Ezekiel 16:22-42 The Lord’s Useless and Faithless Bride, Pt 2

[Study Aired May 6, 2024]

Introduction

Today’s study is about the Lord showing us our abominations. According to Strong’s Dictionary, abomination refers to something disgusting morally; especially idolatry or having an idol. 

Deu 29:17  And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them)

Deu 32:16  They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

We do not have to physically worship an idol before we are guilty of abomination. In Ezekiel chapter 14, we are made aware that when we cherish man’s wisdom and tradition more than the truth of the word of the Lord, then we have idols of the heart which is the stumbling block of our iniquity before the Lord.  During our time in Babylon, we were given an evil experience from the Lord as we were given over to these idols of the heart through what we imbibe from the pulpit of the churches that we thought were the true bride. Most of the apostles in their writings warned us of this situation. 

2Pe 2:18  For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
2Pe 2:19  While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 
2Pe 2:20  For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

This evil experience is part of the Lord’s agenda as we can see from the Book of Revelation and that of Joel where locusts are released from the bottomless pit (from our own selves) to harass the Lord’s people and the people of the world. However, to the Lord’s elect, even though these locusts shall cause much pain in our lives, we are kept by the Lord from destroying us completely. These locusts represent false apostles and teachers who come as angels of light. 

2Co 11:13  For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 
2Co 11:14  And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 
2Co 11:15  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

Rev 9:2  And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 
Rev 9:3  And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 
Rev 9:4  And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Joe 1:2  Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 
Joe 1:3  Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 
Joe 1:4  That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
Joe 1:5  Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

The new wine in Joel 1:5 refers to the truth of the word of the Lord which was cut off from our mouth as we became entrenched in our idols of our hearts by what these men of God (locusts) teaches. In Joel chapter 2, we can see how the Lord has empowered them with resources as they enter into homes and wreak havoc to many. 

Joe 2:2  A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. 
Joe 2:3  A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. 
Joe 2:4  The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. 
Joe 2:5  Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
Joe 2:6  Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. 
Joe 2:7  They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march everyone on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: 
Joe 2:8  Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.
Joe 2:9  They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief (enter through televisions, social media, etc.).

Falling upon the sword and not being wounded in Joel 2:8 means the word of the Lord is not effective in the lives of these men of God (locusts) and by implication, our brothers and sisters in Babylon. However, to the Lord’s elect, the word of the Lord is like a double-edged sword which is able to pierce through us to divide asunder our soul and spirit and help us to discern our thoughts and intents of our hearts.

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

In today’s study, even though the Lord has given us over to these false apostles at a certain stage of our walk with Him in Babylon, the end result of this evil experience for us, the Lord’s elect, is that we cease from playing the harlot and become obedient children. Ezekiel Chapter 16 therefore focuses on showing us our abominations and the resulting judgment of our old man, which causes us to learn righteousness and therefore cease from harlotry.   

The Lord’s People Described as a Harlot

Eze 16:22  And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood. 
Eze 16:23  And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;) 
Eze 16:24  That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. 
Eze 16:25  Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. 
Eze 16:26  Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.

The days of our youth in verse 22 refers to our time in Babylon when we were naked and polluted by our own blood. These verses are showing us our abominations or wickedness which is the result of our whoredom. In verses 24 to 26, we are given to know what it means to be a whore in spite of the great favor the Lord has shown to us. Being a whore means we are enchanted by other men (another Jesus) even though we are married to Christ. This was our lives in Babylon or the physical churches of this world during the days of our youth:

Pro 7:9  In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: 
Pro 7:10  And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. 
Pro 7:11  (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: 
Pro 7:12  Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) 
Pro 7:13  So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, 
Pro 7:14  I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows. 
Pro 7:15  Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. 
Pro 7:16  I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. 
Pro 7:17  I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. 
Pro 7:18  Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
Pro 7:19  For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:

It is only when Christ comes to us with the spirit of His mouth and with His brightness that we come to see we have played the harlot during our time in Babylon. 

Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 
Rev 17:4  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 
Rev 17:5  And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

One of our sins as a whore was that we built eminent places for ourselves and made ourselves high places in every street. The eminent place here refers to a brothel-house. Internally, our hearts and minds (the temple of the Lord) became a brothel house where we revered all kinds of idols of our hearts (false doctrines) more than the truth of the word of the Lord. Externally, Babylon or the physical churches of this world, have become brothel houses where all kinds of false doctrines are revered more than the word of the Lord. No wonder at every turn of a street, we have these high places (churches).

Secondly, we made our beauty an abomination by becoming fond of idols such that we offered ourselves to all kinds of idols of the heart and therefore multiplied our whoring. In our time in Babylon, we gathered for ourselves all kinds of teachers who brought heresies, thus polluting the truth of the word of the Lord which beautifies us.  

2Ti 4:3  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
2Ti 4:4  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 
2Ti 4:5  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 

Thirdly, we committed fornication with the Egyptians who are our neighbors and used our prostitution to make the Lord angry. As we are aware, Egypt represents the world, and therefore the Egyptians symbolize the people of the world who walk according to the dictates of their flesh. Committing fornication with the Egyptians therefore means that we walked according to the standards of this world, which is idolatry. It is when we are dominated by the flesh that we walk according to the standards of this world. 

Col 3:5  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 
Col 3:6  For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: 
Col 3:7  In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. 
Col 3:8  But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 
Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Eze 16:27  Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way. 
Eze 16:28  Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. 
Eze 16:29  Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. 
Eze 16:30  How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; 

In view of our whorish behavior, the Lord is ready to judge us. In verse 27, the Lord stretching out His hand over us to diminish our food and to deliver us into the hands of the enemy is the Lord coming to judge our old man. Diminishing our food is famine which is one of the four sore judgments of the Lord. It signifies the absence of the truth of the word of the Lord which makes us worse off as we wander from sea to sea. It is through famine of the word of the Lord that facilitated our exit from Babylon and caused us to come to treasure the truth of the word of the Lord.

Amo 8:11  Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
Amo 8:12  And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. 
Amo 8:13  In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.

Delivering us into the hands of them that hate us is the Lord’s judgment of pestilence. The Lord uses pestilence when we have gotten far away from Him. For example, when the children of Israel were in Egypt, the Lord used pestilence to get their attention. The Lord’s use of pestilence means that the people of Israel were given over to the devil, which in this case was represented by Pharaoh who caused the people of Israel to be under great affliction.

Lev 26:25  And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

The daughters of the Philistines, which the Lord delivered us into their hands, represent the physical churches of this world or Babylon, where we are oppressed.    

Isa 3:12  As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. 
Isa 3:13  The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. 
Isa 3:14  The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 

Playing the harlot with the Assyrians and multiplying our fornication with the trading land of Chaldea are the result of being given over by the Lord to the devil, the enemy. As a result, we become worse off.

Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Rom 1:22  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 
Rom 1:23  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 
Rom 1:24  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 
Rom 1:25  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 

Here in verse 30, we are told that our hearts are really sick as we do the deeds of a brazen harlot. What we need to know is that the harlot in the Book of Revelation is not different from the harlot here in the Book of Ezekiel or other parts of the Bible. Here in Ezekiel, we are talking about the Lord’s people who are described as harlot. That means you and I have played the harlot at a certain stage of our walk with Christ.

Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 
Rev 17:4  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 
Rev 17:5  And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Eze 16:31  In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 
Eze 16:32  But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! 
Eze 16:33  They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 
Eze 16:34  And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.

As we indicated earlier, the building of an eminent place in every square and street refers to the turning of our place of worship of the Lord into places of prostitution where we prefer man’s wisdom and tradition to the truth of the word of the Lord. We do not need to travel to be at such eminent places or brothels because there is always one next door!! 

In verse 31, we are also told that we were not like a typical prostitute because we scorned payment. This conversation continues in verse 33 and 34 where we are told that we were different from other women who are into prostitution who are paid by the men who require their service. In our case, we would rather give gifts to our lovers!! Let’s take a look at what’s happening in the churches of this world. There are many who are laboring in the churches thinking they are working for the Lord who will reward them in the fullness of time. Apart from the pastors who are being paid, all others (choristers, ushers, deacons, etc.) are not paid for their service, thinking they are doing it for the Lord. We have all served in these churches and would have ended up empty-handed when the Lord comes. On the other hand, we were paying our tithes and offering to our leaders who enrich themselves at our prostitution with another Jesus. We were truly blind in every way!! However, in the Lord’s mercy, He delivered us out of Babylon!! This was what our state was when we were serving in Babylon:

2Co 3:14  But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 
2Co 3:15  Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 
2Co 3:16  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 
2Co 3:17  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Eze 16:35  Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD: 
Eze 16:36  Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;
Eze 16:37  Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them roundabout against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 
Eze 16:38  And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 
Eze 16:39  And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. 
Eze 16:40  They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.

In view of our indiscretion in idolizing man’s wisdom and tradition instead of seeking the truth of the word of the Lord, the Lord is making us aware that we shall face His judgment. Here in verse 37, as part of the Lord’s judgment, we are to be given over to those who hate us. As we indicated earlier, being given over to those who hate us means the Lord is using one of His tools of judgment, that is, pestilence, to come to know our sins. It is insightful to note that in verse 39 we are given to know the result of the Lord’s judgment of handing us over to our enemy, that is, the devil. It is through this judgment that our hearts and minds are cleansed as our eminent place and high places within us are destroyed. We are also stripped of our self-righteous clothing and even the little truth of the word of the Lord that we know (fair jewels) is taken away. This is all done to help us see our nakedness before the Lord (verse 39). Our situation is not different from the prodigal son. It was when the prodigal son found himself naked that he came to his senses to go back to the Lord, his father.

Luk 15:13  And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 
Luk 15:14  And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
Luk 15:15  And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 
Luk 15:16  And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. 
Luk 15:17  And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 
Luk 15:18  I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 
Luk 15:19  And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

Being stoned with stones in verse 40 is the same as being judged for our adulterous life as the wife of Christ where we have given ourselves over to another Jesus. Remember that the woman caught in adultery was going to be stoned when Jesus intervened.

Joh 8:3  And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 
Joh 8:4  They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Joh 8:5  Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

Our enemies thrusting through us with their swords in verse 40 refers to words that are spoken which destroy us. The sword refers to the lying words and false doctrines of the adversary.

2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; 
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

Psa 64:2  Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity: 
Psa 64:3  Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words: 

These negative words spoken are one of the tools the Lord uses to cause people to speak bitter words to us, His elect. 

Eze 38:21 And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s sword shall be against his brother.

The End Result of the Lord’ Judgment

Eze 16:41  And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more. 
Eze 16:42  So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.

These verses are to assure us that the evil experience the Lord is taking us through is not in vain. If we are called and chosen, then through the Lord’s judgment, we shall cease from playing the harlot as shown in verse 41.

Psa 119:67  Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. 

1Pe 4:1  Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
1Pe 4:2  so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

The Lord’s fury toward us will also come to an end such that the Lord will no longer be angry with us as shown in verse 42.

Isa 54:7  For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
Isa 54:8  In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD, your Redeemer.

Ceasing from playing the harlot means that the Lord will deliver us from Babylon, and we shall come to hear the truth of the Lord’s word as we enter into the assembly of the elect. 

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Rev 18:5  For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 
Heb 12:23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
Heb 12:24  And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. 
Heb 12:25  See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

To stop playing the harlot also means that we shall be able to test the spirits to see if they are from the Lord. That is the same as being given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Being given the keys means being given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Mat 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 
Mat 16:18  And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
Mat 16:19  And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Isa 22:20  And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim (a type of the elect) the son of Hilkiah: 
Isa 22:21  And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. 
Isa 22:22  And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 
1Jn 4:2  By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 
1Jn 4:3  and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

May the Lord grant us the grace to know Him more through His words as our idols of the heart continue to be destroyed by the Lord’s brightness. Amen!!

[Study Aired November 15, 2020]

Here is the link to the Keys to the Kingdom series.

This study is a synopsis of each of 12 Biblical principles used by the holy spirit to teach us spiritual things with these spiritual principles:

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Almost every seminary in the world teaches that the scriptures were written in a way that is intended to make them clearly understood by the least educated among us. Nothing could be further from the Truth. Christ’s parables are a perfect example of this spiritual Truth. While every Sunday school teacher will tell you that Christ taught in parables to make His meaning clear to shepherds and farmers, this is Christ’s own words concerning why He taught in parables:

Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Christ does not say He spoke to the multitudes in parables to simplify His message. He says plainly that He spoke to them in parables because “to them it is not given… to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”.

It was only to His disciples that He said He would give the keys to understanding the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Part 1: The ability to loose and to bind, both things on the earth and in heaven.

It is interesting that the same keys that open to us the  mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are also capable of shutting up the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven:

Mat 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind [“shut up”] on earth shall be bound [“shut up”] in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose [“open”] on earth shall be loosed [“opened”] in heaven.

These same keys are also called “the key of the house of David” in both the Old Testament and the New Testament:

Isa 22:22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

“The key of the house of David” of Isaiah 22:22 is also “the key of David” which is mentioned in:

Rev 3:7  And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

The word “open” in Isaiah 22:22, “…He shall open and none shall shut…” is H6605, ‘pathach’. This Hebrew word is also properly translated elsewhere as ‘loose’:

Psa 102:20  To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose [H6605: ‘pathach’] those that are appointed to death;

Isa 58:6  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose [H6605: ‘pathach’] the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

In Matthew 16:19 the ‘key of David’, which opens and no man can shut, is the miraculous ability to see and hear the mysteries of the kingdom of God. It is being given eyes that see and ears that hear what has been bound or loosed in the earth and what has been bound or loosed in heaven.

Mat 16:19  And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

We do not become the Head of the body or the head of Christ because we are given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. To the contrary, Matthew 16:19 is simply informing us that being given the keys to the kingdom of heaven means that we are being gifted with the same mind of Christ and His Father.

Here is a much better translation of that verse:

Mat 16:19 I will be giving you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatsoever you should be binding on the earth shall be those things having been bound [by the Father] in the heavens, and whatsoever you should be loosing on the earth, shall be those having been loosed [by the Father] in the heavens.”

When we pray as we are instructed to pray… “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven…” (Mat 6:10) what we are asking of our Father is that He will give us His mind… “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

One who is given the ability to open the gates to the kingdom of heaven, which is also called ‘the house of David’, must first be humbled and “become as [a] little child” in the sense of humbling himself and becoming teachable. That is a prerequisite to being given “the key of the house of David”, and “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

Mat 18:4  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Part 2: The Sum of Thy Word Is Truth

Psa 119:160 The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever. (ACV, ASV)

Obviously “the key of the house of David” and “the key of David”, since they both perform the same function of opening and shutting, are one and the same.

It is only after we are brought to acknowledge our own blindness that our sins and our blindness are removed.

We are told clearly that Christ Himself is the only foundation of His church:

1Co 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Matthew 18 tells us how the keys to the kingdom of heaven serve to keep His church of the same mind and free from the diseases He has placed upon all the ‘earth’, the type of those who do not have the keys to the kingdom of God (Jer 22:29). All the diseases of Egypt are the false doctrines of this world which the keys to the kingdom of God “bind [up]on the earth”:

Exo 15:26  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

Clearly “all… the diseases of Egypt” are the fruit of dismissing the doctrines of Christ, and not doing what He says is the right thing to do. The diseases of Egypt are the fruit of listening to and being obedient to the false doctrines of this world and not ‘giving ear to [the Lord’s commandments, and keep[ing] all His statutes. When we simply believe and stand faithful to these words, then we have “bound on earth which has been bound in heaven.

Part 3: “Man Shall … Live By Every Word of God” (Mat 4:4 and Luk 4:4)

What we will be seeing as we discuss all these “keys to the kingdom of heaven” is that they are all really just one key. “The key of David is [also known as] “the key of knowledge, the key of the house of David, and the keys to the kingdom of heaven”. These are all nothing other than the mind of Christ and His Father as expressed in His Word. It is having the mind of Christ that gives us the keys to the kingdom of God, which keys simply open His word to make us to know what the Father has bound and loosed on earth what He has bound and loosed in heaven.

Christ made clear that we must “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”:

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Luk 4:4  And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

This statement happens to appear in scripture three times. Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4 are quoted from:

Deu 8:3  And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

Christ made it clear that the manna of old was simply a symbol of His Words and His doctrines, and ‘living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ is therefore something which we neither ourselves nor our fathers “knew not”, meaning we could never of ourselves understand how it is possible to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Isaiah helps us to understand how that is possible when He tells us:

Isa 66:3 He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.

Christ is actually telling us that we simply must come to see with “the eyes of [our] understanding” (Eph 1:18) that “as in Adam” (1Co 15:22) means that all that has happened since the creation of Adam and Eve is simply the result of what the Lord Himself had placed within our first father, and has kept it a secret “from the foundation of the world.” Not one Christian in a thousand knows that “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” were in our original parents before they ever touched the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. An equal number are aware that these three categories of sin encompass “all that is in the world”:

1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, [1] the lust of the flesh, and [2] the lust of the eyes, and [3] the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

It is because these things are in every man that we are all guilty of all sins, “as  if” we had actually committed them all. For example:

1Jn 3:15  Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

The preceding verse also demonstrates the spiritual “as if” nature of every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord” when it informs us of our spiritual condition as a spiritual murderer:

1Jn 3:14  We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

Part 4: This bring us to our fourth key to the kingdom of heaven: “all things are yours”

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Yes, “the world [and] death… are [ours]”, and because that is true we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”. We live by every word, including ‘death and the world’, first and if we are in the first resurrection, we lived ‘death and the world’ first and therefore we are “not hurt of the second death” (Rev 2:11 and Rev 20:6). To say otherwise is to say “the resurrection is already past”, and it is tantamount to denying that those who are judged first will reign with Christ a thousand years before the rest of the dead are resurrected to face their judgment and their own death to their carnal-minded “old man” for the first time. The word ‘second’ is an ordinal word, referring to the order in which those in it first experience the death of their carnal minded old man.

Christ made it clear that the food on His table is the doctrines which He came to give to us.

Joh 6:51  I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Paul, when admonishing the Corinthians and you and me, said:

1Co 1:10  Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

That is our goal, and if we are given to achieve that goal it will be a gift from God.

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The fact that every good gift is from God does not deny that “all things are [ours]”. The fact is that the scriptures very plainly teach that it is God who also sends evil spirits to trouble us, and He even “creates evil”.

1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

“All these things… are all ours].” The evil spirit in the wicked man, who is created for the day of evil, is within every one of us at our own appointed time, because “all things are [ours”].

Those who refuse and deny this key to the kingdom of heaven, this doctrine that “all things are [ours]” are actually “hindering” those who are entering into the kingdom of heaven.

Luk 11:49  Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
Luk 11:50  That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; [“This generation” reading these words]
Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
Luk 11:52  Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in [into the mind of God, entering into His mind] ye hindered.

Part 5: Christ is His word, and He and His word “is… was… and will be”

Rev 1:8  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Rev 1:11  Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

Rev 1:17  And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
Rev 1:18  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

This “Is, Was And Will Be” Nature of Christ and His Words… is our fifth key to the kingdom. Including the phrases “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”, and acknowledging that these phrases include the present, we find that this is, was and will be characteristic of Christ and His Words is mentioned in the book of Revelation 12 times.

There is nothing emphasized more in the book of “the revelation of Jesus Christ” than this is, was and will be character of the words of this book. Christ has given us “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” if indeed we acknowledge that He and His words determined our past, how we are living today and that He will always dominate our lives.

Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Part 6: If Ye Be Christ’s, Then Are Ye Abraham’s Seed is our 6^th “key to the kingdom of God”.

As with all of our ‘keys’, this key is also hidden from the world, which is shut out of the kingdom of God and is still in spiritual prison:

Gal 3:29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

The apostle Paul was given by God to use this key to explain clearly who is, and who is not, God’s true chosen people, and the world is simply blinded to this statement:

Gal 4:21  Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Gal 4:22  For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23  But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24  Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. [The law of Moses “gender to bondage”, and very few believe this to be true]
Gal 4:25  For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Gal 4:27  For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Gal 4:28  Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal 4:29  But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Gal 4:30  Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal 4:31  So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

The keys to the kingdom of heaven are not given to the natural man. The keys to the kingdom of heaven are given only to those who are granted to receive the things of the spirit. The whole world denies that “Jerusalem which now is …is in bondage with her children… and… shall not be made heir with the son of  the freewoman”. The churches of Babylon teach that the Lord has two “chosen people”, two “elect”, one natural, that being physical Israel, and on spiritual, that being the Christian churches of Babylon. The truth is that both are “the son of the bondwoman [who] will not be made heir with the son of the freewoman”.

Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Part 7: Our seventh key to the kingdom of God is the knowledge of who is “The First Man Adam… The Last Adam”

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Another way of expressing this point is the process of “put[ting] off… the old man… [and the] put[ting] on [of] the new man.” To understand this key of the kingdom of God, it is important to note that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life both come up out of the ground.

Gen 2:9  And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The fact that here in the second chapter of Genesis we are informed that the tree of life was “made to grow… out of the ground” is for those who are given “the key of knowledge… the keys to the kingdom of God”, a prophecy of the coming of Christ as “the seed of Abraham”. Christ makes clear that He is the One we must “eat” and He is also this ‘tree of life’:

Joh 6:48  I am that bread of life.
Joh 6:49  Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
Joh 6:50  This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
Joh 6:51  I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Rev 22:2  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Rev 22:14  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in [with the keys to the kingdom] through the gates into the city.

Both trees were placed by Christ Himself right in the middle of the Garden of Eden. It is also very important we notice that both of these trees come “out of the ground”. What this tells us is that it is in the earth where God begins His ultimate work of placing the crown jewel of His creation in His garden “paradise”.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

It is only after we make this final break with our “father the devil’s” house, our ‘old man’s’ house, that the heavens begin to open up to us, and we are granted to see much more of the Lord’s plan for us:

Gen 13:14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward,and southward, and eastward, and westward:

There are in scripture many types of the old man and the new man: First Adam – Last Adam; Cain and Abel; Abraham and Lot; Ishmael and Isaac; Jacob and Esau; King Saul and King David. The “last Adam… Abel… Isaac, Jacob, and King David, are all types of the true spiritual “seed of Abraham”, meaning those who are in Christ.

Part 8: “The Words I Speak Unto You, They Are Spirit.”

We have referred to this verse several times already, but without demonstrating how all pervasive this principle is upon all the rest of scripture:

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

When we are taught by the holy spirit, it will not be “in words which man’s wisdom teaches.”

1Co 2:4  And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5  That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
1Co 2:6  Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
1Co 2:7  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

The Lord teaches us “with the spirit and with power”, which is simply saying the same thing twice, because it is the word of God which is spirit and which is powerful:

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick [Greek: zaō, life giving], and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The “two witnesses” of Revelation 11 are those in every generation who witness to “the word of the Lord”. The gift of “the discerning of spirits” and the knowing and the understanding the doctrine of Christ comes only to those who are given to love God with all their hearts and who are by God’s sovereignty granted to see the doctrine of Christ with their eyes, hear it with their ears and be obedient to His doctrine from their hearts.

It is through the understanding of “the things of the spirit” that “the holy spirit teaches [us by] comparing spiritual things with spiritual”:

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

“The holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual”. But it uses the things that are made to do that. “The things that are freely given to us of God [are] the things of the spirit” and the world simply cannot appreciate nor value “the things of the spirit”:

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

It is because “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” that God has determined that the invisible things of the spirit are to be understood by the things that are made…”

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Part 9: The Positive and The Negative Application of Every Word.

This key to the kingdom is another witness to the fact that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.

Those who have been given the keys to the kingom of God will see this spiritual principle revealed in these words about our Lord who is “the Word” (John 1:1).

Exo 14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

Not understanding that all scripture has both a positive and a negative application has served to keep the keys to the kingdom of heaven hidden from those to whom those keys have not been given (Mat 13:9-15).

What this key to the kingdom reveals in practice is that there is a positive and a negative application to every word of God and every man lives out both of those applications, all the blessings and all the curses that have proceeded out of the mouth of God, including the very dark, negative words like:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

Part 10: “The Dream Is One”

Gen 41:25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.

In this story of Joseph we are given a vital key to the kingdom of heaven. That key is the revelation which Joseph gives the Pharaoh that both his dreams have one message. As different as seven cows are from seven stalks with seven ears, still we are told they are both saying the same thing.

This principle explains how Christ can speak of an unjust steward and yet commend him for his resourcefulness. It explains how He can liken Himself and His crucifixion to a serpent being placed on a pole. It explains how “the last man Adam” is still called Adam.

The ultimate lesson for us in this key to the kingdom of heaven is that all scripture has but one message, and that one message is that God is through Christ reconciling all men of all time to Himself:

Col 1:19  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
Col 1:20  And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

As we are coming to understand, the keys to the kingdom of heaven are the principles we are given to help us to understand how God Himself thinks, how He expresses His thoughts and how He carries out those thoughts.

The principle of “the dream is one helps us to understand how “all things come alike to all”… to our old man and to our new man, both must “groan together in pain until now…”:

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

This key to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven reveals that the messages of “all the prophets… have written” is one message, and that message concerns Christ and how all will one day be in Him.

Luk 24:27  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Act 3:24  Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.

Act 10:43  To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

Part 11: The Inward Versus The Outward

This principle is given to us in its clearest sense in the book of Romans:

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

It is the kingdom which is inward now, in this age… “this present time” (Rom 8:18), which will rule over the kingdoms of this world outwardly in the coming age. Only if we are given the gift of submitting ourselves to every ordinance of man in this present time, in this age, will we be given to rule over the kingdoms of this world and administer the Lord’s revenge upon our enemies of this age:

2Co 10:3  For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
2Co 10:4  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of [inward] strong holds.
2Co 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
2Co 10:6  And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
2Co 10:7  Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.

We have seen that the key to the house of David is the same as the keys to the kingdom of heaven because both give us the power to bind on earth that which has been bound in heaven and to loose on earth that which has been loosed in heaven.

While being ready to physically and outwardly be “your servant”, the inward intent of these words is revealed beyond doubt with these words:

Act 6:2 Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God [our spiritual inward table], and serve [outward physical] tables.

This is the inward spiritual table at which God’s ministers serve continually:

1Pe 5:2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
1Pe 5:3 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

In this series of studies we have seen that the ‘keys to the kingdom of heaven’ are simply the keys to understanding the mind of Christ and the mind of His Father, which are, of course, one and the same mind. Therefore the elders within the body of Christ, who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, will never lord it over the Lord’s heritage, inwardly or outwardly. What they will do is remain faithful to every word of God and thereby persuade “God’s heritage” to also be obedient and faithful to His Words.

This particular key to the mind of Christ and His Father is the Biblical principle of seeing that there is both an inward and an outward application to Christ and His Words. We are “a spiritual house”:

1Pe 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Having the key of understanding that there is both and inward and an outward application to the Word of God, we can also understand how these words are also true  of us:

Eph 5:30  For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

If we “cleanse first that which is within” then, and only then, “the outside of them may be clean also.

Part 12: Who Is The Lord’s Christ?

Before we can answer this question we must be made aware of who Christ is to His Father, and this is what we are told:

Act 2:36  Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

We must also remember what Christ says of us:

Mat 25:40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Joh 20:21  Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

In other words we are, as we read in our previous ‘key’, the “flesh and bones” of Christ to this world.

Truly ‘as He is so are we in this world’:

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

In accord with Christ’s statement that He is sending us “as His Father has sent Him… that the world through Him might be saved” (Joh 3:17), we find that the Lord also has “His Christ”:

Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

In Luke 17:20-21 we are told, “the kingdom of God is within you.” In Matthew 16:19 and 18:18 we are told that we are given the keys to that kingdom, and that with those keys we can bind on earth what has been bound in heaven, and we can loose on earth what has been loosed in heaven. That is exactly what Christ does for His Father:

Joh 8:28  Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

Christ tells us that He is the door, and He also tells us:

Joh 10:2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

‘Entering by the door’ symbolizes strict fidelity to the doctrine of Christ, who is “the door”. Anyone who is flippant about the doctrine of Christ has not yet entered by the Door, which is Christ and His doctrine.

Joh 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

Mat 10:40 He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

All sacrifices must be presented to God at the altar, and the altar is the Old Testament symbol of the cross. What we are being told is to place ourselves on the cross with Christ if we count ourselves to be His.

The life of every animal offered to God had to be slain at the altar which was before the temple. If we are the Lord’s Christ, His scapegoat, we are very special to Him. We are of ourselves no better than anyone else, but still chosen by Him and of Him and not of anything we have done to be in that blessed and holy first resurrection to judge this world  throughout the thousand-year reign of Christ, to be followed by continued judgment of angels in the lake of fire.

There is really no end to the number of keys to the kingdom of God, because each key reveals to us more about the knowledge of God and His Son. Coming to know them is an inexhaustible endeavor as “the things that are made” (Rom 1:20) demonstrate for us by the limitless physical heavens.

Rom 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Rom 11:34  For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Rom 11:35  Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
Rom 11:36  For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Dear Brother,

Thank you again for your tireless service to the Body of Christ.  You and Sandi bless us so very much, and I praise God for the gift you both are to this flock of Christ.

Mike, in your most recent study you wrote:

“We have seen that the key to the house of David is the same as the keys to the kingdom of heaven because both give us the power to bind on earth that which has been bound in heaven and to loose on earth that which has been loosed in heaven.”

We also read in Revelation…

Rev 1:18  and the Living One, and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever, Amen. And I have the keys of hell and of death.

…and…

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from Heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

So I am thinking that by “The Dream Is One” principle, the key would be the same key, that key being Christ, who is able to open our understanding of spiritual knowledge.

Luk 24:45  And He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures.

The place of “hell and death” or the “abyss” is just the  “kingdom” while the beast still sits on the throne and before Christ comes into His kingdom within us, and opening up “death and hell” or “the abyss” is the same as saying Christ  “has the keys of the kingdom” and that Christ comes to this kingdom to take up His rightful seat.

That is why Christ says:

Mat 16:18  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Mat 16:19  And I will give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to you. And whatever you may bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven, and whatever you may loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in Heaven.

“Hell” IS the “kingdom of God” because it WILL BE.

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded. And there were great voices in Heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ. And He will reign forever and ever.

The dream is ONE!

I am fairly sure I am seeing this right, but just want to run by you.

In Christ,
U____

Hi U____,

You have just expanded my understanding of this subject of the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

You are exactly right: “the dream is one”, and the keys of death and hell and the key to the bottomless pit, are also all one.

I have been saying the same thing, but I had not yet made this connection when I said ‘The key of David, the keys to the kingdom both give us the power to bind and to loose what has already been bound or loosed in heaven. Therefore it is essential that we know what has been bound and loosed in heaven before we can use those keys.’

I have also pointed out that the things that are bound and loosed in heaven is just a way of expressing what is the mind of God and His Son. If we have their mind, we have “life eternal”:

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Knowing what is the key to death and hell, and knowing what is the key to the bottomless pit, is part of knowing what are the keys of David and the keys to the kingdom of heaven, because as was pointed out yesterday, Christ’s throne in His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is typified by “the throne of His father David”:

Luk 1:32  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

This is such a blessing. All those apparently different keys are all simply a matter of knowing God and Jesus.

This is a wonderful revelation. God bless you for sharing your gold with all of us. You give it away, and He will give you more!

Your grateful brother and fellow servant of Christ, and His Christ.

Mike

The Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven – Part 11

The Inward Versus the Outward

Luk 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Introduction

“The kingdom of God is within you” does not deny that “the kingdoms of this world [will] become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ” outwardly for a thousand years, to be followed by an outward rebellion against the outward power of the rulers of the outward kingdom of God, which will rule “the kingdoms of this world” throughout the period known as the ‘millennium’.

Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

It is the kingdom which is inward now, in this age, which will rule over the kingdoms of this world outwardly in the coming age. It is our inward struggles, those struggles which attack us when we are most vulnerable, that prepare us to make good and proper outward decisions, no matter how painful that decision is for all who are involved. It was after forty days of fasting that the adversary attacked Christ inwardly. ‘Fall down and worship me, and you will be given the kingdoms of this world with all their glory, and you can avoid the death of the cross.’ It was in the garden, facing eminent death at the hands of a mob, knowing He had mere hours left, that the adversary again attacked within, and with the very same message, causing Christ to request of His Father:

Mat 26:39  And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Christ struggled inwardly in every way just as we do:

Heb 4:1  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Christ was dying daily on the cross, inwardly, long before the outward cross, and He was encouraging His disciples to do the same:

Mar 8:34  And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

We have seen that the key to the house of David is the same as the keys to the kingdom of heaven, because both give us the power to bind on earth that which has been bound in heaven and to loose on earth that which has been loosed in heaven. That is a great and powerful gift, yet the ability to bind on earth what has already been bound in heaven and to loose on earth that which has already been loosed in heaven does not empower any one man to lord it over the Lord’s flock as Christ and the apostle Peter make so clear:

Mat 20:20 Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.
Mat 20:21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
Mat 20:22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
Mat 20:23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.
Mat 20:24 And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.
Mat 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
Mat 20:26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
Mat 20:27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
Mat 20:28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

While being ready to physically and outwardly be “your servant” the inward intent of these words is revealed beyond doubt with these words:

Act 6:2 Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God [our spiritual inward table], and serve [outward physical] tables.

This is the inward spiritual table at which God’s ministers serve:

1Pe 5:2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
1Pe 5:3 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

Inward submission to the Words of God also has an outward manifestation for all the flock of God to witness.

Those who are inwardly beheaded for Christ, and who are inwardly crucified with Christ, will in time rule in a very outward display, over the kingdoms of this world:

Rev 2:26 And he that overcometh, [the inward nations] and keepeth my works unto the end [outwardly], to him will I give [outward] power over the [outward] nations:
Rev 2:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

The great military powers of this world will not willingly submit to “the Lord and His Christ”. They will first have to be “broken to shivers [and] ruled with a rod of iron”.

In this series of studies we have seen that the ‘keys to the kingdom of heaven’ are simply the keys to understanding the mind of Christ and the mind of His Father, which are, of course, one and the same. Therefore the elders within the body of Christ, who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, will never lord it over the Lord’s heritage, inwardly or outwardly. What they will do is remain faithful to every word of God and thereby persuade “God’s heritage” to also be obedient and faithful to His Words. In like manner, the Lord’s heritage who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven will inwardly and outwardly “defer to [their] elders” simply because they, too, have been given to know what is the mind of Christ and His Father, and they, too, will remain faithful to His words concerning how they are commanded to relate to each other within the body of Christ.

The only power any true minister of Christ has over anyone within His body is the power of persuasion based upon the Words of Christ. “But it shall not be so among you…” (Mat 20:26) is part of those words of Christ.

So are these words:

Heb 13:17 Be persuaded by your leaders, and be deferring to them, for they are vigilant for the sake of your souls, as having to render an account, that they may be doing this with joy, and not with groaning, for this is disadvantageous for you. (CLV)

There is no advantage for us to withstand the words of men who have been obedient to the words of God in making decisions that relate to the doctrine of Christ.

A minister who obeys our Lord’s words in Matthew 18:15-17 is not acting on his own. He is acting inwardly and outwardly on the words of God in concert with other elders and in accord with the body of Christ:

Mat 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Mat 18:16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Mat 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

Alexander the coppersmith was not given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, or if he at one time had them, “that he [once had was] taken from him” and given to the person who had been most blessed to fear and tremble, inwardly and outwardly at the words of God:

Isa 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
Isa 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

Our Lord is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It is by His design whether we diligently seek Him, but if He has taken away our love of His Word, then He does so in this manner:

Luk 19:24 And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
Luk 19:25 (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)
Luk 19:26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.

This is what the apostle Paul told Timothy about just such a person:

2Ti 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16 At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
2Ti 4:17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

A true minister of Christ is forbidden to ever lord it “over God’s heritage”, and he is commanded to never exercise dominion or authority over the Lord’s flock. However, as we have also seen, these words are for all mankind and not just for certain men who are ministers within the body of Christ. We are all given to oversee the kingdom of God within ourselves, and we are all given outwardly to be “the light of the world” (Mat 5:14). Our way of life, our quiet light in this world, is the product of monumental, momentous life-and-death inward struggles, and our way of life is our most powerful means of persuading others to follow our Lord.

We are yet told that we have been given the power to bind on earth the things that have been bound in heaven and to loose on earth the things that have been loosed in heaven. What that means is that it is imperative that we know what has been bound and loosed in heaven, inwardly. Otherwise we are not capable of binding or loosing anything on the earth, outwardly.

Mat 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against her.
Mat 16:19 And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven. And whatever you may loose on the earth shall be, having been loosed in Heaven. (LITV)

“Having been bound… having been loosed” demonstrates that our only power lies in being faithful to the Word of God, which reveals what has been bound or loosed in heaven.

Because the translators did not catch the difference between petros, Peter – a small rock, and petra, Christ – a massive rock, these verses appear to be spoken only to Peter, but as we saw in an earlier study, Matthew 18 reveals clearly that Christ was speaking to all of His disciples when He said they were being given power to bind on earth those things having been bound in heaven and to loose on earth those things having been loosed in heaven.

Here is the verse which gives us the setting for who Christ is addressing the words of this chapter:

Mat 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

It is to “the disciples” that Christ continues speaking in this same chapter when He says:

Mat 18:15 But if your brother may sin against you, go and reprove him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. [This is our goal. Verse 17 may be the outcome, but gaining our brother is the goal.]
Mat 18:16 But if he does not hear, take one or two more with you, “so that on the mouth of two” or “three witnesses every word may stand.” [Deu 19:15]
Mat 18:17 But if he fails to hear them, tell it to the assembly. And if he also fails to hear the assembly, let him be to you as the nations and the tax collector.
Mat 18:18 Truly I say to you, Whatever you bind on the earth will be, having been bound in Heaven. And whatever you loose on the earth will be, having been loosed in Heaven.
Mat 18:19 Again I say to you, If two of you agree on earth as to anything, whatever they shall ask, it shall be to them from My Father in Heaven.
Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst. (LITV)

As we saw in Matthew 16:18-19, this power to bind and loose is granted only to those who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven; those who are granted to know what is the mind of Christ and His Father concerning the doctrine of Christ, which doctrine is given to Christ by His Father.

The key to the mind of Christ and His Father, which we are discussing today, is the Biblical principle of seeing that there is both an inward and an outward application to Christ and His Words, as Christ Himself made so clear when He said:

Mat 23:25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Mat 23:26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Mat 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
Mat 23:28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

It is of utmost importance that we notice that if we “cleanse first that which is within” then, and only then, “the outside of them may be clean also.” “The… clean… outside of the cup and of the platter” are the clean, pure and true words of Christ. The “extortion and excess… within” is the idols of our own hearts (Eze 14:1-9) over which we have placed the clean words of Christ always mixing truth with lies, just as the serpent did in the garden first lying, but then mixing in the Truth:

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Notice how the serpent made forbidding the fruit of one tree sound as if Christ had said, “Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.” The serpent is twisting God’s Words and mixing the truth with a lie. Then He tells another lie:

Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

To make sure his strategy works, he tells the truth again:

Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Was it true that they would not surely die? No, Christ had said, “In the day you eat thereof dying you shall die.”

Gen 2:16 And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Eating you may eat of every tree in the garden;
Gen 2:17 but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, dying you shall die. (LITV)

Had the serpent told the truth when he told Adam and Eve that they would become like God to know good and evil? Yes, the Lord Himself agreed with what the serpent had said in this case:

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

If the inside is clean, the outside will also be clean. However, we are by birth born in sin, born of our father the devil.

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made in clay was ruined in the hand of the potter. So repeating he made it, another vessel, as it seemed good in the potter’s eyes to make it.

Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

So it has always been. As children of our father, the devil, we always speak just as our father. We have always taken God’s pure words of His silver and His gold, and twisted them to cover the idols of our hearts. We have all been there and done that, because at that time the inside was not clean, and the outside is but a reflection of what is still within, and even now that marred clay reminds us it is still there when we slip and stumble at times:

Eze 16:17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,

These “images of men” are defined as the “idols of [our] hearts” which Ezekiel tells us of two chapters earlier:

Eze 14:1 Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.
Eze 14:2 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?
Eze 14:4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

These idols are “in their heart”. “Their heart” is Biblical symbolism for what is within us. There are inward and outward idols, and if we do not understand that, then we are missing a vital key to the kingdom of heaven within us. That kingdom is full of ‘idols of the heart’ which require being “cleanse[d]… with the washing of the water by the Word.”

Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

It is the kingdom of heaven within us which “must be purified with better sacrifices than the blood of calves and of goats”:

Heb 9:23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves [“the kingdom of God… within you” (Luke 17:21)] with better sacrifices than these.

Christ Himself confirms that it is He who “answer[s them] according to the multitude of [their] idols” in Matthew 13:9-15. He had already told us that it is really He Himself, via “His hand” (Job 1:11-12, Job 2:5-6), who deceives those who are deceived:

Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;

What an incredible revelation! We have all been given a serpent to deceive us, and we “cannot hear [the Truth]” because “I the Lord have deceived that prophet” until the day that Christ has ordained He will come to His own temple within us and destroy that “man of sin” within us, with “the spirit of His mouth and with the brightness of His coming” to cleanse us inwardly.. Only then will the cup and platter be cleaned up ouwardly also:

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

“Him shall God destroy… with the brightness of His coming” is the best news we will ever hear because it is blindness to that truth that restrains Christ’s coming to “purify… the heavenly things themselves” (Heb 9:23) and cleanse His temple within so that the outside may be clean also:

2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [“the day of the Lord” (vs 2)] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God [WITHIN US!], shewing himself that he is God.
2Th 2:5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? [1Co 3:16]
2Th 2:6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he [“that man of sin”] might be revealed in his time.
2Th 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [witholds; restrains the coming of Christ within us] will let [will restrain Christ’s coming within our hearts], until he be taken out of the way.
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Which simply means…

Mat 23:26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

What wonderful news! Our old man of sin will be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming within every man, “each in his own order” (1Co 15:23), and “all in Adam” will be given life.

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.

Every cup and platter will be cleansed within “that the outside of them may be clean also”. Being cleansed from within first “that the outside of them may be clean also” is one more of the keys to the kingdom of heaven within us.

[Part 12 can be found here.]

Psa 67:1 To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song. God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.
Psa 67:2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
Psa 67:3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
Psa 67:4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.
Psa 67:5 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
Psa 67:6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Psa 67:7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

God’s elect are typified by the house of David, and it is we who have been given the keys to the house of David or temple of God which we are (Mat 13:11, 1Co 3:16) as we have been learning on the “The keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” series. We are growing in our appreciation of how precious those keys are that Christ has cut and prepared for us from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4, Eph 2:10).

Mat 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The works we do in the house of David (the temple of God that we are) have been bound on earth and in heaven to the glory of our Father and will unfold according to the counsel of God’s predestinated plan and purpose. In tonight’s study we will look at how God develops those works of mercy and the ability to judge matters correctly in the elect today with those same keys that we will use to open up doors and shut doors that no man can open or shut save those to whom God gives to do this (Joh 6:44, Joh 10:7-9). The world will learn of God’s sovereignty over all his creation and come to see how God has always been working all things according to the councel of his own will when they come to see his judgments in the earth and his mercy prevailing through the saints who will reign under Christ (Mat 16:19, Eph 1:11).

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 10:7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
Joh 10:8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
Joh 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Mat 16:19 And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens;(G3772) and whatever you should have bound upon the earth, it shall be(G1510.8.3) have been bound(G1210) in the heavens;(G3772) and what ever you should have untied upon the earth, it shall(G1510.8.3) have been untied in the heavens.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

These works are also hidden from the great unwashed masses who have yet to come to partake of these living waters which we are being blessed to be washed in today (Joh 4:14, Joh 7:38, Rev 22:1, Eph 5:25-26).

Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Joh 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Rev 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

The world may see the works of Christ in us as the disciples did physically see “this woman” of (Luk 7:44) wash the feet of Christ, but it will take the miracle of the holy spirit within us convicting us in order to be drawn to Christ ourselves and to follow the example of “this woman” who typifies the body of Christ who are growing in this age to judge righteous judgment and no longer judge by mere appearances which Christ’s disciples and all of us do for so long until we become more preoccupied with examining ourselves as we die daily (2Co 13:5, Joh 7:24).

2Co 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Joh 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

The key of David as we know is Christ in us (Col 1:27) who opens up our heavens to the mysteries which have been hidden throughout the ages (Col 1:26). God has entrusted us with something so great and precious and tells us over and over to protect those keys, to not let any man take those keys (Rev 3:11), and God willing we will always do that and be granted to take heed to the admonitions throughout His word that tell us to continue in the truth or abide in Christ (Joh 8:31-32) who can open every door that has been set before us and conversely shut any door that needs to be shut behind us (Rev 3:7-8, Isa 22:22).

Col 1:26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Rev 3:11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Rev 3:7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;
Rev 3:8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

Isa 22:23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.

To physically cut keys at work I line up an uncut key or a marred in the hand of the Potter key and lay it against the device that does the cutting. The other already fashioned master key (Christ) is carefully moved along the straight bar (plummet line comes to mind) of the machine as the blank key then takes on the valleys and peaks that make up the shape or form of this master key. The familiar key-like pattern will then open up the door in question, unless the operation was not done correctly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKmJ-voBmwc]

This analogy of the key being cut can help remind us that with Christ in us and by God’s power we can be fashioned and formed to be this second key (second goat, second dove) that Christ will say to the world one day “Seest thou this woman?”. Before anyone knew Christ in the spirit, John the Baptist was pointing to the master key, not despising the day of small beginnings that he was in, as a type of the elect (Joh 1:29, Zec 4:10). The world itself was declaring its blindness in not knowing who the Son of man was (Mat 16:13-14).

Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Zec 4:10 For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

Mat 16:13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
Mat 16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

We are growing to see Christ within each other as we go through the grinding process of perfection which does away with the wood hay and stubble (1Co 3:12) that are represented by this excess part of the key that is not needed and would only serve to prevent us from entering into the doors that God has set before us. Even after the key is cut, there is a need to buff the key to take off the burrs from the key which we can liken unto the schisms that the Lord allows so that we can exercise patience and love toward one another through this ongoing process of refinement.

1Co 3:12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

So now that our keys are being cut, or some have been cut, or are in the process of being cut, the Lord will require that we go out and go through doors that He will open and no man can shut; and shut certain ones which no man can open as the exercise or trying of our faith is accomplished through these actions (Rev 3:8). God provides the opportunities for our growth and with Christ and the Christ our hope of glory, it will be possible to be more than conquerors through him and his body as we progress toward the final destination of our calling, which is to be changed in a moment and in a twinkling of an eye at the first resurrection God willing (1Co 15:52).

Rev 3:8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

1Co 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For the disciples of Christ in this precious part of scripture (Luk 7:44-50), even after “cutting the keys” it is being revealed to us that it is not enough to just hear the word of God or have the keys in your pocket so to speak but rather it is the doers who are justified with those keys (Jas 1:22), who are blessed to be brought unto repentance and into a new city where we prosper at the hand of God (Jas 4:14-15). It is the giants that we encounter on our journey that become the essential nourishment (Num 14:9) as we press toward the prize of the mark of the high calling in our Lord (Php 3:14). This pressing and overcoming spirit is a gift of God that keeps us with a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Christ.

Luk 7:44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
Luk 7:45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
Luk 7:46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
Luk 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
Luk 7:48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.
Luk 7:49 And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?
Luk 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Jas 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Jas 4:15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Num 14:9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

If we can see that we are guilty of all (Luk 11:51, 1Ti 1:15), and if we can be convinced that we are the weak of the world who God is making His strength perfect through (1Co 1:26-27), it will be witnessed by our taking on those attributes of “this [repentant] woman” who was void of conceit (Rom 11:25), and who had been given a contrite and broken heart (Isa 66:2), at least in type and shadow. These are the indicators or fruit of the tree (Mat 7:16) that God is working in our life as He drags us unto Christ, where we lay our life down at the altar which is the cross of Christ (Joh 6:44, Rom 2:4).

Luk 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

1Co 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
1Co 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

Rom 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

Isa 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Rom 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

This Psalm will address our need for God’s mercy along with His blessing to be shown to us if his way is going to be known upon the earth, and if his saving health is going to be among all the nations (Luk 5:31-32). It is through the church typified by this woman in (Luk 7:44-50 – above) that such mercy and ointment will be poured out upon all the earth.

Luk 5:31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
Luk 5:32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Our two first verses tonight:

Psa 67:1 To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song. God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.
Psa 67:2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

It is comforting to know that we can ask God to “be merciful unto us”, and to “bless us”, and “cause his face to shine upon us; Selah” …and it is because of this blessing that is given to the elect in every generation that God is working with (Mat 24:34) that His way can be “known upon earth”.

Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

The earth is the church that is being judged (1Pe 4:17, Jer 22:29) in this age, and it is through that judgment upon us that “thy saving health among all nations” can be known. This is a “saving health” that will one day go forth and be given to every other generation that will eventually all come to know God and His son because His judgments will then be in the rest of the earth (1Co 15:22, Joh 17:3, Isa 26:9).

Psa 67:3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
Psa 67:4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.

Because we are judged righteously by God who governs all things through Christ, all men will learn righteousness (Isa 26:9). The greatest of all contrasts that God is causing to make this point very bright to us about judgement is being accomplished by allowing Satan to be the god of this world for this aion, and then have him loosed for a season after having been bound by God for a thousand symbolic years (Rev 20:7-8).

In the larger scheme of things, this historical view of Satan being bound and then loosed and then judged in the lake of fire is the exact course of action and one event that the elect and all men will experience, described very succinctly in these verses (Rev 17:11, 2Th 2:8, Rev 13:18).

Rev 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

God will humble all flesh into seeing how powerless we are against the powers and principalities that He governs (Isa 45:7). This is serving His purpose of bringing all His creation unto perfection on the third day, including Christ who has preeminence as the first of the first fruits, to go unto perfection on the symbolic third day (Col 1:18, Rev 1:1, Luk 13:32).

The 6.6.6. of (Rev 13:18) is hidden wisdom from a world that neither knows that they are beasts nor that in order for that beastly nature to change we all must go through a process described in this verse as “for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. “After this process is complete there will be joy in the morning, and the nations will “be glad and sing for joy” (Pro 14:34, Pro 11:10, Jer 23:5) because of that process that God is blessing us to first experience in this age (Rev 1:3).

To “govern the nations upon earth. Selah” we need harmony not just authority and this is what the words “Neginoth, A Psalm or Song” teach us as they speak to the witness (2 words: Psalm and Song) of Christ in us that brings about true peace and harmony in rulership. This is also a reminder of the witness of the two times the song of Moses is mentioned (Exo 15:1-2, Rev 15:3).

A governor is explained in the book of James as something that can direct a large ship (Jas 3:4); a small piece of wood that can direct a massive vessel which is what the elect will do if we consider the world as that large vessel.

We will teach people on this ship just as Christ taught his unconverted disciples through the Psalms 107 storms they experienced (Psa 107:25-27). The difference with the waters that we will ply during the millennium is that they will be leading to the conversion of the world as opposed to holding the world in bondage with the ships of Tarshish which will in God’s perfect timing be destroyed by an east wind (2Th 2:8, Mat 24:27, Hos 13:15) which symbolizes Christ and His Christ (Psa 48:7-8).

2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Hos 13:15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.

Psa 48:7 Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
Psa 48:8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah.

Psa 67:5 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.
Psa 67:6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Psa 67:7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

Everything that God is doing is right on schedule, and as I said at the beginning of the study, this praise of God and any fruit that we produce, including praising God, is an indicator of a work that God is doing and a witness of the increase that he is allowing (Luk 19:37-40, 1Co 3:6).

Luk 19:37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;
Luk 19:38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.
Luk 19:39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
Luk 19:40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

1Co 3:6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice in (Luk 19:37), just as this Psalm describes in verses 3 and 5 (a witness) “let all the people praise thee”.

Luk 19:37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;
Luk 19:38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.
Luk 19:39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
Luk 19:40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. [praise God]
Luk 19:41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
Luk 19:42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
Luk 19:43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
Luk 19:44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

…and the very next verses we read:

Luk 19:45 And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought;
Luk 19:46 Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Luk 19:47 And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,
Luk 19:48 And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

In order for the rest of the world to “rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen”, they need to have their beasts driven out of the temple. The end result of that judgment is stated in verses 6 and 7 of tonight’s study:

Psa 67:6: Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Psa 67:7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

As God’s elect, we are showing the house to the house, which is how we collectively come to “Seest thou this woman?” in hope that one day we will be blessed to experience the joy of saying to the rest of the world “Seest thou this woman?”

The Keys to The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 8

“The Words I Speak Unto You, They Are Spirit”

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Introduction

It is only with spiritual discernment that “the things…we speak” are discerned, and as we have just read, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” How do we go about using spiritual discernment in such a way that we learn from the spirit which teaches us by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”?

One thing which should be clear immediately is that spiritual discernment is not to be found in a dictionary because we just read: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” What that tells us is that when we are taught by the holy spirit, it will not be “in words which man’s wisdom teaches.” Whenever we are granted to learn from the holy spirit, it will be only by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”, and we know that when we do that, it will result in an understanding of the Word of God which will immediately appear as utter foolishness to our natural mind because: “…the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him.”

In spite of being told in no uncertain terms that “the holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual”, it is still the number one rule of Biblical exegesis in most seminaries in this nation, and around the world, that “If the scriptures can be understood in their natural sense, then that is the way to take it.”

This principle is so commonly accepted that a very widely received Biblical fiction series entitled “Left Behind” which came out a number of years ago, depicted the two witnesses as two literal men who breathed literal fire out of their literal mouths and destroyed their enemies with that fire coming out of their mouths. After all, that is what the letter of the scriptures plainly declares:

Rev 11:3  And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
Rev 11:4  These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
Rev 11:5  And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

It simply must be asked, “If indeed ‘the words that I speak unto you are spirit’, then is that any way to handle the ‘spirit’ of the Words of Christ? If indeed ‘the holy spirit teaches [by] comparing spiritual things with spiritual’ is that any way to handle the spiritual Words of God?” It would be comical if it were not so truly sad that “the natural man receives not the things of the spirit, for they are foolishness unto him.”

That this key to the kingdom of heaven is a principle being taught to us “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” is made clear by what we are told in verse 4:

Rev 11:4  These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

Why would verse four be accepted as trees which are being used as a figure of those two witnesses to the Truth of the words of God, while the fire in the mouth of those witnesses is taken literally? Anyone who is granted by the holy spirit to compare spiritual things with spiritual will discern immediately that such a literal “letter” interpretation is not how those words which “are spirit” are intended by the holy spirit to be understood. Rather, since “the words that I speak unto you are spirit”, the words ‘my two witnesses’, the words ‘two olive trees’, the words ‘two candlesticks’, as well as the words ‘fire proceeds out of their mouths’, are all intended by the holy spirit to be understood as “spiritual things”, which are intended to be compared with other spiritual words of scripture.

Here are those other spiritual words:

Zec 4:5  Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
Zec 4:6  Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.

The “two witnesses” of Revelation 11 are those in every generation who witness to “the word of the Lord”.

The fact is that the adversary could not have come up with a better way of keeping the Truth of the prophesies of scripture hidden from mankind than to teach, “If it can be taken or understood literally, then that is how it should be understood.” That doctrine is in direct opposition to:

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Comparing spiritual things with spiritual are “not words which man’s wisdom teaches”, so in this study we will be faithful to what the scriptures teach us and show the spiritual principles involved in “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”.

“Comparing spiritual things with spiritual”

How do we go about comparing spiritual things with spiritual? The truth is that spiritual discernment is not a university level class that can be taken and studied from a text book, then bestowed as a degree in spiritual discernment conferred upon men by other men. The discerning of spirits and knowing and understanding the doctrine of Christ comes only to those who are given to love God with all their hearts and who are by God’s sovereignty granted to see the doctrine of Christ with their eyes, hear it with their ears and be obedient to His doctrine from their hearts:

Joh 7:17  If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

2Jn 1:9  Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

Those are the qualifications of being capable of “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” to the point of knowing God and His Son. Only after that gift is bestowed upon us will we be given to remember and apply Christ’s own words in Matthew 13 where He Himself tells us that His parables are intended to keep the multitudes who come to him from understanding His message, while at the same time revealing His doctrine to those to whom He has given “ears to hear”.

Mat 13:9  Who hath [been given, verse 11] ears to hear, let him hear.
Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mat 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Mat 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mat 13:15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Mat 13:16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
Mat 13:17  For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

There it is! That is the ‘ceremony’ by which we are granted to discern spirits. That is the ‘ceremony’ by which we are given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Of course it is not a ceremony at all, but rather it is a calling which we cannot resist because it was predestined before the foundation of the world whether “it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” or whether “from [you] shall be taken away even that [you] have”.

So the ability to “try the spirits to see whether they are of God” is actually a gift of the spirit, and not a matter of our own free will, as the world falsely teaches us:

1Co 12:7  But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

1Co 12:10  To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

It is true that not everyone is given the gift of discerning of spirits, but it is, in time, given to all who are in Christ to know His voice when a brother or a sister who has been given to discern the false doctrines coming from the “many false prophets [who] are gone out into the world” and who come into the body of Christ attempting to spread their insidious false doctrines.

How then is spiritual knowledge imparted?

While spiritual discernment is not a degree conferred upon us from institutions of men, yet God has ordained that the things of the spirit would be gleaned and understood only though “that which is written” by other men and “by the church”.

This is how the holy spirit opens up our understanding of “the things of the spirit”:

Act 8:27  And he [Philip] arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship,
Act 8:28  Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.
Act 8:29  Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.
Act 8:30  And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
Act 8:31  And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
Act 8:32  The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:
Act 8:33  In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
Act 8:34  And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
Act 8:35  Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.

The scripture the Ethiopian eunuch was reading was:

Isa 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

The name ‘Jesus’ is nowhere to be found in that verse of scripture, but “comparing spiritual things to spiritual” the holy spirit declares to us that this particular verse is speaking of the crucifixion of Jesus for the sins of all who are in Adam (1Co 15:22). The holy spirit used Philip to guide this man to Christ by teaching him the spiritual meaning of the words he was reading. This is how “the holy spirit teaches [us] by the church… comparing spiritual things to spiritual”. The application of the principle of “comparing spiritual things to spiritual” is actually learned when the holy spirit first prepares our hearts, and then “by the church [sends] some man … [who] guides [us]”. This Truth is reiterated in these verses:

Eph 3:9  And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Eph 3:10  To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

There it is again. “The fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world, has been hid in God [is] made known by the church…” When we put Acts 8:31 (“How can I [understand] except some [Godly] man guide me”), together with Ephesians 1:10 (“To make all men… by the church… see what is the fellowship of the mystery…”), we can begin to understand how the holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things in scripture with other spiritual things in scripture. The holy spirit had prepared the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch, and then the holy spirit sent Philip as a witness to those verses which the eunuch had been shown by the holy spirit.

No court of trial is held without having the books containing the relevant laws available to those who are involved in that trial. In the same way, those who the holy spirit uses to “guide [us]” must be men of God who have “studied [the scriptures] to show [them]selves approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed… never thinking above that which has been written.”

1Co 4:6  Now these things, brothers, I applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us ye might learn not to think above that which is written, so that ye may not be puffed up, one over the one against the other.

2Ti 2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

It is made clear by the spirit which uses men like Christ, like Philip and like the apostle Paul to show other men “the things of the spirit [which] are foolishness unto… the natural man”.

1Co 2:4  And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit [the Word of God (Joh 6:63)] and of power:
1Co 2:5  That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
1Co 2:6  Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
1Co 2:7  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
1Co 2:8  Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
1Co 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard [Mat 13:9-15], neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit [Mat 13:11]: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
1Co 2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Here we have the entire Godly Biblical system of how “the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” operates. Paul is demonstrating this work of God for us using “my speech and my preaching” as as example of how the holy spirit through Himself and through you and me is “speak[ing] wisdom among them that are [being] perfected”. In one verse of scripture we are told that the “things… which… we speak [are those things by which] the holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

That is why it is critical that we all “try the spirits to see whether they are of God” (Joh 4:1) and that we are all able to discern whether the things being spoken to us by any man are ever “above that which has been written” (1Co 4:6).

It is only “those things which have been written [which] are spirit”, and what gives them their spiritual meaning is that they agree with other scriptures “which have been written”. Anything else ‘has no light in it’.

Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

“This word” refers to the law of Moses, which the New Testament reveals to be merely “a shadow of good things to come”, those good things being the spiritual words of our Lord as He Himself made clear to us:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Heb 10:1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The law can never make the comers thereunto perfect, but what does perfect us is our daily dying as we experience “the washing of water by the Word [which is] spirit”:

Eph 5:26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

The letter versus the spirit

While the natural man teaches us that the words of scripture mean what they say, the scriptures themselves, and Christ in particular, teach us that the words of Christ, which He tells us “are spirit” (Joh 6:63), are actually meant to hide the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven from the multitudes who come to Christ, the “many called”, and at the same time reveal those mysteries to the “few chosen” who are then “given…eyes that see and ears that hear…the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
2Co 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2Co 3:7  But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
2Co 3:8  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
2Co 3:9  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
2Co 3:10  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
2Co 3:11  For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

“Able ministers of the New Testament” while very careful not to think above what is written, are never guilty of taking what is written to mean the letters that are written. If the scriptures were taken in that manner, he would be a Jew which is one outwardly, and circumcision would be that circumcision which is outward in the flesh.

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

However, when the spiritual man speaks of being a Jew, or when he speaks of being circumcised, he does so comparing spiritual types with spiritual realities which are spiritual and invisible to the eyes of the natural man, so that when the holy spirit teaches us in that manner we, too, must conclude:

Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

“Not in the letter” tells us that the mantra of the seminaries of Babylon, “If it can be taken literally, that is the way to take it” is “the ministration of death, [and] the ministration of condemnation.”

These are the things which are “not given unto…the multitudes” of natural men who come to Christ to see or hear. These are the words which Christ tells us “are spirit” and which Christ and the apostle Paul tell us simply “cannot [be] received [by] the natural man”:

Joh 8:43. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

How could a person who “cannot hear [Christ’s] word” be expected to “receive… the things of the spirit of God”? He cannot know them, because Christ’s words are not discerned with a dictionary. Rather “they are spiritually discerned” and are foolishness to the natural man.

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels”

2Co 4:3  But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
2Co 4:5  For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
2Co 4:6  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

What we have in earthen vessels are “the words [which Christ] speaks unto [us which words] are spirit.” It is through His Word that He dwells within us. If we do not have His word within us, we do not have Him within us. If the word within us teaches that Christ is part of a trinity God-head who will torment His own creatures for all eternity, Christ is not in us. If the words in us teach us that we are a spirit having a physical experience, instead of an earthen vessel having a spiritual experience, Christ is not in us. If the words in us teach us that Christ did not break the sabbath, did not do that which is not lawful, according to the law of Moses, and that He did not profane the sabbath, then His word is not in us, and He is not in us.

On the other hand, if we know “there is one God, [and that one God is] the Father of whom are all things”, and if we know that besides that one God the Father there is also “one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things”, and if we know that we are beasts, and we have no preeminence above a beast, and that without a resurrection they which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished, and if we know that Christ did break and profane the sabbath and was still guiltless [Mat 12:1-8, Joh 5:16-18] because of His words, as opposed to the law of Moses, then “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” is beginning to “shine unto [us]”, and is not hidden from us.

1Co 8:6  But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
Ecc 3:19  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath [Hebrew: ruach – spirit]; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
Ecc 3:20  All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

1Co 15:16  For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Co 15:17  And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

“Invisible things… are understood by the things that are made”

It is through the understanding of “the things of the spirit” that “the holy spirit teaches [us by] comparing spiritual things with spiritual”, and because “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” God has determined that the invisible things of the spirit are to be understood by the things that are made…”

Rom 1:20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The man who has “the mind of the spirit” sees the mind of the spirit in everything that is made, because He knows that God created all things by Christ, and therefore everything made reveals His mind in some way.

Eph 3:9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

Only the mind of the spirit can grasp how life comes only through death by observing that a seed must fall into the ground and die before it can bring forth much more life.

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Rom 8:27  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

It is one of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and to life itself to understand that only the man who has the mind of the spirit can see Christ and through Christ see His Father:

Joh 6:46  Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.

Joh 14:7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Joh 14:8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Joh 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

“The kingdom of God is within you” (Luk 17:20-21). The keys to the kingdom of heaven are given to you and me to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven and know God and His Son and for the purpose of giving us life eternal, which is in knowing God and His Son whom He has sent to save the whole world (Luk 17:20-21, Mat 16:18, Joh 3:17, Joh 17:3).

[Part nine can be found here.]

The Keys To The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 7

“The First Man Adam… The Last Adam…”

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Introduction

I have often said the entire Bible, and all scripture, whether speaking of individuals or nations, is actually concerned only with a preordained momentous struggle between two men, and those two men are “the first man Adam… [and] the last Adam”. The first man Adam is physical, temporary and evil, and the last Adam is spiritual, permanent and righteous.

Another way of expressing this struggle is the process of “put[ting off… the old man… [and the] put[ting] on [of] the new man” as it is expressed in:

Eph 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
Eph 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Eph 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

In our study today we will give some of the examples and the scriptures which will bear out the simplicity of this “key to the house of David”.

We need to notice that the first man Adam, the old man, is indeed first and that he lives and becomes “rich and increased with goods” and fat and old long before the new man, the younger man, appears to begin to supplant the dying old man. The old man develops quickly into a powerful nation with many cities and a capital, before the new man even begins to prosper.

The story of these two men is foreshadowed by the creation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which Christ placed right in the middle of the Garden of Eden, right beside the tree of life:

Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It is important to note that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life are both placed by Christ Himself in the middle of the Garden of Eden. It is also very important that we notice that both of these trees come “out of the ground”. What this tells us is that it is in the earth where God begins His ultimate work of placing the crown jewel of His creation in His garden “paradise” (Rev 2:7).

It begins as “the first man, Adam” a physical man in a physical garden, but it ends with “the last Adam” being a spiritual man in a spiritual body in a spiritual garden.

Here is the beginning and the end of what God, through Christ, is doing:

Gen 2:7  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:8  And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Gen 2:9  And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Rom 5:14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who [“the first man Adam”] is the figure of him that was to come.

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise [Greek: garden] of God.

Christ’s ‘garden’ is His saints in whom He dwells. He is the “tree of life”, and it is He who is in the midst of His garden, because we are told “His inheritance [is] in the saints”:

Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

The seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent
The two men of all scripture

This revelation of ‘the first Adam and the last Adam’ is introduced to us at the very beginning of the ages, while our original parents were still in the Garden of Eden:

Gen 3:14  And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

“Thy seed and her seed” – those who are given eyes that see “the things of the spirit” know that ‘the first man Adam’ is “thy seed”. The seed of “the woman”, on the other hand, is Christ, “the last Adam”. “Thy seed” is also known as ‘the seed of the serpent’, or as Christ Himself put it, “You are of your father the devil.”

Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

The serpent was a murderer “from the beginning”. He did not begin as a righteous angel who then rebelled against His Creator as those who twist Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, want us to believe. Read this link for proof of the truth of John 8:44.

It is of utmost importance we realize that when Christ said “You are of your father the devil”, He was not speaking to the scribes and Pharisees who did not believe on Him. These words are being addressed to “those Jews which believed on Him”:

Joh 8:30  As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

It is those who believe on Him but “cannot hear [His] word” who do not “continue in [His] word”. What this reveals is that believing on Him and not abiding in His word is the same as being the son of “the god of this world”, which is the same as being “of your father the devil”.

2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

What this reveals to us is that we are worshiping the devil when we worship and serve our own flesh. What the scriptures teach is that when we worship our own ‘beastly’ self, we are actually “worship[ing] the dragon” who gives power to the beast:

Rev 13:4  And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

Understanding what it means to be “of your father the devil…believ[ing] in [Christ but not] continu[ing] in His word”, and understanding that “the first man Adam… [is our] old man” is one more of “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

Cain and Abel

Soon after being cast out of the garden of Eden, we are again shown the struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the first and the last Adam, in the story of Cain and Abel.

Gen 4:8  And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
Gen 4:9  And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
Gen 4:10  And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

The blood of Abel typifies the blood of Christ. The struggle between Cain and Abel typifies the struggle between the first and the last Adam. The blood of both Abel and Christ demand justice, and God is a just God who will make Himself known to all men, and at the appointed time He will take His revenge upon our old “first man Adam”.

Rom 12:19  Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Rev 6:9  And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

“Them that dwell on the earth” is the flesh of all men, including the flesh of God’s elect.

There is an appointed time when all men will discern who serves God and who serves Him not.

Mal 3:15  And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
Mal 3:16  Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
Mal 3:17  And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Mal 3:18  Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

The day has already been appointed. It is appointed individually within, and it is an appointed day dispensationally without. ‘Then [we] will return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves Him not.’ Then the first Adam will be distinguished from the last man Adam for all to see and to know.

Abraham and Lot

While it is true that Egypt typifies this world and Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, most often typifies the man of sin, yet Pharaoh is also given a positive application in scripture. In the story of Joseph, the Pharaoh typifies God the Father, who gives the kingdoms of this world over to be ruled by Christ and Christ’s Christ. Without going into great detail, there is another key to the kingdom of God which reveals to us that there is a bright, positive application to every word of God, and at the same time there is a dark, negative application to every word. That is a subject for another study which we will do in time.

I have said all that to introduce Abraham and Lot as our next type of the first and last Adam. While Lot is, in a positive sense, mentioned as a “righteous man” in:

2Pe 2:7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
2Pe 2:8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

Yet when we see his name in the Old Testament, he is presented as the very family Abraham was told to leave behind:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred [Lot], and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

Abraham typifies God’s elect who at first are slow to be obedient to His words. So instead of leaving his father’s house, it is Abram’s father, typifying the strength of our old man, who at first leads Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, from which he goes only half way to Canaan, stopping to set up house in Haran, still on the Chaldean side of the Euphrates. Being led by his father, who he was told to leave behind, and stopping at the half-way mark, all typifies the “carnal… babes in Christ” (1Co 4:1-4), which we all are at the beginning of our spiritual walk. Our old man is still leading, and even after leaving Haran, our flesh and our father’s family, the family of our old man, our “kin”, still clings to us. This condition is typified by the words, “and Lot went with him” wherever Abram goes:

Gen 12:4  So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

Gen 13:1  And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.

Gen 13:5  And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.

This is who we are as carnal babes in Christ until the day we come to see that we simply cannot continue in fellowship with our flesh, which longs to remain in this world as these verses reveal:

Gen 13:7  And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.
Gen 13:8  And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.

‘For we are brothers’ demonstrates the attachment we still have to our own flesh at this stage of our walk. It is a time of great struggle between these two men, and it is most instructive that this separation is precipitated by struggles between the shepherds who feed the flocks of Abraham and Lot. What that little fact tells us is that it is doctrinal issues, concerning those things which feed the Lord’s flock, which will separate us from our old “first man Adam, who is our physical, carnal families.

Notice where our “kin”, our physical families, go when they finally come to realize that they can no longer walk with us:

Gen 13:11  Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.
Gen 13:12  Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

Ishmael and Isaac

It is only after we make this final break with our “father’s house”, our ‘old man’s’ house, that the heavens begin to open up to us and we are granted to see much more of the Lord’s plan for us:

Gen 13:14  And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
Gen 13:15  For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
Gen 13:16  And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
Gen 13:17  Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

Here is this same promise in New Testament terms:

Rev 21:7  He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Paul put these verses about Abraham’s seed becoming as numerous as “the dust of the earth” together with all the verses which tell us that Abraham’s children will be as numerous “as the stars of heaven”, and he was made by the spirit to realize that Abraham was actually a type of Christ, who was to become “the heir of the world” and would be the father of all men of all time:

Rom 4:13  For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

Gal 3:29  And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

After the death of Terah, Abram’s father, Abram at long last arrived as a stranger and a pilgrim in the promised land. He had no sooner arrived than the Lord smote the promised land with a famine. Famine is one of the Lord’s “sore judgments” (Eze 14:21). We are told that judgment comes out of the north (Eze 9:1-2). Judgment and famine come upon us when we have failed to be obedient. It took the death of Abram’s father, the symbol of our “old man”, before Abram was obedient to what the Lord had commanded him. As we always do when judgment comes upon us, we want to go back into Egypt, back into the comfort of the world to avoid the pain of the Lord’s judgments upon our lives, just as Israel did. Our brother Larry Groenewald pointed out in his study Thursday that the ‘south’ is the opposite of the north, signifying our spiritual attempt to avoid the pain of the judgments of God, and our desire to go back to Egypt when those judgments come upon us. So Abram goes down into Egypt where he denies his wife and has to be admonished by a pagan king for his lies.

It is here in Egypt that Sarai is given an Egyptian handmaid as a gift from the Pharaoh, and it is through this bondwoman, this Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, that Sarai and Abram conspire to help God keep His promise to make Abram a great nation. It is the son of Abram by this bondwoman who becomes another type of the ‘first Adam’, our ‘old man’, and who “mocks [and] persecutes” the son of the freewoman, Isaac, who as a type of God’s elect, was miraculously given to Abraham and Sarah in their old age.

Gen 21:8  And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
Gen 21:9  And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.
Gen 21:10  Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.

Gal 4:28  Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal 4:29  But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Gal 4:30  Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman [our old man, the first man, Adam, the flesh] shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman [the last Adam, the new man].
Gal 4:31  So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Contrary to what many think, the “son of the bondwoman” is not speaking of the physical Palestinians, and the son of the freewoman is not referring to the physical Jews.

“We brethren” is being addressed to Gentile Galatians who have accepted Christ as their head and as their Savior, and the son of the bondwoman includes “Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children” as Paul make clear in:

Gal 4:25  For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

The only ‘Jerusalem’ that is “the son of the freewoman [is] Jerusalem which is above [which] is free, [and] which is the mother of us all.”

In terms of this study “Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children” is the first Adam, our old man, who cannot hear the words of Christ because they are spiritually discerned”.

Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Joh 8:45  And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

All who still think that “Jerusalem which now is” is not Hagar the bondwoman, are still in bondage with physical Jerusalem and her children, and they are all the sons of the bondwoman because:

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Jacob and Esau

The first man Adam is next typified by Esau, and the last Adam is typified by Jacob. In this story, Jacob is displayed to us in the manner which his name confirms. He actually supplants his brother Esau, just as Christ supplants our old, “first man Adam”, with “the last Adam, [our] new man”.  With each new revelation of these two men, the distinction between them become more and more physically blurred and harder to discern.

In the story of Jacob and Esau, both are born of the freewoman, and both are the sons of Abraham. This makes it much harder to distinguish the first Adam from the last man Adam. However, Christ and His Christ spiritually discern immediately the voice of a stranger, the voice of the first man Adam as opposed to the voice of the last Adam:

Joh 8:37  I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Joh 8:38  I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Joh 8:39  They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
Joh 8:40  But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

What we learn from this revelation of these two men is that the first man Adam matures much faster than the last Adam. Both Ishmael and Esau become great nations with many cities and capital cities, long before the type of the last Adam, Jacob, becomes a mere clan of “seventy souls” going down into Egypt to avoid another famine:

Gen 25:16  These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations.

Gen 36:9  And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir:

Gen 36:43  Duke Magdiel, duke Iram: these be the dukes of Edom, according to their habitations in the land of their possession: he is Esau the father of the Edomites.

Exo 1:5  And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

The lesson for us is that our old man, the first man, Adam, is born and comes to full bloom as the beast he is before our new man, the last Adam, even begins to grow and supplant our old, first man Adam.

King Saul and David

Both of these kings were anointed by the same prophet, Samuel, and as such both were “the Lord’s anointed”. Samuel is at first, pleased with the first king of Israel, King Saul, who stood head and shoulders over all others in Israel.

1Sa 10:22  Therefore they enquired of the LORD further, if the man should yet come thither. And the LORD answered, Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.
1Sa 10:23  And they ran and fetched him thence: and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.
1Sa 10:24  And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the LORD hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king.

Like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, our carnal-minded, first-man Adam, is physically handsome, and ever so appealing to our flesh. Just look at Abraham’s response to Christ when he was informed that Isaac was to replace Ishmael. This is just how attached we are to our own flesh and blood:

Gen 17:18  And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
Gen 17:19  And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
Gen 17:20  And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great [“son of the bondwoman”] nation.
Gen 17:21  But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

In this our final example of these two men as a key to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, we learn that this struggle between these two men continues over into the realm of God’s elect. In this appearing of these two men, King Saul typifies God’s rejected anointed. Ishmael was the seed of Abraham, but he was not the son of the freewoman.

Esau was the son of Abraham and was also born of the freewoman, but he did not value what he had been given, and like Judas, Esau was easily swindled of his birthright and his blessing by Jacob the supplanter. In this story of these two men, both King Saul and David are the Lord’s anointed.

One of the Lord’s anointed, the first king, King Saul, typifies “the Lord’s chosen” who betrays and attempts to destroy the Lord’s “very elect”, as a type of those in our midst who are trusted counselors, who yet, like Judas, are rejected of God and are given over to the adversary as his tool to persecute and destroy the Lord’s elect.

King Saul actually twice cast a javelin at David to kill him:

1Sa 18:10  And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand.
1Sa 18:11  And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
1Sa 18:12  And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him [the last Adam], and was departed from Saul [“the first man Adam].

King David, as a type of us who are promised to “be hated of all men”, is betrayed by his own trusted counselor, Ahithophel, when his own son, Absalom, attempts to destroy him:

2Sa 15:12  And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom.
2Sa 15:13  And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.

2Sa 15:31  And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

Later King David wrote in the Psalms about the pain he experienced when his own trusted counselor turned against him:

Psa 41:9  Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Then again in:

Psa 55:12  For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:
Psa 55:13  But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.
Psa 55:14  We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.

This all happened to King David, and it is written for our admonition as it was for Christ Himself:

Joh 13:18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.

So King David, when He was fleeing from his own son and fighting for his life against his own family and against the counsel of his own trusted counselor, Ahithophel, typified Christ, and Christ tells us that we are Him, and that we must expect to be treated exactly as He was treated:

Mat 10:24  The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
Mat 10:25  It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

It is truly one of the keys to the kingdom of heaven to be given to know that we are given not only to believe on Christ but to also fill up in our bodies that which is behind of the sufferings of the Christ of Christ, for His body’s sake which is the church.

Col 1:24  Now, am I rejoicing in the sufferings on your behalf, and am filling up the things that lack of the tribulations of the Christ, in my flesh, in behalf of his body, which is the assembly, (REV)

Php 1:27  Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
Php 1:28  And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
Php 1:29  For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
Php 1:30  Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

That is the blessing and the honor which is ours in the service of our Lord. Our suffering “in the behalf of Christ” is the daily dying of the old first man Adam, through whose death our new man, the last Adam, is being birthed daily. This honor is ours only because Christ has given us “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

[Part eight can be found here.]

The Keys to The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 6

If Ye Be Christ’s, Then Are Ye Abraham’s Seed

Gal 3:29  And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Introduction

A few months ago I heard a radio talk show host in utter frustration make the statement, “How anyone can think that the Christian church has replaced Israel as the chosen people of God, I just cannot understand”. He certainly expressed himself, and most so-called ‘Christian ministers’, in a very Biblical manner when he said “I just cannot understand”. Truer words were never spoken for this very reason:

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The apostle Paul is simply repeating what Christ had explained to His disciples when they asked Him why He spoke to the multitudes (Mat 13:2) in parables:

Mat 13:9  Who hath [been given (vs 11)] ears to hear, let him hear.
Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mat 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 
Mat 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mat 13:15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Notice verse nine. “Ears that hear… and…eyes that see… the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” is the same as “the keys to the house of David” which grant us to unlock and “to know [those] mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”. The apostle Paul was given by God to use those keys to explain clearly who is, and who is not, God’s true chosen people. God Himself, through the apostle Paul, explains clearly what this radio talk-show host, along with most all Christian ministers, ‘cannot understand… and cannot perceive’, even as their own eyes see these words and as they hear their own voices reading these very clear words:

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

There it is. The keys to the kingdom of heaven are not given to the natural man, whether a talk-show host or a minister or a layman. The natural man is not given to see the words “…he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly”. That is one of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven which has the natural man locked out of the kingdom of heaven. The keys to the kingdom of heaven are given to those who are granted to receive the things of the spirit. It is with the ability to discern the things of the spirit which the true Christian church, the body of Christ, has been granted to understand that God has indeed replaced the physical nation of Israel with those who “are Christ’s” as God’s chosen people, regardless of any outward fleshly pedigree.

All who refuse to believe that “he is not a Jew which is one outwardly” have now, with King Saul, become the rejected anointed people of God, and that is why the natural man “cannot receive the things of the spirit of God”. The natural man continues to think of himself as a spiritual man even as he denies and rejects “the things of the spirit of God”. The natural man is the sworn enemy of God, and the man who is given to discern the things of the spirit is persecuted by the natural man:

1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

1Sa 18:10  And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand.
1Sa 18:11  And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. 
1Sa 18:12  And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, and was departed from Saul.

1Sa 24:2  Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats.
1Sa 24:3  And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave; and Saul went in to cover his feet: and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave.
1Sa 24:4  And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe privily. 
1Sa 24:5  And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt.
1Sa 24:6  And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD’S anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD. 
1Sa 24:7  So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way.

Gal 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

The apostle Paul contrasts ‘spiritual discernment’ with understanding the physical letters of the Word of God:

2Co 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

To fail to grow beyond “the letter” and to continue to think “according to the flesh” and to reject the words of the spirit which tell us clearly that “he is not a Jew which is one outwardly”, and to continue to agree with this talk-show host and with most all so-called Christian ministers, is a matter of life and death. Without this key to the kingdom of heaven one would surely not find the kingdom of heaven or the life which is that kingdom.

As is always the case, the scriptures always reaffirm themselves with a “second witness” which we can find in the second chapter of Ephesians:

Eph 2:11  Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
Eph 2:12  That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Eph 2:13  But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Eph 2:14  For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Eph 2:15  Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Eph 2:16  And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
Eph 2:17  And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
Eph 2:18  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 2:19  Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 

There it is again. The Gentile Christians are “called uncircumcision” by those who are “called the circumcision”, but what is the true circumcision? Who is the true Israel? “You [Gentile Ephesians] are no more strangers and foreigners, but [“by the blood of Christ” you are now] fellowcitizens with the saints, and [“are fellowcitizens”] of the household of God”.

When Paul says in…:

Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

…he is not saying there are no longer any physical Jews. Rather, as the next verse proves, his point is that anyone who is now “in Christ Jesus… is a[n inward] Jew… in the spirit, and not in the letter” (Rom 2:28), and is now “inwardly… in the spirit… the seed of Abraham… [and he is now inwardly… [a] fellowcitizen… in the spirit… with the… commonwealth of Israel”:

Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Gal 3:29  And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 

The natural man cannot discern that the promises are just as spiritual as life itself. Being the recipient of eternal life does not exclude anyone from physical death, except for the very few indeed who will be alive and changed at the time of the first resurrection:

1Th 4:15  I can tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not rise to meet him ahead of those who are in their graves.
1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the call of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, all the Christians who have died will rise from their graves.
1Th 4:17  Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and remain with him forever.
1Th 4:18  So comfort and encourage each other with these words. (NLT)

The man who is given to discern the things of the spirit is not striving to attain to physical life, nor is he hoping to inherit the physical promises God gave to Abraham and his seed, because the man of the spirit knows that those physical promises are merely spiritual types and shadows of “better things to come… the things of the spirit [which] are foolishness unto… the natural man”.

Heb 10:1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The physical temple itself was merely a type and shadow of the true “inward… in the spirit… temple of God”:

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

The man who is granted to discern the things of the spirit also knows that God’s kingdom, God’s true Israel, is also within His people, and the physical nation of Israel is merely a type and shadow of the true kingdom of heaven, just as “the first man Adam” is but a type of “the last Adam”, Christ:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

So the natural ‘Israel’ must precede the true Israel. Paul repeats this doctrine of Christ with these words:

Gal 6:15  Certainly, it doesn’t matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Rather, what matters is being a new creation.
Gal 6:16  Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to this principle. They are the Israel of God. (GWV)

“Of both one”

Let’s look again at Eph 2:14:

Eph 2:14  For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

What a revolutionary statement!!! Christ is making of two one. He is not making of two, two. ‘Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to [that] principle [of making of two one]. They are the [only] Israel of God”.

Let me clarify myself at this point. Neither the apostle Paul nor I are anti-semetic. Neither of us thinks that physical Jews are inferior to anyone else who is “in Adam”. What Christ Himself said from His own mouth when speaking His first recorded message to those in the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth, and then again when speaking to the woman at the well, and what He is explaining to us via the pen of the apostle Paul, is simply:

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

So physical Israel, like King Saul, is God’s rejected anointed, and we dare not touch or do harm to God’s anointed, even after the spirit of the Lord has departed from His rejected anointed.

1Sa 24:5  And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt.
1Sa 24:6  And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD’S anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.

1Ch 16:22  Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.

The negative application of “the seed of Abraham”

Just as the first Adam must precede the last Adam, we are also told that the Christ must first be “of the seed of David according to the flesh“.

Act 2:30  Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

Rom 1:3  Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

The seed of Abraham and the seed of David are again, one and the same in both the negative and the positive applications. The reason “Christ… was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” via His mother, is to demonstrate that He, too, came to this earth in the very same sinful flesh and blood with which we contend:

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Heb 2:15  And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Heb 2:16  For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. 
Heb 2:17  Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 
Heb 2:18  For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

“[Christ] took part of the same… flesh and blood as the [physical] children [of Abraham].” In the same manner, before we can be “the last Adam”, like our Lord, we must be “the first man Adam… according to the flesh”.  Only then can we are made to be the positive application of  “Abraham’s seed… the last Adam”.  We are even told “as Isaac was [we Gentile Christians are also now] the children of promise”.

Gal 4:28  Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

‘Abraham’s seed, the house of David, and the children of promise’ are all spiritually the same. They all signify those in Christ who are granted the keys to the kingdom of heaven and to life eternal through the knowledge of Christ and His Father (Joh 17:3).

Notice what is promised to those who know Christ and who are “in Christ”:

1Co 6:2  Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3  Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

Rev 1:6  And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Rev 5:10  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

Rev 2:26  And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: 
Rev 2:27  And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

Now notice what is given to those who are promised the key to the house of David:

Isa 16:5  And in mercy shall the throne be established: and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness.

Isa 22:22  And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

Those who are “in Christ” are “kings and priests” who will “judge the world… and… shall judge angels”. Those who are promised the key to the house of David, “sit upon… the throne in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment…”

Obviously “the dream is one” (Gen 41:26), and both are the overcomers in Christ who are given to rule the nations for a thousand years and then judge angels in the devouring flames of the lake of fire:

Isa 33:14  The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? 
Isa 33:15  He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

 1Co 6:2  Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3  Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

Conclusion

So here we have one more of the keys to the kingdom of heaven. We have seen in the scriptures that being the temple of God, being circumcised, being a Jew, being an Israelite and being the seed of Abraham, are one and all now only a matter of being “in Christ… in the spirit and not [being a Jew] outwardly… in the letter”.

Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

For this reason the man who is given to receive the things of the spirit has the same concern for all the nations of the world, and is grateful to be the inward, spiritual circumcision, the inward, spiritual Jew, Israelite, temple of God, and the inward, spiritual seed of Abraham.

All of this agrees with our Lord’s own words:

Joh 6:63  Life is spiritual. Your physical existence doesn’t contribute to that life. The words that I have spoken to you are spiritual. They are life. (GW)

It is this spiritual understanding of who the seed of Abraham is, and who the recipient of the promises made to Abraham is, which is one more of “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” by which we are given to bind on earth that which has already been bound in heaven and to understand “the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God” (Eph 3:9). With this “key of knowledge” we, as His “church ,which is His body”, can now make this part of the mind of God known and understood in the heavens His elect who are yet here on the earth:

Luk 11:52  Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mat 16:19  And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you bind on the earth will have been bound in the heavens; and whatever you loose on the earth will have been loosed in the heavens. (ALT)

Joh 3:13  And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Eph 3:9  And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Eph 3:10  To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, [“the keys to the kingdom of heaven”]

The phrases “will have been bound in the heavens” and “will have been loosed in the heavens”, means that if we are “in Christ”, we are granted to know here on earth the mind of Christ, whom we are coming to know better as we die daily with Him:

Joh 17:3  Now this is eternal life: that they shall be knowing You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You sent. (ALT)

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

What this key to the kingdom of heaven reveals is that we are living in the day Christ spoke of in answer to the question from the woman at the well concerning where we are to worship God:

Joh 4:21  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at [physical] Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Joh 4:22  Ye worship ye know not what: we [inward Jews] know what we worship: for salvation is of the [inward] Jews.
Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 

[Part seven can be found here.]

The Keys To The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 5

The “Is, Was And Will Be” Nature of Christ and His Words

Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Rev 1:4 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;

Introduction

This particular key to the kingdom of heaven has had such a huge impact on my own entry into the kingdom of God that I took it for the name of the website – iswasandwillbe.com.

Including the phrases “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”, and acknowledging that these phrases include the present, we find that this is, was and will be characteristic of Christ and His Words are mentioned in the book of Revelation 14 times

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which [1] is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

Rev 1:8 I am [2] Alpha and Omega, [3] the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, [4] which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Rev 2:8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith [5] the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

Rev 4:8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, [6] which was, and is, and is to come.

Rev 1:11 Saying, I am [7] Alpha and Omega, [8] the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

Rev 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, [9] which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. [10] I am Alpha and Omega, [11]the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

Rev 22:13 [12] I am Alpha and Omega, [13] the beginning and the end, [14] the first and the last.

Why is this statement repeated so many times?

I once thought this ‘is, was and will be’ statement was merely a redundant Biblical statement, repeated over and over in the book of Revelation. That was before I realized that the holy spirit has a reason for repeating anything. That was before I realized that anything that is repeated is being purposely emphasized, and there is nothing emphasized more in the book of “the revelation of Jesus Christ” than this is, was and will be character of the words of this book.

This is why this statement is repeated 14 times in the 22 chapters of this book:

Mat 24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
Mat 24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

In these verses of Matthew 24, we are given one of the most important keys to the kingdom of heaven, which kingdom is within all in whom the Word of God lives. What does it mean to have the Christ, who is the Word of God living His life within us? This is what that means:

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

2Co 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols [False doctrines: Eze 14:1-9]? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

“God is spirit… and the spirit of God dwells in you”. So what does that mean? Here is what that means:

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit [of God] that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life. (ASV)

It is the spirit of God that gives life, and the words of Christ are that spirit of God which gives life. Therefore, when we are told “the spirit of God dwells in you”, what we are being told is that the words Christ has spoken are within us. Having the words Christ has spoken within us is the same as having the life of the kingdom of God within us.

What are we told about those words? Here it is again:

Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, along with all the apostles of Christ, are “asleep in Christ” (1Co 15:18) awaiting the resurrection from the dead. The words of Christ were within them as well as those who heard the apostles speak His words:

Joh 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Joh 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Joh 17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

The words of Christ did not die with the apostles because they passed on His words to us “through their word” in their writings.

2Pe 1:14  Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
2Pe 1:15  Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

It was the apostles themselves who canonized the scriptures. The council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. simply acknowledged what the apostles has already accomplished.

There are those who teach that one need not be able to read to know Christ, and that could possibly be true. I know for certain that you do not have to be an A student to be part of the body of Christ or I would not be here. The extent of one’s education is not a big issue in scripture, but if you cannot read, then you had better know someone who can read to you because we are specifically told by our Lord Himself:

Mar 12:24  And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?

Mat 22:29  Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

Luk 6:3  And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;

For those who teach that scripture is “just ink on paper”, Christ sure seems to think otherwise, and He asks the question, “Have ye not read?”

The apostle Paul gives us this stern warning:

1Co 4:6 Now these things, brothers, I applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us ye might learn not to think above that which is written, so that ye may not be puffed up, one over the one against the other. (ACV)

The book of Revelation opens with these vitally important words of life:

Rev 1:3 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.

Another oft repeated phrase in the words of Christ is this statement – “the time is at hand”. As Christ told us, His words “shall not pass away”. That being true “the time is [always] at hand [to] keep those things which are written therein.” That is the key to the kingdom of heaven within us which has been “taken away” by those who should be opening the doors of the kingdom of heaven to us.

Mat 24:32  Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
Mat 24:33  So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Rev 22:10  And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

The book of “the revelation of Jesus Christ” opens with the statement: “the time is at hand” (Rev 1:3), and it ends with the same words: “the time is at hand” (Rev 22:10). Fourteen times in this book we are told that Jesus, and therefore His words, are ‘the beginning and the end… are, were, and will be’. “Who readeth [is told to] keep the things which are written therein, for the time is at hand” to do so.

It is only with this ‘is, was, and will be’ key to the kingdom of heaven within us that we are able to understand such words and to rightly divide and apply those words of our Lord. Only with this knowledge of the mind of Christ and the mind of His Father, are we able to understand how “the summer in near… even at the door… [and how] this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” in the lives of all who have been given eyes that see and ears that hear in every generation of those who read and keep these words.

Christ made this key to understanding His words so clear when speaking of how “the abomination of desolation” takes place in the lives of “whosoever reads” His Words:

Mat 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

In this same chapter we read of the end of this age. It was the disciples’ question about “the end of the age” which provoked everything Christ says in this 24th chapter of Matthew:

Mat 24:3  And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world [Greek: aion, age]?

The very first words out of the mouth of our Lord in answer to this question about the sign of His coming and the end of the age were these:

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Was that a ‘will be’ prophecy only? There are many people who teach that these words have only an end-time application, but nothing could be further from the Truth of the ‘is, was, and will be’ Words of God. That generation did not pass until those words were fulfilled, just as Christ had prophecied:

Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

This is what happened while the apostles were yet alive in these vessels of clay :

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

The apostasy of the church was a completed accomplishment of the adversary well before the death of the apostles. It had been advancing for quite some time before this second epistle to Timothy. Paul mentions the names of those who were opposing him in his first epistle to Timothy:

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20  Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

The prophecy that “many shall come in My name, saying [Christ is the Christ] and shall deceive many” is, was, and will continue to be fulfilled in every generation since Christ uttered that prophecy. The apostles themselves had that prophecy fulfilled in their own lives, having been called out of the religion of the law of Moses, which claimed the Messiah as theirs even as they rejected Him. The doctrine of Christ was new. It had never before been heard except as it was alluded to in the Old Testament:

Deu 18:18  I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

Nevertheless, until this very day, the old covenant is still preferred by many over the doctrines of Christ, even as they come in His name saying He is Christ:

Luk 5:36  And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
Luk 5:37  And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
Luk 5:38  But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
Luk 5:39  No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old [covenant] is better.

The very next is, was and will be words of our Lord in answer to the sign of the end of this age are:

Mat 24:6  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Mat 24:7  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
Mat 24:8  All these are the beginning of sorrows.

“All these things are the beginning of sorrows” is true today, it was true yesterday, and it will be true tomorrow. These words, too, are, were and will be true in every generation since Christ, and they will continue to be true until His return to rule the kingdoms of this world with a rod of iron. At that time they will still apply because God’s elect are commissioned to rule with a rod of iron over the rebellious nations of mankind. Even in the “aionian judgment [of] the lake of fire” Christ’s is, was, and will be words “shall never pass away”.

Because they do have an application in every generation, many have been led by the adversary to believe that there is no end to the ages/aions, and they teach that since “the kingdom of God is within you”, it therefore has already come, and all things will always continue as they are. This school of thought would have you to believe that, as a brother once said on one of our studies, “Anyone who is expecting a physical resurrection, followed by a physical thousand-year kingdom will be sadly disappointed.”

That is a lying false doctrine of which we have all been specifically warned against in these words from the pen of the apostle Peter:

2Pe 3:1  This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2Pe 3:2  That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
2Pe 3:3  Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
2Pe 3:4  And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2Pe 3:5  For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
2Pe 3:7  But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

There is our warning. It is “by the same [is, was and will be] word” which informs us of the undeniable universal flood that we are also warned of another judgment, this one “reserved unto fire”. Yes, these words of Matthew 24 have been applicable in every generation since Christ, and yes, many men have made many false prophecies concerning the end of this age, but never make the mistake of saying “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” There is a consummation of this particular age of grace, there is a literal first resurrection of God’s elect into spiritual bodies, which, like Christ’s own spiritual body, will be capable of appearing in a body of flesh and bones. That first resurrection will be followed by a thousand year reign of this earth by Christ and His Christ.

During that period Satan will be placed under house arrest and will not be permitted to entice mankind to withstand their elect rulers in any united way as he is given to do at this time. That thousand-year reign will be followed by the release of Satan from his prison to go forth and entice all men of all time to foolishly attempt to cast off the power of Christ and His Christ. That “little season” of rebellion will be followed by the destruction of all the nations in the four quarters of the earth (Rev 20). We are fools indeed to be unaware that “judgment is now on the house of God” (1Pe 4:17), and that the end of mankind’s rule upon this earth “is near, even at the door”. We are not living at the time of the beginning of the New Testament church. Rather, we are living at the time of the end of that era in which those “blessed and holy… few” who will rule with Christ during the thousand year reign are being called.

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

The next is, was and will be words of Christ in answer to the sign of the end of this age was:

Mat 24:9  Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
Mat 24:10  And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Mat 24:11  And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Mat 24:12  And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Persecution is, was and will be the expected experience of anyone who teaches that those who follow Christ must love their enemies. Yet it has always been false Christs who have led the charge into many of the wars that have taken place since Christ. Those same false Christs have often murdered those who have refused to become involved in the affairs of this age, as we are instructed.

2Ti 2:3  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2Ti 2:4  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Christians have sponsored crusades against the Muslims, another harlot daughter of the great harlot. Both religions claim to honor Christ even as they both dishonor Him by disobeying His commandment to “love thine enemies”. Both are, were and will be the very fulfillment of Christ’s always truthful words:

Mat 24:4  And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5  For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Those who obey Christ’s words commanding us to love our enemies will be hated of those who believe in the defense of family and country. Those who follow Christ’s example of refusing to keep the holy days of His time will be “hated of all men”:

Joh 5:16  And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
Joh 5:17  But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Joh 5:18  Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

It was not immediate, but in time the apostles followed in their Lord’s steps and refused to follow the tradition of men:

Gal 4:9  But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Gal 4:10  Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
Gal 4:11  I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Col 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

John 5:16-18 reveals to us what was “the tradition of… Christ” as opposed to “the tradition of men”.  Job and Peter admonish us to follow Christ instead of men:

Job 23:11  My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.

1Pe 2:21  For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

It is, it was, and it always will be those of a man’s own house who will turn on him when he follows in the steps of Christ:

Mat 10:21  And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

“He that endures to the end [of the age] shall be saved”. Those are the very next is, was and will be words of our Lord which will never pass away.

Mat 24:13  But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Mat 24:14  And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

If these words were not words which transcend the generations since Christ, if these words are not words which are meant to be understood as having a immediate, present application, as well as a past and a future application, then Christ and all of His apostles were fraudulent liars because they had all died long before the Americas and many other countries had even been discovered.  Christ is not a fraudulent liar, however, and neither are any of His apostles or any of the writers of the New Testament. Christ has made it clear that His words “shall never pass away”, and that means that the words of Christ are relevant in every generation of mankind.

How was the gospel preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations so the end could come in Christ’s day? Remember Christ said:

Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

“All these things” certainly includes the things concerning the gospel being preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations so “then shall the end come”. If we take “the world” to mean the entire planet, then we are missing what the scriptures mean by that statement. Of course the phrase includes that meaning, just as “the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom of God” include “the kingdoms of this world” when we are told:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

What this verse tells us is that the spiritual kingdom of our Lord and His Christ will rule the physical kingdoms of this world. Both phrases “the world” and the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” have a spiritual meaning which must be understood if we are to understand how these words were understood by Christ when He said, “This generation will not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

There is another meaning to the phrase “the world” which is just as inward and spiritual as “the kingdom of God is within you”. Here are the verses which demonstrate this inward spiritual application of both these phrases:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Rev 16:10  And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat [Greek: thonos, throne] of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

The kingdom of the beast is this world and all that is in it:

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

We are told plainly that the “ends of the world are come upon [us]” (1Co 10:11). “All nations… in all the world” who must hear the gospel of the kingdom before the end can come are those nations and principalities and the thrones within us. They are one and all “all that is in the world”, included in the three categories of 1) the lust of the flesh, 2) the lust of the eyes, and 3) the pride of life. That gives us a much clearer meaning of what our Lord meant when he told us:

Mat 24:13  But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Mat 24:14  And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

The very next verse makes it clear that this is how Christ meant for these words to be taken at this time. Notice the connecting phrase “When ye therefore” with which verse 15 begins:

Mat 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

We have earlier demonstrated that “the abomination of desolation” is the throne of the beast within us all by Adamic birth. Christ is telling us here in verse 15, “Let him… who reads… understand” how we are to comprehend the meaning of “the abomination of desolation” as well as this phrase “the end”, both in their is, was and will be sense. These verses will help us to better understand those two phrases as well as many other verses of scripture:

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

“The ends of the ages” means the outcome or the product of the ages. The outcome and product of the ages is our salvation. Very few in this age are given to know the salvation that is in Christ. Of those who are given to know Him in this age it is said that “the ends of the ages have come” upon them.

Likewise “the abomination that makes desolate” must also come upon each and every person “in [their] own order”, and we must all come to recognize that abomination within us before the ends of the ages will come upon us. Failing to recognize that abominable condition is which we live is what restrains :

2Th 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [“the day of the Lord” – vs 2] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin [the abomination of desolatieon, Mat 24:15] be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God [“which temple ye are”, 1Co 3:16], shewing himself that he is God.
2Th 2:5  Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
2Th 2:6  And now ye know what withholdeth [“the day of the Lord” – vs 2] that he [“the man of sin”] might be revealed in his time.
2Th 2:7  For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [Greek: restrains the day of the Lord] will let [restrain the day of the Lord], until he be taken out of the way.
2Th 2:8  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

“Let him that reads understand” that it is the beast within us all who demands that we give him what he wants when he wants it. It is that beast within us all which is sitting in the temple of God demanding our worship and our total dedication to the things of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

When we read:

Mat 24:33  So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Luk 21:31  So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
Luk 21:32  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.

We should now see the ‘is’, the ‘was’ and the ‘will be’ properties of those words which will never pass away. It is the understanding of these words of Christ which reveal both Christ and His Father to us, and it is that understanding of how their mind works that makes up all the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Here is what this series of studies is all about:

Rev 4:1  After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

Rev 11:19  And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

Rev 15:5  And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:

What opens the door of heaven? What opens the temple of God in heaven, and the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven?

Mat 16:19  And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven. And whatever you may loose on the earth shall be, having been loosed in Heaven. (LITV)

Christ has given us those “keys to the kingdom of heaven” if indeed He and His words live in and dominate our lives. It is His Words within us which is “a door… opened in heaven”, and it is His voice, His words, which says to us “come up here and I will show you things which must be hereafter”.  We are specifically instructed to be diligent in the knowledge of His words:

2Ti 2:15  Study [Greek: be diligent] to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Truly “the words I have spoken unto you, they are spirit and they are life” (Joh 6:63). It is through knowledge of the is, was and will be character of the words of God and His Son that we are given life eternal:

Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true [is, was, and will be] God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

[Part six can be found here.]

The Keys To The Kingdom of Heaven – Part 4

“All… Things… Are Yours”

1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Introduction

Having just answered an e-mail with the question, “How do we say ‘the Lord’s table is contemptible?” I was reminded that very few Christians would confess that they have ever said, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.” The way most Christians understand that verse of scripture (Mal 1:7) is to place that sin upon only the Jews of Malachi’s day and time, or someone else who is evil enough to say ‘the Lord’s table is contemptible’. Many Christians would emphatically deny that such a statement was theirs or that “all things are yours” would include such a sin against our Lord.

That statement comes from:

Mal 1:7  Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.

Christ made it clear that the food on His table is the doctrines which He came to give to us:

Luk 24:40  And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.
Luk 24:41  And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
Luk 24:42  And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
Luk 24:43  And he took it, and did eat before them.
Luk 24:44  And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
Luk 24:45  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Of course others have polluted the Lord’s table, but it is a rare person indeed who is brought to see that everything he or she has been taught to believe, and everything we have always taught as the doctrines on the Lord’s table, are in fact the very doctrines which are “polluted bread upon [the Lord’s] table”. When we offer false doctrine as “polluted bread upon [the Lord’s] table” that is how we say, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.” When we teach that we should hate our enemies while Christ’s doctrine is ‘love your enemies’, we are saying, “The table of the Lord is contemptible.” Any and all who “offer polluted bread upon [the Lord’s] altar” have not yet been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and are not capable of ‘binding on earth that which has been bound in heaven or loosing on earth that which has been loosed in heaven’.

Mat 18:18  Positively, I say to you, whatever [things] you bind on the earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever [things] you loose on the earth will have been loosed in heaven.  (ALT)

“All things are yours”

On the other hand, anyone who understands that “all things are yours” is to be applied personally and inwardly has one of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and will, by using that key, understand how all the rest of the scriptures apply to all who have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. This key of the kingdom of heaven is in complete accord with our previous key, which taught us that we must live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God. Just how all inclusive is this phrase “all things”? It will serve us well to have eyes that see or ears that hear the depth of the spiritual meaning of “all things are yours”.

So let’s take the time to analyze the truths revealed in this verse of scripture:

1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Now ‘Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas…  or life’ does not sound all that bad, but “the world… or death, or things present, or things to come” are all filled with evil, and are not all that pleasant to contemplate as being ours. So let’s take this verse one step at a time and see how this key opens up to us the kingdom of heaven.

I am of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas

The apostle Paul has already twice chastened these Corinthian brothers for their childish angel worship. This is one of the first problems he addresses in this epistle:

1Co 1:10  Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 
1Co 1:11  For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
1Co 1:12  Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1Co 1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? 

Such respect of persons is not the fruit of a maturing Christ. So Paul explains in the second chapter that he could not speak to the Corinthians of dying with Christ. Instead he spoke only of Christ and Him crucified, which he explains would be understood by those who are maturing in its much more mature sense as a spiritual type of the spiritual crucifixion within all who are maturing in Christ.

1Co 2:1  And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co 2:2  For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and  him crucified. 

If indeed all things are ours, then “all things”  must surely include the fruit of this angel worship part of “all things” that are ours. Lo and behold, that is exactly what Paul tells us of ourselves at the beginning of our walk. Just as angel worship is condemned twice in the book of Revelation (Rev 19:10, Rev 22:8-9), so here in 1 Corinthians Paul also twice condemns this part of “all things are ours”.

Here is his second admonition against this immature, divisive and destructive spirit which afflicted the church at Corinth as it afflicts all of us at our own appointed time:

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 
1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 

For those who have been given eyes that see and ears that hear, which is just another way of saying they have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, Paul is again posing the question, “Is Christ divided?” He has already answered his own rhetorical question when admonishing the Corinthians and you and me, “That ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” That is our goal, and we certainly will not condone those who would divide the body of Christ and actually do so in the name of tolerance and unity. That is a perfect example of each of us offering polluted bread upon the Lord’s altar and saying “The table of the Lord is contemptible”.

Mal 1:6  A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Mal 1:7  Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.

Those who do not have the keys to the kingdom of heaven have not been given eyes that see and ears that hear “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 13:10-13) will say, “Lord you know it is not possible to keep your words in 1Corinthians 1.”

1Co 1:10  Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Those who do not possess the keys to the kingdom of heaven will argue, “Come on, Lord! You know the best we can even hope for is ‘agreement in the essentials, tolerance in the non essentials, and love in all things’.”

Those “mysteries” of heaven of Matthew 13 concern the King of that kingdom, and the King is still the King even when we fail to know who He is. Here is how Christ reacted to those who failed to recognize him as the King of the kingdom of heaven:

Joh 5:39  You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!
Joh 5:40  Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life.
Joh 5:41  Your approval or disapproval means nothing to me,
Joh 5:42   because I know you don’t have God’s love within you.
Joh 5:43   For I have come to you representing my Father, and you refuse to welcome me, even though you readily accept others who represent only themselves. 
Joh 5:44  No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from God alone. (NLT)

But “all things are yours”, and all things are mine, and you and I have been, and some of us may at this moment be, guilty of angel worship and may still be followers of certain ministers within the body of Christ. We are all guilty of our own angel worship, and we may not even be aware of how divisive such a spirit is. Because “all things are ours” that includes 1Corinthians 1:12-13 and 1Corinthians 3:1-4, and “all things are [ours]” includes these verses in Revelation:

Rev 19:10  And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Rev 22:8  And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
Rev 22:9  Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

In time we mature to the point that we, too, realize:

1Co 3:5  Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
1Co 3:6  I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
1Co 3:7  So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
1Co 3:8  Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
1Co 3:9  For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

Until we are given eyes to see the Truth that is revealed in these verses, we are just like Catholics and Protestants and every other religion in the world; we are indeed divided. However, Christ is not divided, and He is neither a Catholic nor a Protestant. The factions and sects of all religions who reject the doctrines of Christ, including all Christendom, testify against all of her daughters that they really are of their mother “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of abominations of the world”. It is this harlot, which harlot is all religions whose doctrines are in opposition to the doctrines of Christ, of whom we must all “come out”:

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

The spirit of this harlot is the divisive spirit which would sow discord among us by saying “I am of Paul [or], I am of Cephas [or] I am of Apollos”. It takes a miracle from God to keep the daughters of that great harlot, liberal and conservative Catholics, and liberal and conservative Protestants, from seeing themselves as the divided Christ Paul spoke of when He asked, “Is Christ divided?” They are all held together by the false doctrine within their corrupting mantra of “unity in the essentials, tolerance in the nonessentials, but love in all things.” God’s Word has no “nonessentials”, and anyone who thinks it does has no concept of the Biblical definition of ‘love’, which is:

1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

All things really are ours, and there are no ‘nonessential’ words of Christ, and Christ is not divided. Knowing this Truth is one of the many keys to the kingdom of God which is within us:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

All of Christ’s ministers are ours, and all of His Words are ours.

“The world”

“The world?” Is “the world” really ours? How can that be if we are Christ’s? How does “…the world is [yours]” accord with:

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

How can those words possibly accord with:

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Living in a world which has been under the influence of “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots” and being raised up under the false doctrines of that great harlot, which limits God’s sovereignty to only “every good and perfect gift”, explains why those two verses appear to many to contradict each other.

Jas 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The fact that every good gift is from God does not deny God also sends evil spirits to trouble us, or that He even “creates evil”:

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

The doctrines of the great harlot and almost all of her harlot daughters blatantly deny the Biblical truths which are found in these verses:

Gen 45:8  So now it was not you [Joseph’s brothers, who sold him into Egyptian slavery] that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

Those are just three of literally dozens of verses of scripture which declare plainly that God is sovereign over all things good and all things evil, and that there is not one evil deed done in the city which was not “made… for Himself”, as the  scriptures plainly declare:

Amo 3:6  Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 

The truth of the scriptures is that mankind is not capable of making anything happen of his own will. The truth of the scriptures is that God had all of our decisions written in His book of each of us before we were ever born:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)

Pro 20:24  Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?

Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. 

The New Testament accords with the Old:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” tells us that we are not even capable of sinning except the Lord has ordained that man must first be a hopeless sinner, desperately in need of a Savior.

That is how “the world… is [ours]”, and that is how the truth of 1Corinthians 3:21-22 in no way contradicts the Truth of 1John 2:15:

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Here in very clear language is what God is in the process of doing in the lives of all men of all time:

Psa 90:3  Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

So yes, “all things are [ours, including] the world, [and] the love of the world”, before we are then “dragged to God” by His spirit:

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [Greek: drag] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 6:65  And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

All things are yours, whether… life or death

1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Life is ours? Well, if we are enjoying life that is fine. We all want to enjoy life, but how or why would we be told that death is ours? Especially in the light of these words of our Lord to Martha, the sister of Lazarus, just minutes before He raised up Lazarus from the dead:

Joh 11:26  And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

What is Christ telling us through this conversation with Martha about her dead brother Lazarus? Is Christ telling us that if we are physically alive and we believe in Him, as Martha did, then she and we will never physically die? Is that what Christ means when He tells Martha, “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

Considering that Christ Himself died shortly after making this statement, it should be obvious that the death and the life under consideration in the mind of Christ when He made that statement was more in line with these verses of scripture which reveal the spiritual life and the spiritual death that are ours as part of this key to the understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom of God within us:

Luk 9:59  And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Luk 9:60  Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

Luk 20:37  Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Luk 20:38  For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

There it is! All things are ours. That is one more key of “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”. Physical life, without Christ within us, is nothing more than the walking dead to Christ. On the other hand, it is a great key to understanding the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven within us if we also understand that physical death is not death at all to a God to whom all live even though their physical bodies have long ago returned to the dust from whence they came.

Mat 9:24  He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.

Joh 11:11  These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Having a better understanding of this “all things are yours” key to the kingdom of heaven, let’s read again how Christ answered His apostles when they asked why He spoke to the multitudes in parable:

Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because… [the keys to the kingdom of heaven are] given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [those keys are] not given. 
Mat 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

Let’s also remember where Christ tells us that kingdom is at this time:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. 

If Christ takes up His abode within us while we are in these clay vessels, then “now are we the sons of God [and we] shall never die… for all live unto him.” If Christ is living His life within us while we are yet in these clay vessels, we will be raised up from among the dead at the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ to judge this world during that time, and then to judge angels in the lake of fire which will follow the thousand years of the rule and reign of “the Lord and… His Christ”:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. [Greek: aions of the aions]

All of this is already done from God’s perspective. Knowing that perspective is one of the keys to the kingdom of heaven within us. ‘Whether life or death, all things [are ours]” to live and to know, but in the end, “all live unto him” (Luk 20:38).

“…or things present, or things to come; all are yours;”

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

What an incredible statement! Which “things present” are ours? The answer is repeated: “For all things are yours… [and then again], all are yours”. Which “things to come” are ours? The answer is the same “… all things are [ours]… whether… things present or things to come; all are yours”.

Most of what is present and most of what is to come in “this present evil age” is just that – ‘evil’. How is it that all the evil of this age is ours? Here is the answer to that question directly out of the mouth of our Lord Himself, connecting this very principle of “all things are [ours]” to “the key of knowledge”, which is the same as “the keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

Luk 11:47  Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Luk 11:48  Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
Luk 11:49  Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
Luk 11:50  That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 
Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 
Luk 11:52  Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Conclusion

There we have it. We can now add ‘things past are ours’ without adding to the Word of God. All the daughters of the great harlot who persecuted and killed the prophets and the apostles, and who then “build their sepulchres”, also have a day on the calendar on which to honor Him whom their fathers have slain. In doing so, according to Christ they are doing nothing less than “allowing the deeds of [their] fathers”. These words are just as applicable to us today as they were to the church of Christ’s day.

Rom 15:4  For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures [including “all things are [ours]”] might have hope.
Rom 15:5  Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
Rom 15:6  That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Will those words in Luke 11, right out of the mouth of our Lord Himself, make that great harlot, or any of her harlot daughters, repent and change their ways in this age? The answer is, absolutely not! Only those who “come out of her” will repent and be delivered from the bondage of the days, months, times and years, which make up the “traditions of men”, who continue to build the sepulchres and celebrate the works of men, past and present.

1Co 3:21  Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 
1Co 3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Those who have not been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven are those who cannot possibly accept the plain statement here in 1 Corinthians 3 that even “the world [and] death” are ours, and that we must all live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, including “yes, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Pro 16:4) in each of us. Those who have taken away the key of knowledge of how to enter into the kingdom of heaven, will never agree that “all things are yours” really means “all things… the world, death, things present and thing to come”. And those who refuse this key to the kingdom of heaven also go as far as to hinder those who are entering into the kingdom of heaven. “…Ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” (Luk 11:52) Even those sad words are “in me that is in my flesh” (Rom 7:18).

Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

This is the apostle Paul speaking, and he is simply acknowledging that ‘all things are his’. All that is in Adam was in Paul’s flesh, and all that is in Adam… all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” is in all of us, and that is how “all things are [ours]”. That is a key to the doors of the kingdom of heaven. When we use that key, the mind of Christ becomes our mind:

1Co 2:16  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Lord willing, in our next study we will examine the fourteen times the key to the kingdom of heaven of the “is, was, and is to come” nature of Christ and His doctrines and His Words are repeated.

Rev 1:4  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;

[Part five can be found here.]