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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM
THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
Part
73
THE
FOUR LIVING CREATURES AND THE TWENTY-FOUR ELDERS
(continued)
“And before the throne there was a sea
of glass like unto crystal…” (Rev. 4:6).
Before we consider the sea of
glass, I would like to point out that throughout the scriptures the sea
is a type of the raging, restless, surging masses of unregenerate humanity,
tossed to and fro by the inner storms of the turbulent nature of the carnal,
Adamic man. 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 the natural man when he said, “These are raging
waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame” (Jude 13).
The beloved John, banished on the Isle of Patmos, had a vision of a
great whore sitting on many waters.
The angel that spoke with him revealed the meaning of the many waters,
saying, “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples,
and multitudes, and nations,
and tongues” (Rev. 17:5).
John also saw a vision of a beast
rising out of the sea, a beastly expression coming up out of the midst of
the multitudes of raging, restless, seething humanity, the sea
of man. The natural sea is a
great deep, an abyss (Gen. 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Deut. 8:7; 33:13;).
The Psalmist wrote of this abyss of fleshly men, “They search
out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search:
both the inward thought of every
one of them, and the heart is deep
(an abyss)” (Ps. 64:6). To the
enlightened mind of David the depth of iniquity of which the human heart is
capable is so great that it is beyond the ability of man to comprehend!
The heart of man is an unfathomable
depth, or, as Jeremiah observed, “The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can
know it?” (Jer. 17:9). While
John the Revelator saw the beast (outward manifestation) rising out of the sea
(abyss, depth) of humanity (carnal mind), Jesus expressed the same truth thus,
“For from WITHIN, O-U-T O-F THE
HEART OF MEN, proceed all these evil
things!”
Yet God, blessed be His wonderful name, has a remedy for the raging of
the sea of fleshly emotions and devilish passions within man!
The word of the Lord declares, “Thou rulest
the raging
of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou
stillest them” (Ps. 89:9). Long
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! That 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 body and soul — all are quieted by the Lord, the Spirit, who arises from
within in peace, confidence, truth, and faith 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 Life within is great peace, overflowing joy, unfailing
love, unwavering righteousness, and omnipotent power!
Oh, yes! It is only
necessary then to gain the conscious
awareness of the presence and life of God as the very essence of our
being, and to know that this life is the law and substance of our reality.
When our consciousness is imbued with the Spirit of Truth — not
merely the letter of truth, but the Spirit of Truth — all inner and outer
tempests are stilled, the sea is calmed, and the dragon out of the sea
vanishes over the horizon!
When John beheld in holy vision the unveiling of Christ — Christ the
Head and Christ the body — he also saw “a throne set in heaven” with
God’s Christ upon the throne. It
is then that we read, “And before
the throne there was a sea
of glass like unto crystal…”
As surely as the raging sea represents multitudes of restless,
clamoring, surging, sinning humanity, so does the exquisite sea of glass
before the throne of God represent an assembled throng of quickened and
transformed saints IN WHOSE HEARTS THE PEACE OF GOD RULES.
This great sea
of redeemed men is calm and serene, tranquil and quiet, transformed
“even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Furthermore, the sea-dwelling
beast has been dealt with! The
inner nature of man has been transformed, satan is bound, and the sea is now
calm. In contrast with the
hurricane and the tumult of winds and waves, we now perceive the effectual
dominion of God — the peace and rest of the divine nature, undisturbed by
earth’s changes and storms. The
sea of glass illustrates the ineffable calm of the divine nature — a mighty
deep within of holy, divine love and purpose, of understanding and confidence,
of righteousness, peace, and joy, upon which no wind blows, no tempest
strives, no violent currents disturb its unfathomable depths.
Just how did this crystal sea become what it is?
John envisions this sea of glass twice.
In both of these descriptions, they are symbolical views of both a
people and a state of being. They
have been as individual grains of sand — for glass is melted
sand. John beheld this sea of
glass mingled with fire — having come through the furnace of afflictions.
As the Lord says, “Behold, I have refined thee…I have chosen thee
in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10).
These have been perfected through their fiery trials!
“Tried with fire…and now they have been…found unto praise and
honour and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1:7).
In the image and likeness of Christ, they are bonded together in a
divine union of life. John sees
the whole redeemed company not as millions of individual grains of sand, but
as one body, even as a crystal sea of glass!
Glass is sand that has been heated in the fire and is melted and flows
together until each grain of sand loses its individual identity as sand.
These myriads of grains of sand are melted together into one piece of
glass. This shimmering sea that
John beholds is composed of a vast throng of the Lord’s people who have
passed through the fires of tribulation, trials, testings, and provings, and
have overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil
by the power of His indwelling life.
They can never again be affected, moved, tossed, disturbed, agitated,
distracted, disquieted, bothered, or tempted by anything in those realms, for
they have fully and forever overcome!
They are standing in their eternal victory over the fleshly,
beastly nature of the carnal, human identity, and the spirit of this world, as
well as the false religious image of the man-made church systems.
A sea of glass like unto crystal!
The figure is a striking one, and later on in the book of Revelation we
find the overcomers standing on the sea
of glass mingled with fire
(Rev. 15:2). These have harps and
sing the song of Moses and the Lamb — the song of deliverance, the song of
the overcomer! Here we see a
picture of a people who are neither going through the sea, nor being tossed by
it, because they are standing on top of it.
The message is clear — the crystal sea speaks of the nature
in which they stand, and their walk
has become stable and transparent!
The fact that what is underneath their feet is solid, brilliant, and
clear reveals to us the great truth that they are rooted and grounded in the
pure, perfect, and holy nature of the
Christ within.
The sea of glass mingled with
fire represents the purification that is necessary for every son of God
who enters the throne zone. It is
not possible to partake of the realm of God’s sovereign, unlimited,
omnipotent power and authority until we have passed through the crystal sea
mingled with fire and been purged from all carnality and self-hood by the
quickening radiance of Christ’s own pure and divine life.
By the regenerating power of the living water which Christ is we lose
the scent of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Every son of God is today passing through the sea of purification, into
the state of transparency, which gives us access to the throne room of God!
It is here that all the fickle emotions of the soul and all the
relentless passions of the body have been put under our feet until they toss
us no more. There is a great
calm! There is substance — a
solid foundation — under our life and our walk, for we cannot fail to
observe that God Himself possesses the same attributes as the glassy sea which
surrounds His throne. The sea
before the throne is the very nature of God established within a people until
they stand and walk in the power of it. The
sea is the emblem of mystery in many of the apocalyptic writings.
But here we are told that the mystery which surrounds the nature of God
is no longer mystery to those who are able to see Him as
He is. The sea of glass is
crystal clear with the light of truth! The
glassy sea is thus a beautiful figure for the perfect revelation of the grace,
righteousness, and glory of God.
Those who stand upon the sea of glass have escaped from the
imprisonment of self into the mind of Christ.
They have lost themselves so completely in the life of God that there
is no longer any distinction between “I” and “Christ.”
They have reached the good beyond the good; the right within the right;
the truth of which the truth we have known is but the shadow.
They have been lifted out of the tossing sea of human passion and
carnal understanding into the eternal calm of Christ-consciousness.
These love without fear of losing, and worship without ceasing that
which is the living God reflected in our own being — our very reality and
state of being being the homage we
render unto Him who is the source and substance of all.
This is what every man is searching for who is tossed by the raging
waves of the sea of humanity! It
is what the greedy man wants when he goes out to make himself rich; he does
not want the money and the things money buys, but that of which the wealth is
the symbol, that something for
which his soul is craving and will not be denied, even though he is seeking it
in the wrong way. It is what the
evil man wants when he spreads havoc and ruin in the path of his ambition and
lust; he is looking for heaven in the hallways of hell.
It is what drives every man to be a workaholic, or a pleasure seeker,
or a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a money grabber, or a tyrant over men, or
seeker of fame, power, popularity, or one who loses himself in the carnal
programs and promotions of man’s religious systems.
Man is so constituted that he can never
stop seeking until he has found the eternal calm of the perfect and pure
reality of God. If you try to
rest in anything less you will be spurred on again and again by your own
spirit and swept upward from height to height until you enter upon the great
peace on the shores of the crystal sea!
All who attain to the heights in God are moved to climb the steep and
winding path that leads from the valley of the shadow of death to the
everlasting heights of divine life and nature.
As we scale the heights of mount Zion we become
what we seek! We shall
never enter upon the realization of any reality which is external to
ourselves. Knowing is being, and
apart from being there is no
knowing of the things of God! Only
those who can stand upon the glassy sea, are those who walk in the spirit and
come off victorious in the conflict with the beast of the flesh and the carnal
mind. That means waging war with
the foul and degrading desires of the flesh and the deceptive illusions of the
old Adamic mind — even the “good” religious mind!
When the sea waves toss your little ship to and fro in the storms of
life, lift up your eyes to the throne in the midst of which is the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. Understand
that that throne is here now — the power and dominion of the Christ within
ourselves is strong and mighty enough to cause us to enter into our full
heritage in God! To follow Jesus
to the heights of victory; to be privileged to gaze upon that infinite crystal
sea, the manifested life, light, love, righteousness, and power of Christ in
our very own spirits, is the vision John saw and has shared with us.
The reality is far greater than the symbol!
I’m sure it would be thrilling to stand upon a literal, physical sea
of glass and play a harp while waving a palm branch.
But that would change nothing within us!
How much more glorious to stand in that eternal
calm where all warfare, strife, struggle, fear, temptation, and
failure have forever ceased — far, far above our own soulish efforts, yet
deep within our spirits even now! When
shall we behold that glorious expanse of righteousness, peace, and joy?
When? Only when we
ourselves become
the perfectly manifest life, light, and love of God, eternally at one with
Him, and with all that is His image and likeness.
This alone is real; all else is but seeming.
There is nothing beyond the crystal sea but the throne of God!
“In the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four
living creatures full of eyes before and behind.
And the first living creature was like a lion,
and the second living creature was like an ox,
and the third living creature had a face as a man,
and the fourth living creature was like a flying
eagle” (Rev. 4:6-7).
The four living creatures had four faces in the likeness of four
different creatures. These
represent four aspects of kingship,
and are the four “faces” of the corporate Christ which reveal the
qualities of His dominion and His appearance when He is doing a specific work
at a particular time. Each of the
faces reveals the work of Christ in
His body of sons as well as His work through
His son company in the earth. They
are, furthermore, the four-fold manifestations of Himself to all mankind!
The four living creatures had the face of a lion, the face of an ox,
the face of a man, and the face of a flying eagle.
The lion speaks of strength
— power, authority, and dominion — for he is the most powerful of all the
big cats, and is known as the king of beasts, the king of the forest — by
virtue of his awesome prowess! The
ox is symbolic of servantship, for
he is the largest and most useful of all domestic animals and is historically
a beast of burden, a servant to man from time immemorial.
The face of a man indicates intelligence
— understanding, knowledge, and wisdom — for this is what distinguishes
man from all the creatures beneath him. Adam
was made in the image and likeness of God, revealing in his face the
attributes and character of God, and was thereby given dominion over all the
works of God’s hands. The eagle
speaks of exaltation, for it is a
heavenly creature, one who flies high in the heavens and lives, makes its
home, and raises its young in the highest peaks of the mountains.
These four faces reveal the intrinsic qualities that define God and His
sons in the ministration of kingship!
The picture presented here in the faces of the four living creatures is
that of God’s called and chosen elect who have been completely conformed to
the image of the Son! They have
grown up into His nature and character in each of these four areas!
They have been made like unto Him in His spiritual strength and
kingship; they are made kings to reign with Him upon His throne.
They receive the highest position in the kingdom because they have done
as their Lord taught them. Instead of exalting themselves in self-importance,
they humbled themselves as the ox, took their place as servants, to love
unconditionally and serve and bear the burdens and bless those to whom they
were sent. The face of a man
indicates that they have put on the mind of Christ and have matured in the
knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the ways of God.
The face of the eagle shows that they have ascended into the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, high into the heavens of God’s Spirit, freed from
the limitations of the flesh and the shackles of men, and follow only and
always where the Spirit leads. These
living creatures portray a life that is completely yielded unto God and His
purpose, and whose transformation into the image of the Son is full and
complete!
With the face of a lion Christ reveals and manifests Himself as the “lion of the tribe of Judah.” As the lion of the tribe of Judah He is the mighty, victorious King and Lord of all who reigns in righteousness and faithfulness. Judah is the royal tribe of Israel, the portion of the Lord’s nation to whom the reigning scepter was given (Gen. 49:8-10). As He reigns, Christ and His body shall subdue every enemy! He shall bestow on all the inhabitants of the world and upon all realms everywhere the blessings and benefits of His kingdom of righteousness, life, and peace. This symbol speaks of KINGDOM AUTHORITY. Wherever the firstborn Son of God went, He demonstrated the authority and power of the kingdom of God! Sin, disease, the very elements, devils and death all obeyed His word! Jesus’ sonship ministry was only a “firstfruit,” a sample and proto-type of the kingdom authority and power and blessing that shall subdue every enemy and restore all things into God. And now, through His many brethren brought to glory, the further “revelation of Jesus Christ,” more of His kingdom authority shall be revealed in us to set creation free and establish His rule in every heart and life of mankind.
There is a further truth concerning the manifestation of Christ as a
lion. As the lion devours its
prey, so Christ becomes a lion to His people.
The lion of Judah is King over all the beasts of human nature.
He springs to unscaled heights and to unfathomed depths, and nothing
escapes His grasp. He reveals
Himself as with the face of a lion to all who receive the call to sonship and
to the throne, to devour the bestial nature within them and fully redeem them
from carnality, sin, and death. Oh,
yes! The lion will consume all of
your flesh nature and break every bone of old Adam’s body.
There will be nothing left of the old human identity!
In order for this company of overcoming rulers to be fully transformed
into the image of Christ, each of them must experience Christ as the lion of
the tribe of Judah who is devouring all our flesh and carnality.
The lion of the tribe of Judah raised up within all the sons of God who
are called to kingship is the first of the living creatures in the midst of
the throne! This is the authority
of His Spirit within our spirit, raised up to bring the strength of Christ to
ascendancy in our lives! This is
the power of His life expressed through us!
His authority and power by His Spirit and His Life are the lion in the
midst of the throne — the manifest KINGSHIP DOMINION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
Now let us look further at this lion of the tribe of Judah who reigns
in strength from the throne in the hearts of His chosen ones.
Some people tell me today that the manifest sons of God will not go
about personally touching men, healing the sick and emptying out the
hospitals, performing mighty signs and wonders, casting out devils, raising
the dead even out of the mortuaries where they have been embalmed, and so
transforming men’s lives on a massive scale that even the maximum security
prisons can open their doors and let the inmates walk out free.
They tell me that that is not what sonship is!
Well, if that is not what sonship ministry is about, what
is it about? The sons of God
are manifest for the express purpose
of setting
creation free from the BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION!
I wish someone would explain to me how you can set all mankind free
from the bondage of corruption without
healing the sick, emptying the hospitals, casting out devils, raising the
dead, and bringing total redemptive power into all men’s lives.
Anything short of this will leave this old world right where it is!
Jesus was Himself the demonstration of the power of the kingdom of God
on earth! The miracles that
Christ wrought while on earth in flesh were His Kingdom Credentials.
His miracles announced to the Jews that He was the promised Messiah,
the One of whom the prophets wrote. After
John the Baptist was arrested and imprisoned he sent messengers to Jesus to
inquire, “Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?”
Jesus told John’s inquiring disciples, “Go and show John again
those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and
the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Mat. 11:2-6).
The signs and wonders wrought by Jesus, the firstborn Son of God, were
tangible evidence of the power that would reside in the kingdom — power that
would be seen, felt, and experienced!
The miracles Jesus did set forth the nature of the blessings that would
exist when the kingdom of God has come to earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus on another occasion said, “If I by the Spirit of God cast out
devils, then the kingdom of God is come
unto you!” Jesus clearly
shows the relationship between the kingdom and His miracles.
Without miracles the kingdom cannot be revealed!
Miracles are the manifestation of possessed power, and Jesus is the
firstfruits, the firstborn, the first example, and the pattern for all the
holy sons of God who shall reign with Him in the kingdom.
And while we have now received the firstfruits of the Spirit, and have
in fact experienced a foretaste of
this miracle power of the kingdom, when we have completely put off the Adamic
mind, and have fully matured unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ, and the Father witnesses to our sonship, declaring out of the
heavens before men, “These are my beloved sons,
in whom I am well pleased,” then
shall all the sons of God be manifested
in power and great glory, and shall go forth doing even those “greater
works” that Jesus promised His brethren.
Only God can teach us these things!
Truly He is training us in this very hour in the ways of His kingdom.
We have a poster on the wall of our office which says, “We Do Not
Believe In Miracles — WE RELY UPON THEM!”
Through experiencing the power of God daily in our lives we are
learning to walk in the power of the kingdom of God!
Aren’t you glad!
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and
preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and
all manner of disease among the people. And
His fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto Him all sick people
that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were
possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the
palsy: and He healed them. And
there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis,
and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan” (Mat. 4:23-25).
Jesus’ power was
unlimited, unceasing, and unstoppable! He
took the time to do all those
things. He didn’t have any mass
healings — He prayed for, and spoke to, and ministered to, every single one
of those people individually. He
touched them and imparted His life to them and healed them and blessed them.
Multitudes came to Him and He had to make time for every one of them
— and I don’t have time for the things
that clutter up my life today!
So what did Jesus do? He sacrificed
His life doing nothing but demonstrating the power of the kingdom of God
that restores men to wholeness again.
No sickness could stand in His presence!
No demons could resist His command!
The very elements obeyed His voice!
Death fled at His word! There
was a funeral procession and a widow’s son of Nain lay dead, and weeping
they passed by Jesus, and the dead
could not stay dead! Can you
imagine the expression on those people’s faces when that boy sat up on the
bier! If this isn’t sonship
ministry, then what is?
Jesus
was the firstborn of God’s vast family of sons.
He came into the earth to reveal the glory of sonship and the power of
the kingdom of God. In Him we see
what it means to be a manifest son of
God! When the storm on the
sea was great, and the wind was violent and the waves contrary, and their
lives were in danger, all He had to do was speak, “Peace, be still!” and
the wind ceased and the waves went to rest in the bosom of the deep.
All nature cries out for the manifestation of the sons of God!
Can you imagine a world where all natural disasters of earthquakes,
hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, and so on are subject to the
authority of the word of the sons of the living God?
That is what Jesus came to show us!
The purpose of sonship is to remove
the curse from off all the creation!
What a world that will be!
When
He needed money to pay taxes, and had none, He sent Peter to get it out of a
fish’s mouth. When
the multitude was fainting with hunger, He multiplied the loaves and
fishes of one little boy to feed five thousand men.
That is the kingdom principle of supernatural
supply! There was never a
need that He could not meet! Can
you imagine a world where the poor, the impoverished, the down-trodden, the
starving, the men and women with thin, emaciated bodies and sad sunken eyes,
the little children with bloated stomachs, and the tormented and dying are
finally ruled and governed by a vast
company of sons of God who have come to unleash on the whole world of mankind
the power of the kingdom revealed in Jesus Christ?
If that doesn’t sound like sonship
ministry, then what does?
Jesus always had the power, the wisdom, and the means to take care of
them all. This is the power of
the kingdom manifested in the Son of God, and it is the power of the kingdom
to be revealed through all the sons of God!
For this all creation earnestly
and expectantly waits! THIS
IS THE STRENGTH, AUTHORITY, POWER, AND DOMINION OF THE LION IN THE MIDST OF
THE THRONE! Hallelujah!
With what joy and holy wonder do I tell you today that this is the
power that will again be manifested on earth through the ministry of
Christ’s many brethren, the sons
of God! What a calling rests upon
the firstfruits! How humbly we
should seek God, how fervently we should cry out to the Lord, that His work be
completed in us to bring this sonship ministry to pass in the earth!
How we praise God for the in-part ministry of the church age — it has
been glorious beyond words. But
none can deny that the ministry of Jesus has not been fully duplicated in all
the power and glory of the kingdom of God!
Who among us can raise his hand and tell me that in him, or in his
prayer group, or in his church, or in his movement, or in his crusade the
miraculous sonship ministry of Jesus has been reproduced in all its fullness
and power? Just think about it!
Were we to make such a claim we would all be found liars.
After two thousand years of the meticulous formation of the Christ
body, creation still groans and
travails, waiting for the manifestation
of the sons of God who shall deliver
creation itself from the bondage of corruption!
The greater ministry of the sons of God will allay every disturbing
element; break the power of sin and death; put down every wrong; still every
clamoring tongue; calm every raging sea; touch every inflamed sore of society;
banish all ignorance by the power of truth; unite into harmony every
quarrelsome crowd; convert every sinner; convince and transform every
terrorist; heal every excruciating pain and suffering; pilot every tossed soul
into the harbor of rest; banish all fear, malice, bigotry, and hatred in the
melting fire of divine love; bind every demonic power; sweep away every false
religion; heal every sickness, disease, and torment; fill to the full every
lack and void; impart life more abundant to all men everywhere; and give joy
unspeakable and full of glory until the whole earth is full of the glory of
the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and all creation pulsates with the
scintillating life and light and love of God!
The Lord has absolute power over all nations and all mankind and is the
architect of all the ages of time and the destiny of world history. The coming
of the firstborn Son into the world was a mighty manifestation of omnipotent
power! By the power of the
kingdom resident in Him the whole course of human history was altered and the
direction of multitudes of lives was changed as men repented of their sins and
were reconciled to God. By the
power of His indwelling life the lives of multiplied millions of people have
been wonderfully transformed. All
through the centuries since that time the seed
of the kingdom has been working in the earth, bringing forth a harvest of
blessing and righteousness among men. The
object of all this working and dealing is to bring forth in the earth a
company of fully redeemed, transformed, and matured sons of God who shall be
so conformed into the express image of the firstborn Son, and so quickened in
spirit, soul, and body, by the
power of His resurrection, that the manifestation of sonship shall be fully
produced in them in the power of the kingdom.
This, fully this, and nothing short of this, is the hope of all
creation!
The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power!
(I Cor. 4:20). The
fullness of the kingdom authority and power of God is that power which is
coming first to the elect to transform them fully into the image and glory of
Christ. That is how it came in
the days of the first Son. The
power of God came first in the life of Jesus to raise up within Him all the
nature and glory and authority of the Father, before
showing it forth through Him to bless and deliver and restore men to God.
The Father spent thirty years of Jesus’ life developing in Him the
understanding, wisdom, discipline, maturity, overcoming victory, authority and
power of sonship. Today we
are experiencing the power of God within and God must first finish the work of
perfecting and maturing His sons, before showing them forth to creation.
It is our turn now, and we who have been called to sonship are in our
Nazareth growing in wisdom and in stature and in the ways of the Father.
The truth we should now know is that when God’s sonship company is
ready, fully developed, prepared, and matured, this kingdom power will flow
out from them unrestrained and uninhibited — power to the full extent!
THE LION IN THE THRONE SHALL ROAR WITH A MIGHTY VOICE AND SUDDENLY LEAP
FORTH TO THE PREY!
When this idea of power is used in the New Testament the Greek word is dunamis,
from which we get our English words dynamite and dynamo.
It speaks of God’s power as explosive, His divine energy and ability
to move and change all things. The
other use of the word power is in terms of authority.
The Greek word for this is exousia.
It speaks of authority inherent in a role or office.
Simply put, dunamis is the ability
to do something, exousia is the right
to do it. The President of the
United States possesses in his office the authority needed, for instance, to
defend the national and international interests of the United States.
This authority is given him by the Constitution of our nation.
The word that is understood in the church world is “ordained.”
When a church ordains a person to teach or preach, they have empowered
that person so that they have the right
to act in that place. They are
given authority to teach and preach
and do the work of the ministry.
In the Old Testament, the king had a ring and a scepter.
His seal was on his ring and at the end of his scepter.
When the king gave someone his ring or his scepter, they had the
king’s permission to operate in his name.
Anything the king’s seal was affixed to, the king had given his
approval to. His seal was his
signature. Only the most trusted,
those who had been proven to have the king’s best interest at heart, were
trusted with this seal. Those
trusted men were given authority to
operate in the king’s name! God
has men He has entrusted to operate in His name!
He has set His seal in their forehead!
Those who receive the seal of the living God in their forehead have
come into total submission to His will and way.
It is important to understand that ability
or force does not always win out in
the area of ruling and reigning. The
privilege, the freedom, the right,
the authority of exousia
always wins out over the force or power of dunamis.
The words of Jesus make this truth crystal clear.
“Behold, I have given you authority
to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power
of the enemy” (Lk. 10:19). True,
the King James Bible states that Christ has given us “power” to tread on
serpents and scorpions, but the Greek word is exousia
meaning authority or jurisdiction.
When Jesus speaks of the “power” of the adversaries, however, He
uses the word dunamis meaning power.
Ah, all our adversaries have is POWER, but what the Lord gives us is
AUTHORITY! The Lord gives us
authority in order to deal with all the power of the enemy!
I mentioned this recently, but will use the following illustration
again, as it illuminates the truth so beautifully.
Consider an automobile moving along the street.
Although with its engine, transmission, and gasoline it is full of
power, yet a traffic policeman has authority over it.
When he blows his whistle and raises his hand the mighty engine must
slow to a whisper and the car must stop.
That is the difference between power and authority!
Power is always subject to authority!
The Son of God gives us authority
over all the power of the
adversary! As we understand these
two terms by the light of the Spirit, it becomes clear that authority without
the power to act is worthless, and the power to act without authority is
worthless. An army without a
general has no direction, and a general without an army has no force.
These two realities must be brought together within us if we are to
have both God’s power and God’s authority operating in our lives.
You cannot have one without the other!
Should you have one without the other you will fail.
This
is what made Jesus’ sonship ministry so mightily effective!
An example of this is when Jesus dealt with the demon in the synagogue
in Capernaum. “And they were
all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this!
For with authority and
power He commandeth the
unclean spirits and they come out” (Lk. 4:36).
Jesus obtained both power and authority in His life!
Jesus had the Father’s authority within Himself, and He had the power
to execute His authority. One
without the other is ineffective. When
the people witnessed the power and authority used together they were all
amazed. The unclean spirit had
power but no authority. When One
with authority showed up, the spirit had to obey.
His power was subject to authority.
When people witness those who have obtained God’s authority and power
to act in a given situation, they stand amazed.
We have all been witnesses to this at times and in certain situations
when the Spirit has moved through men to accomplish miraculous things.
But God’s power and His authority will yet come together in
all fullness in the manifestation of the sons of God.
THIS WILL BE THE UNVEILING OF THE LION IN THE THRONE!
Authority depends entirely upon our standing, position, and rank.
With the position there is authority; without the position, there is no
authority. A president-elect has
no authority to run the government of the United States until he is sworn into
office, until he has been installed into his position.
A policeman without his uniform and not standing in the assigned post
has no authority to direct traffic. A
general taking leave from his duty has no authority to command an army.
Likewise, our heavenly authority depends solely upon the reality of our
calling and position in the order of God.
All the authority of the sergeant or lieutenant who commands soldiers
depends not only on his uniform and position, but also on his submitting to
his superior. If he rebels
against his superior and refuses or fails to obey orders, he will lose his
official rights. In like manner
we must not only be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, but we must also
walk in the Spirit, being led
by the Spirit, and obedient to the
will of the Father. As many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God!
The ones who receive power and honor from the Father, who are seated
together with Christ in the heavenlies, and are submitted to HIS LORDSHIP, are
then in the position to accomplish great and mighty things in the kingdom of
God! We have experienced a measure
of power and authority in the church realm by the gifts and ministries of the
Spirit. But there is yet to be an
official installation of the sons
of God into the realm of HIS FULLNESS,
just as Jesus received at the river Jordan.
When the Father witnesses from heaven before men, “These are my
beloved sons, in whom I
am well pleased,” then shall the greatest drama in the history of
mankind begin! The manifest sons
of God shall go forth in the fullness of the power and authority of the Spirit
to subdue the nations and deliver creation from the bondage of corruption.
For this very thing the Father is preparing us in this hour!
The kingdom of God is the authority and power of the Father manifest
first in the personal lives of His elect, then in the world around us, unto
all times and the ages of this world, and finally in the whole universe.
The kingdom is the power of God that changes everything in its reality,
function, and influence, as determined by the Lord in His great and glorious
program of creation, redemption, and the restitution of all things.
The power of the kingdom of God shall eventually change us in our
consciousness and experience from human to divine, from earthly to heavenly,
and from mortal to immortal; then it shall in like manner change the world
around us, including all the nations of men and the earth itself, and then it
shall change the vast universe unto the endlessness of infinity.
THE WHOLE CREATION SHALL BE DELIVERED FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION!
I wonder sometimes whether we have yet fully understood the enormous,
fathomless implications of that word! The
elect of the Lord today is experiencing the unfolding power of the kingdom of
God within; it is the power of the kingdom that is consuming everything within
us that is foreign to the life, nature, ways, and will of the Father.
Christ is taking His throne and is now reigning in our lives!
And He must continue to reign in us until He has put every enemy under
His feet! THIS IS THE MIGHT OF
THE LION IN THE THRONE!
The lion of the tribe of
Judah within us is the dominion and authority of God being formed in our
lives. It is the spirit of kingship!
It is the omnipotent power of Christ manifest within us as He reigns on
the throne of our hearts to transform us into His image and stature.
As we truly seek the fullness of His kingdom with our whole heart, we
experience the power of His kingdom to purge us of all iniquities and present
us faultless before His throne. We
shall first be presented before His
throne, standing upon the sea of glass mingled with fire, as a people fully
prepared, equipped, and qualified to ascend
to His throne and sit and reign with Him upon His throne (Rev. 3:21).
When His power has cleansed us of all that is foreign and contrary to
His nature, not only will He have taken His great power to reign in
us, but He shall then proceed to reign through
us. He wisely withholds the
fullness of the authority and power of His kingdom until He has thoroughly
changed us into His very own image and likeness.
Jesus rose from the dead and appeared on earth in the sight of men in
the body of His resurrection, which is the spiritual body of incorruption and
immortality. With this clear and
obvious demonstration of the power of the kingdom of God, all doubts and fears
were removed from the minds of His disciples.
Now they knew that He was the King of kings!
Now they knew the reality of His message of life and glory!
In Him they saw the fullness of the power of His kingdom!
He was now forever above and beyond the bondage
of corruption, free from the limitations of this mortal body and this
physical, material realm, and free from any possibility of ever dying again.
And
now, in the end of this age, Christ’s many
brethren shall come to that same fullness of His kingdom.
In them the kingdom of God shall come with power, even the power
of His resurrection! Then
shall creation see a race of men upon earth who dwell in a realm above sin,
sorrow, limitation and death, for in them the bondage of corruption has been
completely broken. Then shall
creation see the manifestation of the
sons of God, just as Jesus’ disciples saw Him manifested in all the
glory and power of resurrection. Christ
was revealed to His disciples, and He is still revealed only to His disciples,
His very own brethren. But the
manifest sons of God shall be revealed unto
all creation! It is the
Lord’s own people who now hunger and thirst after Christ as life.
But it is the creation that
waits and longs and travails to behold the manifestation of the sons
of God! Christ is now our
hope of glory, but Christ revealed in His many brethren is the hope of the
groaning creation! Christ is now our
life, but His life in His sons shall become the life of creation, delivering all
men from the bondage of corruption, raising them up into a wonderful place
in the liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:19-21).
Oh, the wonder of it!
For those who entertain the notion that the “revelation of Jesus
Christ” is just the ordinary living out of the Christ life in the every-day
experience of believer’s lives, let me tell you plainly that the world has
been blessed for two thousand years with beautiful spiritual men and women who
have walked in high places in God. Love
and grace and mercy and power have flowed out of the lives of many godly
saints throughout the age. But
none of this has delivered creation from the bondage of corruption nor raised
it up into the glorious liberty of the children of God!
God has a greater plan than these dear folk are capable of grasping.
Jesus personified the kingdom of God!
From the time of His birth until the moment of His ascension He
revealed within Himself all the powers of the kingdom of God.
We can understand absolutely nothing about what God intends to do for
creation through His sons until we SEE JESUS!
In Him we see what the power of the kingdom is, and what it can do, and
what it shall do for all mankind.
He is the firstfruits of
kingdom dominion! We are also
becoming a firstfruits of His kingdom by virtue of our calling in
Christ.
The power of the kingdom was manifest in Jesus’ virgin birth, in His
sinless life, in His revealing the nature and purpose of the Father on earth,
in the power of His word, in the signs and wonders and miracles He wrought, in
the transformation of men’s lives He effected, in His transfiguration on the
mount, and in His resurrection from the dead.
The glory that was manifest in His wonderful life, in His outward works
of power, in the impartation of salvation into men, in the glory of His
transfiguration, and in the power of His resurrection was the result of His
inner condition. The power within
Him was such that the scintillating brilliance of His Father’s glory
radiated from within and shined through His garments on the holy mount.
The Amplified Bible states that Jesus “became resplendent with divine
brightness.” It is the same
divine brightness that blinded Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and
totally transformed and revolutionized his life!
I do not hesitate to tell you that it is that same divine brightness
that shall out-shine from within us
just as it did with Jesus, and that is the power of the kingdom of God!
If you think the kingdom is merely establishing righteousness on earth
by some display of divine force for
a thousand years, you have completely missed the
power of the kingdom! Oh,
yes, the kingdom will bring righteousness to the nations — but much,
much more! The fullness of
the power
of His resurrection is what we long to experience; it is that same
power for which the whole creation groans and travails, by which all
things, and all men, and all
creatures, and all worlds,
above and beneath, shall be given an entrance into the holy, righteous,
divine, incorruptible, immortal, eternal SPIRITUAL WORLD OF GOD!
Hallelujah for the lion in the
throne!
To be continued… J.
PRESTON EBY
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