Portal of Glory, Part 1

Greetings friends and new listeners.

Welcome! I'm Sharon Otz thanking you for joining us today on The Sound of Faith because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In today's exciting message, Portal of Glory, I will be sharing the story of my recent breast cancer diagnosis and how the Lord sealed my heart with His supernatural, unsurpassable peace from the first day of my journey, during which God gave me a phenomenal dream of a portal of glory from which radiated streams of energy into my body.

Stay tuned for Portal of Glory. Amen, you may be seated. What does Emmanuel mean?

What does it mean? God with us. And you know that's exactly what I'll be ministering on today.

Sort of a, you know, it'll have a little twist to it, but it'll boil down to that. Amen. Turn in your Bibles first and let's read one verse in Romans 8 and 11. Romans 8 and 11. And you know this verse well. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you.

This is a very encouraging word to me and I hope it is to you. How many have the Spirit of Christ? How many have the Spirit of God in you?

Amen. And if you have that Spirit of God, this is the Spirit by which God raised Jesus up from the dead. Out of the tomb after three days. And I won't go there, but He did more than just raise Him from the dead. Because Ephesians 1 20 and 21 tells us He raised Him above all powers and principalities and powers and dominions and mites and thrones and above every name that is named both in this world and in the age to come. So He just didn't just raise Him from the dead, He raised Him and sat Him at His own right hand in a place of power and authority. And again, Ephesians tells us in the second chapter that somebody is sitting up there with Him on the right hand of God.

Anybody have an idea who that might be? I'm up there with Him, what about you? Amen? But we are so earthly bound sometimes, we forget that, don't we? Now as you know, I had a surgery, it'll be two weeks ago, Monday and it went very well, very well.

Amen. I had to wait a week to get the lab reports back and the thing that I was wanting to hear number one was that when they examined the tumor that they took out and the tissue they took out around it, that they would not find the cancer had spread. They have to have a clean margin all the way around and then they took lymph nodes out because if it spreads, it's going to go to the lymph nodes first. And both the margins and the lymph nodes were perfectly clean.

So I had to wait a week to get the tissue back and the tissue was perfectly clean. I still am asking you for prayer these next two weeks because one test came back positive and I don't understand all the things about genetics and I surely am not going to bore you with all that, but it basically means that the type of cancer cells have a genetic predisposal of being more aggressive, to multiply more rapidly. And so because of that, when I go in two weeks to speak to an oncologist, because of that, she may tell me certain treatments that I should have and I know how very strongly I feel about certain things. So I don't want to be foolish, but neither do I want to do anything that I feel that it's not God's will for me. Maybe God's will for somebody else, but I'm talking about me because everybody's different. And so I don't want to be foolish and say I'm not hearing you, but on the other hand, I do not want to allow anything to be put on me that is not God's will because I trust the Lord. You see, when it comes down to it after the surgery is all done and they give you this wonderful report, you still got to trust the Lord. See, you still got to trust the Lord because you got to battle with the spirit of fear and you got to battle with all these what ifs, what ifs, what ifs. So the bottom line is you're still having to walk every day by faith and will for the rest of your life on this earth. Amen. So that's why I'm asking for your prayers, my appointments in two weeks.

But here's the thing about it. You all know I've been giving you little tidbits along the way of how the Lord has just been helping me with this supernatural peace and that peace has never left me. Now I think I got a little discouraged that day when he told me about this genetic thing. And you know, it was the most discouraged that I felt for all these months put together. And I was a little down but I did not lose it. I put the brakes on.

I put them on. Amen. I might have got watery eyes but honey, they never fell down my cheeks. I was like, no, we ain't turning that on. We're not going there.

And here's the thing about it. The Lord gave me this glorious, absolutely phenomenal, I don't have enough adjectives, stupendous, fabulous, I got to tell you, phenomenal, glory. I think it was a dream but it was almost like a vision. Sunday passed. This Sunday passed. So I had to wait till today to be able to tell you about it. And you know, when God gives you something like that, usually there's a good reason for it. And he knew that I was going to hear that little damper. I'm calling it a snag. Okay, a snag. He knew I was going to hear the snag in the good report to try to overshadow the glorious good report with that little damper.

So here's what happened Sunday morning, just passed. It was a three-part dream and I'm just going to jump to the last part because that's the part that's so phenomenal. I know in the first part the setting was a very beautiful, scenic, outdoor setting. It was like a place where people go on vacation.

There was a pond. There was green hills. And I saw all of these campers and RVs and I knew that people were there getting away from the stress of their lives to relax and have a nice time. It was beautiful. And there I was with there too. I was with a lot of people but I never saw a face. It was nothing specific.

It just was a generalization to me. A lot of other details that were from me. Then the second part of the dream is gone. I don't know what it is. And sometimes the Lord does that.

He'll hide it from you and then later you might get it. But the third part of the dream is where we're going. So I had been outdoors in this beautiful scenic area and now suddenly I found myself in a tunnel. But it was not dark or scary. It actually, the tunnel looked like it was almost the color of what I'm wearing today. The sides and the ceiling.

Even though it was not outdoors, it was beautiful. But over here to my right was an opening and the sun and the light was pouring in the tunnel from that opening. On the left side, the tunnel was coming down and then it made a very sharp left turn.

I couldn't see what was around the corner in the turn. So I'm standing there looking at this tunnel thinking I wonder where I am and what's going on. And here comes a lady coming in the tunnel here and she's got a bright red suitcase.

And she's walking in the tunnel. She's walking down towards this over here. Just when she got to where she would have to make that left turn, she stopped, put the suitcase down and looked over at me.

So I said to the person next to me, I said, I'm going with her. So I walked over to where she was. Now, as soon as I walked over to where she was standing, immediately all I became aware of is the sun was penetrating down, which was unusual because it had been a tunnel with a ceiling on it. All of a sudden it was heat was beaming down on my head and so I looked up to see what was going on and I could see the sun way up there, but it was like it was focused on me. And it was coming through the tops of the trees and beaming down on my head. And I mean, it was hot, but it felt wonderful. It was glorious. And it got brighter and warmer and brighter and warmer and then as it began to strengthen, I began to get like vibrations coming down through my body.

It would come down and go up and come down and go up and it got stronger and stronger. It was like energy. Energy was coming in my body and penetrating me. It didn't hurt. It was actually pleasurable. It felt wonderful. My whole body was enveloped in this warm light and love and all these vibrations.

So I lifted my hands and I began to worship the Lord and worship God. The more I worshiped Him, the stronger it got and the stronger it got. And I actually remember thinking to myself, I wonder how much power my body can take, but I don't want it to stop.

But I did think that. I thought, gee, I wonder how much power I can stand. But don't stop, Lord.

Keep it going. Now here's the unusual part. I began to cry out, Gloria Santiago! Gloria Santiago!

Gloria Santiago! And the more I cried it out, the more it just poured on me and poured on me. And it was just, it was glory.

If I have to sum it up in one word, I'll say this, ecstasy. And so I'm not sure how long it went on. It seemed like it went on a long, long time, but it finally subsided. And I laid there as quiet and still as I could because I was thinking maybe it would start up again.

And I didn't want to move just in case. I knew I was under that portal of glory. And I laid there for the longest time hoping it would start up again. But then I just began to thank the Lord for what He had just done. And I just kept thanking Him. And at the same time I'm thinking in my mind, what in the world is Gloria Santiago?

I'm thinking this. And so I'm lying there and I go through the whole thing over and over again in my mind until I fell asleep. So the next morning, guess what I did? I Googled Gloria Santiago.

Amen? And so the first thing that popped up on the Google I clicked on said Portico Gloria Santiago. Portico.

P-O-R-T-I-C-O. And so what it was about is it's a beautiful cathedral in Spain that was built back in the like the 1100s. And it has over 200 Romanesque style arches and sculptures all over it. The high point of this cathedral is the portico or the main entrance into the cathedral.

It's considered the greatest work of Spanish Romanesque sculpture in the world. This portico has three arches and the middle arch is wider and bigger than the other two arches. These arches are covered with sculptures of the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament and angels. The three different arches represent number one, the written law, the law of grace, and the last one, the natural law.

The central arch represents the final destination for true Christians, glory and resurrection. This opening as I said is wider than the other two openings of this portico and also in this central opening there is a sculpture to Saint James. Saint James because San is saint and I was going to find out what Tiago meant. Now I kept thinking to myself, what has James got to do with my dream?

I couldn't figure that out but I was really excited in my spirit because I already knew that I had been given a portal, an open portal, an entryway to glory. So I'm trying to figure out what in the world James has got to do with anything and I thought well let me Google Santiago so I did. And I found out that it is Spanish. The word Santiago means Saint James. San means saint and Tiago means James. Now I knew that James was the first of the apostles to die a martyr's death so I was thinking I don't like that interpretation too good.

I don't see a connection there at all to my dream, amen. So then I saw, it caught my eye, another posting said Tiago the origins from Hebrew and I said oh okay let me check that out. So I did and I already knew and some of you may already know that James in the New Testament is the Greek form of Jacob. The name James is Greek for Jacob, amen.

I already knew that, amen. So when I started studying, looking at this closer I found out that Tiago is actually from the Hebrew and that it means James. And then I thought well James actually means Jacob. In Hebrew Jacob is Yaakov because their J becomes a Y and their V becomes a B. So Jacob technically is Yaakov. Okay so now I know okay it has nothing to do with James in the New Testament.

Good. It's got a connection somehow to Jacob in the Old Testament. So I'm thinking well what's the connection with Jacob? And as I thought about this a question rose up in my spirit. What is significant about Jacob? And immediately I knew the answer.

When Jacob fled to the wilderness after his brother Esau had vowed to kill him and his parents sent him away to go to Haran to their families, what happened? He had a dream and he saw heaven opened up and he saw the ladder and he saw on the ladder angels ascending and descending. And then I knew that God had opened up to me a portal of glory. And his resurrection power had permeated my entire body. So here's where I'm thinking and this is why I need you to pray with me because I'm thinking that you know there was no cells that escaped the area of the original tumor.

But they always will explain to you that there's no way anyone can know if they escaped through blood vessels and could be going through your body somewhere. So I decided that if any did escape and went wherever they got zapped. When the glory came down. Now I don't think I can go to that appointment and tell that oncologist, hey they all got zapped. Heaven opened up and power and glory came down and zapped me.

I probably can't tell her that. Amen. So I'm going to have to listen to whatever she's got to tell me and then I need the Holy Spirit to tell me what I'm supposed to do. Amen. So turn with me in Genesis 28 and we're going to see how really glorious this is. I told you it's going to kind of be like Emmanuel God with us.

Amen. We're in 28 chapter of Genesis and we're going to begin with verse 10. And Jacob went out from Beersheba and went towards Haran and he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set and he took off the stones of that place and he put them for his pillows and he laid down in that place to sleep and he dreamed and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it and behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord the God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac.

Now we know father there really means grandfather and a lot of times they would refer to it being your father even many generations back. Okay. The land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it and to thy seed and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth and thou shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed and behold I am with thee. There's Emmanuel for you. I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest and will bring thee again into this land for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of and Jacob awake out of his sleep and he said surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not and he was afraid and said how dreadful is this place. This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.

This is the portico of glory. Amen. So let's look at this for a moment. Now we know that Jacob had fled because he had gotten the blessing of the birthright from his father which was supposed to go to Esau who was the older of the twins. Amen. And he and his mother had gone through a little scheme in order to deceive Isaac into thinking that Jacob was Esau and he got the blessing and when Esau returned and found out what occurred he was livid and he vowed when our father is dead I will kill you. Amen. So his parents sent him away and one reason why they sent him away is because Esau had already married not one but two heathen women and these women the scripture says vexed the soul of Rebekah and not only that the scripture says brought grief of mind to both her and Jacob and they did not want Jacob to marry one of the women around them like Esau had done.

So because the family was in this big problem or having all this distress they said this is a good time for you to leave town and let your brother cool off and you need to go back for where our families are and you pick a wife there because we do not want you to marry one of these heathen women. And so that's why he had escaped. Amen. It's no wonder. It's no wonder that God allowed the birthright and the blessing to be taken away from Esau. You can see that he did not respect the teachings of his father and grandfather. Amen. He didn't marry one but he married two and how quickly and how lightly he treated his birthright when he sowed it to his brother for a bowl of beans. That's why God rejected Esau. Amen. And I can see why God didn't want him to inherit the birthright and the blessing. In fact in Hebrews God called him a profane person and what that means is a profane person is someone who pollutes something that's holy. Amen. People that use profanity pollute the language.

Our language that we need to communicate with one another and God called him profane. So Jacob has a long journey people. He's got over 500 miles to get to where he has to be to see his other family members where he can choose a wife just like his dad Isaac had done.

It's going to take him a while to get there and I don't know how many miles a day he could put in but we know he had gone about 58 miles when this occurred when he laid down that night to sleep and he had this vision. Look he made a stone to be his pillow. Folks this was not the Holiday Inn. This was not even Motel 6. This is the wilderness.

Amen. A harsh inhospitable place, a desert place and he was alone and remember it was Jacob that was the homebody. He was the one that liked to stay home around his parents.

He was the one that took care of the domesticated animals. He was a homeboy and he had a very strong bond with his mother and now here he is in this desert in this wilderness all alone. This was not what he was accustomed to.

Amen. He had left everything that was familiar and comforting to him and I imagine that possibly he could have been having self doubts. Maybe he was thinking to himself would I ever see my mom and dad again. You know the Bible doesn't record that he ever saw his mother again.

That's kind of sad isn't it? Maybe he was thinking to himself did I do the wrong thing by going along with my mother's plan to deceive my father. Maybe that was the wrong thing I shouldn't have done it. And maybe he thought to himself and what about Jehovah? Is he displeased with me because I stole my brother's birthright. And let me say this, technically in my mind Esau forfeited the birthright when he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of beans.

Because what did he say? He said what profit is this birthright if I die from hunger. So in my mind even though they shouldn't have done it the way they did it to deceive their father, nevertheless I believe that Esau had already forfeited it.

Amen. His father just laying their hands on and giving the blessing was the confirmation but he had already given it up. He had no faith in the blessings of God. If he believed the blessings of God that he knew was handed down to him from Abraham and Isaac then he wasn't going to die of hunger. God's not going to make you a great nation if you're going to die from hunger.

So he had no respect of the spiritual things is what it boils down to. Amen. So now Jacob has this dream and he sees a ladder and it can also be translated as staircase. And some of your translations will actually say that, a staircase. But I like ladder. I used to teach Sunday school. We used to sing we are climbing Jacob's ladder, ladder.

How many remember that song? So here's this ladder on earth into heaven and angels are ascending and descending. That means they're going, you know, like this a cycle up and down, up and down.

Amen. Now angels are God's messengers and you know they work 24-7. They don't have to sleep. And the fact that they were ascending and descending tells us they had this cycle of ministry that goes on 24-7. They receive orders from heaven. They descend to earth. They execute the order. They go back up to heaven. They report what they have done, their mission accomplished. They get new orders.

They come down. Amen. And so we are told in scripture in Hebrews 1-7, Hebrews 1-14, they are ministering spirits sent forth to the heirs of salvation. They're sent forth on our behalf.

They are assigned to us during our lifetimes. Amen. And we're told in Psalm 34-7, the angels of the Lord encamped round about them that fear him and deliver them. And that's what the word fear there means just like what Jacob was afraid. Not afraid in a phobic sense, but afraid in the reverence. I guarantee you if an angel showed up, you would be afraid. Every time we see them show up in the Bible, the first thing they say before they deliver their message is fear not.

Because your human body reacts to that supernatural presence and power. We are told that they encamped round the ballast. So that means north, south, east, west. That means 360 degrees. Amen. And we've already seen 24-7. So angels of God are sent to us. God's goddess covered 24-7, 360 degrees. Amen.

Come on, that's something to be happy about. The angels on his payroll are 24-7. And God's goddess covered 360 degrees. We're told in Psalm 91-11-12, for he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their own hands lest you should dash your foot against the stone. And that means to us that in a time of danger, they will quickly rescue us. It may be a last minute rescue.

I imagine, I see them swooping in to prevent you from falling or stumbling or something bad happening to you. Sometimes that rescue doesn't come until that instant that you need it. But when you need it, it will be there. Amen. We are told in Psalm 103 verse 20, his angels excel in strength.

What does that mean? If you excel in something, that means that you are greater than somebody else's strength. They are stronger than the other ones that come against us. Amen. And if God needs to, he can send more. He's got myriads of angels, we're told. We're told in the scriptures, if you study it, that there's innumerable angels.

Amen. So sometimes he may come up against a fierce arch enemy of the wicked one. He may send one of his arch angels of darkness against us. But we don't have to be afraid because God has got angels that excel. They excel over all the powers of the enemy. That's why he told us in Psalm 91 and then it's brought over in the New Testament by Jesus that we can tread on the serpent, the scorpion, the lion, the adder. Amen.

Over all the powers of the enemy because the angels of God, they excel. Amen. I hope you're enjoying this fantastic look into the heavenly realm that I experienced in portal of glory. This occurred a few days after I had surgery for breast cancer which had been found on a routine annual mammogram.

It was very small and had not spread so a lumpectomy was done followed by radiation. Now this process took over five months and there were several curve balls thrown at me along the way. But from the first moment I was given the diagnosis, the supernatural peace of God that passes understanding invaded my heart and never left even in times of uncertainty and Satan's attempts to bring fear. To sum up my dream of the glory penetrating my being in just one word, it would be ecstasy.

And the unusual declaration I kept making in the dream, Gloria Santiago, led me on a Google search that landed me in the wilderness with the Old Testament patriarch Jacob and his angelic ladder between earth and heaven. Don't miss one glorious nugget from portal of glory. Order on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK 191, Mail to Sound of Faith PO Box 1744 Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or go online to soundoffaith.org where you can also order on MP3s. And when you order SK 191, Portal of Glory, we will send you a bonus CD about my journey through breast cancer. Mail to Sound of Faith PO Box 1744 Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Notze, Maranatha.