HEAVEN'S DESCENDERS

(Part 1)

#136.01

"And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man" (John 3:13 NASB).

We hear much today about ascending into heaven, going to heaven, caught up to heaven, raptured into the clouds of heaven, and living forever in heaven. Not much is said, however, about descending from the Elysian fields of heaven, and we can see why. With the final goal being the everlasting paradise of heaven for practically every believer, most would not embrace the idea of ever leaving it, regardless of what their belief might be about that long-sought-after place. It would be a disturbing thought, to say the least; for the only one they can recall who ever "descended" from heaven was the infamous Satan and his marauding angels. This idea is so riveted to their minds that anyone or anything that leaves heaven will be forever lost and doomed to eternal damnation. Such a mind-set of the devil descending headlong from heaven, of course, is the result of traditional doctrines which were extrapolated from Isaiah 14:11-16, Ezekiel 28:12-19, Luke 10:18, and Revelation 12:7-9.

We could spend untold hours and print countless volumes exposing the error of those age-old myths; but suffice it to say: Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 speak of two men, the king of Babylon and the king of Tyrus. These two areas of scripture are not referring to Satan at all -- but to specific men. In the spiritual sense, each king could be typified as Adam. He fits all the criteria listed; particularly, he was in the Heaven of Eden's Garden and was cast out when he said in his heart, "I will...."

The context of Luke 10 shows clearly that Satan's fall from heaven as lightning did not occur during some distance eon of the past; but it was at the very time when He saw by the Spirit the 70 casting out demons in His name. Satan lost his hold, he lost his footing, he lost his power, he lost his kingdom in those people's lives -- and he fell from heaven as quickly as a flash of lightning. That is how quick any spiritual battle is won in the name of Jesus Christ. If they are not won with such speed, then we have to wonder if they are truly being fought in the name of Jesus.

Revelation 12, of course, speaks not of the past, but just the opposite. The whole course of the book is set to what would transpire AFTER John received the Revelation. None of these passages refer to a pre-adamic war between God and Satan. Moreover, enough has already been said and printed by me, as well as many others, that it should no longer be necessary to expound upon the obvious. Therefore, dispensing with those spurious thoughts of Satan having been cast out of heaven many thousands of years ago, we will see if we can ascend to the heights of the heavens and then descend from the same.

DESCEND FROM HEAVEN

The first time the Hebrew word, yarad, is used, from which comes to descend or to come down, is in Genesis 11:5. This was after men were building the tower to heaven, and the Lord came down (descended) to see the city and tower the children of men were building. He then descended, confused their tongues, and scattered them upon the face of the earth (Gen 11:6-9).

Yarad is used throughout the scriptures, and generally speaks of moving from a higher position to a lower one, such as when water descends in a river, a person descends a stairway or makes his descent from a mountain. There is no great significance in most of the verses where the word is used in a generalized manner. It merely indicates a move from a higher place to a lower one. However, when it is used in reference to God, His messengers, or other things from heaven, the descent always affects the earth in some way or another. The affects can be profoundly severe, leaving individuals and nations shaken to the core, or they can come as unbridled blessings, ushering them into wonders unknown.

God's descent can come as a voice. Very often it will announce marvelous promises which affect the hearer by building faith that will stand against all odds. For instance, a promise was given to Jacob when "...he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the ⁽¹⁾angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring" (Gen 28:12-13). Joseph, a type of Jesus, descended into Egypt, and his going down blessed the whole world. "And Joseph was brought down (yarad) to Egypt..." (Gen 39:1). We need not recount his many trying years as a slave and a prisoner; we know the story well. Due to his descent -- the whole world was saved, even those who crucified him, as it were.

Jesus, likewise, descended from His Father's house and into a hostile environment, as our text verse relates. And the whole world was, is, an shall be saved because of Him losing his freedom and descending into death. Joseph and Jesus are only two examples of how the descent of the Holy affects the world. And it is in this that we will see the importance of holy things leaving that realm. Frankly, if those things relative to the holy heavens of God never descend, there will never be a change in the world. It will only get worse due to the law of sin and death, but it will never get better. Therefore, our thoughts should not be so much on going to heaven, but leaving it.

There is no great evil, of course, to desire heaven and all it has to offer. That has been every man's quest since the days of Adam's fall; but once the Kingdom of heaven is embraced, we may have to leave the comfort of that blissful place. Yet, when we do leave, we take it with us. That is what Adam failed to do. Rather than taking the Kingdom of the Garden with him into the world, and subduing it thereby, he was subdued by the world.

Nevertheless, once we know where we sit, and the time of thunder comes, it is then that we will bring heaven to earth and make a difference. When our work comes to an end, when we have finished our course, regardless of how obscure and meaningless it may appear, our hearts will echo as a single voice -- "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me; and they have kept Thy word." (John 17:5-6).

When heaven's hosts descend to the earth, it can be traumatic to those upon whom it descends as well as the descenders. Joseph descended into Egypt and suffered greatly, and during the time Jesus graced this earth and shook the world, He suffered greatly (Heb 2:18, Heb 5:8, Heb 13:12). Yes, indeed, the sons of God shall know what it is to descend and to suffer; for the world, especially the religious world, does not want them coming down. They have trees cut, crosses hewn, spikes forged, and all are made ready for any New Man from heaven who wishes to invade their dark kingdoms.

I can tell you with all assurance, my friends, the more you descend into the earth, the more you will suffer reproach and bleed. Even right now there are some who would kill you if they could. And that should be no great surprise; for you have threatened their welfare by descending into their world. You have shaken and set on fire their little mountains, and they don't like it. Moreover, once you descend into the depth of their very being, into to the core and caverns of their base minds and dark souls -- they will rise with all the fury of hell against you.

There will be no just cause for their waves of hatred, threats, and lies. Your presence alone will be enough, and the more you love them, the more they will hate and try to kill you. Some of you already know this, and you are left bewildered at the madness of it all. Your every attempt to reason with them has failed, and nothing you can say or do will calm the storm. Where a soft word once turned away wrath, it only enrages it.

It must be clear by now that this is a spiritual war, one on one, and such an enemy will not relent. But the day will come when there will be a mass assault upon the sons of God, and please be assured -- if we cannot run today with the footmen, how then can we contend with the horses? (Jer 12:5). If, however, we are not wearied with the individual footmen in our lives, and we rise to the occasion and cast the serpent out of those little hills and rout out the demons of their heavens, we shall do well in that great day when the dragon and all his angels are cast out. Yet, we must know that the greatest victory comes in casting them out of our own heavens, especially the dragon of religion and the demons of dogma. It is then that salvation, and power, and the authority of Christ in His Kingdom will forever be known. It is then that we can descend into the earth and move mountains.

Once our heavens are made secure, once the dragon and his hoards have no longer a seat of authority, we who ascended to the throne can then descend and shake the earth. Our presence will ignite everything that can be kindled. The mountains of men -- flesh, carnality, humanism, legalism, and all the rest -- shall burn and tremble in the presence of Heaven's Descenders, God's Holy Angels. We can see it as being akin to mount Sinai when the LORD descended upon it:

"And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly....and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness" (Exo 19:18, Deut 4:11).

When our God in any form or fashion descends upon the mountain of man -- there is a great change! It disrupts foundations and kingdoms fall. It ignites the weeds, the grass, the straw, as well as wood, hay, and stubble, not to mention all the trees of the field. Every phase and facet of man burns. The whole lump goes up in smoke, leaving nothing but charred mountains of ashes and valleys laden over with rubble. The kingdoms of men become extinct when heaven's holy host descends. None can stand in their presence!

"Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for My decision is to gather the nations, to draw together the kingdoms, TO POUR upon them My indignation, even all My fierce anger. For all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My zeal. Yea, then will I turn unto the people a pure language (a living word of ever increasing revelation and uncontaminated by human touch or tradition), that they may call upon the Lord, to serve Him with one consent" (Zeph. 3:8-9).

The descending (pouring forth) of indignation and fierce anger is far from passive. It is not as the sons have been in the past, as a gentle rain, a chiding spark, or flickering flame -- no -- not by any means! It is a raging inferno of force, of intense judgments, as one of our dear friends so masterfully related:

"This 'fire of God's zeal' is...a forcible one -- representing the intensity of the judgmental dealings of God which shall involve the whole world system. It is not a literal fire, as some suppose. It is evident from the fact that the people remain after it, and are blessed! 'For all the earth shall be devoured by the fire of My zeal. Then will I turn unto the people a pure language, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent.' That the people who remain after this devouring fire are not the saints or the elect is evident from the fact that they are then turned to serve the Lord, whereas the saints are turned (converted) already. This time of burning was foreseen by the prophets as the great and terrible day of the Lord when the earth would quake, the heavens tremble, the sun become dark, and the stars withdraw their shining. It would be a day, said the prophet, when 'a fire devoureth,' and 'a flame burneth.' Over and over again the prophets used the word fire.

"Many times in the Bible the word 'fire' is not the fire of combustion as we commonly know it. The scripture teaches that God uses fire as a cleansing and purifying agent. When we read that the Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire, we do not suppose these were literal fires singeing the hair of those upon whom they sat, but rather, a representation of the character of the Holy Spirit coming in power to cleanse, purify and transform. Certainly it will be a fire of judgment upon the world. However, it will be not only a fire of judgment but a fire of cleansing and purification. The process of change that will produce the new heavens and the new earth is seen in these words: 'Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness....'

"It is remarkable that two thousand years ago a divinely inspired writer should have used the term dissolve, which has become suddenly laden with modern meaning through contemporary science. Dissolved was the same word Jesus used when Lazarus stood before Him in front of his burial tomb, bound in grave clothes. Jesus said, 'Loose him, and let him go' (Jn. 11:34). Dissolved and loose are both translated from the same Greek word, luo, and when this world 'shall be dissolved' it shall be loosed from its grave clothes of fear, ignorance, disease, poverty, sorrow, bondage and death. The whole creation shall be let go into a new and glorious state of existence.

"Every one of us has dissolved a tablet in a glass of water. What took place? The tablet disappeared, loosed from its solid form, but it was not destroyed. Instead of a solid, it became a liquid. It changed its appearance but not its substance. It assumed another form of existence. Some such dissolving as this will take place in both the heavens and the earth -- the spiritual and the natural realms -- not destruction or extinction, but a change into new forms, conditions, and occurrences. The Lord declares, 'Behold, I make all things new' (Rev 21:5). God will do this by means of fire. This leads us to ask these questions: Why a new heavens and a new earth? Why fire? Why judgment? Why cataclysmic change? Why not instead of these things the continuation of human progress producing a golden age?

"The answer lies in the fact that sin and death cannot be destroyed by any scientific process. Just as God sent Jesus to redeem His body and prepare the vast family of the sons of God, so there must be another divine event to end evil in the world. Jesus came with His gospel of grace to build His church, but the sons of God will come with their rule of authority and power to conquer the nations of the earth. The new heavens and earth will emerge from a world on fire. Every vestige of sin, rebellion and corruption must be destroyed. All of society with its various institutions must be purified. Every aspect of the primeval curse must be obliterated. The world must be let loose and freed from the restrictions and limitations imposed upon it by the curse of sin and death. There must be a universal riddance of the rule of the carnal mind and nature, so that no handicaps are carried over into the structure and composition of the new world. Praise God! 'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever'" (1 John 2:17). -- J. Preston Eby, The Heavens Declare, Part 27)

After being caught up to God, even His throne, and the dragon and his host see that they are cast out, the ascended sons of the Kingdom will then descend upon the earth. With this the world will quake and burn with fire.

After a time the remainder of the saints, those who fled into the wilderness, will know great conflict from the dragon and the nations, whether outwardly or inwardly. Try as they may, however, there will be no victory for those enemies of God's Kingdom; for once more the Lord shall descend from heaven in the form of fire. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire ⁽²⁾came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them" (Rev 20:9).

Dear brethren of the heavenly calling, we have all our lives been trying to ascend to heaven, not knowing we are already seated there in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6, Col 3:1). The time is ripe to descend, and we shall do exactly that when our thinking shifts from carnal to spiritual, from expectation to reality. There is one thing for sure; until we know where we sit, until we know that we have already ascended -- it will be impossible to descend. For how can one descend from something they have no idea that they are in. They cannot descend from a place they are doing everything in their might to get into. With all honesty, our mind-set must change; however, it is not likely to happen until we awake in that glorious day which was finished from the foundation of the world. Once the shift in thinking does come, war will surely break out; for the rulers of darkness in the heavens will be alerted to the immediate danger. But let the war come, for that is one of the purposes of our being in that high place, and it will be won, hands down. The dragon and his angels will be cast out. And sometime following that momentous victory, that age-old enemy, along with all who are aligned with him, will go up against the camp of God. But when that surge is initiated, we shall descend upon them in flaming fire (Rev 20:7-9).

There is another place where it is written that speaks of ascending and descending. It is when Israel's rebellious king Azaziah sent one of his captains with fifty men to go up to a man of God and compel him to come down. The king's men went up; but what came down was not God's man -- it was His FIRE!

"Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him: and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty" (2 Kings 1:9-12).

This happened twice, and only the third time, when the captain humbled himself before Elijah, confessed him to be a man of God, and begged for mercy, was his life and the lives of the fifty spared. It was then that the angel of the Lord spoke and told the man of God to go down with the captain to the king (verse 15). And by the word of the Lord which Elijah spoke, king Azaziah who had first inquired of Baalzebub, died of his injuries. God's descending fire and prophet consumed men and disposed of a king.

It is a fearful thing for anyone, other than the saints, to go up to God without going the right Way (in Jesus). If they do, violently or otherwise, it will not be without meeting something coming down; namely -- Godfire!

"And I saw an angel come down (katabaino, descend) from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season" (Rev 20:1-3). An angel, of course, speaks of one with a message, but more than that, it speaks of a ministry, especially the ministry of a corporate body of people. Both, the ministry of people and the message they carry, are angels. Their presence and their message will strengthen the saints while weakening the adversary. That is the nature of their word.

If, however, the angel should abide always in heaven, never descending, the people would not profit and the dragon would always have a firm foundation. He would never be chained and cast into the bottomless pit with a seal set upon him. And we should know, of course, that this pit is not a deep hole in the ground, as some believe; for regardless of a natural hole's depth in the earth, there will always be a bottom. This pit speaks of that which is spiritual, not natural. It signifies a condition where there is no bottom; namely, NO GROUND TO STAND ON. It matters not of how deep into the soul the adversary plumbs, his search will be fruitless, he will find no footing.

Satan was given ground in man when God said to him, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (Gen 3:14). But now, at the dawning of this Day, the days of his life are numbered, as he is cast out of the heavens of every son. That which he was given to eat and to move upon with his appetite -- dust -- will be history and so will be his power of influence. Without dust, you see, he has nothing whatsoever to feed upon, crawl over, or tempt. With this victory made sure, every son will say, as their Lord before them, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me!" The dragon will have no place to set his foot. While he is weak and infirm, the victors have a sure foundation. The Sons of God will stand strong, never wavering. His living within our tabernacles is what gives us our firm place to stand. Otherwise, we, like the dragon, would also be in a pit with no bottom. Where satan, the serpent, the dragon, the devil has nothing but dust as a foundation -- we have JESUS CHRIST, THE ROCK, THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE, THE SURE FOUNDATION!

Paul wrote something of this when he penned: "...That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' (I Tim 3:15). We see here that His house, the church, who are His people, is where we are grounded in truth. In this truth is where we stand firm like a pillar in the Temple of God.

I am reminded again of what Brother Eby wrote quite some time ago. He conveyed the thought that THE HOUSE OF GOD IS WHERE GOD LIVES, WHERE HE RESTS, WHERE HE IS AT HOME, which is in HIS PEOPLE! It is in you and me, brothers and sisters. Our Lord is comfortable living in His home, and we are comfortable living with Him in the same place. It is being one with Him in this house that God built which enables us to, likewise, be FAR ABOVE ALL HEAVENS. With all power and authority, He rules OVER everything in each of them. And with us being one with Him, we cast out the dragon from our home, the house of God, His church.

Some, of course, still view Babylon as the church. However, with only a fragment of understanding, it is easily seen that the church is not the religious systems of the world. The true church is a body of living people. The true church is not only the house of God; but it is also the pillar and ground of the truth. And we should know by now that truth does not mean doctrine. Truth is not what we believe about a thing. The truth is the very fact of the thing itself. Truth is the substance of God. It simply means reality. Truth is eternal. Truth will never fade or pass away. The fact is, there is nothing real in the entire universe. Nothing tangible is truth. Everything is but a shadow. Nothing is what it seems to be. Everything that can be seen, everything that can be touched, everything that can be possessed, is not real. For everything in creation is but the shadow of God in one way or the other. Only the Son and that which is in Him is real -- His out-raying, His manifestation -- all else is but His shadow and will pass away. He continued by saying that whatever exists in this universe is temporal. It is all but a shadow, not the real thing! The only thing real is CHRIST -- HE is the reality of everything! The food we eat may seem real; but it is not the real food. It is only the shadow of the real food. The real food is Christ! And neither is the physical life we live real. It is merely a shadow of the real life, which is Christ! He said, "I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE....He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (John 14:6, 1 John 5:12).

People will gaze upon Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of Mona Lisa, and they will say, "That is Mona Lisa," but that is not true. The painting is only an image of the "real" Mona Lisa. However, the Mona Lisa who once breathed air and lived among men was not real; for even then she was but a temporal creation. That creation passed away, and the real person today is who she is in CHRIST. It is in Him that makes her real, not her tangible body, or image of her likeness on canvas.

You see, all images that are not the manifestation of life itself are not real. Living realities are never found in images. What we call images are but shadows, and shadows are images of the real. A man's shadow -- regardless of how long it is cast upon the earth -- is not the man. All the types, all the figures, in the Old Testament, as well as creation itself are but shadows of the reality, which is Christ Himself. It is the same today as it has always been -- Christ is the only truth there is. He is the reality of the universe. And we thank our brother for this truth.

Most people in Christendom embrace certain doctrines, and the large majority of these sincere people will tell you that what they believe is the truth, else they would not embrace it. It is impossible, however, for their doctrines to be the truth unless they are truly manifesting Christ in their lives. If they only have a doctrine about Him, they do not have the truth, they do not have the reality of Christ; for reality, which is truth, is not contained in doctrines.

The reality is, when the living God lives and moves in us, we have truth. We have standing ground, but not our adversary. When we know God has moved into our house, and we know we live together with Him there -- Satan finds himself in exile with nothing to stand on. He no longer has a foundation from which to rule. He finds himself in a bottomless pit.

With all the hullabaloo about the great dragon mustering his mighty army and devising plans to overthrow Christ and His kingdom, it is evident that the angel has yet to descend into those people's lives. With the devil around every corner, and with him being hellbent on making life utterly miserable for them, not to mention snatching the weak from the clutches of Jesus' tiring grasp, it is clear that the dragon remains firmly grounded in the minds of many.

Whether a small serpent or a flying dragon of the air, his meat is still the same -- dust! Anywhere there is a carnal mind, the traducer, whether real or imagined, will have a place to stand. From that foundation, he will eventually lift himself into the heavens by the religious wings and the air of people's traduced minds.

We can see the folly of people embracing so many myths, but we do not stand guiltless. We have also given the dragon a place of power. For have we not had our focus on ascending, while it should have been on descending? Indeed, we have; for we have on occasion had our fixation so much on elevating our natural shells, these carcasses, our natural bodies, into heaven that we became overburdened with those misdirected ambitions. Such religious notions will most assuredly cloud our vision and hinder us greatly.

When God's fire descends into our minds and consumes those imaginations, however, we can then rid ourselves of those shackles and likewise be made ready to descend. The crux of the matter is in how we perceive things, whether it is the real or imagined. If it is not reality, there will never be a descent, not as long as we don't know we have already ascended and presently sit with Christ Jesus in the heavens. Once this reality hits home, once it has been firmed up in us, it will make all the difference in the world. There will be war, of course; but it should not be a grave issue; for in Christ Jesus we are Far Above All Heavens, and from that victory we will descend and turn the world upside down!

To be continued...

Elwin R. Roach

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1. angels: 4397. mal'ak, mal-awk'; from an unused root mean. to despatch as a deputy; a messenger; spec. of God, i.e. an angel (also a prophet, priest or teacher) (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance).

2. came down: katabaino, to descend (Strong's)