Man was created to be the throne of the Judge of Heaven.
Man was created to be the throne of the Judge of Heaven.
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (I Corinthians 6:2,3)
The Judgment Seat of Christ. The Judgment Seat ( beema ) of Christ is not an awards ceremony, it is a court where accused criminals are brought to trial. Each Christian, along with everyone else, will be revealed before the Judgment Seat and rewarded according to his works. Divine grace does not change what we reap but what we sow.
It is God's way to bring us into situations where the hidden elements of our personality cause us to act. Then God judges our actions.
It is of the utmost importance that God's people understand clearly that they will be rewarded according to what they have done while living in the world. They will receive eternal life if they have practiced good and lashes if they have practiced evil.
We are to confess of our sins now and repent of each of them. As we do, God forgives our sins and cleanses us from them. In that case they will not be held against us in the Day of the Lord.
Let no person—Christian or otherwise—think that he or she will not face the Judge. Each of us indeed will face the Judge one day, and it is a cause for trembling.
The Judgment Seat of Christ is taking place today, to prepare God's elect for the coming of the Lord. As our sins and self-will are pointed out to us, we must confess them as sin and turn away from them with the help of Christ.
The Judgment Seat of Christ is in force today, as it has been from the time of the Apostle Peter.
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? (I Peter 4:17)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things {done} in {his} body, according to that he hath done, whether {it be} good or bad. (II Corinthians 5:10)
The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is coming to the earth. Heaven is coming to the earth. The Divine Throne is coming to the earth. The Day shall come when Jerusalem will be referred to as the Throne of the Lord.
In that Day people will pray to God in Jerusalem, for Jerusalem then will be all we associate with Heaven.
There is an inner Kingdom and an outer Kingdom. The outer Kingdom cannot appear to the world until first the inner Kingdom has been created in the hearts of God's elect. The inner Kingdom is established in us when the only lawful King, Christ, is firmly seated upon the throne of our personality.
The Lord alone shall be exalted in that Day!
At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. (Jeremiah 3:17)
And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: (Revelation 22:3)
The Love of Money. Covetousness is idolatry. Of all the gods in the world, the love of money is the greatest source of evil. Men hoard money in order to protect themselves in case God should prove to be unfaithful and undependable. From Balaam to Judas, from Gehazi to Ananias and Sapphira, the Scriptures teach us to trust in God rather than in money.
Where an individual's treasures are, there his heart will be also. What we truly love is what we truly worship. The firstfruits of the Bride of the Lamb are free from marriage to other relationships, things, and circumstances. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:5)
These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, {being} the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. (Revelation 14:4)
The Manifestation of the Sons of God. It is God's plan and delight to give the works of His hands to His sons as an inheritance. The first and greatest Son to receive the inheritance is the Lord Jesus.
When the Lord Jesus appears, those who live by His Life will be revealed together with Him. They will go throughout the creation (which they will inherit along with the Lord) judging, delivering, teaching, and blessing the peoples of the saved nations.
The nations will continue in the bondage of corruption until the Son and the sons are revealed from Heaven.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. (Romans 8:19)
The Nations of the Saved. It appears that the nations of the saved constitute an unknown group of people as far as modern theology is concerned. Yet it is utterly impossible to understand the Kingdom of God until one realizes that there are two groups of saved people—the members of the Church; and the nations of saved people for whom the royal priesthood of God serves as Christ's representative.
The concept of Israel, of God's elect, is not that the chosen people are destined to go to Heaven while the remainder of mankind is assigned to eternal torment in the Lake of Fire. Rather, the elect of God, the Seed of Abraham, are those people whom God has chosen out of the world, whether Jewish or Gentile by physical birth, to represent Himself to the nations of the earth.
No doubt many people will be cast into the Lake of Fire because of the wickedness of their deeds. However, the majority of people who have been born on the earth will be raised from the dead and then brought into the new heaven and earth reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. These saved individuals will live on the earth and be ruled, guided, and blessed by God's elect, by the Lamb's Wife, by the members of the new Jerusalem. If this were not true, Christ and His saints would have no inheritance.
But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: {men} shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. (Isaiah 61:6)
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. (Revelation 21:24)
The New Covenant. The purpose of the new covenant is change—the change of the believer from a lawless individual into one in whom the eternal moral law of God has been eternally engraved.
Forgiveness is included in the new covenant. But the purpose of the Divine forgiveness is to make possible the new creature who serves God by nature, not to perpetuate lawlessness and immorality.
The new covenant made with man by the God of Israel is probably the most misunderstood contract ever made.
The new covenant is never made with a Gentile. A Gentile must become part of Israel through marriage to Christ if he or she is to participate in the new covenant.
The mainspring of the new covenant is death and resurrection. Our adamic nature must be assigned to the cross with Jesus and our new born-again spiritual nature must be assigned to the right hand of God in and with Christ. Any other approach or emphasis will lead only to the unproductive programs and activities of manmade religion.
The Divine grace of the new covenant is not God's apology for the sins of man. Neither is Divine grace a new dispensation in which God, being discouraged with attempting to make man in His image, has decided to accept him in his sin and rebellion.
Divine grace is the Presence of God made available through the Lord Jesus Christ so that every need and true desire that man has may be met perfectly and completely. However, the program of redemption is first of all for God's benefit and only secondarily for man's benefit Man is transformed so he may worship and serve God.
Divine grace, if it is not to be aborted, must result in actual righteousness and holiness of personality and behavior. It is the righteousness and holiness created in us by Divine grace that result in eternal life. This is in contrast to the Evangelical lawless-grace-rapture doctrine.
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Romans 6:22)
Eternal life is both the source and the result of holiness of personality and behavior.
The concept that salvation is unconditional, that we cannot lose our salvation by willfully continuing in sin, is clearly unscriptural and has hindered the establishing of the Kingdom of God in the believers.
The eternal moral law of God can never be altered in any manner. The purpose of the new covenant is to change what we sow, not what we reap. The Kingdom law of sowing and reaping shall never be made of no effect.
The adamic race died on the cross. God is not saving our first personality. The Kingdom of God is the new personality that is born within us.
Salvation always is a season of opportunity, always conditional, always based on our response.
It appears that some of the Protestant reformers emphasized belief in doctrine at the expense of the moral transformation that is salvation under the new covenant. The moral and doctrinal chaos of the Christian churches of our day is the fruit of the incorrect emphases and myths of Catholic and Protestant theology. Faith without works is dead!
For this {is} the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (Hebrews 8:10)
The Overcomer. All the promises of God are to the victorious saint, the one who is living in Jesus each day. There are no promises to the defeated believer except very stern warnings concerning lashes and outer darkness.
Satan always is conquered as we trust in the blood of the Lamb; as we stoutly, defiantly, consistently, diligently declare God's Presence, Word, will, and eternal purpose in Christ; and as we cease grasping the things of this world and follow Jesus into death to our self-centeredness and self-love.
If we do not trust in the blood of the Lamb, or if we declare something other than that which the Word declares, or if we grasp relationships or things or circumstances and do not place all our treasures on the altar of God, then it is impossible for us to live in victory. We will go down in defeat and are no longer eligible for the rewards assigned to the overcomer.
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, {which is} new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and {I will write upon him} my new name. (Revelation 3:12)
Responding to the Vision of God. God's way is to declare a thing to be done. For example, He already sees the saints glorified—perfect in Christ. The problem is, how are we to respond to the timeless vision?
How are we to address ourselves to that which God has declared to be true but we do not see to be true? The correct response to the prophetic vision insures the successful attainment of all God has stated. An incorrect response leads only to confusion and emptiness.
The sixth chapter of Romans advises us to count ourselves as dead to sin. Does this mean we are unable to sin? Not at all! Does this mean it does not matter whether or not we sin because God does not view our sinful conduct as being sinful? Not at all!
How, then, are we to respond to the fact that God has declared us to be dead with Christ and risen with Christ?
God has said we are a new creation in Christ, that we are crucified and Christ is living in us. Does this mean we are a new creation even though the people around us see the same old personality?
The Scriptures state we were healed by the wounds of Christ. What if we still are sick? How are we to regard ourselves—sick or healed?
The right response leads to glory. The wrong response leads to frustration and deception.
The only correct way to work with the timeless Divine vision is to grasp the vision by faith, declare it is so because God has said it is so, recognize clearly it is not a fact when it is not yet a fact, understand that we have enemies in the spirit world that are determined we never will possess the victory, and then start out after God every day, following His every guidance, enduring in patience until that which has been promised is possessed in solid reality.
Cry out, "Give me this mountain!" If you do not quit, the mountain someday will be yours. With God, all things are possible.
Remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Follow God's timing. Let God modify your desire as He sees fit. Do not clutch anything (remember, you do not understand even your own desires). If you do these things you will receive the Divine treasures. They shall be given to you. Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when the desire comes it is a tree of life. Never, never, never quit!
That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:12)
The Rest of God. God created all things in six days and then God rested. "All things" include the eternal destiny of each of us through to our role in the new heaven and earth reign of the Lord Jesus. Our task in life is to strive to enter the rest of God, turning away from our own attempts to create heaven and earth according to our opinion of what is righteous and profitable.
As we seek the Lord Jesus, cooperating with Him as He strikes down our adamic nature and guides us in paths of righteousness and peace, we are increasingly able to find joy in the will of God. The individual whose supreme joy is to do God's will has obtained the greatest good possible to a human being. He rests with Christ in God as God brings into view the wonderful world of righteousness He has envisioned from the beginning.
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left {us} of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1)
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