Wednesday, January 28, 2009

THE TWO HANDS OF GOD

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How often I have had to endure the foolishness of my friends still bound by the traditions of man and the orthodox church systems. Nowhere is this more trying than when one, speaking of an unpleasant event or circumstance come to their life, rails on Satan as though he reigns unfettered and free to raise all havoc in their world. Often time, to my astonishment, these Christians, of whom, some fancy themselves as teachers, will profess the sovereignty and omnipotence of their God and then make Him weak by giving unwarranted power to the prince of this world. By God! Satan is but a prince ...... a prince that does the King's bidding. He can do no more than allowed, and truth be told, He is directed of our King and Lord in all that he performs.

Yes, it is oft frustrating and even painful to see those you love espouse a large devil and a little God. No wonder, these deluded souls can believe Satan steals the majority of mankind for Hell. With such an erroneous belief system, God is made impotent rather that omnipotent and Christ is marked as failing, as the Saviour of the World. It is my belief this "big Satan, small God complex" is "blasphemy and it is high time it be labeled as such!


Satan steals none! Instead, to God's Glory, all are reconciled and brought to peace through His shed blood and sacrifice on the cross. Lord help us to see and proclaim You as all powerful and all knowing, in your benevolent purpose of creating a loving family full of sons and daughters in your very image.

"Through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His Cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon earth or things in the heavens. Col 1:20

"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" 1Cor 15:22


Even a child could read the two verses above and understand that "all" means "all"
Christ is the "Saviour of All" and that my friend is the "Good News!"

With that said, please allow me to share part of an enlightened message by Preston Eby. Here, our good brother, who knows the same wonderful Saviour as I do, defines Satan as but a tool in the left hand of God.

"There is a wonderful lesson in nature observable by the biophysical scientist. When one adjusts the lenses of his microscope to watch the individual cells of an organism he sees tremendous struggles going on within those cells with only particular successes and failures, victories and defeats in what appears to be a ruthless "dog-eat-dog" battle. But when he changes the level of magnification to observe the organism as a whole, he sees that what was conflict at the lower level is harmony at the higher: that the very health and wellbeing, the ongoing life of the organism is precisely the OUTCOME of this microscopic turmoil. Ah, my brother, my sister, when our consciousness is raised high enough in the Spirit to see the WHOLE PICTURE, to SEE AS GOD SEES about all the circumstances and events that touch our lives, rather than dwelling upon the particular events themselves with their apparent negativeness, becoming irritated, worried, and upset by what is happening, we will see and know by the understanding HE GIVES that indeed, all these things ARE WORKING TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD and the ongoing development of our spiritual life is precisely the OUTCOME of all the conflict. Praise His name!

THE HIDDEN HAND

In the New Testament the Greek word for "right" as used with "hand" means THAT WHICH USUALLY TAKES. That is, it is the one that reaches out to take and we can also know that it is the one that usually reaches out to give. It is the far more active hand of the two in the vast majority of people. The left hand seems to be the subordinate member, helping the right hand. There is a wonderful and meaningful statement made by Jesus in Mat. 6:3, often passed over unnoticed. Jesus said, "But when you do alms, don't let your LEFT hand know what your RIGHT hand does." In other words, keep your left hand in the dark as to what your RIGHT HAND is doing! And remember, the right hand is the one that REACHES OUT either to take or to give. Jesus said hypocrites gave their alms openly to BE SEEN OF MEN, and the joy of being seen WAS THEIR REWARD. Such people had their reward already and no further reward would be given them. Their left hand, as it were, had full knowledge as to what their right hand had done and their ego and self-righteousness were fully rewarded in the praise of men received.

But Jesus cautioned His disciples to not let their left hand have knowledge of what the right hand was doing. Their reward would come FROM GOD and not from men. Therefore their left hand, or their ego, self-nature with its self-interests and self-love, would be kept in the dark, left unsatisfied and unfulfilled in the good that was being done. Thus the left hand could in no way deprive them of the far greater reward THE FATHER HAD FOR THEM for their deeds of compassion and love.

In applying this principle to the actions of God's two hands, we find that Satan, wicked men, and all the forces of the negative realm have absolutely NO UNDERSTANDING of what the right hand of God is doing. Those of the left hand cannot perceive or know the PURPOSES AND INTENTIONS of the right hand in doing what it does. With this in mind, what a world of truth opens to our understanding from these inspired words of the apostle Paul, "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which NONE OF THE PRINCES OF THIS WORLD KNEW: FOR HAD THEY KNOWN IT, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE CRUCIFIED THE LORD OF GLORY" (I Cor. 2:6-8). None of the princes of this world KNEW! They were the negative force in God's left hand moving against the Christ, that the purpose of God in giving His beloved Son for the redemption of the world might be fulfilled.

"Him, being delivered BY THE DETERMINATE COUNSEL AND FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD, YOU have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23). Pilate said to Jesus, "Don't speak to me? Don't You know that I have power to release You?" Hear the answer of Jesus! "You could not have any power at all against Me except it were GIVEN TO YOU FROM ABOVE" (Jn. 19:10-11). For God to bring His redemptive plan into effect, there must be a balance, there must be a negative force opposing the positive power and force of God in Christ Jesus. There must be a Judas, CHOSEN to bring all things to a head in the fulness of time when Jesus must be crucified. There must be a Pilate, GIVEN POWER FROM ABOVE, to take care of the legal side of all that happened on that dreadful night. There must be the soldiers selected to nail Jesus to the cross. There must be those who ridiculed Jesus, who scorned and mocked and cursed Him. Without a Satan, without a Judas, without a Pilate, without a rebellious, hateful nation of Israel, there would never have been a blessed Redeemer DYING FOR US!

Yes, GOD was doing this thing, GOD was in control of each and every action, it was all the work of HIS HAND! But those He moved upon at His left hand moved in darkness and did not know anything of what the right hand was doing, they knew not who the Christ was, why He was here, or what He was doing or would do. Never did they dream, in their wildest imaginations, that He really was the Son of God, that He actually would rise from the dead, that He would pour out the Holy Spirit in mighty wonder-working power and spread His Kingdom from pole to pole! They were doing what God had raised them up to do but they walked in darkness, they didn't KNOW! The left hand was at a great disadvantage. Today, as then, these evil forces do not even realize that it is the hand of God that is directing all of their actions. The forces of evil and the people under their control, have the false idea that they are directing their own steps and doing all things of themselves, and God allows them to think so! So we see them going their way boasting of all they are doing and believing themselves to be masters of their own destiny, marking out their own pathway!

The right hand of God is the ANOINTED HAND of God, for Christ (the Anointed) sits AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. It is this hand of God, the Christ, Head and body, that reaches forth to all mankind bringing redemption, restoration, and blessing. How we praise God for HIS RIGHT HAND, HIS POSITIVE FORCE, and that it is the more active and the stronger of the two! While the left hand is kept in ignorance of what the right hand is doing, the right hand is not always ignorant of what the left hand is doing "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices" (II Cor. 2:11). "But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You are all the children (sons) of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness" (I Thes. 5:4-5). When we realize we are in the light of God and know at least a little something of what is going on, then it is amusing, at times, to be able to watch the foolish moves being made by those used by the left hand of God. Foolish, perhaps, but so necessary to God's plan! How we rejoice to be able to stand by in assurance and confidence, watching GOD work, knowing that God is the One who is the author and finisher of all that happens in between. It is wonderful to be able to walk in at least a measure of light during all those times of testing, trial, proving, and judgment.

There is a further and enlightening application of this truth which we would share briefly. In the Song of Solomon 2:6 the Shulamite maiden says of her beloved King, "His LEFT HAND is under my head, and His RIGHT HAND embraces me." The meaning is clear - the left hand of God is under our head, it is hidden, unseen, the less visible working of God upon our lives, upholding and undertaking for us in all the ways and circumstances in which we do not see the hand of God. God has manifested Himself in history in the figure of the "left hand" - unseen and invisible, when men did not recognize Him. Elisha's servant (II Kings 6:13-17), as well as the prophet Habakkuk (Hab. 1:1-4), and many others, did not see the hidden hand of God, behind the head, away from the front of the eyes, working His plan and will. However, there are other times when the "right hand" of God works in an obvious fashion, before the eyes, in front of the face, performing the supernatural and the miracle right there for all to see. But keep in mind that if we had eyes in the back of our heads, so to speak, we could see both the right and left hand manifestations. We would see that God is there working ALL THE TIME. And all those blessed ones who have the "eyes of their understanding ENLIGHTENED" do see HIM IN ALL THINGS!

How often, in the midst of testing and trouble, we, like Peter, look at the billowing waves and behold not the Lord! When the blessings come pouring in and the glory waves sweep through our souls, we know it is the Lord and we acknowledge and bless Him. But when trouble surrounds us, when adversity comes, calamity strikes, and all hell breaks loose, we fail to see where God's hand can be in THAT! But without that, we could not receive all He would give and do for us with His right hand. The right hand is the hand of His manifest grace and power, His inward love and joy, the smile of His approval with which He encourages and equips us. The left hand, under our head, holds us fast and secretly deals and works upon the clay of the earthen vessel in ways we understand not. The embracing of His right hand is so precious, as He lets His love fall upon us like dew, as He leads us into deeper revelations of Himself and of that which He has prepared for us. As we behold the King in His beauty He perfects that which concerns us and gets us ready to shine forth in His image.

While we rejoice in the embrace of God's right hand of love, let us not despise His left hand; let us yield to Him though He would use the knife upon us and pour the wine into the wound; for He will then pour in the oil and soothe us; He may wound, but He will heal us. Let us not forget, however, that He not only holds us fast and comforts us in trial, but He holds us fast in the fiery furnace, and on the swiftly moving wheel of His purifying and molding processes. How many times we would get out of His hands if He did not hold us fast when He puts us into the purifying furnace, out of which we would take ourselves if it were possible. It is His precious unseen left hand that holds us still as the dross is being consumed."
J Preston Eby

The whole of Eby's four part message on "THE TWO HANDS OF GOD" can be read here:

http://hisremnant.org/eby/articles/kingdom/twohands/twohandsof.html

May God bless you to know all is under His control and all is being worked for good in your life. Praise His Holy Name!

Jack



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Monday, January 19, 2009

THE RAPTURE LIE

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"When THOU passest THROUGH the waters, I will be with thee; and THROUGH the rivers, they shall not overflow thee" Isaiah 43 :2

The doctrine of escapism produces a weak, impotent, selfish type of people who shrink from pressure and testing which is sent their way, They know nothing of OVER-COMING, and it is high time that this nonsense was stripped away, and people faced up to the process of being developed and growing up in Christ, No more to say, "how can I get out of this," but rather to affirm, "by the grace of God I can come through this thing, and not just somehow, but triumphantly," Amen!

Ray Prinzing

Just as the "age of the Law" ended with the Pharisees and scribes making a mockery of that which God had set in place, so also is it at the end of this "Church age" as we await Christ's return. History repeats itself and today's ordained ministers, for the most part are the modern day version of the Pharisees, scribes and Eli's sons. With that said, today we want to expose another lieing doctrine that these false prophets have shamefully sold to God's children.

As the economy heads south, and world events make Christians step back to ponder whether this be the last days, we see many of these ministers pulling out their hole card, and that being the "rapture doctrine." Oh my brother, my sister, how very far from the truth be this escapist, fairy tale doctrine. With just the tiniest bit of scholarship and study, even a teenager could easily come to the truth of the matter with regard to the "rapture teaching." How amazing it is, that grown men and women that fill the church pews every Sunday can buy into a doctrine that flies in the face of everything the Bible teaches. God doesn't save us from trial and tribulation but saves us in the midst of trial and tribulation. This false doctrine is just another example of why God from the Book of Revelation calls for His people to come out of the "harlot church" which is Babylon. Revelation 18 speaks to those that have ears to hear and it is worth reading because the harlot church's demise is imminent. Those that are caught in the harlot's grip shall find great pain and sorrow when she falls and often my heart is rent when I see so many I love bound by this self aggrandizing wanton woman. I pray, God help our dear friends that still serve this false church which the scriptures call a "whore", for she usurps the position of Christ and His body. If one leaves the religious whorish camp with it's Pharisaical clergy, the Holy Spirit will become one's teacher and there Truth and Life is found. Please dear reader, hear the message found in these scriptures.

The woman saith unto him, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Jesus saith unto her, "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: ........... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Jhn 4:19-24

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. 1Jhn 2:27

Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. Heb. 13:12,13


Understand this my friend. Jesus is found outside the gates of religion and afar from the apostate camp. The camp inside the gates is a counterfeit church system, which in these last days is just as the world (Rev 18)

Dear ones, Christ Jesus is our escape and even our rest, as He carries us through all of life's tribulations and trials. My hope is that after you read this anointed message (below) by Preston Eby you might have cause to wonder how much else, you have been taught by the false prophets of this age, is just plain wrong and even a lie. God help us in the end of this, the "Church age", to "but see Jesus as our Saviour." Not only is Jesus the Saviour of the world but He also saves us out of the world and I pray the Holy spirit would open your hearts to such a freeing Truth. As men and women faint in the eye of the approaching storm, of which the present economic woes are but part, Jesus is reaching out His hand. He stands even at the door as an "Abiding Peace and Rest" for those that would surrender all unto Him. I'll close with an old saying and it is worth meditating on. "Jesus is either LORD of ALL or not lord at all."

In His Sweet Lord Jesus,
Jack



THE RAPTURE LIE

"The Rapture"! Many an average person on the street may never have heard of it until watching religious programs on television or listening to conversations by "born-again" Christians. "The Rapture"? What's that? But large numbers of Church goers in various denominations hear all about it - often. They live in constant expectation of it. "Christ may come tonight and snatch the Church away to heaven," the preacher assures in revival meetings, in Sunday Church services and on television. "The trumpet may sound before this meeting is over, or before you wake up in the morning," the evangelist warns. When that happens the cemeteries burst open and the dead saints arise, and those still living go zooming off into the sky to meet the Lord. Such a snatching away or "rapture" of the Church, it is claimed, will be the next great prophetic event. And it may take place at any moment. Millions of believers wonder with great concern, "When will it happen? Will it be in my lifetime? Will I be ready? Who of my loved ones will miss it and have to go through the Great Tribulation?"

It is generally supposed to happen this way: Strife, crime, violence and evil doing in the world will become increasingly worse. Civilization will plunge headlong toward a time of intense trouble. Suddenly, just before the world arrives at a period of calamity called "the tribulation," we are told, Jesus will return invisibly and snatch away - "rapture" - all born-again Christians and take them to heaven, or away up in the clouds somewhere, away from the world turmoil, for seven years. It will be a sudden, yet secret event. No one will see it happen. Only the effects - empty cars, empty houses, empty beds, workers missing from their jobs - will be apparent. Some suggest what the newspaper headlines will be like the day after: "Millions Mysteriously Vanish!" "Graves Found Open and Empty!" "Massive Traffic Snarles Due to Missing Drivers!" "Planes Crash, Trains Wreck As Pilots and Engineers Disappear!" "All Children Have Disappeared!" Pictures have been drawn by artists, and distributed by the multiplied thousands, of Jesus standing on a stratocumulus cloud a few thousand feet in the air, while Christians are being lifted out of a city below. Business of all kinds will be disrupted, while tumult, confusion, misery and terror will reign. The airports, trains, bus lines, and the great industrial plants over the world will be hushed, as so many of the head men, the pilots, engineers, managers, foremen, workers and others will be missing. Families will be separated, one taken and the other left; wives will bewail the sudden disappearance of their husbands, husbands will bemoan the loss of their wives. Parents will search in vain with terror-stricken faces for their children.

They go on to describe how all the people who are left on earth will have to go through seven years of terrible trouble and punishment. During this time the great Antichrist will make his appearance and display his power, the apocalyptic judgments the unmeasured wrath of God - foretold in the book of Revelation will be unleased in dreadful fury upon the inhabitants of the world, and there will be a time of unequalled tribulation. Then, at the end of this period, according to the teaching, Christ will return from heaven once again in a great universal public display, bringing all His saints with Him. The reason for this is, they say, because God is far too good to allow His people to go through such tribulation. The implication is that they are far too weak to survive in the face of such demonic power. So they will be called away to attend the "Marriage Supper in the Sky", receive their "rewards" for their labors here, and have a glorious seven years of feasting, singing and celebration - while their unsaved loved ones, their dear friends and neighbors who had not been born again, and the untaught millions of heathen are suffering indescribable agonies on earth. "Good enough for them!" seems to be the general attitude, "they should have listened and gotten prepared, like me. "

THE ORIGIN OF THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE

That's the way the "rapture" is usually presented. But is that how Jesus announced He would return? Will He come back physically in two phases - one, secret and unexpected, "for" His saints, to rapture them away; and a second, publicly "with" His saints? Is this "rapture" really the "hope" of the Church as the preachers are wont to proclaim? Let me give you the history of how this theory got started.

It wasn't until the early or mid 1800's that there was any significant group of believers around the world that looked for a "rapture" of the Church prior to a seven-year tribulation period. It may come as a shock to some who read these lines, but it is a fact nonetheless, that the "rapture" teaching was NOT taught by the early Church, it was NOT taught by the Church of the first centuries, it was NOT taught by the Reformers, IT WAS NOT TAUGHT BY ANYONE (except a couple Roman Catholic theologians) UNTIL ABOUT THE YEAR 1830! At the time of the Reformation the early Protestants widely held and Were convinced that the Pope was the supreme individual embodiment and personification of the spirit of antichrist, and the Roman Church the Harlot System of Rev. 17. This understanding was responsible for bringing millions of believers out of the Roman Catholic religious system. It therefore became expedient for certain Romish theologians to turn the attention of the people away from the Papacy, and this they endeavored to a counter-interpretation to that held by the Protestants. This new scheme of prophetic interpretation became known as FUTURISM. Rather than viewing the drama of the book of Revelation spiritually and historically, they would consign it all to a brief period of time at the end of the age. It was a Jesuit priest named Ribera who, in the days of the Reformation, first taught that all the events in the book of Revelation were to take place literally during the three and a half years reign of the Antichrist away down at the end of the age. Thus Ribera laid the foundation of a system of prophetic interpretation of which the Secret Rapture has now become an integral part.

Later, Emmanuel Lacunza, also a Jesuit priest, built on Ribera's teachings, and spent much of his life writing a book titled "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty." Lacunza, however, wrote under the assumed name of "Rabbi Ben Ezra," supposedly a learned Jew who had accepted Christ as his Saviour. With Jesuit cunning he thus conspired to get his book a hearing in the Protestant world - they would not even permit it in their homes coming from a Jesuit pen - but as the earnest work of a "converted Jew" they would consume it with avid interest! Within the pages of this elaborate forgery Lacunza taught the novel notion that Jesus returns not once, but twice, and at the "first stage" of His return He "raptures" His Church so they can escape the reign of the "future Antichrist." His book was first published in Spanish in the year 1812 and soon found its way onto the shelves of the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury in London, England.

Now enter the name of Edward Irving. Born in Scotland in 1792, Irving became one of the most eloquent preachers of his time. In 1828 his open-air meetings in Scotland drew crowds of 10,000 people. His Church in London seated one thousand people and was packed week after week with a congregation drawn from the most brilliant and influencial circles of society. There were some among them who by prophetic declaration announced that the Lord was coming soon, and this idea became prominent in their prophetic utterances and teachings. Out of those prophetic declarations some began to study the scriptures in the light of a physical, literal coming of the Lord. Up until that time the coming of the Lord was understood as a coming of the Lord TO His people, and IN His saints, and there was no sense of His fleshly coming. Irving discovered Lacunza's book and was deeply shaken by it, in fact, fell in love with it, translated it into English, and it was published in London in 1827. And at this very time Irving heard what he believed to be a Voice from heaven commanding him to preach the Secret Rapture of the Saints. Then Irving began to hold Bible Conferences throughout Scotland, emphasizing the coming of Jesus to rapture His Church.

About this same time there began the emergence of a new movement which came to be known as the "Plymouth Brethren." The Brethren movement had its beginning in Dublin in 1825 when a small group of earnest men, dissatisfied with the spiritually lethargic condition that prevailed in the Protestant Church in Ireland, met for prayer and fellowship. Soon others joined the fellowship and associated groups sprang up in various places. Though the movement had its beginning at Dublin ' , it was Plymouth, England that became the center of their vast literature outreach, thus the name !'Plymouth Brethren" became attached. Although there was interest from the start in prophetic subjects, the center of interest was on the body of Christ as an organism and the spiritual unity in Christ of all believers - in reaction to the deadness and formalism of the organized church systems and the ecclesiastical Heirarchy. A man by the name of John Nelson Darby was the leading spirit among the Plymouth Brethren from 1830 onward. Darby was from a prosperous Irish family, was educated as a lawyer, took high honors at Dublin University, then turned aside, to his father's chagrin, to become a minister.

Thus Irving and Darby were contemporaries, though associated with different spiritual movements. Another series of meetings were in progress at this time, a group of seeking Christians were meeting in the castle of Lady Powerscourt for the study of Bible prophecy. Many clergymen attended, and quite a few who were Irvingites. The Irvingites came to the meetings obsessed with the ideas of the "Secret Rapture" and the future Antichrist, imbibed from the Jesuit Lacunza's book. J.N. Darby and the other Brethren leaders were invited to these meetings and became participators in them. It was there that he was introduced to the Jesuit teaching of the Secret Rapture and the futurist interpretation of prophecy, as well as the famous book by Rabbi Ben-Ezra, or, actually, Jesuit priest Emmanuel Lacunza! Darby was himself a prolific writer and from that time a constant stream of propaganda came from his pen. His writings on biblical subjects number over 30 volumes of 600 pages each. Darby developed and organized "futurism" into a system of prophetic teaching called "dispensationalism." Darby' s biographers refer to him as "the father of dispensationalism." And the crown jewel in the kingdom of dispensationalism is, of course, the so-called SECRET RAPTURE!

The Secret Rapture teaching was introduced into the United States and Canada in the 1860's and 1870's, though there is some indication that it may have been taught as early as the 1840's. Darby himself visited the United States six times. The "new" teaching was spreading. A Congregationalist preacher by the name of C. I. Scofield came under the influence of Darby and the Plymouth Brethren. Scofield became a strong promoter of the teaching that had been promulgated by Darby, whom he considered "the most profound Bible student of modern times." He incorporated this teaching into his SCOFIELD REFERENCE BIBLE. The Scofield Reference Bible was destined to have a tremendous impact upon the beliefs of many, when, three million copies were published in the first 50 years! Through this Bible Scofield shrewdly carried the teaching of the Secret Rapture into the very heart of Evangelicalism. Some ignorant souls look on the "notes" in this Bible as the Word of God itself! I do not doubt for one instant that many who read these lines have been influenced somewhere in their spiritual lives by the "footnotes" in the Scofield Bible!

There is one final link in the chain of the development and spread of the rapture theory that should be mentioned in passing. I would draw your attention again to the SOURCE, the ORIGIN of the rapture doctrine and the chain of contact by which it has been brought down to us today. It began as a Roman Catholic invention! The Jesuit priest Ribera's writings influenced the Jesuit priest Lacunza, Lacunza influenced Irving, Irving influenced Darby, Darby influenced Scofield, Scofield and Darby influenced D. L. Moody, and Moody influenced the early PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT. How? you ask. The Assemblies of God is today by far the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. When the Pentecostal movement began at the turn of the century and the Assemblies of God held their first General Council in 1914 in Hot Springs, Arkansas they were a small movement and didn't have their own Publishing House. They needed Sunday School and study materials for their Churches - so where do you suppose they got it? They bought it from Moody Press and had their own cover stitched on it! So what do you think the Assemblies of God people believed? They believed what Moody Bible Institute taught! This had its impact on Pentecostal theology, because in the early years there were practically NO PREMILLENIALISTS IN THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT! Most of the ministers in those early days came from Presbyterian, Methodist, or other historic denominations - men who, being baptized in the Holy Spirit and leaving their denominations, joined themselves to the Assemblies of God or one of the other emerging Pentecostal denominations. That is how the Pentecostal movement became influenced and saturated with the "Secret Rapture" doctrine - by a direct chain right back to the Roman Catholic Church! And now, my friend - you know the REST OF THE STORY!

THERE IS NO RAPTURE!

The church systems are literally filled today with carnal, earthly-minded Christians who sit back in ease and self-complacency and await a future rapture that will translate them out of the midst of earth's Great Tribulation at the beginning of the Day of the Lord. To this generation of Lukewarm Laodiceans the Spirit speaks in certain tones of warning: "Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light" (Amos 5:18). In the vast majority of evangelical circles we are taught that at any moment Jesus will come and secretly, silently snatch away His elect to a heaven in the far-flung skies - to escape the Great Tribulation which shall soon visit the earth. It is not true. The saints shall be "caught up" all right; but it is not speaking of distance in terms of miles or light years, but to glorious reality in the Spirit. When Christ comes to lift our inner-man nature UP into the fullness of UNION IN HIM we certainly know the reality of being raised up and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. This is not a place in the sky, but a spiritual position of eminence, glory and authority. Paul says that we shall be caught up "in the air," that sphere of influence, authority and spirit-control now occupied by "the god of this world," the "prince and power OF THE AIR" (see Study #42 in this series).

"Rapture" is not a biblical word. Let all of God's people stop speaking of the "rapture." The word rapture is not in the scripture and is at best very misleading. If instead of the rapture we speak of being caught up in the spirit (Acts 8:39; II Cor. 12:2-4; Rev. 4:1-2), translated into the Kingdom (Col. 1:13), raised up into the heavenlies with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6), and caught up into the throne, the spiritual dimension of the Christ's authority, power and glory (Rev. 4:1-2; Rev. 3:21; Rev. 12:5) we will rid ourselves of much confusion and carnal delusion, and we will have a much better understanding of present spiritual realities and the immediate program of God.

Religionists debate loud and long about WHEN THE "RAPTURE" IS TO TAKE PLACE. Some believe in the "pre-tribulation rapture." That means that God's people will be removed from the earth just before the beginning of the tribulation. Thus they will not be here for any of the seven years of plagues, vials, etc. Bumper stickers state: "In case of Rapture, this car will self-destruct". Tracts for airliners say: "In case the trumpet sounds, be prepared for this plane to crash, your pilot may be a Christian." These are fear tactics. Then there are those who teach the "mid-tribulation rapture." They believe that the Bible teaches that the Church will have to go through the first three and a half years of the tribulation while the Antichrist is warring against the saints, but will be raptured and spared the last three and a half years of the intense wrath and judgment of God. Finally there are the "post-tribulation" people. They teach that the Church goes through the entire seven years of tribulation, and that only after the tribulation are the saints "caught up", as according to I Thes. 4:17. They see a Church being empowered by the Spirit of God to survive the worst onslaughts of Satan and pass through victoriously to the other side. This is an admirable concept, and much closer to the truth, but these still embrace the notion of the rapture.

There is a story of King Charles II of England, that he once puzzled the Royal Society (a society of scientists) by propounding the question, Why is a dead fish heavier than a live one? The men of science debated this question with much acumen, and offered various solutions to it. It however occurred to one of them to make sure by experiment that the dead fish was in fact the heavier; and it was found that it was not. Now this trick of the Jesting Monarch is often played upon us by our own minds. We assume, because the preachers and teachers play the incessant drumbeat, that there IS a rapture. But when one carefully examines "the alleged fact" of the rapture he is led to the astounding discovery that in fact there isn't even any such thing!

A German Prince was once visiting a certain city. When greeted by a deputation from the Town Council he expressed great surprise that his arrival had not been heralded by salvoes of cannon. The Burgomaster, who had a sense of humor, replied that there were a hundred reasons for the omission. Asked by the Prince what they were, he began: "In the first place we have no cannon; in the second we - " "Now," broke in the Prince, "your first reason is so good that I don't want to hear the other ninety-nine." That answer comes to mind as one reflects on the theory of the Secret Rapture. We wait in vain for one strong argument that simply compels us to consider their view. Take a searchlight. Take all the suns and moons and stars, break the rim of the Milky Way and pour the compacted brilliance of its infinite depths of light into every crevice of the good old Book; search every page and chatter and verse and line, from Gen. 1:1 through Rev. 22:21, and you can find no trace of it in teaching, in prophecy, in parable or in symbol. The rapture is simply not found in the Bible! That one reason is so good that we have no need to consider any others!

Since so many Christians are steadfastly looking for Jesus to come FOR the Church, to whisk it away up to heaven somewhere, we need to take a closer look at the Word and see if ANYWHERE in the Bible we can find this expression "coming FOR the saints." This may come as a shock to some, but the Bible NOWHERE speaks of Jesus coming "FOR the saints." Let those who carelessly use this term show us where it appears in the pages of God's inspired Book. Let them search! It cannot be found! Never! Nowhere! Not even once! Surely then, a teaching which constantly employs an expression that is foreign to the Word of God should be subjected to close examination. I can hear some dear saint saying, "Oh, but the Bible does say that Jesus is coming FOR a Church without spot or wrinkle." No it doesn't! What it says is that Christ so loved the Church and gave Himself for it "that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might PRESENT IT TO HIMSELF a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing" (Eph. 5:26-27). It says nothing about taking the Church anywhere. In order to "present the Church to Himself" in a holy and blameless condition doesn't necessitate changing the Church's physical location at all! There is no reference to a journey; the description is of a CONDITION. Our Lord's coming "for" His Church is nothing more than an invention of ignorant minds, hatched up by men who are reading into their Bibles many fantastic tales which they use to uphold their delusions. The sleeping Church, of course, can think of little else except a physical ride into the clouds, being whisked away into an etherial state and experience of their own invention, where they intend to sit around dressed in white nightgowns or something similar, eating - eating - eating what?

But let us forget all this nonsense. Let us come on down out of the clouds and get our feet planted firmly on solid footing, and leave them there. We are not going anywhere: not for a long while, at least. We are not yet ready to go anywhere, in fact. These people who think they are all prepared to be physically caught away to the throne on high and there help God run His universe, are simply manifesting the fact that they are just babes living in a dream-world and are not even capable of eating good wholesome spiritual food. Before we are fitted for running God's affairs and ruling with Christ over His universe, we have got to become proficient at running our little earth. This is our proving ground. And we are going to stay right here until we graduate! Before we are even capable of running an earth we must grow up spiritually and become proficient at living by the principles of the Kingdom and walking out the mind, nature and will of the Father in our own lives. The Church has not yet done even this. The vast majority, including the preachers, are just babies who still need a lot of comforts and soothing syrups, need to have their garments changed quite regularly and their bottle filled and held for them. Of course I know that the Church realizes what a horible mess she has made of things in general, and would like to run away off somewhere to get away from it all. But she is going to stay right here and face the music, whether she wants to or not.

THE GREAT ESCAPE

"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2:13). There is a strange thing happening today, for most Christians are not looking for the "coming" of the Lord - rather, they are expecting the "going" of the saints! It is hard to convince men of the truth when for years their minds have been set in a contrary direction. The truth is that the "blessed hope" is not the rapture; it is the APPEARING of the Lord. The "blessed hope" is not deliverance from the Tribulation; it is HIS GLORIOUS APPEARING in His people. We are not looking for a rapture to take people out of this old world, but we are looking for HIM TO APPEAR out of the innermost being of His sons to transform His elect so that they will be able to change the very courses of this world. This is the time of the appearing of Christ in power and great glory. The Lord has confirmed this fact by appearing to us personnally, and to others as well. He is coming and has come to us in His spiritual presence and is uncovering Himself within us to appear through us to the world. With each appearing of our Lord we witness greater growth unto maturity and perfection than we have seen in the past, for the Lord is doing that quick work. This is a very significant hour, an hour of much spiritual activity, accomplished by the arising of HIS LIFE WITHIN.

"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted WORTHY TO ESCAPE all these things that shall come to pass, and TO STAND BEFORE THE SON OF MAN" (Lk. 21:36). This verse of scripture has often been misapplied to the rapture theory. However, the words of Jesus are relevant to this hour and should be considered in the light of all present, revealed truth. If the old rapture theory is wrong, as we certainly believe it is, what then did Jesus mean by admonishing us to "pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape" the things that are coming upon the world? Some like to point at Enoch, who was translated that he should not see death, and say that he is a type of those who are raptured before the Tribulation, thus "escaping" the things that are coming upon the earth. But Enoch did not live during the time that judgment was being poured out on the earth in the form of a flood. Enoch had his experience some 669 years before the Flood, and never met Noah. In other words, his translation (and that's another story!) was not for the purpose of helping him escape the flood.

It is NOT Enoch who serves as the type of how one escapes the judgments of God poured out in the earth, but NOAH! Jesus did not say, "As it was in the days of Enoch." He said, "But AS THE DAYS OF NOAH WERE, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE" (Mat. 24:37-39). How the preachers have distorted and mutilated these wonderful words of our Lord! Songs have been written and sermons preached to urge us to be ready to be "taken" when Jesus comes. The great truth is that Jesus is saying the exact opposite! Let us consider what happened in the days of Noah. Who was taken? Who was left? "For as in the days that were before the flood THEY (the wicked) were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and (they, the wicked) knew not until the flood came and TOOK T-H-E-M ALL AWAY" (Mat. 24:38-39). It was the wicked that were "taken" in Noah's day, for the record states that the flood came and "took them all away." And who was left? NOAH! Noah had spent much time and diligence in building an ark in which to "ride out" the storm. Noah went THROUGH the flood, protected by the ark he had prepared and entered into. When the flood waters abated, and the wicked had been taken away, he stepped out of the ark and inherited the purified earth. He and his family now owned the whole planet! Everyone else who had held a deed to a piece of property was GONE, along with the heirs. Noah inherited the earth and there were none to dispute his claim. The previous owners had been "taken" and Noah alone was LEFT to inaugurate the new age. To which fact Jesus adds this significant statement: SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING (PRESENCE) OF THE SON OF MAN BE!

This great type points to far more than merely the inhabitants of the world being blown off the map and just you and me and a few other elect saints remaining. It points to the way of LIFE instead of DEATH. In this hour God's chosen ones are building an ark of obedience and truth, of wisdom and righteousness, that they might LIVE AND NOT DIE. I declare to you that there is a people who shall live and not die! This is not an outer ark of gopher wood and pitch, but an inner ark of the mind of Christ and the ways of God in the SPIRIT. Our "hiding place" is in Christ. "Your life is hid with God in Christ" (Col. 3:3). It is the fearful, the faithless, or the wicked, who seek a geographical hiding place. Some want to leave the earth and fly away to heaven, while some cry for the rocks and the mountains to hide them, and yet others are seeking a hiding place in some natural place, a farm, a desert, a wilderness area, etc. But it will not work. It will not work because it is natural, physical, carnal, earthly. You cannot escape from death that way. You can only escape death by LIFE! And you can only find life by sowing to the SPIRIT! It is the life of God in your spirit which will swallow up all death, enabling you to "escape" the things that are coming upon the world.

George Hawtin penned the following words of truth: "The three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace were living types of the elect of God as they will be preserved through the fires of tribulation. The fire will not hurt them and the Son of God, who was with those blessed three, will be with us also. The elect will be right here in the world, yet they will be caught up to a new realm of spiritual glory and power, a realm where nothing of the earth can really harm them. Daniel was thrown into the den of ravening lions because of his faithfulness to God, but because he lived in a heavenly realm far above all his associates, the roaring lions became as docile as domestic kittens in his presence. It is quite possible that he stroked their manes and listened with pleasure to their mighty purring throughout the night when angels came to shut their mouths, yet these same lions tore his enemies to pieces before they could fall to the bottom of the pit. And thus I think it will be for all God's elect people. They will be in the fire, but never feel it. They will be in the lion's den, but find no hurt. Yea, they will be like Noah, who rode through the great waters of the flood, but came down on side to people a glorious new age, which in our case will be the age of the Kingdom."

Those chosen ones who shall be blessed with that promised ESCAPE shall be delivered, not by being removed from the earth, but by a more glorious transformation. They shall escape the things that are coming upon the world by appearing before the Son of man - by standing before the Son of man - by union with Him in the incorruptibleness of His divine life. When anyone among us is blessed to stand before the Son of man we are changed into the same image by seeing Him as He is. But let not any saint of God think that we speak of an outward event, for the Son of man is WITHIN YOU, and it is there that you behold Him, are changed into His image, and stand before Him, your outer man brought into harmony and oneness of life with the inner, praise His wonderful name!

COME UP HITHER

Another scripture used to teach the pre-tribulation rapture is Rev. 4:1-2 where John heard a voice "as it were a trumpet talking with me; which said, COME UP HITHER, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and behold a throne was set in heaven..." They say John was a type here of the Church being caught up off the earth into heaven just prior to the wrath of God falling upon the world in the Great Tribulation. But it says no such thing. Oh, what shame! What deliriums! Men, poor deluded and blind children who know as little of the Christ life and spiritual realities as does the father of lies whom they unwittingly serve, yet parade themselves as angels of light and their carnal imaginings as revelation direct from God! No wonder Paul wrote, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine" (II Tim. 4:3-4). No wonder Isaiah wrote, "All tables (from which the Church is fed) are filled with vomit and filthiness, so that there is NO PLACE CLEAN" (Isa. 28:8). God pity the poor victims who follow these wretched blind leaders of the blind, poor nursing infants who know not their right hand from their left, victims of these messengers of the carnal mind, poor helpless babes, who have never, since the day of their birth, had a good square spiritual meal, and who as a result grow weaker and thinner and more anemic spiritually day by day.

A tremendous revelation was given to John on Patmos. John was one of the "three mighties" who walked with the Lord in the days of His flesh; he was with Him in the Mount, he lay in His bosom and, above all others, has received the distinctive title as "that disciple whom the Lord loved." It was fitting that the man who had leaned upon the breast of God's Son and heard the inmost beating of His heart, should become the depositary of His most intimate thought in respect to the course of the Church in this age. And such is the case. This picture is to be found in the book of the Revelation. The seven Churches are saluted by John. He was shown the seven candlesticks "which ARE the seven Churches" (Rev. 1:20). God raised up a prophet that could see and foretell in detail the entire Church age before it could transpire. This is what the messages to the seven Churches in Rev. 2 and 3 are all about.

This prophecy is directed to the seven Churches in Asia as they became the symbolic vehicle by which the Lord quickened a message that is not only to be unto them, but is to be relevant to all Christians throughout the entire Church age. The messages and prophecies that are seemingly directed unto the seven special Churches of Asia actually symbolize and characterize the conditions that have existed in the Church age from the day of Pentecost until now. Seven is the perfect spiritual number of completeness and these SEVEN CHURCHES embody and characterize all the combined conditions that not only existed then, but have existed in one form or another throughout this entire age and are still in some form or another manifested in the Churches today. John beheld the good and the evil of the Church age. He declared the blessings and the curses of this age. He saw the strength and the weakness of the Church. He saw the Church in its beginnings and in its consummation. He beheld the True Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and he exposed the false church systems, the swaggering harlot of this age with her unholy spirit, doctrines, organization and methods. John shows forth the full revelation of all the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church during the Church age and the ages to come.

If you want to know what the Church of this age is like look at the SEVEN CANDLESTICKS! There you have the divinely inspired portrait of the Church painted in awesome detail by the skillful hand of the Holy Spirit. The outstanding fact is that it is a Church of MIXTURE - imperfect, immature, carnal, idolatrous, lethargic, heretical, adulterous - a realm of mixture and duality. Not only is the Church age an age of mixture, but it is an experience of CONTINUED MIXTURE; as in the parable of the wheat and tares, right up to the end of the harvest the field is a MIXED FIELD; it is a field divided between wheat and tares. There is neither time nor space to explore the meaning and fulfillment of all the symbols attached to these seven Churches, but these seven Churches perfectly reveal WHAT THE CHURCH REALM IS IN ITS ENTIRETY, and history and personal experience testify conclusively that John was shown aright! The early Church itself was a mixture of flesh and spirit, truth and error, law and grace, spirituality and carnality, Christ and antichrist. And I do not hesitate to tell you that from that day to this ALL CHURCHES HAVE SO BEEN. They are today! ALL of them! Yes, YOURS too! precious friend of mine, matters not if you call it a "New Testament Church," "Kingdom Church," "Sonship Church," "End-time Church," "New Day Church," or by some other inventive title if it IS a Church - its portrait is graphically and unerringly drawn in chapters 2 and 3 of the Revelation. Have you been searching for the perfect Church? Forget it! Such a Church does not exist during the Church age. And should this age continue for another thousand years the Church shall not have changed - the Word of the Almighty God declares it! The seven candlesticks ARE the seven Churches and the seven Churches ARE the whole Church throughout the entire Church age. The "New Testament Church" realm can never be different from what John saw in spirit.

Notice now the inspired words that follow: "After this (the vision of the candlesticks) I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, COME UP HITHER, and I will show thee things which must be HEREAFTER. And immediately I was IN THE SPIRIT: and, behold, a THRONE WAS SET IN HEAVEN, and one sat on the throne" (Rev. 4:1-2). An entrance is given to John into the heavenlies of the Most High. A door is opened unto John into the highest spiritual dimension of the divine eternal domain. At the speaking of the trumpet, the spirit translates John into the higher spiritual and heavenly realm of the THRONE OF GOD. I would draw your reverent attention to the wording: "AFTER THIS I looked... Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be HEREAFTER." H-E-R-E-A-F-T-E-R! After what? Why, bless your heart, after the CANDLESTICK REALM! The promises have already been given, NOT TO THE CHURCHES, but to a class in the Churches - to HIM THAT OVERCOMETH. It is divinely significant that not one promise was ever given to even one Church in these Churches of mixture - every single- promise was made to that Church within the Church - the OVERCOMER - the SONS OF GOD. "HE THAT OVERCOMETH shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be MY SON" (Rev. 21:7). Ah, here is a higher realm, the realm of the OVERCOMER. There is no duality, no mixture in this higher realm, no immaturity or imperfection of any kind. And the message sounds forth like the blast of a trumpet: "COME UP HITHER!"

Is it not plain that John is shown TWO REALMS - the candlestick realm and the throne realm? First John is informed about what the candlestick realm is, then he is shown another realm HIGHER THAN THE CANDLESTICK REALM. It is the realm of the overcomer, of the throne (the Lordship realm), of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. The throne denotes the seat of authority, rulership and dominion. It is the realm of HIS LORDSHIP, and ours with Him. Any person who ever enters into that divine realm of the Spirit in the heavenlies must be in complete and total submission unto that Holy One who sits upon that heavenly throne. And "to him that overcometh will I grant to SIT WITH ME IN MY THRONE, even as I overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (Rev. 3:21). It is interesting to note that immediately following this invitation to the throne John is bidden to leave the candlestick realm of the earthlies and ascend IN THE SPIRIT (not a physical "rapture"!) into this HIGHER-THAN-THE-CANDLESTICK-REALM where the Lamb is in the throne.

This is what the brethren don't want to do! How tenaciously they cling to the candlestick realm with its five-fold ministry, New Testament Order, with its limitation, imperfection, weakness, immaturity, mixture, structures, methods, etc. Even so-called "Kingdom" preachers tell me that unless I am joined to some "New Testament Church" I will never make it into sonship. It is a lie. The truth is just the opposite. COME UP HITHER! Actually, you must leave the candlestick realm and ascend into the higher dimension of the Spirit in order to be a son of God! This revelation was given in A. D. 96. The people in the Churches of John's generation refused to leave the candlestick realm and rise to a higher experience in God and within only a few years the great apostasy set in, by the third and fourth centuries the apostasy was complete, followed by a dreadful night of great and terrible darkness. If we would be overcomers, pressing into sonship to God, our ears must hear with joy the challenging call, "Come up hither!" We must arise and forsake the limitation of the candlestick realm to become related to Christ in that inner union where HIS LORDSHIP SWALLOWS UP OUR LIVES. Oh, yes, the Lord is still out there in the candlestick realm, for as long as that realm endures there is "One like unto the Son of man standing in the midst." I have seen Him there in the midst of all the delusion, foolishness and carnality, I have beheld Him blessing, moving, speaking, saving, baptising in the Holy Ghost, healing, imparting gifts, I have heard His voice in the praising, in the preaching, in the prayers. Yes, He is there all right, in the midst, as the light that remains in Babylon, ministering on that level, blessing by His wonderful grace. But, my beloved, I would be remiss if I failed to warn you that He is NOT THERE taking men on to perfection, into the incorruptible life, into the fullness of sonship. The "up hither" realm is where that experience is known. If any man can show me any Church order, including the early Church, or their own, that has ever carried God's people on to perfection and fullness I will recant and gladly join it. If such a Church cannot be produced, then John's estimation of the candlestick realm remains valid and I have no obligation to join myself to that which is totally impotent to minister what is needed in this hour to bring us into the depths of Jesus Christ. Here me now! We are not opposed to gatherings, meetings and ministry! It is just that all these things must be kept in the perspective of reality as the "in part" realm and not over-rated as the vehicle to bring us into fullness.

I hear a Voice, my brother, my sister, bidding me to distinguish between the "dwellers on earth" and the "dwellers in heaven." "Therefore rejoice, YE HEAVENS, and YE THAT DWELL IN THEM. Woe to the INHABITERS OF THE EARTH... for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath..." (Rev. 12:12). In the thirteenth chapter of Revelation we are told that the "dwellers in heaven" are the tabernacle of God. The tabernacle of God is that blessed company of the overcomers - the sons of God. The dwellers in heaven are the 144,000 standing on Mount Zion. The dwellers in heaven are the manchild company "caught up to God and His throne." The dwellers in heaven are the enthroned elders. The dwellers in heaven are the four living creatures in the midst of the throne. The dwellers in heaven are the Kings and Priests after the order of Melchizedek. The dwellers in heaven are the tabernacle of God. The dwellers in heaven are the warriors on white horses who come out of heaven, accompanying the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The dwellers in heaven are the New Jerusalem which comes down from God out of heaven bringing the glory of the celestial Kingdom among men. Yea! and Amen! The more you search the more clear it will become that the "open door" in heaven and the invitation "Come up hither" separates between the candlestick realm in the earthlies, which are the seven Churches, the entire age of Church economy - and the higher realm of HIS LORDSHIP WITHIN, the throne realm!

I say to you today as the trumpet-voice said to John in that long ago, "Come up hither!" We have stood on the sidelines and said, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and rapture us out of this world." And He has sat on His throne and said, "Come, My people; enter into my gates, enter into my glory." We have said, "Come and get us Lord Jesus," and He has said, Come up hither, My people; come up into the realm of My Spirit, of My reality, of My glory and power." THE DOOR IS OPEN IN HEAVEN TODAY. You may live in the candlestick or the throne. You may be an earth-dweller or a heaven-dweller. You may be a "Christian" or you may be a SON!

THE TRUE "RAPTURE"

The word "rapture" as used theologically is a misapplied and misappropriated term. Although this word is not found in the Bible, it IS found in the dictionary. The correct rendering of "rapture" has nothing to do with going anywhere. The World Book Dictionary furnishes us with this definition: "A strong feeling that absorbs the mind; very great joy. A feeling of being lifted high in MIND and SPIRIT; being filled with and completely taken up in feeling or delight or bliss." Armed with the true definition of rapture, is it not clear that we have been raptured on occasions too numerous to mention, as we have experienced the life of God in our SPIRIT from glory to glory!

Men gaze steadily into the skies looking for Jesus to come flashing across the heavens to snatch them up and carry them away, but their spirits have never been enravished with these enlightening words: "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and HATH TRANSLATED US into the kingdom of His dear Son" (Col. 1:13). Is that not an illuminating statement? And while the preachers rant and rave and speculate about a "rapture", displaying their carnal charts complete with pictures of automobiles wrecking, trains derailing, and airplanes crashing while the bodies of the saints soar away through the atmosphere, there are some humble sons of the Most High God who have EYES TO SEE and have discovered a process NOW TAKING PLACE in every believer who is earnestly pressing on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. From the far distant mountain peaks of revelation the inspired voice of Paul clear as the morning song of the morning dove sounds forth the message: "Even when we were dead in sin, He H-A-T-H QUICKENED US TOGETHER WITH CHRIST, and H-A-T-H RAISED US UP TOGETHER, and made us sit together IN HEAVENLY PLACES in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:5-6). Blessed be God!

He who writes these lines testifies to those who read them that we have ALREADY PASSED FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN! My God, my God! What words are these that Thou hast bidden us believe? Since, then, we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son, is it any wonder that we should discover ourselves to be citizens of the true and eternal realm? By His resurrection and ascension we have been raised up and translated. We have passed from the realm where all is earthly and carnal to the realm where all is heavenly and spiritual. Our citizenship in this present age has been revoked and we have obtained a new citizenship in the eternal and undying realm. For this reason Paul wrote, saying, "Your citizenship is in heaven." We were citizens of another land, a dark land of fear, limitation, sorrow, sin and death. We were of different speech and culture, but we crossed over. We have changed our citizenship and our allegiance from one domain to another. We have renounced our existence on the earth-realm in favor of a new life in the heaven-realm. We have renounced our allegiance to this present world system, its customs, life-style, thought processes, wisdom, knowledge, ways, and religion, to become partakers of a new and heavenly citizenship, speakers of its new language, revelators of the beauty of its customs, culture and life-style, partakers of its higher inspiration, its more noble wisdom and knowledge, and manifestors of the wonders of its truth, and the glory of its endless life.

Ah, my beloved, WHAT YOU SEE DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE. The story is told of a mole who once pushed its head out of the ground and said to a bird who was swinging and singing on the branch above it, "What are you making such a noise about?" Said the bird, "Oh, the sunshine, the trees, the grasses, the shining stream, and the white clouds on the mountainside. The world is full of beauty!" "Nonsense," said the mole; "I have lived in this world longer than you have, and I have gone deeper into it. I have traversed it and tunneled it, and I know what I am talking about, and I tell you there is nothing in it but fishing worms." If all you can see is sorrow and trouble, pain and distress, sin and evil, crime and violence, lust and greed, wrath and judgment, and antichrist and tribulation, then you are living still in the wrong country! "WOE to the INHABITORS OF THE EARTH!"

A "catching up" is taking place today. There is a transference to a new kingdom and a new kind of experience which we have not known before. Unto transformed men today the Spirit is speaking these magnificent words: "If ye then BE RISEN with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1). There is a spiritual rapture with Christ and all who partake of it will find that their affections are being set upon heavenly things ABOVE and not on things on the earth. This can be your experience here and now in this present world. Some will be dismayed by the statement I am about to make, but quite frankly, I care not one whit who anyone thinks the Antichrist is, or when the tribulation will begin, or how long it will last, or what technological or economic development may bring the mark of the beast, or what the Illuminati conspires to do, the world bankers, the trilateral commission, the Pope, the communists, or any other event that men's hearts are failing them for fear in looking after. That may all be interesting information but it is for the "earth-dwellers" to concern themselves with. I have no time for such trivialities and even less interest. None of this is of any significance in the Kingdom in which I now live, and holds nothing for me anymore. It all seems quite childish, speculative and boring. I have higher matters to attend to and greater and more enduring things to pursue in the Kingdom of my Father. Hallelujah! I've been "raptured"! And to one and all I say, "COME UP HITHER!" I am no longer a citizen of this world, for I have risen with Christ and am seated with Him in the higher than all heavens far above all principality and power and might and dominion, praise His wonderful name!

Preston Eby

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

NIGHTINGALE, NURTURERS AND HELL

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Florence Nightingale "The Lady with the Lamp"




For a couple of months I have wanted to write a blog that addresses something that bewilders me every time I see it. It seems the mothers and even grandmothers that promote the doctrine of Hell often are the ones that rend my heart the deepest. Mothers should above all understand the nurturing nature and tenderness of a parent toward a child and they should know by the Spirit, within them, that our Father would never torment the great majority of His children forever and ever. It is their stance for a terroristic angry God that most often causes me to weep and believe me, weep I do.

This indeed is a dark and absurd phenomenon where mothers espouse and teach their children the foulest doctrine imaginable where most of God's children are terrorized and tormented in a pagan mythological place called Hell. I have written and shared insurmountable evidence on dozens upon dozens of my blogs refuting the demonic doctrines of "damnation and Hell" yet there are so many women and mothers who refuse to look at or acknowledge the Truth concerning this subject. It truly is baffling when you think of mothers and woman who are ingrained with a nurturers instinct and nature to refuse the "Real Good News," that God loves and is merciful to all his offspring. This I read some weeks ago touched on and graphically exampled this most bewildering phenomenon. Please allow me to quote it now.

"Did you know that upper class Chinese women had to suffer foot binding for around 1000 years! That was an awful thing to do to a child and woman. Common sense and science should have stopped this practice, years before it was outlawed around the turn of the 20th century. Surely mothers must have thought as they broke the toes of their daughters and bound them under the feet, as pus and blood oozed out of the bandages. This tradition of crippling my child makes no damn sense at all.

And yet generations of Christian parents have tucked their children to bed and reminded them that "they are to love god with all their hearts or he will roast them in hell forever." Surely most must have thought at some time or another This tradition of crippling my child makes no damn sense at all" (end quote)

On a personal note this is a short testimony of my experience of coming up against the unfathomable hardness and blindness the enemy has cast into hearts of some mothers. Decades ago, I shared the great hope of "all mankind saved" with my mother in law, a fundamentalist Christian. I shared because I thought it would give her comfort since she had lost her only son, ten years earlier while he, a non believer, was drunk and driving. I will never forget how she rejected the idea, willing rather to see her deceased son in Hell forever.

That was my first experience of seeing this strong darkness and I was baffled and crushed. I would like to say the rejection of this message has gotten easier as I see other mothers reject the Real Good News but instead it hurts even more today. The positive news is that as we enter the last days of the age, the Holy Spirit has opened up anew and in greater measure the truth of "Universal Salvation" contrasting the doctrine of "Hell." I have seen many in the last few years come to find freedom from fear of a terroristic god and be embraced by Our Benevolent True Father. This gives me new hope and thus I have been tirelessly sharing the True Gospel. I am sure I spend seventy or eighty hours doing this most weeks because I have His Heart and Love for His children, your children and my children.

In closing I want to share some thoughts, quotes and a writing by Florence Nightingale, a woman with a nurturer's heart. Florence is one that truly knew the nature of God as "El Shaddai" which translates into "God, the breasted nurturer." She is also known as a pioneer of modern nursing and a noted author. Before leaving you with her profound and heart felt writing allow me to share a little more of her biographical background,

In 1854 Florence Nightingale took 38 "handmaidens of the Lord." (as she called them) to nurse wounded British soldiers in the Crimean War. This was the first time the government had allowed women to do this. Almost all modern nursing systems and techniques we know today can be traced back to her. During the Crimean campaign Florence Nightingale gained the nickname "The Lady with the Lamp", deriving from a phrase in a report in The Times:

She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.

The phrase was further popularised by Henry Longfellow's 1857 poem "Santa Filomena":

Lo! in that hour of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

As a teenager, Florence was converted to Jesus Christ, writing in her diary: "God spoke to me and called me to His service." Following are some other diary entries that exhibit her deep love of God.

March 7. God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for Him, for Him alone without the reputation.

March 9. During half an hour I had by myself in my cabin, settled the question with God.

April 1. Not able to go out but wished God to have it all His own way. I like Him to do exactly as He likes without even telling me the reason.

May 12. Today I am thirty--the age Christ began his mission. Now no more childish things. No more love. No more marriage. Now Lord let me think only of Thy Will, what Thou willest me to do. Oh Lord Thy Will, Thy Will.

Florence kept a picture of Christ, crowned with thorns, in her bedroom. The call to relieve suffering was such, said Florence, that we "dishonour Christ when we do not do our best to relieve suffering, even in the meanest creature. Kindness to sick man, woman and child came in with Christ."

God has through out the last two millenia has always had a remnant that have seen God's enduring mercy and love for all His children without exception. They have faithfully carried the True Gospel to our present age and often with great cost, even to martyrdom. I pray you will carry this wonderful message to your children and should the Lord tarry, they also to their children.

Florence Nightingale Quote

"I can't love because I am ordered-least of all can I love One who seems only to make me miserable here to torture me hereafter. Show me that He is good, that He is loveable, and I shall love Him without being told. But does any preacher show this? He may say that God is good, but he shows Him to be very bad; he may say that God is 'Love', but he shows him to be hate, worse than any hate of man. As the Persian poet says; 'If God punishes me for doing evil by doing me evil, how is he better than I?' And it is hard to answer, for certainly the worst man would hardly torture his enemy, if he could, for ever. And unless God has a scheme that every man is to saved for ever, it is hard to say in what He is not worse than man; for all good men would save others if they could. It is of no use saying that God is just, unless we define what justice is. In all Christian times people have said that 'God is just' and have credited him with an injustice such as transcends all human injustice that it is possible to conceive."

God bless and I pray you were moved by this message to realize more fully the Love of our Nurturing Father.

Jack

(some material copied from Wikipedia, Tentmaker,
my freind David and a couple unlisted sources)


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Thursday, January 8, 2009

DECEPTION IN THE CHURCH

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I have often shared with my friends still bound by the organized church that there are two Jesus' and one is false. Everything in the Kingdom of God has a worldly and soulish counterfeit and so is it also with Jesus, the Son of God. I spent decades in the orthodox and organized church; Catholic, Pentecostal and Charismatic and I will tell you point blank, that even though I ministered in these institutions with what would be perceived as "with great success" I had ignorantly fashioned a false Jesus. So today I share the apocalyptic warning with those still bound in organized Christendom, that the greatest challenge in a believer's life is to allow the Spirit to lead in the forming of Christ within. I share from my sad and costly experiences, how the soul of man, known also as the carnal mind, is ever desiring to raise up in rebellion, to form a Christ and a God of it's own making. And with the forming of this soulish false Christ, which in reality is an Antichrist there is also a false church system to accommodate this religeous counterfeit. Such is the place where the great majority of churches and Christians today find their position. It has all become false, apostate and corrupt, as has been prophesied in the scriptures in regard to the times at the end of the age in which we now dwell.

So with that introduction I share the first part of a writing by a Jewish believer who tells it like it is, as he identifies the deception that fills the church today. If I can say anything that, above all, lends credence to a man's message, it is that, "it illustrates the preeminence of Jesus Christ and the centrality of the Cross." I can place this very description on this written sermon by Art Katz.
May God by His Holy Spirit open your hearts to hear this dear brother's warning so timely for the days we now occupy,
Jack


The Anatomy of Deception by Art Katz

I once had the opportunity, by the Lord's providence, to be invited to speak at a "Jesus Rally" in Winnipeg, Canada. An earlier experience some years before at the first of the Jesus Rallies was enough for me. I vowed then to never again be a part of the outdoor, carnival-like atmosphere of men and women in shorts stuffing potato chips in their mouths, while hearing what ostensibly purported to be serious words of God from the platform. The whole atmosphere chilled my soul. But when this invitation came from Winnipeg, I felt that it was God, despite my determination, and I went.

I was not supposed to be a speaker at the general sessions, but as is the format, the morning sessions were given over to the denominational and non-denominational charismatic groups. I was invited to be the speaker at the Baptist charismatic group. How could I refuse so novel an invitation as that? And indeed, those speakings were blessed. On the night of the general meeting, I found myself sitting on the platform, where an internationally known speaker was the message bearer for that session. While everyone entered into the general merriment, I sat there like a glum lump. I was agonizing and mortified at some of the statements that were coming forth. The whole prevailing atmosphere in which the audience was receiving those words reinforced my impression that the whole thing was 'hokey.' I know of no other word for it. There was a sense of artificiality, of things synthetic and feigned, having the appearance of things real, but being somehow false, although real words and meaningful terms were employed such as phrases out of Scripture that spoke of the unity of the Body. There were prophecies being uttered that night from a certain assemblage of men who ostensibly had the gift of prophecy. They would write their prophecies out on yellow legal pads and give them to an overseer who would then call the men to the microphone at the appropriate moment to speak them. The terrible sense of unreality was all the more pronounced because the whole thing was couched in things that were very real. By the end of the night, my spirit was such that I could not wait to leave the platform. Unfortunately, I had been assigned to bring the benediction at the end of the night. I could not, however, lend myself to the things that had been taking place, which would then identify me with it. So I went over to tug the sleeve of the man who was presiding over the platform and ask to be excused from the obligation of bringing the prayer of benediction. But before I could get to him, he announced my name; so I came to the podium in that terrible agony and frustration. All I could do was ask the people to stand up, take off their sunbonnets and visors, come to a posture of respect before God and to sing with me the Lord's prayer. And that was how the night ended.

As I was leaving the platform, a layman who was in charge of arranging the sessions asked if I would be available for the general session the following morning. At first I abruptly said, "No!" But then I said to him, "Okay, but only if the Lord gives me something specific." The next morning we drove to an open park where the rally was being conducted and where I was to be the morning speaker in the Baptist section. I discussed with my colleagues whether I ought not indeed take advantage of the invitation that had been given me and speak a word distinct and different from the kinds of things that had been promulgated. We prayed together because I did not want to fall into that role of always having to bring an ungainly word. Without making any haste to get there, and in fact, hoping that we would be too late, we parked the car and walked to the platform where the public meeting was taking place at the very moment when it was time for the speaker to be announced. They had already assigned another speaker in my absence, but when the man saw me coming up the steps to the platform, he immediately called to me and I was rushed to the microphone. I started with something like, "Is there something grievously wrong with me that prevents me from entering into the spirit of general merriment that has prevailed in these meetings?" I went on to read in the Scriptures where Moses was coming down Mount Sinai with the tablets of the law only to hear a noise, which was not the noise of battle or the noise of victory, but the noise of singing. I went on to say that I had the impression it was this kind of noise that characterized the previous night, and it had much to do with that earlier event of men and women, too impatient to wait for Moses to come down from the Mount with the true thing. Instead, they simulated something like it-a golden calf, a substitute-and danced and pranced around it.

Can you imagine how these words were going forth? Even as I had been walking up to the platform, I heard one of the so-called prophecies in which the speaker was saying, "I, the Lord, have been with you this weekend; I have given you my Spirit and I am going to do this and I am going to do that. . ." But for me it was leaden and without life, and so I said, "It seems that my condition is so bad that I have no witness to the authenticity of these prophecies, and I wonder indeed whether it is not some kind of idiosyncratic thing, where I am some kind of character who always seems to find a negative thing. But if my condition is somehow an expression of the heartbeat of God, we might well ask whether functions such as this are not some kind of massive deception into which we have been inducted unwarily. Just because the sermons have been rich and suggestive, and we have been impressed with the three or four thousand people who have gathered here, and our hearts have panted after true unity in the Body of Christ, we need to consider whether we have been too quick and willing to call this "unity" when, in fact, it is not. As we explore that, maybe we need also to ask about the validity of the whole charismatic phenomenon, whether we in fact have an authentic baptism in the Holy Spirit, and indeed whether we have been born again of the Spirit. Or have we been, from beginning to end, inducted into one of the most colossal deceptions that has ever been perpetrated in the religious world and all history?"

Those were the kinds of questions that I raised, and then invited as many as would, to come to the session where I was to speak on the spirit of truth. There was a cry from my heart for something authentic to take place, that we should not settle for and be satisfied with a plastic counterfeit kind of charismatica, when the cry of God is for authenticity in the earth. Plastic is not a comely substance anyway, but a plastic Kingdom is a tragedy of such proportions that I could break down and weep. For the Kingdom of God to be plastic, subject to pressures and influences to accommodate and suit the needs of men, is inconceivable. We need to be alerted to the kinds of end-time deceptions that will come in the spirit of antichrist ("instead of" or "appearing as Christ"). This booklet is intended to examine the spirit or anatomy of deception, as of the things that are plastic, false, artificial, synthetic, imitative, counterfeit, spurious, feigned and pretended.

Chapter 1 - The Cry for Reality
There is a 'Kingdom of reality' that needs to be demonstrated by God's people. And if we need to be anything as the Church, it is foremost to be eminently real, eminently loving, eminently living in the truth, speaking the truth, walking in the truth, doing the truth, being true. It is much more than merely "being correct," or scripturally and doctrinally sound. It is something that should be suffused right into the marrow and the knit of our makeup. It needs to be in our eyes, in our speech, in the inflection of our voice, our posture and our talk. God has triggered something in my heart to raise the questions of authenticity before the Body of Christ. Are we willing for authenticity's sake and for truth's sake not to grasp at the first straw that floats our way, and which seems to present the possibility of solving our problems? Are we willing to refrain from simulating something out of our own humanity that has the appearance of love, but is not? I want that which comes down from above, however long I have got to bear the terrible agony and reputation of 'lovelessness.' I do not want a saccharine counterfeit. Authentic things do not come cheap. They never have. It is we, as believers, who have been inducted into the spirit of glib, unctuous and facile kinds of doings. We are quick to reconcile that which is not reconciled in God, and thereby suffer the surfacing again and again of problems, issues, and habits that will neither dissolve nor go away. We want a pseudo-resurrection without the ignominy and pain of the Cross. But it is only out of the ultimate agony and devastation of the Cross that ultimate glory comes. Are we lovers of the Cross? Do we love the splinters and the blood and the gore? Do we recognize that there is a cross for us to bear, and it is to this suffering that we are called, and that the resolution of the issue will not be far from us if we seek the things that are authentic and true? Do we have the discernment to distinguish the authentic from the counterfeit? Are we so habituated to success, and so desirous of seeing some visible effect of power that we are not too discriminating so long as we 'get it,' somehow? We want the excitement; we want the titillation; we want the appearance of power; we want to succeed, because the possibility of failure is a form of death we are not willing to bear, thus avoiding the Cross. We ought rather to ask ourselves what is success as God defines it? Nazi Germany put great emphasis on demonstrations of a very impressive kind, such as their meetings at Nuremburg with marches and torchlight ceremonies, almost like pagan practices, that filled the void in German life with emotion and intensity. It was an answer to a need for fulfillment, excitement and engagement. If we do not have a valid apostolic reality in our spiritual life, that void will be filled by other contenders who are only awaiting their opportunity. If we move into the realm of what is false, synthetic, humanly contrived and not the operation of the Spirit, we can move very easily from the charismatic to the demonic. We cannot tell the difference between the hunger for God and the hunger for experience. If we have a real hunger for God, we do not have to go to places where 'signs and wonders' abound. Last Days' deceptions are related to an inadequate view of God by which we interpret the 'blessing' or seeming power as being the evidence of God as we know Him, but the true knowledge of God would have made no room for that kind of understanding, or even the desire for these phenomena in the form in which they have been manifested. The pattern of Acts, chapter 13, shows a very different context: the demonstration of power as the provision of God to demonstrate the authority of His messengers when they were opposed by powers of darkness in the fulfillment of their mission, as opposed to the 'power' demonstrated in auditoriums to Christians who are looking for excitement, or help for their own bodies. This apostolic model is the one that we more rightly ought to look for and expect, indeed, will be the only one effective in the Last Days' final confrontation with those same powers.

Right Perception of God
The apprehension of God is very much affected by how we perceive Him, and therein lies the problem. We bring a distortion out of our own subjectivity and out of our own twist. We see God through a prism of our own being. There are some people who see God as some kind of a lackey or errand boy, who provides the convenience of meetings for this kind of entertainment and so-called 'blessing.'

With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure. . . (Psalms 18:26).

To perceive God rightly requires something from us. If we have any kind of controversy with God, the problem is not God, but ourselves; we are projecting something onto Him and becoming guilty of Israel's sin. The thing that we need is to be transformed into His image, not to project our image onto Him. He is not a convenience for us. He is God. He is the Creator. He is the Almighty. I think those words have lost their cogency. Maybe we have said them too often. They have become a catechism or an invocation of a mechanical kind. Unless we know Him in the place that is too deep for words, then we do not really know Him. Until there is a gasp and a splutter, until we find ourselves prostrate and stretched out as dead, do we really know Him? How many of us will go through an entire Christian lifetime without that knowledge and still be perfectly content, and think that we know Him, and that we can communicate Him? Manifestation phenomena are already perplexing the Church, with many asking, "Is it God?" People seem to receive benefit; they are delivered from hang-ups and depression; marriages are reconciled; people are restored to the faith. There is much evidence of 'good' things, but when the Last Days' deceptions come, of which we have been warned, will they not come with 'good' things? Can we tell the difference between the true and the false, especially when we want so much to be blessed and to have an experience and be relieved of our hang-ups and depressions? How discriminating are we about the source from which the 'blessing' comes? How do we tell whether something is of God, or a contrary spirit who is able to lift the depression that he may well have inflicted in the first place? Here is the key: our authentic knowledge of God, not as we thought Him to be, but as He, in fact, is. Deception is a deception when it contains elements that are dubious and suspicious, and at the same time there seems to be apparent blessing. Who has the acumen and the discernment to see through it except a people of priestly stature whose discernment has been increased by the exercise of it? And who can discern between good and evil, between the profane and the holy? If blessings, so called, can succeed in bringing the Church to viewing benefit as the criterion by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself. There is something more important than benefits, something more important than being released from depression; it is the holiness of God, it is His name, it is His honor, it is He Himself. Receiving benefit of a dubious kind is too high a price to pay if it is going to throw any shadow upon His great Name. We have lost everything for the sake of benefit when the desire for benefit is, in itself, suspect. We are not in a position to categorically condemn as deception the ostensible benefits to which many testify. God is always free to bless whom He will bless. But if the enemy can succeed in bringing the Church to viewing benefit as the determinant by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself. So for myself, I would choose to keep my distance from such phenomena, trusting that whatever I might be missing is not greater than what I am protecting and cherishing, and that the Lord is not offended by a carefulness that would rather err in a jealousy for His holiness than to risk subverting what has already been given as pure and true. It is remarkable that, though we are explicitly warned about end-time lying signs and wonders (2 Thess. 2:9; Matthew 24:24), we somehow imagine that it is future, and mindlessly trust ourselves in our greed for experiences, empowerments, or releases, to dubious personalities who have caught the public fancy in incredible overnight popularity. I profoundly respect God' s use of the weak and the foolish thing, but I cannot, for that reason, endorse what is garish, cheap and coarse as being that weak and foolish thing of which Paul speaks. "Holiness unto the Lord" is still the standard of God's House, even when it is unspectacular and unassuming in the eyes of the world, and even in our own eyes.

Waiting is a priestly function, and we need to wait to see if our spirits are hospitable to what is being mediated from church platforms. Is it compatible with our already existing knowledge of God? If it is not compatible, they can stand on their heads, run all over the platform, and every other kind of madness. We are not to mindlessly give ourselves to it at all. Our integrity in God needs to be guarded, and we should not allow ourselves to be influenced, taken up and affected by the current trends, or else we will never have anything significant to give. The teaching of the Scripture is to seek out, through the word and prayer, the root of the problems that come up in life. One will usually find that unacknowledged disobediences are at the root of them, and the correction is accomplished primarily through that part of the Body to whom one is accountable and authentically joined.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even
Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies,
according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (Eph. 4:15 -16).

Revelation 12:11 tells us that "They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death." What has come to us in our relationship with God, our personal history of the knowledge o reproaches that accompany obedience, and the sufferings that come with following the Lord. It did not come cheap. That knowledge is precious and dear. We need to make it the index f all other knowledge, and if present phenomena are not compatible with what we already know, and have tested, as being the knowledge of God as God, then we need to hold at arm's length that which purports to be from God, even if it is a 'blessing' to others. I have found safety in aligning new phenomena with what already is my knowledge of the holiness of God through my forty-year walk. I am jealous over that inward deposit, that residue of the knowledge of God that is beyond words; it cannot be articulated, but I know it to be there, and it is in the innermost place of my being. Everything has to be tested against that. If present phenomena are not consonant with what I already know to be the holiness of God, then I am alerted, and cannot indiscriminately receive what others seem to be applauding. This has been a life-saving provision for me, and it ought to be so for all believers.

It was not too long ago, in a church where I was speaking, that in a moment of time the thought came to me that one does not have to be a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, or subscribe to some cult to be deceived. One can subscribe to correct Christian orthodoxy and be as effectually deceived in the correctness of that credal statement as if they were embracing false doctrine. And in fact, that kind of deception is the most devious and most powerful of all, because you think you are correct. There is a desperate need in the Church to know God in truth. He is waiting to be sought, and He distinguishes that people, that generation that will ascend the holy hill of Zion, in Psalm 24, as those with 'clean hands and a pure heart,' who have not given their soul to vanity by running to Toronto and other places, as those who will ascend the holy hill and throw the bolt that opens the gate so that the King of Glory might come in. He says, "This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Thy face¯even Jacob" (Psalms 24:6). You do not have to go to Toronto to seek Him; He is right where you are. Be ruthless against yourself in finding time, in sending the kids out, in getting out of the way those clamoring legitimate things that are always clawing at you. Lock yourself in a room, throw the key away. Do something, but seek God and be found of Him. His promise is that if we will seek for Him with all our heart and all our soul, we shall be found of Him.

It is a critical hour for the Church. Deception is rampant!


(Katz writing to be contunued Lord
willing. As a side not I am now
listening to a unbelivably powerful
sermon by Art Katz on the cross of
Christ. It is entitled, "And They
Crucified Him". This is a needed
message for us all and here is the link)

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