The Third Day
Chapter One,
PENETRATING THE
DARKNESS
As the light of God dispels the
darkness of our ignorance we discover the reality of our nature is DIVINE, even
as it was in the beginning. Now we no longer look up in the sky waiting for the
man Jesus to return and become KING, because we know he is KING ALREADY. Our
life now comes under his control and in our renewed consciousness we know that
we LIVE and MOVE and have our being in him. The work the Spirit began in us is
now being finished as we find the "I" of self, that we thought was a
separate entity from God, being raised to the "I AM" which I am in
Christ.
As we approached the millenium many
Christians were prophesying doom and gloom with wars and strife of every kind.
However I see the most exciting time ahead as the Sons of God become manifest
having discovered their true identity in the I AM and are now fitted to become
the Saviors of the world. Thus the groaning creation will find its salvation in
a people, who like Paul are living as Christ. This is the fulfillment of God's
promise to Abraham, "In thee and THY SEED shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed." Beloved we are the "seed" of Abraham through
CHRIST.
Thus we are lifted out of the selfish
concepts of our religious beliefs, where all we were interested in was getting
our sins forgiven and escaping the flames of hell. How infantile is such an
attitude, when compared to the reality, that we are being conformed to the
image of his SON Jesus Christ, and becoming the vessels in which the glory of
the Lord will be displayed to the world. In this is the will and purpose of the
CREATOR fulfilled, as the MAN created in his likeness and image manifests the
glory of the FATHER our heavenly Father glorified.
The Day of the
Lord.
Theologians have argued over the
meaning of the word "DAY" in the account of creation. Peter explains,
"Be not ignorant of this one thing, that ONE DAY is with the Lord as a
THOUSAND YEARS, and a thousand years as ONE DAY." 2 Peter 3:8 The truth is
that God does not function in TIME at all, such as we do. God functions in
ETERNITY, where TIME as we know it does not exist. Most Christians live either
in the PAST or in the FUTURE. They keep harking back to great times in the
past, when God did something for them. Or they say, "Won’t it be wonderful
when we all get to heaven, or when Christ returns from the sky at the end of
the age! So their hope is either centered in a past experience or in the
future. For them there is very little for the "now."
Even the Christian calendar emphasizes
this same thing. At Christmas we remember the Birth of Christ in Bethlehem with
great celebration. However, we know almost nothing of the next thirty years,
until he appears at the river Jordan. Then we follow him to the Cross where he
dies and is buried, and raised from the dead on the third day. Again this is a
time of great contemplation and rejoicing that we call EASTER, when we
celebrate his resurrection. We follow him then to the Mount of Olives where he
ascends out of the midst of the disciples. At that point we loose sight of him,
and we do not know where he is gone. All celebrations are over, so we must wait
for Christmas when we bring him back as a baby again, and celebrate his birth
all over again. This is the revolving cycle of the Church's calendar.
Beloved the PAST is gone and we cannot
bring it back, and the future is not ours, for it has no reality for us at this
moment. The only moment you can do business with God is N-O-W. The only moment
you can trust him is N-O-W. The only point at which TIME and ETERNITY ever meet
is in the N-O-W. If you do not trust God NOW nothing in the past or the future
can make any difference. NOW is the time of acceptance behold NOW is the day of
salvation. If Jesus Christ is not Lord in your life NOW then he is not Lord at
all.
As we come to the end of this
millenium we enter the THIRD DAY from Christ, and the SEVENTH day from Adam, in
which God finished creating the MAN who would manifest his glory, and
sanctified all of creation, setting it apart for himself. Thus we are in the
DAY OF THE LORD mentioned in the book of Revelation, where it says, "John
was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." I was taught that the Lord's day is
SUNDAY, but this is far from the truth. The day of the Lord is the day when man
ceases to live out of a sense of separation from God, and discovers Christ not
only dwells within, but that he is living his life out from the Most Holy Place
of our being.
This is a time of spiritual awakening
of epic proportions, when the Body of Christ is rising out of its mortality and
death, through the process of Resurrection. These have heard the voice of the
Son of God and have been raised from the dead in the perfection of the Christ,
who is their life. Their whole purpose in living is to declare the image of
God, in loving, blessing and redeeming all mankind through the ministry of
reconciliation, until all creation has been released from its bondage.
Jesus said, "Destroy this temple
and in THREE DAYS I will raise it up." This he spoke of the Temple which
is his body." Jn 2:19. We are now living in the THIRD DAY from Christ. The
Prophet Isaiah spoke of this day when he said," Arise, shine for thy light
has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee. For behold, the
darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the LORD
SHALL ARISE UPON THEE AND HIS GLORY SHALL BE SEEN UPON THEE." Isa 60:1-2.
So this day for some will be a day of
darkness, but for others it will be a day of light and revelation, which will
turn the night into the brightness of day. We are reminded that in the days of
creation in Genesis, that the DAY always began in the evening. "And the
evening and the morning were the First Day." For Israel the Sabbath began
at sundown on the previous day. So it is obvious that at this time some will
enter the dawn of a NEW DAY of divine realization, while others will enter a
time of darkness bringing with it a sense of impending doom.
To look today about us with NATURAL
EYES, one could only consider this to be a time of great conflict when fear is
filling the hearts of many people. There are wars and rumors of wars, with
political and economic collapse in many parts of the world. There are floods
and famine and other disasters in many countries. In view of these things many
Christians consider this is a time of great darkness and unrest. On the other
hand for those upon whom the SON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS has risen, and their
consciousness of the "I" has been raised to the "I AM,"
this is the glorious THIRD DAY or the DAY OF THE LORD.
The people who claim to be Christians
today, are in fact a mixture, and this is the day when the Lord is going to
purify HIS Church. Among those who belong to a Church today, are many whose
righteousness does not even equal that of the Pharisees, or those who are in
the world. I believe this to be the result of the "Gospel" that has
been presented to the people. The people have been told, that as a result of
Adam’s sin in the garden, God has placed all men under the curse of death, and
this will result finally in being cast into an eternal burning hell. The only
escape from such a judgement is to receive Christ as Savior and have our sins
forgiven, then we can go to heaven. The alternatives in this spurious Gospel is
HEAVEN or a BURNING HELL.
Today we have a large number of people
who have responded to the preacher's appeal and "asked Christ into their
heart" but their motivation is to escape HELL FIRE. In this response there
is absolutely nothing for God. When Israel left Egypt under the mighty hand of
God, there were many Egyptians who joined their ranks, who were called "A
MIXED MULTITUDE." These were convinced Israel's God was greater than the
Gods of Egypt, so decided to join what appeared to them to be the winning side,
and leave Egypt. But they did not come out through the Passover Lamb. These people
became a snare and a problem for the children of Israel. The Church today is
also a MIXED MULTITUDE and this is the day when God is dealing with this
mixture.
Do not misunderstand the purpose of
this purging, for it is not an arbitrary culling of the flock of those who did
not do everything right, or were not baptised using the right words. Nor is it
that God does not love those who have just joined the group for questionable
reasons. But God is calling OUT a people UNTO HIS NAME. "You who were
sometimes alienated end enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now has he
reconciled in the Body of his flesh through death, to present you HOLY AND
UNBLAMEABLE AND UNREPROVABLE IN HIS SIGHT." Col:21-22. "Therefore if
any man be IN CHRIST, he is a NEW CREATION."
God is not just looking for those who
want "to go to heaven," but those in whom the mind of Christ has been
activated, and their consciousness has been raised to behold the CHRIST
dwelling within, expressing himself as "I AM." There will be no
revelation of the true Sons of God until there is a purging of his people, and
a falling away of those who at this point in time have not been touched by the
Spirit of revelation. These will not be cast away nor will they be lost, but
will find their place when God has prepared his "Called out ones."
There are so many Christians today who are bound by carnal doctrines and false
concepts of God, which will not allow them to see GOD DWELLING IN EVERY MAN.
Their "God" is up in the sky and though they pray, he is powerless to
do anything for them, because that "god" is just a figment of their
imagination. The true God says, "Ye are the temple of the LIVING God, as
he has said, I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK IN THEM, AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD AND
THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE." 2 Cor 6:16.
The greatest problem Christians face
in the earth today is not the devil, but ignorance. The prophet Hosea said,
"My people are destroyed for their lack of knowledge." In this day
the Lord is rooting out every plant (thought) that my heavenly Father has not
planted. All the false doctrines and concepts that are the product of the
carnal mind of man must be taken away. Only then will the confusion and false
images we have developed in our imagination be rooted out and then we can enter
into REALITY.
God is LIGHT and in him is no darkness
at all. Light represents understanding, and darkness represents ignorance for
us today. We must therefore dwell in the LIGHT that is TRUTH, being taught by
the Holy Spirit. We cannot know TRUTH apart from revelation by the Spirit of
God. All Truth is a manifestation of God, because he is the GOD OF TRUTH. Truth
will take us beyond the boundaries of the physical into the realm of the
Spirit, where we touch the reality of all things.
Man did not originate from the
physical world but came from God so therefore we are essentially creatures of
SPIRIT, who live in a body. Our mortality is a consciousness that declares that
the reality of our being is to be found in the BODY. Once we are aware we are
Spirit having come from God, we no longer consider we are mortal creatures.
It follows, that if our origin is God
we must be Spirit, for God is Spirit and so the divine nature must be inherent
within us. This truth is revealed to us in Jesus Christ who although he was
born of a woman yet he could say, "I and my Father are one." Jn
10:30. When he asked the disciples who they thought he was, Peter answered,
"Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God." Matt 16:16. Jesus
told him, that knowledge came from the Father in heaven and could not be
discovered through the mind of man.
So in this day we must discover this
type of knowing which reveals to us the hidden things of God. The Apostle John
tells us, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth IN HIM, and HE IN GOD." 1 Jn 4:15. This confession of the
identity of Jesus Christ implies surrender and obedience, and not mere lip
service. When it is genuine this confession is proof of our fellowship with
God.
There are several words used in the
GREEK language, that speak of different levels of knowing. "Ginosko"
means to know by experience. Consider how long it takes for us to learn by
experience the art of driving a car. This is only one issue, so gaining
knowledge this way would limit us to knowing only those things that may appeal
to us in the first place. This word is used in such scriptures as :- Jn 8:21,
Jn 8:32 & Rom 10:19.
Another Greek word for knowledge is
"EIDO" which refers to a higher knowledge that is FROM ABOVE. We do
not have to experience this knowledge in order to know it, all that is needed
is for the Spirit to BREATHE it into us. This is what Paul speaks about when he
says, "That the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened that you may
KNOW"........through the Spirit of revelation. Eph 1:18, also 1 Jn 2:20.
Then there is the Greek word SUNEIDO,
meaning a knowledge that is absolute. This is when we know that we know. It is
the knowledge gained by experience together with revelation knowledge whereby
we become united with the TRUTH as revealed by the Spirit of God. "For it
is GOD that works in you both to WILL and to DO of his good pleasure."
Phil 2:13. "Suneido" is found in 1 Cor 4:4 and 2 Pet 3:17.
We have to accept the fact that the
"natural man" cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness unto him, and neither can he know them. The mind of man
can search out many things but when it comes to spiritual issues, it has no
capacity to know them, for they can only be spiritually discerned. Man’s
persistence in trusting his own intelligence in order to know God has kept him
in the dark, and so hidden from him the life giving power of the Spirit of God.
Saul of Tarsus was convinced in his mind that Christianity was anti God, and so
set his heart to destroy it. Here is the proof that the natural or soulish man
has no capacity to know or understand God.
It was not until Saul had a spiritual
experience over which he had no control, that he received information his
natural mind could never have known. This knowledge came to him in the form of
LIGHT, which illuminated TRUTH in him. He saw the one his natural mind
considered to be an imposter, and put to death as a common criminal, now
standing ALIVE in the Spiritual world of his own being, and he was speaking
directly to him. The voice that transformed his life said, "Saul, Saul,
why are you persecuting ME?" Saul responded by asking, "WHO ART THOU
LORD?" The answer to that question had not yet entered into his
understanding, but the VOICE coming from within provided all the answers he
needed
In the WORDS he heard within, Saul
discovered the one he now called LORD was the one he was trying to destroy.
Saul had yet to discover how the LORD he believed to be DEAD, was actually
alive. His subjection to the Lordship of Christ having now been accomplished he
replies, "LORD what do you want me to do?" No amount of human
reasoning could have had this result in his life, because humanly speaking, he
believed he knew the TRUTH about the lowly Nazarene. All true conversion
involves these same elements of illumination that results in the over riding of
the natural mind and therefore the will. No human source can ever discover what
is TRUTH.