In addition, every utterance to the body of Christ in this book is the utterance of the seven-fold Spirit of God. It is always the Spirit who is speaking! "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches" (Rev. 2:7). Seven times in chapters two and three we read that it is the Spirit who is speaking to the churches. "Yea, saith the Spirit" (Rev. 14:13). How different from the prophecies of the prophets who through the ages have prophesied, "Yea, my people, thus saith the Lord..." And how different from the writings of the apostles in their epistles to the churches! "This I (Paul) say" (I Cor. 7:6), or "I (Peter) exhort" (I Pet. 5:1). Here in this superlative book of Revelation it never says, "Thus saith the Lord," or "This I say." Rather, it is, "The Spirit saith, the Spirit saith, the Spirit saith!" Seven times - the number of completion and perfection - the admonition sounds forth, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." Why is this repeated seven times? Because of the seven-fold Spirit! He who hears the seven-fold Spirit will be an overcomer! He who overcomes will be a son! He who is a son shall inherit all things! He who inherits all things receives the fullness of the seven Spirits of God! Oh, the wonder of it!

Because the seven-fold Spirit is bestowed upon the overcomers, eventually the entire book is concluded in this way: "And the Spirit and the bride say..." (Rev. 22:17). We read in the beginning of this book that the Spirit is speaking to the churches. But by the end of the book, through the dealings, quickenings, purgings and processings of the Spirit, the soul and spirit of the elect have been brought into union, the masculine nature of the regenerated spirit has wooed and won the affections and obedience of the feminine nature of the soul, and the marriage of the Lamb has come, for His wife has made herself ready. I shall not attempt to develop this thought at this time, for that is not our purpose now, but the Spirit and Bride have BECOME ONE - they speak together! They speak with one voice! The Spirit and the Bride in this passage are a compound subject. The two have been integrated - the two have become one within God's elect. God is making us as overcomers one with the seven Spirits, and the seven Spirits are being fully inworked into the overcomers. This is God's great work! It is experientially taking place within those who follow the Lamb in this great Day! This is the consummation of His eternal purpose within us!

The book of Revelation is a book that is written for kings and priests. It is not intended for the world to understand, neither will it be understood by carnal Christians. To be a king-priest doesn't mean that we will strut around in splendid robes and all who meet us on the street will bow their heads and genuflect, acknowledging that we are great and mighty ones. God is not interested in carnal recognition, neither are those to whom is given the kingly spirit and the priestly nature. At the very outset the book is addressed to a peculiar class of people: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass" (Rev. 1:1). The term "servants" here does not indicate servants as contrasted with sons, but sons who are servants even as was the firstborn among many brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ. There has never been a greater servant than King Jesus! "Behold, my Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men: so shall He sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider" (Isa. 52:13-15). What a servant!

When you read the book of Revelation and the book begins to speak to you, that is a good indication that it is for you! The book cannot and does not speak to the individual it is not intended for. Even then, the understanding of the book does not come all at once. You don't open the book at chapter one, verse one, following on to verse two, three, and so on, trying to figure out the meaning of each verse as you go. If you think the message of the book will instantaneously be revealed in your spirit by that method, each event systematically falling into place, you will be greatly disappointed. It doesn't work that way! As you seek the Lord in the book different parts will speak to you that are for you at that appointed time. The book will be revealed in your experience as you grow and progress into the stature of sonship to God. The wisdom of man is foolishness with God. The wisdom of man would seek an understanding of the book of Revelation verse by verse in the letter of the Word, but the wisdom of God teaches it experience by experience. Don't try to understand it, but pray for obedience, that you might apprehend the ways of the Lord. Seek that your mind and heart (soul) will come into that relationship with God where the Spirit of God in your spirit can reveal. Then the book will commence to speak to you out of your relationship with the Father! Instead of mere head knowledge, the message of the book will begin to apply to your life in the power of kingship and priesthood.

Most of the book is rooted in the symbology of the Old Testament. You will find there the temple, the sacrifices, the worshipers, the ark of the covenant, the candlestick, the city Jerusalem, mount Zion, the prophets, the priesthood, the king and the throne, the archangel, the serpent, trumpets, feasts, and many more. Now by the spirit of wisdom and revelation all these things begin to relate to your experience, your life, and your walk in God. You cross the thresholds of spiritual reality where all that was natural and external to Israel in the Old Testament now becomes spiritual and internal as the revelation of Jesus Christ in the elect. The symbols of the Revelation appear to be highly complicated, and they are to the carnal mind! How crude and presumptuous is the darkened carnal mind that would lift its voice in pretentious wisdom to understand the deep mysteries of God! We must consider such mysteries with reverence and godly fear, remembering above all else that our Father has willed that we be partakers of His mind. I have no hesitation in saying that just as surely and truly as the mind of the Father dwelt in the firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, so also that same mind that dwelt in Him will dwell in all that blessed company now becoming sons of God. The deep mysteries of God and the unfathomable wisdom and knowledge hid in Jesus Christ cannot be discovered by the natural man or the carnal mind, but God reveals them unto us by His Spirit. The secret then is not in studying, burning the midnight oil, pouring over vast volumes searching out information and understanding, but the divine secret that unlocks all the divine depths of divine things is walking in the Spirit and hearing what the Spirit saith. The same Spirit that inspired the book reveals the book, opening the precious storehouse of truths of the Kingdom of Heaven to the sincere and seeking heart.

The visions of the book of Revelation are well-ordered and each of the keys to the book testifies of itself. The idea that the body of Christ is a company of kings and priests, so graphically set forth in chapters four and five, suggests that our ministry is to bring people out of an old world order into a new world. Noah was commissioned by God to bring his family out of an old world into a new world. He passed through the destruction of the flood, stepped out of the ark, and established a new age and a new order in the earth. When we come to the book of Revelation there is so much that looks like judgment, destruction and retribution upon mankind and the earth - the grass, the trees, the rivers, the seas, the mountains and valleys, the cities, nations and peoples - but these are mere figures for the passing away of a realm of life, a sphere of existence and a state of being - old Adam with all the systems, order, society, culture, institutions and ways of the fleshly mind and life. The Spirit is speaking of the coming into being of a new heavens and a new earth within ourselves. God is raising up in the earth today a new people with a new mind, nature and heart, a new spirit, a new temple of God, a new order of priesthood and kingship, a new habitation of God, a new revelation of God, a new city of God, a new government of God, a new order of God within men. Hallelujah!

The book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The word "revelation" means to unveil, uncover or take the cover off. The unveiling of Jesus Christ - that's what is happening in God's elect! That is what is taking place in the earth today! That's what the book of Revelation is all about! As that which has been hidden in Jesus Christ is revealed, uncovered, brought out into the open and exhibited, the glory of Jesus Christ is shining forth from His body in all the earth. Christ is in us! The revelation of Jesus Christ must be within us! Christ in you IS the hope of glory, the apostle wrote. There is no hope for creation in a rapture. There is no hope of glory to be revealed in the earth through dying and going to heaven. There is no hope for a new and bright future for the world in understanding world events. There is no hope for the raising up of Christ in our lives by a Great Tribulation out there upon the nations of earth. Oh, no! Our only hope is Christ in us. Until we grasp the eternal significance and transcendent importance of this wonderful truth, the carnal mind and its silly interpretations of the book of Revelation will lie and cheat and deceive. CHRIST IN US is our hope of glory! And it is the world's only hope! Furthermore, God has now delivered His true elect from the foolish notions of the church systems that God's glory has something to do with some far-off heaven somewhere, streets of gold, walls of jasper, gates of pearl or fluttering around in white nightgowns playing harps! Glory is nothing more nor less than the expression of God's nature through a human vessel. That's what glory is! Christ in us is the hope of God expressing Himself through us to creation.

The book of Revelation gives us the keys that unlock the necessary events within ourselves to bring forth this manifestation of God. Before there can ever be a new heaven and a new earth in all the power of them there will be some mighty dealings of God that will burn up the grass - those surface coverings and masks in our lives; they will destroy the trees - those deeply rooted things that grow out of our earthly nature; they will shake the mountains - those high and exalted kingdoms we have built up from our carnal minds; they will turn the seas to blood until every living thing in them dies - the raging passions, surging emotions, relentless, unsatisfiable desires, and foaming agitations of the Adam nature which we must pass through to get to the other side. When John said that he beheld and there was no more sea, he meant that there was no longer anything within us preventing the pure and full expression of Christ in our earth. The reason there is a new heaven and a new earth is not because there is coming a great cataclysmic destruction in the outer world, but rather, all the walls and barriers that religion has built up in us, that have separated God from the earth, are to be obliterated so that there shall be an expression of God's Spirit through us to creation. Religion has taught people that they have to die to obtain God's fullness, while others have taught that we will fly away to some far-off heaven somewhere to get it while the world suffers the horrors of the ****ed and untold billions of humanity are consigned to eternal torture in the unquenchable fires of hell. We have been told a thousand things that aren't true and have been used, beaten, threatened, controlled, bled of our money, time and peace, brain washed and deceived by the carnality of the harlot system that calls itself the church. Oh, how men have been tossed to and fro upon the violent waves of the sea of the doctrines, laws, methods, schemes, promotions, gimmicks, deceptions, fraud and foolishness of the church systems! Thank God, the day is coming when there will be no more sea! And for many of us, blessed be His name, it has already become a glorious fact that within ourselves there is no more sea!

God has in these days powerfully spoken to His elect that there is an inner working of His Spirit that leads to the full expression and manifestation of His glory. There must be a new heaven because heaven represents the realm that is invisible, the dimension of spirit and the mind of Christ. We can never change our outer world until we change our inner world. There will never be a new earth (visible expression) until there is a new heaven (inner, invisible reality), for one cannot change what he is outwardly until he has been changed in what he is inwardly. And that's where vast multitudes of the Lord's people are missing it. They are trying to obey some set of rules, the traditions of religion, be faithful to the programs and please the church which makes them appear godly, but works no change or transformation of the nature. These things give no life nor do they in any way help us grow up into the power of the life of the Son of God.

Ask a crop farmer what he does, and he'll say, "I'm a grain farmer," or, "I raise cucumbers," or, "I grow grapes." No farmer sums up his work by saying, "I plow up weeds," or, "I get rid of bad bugs." Although farmers do those things, their main focus isn't what they plow up or get rid of; it's what they produce. God is a farmer! He is working to produce a good crop in His people! We sometimes think of God only in terms of what He is against, but that's a mistake. Of course, God is against carnality and various sins and works to rid us of them, but His main focus is PRODUCING A RICH HARVEST OF CHRIST'S NATURE WITHIN US. For all who are in step with God's Spirit, that is their main focus too!

What's the use of being against things if we're not for anything? If a farmer plows under every weed but doesn't plant good seed, and properly care for and nourish them, he won't get a harvest. In fact, if he plows but doesn't plant, he'll soon have more weeds than ever! Once he plows, a good way to prevent more weeds from taking over is to plant good plants. So, too, God has planted within His chosen elect the good seed of the Christ life and the book of Revelation is the symbolical, illustrative, figurative, metaphorical, and allegorical teaching of how God deals both positively and negatively in His garden to bring forth the harvest of Christ within us!

To be continued...



J. PRESTON EBY

For all of his flowery words, J. Preston Eby wrote a paragraph that even this man esteemed by some to be the best of preachers, was completely off base. Here are the two paragraph below:

The book of Revelation reveals the centrality of Jesus Christ upon the throne of the universe and upon His throne within our hearts. It gives us centeredness. It gives us something to build our life around. It gives us our proper orbit in the heavens of God's Spirit. In 400 B.C. the philosophers and scientists thought the earth was flat, and the planets were wandering stars. They had no comprehension of any order of the universe. It was in 340 B.C. that Aristotle first introduced the concept that there was order in the universe and that the earth was the center of the universe. He saw the sun and the stars as lights in the canopy of the heavens that moved around the earth. But for 1600 years they struggled to make sense out of the times and seasons with any predictability.

Then, about 400 years ago, Copernicus discovered that the sun is the center of our solar system. As this knowledge expanded it gave stability and predictability to all the events on earth that are controlled by the order of the heavens.

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Now, we know they thought they knew order after Copernicus came up with the teaching, that the Sun was the center of the Solar System....but they bought into a lie, cleverly crafted on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Earth is the center of the Universe but it is also flat. And, the Sun revolves around the earth along with the moon and the stars, which we know are angels.

I read most of these chapters by J. Preston Elby and came to the conclusion that he was full of flowery words that filled in the Book of Revelation with what the 65 books of the Bible were teaching YET the 66th is left standing and seemed to be ignored as not being able to be understood or a Book of imaginary.

When a person understands Preterist and Futurist teaching and that both were contrived by the Vatican's Jesuits, it is much easier to understand the Book of Revelation. I do not believe that the Apostle John was just putting an ending to his other writings with that final book.

I don't know how to say this except sometimes too many words spoken reduces the subject matter to tiring, hot air that loses the interest of reader/listener.

Just my opinion, I suggest this instead:

Tom Friess, The Origin of Futurism and Preterism 15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dxrt85PZrg


Gerlinda

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