Salvation Is a Pregnancy.

The burden for Sunday had to do with the birth of Christ in us. Satan is determined to devour the Child the moment it is born. Satan does not fear any kind of Christian program. But when a believer is willing to set aside his or her life that Christ may be born, it is then Hell trembles!

(1/22/2006) We are considering the events described in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, the account of the birth of the male Son and the casting down of Satan and his angels to the earth.

Now, here is an important fact to consider: Notice, in Revelation 12:12, that after Satan had been overcome and cast down to the earth, a woe is pronounced on the earth and the sea because "the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short." This means the overcoming of Satan and the hurling down of him and his angels will take place BEFORE CHRIST RETURNS.

But when will this triumphant victory take place? At the end of the Church Age, just before the return of Christ from Heaven. What time are we in now? Perhaps most of us would agree that we now are close to the end of the Church Age.

If in the present hour it is true we are moving toward the end of the Church Age, if this indeed is true, then it follows that now is the time for Satan and his angels to be hurled down to the earth.

Notice that his army of angels are hurled down. A few verses previously we note that "his tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky." These stars obviously are not the entire company of angels that will be hurled down to the earth. Rather, these are the stars of God—the saints who had been in Christ at the right hand of God.

Rebellion was found in the host, according to the Book of Daniel.

What do we see today? We see pastors and members of their congregations, who at one time had been in Christ at the right hand of God, now watching pornography on the Internet. They have lost their place with God and now are feeding on the filth of the earth. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall"! They can recover their place if they will sternly repent and cast themselves on the mercy of God. Remember David and Bathsheba!

If it is time for Satan and his angels to be hurled to the earth, and if it is the "brothers" who overcome the accusations of Satan, thus enabling Michael and his angels to drive Satan and his angels from the heaven, by what means do the brothers overcome the fiery dragon?

By the blood of the Lamb.

By the word of their testimony.

By loving not their life to the point of death.

To conquer by the blood of the Lamb means our sins have been forgiven by the atonement made by the Lamb on the cross. It means also that we have been fed with the blood of the Lamb to the point that His resurrection has been created in us.

To conquer by the word of our testimony means that our thinking, our speaking, and our actions have all been brought into line with the Word of God.

To conquer by loving not our life to the point of death means we have turned aside from our own desires, hopes, plans, ambitions, and now speak and act only in accordance with what we are hearing from Jesus. "We" are "living" no longer. Christ is living in us.

Now—today—we have the opportunity to overcome the fiery dragon so that the conflict of the ages, evil against good, will be brought to the desired conclusion. The church will crush the head of the serpent, as has been prophesied from the beginning. The Kingdom of God, the doing of God’s will shall be done in the earth.

The Lord Jesus told us that many who are last in time shall be first in the Kingdom of God. It is as though all who have gone before us have established base camps on the way to the summit. Now the summit is in site; the fullness of God; the gaining of the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth for our possession, in that we are coheirs with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today is the day of our visitation. It is a time of the most extraordinary opportunity and the most extraordinary spiritual danger. Many will fall because of the maturing of wickedness. Opportunity to satisfy the lusts of our flesh and soul abound. Only the most dedicated will survive to stand before the Son of Man. But these shall shine as the stars forever and ever.

The opportunity to gain the throne is unprecedented. The opportunity to fall into the cesspool of moral filth is unprecedented.

What are you going to choose?

At night we continued the discussion of the birth of the male son. The Christian salvation is not a religion, it is a pregnancy. The central idea is that Christ, the male Son, the ruler of the creation of God, is to be born in us.

When Christ has been formed in us, we then are the flesh made the eternal Word, the covenant of man with God. We are the one Seed of Abraham through whom the nations shall be blessed. We are members of the one body, the Head of which is Jesus Christ. We share that priestly anointing. We are an integral part of Him whom God has chosen to fill all in all; to sum up all things in the heavens and upon the earth.

God is not saving us, He is crucifying us. He is slaying us so that the only true, eternal Life may be brought forth. All else of our personality and life is so much temporary garbage. It is Christ alone who Himself is the Kingdom of God.

We become the Kingdom of God when He has been brought forth and has ascended to the One who has made Him the Cornerstone and the Capstone of all there is. Then He, and we who are part of Him, shall be subject to the One whose infinite wisdom and power has planned all things from the beginning, that God may be All and in all.