The VISION;  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;  the calf and the young lion and the fatling shall frolic together; and a little child shall lead them. {Isaiah 11:6}

¶ Still, six to seven weeks out from the Spring of the Year, with no Lodge for the Wayfaring Man in sight, having weathered a few weeks of one of January’s more biting Icy Leviathans, I find myself in the Winter of My Years – (God forbid, I give up the Ghost) – making my way through this seemingly endless, hardscrabble, sin-swept wasteland of dried up riverbeds and THORNY THICKETS governed by stumblebums, brutes, wing nuts, hirelings, and deceivers, that seems of late to have become the cage of every filthy and hateful bird on the planet, as well as the haunt of devils and the stronghold for every foul spirit as well as the habitat for every dubious, covert creature on the planet. (Revelation 18;2, ¹wcv&²). Surely this was not once the House of the Lord that sat upon the Seven Mountains of the “One Nation Under God” was it? The one that now produces nothing but THICKETS?  THICKETS that bear nothing but thorns and hide nothing but pricks, whose havens house nothing but thieves, and devils, and whose vastness now produces nothing but one mirage after another…. I wonder, as I press on through it all for that City not made by the hands of man, has her wickedness, indeed, reached into the heavens? (Revelation 18:5) I cannot help but consider the fact that the Greater Light that used to just  “Roll Around Heaven All Day” bringing Life, laughter, mutual trade, and prosperity out of the earth to its inhabitants, through the calloused hands of the working man, is now but an estranged witness to the greed of rapscallions who defile the Earth with Monster Machines, herbicides, and pesticides, knowing, full well, that these noxious poisons, though they produce beautiful and perfect fruit, are but deadly crops that silently slay even our hardworking, wonderfully created little pollinators. Then there are those who prowl about neath the dark side of the moon, like phantoms in the shadows, stealing the souls of children by defiling their hearts and minds with the perversions of Sodom and Gomorrah, completely oblivious to the fact that the constellations, not to mention the Luminary out of which all Light sprang forth, and from Whom the darkness hides nothing, will, come the Day of Dead Reckoning, be damning witnesses against them. Tell me, O House of the Lord, where have you been? Where did you go? Did you drink of the wine of the Wrath of her Fornication so that you might wax rich by the powers of her sorcery? …so that you might enrich yourselves and possess massive fellowship halls²? (Revelation 18:3, ¹wcv&²) Yeah! I’ll take a drink of that if it’ll give me one-foot-up; would that be you? Take heed! For the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars, though they speak not a word, are God’s Traveling Preachers whose witness goes out into all the Earth, for the heavens themselves do declare the Glory of an Omnipotent, Holy God. (Psalm 19, ¹wcv&²) – (That will be a “Tough One” to stand before on the Day of Dead Reckoning) – I must say, the perverse, the poisonous, and the corrupt, together with their hirelings, along with the indifferent, have, without fail, brought famine and pestilence a licking at our heels while the seared consciences of tyrants have war, once again, knockin’ on our door. Then, of course, there is the bitter cold of winter which no longer knows “weather” it is “weather” or not! Therefore, not knowing what to call itself, it doesn’t know “weather” to stay or “weather” to depart, yet when it does stay it seems to do nothing more than harden already hardened hearts to the coldness of a stone, and then, when it does depart Spring moves in in the middle of winter (beautiful deception) wreaking havoc and confusion on creature and critter alike, bringing forth nothing but THICKETS! THICKETS! THICKETS! Lord, in all my days as a lumberjack, I’ve never seen so many THICKETS – Regardless of it all, there are great and undeniable SIGNS of God’s Unconquerable Standard – Oaks of Righteousness – which are more than a few, but being widely scattered these days they do seem sparse, which makes it tough on their “Offspring”, for without a surrounding Forest of Elders, in which THICKETS cannot grow, their youngsters must labor furiously to reach into the heights to keep from being choked-out by THICKETS.

Oh, Lord, lead me

Through this rough and rocky place,

This path is dark and twisted

And I can’t see Your Face.

Holy Spirit, I ain’t blind,

But You’ve got to show me how to see 

How this dried-up riverbed

Is going to flow into the sea.

 

Lord, we need some rain down here

In this Valley of Dry Bones.

Rain that falls on souls of men

And soaks us to the bone.

Send the Former and the Latter Rains

To make these rivers flow.

Pour out Your Spirit, Lord,

And melt these Hearts of Stone!

Lord, Melt these Hearts of Stone!

 

{excerpt from the song, “Hearts Of Stone” ©Will Callery}

¶ Still and all, while working my way through this heard-hearted, stone-cold, barren Land of THICKETS the thought came to me…

¶ …It’s easy to  “Look” at these barren, sin-swept, diggin’s, impoverished by the greed of man and hexed with the pox by the lust of the flesh, as a piece of real estate to be destroyed as was Sodom and Gomorrah, and rightly so. However, there are those of us who remember this desolate, pocked, strapped and skint, hardscrabble wasteland full of slums, clear-cuts, junkyards, and dumps, as the Majestic Old Growth Forest that it was, whose Canopy covered the Earth, whose Strength, Power, and Magnificence flowed out of the robust Root of Jesse, whose Character reached into the heavens and whose hindermost outcroppings were bestrewn with Green Pastures and Still Waters from her Virgin Valleys to her Snow Capped Peaks, while beneath it all, hidden by her beauty, lay subterranean resources inconceivable, safely secured on each side by powerful, pristine oceans. Oh, how she did make the hearts of men glad. (Psalms 104:15) There are those of us who have not forgotten that throughout this former Majestic Land of Blessings once flowed the River of God and its Tributaries of Life, prospering the believer and the unbeliever alike because of those who did Faithfully and Deeply Fetch after the Lord. These Oaks of Righteousness are the “The Ones” who, when “Looking“, “See – in the Spirit” and “Remember” as did Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of  Iddo, that these hexed inhabitants, devilish diggin’s, and pining peaks (disgraced High Places) (spiritually & literally speaking) was once one of God’s Crown Jewels, indeed, an Apple of His Eye, and that, according to Prophecy, is about to be burned with Fire and made anew forever. If we are truly the Lord’s, like those three Old Oaks of Righteousness; Zechariah, Berechiah, and Iddo, we will, come hell or high water, stake our lives on the fact that Biblical Prophecy ain’t no “Pie In The Sky Fable”, and that the WORD OF GOD  ain’t no  “Fairytale for the Faint of Heart”  ♥ …for “We are, incontrovertibly, headed into a Thicket of Times of which the likes of have never been, nor will they ever be again.” (Matthew 24:21) ♥  which is why we must not fail to remember that the Lord will not fail to Remember and Bless the Appointed Time! (Zechariah, 1:1, Micah 7:14-20, Zechariah 14, ¹wcv&²)

¶ Oh, by the way, the name Zechariah means “The Lord Remembers”. The name of his father, Berechiah means “The Lord blesses”, and the name of his grandfather, Iddo, means “The Appointed Time”.

¶ Though much of the Forest of the Deep Fetch has been felled (Zechariah 11:2), Ancient Oaks of Righteousness will, until the End of the Age, punctuate and pel the desolate territories and terrain of the wicked. Considering this, must we not ask ourselves; are “These” not the Remnants of the Riches and the Power of the Lord planted by the Lord Himself in the midst of this Present Evil World? Do they not stand as Sentinels and Sentrys over the Ages to stir our souls? Do they not stir your blood to ask, “What Happened Here?” Does not all of this drive you to your knees to ask the Lord, by Faith, to restore His Ancient Wonders?  Does the Lord not tell us, that first, we need to remove the Stoney Wastelands of Offence, the Dried Up Riverbeds of Unbelief, and the Thorny Thickets of Greed and Underhanded Manipulation from our hearts in order that Our Land might then flourish again, be rid of the same, and be shed of Strange Children? (2 Chronicles 7:14, Psalm 144:7,11, Hosea 5:7)  I am here to tell you, it is the Word of God and the Hand of the Lord, not the horse and chariot, that will restore our Crown Jewel of the West and Redeem the Lord’s Crown Jewel of the East  (Micah 7:14-20)

Like an Oak down by the River

I have withstood the howling storm.

Lightning strikes, rollin’ thunder, ungodly winds,

I never went under.

Hell and High Water

Shall not prevail over me

Or my soul,

My thirsty soul. 

No! No weapon formed against me shall prosper!  (Isaiah, 54:17)   

 

{Excerpt from the song, “River of Delights” ©Will Callery}

 

¶ Coming down through Revelation Pass out of the “High Places” of men, you know, that barren, hardscrabble, sin-swept wasteland of Satan where neither day did rise nor night did fall, and Crow was the most delectable dish on the menu, for one fleeting moment I beheld what seemed to be the Dawning of a New Day which did bathe with the beams of the Gold of Ophir the Rolling Hills, the Emerald Pastures, and the Crystal Waters below, whose Villages were akin, in appearance, to the refracted light of the fine cut diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires of the New Jerusalem.

¶ All stretched out beneath what seemed to be a New Heaven, to my amazement, lay a New Earth over whose rolling hills I saw a child, a wolf, and a lamb frolicking together in a most playful manner. I then beheld another child bed down a leopard and a young goat as they rested in a stable, one upon the other, beside Still Waters in a valley of grandeur unimaginable. Even further struck with awe was I, as I caught sight of a lion, a calf, and a fatling together being led by a child over rolling Green Pastures into a village below, where the sounds of the bells on the harnesses, the bridles, the trimmings, the tack and the hooves of the horses bedecked the air and garnished the atmosphere of the village with rapture. The engravings in the silver and the gold of the bells that did so bespangle the gaits of the Friesians with a stately demeanor, with the finest of writing, did read, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD”. ( Isaiah 11:6, Revelation 21:1, Zechariah 14;20)

¶ As night began to fall, like the light of day, I found myself descending into the foothills of the Her Heights and while passing through a neck of Old Growth Outcroppings I was so overtaken by the scent of Sweet Gale that I dismounted, looked, and beheld…..

…A man riding upon a Red Horse

Down thru the bottoms, in the dark of the night.

In a thick stand of Myrtle He Reigned and did stand,                

Behind Him more horses, Gray, Grizzled and White.

 

Who are these, I did wonder, piercing the night,

Riding like warriors, glowing like Light?

Who are these I did wonder? My Lord, O my Lord,

Have you come down from heaven to settle the score?

 

These are those He did say, sent of My Father

To ride to and fro thru the earth,

And I AM Commander of the Armies of Heaven,

And I Am jealous for Zion’s New Birth.

 

As for My Horse, he is Judgement and War,

The White Ones are Mercy and Grace.

The Grays and the Grizzled have been sent to sort out

That which is mixed and hiding its face.

 

{The Zechariah Song ©Will Callery / (Zechariah 1:8-16)}

¶ Come daybreak, the Rolling Hills, the Green Pastures, the Still Waters, and the Villages akin to the New Jerusalem, along with their stately Friesians and the atmosphere of Rapture were gone. GONE! I once again found myself out on that Old Heartworn Highway, in the throes of winter, working my way through a THICKET OF TIMES I have never seen the likes of and hope to never see again! Yet here I am, eighty years on down the road headed for that City not made by the hands of man, proclaiming in the Thickest of Thickets…

This is the Word of the Lord

Written by the Prophet’s Hand

To the Remnant of the steadfast

Who are covered by the Blood of the Lamb.

Come forth out of the desert,

Get out of Babylon!!!,

For the Time of Jacob’s Trouble

Is the Time I call you Home.       

 

Excerpt from the song “After The War” ©Will Callery (Revelation 18:4, Jeremiah 30:7)

GOVER’MENT PLANTATION by Will Callery / Waylonson Pub. Co. ©2008 BMI

 

 

¹wcv / My Emphasis / Version  (always taken from the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, & Arabic translations, definitions, and connotations)

² / My Insert(s)

Letters From Over Yonder, The Deep Fetch, The Covenant,  & Ain’t It So, are Published by William & Cynthia Pub. Co, ©2024

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