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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
Part 148
THE
We often miss the truth because too many of us rely on our intellect to interpret
to us the scriptures, instead of looking to the Teacher sent from God, to do His work, and
perform His ministry. Even Spirit-filled
Christians depend mostly on commentaries and books by the hundreds, written by men, and
often men void of the Holy Spirit, as their source of information and understanding of the
scriptures, especially on issues of Bible prophecy, and the Holy Spirit is relegated to a
back room in our minds, and rarely consulted about anything the scriptures have to say. We need to reinstate HIM to His proper position and
allow Him to fulfill the ministry He has come to do to teach us all things and to lead us into all truth.
Now dont think I am against books, I am not. I have quite a large library myself. I use books. If
I were opposed to writings I would not be sending out this article. I would not advise you to not read what others have
to say and then expect you to read what I have to say!
Many people have been helped by what is written, but far too many saints
think that through Bible study, and by searching the scriptures alone, they can come to an
understanding of the things of God, and acquire a knowledge of the truth.
Yet,
if we are really studying the Bible, in the light of revelation, this is what we will
find, for this is what the Bible teaches: that apart from the revelation of the Holy
Spirit there is no way that we can search out, nor understand, the things of God, and His
ways. Hear what the scripture itself says: O the depths of riches both of the
Well do I remember when I was a child in the Pentecostal church, the most
intriguing, exciting, and yet frightening sermons I heard were those on Bible prophecy. When a prophecy preacher came by for a
series of teachings it always drew a crowd! Everyone
wanted to know who the antichrist is and when and where he will appear. One tent evangelist came through and announced his
subject for a Saturday night: THE GREAT DICTATOR WHO
HE IS, WHERE HE IS, HE IS ALIVE AND IN THE WORLD TODAY! Come Saturday night, every seat was filled and
several rows of people stood outside all the way around the tent. Such teaching also filled the altars! But I have learned through the years of walking
with God that preaching prophecy to sinners is nothing but time and talent wasted. Unfortunately, many so-called evangelists have not
yet learned that fact! There is but one story
that can touch sinful hearts: Jesus and His wonderful love (I Cor. 2:1-2). Prophecy is for saints alone. Long centuries ago the Holy Spirit revealed this
great truth to the prophet Daniel. Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up
and sealed till the time of the end. Many
shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the
In the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation the awesome prophecy is given of two
beasts terrible in power and strength that dominate all the inhabitants of the earth and
make war against the saints. As we approach
this scene may I say that its not surprising that most Christians, at the mere
mention of the events that are portrayed in this portion of the book, start conjuring up
mental images of grotesque beasts, one world government tyranny, or a super-man antichrist
brutally killing the saints or imposing the fearful mark of the beast in their
right hand or in their forehead, thus forever sealing their doom in eternal hell-fire and
damnation. Thousands of churches and teachers
use such apocalyptic imagery to frighten people into confessing their sins and
getting right with God. Very
often, their hearers do not truly get converted to a loving and intimate relationship with
the Lord; they merely cry their eyes out and beg God for mercy in order to escape His
wrath. As soon as the fear factor is
discredited or wears off, the so-called repentance often loses its effect.
I would point out here that there are no chapter divisions in the original
John
has been moving around quite a bit in his visions, beholding things happening in the
heavens, and those transpiring on earth, as also in the wilderness. The closing verses of chapter twelve position John
in the earth for that is where the remnant of her seed is located. The woman herself had been in the earth until she
fled from the face of the serpent far away into the wilderness. So John is not now called up to heaven again, but
is placed in the earth, upon the sand of the sea, that unique spot where earth and sea
meet. The picture reveals what is going on in
the earth-realm, the soulical, cultural, moral, and religious dimensions of human society. And it shows just what power and means it is through
which the dragon makes war with the remnant of her seed.
So as soon as the dragon goes to make war with the remnant of her
seed, John is found standing in this earth
realm, but he stands facing the sea.
This sand of the sea is the realm of earth in closest proximity to the
sea in fact washed by the waves crashing upon it with the ebb and flow of the
tides.
Epic
thrilling bound to hold your attention! Words like these are often used to describe books,
plays, and screen productions, and without doubt these terms can be applied to the visions
John saw as recorded in chapter thirteen of the Revelation!
John beholds how out of the sea there emerges a frightful monster, a beast,
The beast doesnt remain hidden beneath the turbulent waters of the sea, but
rises up into the earth-realm in visible manifestation.
He walks, speaks, acts, and accomplishes. The
beast blasphemes God and makes war against the saints.
Remember the dragon went to make war
against the remnant of her seed? Ah, here is
how he does it! This is the carnal nature, the
man of sin, manifested in a visible, organized,
and powerful apparatus! In meditating upon
these things a strange and wonderful unfolding pervaded my spirit and the truth of this
became exceedingly clear. It is my deep
conviction that this beast signifies the outward expression of THE WORLD SYSTEM OF MAN. This is the beast lurking beneath the surface of
the deep, which rises up from our sea (fleshly nature) having many heads (manifestations
of authority), many horns (organized powers), and spewing blasphemies from its mouth. It is a ferocious and vast system originating right
out of human nature! And this system
relentlessly makes war against the spiritual life of Gods people!
In many instances the pictorial language of the Bible is similar to the manner of
speech customarily employed by man. Throughout
millenniums, beasts of one kind or another have been used to symbolize kingdoms, or
governments. A couched lion was the symbol of
the Pharaohs right to rule over ancient
I would draw your attention to the fact that the expression I
saw a beast rise up out of the sea is literally in
the Greek, I saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea. My friend Jonathan Mitchell, in his splendid
expanded and amplified translation of the New Testament correctly renders the expression,
and then I saw a little animal (or beast) progressively
climbing up (or repeatedly ascending) from out of the midst of the sea. John
did not say, I saw a beast ascend, as
a limited, one-time event, but ascending
denoting a continuous action. It is ongoing. It is constantly being fulfilled. By way of illustration, let us suppose I am talking
with my wife on my cell phone while standing in front of
The end time teachers want you to believe that this beast is a specific
world government or world ruler who will suddenly emerge at some future date, take over a
large portion of the world for seven years, and fight against God. By focusing attention on a future world empire
controlled by some brilliant mad-man, who inscribes an actual number on the hapless
citizens of the world, they distract the Lords people from the present reality which
is lived out in the experience of each of us. And
while Christians are busy chasing their fantasies of dreadful world events yet to come,
the wild beast is busy wreaking havoc in the daily lives of untold millions of believers. John tells us that the whole world was astonished and followed the beast (Rev.
13:3). Truly we can all agree with this
inspired statement when we see by the spirit that this wild beast represents the carnal,
humanistic, deceived, corrupt, and evil world system of man that stands in stark
contrast to the glorious, golden City of
Havent you known people who were so sold-out to their vocation, to money,
houses, lands, education, ego, position, power, religious works, or some pleasure that
they had no place in their heart for God? Such
people are mesmerized by the spirit of the world and live under the authority and
domination of the world system of man, not under the authority of the mind of Christ. The fact is that the world system, with the
idolatrous church system as its cohort, deceives the masses of people into worshipping
(paying homage to, selling their soul to) this beast even to the very elect! We will
Are
you, dear friend, a dweller in the heavens, or an inhabiter of the earth? If you are looking after those things that are
coming on the earth, if you mind earthly things, then you will live out your life on the
level of your vision and you will be captured by the bestial system of this world. The overcoming sons of God who are sealed with the
mind of Christ have discerned in their spirit
the ominous and destructive influence of the dragons manifestation in the bestial
system of the world, and they have resisted it with patience and endurance. They knew from the moment they received their call
to sonship that they were fighting a spiritual battle and they put on the whole armor of
God so that having fought to the end they might stand and remain victors on the field! Oh, yes! And
these overcome the beast and they dont belong to the earth anymore. They belong in the heavens where they dwell! They are looking after the things their Father is
doing, they mind heavenly things! What is
happening in the heavens is all that pertains to these victorious ones! They belong to the heavens where they walk with God
in the spirit!
The wild beast is described in the
Throughout the scriptures the sea is a type of the inner storms and turbulent
nature of the
No
one can dispute the fact that it is this restless, turbulent, raging, evil heart of the
fleshly man that inspires every evil and devilish perversion, and has filled the world
with ever increasing confusion, faithlessness, immorality, falsehood, fraud, hatred,
bigotry, violence, tyranny, oppression, greed, cruelty, strife, war, and bloodshed. Ah, the sea is
the lowest realm on earth, and this vast sea
of fleshly
There
are wars and rumors of wars and terrorism that strike fear into the hearts of men. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain! Mens hearts are failing them for fear in
looking after those things which are coming upon the earth.
It is more than a raging
The natural man is not getting better, as some affirm. The unregenerate man, old
The famous preacher of
Who could have thus injured this one who
The scriptures speak of two corporate men a heavenly man and an earthly man. The humanity that functions in its own conceptions
and ideas, bears the image of the earthy. The
lowest of this humanity is pictured as dwelling in the sea.
They are bestial, they have a beastly nature.
The desire of a beast is to nourish
itself and to multiply itself. It has no understanding of any higher thing. It has its own spirit, whereby it lives, and grows,
and consumes itself, and that is all it does. Those
who have no desire to know God or do His will make up the great sea of humanity; everyone
has gone his own way. They know nothing of the
will of God, the ways of God, or the word of God. They
have no spiritual, pure, godly, righteous, divine or heavenly life in them. They have no conception of these things, nor do
they care. Human government originates out of
this sea of mankind. It is earthly, sensual,
and devilish. But the heavenly man has come to
a new reality! He is man in the likeness and
after the image of God! Human government does
not flow from this man the
Now let us consider a little
The story is told of two friends who early one morning discussed the events of the
coming day over a fresh cup of coffee. A noisy
flock of crows flew overhead, reminding one of the men of an interesting fact about crows. Crows watch out for each other, he
said. When a flock feeds in a cornfield,
two sentinels stand guard at each end of the field. They
warn the others in special crow language of any approaching danger. If something should happen because the two guards
got careless and failed to warn the flock, the retribution is savage, for crows do not
know the attribute of mercy. The rest will
viciously attack and kill the two who didnt do their job. Ive
My earnest prayer is that God will give understanding to mature minds to hear what
the Spirit saith unto the elect of the Lord. I
defy anyone to give me a geographical, physical, historical point of reference to chapter
thirteen of the book of Revelation. Ah, I have
heard hundreds! There are as many guesses as there are commentators, I suppose. But let us consider.
And I stood upon the sand of the
sea
The question follows:
Which sand of what sea? If you wish to speak
words that are generic, you could not make a more generic statement than this: I
stood upon the sand of the sea. In contemporary terms we would say, I went
to the beach! Yet John did not literally
stand upon the sand of any beach in the whole world, for this was a vision. What
sea was he looking at? Although John was on
the isle of Patmos it wasnt the
Now, can you not see that the beast that rose up out of the sea is not natural. What John saw come up out of the sea represents the
physical expression and manifestation of the nature and spirit that creates the turbulence
in the sea. We must ask, What kind of a
beast ascends up out from the sea? First,
it is only at the end of the chapter that we discover that John wasnt seeing a beast, but he was seeing the manifest nature of mankind! Meditate
prayerfully, my beloved, upon these inspired words: Here
is
You can look for a beast in the ancient pagan Roman empire or in the so-called Holy
Roman Empire, or you can look for a beast in
On the other hand, righteousness is not just something you do it is a
spirit, a force, a power, an inward nature that
causes you to do!
Those who grow up into the nature of the Christ have released within them
the very life-force of the Christ who causes them to do righteousness as automatically as
the they formerly did sin. When doing
righteousness becomes natural for you, then you
are both living and walking in the Spirit. Once I sinned because I couldnt help it,
I had to; and now I am doing righteousness because I cant help it, I have to! Its my nature, the law of my life, Im captivated
by it! It is
Let me reiterate again that it is this bestial
nature of man out of which arises the bestial
systems that dominate the whole of mankind. Let
us see how this is so. The following
observations are based in part upon the writings of another with whom my spirit bears
witness. One of the greatest dangers to the
people of God proceeds from the many counterfeits the world provides fellowships
and brotherhoods galore. Man is not naturally
social; but he does desire some kind of connection with other humans, which is a different
thing. Man by nature lives in a herd, as cows
or wolves do. He is not a solitary animal,
like a cat. You will find, therefore, that
because of the herd instinct men would rather live with people whom they hate and detest,
constantly slander, backbite and endeavor to injure they would rather live and
quarrel every day than live alone. Loneliness
they cannot stand. So, by a tyrannous instinct
we are driven to form cliques, groups, and clubs, and our behavior in these cliques and
groups is the same as that of beasts in herds. The
Is that not precisely the way in which members of a nation behave! In time of war we are a nation; in time of peace
we are a mob. We fight with one another, one
party against the other; we throw mud, criticize, condemn, strive, abuse, detest, impeach,
and hate one another until some common hatred or common fear unites us, and then we stand
together only as long as that fear and hatred last. What
we call patriotism, is at its roots very little else but the instinct of the herd. The nations are herds, and the armies and navies
and air forces are their teeth and claws. In
time of war, under the drive of this
Nor are the nations the only herds of men and women.
Men in great trade unions, in political parties, in businesses and corporations, in
bureaucracies, and a hundred more behave in the same utterly irrational and bestial way;
and, alas! the same mark of the beast is evident upon all the religious systems of man,
including the church system. Who does not know
of the jealousy, bitterness, backbiting, slandering, accusations, and political
in-fighting that can
Both the beast and the false prophet are ruling the
nations in the world today! There is not a
nation or a people on this earth today, except for the elect, who are not ruled by sinful,
old
In Revelation 13:1-2 the Spirit describes in graphic pictures what this terrible
beastly nature is all about. In the various
beastly forms John saw, which make up the one beast, we see the characteristics of human
nature as manifested through the agency of the world system of man.
He was like a leopard. The leopard is one of the most beautiful of
animals. His coat is sleek and exotic of
color. His spots are a
His feet were as the feet of a
bear. In comparison to the size of
an animal, the bear has the largest and the strongest foot of any animal extant. No other animal has such strength of grip in its
paws. He rises above all that opposes his
reign and tramples upon all who stand before. The
spirit of the world is the spirit of Self-interest, Self-exaltation, and greed which steps
on and crushes anyone or anything that is in ones way to hinder his mad scramble to
dominance to position, fame, gain, prestige, or power. Ah, the world looks as beautiful as a leopard, but
its feet are very ugly and ruthless, opposite to its outward appearance. Its systems, whether business, politics, finance,
religion, or otherwise, will use you, usurp your time and strength, consume
your wealth, burn out your health and soul, and then cast you aside as dispensable refuse. It will crush you to death! It has the feet of a bear.
His mouth was as the mouth of a
lion. The lion startles the forest
with his deep-toned solemn roars. And there is
mighty power behind that awesome roar! The
lion is the largest and most majestic of the feline family.
The voice
bespeaks the word, the propaganda, the edicts, the pronouncements,
the rules, regulations, laws, and creeds of
the world system of man. The pronouncements of
the leaders of the worlds systems, of kings, presidents, prime ministers, generals,
terrorists, scientists, educators, doctors, popes, archbishops, bishops, preachers,
self-appointed apostles, and self-styled prophets have often shaken mighty empires and
filled nations and peoples with consternation. Where
this beast opens its mouth and begins to talk, be it in politics or commercial life, in
the market or in the science class, in the media or in the pulpit, in the courts or in
government bureaucracies, there everything must be silent and bow. And everything is silent and does bow before this beast! When, for instance, the state declares a law to be
valid, no one asks, What does God say about this? When the courts ban God and His word from the halls
of every government institution, when the courts remove prayer and the Bible and
discipline from our schools, when the school boards decree condoms to be made available to
ten, eleven, and twelve year old students without parental consent, when the states
legislate gay-marriage, when religious leaders hand down edicts to be obeyed upon pain of
excommunication or death, to mention only a few milder examples of the lions roar
the ruthless power of government the
adoration of mans order rules supreme. The
mouth of the lion has roared, and everyone is frightened into obedience!
The world system is made up of those earthly
things which seduce men from God. Put it all together, and it is those purposes, those pursuits, those pleasures, those
practices, and those places where God is not considered, consulted, nor
wanted. It might be religious, it might be
cultivated, it might be refined, it might be intellectual, but it is all anti-Christ and
controlled by the spirit of the dragon. And,
my friend, it matters not which world system it is the religious world system, the
educational system, the political, scientific, social, economical, or entertainment and
pleasure there can be no doubt in any spiritual mind that Satan is the god and
ruler of them all!
So every day mankind moves in this sphere of these world systems, inhaling and
inevitably exhaling the atmosphere of these false values and worldly deceptions of the
carnal mind and the human intellect. You see,
the beast bombards mankind the men, the women, the young people and the children
that make up this world through the eye-gate, the ear-gate, and the mind-gate with
his lies and errors about the origin of life, the meaning of
life, the purpose of life, the nature of God, the destiny of man, truth, righteousness,
sin, judgment, hell, and a thousand other things. He
bombards them with his insinuations, his imitations, and his counterfeits. He
bombards them with dishonesty, false values, false
images of God, worldly
And what means does the beast use to bombard us with these things? My beloved, he uses false preachers and teachers,
political rallies, the editorial pages of newspapers, the magazines, the billboards along
our streets and highways, the television screens, radios, movie theaters, school class
rooms, psychiatrists and psychologists, and even bombards us with lies from person to
person! The beast is working the lion
is roaring in each and every one of these ways as they give their thoughts, their ideas, their impressions,
their opinions, their views, their beliefs, their convictions on all the subjects and circumstances
that confront mankind. All of this is
controlled by the beast and has his mark upon it, for in most cases they are half-truths,
and often no truth at all! All are passing
their judgments, their evaluations, and drawing their worldly conclusions about the true nature of all things,
about good and evil, about the world and how to govern it.
This roar of the lion pierces the hearing of all men at all times TO KEEP
HUMANITY CONFUSED AS TO WHAT THE TRUTH REALLY IS!
What confusion! So many voices, all telling of their hopes and aspirations,
their dreams and expectations! You can turn
the dial of a radio or flip the channels of the television and find a hundred different
voices telling you what truth is; and how are you ever going to sort it out? At all times and in all places these things bombard
the eye-gate, the ear-gate, and the mind-gate of mankind; and they meet with reception in
the affections because every natural man is earthly
minded. Only as God in His sovereign
grace and power comes to a man and rescues him from this mass of confusion only
then is he given power to become a son of God! And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship (pay homage to) him, whose names are not
written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev.
13:8).
These ruling people, orders, agencies, institutions, judges, presidents, law
enforcers, preachers, teachers, experts in this field and that, are spoken of
as the very high authorities of this world system, as though there existed no higher
authority to which they also were subject. One
and all are members of the body of the monster out
of the sea which has received its great might from the dragon, that beast which is so
powerful and mighty that even those who call themselves Christians pay their homage before
it. This earthly, fleshly, carnal, material,
temporal, animalistic tendency reigns supreme, to which everyone must bow, and to which
the masses of mankind do bow willingly. But
that mouth which speaks such great things is
also the mouth that devours everything! He
looks so majestic in his rule, that sleek leopard, that roaring lion! But hes not for he also eats his prey. So it is with the world systems of man, ruling in
pride and pomp, yet within theyre full of evil and devouring. All is used to feed this hungry beast the
poor, the widow, the orphan, the peoples time, their money, their liberty, their
sons and daughters, their spiritual life, their very souls all are devoured by him
and are his food and support!
To be continued
J. PRESTON EBY
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