The Kingdom of God!

 

Chapter 81

 

There are so many things happening in our world today. Russia is waging a war against Ukraine and destroying the lives of innocent people. The news media is spewing out twisted coverage of what is happening all over the world, and many are fearful. Unfortunately, there are many Christians that are also fearful. Jesus said in Matt. 24

"He replied: "Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and, 'The time is near.' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away."> Then he said to them: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."

 

"There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

 

"But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so, you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict."

 

"You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life."

 

If there is any gift we need today, it's discernment! You can have this if you learn to hear the voice of the Lord! Spiritual discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in Matt. 13:10-14, (NIV)

 

 

The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "Because the knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving."

 

 

Jesus also said in Luke 8:18, (NIV)

 

"Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them."

 

So many Christians watch only MSN, CBN, NBC, or CBS and are filled with twisted news about world events. Even if you watch Fox News, you need to have discernment and common sense. Most of the time you can see for yourself what is going on and you can hear for yourself what is being said. Then you can see if they keep their promises that they gave you about what they were going to do.

 

If you watched what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, at our nation"s capital, there was enough video that you can make up you own mind about what Trump said and what the crowd was doing. You can bet the drive by media distorted the events to make it look like Trump was behind all that happened. You could also see how so many Senators jumped to the conclusion that Trump organize the breaking into the Capital Building instead of waiting to see the facts. This is why you have to learn to discern for yourself by what you see and what you hear.

 

John said in Rev. 1:5-6,        

"To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father--to him be glory and power for ever and ever!"

 

And in Rev. 5:9-10,

 

"With your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth."

  

The book of Revelation is addressed to those whom Christ is making to be kings and priests unto God! All the experiences of this wonderful book are prepared with one purpose in mind to make us kings and priests unto God!

        

The unveiling of the sons of God is not the revelation of some people that can do something for God.  It is the unveiling of some people that have become something. God is not concerned about taking us some place to some far-off heaven somewhere. He is concerned with making something out of us. That is what redemption is all about! It is not a question of where we are going, it is a matter of what we are becoming. God is working not to take us, but to make us. John said in his gospel 1:12,

 

"To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God"

 

And in Rev. 21:7,

 

"He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son."

 

Our vision in this new Day of the Lord is no longer in doing or going. Our vision is to know the Lord! Our hearts are set on Him! We are no longer focused on ourselves and what we can become, we are focused with what His purpose is in us and with what He has said He would make us for His sake. God said in Isaiah 43:21,

 

 "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise!"

 

When the light of God comes and shines into our heart, we become a light. When we feed on the bread of heaven, we become living bread. When we drink of the water of the Spirit, out of our innermost being flows rivers of living water. When He is made unto us righteousness, we become the righteousness of God. When He has fully delivered us, we become the salvation of the Lord. When He reigns upon the throne of our hearts, we become kings and lords with Him.

 

God will have a people throughout the earth in these days, a people walking in God, walking as God, terrible as an army with banners, whose only purpose is that the Father may be glorified! God is raising up a people formed for Himself, through whom He can reveal and manifest Himself in all His wonderful fullness.

 

Because all the earth is His, God is raising up a Kingly Priesthood to reign in mighty spirit power and authority over the earth, not to be little human dictators, or an external government of laws and systems headquartered in Jerusalem, or Washington, or London, but with an outflow of life and light and love, touching God with one hand, and humanity with the other, by their priestly ministry bringing the two together, that God may indwell men by His Spirit and live and rule in them in power and glory.

 

The kingly nature in us is not to dominate over men's lives, but to deal and break the power of selfishness, rebellion, sin and the devil so that men may be reconciled to God. This is a King-Priest ministry, after the order of Melchizedek! Kings have power and authority. Priests reconcile in mercy and love. But once the reconciliation has taken place, and Christ is enthroned, we deliver men up to God, even the Father that GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL. That is the principle of the kingdom of God! We rule only to subdue men to God and then GOD RULES IN THEM!  He rules first through us, that He may rule finally in them.

 

The manifestation of the sons of God for which all creation is in travail (Rom. 8:19) is nothing more nor less than the full manifestation of God's fully developed and empowered government of KING-PRIESTS AFTER THE ORDER OF MIELCHIZEDEK. Throughout the age has now ended the Holy Spirit has been forming, preparing, and equipping that body. In the new age now upon us, that body shall be given power and authority over all nations and all things! In the ages yet to come the Kingdom of God shall be expanded from realm to realm, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, for of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end! (Luke 1:33)

        

The fire from off the altar of God is touching thousands upon thousands! A great Kingdom of Priests is being set ablaze with the life and love and power of God that will cause the nations of the world to turn to the living God in these crisis days.

 

If you want to bless humanity, if your desire is to see the world transformed and the captives set free, if the cry of your heart is to see sin and sorrow and death driven from men's lives until there is a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness, then forget, once and for all, all the old-order church system methods of the past, for none of them have converted the world, delivered creation, or brought in the kingdom of God!

 

Even now, a move of God of worldwide dimensions is in the making! It is being formed in a people, in a sonship company that is becoming the embodiment and personification of all He is. These will minister spontaneously in every place at all times; in the fields, on the streets, in the homes, in the business establishments, in the restaurants, in the hospitals, in the churches, in the schools, on the airplanes, buses, and trains; wherever they are to minister, by command of the Spirit they will appear in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost! They will minister to the meek and lowly and needy, to the great and mighty, to the common people and to kings, presidents, and prime ministers, to all men everywhere without respect of persons. None will be able to say that this is their wisdom or their revelation or their power!

        

Already bright clouds are gathering on the horizon, clouds of a multitude of witnesses to the deep and vital work God is doing in the lives of His apprehended ones in preparation for the long-awaited manifestation of the sons of God! Great glory is about to break forth upon the earth. This is the time to gird up your loins, like Elijah of old, and run before the chariots.  In due time the clouds shall burst and empty themselves upon the earth. Let your heart be lifted high, for God is on the move, and this can be YOUR HOUR OF MANIFESTATION!  This will only erupt and overflow from God's people which have first been worked on by the Father's hand.  

 

Do not belittle or depreciate this day when it may seem, so little is happening in your midst. The accent of the Spirit is not on the external works and gifts and manifestations in this hour because we have already had all of that! God's concern is with the inner development of the Christ, the formation of all He is as life and nature within. In our becoming the essence and substance of His very Being! Right now, the greatest service we can give to others is to die out to all our own ego-self and to all the antiquated religious methods of the past, that the living of His Life becomes its own declaration of all that He is and can do, to His glory and praise. John said in Rev. 1:7,

 

"Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him."

              

The book of Revelation contains deep and rich teachings for the elect saints of God concerning the coming of Christ.   The coming of the Lord, as revealed in the book of Revelation, is complex and progressive, extending through a variety of diverse scenes, stages, events, and manifestations, until He has come in such measure of fullness that we know Him finally in that dimension where HE is the glorious fulfillment of all that our heart has yearned for, and desired so earnestly with all the lacks swallowed up into completeness, all the voids filled with His fullness, and we know the bliss of HIMSELF as our all-in-all!

        

Almost two thousand years ago John on the isle of Patmos saw unfolding before Him the enthralling drama of the coming of His Lord. As the awesome sight began to unfold, he cried out in astonished wonder and surprised joy, "Behold! He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him."

 

This phrase, 'He cometh', is from the Greek word erchomai. It is the third person singular, present indicative. Anyone who knows the conjunction of verbs knows what that means. First, it means HE COMES as a present tense reality. The verb is present indicative. He comes. He is in the act of coming. Behold! He is now coming! In other words, He has been coming, He is still in the act of coming, and He continues to come. This is extremely important. More than once the coming of the Lord is spoken of in this tense throughout the book of Revelation. It's not merely a future thing, not something that shall happen somewhere down the course of history, but it is something that is happening.

        

The church world is either looking back to an historical Christ, or forward to a futuristic coming of Christ. They miss this word erchomai altogether, and their spiritual understanding never becomes quickened to this grand truth that HE COMES and He is coming, He continues to come, and He will continue to come, until He has come in the fullness of every dimension in which He can come. It is something that is happening right now! It is happening in your life right now! It means that He comes from one place to another. He comes out of the realm of spirit to be manifested in flesh, out of the realm of the invisible to be expressed and revealed in a visible, tangible way to the physical creation.

 

Erchomai means to come, to make one's appearance before the public. It means that He comes and appears before the view of the people round about. And this coming has already happened, it is happening now, and shall continue to happen! This is the revelation that so captivated the apostle John that he could only exclaim with amazement, "Behold! He comes!" And we have been just as amazed as the Spirit has borne witness for a number of years now among the Lord's people that soon Christ shall come in a manifestation of Himself on a plane and in a measure never before seen or experienced by men upon this planet. He shall come to be glorified in His saints and manifested in His sons to set creation free from the bondage of corruption. The power of sin and death shall first be broken off God's people and then from all humanity.  It is true that He has come in a partial measure, but He shall yet come in fullness!

 

Let's look at two more words in the statement that John made, "Behold! He cometh with clouds." The word 'with' is from the Greek preposition meta. It means with, but it also means together with, in the midst of, among, between, in common with, with the help of, and by means of.

 

Here are the ways He comes: Behold! He comes with clouds, denoting an association. Behold! He comes together with clouds, denoting a communion. Behold! He comes in the midst of clouds, denoting an indwelling. Behold! He comes among clouds, denoting a fellowship. Behold! He comes between clouds, denoting a union. Behold! He comes in common with clouds, denoting participation. Behold! He comes with the help of clouds, denoting interdependence. Behold! He comes by means of clouds.

        

From the dawn of history, the way in which God has displayed His glory has been in the form of a cloud. This glory cloud of God has taken different shapes and different sizes on various occasions. When it was time for the children of Israel to begin their exodus out of Egypt, the glory of God took the form of a pillar of fire enshrouded within a cloud.

In Ex. 13:21-22 it says,

 

 "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them in the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people" 

        

What did the glory of God signify every time it appeared? The glory cloud of God signified the unique presence of God! It always told the people of Israel, when it appeared, that Yahweh was uniquely present in this place, at this time, for a special purpose. When the glory of God as a cloud led the children of Israel out of Egypt, it signified to the people that God was with them in a very real and sovereign way.   "And the Lord went before them in a pillar of a cloud." God was in the cloud! The almighty God Himself dwelt in that cloud by day and in the fiery pillar by night. That strange pillar of cloud and fire was the visible manifestation of His glory and presence.

 

While Israel walked in the light of His fiery presence, no calamity could harm them, no enemy could attack them, no evil could befall them, nor plague come nigh their dwelling. God was with them in sovereign power in all their marches! "And the Lord said unto Moses in Ex. 19:9,

 

"I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you."

 

Again in Lev. 16:22 God told Moses,

 

"Tell your brother Aaron not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud over the atonement cover."

 

When the cloud came down out of heaven and rested on top of mount Sinai, it signified that God, in a unique sense, had come out of the realm of spirit to meet with the children of Israel in His manifestation on the earth plane. When they saw the cloud enter into the most holy place in the tabernacle and later in the temple, it signified again that God in a special sense was taking up residence in that worship structure within the nation of Israel. The light that shone in the holiest of all behind the temple curtain of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen laced with threads of gold and figures of cherubim was not the beams of the sevenfold candlestick of the holy place or even the radiance of the sun in the outer court. It was the glory light of God's own divine majesty! Through time the Israelites called that glory cloud of God the shekinah. The word shekinah means "to dwell."  And since the glory cloud always signified that God was present at the place where the cloud appeared, to dwell in a special sense, they called it the shekinah or dwelling glory of God!

        

The disciples of Jesus had become accustomed to seeing Jesus the man, Jesus the healer, Jesus the teacher, and Jesus the miracle worker. They had heard Him tell of the majesty and glory of His Father in heaven but had never grasped the significance of the glory, majesty, and power of the Christ who walked the road with them.

 

On that momentous occasion when the Lord Jesus took Peter, James, and John up into the mount and was transfigured before them suddenly there appeared a bright cloud with a light in it! Out of that bright cloud the voice of the Father spoke concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.  "This is my beloved Son; listen to Him!" It is more than coincidence that, as Peter spoke, a cloud overshadowed them and a Voice came out of the cloud. One of the significant facts in connection with the glory cloud of God's presence is that God always spoke from the cloud.  What was that bright cloud with the light in it from which the voice of God spoke on the mount of Jesus' transfiguration?  It was none other than the pillar of cloud housing the glory fire, the shekinah glory of God that had led the children of Israel in their exodus out of Egypt and guided them for forty years! As Jesus prayed on the mount He was transfigured before His chosen disciples. At that moment of transfiguration, the glory cloud enveloped Him and God spoke from the midst of the radiance of glory. In the wilderness this glory, this cloud, and the voice out of the cloud are all brought together:  The writer to the Hebrews identified this voice and this glory in these remarkable words, Heb. 1:1-3,

 

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke 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; who being the brightness of his glory   and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;......"

 

Jesus is the brightness of God's glory! He is indeed, the presence in the cloud and the very cloud and fire of the presence of God!

        

Be assured beyond any possible shadow of doubt that it was this same shekinah, this very same glory cloud which the eleven disciples beheld in spell-bound astonishment on the crest of the mount of Olives that blessed day when the Lord ascended into mid-air and suddenly a bright cloud, like a chariot of God, bore Him speedily away, concealing Him from mortal gaze.

 

It says in Acts 1:9,

 

 "When He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight,"

 

Was this an accident? An illusion? A marvelous coincidence? Not on your life! This is same cloud which hovered over Israel in the wilderness; the cloud which rested upon the glorious tabernacle of old; the cloud which dwelt between the gleaming cherubim in the most holy place; the cloud which filled Solomon's temple until the ministers could not minister by reason of the blazing glory; the cloud which overshadowed the virgin girl Mary when she came to be with child; and the cloud which enveloped the Son of God and revealed His glory on the mount of transfiguration. That cloud is the very same cloud that received the Lord Jesus into it's midst and out of the sight of mortal eyes!

 

The cloud that received Jesus out of the sight of those startled disciples certainly was no ordinary rain cloud which happened to be blown across a torturous sky. It was the blazing shekinah cloud which had always veiled the divine majesty of God from time immemorial!

        

Here is something that has entirely been overlooked by most Bible students and nearly all preachers and teachers. All the way through the scriptures, from the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel, to the ascension of Christ from the Mount of Olives, God consistently manifested Himself in ONE GLORY CLOUD.  There was always only ONE SINGLE CLOUD! One cloud before the camp of Israel. One cloud over mount Sinai. One cloud resting upon the tabernacle in the wilderness. One cloud shining in the most holy place. One cloud filling Solomon's temple. One cloud overshadowing the virgin of Galilee, implanting the seed of the Christ. One cloud shimmering over the summit of the mount of transfiguration. One cloud in which Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives. Christ ascended in one single cloud of God's glory. The very same cloud in which He had manifested His presence throughout the long ages of time!

        

Why is it then when we come to the return of the Lord that we notice a distinct difference? For suddenly the one single cloud disappears and we are introduced to a great plurality of clouds!  Christ departed this earth in one cloud. He comes again in many clouds!