Isa 66:12 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream:
The Lord is coming back for His own. Those who know Jesus are one in Him. And in Christ there is glory. The very glory that He received from His Father, He has given to us. It flows from heaven itself and it carries its glory all the way to the sea, the sea of endless glory, before the throne room of God. My peace I give you says the Lord, not as the world gives peace but as only God can bring peace. Let not your hearts be troubled in a world that is plunging headlong towards judgement. A world that is rising up and shaking two angry fists at God. The heathens rage and the peoples are caught up in vanity. The kings and the rulers of this world set themselves against God and His anointed. Yet even still, let not your hearts be troubled, rather, know that all of this means His return is imminent.
Behold the Lord will come with fire and with chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger and His fury. With a sword in His hand, a sword that He does not wield in vain, He will judge all flesh. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And of His glory there shall be no end. And His majesty shall be as a perpetual sun that never sets. The created sun is but a flickering candle in comparison to His perpetual radiance. And the vastness of the seas, but a single teardrop from the Masters eye. What mind can conceive what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him? For those who loved Him, yet were mocked and ridiculed and rejected and killed by the anger and the rage of a heathen world. Yet they overcame everything that the enemy threw at them by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his robe and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev 19-11-16)
Isa 18:3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifts up an banner on the mountains; and when he blows a trumpet, hear ye.
The Lord our God surely gives signs and evidences of the days in which we live. He speaks to His own of course, yet He also speaks to the world. They see the banner on the mountains, they hear the trumpet being blown. Men today look around at the calamities and even use the words “Biblical,” and “plague.” They see it, they see a dying world and yet they refuse to listen to the trumpet, refuse to listen to the word of God. Everywhere they speak of the world heating up, global warming, and yet they refuse to listen the Word of God that has already told us that this world will burn up. Their own garbage pollutes the rivers and the oceans and yet they refuse to look at the pollution of their own souls. Greed and an insatiable desire for more creates pollution, spiritual first then physical. One cannot be fixed without the other.
And so the banner on the mountain beckons. Will you stand under the banner in the shadow of the mountain and listen to the trumpet blow? All who dwell in the shadow of the Almighty, the shadow of His mountain, the shadow of His banner, are safe. Safe from the inevitable destruction to come. The world has forgotten the God of their salvation. They have not been mindful of the Rock which is a stronghold. Every tribe, every tongue, every nation stepped of the ark. They stepped of the ark with the sure knowledge of God and how God can and does judge the earth. And yet even then, they ran from Him. They cut down trees to cook and to heat themselves and made idols out of the leftovers. Foolish man, you build towers to the sky, running from the judgement of God. You spread out over all the earth and you raised up idols and forgot the God of your salvation.
Yet even in the midst of calamities and impending destruction, there is a tower. Not a tower built in Babel in a desperate and foolish attempt to avoid the judgement of God. This tower is a high tower and His name is Jesus. The righteous run into it and they are safe. There is a banner. His banner over us is love. We stand in the righteousness of Jesus and we are warmed by the love and the mercy and the goodness of God in the land of the living. There is a trumpet and it heralds in the hearts of His saints and they are drawn unto His holy mountain. Higher and higher. Above the tree line. The air becomes rarified and the saints breathe by the power of the Holy Spirit. This higher ground where men cannot exist is the tabernacle of the saints. It is time to come up higher. “Come away with me,” says the Lord. I am your Holy mountain, I am your higher ground, I am your high tower. And on this mountain and in the high places you shall dwell as the end of the ages draws nigh. ……….Come unto Me.
1Co 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
Oh saints, what damage has been done by men over this scripture. In eighteen short words, religious men the world over have stripped the gifts of God out of the hands of men based on a lie. The perfect is not the canon of Scripture. Jesus is perfect and when He comes again then all the gifts that edify the still imperfect Church shall cease. In that eternal state there shall be no more need for words of wisdom. In that eternal state there shall be but one heavenly language. In that eternal state we shall no longer need prophets or those who exhort the Body because the fulfillment of all things will have occurred. Love, the eternal state, shall go on for all eternity.
In this present life, in comparison to the glories of heaven, I speak as a child. I understand as a child, I think as a child. Yet in the fulfillment of all things, when the perfect has come, I will throw of this mortal childish state. I will know as I am known. For now I only see in part, but glory to God then I will see the eternal God face to face. Imagine knowing as you are known. Ponder that for a while. If the things that I know in part are glorious, what will it be like when I know the whole? The mere glimpses that I have seen of His glory has transformed my whole life, now what will be my state as I move and have my being in an eternal gaze upon Him.
Yet even now there are countless of millions of professors of the faith who would deny the reality of the glimpse. Of the supernatural experience of God. Can those who have never glimpsed and refuse to acknowledge the supernatural gifts of God ever move on to maturity? If one is not even a child then can that one become a man in God’s Kingdom? Only children of the Kingdom of God here on earth can become men and woman of God in our heavenly Father’s eternal. The children of this world will become men and women of their father in a very different eternal state. Whose child are you of? The children of light walk in the power and experience of their eternal God now, in part. Only by being a part can one become whole.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Mat 16:24)
An external religion, with its rules and forms, has taken the place of an inward experience with Christ. The saints of old- Abraham, Isaac, Enoch and Job- knew and experienced God inwardly in a personal and vital way. For Christ to truly reign within you, everything must be submitted to Him without reservation. There are many who oppose such a total surrender to this reign. ( Jeanne Guyon)
Madam Guyon knew well that only the cross could bring us to this place of total surrender. Yet even here, it is we who are called to take up our cross, and daily. God creates the perfect cross for each of us. The cross you bore last year is probably not the cross you bear this year, or perhaps even the cross you bore yesterday. God knows it all. It is His craftsmanship. By means of the cross He shapes you. Like a glacier that cuts through everything it its path and leaves behind mountains and valleys, so too the crosses that we bear. It shapes us in ways that only a cross could. And it is we who must pick them up, God will not do this for us.
The alternative is external religion. With external religion there is no inward experience of Christ, no picking up the cross daily, no shaping of the inward man, just the outward shell, the thing that shall return to dust. Men and women will suffer a great deal in order to stay enthroned on their own hearts. In order to take up the cross we must abdicate this throne and see Christ take His rightful place. Do not suffer as the world suffers brothers and sisters. Suffer for Christ’s sake as His Godly reign is established in your heart through the only means available, the daily cross.
Look back over your life as a saint and you will see how the weaning has gone on from the blessing to the Blesser, from sanctification to the Sanctifier. When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself. (Oswald Chambers- Biblical Ethics)
Ponder that for a moment and let it slowly sink in, for it will, perhaps, affect every area of your walk with Jesus. So much of our prayer life is about petition. Our prayer life is so often directly related to whatever set of circumstances we find ourselves in, or a loved one, or a friend. Imagine, if you will, that no matter what your circumstances are, no matter if you are on the mountaintop or in the deepest valley, that your relationship with the Lord is on an even keel. Think again upon the last sentence “When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself.
If our primary mandate in our relationship with the Lord is “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ and it is, then how can we ever do that if that vast majority of our communication with the Lord is petition. If the primary object of our prayer life is petition and not the Lord Himself, then He must be our secondary object. This, I would argue, is back to front. When the Lord Himself takes up His proper position within your heart, then, just like when the Ark found its proper place in Solomon’s temple, His manifest presence shall rain down. As the dew falls heavily on the slopes of Mount Zion, and as the oil runs freely from the top of Aaron’s head down to his feet, so too will the blessings of the abundant life fall upon those who seek the Lord for Himself.
Rom 12:20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
John Bunyan said “let us learn like Christians to kiss the rod, and love it………many of our graces are kept alive by those very things that are the death to other men’s soul.” Speaking for myself, I can imagine, perhaps, on my best day, kissing the rod, but loving it? It is just as well it is not my best efforts that empowers me to truly love my enemy. To walk in such a way, empowered by the Spirit of God, is to know that we have truly turned the corner on this world and see only the Kingdom perspective.
You simply cannot be walking in the world and be dictated to in anyway by the flesh if we are to kiss the rod that wounds us and greater still, love the unrepentant one who wields that very rod. Yet Bunyan would argue that many of the graces we enjoy and walk in are empowered by the very testing of our souls by the cruel actions of our enemies. Outside of the Spirit of God the actions of such cruel enemies engender rage, hatred and revenge and leave the soul embittered and dying. So to one it means death and to another, life. Shall we live brothers and sisters or shall we die? Our chains were broken and our fetters loosed on the cross, let us cling to that very cross and say with Christ “forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
I was made to see, that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can be properly called a thing in this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me and myself as dead to them. The second was to live upon God who is invisible as Paul said in another place the way not to faint is to “look not upon the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen seen are temporal, but the things which are seen are eternal (John Bunyon)
Our brother John discovered the great depths of what it means to serve God with all of your heart. He knew he was going to suffer, and suffer indeed he did for the cause of Jesus. And yet, to “suffer rightly,’ he must count all things as loss. All the things of this world must be dead to him and he must be alive to God. This in no way meant that he did not love his family, clearly from his writings the opposite was true. Consider his agonies of knowing that his wife and family suffered greatly, especially his young blind daughter, because of his stand for Jesus. It tore him to pieces…….
“The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place (prison) as the pulling of the flesh from my bones……I should have often often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was like to meet should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had besides; Oh the thoughts of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.”
You see brothers and sisters. Bunyon’s faith that led him to prison and his knowing that he must die to everything of this world, including his family, was not the actions of a cold, religious stoic man, quite the opposite. Amazingly, John could have spared himself the 12 years in prison and all the suffering he undertook and that of his family by simply recanting his faith. He could have walked out of prison at any time. How cruel the enemy is. Yet here is what he said in that regard ….
“If nothing will do unless I make my conscience a continual butchery and a slaughtershop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield , yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than to violate my faith and principles.”
John would suffer the loss off al things rather than to violate his conscience in regard to preaching the Word of God. It did not come easy, it was in fact an agony, yet his great desire was to “suffer rightly.’ How then brothers and sisters, should we live in such a dark age as ours? Should we not also desire to “suffer rightly,” for the cause of Christ? Should we not love the Lord out God with all of hearts and all of our minds and bodies? Should we not love Him above all other things, even the most dearest things to our hearts? We should. God bless you and help you as you follow hard after God.
1Pe 1:16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
The Lord’s Holiness is seen in men and woman who have encountered the Living God. This radical conversion is seen in their walk. They are a living testimony of the power of God to change lives. The man who has never encountered God cannot be Holy. He can be self-righteous, he can be religious, he can be sanctimonious and legalistic, but he can never be holy.
The man who has genuinely encountered God always keeps his eyes upon Jesus. Others may flatter him but he never takes those words to heart because he has stood in the shadow of majesty. He has had the impenetrable light of Christ penetrate every part of who he is. He knows that outside of God he is undone. The foundation of his life will be love, for he himself has been swallowed up by love.
The religious man can reproduce many things in this world for a time but he cannot replicate genuine love. He can seem to many to be upstanding, as were the Pharisees, yet God has considered the inside of the cup. This outward appearance is everything to the religious man because ultimately he fears man more than he fears God. His greatest fears are what others think of him, its what motivates him in all that he does. He is an actor and full of guile, yet, God has considered the inside of the cup because he looks upon the heart.
The child of God is not conformed by the thoughts nor the expectations of men. He is not moved by the tyranny of expectations no matter how good those expectations are. He is conformed to the image of God which is the Lord Jesus. He loves because he himself has been and is loved. He is merciful because he was and is the recipient of mercy. He forgives because he himself has been forgiven. He has joy because he has been ushered into the very presence of God.
This joy is his strength. This love is his strength, this mercy is his strength, the forgiveness he finds is his strength. His greatest strength is his love for His Lord. And he knows that even this he only has because he himself was first loved. And this love is the singular motivation for all that he does. Out of genuine love flows obedience. It is the motivation of the child of God. He has called us to holiness and the path to holiness is paved by a loving obedience and a desire to be like the object of our grand obsession, Jesus.
There is a groaning generation being raised, a witness to God’s truth and glory being raised for these last days, raised for rejection , raised to be persecuted and reviled , raised for martyrdom, raised to praise God not only from the mountaintops but also from the deepest valleys – bro Frank
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Nominal Christians are nothing like the real thing. Their lives are cold copies of the reality, faint lines traced by a dull pencil, conveying nothing of faith’s force and grace. According to Scripture, Christianity is not a geographical concept ( not an accident of birth) but a spiritual one. It does not depend on our being a native of a Christian country, it is a condition, a state of heart, a unique possession – William Wilberforce , Real Christianity
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Persecution failed to destroy the church, but it seems that the enemy thought that if he could not beat them then he must buy them.What we in the west consider blessings, from God could in fact be one of many Trojan horses designed to infiltrate and weaken, dilute and compromise Christendom. Ultimately those who identify with Christ’s sufferings will not fall for the notion of these ” blessings,” and will see it for what it is. Something to held very loosely – bro Frank
A Call To The Remnant 