January 17, 2013
I was living in a city that had a very large square (praça). One morning about 8:45 a.m. I left the building in which I lived and began walking through the town square on the cobbled stones. I came to a building whose length filled one whole side of the square. It had a glass front. Inside were a lot of young and beautiful women singing and dancing. Though I could not hear anything specific, I knew by watching them that they were worshipping the God of Israel.
I stopped to watch the dancing and tried to hear the music beating through the glass. While I stood there, men – older and younger – began to arrive and stand outside the building. As I looked at them, I realized they were Jewish as they were all wearing kippot. I seemed to be the only female person who was in the square so I tried to make myself disappear and went closer to the building. I pressed myself against one of the pillars near the glass that also held up a small protective overhang. Between the pillars were three steps that went up to the door of the glass-front. The crowd of men kept growing until there were hundreds of Jewish men standing in the square waiting for something.
At precisely 9:00 a.m. the huge front glass door to the building slid open and there was complete silence for a moment. Then, with no obvious sign, the entire crowd – inside and out – began singing the Shema. I stood there in awe. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard with so many different harmonies. I had tears in my eyes because the sound was nothing like I had ever heard before. I knew I was witnessing something extraordinary – like heaven and earth worshipping God together.
Shema Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad …. My spirit soared and I wanted to sing with them so I joined in, “Baruch shem kavod ….” I don’t know if something was wrong with my voice, but the whole crowd began looking around until they saw me. At that moment I knew I knew I was to stop singing.
After singing the Shema, the group inside the building began a different song in Hebrew though the words sounded like Portuguese to me. I knew they were singing in Hebrew, but I was understanding it in Portuguese. They began singing, ‘Me abraçar’ which means ‘Hug me’ or ‘Embrace me’. I knew the people inside were leading the Jewish men outside to join in. As individual Jewish men sang the words, he reached his hands toward the sapphire blue sky with floating white clouds until everyone was reaching out for an embrace from God.
When the singing finished (it seemed like a long time), the crowed dispersed and I went home. I returned the next morning at 8:45 a.m., stood by my pillar and waited. More Jewish men than the day before arrived. This time I sang the Shema completely, but quietly within my heart. It was the words of ‘Me Abraçar’ that touched my soul when I watched the way the Jewish men stretched out their arms toward the sky.
I wondered about the daily event, yet I continued to go every morning just to watch the men gather and listen to the beauty of the Shema being sung. Each day more and more Jewish men came until the coblestoned-square was nearly packed with worshippers.
One morning I decided to take my husband. He wasn’t feeling well so I had to drag him along and hold him up as he trudged along. I kept telling him how beautiful the sound was and he had to go with me. I told him he would be blessed. I pushed my way through the growing crowd to my usual place. I propped him up by my pillar and together we listened to the singing of the Shema. While they were singing ‘Me Abraçar’, we returned to our building. Feeling better, my husband walked up the stairs. I went down the stairs toward the basement.
In the basement of the the building was a room situated behind two huge solid wooden doors. The doors were shut so I opened them to see what was happening inside. A large group of people, some standing and some sitting in white plastic chairs, were singing. Their words were nearly the same as what I had heard in the square: “I embrace you Lord, I embrace you”, but the room had a completely different atmosphere.
In the front of the room stood two men. They both faced the group. One stood behind a little podium, shorter than the average podium. Everyone watched him sing and then sang as he directed. It was obvious he was their leader.
The other man stood about five feet away to the left of the leader at the podium. He was not singing, but kept his eye on the man leading. As I heard the words, “I embrace you, Lord” for about the fourth or fifth time, something inside my heart realized that these two groups – the one outside in the town square and the one inside this dark cubicle needed to unite and become one group. One group knew God and embraced him with joyous dancing and beautiful singing. The other group seemed to embrace God, but had no joy.
I knew that these two groups needed each other. I knew that the group in the basement needed to leave their dark and dreary place and go to the square where the sun was shining and the sky was blue.
I became so excited with the revelation that I ran toward the leader at the podium and tried to interrupt his singing with, “You need to embrace each other! You need to embrace each other!” He scowled at me, but remained in a kind of singing trance. I repeated, “You need to embrace each other.” He then pointed me to the man standing three feet away. The leader never took his eyes from the group in front of him nor did he miss a beat in the song.
I walked quietly to the other man trying not to interrupt the leader again. When I got in front of the second man, I noticed that though he faced straight ahead, he was somehow watching at the leader to his side. I shouted in his face as the singing seemed to get louder as I approached him. “Your people and the people outside need to embrace each other!” He pretended not to hear and kept looking forward. I shouted the phrase again and again until two men wearing black suits and ties took me by the arms and led me toward the wooden doors. The staring man followed us and under his breath, he finally spoke, ‘We’ll discuss this out here.”
Once outside the room, he shut the thick wooden doors tightly. The singing silenced. I said, “Don’t you get it? The Jewish men are outside embracing God and you are inside singing about embracing God. You need to embrace each other.”
He grumbled. I looked at him again and realized that the two men held a pole on wheels holding an oxygen tank. I had not noticed earlier, but the man had a tracheotomy in his throat. One of the men in a black suit put a mask on the man’s face while the other hooked tubes from the oxygen tank to an apparatus around his neck. I was a little freaked out. What was wrong with this man? Just a few seconds ago inside the room, he appeared to be quite healthy as his staring sideways eyes bored through the leader as if controlling him. Now, he seemed weak as he gasped for breath.
The sounds of singing began to penetrate the thick door and the man then ordered me to go up the stairs and then pushed me up the first stair. With each step we took up the stairs, the singing seemed to be getting louder and I suddenly felt like I a prisoner with these two men being my guards. I reached out to help the man with the pole and he became more uncompromising.
At the top of the stairs, the two men in black suits remained behind guarding the stairs and I followed the man to another room. It was an empty ballroom with wooden floors and gorgeous old and ornate trim. He turned around and I saw that his face had now changed. It had become gray, pasty and his cheeks shrunken in. From a young man downstairs, he had transformed into a very old man. Even with an oxygen mask he struggled to breathe. He managed between his heavy breathing to get the words out, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
I replied, “You still don’t get it? Out there they are embracing God. In here you are singing about embracing God. You need to embrace each other. You need to unite together.”
My response did not please this man. His body began to twist and bend and his voice turned raspy. He demanded, “WHO SENT YOU HERE?”
I responded, “No one sent me here. I just know that both of you need to embrace each other, but you are separated. One of you is inside this basement and the other is out in the square.”
He turned quickly whipping the pole with the oxygen behind him and the numerous tubes seemed to fly everywhere. He hobbled his way across the ballroom floor like he was 120 years old back toward the stairs. I ran behind him and asked, “Do you know nothing about Romans 11,” but he just kept dragging himself and the oxygen pole and the wheels squeaked as they rolled across the floor.
The closer we got to the stairs the less he hobbled. When we got to the top of the stairs, I went to help him with the metal pole and realized he had folded it up and it was in the back pocket of his jacket. I thought it was strange that a metal pole could be folded into a jacket pocket, but didn’t comment. As he took the first two steps down the stairs, he removed the mask and placed the tubes in his jacket pocket. He turned around and smiled at me. I was shocked. He had no teeth. Only bloody gums filled his mouth. I still wasn’t sure who this man was, but I knew he was dying and doing whatever he could to stay alive. For some reason, I didn’t feel sad for him, but wondered when he would finally give up.
I wanted to go with him down the stairs and asked again, “Can’t you both just embrace each other?” From what seemed like nowhere, men in black suits filled the stairway and surrounded the toothless man until I could no longer get near him. I could only watch as he descended the stairs. Others in black suits pulled me back up the stairs until I was in the ballroom again. The ballroom was packed with these men in black suits and I had lost complete contact with the dying man. Where these men came from, I had no idea as there had been no one in the ballroom earlier, but I instinctively knew they were this man’s legal guardians and their job was to protect that dying man. I also instinctively knew that he needed to get back into the room at the bottom of the stairs or he would suffocate and die.
I woke up.
The Interpretation
The Praisers of God
Inside the glass-front building, a Temple-like building, a group of women, the Bride of Messiah, danced and sang. They worshipped the God of Israel fully and joyfully offering their bodies as a ‘sacrifice of praise.’ Though their joyous worship is visible through the transparent glass to everyone, it remained quiet until ‘the door’ was opened. This reminded me of the ‘sea of glass’ that is before the Throne of God. I believe the women before the Throne are the faithful ‘bridesmaids’ in the Body of Messiah who have oil in their lamps and worship in Spirit and Truth. I believe their witness to the God of Israel is transparent to everyone who has ‘ears to hear’ and ‘eyes to see’ the spiritual realm.
Jewish men, outside of the glass Temple, filled the square of the city. There was a brightness in the square with the brilliant sun, the sapphire blue sky, and the cobblestoned street as they came together from every direction outside the city. The words of the Shema became a beautiful song of worship as they gathered to sing at a prescribed time each morning. I believe the Shema represents the foundation of faith not only for the Jewish people, but also for everyone who puts their faith in the Jewish Messiah of Israel, Yeshua.
When the glass door of the Temple was opened, it was Jew and gentile as ‘one new man,’ singing the Shema with one unified harmonious beautiful voice. It was a ‘heavenly kingdom’-like sound because it represents Messiah’s kingdom. Once the Shema ended, the Bride inside the glass temple led the Jewish men to sing about the ’embrace of God’ in Hebrew, but each heard it in their own national language symbolized by me hearing it in Portuguese – a foreign language I understand versus Polish which I don’t.
A Pillar In the Temple
I stood by a pillar of the Temple court and became one of the worshippers, dancers, and singers in my heart. I did not enter the glass room nor did I try. I completely understood the worship celebration uniting these two peoples, but realized when I started singing the Shema and had to stop that I was only to watch and observe the events transpiring.
I brought my sick husband to the pillar of the Temple to see and hear the beautiful sight of unity and the melodious otherworldly sound of the Shema. I wanted him to hear and see what I had had heard and seen. Though I had to help him get to the Temple, when we left, he had been healed in the presence of God and walked home on his own. He disappeared up the stairs as I went down the stairs to the basement room of the building.
The Basement Worship
In the basement room there were people singing to God who thought they understood God’s embrace, but they were singing what they were told to sing. They did not sing words of God from their heart or with joy. Their worship had become mundane and they only repeated what their leader said. Some stood and some sat to show that whether they sat or stood, they remained complacent and only followed the man’s lead behind the podium.
The podium was shorter than most. It came only up to the knees of the leader. There is no need for a real podium of correct height because no one opens the Word of God in this room. I believe the podium came to the leader’s knees as a symbol that he really needs to ‘get on his knees’ and turn away from this godless-type of worship.
They people were in a closed dark room where nothing they did or said could be heard or seen. The doors were shut tight. Their witness to the world was silent and always ‘behind closed doors.’
Even after a few hours after the dream, I was still not quite sure who the sick man was. As I began writing out the dream, I realized the the man who masqueraded as being alive, but was really dying personified the ‘doctrines of men.’ The doctrines appear to give life to those who follow them, but are really death to their spirit. Leaders have to remain within the boundaries of manmade doctrines in order to keep control of their people. This is why the leader pointed me to the sick man, the manmade doctrinal system that controlled him.
The ‘doctrines of man’ don’t like to be messed with. They don’t like to be challenged. When they are challenged, those who bring forth the challenge are taken out of the ‘room’ and rebuked. They are asked, “Who sent you here?” knowing that any disruption to the status quo could result in the loss of their people and their job.
Though the people in the basement sang of God’s embrace, they had a false sense of knowing God because they followed a leader who was controlled by the ‘doctrines of men.’ Their songs came not from the Word of God, but words created by men. The the ‘doctrines of men’ left the room, their singing became louder and began to break the barrier of the ‘closed door.’
As I climbed the stairs and moved closer to the city center where Jewish men worshipped and the Bride of Messiah was transparent, the ‘doctrines of men’ began to die and also so the man who represented them. When he left the basement room, he had lost all control. He was ‘without oxygen.’
The farther the man went from that room, the older he became because there was nobody to give life to his lies except some men in black suits. The man’s bloody toothless mouth was nothing more than evidence that when the ‘doctrines of men die,’ their ‘teeth’ lose the ability to bite or ‘destroy’ those who leave them behind.
The men in the black coats and ties are the ‘doctrines of men’s’ guardians. These men represent the multitude of denominations. They are the self-made religious men who take keep the ‘doctrines of men’ alive at all costs. They are the front-men for the ‘demons’ who are behind all denominations who lead the masses away from a true worship of God.
The ballroom with its wooden floors and decorative ornate trims used to be the place of ‘glory’ where ‘doctrines of men’ danced with ‘faithless women,’ but has become empty. Only a few men remain guarding the ‘doctrines’ while ‘faithless women’ continue to sing complacently behind their huge closed church doors.
The ballroom was built entirely with wood because someday it will face fire and judgment just as the cobblestones in the square. The wood will burn, but the stones will remain.
The ‘doctrines of men’ do not accept Romans 11 and the joining of non-Jew with the Jew to become ‘one new man.’ ‘Doctrines of men’ believe that anything Jewish is legalistic and thus nullify their own code words of Judeo-Christian. In essence ‘doctrines of men’ are anti-semitic at their core. ‘Doctrines of men’ do not embrace ‘the Spirit’ of the God of Israel in Truth (Shema). Therefore, these ‘faithless women’ remain separated from God’s presence in a dark basement sitting plastic chairs that will melt in the judgment of fire.
I first went to the basement and to try to tell the leader to embrace God with the others outside who understood ‘one new man.’ He refused to listen. He pointed me to the ‘doctrines of men.’ I confronted the ‘doctrines of men,’ but he had me removed from the basement and away from the leader and the complacent people so I could not influence them. I followed him up some stairs and tried to be kind to him with his oxygen pole, but he did not appreciate even my kindness. In fact, he not only became angry, but was fearful. He was a dying man and he knew that I knew it. He tried to protect himself from me by bringing out the men in suits. I recognized his fine-dressed guardians as nothing more than denominational demons who deceive the masses.
The Pillar
I was standing at the pillar outside of glass Temple and that became my specified place of observation. Yeshua spoke to a community in Revelation about ‘becoming a pillar’ in the Temple of God so I decided to read about this congregation to see if I could discern some connection between me and the pillar.
To be a pillar in the Temple of God is the reward for someone who wins a victory. In my dream, it seems the victory is multi-level if I apply the three ‘places’ in my dream to my personal walk of faith. First, I began my walk as one of those in the basement. I was most definitely tied to the ‘doctrines of men’ and a denominational mindset. I could be described as one of those ‘faithless women’ who danced with the ‘doctrines of men’ in an ornate building. Even when I left a mainstream denomination for a non-denominational church, I was still under the control of manmade traditions and beliefs that were inherently imbedded in Christianity and were anti-semitic.
Pastors, though they taught from the Bible, didn’t teach the whole counsel of the Word. Their pulpit teachings did nothing for my spiritual growth so I studied the Word by myself. When I confronted different leaders about what I was learning from the Bible, I was taken out of the room and rebuked – numerous times by different leaders, both pastors and deacons. I was called ‘legalistic’ by the guardians of modern-day church legalism even though they were blinded by their own legalistic customs. I was called a Judaizer by those who had no understanding of what that word even meant. Eventually I had to stand up from my plastic chair and leave through the double wooden doors.
I climbed the stairs from the basement institution to the cobblestoned street lined with ‘living stones,’ the way of the ancient paths as Jeremiah called them. In the town square, I met many Jewish men and women who challenged the ‘doctrines of men’ through teaching the full Word of God and showed its value to everyone who called Yeshua their King and Savior.
I was never anti-semitic because I had always loved the Jewish people from the time I was a young girl. The separation of Jews from ‘the church’ always confounded me. When I heard the Shema, I began to understand the ‘one new man’ – Jew and non-Jew – worshipping the God of Israel together the way He commanded and His Son taught. Through faith in Yeshua, I joined the commonwealth of Israel and worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a Jewish way.
From the cobbled streets, I went up the three steps to enter the glass Temple. The number ‘three’ has several unique meanings. Biblically it means divine completeness, wholeness and perfection. On a Chabad site, I found the following:
“The number three symbolizes a harmony that includes and synthesizes two opposites. The unity symbolized by the number three isn’t accomplished by getting rid of number two, the entity that caused the discord, and reverting to the unity symbolized by number one. Rather, three merges the two to create a new entity, one that harmoniously includes both opposites.”
That quote certainly gives credence to the Romans 11 Scripture of the natural olive branches and the wild olives branches being grafted together in the Olive Tree of Israel. It substantiates the idea of unity between Jew and non-Jew and becoming ‘one new man!’
Though I could have gone into the Temple because I am one of the dancers, I remained outside by the pillar to observe the events. I have danced for the Lord for many years as part of a worship team. Even before I became part of this team, I loved to dance for the Lord as a child. It is the ultimate expression of being a ‘living sacrifice’ and expressing joy in Yeshua at the same time. The blessing from this dream is to see the Bride of Messiah as one the bridesmaids who have oil in their lamps.
“I will make him who wins the victory a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he will never leave it. Also I will write on him the name of my God and the name of my God’s city, the new Yerushalayim coming down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name. Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Messianic communities” (Revelation 3:12-13).
I was only called to be an observer in my dream. I was a type of ‘watchman.’ I believe I was ‘watching’ the events in the square and the glass temple as they are a vision of the New Jerusalem. I believe I became part of the events in the basement because it is my deepest desire to see people set free from ‘doctrines of men’ in order to go into the courtyard and worship the God of Israel before His throne.
©2013 Tentstake Ministries Publishing, all rights reserved. No copying or reproducing of this article without crediting the author or Tentstake Ministries Publishing.