Table of Contents

Chapter                   Title                                  Page

42.                    The Increase of the Kingdom                                    3

43.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        14

44.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        29

45.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        43

46.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        57

47.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        70

48.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        84

49.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        96

50.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        106

51.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        120

52.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        133

53.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        143

54.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        158

55.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        170

56.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        184

57.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        198

58.                    The Increase of the Kingdom (cont.)                        211

59.                    Qualifying for Kingdom Dominion                           224

60.                    Qualifying for Kingdom Dominion (cont.)               238

Chapter 42

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

A Pentecostal, Charismatic or Fundamentalist Christian who has been fed the “dispensationalist” scheme  of things has only a future concept of the Kingdom of God.  On the other hand, there are those who preach a “right now” word about the Kingdom, the present reality of the Kingdom, but conclude that the present expression and manifestation of the Kingdom is all there is.  They have no concept of any progressive or future dimensions of the Kingdom.  I do not hesitate to tell you, my beloved, if what I have seen of the Kingdom up till now is all there is, then the Kingdom will never be victorious, triumphing in all realms!  If the present activity and power of the Kingdom is all there is, I believe I have reason to fear that it will never break in pieces, subdue and consume all other kingdoms as the prophets have prophesied, and all nations will never come to worship before the Lord, God’s will will never be fully done on earth as it is in heaven, and God will never be all in all!

Those who read these lines are, for the most part, God’s very elect, a people beloved of the Father, a people chosen and predestinated to sonship, the most enlightened and obedient people out of all the children of God on the face of the earth.  But if what you and I currently have in God is all there is, then the power and glory of the Kingdom is most limited, and the hope of creation is cut off.  There is a glory yet to be revealed in us!  There is a manifestation of the sons of God that all creation is still groaning and travailing to see.  There is an age, and there are ages yet to come of Kingdom increase, for it is in those glorious ages to come that God shall put on display before the whole creation, in and through the saints, what are the riches of His grace and kindness toward all men (Eph. 2:7), and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end (Isa. 9:7), and in the dispensation of the fullness of times He shall gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him (Eph. 1:10).

Unknown to mankind as a whole, yet clearly revealed in the prophecies of the scriptures, the plan of God for man’s salvation, transformation and eternal happiness has been progressing steadily onward in an orderly and systematic manner.  The experience of evil, man’s participation in the heartbreak of sin and the anguish of death, God’s dealings with Israel, the sending of the Son of God into the world as the Redeemer, the formation of the Church and the preparation of the sons of God have all been steps in God’s great plan.  They have all been paving the way for the glory that shall be revealed when God shall set His hand to save all the nations, restore all things, and fill the whole earth with His glory as the waters cover the sea.

We can only grasp God’s great plan of the ages when we understand that God has a goal and a timetable by which He works, and His dealings with men are different at various times and stages of history, according to the need, in order to advance His Kingdom program.  God has manifested His power and glory in different ways at different times and for different purposes.  As the great pendulum of the ages has relentlessly ticked away the centuries and millenniums one second at a time, God’s Kingdom has come, and continues to come from glory to glory, from realm to realm, from stage to stage, until it shall be all-triumphant and all-encompassing.  The great and glorious consummation of the Kingdom has not yet come, but it is coming, it is on the way, and it is right on schedule.  When God’s timetable reaches a certain point, His dealings with mankind will again undergo a dramatic change.  His power and glory will be manifested in an altogether different way from what it has been during the age now ending.  We are right now standing at the point of transition into the new age of God’s great Kingdom purposes!

Every time God brings a fresh revelation and new experience to His people many of them are prone to say, “This is IT!  This is the ultimate truth and the crowning glory of God!  This is what it is going to be!”  At the beginning of this past century when God brought the baptism in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues, many of those people believed that such was the last great move of God.  They had come out of Holiness and Evangelical Churches and the Lord led them into a blessed new experience.  Very quickly they settled down in it.  For fifty years they organized and systematized it and Pentecost became one of the more respected denominations among the church systems.

In 1948 God moved again with power and great glory.  It was called “Latter Rain.”  Rain, whether it be the former or the latter, or showers between, is the Lord coming to His people.  The Lord Himself came in the Rain!  When this outpouring began, again we found many people believing that was it, this was God’s greatest and final move, and thousands have settled for the blessings and manifestations which characterized that move of the Spirit as being permanent.  Already the clammy arms of the sectarian octopus have crushed its vitality and sucked the life-blood from it.

So God moves on!  God brought Luther out of the Roman Catholic denomination, but God did not desire to stop there.  The Holy Spirit drew the Wesleys out of the Church of England, but again He did not stop there.  Latter Rain was unquestionably a shower of great refreshing and quickening power, but God did not stop there, and He is not stopping with any of the present-day movings, manifestations or dealings of His Spirit.  His pathway is ever onward and upward, from glory to glory.  What anticipation this stirs in our hearts!  The fact is — there will never be any stopping with God for He ever moves ahead, and “of the increase of His government and peace THERE SHALL BE NO END” (Isa. 9:7).

The present emphasis of the Holy Spirit is upon the imminent manifestation of the sons of God.  We are privileged to be living in blessed days of preparation for this grandest of all events, days fraught with holy and awesome responsibility for God’s elect.  But I would be remiss if I failed to acquaint the saints with the fact that even the placing of the sons of God is not the last revelation, nor the final act, in God’s great drama of the ages.  It is easy for the apprehended ones to settle down in the beautiful hope of sonship to God.  But God will move on, beloved,  making sonship, too, but a stepping-stone to realms higher and grander, for, as sonship is not the ultimate reality or position in the natural life, neither is it in the spiritual life.  We praise God for the call to sonship, and with bated breath await the glory of its unveiling, but the crowning glory of God remains to be demonstrated in the age of the ages yet to come.  Saints of all ages have stood in awe, wondering in great amazement as in spirit they caught faint glimpses of the divine mystery of God’s purpose of the ages, and deep within my ransomed being lies the sacred knowledge that even this marvelous reality of sonship, glorious and far-reaching as it is, is NOT THE ULTIMATE IN GOD!

God has put His hand to the task; He is ready to grasp the whole world and, through the ministry of the manifested sons of God, switch it onto another track, changing its course and destination.  I tell you, dear ones, we are not waiting nor preparing our hearts in this hour to behold the dawn of the Kingdom; as sons of God we are laborers together with God in inaugurating the next stage of the Kingdom.  We shall work and work, minister and minister, reign and reconcile and bless and deliver and transform all nations and all men and all realms and all worlds and all ages until we accomplish the end.  “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” (I Cor. 15:24-26).  If it takes a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millennium, a billion years or a trillion years, it matters not one whit — the Kingdom of God shall increase and expand and triumph until that blessed day when from pole to pole and from sea to sea and throughout all the unbounded heavens everywhere God shall be ALL IN ALL.

Let the truth sink deeply into the heart of every saint of God who now reads these lines, the great and glorious truth that GOD HAS A PLAN.  God’s plan is His aionian plan, His wonderful PLAN OF THE AGES.  God is not an experimenter doing test procedures and making trial runs, driven to His wit’s end by clever and cunning enemies, just doing the best He can as occasion demands.  Let the notion forever perish from our minds that God is something like a chess player arduously straining for opportunities to out- maneuver an expert opponent (the devil).  Oh, no!  The great Architect of the ages drew out His plan before ever He commenced the vast work of creation and redemption, and those plans were complete, in both principals and details, long before He spoke the first angel or atom into existence.  The wonderful goal of creation, and the methods and means for attaining that goal, were settled before ever a star twinkled in the night sky or brook babbled over mountain rocks.  In this wise and magnificent plan the UNSEARCHABLE WISDOM of God is exhibited, His INEXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCES revealed, His INFALLIBLE JUDGMENT displayed, and His IRRESISTIBLE POWER manifested.  And now, in the midst of our present distresses and travail, our faith quietly rests in the blessed assurance that the end will justify God in all His ways.  The triumphant declaration of the prophet is, “As for God, His way is perfect,” and “He maketh my way perfect” (Ps. 18:30,32).

THE PROGRESSION OF THE KINGDOM

From the very heart of events from the morning of creation there can be observed a gradual development of everything that came from the hands of the omnipotent Creator.  From the lips of the almighty Elohim came that irresistible command of the word of God, “Let there be!”  And there was.  But it was not a single command, the heavens and the earth were not formed in an instant nor fashioned in one day, by one divine word.  Again and again there issued forth the majestic proclamation, “Let.”  “Let there be light.”  “Let there be a firmament.”  “Let the waters be gathered.”  “Let there be lights in the firmament.”  “Let the waters bring forth.”  “Let the earth bring forth.”  “Let us make man.”  Dispensations had come and gone with their Cain and Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets before our Lord Jesus explained to the inquiring Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”  And now through the dreary years of every century since Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God with power and birthed His anointed body in the earth, the blessed Holy Spirit has been planting within the believing hearts of men and women the seed and power of that ever-increasing Kingdom and, wonder of wonders, yet true to God’s progressive purpose of the ages, that incorruptible seed is ready to bring forth a company of sons of God in the fullness of the nature, power and glory of God’s firstborn Son and Christ.

It cannot be otherwise!  All things have a beginning, followed by various stages of development, formation, growth, and increase until ultimately comes the fullness and perfection.  Space travel did not begin by sending a man to the moon.  Men first jumped off cliffs, trying to fly with crude, homemade wings.  Then men flew in balloons.  The Wright brothers invented the first airplane, and other types of aircrafts followed until the Russians startled the world by sending their Sputnik into orbit around the earth, inaugurating the space age.  Today we are sending space probes throughout our solar system, and it is only a matter of time, if God permits, until Star Trek will move from science fiction to living reality.  Can we not clearly see by this how it is that each and every step was required in the grand and epochal work of creation and redemption.  For six thousand years the race has witnessed the natural evolution of civilization, human government, science, economics, medicine, and technology.  Nothing ever happens overnight!  But all things move inexorably forward.

How old is this earth of ours?  How long were each of the creative “days” in which the word of God brought forth the things now seen and enjoyed by mankind?  Nobody knows of a certainty, but the evidence is on the side of antiquity, a million years might be conservative.  It takes a vast stretch of time — eons, indeed — to produce coal and diamonds and a variety of other natural resources of earth.  It reminds me of a story I read once about a little boy with a small shovel.  He was trying to clear a pathway through deep, new-fallen snow in front of his house.  A man paused to observe the child’s enormous task. “Little boy,” he inquired, “how can someone as small as you expect to finish a task as big as this?”  The boy looked up and replied confidently, “Little by little, that’s how!”  And he continued shoveling. Progression is a divine principle rooted in the very way of our omniscient Creator!  He took seven days (epochs, periods) to create this world in all its beauty and splendor.  Notice how He began by creating first the grass, then the herbs, and then the trees, followed by the sea creatures, then the winged fowl, then cattle, then the great beasts, and finally the greatest miracle and crowning work of all — man in the likeness and image of God! The implications of such a marvelous, precise and determinate process is staggering to the imagination, and it is small wonder that our elder brother, whose name is The Word of God, by whom and through whom all things were made, has instructed us with these words of wisdom and understanding, “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.  For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear” (Mk. 4:26-28).

God is revealing His Kingdom plan to us piece by piece, revelation by revelation, and from each piece of the puzzle revealed to us, we know that the entire, completed picture will be beyond our wildest imaginations!  I do not profess today to have all the pieces of the puzzle nor to understand all the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.  But of one thing I am very confident — I do possess the next piece of the puzzle!  And so do all the sons of God!  I can assure you today that the next thing on God’s agenda is the manifestation of the sons of God!  The ministry of God’s Son-company will bring to pass the subduing of the living nations of earth to the dominion and glory of the Kingdom until the heavenly words are fully fulfilled, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign to the ages of the ages!” (Rev. 11:15).

When our lovely Lord Jesus came into this sin-cursed world bringing the word and power of the Kingdom, He ushered in a new and glorious age.  But it should be clearly evident to all who have eyes to see and hearts to understand that the blessings of the new order did not, and have not, come to all men.  Even in Jesus’ day not all the blind received their sight, not all the lame were healed, not all lepers were cleansed, not all demons were cast out, and only a few dead were raised.  Multitudes of deformed, sick, diseased, tormented, sinful, lost, and dead men in Palestine remained untouched by the life of the new-born Kingdom of God.  Rome remained pagan and the unnumbered millions of humanity of all the nations throughout the ends of the earth had not even heard that God had sent  a Redeemer and a Christ!  The saving power of the Kingdom was not universally operative.  It was resident only in Jesus and His “little flock” of footstep followers.  The mighty signs of the Kingdom wrought by Jesus and His early disciples were but a token, an earnest,  a parable and prophecy, not the fullness nor the consummation.

It is very doubtful that any in those days had the remotest idea that it was the Father’s intention to take the next two thousand years to complete the great work of preparing the kings of the Kingdom. Jesus came to bring in the new age of the Church, the seedbed in which the Kingdom could grow and develop to its next stage.  When the conditions are fully ripe for this next stage of the Kingdom, this age will completely pass away.  How our glad hearts rejoice in the sacred knowledge that we are standing even now at the door of the next new age and the greater glory of the Kingdom that it brings!  Oh, the wonder of it! Sonship!  Sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ receiving power over the nations to rule them with a rod of iron!  Sonship is the hope of all creation and the joy of the Father’s heart.  The manifestation of the sons of God is now ready to bring to fruition the desire of all nations.  The hopes and dreams of all the years for peace and righteousness and blessing and life upon the teeming billions of the nations of this benighted planet are met in the unveiling of God’s sons, the increase of the Kingdom for the new age.

When all the ages have passed, and the sun has set on every progressive stage of the unfolding of God’s glorious Kingdom, there will be no more deaf or blind  or leprous or demon possessed or crime or violence or wars or sin anywhere.  Death shall be swallowed up in life!  Here we discover the mysterious law of the Kingdom.  Its blessings entered the old age of the law, introducing a new order of life for all who would believe.  This new order of the Spirit that Jesus brought is not the final age, nor even the age before the last age!  The blessing and glory of each new age is rooted  in the previous age and springs forth from it.  The new age of the Kingdom upon the nations is not by any stretch of the imagination the closing dispensation in God’s great plan of the ages.  Oh, no!  A new age is hidden in this present age, as the blade is hidden in the seed, and another even more glorious age is hidden in the new age now dawning, just as the stalk is hidden in the blade.  Another age will proceed from that age and on and on and on until the dispensation of the fullness of times (Eph. 1:10).  Thus did the Holy Spirit speak through the apostle Paul, “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 and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show (demonstrate, put on display, reveal) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus...that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things into Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him” (Eph. 2:4-7; 1:10).  The issue is not in doubt.  The Kingdom of God moves onward from stage to stage, from age to age, to its inevitable triumph: THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS.

Well did Paul Mueller write: “As the ages unfold in harmonious and ordered progression, all the attributes of God will likewise unfold to be revealed in a vast and increasing manifestation.  As we have already shown, grace is increasing as is righteousness, peace and joy.  When one age ends, the spiritual characteristics of that dying age do not end.  Rather, each divine aspect of the previous age is raised up to a higher spiritual level of fulfillment and is then carried over into the next age.  Thus, the grace of God will not end with this age, but will increase because the Lord has raised it up to a higher order.  All the other attributes of the divine nature that we have known in the past will not decrease but will be fulfilled in a greater measure, and manifest in increasing fullness to the saints of the new order.”  Amen and  amen!

It is impossible that our Father of grace, mercy, love and power should endure forever the moral entanglements and spiritual darkness of the world.  Creation would be a tragic failure if nothing better than our mixed circumstances of good and evil, of truth and error, or light and darkness were to continue forever.  The present condition of the world does not justify its existence or vindicate the creation of man. There is something better to eventuate!  The present is only tolerable as a stage in the vast process of God’s creative genius.  The forecast of scripture anticipates a time when evil will have run its course, and when all that remains obstinately and persistently evil shall meet with swift, severe, stern measures of judgment and doom.  Jesus came into the world to “seek and to save that which was lost,” to be the “Saviour of the world,” and to “give life to the world.”  He was born, He lived, He taught, He labored, He worked miracles, He gave Himself a sacrifice for sin, He died, He rose, He ascended up far above all heavens, He poured out His Spirit, He sent forth His apostles to establish His Church, to raise up His body in the earth.  And is that all?  If so, it is not enough!

The very purpose of the Christ’s coming demands something more.  We are not satisfied with such a climax.  So far as it goes, it is well, but it does not go far enough.  Sin, sickness and death still stalk the world.  If Jesus came to be the Saviour of the world, to give life to the world, but the world still lies in the power of the evil one, and is “not of the Father,” — something is missing!  The nations are angry and there are wars and rumors  of wars.  Deceit, plunder, greed, lust, hatred, bigotry, tyranny, sorrow, pain, trouble and poverty plague all peoples and nations.  If what we have had for two thousand years is all there is, and the last thing we are to see on earth is a miserable handful of Christians getting ready to die or be evacuated away to some far-off heaven somewhere, then Jesus’ mission was a failure, and He might as well have remained in heaven so far as planet earth is concerned.  If the ages of the future are to go on in endless repetition of what has been; if the age-long battle between Christ and Belial, between righteousness and evil, between the Church and the world is to continue forever with only slight advantages to one side or the other, but without a definite outcome of victory for one of the sides; if there is to be no progress or decisive and triumphant conclusion  to the fact of Jesus Christ being the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD, and the PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH, then there is an incompleteness about the entire message of the Kingdom of God which is not to be reconciled with the omniscience and omnipotence of our heavenly Father.  What is begun here on this planet is to be finished here!  If Christ came to save the world and rule all nations with a rod of iron, then His work is not finished until the world is saved, and the nations are subjected to His glorious rule!

There should be no need to remind any who read these lines that there is much more to come for this sin-weary world!  It is somewhat like touring a beautiful and spacious mansion.  Entry into the foyer is only the beginning.  It would be unfair and misleading to judge the whole house by what is first seen, or to conclude that nothing more remains to be seen.  Likewise, it is unfair to judge the whole Kingdom of God from the standpoint of this present Church age.  This age has been but the foyer, the introduction to the grand and glorious Kingdom of God!  The extent of the riches of God’s kindness and the excellence of His glory will only be revealed in the age and the ages to come as the Kingdom expands, unfolds, and intensifies from glory to glory.  This age is but a small segment of the rule of God for the ages!  This age is not the whole stage for that rule.  It is merely the scenes in the First Act.  In these few scenes a great drama is being played — the outcome, however, is assured, for the Finger of God has been lifted up in the person of Jesus Christ.  These scenes will give way to greater scenes when “the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father,” and all creation shouts for joy at the manifestation of God’s sons!

For those who lived during the Second World War and suffered the terrible consequences of that conflict, one of the most important days of this past century was D-Day.  That was the day when the Allied Forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and won the decisive battle against Hitler’s army.  True, it would still take another year for V-Day, or Victory Day, to occur, but it was D-Day that delivered the death blow to the Nazi enemy and guaranteed its ultimate defeat.  For all of us who live with sin, sorrow and death and who suffer the terrible consequences of their destructive power, the most important day in all human history took place some two thousand years ago just outside Jerusalem.  That was our spiritual D-Day!  For when Jesus walked out of the tomb alive He won within Himself and for every son of God and for all humanity the decisive battle over satan, sin, and death!  Ah, we still see the effects of these enemies in our violence-filled world, in our broken-down and abusive relationships, in our weaknesses and fears, in our disease-ridden and aging bodies, and self-centered attitudes.  But as surely as there has been a D-Day in the Kingdom of God, just that certain it is that there shall also be a V-Day!  That’s where the sons of God stand at this moment — between D-Day and V-Day!  The battle is on, but the victory is sure, and the sons of God are pressing their way forward to overcome all things in this great Day of the Lord.  This glorious victory will herald the day of manifestation and usher in to the visible world the next stage of THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM!

Long centuries ago in far-away Babylon the aged prophet Daniel received this challenging and assuring word from the Lord: “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).  Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16).  There are many other stars besides the Morning Star in God’s glorious celestial realm, His spiritual heavens.  Here the signification of stars is identified with the saints.  Each member of God’s elect is one star in God’s spiritual universe.  You are a star in God’s economy!  You are appointed to have an eonian fixed position in God’s heavenly Kingdom as a star, as a shining one, as a luminary.  There are different degrees of glory to the stars, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead” (I Cor. 15:41-42).  As one star outshines another in glory so is it in the incorruptible Kingdom realm of God.  Stars have different dimensions of glory.  The greatest of all stars signified to us is as the Sun Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord.  But there is a vast multitude of stars possessing differing degrees  of glory in the Kingdom of God — but they are all called “wise” stars and they all “turn many to righteousness,” therefore they burn as bright lights in the Father’s Kingdom.  Stars are bright lights that give light where there is darkness.

I am sure most of my readers are familiar with the old song, “Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?”  There is no scripture to indicate that the saints will wear “starry crowns,” but there is scripture which is greater by far!  It is the privilege of all who treasure the beautiful hope of sonship to dwell upon the bright hope of this marvelous promise, “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever.”  God’s universe embraces all places.  This little world of ours, and each star and sun and  planet and moon are but tiny grains of sand on the seashore of infinity.  Each one is small indeed in relation to all the rest of the systems, and in relation to limitless space.  A conception of its magnitude can be gathered only from the stellar worlds themselves.  What are those stars, in the likeness of which the wise teachers of righteousness are to shine to the age and beyond?  How much brightness, and majesty, and length of days is involved in this analogy?

There are stars, as, for instance, Arcturus, which emits light equivalent to one hundred fifty-eight of our suns; Capella, one hundred eighty-five; and so on, until at last we reach the great star Rigel, in the constellation of Orion, which floods the celestial spaces with a brilliance fifteen thousand times that of the ponderous orb which lights and controls our solar system!  Why, then, does it not appear more luminous to us?  Ah, its distance is equivalent to thirty-three million diameters of the earth’s orbit; and the latter is one hundred eighty-six million miles!  Figures are weak to express such distances and sizes.  It will be sufficient to say that its glowing light must traverse space as only light travels — one hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second — for a period of more than ten years before it reaches this world of ours.  There are many other stars which are hundreds of light years from our solar system.  A few years pass away, and all things earthly gather the mold of age and the odor of decay as the desert winds blow the swirling sands over the  crumbling ruins of ancient empires.  But the stars shine on in their glory as in the beginning.  Centuries and cycles have gone by, kingdoms have arisen and slowly pass away.  Yet the stars’ brightness is not dimmed, nor their force abated.  The dew of youth still seems fresh upon them.  No faltering motion reveals the decrepitude of age.  These shine on in undiminished glory through all the ages of time, for they are the lights of the ages.

Thus shall those wise and blessed sons of God shine who turn the inhabitants of the world to righteousness.  Thus shall their ministry and their years roll on from age to age until that wonderful age of the ages, the dispensation of the fullness of times wherein everything in heaven and on earth and throughout all realms is gathered together into one in God’s Christ and God becomes All-in-all.  What glories lie beyond this, we cannot yet know, but methinks there will be more worlds, further universes, vast new creations from the hands of God and His sons who, in Christ, become the Word by which the creative power of God brings forth His pleasure and purpose forever.  God has always been a Creator, for He has always been all that He is.  God will always be a Creator, for should He stop creating, He would cease to be God!

Of this we may be sure: We who are redeemed have entered a progressive institution, a Kingdom in which stagnation will never enter.  We will ever go on “from glory to glory,” for “of the increase of His government...THERE SHALL BE NO END!”  We will never come to the place where we can sit down with folded hands and say, “This is the end.”  The end of one creation, of one order, of one plan of the ages, will only bring us to the next.  We who have been born into the heavenly realm, have entered a stage of action, we have become active agents in the greatest development program ever conceived.  A whole universe awaits our touch and guiding hand.  “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?  Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.  For in that He put ALL in subjection under him, He left N-O-T-H-I-N-G that is not put under him.  But we see not yet all things put under him (man).  But we see Jesus crowned...” (Heb. 2:6-9).  Surely these words can mean nothing less than UNIVERSAL DOMINION!  Away out there in the blue is a Kingdom of life and light and love for every son of God to explore and develop and perfect.  And if ever, in all the countless ages to come, that Kingdom should become too small or overcrowded for its citizens, let us remember that we, being as He is, are therefore, one and all, the very same kind of Beings as He who simply spoke the word, and lo! the present worlds appeared.  Being like Him, we will also be creators, one and all, and not destroyers, as in our human state.  “WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM.”

God says that men enter His heavenly Kingdom by being born into it (Jn. 3:5).  Men do not die to go to heaven, they are born there.  And then after they are born into that state — after they become heavenly beings — they can lay up, by their obedience to the heavenly Father, heavenly riches which will not only be a place, but royal pomp and splendor and majesty and dominion beyond compare.  Sonship does not only entitle one to residence in God’s limitless and eternal domain, but to the ownership and rule of that domain. Ah, the sons of God are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ their Lord, who is the heir of all things!  Oh, that it were possible to lift men up above the shadows, and give them just a glimpse of something higher!  Mortal minds are so entirely inadequate; human eyes so dim; human ears so dull!

Heaven is not a mansion over the hilltop, nor the gratifying of the needs and desires of this vessel of clay.  It is not that which will bring creature comfort.  It is not a state of eternal creature enjoyment and rest.  The celestial realm is something infinitely higher.  It is eminence, power, majesty, glory.  It is becoming the same kind of a Being as the One who made the worlds (Jn. 10:34-36; I Jn. 3:2), and will bring, not inactive rest with fluttering wings and strumming harps, but activities and accomplishments far surpassing that of earth’s mundane limitations.  And it includes kingship and priesthood over God’s eternal and infinite domain.  It is dominion and power and influence far above that which carnal minds can contemplate or even imagine.  And then the place which we receive after entering this heavenly state is not heaven, but that which we receive as a consequence of our entrance into the celestial sphere.  The place is the reward which faithful heavenly beings will receive as their very own, a part of their inheritance, heavenly real estate!

The stars are distant lights.  They shine in other spheres.  There is no doubt that vast numbers of these stars are “suns” like unto our own, the centers of great solar systems, with heavenly bodies that revolve around them, perhaps populated by beings of which we know nothing at this present time.  Thus will it be in the Kingdom of the Son, in the spiritual heavens of God’s universal and eternal dominion.  Each son of God will be a star, a sun, shining forth in living and everlasting luster.  Each member of the elect will faithfully radiate his beams of life and light and love, shining in those spheres which the omniscient Father shall allot to them.  Thus each shall become the central star of a spiritual solar system composed of myriads of creatures in God’s glorious creation which revolve around them, unto whom they shine as the revelation of God’s nature, glory and power.  And thus shall the scripture be fulfilled, “Then shall the righteous SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the Kingdom of THEIR FATHER.  Who hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mat. 13:43).  The Kingdom does not become the Kingdom of “the Father” until Christ, having put all enemies under His feet, including the last enemy death, delivers up the Kingdom to God, EVEN THE FATHER, and God becomes all in all (I Cor. 15:24-28).  What glorious and ineffable prospects lie before us!

LIKE A SEED

The Word of God contains mysteries which little by little are opened to us like the opening of a rose.   In His wonderful Kingdom parables Jesus revealed the great mystery of the progression of the Kingdom from stage to stage and realm to realm.  He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto 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, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof”(Mat. 13:31-32).  Again, “Behold a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds (the word of the Kingdom) fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them.  Some fell upon stony places...some fell among thorns...but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.  Who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mat. 13:3-9).  And yet again, “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way...” (Mat. 13:24-25).

In this illuminating teaching Jesus reveals to His disciples the nature of the Kingdom of God.  He teaches them how to know the mysteries of the Kingdom.  What mystery is it?  Ah, before anything else, it is the truth that the Kingdom comes as a seed into the midst of men, seemingly the smallest, most insignificant, weakest and most defenseless thing there is.  It can be devoured by the fowls, it can choked by the thorns, it can be scorched by the sun, and sometimes it can hardly be distinguished from the tares.  That is the secret of the Kingdom!  But just as life lies hidden within a seed, and springs forth in power and unfolds in beauty and substance to become a mighty tree, so the Kingdom of God has entered this world in the person of Jesus Christ and now the world is full of the redemptive power of God.

What a wonderful thing is vegetation!  Look at this tiny acorn.  Little sign does it give of the vital energy locked up within it — the costly diamond is more promising!  But plant that diamond, plant it carefully in the richest of soil, under the most favorable conditions.  Let your descendants ten thousand years hence visit the spot.  No dazzling tree is there, flashing with countless jeweled leaves.  Nothing is there but just what you planted — an unchanged, cold, dead diamond, perhaps much depreciated in value.  But the acorn — an autumn wind sweeps through the forest; that little brown, seemingly dead acorn falls to the ground.  The hoof of a browsing deer presses it beneath the sod.  There it lies in its grave  an unnoticed thing.  But the germ of a great life is in it.  The winter chill breaks away, amidst spring showers the sun warms the earth, the finger of its secret power touches its inner life, and, lo, the little brown nut is quickened, swells, bursts, roots, springs forth, grows, develops, and by the time your descendants visit the spot the whole earth is filled with mighty oaks!  As the acorn embodies the tree in embryo, but is not the oak tree in extenso, so is the Kingdom in this age within the hearts and lives of God’s elect.  But God’s elect shall, in due time, fill the earth with the power and glory of the Kingdom.

The mighty king Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a dream the same wonderful truth under another figure, and the aged prophet Daniel interpreted the king’s dream with these words, “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.  Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:34-35).  The revelation in this instructive experience of Nebuchadnezzar is that the Kingdom of God comes into the earth, smites the kingdoms of man until they no longer exist as the kingdoms of man, and the Kingdom of God increases until its glory and dominion fill the whole earth.

God has a wonderful plan for the earth!  The firstborn Son of God came into the world, the cross of Christ was placed in this world, and Christ arose here, and poured out His Spirit here, and began to conquer the hearts of men here, and to build the new society of His Kingdom here.  It is this effective power of the increase of the Kingdom in the earth that Jesus unfolds in His parables of the mustard seed and the other seeds.  The seed is planted in the earth.  The seed is very small but the tree is very great, the birds lodge in its branches and people seek shelter under its leaves.  The Kingdom seeks the people and the ends of the earth and the heights of the heavens and the depths of the underworld.  The Kingdom of God, which began as a small seed in these vessels of earth, has the very life of God in it.  The Kingdom seed, which is Christ, is growing within us to become a great tree in the earth.  The growing, increasing, and expanding Kingdom of God in the earth is forcing man out of the picture.  And the mighty and all-glorious Kingdom of God shall continue to grow and expand in the earth, and in the whole universe, until there is nothing else, but only GOD.  He shall fill all things with the glory that He is, until He shall truly be all in all.

A dear brother with whom we correspond shared the following in one of his letters.  “I recently took a sack of acorns to my Sunday School class and passed them out.  I asked the class what they could see in them.  Then I compared the acorn to the word of the Kingdom.  Starting small it produces an oak tree, which then produces many trees,  which produce a forest.  When man rightly “divides” the Word, bringing his chain saws, then planers, table top saws, jig saws, etc., from one acorn comes a fine home, then a subdivision, then an entire city.  Inside the homes the acorn produces trim, shelves, closets, and beautiful furniture. All from one acorn, one seed — and that seed is Christ!”

The notion that there is but one single age of the Kingdom, or the “Kingdom Age” as it is called, is foreign to scripture and contradictory to God’s great purpose.  God’s Kingdom plan is a “plan of the ages,” not one “Kingdom Age.”  The ages of the Kingdom of God stretch into infinity!  “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end” (Isa. 9:7).  That doesn’t sound like one age or a mere thousand years to me!  Ah, the purpose of God is a purpose that encompasses the ages, and the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom that progresses and triumphs through the ages.  As Jesus taught, it is like a farmer planting his seed in the soil.  He makes the field ready and plants the seed in the ground.  The seed lies buried under the earth, lost from sight, of course.  If I had my way, I would expect a field full of corn tomorrow morning!  After all, I put a lot of time and energy and money to prepare this soil and plant this seed.  I did the right thing.  I sowed the seed.  An experienced farmer understands, however, that it is going to take time for the seed to sprout, to grow, to develop through all its stages, and ultimately bear fruit at harvest.  The consummation doesn’t come immediately nor instantly, but in season.  Seedtime and harvest!  That is God’s method of operation in everything He does.  It’s been this way since the beginning, when God took six “days” to fashion the heavens and the earth, and it will continue to be His way throughout all the limitless ages.  The Lord is ambitious.  He enjoys growth and expansion!  That is the way of His plan and purpose, always.  Do not despair, precious one, if the work of God in you seems very slow.  As long as there is some progress, however infinitesimal it may appear to the eye, GOD IS AT WORK!  He will never leave you nor forsake you, He will not abandon the work of His hands, nor will He turn from His purpose in you.  God will complete that good work He has begun in you!  Oh, yes, He will!  You see, this is the deep mystery of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus has taught us that it comes like silent leaven, grows like a grain of mustard seed, develops like corn, which is “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”  Of the increase of His government and peace within you and in all the earth beneath and the heavens above, there shall be NO END!  Eternal increase!  God has only gotten started!

I heard a brother relate the following experience.  He said, “It was 1977, and I really lost half my crop.  It was a bad, bad year.  It was so wet, I couldn’t get half of it harvested and it didn’t develop.  So, at the end of the year, in October, I would walk through the fields and try to pick up a bushel here and a piece there.  Then, I saw standing by itself a most extraordinary soybean plant.  I walked over and I was shocked by its size and its good looks.  I went and I carefully picked off the pods.  There were 202 pods and I opened them and I counted out 503 soybeans and I took them home.  I kept them in a pan all winter, and they dried out.  The next spring they just seemed special to me.  In 1978 I took those 503 soybeans and I planted them in a little plot behind my house.  When October came I harvested 32 pounds!  32 pounds!  I dried them out in the winter, and in 1979 I took those 32 pounds and planted them on one acre.  When October came, I harvested.  I had 2,419 pounds.  Well, next spring was 1980 and I took those 2,419 pounds and planted them on 68 acres, which was all the land I had available.  In October I harvested 2,100 bushels and cashed it out for $15,000 dollars!  Now, one bean stalk four years later, $15,000 dollars.  Not too bad, is it?”

What a beautiful modern day parable this is of the Kingdom of God!  The extraordinary seed this farmer discovered in his field in the midst of desolation and ruin represents the only good seed to ever spring forth in the presence of the sin, darkness and death of earth's benighted ages.  This good seed, this extraordinary seed, is our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God.  It is a very good seed, for it is the germ of spiritual life.  It is the incorruptible seed.  When this seed was planted in the earth it began to grow vigorously and brought forth first the glory of the early Church.  Then, from move to move, from visitation to visitation, from revival to revival, from dealing to dealing this seed has grown and multiplied and reproduced in the earth and now it is time for the cash crop that will bring blessing to all the families of the earth — the manifested sons of God.  The sons are the increase of the Kingdom of God within the Lord’s elect.  Within that first, extraordinary seed was a preview of the Kingdom when Christ with His entire body of sons will appear in the glory of  sonship.  And that, precious friend of mine, is how the Kingdom of God will also increase and expand from age to age throughout the ages of the ages with the unending increase of God!  Think about it!  Just as Jesus was the first seed for this age, bringing forth a harvest of many sons, so the sons are the first seed for the next age.  What an increase of the Kingdom they will bring! And the harvest out of the age now dawning will be the seedbed for the age that follows after that.  And of the increase of His Kingdom there shall be NO END!

Man’s God gets bigger each time a man grows.
His Lord becomes greater, the more a man knows.
One time, a lone mountain, His total domain.
He grew with His people, Their gain was His gain.
In Israel’s small country, they centered His grace
He stayed with His people, their place was His place.
He grew with their concepts, He grew with each thought.
Bigger and bigger grew all that He wrought.
From sacrificed creatures...to sacrificed wills.
From temple that held Him...to heavens to fill.
From war with the heathen...to love for all men.
He grew, and He grew, and He grew...again.
I know God is constant...His size cannot change.
And never, no mountain, could limit His range.
God’s quart in our pint?  Such greatness in man?
God shows us as much, each day, as He can.
A soul that is hard...sees not the Lord’s kindness.
A person that’s rude...sees not the Lord’s fineness.
As children we’re apt to misunderstand.
So oft’ misinterpret, the heav’nly command.
We limit God’s size...  ‘cause we are so stunted.
It’s not the Lord’s fault, that we are thus runted.
As we grow in grace...as we grow in love..
So groweth our God...we keep learning of!
    By Bob Robin
    (Used by permission)

Chapter 43

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

As I begin this message on THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM I am moved to share these words from the pen of brother Paul Mueller.  He writes, “With each revelation and manifestation of Christ to His people, the Truth that He is increases, the Life that He is increases, and the Light of His glory increases, so that we know Him in greater fullness than we did previously.  When Christ appears to His elect, as He is doing now, He comes in His increased presence.  How wonderful to know the Christ of increasing truth, life, light and glory!  He was revealed and manifested as the Latter Rain in 1948-1953 (Hos. 6:3).   Since then, Christ has been revealed and manifested as the Living Word.  He appeared within us as the Living Word, not in a manifestation of outward glory as in previous visitations, but to impart His word of truth in a hidden manifestation of Himself.  And to know and experience Him in His greater glory as the King of kings and Lord of lords, as the One who increases in glory, is more spectacular than any previous manifestation of Christ.  His glory, as revealed in us now, will do more for the needy of the world and for the creation than anything of the past.  Also, the work of the Holy Spirit within us is to guide us into all truth, and show us things to come (Jn. 16:13).  And when He shows us things to come, we have no desire to continue in the old ways of the past.  Therefore, the glories of the past dim and fade from view when compared with the glory of His present revelation and manifestation.  The glory of Christ increases with each revelation of Himself (Isa. 9:7).   Thus, the revelation and manifestation of Christ as the King of kings and Lord of lords is a far greater glory”   — end quote.

The increase of God’s Kingdom extends to all realms everywhere, but the reality and power of the increase of God’s government is first experienced in our individual lives.   Each of us is a microcosm of the macrocosm.   You say, “How do I get to the place of maturity and fullness in the Kingdom?”  Well, as I heard brother Bennie Skinner say one time, you don’t get there by pulling an acorn out of your pocket now and then, and saying, “I’ve got an oak tree.   Everybody look at my oak tree!”  There are a lot of people that are presuming things, they are talking as though they have arrived, or they are settling for the measure they have and are calling it manifested sonship.  They are manifested sons, they say, and they have even now entered into the fullness of God, they have already put on incorruption and immortality — but they haven’t even planted the acorn yet!  They have heard the message of sonship and the kingdom, they have been quickened in the revelation of this word, they can spout out all the terminology and doctrine of it, and speak all the high-sounding phrases and clichés, but live a low-sounding life.  “Amen, brother Eby, that’s the truth if I ever heard it!” they shout, and then go on living their carnal lives.  They have their oak tree in an acorn — their sonship exists in the seed that has been placed in their hearts, but they have not planted the acorn.  The power and glory of the Kingdom are not growing, developing and increasing within them.  The word of the Lord to you today is: Plant the acorn!  Water the acorn, fertilize the acorn, cultivate the acorn, let it grow, let it mature, and your potential as a son of God will unfold.  The acorn will become a mighty oak tree spreading its branches through the heavens.  I say today to all who read these lines, Come on up to mount Zion, come on up to your place in the throne, come on up to your full potential in the Kingdom.  Expose your acorn to the conditions that will cause it to germinate, grow, develop and increase, and your branches will reach to heaven and your branches and leaves will overshadow and bless humanity.

The government of God is the Kingdom of God.  His Kingdom is His authority, His lordship, His rule.  The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into our spirit is the seed or life-germ of His Kingdom.  That is the beginning of His Kingdom within.  We have already noted how Jesus described His Kingdom as a tiny grain of mustard seed, which is the smallest seed of them all, but it grows to be the biggest of plants.  It becomes a tree, big enough for the birds to come and nest in its branches.  The coming of the life of God into our spirit is the beginning of the Kingdom and it is the gift of God.   “Fear not, little flock; for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32).  That germ of life, which is the word of life, comes into our spirit and it immediately changes our spirit.  When there is no change in an individual’s spirit, in his spiritual consciousness, Christ has not come in.  That is the first beginning of His government and His peace.  By the operation of God we become a member of God’s New Creation Man.

The Kingdom is birthed into us in an infinitesimally small beginning.  But it comes with sufficient power to begin to change our lives!   The government of God begins in that undistinguished place where the spirit of Christ takes root in the inner life.  Little by little we begin to become aware of what God wants in our life, and the paths of obedience begin to be learned.  The desire is created within us, by the new genetic makeup of our new mind, to want to do His will.  We want to do what He wants us to do and to be what He wants us to be.  It is right there that the church systems begin to lay upon the Lord’s people their own man-made laws, creeds, commandments, rules, regulations, traditions, rituals, works, and a whole world of religious tomfoolery, and leads the child of God down the dead end street of man-made religion.  But if the child of God will turn a deaf ear to the seductive voice of the gaudy harlot of the church systems, and hear only the voice of Christ by the Spirit, the Christ in him will continue to give him more light and understanding, and the Kingdom of God will grow and increase within him.  As we walk in the light that the Spirit brings, the Kingdom of God increases and develops from stage to stage, from glory to glory within our lives.

Within the indwelling Spirit of God we possess that which has the power to open up, unfold and develop the government of God in our lives.  But we do not have the rule of God’s government within us just because we have Christ within us, or just because we speak in tongues, receive blessings, miracles, answers to prayer, or have some gifts of the Spirit.  All of those are mere blessings and gifts.  We do not have His governmental rule operating within us and through us until we have spiritually matured, becoming an overcomer by the conquering power of His life and nature!  There is not a man or woman on the face of the earth today who has received spiritual authority and power to rule for God apart from putting on the mind of Christ and being an overcomer.   Men have received great and wonderful gifts of the Spirit while still weak and immature (babes), but not KINGDOM AUTHORITY AND POWER.   There is a great difference!

We can never rule anything until first we overcome it within ourselves.  To “overcome” means to COME UP OVER THAT WHICH IS OVER US.  The term implies the existence of obstacles in the pathway of the righteousness, peace, joy, and power of the Kingdom of God.  When, within ourselves, we rise up above the circumstance, above the problem, so that it no longer harasses, troubles or controls us, we are then ready to begin to control it; to no longer be the victim of circumstances, but the master of them.  Ah, my beloved, come up over what the religious systems have fed you!  Come up over your own pride and inherent weaknesses!  Come up over your timidity, fears, and carnal mindedness!  Come up over the desire to build a reputation for your name!   Come up over the myriad pressures from within and without!  Come up over the old order of religious thinking, understanding, and works of the past!  Come up over the world of turmoil and confusion about you!  You are called to be an OVER-COMER.  Come over that wall!  Come over into the Kingdom of God and a realm of complete victory.  If we cannot come out victoriously over ourselves and over the little temptations and frustrations of our fleshly life, and if we cannot stay out of the harlot’s house (church systems) how can the Lord trust us to reign over that which is without?   What kind of warriors would we make?  How much could He depend upon us?  He will give us the place for which we are prepared and qualified; we must set our faces to be overcomers if we are to sit with Him upon His throne and reign with Him over all things.

As sons of the Most High, we have access to the same strength that enabled Jesus to live an overcoming life — and to conquer even death.  He has given to us that same authority and power that gave Him victory of sin, self, religion, death, hell and the grave.  Have you ever wondered what would happen if Jesus would come and trade places with you?   If suddenly He would come to dwell in your body?  I have often wondered what He would do if He had my circumstances, my weaknesses, my lusts, my fears, my pressures, my problems.  If the Master came to me and said, “Move over, I am coming to live in your house for a season,” I do not doubt that in a short period He would have all my problems straightened out and all my weaknesses and turmoil under control.  He would overcome all of the things that I struggle with.  But the wonderful truth is, dear one, HE HAS COME!  HE DOES LIVE IN MY BODY!  AND HE LIVES IN YOURS!  “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me...” (Gal. 2:20).  “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.   Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9).  Ah, He is right here within each one of us and He is fully able to be the power of our life as we yield to Him.  This is the wonderful victory Christ is bringing to His elect in this hour as He comes within us as King of kings and Lord of lords!  He has come in lesser ways in the past, to do lesser things, but He is coming in great power and in great glory in this hour within those who are apprehended to the be kings in His Kingdom.

You see, until Christ in you becomes your very life you won’t know anything about the government of God except that it will some day rule over you.  You will have to be subject.  There are subjects in the Kingdom, and there are kings who rule over the subjects.   You will be under those who are over you in the Lord, you will have to learn to be submissive, you will be required to take a servant’s place, you will hardly be qualified to be called a “friend,” because a friend knows his master’s will (Jn. 15:15).  The servant never shares the inside information and intimate thoughts, plans, and purposes of his master, he just does what he’s told.  That is where the vast majority of Christians are today!  They are mere children in the family of God.  Even the preachers and great personalities and super-stars of the church orders today are only babes in the family of God.  They cannot lead you into the Kingdom of God.  They are busily engaged in playing their little religious church games, and in making great names for themselves, and making great claims for their ministries; but their spiritual minds are darkened, having no understanding of what God is really doing, no vision of the purposes, principles, potentials, powers and responsibilities of   sonship in the Kingdom of God.

Come hither into the son realm, into the throne zone, and learn the ways of God’s government!  All things are given by the Father into the hands of the Son.  “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Rev. 21:7).  “To him that overcometh shall I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).  “And he that overcometh...to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Rev. 2:26-27).

It is in the realm of sonship, this realm of maturity, this realm of overcoming, that the increase of God’s government is known.  As Christ’s life grows within us His government increases within.  We find that we are able to reign over all His enemies within ourselves.  We all have inherited characteristics, have learned ways, acquired traits, developed habits and personality quirks carried over from childhood, that are in opposition to the laws of the Kingdom of God.  His government must increase within us until all those things are so ruled over by the mind of Christ that no one would ever suspect that they ever existed in our life.  Many who know me would be surprised to hear that at one time in my life I suffered from an inferiority complex!  Some people have been stubborn all their life and rebellious.  They started in that rebellion in their teenage and never outgrew  it.  They’ve been stubborn, rebellious and bull-headed all their life.  They want to have their own way.  Some have fallen again and again to the lusts of their flesh, to greed, immorality, drunkenness, etc. But by the indwelling life of Christ you have been given power to lay down your life, and there is another government that is progressively being raised up within you, and as this government unfolds within you, you find that that stubborn will is broken, that rebellion is conquered in you, all your weaknesses are mastered within yourself.  The increase of His government within delivers us from all the enemies of His Kingdom.  Christ is King in us.  He rules!  He delivers!  He is mighty to save to the uttermost!

Some people are naturally shy.  You say, “Good morning,” to them and they blush.  You look into their eyes and they drop their head.  They are so bound up with timidity that they are limited in every way.  The increase of His government within will deliver you from that timidity!  Other people are loud-mouthed, overbearing,  and obnoxious.   Every time you get within sight of them you hear their mouths.  Yakity, yakity, yak...it goes all the time.  The truth is that they are covering up something deep within them that is very painful — often a deep-seated  insecurity.  That person is trying to compensate outwardly for a deep inner lack.  But when Christ the King unfolds within us sufficiently He “equalizes” us, bringing balance, harmony, sufficiency.    His Lordship brings stability and wholeness.  He fills up the valleys and brings down the high places, He makes the rough places smooth and the crooked places straight.  The government of God can take the vilest of men — whoremongers, murderers, thieves, blasphemers, liars, haters, violent men whose lives have been marred and ruined by sin and disobedience and dissipation — and transform them into gentle, gracious, lovely, honest, clean, caring, humble, beautiful saints of the Most High God.  THAT IS THE POWER OF HIS GOVERNMENT WITHIN!  It is the power of God’s divine life and nature wrought in the lives of men and women.

God purposes that His government rule not only in us, but through us.  The government of God through us can bring peace in our homes.   You can bring peace to your home if you want it.  You may have an unsaved husband, or an unsaved wife.  Or there may be all kinds of personality conflicts and clashing of wills in your marriage or between parents and children.  Just because a man and woman are married doesn’t mean they don’t have personality conflicts.  Just because they are saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues and sing in the spirit doesn’t mean they don’t have personality conflicts.  They may love each other deeply and still have personality conflicts.  When the personality conflicts outweigh their love for one another the marriage ends in divorce.  But the increase of His government in  our lives will bring peace in the home!  We cry out for peace in the world, and dream of the day when the sons of God will bring it, but let us begin by bringing the wonderful peace of God’s glorious Kingdom into our homes!  The Kingdom of God will bring peace to your children.  It will bring stability and blessing at difficult times.   Someone may say, “But brother Eby, you don’t know what I have to put up with, you don’t know how impossible things are!”  Well, then, have we not found an enemy that God’s Kingdom cannot destroy?  Have we not discovered something that the life of sonship cannot overcome and conquer?

I say to you today by the authority of God — if God’s Kingdom is coming in you, if His government is increasing in you, then His government is absolutely capable of ruling in righteousness and peace and deliverance in your situation and circumstance.  I do not say it will all happen overnight or tomorrow.  But nothing is too hard for the government of the almighty Christ!  You do not have to settle for things as they are.  YOU can change them!  He that is in you is mighty, and He will make you an overcomer right where you are.  You must overcome within yourself before you can expect to see changes in those about you.  God will flood your heart with a  divine love that will go the second mile, that will swallow up all anger, resentment, hostility and reactions, that will give itself for the blessing of your mate, or your children, or your in-laws, or your neighbor, or your boss, no matter how difficult or ungodly they are.  God will give you a heart to serve them in love, to be gracious, kind, merciful, compassionate, and forgiving.  LOVE is the power of the Kingdom of God!  You have been apprehended as a King-Priest after the order of Melchizedek.   You have power to reconcile, to bless, to redeem, to change, to transform all things.  The overcomers are given power to rule.  Unless we can first rule in our own lives, emotions, desires, circumstances, finances, problems, and life situations — how can we rule nations and worlds and galaxies!

Do we have enough of the government of God in us to influence the things around us?   How much salt do we have in us?  We are the salt of the earth!  How much light shines forth out of us?  We are the light of the world!  Beloved, God wants His government to so increase in us that we change the complexion of all things about us.  God is raising up His elect in this hour to sit with Christ right now on His throne.  Oh, yes!  His divine authority is beginning to operate in and through our lives in that undistinguished place where we are.  Don’t tell me that you are reigning in some mystical way in a high place in the spirit over Russia and Europe and Asia and Africa and America, calling the shots of what is happening in the political, social, judicial, military and economic realms, if you aren’t ruling right where you are.  Peace and righteousness and blessing shall be established wherever we go!  It is our ministry to bring the Kingdom of God to bear on all situations great and small.  The Kingdom of God is not just in word, it is not something we talk about in church, or read about in papers, and it is not a doctrine — the Kingdom of God is that power which is working in us.  We are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  We are given power to rule and reign over the earth (Rev. 5:10).

Of the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no end (Isa. 9:7).   Something has gotten hold of us to which there is no end.  It is not that the Kingdom doesn’t end, although that, too, is a great fact, but it is the increase of that government and peace that shall never end.  The Kingdom of God is an eternally increasing government and peace!  It eternally increases within us.  How far does it go?  It just keeps on going and expanding.  There is no end to the enlargement.  It never stops.   It consumes your whole being, reaches out to your wife, your husband, and your children.  It reaches out to your family.  It reaches out to your neighbors and your friends and your enemies.  It reaches out to your community and your city.  It reaches out to your county and to your state.  It reaches out to the United States of America.  It reaches out to the nations, to continents and hemispheres and empires.  It reaches out to all the ends of the earth.  It extends to every planet in every solar system and to all the billions of galaxies.  It is a universal Kingdom.  It increases with eternal increase until everywhere throughout all the unbounded heavens every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  It increases until God is all in all.  God is raising up Princes in His ever-increasing government, to bind all kings with chains and all nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written.  Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?  Know ye not that the saints shall judge angels?  God’s government of sons is about ready to appear.

Just this week while writing this message a letter arrived in the mail from a dear brother in New Zealand, and his sharing stirs me deep to the depths of my spirit.  He writes, “About three months ago, when in prayer, I saw a little vision which is so encouraging.  Looking downwards, I saw the earth enshrouded with a plastic film-like substance, and just beneath that film was a motionless man fully dressed.  The man was being pushed from below or drawn from above, somehow.   The head and shoulders were protruding into the film which was stretched to the point of almost causing it to split.  On inquiring of our Father, “What is this, Lord?” understanding was given to me by Him replying, “The imminent birth of the sons of God.”  I understood that the earth was the womb and that the Corporate Man is in the birth canal ready to be born.   Oh!  What a Day lies immediately before us, my brother...”

To the saints is given the authority to baptize men with the Holy Ghost, but also to baptize them with fire, to cast them into the great lake of fire and brimstone which our God is and which in Him we are, to burn out of their minds, souls, and bodies the thoughts and ways and passions and wills that are contrary and hostile to the will of God.  The fire of God is His all-consuming and all-powerful LOVE.   Out of His love the sons of God shall send decrees and commands coming from the Most High God out of Zion.  The sons of God will send decrees to individuals, to rulers, to authorities, to governments, to nations — we will even send commands to the elements as our Lord did when He spoke to the winds and the waves, hushing the gale and calming the waters with His Word.

There is no doubt about it — Jesus brought the reality of the Kingdom of God into the earth and the Kingdom has been here ever since.  May I say again that this Kingdom is a progressive and growing thing.  “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.”  “No end” transcends even the ages, reaches beyond all time as we know it, and bespeaks of eternal increase.  That is one of the glories of the Kingdom!  It has always existed, for God in His omniscient purpose and omnipotent power and dominion has always existed.  Two thousand years ago Jesus brought the Kingdom into the earth, into the world of men in a unique way.   But the Kingdom already existed in God, and will always exist!  It will increase, grow, and expand from realm to realm throughout eternity.  The universe itself reflects this divine principle of unending expansion.   Exquisite measurements by the Hubble telescope have lent strong evidence to the idea that the observed expansion of the universe will continue forever.  Previously, scientists who believe the galaxies and the space between them were created in a cosmic explosion about 15 billion years ago had wondered whether the swelling of space would eventually stop and all matter would eventually reverse its direction and begin to move backward, converging in the same infinitesimal point where it all began.  The Hubble data suggest that the universe will keep expanding, rather than collapsing.  And all the while new stars and new worlds are being birthed!  Eternal increase!

There is nothing static or sterile about this Kingdom at all, but a constant, eternal growth!  This wonderful reality of the Kingdom is defined in the Lord’s Prayer where He taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”  One of the greatest revelations of the Kingdom that one can receive is the wonderful truth of divine increase.   All that pertains to God and His Kingdom is increasing!  The Lord and all the blessings and benefits of His Kingdom are increasing daily.  Grace, mercy, goodness, wisdom, righteousness and power are increasing in the earth with each succeeding age.  “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you,” the inspired apostle Peter wrote.  To multiply is to increase!  God’s covenant with Abraham was, “Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee” (Heb. 6:14).  Abraham has been multiplied into millions of people as the stars of the heavens for number.  What increase!   God is increasing Himself in His sons, just as Abraham has increased through his offspring.  “And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered...INCREASETH WITH THE INCREASE OF GOD” (Col. 2:19).  This is an incredible and marvelous revelation and it unlocks for us the beauty and power of God’s great purpose of the ages.  If we observe history, we will discover that the unfolding of God’s grace and goodness and will has been intensified with each passing age, and will continue to expand and increase with each succeeding age until all is gathered up into God again, and He is all in all.

Someone has written, “If only the people of Israel would have had minds that were being renewed, as well as the spiritual degree of maturity that we have today, when they traveled for forty years through the waste-howling wilderness!  But their spirits and minds were dull, for God had not given them an understanding heart, eyes to see and ears to hear.  Also, we are a few thousand years and many fulfilled purposes of God beyond that day.  Furthermore, the revelation of Christ, which increases with each age of time, has been increasingly manifest from that day to this.  And we are the recipients of that greater manifestation and revelation of Christ!  What a process of spiritual increase from that day to this!  And what tremendous spiritual growth has taken place in our lives!  Only as we discern the limited spiritual growth in most Christians today can we properly appreciate the extent of our own growth in God.  Yet, we are not to compare ourselves with others, for Christ is our only true, spiritual standard and example.”

God in the beginning ordained in the earth the orderly progression of the seasons.  Most areas of the world experience what is spoken of as a rainy or wet season and a dry season.  In the land of Israel, between the early and latter rains, there was a period of great dryness and dearth.   The pools dried up and the brooks ceased to flow.  But there was a wise design in the dryness, even as there was a beneficent purpose in the rain.  It was the time when under intense heat of the sun the grain was able to develop in a particular stage.  We know from Church history that the Lord Jesus visits the earth with special outpourings of Himself from time to time, in order to accomplish the work of the Kingdom.   There are seasons of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord!  The reformation, the great Methodist revivals, the move of God in Scotland, the Great Awakening in America, the revival in Wales, the Pentecostal outpouring, the Latter Rain visitation, and present movings of the Spirit in various regions of the earth — the Lord’s presence and power and glory comes among His people in a mighty way, but afterwards lifts for a season, so that other purposes can be accomplished.  Such flowings and ebbings of divine life are according to the law and design of God.

Some necessary changes are wrought in our lives through means of blessing and glory, and others take place when we go through dry seasons or through the fires of testing and refining.  So there are times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and there are times when it seems He has pulled the veil over His face, hiding His presence from us.  There are times when there is a forward thrust — new dimensions are opened up, great revelations stream forth, mighty power is displayed, there is blessing, quickening, growth all around, and spiritual advance is made.  Then the glory lifts, the blessings diminish, the siftings and shakings commence as we are brought before His judgment seat, and that which was received with great joy is put to the test.  It is during these times of “nothingness” that the elect, the remnant of the Lord is severely tried, that they may be proven and found faithful.  Will the vision  and deposit received during the rain now take deeper root to become a firm, stable and permanent inward nature, the planting of the Lord; or will the adverse circumstances and pressures from without cause the tender shoot to wither and die?

This crucial time between the “seasons of refreshing” will either make or break the follower of the Lord!  Each refreshing begins with the Spirit of God sovereignly moving over the heads of men.  God has never asked for either the approval or cooperation of any chief priest, scribe, rabbi, bishop, pope, preacher or organization when He is ready to visit His people in power.  Suddenly, without warning, He thrusts forth upon the scene the thundering voice of a John the Baptist or a Luther; brings to the stage of action a Knox, a Wesley, a Whitefield; or showers from some bright cloud, refreshing rain-drops of His life and graces and gifts, unfolding the beautiful blossoms and exquisite flowers of glowing faces, transformed lives, weeping, repenting sinners, spontaneous testimonies, healings and miracles and provisions, revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost, mighty blessings and powerful baptisms of grace and glory.  The leaders, superintendents and bishops of the time-honored religious systems beat on their desks, rant and rave, denounce it as heresy, attribute it to the devil, label it as wild-fire, and declare that it will not last.  And, of course, it doesn’t last!  In due time the fiery cloud of glory passes and the invigorating showers evaporate.  But let me tell you something!  Though the visitation ends, there is an establishment of something permanent in the earth, the thing that God was bringing forth out of His presence.

Let me illustrate.  Martin Luther is gone, and much of the movement  he founded has since gone into apostasy, but the truth the Spirit of God spoke so eloquently and powerfully through his lips remains in the earth, yea, is established in the earth, and millions of Christians who have nothing whatever to do with the Lutheran denominations do believe, and know, and have experienced that men are justified by faith. When the baptism in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues was again poured out more than a century ago, all the main-line denominations of Christendom rejected it as wild-fire or satanic manifestations.  But it did not go away.  God by His sovereign power established that glorious experience in our generation, and now, behold, most of the denominations that mocked and ridiculed the “holy-rollers” are now themselves speaking in tongues!  Oh, it isn’t called “speaking in tongues” anymore, it is now called by the more refined title “glosalalia.”  And the time-honored denominations still spurn the name “Pentecostal,” so it is called the “Charismatic Renewal.”  Then when Christ came in 1948 as Latter Rain, all the Pentecostal denominations, without exception, rejected Him and there was a great exodus out of the denominations.  “Fanaticism!  Heresy!  Delusions!  Deception!” they cried.  And they would have nothing to do with the heavenly worship, prophecy with the laying on of hands, or the message of the Kingdom of God.  By 1953 the rain had ended.  The great glory cloud lifted.  The movement split and splintered and splintered again, and practically disappeared from off the earth.   But — today in a great many Pentecostal Churches you will hear them singing the worship choruses, and singing the harmonious song of the Lord in the Spirit, and prophesying with the laying on of hands!  They don’t even have a clue where these things originated, where they came from.  But they came from the Christ of the Latter Rain!  God brought forth a manifestation of His life by the outpouring of Christ and it raised all things in all realms.  And make no mistake about it — the unique things God was doing in that visitation were established in the earth!  They have infiltrated even the very movements that rejected them.  Those pressing on in God are not to remain there, but each truth and experience in God remains, like a grade or course in school, for others who are coming along progressively in God.  Ah, God does have a sense of humor, doesn’t He — He gets the last laugh!  But the great truth is: OUR GOD IS MARCHING ON!

My father in the flesh was a Pentecostal minister, and by God’s design, he was stuck in Pentecost.  The Lord moved my wife and me on into a deeper move of the Spirit, into a further word, and I remember I used to talk with my dad, and of course, I wanted him to see the glorious things we were seeing in the Spirit.  I wanted him to have an ear to hear, but he never could hear.  So usually our discussions would end up in an argument.  One day the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me, and the Lord said, “Leave him alone!  He is in the realm that I have appointed him to, and he will not be in another.”  And you know, that brought me a great peace, because now I was able to fellowship with him on the level that he could fellowship with me, without strain or condemnation, realizing that he was in the place that God ordained for him, and I was in the place that God had ordained for me.

My father died thirty-five years ago, and he passed away in the Pentecostal realm, just as the Lord had said.  Shortly after he passed away, the Lord gave me a dream.  In this dream I was in the living room of our home and all of my family was there, my father and mother, my brothers, my wife and my kids were all there sitting in chairs and sofas around the walls.  My dad was sitting on the end of a sofa and looked exactly the way he did just before he died.  Nobody was saying anything, we were just there.  Suddenly my dad looked up, gazed intently across the room into my eyes, and said, “P-r-e-a-c-h  t-h-e  MANCHILD!”  I then awoke out of that dream and immediately I knew two things by the Spirit.  I knew that now my dad knew something that he did not know before he died.   But I also knew that he represented a cry that comes from the very realm of death itself, the cry of the groaning creation, that is groaning for the manifestation of His life.  It is the cry of creation for the manifestation of the sons of God who shall deliver creation from the bondage of corruption!

You see, when I said that my dad was stuck in the Pentecostal realm, I didn’t mean that he was stuck there forever!  We are all on a journey into God which is pictured by the entrance of the priesthood into the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness, first into the Outer Court where our sins are dealt with by the blood of the Lamb; then into the Holy place with its candlestick, table of showbread and altar of incense, where we experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit, begin to eat of the good word of God in the loaf of the body of Christ, and learn the powers of prayer and praise; and finally into the Most Holy Place of the fullness of God’s life, nature and glory.  But you see, dear one, the end of the matter is not the Outer Court, the Holy Place, or the Holiest of All.   That’s but a blueprint of our progression into God.  It should be obvious to all who have eyes to see that the vast majority of Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians never get past the Outer Court.  Pentecostals and Charismatics dwell in the Holy Place.  Those called to sonship have entered on into the Most Holy Place where God’s glorious fullness may be known.  These same heavenly realities are figured in the three feasts of Israel — Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.  But the end of the matter is not the three steps of the tabernacle or the three stages of spiritual life experienced in the spiritual feasts of the Lord.  Oh, no, that is merely a blueprint of the redemptive process of God!  In the end, when God becomes All-in-all, there will be NO COMPANIES.  There will not be Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Latter Rain, the Bride of Christ, Servants of God, and Sons of God.  In the end there are not people living in the Outer Court and others living in the Holy Place, while others dwell in the Most Holy Place.  IN THE END THERE IS ONLY GOD ALL IN ALL, God everything to everyone!

You see, it’s just like a school.  The purpose of a school is not the school itself.  The purpose of a school is that people may progress through the grades and eventually get beyond the school.  Everybody that enters the school is supposed to graduate!  So the purpose is not to glory in the fact that I am in the first grade, or the eighth grade, or that I am a junior, sophomore, or senior.  That’s not the glory of it at all.  The glory of it is that each grade accomplishes its purpose, brings everyone to the final, same accomplishment.  The purpose of every step, level, and realm in God is that every man may, in God’s due time, pass through all the grades and graduate into the fullness of God.  We have been moving through the Feasts, and God has now brought a people to the Feast of Tabernacles.  He has brought us to the Third Day.  He has brought us to the Most Holy Place.  Each step is but a temporary arrangement, we have been passing through the grades, and all creation will pass through the grades.  And when every man who has ever lived, or ever shall live, has received his diploma and walked off the stage on his graduation day, God will be all in all.  Hallelujah!  A sign will then be posted on the door of the school, “Closed.”  If everybody graduates, you don’t need a school anymore.  Such is the increase of the Kingdom of God!

Spiritually, no one can hinder or stop the ongoing seasons of God as He brings forth His purposes in the earth.  Historically, the purposes of God have marched forward triumphantly from age to age, from dispensation to dispensation, from dealing to dealing, unfolding God’s Kingdom in the earth from realm to realm.  The New Testament record begins at the period just before and at the time of the coming of Jesus into the world.  Just like the seasons, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son” (Gal. 4:4).   He came into the world to do away with the old dispensation and covenant of law, which had no power to bring life to dead souls and is symbolized by winter, and to usher in the new dispensation of grace, which is symbolized by spring.  The law of God has never been fulfilled except in Jesus Christ.  That which man could not do, Christ came and did as He walked upon earth and when He died upon Calvary.  The darkness and winter of condemnation and bondage which rested upon man, were done away by the Lord Jesus Christ, who satisfied every demand of the law.  The rain of the Holy Spirit which came with the doing away of the law softened the ground and prepared it for the bringing in of a better covenant.

As we think of the faint light that the people of God had under the old dispensation, we see that it truly was winter.  It was like the warmth of the sun in midwinter, when its rays can scarcely penetrate and disperse the frost in the air.  There was no more power in the law to give life to one soul, than there is power and warmth in the midwinter sun to bring out the flowers of spring and the fruits of summer.  In the individual this is a picture of the soul who is dead in trespasses and unbelief;  full of deadness and darkness, full of fruitlessness; whose life is bleak, cold, dead, like midwinter.  When the breaking up comes, and the rays of the sun begin to fall upon the winter of death and unbelief, the clouds of doubts and fears and ignorance begin to roll away, and the warmth of the Sun of righteousness brings life and warmth to the soul.  It is the rain that comes when the winter begins to break up that prepares the ground for the seed and fruitfulness.  It is the breaking up that comes in deed conviction and dealing, with godly sorrow and repentance, that prepares the heart of man for the seed of Christ and the fruit of the Kingdom.  The rain cannot bring fruit any more than can the snow and winter; but it prepares the ground for the germination of the seed, which has life in it, and has life more abundant.

Dispensationally, we are standing at the springtime of our development into the fullness of God’s Christ.  As the summer comes on the Sun  of righteousness arises within us and the flowers appear upon the vines of the heritage of the Lord, giving promise of a rich harvest of mature fruit upon every plant and vine that the Father has planted in His vineyard.  This is the beginning of the setting up of the Kingdom of God in that earth which we are.  Everything is either in blossom or in flower; upon the olive tree and upon the vine appear the bud, the blossom, the green fruit.  Though the fruit has not yet ripened, though the “many brethren” have not yet come fully into the likeness and image of the firstborn Son, nor into the fullness of His power and glory, yet the fragrance and beauty of the first days of spring cover the Lord’s vineyard; the sunshine of the Father’s approval is over the vineyard of His sons.  The warmth of His grace and the light of His revelation is wooing the buds to burst forth into flowers, the flowers to give place to the tiny fruit, and the immature fruit to go on to perfection.  And, blessed be God! none can hinder or stop the mighty working of God in this hour to bring forth His sons and the next stage in the manifestation of His Kingdom.

The wonderful truth is: NO ONE CAN HINDER OR STOP THE PROCESSES OF GOD!  God has a plan!  At the beginning of the Church age the world was visited by events so momentous in their power and glory that all things were changed from that time onward.  In the eternal realm before the ages were formed, and ages before man ever saw the light of earth’s day, the almighty Lord set in motion His omniscient and immutable purpose for the ages which were to follow.  As a year is filled with weeks and a week is filled with days and a day is filled with hours, so time is filled with ages and ages with dispensations.  Let all who read these lines thoroughly understand that our all-wise heavenly Father planned the events of each successive age from the very first age unto the ages of ages far beyond the comprehension of mortal man.  It is not by accident nor by natural evolution that the world has progressed from the darkness of paganism to the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  It is by divine design!

The plan of the ages conceived in the heart of Him who purposed all things after the counsel of His own will is being worked out one step at a time in each succeeding age in like manner as you and I have often planned in advance the work for each successive day of a week.  Is it not true that many of the wives and business people now reading this paper have plans in mind for today and tomorrow and perhaps even weeks and months into the future?  I do!  Each week I can tell what I, Lord willing, will be doing on each day of the week.  There is mail to answer, days for study and writing, business with the printer or at the post office and numerous other things, and each week is mapped out in advance.  Whether consciously or unconsciously we all plan ahead, daily and hourly working toward some human goal.   There is nothing that opens the wellspring of love, of understanding and hope and faith, in the hearts of God’s people like THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PURPOSE.  What infinite illumination floods our souls, what joy and satisfaction and assurance fill our hearts when by the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God our great and wonderful Father is seen to be a God of purpose, knowing the end from the beginning, because He planned the end from the beginning!  He created all things by His omnipotent power that His glorious purpose might be fulfilled.  And the power that made all things is the same power that upholds all things, and fills all things, and controls all things and shall bring to a successful conclusion the divine purpose in all things.

The Kingdom of God came  first of all in the person of Jesus.  Then it came in 120 disciples of Jesus on the day of Pentecost.  Then it came upon the household of Cornelius the centurion, and upon the Gentiles.  But upon the rocky slopes of the isle called Patmos the beloved John saw beyond the redeemed of his day — he beheld with wonder “a great number that no man can number.”  John was a great mathematician, and he managed to count up to one-hundred and forty-four thousand footstep followers  of the Lamb standing upon mount Zion.  But that was only a representative number for the company of the manifested sons of God: as for the Church of God, gathered out of all the tribes and tongues and peoples and nations of earth, he gave up all idea of computation, and confessed that it is “a number that no man can number.”  When He heard them sing he said, “I heard a voice like the voice of many waters and like great thunder.”  There were so many of them that their song was like the Aegean sea lashed to fury by a tempest, nay, not one great sea in uproar, but ocean upon ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific piled on each other, and the Indian ocean upon these, and other oceans upon these, layers of oceans, all thundering out their mightiest roar: and such will be the song of the redeemed when every creature which is in heaven, and on  earth, and under the earth, is heard saying, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb unto the age of the ages!” (Rev. 5:13).

There you have the glorious outcome of the increase of the Kingdom!  Behold, and see, ye who laughed at His Kingdom, see how the little Lamb has become hundreds of billions!  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 Lebanon!  Who can reckon the drops of the dew or the sands of the seashore?  When they have counted these then shall they not have guessed at the multitude of the redeemed of earth, and of the underworld, and of the starry worlds above, that Christ shall bring to glory.  And all this harvest from one grain of wheat, which except it had fallen into the ground and died would have remained alone!  Oh, beloved, what a harvest from Mary’s little Lamb!  What fruit from that glorious Man of Nazareth!  Men esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; and they made nothing of Him, and yet there sprang from Him a great and glorious and universal Kingdom filled with multitudes which are as many as the stars of heaven!  This day shall declare it without fail.  Oh, the wonder of it!  Oh, the mystery of it!  The increase of the Kingdom of God!  What anticipation thrills our ransomed souls as we contemplate the potential of the wonderful age and the ages to come!  God acted yesterday.   He acts today.  He will act tomorrow.  We cannot mark the boundaries of His Kingdom any more than we can mark the boundaries of the universe.

In the late 1950’s a military idealist styled by the American press as  an “agrarian reformer”  sought to liberate the people of Cuba from the “repression” and “corruption” of President Fulgencio Batista.  Fidel Castro was hailed by the New York Times as a man of high ideals, with strong ideas of liberty, democracy and social justice.  Lorain and I were missionaries in Cuba during and after the Cuban revolution.  Castro was in power for only a few months when it became crystal clear to us, as it was not yet to the Cuban people, that the Castro government was an atheistic, Communist regime.  But apart from the negative character of his revolution, the methods he employed in his takeover of the Caribbean island do serve as a powerful illustration of the increase of the Kingdom of God.

When Fidel Castro arrived in Cuba from Mexico with a handful of men to spark the revolution, he was practically unknown.  He spent time gathering around him men who were fired with the same zeal as he to see their country under new government.  In those early days they were only a few men with Castro as their leader.  But after the creation of some “incidents” the Cuban people rapidly became aware of them and their professed objectives.  Little by little fathers and sons commenced to leave their homes, families, and jobs to join Castro’s forces in the mountains in order to “liberate” their country.  Soon support increased, the number of rebel soldiers, sympathizers and supporters began to swell, and the passions of the Cuban people were stirred.  Castro expertly organized his forces and ruled and controlled the mountain areas where his armies freely roamed.  His men were well trained and equipped and fought courageously.

The area of the country under Castro’s domination was declared to be the territory of “Free Cuba.”  It had its own government — Castro and his top aids.  But most of the Cuban territory and people was still under the control of the Batista dictatorship.  After several fierce battles the territory of “Free Cuba” was enlarged.  We fell into that territory during the latter part of 1958, and were cut off from the outside world, from mail service, and from the rest of the island.   Fighting and bombing became daily occurrences in our town.  Several times a day we would run for shelter when we heard the airplanes approaching town.  As Castro’s advance continued, suddenly President Batista, in the dark of night, fled the country.  The revolution was victorious!  But — though Batista had departed, and technically the revolution has triumphed, Castro was still not “in control” of the nation.  He and his troops began the long trek up the island to Havana.  As soon as he arrived in the capital he began consolidating his power, taking over every function of government  from the top to the bottom.  Many months passed before all things were firmly established under the revolutionary order.

There are many things to learn from parables, both old and new, for by them truth is taught with more force than any spoken word.  Almost two millenniums ago God manifested His first Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  The seed of God’s Kingdom on earth was planted in that one man — who is the Head of all the sons of God prepared of God throughout the age.   He is the leader and initiator of the Kingdom.   Jesus was unknown among all the rulers and the kingdoms of earth.  He gathered around Himself a handful of men from the province of Galilee in the tiny land of Israel.  Into them He impregnated the revelation and life of the Kingdom.   They in turn, with the resurrected and ascended Jesus directing, marched through the nations proclaiming the Kingdom of God with power and announcing that finally this Kingdom would rule from pole to pole and from sea to sea.  Through the age men and women have defected from the kingdom of darkness, from the kingdoms of this world, to join themselves to the free “New World” of the Spirit, becoming citizens of God’s Kingdom.  For two thousand years Christ’s army has been forming, being meticulously trained and adequately equipped by the power of the Holy Ghost.  These sons of God have fought many battles, although these battles for the most part have been confined to the small and undistinguished territory of their own earth — soul and body.  Long has been the preparation and persistent the struggle.  And even now, at the end of the age, it still seems that the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one!  But soon — yes, very soon — there shall be a glorious and decisive victory!  Our lovely Lord Jesus Christ, together with all the glorified sons of God who through the furnace of affliction and the heat of battle have qualified to reign with Him, shall come forth into full manifestation.  The clay feet of the image of great Babylon shall be smitten by this heaven-sent army as by a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and by them will be crushed the whole system of Babylon with its millenniums of confusion, deceit and darkness  Oh, my soul!  What a word!  But even as the sons of God make their appearance, marching forth conquering and to conquer, not by the sword of man, but by the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, all will not yet be as it should be, and for this reason they must reign on and on and on...until “ALL ENEMIES are put under His feet.”

We have all eternity to dwell with God and to work with people.  The challenges and tasks shall extend into all ages of time, calling for redemptive ministry to flow through us to the whole creation, just as the Lord Jesus’ ministry flows forth unto us today.  Through us God shall wipe away all the tears of earth’s teeming billions — of all who have ever lived and died upon this planet, and of all who shall yet live.   All shall be raised up and redeemed, all shall be saved, delivered, and transformed, and all shall live in righteousness, peace and joy in the presence of God.  There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.  In those blessed ages sin and death and hell shall be destroyed in every creature and in every world, throughout all God’s vast universe, and God shall be all in all. Praise His matchless name!  Such is the increase of the Kingdom of God!  If there is no more pain there can be no more hell, for the torment of hell is pain.   If there is no crying there can be no death, for death floods our faces with tears.  If there is no more sorrow there can be no sin, for sin begets heartbreak and sorrow.  Oh glorious victory!  Only the increase of God’s Kingdom can bring creation to that Day!

Chapter 44

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

It is a conspicuous fact that the various errors and inconsistencies found in the King James Version of the New Testament serve to obscure any clear understanding of the teachings of the scriptures in regard to God’s wonderful plan of the ages.  One of the most inexcusable of these misleading translations is the unqualified use of the English word “world.”  The word “world” has a limited meaning in English, but is used by the translators as the one English rendering for at least three widely differing ideas in the Greek text.  This one word, world, is used to translate a Greek word which means a distinct period of time such as an age, epoch, or dispensation; it is also used to translate a Greek word denoting the visible things created — the earth or the universe; and finally it is used to translate a Greek word denoting the inhabitants of the earth together with their culture, morality, customs, life style, organized society, government, etc.

One of the Greek words erroneously translated “world” is the word AION.  AION denotes a specific period of time — an eon or an age.  The ages are often referred to in the scriptures, and the study of the exact conditions and purposes of each of them is not a fanciful pursuit, but is rather the only foundation for any true knowledge of the development of God’s plan and kingdom in the earth.  It is not possible to consider all of the ages in this writing, but only a few that might be confused one with another.

The age of law, which began with the giving of the law to Israel at mount Sinai, and ended with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, is mentioned by Zacharias in his prophecy at the birth of John the Baptist: “As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world (aion — age) began” (Lk. 1:70).  The same period is referred to by Peter in Acts 3:21, “Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world (aion — age) began.”  These references, as one can clearly see, are not to the creation of the world, as the King James rendering would indicate, but to the beginning of that particular period in which the prophets spake, beginning primarily with Moses.  As a distinct period of time which was to end, the age of law is mentioned about forty times in the New Testament and is called the “world” in the King James Bible!  Here are a few examples. “And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (aion — age, the age of law), neither in the world (aion — age, the church age) to come” (Mat. 12:32).  “The disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world (aion — age)?” (Mat.  24:3).  “And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world (aion — age) are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Lk. 16:8).   

The present age of the calling out of the body of Christ, in which the grace of God has had its appearing unto salvation, began where the law ended, with the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh.  This age, and the fact that it, too, will end, is referred to as “world” in a number of places.  A few of the passages follow:  “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (aion — age)”  (Mat. 28:20).  “Which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world (aion — age), but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:20-21).  “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world (aion — age)” (Tit. 2:12).  By these and other passages it may be seen that the present age is a particular limited period of time in which special conditions are to prevail, and definite purposes to be realized.   

In explaining one of the Kingdom parables to His disciples, Jesus mentioned that “The harvest is the end of the world (aion — age)” (Mat. 13:39).  Because of the King James’ misuse of the word “world” in this and other passages, people have latched on to this and fabricated all kinds of doctrines about the “end of the world.”  But the world is not about to end!  This age will end, of course, for every age has its ending, and then gives way to the dawn of another age — so why then all the upset and fear?  Furthermore, if WE ARE NOT OF THIS AGE, and have by God’s grace tasted of the POWERS OF THE AGE TO COME, why do we get overly concerned about this age ending?  The desire of all the Lord’s people should be for that new age which lies before us, and however God chooses to bring this present evil age to an end, will but open the flood-gates of far greater glory to come!  We say that we are not of this world/age, yet we are constantly clinging to it and fearing the doom to come upon it.  Ah, how we need the Holy Spirit to guide us into ALL TRUTH, until we are ready to joyfully relinquish all of the old, to lay hold upon the new.

Judging from the mass of Christian writings and from utterances in sermons and teachings from many different doctrinal persuasions, this age is assumed by many to be the final age, ending with the coming of Christ, the final judgment, and the destruction of the world.  Others believe that there is yet one more age which they term the “Kingdom Age” or the “Millennium,” which will wind up God’s great program on earth.  These are the two errors abroad in the land today in respect to the Kingdom of God.  There is a tendency among God’s people to limit the Kingdom either to this age of the Church economy, or to the next age called the Millennium or the Kingdom Age.  The first group can see nothing in the Kingdom beyond our present experience — except to die and go to heaven! To these the Kingdom is identical with our salvation experience and the multiplied gifts, blessings, provisions, and benefits of the Church age.  This concept views the Kingdom as a “little flock” right up to the end of time, in the world, coexisting as it were with the world, yet not of the world, but never triumphing over the world.  According to this view the Church and the world, or the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil, both continue as they now are right up to the end of time when Jesus comes again and terminates the whole program, destroying the present heavens and earth, casting the wicked into everlasting hell fire, and shipping the saints off to glory.  In this view there is no ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness on earth, no consummation of the Kingdom where all kindreds and tongues and peoples and nations serve Him, and God is all in all.  Instead  of consummation these dear people settle for termination.  God just “winds things up” and the whole program on earth comes to a jarring halt.  According to this scheme the prophecy of Daniel will never be fulfilled: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall BREAK IN PIECES AND CONSUME ALL THESE KINGDOMS, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:44).  Nor, if these brethren are right, can the prophecy of Revelation 11:15 come to pass: “The kingdoms of this world ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD, AND OF HIS CHRIST; and He shall reign for ever and ever.”

The second error recognizes no present literal Kingdom of God on earth, pushing the Kingdom off into a future age, making its present reality utterly meaningless.  These people are always talking about the “coming Kingdom.”  Men with their human theology have imagined that the Kingdom of God has not yet come on earth and that it remains to be “established” during the “Millennium.”  People often declare in no uncertain terms that Jesus is returning to “set up” the Kingdom.  They proclaim that the Kingdom is an “age” of one thousand years duration.  I do not hesitate to tell you that every shred of evidence is to the contrary!  All such notions are utter rubbish and have no foundation in the spirit of Truth.  At this very moment, when Christians are busily looking for a one-world government under the antichrist, and the great tribulation followed by the return of Jesus and the establishment of the Kingdom, we who have followed on to know the Lord, and have sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, have had our hearts ravished by this blessed reality: “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath TRANSLATED US INTO THE KINGDOM OF HIS DEAR SON” (Col. 1:13).  Let demons rage.  Let fools and unbelievers hang their heads in shame.  The Kingdom of God is a present reality to those who have been caught up into the high places of the Spirit!  It is not a matter of this or that, of here or there, of now or then, of this age or the next age.  The Kingdom is none of those things.  It is more than all.  It is this and that, here and there, now and then, this age and the next — and much, much more!

The great truth I declare to you today is that Jesus Christ came two millenniums ago and brought the Kingdom and set up and established the Kingdom in the hearts and lives of the sons of the Kingdom.  “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the good news” (Mk. 1:14-15).  And again, “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it” (Lk. 16:16).  God has a plan for His great and glorious Kingdom!  Indeed, God has a wonderful plan for this world!  It is a plan of which the architectural drawings were made in eternity.  It encompasses the minutest detail of all creation.  I assure you that when time has run its course, and the curtain is drawn upon the final scene, we shall discover that that plan has been worked out to its tiniest detail, just as God planned it in eternity.

Upon your table today there is or should be a book we call the Bible.  This book alone reveals God’s secret plan of the ages.  It unfolds with unerring accuracy the mysteries of ages in the dim and misty past, and points with unerring finger to the purpose of countless eons yet to come.  The Christian Church as we know it has been living in a fool’s paradise, propounding pet doctrines, ranting and raving about an endless eternity with golden streets and harps and white nightgowns for some and crackling, searing, tormenting flames for others, while almost completely overlooking God’s wonderful PLAN OF THE AGES.  Paul writes of this plan of the ages in Ephesians 3:8-11.  “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and make all to see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The word translated “eternal” in the phrase “eternal purpose” is the Greek word AIONON which means “ages.”  Young’s Literal Translation reads, “And to cause all to see what is the fellowship of the secret that hath been hid FROM THE AGES in God, who the all things did create by Jesus Christ, that there might be made known now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenly places, through the assembly, the manifold wisdom of God, according to A PURPOSE OF THE AGES, which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The Emphatic Diaglott renders verse 11 thus, “According to A PLAN OF THE AGES, which He formed in the Anointed Jesus our Lord,” and Rotherham says, “According to A PLAN OF THE AGES which He made in the anointed Jesus our Lord.”

As men with the aid of God’s Word have gazed into the vista of the future, it seems to have missed their understanding that God says very little in His Word about eternity, while devoting many hundreds of passages to His will and works wrought through THE AGES.  “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds” (Heb. 1:1-2).  What tremendous statements we have here!  God has spoken to us through His Son — literally, “spoke to us in Son,” or, God spoke to us in One who has the character that He is a SON, revealing the realm and relationship of sonship to God.  Every age has its beginning and its end, its first days and its last days.  So the writer to the Hebrews tells us that God has spoken unto us in the person of His Son in “these last days,” that is, in the closing days of the age of  law in which Jesus came into the world.  People talk about “the” last days, as though the end of our present dispensation were the only “last days”  or “end time” to ever exist!  

This Son is heir of all things and, blessed be God! we are joint heirs with Him.  “By whom also He made the worlds.”  Many people believe this refers to the creative act — “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  It does not refer to that at all.  The word here for “worlds” is AIONAS.  It means ages — “...by whom He framed the ages.”  This goes beyond His being the Creator of matter and its arrangement into multiplied billions of galaxies, stars, suns, planets and moons with their atmospheres and inhabitants.  This lends purpose to everything.  He is the heir who GIVES THE PROGRAM FOR THE FUTURE!  He planned and framed the ages, He ordained the end from the beginning; not only did He create everything, He did it for a purpose, and “known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18).  Notice — the Amplified Bible says, “But in the last of these days He has spoken to us in the person of a Son, whom He appointed Heir and lawful Owner of all things, also by and through whom He created the worlds and the reaches of space and the AGES OF TIME — that is, He made, produced, built, operated and arranged them in order!”  “Through  faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3), but it should read, “the ages were planned by the word of God.”  God made, planned, and determined the destiny of all the ages in and by Jesus Christ.

The age we are now living in is not the last age, nor is the age to come the final age in God’s vast Kingdom program.  The apostle Paul tells us that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the AGES TO COME He might show (put on display, exhibit) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6-7).  According to these inspired words there are “ages” yet to come — so there can be no less than two ages beyond our present age and there could be many, many more!  It is during these “ages to come” that God shall take the wonderful work He has so meticulously wrought in His elect throughout the past age and put it on display in and through them for the whole creation to behold and consider.  This will certainly not be to the condemnation of creation, the masses of unregenerated men that have lived and died upon this planet, but rather redounds unto their blessing, deliverance and transformation; for it is HIS KINDNESS TOWARD US IN JESUS CHRIST that is exhibited through the saints throughout the coming ages.  Grace and kindness on display!  Think of it!  That is no curse, no judgment — it can only mean salvation!  The grace of God appears unto salvation.  This glorious display is for the instruction and enlightenment of all men.  What a marvelous prospect!

The Word of God is crystal clear that there is to be an increase of the Kingdom from age to age.  The very fact that there are yet “ages to come” shows that the Kingdom advances from one age to another.  Historically, every new age has superseded the previous ones, bringing greater light, a further revelation of God, and more advanced dealing with mankind.  Each new age inaugurates a higher dimension of God’s purposes in the earth.  Nothing is clearer in the scriptures than the fact that THIS IS NOT THE LAST AGE.  There is no “final windup” at the close of this present dispensation.  We can expect, therefore, fresh and greater manifestations and administrations of Kingdom dominion as we move from this age into the new one now beginning.  What anticipation this evokes in our hearts!

The apostle James made a statement to the council at Jerusalem in which he clearly defines the complete outline of God’s purpose for the so-called age of grace and the dispensation that is to follow.  “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name.  And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, AFTER THIS (after God has taken out of the nations a people for His name) I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David (the fullness of God’s glory in a people), which is fallen down (following the great apostasy); and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the RESIDUE OF MEN MIGHT SEEK AFTER THE LORD, and ALL THE GENTILES, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things” (Acts 15:14-18).  Dispensationally, this is one of the most significant passages in the New Testament!  It gives God’s divine purpose for this age and the next age.  James says that the purpose of God during this age now ending has been to visit the Gentiles, or the nations, as it is in the Greek, to TAKE  O-U-T  O-F  T-H-E-M  A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME.

 One thing that nearly all Christians have missed is the fact that it has never been God’s purpose to save the world during the Church age.  While the gospel was to be preached as a “witness” to all nations, there is no hint of it being accepted by all.  Jesus never led His disciples to expect any such result from their ministry!  Wherever the preached gospel is referred to in the New Testament, its limited acceptance is at the same time made clear.  “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.  He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned (judged)” (Mk. 16:15-16).  The witness of Paul is equally clear.  He says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 1:16).  “I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some” (I Cor. 9:22).  “For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are being saved, and in them that are perishing.”

All through the centuries the Church has been found holding to the false hope of converting the whole world during this age.  Frequently one hears preachers, especially missionaries and televangelists, speaking of “winning the world to Christ.”  In missionary conferences and evangelistic crusades people are admonished to go forth and “win the world.”  But as honest and sincere as these persons are, the fact remains that the efforts of those who walk in the spiritual feasts of Passover and Pentecost are doomed to failure.  The fact remains that nowhere did the Lord tell His disciples to save the world!  Rather, Jesus said, “I will build my church.”  And that is precisely what the Lord has been doing for the past two thousand years — building His Church!  But never did He say that all would believe or that we should win the world to Him or sweep the nations into the Kingdom of God in the age now ending.  If He would have said it, it would have happened, for He is the omnipotent Lord with all power in heaven and in earth!  The fact that the world hasn’t been saved, and the nations have not been subjected to the rule of God, is the only proof needed that it has not been God’s plan to do so!  He who holds to the hope of converting the world by Pentecostal preaching, or by gifts of the Holy Spirit, or by well organized revival crusades, or by forty days of fasting and prayer, is running after a mere phantom.  It simply won’t happen!

 But God has been calling out a people for His name — saving, delivering, teaching, purging, purifying, dealing, maturing and bringing them progressively unto the full stature of Jesus Christ.  It has taken the process of two millenniums to bring His people to birth that a manchild, the manifested sons of God, might be revealed.  Meanwhile, the Lord has not interfered with the downward course of the world!  He has allowed the selfishness of the human race to drag it down into ever lower depths of  sin and degradation.  Even when His professed people, misguided by their lack of understanding, and motivated by their unscriptural and unspiritual ambitions, have established church-state systems in His name, He has not interfered.  And when these have fallen, and when all the misguided efforts of those people who have tried to establish peace for the Prince of Peace by carnal warfare and bloodshed and tyranny in the Lord’s name, God has still not intervened.  His plans for the salvation of the world have been separate from all human efforts, and He wants the whole world, including worldly churches, to learn that apart from GOD’S CHRIST and GOD’S TIME they can accomplish nothing beyond the limited work prescribed for this dying age.  He wants them to learn that in order to achieve success they must work with Him, and in keeping with His plans, rather than expect Him to bless their plans and their efforts to establish His Kingdom.

I once wrote articles against communism.  That was because of their atheism and rejection of God and His word and His people.  But I think I realize now, more than I did then, that ALL NATIONS have been cut off from God by God’s own decree, since the time of Adam and Eve.  Jesus emphasized this when He said, “No man can come to me, except the Father...draw him” (Jn. 6:44). Many nations have never known much if anything about God.  In ancient Egypt they worshipped their fictitious gods, Isis and Osiris, about the time the ancient Chinese were worshipping their ancestors — even before the appearance of Confucianism and Taoism.  The ancient Greeks and Romans  had their idol gods, such as Jupiter, Diana, Hermes and others, and the ignorant worship of these gods was the state religion in almost every land and among all peoples.  They had no salvation — but neither were they “lost” — God Himself had cut off the descendants of Adam.  They simply were not being judged at all by God — nor are they even yet today!  God is not now dealing with nations, He is building His Church and bringing His sons to birth!

Since God is not now judging the nations, WHY SHOULD YOU OR I?  I know that I myself am being judged now!  The temple of God is being measured in the heavens, the elect of God is being judged by the measure of the stature of Jesus Christ as the sons of God stand in this hour before the judgment seat of Christ.  Some of us are called now and the work of the Spirit will be completed in us now.  The world as a whole has not been called YET!  Those now called to salvation to be a part of the body of the Christ are the “firstfruits” — merely the first small “harvest” of spiritual life.  To all others, God said, in effect, “Go, since you have rejected me, my government, my salvation, my revelation and knowledge, GO form your own gods and your own religions and philosophies and your own cultures and moral codes and your own governments.”  And, for six long millenniums has the world so done!  Therefore I do not judge their governments, or their religions, or their cultures.  I do not go to try to “sweep nations into the Kingdom of God,” as some say.  BUT GOD DOES HAVE A PLAN FOR THE NATIONS and a glorious day of release and restoration into the Kingdom of God!  And those called and chosen as the elect of God, as the sons of the Father in this significant hour, are being given understanding of the sacred secret of God — His plan of the ages!  Out from among the billions of earth God is choosing an ELECT COMPANY to bear His name — His nature and His authority.  It is here, in the true Church, which is His body, that Jesus Christ FIRST ESTABLISHES HIS GOVERNMENT that He might rule and reign on the throne of men’s lives.  And now soon — very soon — these sons of God shall be revealed to all creation that the exceeding riches of the grace and kindness of God unto these sons might be exhibited for all to see and be blessed thereby!  But most Christians will not come to this!  They are too busy playing Church, rejoicing that they are not going to hell or that they are going to heaven when they die, and blundering around in the carnal programs, immaturity and shame of a wretched, fleshly, religious system which falsely calls itself “the church.”  But just as the dispensation of the law, at its conclusion, brought forth that which it typified and pointed to — Jesus Christ the Son of God — so this present Church age must, in these last days, at its conclusion, bring forth that for which it was intended and to which it pointed — a many-membered body of Christ, perfected, matured, overcoming, and full grown into the exact likeness and glory of the firstborn son of God, its Head and Lord.

God never intended that Christ should rule over all the earth and all nations during this age.  His reign is confined completely to that company of footstep followers who have heard His voice and follow Him all the way unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ.  Baptized in His fullness these sons of God become the very embodiment of His government in the earth.  This may seem to be an extremely slow method and a very small Kingdom for such a great and exalted King, but we cannot over emphasize the importance of this lowly beginning for a government whose authority is destined to “subdue ALL THINGS.”  So let us see that not only is God establishing His government in the lives of His elect, but through His dealings with them He is actually FORMING THEM INTO A GOVERNMENT — a ruling body of sons of God, kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek!

 God is calling out a people to bear His name, to be His nature, authority and power in the earth!  But — to bear His name WHERE?  WHEN?  HOW?  To bear His name only through their fleeting years in the flesh?  Not at all.  James says, “AFTER THIS (after the Lord has completed His work of calling out a people for His name) I will return and build again the tabernacle of David... THAT THE RESIDUE OF MEN MIGHT SEEK AFTER THE LORD, AND ALL THE NATIONS...saith the Lord.”  The “residue” of men denotes “all the rest,” that is, all who were not part of the “called out.”  I tell you, my beloved, God is now forming a government composed of faithful sons (the tabernacle of David) whom He shall use in the age now dawning and in the ages yet to come as kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek to bring God’s Kingdom to pass in all the earth and in all realms.  Through this glorious anointed body of sons ALL THE REST OF MEN...ALL THE NATIONS...SHALL SEEK THE LORD.  What wonderful news that is!  While the church world is getting ready to “fly away” to some far-off heaven somewhere, the sons of God are even now being prepared and equipped to rule all nations with a rod of iron.  This is not the “coming” of the Kingdom — it is the next step of “advancement” and “increase” of the Kingdom!  The Kingdom has already come.  It is being refined now in the hearts of all those blessed ones who have received the call to sonship.  This next step of the Kingdom will  come with great power and glory when the elect of God is fully matured, perfected, prepared and equipped.  God, through nearly two thousand years, has been slowly, methodically, meticulously, surely and wisely choosing this body of sons, preparing them through the furnace of affliction and the discipline of testings to sit together with Him on His throne, for those that suffer with Him shall also reign with Him!

The promise is sure!  “And he that OVERCOMETH, and keepeth my works unto the end (of the processing), to him will I give POWER OVER THE NATIONS: and he shall RULE THEM with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Rev. 2:26-27).  “To him that OVERCOMETH will I grant to SIT WITH ME IN MY THRONE, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).  “And now they sing a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to break the seals that are on it, for You were slain and with Your blood you purchased men unto God — from every tribe and language and people and nation.  And You have MADE THEM A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS to our God, and they shall REIGN OVER THE EARTH! (Rev. 5:9-10, Amplified).

This great truth cannot be any more forcefully presented than it is by the prophet Daniel when he writes, “These great beasts which are four, are four kingdoms (Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome), which shall arise out of the earth.  But THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH SHALL TAKE THE KINGDOM and POSSESS THE KINGDOM for ever, even for ever and ever.  I beheld and the same horn made war with the saints (throughout the Church age), and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN TO THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH; and the time came that THE SAINTS POSSESSED THE KINGDOM (world rule).  And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High...BUT THE JUDGMENT (of the saints) SHALL SIT, AND THEY (the saints) SHALL TAKE AWAY HIS DOMINION TO CONSUME AND DESTROY IT UNTO THE END. AND THE KINGDOM AND DOMINION AND THE GREATNESS OF THE KINGDOM UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, SHALL BE GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE (elect) OF THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and ALL DOMINIONS SHALL SERVE AND OBEY HIM” (Dan. 7:17-18, 21-22, 25-27).

The work of the sons of God only begins at the opening of the age that follows the Church age.  Even as I pen these words we are in the transition of the ages, the overlapping of the ages as the old age dies and the new age is inaugurated.  Already the sons of God are beginning to move in the authority of God within the high realms of the Spirit.  A word is proceeding forth from their lips by the inspiration of the Spirit that is shaping the nations for the greater glory soon to be manifested before the face of all peoples and every nation.  These sons are not filled with the darkness of man’s carnal mind, but are heralds of the GOOD NEWS of the Kingdom of God!  They cherish the precious truth of their Father’s plan of redemption and restoration for all!  They are the true sons of God, or sons of Life, Light and Love, who are by their proclamations dispelling the darkness of this long night of sin, sorrow and death.  They are the sons of Zion raised up in this hour to bring righteous judgment into the earth!  By the Spirit, they are lifting mankind from the depths of sin onto the new highway into the Kingdom of God.  They are lifting up their voices as trumpets in the Most Holy Place, in the high place of the Spirit, singing the praises and victories of their King and Lord of all.  By the spirit of their sonship they are crying aloud, saying to all who shall hear, “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!”

 As we ascend in the Spirit into the place of God’s throne, we thereby rise up above all the lower realms of evil and darkness, to dispel them by the power of His word.  This is the present ministry of the sons of God in the new order of the government of God on earth!  As we press forward into our new Kingdom ministry, the power of all evil and darkness shall eventually be removed, to trouble the world no more.  Preaching and ministering according to the old church order will avail nothing in this conquest of the nations.  The five-fold ministry was given for the edification of the saints during the Church age, but only the ministry of sonship is given to rule the nations and restore all things to God!  We are entering into a ministry in the Spirit that will manifest the power and glory of the Kingdom of God to all mankind.  We are called, not merely to preach the gospel, but to RULE AND REIGN with Christ!

Make no mistake about it; we have an awesome responsibility!  We are to RULE with a rod of iron, over all the enemies of Christ, including the nations and all darkness, error and evil.  There is a world of difference between edifying the saints and ruling the nations.  We are called of God to REIGN with grace and love and mercy and wisdom and power over the affairs of mankind in the earth by ministering the authority of God in the Spirit and by the Spirit.  We will never understand this deep mystery of reigning in the Kingdom until we know that the work of the Kingdom of God is spiritual work.  As Paul Mueller recently wrote, “It is work that is nothing like the carnal, religious, church works of the flesh, which have now become works of iniquity!”  As we minister from this high and holy place of God’s throne in the Spirit it shall come to pass that “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and ALL THE KINDREDS OF THE NATIONS shall worship before Thee” (Ps. 22:27).  That will be the blessed effect of our ministry from the throne!  By this spiritual ministry from the throne we shall see and know that “The Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth.  He shall subdue the people under us, and THE NATIONS UNDER OUR FEET” (Ps. 47:2-3).

Scripture could be piled upon scripture, but it should be clear to every honest heart that God has a plan beyond this age, and beyond the Church, the called out — a plan that includes ALL THE NATIONS OF EARTH!  The age now ending has been the age of the “called out,” the age for the formation of God’s elect into a Kingdom of Priests.  The next age is the age for that Kingdom of Priests to take authority over the nations and bring the Kingdom of God to pass in the earth among all living nations.  That is the difference between the two ages!  And it means a difference in ministry, for God is now raising up in His sons the new ministry for the new age!  In the ages beyond God shall deal with all the billions of men who have lived and died from father Adam all the way down to this and future times.  All these shall be restored to God and to life and brought into the courts of His Kingdom.  It is an extraordinary and awesome thing that the Lord by revelation of the Spirit gives His sons understanding that what He is doing on the earth today is merely a beginning.  Nothing is finished yet!  The dawning new age will accomplish a mighty work of God in the earth, far beyond that of the previous age, but the new age will not finish God’s purpose, either!  We are not even approaching the end of the world, or the consummation of the ages, or the great “wind up” of God’s program.  Nothing is so complete, so perfect, that it is to remain unchanged from what it was in its time.  What the sovereign Lord has given us is a root and not yet a tree.  The Kingdom seed still must grow, the branches spread out; the blossoms will come later.  In the end the fruit will come, for that is how the Kingdom develops, saith the Lord, “first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”  This wonderful work goes on from generation to generation, from dispensation to dispensation, from age to age, from realm to realm,  from world to world, from galaxy to galaxy, until all things everywhere find their life in God.

Within this divine and glorious principle lies the nature of the Kingdom of Christ and the purpose He represents.  God’s Christ, Head and body, is for the redemption of creation — and how can that be completed in a day?  How can that be finished in one earthly generation?  How can that be accomplished in one age, or in two or three?  Creation took a long time — seven incredibly long epochs called “days” in the book of Genesis.  In like manner redemption, restoration, and re-creation — require time!  It is not for just a few people or for several thousand or several million; it is not for one race, or one nation, or just for the Church; it is for all mankind, for every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, and for the whole vast creation!  The Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end regarding the Kingdom of God and must reign until all enemies are under His feet, all things are made new, and God is all-in-all (I Cor. 15:25-28).  All must be restored  to Him in the far-flung heavens above, in the earth, and under the earth.  No wonder there are yet AGES TO COME!

THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK AND THE AGES TO COME

 God’s house of sons is a Kingdom of Priests after the Order of Melchizedek.  The Lord Jesus Christ is a King-Priest after the Order of Melchizedek, and we are the body of Christ.  Thus, Christ is the Head of the Melchizedek Order of King-Priests, and we are the body of that divine and heavenly Order.  Jesus has inherited that exalted position as King-Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and we are joint-heirs with Him.  “Him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).  That throne is the throne of the Melchizedek order of King-Priests after the power of an endless life!

I would now draw your attention to the duration of the Melchizedek Priesthood.  The Melchizedek Priesthood is after the power of an indissoluble or indestructible life, but does that mean that the ministry of the Melchizedek Order continues forever?  It is stated, “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 7:17).  The average person sees that word “forever”  and assumes that it means that the Order of Melchizedek is an eternal Order.  But this is not the case!  The Greek word from which “forever” is translated is AION from which, as we have already pointed out, we get our English word eon.  Whenever one speaks of “eons” he is not talking about eternity, for eons denote specific spans of time.

Any thinking person should clearly see that if you translate the word AION, which means an age, by the words eternal or forever, which have nothing to do with time, you immediately get the wrong idea.  While the King James Bible says, “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,” the Greek form is eis ton aiona which literally translated is “to the age.”  The Melchizedek Priesthood lasts for time.  In this tremendous passage we see the precise duration of this Priesthood — TO THE AGE.  We have no conception yet of the great and vast ages that are still ahead of us! When the ages have all been completed, then a priesthood will not be needed, but as long as time lasts, the priesthood is a necessity, for it falls within the scope of God’s PLAN OF THE AGES!

A priesthood “to...THE AGE!”  The true understanding of the Word of God is freighted with far more glorious meaning and depth of purpose than the shallow traditions of church creeds. While the scriptures speak of an age, and the ages, and the ages of the ages, — one age proceeding from, or out of, a previous age until all the ages have run their courses, — it also points to that glorious climatic age of all ages.  We read the phrase, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8).  We carelessly suppose that it refers to the eternity of God’s throne!  But this expression, “for ever and ever,” comes from the Greek which literally reads TO THE AGE OF THE AGES.  This is very familiar terminology in the Greek scriptures.

Few men have been caught away by the spirit of inspiration as was the wise king Solomon when he penned the beautiful Song of Solomon.  God dropped one thousand and five songs down into the heart of Solomon, but of these, only five comprising the Song of Solomon, have been preserved and have found a place in the canon of scripture.  Inspiration named it “The Song of Songs,” that is, the one song which was above and beyond all the songs that have ever come from human heart and human lips.  Just as the “Song of songs” was chief above them all, just as the “Holy of holies” was the Holiest place of all, just as the “King of kings” is the greatest King of all, so all through the scriptures, though obscured by many translators, we have this remarkable phrase TO THE AGE OF THE AGES.  It points to that age which shall be the most glorious of all, and which finds its type in the year of Jubilee.  This is the Holy Spirit’s way of expressing the superlative, and so far as God’s plan of the ages is concerned this AGE OF THE AGES is THE AGE PAR EXCELLENCE of them all!

A simple illustration of this is our expression, “a day of days,” meaning a day that comes out of previous days, but which crowns them, and embodies not only what they contained, but the full fruition of all that was elementary in them.  Eternity does not emerge full grown in man’s consciousness until this wonderful age, the “age of ages,” is ended.  This AGE OF THE AGES is that glorious climax to God’s purpose and process of the ages, wherein He states, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).  And when He says, “A-L-L,” it is self-evident that there is nothing remaining in the whole vast universe which shall not be made new, else all is not all.  “For He must reign until He hath put ALL enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (I Cor. 15:25-26).  When the last enemy is under His feet, destroyed, and there is no more death — no more physical death, no more spiritual death, no more first death, no more second death — in any creature anywhere in all God’s great universe, in any heaven or in any hell, then shall God be ALL IN ALL!  The Amplified gives, “...be everything to everyone.”  Time comes to an end when the ages end and eternity, with God all in all, becomes a conscious reality.  There is no more change, therefore there is no more time.

Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ is a great priest after the Order of Melchizedek, not forever, as we have erroneously been taught, and not for just this one age of the Church dispensation, either, but unto THE AGE, that wonderful climatic age of all the ages, the grand finale of God’s great plan of the ages!  It cannot be made plainer than it is in Young’s Literal  Translation where we read, “And those indeed are many who have become priests, because by death they are hindered from remaining; and He, because of His remaining — TO THE AGE, hath the priesthood not transient, whence also He is able to save TO THE VERY END, those coming through Him unto God — ever living to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:23-25).

Great are the mediatorial and redemptive glories of God’s Priesthood!  What distinguishes this ministry above all others is the fact that it carries its wonderful mission to a successful, victorious conclusion.  The Melchizedek Priesthood is a priesthood TO A FINALITY.  The fact that there will come a day, O glorious day! when it will no longer be needed, is the highest praise that can be brought to the Melchizedek Priesthood.  It will, in due time, have accomplished its mission, and finished the task God intended it to do.  All other ministries retire because of their weakness and inability to bring aught to perfection.  That is why God shall bring His son Company into the fullness of incorruptible life — the sons of God must be able to live for the ages in order to fulfill their role in this Priesthood of the Ages.  All creation is standing on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of God’s sons coming into their own!  All creation is in travail and pain waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God!  All creation is groaning together for each of God’s elect to come to their adoption — to wit, the redemption of the body!  And this is because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty from sin, sorrow, limitation and death, which is the liberty of the sons of God!

 The priests of the old covenant all died, so that even the good and faithful priests were not able to stay on the scene to see that God’s purpose was fully fulfilled in His people Israel.  They could never bring anything to perfection because of death!  But the Royal Priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek retires with honors — having accomplished its glorious mission!  Oh, how it drags the Christ’s highest honors in the dust to distort God’s Word so that His priesthood is eternal and His reign everlasting!  Christ does not reign forever, my friend, for “He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.  For He (the Father) 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” (I Cor. 15:25-28).  May God forgive the ignorant zeal which seeks to gild the glory of His crowns with the tarnished tinsel of man’s imagination!  What He starts He will finish, and what He commences He will consummate, praise His wonderful name!

One of the main arguments of the book of Hebrews is that the Aaronic priesthood  and sacrificial ritual “brought nothing to completion.”  It was a treadmill of repetitive service which could not make the participants perfect.  But Christ’s Melchizedek Priesthood does and will bring mankind into perfect harmony with God, however many ages it takes, for He continues to live and remains a priest unto “THE AGE.”  During the Church age the Lord Jesus has been the only priest of that High Order, a priest for us, His younger brethren, to bring us to the perfection of His incorruptible life. But now we, together with Him, shall make up that priesthood for the age and the ages to come.  Oh yes!  We shall REIGN WITH HIM.  “Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign over the earth” (Rev. 5:10).  In and through His body of sons He is well able to complete the work and bring the priestly service to a close!  If the Melchizedek Priesthood should continue forever, then His priesthood would be just as impotent as Aaron’s, never able to obtain its objective.  Hence Christ, and those who share His Priesthood, are priests after the order of  Melchizedek “eis ton aiona” — to the age.  WITH WHAT ANTICIPATION DO WE AWAIT THAT GLORIOUS AGE!  WITH WHAT JOY DO WE GIVE OURSELVES TO SERVE IN THIS MELCHIZEDEKIAN ORDER TO BRING THAT AGE TO PASS!  At last, at long last, praise God, the Royal Priesthood will be able to say with finality, IT IS FINISHED!  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

That God might advance His Kingdom from one stage to another He has by omniscient wisdom designed dispensations, epochs, and ages.  From time to time He brings about a change in dispensations, which means the bringing forth of new means, methods, and revelations, always richer and more glorious and powerful and earth-shattering than the previous ones.  There always lies between the closing of one age and the opening of another, a short period which partakes of the powers and methods of both ages, and is especially filled with dramatic manifestations of God’s activity.  We are now in the very throes of such a time, which lies between the age of the building in the earth of the many-membered Christ body and the age when the Kingdom shall subdue and break in pieces all the governments and nations of man.  The rule of the Kingdom of God over the nations is about to open in power and great glory!  This new age that is even now dawning will see the most extraordinary move of God, so vast in proportions, so dynamic in power, so revolutionary in its effects that it will transform all the present cultures and society of mankind, switch the currents of civilization, and alter the structure of the nations.  This earth will receive such dramatic shock, such a global earthquake, such a divine impact of wisdom and glory and power that the whole world will be changed, completely remodeled.

This revolution will come through the manifestation of the sons of God and will penetrate and judge the motives, character, intents, activities, and institutions of the whole world!  This marvelous work and ministry will be wrought by a company of King-Priests after the Order of Melchizedek.  This sonship ministry will be the most awesome and powerful ministry the Lord has ever unleashed on the earth.  Nothing will be able to stand before it!  It will consume and break in pieces the whole fabric of the nations.  The economic, cultural, educational, military, ecclesiastical and political structures that man has erected by the carnal mind and fleshly wisdom will disintegrate before the very eyes of all men.  These sons of the Most High are even now being prepared and empowered with the mightiest weapon in the universe — the sword of the Spirit which is the living word of God!  All things and all creatures obey the command of the word of the Most High God!  At His word creation springs forth and darkness flees from before His face.   

“The Lord shall utter His voice (speak His word) before His army: for His camp is very great: for He that is strong executeth His word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” (Joel 2:11).  This army of God is earth’s deliverers and the Lord’s restoration hosts; not a revival crusade, not a political action committee, not a movement or organization, not a regiment of soldiers, but a spiritual company of divine origin and formation — invincible and all-conquering!  These are the marching men and women of God progressing through the ages, tramping the corridors of God’s purposes, binding time and eternity together, fulfilling their mission, bringing the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.  Wherever the desperate needs of men are, from India’s vast land, teeming with hundreds of millions, from Africa’s dark juju ceremonialism, from the igloos of Iceland to the farthest reaches of Tierra del Fuego, from Wall Street to the Great Wall of China, from the ivory-covered halls of learning in Paris, or Cambridge, to the dusty roads of the commonplace of all nations — wherever man may be found — the sons of God shall bring the blessings and benefits of the Kingdom of Heaven with power and great glory!

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

What a high and holy calling!  “But God, who is rich in mercy...hath quickened us together with Christ...that in the ages to come He might SHOW the exceeding riches of His grace...” (Eph. 2:4-7).  Those dear people who teach and preach that the day of grace will soon be ended know nothing at all of grace, nor do they understand that God Himself is grace.  He is the God of all grace.  You may as well say that God can die as to say that grace will end.  So vast, so marvelous are the wonders of His grace, it will require the ages to come to continue to unfold these wonders, and He has purposed that there shall be a people through whom He would give this demonstration.  “That in the ages to come He might show...”  “Show” is from a Greek word meaning “to exhibit, to put on display like a work of art, to demonstrate.”  The Amplified Bible reads, “He did this that He might CLEARLY DEMONSTRATE through the ages to come the immeasurable (limitless, surpassing) riches of His free grace...”  Kenneth Wuest translates, “In order that He might EXHIBIT...in the ages that pile themselves upon one another in continuous succession the surpassing wealth of His grace...”  What a word!  “Show...demonstrate...exhibit the riches of His grace” — unto whom?  Not to those who already know it, for they are the demonstration!  For those who have experienced His grace to demonstrate that grace unto themselves would be useless nonsense.  Ah, but to demonstrate it to those who do not know it!  To the whole vast creation of men and realms and worlds and universes who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Ah, God is preparing a divine show for all the earth, indeed for the entire universe.  The mighty Barnum, in describing his circus, said it was THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.  True, Mr. Barnum was a great showman and, for its kind, he had a great show, but God is the Master Showman and He is preparing to give the world THE GREATEST SHOW IT HAS EVER SEEN.  It is a theatrical of MERCY and GRACE and LOVE in a world of wrath and despair and sin and death.  This will be God’s master stroke as the curtain rises on creation’s greatest drama — God’s Great Show— THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD!  Praise His name, once the finishing touch is put on the last stone of His living temple of Kings and Priests, the firstfruits of His redemption, in ages yet to come He shall put His grace and kindness and wisdom and power inwrought in us ON DISPLAY so that the entire creation may walk across the stage of His cosmic theater and behold and see and finally come to understand and appreciate what God has provided for all men in Christ.

Our ears have heard the sound of the trumpet and we cannot, dare not, settle for anything less, we must follow on to know the Lord in all His glorious fullness, to put on the mind of Christ, to be transformed into His image, to drink deeply of His incorruptible life, so that we in turn may be His Givers unto all.  Let us not sell creation short in these days!  All creation is groaning and travailing together in pain to be delivered from the bondage of corruption.  Mankind is sick and tired of sin and fear and hatred and sorrow and pain and empty religious platitudes, rituals, ceremonies, doctrines and programs.  The whole race is gripped by the most intense desire to receive, there is everywhere an unprecedented hunger for deliverance, life and reality.  Let us not deny the Lord who purchased us to be a Kingdom of Priests by settling for something less, a comfortable position in the church realm, or a mansion over the hilltop.  While we seek no glory of our own, there is, nevertheless, great wealth and heavenly glory for all who fulfill the will of God.  You never lose with God!   

The compelling passion of my life is to be filled with all the fullness of God and come to the image of Jesus Christ.  The deep cry of my heart is for the satisfaction of knowing that my life counts for God.  As God knows my heart, it is not a selfish desire.  The reason I want to be like Jesus is because I love Him so, but also because it is the only way I can ever be used in the restoration of the fallen creation.  I see the needs of the world around me, and realize that I am practically powerless to do anything about it.  Oh yes, I can pray, and give a little, and believe God, and see occasional conversions, deliverances, and blessings.  But anyone who says they have reached the place where their ministry is meeting the needs of the world is either blind to the needs of humanity, a proud hypocrite, or a compulsive liar.  “Lord Jesus!  Breathe Thy Spirit into all who read these lines until we are like Thee in all of Thy ways that Thou mayest be glorified and all creation blessed.  Make us a center of omnipotent God!  May the great river of Thy love and grace and power flow, and flow, and flow until the outflow of Thyself from our center knows no circumference, enveloping all creation in Thy life and light and love.  Amen!”

God will make the reality ours.  And it shall bring the increase of His Kingdom into the next age and unto the ages to come.  Blessed be His name!

Chapter 45

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

From the dawn of history right down to the present time men have dreamed of a golden age when peace and prosperity, health and happiness should be blessed realities among all peoples of every kindred and tongue and people and nation on earth.  Poets, philosophers and prophets have sung and spoken of harmony and brotherhood when all strife and discord should cease and the earth should be reborn.   Plato wrote of an ideal republic, and the Lord Chancellor of England in the reign of king Henry the Eighth described a glorious Utopia one day to be established among all nations throughout the world.  The ancient Hebrew prophets prophesied of a time when the nations would beat their swords into plowshares, men would live so long that one who died at an hundred years of age would be a mere child, and the whole earth would be full of the glory of the Lord.   Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others, politicians, military generals, ministers, and visionaries of all kinds have predicted the arrival of the Golden Age, the Utopia to come.  Were all these men suffering from delusions or merely indulging in wishful thinking?  Shall these things be, or is it in vain that men look forward to the coming of a nobler, truer, happier, more blessed and righteous order in the world?  If such a vision is to be relegated to the realm of fiction and fantasy, or if such realities exist only in the realm of the spirit or in some bright glory-world above, then it is useless for us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, AS IN HEAVEN SO IN EARTH.”

Oftentimes when a motel or restaurant is poorly managed and thereby develops a bad reputation, its business falls off and the owner is forced to sell or vacate.  The first thing the new manager does is to put up a huge sign conspicuously located, reading, UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.  This is what will happen to this planet soon!  Truly things are in a bad, distressful and deplorable condition.  The manager, old Adam with his carnal mind, human reasoning, and sinful nature, has been wicked and deceitful, selfish and immoral, causing strife, heartaches, wars, deaths, tragedies, pains, troubles and sorrows everywhere. Thank God his lease is about up!   The first man Adam’s days are numbered, and the second man, who is the last Adam, is about to take over this earth, and will become its new manager, if you please, as is indicated in the following verses: “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.  Ask of me, and I shall give unto thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.  Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:7-9).  This is the destiny of all the sons of God!

God is not one bit interested in whisking us off this planet and hiding us from the devil in some far-off heaven somewhere.  But He is vitally concerned with making us overcomers, the sons of God in the midst of the land, to inherit all nations and rule them with a rod of iron.  “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”  It is not God’s purpose to burn up the earth and destroy the nations of men that He has created to inhabit the earth, exiling billions of men and women into eternal damnation in the abyss of hell.  Oh, no!  It is His purpose to heal the nations!  “And the leaves of the tree (of life) are for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2).  “And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it (the City of God)” (Rev.   21:24).  God is going to destroy the sin and rebellion in the world, but He is going to bring healing to the nations.  The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings for all men and for all the nations!

Only with great difficulty can we even imagine what the world will be like under the ministry and rule of the manifested sons of God.  It’s wonderful to look at what’s in that new world, but it’s almost as great to think of what’s not there.  Satan and all his cronies will be missing (Rev. 20:1-3).  The Kingdom of Heaven on earth will have no crack houses  or rehabilitation centers, no police stations or courthouses or prisons, no locks or alarms.  “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain (kingdom): for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9).  In the new world there will be no guns, no missile factories, no abortion clinics, no sirens wailing, no ambulances, no hospitals, no cancer clinics, no morgues or funeral parlors.  “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4).   The shroud of Turin is an ancient burial cloth that shows the wounds and facial features of a crucified man.  Certain analysts think it has undergone a kind of radiation.  Some Christians believe it is the shroud in which Jesus was buried, and that gets them excited.  But I’m not so excited about any shroud Jesus may have preserved.  I’m excited about the shroud Jesus destroys.  “On this mountain He shall destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever.  The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from off all faces” (Isa. 25:7-8).

At the present time men are, on account of sin, made to be afraid of one another.  This is really the meaning of all the policemen, the detectives, the FBI, the CIA, security guards and neighborhood watch programs.  All these exist in order to protect us from violence, injury and violation at the hands of our fellow-men.  This is the meaning, too, of all the carefully and strongly constructed locks, bars, and security systems in our houses and businesses, to protect us from thieves and rapists and murderers and others who would molest us.  This is the meaning of the millions of soldiers who are trained in the art of warfare, as well as the great navies patrolling the seas, the air force flying the skies and the satellites scanning the globe.  They exist for the purpose of affording protection from hostile invaders or terrorists bent on coming to take away our freedoms and power and position on the earth.  This is the meaning of the large burglar-proof safes made to be so specially strong and secure that men cannot steal away our treasures and wealth.

I am reminded of something I read some time ago.  Standing before a masterpiece in a national museum, a tourist says in a snide tone, “I don’t see anything in that!”  Then another tourist, looking at the same work of art, replies thoughtfully, “Don’t you wish you could?”  As we witness our nation and society deteriorating year after year, and as we read and see reports that confirm our worst fears, ordinary citizens tend to sigh in despair and say, “I see no reason for hope.”  And as they despair, we hear the still small voice of the Spirit asking, “Don’t you wish you could?”  Thank God for the hope of creation!  According to the apostle Paul’s teaching in the eighth chapter of Romans the hope of all creation is the manifestation of the sons of God.  Together we can praise God that this present evil order is shortly to come to an end.  The world, which for ages has been marred by sin and ruled in unrighteousness, is to experience the rule of heaven.  “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  That is the prayer of sons!  That will make this earth of ours like heaven, because heaven’s conditions will prevail and God’s will shall be done here — everywhere and in all things.   Isn’t that simple, now?  Isn’t that much more reasonable than going into this theological blackout and thinking that this world is sort of a diving-board from which men jump into either eternal torment, or up into the clouds somewhere?  Doesn’t the gospel of the Kingdom of God fill your soul with the realism of God’s great plan and give you a redemptive vision?  Ah, it will give you an incentive to fulfill the will of God here and now upon the earth!

The first great work of the new age is the manifestation of the sons of God.  “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev. 2:26-27).  The spectacle will be absolutely unique and glorious, as the Saviour of the world, the King of kings and Lord of lords, comes to be revealed in the fullness of His love, righteousness, power and glory in the splendor of myriads of glorified sons of God!  The sons of God will hold in their unerring hands the reins of government over all the earth!  The mighty Christ within us knows all languages.  He certainly understands and knows all hearts with all their hopes, dreams, desires, and ambitions, whether good or bad.  He is the fountainhead of all wisdom and grace and power, and foreknows all things from the beginning.  Morning stars shall again sing together, and all the sons of God shall shout for joy, when Jesus comes to be revealed in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe in that day.

The disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ were greatly perplexed when Jesus died.  But then He arose the conquering Christ!  The fact of the Christ’s resurrection is historic.  The man who disputes it disputes the best established fact in history.  He was seen by those who despaired of His existence.  He ate with them.  He drank with them.   He walked with them in a bloodless body.   He talked to the despondent and broken-hearted apostles, the eleven, for nearly forty days.  It was impossible to be deceived.  He spoke, and was heard and seen on one occasion by five hundred, most of whom were living at the time that Paul made the declaration that they knew Christ and had seen Him after His resurrection.  He proved His resurrection by telling them that if they would go to Jerusalem and enter into an upper room, and wait for the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit’s power would come.  The promised outpouring took place.  Christ went up and the Holy Ghost came down.  They saw Him go and they saw Him come.  It shook the place where they were sitting.  The divine earthquake shook Jerusalem.  It shook Israel.  It shook the Roman empire until it fell, to rise no more.  It shook the world.  The Spirit’s power came.  The Christ returned in mighty Spirit-power.  He ascended up far above all heavens that He might return as the Spirit to fill all things (Eph. 4:10).  He who is the Truth came again as the Spirit of Truth.  He came as an indwelling Life.  Men who were weak became strong.  Men who were wicked murderers and devils were transformed into men of virtue and power with God.  Men who were illogical became great and mighty reasoners.  Men who were feeble stood up, and in their spiritual majesty tower today above all the men of their time.  All history substantiates the claim.  Every philosopher and potentate of their time had to recognize them so that Peter, Paul, James, John, and many of their successors, became the mightiest Powers even in a heathen Empire.

The day had dawned, the shadows were fleeing away, darkness dispelled.  We would but deceive ourselves were we to conclude that the conflict of the ages between Christ and Satan, between truth and error, between light and darkness, between righteousness and unrighteousness, between life and death has ended.  The second thousand years are drawing to a close since Jesus came, died, conquered death, and poured out His life-giving Spirit and, blessed be His name, He pursues His mission still and reigns in majesty over His Kingdom by entering into these temples of clay, and filling our spirits, and souls, and bodies with His own eternal presence and power, making us one with Him, members of His very own body, of His flesh, of His bone, of His blood.  He has gathered millions into His gospel net of salvation that out from their midst He may birth a vast company of sons who have put on the mind of Christ, been conformed into His image, with the Law of His Life inscribed upon the tables of their hearts, that they may then be filled with the fullness of His Spirit.  And the hour is wonderfully nigh at hand when there shall be a further transformation, even the bodies of His elect sons shall be changed in likeness unto His body of glory as this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this mortal puts on immortality, so that we, who were destined from the beginning to be the revelation of HIMSELF to creation, may complete His mighty work for the redemption of humanity.

And now, a new Day has dawned!  Thank God, a few of His chosen ones have arisen to behold the dawn and to drink in the intoxicating freshness of the morn.  A new age has arrived.  “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men (humanity, mankind), and He shall 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 (mankind’s) 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. 21:3-4).  Blessed promises of a mighty deliverance, which by the Spirit we even now begin to see fulfilled.  The time has come for the nations to hear the voice of the Son of God and live!  There shall be a glorious victory as the devil that has deceived all nations is bound with the great chain of the word of God through His sons.  The un-deceiving of the nations means a new mentality, new understanding, new thought processes, the unveiling of the truth about all things in the minds of the vast multitudes of earth.   The light of divine truth and reality will at last shine into the speculations of science, the theories of education, the practice of commerce, the world of politics, the dogmas of religion, and all things will be MADE NEW!  What anticipation this evokes in our hearts!  “And it shall come to pass, that...all nations...shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. 14:16).   This scripture reveals that it is by the ministry of those who have partaken of, and entered experientially into, the FEAST OF TABERNACLES, that the nations shall be brought into living relationship with the Lord!  Ah, those walking only in the feast of Passover (Fundamentalists and Evangelicals) or the feast of Pentecost (Pentecostals and Charismatics) can never get this job done!  Only those who press on into the fullness of God will have the power to rule the nations!  “And the nations...shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it...and there shall be no more curse” (Rev. 21:24; 22:3).

The ministry and rule of sonship is ready to be poured out upon the nations of this world.  What a perfect luxury of blessing shall come upon all mankind!  The ministry of Christ revealed in the four Gospels, shall be intensified by tens of thousands of manifest sons of God in the midst of the earth!  “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose...they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.  Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert” (Isa. 35:1,2,5,6).  When the mighty work of salvation, restoration, and transformation is complete there will be none of those painful and debilitating diseases which now plague mankind.  There will be no cancers wasting away the frame, no multiple sclerosis, multiple dystrophy, or Parkinson's disease destroying the nervous system.  Because streams of healing and deliverance shall flow out to earth’s needy, helpless and hopeless, there shall be no need of medicine, and drug stores will disappear.  We shall need no doctors and the great clinics and hospitals of our cities and towns will have no patients who need treatment, surgeries, or nursing.  From every mental hospital the inmates will stream forth shouting for joy at finding that God’s Christ has touched their minds with His omnipotent hand of love and power.   From every prison in the world will leap forth prisoners of each sex and every age to testify to the saving, delivering, transforming work of God in their lives, breaking completely and forever the shackles of sin and satan, turning thieves, murderers and rapists into men of mildness, righteousness and compassion.  The power of sin and death being broken, the undertaker will look in vain for corpses and will find it the hardest thing in the world to keep his business open.

NOW HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD!  When God’s spiritual work of mind, will, heart, nature and character is finished in each of His sons, the sign that the hour for the manifestation of the sons of God has arrived will be given throughout the whole earth.  On a day much like today, those who have been fully awakened within and transformed into His likeness in spirit and soul, will step into another dimension.  Suddenly, instantaneously and simultaneously every sickness and disease in each and every body of all the sons of God will be totally and permanently healed.   This will be the most astounding mass-miracle of the ages!  A shuddering will run through their bodies.  In an instant these sons will burst into the resplendence of the shimmering glory of God brighter than the noonday sun.  Incorruptible life will surge forth from within quickening their mortal bodies with vibrant, self-perpetuating life.  Their minds will at the same time be expanded with divine wisdom and understanding.  All things will become open and known.  The secrets of the universe will become as clear as the letters of the alphabet.  Creative power will flow from their mouths and their hands.  The secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed and they will know all that is within man; but they will not be permitted to speak these things, only mercy, grace and omnipotent love will flow forth to mankind!  But the very first sign that the hour of manifestation has arrived will be the sudden, instantaneous, and simultaneous healing of every sickness and disease in the body of every son!  You can watch for that sign that the day of full manifestation is here!  Some will not receive this word, but it does not matter.  The sign will be fulfilled, and glorious shall be the Day unto those who are appointed to it!

The lovely Christ who two millenniums ago spoke to the winds and waves and with a word hushed the sea’s mad raging, will through the authority of the many sons He has brought to glory control the climates of the world, giving freedom from howling tempests, raging hurricanes, devastating tornadoes, destructive floods, and desolating droughts.  By the increase of His Kingdom and peace ferocity in man and beast and nature will cease and “the sucking child will play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den,” unharmed.  The natural mind can barely comprehend what the world will be like when there is no hatred, strife, bigotry, broken homes, domestic violence, child or spouse abuse, alcohol or drug abuse, no war nor crime, no soldiers nor policemen, no doctors nor hospitals, no beggars nor homeless people, nor hungry people, nor children with bloated stomachs, no suicides, no election frauds nor stealing and buying votes, no wicked scams, no pornography nor prostitution, no adultery nor fornication.  All people of all nations will speak of God’s Christ as THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, for everyone will be righteous!  The nations will be spiritually clean.  Righteousness will fill the Kingdom.  The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  The laws of God will be in the hearts of the people.  The Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, and the joy and peace which God intended for man to enjoy will be restored to him.  The Kingdom of God shall triumph over all and there shall be no more curse.

During the age now ending the dealing of God has been with His Church, and not with the nations.  The nations have been affected, of course, but only in an overflow of blessing from the work and righteousness of God in His people.  The Kingdom in its present state does not rule over the nations of the earth, but the nations, for the most part, have a rule over the Church.  The nations have persecuted the Church, and still do.  The nations have placed limitations upon the Church.  In most countries the church systems are even chartered by the government!  The apostle Paul admonished the saints to be obedient to kings and rulers, and to submit to every ordinance of man for conscience’ sake.  Christ now rules in the hearts and lives of His chosen ones in the midst of His enemies.  But the day is coming when He will rule through His Kingdom Sons over His enemies.  While world governments exist under the supervision of God for the good of mankind, those governments are not by any stretch of the imagination a reflection of the Kingdom of God!  The spiritual forces that influence them are often the malignant spirits from realms of darkness, and most of their activities are manifestations of the carnal mind, works of the flesh.   No government on earth today is truly Christian.  No, not one!  Human progress without God has always been progress in evil, not good.  His upward progress, progress in return to God, has not been discernible at all through the centuries.  God turned the world over to man to govern.  But man ruined the world through sin, wrecked his happiness, and sold his life for death.  There can be no such thing as upward progress apart from God!  With every invention of man evil only multiplies.  With all the medical knowledge and great hospitals man’s wisdom has built, there are more sick people today than ever.  In the past century of man’s “enlightened civilization” more people have died in treacherous, bloody wars than in all the wars from the beginning of time put together.  Man has tried to rule the earth, and failed.  He is failing now.   The vast experience of six thousand years is now nearly complete.  With pollution pouring into our atmosphere, soil, rivers, lakes, and oceans; with atomic bombs stockpiled by more and more nations, and terrorists stalking the earth with fanatical zeal, the case is most manifestly going against man.

At this crisis we now stand.  We are on the verge of momentous events.  We are at the close of a long series of experiments made by Adam the banished.  And we find the world more wicked and more lawless than at the first.   Peace does not reign among the nations.   Misrule has not departed.  Righteousness is not ruling the world, nor our own nation.  Holiness does not beautify the homes of men.  Man has found no cure for the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human heart.  Sin and sorrow rage on, and he is powerless.  The curse still rests on the earth and poisons the air.  Man cannot check it.  The thorn and thistle, the prickly memorials of the first sin, still shoot up.  And the thorns and thistles in the garden of men’s lives are thicker and taller than ever.  Disease still scourges the body.  Man cannot drive it out.  Death still smites down its daily myriads.  Men cannot disarm or check it.  The grave still receives the loved, and preys upon the young and the beautiful.

These are the fruits of the first Adam’s doings, and this is the powerlessness of his children to remove so much as one in ten thousand evils!  It has been manifestly demonstrated that man can ruin, but not restore, the world.  His attempts at restoration have resulted only in greater evils.  Every invention of science has ultimately proven detrimental to the earth and to the lives of mankind.  His antibiotics produce super-viruses more deadly than before.  His automobiles and airplanes spew pollutants into the atmosphere.  His chemicals spread sickness, deformity and death throughout the planet.  His television and movies destroy the moral conscience of both children and adults.  His food additives and prescription drugs kill hundreds of thousands, yea, millions annually.  His guns and bombs and sophisticated implements of war have killed millions, and are still killing today in every corner of the globe.  But this progress in evil has a limit.  God has set bounds which He will not allow it to pass!  He will not allow this earth to become altogether a hell.  Even now He makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder thereof He restrains.  We are now nearing the boundaries of man’s evil.  The second man, the last Adam, has been formed in the earth as a many-membered body, and is now at hand and with Him the kingdom and the glory.  This Man is ready to assume the dominion that was given to man in that long ago beginning.   He will bring the cure.  He will knit the broken world.  He will subdue and subject it, beginning with the hearts of men.  He will break man’s rebellion with a word of power and life — a rod of iron.  He will redeem, reconcile, and restore mankind to the fellowship of God.  He will teach men the ways of righteousness and bind their hearts to the will of the Father.  He will rebuke disease and sorrow.  He will bind death.   He will rifle the grave.  He will deliver creation.  And on His righteous peaceful throne He will rule until God is all in all.

The sons of God are now waiting in the wings.  That is the essence of their action.  They patiently watch as the men of this dying age are moving helter-skelter.  These sons know in their enlightened minds that all the feverish activities of the world’s rulers is but the last frantic stages of a mad rush to save the world of mankind from destruction by the formation of a “new world order” already in view, a true City of Man, built by man’s ingenuity for man — this, finally, is the avowed goal they forecast for themselves, shimmering on the mountains of the future.  But God’s holy sons are waiting — growing in the knowledge, wisdom, nature, and power of their heavenly Father — but not for that City of Man that man is building, the modern-day Tower of Babel, for that city will not be built, at least not as men have configured it.   The Kingdom of God will come upon the nations after all the efforts of Transnationalists and Internationalists, of the Trilateralists and Illuminatists, of liberals and humanists, of globalists and ecumentalists have come to utter shipwreck upon the shoals of the treachery, deceit, greed, bigotry, wretchedness and wickedness of the human heart.

The day is coming, Oh glorious Day! when God’s nature and glory and power and rule will no longer be found only in God’s elect, no longer in a tiny minority of people in every city, state, province and nation, but in all people of all the nations.   There will not any more be one people redeemed, but all people redeemed; not one land glowing with the glory of God, but all lands radiating His life; not one nation owning Christ as King, but all nations become the Kingdom of God through the wonder-working achievements of the sons of God.  That great day is coming, the world will do the will of God, for Christ is not only the redeemer of His called and chosen people, but He is the SAVIOUR OF  T-H-E  W-O-R-L-D.  For Him the banners of all people shall wave in the breeze; to Him shall the kings and presidents and prime ministers and rulers bow themselves, and unto Him shall the gladdened hearts of the children of men uplift their songs of triumph.

He who came to redeem the world will not fail!  To deny that the world and the nations of earth will be gathered into the Kingdom of God is to wickedly deny Christ His victory.  The Kingdom of God is for the world, and the world is for the Kingdom of God.  Make no mistake about it:  Christ our Lord shall be King of all kings and Lord of all lords!  Onward, ever onward, rolls the glorious song of redemption, and to the sons of God who yearn to see the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, I say:  The world, and the whole of it, for God and His sons!  No less will satisfy the Father.  No less will satisfy His sons!

Someone has eloquently written: “What a scene of unimaginable grandeur that will be, when at last all nations are gathered to His feet!  That will include the people from all the European States, from Iceland in the far north to Greece in the south, and from Portugal in the west to Russia in the east.  There will the people from Algeria, Morocco, and the Atlas Mountains of the Sahara; from the great lakes of Central Africa, from the banks of the Niger, the Calabar, the Congo, and the Zambesi rivers; and from the upland of South Africa.  There will be gathered to Christ the people from Israel, Jordan, and Arabia; India will contribute her millions; and even from closed lands like Nepal, Sikkim, and Tibet, Christ will gather His inheritance.  From the Islands of Indonesia they will come — Java, Sumatra, Bali, Celebes, Lombok, Soembawa, Borneo,   and the rest — and they will be gathered to the feet of the Redeemer.  From the teeming millions of Central Asia, from China, Japan, Korea,  and Mongolia, there will be an immense home going to the Saviour.  From the myriad islands of the Pacific, the peoples  of Polynesia and Melanesia will be gathered to the Lord who redeemed them.    From Australia and New Zealand there will be multitudes who will join in the glad song of praise.   Every republic of Central and South America, and the West Indies — Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, they will come.  From the far-off forests and lakes of Canada and the plains of the United States and the mountains of Mexico there will be a similar homegoing.  This gathering to Christ will be overwhelmingly splendid!”   — Author unknown.

This is how the Christ will be revealed in His saints in this hour:  Christ is coming in power and in great glory!  He is coming to judge the earth with righteousness!  I am not talking about military power or political power.   I am not talking about power in the way men know power — NO!  The power of the Kingdom is spiritual power.  It is power greater than Pentecostal power, for Pentecostal power is but the earnest of the Spirit.  Christ is coming in the power of sonship, the power of the Man of Galilee multiplied and intensified in a many-membered body tens of thousands of times.  The mighty works of Jesus of Nazareth were but a sample, a swatch, a preview, a foretaste of the glory of God’s Christ, Head and body.  The Christ Himself prophesied of this greater glory of sonship to come when He said, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do...”  And again, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.  To him that overcometh will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father” (Rev. 21:7; 2:26-27).  He says that He intends to come to this little planet (in His elect) and finally put down the rebellion that has broken out — He will break the nations with a rod of iron and smash them to shivers like the vessels of a potter.  Maybe you don’t like that.  Well, you take it up with Him.  He said it, and He is going to do it just that way.

Suppose Jesus came back to this earth tomorrow like He came two thousand years ago, the man of Galilee, the carpenter of Nazareth, the gentle Jesus.  Suppose He were here.  Suppose He went to the Communist Party Headquarters in Beijing, China and knocked on the door.   Whoever keeps the store over there would come and say, “Yes?”  He would say, “I’m Jesus.  I’m here to take over.”  Do you think they would say, “My, we have been expecting you!”  No, they’d put Him before a firing squad in the morning.  My friend, how do you think He could take over if He came to China today?  He would have to break them with a rod of iron!  Now suppose He goes to France, England, and Germany.  There are no strong men in these nations anymore, but some ambitious men rule those countries.  They don’t want Him.  Their constitutions make no provision for the transfer of power to God’s Christ.  Suppose He came to the United States of America.  He could never be King because we have no king, and He could not be President unless He ran in the primaries of the Democratic or Republican parties.   And if He wanted to put prayer and truth and righteousness in the schools, in the courts, and in the halls of government they would brand Him an unconstitutional right-wing fringe fanatic and He would never make it past the first primary in New Hampshire.

Suppose He went over to Rome.  I was there some years ago and walked the halls of the Vatican, stood under the dome of Saint Peter’s, and paused in the revered quietness of the Sistine Chapel.  Suppose our Lord would go and knock on the door of the Vatican.  The man with the long white garment would come to the door, and the Lord Jesus would say, “I’m here to take over.”  What do you think he would say?  I think he would say, “Now look, you’ve come a little too soon.   I’m preparing a mass, and my pope-mobile is being readied for a historic trip to Asia, and we have two thousand years of tradition and orthodoxy and organization to back up what we are doing.  I don’t need you.”  I don’t think he would want Him.  Now maybe you think the nations’ reactions would be different.  Perhaps you are saying, “Oh, they would take Him.”  Then why don’t they take Him?  They do not because they won’t have Him!  Suppose He went to the World Council of Churches today, and He said to Protestantism, “I’m here to take over.”  Would they receive Him?  They would not!  Suppose He went to Hollywood and New York and announced to the heads of the movie industry and the news media, “I’m here to take over.”  They would hate Him, they would reject Him, they would ridicule Him, they would mock Him, they would make jokes about Him on the Tonight Show and on the David Letterman Show, laugh Him to scorn, sue Him, call the SWAT team and have Him hauled away!

When Christ comes in His sons He is coming with power and great glory, with wonder-working power, paralyzing, mood-altering, will-subduing, rebellion-breaking, mind-changing, heart-transforming, mighty regenerating power!  Let me quote it again: “And he that overcometh...to him will I give POWER OVER THE NATIONS: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; AS THE VESSELS OF A POTTER SHALL THEY BE BROKEN TO SHIVERS...”  When all the sons of God are manifest vengeance against evil and all the institutions of the carnal minds of men will be the first order of business.  Only the sons of God can rend the shroud of darkness and death that hangs over the whole earth.  These magnificent beings will possess the power of God to chase the darkness away.  After they have broken the power of sin and satan, the sons will begin a heavenly restoration.  As kings and priests of the incorruptible Order of Melchizedek they will with divine authority correct every physical and spiritual disorder.  This wonderful company will shimmer with celestial glory, and the life of light will emanate from them to illuminate and quicken all men.  These sons of God are the living government of God, the essence of His heart and throne.  They are the chosen and proven, the called and tested, the nobodies who walked closely with God and  are elevated to the heights of His Kingdom.  All the firstborn sons of God will step into magnificent permanence and find themselves clothed with the glory of universal power.

These sons will arise in the midst of the earth out of every hamlet and cove, from the deserts and rain forests, from the valleys and the mountains, from every town and city, from every province and state and every nation on earth and will be gathered together by the power of the Holy Ghost to form the governing council of the new world order of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus will stand in His rightful place at the helm of this invincible body.  Every son of God will be the brother of Jesus Christ, birthed in the image of their Father.  These are fantastic beings, focused, strong, powerful, mighty, formidable, overwhelming, supreme, conquering warriors who love creation and rule the created realms with all the power of God.   As an invading army of celestial kings they shall advance to subdue the earth.  In tumult and conflict, in reconciliation and restoration, their truth and light will cover the land.

No device of men — money, worldly wisdom, political clout, military genius — shall deter this unstoppable army of the body of Christ.  They will crush the ignorance of carnality, and abolish the power of darkness in the hearts of men.  The glorified sons of God will fear not to slay, for they are also the resurrection and the life.   Their actions are wisdom, their weapons are truth, and their motives are love.  They will dispense the knowledge of the holy as a clear stream, to bring forth judgment unto victory.  All the peoples of the nations will become their possession (Ps. 2:8).  Then shall the teeming millions of earth know peace in a new and unspeakable tranquility, for righteousness shall be established in every heart and in every institution.   All  creation shall rest as the nations beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  This is the plan of God for all the nations of this earth, and its implementation is the legacy, ministry, and destiny of Jesus the Christ.

THE WORK OF GOD IN THE NATIONS

The scriptures reveal many wonderful promises and much enlightening revelation concerning the rule of God over the nations.  THESE PROPHECIES HAVE NEVER YET BEEN FULFILLED.  By no stretch of the imagination can any development or condition during the Church age be construed as fulfilling these beautiful prophecies.  The glorious Kingdom of God will break in pieces and subdue all other kingdoms, kings, rulers, lordships, religions and gods and replace them with one glorious Kingdom of God in this earth.

Nothing is more evident in the Word of God than the fact that God has a great and wonderful plan which He is working out among the nations of earth.  Many saints recognize that God has a predestined purpose in the life of each of His people, an appointed end for Israel, an eternal purpose for the Church, and a foreordained plan for the overcoming sons of God.  But we fail in our understanding of God’s wonderful plan of the ages until we understand the great truth that the Lord has a determined plan and purpose for ALL THE NATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS OF MEN UPON THE EARTH.

From the very dawn of human history God has had the formation, development and destiny of NATIONS in mind and purpose.  God has always been actively dealing with nations.  I am indebted to Dr. Harry Rimmer for the following information.  The present nations of earth had their origins in the early days following the Great Flood.   In Genesis chapter ten is found a most remarkable and comprehensive list of the descendants of Noah who became the heads of the families and tribes which subsequently developed into nations.  Even higher critics have often admitted that the tenth chapter of Genesis is a remarkably accurate historical document.  There is no comparable catalog of ancient nations available from any other source.  It is unparalleled in its antiquity and comprehensiveness.   You would do well to read the entire chapter.   Here is the one link between the historic nations of antiquity and the prehistoric time of Noah and the antediluvians.  The grandsons and great-grandsons of Noah are listed, each of whom is identified with the city or country established by his descendants.  It has been possible in many cases to identify the names in Genesis ten with nations and peoples known to antiquity, especially as revealed by archaeology.

An interesting verse is found in Genesis 10:25.  “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; FOR IN HIS DAYS WAS THE EARTH DIVIDED; and his brother’s name was Joktan.”  Peleg — or rather, the event associated with his name — is of special interest at this point.  “In his days was the earth divided.”  Evidently this was a memorable event, and Eber named his son in  commemoration of it.  The name Peleg means “division.”  Almost nothing else is said about Peleg apart from mention of his family line and how long he lived.  The fact that the earth was divided in his days seems the only possible item of distinction that can knowingly be attributed to Peleg himself.  The important thing concerns the meaning of this indicated “division of the earth.”  It is obvious that this division was the division of the peoples that took place at the Tower of Babel, rather than some cataclysmic splitting of the continents.  We have such statements as this: “From these were the isles (coasts) of the Gentiles (nations) DIVIDED IN THEIR LANDS; everyone after his tongue, after their families, in their NATIONS,” and again, “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their NATIONS: and by these were THE NATIONS DIVIDED in the earth after the flood” (Gen. 10:5,32).

The descendants of Noah migrated over the whole face of the earth, forming tribe after tribe, city after city, and nation after nation.  Let all men know that it is the Almighty God who is the designer and architect of all the nations of the world!  The time periods and localities in which nations flourish have all been pre-arranged by the will of Him who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11).  The truth of this cannot be made any plainer than it is by Moses in Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High divided the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, HE SET the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”  Paul refers to this verse in Acts 17:26-27: “And (God) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord.”  This reveals that it was God who, from the beginning, set the national boundaries of ALL NATIONS.  These boundaries were established in relation to Israel and with a view to their being able to seek after the Lord.  While these things have not fully played themselves out, yet it is remarkable that the ancient land of Canaan was originally reserved by the wisdom and goodness of the Lord for the possession of His special people, Israel, and the display of the most stupendous signs and wonders.  The theater was small, but wonderfully suited for the convenient observation of the whole human race — at the junction of the two continents of Asia and Africa, and almost in sight of Europe.  From this spot as from a common center the reports of God’s wonderful works, of His mighty power and awesome glory, of the glad tidings of salvation through the ministry, death, and resurrection of His firstborn Son, of the wonder-filled outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as the footstep followers of Jesus were set ablaze by the life and power of their glorified Lord, might be rapidly and easily wafted to every part of the globe.  Yes, God set the bounds of habitation for all nations and planted Israel at the crossroads, to the end that all nations might seek after the Lord!  What a plan!

Can we not see by this that out of Israel came Christ; out of Christ has come the Church, which is His bride (Eph. 5:23-32); and out of the Church is birthed the Manchild, the holy sons of God who are destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron (Rev. 12:5) and bring deliverance to the whole creation that it might be fulfilled which was promised to father Abraham: “And in thy seed shall ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED” (Gen. 22:18).  ALL NATIONS —   shall be blessed!  From the very beginning God not only designed the nations of men that dwell upon the earth, He also planned and purposed to BLESS THEM — each and every one of them!  Not only Israel, not only the Church, but the nations themselves must come under the gracious hand of God in blessing and quickening.   Oh, the wonder of it!

One of the prophets of ancient Israel sang of this hope in the spirit of prophecy: “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause His face to shine upon us; that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among ALL NATIONS.  Let the people praise Thee, O God; let ALL the people praise Thee!   O let THE NATIONS be glad and sing for joy: for Thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth...yea, ALL KINGS shall fall down before Him: ALL NATIONS SHALL SERVE HIM” (Ps. 67:1-4; 72:11).   The day is surely coming when all nations shall be joined to the Lord and fulfill their obligations to Him as their Maker and Saviour.   “Arise, O God, judge the earth: for Thou shalt INHERIT ALL NATIONS.  ALL NATIONS whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify Thy name.   For Thou art great and doest wondrous things” (Ps. 82:8; 86:9-10).

Many precious “fragments” reveal God’s ultimate purpose for mankind, when “ALL the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and ALL KINDREDS OF THE NATIONS shall worship before Thee, for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and HE is the governor among the nations” (Ps. 22:27-28).  In the beautiful second Psalm the Father says to His Son: “Ask of me, and I WILL GIVE THEE THE NATIONS for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. 2:8).  Surely the will and plan of God is revealed in this most gracious request, and surely this was the purpose for which Jesus came and was sent.  “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of  THE WORLD” (I Jn. 4:14).  With this divine plan in view, well may the Lord’s people triumphantly sing, “O let THE NATIONS be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the people righteously, and GOVERN THE NATIONS UPON EARTH...and ALL the ends of the earth shall fear Him” (Ps. 67:4-7).  “ALL NATIONS SHALL CALL HIM BLESSED...and blessed be His glorious name forever, and let THE WHOLE EARTH be filled with His glory.  Amen and Amen” (Ps. 72:17-19).

If you are truly destined to stand among the company of the sons of God you assuredly share the thrill of the heavenly vibration in these inspired words:  “But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain (government) of the house of the Lord (the priesthood of God) shall be established in the tops of the mountains (strong kingdoms, super- powers), and it shall be exalted above the hills (smaller kingdoms, third-world nations); and people shall flow unto it.  And MANY NATIONS shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain (government) of the Lord, and to the house (priesthood) of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways, and we (the nations)  will walk in His paths: for the law (authority) of the Lord shall go forth of Zion (the sons of God), and the (living) word of God from Jerusalem (the bride of Christ).  And He shall JUDGE among the people, and rebuke STRONG NATIONS afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war  anymore” (Mic. 4:1-3).  Blessed beyond my puny ability to articulate shall be that day when it shall come to pass that “He shall sprinkle (cleanse, sanctify) MANY NATIONS; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for that which had not been told them they shall see; and that which they had not heard they shall consider” (Isa. 52:15).

The same ecstatic exclamation of joy and gladness at the prospects of God’s salvation poured out upon the nations is commanded by the prophet in these words, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.  And MANY NATIONS SHALL BE JOINED TO THE LORD in that day, and shall be my people” (Zech. 2:10-11).

The national message of the Bible is one of the most neglected themes of the church systems.  It is possible erroneously to limit God and His program of redemption to a narrow personal and individualistic interpretation.  In the light of such a profound array of scriptures as those we have just considered (and there are many, many more!), I am at a complete loss to understand how anyone who knows God at all could fail to grasp the living hope that a radiant age of splendor, in which Christ and His glorious body shall rule and reign and subdue all enemies and all nations and all things unto God, is coming.  A careful study of the scriptures reveals an outline of the progressive expansion of God’s Priesthood Ministry in the earth.  Its headings are:

1.  In Genesis we have the Priesthood for the Individual.
2.  In Exodus and Job we have the Priesthood for the Household.
3.  In Exodus and Leviticus the Priesthood for the Nation.
4.  In Hebrews the Priesthood for the Church.
5.  In Revelation the Priesthood for the Nations.
6.  In Colossians 1, Romans 8, & Hebrews 2 we have the Priesthood for the Universe — all of creation.

The first four of the above orders are now fulfilled and we are standing at the very beginning of the fifth — a Priesthood for the nations!  Has this wonderful reconciliation of the nations been accomplished?  History shouts aloud that it has not — not yet!  God has called Israel, built His Church, and brought His sons to birth, but He has not yet saved all the nations.  The kingdoms of this world have not yet been broken to pieces and consumed into the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven has not yet been given to the saints of the Most High.  All dominions do not yet serve and obey Him.  All nations have not been subdued unto Him nor do all nations come before Him to serve and worship Him.   China does not!  Tibet does not!  Iraq does not!   Iran does not!  Egypt does not!  The European nations as a whole do not!  In fact, only the Church worships and serves Him — not any nations!  But fear not, dear ones, for a people is prepared to take the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom and reign until the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ!

On the rocky slopes of the isle called Patmos the beloved John beheld in spirit the wonder-filled scene of God’s throne with its Kingly or Royal Priesthood.  He beheld, and lo, “the four beasts (kingship) and the four and twenty elders (priesthood) fell down before the Lamb, having everyone of them harps...and they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book , and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God KINGS AND PRIESTS: and we shall REIGN ON THE EARTH” (Rev. 5:8-10).

We have come to a period of the world, and to a condition, for which there are no precedents.  There are no instructions left for guidance in the details of the restoration of all things, beginning with the deliverance of the nations and their entrance into the Kingdom of God.  The Holy Spirit has given no exact direction concerning the manner in which the priesthood for the nations is to minister or its work to be effected.   We have, in the Word of God, abundant instructions for the “in part” realm of Church age ministry.  It is not difficult to learn how to function in the body of Christ as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, deacon, bishop, elder, or to move in the gifts of the Spirit.  But I defy any theologian to find anything that will give direct help, even in the words of Jesus Himself, concerning how to reign as King-Priests over the nations!  He left that for the Holy Spirit to teach to the elect company of overcomers who should be the heirs of the Kingdom of God.  We have come to that hour.  Ah, we can only learn these sacred and secret things by being TAUGHT OF HIM!  “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.  Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth...and He will SHOW YOU THINGS TO COME” (Jn. 16:12-13).

We think we have seen some wonderful moves of God, and we have, but we haven’t even scratched the surface, we haven’t seen anything yet that faintly resembles the glorious things God will do in the days that lie before us.  With all its multiplied missionary programs and evangelistic efforts the Church has not yet even started on world evangelism.  God is laying a groundwork and teaching. processing, qualifying, equipping, and empowering His people for the coming invasion of all the world.  He must do something unprecedented for us first, so that we will be ready.  We don’t have all that we need for this great work, but God is quickening us for it.  He is stripping away our dependence upon money, methods, and materials, drawing us to move out of that and into HIS REALM.  The realm of God is the realm of Spirit.  It is the realm of Being.    God is teaching us the ways of His Spirit.

The word came to Phillip the evangelist in Samaria to go down into the desert to meet the Ethiopian eunuch.  Phillip didn’t say, “Lord, I haven’t got a helicopter, how can I go down there?  Give me time to mail out a newsletter to my partners in faith and raise the money for the trip.  How am I going to find one man in all that vast desert, and anyway, Lord, I’ve got a big revival going here in Samaria.”  Phillip did not speak like that at all, but he obeyed the Lord and went immediately.  God TRANSPORTED HIM BY THE SPIRIT into the desert and pointed out the chariot and said, “Go and join yourself to that chariot.”  Phillip had to run and outrun the horses to get into the chariot.   And when God was through with him, the Spirit took him up and he was “found” at a place called Azotus.

Can we believe that when God wants any of His sons in any place, HE will put them there?   God, omnipotent in power, need pay no attention to iron or bamboo curtains.  He need not take into consideration national borders or immigration or passport offices.  He is in no way restricted by man-made laws and regulations.   We are talking about the miracle working power of God and a level of resurrection life to be manifested in the ministry of the sons of God after the Order of Melchizedek!  We have really known little of the Melchizedek Order, but God is teaching!  We have not experienced the fullness of this, but God is working!  We have yet to see a pure, unadulterated move of the Spirit with everyone in total subjection to the mind and will of God, but we are going to.  It is coming in this hour.  Some are already beginning to walk in these realms with baby steps.  Giant leaps lie before us!

We have not yet witnessed the magnitude of ministry that shall be revealed through the King-Priests of the Melchizedekian Order.  At times God has raised up mighty men and, as it were, pulled apart but a little the veil, giving a glimpse of the force of a ministry filled with the fullness of His power, the harbinger of greater things to come.  Such a man was Charles Finney, an attorney, who upon being apprehended of the Lord left his vocation, waited upon, and then followed the Lord.  When he entered into a town often all the taverns and houses of prostitution and other hell-holes would close, not because of some law, nor out of respect for religious gatherings, but because there was no longer any need for them, there weren’t any customers, the whole town had turned to God!  One man wrote of Finney, “No one has ever approached the gigantic stature of the mighty Charles Finney, who alone, without an evangelistic society, without a radio or television program, without a computer, without 10,000 partners  to appeal to or a business manager WON TWO AND A HALF MILLION SOULS TO CHRIST.  A hundred like Finney  WOULD WIN THE ENTIRE AMERICAN NATION.”  And do I have some good news for you!  God is going to turn 144,000 incorruptible sons of God, with a thousand times more power than Charles Finney, loose on this sin-cursed world!

Chapter 46

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

The day when the kingdoms of this world indeed become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ is the day when all nations are ruled by the authority of the many-membered Christ of God.  That time has already begun!  Everything that God did in the millenniums and centuries that preceded this Day was designed to bring us to this Day.  Everything Jesus Christ did on earth and has since done from the heavens was designed to bring us to this Day.   All that God has done in the lives of His elect up to this present moment was designed to bring us to this Day.  Oh, what glory!  What a Day this is!

Periods do not suddenly burst upon us.  They come by degrees, as the darkness of the night steals upon us at the close of the day, or the dawn of the morning chases the darkness away.  There are days and nights in the world’s history.  We are entering a wonderful day in the world’s history — when the saints of the Most High shall take the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom unto the age of the ages, and all dominions shall serve Him.  Prophecies which have been spoken by holy men of God since the world began are being fulfilled in these days.  Mysteries which have been sealed up in the Book of God for millenniums are now being opened.  Streams of events which had their source in the dim, remote past are now converging in a mighty river of divine destiny, which is rushing on with irresistible swiftness to the dispensation of the fullness of times.

The Kingdom now advances,
The great Messiah reigns,
And virgins join in dances
On Zion’s blissful plains.
How happy we, who live to see
The glorious Day increasing!
Give thanks, give thanks, give thanks,
Be thankful without ceasing.

Nothing in the world today is as when God made it.  Everything has been interfered with and changed in a greater or less degree by the power of sin and death.  God pronounced everything good when it came from His hands, as He made it.  Before things can be restored as they were at the beginning they must be shaken to pieces and changed.  “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.   And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers...” (Rev. 2:26-27).  “And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new...” (Rev. 21:5).  When the sons of God reign on this earth everything is to be good and pure and beautiful.  There is to be no sin and no sickness and no death.  Death is the last evil to be abolished.  Sickness and disease and sin and self and wickedness will be destroyed first.  Some do not believe that God will rule the nations or that creation will be restored to its pristine glory.   They entertain the notion that there is only the new creation and that the old will never be subjected to and swallowed up into the new.  Their idea is that the natural creation will simply pass from existence, it will be annihilated.  But that is not the testimony of scripture nor is it the heart of the Father!  The truth is that the old things pass away by being changed and made new.  That is why the scriptures tell us that Jesus came to be the Saviour of the world, to reconcile all things, to restore all things, and to make all things new!   There is a world of difference between making all new things, or making all things — NEW!  The sons of God are being prepared at this very hour in the bosom of the Father to deliver creation from the tyranny of sin and death — the bondage of corruption.

If I believed that this world was to continue to be misruled and misgoverned as it is, that the abominable press and vile politicians and greedy money-lords and devilish religions would continue forever to curse this earth, I should despair of the whole plan of redemption.  Redemption means a “buying back.”  Reconciliation means to “restore to a previous harmony.”  Restoration means a “return to a former condition or state.”  I proclaim to you today the great truth that Christ the Lord is the Redeemer, the Reconciler, the Restorer of —  THE WORLD!  He is all this because He is the world’s Creator and Owner.  God has never given it up.  Righteousness, purity, peace and power are in God.  The gospel which our Lord Jesus, the Christ, came and preached as Good News to planet earth is the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven coming down to earth that the will of God might be done in earth as it is in heaven!  Any other gospel is a spurious gospel that denies the work of God in redemption, reconciliation, and restoration.

The apostle Peter, speaking of these things, wrote, “The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (II Pet. 3:7).  But Peter had prefaced these ominous words with the following illustration.  “By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (II Pet. 3:5-6).   The heavens and earth of old perished, but they were not obliterated out of existence!  When righteous Noah stepped out of the ark that bright morning he stepped onto the soil of the very same earth that existed before the flood, and at night he gazed into the star-spangled splendor of the same heavens above.  Yet — all was changed!  Was it not a new heaven and a new earth by being purged through the overflowing waters of the flood from the wickedness and corrupt order that previously pervaded it?  With what joy and satisfaction do we now entertain the precious promise, “For behold I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isa. 65:17).  Hallelujah!  What a wonderful thing that God will so thoroughly cleanse our own little world and the whole vast cosmos that even our minds will be purged from the remembrance of it!  God will make such a good job of His work, that the past will be completely obliterated and never thought of any more!  God shall not end this present evil world and call forth the new by destroying either His creatures or His creation.  Not one thing, not one precious person shall be lost!  He shall bring this world to an end and establish new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness by MAKING A-L-L  T-H-I-N-G-S    N-E-W — changed, purified, and transformed by the fire of His Word!

The coming “world” will be one that will see the fullness of God in operation through His sons, the demonstration of the mighty power of the Kingdom of God!   It is not a mansion over the hilltop, nor a cabin in the corner of glory-land, nor white night gowns, nor harps, nor palm branches, nor dangling feet in some celestial stream.  There is a job to be done!  A battle to be fought!  A victory to be won!   Enemies to be conquered!  “And there shall be no more death.”  This is not a hope for heaven, this is God’s will for humanity on the earth, and this is what our call to sonship is all about.  It would be a most beautiful thing if all the saints of God could have an open vision that would enable them to understand the glory of God’s purpose on earth, and His election in man.

We read in Hebrews 6:5 of those who during this age have “tasted the powers of the world to come.”  The Rotherham translation renders this, “the mighty works of a coming age.”  The Interlinear Greek New Testament says, “The works of power of the age to come.”  How reminiscent that is of our Lord’s beautiful promise, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and GREATER WORKS THAN THESE SHALL YE DO...”  But have the followers of Jesus during this past age really done any greater works than our Lord Jesus did?  The book of Acts certainly doesn’t record them!  Neither do the epistles.  Nor does Church history.  The apostles actually never did any works even as great as feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, turning water into wine, or hushing the raging sea with a word.  And, my friend, after a century of the restoration to the Church of the baptism in the Holy Spirit; after fifty years of the restoration of all nine gifts of the Spirit and the five-fold ministry, and the prophetic flow — have you seen any greater works than raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and walking on water?   You know you haven’t!  But Peter prophesied of the MIGHTY WORKS OF A COMING AGE — GREATER WORKS THAN JESUS DID TWO MILLENNIUMS AGO!  And all the miraculous, the power and the glory, the visions and revelations we have experienced in all previous visitations of the Spirit of the Lord have been merely a small taste, a sampling, an appetizer of the glory and power of that coming age!  Why, beloved, we have only seen the firstfruits of what God will do through His enChristed body upon this earth!  The hospitals emptied, the dead raised incorruptible, natures changed, the crucial problems of poverty, crime, strife, violence, war, corruption, and natural disasters solved, the whole world-system transformed, the elemental forces of nature harnessed and controlled by the power of a spoken word — and GREATER WORKS THAN THESE SHALL YOU SEE as the glorious mind of Christ rules and reigns over the earth through the manifest sons of God!  The fullness of what we have just had a taste will be the normal works on behalf of humanity during that wonderful world to come.  The next dispensation is to be so different as to be the very reverse of the present one in almost every particular.  Rejoice, O ye saints of the Lord, for the end of the world is upon us!  “Behold, I make all things new!” saith the Lord.

THE PEOPLE OF THE NEW DAY

These are tremendous and exciting times in which our lot is cast; days full of momentous happenings, when an era is closing and a new chapter in our human history is opening; when, whether we like it or do not, the world we have known is vanishing; and another and very different one is taking shape before our eyes.  The Spirit of God these days is summoning the elect of the Lord, each in his own place, to play his part with faith and valor, that the purpose of God in this Day be not hindered; but that we may prove worthy of the daring trust God has put in us, and may so respond to it, that this great earth with its billions of people and more than two hundred nations may be gathered into His arms of love.  And to no one does this call come more plainly or more powerfully than to those called to be the sons of God!

While a few years one way or the other is a small matter in relation to the unnumbered ages in God’s vast universal plan, it seems clear now that we have entered upon a definite change in dispensations.  Therefore we can say by revelation of the Spirit that certain aspects of the old economy are now passing away and those of the new age are coming in.  Mighty changes are taking place in the earth, and man supposes that he is doing it!  But it is God all the time.  All is according to God’s plan and is the design of His hands as He moves by His Spirit among the inhabitants of the earth.

Recently I read one of Paul Mueller’s powerful exhortations wherein he wrote, “Father has a purpose for each age, a purpose that may not be revealed until the time for the administration of that purpose has arrived.  The mystery of Christ that was revealed to Paul was not made known in previous ages.  Not until the new day of grace dawned did the Lord reveal His plan for that age.  So it is with the new age of the dominion of the kingdom of God in the earth!  The new truths and the great mysteries for this age shall soon be revealed to those who have ceased walking in the ways of the dead past.  The firstfruits of the kingdom, who have been awakened by the appearing of Christ, the Day Star, in them, shall hear the fresh, new word of the kingdom.  The prophet Micah prophesied that the first dominion of the kingdom shall come to the remnant of Jerusalem (Mic. 4:8).  And indeed it is!   And, like Paul in His day, we shall hear a fresh, new word.  It will be a revelation of the mystery for this new age of the kingdom of God on earth, making clear Father’s plan for this age.

“New Truths, revealing Father’s new administrative order for the new age, are necessary for every age.  With the dawning of the new age of the kingdom of God, the Lord shall reveal new truths for the administration of His purposes for this age.  The new administrative order for the church was revealed to Paul.  That was new truth that Paul declared was ‘not made known to the sons of men’ in other ages.  The truth Paul received was indeed new truth.  Men of earth never before heard such truths as Paul received by revelation of the Spirit.  Paul wrote to the Romans, telling them that the mystery he received ‘was kept secret since the world began’ (Rom. 16:25).  So it is in this time of the dawning of the new day of the Lord!   There is a fresh, anointed word of truth for today that has also been kept secret since the world began.  Think of it!  We shall hear a fresh word from the Lord that no other person has ever heard before!  Like the revelation of the mystery given to Paul in his day, we also shall receive a fresh new word of kingdom authority and administrative purpose.  That new word shall shake Christendom and the world, and bring the blessings and benefits of the kingdom of God to many more people.  Doesn’t it excite you and encourage you in God to know that He has chosen you to receive the new truths of His kingdom, truths that mortal man never heard before?  Are you ready for this new kingdom word?  Have you repented of the past with all its dead forms and ceremonies?  Are you emptied of all the religious, church-age plans and works of man that are now obsolete so that you may receive Father’s new administrative order for this new age of the kingdom of God?

“When Jesus spoke to the people in parables, He said He did it ‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world’ (Mt. 13:35).  Did you know that the Lord keeps secrets from His people, secrets that are reserved for its time of fulfillment?  Well, He does!   And did you also know that God reveals His secrets to those chosen before hand, to those whose eyes and ears He has opened?  Indeed, He does!  The fact is, the truth I am writing at this very moment is fresh truth.  If you can receive this truth, then it is obvious that the Father has given you hearing ears and seeing eyes, to both hear and see the fresh, new, secret word of the kingdom, and enter into its fulfillment.  This word has been hidden and kept secret from former generations and those of previous ages.  That fresh, new word is specifically reserved for this ‘day’ of our transformation and the dominion of the kingdom of God in the earth.  It shall be revealed to those who love Him; to those who have hearing ears; to those who have entered into His rest, and have ceased the dead works of the past ages of man.  New kingdom truths and mysteries are being revealed and are now coming forth out of Zion.  That new word of the kingdom will reveal more clearly how we are to walk to be in full harmony with our Father and His kingdom purposes in this new day.  A new, fresh, anointed word of Christ, who is light and life, shall flow out of Zion to impart that life and light to all whose hearts have been prepared in advance”    — end quote.

The only people who have ever marched on with God in this world-plan have been those who have listened to His voice, heard what He said, obeyed His commands and believed and did all that this absolute surrender to His will involved.  Such people in ages past were the faith heroes referred to in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews.  It was greatly illuminating to me when I first saw that everyone of the individuals mentioned there stood at the junction, threshold or crisis of a dispensation.  You can verify that for yourself by turning to every stage of history associated with such people as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, etc.   The names are not casually or indiscriminately selected by the inspired writer.  He sees that they were pioneers in faith, that they lived ahead of their times, that they perceived what God had arranged to do, and come what may they walked on in the promises and purposes of God and did exploits in His name.  Each in turned condemned the world of the previous age, and brought in a new day of God’s purposes through their faith and obedience.  And each brought in and established a new administrative order for the new day!   And now — the sons of God have come to such a time as this!

In the gross darkness of this present hour I do not believe the age is ending simply because I observe great changes in the outer world in technology, lifestyle, and in the order of the nations.  Oh, no!  It is true, we have in one remarkable century come all the way from the horse and buggy to the atomic, space and computer age.  We have passed through two world wars that have changed the social, economic and political structure of the world.  Nearly all of the kings and thrones of Europe and the whole world passed away during the twentieth century, being replaced by an entirely new governmental order in the earth.  The former ruling houses of Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, China, Japan, India, Egypt, Portugal, Hungary, Turkey, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Iran and a number of other nations are completely destroyed. Who could have foreseen such things?

Yet none of this convinces me that we have entered a New Day!  Nor does the fact that the calendar has turned over to the year two thousand convince me!  The revelation of the Spirit is not communicated by reading Newsweek magazine or by doing intellectual, carnal-minded studies of chronologies, times, and cycles.  If it can be “figured out” with the natural mind, it is not a revelation of the Holy Ghost!  It is the voice of the Father by the Spirit, the living word of God that convinces me we are standing in the threshold of a new age!  Believe me, the sun is now setting on the Church age with its administrative order of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  The transcendent glory of that brighter and greater age ruled by King-Priests after the Order of Melchizedek is even now dawning upon us!  Some of God’s sons are already rising up into high realms of the Spirit, into the throne-zone of the heavenlies, and are speaking a governmental word to the nations by which they are being shaped for the hour that is at hand.  Marvelous things are happening among those who hear the Father’s voice and receive the revelation of His purposes for this time!  In 1984 by revelation of God I began a ministry to Russia in and by the Spirit and saw the collapse of Communism there just as the word of the Lord  showed me.  Everything that has happened there has been according to that word of the Lord and the proclaiming of it!  Later I declared in the presence of brethren that Mikhail Gorbachev was a dead man politically, and within three months he was removed from office and has never been able to regain power.  When the present distress in Russia has run its course there will be an unprecedented, sovereign move of God in that country that will bring multitudes into living relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The sons of God are beginning to reign in the heavenlies, and earth is being impacted by their authority and dominion!

Ah, precious ones, we are receiving a fresh word from the throne!  We know that we are standing at the transition of ages, and that the manchild is being caught up unto God and His throne, not by claiming a scripture or by embracing a doctrine, but because the Holy Spirit has powerfully spoken and testified of it among vast numbers of the Lord’s elect in recent years.  It is a revelation “come down from heaven” and proclaimed in the “power of the Spirit.”  Those who cannot see the change in dispensations, and know nothing of the sons of God ruling in the heavens, have not heard from God.  The present work of the Spirit has to do with the Kingdom of God increasing into the new age, not established just in the lives of the elect body of Christ, but through them upon all the nations and peoples of the earth.  It is a new day and a new work!  It is a new kind of ministry!  And it will change again in the near future.  In the previous age the Lord’s dealings have been for the formation of His body, the sons of God.  In the dawning age the Lord’s dealings will be through the manifest sons of God, gathered out of the previous age, for the increase of His Kingdom and peace throughout the earth.  Of the increase of His Kingdom and of His peace there shall be no end!  From age to age the Kingdom shall increase, first in the Lord’s people, then in all the earth, and finally throughout all the endless vastnesses of infinity forever more!

Since the great Latter Rain outpouring of the Spirit in 1948 God has thundered by the mouth of His holy apostles and prophets throughout the whole world proclaiming that GOD’S NEW DAY IS HERE!  One of the many prophetic songs given by the Spirit in the years of that wonderful coming of Christ to His people eloquently expresses the word the Lord began to speak and has continued to speak through the years:

The time has come to take the Kingdom,
Rise up ye strong, ‘tis Christ’s command;
For every power and dominion
Is given now into your hands!
Ye that have ears to hear the trumpet,
Ye that have hearts to understand;
The time has come to take the Kingdom,
Rise up ye strong, possess the land!

Another is this:

In the year of Jubilee, in the year of Jubilee,
The prisons shall be opened, the captives all set free;
What a mighty restoration, what a mighty victory,
The sons of God appearing in the year of Jubilee!

These are not the words of man, they are the words of the Holy Spirit!  These words were written under the inspiration of the Spirit at the time of a sovereign, supernatural move of God and are inspired just as the scriptures of old were inspired when holy men of God spake as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit.  Within them is contained the message the almighty Father is conveying to His very own sons for this significant hour.  When Elohim created the earth in the beginning, the inspired record states, “And God said.”  Ten times in the first chapter of Genesis our heavenly Father’s creative acts began with the speaking of a word.  “And God said...”  Each creative “day” began with that same statement.  The very first creative word spoken was the wonderful command, “Let there be light!”   Light then appeared out of incomprehensible darkness, flooding space and illuminating the earth.  Again and again we read, “And God said...”  Each “day” was brought forth by the creative word of the Lord.  By His creative word of power, our Father spoke every day, epoch, and age into existence.  One scripture tells us that it was by His word that God framed the ages (Heb. 1:2).  This is the wonderful pattern set forth in Genesis.  The Genesis “days” therefore become the example for all the age-days that follow.  And now, it is our Father’s word that has begun another new Day, even the day of the advancement of His Kingdom to deliver, redeem, and restore all nations under the government of God’s sons!  By that same spiritual process, in the power of His word, the Lord has proclaimed the end of the old age of Church order and the dawn of the new age of His manifest sons.  The change came by the Spirit, when Father released His creative word of Kingdom power and authority into the hearts of His elect.  We have heard that word!  We have received that message!  We have said “Amen” to the proclamation!  We have presented ourselves before the Father for His new work!  We have been given our orders!  That is why the excitement of the so-called “revival” realm holds nothing for us anymore.  Father reveals His words to those whose ears He has opened.  All those elect, who worship the Lord by ascending to His holy mountain, are hearing the mighty declarations of His creative word, announcing God’s great purpose in the transition of the ages, and the new order to be revealed through His kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek.

From our vantage point in the Spirit we can see that we are living  in a wonderful era when the old age is swiftly grinding to a halt.  The next age of greater glory, light and life is appearing on the horizon.  As the sun of the new age arises, the trumpet sounds heralding the dawn of the new day.  That trumpet is the prophetic voice now sounding forth alerting the Lord’s elect to the hour that has arrived and the work now to be done.

At a specific moment appointed by God, John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness of Judea proclaiming, “The kingdom of God is at hand!”  In like manner, so are the Lord’s anointed messengers of this hour called to announce the next stage of the manifestation of God’s Kingdom in the earth.  The purpose for John’s ministry was to alert the people to the hour that was at hand, which was the fixed time, the predetermined hour, as ordained by the omniscient mind of God, when God would move to bring forth His Kingdom among men.  His mission was to announce the coming of Jesus and the Kingdom.  As soon as John appeared among the people sounding forth his message, Jesus laid aside all His other activities, left the carpenter shop in Nazareth, and came forward to make Himself known.

With the preaching of John, the time appointed for the appearance of the Kingdom was at hand.  It was the time for the King of the Kingdom to be revealed.  Thus the scriptures declare, “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son” (Gal. 4:4).  The time allotted for the age of the law and the prophets ended the day the Father witnessed, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.”  The precise time had now arrived for the coming forth of a new day with a new administration of the Lord’s purpose.  No longer would the age of law with its ceremonies, commandments, and priesthood be the standard by which men would worship and serve God, and by which the administrative order would function.  A new day had come, and it was time to turn from the dead past to the new thing the Lord was doing.  And now, with the sounding of the prophetic trumpet in our generation, a new day is being announced, and all who are among the wise and chosen will heed the prophetic call of the Lord!

When Jesus came THE WHOLE PRIESTHOOD WAS WRONG!  When John the Baptist began his preaching, strange as it may seem,  he was the ONLY MAN IN ALL THE WORLD who had the right message!   Everyone was out of spiritual step but John, and when Jesus began also to preach, they were the only two who had the message of the hour.  Today we are standing at the transition of the ages and God is raising up men and women over the nation and around the world to proclaim the message for this Day.  But we must be able to forget the things of the past and look only to God’s purpose in this Day.  We cannot put new wine in old bottles, nor can we patch old garments with new cloth.  Just as Jesus and John announced the inception of the Kingdom two millenniums ago, so the apostles of the Kingdom in this day are announcing the arrival of the next stage in the increase of the Kingdom.

It is now time for the apostles of the Kingdom to be sent forth into all the earth!   These apostles of the Kingdom are the firstfruits company.  In these firstfruits the foundations of the Kingdom are being  laid.   It is to these — to the elect remnant of the Lord — that the first dominion or reign of the Kingdom of God comes.  Christ must first rule and reign in the lives of His elect before He can reign in the lives of anyone else.  And when Christ fully reigns in our lives, the scepter, or ruling authority of the Kingdom of God, is then bestowed upon us.  According to the measure that Christ reigns in our lives He has given us the authority to reign with Him from His spiritual throne in the heavenlies.  And according to the measure that His life, wisdom, grace, nature, power and purposes are established in our lives WE ARE GIVEN THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!   How wonderful and complete is the plan of our God!

Those people who have received a revelation of God’s purposes in sonship received it not from man, but by revelation of the Spirit of Truth.  It is God Himself who has delivered a vast company of saints from the bondage of Babylon’s harlot system into which the whole church world has been taken captive, bringing them out into the pure light of His truth — yea, the light which Jesus Himself is.  It is God Himself who has washed away the darkness and confusion of the false doctrines and silly delusions and static creeds and vain traditions of the church systems which for years held the Lord’s people in a spiritually starved and stunted condition and shut them up from the light of God’s eternal purpose.  It is God Himself who has opened the eyes and unstopped the ears of the called-out elect, teaching them more in weeks and months than they were able to learn in all the years they were held in bondage to church teaching and the doctrines of men.  It is God Himself who has opened within our hearts the heavenly vision of the Kingdom of God and given us the beautiful promise and hope of sonship, which is the high calling of God in Christ.  It is God Himself who has declared in the hearing of our ears and within our very hearts that we have entered into the transition of the ages, and the hour is wonderfully nigh at hand for the manifest sons of God to arise and bring the Kingdom to all the nations of earth.  It is God Himself who has set the agenda!

In these awesome days of Father’s dealings we have waited in His presence until all earthly voices were stilled, until the mundane sounds of earthly interests and pursuits were silent, until we could, in the wonder of His presence, hear Him whisper to our hearts the revelation of His will and the instructions of His purpose.  May God disturb His people from the paralyzing lethargy, laziness, slumber and death of the carnal mind!  Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!   The promises, challenges, and opportunities of God’s New Day are upon us, and only those who with abandon embrace the Day, forsaking the things of the past orders and all of Egypt’s bondage, shall attain to the glory, power and victory which is freely offered to those who follow the Lamb upon mount Zion.

God has called us to have a role in establishing the new order of the Kingdom of God over the nations.  God is offering to His called-out in this hour something He has never offered to any other generation before, He is giving us an open invitation to participate in the activity that will lead to the prize of all the ages.  It is greater than anything He has ever done from the time of Adam to the present, and it will never be done again!  It has never been done before, because it is God’s NEW THING.  He’s inviting a people to obey Him, to follow on to know Him, to be His sons and daughters indeed for the deliverance of all creation.  Beware lest old order brethren rob you and steal this hope from you.  It’s very important that we not let anyone rob us of this reward.   It’s our inheritance!  The inheritance is the absolute fullness of God to deliver creation!

God is preparing a people He will put His stamp of approval on and endorse with all His wisdom, power, and majesty.  The voice will come from heaven and say, “These are my beloved sons, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye them!”  You who have been thoroughly processed by the Father have His likeness, you bear His image, and He will put His full endorsement upon you to represent His Kingdom purpose in the earth.  We are called to live such a life and walk in such a dimension of righteousness, peace, joy, and power in the Kingdom of God that we can testify, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  It will take a life of total abandonment to walk with God as sons and express His nature in the earth before all men and nations.  It has been said that we beheld the Saviour and became the saved, we beheld the Redeemer and became the redeemed, we beheld the Healer and became the healed, we beheld the Baptizer and became the baptized, and now it is time to behold the Father and become the expression of the glory of Fatherhood in the earth!  We must not bear a message about the Father, we must be the message!

Beyond thy fondest expectation are the days that lie before,
No mortals have ever seen them, no days like these in store.
Like the days that are in heaven, they have come upon the earth;
Mankind has never seen them...’tis His Kingdom come to birth.
Like the sound of many waters, like the voice no man has heard,
So the former things are ending; it’s the Newness of His Word.
It’s the revelation of His glory spoken of so long ago,
Every knee to Him is bending, every heart in Him aglow.

And shall ye not know it?  Former things I take away;
Every bondage shall be broken, ‘tis God’s new Sabbath Day.
‘Tis the Feast of Tabernacles, it’s the year of Jubilee,
The sons of God appearing, all creation is set free.

Great is the Lord!  And greatly to be praised,
Beyond all expectation, the new creation raised;
The glory of New Jerusalem is descending from above,
It’s the fullness of the Father, it’s the fullness of His Love.
Expectation has been granted to all the nations of the earth,
It’s the glory of the Father, NEW CREATION BROUGHT TO BIRTH!

— Jack Hodgdon.

WHEN THY JUDGMENTS ARE IN THE EARTH

Through the cunning of the adversary, both the world and the popular church have been robbed of the blessed assurances of the time when God’s RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENTS break forth in the earth.  Most people know that the Bible tells of a “judgment day,” but the average person, believer or unbeliever, regards it only with a certain sense of fear and dread.  Because of this fear there is, to them, no more unwelcome tidings than that the Lord is coming to JUDGE THE EARTH.  Many tremble inwardly at the thought of God’s judgments, and in this mind put them far from them, preferring not even to hear the subject mentioned.  At various times in the past many people have become terror-stricken when some unusual event or terrible calamity has occurred, because they have supposed that the event signaled the finale for our planet with billions of people suddenly thrust into eternal damnation.  They have absolutely no idea of the wonderful blessings in store for a  sin-weary world under the glorious reign of the sons of God filled with all the nature, wisdom, grace, power, and glory of God!

The end of divine judgment — no matter its form, no matter its subject — is to bring the whole universe into harmony with His will.  With what optimism did the holy prophets and apostles regard the coming of the Lord in judgment!  Note the expectation in Isaiah’s spirit as he announces: “Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee...with my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early: for when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world WILL LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Isa. 26:8-9).  Here Isaiah assures us that the day when God’s judgments are in the earth will be a most glorious and desirable day, a day in which the inhabitants of the world  W-I-L-L  LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS!  How opposite to the idea entertained by many that when God’s judgments come into the earth the inhabitants of the world  will finally “get what they deserve” and be sent into oblivion or damnation.

If the desire of your heart is anything like the desire of my heart, this is a blessed thought and a wonderful assurance: The inhabitants of the world  W-I-L-L  LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS!   How my ransomed soul yearns to behold the wonder of such a thing!  Every time I scan the headlines of the morning paper I am seized with an intense longing that the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.  Oft times as I watch the evening newscast my spirit is mightily moved within to intercede earnestly that the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.  As I drive across this great land of ours; as I walk the streets of our cities and towns, observing the condition of those about, my spirit groans with unutterable supplications that the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness!   What a marvelous provision of our omniscient and loving Father that, to this very end, He has ordained judgment to come forth in the earth.  Bless His name!

While the Lord has permitted the devil, the great adversary, to rule in the hearts of “the children of disobedience” for a season, He has never ceased to plan and purpose for the ultimate release and blessing of mankind.  In fact, throughout all the thousands of years during which He has refrained from interfering on any large scale with the reign of sin, darkness, and death, God has been laying the groundwork for a glorious day of deliverance!  Our heavenly Father has had a strategy!  Up until this time His plan of redemption and restoration has progressed silently and unobserved by the world.  God has been quietly dealing with His apprehended ones, processing, purging, purifying, perfecting, teaching, training, equipping and preparing them for the day of battle and overthrow of Satan’s kingdom.  He has done this without any fanfare!  Just as Jesus, the firstborn Son of God, was prepared in His “Nazareth,” the “place of no good thing,” so today the Lord has a remnant, unseen, unobserved, and as yet unheralded, hidden away from all the activity of the world and of popular religion, in the secret place of the Most High in the Spirit, learning the ways of the Father, taught and instructed in the principles of His Kingdom, changed and transformed in mind, heart, desire and purpose, brought under the Lordship of their King and High Priest, in preparation for the day when the great Commander shouts, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!  And the nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.   All they gather themselves together, they come to thee.  The abundance of the sea (multitudes) shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the nations shall come unto thee.  Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the nations, and that their kings may be brought.  They shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The City of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 60:1-14).

The ways of the Kingdom are not at all like the ways of the Church.  The ministry of sonship is not in any way like the Church age ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  Sonship is the new administration for the new age!  The order of the new age will be altogether different from the order of the passing age!  George Hawtin graphically articulated this wonderful truth when he wrote in his paper, The Page, “Some years ago it was revealed to me that the evangelization of the nations during the coming age would be accomplished in exactly the opposite way to the method used in this age.   In the church age the commission has been, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.’  In the next age entire nations will come to Jerusalem and to Zion to seek and find the Lord.  What could be more certain than the words spoken by Micah the prophet when he said, ‘But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains (Zion) and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow into it and many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord (Zion), and to the house of the God of Jacob and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem’ (Mic. 4:1-2).”

The terms Zion and Jerusalem as well as the mountain of the Lord and the house of the God of Jacob speak prophetically and spiritually of kingship and priesthood.  John the Revelator beheld the 144,000 sons of God standing on mount Zion having the Father’s name written in their foreheads.  Mount Zion, the highest hill in Jerusalem, spiritually represents the very highest pinnacle attainable in God’s Kingdom.  Such are the ruling class prefigured by king David of old who dwelt on the natural mount Zion  in the earthly Jerusalem.  From there he reigned.  This company, standing on mount Zion, following the Lamb of the throne, can represent nothing other than those who have followed Jesus all the way, who have put on the mind of Christ and the nature of the Father, and shall now reign with Him on His throne forevermore.  The house of the Lord, on the other hand, bespeaks of the temple on mount Moriah in Jerusalem with its order of sacrifices and priesthood.  The two together are God’s ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, or God’s KINGLY PRIESTHOOD, the kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek.  Kingship and priesthood, embodied together in the ministry of sonship, constitute the new governmental order for the new age! 

During this church age, by the ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers the Lord has sought the people.  The Lord has sought the people in this way because the members of His body must be gathered out of the world.  But in the new age, when the Kingdom of God comes upon the nations, He will pour upon them the spirit of grace and supplication and the billions of earth will come, as nations, to seek the wisdom, goodness, life and glory of the Lord revealed in His sons.  What an indescribable wonder!  You see, when the Lord removes the veil, the covering that has been cast over the minds of all people, then all men will see in a clear light and will come to God’s holy nation to seek His face.  Centuries ago the prophet Isaiah wrote with great clarity of this same wonder, saying, “Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations which knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He hath glorified thee” (Isa. 55:5-6).  This is a glorious promise revealing that entire nations will run to seek the Lord, because He has glorified His sons upon mount Zion.

I have already quoted earlier the passage from Isaiah, chapter sixty, which clearly agrees and bears witness to this great truth.  Time and space forbid me to even try to quote all the passages that speak of the universal conversion of the seeking nations in the day when God’s sons are revealed.   Therefore I will quote only one more and pass on.  “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, It shall come to pass that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also.  Yea, many people and strong nations (industrialized super-powers) shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem (God’s governmental people),   and to pray (seeking the blessings and benefits of His Kingdom) before the Lord” (Zech. 8:20-23).

What a marvel that will be when the “Great Commission” has fully come to an end!  No longer will the Lord say, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.”  It is an historical fact that each of the first apostles to whom that word was spoken, left Judea and carried the word of Christ to different parts of the world.  According to histories I have read Peter went to Babylon, Thomas to India, James to Spain, Andrew to Scythia, John to Asia, Philip to France, Thaddeus and Bartholomew to Armenia and Persia, Matthew to Ethiopia and Parthia and Macedonia, James the less to Syria, Jude to Armenia, Syria, and northern Persia, Simon the Zealot to Armenia.  The dispensing of the Word in Asia Minor, Greece and Rome by Paul is a well-documented fact and there is some evidence that he went as far as Britain in his spreading of the gospel.  Thus, the Great Commission was completely fulfilled in the days of the early Church and continued to be carried out throughout the age now called by many the age of grace.

That was a wise and wonderful plan for this age when God was “calling out a people” from among the nations for His name.  Those who were sent were never able to reach all the people, and it was only “whosoever believeth” that responded to their word.  That is how Christ built His Church!  No one could improve on that method for doing the job the Lord required for that age.  But now in the new Day the residue of men, earth’s teeming masses, and all the nations of the world are being called upon to COME TO THE LORD.  Billions of the world’s darkened, dejected, weary, and oppressed souls shall come streaming into the Kingdom of God.  The sons of God are the Light that shall shine upon them (Isa. 60:1-22; Rev. 21:24) and the voice that shall bid them come.  We are also the “gates” through whom the multitudes of earth’s needy shall enter the New Jerusalem City of God (Rev. 21:25).  That glorious event shall so overshadow and eclipse all previous spiritual visitations, outpourings, and revivals, that none of our old church age terminology will be adequate to describe it.  God will indeed have to give us a new vocabulary!

In this new age of the Kingdom all our former ideas, opinions and methods of evangelism will have to be discarded.  The emphasis of the past age has been upon GO and DO.  Constantly we were going places and doing things for God!  But, thank God, the order is changing!  God is doing a new thing!  He is establishing a new order in the earth!  And we will have to change with God!  And we will change, because we will be changed!  All the old religious methods of the past age are passing away!  The time of raising money and sending missionaries and establishing churches is ending.   I do not say that it has ended; it is a good plan as long as God is calling out a people for His name.  But the new age demands an intensified program of God to harvest all the nations into the Kingdom of God!

Instead of sending messengers to go into all the world, the Lord will so pour out the spirit of grace and supplication upon all the nations of the world through the ministry of the manifest sons of God that it will cause billions of earth’s sick and sinning and dying people to flow like a mighty river into God’s Kingdom, to find rest for their weary souls.   We may think we have witnessed mighty manifestations of God’s power and glory in the past, but we haven’t seen anything yet!

I was greatly inspired by the following testimony of Paul Mueller which I share in closing these thoughts.  “I grew up on a farm;  before the Lord called me to serve Him, I was a farmer.  About fifty years ago, the Lord gave me a vision of a great harvest field.  In that vision, I saw a field of ripened grain being harvested by old, outmoded means.  The farmers were using a hand scythe, cutting the grain and then bundling it all by hand, as farmers once did before the invention of binders and combines.  But then, the Lord let me see that He had a large combine being prepared on the side of that field, waiting for the right time for it to be used.  I was encouraged when the Lord revealed to me that that massive combine represented the new thing He would do in the earth.  By the Spirit, I saw that the Lord was preparing a people who would represent Him and His kingdom purposes in the earth.  They would be used of the Lord to gather in the ripened harvest of the world’s billions.  In due time, the multitudes of the world will be as ripened grain to be gathered into the kingdom by His massive, spiritual ‘combine.’  They will all be fully prepared and ready to come to the Lord.  With heavenly eloquence and vision the prophets prophesied of this time.  We are now living in the hour when much of the prophetic word of the Lord shall come to pass.  And we are the people God has chosen to fulfill His purposes!”   — end quote.

Even with the light of divine revelation it is difficult to imagine the wonderful sight of whole nations coming to the Lord!  Think what it will be like!  One day a nation is communist, filled with people spouting by rote the godless line of  Lenin or Mao.  The lives of the people are tightly controlled by that totalitarian system, with all its restrictions and tyranny.  But then, the sons of God speak a word from the throne of the heavenlies releasing a mighty flood of the Spirit of the Lord over that nation, and the whole nation is set free by the power of God.  The glory of the Lord appears to millions of people, and the truth of Christ is unveiled to their minds and hearts.  All the people of that nation will turn to the Lord to love, worship, and serve Him.  They will seek God in the persons of His sons, and there will be a dispensation of life, light and love unto them.  In the sons of God they will see and learn and know the ways of the Lord, the will of the Lord, and all aspects of their national life will become transformed by the wisdom and nature of God.  With one mighty sweep of His Spirit, God has changed a communist nation into a nation that loves and serves the true and living God!  The Kingdom of God has then come to that people and nation.

What wonders shall be wrought when our Father has glorified His sons with the glory of Christ!  All the nations of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, bowing before the feet of this glorious Christ, confessing Him as their Saviour, Lord, Redeemer and King, to worship Him in spirit and in truth.  And since it is nations, and not individuals, that shall come to the Lord, it is obvious that they shall not come to a geographical location.  There will be no literal, physical throne nor any literal, earthly city.  The government of God is a glorified people reigning in and by the Spirit from heavenly places in Christ Jesus!  But they shall COME to the mountain of the Lord’s power, to the beautiful and spiritual temple of living stones, to a kingdom of priests and an holy nation, glorified in the midst of the earth.  It is an absurd impossibility to imagine whole nations coming to a literal mount Zion, or to great crusades in buildings or stadiums, which are all so limited.  Such carnal thinking is a remnant from the old age now passing, and has no place in the new order of the Kingdom of God upon the nations.  God will not repeat the limited methods of the past, for they can not prevail to do the work that must be done in this new Day.

The Lord is doing a new thing in the earth.  The manifestation of the sons of God is the next thing on the agenda in God’s Kingdom program.  This manifestation will bring multitudes, even many nations at a time, into the greater glory of the fullness of God dwelling among men.  What a marvelous plan, revealed and confirmed now by the Spirit of the Living God within our hearts!  We know God’s purpose because He has called us and chosen us to be a vital part of the redemption and restoration all things.  We wait in holy expectation!

Chapter 47

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

Even though we have heard that we are living in such a day of miracles and sensational happenings that people are shock-proof, let me remind you that people are not shock-proof!  Soon a series of prophetic fulfillments of a sensational nature will be transpiring right here on this earth that will shock millions of people who thought themselves to be shock-proof heretofore!  Truly, we are living in a day of miracles.  Every time we look at a new born baby we are looking at a miracle, and every time we see a giant plane take off the ground into the air with hundreds of people on board, we are looking at a miracle.  I have seen paralyzed people jump out of wheelchairs, tumors and goiters  disappear before my eyes, and gasoline created in the tank of my automobile.  However, these will fade into insignificance, compared to the miracles that are just ahead.

The prophetic word of the Lord gives promise of a time when the Lord will move in a marvelous and unprecedented way by His Spirit.  At that time the Lord will restore all that was lost through the ages past and the long night of man’s selfhood, sin, sorrow and death.  There is an event soon to take place which shall overshadow and eclipse all former, partial, manifestations of God’s glory and power in the earth.  The glories of this great event will inspire, initiate, and bring to fulfillment the times of the restitution of all things.  The grandeur, the splendor, the glory and the great power of God to be manifest at the time of this event is impossible for us to comprehend presently, for we are still living and moving in the realm of the “firstfruits” of God’s Spirit.  The grand and glorious event to which we refer is the manifestation of the sons of God.

The supernal glories that lie like towering sierras before us are beyond compare.  The grandest event of all time is now at the doors!  For almost two thousand years the Lord has been gathering out of all nations and peoples an elect body, refining its members in the furnace of affliction, transforming them in mind and heart by the deep dealings of His Spirit, preparing them by experience and in wisdom and knowledge to possess the reins of the government of the world.  And while we rejoice and praise God for all the mighty visitations of the past, and those glorious movings of the Spirit we have experienced in our life-time, yet we know by the word of the Lord that the next great move of God will be greater than all — the manifestation of God through His many sons.  Nothing is more certain than that.  The Spirit witnesses all across the land and around the world that the long awaited unveiling of God’s sons is at hand.  The unveiling of the in-Christed is upon us!  The cry of the groaning creation and the prayer of the travailing saint are joined with the unutterable longings of the Holy Spirit, all crying in unison and harmony for the arising of God’s deliverers.  The desire of all nations is at hand.  The next stage of the Kingdom of God is ready to unfold!

Let the mountains reverberate with the sound of the message, let the hills shout aloud for joy, and all the trees of the forest clap their hands!  For we now stand on the threshold of a new dimension of the Kingdom of God, and we must be prepared to receive HIM in fullness.   As we earnestly look for His appearing, we are to receive ALL THAT HE IS, for when He appears in His glory in His manifest sons, all the traditions of yesterday will be swept away and the realms of limitation swallowed up in His surpassing glory.  I cannot overemphasize this great and important truth: When Christ appears in the fullness of Himself in His many brethren, we must be prepared to receive Him on a higher plane than we have known Him hitherto.  We cannot tell Him what portion of Him we will receive and what portion we will not receive.  WE WILL RECEIVE AND MANIFEST HIM IN FULLNESS, and without any reservations or preconceived ideas, or we will not receive Him at all.  Either we will walk in the power and glory of His sonship, or we will miss the glory.  Should we cling to the ministries and methods of the past, we will not be manifest sons.  Vast multitudes of Christians will not stand in this new glory because of their tradition — but their time of visitation will come later.  But for those who are willing to pay the price, to be thoroughly purged of all that is of the flesh, and disposed to turn loose of the past religious traditions, the old forms and ceremonies, the former means and methods, and the stagnant remains of yesterday’s visitations, there awaits great glory and heavenly wealth, and a world-shaking ministry beyond the comprehension of mortal mind.

Some of us have surely noticed that in every generation and age God is doing two different kinds of work — a general work and a specific work.  For instance, in Noah’s day there is no doubt that God was acting in diverse ways and on different levels, doing numerous general things in the earth.  He certainly was caring for His creation and we know that His Spirit was striving with all mankind (Gen. 6:3).  But God was also doing a very specific thing.  The Lord appeared to Noah and gave him His word for the new day He would bring to pass.  The Lord told Noah that because of man’s wickedness He was going to destroy all flesh by a flood, except his family, and that he should build an ark to save his family and two of every kind of creature on earth.  Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord!  He was a just man and perfect in his generation.  He walked faithfully with God and became related to God in that specific thing He was doing in the earth at that time.

To fulfill God’s purpose required that Noah build an ark on dry ground in a world where rain had never been seen.  Nobody really knew what a flood was, for God had not caused it to rain upon the earth.  The face of the earth was watered nightly by a mist that the Lord caused to cover the land.  No one had ever seen a rainbow, for there was never sufficient moisture in the air by day.  After receiving his instructions from the Lord, Noah labored faithfully to build the ark.  With every stroke of his hammer Noah was judging that generation.  I do not doubt that the scoffers mocked Noah and ridiculed him for building such a huge monstrosity which he maintained would one day float above the mountains and save his family from death.  With no rain in sight, the mockers had a hundred years to laugh at Noah, taunt him, shout obscenities at him, while calling him a stupid and crazy old man.  But when the flood came and the waters overflowed the earth, their mocking came to an abrupt end.  God’s word to Noah, and Noah’s involvement with that specific thing God was doing in that generation, judged the whole world and brought the dawn of a new age.  When the flood was over, Noah and his family stepped out of the ark to see a new earth that was cleansed of the evil of previous times.

Ah, time fails me to speak of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Jeremiah and a host of others who dared to become related to God in that specific work He was doing in their day.  It is easy to be related to God in the general things He is doing.  Today God is moving in the earth to touch and bless and use people on may different levels of His purposes.  Vast multitudes of believers throng to the activities of these general movings of God.  You will always find the crowd at the general move of God!   But we live in a unique period  of the history of the world, just as Noah and others did.   And in our generation, as in theirs, God has a SPECIFIC PURPOSE in mind, that one precise, unique, special and transcendental work which He is performing for the advancement of His Kingdom into the new age.  The masses of Christians flocking to the meetings, crusades, projects and activities of the church systems in this hour are related to God only in the general things He is accomplishing in the earth.

There is a people unto whom the Lord has appeared and to whom the Lord has given His word for the New Day.  For this reason we are a people to be conformed to a higher standard — a people made in His image and likeness, trained in His ways, instructed in His purposes, initiated into His sacred secrets, devoted to His will.  The apostle Paul also lived in a unique period.  He was called to bridge the gap between the old and the new.  Paul was called and ordained and equipped to establish a new order in the earth.  So is it in this Day!  The specific purpose of God in our generation is to bring the many-membered body of Christ to maturity, to birth the company of the manifest sons of God, to bridge the gap between the old Church age and the new age of the Kingdom of God upon the nations.  I speak as a prophetic voice in the earth in this generation.   The manifestation of glory and power and righteousness that will be manifested in this Day will eclipse all former moves.   Who can carry on with the programs of man anymore, who can wade in the shallows of former visitations once he has received the vision of what shall be realized as God’s people launch out into the deep.  The last or most recent “shower of blessing” came as the great outpouring of the Lord as Latter Rain during the years 1948-1953.  The effect and blessing of that outpouring is with us still and various smaller showers have fallen also.  But the celestial deluge is yet to come in GREAT POWER AND GLORY.  Glorious beyond words to describe was that wonderful outpouring of God’s Spirit at Pentecost, but no language of men below nor of mighty angels above can begin to describe the SURPASSING GLORY of the manifestation of God in this New Day.  The “waters to swim in” are coming, the outpouring of the fullness of the spirit and life of the almighty Christ of God, and compared to these waters the former outpourings are but trickling streams compared to the vast ocean currents beyond the power of man to either produce or control.

Here me now and believe me later — if you cannot believe me now — soon there will come the manifestation of the sons of God, for which all creation has groaned for long millenniums and ages.  Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed from the living, completed temple of His body.  His glory shall flow out and fill the earth.  His power shall shake the nations and all nations shall come and worship before Him.  The harvest of this age shall be gathered.  Everything shall live whithersoever the River cometh.  The Spirit of God has witnessed to many thousands of saints around the world in this hour that a NEW DAY is upon the horizon.  The next great move of God is even now at hand.  There will not be another revival.  There will not be another visitation.  It is not the hour for the restoration of the New Testament Church.  All that has already been accomplished!  A new day dawns.  God is marching on.   He shall do an entirely new thing in the earth.  A new age lies directly before us.  The manifestation of God’s sons is at hand.  That has never happened before!  A new and unspeakably wonderful stage of the Kingdom of God is upon us!  In this New Day the ministry of the fullness of the Spirit of God shall be released through many sons in reconciliation, blessing, and transformation unto all the ends of the earth!  It shall bring a deliverance and change beyond any the world has ever witnessed.

There can be no hanging on to the things of the past.  There must be a clean break away from all of the old order, not only the orders of men, but the old order of God Himself.  We must forsake all that has waxed old and is ready to vanish away that we may attain to that specific thing God has called us to.  For my part, nothing short of attaining will satisfy!  We must attain without counting any cost.  It means the loss of friends and fellowship.  It means misunderstanding among our relations and often the closest members of our family.   Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14).  All others will go the way of the flesh, receiving their instructions and guidance, not from the Spirit, but from carnal-minded preachers, childish, immature Christians, and apostate church systems.   Do you want to share in the Kingdom?  Then there are responsibilities for you which Martin Luther, John Wesley, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, and all the other orders of the past and present have not had.  Therefore, for you to live an earnest and dedicated Christian life as these have, is not enough.  Did not the generation of Jews, on whom the end came in the days of Christ Jesus — the generation that saw or might have seen the glory that came with the new activity of God in those days — have responsibilities their fathers did not have?  And were they not judged accordingly?

Unless we are enlightened by the Spirit and given eyes to see as God sees, and hearts to understand as God understands, our minds will be filled with the darkness and spiritual foolishness of these times.  The Christ within should always be our guide!  The Christ within will open our eyes and cause us to see new things in the Spirit and by the Spirit.  Then we will see this great Day and Father’s Kingdom purposes to which His chosen, faithful and mature sons are called.  Only when we are enlightened by the light of Christ are we able to look beyond the feverish religious activities of the carnal church world and the evil and darkness of these times, to see the hope and purpose and glory of a people prepared to rule and reign with Christ in His Kingdom — in this Day!

When this people arises in the earth the Kingdom of God shall prevail through an altogether new ministry for the new age.  Yet many of those who yearn for the manifestation of God’s sons are left feeling much like the expectant woman whose due date for delivery of her baby has come and gone.  All the signs are there that there is a baby — the tummy is swollen so tight it can’t be pinched, the baby is kicking, the water may even have broken and contractions begun — yet the birth has not followed.  At such a time the mother may wonder if things could go on like that indefinitely.  It seems almost unbearable, the waiting grows intolerable, the nights long and depressing.  Still, all signs give assurance that the hoped for event will take place.  And, praise God, it surely shall!  We are getting very near the end of our journey.  For some of us it has been long, hard, and treacherous; the road often rough and stony, feet becoming torn and wounded.  But the glad news is this, the morning is at hand, the day is dawning, the glory of the Lord is arising upon the elect, and the overcomers are ready to be clothed with His resurrection and immortality.  We have been set apart from birth.  We were always “different” from others.  We were in the world, at times we were part of the world, and for a season we enjoyed the pleasures of the world.  Yet  something within us pulled us away and led us to the spiritual...to the unseen...to the eternal.  HE was always with us.  Through all the steps of our growth and development in the spirit we always sensed...knew...that there was more.   We were never satisfied at any stage of the journey, with any church or move or ministry.  We were irresistibly impelled onward to things we did not yet see nor comprehend.

Carl Schwing wrote of the beauty of this great truth, “There is a field, a very lovely field, where the lilies grow.  They stand tall in the sunlight and dance freely in the wind;  white trumpet-shaped flowers with the fragrance of a rare perfume.  They neither labor nor toil...they are free from things like that.  They simply do what they were created to do; they grow and become beautiful and are admired by every passerby.   But sadly there comes a cold gray day when the flowers fade and all of their loveliness is gone.  Yet deep within the cold dark earth they rest, until summer’s sun.  I have often wondered if the lilies know that someday the sun will rise to set no more, and that they will bloom forever in the Father’s lovely field.  Ah, then shall they be free from change and decay.  They will be free to live on and on, and be a thousand times lovelier than they were before.  I must share a secret: I know that they know...for they moan for the hour of the Manifestation of the Sons of God.

“There is another field...the earth which we are.  And deep within that  cold harsh earth there is hidden an inner son.  Within this son dwells all the mysteries of the ages.  All the wisdom and knowledge of the Father dwells in him.  He is the ‘inner being’ out of which the River of Life shall flow.  He is the emancipator that the whole creation cries out for.  He is a son of God’s Christ.  And now he rests within the body of flesh...till the call of the Rising Son.  This, my beloved, is the unrest which you feel.  The earth which you are is being shaken by the knowledge of the inner truth.   This is the feeling we have of something breaking forth.  The stone of flesh is soon to be rolled away.  The light of God is swelling within you and His Kingdom is being prepared to come forth.  Even now the Rock is grinding to powder the kingdoms of the world.  Even now we can hear the songs of the Kingdom as we dwell in the presence of the Father.  Even now the Kingdom Light is shining forth from our eyes (understanding).  Even now upon the horizon we can see the coming of the Manifestation of the Sons of God...and they shall live on and on, and be a thousand times lovelier than they were before.  They will be the eternal glory of the Father, the pillars of His House, and the joy of all creation.  They, with their Elder Brother, form the Son of God by whom all things were created, redeemed and restored.  Who can be compared to these Holy Lilies of the Field?  Hallelujah!”

There is coming a new and fresh and full revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The night is falling on the present order.  Already we are seeing evidence of the dawning of a new day breaking forth upon us  as thousands of the Lord’s elect are arising to behold the first rays of the dawn and to drink in the intoxicating freshness of the morn.  There is a mighty cry in our hearts for the Lord to move in an altogether new way in our lives and in the earth.  Many things are happening in the Pentecostal and Charismatic realms today, but I do not hesitate to tell you that all of those things are but stale “leftovers” from previous visitations.   We are due for a fresh move and a new work of God in the earth in this hour!  So the night is coming upon the religious realms, bringing an end to particular forms of the movings and operations of the Spirit of God.  Though all the manifestations of the past have been precious and needful, yet our God in this hour is moving on.   A new manifestation and revelation of the Christ is coming in the midst of us, and I hear and see the signs that He is beginning to come.  We are living in the early dawn of the fullness of the APPEARING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.  This appearing will be through the long-awaited manifestation of the sons of God.  It will not  just save and heal and bless people, it will deliver creation from the bondage of corruption.  It will bring full salvation, spirit, soul and body!  This truth is burning within my bones, pulsating within my bosom.  I am being quickened by these things.  My one desire is to be available to be a part of this appearing of the Lord that is preparing the sons of God for the wind-up of this age and the inauguration of a far greater age of glory.

We must be willing to move with God into the new, and that means to be completely released from, separated from, stripped from the old.  Oh!  How we try to bring the old along into the new, to adapt the old methods, the old order of the church systems to the new order of sonship and the Kingdom of God.  But God will not have that, my friend.  It is human nature to want to fit the passing into the mold of the new.  Have you ever noticed, for example, how it worked in the automotive industry.  How many of you remember what the first automobiles looked like?  If you do, then you remember they looked exactly like horse-drawn carriages without the horses!  When the designer sat down to draw up a concept for this new vehicle of transportation known as an automobile, he was so hitched to the past that he came forth, not  with a new vehicle at all, but merely with a reproduction of an old one.  The first automobiles were made to resemble horse-drawn  carriages — right down to the sockets for the whips!

Every time there is a change in the working of God we are thrown into a crisis situation.   There is something about us that is never quite prepared for change.  There is always that shock of seeing a cherished order vanish, while wondering what the next order will be.   But this is how it is.  The Lord reveals His glory and it accomplishes a purpose.  Then the end of that day comes.  The night steals in upon that era.  God is ready for a new order, a new day, another  greater phase of His workings.  Again, even as I pen these lines, there is a fresh revelation and working of God in the earth.   Again there is a “going forth” of Jesus Christ, released in a fuller form through a many-membered body of mature and transformed sons of God.

I must speak very frankly, my friends.  The next move of God, the manifestation of the sons of God, will not come through those who are waiting for a rapture to whisk them away to the skies.  It will come through  people who are crying out from the depths of their spirits, “Oh God, visit us afresh.  Do a new thing!   We need YOU!  Creation groans for a mighty deliverance!  Come, Lord Jesus, move through us on a higher order, a higher dimension of your power and glory.  Come to your temple in fullness.  Come in the manifestation of your sonship.  Come! that we might behold you as you are and be changed into your image, clothed with your life and immortality.  The whole earth is waiting with bated breath for the glory of the Lord to be revealed.  Come! and cause righteousness and praise and incorruption to spring forth before all nations!”

THE GLORY OF MANIFESTED SONSHIP

Old as it is, there is always something new, something prophetic, in the miracle of the coming of spring.  No man of us, unless he be utterly dead of soul, but feels a new thrill and throb of heart as he witnesses the wonder of the world renewed.  “Behold, I make all things new” is a text of which nature writes a new lesson every year, lest we forget.  Gently the earth, but yesterday so gray and winter-worn, is bathed in sunlight; silently a new life wells up from within, and the wonder is wrought.  The dead grasses are gone, they are reborn in living green; the stark trees adorned in elaborate foliage and ornate blossoms.  Since time began this demonstration has touched the heart of man with new hope that, if God so reclothes the grass which perishes, shall He not much more by a mightier ministry renew the men made in His image together with all creation?

The word of God clearly teaches that the manifestation of the sons of God at the close of this age brings FULL SALVATION — salvation for spirit, soul, and body.   The purpose of this manifestation is two-fold: first, to bring full redemption to God’s elect; second, to bring deliverance to all peoples, tongues, kindreds and nations, to those now living as well as to those vast multitudes who have lived and died throughout the ages, until sin, sickness, sorrow, darkness, pain and death shall exist no more anywhere in God’s unbounded universe, worlds without end.  Let us notice how the apostle Paul reveals this purpose of God in the following words: “For even the whole creation waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known — waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship.  For the creation was subjected to frailty — to futility, condemned to frustration — not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him who so subjected it.  Yet with the hope that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption and gain an entrance into the glorious freedom of God’s children.  We know that the whole creation has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves too, who have and enjoy the firstfruits of the Holy 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. 8:19-23, Amplified).

As our Lord did after His resurrection, so will the sons of God do.  We will be in glorified bodies and we will belong to the heavenly world, but we will appear and take part in earthly life and show forth the fullness of the power and glory of His resurrection right here on earth.  This is Christ coming to be revealed in the fullness of Himself among all peoples and over all nations.  Our Lord’s life on earth after His resurrection gives us an illustration of what resurrection life ultimately means.  He was in a place simply by willing to be there, regardless of space, time, or of material obstructions.   He had access to heaven and to earth.  This is the destiny of all the sons of God!  Since this is the truth concerning the resurrection of the firstborn son of God, it follows that this is the glory that shall be manifested  when all the sons of God are glorified.  Furthermore, the glory of the Lord to be manifested on this earth when all the sons of God are transformed and glorified shall be much more magnificent than it was when Jesus was glorified.  Jesus was glorified to ascend and pour out the firstfruits of the Spirit; the sons of God shall be glorified to express in the earth the fullness of the Spirit and to deliver all creation from the bondage of corruption.

Although the glory of the Lord revealed and manifested when Jesus was glorified was awesome, there is a glory coming that shall be greater by far!  For it shall not be just one son glorified, but many sons brought to glory.   The whole creation is standing on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of God’s sons glorified and manifested!  Every created thing is waiting to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the family of God.  Deliverance from corruption means the abolition of death — resurrection life for everyone and everything.  Oh, the mystery of it!  Oh, the wonder of it!   Imagine the glory to be revealed when all the sons of God are transformed and glorified!  And not to ascend to heaven in a cloud, but to minister deliverance, transformation and glory to the whole creation!  Truly this is the promised “coming” of our Lord Jesus Christ.  That great event will be the transformation and glorification of the entire body of Christ, resulting in creation’s deliverance from the bondage of decay and death, into the glorious liberty and victory of the very sons of God.  And what a triumphant victory that shall be!

Most Christians today are expecting the “end of the world.”  I cannot but feel astonished that any serious Bible student should have his mind fettered with the common and vulgar notion that the great Creator and our heavenly Father intends to destroy the earth and creation.  God so loved the world that He sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.  The Christ came and consecrated even this earth by His presence, and by spilling upon it His life’s blood.   He drenched the very soil with His precious, divine blood! There is a special consecration upon the earth which makes it revolting to think of its being handed over to oblivion.  God created it to be inhabited and established it that it be not moved.  The footsteps of the Son of God upon its soil, the breathing of its atmosphere by His lungs, the wearing of its dust upon His person, the warming of its fluids in His arteries, and above all, the glorification of its atoms and particles by the resurrection of His earth-body, ought to be enough to satisfy us that neither the devil nor destruction will ever possess it.  It is the place where the Son of God took the earth into His very existence, where He was born and reared, and where He taught, and slept, and suffered, and died.  It is the territory on which Divine Love and Mercy have poured out the costliest sacrifice the universe has every known.  It is the chosen theater of the most momentous deeds that have ever attracted the adoring interest of angels.  It has furnished the body, the death-place, the grave, and the glorious resurrection and triumph of Jesus Christ.  And how is it to be delivered over to everlasting nothingness?  Perish what may, a world so consecrated can never be blotted out, or cease to be one of the most cherished orbs in God’s great creation!

God has purposed that the Christ shall be glorified in the whole creation, in the earth and throughout the unbounded heavens, to the whole extent of His grace.  He has already glorified Him in the realm above all heavens.   He will now glorify Him where He lived  in poverty, where He had nowhere to lay His head, and where He gave His life a ransom for all.  As He, in humility and obedience, went down below all that God created, He has been raised as man above all that is created.  ALL between those depths and those heights, ALL, I say, must own His authority, ALL must be gathered beneath Him as head over all things, ALL must be infused with His divine life, ALL must be delivered from the bondage of corruption.  That is the testimony of the written Word and it is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the mouths of His holy apostles and prophets in this Day.  What unspeakable joy!  What immeasurable glory!

Many of the Lord’s people are caught up in prophecies of gloom and doom, predictions of the destruction that they believe will come upon the earth.  But these are messages that come out of the darkness of men’s carnal minds and soulish imaginations.  Such teachings pertain to the blindness of religion.  God’s plan is not to destroy the earth or the universe, but to redeem and restore it.  The whole purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ with the glorious gospel of the Kingdom of God is to bring forth a new earth filled with righteousness in the lives of all mankind, and not to destroy the earth or the world that He has graced with His divine presence and atoning blood.   God’s elect are destined to be the agents and ministers of that restoration!  If we know what time it is on God’s great prophetic clock, we will understand that it is time for one age to end and another more glorious age to begin right here on earth.  We will then stir ourselves from the blessings and orders of the dying age and arise to become related to God in His purposes for the new age.   We will put away all those prophecies of gloom and doom, of the destruction of the earth and multiplied billions of people with it.   We will then seek the Lord for His appearing in us, for we are the hope of the restoration of all things.  Certainly there will be judgments, but not unto destruction and everlasting doom, rather unto correction and salvation.  Yes, Great Babylon will fall, but will be replaced by the light and the rule and the glory of God’s New Jerusalem people and His sons who reign from mount Zion.  And what a Day of deliverance this shall bring when the sons of God begin to reign!

As Carl Schwing has written, “It has been appointed to the sons of God to establish the New Heaven and the New Earth in righteousness and peace.  The high places shall shout for joy and leap with gladness; the low places shall be filled with blessing, honor and glory unto the Lord.  And like a mighty river the Word of the Lord shall go forth, baptizing all things in the light and life of the Son of God.  All creation shall gather before the Father to proclaim His power and might.   Everything that has breath shall glorify the Lord.  Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that God’s Christ is Lord and King over all...unto the eternal praise of the Father.  Knowing that such glory lies just ahead, should we not lose sight of all else?  Even now our inner son can ascend to the place of his former birth and eat of the feast that has been prepared.  Even now we can walk at the Father’s side amid the Paradise of our former dwelling.

 “Though all the powers of the world and of religion oppose the hand of the Lord, He shall, through the sons of His Christ, bring forth His good pleasure.  Not one portion of His plan will be altered, not one among His creation will be able to resist His authority.  Among the lightening and the thundering of the Father’s infinite glory, the sons shall send forth the proclamation of freedom, to establish the justice and  goodness of the Lord.  Life, and love, and grace, shall burn as a purifying flame throughout all creation, until God is all and in all.  The New Age dawns before us; bask freely in the rays of this earthly morning.  Let thy spirit soar upon the wings of the Spirit to the place known only to the sons of God.  Enter into the peace and stillness of the age; enter into the rest of the Greater Sabbath.  Where we are, there is light; for He who is our light hath enlightened us with Himself.  He is the True Light, born from the Divine Energy of the Supreme Being.  He is the Light that conquers all darkness; the Light that shall lead all creation into the City of Life.  He is the Eternal Light that rises as the Morning Star within our hearts.”

 “For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; for to make in Himself of twain ONE NEW MAN” (Eph. 2:14-15).  “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a PERFECT MAN, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).  God is making a new man, a perfect man.  There is going to be a new man after a new order.  This new man is a new creation in the Christ.  That is God’s purpose for calling us, for birthing us, for filling us with His Spirit, for dealing and changing and transforming us from glory to glory into His own image and likeness.  And here is what this new many-membered man is for: A NEW MAN FOR A NEW AGE.  For two thousand years God has been fashioning and forming this new man in Christ.  This new man is the new Adam, the second man, the head and authority and ruler over God’s vast creation.

Through our many years in the pews of Babylon all we ever heard was “the end of the world, the end of the world, the end of the world is coming!”  So we grew up looking for the end of the world.  All the preachers ever thought about, it seems, was the “end of the world.”  Now I am going to tell you something folks — there isn’t going to be any end of the world!  Someone, to make it spiritual, says, “Well, my world has ended!”  That may well be, but the truth is the Bible does not speak of the end of the world.  If you will look up all those scriptures in the King James Bible where Jesus spoke of “the end of the world,” you will discover that in the original Jesus never said “the end of the world” at all; He just said “the end of the age.”  The Greek word is AION, meaning an eon or an age.  Ages end, but the world does not end.  Jesus Christ is THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD!  Look up the times where Jesus spoke of “those who would be accounted worthy to attain the next world,” etc.  Check it, and you will find that in the Greek text Jesus didn’t say anything about a world to come, but He said, “those that are accounted worthy to attain THAT AGE.”  And THAT AGE is going to be right here, beloved!

There isn’t going to be an end of the world.  You might as well stop packing your suitcase and testing your wings and praying God to kill you and take you to heaven.  We have far too many Christians in the world today with dying faith, but they don’t have any living faith.  They’re always wanting to die and go off to heaven to be with the Lord.  That is, until they get a dizzy spell or chest pains, then they rush down to the hospital and spend their very last dime to keep from flying away out there to be with the Lord!  It gets rather ridiculous.  They talk about going away to heaven to be with the Lord, they sing about going to heaven, they preach about going to heaven, they shout about going to heaven, they clap about going to heaven, then do positively everything they can to KEEP FROM GOING TO HEAVEN!  They go to every doctor, enter every hospital, swallow every pill, pass through every healing line, and call the saints far and near to fast and pray — so they won’t have to go off to be with the Lord!  Ah, something is wrong, very wrong, somewhere!

Should I die, certainly my desire is to be with the Lord.  But I am with the Lord even now!  My vision is not to die in order to go and be with the Lord, but to live and reveal the life and the power of God here upon this earth.  God is raising up a people in this hour with a vision for LIVING, not so they can stick around to see their great-grandchildren, or go on another cruise, or raise another garden — but because of an inner consciousness  of the mind of Christ that the Spirit of God doesn’t want us out there, He wants us right here bringing in this NEW AGE!  There will be no end of this world, only the end of an age.  The end of an age bespeaks of change, transition, progress, furtherance, upward movement, breakthrough, growth, advancement,  enlargement, increase, new order.  When God’s new man has come to perfection, to the full measure of the stature of Christ, then the age in which the carnal mind and wicked heart of man has ruled over the world will end, and the new age will be brought in, in which God’s many-membered man will be ruler over all this world that God has created for the sons of God right here.  Hallelu-yah!

God is making a covenant in this Day with His chosen elect, a covenant of miracles, a covenant of power, a covenant of glory, a covenant of life.  He is going to keep His word and we will see miracles, signs, and wonders on a higher plane and of a higher caliber than we have ever seen before.  It won’t elevate men in the flesh, making one man a superstar, another man “God’s man of faith and power for the hour,” or “God’s handmaid for the age.”  It will bring the sons of God into the ministry that will exalt Jesus Christ and bring His kingship and dominion into the earth in mighty power and glory.  This sonship ministry will begin in the Spirit and it will end in the Spirit.  It will not parade across a stage with theatrics and showmanship.  Flesh can have no part in this Day!

The manifestation of the sons of God will break suddenly and rapidly upon the scene.   It will begin to happen everywhere at the same time, spontaneously and supernaturally.  The glory of God will arise upon a people, an unknown people, an unheralded people, prepared in the isolation of solitude of the wilderness experience and in the crucible of the furnace of affliction.  There won’t be time for anybody to come along and educate people or explain what has happened, how it is happening, that this is a move of God that is originating with this one or that one, with this movement or that movement, or who is in charge.  The spontaneity and power of it will blow our minds away and defy everything we have ever learned or known about evangelism or ministry of any kind.  The Lord will suddenly cause the paralytics and quadriplegics to walk and leap as an hart, the tongue of the dumb will sing for joy, the blind will see out of darkness, the deaf will hear the words of the Lord, the embalmed dead will be raised out of their coffins at the mortuaries, the secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed and men will fall on their faces and admit of a truth that God is in us.  The wisdom of God will pour forth like mighty Niagaras of living water, the righteous will have divine information from God, the omniscience and omnipotence of God will be revealed through His people, revelation knowledge will abound in the lives of the elect, and this Word will be spoken to all men great and small, without respect of persons, from the beggar on the street to kings, presidents, prime ministers, tycoons, and men in all positions of authority will recognize that there is a God in heaven and that the sons of God have arisen in the earth!

The One who shall be glorified in this Day is the Lord Jesus Christ.  God is preparing a company of sons who will walk with God in the moccasin print of their leader.  The Native Americans were tremendous strategists.  Those were intelligent people, and we could use them in our intelligence apparatus today.   The leader would walk along and all of those who followed would walk in the leader’s moccasin print.  They did this to confuse the enemy.  The enemy would come along and see only one set of moccasin prints, and the enemy would say, “Well, an Indian passed this way today” — one Indian.  But the truth of the matter is that perhaps 120 Indians passed that way, armed with bows and arrows, but they didn’t know it.

That’s what our great Captain has in mind when He says in Luke 9:23, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  He is saying, “Whoever will be my successor, or participate in this sonship ministry, let him deny his own identity and presence in this world and follow in my footprints.”  We’re going to see it happen on this wise.  The devil and the wise men of the world will come along and say, “Well, look at this — what’s going on here?” because hospitals will be emptied, dens of iniquity will be cleaned out, great men and rulers will be astounded, all the people will be saved, healed, delivered, filled with the Spirit, and transformed in spirit, soul, and body.

You see, it’s not enough to say that thousands of people made a decision for Christ or were healed.  So what?  That’s not what the manifestation of the sons of God is about!   Creation is not groaning for more Christians, Church members, or people who have been blessed or received a miracle.  Creation is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God because creation is to be DELIVERED FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION.  That is deliverance from all sin, limitation, and death in spirit, soul, and body.  It means total transformation.  It bespeaks of a complete metamorphosis.  If thousands of people in any town or city are raised up out of hospitals, mortuaries, slum, dens of iniquity, and are healed, delivered, regenerated, changed, and transformed by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, I want you to know that the houses of prostitution will be affected, the pornography shops will be affected, the crack houses will be affected, the medical industry will be affected, the funeral business will be affected, the work places will be affected, the homes will be affected, the schools will be affected, the  lawyers will be affected, the judicial system will be affected, the city government will be affected, everything and everyone will be impacted by the Kingdom of God.  God will move in such incredible and unprecedented power that the multitudes of men and women and entire nations will be swept into the Kingdom of God as it were in a Day!

It will not be said, “Billy Graham had a crusade here today,” or “Benny Hinn had a great meeting and hundreds of people were healed,” or “Pat Robertson shook this place with a word of knowledge,” or “Preston Eby passed this way today and gave a great teaching.”  Oh, no!  The people will declare, “It was Christ the Lord who did this — the Lord of glory passed this way and He has set us free!”  Only one set of footprints, but 144,000 sons of God in the fullness of God’s Christ!  That’s what the Lord has waited on all this time as He has prepared His sons in secret, He has had long patience for the precious fruit of the earth, until they receive the former and the latter rain, bringing forth a people conformed into the exact image of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.  These sons will give all the glory to Jesus just as Jesus gave all the glory to the Father.

A brother has said that the three things which most easily destroy the ministry of preachers are the gold, the girls, and the glory.  The final test is the hardest.  It is because we covet the glory that there is so much petty jealousy and strife among brethren.  We are so concerned that our church, our talent, our opinion, our counsel, our position, our gift or our ministry gets the recognition, the praise, and the glory.  We want to get the credit.  And the credit IS the glory!  Many religious people cannot receive the things I now say, but, because it is the truth it will strike a chord within the hearts of all of God’s elect.  To pray, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,” demands full humility, brokenness and obedience.  And right here is where the Kingdom laws come into operation.  When we abdicate the throne of our own lives, our own strength, our own ambitions, plans and ways, the Lord makes us kings and priests unto God.  When we confess that all the power is His, He makes us strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  When we refuse to touch the glory, He glorifies us with the glory He had with the Father before the world was.  And this is an unfolding glory, an ever-intensifying glory that shall shine as the stars and the brightness of the firmament forever.

We are commissioned to preach the Kingdom, and commanded to do the works of the Kingdom; but we must always be careful to understand and acknowledge that the Kingdom is His, the power is His, and the glory is His.  If we get a touch of the Kingdom in revelation, in preaching it, or in demonstrating its power, and use that to elevate ourselves, to gather men to us, to manipulate and control people, to build a little kingdom around our talent and ministry, or to fleece God’s people of their money for our self-aggrandizement, then that is all there is.  Such can never be kings and priests that reign over the earth.   Such are not sonship material.  Those ministries will hang their heads in shame and slither away into the woodwork in the day when the sons of God arise in the earth.

Those who splash their pictures over every page of their magazines, know nothing of what it means to walk in Jesus’ footprints.  They will not be a part of the sonship ministry.  God has used great men, He has used superstars as they have been known, God has used men with great religious pedigrees, with magnetic personalities, charisma oozing from their pores, promotional abilities, talent and soulical powers, but the time has come when God looks back on the foolishness of these lesser orders, which have been blessed by His mercy and grace, and no longer winks at it.  He says, “Now the real thing is coming, I’m going to stand my sons up in the earth, I will pour out, not ‘of’ my Spirit, but I will pour out all the plenitude, all the fullness, all the majesty, and all the glory of the seven spirits of God upon all flesh, I will show the world my ways, my acts and my life, and the scripture will be fulfilled, ‘All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee’ (Ps. 22:27).”  If what we have had up to this time is all there is in God, then the devil has already outsmarted God and won the day.  But there is a ministry coming, even now it dawns upon the horizon, the heart of God is being fashioned in a whole army of people who are after His own heart.  To these He is revealing the fullness of His power and His greatness and His total majesty and they are going to turn the world right side up, never to sink again into the abyss of selfhood, sin and death.

God has called us to have a role in establishing this new order of the Kingdom of God.   God is offering to His elect in this hour something He has never offered any generation before.  He is calling us to participate in the activity that will lead to the prize of all the ages.  It is greater than anything He has done from the time of Adam to the present; it will never be done again!   It has never been done before, because it is God’s new thing.  He is calling a people to obey Him, to follow on to know Him, to be His sons and daughters indeed for the deliverance of all creation.  Be aware lest old-order brethren rob you by stealing this hope from you.  It is very important that we not let anyone rob us of this treasure!   It’s our inheritance.  The inheritance is the absolute fullness of God to deliver creation.

God is preparing a people He will put His stamp of approval on and endorse with all His wisdom, power and majesty.  The voice will come from heaven and say, “These are my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased — hear ye them!”  You who have been thoroughly processed by the Father have His image, you bear His likeness, and He will put His full endorsement upon you to represent His Kingdom purposes in the earth.  We are called to live such a life and walk in such a dimension of the righteousness, peace, joy and power  of the Kingdom of Heaven that we can testify, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  It will take a life of total abandonment to walk with God as sons, expressing His nature before all men and nations.  It has been said that we beheld the Saviour and became the saved, we beheld the Redeemer and became the redeemed, we beheld the Healer and became the healed, we beheld the Baptizer and became the baptized.  But now it is time to behold the SON OF GOD and become the sons of God in the earth.  We must not bear a message about the Father, we must be the message.

Men and women are reading these lines at this very moment of whom the world is not worthy.  They are part of a company under the dealings of God’s great hand and the world has no clue of their true stature and destiny.  The day is wonderfully nigh at hand when these shall arise in such power and glory that all nations will come up the mountain of the Lord’s house to learn the Lord’s ways.  All nations will come and sit at the feet of the sons of God to learn the wisdom and knowledge of God.  Upon these sons shall rest the spirit of Yahwey — the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.  The world will sit at your feet because you have sat at the feet of Jesus.  This people is partaking of the mind of Christ, the heavenly calling, and these are the ones who receive sonship authority and have influence over nations to rule them with a rod of iron — the irresistible power and all-consuming passion of the love of God.  My greatest hope is to live to walk into this Day as it dawns brighter and brighter upon the world.  And if not, I will be back in the power of His resurrection!  The nations don’t yet know that a  kingdom of priests is being prepared for the great transition of the ages.  These are now being abased under the mighty hand of God in order that they might be exalted in due time.  In this new age of the Kingdom there will be no more superstars for God is raising up an obscure, motley crew in this Day to manifest sonship authority that will scare the devil out of the devil, raise the dead, release the prisoners, and do mighty signs and wonders that will stop every mouth and testify of the Father to all men.

The sons of God will not minister out of talent,  natural ability, personality, charisma, nor out of theological training or organizational skills, but in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost.  I say to you by the word of the Lord — it’s coming, and it is going to be powerful!  There shall be a glorious showdown, this sonship ministry will show forth the glory of the living, exalted Christ in the face of every power on earth.  The sons of God will actually accomplish more for the Kingdom of God in one year than the church systems have been able to do in all these hundreds of years of history.   Hallelu-yah!

The religious crowd will never bring in the Kingdom of God with power.  Look at Jesus’ followers when He walked the pathways of earth.  Thousands thronged about Him to see the miracles and eat of the loaves and the fishes.  His followers were at one time five thousand, then later five hundred, there was the seventy, and then twelve, and finally we find Him with just three — Peter, James and John — the innermost circle.  Is that not how it was with David’s army?  There were 800,000 men that drew the sword, but only thirty mighty men   (II Sam. 23-24).  One out of every 26,666 was a mighty man of valor.  Think about it!  There was a small inner circle that was distinguished among them all.  Gideon’s army at the beginning was 32,000, then it was decreased to 10,000, and in the end there were only 300.  Out of all the ministry there is in the body of Christ today the hand of God is upon a small remnant that is aiming for excellence.  So whatever spiritual level you fit in you can just stay there, but if you have heard the trumpet, if you have received the call, if the urgency of the Spirit has been birthed within you then set your face as a flint, turn neither to the left nor to the right, and   go for the one-hundred percent — THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.

The best is yet to come!  We haven’t seen anything yet!  The glory of Christ is about to appear, the banner will wave, and the whole world will say, “This is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa. 25:9).  The ears of the people of all nations will tingle, it will be glorious for multitudes, and frightening for others, but there is coming a shaking, there is coming a quaking, as all creation comes face to face with God.  There is a people unknown by the church and unheralded by the world, who in the secret place of the Most High has discovered the rarest extract of God, these have drawn so close to the Father that they have sucked the very breath out of the mouth of God and live by every word that proceeds out of His mouth.  To these the true and un-cut word of the Lord is revealed, the incorruptible word of God is being inworked, and by the metamorphosis from corruptible to incorruptible a new ministry will shed forth in these significant days.

In the time of glory that lies before us the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunk man under the impact of the power of God in His sons.  The thing God will do will get the attention of whole cities, of whole states, of whole nations, and finally the entire world will see that God is in this people that has the ensign, that has the seal, that bears the banner of the presence, nature and power of the Lord of glory.  The Day is upon us.   The season of preparation is now drawing to a close,  for soon we will speak and the lame will leap as the hart, little paralyzed  children in children’s hospitals will be overwhelmed by the power of the Kingdom, their little bodies will be made straight, whole wards of precious little ones will leap and dance under the supernatural power of God, the dumb will sing for joy, blind eyes will open, deaf ears will unstop, drug addicts will cast their  needles and paraphernalia from them, men of pomp and power will be broken and melted in the presence of the Lord, worshippers of false religions will be quickened to the living reality of Jesus Christ the Saviour, wicked men shall be cleansed and transformed by the consuming fire of God and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together!

There is a sound in the heavens and there is a rustle in the mulberry trees.  This is the New Order!  This is the New Day!  I have lived my whole life for this Day.  Thank God, we have not wasted our inheritance; thank God we have not squandered the substance of our Father in riotous living with the wanton harlots of Mystery Babylon.  Thank God we are just now ready to cross over the threshold to see the glory of the Kingdom of God reserved for this Day.  The spirit of wisdom and power in God’s sons will bring a fatal blow against humanism and against religious, scientific, educational, medical and political professionalism.  It will be marvelous beyond description!  We will be able to accomplish more  in a day than we have been able to do in a lifetime of preaching the gospel.  The power of God will reach from one end of the earth to the other, from pole to pole, and from sea to sea.  The glory of God will reach every cavern, every foxhole, every hidden valley, every isolated hamlet, every remote jungle, every mountain height, every tribe, every tongue, every people and every nation.  God will reach them in spite of the vast populations and expanses of earth, despotic rulers, blinding religions, entrenched customs, and godless cultures.  THERE SHALL BE A MIGHTY AND UNIVERSAL INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD!

Chapter 48

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

The grandest event of all times is now at the doors!  For almost two millenniums the Lord has been gathering out of all nations and peoples an elect body, refining its members in the furnace of affliction, transforming them in mind and heart by the deep dealings of His Spirit, preparing them by experience and in wisdom and knowledge to possess the reins of the government of the world.  And while we rejoice and praise God for all the mighty visitations of the past, and those glorious movings of the Spirit we have experienced in our life-time, yet we know by the word of the Lord that the next great move of God will be greater than all — the manifestation of the sons of God.  Nothing is more certain than that!  You see, it’s not enough to say that thousands of people have made a decision for Christ or were healed and blessed in this way or that.  That’s not what the manifestation of the sons of God is about!  Creation is not groaning for more Christians, Church members, or people that have been blessed or received a miracle.  Creation is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God because creation itself is to be DELIVERED FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION (Rom. 8:19-23).  That means deliverance from all sin, limitation, and death in spirit, soul, and body.  It means total transformation.  It bespeaks of a complete metamorphosis.  The Spirit witnesses all across the land and around the world that the long-awaited unveiling of God’s son-company is at hand.  The unveiling of the in-Christed is upon us!  The cry of the groaning creation and the prayer of the travailing saint are joined with the unutterable longings of the Holy Spirit, all crying in unison and harmony for the arising of God’s deliverers.  The desire of all nations is at hand.  The next stage of the Kingdom of God is ready to unfold!

Things will be very different than I have thought, and I’m sure they will be a lot different than you have thought.  The Lord has spoken deeply within my spirit, “You’re going to have to see things my way.  I am going to do a new thing and it will be different than anything you have seen or heard.  Nothing will be carried over from the old, it will be an entirely new thing that I do in this Day.”   I do know this.  It will take far more to bring the Kingdom to its conclusion than it took to get it started!  If it required apostles and prophets, and divers gifts of the Holy Ghost, and healings and tongues and signs and wonders to launch the Kingdom of God in the world, it will take a ministry greater than apostles and prophets, greater than gifts of the Spirit, greater than the level of miracles performed in the early Church, to bring this Kingdom to the glory of its consummation.  It will require a pure, full, mature, powerful, glorious SONSHIP MINISTRY to finish the work!

The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former, saith the Lord.  The apostles of the former house literally turned the world up-side down!  On the day of Pentecost the whole city of Jerusalem was stirred and shaken by the power of God and three thousand souls were saved in one day without a meeting, a building, an advertisement, a radio or television program, a choir or a crusade.  But when the sons of God are manifested, one son will do more in one day than all the apostles and prophets did in a decade.  God will do things through His sons that are unprecedented, different than anything He has done before.  That is how it has been in every new move of God!  What God did in Noah’s day was altogether different than what He had done in Abraham’s day.  The thing God did in Moses’ day was entirely different than His work in Noah’s day.  The events in the life of David in no way resembled those in the experience of Moses.  The day of Pentecost was unlike anything God had done in any of His previous visitations.  In like manner, the manifestation of the sons of God will eclipse all former moves of God and will bring a glory in the earth greater than you and I can ever dream of in our wildest imaginations!  The fame of this will go throughout all the world and eventually every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

No saint has ever trod where we are treading.  Millions trod in their appointed paths, did their work, triumphed gloriously, and entered heaven.  But, although the same faith of the Son of God, His presence, love and power animates and sustains us, as it did them, our pathway into sonship is a very different one to their walk in the church order.  They never had the work to do that we have.  They never experienced the dealings of God in the way we do.  They never saw the goal of the fullness of Christ as we see it before us in this hour.   They never saw the vision we see, nor cherished the hope we have in the Father.  They fulfilled their appointed roles in the on-going purposes of God, and received their reward.   But the time of the unveiling of God’s sons had not arrived, and the glory of such a high calling was seen but dimly and afar off.

My father in the flesh was a Pentecostal minister, and by God’s design, he was stuck in Pentecost.  The Lord moved us on into another move of His Spirit, into a further word than we had in the Pentecostal realm, and I remember I used to talk with my dad, and of course, I wanted him to see.   I longed for him to have an ear to hear what the Spirit was saying, but he never could hear.  So usually our discussions would end up in an argument.  One day the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me, saying, “Leave him alone!  He is in the realm that I have appointed him to, and he will not be in another.”  And you know, that brought a great peace, because now I was able to fellowship with him on the level that he could fellowship with me, with no condemnation, realizing that he was in the place that God had ordained for him during his sojourn on earth, as I was in the place God ordained for me.

Thirty-five years ago my father died and he passed away in the Pentecostal realm, just as the Lord had said.  But shortly after he passed away, the Lord gave me a dream.  In this dream I was standing in the doorway  in the living room of our home, and all of my family, my father and mother, my brothers, my wife and my children, everybody was there.  They were sitting along the walls, on chairs and the sofa.  My dad was sitting at the end of the line, on the sofa.  He appeared exactly the way he looked just before he died.  No one was saying anything, we were just there.  Suddenly my dad looked up, gazed across the room straight into my eyes, and said, “P-r-e-a-c-h  t-h-e  MANCHILD!”  Immediately I awoke out of that dream and I knew two things by the Spirit.  I knew that now my dad knew something that he didn’t know before, but I also knew that he represented a cry that comes from the very realm of death itself, the cry of the groaning creation, groaning for the manifestation of HIS LIFE that sets creation free from the bondage of corruption.

Well did Paul Mueller write, “Many years ago the Lord got my attention through visions and other experiences with Him.  One vision, in particular, was an urgent call to ascend the high places in God.  In that vision, I saw a large mountain.  It was the mount of the Lord’s presence.  Many people were climbing that mountain, higher and upward toward the pinnacle of His presence.  But few were reaching the heights.  In that vision, the mount of His presence was like the literal mountains.  The higher one goes, the fewer trees there are.  And the higher we go in God, the fewer believers there are at that level.   As I watched the people climb that mountain, they appeared on the spiritual level where they were when they died.  Some of the people climbing that mountain of the Lord’s presence were loved ones and friends.  One among them was a man whom I considered a man of God, a man I had known quite well.  By the Spirit, I was taken up that mountain but close to the people who were on various levels ascending that mountain.  As I passed by some friends and loved ones, they all cried out to me, ‘Go higher!  Don’t stop now, but keep going higher and higher.’  That vision made a profound impact on my life.  I shall never forget it!  By His grace and His Spirit, I intend to keep climbing higher and higher in God!

“Those who have lived and died in Christ are now in a realm where they can see and understand more clearly.  The true reality is in the realm of Spirit, and they know it well now.  They know what it means to walk with God toward perfection, and they appreciate it more now than when they were in this earthly realm.  If the Lord would give us ears to hear the cries of those who have gone on before us, we would hear them crying unceasingly for us to ascend the very heights of the mount of the Lord.  I heard them briefly.   And the tone of their voices persuaded me to believe that our spiritual growth will also mean something significant and wonderful for them.  Their call to keep going higher was almost a cry of desperation, but was one of hope as well.  Without us they cannot be made perfect (Heb. 11:40).  Therefore, the remnant of this hour must ascend in the Spirit to the heights of the mount of the Lord, where we shall be changed.  And we shall also release many who died in Christ from their limited, static positions where they rest on the mount of the Lord.

“As we ascend the heights of the mount of the Lord, we will find that it is a lonely walk.  To take a step higher in God may mean forsaking old friends and loved ones.  When Moses made his seventh and last ascent up mount Sinai, the Lord said to him, ‘And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me IN THE TOP OF THE MOUNT.  And no man shall come up with thee...’ (Ex. 34:2-3).  Like Moses, some are invited of the Lord to ascend the mount of His presence and meet Him there.  Half way up the mount will not do!  Those who shall partake of His life and the fullness of His kingdom must go all the way up.  God said to Moses, ‘present thyself there to me IN THE TOP OF THE MOUNT.’  The top of the mount was Moses’ goal, and it is ours as well.  And it is impossible for us to take anyone else with us.  We must go alone!  Spiritual progress is not based on fellowship with people, but on fellowship with God!  A few others will also go alone to meet the Lord in the top of the mount, so that a remnant — all the remnant — shall ascend the mount to present themselves to Him in the top of the mount.  Not one member of that remnant company shall be missing, for the Lord will lead them all there by His Spirit”   — end quote.

AS A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

A miraculous event is soon to occur, the most startling and revolutionary in the history of the world.  This is nothing more nor less than the manifestation of the sons of God.  There will be a terrible and mighty manifestation of power and brilliant glory, as the sons of God arise and step upon the stage of world history.  It will come upon both the church and the world as a thief in the night.  Christians have been trained and taught that the world is getting worse and worse, and that finally the church will be evacuated off the planet, and the devil and the antichrist will take it over.   What a shock it will be when the sons of God suddenly appear on the scene bringing salvation and transformation to all the ends of the earth!

Recently, as I was meditating upon these things, I thought about the element of surprise that God has manifested in His activities throughout history.  Consider Adam in the garden without a companion, suddenly put to sleep, and then awakening to find this exquisite creature awaiting him.  How could Adam ever anticipate a thing like that?  Who could have anticipated the flood in Noah’s day, or the separating of the Red Sea, or the manna from heaven, or the water out of flinty rock?   Who could have anticipated the fall of the walls of Jericho, the overnight overthrow of ancient Babylon, or if you like, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, His ascension to heaven, and the manifest power of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost?  As I look back at the history of God’s activity, I’m just excited and on tip-toe to see what He is going to do in this hour!

The thing God is doing, and shall do, is so stupendous, so altogether glorious and unprecedented, that I am reminded of the little story I read one time.  There was a little boy who came home from Sunday School.  His mom said, “What did you learn in Sunday School today?”  The little boy answered, “Oh, we learned about Moses.”  “Oh?  And what did you learn about Moses?”  He answered, “Mom, if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”  “Well, try me,” she responded.  So the little boy began.  “Well, Moses was in a terrible situation.  He had all of these soldiers coming at him on chariots and he was pinned at the Red Sea.  So he prayed to God, and suddenly, all these tractors came rolling along and workmen and steel crews appeared, and within half an hour, they built a bridge that spanned the Red Sea.  Then Moses and the Israelites walked across it safely, to the other side.”  His mother looked suspiciously at him and said, “Son, I don’t believe you learned that in Sunday School today.”  To which the little boy muttered, “Mom, if I told you the TRUTH, you really wouldn’t believe it!”

There is something very powerful and awesome going on in the world today!  God is at work doing something hidden and quiet — and it is so supernatural, it’s beyond human comprehension.  Yet what He is doing right now is going to affect the whole world in these days.  God is preparing a small but powerful company of kings and priests in the glory of His sonship.  And the Lord shall come forth within them to do exploits and to shake all nations.  He is going to bring in a new age with a small band of heavenly revolutionaries!  A whole new realm of ministry is about to come forth!  Oh yes, there is an act of God that transcends anything that has ever been known.  For many millenniums all creation has groaned and sighed under the thralldom of sin, sorrow and death, but our heavenly Father had a purpose wonderful and glorious beyond words to express when IN HOPE He subjected the creation to the desolation of the curse.  “For the creation was subjected to frailty — to futility, condemned to frustration — not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of HIM who so subjected it.  Yet WITH THE HOPE that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption and gain an entrance into the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Rom. 8:20-21, Amplified).  Ever since that day and because of that hope which springs perennial within the bosom of every man and all things, “the whole creation waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known — waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship” (Rom. 8:19, Amplified).  The blood, the sword, the fire, the cross, and the deep dealings of God have not been working in us through these many years in order to make us ready for a harp in heaven.  Oh no!  God is preparing us to set creation free!

Carl Schwing has asked the question, “How much longer must the sons be silent?   How much longer must they remain hidden?   How much longer until they are clothed upon with the garments of immortality?”  We don’t know the precise answer to that, but he continues, “It will be in the twinkling of an eye...as the sons are taken beyond the barriers of time and distance, and the lightning of His great glory penetrates the stronghold of their flesh, and the fire of God consumes the remaining marks of Adam’s curse...that the sons of God shall stand in the awesome majesty of their Father’s presence as He proclaims to a waiting creation: ‘These are my beloved sons, hear ye them.’  We shall stand with our Elder Brother upon the highest regions of Zion, and all mankind shall hasten to the mountain that glows with the Light of God’s fullness.”

THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD

The manchild company, the sons of God, will be born, literally and dramatically birthed upon the stage of this world, in a blaze of earth-shaking supernatural power and glory.  They will be the total, corporate incarnation of God upon earth.  That will be the greatest of all “spectaculars” the world has ever witnessed.   The inhabitants of the world will at first be terrified, yes, even paralyzed!  Instantly they will know this is no natural phenomenon, no traditional religious activity, while deep within the voice shall witness: TRULY, THIS IS THE SON OF GOD!  The effulgence of His Person shall appear upon His chosen ones, the intensity of His brilliance, equating to that of seven suns, shining through the undulating “garment” composed of tens of thousands of glorified saints, a star-studded super-spectacular, seven times the power of Pentecost, the likes of which has never been witnessed by any man since the dawn of creation.

John on lonely Patmos beheld this greater glory and recorded, “And immediately I was in the spirit: and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat upon the throne...in the midst of the throne...stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD” (Rev. 4:3; 5:6).  “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD” (Rev. 4:5).  John saw One sitting upon a throne, and He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald.   A rainbow is one but it has seven colors, and the seven colors of that glorious rainbow represent the sevenfold intensified fullness of the Spirit of God, even as the seven lamps of fire, the seven horns, and the seven eyes are the Seven Spirits of God.  Some imagine that the One sitting upon the throne is God the Father or our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is both, yet more, for just previous to this celestial scene Jesus spoke to the overcoming members of His body, saying, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).  There is only one throne and only One upon the throne — GOD IN HIS MANY-MEMBERED SON!

In the day when the fullness of these seven Spirits of God is realized in the body of Christ it shall also come to pass that “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun (the glory of Christ) SHALL BE SEVENFOLD, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound (removes the curse)” (Isa. 30:26).  Malachi prophesied of this day too, saying, “But unto you that fear my name shall the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARISE with healing in His wings...and ye shall tread down (overcome) the wicked...in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 4:2-3).

God’s promise is the sending forth of the Sun of Righteousness, not in the single light of the man Christ Jesus, nor yet in the double portion of the Spirit, the former and latter rain in the first month, but AS THE LIGHT OF SEVEN DAYS CONCENTRATED IN ONE.  Many are the figures of this coming sevenfold glory of Christ upon His people.  When the Lord Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration His face shone as the sun.  Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus, experienced something of that brightness, was blinded and fell from his horse, and was completely transformed.  In the book of Revelation we read of a symbolic angel (a company of saints with a message) which comes down from heaven and his countenance is as the sun shining in its brightness.  In chapter twelve of that book we read of a woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet.   In chapter one John saw one like unto the Son of man, Christ glorified in that body of sons conformed to His image, and of Him he witnessed, “His eyes were as a flame of fire...and His countenance was AS THE SUN SHINING IN HIS STRENGTH” (Rev. 1:14-16).  Isaiah looked forward to this Day with intense anticipation and described the glory of its dawning in this way, “Then shall THY LIGHT BREAK FORTH AS THE MORNING, and thy health (full salvation) shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward” (Isa. 58:8).  Solomon wrote prophetically of this army of the Lord: “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, CLEAR AS THE SUN, and terrible as an army with banners” (S. of S. 6:10).

The body of Christ is now maturing and moving out of the darkness of tradition, bondage, carnality, and limitation into the bright light of the fullness of the glory of God.   The history of the church is a history of   darkness and sorrow and bitterness.  But, thank God, rays of promise are even now breaking forth from the heavens, and there is a company of apprehended ones that is rising up into the realms of the Spirit to drink in the intoxicating freshness of the morn!  To these God is witnessing that in this Day He shall bring forth a light that is sevenfold in its intensification, so that there will be nothing hidden from it, and all things will be illuminated and quickened by it.  This is the DAY OF THE LORD!  Nothing short of this will lift this sin-cursed world out of the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son.

The early church with all its glory and power did not bring to consummation the Kingdom of God.  Its glory was eclipsed, sinking into that which even secular history records as the Dark Ages.  The Reformation in the sixteenth century was unable to bring the Kingdom to its consummation.  All the mighty revivals of church history have failed to bring the nations under the sovereign rule of God and to deliver  the groaning creation.  The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements have been unable to subdue all things unto God.  All the methods and programs of religion, all the missionary and evangelistic crusades, all the deliverance ministries and healing campaigns, have in turn failed to deliver this old world from the tyranny of sin, sorrow and death.  The Bible Societies, the door-to-door witnessing campaigns, the train loads of gospel tracts, the prayer meetings, and all the other feverish activities and promotions by the world’s churches have not gotten the job done.

All of us are thankful to God for what we have known of His power, we rejoice with joy unspeakable for every evidence of His manifest glory today, and we honor everyone who is demonstrating any measure of the life of God and accomplishing anything to His glory; but to break the dominion of sin and satan and ignorance and death over the nations in this hour of overshrouding gloom and darkness will require a SEVENFOLD REVELATION OF THE LOVE AND POWER OF GOD!  Nothing God is doing in the lesser realms today can get the job done.  God intends to send forth this sevenfold brightness of His life, light, love, grace, glory, righteousness, peace, joy and power.  When this happens, and that glorious company of God’s sons is manifested, then shall come to pass the word spoken by our Lord, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and GREATER WORKS THAN THESE SHALL YE DO” (Jn. 14:12).  For this, my beloved, God is shaping the nations and preparing His elect in this great hour!

The prophet Daniel witnessed of this Day: “But the people that do know their God SHALL BE STRONG, and DO EXPLOITS” (Dan. 11:32).  God is raising up a people that will be “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.”  Yes, a people who, in the darkness of this hour at the end of the age, shall “arise and shine” until the nations come to their light and kings to the brightness of their rising.  The DAY is at hand, my beloved, the greatest hour for the greatest body to march forth in the greatest glory to secure the greatest victory for the Kingdom of God in the history of God’s great purposes!  Be encouraged and strengthened in this wonderful hour!

When the sons of God are manifested more people will come to Christ and salvation than have from Pentecost until now.  As the new age dawns every village in every nation will have been visited by the manifestation of the glory of God through His sons.  Every living person will encounter the power of God!  The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, and many whole cities and some entire nations will be converted to Him.  As strange and impossible as it may seem today, the state of Israel and the country of Russia will be among the first to be transformed by the power of God’s Christ!  That is the clear word God has spoken in my spirit.  The magnitude of this sonship ministry cannot be measured by anything that has been before.  Even nature itself will be infused with life and transformation as creation begins to be released from the bondage of corruption.  These results will be obtained without church meetings, revival crusades, healing campaigns, deliverance services, television programs, outreaches, missionary projects, literature distribution, or any of the methods, teachings, and programs of the church systems.  This ministry will not stand in the wisdom of men’s words, but in supernatural power and unparalleled demonstrations of the Holy Spirit.

The sons will move in the fullness of the “in part” anointings, gifts and powers of all who have gone before them.  The greater works promised by Jesus will be done by the sons of God.  The “works that He did” have in measure been done by believers during the church age, but the “greater works” have been reserved for the anointing of the Seven Spirits of God.  The sons will walk in unlimited power and authority.  Men will no longer look back wistfully at the early church and historic moves of God because of the exploits of those days, beseeching God to “do it again.”  All will recognize that He certainly has saved the best wine for last!  The most glorious times in the world’s history now lie just before us.  The magnitude of this unveiling of the glory of God’s Christ will astonish even the most optimistic believers.  Miracles which exceed even the greatest Biblical marvels will cause whole nations to bow before the authority of God’s  sons.   The visible glory of the Lord will appear upon multitudes of people, and power will flow out from them to convict, deliver, and transform all who come into their presence.  The cloud and pillar of fire that hovered over Israel in the wilderness will not even compare to the intense presence of the Lord in these days.  Never has the Lord Himself been as personal and intimate with His people as He will be at this time.  The whole world will stand on tiptoe continually, wondering each day what great new wonders they will behold.

Wondrous things await the people of God, things that it is not possible for a man to utter.  We do not know, we may not know all that awaits us.  But enough is known, enough is revealed, to wean us from the things of earth, from the priorities of religion, from the concerns of time, and fill our souls with rapture on account of the extraordinary vision.  For He hath “made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him...that we should be to the praise of His glory...and...that in the ages to come He might show (display) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:9-12; 2:7).  We are now come to the dispensation of the fullness of times.  This dispensation was yet future in Paul’s day, he pointed to it and to the comprehensive work of restoration God would do in it, but it is now upon us with its power and glory.  The world has never yet seen anything like that which shall take place when God’s sons are manifest in this dispensation of the fullness of times!  The transformation of the saints is the next event in the commencement of this Day.

THE SYMPHONY OF LIFE

A brother related the following experience.  “When I first went to Nashville, Tennessee, some friends, thinking they were doing me a favor, called me and said, ‘We have tickets for the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra that’s coming to town, and we want to take you as our guest.’  Well, I love music, but I know nothing about it, and I can’t sing it — I always help congregational singing by keeping quiet.  Frankly, I can’t think of anything more boring than a whole evening of symphony!  But I had to go because they were so polite and I wanted to be polite, so I accepted graciously and went along.

“I had never been to a thing like that before, and I was impressed by what I saw.   We went in, took our seats, and in a few moments there began to drift out from the sides the musicians.  They were in shirt sleeves for the most part, and each man went up to his instrument and started tuning it.  The fellows with the fiddles too big to put under their chins sawed back and forth — oh, it sounded terrible.  The fellows with the little ones they put under their chins squeaked up and down with those.  The ones with the horns — oh my, nothing was in harmony.   It was a medley of discordant, confused noise.   Then after they got through with that kind of a disturbance, they all disappeared again, went out through the wings.

“Another five minutes went by when all of a sudden the lights in the auditorium went off, the lights on the platform came on, and the musicians walked out.  This time they had on their coats.  My, they looked so nice.  Each one came out and stood or sat at his instrument.  Then there was a hush in the auditorium, a spotlight was focused on the wings, and the conductor stepped out.  When he did there was thunderous applause for him.  He bowed.  Then he came up to the podium and picked up a thin little stick.   He turned around again to the audience and bowed, then turned his back to the audience, lifted that little stick — total silence came over that auditorium, you could have heard a pin drop — then he brought that little stick down.  And, my friend, there were goose pimples all over me.  I never heard such music in all of my life.  Oh, what harmony, what wonderful harmony there was!”

I tell you today God is preparing His sons for the greatest symphony the world has ever heard, a symphony of divine wisdom, omnipotent power, and unconditional, unbounded love.  The sons themselves will be the symphony!  All the chords of God’s nature, wisdom, and power will be struck in them.  At this present time, as God is fine-tuning our lives it seems as if every man is tooting his own horn, everyone is playing his own little fiddle; it sounds like everything is out of tune, a medley of discord.  But as God deals in our lives, teaching us His ways, writing His laws in our hearts, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, establishing His will and transforming our beings, He is creating within each of us a chord of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.  Our minds and our souls are now being renewed, through repentance, by the Spirit of God.  Through the crucible of daily experience by the dealings of God we are learning to perceive and fully understand by the wisdom of the mind of Christ instead of thinking with old Adam’s carnal mind.  As God by His refining fire purges out of us the trusting in our own strength, our confidence in the flesh, the inbred mentality of Babylonish religion, and the spirit of the world, what a raucous screeching is emitted from our lives!

We all seem so different, and Father’s purposes in us appear disparate.  What a motley crew the sons of God appear to be today!  But you, precious friend of mine, are an instrument designed to be a channel of Life, Light, and Love.  And Jesus Christ is the Master Conductor,  and wants to play the strings of emotions and thoughts and desires and nature within you until you become a son indeed, the Song of the Lord in the midst of the earth.  Your life, when it is hid with Christ in God, becomes a beautiful thing; your thoughts and actions all in unison with God are running along the lines that lead to God, for they diverge not.  When the hour strikes for the unveiling of God’s sons, Jesus Christ the Lord is going to lift His scepter — oh, the harmony that will sound forth from all His many brethren!  Then the world shall see the fullness of Christ, which includes Christ, the Head, and Christ, the body, in all the life and glorious harmony of the Kingdom of God!

Every knee on this globe, and in the heavens above, and in the underworld, shall bow before the majesty of the presence of the Lord as they awaken to hear the pure melodies of the harmony of God in His sons.  Never again will they be satisfied with the discordant notes of this world’s pleasures and programs, nor the off-beat of the world’s religious systems.  As they hear the pure song that flows from the heart of God in His sons, all men shall hunger and thirst to be filled with the same, the harmonious chord of the righteousness, peace, and joy of the Kingdom of God.  We have not yet witnessed the glory of God’s manifestation in the way it is going to be expressed.  We have not seen the hand of God move in the way it is going to move.  The Lord spoke through prophecy years ago, at the time of a mighty move of His Spirit, and said that He was moving by His little finger, and I tell you when He moved that little finger there were tremendous things that happened, glorious things took place.   But now — just think of the glory that shall come when He moves by His hand and makes bare His holy arm!

THE GREATER WORKS

Amazed, the sons themselves will stand awed, as suddenly before them unfolds the true purpose of their lives on earth.  Quickened within them in all its power and potential will be the great and high secret of God.  They will become within themselves the magnificent expression of the greatest glory God has ever revealed.  Reproduced in them will be the sonship ministry of Jesus intensified into the light of seven days in one.  They will stand in the earth as the firstborn brothers of Jesus Christ, the sons of the Father in heaven.

When a man becomes a father, he is not diminished by his children, but enriched, increased, and expanded.  If his children grow up with nobility and accomplishment, he is proud and delighted.  His children make him greater than he ever was before.  Sonship is the Father’s delight, the culmination and climax of His ages-long plan and purpose.  God is electrified with anticipation to see His sons with skill and maturity visibly revealing the invisible things of His eternal power and Godhead to creation.  This is  the message of sonship revealed in the life of the firstborn Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Sonship is the singular objective of God, and the sole purpose of the formation of His body.  The sons of God are the principle players in the awesome plan of God for all the wonderful ages to come.

The sons of God are reality.  This company of divine-human beings is even now rapidly reaching completion.  These will become what Jesus is and have what He has as their very own reality.  God will be in them and through them in all His unutterable plenitude.  What He is they will be also.  They are the express image of their Father in Jesus Christ.  This is the revelation of God and the staggering message of the Bible!  The sons of God are destined to inherit all things on earth and throughout all the vastnesses of infinity, for they are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus, who is the heir of all things (Heb. 1:1-2).  They are destined to be the blessers, deliverers, quickeners and transformers of all the created realms.  Thus creation groans with expectant birth pangs, longing for their arrival.

From the lowest darkness of demons and devils to the inhabitants of the farthest galaxy of light, the universe stretches in anticipation of the glorious unveiling of God’s sons.  They will be the full and complete expression of God in all the attributes of His deity.  Like a super-nova the sons will burst into everlasting splendor, streaming glory and power for all creation to behold.  These noble beings will conquer and restore all things to God on earth and throughout all worlds of the unbounded heavens.  As priestly shepherd-kings they will lead the creation, dispensing judgment unto righteousness.  As Saviours they will loose the bands of Adam’s curse from this world, and the darkness from all worlds in all realms.  The sinful will be redeemed and changed, the ignorant will be taught of God, those in the church systems will be delivered from their delusions and guided into the pure truth of God.  The angelic realms will behold the birth of God’s manchild and arrive to honor God’s sons.  All creation will marvel at the splendor of a race of beings who are the offspring of God matured up into the fullness of all He is.  The reins of creation will be surrendered to them, and all created beings everywhere will be committed to their loving and skillful care.  These divine sons of the omnipotent and loving heavenly Father are the only answer to creation’s lack and problems.  They have been ordained of God as the power that shall deliver creation  from the bondage of corruption.

These sons are the anointed sovereigns, the appointed rulers of all things.  Today they stand in the wings, at this very moment they fine-tune the instruments which they are, but suddenly shall they enter upon the stage of history, strike their majestic chord, and all flesh shall hear the word of the Lord and see the salvation of God.  Then a mighty power shall arise from the earth, as a stream of expanding light it will race through the galaxies, spreading out and penetrating all things with the life of God.  Every creature on earth and in distant worlds will see the wonder of God.  Every kingdom will be subdued, changed, instructed, and brought into harmony with the Father of lights.  Throughout the endless eons to come, the sons of God will govern the creation in righteousness, infusing all things with the dynamic of His life.

When the sons of God arise, cruel oppression shall be banished.  When the sons of God appear, savage war shall be driven from the face of the earth.  When the sons of God come, the power of sin shall be broken, every sickness and pain shall be healed.  When the sons of God march forth, the last enemy, even death, shall be destroyed.  When the sons of God are unveiled, Satan shall be bound to deceive the nations no more; darkness shall flee away, the sorrowing shall be comforted, the meek shall be exalted, the weak shall be made strong, the broken-hearted shall be healed, and the glory of God shall cover the earth.   These are God’s kings and God’s priests, a Kingdom of priests unto God and for creation.  Every son is royalty — a king — born out of the loins of the King of the universe.  As a king he rules in the sphere in which God places him, and as a priest he serves.  He is kingly in his sphere and it is the priestly spirit that makes the nobility of character in the king.  In Christ the sons stand above all authority and dominion and glory, holding the scepter of infinite love and power.

The ancients wrote on the pillars of Hercules, Ne Plus Ultra, meaning “No more beyond.”  For centuries those words chiseled on the mighty rock of Gibraltar reminded seafaring men that beyond those straits was nothing but a shoreless sea.  One day, however, a man named Columbus sailed through those straits and set his course westward.  In spite of storms, discouragements, and threatened mutiny, he sailed on and on and discovered a new world.   Later men climbed the rugged straits of Gibraltar and removed the word Ne, leaving the message Plus Ultra meaning “More beyond.”

Captain James Cook was a famous English explorer who lived more than 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 Newfoundland and Labrador before he was given his own ship, the Endeavor, to command.  He sailed this ship all the way around the world, exploring the coasts of eastern Australia and New Zealand on the way.  After returning to England he set out again for the South Pacific  with two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure, and explored the icy Antarctic Ocean.  He explored the New Hebrides Islands and discovered the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean off Australia.  Early in his career Captain Cook made this amazing statement, which I am paraphrasing: “It is not my desire to merely go where other men have not gone; I WANT TO GO AS FAR AS IT IS POSSIBLE FOR MAN TO GO!”  And his wish was granted,  for when he was killed in 1779 by natives of the Hawaiian Islands, there were no more frontiers on this planet to explore, and no more coasts to be charted.

Ah, in the spiritual world just such a desire has arisen within a company, those destined to become the manifest sons of God, the desire to not merely press on in God into heights and depths not discovered by those great ones who have blessed this earth with God’s grace, glory, wisdom and power, but indeed to GO AS FAR AS IT IS POSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO GO IN GOD!  What a vision!   We are well acquainted with the “in part” realm, where God anoints men with the Holy Ghost and with power, and their gifts increase and their ministries expand and many are blessed.  But then they die, and while others might try to carry on their vision, it is never again the same as the movement crystallizes around the “part” the ministry possessed, and while men try to perpetuate it, it finally stagnates and dies.   For one thing, every generation needs a new vision and not a carry-over of the old, but in this transition of the ages God is birthing a SON COMPANY that desires not merely to rebuild and restore the work of God of yesteryear, be it New Testament Church Order, five-fold ministry, gifts of the Spirit, expressions of worship, or whatever; but we are possessed of a heart to become identified with Jesus Christ beyond the veil, in the Holiest of all, after the power of an endless life, to know God not just in a measure, but in His fullness, and receiving that ministry after the order   of Melchizedek which can proceed through the ages until a full victory is consummated and God is ALL IN ALL.

A dear brother, in opposition to this teaching of the ministry of manifested sonship, wrote, “We cannot have any selfish ambitions.  It may sound very good to have the desire to change the world, to walk up and down the earth doing miracles, releasing people from their misery.  This would make us look great in the eyes of people, yet that would be receiving glory for self.  This desire for glory has to die!”  My question would be just this: If doing miracles and releasing people from their misery is self-glory, then why did the firstborn Son of God do just that!  And why did the apostles go out and walk up and down the earth doing the very same thing!  Was Jesus grasping after glory for Himself?  Were the apostles in this thing for the glory they would receive from men?  I DON’T THINK SO!  Creation is groaning for deliverance and God is birthing in His sons the intense desire and holy passion to set creation free.

When those who treasure the beautiful hope of sonship speak the words the Spirit is speaking to His elect in this hour, people demand, “Who do you think you are?”   When we declare that we are called to be the sons of God, to grow up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, to partake of a ministry greater than that of the church age, to set creation free and reconcile all things, people ask, “Just who do you think you are?”  It really makes no difference who we think we are, but it makes a great deal of difference that we know and understand WHAT WE ARE APPREHENDED TO BE IN HIM.  Our ears have heard the sound of the trumpet and we cannot, dare not, settle for anything less, we must follow on to know Him in all of His glorious fullness.

Are you willing today, in the presence of God, to hear the word of God, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.”  Someone says, “How can you declare such things?”  Because they did not originate with us, it is the Father who is saying them in us.  We are not commissioning ourselves.  We are not a group of people who of our own selves have a burden for the lost creation, we bear the burden of the Lord in our hearts.  And what His burden is, that is what matters.  If we were a people with our own burden for the lost, to try and help people, we would say, “We have tried everything else; we have had apostles, we have had prophets, we have had evangelists, pastors, and teachers; we have had gifts of healing, working of miracles, we have had money and missionary programs, we have had everything and it did not get the job done, so let us now try this sonship message.”

We are not such a people.  God has not put on us the problems of the world — God has called us unto HIMSELF — that we may live unto HIM, that we may be totally committed to HIM, that He may send us out to being salvation to humanity.  If this thing began with  OUR BURDEN, I would be suspicious of it.  If we were wondering whether the communists were going to take over the world, and what about the masses of Moslems and Hindus, and the millions of lost souls in Africa, and we must hurry and reach the whole world before they slip away into damnation and hell; if we were speaking in that sentimental, religious vein, I would be suspicious.  But our vision is not turned that way, we are not “need” conscious, nor “problem” oriented, nor “world” centered, nor “self” conscious — our eyes are turned toward the Father.  “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,” saith the Lord.   Jesus never went around looking for that which He could do, or needs He could meet, or problems He could solve.  Jesus went around looking to see what His Father was doing.   That’s all!

God wants sons today who are not caught up in world events and prophecies of gloom and doom, not worried about the desperate needs everywhere, but who are occupied with the Father’s words and the Father’s works.  God is raising up sons in these days who do not have to explain anything, defend anything, build anything, promote anything, protect anything.  God is merciful to us in saying to us, that the reason we can declare this, the reason this commission is coming, is because the burden is not of ourselves, but the Father is sending us.  He is saying to us, “I am setting you to be lights.  I am ordaining you to be Saviours.  I am forming you to be the habitation of God, I am anointing you to be kings to reign and priests to minister my salvation.  I am sending you forth to be bread to be broken and fed to the hungry multitudes.  I am pouring you out as a flowing, surging, bounteous river of life.”   Let us not sell creation short in these days.   Let us not deny the Lord who has purchased us to be His people with a purpose for the ages.  While we seek no glory of our own, there is, nevertheless, great wealth and heavenly glory for all who fulfill all the will of God.  You never lose with God!

The compelling passion of my life is to be filled with all the fullness of God and be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  This is what sonship is.  The deep cry of my heart is for the satisfaction of knowing that my life counts for God.  As God knows my heart, it is not a selfish desire.  The reason I want to be like Jesus is because I love Him so, but also because it is the only way I can ever be used in the restoration of fallen creation.  I see the needs of the world around me, and realize that I am practically powerless to do anything about them.   And should I initiate a program it would not even scratch the surface of the need.  Men hold great crusades today and when you listen to their glowing reports you would think the whole world is turning to God.  But should you walk the streets of the city they just left, you can barely find a trace of evidence that they were ever there.  Oh yes, we can pray,   believe God, and do our thing, and see some people saved, blessed, healed and delivered.  But anyone who says that they have reached the place where their ministry is meeting the needs of the world is either blind to the needs of men, a proud hypocrite, or a liar.   But God is not blind to the need of this day, nor is He impotent to move.  He has a plan, a wonderful plan!  And He is going to move in mighty power just as soon as the time is ripe for it.

Chapter 49

THE INCREASE OF THE KINGDOM

(continued)

The great characters of the past who have cut new channels, blazed new trails, opened new frontiers, opened up hidden secrets and led humanity onward to better days have been men of vision. Without a vision and the ability to soar on the wings of imagination there would be no progress of humanity.  Back  of every great development that thrusts man forward is the vision of someone who caught a glimpse of something higher and grander.  What is it that discovered new worlds, opened new territories, built the great cities, tunneled the mountains, plowed the mighty deep, brought forth astounding inventions, developed technology, and conquered the air and space, but the power of vision?  Society would be stagnant indeed without the vision of better and greater things to come!

The wise man said, “Where there is no vision the people perish.”  That is, where there are no new, fresh, vital thoughts there can be no progress into transcendental realms.  The Old Testament prophets were called seers.  They stood in the high places of the Spirit and looked down through the ages and caught visions of the coming purposes and glory of God’s unfolding plan hundreds of years ahead of the reality.  The scripture itself is a document of visions.  It starts with Abraham.  As someone has put it, “When God first called Abraham He inundated his soul  with a sea of promises.  He spoke to him from the starry heavens, from the soil of Canaan on which he walked, by the visit of angels, and by the Holy Ghost in his deep nature.  Abraham saw great fields of light, great possibilities of things for himself and his posterity.  His soul drank in these promises until his faith became wide and powerful, even before any of them were fulfilled.  God deals with souls in a similar way.  Yet when He calls anyone to a great degree of perfection or usefulness He begins by opening up to them the promises of His word and the possibilities which they may achieve even before there are any outward symptoms of their fulfillment.  That heart anchors itself in the promises of God until those promises become as real as God Himself.”

Joseph began as a mere wisp of a boy having visions of the distinguished life he was to lead.  No man, except our Lord Himself,  ever suffered such indignities against the hope of God he cherished in his soul as Joseph.  Yet through it all he remained steady, calm, and resolute because of the word that burned within him.  The secret of the great life of Moses, the deliverer of Israel, is that he lived “as seeing Him who is invisible.”  It was this that motivated him to forsake the throne of Egypt with its wealth, honor and glory and join an ignorant, despised, oppressed, destitute company of slaves.  A vision of the supernal spoiled him for the fleeting things of earth.  Later God called Moses up into the Holy Mount to commune with Him at the counsel-table of His divine government. While there God communicated to him a vision of the divine order of His redemptive purposes and gave him the plans for a model of it to be erected in the midst of His people on earth: its size and shape, where every curtain was to hang, its furnishings and order of ministry, its golden altar and the Holy of holies.  Moses had a mental-spiritual picture of all this before it became a reality.  He was commanded to build it according to the pattern that was shown him in the Holy Mount.  He brought the pattern down from the Mount as a vision in his spirit of the glorious plan and purpose of God!

Ah, God has a wonderful plan and purpose for the life of every son of God.  The Bible is full of this thought, that for each of us there is a course, a race, a work, a divine plan to be unfolded and fulfilled.  To this end we have been birthed on this planet and for this purpose there is ample provision of grace, revelation, and power.  Never forget, dear one, you were born to be victorious and to achieve something transcendental.  Just as the scientist and poet can look down on the lower animals and say, “Poor things, if only you understood the glory of this world of mind and intellect, of wisdom and knowledge, of harmony, beauty and purpose,” so the son filled with the inner spirit, with the mind of Christ and the nature of the heavenly Father, can look upon the poor worldlings, the rich and the famous, the great and the powerful, philosophers, scholars, politicians, and say, “Oh, poor things, if only you knew the purity, the peace, the joy, the interior brightness, the vastness, the sacred secret, the divine purpose, the sweetness and the divine personalities that I see and enjoy and respond to — ah, if only you knew!”  And of course they shall, in God’s due time!

This is the spiritual vision where our spiritual nature, with its inner senses, unfolds to the heavenly world.  The Holy Spirit, quickening our spirit, opens our inner eyes and ears and reveals to us the vision of our high calling.  This is the meaning of Paul’s wonderful prayer where he prays that the saints might have “the spirit of wisdom and revelation,” through “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye might know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe...” (Eph. 1:17-19).  Another translation says, “the eyes of your heart being enlightened,” which is the very core of our being and the fountain of our thoughts and conception of divine realities. It is not through the intellect of the natural mind that God reveals Himself to us, but it is through our inner spirit, the seat of our spiritual consciousness.

Let us not rest contented with present attainments.  There is a higher, larger, deeper, fuller experience that awaits each one of us, where we can have all the mind that was in Christ Jesus, all the nature of our heavenly Father, and all the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is the substance of the heavenly vision!  Many years ago the sainted A. B. Simpson wrote, “If you could see all the fullness of His grace and love, all the rich provision of His great redemption, and all the possibilities of His indwelling life; if you could but get a glimpse of what it means to be a son of God, a temple of the Holy Ghost...if you could but fully realize what it means to have the peace of God which passeth all understanding, to have your sun no more go down in sorrow, but have the Lord for your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning forever ended; if you could for one moment taste the exquisite delight of the life of Jesus in your mortal flesh, as an antidote for disease and death, and the very mind of Christ to quicken your weak and erring brain; in a word, if you could see, as Moses saw, the good land which the Lord hath given thee, you would quickly arise and, casting all else behind, you would go over this Jordan and let nothing hinder your entering into your full inheritance.”  What a word!

The Spirit is saying today that He is preparing a people, He is preparing a body, He is preparing sons who shall be conformed to the image of His Son, who shall be partakers of the divine nature, who shall have the mind of Christ, who shall be brought to glory and who then shall become the very image of the Father.  These shall become the very brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of the Father’s person.  Even as the first Son, who went into the ground and died as a grain of wheat to produce other sons in His likeness, bearing His image — He was the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of the Father’s person — and God sent Him to be the Saviour of the world.  God is now preparing sons, God is now preparing a body for that first Son, we are the body of the first Son, the body of Christ.  We are the body of the Christ and in and through these sons, when all have grown up into His fullness, His salvation shall be manifested unto the ends of the earth.  The Lord is saying unto His people in this Day, “For this cause have I raised thee up and sent thee to be a light unto the nations, and thou shalt be my salvation unto the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6; Acts 13:47).

God is not talking to babies today.  God is not talking to spiritual children today.  Spiritual children get all sentimental and starry-eyed over the provision of the Father in prosperity, healing, miracles and blessings.  Little children cannot do much, but oh, how they love to receive things!  Gifts mean everything to them!  How excited a child gets over a shiny bike, a new doll, the latest toy, or a little spending money.  Children know their parents will supply all of their needs and often ask, even beg, for things they want.  There is nothing wrong with that, that is just how children are! And this, my friend, is a perfect picture of the spiritual level of most Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians today!  Spiritual children have a little knowledge that puffs them up.  Spiritual children fight among each other.  “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas.”  Spiritual children pride themselves — who shall be the greatest.  Spiritual children want to know which side of the throne they will be sitting on, “What am I going to get out of all this.”  Spiritual children like to play adult, imagining that they possess much more than they actually have, and that they have attained a stature far beyond their experience.  Ah, now I’ve stopped “teaching” and started “meddling” in the attitudes of some in this Kingdom message!  But God is not sending children today, He is sending sons, whose only desire is that the Father may be glorified, that the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand, that the will of the Father may be done.  What happens to us has no bearing on the situation.

Christ says, “As my Father has sent me — in this total commitment to His will, so that I desire only to reveal the Father — so I am sending you, in a total commitment to the Father’s plan and purpose, that the Father may be revealed in the multitude of sons.”  And let me assure you, precious friend of mine, if through one son in Eden’s fair Garden who disobeyed, the whole creation came into bondage and death because of disobedience; and if through one Son in the Garden of Gethsemane who obeyed, God was able to provide a salvation for all humanity because of obedience — if God could bring such a revelation of Himself through one Son, a Son who was crucified and rejected, whom God raised again and set at His own right hand — what will happen in these days, when through a multitude of sons who have been identified with Him, buried with Him in His death, raised again in the likeness of His resurrection, ascended with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places, anointed with His Spirit, glorified with His glory, invested with His wisdom, nature, and power — what is going to happen in all creation when many sons are revealed in the glory of God?

The future the Father has planned for His sons is away beyond our ability to comprehend or even imagine.  I am overwhelmed with awe when I think of what is ahead for us!  In Romans 8:18 the apostle says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”  Phillip’s beautiful rendering of this reads, “In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us.”  Oh, the glory of it!  Oh, the wonder of it!  Who can express it! On another occasion Paul said, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him” (I Cor. 2:9).  I have heard preachers attempting to describe the future glory with the most eloquent language, but it didn’t come anywhere near the truth.  Even my feeble attempt in these pages will prove no more fruitful!  The human mind is incapable of conjuring up a picture of what the omniscient Father has prepared for His sons.  We can let our imagination run as wild as the wind and it will not come anywhere near comprehending the grandeur of what the Father has in mind!  Yet we cherish, as did Joseph, the vision Father has given us.

THE GROANING CREATION

The jubilation, gladness, and joy that will take place at the manifestation of the sons of God is beyond our wildest expectations.  The Christ body, the sons of God, will experience great transport at their change from mortal to immortal.  And the creation will also express the ecstasy that will be theirs’ when they are released from six millenniums of bondage and servitude to sin, sorrow, and death  The songs of victory and glad tidings will be greater far than on that first glad occasion when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job 38:7).  “For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath 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.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:20-22).

 “The whole creation groaneth...”  The word “groaneth” signifies to sigh, to pray, to be moved with inward feeling.  Creation is depicted as a slave in bondage, groaning in its captivity, crying out to be free.  Today the world is full of broken hearts, men suffer lack, pain, and indignities, the hospitals are crowded, the cemeteries are being filled, and all nature is groaning under its bondage to corruption and death.  You go down to the seaside and you can hear the sob of the waves, you go to the mountains and you can hear the low sigh of the wind in the tree tops.  Can we not hear the sigh and groan of nature in the hiss of the cat, in the yelp of the dog, in the lowing of the cattle, in the roar of the lion, in the tremor of the earthquake, in the howling of the storm, in the shriek of the captive, in the weeping at the graveside, and in the universal cries of disillusionment, sorrow, and pain? “The bondage of corruption.”  The word “bondage” means more than being bound, it means servitude, slavery; and “corruption” signifies ruin, decay, death, to perish.  The servitude to decay resulting in death conveys the meaning.  Creation is said to be longing for deliverance from this “servitude of decay resulting in death” with “earnest expectation.”  Those longings which are implanted by God in all of nature will surely be met by Him!  It is a fact in nature that God never puts an intuition within, without meeting it without.  Therefore while creation is in bondage, it is not in despair, for an earnest expectation throbs through it and makes it to be like one who is looking out with intense longing for someone who is expected.  The Greek word rendered “expectation” is made up from apo-kara-dokia.  Apo signifies from, or from afar.  Kara means the head, and dokia means to wait for, or to look with intense expectation.  This compound word at once suggests a striking figure, namely, one whose head is raised, and who is looking out on the distant horizon with intensity on the countenance, and longing in the eyes, as one expecting to receive something from another, or the arrival of a loved one from afar.

The whole creation is joining us in unutterable groans and birth pangs, earnestly looking forward to its release with ours, out into full and free eternal inheritance.  EVERY CREATED THING is waiting, looking anxiously and with a kind of universal travail — waiting for what?  A greater manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit?  More missionaries?  More Bibles and gospel tracts?  Greater evangelistic crusades?  Another televangelist?  Or are they waiting for the combined efforts of all the churches to get together in an all-out assault against sin, sickness, and evil?  Are they travailing for another preacher, another movement, another revival, or a restored New Testament Church?  NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!  Creation is not standing on the seashore of history gazing expectantly across the ocean of time, looking with anticipation for any of these things.  The whole creation, without exception, is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God which is nothing less than our FULL SONSHIP, THE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR BODIES.  It is full and complete and eternal victory over sin, sorrow, limitation, sickness, and death.  It is the life and glory of the Father fully revealed upon earth in a people!  That, my beloved, is the hope of creation!

The story is told of a little boy who couldn’t play outside because it was raining.  His father, who was trying to take an afternoon nap on the sofa, became annoyed.  “Go to the other room, son; Daddy wants to sleep.  Find something in there to play with.”  “Like what?”  “Anything,” snapped the father.  “There isn’t anything,” replied the lad.  Grabbing the newspaper, the man tore out a page with a large map of the world printed on it.  He knew the boy knew nothing about geography.  With the scissors he cut it into hundreds of odd-shaped pieces like a puzzle.  “There, see if you can put it together, and don’t bother me till you’re done.”  The father settled down on the sofa thinking his problem was solved, but ten minutes later there was a tug on his shirt.  “You can’t be done yet!” But there on the floor was the neatly constructed world.  “How did you do it?” he asked.  “Easy,” said his son.  “A man’s picture was on the back, and when I got the man together right, the world was right.”  Ah, yes — when God gets HIS MAN put together in the fullness of Christ all the problems of the world will simply fall into place!  Let us not expend our energies trying to get the world straightened out and ordered aright in this hour.  Rather, let us give ourselves to apprehending that for which Jesus Christ has apprehended us — to grow up unto a PERFECT MAN, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  Then the whole creation will fall into place!

If Alexander the Great could march his armies across the earth and conquer the whole civilized world before he was thirty-three years old; if Hitler could change the world for evil; if the communists could march forth to enslave one-third of the world’s population, weaving a hundred million into the vortex of communism each year — it is not presumptuous to believe that the sons of God, armed with the immortal life and glory of Christ, can turn all nations to God, deliver the whole creation from the tyranny of sin and death, and bring the Kingdom of God to pass under the whole heaven, from pole to pole, and sea to sea, in power and great glory.  As Ray Prinzing has written, “What glory, what wonder awaits the revelation of that true character and quality which HE is producing in His new creation species.  Resurrection life shall burst forth, Babylon’s shame and corruption shall be ended.  Holiness is to be personified in a people.  Religious racketeers will come to naught.  Light will dissipate the darkness.  No more will there be wells without water, and falling stars that fade into the darkness.  HIS SONS will be a revelation of such character and quality as to satisfy all that men have waited for.”

THE MINISTRY OF THE SONS OF GOD

I have shared this before, but am deeply impressed to relate the following vision again, received by an old prophet of God (Bill Britton’s cousin) many years ago, one of the Lord’s pioneers of this gospel of the Kingdom of God.  He wrote of his experience: “In that vision which lasted all night, the most wonderful vision I ever had, in which I saw the sons of God in action all over the world, ministering to the multitudes in every tongue and nation, to all people, I saw both men and women ministering.  I saw them standing, suspended in mid-air, in the midst of a busy intersection of a large city, with all traffic stopped, and thousands of people seeing them with their eyes, and hearing them with their ears, regardless of distance, and without the aid of mechanical devices.  I saw them speaking to a people of one language, and in a moment’s time I saw them transported to another people of another language, speaking to them in their own language, having power over all mechanical devices and natural laws, so that they could cause every activity to cease, and every eye to be fixed upon them, until their message had been delivered.

 “I saw them walk upon the water; I saw the terror in the faces of the wicked, at the sound of their voices.  I saw the professing Christians fall upon their faces in true repentance, crying out for mercy, and I saw them being genuinely converted.  I saw the skeptics being convinced, and the blasphemy of the wicked, as they would rail and mock, only to be struck dumb or blind at just a word from the manifested sons and daughters of God.

 “The vision lasted all night, as in my spirit I was living in that future time, when God will be manifested in fullness in His sons and daughters, while my body was back there in bed alongside my wife.  Sometimes the scenes would make me weep and I would sob, my body shaking violently with pain and agony, whereas another scene would cause me to laugh with holy laughter, as I witnessed the genuine repentance of the shallow church members.  I’ll never forget the vision of the young girl (the daughters of God) who spoke with the voice of many waters.  Human language could never describe the quality of her voice.  All I can say is, it was so filled with love and compassion, it would break the hardest stone, and at her command, every infirmity, every sickness, every blindness, every lameness was healed; every one was made perfectly whole, even those who had been lunatic from birth.

 “Sister Britain got no sleep that night, and finally when the dawn was ready to break, she asked me why I didn’t get up and write the vision.  I did try, but could not hold my hands on the keyboard of the typewriter.  Some unseen force held them aloft over my head.  I walked the floor and wept, and begged the Lord to permit me to write some of the visions I had seen, to preserve them in black and white.  At last He did, and I wrote just a very few of the visions I had seen, for a large book could not contain them all.”

And now, many years afterward, the old prophet has passed from the scene.  But today, not only the small number who were touched by his word, but multiplied tens of thousands of saints in every nation under heaven have been quickened to these wonderful truths.  It has not been the work of any man or group of men, nor of any movement or organization, nor of any organized effort or theological promotion.  It has been the sovereign work of God by the Holy Spirit!  A vast army of saints is now in preparation for the greatest day in earth’s long history — the manifestation of the sons of God!

Some time ago brother Paul Mueller admonished the saints, “This age has been the time when the Lord’s purpose was to bring people into His kingdom by ‘the foolishness of preaching’ (I Cor. 1:21).  We rejoiced to see many gather together to hear the anointed messages of preaching and to be saved by that means.  But God has a more perfect way!  The old order of meetings, of the manifestation of the gifts, and of the foolishness of preaching is ending.  We once preached, prophesied, and ministered in part.  That which is in part is being removed, and that which is perfect is coming!  The new, perfect order will function by perfect love.  It is now time for us to put away the childish, foolish things of the past (I Cor. 13:8-13).  The Lord is replacing the old order with a new order of greater Spirit Life and manifestation.  And we are highly privileged to be the firstfruits of that new order in God.

 “Imagine the wonders of the mighty moving of the Spirit as the new highway to God is revealed.  Instead of church meetings, the Spirit of the Lord will move on an entire body of people wherever they may be gathered, and the whole group will be converted without a preacher, a choir, or an altar call.  Instead of one man preaching to a group of people, the transformed saints will stand amidst many on the streets, on the highways or byways, or in a shopping mall.  When they see the glory of Christ on us, they will gladly accept the Lord and their lives will be immediately transformed.  Instead of one man preaching or ministering healing to a group of people, and seeing many turn to the Lord, the transformed body of Christ will  point the way to the new highway to God, and many more multitudes will be brought into the kingdom.  It may be difficult for us to envision entirely, but that new highway to God will be far more glorious than anything we have seen in the past!  The Lord will do more in one minute by His Spirit than a man has been able to do in his entire lifetime.  Yesterday the Lord worked and moved in the 30 and  60-fold degree, tomorrow He will move mightily in a l00-fold manifestation of His power and glory.  And all of this will be the result of our spiritual growth unto sonship.  Multitudes shall then find the peace and joy of Christ, and will embrace the fullness of His kingdom and dominion.”

Another brother has added his testimony of how the Spirit has opened to his understanding events that will herald the unveiling of God’s sons.  “Many believers today are ready in spirit, as they await this great wave with excitement and expectancy.  Some have already been given a glimpse of this great Light that will move upon the waters.  God’s remnant will involve individuals who are humble, word-filled, trustworthy, meek: those who have died to self and have kept their eyes on things above.  Many, like yourself, are they who are usually unnoticed or lost in a crowd.  Let us look at a few examples of this coming anointing.  We may hear of an elderly lady, one whom the world has never given so much as a second glance.  She is walking to a nearby store, but the Holy Spirit speaks and directs her to enter a theater en route.  She enters, as if invisible, and standing at the rear of the great audience the Holy Spirit begins to sing through this lady and instantly everyone becomes quiet; even the picture on the screen and the sound in the theater stop.  Every individual in that audience feels the notes rising in their soul and all that are in need are made free, and all those sick are made whole and well.  Much weeping and praising and giving glory to God is heard from that theater, but during this time the song ends and the little lady simply leaves unnoticed.  Indeed the audience is stunned, but ‘The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the glory of God thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.  The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty’ (Ps. 29:3-4).

 “We shall now witness another move, or event.  We see a large church in service and during the service the Holy Spirit directs a man to enter the church and he walks directly to the organ that rests at the side of the platform.  Having never played an instrument in his life, the Holy Spirit causes his fingers to play heavenly chords of music that immediately paralyze the entire congregation. Tears flow and hearts beat unto that higher sound, and again all are made whole, set free from earthly bondages.  The entire body is now giving glory to the Most High, and our little man simply turns and walks out of the service without notice, receiving no personal glory.  Whatever the situation, whatever the conditions, THERE WILL BE NO STRONGHOLDS THAT GOD’S LIGHT WILL NOT PENETRATE.  The land will shine here and there as God causes His vessels of light to move forth.  ‘They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.  The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble...and the Lord shall utter His voice before HIS ARMY: for His camp is very great: for He is strong that executeth His word: for the day of the Lord is great, and very terrible; and who can abide it?’ (Joel 2:9-11).

 “Truly we see that the Lord shall have an army of Light-bearers.  Words cannot describe the acts and supernatural wonders that God will yet perform.  It is your opportunity among that called remnant to stand among the number of this great army.  Your life may have had many trials, testings, and hardships, you may be old and sickly, but if you believe that God has prepared you with all these exercises in order that you may stand in this hour, then nothing is impossible unto you.  You have undergone a life training for such a time as this, so spend your time wisely now until that moment...”

A dear sister in the Lord, Rita Kahr, wrote a letter to a friend of ours a few years ago.  I quote a portion of her letter.  “About ten years ago I was in bed late at night reading a paper by Preston on the “Greater Works” ministry of the manifested sons of God that are to come forth.  My spirit was leaping then, but I was also overwhelmed by my lack — lack of anything and of everything to help in any way in the ministry.  I felt absolutely drained, and so I cried out to the Lord then and there, ‘Father, I don’t think I can attain to this ministry.  It’s too precious and wonderful and I have nothing to offer.  I can’t prophesy, I can’t write like Preston Eby and others, I can’t teach and I can’t even sing to offer some praise.  About the only thing I can do is speak in tongues, and that only a little.  I feel I am failing in my very lack.’

 “I then fell asleep and had a dream.  I never dream, or at least very seldom do I remember them.  Here I was in this dream in front of a large group of people.  I opened my mouth to speak and out came words of great wisdom and profound teaching.  The people cried out, ‘It’s the Lord!  It’s the Lord!’ I then stretched forth my hand and people cried out, ‘I’m healed — it’s the Lord!  It’s the Lord!’  I awoke and was confused because I was doing these ‘Greater Works’ and more, and then the Spirit spoke to me: ‘Rita, do you believe the message you just read in Preston’s paper?’  I answered, ‘Yes, but it seems so far beyond my reach.’  The Lord answered, ‘You couldn’t even believe it if the seed wasn’t in you with all the potential for its growth.  I’ll water and bring the sunshine and it shall prosper in my time.’  Oh, what joy and comfort that word brought me!  I ceased all my fears and that word has kept me to this day — I still haven’t any ministry, most of God’s people don’t even recognize me as a brother (sister), my body confesses to a ‘Job experience,’ and I can say the time has been long and dry.  Nevertheless, the seed has grown greatly in these last years, but there is yet to be a demonstration of that which I believe — I can hardly wait, though, for it shall surely come to pass.”

Earth has not yet witnessed the magnitude of ministry that shall be revealed through the manifest sons of God.  In this hour at the transition of the ages, God is preparing His perfected and matured body, anointed with the seven-fold intensified fullness of the Spirit of God, and this enChristed company shall appear on the cosmic stage of history with ten thousand times more power than any of the revival showers of the past centuries.  God has moved deeply upon my heart to proclaim to God’s elect that there is soon coming a great and glorious MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST before the face of all nations and the whole earth.  There will be a full and complete revelation of Jesus Christ in His many brethren — and it shall usher in the next stage of the Kingdom of God on earth —the dominion of the Kingdom over all the living nations on earth.  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 our midst in a new, dramatic, and powerful way, and through us to creation.

The church order and ministry of the past two thousand years has been good and appropriate for saving a remnant and bringing the elect into the beginnings of their life in Christ.  Let no man say that we are opposed to it!  I still rejoice when I see hundreds of people walking down the isles in a Billy Graham Crusade to give their hearts to the Lord.  And I still praise God when I see people testifying to the healing, miracle working power of God upon the stage of a Benny Hinn Crusade here or abroad.  But it is not sonship ministry!  Therefore, it can contribute but a little to the Kingdom of God in the earth.  To deliver the creation from the bondage of corruption GOD HAS A MORE PERFECT WAY!  He has given us a sneak preview of this way in the life and ministry of the firstborn Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.