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And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. (Revelation 13:15) |
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The truth is, our nation is in shambles, in anarchy. The area in which I live is supposed to be a great and glorious place to be. It is filled with murder, drugs, lawlessness. People are living in the street but the city is building a huge new sports arena. It is all image and money. |
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Nebuchadnezzar made a huge statue of solid gold. I think the image the False Prophet will provide for Antichrist will have a lot to do with money money that can create a brave new world of social assistance for every person, advanced educational technology, all major cities linked together by telecommunications, space travel into the heavens. |
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But like Las Vegas, when you look past the golden glow into what actually is taking place it is nothing I would ever want. How about you? Hell is Hell even with neon lights and psychedelic colors. |
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Disneyland, which is the same as Heaven to some of the people from the third world countries, may look like Paradise but it is not a paradise that I want anything to do with. Like Hollywood it is all image, image, image. |
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One time Audrey and I went on a tour of the movie studios in Hollywood. Never again! You could feel the spirit of death. And the workers there were unpleasant and irritable. |
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The golden world of Hollywood will never be a suburb of Heaven. I'll guarantee it. |
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Promoters cannot build an image in your mind unless you let them. Jesus is the Truth. He is not an image, He is reality. There is no disappointment in Jesus. He alone is the rainbow bridge to the real Utopia. |
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Dorothy was looking for Oz. There is an Oz. Never lose your dream of the golden city. There is one. |
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But Jesus of Nazareth is the only door. Don't let them kid you. |
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The secular government is happy when things are upbeat and the citizens are prospering. It may not be too long before the secular society begins to frown on the deeper message of Christ. |
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How would today's society and churches react to Christ when He says, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword. I came to set the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law"? |
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Did Jesus actually say that? I think so! |
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Thousands followed Christ when He created food. But when He began to talk about eternal food, His body and blood, the people left grumbling. |
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Jesus didn't come to make us happy. He came to do the will of God and to reconcile us to God, not God to us. |
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But would religious people enable the Antichrist to kill those who did not worship this wonderful world where the rights of people were held up as the supreme good? Religious people enabled Pilate to kill Christ! |
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Let me tell you there is no creature more vicious than the religious person who is envious of someone to whom the Lord has spoken. |
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I have often marveled, and still marvel when I read the Book of Acts, at how the Jews chased Paul from one city to another. As soon as they heard that God was blessing Paul, over they would come and try to kill Paul. |
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One of the truly abominable events of history was the incident of the Pharisees seeking to kill Lazarus because Christ had raised him from the dead. Religion does this to people. It justifies the worst forms of perversity. |
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This blindness, this poison, this devilish envy, this pride, this arrogance, murdered the Lord Jesus. Don't blame the Jewish people. It was not the race of Jews that killed Jesus. The common people heard Him gladly. |
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To be continued. |
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And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:17) |
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It was the babylonish spirit of self-serving religion that killed Jesus, tried to kill Lazarus, and chased Paul all over Greece and Turkey. |
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This very same spirit is in the Christian leaders of today in many instances. They will be invited to assist in government social programs. And maybe in some instances they should do so. They will have to seek the Lord on each occasion. |
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But let me tell you that when God begins to move on His true saints the Christian leaders will rise up in satanic fury just as religious leaders always have. The religious person who has had an experience with God but has never learned to bow the knee to Christ will be filled with satanic rage when he or she perceives a true saint of the Lord being used or exalted by the Lord. |
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The higher in leadership the religious person is placed the more he must guard himself against the spirit of envy, for it was this spirit that crucified Christ and tried to destroy Paul. |
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In the days to come the Christian leaders (and perhaps leaders from other religions) will become part of the Antichrist worldwide effort to lift the curse of God from the earth. But God will raise up His witnesses who will rebuke the world because of its neglect of Jesus Christ. |
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Then the Spirit of Hell will fill the religious leaders and they will seek the death of all who will not worship this image of humanitarian aid and comfort they have developed. |
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God's justice is seen in the fact that at the end the secular realm will arise and destroy Babylon the Great, the religious empire, and its headquarters in Iraq, the site of ancient Babylon. |
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Let every believer pray mightily to be delivered from the man-centered spirit of our day. Those who accept the mark of self-centeredness in their actions and their thinking face a fearful future. |
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And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: (Revelation 14:9,10) |
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Those who gained victory over the beast, his image, his mark, and the number of his name, sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. |
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Here are the victorious saints of all covenants. The Law of Moses is represented. The new covenant also is represented. These are the true saints, the witnesses of God of all ages. |
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What do they sing? |
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The works of God are great and marvelous. |
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The ways of the King of saints are righteous and true. |
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Everyone should fear the Lord and glorify His name because He alone is holy. |
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All nations finally will come and bow in worship before God because His judgments now are made manifest in the seven final plagues. His righteous acts have been revealed. |
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How great God is! How righteous are His acts! |
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This is what the victorious saints will be singing. |
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Yet the most terrible judgments will be being visited on mankind. |
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Antichrist, the False Prophet, Satan, and mankind will be raging against God because of the suffering that has come upon people. |
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But the victorious saints are on the Lord's side. They know the goodness of God. They do not take the side of rebellious mankind. They do not hold up the rights of people over the rights of God. |
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How about you today? Where are you in this picture? Are you on the side of people or the side of God? |
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To be continued. |
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Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. (Revelation 19:7) |
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Now we see the victorious saints as the firstfruits of the Bride of the Lamb. This is the sixth of the eight appearances we are describing. |
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Why do we say firstfruits? Because there is a fuller appearance of the Bride at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age. |
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And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:2) |
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The two different portrayals of the Bride of the Lamb, one at the beginning of the thousand- year Kingdom Age and one after the thousand-year Kingdom Age suggest that the purpose of the thousand years is to move the Bride from the first stage to the second stage. |
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There are several major types in the Old Testament that point toward a temporary division of the Church into a militant firstfruits and then a complete Church. Not the least of these types is the temporary separation of the Ark of the Covenant from the Tabernacle of the Congregation. We have discussed these types more at length in other writings. |
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The first appearance of the Bride points toward her clothing of "fine linen," while the second appearance shows the Bride as the holy city, the new Jerusalem. |
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The first appearance of the Bride emphasizes that she has "made herself ready." |
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The second appearance of the Bride speaks of her being "prepared" or "made ready," suggesting perhaps that others have prepared her for the wedding. This follows the eighth chapter of the Song of Solomon where the younger sisters of the Bride are made ready by others. |
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The first appearance of the Bride is followed by her descent behind the Lord as His army. |
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The second appearance of the Bride is followed by the eternal rule of the new Jerusalem over the saved nations of the earth. |
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One very important aspect of the first appearance has to do with the "fine linen." The King James defines the fine linen as "the righteousness of saints." When we speak of the righteousness of saints in the Evangelical circles of today we mean only one kind of righteousness that which is ascribed to us upon our receiving Christ. We are heavily biased in this direction. |
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The Greek noun used in Revelation 19:8 will not support this interpretation. It can be translated only as righteousnesses or righteous deeds. |
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Of course the righteous deeds do not come from our adamic nature but from the new man who has been born within us. All eternal righteousness comes from Christ, either in its imputed form or its inwrought form. The most important righteousness by far, in fact the only enduring Kingdom righteousness, is that which is inwrought. Ascribed righteousness is a temporary device to get us started. It is a bypass while the highway is under construction. |
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To not understand this is to be ignorant of the true nature of the new covenant. Those who would carry imputed righteousness past its appointed limits, or use imputed righteousness to replace inwrought righteousness of character, are destroying the testimony of the Church. |
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The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he who wins souls is wise. Souls will never be won from our imputed righteousness, but only as they are drawn to God by the fruit of righteousness that Christ has wrought in us. |
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The victorious saints do not march alone into the Kingdom of God! |
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To be continued. |
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And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14) |
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The army of the Lord is made up of victorious saints, obviously. They are clothed in the fine linen, the robe of righteousness created from their conduct on the earth as they continually have chosen to reject evil and embrace the righteous ways of the Lord. |
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What the horses are is another matter. The horses are white, signifying righteousness. The thirty-ninth chapter of Job speaks of God's war- horses. Christ and His saints are going to appear on horseback. |
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The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. (Joel 2:4) |
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Whether the horses are symbolic, representing speed and strength, it is difficult to say. Much of Revelation is symbolic. My guess is that while they represent speed and strength there actually will be some kind of horses involved in the appearing of Christ. |
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We don't always think of animals being in the realm of spirits. Probably most of us, especially us kids, hope there are. We know there are angels. We know there are cherubim and seraphim with wings. Although the purpose of the wings is unclear since there may be no air to give lift to the wings. |
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But horses? Neigh! |
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It may be that our glorified body will be capable of assuming different forms, depending on the need. It has been my belief for some time that our armor will be alive having a mind of its own. What about that living armor! Far out! |
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We think of angels as having wings and flying around in Heaven. But when they appear on the earth it is as men. Never as ladies I wonder why? Being from New England I usually associate angels with ladies or children. We men aren't exactly angels. Right? Evidently I haven't been liberated yet. |
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Maybe we can appear as riders on horses, and when we are finished with that we can assume some other form. |
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God's army is in the news! Having been a Christian for many years I have witnessed the change from "Sweet Hour of Prayer" to "God's Got (should be Has) an Army." |
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If your assembling is still sitting quietly in the pew while the choir is singing love songs to you, why don't you buy some banners, get up, and march around the church. The King is coming. Don't you want to meet Him in grand style? Or are you going to go through three points, some anecdotes, and a conclusion when Christ and His officers are ready to come through the door? |
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Joel, Chapter Two describes the invasion of the earth by the army of the Lord. Some disagree with this interpretation of Joel. They prefer locusts. Some locusts! |
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But if you are willing to ascribe such power to locusts, you can find the Lord's army in Isaiah, Chapter Thirteen; Micah 5:8; Habakkuk, Three; Malachi 4:3; Romans 16:20; Jude 14,15, and the passage in Revelation we currently are reviewing. |
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To be continued. |
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And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 4:3) |
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The victorious saints will be raised from the dead (or changed) when the Lord appears. They will ascend to meet the Lord in the air, for this is where the thrones of evil are. They will take possession of those thrones. |
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As soon as the strong man has been rendered helpless the Lord and His army will descend with such speed, authority, power, and fury, the rebellious of the earth will be destroyed in a moment. |
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Then will the sons of God go throughout the earth, lifting the curse, and bringing peace, righteousness, and justice to the saved nations. |
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The good that all righteous people long for will never come to our earth until the wicked have been destroyed by the army of the Lord. All the profound pronouncements of the politicians, the educators, the psychologists, and all other scholars, savants, and utopian dreamers, all the image makers of civilization, will continue to fail as they have throughout the history of man. |
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The problem is sin. Not ignorance, sin! It seems mankind is always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Until sin is destroyed we never will have peace. There can never be peace where there is wickedness. |
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The future is bright indeed! The Kingdom of God is on the horizon. The Kingdom of God is no utopian dream, it is a real kingdom governed by the saints of all ages. God's rulers will not seek their own glory but the good of those whom they rule. They are dead to their own will but gloriously alive to the will and praise of God. |
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Blessed indeed will be the people they govern! |
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The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. (II Samuel 23:3,4) |
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God's army and His rulers are being prepared today. We must learn not to thrust one another but to walk straight ahead as the Lord points out the way. That's how the cherubim of glory do! |
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Above all, we must learn stern obedience to the Father. Obedience can be learned only through suffering as our fondest hopes remain unfulfilled and we are obliged to continue in situations we detest. There is no other way. Even Christ learned obedience to the Father by means of the things He suffered. |
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Are you willing to do the Father's will even when your own hopes are dashed? You have all eternity to do what you want. But right now the King needs your service. |
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Are you one of those who will give over your own life so Satan can be torn down and the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy brought into the earth? Many people will be blessed if you do. |
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What do you say? |
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The trumpet is blowing in Zion! |
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To be continued. |
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And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4-6) |
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You hardly ever hear Revelation 20:4-6 preached. This is a shame. It is one of the most important passages of the Scriptures because it tells us about the first resurrection, that is, the resurrection that will take place when the Lord appears. |
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John saw "thrones." This is because the purpose of the first resurrection is to exchange the people who sit on the thrones from wicked spirits to the victorious saints. The thrones in the air govern the spiritual environment of the earth. |
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Being "beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God" refers, we believe, to those who choose to forsake their carnal mind and put on the mind of Christ. I think we mentioned this earlier in connection with the eighth chapter of Romans. |
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The more experienced we become in the ways of the Lord the more we realize our biggest problem is our mind. A principal difference between merely religious people and the victorious saints is that the saints have learned not to lean on their own understanding while the believers who are living and ministering "in the flesh" trust their own mind and their own judgments and decisions. Boy can they make trouble for you! |
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The reason "judgment" has been assigned to these throne-dwellers is that they do not judge according to their own mind but according to the mind of the Lord, which they detect by looking to Jesus instead of to their own thoughts and emotions. |
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We already have discussed the worship of the beast and his image, and the taking of his mark on our forehead or in our hand, when we wrote previously of the victorious saints standing on the sea of glass mixed with fire. |
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The statement that the victorious saints "lived" means they were raised from the dead. We of today put altogether too much emphasis on life in the spirit realm. God does not consider us to be completely alive until our body has been raised from the dead and filled with His Life. The great hope of the Church is the resurrection from the dead unto eternal life in Christ and our subsequent life on the earth. |
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They "reigned" with Christ a thousand years, whether literally or figuratively. The purpose of the first resurrection is rulership. This is why the first resurrection must be attained. It is not for halfhearted believers. |
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To be continued. |
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And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. (Revelation 2:26,27) |
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It is believed commonly in our day that all who make a profession of Christ will be raised at His coming. It is our point of view that the Scriptures do not confirm this. Only the victorious saints are authorized and competent to be raised and to rule with Christ at His appearing. |
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This does not mean that all other believers will automatically be assigned to the Lake of Fire. Revelation 20:4-6 is not describing the resurrection of salvation but the resurrection of the royal priesthood. |
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The general resurrection from the dead, in which every person will be judged according to his or her works, will not take place until after the thousand-year Kingdom Age has been concluded. At that time the righteous will enter eternal life in the Kingdom of God and the wicked will be cast into the Lake of Fire. (I am only too well aware that this is not what is commonly taught by Evangelicals, but I think that it is the scriptural position.) |
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It is clear from the description given in Revelation 20:4-6 that we are not dealing here with basic salvation from wrath. No books are opened because these saints were judged during their lifetime on the earth. |
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When Jesus returns the victorious saints will be changed into eternal life and rise to be ever with the Lord. They will not be judged after this. How could they be? They already have been sentenced to eternal life. Rather they have confessed their sins and have turned away from them during their discipleship. |
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When we confess our sins and turn away from them we are forgiven and cleansed. This is an eternal judgment. Our sins never will be mentioned to us again never! provided we do not return to them. |
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You can see how desirable the first resurrection is, how it is worth your total attention and effort. Paul was striving to attain the out-resurrection, and this after many years of ministry. |
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People may ask, "But where does grace fit into this picture. Aren't we saved by grace? |
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Yes, we are saved by grace. But Divine grace is not an alternative to our serving the Lord with all our might. Rather, Divine grace is the motivation, power, and wisdom that come to us from the Lord so we indeed will turn away from sin and follow Christ with a pure heart. |
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We of today have made grace an alternative to righteous conduct. Grace is not an alternative to righteous, holy conduct. Grace is God in Christ providing for man all he needs to become a new creation, a new creation that walks in newness of life. The newness of life is one of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. Is that correct? |
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Well, is it or isn't it? |
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The rest of the dead, meaning all who did not attain the first resurrection, will be raised at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age. We Evangelicals often refer to this as the "White Throne Judgment." |
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Do you know who will be sitting as judge on the White Throne? Christ and His victorious saints. |
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The Father judges no man but has committed all judgment to the Son. The Son, Jesus Christ, has shared the authority of judgment with His saints. This is taught commonly in the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New. |
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To be continued. |
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