THE JOY OF BELONGING PART TWO

THE JOY OF BELONGING (PART TWO)

                When it comes to marriage, there is no better example of the pure and chaste Bride of Christ than the Tabernacle of Moses. The woman as a chaste virgin offers herself to her Husband as a living sacrifice and comes into a covenant relationship with Him. Then the marriage is consummated in the Holy Place which is the place of daily relationship. Then the seed of promise enters within the womb (The Most Holy Place) and the man child is conceived.

                This is the perfect picture of being born again where we become married to Christ. He plants His seed of promise in us and the man child grows up in us. If we feed that baby in our womb with the Word of God and with prayer and intimacy… if we live by the spirit that has been planted in us, it will grow to maturity and will form us into the image of Christ… but if we feed our flesh and live by our flesh instead, the man child in us will shrivel. He will not be able to rule our lives, but He will be grieved and like the temple in Ezekiel’s vision, the Shekinah glory eventually departed.

                It should not be lost to us that the pure church is identified as a pure Bride of Christ while the false church along with the false religions of the world are called harlots… but nothing vexes God more than the bride that is called by His name, but then goes out and consorts with many lovers.

                The prime example of this is seen in the church that was once married to God’s chosen people. But in Constantine’s time the church divorced Israel and married the pagan world. Instead of being Judeo/Christian she became pagan/Christian. So it is well known today that the Vatican represents the mixture of Christian and pagan religion.

                Now isn’t it very interesting that the pope of Rome today is bringing all of the pagan religions together into one global religion to worship the Beast of Revelation 13? IN other words everything that has gone wrong in religion before is now, in our day, being formed into the final prophetic harlot, the woman who rides the Beast. This harlot woman is helping to form an image to the Beast. She is bringing all religions including apostate Christianity and forming it into one great harlot woman that gives herself, not to Christ but to the antichrist.

                But Revelation 17 tells us a secret and if the church was still studying Bible prophecy she could know this secret and avoid this adulterous relationship with the whore of Babylon. The secret is this:

                Revelation 17:16-18 tells us that once the antichrist has made use of the harlot woman to build his global kingdom, it says that God puts it in their hearts to hate the harlot and to make her desolate and naked ( exposes for who she really is) and will eat her flesh and burn her up with fire.

                So as we see all of these apostate Christians going with hat in hand to Rome to join forces with the Pope in his one world religion, I hate to inform them, but they will be destroyed with the harlot. They have become harlots as well and the Papacy is the mother of harlots and she will bring all of her prostitute daughters together in a final mixing of paganism and Christianity.

                But the devil doesn’t want to share any of his global kingdom with even a mixture of Christianity so once he has used her to help build his global kingdom, he will then turn on her and destroy her so that his kingdom will be purely pagan. He will then enter the temple of God in Israel and declare himself to be the one and only God. He will enforce His rule over all of humanity, with the Mark of the Beast so that no one on this planet can buy or sell unless they have the Mark of the Beast.

                Can you not see then that this is a final marriage of false religion and apostate Christianity to the antichrist and those who take the Mark of the beast will have to renounce Christ and swear allegiance to the antichrist? No one who takes that mark will ever be married to Jesus Christ again. They will have married Lucifer himself. The will have renounced Jesus as their Husband and will give themselves to another.

                We are now seeing this great falling away taking place right before our eyes as Christians far and wide, abandon even the fundamental teachings of the Bible. They join with the Pope even as he says that the cross of Christ was a failure… that Jesus is not returning and that they must now build a kingdom made by man. So the whole world is being called together for a man made unity and a manmade peace and the Bible warns us that when they are saying peace, there will be sudden destruction. Mankind has never been able to make peace, so what makes us think that we can engineer a peace under Lucifer? This is the ultimate grieving of the Holy Spirit.

                Now this article is called the Joy of belonging part 2 and so we must now turn to those who have chosen to be the faithful Bride of Christ. We are known as the remnant of her seed. What seed? The child of promise! The Seed of Christ planted in our womb when we were born again. Instead of sowing to the flesh, we have chosen to live by that Spirit that has been planted in us. We have fed that seed of promise so that Christ is being formed in us. We are growing up in all aspects into His image from glory to glory.

Romans 8:29 says this: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.” By faith we have received that seed of promise and we are being formed into His image. We have chosen to be a chaste bride that has eyes only for Him. We have put away the gods of this world and all that they offer and we are following hard after Christ. We are married to Him and we are becoming like Him.

                So it is interesting that in a reversal of what the pagan/Christian church did God has a goal in the end. To read God’s goal in detail one can read about it in Ephesians 2:8-22, but I will abbreviate it here. In essence, God’s goal in reversing what the pagan Christian church did, is to bring back together the two groups (Jews and Gentiles) through the cross thus making them into one new man in Christ… for in Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

                So God has a faithful Remnant in Israel and He has a faithful Remnant in the church and we will become one in Christ for we both will have married Israel’s true King and Messiah. Therefore we have become one family in Him…Abrahams seed and heirs according to promise. Gal. 3:29

                This is in part the significance of the Messianic movement in bringing together one new man in Christ. IF only they would study Bible prophecy, they would understand this better, for while some of them will remain faithful to Christ and will become one with the Body of Christ, others, not perceiving the great deception, will join with the harlot by becoming a part of the global religion of the Beast.

                There is great joy in belonging to Jesus. Just like a faithful marriage, we are growing together in love and faithfulness and we who are married in this way know a true joy in belonging that few people in the world understand. They keep offering enticements, saying that marriage is a thing of the past. We are now free to consort with anything with legs. We are condoning and even putting into law, marriages that are an abomination to God.

                Satan hates true marriage because it is a picture of Christ and His church… so he is doing everything he can to pervert it and destroy it and to offer profligate alternatives. But we must not be fooled. God is not mocked, for whatever man sows; that will He also reap. Gal. 6:6, 7.

                It is highly important today to make sure that your denomination or church body is not making nice with the growing world religion. I checked with our church to make sure of certain things.

1.       They must have taken a firm stand upon the Word of God and formally rejected those things, those marriages that are abominable to God.

2.       They must not be a part of the falling away church that is going with hat in hand to Rome.

3.       The must be firmly planted in both the Spirit and in Truth. Spirit and truth must work together in equal balance. Truth only: will lead to legalism and Spirit only: will lead a person into antinomianism or lawlessness. We must be formed into the image of Christ and that means a departure from the world to live by His Spirit and His Word.

                Today we are literally witnessing the great falling away described in 2 Thess. 2:3, 4 that will clear the way for the rise of the antichrist. We are seeing the formation of his world religion.

                It is hard for those of us who belong to Christ to understand why so much of Christianity is willing to give it all up for the sake of manmade unity. Why have they abandoned the Word of God, especially the prophetic Word of God that could have warned them? Why would they willingly choose to become foolish virgins? Why would then chose to wonder after the Beast?

                For those of us who have known the joy of belonging to Jesus and Jesus only, it seems unfathomable that so many would fall away. They embrace the political correctness of the world. They take their stand against the Bible, even as they claim to believe it. They are abandoning the Gospel of our salvation, and joining with the world in calling good evil and evil good. And you can be assured that those who abandon fundamental Christianity will soon turn and persecute those who remain faithful.

                But for those who have come to know the joy of belonging to Him, there is no turning back. The man child is coming to maturity in us and we have placed all of our faith and our hope in Him. For those who are really truly in love, being unfaithful is no longer a temptation. We are bonded together in time and experience in such a way that the idea of having a fling with a stranger can be seen for what it is… an empty and heartbreaking road to hell.

                We can no longer be fooled by such things because we have experienced the joy of belonging.

Belonging to Jesus and belonging to each other. .. That is true living.