During the church age, there is a “called out” group of people upon whom God writes His name. Out from among the billions of earth’s population, God had been calling, and trying, and choosing a FIRSTFRUIT COMPANY. They are to bear His Kingdom standard of being formed into a measure of His merciful nature. They reveal the light of His glory and are made alive within their spiritual bodies. Jesus has been building these called-out ones into a many membered body. These are the spirits of just men who are called to overcome the limitations of the candlestick churches. This has been precisely God's foremost intent since forming the early church:
"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. And He Who is sitting is, to my vision, like a jasper stone and a carnelian. And a rainbow around the throne is, to my vision, like an emerald.." Revelation 4:1-3 concordant
It is here, in the UP HITHER realm of His throne, that the true church and the mature body of Christ is found. God’s Spirit reaches the spirit within to touch, guide, and write on the spirit of everyone drawn to Jesus Christ. God’s word is established within His governmental people to rule and reign within their hearts. God’s King established His dominion within the spirit of all God’s sons and daughters who are imbued with the glorious mind of Christ.
Tens of thousands have grown in grace, becoming one spirit with the King. They are written upon and sealed by doing the will of the Father from an inner enthronement of His Word. Sadly, most Christians in the candlestick churches do not come to fully realize this, being too busy playing church, blundering around in carnal programs of the confused religious systems called Christianity.
At its consummation, the dispensation of the law brought forth what it pointed to: the coming of a Messiah. Jesus Christ came as the Son of God, so this candlestick church age must, at its consummation, bring forth a FULLY DEVELOPED BODY OF BELIEVERS, the flawless 144,000 to which He pointed. The firstborn Son of God has a many-membered BODY of brethren brought to mature stature, conformed unto the exact likeness of their glorious Head.
God never intended the systems found in candlestick churches to rule over all nations during the church age. His draw to the Kingdom has been confined to a little company of footstep followers who have heard His voice and are receiving His messages to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes.
These blessed brethren suffer through persecutions in following Him. God is dealing with them as sons, placing them in trying circumstances to mold and make them anew by fiery trials that seal their INNER characteristics with the the Father’s name (nature). This is a transformation of the inner man that becomes an embodiment of His throne.
The calling to be a part of a lasting uncorrupted government is now being manifested in those overcomers of the candlestick church age. For two thousand years God’s spiritual methods have not been small or insignificant within the experience of those predestined for great tasks ahead. From small beginnings, slowly a governmental people are destined to SUBDUE ALL THINGS. God grants overcomers vision to see how He is establishing His divine government by writing His truth in our hearts.
Our spiritual lives are being joined to a rank, a company of believers having the Father’s name written within so they sing a new song, found only in spiritual Mount Zion. They are not polluted with mystery Babylon’s falsehoods. They are flawless reapers BRINGING THE HARVEST to the candlestick church age. When they “thrust” with the King’s words they open the gates to the city, the New Jerusalem order. This is the predestined homeland to which overcoming Christians, the living and the dead, are brought.
Ah, yes, God has called out a people to bear His name, and not merely to a small handful of people through their short earthly life-time! NO WAY!
“After these things [after the Lord has completed His work of calling out and forming a special governmental people] I will turn back, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen. And its overturned structure will I rebuild, And I will re-erect it… so that those left of mankind should be seeking out the Lord and ALL the nations, on them over whom My name is invoked, is saying ‘the Lord, who is doing these things.’” Acts 15:16-17 concordant
The “residue of men ” are those left of mankind after He specifically takes out a people for His name sake. All the rest of mankind are all of those who were not included in this called-out firstfruit company. It’s not by church membership, it’s by OVERCOMING THE CANDLESTICK CHURCH MEMBERSHIP that our wise and gracious heavenly Father has been qualifying a people for two thousand years. He has been forming a government out of faithful and obedient sons and daughters raised up as Kingdom Priests.
Through 2,000 long years, God has slowly, surely, and wisely been choosing this company. Most men were rejected yet God prepared some to bear every contradiction through the fiery furnaces that melt fleshly strength. Bearing trials and afflictions, a purging and processing transforms their inner person with a divine power of righteousness. This righteousness is developed by truth being written within and upon them. Even now a great convocation is raised to spiritual Mt. Zion:
“If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” II Timothy 2:12
“…But you have come to Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, celestial Jerusalem, and to ten thousand messengers, to a universal convocation, and to the ecclesia of the firstborn, registered in the heavens, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just perfected, and to Jesus, the Mediator of a fresh covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling which is speaking better than Abel. Beware! You should not be refusing Him Who is speaking!” Hebrews 12:22-25 concordant
“To him that overcomes…to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” Revelation 2:26-27
Throughout the last two thousand years of candlestick church history, salvation has only been dispensed in “part” measures and only unto:
“…as many as are ordained unto eternal life.” Acts 13:48
The King is now coming to display FULL salvation. In God’s matchless power, He will change mankind as never before, through His sovereign power burning brightly within His beloved Body.
“The residue of men shall seek after the Lord.”
God has blessed us all with the sure word of Daniel:
“…the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume [take into itself] all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Daniel 2:44
Individuals with a personal application of Christ’s truth in their inner man know how this affects their present life and future walk towards victorious paths of God’s plans for the future. Now every area of our life is open to the victory in Zion that makes “just men perfect”.
Many times, man’s reality in candlestick churches seems to focus on some earthly work, chasing the temporal standards of a fallen system, desiring influence with carnal governments of fleshly men. Even Christian men have been taken over and controlled by carnal ideas of carnal authorities that surround man’s life with increased confusion, fury, and intensified viciousness. The end of the matter will not come until full deliverance has come DOWN from the New Jerusalem order!
Now it is a new age, with overcomers being raised to the Lord’s day. This is a great time when God continuously deals with man’s inner being, changing our inner nature, changing our name like Jacob of old. His Kingdom people have removed all inner dispositions that would kill and destroy others with wrong thinking. Judgment is given to see things according to our Father’s new name (nature). HIS work (not our works) crushes our inner enemies as truth becomes our constant companion, accomplishing all of this by His indwelling Spirit.
The Apostle John beheld men who were not able to enter the city because SYSTEMATIC LIES AND DECEPTIONS have marked their thoughts and words to oppose the truth of the Lord:
“Happy are those who are rinsing their robes, that it will be their license onto the log of life, and they may be entering the portals into the city. Outside are curs, and enchanters, and paramours, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone fabricating and fondling falsehood.” Revelation 22:14-15 concordant
Man's carnal inclinations, desires, and works of the flesh have continued to dominate within the candlestick church realm. God delivers overcomers by revealing truths of scripture by His Spirit, writing His new name on our inner being. He writes spiritual insight that the inspired scriptures communicate to attentive sons and daughters. Some grow thereby to a full stature in Christ, to a union of spirit with a third heaven, to be MADE ALIVE IN THE PURIFYING FIRES OF GOD.
As stated in the Old and New Testament, we know that our God is a CONSUMING FIRE. Overcomers are cast into God’s refining fires, a process that strip off the nature of the outer man of flesh. Men only knew of good and evil but now our old man has lost its hold over us. It is removed, put off, and purged from us, completely and forever! God has done great work by the spirit! Christ is working within us to reveal truths that bring us to a Mount Zion understanding of God being our Father. Once refocused on His coming within, His new name comes alive within us daily, teaching us in the center of our being of His existence.
Within us believers who are outside the camps controlled by men, what is right comes alive within, a peaceable, loving faith going on right now here within our inner spiritual person! The call to enter the city forces one to be looking forward, not looking back to copy the passing church age. Looking back to the church age isn’t sufficient to accomplish the promises coming from our homeland.
We are looking to a High Priest whose blood avails far beyond the partial victory found in Pentecostal church heavens. We should all be pressing on to a more excellent ministry — to heavenly places where our Father has wiped away every tear, creating unity, where death will be no more, nor mourning, clamor, or misery because GOD TABERNACLES WITHIN US AS A REFINING, CONSUMING FIRE:
“I perceived the holy city, new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I hear a loud voice out of the throne saying, ‘Lo! the tabernacle of God is with mankind, and He will be tabernacling with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them. And He will be brushing away every tear from their eyes. And death will be no more, nor mourning, nor clamor, nor misery; they will be no more, for the former things passed away.’ And He Who is sitting on the throne said, ‘Lo! New am I making all!’ And He is saying, ‘Write, for these sayings are faithful and true.’" Revelation 21:3-5 concordant
“Living creatures” are granted to see what God sees, enhancing every part of our life. Our Father’s judgments are coming on the scene to take the beastly nature of man out of us completely. He does it by casting us into fiery trials. His light and love refines us while it comforts us with deliverance. Yes, divine intervention burns up the dross within us, His own people! Our death is being swallowed up, including every inherent weakness and fault. God makes us flawless, no mistakes!
OUR GOD is truly a consuming fire! God's judgment burns passionately for His people to be refined until we are “pure as gold”. His will is to make us perfect too. It’s His job to consume all our flaws even now. We are freed from our beastly nature into what is being truly FREE from selfishness. Death itself has let go of its hold over our mind and spirit.
Refining fires have come to cleanse our inner man, our lasting spiritual person. Our dross is burned up, yet we “fear not the burning, beloved, but yield unto them”; for only the fire can purify living creatures about the throne, where God makes His new man.