9.2 The Completion - the Apocalypse
What is the exact meaning of that final moment of this age that can be called “the Completion” just as well is it is called “the Apocalypse.” Even though the resurrection of our bodies, coming up in the next lesson, is part of that moment, what we want here is God’s side of things towards the entire folly of mankind.
It is not possible for us to understand God’s intent except we first understand what the age of folly actually is. The age of folly is found inside of a quality of God known as “Patience.” Here is the first reference to that patience. “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6). (I believe “years of Jubilee.”)
Inside of Hope. Here is how Paul put it. – The creation was made subject to vanity and purposelessness, not willingly, but through being subjected on the basis of the hope that creation itself will also be made free from the slavery of decay into the freedom and liberty of the glory of the children birthed out from God (Romans 8:20-21).
The Jubilee of the Old Testament means the Liberty here. When God spoke in Noah’s day, fully one quarter of that allotted time of Patience had already passed. The age of folly exists ENTIRELY inside of God’s Hope. For what does God hope? Very simply – many sons, just like the Lord Jesus, synergeoing with God making all things good, loving one another with pure hearts fervently.
God’s Entrance. All created things are without purpose or goodness in themselves. That’s the only way they can be. God is Purpose and God is Good, thus to be good and to have purpose, created things must know God. But God is invisible and cannot be known by creation. There is a real sense in which God and creation are completely “other,” even though creation cannot exist apart from God.
It really is a big deal for God to create something that has an existence, yet is not Himself. To be known inside such a world, God must have an entrance/body through which He can interact with created things to make them good. God created humans to be that entrance for Himself.
One Intention. God had only one intention in the garden, and that was for Adam to eat of Life, to receive Jesus into his own soul and to develop, through his days, a story of self that was Christ alone. Then, through Adam and Eve, God would have interacted with His creation, heaven and earth, to turn all things to goodness, to be known by all. I suspect that the completion of such a task could have taken a thousand years before there was a complete harmony between the Father and every tiny created thing inside heaven-earth through all the gospel Word that is Jesus.
One of the prophets said that God’s intention CANNOT alter or be changed by anything or anyone.
Unchanged. This is the context of Paul’s declaration in Romans 8:20-21, that the purpose and intention of God is unchanged by the insertion of human wickedness. Thus we conclude that every thought, word, and action of human wickedness has no meaning and is utterly irrelevant.
God’s intention for Adam and Eve to eat of Life, to be followed by a thousand years of the Age of Tabernacles, and God’s intention for us to eat of Life, to be followed by a thousand years of the Age of Tabernacles, is the same. Nothing is altered except this – God gave human stupidity a time of Patience, six thousand years, 120 years of Jubilee. And He set Himself to do the same intention inside of and through all that darkness, turning it, in the end, into goodness.
The Age of God’s Patience. We are doing what God had intended Adam and Eve to do, and we are being led upon the same path of synergeoing with God upon which God had intended to lead Adam and Eve. Building the Kingdom through the Age of Tabernacles has nothing to do with “restoring what Adam destroyed.” Rather, it is doing now what Adam and Eve were intended to do then.
We will begin our dismissal of “human folly” by giving a new name to this age of woe; we will now call it “The Age of God’s Patience.” Inside the Age of God’s Patience, two types of human doing are of meaning, first, the enjoyment of the gift of life with thanksgiving, and second, being a blessing to others.
God Did What He Always Does. Thus we see that the Age of God’s Patience comes to an end, not because “God’s patience runs out,” but because God now has the sons He needs to continue to Phase 2 of creation, building the living harmony between God and every created thing through humans. Or, as Paul put it, creation set free inside the liberty of the children birthed out from God.
God did not intend or need the Age of His Patience, but He did towards this six thousand years what He always does with all, He found good in it and turned it into the outcome of Life. The good that God found inside the Age of His Patience includes you and me, knowing Him as Life out from death.
Inside of Goodness. You see, what God did to accomplish His goodness inside this Age of His Patience was to send Jesus who then received us into Himself. All who are found inside of Jesus are inside the Goodness of God. Then Jesus carries us out of the death of Adam and into the Life God always intended.
All the great doings of “human history,” the rise and fall of nations, the exercise of power over, the criminality and abuse, the boasting of arrogant people, all of it is without meaning or purpose, all of it is one big waste of time. Every moment in every human’s life was intended by God, however, and part of our task is to help each to give thanks, to bring every single human and angel into harmony with God.
Swallowed Up. Then we see that the attempt to call forth some sort of “Antichrist” as being part of God’s “plan,” is nothing more than a foolish effort to give meaning to folly. But for us the age of human folly no longer exists, having now been swallowed up by the Age of God’s Patience. And we cannot underscore too much our realization of just how meaningless all the stuff going on in this world really is.
Our stand to cast down is not a “great battle” against; rather, it is a great travail for, that is, God coming through. The enemy being cast down is nothing more than the obvious result of our anxious care for the Church and our great desire that God would be known by all.
The Same Problem. I want to touch on one more thing inside this wondrous clarity God has just given to us. Adam, Jesus, and we have all passed by the same problem in the approach to Life. Adam was turned aside by the problem, but Jesus and we are not.
That problem is the ministry anointed by God using the word given by God to persuade God’s sons to turn aside from LIFE. For Adam, it was God’s anointed angel, unfallen, offering a knowledge of God to Adam that kept Adam in control, thus turning him from life to death. For Jesus, it was the Pharisees, custodians of Moses in a world of paganism, getting rid of Christ by killing Him.
Driving Jesus Away. For us, it is the ministry of Nicene Christianity, that is, all the ministries of all Christian sects today, who, by their theology and preaching attempt to drive Jesus far away from us in one way or another. This is the carnal mind that cannot know God and is always at war against His knowledge.
There is one picture in Nicene Christianity that gives good understanding to all. That is the story of the statute of Jupiter in Rome. When the bishop of Rome seized for himself the pagan title of pontifex maximus, he saw all the people kissing the feet of Jupiter and thus took the WORD spoken by Jesus, “You shall be called Peter,” and placed it on the stone idol. To this day people kiss the same feet under the power of the pope.
“Christianizing” Rebellion. This is what Nicene Christianity does. It takes the words of the gospel and places them upon various things inside the rebellion of Adam, so that Christians continue in that rebellion, imagining that they are fulfilling God’s “word.” – Imagining that Jesus is far away from themselves.
For instance, Adam’s hatred of being like God, cursing himself and God for being made weak, is now called “gospel repentance,” and is practiced fervently in many churches. And the redemption of Jesus, the greatest act of love towards us, is turned into the worship of sin called “appeasement,” that is, the continued consciousness of sins.
We, however, call it all irrelevant as we embrace LIFE!
The Cause. The Age of God’s Patience comes to an end BECAUSE the Age of Tabernacles begins. And the Age of Tabernacles begins BECAUSE we eat of LIFE, without regard for any death. When you speak Christ, you are changing everything.
Now, after the Spirit has given us such clarity of understanding, we can return to our question – What is the exact meaning of “the completion of this age?” The meaning is that we have returned to God’s intention. The meaning is Romans 8:28-30, the Ruling Verse of the Bible. Out from His Pro-Knowing, God Pro-Determined us already Symmorphosed with Jesus as the revelation of the Father. We synergeo with God making all things good.
The Real Battle. Thus the REAL battle taking place in this transition that is the arising of the Age of Tabernacles out from the Age of God’s Patience is the battle between callers.
Across the earth and throughout the realms of Christianity there are millions and billions of people looking at everything going on around them and calling it not-good and not-God. Here we are, little and weak, looking at every moment and circumstance of every created thing in heaven and earth and calling it out from God, passing through God, and returning to God, calling it GOOD. One of these two calls has lost all its supposed strength, and the other is changing everything.
Judgment in the Church. The POWER to call one’s circumstances by evil will be taken away from every human on this planet. And this is a judgment that must begin with the Church.
The power to place the old man of sin upon yourself, to call yourself by a story not-Christ, is taken from you. If you wish to speak, you can first give thanks, you can justify God in all things and find Him right and true. And you can speak Christ as the only story you are and have ever been. If not, then your words will no longer go out from you.
This removal from every human of their power to call sin and death into God’s world is not imposed from the outside; rather, it is removed from the heavens, from within.
A Far Greater Call. And that is the entire essence of human doing inside the Age of God’s Patience; humans, and Christians, have been calling sin and death into God’s world, contrary to Salvation. They will do so no more.
Yet their loss of the power to speak evil comes only because a far greater call is happening, the call of God-known into the knowledge of all, the Ekenosis, God manifest in the flesh. When we speak Christ our only life, we are disrupting this wicked world far more than we can comprehend.
I will GIVE to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy (Revelation 11:3). Because we place the Gospel upon the vision, we know that they are prophesying Christ.
Authority to the Heavens. This lesson has settled all the questions of my heart concerning this present age, including one of the big ones. What is this? – These possess the authority to the heavens, that no rain should fall in the days of their prophecy. And they possess authority over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every wound or affliction as often as they want.
As the sons of God, including you and me, speak Christ our only life, speak thanksgiving inside of all, speak God among us, here and now, so we possess authority to the heavens. “No rain shall fall” means no more power to speak evil. We are disrupting everything in this world.
The Mystery of Christ. As the angel said to John, the time given to human folly inside of God’s Patience – is no more (Revelation 10). Why? Because the mystery of Christ, Christ inside of us, written upon our hearts, spoken from our mouth, is finished, completed, brought to full expression and visibility.
The lie is revealed by the speaking of Christ. Christ is all first, then, everything not-Christ goes silent. And then lawlessness will be unveiled which the Lord Jesus will eliminate with the breath of His mouth and will render inoperative by His presence made visible and known (2 Thessalonians 2:8). This is the Completion of Christ; this is the Unveiling.
Nothing More Powerful. When I first began this season of writing, I very timidly put out this declaration. – Rivers of Spirit are always flowing out from me because I believe into Jesus. And I said that we say this because it is true, even when we see and feel nothing. Yet because we have believed without seeing, so our seeing has now aligned with our faith.
This is the mystery of Christ. There is nothing more powerful that has been released into the heavens all around all humans on this earth since Adam’s rebellion, than you and I speaking Christ our only life in all confidence of faith. Mighty, mighty Rivers of Authority are going out from us right now, silencing all who speak evil into God’s world.
Our Task. Consider that. Up until now the river of death has been given power, not by Adam’s seed, for authority was taken from them and given to Jesus, but from Christians. And Christians have sent forth death by not knowing their Source as Jesus Sent into them, by not understanding the authority they possess, and by closing their eyes to the consequences of the words that they speak.
Our task is what Ezekiel saw, to speak LIFE into the gathering together of a Church that appears scattered and dead. Then, it is that Church, clothed with Jesus, who brings forth out of her belly the knowledge of God into the knowledge of all, rivers of Spirit out from the speaking of Christ.
Reading for Next Time. The next lesson in this Chapter, which will remain titled “The End of the Age,” is “Swallowing Up – the End of Folly.” One of the horrific pieces of folly that will be swallowed up in the next lesson is the idea that the resurrection of our physical bodies will make us to be “better persons.”
Now when the decaying shall have put upon itself the inability to decay and when the dying shall have put upon itself the inability to die, then the word having been written will become, “Death has been swallowed up into and eliminated by victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). The swallowing up of all folly is happening very rapidly. Read this lesson and the last again just before the next session.
Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You have made our lives to be one seamless story of Christ; You have made us devoted to Yourself as Jesus asked You to do. And You have placed Christ into our mouths that we might speak Your Word with authority, that we might speak life and goodness into our world.
“Many choose to speak death, but we, Father, choose to speak Life, that Your Church might live. Although we are few and of small stature, yet the faith and authority of the Son of God is the only faith we know. We share faith with Jesus and He with us. Let our words, Oh God, render inoperative the words and river of death.
“God, our Father, we speak as the Lord Jesus Christ, let the words of not-Christ, that our brethren have known, be removed from their heavens. Let all who call upon Your name hear only the voice of the Son of God speaking in their own hearts and mouths. The river of death has no more power to affect the Church. Our words of Life prevail, for You, Oh God, share all Your Life with us. You, Oh God, are the Words that we speak.
“Father, You alone have removed all unbelief from our consciousness. We know You-with-us alone. You are never separate from us, regardless of what we feel. You share all. Thus we know, Father, that You have answered us and that You have delivered our Christian brethren from the speaking of death by the speaking of Life.”