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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of
God..."
Part 175
THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES
(continued)
“And
I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his
image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand upon the sea
of glass, having the harps of God” (Rev. 15:2).
We
are inclined to lightly pass over many profound statements of truth in the word
of God. In glorious rapture John beheld
the awe-inspiring scene of the sea of glass mingled with fire, and that
illustrious company of “them that come off victorious,” or literally in the
Greek text, “those conquering away from” the
beast, and from the image of him, and from the number of the name of him,
standing upon this sea. The King James
Bible says that they had gotten the victory “over” the beast, but the Greek
preposition is ek meaning “out of” or “away from,”
signifying the “exodus” of the saints from the bestial nature of the flesh,
from the world and all its power, and from the carnal church systems of
man. The word, also, not only
This people, this corporate people, this
praising people, this overcoming company, those who had harps and were singing,
had been
If
you can see it, my beloved, this victory away from the beast is that work
which the apostle sets forth in
If
we are God’s called and chosen elect the world has been crucified to us; it is
dead. It is somewhat like a man who
loves a woman. He greatly loves her and
is ravished by her beauty and grace. But
one day she dies, perhaps even in his arms.
He looks down at her body which just a moment ago was warm and
moving. Now all is still and
silent. The light has gone from the
eyes. Perhaps, if he really loved her,
he might even yet smother her face with his kisses. Wait but an hour or so and that body will
grow cold, and a little longer and it will no longer be soft, but now stiff and
cold. Wait but a few days and it will
begin to rot and stink. A week later one
would not be able to stand to go into the room with it. That is what the Lord says should be
happening in every saint’s life concerning this whole world system, with all
its vaunted success, all of its lofty goals, with all its economics, politics,
and religion. The world has already
received at the cross, its death blow.
Our Lord Jesus not only
Ray
Prinzing commented on this passage: “While
experimentally the world becomes crucified unto me — so that we no longer have
any desire for the things of the world, no lusting for friendship with the
world, no latent feelings that can be awakened and stirred up by the world; to
make it even more complete, ‘I am
crucified unto the world.’ Thus, as
far as the world is concerned, you become dead to them also. They have no more desire for you — there is
nothing in you that appeals to them, you are as useless to them as a
corpse. You cease to exist in their
realm. Don’t be amazed, then, if they no
longer seek you out or try to fellowship with you. Only those who are quickened to the same new
life which you are receiving, can fellowship with you in that life. To all others you are a stranger and a
foreigner.” What a word! Truly this identifies “them that have gotten
the victory out from the beast…”
Indelibly
stamped upon my memory is the time, many years ago, when we were involved in a
mighty and glorious move of the Spirit of God.
At that time we were flowing with a group of brethren in
Sadly,
however, I must report that it was not long until the harlot of
When
this dear brother arrived home from that conference he was literally full of these carnal,
As
we sought to follow God and walk in the glorious liberty and leadership of the
Spirit and the beautiful light of revelation and truth as He shed it upon our
pathway, it was not long before we knew within ourselves that we could no
longer walk with God and walk with this ministry, too. The spirit within was calling for a
separation. We had no inclination to
create confusion, strife, division, or disorder, or to endeavor to draw people
unto ourselves or have them follow us out to another pasture. We were content to quietly and unpresumingly slip away to follow the paths of Father’s
leading in our lives. While we sensed in
our spirits the way of the Lord for us in this, we had not shared our
convictions with anyone but continued to walk softly, waiting upon the Lord.
I
shall never be able to forget that bright Sunday morning when, standing in
front of the church building just before the morning service, a sister in the
Lord approached me and said, “Brother Eby, I have a
word from the Lord I must share with you.”
She continued, “The Lord gave me a dream and I saw a funeral in this
church. The casket was in place before
the platform and the building was packed with people. You were sitting in the first pew in front of
the casket. Suddenly, I saw you slip
down out of your seat — you crawled under the pew and began to scoot your way
under all the pews until you reached the front (entrance) of the auditorium.
Then you stood up and simply walked out the front doors.” I thanked the sister for sharing the word
while within myself my heart was giving thanks to God for this beautiful confirmation
I had been waiting for. The message was
just this: There is death in the pot! There is death in the camp! The move of God in this place has come to an
end — the revival is dead. You are now
attending the funeral. You are sitting in
a prominent place in the presence of death.
You are not to cause a stir nor even raise your voice publicly in
protest. It is time to simply disappear
from the scene. “Come away with me, my
love!” And so we did.
Ah,
yes, we had gotten the victory “away from” the beast, from the beastly system
of man, away from the allure of the harlot, away from the path of the flesh,
the world, and the devil! To come “out
from” is to free oneself to “come into” union with Christ in the Spirit! It is
George
Warnock wrote in one of his books: “We are told that ‘the earnest expectation
of the creature (creation) waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’ Paul tells us that the creation was ‘made
subject to vanity’…not of its own will.
But when man who was put in charge of planet earth, lost his fear of God
— God subjected the rest of creation to vanity.
Yet He did so in hope! For He
purposed that this defiled creation would arise in new splendor, and into ‘the
glorious liberty of the children of God’ (Rom.
“It
was not the fault of the lower creation that the animals became wild and
fierce, and the
“Many
years ago I read this story about Sadhu Sundar Singh,
a man of
“Perhaps
many who read these words are asking, When will God
manifest His sons in this manner? But
the real question is not WHEN it will happen — but HOW must we prepare our hearts for it to happen? How senseless it would be if we could tame
the wild animals that sneak around our home — but have no power to conquer the wild beasts in our own natures, or subdue
the beastly hearts of men that fight against the Lamb and His people?” — end quote.
Ah,
there you have it! If we cannot overcome
the beast within us, nor the bestial system of the world, nor the beastly
system of man’s religion, there is no need to think about the wild lions and
tigers! The natural is always a picture
of the spiritual, and nowhere is this more true than
in the imagery of the book of Revelation.
Long
ago, back in seventeenth century
The manifestation of the sons of God is not a
doctrine, it is the revelation of the wonderful purpose of God for the next
step in the development and triumph of His kingdom. And while it is true, He sets HIS SEAL upon
those He has called unto His purposes, there must be also a response on our part, and this is the kind of
act that the Lord Jesus is speaking of when he says, “He that has received His testimony hath set his seal to this, that God is true” (Jn.
3:33). Praise God, there is a people,
even in this dark hour, who are setting their
seal to the truths the Spirit is revealing, agreeing with God, not willing
to accept the emptiness of man-made religion as God’s instrument for this hour,
unwilling to be content to possess only an earnest of the Spirit or to settle
for anything less than HIS FULLNESS, and living in daily anticipation of the
GREATER GLORY to be revealed in God’s sons.
There
is such a deep desire within to be freed from every aspect of the character of
the beast, cleansed and purified, transformed into HIS IMAGE, until the life
and glory and power of God shall flow from our lives setting all creation
free. Our spirits shout, AMEN! Those who put their seal to the word
God is speaking to His chosen ones in this new day of the Lord have a single
eye unto HIM. Not a divided vision, for
“a doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways…let not that man think that he
shall receive any thing from the Lord.” Today he wants to be a son, tomorrow he wants
to serve the flesh, or join himself to some harlot system, and in all the vacillating between he will
receive nothing from God. All who
cherish the beautiful hope of sonship now face the
hour of TOTAL COMMITMENT UNTO CHRIST AND TO THE TRUTH, even though it means
taking a stand against our own flesh, and all we hold dear, while it is dealt
with by His cross.
I
have said it a thousand times and will now say it again — I believe I speak the truth when I say that
many of us have reached the point of no return — there is nothing to go back
to, not in the flesh, not in the world, not in the church systems, there is
nothing out of which we have been drawn to which we would return, it is all
empty, meaningless, lifeless, worthless, it has all been crucified unto us, and
us unto it, and we feel that in some measure we have gotten the victory away from the
beast, and away from his image, and away from his mark, and away from the number of his name. It is vain to come out unless we are
committed to enter in. We are
committed to a course which cannot be altered, for even now as we stand upon
the sea of glass mingled with fire, receiving the harps of God in our hands, it
is fixed in its destination — His throne!
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit
with me in my throne, even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father in His
throne” (Rev. 3:21). Precious friend of
mine, have you set YOUR SEAL to the inward testimony of God’s purpose in this hour,
and His will in your life? “Forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus” (Phil.
I
have sometimes wondered if after Adam and Eve sinned, they sensed that all
around them God’s creation was falling.
Did they recognize that creation was already or would soon begin
groaning in pain? Adam and Eve did know
that they were now different, and that difference was not good! Their nakedness made them feel ashamed. Their hearts wanted to avoid God rather than
embrace Him. For the first time in his
life Adam looked for a way to place blame instead of affection on his wife, and
Eve passed blame along to the serpent, who had deceived her. For such thorough and complete damage to be
reversed, something drastic would have to happen. Something powerful. Something unaffected by the creation-wide disaster that had
just occurred. God’s words to Adam and
Eve hinted at what that something would
be and do: a descendant of the woman would crush the head of the serpent! How would that happen? What offspring of the woman would God send to
restore all of creation? Amazingly, God
would send A MAN to be the crusher! That
man is Christ! Ah — it is Christ in
you, the hope of glory! “I can
do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me,”
affirmed the apostle. “Greater is HE
that is in you, than HE that is in the world,” John wrote. THE CRUSHER IS WITHIN US!
In
the Olympic games, to which Paul so often refers,
there were prescribed regulations for each competitor to observe and obey in
order to become eligible to race or to play in the games. These were:
(1) Freemen only were eligible.
(2) Ten
An
experienced trainer or tutor was required for the competitor to become
knowledgeable of every need and detail.
The scriptures reveal that our trainer and tutor is Christ Jesus our
Lord, who is the Firstborn among many brethren, the Captain of our salvation,
the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and the Head of the body of
sons. In His own experience and victory
He BECAME all of that — and as we concentrate on the hope set before us,
looking to that which is beyond the veil, and looking unto Jesus — Christ
arises within us in our own experience and leads us to victory! With a trainer and tutor like this, how can
we fail? Let us therefore give the more
earnest heed, for the words that He speaks to us He speaks within — in the
crucible of experience — and the words that He speaks unto us, they are spirit,
and they are life! Isn’t it wonderful!
Every
child of God called to sonship is now in school —
under the tutorship of the indwelling Christ.
For those who are consciously growing up into the image, stature, and
fullness of Christ, your daily life and walk with Christ is the classroom in which we have special opportunity to learn to
live as kings and priests in the government of God. We may feel that we graduated from school a
long time ago, but that is a mistake; we hadn’t even started to school at that
time. When you received the call to sonship and began to be drawn out of your former life, out
of your former understanding of God and His purpose, and out from your former religious
associations, it was then, and only then, that you entered the school of sonship under the tutorship of the Christ. When God drew you out of the religious system
and separated you unto Himself you may have felt that you “graduated” into a
new realm — and you certainly did. You
graduated from kindergarten! And immediately you were enrolled in the first
grade of God’s
Kelly
Varner in one of his sermons shared these challenging and penetrating words:
“The Spirit without the Word is fanaticism.
Revelation without possession is
There
are certain basic principles of the
We
are called to reign with Christ from the highest heaven. Such all-embracing majesty is far too vast
for my feeble understanding, yet I know by the Spirit that the body of Christ
is in practical preparation for the explicit purpose of UNIVERSAL
DOMINION. But, as Kelly Varner has
pointed out, how can a man rule over principalities and powers and worlds and
universes if he is unable to rule his own
spirit and his own affairs? “He that
ruleth His own spirit,” said the wise man, “is better
than he that taketh a city” (Prov.
Our
God is a God of principle. He does not
do anything by chance. It is my deep
conviction that what happens in your life and mine is a result of the use or
abuse of the principles of the
To
those who love God and revere His word, to those who are enrolled in His
great
Some
time ago I read the following story in one of the many magazines that come
across my desk. There was a farmer who
had an old mule who fell into a well. The
farmer heard the mule braying and came to its rescue. But after sizing up the situation, the farmer
decided that neither the mule nor the well were worth the trouble it would take
to save either. Instead, he called his
neighbors together and told them what had happened along with what he had
decided to do; bury the old mule now (in the well) and put him out of his
misery. This, the farmer said, would be
the humane thing to do. The men
immediately got to work and began burying the mule. Of course, the mule became panicky at
first. However, as the farmer and his
neighbors continued to shovel dirt on him, a thought came to the old mule:
every time the men shoveled dirt on his back, he would shake it off and take a
step up!
Now
the mule did this following each shovelful of dirt that was pitched into the
well. Shake it off and step up. Shake it off and step up. SHAKE
IT OFF AND STEP UP! No matter
how distressing the situation seemed or how painful the falling load of dirt
felt, the old mule fought His panic and just kept right on shaking it off and
stepping up. Thus, it wasn’t very long
before the old mule stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well! What appeared to be the end for this mule was
just another chapter in its life and what was meant to bury him actually
blessed and saved him! And that, dear
one, IS THE LAW OF OVERCOMING! The fiery
trials, the testings, problems, difficulties, painful
situations, onslaughts of the adversary, persecutions, obstacles, stones in our
pathway — all can be stumbling blocks that trip and defeat, or we can make them
stepping
stones to the throne! Ah, yes,
we can allow these obstacles to overcome us, or we can draw from the mighty
strength of the Victor within and
SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP! SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP! We will soon begin to see that the
adversities of life that threaten to “bury” us are laden with potential benefit
and blessing — the stepping stones that carry us to a higher realm in God! And when we step out of our own personal well
of entrapment, when we step over the wall of that well, we step out into the
bright glory of God upon the sea of glass mingled with fire; we receive the
harp of God and the divine ability to play its majestic chords of praise while
we sing the mighty song of deliverance and triumph — song of Moses and the
Lamb. It is graduation day, and now the
hour has come to receive the judgment, the authority, the dominion reserved for the sons
of the Most High. Oh, the mystery of it!
THE HARPS OF GOD
“And
I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the
victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the
number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God” (Rev. 15:2).
Let
us now for a moment pay attention to their song. It must not escape our attention that they
sing their song upon “the harps of God.”
This means “harps provided by God,” just as in the phrase, “the
righteousness of God.” Miriam’s timbrel was made by man; so were the harps constructed by
David’s order, and used in the temple service of earth. But these are the harps of God! That is, God Himself has given them their
instruments of music. He is the
craftsman of their harps. He is at the
same time the author
of their song.
It
follows that these melodious instruments reveal the great truth that we, as
God’s elect, are called and chosen to be instruments of praise in which there
is found only perfect tuning. As we
receive these harps there is no more of the carnal discord of egocentricity,
professional form, and fleshly zeal which have marred our praise. Our spirits, perfectly tuned to the will and
way of our Father, will sound a perfect unison with all of creation. As we ascend into the throne zone in our high
calling in Christ, there is no dissonance in that glorious rendition, for every
fiber of our being vibrates with the praise of the Lamb who has made us kings
and priests unto God!
Surely
now we can plainly see that the idea is not that everyone will one day go to
heaven and learn to play a harp, but that there is a realm in God where our entire nature and being throbs with heavenly
harmonies, for the strings of our inner son are perfectly in tune with the mind
and heart of our Father, because of the mighty transformation wrought by the
life of the indwelling Lamb. As this is
accomplished in us we all begin to fulfill the injunction of the Psalm which
says, “Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the
upright. Praise the Lord with harp: sing
unto Him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto Him a new song; play skillfully
with a loud noise. For the word of the
Lord is right; and all His works are done in truth” (Ps. 33:1-4). You say, “But I can’t sing and I don’t know
how to play the harp or any of those other instruments.” That’s not
the message! The “harp” is a symbol
of perfect praise pouring forth from all of God’s elect. And not merely the act of praising, but the very becoming a praise and the being of praise, as it is written, “Ye
that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He
establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the
earth” (Isa. 62:6-7). Again, “So have I
caused to cleave unto me the whole house of
The
harp in scripture is also symbolic of the prophetic ministry. As the incense connects with the priest’s
ministry, so the harp connects with the prophet’s! We read that the prophet Samuel informed king Saul, “Thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming
down from the high place, with a psaltery, and a tabret,
and a harp before them, and they
shall prophesy” (I Sam. 10:5). We read
that king David set apart the sons of Asaph, Heman
and Jeduthan, “who
prophesied with a harp” (I Chron. 25:1-3).
And in Psalms 49:4 we read, “I
will open my dark sayings upon the harp.”
The harp, therefore, is symbolic of the prophetic ministry in the
highest sense of the word! It bespeaks
THE REVELATION AND UNVEILING OF THE DEEP MYSTERIES OF THE WORD, WILL, AND WAYS OF THE LORD!
Thus the prophetic harps of the overcomers, as they stand upon the sea
of glass, are the prophecy contained in the song of Moses and the Lamb which
they sing! THEY have overcome, and now
their prophecy proclaims that God’s works are great and marvelous, His ways are
just and true, and
It
is interesting to note that when
We
met these harps and the song earlier in Revelation chapters eight and
fourteen. We identify these harpers and
singers with the one hundred and forty-four thousand on
When
John saw the hundred and forty-four thousand standing upon
“They sing” refers to the harpists whose
sound comes from heaven — out of a realm of the Spirit. Thus, the song is sounding forth from the
“voices in heaven” and not from the Lamb and His followers on
And
now comes the final proof. “And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which
were redeemed from the earth.” Can
you see the picture — the hundred and forty-four thousand are standing on mount
And
now in chapter 15, the very next chapter of the book, the hundred and
forty-four thousand overcomers have been handed
the harps of God and they have thoroughly learned that song for they are now singing the song. Here we
are even given the name of the song — The Song of Moses and the Lamb! Having passed through all the testing and provings of the sea of glass mingled with fire, these now
stand triumphantly by the sea, holding the harps of God, and rapturously intoning the victorious
song which not only expresses their glorious triumph but prophetically heralds
God’s new day of salvation and deliverance for all the nations of mankind! Isn’t it wonderful!
To be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
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