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Posts Tagged ‘Revelation 12’

The Travailing Church

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , on April 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 12:2

Revelation 12:2, “And she (the church; see our previous post) being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.”

This church is a pregnant church because she is going to bring forth the final church, the thing which God had in His heart and His mind when He looked upon Adam and saw that it was good. She was going to bring forth the final church that would please God. We read so much about this church and we hear so much about this church, but none of us have ever seen it. It is about to appear in the human realm. It is this great called-out people. This church is called-out from the called-out; the assembly that shall come out of the assembly of saints that God is preparing for this hour. As a matter of fact, the only thing that is going to save the world is the coming forth of THIS CHURCH in great power and authority.

Let us look into “travailing.” Why is she travailing? Should she not have the child easily since she has the glory of God upon her? It is the travail that is going to bring the church into the place where she will please God. Isaiah 13:6-10, “Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”

This verse is associated with the great tribulation that shall come. It will also be the time of the travail of the church. For if the church does not bring forth that glorious man child church to save the world, then the world would be completely lost. The church will bring forth the man child.

Isaiah 26:17-18, “Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.” Verse 20, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” We see the travail of this church is going to be at a time of great trouble and a time of destruction and distress. The church, in the midst of this pain and suffering, will receive a glorious coming forth in the likeness of Jesus Christ.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 25-26)

Thought for today: It is the travail that is going to bring the church into the place where she will please God.

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The Woman, the Sun, and the Moon

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , on April 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 12:1

“There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet…” If the “woman” is the church, then “the sun” would be Christ and the clothing would be the glory of Christ, or of God, upon this church. This church has the approval of God. Some naive brethren say that this woman is Mary. Revelation 1:1 tells us that we are going to hear of things “which must shortly come to pass.” Therefore, Revelation 12:1 could not be written about Mary as that would be writing about things in the past. Revelation is about the church which is in the future, which future is very much upon us at this time. We see the “woman (the church) clothed with the sun (Christ), and the moon (the church) under her feet.”

We will establish scriptures where the word “WOMAN” refers to church, where “MOON” refers to church, and where “SUN” refers to Christ. I am determined that everything in this study must be backed up by the Word of God.

Psalm 84 speaks of God as the sun. Verse 11, “For the LORD GOD IS A SUN and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Malachi 4:2, “But unto you that fear my name shall the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS arise with healing in HIS wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” This verse refers to Jesus Christ as “the sun of righteousness.” Another beautiful scripture is found in 2 Peter 1:19, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the DAY STAR arise in your hearts.” The DAY STAR in the natural is THE SUN. The SUN arising IN THE HEARTS OF THE BELIEVER IS JESUS CHRIST.

Let us look at the word “WOMAN.” Every reference to every church in the Bible, except one reference to one church, is feminine. There is one scripture we will come to that speaks of a masculine church, the final church. Every other reference to the church is as a woman; every pronoun used is a feminine pronoun.

Let us look at just two of these references. 2 Corinthians 11:2, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” This verse does not need any explanation. Ephesians 5:23-24, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” This verse is as clear as it can be. The church is always feminine, always referred to as a woman.

The next word of consideration is the “MOON.” There is a story found in Genesis 37:9-10, “And he (speaking of Joseph) dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, THE SUN and THE MOON and THE ELEVEN STARS made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” Jacob interpreted the dream correctly. “Shall I (Jacob, the sun) and thy mother (the moon) and thy brethren (eleven stars)…?” We see this type of analogy all throughout the Scripture. These are basic thoughts of the Bible to bring us into the understanding that “the sun” is God or Christ, “the moon” is the church, and “the stars” are the sons of God.

In Revelation 12 we can put these words in perspective. Here we have the “woman clothed with the sun.” This is the church clothed with the righteousness of God. This church, whomever she is, is the one that is approved of God when this vision is coming to pass. She had “the moon under her feet.” She was a church standing on a church. She had gained ascendancy over the church which might have been her birth. She came out of the moon and is standing on top of the moon church. The glory of God has been moved from one church to another.

This truth is not so strange. We see in history wherein God would move in one church, and when that church failed and became worldly, God would pull some of the people out of that church. Those pulled out would move in the light of God in great revival and God would be with them. When they would fall into complacency and somehow lose their candlestick, God would move on to another church. This has been the way of God through the ages.

The natural phenomenon is that the sun shines on the moon. The moon has no light of its own. Moonlight comes from the sun. The moon reflects the light of the sun. Here the light from the sun has been removed from the moon and is concentrated on the woman.

There is a church amongst us that is not approved of God, and there is a church THAT IS approved of God. The light of God is upon a specific church. I am not talking about a denomination. No! No! I am speaking in regards to the people of God, the Body of Christ, which is not an organization. They are scattered all over the world, but they are the people upon whom the Lord God has put His approval. The approval of God is upon a specific church and these people have been called out, or sometimes kicked out, of other churches.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 22-24)

Thought for today: Let us be amongst the church THAT IS approved by God!

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Uncharted Country

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , on December 28, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Hebrews 11:32-40

Brethren, we are at a place where God has shown us a problem. I will give you this vision that I had:

We were traveling on a road that ended; there was no charted road to where we were going. So then, we started going across fields and woodlands, and we were totally blocked by flood waters. Flood waters! The Scriptures in Revelation 12 said that Satan would cast out floods of waters out of his mouth to drown the woman church. We came to a point where we could go no farther, and God showed us that there is only one alternative. We had no choice! We had to go on higher ground! That was our only hope, because all the plain was covered with flood waters and we could not walk through the flood. We had to go on higher ground.

As we started going up the side of this steep mountain, there was a contour (you know, how they make roads on mountains—the contour on the mountainside). We could see that it might be a track that people would walk on before, but this was covered over with grass and weeds. (Nobody walked there for a long, long time). Do you hear me, brethren? Nobody walked there! We are going into uncharted country. We are being led into a place where there is no compass to guide us. There is no road to guide us. The Holy Spirit in us is going to guide us, and that is going to be our only way to go!

Turn with me to Hebrews 11. Let us look at the last two verses and see if this has some indication of what is happening. Verse 39, “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” Do you know what promise he is talking about? “And I will walk in them and I will talk in them…and ye shall be My people and I shall be your God.” They received not the promise. Verse 40, “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.“ In other words, these men overcame lions, they overcame all manner of evil that attacked them on earth, they were sawn asunder; some were killed in various ways, but none attained unto the stature of the overcomers that God must have in the end time!

What must these overcomers do? Let us turn to Revelation 12:7, “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.“

This is a mystery, but let me explain this simple mystery for you. You know that the Bible, the Word of God, was written in seven mysteries, and these seven seals were broken to us one by one. This mystery that God is talking about here is the serpent in heaven occupying this human body—this heaven that God must live in forever, that God must walk in and God must talk in, and God must reign in!

I heard you singing, and when you sang songs about Jesus Christ being King and reigning upon His throne, did you notice that there was life? Why do you think there was life? This is the word that God is saying to us: that He wants Jesus Christ alone to reign in this kingdom and that we must get the devil out! The devil must be cast out! God said He would send Michael, the archangel, the mightiest force in heaven. It is not that Michael “will” come, but Michael “is” here helping us in our infirmities. He is helping us to overcome the mighty devils that have been let loose, which were bound before but are now loosed and are giving us the hardest battle that mankind ever faced!

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 28-29)

Thought for today: Remember, we are going into uncharted country where there is no road to guide us. Our only way to go is to be guided by the Holy Spirit in us.

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The Woman and the Glory

Posted in Being One, tagged , , , , on February 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 17:5, 22

God’s smile, His good will, and His permissive will are all that the church seems to have been enjoying until now. But now is the time of the overshadowing, when the manchild church is being brought forth within the woman church. We are moving into a time when nothing but the perfect will of God will be acceptable.

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Revelation 12:1.

This is not Mary, the mother of Jesus. This chapter was written of the future and not of the past. Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and brought forth Jesus Christ, the son of God. The church is being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost again to bring forth the Christ in us, not in a physical sense, as with Mary who had a natural child, but in the spiritual sense, where we shall bring forth the fruit of the soul and not the fruit of the womb. “Clothed with the sun” signifies an elect and called-out people of God, who at last will attain to the glory of God as their covering. Covering is not only for protection, but clothes which they wear daily – the righteousness of God being a part of our habit. The sun represents Christ, just as the moon represents the church. This woman was clothed with the sun, and her footstool was the moon. The meaning is clear. It brings out the scripture of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:5 and 22,

“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.

We do not need ecumenism. The glory of God in us is making us one without reservation or fear of separation.

This glory which Jesus prayed about is the picture we see in Revelation 12. It is the same glory which hung over the tabernacle in the wilderness. The same glory Ezekiel saw at the river Chebar, and which Isaiah saw in Isaiah 1 and 6. All the prophets saw it, and Paul saw it when he was knocked down on the road to Damascus. I believe this is the same glory which I also saw in a vision in Greenwich Farm in western Kingston, when I saw the shadow of a man, cast by a great light in the sky, resting on the sea and on the land, and the voice of God speaking to me, saying, “The glory of God dwelleth in His people.” The glory is already given, and the church needs to appropriate it. The people of God is the only temple on earth now recognized by the Lord as His temple. In Haggai 2:7 and 9, there is a prophecy which is yet to come to pass, and it cannot be speaking of a natural temple, as there is none now standing which would have the approval of God. This temple, of course, must be the temple of the human body which God desires to dwell in, “not made with hands.”

“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”

This scripture speaks of Revelation 12:1, which is the fulfillment of Haggai’s prophecy. The woman, the church, will be clothed at last, not in her own righteousness, but with the GLORY OF GOD.

“Upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

(Excerpt from The Pattern, 2nd edition, 1995, pg. 151-153)

Thought for today: We do not need ecumenism. The glory of God in us is making us one without reservation or fear of separation.

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Church Filled with Christ

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , , , on December 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Leviticus 14:10-13

When you look in Leviticus 14:10-13, you will see that there was a “he lamb” offering made. But the next offering that was made was the “ewe (she) lamb.” The scripture would never refer to Jesus as a “she” lamb, so what God is saying is that He has a Church that is going to be walking in His footsteps, and walking in His precepts, a Church that will lay down their lives to bring in the harvest of God. This is what the ewe lamb is. But then, He said that there is another “he lamb” to be offered in the evening, and that lamb is all the lambs put together.

Let me take you to Revelation 12 where the woman brings forth the manchild. Revelation 12:1, And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. 3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

We are talking about a Church – a Church standing on a Church, pregnant with a Church, bringing forth a Church. And that is the LAST CHURCH, which is no longer a “she” Church. It is a “HE” Church. But then, why did “HE” change from a woman to a man? Because the Church is now having the power in Himself. When you see the men in Christ, the men in God just like Jesus Christ Himself, then you know that Christ is part of that Church. So Jesus Christ is bringing forth a Church that will be filled with CHRIST.

The brethren said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1b). “Teach us to pray; we don’t know how to pray; teach us to pray.” He said unto them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.’ And then you say, ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, IN ME as in Heaven.’” “In earth,” He says. IN EARTH, but we don’t expect it just to be in the dirt outside there. It must be in the HIGHEST EARTH, when man is filled with the power of God, and with the fullness of God, and Christ is reigning! Sometimes I hear you singing, “Thy throne, O God, is forever,” and I am smiling. You don’t know what you are saying. The throne of God will be in your heart. He said, “You will be the throne of God, the temple of the living God, and I will create an everlasting temple.” If the temple is everlasting, then He can give you everlasting promises.

So if we understand the Word of God – it is just one Word and right through and through we can see the Word of God bringing forth life everywhere.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, February 2007, pg. 41-42)

Thought for today: Jesus Christ is bringing forth a Church that will be filled with CHRIST.

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