Note: J. Preston Eby, in order to continue to devote his full energy to writing no longer works in the office and does not receive this email. He does, however, respond to any urgent correspondence via snailmail. |
|
To be added to the mailing list to receive the current issue of Kingdom Bible Studies each month: |
"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of
God..."
Part 209
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB
(continued)
“And
he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev.
19:9).
How
precious the knowledge that we have a God who hungers, thirsts, deeply desires,
to feast with His people — a God who from the beginning has tried to show us
that His greatest delight is not in showing His authority or His power, but in
enjoying intimate and close fellowship with His own. He set a feast of fruits before
God
has promised through the prophet Isaiah that in the latter days He would make a
great feast of spiritual blessings and benefits for
It
is my conviction that this is the greatest feast of all — the marriage supper
of the Lamb — which ushers a people into the most intimate relationship with
their Lord! It is not in meetings,
preachings, teachings, prophesyings, singing, dancing, or any outward exercise
that we enjoy the marriage supper of the Lamb; it is at the marriage union of
our “soul bride” with our “spirit bridegroom” that we discover within ourselves the glorious marriage
feast provided by our Father! God cannot
spread a table in His holy mount for all people until we have this feast
prepared within ourselves. Little wonder, then, that John on
A
marriage feast is a time of great joy and festivity. Those who have tasted something of this
heavenly meal know how bountifully the table has been spread with His presence
and glory and power! I have good news
for you. Many are called to partake of
this supper! Not all shall know Him as
the bride knows Him, but vast multitudes shall be at attendance at His feast
and be filled with the overflow of the abundance that is provided upon His
table! The attendants will be there, the
friends of the Bridegroom and the bride will be there, and guests from far and
wide will be there, and what rejoicing and music and dancing there will be as we all eat of His meat and
What
constitutes the marriage supper of the Lamb?
When we think of a feast we are prone to think in natural terms and
picture a banquet of rich foods and an evening of superlative
entertainment. There was a day when
Jesus and His disciples came to
Jesus
promised that when He returned He would “gird” Himself and make His servants to
sit down to meat, and that He would “come forth and serve them…meat in due
season” (Lk. 12:35-44). In these days at
the transition of the ages we have in a unique way and in an abundant measure
experienced the very fulfillment of this promise. The Bridegroom is here! He has come and has served “meat in due
season” to the elect household of faith.
Rich
I
would be remiss if I failed to point out in clear and unmistakable words the
fact that the “marriage of the Lamb” is
not exclusively a future event as the preachers are wont to proclaim. Let me make it quite clear before we go any
farther that what our Lord is speaking about under the figure of the marriage
feast is an actual personal experience which every soul may have, something intensely
real and precious, not in the sweet bye and bye, but right here in our
today. What it is, is a past event, a
present event, as well as a future one! It is an on-going reality in the same sense that initial salvation is past
for some, present for some, and still future for others. Millions of souls have through the centuries
experienced the Lord as Saviour, some are now receiving Him, and many more will
experience Him in the future. The future will
There
is an old song of the church that has a profound meaning. It says, “Jesus has a table spread, where the
saints of God are fed; He invites His chosen people, Come and dine!” That table is in the heavens of God’s Spirit,
and in the Spirit and by the Spirit we are seated there.
To
sup with Christ is to commune vitally with Him; it is to fellowship intimately
with Him and freely partake of all that is proffered by His Spirit. He comes in to dine! That
is His heart’s desire. It is
there, deep within — in the inner union of soul and spirit — as nowhere else,
privately and alone, that spiritual edification and the understanding and participation
in heavenly things begins and continues and consummates. Numerous yielded souls have attained this
glorious experience, sitting with Him at His table; it is now happening for
others, and it shall yet happen for multitudes of others. It is, first and foremost, an
If
you will step from the little boat of human understanding to tread the waves of revelation with Christ, the following
experience between the Shulamite and her Beloved will speak to your heart in
liberating, transforming power. “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the
voice of my Beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my
dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops
of the night. She answers him, I have
put off my coat; how shall I put it on?
I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? My Beloved put his hand in the hole of the
door, and my heart was moved for him. I
rose up to open to my Beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers
with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my Beloved; but my Beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when
he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me
no answer” (S. of S. 5:2-6).
Beloved
reader of this message, have you ever heard your Bridegroom’s voice calling you
to come apart with Him, to leave everything and every one that hindered you and
come into a higher place of revelation and separation unto Himself? Have you kept your Lord waiting while you
pampered your flesh, or while you did something that you wanted to do, or while
you clung to the religious excitement of a lower realm of so-called church
life, instead of coming away with HIM?
Have you heard Him chide you because you neglected Him, because you were
not giving yourself to seeking His face, because
you were not putting Him above all else,
because you were not following on to know Him in deeper measures? When you have heard His voice in these and
other ways, have you risen up eagerly and quickly hastened to obey? Or have you asked Him to wait until a more
convenient season? Did you have some
“religious” work which you felt was very important? Did you have some association you felt you
could not
In
this vision of the marriage of the Lamb, the Spirit of God has given us a
strain from the heavenly choir, the theme of which is CHRIST AND HIS BRIDE. Has this divine music sounded upon your heart
until your spirit has been caught away to the Mount of the Lord? Have you received a deeper revelation of your
high calling in Him, and the processes by which we may attain? Has the Spirit revealed clearer visions of
those things that mortal eye cannot see nor ear hear, neither can the human
heart contain, even the things that God has prepared for you and me? If you will draw close to God, He will anoint
your eyes with heavenly eye salve: He will give you a divine perspective; He
will cause you to behold the things that are unseen and eternal as you lose
sight of the things that are seen and temporal.
He will bring you into His banqueting house and your soul will be
ravished with the revelation of His love.
The noise and glitter of Mystery Babylon the Great will fade from mind
and heart until it seems but a dream dreamed in the long ago. There is a remnant of the Lord’s people over
the whole earth that have heard the cry, “Behold, the Bridegroom!” This remnant has arisen, trimmed their lamps,
and with vessels full of oil and lamps shining bright have fixed their eyes
upon Jesus, they are looking away from the earth, from people, from church
systems, from everything to the Everlasting Hills of God.
WORSHIP NOT THE ANGEL
“And
I fell at his (the angel’s) feet to worship
him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy
fellow-servant, and of thy brethren which have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus
is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10).
Do
not forget that in the book of Revelation everything is communicated to us in the form of signs and symbols. Just as the horns, beasts, candlesticks,
horses, etc., are symbols of spiritual realities so are the “angels” also
figures that stand for something else.
The word angel simply means messenger. In
the Revelation an angel or a messenger signifies a message communicated.
Ah,
can you comprehend, can you imagine with me the unutterable awesomeness of that
moment when one of the mightiest of the angels from heaven stood there in
Mary’s humble house,
But
you see, my friend, should Mary have done such a thing she would have missed the point
altogether! Gabriel was not the
issue. Gabriel was not the item of
importance that blessed day in
I’m
just a flesh and blood man, but upon me today there is a word. Out of me there flows
a message. You may not think much of me. You may be able to discern my weaknesses and
perhaps you can see some of my flaws.
You may not like me. I don’t even
like myself very much! But I know who I
am and I know what Father has sent me to do.
It makes no difference whether you like me, whether anybody likes me, or
whether I even like myself. No
difference at all! Because I’m not the
issue. I’m of no importance. I am irrelevant to anything except as I relate to the message I
bear. None of the “kingdom preachers”
today are of any special importance within themselves. None of us matter.
The
great lesson here is that God speaks
through man. Have you not heard the
Spirit speak through man? Peter said that we proclaim the good news
with the Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven! Not only do spiritual men
read by the Spirit, hear by the Spirit, see by the Spirit, and know by the
Spirit — they also speak by the
Spirit! “If any man speak, let him speak
as the oracles of God” (I Pet. 4:11). I have heard the voice of the Spirit through
a great many men and women during my lifetime.
The word of the Lord and the revelation of God that flow through my pen
in these days are not original with me. I
cannot deny that the Holy Spirit has spoken many things to me right out of the
depths of my being, out of the most holy place of my spirit. But much of our knowledge of the things of
God has also been imparted to us as the voice of the Spirit has spoken to us
through many chosen vessels across the years. Almost daily I hear the voice of the Spirit
through precious letters we receive from members of God’s elect all across the
land and around the world. I have both
seen and heard great and mighty things from the Spirit of
And
I command you today —
THE SPIRIT OF THIS PROPHECY
“I
am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren which have the testimony of Jesus:
worship God: for the testimony of Jesus
is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10).
The
book of Revelation is without doubt one of the most important and wonderful
books ever written. It is, in my
opinion, the most important book for
all who are called and chosen as God’s government of kings and priests! It is difficult for many people to understand
because it is written in highly symbolic language, understandable only to the
spiritual mind. Long millenniums ago
Joseph spoke a wonderful truth when he asked the burning question, “Do not
interpretations belong to God?” (Gen. 40:8).
Moses said, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we
may do all the words of this
teaching” (Deut. 29:29). Many preachers
spend far too much time delving into future speculations about world
events. Time invariably repudiates their
futile predictions. God did not give us
a heavenly version of NEWSWEEK magazine, but the Book of Life!
When
the book of Revelation was written, John was in the Spirit! This is a
fact of extreme importance. The realm of
the Spirit is a realm beyond the reach of the natural. Spiritual things are all about us to such an
extent that we live and move and have our being in them, yet the natural man
can never see them until the Spirit draws aside the dusky curtains of our
carnality and opens our eyes to the realities of the spiritual world. Thus it was with John, in exile on barren
Patmos, a place of few inhabitants and always swarming with pirates and
banished criminals of various sorts, but the record says of him, “Who bare
record of the word of God, and the testimony
of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw...for the testimony of Jesus IS THE SPIRIT OF
PROPHECY” (Rev. 1:2; 19:10). Preachers
and teachers ought to heed this wise counsel and concentrate on the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit
of prophecy, rather than futuristic forecasts of earthquakes, plane crashes,
riots, nuclear disasters, political coups, invasions, wars, terrorist attacks,
foreign policies, world government, etc.
When God gave us the Holy Spirit, it was not to take soundings of
uncharted depths into the future of
The
ministers of God were not meant to be soothsayers but truth-sayers. We were not called to predict all the
changing events in the kingdoms of this
world, not to herald a future antichrist, but to proclaim the ETERNAL
PRESENT CHRIST! The book of Revelation
is not primarily intended to teach world
events. It is intended to teach the purposes of God and spiritual realities! Men have put so much stress on outward things,
so much carnalizing of the word of
God which is spirit and life, that
when we read the scriptures we oft times overlook the real truth the Spirit is
speaking.
The
world is full of people today who are prophesying about a great many
things. I never cease to be amazed at
those who prophesy world events that are to come to pass. So many of them have prophesied and they were
not right; their prophecies failed! Some
of them have never prophesied anything that has come to pass, yet they keep
right on prophesying, and their followers quickly forget the things that didn’t
happen and continue to cling tenaciously to each new prediction. Some have called me a prophet. I don’t claim to be a prophet, though I have
prophesied through the years, and do believe that my voice is a very small part
of the many waters of God’s corporate prophet who speaks in this new
kingdom Day. I know what prophecy
is. I know Jesus who is the author of
all true prophecy, and IS HIMSELF THE
TRUE PROPHECY. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!”
In
the spirit of Jesus is the real truth and it cannot be found in any other
place! Jesus is alive in you, my
brother, my sister, and He is alive in me.
God has given us the spirit of His Son!
The testimony of Jesus within ourselves is the spirit of prophecy! The spirit of prophecy most often speaks of
Christ — of that of Christ which is becoming reality within us. Yes, the Spirit
of God can reveal things to come in the outer world of politics, economics,
warfare, the rise and fall of nations, disasters, etc. God has on occasion revealed such things to
me. But those things are only incidental
to the great spiritual realities of the kingdom that God is raising up within
His elect! THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS IS THE
SPIRIT OF PROPHECY! The Spirit bears
witness to God’s Christ — that is
where true prophecy will be
found! A true prophecy contains the
testimony of Jesus — the word which energizes and causes the life of the Son of
God to be raised up in us! It is a
spiritual testimony, therefore its fulfillment does not come literally — it
comes spiritually and is realized in Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ has come within us to reveal in
us the unseen things of the
Some
people contend that the book of Revelation cannot
be a spiritual book because the spiritual interpretation takes away from the
true prophetic nature of this book. I
ask, however — How in the world can spiritual understanding take away from the
prophetic nature of the book when the book itself declares that “the testimony of Jesus IS the spirit of prophecy.” The testimony of the antichrist is not the
spirit of prophecy! The testimony of the
beast is not the spirit of prophecy! The
testimony of the false prophet is not the spirit of prophecy! The testimony of the dragon is not the spirit
of prophecy! The testimony of Daniel’s
70th Week is not the spirit of prophecy!
The testimony of the rapture is not the spirit of prophecy! The testimony of what is going to happen in
“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy.” The application of this
expression is given a more specific meaning by both
Understanding
the book of Revelation spiritually is
the only view by which you can interpret the book by the Bible. Every other
view requires one to understand history, geography, politics or world events;
and to have access to Newsweek, Time, USA Today or CNN in order to compare
contemporary happenings with the symbolisms of the book. I have made the necessary discovery that the
book explains itself, and I do not hesitate to tell you that this is the only
view that makes the book relative to our spiritual life today as well as to the
spiritual life of the saints of every generation. It is the only view that makes the book
relative to anyone, anywhere, at anytime who reads or hears the prophecy
of this book and keeps the things that are written therein (Rev. 1:3).
“The
time is at hand” for all who come into an experiential revelation of Jesus
Christ! When the unveiling of Jesus
Christ within us becomes the power of our life, the book of Revelation becomes
a NOW book! Every other view makes the
Revelation either a past book, or a future book. Let every child of God know for a certainty
that it is now, in our today, that we are experiencing the
unveiling of Jesus Christ! We will not
be helped spiritually one iota by an understanding of what Titus did to
Jerusalem in A.D. 70, or what the Moslems did in the eighth century, or by what
the Pope did during the middle ages, or by what some future antichrist will do
after the church has gone to heaven.
Those are, one and all, exercises in carnal minded foolishness that have
absolutely nothing to do with THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST!
In
this connection George Warnock wrote, “People continue to cry out: ‘We need
another Elijah! We need another John the
Baptist!’ But God has something even
better in mind. Twice John fell at the
feet of this shining one who was showing him heavenly things. And twice the man rebuked him for his
error. For this angel was a man who had gone on, perhaps one of the prophets; for
he said, ‘I am thy fellow servant, and
of…the prophets, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of
Jesus.’ And he said to John, ‘Worship
God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’ Is he not reminding us, who are often
captivated by the charisma of some great prophet — that the testimony of JESUS
in the earth is something better than having a great prophet? It is a corporate Testimony, a people moving in such union with Christ
that they speak with one Voice, and shine as
one Light, in this world of darkness” — end quote.
Those
who interpret the book of Revelation literally
give us only the “letter” of the prophecy and miss altogether the “spirit”
of the prophecy. The “letter” is merely
the outer shell, the husk, the chaff, which is inedible and fit only to be cast
aside. The “spirit” of the prophecy,
however, is its inner kernel, its
To be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
Links to other ministry websites
Not finding what you need? SEARCH HERE
Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind |