Mythology Buster

Jesus was asked about the signs that will attend his unveiling, and the unveiling of the Kingdom of Heaven, (which Kingdom is come, and abides in a people now). To the wicked and adulterous seed, he said no signification is forthcoming, save the sign of the prophet Jonas. Believe the report of the resurrected one and repent. To disciples and followers, he compared the times to the day(s) of Noah, and the day(s) of Lot. Days means days…all of them.

So, there are significations to be read, even in our times. But, as in generations before, the significations are for the sakes of them who can see them. For example, the mark of Cain was not to spare Cain. It was for the sake of any who could (and still can) see it, that they know not to take matters of judgment regarding Cain, into their own hands. Cain’s line self destructed. The interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams were not given for Nebuchadnezzar’s sake, but for their sakes to whom understanding was given.

Jesus said that , as it was in the days of Lot, so would it be in the day in which the Son of man is revealed…and eternal day of revelation spanning all the days of Lot…not so different from when Jesus looked on a group of people and said that some standing among them would not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God. It is still true to this day…since the resurrection, some have seen, and are seeing, what many are looking off into the future for. The kingdom of heaven is within you. A salvation, ready to be revealed.

In our present time, there is a curious war of words raging. It pits a bearded man and his beliefs against an entire contingent of people and their sympathizers. It is a polarizing spectacle, with strong unseen undercurrents pulling the free mind one way or the other….into one camp or the other. Almost always, there is a third, unseen option, as in the time Joshua was leading his people into battle, and encountered a man standing in the way, drawn sword in hand. Joshua demanded to know if the man was for him, or for their adversaries. ( Joshua 5). The answer was , “NO”.  He was the captain of the Lord’s host.

The days of Lot begin together with Abram in Ur of the Chaldees. Lot journeyed from this place with Abram, and in time, there arose strife between the herdmen of Abram, and the herdmen of Lot, because both had become too increased with flocks and herds, for the land to sustain them. So Abram suggested to Lot that he separate from Abram and live where it suited him. Abram afterward chose to dwell where Lot did not. Lot chose the plain of Jordan because it was well watered and outwardly beautiful. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. Lot chose abundance with strife, because the people of the plain of Jordan did not internally reflect the outward appearance of the place. They were very wicked people. Abram chose a life of peace, though with difficulty. Abram sat in his own tent door, a picture of his own heart, while Lot sat in the gate of Sodom…the communal “heart” of the city.  Abram concerned himself with the things the Lord revealed in his heart. Lot concerned himself with making the wicked people and place less offensive to his own  sensibilities. To “sit in the gate” means to be an elder and a judge. Lot meddled in the affairs of the place, he thought, to make “a difference” , to change it for the better. When later, an apostle would write that Lot vexed his soul day in and day out, in seeing and in hearing their filthy deeds, the apostle was speaking of Lot’s efforts to judge the affairs of the people.

So, in the days of Lot, it is easy to see the juxtaposition of Lot and the filthy place and people among whom he dwelt by his own choosing. But it takes a little thinking to see the seldom spoken of third option regarding what Jesus had said, comparing His day, to the days of Lot. For in the days of Lot, the most significant thing in the earth was in Abram by faith, just as today, the most significant thing in the earth is in you by faith, if so be He dwell in you by faith. For it is of great prophetic importance, then and now,  that AFTER that Lot was separated from Abram, the Lord said to Abram:

” Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.”

If you comprehend that the seed in whom all these promises abode was, and is Christ, then you will comprehend that everything Abram saw thereafter, and everywhere he set his foot thereafter, he saw and visited without leaving the confines of the “tent door” of his own heart. He received Christ by revelation of the Father, and believed. He confessed to being a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth.  He watched the smoke of Sodom go up like a furnace, and took no ill effect in looking, unlike Lot’s wife, because , unlike Lots wife, Abram had nothing and nobody  of his household married to the place. Lot’s wife had at least four children who had married into the people of the city, and refused to heed the warning to flee the place. Remember Lot’s wife. You are going to have brethren who will not hear the Lord’s voice while it is called today.

In the days of Lot, you have Lot locked in a battle of morality with a city and it’s wicked people, and you have a man , a stranger in a strange land, believing what God is revealing in him, and recognizing that his city is a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God, a city wherein dwells righteousness. It is a living city with a living foundation. Christ in you. It is a city both descending and coming. For, as it is written, to ascend into the heavenly, is to bring Christ down. We are raised with Him.

Abram knew what the Lord would do to the place Lot dwelt, the moment the Lord mentioned to Abram that He, the Lord, would visit the place to see if it was altogether as evil as the report of it was made out to be. Abram knew , precisely because Abram, in his own tent door, came to know the Lord’s ways.

The day Lot entered into Zoar, the sun was risen upon the earth. It rained fire and brimstone. The “coming” of the Lord, for Lot, was a complete surprise. The last days of Lot are marked by a drunken cohabitation with each of his own two remaining daughters, producing Ammon and Moab, who were perpetual vexation to Israel. This because his daughters falsely presumed that there was not a man left in the earth besides their father, as their entire known world had just gone up in smoke.

Such are the days of Lot. Such are the days we live in. A people of faith, not reckoned among the nations, and a people of works, in bed with the nations, and so, cast into great tribulation. In the world you will have tribulation. In Him you will have peace.

 In the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the ax is laid to the root of the trees:

Mat 3:8
   
“Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

Luk 3:8
   
“Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

  Be it understood, that John, the last legitimate Levitical priest, fulfilled his order, examined, and declared the perfect fitness of the unblemished lamb of God, and in the fulfillment of levi’s order, gave place to the One who should both take away the sins of the world, and after be raised and abide a priest forever. “He (said John) must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all”.

  John, in saying, “Do not suppose within yourself , “I am descended from Abraham”, is saying that all carnal ties are finished, over, done, along with the carnal priesthood and temple. A true Jew is one inwardly now, and so is a true son of Levi. Consider carefully, that the ax is laid to the root of the trees. And yet, without roots, every tree is expected to bear fruit. Those descended of Abraham via Isaac, and those descended of Abraham via Ishmael, are BOTH included in this. Those who profess Christ, who mind earthy things, who look for a temple of stone and real estate, and who labor under cunningly devised Jewish fables, are also included in this. No tree without roots can bear, except it is the beneficiary of an endless, internal supply.

  And though no flesh may boast and glory in it’s origins, even though it be in Abraham, all flesh, regardless of genetic origin or distinction, has equal and unfettered access to the one who came out of Abraham, according to the flesh, but was raised up and declared to be the Son of God , according to the Spirit of Holiness, in raising Him up from among the dead, and He now sits, highly exalted, above all power and principality, above all thrones and dominions, with a more excellent name than any angel or any man who went before. He came the son of David after the flesh. He died the Son of man for all flesh, He was raised the Son of God, that all who receive Him and believe upon His name, might receive power to become sons of God. Not to any born of any flesh, of any blood, or the will of any man. But to them born of God.

  Paul wrote and clearly expounded, lest any should think that the promises of God are sure to children of flesh: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal 3:16). Therefore, all the promises of God are to one who should come out of Abraham, and to as many as should be accounted children and heirs together with Him, but not in flesh, rather, in resurrection. If I do not have the one to whom all the promises pertain “to my father”, then the promises do not touch me. What did Isaiah cry concerning Him? : “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, THE EVERLASTING FATHER, The Prince of Peace”. Who’s everlasting Father? Ours. For we are begotten to God, only in Christ Jesus. And again, Paul writes of Him, opening up the scriptures; ” For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. ( and in another place): “I will put my trust in him”.  (And again) , “Behold I AND THE CHILDREN WHOM GOD HATH GIVEN ME”.  And , unless one is absolutely unlearned in scripture altogether, there can be no doubt that in all these great and precious promises, we are joint heirs together with Him, in, and only in His resurrection. Therefore the resurrection is to be laid hold of by faith. Held to in faith. Experienced by faith. Searched out, by faith.

  The “church world” today, has largely fallen into lethargy, into the hands of professional caretakers, hirelings, wage earners and 401K builders, who’s doctrine comes not by revelation of Christ within, but filters down from a hierarchical system, a commercial system at that, of which Jesus expressly and clearly said it “Shall not be so among you”. And so, the people are reduced to minding the same earthy things as they that lead them, and despairing the same despairs, to sucking muddied water to relieve thirst, spitting out the sand and gravel, rather that drinking the clean, crisp, cool , inexhaustible, internal supply of the promised Well Spring, the Spirit of Truth. I assure you whole heartedly, that the gifts and callings of Christ, in resurrection, per Ephesians, are not a career path or a vocation. They are not anything less than who and what He is in resurrection. They are Christ in you, the hope of glory. The church, the one which is His body, is not ailing, diseased, fractured, crippled, in need of revival, struggling with sin, or any such like. If any man sin, he sins outside the body. If any name the name of Christ, let him depart from evil. And if any overcomes, him (or her….the Lord makes no difference) will Christ make a pillar in the house, a pillar that GOES NO MORE OUT. The body of Christ is not a hospice, a great waiting room, in which to receive comfort and solace, tasks and busy work,  while waiting to die and go somewhere. As the orchard is in the apple, so the kingdom of heaven is within you. And the resurrection is in you. How do we “hold fast” that which we have received? Faith.

  I would like to open from the scriptures, the accounting of the Branch, the one raised to life, eternal life, a tree with no roots, no external supply, no more ties to the flesh He passed through.  But rather, He in resurrection, and a people with Him, are described in the closing chapters of the scripture, as the tree of life. A tree and a throne out of which proceed a pure, crystal clear river of life. This tree is a supplier. It’s very leaves, converting the internal light of God and of the Lamb, into the healing of the nations. This light falls not upon the tree from without, but abides within. Never has been a tree like this tree. These are they who see His face, and His name is in all their thoughts. These are not a people dependent upon light of sun and moon, in other words, the luminaries of the unmeasured outer courts, calender, seasonal , ritualistic “Christianity”, locked in a vain , annually repeated reenactment of things, but not the things themselves. These are not a people depended upon the light of lamp stand, where men labored to press oil from the olive, where men repeatedly must dress the lamps to keep them topped of and lit, and where the oil can fail, and the flame depart, should men fail their duties. These are a people in whom the oil Olive lives and abides, and does not come and go. There is no pressing. There is no laborious assignment. The Oil springs of it’s own accord, and these people give voice to the Oil, needing no lamp stand, or it’s ordinances. This is what you may read of in the book of Acts, when the full, never ending , ever abiding and eternal day of Pentecost came. These things are surely at hand, ready to be revealed.

                                                               THE BRANCH

    “Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:…” ( from Zechariah)

     To Isaac , son of Abraham, were born Esau and Jacob. All we have read how that, though Esau was the first born, the inheritance of the birth right and blessing pertaining to the first born, Jacob received both through subtlety and guile. To Jacob, did Esau sell the inheritance for a bowl of lintel soup to satisfy his urgent craving and hunger. To Jacob, did Isaac confer the blessing, deceived into thinking he was Esau, through the intrigues of Rebekah, their mother.

     Jacob, upon the advice of his mother, fled from Esau, to go into the land of Haran, to Rebekah’s brother Laban. As he departed Beer Sheba , Jacob came to a place where he tarried because the sun went down. In that place, called Luz, Jacob took the stones ( plural)  OF THAT PLACE, and put them for pillows, and laid down, IN THAT PLACE to sleep. And Jacob dreamed a dream. In his dream, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top reached to heaven. On the ladder ascended and descended, in that order, the messengers of God. Above the ladder stood the Lord. And Jacob heard the Lord speaking:

“I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of”.

  Jacob awoke, and said:

“Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not…How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven”.

  And Jacob woke up in the morning, and set up the stone ( now singular) as a pillar, poured oil upon it, and called the name of the place “Beth El”. Luz means “Almond Tree”. Beth El means “House of God”.  So after this we find the phrase, “Luz which is Bethel”…. “THE ALMOND TREE WHICH IS THE HOUSE OF GOD”.  And Jacob vowed a vow, and said, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee”.  But you will notice that the Lord never answered Jacob a word. For the Lord had not promised anything at all to Jacob. All that was spoken, was spoken to the Stone, the Pillar, IN THE PLACE where it was spoken. The Almond is a figure of resurrection, as we shall see, and all the promises were to the one who should come out of Jacob, but by reason of the resurrection, be declared to be the Son of God , and the House of God, a lively house of lively stones, a Spiritual house, with no root or tie to Jacob, or any other man. These are precisely the things John the baptist spoke of , alluding to the ax at the root of every tree. Jesus is the vine, and them in Him, the branches. He is rootless, for all the fulness dwells in Him. There is nothing substantial without Him. And without Him, and His supply, His internal and eternal supply, we come to nothing. All religious efforts to build upon anything He has passed through, is vain. When He bids “follow Me”, he means it. When He says , “I am the root and offspring of David”, He declares that He passed through David. So how is he the Son of David, who calls Him “Lord”? 

  Many years later, Jacob has twelve sons. Eight by wives. Four by bond women ( but that is another matter). One of these sons , Joseph, has dreams and revelation which, to come quickly to the point, were above the household, patriarchal vision of Jacob and family. His dreams were of Christ in him. His natural father , mother and brothers, in his dreams, bowed to him. Hating him for the telling of what he had received from God, his brethren cast him into a pit, out of which he was raised, in a figure of resurrection, and sold into bondage in Egypt, where he became the Lord of the place, and the seller of grain for bread. Had Jacob understood that night at Luz, that the promises were not to him, he would not have been so shocked at something which seemed to rock the family boat and it’s order. And so, he would have realized that Joseph, like Jacob, received vision and revelation concerning the heir of the promises, which Jacob did in his late life acknowledge, as you may read. The promises were not to Abraham, were not to Isaac, were not to Jacob, were not to Joseph, were not to any of them. They are to ONE, who came out of their house. Yet, they are AVAILABLE to ALL, every soul to ever draw breath, through the faith of that One.

  Jacob now believed a lie. A lie aided and abetted by his eleven sons. He believed Joseph was dead. When a great famine was over the earth, and Jacob’s house was likely to starve, it was heard that there was grain in Egypt. So Jacob sent sons into Egypt to by grain. With the money to buy grain, Jacob sent also, a present, he thought, to Pharaoh. But the one who received it was his own living, though presumed dead son. Added to the best fruits of the land, as a gift, were some almonds. Then, learning Joseph is alive and sending for him, Jacob and all his house are restored to Joseph in Egypt, where Joseph sustains them. Joseph takes a binding oath of the people that, God will surely visit the people and carry them up out of Egypt, and the people will carry his bones up with them. The Hebrew word “bones” used here was interestingly, a word that means “being”. “You will carry my being up with you”. The man who was a figure of resurrection, carried up, raised up, in a figure,  in a people.

  When the time drew near , many generations later, the Lord delivered the children from the bondage of Egypt. The deliverers were two brothers, sons of Levi. They were Moses and Aaron. To Moses had been given a rod, a walking staff. Aaron also carried a rod, a walking staff. As Moses was returning to Egypt to fulfill his calling, his brother, Aaron, staff in hand, met him in the desert. In the exodus that ensued, from the time that the children departed Egypt, until they crossed the Red sea on dry ground, both staffs figured prominently in miraculous displays. But Aaron’s figured more often.

  During the exodus, the Lord spoke to Moses regarding the building of a tabernacle. In the tabernacle, behind a veil, was to be housed an ark. Into that ark were to go the testimonies, which God said to Moses, “I will give you”.  Each of the testimonies which God gave were foreshadowed by man made testimonies, effigies of the God given testimonies to come. For the tables of the commandments, written with the finger of God, was the book which Moses wrote. For the rod of Aaron that budded, was a man made golden lamp stand, one beaten work of gold, made to resemble a living almond tree. For manna hidden in the golden vessel, was man made bread, set on daily, a loaf for each tribe. Now, in Christ, it is said that we are one loaf in the Lord, but that is another matter. It is the almond rod that is the subject here. And in each man made foreshadow, the shadow is figuratively diminished, when the thing it foreshadowed came.

  There arose, during the exodus, a dispute among the people. They murmured and complained that Moses and Aaron were taking too much upon themselves. They disputed that God had chosen Aaron to anything more than any of the rest of the people. The Lord commanded that the staff, the rod of the head of each of the families was to be set before the tabernacle, the name of each owner written on it. In the morning, the rod of Aaron, and almond rod, had been resurrected and , without roots or tie to the tree it had been cut off from, it was alive, leafed, budded, and bore a crop of almonds on it. A complete generation born to it and with it, in it’s resurrection.

  Out of Jacob, went a seed into Egypt. Of that seed came a tree. Of that tree was a branch cut off. That cut off branch was resurrected, a generation with it, and it passed expressly into the ark of the testimonies which God gave, passing before the man made effigy, which signified assemblies, which man made lamp stand never at any time did, and spiritually at no time ever will, enter the holiest place. If you read Revelation 2, 3 and 4, you may see the expounding of these things.

 The tables of the law, the rod that was raised, the manna in the hidden vessel. GOD’s LAW. RESURRECTION. LIFE.

Many years later, Israel would reject God from being a king over them, and would lust after a king of flesh, a king which God gave them, though warning them of what would come of it. Later, David would propose to build a “house” for the Lord, which the Lord told David, that David could not do. This is the Lord who has said, “The heaven and the heaven of heavens are not sufficient to contain Me, where is the house you would build for me?” Instead, the Lord told David that He, the Lord, would build David a house, and that in his son who would come out of him. But when David passed, Israel errantly presumed Solomon to be that son. And Solomon built the temple that could not be built, the Lord, as in the matter of a king, making a concession, and again with a warning. This house, in his lifetime, Solomon quickly filled with every abomination. The mount of Olives before it, began to be called the mount of corruption.  When this house was dedicated, the ark of the testimonies was brought into it. But in the ark, was only one thing found, the same and only one thing found in the innumerable “houses” which men today call “the Lord’s house”. The only thing there was the tablets of the law. Life (bread)  and resurrection were no where in it. For to this day, the Most High dwells not in a house built with hands, as He told us.

Many years later still, a man who you could walk all the way around and look up and down at, from head to toe, a man who had declared that the Father dwelt in Him, a man who said “I am the life and the resurrection”, stood near the corrupted pile of stock and stone that Solomon had built, and this man said, “Destroy this temple, and I will build it again in three days”.

 This man was defining for you, the Temple, the resurrection, the Life, and everything He is, in resurrection. He has no ties to Solomon’s house. He has no ties to Abraham’s flesh, or any flesh. He is the rootless, resurrected almond, and house of God of Jacob’s vision. If I am crucified with Him, by faith raised with Him, by faith seated together with Him, then I have no more root in anything I have been raised up out of, than he does. For the ax is laid to the root of the trees. No tree , nor anything they symbolize, will ever bear any fruit to God, save in resurrection. Period. We abide in Him in faith.

THE CREATION WAS MADE SUBJECT TO VANITY AND THE VAIN BUILD WITH IT

 Psalm 2 poses a question, and gives the answer:

Q. Why do the nations rage so furiously together, and the people imagine a vain thing?
A. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take council together against the Lord,  and against His anointed.

Jesus spoke to religious leaders, saying that they search the scriptures, thinking they will find the key , some formula leading to eternal life. Jesus went on to say that the scriptures are they which testify of Him; Christ, and that they; the leaders, will not come to Christ that they might have life. Jesus came , it says, to lead many sons unto glory. In John’s gospel (17), Jesus , about to return whence he came, said “I am no more in the world”. He said, ” I have finished what you sent me to do”. He said, “Now glorify me with your own self, with the glory I had with you before the world was”.  The word “world” is kosmos (κόσμος), the same as our word “cosmos”. Kosmos is the current order of things. It is the vanity into which the creation was made subject, and out of which the creation will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Paul, in Romans 8, wrote of this. And this deliverance, bound up in a people who will have made the spiritual exodus, from darkness, into the kingdom of the dear Son, is the restitution of all things, that is, all things in Christ.  Jesus, in John 17, praying for the facilitation of this great work, says, “ Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”.

  Consider the saying regarding the flood of Noah’s time, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”. Again, “world” is kosmos(κόσμος), or the present, vain and fallen order of things. As a point of thought, the Lord had said to Noah, “My covenant is with you, and with every living thing that comes out of the ark with you”. So, the world that then was, overthrown, was delivered into the covenant made with Noah, his wife, his sons and daughters in law, and every living thing in the ark with Noah. It was no subtle rearranging of the order of things, but the destruction of the vain order of things, and the delivering  into the household of faith. Everything in the world post flood, came out of the work of faith, in them where the work of faith had it’s work, pre-flood. So, faith destroys vanity. The kingdom which now is, in a people by faith, is kept in store, reserved against the day of judgment and perdition, or utter destruction, of ungodly men. Now faith is the substance of things not seen, and the evidence of things hoped for.

  The book of Judges, chapter 9, depicts the Lord’s way, and the vain and fallen order of things. The Olive tree, the Fig and the Vine, as opposed to the bramble. From the Olive tree, we get olive oil. The oil of anointing, the oil by which flour is compounded into one loaf, the oil which fueled the lamp stand of the tabernacle, which lamp stand was a man made effigy of a fruiting Almond tree. The lamp stand, in a figure, gives voice to the Olive tree in a resurrected branch and His generation. The Fig, a fruit that flowers internally. Under the fig, Nathanael received the revelation of Jesus Christ, before Philip called to him. The Vine, every branch abiding in the vine, is fruitful. Every grape in the cluster, a particular fruit in which water is transformed to wine. For the new wine, the best wine, is produced by natural fermentation in the grape, on the vine, and is gathered in the vat by natural seepage, without crushing the grape. No grape is attached to the vine, through another grape. Examine a cluster and see. Every grape, every member in particular, drinks directly and expressly into the vine. The edification of the whole, is the supply of every member enjoined to the vine. Jesus chose the miracle of the wedding at Cana to first show forth His glory. Not in one clay vessel, but in six, the number of man. In distinct, unique and completely separate and autonomous vessels, water was translated into wine, the very best wine. This was not done according to the “way” of man, which is to serve the seemingly best wine first, and then the cheap stuff later, when men have had their wits and senses dulled. The Lord let what was presumed to be the good stuff play out, then He revealed the superior wine. The Olive, the Fig and the Vine, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily, first in the man Christ Jesus, then , in resurrection, in a people begotten to God in Him, and with Him. Now, what of the bramble? the present “way” of things? The bramble imposes it’s rule upon the flesh, punishing it with thorns. There is nothing in that way that is internal. No revelation, no transformation, no increase. Only stupification, laying down of one’s mind, one’s inheritance, one’s birthright, in lieu of a cadre of governors and tutors who corral people as sheep, and as sticks in bundles, with the promise that sufficiently modified, obedient behavior now, will garner some reward in the sweet bye-and-bye. But there is one, and only one hope of glory, and that is Christ in you now. The bramble is the present order of things. It is the vanity in the creation. It is the “way” of which Jesus spoke, saying “It shall not be so among you”:

   “But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many”.   (Mat 20)

   If I am in Christ, and Christ in me, I am partaker of Him in whom all the fullness dwells. And I grow into Him, in all things, he who is both greatest, and servant of all. I am not part of a hierarchy, perusing a career path. All of these things, the order of this fallen, vain cosmos, the vanity itself to which the creation was subjected in hope, awaits a delivering into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The glorious liberty of the sons of God, all who shall attain to it, began with a liberation. That liberation began in one man, one perfect man, who for the joy ahead of Him, endured the cross, despising the shame of it. He went before us, entering into the Holy of Holies.  preparing the way, taking away the handwriting of ordinances which were against us, and triumphing over power and principality, mediators and taskmasters, so that nothing might stand in the way of any who would follow after Him. Let us not neglect so great a salvation, purchased to us at so great a cost, by turning again to weak and beggarly rudiments, days, seasons, religious observances, & etc. Follow on, press on, forgetting the things behind, unto mature completion, minding those things which the Lord Himself will make known to you, by His own Spirit who dwells in you.

  Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was not fooled by a city in the earth, though it bore His name. But Enoch stands at the threshold of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, in the depiction of the outer courts which the book of Jude is, and Enoch speaks of his city and ours, a city built not of the fallen vanities, but a city descending. Abraham by faith, recognized he was a stranger in a strange land. And so, by faith, Abraham sought a city where righteousness dwells, a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and not as foolish Lot, who chose a city built upon the fallen vanities of his age, thinking that by making himself a judge among them, he could thereby change them. Joseph, by faith, embraced the revelation of Christ in him, and spoke of it, his brethren hating him for it, the revelation being superior to the patriarchal order of birthright and blessing. Jacob, his first father, rebuked Joseph, saying, “Shall I and your mother indeed come and bow ourselves down to you?” But Jacob thought upon the matter, and in his last days, blessed Joseph, saying the blessings of your father exceed the blessings of my fathers. (for Joseph, in a figure, was made a partaker of the resurrection, being raised up out of the pit, both in the wilderness, and in Pharaoh’s house). Joseph, raised in a figure, was no longer Jacob’s son. But Jesus was not raised in a figure. He is raised, and is glorified, and David called him Lord. The resurrected , glorified Son of man is no more David’s son, than He is Mary’s son. He WAS the son of David according to the flesh, as He WAS the son of Mary, according to the flesh. But He IS the Son of God, according to the Power of resurrection, made a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. The first man Adam, is of the earth, earthy. The second man Adam is the Lord from heaven.

  Jesus is not building again, the things He destroyed. He is not engaged in a subtle rearranging of the present order of things. The foundation of the city Abraham sought, and found, is the foundation that man can not lay, and is already laid. The foundation is Christ in you, which foundation is utterly rejected by the builders in vanity, both then, and now. And this thing I will say emphatically. At no time did the lamp stand of the tabernacle of Moses ever enter into the Holiest place. Never once. But the true resurrected Almond branch of Aaron, now rootless, yet alive, entered once, with no ritualistic reenactment ordained, for the eternal does not repeat itself.  Rootless, being self sustaining according to the eternal power of the resurrection, drawing nothing from the earth, but ever sustained by the glory of an inexhaustible, internal supply. This raised branch a figure of a people to come, a people declared in the closing chapter of the Book, to have no need of light of sun or moon, and no need of light of lamp stand, because the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are the indwelling, internal light of this people. The city descending is not real estate or edifice. It is a people, and a house, as Paul said, “not of this building”. It is the temple and habitation of God by the Spirit. And that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit, suitable for the building of a spiritual house. That which is born of the flesh , is flesh, and is profitable for nothing.

  The lamp stands of Revelation 2  & 3 answer to the lamp stands of the tabernacle. They depict churches, assemblies, but not geographically. They are spiritual depictions of gatherings of believers. These gatherings are distinguished from one another by the various things they hold to, that do not agree with the doctrine of Christ. The one like unto the Son of man, like the raised rod of Aaron, are a people, true Hebrews, true inward Jews, who have crossed over Jordan, to the “other side”, and stand , in faith , testifying of the things which they see in the resurrected and glorified Christ, seeing Him as He is, not merely as He was. No assembly depicted in Revelation 2 & 3, as an assembly, enters into the Holiest; that which is prefaced by the words, “Come up here”. But out of each assembly, regardless of distinction, will have come individuals who have ears to hear, and who did hear, what the Spirit says in the gatherings. Consider the twelve spies, sent by Moses, to cross into Canaan, and bring back to the people, the report of the land. These brought back, not only the report of the land, but the substance of it, one cluster of grapes born on a pole between two men, they brought back Figs, pomegranates. Of these twelve, though all were made eyewitnesses, only two convinced the people that the time to take the land was now. Ten cast fear upon the people, describing the difficulty of what would be entailed in taking the land. Joshua and Caleb said it was obtainable because “the Lord is with us”. The ten, not recognizing this, said “the people of the land are too great for us”. Those ten, because of unbelief, perished in the 40 year march in the wilderness, together with them they had dissuaded. Joshua and Caleb, with a generation born in the wilderness, entered the land. Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. Paul, seeing these truths spoke of them, not for a time and people to come, but in his time and to his people, and so , the admonition is not new:

  “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world”.

  The book of Revelation describes a people taken from among a people, A holy nation, and the nations of them that are saved. Individuals who overcame, and extracted from themselves, the communal thinking of the assemblies. It describes those , who like Elisha, cross Jordan in faith, see Elijah in resurrection, and return to witness to it, an Elisha not content to dwell among any school of the prophets. To read Ephesians 4, and to read the account of the relationship between Elijah and Elisha, from start to finish, is enlightening. The gifts and callings are in a living, resurrected Lord. The word “holy” means set apart. Holy of Holies is “Set apart from the set apart”. This message is not new. The nations of them that are saved are as the tribes of them who were saved by coming to Joseph, who went before them in faith, believing the revelation of Christ in him.

   Our Exodus is Spiritual. Our journey, the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. Our hope, far more than to be with Him, but to be both with Him and Like Him. Our journey is in Him, from start to finish, as it says, we have been translated from darkness into the kingdom of  His dear Son, and we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings , in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

   Even in the flesh, I did not live my life in a crib, and one day wake up a man. I grew into a man. I grew into the fullness of what I received in a measure, the day I was conceived in the womb. Everything I grew into, I received at conception.  And when I realized I was a man, I put away childish things. I am no longer numbered among those who are children playing in the market place, children playing church.

   This spiritual exodus is available, obtainable, and doable in all who believe, in spite of the appearance of obstacles. It is doable because the Lord is with you. The Kingdom of Heaven suffers energetic assault, and the energetic take it by force. Jesus said, “Tarry at Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high”. The Spirit is come. There is no longer a reason to tarry. Jerusalem beneath is impotent and it’s house desolate.

 
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                                                              2 PETER 2
  But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned with an overthrow, making  an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots  and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

And her prophets have daubed them with untempered [mortar], seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken. [Eze 22:28 KJV]

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, [Rom 8:20 KJV]

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, [Eph 4:17 KJV]

For when they speak great swelling [words] of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, [through much] wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. [2Pe 2:18 KJV]

                                                                                            ROMANS 8

     There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
      For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
     Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
     For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
   Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord has promised that He would not again overthrow the world with water. This is the time of fire:

Joe 2:27

  “And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.  And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.”

Indeed, Emanuel is come, for God became flesh and tabernacled among us. And the remnant whom the Lord has called, have known Him, from that day to this. In resurrection, the Lord has sent to us, the Promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth. But take note, according as He foretold in Joel, He has indeed poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, after that He was known in the flesh. We live in the times wherein the very word of God tries and proves all things. He, the Word, is life unto life in them that believe, and death unto death in them that perish, because they will not love the truth. The Lord whom we seek is both come, and is coming to His temple…in the very process.

All things molecular, are combustible. All things will burn. Let us not be given to molecular “Christianity”, for flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God. That which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. It is the Spirit which pertains to life. The flesh is profitable for nothing. Ours is a house, of another building. Heaven and earth will pass away. Every word and work of man will pass with them. The Word of God will never pass, it will never change. He is risen forever. Let faith have her perfect work.

Jesus has told us that He comes “as a thief” in the night. We are told by the word of the apostle, they that sleep, sleep in the night. But we are not of the night, such that that day should take us unawares. When one awakes from slumber and finds his house has already been stripped clean, he is acutely aware, that the thief came in a time and manner he thought not. No longer will it make sense to him to look to the future, for that which is already past.

Remember, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. Concerning combustion, there are different kinds. All are forms of oxidation. Rotting wood and rusting iron are undergoing slow oxidation. Burning wood and flaming molten iron are undergoing rapid oxidation. Both processes produce the very same result. Both release the same quantity of energy. The difference is time, or rather, our perception of it.

Jesus gave you insight into the manner of the burning which we are witnessing. It is at a pace such that the worm is not killed, though the fire is not put out. Those who get the victory over this burning are depicted as standing on a sea, like glass mingled with fire, having the harps of God. They know the Lord and worship Him, as Joel told you.

Let not the burning overtake , as a thief in the night. These things are not far off, but are at hand, and all about you.  And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Joel teaches you that that the deciding issue since the resurrection, is not human affairs, politics, religion or any other thing. The Father has presented to us, the Truth. The Truth has many names. King of kings, Lord of Lords, Wonderful, Councilor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But He is One, and in Him dwells all the fullness of God. You are complete, only in Him. You come to the Father, only by Him. There is no other way.

Avoid vain babelings. The kingdom of God is not semantics. Jesus Himself, is above any name that is named. There is no magic phrase that is the one right name. Yaweh, Jeshua, so on and so forth…all these names point to Christ, and are fulfilled in Him. Many presently are caught away in such limited mindsets. God knoweth them that are His. They that worship Him, worship in Spirit and in Truth.

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Isa 34:8      For it is the day(time) of the LORD’S vengeance, and the year (period/measure of time) of recompences for the controversy of Zion.  And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

Mar 9:43       And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Jam 3:5             Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!      And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

Rev 15:2      And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

Whether by rapid oxidation, or slow oxidation, the result is the same. But with the slow, the worm dies not. Slow oxidation, like the frog in a pot of slowly heated water, is a two edged sword. It buys time for them awake, and goes on unnoticed in them asleep.

Well worth the thought…the sea of brass that Solomon built as a lavor of purification was not an ocean, it was a vessel. The Sea of glass mingled with fire is a lavor of purifying too.

Sea of brass

The Almond Tree

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.[Jer 1:11 KJV]

Almond, from the Hebrew word for it, means to be awake, to be watchful, to rise early. In seeing a rod of an Almond tree, I wonder what Jeremiah was shown? What was it that he
saw well?

When Moses was to lead the children out of the bondage of Egypt, he was given a rod. When Moses, returned to Egypt with this rod in hand, he was met in the wilderness by his brother Aaron, who also had a rod. If you care to count, from the time the Lord began to liberate the children from Egypt, until they crossed Jordan on dry ground, the rod of Aaron figured more numerously in miraculous displays, than did Moses’ rod.

Jacob, having secured both the blessing and birthright from Esau by deceit, was fleeing from Esau, journeying toward Haran, the land of his father Abraham’s origin. On the way, Jacob came to a place called Luz. There Jacob slept, having stones for his pillows. In the night, Jacob dreamed of a ladder that reached from the stones up to the heavens. At the top of the ladder, the Lord. On the ladder, ascending and descending upon the stones, the messengers of God. Jacob heard the Lord to say, “I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of”.

Jacob awoke, poured oil on the stone, and pronounced the place to be none other but the house of God. Curiously, “stones” became “stone”. And upon this stone, would the oil be poured. Curious that Christ once remarked, before that the Spirit was given, how that the Son of man has not where to lay his head. Yet now we read, by the anointing, every living stone holds to the head. Jacob had heard the Lord say, “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of”. So Jacob, resuming his journey, vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee”. And Jacob thereafter called the place “Luz-which-is-Bethel”. Luz means “Almond”. So, “Almond which is the house of God”.

Now, the Lord never answered Jacob a word concerning Jacob’s oath. For the Lord had not been speaking to Jacob in the dream. He, The Lord, had been speaking to the stone, the one in whom all the nations would be blessed, the seed who would multiply as the dust of the earth, and would inherit all things, as Paul expounded later in Galatians, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ”.  Jacob, by reason of where his head had been, had been privy to the conversation. This truth, would the Lord further unveil and expound to Jacob, in Joseph, who was yet to be born to Jacob.

This same Joseph, now born, also received the revelation of Christ by dreams. Because of his dreams and his words, his brethren would hate him, and conspire to kill him. Joseph became as Pharaoh, lord of all Egypt, and the bread in it. Jacob, his household in famine, would send to Egypt to by grain of Pharaoh, not knowing he was dealing with his own son. With the money, Jacob would send of the fruit of the land, a present to Pharaoh. Among the present, some almonds.

Generations later, the Lord would visit the children, now slaves in Egypt, to deliver them. When Moses met his brother Aaron, there was in Aaron’s hand, a rod, a dead stick cut off from an almond tree that had come into Egypt in a seed, a seed from Jacob.

As Moses lead the children out, he was shown a heavenly vision, and told to build a dwelling, a tabernacle, strictly according to the pattern of what he had been shown. Before the tabernacle itself was built, the first item to be crafted, was an ark. The tabernacle would come to house many man made testimonies. But the Lord told Moses that , in the ark, you will put the testimonies “I will give you”.  In that ark, within the holiest place, inaccessible behind a veil, to all but the high priest, and that once a year, would come to reside three things. The tablets of the commandments written with the finger of God. The Manna which God gave. And Aaron’s rod that budded. It was above this ark, on the mercy seat,  in the prophetic model of the heavenly tabernacle , that the Lord said, “I will meet with you”.

The tablets of the law were never meant for the people, but for the ark. The people were taught from the book Moses wrote. The tablets were foreshowing the Christ  who would fulfill the one, taking the other out of the way. The God given  Manna, hidden in a golden pot was foreshowing the one to come who is the true bread of heaven, not as the man made loaves set on daily by the priests, which were but effigies. The almond rod of Aaron, truly resurrected, had blossomed, leafed, and bore a generation, a crop of almonds  with it, IN IT’S RESURRECTION, not as the man made golden effigy of a fruiting almond, which the golden lamp stand was. That raised rod, and the generation born to it in resurrection, are a picture for you, of the one seed of promise, and his generation. The Christ, in whom all the nations have opportunity and access to all the blessings and promises of God. It was the only seed to come out of Jacob that made it into the holiest place. And it was accomplished in it’s resurrection.

Long after, David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Lord. The Lord commended the sentiment, but shot down the idea. It is logistically impossible. The heaven, the heaven of heavens, are not sufficient to contain Him. Where is the house any would build for Him? Instead, the Lord told David that He would build David a house, in one who would come out of David. And that one would sit on the throne everlasting. When Solomon was made king, it was presumed that the one promised to David had arrived. This Solomon went on to build what had never been ordained to be built, any more than the anointing of Saul to be king had it’s origins in God. Both were concessions, as you may search and read.

When Solomon’s temple that he built was completed and dedicated, it is most notable, that the ark was found to contain only one item. The tables of the law. The life (manna) and the living, rootless almond and it’s generation (resurrection) were not in it.

Generations later, a man proclaimed to be the life and the resurrection, already having told that the Father dwells in Him, stood near Solomon’s edifice and proclaimed, “Destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days”. He was no more speaking of Solomon’s temple than God was talking about Jacob at Luz-which -is-Bethel. He is the resurrected house and temple of the living God, and all who as lively stones, are raised with Him. Before he suffered and died, it was written of Him, “In Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”. After His resurrection, His and them raised with Him, it is written again, “In Him dwells (present tense) all the fullness of the Godhead bodily AND you are complete in Him”.

Jeremiah saw well indeed, when he saw a rod of an almond tree.

Now, what is faith?and Christ in you? A flower, pollinated, has the word of the pollinator living in it. It has a future. A flower, not pollinated, has no future.

Christ in you, the hope of glory, and the testimonies which God has given you, and not man.

ALMOND BRANCH

A Man Born Blind And The Works Of God…Is This Not He That Sat And Begged?

“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” (John 6)

“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life:
and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6)

At this point, I pose a question. Is the “last day” still lurking somewhere over the rainbow, unfulfilled? is it a 24 hour day?

Later in John’s gospel, Lazarus lays dead in a tomb. His sisters are grieving. One of them (Martha) laments, speaking to Jesus:

“ Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.”

Jesus replies:

” Thy brother shall rise again.”

Martha replies:

” I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus answers:

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

The last day, a 24 hour day? Consider the two criminals crucified with Jesus. To one of these individuals, Jesus said “To Day you will be with me in paradise”. Yet Jesus, if the scriptures are to be believed ( and they are) , was about to spend three full days in the  grave, as dead as it is possible to be dead. If he were not completely and utterly dead, had any unextinguished spark or ember of life remained in his body, then he would not have been resurrected, he would have been resuscitated. But he was dead. The day promised  to the criminal, the day in which he would be with Christ, is not a 24 hour day. It is before the calender was. It is eternal. And it is a day as real and as present now, as it is possible for it ever to be. Is is written of God, and of the place where Christ dwells with Him:

  “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also  that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”   (Isa 57)

And again, to Christ do the prophets bear witness:

“Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.” (Psa 93)

“I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment:That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.  The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.”  (Pro 8)

Sights always set on the future are not set very well. He “comes” in a time and manner, not of this world’s thinking. If the eternal is always in the future, it is not eternal.

There was a man who was born blind. During his life, he had to learn to cope with blindness. Everything that came into his mind was unaugmented with sight. It was a world in which it was absolutely impossible to tell if his mental images bore any resemblance to reality. That man was headed for; destined for, a marvelous encounter. For that man, the encounter could be described as a future event, and from where he sat, it was. As he sat, blind and largely helpless, he was understandably at the mercy of others. He sat and  begged. He depended on being seen, by those whom he could not see, and was dependent upon their compassion and mercy. As this existence was the norm for him, he was known as “He who sat and begged”. It is questionable if he even had any real concept of where the alms he received came from; what the merciful did to have with which to give him.

As this man sat in darkness and begged, there was another man in the world. Already in the world. This man was told before in all Moses, in all the law, and in all the prophets. Of this other man it had said, unto them who dwell in the region and shadow of death, has a  great light shined. This other man was asked by his disciples, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?”  To them he  said, “This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom God sent”.

Later Christ , the light of the world, and these disciples, encounter the man born blind. The disciples asked, “Master, who did sin, this  man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”   Jesus replied, ” Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the
works of God should be made manifest in him”.

Jesus opened the man’s eyes and he, for the first time, came seeing, though he had not yet seen with his eyes, the very one who opened  them. For this man, the world as he now saw it, had been their all along, as well as the one who opened his eyes. And for all the wonder  of what had happened, the work of God was not yet complete. There were eyes of a different sort, yet to be opened. What ensued was  spectacular. It first got the attention of the man’s neighbors, ” Is not this he that sat and begged?” . Some said he was, others said it was someone who looked like him. The man said “I am he”. They asked him how it happened. The man said, “A man that is called Jesus  made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight”.
So the people brought  the man to the Pharisees. And the true works of God, true sight to the blind begins to unfold. The birth of sight can be  seen by following the progression of the heretofore blind man’s eyes of understanding, and the true nature of blindness. To see both, one has but to read, in order, the evolved thinking of the former beggar, and the devolved thinking of the “seeing” Pharisees.

Here, in order, are the statements from the man, being examined by the religious leaders:

( Where is he?)               

I KNOW NOT

(This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day)   
(What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes?)                        

HE IS A PROPHET.

(to the parents: Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how does he now see?)

ASK HIM.

(to the man: Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. )

I DO NOT KNOW  IF  HE IS A SINNER  OR NOT, I ONLY KNOW I WAS BLIND AND NOW I SEE.

( What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?) 

I TOLD YOU ALREADY AND YOU   WON’T LISTEN. WHY HEAR IT AGAIN? DO YOU WANT TO BE HIS DISCIPLES TOO?

(Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. We know Moses  spoke with God. As for this fellow, we have no idea where he came from.)

WHY, HERE IS A MARVEL. YOU DO NOT  KNOW WHERE HE COMES FROM , YET HE OPENED MY EYES. WE KNOW THAT GOD WILL NOT HEAR A SINNER. BUT IF A MAN HEARS GOD AND DOES HIS WILL, GOD WILL HEAR HIM. IT HAS NEVER BEFORE, IN THE HISTORY OF WORLD, BEEN HEARD OF, THAT ANY MAN OPENED THE EYES OF ONE BORN BLIND. IF THIS MAN WERE NOT OF GOD HE COULD DO NOTHING.

( You were born altogether in sins, and you teach us?)
( And they cast him out of the synagogue)           

 
So , in this man, we behold the beautiful, and very rapid development of sight. Not the sight associated with the peep holes in the front of the head, but of the man dwelling in it. And we see revealed, just as clearly, the horrific blindness of the religious clerics and their
efforts to spread the blindness around. This man, to go from not knowing where Jesus was, or even whether Jesus was a sinner or not, in very short order came to the revelation that Jesus was from God. This revelation came from the Father, just as it did to Peter when asked
who Jesus was, just as it did to Nathanael under the fig tree. Just as it does to any to whom it does. Because the truth is, every man, woman and child among us , was born blind, and Jesus is come to manifest the work of God, not ending with eyes that work, but with a mind that
believes God, and knows and believes Christ, whom the Father has sent and revealed in it.

So the end of the work ( realize that the man has never seen Jesus, but already knows a great deal about him):

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said,  LORD, I BELIEVE, And he worshipped him.”

“And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”

“And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”

Jesus translates us into that which is true, eternal, abiding, everlasting, and as real and present now, as it will ever be. Everything Christ reveals in me, I abide in by faith, knowing it to be true.  Every promise is in Him, “Yes”. Every word, “Amen”. He is the Israel of God, and the heir of every promise. There is no promise to Abraham, or to any of the fathers, that are not fulfilled in Him. Not one. The nation to whom the promises pertain, is of Him.

The prophets spoke of Christ , “I and the children my Father has given me”. This is all fulfilled in His resurrection. While I remain in flesh, my “seeing and hearing”, are the seeing and hearing of faith. For none of the promises will ever be inherent in flesh. The new man is the second man Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. He is the man of peace, all distinctions of flesh are abolished, and He, the Israel and heir of God, is available and obtainable to all, available that is, by faith. If I am Jewish in my flesh, I must understand that He is Israel. If I am gentile in my flesh, I must understand that He is Israel. If I do not yet see every promise concerning Israel fulfilled, I am not seeing the correct Israel. If I build again, the notion that their are two classes of human flesh, when the Lord has abolished the notion, making no difference anymore regarding the Promise of the Father, I make myself a transgressor. There do not exist now, or ever in Christ, any subsets of humanity.

Consider carefully, that when Jesus the child, was taken out of spiritual Egypt, where he would later be crucified, it was to fulfill the words  spoken long before by Hosea, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt”.

(Mat 2:14)   “When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod:  that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son”.

What Hosea said, until Christ, went unfulfilled. Jesus, in resurrection, Is the Israel of God, confirmed heir of every promise. There are no more forthcoming. So how are promises to the children  confirmed?what are the glad tidings?the gospel of the very truth?:

(Acts 13)    “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead: And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption”.

The Israel of God will never again return to flesh, and will never again know corruption. The Israel of God is Christ, and the nation, them that are raised with Him.

Unto The Angel Of The Church In Pergamos, Write…

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not  denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a  stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him  that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. “

Firstly, the church in Pergamos is not in Pergamos. What do I mean to say that? The best way to relay the truth of the statement is with biblical example, a preface of sorts. I will give two:

1. When king David, the son of Jesse came to sit upon the throne of Israel, he went up to Jebus, the old city of the Jebusites, a  Canaanite people. David conquered the city, and took it’s fort. He built it up, and it began to be called the City of David.  For 27 generations, from David until the man Jesus Christ, Jebus was called Jerusalem, and was called the city of David, as it is to this day. Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers, cedar trees, carpenters and masons to David, and they built him a house. Later, David’s son Solomon employed the same Hiram to build a temple at Jerusalem. In payment, Solomon gave Hiram a circuit of about twenty cities in the region of Galilee, to include a city called Bethlehem Ephrath, the birth place of David. So undesirable were the cities, that Hiram responded, “And he said, What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother?” And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day. Cabul means “fetters”.

To paraphrase, Hiram was asking, “what have you stuck me with?”  The region became “Galilee of the nations” (Isaiah 9), so named because Hiram was a gentile. Here did Isaiah show before, the coming of the just one: “Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was
 in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined”.

But what do we hear proclaimed upon the birth of  Christ? “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord”.  This proclamation of the heavenly messenger correctly identifies the Savior’s place of birth as “The City of David”. Christ was not born in Jerusalem. He was born in the gentile city of Bethlehem Ephrath, as had said Isaiah. In fact, the Jews ( which are the people of Judah), when they heard Jesus say that He was going to a place they could not go, asked themselves this:” Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?”  They were speaking of Galilee of the nations (gentiles) , and the dispersed, were the scattered tribes external to Judeah. So, what became the “City of David” , was not the city of David.

2. The second example teaches that Jerusalem is not Jerusalem. We already see that Jerusalem is not the city of David. The apostle Paul expounded that there are two Jerusalems. One is “Jerusalem which is above, is free, and is the mother of us all”. The other is  “For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children”.

So we, like Abraham, seek a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It is a spiritual city and land, far more substantial than the stuff of this world which passes away. If the name “Jerusalem” belongs to  a city not of this building, what then do we call the city of the Jebusites? the “Jerusalem” in bondage? Had the angel  made any reference to the  place when the savior was born, knowing the place where Christ would suffer and die, he
would have called it by it’s correct spiritual name:

( Rev 11)  “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified”.

So, how is Pergamos not in Pergamos? The Pergamos of Revelation 2 is not geographical Pergamos. It is Spiritual Pergamos. The seven churches, or “assemblies” in Asia, are not geographic, but spiritual. In His admonition to believers in spiritual Pergamos, the Lord cites three grievances:

1.Satan has his seat where they dwell.
2.They hold the doctrine of Balaam.
3.They hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.

SEAT OF SATAN

Isaiah showed before, the desire of the Accuser , the evil one, to sit enthroned in the midst of a people:

Isa 14:9      Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

It is most notable, that while the one like unto the Son of man, speaking in the assemblies, has no throne there, this fallen one does. The throne to which Christ has risen, and to which the over comer is bidden, is ascended to on an individual basis. If one cares to make a study of scripture, and if one realizes that the tabernacle of the wilderness and it’s messages and meanings are expounded in the book of Revelation, then the fact that  at no time did the man made golden effigy of a fruiting almond tree, called the “golden lamp stand” ever enter the holiest place, becomes a glaring proclamation. Only the actual almond rod of Aaron, resurrected, and bearing a generation of almonds in it’s resurrection, enters into the holiest place. This too is a glaring proclamation. Without any doubt, rising to that place John was shown, having been called with the words “come up here”, is an individual accomplishment. No assembly will ever do it. None. The exodus from lamp stand to throne, from holy place to holiest, from wilderness and wandering to promise fulfilled, takes place on an individual basis, in the over comer. Paul uses the language of the tabernacle when he states that the way into the holiest is not revealed in them for whom the first, or holy place, still stands as paramount. If  I am to press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, I must too, count all things dung and loss, and exchange them for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ in me.

Jesus answered Isaiah’s question, “How art thou fallen from heaven, OLucifer, son of the morning?”  :

(Luke 10)       “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven”.  

(Rev 12)   “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great    wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

Isaiah reveals the desire of the enemy, also using the language of the tabernacle. The mount of the congregation in the sides of the North, is the camp of Dan, and is the seat of the judge, the camp of the table of show bread, the man made effigy of the hidden manna. The congregation is the camp of Gad, which means “assembly”, and is the camp of the South, the camp of the man made effigy of the resurrected lamp stand.

I do not say these things as though they are some new doctrine. These are not new things, nor hidden. If they are hidden, they are hidden to those who will not look. I say these things with one purpose in mind. To provoke free thinking. It is very easy to study the history of the ancient Pergamum, and learn how that the mother-son worship of the pagan deity Cybele, was brought from Pergamum to Rome, and the temple of Cybele, whom the Romans worshiped as the “Magna Mater” (the Great Mother). Her temple was built on the Palantine, one of the seven hills of the city on seven hills . Geographic Rome encompasses the city-state that is spiritual Pergamos, the church where Satan has his seat. Those who have faith in Jesus, and are laboring under the offenses of spiritual Pergamos, to over come, must get the thinking of the offenders out of their own thinking. The gifts of Christ in you, empower you to make captivity captive. For a man to sit on a chair and be worshiped as the “holy father”, is an abomination that makes desolate. There is one Holy Father. Not two. As a further consideration, one’s sheaf; one’s wheat; one’s bread, is one’s word. Jesus told Peter that Satan desired to have him, and sift him as wheat. Satan does not have Peter, but Satan has done a lot with Peter’s name, twisting Peter’s word and perverting it. Refer to the quote from Luke 10, cited above, and couple that with the admonition of Jesus, in the assemblies, to remember from whence they are fallen. They are fallen from His word. The foundation on which Christ’s church is built, which is His body, and not an organization,  is the Hidden Manna that is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is the revelation in the individual, from the Father, of the Son. If you believe Peter is the foundation, you are trapped in a myth. Paul did not say that he thanked God for revealing Peter in him. He said he thanked God for revealing His Son in him. Paul was careful to say, with an oath, that he received everything of God, from Christ, and not any man, including apostleship and teaching.

The Image of the “Magna Mater”  in an Austrian Cathedral

DOCTRINE OF BALAAM

Balaam, the son of Beor taught Balak, the king of Moab, to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, teaching them to fornicate with the women of Moab, and to particpate in eating the offerings sacrificed to the god of Moab, which was Baal worship, Baal is Baalzebub. Later, Solomon would magnify the folly, setting up images to Baal in the temple at Jerusalem. Though there was no curse or divination against the children of Israel, Balak employed a strategy that resulted in the children of Israel stumbling, by appealing to their base human nature, which is not a curse, but is as good as one. He got the idea from Balaam. Trickery, lying intrigues, and walking a thin line between outward piety and pursuit of personal gain, are trademarks of a “Balaam”. Judas Iscariot walked with the twelve, expressed outward rage when someone “wasted” wealth, and carried the purse, loving what was in it. He was a devil. He betrayed Jesus to the priests for money with a kiss. A “Balaam” loves to bend the rules a little. But with God, the end does not justify the means.

For all the wealth of knowledge to be gleaned from the accounts of the book of Numbers regarding Balaam, one stands out as a not so veiled warning to clergy, and clergy wanna-be’s.  Balaam rode upon a faithful animal. Once Balaam was setting out upon his perverse journey for gain, and since his way was perverse, the angel of the Lord stood in the way, drawn sword in hand. Three times, the animal, seeing the angel, turned from the way Balaam would lead her. Three times in anger, Balaam beat her with a stick. The Lord opened her mouth and she spoke. ( And realize that the Lord did not speak through the mouth of the animal…which is another myth. She spoke. Not until Christ came in flesh, would He be beaten with a stick):

“What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?”
“Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.”
“Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?”
“Nay”.
“Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face. And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me: And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive”.

The not so veiled warning, that a people ridden for personal gain, to a place even they have sense enough not to go, may encounter a discriminating adversary, sword in hand, ready to slay one, and spare the other. This too, is in spiritual Pergamos. Jesus warned against the hirelings, who do not care for the sheep. ( though they don’t mind selling a little fleece).

“…And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;…Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth….”

THE DOCTRINE OF THE NICOLITANS

Nicolaitans is a compound word, from “νῖκος” and “Λαοδικεύς”. The former, νῖκος, is “nikos” or to “utterly vanquish”. The latter, Λαοδικεύς, is “Laodikeus” or “a Laodicean, an inhabitant of Laodicea”. Laos , “λαός”, means a grouping of people.

Niko-Laity is absolutely no different than Clergy-Laity. It is the myth, the abominable myth, that the body of Christ is subdivided into Clergy and Laity. Hence, Nicolaitans, whose acts and teachings Jesus declares that He hates, is the ruling class subdivision in the mythological and false body of Christ, which they have divided into NIKOS or leaders, and LAOS or grouped followers. The word NICOLAITANS is the ruling class portion of the clergy-laity antichrist system.

Clergy is from the Greek “κλῆρος” (kleros). It is the exact word from which we have the English word “cleric” or “clergy”. The word “kleros” means to “cast lot”.

In the following verse, the term “cast lot” is κλῆρος.

“And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which  was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and  upon my vesture did they cast lots.”

Perceiving Christ to be dead, and not understanding  his resurrection, results in his garments being “clergied”. The collective cultus of clergy, are a body of individuals who presume to divide up among themselves, a power structure predicated upon the premise that Christ is dead and gone, but ignorant of the fact that he is come again in the power of the Spirit, not in a nucleus of clergy, but in each and every member of his body. This creates an obstruction, an impediment to the prospective overcomer, that in itself, must be overcome. Christian clergy so-called, differ nothing from the scribes and Pharisees pre-resurrection. The Spirit of Christ, which abides in every member, is the authority of the body. And it is by the Spirit that every member holds to the head.

The 133rd Psalm beautifully portrays the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit Who came. Psalm 133 shows the Spirit as over coming the linen garment of priest and clergy craft. In Psalm 133 you may see what you read in Col 2: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it”.

Psalm 133

[[A Song of degrees of David.]]

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”.

The anointing conjoins every part of the body , by the oil, to the head, bypassing the warp and weave of the linen garment. The order of Levi was replaced with a better.
You may read about it in the book of Hebrews.

To those in spiritual Pergamos, the same thing applies in overcoming, that applies in every assembly to which Christ speaks. Learn to identify the contrary things speaking in your midst, as testified to you by the Spirit, and get their thinking out of your head.

They Cast Their Crowns

From Isaiah 45:
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not
return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in  the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are
incensed against him shall be ashamed.

From Genesis 37:
And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated
him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his
brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream
which I have dreamed: For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose,  and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him,
What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

Psalm 2:
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set
themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed,
saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in
the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in
his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten  thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Revelation 4:
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one  sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.  And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round
about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and  they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth  for ever and ever, The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and
were created.

   Abram refused to take so much as a shoestring from the king of Sodom, by way of reward. After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou  hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came  unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou  be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he
counted it to him for righteousness.

After these things, the “birth right” was passed from father to son, by default, falling to the first born. The one precious seed who was to come, of course, was Christ. It is Christ who was to be, and is, the heir of all the promises of God. Esau, who was Isaac’s first born, and so, heir of the birthright and the blessing, despised and gave them up, to satisfy a momentary craving. Jacob, who obtained the birth right from Esau, by conspiracy and deceit, lost both, when the heir and seed Himself, appeared and was manifest in the flesh.

Esau refused to wait for it, Jacob handled it, and rejected it:

From John’s first epistle:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

From John’s gospel:
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

From Joseph’s sheaf and star, rejected of his brethren, to the Hebrews (the people) and the gentiles raging together in vanity before the  throne, and the Son on it, to the apostle John, declaring that all flesh, like that vain person Esau, has rejected the promise, to the throne of Revelation 4, The vision is clear. The world, though made by Him, did not know Him. The Hebrews (the people), though promised Him, ( I am thy  exceeding great reward), refused to receive Him, upon handling and examining Him. The promise nevertheless being sure, a people, as the stars of heaven, were born to the seed of Abraham. But not of  Abraham’s flesh, not to any blood line, nor of the will of any man. The heavenly nation of joint heirs, are the people born of God. For only they receive Him. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

In Revelation 4, you see Joseph’s dreams fulfilled, you see the oath of God of Isaiah 45 fulfilled, you see Psalm 2 revealed and fulfilled, you see the riddle of John’s gospel fulfilled. A people, neither Jew nor  gentile, yet co heirs of the power to become sons of God, and so, reveal how God Himself could be Abraham’s  reward.

The 24 seats of elders, round about the Christ, are the patriarchal tribes of Jacob, and the dukes of Edom (Esau) in abject prostration at the throne of the everlasting Father, the Son who overcame, and all who similarly over come, and are sat down together with the heir and firstborn. To that which they rejected, both in Esau, and later in Jacob, will they bow the knee and wag the tongue. Their sheaf, their word, their “crown” fell well short of the mark.

Find yourself standing upright in Joseph’s superior word and sheaf, find yourself seated together with the Son in Psalm 2, find yourself sitting upon the throne of Revelation 4, or forever resign yourself to what might have been. How do you “find” yourself in these? Faith. A flower without pollen, has no future. Recieve, in faith, power to become. Jesus said “I come quickly, and my reward is with me…”. When you received Him, you received your reward, according to all the promise of God to faithful Abram, “I am Thy exceeding great reward”, both now, and to come. For in the ages to come, your reward will be what you did with the reward you received when you believed on Christ, a measure containing the fullness.  Jesus did not say sit about idle, and wait for your reward. He said store up for yourself , YOU store up for yourself, treasure in heaven.

A crown that can be cast, is not a crown to be desired. It is an admission of error. If you believe the kingdom of God is administered through a system of elders, you are living in a myth. All the authority of the kingdom is on that one throne, and invested in them who by reason of over coming, beginning with the first born, sit with Him in it.

THE SECRET OF THE STAIRS, GENETICS TRANSFERED.

JUDE: “Lord , How is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”
JESUS: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

Isa 26:20
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

Sgs 2:14
O my dove,  in the clefts of the rock, in the secret of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Gen 28:12
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Jhn 1:51
And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

(from : http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/fig-wasp1.htm )

This link contains a very good interactive graphic that takes you through the complete, codependent life cycle of the fig and wasp:

When it comes to accidental insect consumption, any 12-year-old boy can set you straight: the black dots in bananas are tarantula eggs, three centipedes crawl into your mouth every night while you sleep, and, of course, fig bars are full of baby wasps. A simple Internet search easily puts two of these grade-school urban legends to rest. However, an inquiry into the world of figs turns up images that many people might find more than a little troubling: figs plants teaming with insects; fruit split open revealing hoards of small wasps. While these images may not be all that appetizing, there’s no reason to swear off figs quite yet. Those little insects are fig wasps, and they play an essential role in the fig’s life cycle as the plant’s only pollinator. That means that for pollen from one fig plant to reach another plant, fig wasps must do all the leg work. In return, the plant provides fig wasps with their only sources of food and shelter. This arrangement is called mutualism. Both plant and wasp depend on the arrangement to survive, and without one, you wouldn’t have the other. But what happens when it’s time to harvest the figs? Are the wasps still inside? Do the food companies scrape them out before they turn figs into jam? Or were the 12-year-olds right all along — are we really eating a mouthful of sweet baby wasp paste?

To really understand the wasp-eating dilemma associated with figs, you have to first look at the closely connected life cycles of both the plant and the insect. The current mutual relationship between the two didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of millions of years of evolution. The fig plant and the fig wasp both have the same goal: reproduction. For this to happen, a fig plant needs to share its genetic material (in the form of pollen) with another of its kind, and the fig wasp needs a place where its larva can grow and feed. Think of the fig wasp as a tenant, and the fig plant as a landlord who takes payment in the form of pollen. What we call a fig (a structure called the syconium) is more inverted flower than fruit, with all its reproductive parts located inside. After a female fig wasp flies over from the fig plant she emerged from, she must travel to the center of the syconium to lay her eggs. To get there, she climbs down through a narrow passage called the ostiole. The passage is so cramped that the tiny fig wasp loses her wings and antenna during her claustrophobic trek. Once inside, there’s no getting back out and flying to another plant — but is she in the right place?

Fig plants boast two kinds of figs: male caprifigs and female edible figs. If a female wasp enters a caprifig, she’ll find male flower parts that are perfectly shaped to hold the eggs she’ll eventually lay. The eggs will grow into larvae, which will develop into male and female wasps. After hatching, the blind, wingless male wasps will spend the remainder of their lives digging tunnels through the fig. The female wasps then emerge through these tunnels and fly off to find a new fig — carrying precious pollen with them. If a female fig wasp enters an edible fig, she eventually dies from exhaustion or starvation. The female flower parts include a long stylus that hinders her attempts to lay her eggs. She may die, but she succeeds in delivering the much-needed pollen first. So a fig farmer winds up with caprifigs full of wasp eggs and edible figs full of seeds. Though edible figs may not be filled with baby wasps, doesn’t this mean that these figs contain a lot of female wasps who died of loneliness? Read on to find out what (or whom) you’re munching on when you grab a fig treat.

Most commercially grown figs are pollinated by wasps. And yes, edible figs wind up with at least one dead female wasp inside. But it’s still not quite the childhood myth of fruits squirming with insect meat. It’s all part of the mutually beneficial relationship that exists between fig wasp and fig plant. A few points worth remembering about the wasp content:

1. When a female wasp dies inside an edible fig, an enzyme in the fig
called ficin breaks down her carcass into protein. The fig basically digests the dead insect, making it a part of the resulting ripened fruit. The crunchy bits in figs are seeds, not anatomical parts of a wasp.

2.  Fig farmers want to keep the number of wasps entering edible figs to an acceptable minimum. While the insect’s cooperation is mandatory for the fig to ripen, too many wasps entering will result in over-pollination. Then this fig might be filled with so many seeds that the fruit-like syconium bursts open. While this is good for the plant, it hurts the finished harvest for farmers. To prevent this, farmers separate male and female trees over great distances. Farmers also supply a controlled number of new wasps, often delivered in paper sacks, to dictate exactly how many females have access to a given plant. This means fewer wasps inside when the time comes to harvest.

In a day when there seems to be no secrecy, no sanctified place for the individual, where his or her thoughts are known to his or herself and God, all the more do the words of the proverb ring true, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”.( Proverb 4). There is a secret place of the Most High, expounded perfectly in Psalm 91. The Secret Place is in the relationship between the Father and the Son. To this fact does the apostle John boldly state that, truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

The disciples were once asked a question by Jesus:

“Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ?”

They gave a mixed bag of answers, consisting not of what each man thought of his own, but of what others were reported to say:

“And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus replied:

“But whom say ye that I am?”

Peter gave an answer, an answer seized upon and perverted, becoming the great snare and stumbling block in the age we live in:

“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus did not coerce this answer from Peter, He did not lead Peter into the answer, nor does He coerce or lead any of us into that answer, from that time until this. Jesus does, however, look for this answer. And finding the answer He looks for, Jesus said this:

“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Barjona means “son of Jonah”. Jonah means “Dove”. Peter (Stone) received via the Holy Spirit (Dove), the revelation of the foundation (rock, here from the word for “boulder”), Peter within himself, received the revelation, from the Father, by the Holy Spirit, of who the Son, Jesus, is. This revelation can not flesh and blood reveal, but ONLY the True, and Heavenly Father. Peter was no more the rock and foundation of the Church of the Living God, than was Jacob, who received, in essence, the same revelation in Luz, when he fled from Esau. Jacob poured oil upon the stones and pronounced them the “House of God”, he did not pour oil on himself. To Jacob, as to Peter, were revealed the Rock, the foundation which alone is laid of the Father, and other foundation  can no man lay. The resurrected Son of Man, Jesus Christ, is the foundation. The keys of the kingdom, given to Peter, as pertaining to the binding or loosing of things in heaven,or in earth, for Peter, went no further than Peter. The same is true for us. God is no respecter of persons. We must also receive of Christ, the same keys, and we must exercise the use of them. We are entering into a kingdom. We are not building , altering or tampering with it. We are given no power to include or exclude any from God. It is important to understand these things, and to dispel from the mind, any notion that the Lord has  replaced His own person and Self in the heart of any individual, with any “vicar” , or representative in absentia. Before his passion, the Lord said He would not leave us orphaned, but that He would come again unto us. On the full day of Pentecost, the Lord, who is as good as His word (and the only worthy of that saying) CAME.

The Lord had warned that the adversary desired to have Peter, and to sift Him as wheat…to make bread; teaching; doctrine of Him. The adversary has accomplished this, though Peter himself has no part in it, his name and experienced being fallaciously set upon by the usurper. The Lord has appointed no man on earth to be in His stead, or to be the vessel and repository of the bread of heaven. Peter is no more the foundation of the Body of Christ, than Christ is David’s son, or Mary is the mother of God (who has no mother). The Church was taken out of His own RESURRECTED body, and is flesh of His flesh…bone of His bone. That bread of heaven is Christ in you, the hidden manna Jesus promises the over comer, and the responsibility of threshing, winnowing, and eating, falls upon every disciple, as prophetically depicted in Matthew 12. Beware of anything that sits on a chair and claims to be the infallible word of the Lord, except that person be the Lord, and that chair be in you. Rightly divide the scripture of truth. Pluck, thresh, winnow, eat. Christ in you by faith, is the superior sheaf of Joseph, to which all other ideas will bow the knee.

The Gospel of John begins with the answer to Jude’s question concerning how the Lord reveals himself to the individual, and to ANY individual, who asks (numbers are no obstacle with God), and yet this goes unseen in the world:

  “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The revelation, in you, of who Christ is, is a conception. It is a conception of the very body of His resurrection. It is the power to become. It is the conception of a new man, and is the only man that will receive these things. Flesh and blood can not receive them. Not Abraham’s flesh, not Gentile flesh, not any flesh. This comes by the Father. It comes no other way. And lest any be deceived, Jesus emphasized to Peter , “My Father, which is in heaven” has revealed this to you. If simple common sense will not prevail, this saying alone, destroys any notion of a man sitting on a chair being anything akin the the Holy Father.

The question of the Revelation of Christ, and the Lord’s ways are beautifully set forth in the scriptures in places innumerable. But one of them may be searched out in an oft repeated saying, a saying that addresses both the revealings of God, and the manner in which He reveals:

“ In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.” (Zec 3)

The Godhead is depicted in Judges 9. A son of a concubine of Gideon, Abimelech, using intrigue and lies, conspires and has all the sons of Gideon, his half brothers, all free born of wives, murdered, and himself instilled and set up as king over his people. A concubine is a bond woman. Remember…no son of a bond woman may be heir together of the Promise, with the son of a free woman. This is a spiritual truth, and an immutable one. We MUST be born again. We MUST be born free.

One free son of Gideon survived. His name was Jotham… “Jehovah is Perfect”. This surviving son of many brethren, all heirs of their Father’s body, rebukes the usurper:

“Jotham went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheers God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.”

The bramble knows only one way to rule. Tear flesh. The Lord reigns differently, internally, and by revelation.

The Olive Tree gives the oil, Jesus said “I am the vine, (ye are the branches), which leaves the Fig. In Jesus dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily AND ye are complete in Him. Keep your heart with all diligence.

The Olive, the Vine (and your branch), and the Fig…a complete depiction of the garden of God. A secret place, not known to the world. Not seen of the world. Certainly not known among the kingdom of the Bramble.

It was under the Fig tree that Nathanael received the revelation of who Jesus is. Jesus told Nathanael that after this (revelation) that he, Nathanael, would see greater things:

“And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

I strongly encourage all to make a study of the fig. You will see written in it’s marvelous way, the fig wasp, as the messengers, from fig to fig, conveying the eternal nature, in secret.

Be encouraged. Take heart. The Spirit takes the things of the Father and the Son, and shows them to us. This is in order that we may be like Him. Remember that Gideon, when called, was threshing secretly by the wine press, to hide his activities from the Midianites, who were sent to oppress Israel because of their rebellion and unbelief. Midian means “strife”. You have a secret place of the Father, a Garden of God in your heart. Keep it. Strife  is not your inheritance, nor flesh tearing usurping sons of bondage. We are joint heirs with Christ.
Within the book of Ecclesiastes are found descriptions of the fact that we are bound, as the fetus is bound by the umbilical, to the body of flesh, and to the body of resurrection. Paul wrote of the body of resurrection, that it is fashioned like the glorified body of Jesus. That it is sown in this vessel of humiliation, but that what is raised is not what is sown. He wrote that it is (by faith) not afar off, but in you now, saying that if at what moment this tent (of flesh) were dissolved, we have (present tense) a house (a body) eternal in the heavens.

Ecclesiastes 12 defines the loosing of the ties to the carnal house:

“…man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: the silver cord is loosed,  the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher is broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

By these is the spirit bound to the flesh, the silver cord, the golden bowl, the wheel.

Ecclesiastes 4 defines another sort of cord:

“…Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Paul also expounds the threefold cord…that which binds us to the Lord within us, that which is not quickly broken, spilled out, or left at the well:

“…When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abide faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” (1 Corinthians 13)

The composition of this cord is unseen, but is more substantial than what is seen. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Heb 11,Rom 8)

I am not a builder. I am a rester. I believe God. I believe Jesus.  I accept that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give to the little flock, the kingdom which is His own. I accept and believe that Jesus has accomplished all, and that I enter into HIS rest by faith.

I reject the council of the adversary, sent to try King Hezekiah, and the people, saying:

“Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern: Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.”

There is no land “like” the kingdom of God that interests me in the least. The world and everything in it, have no place in Christ, and I want no place in them. In this time of every thought, word and deed becoming part of the public domain, I will (by the grace of God) remain hid (encrypted) with Christ in God. The body of Christ is not a Borg-like collective…it is a company of individuals. I have no problem fellowshipping with my brethren, But the world has no right to any message from me, save the words, “Repent toward God”. “Believe Jesus and live”. In their last days, the Hebrews judged themselves unworthy of life. They rejected the Son.

The plagues and judgments of the Great Whore of Revelation, are being poured out and drunk deeply now. Organized “Christianity” is in the same state the Hebrews were in , in their last days, resisting the Holy Ghost, embracing a lie.

To stand, to over come, is accomplished as an individual.

The Lord bless and keep all who seek Him in Truth.
THE SECRET OF THE STAIRS, GENETICS TRANSFERED.

JUDE: “Lord , How is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”
JESUS: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

Isa 26:20

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

Sgs 2:14
O my dove,  in the clefts of the rock, in the secret of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Gen 28:12
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Jhn 1:51
And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

(from : http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/fig-wasp1.htm )
This link contains a very good interactive graphic that takes you through the complete, codependent life cycle of the fig and wasp:

When it comes to accidental insect consumption, any 12-year-old boy can set you straight: the black dots in bananas are tarantula eggs, three centipedes crawl into your mouth every night while you sleep, and, of course, fig bars are full of baby wasps. A simple Internet search easily puts two of these grade-school urban legends to rest. However, an inquiry into the world of figs turns up images that many people might find more than a little troubling: figs plants teaming with insects; fruit split open revealing hoards of small wasps. While these images may not be all that appetizing, there’s no reason to swear off figs quite yet. Those little insects are fig wasps, and they play an essential role in the fig’s life cycle as the plant’s only pollinator. That means that for pollen from one fig plant to reach another plant, fig wasps must do all the leg work. In return, the plant provides fig wasps with their only sources of food and shelter. This arrangement is called mutualism. Both plant and wasp depend on the arrangement to survive, and without one, you wouldn’t have the other. But what happens when it’s time to harvest the figs? Are the wasps still inside? Do the food companies scrape them out before they turn figs into jam? Or were the 12-year-olds right all along — are we really eating a mouthful of sweet baby wasp paste?

To really understand the wasp-eating dilemma associated with figs, you have to first look at the closely connected life cycles of both the plant and the insect. The current mutual relationship between the two didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of millions of years of evolution. The fig plant and the fig wasp both have the same goal: reproduction. For this to happen, a fig plant needs to share its genetic material (in the form of pollen) with another of its kind, and the fig wasp needs a place where its larva can grow and feed. Think of the fig wasp as a tenant, and the fig plant as a landlord who takes payment in the form of pollen. What we call a fig (a structure called the syconium) is more inverted flower than fruit, with all its reproductive parts located inside. After a female fig wasp flies over from the fig plant she emerged from, she must travel to the center of the syconium to lay her eggs. To get there, she climbs down through a narrow passage called the ostiole. The passage is so cramped that the tiny fig wasp loses her wings and antenna during her claustrophobic trek. Once inside, there’s no getting back out and flying to another plant — but is she in the right place?

Fig plants boast two kinds of figs: male caprifigs and female edible figs. If a female wasp enters a caprifig, she’ll find male flower parts that are perfectly shaped to hold the eggs she’ll eventually lay. The eggs will grow into larvae, which will develop into male and female wasps. After hatching, the blind, wingless male wasps will spend the remainder of their lives digging tunnels through the fig. The female wasps then emerge through these tunnels and fly off to find a new fig — carrying precious pollen with them. If a female fig wasp enters an edible fig, she eventually dies from exhaustion or starvation. The female flower parts include a long stylus that hinders her attempts to lay her eggs. She may die, but she succeeds in delivering the much-needed pollen first. So a fig farmer winds up with caprifigs full of wasp eggs and edible figs full of seeds. Though edible figs may not be filled with baby wasps, doesn’t this mean that these figs contain a lot of female wasps who died of loneliness? Read on to find out what (or whom) you’re munching on when you grab a fig treat.

Most commercially grown figs are pollinated by wasps. And yes, edible figs wind up with at least one dead female wasp inside. But it’s still not quite the childhood myth of fruits squirming with insect meat. It’s all part of the mutually beneficial relationship that exists between fig wasp and fig plant. A few points worth remembering about the wasp content:

1. When a female wasp dies inside an edible fig, an enzyme in the fig
called ficin breaks down her carcass into protein. The fig basically digests the dead insect, making it a part of the resulting ripened fruit. The crunchy bits in figs are seeds, not anatomical parts of a wasp.

2.  Fig farmers want to keep the number of wasps entering edible figs to an acceptable minimum. While the insect’s cooperation is mandatory for the fig to ripen, too many wasps entering will result in over-pollination. Then this fig might be filled with so many seeds that the fruit-like syconium bursts open. While this is good for the plant, it hurts the finished harvest for farmers. To prevent this, farmers separate male and female trees over great distances. Farmers also supply a controlled number of new wasps, often delivered in paper sacks, to dictate exactly how many females have access to a given plant. This means fewer wasps inside when the time comes to harvest.

In a day when there seems to be no secrecy, no sanctified place for the individual, where his or her thoughts are known to his or herself and God, all the more do the words of the proverb ring true, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”.( Proverb 4). There is a secret place of the Most High, expounded perfectly in Psalm 91. The Secret Place is in the relationship between the Father and the Son. To this fact does the apostle John boldly state that, truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

The disciples were once asked a question by Jesus:

“Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ?”

They gave a mixed bag of answers, consisting not of what each man thought of his own, but of what others were reported to say:

“And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus replied:

“But whom say ye that I am?”

Peter gave an answer, an answer seized upon and perverted, becoming the great snare and stumbling block in the age we live in:

“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus did not coerce this answer from Peter, He did not lead Peter into the answer, nor does He coerce or lead any of us into that answer, from that time until this. Jesus does, however, look for this answer. And finding the answer He looks for, Jesus said this:

“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Barjona means “son of Jonah”. Jonah means “Dove”. Peter (Stone) received via the Holy Spirit (Dove), the revelation of the foundation (rock, here from the word for “boulder”), Peter within himself, received the revelation, from the Father, by the Holy Spirit, of who the Son, Jesus, is. This revelation can not flesh and blood reveal, but ONLY the True, and Heavenly Father. Peter was no more the rock and foundation of the Church of the Living God, than was Jacob, who received, in essence, the same revelation in Luz, when he fled from Esau. Jacob poured oil upon the stones and pronounced them the “House of God”, he did not pour oil on himself. To Jacob, as to Peter, were revealed the Rock, the foundation which alone is laid of the Father, and other foundation  can no man lay. The resurrected Son of Man, Jesus Christ, is the foundation. The keys of the kingdom, given to Peter, as pertaining to the binding or loosing of things in heaven,or in earth, for Peter, went no further than Peter. The same is true for us. God is no respecter of persons. We must also receive of Christ, the same keys, and we must exercise the use of them. We are entering into a kingdom. We are not building , altering or tampering with it. We are given no power to include or exclude any from God. It is important to understand these things, and to dispel from the mind, any notion that the Lord has  replaced His own person and Self in the heart of any individual, with any “vicar” , or representative in absentia. Before his passion, the Lord said He would not leave us orphaned, but that He would come again unto us. On the full day of Pentecost, the Lord, who is as good as His word (and the only worthy of that saying) CAME.

The Lord had warned that the adversary desired to have Peter, and to sift Him as wheat…to make bread; teaching; doctrine of Him. The adversary has accomplished this, though Peter himself has no part in it, his name and experienced being fallaciously set upon by the usurper. The Lord has appointed no man on earth to be in His stead, or to be the vessel and repository of the bread of heaven. Peter is no more the foundation of the Body of Christ, than Christ is David’s son, or Mary is the mother of God (who has no mother). The Church was taken out of His own RESURRECTED body, and is flesh of His flesh…bone of His bone. That bread of heaven is Christ in you, the hidden manna Jesus promises the over comer, and the responsibility of threshing, winnowing, and eating, falls upon every disciple, as prophetically depicted in Matthew 12. Beware of anything that sits on a chair and claims to be the infallible word of the Lord, except that person be the Lord, and that chair be in you. Rightly divide the scripture of truth. Pluck, thresh, winnow, eat. Christ in you by faith, is the superior sheaf of Joseph, to which all other ideas will bow the knee.

The Gospel of John begins with the answer to Jude’s question concerning how the Lord reveals himself to the individual, and to ANY individual, who asks (numbers are no obstacle with God), and yet this goes unseen in the world:

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The revelation, in you, of who Christ is, is a conception. It is a conception of the very body of His resurrection. It is the power to become. It is the conception of a new man, and is the only man that will receive these things. Flesh and blood can not receive them. Not Abraham’s flesh, not Gentile flesh, not any flesh. This comes by the Father. It comes no other way. And lest any be deceived, Jesus emphasized to Peter , “My Father, which is in heaven” has revealed this to you. If simple common sense will not prevail, this saying alone, destroys any notion of a man sitting on a chair being anything akin the the Holy Father.

The question of the Revelation of Christ, and the Lord’s ways are beautifully set forth in the scriptures in places innumerable. But one of them may be searched out in an oft repeated saying, a saying that addresses both the revealings of God, and the manner in which He reveals:

“ In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.” (Zec 3)

The Godhead is depicted in Judges 9. A son of a concubine of Gideon, Abimelech, using intrigue and lies, conspires and has all the sons of Gideon, his half brothers, all free born of wives, murdered, and himself instilled and set up as king over his people. A concubine is a bond woman. Remember…no son of a bond woman may be heir together of the Promise, with the son of a free woman. This is a spiritual truth, and an immutable one. We MUST be born again. We MUST be born free.

One free son of Gideon survived. His name was Jotham… “Jehovah is Perfect”. This surviving son of many brethren, all heirs of their Father’s body, rebukes the usurper:

“Jotham went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheers God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.”

The bramble knows only one way to rule. Tear flesh. The Lord reigns differently, internally, and by revelation.

The Olive Tree gives the oil, Jesus said “I am the vine, (ye are the branches), which leaves the Fig. In Jesus dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily AND ye are complete in Him. Keep your heart with all diligence.

The Olive, the Vine (and your branch), and the Fig…a complete depiction of the garden of God. A secret place, not known to the world. Not seen of the world. Certainly not known among the kingdom of the Bramble.

It was under the Fig tree that Nathanael received the revelation of who Jesus is. Jesus told Nathanael that after this (revelation) that he, Nathanael, would see greater things:

“And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

I strongly encourage all to make a study of the fig. You will see written in it’s marvelous way, the fig wasp, as the messengers, from fig to fig, conveying the eternal nature, in secret.

Be encouraged. Take heart. The Spirit takes the things of the Father and the Son, and shows them to us. This is in order that we may be like Him. Remember that Gideon, when called, was threshing secretly by the wine press, to hide his activities from the Midianites, who were sent to oppress Israel because of their rebellion and unbelief. Midian means “strife”. You have a secret place of the Father, a Garden of God in your heart. Keep it. Strife  is not your inheritance, nor flesh tearing usurping sons of bondage. We are joint heirs with Christ.
Within the book of Ecclesiastes are found descriptions of the fact that we are bound, as the fetus is bound by the umbilical, to the body of flesh, and to the body of resurrection. Paul wrote of the body of resurrection, that it is fashioned like the glorified body of Jesus. That it is sown in this vessel of humiliation, but that what is raised is not what is sown. He wrote that it is (by faith) not afar off, but in you now, saying that if at what moment this tent (of flesh) were dissolved, we have (present tense) a house (a body) eternal in the heavens.

Ecclesiastes 12 defines the loosing of the ties to the carnal house:

“…man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: the silver cord is loosed,  the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher is broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

By these is the spirit bound to the flesh, the silver cord, the golden bowl, the wheel.

Ecclesiastes 4 defines another sort of cord:

“…Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Paul also expounds the threefold cord…that which binds us to the Lord within us, that which is not quickly broken, spilled out, or left at the well:

“…When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abide faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” (1 Corinthians 13)

The composition of this cord is unseen, but is more substantial than what is seen. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Heb 11,Rom 8)

I am not a builder. I am a rester. I believe God. I believe Jesus.  I accept that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give to the little flock, the kingdom which is His own. I accept and believe that Jesus has accomplished all, and that I enter into HIS rest by faith.

I reject the council of the adversary, sent to try King Hezekiah, and the people, saying:

“Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern: Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.”

There is no land “like” the kingdom of God that interests me in the least. The world and everything in it, have no place in Christ, and I want no place in them. In this time of every thought, word and deed becoming part of the public domain, I will (by the grace of God) remain hid (encrypted) with Christ in God. I have no problem fellowshipping with my brethren. But the world has no right to any message from me, save the words, “Repent toward God”. “Believe Jesus and live”. In their last days, the Hebrews judged themselves unworthy of life. They rejected the Son.

The plagues and judgments of the Great Whore of Revelation, are being poured out and drunk deeply now. Christiandom is in the same state the Hebrews were in , in their last days, resisting the Holy Ghost, embracing a lie.

To stand, to over come, is accomplished as an individual.

The Lord bless and keep all who seek Him in Truth.

Triumph-Conquering the Conquerors

Jesus once rebuked religious authority thusly:

“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in”.

Three things bear defining. The origin of the word “clergy”. The meaning of the term “wandering stars”. The meaning of the word “Nicolaitan”.

1.  Clergy is from the Greek “κλῆρος” (kleros). It is the exact word from which we have the English word “cleric” or “clergy”.
     The word “kleros” means to “cast lot”.

     In the following verse, the term “cast lot” is κλῆρος.

    “And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which  was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and   upon my vesture did they cast lots.”

Perceiving Christ to be dead, and not understanding  his resurrection, results in his garments being “clergied”. The collective cultus of clergy, are a body of individuals who presume to divide up among themselves, a power structure predicated upon the premise that Christ is dead and gone, but ignorant of the fact that he is come again in the power of the Spirit, not in a nucleus of clergy, but in each and every member of his body. This creates an obstruction, an impediment to the prospective overcomer, that in itself, must be overcome. Christian clergy so-called, differ nothing from the scribes and Pharisees pre-resurrection.

2.  Nicolaitans is a compound word, from “νῖκος” and “Λαοδικεύς”. The former, νῖκος, is “nikos” or to “utterly vanquish”. The latter, Λαοδικεύς, is “Laodikeus” or “a Laodicean, an inhabitant of Laodicea”. Laos , “λαός”, means a grouping of people.

Hence, Nicolaitans, whose acts and teachings Jesus declares that He hates, is the ruling class subdivision in the mythological and false body of Christ, which they have divided into NIKOS or leaders, and LAOS or grouped followers. The word NICOLAITANS is the ruling class portion of the clergy-laity antichrist system. The entire scenario is culminated in the message to the Laodiceans of Rev 3. The assembly whose leadership has them convinced that they have everything, and need nothing more.But Christ says they are miserable,wretched, poor, blind and NAKED. The clergy believe they are clothed with the vacated authority and office of Christ, and that they therefore provide covering for “the people”. All that this is, is exactly conveyed in the child’s story of “The King’s New Clothes”, where the beginnings of overcoming, are to see the nakedness of the king. Paul the apostle said “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ”. Jesus says the same to the Laodiceans in Rev 3, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see”.

( Now, I do not say here, that everyone mired in the antichrist system, is irrevocably part of it. There is a reason that the Lord says to the Babylon system, “Come out of her MY PEOPLE”.)

3. Wandering Stars is from the Greek “πλανήτης”, or “planētēs”, which is “planets”. Planetes means “wanderer”.  The planets, to ancient observers were believed to be stars, because they look like a star. But unlike other stars, these wanderers did not remain fixed in the panorama of the night sky. Instead, they appeared to be able to seasonally move themselves about. This gave them an appearance of being special, and of being messengers. The planets, of course, are not stars at all, but are reflectors of light, and not generators. They, not being stars, can not be associated with any heavenly message written in the stars, and to read the heavenly message, one must learn to disassociate the false, attention getting wanderers, from the true fixed message that these vagabonds falsely attempt to inject themselves into.

Why these definitions? In the book of Jude, a preclude to the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Jude identifies certain men in the midst of gatherings as “wandering stars”. Jesus , in the book of the Revelation, identifies certain men’s doings and teachings as something he hates, and therefore must be overcome. When Jesus ascended on high, he gave gifts to every member of the body of Christ. Gifts in Himself, in heavenly places, to be entered into. Jesus did not relinquish His preeminence in all things, nor His right as firstborn and heir of all things. In His body, every member holds to the head. The very word “overcomer” of Rev 2 and 3, means to vanquish the vanquishers. It is what the gifts of His resurrection do. They enable us to make captivity captive, as He did. Jesus, because He dwells in an individual by His Spirit, and in faith, has removed all power and principality, and has triumphed over it, where you are concerned, making an open show of it, or revealing it for what it is…they who do not enter, nor suffer others to. These are they who do ALWAYS resist the Hoy Ghost, and were were the betrayers and murderers of the Just One.

                                                             Colossians 2

For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and [for] them at Laodicea, and [for] as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;
That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him:
Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
[And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]:
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
(Touch not; taste not; handle not;
Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.