The Veil Not Torn

In this unexpected and deeply personal episode, I’m setting aside my original plans to share a message that couldn't wait. Sometimes, the Lord uproots our schedules to deliver exactly what His people need to hear in the moment.

Join me for a heart-to-heart conversation about the veil that wasnt torn, and God's overwhelming desire to connect with you. If you’ve been feeling distant or wondering if He is still speaking, this episode is a direct invitation to step closer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Middle of the Fire podcast. My name is Steve. I have a very special episode. I don't really know I don't really know where how to start this off, honestly. It is 11 p.m. I have been writing this now for a couple hours. And uh my mind is a whirlwind right now. So I'm just gonna go ahead and start. I don't really have anything to open up with. So I'm gonna start off with some scripture. Going to Matthew chapter twenty-seven, verses forty-five through fifty-four. Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was a darkness over all the land, and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli Eli Lama Sabakhthanai, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those who stood there when they heard that said, This man is calling for Elijah. Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and offered it to him to drink. The rest said, Leave him alone. Let us see if Elijah will come and save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Then behold the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earthquaked and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went to the holy city and appeared to many. So when the Satyrian and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. We all know of the significance of the veil. We know what that meant. The veil being torn in two from top to bottom was indeed miraculous because this veil was some, some say it's four to six inches thick, and about thirty feet long, and estimates on the low end say it weighed about six thousand pounds, and that's on the low end. So this was truly massive, and nothing of that time or even today could cut it in one swift motion. It would take a lot of effort to cut this thing in half. And it was important because the veil separated the Holy of Holies from man, because God could not be near the sin of mankind. And only the high priest could pass behind the veil. And only once a year could they do that to offer sacrifices for people's sins, and they would roll the sins back another year. But that veil separated the presence of God from the people, and when Jesus died, that barrier was removed. I was praying earlier today, and I was praying specifically because I was having a hard time mentally. For some reason, I don't know why. I had gone from happy and content to angry and moody and irritable. And I just I just felt I felt off.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

I did not feel good. I was very troubled, and I did not know why.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I felt an uneasiness in my stomach. I felt like I just I just started, you know, running my hands under warm water and like trying to rub my face, trying to I don't know, trying to soothe soothe myself, and it just wasn't working, so I was I went and I laid down for a few minutes, and I was just you know, fiddling around and reaching out to God, just asking him to be with me. And then I rebuked whatever spirit it was that was causing me to feel like this. And I did feel a shift whenever I said that, whenever I rebuked this feeling. I felt the I felt that wave come over me.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Kind of gives you goosebumps, you know. And I could feel that there was a a battle in my spirit happening.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

But after I rebuked and and uh laid there for a couple more minutes, I decided I needed to get up and take a shower, you know, to clear my head. And I got to praying in the shower and talking to God. And I was telling him how much I needed him in this moment because of whatever was going on. And I just told him, I was talking to him and just telling him how much I hate how my mind works. This constant just forgetfulness, the constant mood swings, going from happy to just out of nowhere, just being irritable. Two different people, I feel like sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

And I hate it. I told him I hated how my mind works. This happens so often I don't know why. Then the Lord spoke to me and he said, I created you specifically for a reason.

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Do not hate what I have created. Then he pulled me in closer and he whispered, I have a message I want you to give to my people. I had a different plan for episodes this week. I had I have a another My New Life episode that I wanna that I gotta release. I gotta edit it. I've also got one with Johnny Garcia coming up, and you know, I've got the devotionals that I'm writing for the jail, and that's what it really was trying to get to this week and trying to work on tonight. God said, Don't worry about those things. Don't worry about the episode you wanted to edit. Don't worry about finishing the jail ministry devotional right now. The jail isn't going anywhere. He said, give them this message now. Go and write. So I've been commanded to speak with you on this topic, the veil not torn. Would you pray with me, please? God, I need your guidance right now. I need you to speak through me. Because if I try to put my hands on this, I'm just gonna mess it up. You've troubled my heart so much. And you've broken me and brought me to this place right now. But Lord, I just want to do a good job. That they'll understand with open arm with open heart and open mind. Ask you that in the name of Jesus, amen. You'll forgive me for being emotional here. It's late and I'm tired, but also the Lord is just oh, He has worked me over this whole evening. I have cried and boohooed and sobbed and wept and wept and so please forgive me for that.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

The Lord has something to tell us all.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Exodus chapter twenty verse eighteen ending in verse twenty-five says, Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it they trembled and stood far off, and they said to Moses, You'll speak with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, so that you do not sin. So the people stood far off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. Then Lord said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with me, gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen, and every place where I record my name I will come to you, and I will bless you, and if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. That speaks loudly to me, the part where it says, You shall not use any tools on it, because if you do, you will have profaned it. Every time we put our own designs into the work of the Lord, we mess it up. If we go to do a thing that we're called to do, if we build it from stones we fashioned with our own hands, it will fail. God's work was never meant to be constructed of things of our own design and our own making. The temple was never of man's design, but the one that God himself gave to Moses. It was very specific and required intricacies and dimensions that no man concocted. We seem to have taken a step backward. Yeah? Maybe a couple more steps than we could ever imagine. God said in verse 23, Exodus chapter 20, verse 23, you shall not make anything to me, gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourself. We've got a lot of work to do to go where we need to be with the Lord. He is desperate to speak with you, all of you. All of you. He wants nothing more than to talk to you. Really talk to you. Doesn't matter who you are or where you're from or what you do, God wants to talk to you. He has something he wants to say to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

He has so many things to tell us.

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Moses spoke with God because of a very special covenant God made with Moses. We have our own covenant with God. But it seems we've forgotten ourselves, and in the process, we've forgotten God. He told us not to make idols. But think of how think of how loud it is now. Think of how loud society is now here in America. I can't speak for whatever country you live in, I don't know. But for us here in America, it is deafening. It is so loud.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And it is so bright all the time. And it's exhausting. There is there's hardly any rest anymore.

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I mentioned it in my previous episode. How many times do you find yourself scrolling and you just forget about time? You forget where you are. Your kids are trying to talk to you and you just don't hear them. I'm guilty of that. It makes me feel awful to say that, but I'm guilty of that. I know I'm not the only one.

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That doesn't make it okay. There's a violent loudness everywhere we go.

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Even right now, when I'm talking to you, my keyboard is cycling through the colors of the rainbow. My computer is, you know, flashing enough colors to make an epileptic run in fear. Why? There's just noise and colors and flashing lights everywhere. There's distractions everywhere we go and look. In our homes, in our cars. I've got a TV. I have a TV in every room in my house.

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Why?

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Our cars have TVs. Flats. Everybody's got everyone's got a stinking iPad on their dashboard now. When you go to sit down for dinner at a restaurant, you can't even sit down for fajitas without there being six TVs behind the person sitting in front of you. And you know, it's amazing that we don't have more car accidents than we already do. Because every 20 feet, there's another billboard trying to grab your attention to buy insurance, sell your home. Do this thing, go here, buy that, look at this. Everything is trying to grab our attention. 24-7. The billboards never shut off. I could go down the street right now, and those same billboards would still be flashing. Nobody around, but they're still there, automatically doing their job. Three o'clock in the morning, I could go there, and there would be State Farm or Ford Dealership, advertisement, flashing. Why? And of course, we have the worst possible invention in human history. Constantly with us all the time, our phones. I hate phones. I do. I'm to the point where I absolutely hate having a smartphone. These things have they've connected us so completely that we can't stand each other. You know, when the internet first came out, uh not the internet, but I mean, yeah, when the internet first got big, it was it was it was awesome. It was awesome. Whenever, you know, the first iPhone came out, revolutionary. Changed the world. Everybody loved it. It was great. It was great. But it didn't take long before it turned into an absolute juggernaut. And now they control us. We've been so connected through these things. I can talk to anybody all over the planet at any time. I can get on any app that I want to and say whatever I want. And yet, while we try to grow it ever connected through every app and every instrument known to mankind, we have pushed out God. And now we're further and more disconnected than ever from the only one who can do anything at all to help us. Why? Why do we do that? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this to God? What did he ever do to deserve this? We'll ask AI for every little thing, every little question that comes up in our brains just to see how far down the rabbit hole goes. But when it comes to our prayer time, we can't shut our brains down long enough for him to speak to us. We try and we try to push through. We fight the distractions trying to pull us out of our prayer. You know, we'll set a timer. God is a 15-minute timer. I don't have any timer for my scrolling. I don't have any timer for my YouTube. No. When it comes to God, oh, it's 9.30 in the morning. Better pray. Better read. There's 30 minutes, all right. 30 minutes, your time's up, God. What happened? What happened to the silence and the quiet places? What happened to What happened to the desire? Remember? You remember? Just think back. Remember whenever you first started walking with God? Remember how awesome it was? And remember how refreshing it was? And you told him I don't want to be anywhere but with you. I just want you all the time. I don't want anything else. I don't need anything else. I'll do whatever you want me to, I'll go wherever you go. Call me. I just want to I just want to make you happy. And I just want to be the best version of myself that I can be for you. And everything was so it was like it was like falling in love. You remember how you know you first meet, you know, your soulmate, and you're just you never want to leave their side and you just want to talk to them all the time. You'll stay, you know, you'll stay up till the sun comes up talking to each other.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Going to work, not a minute of sleep, don't care. Feel great all day. You know, sometimes I think we gotta say that.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Restore me where I once was when all I wanted to do was hold your hand and just talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

What happened?

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What happened to the intimate time with the Lord? It's been replaced with these petty arguments on social media about politics and who wore it best at the Met Gala. You know, we can't forget the next ball game. Or heaven forbid the kid is late for soccer.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

But God can wait.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

We can't wait for the next match to start. You know, we made it through the day. White knuckling it through the day, just thinking, oh, I can't wait to get some stick time. You sit down with the Almighty game console. But when the Almighty God wants to speak to us, he can't be bothered. We can't be bothered, we can't be reached. God's unsilent. Just set him aside. You know, you know what, God, maybe after this match. If I get a victory royale, I'll give God some attention. You'll you'll stay up all night trying to get that victory royale, and God never gets a minute of time. He did not go through all that suffering on Calvary just so we can mutter a few words over our breakfast. He didn't die just so we can speak to him once a week at church service. Communication with God should not be a special occasion. The goosebumps and the crying in the altar should not be considered a successful conference with God. Communication with God is the entire purpose of our being, and we have completely forgotten about him, and it breaks his heart. In Genesis chapter three, verse six, of course, you know, we read about the fall of man, and if you really pay attention to it, it's heartbreaking. Genesis chapter three, verse six says, So when the woman, talking about Eve, saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sold fig leaves together, and made themselves coverings. And when they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cold of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called Adam and said, Where are you? So Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself. You know, we've all had that conversation, you know. Oh, I can't wait to see Adam and Eve in heaven. You know, I heard somebody say the longest line, the longest wait line in heaven is gonna be the lines to talk to Adam and Eve and give them peace of our mind.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

You know, we say all that, but we are not any different.

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We make a mistake or we mess up or whatever, and we run and hide from the presence of God. We'd rather not speak to him because of how we feel about ourselves. Sometimes we cannot speak to him for a while. Just out of sheer guilt. We've gone out of our way to build these lovely gods that we carry around. We have these pretty gods that entertain us for a while, flashy images, sports, news, politics, social media, everything wrapped up in these little gods made of glass, cheap metal. We've gone out of our way to replace them with whatever we can. And you know, these idols, they even have Bibles on them. You can put the Bible in your little god that you carry around. Now I'm not condemning the Bible app, I think it's great. I do. I use it all the time. But it should never serve as a replacement for the book. It should never serve as a replacement for the tangible word of the Lord. I think we gotta get back to some basic fundamentals. We need the rest and quiet of the Word of God. We need to be more intimate with His Word. Hold it in your hand, lay it on your chest when you pray. Hold it dearly and feel the power that surges from it while you pray. Pray in the word. Pray with Scripture. Feel the connection to it.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

You can't do that with an iPhone. It doesn't work.

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He wants us to come back to where we once were.

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And he wants us to push through this veil and reach into the void where he resides.

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We can't do it if we're distracted.

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If we have too much on our minds. It's an intimate place in our spirits that's special to him.

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This veil is untorned because it it separates the world from the quiet place where only he can speak with us. It's not his spirit, it's his voice. This isn't the goosebumps, it's not the tears, it's not the chills that we feel or the dancing that we do in service. It's not a shout. It's not a cry or a prayer, it's a state of existence that is reserved for communication with him. It's a different dimension. It's a dark, secluded, quiet place. Where he will speak with us and reveal things to us. It's where his commands are given and where nurturing virtue flows through his lips in a whisper. It's a holy place in your mind. It's where the Spirit of the Lord resides in us. It's his home. It's not the flashy production of his church service. It's not the prayer service where we speak to God corporately. It's silent. It's totally silent. The holy of holies still exists. And it's in your soul. And there's a veil there. Do you know how badly he misses you? Do you know how badly he just wants to sit and talk with you? All of us. Every one of us. There's no level of your walk where this changes for him. He wants you all the time. He constantly wants to talk to you.

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He wants to speak with his children.

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Did you know that he cries when you cry? He takes no pleasure in your trials. He's not smiling, he's not standing back, he's not watching from afar. Like he doesn't care. He's right there with you in your darkest hour. And he weeps alongside you. He takes no joy watching you suffer. But he is a teacher. He is a teacher of survival. He knows what's best for you and he knows what you can take. And we can't find answers or know what's in his heart.

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If we don't push through that veil. Through that veil. Into that quiet place where he can just speak to us.

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He's so quiet. The Lord has a message for you that he wanted me to give you. No, please, I am not claiming to be a prophet or anything like that. But I have a message from the Lord, and it is for everyone.

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Here is what thus saith the Lord. I want to talk with you.

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I want to speak with you. Yet when I call you cannot hear me. Your mind is too clouded with anger and despair, and I cannot get through. You cannot hear me because you will not listen for me. I am in the darkness. I reside in the deeper parts of your spirit that you will not go to. I reside behind this veil of darkness that you will not reach through. Do not be afraid. This is not a darkness of fear, but a darkness that hides me away in a quiet and secluded place. I will not shout for you. Come and find me. Seek and find me here. Knock and I shall open unto you.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

But you must first trust me. And that is all that I have to share with you tonight. Thank you for listening.

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May God richly bless you. And I'll see you on the next episode.