First Love

Guest (Male): Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robyn Kassas and Dr. Nathan Kassas, where faith meets real life. In this weekly broadcast, you'll discover practical and spiritual keys to reclaim God's story in your life, deepen your relationship with Jesus, and encounter Him as your first love, whether for the first time or all over again.

No topic is off-limits as we make Jesus real, relevant, and relational. Stay with us; your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome back to First Love. My name is Dr. Nathan Kassas, and I have with me the amazing Dr. Robyn Kassas. Dr. Robyn, how are you?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I'm doing okay. The weather's not the best, but I'm doing fine.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: In that famous Christmas song, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We have just been enjoying, even though it's cold outside, it's always hot inside with First Love because you're stirring our fire again for the Lord.

It's not coincidental because we've come into that season of Hanukkah, which is all about rededication. We've been walking through the yadar times and now we've walked through just in the last two weeks how to move in the Tabernacle journey.

We talked about the importance of the Tabernacle and last week's episode, which was a very big favorite with a lot of people, called "No Skipping Past." We discussed how each station of the Tabernacle and each court is a journey towards deeper relationship with God and we can't skip to full-blown intimacy just because we have access. I think that was one of the key gems—just because we have access doesn't mean we have intimacy.

Before we move to the next part of the furniture and the next court, we were talking, Dr. Robyn, that there's so much to unpack in each of these stations. We can't really just overview them. So, we want to spend more time on the actual holy place because there's more that you want to share about the lampstand and also what is before the last curtain, which is the entryway and the buildup to the Holy of Holies.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Which is the altar of incense. I think the first thing we should understand is that we read the Bible and we hear about this in the Old Testament and we sort of skip it over because we think that was the Old Testament and doesn't really apply to me. But everything applies to our lives every day, and there's always a lesson or something to learn from these experiences. If you skip them over, you'll definitely miss them.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Why don't we go back? Because we don't want to skip over. There was a revelation you were sharing with me about the brazen laver and how the importance of it correlates with the washing of the Word and how we can't skip that process. Why don't you share it with the listeners about what you were sharing from Ephesians 5?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think it's just to do with applying the Word of God. You see the two basins in that place, the laver in that second stage there. That one was for the priests to wash their hands. How does that apply to you and me? It applies when we are washing ourselves with the Word of the Lord—the Bible. We wash ourselves with His Word. That's Ephesians 5:26. We get sanctified and cleansed by the washing of the Word of God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Another important thing that I learned in my Hebraic Messianic studies is Jesus is every piece of furniture on this journey. Every point and every part points to Him. Something that we don't realize is when they would wash the priests, they had to wash until they could see their reflection in the water. That spiritually lines up with when we wash ourselves with the Word. As Jesus looks into us, He sees Himself.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Or when the Father looks at us, He sees Jesus. He doesn't see our mistakes; He sees Jesus. How do we apply that? We apply it by doing it daily, not once a week, not once a month, not at Christmas time. Daily, with fear and trembling, walking out our salvation. This is the key. We need to apply it every day. It's like somebody reads a newspaper and they get what's going on. As Christians, if we would read the Word, we would be able to hear what's going on and see what's going on.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There's a funny statement that I learned in my psychology, and that is that the truth that we learn today, if we don't apply it, it will be the lie that we face tomorrow. I think it's really important when you talk about the washing of the Word and how Jesus uses His Word and the Father uses His Word through the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us into a reflection that pleases Him. That famous song from the Disney movie, "Reflection," but it's literally Jesus is saying, "Only My Word can make you look like the reflection of Me so when I look into you, I don't see the dirtiness of the water; I see the purity of the water."

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's why the two basins were there to do that. There was another little thing that I'd like to bring to your attention. There was a floor plan that God had and, of course, He had at every station it was separated by a curtain. We all know that's about the veil, and we'll bring that out further on.

Just another little interesting thing is even the colors used in the Tabernacle itself. There was gold, which represented God's divine nature. God's divine nature first was crimson red—the blood of Jesus Christ. Then gold represented the divine nature of God. Purple represented royalty, and then we would have blue, which would represent the heavens because we look up to the heavens. And then, of course, white is the righteousness of God. You see everything had a reason, it had a purpose, and it affected our lives as we walked our Christian walk.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I want to bring out again, Messianically, this connects to Jesus. The rabbis and the Sadducees and the scribes of the time in Jesus's time knew the Tabernacle system back to front. They knew Moses' setup and, according to their traditions and according to their expectancy, you could not be Messiah unless your life and your coming of Messiah had these five colors incorporated.

Quickly, I just want to go through just to help some people see that Jesus is the fulfillment. Each color is incorporated in Jesus's crucifixion. We have the blue, which is many times blue, but we have the blue of His baptism scene but also the tunic that He was wearing in John 19:23 had blue tassels in it on that prayer part of the rabbi's tassels. Then we have the purple; they clothed Him in purple in Mark 15:17. Then we have the blood, the scarlet, obviously. Then we have white because He was wrapped in white linen in the tomb, which was the righteousness of God.

Then we also have the gold because unknowingly to a lot of people, when they inscribed the inscription of "King of the Jews" in those days, the Romans used to inscribe it in gold. So, we have the five colors present at Jesus's crucifixion to point to the fact that He is the ultimate Tabernacle.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And gold, they weren't even aware of it, but that's a divine nature of God. They were fulfilling scripture.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is why we don't want to skip, Dr. Robyn, any part because in skipping parts, we might skip part of Jesus. Let's go to a break, come back, and let's dive in even deeper.

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Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow, Dr. Robyn, that was an amazing 15 minutes before we even just got into the depth of tonight's episode. I don't want to waste any more time. Let's go now into the next piece in the holy place, which we talked on a little bit last week, the lampstand. You have a lot more revelation to bring out about this.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think I want to finalize it. I started it a little bit, but before that, we see the importance of not skipping anything. We come now to the place of another piece of furniture, which is the lampstand. I mentioned that it wasn't pure gold. It was beaten gold. That is important because pure gold is the divine nature of God. When we are lit up by this piece of furniture being beaten gold, we become illuminated by the Holy Spirit moving in us to open it up and show us the divine nature of God and also for people to see us as something of representing God's nature.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That lighting up is literally illuminated revelation. That's where the logos turns to rhema.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It does. Therefore, when we have that divine nature of God within us being illuminated, He illuminates how He does that through the Holy Spirit. That illumination will illuminate our minds by the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It gives us God's mind.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it gives us revelation of the Holy Spirit of Truth.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's Romans 12:2, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." So, that's literally our mind is now being illuminated by a higher mind, which is the mind of Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. We can read the Bible, we can pray, we can pray over those words and suddenly the Holy Spirit will illuminate the verse to our understanding. Some say, "I don't read the Bible because I can't understand it." It's because you need to do the process. You need to know to go through these steps, touch every one of these pieces of furniture in your life.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That kind of points to why the non-believer, while well-intended, cannot read the scriptures and understand it. Because there's only one verse.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The only verse for them is to repent and be saved because everything else has to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit. You must have God's Spirit. That will illuminate our understanding, it will give us insight and revelation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I want to tie in the back of this. You said the Spirit of understanding, and so also the lampstand is represented by those seven colors which correspond to the seven colors of the rainbow. Each of those colors represents one of the spirits of God mentioned in the book of Revelation—the seven spirits.

Quickly, we have the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord, we have the Spirit of the Lord, and then we also have the Spirit of knowledge. Those seven things become illuminated to us when we have the mind of Christ. That lampstand, that oil of the Holy Spirit, brings those seven divine personalities alive and expressed through us because we have now got the Holy Spirit illuminating the mind of Christ.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that illumination by the Holy Spirit brings an understanding to us of the divine nature of God that God is putting within us. It gives us insight and revelation. We have that, and I'm telling you it brings that perfection of His divine nature that we can understand it by His Spirit of understanding, not by the understanding of our Greek mindset into it. There is a Spirit of understanding in God's divine nature that He releases to us. We pray that every day when we put the armor on: give us the mind to understand. It will illuminate scripture and verses to us. If we think we don't understand this or don't have this in our lives, it's because you're skipping the way God wants you to walk through to His very presence. Don't skip, because you'll skip Jesus. You've got to have all of Jesus to have any of Jesus.

When you read the Bible, you will come alive. God will illuminate it and it will make sense. It'll be real. It'll be like reading your newspaper that you read to try and get an understanding of what's going on out there, and you won't. But with God, you allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate through this light—the light of God—and you will understand.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Dr. Robyn, just to bring it into an application that applies to everyone today, I've taught this in Season Casting. Unfortunately, the rainbow color of today that represents the pride movement has removed one color, and that is indigo, which is represented in scripture as the fear of the Lord. What does this mean to us prophetically? You can't have understanding, wisdom, might, knowledge, counsel, or power unless you have the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord leads us into the incense of His praise, which is where we're going to go next on the altar of incense.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Just to say for you, some people say they don't know how to do it. You should take the verse, you should mull it over, ponder on it, pray about it, and picture it. You will get a key to understanding instead of trying to figure it out. Mull it over, ponder it, picture it, and pray about it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is an important process for people that maybe have read the Bible and have not felt that kind of click. "I don't understand this, it's not making sense." You can't just read it and expect to know it. There is an actual journey in you that you've got to go on to understand the Word and its power.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Definitely. Otherwise, you're going to try to use your brain to figure out the scriptures because then we'll end up going back to Christian humanism. That is not Christianity. Even speed-reading the Bible, that's not Christianity either.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: You're speed-reading the Bible, your amygdala has taken over, fear cortex is programming how you respond, so your brain's gone offline. You're reading, but you're not actually taking it in. It's just a fear response.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And then if we do all these things, and they're not just methods and such, they're real. If we do them all and we ask the Holy Spirit, He will start to interpret and illuminate the scriptures. We have many denominations and we all think we've got the truth. Guess what? Someone's wrong. Obviously, the truth is that we are one.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: I think we fall into this speed reading because we try to substitute activity for intimacy. This is where performance takes over. We read so we can check off that we've read, rather than read to actually know Someone and learn the Someone that we're in love with. I have fallen into that myself where reading has become performance and not actually living from that intimate place.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: David prayed this: "God, I need to understand, but I won't understand unless you allow me to see." You won't understand unless the Holy Spirit illuminates it. You can't understand unless you first have an altar, get washed, commune with His body, go through the lampstand, get the oil of the Holy Spirit, and Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it, but the beginning of it.

We forgot the first one: be on the altar of salvation. Sometimes we're trying to understand, but we still haven't decided to put our understanding on the altar. You can't have your understanding and let God help you understand His mind; one has got to go.

The interesting thing about it is we think that we can do it all in one go and you can't do this all in one go. It's like everything in life has to be step-by-step.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: We're coming to the end of this episode because we've got to dive deep now into these things. Next week, we're going to go into the altar of incense and the week after that, we're going to start in the most holy place. Before I throw it to you for your final words, I'm going to sum up this whole conversation into one statement, my key statement for tonight. Dr. Robyn, here it is: Jesus is not a pass; He is a path. He is the path to the Father, not the pass to the Father. Access without intimacy is just getting a pass like on Monopoly; you pass Go, you get $200. But the path is the journey, the process of building an intimate relationship via Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ. Over to you for your final words.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And it's not just a casual thing, intimate relationship. Therefore, it has to go through the process. It is so important to do these steps because they lead you into the very presence of God. That's where we're heading. We're heading into the holiest of holy places where you will see God, you will commune with God, and you will be in His very presence. It doesn't work any other way. So, I would encourage everyone to go through the journey of the Tabernacle bit by bit, daily moving towards the holiest of holies.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Powerful words, Dr. Robyn. Something that was said as we finish in a course that I just did to help those that are facing sexual recovery, coming out of addiction lifestyles. I think this ties in with what we've just said tonight: God does not stand for G-O-D, "God On Demand." Sometimes we live like God is on demand.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: If He did, we would not get the best. He must take time.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Take some time, listen back to this episode, go through the process, protect the process, God will protect the promise. Don't skip out of any of these stations because each station is Jesus Christ and there's a fullness that He wants to reveal to you about Himself in each of these stations. Thank you for joining us tonight. We are excited to go into the Holy of Holies and this journey of the Tabernacle.

Guest (Male): Thanks for spending time with us today on First Love. If today's message spoke to you, share it with someone. If you're looking for more teachings, visit www.torc.org. That's T-O-R-C.org for more. We'll be back next week, same time, same truth. As you go, don't forget the one who loved you first is still loving you best.