BY BLANCHE REYNOLDS
In grateful appreciation to:
Olen Reynolds, President, Kingdom Voice Ministries
Stan and Elizabeth Madrak, for transcribing and editing
Jerry Needler for art works
Our sincere THANK YOU. Without their dedicated help, we could not have accomplished this book.
A JOURNEY THROUGH
THE SEVEN CHURCHES
"Blessed (happy, to be envied) is the man who reads aloud [in the assemblies]
the word of this prophecy; and blessed (happy, to be envied) are those who
hear [it read] and who keep themselves true to the things which are written
in it – heeding them and laying them to heart – for the time [for
them to be fulfilled] is near.
Revelation 1:3 (Amplified Version)
GREEK LANGUAGE MEANINGS
OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES
1. EPHESUS - Desirable, permissiveness.
2. SMYRNA - Myrrh, bitterness.
3. PERGAMUM - Married with the world.
(Pergamos)
4. THYATIRA - Burning incense (Idolatry, Paganism).
5. SARDIS - The escaping one.
6. PHILADELPHIA - Brotherly love.
7. LAODICEA - A just people, neither hot nor cold (passive).
DEFINITIONS
ATTITUDE
1. Manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc. with regard to a person or
thing: tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind: a negative attitude; group
attitudes.
2. Position or posture of the body appropriate to or expressive of an action, emotion, etc.: a threatening attitude; a relaxed attitude.
3. Posture (natural): Postures are such as our ordinary actions and the occasions of life lead us to exhibit.
JOURNEY
1. The travel of a day by and to any distance and for any time indefinitely (as a journey from London to Paris.)
2. To travel from place to place.
3. To pass from home to a distance.
ZEAL
1. Passionate ardor in the pursuit of any thing.
1. Excessive zeal may rise to enthusiasm.
2. In general, zeal is an eagerness of desire to accomplish or obtain some object, and it may be manifested either in favor of any person or thing in opposition to it in a good or bad cause.
3. To have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Romans
10:2 "I bear them witness that they have a [certain] zeal and enthusiasm
for God, but it is not enlightened and according to [correct and vital] knowledge."
RESURRECTION
1. The raising from death to new life, in Biblical usage specifically a raising of the righteous of all ages at the end of earthly history.
2. By the resurrection of Christ we have assurance of the future resurrection of men. I Peter 1: 2, 3. "Who were chosen and foreknown by God the Father and consecrated (sanctified, made holy) by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and to be sprinkled with [His] blood: May grace (spiritual blessing) and peace be given you in increasing abundance – that spiritual peace to be realized in and through Christ, freedom from fears, agitating passions and moral conflicts. Praised (honored, blessed be) the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah! By His boundless mercy we have been born again to an ever living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Born again into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay, imperishable, unsullied, and unfading, reserved in Heaven for you.
REVELATION
1. The act of disclosing or discovering to others what was before unknown to them; appropriately, the disclosure or communication of truth to men by God himself, or by his authorized agents, the prophets and apostles.
"How that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words." Ephesians 3:3; II Corinthians 12:1 - 4.
2. That which is revealed; appropriately, the sacred truths which God has communicated to man for his instruction and direction. The revelations of God are contained in the Old and New Testament.
References of Definitions came from American Dictionary of the English Language;
American Everyday Dictionary; and Eerdman's Bible Dictionary.
INTRODUCTION
The Word of God always used a man's name to reveal HIS character, his nature,
what he was, and his bloodline. When a man's name changed, he took on a new
nature and personality. For example, God changed Jacob's name to Israel. In
Genesis 32:27, 28, it says, "[The Man] asked him, What is your name?
And [in shock of realization, whispering] he said, Jacob [supplanter, schemer,
trickster, swindler]! And He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob
[supplanter], but Israel [contender with God]; for you have contended and
have power with God and with men and have prevailed."
God changed Saul's name to Paul in Acts 5:34. When the name Paul was said, the people understood that this was a new man, a new image, a man of God. A change had taken place and a name was given to show the change.
Even as God used a man's name to reveal his character, God discloses the characters of the seven churches through their names. Revelation 1:1, "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John." So, this is the unveiling of the Resurrection (life out of death), "Jesus." When we were born again, we became part of His Body. It is a progressive work, a revealing, of His Nature within. The principle of resurrection is life out of death. When we are born again into life out of death, the principle of that new nature has to be disclosed and developed within us. We are going to be like Jesus. We are heirs of His Nature, all His attributes. Not until we are born again, can we realize the mixture of life and death in our members (Romans 8:2). THERE IS A WAR GOING ON BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH IN THE MIDST OF EVERY BELIEVER. Just as John saw the seven-fold Holy Spirit nature before the throne, he also saw the seven churches of the earthly mixture that must be overcome and come out of the Resurrection body. So, we identify that nature and character and we look at what is revealed in a name and the authority and dominion that we have received to deal with each of those controlling spirits.
A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SEVEN CHURCHES
CHAPTER ONE
EPHESUS
"DESIRABLE, PERMISSIVENESS"
The journey through the seven churches takes place in the book of Revelation. The attitude, the personality, of the seven churches, is revealed in the name of each church. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. His many membered body. His unveiling of the divine mysteries that God gave to him to disclose and make known to us, things which shortly and speedily must come to pass in their entirety.
He sent and communicated it through his angel (messenger) to
his bond servant John, who has testified to, and vouched for, all that he
saw in his vision. I often say regarding John, "here was everybody saying,
"John, you must have really done something bad to get put on the isle
of Patmos all by yourself." And here's John laying, looking, at an open
heaven and seeing the mysteries and the secrets of God. God was revealing
to him what must take place at the close of the Lord's day.
Thank You Lord that you revealed this truth and covered it over with such
mystery so that no one can take it, and flaunt it, and make it a mockery or
hurt with it. God reveals His mysteries and secrets as we are ready to receive
and understand them, and He is showing us in this last day as He stands at
the door, the preparation to close this hour on His timetable.
He is revealing this end time day and His soon return, the setting up of His millennial kingdom. There are so many awesome, wonderful things that we are just in awe about. Scarcely can we comprehend, but God is making ready, in this last day, a generation "us", a generation who will do exploits in His name, who will stand in authority and dominion and speak the truth. Who will not waiver, who will not suppose, who will not compromise, but they will speak the truth the way it is.
The people will have an ear to hear and the changes that are necessary will come to pass. The Lord will come to a hungry and thirsting people who are ready to know all of his intentions. Jesus said that He was the ever-living one – I am living in the eternity of eternities.
We have been born through the salvation work of Jesus Christ into the time frame of God's eternity. It began when you received Jesus at Calvary. The kingdom of God came to us. We were scarcely aware of all the Lord was doing. We knew so little about ourselves, let alone the knowledge of Him. There was so much that was so far beyond us, that we stood in awe. Just awe stricken at what we were hearing, and much of the truth went right over our heads, because our little minds were not ready to comprehend eternity.
In the second verse of Revelation 1, He is talking about His bond servant, John, who has testified to, and vouched for, all that he saw in his visions, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He said blessed and happy and to be envied is the man who reads aloud in the assemblies the word of this prophecy and blessed and happy to be envied are those who hear it read and who keep themselves true to the things which are written in it. Heeding them and laying them to heart for the time for them to be fulfilled is near.
The Word continues, John, to the seven assemblies of churches of Asia, "may grace and God's unmerited favor be granted to you and spiritual peace and peace of Christ's kingdom from Him who is, and was, and who is to come and from the seven spirits that is the seven-fold Holy Spirit before His throne." (Amplified Bible).
I just want to show also how the King James version reads. "Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein for the time is at hand and John to the seven churches which are in Asia grace be unto you and peace from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before the throne and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood."
Now, turn with me to Isaiah the eleventh chapter. Let us see what the seven-fold Holy Spirit nature is in Isaiah 11. This is Isaiah prophesying. "And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, David's father, and a branch out of his roots shall grow and bear fruit." Of course, he is talking about Jesus. "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord." That is the seven-fold Holy Spirit nature. And all of this is resting upon Him and shall make him of quick understanding and his delight shall be in the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord and he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes and neither decide by the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness and justice shall he judge the poor and decide with fairness for the meek, the poor and the downtrodden of the earth, and He shall smite the earth and the oppressor with the rod of His mouth." The rod means authority.
One of the customs of the culture of the Hebrew people was this, every head of the house had his name carved on his rod, or his staff, and he kept that in his hand. And when his family had a big argument and he was going to have to settle it, his rod was in his hand. He had his name carved on it, and his character and his nature represented the quality of person that he was. He held that in his hand, and he judged truthfully and righteously for his household. So everybody knew that when he made that judgment, his name was on that rod and here's what it says about Jesus' rod, that He would smite the oppressor with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. It's in the name of Jesus. It takes a breath to speak. The rod is in His mouth. The authority is in His mouth, and He has the right. And with righteousness shall be the girdle of His waist and faithfulness the girdle of His loins.
Now, open your Bible to II Thessalonians, 2:3 - 9. This is speaking about the mystery of iniquity (lawlessness and rebellion).
In Zechariah, the fifth chapter, when Zechariah and Haggai, (now remember the Jewish people were in exile to Babylon.) They carried them away to Babylon because of their rebellion against God's laws, and God just let them get captured. Haggai and Zechariah were the two priests in that day. As time passed, Cyrus the king and Darius his son, allowed them to go back to Jerusalem. They were allowed to rebuild their homes and they could also rebuild their temple, but they could not put any walls around Jerusalem, because the Babylonian King wanted to be able to come in and out. They were not going to let them fortify themselves by building walls again, making it necessary to have another battle with them. They had already won the battle once. So, they all went back to Jerusalem.
History states that 16 years went by, and the Jewish people
never built the temple of the Lord. They built themselves fine houses of board
and wood and made them nice, but they never rebuilt the temple. They had no
place to go to settle their differences. When they came to the temple, they
would make the proper offering and discuss their problem, and the priest would
know exactly what they were to do. But with no temple, there was no place
to settle any differences. God had a plan.
When Zechariah and Haggai began to realize this, (they were the prophets of that day), they began to pray. Haggai received a word for them and he said, " you live in your paneled houses, you put your money in a bag with a hole in it, and nothing is working right for you."
Zechariah, it seems, travailed until he burst into a place where the Word is stored up, things ready to happen. Here he saw this angel of the Lord on a horse standing among the myrtle trees. Then he saw the four horses of the Apocalypse. He saw the red horse first and, of course, that word "red" means Adam, and so he saw that red horse first, and when God created the heavens and the earth, and fixed it, and he made Adam, and he made Eve, and that was like the symbol of the red horse. This horse is the symbol of the flesh.
The next horse was the black horse and, of course, you know man sinned and was cast out of the garden, and sin prevailed.
Then he saw the white horse, and that was Jesus on that white horse. He brought salvation.
The next horse was a dappled horse or a gray horse. The mixture of black and white, and that was the way the body was. You know we had that form of godliness and we denied the power thereof. We had the word, but we did not know what it meant. We had bloodline bondages and ancestors that had sinned, and we became the victim, a mixture in the bloodline. Black and white and nobody knew the difference, it seemed.
So, here were generations born down the genetic corridor that did not have answers, just woe and sadness and travail and they lost their battles. They were not honorable before God. All of that crisis that began to take place, (because they did not understand it)
But here is John the Revelator, and when he saw the four horses of the apocalypse, he saw the white horse first, because he was with Jesus and he knew all about what Jesus did. He knew all about Calvary and the cross and what Jesus taught. He saw that red horse next, the symbol of the flesh, that first Adamic nature. Jesus was there before the foundation of the earth. Then the white horse and then the black one rode with the balance and scales. The man of sin was being exposed and the righteousness of Jesus Christ was being seen and there was a great mixture in that age generation man. The last horse was that dapple gray. The mixture of black and white had run together, so the color changed.
This pale horse has got to ride in other words, today this flesh has got to be examined, and we have to get this darkness out of us, and the sin has to go. The demonic forces that have been allowed there because man sinned and fell short of God's glory, is there in the genetic bloodline and every household. Every namesake from generation to generation has suffered the pain of sickness and disease. The principal of the sin of adultery and uncleanness and lust because man walked in the stubbornness and rebellion of his baser (lower nature emotions) rather than giving himself totally to God and knowing that the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. He gave us the authority and dominion of His name that we could send the devil out – cast him out – cast all the demons out in the name of Jesus and be free to walk in the blessings of God.
Now the blessings of God are there waiting for us. Everything is ready and the Kingdom of God is now. The people are being taught the word of Deliverance. We must be ready when the Lord Jesus comes. There will be nothing in us that the devil will be allowed to test or come against, because we have been in agreement with the word of God and we have pulled down the strongholds.
We have recognized the defeats of the enemy; we have sent him out; we have not lived a lie; we have lived the truth, and we have run to the Lord, and have cried out (oh, God teach us your ways). And the mysteries and the secrets are ready to be revealed to every one of us as we are ready to contain them. Because of sin and because we have been stubborn, and because of the culture of our day, we do not want anyone to know anything bad about us. We keep it all covered over. We are like a time bomb ready to explode, and the body of Christ is suffering the defeat of this death realm because they do not realize and know the truth, and a lot of them refuse to know it. So we have problems, but Jesus is the answer. Glory to God! We begin realizing that the Lord is molding and shaping this man child (that's us). The pattern is Jesus and He is making us like Him.
We are dealing with this old flesh man that has been full of the garbage of the death realm. We are not letting death override us. We are not being ruled by the wickedness of ancestors that sinned and brought the curses down upon us. The Lord is revealing to us the curse of this death realm, and we are speaking in the name of Jesus, and breaking those curses. We are defeating the devil where he is hidden, and we are casting him out in the name of Jesus. The people are being set free from the bondage and decay. The corruption of death and life that is in the bloodline is being examined by this many membered body of Christ. They are knowing what they see is life everlasting, eternal glory that God has prepared for this last day generation man. We are saying glory to God because we are a part of all of this.
Let's look again at Zechariah, the fifth chapter. As he was talking, he saw this scroll flying through the air, and he did not know what it was. So they unwound the scroll, and its measurements were 30 feet by 15 feet (the same size as the veil of the tabernacle). Isn't that interesting? And then there was an ephah, (ephah means a full measure) a full ephah. He pulled the lid off, and there sat a woman. Her name was lawlessness and rebellion and they put the lid back on because they did not know what this mystery of lawlessness and rebellion was. They did not have a clue. All we knew was salvation. All we knew was to accept Jesus, and we knew that when we accepted and wanted Him, He would give us the gift of eternal life.
It seemed our salvation in a couple of weeks, we had lost some of our zeal. If somebody bumped our cup, there was anger and carrying on, just like we used to do, and we prayed, "Lord Jesus, what in the world is the matter here? Why can't I make it work, what am I missing here? I need to understand it." And so we kept going back to the Lord, and back to the Lord, and as we were ready to hear, the Lord began to teach.
I remember when the Lord started showing me about the genetic code of the bloodline, we were having coffee after the bible study, when someone said, "now, Blanche you do not really believe that genetic word, do you?" And I said, "oh yes, the Lord showed me." Well, the very next week I was down in South Georgia preaching, and the Sunday newspaper was laying there and the headlines were about the genetic research going on at Duke University. They were about to lose their grant funding. They had gone to the newspaper with that information so the people could see what they were doing in their research. I just brought that newspaper home with me and I said to myself after I read it, I would like to call those researchers at the Duke University and say, "what do you need to know?" Because the Lord was showing me about how we were affected. The sins of the father to the third and fourth generation, and here we are, we can hardly know three generations, much less the fourth. So there were things in our bloodline we did not have a clue about, and here we are trying to live right and not be defeated, and the enemy was just beating us down all of the time because he had the right to, if the curse was not broken off of us.
Well, we did not have faith. We did not have enough trust. You know, we had faith to a measure, but we did not have faith to march us all of the way through. We heard about the highway of holiness, and we wanted to be holy and we wanted to be pure and clean before the Lord, but we looked in the mirror and said, "you know – no way!" And so we kept coming to the Lord and kept crying out to God and gradually, as God's time was right, as this day approached, the Lord began to reveal to us a little at a time what was beginning to happen. Just like Zechariah, who burst into that realm where the word was stored up, we too burst into the word with a lack of understanding of God's mystery of lawlessness. We said, "what in the world would that ephah, with a woman sitting inside it, and her name being lawlessness, what in the world could that mean?" The minute they put the lid back on it, two angels came, women with wings like a stork, and they picked up that ephah and they extended it between heaven and earth. It was not time for that to be revealed. God was not ready. The cup of humanity was not full enough for that dumping out and emptying out of the knowledge of the Lord's return and the preparation knowledge that we as His household and must be set free. We must be delivered. We must be clean, and we must have an understanding that we do not have to put up with the bondage of a bloodline where man has sinned because our fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth were put on edge.
The word says in Jeremiah 31:28 -29, "no more, but every man is going to be responsible for his own sin." And here we are realizing that we do not have to put up with the sins of our fathers. We do not have to take what that bloodline bondage afforded, in the mighty name of Jesus. We can stand in that eternity, a glory of God's eternal promise unto us and be washed and cleansed and free, because the Lord God spoke. He sprinkled His blood on that covenant ark of heaven. The veil was rent in two from top to bottom and every man, every person has a right to come boldly before the throne of grace and sit down in the Father's throne while He makes all our enemies our footstool.
For the Lord would say unto you,
"Beloved bestir yourself and know that what I have decreed and declared unto you, I bring to pass. What I bring to pass I make sure you have knowledge of so that, in the time to come, you will not be found lacking. You will not be cringing in fear. You will not fall down in faintness because you do not know what is taking place. But I the Lord God am prepared, and I have begun to write My word so indelibly upon your heart and mind, that you shall comprehend all of My intention and you shall dwell with Me and I shall dwell with you. And the world will understand and know that I have a people called by My name, and they shall address every circumstance in life from everlasting to everlasting, and no more will gloom and doom and the death realm take control because My body is alive and well in this earth today." Hallelujah! Glory to God! Hallelujah! Praise the name of the Lord!
And so we are looking at this, and here is this ephah, that full measure, and what the Lord is saying to me by the Holy Spirit, is that lawlessness has got to be understood as a full measure that cup has got to get full, (an ephah is a full measure). When that measure is full, then God is doing something about it. Further on in Zechariah He says, "low in that day and it is now here I am going to cause Jerusalem to be a cup of reeling" (and I saw, in my spirit, that cup being thrown across the counter and what was in that cup spilled out and the Lord said to me), "deliverance" is being set free, pulling down the bondages. You do not have to have a bad temper. You do not have to be full of rage. You do not have to be contentious. You do not have to be angry about anything, you do not have to be in bondage to this death realm of hatred and rejection and all kinds of mental weaknesses and problems because the Lord Jesus has given us the power and the authority, in His name, through His shed blood covenant, the right to contend with death.
And the Lord said in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you that you shall be no priest to Me; seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children." See, what makes rebellious kids has been rebellious parents, and they are the only role model of what was before them. Because no one knew how to deal with it, and no one cared enough to deal with it, they just hid it back in their mind, closed that door (so to speak). Now it has to come out. It has got to be emptied out and the people set free. Thank you Lord.
II Thessalonians 2:5 "Do you not recollect that when I was still with you, I told you these things?" He is saying to them, do not let anybody deceive you and do not let anybody beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except for the apostasy – the great falling away – comes first. That is, unless the predicted falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come. And remember what Jesus said at one point, that the abomination of desolation was standing in the sanctuary in the door of the sanctuary where it ought not to be. Then I went and looked up abomination and desolation.
Abomination: Extreme hatred, detestation. The object of detestation as the way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
Hence, defilement, pollution in a physical sense; or evil doctrines or practices which are moral defilements. Idols and Idolatries are called abominations.
The Jews were an abomination to the Egyptians, and the sacred
animals of Egypt were an abomination to the Jews.
The Roman army is called the abomination of desolation. In short, whatever
is an object of extreme hatred, is called an abomination.
Desolation: Deprived or destitute of inhabitants; deserted; ruin; waste.
A place deprived of inhabitants or otherwise wasted, ravaged; gloominess; sadness; devastation.
Having the feeling of being abandoned by friends or by hope; forlorn.
II Thessalonians 2:3 says, "Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed." See, that is what is happening now. What's in the cup of humanity is being revealed. "Who is the son of doom (of perdition). Who opposes and exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually] taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God." This is the anti-christ and all these things are happening today.
"Do you not recollect that when I was still with you, I told you these things?" (And just to say a little something here), have you been hearing on the news about those two big Buddha statues in some foreign country that they are tearing down? I am anxious to see what is going to happen when those things are totally destroyed. Those people have fought in bondage for years and years and years and now that old idol of idolatry is being torn down. There is something about to take place. Of course, I am not in agreement with the Muslim either, but I'm thinking if the Lord would begin there He is going to do the rest of it in the time to come. The bloodline is full of sickness and disease, incest, sodomy, uncleanness, oral sex.
It just makes my heart hurt for what is being accepted as the Word of God, also. What people are doing, and the abomination of desolation they are bringing upon themselves because they are breaking the laws of God. God is letting all of this happen until the appointed time. Now here is the verse: "For the mystery of lawlessness (that hidden principle of rebellion against constituted authority)." That is the mainstay of where this is – witchcraft is the same as rebellion, and that principle of rebellion against constituted authority is like this. Everybody wants to make their own rules. They want to make their own laws. They want to judge what they want to judge. They want to turn everything around, to suit themselves. They do not even want to obey our constitution and the laws of our land any more. It's not justice and liberty for all. It's whoever has the most money and can buy his way in. That is what they are going by, and it is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and it has to stop. We are in for a rude awakening. There are things that are going to fall that we thought surely this cannot be happening to us. But, do not be dismayed and do not be upset because the Lord is doing a work in us that will cause us to stand in that day, just like the darkness is going to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The light of God is going to be in His people. So the light of God is going to dwell in us, and the people will come to us because we have the light. The darkness that is there will have no part of that day. Light always dispels darkness, and there will be no darkness or anything that can harm us in any way. The light of God is the important thing within us.
Prophetic note:
The Lord doth say, "I will give you a word in that hour that will cause atmospheric changes in this earth. I will give you a word in that hour that will cause sin to melt and flow away from those who are bound in it. I will give you a word in that hour, saith the Lord, that will cause a light to shine and dispel the darkness of this death realm. For I have scheduled and made time ready for death to go and in the timetable of my working, saith the Lord, I will cause death to be totally swallowed in victory and no more will the grave be allowed to capture and remain and retain its victim. But I the Lord, who am the giver of life, will cause My everlasting eternal light of Glory to remain, and none shall cause it to be wounded or scratched or scarred or done away with in any way, for it is I, the Lord, who have planned in this hour to take out of this earthly order a bride for My Son, and yea, I shall plight their troth, saith the Lord. I have winnowed and I have made ready and I have set a word in this earth that will be fulfilled in you, for I am the Lord that healeth and restoreth and breaks the chains of bondages. There will be a day beloved when a curse will be no more. There will be a day when blood shall run pure and holy and free. There will be a day, saith the Lord, when the world will look, and they will know that mine elect have inherited My Kingdom, saith the Lord."
II Thessalonians Chapter 2, Verse 7: "For the mystery of lawlessness (that hidden principle of rebellion against constituted authority) is already at work in the world, [but it is] restrained only until he who restrains is taken out of the way." And when that man of sin is removed, when that darkling veil of death is discarded, when the righteous robes are held together by God's golden girdle... (Gold speaks of God's divine nature.)
"For I would have you to view my image, saith the Lord. For I am keeping my word and I am causing My obedience to be pondered and kept and applied and lived and walked out, saith the Lord."
Verse 8: "And then the lawless one (the antichrist) will be revealed and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth." The rod is in Jesus' mouth, and the rod speaks of authority. "And He will bring him to an end, by His appearing at His coming. The coming [of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels – [all of them] lying wonders . And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition) because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false. II Thessalonians 2:11 - 12.
In order that all may be judged and condemned who did not believe in [who refused to adhere to, trust in, and rely on] the Truth, but [instead] took pleasure in unrighteousness. But we, brethren beloved by the Lord, ought and are obligated [as those who are in debt] to give thanks always to God for you, because God chose you from the beginning." That's us, hallelujah! "
As His firstfruits (first converts) for salvation through the sanctifying work of the [Holy] Spirit and [your] belief in (adherence to, trust in, and reliance on) the Truth." That's the thing that the enemy is trying to destroy. It is the truth of God's word. Have you looked in the bookstore lately at all the translations of the Bible? They have one for kids; they have one for women; they have one for singles; they have one for divorcees; they have one for married people. They even have one for cowboys to read while they are out on the range. They have taken God's Word and watered it down, and diluted the truth.
God put enough energy of conviction of sin in His word, that when you read the word of God, sin in you causes conviction. Forgiveness takes place and salvation is met, and you are set free. "Because God chose you from the beginning to be the first converts of salvation, through the sanctifying (that means to be set apart) for the work of His [Holy] Spirit and [your] belief in (adherence to, trust in, and reliance on) the Truth. [It was] to this end that He called you through His Gospel, so that you may obtain and share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah)." (Amplified Bible) "
So then, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions and instructions which you were taught by us, whether by our word of mouth or by letter (Paul speaking). Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, Who loved us and gave us everlasting consolation and encouragement and well-founded hope through [His] grace (unmerited favor). Comfort and encourage our hearts and strengthen them [make them steadfast and keep them unswerving] in every good work and word." Unswerving means staying in a straight line. We are understanding that as the Lord completes all of this, and as He is preparing our hearts, for this last day truth, that His Omega (the last) Word, He is opening this generation to His finished work, and we, like a foot company, we are the feet of the body; we are walking it out; we are walking it in. For the Lord doeth equip us to do it in His time, in His way. Hallelujah!
Back to Revelation, Chapter one, verse three. "Blessed and happy and to be envied is the man who reads aloud in the assemblies." We read in Verse 4: "John, to the seven assemblies (churches) that are in Asia: May grace (God's unmerited favor) be granted to you and spiritual peace (the peace of Christ's kingdom) from Him, Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come, and from the seven Spirits [the sevenfold Holy Spirit] before His throne. And from Jesus Christ the faithful and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn of the dead ( He was the first of many brethren) [first to be brought back to life] and the Prince (Ruler) of the kings of the earth. To Him Who ever loves us and has once [for all] loosed and freed us from our sins by His own blood. And He formed us into a kingdom (a royal race), priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion throughout the ages and forever and ever. Amen (so be it)." Hallelujah.
So here we are, we are beginning to realize now, all of these seven churches seem to be in a line. Everyone of these seven churches were in cities. Like the church of Ephesus, the church of Smyrna, the church of Sardis, all of the different churches they were in a city. And in each one of those cities there were things going on that were not right in the eyes of God. And every one of those names had a meaning to it, and that we want to address. These churches names promoted an attitude that must come out of the body of Christ.
Ephesus means "permissiveness" and "desirable," and if ever there was a permissiveness day it is now. The attitude of permissiveness in that Ephesus place (the religious order of that day) is clearly seen as we begin to look at the meaning of this name. Like the Ephesus church, the man of this day too, wants his own way. His desires and permissiveness is saying, "I want God, but I want Him on my terms." He is willing to compromise truth to have his way. The Ephesus nature is easily seen today in the church system. The church desires things and they are looking for acceptance.
That attitude of permissiveness is in the church today. The church desires "things", like being the biggest church in the city, or our building is the most beautiful.
It is the attitude of desiring things, permissiveness, compromising or allowing things to be hidden, producing fantasies in the mind. That realm of desire is an open door to the psychic realm, wishing to be something that you are not, letting those things control and consume your time and thinking.
In the city of Ephesus they had a great temple erected there to the goddess called Diana. She was Artemis of the Greeks – the fertility deity. The people built her a temple which was one of the seven wonders of the world. This immense temple was constructed over a swampy ground called a slime pit. Do you think that was an accident? No, it was said that people believed that the python evolved out of the slime and decomposition that was left on the earth in Noah's day. Out of all of this, the people believed that the spirit of divination would come from that python nature and take control to tell them of psychic fantasies that they wish to believe.
Greek mythology says that the god Apollo fought the python, the spirit of divination, in the heavenlies, and when he did, divination entered into him, and he became controlled by the psychic. This is like ESP or knowing things before they happen. He thought divination was part of the equipment of making him a god. Apollo was thought to be the god of light, the god of music, the god of youth. He was considered Nimrod of (Genesis 10:8 and 9) reincarnated. These are the three disciplines that satan seems to use to control the mind of man.
Let us consider Acts 16:16 – during Paul's ministry we see this dragon/serpent/python revealed in the Greek mythology exposed in his Marrs Hill encounter. Part of the Greek mythology was the oracle of delphi. It was the seed of divination that operated in the arts of soothsaying. The damsel in Acts 16:16 was possessed by a spirit of divination. The word for divination in the "Greek" is python. In the natural, as well as in the spirit realm, the characteristics of the python controls his victim by wrapping himself around him so tightly that there is no room for escape. The victim is controlled, then crushed to death. In the spirit, the python is allowed to attack its victim when deep hurt, emotional stress, hurts the mind of a person so badly, they say physiologically to themselves, "nobody is ever going to hurt me, this way again." This is the cue to the python, and he begins to take over and separate a person from family and friends so that they become non-committal.
In that python nature that overtook Apollo, he made a celebration of what had happened. He had slain the python and they called the celebration the pythian games. Apollo made amends to Mother Earth because he had killed her snake and violated her sacred place. He started annual pythian games. In the pythian games, that divination spirit was loosed upon the people. They celebrated it in song. Every man wanted to be something that he was not. It worked in the realm of fantasy and out of that came the opera, the drama, and the theater. The music was a controlling force, speaking to the mind. We see satan using it again against our young people and their minds in the rock and rap music. What is satan seeking to do? He wants to produce his image in this earth. If he can change the facts of the attitude of love and pull you into the realm of his seduction, his beguilement, and his bewitchment, he will control the mind. He wants to change the frequency of God's love to hate, selfishness, and jealousy. Man living by his "baser emotions".
Apollo told his worshiper to look first in their own hearts to find the beginning of wisdom. You see, the lie he sold the people was humanism. They would think that completeness or perfection lay within themselves as a natural ability. The mind of man would be so trained and so intellectual, that all wisdom would be in that natural human kind of thinking. As the generations have come and gone, that humanistic concept is now the control in our educational systems. That concept is a mixture, like a bowl of spaghetti, you cannot see where one noodle quits and another begins. I was surprised that my grandson knew the names of the mythological gods. He learned them in school. They are used as tools to teach this mythology so that when it comes time to make a choice to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the only true God, that their young minds would be so confused and so warped, that they would make wrong decisions.
I have a friend whose daughter teaches in New York. She has a professorship in one of the colleges. She was a precious, little, sweet girl from Tennessee, but when the school system got through with her, she told her mother that it was weakness to believe in God and to think that she had to worship a higher power. She no longer needed that because she had an intellect and a capability. The humanistic views just wipe away God's creation, His Divine Word, until the mind becomes so bruised with that power that it can only produce death within the intellect. All it can do is to bring man to the power and control of death.
Getting back to Ephesus, and the people of Ephesus who worshiped the goddess Diana, they thought that if they went to the temple of Diana they could have a relationship with the temple prostitutes and produce a god. That was the lie satan sold them. And so out of all of that promiscuity the people were caught up in that free love and the uncleanness and the soul ties that it presented to them. According to First Corinthians Chapter six, verses 6 and 20, every time a man plants his seed in a woman outside of wedlock, they come together, they become one. The demons in her cohabit with the demons in him and the consummation of this act can produce a child that is illegitimate. It comes under the curse of the outcast, and not allowed in the congregation of the righteous for ten generations (Deut. 23:2). This was the curse that came from breaking God's law.
In our day, we have made a law that allows these children to be aborted. This has a psychological effect on the woman who agrees for her seed to be murdered. Mother love is being destroyed. A mother's ability to love is being removed every time a murder takes place. We can begin to see what satan is doing to the pot of humanity by destroying our natural, God given ability to love. Our families are being bruised in the development of their grown up emotions, and out of ignorance, this can take place because the people just do not know any better. They do not know God's Word. Their emotions are so covered over with the lower nature desire, they want to believe anything they do is alright.
When God's laws are broken, we will reap what we have sown. And so, the soul tie of the death realm is a powerful tool that satan is using to fill the pot of humanity with uncleanness and lust. They take no responsibility to do what is right in God's eyes. So with illegitimacy, we now see the spirit of rebellion.
You can see why satan wants this cohabiting sort to be everywhere because the quicker the pot of humanity is full of the death of that kind of uncleanness and man lives by the dictates of his baser emotions, satan thinks he has won.
So this Ephesus, desirable and permissiveness, has power over the mind of man, and this must come out of the true body of Christ (overcomer). In this Ephesus city, this permissiveness, (Acts 19) is where the evil spirit leaped on the seven sons of Sceva and stripped them naked.
This is where they brought the handkerchiefs and the towels that touched Paul's body, and the diseases left the people, and the evil spirits came out of them. God did unusual and extraordinary miracles at Paul's hand.
Now in Acts 19:1: "While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul went through the upper inland districts and came down to Ephesus. There he found some disciples." In Ephesus there was a man named Demetrius, 24th verse. "He was a silversmith, who made silver shrines of [the goddess] Artemis [Diana], brought no small income to his craftsmen.
These he called together, along with the workmen of similar trades, and said, Men, you are acquainted with the facts and understand that from this business we derive our wealth and livelihood. Now you notice and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost all over [the providence of] Asia this Paul has persuaded and induced people to believe his teaching and has alienated a considerable company of them, saying that gods that are made with human hands are not really gods at all.
Now there is danger not merely that this trade of ours may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may come into disrepute and count for nothing, and that her glorious magnificence may be degraded and fall into contempt – she whom all [the province of] Asia and the wide world worship.
As they listened to this, they were filled with rage and they continued to shout, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Then the city was filled with confusion; and they rushed together into the amphitheater, dragging along with them Gaius and Aristarchus. Macedonians who were fellow travelers with Paul. And Paul wished to go in among the crowd, but the disciples would not permit him to do it. Even some of the Asiarchs (political or religious officials in Asia) who were his friends also sent to him and warned him not to risk venturing into the theater.
Now some shouted one thing and some another, for the gathering was in a tumult and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd called upon Alexander [to speak], since the Jews had pushed and urged him forward. And Alexander motioned with his hand, wishing to make a defense and [planning] to apologize to the people. But as soon as they saw him and recognized that he was a jew, a shout went up from them as the voice of one man, as for about two hours they cried, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! And when the town clerk had calmed the crowd down, he said, Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone [image of her] that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet (keep yourselves in check) and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here, who are [guilty of] neither temple robberies nor blasphemous speech about our goddess. Now then, if Demetrius and his fellow tradesmen who are with him have a grievance against anyone, the courts are open and proconsuls are [available]; let them bring charges against one another [legally]. But if you require anything further about this or about other matters, it must be decided and cleared up in the regular assembly."
We see all this was taking place there in Ephesus. So the gods
and goddesses were molded and shaped so that every man could have his own
personal god. And let us say again, in Nimrod's day they called him the dragon.
Nimrod was the dragon slayer. In Apollos' day he was the one that killed the
big serpent and they deified him, remember Apollo was the god of music, he
was the god of light, and he was the god of youth. So they were worshiping
him after he killed the dragon and they wanted to deify him. Of course, every
generation had a name for the satanic power that would come to take over.
They call it mythology in Greece and they had the gods and the goddesses that
they deified and worshiped, and of course, were false and not right.
The python, if we remember, the serpent, when we go back to the children of Israel in the wilderness and the serpents bit them. Remember, the Lord told Moses to make the pole and put the brass serpent on the pole, and they called it a "brazen trifle." It was just a trifle – a little thing, but when the people looked on it, if they were bitten by the serpents that were there, they were healed. Now that just did not disappear. Down through the generations, they deified the serpent on the pole because it had such power to heal them, and God gave it at that time. It was a one time thing, but they deified it. They called it the "Nehushtan," and they built a temple to it. This temple we find when we get to the Pergamos church (Pergamos means "married with the world") and it had a temple there to the "Aesculapius." The Aesculapius is the serpent again that they deified, and they were to go in there and look upon that serpent and be healed. So all of these things were taking place.
Back to Ephesus. The attitude of permissiveness is in the church. It is the attitude of desiring things and permissiveness, compromising or allowing things to be hidden, producing fantasies in the mind, that the realm of desire is an open door to the physic realm. Let us say again, people are wishing to be something that they are not. Letting those things control and consume your time. This is what happened when Apollos killed the serpent over the pit. They called it the "Oracle of Delphi." You could go to that pit and there was witchcraft powers coming from it. They would ask it questions and they would get their answers, and this was the way all that witchcraft began. This little girl of Delphi was set there to watch over all of what was done.
The city of Ephesus, in the New Testament days, was where the temple of Diana was operated under witchcraft powers, divinations, to control the people. When they built that temple over that swampy area, they were wanting the spirit of divination (that's what the python did – hypnotized, divination – the controller). He bound man and kept him from releasing his own personality in the spirit. I have seen that spirit under heavy anointing, and he wraps around his victims. He comes when you have been hurt or wounded sorely, had your feelings hurt and your heart broken. That is his cue to come and wrap around you. You make the decision that nobody is going to hurt me this way again, and that's his cue, and over and over again as hurts appear, until you become non-committal. (We are saying this again to re-enforce it to you.) We see these people all the time. They cannot open their arms and raise their hands freely and worship the Lord. They sit with their arms folded. They cannot enter into a conversation. They cannot talk in front of people. There is a python in place. It is genetic – down through the bloodline, they do not know it is there, and that python is guarding his property. He does not want that person to be free to worship before the Lord. So great divination was attached to this.
What was happening? Satan does not want your personality and my personality developed. He knows if he can limit us to stay in fear and lack of trust, and not want to grow up, you know, kid ideas and kid decisions, then he can come and control. The more we allow ourselves to be bated in those areas, the more we refuse to deal with ourselves because we are afraid, or because we do not want to know. Some folks want to run and hide. They do not want to grow up. Because of this, that spirit is allowed. I have seen him and I've seen him go, I mean over many, many people. He guards his property, and he leaves when you command him, in Jesus' name. I tell you, the name of Jesus makes him flee.
Remember, these are the three disciplines that satan uses to control the mind of man, as Apollo, was the god of youth, light, and music. Have you ever noticed that you will hear a song and it will get in your mind, and you will sing it over and over again? You see, satan knows that our mind is impressed easily with music and the sounds of music. Remember, someone said that "music soothes the savage beast." The subliminal technique came in and was back-masked to the rock music. They also placed awful words in there so that our children's ears were exposed, and their minds pounded with these vibrations. It is in the beat. It is in the sound of the words, and it is a degrading, horrifying, corruption that brings destruction to the mind and heart to the person that gives himself to it. And the rap music is the same. The rap music is repeated over and over again until the mind accepts what they are hearing.
The music was a controlling force speaking to the mind, and we see satan using it again against our young people and their minds in the rock music. What is satan seeking to produce? He wants to produce his image in this earth! If he can change the facts of the attitude of love, and pull you into the realm of his seduction, his beguilement, and his bewitchment, he will control the mind. He wants to change the frequency of God's love to hate, selfishness, and jealousy. The humanistic views just wipe away God's creation, His divine word, until the mind becomes so bruised with that power, that it can only produce death within the intellect. All it can do is to bring man to the power and control of death.
Abortion is a part of satan's strategy. It has a 10 generation curse that removes the person from the congregation of righteousness. In Deuteronomy 23:2, as the Lord said, "that they would be cursed and would not be allowed in the congregation of the Lord for 10 generations." That is 400 years, as 40 years is a generation in the Bible. What can do this? Do you think that the enemy is playing games? Oh, no. Just because you can sit in a place of passivity and permissiveness, the enemy is not going to leave you alone. This curse produces the outcast, the wanderer, and the vagabond. It is reproduced in the bloodline. If the mother and father practice illegitimacy, their children most likely will do the same. Abortion may remove the seed of illegitimacy, but it will not break the curse. It will add another curse – the curse of murder. It will reprobate the mind of mother's love. Mother's love reaches the highest heaven and the lowest hell, but if destroyed, satan can produce a beast like Ecclesiastes 3:18 says, "that man without God is but a beast." God is love. We must come out of this blindness of death and the things that death comprises.
We cannot live in the power of death and experience the glory of true life that is hid with Christ in God. It is the glory of resurrection. You died and your real new life is hid in Christ in God. Jesus annulled death on our behalf, and His death has given us power and dominion over it. II Timothy 1:10 "[It is that purpose and grace] which He now has made known and has fully disclosed and made real [to us] through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who annulled death and made it of no effect, and brought life and immortality (immunity from eternal death) to light through the gospel."
When satan controls the mind of man, he bruises man's ability to think correctly. Satan wants to deceive, kill, rob and take you over, and make you think that to try to equip your carnal mind to know the glory and the power of the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and the word that is spoken out of the mouth of God, is folly. Those kind of thoughts will only put Satan, that deceiver, in control of your mind. You will wonder why you cannot pray effectively, why you do not feel the presence of God and why you cannot intercede. It is because the power of divination to which you have given yourself unknowingly, is in control. Every time you enter into satan's kingdom, he is going to exact from you according to his plan. He will not let you escape. But in the mighty name of Jesus, you cast him out and he has to obey. That is the Great Commission's command -- to "cast out."
Ephesus was a mixture. They practiced divination. They worshiped the goddess Diana. The spirit exposing it was fertility. People came to that temple to have intercourse with the nimps and the homosexuals that were there, thinking that they could produce a god in their own being. How could the mind of man be so bombarded and beguiled and bewitched to think that he could produce his own god? It was because his flesh thought that might be fun. He did not know the difference between the precious and the vile. It was that old spirit of python evolving out of that swampy land that made the goddess Diana so promiscuous in her idolatry, that she could control the minds of her paramours. She caused them to believe that through their exchange in her temple and their cohabiting with her ministers, that they could birth a god. It was the controller, that same old spirit statue that was carried off to Rome and accepted by the Catholic church. Diana's name was changed to Madonna, and the baby that she held in her arms, was Jesus. Oh, you say, could that be? I say, oh yes it is. Look at the generations that have come and gone, and every generation always accepted what has happened in its history. We get all teary eyed when we believe those things the enemy tries to rule in our emotions. He wants to control the emotions so that you cannot understand what God intended for you to know. This image of Ephesus has to get out of the body of Christ. This nature has to be exposed and removed – it's divination, it's paganism and it's saying that permissiveness is alright – do what you want to do.
It is hard to say some of these things and realize that this is the truth. BUT GOD WANTS US TO KNOW THE TRUTH. It is so strong! We have looked the other way for so long, and we have not been taught the power of the precious blood of Jesus, and all that it really stands for. A lot of the people's first love, where they worshiped the Lord, they just became passive. We must come back to our first love in Jesus. We must get all of this right. Praise the Lord.
Father, I just pray that as we go through this "journey" Lord, we can retain it. May you bless us Lord. So that we will understand what you are saying, and we will know what must come out of this last day generation man. That we cannot walk in the permissiveness of our subconscious mind or of our conscious mind. We must to go all the way with you Lord and do what is really right. And everybody said, "AMEN!"
THINGS THAT CANNOT BE TAKEN INTO THIS MARRIAGE
PSALMS 26:2 - EXAMINE ME, O LORD, AND PROVE ME; TEST MY HEART
AND MY MIND.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA
"BITTERNESS"
Smyrna means myrrh (myrrh means bitterness). It was part of the ingredients used to make the anointing oil, which was measured in equal parts, and this speaks of balance.
Revelation 2:8-11, "And to the angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Smyrna write, These are the words of the First and the Last, Who died and came to life again: [Isa. 44:6.]. I know your affliction and distress and pressing trouble, and your poverty; but you are rich! And how you are abused and reviled and slandered by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of satan. Fear nothing that you are about to suffer. – Dismiss your dread and your fears! Behold, the devil is indeed about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and proved and critically appraised; and for ten days you will have affliction. Be loyally faithful unto death –[that is,] even if you must die for it – and I will give you the crown of life. [Rev. 3:10, 11.] He who is able to hear, let him listen to and heed what the Spirit says to the assemblies (the churches). He who overcomes (is victorious) shall in no way be injured by the second death."
WORD OF THE LORD
My dearly beloved, I uncover my word to you and I give you
My seasoned truth that you might understand and know that in this darkling
day, as the earth trembles, as it groans and travails for what is to come,
as this is My day, saith the Lord, I am preparing you, My people, to know
the Alpha, the Omega, and all that is in between. For I am raising up My generation,
saith the Lord, not a sleeping giant, not a 100 pound weakling, but My own
that I have bought with a price, that My redemption has covered, that My word
is fulfilled in the midst of it. I speak a word to your heart that the world
would be troubled to hear, but you shall understand that you are in the midst
of My glory that is being poured out on this earth, saith the Lord.
Mighty, mighty, mighty is the host of the Lord, but greater is He the Lord our God. He is the director of His host. And mighty and majestic are His words in the heart of His own, for the troubled shall be untroubled, and the weak shall be made strong. I will tend you, saith the Lord, so that there is nothing that you shall miss or do without, or cause fear to be bruised in your mind. For what I am giving you, saith the Lord, is my peace. Not as the world has peace, their knowledge of peace, but My peace, saith the Lord, so you are not moved in the storm. You are not down-trodden by the wind. You are not destroyed by the hot blast of the accuser. No, My peace will envelope you and protect you and guard you in the day of trouble, for all shall know that I have picked you out and called you My own from this day forward, saith the Lord.
Thank you Lord! Thank you Jesus!
Oh, Father, we gather in Your name, sweet name, and Lord, we come to minister to you. Lord, we ask you to allow the anointing to be one. Let us hear with our ears, understand with our mind, comprehend Lord, this end time message. Let us be prepared for the day that lies ahead. Let us look well unto you Lord. Let us seek the higher ground, the choicest graces, the place that you have prepared Lord. And let us, Oh Lord God, remove the darkling veil of oppression, fleshly bondages, weaknesses that trouble. All of them ripe to disappear because the King of Glory comes in. Yes, Lord God Almighty, come in us. Let that leadership, rulership of the majesty and glory of Your person be felt in us as never before. And let us all, Lord God Almighty, ride the crest of your wave. Lord, let us move out into the preciousness of Your truth and let us not look back, but let us move on Lord. Arise and go take the Kingdom by force. For the Kingdom suffers violence and the violent takes it by force. Yes Lord, we come to seek the Kingdom with its knowledge of peace and joy and love, the established Kingdom within this many membered body. That we are in You Lord, that you are in us. So Lord, open our eyes. Give us that sweet anointing in the ears, and let your wine pour over our mind Lord, so that we are full, we are full of truth. And everybody said AMEN!
Bitterness is surely one of the attitudes that must come out of the body of Christ. If ever there was a day for "bitterness" to be noted, it is today. The church is suffering from the effects of bitterness as never before.
The mind of man has been filled with an embittered attitude. When the church does not get what they want, their anger becomes bitterness, hatred and violence, rejection and self pity. Also, all of this works in this spirit of bitterness. It is a powerful spirit that runs through the genetic bloodline for many generations unless its curse is broken.
According to Gen. 32, God would foster His Son Jesus to the household of that Jacob family down through the genetic corridor. Through that Jacob man, God began the wonder of forgiveness when he had to forgive Esau his brother. He had to obey the Lord and go back into Canaan to take up his birthright. When he wrestled with the angel, and the angel said, turn me loose, and he said "no", I won't turn you loose til you bless me. (I'm just touching on this Scripture to set our understanding.) The word said the angel of the Lord touched him in the hallow of the thigh. The hallow of the thigh is where the blood is manufactured in the bone marrow. God was speaking at the beginning of blood. That forgiveness was going to take place through that genetic hallway, down the corridor of time. God was going to bring about the fulness of forgiveness through His Son Jesus, who would take it to the cross, and render it inoperable so that everyone who would receive Him, and ask for forgiveness, in His name, would be forgiven.
So way back there in God's plan, just like before the foundation of the world, God was setting into place every jot and tittle, "line upon line" and "precept upon precept," so that everything fit. Nothing had loose ends or left out, or was a guessing game. God meant that in that time, when His last day household, (that's us) – "the Sons of God" – the generation of Jesus. Romans 8:14 "all who are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God." We are learning the leadership of the Spirit – we are the Sons of God. Psalms 110. Born, out of that womb of the morning and the meaning of the womb of the morning "is the beginning of your understanding." That's where light begins. Out of the womb: the womb is the place of conception. Aha! Something is forming. Something is happening. So out of the womb of the morning and to the Sons of God, He said, "to you will spring forth your young men. They will be as the dew." And everything that the dew is exposed to, the dew covers. See, there is a mystery here, a revelation here that is not just a "buzz word," but there is a hidden mystery of reality that God means for us to comprehend, that in the fullness of time, as God' s plan was unfolding and being walked out. Please know that God kept the light on. He kept the word in place. He never changed His mind.
I always get blessed in the book of Daniel, Chapter two, when it said that this great hand just tore that rock out of the mountain. It was not a human hand. It just came out of the mountain. You know we cannot form; we cannot make, (in other words) we cannot add to God's Word and we cannot take away from it. We must have it like it is. When that rock was torn out of the mountain, (that was not touched by man's hand) it was by the hand of God! In Ex. 20:25, when they set up those stones to make an alter, they took stones that weren't hewn stones, and they were placed there in order to lay the wood on for the sacrifice for the "burnt offering," because God was going to consume it. It was a whole burnt offering, offered night and morning, and it was laid on those rocks that no man's chisel had touched. You could not make it so the fire would burn brighter or be easier or have the right kind of fuel to make the smoke rise. God meant that man would not touch what He was about to do. Man could not put his seal on it and say, "I did it Lord, now flow into it." God intended for His Word to come forth in it's completeness, just as He spoke it, so that it would be allowed to do all that He sent it to do.
When the sin was to be washed away, only the perfect blood of Jesus Christ could take that sin away and Jesus sprinkled His blood on the covenant ark of Heaven, making God's plan complete. Only the blood of Jesus was equipped, so holy, and so pure, to finish that work that God intended. So way back there when Jacob just thought he was going back to Canaan, and dreading to see his brother Esau, thinking in the natural realm, and all that goes with the natural. But, in the glory of God's Word, he was walking out God's plan that was far beyond the reach of change or humankind of understanding. He was wrestling for forgiveness to be in place at the beginning of blood. God would begin that forgiveness work. Generation after generation after generation, the cup of humanity was full of death. The powers of death brought struggle after struggle. Kings came and kings died. Many things took place because of man's rebellion against God's Word. Man refused to do it God's way. He wanted to add to it. He wanted it his own way. He wanted to pat himself on the back. He wanted to build himself up to be something that he was not, and God was not about to let that happen.
All down through the ages, this book of Revelation has been covered over with a veil, not ready yet to be revealed, and man has tried and tried and tried to uncover it. He has equated it in the natural. He said, "this is this king and this is that king and this is the anti-christ; this is the place this is happening". He has tried to figure it out and figure it out, and he comes to the end, and he still knows nothing, because God was not ready to begin to unfold and unveil to the man of this hour until man was ready to contain it.
Deliverance - we must be washed out. We must get ready to be holy before the Lord, get this garbage out of us, call it what it is, and command it to go. We must break the curse that allowed it to be there, back in our generation man. There are things that have happened to us, that we have no knowledge of, being in our genetic corridor. Through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and the mighty grace of God's mercy, He is beginning to unfold to us, "line upon line," and "precept upon precept."
In the vision of Chapter 1 of Revelation, John said, "I saw Jesus standing in the midst of the seven lampstands. I saw "us" there; us there!, the sons of the resurrection, born anew,(I Pet 1:3-4) life out of death, born of the Spirit, born to live forever, born with eternal life in the realm of eternal life, the eternity of eternities. And Jesus said it. "I'm living in the eternity of the eternities." That's where we are. We were born of the kingdom of God. We were born of the Spirit. We were born and completed in that birthing process to mature and grow and take our place in the glory of God's household family to know the truth, to become the truth, to pour out the truth, to a lost and dying world.
I tell you in this last day, God is raising a generation with the quality of life that will set creation free. You and I will speak a word, and the power of God will go forth out of our mouth like a two-edged sword, and it will divide and separate and part asunder, and the demons will flee, as they are cast out. The children of God will arise, and they will recount the glories and the praises of the Lord, and their life will be changed. The vision of God will be before them, and they shall see into that realm of eternity where God has ordained and made ready His kingdom, hallelujah, His priests and kings to take their place in Him, at last, and to rule and reign with Him.
WORD OF THE LORD "For dearly beloved, I brought together in this end time day and I have scheduled your mind and heart to comprehend the words that I am speaking. For yea, there was a day when your ears could not hear it, and there was a day when your mouth could not speak it, and there was a day when you gambled on the hillsides like calves let out of the stall, running here and running there with no direction and no purpose. But I declare unto you that I, the Lord your God, have called you out. I have set you in My peace that you might come to do My will, that you might know the truth, and that you might rise upon the obscurity of this death realm, and that you might follow after Me and be the light of life blazing in this earth, in this end time day. For I cause you to know that when I have called you, I also qualify you, and when I qualify you, I put My Word, the nature of My Word, the fullness of My Word, and all of My revelation power within your being. As you seek after Me, and as you long for the truth, I, the Lord your God, will uncover to your mind and heart, the things that you need to know, to separate you at last from the world and the power of this death realm, for when I spoke to you, to give you life, I meant for you to live a life – eternal life – in the eternity of eternities in My forever, saith the Lord, that I have foreordained before the foundation of the world to place you in covenant with Me so that in the fullness of My time, in the day of My provision you will do exploits in My name and it will be the most normal expectation of your breath and life that you have, because you have passed the test, and you have separated yourself from the death realm at last. You have been born again out of the reach of decay, out of the reach of all that belongs and is comprised in the death realm, I have placed within you a life understanding and when you begin to uncover the light of that life, you will see and know and understand that it is I, the Lord God, that have chosen you out of death, to know that life – eternal life – is yours forever, saith the Lord." HALLELUJAH!
I Peter 1:2-5 "Who were chosen and foreknown by God the Father and consecrated (sanctified, made holy) by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and to be sprinkled with [His] blood: May grace (spiritual blessing) and peace be given you in increasing abundance [that spiritual peace to be realized in and through Christ, freedom from fears, agitating passions, and moral conflicts]. Praised (honored, blessed) be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah)! By His boundless mercy, we have been born again to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [Born anew] into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay [imperishable], unsullied and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, Who are being guarded (garrisoned) by God's power through [your] faith [till you fully inherit that final] salvation that is ready to be revealed [for you] in the last time."
To the angel of the church of Smyrna, the Lord spoke of their poverty and suffering. During the dispensational view of Smyrna at this time, there was great persecution of the Church. Millions of Christians were being killed and martyred, solely for their faith. The Lord speaks to them to not be afraid of what they are about to suffer, and the devil would put some in prison. But He said, "Be faithful." Because of their faithfulness to God, God considered them rich. When man is faithful to God, there is nothing that can be withheld from him.
Smyrna was an inland seaport about 50 miles north of Ephesus, and during the Roman times, it became bigger than Ephesus. They were sometimes called the "first City of Asia." It was widely celebrated for its wide paved streets and schools of medicine and science. It is not mentioned much elsewhere in scripture, but based on this letter, it was severely persecuted and suffered for its faith. We must note that this persecution of the church received no condemnation from the Lord, but He gave them commendations and encouragement. They were prosperous in the natural, but spiritually, full of bitterness, and it would deprive them of the crown of life.
"Fear not that you are about to suffer. Dismiss your dread and fears. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and proved and critically appraised." For the most part, everyone reads that part fast because no one wants to go through a test or trial or be persecuted. The Lord said for ten days, you would have affliction. Ten is the number of responsibility. It is as if the Lord is saying, when you learn the responsibility of faith, I will give you the "crown of life." The crown is placed on the king's head. It means he has respect. He is the highest authority. What he decrees cannot be changed. He is all powerful in the natural. Bitterness can have no part in this kingly state, nor any of the demonic spirits that come through bitterness' open door. The devil seeks to destroy, to usurp man's authority. He lies in wait and looks for every opportunity to keep you from wearing the crown of life. As long as you do not know how to live in life, he can bombard you with demonic powers, anything to keep you from being all that you can be for the Lord Jesus. The spirit of bitterness comes down through the genetic corridor, from generation to generation. People's lives have been ruined and wasted because they did not know the truth. When the mind feeds on bitterness, the good things of God's love, the truth in His Word, are compromised, done away with in many cases. The mind is ruled by what is in it. So bitterness must come out of the body of Christ, and the mind be set free through the work of deliverance, and be filled with the love of Jesus.
Some historians have tried to say that the ten days of tribulation represent a prophetic message for the church age, like ten literal periods of suffering from ten different Roman rulers. But I believe, by the spirit and in the spirit, we must understand spiritually, tribulation and even death, and the avenue that has been allowed by the tribulation effect.
In this last day body of Christ, bitterness must be dealt with and cast out in the mighty NAME OF JESUS.
THE GREAT COVERUP
PROVERBS 28:13 - HE WHO COVERS HIS TRANSGRESSIONS WILL NOT PROSPER,
BUT WHOEVER CONFESSES AND FORSAKES HIS SINS SHALL OBTAIN MERCY.
CHAPTER THREE
PERGAMOS
"MARRIED WITH THE WORLD"
The name means: "pere," "gamio" and "cosmos" in Greek. Gamio means "marriage" and cosmos means "world." So the word Pergamos or Pergamum means "married with the world." It says to me, great compromise, co-existence. It says to me, that the people had the knowledge of the Lord, but they were so compromised with the world, they were married to the world.
We look about us today. We see this as an attitude in Christianity, in the church today, in the people who believe today. We see that there is a great famine for God's Word, for the reality of truth. We see there are many things being exposed that are not the Holy Spirit teaching, and it is not the fullness of God's Word.
We find that people are being pulled away into doctrines of demons – (I just say it like it is). False prophecies, false prophets, going about the land telling people with itching ears what they want to hear and who they think they are in the Kingdom. Self appointed prophets, some people calling themselves Apostles. They are great label pickers today, and everywhere it seems we look, we find this is the case. So we are saying, "Oh, Lord God Almighty, what must we do in this last hour?" And the Lord says, "The only way we are going to turn this around, is to teach the people out of it." So we say, "Lord, we want to hear and understand Your Word."
Being married with the world, Verse 12, "These are the words of Him Who has and wields the sharp two-edged sword." The sword is the Word, double-edged sword. It causes you to deal with yourself. It is going to part asunder those things that are not to remain. There are some fleshly things that have gone on in our lives that are going to have to be addressed. You can no longer move on into the revelation knowledge of God and carry with you the doubt and unbelief, selfish, jealously, lack of knowledge, just pure ignorance and foolishness, and the spirit of confusion. No longer can you sit in the congregation and listen to things that tickle your ears and leave you starving, and your heart broken, the way you came in, the hurt and the pain not removed is the way many go out.
Word of the Lord -- For the Lord your God set His Word in motion to turn this situation around that a people would come out of death into life, that people will learn how to live by the spirit of the living God, and they will stand in the authority and dominion of His Word, and they will speak the truth. They will believe the truth. They will trust the truth and they will see the truth revealed in and through and to them, for the Lord declares that His Word never fails. And your light will never go out, for yea, there is a dimly lit wick of light among us. So many times we scarcely can see through the haze or the darkness or the shadows. The Lord has given us eyes that can penetrate, eyes that can see.
Light is a provision that the eyes work through. The Lord has given us light, and in every dimension of light, the light is always the same. Light will always dispel darkness."
"As we, the children of light, come in to the truth and we begin to see with our spiritual eyes, the truth that God has decreed unto us in this last day, we will not go lacking. We will not fall short of His glory. We will not be cast aside. We will not fall down under the weight of the world and the hurts and the pains of the things that satan has thrown against us. For yea, (the Lord says) out of this death realm, I have called the fullness of life and when I birthed you, by the spirit, saith the Lord, I birthed you to live forever. When I gave within the midst of you light, wisdom light, understanding light, glory light, knowing. I, the Lord your God, intended for you to stay that way. To be enhanced and to grow brighter and brighter as you follow after the things of My Word, and allow Me to teach you what you need to understand. For there is no problem too big. There is no pit too dark, that I the Lord your God has allowed, to teach you. I have prepared you as light, that when you enter, you will cause it to diminish and to flee away."
"Oh, children of Mine", saith the Lord, children of Mine, bestir yourself and know that what has been darkness in your life in the past, I will shed My light upon it. The things that I have allowed to do you good, I will cause your understanding to know that I allowed this for your growth, for you to be grown in the splendor of wisdom and knowledge, for you not to be cramped or dwarfed because of lack of knowledge or lack of understanding. For I, the Lord God, have equipped you in all of these areas that, as you seek after Me, as you yearn for Me as your vital necessity, I, the Lord your God, will teach you. No more shall the world look at the church and say, Pergamos, married with the world. For yea, I have called you out to bring you in. I have made you the true Ecclesia, (the called out ones, the Church.) You are My Church, My dwelling place, saith the Lord, and I live within you and I will cause you to be such a light in this earthly order, that the people will come to hear what I say because I will speak through you, saith the Lord."
"So much is to be accomplished in each of us. Much has to be understood, for we have accepted the ways of our forefathers. We have done the things that were carried down from generation to generation. We did not ask why, we just did them because everybody did them. But this is an hour, the day, the moment of the Lord when change must take place. You can no longer be full of apathy, you can no longer compromise the standards of God's Word. You can no longer sit by the wayside and let somebody spoon feed you, for the Lord wants to teach you Himself. He wants you to understand that He is revealing revelation, revealed revelation into your being that will cause you to be strong and steadfast in this last day. For yea, as the Lord doth come and as all of these things are soon to take place, many things are way beyond our understanding or our ability even to comprehend. Things are about to take place, and the Lord is making His body ready to contain, to receive, and to pour out for the people that are lost and dying. For many screams will go up and many cries for help, and people will be running to and fro and there will be great calamity everywhere."
"I put My steadiness within you, saith the Lord, so that you will not be moved by what you see or what you hear. For you will know My voice, and I will carry you through every step. I will take you every place you need to go and I will cause men's ears to be pricked as I speak through you, saith the Lord. For this is the hour that this change, this millennial day, the glory of this generation day when I come quickly this day, when I turn this earthly order into a heavenly glory. Oh, dearly beloved, as you are gathered together unto Me, I the Lord God, am revealing to you My supernatural glory, that you might come away, that you might be in Me, as I am in you, and that you might know that I protect what is mine. I keep you safe from the wiles of this earth, and I cause you to be kept in the harmony of My perfect peace."
"Like a beautiful melody that is sung, that fits together, and the notes are played and it is a happy, rejoicing song, I, the Lord your God, am going to make you like My song, like My melody. I am going to make you in that rest and wonderful place where I have prepared you, that everything fits together. You will understand. You will also know and you also will have it revealed to you. You will pour out as I, the Lord your God, gives it to you, like a great and a mighty song, My Word will fill this earth as the water covers the sea," saith the Lord. For you are Mine and I delight in you, saith the Lord." AMEN!
Continuing in Verse 13, "Then to the angel (messenger) of the assembly the church of Pergamos, I know where you live – a place where satan sits enthroned. [Yet] you are clinging to and holding fast My name, and you did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed (martyred) in your midst – where satan dwells."
Now, in the research for Pergamos, in the city of Pergamum, there was a big temple. They called it the "Aesculopius", meaning, "medically," pertaining to the healing art. It was the temple of satan. It was the temple of the serpent. The people went there to that temple, to get their healing. It was a counterfeit, and it was not from the Lord. It was great idolatry. I believe it came down from the time when the children of Israel were bitten by the serpents, and God told Moses to make the brazen serpent and put it on the rod. When the people looked at it, they were healed. They called it "the Nehushtan", a little trifle brazen thing, it meant. I believe that, as the generations came and went, they had built a high place to it and they went up regularly and worshiped there. Remember, it was in Hezekiah's day that he pulled down the Nehushtan. Of course, when the enemy comes in, he makes his own plans. They have their own ways of worship. They interpret what they want. They put idolatry in there and the people do it. They do not know the difference because they have not met Jesus.
So in that day, the Lord was speaking of these seven churches. He was revealing to John the Revelator, on the Isle of Patmos, what was soon to take place, so that in the fulness of time, generations would come and go. He covered this revelation book over so that men would not adulterate it and interpret it to suit themselves, and make out of it, whatever pleased their flesh.
God has kept it hidden. It has been a mystery. Men have tried and tried and tried to unravel it, only to find themselves at loose ends every time, because God was not ready to unfold it. But here we are today, and here we are at a point and time when this vessel, the container of God, is full of death and all that goes with death. People live to die more than they live to live. This flesh man is in a compromise place. They live according to their feelings and their desires, their wishes, their longings, and not according to what the Word has said. But the Lord is saying, "Come out from among them and be separate." And the Lord is saying, "Do My Word." And we are saying, Lord we do not know enough of Your Word to do it. That has been the condition of much of the church system today. Not discrediting them, it is just time for all of that to stop and the glory of God to come in the children of God, the body of Jesus Christ, to stand in the fulness of His glory and to set creation free.
That is what the Deliverers are called to do. They are to set creation free, and creation is bound up in the frustration of death. It is just like it says in the 8th Chapter of Romans, that all the earth is waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God. Most of the church are not acting like sons, hardly like God's family, most of the time. If God fits in, that is fine. If He doesn't, we will call on You if we need You, Lord. That is sort of an attitude we see. But we are going to be like Him. We are going to do His Word and we are going to be Deliverers, and see the generations set free. The Lord is calling out. We are peculiar to the world. I had a man tell me, "you took my mama off and you went down to Florida to minister with that funny way that you believe." Then he said, "I just couldn't understand why mama went with you." At first I wanted to get my feelings hurt. Then I thought this kid does not know. He did not understand, but his mama did, and we had a glorious time.
This Pergamos attitude, that "the people are married with the world," have their rituals, their sayings, and they observe certain times, and they do all of this in the name of the Lord. You know God is not in that. You know, God is not in Easter. He is in the Passover. Easter means "the Asherah," and that was one of the idolatrous gods that they worshiped in that day. The Asherah, Artemis, Molech, Chemosh, and Nisroch, they had so many of those gods. Every generation seemed to follow the previous one. But, it was just the same old Nimrod, the same old satan. He just took on a different look. He took a little different kind of name, but his idea was to seduce and deceive and beguile the people, and cause them to fall short of God's glory.
There, they were given all the promises of Canaan in that promised land, and they settled for compromise. They lived with those Canaanite people and they made covenants with them. They married them, and so, the more they inner-married (and the Lord sharply told them in Deuteronomy Chapter 7 they were not to marry into the peoples of that land, because He knew what would happen in the bloodline, as generations would come and go), all that idolatry and the longing for idolatry would come right down the genetic corridor of a man's genetic inheritance. God knew if they inner-married, they would take all of their idolatry sins into their life. Remember when Ezra, the prophet, came and he looked at the children of Israel, and he said, "Oh, no."(Ezra 9) The Word says he pulled out his beard and ripped his clothes, put on sack cloths and ashes, because they had inner-married. He said, even the Levitical priesthood was full of that Canaanite look. Little kids running around that did not have that good Jewish look. They had that mixture, and it has been because of that mixture, down through the generations, that man has fallen short from God.
Somewhere back in our genetic corridor, there have been ancestors that have loved Jesus, and they have sought after the Lord. Because of that, we have come close. Our heart has been pricked and the Holy Spirit has drawn us to the Lord. We find that this is where the cup of humanity is full, and we began to see the things that are there. We are going to have to begin to separate the precious from the vile. That is what Jesus did when He shed His perfect blood. He washed away our sins, everything that we did. But, all those genetic curses and those weaknesses and sins that were there from the forefathers, we had to deal with ourselves. So He gave us the Great Commission, and in the Name of Jesus, we cast out those demons, (in the Greek language, the word "cast" means To even Vomit Violently). We command the sickness and disease to leave us, in the Name of Jesus – that is the Great Commission.
So here we are in this day, and we are looking at the mystery word of the revelation of God, uncovering this last day, these seven churches. All of them on a road, you could go from one to the other, maybe 50 to 100 miles apart. Every one of them standing tall in the cities where they were built. But as a man's character and his nature was, so were they. There were different things in them that were not right. As the Lord begins to unfold His Truth in our lives, we begin to see we are the true Ecclesia. We are the called out ones. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, and there have been attitudes in our bloodline that has caused us to die more than to live. That has caused us to be full of sickness and disease and all kinds of worries and traumas and mind breaking experiences. The Lord wants us to know that WE HAVE AUTHORITY IN HIS NAME.
So, just as each one of those cities had an attitude, and they were a great mixture, some of them had great abilities to create. They found out they could dye wool. The first one, I think, was Sardis that dyed the wool and made colors. Then, I think that it was Laodicea that had the salve that they made that helped people's eyes, and was a healing salve, and it just amazed me that all of the things that were there. We look at ourselves and we begin to see the weaknesses and the tendencies, as well as the strengths and the blessings. We find sometime that our faith is very weak and we are lacking in trust. We have to search for it because we have been so brainwashed with death more than with life. So the Lord, in His great and mighty wisdom, is uncovering, and He is showing us attitudes. He is showing us the weaknesses, the underdeveloped personality in every one of us, where we have missed the mark. So He is uncovering these seven churches as He revealed Jesus. Remember the book started out, it says this is the unveiling of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Then it went on to talk about the sevenfold Holy Spirit nature that Isaiah 11 talks about. In our Spirit man, we hear John, and he said, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day." He said, "I was rapted in His power," (and my antenna went up).
God is grooming this generation. He is calling out of it, a people who will take authority and be disciplined and obey His Word, who will look neither to the right or the left, but stand for what the Word declares and not be moved by what they feel or what they see. The Word of God is alive. It is powerful and it never fails when you decree and stand on it. Beloved, it is so. It works. Then you understand it and you determine to stand. You are not going to be moved. You are not going to go by how you feel. You are not going to go by what you think. You are going to go by what the Word says, and when it says, "I will never leave you or forsake you," then I am standing there. When it says He will be with us and go all the way, I'm standing there. When He says He is my Healer, I'm standing there.
I have not stopped, praise the Lord, and He is going to take
care of everything that concerns me. But little by little they possessed their
inheritance. So little by little you and I are possessing our inheritance.
We used to just go to church and come out and all we could remember maybe
was one of the songs they sang. We would say, "The preacher really preached
good today." They would say, "What did he preach on?" "Well,
you know, I just cannot quite remember." The enemy would snatch it out
of our of mind before we got out of the door.
What I see the Lord doing, and what Deliverance is all about, we cannot be a compromised people. We cannot be one thing to one bunch, and another thing to another bunch. We cannot live in confusion, and we cannot be confusion. I have seen some folks I did not want to be around very long because they were so confused. God is growing us up. Every generation has had the light for their day. Now this is our day, and there is a light for our day. We are the ones charged with getting the captives set free. Some folks think we are funny, but it is the bottom line that counts. Every person that I have seen really delivered, when I see them again, they run to me and hug me because they are different. Deliverance works. God honors His Word. They are changed.
So often we pray for people. While we are praying, we are hoping that it works. While we are praying, we are asking God to please do it this time. We are saying, "Lord, I'm just asking you, do not leave me now. I want you to help this person." But see, our attitude should be, "Thank you Lord that, by Your stripes, we are healed. I pray for this person to have that kind of faith. Touch them, and for them to rise up and be set free and delivered from this infirmity, in the Name of Jesus." WE MUST EXPECT IT! We cannot compromise God's Word. So this "married with the world" attitude has got to be addressed.
Pergamos was the seat of satan. Revelation says it was the seat of the temple of the serpent. How did it become the seat of satan?
Philadelphia and his brother Eumenes encouraged that Babylonian experience when the Medes and the Persians took over Babylon. The deities or the dignitaries of the land all escaped to Pergamos. Of course, they brought all of their idols with them. Every time the enemy is going to come into your territory, he is going to bring all his demonic junk with him. How does he get an entrance into your territory? Well, you get mad and pitch a fit. The devil does in anger what God does in love. Or, you allow that steaming jealousy and bitterness to control you. You see why these things have got to be exposed in us, and we have got to get rid of every demon work in any area of our life so there is nothing there that the enemy can put his finger on. When God sends us out to help somebody, we have the anointing. We get it done. We do not get threatened or beat up, because there is something in us that we did not know was there.
In Romans 6:16, the Word says that whatsoever a man giveth himself to, that is what he becomes a servant of. If people are angry all the time, and they are out of control, they are going to serve that anger, and anger is going to take them over. The end of anger is murder. Anger, death, destruction and of course, it will break your mind. It will cause all kinds of horrible things to take place. When a person realizes that they have a bad temper or a quick temper, they have to deal with that. Well, I spent a lot of time praying about it, but, I did not get anywhere, until I found out that I had authority in the Name of Jesus, and that I could cast this out. It was an evil spirit. It certainly was not the Lord, and when I cast it out, I was amazed. You know, now, when somebody bumps my cup, I hardly ever get upset, and if I do, I get right over it. I try to always repent, and as soon as I can, I get before the Lord, and I take myself through Deliverance. I do not want the enemy to have the right to come in and take over my life or do anything to me like that.
If you serve the things of death, or if you become like that character or nature, then those things have a right to blossom up within the midst of you. The root is planted, and it puts on tentacles and branches. It calls many things into your being. We look at that anger and we find that murder, contention, jealousy, death, all of those things, belong on that root. When it sets out those branches of bitterness, self destruction will even be part of it. When those forces are let loose, and you are out of control, the enemy can come in. He can say, go ahead and kill somebody. You are so out of control, you would literally be lead to do it. They have a word. They call it "temporary insanity". The court system knows that there is a place in the mind of man where man is so out of control in that, that he cannot help what he does. They do not know or understand that it is the demon that takes over, and it is the demon that talks.
One time Olen and I went to this house to pray for these little children. They were retarded, and the mama was having a terrible time. We were ministering in that town, and the people asked us to go there between the services, so we did. I was working with one of the children in the kitchen, and the other child who was very retarded seemed really interested. I had laid my Bible down on the couch, and he wanted to get my Bible and tear it up. Olen picked it up before he could, and that little child looked up at Olen, and this big man's voice came out of the child and said, "We are not going to play any of those foolish games, are we?"
When I got through praying with that other little boy, that little child ran and got between the mattress and the box springs on the bed to get away from me. That demon so drove him. I did not get it out like I wanted to. The parents would not stand, and he needed a lot of help and a lot of teaching. We were amazed at the possession. That demon was in possession of that little boy, and probably, if God did not heal him, he is institutionalized today.
Such a shame, but see, whatsoever you give yourself to, that is what you are the servant of. The daddy and the mama were not where they needed to be with the Lord. There were a lot of demons in them in control that they had inherited. They did not know how to work with it, and it was just a shame. What they produced was those two retarded children. Retardation comes from incest in the bloodline.
When back in the generations, when this had gone on, when I was a little girl, and people that had children like that, hid them in their closets, attics or basements because they did not want people in the community to know that they had produced a child in that condition. People back then believed the Word and they knew what incest would produce. We have come a long way, and we have gotten a long way away from God's Word. The Lord wants us to understand that there is pure and holy living in store for us, and that there is holiness in our vessel where the bloodline bondages have no more claim and no more place in our life. Where the Lord so sets us free from that kind of corruption, we just do not live there anymore. Praise God! We are not "married with the world."
The more you refuse to deal with yourself, or you do not deal with yourself, this does not stop that old sly fox, the devil. He is going to be there, bombarding your being at every opportunity he has to compromise and condemn.
You see, all these churches are like attitudes, characters, or natures that have to come out of the Body of Christ. Remember what the Word says. We have to overcome in each one of these areas. In that overcoming process, we are seeing that God is doing a work. He had a word to say to each one of them. That Word is being revealed. The revelation is to the spirit man. Flesh and blood cannot reveal this to you. It has to be done by the Spirit, and so, as you are in the Spirit and wrapped in His power, the Holy Ghost is teaching you. We are putting on the power of an endless and an indestructible life as we obey the Word of God and allow Him to come forth in the midst of us.
Pergamos was the seat of satan, the temple of Aesclepios. It shows marriage with the world. Marriage produces a union, a coming together. Man thinks that he can have what he wants and still please God. This union is a perverted union. Satan's next effort was to join the world and the church. I can remember when men and women came to the altar and they didn't get up until their need was met. Back in the early days of Pentecost, I can remember that was the way the church acted. It didn't want to look like the world. The church wanted to look like Jesus. They knew they were separate. Some people put names on them, but there was a condition met inside. They belonged to Jesus. Now in this end time, the vision of Jesus is being revealed in this earth. His personality is being revealed. Wrong attitudes must come out of us.
Let's look some more at the seat of satan. The temple of the Aesclepios was the temple of the serpent. You see what is happening? The serpent, like the cobra, now joins forces with the python. In Egypt, all the pharaohs thought they were gods over the people. The pharaoh would wear that crown that had that great big spread cobra serpent on it. The cobra serpent was supposed to be all wisdom. (Again, to further reenforce this to your mind.) The python was supposed to have evolved out of the slime pits over where they built the temple of Diana in that city of Ephesus. It says that the python evolved out of that slime. I was thinking on that today. Back in Noah's day, when the earth was covered with water, and all of that decomposition, and everything was dead, as the water started to subside in certain places, they were left with slime pits of all of that decomposition of all of that death of all of the different animals or whatever was there, people and animals and whatever. All that remained was the molecules and the little atoms in those slime pits. Out of those slime pits, began to crawl out, as time went by, those python serpents. They were tamed, so to speak, because they didn't seem to harm the people. The ladies, when they had a big meal, and it was hot, (they didn't have air-conditioning) they would take the pythons and let them run up and down the table or wherever they wanted to be, and they would pick one up and wrap it around their neck to cool them off while they ate. It was just creepy, but this was the way they did. They liked them because they kept down the rats and the different vermin that would infest their homes.
I have been reading this in some of the background. We begin to understand as we are walking in the spirit, and the Lord is teaching us, we are seeing that python as a spirit. He comes, and through your hurt and pain, he begins to wrap himself around you. Most of the time, when we are little children, and we are hurt, whipped for something we didn't do, we say to ourselves, nobody is going to treat me this way again, and that is our problem, the cue to the python spirit. We do not know how to pray through, and we do not know how to give it to Jesus. The python spirit comes and he wraps himself around you. It seems every time something happens, there he is again, until he has consumed you. We see people controlled by that spirit. They sit in the congregation with their arms folded. They cannot pray out and they cannot shout and sing. They can hardly pay attention to the preacher. They are non-committal. They cannot give and they cannot receive. Their emotions are all bound up. Now, you know the psychiatrist would tell you all kinds of things, but if we talk about the spirit, we will have to talk about spiritual things, and this is what I saw in the spirit, and when I commanded it to go, it did.
Many evil spirits, such as broken heartedness, greed, selfishness, jealousy, anger and all of the things comprised in an under developed personality, are trying to defeat man and make him a part of the "great coverup". When God develops a personality, we are straight as an arrow. We are holy before Him. We know the truth, and we search after the Lord. And so, God is in control.
Pergamos, married with the world, we have power and authority, in the Name of Jesus, that we can recognize when the enemy approaches. I am reminded of that scripture, "that we are in the world but we are not of the world." That attitude of the Pergamos place, where idolatry abounded, was allowed. We have to stop allowing idolatry in our life, paganistic practices and things. You have got to make that choice. I did it a long time ago, and I made certain decisions. I was a great celebrator, and I held a lot of the holidays in great awe and respect. But when I met Jesus, and I came to a certain point in my life, I realized that most of those holidays had their origin in witchcraft, sorcery, great divination and paganistic worship, I said, "I cannot do that any more. I love the Lord and I praise Him. I just cannot do that." But this is something that you yourself have to decide. I do not tell anybody that you have to quit this or quit that. You have to decide it.
When you are ready to go on with the Lord, it is like putting a match out. It is nothing. The Lord will let your desire and your love for Him be far greater than any pleasure that you might get out of something you would deify or edify before Him. God said, "let there be no other gods before me." I respect that. I want it to be that way. I do not want anything in my life that makes me married with the world. You examine what you are giving yourself to, and you look at your attitude toward it. I mean, I could make the prettiest Christmas Tree in town. It was beautiful, all glistening and glitter and all that. When I read Jeremiah 10:3, I couldn't do that anymore. So God is letting us know. These are just outside easy things, but when you get serious with God, and purpose to do His will, your attitude will be to please Him. You will want to know His ways, and take on His personality in your life.
Jesus says to REPENT. Then, to him who overcomes, who (conquers), I will give to eat of the manna that is hidden, and I will give him a white stone which no one knows or understands except he who receives it, with a new name engraved on it. Isaiah 62:2. You are not supposed to be a worrier. Some folks have great nervousness. As we are getting before the Lord, He is showing us all of these things. And we want to declare, "I am not going to be bound and harassed anymore by this spirit of worry. I am commanding this to go, in the Name of Jesus." You have to mean it. You have to get mad at the devil. He just keeps coming until he sees you do not push any further. When you put your feet in, and you say you are not moving me any further, then he quits, and he knows when he cannot do any more. Praise the Lord.
THE BRIDE MUST BE
WITHOUT SPOT OR WRINKLE
JEREMIAH 4:14 - O JERUSALEM, WASH YOUR HEART FROM WICKEDNESS, THAT YOU MAY BE SAVED! HOW LONG SHALL YOUR INIQUITOUS AND GROSSLY OFFENSIVE THOUGHTS LODGE WITHIN YOU?
CHAPTER FOUR
THYATIRA
"BURNING INCENSE"
Thyatira was a very wealthy city. It served as the main business and commercial route between Pergamos and Sardis. Thyatira was an important trade and manufacturing city, being located in the northern part of Lydia, on the river Lycus. The city was known for its purple dye and dyed garments. In Acts 16:13-15, Paul converted Lydia, who was from Thyatira, at Philippi. She was a dealer of purple fabric.
In their pagan worship, their chief deity was Tyrimnos, also known as the Greek sun god, Apollo.
This church age is called "the pagan church, or the corrupt church." History calls this period of time "The Dark Ages." When the Pergamum church age ends, the Thyatira church age begins, and continues "marrying" into the world.
In 607 A.D., trouble over the title of "Universal Bishop" assumed by the patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster, flared up again, for Johns' successor, Cyriacus, also insisted on using this title. Boniface III thereupon secured from Emperor Phocas, a decree acknowledging that "the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle should be the head of all the Churches," and that the title of "Universal Bishop" should be reserved exclusively for the bishop of Rome. This was no new departure in imperial policy. The great lawgiver, Justinian, had legally recognized the primacy of the Roman pontiff. At this time, the repetition was considered necessary to curb the titular pretensions of the Patriarch. Therefore, Boniface III, in 607 A.D., is recognized as the first "official" Universal Bishop, or Pope.
The Catholic Church continued to grow in numbers, power, and influence. It also continued to allow in many damaging false doctrines and practices, and drifted away from Scripture, as their sole source of Truth. They relied more heavily on "Tradition" as their source of Truth. Examples: the worship of Images and religious relics, use of "Holy Water," prayer beads, dead saints being canonized by the Church, celibacy of a priesthood as a requirement, doctrine of purgatory, sale of "Indulgences" to get people out of purgatory, the Inquisition, transubstantiation (belief that the bread and wine taken in communion becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus), the Bible being forbidden to the people, the "7 Sacraments" become required for salvation, Church Tradition was made equal to the Word of God, and the Apocryphal books were added to the Bible as Canon.
Beginning in Revelation, Chapter 2:18, "And to the angel (messenger) of the a