KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES
"Teaching the things concerning the
kingdom of God..."
FROM THE
CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
Part 183
THE
SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES
(continued)
“And the fifth angel poured out his bowl
upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and
they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because
of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds” (Rev.
16:10-11).
The word “seat” here signifies authority,
or the rule of one in authority. It might be translated “throne,”
and has been so translated in other places. A throne in the book of
Revelation occurs frequently as a symbol of dominion, as the center whence
the authority of the king or ruler emanates throughout the entire kingdom or
nation. Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees, “Ye sit in Moses’
seat.” They administered the law of Moses as rulers of the
Jews. Jesus said to the church at Pergamos, “I know thy works, and where
thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.” The typical and symbolic
church at Pergamos was dwelling where Satan’s throne was located. The Greek
word here is clearly “throne,” but the translators of the King James Bible
softened it down to “seat.” Let us not be afraid of the phrase. In the
place where the church at Pergamos dwelt was Satan’s throne! Let us
understand the mystery! First, let me give you the location of Pergamos.
The modern city of Izmir, in Turkey, which was ancient Smyrna, is the great
city where tourists go because the airport and the hotels are there. It is
a fascinatingly beautiful city. You go about sixty-five miles south to
reach Ephesus and about seventy miles north to reach Pergamos. These three
were, in New Testament times, the
royal cities,
and they vied with one another. Smyrna (Izmir) was the great
commercial center, Ephesus was the great political center, and
Pergamos was the great religious center.
Satan’s throne, Jesus said, was
established in Pergamos, that is, the center of cultic worship. This
religious system had started in Babylon, but eventually its priesthood moved
out of Babylon, making their way to Pergamos, and the Babylonian religion
found a new home in Pergamos. Can we not see by this that in the book of
Revelation Pergamos equals Babylon! Babylon and Pergamos are both
symbols of the same thing — RELIGION! In the New Testament times Pergamos
became the center or the headquarters of all pagan religion.
Satan was the authority and power behind this religion, and he set up his
operation in the center of learning and the healing arts, along with
idolatry, controlling peoples’ souls, bodies, and spirits. This was Satan’s
throne in the typical city of Pergamos, which is also Mystery
Babylon the Great! Religion in Pergamos was big business, it was a false
system, it deceived the people and dominated their lives, and it was
idolatrous. It was there, in false religious systems, that Satan’s
headquarters were located! Not that Satan’s headquarters were actually in
Pergamos, per se; there was no building into which you could walk and
find Satan’s office with him sitting behind the desk running things. Oh,
no! These are pictures of spiritual realities and they signify that
THE POWER AND AUTHORITY OF SATAN LIES IN RELIGION!
This ought to settle the question for those who think that
Satan is in hell at the present time! He has never yet been in the hell
that men talk about. But he does have headquarters, and we may think
his headquarters are in the drug world, in the sex and pornography industry,
in the military establishment, in the harlot’s house, in terrorist
organizations, in the bar-room, in Hollywood, in the abortion clinics, in
gangs, murderers, child molesters, or even in political machines. Not so!
These all represent the works of the flesh, not the
power of Satan! In John’s day the Holy Spirit used the symbol of
Pergamos, the center of religion, to identify the location of
Satan’s activity and throne! The great fact is just this: wherever the
centers of carnal, man-made religious systems are, there you
will find Satan’s throne!
Earlier in his visions John described this scene:
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the
sea…and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great
authority.” Thus we learn where this beast obtained his “seat,” or his
“throne,” that is, his rulership, dominion, and authority. He received it
from the dragon, that is, from Satan. Another beast came up out of the
earth, and the first beast gave his authority to this second beast, so that
the authority of the second beast is also the authority of the throne of the
dragon. This second beast out of the earth, or out of the soulical
religious powers of man, signifies the apostate church systems of man, and
for long centuries this religious beast, known as Christendom, exercised her
assumed authority over the peoples, nations, and kings of the earth.
She became extremely idolatrous, her doctrines were corrupted with hideous
errors, her rituals empty, her sacraments powerless, her power carnal, her
spiritual life stagnated and dead. Thousands were tried for so-called
heresy, pronounced guilty by the beast or false church, and executed by the
civil governments which were subject to the authority of the bestial
religious system.
The “seat” of the beast — where is that? Let us
understand! Satan’s throne, ever since the serpent started his religion
with Eve when he hissed, “Hath God said? God doth know!” is still in all
the false forms of carnal, man-made religion, even so-called Christian
religion! Adam and Eve died because the religious realm to which they
subscribed through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil sounds like
a deeper revelation but in reality HAS NO LIFE! It is mere “knowledge,”
the “letter” of the word, the commandments of men and traditions of the
elders substituting for the living word of God, form without essence, law
without life, ritual without reality, words without power.
The firstborn Son of God understood this very
clearly by the mind of the Father! He never condemned the prostitute, the
fornicator, the tax-gatherer, the thieves or murderers. He never
demonstrated holy anger against the Romans, nor even against the Roman gods,
the world, or the wicked. It was the religious leaders that
He denounced with scathing invective! His anger was focused on the
hypocrisy of the so-called carriers of His Father’s word! He condemned
those who appeared clean on the outside, but inside were full of greed and
spiritual wickedness! Those who gave tithes and fasted and prayed and loved
the best seats in the synagogue to be seen and esteemed of men, He rebuked!
Those who distorted the word of God, who turned the truth of God into a lie,
who misrepresented and maligned the nature of His Father, and loaded people
down with religious burdens and obligations, creating a façade of
self-righteousness, He called a generation of vipers — a brood of
snakes!
Ah, we blame war, drunkenness, greed, crime,
immorality, drugs, and a thousand other evils on Satan — yet the clear
testimony of scripture is that these are all the “lusts of the flesh” and
the “works of the flesh.” They are — flesh! On the other
hand, Satan’s activity throughout the whole of scripture is in a
religious realm, in a spiritual dimension! What a
cunning deception has been foisted upon mankind as Satan has concealed his
true identity in the dark shroud of religion! Oh, yes, Satan is
religious! In the book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, there was a
day when the sons of God came and presented themselves before the Lord, and
the record states that “Satan came also among them.” If we can lay aside
the tradition of the preachers, theologians, and church creeds and listen
instead to the word of God, we will clearly see that Satan didn’t come
before God in company with drug lords, pornography peddlers, cruel
dictators, psychopaths, atheists, prostitutes, or mafia leaders — instead
he came with the sons of God! And he was
very religious!
The ultimate test for God’s sons will be right
there! There is a realm, a realm high in the spirit, a realm reserved for
the sons of God — and before any of us step from our wilderness of testing
to appear as a manifest son of God in the earth, we will meet Satan there
in that high realm of the spirit. It is in the heavens of God’s
Spirit that the manchild encounters the great red dragon! That is what the
temptation of Jesus, the firstborn Son of God, was all about in His
wilderness experience. He wasn’t being tempted to lie, cheat, steal, cuss,
or commit adultery. Oh, no! “If Thou be the Son of God” do thus and
thus. The temptations involved mis-using His sonship authority or taking a
short-cut to power. To Mother Eve Satan said, “Hath God said? Why, God
doth know…your eyes will be opened, and you will be as God!” A
high revelation in a high realm of the spirit. That is what Adam’s
fall was all about! Adam did not fall from grace, nor did he fall into some
gross sin of the flesh — he fell from SONSHIP! And it was a supposed
HIGHER REVELATION IN A HIGH REALM OF THE SPIRIT that caused the
fall. It wasn’t another woman or pornographic pictures that Satan was
showing Adam; Satan was preaching! He was explaining “higher”
ways of God that Adam did not understand! He was peddling religion! And
Eve was deceived! Deception has to do with truth versus error
— religion. There is a very fine line between the highest truth and
the darkest error, between divine sonship to God and our own self-godhood as
taught by all the streams of what is today called “New Age,” and between the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the “God” who is preached from
almost all the pulpits of the world today!
In the typical and symbolic church
of Pergamos, Satan’s “throne” was situated in the city of Pergamos which
means “strongly united, elevated, height, citadel.” Spiritually, Satan’s
throne, which is also the seat or throne of the beast, is in the high
places of the carnal mind — even the religious mind! “I know
where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.” I know where you dwell,
where you are comfortable in your religious system, where you are satisfied
to settle down and comfortably remain. I know that you love the pageantry,
the beauty, the forms, the sacraments, the rituals, the programs, the
history, the traditions, the excitement, the entertainment, the activities.
But that place where you dwell is the throne of the beast!
This authority or seat or throne of the
beast is to suffer the wrath of God! This wrath is called a “bowl of
passion,” or plague, and is poured out upon the assumed authority of
the apostate church, for, by the assumption of carnal “church authority” the
beast has usurped the authority of the Spirit of God and the dominion of the
Son of God in the lives of God’s people! When the true gospel, in the power
and demonstration of the Holy Ghost, is
poured out through the ministry of the manifest sons of God,
it will indeed be as a “plague” upon the carnal church systems and in
contrast to the glorious light revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, the
little light in the systems of man, which is actually darkness, will be
perceived as “great darkness,” for “if the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness!” The beast will feel the
sting of the plague, and men, that is, the carnal-minded rulers of the
church systems, will “gnaw their tongues” in pain, or find it exceedingly
painful to even speak the old carnal creeds, rituals, and commandments of
the old church order now being judged. Accordingly, the judgment which they
are made to suffer is advisedly to “eat their own words” — or, to use the
seer’s expressive phrase, to gnaw their tongues in distress!
Under the fourth and fifth bowls we find two very
contrasting realms, and God uses them both in His processings. Under the
fourth bowl, men are “scorched with great heat,” as the desperate leaders
of Babylon “turn up the heat,” and then under the fifth bowl the meteoric
blaze is passed. Poured on the throne of the beast, darkness spreads over
his kingdom, and men suffer the pain of “absolute darkness.” It is that
“outer darkness” of which Jesus spoke, where there is “weeping and gnashing
of teeth.” It is not a place on some far-away planet somewhere, but the
inner condition of awakening to discover that the realm you dwell in, which
you thought was the very tabernacle of God and the light of truth, is in
fact Satan’s vast domain and is far, far away outside the kingdom of
God!
The Old Testament type for this plague is found
in Exodus 10:21`-23. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand
toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the
land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.
And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there
was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw
not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the
children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” Someone has called this
plague of darkness the most serious of all the plagues that came upon Egypt,
since Ra, the Egyptian sun god, was the chief of all the gods. When
the sun was blotted out for three days, it meant that Yahweh had conquered
Ra! Certainly the darkening of the land for three days proved that Yahweh
was more powerful than Ra. The Egyptians described Ra as the supreme judge
and father of the gods, for it was from him that all the gods and goddesses
were created. The Egyptians also worshipped many other sun gods and
goddesses that were proven to be ineffective. The great emphasis that the
Egyptians placed on the sun and on light in general reveals that this one
plague of darkness must have devastated the entire Egyptian population since
a major portion of their gods were out of commission and unable to provide
the light they needed. Surely the mighty power and omnipotence of Yahweh
became a reality to all the Egyptians who had trusted in their gods!
Darkness is the absence of light, and this fifth
plague reveals to all the inhabitants of spiritual Pergamos, spiritual
Egypt, spiritual Babylon — the beast’s kingdom — that there is no
true “light” in any of their carnal doctrines and man-made observances. It
is my deep conviction that through the ministry of God’s called and
qualified elect there will shed forth such a mighty revelation of truth and
reality until the power that the doctrines of men and traditions of the
elders hold over the people will be drawn off, plunging the whole system
into thick darkness. The beast’s kingdom is worldwide, and the darkness
brought in by this bowl of God’s passion is co-extensive with his empire.
From the throne to the uttermost limits of religious Babylon everything is
shrouded in the mantle of deep, dark, starless night. Isaiah prophesied of
this when he said, “Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and gross
darkness the people” (Isa. 60:2). Joel prophesied of it when he said, “The
day of the Lord cometh, a day of darkness, of gloominess, a day of clouds
and thick darkness. The sun shall be turned into darkness…” (Joel 2:31).
In this great day of the Lord a dreadful pall of doom is destined to settle
over the entire kingdom of the beast, which has been built up by his throne
in the heights of man’s carnal mind. This kingdom includes all the
“earth-dwellers,” the carnal-minded, soulical-centered Christians —
followers and worshippers of the beastly religious orders. The effect of
the outpouring of this bowl of God’s dealing is the producing of such
torment and anguish as can only be adequately described as the “gnawing of
their tongues from pain.”
Ah, God knows exactly what DARK CAVERN to place
men in, with no outside energy which they can draw from to help maintain
their state and standing. It is the “outer darkness” of which Jesus spoke,
outer darkness being the region of spiritual darkness that leads away from
the true spiritual light which Christ is. Ray Prinzing pointed out,
“It is significant that wherever you find reference to ‘outer darkness’
you also read of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth,’ as if to
indicate the shivering in the cold until the teeth chatter. All this brings
more meaning to the word, ‘If therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness.’ We weep for them, yet we
thank God for this understanding of how He uses the COLD, THE DARKNESS to
draw out this thermo energy of self-resistance, and the hour of final
victory will come, with a full restoration into God. While the wrath of God
is love’s severity, yet it remains purest love, seeking the ultimate good
for creation, and so it continues to apply the strokes of chastisement.
Repentance will come in due time, but how great is the need for the
inworking of His judgments, until that submission comes.”
For long centuries men have loved the shades and
shadows of the darkness of religion rather than the light of Life,
supposing that the little light they possessed was all the light there is,
and the true light. But when God leaves men in darkness long enough, they
come to hate the darkness, for it draws out of them all the beauty, warmth,
strength, and life of light, and they are brought to the end of themselves.
Without light we all operate in the dark. In the dark there is no sight,
no vision, no comprehension of the realities about us. It
was fitting, therefore, that the first thing God created was light.
Darkness is not sin, although sin does darken the world by obscuring the
light like a cloud. Can we not see by this that darkness is ignorance,
error, and unbelief. The light of God is the light of Life.
Ignorance — the lack of understanding — error, and unbelief are
anti-light and anti-life.
It should be obvious to every believing heart
that the darkness that fills the beast’s kingdom is not a literal darkness
like that in Egypt in the day of Moses, but truly spiritual darkness.
Hear it! “Understanding is a WELLSPRING OF LIFE unto
him that hath it.” Certainly one reason so many millions of Christians are
living in carnality and immaturity, far beneath their privileges in Christ
today, is because they neither know who, where, or why they are. Truly a
great and dreadful darkness is upon the kingdom of Babylon! This condition
is explained by Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. “This I say
therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart” (Eph. 4:17-18). In this passage we learn, among other things,
this one simple truth: Darkness IS IGNORANCE. In its
spiritual meaning, to be in darkness is to be in ignorance! Ignorance is a
condition of the mind, in which the mind lacks
understanding. The inspired apostle tells us that men have their
“understanding darkened” because of the “ignorance” that is in them! It
means that either they don’t know much, or the information they have been
given is incorrect! And it is this condition of spiritual ignorance
that causes the whole world of men, and vast numbers of the Lord’s
precious people, to walk in darkness, alienated from the abundant life that
is in Christ! Oh! How many of the Lord’s people walk in spiritual
darkness, or spiritual ignorance, because the teaching they have been fed by
those who are supposedly the messengers of God is not the truth at all! Men
are in darkness because the blindness of their hearts has kept them from the
glorious Light of Christ penetrating into their lives!
It is that which comes forth from the heart, the
understanding of the carnal mind, which interprets the things
of God on a carnal level and misses the deep spiritual truth and
reality altogether! Oh! How the churches today are groping about
in the darkness that covers the kingdom of the beast! All the dead, carnal
church systems were built up by men who were saved by receiving just enough
Light to know Jesus as Saviour and Blesser, and then, out of the
overshrouding gloom yet untouched in the vanity of their minds and the
darkness of their carnal hearts they proceeded to build upon the foundation
of Christ every kind of grotesque structure of tradition, doctrinal error,
man-made organizations, ritual, form, legalism, license, fleshiness, and
worldliness: great towering edifices of hay, wood, and stubble! The carnal
and childish interpretations of men put upon the word of God, out of the
blindness (lack of spiritual understanding) of their hearts, has
created a great ignorance among God’s people, and they are alienated from
the glorious flow of divine, heavenly, spiritual, and incorruptible Life by
the blindness that causes them spiritually to see men as trees, walking!
It has always, from the very beginning when the
serpent whispered to Eve, been the adversary’s policy to misinterpret truth,
to distort and carnalize the word of God, in order to hinder mankind from
seeing the great beauty and majesty of the purposes of God for His
creation. The more absurdities the adversary can get interwoven into man’s
doctrines and concepts respecting God, the church, eternity, the final
destiny of man, judgment, hell, heaven, the “end-time,” and a hundred more,
the better he will succeed in separating men in their consciousness from
reality. Thus for centuries the great adversary has been working most
successfully and has covered and hidden some of the most precious and
glorious truths under the most specious and repulsive errors, and the
progress of the Lord’s people has been correspondingly stunted. But, thank
God! we are now living in the time when the veil of ignorance is being
dissolved, when the darkness of the beast’s kingdom shall be penetrated by
the holy city descending out of heaven from God, having the glory
of God: whose light is like unto a stone most precious, and the Lamb
is the light thereof; and the nations of them that are saved shall
walk in the light of it, and there shall be no night there. Isn’t it
wonderful! It’s all in the book, my friend — in the book of Revelation!
The people of God are being drawn by the Spirit to look away from the creeds
and systems formed for their enslavement during ages past, and to open their
hearts directly to the spirit of truth that leads to the living God!
Therefore lean no longer upon thine own understanding! Judge neither after
the sight of the eyes nor the hearing of the ears, but seek that Living
Spirit of UNDERSTANDING that comes from God alone!
Have you ever prayed that God would open
the eyes of your understanding that you might truly and correctly
and fully know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints? Ah, how much
better this would be than to pray for temporal blessings for the outer man,
for the heart of the Father is truly pained when He beholds His called and
chosen ones neglecting their devotion to His highest purpose while they
diligently pray and seek for earthly blessings. If we but seek, God will
bless us with ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST
JESUS! Walk no longer in the vanity of your mind, having the
understanding darkened, thereby alienating yourself from the life of
God through ignorance! Never spend your days seeking the things of this
carnal life, or a golden mansion in some far-off heaven somewhere, for they
make themselves wings and fly away and have no power to reveal Christ in you
or to deliver creation from the bondage of corruption! Every son of God who
is pressing forward to lay hold upon the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ is COMING OUT OF THE DARKNESS HANGING LIKE A PALL OVER THE KINGDOM OF
RELIGIOUS BABYLON, OUT TO WHERE THE SUN OF DIVINE LIGHT SHINES IN ALL ITS
BRILLIANCE AND THE AIR IS PURE AND RAREFIED WITH THE LIFE OF GOD! It is
indeed wonderful!
The prophet Isaiah penned these words for God’s
elect, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth
(Heb. “land,” God’s people, the earth-realm), and gross darkness the
people (of God): but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory
shall be seen upon thee!” (Isa. 60:1-2). The darkness that has covered
the minds of God’s children is truly gross darkness, and there
will be sorrow, tears, and gnawing of the tongues when they do see — thank
God! The reason there is darkness today is because of the false doctrines
and dark traditions of the church systems. No wonder God’s people are full
of unbelief, filled with doubts, and overwhelmed with fears. No wonder they
magnify the works of the devil and declare him more than they declare God!
No wonder they think the devil is winning the battle and is soon to take
over the earth with his antichrist! No wonder they shudder with fear in the
face of all the events happening in the outer world and all the dark
conspiracy theories propagated by the doom-casters who call themselves
“end-time” teachers! No wonder they are waiting for the Lord to come and
evacuate them off of planet earth! They know not the DAY in which we are
living, because of the incredible darkness that has covered the kingdom of
the beast! They are held there in the thick darkness, receiving death and
feeding on darkness all about them.
Without doubt, it is going to get even worse! If
we would grasp the full warning of John’s vision, we must bear in mind that
the Darkened Kingdom exists now, in our very midst; that it is a Kingdom of
Darkness already, though not as yet has fallen upon it the consummating
end. Since, then, it is possible for any one of us to be drawn into
that Darkened Kingdom, to share its blindness even now — though most of
those who read these lines have already been there and have escaped — let us
thank God for His merciful revelation of its real nature and its awful end!
Let us heed more earnestly than ever the inspired warnings to “cast off the
works of darkness” and to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness,” but rather to “walk in the light as HE is in the light,” so that
thus “we have fellowship one with another.” Truly this bespeaks the
fellowship of sons!
Isaiah prophesied of such a condition of darkness
upon the Lord’s people, saying, “Go, and tell this people, Hear ye (the word
of the Lord) indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed,
but perceive not” (Isa. 6:9). Following this the prophet
speaks of the “plague” that is sent by the Lord to bring an even
greater darkness upon His people, saying, “Make the
heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and
shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be
healed” (Isa. 6:10). Then Isaiah asked the Lord, “How long must it be this
way? How long must they be held in this thick darkness?” And the Lord’s
answer was: “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant,
and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate…and there
be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isa. 6:11-12). Ah,
this is how God brings Babylon down! If He were to allow them to hear and
see while they remain comfortable in their habitations, it would only cause
them to feel that God was BLESSING THEIR ORGANIZATION AND HONORING THEIR
DOCTRINES AND THEIR SYSTEM and the thing that God wants to kill (the witch
Babylon) would be healed. No, the darkness must continue until they cry out
in desperation, until they gnaw their tongues for pain, until the
whole land is forsaken, until the whole kingdom is
utterly desolate — until no one can even STAND to dwell in it any longer! I
once heard a brother put it this way: You will stay the same until the
pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of the change!
When this work is finished in God’s people, then will they hasten to run to
the light!
Oh, wonder of wonders! The great truth that the
Lord is now revealing within the hearts of His elect is the truth that the
“sun” which is “darkened” in our text is the sun of the old religious
heavens we have lived under, the light (rulership, authority, dominion)
of that old world of man, of man’s thinking, man’s interpretation, man’s
philosophies, man’s orders, man’s programs, man’s ways, and all the rest, is
smitten and darkened in the lives of God’s people until they can no longer
see even the little light that had illuminated their pathway. It is not
just the people’s desire to imbibe of those things that is taken away, but
the rule of the hierarchy — their authority — their power is broken!
What we see here is the doing away of the old creation and the bringing
forth of the new. It is the dominion of God’s government coming and being
established in the midst of all His people which evokes the darkening of the
old heavens! As Isaiah prophesied, at the same time that the glory of God
is arising upon His chosen and separated elect, the old light goes out and
the kingdom of the beast is cast into gross darkness! The type for this was
first seen in the land of Egypt when God sent the plagues for the
deliverance of His people. “…and there was a thick
darkness in all the
land of Egypt…but all the children
of
Israel had light in their dwellings.”
Is it not remarkable that while there was dense darkness over
the whole land of Egypt, yet there was light in all the land of Goshen where
the children of Israel lived! The light of truth and reality is arising
upon the elect of the Lord in this hour, while incredible darkness is
settling down upon the religious systems of man! That is the mystery.
Do not fear the darkening of the old heavens you
have lived under, my beloved, for while thick darkness covers the old past
orders of our lives, so that nothing of that realm can function or exert
authority over us anymore, yet our gracious and wise heavenly Father has
provided wonderful light — a new mind, a new consciousness, a new
understanding, a new heart, a new spirit, a new identity, a new nature, a
new calling, a new purpose — the scintillating light of truth, life,
reality, and power in the spirit! Oh, yes! There is light in
all the dwellings of the new creation that we are! There is the pure white
light of the glorified Christ in our spirit! Just as the darkness over the
land of Egypt was designed by God as an instrument to deliver His people out
of the bondage of Egypt, so the darkening of the old heavens of our natural
lives, all those things, people, systems, and realms which exerted authority
and dominion over us, and guided us on our journey, is the hand of God
moving to deliver us from the Egypt of this present world system. This is
God’s work in His elect in this hour — but it is yet to come upon ALL HIS
PEOPLE WHO DWELL IN SPIRITUAL EGYPT! Oh, yes, He will lead all of them out
by a mighty hand!
God is today doing a marvelous work among the
apprehended sons of God who are learning to live and walk in the
heavenlies. At the same time darkness has descended upon the
earth-dwellers, and gross darkness upon the peoples. We are indeed living
in momentous hours! The great Babylonish image seen by Nebuchadnezzar is
old and is now standing but shakily upon its unsubstantial feet of iron and
clay. A spirit of stupidity has fallen upon the leaders of the world, and
upon the ecclesiastics of the religious orders, and a spirit of deception
upon its peoples, and the devil has come down with great wrath, knowing that
he has but a short time. Oh, yes, he knows! Men, nations, and churches
have become “lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, truce breakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady,
high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form
of godliness but denying the power thereof; from such turn away” (II
Tim. 3:2-5).
God has called you, and raised you up, my
brother, my sister, as a light this very day, that you might dispel the
darkness and remove these heavens that men have been dwelling under,
establishing something completely new in the earth, a new heavens in which
the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His rays. Oh, yes! Bring
forth in your life a new likeness, the image of God; and a new light, the
glory of God, that you may declare HIM who is supreme throughout all the
earth and that He may reign in every heart. Behold the dawn! But the
popular churches are still lost in dreams. They have not yet awakened.
They know not of the dawn! But we who are of the day, and who are not
lovers of the drunkenness of false doctrine nor sleepers of the night, have
a higher heritage. “We are not of the night, nor of the darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep as do others” (I Thes. 5:5-6). We who have
received the love of the truth are heirs to a higher calling. We have
privileges, and we have duties to perform. We must be about our Father’s
business! There has been a parting of the ways. God has called upon us to
forsake the shame and error of the harlot systems of man, to look up, to
arise and shine. Our light has come! The glory of the Lord is rising upon
us! The day is at hand! The night is far spent. We must go forth and lead
the way for all who will follow!
THEY REPENTED NOT
“…and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and
blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and
repented not of their deeds” (Rev. 16:11).
Our text says that men “repented not.” Now what
does this mean? Does it mean that God is going to pour out His fury upon
the world of sinful mankind, and instead of realizing that God is punishing
them for their wickedness, and repenting, they continue on in their sins?
Does it mean that all the humanists, communists, thieves, murderers, and
prostitutes will stand up in defiance of God and curse Him to His face for
tormenting them? This term appears only five times in the book of
Revelation. Once it is used in relation to the symbolic woman Jezebel in
the church in Thyatira, of whom the Lord said, “And I gave her space to
repent of her fornication, and she repented not” (Rev. 2:21). Twice
the term is used under the sixth trumpet, and twice when the bowls are
poured out in chapter sixteen. All of this is very significant! You see,
we are prone to apply this to that wicked old world out there, outside of
ourselves, but the book of Revelation is addressed to the church — it
is not addressed to Russia, China, Africa, Hindus, Buddhists, witches,
serial killers, prostitutes, drug lords, or terrorists! Jezebel was a
condition and a people in the church, she was told to repent, and repented
not; then the Lord told her exactly what He planned to do about it!
Just as the seven last plagues are drawn from the
imagery of the plagues poured out upon the Egyptians by the hand of Moses,
so also this expression, “they repented not,” is rooted in the Old Testament
account of the Egyptian plagues. In that case it was the Pharaoh, standing
for the whole nation, who repented not. Now it doesn’t state it in those
exact words, instead the writer uses the term “hardened his heart.” Again
and again Pharaoh hardened his heart until all the plagues had run their
course, and at last he did permit the Israelites to depart out of
Egypt! This term does not signify a permanent condition, but reveals that
at this point in God’s dealings the plagues have not all been poured out nor
have they finished their work. But all the judgment is designed to bring
about the determined end — the deliverance of ALL God’s people from the
kingdom of the beast! Each plague adds something, contributing its part
toward that final goal — yet in the process there are multitudes not yet
ready to flee out of Babylon, so they “repent not.”
In ancient Egypt the physical act of repentance
was not too clear, but a complex procedure was devised. While the Egyptians
do not seem to have had an actual word for repentance, they quite literally
considered it to be a “swallowing of the heart,” which we would call a
change of heart or mind, which of course it is. So much is clear from the
famous Book of the Dead, consisting of 189 spells, which every
wealthy Egyptian of the New Kingdom placed beside him or herself in the
coffin. To the Egyptians of the 14th century B.C., the heart was
the seat of good and evil; a light heart was good, and a heavy heart was
evil. Moses, of course, was familiar with that concept, and when the
scripture says that Pharaoh “hardened” his heart, as he does after most of
the plagues, the Hebrew reads, literally, “he made his heart heavy (kaved),”
meaning he made it evil.
As an Egyptian approached death, his or her
greatest wish was to live on into the next world, and for that he or she
had to pass a number of crucial tests. The first one was to have one’s
heart weighed against a feather. If the heart was not heavier than the
feather, one could pass on to the next test, to be introduced to Osiris, the
Pharaoh of the Underworld. During the weighing procedure, the supplicant
made a lengthy confession, recorded in spell No. 125. He or she had to
declare that they had not committed any of the 42 basic transgressions
against the gods, against Pharaoh, or against their fellow men. The whole
procedure was carried out by the jackal-headed god Anubis, representing the
dead, and the result was recorded by the ibis-headed god Thoth, the scribe.
If the heart was too heavy, and there was a suspicion of untruth in the
declaration, the supplicant was likely to be swallowed by the Ammut monster
and never to see life again. But there was an alternative. It was the
opportunity to have a “swallow of the heart,” to change one’s heart, that
is, to make repentance! Ah, is that not what all men need — A CHANGE OF
HEART! And God’s dealings with Pharaoh through the plagues upon the land of
Egypt were designed to ultimately bring about that very change of heart,
which is also what the plagues in the book of Revelation are all about! Can
you not see the mystery?
When Moses told the Pharaoh that Yahweh required
that the people of Israel go into the wilderness to worship Him, and
requested that they be permitted to journey three days into the wilderness
to pay their homage to God, Pharaoh was not of the frame of heart to comply
with such a request, and he said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey His
voice to let Israel go? I know not Yahweh” (Ex. 5:2). But Yahweh had a far
different view of this, and He said, “In very deed for this cause have I
raised thee up, for to show in thee my power; and that my name may be
declared throughout all the earth” (Ex. 9:16). Therefore every time
Pharaoh’s heart softened a little, and he was about to consider letting
Israel go, GOD would harden his heart some more, BECAUSE GOD HAD A PLAN and
was using Pharaoh in that plan — to reveal His power and to cause His name
to be declared in all the earth! And the fact that God’s name is being
glorified even in this writing today, 3500 years later, is living proof of
the omnipotent hand of God in that day so long ago! He who had no desire
to honor God at all, became an instrument whereby all nations around were
caused to give God the glory as they heard of the happenings in Egypt. The
more the wrath was built up, the greater the victory God wrought through it
all, and it became a praise unto Yahweh. God will be the Victor in all His
judgments, and even though Pharaoh let the people go he still didn’t repent
for he pursued them and drowned in the sea. The message is just this — the
old Adamic mind cannot repent — but it will be destroyed! A
change of mind, a change of heart — a new mind and a new heart
will I give you, saith the Lord!
Many deep spiritual truths of scripture remain
locked up to man and cannot be understood with the natural mind. In the
Revelation we see three series of dealings by which Christ is
revealed and God’s people are brought to perfection — the seven seals, the
seven trumpets, and the seven bowls. It is significant to note that in
connection with the first series, the seven seals, no statement is made
concerning men “repenting not.” The reason for this is abundantly clear!
The loosing of the seals represents the unveiling of Jesus Christ,
the firstborn Son of God, as the pattern for all His many brethren. As we
behold the mighty work of the Father in Jesus, bringing Him to His full
sonship, we see the pattern and process of His unveiling within each of us.
There is no repentance required in the unveiling of Jesus Christ! The
mighty raising up and manifestation of His life within will indeed evoke
repentance in soul and body, but the spirit of sonship needs no
repentance! Therefore, the only repentance in the book of Revelation is on
the part of the church, in its immaturity, imperfection, and carnality, as
revealed in chapters two and three. This repentance is shown on the part of
God’s firstfruit company who are brought to perfection and the full stature
of Christ under the sounding of the seven trumpets, and later on the part of
the rest of the Lord’s people who are purged, purified, and perfected
through the pouring out of the seven bowls.
While it is true that every son of God must
repent, it is also true that there is a part of each of us that cannot
repent and will not repent! Truth has been revealed, and the
truth is that “human beings” never become spiritual. The spiritual progress
we make is to “die” to our human identity, our ego, our natural life, our
Adamic consciousness, and be made alive to the new creation life of
Christ within. No human being has ever been spiritual or ever will become
spiritual, because the Adamic man is flesh and blood, and flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God! We are not trying to save our
humanhood, nor can we put it under the laws of God and make it righteous,
for the word of the apostle Paul is incontrovertible: “The carnal mind is
enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).
Perhaps Aesop said it best in the fable. A
scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the
frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you
won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die, too.”
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in mid-stream, the scorpion
stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink,
knowing they both will drown. But the frog has just enough time to gasp,
“Why? Why did you do that!” Replies the scorpion: “It’s my nature…”
The old earthly, human, natural, carnal, Adamic mind and nature must
be put off, for it cannot repent nor can it be redeemed. Adam
can only go to the cross! And when we read that men “repented not”
it signifies the resistance and rebellion of that old mind, that old nature,
that old man that must be put off. The plagues are sent to effect this
separation in the lives of God’s people! Think of it!
Our repentance means that we no longer identify
with the first man, the earthy, but we consciously identify with the second
man, the spiritual, which is the Lord from heaven! We are putting off the
old man, including that old religious soulical power, and are putting on
the new man of the spirit. The old man that we are putting off cannot
repent, will not repent, therefore we die to that man and are raised up
into the new man, even Christ. That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. To try to
change, or improve, or save the old earthy man is an effort in futility. It
cannot be done! And that is the great truth and the deep mystery the Lord
is revealing to us when He tells us that men “gnawed their tongues for
pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and their
sores, and repented not of their deeds” (Rev. 16:10-11). That is
old Adam talking! That is the soulical religious nature reacting! It
simply means that ADAM CAN’T REPENT! One fact only dominates the life of
man upon this earth, and Paul articulates it when he says, “in Adam
all die.” By the word “Adam” Paul means everything “human,”
everything natural, everything earthy; he means himself, his natural
identity, his history, his language, his institutions, his works, his innate
religiosity, his hopes and dreams, his abilities, his world, and over “Adam”
hangs the inevitable sentence of death. Adam comes to an end, he passes out
of existence, he dies, he ceases to be. And Adam gnaws his tongue for pain,
and blasphemes the God of heaven, and repents not — all the way to the
cross! He is typified by the thief who was crucified with Jesus, who
complained, accused, and repented not right to his death!
God is in the process of raising up in us the
new creature, not a revamped, remodeled, renovated old creature, but an
entirely new creation. It is not really a new creation, for it has
existed all the while within our spirit, but it is new to us, and new
to mankind, because it has been hidden deep within us and we have all walked
only in the consciousness of the outward Adamic mind and life. The old has
to go until there is nothing left of it at all, and has been replaced with
that which to us is entirely new. The new creation is not a remodeled
version of the old one, for the new is spirit and life whereas the
old is flesh and corruption. “Behold, I make all things new,”
saith the Lord! When God is finished everything in the heavens and in the
earth will be absolutely new, there will be no place for the old. “And I
saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth
were passed away” (Rev. 21:1). “For behold, I create new heavens and
a new earth; the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind” (Isa.
65:17). God has no notion of salvaging the old nature (earth), or the old
religious realms (heavens), it is necessary to have a new nature and a new
spiritual life that comes from God! He has no program by which the old can
be remodeled for use by Him. He has no program for it at all! It is
condemned, my friend, destined to pass away, not even to be remembered
anymore! Drunkenness, hatred, murder, strife, war, drugs, thievery,
rape, adultery, homosexuality, gangs, tyranny, gossip, slander, godlessness
— passed away, and remembered no more! Catholic, Baptist,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal, Judaism, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, New
Age — passed away, and remembered no more! What a word that is!
In our understanding of redemption, it is
important that we recognize that there is no redemption for the Adamic man,
that is, the earthly, soulical nature and life. God has not asked the Adam
man (the natural man) to consecrate himself to God, because that is the
worse thing that could happen! The Adam man tried to make his nature
pleasing to God when he sowed fig leaves together to cover his nakedness in
the ancient mists of Eden. But that does not please God, because that Adam
man was sentenced to death, and die he must! His offspring, Cain,
personifying the innate soulical religious nature, tried to worship God by
the offering of that which grew out of the earth — man’s own good works,
efforts, programs, methods, etc. — but that did not please God either and
was entirely rejected by the Lord. That is why God sent the “second man”
and the “last Adam” — to replace the “first man” and the “first
Adam.”
Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is
an entirely NEW CREATION; old things are passed away, and behold, ALL THINGS
ARE BECOME NEW! Can you not see the mystery? God did not save the old
Adam, He replaced him. We are redeemed and saved by having the old
Adam brought to death within us, and being raised up in consciousness and
experience into the new Adam. So when Christ sends His Spirit, He does not
come to the natural man, for the natural man cannot receive the things of
the Spirit! He comes to the inner man of spirit! “He that is joined to
the Lord is one spirit.” It is His Spirit joined with
our spirit that raises up the new creation man within us! Therefore, he
is a spiritual man! And yet, most of Christianity deals with the natural
man, because they want him to live before God. In order to get him restored
they lay the laws on him, try to get him to conform, to change his behavior,
force him to go through the motions, to act righteously, and train him to
serve God! It reminds me of what Flannery O’Connor said about one of her
characters in the novel A Good Man Is Hard To Find: “The old woman
would have been a good woman if only someone had held a gun to her head
every day of her life.” And, my, how religion does that as they lay the
threat of eternal hell and damnation upon every soul who fails to “walk the
walk”!
But the problem with dressing up and training old
Adam is illustrated by the story I read once in a tract. A young boy, on a
certain occasion, was walking with his father through the streets of
Manchester, England. His attention was suddenly drawn to a man standing
before the door of a building, announcing loudly,
“Come in, ladies and gentlemen, and see the great
American pig!”
Having his curiosity aroused, he paid his entrance fee and
entered the building. There, sure enough, was an amazing pig performing
feats and giving evidence of an intelligence no pig had ever before
exhibited. At the command of his trainer, he would pick out, from the
alphabet lying on the floor, the letters “G-O-O-D P-I-G.” He would also
walk about on his hind legs and shake hands with those who stepped up to
greet him. This pig had been washed and scrubbed until he was perfectly
clean and he was dressed in a beautiful garment. Of course, he commanded
the highest admiration and no one could deny that he was well-educated and
well-behaved in every respect. But in spite of his remarkable culture and
his attractive appearance, HE WAS STILL A PIG — better off, perhaps, than
most other pigs — but yet, after all, only a pig and a pig to remain,
however advanced his learning! And there is no doubt whatever that given
the opportunity, he would head, fine clothes and all, right straight for the
first available mud hole! Ray Prinzing expressed this same precious truth
when he wrote, “A NEW CREATION SPECIES IS NOW IN FORMATION! The new life is
HIS, for He is the Source of all the new! ‘It is, remember, by grace and
not by achievement that you are saved — He has lifted us right out of the
old life to take our place with Him in Christ Jesus in the heavens’
(Eph. 2:5-6, Phillips).
A brother once related the following experience:
“I asked a man who came to me if he wanted to receive Christ into his life.
He said, ‘Well, I — I’ll talk to you later about that. You know, I’m going
to try to do better.’ I think I shocked him by saying what the Spirit
inspired me to say, ‘You are a liar. You are not going to try to do better
because if you are honest you know you have tried before, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘How did you come out?’ ‘Well, I didn’t do it.’
‘Neither will you this time. And I have news for you — God is not asking
you to do better! However God is calling those whom He has redeemed to
allow HIM TO LIVE IN THEM.’”
Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of
changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself.” He was right.
But maybe the reason we think so little of changing ourselves for good is
not because the task is difficult but because it’s impossible.
Perhaps you know from experience that trying to change yourself doesn’t
work. You’ve read the self-help books to no avail. To conform yourself to
the image of Christ is an impossible goal! Trying hard to act like a son of
God by gritting our moral teeth and upping our soulish willpower — all
this sounds sensible. But all it really amounts to is an exercise in “will
worship.” When we think we can make a spiritual breakthrough in our own
strength, we have begun to worship our own will. And as the apostle Paul
points out, our human will too is under the grip of sin! Anyone who has
struggled with the power of an addiction can testify how weak our will truly
is. Spiritual progress is possible only through the power of the
indwelling spirit as Christ is raised up in our life. Are you
relying on your own resources to be conformed into the image of God’s Son?
It’s time to face the facts. This is a battle you can’t win! But Christ
has already won it for you — He overcame within Himself all things, even
death itself — and now His life is being raised up in you from victory to
victory! This is what the church world doesn’t know, and this is the
purpose of the seven last plagues — to bring all God’s carnal children to
the end of themselves — to find, at last, the
reality beyond religion!
There is a song we sang in the Pentecostal church
when I was a child. One line of it says, “O Lord, send the power
just now, and baptize everyone…”
In bringing this message to a close I would like
to change the words of that song to express the great truth revealed through
the vision of John on Patmos. “O Lord, send the plagues
just now, and purify everyone!”
Amen, and Amen!
To be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
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