The Spirit to the Churches
Christ is speaking. Listen. Let him who has ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The Lord addresses this message to all churches for all time. It is so important and especially now in our time. John’s words give us answer enough:
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. Revelation 1:3
But the churches have not had ears to hear. The same shortcomings which Christ pointed out in the first century are just as true today. They are so crucial that our Lord came back to visit John at Patmos and open a door in Heaven so He could see what would quickly come to pass and that he, John, could reveal it to the congregations in Christ — for our time!
That should not seem strange, but now I adjure you all you congregations in Christ: Listen and Hear! For the Lion of Judah has conquered, the Lamb of God has opened the seals!
As these are the last words of Christ Jesus which the apostles confirmed as direct divine communication, we ought view them as the Lord’s Living Last Will and Testament! [We have written about this on the previous post entitled Hidden Manna.] So let he and she who has an ear Hear. Christ is speaking now, and it is incumbent upon us as heralds of His return to clarify what He is saying to us now.
Verily, the Church must come out of Babylon, that she not have to see the handwriting on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin! The kingdoms of this world have been weighed in the scales and found wanting, so now their judgement has come upon them.
To amplify this final recorded message to the churches, we listen attentively to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. That is, what is the Lord saying at this moment, and just to be clear who is the Spirit speaking:
When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirits. 2 Corinthians 16-18
The Lord, the Spirit, is not bound by time, as humanity is. He is not bound by space as we are. His words echo across time and space and like oxgoads, dig into our flesh to steer us in the path of righteousness.
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation 1:17-20
There is a past, present, and future orientation in this exhortation. In His Love, the LOGOS is disclosing what is, what has been, and what will come to pass.
But the key to victory for the churches, while summarized later in the scroll, with some additional features, is most clearly layed out in exquisite detail in chapters two and three.
The Menorah pictured above reminds us of the unity of the Church, because while there may be seven lights, it is one. And in Revelation, there are 7 lampstands, but together they comprise one church — it is the church of the firstborn (Hebrews 12:23). It is the reality that shall not be shaken.
But the schismatic reality of a church that has now 34,000 denominations worldwide, of which the apostle Paul said “let there be no divisions among you, can still be pictured in its totality by the seven lampstands, seven being the number of spiritual completion.
Jesus directed His message to those churches in Asia Minor, where the message would go out under the leadership of John and Polycarp (the angel of the church at Smyrna later martyred), where the scroll of Revelation would be nurtured and protected and dispatched to all the world! The Lord knew well His strategy as He always does.
He would not write to Rome and acknowledge the future seedbed of Egyptian magic and Babylonian teachings of demons. And He would not write to Jerusalem, Sodom’s sister, especially in view of the fact that He had just taken the mission away from the natural olive tree and was vouchsafing it to the newly grafted branch of the olive.
So Christ Jesus used the seven congregations in present-day Turkey, all within a close proximity to each other, to elucidate the most serious sins of the church, and the penalty for remaining in those sins. He also pronounced the promised blessings for those who repent and conquer those sins.
In this writing, we will not cover the full revelation of all of those warnings and all of those rewards. Rather, it is time to Listen to the Spirit, for many admonitions and many promises are given, all pertaining to -an everlasting (aeonial) life in Christ.
Hear what the Spirit says to the churches!
For CHRIST IS SPEAKING – NOW – not simply to John at Patmos for the churches in Asia Minor around 90 AD.
You have left your first love – you will have tribulation, be faithful unto death – you hold to false prophecy eating defiled foods (teachings) and committing acts of immorality (adultery with other gods like Mammon) – you tolerate the false prophets like Jezebel, committing adultery with the gods of this world and consider as prophecy things which are the deep things of Satan – disobedience (Sardis), not keeping the things you were told by Christ (Sardis) – and being lukewarm, materialistic and comfortable / Woe to those who are at ease in Zion! / that is wretchedly poor and blind and naked. This last means lacking in any knowledge of God, obedience to God, unable to see His saving Grace in Christ right before their very eyes.
ALL OF THIS is lamentably true of the Christian churches today. Only those depicted in Philadelphia in the context of the Key of David, those who have a heart like David, and a destiny to rule with Christ as His anointed kings, simply need to hold onto their crown. These two are among the churches as a remnant.
But the people are, with notable exceptions, like the rabble, like the beasts with which Moses dealt, like Korah, rebellious and disobedient. And they are like the wild neighbors of Noah who partied on as destruction approached.
The churches party on likes it’s 1955. Though the Lord’s four sore judgements are upon us, the church slumbers on and like Sardis, must wake up, or the Lord will be upon them like a thief in the night.
Christ is speaking to the churches today, “Repent, for I am near at the door. Awake, for you slumber as lawlessness rises to a fever pitch.”
These are the clear and unequivocal signs of His Presence today. The churches are as the temple was at the time of the Lord’s first coming. People are not obedient to God, but are claiming salvation in Christ.
Do we dare treat His saving and cleansing blood as unclean? (Hebrew 10:2-31)
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-31, ESV)
You trample on the precious blood of Jesus when you regard His sacrifice as some kind of license to commit sin without consequences. Such licentiousness was anathema to the apostles and writers of the new testament scrolls.
Again, for what reason do you think, oh followers of Christ, that He returns to judge the living and the dead?
Indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints . . . (2 Thessalonians 6-10)
Yes, we shall all face the judgement seat of Christ to receive just recompense for all we did and did not do.
So the words of Jesus and John the baptist echo through the millennia – the first words they each uttered: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near.”
There is a war raging inside of each person, and Michael and his angels are warring against the Devil and his demons. We shall either be conformed to the image of Christ, obedient as He was unto death, as meek as Moses, submitting entirely to the will of God, and overcoming the image of the Beast within, the old man, the fleshly minded part of ourselves, or we shall never stand upon the glassy sea.
And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Revelation 15:2-3
Only those redeemed from the earth — signified as the 144,000 — can sign the song. (Revelation 14:3)
Redeemed from the Law of Sin and Death, redeemed from the flesh, from self-glorification, but signing ALL glory to the Living God.
Chris is indeed speaking at this moment. He has gone to a distant place to receive a kingdom. He has gone to prepare a place for His Elect. He has asked us to be ready, to expand the talents of His fathomless Treasury of knowledge and wisdom of God, He has said we must fill our lamps with oil. He has told us to remain awake for he will not tarry.
And now He has said, “Blow a horn in Zion.” The words of Joel are reprised, for war is at the gates. The fallen thoughts, fallen nations, fallen messengers or stars, are all battling against the Holy Seed, which is His offspring. We cannot be at ease in Zion, the inner spiritual reality of the Kingdom of God, the Holy City and the Temple of God, because there is “war in the gates,” (Judges 6).
The Christ of Christ (Obadiah 21, Revelation 14), the anointed of the Lord are being prepared as this is being written. These are shown in the cipher of 144,000. There is no Jew, nor Greek in this body, the 12 tribes are all there, but quite apart from physical genealogy, they are spiritually present from every tribe and tongue and people.
Jews are those circumcised of heart, and only those who are Jews inwardly. The House of David are these kings who will lead with the heart of David, a heart for the Lord.
Those who love God will receive the blessings He has set aside for those who Love Him. The ones who “love His coming,” know that the beginnings of Justice and Righteousness can only come with His mighty appearance when all wars are brought to a finish (Psalm 46) and the kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of Our Lord (Jesus) and His Christ (the anointed of the anointed One).
But obedience must come first or there is nothing but fiery judgement to face. As Luke wrote in Acts 5 portraying Peter’s testimony to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit comes to those who are obedient to God. This cut them to the quick because they knew Peter spoke the truth, they were not obedient to God, and Christ had accused them of the same thing. Paul seconds that emotion by stating that all your disobedience will be punished (2 Corinthians 10). See The Obedience of Faith for more teaching on what obedience to the Gospel really means.
If Christ came today He would say the same thing. The silence of the churches to the creeping in (cp. 2 Peter) of false teachers bringing in the unclean foods of the table of demons, and utter silence of pastors to the rampant sexual immorality of those who lust after flesh, as do some of the cherished church leaders or their very idols in the political realm. These are the pastors who feed themselves without fear, who are at ease in Zion. And the table they set is full of unclean food, and that which is undigestible as Isaiah 28 so graphically portrays. See our paper on Why do you spend money for what is not bread?
How can the body of Christ reach a unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:13) when many of its leaders are sons of disobedience? Looking at the litany of charges above, it is clear that Jerusalem and the Temple of God (within) has been invaded by Babylon and the stones are laying around scattered and burnt.
This is why there will be a shout of Hurrah, when Zerubbabel takes the plumbline in his hand — let him who hath ears what the Spirit said to Zechariah.
The Temple needs to be rebuilt and the Living Stones must come to Christ (1 Peter 2). And our collective body in Him must eschew the things enumerated in Revelation 2 and 3. For on the other side of that victory, conquering the Beast and its image, conquering the world by Faith, and enduring to the finish, resides that new Life and new Being.
And all of the rewards — which God gives to those who love Him (1 Corinthians 12:9), aka keep the commandments of God (1 John 2:3-5) — all of them are dimensions of aeonial or eternal Life in Christ. In this section of Revelation they include: eating from the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God (Christ as the food of Heaven), not being hurt by the second death aka Living through the burning spiritual fire, eating the hidden manna (words of Spirit and Life from Christ Himself, receiving the morning star (Christ Himself), The Lord confessing their name before the Father, being kept from the hour of trial coming upon the whole world, being made a pillar in the temple of God inscribed with the name of the Father and the Son and the Heavenly City Jerusalem, sitting down and dining with them and having them sit down on His throne with Him. This epitome clearly refers to various ways of understanding that eternal Life in Christ and the many facets of its expression. It is all a Revelation of Jesus Christ and the glories of Life in Him!
All of these glories await the followers of Christ, the glories which the prophets and patriarchs and kings wrote about (1 Peter 1:10-12) and int0 which angels have longed to look!
But all this requires that each one who would inherit these glories must be prepared to suffer alongside the Lord, and must be willing to come out of Babylon, and to be obedient to the gospel, to abide in Christ and to live by His Commandment to love one another.
So now is the time! He has issued the decree to blow a horn in Zion! It is time to repent and to make sure your lamps are filled with oil. For it will be too late once He has come. Now is the appropriate time to cease living with the daughter of Babylon within you. Hear the words of Zechariah;
Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye: “Behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. Zechariah 2:7-10
In the coming days, we will have fresh oil for your lamps that you may see and be ready to go into the wedding feast. We shall as well delve into the mysteries of Christ, as well as Mystery Babylon and what means it to “Come on out of her, my people.” This will be critical in this time period when participation in her sins will mean partaking of her plagues. For the judgements of YHWH are in the earth, and now will be amplified so the peoples may learn righteousness. Go then and dwell in Zion, the city that cannot be shaken, that is the reality of the people in the Kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:27)
Christ is speaking! Hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Amen.