"And I heard the number of them which were sealed; an hundred and forty four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel." Revelation 7:4
The truth of this passage is that these are mature Christians having the qualities and nature of the "names" of twelve tribes of Israel sealed into their inner spiritual being. This is not primarily to protect themselves from harm, but to be qualified ministers of the Kingdom of God. Bringing righteous judgments and peace into earth’s many problems, this rank of Christians are beyond church immaturity and earthly mindedness.
The Father's mind is sealed within the forehead of these 144,000, completely changing them from a literal earthly minded interpretation of scripture to become fully aware of what His Spirit instructs about the Word. These 144,000 are more accurately taking our Father's mind within their spiritual beings and are thereby partakers of a new higher order, grown to fuller stature, cleansed of old heavens, being redirected by God our Father.
These 144,000 have written the spiritual characteristics of the names of Israel’s tribes within their spiritual nature: sonship people of praise, who work together in troops, that are happy, able to wrestle until joined with what they hear the spirit saying about exaltation and fruitful reward at the right hand of God. They gain qualification to reign by having the Father's insight and nature inscribed into their spiritual being. They rule over their own soulish thinking first until they bear Kingdom fruit.
God’s resurrection power raises them to be in the New Jerusalem order of heaven, way beyond the church heavens that the earth has known. God is drawing them in order to write upon them a transforming Word by His Spirit, sealing them with its permanence. What glorious hope and expectation is inspired for all people who can see, hear and understand what God is doing in these delivered sons!
The thoughts of our Father are written in our forehead, in our mind, written upon one’s THINKING. In our forehead, we have new thoughts in relation to the hidden things of God. Other people in the great sea of humanity do not understand what we see so clearly. God seals out carnal reasoning and calls it foolishness. His authoritative ideas are being released into those proven competent at ruling over their own soulish mindsets. Those who belong to the Lord are redeemed from earthly ways of thinking about worship and welcome the judgments of God which make them to be drawn faultless before His throne.
These 144,000 represent a number of sons who are redeemed from earthly ways, spiritually sealed so they will not, actually cannot, think or act differently than what truth God has placed within their inner being. These sons understand what the Father understands. Great wisdom keeps them from running about doing religious works in the methods of passing dispensations. These have inherited spiritual knowledge in His ways to know God’s lasting purposes instinctively now. Spontaneously they cooperate with the harvest plans of the Father. Sacred knowledge is given by spirit to those who can hear what the spirit says, written in every son of God, as their inner spiritual constitution is being resurrected into new, lasting heavens where things work right.
God’s house is a house of prayer. We pray and the power of prayer is a comforting connection to God, but we do not have to hide out in our prayer room for a certain hour each day. Jesus walked out his life of sonship perfectly. He prayed often, sometimes all night. But He wasn’t praying to get what He wanted from the Father. He prayed as a righteous Son for intimate details of the work God was doing. Jesus was confident in what He understood, confident how to apply the Father’s will at all times. The Father’s mind was clear to Him, as spiritual understanding was given unto Him without measure.
Jesus has now a numbered part of His body who are also sealed into a sonship relationship. They know deep details of God’s thoughts and intentions, the very details of how resurrection power works. God's word richly dwells within spirit-filled temples of God and their bodies are members of Christ. God issues spiritual thoughts into our inner spiritual man. With pleasantness come springs of truth welling up from deep within our spirit. Only a conquered soul is greatly informed to become one sensitive to receive what the spirit says:
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another…” Colossians 3:16
This passage is not talking about memorizing scripture verses for public rehearsal. It means mature Christians should be experiencing the word of Christ dwelling INSIDE them to guide them, for all things, big and small, to work effectively in communing with the Father for every detail of their life. The spirit within enlightens them to GOD's WISDOM in every matter until it changes our inner disposition to lovingly follow His instructions, even in refusing our own soulish ways. His Spirit will then abide with our spirit as our guide, our instructor, as our Father comes swiftly with proper teachings and admonition.
Numerous men have presumed that they personally were an important Bible character like Elijah the prophet, the seventh angel, one of the two witnesses, or the angel out of the east having the seal of the living God, or some other special messenger noted in the Bible. Yet all the braggers have miserably failed or will fail in misery. Nevertheless God has prepared an elect number, 144,000 for a glory reserved for true messengers proclaiming Him. These are sent in the function of reaping a harvest in this significant hour.
Things of the Day of the Lord are happening swiftly in the corporate body of Christ. 144,000 are reapers joined to the anointed head as a connected body held mostly in the unseen realms of heaven, with feet members still here in the earth! Yet these are just a few who press on into the sovereign work whereby His Spirit writes on their hearts and minds deeply enough to effectively conquer death’s influences now.
We are ALIVE in spirit. Our spiritual birth grew into awareness that God Fathered our spirit, so our spirit can be taught, molded, and receptive to His Holy Spirit. His Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are God’s offspring, and that we have hope of reaching fulfillment in God's glorious intentions for all His sons and daughters.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” II Corinthians 3:18
Beloved, unless the candle of a man’s spirit is lit, one cannot grasp the mindset of the Spirit of God. No man can judge the people in His body adequately. Only with proper illumination of the Word and Spirit will we stand up in the power of His resurrection within our inner man. Christ within rids us of carnal ,divisive mindsets and deceitful ways.
The system of teachings used in the church world cannot accomplish this sealing of our thinking into the Father's mind. He needs to write it on our hearts by the spirit and bring it to mind by the spirit. As the spirit teaches, we are changed into the same image as required, “line upon line, precept upon precept,” working piece by piece to make an abiding place, an establishment of truth within us.
For me, it has taken many years to dissolve inner shadows, yet the light of His understanding abides within my inner spiritual man. God’s circumcising operation works on our hearts to cut into and cut off carnal thinking and minding of earthly things, cutting off fleshly areas so we are more sensitive in receiving the mind of Christ. THANK GOD.
Those whose spirits are quickened, being born to follow on to know the Lord Jesus Christ. We come to know His innermost personal and intimate thoughts in depths of understanding. Christ and His church are like the intimate relationship of a man with a beloved wife, when, knowing love, s/he seeks to please the other, thereby being made one. In fact, it is the close loving relationship between a man and woman in which the scriptures make use of the word “to know”. For example, we read:
“And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain.” Genesis 4:1
This statement does not mean Adam was able to recognize his wife as she walked about the house. Oh, no, “KNOWING,” in that sense of recognition does not beget children. When Adam KNEW his wife, he explored her physical body, and she KNEW his body in return on the most personal and intimate levels that men and women experience. Only by the experience of an intimate adult relationship does a man "know" a woman in a manner to conceive a child. One of Jesus's most intimate prayers with our Father was:
"Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son should be glorifying Thee, according as Thou givest Him authority over all flesh, that everything which Thou hast given to Him, He should be giving it to them, even life eonian. Now it is eonian life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou dost commission, Jesus Christ." John 17:2-3 concordant
What type of exquisite relationship exists where the believing heart completely yields itself to the other? One that generates a wholehearted response to totally and truly understanding the other! God is the Father of our spirit. The qualities God gives to our spirit are love, peace and joy by means of “spiritual knowing” to become one of spirit. So Christ is formed within a Christian’s inner man by acts of “spiritual knowing His Word and Spirit” to become joined as one spirit within.
“He which is joined [in union] with a harlot is one body…but He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” I Corinthians 6:16-17
We who are awakened do love God. He reveals our calling, our personal possibilities in having Jesus Christ as our Head and absolute Lord. We, knowing somewhat, do expect continual spiritual insight and supernatural ability to apprehend intimate details of fellowshipping our Father’s purposes in life. Our Father ranks His Sons and Daughters in matters of being useful teachers and truthful doers of our Father's intimate instruction. We are walking after the way His Spirit leads, for if His Spirit is not leading us, we will be found among the deceived, unknowingly keeping company with the wanton religious harlot systems representing Christ, the great Mystery Babylon.
Yet 144,000 have proven to be renouncing the schemes, plans, and ambitions of the carnal minded religious kingdoms of the candlestick churches of Revelation. They have abandoned any devotion or love for its many worldly ways in order to be sealed as overcomers of the candlestick church conditions. They have come to spiritual Mt. Zion, into an illustrious company who know and follow the Lamb, knowing Him as the Savior of ALL MEN EVERYWHERE. They will testify in due time that they truly have no other love before Him. Nothing controls their inner being to dictate ruling thoughts or impulsive actions — no hidden bitter attitudes, or jealous resentments, no reserved areas of our lives. All is opened to the ark of His covenant.
His judgments deliver us, His Word washes us clean. A spiritual operation of circumcision is being successful in bringing 144,000 to fully yield as SUBJECTS JOINED AS ONE SPIRIT WITH JESUS CHRIST. This joining provides our inner spiritual man a portion of our Father’s love for Jesus Christ being Lord. As in marriage, a wife should submit to her husband, we too become submitted, joined, "beheaded," “sealed,” “placed” as a son or daughter of God with a spirit expressing wisdom and the songs of Zion.
In God's new day, we are able to stand tall by coming out from every falsehood as the words of our mouth become thoroughly flawless. Yes we are alive to the majesty and splendor of God abiding within our spirit to save our soul and quicken our body. NO ONE CAN COME TO GOD IN ANY OTHER WAY BUT TO KNOW GOD AS THEIR FATHER. Jesus is still saying:
"I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one is coming to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. And henceforth you know and have seen Him." John 14:6-7 concordant
The Holy Spirit teaches us how to truly BE subject to Christ. Christ is working actively within us to open key areas of change in our lives, so we can be found fit for the kingdom, in agreement with His requirements, just like a godly wife who loves her husband submits to his person. The heart of a woman intensely in love wants to yield herself, to give herself to fit with her beloved husband. This woman shares love that transcends infatuation, as her submission comes willingly in sweet love NOW SURRENDERED TO ANOTHER: “I no longer want my own way…I want to be part of your life.”
Oh! Many sons know so little about HOW TO BE JOINED TO CHRIST AS a CHASTE VIRGIN, A BRIDE to Christ NOW! Now as the holy spirit has taught us, the holy city comes DOWN to teach and touch our spirit in liberating preparation for our destiny. Beloved, when sons enter a oneness relationship within, they become practiced at laying down their own priorities to take upon His many spiritual precepts, His mission, and His priorities.
Some who learn to yield—obey—become governed and aligned by the one true Living God, the One whom Jesus called our Father. A song of sublime submission is sung by those having the Father's name written on their forehead. Oh, it's more than blind obedience to demands laid upon them! It is loving entrance in knowing the Father's present disposition, the nature of His power in caring for our Father’s priorities.
Do Christian ministers really intimately love Him, or are they merely practiced at using His name to be big shots in His house? Have we ever been intimately, like a bride adorned for joining into a life of oneness with His Spirit, in a union like marriage, where we are responding to each other with gratitude and thankfulness for faithful loving purpose in making us complete? Haven’t we Christians seemed very selfish sometimes and egocentric in publishing such a pull for money in public meetings and inventing programs that waste so much time and effort, saying “Give to us, meet with us, find help to prosper with us.” That may all be good in its place, but the focus is still on US. Babies in Christ are blind and led into these ditches of iniquity in the doing of good works for God.
Church ministers want God to bless their services, hoping to prove their value is genuine, wanting other men to consider them diligent, capable, and successful as a sign of attainment in the eyes of others. But they stumble over each other, grabbing for position, rank, and the microphone in open pulpit meetings. A bride, however, wants none of this. She prefers to be SHUT UP ALONE with her Beloved. The private claims of the Bridegroom are paramount upon the bride. She loves Him, not His house, not His honor, not for His wealth, nor His gifts, nor for what He can make of her, but for the LOVE OF HIMSELF!
“For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ…” II Corinthians 11:2
To be a chaste virgin means to be singly separated in our life, not a “prostitute” doing something to get something, but a pure and undefiled devotion to loving God. Only God our Father can create this desirable spiritual condition within us. He must place His nature in the spirit of His people in this hour. They have reached the state to be judged by God as spiritual virgins joined to Him.
Beloved Christian brothers have had such a veil over their hearts and minds, causing much strife and constant divisions that yet work to devour His people. May the blessed spirit of truth in Mt. Zion quicken our understanding to see, discern, and agree together that God is in the relationship business of being made one spirit with submitted followers of Christ.
Who is qualified to experience the realities of sonship with God Almighty as a Father? The humbled, the “poor” (not prideful) in spirit, can enter the secret chambers of His loves. This is where He is no more reserving our salvation, but is drawing us nearer to overwhelming love, where nothing else matters, where we bow completely. The WAY before us Christians stands opened by His firstborn Son. The Bridegroom has a marriage, a joining of spirit to take place within us all. God has been preparing to bring His people to a glory “up hither” in a higher feast, to a spiritual marriage supper as John recorded:
"Come up hither! I shall be showing you the bride, the wife of the Lambkin. And he carried me away, in spirit, on a mountain, huge and high, and shows me the holy city, Jerusalem, as it is descending out of heaven from God, having the glory from God." Revelation 21:10-11 concordant
Christians’ thinking should soon be carried away from the old ways of worship into a spiritual worship coming down in the image of the holy city above. Heaven is to be opened and God’s people prepared for Him to be seen in gatherings that worship Him in the spirit and truth of the Lord’s Day. The Marriage Feast has the anointed provision of hidden manna and new wine.
Our Father is pleased with those who worship Him in the spirit of truth. God must raise “a people who are not a people” to be the people of God where God Himself will be dwelling in them. I say our spiritual being has been awakened by Christ from Adam's sleep and we have grown to keep our Father’s writing within our spiritual inner man even now:
“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
The New Jerusalem order is the mother, the source of all our real spiritual development. It is established as the spiritual homeland of all Christians, with mature Christians raised into this new heaven’s highest points. A Christian people are sealed in Mt. Zion, conformed to a glorious standard that transforms these bodies of our humiliation. We are at least now knowing that we have a spiritual body that is capable of being conformed completely. We are seeking out details of our glorious homeland, greatly desiring to be made one with all the people in it:
"Be glad, barren one, who art not bringing forth! Burst forth and implore, thou who art not travailing! For many are the children of the desolate, rather than of her who has the husband." Galatians 4:27 concordant
"Now you, brethren, as Isaac, are children of promise. But even as then, the one generated according to flesh persecuted the one according to spirit, thus also it is now. But what is the scripture saying? Cast out this handmaid and her son, for by no means shall the son of the handmaid be enjoying the allotment with the son of the free woman. Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of the handmaid [religious systems of bondage], but of the free woman [married bride gathered up to make new Jerusalem people]." Galatians 4:28-5:1 concordant
Come up hither! Enjoy God as our Father, and Jesus as our King! We as His servants are seeking to behold his face, serving at His marriage table, supping on hidden mysteries. His beloved people desire to eat a new feast of the true bread of life at the King’s table, food that is sufficient to bring a new level of spiritual attainment to His people. This is an entering of the Kingdom to feast on fat things, of new wine bottles having new wine of sweetest communion with God our Father.