21He who overcomes (is victorious), I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne, as I Myself overcame (was victorious) and sat down beside My Father on His throne.
22He who is able to hear, let him listen to and heed what the [Holy] Spirit says to the assemblies (churches).
Jesus is always calling and communicating to Bis Bride, who are the chosen ones. There is always a way and Jesus always causes us to overcome the world! We are able to hear because Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit and He allows and empowers us to hear! We can’t help but hear, if we aren’t listening our Father will slap us awake and cause us to hear, Acts 12:7.
If these churches are representations of seven distinct church ages, wouldn’t the last church be the most mature one? It should be so that Jesus might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless]. Ephesians 5:27 But as we read about the seventh church, the Laodiceans, the last age, we read that they are luke warm, they are blind, naked, they are anything but glorious. So if the Truth is that these churches represent the seven different church ages, and if we are in the last times, we don’t have much to look forward to, do we? But the glorious Truth is that we do have a lot to look forward to, because Jesus always wins. So these six churches that Jesus has John write to have to represent organized religions that only appear to be doing the works of the Lord, yet in reality they are never really are His Bride, Matthew 7:23. For us to say that these are seven distinct church ages would mean that five church ages failed miserably, one was only abused, and one did what they were suppose to do. And what that would mean is for five church ages Jesus failed miserably, one He was only abused and poor, and only in one was He successful. This to me makes it clear that these are seven styles of churches that will exist up until the last day. Jesus just doesn’t fail!
I kept bringing the point up about these churches being referred to by many people as church ages. If you have never heard that teaching, then you must be thinking that I am crazy for talking about it so much. But I heard it taught that these churches were actually seven different distinct church ages, or seven different periods of time for the church, a ton growing up. This teaching is false and it makes Jesus out to be a failure in six periods of the church, and He isn’t. Jesus never has been a failure in my life. He never was or is a failure in the Bible, so why would He be in six different periods of the church? So please bear with me if you have never heard the teaching of church ages, I was preaching a lot to myself in these posts.
Now we are ready to start to study about the end of the world, or the Great Tribulation. We will talk about the false teaching of a rapture. We will see that our Father controls every last event of the Great Tribulation. We will see that the church is used powerfully and miraculously. We will see the Truth and it will set us free. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit uses these studies to help us all read the Book of Revelation out loud in groups. We are told very plainly that here is a blessing when we do this, Revelation 1:3, and I hope that our Father has us do it all of the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment