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But I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever. (II Chronicles 6:2) |
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A certain Christian during his daily devotions was reading in Second Chronicles. The subject was the dedication of the Temple. Solomon's constant reference to himself in Chapter Six seemed out of character for a man of God. |
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The interjection of Solomon's personality into the building of the Temple of God, a matter so important to God and His will for man, is repulsive. One wonders if people are repelled when we interject our personality as we are presenting the Lord Jesus! |
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The Christian contemplating this passage had been taught for many years that glory belongs to God alone. No matter how God may use us we always are to give the glory to God and not talk about what we have done. So this passage with the frequent "I have built" did not appear to be in keeping with the ideal of always giving glory to God alone. |
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We know that Solomon had many excellent qualities. We understand also that he multiplied horses to himself, which is forbidden to a king. He married numerous heathen wives and they turned his heart away from God so that he burned incense to demons. The result of Solomon's wickedness was the permanent division of the twelve tribes of Israel into the competing nations of Israel and Judah. |
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Solomon was righteous in some areas of his personality and behavior and unrighteous in others. |
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During his devotions the person asked the Lord why Solomon kept referring to his own glory ("the house which I have built for thy name"). |
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The Lord's response was, "He didn't know any better." |
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Solomon was rebuked by the Lord for burning incense to heathen gods because he had learned from his Father, David, and from the priests of the Lord that to do so is against the Law of Moses. But there is nothing in the Law about giving yourself the glory when you build the Temple of God. Therefore God did not rebuke him for this but rather filled the Temple with His Divine Glory. |
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God's answer ("he didn't know any better") set in motion a train of thought which finally arrived at the following verse: |
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For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed {the righteousness} of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20) |
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The Christian over a period of fifty-one years had read that verse many times. However, the meaning of it was not clear because of his early training in "grace." He had a general idea we were supposed to have a better heart toward God than the scribes and Pharisees, but there was also the lingering concept that the righteousness that has been imputed (ascribed) to us through the Lord Jesus is infinitely superior to that of the Pharisee who was striving to keep the Law of Moses and that this is what the Lord meant by "your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees." |
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There is no question that we are to have a better heart toward God than was true of many of the scribes and Pharisees, and also that the righteousness ascribed to us when we receive the Lord Jesus is infinitely superior to that of the Pharisee who was striving to keep the Law of Moses. |
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Then the simplicity of the verse struck him: "If we do not behave more righteously than was true of the scribes and Pharisees we will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." |
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Unless Solomon stops taking glory to himself and burning incense to demons he will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless Gideon stops making ephods and worshiping them he will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless the scribes and Pharisees forsake their covetousness and envy they will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom of God. |
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Unless we who believe in the Lord Jesus abandon our worldly, sinful, self-seeking practices we will in no manner enter the Kingdom of God. |
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This is the simple, clear meaning of Matthew 5:20. (from Except Your Righteousness Shall Exceed) |
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He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. (Revelation 3:5) |
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I realize I have mentioned some of the appearances of the victorious saints in previous essays, but the topic is expanding in my mind and seems to be pressing on me. So I ask your indulgence when I repeat myself. |
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We woke up this morning (March 17, 1997) to read that thirty-nine men and women, members of a cult, had committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe which is near us. Why would young intellectuals in an affluent society, well able to live the typical life of the American upper middle class, kill themselves? |
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The only solution to the UFO mentality is the presentation of a better hope, a real hope, which is the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. |
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There is an intensifying spiritual hunger in the United States. Money, improved communication devices, vocational success, do not feed this hunger. Some Americans are turning to the Hindu or Buddhist religions in search of spiritual realities. Others to weird cults, as in Rancho Santa Fe. |
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The Christian churches must bear a great deal of the blame, I believe. We who have access to the very deepest of mystical experiences in Christ Jesus have become small businesses that make infrequent allusions if any to the world of spirits, the world for which all people finally hunger. Some Christian denominations and churches are modeled after the successful business organizations of the world, seeking superior marketing techniques in order that their numbers may grow. |
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Oftentimes the Christian businesses (churches) go into all the world to add members to their organization, not to make disciples and train them to keep God's commandments. Rather they offer a sterile gospel, a gospel that will not offend anyone except perhaps the Jews, the Muslims, and the Communists, who have their own fish to fry. |
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It truly is a day for intense prayer and repentance, humility, sackcloth so to speak, not a parading of how marvelous we Christians are as we go forth to lend a hand to a "bleeding, dying world." The world is bleeding and dying because we are not bearing a true witness of God. We are seeking to please people rather than God, the historical error of Christianity. |
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Jesus Christ is not asleep. He is drawing near His churches. The great Mountain of Fire has the stars and the lampstands in His nail-scarred hands. Already many lights have gone out. Already the "rights of the people" have put out the blazing Shekinah. |
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It is time for the High Priest to trim the wicks and put in fresh oil. And you never mind the rest of the world; you who know and love God it is time to turn away from the improved marketing techniques, from the shallow "Jesus did it all" pap being presented. Look to the Holy One of Israel. If you have to, go it alone. Be an Antipas against all. You soon will find others marching along. |
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Jesus Christ is looking for believers today who will come out of the babylonish mess (at least in their hearts, the bodies will come out at some later date) and begin to seek God with a pure heart. The Holy Spirit will reveal areas of your personality He wants to repair. |
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To be continued. |
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That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2,3) |
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God is ready to move in the United States. But it will be in the churches first. The churches need to repent. Having repented they are to present the true Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of turning away from sin, taking up our cross, and following the Master. |
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Will the true Gospel drive multitudes of spoiled believers out of the churches? I can't say it will or it won't. It doesn't matter. Better to have twenty people who love the Lord than twenty-thousand who are attending because the church is "interesting and exciting." |
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Twenty-thousand of today's believers will do little more than stand in line to have their diapers changed, in the meanwhile grumbling about the inconvenience. But twenty dedicated disciples of Jesus will make an eternal impact on the present generation. |
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Yes there are true spiritual depths in Jesus Christ horizons of splendor against which the psychedelic orgies of the drug-inspired appear as rancid garbage. |
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But we will not experience the spiritual wonders of Christ until the churches become centers of glorious worship and pageantry, holding forth a Word of Life that feeds the saints and causes sinners to fall on their faces. This can be accomplished only by constant, fervent prayer and stern obedience to the Spirit. |
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The problem is not with the secular realm it is with the churches. Babies are collecting more babies. Let the godly pastors and teachers step forth and begin to bring up the babies until they attain the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Then the secular realm will turn and pay heed to the vision of Christ appearing before them. |
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We have titled our essay "Eight Appearances of the Victorious Saints." There may be more than eight appearances of the victorious saints. For example, the "great multitude" of Revelation 7:9 may be one such appearance. However we feel more certain of the eight we have selected. |
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There are two major points we wish to make in this brief article. One point is that there are the churches and then there are the victorious saints within the churches two defined groups. The second point is that at no time are the victorious saints shown to be in mansions or in the garden of God mentioned so often in our traditions and described by those who have had visions or near-death experiences. |
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We feel it to be of the utmost importance that today's believers come to recognize that the average lukewarm church-attender will not participate in the sublime rewards offered to the overcomer. Also that our goal is not eternal residence in a "mansion" in the spirit Paradise. |
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Our Evangelical teaching is so weak, so threadbare that in many instances the believers are choosing to go back under Judaism where there at least is some substance that the worshiper can work at each day. The current "make a decision for Christ," "profess Christ and there is nothing else to do but tell others to profess Christ and then wait to go to Heaven to live in a mansion doing little of significance," does not satisfy the diligent individual who wants to find more in his or her church than an aerobics class. |
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To be continued. |
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But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. (I Timothy 6:11,12) |
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It sometimes is taught that every person who "makes a decision for Christ" is ex officio an overcomer, a victorious saint. Apparently the purpose of such an unsupported position is to perpetuate the myth that all we have to do is "accept Christ" and everything else has been accomplished. We are an overcomer by identification with Christ, or some such. |
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The most superficial reading of the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation will reveal that Christ is speaking of works, not belief. If it were true that we automatically are an overcomer by a profession of belief in Christ then the two chapters are nonsensical. |
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In the prison and jail work conducted by our church and others with which we are familiar, the message of the Kingdom of God, of righteous living, is remarkably well received. Many of the inmates have at one time or another "made a decision for Christ." Now they are beginning to realize that there is a life to be lived and they are laying hold of it in an extraordinary manner. |
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Yesterday one of the prison workers north of here called me and said, "Help! Send me some literature. Someone is getting in here with the 'grace message.' " By "grace message" he meant the typical lawless-grace-rapture-Jesus did it all-go live in a mansion preaching. |
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At long last people are beginning to see the difference. The inmates of the state prisons and county jails recognize the difference between the two gospels and are asking for literature to help them combat the "Jesus did it all" teaching. |
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Many of them had "made a decision for Christ" previously, but then they were not taught we have to keep the commandments of God. So they are back in jail. |
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The issue is being joined in our day. Which is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ? Is it "make a decision for Christ and you soon will be raptured to Heaven to live in material wealth in a mansion, possessing a harp, golden slippers, and acres of diamonds"? Or is it "turn away from your sin, take up your cross, follow Jesus every day until you become a new righteous creation in Him"? |
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Is Jesus the ticket or the way? Is salvation a change of location or a change of personality? Is grace an alternative to character transformation or is Divine grace the wisdom and power from God through Jesus Christ to enable us to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles? |
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One of these doctrines is scriptural. One is not. One is not an enlarged version of the other. They are coming from two different spirits. One is building the Kingdom of God and one is tearing down the Kingdom of God. |
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The "change of location" gospel is held by the great majority of Evangelical churches in America. |
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The "change of personality" gospel is held by an increasingly vocal minority. |
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The majority of the lemmings are rushing into the ocean. Do you have the will, the character, to be an Antipas, to stand against all, to accept the sufferings of Christ including rejection by the majority? |
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Will you turn again to God and separate the priceless from the worthless? |
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Will you walk with Jesus Christ against the tide? |
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Someone said a hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong. What do you say? |
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To be continued. |
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And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. (Revelation 7:2,3) |
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The Christian churches can be separated into the victorious saints and the rest of the church-attenders. You can see the two groups in most churches. |
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The majority, the church-attenders, make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They attend church, help pay the bills, participate in the functions of the assembling. But their daily life, other than some prayer and Bible reading, is much the same as that of the unsaved. |
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The victorious saints do all the same things but they are much more occupied with Jesus Christ. They are learning to walk in openness before God, confessing and turning away from their sins, listening for the voice of the Lord. They are ready to go, ready to stay, ready to do the Lord's will. |
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The victorious saints are growing in ministry, in the use of their talents. You can see the growth in holiness and service from month to month as they pass through "many dangers, toils, and snares." They are true Christians, true saints. |
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They do not live like the world. |
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Many people who attend church grow hardly at all over fifty years. After fifty years of attending church they still have the same problems of personality. Perhaps the main change in them is that the women have become bitter, unforgiving gossips. Some of the men drop out, sit at home on Sunday morning, read the paper, watch the television, and talk about "them preachers that want all your money." |
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However, the victorious saints after fifty years are prophets. |
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One characteristic of the victorious saints may be noticed in the seventh chapter of the Book of Revelation. |
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Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. (Revelation 7:3) |
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The victorious saints are "the servants of our God." |
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Every Christian is called to be a bondslave of the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that Christ has the authority to dictate every detail of his or her life. |
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Paul commands us to present our body a living sacrifice to God. This is our reasonable service of worship. This is the only way in which we can prove the will of God for our life. |
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First Corinthians informs us that the Holy Spirit has given a gift, a talent, to every member of the Body of Christ. How many church- attenders know what their gift is? Not very many and this is why the Body of Christ is so immature. The Body can be built up only by the contribution of each member. |
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The churchgoers of today are not, for the most part, presenting their body a living sacrifice to God. Therefore they do not know the will of God for their life. They do not know of a gift or ministry they have been given. Therefore the members of their assembly, including themselves, do not come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. |
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To be continued. |
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And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2) |
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This situation (the believers not knowing their gifts or the will of God for their life) has prevailed for two thousand years. Now it is coming to a screeching halt! The Lord Jesus has come to His churches. He is calling out (in heart, for now) whoever will turn aside from the world and his or her own ways and seek the face of God. There is no time to waste. The tares are coming to maturity. |
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If you want to be a victorious saint, an inheritor of the promises of God, you must become the bondslave of Jesus Christ. |
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The tribe of Dan is not mentioned in the list in Revelation, Chapter Seven because the name Dan refers to judgment. The sealed servants of the Lord are going through judgment now, as they confess their sins, and will not be judged but sentenced to eternal life at the appearing of the Lord. |
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How could we be changed into immortal life and rise to be forever with the Lord until we first have been judged? |
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The tribe of Ephraim also is omitted in Revelation Seven. Ephraim is included in the tribe of Joseph and refers to the Gentiles who are included among the servants of God. |
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The point is, the victorious saints do not live for themselves but for the will of Christ. Are you ready to be a servant of the Lord? |
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Young person, listen to me. My generation, the older generation, of American Christians has failed the Lord. We are occupied with the material riches of America, vacations, our retirement scheme, our hospital plan, our entertainment. We attend church but in many instances we are not burning with the fires of consecration that Jesus demands. |
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God is calling to your generation and that of your children and grandchildren. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only source of power great enough to change the world from its slavery to lust, money, and violence. All the talk in the world won't do it. The problems are coming from Satan and only Jesus Christ is able to conquer Satan and this He can do and shall do. |
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But how about you? You have your life ahead of you. Why don't you give it to God, not like the church people around you but like the saints of history who have followed Christ with a single heart. |
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Listen to me! If you will give your best to Christ He will give His best to you. And the "best" of Jesus Christ includes all the power on earth, in the atmosphere, and in outer space. This is where the power is. This is where the wisdom is. This is where the beauty and splendor are. |
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You have but one life. If you do your best you may accomplish some small good in the world, and I know you want to do the best you can when you see what is taking place around you. |
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But if you take the fish and loaves of your life and hand them over to the Lord Jesus He will feed the multitude. I'm not kidding. The Lord and you working together can change this stinking mass of protoplasm we call the world. |
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You can make it a better place for children, for animals, for nature, for people of all kinds, for the many races in America, for the disabled and sick. |
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The Lord and the world are waiting for your answer. What will it be? A servant of yourself or a servant of God? |
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To be continued. |
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These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. (Revelation 11:4) |
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The first appearance of the victorious saints is as the sealed servants of the Lord. The second appearance is in the form of the second lampstand of Revelation, Chapter Eleven. |
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I understand the two witnesses have been described by some as Moses and Elijah, or Enoch and Elijah. Actually Elijah and Elisha might be better candidates because of the things that transpired in their lives. |
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However it is not likely that God is going to bring two bearded patriarchs down from Heaven to do the work assigned by the Lord Jesus Christ to His Church. After all, he who is least in the Kingdom is greater than any of the prophets, or so the Lord said. |
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The task of witnessing to the world of the atoning death and triumphant resurrection of the Lord Jesus has been assigned to the members of His Body. |
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The golden lampstand of the Tabernacle of the Congregation always represents Christ and those who are part of Christ. The Lampstand is Messiah, the One anointed with the Holy Spirit to bear witness of God. |
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The Lampstand was golden, representing Divinity. |
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In the fourth chapter of the Book of Zechariah, from which the figures in Revelation, Chapter Eleven are taken, we see only one lampstand, that is Messiah, or Christ. But in Revelation Eleven there are two lampstands. |
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Who is the other lampstand? |
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Christ is the Light of the world. But He referred to His saints as the light of the world. |
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In Revelation we notice there are seven lampstands, seven churches. |
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If Christ and His Church are the only lampstands of God, how come there are not eight lampstands Christ and the seven churches? It is because the second lampstand consists of the victorious saints, the church within the churches. |
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The latter-rain revival, the harvest revival mentioned on four occasions in the Scriptures, is portrayed in Revelation Eleven as two lampstands and two olive trees. The two lampstands, as we understand it, are Christ and the victorious saints. The two olive trees speak of the double portion of the Spirit, the Elisha anointing, that will enable Christ in and with His saints to perform the greater works and to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in all the world for a witness to every nation. Then the end of the Church Age will have come. Here is the fulfillment of the two wave loaves of the Jewish feast of Pentecost. |
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The witness given by Christ working in and with His victorious saints will be different from the witness we have known because it will be accompanied by works of judgment and destruction. Such works are necessary if the nations of the earth are to be awakened to the nearness of the coming of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom that will be installed on the earth with great violence. |
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As soon as the witness has been given to the Spirit's satisfaction the special anointing will be lifted. Then the saints will be driven from the cities of the earth and forced to live in hiding until the return of the Lord. The witness will be brought to an end by the spirit of the world, by the lusts of the flesh, and by the envy of self-seeking people (Egypt, Sodom, and Jerusalem). |
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There is an age of moral horrors at hand. Also ahead is the climax of the latter- rain outpouring. You and I have no time to waste. Let us ask the Lord for rain in the time of the harvest rain. To everyone who asks shall be given an abundance of rain and great fruitfulness. |
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The present world is going nowhere fast. Turn now to the Lord and give your life some meaning. |
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To be continued. |
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