Taking the Test

Sunday, October 05, 2008, 7:09 a.m. – I woke to this song in my head:

Mountain of God / Third Day

… Even though the journey’s long
And I know the road is hard
Well, the One who’s gone before me
He will help me carry on
After all that I’ve been through
Now I realize the truth
That I must go through the valley
To stand upon the mountain of God…

Lord, I accept whatever valleys you have for me today. Go before me and prepare the way. I am your servant. Put your words into my mouth, love others through me, let me be an instrument of yours in reaching others with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, I will go where you want me to go, be what you want me…

I just remembered a dream I had last night. THE DREAM: I was back in college in Ohio (the north). I had gone back to finish my degree and I only had one semester left. I had been out sick a few days. I had not studied for my tests nor had I done any homework assignments for my three classes, so I was unprepared. I just wanted to drop out and to not finish. Yet, my husband was encouraging me to finish and to get my degree, but I wondered if I really needed a degree, or not.

I picked up the test from the teacher. I took it into another room where I got this really long piece of white paper to write on, plus I picked up some water, too, and some other supplies. Then I remembered that I was supposed to take the test in the other room so that the teacher could watch me take the test, so I went back to the classroom in order to take the test. END

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Jeremiah 50: A Message about Babylon
1 The Lord gave Jeremiah the prophet this message concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians. 2 This is what the Lord says:
“Tell the whole world,
and keep nothing back.
Raise a signal flag
to tell everyone that Babylon will fall!
Her images and idols will be shattered.
Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.
3 For a nation will attack her from the north
and bring such destruction that no one will live there again.
Everything will be gone;
both people and animals will flee.

Hope for Israel and Judah
4 “In those coming days,”
says the Lord,
“the people of Israel will return home
together with the people of Judah.
They will come weeping
and seeking the Lord their God.
5 They will ask the way to Jerusalem
and will start back home again.
They will bind themselves to the Lord
with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten.
6 “My people have been lost sheep.
Their shepherds have led them astray
and turned them loose in the mountains.
They have lost their way
and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.
7 All who found them devoured them.
Their enemies said,
‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them,
for they sinned against the Lord,
their true place of rest,
and the hope of their ancestors.’

8 “But now, flee from Babylon!
Leave the land of the Babylonians.
Like male goats at the head of the flock,
lead my people home again.
9 For I am raising up an army
of great nations from the north.
They will join forces to attack Babylon,
and she will be captured.
The enemies’ arrows will go straight to the mark;
they will not miss!
10 Babylonia will be looted
until the attackers are glutted with loot.
I, the Lord, have spoken!

Babylon’s Sure Fall
11 “You rejoice and are glad,
you who plundered my chosen people.
You frisk about like a calf in a meadow
and neigh like a stallion.
12 But your homeland will be overwhelmed
with shame and disgrace.
You will become the least of nations—
a wilderness, a dry and desolate land.
13 Because of the Lord’s anger,
Babylon will become a deserted wasteland.
All who pass by will be horrified
and will gasp at the destruction they see there.
14 “Yes, prepare to attack Babylon,
all you surrounding nations.
Let your archers shoot at her; spare no arrows.
For she has sinned against the Lord.
15 Shout war cries against her from every side.
Look! She surrenders!
Her walls have fallen.
It is the Lord’s vengeance,
so take vengeance on her.
Do to her as she has done to others!
16 Take from Babylon all those who plant crops;
send all the harvesters away.
Because of the sword of the enemy,
everyone will run away and rush back to their own lands.

Hope for God’s People
17 “The Israelites are like sheep
that have been scattered by lions.
First the king of Assyria ate them up.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon cracked their bones.”
18 Therefore, this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
the God of Israel, says:
“Now I will punish the king of Babylon and his land,
just as I punished the king of Assyria.
19 And I will bring Israel home again to its own land,
to feed in the fields of Carmel and Bashan,
and to be satisfied once more
in the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead.
20 In those days,” says the Lord,
“no sin will be found in Israel or in Judah,
for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

My Understanding: I believe the “last semester” is these final days on earth before the return of Jesus Christ. The college in this dream is the one I attended from 1968-72 in Akron, Ohio and I did not graduate. I did drop out. Akron is my home town. In the dream I returned to college in my home town. In this passage of scripture, the Israelites were being told to flee Babylon because God was going to destroy her in judgment, and they were to return to their home towns in Judah and Israel.

They were also to bind themselves to the Lord (the teacher) with an eternal covenant (school, tests) that will never be forgotten (dropped out). God’s people have been lost; they have lost their way (dropped out) and they need to get back to the sheepfold (back to the classroom under the teacher). Our Babylon is this world system; the pattern of the world from which we are to flee, and our “home” is our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ to which we are to return.

I believe that the Lord is having me personify the church in America, in particularly, in this dream, which is unprepared for the “last semester” of school and many do want to “drop out” before the “final exam.” I believe that we see this attitude much in the pre-tribulation theory for the return of Jesus Christ. The people who hold to this view believe the church will be raptured prior to the tribulation period (final semester), which makes them unprepared for the reality of having to take the final exams. The Lord (our husband) is encouraging us, the church, to stay the course, to finish the last semester, to take the tests, and to graduate.

I believe that the supplies that I picked up in another room (time before the tribulation) prior to taking the test (tribulation period) represent death (water) and righteousness (long white paper), i.e. this eternal covenant with the Lord that will never be forgotten.