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Note: J. Preston Eby, in order to continue to devote his full energy to writing, no longer works in the office and does not receive email. He does, however, respond to any urgent correspondence via snailmail. |
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"Teaching
the things concerning the
The
Book
One
By J.
Table
of Contents
Chapter
Title
Page
2. The Realm
of the
3. The Realm
of the
4. Birthed
into the Kingdom
44
5. Birthed
into the Kingdom (cont.)
55
6. Birthed
into the Kingdom (cont.)
69
7. The
Beginning of the Kingdom
83
8. The
Beginning of the Kingdom (cont.)
98
9. The
Beginning of the Kingdom (cont.)
112
10. The Nature of the
Kingdom
125
11. My Kingdom is not of
this World
139
13 The Kingdom
Within (cont.)
168
Chapter
1
THE
“KINGDOM”
— what a magical ring that word plays upon the ear, yet when it comes to the subject
of the Kingdom of God there seems to be no end to the carnal-minded reasonings of man as
to what it is, where it is, and how it will come to pass.
If you were to ask several average professed Christians what the
Others
teach that the
A
variation of the above plan involves the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic nations of earth as
descendants of the “lost” ten tribes of
Still
another teaching is that the Church (organized Christianity) is the
WHAT IS THE
The
Bible speaks of a number of kingdoms. The
first world empire — the Chaldean Empire often called “
As
Bill Britton once wrote: “What a marvelous mystery!
What a glorious destiny! This new
nation of holy people is God’s Kingdom. This
Kingdom has a King of kings. And there are
kings and priests. There are overcomers who
rule and reign with Him. There is a bride and
Bridegroom. There is a first-fruits, a
harvest, and a great gleaning. There are 30
fold, 60 fold, and 100 fold in that great harvest. There
are 144,000 who follow the Lamb wheresoever He goes, and there is an un-numbered multitude
standing triumphantly before the throne. There
is a
The
dictionary defines “kingdom” as “a government or country headed by a king
or queen; a monarchical state; a realm or domain.”
The word “kingdom” is made up of the noun “king”, and the suffix “dom”. “Dom” is a noun-forming suffix to express
rank, position, or domain. For example, a
dukedom is the domain over which a duke has authority or exercises rule, and in the
abstract the rank of a duke. In like manner a
kingdom is the domain and the people within that domain over which a king exercises
authority and rule. It is the
“king’s domain”. “Kingdom”
is thus a contraction of “king’s domain”.
The term,
God
has a plan, a wonderful Kingdom program for this earth and every person on this earth. You might be surprised to discover how many people
go through life — some of them even go to church and speak in tongues — but
never truly realize that God has a plan and purpose for them and for the ages. Friends, things are not just “happening”
with God. He didn’t fling this earth out
in space and then sit back and say, “Whatever will be, will be.” God has a plan and He works all things after the
counsel of His own will. God is sovereign and
nothing shall thwart His plan. Once you begin
to see yourself as a vital part of that plan and purpose, that what He has planned and
purposed for your life will not be defeated or stopped, you will then begin to walk forth
in victory and in life. But, precious friend
of mine, let me assure you that this won’t come just because you give mental assent
to it and make a positive confession — this comes only as we bring our lives into
conformity with God’s priorities. We need
to understand what God’s priorities are and then flow with those priorities. The Lord’s people are dabbling around with so
many non-essentials, playing little church games, majoring in minors! The real purpose for which God sent Jesus into the
world was to ESTABLISH ON THE EARTH HIS KINGDOM! And
His ultimate purpose is that the kingdoms of this world shall experientially become the
kingdoms of our God and His Christ. That is
the plan of the ages. The prayer that Jesus
taught us to pray, and which vast multitudes unheedingly repeat by rote, says, “Thy
Kingdom come, Thy will be done...” Where? “On earth as it is in heaven.”
The
all-wise and omnipotent Creator planted within man’s very nature a tendency to form
into tribes, clans, colonies and nations with some kind of government, having a patriarch,
chief, or king. Every kingdom requires a king. You cannot have a kingdom without a king. Neither can you have a king without a kingdom. The king must have a sphere over which he rules
with absolute authority. If you don’t
believe that ask Constantine II, exiled king of
For
people living today, living under democratic governments in the western world and in the
twentieth century, the word “kingdom” is not at all a natural term to use. We know a lot about governments and politics, but
very little about a kingdom. In Bible days,
however, this was not the case. Most nations
were then ruled by a king. The king was not
elected by the people and he ruled with absolute authority — the king’s word was
law. Today, when our elected officials are
held more accountable for their actions, I’m not sure we can begin to appreciate the
absolute power of an ancient monarch. A
thousand years ago, when a king spoke, people trembled.
Subjects didn’t say, “I’ll, ah...take that into
consideration, your majesty.” What they
replied was, “Yes, your majesty!” The
closest modern equivalent I can think of would be a decision handed down by the United
States Supreme Court. You wouldn’t argue
with it, you would just accept it. And yet,
that doesn’t even come close. In the New
Testament just a word from King Herod was enough to slaughter all the male children in
Today
there are few kings left in the world, and those that still bear the name actually wield
very little power. They are kings by title
only. The kingdoms of today are a rather
hybrid form, that is, a figurehead as a king, yet the kingdom is ruled by some kind of
assembly or parliament. They are
constitutional monarchs and present to us a picture far different from the king in ancient
times. The idea of doing obeisance before
someone and being obedient to his every wish and command is foreign to us if not even
repulsive. The very thought of not being in
control of their own lives has not even entered very many men’s minds. We in this country are used to “freedom”
and any “kings” that come along may have some difficulty asserting their
influence over us. Alas! That is the very
reason so many Christians today have found no entrance into the
We
have now come to the most sublime of all truths. Our
hearts should bow in holy reverence and rejoice that the heavens are opened and that the
mind of Christ is coming to dwell in men. We
should be glad with joy unspeakable and full of glory that the mysteries of the
May
the blessed spirit of truth make very real to all who read these lines that the phrase
“the
THE RULE OF GOD
It
is significant to note that the phrases “
Jesus,
after His resurrection, asked Peter three times if he loved Him. He then said to him: “When you were young,
you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out
your hands, and Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” Commenting on these words, the Holy Spirit adds:
“This Jesus said to show by what death Peter was to glorify God” (Jn. 21:18-19). The expressions when you were young and when you
are old speak of two distinct periods in Peter’s life.
They indicate His walk before and after entering the Kingdom. The reference to his past (when Peter was young)
and to his future (when he would be old) is not a reference to age but to spiritual
immaturity and maturity. Emphasis in the first
statement in on the pronoun you (“you girded yourself, you walked where you
would”). During this period, Peter’s
walk with the Lord was a walk which centered on self — on where he wanted to go and
what he wanted to do for the Lord. How
impetuous was he in his desires! But the day
would come when Peter, subject to Jesus as his King, would allow the Lord to do with him
as He willed.
The
words, another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go, succinctly
describe the walk of the Kingdom. The
“another” here refers to the Lord. The
walk of the Kingdom is far from easy and unlike anything we have experienced in the past. Whereas the Lord tolerated and even overlooked the
many inconsistencies in our walk when we were young (immature), He now subjects us to a
discipline of fire until His image is formed in us (Mal. 3:2-3). Every part of our being — spirit, soul, and
body — must come under His dominion. All
our strongholds will be exposed and reduced to ashes, and every thought made captive to
the obedience of Christ (II Cor. 10:3-5). In
the Kingdom we come to know God as an all-consuming fire — not to destroy but to
purge and sanctify us (Heb. 12:29). “Who
among us,” asks the prophet Isaiah, “can dwell with the devouring fire?” The answer: “He who walks righteously and
speaks uprightly, who despises the gains of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they
hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from
looking upon evil, he will dwell on the heights...his bread will be given him, his water
will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in
His beauty; they will behold a land (the Kingdom) that stretches afar” (Isa.
33:14-17).
The
epistle to the Hebrews was written to those who were following on to know the Lord. In the twelfth chapter the writer informs his
readers that God wanted to wean them from their babyhood walk in God and that which
appealed to their physical senses in order to introduce them to that which was real and
lasting — the Kingdom. To experience the
Kingdom, they would have to forsake the elementary principles which the whole church world
glories in today, and go on to perfection. Jesus
as King would become the living reality of their lives.
But for this to happen, their earth and heavens first had to be shaken. That the earth in us (our humanity) must be shaken
before we can enter into the Kingdom is a truth very few would deny. But that our heavens (religious experiences,
concepts, understandings, ministries, activities) must also be shaken before we can
receive the Kingdom is another matter. To
realize all that God has for us as His sons in the walk of the Kingdom, our earth and
heavens must give way to a new order — to a new earth and heaven. Not a new earth of mountains and valleys and
streams and trees; not a new heavens of galaxies, solar systems, suns, planets and moons;
but a NEW HUMANITY AND NEW SPIRITUAL DIMENSION. Only
then can we know what the Kingdom really is and how to walk in it and minister it to
creation. All religious activity apart from
the realm of the Kingdom is naught but hay, wood, and stubble. It makes very impressive edifices, but it is not
the
There
are many strange ideas around about the difference between the terms “
Ignorant
men have long tried to make a distinction between the
Our
Lord’s instructions upon sending out the twelve were, according to Matthew, “And
as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat. 10:7). According to Luke, “He sent them forth to
preach the
The
prophet Daniel brings the two together when by inspiration he says, “And in the days
of these kings shall the GOD (person) of HEAVEN (place, realm) set up A KINGDOM, which
shall never be destroyed” (Dan. 2:44). Jesus
then brings the two together when He says to Pilate, “MY (person) kingdom is not of THIS WORLD (place, realm): for if my kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the
Jews: but now MY (person) kingdom is not from HENCE (place, realm)” (Jn. 18:36). Through their relationship we understand there
cannot be a
Ah,
then, this
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD AND
THE KINGDOM
What
holy assurance stirs within as the Spirit of God floods our souls with the divine
understanding of truth so sublime as this: “For BY HIM were all things created that
are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created BY HIM and FOR HIM: and
He is before all things, and BY HIM all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17). Your whole outlook on life will change from one of
fear and dread to one of blessed assurance and confidence with the entrance of the
understanding that ALL THINGS are vassals of His power, His dominion, and His control, and
ALL THINGS are in His hands. Nothing exists
without His consent. None acts without His
orders or prospers without His blessing. In
His omnipotent hands the nations of the earth in all their vaunted might and power are but
dust upon the scales. You will not spend
sleepless nights worrying about the Chinese, or the Russians, or the terrorists when your
heart rests assured that God has ordained all these things for His purpose and He is in
control of them all as well as your life and mine.
Oh,
the unfathomableness of the wisdom and power of our God!
How can mortal minds even begin to comprehend it?
He is the omnipotent and omniscient Source of everything. He speaks and atoms come into existence. He utters His voice and light shines into the
darkness. He commands and billions of galaxies
appear. He breathes and life begins to flow. By the manipulation of His fingers He sets the
stars in their courses and with the span of His hand He measures the heavens. He sets bars and boundaries for the oceans. He says to them, “Thus far and no farther, and
here shall thy proud waves be stopped.” They
may beat upon the shore and run up the beaches, but they have to fall back into the
boundaries God set for them. “Praise ye
Him, all ye His angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts.
Praise ye Him, sun and moon: praise ye Him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters
that be above the heavens. Let them praise the
name of the Lord: for He commanded and they were created.
He hath also established them for ever and ever: He hath made a decree that
shall not pass. Praise the Lord from the
earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: fire, and hail; snow,
and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling His word: mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and
all cedars; beasts, and all cattle; creeping
things, and flying fowl: kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of
the earth: both young men, and maidens; old men, and children: let them praise the name of
the Lord: for His name alone is excellent; His glory is above earth and heaven” (Ps.
148:2-13).
Oh,
my soul, what words are these! All things on
earth and throughout the unbounded heavens are under His command. The whole creation, like a great machine, every
part working in precise coordination with each other, all fulfilling the purpose they were
designed to do. Even fire and hail, the snow
and vapors, and the stormy wind fulfilling His word. Everything
obeying the will of the Almighty. All
accomplishing their designed purpose in the great scheme of creation. Listen in reverence to these divine words, “A
man’s heart deviseth his way, but the LORD directeth his steps” (Prov. 16:9). “The king’s heart is in the hand of the
LORD, as the rivers of waters He turneth it whithersoever He wills” (Prov. 21:1). “The steps of a man are ordered of the LORD,
and He delighteth in his way” (Ps. 37:23).
The
Lord whom we worship controls the hearts of all kings, presidents, prime ministers and
rulers whether they realize it or not; God it is who is ordaining their paths and
directing their ways. He turns their heart in
the direction He wants them to go. He raised
up Pharaoh for a purpose, and it was the Lord Himself who kept hardening his heart (Ex.
7:3,13). Now I, like many who read these
lines, was raised up with the mentality that somehow the devil got the whole thing and
that the earth belongs to “the prince of the power of the air” and “the god
of this world.” No, it doesn’t! The word of the prophet is wonderfully true,
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that
dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). God owns it
all and He gives it to whom He wills. He has
the right to appoint stewards over creation based on His purpose and their faithfulness,
regardless of moral, religious, or other considerations.
Let’s
look at three people in the scripture whom God raised up to rule the earth. Isaiah talks about Cyrus, the Persian king whom God
put in charge of the earth (Isa. 44:24 to 45:7). God
called Cyrus “My shepherd.” That’s
astounding, to think that God would raise up a heathen king to accomplish His purposes in
the earth. But the Lord says, “I will
raise up Cyrus, My shepherd, and he is to rule over the whole thing by My divine
appointment.” In Daniel 4:28-37, we
discover that Nebuchadnezzar, king of
God
took the kingdom from Nebuchadnezzar by causing him to lose his mind for a season. He went insane and lived in the wilderness, ate
grass like a cow, had long hair all over his body, and his fingernails grew like bird
claws. At the end of this humbling experience,
Nebuchadnezzar repented and blessed the God of heaven as the only source of all kingdoms
and powers and confessed that God was fully able to “humble those who walk in
pride.” If we look again in Daniel, we
find that Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, had the same problem with pride that his
father did, and so God also smote him in an instant and took away his kingdom.
Almighty
God raises up kings, and casts them down at will. He
drowns the mighty Pharaoh in the depths of the sea, and puts His hand on a little shepherd
boy tending the sheep and makes him the greatest king the world has ever known. He tells us what is going to happen on the morrow,
and casts the shadow of events that will happen in the years and ages to come. He can do all this because He planned it all,
created it all, and controls it all; and it will all work out the way He has planned. In spite of men, angels, or demons His purpose is
always fulfilled. He is the eternal King and
the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords!
What a mighty God we serve! If
the God we worship were less than this, we would be in trouble. We serve a God who is guiding us, our loved ones,
our president, the governors of our states, the kings and princes and rulers and even our
enemies unto the ends of the earth. His mighty
hands are in all things and the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord
and His Christ. In due time all will see the
fullness of all this.
I
cannot emphasize too strongly that the will of God is sovereign. It is done in the long run everywhere and always. His thoughts are carried out; His laws are
enforced; His purposes are accomplished. Man
may delay them, defy them, deny them, set himself up with utmost strength against them;
but he can no more resist and defeat them than he can push back the ocean tide. The world moves on in the course that He has marked
for it. Not in a straight line — the
wickedness and perversity of men may push it back a little with His permission; they drag
it to the right and left of the true direction; but it returns again and pursues its
resistless course until the goal of the Almighty is reached.
As Nebuchadnezzar said long ago, “He doeth His will among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou?”
Nations
and kings and the great ones of the earth are like clay in the hands of the potter. “He girds them though they have not known
Him.” He uses their very folly as an
instrument of His wisdom. He makes their wrath
to praise Him, and the remainder of that wrath doth He restrain. The greatest crimes that have ever been committed
have been wonderfully used by Him to further His truth and justice in the world. The crucifixion of Christ made Christ the
world’s Saviour. The slaying of the
saints prepared the way for the triumph of the early Church.
The burning of the English martyrs made England Protestant. The atrocities of the Spaniards led to the
establishment of the Anglo-Saxon race on the American Continent. Out of the hugest evil God’s foreseeing mind
works good, and the march towards the perfect day goes on in spite of the craft and
strength of devils and men.
If
it were not for this we should lose all faith in God, and all hope for the future of His
world, if we did not believe that in the end God is always victorious , and that
man’s haughty ambitions, evil designs, and fickle passions are over-ridden and thrown
aside by His unerring power. The world is not
a battlefield in which the results depend upon human combatants alone, or a huge game of
chess in which statesmen, rulers, soldiers, thinkers, the press, chance and accident, and
the forces of goodness and the forces of hell have the winning and the losing moves. God is over all and in the midst of all. He has the last, decisive word in every dispute,
the final and winning move in every game. Through
all the ill-doings and stupidities of men His unceasing purpose runs. And there is only one will that always gets done. It is the mighty will of Him who is the sole Master
of the world, God in Christ Jesus.
In
all our lives that same will is done. It is
done in every saint’s life, in every life of faith and obedience, in the joy and
strength and peace of those who trust in God. It
is done in every foul, unclean, intemperate, and godless life, in the misery and unrest
and hell which follow the heels of sin. You
cannot escape God’s will or overturn it. It
holds you in love or grips you in suffering. He
is the Lord of our lives, and if we will not take the way of His dear children, then we
have to take the hard way of transgressors, and that also is of His appointment. The will of God, whether infinitely gracious or
terribly severe, is done on every one at last. And
what we are to pray for is not God’s sovereignty — that is beyond our
praying— but something much more beautiful, that HIS KINGDOM MAY COME. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth
as it is in heaven.” That is the
The
scriptures speak of the
God’s
sovereignty is exercised over both heaven and earth. There
have been many occasions when His sovereignty has been manifested through His direct
intervention in the affairs of kings, rulers, and nations.
He has often demonstrated His sovereignty through mighty miracles and
judgments, proving that He is Lord. One such
instance is seen in His dealing with Pharaoh, as we have mentioned. The seat of God’s government is His throne. The throne of the Most High is the highest thing in
all of God’s universe. There is nothing
higher. It is a throne of consummate power and
majesty and glory. From that throne God rules
over all creatures and things. And yet,
strange as it may seem, shocking as it may
sound, THIS IS NOT THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
The
The
Kingdom is not the reign of God as such, for God is ultimately reigning as the King
eternal and the King of the universe at all times. The
Kingdom is, rather, the gracious action of the sovereign God of heaven by which His reign
is recognized and reverenced and entered into by those men whom God had previously
permitted to walk in their own sense of “self-hood.” The Kingdom is the gathering together of all things
into one in Christ. The Kingdom is
reconciliation. The Kingdom is the restitution
of all things. The Kingdom is salvation. The Kingdom is regeneration and transformation. The Kingdom is every man presented perfect in
Christ Jesus. The Kingdom is God All-in-all.
In
the nineteenth century, Karl Marx went off to university, where he renounced his faith in
God in favor of atheism. He defied God and
seduced arrogant minds and ignorant masses. Marx
gathered his armies and weapons like a dark cloud over man’s highest hopes. Marx and his hearers shook their fists at history,
revelation, and divine will. But we have seen,
are seeing, and shall yet see that Jesus Christ is Lord of the opposition —
“Bye-Bye Marx!” Jesus Christ is Lord
of all! But some are persuaded that the
collapse of communism in
Now
the light of the gospel of Christ can more easily penetrate the darkness of those great
lands. The Lord revealed to me in a dream in
1983 that He would soon liberate
The
The
Kingdom of God is limited to that domain where God’s saving power has defeated all
opposition, broken down every wall, transformed all that is contrary of God’s nature,
mind, and will, and has brought men into willing submission
to His authority. Where the nature of
God and the mind of Christ have mightily conquered, the state of things is called the
The
According
to the good pleasure of His will, and to the praise of His glory, the purpose of God from
eternity focused on the Kingdom. A Kingdom not
of this world, a Kingdom not of men blindly ruled and over-ruled by the unobserved
sovereignty of an unknown God, but a reign in the hearts of willing and loyal subjects. The story is told of a king who was famous for his
abhorrence of waste — so it was quite surprising when he came into the room where his
aides were assembled carrying a breathtakingly beautiful pearl in his hands. Showing it to the first of his aides, he asked,
“What do you think this pearl is worth?” “Oh,
many trunks full of gold, your majesty,” he replied.
The king said, “Smash it.” “It
would be an insult to the king to destroy such a beautiful pearl,” replied the aide. The king turned to a second man and showed him the
pearl. “How much do you think this pearl
is worth?” he asked. “One cannot put
a price tag on such a beautiful pearl as this,” replied the second man. “Smash it,” said the king. “Such senseless destruction is
unthinkable,” replied the second aide. The
king turned to a third man. He was a humble
laborer who, in return for a kindness he had shown the king, had been invited to live in
the palace. “What do you think this pearl
is worth?” he asked the man. “More than all the gold I have ever seen in
my entire life,” he replied. “Smash
it,” said the king. Without a moment's
hesitation, this man took the pearl to where there were two large rocks and in an instant,
reduced the pearl to a thimbleful of useless dust. “The
man is mad,” cried the others in the room. Holding
up his hand to quiet the murmurs, the laborer said: “Which is of greater value; a
beautiful pearl or obedience to the king’s command?”
The
Kingdom of God that I am proclaiming today is composed of that company of elect sons of
God who have aligned themselves with God; who listen to His voice, who put on His mind,
who obey His commands, who walk in His nature, who do His will and carry out His divine
purpose in the heavens and on the earth. They
are the loyal subjects of His Kingdom and ever do His bidding. Their King is the Lord God Almighty and He is their
Father. They obey without question; for it is
their nature to do only and always those things that please the Father. They are the true citizens of the
This
is the Kingdom Jesus came and announced, taught, personified, demonstrated and brought
into reality among men. Are all Christians in
the
Such
is what God planned in a new creation species of men redeemed and transformed into the
image and likeness of God. Such is what God
has purposed to bring all men into in His due time. Such
a glorious climax to the Father’s plans, which has now been made known unto
God’s elect by the Spirit, has not always been revealed to the sons of men. Righteous men and prophets received glimmering
hints, but it was not given to them to know. Mighty
angels were curious, but they too had to wait until the fullness of time (I Pet. 1:10-12). Little by little, however, God had dropped hints of
a wondrous Kingdom to come. Dim at first, then
becoming brighter and clearer, was the lamp of prophecy.
As a candle in a dark place is helpful, so was the prophet’s testimony about
Jesus and the Kingdom, which inspired hope until the Day dawned and the Day Star arose
within our hearts.
One
glorious day the firstborn Son of the living God walked among men and announced, “The
time is fulfilled, and the
Chapter
2
THE
REALM OF
THE
There
are many strange ideas around about the difference between the terms “
In
this message we shall consider the meaning, magnitude and magnificence of the realm of the
Oh! Why do men play with the Word of God? Why do they twist, change, mis-quote,
mis-represent, and distort the good news of the Kingdom?
Is it not the incredible darkness of the carnal mind and the ignorant
foolishness of religion? I tell you today that
the gospel of the
I
once read the story about Thomas Huxley. He
was a devoted disciple of Darwin, the famous biologist, teacher, and author. Huxley staunchly defended the theory of evolution. An avowed humanist, he was bold and convincing as
he traveled widely giving his lectures, which were a series of blistering attacks on
Christianity, and especially what he called, “The alleged resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth.” One day, having finished a
series of public assaults against Biblical truth, Huxley was in a hurry to catch his train
to the next city. He took one of
That
story is more than a story. It is the graphic
illustration of the whole church world today. All
think they are on their way to heaven and they are going just as fast as they can to get
there. Great speed, much commotion, a rapid
pace — but a journey to nowhere! They
have eternal life, alright, and they are headed somewhere, but not where they think. The planet with the golden streets, the mansions,
the harps, the white night gowns, the fluttering wings — all the visible, external
things their hopes are fastened upon DO NOT EXIST. And
they are traveling at break-neck speed in the wrong direction — away from all the
glorious and eternal reality those things represent!
One
of the beautiful symbolisms given us in the book of Revelation is the
“And
I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will
dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be
their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I
make all things new” (Rev. 21:2-5). My
beloved, John saw the city descending down from God to earth. He did not see us going out into space somewhere. God is going to perfect His elect right here upon
earth with a divine life that comes out of God from heaven, and they are going to reign
upon the earth. “Suddenly there came from
heaven the sound of a rushing mighty wind...and they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.” Behold, the tabernacle of God is
with men! And He shall dwell with them! God is coming to dwell with mankind. That is the power and the glory of the
Yet
millions of Christians vainly imagine that they are going to a city up in the sky to live
there with Jesus forever and ever. Multitudes
believe that somehow they will escape “The Great Tribulation” by being
“raptured,” snatched up to heaven. The
testimony of scripture is just the opposite of man’s childish superstitions. God has always come to man. In the sacred mists of long ago
In
an article some time ago Terry and Tykie Crisp wrote, “Why is it that this Great City
is coming DOWN OUT of heaven? It’s
because of the burdened appeal of creation! Beloved,
there is coming a GLORIOUS CHURCH in these last days, a church which has been caught up to
the highest heaven, to the very throne of God...but who, because of the spirit of sonship
in their hearts, will not be able to ignore the groaning of the prisoners! They will come down from the heavenlies in High
Priestly attire, bearing their gem-studded breastplate, which is the burden of mankind
upon their hearts...with deliverance, with power, and with authority, to set the captives
free! Imagine, if you will, a church so
virtuous and bright that the nations of the world will walk in the light thereof, and the
kings of the earth will bring their glory and honor to it, submitting themselves to her
authority, and seeking wisdom from her mouth!”
— end quote.
This
great city, the heavenly
According
to the beloved John everything on earth IS going to be transformed. He speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. He speaks of all things made new. At present heaven and earth are quite separate
states of existence, but in the
The
world is to be won for God; there is to be a transformed society of men on earth; in the
end earth will become heaven. Death will be
abolished, and sin and sorrow will flee away. When
John used the language of Isaiah about the city needing no light of the sun he meant it in
even a grander way. Henceforth God in Christ
is to be the light of every man’s life, all the nations are to walk in that light,
and love and brotherhood be all in all. But he
makes a bold stroke at this point by departing from the Old Testament dream of the
Some
of us surely have noticed the beautifully significant picture of God’s purposes given
us in those glorious and divine events that transpired at Sinai, the
A
magnificent event, yet in the midst of this cosmic marriage, something else of strange and
great significance is taking place. The whole
story is found in Exodus, chapter nineteen. First,
“God descended on
Why
was this momentous occasion marked by so many directions, instructions, warnings? Had God forgotten that He had already commanded
Moses to tell the people not to approach the mountain?
Why must Moses point out to God what God certainly knows? This scene is not merely a logistical account of
where everyone — God, Moses, Aaron, the priests and the nation — were positioned
on that historic occasion. It depicts a divine
tension between the idea of “ascending” and “descending.” Moses seemed to think that the highest spiritual
experience is achieved by turning one’s back on the world, forsaking wife, children,
friends, job, responsibilities, recreation, and all the mundane things of life, and
ascending into a high plane in the Spirit alone. But
God is saying that His way of merging and becoming one with creation, has an altogether
different focus. The task of sonship is not to
escape the world and ascend into the heights of God in some mystical experience, but to
bring God down, to redeem the world, change humanity, and transform creation, to suffuse
spirituality into every aspect of its existence. Before
Moses ever “ascended” into the glory of God, God first “descended” on
Do
you want to know where the glory of God can be found?
God came down in Christ Jesus and tabernacled among mankind and men beheld His
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And now God has descended again in the Holy Spirit
sent down from heaven. The
THE KINGDOM OF
“HEAVEN”
The
By
saying God is in heaven, Jesus does not mean to localize or locate God. He is not telling us of a place where God is and
where God lives apart from any other place in the universe.
If that were the case then there would be no God anywhere outside of that place
called heaven. Those who think of heaven as a
place, usually think of Him as being very distant. Somehow
we have gotten the idea that heaven is a long way off.
This error has crept into many songs sung by the church world. In the
The
easiest way to understand heaven is to realize that it is where God lives. The question follows: Where is God? Is He on a planet thirteen trillion light years
beyond the farthest star? Or, is He
everywhere, omnipresent? The Psalmist David
posed this intriguing question: “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall
I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into
heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thine hand lead me, and Thy right hand
shall hold me” (Ps. 139:7-10). Is there
some point out in the universe where you can draw a line and say, “God comes to this
point. Beyond here God does not exist. If you cross this line you will leave the presence
of God.” Ah, the scriptures testify that
God is before all things, all things were made by Him, He upholds all things, He fills all
things, and He is greater than all things.
It
is abundantly clear that wherever there are things, there you will find God. Is there any place where there are no things? If there is, man has never found it. There is no scientific evidence that such a place
exists. As far as man can see with his
telescopes, including the new and most powerful Hubble telescope, there is no end to the
universe. Man is unable to find the outer
perimeter of the cosmos. The galaxies and the
swirling nebulae stretch out into infinity. Since
God both created all things in Himself, and fills all things with Himself, it is an
absolute certainty that to find the end of creation would be to discover the limit of God. God is infinite, unlimited, boundless, unending and
inexhaustible. The creation is co-extensive
with the Creator, therefore, there is no end to the cosmos for there is no end to God. Certainly that answers the question of the
Psalmist, “Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?”
Will
you agree with me that everything everywhere is made up of things that are visible and
things that are invisible? And is it not true
that visible things never remain the same but are always changing, and that invisible
things always remain the same and never change? “The
things which are seen are TEMPORAL,” says the Lord, “and the things which are
not seen are ETERNAL.” This is the wisdom
of God in a mystery. But it should be clear
that the realm of the unseen is the realm of the INVISIBLE GOD! That which you cannot see is called Creator,
Origin, Source, Cause. That which you can see
is called creation, effect, form, matter, things.
The
wonderful attribute of omnipresence is one of the foremost parts of God’s glory. God’s omnipresence — that is to say,
God’s presence everywhere and wholly everywhere — is rooted in the fact that He
upholds all things and fills all things and is higher than all heavens. That is the testimony of scripture. God’s presence is with all His creatures of
all kinds, and in all places of His dominion. Give
strength, then, to your understanding, and give wings to your imagination, and give holy
fear to your heart, as we try to enter upon those great matters — “which eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man...but God hath
revealed them unto us by His Spirit.”
When you try to do it, you cannot limit the presence of God to any one place on
earth, or in heaven: no, nor to all places on earth and in heaven, taken together. Place, precinct, locality, situation — when
you attempt it, you soon find how absolutely impossible it is to limit and restrict God in
that way. Heaven and earth, time and
eternity, all worship their Maker in these adoring words, and say: “Behold the
heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Thee: how much less this house which we
have builded.” And then, if anything
could add to the awe and the wonder of all that, it would be this other all-transcending
truth — that He who is everywhere is also wholly everywhere. Now that the almighty Father is wholly, and is
continually, with every one of us in all the completeness, and in all the totality, of His
Godhead — what an absolutely staggering thought is that!
In
the early 1600’s the Christian mystic, Jacob Boehme, wrote: “If you want to know about Heaven and what
Heaven is and where it is, you do not need to cast your thoughts many thousands of miles
off, for that place, that heaven thousands of miles away, is not your Heaven. The true Heaven is not a created place but an
uncreated place, and it is not found in a particular place but everywhere, even in the
very place where you are standing and going. For
when your spirit within you is able to penetrate inward through and beyond your own flesh
and life, and is able to catch hold of the innermost moving of God, then you are clearly
in Heaven. Moreover, if your eyes were but
opened, you should see God everywhere in His Heaven, for Heaven is found everywhere. For instance, when Stephen saw Heaven open, and the
Lord Jesus at the right hand of God, his spirit did not suddenly transport itself into
outer space, but rather Stephen’s spirit had moved inward, within, into the innermost
place where Heaven is found everywhere, for God fills all things. So you must realize that this world with all of its
physical properties is in union with the vast vistas of the heavenly spaces above the
earth. There is only one Heart, one Being, one
Will, one God, All in all.”
I
know that these words seem to be incredible but they are truth. I point you today, dear child of God, to another
world, spiritual in content, which lies beyond the immediate grasp of the physical senses. It is a world that exists within and beyond our
physical existence, with its own structure, modes of behavior, patterns of communications,
knowledge, wisdom and power. It sees without
being seen. This spiritual realm bears the
same relation to the sensible world as the Creator does to the creation, as the spirit
does to the body. This realm is heaven. Heaven is not a place, not a geographical or
astral location — it is a sphere or realm of reality.
It is a dimension of life. It is a
level of God-consciousness. It is the
invisible realm of Spirit that transcends this gross material realm. It is as omnipresent as God is omnipresent. It is co-existent and co-extensive with the
physical universe, but on a different level of reality and being. It is the dimension of spirit reality, of being
where God is all that He is. Heaven is also
the realm in which God is revealed by the Spirit. Heaven
is the realm in which God is known by the Spirit. Heaven
is the realm in which God can be touched in the Spirit.
Heaven is the realm in which God can be experienced in the Spirit. Heaven is everywhere.
Heaven is closer to you than the air that you breathe, closer even than the blood
that courses through your veins.
Let
all who read these lines clearly understand that God’s heaven is not the
inexhaustible universe of stars and suns and planets and swirling nebulae. Heaven has nothing whatever to do with the
time-space continuum or matter in any form. The
true heaven is beyond it all, above it all, before it all, yet in it all. Heaven is that high and holy and invisible realm of
SPIRIT, the pure and divine and eternal and incorruptible realm of GOD HIMSELF, which
existed before ever a star or a planet appeared. Heaven,
therefore, can only be entered BY THAT WHICH IS SPIRIT.
Is that not why Jesus spoke of heavenly things to Nicodemus and said, “Except
a man be born again, except a man be born from above, except a man be born of the Spirit,
he can neither see nor enter into the
Let
every man know for a certainty that carnal eyes cannot pierce the invisible realm of
Spirit. The Russian astronauts returned from
space and said, “We have been up there, we have looked around, we didn’t find or
see God.” Of course not! Natural minds know nothing of that realm, for we
perceive only those physical things recognizable by the physical senses. Natural ears are unable to hear that which is
spoken in the realm of the spirit, for spirit vibrates on a frequency higher than and
superior to the low vibrations of matter. Heaven
is all around us, in us, through us, but we must be raised out of our natural
consciousness in order to touch it. But the
dimension of heaven is ten thousand times ten thousand MORE REAL than this gross material
realm to which our mortal form has been subjected.
Heaven
is our Father’s native realm, and the realm in which the sons of God shouted for joy
in that blessed day when they were chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the
world. Heaven is our Father’s natural
environment. It is His home and habitat. Heaven is heaven by virtue of the fact that His
presence, nature, power, wisdom and glory make it such.
If God dwells in me, then heaven is within me, for He is my Father “in
heaven.” When teaching His disciples that
magnificent prayer called The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was not thinking of a distant
Being in some remote area of the universe. He
was referring to One whose existence was the very essence of His life. What was true of Jesus Christ as He lived in
FROM REALM TO REALM
The
only life you know is the life that you have lived, and it’s the world to which you
are accustomed. But there are worlds within
worlds. Oh, sure, we have only one Earth. But in that one Earth are many countries and many
different terrains, climates, cultures, languages, religions, and kinds of people. If you go into just one apartment building, how
many different worlds are there within that building?
There are drug worlds. There are
child and spousal abuse worlds. There are
suicidal worlds. But there are also believing
worlds, righteous worlds, and loving worlds.
On
a late night some years ago I turned on the television.
Johnny Carson was chitchatting with a “show-biz” guest. Suddenly the thought flashed through my mind, Who
else, pray tell, but a “show-biz” person could Johnny interview? Who else was of any importance or interest to the
viewing public? Johnny, I realized, must have
only IMPORTANT people — CELEBRITIES — on the show.
Show business is his world, and he could not be expected to “descend to a
lower level.” An actor or entertainer is
in THE ONLY world that counts! All others are
beneath him. Show business people have their
own journals and publications, just like other worlds.
They speak their own language, have their own terminology, totally incomprehensible
to an outsider. They are all knowledgeable
about their own world and its personalities, though they may or may not know much or
anything outside their all-important world. The
same is true, of course, of all other fields — the sciences, medicine, the arts, car
racers, body-builders, investors and thousands of other “worlds.” I began to think about how many different worlds
exist within this world on the planet Earth. And
even smaller sub worlds within those worlds. We
speak of the Free World in contrast to the Communist World, the World of Islam, the
I
want to tell you about another world very close to you which some who read these lines may
never have even visited, let alone lived in it. It
is my world. It’s a beautiful world! It’s a wonderful world! It’s a vibrant world! It’s a victorious world! It’s a glorious world! IT’S THE WORLD OF THE
By
instinct, beavers build dams. But all these
dams follow the same pattern. The beaver
cannot think out some new, different pattern and make some new and different thing. Ants may form anthills; gophers, snakes and
rodents dig holes; birds build nests. But they
always follow the same pattern. There is no
originality, no thinking and designing of a new idea, no new construction. The beavers’ dams, the ants’ hills, the
gophers’, snakes’ and rodents’ holes, the birds’ nests are all made
purely by instinct. A test was made with
weaver birds. For five successive generations,
weaver birds were kept in a place with no nest-building material available to them. The fifth generation had never seen a nest. But when nest-building materials were made
accessible, that fifth generation immediately made nests just like weaver birds have
always made nests.
Humans
are of a higher order than beavers. Beavers
may see men, and may observe their movements, yet there is no common ground of knowledge. Just because a beaver can build a wonderful dam of logs, branches, stones and mud in the creek,
you would never give him a contract to build a hydro-electric dam of concrete and steel on
a mighty river. You may take the beaver to the
river and let him observe how men build dams of concrete and steel, yet the beaver has no
comprehension of what it sees. It discerns
only things pertaining to its own realm. It
has positively no understanding of the ways of man, or of the meaning of his movements, or
words, or habits. Likewise, heavenly beings
are of a higher order than are mere humans. They
belong to a higher realm, another world. There
is no common ground of knowledge. Therefore
natural men are totally incapable of comprehending that which pertains to that higher
order. And so — until men are quickened
by God’s Spirit, until they are born again, born from above, born of the Spirit, and
made alive to the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven, and are translated into it, it is
impossible for them to have any understanding, either of God, or His ways, or of His
realm.
Jesus
is the example par excellence of a man living and walking in the realm of the
The
Kingdom life we have received is given from heaven, and is heavenly. It is a life that reaches heaven. Once we obtain this life, we have fellowship with
heaven and are joined to heaven. Our
citizenship is in heaven. Our life-style is
heavenly. Our thoughts and desires are
heavenly, and we dwell in heaven. Although
according to outward conditions we still live on earth, yet according to the inner life we
are in heaven. We are a heavenly people, the
heavenly man. The situation is just like the
Lord’s during His time on earth. He said
that though He “descended out of heaven,” He was still “in heaven”
(Jn. 3:13). He walked in the conscious
awareness of both realms, but His reality was in heaven.
He was the embodiment and personification of the
The
following words by T. Austin-Sparks are so very pertinent to our present thought. “There were these things about Jesus, so that
when you met Him on the surface, face to face, as a man, it was just impossible to feel
that you had met everything, that that was all. There
are some people whom you meet — and that is all.
You meet them, pass the time of day or have a few words with them, and then you
part, and that is all. They came and they
went, and there was no more to it than that. It
was never so with the Lord Jesus. If you had
met Him, you would have immediately met something more than the ordinary, but you would
also be left with the consciousness — That is not all; there is something very much
more there than I have seen or touched. He
implies a vast amount more than I have been able to recognize or grasp. That Man has a lot more behind Him than is on the
face of things. He did not put all His goods
in the shop window, so to speak: you were conscious of something there of a vast and
profound fullness and depth, and that left a mighty impress.
“There
was behind Christ another world of resources that He could draw upon, an extra world of knowledge that was available to
Him, an extra world of relationships, heavenly relationships: with the Father, yes, and
with other intelligences, celestial intelligences. What
a big world He had behind Him to draw upon in this life down here, in its vicissitudes,
its difficulties, its trials, its adversities, when He was alone and no one could help
Him. Even those who would want to seek to help
Him could not, for they could not minister out of that other world. He was alone here.
Without the resources of this world, He had another world to draw upon, a wonderful
other world of resource.
“Oh,
how much more real that must be to all sons of God in our consciousness! Here I have come to the end of my resources, here
I am right up in a corner, here I am, not knowing, so far as this world is concerned,
which way to turn; but I have another world to draw upon, a very real world, and that
other world can come right into my situation. And
it is just as we are living out from heaven, out from our extra, our plus, world, that
things will partake of the character of the eternal, and that into this life will come the
imperishable, the incorruptible. God is always
seeking to have it like that. That is why He
allows the problems and the impasses, to teach the sons of God that this is not all. There is another world of resource, all so
infinitely in advance of what is seen.
“Looking
at the Lord Jesus, speaking as men speak, we could say that that Man was governed by
different standards, by different conceptions,
by different ideas, from anything in this world. He
did not act just as people usually act here. His
conduct was different from the usual conduct of people, from the established and accepted
order of things, of how it is done, and how people think it ought to be done. No — He did not belong to that realm at all. He could not be involved in this world’s
system of ideas and procedure and conduct at all. He
would just not allow Himself to be roped into that order.
He had another world with an altogether different set of conceptions, and He
acted according to them and was governed by them, and that made Him so strange amongst us. The Lord Jesus was a foreigner to this set-up, this
whole order of things. He belonged to another
world, and He had that other world’s conceptions.
There was a great difference about Him.
They just could not keep Him in, they just could not make Him conform, they
just could not understand Him at all!
“It
was those very heavenly standards and conceptions and ideas that were the incorruptible
things. This world’s ways of going on
— what do they lead to? They lead to
corruption. At their fullest, highest,
greatest, they lead to corruption. Never,
never was that more apparent than in our own day. The
whole world is sinking into an infernal morass of corruption. But His ideas did not work out that way. You and I — we have come to know something of
the Lord, something of the Lord’s standards, the Lord’s ways, the Lord’s
conception of heavenly things, and we know quite well that this is not corruption, this is
LIFE AND INCORRUPTION. We are rejoicing
because we have come to know the Lord; but what have we come to know? Something from outside of this world altogether,
something different.
“The
Holy Spirit coming down from heaven has not come just to make us successful in this world,
not just to prosper our carnal ventures here, not to be used by us to realize the thing in
which we are interested and to further those plans of ours.
He has not come down from heaven for anything like that. He has come down to reconstitute us as heavenly
people and bring heaven into man’s world. That
is His whole work, the reconstituting of our whole being according to heaven’s ideas. That is what He is getting at in His work in our
lives, His dealings with us, His ways with us. He
is after getting us to turn everything to heavenly account, to make us according to
heaven’s pattern. He is after the
incorruptible” — end quote.
THE LAWS OF THE
The
unseen world of the
That
is what I mean by a “realm” or “dimension.” It is like a frequency. It can occupy the same space and yet be another
world altogether. That’s how God can be
in heaven and in the room where you are sitting and in your heart at the same time. He is simply on a different frequency, in a
different dimension or realm, but occupying the same space.
Heaven has nothing to do with a “place,” either here or beyond the stars. Heaven is a REALM OF REALITY, a DIMENSION OF LIFE. It is as omnipresent as God is omnipresent, as
omnipresent as the universe is omnipresent — it
is where He dwells.
In
order to hear the radio sounds that are in the air you must turn on your receiver. But you want to select only one of these wave
lengths. For that purpose the receiver has a
tuner. As you turn the dial, at each position
a different frequency will flow into the condenser and then be translated into sound heard
by your ear. The radio waves exist as it were
in a different “dimension” than the things you naturally see, feel and hear; but
they are right there, nevertheless, and can be heard if you are able to “tune
in” to them. In like manner, the
The
definition “three dimensional” is used to express a law of physics which
mathematically proves the length, height and depth of the universe. All physical things have these three dimensions of
height, length and depth — a bead, a book, a house, a mountain, a planet, a star, or
a universe. And yet — the three are ONE! If you have an ice-cube, the height of the cube
occupies the same space as its depth or its length. They
are not three separate “places” within the cube, but three
“dimensions” or realities occupying the same space.
A
book called Flatland, by Dr. Abbott, attempts to show how there is above us and about us
other powers which we little realize. In that
very clever, small volume, Dr. Abbott uses a keen analogy.
He tells of “Flatland” where there was neither up nor down. Everything moved in two dimensions only. Various geometrical forms of matter, as triangles,
squares, octagons, points, and lines represented the soldiers, wives, politicians, and
various groups of personalities in that flat land. The
author appeals that if someone from another dimension world were to reach into the kitchen
of Flatland and lift out a cook stove it would be an unexplainable catastrophe to the
people of two dimensions — length and breadth. They
could not look up or down, and so the removal of the stove
would be a mystery too deep for their limited lives. Now, suppose the same power would put the cook
stove back in answer to their prayers. That
would be a profound “miracle” to them. But
to the person of the higher dimension it would be very simple and not miraculous at all!
Since
God exists in a world of other dimensions, then heaven is closer than religionists would
like to think! It is all around us, yet we
have no way of knowing it unless we are able to “tune in” to its frequency. And it operates upon laws that pertain to that
other world, laws which the carnal mind can never comprehend, but laws just as true and
precise as the laws of the physical world. When
God operates in our world by those higher laws we call it a “miracle,” but in
that world it is natural. What to God is
normal and elementary is to man mysterious, miraculous and inexplicable. The ability to move into another dimension and back
again in spirit, soul, and body, was demonstrated by Jesus when He moved in and out of
closed rooms without having to use a door, and when He moved through crowds without being
seen. All of His signs, wonders and miracles
were but acts performed according to the spiritual laws of the spiritual world. To one living in that world there is nothing
“miraculous” about it — it is normal! The
We
should not have to try and convince anyone that there is a spirit dimension and there is a
matter dimension. The inspired apostle states
it this way: “The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not
seen are eternal.” The
No
law of nature can be broken, but any law may be superseded by a higher law. Lower laws may always be overruled by higher laws. Such overruling occurs when we walk in the
spiritual order of the
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!
While
writing this message a sermon tape arrived in the mail from Bob Torango in
“I
have a friend in
From
the time when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God first shouted for joy,
rhythm and rapture have rolled upward and onward through all the boundless and endless
spiritual universe as the sweet expression of the mind and will of almighty God. This spiritual universe, this
Chapter
3
THE
REALM OF
THE
(continued)
When
you look at a map of the world you find parcels of land with names such as
In
the opening chapters of the Bible the Garden of Eden reveals the glory of the
This
new reality is formed in the elect of God in this hour and shall spread over all creation. God is creating something new. A new history is beginning. A new world is coming to earth. The earth shall be filled with the glory of God. God is raising up the life of Christ in a people
and through the sons of God He is putting a seed into the earth. We are now the light of men and the light of the
world. We are now the salt of the earth. We are the new seed for the new age. God’s purpose in raising up Christ in us is
that through us the generations of mankind may be lifted out of the curse of sin and
death, toward the revelation of eternal life and glory.
Why else did Jesus heal the sick and raise the dead? Why did He exalt the poor, the hungry, and the
oppressed? Why did He touch, with miracle
power, the hopeless and possessed? Surely not
in order to tell them that they would be blessed after death in some far-off heaven
somewhere! He brought the blessings and
benefits of the
Some
years ago Gene Edwards ministered a word of revelation of powerful import. I have shared this once before, but feel to share
it again because of its special relevance to this subject of the
Man,
formed of the dust of the ground, lay just outside this realm of the interface. God came to man there — just beyond the
shining
All
the animal kingdom and each of the myriad life forms on earth has a “breath of
life” — the air of earth’s dense atmosphere.
Man is the only being into whose nostrils GOD BREATHED THE BREATH OF LIFE. Man’s “breath of life” is not air
— it is the Spirit of the Almighty which giveth understanding — intelligence and
wisdom! Only the light that God IS was more
glorious than this exquisite creature — man in God’s image! And the magnificent wonder is that this man could
see right into the heavenly, spiritual world. The
animals can’t peer into that realm, the birds are unable to communicate with that
realm, the fish have no knowledge of that realm — no creature on earth can see beyond
this gross material realm except the man in God’s image. There is no “god” in any other creature
that can awaken them to spiritual, heavenly realties.
Please mark this! Here is a physical,
visible creature who can see the unseen. He is
not frightened by it, nor is he intimidated by any thing or any creature he beholds in
that glorious realm. He is at home with who he
is and who they are. He looks around and all
things are open to him. He sees all, perceives
all, understands all. The face of God bent
down and looked into the face of man, and man looked up into the face of God, and they
looked like each other! They looked like
Father and son. They bore an incredible,
remarkable resemblance. God stretched forth
His hand, Adam stretched forth his hand, and stood up from the dust and faced his Creator. He belonged to this planet, but the winds of
heaven were within him. He belonged to the
heavens as well as the earth. He is the only
creature that has ever been, is now, or ever shall be, that BELONGS TO BOTH REALMS!
Consider
with me, my beloved, What is the natural habitat of man?
He is spirit — his natural habitat is the heavens! He is dust — his natural habitat is the earth! Both? No! Neither? Yes! Neither. And
yet, in some strange, mystical way — both. This
glorious creature God created — where is his “home”? Ah — God prepared the place for man as soon as
He created man. He created a place that
corresponds to man’s true state for man to inhabit.
The earth, contrary to all that you may have been taught, is not the natural
habitat of man. And neither are the heavens
the natural habitat of man! The Garden —
and only the Garden — and no place but the Garden is your natural habitat. That’s where you belong — that is your
true world, your homeland, your motherland — that unique realm where heaven and earth
meet and mingle, the
This
great truth of man’s STATE OF
How
do you suppose the tree of life was transferred from the
Only
in Christ can one understand the true nature of all things.
He is of both these realms and He is in both of these realms. He is in both and He is in neither. It is a great and deep and glorious mystery. Oh, the wonder of it!
He is a MAN seated in the higher than all heavens!
We who have been born of water and of the spirit are of His species. We are bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, mind
of His mind, spirit of His spirit, life of His life. We
belong to His realm. We walk with Him today in
the
THE CONNECTING LINK
God
has a great purpose in creation. He made the
heavens and the earth. He made the world for
Himself as a field wherein to unveil Himself and make visible what He is, in all the
perfection, wisdom and truth of His Being. Creation
has an origin and a purpose, and this origin and purpose were determined by the wisdom and
pleasure of the omnipotent Creator. The world
around us has a meaning. It is not a world
such as materialistic science supposes, which came from nowhere in particular, has no
particular aim and nobody knows where it is going, nor what the end shall be. Against that we set this divine declaration,
“Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” Creation came from God, it goes back to God. He reigns over it, and it will fulfill His purpose
which is altogether and absolutely a glorious purpose.
It will bring to God a revenue of praise and glory and adoration as no other device
could do. Therefore it has a meaning. It is the field of the development and display of
God’s wisdom, power and glory, a means by which He makes Himself known and
understood, a means by which too, not only is God known, but a supreme joy and eternal
blessedness will be achieved. This is the
secret without which creation cannot be understood.
God’s
purpose in man transcends by far the beauty and glory of creation. The unfolding pattern of God in creating man has
never changed. “And God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness: so God created man in His own image...” In this text the fall is shown not to be man’s
normal state. Man today, like Adam, may be
far from God, yet in his heart, as in the scriptures, a witness will be heard, saying that
this distance is through self-will. He may
live in sin and sorrow; but deep in his conscience he knows that such a life is in
opposition to the will and purpose of his Creator. Therefore
the man in God’s image is shown before the fall — to confirm the voice that
speaks to every human heart, and declare that though all men walk as Adam, sin and death
are not a part of God’s eternal order, but a mere temporary arrangement in the
working out of God’s great plan. Man’s
proper place is seen IN CHRIST, the last Adam, prefigured by the first Adam before he
fell. Adam, in the image and glory of God,
ruling all the works of God’s hands, is the type of man in Christ, as God ordains
him.
A
king in
The
answer of the child is the answer which I give you. Do
you desire to teach the child that which will enable it to triumph over the lusts and
passions of a mere animal nature? Train the
child from the beginning to know that he or she belongs to the
By
such stature, nobility and rulership committed to Adam we get some idea of what sort of
beings we are. One might be so impressed with
the majesty of the silent, speechless mountain that lifts its white peak high above the
clouds as to worship in silence at its altar — so suggestive is it of the Infinite. But what is a mountain, or a star for that matter,
or billions of galaxies of stars and suns and planets and moons as compared with a man? They think not, they speak not, neither do they
feel or hope or love or plan or build or have a duty or a destiny. Man is God’s image and likeness! It is interesting to note that the almighty Creator
fashioned and formed everything of nature throughout all the unbounded heavens and unto
the depths of the earth and then, after completing and ordaining all, He gave us the true
estimate of man’s greatness and purpose when He said, “Let us make man in our
image, and after our likeness: and let them have dominion.” Man is therefore not only the most important
creature on the earth, but the most important creature anywhere in the universe. Can we not see by this that Adam stood in the midst
of the vast creation as the REVELATION OF GOD to it all.
In
the image of God and with dominion over all the works of God’s hands man was the
connecting link between the invisible God and the visible creation. Both heavenly and earthly, spiritual and natural,
visible and invisible, dwelling in the Land of the Interface between the two worlds, Adam
was the expression, representation and revelation of the invisible God to the visible
creation. He was God’s priest and
God’s king. As a kingly priest, with one
hand he reached forth, taking hold of God with his spiritual nature, while with the other
hand he reached out, taking hold of creation in his earthly form; and under his glorious
dominion he brought the two together in
himself into union. What a priesthood! What a kingship!
Adam
was God’s special gift to the entire creation, from the highest heaven to the lowest
hell. He came not from the brute ancestry, nor
from the muck of some primordial sea, nor from the mire of the jungle, but from the hand
and spirit and breath of the divine Creator. Time
will not allow us to dwell on the glories of man in God’s image, but Adam was
perfect, pure, and powerful. He was without
spot or stain, taint or tarnish, pure in character, perfect in holiness, powerful in
personality. He was the embodiment of all
wisdom and knowledge. He was able to do on the
morn of creation what no sage, scientist, or naturalist could do today. He found himself surrounded from the beginning with
vast kingdoms of living things — fish, birds, animals.
These were brought to him and at the command of God he gave them names. In the typology of scripture a name denotes a
nature. Make no mistake about it, my friend,
Adam did something greater far than merely classifying all the creatures which God had
created in the world. When he
“named” these creatures the wonderful truth is that he “natured” them
— that is, he spoke creatively into them the nature that his mind of wisdom and
knowledge conceived. Sovereignty and authority
rested like a crown of glory upon the head of Adam the magnificent. He was made the Lord over all the creation of God
to rule and reign as the visible expression of the invisible Creator. In him God was to be seen and known and touched by
every thing everywhere.
We
are never told how long Adam lived in that wonderful Garden where the glory of God was
revealed through him in dominion and blessing to creation, but that glorious reign of
wonder and peace under the direction of a son in the image and likeness of God was but a
dim figure of the day when a whole company of sons in God’s image would reign in
splendor over all things in all realms throughout all worlds and all things in heaven and
in earth would be gathered together into union with God in His life and purpose. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the first and Head of
this glorious company, and as typified and shadowed by the first man Adam, He is the
connecting link between God and creation — in spirit from God, in body from creation
— the revelation of the invisible Father to the visible worlds. From the Land of the Interface He is the Word made
flesh, dwelling amongst us, full of grace and truth.
The
God
is now perfecting His sons in wisdom, holiness, knowledge, grace and power and God will
set this Man before His creation and say, “Here is my image and my likeness. In this one is my dominion and my authority.” It will be as though God is saying to His creation
that it is not necessary for them to see the Creator, for they will see this Man He has
made. Was it not this very truth that Jesus
spoke to His disciples one day and said, “Have I been so long time with you and you
do not know me? He that has seen me has seen
the Father.” So it will be with all the
holy sons of God.
The
word “Christ” simply means ANOINTED. When
the Spirit of God came into the world and descended upon Jesus, He then became JESUS, THE
CHRIST. He was a human, God man. He was a God, human man. He was the forerunner of the ultimate man that God
is bringing into the universe as the revelation of Himself.
This highest and ultimate of God’s creation will reign throughout the
ages first from pole to pole, then from world to world, and finally from galaxy to galaxy,
throughout all the unbounded heavens. There is
one thing the Holy Spirit would impress deeply upon our hearts today — if we are not
walking in the place that God has for us, then GOD IS BEING SEPARATED FROM HIS CREATION. He is not then glorified as He should be before all
worlds and all heavens, for God is to be GLORIFIED IN US.
Not apart from us, but IN US. Oh,
the mystery of it! It will be God’s
glorious New Creation filling all the earth and sky with the manifestation of Himself
— the great Man that God brings forth. God
and man, ONE CREATURE, to be praised and honored and glorified through all ages and unto
the ages of the ages.
THE KINGDOM FAMILY OF GOD
The
Bible is a book of faith and hope. It looks,
not backward or downward, but forward and upward. Its
face is ever set toward the Dawn. It always
points us toward the best that is yet to come — the completion, maturity, fullness,
consummation. In its first pages we read of
the heaven blest
Then
Jesus came! The message He gave was the
Adam was the son of God, and Eve was his daughter-wife,
with their home in a Garden, and God Himself a Father-Mother in the midst. Its atmosphere was love; its music the rhythm of
their wills with His. Sweeter music never
filled human ear. When the work of redemption
is fully accomplished, and every bit of darkness and discord destroyed, we know again the
glories of
The
THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE
It
will help us in our understanding of what it means to live in the
Every
day in the year more than 300,00 babies are born in the world. All have tiny faces and usually the same number of
ears, fingers, arms, legs and toes. All are
little humans, quite alike in size, and with the same needs for food, love, protection and
learning. Each also has his or her own
special features. Each is like every other
baby and unlike any other baby born on that day, or on any other day in history. Now, if these same 300,000 people were to meet on
their twenty-fifth birthday, their specialness would be even more obvious than at birth. Some would be very tall, some very
short, and the rest would be somewhere in between. They
would vary from very fat to very thin. Skin
colors would be yellow, brown, white, reddish, black, and all kinds in between. Equally different would be the many types of
personalities, mental abilities, talents, and ways of living in these 300,000 people. All were born on the same day and at the time were
similar in many ways. All breathed alike, ate
alike, and cried alike. But within twenty-five
years, each had grown up into an individual who is like other human beings, but who is
also very different from other humans. Some
would like Mexican food, others American food, and others Chinese food. Some would speak English, others French, and others
Russian. Some would worship God, some would
be atheists, and others would revere ancestral spirits.
They would dress differently, think and act differently.
There
are two strong forces in nature which influence human life and determine what a person
will be. These two forces are HEREDITY and
ENVIRONMENT. Neither one alone is sufficient
to mold a full and useful human life. Heredity
is a word used to mean the way in which certain characteristics are passed from parents to
children, generation after generation. Because
of heredity, each baby is born with human characteristics that make him distinctly human. Environment is a word used to stand for all the
conditions and influences from without which
become a part of a person’s life and affect his development. Included in a person’s Heredity is the color
of his or her skin, hair, and eyes, physical stature, facial characteristics, temperament,
and many other physiological and biological features.
Included in a person’s Environment are the food he eats, the liquids he
drinks, the air he breathes, the place he lives, the home he is brought up in, the values
he is taught, the diseases he may have, and the ideas, people, and education he is exposed
to. Thus it can be seen that Environment is
altogether as important a factor in what a person will be as is Heredity. Perhaps even more so!
It
needs to be very clear in our minds that the nature of man is received through Heredity,
but the sustenance, development, and conditioning of that nature depends entirely upon the
Environment. For instance, a child may be born
with an aptitude for music. Because of his
Environment that talent may lie undeveloped, or he may become a rock star or a violinist
in a symphony orchestra. Environment makes all
the difference! The first and primary purpose
of our Environment is to sustain life. The
Environment is that in which we live, and move, and have our being. Without it we would neither live, nor move, nor
have any being. Within every living organism
is contained the principle and the power of life; but in the Environment is the power to
sustain and develop that life, the conditions of life.
Every living thing normally requires for its development an Environment
containing air, light, heat, water and food. When
we simply remember how indispensable food is to growth and work, and when we further bear
in mind that the food supply is contributed by the Environment, we shall realize at once
the importance of the meaning and the truth that without Environment there can be no life!
Almost
three-quarters of the human body is water. Other
important substances in the body are calcium, phosphorus, and carbon. These substances are called “elements”
— they are among the hundred basic substances of which every thing in the visible
universe is made! Your physical body is
composed of some of the same elements as is
the world around you, and only by being in harmony with that world, only by intermingling
what it is with what you are do you have life. For
example, through the secret pores of your skin two pounds of water are evaporated daily
from every healthy adult. The water has to be
replaced. And from where does it come? From
the Environment! Meanwhile you are breathing,
taking in air you can use and sending out air you cannot use. From the air you breathe in, your lungs take
oxygen. You must have it to live. Matters not how much life you have in you, or if
royal blood is flowing through your veins, you must assimilate your Environment to live! Heredity is not enough. The Environment is really AN UNAPPROPRIATED PART OF
OURSELVES. We and it must be one. We and it are one.
Life depends upon that
This
is a great truth in the physical world. It is
but a wonderful picture of the greater realities in the SPIRITUAL WORLD! This is a truth of so great importance in the
spiritual world that we shall not mis-spend our time in pursuing it. In the spiritual world he will be among the
enlightened and wise who understands this one great truth:
Without Environment there can be no life! I
speak of course of the Spiritual Environment of the Spiritual Realm of the
But
let every man consider this that I now propose: even in this, our New Creation Life, we
require a SECOND FACTOR, a something in which to live and move and have our being —
an ENVIRONMENT! The
The
great Pattern Son, Jesus, walked in the full and enlightened consciousness of the
inter-relationship between Organism and Environment. He
did not live independent of that Spiritual Environment which surrounds and envelops the
sons of God. Jesus declared, “Believe me
that I AM IN THE FATHER, and the Father IN ME” (Jn. 14:11). It was not only the Father IN THE SON (heredity),
it was also the Son IN THE FATHER (environment). The
Father was the center and circumference of Jesus’ life.
That blessed Christ also prayed for the younger sons who were to afterward follow
in His steps, saying, “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast
given me, that they may be one, even as we are. That
they all may be one; even as Thou, Father, art in me (heredity), and I IN THEE
(environment), that they also may be one IN US (environment)” (Jn. 17:11,21). Christ knew that as a son He was the Organism and
His Father was the Environment. The Father was
that IN WHICH THE SON LIVED AND MOVED AND HAD HIS BEING.
Although He was the Son of the Father, He could in no way live independent
from the Father. And what is the Environment
of the sons of God today? It is God in Christ. God in Christ, and we in Him, is our Environment in
which we live and move and have our being!
Multiplied
thousands of God’s precious saints have been lifted into new and wonderful realms of
understanding and experience as the great truth of “Christ in you” has exploded
within their quickened hearts. But I declare to you today that altogether as magnificent
is the marvelous fact of OUR BEING IN CHRIST. To
know “Christ in you” is to know the reality of your inward spiritual life, but
to discover yourself as being “in Christ” is to apprehend the fact of Christ as
your Environment, your sphere of existence, the realm of your new life and being. This Environment is a world that surrounds you and
also separates you from whatever is outside of it. This
Environment is so strong that it not only sustains but it also protects whatever is within
it from all that is without, even as our atmosphere on earth protects us from the deadly
rays in space. And again, it supplies, to
whomsoever is within it, whatever it contains, as our atmosphere supplies all that is
needed for our physical life. The Father of
glory is most truly AN UNAPPROPRIATED PART OF OURSELVES.
He is Himself the Environment of the Spiritual World of His sons. We live by the Father! By translation into the Kingdom of the Son we have
been raised up into a new and altogether different Environment in the heavenlies, of which
Jesus spoke when He said, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. ABIDE IN MY LOVE, EVEN AS I ABIDE IN MY
FATHER’S LOVE” (Jn. 15:9-10). In the
light of Christ’s union with the Father, our union with Him becomes clear. His life in the Father is the law of our life in
Him.
Our
present thought is a very simple one. We seek
to show the boundless range and omnipotent power of the atmosphere of this wonderful
The
most common error in the lives of many of the Lord’s people is the attempt to live
without assimilating Christ as their Environment, failing to make Him the absolute center
of their existence, the sphere of their life. Friends,
family, job, amusement, home, hobbies, worldly pursuits — all too often these are the
Environment by which we live. No words could
be more solemn or arresting than the statement of Jesus, “He that eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, DWELLETH IN ME...as the Father hath sent me, and I LIVE BY THE
FATHER: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (Jn. 6:56-57). As the natural man must have sustenance from his
Environment, so the spiritual man. The
spiritual man must come to know how to live by his Environment.
After
he has gotten life you must give him food. Now,
what food shall you give him? Shall you feed
him with knowledge, or with beauty, or with prosperity, or with blessings, or with
religious exercises, or with creeds, or with commandments, or with gifts, or with power,
or with programs, or with experiences? No;
there is a rarer luxury than all these — so rare, in fact, that few have ever more
than tasted it; so rich, that they who have will never live on any other fare again. It is this: “Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4). Nothing can satisfy the son’s appetite but
this — he hungers for the bread that cometh
down from heaven. Nothing else will fill him. Nothing else will satisfy him. Everyone knows the world is hungry. But the hungry world is starving. It has many meats and many drinks, but there is no
nourishment in them. They are but sugar-water. It has pleasures, and amusements, and excitement,
and works; but there is no food there for the immortal craving of the spirit. It has worldly society, and worldly books, and
worldly events, and worldly knowledge, and worldly lusts.
But these things merely intoxicate.
The
church world is hungry, too. Starving, in
fact. Oh, it has many meats and many drinks,
but there is no nourishment for the spirit in them. It
has impressive rituals, and stirring programs, and moving ceremonies, and splendid ordinances, and pomp, and show, and
candles, and incense, and temples, and cathedrals, and priests, and preachers, and creeds,
and organization, and abundance of activity. Its
people get all involved “in the work,” and committed “to the work,”
and “giving to the work.” They do
and do but in all this something other than CHRIST has become the central factor. The center becomes the movement, or the message, or
the organization, or the program, or the ministry, or the experience, or the method, or
the personality or some other thing. But I
declare to you that all these religious things and activities merely intoxicate and
millions of Christians are drunk with them and in their inebriated hilarity think they
know the living Christ.
There
is no SUBSTANCE in them! The divine
ingredients of the celestial atmosphere of the
How
graphically Douglas Wilson illustrates our relationship with this Environment of the
“IS
THERE ANY POSSIBLE
“It
is these five senses and our ability to speak that give meaning and value to our existence
in this world. It is possible to get along
without one or two, perhaps three of these senses, but such a person is terribly
handicapped. But to have none of the senses
nor the ability to speak, would put such a person into complete isolation. There is no known means by which such a person
could be communicated with. It would be a
world alone.
“Let
us suppose that the child grows, reaching at least a partial maturity. Then one day, by a miracle, it receives sight. We have no way of knowing what the emotions in such
a person would be, upon its reception of sight. Suddenly
out of a world of darkness, the sight would reveal the beings and all the proportions of
the world about it. A WHOLE NEW WORLD WOULD
SUDDENLY COME INTO EXISTENCE FOR THAT PERSON. Such
a world would never have been dreamed of. There
had been no means of even suspecting such a world. It
would be confusing, bewildering, frightening. The
mind of such a person would have had no way of conceiving anything that the eyes now see. YET THIS WORLD HAD BEEN THERE DURING THE WHOLE LIFE
OF THAT INDIVIDUAL. This person had been right
in the middle of it all the time. It was not a
new world, but new to this person. And yet,
the child would still have little conception of this new world. He would have no idea of what would be safe or
dangerous in this world. He would have no
knowledge of beauty or ugliness. He would have
no sense of value of good or bad, or the meaning of the things he sees. Such a person would not understand the difference
between a tree or a man. He would not know
that an animal is an animal or that a bird is a bird.
All of this would have been around the person all the time, but he had not
known it.
“Again,
this person goes on for weeks or months, and then another miracle is performed and its
ears are opened. ANOTHER WORLD IS SUDDENLY
OPENED TO THIS ONE BY THE OPENING OF THE EARS. A
vast, expansive new world comes to this one in the world of sound. He would hear people talking and wonder what those
sounds were. He hears music, and the chirping
of birds, and marvels at what he hears. He has
no ability yet to evaluate the sounds, so there must be a learning process by which they
can all be sorted and arranged and catalogued as to what they are, pleasant or unpleasant. He had no means of even dreaming of such a thing
as sound, having been locked up in his own world apart from it all. He has possessed no means of contacting those
around him. And the people about him, though
filled with compassion and a desire to help this creature, could not in any way ‘get
through’ to him” — end
quote.
Believe
me, precious friend of mine, THERE IS A WORLD AROUND US THAT THE NATURAL MAN HAS NEVER
SEEN. It is there now, and has always been. Little by little God is opening our spiritual eyes
and we are beholding with wonder things that we have not suspected or even dreamed of as
being about us. With our physical senses we
have absolutely no comprehension of that world, because there has been no way for it to
communicate with us. But the Spirit of God is
opening the vision of His elect in this hour to see things that eye hath not seen, ear
hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man. There is a realm, a dimension of reality, a sphere
of existence, a world, a universe, a Kingdom that God has prepared for His sons, and He is
revealing it to us by His Spirit.
Strange
and wonderful emotions stir within us as we begin to discern the value of the things we
see by the eye of revelation. We are testing
them and trying them to grasp their certainty and their purpose and intent. We are daily exploring this wonderful world of the
One
morning the servant of Elisha awoke and stepped outside the house where they were
visiting. He looked about and saw that he and
his master were surrounded by a great and terrible army and he cried to Elisha to ask what
they should do. He was frightened beyond
belief because in his limited ability he could see no way out. But can we not hear Elisha saying, “Don’t
be fearful, we have more with us than they have with them.” Consider the astonishment upon the countenance of
this servant and hear him say, “I wonder what is the matter with you, Elisha. I went out and scanned the mountains, I saw all the
host of the enemy there. I don’t see
anyone here with us.” So Elisha prayed
the Lord to open the eyes of the young man, and God did so.
What a sight he saw! ALL THE TIME HE
HAD BEEN IN THE VERY MIDST OF GOD’S ARMIES OF HORSES AND CHARIOTS OF FIRE AND
DIDN’T KNOW IT. He had been surrounded by
the very power of God and the world of God, but he possessed not one faculty that could
reveal it to him. He was just as certain as
the Russian Cosmonauts that there was nothing there. He
could not see, taste, feel, smell, or hear what was all around him. There had been no connection between himself and
this other world until God opened the eyes of his spirit and revealed it to him.
Men
who witnessed the demonstration of the first telephone made by Alexander Graham Bell,
refused to believe that there could be any such thing as a telephone or a voice coming
through a wire. THERE IS A WORLD ABOUT US and
we try to tell people about it but they inform us that they have seen all there is to see
and heard all there is to hear, because they have the Word of God. But the
Chapter
4
BIRTHED
INTO THE KINGDOM
“When
they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time
restore the Kingdom to
This
is the last resurrection appearance of Jesus before His ascension. At this time Jesus discussed with His disciples the
coming of the Holy Spirit and gave them instructions about waiting in
Jesus
tried to overcome their concept that the restoration of the kingdom was to be a literal
affair. He tried to transfer their vision from
the literal to the spiritual. He tried to make
them see something other than a visible kingdom. He
kept proclaiming that there was an invisible Kingdom of the heavenlies wherein is found
life and reality. It was natural for them,
however, to look for a literal, restored kingdom in the earthlies, for with their natural
minds that is how they perceived the promises of the prophets of old. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets had left an
impression upon the people of
For
example, turn to Isaiah, chapter nine, and read. Do
so as though you were an Israelite looking for Messiah, as though your nation had been
overthrown by the foreign armies of
Put
yourself in the position of one of those citizens of
The
Jews in the days of Jesus were still looking for the Messiah that Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Ezra, Haggai and Malachi had promised. Each
one of those prophets gave them the idea that
this Messiah, when he came, would be a temporal, external, visible king. A king that would militarily defeat their enemies,
go up to
The
Jews could not see the spiritual reality to which the prophetic utterance pointed since
they did not have spiritual insight. They
could see only with their literal, individual, human approach and perspective. They could see only the promise of the visible
kingdom they supposed the prophets were prophesying about.
It seems that this was still in the mind of the old prophet Simeon when Jesus was
brought into the temple in
The
primary reason for Peter turning away from the Lord, denying Him, and the other disciples
scattering into the night, was because the Messiah they had followed for more than three
years was not fulfilling what they thought Isaiah and the prophets said he would do. He was not conquering
What
is the
George
Hawtin wrote of this realm: “May the blessed Holy Spirit open the eyes of our
understanding that we may see that beyond the veil of flesh is the realm of God. There men and women, having passed through the
binding, blinding veil of the flesh, pass out into the open sunlight of God’s
precious revelation. There they begin to see
things as He sees them and to understand them as He understands them. In that realm beyond the veil of our human flesh we
come to know God as He knows us. Here we begin
to walk no longer in the light of the sun and the moon, or in the light of the natural
mind, but we now walk in the light of the Shekinah, the light of the Holy Spirit, who has
come forth from the Father into the world to dwell, not with men, but in them. The way we once thought of God and understood the
things that belong to His realm becomes foreign to us.
Then we thought that God was such an one as ourselves, but now we see His purpose
is to make us like Him.
“Beyond
the realm of the flesh we walk, not only in a new realm, but in an entirely new mind. It is the mind of Christ. Here in this heavenly realm we begin to think as
God thinks, to see as He sees, to comprehend as He comprehends, and to desire as He
desires. Here we become citizens of a new
world, a new country, even an heavenly country. Here
old things are passing away and all things become new.
We cannot have a renewed mind while we live and walk after the desires of
the flesh and the carnal mind. That is where
the prosperity doctrine has led millions astray. They
have set their affections not on things above, but on possessing the things of the earth,
and unbeknown to themselves, while they demand everything that appeals to the natural man,
their desires for the treasures of the Spirit begin to fade away.
“After
enumerating his abundance of natural things and natural gifts, talents and
accomplishments, all of which belong to this realm of flesh and blood, the apostle Paul
declared that he counted them all on the level of dung, and that is exactly what they are. Men and women who glory in the natural and the
abundance of earthly things will be found sleeping when the trumpet sounds. Our Father in heaven has made provision for us
whereby we may live above the world as true citizens of the heavenly realm. In this realm of the Spirit we have a new heart and
a new mind. We have new eyes to see the
invisible, new ears to hear the inaudible. Here
in this world we communicate only with words that are spoken, but those of us who have
walked at all in the Spirit have found that the Spirit of God speaks to us very definitely
without the use of spoken or written words so that we know what He said and what His
rebukes and instructions were. In this realm
beyond the veil of the flesh, in this heavenly country and new citizenship, we begin to
know His voice as we never knew it from the far off country of the flesh. It is a new realm, a new era, a new country and a
new citizenship. Those who walk here have a
new attitude. This is the realm of life
eternal, and I am convinced that neither life nor death nor principality nor power nor
things present nor things to come can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord” — end quote.
Hannah
Hurnard relates the transformation that came to her life at the discovery of this higher
reality. “Little by little everything in
my circumstances altered. It was as though I
had really moved into another country — a heavenly one, where I was surrounded by
things that I found more delightful than anything that I had experienced in the past. Even more wonderful than that, I actually began to
feel as though there were angels and heavenly beings coming and going all the time, and,
for a very matter-of-fact and practical person like myself, this was a most wonderful and
awesome experience. All sorts of spiritual
influences and inspirations were given to me which seemed to ‘open the eyes of my
understanding’, so that I seemed to have been born into a new world and universe
altogether, or to have escaped from the prison-house world of what my physical senses
could perceive, into a vast and glorious world perceivable only through newly developing
spiritual senses. Not through psychic senses,
which enable people to see what is going on naturally elsewhere in the world, or what is
going to happen in the future, but through spiritual understanding of truths which had
been hidden to me until then — and which now began to reveal a world of REALITIES and
experiences and contact with higher powers, such as I had never before envisaged” — end quote.
THE NEW BIRTH
Let
us go back some two millenniums to the venerable city of the great King. It is night. A
citizen is stealing along the street furtively, keeping to the shadows. Having gained admission into the house where a
certain itinerant teacher is staying, the visitor says to Him, “Rabbi, we know that
Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except
God be with him.” It was really a brave
and daring thing for this night visitor to do. On
the one hand, he was a distinguished citizen, an ecclesiastical authority among the Jews,
a member of the renowned Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Israel. On the other hand, the teacher whom he had come to
consult, although famous for certain healings and teachings, was only an untitled rabbi
from
The
first words of the new teacher are, however, astounding.
The words spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus are freighted with divine significance, for
in that interview the Lord revealed foundation truths concerning the
Imagine
the unborn twins Jack and Jill debating whether there is life after the womb. Their small, dark world has been unusually active
lately, and both Jack and Jill realize that their days in the womb are numbered. But while Jill argues that there is much more to
existence than their life in the womb, Jack refuses to believe in something he has never
seen. Then suddenly their world begins to
collapse. They feel a tug, intense pressure. There is pain for the first time ever. Jack holds on; Jill slips. Her head is pushed harder and harder into a dark
tunnel. There is pain, more pressure. It’s happening, thinks Jack, this is the end. And while he holds on for dear life, he sees a
piercing light and hears Jill’s final cry. Then
silence. But while Jack weeps for his sister,
Jill lies safely in the arms of her mother. She
has been welcomed into a new family and a whole new world — a world of dazzling
light, vast distances, and great opportunities. And
Jill wishes she could tell Jack that there is indeed life beyond the womb and that
it’s better than anything imaginable. But
she can’t; Jack will have to see for himself. IT
IS BIRTH THAT BRINGS THE NEW IDENTITY AND THE NEW WORLD.
A
human life begins at the moment of conception, but at that point in time it is not truly a
person, it bears little resemblance to the man or woman it will one day become. At the time of conception the embryo looks more
like a fish than a human being. Many important
changes take place as the child develops in the womb over the gestation period of nine
months. The formation period ends with the
onset of childbirth. When the baby is ready, a
change in the chemistry of the mother’s body causes the contractions that bring the
birth to begin. Continual and intensifying
contractions finally thrust the baby out into a new world.
The attending physician cuts the umbilical cord and severs the connection between
mother and child. The infant’s lusty
cries broadcast the news of a new person arriving in the world. Think of the great changes that must take place in
the infant at the moment of birth. In an
instant, after hours of struggle, from a liquid environment, he is now surrounded by air. From total darkness, he is now flooded with light. From a world of confinement and silence, he is now
brought into a world of freedom and communication. He
must begin to breathe immediately. No longer
will he get nourishment from his mother’s blood; he must begin to eat. There is everything to learn, and the learning
starts immediately and never ends. It is
exciting, thrilling!
In
the great and wonderful plan of God, the birth experience determines a human being, for it
is by birth that the previously unborn fetus takes on its identity as an independently
living, breathing, human being. Can we not see
that identity begins with birth? The nature of
our birth, and its reality, determines who we will become.
Our pedigree and genealogy is of utmost importance.
Your life is a unique creation of God. You
are a special creature in all of God’s vast universe.
It is at birth that the certificate is issued whereby the child is registered as a
citizen of his or her country and the world. It is at birth that a name is given to the child,
establishing for all of his life his individual identity.
In like manner, the birth experience determines the identity of a son of God
who possesses the life of Christ. Jesus did
not tell Nicodemus, “Ye must be conceived again,” although there is truth in
that, too. He said, “Ye must be born
again.” It is a mystery to us all, but
the fact remains that God has ordained that a wonderful transformation takes place by
birth. It is at birth that the child is given
the “breath of life” thus becoming a “living soul.” All through the Bible birth was the event that
established the identity of the child and his
or her position in the family as a son or a daughter.
Inheritance, protection under the law, legal matters of all kinds, and
pedigree were all reckoned from birth. Conception
determined none of these things under the law — only birth. How wonderful and significant are the blessings and
benefits that accrue by birth!
`What
a mighty transformation there must be in a man’s life, in his nature, in his
character, in his state of being, in his desires, in his attitudes, in his behavior, in
his understanding, in his goals and objectives before he can truly say, “I am not of
the world. I have a new birth. I am born into another Kingdom. I belong to another King. I am in the midst of the world with all its
crookedness and sin and sorrow and limitation and pain and death, but I do not belong to
it.” I wonder if you can get that.
We
hear of the new birth and we think we understand it. Faintly
we hear the truths of sonship and imagine we are already sons of God. We have seen through a glass darkly, but face to
face we behold all things as they are. The
mists that have hung like shrouds upon the distant majestic peaks are fleeing away before
the rising sun of righteousness that we may know as we are known. In the true and eloquent words of another:
“Believers of all ages have sold themselves woefully short on all the great promises
of God. We have been content to say that every
believer was born again and needed but to wait until some distant day when he would fly
away to heaven either by death or by rapture. I
remember seeing this sign vividly portrayed by the public highway: Except a man be born
again, he CANNOT GO TO HEAVEN. That statement,
I fear, has been the sum and substance of Christian belief, but we have missed the true
meaning of the truth given to Nicodemus so long ago. To
be born from above is to be BORN FROM A HIGHER REALM.
Spirit is higher than flesh even though both should grow together in one body. To be born of the flesh is one thing, for there you
are born into a NATURAL REALM capable only of partaking of NATURAL THINGS. But to be BORN OF THE SPIRIT is to be born into a
new and higher realm where the ETERNAL THINGS are CLEARLY SEEN before us even as natural
things are seen by the natural man. Without
birth from above it is IMPOSSIBLE to see the
“The
realm of the new birth is the realm of sonship. It
is the realm where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived and moved and had His being. Not that He was born again, for He had never sinned
nor died and needed not the regeneration of ordinary men.
But He lived and moved in the
REALM OF SONSHIP full and complete. He lived
and moved in the REALM OF THE KINGDOM and
opened up the way for us to enter in. As Moses
led Israel to Kadesh Barnea where they could actually see the promised land but through
unbelief turned back to the wilderness, so Jesus led the whole world to a sort of
spiritual Kadesh Barnea where the glory of the Kingdom came into full view only to be lost
sight of in a spiritual wilderness in which we have wandered for almost two thousand
years. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived in
a realm above and beyond ordinary men, for while we have lived as sons of men, He lived as
the Son of God. While we have been from
beneath, He was from above. While our kingdoms
have been of the earth, He was not from hence. While
this is undeniably true to any honest man, yet, praise be to the eternal purpose of God,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became the Son of man that we who were born sons of men
might become sons of God” —
end quote.
Regeneration,
new birth, sons of God — these are all terms with which most Christians are familiar. The beautiful analogy is accepted by everyone. But all this means to the average Christian is that
he conjures up the nice spiritual feeling of thinking of himself “as if” he were
a “real” Son of God, as Jesus was and is. The
average Christian has absolutely no idea of the transcendental implications of this new birth into the family of God. Most think of being a child of God as sort of an
“honorary” title conferred on them by an indulgent God who accepts them as
“little adopted human children” to whom He plans to give as their reward for
accepting His gift of eternal life a beautiful park, a celestial playground called
“heaven.” This heaven is designed
for them to enjoy for eternity, playing, loafing, running, shouting, rejoicing, visiting,
playing harps, waving palm branches, and doing whatever other harmless and sinless thing
their hearts may desire.
But
let us understand what it really means to actually be BORN into the very family of GOD. I prefer to turn the phrase “the family of
God” around, in order to better grasp its significance.
Instead of saying that we are born into the family of God, it is just as correct to
say that we are born into the GOD FAMILY! I
may say, by way of illustration, that I was by natural birth born into the family of Eby. But this also means that I was born into the EBY
FAMILY. It is merely two ways of stating the
same fact. I am of the EBY KIND. I AM EBY. Not
only are men born into the family of God, they are born into the GOD FAMILY — the
family that is God. Not only are we birthed
into the
The
new birth is nothing less than the birth of a God-being, the birth of a Christ-creature,
who becomes “Christ IN YOU the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). There is no new birth outside of the actual
birthing of an actual Spirit Being who becomes the “inner man,” the new
“me.” It is my spirit quickened by
His Spirit, God birthing of His own divine life into me thus making me alive from the
dead, a new creature on the Celestial Plane. So
many Christians glibly talk about a born again “experience,” or a “change
of heart,” being wholly ignorant as to what must transpire to effect this change, to
implement this reality. Our Lord said,
“Ye must be BORN,” not now of the flesh, but of the Spirit. Religionists, both then and now, are incapable of
grasping this greatest of all truths and its astounding implications. And so they fail to understand that as a woman gives
birth to a son, bringing an actual child into the world as a living, breathing personality
with an individual identity, nature, mind and will, so does GOD GIVE BIRTH, delivering out
of His own loins the offspring of Himself, of His own kind, of the divine nature, of the
GOD SPECIES, to grow up into the fullness of His own divine Being.
This
is exactly what the apostle John was explaining when he wrote, “He came unto His own
and His own received Him not. But as many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on
His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God.” This is a divine
reality, but is also a parable, illustration or analogy.
It is the picture of a babe, who has been conceived, developed in the darkness of a
womb until the fullness of time, and then born into the light of the world. The members of its body are fully developed. A matured child is born into the world, the exact
replica of its parents. That is the parable. Whenever the word “born” is used it
presupposes the whole analogy of conception, months of waiting for the life to develop,
and the final thrust of the new being into a new world.
The new birth is nothing less than the birth of an actual divine, heavenly Being, a
son of the Father, who is as ageless and deathless as is his immortal Parent, differing
only in development and rank.
How
wonderful are these things! They are far
beyond our expression or the ability of the most eloquent to describe! It is a marvelous fact that the very life of God is
communicated to the believing heart via the new birth.
But what is the life of God? It is the
content of God and God Himself. All that is in
God and all that God Himself is are in the life of God.
All the fullness of the Godhead is hidden in the life of God. The nature of God is contained in the life of God,
and His wisdom, knowledge, will, power, and glory. Every
facet of what God is and can do, is included in the life of God. With any kind of living thing, all that it is rests
within its life. All of its capabilities and
functions issue out of its life, and all of its outward activities and expressions
originate from its life. It is that kind of
living thing because it has that kind of life. Its
being rests in its life. God is the supreme
living Being, and all that He is, of course, is in His life.
All that He is — whether truth, holiness, light or love — is derived from
His life. All His expressions — whether
goodness, righteousness, mercy or forgiveness — are derived from His life. All His divine capabilities, powers and actions are
inherent in His life. The reason that He is
such a glorious and powerful God is that He has such a glorious and powerful life. Hence, His being God rests in His life. And all that is in the life is transmitted through
the seed of that life and reproduced in the offspring of that life. Think of it!
I
am impressed to share the following from the writings of the late Douglas Wilson. “Not long ago we were reading from chapter
twelve of Hebrews concerning the true sons and the bastard.
We had often meditated on the fact that the child known as a bastard could in no
wise help or change the circumstances of his birth. We
knew well there was a stigma attached to the child, under the Old Testament especially. We were never quite able to reconcile all that we
were told concerning such children, until just recently the Lord put a thought in our
minds that settled the whole question. We
quote now from Hebrews 12:5-10. ‘And you
have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh to you as unto children, My son, despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as
with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement whereof all
(sons) are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave
them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and
live? For they verily for a few days chastened
us after their own pleasure; but He FOR OUR PROFIT, that we MIGHT BE PARTAKERS OF HIS
HOLINESS.’
“In
the above quotation we find two kinds of sons. At
least in one sense of the word they are sons. There
is the son that receives chastening of the Lord, and there is the bastard son that does
not. In one sense of the word, the bastard, or
as some translations put it, the spurious son, is as much a son as the true son. It can make no difference whether the spurious son
knows who his father is or not, HE HAS ONE, just the same as the legitimate son. In some cases it is the very same father. We have come to see there is something in this and
related passages that we need to understand. Let
us first examine some reasons why children are brought into the world. We must remember always that the child itself has
absolutely nothing to say about being brought into this life. It has nothing to say about its color, nationality,
place of birth, sex, or anything else. We may
say that at least some of these things are determined by the laws of nature, but we would
rather say they are determined by the laws of God working ALL things according to the
counsel of His own will, and that applies to all people.
“The
first and basic reason for the birth of children is for the preservation and increase of
humanity. Humanity has no other way of
perpetuating itself except through the birth of children.
Whatever other reasons there may be, and there are several, they will all rest upon
this basic one, the inherent instinct for self-preservation in humans. The savage in the jungle, or the highly educated
and refined person in the highest strata of society, must return to this basic principle
in order to perpetuate himself and the rest of the human race.
“We
suppose that the greatest natural reason for bringing children into the world is because
they are desired and wanted for themselves. The
love of husband and wife, combined with the father and mother nature, is designed and
given to humanity to cause them to want and desire to bring children into being, simply
because they DO LOVE AND DESIRE THEM. The
principal desire in the lives of parents is to have a family, to provide well for that
family, and to see that each member of that family is initiated into his or her life with
the best possible preparation and advantage that the family can provide. Some children are very fortunate and blessed, for
they enter into a loving family circle and have parents who desire the best for them. The atmosphere is conducive to the best
development of the children, and in that love and care there runs the vein of discipline,
wisely administered to cause the children to develop into the kind of men and women that
are a credit to the community, the nation, and the world.
“Another
group of children are brought into the world through ignorance. Many of these children are unwanted and the care
they receive is minimal. Sometimes they are
abandoned or given away. In one segment of
this class we find those who are born into this world only because of the sexual desire of
the parents, often unmarried, and these children are unplanned for and unwanted. These are illegitimate children, humanly speaking,
the children without a true father and often deserted by the mother. Some of them are resented or even hated and they
become the shame of the family into which they are born.
The stigma of their illegitimate birth follows them continually. These children are the victims of the uncontrolled
passions of their parents and these are children that are born entirely WITHOUT A PURPOSE. These children are often looked down upon by
society and yet, they CAN IN NO WISE HELP THEIR CONDITION OR THEIR BIRTH.
“Now
let us look at the group we are most concerned with. In
this last group we want to consider those children who ARE BORN FOR A PURPOSE. Their birth is not in any sense
“accidental.” The conception and
birth are the result of planning by the parents to bring a child into the world to
accomplish a certain purpose. There is the
knowledge of a need, a work that must be done, and the child is deliberately brought into
the world to do that specific thing. Even
before the birth, the child may be given by the parent over to that work, as Samuel was
given to the Lord by Hannah, and all efforts are made to bring that child to the very
highest capabilities to accomplish this purpose. THIS
IS A CHILD BORN FOR A PURPOSE and trained for it. SUCH
HAVE BEEN THE KINGS OF NATIONS AND THE PRIESTS OF THE ORDER OF AARON. Such ones stand out from others and their lives are
different than the lives of their fellows. Some
know from their early childhood that they are destined for a major role in the life of
this world. These are children BORN FOR A
PURPOSE even in the flesh.
“But
let us see something about the CHILDREN OF GOD. How
loosely we have used that term! Any church
member or religious person calls himself a child of God.
Yet we can observe that there is ABSOLUTELY NO SPIRITUAL PURPOSE IN THEIR
LIVES. We find multitudes of religious
children, brought forth in one manner or another, filling the churches, but we can discern
no spiritual purpose or destiny in their lives. They
believe they are saved from hell and the devil and someday will fly away to heaven, but
now they have nothing to do but go to church, obey the church rules, and wait for the
coming of the Lord. And in heaven they will
have nothing to do, no responsibility, no constructive ministry, no outreach to creation,
just eternity to dance, sing and shout — an eternal ‘party’. Yet these have no conception of eternity, nor yet
of the great plans and wonderful purposes of God for His creation. They are children BORN ENTIRELY WITHOUT A PURPOSE,
or in the language of this article, they are bastard children.
“These
children cannot help their condition, neither can they do anything about it. The church system that was responsible for
bringing them forth, took no forethought as to why they would bring these children into
being. In all probability it was to increase
the population of the church and benefit the church budget.
But for the most part they ‘just happened.’ What we missed in the past, but are now beginning
to see, is that the true child of God IS A CHILD BORN FOR A PURPOSE, and trained to the
highest degree of ability to fulfill that purpose. We
emphasize again that even the bastard has a father, but he is a child born without a
‘father purpose.’ He is just brought
into the world to make out the best he can. He
receives no chastening (training) for any specific purpose, but just grows up into
whatever may come his way. But behold the
wonder, the thrill, the glory, the expectancy of a CHILD BORN TO FULFILL A PURPOSE! A true son, fulfilling the purpose of the
Father’s heart in the great work that is yet to be done throughout the ages to come.
“We
think of Jesus the Christ in this particular. Surely
none will deny that JESUS WAS A SON BORN FOR A PURPOSE.
He was the Lamb of God SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. He came to fulfill the words of all the holy
prophets who prophesied of His coming. He came
to reveal the glory of the Father to the world. He
gave Himself by the eternal Spirit to fulfill
the purpose of God in the work of redemption and recreation of the world. God has a plan.
He always has had a plan, even from before the beginning. And just as God had a Lamb, a Firstborn, a
Forerunner, a Captain of our salvation, from the beginning, BORN FOR THE PURPOSE of
fulfilling His mission on our behalf, so does God have other sons BORN FOR THE PURPOSE OF
GOD in their mission and work. Just as Jesus learned obedience by the things He
suffered, so do all the other sons learn obedience by the same means, for there is a world
to come that will be under the jurisdiction of those sons as Kings and Priests, and they
must be trained.
“Now
we can begin to see this passage about bastards and sons in a far different light than
ever before. Now we see the bastard, not as
one condemned forever from the presence of God, but simply as one BORN WITHOUT A PURPOSE,
yet one who in due time will be cared for by those sons BORN FOR A PURPOSE. Surely this makes a division in God’s people, it elevates some above the
rest, but is that not how it is in all the world and in all of nature? ALL CANNOT BE KINGS AND PRIESTS, anymore than all
in our nation can be President or in the government. But
there does rest upon the Kings and Priests a great and awesome responsibility, and for
that responsibility the sons MUST BE CHASTENED, having already been BORN FOR A PURPOSE. Please keep always in mind that this chastening is
training for the place prepared for the son”
— end quote.
CITIZENSHIP IN THE KINGDOM
It
is almost impossible to imagine what it would mean to be a man without a native land or
home, destined to wander from place to place throughout life with neither rights nor
privileges of citizenship. Sir Walter Scott
alludes to the lonely frustration of such a predicament in the immortal words of his Lay
of the Last Minstrel:
“Breathes
there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said, —
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!”
If
this depicts the worth of the country a man claims for his own, I know of nothing more
wonderful than discovering one’s citizenship in the
There
is at this present time a Kingdom scattered abroad over all the face of the earth; mixed
and mingled among the peoples of all the
kingdoms of the world: a people who are separate and apart from all the other kingdoms. They are not recognized by the world as a kingdom,
they have no formal consulates in
They
are a people who have been drawn out of the other nations of the world, redeemed by the
blood of Jesus out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation and filled with
the divine nature and Holy Spirit of God. These
have been born again, giving them a new identity, a new life, a new allegiance, a new
hope, a new destiny, and a new heritage. They
are citizens of a new land, a heavenly country, and their King lives and rules within
their hearts and minds and bodies. The world
does not know them as a nation, for it cannot see their birth certificate, their true
manhood, their land or their King. Wherever
they are in this world they are strangers and pilgrims in a strange land. They were once citizens of the nations of the
world, but being now born of God they have a new parentage and have been translated out of
the kingdom of the darkness of this world into the Kingdom of the Son of God. They were one time in the flesh, without Christ,
alienated from the
So
we have today a great and glorious Nation — a Nation of Kings and Priests unto God,
scattered abroad over all the whole earth, in and among the nations of the earth, in and
among the kingdoms of the world, but not any part of those kingdoms. While they are maintaining their separation from
the world, they are growing up into Christ, so that when He shall appear, they shall be
like Him and come into their full inheritance. They
are constantly being changed, and as time goes on, they shall put off more and more of the
things of the old world they have left, until they become matured sons of God in the
Kingdom of their Father. But they are
strategically placed among all the peoples and kindreds and tongues and nations for a
divine purpose — there shall be a conquest of all these territories until the
kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and forever! God will give the nations to His sons as their
inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth as their possession and they shall rule
them with a rod of iron (Ps. 2:7-9). The stage
is now being set for this glorious victory, and all nations shall come and worship before
the Lord. The Lord shall be King over all the
earth and all kindreds shall serve Him. His
throne shall be manifested through His sons and His authority shall be over all. The Holy Spirit has witnessed through all His holy
prophets in every city and every place throughout the past generation that THE TIME IS AT
HAND. The sons of God are ready to be
manifested, the purpose for which the body of the Christ has been so meticulously prepared
is ready to be revealed before the face of all nations, and God will do His strange new
work to deliver creation from the bondage of corruption, from the tyranny of sin and
sorrow and pain and death.
Ah,
beloved, do you not sense in the depths of your ransomed spirit a sense of divine destiny
— that you were indeed BORN FOR A PURPOSE? Have
you heard the sound of the trumpet thundering out the message: YE SHALL BE UNTO ME A
KINGDOM OF PRIESTS! God doesn’t need
Kings and Priests in heaven, although that is the realm from whence they rule. HE NEEDS KINGS AND PRIESTS ON EARTH. “And they shall reign over the earth”
(Rev. 5:10). The nations of them that are
saved shall walk in the light of this divine government (Rev. 21:24). Truly we have received the call to sonship, to
kingship, to priesthood, and the plan of God overwhelms my spirit and my soul rejoices in
His unfailing purpose!
Chapter
5
BIRTHED
INTO THE KINGDOM
(continued)
As
I begin this message I acknowledge my indebtedness to Henry Drummond’s wonderful book
NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD for some of the thoughts shared in the following pages. May the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God
seize upon our hearts and impress indelibly upon our minds the wonderful truth that all
things that are seen in the Natural World are but pictures and images of the GREATER
REALITIES in the Spiritual World. And in the
understanding of the impassable gulf that exists in the Natural World between the
inanimate and the animate, the dead and the living, lies the revelation that in the
Spiritual Realm there is also a great uncrossable gulf between the worlds of Spiritual
Death and Spiritual Life, between the carnal mind and the spiritual mind.
There
is a wonderful law known to men of science that is called the Law of Biogenesis. This Law demonstrates that during all of recorded
history life has only come from pre-existing life. No
human power has ever been able to produce life out of inorganic chemical substances, nor
has such a phenomenon ever been observed by human eye.
We know that life is not now being originated on earth and that all the life
forms today spring from pre-existing life forms of some kind. The inorganic world is staked off from the living
world by barriers that have never yet been crossed from within. No change of substance, no modification of
environment, no chemistry, no electricity, nor any form of energy, nor any evolution can
endow any single atom of the mineral world with the attribute of life. Only by the bending down into this dead world of
some living form can these dead atoms be gifted with the properties of life; without this
direct contact with life they remain fixed in the inorganic sphere forever. It is a very mysterious Law which guards in this
way the portals of the living world. And if
there is one thing in nature worth pondering for its strangeness it is the spectacle of
this vast helpless world of the dead cut off from the living by the Law of Biogenesis and
denied forever the possibility of resurrection within itself. Here we stand in the presence of the uncrossable
gulf — the gulf of all gulfs — the gulf between DEATH and LIFE.
The
Word of God contains an explicit and original statement of the Law of Biogenesis as it
applies to the spiritual life. In the vision
of the spiritual world presented in the scriptures, the first thing that draws the
attention is a great gulf fixed. The passage
from the natural world to the spiritual world is hermetically sealed on the natural side. In the natural world the door from the inorganic to
the organic is shut, no mineral can open it; so, the door from the natural to the
spiritual is shut, and no man can open it; the door from the earthly to the heavenly is
shut, and no power of earth can open it. This
world of natural men, of carnal minds and mortal bodies, is staked off from the spiritual
world of God by barriers that have never been crossed from within. No organic change, no modification of environment,
no vitamin, hormone or chemical substance, no meditation or mental energy, no moral
effort, no improvement of character, no religious exercise, no ritual or ceremony or
tradition, can endow any single human soul with the attributes of spiritual life,
immortality, or incorruption. The spiritual
world of God and His sons is guarded from the world next in order beneath it, the world of
the carnal mind, by a Law of Biogenesis — “Except a man be born again, he cannot
see the Kingdom of God...except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the Kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3-7).
It
is not said, in this statement of the Law, that if the condition be not fulfilled the
natural man will not enter the
The
Law of nature is: Except a mineral be born “from above” — from the kingdom
just above it — it cannot enter the kingdom just above it. And except a man be born “from above,” he
cannot enter the Kingdom just above him. There
being no passage from the lower kingdom to the higher, whether from inorganic or organic,
or from natural to spiritual, the injection of a LIFE is a necessity if a stone or a plant
or an animal or a man is to pass from a lower sphere to a higher sphere. The earth will never possess (lay hold upon) the
As
we consider these thoughts may God Almighty grant us that His Spirit may instruct us in
the way of truth and understanding. Let us
open wide our hearts and minds before the Lord that He may reveal the eternal truth of
this subject to our hearts. The principle by
which, in nature, the inorganic is raised up into the organic, and, in like manner, in
God’s economy, the natural man is raised up out of the death realm into the life of
the Kingdom of God, is stated simply by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 13:31-32: “Another
parable put He forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of
mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all
seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs.” Let us UNDERSTAND!
How are the inorganic, non-living mineral elements of the earth raised up into the
organic kingdom of living things? Within the
seed is a germ of life. The seed containing
the life is planted in the earth, in the lifeless mineral world, in the kingdom of the
dead.
Once
buried in the earth, with all the right amounts of water and air, and the right
temperatures, the seed germinates and the life within the seed begins to grow. Finally the shell of the seed bursts and there
takes place a release of the life from the seed. As
the life is released it immediately SEIZES UPON the chemical elements in the earth,
converts them into food, and then builds up living tissue out of matter that never lived! The inorganic chemicals become organic tissue! The dead is converted into the living! The lifeless elements of the earth are transformed
into the living substance of the plant. This
is one of the most amazing facts in nature, though it is happening every minute all around
us! Now we can see clearly what the Lord Jesus
meant when He said that the
How
futile in the face of such truth as this is any form of self reformation! How worthless and unprofitable the empty rituals,
the static creeds, and the vain and lifeless traditions of the carnal religious systems! Place a lifeless rock in the dead earth and nothing
will happen. Administer lifeless ceremonies
and dead doctrines to a man dead in trespasses and sins and likewise nothing will happen. However thorough the self reformation may be,
however beautiful the traditions and doctrines of religion, however impressive and
inspiring to the soulish nature of man the pleasing platitudes of sermons, the harmony of
music and the pageantry of programs, it leaves us without life and hopelessly dead to the
glorious realities of the Spirit of God. Well
did faithful Paul bear witness to the
life-giving work of the Spirit in the lives of the Ephesians when he said, “You hath
HE QUICKENED, who were dead in trespasses and sins...but GOD, who is rich in mercy, even
when we were dead in sins, HATH QUICKENED US TOGETHER WITH CHRIST...and hath raised us up
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:1-5).
With
my poor and puny ability I cannot make the truth of Christ’s indwelling life to be a
living, transforming reality to your heart. None
but the Spirit of God can perform this wonderful and divine act of illumination. He alone can take the things of God and show them
unto you. Nevertheless, I can certainly assure
you that, the moment the grand and glorious fact of His indwelling life grips your heart
and fills your mind, the reality of His divine indwelling will immediately begin to
transform your life. Yea, and I shall further
add that the quickening power of His abiding life will also begin to change your mind,
transform your emotions, and renew your body as well.
It is the Law of Life.
To
bring a dead natural man with his carnal mind of death up into the higher Kingdom of
divine life necessitates the implantation of the incorruptible seed of God into man’s
earthiness. The point I want to make very
clear is that the New Creation is more than the eternal and incorruptible life of God from
heaven. The New Creation is that life planted
in the earth, seizing upon the earth, changing and transforming the earth, raising it up
to find its existence in the higher Kingdom of divine life.
Jesus is Himself the pattern. We know
how the Word, who had from eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father, entered upon a new
stage of existence when He became flesh. When
Jesus rose from the dead and ascended up into the Father from whence He had come, He was
still the same only-begotten Son of God, and yet not altogether the same. For He was now also, as Son of man, the first
begotten from the dead, clothed with that glorified humanity which He had perfected and
sanctified for Himself. In His resurrection
and ascension He was no longer only the Mighty God, but He was the Mighty God whose divine
life and nature had laid hold upon the humanity of man and had raised it up into
identification with Himself. He is still a
MAN, for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the MAN CHRIST JESUS. The Son of man became the Son of God. The whole wonderful work of Christ in redemption
was not merely to deliver man from the law and its curse of death, but to BRING HUMAN
NATURE ITSELF UP INTO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE DIVINE LIFE, TO MAKE US PARTAKERS OF THE
DIVINE NATURE. “The
Even
now at this very moment the life that we live in this body of flesh we live by the faith
of the Son of God; and that faith assures us fully that the incorruptible seed, sown by
the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit, shall issue forth in incorruption, immortality
and eternal life. For this corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Death is corruption and life is incorruption. As the rush cannot grow without mire, as the seed
cannot grow without water, as the mustard seed cannot grow without earth, so, in a manner
wonderfully illustrated by these marvels, the incorruptible Christ seed, planted in the
corruptible earth which we are, bears its fruit in immortality, incorruption and eternal
life — the New Creation. The seed cannot
become a tree without the earth, and the earth cannot become a tree without the seed. The tree is neither the life in the seed nor the
elements of the earth. The tree is an entirely
new creation, something that did not exist before, not life or earth, but life and earth!
It is the commingling and restructuring of the two into a union, making of the twain one
new thing. The tree is the elements of the
earth QUICKENED AND MADE ALIVE by the transforming power of the life in the seed! Such is the New Creation. The New Creation is neither the eternal God (pure
spirit) nor is it man (physical). The New
Creation is CHRIST, the God-man, humanity admitted into the full glory of the Divine,
human nature transformed and received up into union with the eternal Spirit. The
I
would say to you again that the life of Christ, the life of sonship, is not something
outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ
is in heaven and that we can stretch out some mysterious faculty and touch Him there. This is the vague form in which many babes in
Christ conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ’s teaching and to the analogy
of nature. Vegetable life is not contained in
a reservoir somewhere in the skies, and measured out spasmodically at certain seasons. Animal life is not bottled up somewhere in the blue
beyond and dropped down to earth when it is time for an embryo to be formed. The life is in every plant and tree, every beast and
fish and fowl, inside its own tissue and substance, and works there as a mighty power to
form even that which is contained within the life. The
life is permanently fixed and rooted in the organism.
Life is not one of the homeless forces which promiscuously inhabit space, or
which can be gathered like electricity from the clouds and dissipated back again into
space. Life is definite and resident; the
spiritual life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant of the being. “The
As
speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Spirit are the evidences of the baptism in the
Holy Spirit, so the redemption of our bodies from the power of decay and death is the
evidence of the manifestation of the sons of God. “We
ourselves too, who have and enjoy the firstfruits of the Spirit — a foretaste of the
blissful things to come — groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies
from sensuality and the grave, which will reveal our adoption, our manifestation as
God’s sons” (Rom. 8:23, Amplified Bible). This
change in our bodies shall not come by the mighty working of Christ crashing down through
the clouds, but by the DIVINE INWORKING OF HIS INDWELLING LIFE as Paul by inspiration
said, “He shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in
you.”
SEEING THE KINGDOM
The
First
of all, then, the Kingdom is not a natural state, for it must be entered following a new
birth. And a man can no more bring about his
second birth — the birth into the spiritual world — than he could have brought
about his first birth — the birth into the physical world. It comes to one from another world. He is given birth from a higher realm. It is the work of God alone. It is a new order that one enters into under
entirely new conditions. It becomes accessible
by the experience of a new life, a new identity, a new citizenship, a new spirit, a new
nature, a new will, a new attitude, a new ability, a new objective.
When
men come into the world, they are born outside of the
So
far as one’s experience of the
So
let a man enter the
“Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the
If
the Kingdom is external then any drunkard, prostitute, rapist, murderer or atheist can see
it. There were many who saw Jesus with their
physical eyes but they never once saw the Son of God.
They saw the Christ, but they knew not that He was the Christ. They saw His miracles, but they did not know Him. They even rejected Him, despised Him and hated Him,
while they looked upon Him. You could see
Jesus Himself in bodily form today, but unless your eyes were opened as were the eyes of
the men of Emmaus, you would not know Him to be the Christ.
Millions of people today see God’s Christ — His many-membered body
on earth — and know Him not! “Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (I Jn. 3:1). They see us but they don’t see us — they
do not know us by the Spirit. But when you are
born of the Spirit you see what other eyes cannot see.
You see the unseen and the eternal. You
know the things that are divine. You see God
and you see the
I
suppose if we could hear angleworms arguing, some learned angleworm might try to tell the
illiterate ones about a race of beings called humans.
He would tell how they were divided into two sexes, men and women. Now, that would be a strange thing to an angleworm,
for angleworms have both sexes within the one individual.
Then this angleworm would tell how humans had legs to walk with, and arms and hands
to use, how they had eyes to see with, a tongue to talk with, and lungs to breathe with. All these things would be utterly beyond the
ability of an angleworm to comprehend, and I
imagine the unlearned angleworms would say to the one who tried to tell them about the
vast world of humanity, “Nuts! Did you
ever see a human?” He, of course, would
have to say that he never had, since angleworms have no eyes!
Almost
all men are dreadfully devoid of the understanding of spiritual things. They are as blind to the world of the
You
do not understand a thing by memorizing it. You
may memorize the whole Constitution of the
“It
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
The
natural man is dead. He is dumb, deaf, and
blind to the spiritual world of God. To be
blind simply means to have no vision of what the Father desires. The natural mind is very dark and without
understanding. Only the Holy Spirit can awaken
it. Human efforts to enlighten men to the deep
spiritual things of God will always fail. ONLY
TO CHRIST IS POWER GIVEN TO OPEN THE EYES OF THE BLIND even as the scales fell from the
vision of Saul of Tarsus when Jesus purged them away.
This explains why the Bible remains to a great degree a closed book to the most
educated but unconverted or unanointed man, while it is an open book to many of the most
simple and ignorant of believers. This explains why a man may be educated and trained to
hold all the theological degrees that all the theological seminaries in the world can
bestow upon him, and yet be utterly blind to the great spiritual revelations of infinite
depths and eternal glory within the pages of this blessed Book of Books. This explains why carnally minded men who have read
the Bible and have studied it through and through, and know the Hebrew and Greek, will yet
fail to find the living Christ or the transforming power of the Holy Spirit or the glories
of the Kingdom of God or the wonderful hope of sonship or the ultimate restitution of all
things within its pages. It seems strange that
with an open Bible before them they do not see these truths which to us are perfectly
clear. But, after all, it is not strange, for
these things are mysteries known only to those who know the spiritual code and have been
initiated into the fraternity of God’s family by the miracle of the new birth. Jesus said that these things were hidden from the
wise and the prudent and that they were revealed to babes.
A babe is one that is born, and so, until you are born from above into the
We
are told in the wonderful parable of our Lord that in this, our day, the
Our
mind is that part of us that thinks and is the seat of consciousness; it is our intellect
and in it dwells our ability to reason. When
we are born of the flesh, we are born with a natural mind.
We enter this world with five senses: sight, hearing, smelling, taste and touch. These are natural physiological and psychological
senses, and feed information to our natural mind. Paul
writes about our new birth in I Peter 1:23. “Being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which
liveth and abideth for ever.” This new
birth is by an incorruptible seed, by the Word
of God, even that Word that was from the beginning which is Jesus Christ. This incorruptible seed is the life of the Christ
by which we are made alive unto God. He is the
author of eternal life. When we are born of
the Spirit, God gives us a corresponding set of these same senses which operate in our
spiritual nature, in the inner-man body.
In
the natural no one has ever been able to see in this world unless they have been born. So it is in the spiritual realm. Just as there are five natural senses in the
natural realm, so also there are five
spiritual senses in the spiritual realm. The
five senses of the outer man are able to see, hear, taste, touch and smell natural things;
but these same five senses in the world of the spirit are able to see, hear, taste, touch
and smell all spiritual things which are invisible and incorruptible, as the apostle
explains, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him — but God HATH REVEALED
THEM UNTO US BY THE SPIRIT; for the spirit searcheth (out) all things, yea, the deep
things of God” (I Cor. 2:9-14). When we
are born from above the FIVE SENSES OF THE SPIRIT WORLD become resident and operative
within the inner-man body. Gradually, as this
inner man grows and we are quickened to become aware of these senses, the EYES of our
understanding open wider and wider to the things not seen by the natural eye; by degrees
the HEARING of faith increases until every good promise of God is established as truth
within and we learn to know the voice of the Father, and to distinguish between His voice
and all other voices — “My sheep hear my voice, and a stranger they will not
follow” and “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith”; in
time we come into TOUCH with the Lord in His invisible presence and powers; little by little we TASTE and see that the Lord is
gracious, and we eat and drink heavenly food with Him at His table in the Kingdom; after a
time we come to appreciate those sacrifices and incense-prayers and praises which are a
SWEET ODOR to the Lord, and we are able to discern every spiritual fragrance that is or is
not of Him, and the stench of the flesh. As
the natural senses can be cultivated, so can the spiritual; and the cultivation of these
spiritual senses constitute marks indicating our growth in the Kingdom, our development as
sons of God, to the completeness of our new selves in the glory, honor, and immortality of
the divine nature.
The
sons of God have eyes within that see on a level that is not seen by the eyes of the
outer-man body. You can have 20/20 vision with
your physical eyes and never see what you see with the “eyes of your
understanding” (Eph. 1:18). It must
forever be settled in our hearts that there is no true reality in any of the things that
are SEEN, for how can we say that things that are always changing and passing away are
realities? The only eternal things in the
whole universe are the things that are NOT SEEN by the outer eye, and yet it is not that
they are really invisible, for they are merely invisible to the kinds of eyes we have in
our outer-man body. Eternal things are only
inaudible to the ears of the natural and can be perceived only beyond the senses of the
soulish man. The Holy Spirit has faithfully
recorded of Moses, that grand hero of faith and spiritual vision, that “by faith he
forsook
Here
is the mighty power of the New Creation: it sees what others cannot see! It sees, amid the thousand things natural men see
and are guided by, something infinitely greater and more real — it SEES GOD. No wonder it leads a man to think and act
differently from other men. On everything it
looks at, the bright light of eternity is shining. The
depths it perceives are infinite. The heights
it beholds are immeasurable. The truth it
understands is without flaw or error and is eternal. No
wonder that under the inspiration of that vision it can do mighty deeds, for it sees God
its helper and strength. Let me here say to
every saint of God that just as, in any pursuit, the eye can be trained to see what others
cannot see, so the spiritual eyes of the new creation inner-man body can be trained to see
God everywhere and in all things. Abide in His
presence until the heart is filled with it. You
will begin to recognize HIM in everything that
happens, when to others there is only mystery, perplexity, or tragedy. Seek to walk in the light of His countenance. Seeing the INVISIBLE will make it easy to forsake
this world and do the will of God! The heavens
are shut up from the natural man. He cannot
see eternal things. He hears only the lower
sounds of earth. But you see beyond all this
into the very heart of God, into the depths of His great plans and purposes, and the
“whys” and “wherefores” of all things since the creation of the world
and unto the consummation of all ages. You see
the
ENTERING THE KINGDOM
Far
away in the depths of my spirit the perfumed breezes of the
We
must expect to encounter some strange and exotic new realities. We will also find ourselves faced with some rather
confusing and sometimes upsetting situations. We
may at times be discouraged and hindered by unexpected storms and difficulties which are
part of the processing of God and the necessary trial of our faith. Some of our most cherished opinions and long-held
beliefs will be upset, but we will fear no evil, for the Chief Shepherd will be with us
all the way. But unlike earthly adventures we
have embarked upon the most essential and profound journey a person can ever take. Our soul is blossoming in the light of His face, as
His flower coming into its own, and the vast glory of God is flooding upon us like a
breath of clear air. There is a place that
flesh and blood have never seen, nor even imagined. This
is an adventure that makes the word adventure sound profane, and yet that is exactly what
it is. It will pierce eternity and transcend
time itself. This is not a religious exercise
— it is an attainment in the Spirit.
To
“enter into” the Kingdom is, as we should readily understand, more than to
“see” it. Moses stood on the heights
of
Some
people think that the Kingdom cannot be entered until some future time called “the
Kingdom Age” or “the Millennium.” Nowhere
does the Bible teach such an idea. Jesus
taught that entering into the Kingdom is a present reality.
He said, “The tax collectors and the harlots go into the
Entering
the Kingdom is directly related to the new birth, for in speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus said
that unless one is born anew he cannot enter into the
“Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
When
the Lord says to all the healing and deliverance preachers, the miracle workers, the
revival crowd, the faith and word people, “I never knew you,” He doesn’t
mean that they weren’t saved, filled with the Holy Ghost, or that they were impostors
and fakers, or that He was not acquainted with them. To
“know” a person in this way speaks of the most intimate association and union as
when we read, “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived.” “I never knew you” means He did not know
you in that intimacy of fellowship and vital union that characterizes the Kingdom Realm. One can only become a partaker of the life of
Christ, which is the life of sonship, which is the power and glory of the
The
eternal purpose of God for man has been that man would know Him. God delights in man knowing Him and therefore
declares, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD more than
burnt offerings. Then shall we know, if we
FOLLOW ON TO KNOW THE LORD: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come
unto us as the rain” (Hos. 6:6,3). All
that God has done and shall yet do in His redemptive purposes is in order that we may know
Him. “For this is the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws
into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to me a people: and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for ALL SHALL KNOW ME, from the least to the
greatest” (Heb. 8:10-11).
When
we are regenerated the Spirit of God, containing God’s eternal and divine life,
enters into us that we may have the capability of knowing Him from within. Therefore the knowing of God constantly increases with the inward growth of His life. It is only because God has given us His life that
we can know Him. This can be understood by
the fact that every creature in the universe can only fully relate to another being with
the same kind of life. What bird can
understand the ways of a man? What man
can understand the language of a dog, or why he marks his territory and sniffs the way he
does? To man all dogs bark essentially alike
and one dog’s bark is much the same as another dog’s bark. However, animal behaviorists have demonstrated that
dogs “talk” in their barks and growls, actually communicating with one another
in definite patterns of dog “speech”. This
ability is inherent in their nature.
Man
likes to think of himself as the only “social” being on earth. However, every created life form in the whole world
is what we call “social”. “Social”
means that there is definite relationship, understanding and communication between beings. This social aspect is rooted in the ability of a
being to “know” another being, thus sharing with that being a common inherent
understanding, communication, and relationship, all of which is due to the oneness of
their life and nature. The social aspect is
only realized within a species — between beings of the same “kind”. Why does a cat bow its back and “spit”
when a strange dog passes by? Why will a dog
chase a cat but will “sniff” another dog? This
is because the cat fully relates as a social being to another cat and the dog relates to
another dog as a social being.
The
simplest aspect of social behavior among animals is seen in the “herding” of
cattle, the “schooling” of fish, and the “flocking” of birds. However, social animals do more than just stay
together — they do things together. A
family of ducklings in the park goes through a common rhythm. Chapter of the day they will feed, keeping close
together wherever they go. On other occasions
they will bathe together, and after a bath they swim to the shore together and spend half
an hour or so preening, standing next to each other. Then
they fall asleep, side by side. But notice! These are all ducks, sharing a common life and
nature. There are no dogs with them following
the same routine. Why? Because one can only understand, relate to,
communicate with, fellowship and work together with beings of the same quality of life. Therefore, one can only truly KNOW another being of
the same kind!
Some
animals express themselves to others of their kind through a simple posture, or a change
of color, or by giving off a particular scent, and some, such as porpoises, are highly
intelligent and lead extremely complex social lives. But
what bird can understand the language of a porpoise, or what duck would comprehend the
intentions of a cichlid fish when it sets its fins in a certain position and changes its
color pattern to say that it is protecting its territory?
What beast of the field can comprehend the actions or intentions, the
desires or aspirations of men? And what
natural man, made a little lower than the angels, can perceive the things pertaining to
the angelic realm; and what heavenly angel, marvelously created by the skillful hand of
God, but not begotten of God’s own divine life, can understand those glorious things
appointed to the sons of God who are born of God’s Spirit, the offspring of His
divine life, and called to share even His throne and to inherit all things? I
have cited these illustrations to point out the unmistakable truth that every being in the
entire universe of God can only “know” those other beings that share their own
common life and nature.
This
explains the vast importance of our birth into the very Family of God. God has given us HIS LIFE, and it is because we are
“His kind” of creatures, that we are able to KNOW HIM! If we were not of the God species there would be no
possibility of ever knowing God, no matter how dramatic His efforts to convey Himself unto
us. When we are born of God, His Spirit, His
seed, containing His life, enters into us that we may have the capability of knowing Him
from within. This knowing of God gradually
increases as His life develops and matures within us.
The more His life grows within, the better we know Him. The better we know Him, the more we will experience
Him, enjoy Him, understand His ways, act according to His nature, express His ability, and
allow Him to live out through us in our whole
being. Thus we may say that all the growth of
our spiritual life depends upon OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, and our knowledge of God depends
upon the increase of His life within. This
gives us an accurate understanding of the absolute truth of Jesus’ declaration:
“And this is life eternal, that they might KNOW THEE the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
Those
who teach that saints who die are dead like a dog, unconscious, and non-existent,
obviously do not understand either the miracle or the mystery of the new birth. Eternal life is here now, for “we know that we
have passed from death unto life.” “And
you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins.” The Kingdom of God and of Heaven is here now,
waiting to be possessed by those who esteem it of enough worth to lay aside all else and
press into it. No one can find true
righteousness, absolute perfection, spiritual maturity, unshakable peace, infinite love,
fullness of joy, eternal purpose, incorruptible life, unlimited power and heavenly glory
until he or she obtains it in the
Along
this line brother Paul Mueller has penned these challenging words. “Jesus said, ‘Except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
“There
is a vast difference between seeing the Kingdom of God, and entering into it. Moses only saw the Promised Land, but Joshua and
Caleb entered into that land and partook of the abundance it provided. Jesus also made a clear distinction between seeing
the Kingdom of God and entering into it. Were
it not for the fact that the realms of seeing and of entering the Kingdom are mentioned
both in the experience of Moses, and in the words of Jesus, we might overlook the
distinction. However, the point is made in
both instances and is worthy of our sincere and prayerful consideration. I do not want to be one of those who merely sees
the
“Of
course, it is not our choice that determines whether we will cross over, but is a calling
given of the Father. If we have been faithful
to Him all through our wilderness journey, obediently receiving the corrective
chastisements of His rod, we are then undoubtedly among that chosen remnant who shall
cross this
“The
ministry of yesterday only brought us out of the world and took us into the wilderness of
testing. The leadership of yesterday, the best
of them, could only lead us up to the
“The
remnant the Lord has called unto Himself are the pioneers of the
Chapter
6
BIRTHED
INTO THE KINGDOM
(continued)
“Jesus
answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the
Scripture
abounds in figures, and Jesus always spoke in symbolic terms. When He said, “Except ye eat my flesh and
drink my blood, ye have no life in you,” He certainly was not advocating cannibalism! He was using a natural figure to illustrate a
spiritual truth. So when He says one must be
“born of water” do not understand water to mean what we are accustomed to think
of as the natural water that men drink or wash in. It
is a figure of THE LIVING WORD OF GOD. New
birth ever, and only, is by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God. These are the only two agents directly involved in
the new birth throughout the scriptures. “Being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which
liveth and abideth for ever” (I Pet. 1:23). Some
have thought the water to mean baptism. But
there is no mention of baptism in chapter three of John, nor is baptism ever connected
anywhere in the New Testament with the new birth. A man can no more be born again by
coming up out of natural water than he can be born again by entering the second time into
his mother’s womb. Both are physical,
natural, earthly, temporal and corruptible things. They
are not agents of the spiritual world at all.
Others
have thought the water referred to physical birth — the water in which the babe is
encased in the womb of the mother. That would
make the scripture read, “Except a man be born physically and spiritually, he cannot
enter into the
The
traditions of the past have so dimmed our understanding that every truth is side-tracked
and diminished by the shallowness of the carnal mind.
Thus it is with the truth of the agency of the Word and the Spirit in the
new birth. The great truth is that when Jesus
announces the awesome reality of the new birth He presents to us THE TWO NEW PARENTS. The Spirit of God is the new spiritual Father; the
Word of God is the new Mother.
Let
us understand exactly how the conception of a new life takes place. Human life begins when a sperm cell from the father
enters and fertilizes an egg cell of the mother. The
joining of these two cells is called fertilization or conception. Together, the sperm and egg create one single human
cell. Every human life begins as one single
cell. This one cell contains 46 chromosomes. Twenty three of the chromosomes are from the sperm
of the father, and 23 are from the egg of the mother.
All heredity is dictated by the 46 chromosomes. They determine whether the new human will be tall
or short, have small or large bones, have blue eyes or brown eyes, even whether it will be
susceptible to certain diseases or not. At the
moment of conception the chromosomes of the sperm cell and the egg cell come together, and
the traits that the child will inherit from his parents are determined. Both mother and father contribute equally to the
child’s heredity — with only one exception.
It is the father’s sperm that
determines whether the baby will be a girl or a boy.
This
brings us to a mystery understood by very few of the Lord’s people, but it is the
truth. It is evident that God contains within
Himself both the masculine nature of the father and the feminine nature of the mother. Was it not when God created Adam male and female
that he was said to be in the image of God? (Gen. 1:26).
God’s masculine nature is manifested as SPIRIT, whereas His feminine
nature is expressed as WORD. Now, as I have
previously pointed out, there are two elements involved in our begettal as children of God
— the Spirit and the Word. “Except a
man be born of Water (Word) and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
We
are born of the Word and we are born of the Spirit. It
is only when the Word is quickened or fertilized by the Spirit that divine life is
generated within. Just as it requires the male
sperm and the female ovum to beget a human child, so it takes the union of the Spirit and
the Word within the believing heart to beget a child of God.
And each contributes equally to the child’s heredity — the kind of
child he is. The Word contributes, as it were,
23 spiritual chromosomes, and the Spirit likewise contributes 23 spiritual chromosomes. Let us see how this works.
The
SPIRIT OF LIFE is dispensed into us directly from our heavenly Father. “Behold, I send the promise of the Father upon
you: but tarry ye in the city of
The
WORD OF LIFE, on the other hand, is dispensed into us through the church which is His
body. This true church is the
The
Spirit of sonship is given to us as the sperm of
God directly from our heavenly Father. But the
Word by which we are begotten again is ministered to us via the ministry of the church. The following verses make this very plain. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever...and this is
the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (I Pet. 1:23-25). Again, “For this cause also thank we God
without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye
received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which
effectually worketh also in you that believe” (I Thes. 2:13).
This
brings us to a truth which is at the same time both wonderful and dreadful. When children of God are conceived by the joining
of the sperm of the Holy Ghost with the ovum of the pure and incorruptible Word of God,
the result is a perfect child of God that will be able in all respects to grow up as a son
or daughter of God into the very image of God. If
you pause to think, however, you will become fully aware that the whole church system
today and of many ages is filled with pathetically deformed children of God. This is not due to any fault on God’s part
— the work of the Spirit in every man and woman who has believed has been a perfect
work. The sperm of God has absolutely no
defect in it. It cannot pass any spiritual
defect on to its offspring. But there is a
great and damning fault in the church world that seems to be past explanation. It is a fault that has developed and grown more
grotesque as the years have come and gone. The
word that is ministered through the church mother has become an inconceivably perverted
word, a polluted word, a defective word, and the defects within that word are passed on as
congenital anomalies — birth defects — to
the children born of that word. The children
of God born of an impure word come into God’s spiritual world bearing genetic
defects, flaws, weaknesses and abnormalities.
The
Baptists preach one word, the Catholics preach another word, the Pentecostals preach a
different word, the Mormons preach something else, and so on throughout Christendom. Two thousand years ago the same beloved apostle
John who wrote so extensively of God’s marvelous love also left us this solemn
warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from IDOLS (that is, false gods, or false
ideas and representations of the true God)” (I Jn. 5:21). “Little children, keep yourselves from false
ideas about God!” Do we have false ideas
about God? I fear we do. How the world and the church are filled with them! Many people view God as a schoolboy did:
“...the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying
himself and then trying to stop it.” Then
others make God out to be a tyrant, or a vengeful, wrath-filled fiend. Some paint a God so weak that the will of man is
stronger than the will of God. Others speak of
God as always trying to do this and that, but the devil is ever hindering and thwarting
God’s purposes, getting the upper hand, defeating God’s best laid plans,
tripping up and overcoming the saints, until it would seem that the devil is himself the
omniscient and omnipotent one. Some have a God
so capricious that He will only save you if the correct formula is repeated over you in water baptism.
Vast numbers blaspheme the Holy Ghost by attributing the works of the Holy
Spirit to the devil, contending that if you speak in tongues, prophesy, heal the sick, or
do miracles you are of the devil, and dispense that perverted word into their offspring
who do truly trust Jesus as their Saviour. Some
say that Christ can only be ministered to you through the sacraments, or a particular
ritual, or the ministry of their denomination, or membership in their movement, or by
believing only the doctrines of their church and listening to no one else. Others teach their people that they cannot go to
heaven if they use tobacco, drink wine, wear jewelry, put on make-up, cut their hair, go
to movies, or wear or not wear certain kinds of clothing.
We could pile error upon error, with pagan holidays, customs, and
philosophies that have been introduced into the church realm and have become such an
established part of her practice and teaching until the whole world believes that these
things are surely taught somewhere in the scriptures or were established by the apostles
or by Jesus Himself!
A
dear brother in Christ has penned these
valuable words of admonition: “The opinions we form by hearing about people are
usually found to be wrong after we have come to know them personally and intimately. This is also true concerning God. When you come to know Him as He really is, you will
find Him very unlike the description given by theologians.
You will come to know that much that they teach is only rubbish because it
is contrary to the nature of God. It certainly
was so with the Jewish theologians and doctors of the law.
When Jesus came He smashed their theories to bits and tore the robes of
their ecclesiasticism to ribbons. He ate with
sinners, cast the devil out of the Syropheonician, let a sinful woman of the street wash
His feet, forgave a thief, healed on the Sabbath, ate with unwashed hands, called the most
esteemed religionists of His day liars, hypocrites, children of the devil, whited
sepulchers, and a generation of snakes. They
thought that they knew God, but they didn’t. He
was more pleased with the sincerity of sinners than with the ritualism of scribes and
Pharisees. When you come to know Him, you will
find that it is the same now as it was then.
“Furthermore,
to know Him who is truth empowers one to immediately recognize all that is error. The more you come to know Christ, the more you come
to recognize the flagrant error of so much that is taught in the name of truth. If the doctrines that men try so hard to prove run
contrary to the very nature of Christ, then know that all that is contrary to His gracious
Spirit is error. For years without number the
evangelicals in their missionary fervor have taught that all heathen men will be condemned
forever to groan in eternal flames in unremitting torment because they did not accept
Christ, their ignorance of His existence being no excuse whatever. I have no hesitation whatsoever in calling this a
lie, because everything about it is contrary to the very nature of the blessed Christ I know. It is contrary to His love, contrary to His
kindness and mercy, contrary to His foreknowledge, contrary to His immutable wisdom, and
contrary to His great and all-inclusive redemption, of which it is stated that as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”
— end quote
While
preparing this message for the printer, a word arrived in the mail from Bob Torango, a
word so powerful and anointed, and so in accord with the burden of my own heart, that I
would be remiss if I failed to share a portion with you.
He wrote: “Why, you may ask, doesn’t the world follow after the
message of the church? The answer is that the
message is one of a God that is a dictator instead of a God that is a Father. The message of the church is tainted with words of
judgment promising harsh punishment for sins, delivered without a voice of love. This nullifies the true reason for God’s
judgment, which is to bring us to correction and joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is the same scenario that is played out every
day in an abusive home where the parents lash out at their children in a fit of rage,
striking them with physical blows meant to bring them into submission but accomplishing
the direct opposite. There can be no
substitute for love. A hug will accomplish
more correction than a blow to a child’s body.
“I
am not suggesting that a child should never be reprimanded, for I realize that any child
will continue to mis-behave if given a free reign, but I do believe that the parent is
responsible for punishment that exceeds the transgression.
This happens more times than we want to think.
The parent has a bad day at work, the car breaks down, the air conditioner
goes out, and the frustration over these matters is unleashed upon the children, which, by
the way, can’t do anything right in the eyes of the enraged judge of the house. The result is a beating that is more therapeutic
for the parent in venting their frustrations than it is for correction of the child’s
behavior. Judgment of any kind should never be
administered in a spirit of rage or loss of sensibility.
The result is much worse than if there were no punishment at all.
“The
church, enraged over the continued rejection of their version of the gospel story becomes
more and more abusive toward anyone that does not see things their way. Instead of being the magnet of God’s love to
creation, the church has become a judge of God’s wrath that cannot be approached by
anyone except those who have lost all hope of love in their life, and they commit to the
stranglehold of religion just to belong to a group that will give them a sense of
security. This, dear ones, is the standard
definition of a child that is abused. Some of
us that have never been found in an abusive relationship have doubts whether or not the
relationship is truly abusive. Why don’t
the abused children tell someone about their beatings, if they are truly abused? Why don’t they run away from home? The saddest truth of all in an abusive situation is
that the abused individual, especially a child, is convinced that they deserve this
treatment. Added to this is the reinforcement
that is given to this submissive behavior by our societal mores that continuously drill
into our children that their parents are the judges of their life and have the moral and
legal authority to administer beatings whenever they see fit. The child is reinforced to never question the
judgment of their parents by teachers, who are surrogate judges when at school, or by
their playmates who are in ordinary relationships with their parents. The abused child is cut off, quite literally, from
any hope of escape or explaining their situation to others.
The result is a child that grows up to be either withdrawn, extremely low in
confidence and self-esteem, or else one that acts out the acts of senseless violence upon
society that were acted out upon them in this abusive environment.
“The
world mirrors this same stereotypical attitude within the church. They are either scared to death of the church, or
they are violently opposed to it. What a
tragedy it is to see the church in this shape. Whereas
the church has been ordained to be the mother of the world’s lost children, opening
her arms with grace and love to all that are in need, she has instead been seen as an
abusive judge in the earth, spitting out statements of eternal damnation and unthinkable
horrors on all that do not follow her commands. No
wonder the Lord is preparing another church! The
church that is known as “mainstream” is a fake, dear ones! She is a wicked stepmother that has no bond of love
with the world at all. This wicked church
loves the world in word only, and that only because the Bible says she must! The lost children of the world are only her lawful
responsibility, and by God, if they don’t shape up she is threatening to throw them
all into eternal hell fire. Raise up your
“Even
now, as we speak out against the tyranny of an out of control religious mother of
“The
wicked mother especially enjoys telling her forced child laborers the tales of what will
happen if they think they could ever leave her domain.
She goes into great sickening detail in describing the terror that awaits
them outside the walls of her prison. Giant
scorpions with tails that sting and torment you, dragons that eat little children,
starving children that cannot buy any food and will watch each other starve to death
without having the mark of the beast. She
tells them of devils lurking behind every door, waiting to jump on them and make them
slaves of evil. These are the bed time
stories that the mainstream church puts her children to rest by. The fake church tells her young children that they
are hopelessly evil and that all their lives they will have to serve the wicked mother in
order to earn their way to heaven. The abused
are told that God can’t even look upon them, that He never heard their prayers before
they came to live with the wicked mother, that God turned away from them in their sorrow,
because He is too holy to look upon sin! Whereas,
the opposite is true. God always hears
groaning creation, and not one word intended for His ears goes by the wayside. Indeed, God has moved for us even when we were
sinners, and countless times saved us from destruction with or without our asking Him to. He has moved heaven and earth to keep us in this
world and is constantly working on our
behalf” — end quote.
It
is a mystery too deep to fathom, but God in His great mercy honors His Word on whatever
level it is preached, and in spite of the character of those who preach it. It is a fact that multitudes of men have been
turned to seek and find God even by words that are pitiful mixtures of truth and error and
preached by men and systems of reprobate minds. Their
children are born of mixed natures as was Ishmael, truly born of God by the Spirit, yet
born of Hagar, the Egyptian bondwoman, through the fleshly word, the Word of God mingled
with the ideas of men. The many and varied
erroneous ideas about God and His Kingdom, contorted representations of truth and reality,
each bring forth spiritual expressions of their religious lineage. Some of these unfortunate children are born
completely paralyzed spiritually and others are still-born, conceived by a totally dead
word. Those who preach the Word of God as a
dead letter of literalism, legalism, and carnality, void of spiritual understanding or the
breath of life, fill the earth with children of God having inherited weaknesses,
deformities, and pathetic imperfections.
I
do not doubt for one moment that many who read these lines were first conceived in their
spiritual life by a defective word! Only as
each of us is miraculously and supernaturally healed can we hope to come into the image
and likeness of God as His sons. How precious
the knowledge that regardless of the poor and wretched condition of our early conception,
GOD IS A GREAT HEALER! He can heal the embryo
in the womb, or He can heal the child of tragic birth.
As this great healing work takes place in our lives, through the gracious
dealings and faithful processings of the Lord, we are dramatically and gloriously
transformed in our spiritual lives. Gone are
those “religious” spirits, bondages, customs, speech, mannerisms, methods,
practices, fleshly efforts, false doctrines, static creeds, empty rituals and ceremonies,
lifeless programs, dead works and denominational hype which once characterized all our
understanding, attitudes and activities. All
the marks of
Have
the flaws in your own character, my beloved, been magnified in your eyes until you despair
of ever attaining to the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus? Today, dear one, I point you to CHRIST THE HEALER. Think not for one moment that Jesus Christ is the
healer only of diseases of the body. He has
come to cleanse His church, to sanctify and purify His people, to purge and refine and
make every whit whole His children called to be sons.
I declare to you today that HE IS THE HEALER AND RESTORER OF HIS FAMILY. He purges out of His Kingdom all things that defile
and offend. Listen! The great and wonderful mercy of the Christ
receives those who have blemishes, and His power heals all who humbly bow before Him,
calling upon the name of the Lord. Have you
received the call to sonship? Then get rid of
the blemishes! The Holy Ghost is closely
examining candidates for this ministry. The
qualifying time is NOW. The “in
part” ministries of the church age may get by with blemishes and defects, but the
King-Priest ministry destined to deliver the whole creation from its bondage to corruption
must itself first be freed from every vestige of carnality, weakness, limitation, sin and
death, transformed into the image of God. How
is this thing done? “And the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
BLAMELESS (without blemish) unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thes. 5:23). If you are to be cleansed, healed, made whole and
preserved without blemish there is only one way, and that is shown in the verse that
immediately follows the one quoted above: “Faithful is HE that calleth you, WHO ALSO
WILL DO IT.” What a word!
THE
KINGDOM FAMILY OF GOD
The
For
almost two thousand years there has raged a theological battle over the Godhead. Some have contended that God is one Person in three
manifestations, and that Jesus is that one Person of God manifested in the flesh. Others believe in the trinity — that God is
eternally three distinct Persons, co-equal, co-eternal, and con-substantial, united
together as one God. There is yet a third
school of thought known historically as Arianism which views God as a duality — the
one eternal and almighty God together with His Son whom He begat at some point in time,
and by whom He created all other things. Now,
I have my own view of these things, but far away in the depths of my spirit lies the
secret, sacred knowledge that God is greater than all of man’s puny definitions. It is no embarrassment to me to admit that I know
nothing yet as I ought to know, but the spirit of truth within me today bears witness that
the truth lies far beyond the limitation of any of man’s concepts.
None
of the above views grasp the fuller truth set forth in the scriptures and now revealed by
the Holy Spirit. The wonderful truth is —
God is ultimately not one Person, nor is God two Persons, nor yet is He three Persons. God is a FAMILY, for we are the children of God by
faith in Jesus Christ, and the sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God. We are the citizens of the
This
is not a mere conception as some say, for the Holy Spirit testifies to every man, saying,
“And I cannot speak unto you as spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto BABES IN
CHRIST. I have fed you with milk, and not with
meat” (I Cor. 3:1-2). Again, “For
when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be
the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and
not strong meat. For every one that useth milk
is unskillful in the word of righteousness: FOR HE IS A BABE” (Heb. 5:12-13). Yet again, “As NEWBORN BABES, desire the
sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow
thereby” (I Pet. 2:2). Then John tells
us, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth
IS BORN OF GOD, and knoweth God...for whatsoever IS BORN OF GOD overcometh the world”
(I Jn. 4:7; 5:1,4). Regenerated believers are
called the children of God all through the New Testament.
Nowhere does God call us divine fetuses or embryos! Children are born ones. Embryos and fetuses do not drink milk, neither do
they love or do the will of God! Nor are they
chastened. How beautifully does J. B. Phillips
translate the meaningful words of the apostle John: “Consider the incredible love
that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called children of God — and that
is not just what we are called, but what we are. Our
heredity on the Godward side is NO MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH — which explains why the
world will no more recognize us than it recognized Christ” (I Jn. 3:1).
The
way into the Kingdom is so narrow that only one can enter into it at a time. It is the way of life in everything else. One baby is born at a time. One flower bursts into bloom at a time, and yet it
seems as if they all come together. I am
thankful that there are seasons of God’s moving in which great multitudes are born,
but it is one at a time, and each one has an independent spiritual life. That is the way of sonship. God is not the Father of a great conglomerate of
spiritual life. He is the Father of spirits
— independent, original, unique, and absolutely independently constituted spirits. Paul says of this Fatherhood of spirits,
“Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them
reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the FATHER OF SPIRITS, and
live?” (Heb. 12:9). God is the Father of
spirits — not angels or demons or fairies — He is the Father of our spirits. The only spirits in the whole vast universe that
are born spirits are the children of God! Each
one must be born of God by the distinct operation of the Spirit of God. You may be as great a Rabbi as Nicodemus, and know
nothing about these things. You may have to be
told as Jesus told Nicodemus, “Art thou a Rabbi, a master in
The
Greek word Jesus used which is translated “born,” is GENNAO. It refers to the entire birth cycle — from
conception to entrance into the world. Vast
multitudes today do not know the difference between being born of man and being born of
God. And almost as many do not know the
difference between such terms as forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, salvation and
the new birth. They repeat the sinner’s
prayer and confess faith in Jesus and then are informed by the preacher that they have
been “born again.” But it is a lie. It is a delusion.
It is a deception. It is a
monstrous heresy. Error cloaked in Biblical
terms is still error. In the case of the
current evangelical “born again” movement, scriptural terminology is being used
to teach just the opposite of its original meaning. Stated
simply the error is this — that men are born again as a result of something they do. This something may be “going forward” at
the close of an evangelistic message, praying
the “sinner’s prayer,” making a “decision” for Christ, or
“repenting” and “believing” the gospel.
The
sad results of such a teaching can be seen all around us.
Evangelists who believe that men dead in sin can and will be born again if
the right kind of emotional and psychological inducement is presented, push and pressure
lost people into making “decisions”. Whatever
is necessary to get people to come forward, or raise their hand, or pray a prayer, or sign
a card, is tried by today’s “soul winners.”
Highly emotional meetings, prolonged appeals, repeated musical choruses, and
even the deceitful tactic of having counselors strategically placed in the audience to
come forward at the time of the “appeal” to make it appear others are responding
— all smack of the techniques of crowd psychology.
Those who do come forward are then rushed through a process, a formula, and
coached into believing that they are now born again. Deep
down, though, the vast majority know that nothing so dramatic has really happened. The evangelist has done something, the sinner has
done something, but God has done nothing. There
has been no miracle. The heavens have not been
opened to them. That some people are brought
into an experience with God in these situations is no doubt true. You may even be one of them. But it is in spite of these methods, not because of
them.
Men
are not born again because of any action on their part.
What effort did you exert to be born into this world? What contribution did you make? Jesus said nothing of any action or decision that
Nicodemus must make, nor did He quote him the four spiritual laws, or have him repeat a
prayer, nor did He even tell him to repent and believe the gospel. As a matter of fact, Jesus was not telling
Nicodemus to do anything! “You must be
born again” was not a command Nicodemus was to obey, it was simply a statement of
fact. He was talking about God doing
something, coming and sovereignly and miraculously generating life in man. I never chose the family I was born to. When I stop to think about it, I have had very
little choices in life. I certainly
didn’t choose to be born! I didn’t
pick the chromosomes that make up the genetic structure called Preston Eby. To a marvelous and beautiful degree there is a
destiny that put us here, the way we are, where we are, when we are, and what we are. “Of His own will begat He us.” The new birth is something more than having your
sins forgiven, or being reconciled, or being
justified, or being saved, as wonderful as all those things are. It is the birth of a new and glorious life which
thrusts one into a new and dynamic reality — the
In
that far away beginning the Almighty Creator proclaimed, “Let us make man in our
image and after our likeness.” God made
cattle “after their kind,” after the cattle kind.
He made “every winged fowl after his kind,” after the bird kind. But it is abundantly evident that God purposed to
make man AFTER THE GOD KIND. Now, incredible
as it may seem to those who do not understand the mystery of God, God is a FAMILY. This does not mean that there are many gods. There is only one God, just as there is only one
Adam and one Christ. Adam is a many-membered
man, Christ is a many-membered son, and God is a many-membered Godhead! The Person of God is expressed through a variety of
manifestations of Himself as He reproduces
Himself after His own “KIND”. It is in man that God is reproducing His kind. Man is God’s idea, God’s image,
God’s likeness, God’s expression, God’s revelation, God’s
manifestation. Man, out of all the infinite
creation of God, has the supreme potentiality of being born into the very divine family of
God, of which divine family Jesus Christ is the firstborn among many brethren. Jesus Christ is the first perfect representation
of God, and Jesus was and is a MAN. He is the
express image of God’s Person.
Do
you realize what this means? It means far more
than having an immortal body. The writer to
the Hebrews tells us that Christ is “the express image of God’s person”
(Heb. 1:3). The word “express” is
from the Greek word CHARAKTER from which we get our English word “character.” It means that Christ is the CHARACTER IMAGE of God.
The transcendent essential factor is that God is PERFECT SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. It is the supreme intelligence, combined with holy
and righteous character, that most importantly distinguishes God from every other life
form. Of course God, too, possesses supreme
and omnipotent power and eternal, incorruptible existence.
But without right CHARACTER, such power and perpetuity would be destructive
and dangerous. A monster would be in control
of the universe! And should any one of us
acquire an immortal body prior to having developed a holy and incorruptible character, a
devil would surely be born!
Come
now, and let us reason together. Character
springs from nature. Understand this and you
will understand a great truth: NATURE is inherited; CHARACTER is developed! No one
is born possessing character. Every child of
Adam is born into this world with a sinful (flesh) nature.
But that precious little infant does not yet have a sinful character. As the child grows its character is formed
progressively out of its nature. The nature
gradually manifests itself through the actions of the child as character. In the same way we have by regeneration been made
partakers of the divine nature. And while this
new birth is the most astounding miracle of the ages, it is, nonetheless, merely the birth
of a spiritual infant possessing divine nature but not divine character. Now divine character must be developed from the
divine nature — God manifesting His nature outwardly through our attitudes, words,
behavior and actions. The character is formed
in the crucible of experience, as we learn in every situation and circumstance to yield
our vessel to the Holy Spirit who is the active agent in our divine nature.
We
tread softly here. With bated breath we read
Ephesians 3:14-15. “For this cause I bow
my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the WHOLE FAMILY in heaven and
in earth is named.” Through the new birth
we become bona fide members of the original cosmic family, actual generated sons of God. Thus through the new birth we truly become
God’s very own offspring, His kin, His family, His clan, His kingdom, a kind of
“extension” of His Godhead. That
this group outranks all other orders of beings in the universe is attested by Paul’s
dramatic questions in I Corinthians 6:2-3. “Do
ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by
you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know
ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?”
In
a recent meeting Bob Torango said, “We are citizens of the true
Here
is an entirely new, unique and exclusive order of beings which may be classified as a
“NEW SPECIES”. There is nothing like
it in all the kingdoms of infinity. This is
the order of beings that Paul called “the new man,” the “new
humanity,” destined through citizenship
in the
Gracious
Son of God, reveal the Father to us in a way we have not known before! Make us overcomers, that you may be able to write
the name of your God, the Father’s name, the name of the city of your God, and your
new name, on our foreheads. God is in the
process of preparing a people FOR HIS NAME — a company that will bear His name, that
will be called by His name, those who know His name because they are born of His seed. To these the Son reveals the name of His Father, He
reveals the Father unto them. They will bear
the name of Yahweh for they will be filled with His fullness and they will do His works,
for the fullness of His power and understanding and nature will be in them. He will be in each of them in the measure that He
was and is in Jesus, and will speak His words and do
His works through them. They will be like His
first-begotten Son, they will be conformed to His image, the express image of His Person.
Jesus,
the Son, knew the Father and He was the only one in His day who did. The Lord said to the religious, as He undoubtedly says to the religious today,
“...ye say that He is your God; yet ye have not known Him; but I KNOW HIM and keep
His saying” (Jn. 8:55-56). “As the
Father knoweth me, even so KNOW I THE FATHER” (Jn. 10:15). The first-begotten Son knew the Father and it is
this knowledge His spirit of sonship imparts to the rest of His brethren, that they also
may know the Father, and knowing Him, shall reveal Him unto creation. All creation waits for this manifestation of the
sons of God. For two thousand years creation
has continued to wait for this manifestation, but the time of their waiting is fast
drawing to a close. The hour is at hand. The Spirit has spoken this from one end of the
earth to the other through the mouths of His holy prophets in this our generation. It is a sure word.
It has been attended by mighty dealings and processings of God in the lives
of those who have received the call to sonship. In
the fullness of time, “...the people that do know their God shall be strong and do
exploits” (Dan. 11:32). We will be this
people “...if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hos. 6:3).
From
earliest times there has been a thirst for the
new and undiscovered. Astronaut Michael
Collins remarked in The Home Planet: “It’s human nature to stretch, to go, to
see, to understand. Exploration is not a
choice, it’s an imperative.” Very
few will probably ever have the opportunity to travel to the moon, and yet we can all take
the most rewarding journey of all. This is the
spiritual exploration that reaches into the realm of infinite Spirit — the present
reality of God’s Kingdom on earth. In the
Bible we find stories of people who took such journeys in obedience to God’s bidding. Abraham was certainly a spiritual explorer. The book of Hebrews records: “By faith
Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an
inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went...for he looked for a
city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Those who are willing to obey God and follow the
Spirit’s leading in any age find themselves embarking on a spiritual quest in which
the human heart reaches out for a larger sense of home.
Obedience to God’s leading and faith in God’s provision inspire
many today to seek a stronger foundation on which to build their lives than material
ambition and human prestige. It takes courage
and vision to be a spiritual pioneer, to follow the road of spiritual insight that
signposts greater attainments and accomplishments for the sons of God.
Captain
James Cook was a famous English explorer who lived about two hundred years ago. His adventurous life began when he joined the
British navy at the age of 27. He surveyed the
St. Lawrence Channel and the coasts of
Today
I make Captain Cook’s dream my own — but on a different and higher plane. I do not idolize Peter or Paul or John. I do not follow
“We
have become like the priests of the Old Testament whose greatest fear of Christ and His
apostles was that they would change their beloved laws and customs (Acts 6:14). They cared not about God’s purpose for the
world and the universe. That was not important
in the least. The important thing to them was
that the old system be maintained and that there be no change. Tradition has it that, when the great veil in the
temple was rent in twain at the death of Christ, opening the way into the holiest of all,
the priests had it sown together again that all things might remain as they had always
been. When Jesus was buried, they took every
imaginable precaution to make sure He did not rise, but He arose in spite of their care
and ever lives on high and in the hearts of His people”
— end quote.
It
is time, beloved children of God, to arise from the mists of yesterday and press onward
and upward into the
A
certain man told his sons and daughters this story over and over as they grew up:
There
was a calf that made a trail.
The trail turned into a path.
Dogs and sheep walked in the calf’s foot steps,
Followed by men, complaining of winding trails;
But
came along day by day any way.
The path became a lane
Then a road, then a village street,
Then a thoroughfare,
Then the central street of a renowned metropolis.
Some
centuries and a half
Trod in the footprints of that calf.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
For
men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
And do what other men have done!
Beaten
paths are for beaten men;
They blindly follow where others trod;
But men of faith search long for God;
So they set sail where none have been.
They
sail on uncharted sea,
Fearing not what men before have done.
Their soul’s desire is just to BE
The express image of the Son!
There
is a people in the land
That follows God and God alone,
Refusing beaten paths of man,
They will not rest till they reach home.
When
the sons of God for joy did shout,
We were there, and our hearts cried out
For realms in Spirit to set us free
We are the people sailing uncharted seas!
Chapter
7
THE
BEGINNING OF THE KINGDOM
“Mankind does not understand the longing that
is within him and we may be sure that all the inanimate creation is also blind and in the
dark. We have become like babies who sometimes
cry for reasons they know not, refusing to be comforted.
Our souls often deplore the awful conditions that are in the world —
the rebellion, anarchy, delinquency, self-assertion, and war — yet if we could look
deeper than the surface, we would understand that all these things actually spring from
man’s hatred and rebellion against the
bondage he is in. In his darkness and bondage
he imagines that could he but throw off his restraints he would be happy, that could he
have all he wants, he could be content, but he does not know that his discontent lies far
deeper than his outward life. While he thus
seeks liberty from without, he does not know that the inner man is seeking for freedom
from the bondage of corruption and all the wretchedness into which the carnal mind has
brought him. Man is longing for freedom from
the slavish thralldom he is in but, not knowing God, he seeks freedom by rebellion only to
find that his new-found freedom is even a greater and more hateful bondage than the one
from which he escaped. But those to whom
Christ the King has revealed Himself know that true freedom is found only when Christ is
crowned King. When He comes into the life, the
snares of the fowler are broken, the tears of sorrow turn to pearls of praise, sins of
years are washed away by His blood” —
The Page.
According
to the good pleasure of His will, and to the praise of His glory, the plans of God from
the creation of the world focused on the Kingdom. From
age to age God lead mankind, in each age setting the stage for that fullness of time when
He would establish His Kingdom in power over the earth.
The glory of God was revealed through all His works from that awe-filled
moment when the almighty Creator first uttered those omnipotent words, “Let there
be!” All the works and institutions of
the early ages, however, were to become but chaff and refuse in the light of the
transcendent grandeur of Christ’s Kingdom. Ears
had heard God’s own voice thundering the law from mount Sinai, but no ears had heard
the message of compassion, grace, mercy and power from the lips of heaven’s King. Eyes had seen the golden glitter of the temple
built by man, but no eye had seen the reign of God’s love and power in the hearts of
transformed men. Hearts had dreamed of
God’s future for men, but human hearts had not the power to imagine the glories God
had in store.
At
the time of Abraham all nations had fallen into idolatry.
The knowledge of God was merely a flickering candle in some remote corner of
darkness. To Abraham God was pleased to make
Himself known, and to promise that of him He would make a great nation and a company of
nations, and in him and his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. To accomplish this purpose God selected the spot in
which he and his posterity were to be placed; and no spot on earth could have been better
suited for the purpose. God said of it,
“This is
There
were four specific items that set the stage for the coming of Christ and the rapid spread
of the gospel of the Kingdom. First, the Roman
Empire provided a highly efficient and comprehensive system of roads, facilitating ease of
travel throughout all provinces controlled by
Second,
because of the Pax Romana, or Peace of Rome, travelers could move from one province to
another with little concern for anything such as a passport or visa. The general spirit of peace provided a fit medium
for the dissemination of new ideas across borders.
Third,
prior to the Roman conquest, Alexander the Great had brought Greek to his empire. By the time of the
Fourth,
the penetration of the Jewish religion in all the civilized world of that day set the
stage and served as a springboard for the gospel of the Kingdom. The whole world was intensely pagan, but into that
pagan world went the Jew with his worship of the One God.
It was a new message. For
centuries the Jews had been scattered throughout all the nations of the world. There was a Jewish community, sometimes numbering
thousands, in every city. At the time of the
Babylonian captivity a new institution arose. It
was the synagogue, or “gathering together,” a term which first signified the
congregation and then the place where the congregation worshipped. By the time of Christ there were Jewish synagogues
in every major city of the
THE
FORERUNNER
John
the Baptist performed the word of the Lord as revealed by Isaiah the prophet which was a
preparatory ministry in advance of the coming of Christ.
It is constructive to observe how God’s new revelation of the Kingdom
takes up exactly where the last words of the Old Testament leave off. The very last words from heaven, preceding the
interval of silence that lasted for four hundred years after Malachi laid down his pen,
were these: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth
with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).
The
very next words reveal the fulfillment of this promise in a striking way, and the
significance of the fact is awesome. In the
angel Gabriel’s message to Zacharias, we have a direct continuation of the subject of
the last words spoken by God through Malachi. For
Gabriel’s words to Zacharias, while he, a priest,
was exercising his office in the temple were the next words sent from heaven
to earth. This is the record: “And there
appeared unto him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of
incense. And when Zacharias saw him he was
troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the
angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias; for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and
thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall
rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in
the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be
filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb.
And many of the children of
Some
time ago Paul Mueller wrote: “Much of the preparation necessary for the coming of the
Lord took place in John’s life while he was in the desert. John was about six months older than Jesus and
about thirty years old when his ministry began. He
ministered for a year or a year and a half, then spent another year or more in prison
before he was beheaded. John’s
preparation amounted to perhaps the greater part of thirty years in the wilderness without
schools, colleges, universities or teachers. In
our modern world of knowledge and education, John would have been considered a fool. However, he was anything but. John the Baptist was constantly ministered to by
the Holy Spirit as the way of the Lord was being prepared in his own life. He remained in the desert for most of those thirty
years and was not bothered by the many distractions in the world about him, for he daily
communed with the Lord. All during those years of preparation, John grew in the
knowledge of the Lord and became the way for the coming of Him who was to introduce His
kingdom of peace and righteousness. And when
John came out of the wilderness, he did not consult with the learned elders of
Knowing
that someone important was coming to stay in your home would mean, of course, that you
would make things as presentable as possible. Should
your guest be a president or a prime minister, you might even do some quick redecorating,
buy a new mattress for the guest room, or whatever. But
you would get ready! Two thousand years ago
the world heard a startling announcement. The
great King of the universe, the Lord of glory, is Himself coming to this world that He created, loves and cares for. GET READY! When
Christ came the preaching of His gospel did not begin with His own preaching. That was not the first preaching of the gospel. Mark’s Gospel says, “The beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Even
as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before Thy face, who
shall prepare Thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of
the Lord...John came and preached...” Therefore,
the scriptures themselves declare that “the beginning of the gospel” was not the
preaching of Jesus Christ, but was the preaching of John the Baptist. There is no question about that. That is the beginning of the good news of the
Kingdom. The gospel began when John came
announcing the approach of both the King and
the Kingdom.
Let
me illustrate. If Queen Elizabeth of
There
would issue from the
At
a definite time appointed by God, a man of strange habits and appearance began to preach
in a remote desert part of Judea, near the river
The
effect of John’s ministry was instantaneous and electric.
Some
thought that John was the Messiah. His fame
soon reached the government and priesthood in
We
can readily see by the teaching of Jesus that He never spoke of the
Jesus
made a startling declaration. “Among them
that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist,
notwithstanding, he that is least in the
The
words of Jesus are clear: John the Baptist is the greatest man that ever lived —
outside the
A
greater than Solomon is here, beloved, a
greater than Moses, a greater than John. The
greater is now realized in the Christ of God, and I declare that those whom God is
bringing forth in conformity to HIS IMAGE shall be a part of the greatest dimension of the
Kingdom ever revealed. Consider, in light of
the fact that John was the greatest man that ever lived before Christ, and the very least
in the Kingdom is greater than he — how unspeakably awesome is the greatness of those
elect sons who qualify as THE GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
PROCLAIMING
THE KINGDOM
“And
Jesus went about all
The
Word of God is the power of God unto
salvation. Hence, the necessity of teaching,
first of all. That is why in this hour just
before the manifestation of the sons of God, as God prepares to do a new thing and usher
in a new age, teaching is the first thing He is doing.
Teaching is more important than preaching.
We have had the idea that if a minister got very emotional and loud he is
preaching. Preaching, technically, is only the
proclamation of an ascertained truth. The
proclamation by the Herald, “The Queen is dead, long live the King!” is
preaching. There is no argument about it. It should be short, sharp, and to the point. Proclamation is not teaching. Preaching is not teaching. When Jesus went to a place, His disciples went
before Him and said, “Repent ye, for the
You
will notice that this order — teaching, preaching, healing — is not accidental. The same statement is made in other parts of the
Gospels. For instance, in Matthew 9:35,
“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and
preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of
sickness.” Then in the eleventh chapter we read, “And it came
to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, He departed thence
to teach and preach in their cities.” The
teaching came first and the preaching next, and the healing last.
In
the “teaching” of Jesus the old ideas of the
Then
He came preaching. What a word is this! It is the cry of the Herald. We call him a preacher who delivers his
well-prepared sermons to his select and cultured audience on Sunday morning; but the
preacher is a herald, whose voice rings out on the quiet air, suddenly, startlingly,
“Prepare! Prepare! The
The
healing was the evidence, the supernatural proof that the “Sun of Righteousness”
had indeed arisen “with healing in His wings.”
“It was never so seen in
Come,
see a little girl whom He healed. It was
yesterday, only God’s yesterday, that this happened.
Come, I want to lead you along the streets of
He
watches for Him beside the sea, and the moment that Jesus appears he falls at His feet and
worships Him, and cries, “Lord, my little daughter lies at the point of death; come
and lay Thy hands upon her and she shall live.” Jesus
says He will go. Away through the streets He
goes with the rabbi. On the way a woman
touches the hem of His garment and is immediately healed.
He turns around and addresses words of comfort to her. Then they go on.
Suddenly a messenger comes to the rabbi, and says, “Your little
daughter is dead; do not trouble the Master.” But
Jesus said, “Be not afraid, only believe. Did
I not say I was going to heal her?” “Yes.” “Then I am going to do it.” They go into the house and into the room and there
they find the beautiful little girl dead! Oh,
she is dead! But the hand of the Christ is
laid on the head of the child and He says, “Talitha cumi! Maid arise!”
In a moment the spirit has come back into the body and the maid arises and
looks into the face of Jesus. She lives! She is well! “Blessed
Jesus! That was done by Thee yesterday, and
Thou art just the same today! Thou art raising
up Thy life within Thy many brethren that Thy glory may be revealed to all creation, from
the highest heaven unto the lowest hell, in this Thy greater and more glorious day!”
We
have not yet witnessed the magnitude of the ministry that shall be revealed through the
manifested sons of God. God is preparing His
perfected and matured body, anointed with the seven-fold Spirit of God, and this
enChristed company shall appear on the cosmic stage of history with the suddenness with
which Jesus of Nazareth appeared two millenniums ago and with ten thousand times more
power than a Luther, a St. Patrick, a Wesley, a Whitfield, a Finney, a Moody, a Billy
Sunday, or any of the revival showers of this century.
God has moved deeply upon my heart to prophesy to God’s elect that
there is approaching a grand and glorious MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST before the face of all
nations and the whole earth. There will be a
fresh revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It
is going to come in the midst of a people who truly love His appearing, and I see and hear
signs that already He is beginning to come. We
are standing on the threshold of a new and fresh and transcendental manifestation of our
Lord. Not this time through apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. This
time it will be through SONS. It will be like
tens of thousands of Jesus’ turned loose in the streets of the cities of the world. These things are burning like a furnace inside of
me. I am being quickened by these things. I know God is on the move, and my deepest desire is
to be a part of this manifestation that will usher in a new day for this sin-cursed
planet. The Lord wants to reveal Himself IN
ALL HIS LOVE, GRACE, POWER AND MAJESTY TO ALL CREATION.
Jesus
did not theorize about the Kingdom, but He taught, preached, practiced, and set the powers
of the Kingdom in operation. For three and a
half years Jesus manifested sonship full and complete, not the in part and by measure we have known through the Church
age. Jesus did mighty works and spoke the
words of the Kingdom among the people of
Christ
appeared just when the cosmos was ready for the revelation.
Paul says that “when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His
Son” (Gal. 4:4). The Kingdom was the
supreme concern and purpose in the heart of Jesus, as it now is in those who have received
the call to sonship. The Kingdom was His
dearest dream, the one consuming passion of His life.
As a child, when He studied the holy scriptures and communed with His
heavenly Father, the reality of the
When
Jesus turned aside from the carpenter shop that day, He set out to proclaim the
THE
GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
When
Jesus announced that the
The
message of the sons of God is the same message proclaimed by the first Son of God. “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus
came into
Jesus’
parables concerned the
After
Christ’s resurrection, the disciples were with Him forty days. Of their conversations during this time we read, “...until
the day in which He was taken up, after that He through the Holy Ghost had given
commandments unto the apostles whom He had chosen: to whom also He showed Himself alive
after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God...” (Acts 1:2-3). After the day of Pentecost “Philip went down
to the city of Samaria...when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the
kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women”
(Acts 8:12). The apostle Paul spoke boldly at
The
churches — the apostasies would be a better word for the most part — are always
talking about “the Gospel.” Why do
they not go on? Why do they not conclude the
words? The gospel of what? The word gospel is incomplete. Gospel means “glad tidings,” or “good news.” But the good news of what? What is the good message about? That is a legitimate question, because the full
meaning is not presented in the word “gospel”.
It is presented in the Bible,
yes, as “the gospel of the
You
hear the different expressions brought forth by preachers, “I preach the gospel of
the New Testament”; “I preach the gospel of salvation”; “I preach the
gospel of grace”; “I preach the gospel of Christ”; “I preach the
gospel of God”; “I preach the gospel
of eternal life”; “I preach the
everlasting gospel”; “I preach Paul’s gospel”; “I preach the
Foursquare gospel”; “I preach the old-fashioned gospel”; etc. These expressions may be well and good, a couple of
them appear a time or two in the scriptures, but just what do the masses of people
conclude from them? Many people think there
are several different gospels. I heard a
preacher say that we have no business preaching the gospel of the Kingdom at this time. He said, “I only preach Paul’s gospel and
that is the only gospel for us to preach.” But
the gospel Paul preached was the same gospel the Lord gave the other apostles to preach
— the gospel of the Kingdom. When Paul
called the elders from Ephesus to talk to them for the last time, some of His words were
these, “And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone PREACHING THE
KINGDOM OF GOD, shall see my face no more” (Acts 20:25). What gospel did Paul preach? The same as Jesus told His disciples to preach when
He sent them out to the villages of
This
truth of the Kingdom is missing from the popular preaching of our day. Our long years of captivity in
As
I scanned the morning paper, I noticed that every article reported “old” news: a
prominent sports figure arrested for drunkenness, a man charged with conspiracy, a
government policy criticized, wars and rumors of wars, and a riot in the
So
what is real news? It isn’t about the
kind of conduct that comes naturally, that repeats out of human nature again and again,
but behavior that takes more courage and strength than we’re capable of. When someone acts in ways that are holy, righteous,
loving, and for the good of creation — now that’s news! How many know today, that Jesus’ gospel was a
sensational, never-before proclaimed NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT?
Jesus was a NEWSCASTER. His news
was something absolutely NEW — never before proclaimed to mankind. It was the most wonderful NEWS ever reported. Actually almost too wonderful for humans to
believe. It was the news of the utterly
transcendent potential of man. It was the news
of the
The
following words by Paul Mueller are encouraging. “‘Then
said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things
new and old’ (Mat. 13:52). Notice
Jesus’ reference to those who are ‘instructed unto the
“The
coming of the power, the authority and the throne of the
“The
gospel of the Kingdom includes not only the promises of Luke 4:18-19, but all the promises
of the original prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-3 as well. The
gospel of the Kingdom is indeed the gospel for the whole person. It truly is the good news of the sovereign dominion
of our almighty God! It is the Jubilee message
for every person of every nation and tongue. The
gospel of the Kingdom includes the fullness of salvation, the removal of the curse, the
restoration of all things, and prosperity for
all. It is a message of the Christ-Life for
every person! And we are the firstfruits; we
are the seed of the beginning of the restoration and reconciliation of all things, which
marks the blessed reality of the
The
gospel of the Kingdom includes the whole purpose of God and if we wish to inherit the
Kingdom we must embrace the whole purpose of God. We
have known many people who have accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour and they are quite
satisfied with that level of experience. They
get saved, live a few years and die and go to heaven.
To be with Christ after one dies is a wonderful hope, but God wants us to
enter in to all He has for us. Others have
learned what it is to consecrate their lives to God and desire to serve Him with all of
their hearts. Others desire a holy life that
is set apart for God. Others seek to be filled
with the Spirit of God and desire to be led by the Spirit.
Others long to receive spiritual gifts and enter into a spiritual ministry,
and still others desire to go on and become manifested sons.
They long to overcome, to be conformed into the image of God, to put on the
mind of Christ, and sit with Christ in His throne (Rev. 3:20-21), not because they are
power-mad, but because there is a deep and compelling desire to minister to the whole need
of the whole creation.
We
have the record of the revelation of God’s Kingdom purpose in I Cor. 15:22-28. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; afterward
they that are Christ’s at His coming. Then
cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father; when
He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign, until He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under His feet. But when He saith that all things are put under
Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that GOD MAY
BE ALL IN ALL.”
GOD
ALL IN ALL — this will be the grand conclusion of the great drama of the world’s
history and the conquest of the
While
we praise God for every moving of His Spirit and each step of His all-wise plan, the fact
remains that none of the revivals of history has ever once-for-all defeated satan, sin,
and death. No revival in any land has turned
the whole world to God! No dealing of God with
humanity has ever brought to pass the TOTAL TRIUMPH of His Kingdom in all realms! Sin and death still stalk across the earth, the
vast masses of humanity held tight in their terrible clutches, with sorrows beyond
description. Is there no deliverance for
these? How truly the whole creation groans and
travails in pain together, waiting, not for another Luther, nor another Paul, nor another
Finney, nor another Peter, nor another Moody; waiting not for another Pentecost, nor for
another healing campaign, nor for another prophet, nor for the rapture. “For the earnest expectation of the creation
waiteth for THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD” (Rom. 8:19). And why does all creation stand in the wings
waiting with bated breath, crowding the door and standing on tiptoe to see the wonderful
sight of God’s sons coming into their own? “For
the creation itself ALSO shall be delivered...INTO THE GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE SONS OF
GOD!” (Rom. 8:21). Praise God!
Thank
God, Daniel 7:27 is really true! “And the
kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heaven, shall be
given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and ALL DOMINIONS SHALL SERVE HIM!” Thank
God, Ephesians 1:10 is actually the fully inspired word of God! “And this is in harmony with God’s
merciful purpose for the GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD when the times are ripe for it — the
purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its
one Head in Christ; yes, things in heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head IN
HIM” (Weymouth).
If
God had no such plan for the world, what kind of a God would He be? An African tribe has this notion: “God is good
and wishes good for everybody, but unfortunately He has a half-witted brother who is
always interfering with what He does. The
half-witted brother keeps on intruding himself and does not give God a chance.” This quaint conception of God is interesting since
it conforms precisely to the modern “gospel” of the church system! Their version goes like this: God is good and
wishes good for everybody, but unfortunately there is a cosmic accident. One of God’s highest creations, one of the
protectors of His throne, one of God’s own body-guards, the singing, musical
archangel Lucifer, rebelled and became the devil, and he mischievously and maliciously
goes about everywhere interfering with what God does.
The devil keeps on intruding himself and doesn’t give God a chance.
The
good God, according to the common testimony of church goers, is ever trying to do this and
that, while the devil is continually interfering with His plans, frustrating His purposes,
usurping His instruments and defeating the issue. On
some good days the good God wins, on some bad days He loses.
They go about continually talking to the devil, praying to the Devil (though
they call it commanding and rebuking), and giving place to him over and over again. They “bind” him in this meeting and in
that situation, but, like Samson breaking the cords of Delilah, he bounces right back in
full regalia at the next meeting or occasion. These
“devil-worshippers” ever beat the air against him and do, occasionally, they
claim, win a battle against him, but the war rages on.
If they do not get an immediate answer to their prayer, they are sure the
devil is hindering. If everything does not go
according to plan, the devil is interfering. If
obstacles appear along the way, the devil is fighting them.
They live out their lives in a constant state of paranoid
devil-consciousness. The churches are
literally filled with these devil-worshippers. They
do not intentionally plan their worship this way, but it develops into that form,
nevertheless. These go on and on about the
devil, attributing so much power and mischief to his cause, and inadvertently sing his
praises, because they truly believe in the devil. I
have been in meetings where the people spent more time talking to the devil than they did
talking to God. What faith they have in him! What power and wisdom they ascribe to him! With what cunning does he, to hear them tell it,
repeatedly “out-fox” the good God! In
their minds he is HIS MAJESTY THE DEVIL!
I
do not hesitate to tell you that that is NOT the gospel, it has absolutely nothing in
common with the “good news” of the
The
King of the Kingdom has said, “If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the
kingdom of God is come unto you” (Mat. 12:28). In
other words, when Jesus cast out demons He was representing what the
The
gospel of the Kingdom is yet to be preached in power to the inhabitants of the world in
our generation. The gospel of grace has gone
into most of the world, the gospel of salvation has penetrated nearly everywhere, but not
the gospel of the Kingdom. God is raising up
His sons in this day to again proclaim that very gospel to every kindred and tongue and
people and nation. Jesus was the firstborn of
the Kingdom realm in His day. Now many sons
are being brought to His glory. Many who read
these lines are being processed and matured, as Jesus was for thirty years in
Chapter
8
THE
BEGINNING OF THE KINGDOM
(continued)
“Now
after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the
kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand:
repent, ye, and believe the gospel” (Mk. 1:14-15).
Great
controversy has raged over the precise meaning of the Greek word ENGIKEN, here translated “is at hand.” The simple Greek word from which it is formed
(ENGIZO) means “draw near”, but ENGIKEN is the perfect tense of this verb. This is a significant tense in Greek for which we
have no exact equivalent in English. It
indicates an action that has taken place in the past, but which also has a continuing
effect in the present. Here, if we labored it,
we could say that the perfect tense means, “It has drawn near and is now very
near.” It certainly means very much more
than just an ordinary present tense that would be translated “is drawing near.” The New English Bible seeks to do justice to this
Greek perfect tense by translating it, “The
The
essence of the message of Jesus was that God’s chosen time had arrived — NOW. His Kingdom was already breaking into the world of
men. This was no longer a promise for some
distant future for which men must wait with a hope so fragile that it soon dwindles into
disillusionment. God’s action had begun. Men must awaken to the truth of it, and respond
eagerly and actively. Satan’s realm was
already threatened, invaded and about to be conquered.
The ancient hope was already being swallowed up in present reality. NOW was the moment of God’s action, and the
time for man to act in response. Men were
summoned to identify themselves with this arrival of God’s Kingdom, and to make
themselves God’s instruments in its coming. Their
response is demanded urgently, without delay, without hesitation, without misgiving. The fact that God is actively breaking into the
life of the world is expressed in such terms as these: The Kingdom “has drawn
near”, “is coming”, “will come”, “has burst upon”,
“is forcing itself into”, and “men are pressing into it”.
When
Jesus said the Kingdom was at hand, He surely didn’t mean that it would not appear
for hundreds or thousands of years! Two
positive and incontrovertible facts are written of the Kingdom. It is said that the
There
comes the time in the life of every son of God when he claims the Kingdom as a present
tense reality in his life. The
The
Kingdom is not an antiquated Jewish dream, dusty with the history of centuries. It touches us at all vital points — if we are
sons of God. It is an immediate and personal
concern. It is God’s unfolding plan of
the ages, His time-abiding strategy for redeeming us from ourselves and the vanity of the
flesh and the world. It is God’s way of
conforming us into the image of His Son and making us one in Him. We are faced then with the solemn truth that when
we pray for the coming of the Kingdom we are not praying for the advent of some great
world-wide political or economic program. We
are not praying for the end of the world, or for the rapture, or for the millennium, or
blessing upon the state of
I’m
sure most of those who read these lines have read the following by an unknown author. “Nearly two thousand years ago in an obscure
village, a child was born of a peasant woman. He
grew up in another village where He worked as a carpenter until He was thirty. Then for three years He became an itinerant
preacher. This Man never went to college or
seminary. He never wrote a book. He never held a public office. He never had a family nor owned a home. He never put His foot inside a big city nor
traveled even 200 miles from His birthplace. And
though He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness, throngs of people
followed Him. HE HAD NO CREDENTIALS BUT
HIMSELF.”
On
what mission was Jesus sent? We already know
the answer to this question. Jesus began His
work in Galilee as the messenger of the
In
the third chapter of Matthew, when Jesus began to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven was at
hand, He was preaching that there were three things being brought into this earthly realm
and they came in at the same time as the Kingdom, for they are the Kingdom. One of them was the ROYALTY OF HEAVEN. THE ROYALTY of heaven had moved into the earth and
was tabernacling with men, abiding in flesh. And
though Jesus was the royalty of heaven, yet He took a house made of flesh just like we
live in, and walked upon earth. The royalty of
heaven went about touching the lepers, commanding demons to go, lifting up the sick and
afflicted, forgiving sins, and teaching men the ways of the Kingdom. The royalty of heaven raised the dead, showed many
signs and wonders, and moved through this earth which had now become the realm of heaven. The second thing was that the RULE OF HEAVEN had
been injected right into the earth. The third
thing was that the REALM OF HEAVEN had been moved into the earth. We no longer need to think that we must go some
place in order to get to heaven. IT HAS BEEN
BROUGHT TO US. Jesus brought the rulership,
the realm, and the wonderful royalty of heaven into the earth to take over the dominion
from mankind. It is even so today. This is the power and the glory of the
In
Jesus Christ, the firstborn Son, the new age of the Kingdom had arrived. Its privileges and powers were available, and He
used them freely and fully. Although the
priests and other leaders of the static religious system of the day were busy with their
time-worn routines of the dead past, and the slumbering world was doing business as usual,
nevertheless, a new day had come and Jesus came forth in the life of the Kingdom. Now the Son of God had to reveal Himself personally
to all
After
the Lord announced that the time for the beginning of the Kingdom had come, He went into
the synagogue at
It
was true. A new power had come into operation
among men. All through the Old Testament
times, though the prophets had power to perform miracles and do exploits, not one person
had cast a demon out of anyone by means of a direct command.
What was this new power that was operating among men? Our Lord Jesus, Himself, explained it this way. He said, “If I cast out devils by the Spirit
of God, then the
That
same Jesus has now been made Lord and has absolute power over all nations and all mankind
so that the course of history is altered. The
coming of Christ to the earth was a mighty manifestation of omnipotent power. By the power of His coming the whole nation of
Jesus
came into the world in the time of the
And
what glorious days those were! How God blessed
His people! Mighty signs and wonders were
performed as God confirmed His Word with signs following.
The Word of God, anointed by the Holy Spirit, swept the world like a prairie
fire. It encircled the mountains and crossed
the oceans. It made kings to tremble and
tyrants to fear. It was said of those early
Christians that they had turned the world upside down! — so powerful was their
message and spirit. In spite of persecution,
in spite of untold thousands of saints impaled upon crosses, burnt at the stake, and fed
to hungry lions to the thunderous applause of wild spectators, it grew and multiplied, for
God dwelt mightily in the midst of His people. The
knowledge of the glory of the Lord covered the earth as the waters cover the sea. Paganism fell.
The mighty Roman Empire shut up its idol temples, all the gods of the
ancient world perished from the face of the earth forever, and multitudes of many nations
sat down as disciples at the feet of Christ and His apostles. That, like the ministry of Jesus Himself, was but a
sample, a demonstration of the Kingdom, but not the fullness of that Kingdom when it has
grown and developed in the hearts of an elect people who shall establish it in the
fullness of God over all nations and peoples and realms.
The words of Jesus and His apostles reveal that “ages” are
required to carry the Kingdom through its various stages of progress and development and
finally deliver it up to the Father with all things subjected and God “all in
all.”
Frequently
one hears the opinion voiced that the only thing that will save the world of our day from
utter ruin, and the race itself from destruction, is a beneficent SUPERMAN, an
authoritative one who would be wise enough to map out a new and better course for the
people, order his plans put into effect, and have power to enforce his edicts. Convince the world that such a ruler is on hand and
he would probably be universally proclaimed! Not
a single one of the kings of all the nations, past or present, ever possessed these
qualities. A king qualified to take over this
chaotic world of today would need to fulfill the prophetic picture given to us by king
David, “Give the King Thy judgment, O God, and Thy righteousness...He shall judge Thy
people with righteousness, and Thy poor with justice.
The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, Thy
righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the
people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the
oppressor...in His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as
the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also
from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth” (Ps. 72:1-8).
The
One of whom these words speak is the great King of kings and Lord of lords. The Lord our God is the King, and His Kingdom shall
rule over ALL. And praise His name, He is even
now bringing forth in the earth a KINGDOM PEOPLE — the harvest of the Christ-life
sown into the earth — who are discovering His Lordship over all of their lives. When all hell assails us, when the power of death
all around crowds in upon us, when the pressures of this world would frustrate and vex and
suffocate us, when our own passions and emotions and self-will would drown us in a sea of
carnality and ungodliness, then HE STANDS UP WITHIN US AS KING — in Kingly authority. When the world, and our own flesh, would tear us
apart and smash our lives and our hope of sonship upon the rocks, HE IS THERE, the still
small Voice, the deep inner consciousness that all is well, that He, the Lord of glory is
the Mighty One in the midst of us, and all is secure in His loving hands, for He ordained
our path and made provision for the hour. He
is Himself the provision, the indwelling Christ, the anointing, the authority inherent in
the Spirit moving in our lives. Through all
these testings and processings we are being prepared for our “showing unto the
world” in the righteousness, power, and glory of the
Jesus
is the beginning of the
Consider
now what is next in order for the people of God today!
Would you like to have a true prophetic insight into God’s purposes and
plans? Then consider the Pattern Son. See how the baby Jesus began to grow up into mature
manhood. Except for one brief glimpse of the
boy Jesus at the tender age of twelve, we know
nothing of how He grew from babyhood to manhood. Yet
we know that He did. “And Jesus increased
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk. 2:52). And though the growth of His body in this hour may
appear to be imperceptible from day to day, just as with the growth of a natural child,
it’s progress is sure, and in the Father’s appointed time it will come to the
full maturity of the Christ Man. Let
us look at the boy Jesus. When we do see Him,
where was He? What was He doing? See Him there, He is in the temple, His mind upon
the things of God, astounding the lawyers and the revered doctors of the law with His
knowledge of God and the depth of His revelation, while the other children are playing
their religious games in the market-place. The
doctors of the law cannot understand this lad, nor the source of His wisdom, who someday
will be God’s Man; neither can they answer His searching questions. See how He is about His Father’s business,
recognizing at least in a measure who He is and the magnitude of His divine calling.
See
Him at
From
His anointing at
What
does this mean to you and me, my brother, my sister, who have received the call to follow
the Lamb? We don’t yet see all things
under the feet of God’s CORPORATE SON (Heb. 2:8), but (verse 9), “we see Jesus,
crowned with glory and honor.” We see the
Head, the Firstborn of this body supremely victorious, waiting until the body comes to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that His enemies become His
footstool. The Head is victorious, triumphant
and crowned! But this glorious work that He
began shall be carried forth until His whole body, even the feet, shall rise to the place
of authority that He has. “And the God of
peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). Now in these appointed days there is coming forth a
body of people, raised up by the Holy Spirit of God, who are not content to let Satan and
the carnal mind and the curse rule here on this earth.
They are crying out for deliverance and interceding for the
Can
our finite minds comprehend even in a measure what this shall mean, to walk in the STATE
OF
“The
life which Jesus lived on earth was the greatest parable ever known. It was a parable of the
THE
MANIFESTATION AND DEMONSTRATION OF THE KINGDOM
The
wandering Nazarene, who a short time before had been denounced, condemned, and cast out as
a deluded dreamer and dangerous heretic by the synagogue at
New
hope, new faith, new courage, new understanding, new victory, new joy, new peace, new
righteousness, a new law of life, new power and glory were revealed to all who hungered
and thirsted after righteousness and sought for the Kingdom.
He forgave men their sins, He cast out the evil spirits with His word, He
healed the sick and raised the dead. Instead
of the implacable law which Moses inscribed on hard granite, the law of God’s own
nature began to be written into the hearts of men. A
new chapter in the history of the world began to be written.
The God who hitherto had revealed Himself only through prophets was now to
dwell in transforming power in the hearts of the humble.
What a victory for an obscure preacher who had sprung from poverty into
notoriety and prominence, and who fearlessly denounced the priests, the scribes, and the
Pharisees! “Verily, I say unto you, that
the publicans and the harlots go into the
Jesus
the Christ came into this world as the second Man, the last Adam, the new Federal Head of
Adam’s ancient race — redeemed and restored.
He stood in all the dignity and splendor and wisdom and power and dominion
given to man in the beginning ere sin and limitation and death passed upon him. What a Man! Sinless
man. Perfect man. Diseaseless man.
Unlimited man. Anointed man. Crowned man. Man
in the image of God. God-man. Man the revelation of God to creation. Deathless man.
What a specimen! What a Man! And yet — don’t forget this — He
took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, even Adam’s
benighted race. What infinite strength out of
incredible weakness! He was EVERY INCH A MAN!
Can
we imagine what Jesus might have accomplished had He elected to use the wisdom and
knowledge and power resident in His PERFECT MANHOOD for His own ends? He could have used His power for wealth and become
the richest man in the world. He could have
used His talents for worldly power, usurped the thrones of the rulers of this world and
become Himself Emperor of the mighty
When
Jesus trod the pathways of this earth two thousand years ago He came forth as the LIVING
MANIFESTATION AND DEMONSTRATION of the
Look
at Jesus, my beloved, and you will see at once what the Kingdom means and how a citizen of
the Kingdom lives. Oh, the wonder of it! The child of God is a man or woman who is born a citizen of the
“But
all of us have no veils on our faces, but reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord. We are transformed in ever-increasing splendor into
His own image, and this is the work of the Lord who is the Spirit” (II Cor. 3:18,
Phillips translation). You may have seen a
room, the walls covered with mirrors at different angles, and when you stood in the midst
you were reflected at every point: you were seen here, and seen there, and there again,
and yonder again, and so every part of you was reflected; so is the
“When
He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in
that day” (II Thes. 1:10). The crowning
honor of Christ shall be seen in His many brethren, the manifested sons of God. All who grow up into His fullness shall shine like
the sun in its brilliance in the Kingdom of their Father.
Today we are like vessels on the potter’s wheel, but half fashioned,
yet even now somewhat of His divine skill is seen in us of His handiwork. Still the unformed clay is in part seen, and much
remains to be done; how much more of the great Potter’s creating wisdom and
transforming power will be displayed when we shall be the perfect products of His hands! In the bud and germ our new nature brings honor to
its Author; it will do far more when its perfection manifests the Finisher. Then shall Jesus be glorified and admired in every
one of us when the days of processing are ended and we are manifested in the full glory of
the
Behold,
and see, ye who laughed at His Kingdom, see how the little one has become a thousand
— yea, thousands! Now look ye, ye foes of
Christ, who saw the handful of corn on the top of the mountains; see how the fruit thereof
doth shake like
Do
you have a ministry? Do you have a gift? Have you a talent?
Have you an ability? Is there an
expression and fragrance of Christ through your life?
Know this, precious one, it is not God’s eternal purpose in your life
but merely an instrument by which the Father is perfecting within you His nature, His
righteousness, His faithfulness, His grace, His wisdom, His power and His glory. This present time is a practice session, a trial
run, a proving ground, a small sample of the glory yet to be revealed. We are mere apprentices of the Christ to learn the
ministry of sonship. You must not think, as do
the babes in the church systems, that when you are done working here that the Master will
say, “You have finished your course, I have discharged you from your
responsibilities. Go and sit on a heavenly
mount and sing and dance yourselves away for ever and ever.” Not at all! I
am only learning how to preach now; I shall be able to preach in the age and the ages to
come. You are only learning to teach now; you
will be able to teach when Christ is fully revealed in His saints.
You
are learning the ways of His wisdom, righteousness, love, power, authority and glory now;
yes, to angels, and principalities, and powers, and worlds, you shall make known the
manifold wisdom of God throughout ages yet unborn. All
those stars, those worlds of light, who knows how many of them are inhabited? I believe there are regions beyond our imagination
to which every son of God shall become an everlasting illumination, a living expression of
the infinite love of the omnipotent Creator. Remember
how the Lord will say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things” (Mat. 25:21). He is to keep on doing something, you see. There is no stagnation in God’s great and
eternal Kingdom, and there is no end to the increase of His government and peace. Instead of having a home and family, or a Sunday
School class, or a bit of a community, or a
small or vast ministry to govern, the overcomer is to be made ruler over some VAST
PROVINCE. Read the forty-fourth verse of
Matthew chapter twenty-five: “Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler
over all that he hath.” What a word is
that! That is nothing short of UNIVERSAL
DOMINION.
Do
you know how it used to be in the ancient times in the Spartan army? Here is a man who has fought well, and has been a
splendid soldier. He is covered with wounds on
his chest. The next time that there is a war,
they say, “Poor fellow, we will reward him! He
shall lead the way in the first battle. He
fought so well before, when he fought one hundred with a little troop behind him; now he
shall engage ten thousand with a larger troop.” “Oh!”
you say, “that is giving him more work; he should be honored with rest.” But that is God’s way in the development of
His sons in His Kingdom. That shall be our
heaven — not a mansion over the hilltop or a cabin in the corner of glory land —
but to be always in the battle, forever working and increasing and winning in the
everlasting and unbounded Kingdom of our God! I
have fought the devil in my own life, I have fought the devil in my home, I have fought
the devil in the church, I have fought the devil in the world, and God has given wonderful
victories. I shall continue the warfare
against sin, sickness, sorrow, fear, torment, limitation and death in all the hells of
this world, in that hell in the underworld, and in all the worlds and all the hells in all
the realms of God’s vast creation until there is no sin nor death nor devil anywhere
and God is all in all. That is my hope, that
is my vision, that is my call and my destiny. And
that is the hope, vision, call and destiny of all the sons of God.
In
God’s blessed Book numerous ages are visible, stretching in a vast panorama from the
first ray of light in chapter one of Genesis to the end of the dispensation of the
fullness of times when all shall be subdued unto God and God becomes all in all. As the years have gone by the Holy Spirit has
convinced me more and more that it is intensely important to the spiritual growth and
understanding of every son of God to know the intention of God in each successive age as
it unfolds. Some precious saints have in
ignorance stated, “I am not concerned about what God may do away out there in the
ages to come; it is enough to know what He
wants me to be doing right now!” That
sounds very wise and spiritual, and it gives me pain to say it, but the truth cannot be
denied that such a statement is really an excuse, a “cop out” to absolve these
dear ones from searching the scriptures or exposing themselves to the revelation of
God’s beautiful plan of the ages. Furthermore,
it saves them the trouble of getting involved in some controversy! What spiritual cowards we are!
The
Kingdom came when the King came. Nothing can
be clearer than that. In His battle with evil
Jesus saw the foretaste of the ultimate triumph of God in the earth. Because He came preaching the Kingdom of God, He
was demonstrating the glory and the power of that Kingdom and showing us the wealth of its
glory by doing for the few what will eventually be done for the all when the light of His
Kingdom shall cover all the earth as the waters cover the sea and every creature in heaven
and in earth and under the earth shall sing praise and glory to the Lamb of God. In His death He engaged in mortal combat with him
who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and conquered. Jesus was declared by the Father to be the Son of
God with power because of His resurrection from the dead.
At the right hand of God He continues to reign through His body on earth and
shall continue to reign from stage to stage, from victory to victory, and from glory to
glory, until “He hath put all enemies under His feet” (I Cor. 15:25).
Here
is God’s Kingdom plan in a nut shell. In
Christ’s incarnation, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension we see the
initial victory. Through His people during
this dispensation of the church, we see His continuing and increasing victory. And in the manifestation of the sons of God we see
His ultimate victory. The Kingdom spans all
generations and ages from the advent of the firstborn Son into the world to the
manifestation of the sons of God. FINAL
VICTORY SHALL THEN BE ACHIEVED. Then shall the
Kingdom be delivered up to God, even the Father, “that God may be all in all” (I
Cor. 15:28).
God
has a wonderful Kingdom plan! Failure to
understand God’s plan of the ages will leave us on the rocks of ignorance and
unbelief and we will spend our lives in the shallows, chatting aimlessly about God’s
acts and blessings, but never knowing or embracing His purposes. I am convinced that those who reject or
deliberately side-step the great truth of God’s plan of the ages and the
reconciliation of all things to God will never be a part of that blessed company of sons
who are destined to set creation free! How can
anyone be God’s instrument to bring deliverance to the whole creation while he closes
his eyes and stops his ears and shuts up his heart to the beautiful revelation of His
purposes?
There
is nothing that opens the wellspring of love, of faith and understanding, in the human
heart like the knowledge of His purpose. What
infinite joy, what satisfaction and assurance floods our souls when for the first time in
our lives our great and wonderful Father is seen to be a God of purpose, knowing the end
from the beginning because He planned the beginning and planned the end! He created all things and made all things and
brought all things into being that His glorious purpose might be fulfilled. It was this triumphant knowledge that gripped the
heart of the apostle Paul when writing to the Romans, he drew aside the veil to give the
saints a clearer view into the mysteries that lay hidden in God’s mind from the
foundation of the ages. This is what he
plainly stated: “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.
For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of
the sons of God.” Now take particular
notice of the words that follow: “For the creation was made subject to vanity, not
willingly, but by reason of Him (God) who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creation itself ALSO shall be delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”
(Rom. 8:18-21).
Frankly,
I never cease to be amazed at those who profess to yearn for the sons of God to be
manifested, who continually quote the scripture about the WHOLE CREATION GROANING, WAITING
for the manifestation of the sons of God, because THE CREATION ITSELF SHALL BE DELIVERED
FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION INTO THE GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD — and
then when you tell them that the sons of God shall really, truly, actually, factually,
completely SET ALL CREATION FREE they get bent all out of shape and call you a heretic, or
ask foolish questions like, “What good is it to believe that?” If God isn’t going to do what He said; if the
Christ isn’t going to actually draw all men unto Himself; if the whole creation is
not going to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God; if God will
not make all men alive in the Christ; if the last enemy, death, and hell shall never be
destroyed; if the devil is going to possess
the souls of the vast majority of men forever, and thus be the victor; if God is never
going to become “all in all” or “everything to everyone everywhere”;
then I fail to see what is the purpose in all this qualifying for sonship, for a glorious
ministry in the age and the ages to come, for THERE IS NO MINISTRY FOR THE SONS, and NO
TRIUMPH FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD. We may as well
forget about sonship, forget about being kings and priests unto God, forget about setting
creation free, content ourselves with the current church program, and be satisfied that
while untold billions are damned to the flames of hell forever God shall have His sweet
little handful of saints to dance and shout with Him over the hilltops of heaven!
This
is not the end-time. Every generation and age
has its end-time. One day Jesus’
disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. As they observed its magnificence Jesus told them,
“Truly I say to you, by no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be
thrown down.” While He was sitting on the
If
you will take your concordance and run every reference in the Bible concerning “last
days” you will have to conclude that it is referencing the last days of the
dispensation of the law and Judaism. You can
say we are living in the last days, the last of the last days, or the end-time, matters
not what term you use, but you are wrong on all counts.
It’s a lie, it misleads, injures and confuses the Lord’s people. Ah, yes, we are living in “last days,”
but not in “the last days” generally referred to in the scriptures.
But
according to the word of the Lord there is yet an age and ages to come! “That in the ages to come He might put on
display the exceeding riches of His grace in...us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). This is an end-time, but not the end time. The true and final “end time” the Bible
presents speaks of the final consummation of all ages, the climax and end of all times and
dispensations, when God’s plan of the ages is fully fulfilled. All words about THE END-TIME close with Jesus
reigning supreme over everything everywhere. “Then
cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when
He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet. And when all things shall have been subdued unto
Him, then shall the Son also be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God
may be all in all” (I Cor. 15:24-25,28). The
word “subdued” means “to line up as a troop or an army in subordination or
surrender.” This verb appears three times
in verse 28. Literally it reads, “Now
when the universe shall be lined up as a troop in subordination to Him, then also Himself
the Son shall be lined up as a troop in subordination to the One lining up a troop in subordination to Him, in order that God
may be all in all.” What a word!
What
love! What wondrous love! What victory! What
a glorious consummation! The might of
God’s strength which operated in Christ, raising Him from the dead, was sufficient to
exalt Him to the highest pinnacle of the universe, thus ensuring that all His enemies
would be reconciled to Him, that every opposing power would be made subordinate to Him,
that all sin and death in every realm and in every man and in every creature throughout
all the unbounded heavens would be so swallowed up of HIS LIFE until God would be ALL IN
ALL, bless His glorious name! The gospel of
the grace of God! Truly it is not just for
this age, but extends to all ages and realms. May
it flood our hearts that they may, indeed, be illuminated with the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This
kind of total subjugation to God is that which is being wrought in the “firstfruit
company” in this hour. Have you totally
surrendered yourself to God? This is what God
demands. In numerous places, in various ways,
in different words, God says the same thing over and over again. And yet, sometimes it seems that we fail to get the
message: Yield yourselves to God! Submit
yourselves to Christ! Offer your bodies as
living sacrifices! Lay down your life! Present yourselves to God as those who are alive
from the dead! Yield not your members as
instruments of unrighteousness but as instruments of righteousness unto God! Put off the old man!
Put on the mind of Christ! Come
out of the harlot
It
seems that, usually, we are ready to do almost anything but surrender ourselves to God. I recall the time when the British general came to
surrender to
The
following words by George D. Watson will help us see the unsurpassable beauty and majesty
of what it really means to be SUBDUED UNTO GOD. “Before
God can launch us out into the breadth and sweetness of His service, and entrust to us
great things for Himself, we must be perfectly subdued in every part of our nature to His
will and disposition of His mind. We must be
subdued in our hearts, in our wills, in our words, in our tempers, in our manners; subdued
through and through so thoroughly that we will be flexible to all His purposes and plans. We must be subdued that harshness, severity,
criticism, sluggishness, laziness, impetuosity, and all wanting our way, even in religious
matters, must be subdued out of us. Conversion
will not finish this work.
“We
must be subdued, not merely in our own opinion, not merely think ourselves subdued, not
only subdued in the esteem of our friends and fellow workers, but subdued so perfectly
that the all-seeing eye of God can look us through, and the omniscient One knows that we
are subdued. God must conquer the man that He
can trust with His great thoughts and plans. The
Holy Ghost must saturate us with a divine conquest, before He can use us to conquer other
souls. The Lord will begin to subdue us with
gentle means; and if we sink lovingly and promptly into His mind, the work will be done;
but if we have flint or iron in our nature, and it is necessary, He will use heroic means
and put us between the millstones and grind us to powder, until He can mold us without any
resistance to His purpose. We must be so
subdued that we can hold our tongues, and walk softly with God, keep our eyes upon Jesus,
attend to our own work, and do God’s will promptly and lovingly, glad to have a place
in His Kingdom.
“Oh!
it is grand to be absolutely conquered by the Holy Ghost, and swing out a thousand miles
from everybody and everything into the
Oh,
the ineffable glory to be revealed when ALL RULE AND ALL AUTHORITY AND ALL POWER AND ALL
ENEMIES AND ALL THINGS SHALL BE SUBDUED UNTO CHRIST AND GOD SHALL BE ALL IN ALL! What expectation this evokes in our hearts!
A
little seed is the beginning of a great tree. A
mustard seed becomes a tree in which the birds of the air can nestle. That great day of which our text speaks, when
Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father, and God shall be All in All — that
is the great tree of the
Chapter
9
THE
BEGINNING OF THE KINGDOM
(continued)
We
are all sailing the sea of life. All are
mariners, spiritual voyagers. We might
profitably use the following illustration. Tom
Smith and John Jones both presumably own sailing vessels.
They agree to race to a certain point in the Pacific Ocean one hundred miles
due west from
Each
and every son of Adam is a navigator on the sea of life.
And the voyage upon which we all embarked at birth is one for which none of
us was fully prepared or equipped; we were thrust out upon a tempestuous sea, there to
maneuver our tiny bark to another shore. Winds,
tides, and currents swept us out to sea, and carried us on alone. Humanity, at present, is divided into a thousand
fragments both individually and collectively. We
are fragmented, separated — LOST! But I
have good news for you, my friend — it is possible to discover exactly where we are
now — and how to get back on course to that bright and beckoning harbor ahead —
for our heavenly Father has sent One to search for us and SHOW THE WAY!
JESUS
PERSONIFIED THE KINGDOM
We
have centered the Kingdom around the King. And
that is truth that is off-center unless we understand what it is that makes Him King. Jesus didn’t preach Himself as King — He
ran from it! He preached the Kingdom, in His
magnificent parables He defines the Kingdom, He tells us what the Kingdom is like; and in
the Sermon on the Mount He enunciates the great principles or laws of the Kingdom. In this world there are various kingdoms — the
animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. Each of these kingdoms is a sphere of existence, a
plane of being. Yet none of these kingdoms has
a KING! Each kingdom has certain inherent
characteristics and specific manifestations. Each
is part of a “kind,” a “realm,” a “domain,” — that is
what makes them a kingdom.
“King”
is from the old Anglo-Saxon word “cynn” pronounced “kin.” Our modern word “kin” is from the same
root denoting kindred, kinfolk, kinship, kinsmen, kind, people, race. King actually meant “one of noble birth,”
one who was born or came out of, and thus was the “kin” of, nobility. It didn’t mean that he was the ruler, but that
he was from that “class,” the class of those who had power and wealth. The king was simply one who bore the
characteristics of that order. If the animal
kingdom, or the vegetable kingdom, or the mineral kingdom should have a king it would be
one of that order par excellence, beyond comparison, the one whose every characteristic is
in full splendor, the perfect specimen, the representative one, the epitome of all the
order is. Oh, the depth of the riches both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! Can we not
see by this that Jesus Christ is THE KING of God’s Kingdom just because He is the One
who came and exhibited the full splendor, majesty, power and glory of the realm of God
intended for man. He came as the man par
excellence, the One of greatest excellence, the representative One, beyond comparison, the
perfect specimen, the epitome of all man was ordained of God to be. In His very person He defined for fallen and sinful
men a NEW KINGDOM, a new sphere of existence, a new plane of being, a new dimension of
consciousness — the kingdom of men in the image and likeness of God!
More
than a century ago Johann Blumhardt wrote, “True man is missing...False men with a
false spirit, with false desires and false aims, think that they are real men. The false man is the world’s undoing. True man is still missing until Jesus comes and
does away with the false man. Yet now we do
have the fortune to know that there is One in whom the world is God’s again, in whom
all that is created is again placed into the light of the first creation. This One is Jesus.
Jesus, the Son of man, is more real than any other man, more childlike than
all other children. He lives among men, and He
is the
There
is one image that is perfect: the blessed Son of God, the visible manifestation of the
Father, the only one who has ever walked upon this planet who sums up the totality of
DIVINE HUMANITY. He is the only whole, united,
balanced, UNFRAGMENTED MAN! In Jesus Christ a
Man stepped forth who came from God without any lack, so that in Him was expressed the
fullness of the image of God in man. Jesus is
man as he was created in Genesis 1:26. He is
man in the image and likeness of God. That is
the true man. Man today is lost. He knows not from whence he came, he knows not what
manner of man he is, he knows not where he is, nor where he is going. He is lost in his separation from God and from the
godhood that is his in the likeness and image of God.
Jesus Christ is the One who shows us just where we are — and opens up
the way for our return into the
This
is exactly what the Lord Jesus taught and demonstrated so wonderfully through His sonship
ministry. He spoke the words of compassion and
power into the souls of all marred creatures and called them beloved children of God. He didn’t call them sinners, or condemn them. He saw them as they were meant to be, as they are
in the eyes of the heavenly Father. That was
the value of their lives. He healed their
diseases, forgave their sins, raised their dead and lifted them up from the mire and
defilement and set them on the pathway to holiness and restoration to their lost estate
that they might live again as sons and daughters of the Most High.
The
great Italian sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, told of receiving a block of marble with one
flaw. Because of this flaw, no artist would
submit a design — except one. In the
public
George
Hawtin once wrote: “Did you ever stand in awe and marvel at the work of the great
artists on earth? Perhaps expressions failed
and words became inadequate as you gazed with wonder at the faces of the presidents carved
in the heights of
What
was fully manifested and seen in Jesus is potential in every man. Something of that same divine spirit that was
expressed in Him in all fullness is also in us. Something
of the same divine likeness in which we were created is hidden in all men. Concealed and corroded by sin the resemblance is
not evident save to the penetrating search of love, but there is something of God-life in
every man. Our spirit must indeed be quickened
by His Spirit before it can be made evident and recognized.
To be “dead” does not mean to be non-existent, but to be
unresponsive to the realm of spiritual life. The
body in the casket is not non-existent, otherwise there would be no point in attending the
viewing. But it is certainly unresponsive to
the world about it! This is what Paul meant
when he wrote: “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in time past ye walked (dead men walked!)
according to the course of this world...among whom we all had our conversation in times
past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
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, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus...for we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:1-6,10).
It
has been said that in Jesus Christ the divine and the human meet, but this is also true of
everyone of us. He is the true humanity who is
the Son of God. It is not that He is
super-human, but that we are sub-human. But
inasmuch as we are human at all we are akin to Him. The
first man and the second man are both man. The
first Adam and the last Adam are both Adam. Those
in the first man are in part what the second man is in perfection. The whole purpose of our lives is to become human
in the sense in which He was human; to be changed into the same likeness from one glorious
conversion to another, even by the Lord who is the Spirit — PERFECT MANHOOD. Christ is to grow up in us, and the whole process
of life is one in which “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Paul said it so well, “It pleased God to
reveal HIS SON in me,” which precisely describes the life of sonship, for the Son of
God is the PERFECT MAN IN GOD’S IMAGE. It
is as the Spirit of Christ becomes manifest within us that we approach nearer and nearer
to the true humanity as it was seen in Jesus, “till we all come to a perfect manhood,
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). His possession of our lives will grow, until we are
fully “strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inward humanity,” being
“filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16,19).
Now,
the best way to promote an idea is to wrap it up in a personality. The Maytag repairman is an example. Always sitting
with nothing to do, he personifies the idea that Maytag washers never break
down. That is what God did in Jesus Christ. He wrapped up all His nature, character, glory,
grace, wisdom, knowledge, love, and power in a man and stood Him up in the earth. This man was God’s Idea — the Word! And Jesus Christ is the ideal of all mankind, the
second man, the last Adam, the example and pattern and proto-type of God’s will and
purpose for all men. What Jesus is is what God
meant when He said in that long ago beginning, “Let us make man in our image, and
after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). That is
GOD’S IDEA! That is GOD’S WORD! That is the glory and majesty of man AS HE WAS
INTENDED TO BE!
The
people of God today have no greater need than the need to know the power and glory of
CHRIST WITHIN. CHRIST is the image of God, the
scripture says. I know these words may seem to
be incredible, but they are truth — the very first mention of the “image of
God” is applied, not to Jesus Christ, but to our forefather ADAM (Gen. 1:26). As we consider the wonderful advent of man created
“in the image of God” we can only conclude that this is a spiritual man brought
forth out of the very spirit-substance of God Almighty, and bearing His own divine nature,
character, power and attributes. The image of
God is the nature of God reproduced in man. Thus,
man is the true image of God. And Jesus Christ
is the image of God because He is the true man, man as he was meant to be. Jesus revealed to “lost” men their true
origin, heritage and destiny. He came to show
man what man really is, was intended to be, and through redemption (buying back to the
original) shall be — THE IMAGE OF GOD. Christ
is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, man as he
was and man as he shall be. In Jesus Christ
you see man as he was in the beginning and as he ever shall be world without end —
THE IMAGE OF GOD. Of Him it is written,
“He is the expression of the glory of God — the Light-being, the out-raying of
the divine — and He is the perfect imprint and very image of God’s nature” (Heb. 1:3, Amplified). Christ, and humanity in Christ, is like a ray of
light that comes from the sun — man, the extension of God, emanates God.
When
the Lord lowered man into this gross material realm man possessed, by the spirit, the
divine potential to overcome the flesh, sanctify it, transform it, preserve it, infusing
it with the qualities of life — holiness and incorruption. Jesus, the last Adam, the Ideal Man, came and
demonstrated for us this very principle. This
potential in man to rule the natural by the spirit is shed forth in Jesus’ mighty
works — by His healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, casting out devils, forgiving
sins, doing miracles, and raising the dead — He transcended by His life, words, and
actions all the so-called laws of the material, mortal realm. The great significance of Jesus’ mighty works
will never ring clear in our spirits until we understand that He did not perform as a
unique, different, higher kind of man — all His wonderful works were the example and
teaching of what is NORMAL FOR MAN IN HIS TRUE STATE AS THE IMAGE OF GOD. As the last Adam Jesus demonstrated all that the
first Adam lost — mankind’s heritage as the sons and daughters of the Most High. Little wonder, then, that He confidently and
joyfully proclaimed to His disciples, “The works that I do shall ye do also; and
greater works than these shall ye do” (Jn. 14:12).
By
His resurrection Jesus proved the spirit within to be OMNIPOTENT, all-conquering,
all-sufficient. He met and mastered death
itself by the law of the spirit of life. He
took no drugs to fight infection or inflammation. He
did not depend upon health food or pure air or vitamins or herbs to renew depleted
energies. He did not require the skill of a
surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and nail pierced feet, that He
might use those hands to remove the napkin and the grave clothes, so that He might walk as
before. Jesus vanquished every material
obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth from His gloomy grave, crowned
with the glory of a sublime success, and everlasting victory — the role-model for
each and every man and woman of Adam’s race! Jesus’
victory over sin, sickness, pain, limitation, death and the grave was for the
enlightenment of all men and the salvation of the whole world. Paul writes, “For if, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be
saved BY HIS LIFE (within)” (Rom. 5:10). Glory
be to God and peace to the fainting hearts! Christ
hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, through the revelation
and demonstration of Life in God, the life resident in the SPIRITUAL MAN. Hallelujah!
We
are never told how long Adam lived in that wonderful Garden where the glory of God was
revealed through him in dominion and blessing to creation, but that glorious reign of
wonder and peace under the direction of a son in the image of God was but a dim figure of
the day when a whole company of sons in God’s image would reign in splendor over all
things in all realms throughout all worlds and all things in heaven and in earth would be
gathered together into union with God in His life and purpose. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the first and Head of this
glorious company, and as typified and shadowed by the first man Adam He is the connecting
link between God and creation — the revelation of the invisible Father to the visible
worlds. A God who is unseen and unknown, or
who is only the product of inferences from creation, or providence, or the mysteries of
history, or the wonders of my own inner life, the creature of logic or reflection, is very
powerless to sway and influence men or to affect creation.
The limitations of our physical faculties and the boundlessness of our
hearts both cry out for a God that is nearer to us than that, whom we can see and love and
know. The whole world wants the making visible
of Divinity as its deepest desire.
Christ
meets this need. How can you make wisdom
visible? How can a creature see love or
purity? How do I see your spirit? By the expression and deeds of your body! And the only way by which God can come near enough
to the natural creation to be a constant power of eternal life and light and love is by
creation seeing Him at work in a man who is His image and revelation. Christ’s whole life is the making visible of
the invisible God. He is the manifestation to
the world of the unseen Father. Jesus Christ in all His words and in all His works
is the perfect instrument of the heavenly Father, so that His words are God’s words,
and His works are God’s works; so that, when He speaks, His gentle wisdom, His loving
sympathy, His melting tenderness, His authoritative commands, His prophetic threatenings,
are the speech of God, and that when He acts, whether it be by miracle, by wonder, by
transforming grace, by creative energy, what we see is God working before our eyes as we
never see Him in any other creature or thing anywhere in the whole vast universe.
E.
Stanley Jones said of this Man who is the revelation of God to creation, “He did not
argue that life was a growth and character an attainment — He ‘grew in wisdom
and stature, and in favor with God and men.’ He
did not speculate on why temptation should be in this world — He met it, and after
forty days’ struggle with it in the wilderness He conquered, and ‘returned in
the power of the Spirit to
“He
did not teach in a didactic way about the worth of children — He put His hands upon
them and blessed them, and setting one in their midst said, ‘Of such is the
“He
wrote no books — only once are we told that He wrote and that was in the sand —
but He wrote upon the hearts and consciences of people about Him and it has become the
world’s most precious writing. He did not
paint a Utopia, far off and unrealizable — He announced that the
“He
did not merely tell us that death may be conquered — He rose from the dead, and lo,
the tomb now glows with light. Many teachers
of the world have tried to explain everything — they have changed little or nothing. Jesus explained little and changed everything. Many teachers have tried to diagnose the disease of
humanity — Jesus cures it. Many
philosophers speculate on how evil entered the world — Jesus presents Himself as the
way by which it shall leave” —
end quote.
The
grand fact is that this Jesus of Nazareth, by the sheer force of His personality, has so
impressed Himself upon mankind, and upon human history, and upon principalities and powers
in the heavens, and upon spirits in the darkest underworld, and continues to impress
Himself, that the only adequate description we can give of Him is EMMANUEL — God with
us; that in the Man Jesus dwelt and dwells the fullness of the Godhead, under bodily
conditions. In Him all we can ever know of the
invisible Creator becomes concrete, and
therefore becomes powerful to save. And if all
this has been effected by one son of God revealing the Father to creation, what, I ask,
shall be the result when A VAST COMPANY OF SONS SHALL BE BROUGHT TO RULE AND REIGN in His
glorious image and likeness over all the earth and throughout the vastnesses of infinity
forevermore. Ah!
What an Eden of God’s glory it shall be when judgment is given TO THE
SAINTS of the Most High, when all the OVERCOMERS out of all the ages SIT WITH THE CHRIST
OF GOD IN HIS THRONE even as He overcame and is set down with His Father in His throne;
when SAVIOURS shall come up on MOUNT ZION to
judge the house of Esau (flesh) and the Kingdom shall be the Lord’s (Obadiah 21). Then shall the earth be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then
shall all things in heaven and in earth be gathered together into one in Christ. Then shall God be All-in-all.
The
firstborn Son said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may
glorify Thee. I have glorified Thee on the
earth: and now, O Father, glorify Thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was” (Jn. 17:1-5). To
“glorify” God means that man’s total expression of life would emit the very
presence and effulgence of God. An
illustration of what it means to glorify God can be seen in the simple incandescent light
bulb. Screw it into the socket and the
invisible electrons flowing through it are transformed into the light and heat energy that
causes the halo of light. The bulb is
glorifying the invisible electricity making it visible and beneficent to mankind. The sons of God are thus ordained to glorify the
Father, emitting His presence, revealing His character, manifesting in a visible way His
invisible reality.
I
have shared the following story once before, not so very long ago, but am constrained to
share it again. John Wesley, it is recorded,
was one day preaching in a rough neighborhood of
BEHOLD
THE KING!
Kings
are not in great demand these days. When we
think of kings, we imagine powerful rulers who meddle in people’s lives. They require huge sums of money to keep their
expensive homes and palaces running. And they
have the nasty habit of requiring us to do things we don’t really want to do. Most of the nations of the world have discarded the
rule of kings. They prefer either democracy or
communism, with governmental systems involving congresses, parliaments, presidents and
prime ministers. The order of kingship has
almost disappeared, but the people are no better off and no more satisfied with their
present governments than they were with their kings. Most
are not really free nor truly happy. Now, in
the
There
is no doubt about it — the kings of this world have failed, and it is abundantly
evident that the governments which have taken their places are quite unsatisfactory. And it is just this very condition that cries out
for a new world order. It is surprising to
many to hear the Bible say that true joy is found, not in democracy and freedom, but with
a king in charge! Even in the world many hold the opinion that the only thing that can
save the world from utter chaos and destruction is some great SUPERMAN, one who would be
wise enough, good enough, and strong enough to create an entirely new order for the
nations of mankind, and have the power to put his plans into effect and enforce his
edicts. Convince the world that such a ruler
is at hand and he would probably be universally acclaimed!
I
have news for you — there will indeed arise such a ruler. He has, in fact, already come into the world, but
only a few have been aware of His presence. Only
a small number of people, out of earth’s teeming billions, now truly know Him or have
experienced the genius of His rule. Two
millenniums ago a man walked the dusty pathways of the
Jesus
did not grow up behind a window of obscurity, but saw face to face in all its stark
reality all the world had to offer — its best and its worst. He saw the flowers that bloomed on the hillside in
the spring, and the majesty and solitude of the green Galilean mountains. But He also saw the sensual lust and crudeness of
the surrounding cultures. He felt the
Roman’s hate of His people. He saw
violence, sin, death and destruction. He saw
drunkenness, revelry, debauchery, and heard every filthy gutter word in the languages of
His day. Childhood impressions leave an
indelible impact on any evolving mind, and it was no exception with Jesus. With all the negative faces and fears to which He
was exposed, He could have grown up to become a negative reactionary, a wild, ruthless,
militant revolutionary. But with the aid of
His heavenly Father the view He had of life as it really is was a part of the preparation
necessary for His sonship ministry and the kingship to follow.
Jesus
was the only man alive who not only saw life as it really is — He saw God as He
really is! And there you have the perfect
catalyst for the
When
Jesus stepped forth in Galilee proclaiming the gospel of the
Have
you ever wondered why in Jesus’ day there seemed to be so many people who were
crippled or blind or deaf or terminally ill? It
is because Galilee is part of a massive volcanic fault line, stretching from
But
the world was too evil to appreciate so noble a character.
He was hated and despised by those in authority, and charges were brought
against Him. One of the charges was of
sedition — that He claimed to be a king. He
was brought before the Roman governor, Pilate, for trial, and was questioned. “Art thou a king?” He was asked, to which
He replied, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world”
(Jn. 18:37). This confession became His death
warrant — for the angry rulers of
It
is interesting to observe Pontius Pilate’s perception of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus informed Pilate that He is indeed a king. Pilate was an officer of the
There
is yet to be a revelation of His person and power in an unprecedented measure before the
face of all nations. The fullness of
God’s glory was once manifested in the firstborn Son of God, and it shall ultimately
be manifested in all His “many brethren.” This
night of sin and death and darkness is stormy, but the light of His presence and the power
of His Kingdom will soon become manifest, and
the sorrows of earth will give way to the brightness of the new day of deliverance and
release for all mankind. All peoples shall yet
bow before Him in this Day, and all nations shall obey Him and serve Him. Thus it is written and thus shall it be. This One
is GOD’S KING. You see, my beloved, God’s government is a KINGDOM
— not a democracy, not a military government, nor any other form of government. God has not raised up Jesus to be president or
prime minister or military dictator. God is
not forming His sons into a company of congressmen, senators, parliamentarians, cabinet
members, or secretaries of departments of government.
No! Jesus has been anointed KING
and He “has made us unto our God KINGS AND PRIESTS, and we shall reign on the
earth” (Rev. 5:10). This is the power and
glory of the
“I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of
heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed. And the kingdom and dominion, and
the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the
saints of the most High, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Dan.
7:13-14,27). “And the angel said unto
her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great,
and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of
his kingdom there shall be no end” (Lk. 1:30-33).
“For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his
shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The
everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of
the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from
henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord
of hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:6-7).
Ah,
yes, Jesus has real power — “power over all flesh, that He should give eternal
life to as many as the Father has given Him” (Jn. 17:2). Other men spoke and their words died with their
echo: Jesus spoke and His words shook the world. Other
men died martyr deaths and were not long remembered; He died and His cross now stands
against every skyline. He is the True King,
the Real Man. He has power — like
dawn’s banners, like the unseen constraint of tides, like a fragrance, like great
music, like buried seed, like that spirit in history which litters time with the debris of
proud empires and wills that “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
The
gospel that we have in the Bible is the gospel of the
Most
people are Christians because they want to escape hell and go to heaven. If all the preachers and teachers one day called a press conference and told their
people, “We have discovered that there is no heaven or hell,” how many would
stay in the church after that? Most of the
people would ask, “Why are we coming then?”
They were coming for heaven, not because JESUS IS LORD AND EVERYBODY MUST
SUBMIT TO HIM. You see, they have missed the
idea of the Kingdom altogether. In the hour in
which we live the vast majority of Christians are more miserable than most other people in
the world. They are only enduring this life in
order to eventually get to heaven where they imagine they will spend the next billion
trillion years or so singing, playing harps, shouting, and dancing over the hill tops of
glory. I am quite sure that if such people
would admit the truth, they would admit that even a thousand years of singing, shouting,
playing harp music and dancing about in white robes would become quite monotonous and very
boring, to say the least. I find that most of
these people can’t endure five hours in a church meeting even if the glory is falling
all around! Most of them start watching their
watches about noon on Sunday morning! The
problem is that their theology leaves them with nothing constructive to do and all
eternity to do it in! They know nothing about
the
Then
there are those who are Christians for a fire escape out of hell, not because Jesus is
King and they truly hunger and thirst after the righteousness, peace and joy of His
Kingdom. I do not believe that it is an
understatement when I say there are untold millions of Christian believers who have no
true love for God, no intimate relationship with Jesus, no vital union with the Lord, but
are going through the motions of serving Him out of fear of going to hell, as a slave in
fear of a tyrant! If such persons had the fear
of hell removed from them it is obvious that they would promptly tell God to go to hell
and then proceed to drown themselves in devilish pleasures and fleshly pursuits. If the wages of sin were removed, they would
immediately go out and live it up in the world, serving both the flesh and the devil. That is where their hearts are now, but they cannot
risk hell, so they “serve” the Lord. Such
have no love for God at all, their eyes have never beheld the King in His beauty, they
have never seen the Lord high and lifted up with His train filling the temple, their
hearts have never been touched by the altogether loveliness of the all-glorious Lord and
King of the universe, their heart-strings have never been touched by the beautiful melody of the KINGDOM OF GOD.
Jesus
is the great King of kings and Lord of lords. He
is not the soon coming King as the citizens of
Christ
is the great King right now, ruling all things for the well-being of His subjects and
bringing absolute perfection and completion to His plans which He ordained before the
foundation of the world. He is the King of the ages and invincible. He shall yet arise in power and glory in His
completed and perfected body — the MANIFESTED SONS OF GOD — revealing Himself as the great conquering King,
bringing deliverance to every man and all creation, reconciling all things unto Himself,
on earth and throughout all the unbounded heavens. Every
son is finding his place in this Day and the hour of manifestation is nigh at hand.
Not
long ago we received these words from the pen of Paul Mueller. “The
George
Wylie wrote a precious word about the reverence of the sons for the Son, the esteem of the
kings for the King, and the devotion of the
lords to the Lord. “It is a marvelous
thing to belong to the family of God. I’m
so glad I belong to the God family, that God is my Father, and that we, the sons of God,
have such a wonderful elder brother. But just
because He is one of the family, and we are one in Him, doesn’t mean we should treat
Him as just another member. Let us never
forget that He is Lord, and that our Father is God. ‘But
to us there is but one God and He is our Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him;
and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him’ (I Cor. 8:6).
“When
the last king of
“The
rest of the family did the same; they bowed to their brother, as Joseph’s brothers
bowed to him in
Chapter
10
THE
NATURE OF THE KINGDOM
Speculation
about, or inquiry into, the future are favorite pass-times of both saints and sinners. Among Christians it often takes the form of a
fascination with, and search for, the “signs of the times” — signs of the
approach of the end of the age or the dawn of the Millennium. These signs are often of a political, social, or
judgmental kind — events in the State of Israel, the struggle between the so-called
Christian nations and world Communism, New Age religion, the New World Order, conspiracy
theories, natural disasters, and the decay of public morals in Western society. Popular books which claim to recognize and to
interpret the signs, to identify the
Antichrist, or to unveil the date of Christ’s second coming, sell in great numbers
today. Other people become excited with each
passing comet, or every natural disaster, seeing in each some mystical omen portending the
imminence of the “rapture”, the beginning of the Great Tribulation, the end of
the world, or something else.
The
church world is literally filled with SIGN-WATCHERS, though I dare say most of them have
missed the meaning of the signs altogether, for they read with the carnal mind, having the
understanding darkened. We can be so taken up
with the natural signs of wars and rumors of wars, violence, political intrigues, of
earthquakes and disasters, until we totally miss the real thing that is happening in the
realm of SPIRIT, or hearing His voice within, that He might bring us into complete union
with Himself, that we might BECOME His salvation unto the ends of the earth. We watch the evening news, and suppose that we are
watching for His coming. We hear of the
storms, the floods, drought, crime, wars, AIDS, the rise and fall of governments, and our
perspective becomes distorted, and fear and doubt seize hold of our souls, until we become
more conscious of the darkness of “this world,” than we are of the light and
glory and triumph of the INDWELLING CHRIST. Any
time we are troubled by, or anxious about, the things coming to pass upon the earth, it is
obvious that we are WATCHING THE REALM OF DARKNESS rather than LOOKING FOR THE KINGDOM OF
GOD; we are of those who “dwell upon the earth” instead of those “raised up
and made to sit together in heavenly places.” The
“And
when He was demanded of the Pharisees, when the
Jesus
corrected their error by saying that the
Have
you ever noticed how things you’ve eagerly anticipated, yearned for, even
determinedly pursued, often seem to fall short of your expectations? And how rich and meaningful those unexpected
moments of happiness can be — an especially beautiful sunset that occurs during your
drive home from work or the smile of a child you
pass on the street? The difference isn’t
in the experiences so much as it is within us. That
is what happens when we discover the truth of the words Jesus spoke — that the
Let
us look again at the words of Jesus in Luke 17:20-21.
“And when He was demanded of the Pharisees, when the
They
were not unlike some in our generation who have searched out “dates” and made
predictions about the time of the Lord’s coming, the end of the age, the Feast of
Tabernacles, or the manifestation of the sons of God.
The date on the calendar when these events are supposed to happen is of supreme importance to carnal minds. It is interesting to note that Jesus did not answer
the Pharisee’s question. And, may I add,
neither does He dignify men’s carnal date-setting by doing anything on that
particular day or hour. His silence is
deafening! Jesus told the Pharisees how the
Kingdom does not come. He didn’t tell
them when. He said they should not be asking
about its sequence in time or its visible manifestation.
They should not be looking for it externally.
He didn’t say a word about when. He
told them where it already was — “behold, the
The
Day of the Lord is not a date on the calendar. It
doesn’t begin one day and end another. It’s
not a twenty-four hour day, neither is it a thousand year day. The Day of the Lord IS. “God IS LIGHT, and in Him there is no
darkness.” That is the Day of the Lord. It is the illumination of the light of God. The Day of the Lord is a condition that takes place
within a people. It is the light, the
understanding that begins to dawn in our consciousness that elevates our awareness of God
and the dimension of spirit. It is the
understanding of the Almighty. It is the
revelation of God’s glory, majesty, will and purpose.
In Genesis God called the light “day” and Jesus said, “I am
the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life” (Jn. 8:12). Then He
said, “Ye are the light of the world” (Mat. 5:14).
And the apostle Paul by revelation added, “But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of
the night, nor of darkness” (I Thes. 5:4-5). What
is happening is that understanding is coming to us. Understanding
is light. Paul prayed for the Ephesian saints
that “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, ye may know what is the hope
of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”
(Eph. 1:18). We’re getting understanding. We’re understanding God. We’re understanding His Spirit, His ways, His
truth, His plan, His purpose, His heart — so the Day of the Lord is dawning in us. The Day Star is arising in our hearts and the
shadows and darkness are fleeing away in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. Just as day
and night co-exist on earth side by side, so the Day of the Lord and the gross darkness
that covers the people co-exist side by side. Just as Americans walk in the brightness of the
noon-day sun at the same time that Chinamen slumber in mid-night darkness, so there are
both children of the Day and children of the night in the world today. Some men walk in darkness while other men walk in
light. Some men abide in darkness while other
men abide in light.
The
Day of the Lord neither begins nor ends. It
simply IS. God has never known anything but
the Day that He is. It begins for us at that
blessed moment when, quickened by the Spirit of God, we consciously step into it, just as
the natural day begins for us when we arise and greet the dawn. The fact is, it has been day somewhere on earth all
the while the veil of darkness hung over you as a shroud.
Day has nothing to do with time. It
has nothing to do with dates. It has nothing
to do with the calendar. It has nothing to do
with the ages. It only has to do with your
relationship to it. If someone asks when the
Day of the Lord begins I cannot answer. The
Day of the Lord IS. In like manner, the
May
the blessed Spirit of truth give all who read these lines eyes to see that the
Furthermore,
if Jesus must return to planet earth in a visible, physical form and sit on a great throne
in
That
is precisely what Jesus taught. That’s
the problem with religion, they think that the
Some
people think that the
The
Kingdom comes not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for,
behold, the
They
run from city to city, from crusade to crusade, from seminar to seminar, from meeting to
meeting, seeking to see a miracle or hear some new thing.
While it is good to “go and see” if we are seeking something from
God, this mad rush from “here” to “there” is a sign that we have not
yet discovered the reality and power of the Kingdom of God within. We still believe that if we can run fast enough,
travel far enough, see enough miracles, hear enough preachers, healers, and teachers, we
will get “healed,” get “faith,” get “peace,” get
“power,” get “victory,” become “like Christ,” or get
whatever it is we lack within ourselves. That
is what the Pharisees were trying to do. I
have gone on occasion to the meetings where the
Men
chase back and forth to these spectacular events seeking signs to strengthen their faith,
to re-charge their weak characters, to liven their jaded spiritual appetites, because of
their refusal to seek these things in the only place where they can be found —
“behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
The
Well
has a dear brother written: “Jesus said we, like the Pharisees, are seeking in the
wrong place. We are seeking the kingdom, the
faith, the power, from without, at the hand of some man.
But the kingdom is not outside — it is ‘within you.’ ‘But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly’ (Mat. 6:6). Of course there is a blessing that comes when
saints get together to enjoy fellowship, prayer, singing, and anointed preaching of the
Word. But the real, lasting strength of God
that sustains us day by day, comes not from these periodic ‘feasts,’ but from
the steady diet of daily secret prayer, praise, and feeding on the bread of life. Jesus was right when He said, ‘If any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink’ (Jn. 7:37).
And He was correct when He instructed the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s
well, ‘But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up (from
within) into everlasting life’ (Jn. 4:14). And
He did not miss the mark when He told the multitude, ‘I am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst’ (Jn.
6:35).
“When
the disciples walked the shores of
“Why
all this running to and fro? This is a
restless, surface-thinking age. We are
accustomed to having everything done up in packages and handed to us, with little effort
on our part. No longer do we go into the
restaurant and wait for the waiter to take and prepare our order. We pull through the drive-up, roll down the window
and expect a nice looking girl to shove the food out the window to us. No longer do we spend hours in a hot kitchen,
mixing, broiling, baking; we simply pick up a few fast-foods on the way home from work and
have an instant meal. In our spiritual lives,
no longer do we feel the necessity of spending hours on our knees, or faithful trysts with
the Word of God. We run over to a church
service and expect to take home a week’s supply of spiritual nourishment, all done up
in a neat package, at a bargain price. But
Jesus, unlike our modern streamlined civilization, does not promise any ready-made,
ready-mixed, pre-cooked, and quick-rising Bread of Life.
He still says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye
shall seek for me with all of your heart..’ ‘Wait
on the Lord, be of good courage and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the
Lord.’
“When
we run to and fro seeking blessing, inspiration, strength and faith from another, we are
really trying to sponge off someone else’s prayer, ride on someone else’s
ticket. For had he not spent hours on his
knees with the Father, had he not fasted and prayed and paid the price, he would have
nothing worthwhile for us when we came. We are
trying to ride into the Kingdom on his coattails. Children
may get by with that, but that will never bring you to sonship! You may get into the church that way, but it will
never usher you into the Kingdom!”
THE
KINGDOM — LITERAL OR SPIRITUAL?
Carl
Schwing once wrote: “How little we have known in the past of the
Many
Bible teachers speak of a “Spiritual Kingdom of God” and a “Literal Kingdom
of God.” These are both carnal, man-made
terms and are entirely extra-biblical and unscriptural.
Nowhere do the scriptures speak of a “Spiritual” Kingdom as
contrasted with a “Literal” Kingdom. God
does not have TWO Kingdoms. He has only ONE. That
But
carnal religious tradition has falsely interpreted the
The
Thousands
of years ago God made a covenant with Abraham. “Now
the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from
thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a
great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great...for all the land which thou
seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can
number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it
and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee” (Gen. 12:1-2; 13:15-17). We see at once that the great feature of this
covenant is a multiplicity of seed for a man that hitherto had been childless; and that
this multitude of people is to become a great nation, and that they were to be given the
While
there are many beautiful spiritual types in Israel’s entrance into and possession of
the promised land, the fact remains that throughout the Old Testament one reads the
history of a physical people receiving natural blessings in an earthly land. In the Old Testament the Lord always referred to an
earthly land. You can recall how many times
from the twelfth chapter of Genesis to the end of Malachi the Lord stressed the land again
and again. The land...the land...the land I
promised to thy fathers; the land I promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the land I promised you;
I will bring you into the land; I will give you the land; I will bless you in the land. It was the land, the land, always the LAND!
The
center of the Old Testament economy is the temple within the city within the land. The temple was a natural temple within a material
city built upon the physical land. You read
how God brought His people into the promised land, and His people remained there and
enjoyed all its riches, a land “flowing with milk and honey.” They ate and drank from the land — all their
living came out of the land, the land was everything to them. But the blessings of this land were mere temporal
blessings lavishly bestowed upon a fleshly and mortal people. Notice the kinds of blessings promised! “But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is
a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven...and it shall come
to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this
day...that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season...that thou mayest
gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And
I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed
shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be
the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the
increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed
shall be thy basket and thy store. The Lord
shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest
thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee” (Deut. 11:11, 13-15; 28:3-5, 8).
The
Old Covenant was a carnal covenant made with an unregenerated race of earthly men. This covenant, we are informed, “had also
ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary...which was a figure for the time
then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him
that did the service perfect...which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings,
and carnal ordinances, imposed on them UNTIL THE TIME OF REFORMATION” (Heb. 9:1,
9-10).
There
is a wonderful order which God has established relative to creation, the progression of
truth, and the unfolding of His purposes in the earth, and it is this: “Howbeit that
was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is
spiritual” (I Cor. 15:46). The principle
is evident everywhere in the scriptures. First
the old creation, then the new. First
darkness, then light. First Abram, the natural
man, and his seed, the fleshly Israel, and their inheritance, the earthly land of Canaan;
then Abraham, the spiritual man, and his seed, the enChristed, and their inheritance, all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
First Adam, formed of the dust of the ground, a living soul; then the second
man, the last Adam, the Lord from heaven, a quickening spirit. First the law of Moses, then the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus. First the manna in
the wilderness sustaining physical life, then the true bread come down from heaven that if
a man eat of it he shall never die. First the
water refreshing the
If
we know the scriptures and have light from God, we will realize what is meant by “the
land.” The land is but a figure of Christ
as our all in all. In the Old Testament the
descendants of Abraham were brought into the land; in the New Covenant those born of the
Spirit are brought into Christ. Have you ever
realized that Christ is now the territory of your life?
Christ is the land! You may feel
that day to day you are living on this earth, compassed about, hedged in, and shut up by
the myriad problems, pressures, and frustrations of THIS WORLD. But you must realize that this earth, nor any part
of it, including the land of Israel, Great Britain, America, or any other place, is not
your real land, this world is not the sphere of your living.
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-3). The
land is but a type of Christ as everything to us. By
virtue of the new birth we now have the ground to enjoy all the riches of God in Christ! God gave us this ground. This ground is our land and we may enter in and
fully possess all its glories by faith.
I
deeply feel that most of the Lord’s people are still living in the old land —
the “shadow” — and have discovered but little of the true land, the
substance of which is Christ. What a vast
difference there is between the shadow of an object and the object itself! Shadows can be beautiful, as when, for instance, a
day draws toward late afternoon and the mountains cast long shadows, transformed into
purple, greatly enhancing the scene. But the
shadows are at best only shadows, creating wonderful illusions, but with no substance to
them. It is my conviction after forty-five
years of ministry that multitudes of Christians are today contenting themselves with the
shadow instead of the substance. I think we
can look upon the shadow and the substance as picturing two sorts of lives lived by
God’s people. There is a life, if we can
indeed call it such, which is just a shadow of the real thing; things spiritual are not
real to the one living it; the whole thing reeks of the scent of the
“earthiness” of the old natural land. These
folk, though religious, church going people, may even sing choruses, clap their hands,
speak in tongues and prophesy, but in most aspects of their daily lives MIND EARTHLY
THINGS. They preach a lot of frothy discourses
concerning the abundant life, but the abundant life of which they speak is not the
abundant life of Christ Himself, but mere external blessings of answered prayers, healing,
health, jobs, houses, bank accounts, automobiles, clothes, and a thousand other earthly
things which they imagine represent the
“abundant life”. It is not the
abundant life of “those who dwell in heaven” but “those who dwell upon the
earth.”
Ah,
dear ones, the best of all this world has to offer — the best jobs, the highest
salaries, the finest homes, the choicest automobiles, beautiful clothes, good and
luxurious furniture and an abundance of the amenities of life have nothing whatever to do
with the abundant life of which Jesus spoke when He said, “I am come that ye might
have life, and have it more abundantly.” The
abundant life is experienced in CHRIST THE SUBSTANCE, not in the shadow. A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance
of the things he possesseth, saith the Lord. If
God has favored you with temporal things, then you may accept them, but do not deceive
yourself by supposing that these temporal things are a sign of God’s favor or your
spirituality, for such is not the case. The
fleshly
Hear
now the exhortation of the firstborn Son of God. “Take
heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of
the things which he possesseth. The life is
more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. But
rather SEEK YE THE KINGDOM OF GOD; fear not, little flock; for it is the Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom...provide yourselves with bags which wax not old, a
treasure in the heavens (the realm of the spirit) that faileth not...for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The
national
Only
the Holy Spirit can make this real to us, but one of the most significant utterances ever
made by the apostle Paul is found in Ephesians 1:3. “Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all SPIRITUAL
BLESSINGS IN HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST.” The
source of all blessing is God who is Spirit. “Every
good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights”
(James 1:17). All blessings, temporal and
spiritual, come from the gracious hand of our heavenly Father. However, the blessings and benefits of the
“Jesus
answered, My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews” (Jn. 18:36). “The
The
Since
the spiritual and eternal are higher and more abiding, it follows that the temporal and
material are ultimately to be ruled and guided by them.
There should be no conflict between the two, for just as soul and body are
subjected to the spirit in the perfect man, so the natural creation is to be ruled by the
spiritual that God’s Kingdom may come and God’s will be done in earth as it is
in heaven. Temporal affairs should always be
permeated, shaped and controlled by spiritual powers.
That very principle is what makes us the sons of God in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation. Our outer man
expresses the inner man of righteousness, joy, and peace, revealing the glory of Christ
unto creation. The whole ministry of Jesus was
filled to the full with teaching concerning great Kingdom principles. He did not concern Himself with petty rules and
regulations governing the outer, every day life of the people. He laid down great abiding spiritual principles
that worked from the inside out. If men
grasped the principles by which their lives were to be guided, their every day conduct
would take care of itself. These principles
are the New Testament written not upon stone, but upon the fleshy tablets of the heart by
the Holy Spirit.
I
cannot emphasize too strongly that the
The
We
are called to manifest the will of God through our life.
When the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven, the
The
Many
people still conceive of the
Suppose
we should say, “Let us make a man in the image of such and such a person.” Now we cannot make a living man by any external
method, so we make an arm out of wax, a head out of marble, a torso with wood, and the
legs and feet of some clay. Once these are
assembled in the exact size and shape and painted in the exact color, we may have the true
image of that man, but we do not have the reality of the man. The real man is not manufactured by outward
manipulation, but born and nurtured by the growth of life.
This true man was first conceived of a living seed, born of a living mother,
and then grew by the nourishment of life. Ultimately
he became a man with a certain image, perhaps the image of his father. If manufactured, there may be the image, but not a
man.
You
see, there are two ways of making things in this world.
Many things are made by the works of men’s hands. Other things are made by the power of life. Let us look closely at this. You may make a table, an automobile, a beautiful
painting, or a masterful statue; you may build a house or raise up a skyscraper. No matter how many things you are skilled enough to
make, all have one thing in common: they have no life.
They may be very beautiful and extremely valuable, but not one of them is
living. Whatever form they have, whatever
resemblance to any other object, animate or inanimate, they are just things. The power of life can in no way be developed from
without by the work of men’s hands.
On
the other hand, if you have a beautiful little child, you don’t pay much attention to
his image. You don’t make a form to fit
over his body as he grows and try to shape him day by day in a particular way. You don’t use a chisel and work at fashioning
his countenance with a certain appearance of nobility.
The work of the hands avails nothing. First,
he is conceived of life and born of his mother, then you nourish him with milk and good
food. The child then grows and grows, assuming
a certain shape and image. The ultimate image
was already in the life when he was conceived. The
image comes out of his birth and growth of life. Just
as you could not form your child, so neither can you form the
We
can manufacture a toy or a doll, but there is no way for us to manufacture a man. We can manufacture silk or paper flowers, but there
is no way for us to manufacture a rose. It
must be something of new birth in the spirit and growth of life in Christ. Just as the church is composed of people, so the
The
sons of the Kingdom are the only true men on the face of the earth. The sons of the Kingdom have put on the mind of
Christ and understand the true nature of all things. They
are filled with heavenly wisdom and are strengthened by divine power. They are created in the image of God and reveal the
glory of Jesus Christ. They have the ability
to rise into the plane of the spirit. He who
has in him the
Chapter
11
MY
KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD
“Jesus
answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from
hence” (Jn. 18:36).
The
What
does Jesus mean when He says that His Kingdom is not of this world? One of the key words translated “world”
in our English Bibles is the Greek word KOSMOS. It
is worth taking time to examine this word in a good Greek Lexicon to see how wide is the
range of meanings it has in scripture. The
word originated in Classical Greek where we find it denoted principally one underlying
thing: a harmonious order, system or arrangement. Out
of this meaning it may be applied to the earth, the inhabitants of the earth, society, the
whole race of men alienated from God and thus hostile to the ways of God, the universe,
worldly affairs such as worldly goods, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, customs,
ways, methods, organizations, systems, institutions, governments, etc. The idea of orderly arrangement or organization
lies behind all of the aforementioned categories. The
earth, the solar system, the universe, society, government, commerce, education, social
institutions, finance, entertainments — all these and many more operate by precise
laws, order, arrangement, system, and method. Behind
everything that exists and all that happens in the visible, material realm we meet a
planned system; and in this system there is a harmonious functioning, an established
order. That is the world. None of it is of the Spirit of God. None of it is established along the lines of
God’s ways, God’s righteousness, God’s nature, God’s word, or
God’s will. The Spirit has an altogether
different standard and order out of the invisible realm.
That is the
The
Bible opens with God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. It does not say that God created the world at that
time. God placed Adam in the garden of Eden, a
place of light and beauty, and there was no world in relation to man. In that long ago beginning God proclaimed,
“Let us make man in our image, after out likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This wonderful purpose of God to make man His very
image had been settled in the divine councils of Elohim from eternity. The carnal minds of sin-cursed men cannot even
begin to imagine in their wildest dreams and hopes the ineffable glory that is determined
for man in the image and likeness of God. This
glory is fully seen in our Lord Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ Himself is “the
outraying of God’s glory, the express image of His Person” (Heb. 3:1). Only in
Jesus Christ today can be seen exactly what God had in mind when He said, “Let us
make man in our image.”
Adam,
the man in God’s image, walked amidst the fragrant mists of
In
his first epistle, the apostle John informs us that “the whole world lieth in
wickedness” (I Jn. 5:19). “This
present evil world (Gal. 1:4)” is now governed by those who obey the carnal nature,
the serpent within them. The serpent mind
rules through carnal individuals thus filling the world with the wickedness and corruption
so evident everywhere. The result of the
serpent nature in mankind is the conglomerate world system — economic, political, and
religious — prophetically called Mystery Babylon.
The most outstanding characteristic of the serpent is his ability to
deceive. From the very opening chapters of the
Bible, he is depicted as a liar and a deceiver. “The
serpent beguiled me and I did eat,” was Eve’s sad lamentation, and in the
closing chapters of the Bible, the fact and magnitude of his deceiving nature is further
emphasized in the inspired words of the Revelator wherein he states that he is “that
ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, which DECEIVETH THE WHOLE WORLD” (Rev.
12:9).
Although
Adam became corrupted by sin and expelled from the precincts of
The
Word of God clearly reveals that the route of spiritual progression is from east to west. Jesus Christ who is the wisdom of God, is pictured
by the Psalmist as a bridegroom typified by the sun who comes out of his chamber to run a
race through the heavens (Ps. 19:4-6). Malachi
speaks of Christ as “the sun of righteousness, arising” (Mal. 4:2). Everyone knows, of course, that the
“race” of the sun is run from east to west.
The lightning referred to in Matthew 24:27 is actually the sun, for the Greek word
merely means a bright shining, and lightning, as we know, does not flash from east to
west, having no specific design or direction. With
this in mind the words of Jesus are clear, “For as the bright shining (sun) cometh
out of the east, and shineth even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of
man be.” Cain, had it not been for sin,
would have been living in the garden of Eden, the
Happy
is the man who clearly understands that the pathway of the anointing is ever from glory to
glory, and as long as we are short of the image and incorruptible life of God we must
never settle anywhere! The very condition of
settling precludes our re-entrance into the Paradise of God.
The man who settles is lost from the on-going purposes of God. Those blessed ones who in this hour hear and heed
the call to sonship cannot settle in any zone until they stand in holy splendor with the
Lamb upon the pinnacle of
Sin
began with Adam in the Garden, for Adam sinned and was corrupted by sin and overcome by
death, but he did not fall into the world at that point, neither was he possessed by the
world then. The word “world,” as I
have pointed out, translates the Greek word KOSMOS meaning order, arrangement, system of
things. The world is a negative thing in
relation to God because it is a system organized outside of the anointing of God. James declares, “...the friendship of the
world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy
of God” (James 4:4). The apostle John
adds his instructive testimony, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. For all that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not
of the Father, but is of the world” (I Jn. 2:15-16).
Many
Christians have the mistaken notion that the world is the movie theater, the dance hall,
ball games, stylish clothing, jewelry, and
such like. Others confuse the world with the
earth. But the world is the present system of
things upon this earth conceived by the carnal mind and generated by the natural man. The world consists of all that man has instituted
that replaces God in his life. The present
political, economic, educational and religious systems are not of God, but of the world. When people, activities or things — whether
good or bad, beautiful or ugly — enslave man and usurp God, they comprise the world. Anything that causes man to disregard the Spirit,
be removed from the anointing, stop making progress onward and upward, or be independent
of God is the world. All that does not come
from the Father, all that originates from any source other than the mind of Christ, all
that man institutes by his own carnal wisdom and fleshly activity is of the world. It is not according to God’s purpose for man
to be subject to any system that he himself creates! Nor
is according to God’s purpose for His people to be subject to religious systems that
they themselves create! All are contrary to
the life, nature, word, and ways of God.
THE
FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
“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. 1:4). The
word “foundation” translates the Greek word KATABOLE which is a compound word
made up of BALLO meaning “to cast, to throw” and KATA meaning “down”. When man fell from his high and holy relationship
with God and was cast down into the darkness of this gross material realm, the
“foundation” of the world was laid in his heart.
The “building” of the world was the fruit of his actions. But — blessed be God! The apostle Paul informs us that our heavenly
Father elected some sons in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” The word “before” translates the Greek word PRO meaning “to go
before, to precede”. Hence, the
Father’s act of choosing us in Christ preceded the fall of man and the establishment
of the world system. We are not told how many
days, years, or eons this choosing preceded the world, but methinks it was away back there
when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy!
Since
the world is in such opposition to God we must consider its origin and process of
development. The world began with Cain. Cain built the first city — organized society,
civilization — which typifies the worldly system of independence from the SPIRIT. The world did not exist when man was created
(except in abstraction), but developed gradually after the fall, as man removed himself
from the anointing and walked in his own
carnal way. When man was brought forth from
the formative hand of God there was already the universe, the heavens and the earth, and
all created things; but the world did not exist. Following
Adam’s expulsion from the Garden, when carnal men began to multiply upon the earth
the serpent in man gave direction and character to the “New World Order” of man,
thus the scripture speaks of the natural man as walking “according to the course of
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh
in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).
There
are three primary requirements for man’s existence and well-being on the earth:
provision, protection, and pleasure. For a man
to live an abundant and fulfilled life in the earth realm he needs the provision of food,
clothing, shelter, etc., a means of defense to protect himself from adversaries, and a
form of recreation and amusement for his happiness. Prior
to Adam’s transgression GOD WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING THESE THREE NEEDS OF MAN,
and they were supplied abundantly in the garden of Eden experience, albeit on a much
higher level. After Cain’s departure from
the leading of the Spirit, the scripture describes him as “of that Wicked One”
(I Jn. 3:12). The preposition “of”
is from the Greek EK meaning “out of”. “Cain
was OUT OF that Wicked One” — the seed of the serpent! Cain’s father was Adam and his mother was Eve
— nothing can be plainer than that in Genesis 4:1.
This is the very first proof that the serpent is in man! Cain was born of Adam and Eve, but he was the seed
of the serpent.
Out
of the descendants of Cain were produced the founders of man’s own system of supply
for these three great needs of life. These
were the three sons of Lamech. Jabal was the
father of tent dwellers and cattlemen (Gen. 4:20). Tents
and cattle are for the supply of mortal man’s living and therefore belong to the
category of provision. In the beginning God
revealed Himself to man as his provision, making Himself available to man in the tree of
life, that in union with Him we should have all things, even the supply of God Himself. Jabal represents man’s own efforts, apart from
the life of God, to make provision for himself. Spiritually,
this symbolizes the carnal religious systems with their rituals, ceremonies, ordinances
and programs designed to “feed” God into man.
All religion is the invention of man in his effort to meet man’s
spiritual need — apart from the life-flow of God!
Alas! the multitudes of men within these systems understand not that the
reality of God’s life is not contained in, nor ministered through, creeds, programs,
rituals, ceremonies, or ordinances. Those who
live in that realm know nothing of the wonder of the Christ within. Man’s religion is of the world, for it is
outside of God, being not of the Spirit, nor by the anointing.
Another
of Cain’s sons, Jubal, was the father of all that handle the harp and organ. Playing harp and organ is for pleasure and
inspiration and thus pertains to the category of pleasure.
This worldly aspect is fulfilled spiritually in the maze of social activity
in religion, as well as in much of the music, programs, and sermonizing, all of which is
designed to be pleasant, acceptable and entertaining to the people. I do not think that any spiritually-minded person
could disagree with me when I say that nearly all the concerts, programs, and pulpit
showmanship that constitute most of the so-called “ministry” among God’s
people today are without doubt very appealing to the carnal mind which is ever wont to
feed upon soulish entertainment rather than with reverential awe and holy brokenness to
drink at the eternal fountains of living water that flow from the throne of God. I am convinced that our faithful Father has given
the ministry of the blessed spirit of Truth, and that that spirit of Truth abides within
all who receive of Him. There is abundant
supply! While God has given spiritual ministry
for the perfecting of the saints, the worldly church system has given us a veritable
smorgasbord of religious shows for the entertaining of the saints. Most solemnly do I declare unto you that all such
ARE OF THE WORLD, and not of the Father, for their methods and means lie outside of the
anointing of the Spirit and can never lead God’s people beyond the husks of
man’s own vanity. Thank God! a people is
arising who are finding their way out of Cain’s pleasure land of entertainment and
sentimentality, back to the Paradise of God, back to the tree of life, back to the Kingdom
of Heaven where they drink deeply of this sublime truth: “...in Thy presence is
fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore!” (Ps. 16:11).
The
third son, Tubal-Cain, was the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron
instruments. These instruments were formed for
the purpose of defense, thus referring to the category of protection. All the armaments of all the nations of the world
today are the result of the spirit of Tubal-Cain. All
the martial arts, hand guns, mace, and every other offensive device used for
self-protection pertain to this category. On
the spiritual side, ignorant of the power and sufficiency of the indwelling Spirit, with
what pompousness do the religious systems construct about them their walls and implements
of defense! Church history is replete with
examples of revival after revival in which men were sovereignly caught up into heavenly
places of revelation, glory, and power, only to have man put his hand of flesh on the
workings of God, to control, protect, and preserve it as though the omnipotent Spirit
needed man’s useless wisdom and regulations to preserve His mighty work! Out there in Cain’s world you must have the
brass and iron implements of Tubal-Cain — implements of organization, denomination,
fellowships, coverings, creeds, rules, regulations, boards, lawsuits, etc., to defend and
preserve the work; but, praise God! as one moves westward back into the anointing of
God’s life the omnipotence of the indwelling Spirit Himself becomes our fortress and
exceeding strong tower. With what deep
comprehension of the ways and power of the Lord did the Psalmist pen the words of faith in the ability of God alone
when he wrote, “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O
Lord, in the light of Thy countenance. For
THOU art the glory of their strength: and in Thy favor shall our horn be exalted. For THE LORD IS OUR DEFENSE; the Holy One of Israel
is our King” (Ps. 89:15-18).
In
these three important inventions of the sons of Cain man found within himself the answer
to his need of supply, defense and amusement. Man
found no need of God, of His presence, life or power, for he set about to establish his
own world, independent of God. This was the
civilization produced after mankind departed from the presence of God — a godless
life created by men. This present world system
of things is patterned after the order of Cain. It
is all outside of God. That does not mean that
it is all evil. It simply is not of the
Spirit! How clear that in this earth the
politics, economics, education, entertainment, commerce and religion are outside of God! When we have learned how the world was formed, it
is easy to define the world. Originally, man
was in the family of God, lived by God, relied entirely upon Him, and had at his disposal
ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD. Now the serpent,
through subtlety, sophistry, the carnal mind, the wisdom of this world, has systematized
the world to replace God in being all to man. Man,
having forsaken his inheritance, having departed from the presence, and having lost His
life relied upon the world and was overcome by the world.
Therefore, the world consists of everything that replaces God and possesses
man.
Cain
built a city — as did Nimrod after him. “And
Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he (Cain) builded a city, and
called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch” (Gen. 4:17). There was no city in
It
is not the form but the essence which constitutes true religion. Christ knew nothing of external paraphernalia, and
those who follow the Lamb know nothing of it either. Distinguish
between the flickering shadows of outward symbols and the verities of incorruptible life. Distinguish between the valueless injunctions of
touch not, taste not, handle not, and the divine nature that produces love, joy, peace,
righteousness of heart, and all the fruit of the Spirit.
The
Seek
truth and you will find it, because God is the God of truth.
Truth is not far from you, for Christ is the truth and He is within you. If you desire heaven you must win it; for
heaven is the realm of the Spirit and a state of being, not a place. God is in heaven and God is in you, therefore
heaven is within you if you can find it. No
preacher can give it to you; no ritual can give it to you; no creed or message can give it
to you; no mere ordinances or ministrations of men can open its doors for you so much as a
single inch. You must find it by forsaking the
world and self, and all the carnal religious exercises and activities of the world, to
hear the quickening voice of the Spirit, to walk after the Spirit, to live in the Spirit. The home and heaven of God is within you, precious
friend of mine, for you are the temple of the living God, as God hath said. Apart from this all else is but fringes and
phylacteries. If, by the aid of God’s
Holy Spirit, you have discovered the King and the Kingdom which is within you, though all
parties excommunicate you, and all priests and preachers anathematize you, nothing can
harm you; and when you pass from the babble of the world’s malediction, and the
falsehoods of erring religion, and have passed westward through the portals of Eden, and
scaled the heights of mount Zion, clear and high for you shall peal the eternal verdict,
“This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased!”
The
world today has its own religious dictionary of definitions of “God” and
“Spirit” and “Church” and “Heaven” and “Hell” and
a hundred other things, and they speak and think within the framework of those
definitions. But GOD SPEAKS A DIFFERENT
LANGUAGE and has a different dictionary of definitions by which He speaks to His people
and according to which He works. If all the
multiplied practices and methods employed by the churches today were suddenly swept away,
it would in all probability cease to function. If
the churches had to drop all their rituals, forms, programs and ceremonies; all their
confirmations, baptisms, and communion services; all their special singing, organ music,
and altar calls; all their organization, titles, and church buildings, they would feel as
though they had been stripped naked and could not serve God in any way. All this simply demonstrates the terrible fact that
the faith and dependence of the churches is not in God, but is in the trappings they have
accumulated to themselves through the centuries. Lest
someone accuse me of being brash, vindictive or extreme, let me remind you that when the
early apostles went out and turned the world upside down for God THEY HAD ABSOLUTELY NONE
OF THE THINGS MENTIONED ABOVE. All they had
was God — the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven! But today, the thought that God is perfectly able
and fully willing to run His Church without the aid of anything in the way of fleshly
contributions, is found to be abhorrent to the average church member, and even more
shocking to the average preacher! When the
sons of God are manifested for the deliverance of all creation they will have none of the
world’s instruments, and that is just the reason God is dealing with His elect so
severely in this hour to come unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.
God’s
true Church, in contrast to the false religious systems of
These
are they who have not the form, but the power of god-likeness, those who keep themselves
unspotted from the world, and overcome all things by the faith of the Son of God within. Its ministers are not robed in material robes of
scarlet and gold; they are robed in the righteousness of Christ. They are not trained in the seminaries and
teachings of men, but by the spirit of grace and wisdom and revelation from God on High. They are not busy interpreting or parroting the
doctrines of the church systems or employing the theological terms of religion; their very
lives are the interpretation of the Christ enthroned within their hearts. They have no interest in persuading people of what
they believe; their whole ministry is to bring people into intimacy of fellowship and
vital union with GOD and His CHRIST. In other
words, GOD IS SUFFICIENT for this Church He has placed in the world of men! Because God is sufficient, because the Christ
within is all-in-all, this Church is left entirely free from all carnal encumbrances to
pursue the work God has given it of bringing His elect unto the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ so that the Church may be the revelation of God’s manifold
wisdom to all the principalities and powers in the celestial realms, and the hope of all
creation for deliverance and restoration to the Kingdom of God. Let all who have received the call to sonship know
once and for all that CHRIST WITHIN IS SUFFICIENT! All
else is — the world!
DELIVERANCE
FROM THIS WORLD
Consider
with me the depth of meaning in the words of the apostle Paul wherein he says of the Lord
Jesus, “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from THIS PRESENT
EVIL WORLD” (Gal. 1:4). The description
of this present world declares it to be evil, and Paul asserts that we are being delivered
or saved out of it through Jesus who gave Himself for us.
One cannot read these words without a feeling of utmost wonder at the
revelation that just as it was the ark that saved Noah from the world of his day, so it is
Christ who saves us from this present evil world. Noah
was saved from his world by a ship, whereas we are saved from our world by a glorious
Person! Let no one imagine that to be delivered from this present evil world means
to be “raptured” off to some “beautiful isle of somewhere” any more
than Noah was removed to another planet when he was “saved” from the world that
then was. Of Noah’s blessed deliverance
we read, “For Christ hath also once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit: by
which also He went and preached unto the
spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight
souls were SAVED BY WATER” (I Pet. 3:18-20).
Yes,
my friend, Noah was saved by water — the very same water that destroyed the world! He was saved from a world, but the wonderful truth
is that he had been “saved” from that “world” a long time before the
waters of the flood arrived! For even as the
scripture declares of Jesus, that He was “harmless, undefiled, separate from
sinners,” so the Word also testifies of Noah that he was “a just man and perfect
in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” Noah
was saved. From the world of his day. He was no part of it, though it was all around him. Noah was different.
He danced to a different tune. He
lived out his life by a different set of standards. He
walked with God while all the rest of mankind wallowed in the filth of the lusts of their
flesh. And now, in this our day, God has sent
forth His Son Jesus to save us from THIS PRESENT EVIL WORLD!
Vast
multitudes of men and women all about us walk through this life with their minds closed,
their hearts centered in this old world. How
men’s hearts and lives are tied to this world! The
man who is living in this world is forever worrying about earthly things — how he can
provide more in the bank for old age, how he can provide more to see and hear and taste
and feel and smell — the pleasures of
this world, how he can be sure he will never want for food, clothing or shelter. His concern is that the outer physical man will
never be in need, never be unsatisfied or dissatisfied.
He is always mindful of the comfort, entertainment, protection and provision
of the natural man. However much we may
elaborate on this point, we will not express it more aptly than did the apostle Paul when
he declared, “For they that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the
flesh.” On the other hand, there is a
small minority who spend their lives minding the things of the spirit. The welfare of the inner man, the spiritual man,
the new creature, the heavenly man is uppermost in their thoughts, for they seek the mind
of Christ. They, like Paul, “die
daily” to this present evil world, counting it as a passing thing that is destined
for destruction.
The
child of God stands out as the revelation of the divine power of Jesus Christ to come into
the spirit of man, and change it and make it lovely and pure and wise and powerful like
God Himself. To come into the mind of man, and
take possession of all its faculties, infusing the mind of Christ until that man esteems
the fashions and fantasies of this world as less than nothing, seeking always to be one
with the Father. To come into the nature of
man and transform it by the power of God until his thoughts and desires and actions are
filled with wisdom and understanding, manifesting the life and glory of the world to come,
the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. These, being after the spirit, mind the things of
the spirit. These are putting on immortality
and incorruption, for the Christ shall come into even our diseased and mortal bodies until
the action of the Holy Spirit revolutionizes every cell and our bodies are quickened by
the spirit that dwells in them (Rom. 8:11). This,
my beloved, is what it means to be SAVED FROM THIS PRESENT EVIL WORLD!
I
know of nothing that will so thoroughly awaken the fathomless depths of wisdom and
understanding than the blessed knowledge of the sacred mystery that Christ saves men right
now from this present evil world. And while
you, dear reader, may be one of those waiting with rapturous expectation to be whisked
away and “evacuated” off this earth to spend eternity in some far-off heaven
somewhere, Peter expresses with urgent and profound aspiration the true desire of all sons
of God who groan for the deliverance of creation and the triumph of the Kingdom of God,
saying, “Nevertheless we, according to His promise look for NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW
EARTH, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found in Him in
peace, without spot, and blameless” (II Pet. 3:13-14).
It is an incontrovertible fact that the average Christian today is not
looking for the same thing Peter was looking for — new heavens and a new earth.
Did
Jesus teach us to pray, “Come quickly Lord Jesus, and take us to heaven,” or did
He teach us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven?” To be saved from this present
evil world doesn’t mean to be taken anywhere. It
means to be transformed, it means to be in a different condition, or state of being, than
the world. It means to be holy instead of
vile, spiritual instead of carnal, heavenly minded instead of earthly minded, peaceful
instead of agitated, full of wisdom and understanding instead of ignorant and foolish,
full of faith instead of fear and frustration, living instead of dying. With what holy understanding did our Lord beseech
the Father, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou
shouldest keep them from the evil. They are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:15-17). This was Noah’s condition too, his state of
being, in his corrupt world. He was perfect
with God. And now it is our turn to be perfect
with God, to walk with God, and be completely delivered out of this present evil world
into the life and power and glory of the Kingdom of God — the new age, the new
condition, the new state of being — the NEW WORLD ORDER, the WORLD TO COME! People are always looking for the “end of the
world,” but most sincerely do I say to you today that this is where the world ends
— it ends within yourself. The new
heavens (spirit) and the new earth (soul and body) are glorious and eternal realities
right now upon this earth for each and every man and woman who has been delivered from
this present evil world. The new age has
dawned within our hearts, the new world has come into our reality, old things are passed
away and, behold, all things are now made new. Hallelujah-yah!
It
is very essential that those who press forward into God should always keep in mind that “world” means an order, system, or
arrangement of things. This involves a way of
life, social structure, culture, philosophies, political ideologies, religion, economics
— all products of the carnal mind. How
enlightening the words of scripture, “And we know that we are of God, and the WHOLE
WORLD LIETH IN WICKEDNESS.” A number of
translations render the latter part of this passage, “the whole world lieth in THE
WICKED ONE.” This whole world system has
not only made its bed in wickedness, but it is under the control of a cosmic wicked mind
— the satanic spirit incarnate in man’s fleshly nature. How few truly comprehend the magnitude of this! How many precious saints are yet deceived into
believing that there is at least something of God in the politics of this world, in the
educational programs of this world, in the economic system of this world, in the laws of
this world, in the fashions of this world, in the philosophies of this world, and in the
culture of this world. Somehow it does not
sink in that these institutions are, one and all, completely and forever, without any
exceptions whatsoever, UNRIGHTEOUS PRODUCTS OF THE CARNAL MINDS OF NATURAL MEN!
I
do not hesitate to tell you that practically all, if not indeed all, of the men and women
who fill the smoke-filled rooms where the ideas are birthed and the decisions made
concerning all of these affairs are indeed carnal minded men, sold under sin, dominated by
the master spirit that controls this evil age. Oh!
how we have wanted to believe that our nation, with it laws and liberties and godly
heritage is somehow an expression of the
The
seeds of destruction were planted in the very foundations of our nation. When you give men “freedom of speech” and
“liberty” you must give it across the board.
It is given to saints and equally given to devils! It is given to righteousness and equally given to
carnality and corruption. When you have the
“rule of the people” you can never have a government any better than the people. If the people are good you will have good
government. If the people are bad you will
have bad government. The majority always rule.
The only thing that can save
There
is a simple, but sure, test by which one may discern whether anything pertains to the
This
world is not for us. Its methods are not for
us. Its fashions are not for us. Its institutions are not for us. Its ways are not for us. Its life style is not for us. Its mentality is not for us. Its spirit is not for us. We are different.
We are of God. We are called to
higher things. We are led by the Spirit, the
sons of God. God is saving us out of this
world. Those apprehended to sonship are
overcoming this world even as Jesus said, “I have overcome the world” (Jn.
16:33). John wrote, “For whosoever is
born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith” (I Jn. 5:4). Peter admonishes,
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye
might be partakes of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust” (II Pet. 1:4). And finally,
the apostle James entreats us, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the
world is the enemy of God!” (James 4:4). And
thank God! the world is passing away. Not the
earth that we live on, not our solar system, but the world — this present carnal
system of things. And with it, all the chaos,
sin, war, crime, poverty, pain, pride, deceit, death; yea, all that is not of the Father
shall pass away. We have God’s word for
it!
Even
now as we learn to rise up in God, to put on His mind, to walk in His ways, to know His
voice, to be led by His Spirit, to be conformed to His image, the nature, glory and
authority of that NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH is being formed within us. There has been released from heaven in the last
several years a great and wonderful expectancy. It
is the expectancy that all heaven is about to break loose in the midst of the Lord’s
people on a world-wide basis. Do you identify
with that expectancy? God is raising up voices
throughout the length and breadth of the land to say, “The earth is about to see the
glory of God in an unprecedented way.” A
host of heavenly messengers has been released to every corner of the globe bearing the
message, “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all mankind together will
see it, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Isa. 40:5). I have heard that message from every quarter of the
earth, and it is the word of the Lord for this day. Those
who think all things are going to continue on as they are, are deceived. Even as I write, this planet is in the greatest
spiritual, political, and economic change since World War II. The century and the millennium will soon change. History’s “odometer” will turn up to
7000 — the beginning of the seventh day since Adam was banished in sorrow from
““I
have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn. 17:14).
If Jesus was not of the world, why was He in the world? If there was no sympathy between Him and the world,
why was it that He lived in it, and did not
remain in that high and holy and blessed realm from whence He came? The answer is,
the Father sent Him into the world to redeem the world.
In these two expressions, “in the world,” and “not of the
world,” we find the whole secret to
His work as the manifested Son of God in the earth, and the King of the Kingdom.
He
was “in the world” to face the powers that rule the world, to learn obedience,
and to overcome the world. He was “not of
the world” to bring men the life from above, that which man lost from his
consciousness in sin, that men might see it and long for it and have it quickened again
within them. He was “in the world”
witnessing against its sin and shame, its static religion and corrupt government, its
impotence to know and please God. He was
“not of the world” founding a Kingdom entirely spiritual in nature and heavenly
in origin, entirely independent from all that the world cherishes, promotes, and imposes,
with principles and laws and a spirit the very opposite of those that rule the world.
Ray
Prinzing’s comments are enlightening. “Came
a day when Jesus was brought into custody before Pilate, and in submission to this
man’s rule, He did not seek to defend Himself. In
fact, He stated, ‘My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my
kingdom not of hence.’ This world had its
kingships, various authorities in varying degrees of rulership prevailed. Jesus was not competing with them on that level of
kingship. If He was, it would be necessary for
Him to rally His forces and fight to defend His kingdom.
But He did not belong to the world, He was in it, but not of it, and
therefore did not try to exercise its form of kingship.
He had no contest with these men, He was not fighting flesh and blood. HIS KINGSHIP RIGHTS DID NOT PERTAIN TO THIS NATURAL
REALM. His obedience to the will of the Father
placed Him at their disposal, to do as they willed, even to the death of the cross. Full well He knew that there would come a day when
the Father would give all judgment into His hand, and all earth shall bow before Him, for
the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord. Blessed be His wonderful name!”
There is nothing ordinary about our Christ. Everything about Him is superlative.
