15. The Contest Over the Inheritance

The Beast rules out of his own interpretation of what God speaks. There is no other way for him to rule. Satan can only twist, he cannot create. Yes, the Beast is human government as it exists in today's world. But the Beast is also the twisting of every word God speaks into a human fulfillment by carnal men. That is all Satan can do. Everything God speaks is twisted by the serpent inside this age of human folly for the triumph of the Beast. This is God's purpose and intention.

15. The Contest Over the Inheritance

 

The Time-Tables of God

God has made the inheritance the central focus of the culmination of His great story, the climax, the point of final conflict when the winner forever wins. Why, we don’t completely understand, but we see that is what He has done.

Now, throughout my teachings there are things that are absolute truth. At the center of those is “Christ is my life; I have no other life.” But woven around that forward drive, to know Him in me in all fullness, I also share things that I can see dimly, though I don’t really know what I am looking at. And so I share what are the outlines in the fog ahead. When we see all things as they really are, we may laugh at how we miss-identified some of those outlines. But at the same time, at the very least, we see what truly are the shapes of things to come, even though we may miss-speak their details.

I want to outline my present understanding of things to come. I expect that understanding to change based on two things, first, the growing light and second, what actually happens. When we see it for real, we will know, “This is that which was spoken.” But let us believe God before we see.

The book of Revelation is written as a mystery. God intended it to be obscure, to be wrested by human minds who do not know Him into every conceivable direction. I recently read a book calledRevelation by CJ Sansom which shows how badly the book of Revelation was misused during the Reformation in England, so badly that the author concluded it should never have been written.

But the book of Revelation was not given for carnal minds to decipher, it is given as a map for the sons of God whom God is bringing forth at the beginning of the age to come.

The first way by which we understand the things found in the vision given to John is simply the way the angel speaking to John interpreted what he saw. Over and over, John asked the angel, “What is this?” And the angel told him, “This is that.” Every single time that happened, the angel used the thing John saw as a symbol of something else, something pertaining to Christ in His church. For instance, the angel said that the lampstand that John saw was a symbol of the churches of Christ, the local assemblies of believers to whom he ministered.

And so, as we read the vision of John on Patmos, we understand that most of what He saw and heard are symbols of something else. They are not literally the things themselves – there will not be a leopard with seven heads crawling up out of the ocean – but rather they are symbols representing some other thing that God wants to pinpoint. The task of sons, then, is to know what things in reality those symbols represent.

Almost every symbol that God placed before John’s sight is interpreted somewhere in the rest of the Bible. However, we find that many symbols can represent more than one thing. That is as it must be. We are sons of God, led by His Spirit. That means that the Spirit uses the symbol to speak to us, not something dogmatic to be “figured out,” but rather the present truth the Spirit is revealing. And so the symbol must be known in each generation of the church as present reality. How a symbol was interpreted by those who walked in the Spirit during the Reformation was how the Spirit of God used that symbol then, but not necessarily how He is using it today.

Now, there are three things that the symbols and metaphors in John’s vision, and throughout the Bible, can mean. First, they could be representing something else in the realms of earth, in the ages of time, inside the physical side of God’s creation – or they could actually be literal. Second, they could be representing something else in the realms of heaven, in the nature of that which is spirit, in that case, they would also be literal, the heavens are as real as the earth. Only “literal” in the spirit realms means something slightly different than literal in the physical realms. Or third, they could be symbols pertaining to the church and the life of Christ revealed in the sons of God.

But here’s the tricky part. Those symbols can represent more than one thing at the same time. Let’s take for example the “mark of the beast.” This is a symbol of a spiritual mark first, the imprint of the thinking, the ways of seeing, and the workings of the serpent on the minds and hand of man. Whatever might come in the physical means something based only on what has already transpired in the spirits of men. And yet, the radio identification chip placed just under or even on the skin fits the exact description given of that mark. So, it would not surprise me to see a second, physical fulfillment of that symbol, built entirely upon the first spiritual fulfillment of the same symbol.

It never has to be one or the other; often it is both.

Those who teach that the “mark” is spiritual only and that the radio chip cannot be a problem for Christians to accept are lying. Jesus said too much about millstones around necks for me to do anything but run from such a brash pronouncement. But it is equally true that those who, living inside the self living for self that is the mind of the Beast, who imagine that they will refuse the radio chip – and do succeed in refusing it, are only kidding themselves. They are already marked by the Beast in their minds, refusing the radio chip means nothing.

It is not one or the other, it is both. It applies in the heavens, and it applies in the earth. Let’s try our hand at this series of elements in John’s vision.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. Revelation 20:1-3

First, the dragon is a symbol of a real person in the heavenly realms. John tells us exactly what it represents, Satan (accompanied by his henchmen). The bottomless pit represents endless falling; the “chain” is a binding in the spirit, not some physical piece of steel, but rather a heavenly element of spirit, and so on.

Yet, right in the middle of this series of symbols representing things in the spiritual realms, there is inserted an element that I still believe is literal pertaining to the physical realms of the earth. That is the thousand years. I believe simply that we will know 1000 years of the total absence of all demonic power and influence in the lives of people on this earth. After that time, God has one more purpose for the powers of darkness.

Here is why I believe that. God is a stickler for patterns. He likes order and rhythm. He also likes spontaneous surprises, but that is another matter. But God has established set times for the history of man upon this earth.

God gave 6,000 years to human folly, six days. From the fall of Adam to the filling of Solomon’s temple with God’s glory is exactly 3000 years. However, to fit the patterns, Adam may have sinned in April but the temple was filled with glory in October, on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Exactly 1000 years later, in April, on the precise day of Passover, Jesus died for the sins of the world. On the exact day of the Feast of Pentecost, He birthed His church upon this earth. Jesus gave two days for His church, two thousand years. On the third day, as the day dawns, He will rise again.

But there is a seventh day, a seventh 1000 years in God’s intention. You see, God requires that all things spoken be fulfilled in completion in the place into which He spoke them. God spoke into the physical earth and into the ages of time. Whatever else His word means, and it means a whole lot else – God is infinite and the revelation of His glory and wisdom will never end. But still, God cannot go on until what He has said is fulfilled in the first place into which it was spoken – human life upon this earth.

God will prove His word upon this planet and in this age of time, in the seven days allotted to man upon this earth. God will prove His will in the earth.

That takes one more day, the entirety of 1000 years.

Jesus died on the day of Passover; the church was birthed on the day of Pentecost. What about the day of Tabernacles? There is no doubt in my mind that God will fulfill Tabernacles precisely on the Day of Tabernacles. What year we do not know. The fulfillment of Tabernacles and the unveiling of Jesus Christ are the same thing – God filling His fully prepared temple with all of His glory.

Two days, exactly 2000 years from the year in which Passover and Pentecost were fulfilled in the life of the church, falls in the year 2029. Yet Jesus threw a monkey wrench into God’s set times. Jesus said that God will cut the time short for the sake of His elect. That means that, whatever time the Father has set, it will happen sooner.

I believe that all of these things are given into the hands of the sons of God being released right now upon this earth. We are passing Tabernacles as I write this (October 2010). A 3 ½ year time span ending on the Day of Tabernacles must begin in April, at Passover. But a 7 year time span begins at Tabernacles in October. Most of the time God uses these numbers to represent things in the church or in the spirit. However, my spirit has not let them go as also being, in part, literal.

And I do know this. I am seeing God by the expectation of faith like I have never known before. That is entirely by faith. I’m still sitting here in front of my computer screen. But somehow my spirit knows that things are moving like never before in the realms of spirit. What that means for us is simply that we cast ourselves into the mighty river of God and let it carry us where it will.

My view is not on what is happening in the world, even though I keep watch with diligence. The authority over the times and the events of this earth has been removed from the serpent and from the plans of men and resides entirely in the hands of God’s sons. Our victory in the spirit rules the events of this planet.

First, let’s look at the larger picture. The primary event our eyes are focused on is not anything happening in the world or in the heavens. Our focus is on the church, our mother, who is in travail right now, birthing the life of Christ planted in her womb, you and me, into the light of day. Our focus is on the birthing. We are conceived of God, we are developing into the image of Christ inside the womb of the church; we are being birthed out of that womb to the throne of God to be manifested as His sons in heaven and earth.

Yet look at this picture. A child is in the womb for 9 months. But for the next 21 years, that child is trained, first by his mother, and then in all the work of his father. Finally, after years of growth and preparation as a manifested son, the child is full-grown and now steps into all of His Father’s business and inheritance.

We haven’t come out of the womb yet. All of our lives on this earth has been the development of the fetus in the womb of the church. The training of our childhood will be the 1000 years of proving God’s glory upon this planet, a continual release of heaven upon earth through us. We will govern by the Spirit, we will walk, we will love, we will prove, entirely inside the history of man upon this earth.

No, it is not the end of human history. Human history and the events of this planet will continue right on. I expect to see the year 2050, the year 2100, the year 2525 walking upon this earth, governing the affairs of men upon the earth by the spirit of freedom in which I live.

Then, after 1000 years of training as sons, God will release us into the real work of the Father.

Now, the New Testament speaks of the “age” of the ages, and it speaks of the “ages” of the ages. Here is my present understanding of what are the greatest of all the ages of time, both past and future. And yes, “ages of time” is Biblical; “eternal” is not.

The greatest of all the ages is the age following the 1000 years, the seventh day of rest. That is the age when we, as fully trained sons of God in our young adulthood, functioning in all the realms of Spirit, having reproduced all the life of heaven upon this earth, having offered it all back to the Father in a final sacrifice, then move forward into the great work of our Father which He has appointed to us. That work is to invade all the realms of lostness, to seek out every individual, and to draw them, one by one, into the love and redemption of Jesus.

The moment when Satan himself, abandoned by all others, falls upon his knees and lays his head against Jesus’ breast. The moment when Satan weeps without constraint (As Paul says he will), “My Savior and my Lord. I was so wrong. You alone are worthy. Forgive me.” The moment when Love beyond all measure removes all that is offense, removes it by winning, removes it by the final surrender of rebellion to mercy and kindness. That moment is the culmination and the end of the greatest of all the ages. Satan knows that his end is surrender and tears; he hates that thought with all the passion that is in him.

But there are two ages that are the “greatest” of all the ages. The greatest is the second, but the next thousand years upon this planet is the first. First in the natural upon this earth, and second through all the heavens of God. The redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ will triumph. All things will be restored. Everything will be brought back into its original harmony.

Through us. Through the Lord Jesus Christ in us, as us, through us.

We are the sons of God; we are the revelation of the Father.

Again, none of what I have shared thus far is meant to be dogmatic. We are reaching for understanding. None of us can see these things as they really are. The lights are turning on. We are seeing things we have never known for the first time. We hardly know what we see.

 

The Contest over the Inheritance

But now let’s look at the events transpiring right now upon the earth.

The final showdown is over the inheritance.

The inheritance of God in His sons is so far beyond what we presently know. When we speak of the inheritance, we are limited entirely to a handful of words. There is no comparison between a series of human words in voice or on paper and the reality of our inheritance.

But we do speak of what we see transpiring upon this earth as God brings all elements of human folly to a close.

I read an article recently of someone trying to persuade Christians in America that the judgment of God against this nation would be a “bad” thing. That our role as Christians for the sake of this country is to think positive and good things towards the entity that is the nation and towards its government. If we emanate good and positive feelings (I am using my words here, not the article’s), then God will bless America, but if we emanate bad and negative feelings, then the “evil” of judgment may come.

Judgment is holy and pure. Without judgment there is neither salvation nor life. When a nation is wicked, thinking good thoughts about it by ignoring that wickedness does not help anything. The wickedness continues on right on, the violence, the arrogance, the self-righteousness, the thefts, the drugs, the adultery, and the pornography. These things vomit forth from this nation like a flood.

Love will pierce the abscess. When a wound has festered and is filled with yuck, no mother would put a band aid over it and tell her child not to think about the evil, it will “go away.” Such a mother would be passing a sentence of death upon her child.

The reason that America is in trouble with God is that the church has lost its savor. It is no longer a light in the darkness. Light exposes evil. Jesus said, “The world hates Me because I testify against it that its deeds are evil.” He was murdered because of the “bad vibes” He was causing throughout the land. The Pharisees truly believed that the nation was about to be destroyed by the disruptions caused by this thorn in their side. They killed Jesus to “save their country.” It didn’t work.

Those who love the people who live in America are those who are speaking against the wickedness. Those who are not speaking against the wicked deeds do not know Love. In Jerusalem’s time of greatest need, when it was surrounded by enemy armies, Jeremiah walked its streets as the voice of God, speaking against the evil deeds of those inside Jerusalem fighting for their lives.

He was a traitor; that’s why they hated him. He even stood before the temple, during Jerusalem’s darkest hour, during its time of greatest need, and spoke destruction against the very house of God, IF the people living in Jerusalem DID NOT STOP treating people with cruelty. That was the whole contention. The people of Jerusalem were acting unjustly against the weak and the servants over whom they ruled. God said, “Stop it.” They refused.

Judgment is holy and pure. The world today is in desperate, desperate need of judgment. There is no other hope for it. Those who stand against judgment hate the people of the world and are fighting for their ruin.

Today, America moves in great wickedness throughout the earth. God says, “Stop it.” America will not hear, and the church rises in its defense against those who are speaking the only thing that can help – judgment.

Those Christians who refuse to expose the darkness, who say, “America has nothing to apologize for,” who say, “My country right or wrong,” are working to ensure its destruction without mercy.

But they will not succeed because they are not in control. God will have judgment, and through judgment, mercy. That’s the only way mercy will come.

Let’s go on, now, to the showdown.

[I have removed this section because of the censorship on the Internet.]

But the Beast is very much concerned about those words. He uses them inside the political scene, inside the deception and darkness sitting upon this world, as the center and focus of his power.

The Beast rules out of his own interpretation of what God speaks. There is no other way for him to rule. Satan can only twist; he cannot create.

Now, in saying this, I suddenly see something I have not known before. Yes, the Beast is human government as it exists in today’s world. But the Beast is also the twisting of every word God speaks into a human fulfillment by carnal men. That is all Satan can do.

Everything God speaks is twisted by the serpent inside this age of human folly for the triumph of the Beast. This is God’s purpose and intention. He has set them up.

I cannot explain why, exactly, God does that. All I can do is follow the patterns. The greatest pattern we follow is the life and ministry of Jesus upon this earth. Jesus is the pattern.

If Jesus had not provoked the Pharisees to overwhelming hatred and anger, God’s purpose could not have been fulfilled in the earth. How could our Savior have offered His life upon the cross if He had not gone out of His way to ensure their passionate hatred of Him? Yes, in the way in which He walked and ministered, He was an offense to them. But there were times when He pressed them beyond just a bad reaction to healing somebody.

Why? Because judgment is God’s path to mercy. No judgment is no mercy.

Those who claim they are natural J-s, most of whom are not, assert, based on a twisted use of a covenant they DO NOT KEEP, that the hills on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean belong to them. They are seizing their version of “the inheritance” by violence.

Jesus put these words in their mouth. “Come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours.”

When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified… Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. Revelation 11:7-12

The Beast of Revelation has seven different heads. Seven is the number of perfection; seven heads represents perfect confusion. Seven heads tied to one body is a conundrum. That means that all the heads must work together or the body goes nowhere. Yet each head on the Beast will most certainly be snarling and snapping at the other heads. The government of Iran works together with the government of Israel. Ahminadejad works closely with Netanyahu and Obama, they all three work for the same wicked men in London and New York. Their job is to stir the world into strife and war.

All the heads are attached to the same body, but you can be sure they are snapping at each other whenever they get a chance. 

And all that they do is a carefully orchestrated charade to get the people of this world to believe things that are not true.

[I have removed this section because of censorship on the Internet.]