancient Pathway —
Jew and Gentile together,
one new man in Messiah,
carrying the testimony of Your lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in a world running out of time.
In the Name of Yeshua the Messiah we pray.
Amen.
