The early church was not organized after the manner of the present church systems. If they had been, the scriptural records would have been quite different from what they are. We would have some reference to the installation of popes and bishops in beautiful robes and the commissioning of priests with proper ceremony. We would have some record of how pastors are set in the local church over all other ministers, how visitors to the churches should meet with the pastor, and how the sick should call for the pastor of the church, and let the pastor pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.
We would have some reference for church seminaries, and how to be recognized and chartered by the state, so ministers can legally marry the young and bury the dead. We would have some specific examples of how Jesus and the apostles conducted funerals, performed weddings, and how the pastors did dedications. There would be some instructions about how to organize the church choir, form a church board, hire the preachers, and remove those individuals who do not build and promote their programs properly.
There is no end to the needless things churches accept as necessary and normal, things that have absolutely no foundation in scripture or place in spiritual life. Church ministries do not come close to fulfilling the spiritual goal of causing growth in the body of Christ to maturity. Many mature Christians have been removed from the candlestick church orders that are so full of blind leaders they only perform the obligations of the church system.
Praise God, the consuming fires of God have burnt up much of the church dross from the hearts of His sons. Sons are circumcised of heart, properly cleansed of heart, having been washed of the many false interpretations and religious traditions that have blinded God’s people by the water of His Word. We see Babylon casting false judgments about eternal hell for those not knowing what they know. They are familiar with and know the dead works of generations of blind leaders going through the rituals of traditional ceremonies in Mystery Babylon.
God has led us to forsake ALL of the traditional rituals and trappings of Mystery Babylon because we see the King is taking His rightful place as Lord of our being. God’s salvation matures people by raising them past church heavens into His Kingdom truth, the truth of being enthroned with His life. This is an order of endless life that makes them rise beyond the present day church worship conducted in dead rituals done for financial gain.Yes, church practices today are thoroughly mixed with patterned ways of the world, such as building a name for themselves to gain control over other men’s lives, establishing a base of financial gain, and gaining public notoriety among local politicians and worldly leaders. These are are the mysterious ways of Babylon.
Yet all through the history of the seven candlestick churches, our Father has drawn out true overcomers in a hidden manner to operate truthfully in the body of Christ. Faithful leaders are teaching disciples of Christ to take the way of the cross, to be stripped of fame and fortune gained in earthly ways, with fading glories. Sons go “outside the candlestick church camps,” outside the accepted religious orders, bearing the reproach of rejecting that fellowship. Many of God’s sons have been ostracized and shamed for the liberties they took while following the truth within their own heart.
All Christians are supposed to grow to spiritual maturity while not seeking anything for themselves. We are instructed to leave the heavenly places ruled by men. We are not to boast about our religious works, as what honor is in keeping fleshly traditions? No boasting of titles, no fancy hats, or flowing robes, or claims of scholarly privilege is needed. No organized board of directors is needed among Christ’s brethren. What is needed is to recognize and identify Christ WITHIN the brethren.
The New Jerusalem order is our homeland, and it is not cluttered with the traditions established in church hierarchies. Sons have overcome the teachings of the Nicolaitans that corrupted the entire candlestick church realm. The Nicolaitan spirit of church leaders has worked throughout church history to form mixtures of false standards that misrepresent true worship of God. Overcoming sons are raised and dealt with, to be sealed as God’s own sons. They becoming written upon as living epistles of the king, Jesus Christ. We are being made alive within our inner being, having entered a higher realm and relationship with the King of the kingdom.
Jesus is the pattern Son, the firstborn among many brethren. We prayerfully and reverently consider the deeds of Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our profession. He wanted nothing of the religion of the Pharisees. He expressed contempt for the organized religious leaders of Israel. He held up the scripture to show them the blinding traditions of the learned and how the prestigious places taken by the Rabbis was an important hinderance. He did not join with their long standing doctrines, nor did He walk with the Pharisees, having the most imposing and pretentious title. He was not clothed in elaborate and gorgeous vestments and He did not love those chief seats in the synagogue.
The Pharisee teachings bound the people under heavy burdens of the letter of the law. It laid impossible requirements upon generations of Israelites, grievous to be borne. All sorts of rules and regulations were extrapolated from the Old Testament law. Yet Jesus was, is, and will be the pattern of a true Son, who operated outside the traditional orders of the legalistic religion of His day.
Instead, Jesus was spiritually connected to God as a Son. An inner relationship was measured to Jesus, so He never concerned Himself with the external structures of Jewish organization, the established worship of temple hierarchy, the programs that Moses formed as proper creeds, the attractive ceremonies, promotions, and all the other things found working in the Jewish religion in that day.
Jesus was very unusual. He would not follow the methods and techniques of Jewish tradition. He was an original son who was not going the way of the religious multitudes. Jesus’s message to the church at Ephesus states He HATES the deeds and the doctrine of the NICOLAITANS. He hated it while walking here with Pharisees and He hates the same hypocritical spirit that is now ruling in the candlestick churches. He hated it when it appeared in the church at Ephesus. He hates it today wherever it appears, and will make war with it in the words of His mouth, but remember — He hates something that is in the midst of His people.
Godly wisdom now reveals an understanding of what the deeds and doctrines of Nicolaitans taught and what practices were spawned amongst Christians. Nicolaitan teachers held a “priesthood over the people” attitude, forming a hierarchy over God’s people. What Nicolaitans preach is that you must join the pope or another leader to be a Christian person. I say those led therein live below their God-given privileges. The Lord’s people have been confused and have fallen into many ditches of hierarchical confusion.
The history of the candlestick church is full of false apostles, false leaders taking followings after themselves, taking the leadership of the church. Now Jesus stands outside the Laodicean doors knocking to those who can hear, saying to buy golden ideas, refined by fire, forsaking what you have learned so that you may be truly rich, covered in white, anointed with eyesalve, and free from that which hinders to find God through Christ. God does not hold Christian people to be babies forever, which makes knowing these deeds and doctrines of the Nicoatianes so important:
"So have you also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.....He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches;" Revelation 2:15- 17
The ideas the NICOLAITANS teach form a priesthood over the laity, creating ministries that regulate the laity, “nico” over the “laity”. Nicolaitans gained foothold to take over the early candlestick churches, having some at Pergamum who were then holding the Nicolaitan teaching. Now many heavenly places need cleansing of centuries of sincere Christians gathering to worship in orders devised of fleshly minded men who took control through doctrines. They establish forms of thinking that form “Jezebel” systems like the image of the “mother” church. Its many daughters have many names — those names are part of a “mark” given by the harlot daughters of Mystery Babylon. They are gathering to worship meetings supposedly to worship God yet maintain the status quo which denies the spirit’s leading in order to keep control of the laity who are counted “worthy merchandise”.
Throughout church history when God moved, men would ALWAYS put controlling hands on that move. Then the spiritual anointing would lift and the glory depart, but the people keep doing the same old thing. They get stuck in heavens, going over old things where there is no quickening life for the people anymore. Everything becomes organized, structured, controlled by systematized leadership conformed to certain viewpoints and meanings of scripture. These leaders also teach elementary messages rooted in long past generations, doctrines and teachings that seeped into the early church in control through their fleshly motions.
Now a beautiful move of SPIRITUAL quickening is touching the spirit of overcoming men and women, where yes, deep within, Christ is formed. He is coming now in power to take over our lives and He WILL take over the kingdoms of this world. He has people in churches, but at this time heaven is opening to a new day. Newness in Zion is happening like at no other time in the past two thousand years of Christian church history.
The main idea of the Nicolaitans among early Christian people represented the concept of having a fleshly priesthood authority over the laity (the people), and that is now well established. Such deceivers are false apostles who deceive the multitudes of Christians in veiled merchandising among the Lord’s people. Candlestick church service is done by man’s wisdom to maintain control of the church laity and it is big business in America. The phraseology changes from time to time, but the basic concept of the Nicolaitans remains the same.
The phraseology and methodology changes because the Nicolaitan teachings and deeds are still being practiced IN THIS PRESENT DAY (Laodicean) CHURCH. Church folk think they are so rich, they need nothing! Yet, religious leaders continue in gaining people’s allegiance to gain control of the masses of people. It is this “drive” in organized Christian fellowship that always allows some beastly organization to take charge, have the oversight, and get their esteemed reputations established.
These religious leaders are not often leading examples of humility because they are commonly thinking of themselves more highly than others, almost being blind to others at times. Often, they have not been proven to practice perfect brotherly love even to their natural family, much less to proven enemies.
God prefers perfection in others, so He is making known the full counsel of His will. With graceful understandings of His great revelations, He is calling upward over the cunning and crafty men who have manipulated and maneuvered in order to be positioned in church authority so they, too, can exercise control over others. They coerce the Lord’s people to agreement with their organization’s measure of faith, and punish or cut off those that do not remain faithful. They measure themselves among themselves, not realizing or understanding that they themselves are not knowing the scripture nor the power of God.
The rank of being “the least” in the Kingdom is to be one teaching His people incorrectly, producing thereby an adverse affect on other people’s lives by limiting truth. Being great in the Kingdom has to do with what things we teach rightly. Nicolaitan type churches hold us short of our homeland, the New Jerusalem order, that city of God in our dwelling, our homeland! The Nicolaitan orders in candlestick churches have facades of pious words that pretend and suppose righteousness.
Yet what spirit they are of becomes evident when those who are supposed to follow, don’t. “Anathema!” cries the ruler. “Rebellion!” cries the tyrant. “Zap!” goes the whip when powerful religious leaders charge the laity with little tolerance for any who persist in a different mind concerning their doctrines. The religious ranks are swollen with many good people who grab power to get their way. It is a way to become authoritarian rulers who keep vast numbers of people confined both in denominational and also in non-denominational ranks — all are limited to a passing heaven.
Though it has recently surged under various titles and guises, Nicolaitan hierarchy is the error in Christian churches THAT ALWAYS SAPS THE LIFE OF GOD FROM THE ORIGINAL MOVING among those saints IN EACH STATE OF THE CANDLESTICK CHURCHES. From the earliest days wherever and whenever Christian men were brought together, gathered to worship God, sincere men used Nicolaitan deeds and doctrine.
From one generation to the next generation, it resurfaces under different names, but its basic tenets remain the same: (1) Only ordained ministers speak with God's authority; (2) to resist that authority is to resist God’s authority; (3) those following the teachings of their system must be marked as graduates, members, priests of their viewpoint; (4) viewpoints of others must in turn be withstood and denounced to have no ministerial place among them. The greatest offices of the church have been abused by Nicolaitan tyrants throughout the churches’ history.
Where, then, is safety to be found? Safety lies only in recognition of the folly of being controlled by organizations of religious men. Safety lies in recognizing the systematic corruption held within traditional methods of church. I do not exclude myself from the list of those who should not be followed. Rather I teach all God’s sons and daughters must mature and be liberated by being led by God’s spirit. All of us need to learn how to worship God in spiritual truth, so that the newness of divine illumination and the sovereign spiritual guidance of the seven fold Spirit of God would dominate our inner man and flow out of us in our gatherings to worship.
We desire to excel most especially in worshiping the Father in the truth of the Lord’s Day. In this “third day” heaven, the Feast of Tabernacles feeds long hidden manna, a wedding supper of the highest order. All who are following after Jesus are called to apprehend that wedding call, for in it they have been apprehended of Christ Jesus. We hope for complete transcending from old church heavens and their way of thinking, to now grasp the spirit of the Lord’s Day.
THE THRUST OF OUR MESSAGE IS TO POINT EVERYONE TO FORM A LIVING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD BY BECOMING GOD’S TABERNACLE, A PLACE FOR GOD TO DWELL AS OUR FATHER. His Spirit must teach us the truth about all the things working in the mind of Jesus Christ. His mind is given to each one of us who are receiving the truthful sayings of Christ. Christ is working within us to cleanse our inner person, making us a spiritual tabernacle fit for God’s habitation.
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for “shepherd” is the same word used “pastor” in the Greek New Testament. A pastor is simply a shepherd, and a shepherd is a pastor, both naturally and spiritually. We have both parroted and coined a great many terms that are misleading, terms that are not coming from scripture or the mind of Christ. Will we now be purged to purify our terminology and remove our thinking processes from all that has marked multitudes of people with unscriptural expressions carried on within Mystery Babylon?
Christians refer to their minister as the “pastor” of the church, and we hear constant talking about “our pastor,” “their pastor,” “your pastor,” “my pastor,” and “the pastor.” One would certainly think this position of “the pastor” must indeed be one of most highly acclaimed offices in the New Testament. The fact is the term “the pastor” is entirely foreign to any position of church leadership in the New Testament scriptures and non-existent in the early church.
“Pastor” is a twisted truth using biblical church terms. There was no one single pastor in the whole New Testament writings who ever occupied a position called “the pastor”, or “pope.” Not one church raised up by the first apostles had any such leading ministry as “the pastor.” Oh, yes, there were “pastors” plural (Ephesians 4:11) mentioned only once in the whole New Testament, but no SINGLE minister of God was ever elevated to leadership in the position of “the pastor, or pope, or archbishop” before an assembled body of believers.
There is a good reason for this. You see, the truth is that in every case in the Greek New Testament where the word for pastor (poimen) appears it is in the singular accompanied by the definite article (the). It is used in reference solely to our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, He alone is THE PASTOR of the flock, THE SHEPHERD of the sheep, as the singer of Israel stated so aptly;
“The LORD is my shepherd!” 23rd Psalm
That is the same as saying, “The LORD is MY PASTOR!” HE is your pastor! When you teach God’s people to develop an individual relationship with their SPIRITUAL Pastor, that makes us one spirit with God’s Spirit. Overcomers must see that when any man takes to himself the title “the pastor,” "reverend" or “the Father” or any similar title beyond brother, that man really thereby USURPS the true head of the church.
Those groups who have plural ministry will find one among them wanting to be designated “the senior pastor,” “head elder,” or some other such title, who will usurp even more blasphemously if these terms are the equivalent of “Chief Shepherd.” Yet the Lord's instruction when feeding His people was to do it not as a "lord" but as an example of the flock, a servant in grace given to the humble;
"…shepherd the flocklet of God among you, supervising, not of compulsion, but voluntarily, according to God nor yet avariciously, but eagerly; nor yet as lording it over the allotments, but becoming models for the flocklet, and, when the Chief Shepherd is manifested, you shall be requited with an unfading wreath of glory.
Likewise, younger men may be subject to the elder, yet all wear the servile apron of humility with one another, for God is resisting the proud, yet is giving grace to the humble." I Peter 5:2-6
Men certainly may be “a pastor” but we can never be THE PASTOR. The Lord’s people are being called up out of Nicolaitan church understandings that have marked and saturated them. They are to be cleansed from the thorough brain-washing in the errors of an apostate church system that speaks by rote the same mixture of absurdities assimilated with scripture on every Sunday, Sunday after Sunday, in the pews of Mystery Babylon.
How astoundingly we howl when once enlightened to learn the truth and discover the churches’ teachings and hallowed practices have unwittingly been assumed right but are not found to fit in the Kingdom of God. What is an abomination in the sight of our Lord? What does Jesus Christ hate? That which He hates must truly be an abomination. He HATES the deeds and doctrines of the Nicolaitans! He is calling, instead, for reapers who will set God’s people FREE to know Him by being led by His Spirit from within their inner spiritual person. God’s people must be freed:
"But this you have, that you are hating the acts of the Nicolaitans, which I, also, am hating. Who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the ecclesia." Revelation 2:6 concordant
We praise God for true ministers who warn and instruct us through exhortation with admonitions that give us strength in our times of need. In times of weakness or immaturity, God grants us courage to persevere. We hunger to be found following the Lamb, to stand with others having the Father's name written upon them by the sound of many waters, saying and singing that something NEW is upon spiritual mount Zion.
God has to separate us, draw us out of every Christian camp to show us His mysterious light which radiates from within our spirit. Then we have soared with Him into heavenly heights. If the voices of religious men usurp His call to draw us to themselves, we eventually will lose valuable spiritual progress and place in the Lord's further purposes.
We do esteem every servant and instrument of God “exceeding high in love for their work’s sake,” but we will never permit them to usurp the place given to the Chief Shepherd within our lives! Therefore, in this hour I do not submit my questions about God to any pastor or under-shepherd for instruction. Instead, I pray to our Father in all matters and you should do that too. The truth is that the GOD Himself is becoming ALL to us.
He is coming swiftly to do this! To accomplish this, He must remove us from the former loves of our heart, from past orders that were blessed who are now readily usurped. We belong to Him, He bought us, He led us to a redemption from every kinship with worthless Babylonian ways. The love of God has taken us outside every camp dominated by man's mind to find where now our spirit can be quickened by His Spirit. Then we cry out “ABBA- God is Fathering me.” There are high places in the Kingdom of God where living creatures like eagles, soaring high, do gather!
Living life under the domination of Christian Nicolaitanism is the repudiation of one’s spiritual growth into Christ and liberty of spirit. Nicolaitans fight for control of the pulpit in structured programs, with orchestrated worship, in formulated creeds that have created thousands of spiritual infants — babes in understanding Christ by the Spirit with few real spiritual fathers. The Nicolaitans begot us into a place lacking spiritual vision. They are blind, yet they are His people in the ongoing purposes of God.
Yielding to Nicolaitan church authority now would be to numb the teachings of Christ within our inner being. Submitting to the ways of Babylon would be our acceptance of serfdom to religious bondage and our abdication of true sonship rights. Babylon’s religious leaders will not let us move beyond the little patch of salvation that they control. If we follow them, we like Esau will have sold our birthright for a bowl of lentils. Under the dominion of “other lords” we will soon disavow personal responsibility for submission to our true Head, relinquishing sight of our spiritual life. Will we sell short our soul's birthright and settle in ways of servitude for yesterday's pottage?
Yes, it does seem most Christians today are very comfortable in the great slave camps of Mystery Babylon. But we follow freely after the Lord outside every religious camp looking for real spiritual development within our being, change that will qualify us as joint heirs with Him as real kingdom priests.
Christianity has been full of babes in every generation. Nicolaitan domination in the earliest church systems, the ecclesia in Ephesus, produced multitudes of stunted believers who did not grow up to full spiritual stature. As babes they suck from the breast of that harlot mother who provides every dependence with breasts to suckle. Thirty years later they will be sitting in the same pew, focused on the same things, going through the same motions, standing up when they are told to stand, sitting when they are told to sit, singing when they are told to sing, clapping when they are told to clap, getting all their leading from the performers on a most beautiful platform.
Christians need to grow up, to feed on the spiritual meat of the word, to taste the bread of Life that comes by the spirit to make us strong in the man within so we may enter now the Kingdom of God. The Lord hates the deeds of the Nicolaitans, it is true. That is why every son of God hates, detests, abhors, and loathes the deeds of the Nicolaitans also. Nicolaitan leaders in Christian churches do not allow for full spiritual growth of their membership. They keep everyone bound to fundamentals, to doctrines and ceremonies, creeds passed down from a former time.
To the saints in Pergamos the Lord said, in regard to those who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans:
“Repent, or I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Revelation 2:16
The “sword of the Lord’s mouth” is His anointed living WORD. The Lord Himself is set to fight, to battle against the antichrist deeds and doctrines that have captured His people. The sword of His word is against the Nicolaitans, against those of His own house that are the blind leading the blind into a deep ditch as far as to understanding His “third day” purposes.
Through the power and might of HIS WORD, the Lord will destroy the evil influences of these “blind leaders” and will bring long awaited deliverance to His people. But, in the meantime, all true sons of God will be OVERCOMING THE DEEDS AND DOCTRINES OF THE NICOLAITANS!
“Thus you, also, have those holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans, likewise. Repent then! Yet if not, I am coming to you swiftly and shall be battling with them with the blade of My mouth. Who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the ecclesias.
To the one who is conquering [the Nicolaitan teaching], to him will I be giving of the hidden manna, and I shall be giving him a white stone and on the stone a new name written, of which no one is aware except the one who is obtaining it.” Revelation 2:15-17 concordant
Indeed, God has “hidden manna” and “white stones” with a “new names" for His overcomers who are able to identify and turn away from the deeds and doctrine of the Nicolaitans. “Hidden manna” is a new supply of spiritual food, understanding of a new feast that is reserved only for those who are taught by His Spirit how to let the Most High dwell within. Our Father’s glory will be found in overcomers who are led by the words and thoughts coming directly from the mouth of the Lord. Food from the throne is a feast of fat things well refined, food that makes us understand the wisdom of God.
I say that God is revealing new food in these very hours. As we learn to gather to Him in worship, the word of God is ministered so that we hear what the Spirit is saying. It is awesome when the Spirit will say something to you! There has been a gathering to a pure word that, when spoken, penetrates our spirit to change our inner person! A redemption is happening within each of us as things coming in the "revelation" of Jesus Christ:
"Behold! He is coming with clouds, and every eye shall be seeing Him, those, also, who stab Him and all the tribes of the land shall be grieving over Him. Yea! Amen!” Revelation 1:7 concordant
Moses served as a wonderful example and pattern of hearing the voice of God. When he came into the tabernacle (Numbers 7:89), he heard the voice speaking from the mercy seat. It is not said that the voice began to speak; rather the contrary is implied. The voice would seem to have been speaking all along, but it was ONLY AS MOSES CAME INTO THE TABERNACLE that he heard it. Why did he hear it now? It was because now he had been drawn into the presence of the speaker when he entered into the tabernacle. It was when he consciously and deliberately and purposefully entered into the abiding glory and presence of God that there woke within him the conviction that God had all the time been speaking. It is the same with us today.
It is no marvel that so many have missed understanding the spirit's message to the churches. The voice of God cannot be heard for all the noise made by the churches’ religious activities. So much is thereby effectively drowned out by the thunder and noise in the streets of Babylon. The tones of its vibrating sounds make impression to stir the thought waves of the earthly mind. Our Father is speaking incessantly, but to hear that message we must have been separated from our mother’s breast. We have to enter a place of spiritual life found deep within our own tabernacle. Sons of God learn to hear with spiritual ears that which God’s Spirit speaks within.
It is most important to know that we have a spirit with an ear to hear our Father. Not only that, we have within us the divine faculties necessary to grow up and attain to the full stature of Christ Jesus. Our Father’s divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and god-like-ness. Our spiritual body has ears that are open to hear what His Spirit says. We hear when it means a great deal to us. When God says it to you, it will open up great treasure. There is nothing lacking for divine resources in our lives once we have developed an inner spiritual connection with our Father, become agreed in mind, made one spirit as a Son, a brother to the Lord.
NOW LISTEN AND HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT IS TEACHING: a renouncing of dead religious worship. Listen to the voice calling Christians to come out of every place where the deeds and doctrines of the Nicolaitans dominate. We believe He will tune our spiritual ear to hear His voice every time the truth of His mouth instructs His people.
God brings a quickening within our dwelling richly until it overflows with truth flowing like a river of crystal clear water, flowing out to whoever is thirsty, satisfying whoever is weary. “Come and Dine,” eat and drink of a new feast, where we can eat of hidden manna from the throne realm that feeds us with food and drink, nourishment of the hidden things from above.