There is an old saying,
There is an old saying,
"a little fire that is inexperienced and of the flesh is better than no fire at all!" Wisdom and patience are needed, and a willingness to change from time to time.
I believe we are going to witness an increased Presence of the Spirit of God in our day. As we confess our worldliness, the sins of our flesh, and our lack of obedience to the Lord Jesus when He speaks to us, we are going to be empowered with the Holy Spirit. God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him.
It appears to me that we in America are heading toward a civil war, or World War Three. In either case, there will be enough trouble in the heretofore Christian nations to cause us to begin to pray and lead a holy life. As we do, the ministries and gifts of the Spirit will be restored and the believers will begin to mature in Christ.
The witness of the Kingdom will be given to every nation on earth, and then the Church Age will be finished.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)
Notice it is the Gospel of the Kingdom that will be preached in the whole world, not the gospel of Heaven. Jesus and John the Baptist, plus the Apostles of the Lamb, preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. But the current preaching is not about the Kingdom of God coming to the earth, which is the original Gospel, but about "accepting Christ" so we can enter Heaven when we die.
I may be incorrect in this, but I believe the churches have adopted this simple formula (accept Christ and go to Heaven) that makes few demands upon the church-goer, in order the fill the building. The Gospel of the Kingdom, however, makes total demands on the believer, even to the point of accepting martyrdom.
If we would stop and think about it, sin came from Heaven to the earth in the form of a serpent. Sin and rebellion began in Heaven, not in the Kingdom of God. So Heaven and the Kingdom of God are two different matters.
People "accept Christ" and then go out and live like the devil! We ought to know better than this, but it appears we don't.
Satan is not discomfited when we "accept Christ." But when we devote ourselves to obeying the Lord Jesus, and to doing God's will in the earth, we may not fill the building with ardent lovers of God.
But we will please Christ—and that is all that truly matters! Do you agree with that?
God will permit Antichrist to govern for a brief season. Then Jesus will come from Heaven with His mature saints and the army of warrior angels, and the spiritual lords of darkness will be removed from the earth.
When the Body of Christ comes to the fullness of maturity, we will be able to march against the works of Satan in the earth. Nothing will successfully stop the army of God in its march.
Then the nations will be willing to serve Christ, and be ready to obey the commandments He gave in the Sermon on the Mount.
In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:2,3)
If you think about the passage above, you can see readily that there will be no place for denominations, for Christian churches separated by organizational doctrinal positions.
Instead, the absence of the lords of spiritual darkness plus the Presence of the Spirit of God will cause many peoples of the earth to want to do the will of God. This is because the Kingdom has come.
Compare the attitude of the nations when Jesus and His armies come to the earth from Heaven, to that of the people who set out to build the Tower of Babel:
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)
The above is the spirit of "kingdom building" that exists in so many deformational churches of our day. They are not emphasizing the Kingdom of God but their own kingdom. They are of Babylon the Great.
The light of a lamp will never shine in you again. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world's important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray. (Revelation 18:23)
It appears there will be an ecumenical movement in the last days that will establish a great Christian organization. It very well may be established on the site of ancient Babylon.
It will be a prison of unclean spirits. Remember, the leaders of the Jewish people, who partook of the original revelation, and who knew the Law and the Prophets, murdered the living Word when they saw Him.
It does not seem possible that religious people would call for the crucifixion of God's anointed Deliverer. This is incredible!
But it happened. Great evil can occur when ambitious people attempt to help God out.
God through the Prophets spoke in many different ways to the Jewish patriarchs. But they murdered God's Christ, an event so unbelievably horrible that we scarcely can believe it.
But we need to be careful, because God is speaking to His people today. We might be among those who reject God's Son.
Notice that the voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride no longer will be heard again in Babylon. This means that in the coming days God will draw true, eternal Israel out from the Christian organizations. Then the organizations will be destroyed by the nations of the earth.
The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. (Revelation 17:16)
Why are some of the Christian organizations prostitutes? Because in the hopes of expanding their influence, they offer the things of God to unholy people of the world. They bring into their midst homosexuals, for example, without requiring that they change their unclean practices. In this manner they hope to show that they are inclusive and love the sinners.
But this is not God's way. God does not embrace the sinner until the sinner recognizes he has been wrong and repents and returns to his father's house.
Therefore, "Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." And, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (II Corinthians 6:17,18)
God will do everything in His power, including sacrificing His Son, in order to enable people to be reconciled to Himself. But He always shall remain high and lifted up in His holiness. He never shall compromise His utter purity in order to gain worshipers.
We have said that there are three institutions:
There is Judaism, a religion that has been put together using the original revelation of God as a basis. The Jews are an honorable people.
Jesus and the firstfruits of the Royal Priesthood, as soon as the full number of the called Gentiles have come to Christ, will visit the nation of Israel in the fullness of the Spirit of God and strip away the worldliness, the sins of the flesh, and disobedience to Christ from the elect of the Jewish people.
There is Christianity. It also has been put together, using the original revelation of God as a basis. The true Bride of the Lamb is contained in the various Christian denominations. According to the Lord Jesus, the hour will come When the true Christians are one in Christ in God, just as Christ is One in God. Then the world will understand that it is God who has sent Christ into the world, and loves those who have become part of Christ just as He loves Christ.
Then there is the true and eternal Israel. They comprise the true Church, the called out people—called out from the nations of the earth to belong peculiarly to God. God has given them to Christ, and Christ has given them eternal life.
Any person can be saved and carried over to life on the new earth by professing faith in Christ and being baptized in water in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But the true and eternal Israel is the Bride of the Lamb.
Within the Bride there is a Firstfruits, who is, as the Bible says, "the only one of her mother." She will reap Christ one hundredfold in her personality. To her God will give all He is making new in Christ.
The Firstfruits are being tested today, for many who are last in time shall be first in the Kingdom. Numerous demons have been sent into the earth to test the people of the Firstfruits in every conceivable manner.
Some, I fear, shall lose their crown through carelessness and lack of determination to prove themselves worthy of the high honor assigned too them.
But others shall press on through every obstacle, as the Apostle Paul said, until they attain to the first resurrection. Every trace of worldliness has been removed from them. The sins resident in the members of their body have been driven from them. Their obedience has been perfected in arduous prisons over many years.
If this highest of goals, to occupy the throne of the universe with the Lord Jesus Christ, is something you desire, then set your life in that direction Pray without ceasing that God will enable you to overcome anything and everything that would seek to hinder you from attaining to God's highest and best.
You cannot accomplish such a feat, but Christ can. Just remember that, Christ can!
Never give up. Keep praying and believing; praying and believing. Put one foot in front of the other, and pray over each step.
I am endeavoring, along with the Apostle Paul, to attain to the first resurrection. Why don't you join us. All it costs is your life.
Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6)
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8:28,29)
Such has been written concerning true, eternal Israel.