Revelation Revolution
by Dr. Kay Fairchild
Chapter 1 Part 3
Pages 43-62
Jesus—The Promised Land
We are coming into the Promised Land. Actually, we are
already in the Promised Land, we’re just waking up to the fact that
we’re already there. What is the Promised Land? Jesus is our
Promised Land man. The Promised Land is expressing and manifesting
him. I know we are not fully expressing and manifesting the
full measure of the stature of Christ yet, but we are already in that
place. We are not trying to get into the Holy of Holies. We were
seated there over 2000 years ago. We are not trying to get into the
Promised Land. We are already there. What we are to do is wake up
to how we got there so we can have the expression of that.
When a person is born again, they are placed at the finish line.
Now we need to look behind, look back to the cross, as we saw
John do in the book of Revelation, and see how we got to the finish
line. Looking at the sacrifice and our identification with it, is going
to gradually remove, as it were, the layers of an onion that have
hidden, that have veiled the Christ, and he will be uncovered.
In 1998, so many people were very excited because in natural
Israel it was the historical Feast of Tabernacles. It was the one hundred-
twentieth Jubilee since Adam. They celebrated the fiftieth
anniversary of natural Israel’s birth as a nation. “Jubilee!” The
Church was excited because they were taught that when the orthodox
Jews began to re-institute those sacrifices, it meant that a literal
rapture was going to happen before their sacrifices started and
before the temple was built. They still believe that. Some even
believe that Christianity will go back to offering the blood of bulls
and goats. How absurd! Some Christians are excited because to
them it is “a sign of the last days” and that before these things
happen, a literal rapture will take place. If one’s theology is based
on a literal rapture when they re-institute these sacrifices, they are
sadly mistaken.
If your theology is based upon the blood of bulls and goats, you
crucify to yourself the son of God afresh, and put him to an open
shame. Jesus was the sacrifice once and for all. If you believe that
there is a temple over there in the Middle East that is going to be
built, the Holy Spirit is saying, “What? Know ye not that you are
the temple of the Holy Ghost?” It is a spiritual thing. It is a spiritual
happening. The book of Revelation is a symbolic book. It is the
unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yes, this is the time of
Jubilee. Israel is not our time clock, but we can see things happening
in natural Israel that are pictures pointing to the fact that those
same things should be happening in us spiritually. And it is happening
in us spiritually. We are living in the most exciting day mankind
has ever lived in—the most strategic time—and the hardest thing
we’ll ever learn to do is nothing! The only labor we must do is
renew our minds to the finished work, which brings us into rest.
Isaiah 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon
me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord,”
That is the first message that Jesus preached. The acceptable
year of the Lord is Jubilee and it is right now. We see the Old
Testament pictures which were literal pictures, literal structures.
There was a real Noah and a real Ark. There was a real Adam, but
all of those pictures typify something spiritual. They typify the
person and the work of Christ and what was accomplished at
Calvary over 2,000 years ago. So the book of Revelation is the revelation
of Jesus Christ, written to bondservants—those who have
their ear nailed to the door. They are the ones who are going to
“hear the words of this prophecy.” If your ear is not nailed to the
door, you will interpret it literally. If you are a bondservant, you
really want to get intense with the Lord, to have intimacy with him.
Then your ear will be nailed to the door and you will understand
this book. It was written in sign and symbol. He signified it. It is a
symbolic book, and I promise you, as we come to understand this, it
will bring us into an experiential unveiling of the nature of Jesus
Christ. The Christ in you won’t just be hoping to someday manifest
and expressing his glory, but he will be constantly manifested and
expressed (Colossians 1:27). The revelation, the Spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of him will walk itself out.
Jesus Christ is not unveiled by works. I do not preach about
tithing in my Church, but the people tithe. I do not minister a sin
conscious message, but I believe for the most part, they live above
sin. We minister Christ crucified—and to us who are being saved, it
is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-
25). The person and the work of Christ is the only thing that is
going to satisfy. It is the only thing that is going to cause maturity.
Like the little lily, we just draw out of that soil. We do not toil or
spin in the energy of the flesh, we draw out of the soil that we were
planted in, and we were planted in his death.
The eagles are gathered around the carcass. There was honey in
the dead carcass of the Lion. The honey represents Promised Land
provision, the wisdom of God, the power of God—the preaching of
the cross. If you can answer the riddle within seven days of the
feast, you’re going to get thirty (maturity) changes of garments. It
will bring you into maturity. Sons of Issachar, do you know what
time it is?
The Book Within
As we unveil the truths of the book of Revelation and unseal the
book, there is another book that is simultaneously being unsealed
and that is the book of life within. When we read in Revelation 5:1
about the book that is sealed, it is not only talking about the book of
Revelation, although, to a certain measure it has been sealed and we
have not had the correct understanding of it. But the book that
needs to be unsealed is the book within. That is the book that has
been sealed on the backside with seven seals. It is the book that is
unsealed by coming to understand the white horse, the righteous
earth walk of Jesus, the red horse, his becoming sin, the black
horse, his spiritual death, the pale horse, his going into hell.
The Feasts Of The Lord
There is a literary structure in the word of God. In Revelation
chapters 2 through 5 we find Passover. In the beginning of chapter
6, there are the first four seals with four horses, all depicting
Passover. Then comes the fifth seal, which are the souls under the
altar. Then with the sixth seal there was an earthquake and that
speaks of Jesus’ resurrection. So, we can see Passover depicted in
Revelation chapter 2 through the first part of chapter 6 and that is
all we will deal with in this volume.
Then we see Pentecost in Revelation chapters 6 and 7 and we
will look at seals six and seven in upcoming volumes. We know that
the baptism of the Holy Spirit is our seal until the day of redemption.
We see in these two chapters the sealing of the saints.
In Revelation chapter 8, we see Tabernacles. We see a people
come to maturity and fullness. We begin to experience Tabernacles
in chapter 8 where there are seven trumpets. Included in the Feast
of Tabernacles are the feasts of Trumpets and Atonement. In
Revelation chapter 16, we see the Feast of Atonement as the seven
vials of wrath (blood) poured out. Do you think those seven vials or
bowls of blood that are poured out are literal? What good would
that do? It is symbolic. The word “vial” in Revelation 16 is
rendered “bowls” in the Old Testament and we find it in Exodus
chapter 25:29 concerning the table of shewbread. These were
“bowls to cover withal” or “bowls to pour out.” And what did Jesus
do but pour out his life’s blood at the cross of Calvary? God’s wrath
was fully poured out at the cross and Jesus Christ our Lord fully
bore that wrath for us and as us when he poured out his precious
blood, removing all sin.
These bowls or vials on the table of shewbread were filled with
wine, which is symbolic of blood. Remember, the number “seven”
represents fullness. So we see that the seven vials of wrath are
seven vials of blood which fully redeemed us. The seven vials of
blood are being poured out upon our minds as we come to understand
atonement, the fullness of the blood, and what took place
physically in the shedding of his blood. There was outward bleeding
that Jesus experienced. When he was bruised, he experienced
inward bleeding. He was bruised for our iniquities, the inward
bleeding. And we want to see the fullness of the Day of Atonement.
So, we have the Feast of Atonement in Revelation chapter 16.
In Revelation chapters 21 and 22, God says he’s going to tabernacle
with people. That’s where we see maturity. That is where we
see Christ fully manifested within his body. That is what the book of
Revelation is about. It is not about bugs as big as Volkswagen’s. It is
not about a seven year tribulation. It is not about a literal dragon. It is
not about a literal temple. It is not about any of those things that have
been interpreted literally. As I wrote earlier, the law of hermeneutics
says we must stay consistent with interpretation, meaning if we spir-
itualize one thing in the book of Revelation, we must spiritualize it
all. I could go to any Church in America and teach that the Lamb
represents the Lamb that went to the cross. But then they want to
literalize everything else. That is inconsistent with the law of interpretation.
It is not taking away from the prophetic nature of the book
when we teach that “In the volume of the book, it is written of me”
in Revelation. When it is written about the Revelation of Jesus
Christ, the prophetic nature of the book is not taken away as some
scholars say, because the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.
The word “testimony” means martyrdom of Jesus. So, the spirit of
prophecy is going to testify to the death of Christ.
The Revelation Of Jesus Christ
Look at Revelation 1:1-4 again:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to shew his servants things which must
shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by
his angel unto his servant John, who bare record of
the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus
Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he
that readeth, and they that hear the words of this
prophecy, and keep those things which are written
therein: for the time is at hand. John to the seven
churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and
peace, from him which is, and which was, and which
is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are
before his throne;
In Revelation 1:1, we have the key which is the revelation of what?
Not Newsweek Magazine, not CNN, not anything that we see as
current events. Our intent is to establish truth, not to belittle anyone.
I know the current events teachers have their reasons for teaching it
the way they do. But this book is written to servants—bondservants,
that have their ear nailed to the door. If your ear is nailed
to the door, you’re going to see the symbolism. If your ear is not
nailed to the door, you’re going to interpret it like many in the
Church do today and you’re going to see it as literal vials and literal
trumpets and literal horses and everything is going to be literal to
you. But I’m not concerned with what the present day multitudes
are interpreting, because it is the multitudes that are in the valley of
decision. I’m concerned with what the remnant is hearing from the
throne in this, the Lords Day. God has always had a remnant—a
firstfruit company—and he says I will not do anything unless I firs
reveal it to my servants, the prophets. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church!
But we see the key in verse 1. It says it is the revelation of Jesus
Christ. It is an unveiling of him. Notice, as I stated earlier, it says
“the revelation,” not “revelations,” but “the revelation,” singular, as
in Revelation 10 where it talks about the little book. It is a little
book because it is just one revelation—the revelation of Jesus
Christ. Something opened up to me when I thought about the cup.
Jesus drank the bitter cup. If I take a drink of water, it does not
affect the outside of me primarily. It does eventually, because it
hydrates me. But it goes on the inside. So, Jesus drank the bitter
cup. He took sin and bitterness into him. That’s what it means to
roast the lamb rather than soddening it down with water. He took
that cup. He became sin.
We found out that the word “revelation” is apokalupsis and it
means to unveil or to uncover something that has been hidden. And
Christ has been hidden. He has been in us, but he has been hidden
for the most part—Christ in you, the hope of glory. But we do not
want to just stay there in that realm of Christ in you, the hope of
glory. That is the Holy Place realm. It is even in a measure the
Outer Court realm because people have Jesus when they are born
again. But when you receive the baptism of the Spirit, you come
into the Christ realm, so it is Christ in you. But we want to see
Christ on us. We want to see Christ in us and on us. How does he
come on us? Well, he is in us and he comes on us as he comes from
our spirit to our soul. Then, as the glory fills the temple, he is going
to be seen to the extent that the mortal will put on immortality.
Mortality is swallowed up by life (2 Corinthians 5:4).
So the key to unveiling the book of Revelation is to take away
the veil, and that is what the book of Revelation is going to do. As
we gain the understanding, it will do that. It will take away more of
the veil that has been over our minds that was done away with at the
cross of Calvary. We are waking up to the truth that the veil was
rent from the top to the bottom and we are seeing that his hanging
was our hanging. If Judas would have waited just three more hours,
he could have allowed Jesus’ hanging to be his hanging. Your
selfcrucifixion will not produce the righteousness of God. Only one
man’s crucifixion produced that—and you are in him.
When they set up the hanging in Exodus 40, and Moses finished
the work, it says the glory came and filled the temple. Then in the
New Testament, the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. As the
veil is rent from the top—from our minds—it will eventually be
removed from our members (Romans 6 and 7) and will become a
walk as the veil continues to be rent to the very bottom. As we
renew our minds to our new creation identity, we become a walking
revelation of that new creation—from the top to the bottom the veil
is rent. And this will happen both individually and corporately. Can
you see the power of the body of Christ all over the world who
knows their identity? His Kingdom will know no end, and its glory
will know no bounds! We are not “mankind,” we are the body of
Christ in earth as it is in heaven!
The book of Revelation is not a historical book about some
historical man that walked the shores of Galilee per se, but it is
about an historical man that accomplished something at the cross. It
is not just about his miracles and how he was a good teacher and
that sort of a thing. It isn’t what he did in that sense so much as it is
about what he accomplished when he went to the cross, when he
was crucified, died, buried, quickened, raised, and seated.
There is an argument among the body of Christ saying we are
taking away from the prophetic nature of the book of Revelation. If
we get Revelation 19:10 established in our mind, we won’t have
any doubt about how this is taught. When we have it established in
our mind that it is a symbolic book and that the spirit of prophecy is
the testimony of Jesus, we will not have any problem in understanding
this book. Let’s look at Revelation 19:9-10 again:
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they who
are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of
God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he
said unto me, See thou do it not! I am thy fellow
servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony
of Jesus. Worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy.
We see in verse 9 that we are eating from a table with Lamb. It
is causing an experiential marriage. We are already in union, we
are already one, but the marriage is being consummated as spirit
and soul become one by eating Lamb. What does it mean to eat
Lamb? We are taking Jesus into our mind, saturating our belief and
understanding with him, which produces the action, the being of
him in our lives. We are giving him a body to live and move and
have his being in. Another way of saying it is, we have walked up
to the hanging and we see that his hanging was our hanging.
Another way of saying it is, we are filling our mind with the truth
until the veil over our minds is taken away that was already done
away at the cross.
In verse 10 we read about brethren that have the testimony of
Jesus. In other words, they understand the death of Christ.
“Testimony” is the Greek word “martyrdom.” Then we read,
“Worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy.” So the spirit of prophecy is always going to testify
concerning the martyrdom of Jesus. If we are teaching this book
of prophecy and if we want to say that it is a book of prophecy,
then we need to understand that the book of prophecy testifies to
the martyrdom of Jesus.
It was written to bondservants, people who have their ear nailed
to the door. In the book of Revelation, you can see eight times that
he says, “He that hath an ear.” Now we all have ears, but not all in
the body of Christ have their ears nailed to the door. Why? Because
the cloud moved on but the Church has not moved with it. Solomon
told the Shulamite to find a Shepherd who dwells in a tent and feed
there. A tent speaks of being on the move. But the Church decided
to build a permanent structure called Pentecost and they’ve said
“This is it! We’ve got it made! We’ll just hang out here with the
gifts and the blessings and wait for a literal rapture because it can’t
get any better than this!” But the Lord has moved on to the Feast of
Tabernacles and those who are feasting with him today are those
who live in tents—and God is not ashamed to be called their God
(Hebrews 11:9, 16)! So, he that hath an ear that is nailed to the door
will hear what the Spirit is presently saying unto the Church. I
shared with you how John, who wrote this book, was the one who
laid his head on the bosom of Jesus. His ear was nailed to the door.
Jesus said in John 10:9, “I am the door.”
We also talked about the phrase in Revelation 1:1 that says,
“Which must shortly come to pass.” If it was shortly to come to
pass then, it is at hand right now. When you look at the end of
Revelation 1:3 it says, “For the time is at hand.” The Greek says,
“The time is in your hand.” The word “hand” there is the word
“throttle,” “to squeeze,” “a time and a place.” It means the throttle is
in our hand. We’ve heard the cliché, “put the pedal to the metal.”
The throttle is in our hand and as fast as we can fill our mind with
the pictures of the finished work of Calvary and what they represent,
to that degree are we going to hasten the coming of the day of
the Lord experientially in the corporate Son (the body of Christ).
And that will only happen as it happens in the lives of each individual
in his many-membered body.
Then it says in Revelation 1:1, “He sent and signified it.” We
established that the word “signified” is “sign-if-ied” which simply
means that this book is written in sign and symbol. I took you also
to John 2 when we talked about hermeneutics and I shared with
you the way Jesus taught. I’m teaching this the way Jesus would
teach it. In fact, I’m believing it is him teaching it! We are at the
end of the sixth day and the beginning of the seventh day, a time
for people to enter into rest! “Seven” means rest, Sabbath day,
Jubilee—and this is the time! This is The Day that the Lord has
made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it! We are at the end of the
second day from Jesus, and the beginning of the third day—it is
time for a resurrection! As Hosea wrote, “We were smitten, we
were torn, we were bound up, we were healed. After two days he
will revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live
in his sight!” The second day is over. It is not a time to revive
something that died and then have it die again and revive it again.
But it says we will live in the third day in his sight. It literally says
“we will live as his presence!”
Jesus, The Firstfruit
We saw in saw in Genesis 1:1 a picture of the person and the
work of Christ where it says, “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.” The word “beginning” is the Hebrew word
“firstfruit.” We read that our earth was without form and darkness
covered the face of the earth and the Spirit hovered or fluttered, one
translation says, over the face of the waters and God said, “Let there
be light” and there was light. We know Jesus, the firstfruit, was
slain from the foundation, but to really have it experienced in our
life, we have to understand that it was made apparent and happened
physically and spiritually at the cross of Calvary over 2000 years
ago. We were generated, because we were in God from before the
foundation. We were de-generated, and then we were re-generated.
We were created, we were de-created, and we were re-created.
Regeneration and recreation came about as a result of the finished
work of Calvary.
In Genesis 1:12, we read that on the third day God brought forth
the herb bearing seed which speaks of bread, and the fruit bearing
tree which speaks of wine—the bread and the wine. In Genesis 4:4,
Abel brought the firstling of his flock, which is the firstfruit. That
typifies Jesus, the firstfruit. Cain brought of the work of the ground,
the energy of the flesh—that speaks of religion. At least ninety
percent of born-again, spirit-filled Christians today believe that to
mature, you have to do certain things. That is going to change,
thank God, but most think that it is in doing rather than in viewing.
We looked at a number of scriptures and saw that Cain just
brought forth something of his own works. You can make Adam
learn the Bible from cover to cover and God still won’t receive his
sacrifice. Many are thinking that God is going to save Adam,
modify Adam, and reform Adam. God is not the least bit interested
in that. Just like when he told Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac.
Abraham had another son, Ishmael. God did not recognize that son,
but because he is the God of all flesh, he blessed Ishmael and he
had twelve sons! But the covenant is not with a “good idea,” that we
conceived in the flesh, it is with a God-initiated, God-breathed,
God-inspired promised seed!
The Great Mathematician
We found out so far that the book of Revelation is about a
Jubilee and we know that in Isaiah 61, Jesus declared that he was
the acceptable year of the Lord. He was the Jubilee. We talked
about the nation of Israel experiencing a chronological Jubilee, the
one-hundred-twentieth Jubilee since Adam. We will discuss this
further in a moment, but first, a word about number in scripture.
Lucas and Washburn write:
Now in order to confirm the Greek number code
as we have given it, a person needs to look no further
than Webster’s dictionary. The complete number
code is found in the section entitled “Special Signs
and Symbols,” which lists all of the Greek letters
with their appropriate values. The Hebrew number
code, following a similar concept, has been in use
since the time before Christ. In fact, if you were to
look in a present-day Hebrew Bible, you would find
the chapter and verse numbers given with the letters
of the Hebrew alphabet.
… Following each letter of the alphabets there is
a number. This number is the equivalent number, or
theomatic, value of that particular letter. … Now this
is not only true of the individual letters, but it is also
applicable to each and every single word in the
Bible. … Not only do words have number values,
but also complete thoughts and sentences as well.
If you look in the Strong’s concordance for the words
“hundred” and “twenty,” there are a lot of 120’s there that are very
symbolic with what God is doing right now in feeding bread and
wine. It has been over fifty years since Israel became a nation (the
fiftieth year represents Jubilee). Natural Israel, the place in the
Middle East, is not the time clock of God. We will explore this
subject in depth later, but for now understand that when the Jews of
Jesus’ day rejected him, they gave up their position of being God’s
own peculiar people. Now whosoever will can be God’s own pecu-
liar people through Jesus Christ our Lord. If God has a time clock in
that sense, the time is in our hand.
At the beginning of every year Christians say, “What can we tell
the people to look forward to? What can we tell people that God is
going to do in 2002?” If we’re hearing what God is saying he will
tell them “It’s not what you have to look forward to, it is what you
have to look behind to.” It is not what he is going to do; he has
already done the work! It’s what we’re going to do. We’ve got to
see that it is a “done deal.” It is a finished work.
It’s not about red heifers to be sacrificed in the Middle East
during the time of Tabernacles. If our theology takes us back to the
blood of bulls and goats and to a literal temple, I with the Holy
Spirit say, “What? Know you not that you are the temple of the
Holy Ghost?” We read in Hebrews 10:1-7 that God does not take
pleasure in the offering of the blood of bulls and goats but he says
in verse 7, “In the volume of the book it is written of me,” meaning:
this is an autobiography of Jesus and we go to the word to see him.
And if we go there to see him, he is going to show us the bread and
the wine—especially because of the time we’re living in—God is
raising up a Melchisedec priesthood. Then in Psalm 139:16 we
read, “In thy book are all my members written.” That simply tells us
how we are connected with the finished work of Calvary. We are all
members of Christ’s’ one body.
I Am That I Am
In Revelation 1:4 we saw him who is, and who was, and who is
to come. It is a book about “he is.” He is in the midst of his people.
When we see him as he is, not in some physical heaven, but in us,
we will be like him. It is a book about what happened in the past
and the finished work—“he was.” It is also a book about the
future—“is to come.” And we can bring the past and the future into
the “is” realm by understanding the finished work of Calvary. “Is”
speaks of the present Christ who lives within us, the resurrected
Christ—the I Am. “Was” speaks of the finished work. “Is to come”
speaks of the fact that as we change what is in our minds (and
remember, the throttle is in our hand), as we renew our minds to the
pictures and what they represent, then we come to the “is to come.”
Most people teach he is and he was and he is to come as him splitting
a sky and coming back on a cloud. But we know that the clouds
represent people. So the “is” is the resurrected Christ that lives
within us, the “was” is the finished work, the “is to come” is the
resurrected Christ within us intensifying—the salvation of God
coming from spirit to soul and manifesting in a walk of uncompromising
righteousness.
Jesus was crucified between two thieves. There are two things
that can rob us from the “I am-ness” of Jesus Christ—having a
mindset that is penned in the past, and having a mindset that is fixed
on the future. We must realize that the past is crucified, dead, and
buried, as far as who we were in Adam, and we are not going to dig
it back up again. And then we must repent of our future fixations.
The thief who repented was promised that he would be in paradise
with Jesus—and three days later it was so. We must fix our focus
on the Lord Jesus Christ and embrace our “Now God,” drawing our
thoughts out of the Most Holy Place, which releases the “Now
faith” that Hebrews 11 speaks of. “Now faith” places us in heaven
today with Jesus Christ our Lord. The Spirit is saying, “I am that I
am—the now God, the Christ in you today.” Jesus brought the past
together with the future and he said, “I Am.” Yes Jesus was—the
word declares that he was slain before the foundations of the world.
And yes Jesus is to come, but only as we realize that Christ is in us
today, will we see him as he is, and only when we see him as he is,
will we be like him. God is not confined to past or future time as we
once were when we were in Adam—he is eternal—he is outside of
the box of time that we have tried to put him in, and yet he fills time
and eternity—he fills all in all. We will never understand God or his
ways with a carnal mind. We must have the mind of Christ to understand
spiritual things.
Our coming into the fulfillment of the manifestation of the
resurrected Christ expressing himself, is exactly what Jesus was
talking about when the Jews came to him and showed him Herod’s
temple and the beauty of it. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in
three days I will raise it up … but he spake of the temple of his
body.” Jesus was referring to his body that was crucified, dead, and
buried—and he was also referring to us. In this third day, we are
beginning to understand Hosea 6:1-3—We were torn, we were
healed, we were smitten, we were bound up. In the second day he
revived us, but in this third day he is raising us up and we shall live
in his sight—we are living in his presence. Then shall we know, if
we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the
morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and
former rain unto the earth. Now—right now—in this third day, we
are seeing that when he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days
I will raise it up … but he spake of the temple of his body,” he was
also talking about us!
Testimony—Can I Get A Witness?
In Revelation 1:2 we read:
Who bare record of the word of God, and of the
testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he
saw.
John got this message of the “testimony,” which is #3144 in the
Strong’s Concordance, and it means “martyrdom” or a “martyr.”
Jesus was martyred. So were we. So, John came to bear record of
the word of God, and of the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. Where was
he when he bore record of the martyrdom of Jesus Christ? He was
on the isle of Patmos which means “my killing” or “my death.”
In Revelation 11:19, John finds that the testimony of Jesus is in
the temple of God. In other words, this testimony or martyrdom is
him coming to testify about the death of Jesus. What John is realizing
is that this testimony is going to bring him into an understanding
of “Patmos,” which means “the place of my killing.” There, he
will come to understand that his killing is not in the future, but in
the past; and he is going to have to look behind him to see that.
Blessed To Be A Blessing
In Revelation 1:3 we saw, “Blessed is he that readeth.” One
version states, “Happy is he that reads and understands and keeps
the words of this book.” How can you be happy if you think you’re
going to go through a seven year tribulation and fire and brimstone is
going to come on you and a beast is going to come forth. How is that
going to make you happy? I guess some would have their way of
explaining it by saying, “It makes us happy because we know that
when that comes, the Lord is going to come and we’re going to be
raptured literally.” But the word “blessed” will take you back to Acts
3:26 where it is written that the Lord Jesus blessed us in turning us
away from our iniquities. When did he turn us away from Adam—
our iniquities, our own desire in the natural? When we were crucified
over 2000 years ago. The word blessed comes from the Greek
word eulogeo, where we get the English word “eulogy.” So there
were some good and healthy words that were spoken over us at our
death over 2000 years ago at the cross of Calvary. Hallelujah! What
an exciting day we live in! Yes, I’m enraptured in his presence, but
my feet remain on holy ground! I’m discovering the depths of inner
space and that speaks peace to the storm of outer space.
If we read, if we understand, and if we keep the words of this
book as it says in verse 3 … maybe you’re thinking, “I wish it
didn’t say “keep” the words of this book. How can I keep the words
of this book?” The words of this book are kept simply by realizing
there’s been a death and it’s done and it’s over with. We’ve taught
so much “processing” in the midst of the Church. The processing is
the process of filling my mind with the truth. But we’ve taught it as
a processing of “all this suffering” and “all this stuff that I’ve got to
go through and then I’ll be tried as gold.” I know God uses those
things, and we are tried as gold in the fire, but we need to come to
understand that it is not a processing as we’ve thought in the past. It
is rather a provision. If it’s a finished work, it is a provision—even
more than a provision—it is our possession! It is just a matter of us
waking up to that, rather than thinking, “I’ve got to go through all
of this and all of that,” and the like. The incorrect teaching we have
received is what has held back the day of the Lord within our lives
experientially.
Holy Halitosis
What is it that has held us back from expressing the Lord? The
man of sin, the first Adam. The religious system has taught from 2
Thessalonians, that the thing that has held back the coming of the
Lord (and they teach it as a physical coming only), has been the
Holy Spirit. They say the reason for this holding back is to give
more people a chance to accept their salvation before the literal,
physical rapture. But what is 2 Thessalonians really talking about?
The man of sin is the first Adam—who we were before we received
our salvation in Christ the Lord. The antichrist is not just someone
who is against Christ, but it is all the false images we’ve had about
Christ. 1 John chapter 4 speaks of the spirit of the antichrist and he
says there are many false prophets. The antichrist has a religious
system that teaches with “all power and signs and lying wonders,
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians
2:9-10). That has kept Jesus from being manifested out of our lives.
When we understand that the man of sin was dealt with at the
cross and that only the residue of the man of sin remains in our
mind, then we realize that there was a death which was our death.
We no longer believe that we are a “rehabilitated” Adam. We now
understand that the first Adam was done away with at the cross and
the Last Adam, the life giving spirit, arose—and we are in him!
We’re not a converted Adam, we are new creations! When we fill
our mind with the gospel of truth, we take away the veil that was
done away with at the cross, and he that shall come, will come. And
in this day of the Lord, he is slaying that wicked one with the breath
of his lips (Isaiah 11:4)! That’s what I call “holy halitosis!” Of
course we all know that this is actually very good breath, very God
breath, because the Lord is slaying the residue of Adam with the
spirit of the word—not with the literal letter of the word.
Malachi 3:2 says, “But who may abide the day of his coming?
And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s
fire and like fuller’s soap.” There are two questions there. Who may
abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he
appeareth? He will. The answer to both questions is “He will.” He
is the only one that is going to stand. When we understand that the
old man was done away with and his residue is taken away from our
minds, the only one that’s left to stand is Jesus. He is the only one
that’s left—and we are in him.
Revelation 1:4-6:
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace
be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and
which was, and which is to come; and from the
seven spirits which are before his throne; And from
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first
begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of
the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us
kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
John is writing to what he sees as a Church soon to be full and
complete in Christ, so he sees it and writes it as seven Churches.
And notice; they are in Asia. Where does the sun rise? It rises in the
east. John is getting a grasp in chapter 1 of what he later describes
fully in chapters 21 and 22, the mature Church, the resurrected
body of the Lord Jesus Christ in earth as it is in heaven. Then John
shows us his standard. Crookedness (deceitfulness, Babylon) is
really revealed for what it is when it is held in view of, and in
comparison with a straight standard of measure. Jesus is the standard—
the faithful witness. That exposes the false prophet
(Revelation 16:13, 19:20, and 20:10).
Then we read that Jesus is the first begotten of the dead. Jesus,
being the first begotten of the dead, exposes the beast that says the
deadly wound was healed (Revelation 13). We’re not healing a
deadly wound. How would we heal a deadly wound? By saying that
we have two natures. No! Let’s leave alone the deadly wound that
was inflicted to Adam. Let him stay buried in our thinking! All we
have is a residue of Adam in our thinking and not even much of that
anymore. I’m encouraging you! Some say, “We’ve come a long way
baby, but we’ve still got a long way to go.” No, we’ve come a long
way and we do not have that much further to go because he’s doing a
quick work, cutting it short in righteousness. We are hearing a
message from the throne. There is a priesthood being raised up in the
midst of the Church. Our hands are being filled with bread and wine.
Then he says in Revelation 1:5, “And from Jesus Christ, who is
the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince
of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood.” The prince of the kings of the
earth exposes Babylon’s lie that she is the prince, the ruler of the
kings of the earth. How did Jesus do that? Well, John tells us right
there in verses 5 and 6, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests
unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and
ever. Amen.” He did all that at the cross.
Jesus Is Coming With Clouds—
A Great Cloud Of Witnesses
Let’s look at Revelation 1:7 again:
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall
see him, and they also which pierced him: and all
kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even
so, Amen.
We dealt with the phrase “Behold, he cometh with clouds.” The
clouds are not talking about atmospheric clouds as nearly 90
percent of the Church says, but clouds represent people. The cloud
of witnesses in the book of Hebrews is a people—and they are not
just people that have died. We are surrounded right now with a
cloud of witnesses. A witness is one who doesn’t have a secondhand
report of something, but a first-hand report. We’re getting a
first-hand report! I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses
when I minister the word. We are compassed about with a cloud of
witnesses as we live unto God.
What is a cloud of witnesses? A cloud of witnesses is a people
that are full with bread and wine—full with life-giving substance to
give the earth. And if you remember the Greek meaning for the
word “witness,” then you know that a cloud of witnesses is a people
who realize they have been crucified with Christ. A cloud of
witnesses is a people who realize their old man is dead in Christ.
And when you say “Amen,” you are not saying “Amen” to the
preacher so much as you’re saying “Amen” to the voice of your
own spirit. When we can learn to say “Amen” we’re simply saying,
“Yes, I agree, God let it happen!”
The next phrase in Revelation 1:7 is, “Behold, he cometh with
clouds; and every eye shall see him.” This does not refer to him
appearing on satellite television when he comes at some future
time. Every eye is going to see him because he is a many membered
person (1 Corinthians 12:12-14). Also, spiritually speaking,
every eye is going to see him. Can your spirit see him right
now? We are to know no man after the flesh. We are to know one
another as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:16). So if every eye is
going to see him, we’re already seeing him. How? Through the eye
of spirit. If your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of
light. Every eye should be seeing him right now. And when we see
him as he is, we are going to be like him. When we see him as he is,
in ourselves and in one another, we are going to begin to manifest
him as never before.
Jesus Is Still Being Pierced Today
Revelation 1:7 continues, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and
every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him.” We see in
Isaiah 52 that his visage was marred. People are still piercing him
because they sodden down the lamb rather than roast it with fire.
Many people today are still piercing him by teaching on radio, television,
and in their pulpits that there was just one man that died.
They are piercing him. He died as us. We crucify him afresh and put
him to an open shame when we do not look at all the aspects of what
he accomplished at Calvary. They won’t teach that he drank in the
bitter cup. They won’t teach the two goats on the Day of Atonement,
one being his physical death and one being his spiritual death. They
won’t tell that he had an outward bleeding and also was bruised and
had an inward bleeding. It was not only a physical death. Having just
partial knowledge of Christ’s death would have not done a whole lot
for any of us if we were standing there at the foot of the cross when
he was crucified, other than touch our emotions. But when we see
that he died spiritually, it changes the inside of us. I’m not saying
that people who do not understand that have not had their spirit
changed. But if we want to mature to the fullness, the way God
desires us to mature, we’ve got to understand that he died spiritually,
he became sin, and went into hell. He was bruised for our iniquities.
There was an inward bleeding. He died spiritually.
His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form
more than the sons of men. In Psalm 22, one of the Messianic
Psalms, David writes as if he himself were hanging there on the
cross. He sees Jesus hanging on the cross, looking down upon his
body and he says, “My bones are out of joint.” Conversely, in the
Song Of Solomon 5:16 we find that he is altogether lovely. When
Jesus is altogether he is lovely! But in the religious system, his
bones are out of joint. We’re talking about the body of Christ! At
sundry times and in diverse manners, God spoke in time past unto
us by the prophets, but today, he speaks to us by his son Jesus. He
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit of Jesus is saying to the
Church: “My bones are out of joint! If just a remnant with an ear to
hear will be one with me, we will unite my body. I am prophesying
unto the dry bones of the Methodists and the Baptists and the
Pentecostals and the Presbyterians and the Catholics and the
denominations and the non-denominations and the nations and
saying unto them, Hear the word of the Lord! I am prophesying to
the wind! I am prophesying to the whole house of Israel and saying
unto them, O my people, I am opening the graves of your minds,
and causing my Spirit that is buried deep within your earth to come
up out of your graves, bringing you into myself, the Promised Land.
My Spirit is in you awakening your understanding and showing you
that you are already living in me—the Promised Land! Awake thou
that sleepiest, and arise from the dead, and I shall give thee light.
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is like
the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come into
the Most Holy Place and cover yourself with me. I am coming out
of my place to show you that your punishment was fully meted at
the cross, three days ago. You shall disclose your blood and shall no
more cover your slain. Stand upon your feet, an exceedingly great
army (Ezekiel 37, Ephesians 5:14, Isaiah 26)!”
Jesus is the Promised Land Man. 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 (Isaiah 52:14-15). The half that has never yet been
told is being told today, in this great day of the feast! Kings are shutting
their mouths. They are seeing and they are considering. Selah.
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