Join us on Call to Freedom as Barbara Carmack takes us on an enriching journey through the teachings of Ephesians. Learn about the profound significance of being ‘in Him’ and how this universal truth forms the bedrock of faith for believers. Discover the great ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai, revealing God’s glory and how high places have been pivotal through biblical times. This episode is a tapestry of spiritual insights and stories that weave together the legacy of faith carried through time.
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Jimmy, and welcome to Call to Freedom. God chose us in Him. You can’t separate yourself from Him, friend. When you ask Jesus to be your Savior and Lord, you’re in Him. Praise God. He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. I’d like to give you an assignment as you’re reading, and this is from Ephesians 1. As you’re reading Ephesians 1, Circle all the little of the word in, I-N. Circle it as you’re reading through the first 11 verses of Ephesians 1. You’re going to find it a total blessing. It’s blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. In the heavenly places, those are high places for you. You’re at the right hand of God the Father, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters. And in him, we are the beloved. Verse 7 says, in him, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. In him is all wisdom and insight. And in him, we get everything, all the inheritance that God has promised to his children. I mean, what else? Where else in this world can you find something like that? The riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And Kimberly today is going to be talking about that. You are blessed to dispense for in him. You live and move and have your being. Take that little word in and see yourself as absolutely cradled in God’s arms. That’s what he loves. He loves you being that close to him. Praise God. Well, welcome, Kimberly, to Call to Freedom. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
I love that word from you. And you had told me just before we got on the air here that our memory verse for the week is Ephesians 2.8. And as I’m looking at that, in the Passion Translation, I just turned to it while you were talking. Oh, okay. For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in Him. In Him. Oh, that’s beautiful. We can look at that and say we believe in him. But we could also flip it around and say it’s because we are in him that we’re able to believe. Oh, yes. We can’t believe without being in him. That’s right. So that is that place that we want to find ourselves, in him. That’s good, Mom. It’s a great way to start this program.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. This morning, I received a message from our friend in Sugar City, Colorado. Look it up. It’s a sweet little town in eastern Colorado. And she left a message saying, we have friends in high places. which got me to thinking about her comments. She was saying that when we treat people with love and kindness, it will come back to us and we will reap what we’ve sown. It’s so important that you find kind words to say to people and And I love this thing when Creflo Dollar gets really high pitched and excited. He said, OK, I’m going to calm down now. I’m going to use sweet lips. He says that often. Sweet lips. No condemnation here, friends. And I know that we have a father in a high place. And the Lord Jesus is at his right hand. Well, Kimberly, we were talking about Mount Sinai this morning. And after I heard Shanna’s message, I realized that mountain was a very high place for the children of Israel, wasn’t it? Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
I believe that’s the highest peak in Israel. They don’t refer to it as Mount Sinai anymore. It’s Mount Hermon. You’ve heard of Mount Horeb. And so there’s some different names for it now. But yes, it is the highest peak in that country.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. And isn’t it interesting that God invited Moses to go up? to the high place where God showed him his glory. And the people had to stay at the base of the mountain, and they were probably happy to because they were so afraid of the thunder and the lightning and the shaking of the mountain. And there are many scriptures in the Bible on high places, but many of those high places were designated worship centers for foreign gods. Yeah, a good point. Yeah, it really is. And when Shanna was saying in her message about high places, it was that many times we don’t know those in high places, but we do know the one who is important and deserves the highest praise. And in Amos 4.13, it says, He who forms mountains and creates the wind and declares to man what are his thoughts. See, our thoughts, when we’re in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus, our thoughts become God’s thoughts. God’s thoughts become our thoughts. He who makes dawn in a darkness and treads on the high places of the earth, the Lord God of hosts is his name. Praise God.
SPEAKER 03 :
So that’s such a good reminder of who our best friend is. He is the one in the highest place. And we don’t always think of him as our best friend, especially if we’re thinking about the way the Israelites were before him at Mount Sinai. They were in fear and trembling because of the thunder, the lightning, the smoke coming from the top, the trumpet blast that was not from man. It was from heaven. And I can’t imagine how much that made them shake. But Moses was encouraging them, do not be afraid. This is the one who wants to make a covenant with you. He wants to be your best friend. He wants to be your perfect partner in this life, in this world. And what better way to have a best friend in the highest place? Someone who’s got your back when you’re up against enemies, when you are wandering through the wilderness, when you are in need. You need provision. He can bring manna from heaven. He can split the oceans wide open for you when you need a way of escape. So he is the way maker and he is our best friend.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
There is no need to fear. And as Moses was giving his final blessing over the Israelites before he was retired and they all moved into the promised land, he said in Deuteronomy 33, two through four, The Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from Seir. He shone forth from Mount Paran and he came from among 10,000 holy ones. At his right hand was a flaming fire, a law for them. Indeed, he loves his people. That’s such an interesting verse to start out with, because he’s reminding the Israelites that they were given a law at Mount Sinai. And for many of them, that might not be a very good memory. They remember trembling and shaking.
SPEAKER 02 :
And they remember the do nots. You know, don’t commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness. They remember the negatives. Most people who don’t know God, Kimberly, remember the negatives of, like, religion in their life. And we’ve come to realize it’s a relationship problem. And we have forgotten the religious part of this whole lifestyle in Christ Jesus. It’s such a freedom, freedom like we’ve never known before. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Just like this is saying a law for them. Indeed, he loves his people. Yes. So the law was not meant to bring all this negative feeling and fear. That’s the kind of trembling fear that, that we’re afraid of punishment or afraid of consequences, it’s supposed to leave us in awe of him. Indeed, he loves his people. Yes. So these words could be kind of confusing to those who don’t know the Lord and how good he is. But these are the opening remarks of Moses that he gave in his final blessing. That means that he was actually recalling something good to God’s people. He was getting ready to retire and he spoke over God’s people before he left this earth. And what he’s bringing up here could be considered a sensitive subject, but we just need a little more background on it to understand that God, Even though people were afraid of the thunder, the lightning, the trumpet blast, the thick cloud, the smoke, Moses was not afraid. And he was able to approach that thick cloud and meet with God there. He ends up spending 40 days and nights in that thick cloud. And the people assumed he was not coming back. So here’s where they might be feeling some regret or some guilt because they had already heard the Ten Commandments from the Lord that had actually thundered from that Mount Sinai area. So they knew they were not supposed to make any false images, no idols, no gods made out of silver or gold. But what do they do? When Moses was gone for the 40 days, they were afraid he wasn’t going to come back. And they went to Aaron and they asked him to make an idol of gold for them. And this is the memory that’s brought up in their minds as Moses is giving his final blessing over them. So many of us would look at a memory like that and think, oh, that is an epic failure. And I do not want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember that because that was that was not a good moment. Yes. But God, but God, he is our friend in high places. And he turned this memory into something glorious for his people to look back on. He is so rich now. in mercy, loving kindness and compassion. And the 10 commandments were written on these tablets of stone. I think in those Western culture, we hear the word stone and we think of the term interchangeably with the word rock. And we think of red rocks like the red rocks in Colorado or gray rocks, granite or smooth river rocks, you know, like sedimentary layers of rocks. That’s what we think. Well, the Hebrew tradition speaks of these stone tablets as being solid pieces of brilliant sapphire.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Precious gems are also called stones. I like thinking of the stone tablets as being precious gems. And often when we see a large diamond on someone’s finger, we’ll say, look at the size of that rock, you know, or we might refer to it as a stone. Well, that’s a beautiful stone. So it could be a precious gem. And I remember years ago, many, many years, my husband gave me a green tourmaline ring and it was a pretty rare stone. The stone in that ring was really large, very large. And one day when I removed the ring from my finger to wash my hands, it slipped out of my hand and fell to the floor and it broke. Oh, my goodness. And when that beautiful ring broke, my heart broke that day, too. I was so disappointed in myself. So I’m thinking of Moses and I’m thinking of these gorgeous Sapphire tablets. How precious would these be there? You couldn’t even put a price on these and God himself carved them. There’s more miracles around the way that the tradition talks about the carvings on those tablets. So can you imagine being given solid tablets of sapphire that have been carefully carved by God himself? The last thing in the world that you would ever want to do is throw those beautiful stones to the ground and shatter them.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. It does say that they were written with the finger of God. So we know God did all of the work that Moses. Yeah, Moses was up there. You wonder what Moses was doing for 40 days and 40 nights because God was doing it all. I’m sure he was resting. He was resting in the Lord. That’s what we need to do. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
I like thinking of it that way, too. Resting in the Lord. And God can multitask. So I’m sure they were having a good conversation, maybe cups of tea. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’d like that. Yeah, so when we think of those beautiful stone tablets and we think of Moses getting angry, I don’t think it would matter how angry you were. You would never want to smash something that valuable. That would not be an option. So I do want to just tack on a little bit about the ring that I was given because Fortunately, I had a friend in high places, a human being friend in the jewelry business, and he was able to reshape that tourmaline stone and not just salvage it, but actually restore it to a beautiful piece. And I still enjoy it to this day. Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, we don’t want to go around smashing our beautiful gifts. That is really not an option. Like I said before, I would we usually think of taking care of something valuable. Unless… unless the Lord has given us some insight and placed it in our hearts to do something out of the ordinary, something that just doesn’t make sense. And He is our friend in high places. So even though it’s hard to imagine that the Lord might lead us to smash something valuable, we could think of it as a sacrifice. And it’s even harder for me to imagine that Moses would destroy something so valuable just because he got angry. That doesn’t sound like it fits with the story of Moses. So there had to be some divine influence here. God actually never reprimanded Moses for breaking those priceless tablets. So we can see that in his silence, that actually might be a sign of his approval. Well, smashing those beautiful gems, those tablets, ended up being a prophetic sign that the law would no longer be needed on the day that our Lord consummated his covenant with his people. Instead of the law, a list of rules that we all have to keep, He said that he would write his law on their hearts, which means that his love would flow easily in relationship with those who love him.
SPEAKER 05 :
Praise God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, a true friend to us. That is who Jesus is to us. And when Jesus came, he came to show us the goodness of God. Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic sign that Moses showed us in shattering those tablets. Just to give a little background, when it said that Moses shattered the tablet, it says that his anger… raged. His anger was kindled. It depends on what version that you’re reading. But when it says that, the kindled, it holds the idea of having insight. It’s been something inflamed, like a bright idea. When you have a good idea, you might see a light bulb over your head. So something was kindled. His anger was kindled. So there was some kind of an idea that gave him insight. And that’s where some of the Jewish teaching is coming from. The Hebrew teaching is talking about this insight that Moses had. Well, the insight is a prophetic sign. When he shattered those tablets, it was actually a sacrifice and a faith that believed that it would be a sign of something greater coming. And we got the something greater in Jesus. Praise God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 03 :
So the breaking of the Ten Commandments is completely fulfilled through relationship with Jesus. Jesus spoke about it in Matthew 5, that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And so he is the fulfillment. He also told us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. So he is the way that we follow. His example is the example that leads to the father and the father. He is full of compassion, full of loving kindness. He is our friend in high places. Yes. And thank you, Shanna, for sending us the idea of this song. We did ask Rachel to have this ready for us today. And we would love to just listen to this beautiful song of our friend in high places.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’ve got hope when things look bad And I can smile when I should be sad I’ve got friends who lift me up when I’m feeling low And they watch over me Places so high and so far away. I’ve got friends in all the places. And the angels were teaching everyone And other friends I miss so much And I long to see so high but not so far away and i’m gonna be with What’s there to fear when my friends are on my side? I’ve got a friend in high. He says, so high, so high. In high spaces. And I’m gonna be with them. I’m gonna be with them. I’ve just reached. In high spaces. So high. No. And I’m gonna be with them Yes, I’m gonna be with them
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, that’s beautiful. That is. Do you remember, Kimberly, when we invited Larnell, who just sang that song, and Terry Blackwood to our church in Greeley? Yes. Oh. That was such, it should have been a packed church. It wasn’t, but oh, it was a beautiful time.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t know if you caught the line in that song. It said, I’ll be with him one day when he comforts me. Yes, yes. And you had told me earlier today that Isaiah 40 really stood out to you when talking about the glory of God. And I love how Isaiah 40 starts out saying, Comfort, oh comfort my people, says your God. That is our friend in high places. He wants to bring us comfort. And I would love to hear you read some of Isaiah 40.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, I will. I just want to tell the listeners, we’re talking about the election in the future of the governor of Colorado. And Kimberly, I would like for them to write down the name of Victor Marks, M-A-R-X. Write that down. You can look him up. Born again, loves the Lord, was a special friend of Charlie Kirk. And he’s helping children who’ve been trafficked, abusive children. They have their own ministry. And, friends, we need to back a candidate like this in Jesus’ name, in Colorado especially. Because, Kimberly, I was telling you that we haven’t had a Republican, a conservative governor since Bill Owens. And that was in 2007. So everyone since then… have been democratic, and have really torn up our state. It is high crime, a lot of trafficking going on. And so I just want to tell our friends to look up Victor Marx, M-A-R-X. And that’s one you want to look to when this election in Colorado comes about. And I think I need to ask you back tomorrow to get into Isaiah 40. It’s just too beautiful to just begin today. So maybe tomorrow you can come back and join us. Well, I would love to. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. And really what we’re talking about is being in relationship with Jesus, that we’re not choosing to default to our own thinking or even our best common sense that we’ve been given in this life. We seek him. And Moses learned how to do that. It was not common sense for him to shatter the beautiful tablets. He was prophetically seeing that something better was on the way. And his name is Jesus. And that’s who we want to lean on in these days when we need. direction, when we need guidance, when we need comfort, he will be the great comforter. That is part of his name. He’s wonderful counselor and he’s a great comforter to us. Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, praise God. We hope we have left you feeling great, feeling wonderfully loved by God. God bless you. And thank you, Kimberly, so much for all this teaching today. It’s been wonderful. I’m riding high in high places. Oh, thank you so much for listening, friends. Take joy.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
Join us on Call to Freedom as Barbara Carmack takes us on an enriching journey through the teachings of Ephesians. Learn about the profound significance of being ‘in Him’ and how this universal truth forms the bedrock of faith for believers. Discover the great ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai, revealing God’s glory and how high places have been pivotal through biblical times. This episode is a tapestry of spiritual insights and stories that weave together the legacy of faith carried through time.
