Fifteen years ago my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We decided decided to go to the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia and use that as our headquarters and travel for 16 days through-out the region. Shortly before leaving for the trip the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He told me I was going to have a significant encounter and that it would change everything. I assumed I was going to meet someone. We rented a house that was actually attached to the walled city, it was part of the stone drawbridge and had a magnificent stone terrace that overlooked the enchanting harbor of the city.As I stood there one day, basking in a warm sun that was rising majestically from behind ancient mountains, a glorious and indescribable presence enveloped me. I had experienced the manifest presence of God many times before but nothing like this. It seemed to permeate my very DNA. Every part of me was alive and captivated, from my head right down to my toes and all around me.

Suddenly I was in another place.I was looking at what I could only describe as some kind of amalgam of the old testament Tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. In a grand square there was a great number of people. I asked who they were and was told they were the vast majority of people who called themselves Christians.They were standing in what I was told was the court of the gentiles. A great sadness came over me as I witnessed a tremendous amount of activity going on in the court. I wondered why they were not passing through a low door that was in a wall that led to the inner sanctuary. I was told that they would not bow down which would enable them to pass through the door. I could see what was behind the door in the wall, it was the inner sanctuary.

There was first a brazen altar. It was a foul-smelling place but was deeply loved by God. The few who came though the door brought sacrifices of sin it seemed to me. They were coming forward not to get something but to give up foul-smelling sins that had so easily beset them. It took great humility to come before this place and acknowledge these secrets of their heart but they were readily burned up in a fire that continually burned. People sacrificed rags and were clothed in fine white linen. People sacrificed perversions and were given purity. Lies were sacrificed and truth was given. All manner of sin was replaced by holiness and purity.Then they moved forward to the lavar bowl where they washed themselves before moving on to be fed by shewbread which filled them in a way that they would never again hunger. Then they stood in the light of the lampstand, no longer ashamed but washed clean and made pure and able to stand in the light of God for He had cleansed them. Lastly their prayers began to rise up like incense and come before the throne of God Himself.

I looked again at the vast crowd outside of the manifest presence of God, engaged in much activity in the court of the gentiles and I was amazed that they would not enter. So close to entering in, but so unwilling to give up the things of this world, too proud to bow down and enter through the door, too ashamed to give up their innermost foul-smelling sin.Suddenly I was back standing on the terrace. I looked out over a motionless sea where it met a cloudless sky and the rising sun warmed me with such a fierce intensity. In this fire of His presence I was alive with a life I knew would never end. This was my promised encounter with my glorious indescribable Jesus. This was when my writing began in earnest. I knew that the time was short and that I was to write to and encourage the remnant saints of God, those who had bowed down and enter into the glory.

I was to encourage them and also to encourage anyone in the court of the gentiles who would have an ear to hear, to bow down and enter in and leave the court behind. To come away, come out from among them, and to enter into a place that required all of our hearts.I was to stand in the midst of the Jordan, so to speak, and encourage the saints as they passed through from the wilderness into the promised land. Like all the pilgrim saints experience , the long narrow way home is often a lonely, weary and exhausting road. But we have glimpsed something glorious have we not? We have in our mind and soul and spirit saw something of our eternal destination.

It is high and lifted up. He is high and lifted up. The Lord Jesus is not only our companion along the way He is our destination. Don’t ask me to explain that. He is behind me and He hedges me around about, He goes before me and He dwells within me.Yet my destination is the unadulterated presence of the living God where the flesh is no longer a barrier that limits the glory. A place where this world is no longer a distraction nor competes for my attention. To finally dwell in a high and lofty place where I know as I am known. Oh to know as I am known, tis another world indeed, it is our world, it our home, it is our destination and every step we take is another step closer. Keep on walking saints though the road seem hard and lonely, keep on walking and lift up your head and see the glory. It is closer than you think.