(continued)
UNION WITH CHRIST
FROM THE WORKS TO THE PERSON
THE APPEARING OF CHRIST IN THE SONS
Fifty-four years have passed since the revelation of sonship and the kingdom of God burst anew in glory and power upon a people apprehended to be the elect of God. Thousands upon thousands have heard the call to come apart with God and walk with Him in the high places of His Spirit, to experience His dealings, to learn obedience to His voice and submission to His will and ways, to partake of His mind and His nature, and grow up into the maturity of the fullness of Christ. Within ourselves we have seen growth, we have experienced change, we have passed on from glory to glory into the wisdom and knowledge of the Lord, we have partaken of the mind of Christ, we have sensed the increase of the life of sonship within, we have been taught of the Father, we have been tested and tried and have overcome many things, and have witnessed a maturity of the Christ coming forth in each member of God’s household of sons. I do know that God has a people walking the earth in this very hour, in whom Christ is formed! I am hearing a word from the Lord, and the word is this: GOD IS FINISHING HIS WORK! God is putting the finishing touches on the image and likeness of God in His apprehended ones!
Some time ago Joyce Morris sent out a message which bore a deep witness within my spirit. She said, "About two weeks ago we heard the Lord say very clearly, ‘THE STAGE IS SET!’ I said, ‘Father, what do you mean, the stage is set?’ God said, ‘I have a stage. And my stage is set. I’m getting ready to put my performers on that stage. Just as I appointed my first Son...I appointed my Son to come forth in a particular day, at a particular time. When that time came, I announced before man that This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. I am about to announce again - the many-membered corporate son. I am about to announce again, not just my first Son, but that my first Son is the Captain over these sons, in whom I am well pleased. Those who have been faithful unto the counsel of the Lord, and are walking in the obedience of Christ.’
"Again, the stage is being set! When Jesus came forth at that time, no one had ever seen a ministry like that. Man had never beheld such power, or miracles. It confounded religion, it confounded man; it confounded the governments, and it confounded everything that stood around Him. They couldn’t figure it out! They said, ‘What is this? We haven’t seen anything like this before!’ Why? Because God had set the stage! Jesus had to go through a time of preparation. And when it was appointed by the Father, God gave Him the Spirit without measure! And God is getting ready to give His sons the Spirit without measure - to fulfill His purpose. This time is upon us. THE STAGE IS SET!
"The Lord began to show me that, even in the natural, a man writes his script; you have a play to put on; each individual has their part, and nobody can perform another’s part. God has written His script! Let me tell you - anything in the script that God has written, He is going to carry it out! He told His people, even in the Old Testament, that there was going to be a Holy One born out of Judah, and that He would be the Messiah. God wrote that script, and what He wrote came to pass! And when He came, they didn’t know who He was! They asked, ‘What thing is this?’ What was happening on the scene at that time-they didn’t understand! Yet it had been written in the script! It had been written in the script about the Son of man coming. There is a Son of man coming again, and that Son of man is a corporate man. It is a many-membered body. It is a man who has been conformed into the image of Christ. This Son of man is the overcomers on that side (in the invisible spirit realm), and the overcomers on this side (in the flesh). They will be gathered from the four corners of the earth, and they will come as the Son of man - for mankind!
"So we see, the stage is set. I heard the Spirit say, ‘THE CURTAINS ARE GETTING READY TO BE DRAWN!’ I said, ‘God, what do you mean, the curtains are going to be pulled back?’ He said, ‘Just like Jesus - He was hidden for thirty years until He came to full maturity as the first Son.’ But when He came to maturity and the stage was set - guess what God did? God opened the curtains! He let His power, and His splendor, and His glory manifest in one man. I want to tell you, when you begin to see it's in God’s corporate man, it will no longer be in just the one man Jesus! That’s why Jesus said, ‘I’m limited. I have to go to the cross. I’ve got to go back to my Father. I must make a way so that many sons can come into my nature and have the same power and glory that I have.’ He knew that the time would come when God was going to raise up many sons, and that He would be the Captain over all these sons. He would come again as the Son of man, as a corporate, many-membered man, for the whole world to see!
"The whole world shall see the manifestation of the glory of the Lord! The manifestation of Christ is already happening in the invisible realm. But the open, public manifestation to the world, has not been seen yet. You see, the Christ has been hidden in you; and you have been hidden in Christ; in the same way that Jesus was hidden in the bosom of the Father. The Father had a particular time for His glory to be seen. We’ve seen miracles, we’ve seen signs and wonders. God has moved in different individuals, and He has revealed Himself to mankind through various ministries; but that has only been a foreshadow of what is about to take place! Some have run here, others have run afar; some have run to this miracle meeting and to that, thinking ‘This is it!’ But this is not the ‘grand finale’! The grand finale is getting ready to take place!
"When God opens the curtains, everyone that has been faithful, that has done his part, and has not broken rank; everyone who knows his part and stays faithful and does his part - when it’s time for the grand finale, God is going to have that individual on that stage! The stage is the world. And God will reveal Himself to mankind again just as He did in Jesus. He is coming as Lord, and the Son of man. That corporate man is coming in an open manifestation! The Lord began to speak to me concerning the scripture where it says that the whole creation is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God. The Father began to show me that there are many kinds of rulers in the world. There are rulers in our government; there are rulers in our educational systems; there are rulers of many kinds all around the world - but these governments have not been effective. They have not worked! And there is a cry in people wanting righteousness, wanting something genuine, something real! Nothing has worked. But let me tell you - the Kingdom of God is going to work! And the stage is set!" - end quote.
The Christ in our spirit is a whole Christ, but the hidings of God’s power within this Christ are like the hidings of God’s power in nature. We have always had the lightning’s flash in the heavens, but we have not always been able to chain that mighty electrical power and make it give us light as we have in our homes and cities today. We have not always been able to make it transmit our voices to distant lands as we do when we talk into the telephone. We have not always been able to use it to transmit pictures from one part of the earth to another as we do today with our satellites and televisions. The lightning was always there. The electricity was always there, but we were not prepared to harness it, apply it and use it. And so it is with the spirit of Christ within us! The dynamic of it has always been there, and it is there today. The almighty Christ is within us! The Son of God dwells in our hearts! We are being conformed to His image, and we are putting on His mind and nature! An explorer of another century said, "We lay down to sleep on beds of silver when we were starving to death." He meant that in the 1800’s, when they crossed the Sierra Nevada’s into California, they absolutely lay on the top of those great silver beds. They did not know those beds were there, and it is said that they boiled their stirrup straps to get some soup. That is the way with the church systems today, they are lying upon beds of silver and gold, and boiling their old theological and religious program stirrup straps for food!
God has a people in this hour who are getting out of the mines of God’s Truth what is there for them. They are going forward to receive the inheritance in God that belongs to God’s sons in this great Day of the Lord! Christ is being revealed to us and in our lives more and more! This unveiling of Christ shall continue until He is revealed in all His fullness. The revelation of Christ in 2002 is far greater than the revelation of Christ was to us in 1992. The Lord has not changed. Rather, He has released out of His life within us a greater measure of the revelation of Himself in His truth, purpose, life, nature and glory. We now experience Him in a greater and higher degree than we did in the past. This is a wonderful hour of the greater unveiling of Christ for all the elect and chosen ones. A new spirit is moving within the elect! A new power of life is being raised up within us! The Christ of kingdom glory is disclosing Himself! He comes in secret and in the silence as a thief in the night! The present, unseen work of the Spirit is resulting in immediate and progressive changes that are preparing us for our full transformation in that moment of time, which is as the twinkling of an eye or a flash of lightning, when He breaks forth out of us in full and eternal salvation. Even our body will be metamorphosed as mortality is swallowed up of life!
Some think we are preaching a "someday" manifestation, that, like the old rapture teaching, we are just waiting, expecting to be manifested sons "someday." That is not it at all! There is a bright tomorrow in God! And our today will bring us to that even more glorious tomorrow! Some want "name it and claim it" sonship. They want to believe that all the fullness has always been available and is now available, we just need to believe it, confess it, and appropriate it. That isn’t working any better in sonship than it has worked in the revival realms and faith churches! Of those who don’t want to wait for anything in God I haven’t seen even one moving on a level beyond Pentecost, all their flowery oratory notwithstanding! And that’s the truth. Talk is cheap, but the revelation of Jesus Christ is an on-going revelation, from glory to glory and from realm to realm. Nothing in this world comes to us all neatly packaged and completed. Children must grow! Students must learn! Houses must be built! Technology must be developed! Workers must become experienced! The sun shines from the east to the west! As the inner glory broke through the outer form of Jesus on the holy mount, so the full radiance of Christ shall be revealed in the hour of our unveiling. As we approach this wonderful unveiling let us then cast off the lingering fragments of the old order and of lesser realms, and embrace the new with faith and trust in Him who bids us to follow the Lamb to mount Zion!
UNION WITH CHRIST
The body of Christ is a mystery. It is a marvelous temple that God our Father is in the process of building. It is a temple not made with hands! The stones of its all-glorious walls are living stones, each one born of incorruptible seed and knowing within himself the power of Christ’s endless life. The Greek passage (Heb. 7:15-17) which speaks of Christ as a priest "made after the power of an endless life," when traced back to its root could also be translated, "after the power of a UNITED LIFE." It speaks of a life that is eternal only because of its union with God. "I and my Father are one" (Jn. 10:30). In that glorious body, that wonderful temple of sons, there never has been any falling away or apostasy, for it is composed of overcomers, and from the beginning of the age until now it has been steadily rising upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets as each new living stone was readied and permanently placed within its living walls. The body of Christ is unhindered by fire, by tribulation or persecution, unaffected by the squabblings of sects and denominations, but rising in the power of incorruption and bound by the everlasting ties of the mind of Christ, it is builded a holy and living temple unto the Lord!
It is from this glorious temple that Ezekiel saw the Living Waters flowing, deeper and deeper, passing through the desolate land and emptying into the Dead Sea of humanity’s sin and corruption, bringing life where ere it went. Would you be a part of God’s wonderful RIVER OF LIFE COMPANY? Seek, then, to be joined in eternal union with Christ, set your affection on things above, that the things of earth may grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Our great High Priest, the firstborn Son of God, is made after the power of a united life! And we, too, are made after the power of a united life in Him! Seek not to flow, seek to abide! Seek not to be a river, seek to be joined in union with the Fountain of Living Water! In intimacy of fellowship and vital union with Him, as sure as the heavens are higher than the earth, so sure is it that YOU WILL FLOW IN HIS LIFE AND HIS LIFE WILL FLOW THROUGH YOU!
Let it be thoroughly known that God flows as life only through those who live in union with Him in the Spirit. The stream of the river of life has in every age flowed out through those who lived in the Spirit. God has always accomplished His work through those who walked in the stream of His purposes. Where the stream flows, there is the work of God! What is that kind of work which is the work of God? Is it toiling to build larger and larger churches, bigger Sunday Schools, more attractive programs? Ah, God’s work is always in the stream of living water! God is spirit, and God’s works are in the stream of His Spirit. "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said..." (Gen. 1:2-3). Where the stream flows, there is the work of God! God works by the flowing of the stream of His divine life. On the cross of Calvary blood and water flowed forth from the side of Jesus and redemption was provided for all mankind! On the day of Pentecost this stream of divine life flowed out of God Himself in Christ with transforming power from the throne! It began to flow in Jerusalem. From there it flowed to Antioch, and then from Antioch it turned west; it flowed to Asia, and through Asia it flowed to Macedonia, and onward to Europe. From Europe it flowed to the New World, and it has flowed to every nation, and tongue, and tribe, and people on the face of the whole earth!
This stream has continued to flow right up to this very day, it has finally flowed into you and me, and it shall flow out through us, and from generation to generation, through age after age, until the last enemy has been destroyed throughout all God’s vast universe, worlds without end, and there is no more death anywhere, for God is All-in-all! Where this stream flows, there is the life of God! Where there is the life of God, there is the unity of God! And where there is the unity of God, there is the out-flowing of God! And though the city of God is a great and glorious city, the river flows forth from the throne of God. To the overcomer is the promise given, "I will grant to you to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne" (Rev. 3:21). Just as there are saints who are stones in the wall of the city, or pillars in the temple of God, so there are those who become a throne people. These are the ruling sons of God, and it is from the throne of God and of the Lamb that the living stream proceeds! The greatest manifestation of life the world has ever seen shall yet come forth in the earth through a people who become the throne of God in the earth! The glory of God fills the city, and the whole earth is full of His glory, and His glory is above the heavens - yet God sits upon His throne - there is a unique concentration of divine life, power, and dominion from those who make up the throne of God!
To be identified with His throne is the ultimate attainment of union with God. He is making us one with Him to such a degree that when He acts we act, when He moves we move, when He speaks we speak, and when He speaks all will speak because of the united life in the Spirit. It is a unity with Christ and with all who have grown up into the measure of His stature. When God speaks from His throne, it is the voice of the many-membered Son, the voice that is as the sound of many waters, many spirits merged into one gigantic waterfall - ONE GREAT RIVER OF LIFE! Take the shoes from off your feet, oh saint of God, for the ground on which we stand is holy ground! Put away all lightness and foolishness that with heads bowed down, and hearts lifted up in worship, the Spirit of God may reveal how the life of God flowing in the exalted and enthroned Christ and the life of Christ flowing through His many brethren is ONE STREAM OF THE WATER OF LIFE! This is the river that flowed out of Eden’s beautiful garden, one river, the flowing out of God Himself as reality and life. As long as Adam walked in the Spirit in the Garden, the river flowed forth out of that dominion which was his!
FROM THE WORKS TO THE PERSON
It should not be difficult to understand that this is the answer to all the worlds needs! For this purpose the elect of God have been passing through all the dealings and workings of God, particularly during the past few years, in order that Christ might be fully formed within as life. We must know Him as life within ourselves before there can be a flowing out of that life from a state of being. We learn to know the majesty of His power within by the crucible of experience so that God may have a people through whom He can manifest Himself WITHOUT INHIBITION, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WITHOUT ANY HINDERING OF THE FULL FLOW OF HIMSELF, SO THAT IT WILL BE THE FULL MANIFESTATION OF HIS LOVE, GRACE, WISDOM, POWER, LIFE, SALVATION, AND DELIVERANCE TO ALL HUMANITY. A people no longer seeking God’s works, wonderful though His works are, but conscious of God Himself. A river of life people not proclaiming doctrines, creeds, rituals, experiences, ordinances, programs, or works, but just the Lord Himself as Life and Light and Love, GOD manifest in the flesh!
For years we have been saying, "If the world could only see the works of God!" Well, I tell you now that we have shown them His works and it was not the answer, for far too often the works - the signs, wonders, and miracles - fascinated the lustful eyes of the curious and blessed the people’s flesh, but failed to impart unto them the LIFE OF THE SON OF GOD! God did not save the world by works, He saved the world by A PERSON! This life is a Person! "I AM the life" (Jn. 14:6). Is it not a miracle that God is bringing us to this hour when there is that awareness within us that there must be an expression, a revelation, an unveiling, an uncovering, and out-flowing of the Person of God! What a marvelous work is coming in these days! As an evangelist years ago, I loved to travel through the country and tell people that there is a remedy for sin, sickness and sorrow through the blood of Jesus Christ, and an energizing power in the Holy Spirit. People were saved and delivered, healed and blessed, and miracles were wrought. The days which are before us will excel in glory, for now there will be an emanation, a radiation, an out-shining of the very presence and glory and person of Christ, that men may see HIM as He is and be changed into His likeness. They will find they have the full effects of His sacrifice, atonement, redemption, resurrection, ascension, glorification, exaltation and enthronement!
God is breaking forth unto an hour of expression and revelation of Himself. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ! In those heaven blest days ahead at the manifestation of the sons of God the present "in part" realm of the church age will pass away, for it will appear as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, and have nothing to offer in the light of HIS FULLNESS. The old order church system will be swallowed up in the out-flowing of the fullness of God in His sons, and in that day people will find themselves moving into salvation and on into the infilling of the Spirit and on into the glory of the Lord in all its majesty, as easily as a man is converted today, because the Person of Christ is coming into focus and He Himself is coming into expression through His chosen ones. The people’s bodies shall even be changed to be fashioned like unto His glorious body as the sons of God go forth to DELIVER CREATION FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION!
There is a dimension of the revelation of Jesus Christ that transcends the speaking of words, the writing of books, the preaching of sermons, and the manifestation of gifts and works. The revelation of Jesus Christ is the need of the hour! Only a present intervention of the divine Mind and Will, only a present intrusion of the divine Power and Glory, only a present interjection of the divine Spirit of Life will be able to deliver creation. If God does not give a special ministration of the spirit of wisdom and power to meet the need of the world, it will not be met. After two thousand years of church order it has not been met! There are no buttons to press that can solve the complex and frightening problems that exist in the world today! The further we move in God the more helpless we are to ourselves, for our nothingness is magnified in the light of HIS GLORY.
The hour for the unveiling of God’s sons is at hand. May God grant to each of His apprehended ones the understanding that from this time on God is not interested in what He has done for you. From now on it must be "When Christ who is our life shall appear..." If there is a mind in us, it must be the mind of Christ, not our religious mind that has been cultivated through the years until it is religious and devoted and full of the Bible and stayed on God. From now on it must not be your mind stayed on God, it must be His mind in you! What we have witnessed to for years was a work of God, His salvation in us, His peace in us, His victory in us, how we had become a product of the work of God; but God’s purpose is not that we shall be a testimony of the work of God, but that there shall come a revelation of HIMSELF, that the revelation will BE CHRIST. This is what the Holy Spirit means by the revelation of Jesus Christ! It will not be a revelation of His grace, or His goodness, or His works, or His gifts, or His anything, but the unveiling of the Person of God in us!
God is talking to His sons about PERSONIFICATION, EMBODIMENT, MANIFESTATION AND REVELATION. All who are pressing forward into sonship are going to embody Christ as we have been embodying the works of Christ. Christians represent the work of God: saved from this, having received that, experiencing the other, and changed into something else; but it is still "ME." What you see is a marvelous expression of the handiwork of God. And I would not depreciate this one iota, for it is the handiwork of God! But God intends that the hour should come when there shall be a revelation of GOD HIMSELF! Are you willing, precious friend of mine, to have nothing but the Person? Are you willing to lay aside the work and forget the experience, to have the Person? The hoary headed old prophet took up the baby Jesus in his arms and declared, "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation!" The salvation He saw was not a work, not a gift, not an experience, it was in the baby. There are thousands of people living in the state of Texas and around the world today who are living witnesses to the work of God, of His handiwork, the power of the blood, His saving grace, the gifts and anointings of God. But what is God still looking for, what is creation yet groaning for, and what is to be ushered in by the manifested sons of God that is any different from what we have had for two thousand years? A PEOPLE WHO ARE NO LONGER WITNESSES TO THE WORK OF GOD, NO LONGER OPERATORS OF THE GIFTS OF GOD, BUT WHO BEAR THE VERY PERSON OF GOD IN A TRANSCENDENTAL WAY, IN WHOM THE VERY LIFE-BEING OF GOD IS FORMED, SO THAT WHEN THEY BEAR WITNESS TO SALVATION, IT WILL BE BEARING WITNESS TO THE PERSON OF THE LORD.
What the Spirit is saying is that God must have a people in whom the Lord is becoming rather than doing. That is what the manifestation of the sons of God is, that is what the revelation of Jesus Christ is, and there will never be a revelation of Jesus Christ if all I can talk about and demonstrate is of what He has done. His works are not Him - HE IS A PERSON! His gifts are not Him - HE IS A PERSON! Paul said, "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me," not, "It pleased God to reveal some of the works of His Son in me and give me some great experiences." And when He prayed, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you," Paul did not mean that they should receive a little more cleansing, a little greater anointing in the gifts, do a few more good works, die a little more death, and so on. Oh, no! There came an hour when Paul knew that the works of the Lord would not be sufficient, but that the Lord Himself had to be put on in all fullness, so that instead of having a work of peace or patience or power, The Lord Himself would be the peace, the patience, and the power!
The scripture says, "The Lord is my strength." It does not refer to some strength the Lord has dished out to us, but, the Lord Himself has become our strength; not a work, not a gift, but a Person. THAT IS SONSHIP AS A COMPLETED FACT. The revelation now is the revelation of a Person, our witness is unto Him because the Person has become in us. It looks as though you are turning your back on these wonderful works of God, but you needed them to bring you to where you are in God. And I do not doubt that thousands and millions of believers need them still! But now you are "forgetting those things which are behind." From now on, what Christ is, becomes the expression! If at this hour we still need God to DO for us rather than for the Christ to BECOME in us, then we are not ready for the manifestation of the sons of God! When God sends forth His sons, He sends them forth as those in whom Christ is so fully formed that it is not a matter of needing God to do anything anymore, but that Christ has BECOME in them, praise His name!
It is vastly more important to reveal the life of the Son of God in meeting creation’s need, than to be witnessing to people about salvation, healing, or any other thing. We have become so conditioned to the notion that we aren’t doing anything for God unless we are able to get out and witness and skillfully use the scriptures. That is all good, and there is a place for it, but that is not the manifestation of the sons of God! When you are truly helping people you are becoming a living word to them which says, "God cares for you!" That is simply Christ living His life through you. We become a word that is alive to them, not a dead, printed word, or a testimony, but the living manifestation of the Christ. There is something we can do, and it is more important and powerful than witnessing, quoting scriptures, or teaching. Instead of witnessing about God, we become the witness - the embodiment of what Jesus Christ really is!
May Christ be so fully revealed to all of us is my earnest prayer and deepest desire, that in these significant days there will not be any longer a cry in our spirit, "O God, do something for me!" That leaves me with myself on my hands! The secret of Jesus was that for three and a half years He did not have to be more consecrated, He did not have to be more dedicated, He did not have to become more victorious, He did not need another experience, or another blessing; all He had to do was let the Father live out through Him! And may it be so in the days ahead that it will be Christ fully formed in us, Christ living out in all the glory of God, in all the fullness of His life and love and power and victory - HIMSELF! This is the revelation of Jesus Christ!
THE APPEARING OF CHRIST IN THE SONS
The revelation of Jesus Christ is the appearing of Jesus Christ, and the appearing of Jesus Christ is the coming of Jesus Christ. "Who shall abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?" Ah, Jesus Christ has come as Saviour and has appeared in saving power in the midst of all the saved ones. He has come as Baptizer in the Holy Spirit and has appeared in the glory of the anointing in the midst of all the Spirit-filled ones. He has come as Healer and has appeared in miracle-working wonder in the midst of all the healed ones. But now, in the full manifestation of His Sonship, He must come as LORD, as KING, as PRIEST, as the SON OF GOD!
The world will never know Him as King of kings until there are kings among whom He can stand and reveal Himself as King of the kings. The world will never know Him as Lord, until there are lords among whom He can stand and reveal Himself as Lord of the lords. The world will never know Him as High Priest until there are priests among whom He can stand and reveal Himself as the great High Priest of their profession. Why is God bringing many sons to glory? That in the midst of all Jesus Christ might appear as the pre-eminent One, THE SON among the sons. As long as we remain children, He can not appear as the Son in the midst of children. How are you going to have a Son who is pre-eminent among a group of babies? There is no pre-eminence at all, that gives Him no eminence whatsoever, it gives Him no honor. You cannot say, "He is the first-begotten, the first-born among many babies!" But as our Father brings us to maturity, bringing many sons to glory, He appears as the pre-eminent One, as the first-born among MANY BRETHREN! Why does God want us to grow up into the fullness of sonship? So that the Son of God can be revealed in all His glory, wisdom, virtue, and power in and through the sons. Why does God want us to be king-priests, maturing in the priestly nature and ministry? So that He can appear in the midst as the great Royal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek to bless and redeem and restore all of creation to God!
As long as we remain down on some spiritual plane below this high calling, even though He is greater than we, He has to condescend and limit His manifestation in and through us to the level we are on. It is like a father playing ball with his three-year old! He condescends to that level and manifests on that level, and is glad to do so, but that is not who and what he is! It is beneath him! In like manner, Jesus Christ appears in the midst of WHAT WE ARE IN HIM! He comes as El Shaddai, the breasted one, bearing the milk of the Word in the midst of all the babes in Christ. He appears as the gift-giver to all the children who delight in gifts. But as the sons of God arise to the throne of the heavenlies to occupy the place God has ordained for them, in the place of exaltation, glory and dominion, then Christ can be revealed in greater glory, in greater majesty, and in greater might!
The apostle Paul lived in a dark and treacherous hour at the dawn of the church age. The Roman world was pregnant with difficulties; the Pax Romana was weakening; the barbarians were clamoring at the gates of Rome; Herod, Pilate, and Caesar had conspired to destroy the Christ and His newly budding religion; the religions of paganism had lost their force and were only nominally held by most of the pagan world. Even the religion of the chosen people had degenerated until it was in a deplorable state. The world was half slave and half free. Infanticide was prevalent everywhere. Perversion was approved by the philosophers, as well as the masses. What hope was there for a world in such a state? Things, indeed, looked dark!
They were dark also in the heart of Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. He came in religious zeal breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. He was a man who was filled with indignity and hostility and bitterness. If he found any Christians, men or women, he sought to bind them and bring them to Jerusalem where they might be tortured and killed, if they refused to recant of this Christian heresy. He went to the High Priest to secure papers to go to Damascus. As he drew near, there suddenly shone a light from heaven so bright as to pale the sun by comparison, and it caused him to be thrown from his horse to the ground! In this blinding light Saul heard a voice which called his name saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Trembling with astonishment, Saul asked, "Who art thou, Lord?" The reply thundered back, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest!"
In that moment Saul saw a vision that was to change his entire life! Everything was changed in the brilliance of that light! His world was turned upside down - rather, right side up! His right, he discovered, was wrong; his faith was unbelief; his earnestness was treason; his truth was error; his zeal was rebellion. Everything suddenly turned topsy-turvy and he realized that this Jesus, whose name just a moment before had been an epithet, an object of derision, of laughter, of scorn, of hatred, now suddenly was the Lord of Glory, the All Holy One, the Altogether Lovely One, the Creator and Redeemer of the world! In that blessed moment Saul was changed from the persecutor to a disciple. He fell to the ground a sinner, and rose a saint; he fell to the ground a sighted man who was blind, and rose a blind man who could see! He saw the greatest sight in all the world! He saw His God for who He really is. In that moment Saul bowed low before the God of grace and power; he was brought to submission to Jesus Christ. It was after this that he testified, "But...it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to REVEAL HIS SON IN ME..." (Gal. 1:15). And through Paul’s life and ministry the church was established throughout the far-flung Empire, and the course of history was forever altered. Skeptics down through the centuries have tried to explain that conversion and the dramatic events it precipitated. But, precious friend of mine, there is no explanation other than the SUPERNATURAL SOVEREIGN WORK OF GOD! That is our God! And I do not hesitate to tell you, my beloved, that God is getting ready to move again! All over the world in this particular moment in history, the Spirit of God is speaking to His apprehended ones concerning the imminent manifestation of the sons of God! The trumpet has sounded - the appointed time has come! Elect saints in every nation under heaven have heard the voice of the prophets, foretelling of this most awesome intervention of God’s power that is about to sweep the earth and shake all nations!
We are now living in the most momentous hours anyone could possibly imagine! In fact, it is beyond the power of human imagination to see and understand the greatness of the things that are happening all about us, and to fully comprehend what God is doing so deeply within His people. There is an awakening among the elect of the Lord that transcends human knowledge! As at a certain time of the year God puts it into the minds of salmon to leave the vastnesses of the sea and start their long journey back to the river in which they were born, so He is putting into the hearts of His chosen people the desire to ready themselves for the sonship He has prepared for them from the foundation of the world! He is putting in their minds and hearts the very nature and spirit of sonship, in preparation for their role as the deliverers and shepherds of the nations!
God has been using people in every generation and in every nation and place to whatever degree He has prepared the vessel as a revelation of Himself. There has been that unfolding of His purpose, that flowing of His life, that manifestation of Himself. Great and wonderful beyond description has been the moving of God from age to age and from generation to generation! God has been using preachers and people in every denomination and movement everywhere to whatever degree He purposed for that season and degree of revelation. But there shall come the ultimate, the total, and complete revelation of Jesus Christ - not a narrow, limited thing, not to get a number of people saved and blessed and healed and filled with the Spirit and used, but the kingdom of God coming with power and great glory, as an expression and manifestation of God in its total capacity with no limitations, with all the glory, all the power, all the might, all the majesty, all the authority, so that nations will be swept into the kingdom of God, and the whole creation delivered from all the bondage of corruption!
A thousand, yea, tens of thousands, a mighty army has been touched by the fire from off the altar of God! A vast company of king-priests has been 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! Too long men have 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. We must watch that! If we are trying to perpetuate even the Pentecostal or Latter Rain revivals we are missing God! Pentecost has gone the way of all flesh, and the Rain is over and gone! Even now, a move of God of unprecedented and world-wide dimensions is in the making! It is being formed in a people, in a sonship company that is becoming the embodiment and personification of all He is! Ah, this will not be a revival of healing campaigns, evangelistic crusades, television programs, concerts, bus ministries, coffee houses, or the building of church buildings, but the overflow of divine passion and power from a people so consecrated to God that their minds, hearts, and bodies have been filled with HIMSELF! Already bright clouds are gathering on the horizon, clouds of a multitude of witnesses to the deep and vital work of God in their lives. The work of preparation has been long and meticulous, and it is now drawing to a close. The celestial rivers are running full, and great glory is about to break forth upon the earth! In due time the clouds shall burst and empty themselves upon the earth, and the river of life shall flow in mighty power from the throne of God!
Let your heart be lifted high, for God is on the move, 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 and manifestations in this hour; His concern is with the inner development of the Christ life, the personal appropriation of all He is, becoming the essence and substance of His nature and character. Right now the greatest service we can give to others is to die out to all our own ego-self, that the living of His life becomes its own declaration of all that He is and can do, to His glory and praise!
It is my conviction that all who treasure the beautiful hope of sonship will agree that the manifestation of the sons of God is the next thing on God’s agenda for planet earth, and that it must be ONE HUNDRED PERCENT THE WORK OF GOD. But it cannot be one hundred percent God’s work when there is still ninety percent of us, or eighty, forty, ten, or one percent of us. If the expression of God that is coming will be "Jesus and me," then we will also give the glory to "Jesus and me." But if it is Jesus alone, I may be the vessel, you may be the vessel, but the manifestation and the excellency of the power shall be of God and not of us. So much manifestation has been "God and us." Our drive, our holiness, our spirituality, our faith, our commitment, our dedication, our fasting, our praying, our ability, our wisdom, our strength, has been mingled with self. But today the Spirit is saying that all our confidence in the flesh must go - Christ in us is becoming the totality of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, power and glory, and nothing of us. It is THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST! How can it be us when it is HIM? God shall now be glorified in and through us, by Jesus Christ!
I feel it in my spirit and we are seeking God and praying, crying out mightily unto Him, and waiting on God until that full manifestation of all that God has purposed will come. We cannot continue on with the motions of the old order, for it is a weariness to us. All over the world there are people who are seeking God like this! Many have been drawn away and separated from all their former involvements and religious exercises, the church systems of men, and the old ways of doing things, to wait for His NEW ORDERS! God is making choice among us, reaching down in this hour and choosing those whom He has brought to weakness and nothingness, predestinated for this Day.
Ah, He does not have to use us! We have heard His call and present ourselves before Him for His choosing. I have a deep desire to stand among the company of God’s manifested sons! But let us leave the choosing to God. And if God is pleased to choose us, we will give Him all the glory. And if He is pleased to bypass us and choose others, there will be no recrimination in our spirit. We will say, "Lord, Thou art altogether righteous in all things." We are not grasping after the throne, like the mother of James and John, but we are yielding ourselves unto God. In previous moves of the Spirit, God picked me up and used me and He said, "I am not using you because of anything in yourself, but out of sovereign choice." I saw other people that were more ready to be used than I was, not used, and I asked God why, and He answered, "Out of my sovereign purposes I am not using them." That is why I do not criticize anybody who was not in the previous visitations, or in the word God is giving us today. I know it was God who kept many people out, who shut them up and hedged them in to a lesser thing in God, and God brought other people in. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts! God searches the reins and the hearts of all men! He knows us better than we know ourselves! He knows if there is any wicked way in us that even we do not know! But He is going to use people! People like you and me! This is not daydreaming or wishful thinking, neither are we deluded. God is ready to manifest Himself through all the earth, so let us say, "Lord, let us be among those. We are available."
To the above counsel I would add this word of admonition: No one has to strive to make himself a son of God, for this calling was determined before the foundation of the world when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. It is not a matter of trying to press (force) your way into something, but of yielding to the sovereign dealings and the divine inworkings of the Father and fitting by His choice into His glorious scheme. We are king-priests by the same oath that made our blessed Forerunner a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The process has been long, the dealings have been severe, the disciplining has been rigorous, but soon, O soon! shall the day for the showing, the uncovering, the unveiling dawn in all its power and glory! The blessed sons of God shall be arrayed in order with the manifestation of HIS LIFE flowing out from them!
There are no counterfeits in this realm, when God manifests reality. There are no phonies in this kingdom realm of God! When the sons of God arise to bless the nations either you will "have it" or you won’t "have it." As long as we remain in preparation there is opportunity for men to proclaim themselves, to jump on the bandwagon, to mouth all the right words and utter all the correct terminology, and appear to be of those chosen to be sons. These "clouds without water" sometimes teach with flowery oratory, oozing with charisma, and some even lay claim to already being manifested as the fulfillment of their message. Presumptuously claiming that which they do not possess, they make their boasts, and many are deceived by their great swelling words of vanity. But the day of manifestation approaches! The Day will declare every man’s work, of what sort it is! There is a remnant in whom the Spirit of God is working a transformation. In due time God shall manifest this many-membered son and their NEW STATE OF BEING shall utterly silence all the false claims of carnal impostors. Conformed to His image, filled with His Spirit, the embodiment and personification of His wisdom, nature, grace and power - no man will be able to counterfeit the reality of this new state of being, and these shall redound to the glory of God. God starts this work, God works it out, and God brings it to its conclusion; it is all of Him and that is why the flesh or any religious spirit cannot duplicate such glorious, divine handiwork!
The revelation of Jesus Christ is yet to have its greatest stage! If you think creation was something - you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! If you think it was the greatest of all times when Jesus Christ came into the earth touchable and knowable, healing, delivering, teaching, touching, revealing the Father - you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! On the day of Pentecost Jesus came back in the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues, prophesying, with signs and wonders and divers gifts of power and glory, calling out His elect and forming in the earth a body for Himself - but I tell you, you ain’t seen nothin yet! God has reserved the greatest manifestation of Himself through the many sons He is bringing to glory!
The sons of God are marching forth: with Victory as
their song.
No enemy or foe from North shall change their right to wrong.
For in their bosom is a seed more precious than fine gold,
And it shall be forevermore THE GREATEST STORY TOLD!
There is no need to speak against the things He hath revealed,
For unto babes and sucklings shall be made known His will.
Though they appear as "frail and weak" as some would say they are,
Yet their heart’s eye beholds the Bright and Morning Star.
And He hath burned within their hearts, a message to proclaim;
For every knee shall soon be bowed, all tongues confess His name.
The sons of God are marching forth - His banner to unfurl,
The greatest story ever told - shall be told all the world!
For in a lowly manger and a place of secrecy
His first appearing wasn’t known; all mankind could not see.
Then was the time when some could hear, those having ears, said He;
But...when He comes the second time - not in a borrowed stall,
But in a house not made with hands - He’ll be admired by all!
In flaming fire and with His sword, He shall eternally
Destroy the ones who know not God - who are His enemies.
The sons of God are marching forth - though it may seem to some
That in their battles they have lost, and have been overcome.
But doth His Word not even say...that though this be the case,
The pure in heart with victory, shall look upon His face.
For in His presence they do drink - His blood from Calvary,
They know that He was born to die; but they were born set free.
And in His law both day and night, their thoughts shall ever be
UNTIL THE VISION THEY HAVE CAUGHT BECOMES REALITY!
Until the enemy of death, even death of Adam be
Acknowledged as a death undone, undone at Calvary;
Then shall the saying come to pass, "Oh death, where is thy sting?"
And then the song of Moses shall the saints begin to sing.
Thanks be to God which giveth us victory through our Lord,
He hath divided unto us His swift and terrible sword;
All things that unto Him belong: all things that He obtained;
We are His heirs, joint heirs we are - of us He’s not ashamed.
It is not for our righteousness He bringeth us reward,
But for His grace and grace alone, could any man afford;
And judgment shall be given to the Son of God, said He,
For He alone is capable of judging righteously!
I looked! And lo! A Lamb stood! Upon a mount called Zion,
And with Him were the children that are wonders and are signs;
And in their mouths was found no guile, His image they portrayed;
His Spirit led, they followed Him...His light was their array.
Oh! That the wonder of it all might be made known to thee,
That in the New Jerusalem no night shall ever be.
For in the Potter’s House...one pearl has groaned in great travail
Until His love is known to be THE ANSWER FOR THE WORLD!
- Charlene Appleby
To be continued...
J. PRESTON EBY
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