"And the fifth messenger trumpets. And I perceived a star fallen out of heaven into the earth. And to him was given the key of the well of the submerged chaos [bottomless pit]. And he opens the well of the submerged chaos, and fumes ascended out of the pit as the smoke of a large furnace, and the sun and the air are darkened by the fumes of the pit. And out of the fumes came out locusts into the earth, and license was granted them as the scorpions of the earth have license. And it was declared to them that they should not be injuring the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, except those of mankind who have not the seal of God on their foreheads." Revelation 9:1-4 concordant
This scriptural picture of the “bottomless pit” or the “abyss” in scripture signifies those human hearts dwelling in hell’s torment, the living and the dead souls of the unseen. As an individual is loosed from their personal abyss by receiving Christ, they begin to belch forth columns of dirty blue-black smoke just like the smoke of a great furnace. It is God, our consuming fire, burning up our former character! Smoke displays a “change-causing movement”, a different form, a tendency of coming up out of the abyss.
It is true that God is a consuming fire that is set on burning up the deceitful nature in the heart of man, which is:
“…deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…” Jeremiah 17:9
There are indeed wicked, vile, and corrupt things that come out of the human heart, as Jesus makes plain:
"Now, those things going out of the mouth, out of the heart are coming, and those things are contaminating a man. For out of the heart are coming wicked reasoning, murders, adulteries, prostitution, thefts, false testimonies, calumnies. These are those which are contaminating a man." Matthew 15:18-20 concordant
The deceitfulness of the human heart was first revealed amidst the mysterious mists of long ago Eden. God had told Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. The serpent disagreed and gave false testimony to the woman:
“You shall not surely die!” Genesis 3:4
Paul tells us Eve was deceived by the serpent. Adam then followed her in her transgression. The whole dreadful realm of sin, sorrow, darkness, error, and death came through ACCEPTING A DEADLY IDEA. The serpent spirit, the devil, Satan was a liar right from that earliest beginning. The serpent’s deception caused Eve, then Adam, to become joined to a delusion leading to death.
Adam’s spiritual consciousness of himself, of God, and of the true nature of things was now lost. By agreeing with that lying mindset that took his spirit, soul, and body to death, The bottomless pits of wickedness were created in the souls of men. Adam’s spirit went to sleep. He became separated from God in his thinking, speaking, and acting.
A few of the many things that arise out of man’s deceitfulness of heart are egotistical thoughts, vain imaginations, and selfish desires. False perceptions and hateful attitudes are even found in the brethren, arising from varying interpretations of scriptural ideas, concepts, and propositions. All these, and more, constitute an inner state of deceitful death in our being. Much of the human nature is dross that God intends to consume completely, to burn out of His chosen people.
Holy Ghost-filled believers are being changed and sealed now, as God’s fire consumes every evil within our heart. While we are going through fiery trials, being sealed with a new nature, we learn to LOOK UP and arise from every dreadful despair that holds men and women to hopeless conditions of a forsaken, bottomless pit — broken, alone, and forgotten.
Jesus is the star that has the key to the pit. Smoke represents deceptive false ideas coming up from the steps of salvation as God burns up our refuse and removes our dross. Smoke here is a symbol of clouds of darkened perception arising out of men after being converted to Christ. Our thinking and understanding of spiritual things starts out as a child’s thinking and is covered like a smoke-screen.
Babes in Christ are unable to see through the smoke clearly or to think with the mind of Christ. The carnal mind of man is darkened by a religious smokescreen which clouds the thinking, impairing our vision. It is weakening our perception of spiritual realities until we, too, “see through a veil darkly”. Simply put: we see through the veil of our flesh UNTIL we know God within our own spirit. We realize then that our old man of flesh has been lost in the darkness of our own carnal understandings.
When Christians are born again in Christ, the church supplies the milk of the word, but it too can be smothering deceitfulness to those long held under its legalistic conditions. It has been this religion in the mother church that has been the smokescreen preventing growth into the full stature of Christ. Full stature is where the spiritual heavens of God are open, and one saved may enter the city. Being the people called to Zion, our hearts now have been written upon. We can no longer be held to the dark smoke coming from the bottomless pit, for the Father chooses to seal us into truth.
Man controls every form of activity in the ordered church meetings of today. These building organizations manipulate and control how Christian people should worship God. They are created out of good intentions but have not been able to deliver their congregations to full stature. They have not been able to save them to the uttermost, leaving most Christians as babes.
These are still exposed to trauma and hellish torments that arise in the lives of each of us. Being laced with deceitful smoke, we are bitten with challenging circumstances that sting the human heart with hell’s torments and seek to hold us also in the despair of the bottomless pit!
“And unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power…and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.” Revelation 9:5
The diabolical heresies that appeal to man’s intelligence are laced with subtle lies brought forth to keep us less than what God intends. False ideas are cruel tares that relentlessly enslave and exploit, resulting in anguish and torment. The religious smoke screen of church doctrine is hidden in laws, rules, creeds and commandments that sound good but are filled with the traditions of men. The locusts represent hoards of teachers and religious practices that are controlling Christians, dominating them with legalistic voices that inflict harm to their real spiritual life of actually being able to SEE — to understand — God.
These legalistic voices are not leading Christianity to full maturity. They’re only assuring and edifying babes in Christ with more mother’s milk. The heart of God’s Melchizedek order is not gained by feeding on the milk of church doctrine. In church, even our connection with Christ is rather twisted into stings of guilt, fear, and condemnation, resulting in lifelong bondage to endless works. The serpent’s bite tries us even as we endeavor to serve the Lord as babes!
“I am writing to you, little children, seeing that your sins have been forgiven you through His name. I am writing to you, fathers, seeing that you know Him Who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, youths, seeing that you have conquered the wicked one. I write to you, little children, seeing that you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, seeing that you know Him Who is from the beginning. I write to you, youths, seeing that you are strong and the word of God is remaining it you, and you have conquered the wicked one.” I John 2:12-14 concordant
Oh, the wonderful spirit of Christ is strong to conquer the wicked one by revelation that enlightens us to the grandeur of the words and promises of God. The wisdom and understanding of God is being given to all who hear and see Him by the spirit. We are growing up to know the hope of our calling and to see the glories that are reserved for us in the realm of the Spirit. Only as we are enlightened by the spirit of truth can we possibly comprehend the marvelous scope of our inheritance in Christ.
As we now more fully understand our inheritance in Christ, the things of earth indeed lose their grip on us. The darkness of the earth's smoke screens loses its ability to deceive, so we may run with patience the spiritual race that is set before us. Our glorious risen Lord has already set down the footprints, the steps, the way into the lost glory that is reserved for us. Our Father has predestined some to be conformed into the image of the firstborn Son now, to walk now into the fullness of Christ, to find God dwelling as ALL in ALL:
"The spirit itself is testifying together with our spirit that we are children of God. Yet if children, enjoyers [heirs] also of an allotment, enjoyers [heirs], indeed, of an allotment from God, yet joint enjoyers [heirs] of Christ's allotment, if so be that we are suffering together, that we should be glorified together also." Romans 8:16-17 concordant
Receiving the glory of a son’s inheritance makes the progress of the collective smokescreens covering most Christian people of this world look like paltry dust and ashes held in passing heavens. When compared to the splendor of the incorruptible God’s glorious King and His many membered Son, all else is corruption. He is reserving HIMSELF for us. He is set inside the Holiest of all, and this place of His great presence is a throne to which all Christians are called to gather, to come up and see, in order to grow into the Godhead.
What an inheritance is having access to the head of God! The steps to that glorious headship have been working for two thousand years in Christians who overcome the conditions in the candlestick churches. Sons have walked after the truth given them by the enthroned Lamb. He burns up their dross until the way is being made clear before us, behind us, and within us. If we have ears to hear what He says to the candlestick churches, we can LIVE.
The land of our inheritance is given as spiritual peace, joy, righteousness, divine wisdom, infinite knowledge, omnipotent power, universal dominion, and lasting glory! All this is ours as Sons and Daughters of God, but only as we grow up beyond the carnal reasonings of men — the smokescreens of religious leaders. We are to put on Christ until we attain, not just assume, responsibility for possessing our possessions.
We are seeking the full stature of Christ that comes with a CLEANSED HEART by following the Lamb as He gives understanding. This is the divine faith of a Son of God that is common to all sons and daughters of God. This faith is given so we may see the way through every deception that enters like smoke to plant another false idea. God has, is, and will be sealing His sons. They are given the Father's mind to know about spiritual heavens. They take possession of some rich glory even now!
Man's conscience takes the shape of the things that are developed by experience. The conscience of a Hindu has been conditioned to believe that a cow is an especially sacred animal, to be revered. His conscience would smite him if he was to kill and eat a cow. What mental anguish he would suffer if he were required to dine with you at the local steakhouse.
But if one is raised in a Catholic home, he knows quite well that a cow is not sacred, and his conscience is not pained at all by eating beef. When he bends his knee before the image of a saint, his conscience will approve of that because that is how his conscience has been developed. Should a good Baptist be required to kneel before that image of a saint and pray to that saint, his conscience, conditioned (marked) by Baptist values, would torment him.
Yet, consider a most marvelous verse of scripture:
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart full of assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22
When quickened by the spirit, this passage staggers man’s imagination with its wonders. Such things are too wonderful for the carnal state to grasp, yet while my eyes were dim from looking through the smokescreen ravages of legalized New Testament laws with a weak and insipid conscience that can but see through a glass darkly, I have now considered the word shining from this:
“…having our hearts sprinkled [purified] from an evil conscience...”
God’s operation to save us includes having our “evil conscience,” the defiled one, the deceived conscience, REMOVED FROM OUR HEARTS by the cleansing blood of the great Priest over the house of God, Jesus Christ.
All churches have a PENTECOSTAL AGE CONSCIENCE that was shaped by what God has done in the last two thousand years. They were shaped (marked) in the doctrines, practices, and traditions of particular branches of Christian churches, each with many rules and traditions that have changed through the years.
Among some, for example, women were not allowed to wear facial makeup of any kind and lipstick was particularly seen as the sin of Jezebel. Women could not wear slacks [men's clothing] and their dresses had to be long, with long sleeves and high necks. Short hair was a disgrace and bright splashy colorful clothes were a sign of worldliness. No jewelry of any kind was permitted, and for sure, no women preachers. Many strains of church consciences have been formed within traditions such as these, which were long thought to be correct standards of righteousness.
But now we are being raised from all of the deceived consciousness we have experienced in Christian candlestick churches. The Lord is feeding us at a spiritual TABLE, where HE TABERNACLES. May we all be quickened to the liberating spirit of the Day of the Lord. May the revelation of Jesus come new and wonderful, unveiling the Kingdom of Christ Jesus, the King. He is to be brightly shining as Lord within us, in our spirit, until the smokescreens of legalization and religious tradition are seen for the painful, limiting things they are.
The blessed Spirit of God turns on the searchlight so that we believers can see what is within our hearts and minds. We then are enabled to see what needs to be cleansed, including all OUR efforts to be good. Just as Christian hearts need to be cleansed from adultery, lying, drunkenness, cursing, and doing ungodly acts that lead to the pits of an ungodly abyss, many keepers of good tradition of the Christian church consciousness will also need be PURGED IN HEART from a a defiling religious condition of Antichrist that WARPS and DISTORTS God’s intended image of heaven and heavenly things.
How desperately the Lord’s people, Christian people, need purging from dead works. They need cleasing of the many labors handed over from multiplied generations of man-made standards and duty-bound ceremonies, with “dead letter of the word” ritual observances:
“For if…the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ…purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Hebrews 9:13-14
Some Christians are serving the living God with a “dead works” conscience, producing endless works laced with a smokescreen of darkness. This is the smokescreen of natural thinking, of religious reasoning that is dead but found in church. Quickening from Christ exposes the rather empty standard religious observances on Sunday mornings, these works whereby men love to serve God.
Religion is imposed upon the Lord’s people by ministers who are unable to discern God’s thoughts from smoke and mirrors. They know not that THEY THEMSELVES, AMONG OTHERS LIKE THEM, ARE THE VERY LOCUSTS JOHN BEHELD COMING OUT OF THE SMOKE FROM THE ABYSS! Once cleansed from our contact with the dead works found in religious Christian churches, WE ARE GATHERED TO A HIGHER PLANE OF KNOWING GOD.
Here we find a higher form of fellowship within our hearts that offers service to the living God. This is a form that worships Him in Spirit and truth until He becomes All to All of us. Christians in the candlestick churches teach good rules to try to keep ourselves clean, regulations by doctrines of “touch not, taste not, handle not,” yet they are commandments of men. As such, these efforts are doomed to failure, being dead works which have no sustaining power rewarded by God.
The glorious destination of God’s New Creation Man is to show forth God's light, His glory, as an instrument of His purposes. This is what man was originally created for: to be the image of God at heart. The image of God has nothing to do with whether you wear earrings or drink a glass of wine. Those are foolish “thou shall not” notions of self-righteous legalistic minds.
The whole object of redemption is to bring us back to CONSCIOUS AWARENESS THE LIVING REALITY OF GOD. It is for this that the Holiest One has opened the way and we are bidden to boldly enter into His holiness. Here we finally have our conscience cleansed by the blood, purged from dead works, and raised from every pit of darkness. We are as one entering the Holiest of all, being joined in one spirit with the Lord.
Here EVERYTHING is done under a sense of God’s direction through His spirit. It is the outworking of His power flowing out from Zion in the spirit of the glorious LORD OF LIFE. Today overcomers have been, are being, and will be SEALED IN THEIR FOREHEAD with an understanding of spiritual things in order to understand and be found in the book of Revelation fulfillments. We have volumes of the testament of Jesus WRITTEN upon us:
"And I perceived, and lo! the Lambkin standing on mount Zion, and with It a hundred forty-four thousand, having Its name and Its Father's name written on their foreheads, And I hear a sound out of heaven as the sound of many waters and as the sound of loud thunder, and the sound which I hear is as lyre singers, playing, on their lyres.
And they are singing a new song, before the throne and before the four animals and before the elders. And not one was able to learn the song except the hundred forty-four thousand, who have been bought from the earth. 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 14:1-5 concordant
The smoke ascending out of the pit is a VEIL OF LIES ABOUT GOD: the lie about God being real, the lie about ourselves being limited to the human consciousness, the natural lies of man’s distorted perception, the submerged chaos of earthly analysis and definition of things. All these pour forth out of the abyss of fallen man’s present thoughts, words, and deeds.
Smoke coming from a cruel enemy is filling our air with dark earthly matters of burnt tars that penetrate the lungs with deadly gases, cutting off our needed oxygen supply, quickly endangering human life. Worshipers in the natural minded candlestick churches have thick and murky spots, blots that block the light of the glorious illuminating truth of Christ.
It is not more babes in Christ that are needed in the Body, but growth to mature stature in Christ. Christian men should no longer remain under fuzzy religious smokescreens that permeate legalistic energy while teaching fearful negative imaginations of God, vainly inventing religious church activity that only covers up the lack of Christ in candlestick churches.