FINDING THE WAY HOME

FINDING THE WAY HOME

                “And God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Gen. 1:28

                “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Mt. 6:9, 10.

                The Jewish concept of salvation has never been that we will fly away, but rather that Messiah would come and establish His kingdom on earth and that He would reign from Jerusalem, the city of the Great King. Ps. 48:1, 2.

                It was the Greek Philosophies of Plato that were picked up by the Gnostics, who then deemed all matter as inherently evil. They reasoned that God could not possibly have come in human flesh, because man’s flesh was evil. They also reasoned that our ultimate goal was to leave this planet and leave these bodies and to dwell for eternity in a spiritual state in heaven. Their motto was that “I am but a stranger here, heaven is my home” and as a result much of the church has been diverted from one of the grand themes of the Bible.

                God had given Adam a mandate to do the following

1.       To be fruitful and multiply

2.        To fill the earth

3.       To subdue the earth

4.       To rule over every creature that lives on the earth

                In other words, Man, as inhabited by the Spirit of God, would extend the Garden of Eden as the human population grew until the whole earth was filled with the glory of the Lord. The Garden of Eden would eventually fill the whole earth.

                Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world and to destroy it and yank us out of here. He came into human flesh to restore the image of God in us and to fill us with His Spirit so that we might fulfill our original mandate. And while His Bride will be caught away to the marriage supper of the Lamb where she will celebrate with her Groom for 7 years, (As typified by the Jewish wedding), He will bring His Bride back to earth at His second coming as stated in Revelation 19, He will defeat the armies in the Battle of Armageddon (which is why His robe is dipped in blood,) and then His feet will touch down upon the Mt. of Olives as per Zech. 14, He will enter Jerusalem through the Eastern gate, which the Jews have left sealed all of these years for that very purpose and Jerusalem will become the City of the Great King as promised.

                This is why General Allenby got off his horse and walked into Jerusalem on foot in respect for Him to whom the honors alone are due.

                Mankind was given a mandate which he could only fulfill as he was inhabited by God. When Adam sinned by believing the lies of the Nachash (Serpent) the Spirit of God departed from him and he became soul driven, rather than Spirit directed.  Under the rule of the Knowledge of good and evil he was reduced to intellectual knowledge and he became subject to the demands of his flesh for now the Spirit of God had departed and he couldn’t even rule himself, let alone the whole earth.

                But the Bible tells us that all of creation suffered along with Adam. A curse came upon all of creation and everything was subjected to futility and decay and death. And it is within this context that we can begin to understand what the Lord’s Prayer means and what Romans 8:19-23 means. Jesus is praying for His kingdom t come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and romans 8 tells us that this will be accomplished when the sons of God have been revealed… in other words when we are glorified and restored to the pre-fallen state of Adam.

                “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the CHILDREN OF GOD. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

                In other words, we have the first fruits of the Spirit in us now because we have been born again, but we groan along with creation, because we cannot fulfill the Genesis mandate until we have been fully glorified at the resurrection and catching away of the Bride. When we return with Christ after the marriage supper of the Lamb, we will rule and reign with Christ for 1000 years during which time we will fulfill the original mandate.

                We are going to reign with Jesus Christ for eternity, so think of the millennium as a training ground for ruling over the works of God’s hands in righteousness and justice and mercy until the glory of the Lord covers the earth even as the waters cover the sea.

                We have in many ways created a magical God who offers instant fixes for everything that the fall of man has brought to this planet. But as we look through scripture we don’t see God working that way. Yes He did mighty miracles like the parting of the Red Sea, but why didn’t He just transport Israel magically to Canaan, make their enemies disappear magically. Why did God give them laws, which if obeyed would separate them from the pagan nations around them?

                It is because God works on the seed principle. He planted a garden that would eventually fill the whole earth under the stewardship of mankind. He called Abram out of Ur to make of him a nation who would be called by His name and through them all of the nations of the earth would be blessed. He gave us the Bible. He gave us his laws. He gave us types and shadows and feast days by which we could learn His plans. And in the end, He brought His own Son into the world, as the one Seed to whom all of the promises had been written, so that when we receive Him, we receive it all in seed form.

                Then once the Holy Spirit is given to us and we become temples of the Holy Spirit, we then begin to conquer the territory of our own soul and flesh by serving the spirit rather than the flesh. (This is what Romans 7 and 8 are all about.) God is redeeming us the same way that He has done everything and He does it this way because we are His sons and daughters, joint heirs with Jesus and as sons and daughters, we are in training to reign with Him for eternity.

                So the power of God is placed in us. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, but we are given a mandate to learn how to live by the spirit rather than by our flesh. We are not yet fully glorified, but God has given us a down payment of His Spirit so that we can learn how to live by it rather than by the flesh. IN other words, Jesus is returning us in baby steps back to our pre-fallen condition and for this He has given us a new Adam who is a life giving Spirit. He is our new tree of life.

                This is why Romans 8 is so pivotal to our understanding of God’s purposes. First of all, Romans 8:1-4 tells us that everything that that is envisioned by the Old Testament is fulfilled in us as we walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh. And verse 14 assures us saying: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Then it tells us that all of creation is waiting anxiously for the revealing of the sons of God. Why? Because we have a mandate to fulfill that we can’t fulfill until we have been glorified and restored to the fullness of Adam before the fall.

                Our ultimate purpose is not to fly away and to leave this war torn planet in the hands of the devil. Our purpose is to be restored as sons of God so that we can finish the mandate for which we were created. We are not going to heaven for eternity. Heaven is coming to earth for eternity, just as Revelation 21 and 22 tell us.

                Why do we think that Jesus came to this planet and suffered at the hands of His own and then died for our sins? Why did He create this earth in the first place? Why did He create man in His image?

                God is Spirit. He doesn’t need a physical universe. He created this physical universe for a new creature made in His image and He put us over the works of His hands. He made us the caretakers of our new home. We fell for the Satan’s lies and failed in our mission. We believed the lies of the Nachash and therefore lost our God ordained ability to rule this creation in righteousness. Jesus came into this world to destroy the works of the devil and to restore us to His likeness and to our original purpose.

                So when we sing Gospel songs like “This Old House” where the house is falling apart and I am falling apart but it doesn’t matter because I will soon fly away, is not a Judeo/Christian concept but a Greek, Platonic Gnostic concept in which the purposes of God are obscured. We are sons and daughters in training and we are learning to be stewards of God’s creation. We are managers, not destroyers.

                This is why God gave us health laws, and laws of sanitation, and moral laws, and civil laws, and principles of righteous government and mandates to help the poor and needy. This is why He told us to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, and why it must be attended by the works of healing and restoration that Jesus demonstrated while on earth. We are in training to rule as sons and daughters of God and though we are severely limited at this point, we are nevertheless in training. He wants us to think like Him and share His compassion for lost humanity.

                Way too often we think, “The world is going to hell in a hand basked and everyone is evil, but it doesn’t matter, because Jesus is soon going to zap me out of here.” So we let the hungry go unfed and the naked go unclothed and the lost remain lost. Our traditions have caused us to lose sight of God’s real plans and purposes. We don’t share His compassion for a lost world. We no longer groan and suffer with creation.  We no longer share in the groaning of the Spirit.

                As important as sound doctrine is and days of worship and food and drink and clothing may be; these are not our purpose. These are points of training for our purpose. Our purpose is to live by the Spirit of God as we learn to be sons of God, for only when we are restored to our pre-fallen condition can we rule and reign with Christ.

                So while we eagerly await His return and the glorified bodies that He will give us at His coming, we need to understand something. Through replacement theology and the church’s divorce from our Jewish roots, the Gospel got mixed up with many pagan/Greek philosophies that to this day still plague the church. We have abandoned the patterns laid down for us in the Old Testament and therefore we have often misinterpreted the New Testament goals.

                In our shallow forms of Christianity we no longer deny self and take up our cross and follow Jesus. We no longer eat the whole Passover Lamb, but pick and choose which parts we will eat. We are no longer crucified with Christ so that the flesh dies and Christ becomes our new life. We no longer understand the triune nature of man as demonstrated in the Sanctuary service, so we continue to live soul-led lives rather than spirit led lives. We try to come to God intellectually rather than laying down the knowledge of good and evil in favor of the tree of life which is Christ in us the hope of glory. We try to maintain some sort of religion in the flesh, as if we can be fully human without the Holy Spirit on board.

                Our purpose is to become sons and daughters of God. The Holy Spirit has been given to us in part as a down payment of better things to come. Our training now is to learn to live by that Spirit that God has placed within us. We are sons and daughters of God in training and that training involves learning to live by the Spirit of God as guided by the Truth of God written in His Word.

                Sadly, we are in the beginning stages of a great falling away, or apostasy in which all of the plans and purposes of God will be rejected as millions reject the Gospel of the Kingdom and gravitate to the global kingdom of the antichrist, who in turn will be inhabited by the Nachash, that serpent of old, the devil and Satan.

                IN spite of all of their glowing promises concerning the coming global order, their plans benefit only the rich and the powerful. The rest of the world will either be killed, or drawn into slavery to the elites. We see that attitude reflected in their attitudes even now. It is not for our good that they have shut down the government. It is for petty political reasons that really aren’t petty at all. They want to flood this nation with refugees just like Europe. They want to break us financially, morally and spiritually so that we will surrender our sovereignty to the “Deep State.” (The global order) And this they do, whether the fully understand it or not, so that all things will come under the rule of the antichrist… the coming world leader… the Beast.

                We need to diligently study the grand plans and purposes of God so that we will not fall prey to the many great deceptions that are soon to befall us. Right now Satan is softening and dumbing down the church, removing its prophetic views and its grand Biblical themes so that nominal Christians will fall for the enemy’s lies. Many have fallen from Spirit anointed Bible based preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom and have resorted to self-help anecdotes and New Age philosophies. God help us to find the way home.