Bottles are made to contain liquids of various kinds, cans contain food, tanks are designed to contain water and fuel, electric wires contain electricity. When we look at these we realize that each of these containers is “peculiarly made” to contain a specific substance.
Christians are “peculiar” containers brought forth by the Word of God to contain divine substance. Found only in those called, chosen, and faithful followers of Jesus Christ, they know God as their Father. They contain the spirit of truth, freeing them from the mire of the dark soul and its meaningless contradictions.
It does not matter how much wisdom of the world people imbibe; nor to what heights of human recognition and esteem they accomplish; what educational degrees they may attain; how much money they have in the bank; how famous and loved they are in the eyes of their fans. If their souls are inhabited by fear and hatred, revenge, and malice, their life is tainted with and held in the dark torments of hell. What does it profit a man to gain the entire world yet lose his soul?
The firstborn son found God’s perfect will. God has purposely generated us to accomplish amazing feats in the spirit of the Lord’s Day as God’s sons find His will. CHRIST working within US HAS FORMED A SPIRITUAL BODY THAT HAS SPIRITUAL CONTENT. God’s Word and Spirit are established within our spirit. As we focus on seeing Jesus as He is, we reflect HIS person in the depths of OUR inner spiritual person:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who blesses us with every spiritual blessing among the celestials, in Christ, according as He chooses us in Him before the disruption of the world, we to be holy and flawless in His sight, in love designating us beforehand for the place of a son for Him through Christ Jesus;” Ephesians 1:3-5 concordant
Yet of the church in Sardis the message was this:
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.’" Revelation 3:1 NASB
“You have a name (a reputation and recognition by the people) that you are alive.” As that church name is mentioned, the response is, '“Wow—things are happening down there, that church has everything. You walk through the door and your hair stands up on end. Their pastor is a live wire bubbling over with zeal and dripping with charisma. They have interesting guest speakers and beautiful special music and what a harmonious choir. They’ve got every kind of program for the needy going strong. They have prayer groups, a senior citizens outreach, a home for unwed mothers, youth sports programs, and a coffee house ministry to reach out to the community. They’ve got programs that will instruct every stage of your life and, after you walk through their door they will have you busy doing something good in no time at all!”
Ah, but the early church “left their first love”, descending into persecutions by Rome. Then, acceptance by the Roman emperor created a religious organization with wrong teachings and motivations. A false image was set up, a Jezebel system of falsehoods that deceives His servants with works and rules. When the reformation of Luther rebelled, the church advanced spiritually, but only to the condition of the candlestick church of Sardis.
This church has an evangelistic name that they are “living” but are “dead” in God’s eyes. The people in that candlestick make an image like the apostate system of worship found in Pergamum, where Satan is enthroned. Lacking much spiritual growth and correct behavior, they are dead to the best things God has offered. Christians are not supposed to be strangers and foreigners to the city of God.
The candlestick church of Sardis shows the true condition of the reformed Protestant church. Its characteristic conditions were formed after the image of Thyatira, that Jezebel woman in Rome, full of carnal reasonings. They commit spiritual prostitution by selling out for financial gain, becoming a prostitute system, a daughter of the mother of harlots with all kinds of religious ideas.
God asks true believers to overcome, to repent from candlestick conditions so they can know the truth coming from the throne realm of Jesus Christ. They have only known an in-part earthly image in the candlestick churches like Sardis: “You are dead”, said Jesus!
Once joined to the hierarchical church system, Christian men become spiritually deadened, like computerized robots, dedicated to an outer form of worship that creates fleshly minded programs active in good works. These have an appearance of divine approval to the undiscerning eye. In the history of Christian churches, Sardis represents the time of Luther’s reformation: they think they are alive, yet they are dead — dead spiritually — and are counseled to repent and remember how they obtained spiritual awareness in their beginning.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost is needed to apprehend what His Spirit teaches. We must be immersed in spiritual understanding of the scriptures as the Lord teaches the meanings of words more clearly that change our inner spiritual state to become alive. We see how He sees when His Spirit arrives to quicken our inner man.
Vast hosts of Christian people are formed in candlestick church systems that come up short of the holy celestial city. What has been called blessed by men, Jesus still judges to be dead. “Thou hast a name… among the people.” “Thou hast a name…” among the denominations. “Thou hast a name…” at the local Ministerial Association. “Thou hast a name…” on the church page of the newspaper. “Thou hast a name…” before the affluent, in the intellectual community, and among the influential politicians in the nations of the world. “Thou hast a name…” at the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club. “Thou hast a name…” with the political party, with the mayor, the city council, the sheriff’s department, and social services. Everyone esteems you highly! But, behold, nevertheless God’s King declares that the people who populate these Sardis heavens are held in a condition of death: “THOU ART DEAD.”
Churches in the mold of Sardis in these latter days are in fact doers of good deeds, yet most are led by self appointed authorities trying to represent God with Bible School credentials with varied scriptural interpretations. They bring forth unacceptable and sometimes very ugly conclusions founded in legalistic viewpoints of New Testament scripture. Not understanding scripture as the Spirit teaches, men hold to literal, earthly ideas to teach candlestick church doctrine that have marked their congregates’ understandings.
This causes so much damage, bringing real bondage and death in the churches of Sardis. The result is that they miss the coming of Jesus. To them He comes as a thief because the candlestick church world holds elementary rudiments mixed with humanistic viewpoints taught as gospel by systematically trained leaders. These systems prove to be false as they practice how not to offend anyone, inventing comfortable pastures that do not deal with the deathly conditions that remain in us believers.
Perfection is not found in the candlestick church realm. Multitudes have come far short of the promise, appearing in Babylonish heavens as a result. Yet God states some (only some) believers in Sardis are not polluting their garments. They walk in the light, they are clothed in white, they are worthy of the scroll of life, and Jesus will stand up to avow them before God.
Civil language speaks of the dead as “the corpse, “the deceased,” or the “loved one,” that “passed on” to make their great transition to heaven. Morticians busily engage in transforming a dead body to appear as usual to members of the funeral service. Every effort is made to “dress up” the dead body so that it appears “alive” and presentable. This “dressing up” of dead stuff is the real deceptive condition working in the reformed Christian churches of Sardis.
Sardis is seen in the traditional standards of reformed churches known for working day and night to dress up an outer order that is dead. They mix scripture with enough good works to satisfy the natural minded to deceive Christian people about their order of worship. They say they are “alive to God,” yet God’s record declares them dead. When we come to the end of candlestick church devotion, after we overcome candlestick conditions, something greater is opened to us:
"After these things I perceived, and 'lo'! a door is open in heaven, and 'lo'! the first sound which I hear is as a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here! and I will be showing you what must be occurring after these things.’ Now immediately I came to be in spirit, and 'lo!' a throne, located in heaven, and on the throne One sitting." Revelation 4:1-3 concordant
Overcomers are being drawn higher, spiritually made alive by God’s Spirit and Word. Jesus keeps coming to us by the spirit, guiding us until our inner spiritual person is fully alive, dealt with as sons in order to fit into lasting heavens. Divine judgment is being sent to overcomers NOW, written by God within the hearts of everyone who follows on to know the Lord.
Being formed into the likeness of Christ Jesus who leads us outside every candlestick church camp, we are delivered from church activity that dresses up something that is only dead. Many people in church are propped up by religious efforts because religious leaders do alms in the sight of men in order to be seen and admired. Oh, how the Sardis church members like to make a name for themselves that they are alive!
Sardis churches have much Bible teaching about external matters of living. So too they have dogmatic insistence upon each technicality their degrees of ignorance have deemed so important! How divisive has been the gossip! How often their meetings weary the hearts of brethren! It has been weary listening to the uninspired content about rules and condemnation, giving prominence to men instead of operating in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The spirit of sonship has formed a spiritual body of followers in Christ Jesus that are not arguing over “sacred” names, meats and drinks, holy days, dress codes, long hair, short hair, women preachers, so-called New Testament church orders, song orders, or traditional doctrines of every kind. When they are through with all the wrangling, they are “dead” to what God is doing by His spirit in the throne realm. Participants in Sardis accomplish little beyond basic understanding of the dead letter. They continue to teach the scripture as a law, yet giving little attention to knowing God’s LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT!
Christians should grow weary of the petty quibbling of earth-bound minds that hold to traditions established by former generations of men focused on the external activities of this life. The result has been that many Christians are but spiritual babes in Christ, still dead to God’s dealings with them as sons in judgment within their inner spiritual person. They are not able to really receive and comprehend the ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST. Christian men do not need more external ordinances, ceremonies, or regulations of any kind. WE NEED CHRIST TO FORM AN ABIDING PLACE FOR GOD IN OUR SPIRIT!
We are to be clothed with His light, to have unpolluted garments that understand what things are given us by God. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the King. Some have supped on it for a lifetime. It changes our understanding to see as He sees—the vast plans of God. Blessed are those enabled to grasp the awesome majesty of Kingdom purposes and clothe themselves in Him, putting on garments worthy of joining a marriage. Some within each generation have this worked out within their beings.
The real overcoming Christians are worthy of LIFE. They do not gather to promote dead church meetings. Neither do they prioritize mere doctrinal details or have minor issues promoting their religious self-efforts. Sons of God are raised higher to be freed in KNOWING GOD as enthroned in Jesus, learning of God as their Father.
God’s Spirit of truth has written faith in Jesus upon our inner parts! We hear a heavenly sound, then follow on to “sing a new song” that is not polluted with that Jezebel woman. We are overcomers because we have been separated from it. We have exercised the LAW of LIFE within ourselves! In our spirit CHRIST JESUS HAS WORKED TO FREE US FROM EVERY YOKE TO DEATH, HELL, and the GRAVE.
When we follow on to know the Lord, the LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS is placed within us. The SPIRIT OF LIFE INSTRUCTS US FROM WITHIN. It leads us to know true godliness, to have an understanding to partake of the true things available from God. All things are not expedient, but when our inner spirit prompts us to drink a little wine for medicinal purposes, we drink. When we are anointed to fast as God would approve, we fast to break every yoke.
Fasting and prayer has changed our lives, and now we need to fast from our present yokes until every yoke is broken. We will sing and speak new things in new ways as the Lord commands. Men (flesh) are to be silent and find REST in the third heaven. We are silent until the Lord roars from Zion to stir us into works that God’s spirit directs us to do.
The spirit of love is patient and kind, waiting with endurance. We found God while waiting patiently. The Lord draws us aside for seasons of separation to turn us to Him. Where His rule and reign has given us insight, there are no more human regulations to bind the flesh. God Life regulates us much better than church rules followed as law! We do nothing by rote. We are even free to wait for the Lord, waiting for His judgment, then moving freely like the wind moves as He is touching our insides with inspiration. We are daily shown the path to follow in all things:
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11
The true spirit in Christians trains them to only follow Christ. It does not matter what we know of the scripture, or of church ordinances, or what traditions we observe. Life is wholly a matter of being fed and clothed in our inner person. All those called up hither are elected by God to be given heaven’s garments. Those who are worthy have eyes and ears to learn EVERY DAY, from the best Teacher of new ways! Thus, we can find new ways of becoming one spirit with Christ Jesus!
It is still a great mystery to most people, but man is a three part being, having a body, a soul, and a spirit. The glory of God’s life is recognizable only by a quickened spirit that has found what God has Fathered in us. He has fathered a word to quicken our spiritual part. We are “born again” to this fact as His truth flows out daily to regenerate us. The mind of Christ is shared amongst brethren and we are doing His work. Our mind is changed, our heart's desires rearranged. We are taking His path away from evil and every defilement of death. His spirit has uncovered the religious pretense within the church membership of Sardis, the great protestant people.
The spirit of sonship is standing up within our inner sanctuary. As enlightened men, we do continually avow that no circumstance can remove us from the LOVE of God. Overcomers are not selling out to teach the idolatries and iniquities of religious traditions in orders taught of men. God, through Christ Jesus, sends us the spirit of truth. It cleanses us in the water of His Word, enlightening our spirit to the whole, complete, flawless truth that makes us alive and without spot. Paul declared we could be FLAWLESS, along with His hallowed people:
"Husbands, be loving your wives according as Christ also loves the ecclesia, and gives Himself up for its sake, that He should be hallowing it, cleansing it in the bath of the water (with His declarations), that He should be presenting to Himself a glorious ecclesia, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it may be holy and flawless." Ephesians 5:25-28 concordant
The great apostle Paul wrote against any idea that folds us into a church wrinkle (a way of thinking) or makes of us only fleshy spots in heaven that would indeed be washed away,. We are straightened out so that we may be presented to God as holy and flawless.
Nothing less than an inner coming of Christ will give us spiritual eyes and ears to hear what the true spirit is saying and doing. We do see Him working to make us no longer strangers to the Father’s holy, divine family. We learn to worship God in the spirit of truth, not in empty Protestant and Pentecostal forms, but in a feast of fat things! The Feast of Tabernacles provides faith in Christ’s power to change our inner character:
“Now this know, that in the last days perilous periods will be present, for men will be selfish, fond of money, ostentatious, proud, calumniators (slanders, the backbiting defamers), stubborn to parents, ungrateful, malign, without natural affection, implacable, adversaries, uncontrollable, fierce, averse to the good, traitors, rash, conceited, fond of their own gratification rather than fond of God; having a form of devoutness, yet denying its power. These, also, shun [‘From such turn away’]." II Timothy 3:5 concordant
Worshiping God within the religious boundaries set by Sardis church leaders makes so many babes in Christ that do not know how to be led by God’s spirit in all they do. Multitudes of Christians are still not spiritually mature, being led rather by religious efforts by religious characters who feed them messages mixed with grievous head knowledge.
God asks the church members of any Sardis system to overcome the blindness of dead works. He asks them to know His Spirit as being LORD inside of their spirit, to be clothed with glistening white garments there. What is available to sons and daughters of God? Those who are brought out of these systems are baptized in a spirit that opens for them the KINGDOM of God, some before others, each in His own order.
And still most Christian churches today worship in heavens that are shut up, shut by humanistic works that are dead. Sardis church members are molded into conditions that rob them of spiritual life. They are kept from hearing and seeing what the SPIRIT is saying as they only hear what the system’s leadership says or allows. The Lord has had to come to them as a thief. Without their development of spiritual eyes and ears, they are a people classified by God as dead spiritually.
While Sardis type church worship services have a “form of devoutness or godliness,” they are unknowingly denying that this faith has power to complete the work within them. This condition describes the workings in Sardis. Good works conceal the lack, so religious wolves cloak themselves to have a FORM OF GODLINESS WITHOUT HIS POWER! It is a mighty deceitful thing!
Christians are now hereby called to wake up, to become worthy of a life without death. It’s not a form of religion, but Christ being FORMED in our inner being! Within us God abides, GODLINESS is revealed, God-like-ness seen. We become like the Son of God, in that image enthroned in Heaven. From that, we are granted power to be alive to God, established in the reality of a city of regenerated sons of God.
The spirit of truth has been given to our spirit to reveal the godly characteristics He bestows within us! Each day He is giving beauty for ashes. His resurrection power raises us to fit into the lasting dimensions of heaven’s throne, and we see what it is to be right (righteous):
"If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness." Romans 8:10 NASB
Christ in us has been forming an image within our spirit. Our spirit has been looking for His throne. Now that the hour of unveiling appears, we are enthroned by Him, one spirit, one with the King, priests of His judgments! He does not abide “loosely” within just a part of our being, as only a casual experience, an occasional date.
No! He offers a MARRIAGE of spirit, a joining of spirit that makes us one spirit. Like marriage joins two to become one through unique experiences, following Christ within brings our life to a spiritual maturing. It is like a long, long marriage, causing meticulous pressing measures of life to test every facet of our life until HIS FORM becomes clearly evident within us.
Christ is to be seen in His body. As Jesus appears from the throne, it changes how we see and understand the very circumstances and situations of our life. Thank God, the spirit of truth from Christ Jesus has been coming to dwell in overcomers for two thousand years, but only to those who could receive it.
The church in Sardis represents a vast array of Christians, the Lord's very own people, who have a name that they are alive, but are dead to the real divine purposes in life. The vision in Sardis is faulty. It is focused on structures and forms that are but systems for finance. Today these are like autumn leaves, dry, ready to burn, dead spiritually in retaining Christ as their form and structure. Death has come to man on all levels.
Eating the fruit coming from the tree of good and evil still dresses men up with fig leaves. Many good Christian men are dressed up in the knowledge of what’s good and what’s evil yet God has called us out from all our candlestick church labors. Others do labor there, while we have found a restful relationship in what He does by the spirit.
The wedding feast has come to overtake believers who open the door when He knocks. They sup on spiritual connections with God being our Father. On the other hand, in stark contrast, is the spiritual death found in the church of Sardis!
“Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Everyone who is victorious will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:7 NLT
“…in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4
“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." John 6:53
God does bestow His life into followers of Christ. He gives the substance of His spirit, the life of it, to be given into men. God is love! We are friends with a higher kind of spiritual people who overcame the beastly natural life in themselves while upon the earth. God has quickened our spirit, made it divinely alive with an incorruptible, unchangeable power of truth coming from a tree of life.
We have fed but briefly on the tree of life in the paradise of God. In the original garden at Eden were found three kinds of trees: the tree of life, the tree of good and evil, and the other trees in the garden, each definitely a different kind of tree from the others. God's life is not found in the tree of doing good works and in keeping oneself from evil. We know that in order to really change, the tree of life must be partaken.
The tree of Life and the tree of good and evil are TWO DIFFERENT AND INDEPENDENT THINGS. Our Christian life is experienced through participation with the tree of life. The tree of good works, on the other hand, is partaking of the tree of good and evil. It still produces death in us, on the good side, but still death. Thank God, His overcomers have been granted to eat from the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God in order to possess the power of lasting life!
Some declare that unregenerate men are placed in hell forever, as only evil, and the people in church are good, bound for heaven forever. These viewpoints are not true. They are viewpoints that do not come from the tree of life. The tree of good and evil still dominates in the candlestick church realms. The good in man, however, has not been corrupted to the point of deserving non-existence.
Philosophers and psychologists have discovered within men some “illustrious virtues” with “innate goodness,” reaching the conclusion that the basic nature of man is to be good. Their teachings do not focus on truths that uncover the fallen nature within men, who do naturally want to do good along with being given many times to evil — to kill, steal, lie, and cheat, etc.
Jesus came into this state of knowledge of good and evil without losing connection to the higher conditions of heaven because He has life in spiritual insight and fellowship with God as Father. He solved the good and evil problem of Eden where man lost his capacity to KNOW GOD because man’s spirit was no longer connected but deadened.
God provides for candlestick overcomers to gain active connection with Him as they forfeit any part of the tree of good and evil. Then the GOD LIFE FLOWING FROM THEM IS COMING FROM THE TREE OF LIFE! The minds of so many Christians are taught to hold to orders that are “death” in Jesus’s eyes, but God's Spirit has quickened our spirit to free us now:
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” Revelation 2:7 NASB
Religious people judge others concerning their external behavior. They judge others on the basis of what they think is good or bad behavior, according to their understanding. Although good and evil are different, they are really from the same tree of knowing things that produce death.
God’s Spirit leads us to another tree. Being alive is something of another realm, from another dimension, pertaining to the highest kingdom. Christian men, within Christian churches by their own determination and effort, have improved considerably in quality of character and in good deeds. Yet most still are entirely ignorant of God’s tree of LIFE! By the King’s standards, the scripture states that good human efforts, done and taught by “good” candlestick church leaders, contain iniquity and fall short of the glory of God.
Many Christians have dwelt in SARDIS CONDITIONS with those believers who suppose that being good is what God requires. Oh, how “good” the old time religion is! How “good” are the strict doctrines, the rules, the morality in the standards we take up in causes, programs, ordinances, organizations, charities, rituals, forms, the WORKS! But God Himself judges it all to be spiritually dead—dead works in the candlestick church orders devoted to keeping it going more than serving God. Jesus says to them: “you’re dead.”
God's King empowers RESURRECTION LIFE deep within our spirit. He now has the full light of God's life. As we see it, the full light allows us to arise into the light of Paradise. Those who follow the Lamb of God will not walk in darkness, but will be granted the light of life.
MERCY is found coming from the tree of LIFE! It has blessed us with every spiritual blessing to encourage a regeneration in our spirit. We are laying hold of the Life of GOD, along with you. We are graciously receiving a common faith that He communicates to us through the scriptures as acts of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. The Word and the Spirit strengthen an agreement within our spirit as we cry “ABBA, Father”.
He shares hidden truth that lifts us to higher callings, opens deep mysteries, and unveils the wonder of the King within us. God works a true measure into every area of our life, so that yielding to its truth hastens greater manifestations of sonship within us. A deliverance is therefore produced by His working on our "hearing ear" and "seeing eye," teaching us how to follow His leading in ALL things in the inner parts of our being.
His followers gain spiritual connection that comes ONLY as we are made alive by following the divine instructions God gives us. He writes upon each of us in a unique way. He is sharing with our own spirit to become alive, so “our death” thus is “swallowed up” of His life! God is flowing out to His sons and daughters that we might have life! Something new is now being done for the good people who need to be saved from carnal works!
Greater truth will be setting us free from death itself and every bit of the carnal mind, to be made spiritually minded—ALIVE—alive to God and no longer found as being spiritually dead.
"These are they who were not polluted with women, for they are celibates. These are those who are following the Lambkin wherever It should be going. These are bought from mankind, a firstfruit to God and the Lambkin. And in their mouth falsehood was not found, for they are flawless." Revelation 14:4-5 concordant