KINGDOM
BIBLE STUDIES
"Teaching
the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Part
36
THE
RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM
(continued)
The miracle of what God has done through Jesus Christ ravishes my heart.
I am enthralled beyond measure that He has translated me out of the
kingdom of darkness, and is clothing me with the fullness of the Son of God.
Daily I am putting on the Lord Jesus Christ who is my robe of
righteousness and my house from heaven, the new man, the spiritual body, and the
new building of God, eternal in the heavens.
Just as the life within a lamb produces its covering of wool, so does the
life of Christ within each son of God create the garments of our full salvation.
We put on the robe of Christ’s righteousness, not by putting it on from
outside of ourselves, by our own self-efforts and good works, but by the working
and power of His life within.
Some time ago Jody Dragoo shared with me a beautiful experience the Lord
gave him in vision in which he saw the glory of the robe of righteousness as the
spiritual body of the new man. The
following is his account of this manifestation.
“The events that I now share are none other than the sons and daughters
of God coming into their own, having overcome through the blood of the
Lamb and having put on the incorruptible, immortal, and resurrected body of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
“It was about 7:00 o’clock one morning when I awoke to get ready for
work. I didn’t stay awake long as
the next thing I knew I found myself in a foreign land.
The name of the land was not revealed, but it may have been in Africa.
The area was hot and dry without any wind at all on this day.
The sky above was blue and clear for miles around.
The sand beneath my feet was bright due to the sun beating down upon it.
There were areas of sparse plant life, but not sufficient to sustain
life. The area had apparently been
in a long drought as there were very few cattle around.
There were a few people who still resided in this village, one of which
was a woman who was carrying a pail of water upon her head.
She was off to my left and under the porches or walkways of the village.
Another individual was a young black man who wore a light shirt and dark
pants, who took me through the village. He
spoke of the conditions that the people faced daily and how hard the drought had
been on the livestock and all concerned. As
we walked, he said the greatest need of his people was for rain.
While he talked, I did not answer a word.
It seemed I was completely aware of the situation at hand and the
conditions they were in (Amos 8:11-14). Next
we came to an open area within the village where we stopped and this individual
stepped a few feet away from where I stood.
“After he spoke of the greatest need of the village being rain, immediately my hands and arms raised upwards toward the Father. It was at this point that I began to notice my garment. I was wearing a white robe with a small belt around the waist. There were no wrinkles or spots within the robe, and no sand on it. The robe kept out the effects of the climate and I felt no heat at all. As for my feet, I don’t recall them as touching the ground at any time. One aspect of this robe that has deeply impressed me is the fact that it felt different from the clothes or ‘robes’ we normally wear. With the clothes we usually wear we can feel the separation from our body. Furthermore, the fact that we have to change them daily, testifies to us that they are not really a part of our being. They are only temporary coverings until the permanent garment is put on. This robe, however, was part of my being. It was inseparable from my body. There was no sense of division or separateness. Is this not the picture of the corruptible putting on the incorruptible, the mortal putting on the immortal — the putting on the Lord Jesus Christ who is formed within us! Is this not but the fulfillment of Romans 8:23 in regard to the complete redemption of the body? The sons and daughters of God clothed with the incorruptible, immortal, resurrected body of Christ, covered with the glory of God! And these go forth ministering from that incorruptible realm of pure spirit, delivering creation from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
“From this we should understand that putting on the robe — the incorruptible, immortal glory of God — is actually our union with the robe, making us complete, perfect, and lacking nothing! It is interesting to note that the robe comes forth from the inner working of the Father Himself. It is He who weaves each and every strand into a whole, complete unit. It is brought forth from within as the Lord Jesus Christ is formed within us, revealed in fuller detail day by day. This is the Father’s work, and it is beautiful to behold! The robe is out of our innermost being and part of our entire being.
“The next thing I noticed was my thought processes and how they worked. The mind seemed to operate on a completely different realm from what we are accustomed to. This reveals that the mind of Christ was in full operation. This is the new mind and heart promised by the Father. The mind that was in Christ Jesus was the mind of the Father. And it was this mind that was in operation within me. This is the renewed mind of which Paul spoke. It is this mind that the Father is perfecting within His sons and daughters. And it is this mind that sought the Father for rain for a dry village!
“As I raised my hands upward and intercession for the people began, the Father was seen in a large white cloud which began producing rain clouds. Almost immediately these clouds began pouring rain down upon the village. It was rain in abundance that watered the ground and filled their wells. I can’t say what the words I spoke were, but they had so much power and authority in them that the elements themselves were brought to obedience. As the rains came, the man who guided me through the village had an astonished look upon his face. He asked, ‘How did you do this?’ It was at this point that I awoke.
“As I have continued to meditate on this it has begun to transform my attitude, my understanding, my life, and all that is within me. It has become strong meat in times of testing. The scripture which states that ‘it does not yet appear what we shall be,’ comes to mind in reference to this dream and witnesses to my spirit about the things shortly to come to pass. How beautiful it is when the Father pulls back some of the veil and shows us these things! To see the ministry of the sons and daughters of God coming into their own, being clothed with the glory of God, and delivering creation from the bondage of sin and death is wonderful to behold. I will never forget the robe which He revealed, and how it was part of my being, and covered and protected all of my being. Ah, the sons and daughters with the mind of Christ shall lack nothing!” — end quote.
POWER
WITHOUT RIGHTEOUSNESS
“I the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right”
(Isa. 45:19). God is righteous. That means He is always
right. He is never wrong.
That is what righteousness is — it
is rightness. God is always right
in everything He says and does. He
never makes a mistake. He cannot be
wrong because He is absolute righteousness.
God’s rightness is not based on a set of laws or a code of ethics, but
is rooted within His very nature. He
acts out of divine wisdom, infinite knowledge and understanding, unbounded
goodness and unconditional love. Righteousness
is right attitude, right desire, right motive, right living, right actions, a
total rightness in all things according to God’s standard and as the
expression of God’s nature. The sons of God are called, set apart, taught, processed and
transformed to be like Him in all of
our ways — that,
precious friend of mine, is righteousness!
This is the righteousness that we hunger
and thirst after! This is the
righteousness that we now seek!
This is the righteousness by which the sons of God shall judge the world!
When you receive the spirit of
sonship you receive the right spirit,
or Holy Spirit, and you are destined to right being and right doing; you are
destined to righteousness. Christ
is the right spirit, the spirit of
righteousness. What a goal God
has set before us! What a calling!
Righteousness is the first and foremost stone in the foundation of
God’s Kingdom. We can only
qualify to rule and reign with Christ in His Kingdom as we thoroughly understand
and gladly embrace the great truth that “the throne is established by
righteousness” (Prov. 16:12). “Unto
the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of
righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom” (Heb. 1:8).
The Kingdom of God is a glorious Kingdom of righteousness!
The righteousness of the Kingdom is now being wrought in the
personalities of all those blessed sons of God who shall share the throne of His
heavenly dominion. The Psalmist
assures us, “The Lord shall endure for ever: He hath prepared His throne for
judgment. And He shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister judgment to the
people in uprightness” (Ps. 9:7-8). The
deepest cry of every son of God is, “Give the king Thy judgments, O
God, and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son.
He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment.
The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by
righteousness” (Ps. 72:1-3).
Only with the mind of the Spirit may we imagine a world ruled by a government such as is prophesied in the ninety-sixth Psalm: “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth” (Ps. 96:10-13). God shall indeed judge the whole world in righteousness, and this He shall do through His sonship company. It is of this many-membered Christ, God’s glorious Christ, Head and body, that the prophet speaks when he says, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him...and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth...and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins” (Isa. 11:2-5).
Many well-known ministers have gone down the tubes during the last fifty years because the righteousness of the Kingdom of God was never fulfilled in their deepest hearts. They were great preachers, spell-binding orators, magnificent pulpiteers, had powerful gifts of God operating in their lives, with charisma dripping off their fingertips. Hundreds and thousands would come to hear them when they showed up. But their word wasn’t trustworthy; you couldn’t depend on them. They would not live within their means, nor pay their honest debts. They glibly asked their followers for thousands of dollars in donations and willingly resorted to every sordid trick and sob story to persuade people to give more and more money. They bilked widows of their life-savings, and then left behind a disgraceful trail of unpaid bills and questionable dealings. Some were caught in bed with another man’s wife, or ran off with the organist, deserting their own wife and children. Some divorced and remarried again and again. I remember one preacher who, every time he came to town, had a different wife! Now, don’t misunderstand my words. I am not criticizing any brother or sister who has been divorced and remarried. I am talking about men who are merely womanizers hiding behind a mask of pretended spirituality. Others were caught with prostitutes or in homosexual acts. Others sank into the filth of free love, wife-swapping, and group sex — in the name of the Lord! One died in a hotel room of acute alcoholism. Even the mighty evangelist whose signs, wonders, and miracle exploits shook the country of Argentina, and whose vision of the sonship ministry remains unparalleled to this day, finally ended his life as an alcoholic, only remembering through his booze the glory days of the past. Another became obsessed with weird and strange doctrines and illusions of grandeur. He founded a cult and built a tabernacle with a golden throne surrounded by the twenty-four elders. Another went to jail for arson. And, of course, the whole world knows about Jimmy Jones and the Jonestown tragedy! Others had violent tempers, lying tongues, deceptive methods, kingdom-building spirit, and egos inflated with pride. What an apt description Peter gives of men who have gifts and power without righteousness: “...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 ways, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (II Pet. 2:14-15). What shame and reproach these bring on the Kingdom of God by their unholy actions!
From time to time I meet these folk who call themselves sons of God. They can discern what God is doing in this hour, they see beautiful revelation truths. They can thrill your heart with the message they preach. They understand the deep mysteries of the Kingdom of God. But somehow the anointing has never gotten down into their feet! They cannot walk in what they see. They see it, they talk it, but they can’t walk it. Their personal lives are a disaster area. There is a weakness in their ability to follow in the footsteps of the firstborn Son who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace, wisdom and strength. They cannot walk out the wisdom, nature, power or will of God on the earth plane. They can talk about being overcomers and rattle on endlessly about the victorious life, sonship, kingship and priesthood, ruling and reigning, but they cannot demonstrate a life of victory under pressure or in the nitty-gritty of everyday living. Their head knowledge is powerful, but their walk is weak and a reproach to the Kingdom of God. What a disgrace it is to have people who can preach the sonship message, teach the glories of the third day, the third feast, the Melchizedek Order and the Kingdom of God, who know the scriptures well, have beautiful revelations, and ability to influence people with the truth — and yet cannot WALK IT OUT!
The one who preaches and teaches, but does not partake of what he gives forth, who testifies to one thing and lives another, has little or no influence when he attempts to share with others the life of Christ. None judge our relationship with God by our knowledge of the Bible, by our revelations, experiences, or our testimonies. The Christ life must be walked out in our lives, manifested in our daily walk in the home, on our block, at the job, and before those who see us the most.
In the wonderful Song of Solomon the Shulamite’s beloved says to her, “How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!” (S. of S. 7:1). The word for feet is in the Hebrew PAAMAH meaning not only feet but also steps or footsteps. It comes from the word PAAM which means “to impel or agitate; to move.” Ferrar Fenton translates, “How fine your steps are in your slippers!” Goodspeed renders, “How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O rapturous maiden!” Another translation says, “How beautiful your steps have become in your sandals, O willing daughter!” “Steps” indicate action which is taking place. It is not a matter of the beauty of her feet, but of her steps, or her walk. This is the beauty of her action and her movement. Praise God, He is beautifying the steps of His chosen ones as He enables them more and more to walk out in the external realm the living word that He has planted deep within the inner man. It requires the quickening and sanctifying power of HIS LIFE WITHIN, and the enduement of the Holy Spirit in the mind of Christ to enable us to BE OUR MESSAGE, our whole life surrendered to manifest that message, a state of being that proclaims the truth as we walk whether we ever utter a word or not. We praise God for the teaching and preaching of the word of the Kingdom by faithful ministries, this is an aspect of God’s working, but remember, dear ones, God must not only anoint our ear to hear and our mouth to speak, but He must anoint our feet to so walk out the life of the Kingdom that every action, every deed, every expression, all that we are becomes a declaration of HIM, manifesting HIM, revealing HIM.
Ah, the problem has been that throughout long ages men have sought the power of the Kingdom of God apart from the righteousness of the Kingdom. Jesus revealed something of the mighty power of the Kingdom of God when He commissioned His disciples with this authoritative word: “As ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Mat. 10:7-8). Men have asked for, and have graciously received, an anointing of that Kingdom power, and have gone forth to do exploits in His name, but in the great majority of cases they neither asked nor sought for, nor did they receive, the corresponding righteousness of the Kingdom. To possess power without righteousness is a blueprint for tragedy! It means that men will do the works of God, but cannot live the life of God. They possess authority without character. Such will honor God for a season with their mighty works, but just as sure as the pig will return to his wallowing, and the dog to his vomit, just that certain is it that these will ultimately corrupt the power they have received, bringing shame and reproach upon the name of the Lord by their unrighteous conduct. The only way to get rid of the external purulence is to clean up the internal corruption. “A new heart also will I put within you.”
Let us now take heed to the exhortation of Jesus, the pattern Son. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Mat. 6:33). Seek — until you find and put on the righteousness of the Kingdom! Pursue it relentlessly. Make it your top priority. Settle for nothing less. That is the pathway to sonship! That is the route to the throne! In the “gift” realm you can receive a measure of power without righteousness. A gift is a gift and is given because of the goodness of the giver, not because of the worthiness of the recipient. There are no special requirements laid upon those who receive gifts, for it is the Spirit Himself who divides to every man severally as He wills. One does not have to qualify in order to receive a gift from God. The great Giver distributes according to His own purpose. That dispensation of power is free, by pure grace. But the sonship that God is raising up in the earth in this hour, to set creation free, is not of the gift realm! Learn this, oh man, and you will know the law of the Kingdom. Sons of God will not and cannot receive the omnipotence of God apart from the righteousness of God. Should the kings and priests of God’s Kingdom receive unlimited power without absolute righteousness, the Kingdom of God would soon shipwreck upon the shoals of carnality and Self, as has every spiritual move of God from the days of Adam in Eden until now! The pattern Son who came in the fullness of Divine Life was also pure, undefiled, harmless, sinless, and not of this world.
The righteousness of the Kingdom is neither a moral standard nor a code of ethics. God’s righteousness is JESUS CHRIST. Apart from the inworking of His holy nature and His beautiful character all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and putrefying sores. Christ is made unto us righteousness (I Cor. 1:30) and we are made the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5:21). When we talk about the righteousness of the Kingdom of God, we have to explain what kind of righteousness we are talking about. There are two kinds of righteousness set forth in the scriptures that pertain to believers. The first kind is imputed righteousness. The second kind is imparted righteousness. They are not the same!
“Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness...he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was well able to perform. Therefore it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:3,20-24). So by believing in Yahweh who raised our Lord from the dead we have righteousness imputed unto us. It is wonderful to have our sins forgiven and not imputed against us any more, and to have the righteousness of God reckoned to us by faith! But having righteousness imputed to us doesn’t MAKE US RIGHTEOUS. We are only counted as righteous for His sake. We can have His righteousness imputed to us and still be very unrighteous in our nature, thoughts and actions, doing many things wrong, and few things right.
God loves all His little children unto whom He has imputed the righteousness of Christ by faith. And they are His no matter how they are living today. But He doesn’t want to leave us in this unrighteous state! He wants to make us righteous! He want to impart His righteousness to us, not just impute it. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM” (II Cor. 5:21). There is a world of difference between being counted righteous and being made righteousness. Every son of God is to possess and become the righteousness of God, to be righteous as He is righteous, to be holy as He is holy. Who wouldn’t want to become this righteousness? Who would not desire to always be right in all we think, in all we say and in all we do — to never again think anything wrong or have any wrong ideas, desires or motives; but to always be right in everything. What a blessed state! Impossible? Not at all! It is what God has planned for us and is working on in us. Of this very truth the Psalmist wrote when he said, “He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name’s (nature’s) sake.” He leads me in the paths that will bring me to this glorious state. Blessed be the Lord!
Salvation begins with imputed righteousness. Most Christians, however, stop right there and never press on in God to know the blessedness of imparted righteousness. Imputed righteousness is like money charged to your account in the bank. But imparted righteousness is like money paid out of the account into your hands. Imputed righteousness is potential righteousness, whereas imparted righteousness is actual righteousness. You can know the joy of sins forgiven and the wonder of being a child of God with imputed righteousness, but only by the INWARD POWER OF IMPARTED RIGHTEOUSNESS can one be brought into the image of Jesus Christ, which is the image of God. What is imparted righteousness? Our beloved brother Peter explains the wonderful process, saying, “Besides this...ADD TO YOUR FAITH virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ...for so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (II Pet. 1:5-11).
Why does he say, “Add to your faith?” Peter is telling us that once we have believed, we are at the point of beginning in righteousness. Imputed righteousness is enough to save us from hell, but it is not sufficient to give us an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of God and bring us to God’s throne of dominion and power. We must have imputed righteousness, but we must add to that what the Bible describes as fulfilled righteousness or expressed righteousness. The righteousness that is imputed to us as a free gift must now find expression or fulfillment in our lives. This is what Paul was saying when he wrote, “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 (or EXPRESSED) in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:2-4).
I thank God today that there is a righteousness, a divine righteousness that God can impart to men, and which can exalt a man to the image and likeness of God. In no other way can men ever be exalted or lifted up out of the power of sin, self, sorrow and death. So I gladly and thankfully this day record this truth that the righteousness of which I speak is the righteousness of God, which by faith we may possess; not only a righteousness imputed, in which we can trust for our salvation, but a righteousness IMPARTED, INWORKED INTO THE NATURE. All very good is this talk about imputed righteousness, but I cannot — will not — settle for a righteousness that is only imputed. If it is not imparted, it is not a power within us at all. I thank God for the word of the Master Himself who told us that this Kingdom of God would be within us, and defined it. He said that we are to SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. He said that we are to HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS. And Paul excellently words it when he says, “The kingdom of God is righteousness in the Holy Ghost.”
There is something deep within me that tells me that the Kingdom of God for the next age and the ages beyond is not going to be launched from the same old launching pad we have used for the past two thousand years. It is going to be as different from the systems and methods and experiences of the existing church order as the ministry of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was different from the legalistic forms and ritualistic ceremonies of the priesthood, scribes, and Pharisees of that day. The past two millenniums of church history has been an age of limitation, mixture, immaturity and imperfection. But when the manifested sons of God arise in the fullness of the glory, power and dominion of the glorified Christ, they shall not appear on the scene as weak, carnal men rejoicing in an imputed righteousness, but they shall go forth to meet all the needs of a groaning creation by the fullness of HIS INCORRUPTIBLE LIFE dwelling within them. There shall be a glorious victory, and there will be no failure!
Even as I write, thousands of saints, yea, tens of thousands, a mighty army is being touched by the fire from off the altar of God. A great Kingdom of Priests is being set ablaze with the life and love and power of God that will cause the nations of the world to turn to the living God as we enter the next stage of God’s great redemptive and restorative process. Too long have men occupied themselves in religious efforts to embalm the spirit of yesterday’s revival, wrapping it in the grave clothes of ecclesiastical systems and securing it in sepulchers that speak only of the past. Even now, a move of God of world-wide dimensions is in the making. It is being formed in a people, a SONSHIP COMPANY that is becoming the embodiment and personification of all HE IS. Ah, this will not be a revival of evangelistic crusades, television shows, concerts, bus ministries, or building of church buildings and programs, but the overflow of divine passion and power from people who are so consecrated to God that their hearts and minds have been filled with HIMSELF. Already bright clouds are gathering on the horizon, and if you have eyes to see you can see clouds of a multitude of witnesses to the deep and vital work God is doing in the lives of His apprehended ones in preparation for the manifestation of the sons of God.
The sky rivers are running full, and great glory is about to break forth upon the earth. The people of earth are unaware of it, the church systems know nothing about it, but if you are hearing from God it is time to gird up your loins, like Elijah of old, and run before the chariots. In due time the clouds shall burst and empty themselves upon the earth, and what has been revelation shall become reality. Let your heart be lifted high, for God is on the move, beyond His doings of any previous generation or age, and this can be YOUR HOUR OF MANIFESTATION! Only that will erupt and overflow from God’s people which has first been inworked by Father’s hand. Do not belittle or depreciate this day when it may seem so little is happening in your midst. The accent of the Spirit is not on the external works and gifts of a dying order; His concern is with the inner development of the Christ, the inworking of all He is, our becoming the essence and substance of His nature and character. For what God shall pour out through His sons is not the gifts they have received, but the life that has been formed within. Right now, in this holy moment of the calm before the storm, the greatest service we can give to others is to die out to all our ego-self and all our feeble religious efforts, that the living of HIS LIFE becomes its own declaration of all that He is and can do, to His glory and praise!
We see a terrible lack of things being right, or in divine order, in the
world and in the church. There is a
divine order for creation, for life on this earth.
There is a proper order for animal life, vegetable life, and human life.
But through sin and death all things are out of order, in terrible chaos.
The curse must be lifted, every enemy put under our feet. Divine order for the universe must be restored!
All creation is groaning and crying for release from the curse of sin and
decay and death. And everything hinges on that body of sons that is to be
manifested in a perfect state of divine order.
“Divine order” is not some order of church ministry, but the
resurrection and the life! The Son
of God has come to bring many sons to His glory.
They will have the mind of Christ. They
will have overcome all things and conquered every enemy within and without.
They will possess within themselves the total inworking of the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. They
will have all power in heaven and in earth, just as does their glorious Head.
They will have the power of creation, the power to reproduce themselves
in others, even as our precious Lord now has and is creating in us.
And this shall be done until all the world and every creature has been
rebirthed into the image of God.
Today we see an imperfect church, living an imperfect life, receiving an imperfect seed (corrupted word) from an imperfect ministry, and bringing forth imperfect children who are all their life time subject to carnality, sin, limitation, sorrow and death, as well as rebukes, chastisements and scourgings to bring them to sonship. Of course we know that the pure word of God is perfect, but if the preachers were preaching that perfect word, if they were planting the incorruptible word into the hearts of the Lord’s people, their children would be born perfect. And this shall be accomplished, for the Christ shall yet present unto Himself a glorious people without spot or wrinkle, having no blemish, and within their mouths (word) shall be found no guile. Then when a perfect company of sons puts a perfect and pure seed (or word) into a perfect church, the world will be evangelized completely with converts that are birthed out of darkness right into the life and likeness of God!
That which God is bringing forth for the next age will be perfect, it will be sinless, deathless, and gloriously victorious! There will be no weakness or failure in all of God’s holy mountain! The sons of God shall not go out with power to heal the sick, cast out devils, and do signs and wonders, but with no power to be honest, pure and holy. You won’t have to worry about them swindling you out of your money, or seducing your wife, or being caught in some homosexual act, or lying, cheating, deceiving, or swelling up with pride and pompousness like a frog, or building another tower of Mystery Babylon around their ministry. God won’t do it that way this time! You can have imperfect apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, and Christians, but you can’t have IMPERFECT MANIFESTED SONS OF GOD! The sons of God won’t carry on their cars the bumper sticker that proclaims, “I’m not perfect — just forgiven!” If God were to give unlimited power into the hands of men with character flaws, imperfect lives, and corrupt hearts, they would become the most despicable race of devils, monsters, and tyrants the world has ever known. They would wreck the Kingdom of God in short order and creation would never be set free.
There is a great and important lesson for the sons of God in the following experience related by brother Bob Torango. “I’ll never forget the time that I preached in a big-time church in Downy, California. This was in the early 1970’s and I was preaching the sons of God and restitution message at a little store-front church. It turned out that the people from the big church down the road started to hear the message and packed the little place out. After about a week of this, the pastor of the big church paid me a call and asked me to come to his church since most of his people were attending my services anyway. I prayed about it and the Lord told me to go. I was scared to death! T. L. Osborn was supposed to be following me the next week, and I hadn’t ever preached to so many people at one time in my life. Like John, I was viewing all of this with great admiration (Rev. 17:6). All the musicians were very professional, the people all dressed sharp, the pews were padded, the carpet was luxurious, the pastor and his wife looked like movie stars. I was in awe!
“I proceeded to preach for a couple of nights and about the third night the pastor got me alone in his study. He started out by telling me he knew I was preaching sons of God and reconciliation and that he believed in this message himself, but he couldn’t risk preaching it from the pulpit because he would lose his church. He then told me that he would like to sponsor me to start preaching on the big-time circuit, but I had to get some gimmicks incorporated into my ministry. He asked me if I couldn’t start some orphanage somewhere just so that I could present it to the people as something to give to, the understanding being that the money would never reach the fake orphanage, but would be used for my own needs. He said that he admired my ministry and that I had great potential on the ‘circuit’ of big churches he was affiliated with, but I had to do a lot of work on my offering taking. He said he would be willing to train me in the art of getting money out of the people, and before long I would be driving a big fancy car just like him and all the other big time evangelists. Needless to say, I shut my meeting down with him and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about losing his church because he had lost it already, along with any decency he might have had!
“When I left that office I was so sick I had to struggle to keep from throwing up. MONEY! More preachers have sold their souls for it than for any other single thing. The reason is simple. MONEY in itself is not evil, such as an act of fornication, drunkenness, and other vices. Everyone needs MONEY and therein lies the subtleness of its seduction. Don’t think that I wasn’t impressed with the splendor of that church, because I was! I actually thought God was going to allow my ministry to reach more people and that the message of life could be heard and believed upon by the masses. Along with this I got to thinking that maybe I deserved to live a better lifestyle, since my wife and I had struggled with our finances for so many years; and after all, the laborer was worthy of a greater hire. My eyes were fixed on the wonder of the Whore, and I was finding all kinds of justification for getting connected to the CIRCUIT! As a young evangelist, it was the invitation to the big dance, an offering of the big enchilada, and I could have arrived at the top of the world!
“The big wake-up call was when I realized what I would have to do in order to get that greater hire. Something happens to a person when confronted with riches. A change comes over us when put in a position of possible wealth. I know we all swear we would never change if we suddenly were made wealthy, but invariably we do. There is a root of evil in us all, and the Bible declares it to be ‘the love of money’! The church today has sold out its heavenly inheritance for a little earthly lucre. God has offered us a ‘far more exceeding weight of glory,’ but our eyes are filled with the things being offered to us by a seducing spirit that has convinced many a prophet to become her paid servant. Woe to the prophets that prophesy for money, and do not speak the words that come from God!
“The biggest money-making machine in the modern church is the world-wide satellite TV networks. They run twenty-four hours every day and reach millions of people with the message, ‘Tis more blessed to give than to receive.’ I know they do good works and all of that. I know that they reach souls for the Lord, but with what hidden motives? They look like one big happy family on television, don’t they? Smiling and joking and bragging on each other. Call me a cynic if you want, but I would dare to say that the conversation off camera isn’t quite so congenial! I would venture to say that their time is spent on the following questions. Who’s No. 1? Who’s getting more air time than the other? Who draws more money? Who gets more mail? Who’s on the host’s right hand this week and who is on the left, and who gets dropped because of poor ratings? Without question, these are the topics of discussion in the back rooms of the studios, and they involve positioning and posturing for the opportunity to make more MONEY!
“Cutthroat competition is on the religious shows just as much as on the worldly shows. That’s Entertainment! And it is money that speaks the loudest. When the bills come due, and we are taking millions of dollars here, then men and women do strange things to keep from losing the almighty dollar. Beg, borrow, and steal are just a few of the things. God help us all to guard against the stench of this Harlot system. Yes, they preach the word, they sing beautiful songs, they pray for the sick and the sick recover, but notice that nothing is done without the mention of MONEY! If we all knew how much money was brought in by the Christian Networks we would all be amazed. Bob Tilton, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and others have been thrust into the spotlight by their escapades in schemes to make more MONEY. They have opened up a Pandora's box in a system that produced mansions worth millions of dollars, bank accounts known and others never known filled with thousands upon thousands of dollars, and lifestyles worthy of the rich and famous. All of this is on public record. Why would we believe that anything is different with those that are in that same arena but haven’t been exposed? I hate to say it, but the present church system has sold itself out to MONEY!
“‘Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel...the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest’ (Micah 3:9-12). Notice that the word of judgment is to the Heads, Princes, Priests, and Prophets. It is the leadership that is making merchandise of the house of God! Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17 has made a league with the ‘merchants’ and the ‘kings’ of the earth. They all love Babylon because Babylon has made them rich! She is the answer to their lust for MONEY. The apostle Paul ran into this same love for money when the makers and sellers of idols in Ephesus caused a riot among the people because Paul’s preaching put fear in their hearts that their craft of making silver idols to the Goddess Diana would dry up. Their concern was the making of MONEY, not in truth or error. You can be sure that the same concerns are in the leaders of the modern Fundamental Church. When faced with truth that doesn’t profit them financially they will suddenly grow very fervent in their fight against heresy. In truth they are seeing a financial risk in preaching things that demand the people to do more than sit in their pews and ‘Amen’ the preacher and pay their tithes and offerings. The concern is over MONEY, not heresy!
“Everything that Babylon concerns herself with is a business venture cloaked in religion. She is a harlot. What is the difference between a wife and a harlot? They both have physical relations with a man, but one is an act of love and the other is an act of business. The act is the same, but the difference is the exchange of MONEY. Babylon is in love with only one thing — MONEY. She uses everything else to get more wealth and thereby she spends money to make more money. Think about it. Whenever a particular TV Network host and hostess have a guest speaker or singer on their program, they display the name and address of the guest on the television screen and urge the viewing audience to write to that address. This accomplishes two things. First, it indebts the guest to the hosts financially. In order to get more of this money, they must extol the virtues of the system that is feeding them. It is extremely hard to obey the Lord when He is telling you to bite the hand that feeds you! This is how Babylon keeps her secret motives secret. The unwitting ministry become an accessory to the crime and end up covering over the whorish aspects of the system.
“The second thing this accomplishes is the merchandising of the gospel. When they display the name and address of the guest on the screen it in effect puts a giant machine into motion. In the business world this is viewed as a financial bonanza. All of us get mountains of junk mail in our mail box. This mail is sent by companies that buy mailing lists and send out bulk advertising to thousands of people in hopes of getting a small percentage to respond. A response of four to six people out of every one hundred is considered enough to make a financial killing. The same thing on television. Companies pay an unbelievable amount of money for just thirty seconds of advertising during a show. With this in mind, you can see the financial consequences of having ones name and address displayed on a television screen where every telecast of this religious TV Network reaches millions of people world-wide. So you thought they were all just singing and preaching for the love of Jesus? The bare truth is that they are sitting on a gold mine!
“There have been some ministers who are supposedly preaching a kingdom-lite message (of the low-fat, low-substance variety) that
have been allowed on this Network with high hopes of reaching many more people
with the message of the Kingdom. Sadly,
they start out full of alarming statements of truth, then after a period of
time, just enough time to get used to a more luxuriant lifestyle, their message
becomes milky and barely discernible as Kingdom.
Oh, the power of MONEY! It
must never be underestimated! If I
could have the ear of every minister of Present Truth I would cry aloud to them
of the danger of MONEY.
“I have seen the henchmen of the television networks that try their best to convince God’s people that Jesus preached we should all be millionaires. It would be downright hilarious if it wasn’t so sad to see these business people flashing diamond rings and Rolex watches at the screen while telling us that Jesus loved money and we should too. If we would just sow a little seed their way, in the form of cold cash, why we could have a harvest of Cadillacs and mansions in no time. A flash of white teeth, an honest Abe face, slick Hollywood settings, and who wouldn’t believe them and send in your name and address to receive your free set of teaching tapes, absolutely free, for a love offering of $50.00! Heaven help us. What will be these poor minister’s state of mind if the money market collapses? People threw themselves out of high-rise windows during the Great Depression. MONEY is their god, and if it is taken away they will be without hope. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God!
“If you doubt that the church is in this bad of shape, let me remind you that religion has the history of spawning some of the greatest con-men and con-women known to mankind. I knew a minister that came to Detroit who had the gimmick of having a cross appear in the middle of his forehead at a set time of the service. The people would go nuts and run up to the offering barrel with money in their hands. It was done with a chemical applied to the skin that caused blood to come to the surface in 45 minutes. Add to this the fact that one of the most respected ministers on the Christian Television Networks locked himself in a prayer tower and declared that God would take him home if he didn’t receive an amount i n the millions of dollars, and it is plain that the love of money has had its toll on the leaders of the Charismatic movement.
“Our greatest test will not be devils, or men, or dragons. Our greatest test is going to be how we handle the finances of the Kingdom. One cannot imagine the lure of filthy lucre! It will cause your message to change, your ministry to lose its edge, your vision to dull. If not handled with extreme care, it will impair your judgment of right and wrong. Over the years my wife and I have had many preachers of the present truth tell us they are going to go to the harlot system and deliver it from its Babylonian ways. Unfailingly, each one has changed their message just enough to be accepted among the princes and merchants of Babylon. How easy it is to become a star to the lesser orders! The people are so hungry in the pews, you could throw them crumbs of the Kingdom and they would think they are eating steak. Each preacher that has gone to the Whore has been wooed by her compliments and favors. They soon end up driving better cars, living in better houses, getting larger offerings. What’s wrong with that? you ask. Don’t they deserve all those things? Yes, they do. My question is, from my own experiences, What did they have to do to get them?
“Let us be perfectly honest and frank about what we preach. It is a message that is contrary to the nature of men. It grates against the religious spirit. It reveals the man of sin in the temple, puts the spirit of Antichrist on the judgment seat of God, shines a piercing light upon the hypocrisy of a corrupt leadership, says ‘Woe, woe, woe’ to the prophets who prophesy to please the flesh of men instead of God, demands the beheading of every priest who stands in the Holy Place and declares himself to be the mouth-piece of God, expounds on the futility of men who preach about God without ever having a personal experience of His all-saving love and grace. This message calls the foolish and weak and rejects the wise and strong, leads the believer of it on a trail that crosses raging rivers, climbs horrendous mountains, winds through dry, hot deserts, careens through the camp of every giant and dragon in the land, takes us to the very mouth of death and hell, brings us within a heart-beat of certain destruction, walks us through the valley of the shadow of death, and drives us into the wilderness. Doesn’t sound like the kind of message you could build a mega-church on, now does it? The bare truth is, you can’t, and you won’t!
“God is out to get a generation for Himself. Let the children play, but you priests of the Most High get yourselves up into the mountain and wait upon the Lord! In the stillness, in the quiet of the secret place of the Most High, there is a Word that will change our lives. If we will avail ourselves of this word, Babylon will have no power over us. Our eyes will be for the Lord only. Our only purpose will be to bring honor and glory and majesty to His name. When we have been delivered from the love of money, then we will be ready to lead the people to the next summit. Otherwise we will only lead them to hell” — end quote.
In one of his books George Warnock offered up this timely prayer to God: “Lord, how we need the power and authority of Heaven to minister to the needs of suffering humanity, and to deliver your sheep that have been scattered and bruised in the wilderness of life. But Lord! Do not, we pray, place in our trust any measure of authority and power that is not counterbalanced with an equal measure of grace, and humility, and meekness, and patience, and kindness, and longsuffering, and mercy, and wisdom. Keep this power and authority in Thine own hands, we pray, as the sword of Goliath was taken out of the hands of David, wrapped in a priestly garment, and hidden away in the Sanctuary till he was prepared of God to have it permanently, and to use it wisely. Continue to hold us in the hollow of Thy hand as a sharp sword, to be used of Thee at Thy discretion. Continue to polish us like the shaft of the arrow, and keep us in Thy quiver, that when Thou dost see fit to send us forth we shall not miss the mark, but we shall strike through the heart of the enemy unerringly. Keep Thy power unto Thyself alone, for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory...and may we only partake of it as we come into harmony and union with Thyself. Amen!”
To
be continued...
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