“Of the tribe of Naphtali were sealed twelve thousand.” Revelation 7:6
Naphtali means “wrestling,” but specifically struggling to attain to that which seems too high for us. In Israel’s blessings upon his sons, he spoke of Naphtali in these descriptive words:
“Naphtali is a hind let loose; he gives beautiful words.” Genesis 49:21
“Hind” is the word used in the King James Bible for a female deer or doe, just as “hart” is used for the male deer or buck. Israel’s prophecy is that the tribe of Naphtali would be known by their speed and agility like unto that of a doe! The fleetness and surety of foot seen in the deer is mentioned often in scripture. King David, acknowledging God’s help during his flight from Saul, said:
“It is God that girds me with strength, and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like hind’s feet, and sets me upon my high places.” Psalms 18:32-33
There is no doubt that, from his childhood, David had witnessed the hind as she fled, climbing high upon the rocks and hills at the presence of men. Grasp the significance of this allusion. Hind’s feet are of marvelous swiftness and made to carry them over difficult places that are impassable to slower-footed creatures. The thought in the psalmist’s mind is that of a divine endowment added to human weakness, an imparting of agility and confidence to the soul. The soul is enabled to spring up, so to speak, out of the dangers which assail it on the lower levels of life, and climb lightly and surely to the uplands of the spirit.
An Englishman who visited the West of our United States related the following incident. “It was in Colorado. Riding with a small party of friends through the picturesque scenery of that mountainous state, we came to a rugged narrow pass which presently opened into a narrow glade wherein a herd of antelopes were quietly grazing. If I remember rightly another party coming in the opposite direction rounded the farther corner of the pass at about the same moment, so that the antelope were caught, as it were, between two camps.
We didn’t intend to do them any harm, but should greatly have liked a closer look at them. That, however, we did not get. The instant they caught sight of us they leaped up the side of the cliff to our right hand, at an almost incredible rate of speed, following one another gracefully and apparently without effort, from point to point in the giddy ascent, making scarcely a sound as they went, till they were finally lost to view amid the towering rocks far above our heads.
It was all over in a minute, and we were filled with admiration as we watched the rapidly moving feet of the pretty little creatures springing from crag to crag. It could hardly be called climbing; they were not struggling to pull themselves up; they leaped and stood in perfect poise without the slightest hesitation. No inner fears blocked their way. They could go where a man could not except with utmost caution and at considerable risk to his own safety. They were absolutely secure, and they knew it. Up they fled, and were gone.” — end quote.
“He makes my feet like hinds feet,” says that the nature of God’s Spirit is one of lightness, of spiritual sure footedness in a power whereby we are able to escape with confidence any menace where evil can reach to harm or destroy us. The nature of His Spirit provides light, hence the wrestling indicated in Naphtali — the struggle we each have experienced in our efforts to yield to the Spirit sent of God. Enlightenment by God’s Spirit within our spirit will change our soul and body, so we become much more sure-footed, as our spirit leaps out to grasp the upward clefts in the Rock.
The inner quality of Naphtali places a wrestling, a struggle in our inner spirit that leaps with confidence in trusting the Word of God in our inner spiritual man. We can use “hind’s feet” that can skip and jump up over the struggles with our own fleshly fears. With any problem and any obstacle of the carnal mind we are exercised in wrestling, we are made free to escape any danger.
Some in the candlestick church realm are counseled to buy from the Lord gold tried in the fire. They need to wrestle free of their present state to break into the Daylight like Jacob who was "touched" with a name change to be a Prince with God and man. Those who follow on to be RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF OUR MIND can identify God's anointing.
Having the ability to be impressed to identify God’s Spirit within our spirit, these Christians are being dealt with by God as SONS, sons of the living God, the Father of one and all. Mature Christians are called to experience a struggle between the flesh and the spirit, between our identity as natural human souls in flesh and blood bodies and our inner spiritual identity that has been quickened by God’s Spirit to become His spiritual sons and daughters.
We are caught up at times and taught how to scale the heights and enter heavenly places by worshiping God in our high places. We love to rise above the earthly mindsets with spiritual hind’s feet! Like King David, God is making a great number of kings out of His kingdom priesthood. These Christians have learned to wrestle with their fleshly ideas and their self-love. They have lost their life in His. Inner light has dawned to free them from all that would hold or revert them back to life in the rough-and-tumble lowlands. They are made to be one spirit with the Lord, no longer hating, biting, or devouring one another.
All Christians are called to mature, to participate in a spiritual growth. Thank God, He is teaching us by His Spirit the ways of being one with His Spirit. We are coming to understand that in every extremity there is always a way — UPWARD! A cleft has been provided in the Rock of our salvation. God’s Spirit always makes a way of escape from the pressures of those whose life is ruled by the flesh.
Fleshly people are filled with fears and frustrations. We too are all tempted to drown in our sorrows, seeing only the troubles, yet sons have the spirit of Naphtali within, they swiftly discover the way up to higher ground! They see the Lord now drawing us upward in a spiritual resurrection that raises us to reign as kings over our own earthly ways, qualifying us to enter a higher place of Christian development.
God has sent His Son to us with the swiftness of Naphtali hind’s feet. He is coming swiftly as we see within our spirit the truth of Christ. He gives wings to soar, the fearless strength of a lion, and faith to serve God in a rest given by intelligently understanding what the Spirit says to the churches. Yes, He has raised up within us an ability to see and understand Him. We are becoming one of spirit in our inner man, to experience how God's Word and Spirit sets us free.
We could easily fall prey to the spirit that seeks to do harm. We have almost no power as individuals to withstand or defend ourselves against evil, but we Christians have been given great gifts and endowments of character that take us swiftly into the lasting heights where no earthly or fleshly hindrance is great enough to bar the way.
Oh, the mystery of Christ helps us not be caught wrestling like a helpless deer in a horrible pit of death where the sun has hidden its face and the sky looks dark with trouble! All the difficulty of marital problems, unhealthy habits leading to bodily sickness, inherent weaknesses that are daily temptations, subject to life’s pressures and worldly influence upon us in numerous ways too numerous to count, seem to make for no way out of the dark, death-filled pit within men and women.
We Christians are no longer hopelessly wrestling with our flesh. We are looking UP to see, with the mind of Christ, that there is a way made UPWARD in every situation, however routine or desperate! Entering God’s third day heavens require an inner resurrection in every son and daughter to understand what His Spirit teaches them. Our Father provides the insight needed to take the way UPWARD into Christ’s salvation. “Come UP hither”, Jesus still beckons the church! Our spirit has hind’s feet (like wings) right now to respond to His beckoning, right in our present circumstances.
He is appearing within His enthroned people in a depth of spiritual life that knows God as a Father who is our swift defense, our All in All. Are we afraid? Are we too weak to make the effort? Do our weary limbs refuse to work? Would the Father quicken us as one having the spiritual characteristics of Naphtali even to have “beautiful words”? Can we recognize and lay firm hold upon the mindsets of Christ that have instructed us? We must have faith to trust those beautiful words He has taught. Faith to trust the mighty power the indwelling Christ is working within to make us like Jesus, and we know His anointing will not fail.
I am not looking to TV preachers, nor to other ministries of Pentecostal heavens that are using God’s gifts to build in the passing orders of the candlestick churches. I cannot now sit under their ministry, because eating their messages does not satisfy. I will not join a systemized church nor contribute as they pass their offering plate on Sundays. All they are promising is that they can lead us into something heavenly after we die, if we are good enough at the end of it all.
But I say today our INDIVIDUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD can supply us now with an abundance of GOD’S SPIRITUAL LIFE. There is no need for man-motivated church fellowship or religious good works, nor work for political control, nor to be taught in seminaries the fleshly ideas of how to work and build in the church realm, nor subscribing to past methods of worship. Those raised in Christ are not polluted with man’s ways, but are knowing God’s judgments.
The kingdom of God is within us, and our new creation man can conquer our fleshly soul in order to control our whole being. We have spiritual HIND’S FEET that need be exercised just as surely as the nerves and muscles of our body need exercise to enable us to walk and talk and think. This is so we have hind’s feet "like wings" of faith in God that keeps us taking the next step, right onto high celestial places.
Growing into the Godhead is all about looking to the Christ within, getting our spiritual bearings, being sealed in the qualities of God. We are to be sealed in Naphtali characteristics that make our feet (understanding) like hind’s feet that leap up over every obstacle, going on to heights in God. The spirit of Naphtali will SPRING UP over all our problems to free us to mount up to the new heavens breaking before our eyes. Shining light surrounds us before, behind, and within because we see Jesus is coming by the Spirit from the blessed homelands of the New Jerusalem order.
This is God’s new day! This is our time! Rise up and leap upon the mountains and skip over the hills. Our Beloved says to us, as He said to the Shulamite long ago:
“Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away!” Song of Solomon 2:10
Ah, the spiritual sealing of Naphtali within us grants faith that can leap over every sin and weakness. We can jump up to clefts of real forgiveness and forgetfulness, up over petty strife that holds us to corrupt ideas and inner hatred of others. God is sealing sons and daughters in the heights of Zion, the high mountain of God where we hear the sound of His voice. He stirs the depth of our being to arise swiftly like Naphtali, ascending into the heights of glorious victory!
Naphtali was swift to risk death with Deborah. This swiftness to combat typifies the character of the northern tribes. Rachel described wrestling with her sister to produce children unto Israel. Christian brethren have wrestled against one another over their understandings and revelations. In Naphtali the wrestling has been great, but we are now no longer wrestling after a fleshly manner in competition to produce any good works for God.
We have entered a REST from our fleshly labors to produce the kingdom of God among the brethren. We see now the need to be raised spiritually into oneness with the King, to know of the lasting kingdom, and be placed as a son in the glorious city of the Father. Some think this cannot happen until one dies, or some other time to come in the future, but we see Jesus doing these things within us spiritually right NOW.
"Today , if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Hebrews 4:7
"But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church of firstborn sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven.
You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel's. Make sure that you never refuse to listen when he speaks." Hebrews 12:22-25 NJB