"And to the one who is conquering and keeping My acts until the consummation, to him will I be giving authority over the nations; and he shall be shepherding them with an iron club, as vessels of pottery are being crushed, as I also have obtained from My Father." Revelation 2:26-27 concordant
Some people are being prepared right now to "exercise authority". They understand what it means to be raised as overcomers to eat of the tree of life, to receive the wreath of life, to eat hidden manna, to have a new name of authority over the earthly nature, even to the crushing of evil. They experience the hidden power of a heavenly throne, an order that shepherds the hearts of men with a measure of spirit and truth that corrects people from within.
An order of sonship has been created by God that spiritually cleanses and restores His chosen from death to life. He raises them to perceive the New Jerusalem heavens where men do not defile Christ’s image by holding to the established orders of the church age. Those heavens must pass away, be burnt up and put aside.
Christ is making sons alive in God, as He intends each of us to be absolutely pure, spotless, undefiled, flawless before Him, in truth. “perfect as He is perfect”. He is persuading us about the things of folly found in our own wisdom, things created of our own reasoning mind. He turns on the light (candle) of our inner spirit’s light. Deliverance comes to people when Zion’s testimony of Jesus is revealed in powerful anointed word and demonstration of the Holy Spirit.
An order of life is being raised up in the spirit of every son and daughter whom God the Father chooses to draw to Himself. To qualify, one must overcome certain conditions as described in the candlestick churches. Overcomers are receiving spiritual benefits now as our Father shows them mercy! His reign does not ask if we like it or if we don’t, or whether we agree or disagree. A higher order than church is placed within the spirit of sons and daughters to come alive to the Father’s kingdom qualities, to know His name!
His ‘third day’ sons and daughters are raised to be seated in a Paradise, enthroned with God to battle the anger and hate which rages within the hearts of men. Because there is opposition to this order of sonship, sons learn to operate weapons of REAL warfare that are “not carnal” (not guns and bombs). Our weapons are mighty prayers, expressions of truth in love that is pure enough to pull down the strongholds of wrong mental attitudes, wrong thoughts, and every lie that works within the mind of man.
WE — our spirit , our soul, and our bodies — are the battlefield Christ’s dominion is sent out to conquer. Our Father is teaching us instructions by the spirit of truth coming within our own inner spiritual being. He is casting down our imaginations and our wrong mental images until God’s image shines brighter than ever to uncover every working thought within us that is unlike Him. Vain religious privilege always exalts man’s SELF against the knowledge of God. But, that is being put under foot in mature sons.
He will place all His enemies under His feet! He is guiding us how to make captive every inner apprehension unto obedience to Christ. The firstborn son believed what God revealed to Him and that roughly describes the battle going on within us. When we fight for proper faith in spiritual warfare, we gain the experience of a good conscience. Godliness itself is worked into us that sets our hearts’ sails straight to the homeland. The Lord is coming by the spirit to supply the needed power of the Kingdom to conquer all guile from within His followers!
Successful spiritual warfare does indeed qualify a spiritual man for a granting of freedom. This is warfare directed at the opposing avenger working in the carnal messages dominating the minds of men. Christ is not deceived by the lies working within our earthly mind. Successful spiritual warfare should work at getting CHANGED IN OUR INNER NATURE. God is changing our name like He did “Jacob” to “Israel”. Jacob wrestled all night with truth, laid hold to pull down the inner fear of his brother, instead relying on God.
As Jacob cast down wrong mental images of his brother’s wrath, we are to cast out every fear within us by relying on God’s love of a Son. Some brethren, His servants, continue to be doing His will until they know as God knows:
"For at present we are observing by means of a mirror, in an enigma, yet then, face to face. At present I know out of an installment, yet then I shall recognize according as I am recognized also." I Corinthians 13:12 concordant
"This charge I am committing to you, child Timothy, according to the preceding prophecies over you, that in them you may be warring the ideal warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some, thrusting away, have made shipwreck as to the faith;" I Timothy 1:18-20 concordant
Christ followers get beyond our self to recognize Christ is battling, warring for our allegiance, for our love. Christ is challenging our ability to have and maintain a good conscience toward God, to recognize Christ is set array with light in the inner workings of our life. Conformity to the standard that He makes known enables us to see and hear what the spirit of Christ is saying within us.
That word makes changes to the FOCUS of our spiritual life and our worship of God. The King’s dominion in heaven is given to the cleansing of people, removing what things offend, pollute, deceive, and oppose truth. All these things He is gathering out of us, His people. All the offense of our fleshly behavior in making religious tares are gathered for burning, its honor discarded.
Out of these disturbances have come more understanding for us, more spiritual supply, and a more conquering reward in the race to face God’s fiery glory and light within our heart. God has promised to remove from us all the leftover residual errors of religious Babylon, all the perversions of Eastern delusions, all of man's self-centered church pride. These must be detected by recognizing lies that condemn people to everlasting torment, which denies that His judgment is always redemptive unto salvation.
God has promised to deliver His people from the fleshly desire to use power to religiously manipulate and control people’s lives for their own or their organization’s gain. The spirit of Christ says no to money-raising gimmickry and merchandising in Christian worship centers. Oh, the real state of our divided devotion is making a great picture of what the Lord has to battle.
Christ is pulling down the thoughts that are offensive to His mind. No more false standards can hide within our thoughts, any and all false standards which fail to conquer death. Trauma that would hold us to torment is stopped in our minds. God’s spirit is not wrapping us in empty grave clothes. Rather, sons and daughters of God are conquering as Jesus has.
Just how has He been appearing in your personal battle? Has He really won union with your spirit, to love even your enemy? Has your soul been changed as He came in His word and spirit to make the will of God clearly revealed? This in itself starts inner battles that can quickly spread like wildfire. Christ’s perfect love casts out every fear within us, removing every doubt of His effectiveness by placing a faith in His Word and Spirit working to free every area within our thinking.
He keeps coming by the spirit, instructing daily to refine our inner being and cleanse our thoughts until we are acquainted with Him. We are raised to experience victory in spiritual warfare, in prayer and fasting, to qualify to stand in the Lord's battles. With many others who are become "a people on white horses," we are given power to see the lies working in the carnal mind of man, including the religious mind now known in the church age.
Christ will keep coming to our spirit until there are lasting heavens and a new earth established within our life. He keeps battling until the right example of God's saving life is displayed in us, His people. The work of the spirit of truth is to recognize our own mindsets, attitudes, and intents compared to God’s. We focus on His truth, not carnal reasoning.
What the spirit of sonship provides is light to know our Father, thereby exposing every soulish motivation in our own ‘house’. He is delivering each of us from every vestige of darkness! This includes the carnal religious mindsets that have formed false ideas within us with great fleshly programs, activities, and ceremony, calling it God’s supper.
The love of God is casting down any false imagination within our mind. God’s brilliant light is revealing even how fleshly minded was our goodness! As the mind of Christ is fully focused within our being, we have the right to eat of His life, receive His spiritual strength, becoming mature of spirit. We are called "up hither" to see and understand the realm of the New Jerusalem. Here is the source of His Spirit coming to shake our earth and make an abode within our spirit. This is making us one spirit with the Lord. His abiding spiritually within makes us citizens of His new heaven, the true homeland for all of us believers in Jesus Christ.
Men mostly know about battle in the natural, such as the national order of warfare that men have waged in America. But we should neither discount nor negate the fact that God has ordained great conflicts to break out in our INNER LIVES at the appointed time and season. Wisdom once raised within us is set forth in a battle for our soul. The spirit of Jesus does battle to conquer our every foe, even death. Being used in this battle as a field for His operation will cause victory within us.
"And a battle occurred in heaven. Michael and his messengers battle with the dragon, and the dragon battles, and its messengers." Revelation 12:7 concordant
"And I perceived heaven open, and 'lo'! a white horse. And He Who is sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness is He judging and battling. Now His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems, having names written of which no one except Himself is aware, and He is clothed in a cloak dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, dressed in cambric, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. And out of His mouth a sharp blade is issuing, that with it He should be smiting the nations. And He will be shepherding them with an iron club." Revelation 19:11-115 concordant
The religious minds of babes in Christ set forth false standards of scripture that must grow up to the battle of casting out the wicked one holding false ideas and standards. We are to be clothed with the mind of Christ as a part of His “white horse” army even now. Even now, Christ is come, so we run our race to please Him. We run while thinking within us we can accomplish God’s best intent even in our daily life. We can handle problems, even if it takes the course of great trauma, for His Spirit gives us the ability to accomplish God’s will within us completely.
So it is that within overcoming Christians, there have been a two thousand year ongoing battle to cast down false thoughts and vain ways from dominating our experience of Christ’s promised life. The battle has pressed many into Christ, formed in fires only God could invent with a victorious result of transformation of our own spirit. We are to be raised and ascend higher and higher to take the place He offers “up hither”.
He is placing us in a NEW ORDER THAT HAS JUDGMENT WITH MERCY by taking dominion of our soulish thoughts. Oh, now we recognize an endless government of God’s King! His spiritual deliverance is coming to raise us to trust the conquering one, so we are no longer dismayed or ashamed. I am speaking of nothing less than GOD OVERTAKING OUR VESSEL BY THE SAME POWER OF RESURRECTION THAT RAISED CHRIST JESUS FROM DEATH!
Full grown men in Christ are granted this resurrection power for the “pulling down” of every false standard and every wrong idea within us — all egotistical and vain ways of selfish men, even from the candlestick church. Overcoming sons are granted power to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. They benefit from having a regenerated spirit, a renewed mind, and a quickened body. God reigns on the battlefields of our inner life as we yield up our fears and selfish efforts.
He digs us out of every entrenched thought that has ingrained an opposition to God’s knowledge. Many things are being uprooted (shaken out) within His people under bondage, including enchanting half truths that feed the greed inherently at the center of man's own psyche (soul). God’s refining fire is set to consume all that is unlike Himself. It has truly refined a people to know His spirit and they are now are being made kings and priests of the living God.
Sometimes Christians are in disarray, with different parts in servitude to God and other parts in servitude to doubts, resentments, frustrations, and bitterness. But this will not remain so, for overcomers eventually serve ONE master. He who has begun a good work of deliverance in us will bring it to its complete finality:
“…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
The King will not stop conquering, as He battles for mastery over our soul’s thoughts. He will not rest until every enemy is brought subject under the foot (understanding) of His rule. He has purchased our life. Our inner man has committed the soul's expectations to rely on His word toward us, to peacefully surrender to His curious daily working of love within our daily battles. We are alive in spirit, yet our body is dead because of sin.
Thank God, He is delivering us gracefully. The measure of His grace is sufficient for each us when we are found formed by Him, no longer ruled by our carnal mind. Though death may claim our earthly bodies, and though trials may sorely grieve our heart, our spirit has become intrinsically entwined to find oneness with His.
In the Lord’s battles, we are taught not to fight with physical weapons. It is not necessary to have any nation’s guns, tanks, airplanes or bombs. He orders our attention to His heavenly state where spiritual battles are won when proper faith is established in wisdom and right understanding within His followers. God’s insights are WRITTEN on us, many times won graciously in prayer.
“(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)” 2 Corinthians 10:4 KJV
The idea is spread here in America that God goes with the western nations when they send armies to overthrow Hitler, the Communists, the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein, that they are fighting for God in battling evil in the world. Yet the savagery of national warfare is itself evil. Though Americans have sent armies to make captive people free from political tyranny, we have never delivered a nation from evil and never free from evil ourselves. Evil runs far deeper than that, for real evil lurks in the heart of every man.
Many people with religious mindsets are for the most part warmongers in their attitudes. That in itself is a great evil. The battles of war among nations have added much hate to the core of a man, yet His spirit instructs us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us. It is a battle to struggle thru to do good to those who hate us, as we fervently pray for them that despitefully use us and those who persecute us.
The firstborn Son displayed clearly that God does not send His sons into the world to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. Therefore national methods of killing in warfare are the very exact opposite of the nonviolent methods His spirit is teaching us. True spiritual warfare defeats evil not with material bombs but with ‘bombs’ of the Word of God which are mighty through God to the pulling down of misconceptions. His Word is able to destroy any inner stronghold of lies within persons held captive in darkness that opposes the truth of God! To win regeneration and transformation will make us deliverers on Mt. Zion:
"Saviors will come up in Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, And the kingdom will become Yahweh’s." Obadiah 1:21 concordant
The inspired apostle Paul tells us that the Lord comes to reveal Himself in “the voice of the archangel,” as another striking symbol of His great import and significance:
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air [spirit]: and so shall we ever be with the Lord". I Thessalonians 4:16-17
The word “angel” is not a correct translation of the Greek word ‘aggelos’ at all, but merely an English transliteration of a Greek word. Many doctrines taught concerning angels are full of ignorance and deception. The Greek word ‘aggelos’ means ‘a messenger,’ one possessing the power and authority to speak for God. Thus, the “archangel” is the CHIEF-MESSENGER, or the PRINCE OF MESSENGERS. The “voice of the archangel,” then, means the voice or the MESSAGE of one with supreme authority.
That can only be the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus comes in this passage as A MESSAGE to a people who can hear His voice. He offers spiritual strength to come up into this message where His very presence brings light and truth. His encouragement empowers an illumination among His people, a changing of their minds. Darkness is swallowed up in the light of His victory. God is choosing people for greater portions of authority as He is manifested in His sons.
Jesus is this Chief-Messenger, this glorious Prince of Messengers. The preeminent message of messages is the revelation of His victorious life from death. This means life for all of us because of WHAT GOD HAS DONE IN JESUS CHRIST. “The LORD HIMSELF is descending from heaven IN the VOICE OF THE ARCHANGEL.” He is coming as LORD, descending through His people with the VOICE of His truth.
In the book of Daniel, Michael the archangel is expressly identified as a prince:
"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of thy people:" Daniel 12:1
"…there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince." Daniel 10:21
Michael is called '‘your prince”, his name meaning “who is like God?” This personal pronoun “your” should be of interest to all of us. The archangel definitely stands to defend the people of God in matters where none else stand, and his ministry is wondrously on behalf of God’s people. In I Thessalonians 4:16-17 the “voice of the archangel” is represented as the voice that awakens the dead. Significantly, Daniel also draws the same connection:
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of thy people…and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” Daniel 12:1-2
And whose voice is it that quickens men and raises them out of the sleep of death? The life of God comes to awaken us with THE VOICE OF THE SON OF GOD in these realms! Hear Him to live. “Verily, verily I say unto you,” Jesus asserted:
“…the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they that hear shall live.” John 5:25
The voice of the archangel is the voice of the Son of God:
"And I hear a loud voice in heaven saying, “Just now came the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren [every soulish and religious mindset] was cast out, who was accusing them before our God day and night." Revelation 12:10-11 concordant
The fight of this battle goes on even before our God. The voice of the accuser needs be cast out of the privileged seat in our inner being. The archangel’s voice dislodges all other powerful mindsets, any and all concepts that oppose God's revealed truth. God’s Warriors are in a race set for full privilege in the Kingdom, raised to resist all that keeps men in the darkness of death. We are in the battle to be free from the law of sin and death. The law of life in Christ Jesus makes our end to be favorable salvation:
"And they conquer him [the dragon] through the blood of the Lambkin, and through the word of their testimony, and they love not their soul, until death." Revelation 12:11-12 concordant
"The Lord swears and will not be regretting it, ‘Thou art a priest for the eon according to the order of Melchizedek’. By so much also has Jesus become the sponsor of a better covenant. And these indeed are more than one, having become priests because death prevents them from abiding; yet that One, because of His remaining for the eon, has an inviolate priesthood. Whence, also, He is able to save to the uttermost those coming to God through Him, always being alive to be pleading for their sake." Hebrews 7:21-25 concordant
He is determined to plead the case of every man, to save all men to the uttermost who come to God through Him! He is able to save Christians utterly even now:
"Faithful is the saying and worthy of all welcome (for this are we toiling and being reproached), that we rely on the living God, Who is the Saviour of all mankind, especially of believers. These things be charging and teaching." I Timothy 4:9-10 concordant