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!