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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
Part
66
THE
THRONE
(continued)
“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the
first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which
said, Come up hither, and I will show
thee things which must be hereafter” (Rev. 4:1).
This beautiful passage has been used by thousands of teachers and
preachers to teach what is called “the pre-tribulation rapture.”
They say John was a type here of the church being caught up off the earth
into heaven just prior to the wrath of God falling upon the world in the fury of
the Great Tribulation. But it says
no such thing! Many believers and
teachers have anticipated most enthusiastically that at this point when “a
door was opened in heaven” the “rapture” of the church would take
place. Of course you can see that
since most of them believe that heaven is a limited and physical “place” out
in the blue somewhere, the only way one could get there would be by being
spatially transported. Oh, what
shame! What deliriums!
Men, poor deluded and blind children who know precious little of the
Christ life and spiritual realities parade themselves as angels of light and
their carnal imaginings as revelation direct from God!
“Come up hither” is not a geographical term.
It doesn’t mean go up, it
means grow up!
Years ago I picked up a tabloid-size newspaper with these alarming
headlines:
MILLIONS MISSING AROUND THE WORLD
MASS KIDNAPPING
STOCK MARKET FACES CRASH
The articles in this paper sensationally described scenes of terror,
fear, and anguish around the planet — planes crashing because the pilots
disappeared, trains derailing when the conductors suddenly vanished, massive
pileups on the highways as automobile drivers vanished into thin air, killer
earthquakes, volcanoes erupting world-wide, tidal waves sweeping the continental
coasts, mobs of looters roaming the city streets, thousands of persons dying of
heart attacks triggered by stark fear, and on and on.
My response to this was something between a hearty laugh and disgust.
This paper was merely a carnal-minded attempt to dramatize what millions
of Christians have been led to believe will happen when Christ returns — the
sudden, unannounced event that will cause the immediate disappearance of
millions of believers from every city, town, countryside, and hamlet throughout
the world. Some people publicize
this theory with bumper stickers like the one that warns: IF
DRIVER DISAPPEARS, GRAB THE WHEEL.
The “any minute rapture” is preached today by many popular preachers
and is called the believer’s “Blessed Hope.”
It has been the subject of more gospel songs and hymns than anyone could
number. Yet, there is no scripture
in the whole Bible that plainly supports such a doctrine!
It can be “read in” to the text in a couple places, but even then
there are obvious problems with such an interpretation.
Furthermore, they tell you that chapter four on through the book of
Revelation is irrelevant to you, because you’re not even going to be here!
The question follows: Then why study it?
If you’re not going to be here — don’t worry about it!
The marvelous reality of it is that the journey from the Holy Place into
the Most Holy Place, and from the feast of
Pentecost to the feast of Tabernacles, is not a matter of chronology of
time or distance, but a chronology of experience!
One does not get from the feast of Pentecost to the feast of Tabernacles
by a date on the calendar or by a trip through space — you get there by an experience
in God. Tabernacles follows
Pentecost just as Pentecost follows Passover.
The Most Holy Place follows the Holy Place just as the Holy Place follows
the Outer Court — not by waiting for a particular day, or by being raptured to
a planet called heaven. It is not a
sequence of times or locations,
but a sequence of growth, experience,
life, and reality! God’s
called and chosen elect is beginning to move into a new dimension in God, the
veil is being drawn back and we are seeing that there is another whole realm of
reality that we never knew about in the church systems.
There is a whole other feast, an entirely other dimension of being
in God, another vast realm of glory that we have never entered into!
Pentecost is wonderful! I
have loved its power and its praise, its gifts and its graces, its life and its
glory! If the firstfruits of the
Spirit, the down payment of God’s glory in the Candlestick realm, has been so
glorious, the redemption of the fully purchased possession must be beyond
anything we can even imagine! Pentecost
has not delivered creation from the bondage of corruption, therefore creation
still waits and groans and travails for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Only the fully manifest sonship ministry can save this old world,
demolish the systems of man, establish the rule of the Spirit, and deliver
creation from the bondage of sin, sorrow, sickness, fear, torment, hatred,
tyranny and death! Ah, my brother,
my sister, we have only seen the edges of God’s ways, the borders of His mind,
and the fringes of His power, until the fullness of His great redemption is
raised up within us!
If you are looking at outward things, the things you can see with your
natural eyes, you are missing the point of meaning in the scriptures.
When Paul spoke of our being “caught up in the air” he was not
looking at the physical bodies of old Adam which are only temporal and return to
the dust from whence they came, for the first man is
of the earth, earthy. Should
someone object that only a physical body could be caught up in the air, I would
ask if Jesus was speaking literally and physically when He said, “Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
His blood, ye have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53).
Jesus wasn’t teaching cannibalism there, my friend, for the spiritual
mind discerns that He was speaking of spiritual
realities! His flesh is His Word,
for the Word was made flesh!
His blood is His eternal, divine life,
for the life of the flesh is in the
blood! Jesus was speaking
spiritually, and Paul was likewise speaking spiritually!
Paul was looking at the inner man, the new creation, the heavenly body,
the offspring of the flesh and blood of the Son of God, which is the real
person, and which bears the image of the heavenly.
It is this man that is
“caught up” into a new place in the Spirit!
I
have no desire to take away your “blessed hope,” but would point you to a blessed
reality for the here and now! As
Christ in this hour comes to us in and by the Spirit to lift our inner-man
nature up into the fullness of union in
Him, we certainly do experience a rapture — believe me!
While the word “rapture” is not to be found in scripture, there are
other words and expressions that bear the same or similar meaning.
Paul told the Ephesians, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great
love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us
together with Christ, and hath raised us
up together… in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6).
This passage says that God H-A-S RAISED
US UP TOGETHER WITH CHRIST. Paul
told the Thessalonians that the saints would be “caught
up together” to meet the Lord in the air (I Thes. 4:16-17).
It should not be difficult for any spiritual mind to see that in both
cases the apostle is speaking of the same blessed experience!
In both cases we are elevated to a higher plane in Christ, and with Him.
There is a glorious company of these “caught up” ones!
It is a wonderful place of rest, glory, revelation, wisdom, and power far
above the beggarly elements of this world.
Reba McMurry told of the little boy swimming in the pool who said to
another, “Come on in, the water’s fine.”
So I say to you who are dwelling in the earthlies, in the low lands of
carnal mindedness, tossed by the storms of life, beset by problems, trials,
difficulties, hindered by the flesh and the world, manipulated and controlled by
the carnal religious systems of man, “Come on up higher — there is a
wonderful realm above of peace, joy, victory, blessedness, power, and the mind
of Christ!”
The
preachers love to proclaim that Jesus is coming to “rapture the saints to
heaven” or to “catch His waiting bride away.”
But the word of God never says that!
When the Bible speaks of being “caught up” or invites us to “come
up hither” it is not speaking in terms of miles or light-years away.
Let us consider the experience of the apostle Paul’s friend (this was not
Paul Himself, as many erroneously assert!).
Paul relates it this way. “It
is not expediate for me doubtless to glory.
I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I knew a man in Christ above
fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the
body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one CAUGHT UP TO THE THIRD HEAVEN.
And I knew such a man,
(whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that
he was CAUGHT UP INTO PARADISE, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not
lawful for a man to utter. Of such
an one will I glory: yet of myself I
will not glory, but in mine infirmities” (II Cor. 12:1-5).
Where
did this friend of Paul’s go? Physically,
his body went nowhere! This was a spiritual
experience! But he was
“caught up” to the third heaven. And
when he was caught up into God’s glory, he was actually right here on the
earth. He never left the ground for
a minute! And thus it is in this
hour for all of God’s elect people! So
completely overwhelmed was he, so utterly were his faculties under the control
of the Holy Spirit, that he was not sure whether he was “in the body, or apart
from the body.” God carried him
into that realm of life known as paradise, the third heaven.
Heaven is not a location! Heaven
is a realm of Spirit in which we touch, experience, and know God.
The first heaven corresponds to the Outer Court of the Tabernacle and
brings us to the brazen altar where Christ the Lamb is slain for us, giving to
us His life. This is our initial
“salvation” experience where we know the joy of sins forgiven and
reconciliation to God. There is
also the laver, representing the washing of the water of the word, or the word
of God that begins to cleanse our walk upon earth.
The second heaven corresponds to the second realm of the Tabernacle, the
Holy Place, wherein dwells the candlestick, the table of showbread, and the
golden altar of incense. We enter
the door of this dimension through the baptism in the Holy Spirit which ushers
us into this second supernatural heaven in Christ where the Holy Spirit fills us
and becomes the light of our life, as the oil fills the candlestick and gives
light to the Holy Place. Here we
begin to be illuminated by the Spirit, as the Spirit reveals Christ to us and we
become aware of heavenly and spiritual realities.
It is there we truly partake of the bread of God, and the word begins to
be made flesh within us. Then we
are able to offer up the incense of spiritual prayer, praise, and worship unto
God!
The
man of whom Paul wrote had already ascended spiritually into the first two
heavens in regeneration and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
But now “in spirit” the Lord carried him for a brief moment into that
realm of life, that dimension of glory, that third heaven of HIS FULLNESS,
typified by the Shekinah Glory of
God beyond the veil in the Holiest of all.
For this man it was but for a moment, yet this third heaven of God’s
fullness is the inheritance of every manifest son of God!
Moffatt’s translation says, “In the body or out of the body?
I do not know. I simply know
that in the body or out of the body (God knows which) this man was caught up
into paradise and heard sacred secrets
which no human lips can repeat.”
The glory, majesty, and power of the third heaven cannot be described by
human lips! You cannot explain the
glory of manifest sonship to sinful ears or to religious ears!
It is not given to them to understand the mysteries of this kingdom!
The third heaven must be experienced,
for it cannot be told!
In this marvelous experience it was not important for this man to
know whether or not his body was caught up into that higher realm.
He knew he was there! The
real man, the inner man, the new man, the new creation, the Christ man, the
spiritual body was there! He had
entered into the realm of full sonship, the throne realm, the incorruptible,
immortal, omniscient, omnipotent sphere of kingdom dominion!
And he knew that in God’s due time he would have an abundant and
permanent entrance into that realm of glory, by the resurrection power of Christ
within, CAUGHT UP. In the Outer
Court we die with Christ at the
brazen altar. In the Holy Place we
are quickened together with Christ by
the indwelling of His life. In the
Holiest of all we ascend, are caught up
with Him into all His glorious fullness and eternal reality!
When the eagle-eyed seer of Patmos, being in the Spirit, looked aloft
into the heavens, he saw a throne.
There is a throne whose dominion reaches from Adam in Paradise down to
“the last man,” whoever he may be. The
natural man, in his blindness, looks, but he sees no throne; and therefore he
cries, “I will live as I please, for there is no one to call me to account.”
But John, with illumined eye, saw beyond the outer world, and distinctly
saw a throne and One who sat upon it. When
our eye looks through the glass of revelation, it sees a throne too.
The higher we go in God, the more powerful that throne!
We feel more and more the influence of that throne and its dominion in
our lives. It is the throne of God,
the dominion of God by the might of His Spirit within and by the power of the
mind of Christ. There is a throne
whereon sitteth the King eternal, immortal, invisible; that throne is everywhere
by the dominion of God in Christ, and it is experienced in our hearts where
dwelleth the King.
“Come up Hither!” That
is the cry in my heart for God’s elect in this hour.
It is the cry of the Father’s heart for the people He loves.
If only we can glimpse the wonder of what John experienced when those
immortal words fell upon his ears! “I
want to show you something, John — something special.”
John beheld with wonder the majesty of the throne of the God of the
universe and in that blessed moment he was invited to enter and sit down in the
throne room. He was ushered into
celestial scenes of divine life, authority, power, and dominion.
Today, my beloved, I hear the Lord saying to His chosen, “Come — I am
calling you up into the secret place of my presence, into the unknown citadels
of my splendor; and when I have finished with you it will be on earth as it is
in heaven. I am taking you on a
journey into my glory, I am showing you things new and transcendental, I am
raising you up into a dimension of union in me you’ve never known before; I am
drawing you into the intimacy of the Father in the Son that John beheld, and I
am meeting with you in the counsel of my eternal purpose.”
Your mind and heart will be tremendously illuminated once you clearly see
that the call to “Come up hither” is the call to leave the candlestick realm
and ascend to the throne realm! A
tremendous revelation was given to John on Patmos.
He was shown in holy vision the seven candlesticks “which are the seven
churches” (Rev. 1:20). The seven
churches represent THE WHOLE CHURCH REALM THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CHURCH AGE.
If you want to know what the church is like, look at the seven
candlesticks! There you have the
divinely inspired portrait of the church realm painted by the brush strokes of
the Holy Spirit of revelation. Can
any deny that they were imperfect, carnal, childish, idolatrous, heretical,
rebuked again and again by the Lord — a realm of mixture and duality?
The Lord commends and praises them on the one hand, while warning and
rebuking them on the other hand. Some
of the saints are praised for their works of faith and love, whereas others are
warned of impending judgment if they fail to repent, and some are even
threatened with extinction.
These seven churches reveal the true state and condition of the whole
church throughout the age, and both history and personal experience testify
unerringly that John was shown aright! The
early church was a church of mixture and duality — flesh and spirit, truth and
error, law and grace, spirituality and carnality.
Even a casual perusal of the New Testament reveals this!
And from that day to this, make no mistake about it — ALL CHURCHES HAVE
BEEN THE SAME! Yours is no
different, preacher friend of mine, no matter what lofty name you put to it.
ALL churches are the same today! The
church in El Paso is a carnal church. There
are many denominations and groups here, but there is only one
church in El Paso. It is
composed of every believer in this city that trusts Jesus as Saviour and
confesses the name of Christ. But
whereas one says, “We are of Luther,” and another says, “We are
Baptists,” and another says, “We are Pentecostal,” while yet another says,
“We are of Christ,” are they not carnal and walk as men?
There are indeed some spiritual people and some spiritually minded groups
of saints in the church in El Paso, but the church in El Paso is
a carnal church! And should the
church age continue on for another thousand years the church would not have
changed — the revelation of the seven candlesticks immutably declares it!
The seven candlesticks are
the seven churches, and the seven churches are
the whole church throughout the entire church age!
As soon as this point is made abundantly plain John heard the voice
saying, “Come up hither and I will
show you things that must be hereafter.”
After what?
Why, bless your heart, after the
candlestick realm! We’re not
dealing here with years or ages of time, but with realms of spiritual
experience. The promises had
already been given, not to the churches themselves, but to “him that
overcometh” — a company out of the church.
“Come up hither” the voice commanded. John is now shown another realm
HIGHER THAN THE CANDLESTICK REALM! It
is the realm of the overcomer, and only the overcomer is promised a place in the
throne! It is the realm of the
throne, of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders.
John is invited to leave the candlestick realm to ASCEND IN THE SPIRIT TO
THIS HIGHER REALM where the Lamb is in the throne.
This is what the brethren don’t want to do!
They don’t want a change of order.
How they cling to the candlestick realm with its five-fold ministry, its
man-made systems, its carnal promotions and methods, its old order structure,
its rituals, ceremonies, and ordinances, its weakness, limitation, mixture, and
duality. This revelation was given
to John about the year A.D. 96. The
churches of his generation refused to leave the candlestick realm and rise to a
higher place in God, and within only a few years the great apostasy set in, and
by the third and fourth centuries the apostasy was complete, followed by an
awful night of great and dreadful darkness.
Even secular history refers to that time as “The Dark Ages.”
It was the great “falling away” that Paul prophesied in which the man
of sin was revealed in the church, the temple of God, sitting in that temple
ruling as God over the nations! I
have traveled to the sites of the seven churches in Asia and I can tell you that
today there is nothing there — not one church exists, not one saint can be
found. The seven churches were in
Asia which is the modern nation of Turkey.
Within the whole country of Turkey there are only perhaps 1,000 Christian
believers — all the rest are Moslem. There
are no churches to be seen anywhere except as museums!
Today, my beloved, all who are truly overcomers, pressing into sonship, caught up to the throne, have heard and heeded the call to “Come up hither” and have forsaken the carnality, foolishness, and limitation of the candlestick realm to become related to Christ IN THAT PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WHERE HIS LORDSHIP SWALLOWS UP OUR LIVES, WHERE HE IS ALL IN ALL, WHERE HIS SPIRIT, MIND, AND LIFE REPLACE THE OUTWARD STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH SYSTEM. But do not forget, the Lord is still out there in the candlestick realm, for John saw in the midst of the candlesticks “One like unto a Son of man.” As long as there are candlesticks this glorious One will be in their midst! Oh yes, He is there, ministering on that level, blessing by His grace, dealing in His mercy, saving, healing, and helping. I have seen Him there in the midst of all the flesh, error and delusion, in fact I first met Him there in the little light that remains in Babylon. I’m sure most who read these lines also met Christ in the candlestick realm. Yes, He is there alright, sometimes even manifesting in marvelous moves of His Spirit and rich outpourings of His grace. What love! What wondrous love! What condescension! That Christ Jesus the Lord would “stand in the midst” of all the foolishness of creeds and doctrines, of rituals and ceremonies, of programs and promotions, of formality, fanaticism, and sectarianism, to minister something of life on whatever level it can be received in spite of all.
I would be remiss if I failed to warn every saint of God that He is NOT THERE taking men on to perfection, into incorruptible life, into the fullness of sonship. The “up hither” realm is where that experience is known! If any man can show me any church order, any revival, any move of God, including the early church and the original apostles and prophets, that has ever carried God’s people on to perfection and into the fullness of God I will recant and gladly join it. If such a church cannot be produced, then John’s revelation of the candlestick realm remains valid and I have no obligation to join myself to that which is impotent to bring me into the depths of Jesus Christ and to the glory of the throne. Hear me now! I am not opposed to gatherings, meetings, corporate praise, worship and ministry! But we must know that all we have done in those realms is still “in part” and not to be esteemed as the vehicle to carry us into manifest sonship in the fullness of God.
As I have been led by the
Spirit and taught by the Spirit it has become clear to me that the “open
door” in heaven and the command to “Come up hither” separates between the
candlestick realm in the earthlies, which are the seven churches, which is the
entire church age economy — and the higher realm of His fullness, the throne
realm! I say to you today as the
trumpet-voice said to John in that long ago, “Come up hither!”
We have stood on the sidelines and said, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and
save us from this old world.” And
He has sat on His throne and said, “Come my people; enter into my gates,
ascend into the heavens of my Spirit.” Nearly
all Christians have said, “Come get us Lord Jesus,” but we who have heard
His voice have been instructed, “Come up hither, my people; come up into the
realm of my Spirit, into the glory of my presence, into the power and authority
of my throne!” THE DOOR IS OPEN
IN HEAVEN TODAY. You may live in
the candlestick or the throne. You
may be an earth-dweller or a heaven-dweller.
You may be a “Christian” or you may be a
SON!
As we ascend in the Spirit to reign with Christ in His throne it
indicates a departure from the candlestick in the Holy Place, to follow our
glorious and exalted forerunner beyond the veil into the throne room of the
Holiest of all. It means entrance
into a greater and deeper and higher relationship with Christ the Lord.
The throne of this realm is the mercy
seat — the throne of mercy! Thank
God, the throne of the universe is the throne of mercy!
All men may boldly approach the throne of grace.
The understanding of this is very simple.
If I were to say to any brother in a gathering, “Brother so-and-so,
take us to the throne of grace,” in and by the Spirit the brother could take
each and every one of us to the throne and we would never have to leave our
seats. When Jesus says, “Come
unto me,” He is not speaking geographically.
He is speaking experientially!
The journey to Christ and into Christ is not outward or physical, it is
inward and spiritual. Sometimes an
evangelist will say, “Twenty-five people came to Christ last night.”
Does he mean twenty-five people were “raptured”?
Does he mean twenty-five people were transported to Galilee and found
Jesus walking the shores of the blue sea, and joined themselves unto Him there?
Of course not! Chances are
they did not move one inch physically. To
say that “Come up hither” indicates a physical rapture reveals the innate
stupidity of the natural mind which discerns not the things of the Spirit.
Christ is Spirit, Christ is omnipresent Spirit, one does not change his
physical location to ascend into His glory!
I
would draw your reverent attention to the sequence of events outlined by the
Holy Spirit in the last three verses of chapter three of the Revelation and the
first three verses of chapter four. In
the original there is no chapter division here, but there is continuity of
thought and a flow of revelation. At
the conclusion of the messages to the churches the Lord says, “Behold, I stand
at the door and knock.”
The same logic that invents the “rapture” would visualize Jesus
standing at the wooden door of a church building on Main Street knocking to gain
admittance. But Jesus has knocked
on the door of the candlestick realm!
Notice that Jesus does not call this “a door” or “your door”
or identify it as any particular door. He
calls it THE DOOR.
It is one specific door the identity of which is taken for granted.
It is abundantly clear that the door He knocks upon is the
door that separates between the candlestick realm and the throne room!
This door is the same as the veil that separates the Holy Place from the
Most Holy Place!
He
has told us our need, He has told us there is another dimension in God beyond
Passover and Pentecost, beyond the Outer Court and the Holy Place, He has told
us there is something beyond the candlestick realm, and now, if you will hear my
voice, and open the door, not only
will I come into you, and sup with you and you with me, but there within
yourself I will lead you up to heights never known by man!
As you sup with me and overcome with me I will grant you to sit with me
in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His
throne. Both of these propositions
are spoken in two verses in Revelation 3:20-21.
First the Lord says He stands knocking at the
door. He follows this with the
promise of raising us up to His throne as we overcome all things.
Then only two verses later John says, “After this I looked, and,
behold, a door stood open in heaven.”
And through that door he saw the throne!
Do you not see the mystery? Is
it not clear that the “door” that was opened in heaven was the very same
“door” that Jesus knocked upon? It
is the gateway between the two realms, the gateway between the candlestick realm
and the throne!
First
Christ comes out of the heavens of His glory to enter into our lives by His
Spirit. He descends
through the door.
For Him to come into us and sup with us we
must open the door. Thank God,
some of us have opened the door!
Christ came to us to feed us His truth and life and He has fed us
wonderful spiritual food that the candlestick realm knows nothing of!
What a table He has spread as He has taught us of Himself, of His word,
His ways, and His will. Oh, what a
grand and glorious table the Lord has spread for us in this feast of
Tabernacles! How our hearts have
thrilled as He has revealed the mysteries of the kingdom, the path to
perfection, the power to overcome, transformation into His image, the putting on
of His mind and nature, the hope of full and complete redemption, spirit, soul,
and body! How we have been
illuminated, strengthened, and quickened by this heavenly meal! In the holy
intimacy of this supping together He has brought us to a fuller and more
complete knowing and experiencing of HIMSELF!
What a feast it has been! And
because we have opened the door…the
door is still standing open in
heaven! Oh, the wonder of it!
Christ came through the door to sup with us, and now He arises from the
meal, He bids us go through the
door and enter with Him into His throne!
It is indeed wonderful!
The
voice as of a trumpet was not the
voice of a naked cherub floating on a cloud, it was the voice of the Son of God
out of a heavenly realm, the prophetic
voice heard within the midst of the Lord’s anointed.
This prophetic voice is always saying to the Lord’s people, “Come on
up, come up higher, I want you to ascend from glory to glory, from victory to
victory, from experience to experience, from realm to realm, from reality to
reality.” As I was writing this
message brother Paul Mueller’s paper arrived in the mail in which he shares
this inspiring thought: “‘Rise
up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of
the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and
the vine with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and
come away’ (Song of Solomon 2:10-13).
This anointed word may be premature as to Father’s time and purpose,
but we believe the time of its fulfillment is fast approaching.
Who knows but what the new morning may break before us in great Glory and
Life within just a few short years! Our
WAITING PERIOD may soon be over! The
time of the blooming of the flowers of spring and the singing of the summer song
birds may very well be at hand! Are
we beginning to hear the voice of the turtle?
Is the fig tree yet putting forth her green figs?
Are not the vines with their tender grapes giving forth a good smell,
even the fragrance of fresh new growth? Ah,
the time when our Father will say to us, ‘Arise,
my love, my fair one, and come away,’ may soon be here!
And where will we go when He speaks that Word of authority and power,
calling upon us to ‘arise’?
Not to any place of earth, of course, but to the heavenly, spiritual
Zion, the dwelling place of God, in the Spirit!
And when we mature spiritually, the Lord will then build up Zion,
clothing us with all those precious new garments of the Life and Glory of
Christ! Blessed be His great
name!”
Even
as you read these lines, precious elect child of God, there is a descending of
the Lord into your life. He is
descending out from your spirit into your soul, and out of your soul into your
body. That is how the redemption
works! The mighty work of God
begins in our spirit, then moves into the outer realms of our lives.
There is a coming forth of the Lord out of the heavens of your spiritual
life in Christ. As I have stressed,
the heavens are not a geographical location, but a dimension of Spirit.
When the trumpet sounds in your spiritual ear, and understanding pours
into you by the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God, there is a descending
of the Lord into the lowest realms of your life and an ascending
of your being into Him! Every
trumpet that sounds will lift you up to a higher place, you will be “caught
up” by each trumpet that blows its message of revelation into your reality.
At last, when the last trump
sounds within you, you will be caught up into the fullness of God and you will
be totally changed in spirit, soul, and body!
It is at the sound of the seventh
trumpet, which is also the last trump,
that the manchild is caught up to the throne of God to rule all nations with a
rod of iron (Rev. 11:15 — 12:6). At
the last trump there are also seven vials of blood poured out into the earth,
and these are the revelation of the full redemptive power of the blood of Christ
to bring the complete change in the land of our being in Christ.
It is there that the carnal mind, the Adamic nature, the flesh, the seat
of the beast, all that flows in that realm, with all the powers that generate
the fleshly emotions, desires, and propensities of the natural man are forever
swept away and brought to naught. THANK
GOD FOR THE VIALS THAT BRING JUDGMENT UPON ALL THAT IS EARTHY WITHIN US!
A
writer from the 1800’s described conditions in Switzerland in his time thus:
“In the valleys in Switzerland many of the inhabitants are deformed and
dwarfish, and the whole of them wear a sickly appearance, for the atmosphere is
charged with miasma, and is close to stagnant; you traverse them as rapidly as
you can, and are glad to escape from them.
Up yonder on the mountain you will find a hardy race, who breathe the
clear fresh air as it blows from the virgin snows of the Alpine summits.
It would be well for their frames if the dwellers in the valleys could
frequently leave their abodes among the marshes and the fever mists, and get
themselves up into the clear atmosphere above.”
It
is to such an exploit of climbing that I invite you today!
May the Spirit of God bear on eagle’s wings all who read these lines,
that we may leave the mists of religion and the fevers of the flesh, and all the
ills of sin and death which beset us in this miasmic valley of earth, the realm
of the carnal mind, and get ourselves up to the mountain of the house of the
Lord, the kingdom authority in the realm of the Spirit, where it is the delight
of all sons of God to dwell in the rare atmosphere of truth and life and light!
Oh, yes! God is
disentangling us, cutting the cords that have kept us here below and permitting
us to mount! We sit, some who
cherish the hope of sonship, like chained eagles fastened to a rock, except
that, unlike the eagle, we begin to love our chain, and would, perhaps, be
loathe to have it snapped. Yet God
is granting grace to all who have received the call to the kingdom to leave all
the old orders of the religious systems and all the weakness, limitation, and
bondage of an earth-centered life at
the foot of the hill, so that our spirit may, like Abraham and Moses and Jesus,
go to the top of the mountain and there speak with God and be transfigured in
His glory.
His
voice bids us come! “Come
up hither!” And our heart
responds with an earnest, Yes, Lord, we desire to ascend, to be with Thee, where
Thou art.” Come!
The Spirit saith it in invitation, yea, in command.
Come up from the lowlands of the flesh, come up from the monotony of
religion, come up from the emptiness of tradition, come up from the foolishness
of the carnal mind, come up from the glitter of the world,
come up from the curse of sin, sorrow, and death, come up from your
graves, ye risen ones! Come up from
the orders of man, ye consecrated ones! Come
up to wear my crown, to sit with me upon my throne!
Oh, that word has omnipotence lurking within it.
That is where God is calling every person whose ears hear the cry, “Come
up hither!” It shall be to
you your everlasting joy to arise and “come.”
I tell you that my soul has sometimes been so full of glory that I could
hold no more when my beloved Lord has said, “Come,” to my soul; for He has
taken me into His banqueting house, and His love-banner He waved over my head,
and He has drawn me away from the doubts and fears and frustrations of mortal
existence, up to “the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon” where
He manifests Himself to me.
Ah,
dear one, truly He declares to you that when this “Come up higher” shall
captivate your ear and ravish your soul, there shall not be the flesh to drag
you back, there shall be no sluggishness of spirit, no hesitation of will —
you shall hasten to climb the mount of God and enter through the door into the
throne room — you shall not mount to descend again, but mount on and on in one
blessed ascension forevermore! “Come
up hither!”
At
this point I am compelled to share the following words from brother Carl Schwing.
“I do not write to exalt us, the Father will do that in His perfect
timing. I write to exhort us to
lose ourselves in the depths of Jesus Christ.
To encourage us to love and honor our aloneness with Him.
To cherish our birthright and to always give all glory to the Father.
To walk with our hearts and our heads up- lifted…following only and
always our Beloved Christ. To
gather often in His presence, thus partaking of fellowship with Him and with one
another. OUR FELLOWSHIP IS WITH AND
IN THE FATHER! Spirit fellowships
with spirit, deep with deep. In the
body, out of the body, in the light or in the darkness, in life or in death, we
are one in Him. Hallelujah!
“Let
us walk where others fear to walk. Let
us live in the realm above the reach of mortal men.
The Father bids us come up higher. Let
us not tarry. He calls us to
familiar grounds; to the house where only Sons can dwell.
To a converse which only Sons can share.
To a song that only Sons can sing, and to a place where only Sons can
sit. We need not speak, we rest
upon the bosom of the Father. We
need not search, we ride upon the breath of God into the hollow of His heart.
We draw life from the Source of all life.
We shout as only Sons can do. And
the heavens tremble at the beauty of our presence!
All creation is quickened by the words we speak.
And in the light of that glorious moment of manifestation, the Father
will proclaim: ‘These are my Beloved Sons, hear ye them!’
With each sunrise the eyes and ears of our spirits are opened a little
bit more…that we might see the unseen and hear the inaudible.
Each sunset we walk deeper into the rising mist of His presence.
And in the silence of the night hours we often hear His voice or feel His
touch. We awake knowing that we are
a little closer to home.
“Everything
else becomes meaningless and lifeless in the beauty of His presence.
The words that He speaks are pure and life-giving; unspotted by the idle
chatter of religious reasoning. Each
word He speaks is a drop of life to
our hungry souls. He calls us
‘sons’… ‘all that I have is thine,’ are the words that He speaks to
us. We are overwhelmed by such love
and goodness, we fall before Him in adoration, only to be lifted higher into the
excelling glory that the Father has prepared for us.
We are realizing that there is nothing left of us, we are reaching the
point where we are lost in Him. We
are entering into union with God! The
doors of eternity are opening to us and we are seeing and knowing even as the
Father. Finally we shall love with
His love, imparting grace and life to all that are brought before us.
It will be the hour when the hope and longing of all creation is
fulfilled…it will be the hour of their freedom from the curse.
And it all began when He led us to the straight and narrow way”
— end quote.
Well
did Paul Mueller write: “Many years ago the Lord got my attention through
visions and other experiences with Him. One
vision, in particular, was an urgent call to ascend the high places in God.
In that vision, I saw a large mountain.
It was the mount of the Lord’s presence.
Many people were climbing that mountain, higher and upward toward the
pinnacle of His presence. But few
were reaching the heights. In that
vision, the mount of His presence was like the literal mountains.
The higher one goes, the fewer trees there are.
And the higher we go in God, the fewer believers there are at that level.
As I watched the people climb that mountain, they appeared on the
spiritual level where they were when they died.
Some of the people climbing that mountain of the Lord’s presence were
loved ones and friends. One among
them was a man whom I considered a man of God, a man I had known quite well.
By the Spirit, I was taken up that mountain but close to the people who
were on various levels ascending that mountain.
As I passed by some friends and loved ones, they all cried out to me, ‘Go
higher! Don’t stop now, but keep
going higher and higher.’ That
vision made a profound impact on my life. I
shall never forget it! By His grace
and His Spirit, I intend to keep climbing higher and higher in God!
“Those
who have lived and died in Christ are now in a realm where they can see
and understand more clearly.
The true reality is in the realm of the Spirit, and they know it well
now. They know what it means to
walk with God toward perfection, and they appreciate it more now than when they
were in this earthly realm. If the
Lord would give us ears to hear the cries of those who have gone on before us,
we would hear them crying unceasingly for us to ascend the very heights of the
mount of the Lord. I heard them
briefly. And the tone of their
voices persuaded me to believe that our spiritual growth will also mean
something significant and wonderful for them.
Their call to keep going higher was almost a cry of desperation, but was
one of hope as well. Without us
they cannot be made perfect (Heb. 11:40). Therefore,
the remnant of this hour must ascend in the Spirit to the heights of the mount
of the Lord, where we shall be changed. And
we shall also release many who died in Christ from their limited, static
positions where they rest on the mount of the Lord.
“As
we ascend the heights of the mount of the Lord, we will find that it is a lonely
walk. To take a step higher in God
may mean forsaking old friends and loved ones.
When Moses made his seventh and last ascent up mount Sinai, the Lord said
to him, ‘And be ready in the morning,
and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me IN
THE TOP OF THE MOUNT. And no man
shall come up with thee…’ (Ex. 34:2-3).
Like Moses, some are invited of the Lord to ascend the mount of His
presence and meet Him there. Half
way up the mount will not do! Those
who shall partake of His life and the fullness of His kingdom must go all the
way up. God said to Moses, ‘present
thyself there to me IN THE TOP OF THE MOUNT.’
The top of the mount was Moses’ goal, and it is ours as well.
And it is impossible for us to take anyone else with us.
We must go alone! Spiritual
progress is not based on fellowship with people, but on fellowship with God!
A few others will also go alone to meet the Lord in the top of the mount,
so that a remnant — all the remnant — shall ascend the mount to present
themselves to Him in the top of the mount.
No one member of that remnant company shall be missing, for the Lord will
lead them all there by His Spirit”
— end quote.
Scattered
among earth’s billions is a special species of people.
They are in the world but not of it.
These have known from the beginning that they were different.
They have gone through the motions, tried to be a good Christian, held
every office in the church and tried to live the way they were told.
But in the midst of all the effort to belong, there has always been
something that kept this people from blending in with the majority.
There has been an emptiness and a knowing deep inside that this was not
the reason they were here. There
has always been something that separated them from all the external forms of
religion they have passed through. This,
precious friend of mine, is the day of RECOGNITION!
This is your day of knowing
and understanding where you came from and where you have been in order to arrive
where you are right now, and where you are going.
Something deep within has cried out, “I didn’t come into this world
just to get saved from hell.” Deep
has called unto deep and you knew you were born for a purpose.
You knew that you were here by divine appointment.
You knew there was something greater, more glorious, and transcendental
in God. You knew you were born to
unveil God’s great plan, will, purpose, wisdom, nature, power, and glory in
the earth!
You
came into this world out of the bosom of the Father!
Before the Creator formed you, He knew you.
He didn’t know you in your present physical form as Joe Smith or Sally
Brown, but He knew you as spirit.
God spoke to you about His plan for your life before ever you were formed
as an embryo in the womb of your mother. Paul
states it so clearly when he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ: according as He hath chosen
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before Him in love” (Eph. 1:3-4).
The Amplified Bible reads, “Even as He chose us (actually picked us out
for Himself as His own) in Christ before the foundation of the world.”
Never
doubt this reality for a moment — the only way God could have loved you, chose
you in Christ, and picked you out for His own
before the foundation of the world is that you truly existed in and with Him
before the appearing of the worlds. Nothing
can be plainer than that! Yet we
have supposed that we were just recently, in this life, apprehended of God to
sonship. I thought the work of God
began in my life sixty-five years ago. Now
I find that the thing God is doing with humanity began in eternity!
It didn’t begin in time. It
began before the ages were framed! God
loved me, chose me, knew me, counseled with me, and picked me out for His unique
purpose before the foundation of the world.
My origin was in God! God
begat me out of Himself as spirit
before He exhaled me as spirit into a
very unique body upon earth.
The
“kingdom message” deals with the conformity, maturity, and inheritance of
the sons of God — those called to share His throne and reign with Him over all
things. This great plan was
conceived and initiated in eternity, before time began.
“For whom He did foreknow,
He also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the
firstborn among many brethren. Moreover
whom He did predestinate, them He also
called: and whom He called, them He also justified:
and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:28-31).
Now notice! These five verbs
— foreknow, predestinate, called, justified, glorified — are all in the
aorist tense. This denotes action
at a given point in the past.
All these things happened to us “before” the ages began!
Some have stumbled over the fact that Paul says that those whom the
Father foreknew, predestinated, called, and justified, He also GLORIFIED.
They have questioned the meaning of “glorification,” wondering how
they could already be glorified in their present imperfect, mortal state.
Let us understand — ALL of this is in
the past! God foreknew us in
the past — before the world began. This
is also when He predestinated us, called us, justified us, and glorified us.
Jesus, the firstborn of this company of sons selected before the world
began, reveals the deep mystery of this when He prays, “And now, O Father, glorify
Thou me with Thine own self with the glory
which I had with Thee before the world was” (Jn. 17:5).
Oh, yes! Jesus was
glorified, had a glory, with the Father before the world began.
He left that glory when He was lowered into this earth realm, and now He
prays for the Father to restore to Him that glory He had with Him before He
came! And that is when every son of
God was glorified!
It is not something happening now, though it shall be manifested now, but
it was given us in Christ in that long ago before the world began.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
Aren’t you glad!
Clarity
is coming to the sons of God. Understanding,
perception, consciousness, expression, purpose, destiny.
God is awakening all of this in us!
We are called with an holy calling, called to ascend the mount of God, to
ascend to the throne zone! He is
awakening within us that reality we knew with the Father from before the
foundation of the world. You are
here by divine appointment! All
your steps are ordered of the Lord. The
body you were born with, the family you were born into, your parents, the town
you were raised in, the school you attended, the friends you acquired, the mate
you chose, the job you held, the life you’ve lived, the experiences you’ve
had, the joys and sorrows, the tragedies and triumphs, the apparent mistakes and
the victories, all that has taken place in your experience was mapped out in the
council of God on that glorious day when the morning stars sang together and all
the sons of God shouted for joy!
As
we ascend into the heavens of God’s Spirit to sit with Him in His throne we
discover the truth of these words:
The throne room looks the same
As I ascend back to whence I came;
There’s the scepter that was mine
Before I left there;
And there I sit with all the sages
I was enthroned with before the ages,
But most of all, my Father
Out of whom I came!
The
cry of the book of Revelation is the call for us to “Come
up hither” into a higher realm of life and glory.
The important truth for us to understand now is that in the Revelation
there is both a coming out and a
coming up.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying , Come
out of her my people, that ye be not partaker of her sins, and that ye
receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).
That very word came to us in great power by the Spirit many years ago
during the time of a sovereign move of God in our midst.
We were obedient to the word we heard from heaven and hasted to come
out of the old order church system, and out of the whole religious order of
man. God began in us a process of
complete and total restoration of His truth, His ways, His will, His purpose,
His life, His mind, and the things of His Spirit!
Then,
after He called us out of the religious systems of man, and had consumed the
spirit and ways of those systems out of our minds and hearts, we heard another
Voice as of a trumpet talking with us, inviting us to “Come
up hither” to a higher spiritual realm.
When we came up to a higher place in the Spirit, He then said to us, “I
will show thee things which must be hereafter.”
Then we were immediately in the Spirit and saw “a
throne set in heaven (or in the realm of the Spirit), and One sat on the
throne.” When, at our
Father’s invitation, we ascended in the Spirit into the throne
zone, we beheld the Lord seated upon His throne of majesty and power.
And what a revelation that was! Yet
here is the wonder of it all — not just to see God in Christ seated upon His
throne, but to comprehend the deep and eternal significance of His invitation to
us to “Come up hither.” “To
him that overcometh will I grant to sit
with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my
Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).
Not
to every man, not to every believer, not to every preacher is the invitation
given to “Come up hither.” Not
all have ears to hear the Voice! Not
all are willing to leave the candlestick realm!
Not all have followed on to be
overcomers! If we have
really heard the Voice, if the Lord has indeed revealed these truths to us by
His Spirit, if we have truly overcome the world, the flesh, the devil, and the
false religious systems of man, He also invites us to sit with Him and in Him on
that throne! The kingdom of God
will be brought to pass in all the earth as we, the overcomers, reign in union
with Christ in the Spirit and by His spiritual rod of iron exercise His
spiritual authority and power over the nations to break the rule of sin,
tyranny, error, flesh, and death. This
work will be accomplished by the mighty administration of His throne operating
in our lives in and by the Spirit. Isn’t
it wonderful!
To be continued… J.
PRESTON EBY
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