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KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES

"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."

FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE

Part 181

THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES

(continued)

“And the second angel poured out his bowl upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea” (Rev. 16:3).

Here we are given the picture of the second angel pouring out his bowl, not upon the earth, but into the sea, the lowest realm of man’s life, the body realm where lies the root and source of all evil. Something strange and astonishing happens to the sea! Before we consider that, let us reiterate that throughout the scriptures the sea is a type, individually, of the inner storms and turbulent nature of the Adamic man; and corporately, of the raging, restless, surging masses of degenerate humanity, tossed to and fro by these inner storms and turbulent motions of the natural mind and the flesh. The prophet Isaiah penned these inspired words: “The wicked are like THE TROUBLED SEA, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isa. 57:20-21). Jude also described so-called believers who walked as natural men when he said, “These are RAGING WAVES OF THE SEA, foaming out their own shame” (Jude 13). John, in the Revelation, had a vision of a great whore sitting on many waters. The angel revealed the meaning of the “many waters,” saying, “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, ARE PEOPLES, AND MULTITUDES, AND TONGUES” (Rev. 17:15).

No man can dispute the fact that it is this restless, turbulent, raging carnal heart of man that inspires every imaginable evil and devilish perversion, religious, economic, or political, and has filled the world with ever increasing confusion, immorality, faithlessness, falsehood, fraud, hatred, violence, greed, cruelty, wars and rumors of wars, bloodshed and oppression. Ah, the sea is the lowest realm on earth, and this vast sea of fleshly-minded humanity represents mankind at his lowest point — as bad off as man can be!

Here, however, God is not dealing with the outer world of wicked mankind, but with His own people. The book of Revelation is sent to the church! It reveals to His servants the things He intends to do and unfold in their lives and experience! It begins in the first three chapters with a carnal, imperfect church. Eventually there emerges a firstfruit company of overcomers, a people out of the church, a people qualified to be “caught up unto God and His throne” and to stand with the Lamb “upon mount Zion.” This is not the whole church, for these are a “manchild” birthed out of the church-woman and a company of 144,000 overcomers who have been “redeemed from among men.” Yet, in the closing chapters of the Revelation, we behold the entire community of God’s redeemed people purged, purified, and perfected — the bride has “made herself ready” to whom it is granted to be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white” and she is joined in union at “the marriage of the Lamb.” All the various companies of God’s people are revealed in the glorious CITY OF GOD, THE NEW JERUSALEM! And that, my beloved, completes the journey from the CARNAL CHURCH to the GLORIOUS CHURCH, NOT HAVING SPOT, OR WRINKLE, OR ANY SUCH THING, FOR IT IS HOLY AND WITHOUT BLEMISH! That is the whole message of the Revelation — God’s dealings with His people to bring them to perfection and fullness in Himself!

This is without doubt the “sea” within the Lord’s people, the flesh nature, with all its agitating, surging emotions, powers, and propensities. One thing is certain — God has complete power and full authority over even that lowest realm within every saint of God! The word of the Lord declares, “Thou rulest the RAGING OF THE SEA: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them” (Ps. 89:9). Many centuries ago the Spirit of God inspired these beautiful words of promise, “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high IS MIGHTIER THAN THE NOISE OF MANY WATERS, yea, than the MIGHTY WAVES OF THE SEA” (Ps. 93:3-4). Praise God! He rules the inner raging of the sea and He stills all its tempests! The unstable nature within, so quickly moved by the storms created by the carnal mind, the torrents of passion, the streams of vain imaginations, the waves of frustration and fear, the winds of doubt and unbelief, the turbulent emotions of fleshly zeal, anxiety, and temptation — all are quieted by the Lord, the Spirit, who arises within in peace, joy, righteousness, confidence, understanding, faith and strength to rule the raging of the sea! And then follows the calm, the state described by Paul — “that we be no more tossed to and fro with every wind…but may grow up in all things into Him who is the Head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:14-15). The Spirit of God within is great peace, overflowing joy, unfailing love, unwavering righteousness, and omnipotent power. It is only necessary then to gain the conscious awareness of the presence and life of God as the true essence of our being, to know that this life is the law of our reality. As we come to know the spirit of our life in Christ all inner and outer tempests are stilled, the sea is calmed, and the dragon in the sea vanishes over the horizon. Oh, yes!

Yet, here under the second plague, something different is set before us. The “plague” falls into the sea of men’s lives and the sea becomes as the blood of a dead man. What word is this! The whole sea is turned to blood, and that, not pure, fresh, flowing, living blood, but blood like that of a dead person, putrid, foul, repulsive, and vile in the extreme, spreading its deadly odor, as it were, over the whole world. The outpouring of the first bowl produced virulent ulcers on the followers of the beast — outward eruptions of internal uncleanness — revealing to all the corruption of the human heart even in those who name the name of the Lord. It outwardly revealed even the uncleanness of the religious systems of man. Have you not seen it? Now, however, wonder of wonders! the dealing hand of God probes even deeper, He pours out the judgment upon that inner corruption to begin to deal with the inward condition which is the cause and source of the boils. Think of it! The pouring out of the second bowl reveals more than the outward manifestation of inward corruption — God so overwhelms His people with the death within, so enveloping them with the stench of rotting, coagulated blood so terrible that it can only be adequately described by the picture of the whole ocean reeking with rotten blood. As horrible and offensive as this seems, it is indeed wonderful!

At last the Lord’s people see that lower nature for exactly what it is — unmitigated DEATH! The whole realm of “this present evil world” is but a dead man, a world of dead men with no life at all in them. There is no life in anything of the world system! This comes as a great and wonderful revelation to anyone who bears the mark of the beast and pays homage to his image, for all who esteem the bestial system of this world with its politics, its military, its charities, its science, its education, its economic institutions, and its religious systems, views it all with pride and wonder. Such people join its lodges, support its military machine, engage themselves in its politics, congratulate themselves for being “committed” and “involved” in its various institutions, and pride themselves in being “patriotic” citizens. This is where millions of believers walk today in the church systems. How tragically have the Lord’s people walked as natural men in a natural world as they fill their lives with natural aspirations, neither knowing nor caring to know that they could walk as sons of God in heavenly realms far above the earth and the sea!

The natural man belongs completely to this earthly order of things. He is endowed in his human consciousness simply with a high quality of the natural animal type of life. He has flesh as the animals have flesh. He has blood as the animals have blood. He has a heart and circulatory system as the animals have hearts and circulatory systems. He has a digestive system as do the animals, feet for walking, hands for working, a brain, nervous systems, etc. The natural man lives and dies as do the animals. Paul pointed out the contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man in Romans chapters six through eight. In Romans 8:5 he exposed the yawning gulf between those who live after the body realm (which is the flesh) and those who live after the spirit (the offspring of God). He taught that “they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit.” It all depends on what we are AFTER! When I was a young man I met a beautiful young lady by the name of Lorain Walker. I quickly decided that I wanted her to be my wife. For a year and a half I dated her, pursued her, spent every moment I could with her, proposed to her — and I got her! At that point in my life she was what I was AFTER! This is the idea Paul has in mind when he speaks of being “after” the flesh or “after” the spirit. He also refers to it as “minding” the things of the flesh, or “minding” the things of the spirit. I think that anyone can see that whatever a person is “minding” is what they are really AFTER! When you see Christians all caught up and expending their time, efforts, and energies in the programs of carnal church systems, in worldly human institutions, in political parties, and all the other natural pursuits of “this world,” you can know that they are worshippers of the beast. We manifest whether we are a natural man or a spiritual man by what we are after, what we are actively pursuing in our lives.

The man who is forever worrying about the physical man will always have in mind ways and means of catering to him — how he can provide a better old age pension, how he can get a better home, newer car, fancier clothes, how he can provide more to see and hear and taste and feel and smell. He expends all his energies to try to make sure the physical man will never be in need. He is always mindful of the physical flesh and all that he does is for the physical flesh. He does nothing more than the animals do. He lives his life out on the same plane as does the animal kingdom. He pursues the corruptible things of earth, the things that make for bodily comfort and pleasure, and does not mind the things of the spirit. A man or woman who cares much about the pleasures of the body, eating and drinking and sexual passion, holding in high esteem such corruptible things as houses and lands, fine clothes, bodily adornments, bank accounts, and luxuries of all kinds, will never, as long as their lives are wrapped up in the pursuing of those things, attain to the glory of sonship to God.

It is not that such things are wicked or abominable before God, for He has promised to “add all these things” unto us as we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But I declare to you that to the natural man who is pursuing all these things they are enemies of the spirit because they never give you leave to seek God without distraction. Carnally minded men, whether they be people of the world or professing Christians, are filled with the delusion that those who hold in low esteem the corruptible things of earth, turning instead to the eternal values of the spirit, are living lives that are not worth living. But such persons do not know that just the opposite is true, for “she who liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth” (I Tim. 5:6).

The moment we grasp the meaning of the scripture, “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,” at that moment we can understand what the carnal mind is. The carnal mind is the fleshly mind and the fleshly mind minds fleshly things. And the great revelation out of the sea turned into the blood of a dead man is that NONE OF THE FLESHLY THINGS OF EARTH HAVE ONE IOTA OF LIFE IN THEM! “To be carnally (fleshly) minded is DEATH” (Rom. 8:6). Not only in his relation to the spiritual man, but to the whole spiritual world, the natural man is regarded as dead. He is as a stone compared to an organism. The natural world is to the spiritual world as the inorganic to the organic. “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Rev. 3:1). “To you hath He given life who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). It is not possible to know God or experience God through any of the physical senses of the body, or through any earthly thing, or any earthly institution, be it called a church, a sacrament, or something else. This reveals the folly of all “sacramental” religion! It is just as impossible for a man to enter into Christ by having his physical body dipped in a tank of water, as it is to have Christ enter into him by putting a wafer in his mouth and swallowing it. The natural is a sea full of death, and life is found only in the spirit!

In the world today there is a small minority who spend their lives minding the things of the spirit. The welfare of the inner spiritual man is foremost in their thoughts, for they seek to partake of THE MIND OF CHRIST. They esteem the realm of the flesh as less than nothing, as common dung, seeking always to be one mind with the Father. These, being after the spirit, mind the things of the spirit. The spiritual man has partaken of a life that transcends the physical — a new and distinct and supernatural endowment. He is no longer of this world. He is of the timeless state, Eternity. He is, even now, a son of God and it doth not yet appear what he shall be. The difference then between the spiritual man and the natural man is not a difference of development, but of generation. It is a distinction of the quality of life. The life of the natural man is of so poor a quality that it is not even life at all, for it is filled with the corruptible mind of the flesh and the power of death. And it is only when you stand upon the shore of that sea that John saw, the sea that has become as the blood of a dead man, and view the men and the whole bestial system of the world that lives and thinks and functions at that level — it is there and then that you will truly comprehend the horribleness of that realm of death that the masses of God’s people never see or understand until the second angel pours out his bowl, uncovering it to them, revealing it within them, causing them to see it as it really is, to be repulsed by it, and cry out mightily to God for a great deliverance!

We are living in an hour when God is moving powerfully in the hearts of the people He has called to live in the heavenlies of the spirit. While the rest of his people go on more or less happy and unconcerned, content with their empty carnal lives and worldly religious pursuits, sinking deeper and deeper into the world’s morass of immorality, confusion, and corruption. But I have good news for you my friend — there is coming a mighty change! When the second angel pours out his bowl into the “sea,” into the midst of the Lord’s people, they will awaken and smell — not the coffee, not the roses — they will smell the putrid stench arising from the sea which has become to them as the blood of a dead man! This plague will fall suddenly into their natural life and phenomenally disturb their comfort zone! It is a quickening, a revelation! Once they are quickened by the Spirit of God there is a revelation of corruption — the knowledge of just what is in the natural man, the carnal mind, the flesh nature, and the whole spirit and system of the world — the clear and perfect understanding of what these are, how they work, their utter futility and worthlessness in light of the Truth and Reality that the Spirit brings. Christians in general will never let go of the valueless things of the world until once they see them for what they really are — an abhorrent cess-pool of the blood of DEAD MEN!

Oh, what a wonder this is! Do you suppose the millions of believers living out carnal lives in the political, economic, and religious systems of man, will ever come out of Babylon apart from the divine intervention of the Holy Ghost? Such a thing will not be. But God has promised — God has revealed — in John’s wonderful vision on Patmos — He will send His plagues, His stripes, His woundings, His dealings, into the strongholds of Babylon and the slaves will not be comfortable with the things they were comfortable with before! In the old order of things believers have been at home with the worldly atmospheres, carnal understandings, and fleshly activities; but now the Lord will stir them, arouse them, awaken them, draw nigh and speak into them His living word and all the peace, pleasure, joy, and security of the earthly, natural, carnal life will flee away as dew before the rising sun. Once wooed by the Spirit, once awakened to the beauty and glory of life in the spirit, the earthly state of being will be perceived as a base and vile abomination compared to it. As the second plague falls, all contentment with the vast sea of natural life is taken away so that the carnal mind is bereft of all satisfaction in the worldly pursuits it formerly enjoyed and trusted in with unrestrained abandonment.

EVERY LIVING SOUL IN THE SEA DIES

“And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea” (Rev. 16:3).

It is time to consider with prayer and meditation the great truth the Holy Spirit conveys in these marvelous symbols. Today when I read this phrase — “every living soul” —I heard something in the spirit that I had not heard before I took up my pen to write. These are beautiful symbols of spiritual truth — not literal events in the outer world. There will never be an ocean turned into a grave of death, nor will there ever be the horrible scene of billions and trillions of shoals of dead, bloated, and stinking sea creatures floating on the surface of bloody waters.

It came to me so powerfully — the precise terminology of the Holy Spirit of inspiration. He did not say, “every living creature,” nor did he say, “every sea creature,” nor did he make mention of “all the fish” in the sea. Rather, the Holy Spirit specifies “every living soul.” This is so very expressive and full of meaning! “Living” is in the Greek text zao. This word is used of various living things, but is most often used in reference to divine life. Jesus is called “the Son of the living (zao) God.” Our blessed Lord informed the sinful woman of Samaria of the “living (zao) water” that He would give to her. Jesus said that He Himself is the “living (zao) bread” that has come down from heaven, and that if a man eats of this bread he shall live (zao) for ever. “The just shall live (zao) by faith,” Paul wrote. Throughout the book of Revelation the word is used several times of the God who liveth for ever and ever; of Jesus who was dead, and now liveth; the seal of the living God; living fountains of waters; and of those who live and reign with Christ a thousand years.

There is clearly the quality of SPIRITUAL LIFE embedded in the word, yet in our text it is used in conjunction with the word “soul” — psuche — the soulical life of man. Can we not see by this that the phrase signifies a spiritual work of God which is joined with the soulical life of man — the deposit of divine life into the carnal state of nominal Christians! And who among us can deny that this is just what we see working in the lives of believers and in all the carnal church systems of earth! Walk into any church service on a Sunday morning. In spite of the liturgy, the vestments, the crucifixes, the ritual and ceremony, and all the rest, who can deny that the Lord is present. Can we deny that they have been truly saved by grace, have a love for the Lord, have experienced something of His goodness and power, and are possessed of a zeal to work for God, bless and help people, and bring men to Him? Yet — in spite of their experience, love, faith, and commitment, is it not also true that the religious world is walking after fleshly wisdom which seems so logical to the carnal mind as they seek to serve God and do His works? The whole program can be seen to be that of the living soul — God’s life joined with the soulical activities of men!

The entire religious world is today walking in fleshly wisdom which seems so logical to the carnal mind. Fleshly wisdom always seems to “make more sense” than does the wisdom of God! The adversary causes carnal wisdom to prosper because it is the denial of the life of the spirit, so that many times Christians and churches operate contrary to the Spirit with the argument, “It works!” Their method of evangelism is contrary to the ways of the Spirit, but since it “gets results” they continue on in it. The “program” of the church is contrary to true spirituality, and is built generally around flesh-appeal activities of ceremonies, rituals, concerts, social activities, contests, sports, puppet shows, movies, dramas, special speakers, sensationalism, and other carnal tactics and techniques, but the churches continue in it because it draws a crowd and causes the church to prosper in numbers and in finances, while their spirits remain dwarfed and hideously shriveled and stunted.

I would draw your attention to the wise admonition of the apostle Paul. “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3). “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit…and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3-4). The flesh is the name by which the Holy Spirit designates the natural man, human reasoning, the carnal mind. Well did William Law pen these words of keen insight: “In this antagonism of the flesh to the spirit the flesh has two distinct strategies. On the one hand the flesh wars against the spirit in its committing sin and transgressing God’s commands. This is the evil of the flesh. On the other hand, its hostility to the spirit is no less manifested in its seeking to serve God and to do His work! This is the good of the flesh. These two together are the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In yielding to the flesh, the soul sought itself instead of the God into whom the spirit could have raised it. Self-effort and self-development prevailed over God’s life. And now, so subtle and mighty is this spirit of self, that the flesh, not only in sinning against God, but even when the soul learns to serve God, still asserts its power, refuses to let the spirit alone lead, and in its effort to be religious, wants to serve God independent of the spirit and is still the great enemy that ever hinders and quenches the spirit. It is because of this cunning deceitfulness of the flesh that there often takes place what Paul speaks of to the Galatians: ‘Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’ Unless the soul is brought into absolute surrender to the spirit, the surrender to the spirit being very entire, and the holy waiting on Him be kept up in great dependence and humility, what has begun in the spirit, very early and very speedily passes over into confidence in the flesh.”

It is right there where the flesh seeks to serve God, that the “living soul” is formed. The quickened spirit is alive in every child of God, but when the soul, inspired by the spirit, turns and usurps the work of the spirit, the hybrid is formed — a mixture of soul and spirit! Do we not know how the Pharisees, with their self-righteousness and carnal religion, fell into pride and selfishness, and became the servants of sin and the children of the Devil? Satan has no more crafty device for keeping men out of life than inciting them to a religion, even a serving of God, in the flesh. He knows that the power of the flesh can never conquer sin nor please God, that in the flesh and the serving of the flesh no one will ever become a son of God, for those who become sons not only defeat the Devil in the wilderness of temptation, but also deny their own souls — their own minds, wills, emotions, desires, plans, talents, abilities, hopes, dreams, and ambitions, to declare with the firstborn Son of God, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And He that sent me is with me; for I do always those things that please Him. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things so ever He doeth, these also doeth the Son. The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works” (Jn. 8:28-29; 5:19; 14:10).

If there is one lesson a son of God needs to learn it is this: If I am to deny self in my relationships with others, to conquer selfishness, anger, and lack of love, I MUST FIRST LEARN TO DENY SELF IN MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD! There the soul, the seat of Self, must learn to bow to the spirit, where God dwells. Listen, my brother, my sister, to the voice of the blessed Spirit of God: It is confidence in the flesh that motivates men to busily and craftily work for God rather than seeking the Lord until He works! It is self doing what the spirit alone can do; it is the soul taking the lead, in the hopes that the spirit will second its efforts, instead of trusting the spirit to lead and to do all, and then waiting on Him. Oh, brethren! How we need to watch this! All that is not of Life, of the Spirit, is merely the good of man — soulish. The deep mystery is that God does in some manner honor what the soul does, when it speaks His word or inspires men to seek after the Lord. God honors both His word and the faith evoked in men’s hearts! And it is this working of God through man’s efforts in spite of their soulical energy which shows us what the living soul truly is — the mixture of soul and spirit, the spirit working, honoring the spiritual content of the soul’s self-effort! Think of a man with a zeal to preach, not truly called of God, but out of soulish zeal he goes out proclaiming what he perceives to be the gospel. He mixes even his truth with error, preaching hell-fire and eternal damnation, warning men to turn to Jesus for salvation. Men do cry out to the Lord, and He honors their cry, and their faith, moving in their hearts, and they find forgiveness, peace, and deliverance from sin. This is the living soul — the life of God working through the soulical zeal of man! We all know it happens! If it didn’t happen, there would be no born-again people in any of the church systems of man! This is not the pathway of sonship to God, but it is the way of Babylon!

How much of our religious exercises have been soulish! I can tell you of a truth that most of the “power” in the modern “revival meeting” is nothing at all but soul power. Have you not noticed yourself that in many church services, revival meetings, and crusades a kind of atmosphere is first created psychologically to make the people feel warm and excited? A chorus is repeated again and again to warm up the audience. The people are feverishly urged to “get into the spirit” of the meeting. Some stirring stories are told. Special music is sung. The people are instructed to stand up, sit down, say “Amen!” and “Praise the Lord!” When the atmosphere is thoroughly heated up, the preacher will then stand up and preach. If he does his job skillfully he can anticipate a large “altar call.” These are methods and tactics, but they are not the energy of the Holy Spirit! Many preachers today think they have power (including some who call themselves sons of God), but they are merely employing psychological soul power to influence people and manipulate congregations. Many have become experts at manipulating people and audiences. One dead give-away: If the preacher has to have organ music playing softly in the background while he makes an appeal — he is working in soul power!

The Bible Schools of Babylon’s religions offer a course for ministerial students called homiletics. Homiletics is the art of preparing, writing, and delivering sermons. The sad truth is that the vast majority of religious activities is just that — an art. You can go to school and learn how to do it! How to prepare sermons. How to speak persuasively. How to use gestures. How to tell jokes. How to preach. How to counsel. How to stir people with sentimental stories about death, repentance, hell, heaven, needs, miracles, etc. This all seems so desirable, so good! But I say to you that you can learn these very same psychological techniques, apply them in the business world, and go out and sell vacuum cleaners! The fact is, all really successful salesmen use these same proven procedures of presentation, sentimentalism, and pressure to sell insurance, security alarms, automobiles, real estate, and thousands of other items daily! They don’t need any Holy Spirit to do that! All that is necessary is some good human personality coupled with some good proven techniques and one can persuade people to buy almost anything! These are means and methods, but they are not the power nor work of the Holy Spirit. They are no more spiritual when used religiously than they are when employed commercially. Yet God does meet men in their lives right where they are even when they turn to Him as a result of such soulish methods! That is the mystery of the “living soul.”

How prone we are to consider a person possessing unusual talent, dynamic personality, and great natural ability, reasoning with the carnal mind that with such talent and qualities, why, if God could just get hold of him and USE ALL THIS ABILITY in the service of the Lord, what mighty things he could accomplish for the kingdom of God! Oh, yes, we can always locate some good flesh for God to anoint! And in our haste to pour God’s Holy Anointing Oil upon man’s flesh, we forget that “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world, and things that are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that NO FLESH SHOULD GLORY IN HIS PRESENCE” (I Cor. 1:26-28).

A brother shared the following experience which is so familiar to many who read these lines. “I remember visiting a church which allowed the visiting ministries to take up their own offerings. On this particular occasion a servant of God and his wife were conducting the special meetings. There was no denying that the hand of God was resting upon the brother. He was quiet, deep, and had a heavily anointed prophetic ministry. However, his wife’s anointing was somewhat different. Very different. She was loud-voiced and boisterous. The worship, praise, singing, prayers, and prophecy seemed to be anointed, during her ministry. Then suddenly she announced, ‘Now we are going to take up the offering.’ Apparently she noticed the look on the faces of the people. Perhaps they resented this intrusion into the worship of the Lord. She then said, ‘You say, Why are we doing this in the midst of the anointing? Well, we can turn that on any time we want to.’ Need I say more? This is a favorite trick. Get the people ‘high’ on the Lord, or all worked up with the leader’s self-anointing, and then while the tide is high make a plea for money. God in the past has allowed man to go on in his own way, and moved and blessed in spite of it. The days are coming, however, when He will no longer tolerate those who try to manipulate His Spirit for their own profit. Sooner for some, and later for others, but they will be judged severely” — end quote.

And may I add — when God withholds His blessing from all the soulical religious activities of man, when He no longer honors anything about it, when His presence and His working and His moving flees from the midst of all the administrations of religious Babylon — that is when EVERY LIVING SOUL DIES IN THE SEA! None of man’s craftiness will work any more — there will be no more “life” active in anything that is soulical! That, above all else, will be the judgment!

There is no life in methods, techniques, or formulas. How much better it would be if the Lord’s servants would expend their energies, like Mary of old, at HIS feet, learning to know Him and to know His ways. How much better it would be were the time spent on our knees, low and humbled before God, that He might place within a deep distrust of the flesh. How I pray that God would truly reveal to all those apprehended to sonship that the one great hindrance to the life of sonship is the power of the flesh and the efforts of the self-life! Open our eyes, we pray Thee, to this snare of the adversary! May we all discern how secret and how subtle is the temptation to have confidence in the flesh, and how easily we are led to try and perfect in the flesh what has been begun in the spirit! May we learn to trust Thee, our Father, to work in us by Thy Holy Spirit both to will and to do only those things which THOU ART DOING!

In this day, after receiving the Father’s call to sonship, after partaking of deep and vital dealings of the Spirit of God, I have had to totally repudiate all soulish wisdom of the carnal mind, all fleshly tactics of Babylon’s kingdom, to bend low beneath the disciplines of the Father of sons, to travail mightily that God would bend me, break me, bind my soul power, bridle my Self, and block all that would proceed from my carnal mind. If I have learned anything of the ways of the Father I have learned this one thing: He who would be a son of God must be able to clearly distinguish what is done from his soul power and what is done from the indwelling spirit; further, he must confess and utterly forsake all that pertains to his own soul power, nailing it to the cross of Christ, that ultimately his own faith, as well as that of his hearers, may be found to stand solely in the power of God and not in the wisdom of the flesh. This is the only route, my dear brother, my precious sister, into the glorious and eternal reality of sonship to God! All the good works of the soulish realm can never, in a billion years, deliver creation from its bondage to the tyranny of corruption. Only the omnipotent working of THE LIFE OF THE SON OF GOD can accomplish this! “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” Think on that!

It is a dangerous day to be involved in organized religion! I’m not trying to be rude, crude, or vindictive in any way, but there are a lot of things going on right now in the midst of God’s people that are highly esteemed and getting the attention of the whole world, but it’s just the drunken harlot riding her scarlet-colored beast through the wilderness of this world. It’s almost a circus atmosphere in the Charismatic and Pentecostal scene, drawing the crowds, catering to soulish excitement, with all kinds of theatrics and showmanship, and men look at the lying signs and wonders going on about them, and pay no attention to the deep and eternal work of God to be wrought within. The subtleness and power of the individual soul is the root and source of the wanton harlot riding her beastly system — it is all the domain of the LIVING SOUL. The first man Adam was made a living soul. The last man Adam was made a quickening spirit. If a man is not walking in his religious life in the power of the quickening spirit, then without doubt he is walking in the energy of the living soul! That is the mystery.

Observe, then, how our text clearly states that “every living soul in the sea (of humanity) died.” What can it mean? The “dying” of the living souls reveals the cessation of the spiritual work of God through the instrumentality of the systems of religious Babylon! While in former times God honored His word no matter what unclean vessel it passed through, HE WILL NO LONGER DO SO! Whereas God formerly permitted the flesh of man to be anointed, HE WILL NO LONGER ALLOW IT! God will no longer bless, honor, or in any measure anoint man’s fleshly efforts to serve Him and build His kingdom! God will no longer respond to the prayers for the moving of His Spirit within and through the carnal methods and promotions of man. There will not in that day be any more “living soul,” for God will withdraw the zao from the psuche — its end comes, and every living soul in the sea of humanity dies! In all the world there will not be any manifestation of divine life within the precincts of Babylon’s works! The “plague” will be poured out into the sea of humanity and all religion and all religious systems will be full of death, emptiness, and corruption!

This is not a judgment to kill people, or literal flesh. These are word-pictures of spiritual realities! God is going to bring to death the hybrid manifestation of His Spirit accommodating man’s folly and foolishness. He will withdraw His presence and forever write “ICHABAD” upon the systems of man — “the glory has departed!” Every union bears fruit, and the fruit of Babylon will be destroyed. It is of utmost importance that all of God’s elect see this great truth, for once we grasp it, we understand the severity of the Father’s dealings with the spirit and works of religion in the lives of His people, and we will be neither surprised nor shocked when we see the anointing and moving of His Spirit depart once and for all and completely from the courts of Babylon! The power of Christ comes as a plague to kill each and every “living soul” in the sea until God is not seen moving from any realm anywhere except from the heights of mount Zion and from the high places of the heavens of His Spirit! The move, manifestation, and power of God will flow only from God’s firstfruits company! As it was in Cana of Galilee in that day when Jesus attended the wedding, when the wine made by the hand of man has run out and come to its end, then Jesus Himself will arise and bring to the scene the REAL WINE OF HEAVEN!

I now prophesy to you by the word of the Lord that this is precisely why, in that day, “Many nations shall come, and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Mic. 4:2-3). The nations will come to the mountain (kingdom) of the house (the elect) of the Lord that has been established (elevated) in the tops of the mountains (kingdoms), exalted above all other kingdoms and above all churches and movements of man; they will come, I say, because there will be NO OTHER SOURCE of help or hope or life or light anywhere! The “living souls” will all be dead, there will be no more visitations of God, no more expressions of His life, no more exhibitions of His authority, no more movings of His Spirit, no more manifestations of His power, no more revivals, no more answers to prayer — no life in evidence anywhere in the lowlands of the religious world of man. What an awesome thought! No recourse, no blessing, no remedy from any source — the glory has departed.

“Come up hither” is the message now being heard from Zion’s holy hill! This message of truth and life is a proclamation of a new and greater manifestation of the rule and government of God in the earth. “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end,” the inspired prophet assures us. That increase of the kingdom is from purpose to purpose, from dealing to dealing, from one stage of growth, development, and manifestation to another, and from one age to another. I declare to you today that we are now standing at the end of an age, and the Lord is introducing A GREATER MANIFESTATION OF HIS KINGDOM by separating His elect unto Himself. The old “church order” is fastly drawing to a close, and the day for the manifestation of the sons of God is rapidly approaching. The next step in the unfolding of God’s kingdom plan for the world is even now dawning.

We have progressed from the age when God has been meticulously forming His body of sons by establishing His rule in their minds and hearts, to the age when that body shall begin to fulfill the great and grand purpose for which God has prepared them. We have come to the time when the kingdom shall accelerate into a further and greater manifestation of the rule and dominion of the kingdom over all nations and over all mankind, answering the cry of the groaning creation to be delivered from the bondage of corruption. The Lord is inaugurating a new age, and is setting forth a new order with a new understanding, new wisdom, new methods, new power, and new requirements for this new day of greater light and glory. As wonderful as the workings of the Spirit were in the past, they are not good enough for this new order of manifest sonship! Even though we have made some progress, with outpourings of His Spirit and glorious manifestations of the gifts, we must have something more from God to be able to rule the nations and deliver creation from the bondage of corruption!

Two thousand years ago the firstborn Son of God declared, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John” (Mat. 11:13). God spoke to an age through the law and the prophets who gave the word of God to Israel until John the Baptist came on the scene preaching repentance and the kingdom of God. This means that the prophets and the law revealed God’s will for that age and were in effect until John showed up in the wilderness and began his ministry. The Lord ended the previous age by removing His blessing, presence, and authority from the previous order, and then spoke a new order into existence purely by His word. And by a similar unrecognized word of authority, Father shall conclude this age of the formation of His body of sons and inaugurate the new age of the manifestation of the sons of God on earth. When the Lord changed the order two thousand years ago, did He send a mighty cataclysmic upheaval and judgment to at once eliminate all the Old Covenant priesthood, laws, rituals, sacrifices, feast days, synagogues, and religious forms? Did He move to completely wipe them out and abolish it all from the face of the earth? No — not at all! Remnants of the old Jewish order remain in the earth to this day as an abiding and unimpeachable testimony to the blindness of unanointed, uninspired, unspiritual religion! God removed every vestige and particle of His presence, unction, power, and glory from that passing order and there is no spiritual or religious death more stark, barren, grim, empty, and desolate in any religious system of earth today than in Judaism!

When Father changes the order in this day, replacing the old church order with His manifest sons, kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek, will He then eliminate and obliterate off the face of the earth the Catholic order, the Baptist order, the Methodist order, the Lutheran order, the Episcopalian order, the Presbyterian order, the Mennonite order, the Pentecostal order, the Charismatic order, the Word of Faith order, and all the other church orders of man? Not by any means! They will perish in due time, but first He will simply remove what is left of His blessing, presence, and anointing from that order! It will be just as the heavenly messenger announced to John: “Rejoice over her (Babylon), ye heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down…and the voice of harpers and musicians (spiritual praise and worship), and of pipers (prophets), and trumpeters (announcers of new things in God), SHALL BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and no craftsman (spiritual ministry), of whatever craft he be, SHALL BE FOUND ANY MORE IN THEE; and the sound of a millstone (grinding flour for bread — the word of God) SHALL BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and the light of a candle (the little light left in Babylon) SHALL SHINE NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and the voice of the Bridegroom (Christ the Head) and of the Bride (the true church) SHALL BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE…” (Rev. 18:20-23).

For a season they will continue on with their fellowships, activities, programs, ceremonies, rituals, crusades, and religious works. For a season, until the time appointed of the Father, all will continue to function without Father’s authority or the precious anointing and working of His Spirit. Thank God! There is a remnant, a chosen company, a firstfruit, a people with a purpose, called to be the sons of God, who have now been awakened to this new day and enter into its purposes by the Spirit of God. These have already received the call to come out of the Babylon system, because a new and greater manifestation of the kingdom of God is at hand. This call has come from the SPIRIT HIMSELF, confirmed by many thousands of saints in all parts of the earth, in practically every nation under heaven. It is not a matter of the interpretation of scripture, to prove from holy writ that this is the time for God’s sons to be manifested and for the kingdom of God to come in great power and glory. It is a matter of HEARING FROM GOD! Those who reject this vision reject the voice of the Lord from the heavens.

Now God has called us to “come out of her,” to depart from all our religious backgrounds, to repent of our doctrines, creeds, and beliefs; to repent of our denominationalism and our non-denominational denominationalism; to repent of our carnal religious methods, our dead works, and all the baggage we have brought with us into this kingdom walk, from the systems of man. Only as we repent, and follow the Lamb up Zion’s mount, becoming invested with a new mind, a new vision, and a new reality, can we enter into this new and higher and more glorious dimension of the kingdom of God revealed through sons.

This should aid us greatly in understanding the fact that the next three chapters of the Revelation set forth in detail the fall of Babylon. The whole system of Babylon will collapse and go up in flames! The work of the seven last plagues is designed to prepare God’s people for that collapse. Do you think for one moment, dear one, that if God does not completely remove His blessing from Babylon, the people of God will ever leave her? No way! But every blessing and moving of God in her will die. In that blessed day God will have His man, His corporate man, His new creation man, His man in the image of God, His many-membered son, His man in the measure of the statue of the FULLNESS OF CHRIST, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, full of incorruptible life, full of heavenly light, full of infinite love, and full of divine, omnipotent power — and upon HIM shall the glory be seen!

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be SEEN UPON THEE. And the nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Isa. 60:1-3).

To be continued… J. PRESTON EBY

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