KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES
KINGDOM
BIBLE STUDIES
"Teaching
the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
THE
HEAVENS DECLARE
Part
47
LEO
--THE LION
(continued)
Last month we plumbed the depths and scaled the heights of revelation in
the glorious Sign of LEO, THE LION the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who is
none other than our blessed Lord Jesus the Christ.
In this Study we reach the last scene of the final act in GOD'S BIBLE IN
THE SKY. We now draw to a
conclusion these meditations on the great drama of the ages which started with
Virgo, the Virgin, and comes full circle in Leo, the Lion to pass on to
other vital truths the Spirit is speaking to the elect of God in this
significant hour.
No doubt whatever exists about the meaning of Leo.
In this Sign we see for the fourth time the symbolism of the Christ in
triumph crushing the head of the serpent. It
was seen in the Sign of Scorpio, where Ophiuchus the mighty man holds his foot
over the head of the Scorpion, the deadly enemy, about to crush him.
Again the triumphant victor, Hercules, was seen, crushing with his foot,
the head of the terrible dragon, Draco. Further,
in the Sign of Taurus, we noted Orion the great hunter with his foot on the head
of Lepus, the enemy. Now, finally,
the truth is repeated in this last Sign, Leo.
Leo brings the whole story to completion by showing the final end of the
adversary. The almighty Christ of
God has come within us as life and wisdom and strength and victory to tear away
the flesh of our carnal mind and nature and crush every bone of our resistance
to His Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Christ is Leo the Lion! Christ
is the mighty King! Christ shall
triumph within! And Christ shall
triumph everywhere in all realms unto the endless vastnesses of infinity
forevermore! Praise His wonderful
name!
It is another mystery, but it is a grand fact of truth nevertheless, that
Christ first reigns IN us that He may consequently reign THROUGH us.
"Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye
blessed of My Father, INHERIT THE KINGDOM prepared for you from the foundation
of the world" (Mat. 25:34). "Know
ye not that the unrighteous shall not INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD?
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF
GOD" (I Cor. 6:9-10). "Now
this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD....
(I Cor. 15:50).
I have met men who professed that they had no desire, no ambition
whatever, to rule and reign with Christ. It
is enough, say they, to know that we are saved by grace and shall make heaven at
last. In fact, I have been greatly
criticized by some for my hope of inheriting the Kingdom of God and sitting with
Christ on the throne of universal dominion.
In the eyes of these accusers I am vain, conceited, self righteous,
presumptuous, heretical and power-mad because I cherish the beautiful hope of
sonship and rulership in the Kingdom of God.
But I do not hesitate to tell you that Christ Himself has graciously
bidden us to overcome and share with Him His authority over the nations and all
things. He would both be King IN US
and exercise His regal power THROUGH US. "To
him that overcometh will I grant 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).
Such reward to His faithful followers is merely the tangible expression
of the approval of God, and we may no more deny Him the pleasure of expressing
that approval than we may renounce it once it is conferred.
HE WHO DESPISES A THRONE DESPISES HIM WHO CONFERS THE THRONE.
It was one of our Lord's rebukes to the Pharisees - "The glory that
cometh only from God YE SEEK NOT" (Jn. 4:44). The Spirit of the Lord has
been speaking to my heart. He is
urging me to become a true partaker of the HEAVENLY CALLING.
It is a wonderful truth that Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
and you will understand a great mystery when the Spirit makes it real to you
that we are the body of Christ
therefore, we are the body of Leo the
Lion, we are the body of the
all-victorious King of glory! For
those who are growing up into the image, stature, and fullness of Christ, the
Sign of Leo is the classroom in which we have special opportunity to learn to
live as kings and priests in the government of God.
Every child of God called to sonship is now in school.
We may feel that we graduated from school long ago, but that is a
mistake; we hadn't even started to school at that time.
When you received the call to sonship and went out in the world on your
own, you really, then, started to school. When
God drew you out of the Babylonian religious system and separated you unto
Himself you may have felt you "graduated" into a new realm and you
certainly did. You graduated from kindergarten!
And immediately you were enrolled in the first grade of God's SCHOOL
OF SONSHIP. In this school there is
only one course taught, and that is the course of overcoming, which is the
hardest course to master and finish known in any curriculum in the world today.
This matter of disciplining one's thoughts, desires, emotions, habits; of
training one's spirit and soul and body to function on the level of the mind,
nature, wisdom and power of Christ is of the greatest importance and spells the
difference between success and failure in the Kingdom of God.
To finish this course marks the difference between being in the High
Calling of God in Christ Jesus, or remaining a babe in Christ, a nominal citizen
in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The reason so many people fail to attain to great heights in the Spirit
is because they are unable to see God's purpose, and therefore they have no
particular incentive to seek the great heights that are in Him.
So many Christians are far too taken up with carnal ideas and childish
notions about mansions and harps and sitting on clouds eating pork chops with
nothing to do and all eternity to do it in, to be able to grasp the great
realities of the Kingdom of God! There
are certain basic principles of the Kingdom that must be a part of the mind-set
and experience of all who press forward into sonship to God.
We must learn to think like God. We
must begin to RULE WITH CHRIST IN THIS LIFE.
Too many saints are weak, frustrated and defeated.
May the dynamite of God's Spirit blow us all out of the low places of
lethargy, discouragement, oppression and defeat into a vibrant walk with Christ
in the high places of peace, joy, and triumph of His Kingdom. Strengthen
yourselves in the Lord and in the
power which His supreme might imparts. Put
on the complete armour of God, so as to be able to stand firm against all the
stratagems of the devil. For ours
is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but
with despotisms, the empires, the forces that control and govern this
dark world the spiritual hosts of evil
arrayed against us in the heavenly warfare.
Wherefore put on the complete armour of God, so that you may be
able to stand your ground in the evil day, and having fought to the end,
TO REMAIN VICTORS ON THE FIELD" (Eph. 6:10-14, Weymouth).
We are called to reign with Christ from the highest heaven.
Such all-embracing majesty is far too vast far my feeble understanding,
yet I know by the Spirit that the body of Christ is in practical preparation for
the explicit purpose of UNIVERSAL DOMINION.
But how can a man rule over principalities and powers and worlds and
universes if he is unable to rule his own spirit?
"He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a
city" (Prov. 16:32). The awful
betrayal, trial, mockery, beating, and crucifixion of Jesus is the most shining
example. It is difficult to imagine
any humiliation more bitter than that. It
is the worst indignity that anyone can be called upon to endure.
Few have ever had to bear it. Never
was dishonor less deserved, never was dishonor more bravely borne.
Through that fierce and heated hour our Lord bore Himself with quiet
dignity. Others were convulsed with
uncontrolled passion, He alone was calm and self- possessed.
His victory over Himself was greater than His victory over His enemies.
In such experiences of provocation, truly, "He that ruleth his own
spirit is better than he that taketh a city."
God is a God of principle. He
does not do anything by chance. It
is my deep conviction that what happens in your life and mine is a result of the
use or abuse of the principles of the Kingdom of God.
Learn this, beloved, and you will know one of the fundamental principles
of reigning with Christ: OUR
AUTHORITY IS OVER SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS F-I-R-S-T-L-Y
I-N O-U-R-S-E- L- V- E- S!
"To him that overcometh will I (consequentially) give power over the
nations: and he shall rule them..." (Rev. 2:26-27).
"To him that overcometh will I grant (consequentially) to sit with
Me in My throne" (Rev. 3:21).
As I have pointed out many times before, the journey to the throne of the
universe begins in that small and undistinguished place where you are.
The Kingdom of God is within you. The
enChristed who are to reign with Christ first from sea to sea, then from planet
to planet, and finally from universe to universe, are being prepared.
Think not in your heart, precious friend of mine, that you may pass your
life here careless, indifferent to the dealings of God, suddenly to awake one
fine morning to find yourself sitting with Christ governing the galaxies,
because such a thing will not be. Begin
today to MAKE WAY FOR THE KING! This
present time it but a proving ground for those who through grace will reign with
their Lord over the endless vastnesses of infinity.
He is raising us up to sit with Him in the higher than heavenlies.
And the place which He is preparing for each one is not only a world to
come, and a Kingdom of Life and Light, but a place IN HIM, bone of His bone,
flesh of His flesh, spirit of His spirit, mind of His mind, nature of His
nature, life of His life!
Years ago an IBM junior executive made a mistake that cost the company
several million dollars. IBM's
founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr., summoned him into his office.
Assuming the worst, the sullied young executive said, "I guess you
want my resignation? Mr. Watson
replied, "You can't be serious. We've
just spent millions of dollars educating you!"
God is the founder of the most important enterprise of all the
Kingdom of God. God is now in the
process of hiring, educating, and developing His management team.
He is training us to become
powerful rulers in that Kingdom in the day when He initiates the next
phase of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. How much has God already spent on
your training and education? God
has made a supreme investment in us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Without that price, none of us could even enter into the Kingdom of God
much less attain the high-ranking positions God has waiting for those who
overcame - who graduate from His school. But
God doesn't stop there. He invests
in us daily through His guidance and processings, and through the continuous
gracious outpourings and deep and vital dealings of His Spirit.
In a very real sense, God owns us. The
apostle Paul reminds us, For ye were bought at a price; therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit, which are God's"
(I Cor. 6:20). The great
King of this Kingdom expects to see a profit for all His time, effort and
sacrifice. God, of course, is not
interested in making money. He
already owns everything. God is in
the business of developing His family sons with character.
If those of us who are called now succeed in qualifying for positions of
rulership, we will in turn be able to help millions of others become citizens of
the Kingdom. To put it in business
terms, our future profit to the Kingdom of God will more than make up for any of
our present losses if we stay with the organization and apply the new
lessons! Saints, like the junior
executive at IBM, are capable of making costly mistakes.
Have you ever felt that God has given up on you?
Do you feel like you are wasting His time?
Sometimes our mistakes are very costly to us, too!
Have you ever felt that the cost is too high, and that you are wasting
your time? Let's see what God says:
"Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in
you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6).
God will never give up on us. He
is investing in us with every intention of making a profit and expanding His
Kingdom. Our all-wise Father sees
our potential. He knows our
capacity to grow and develop. He is
keener at discerning it than we are. He
is also well aware of our weaknesses, and is ready to help.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," said
Paul (Phil. 4:13). The children of
God make a lot of mistakes, for children are children.
Our ability to learn from our mistakes is part of what God uses to build
character in us. In the book of
Revelation, we read that it is the overcomers - those who don't leave God's
school or resign from His purposes who ultimately are given power in His
Kingdom. "And behold, I am
coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every one according to his
work" (Rev. 22:12). "For
everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much
has been committed, of him they will ask the more" (Lk. 12:48).
Have you made costly mistakes? Have
you been stumbling and seemingly wasting God's time?
Don't resign! Don't drop out
of God's school! His investment in
you is too great! He will see you
through! Graduation day is coming!
The positions in His authority and glory are waiting!
Learn the lessons that will help you to better serve in the Kingdom of
God. If you do, great heavenly
wealth and power and opportunity lie ahead for you in the age and in the ages to
come. Through you creation will be
lifted, redeemed, restored to life and liberty and glory - and that's where the
real profit begins!
Let us learn our lessons well and let us never presume that we have
attained to something in God that we have not yet qualified for. And
let us never grasp after a place or position the Father has not conferred upon
us. There is no need to DECLARE OUR
SONSHIP - the Father Himself declares His sons: "This is My beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased. This is My
son, hear ye Him." Some today
have grown weary of waiting for the manifestation God has promised, so they have
"watered-down" the hope and settled for a lesser reality, and are
declaring themselves sons of the Kingdom on a lower plane than God has called us
to. Some have settled for a
revival" realm and now speak disparagingly of what they term
"classic sonship". These
anxious souls just can't wait for the Father's appointed time.
The place that God has called us to will be in His time, not ours.
"The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a
servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the
time appointed of the father" (Gal. 4:1-2).
The story is told of a fifteen year old boy who stole his father's car
keys. The father's plan was to give
the keys to his son a year later. The
boy, however, thought that he had all the attributes necessary to drive the car.
The father knew better; he understood the law, insurance liability,
driving skills, and such like. As a
result, the court will not let the boy drive a car until he is twenty-one.
Let us earnestly seek wisdom from above to avoid such a costly error of
SELF-MANIFESTATION!
It is my deep conviction that the time appointed of the Father for the
manifestation of the sons of God is nigh at hand.
The King is coming. Hallelujah!
Sons of God shout it loud and clear!
Let the earth know her redemption draweth nigh.
The Deliverer is coming, the whole Christ-body is being prepared, and the
time is at hand. In ancient times
when a great monarch was entering a city, a herald always went before him,
blowing a trumpet and shouting, "The king is coming!"
This was to prepare the people for the entrance of the king so they would
give him the proper welcome, and pay him homage.
Two millenniums ago John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord by
bringing the people to repentance so they would be ready to receive the Lord.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness was the trumpet call announcing
the arrival of Israel's King. But
He did not come as their King in the manner they expected.
He came first as their Saviour. He
is now coming as the KING. Before
the Lord went about the towns and villages of Israel, He sent His disciples to
preach the gospel of the Kingdom and to prepare the people for His coming.
First He sent the twelve, and then the seventy.
In like manner, there is an advance company now being prepared to herald
the coming of the King; to prepare His way before Him and to make His paths
straight. The royal heralds are
going forth blowing their trumpets, proclaiming the message of the Kingdom in
the power of the Spirit, preparing the people for the appearing of the KING in a
vast company of the sons of God the King in the midst of the
kings! This is the day of Leo, the
Lion. What a glorious and mighty victory lies before us!
HYDRA
THE SERPENT DESTROYED
In the beginning of our study of the Zodiac we noted that all the Signs
of the heavens portray a progressive unfolding of truth that was hidden, like
the bud of a flower, in the ancient promise God gave in Eden: "And I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15).
We have seen the different stages of this conflict presented to us under
the various Signs. For example, in
the beginning of the story, Virgo, the Virgin, is seen bringing forth the Seed,
who is going to be engaged in the redemption of mankind, represented in Libra,
the Scales. Then immediately we see
the conflict beginning and the price to be paid as Scorpio the first picture
of that ancient serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan stings the mighty man
Orphiuchus in the heel, but is crushed beneath the right heel of this mighty
man. Again, we see the Devil
portrayed as a serpent, struggling and wriggling in the hands of Orphiuchus,
reaching up to try and take the crown away from God and those who inherit the
Kingdom. We then see satan
represented as Cetus, the Sea Monster, who was seeking after Pisces, the Fishes,
representing the people of God, as he attempts to destroy them.
This scene is symbolically described in chapter twelve of Revelation:
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, which is called the
Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted
the woman which brought forth the manchild.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman,
that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the
remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony
of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 12:9, 12-17)
Again we have seen Satan in the head and skin of the lion that was
destroyed by Orion, who holds in his hand the dead carcass of the lion, who goes
about seeking whom he may devour. Finally,
he is represented here by Hydra the
Great Serpent, who covers so much of the sky.
But now in the final scene of the last act, the Serpent is triply
destroyed (1) by the feet of Leo, the Lion (2) by the outpouring of the Cup of
wrath (3) and by the devouring fowls of the air, depicted by Corvus,
the Raven.
The first Decan, or minor constellation, in the house of Leo is HYDRA
THE GREAT SERPENT. Hydra is the
largest separate constellation in the sky, stretching more than 100 degrees
across the sky below the constellations of Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, and outside
the ecliptic (path of the sun). Hydra
is the figure of a snake, a massive snake.
The name Hydra symbolically means The
Abhorred. Hydra is the symbol
of the evil one who has at last reached his end for his head is beneath the
feet of Leo, the Lion. The
conquering Lion pounces on him, and this marks the end of the reign of sin and
death. As one has written:
"The great Serpent was first seen at the center of the ecliptic.
One of the stars in Draco, the
dragon was originally the Pole Star located at the very center. And that is
where Satan was after he had insinuated his way into the Garden of Eden and had
cast his slime across the path of the history of man, deceiving and destroying
mankind, and bringing all of the world into subjection to his vile will.
He was at the center of all things; the Prince of this earth, the Prince
and Power of the air. But now we
see that Satan is cast out. He is
outside the great circle of the ecliptic. He
is about to be finally destroyed by the Christ and cast out into utter and final
darkness."
Now it was in the midst of the Garden that man first encountered the
ancient Serpent. It's not news to
any of us that we are in the midst of a war between two kingdoms: the Kingdom of
God and the kingdom of Satan. Neither
is it news to us that WE are the battleground!
More particularly, the major focal point of the battle is our
mind. There the battle rages at
its greatest intensity, because the war is a struggle for our hearts and
loyalties the very souls and lives and beings of men.
The simple but dreadful fact is the Serpent dwells within us.
It is that force within us that opposes the ways of God in our lives and
tries to keep us from seeking those things which are above, where Christ sitteth
at the right hand of God.
This brings us to the curse laid upon the Serpent in that long ago
beginning: "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the
days of thy life" (Gen. 3:14). These
terms are symbolic and spiritual. This
is not speaking of a literal snake dangling from a tree limb in some historic
Paradise. This is a symbol, and the
great Deceiver, Satan, that ancient Serpent, the Devil, has
to eat dust! He was cursed to
this low realm of eating dust because that is exactly what he was doing when he
tempted mother Eve. Adam was formed
of the dust of the ground and bore the image of the earthy and as such
became the rightful food for the Serpent. The
Serpent the negative spirit realm now finds its base of operation and
fulfillment of its nature, desires, activities, and purposes IN AND THROUGH
MANKIND the dust realm. By the
very nature of things, when the Serpent eats, he seeks to satisfy his appetite
and gratify his desires. Today, as
in Eden, the sphere of Satan's activity is earth, and the object of his
devouring is the man of earth the carnal nature.
Whenever we live in the earthly life of Adam, we are earthly and also on
earth and fall into the sphere of Satan's activity, becoming the object of his
devouring, drawn deeper and deeper into that negative realm.
The very fact that the Serpent is now to crawl upon his belly reveals
that there was a descending from one realm to another, and man, with the Serpent
in him, now grovels in the dust, trapped in the humiliating quagmire of trouble,
pain, sorrow, sin, sickness, limitation, fear, and death.
Moving upon his belly limits the sphere of the Serpent's activity, now he
can only creep along the ground, lowered into the dust realm, confined to the
lowlands of the earthy and material, restricted to expression through the man of
dust. Truly he is "the S- P-
I- R- I- T that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).
Because of this remarkable curse you will find Satan operative in NO
OTHER REALM in God's vast universe! Satan
is one with man, the energy force of human nature, the spirit of the carnal
mind, slithering about in the lowest realms of man's earthiness, in the crooked
thoughts, perverted desires, depraved emotions, in the illusions and delusions
of the outer world of appearances, and in all the corrupt motions of the flesh.
I want to tell you where everything is everything is right there
where you are WITHIN YOU. Everything!
On the positive side God is in
you, Christ is in you your hope
of glory, the word of Christ dwells in your heart by faith, your body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost which is in you,
the glory of God has come upon you and is arising upon you from within, the
wonderful mind of Christ is in your
mind and the Kingdom of God is within
you. On the negative side
the spirit of antichrist is in you,
the man of sin sits in the temple of
God which is your body, the beast rages
in the ravenous emotions of your soul, the image of the beast is seen in
you by your outer actions, the nature of the great whore that sitteth upon
many waters (peoples) is in you, and
that ancient Serpent, the Devil, and Satan, is within
you, the spirit that now worketh IN the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2).
Men dream of a devil a hideous and obscene monster in human form; a
short, skinny elf in a red body suit, with impish face, horns, pointed ears, a
spade beard, thin mustache, having a long forked tail and a pitchfork in his
hand. If you ask one thousand
church-going professing Christians to describe for you, the Devil, would not all
of them describe him in the fashion portrayed above?
Or would they describe him to you as a snake?
Millions of professing Christians suppose they would recognize the Devil
instantly. But would they, really?
I do not hesitate to tell you that the Devil of Christianity is a myth.
Jesus, on many occasions, drew the analogy of men as serpents devils.
In my mind when Jesus uttered the following parabolic phrase, He was
revealing one of the most important and foundational truths of all times.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
Ye serpents, ye generation of
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Mat. 23:25,33).
John the Baptist used the same terminology. "But when he saw many of
the Pharisees and Sadducces come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation
of vipers, who hath warned you to
flee the wrath to come? (Mat. 3:7). Various
translations render this passage: Ye generation of vipers," "Ye
off-spring of vipers," "Ye brood of snakes," "Ye serpent's
brood," etc. You see, Christ
and John were well aware of who and what
and where the Enemy was and ever
shall be.
As in Christ's day, so today, the churches are, indeed, full of devils!
And they have no more desire to go to the cross than Peter did.
Well does this enemy of God, enthroned in the human heart, this adversary
of redemption and of all mankind, know that, in the blessed hour when the
"I" is crucified, all his power and all his authority and sway in that
life is broken forever. His
appetite is denied, his desires are rejected, his base of operation is
destroyed, and his work is abolished in every life that has become identified
with Christ in the cross. Once a
man has embraced fully the cross of Christ and Self
has became forever dead with Him, then it is with him even as the firstborn Son
in triumph declared: "I will not talk with you much more, for the prince
(evil genius, ruler) of the world is coming.
And he has no claim on Me, there is nothing in Me that belongs to him, he
has no power over Me" (Jn. 14:30, Amplified). Satan has no power at all
when SELF is gone. Then he has no
more power in your life or mine than he had in the life of our Lord Jesus
Christ. How unspeakably wonderful
the hour for any man when Satan shall find nothing
in him upon which he can feed or lay hold, nothing
upon which he can satisfy his evil desires or his corrupt nature, nothing
that responds to him or corresponds to him.
When Self is crucified with Christ the lust of the flesh is mortified,
the lust of the eyes is dead, and the pride of life is nailed to the cross.
The man of dust exists no more and from then on it is NOT I, BUT CHRIST!
The natural mind is the mind channeling the condition of the human heart.
It is not the same mind that understands how to drive your car, prepare a
meal, or lusts after someone of the opposite sex, that also understands the
mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. Not
at all! The promise is sure:
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean...a new
heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony (spiritually
unresponsive) heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a (soft, pliable,
responsive) heart of flesh. And I
will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye
shall keep My judgments, and do them"
(Eze. 36:25-27). The new
creation of which the Spirit speaks is blest not only with a new
heart and a new spirit but with a
NEW MIND as well. For, Paul says,
"Who hath known the mind of the Lord?
But WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST" (I Cor. 2:16).
There is by regeneration within ourselves, beyond the realm of our
conscious knowledge, a divine life, the child of God's Spirit, ever unwearied,
ever growing and maturing, to gain control of our whole being, and transform us
into the image of God.
There is still a fierce battle raging between these two
hearts, these two spirits, these
two minds, these two conditions,
these two natures.
This is the conflict so graphically portrayed by the Signs in GOD'S BIBLE
IN THE SKY!
Praise God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Head and body, that blessed
company of the sons of God, is disabling the Serpent, crushing the head of the
Scorpion, and placing his foot determinedly upon the Dragon's head.
Today, although the Kingdom of God has not yet outwardly triumphed upon
this earth in all realms, although God has not yet gained a sphere wherein He
can express the authority of His life in a full way, nevertheless there is a
place, a small sphere, thank the Lord, where there exists the condition of God's
reign, which thereby manifests God's glory, wisdom, love and power.
That is the body of Christ! Today
the Spirit-filled and Spirit-led members of Christ's body are the expression of
God's reigning here on earth. What
God desires today is to perfect and expand and intensify His reigning sphere
within His people and through His people. It
is through the body of Christ, the sons of God, that God binds Satan and
destroys his power of sin and death in men.
It is through the sons of God that life, yea, incorruptible life, and
blessing shall be ministered so that all the families of the earth shall be
blessed and made to live unto God. Thus
His name will be honored in the whole earth, His Kingdom come, and His glorious
will done. This is the commission of God's sons God's MIGHTY LION!
This is the grand conclusion of the ages-long conflict consummated in
the triumph of Leo!
In his book THE GOSPEL IN THE STARS Dr. Seiss sums it up in these
descriptive words: "During these six thousand years...this subtle and snaky
spirit has managed to worm himself into everything that goes to make up human
life, corrupting and debasing it to his own base ends, seating himself in all
the centers of influence and power, making himself the very king and god of this
world. From all these places he
must be dislodged, his dominion broken, his works destroyed, and he and all his
effectually rooted out and put down, before the heavenly Kingdom can come in its
consummation. In other words, the
whole empire and influence of the Serpent must be rent to atoms, worked clean
out of the realm of humanity, and so crushed as never to be able to lift up its
head again. Toward this end all the
dispensations and gifts of God, from the first promise of Adam until now, have
been directed. Toward this end all
the works and administrations of Christ to this present are framed.
To this end He comes in power and great glory as the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, to put down all rule and all authority and power,' and to trample 'all
enemies beneath His feet.' And
here, in the first Decan of Leo, is the grand picture of that consummation.
Here is Hydra, that old
Serpent, whose length stretches one-third the way around the whole sphere,
completely expelled from the places into which he had obtruded, fleeing now for
his life, and the great Lion, with claws and jaws extended, bounding in terrific
fury and seizing the foul monster's neck" end quote.
CRATER
THE JUDGMENT OF BABYLON
The second Decan in this final Sign is CRATER THE CUP.
Of this Decan Kenneth Flemming wrote:
"As a constellation, Crater is small and faint, so much so that the
popular modern astronomer, Patrick Moore, writes that it is surprising to find
that it is one of the original groups. The
answer to this is that the forty-eight original constellations were not selected
for their brilliance or size, nor were they chosen to divide up the sky, but
rather they were chosen for what they
depicted as signs. That is an
important part of the story of the prophetic signs in the sky.
Crater lies below the hind feet of Leo and seems to be resting on the
body of the snake, Hydra. Indeed,
the two stars at the bottom of the cup are also part of the body of the snake,
making the two inseparable. In
classical times the Greeks supposed that Crater was the cup of the wine-god,
Bacchus; it was therefore associated with joy and gladness (revelry).
In truth the very opposite is the case.
Instead of Crater being a cup of joy, it is the cup of God's indignation
(Rev. 14:10). It is the cup of the
wine of the fierceness of His wrath (Rev. 16:19).
It is the final and dreadful cup of wrath, reserved for the devil and his
angels" end quote.
The Psalmist Asaph wrote by inspiration: "For in the hand of the
Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and He poureth
out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring
them out, and drink them" (Ps. 75:8).
David, the sweet singer of Israel, also testified: "Upon the wicked
He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be
the portion of their cup" (Ps.
11:6). John the Revelator has
unmistakably identified for us the precise fulfillment of the prophecies
concerning God's Cup of Indignation: "And the third angel followed them,
saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and
receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink
of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into
the cup of His indignation...
(Rev. 14:9-10). "And the great
city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great
Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the
cup of the wine of the fierceness of
His wrath (Rev. 16:19).
"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her
iniquities. Reward her even as she
rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the
cup which she hath filled up to her double" (Rev. 18:4-6).
Of this "Cup of Indignation" against Mystery Babylon Dr. Seiss
wrote, "And lo! here, as the second Decan of Leo, we have the very picture
of that Cup, broad, deep, full to the
brim, and placed directly on the body of this writhing Serpent!
Nay, the same is sunk into his very substance, for the same stars which
mark the bottom of the Cup are part of the body of the accursed monster, so that
the curse is fastened down on him and in him as an element of his being!
Dreadful beyond all thought is the picture John gives of this Cup of
unmingled wrath, but not a whit more dreadful than the picture of it in which
the primeval prophets have thus inscribed upon the stars" --end quote.
The Cup of God's indignation and wrath is poured out without measure upon
the RELIGIOUS SERPENT KINGDOM OF MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, the great whore
that sits upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed
fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with her
defiled wine. Women in prophecy are
churches. In Rev. 12:1 we find the
true church of Christ described as a woman.
In Rev. 14:4 we find that the virgins who follow the Lamb were not
defiled with women: that is, man-made churches which are merely counterfeits of
the one and only true church. And
in Revelation 17 we have introduced "the great whore" which in verse
five is said to be the "mother" of harlots.
A mother must have offspring. This
mother has "harlot" offspring. She
is the "mother" of "harlots," which is but another way of
expressing the fact that she has many daughters who have followed her in the
ways of harlotry. And while
"Babylon" is first and foremost a spirit and condition within the
human heart, it also finds its expression in the outer world of visible
manifestation. Ah men's actions and
activities are but outward manifestations of an inward state of being.
And outwardly the Roman church identifies herself as the perfect
fulfillment of this prophecy by proclaiming herself to be "the mother of
all churches." The daughters
are harlots because they partake of the same nature as their mother, the
"great whore." All, both
mother and daughters, are harlots fundamentally because they are man-made
institutions, whose husband is human instead of Divine.
The Christ of God is the one and only lawful husband of the one and only
church, the organism known as His body. But
apostasy persists in substituting in place of this God-designed organism, an
organization patterned after worldly institutions, chartered with the State,
riding upon the back of the scarlet colored beast.
All members of the organization are therefore prostituting unlawfully
with their human head, who is usurping the place which belongs to Christ alone.
Under Old Testament economy God alone was King of the church and nation
until Israel demanded a human king in order to be like the nations about her.
Before the time of these human kings, the government was a theocracy in
the truest sense: that is, the government of the state was by the immediate
direction of God Himself. Great was
the condescension of God to thus honor the nation by becoming its political
Sovereign, performing all the functions of an earthly monarch, and receiving the
customary homage paid to a temporal king. Great
was the dignity lent to the nation by the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth
dwelling with them first in a tabernacle, afterwards in a splendid palace, there
having His table, His altar, and His ministers.
Great was His condescension to tolerate their displays of external
splendor and pomp, to go forth with and command the army in war, to legislate,
to execute laws, and to do all things that pertain to the office of an earthly
sovereign. And yet Israel was not
satisfied. They wished to have
another to rule over them, a human king, as the nations about them had.
God granted them their desire.
But Israel "forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock
of his salvation. They provoked Him
to jealousy with strange gods, and with abominations provoked they Him to anger.
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to
new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not" (Deut.
32:15-17). "I have spread out
My hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was
not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoked Me to anger
continually to My face" (Isa. 65:2-3).
God was very lenient with them; but justice demanded judgment.
Therefore, since Israel would not be in sub- mission to God as their
King, He decreed that throughout the term of HIS INDIGNATION they would, as a
consequence of their folly, be made to serve the kings of their enemies.
They were conquered and enslaved in turn by the kings of Babylon, Persia,
Assyria, Greece and Rome. The year
A.D. 70 saw Israel die as a nation. From
henceforth, until the end of the indignation, she was to be but a church, and
that, in humiliation and disgrace, a slave in the lands of her enemies.
This order prevailed unbroken for almost three centuries when, upon the
raising of Christianity to be the national religion of Rome in A.D. 324,
Constantine thus began to unite church and state again during a period when God
had decreed that they should be separate.
Under New Testament economy the Christ of God was to be the one and only
Head of His church. But the Emperor
of Rome and the bishops of the church were for prostituting this church and
causing her to commit fornication with the kings and governments of the earth,
in that she began to be joined with them as she ought only to have been joined
with Him. God has only one church,
not one thousand and one. We
nowhere in the Word read of "Christ and His churches."
No, no! It is always Christ
and His "church." Of
course this one church is of necessity divided up into many separate assemblies
for the purpose of meeting together for worship, fellowship, and ministry, and
these separate assemblies are called in the Word the "churches of God"
and the "churches of Christ" (I Cor. 11:16; I Thes. 2:14); but the
Holy Spirit gave the world but one body, one faith, one creed (Eph. 4:45), with
the Christ of God the sole legislator. The
many bodies, and many faiths, and many creeds, and many legislators, and many
names, and many headquarters, and many structures of the present day, constitute
nothing more than spiritual prostitution, they are harlots one and all, who are
living apart from their one and only lawful Husband and in love with and joined
out of wedlock to another.
The Roman church is the mother of all, because all are modeled after her
false system. And not only are
these Protestant daughters modeled after their mother as to elementary form and
nature, but all, from the church of England right on down to the youngest
Charismatic organization, are propagating, in varying degrees, the doctrines of
their mother while, like their mother, they profess to dispense the Word of God,
pure and unadulterated. They
baptize like their mother, they take Communion as the members of the Roman
church receive the Eucharist, they proclaim eternal damnation in hell-fire far
the vast billions who have lived and died on earth without Christ, they
celebrate the pagan holidays, Easter and Christmas, and keep other religious
days just as does their mother. Time
and space forbid a detailed discourse on all the harlot ways in which the harlot
daughters follow their harlot mother. We
are not unmindful that a merciful and compassionate God has used all these, even
the mother, in the salvation of souls and in bringing blessings to humanity.
But there is a higher walk, an undefiled way, to which all must submit
who would know the full blessings and favor and glory of their sovereign Lord,
and who would walk before Him acceptably and know the joy of the ultimate in
accomplishment in His Kingdom. He
still commands, "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of
her sins, and that ye
receive
not of her plagues" (Rev. 18:4).
Well did George Hawtin write: "In these dread days it is of ever
increasing importance that the elect should separate themselves from the Babylon
of the church system. This confused
harlot, drunken with the blood of saints, rich and increased with goods and
having need of nothing, adorned with gold and silver and costly array, lounging
in plush pews and entertained by elegant choirs, eloquent orators and super-star
entertainers is the greatest deceiver and false Christ in the world.
If we are to be received as sons of God, our first command and obligation
is to sever all relationship with her. The
effect of revelation and newly discovered truth nourishing in the heart of the
believer is often lost to him, simply because he will not separate from this
harlot system and come out from among them and be separate.
How, you ask, can a system that is so attractive from without be so evil
within? Do you not know that
harlots are always unclean, no matter how beautifully they bedeck themselves?
Go their way at your peril and the same rotting disease that curses them
will soon be devouring you also. The
promise of sonship is only to those who come
out from among them. Be
separate,' Paul says, 'and touch not the unclean
thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye
shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (II Cor. 6:17).
Such challenging promises are not to those cushioned believers who
delight themselves in plush churches and interesting programs, who keep the
program afloat with gymnasiums, food, fun, and fellowship, and a hundred other
fleshly notions. This promise
flings down the gauntlet, challenging saints to heed the voice of Christ: Come
out! Be separate!
Touch not the unclean thing!' To
all such the promise is sure, I will be a Father to you, and ye shall be My
sons and daughters.'
"Beware of what men say in these evil days.
Remember that Jesus warned us that there would be false prophets.
False prophets are always saying,
saying, but beware of what they say. Do
men ask, 'Where are these false prophets' Don't
look for them on the street or in the desert.
The church system is full of them. You
will find them standing in the pulpits Sunday and week day.
They are highly thought of and highly paid.
They are as sure they are right as were the prophets of Baal.
They are also positive that the solitary Elijahs are wrong.
As evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, these prophets with their
false gospel add to all manner of delin- quency.
Consequently the world sinks deeper and deeper into sin and, while it
sinks, these men imagine that we are in the midst of a world-wide revival.
We are, but it is not a revival of faith in Christ; it is rather a
revival of the very sins that caused Sodom to be devoured with unquenchable fire
and that brought the flood on the world of the ungodly in the days of Noah.
Let no man deceive you, for that day shall not come except there be a falling
away first. That
falling away is here now. It is
everywhere. It is in the
government, in the palace, in the courts of law.
It is in the universities and colleges.
It is in the homes, on the streets, and worst of all it is in the church
system. It is in the pew and in the
pulpit. It is in the hearts of the
populace. The man of sin, the
antichrist, is very evident in the world, but few see him or recognize him"
- end quote.
The above word, however, is incomplete without this wise counsel from Ray
Prinzing: "There is more than just being called out' however, and that
is a going on to be built into HIS HOUSE, gathered unto Him.
Called out bespeaks of a process of leaving realms behind, to go on.
Yet once this temple is built, it says 'they go no more out', so it
speaks of an arrival, entering into a state of being in permanent victory and
age-abiding life. The TEMPLE is a
dimension which goes beyond just being 'called out', i.e. the church.
It bespeaks of gathering up all the called out, and unifying them
together into a harmonious building wherein HE SHALL DWELL FOR EVER.
There is a real processing that must take place before the called out
becomes the temple. Once we have
obeyed the calling out, then out of us
needs to be purged all the ways and spirit of the thing from which we were
called out, and it is one thing to come out of Babylon, and another thing to
have Babylon taken out of us. Indeed,
it requires a long and arduous processing, a death to the old, a stripping away
of every facet of the old, until IN CHRIST, ALL THINGS BECOME NEW" - end
quote.
Crater the Cup, is the Cup of God's righteous judgment against the
serpent system of Mystery Babylon the Great.
Every word of prophecy will come true just as it has been written.
What dreadful thoughts and feelings are awakened in the soul by the very
sound of the words Mystery Babylon!
They are terrible words. They
bring before us at once, that vast mass of professed Christians who call
themselves "the Church," but are not.
Mystery Babylon is a dark and dreadful anomaly.
It is neither one thing nor the other.
It is not "Israel, nor the Gentiles, nor the Church of God."
It is a corrupt mysterious mixture, a spiritual malformation, a hideous
muta- tion, the masterpiece of Satan, the corrupter of the truth of God, the
destroyer of the souls of men, a trap, a snare, a stumbling block by which men
are made two-fold more the children of hell than before.
It is the corruption of the very best thing the body of Christ
and therefore the most vile of corruptions.
It is that thing which Satan has made of professing Christianity.
It is worse by far than Judaism; worse by far than the darkest of pagan
religions; because it has higher light and richer privileges, makes the very
highest profession, and occupies the very loftiest seat.
It is without doubt that awful apostasy for which is reserved the very
heaviest judgments of God the most bitter dregs in the Cup of His righteous
wrath. If the words penned by John
on Patmos, which I have quoted earlier, do not say this, then I have no
understanding or comprehension of language.
I doubt if one Christian in ten thousand has anything like an adequate
sense of the true character and inevitable doom of that system together with all
the teachings, rituals, traditions, holy days, programs, promotions, and
religious exercises which surround them. If
they had it would solemnize their minds and hearts, and cause them to sense the
urgent need to flee at once out of Babylon's clutches, and stand apart in holy
separation, from Babylon's ways, that they might escape such awful judgment as
is about to be executed, for "strong is the Lord that judgeth her."
Hear the Word of the Lord, ye that dwell in Babylon!
"Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul:
be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; He
will render unto her a recompense. Babylon
hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the
nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
Babylon is suddenly fallen and
destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let
us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto
heaven..." (Jer. 51:6-9). Volumes
could be written on this passage how we have tried to heal the systems of
Babylon by reformation or revival, pouring out our life to correct its religious
confusion, to quicken its ministries, to change its emphasis, to reform its
institutions, to infuse life into its forms and traditions.
But she cannot be healed,
therefore the call comes out loud and clear, "forsake her," lest ye
become partakers of her plagues. Now
the hour is upon us, and she shall SUDDENLY fall, saith the Lord.
The religious peddlers and hucksters (merchants) of the earth shall weep,
and they shall howl, they shall frantically try to revive her, but her days are
numbered and great shall be the fall thereof.
In the symbology of scripture Jerusalem is the capital city of God's
Kingdom, and will reign over that Kingdom for ever and ever: Babylon is the
capital city of the kingdom of Babylon, which kingdom shall soon pass away.
The mount Zion is the chief eminence, the highest pinnacle attainable in
grace in Jerusalem: Babylon was founded upon seven mountains of shame.
The true church is a woman crowned with twelve stars of divine
government, with the moon, all that pertains to the night under her feet: the
false church is also a woman, with her own name and shame written on her
forehead. The Head or Husband of
the true woman, God's church, is the Christ: the head or husband of the false is
her paramours the kings of the earth, and the numerous ecclesiastical
"heads" from "pope" to "pastor".
The true brings forth children unto God: the false her harlot brood.
The city of God, the New Jerusalem, is to be the habitation of God
forevermore: the city of Babylon becomes heaps, the habitation of bitterns and
owls, the cage of every foul spirit, "and I will sweep it with the besom of
destruction, saith the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 14:23; 34:11-17).
How precious is the truth expressed by George Warnock: "There are a
lot of songs and a lot of teaching today about the new thing that God is doing
and the new wine that God is bringing forth to His people.
But what about the new wine-skins for the new wine?
'And no man putteth new wine into old bottles (wine-skins); else the new
wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish' (Lk.
5:37). However, it is not too
difficult to discern in the midst of the joy and rejoicing of the new thing that
God is doing a desperate attempt to keep the old wine-skins from bursting at the
seams. Wine...Renewal...Restoration...Revival...
all of this in old wine-skins. No
wonder there is an attempt to strengthen the seams, and to patch the cracks in
the old structures, and a warning to the sheep to follow their
shepherds...because if something is not done about it, it would appear that the
whole thing might crack wide open, and the new wine may be lost.
Jesus has already warned us what would happen if we try to renew the old
forms with the new Life of the Spirit. It
can only be for a short season...the old forms will just disintegrate, and the
wine is lost...
"What, then, are we going to do about it?
The same thing, I would suggest, that we did before God began bringing
forth the new wine. Recognize that
the old forms are no longer adequate, and seek God earnestly for the new
provision and the new way that He has in mind for His people.
When God does a new thing' in the earth it is really a progressive
unveiling of what He had in mind from the beginning, but it is something NEW in
manifestation in the earth. We
always have those that resist anything new'. They say God never does anything
new that He hasn't done before. True,
we have the seed of everything that God would ever bring forth away back in
time...even as far back as the Genesis. But
in the outworking of His purposes there are constantly new horizons, new
workings, new temples, new forms and structures, new workings of His Spirit as
He leads His people out of bondage and into the fullness of New Creation Life.
'Behold the former things are come to pass, and new
things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Sing unto the Lord a new song,
and His praise from the end of the earth' (Isa. 42:9-10)" -- end quote.
CORVUS
THE RAVEN
Finally, we came to the third and last Decan in the house of Leo, the
final figure in the great gallery and portraiture of the heavens, known as
CORVUS THE RAVEN. The raven is
a scavenger bird of prey. Ravens
are powerful birds, often up to two feet in length, with a massive, three-inch
beak that tears flesh from dead and dying animals on which they feed.
The raven that Noah released from the ark did not return because there
was much dead flesh on which to feed. What
a picture! Here, in the pictorial
Sign of the heavens, we have the same thing.
Here is Corvus, the Raven, the
bird of punishment and final destruction. He
doesn't kill his prey he consumes and forever removes from the earth that
which has been slain. He is God's
"mop up" crew. His is the
final act.
And in this constellation we see Corvus grasping the body of Hydra, the
Serpent, with its feet and tearing him with his beak.
Not only is the head of the adversary crushed, but he is finally defeated
in all realms, torn to pieces and devoured.
This is already a glorious and eternal reality within all those blessed
ones who have experienced the triumph of the Christ within.
For these THERE IS NO DEVIL ANYMORE.
But there shall yet be a fulfillment in all realms, and thus shall the
inspired words of the apostle be fulfilled, "Behold, I make all things new.
Write: for these wards are true and faithful.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for
the former things are passed away (Rev. 21:4-5).
Here, now, these Studies on the Signs of the heavens must break off
abruptly. There is so much more
that might have been said, and so much more still which I do not know enough to
say. I cannot do better in closing
this series than to quote the true and eloquent wards of Dr. Seiss regarding Corvus
the final act in the grand drama of God's great redemptive and
reconstructive program. "Blessed
consummation! How should we look
and pray for it, as Jesus has directed where He tells us to say,
Thy Kingdom come - Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven!
Well might one of
England's great poets cry: 'Come forth out of Thy royal chambers, O Prince of
all the kings of the earth! Put on
the visible robes of Thy imperial Majesty!
Take up the unlimited sceptre which Thy almighty Father hath bequeathed
Thee! For now the voice of Thy
bride calls Thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed.'
How cheering the hope, amidst the clash of conflicting beliefs, the
strife of words, the din of war, the shouts of false joy, the yells of idolatry,
the sneers of unbelief, the agonies of a dying race, and the groans of a whole
creation travailing in pain together in consequence of the Serpent's malignity,
that a period is coming when eternal death shall be that Serpent's portion; when
peace and order and heavenliness shall stretch their bright wings over the happy
sons of men; when rivers of joy proceeding from the throne of God and of the
Lamb shall water all this vale of tears; when cherubim to cherubim shall cry,
'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of His
glory' when myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands of angels round about
the throne shall join in the acclaim of Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain,
to receive the Power, and Riches, and Wisdom, and Might, and Honor, and Glory,
and Blessing' and when every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and
under the earth, and upon the sea, and all things in them, shall sing, 'To Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, be the Blessing and the Honor,
and the Glory, and the Dominion, for the ages of the ages!'
"Yet such is our hope, given us as an anchor for our souls, both
sure and steadfast, entering into that within the veil, and linking us even now
to those solid shores of the world to come.
We have it in the written word of prophets and apostles, and the same is
certified to us by these everlasting stars in their ceaseless journeyings around
the pathway of the circling year. God
be thanked for such a hope! God be
thanked for the full and wide-sounding testimony to its certainty!
God be thanked that it has come to us, and that ours is the privilege of
taking it to our souls in the confidence and comfort that it shall be
fulfilled!"
J. PRESTON EBY
J. Preston Eby
P.O. Box 371240
El Paso TX 79937-1240
All writings are distributed on a free-will basis.
(Brother Eby does not have e-mail service)
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