Days
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The Expectation of Faith
A dissertation on the origin, history and practice of the Christian Faith
Religion is what you do daily with your hands and feet.
Faith is what you believe in your heart.
Contents:
1) Myth, Religion, and the Flood
2) Two Covenants
3) Two Priesthoods
4) Two aspects of the Holy Spirit
5) Two Witnesses
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Myth, Religion, and the Flood
So much going on, and for so long.... What do you perceive? What do you think happened on this planet? We are born here with no idea what this place is or why it is here, or how we got here, or where here is, for that matter. It is left up to us to figure out this puzzle... and nobody helps too much with that, because your parents before you were thrown into the same life, the same way, and the trail goes back for centuries, millennia, ages, star cycles, Good Lord, how long has man lived down here? one million years? two million years? and we only have records of the past 5000 years or so. After that, its conjecture, deductive reasoning, guessing, and instinct.... and we suck at all those. Well, we do have myths to draw on.... stories passed down, with no idea who started them or what really happened. It is fairly obvious that there was a great destruction, probably by flood, that wiped man out on this planet, at least, human civilization as far as it had progressed... and this was recent.
What we donāt know, is how long civilization progressed before the flood wiped it out. Again, we have myths, we have artifacts pulled out of pyramids, we have pyramids and cut stone in incredible size and construction, we have the Vedas which were definitely written pre-diluvium, and we have watchers still watching over us. Maybe the most powerful witness left us, circles the earth daily, in polar orbit, like an ark set in motion to remind us of what we were capable of, and when we were that capable. It is dated by the stars, it transmits a message to future engineers, and they can graph that transmission, and we have done that already, some 80+ years back... and the transmission is a star graph, okay but what no one seems capable of doing is simply looking at the zodiac for the time when that constellation was the age, when they launched the low orbit satellite. We have a lot of testimony throughout history to the watchers. Isaiah wrote of their communications to him. Christopher Columbus recorded that they were watching him as he sailed across the Atlantic. They have been there down through the ages, watching us, and they didnāt come from Mars, they were placed there as a post flood witness, and possibly as a guardian of the race... and so many myths speak of angels or gods visiting them... and teaching them.
What appears evident from tracing the population and trail of civilization back in time, was that there was a great physical calamityā¦. somewhere like 9000 years back... that destroyed advanced civilizations of mankind and left behind utter desolation. This gave birth to superstition, fears, and religion built upon myths that attempted to explain why God would destroy mankind. The mantra of those times seems to have run like this, ābe very afraid of God.ā Those myths told tales that attempted to explain how we came into this human condition; and how we got the rainbow and the promise that God will be good and not kill us all again. I love an Almighty God who promises not to get angry and wipe mankind out again. I guess the spirit that gives us life, loves to kill us offā¦ and maybe thatās the lesson of Genesis; you donāt know how you got here, but you damn sure know, it wonāt be long, and you will be leaving.
What got built from all the superstition, fear, and confusion was religionā¦ various commandments to follow, if you want to stay alive. And in manās primitive state, religion was about all he had that could be relied upon to rebuild civilization. Religion gave the lands a semblance of order. Sects that never encountered each other in daily life could find common ground, a way to relate to each other. Traditions were built up that provided comfort, a sense of security, a way to be recognized as a good person that was not a threat to othersā¦ so trade could take place. Civilization is the direct result of tradeā¦ kingdoms and empires are the direct result of wanting to control and tax that tradeā¦ government is the direct result of wanting to control taxationā¦ and banking is the direct result of wanting to control government.
Human endeavor is the result of human desire. Our outward behavior stems from our inward thought. We are driven by a spirit.
This book is an attempt to follow the development of the human spirit from the recent past, aka; recorded history, as expressed through biblical passages and ministries, as well as the outward forms that resulted from those scriptures. I donāt want to exclude other faiths from the human spirit, indeed that would be impossible, but I can only give you what I have to offer from my background as a born again Christian, evangelical preacher and minister, and yet, very much an outsider to mainstream religion. Call this a retrospective meditation of my own 35 years in the faith and a collective approach to the covenants and priesthoods of the old and new testaments with a focus on the living content of those ministries. Or simply, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty of what God is really doing with us and what we are instead doing with ourselves.
Two Covenants
Whatever God did or didnāt do in creating the Universeā¦ or creating this planet to be a habitat for living speciesā¦ or just filling this planet with life and life forms and packing those experiences with amazing facilities, such as light, colors, sound, forces, smells, tastes, instincts, communications, hearing, pressures, the elements, electromagnetics and the wave spectrum, growth and recall, thought and conjecture, awakenings, emotions, interactions, relationships, hardships, achievements, death, and rebirthā¦ whether this universe first existed and we popped up in it, or whether it was fitted and molded around us, or whether thereās more to that picture that we have not yet dug into, one thing is certain and amazing: we are alive.
So what does it mean, to be alive? First of all, and most elementary, we have a being, we exist, we are whatever we are, and it is more than what the rocks are doing, we have motion and a mind and a conscious self, the idea of being alive is itself the same as being a spirit, to be part of Godās existence, the more we look out into the universe, the more we realize that being alive is a very special quality. When you consider that you were conceived from something as small as an egg and a sperm, - you could fill the groove formed by a scratch on a pin head with 10,000 of those ā or even smaller, as in the molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid ā we literally came from nothingā¦ and whatās harder to grasp is the appearance of our peculiar identity out of nowhereā¦ suddenly I have a voice in the river of humanity that is constantly flowing; how did I pop up into being? The human experience begins with this sudden emergence onto the scene of life and none of us constructed our own souls, it is the gift of the living spirit that fills this tiny planet.
Our common past is so mysterious. I am so thankful I was raised an atheist by my parents because it forced me to seek out where I came from and to examine all the evidence available that hints of what history mankind has on this planet. Within that history thereās an even deeper mystery; the history of faith. Faith is what connects our spirits to the Great Spirit, it is the direct result of holiness, which is our walk with God. Holiness begins when God intercedes into and generally interrupts our existence. This creates a rebirth and, hopefully, a new walk of life, a new way of being, wherein, we no longer walk alone, but become the company of and enjoy the presence within of the Holy Spirit. For mankind as a whole, this interruption happened when God came to a man in ancient UR of lower Babylon, spoke to him, and told him to leave off of living his life there in UR and head out to a place he would show him, beyond rivers, and beyond Abrahamās wildest dreams.
For two to walk together, there must be an agreement, some kind of pact that bonds the two parties together: corporations write mission statements, governments draw up constitutions, small groups agree on a teaching or view of life, religion builds cathedrals where its constituents can congregate, fishermen adhere to a time, place, and way of fishing, and then build boats to do that inā¦ likewise God made covenants with man, which directly resulted in priesthoods, whose primary service was to maintain that relationship between man and God.
The old priesthood of the old covenant, which Jesus likened to the old wine, was a relationship between carnal man and God. While the new, and much more mysterious, priesthood of the new covenant, which Jesus likened to the new wine, is a relationship between reborn (spiritual) man and God. The old ministered carnal things while the new ministers spiritual things. The old dealt in things you could see and touch and taste, while the new deals with hidden things inside us and the mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit amongst us and upon us. The old covenant maintained a regimentation that restrained life to works and deeds allowed by God, while the new covenant unleashes a transformation that slowly changes our constitution into a completely changed life, one that wants to work with God and teach others how to follow him.
While individuals may have their own personal relationship with God, as, for instance, Abraham had (hence, he was the father of faith) ā¦ Godās covenants were not with each individual but the entire church following him at any given time. The old covenant created a practicing religion of priests, lawyers, and prophets. The lawyers tended to the letter of the law, while prophets tended to the faith, extending the living document of the law, and getting regularly executed for violating the letter of the law. The framers of the new covenant were caught up in a whirlwind of faith, preaching through the spirit, and releasing that spirit to spread as a wildfire throughout the earth, even while they were mostly in bondage to the old covenant.
The covenant provided a framework and laid the foundation for the work of God to be carried on. When man went about utilizing the contents of the priesthoods to build religions of his own making, as it were, outside the covenants God had established, civilization inherited religions that had no agreement with Godā¦ and therefore no relationship with God, devoid of his presence, and really, devoid of any value to God. Hence, Old Testament Jews who were not sons of Abraham but merely gentiles who set up a āJewishā religion, gave us a religion that was outside of Godās covenant. Likewise, New Testament Catholics who were not born again but merely secular pew fillers following the state religion set up by Rome, gave us another religion that was outside of Godās covenant.
Jesus said we had to abide in the vine, and by this he meant our faiths had to be drawn upon the covenant God agreed to. To all these man made religions of manās own doing, without Godās participation or agreement, Jesus said he will tell their constituents that he never knew them, which, in fact, since they never entered covenant with God or walked with God, is exactly the case. Without a genuine walk with God, we are never going to learn each other. The foundation for beginning that walk is the covenant God laid out for his people.
What God did was give us platforms to use, to discover avenues into his spirit. What man did was build institutions that restricted that discovery and regulated a religious view and structure for man to live by. When we return to what God is doing, we enjoy the presence of, and build a relationship with, Godās Holy Spirit. But when we cling to the old institutions of religion, framed upon manās devices for civilization and not abiding in Godās covenants, we end up fighting against the people who are following God and enjoying his presence.
This is true also of our individual ministering, even within the covenant, and even of those abiding in the vine. The priesthoods were set up to maintain the relationship God was building with the faithful. Too often, the priests in that ministry lost sight of that mission and fell into religious practices to replace their daily walk with God. New Testament ministry is based upon entrance into the body of Christ, hence, each member of the body is, or should be, a functioning priest. Having lost sight of the covenant and the standing it gives us, which the Apostles called our inheritance in the light, most Christians have no idea how to function as priests, they walk on in darkness, completely blind to the covenant and ministry established in Jesus Christ. Either they sit in pews with no function whatsoever, or they speak at podiums, giving orations of their testimonies, expounding on all their experiences and tribulations and frustrations which they have had walking in darkness, with no clue that there is a completely different operation of God established for the body of Christ, one that actually functions to guide and build each other up in the Holy Spirit. To begin with, thereās nothing being taught in bible colleges or main stream universities that enables the New Testament ministry of the body of Christ, or, for that matter, points in the direction of the covenant and priesthood. Instead, we have been trained to perform as orators, as if God had given us standing above and over the sheep, and we are under the delusion that our weekly orations are somehow performing what God intended for ministry. The entire church of Jesus Christ has fallen away from the covenant and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Although attempts were made in the renaissance era to reform the church and return to the covenant and priesthood of the New Testament, the secular forms for meeting and schisms in the body along with the flawed doctrine of priesthood continued in the reformed congregations. The church as a whole failed to perceive and align themselves with the operation of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ. This didnāt prevent individuals from getting saved and added to the body, but it stunted their growth in the body and generally failed to provide the nurturing and care that the body of Christ is supposed to provide new members. The priesthood still functioned, but only in small groups that met apart from the structured meeting hallsā¦ and both were mostly clueless as to what God wanted them to do.
The idea that God wants us to live a new life that walks hand in hand with the Holy Spirit is not lost on anyone. Even the unsaved are familiar with that concept. But how to do it, is the problem. And arguing over how to do it, has been a big source of contention that resulted in divisions and denominations. Infighting over doctrine started as early as the apostles, even while they were following Jesus. Luke is at odds with Matthew, Mark, and John over where the ascension took place. Paul split up with Barnabus over bringing Mark along on the 2nd journey. There has always been battles in the new covenant. The old covenant was issued through dictatorship via Moses, but the new covenant was a product of democracy via the apostles, and as such, it was a much messier affair. How to walk in the old covenant was dictated directly to Moses, then all the people had to do was follow the laws issued. But the new covenant emerged from a flurry of writings and meetings of the apostles, as they searched for the intentions of the Holy Spirit for the new church. 2000 years later, we still have no consensus for what God wants us to do under the new covenant, the church is still divided.
Two Priesthoods
When God brought the children of Abraham out of Egypt, across the Sinai Peninsula, across the Red Sea, to the mountain of God there in Midian, where the Holy Spirit first spoke to Moses, and delivered the Law to the entire church in the wilderness, he was separating a people for himself. A priesthood was set up to carry out the ordinances, in order to keep the people in the covenant that God established through Moses. The idea was to become a people where God could dwell, so to walk with God and live a godly lifeā¦ grow in grace, wax strong in the spirit, live and grow the way Jesus didā¦ under that same covenant. And provision was made to call any man into the priesthood, by becoming a Nazariteā¦ which was the path John the Baptist followed, even though he was born in the line of the priesthood.
I was called to ministry, in as much as God spoke to me and told me to enter this one year intensive training for ministry, but thatās all it was, just another thing God told me to do. I say this because it is a misnomer to say anyone in the New Testament priesthood is ācalled to ministryā. Thatās a calling that took place in the Old Testament priesthood when God wanted to bring someone into the priesthood that wasnāt born in the line of the priests. (like Samuel) In the new covenant priesthood, there is no calling to ministry, every true believer should be immediately baptized into the body of Christ, and automatically becomes a priest and enters the priesthood and ministry of the body of Christ.
Under the old covenant, tithes were brought to the priests of 1/10th of the annual crop. Offerings were made of the livestock to be sacrificed to God by the priests. Most of the animal sacrifices and most of the meal offerings ended up as food for the priests; the priesthood was a functional butchery and commercial grade kitchen, cooking the meat upon a huge open pit grill (the brazen alter) after washing the meat in the sea, which was a huge vessel of water. In the new covenant, initially, everything was shared and the saints gathered for feasts that were ordained under the old covenant. Remember, Jesus was only sent to the nation of Israel, the initial church went right on living their lives under the old covenant. They added the things Jesus taught them on top of their Jewish traditions and offerings, so the Apostles continued to live under the old covenant, even as they built the new covenant. Even after all his journeys, when St Paul returned to Jerusalem, he was forward to show his fellow religious zealots for the law, that he kept the law also.
But it took St Paul to realize that God had set up a new covenant and that the new covenant would issue forth a new priesthood. In his structured religious mind, Paul felt the need to set forth a new order, so he chose Melchizadek as a representation of Jesus high priesthood to the church, and we all share in that service. Jesus never mentioned that he was establishing any such order, he just told Peter to feed his sheep, that got the ball rolling, which has been a hallmark of the New Testament Ministry, to just do the work, donāt set yourself up as some high and mighty priest more important than the other members of the body. The Apostles never did that, but many in the ministry have fallen into that pit, and it appeared as fast as meetings took place. But there is no pecking order in the new covenant priesthood, we all serve the Holy Spirit and serve each other, there is only one member of the body set in authority over the body; the high priest Jesus, the rest of us are joined to the service via the holy spirit, there is no hierarchy. Elders and Deacons were established in order to handle the administration of local finances and operations, but these were offices to handle practical matters, not to be confused with the priesthood ministering to the body of Christ.
There is no clergy and laity in the body of Christ, those are the products of man-made religion. There is no such division in the spiritual assembly. Meeting places structured to set up a ruling class in the church are completely outside of the New Testament covenant. Likewise the āservicesā they hold are not attended by the Holy Spirit. They walk on in darkness.
The New Testament ministry is a straight forward continuation of the Old Testament prophets. The priestly service is the work of the anointing upon the body. The members of the body are given gifts of the Holy Spirit for the work of the ministry, the power to do the work rests upon the body, the same as it rested upon Jesus and John (from his motherās womb) and Elijah and all the prophets. The works testify of Godās presence. The testimony of prophecy began with Moses and continues to this day. The testimony of Jesus Christ is that same spirit of prophecy, God hasnāt changed, heās the same yesterday, today and forever.
āThe Day of the Lordā is the central vision for all prophecy of the old and new covenants. When St John said he was in the Spirit on the Lordās Day, he meant the Spirit was upon him, showing him the vision of the Day of the Lordā¦ and thatās exactly what the apocalypse of St John is; it is a vision extending to, and then covering in detail, the Day of the Lord. Thatās why the vision keeps referencing Old and New Testament prophecy, it is the central vision of all the prophets under both covenants. It is important to note that the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon the church is clothing us with more than just prophecy. And thereās more gifts of the Holy Spirit than just those St Paul rattled off in his epistles (letters). All the works of God are performed through the clothing of the Holy Spirit. Prophecy is just one of the many actions God performs through the priesthood.
The culmination of all the works performed via the priesthood build a testimony to Godās presence amongst his childrenā¦ so the priesthood is supposed to be taking care of, and training up, the members of the body, while also performing the outward testimony of the church. Thereās not supposed to be any hierarchy in either of those, and yet, thanks to Rome, you would be hard pressed to find any functioning priesthood that is free of overlords.
Mostly, the Nicolaitans are concerned with money and their own tiny testimony, or what they perceive to be their testimony. Jesus hates their money handling and doesnāt care much for their testimony either, so it is not a pretty picture. Prophecy calls this condition an āapostasyā ā¦ a falling away from the faith. And Jesus asked the question in the gospels, āā¦when the son of man returns, will he find faith upon the earth?ā So let me ask youā¦ looking around at the condition of todayās churchesā¦ will he find the faith he planted in those? I donāt think so, I donāt think Jesus would recognize what is happening today as the same ministry he started, it has fallen so far away from what he was doing with the apostles, thereās no way he says, āwell done, you faithful stewards of my grace.ā Thereās a big difference between meeting as the body of Christ where the priesthood is allowed to function ā and ā running a corporation where you are building cogs in the machinery.
Two aspects of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit never leaves the body of Christ, this is his rest, his Sabbath, just as the atmosphere rests upon the earth, the wind isnāt always blowing but the atmosphere is always thereā¦ in like manner, the power of the Holy Spirit is always present upon the body, we are clothed with power, the gifts in operation are always changing according to whatever God is doing, and just as often, the wind is still, but the Spirit never leaves us. And the spirit of the prophets is subject unto the prophets, which is to say, we have command over our spirits, even as they are driven by the moving of the Greater Spiritā¦ hence, we are holy men speaking what God inspires us to say, the same way all the word of God was written/spoken. The anointing that rests upon us is the outward aspect of the Holy Spirit, this anointing powers the works that witness to all mankind the testimony of God. The works also build up the faith of the members of the church... this happens by measure, the anointing is always present, but the power is measured out, God may thunder one thing while addressing another with a still small whisper, sometimes he raises the dead, other times he heals the snifflesā¦ sometimes he does nothing at all.
God wants us to have faith in his presence, but not to pretend we have this power in and of ourselves. Even Jesus said he could do nothing of himselfā¦ that the works come from the Father. All things are possible with God, but he chooses to do stuff that builds up our faith. So he had Solomon build him a temple, but even as Solomon finished the building, he realized that God is too great to be contained in a space. Elijah had a mantle that clothed him with power, and Elisha picked up that mantle with twofold the Spirit. Was the Holy Spirit really in the mantle or was he just building up their faith in that mantle so they would believe in his presence? Wasnāt he also residing in the ark of the testament, not very far away in Jerusalem? So you canāt quantify Godās Spirit, while at the same time, God is measuring out his Spirit in everything he does, the same Spirit that rested upon Elijah and then Elisha was sent back to rest upon John the Baptist and then Jesus. Eventually, the same Spirit will reappear upon two more witnesses. You can identify this anointing in scripture by the trademark ascension that it pulls at the end of the life of the witness whom it rested uponā¦ well, four of the six, anyway. Jesus explained it this way; the Spirit descends from heaven, testifies, and then ascends back to heaven, all the while, God remains seated on the throne in heaven. Elisha had twice the power that Elijah had, the final two witnesses have seven fold the Spirit that rested upon Jesusā¦ each ministry is measured the power to do the work at hand.
God with us, amongst us, upon us, living together with man, is the governmental aspect of his Spirit, ruling over our outward lives in all that we do daily with our hands and feet, and what we speak with our tongues, and how we behave ourselves in our daily walk and disciplines. The law and the prophets are the application of the outward aspect of the Holy Spiritā¦ a cloud by day to cool the desert heat and a pillar of fire by night to heat the cold desert nightā¦ it regulates our daily lives. When the tongues of fire baptized the new church at Pentecost, it was the same anointing that came down as fire upon Solomonās brazen alter and Elijahās wood and water trenchā¦ it was the same anointing that lighted down upon Jesus as a dove and will light down again sevenfold upon the next witness. We are joined to that ministry via the clothing of the Holy Spirit, our discipleship is our obedience to those testimonies. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the vehicle through which God is ruling his kingdom.
The mystery of the faith is how God plants his laws inside our hearts. To properly understand this, we have to borrow from Egypt. Originally, obtaining immortal life was a privilege reserved for pharaoh. But the circle widened to include the royal court, so by the time Joseph became 2nd in command to pharaoh, Joseph would have been embalmed for the after-life. Thatās why Joseph told the children of Israel to take his bones with them when they return to the Promised Land and bury him there. By the time of Jesus, they were wrapping the dead in linen cloth and oil, but not performing the entire ritual and mummification process that lasted a couple of months for the early kings of Egypt, some 3000 years prior to Jesus. The hope of resurrection from the dead, as prescribed by the book of the dead, was that the soul would be born again through Isis, a divine birth that was only granted to the pure and sinless souls that survived the judgment of their hearts. Members of the royal household could sneak into eternal life in service to the souls that obtained eternal lifeā¦ thatās why they were put to death with the kingā¦ and resurrected with him to serve him in the afterlife. All these concepts were accomplished a new way by the God of Abraham, via the seed of Christ: which was planted in Mary, went through the death of the cross and then resurrected through its own power (not needing Isis) and subsequently was breathed into the apostles. Essentially, the faith of the New Testament is the receiving of this breath of resurrection from Jesus. The inward aspect of the Holy Spirit is the planting of this seed of Christ (germination of the anointing) into our hearts; where it should take root and grow up into our new man, slowly wearing away our old man and old identity. The growth of the Holy Spirit inside us, changes us into that new person, with a whole new natureā¦ eventually bearing the fruits of the
Spirit. The exact same germ that grew up into Jesus was passed by Jesus to his followers, and it continues to be passed on to each new believer.
So our faith begins when we receive Jesus into our hearts. The rebirth of eternal life is planted inside us, cheating death, because it happens while we are still living our carnal lives. We enter eternal life before ending our carnal life, breaking all the rules of death. The book of the dead is mightily pissed off at this, we cheat the whole process, conquering death without enduring the test. Not only did we sneak into immortality with Jesus, we also are outwardly baptized by the church, identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that obedience to the faith is counted as righteousness, and rewarded with the gifts of the Holy Spiritā¦ the clothing of power needed to do the works and perform a share of the ruling by and governing of the church. So the inward aspect comes first, we must be born again of the resurrection spirit inside our hearts, then, once we have entered into the faith, we can be baptized into the body of Christ and be empowered with the outward aspect, to execute the discipleship of the Christian walkā¦ which is how we enter the covenant of the New Testament.
The germination of the Holy Spirit, which was planted inside Mary, grew up into Jesus. The testimony of Jesus, which began with his birth and encompassed his whole life, was the testimony of the inward aspect of the Holy Spirit planted inside Mary. The testimony of the Father, which rested upon John the Baptist from the womb of Elizabeth, which was the same anointing that rested upon Elijah and transferred to Elisha, was transferred to Jesus when John baptized Jesus. At that point, both witnesses were there with Jesus; the inward and outward aspects of the Holy Spirit. When we receive Jesus, we are supposed to receive both aspects of the Holy Spirit. The inward aspect germinates a new life inside us, and that is life eternal, which grows up inside us and transforms our nature into Jesusā nature, eventually bearing the fruits of that nature. The outward aspect joins us to the body of Christ, the church, via baptism, which is our obedience to the Father and entrance into his kingdom.
Two Witnesses
When Christians congregate in Jesusā name, they should be feeding each otherās spirits. Holding a āserviceā is really just performing some adjunct ritual for appearance sake, God isnāt being served by these services and never asked us to carry out rituals or services, he told us to feed the sheep, not put on shows. We have an inner man that needs to grow, God placed Christ in us to do just that, grow in glory until its nature shines through our being. Only mature fruit trees bear fruit, but once that happens, people will feel the love, and they will flock to the testimonyā¦ to feed on the fruit of the Spirit. The mature inner aspect of the Holy Spirit is one of the witnesses of Christ. The Gospel is just the passing around of Jesusā spirit of resurrectionā¦ which, when received, becomes Christ in you, the hope of glory. Meditation, prayer, spiritual songs and hymns, whatever draws upon the Christ in you, turning to him in earnest, calling upon his name, reading the scriptures, and hearing the word of the spiritā¦ all are facets of our inner walk. The idea is to be transformed, from glory to glory, until we more resemble Christians than whatever we were fashioned after in the flesh.
The inner aspect of the Holy Spirit is just Jesus himself, his person and spirit, growing up inside us. You ask, how can a man breathe himself out into other humans? I guess in resurrection, the spirit is the same as God breathing out the angelsā¦ the spirit is something breathed. This breath comes inside us and begins a new life in us, an eternal lifeā¦ that has an immortal natureā¦ that will pass through death. This is the witness of the Son of God. Jesus said, āI am one that bears witness of myself, and my Father that sent me bears witness of me.ā We see these two witnesses in the inward and outward aspects of the Holy Spirit. They are two aspects of the same spirit, the Father and the Son are one and the same Spirit, working in us and upon us, to create a new creature in Christā¦ building the kingdom of God. When Christ returns, to manifest that kingdom, he sends forth his two witnesses, the two anointed ones, and the same testimony upon Elijah and Elishaā¦ that returned upon John and Jesus, returns again, upon two of the brethren, to testify all over again. Only this time, his two witnesses will have both aspects of the Holy Spirit, so the only difference between these two witnesses and any other member of the body of Christ is the measure of the outward anointing resting upon them. Beyond that, they are just two more sinners saved by grace. In order for the witness of the Son to have a mature full testimony, I would think he/she (there is no gender in Christ) needs at least 40 years of transformation. In order for the witness of the Father to live a normal Christian life, there needs to be the hiding of his power until the days of his testimony.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, so the hope of glory inside us produces that glory. Our practice of the Christian faith should build a substantial amount of glory inside us. The target of our Christian walk, indeed the whole purpose of the Christian faith, is the transformation of our soul by the Spirit of Jesus growing inside us. The testimony of Jesus is not dogma and doctrine of the clergy, but the living Spirit of grace passed from believer to believer and growing to maturity in our present lives. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, and it is more than just the hope of resurrection from the dead, it is the substance of that resurrection building up inside us. We donāt go to heaven when we die, heaven is planted inside us when we receive Christā¦ and we are placed in heavenly places through our baptism into the body; which is the assembly of all the saints as one new man, a spiritual creation that has formed from the growth of that germination of Godās essence first placed in Mary, it just continues to grow and build the kingdom, almost like a human virus from the God of Abraham.
Likewise, the clothing of the Spirit began as a promise to Abraham, certainly God spoke through a multitude of people on this planet and in a multifaceted splendor of variety of ways, but the program of the prophets in Israel can be traced back to Godās first speaking to Abraham. Genesis is really just a history of the house of Abraham. Hebrew is just a stylized form of the Chaldean language; itās the dialect created by one man leaving Babylon and adapting to strange lands, while communicating with the Most High God. Language is recorded in two manners; phonetic alphabets such as Hebrew, Greek, English, Mayan, Spanish, French, German, and a host of others where the written word forms the sound of the spoken wordā¦ and picture alphabets such as hieroglyphs found in Egypt, China, Japan, and Mayan (both types; the picture forms the sound of the words). The phonetic languages fit manās step by step reasoning, while the picture languages fit manās AHA reasoning; the so-called gifted thinking process where the whole picture appears at once in the mind, so we ask the question, āGet the picture?ā Something like 15% of mankind is picture oriented, the rest of us plug along step by step. Thereās a tremendous amount of suffering that happens when the two reasoning processes are forced to mesh gears, such as happens in learning centers and schools. In the ancient world, man built temples to his gods and these were the learning centers. Jesus learned letters in Alexandria, Egypt, where twice as many Jews resided than in all of Palestine, and the world library was located. Both Abraham and Jesus grew up in highly advanced cities, only to be called to a land of hillbillies and misfits. Can any good thing come from Nazareth? Not really, but Jesus didnāt really come from Nazareth. In the beginning, God began his work with man by speaking words to him, his whole form was communication. In that communication we find his Spirit, and the Spirit is hard at work, planting his substance into the carnal creation. Invisible to our eyes, but plainly seen by our minds, there are two witnesses of the Spirit, growing inside and working upon mankind. This is the Christian faith. We grab onto Godās Spirit like a baby grabs onto your finger, we lay hold of the word of God, handle those words, work with those words, and build faith in others. We apprehend the living Spirit that spoke those words, sometimes we learn step by step, sometimes we are given visions; the whole picture at once. Faith is the living word growing inside us, connecting us to the spiritual body of believers and Godās throne in their midst.
Jesus told his apostles to keep the Passover feast and to break the bread and pass the wine in remembrance of him. The Passover feast was itself a memorial to God bringing the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Jesus brought those same children out of bondage to sin. In so doing, Jesus terminated the old covenant, nailing the law to the cross, ending that walk with God and started a new walk with God; one that incorporated a new way to follow God, through his resurrected Spirit breathed into us. Then the Spirit of prophecy was added to the church for direction and discipline. 300 years later, Emperor Constantine instituted a new government program to add the Christian god to the official gods of Rome. So it was no longer illegal to worship the Christian God in the Roman Empire, instead, it now became mandatory to attend the state built temples of worship, just as it had been for hundreds of years with all the official gods of Rome. The manner of worship in those newly constructed temples for Christians was the Roman way of worship; rituals were carried out the same as they always had, only this time they changed the content of those rituals to align with this new Christian god. Thatās how the Roman Catholic Church ended up performing the Eucharist on every Sunday, thinking that was somehow keeping the commandment of Jesus at his last meal with the apostles. What is missing in that ritual? The Holy Spirit. The entire covenant, priesthood, and witness left behind by Jesus. The rebirth, growth, and fruits of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, as well as the clothing of the spirit of power from on high. In short, God is missing, because it is the work of manās government, not the movement of God started by Jesus.
Tomorrow morning, Easter Sunday, some pastors from Michigan will attempt to start a new church way out here in Downers Grove, IL. They will bring guitars, graphic designers, and a preacher and attempt to build a new daughter of the whore, that they hope will pay them enough salary for the pastorās wife to keep up her love for shopping. Iām not making this up, they put it right on their website, which they created before they held their first meeting. They advertise this as a new movement of the Holy Spirit sweeping through Chicago. Whatās missing in this picture? For starters, any actual movement of the Holy Spirit in Chicago, which was what pricked my attention to their brochure. (mailed to every resident in Downers Grove) When will all the sheep wake up and discern the difference between corporations of the state, running an enterprise (to make money) in the name of Jesus, and the Spiritual New Testament priesthood? When will the sheep realize that polished shows with guitars and singers are not building up their faith, they are pulling on their pockets? As long as the believers continue to dwell in the reincarnated Babylon, following after hirelings with college educations, who are building their businesses for filthy lucre, and pretending to be great leaders of faith, when in reality they are not even serving the faith, they are serving themselves mammon, and totally ignoring the faithā¦ when the blind lead the blind, they both end up lost. They know not, neither do they understand, they walk on in darkness.
God sent us two witnesses; the Father and the Son, two functions of the operation of the Holy Spirit. The resurrected Spirit of Jesus planted inside us, transforming our nature and the heavenly Father upon us clothing us with power. These two witnesses are real. The practice of the Christian faith is entirely focused on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in these two aspects. Meanwhile, the practice of running a business in the name of Jesus is entirely focused on making money. Does your āchurchā have a business office? Was your church incorporated (placed into the body of the state)? When a body of believers are placed into the body of the state; thatās called spiritual adultery, when you do it for money, you have a spiritual whore. If you reform the whore into a bunch of denominations that go on incorporating into the state and running businesses for money, performing services for rituals, and collecting tithes as if they were old testament priests, those are the daughters of the whore. If the daughters of the whore, know what they are doing is wrong, and they hide the business office, and hide their incorporation, but go right on holding services, ruling over the sheep, collecting tithes, paying themselves salaries, working a business in the name of Jesus, it is still whoredom, it is still the model of Rome, it isnāt the New Testament ministry. If there is no real operation of the Holy Spirit, why attend those services? Come out of her, my people. Where-ever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, he is there in their midst. Go where the witnesses are. Go inside you and gather together free of oppression and bondage. If you keep following Jesus, he will teach you his true ways and set you free of the hirelings.
A dissertation on the origin, history and practice of the Christian Faith
Religion is what you do daily with your hands and feet.
Faith is what you believe in your heart.
Contents:
1) Myth, Religion, and the Flood
2) Two Covenants
3) Two Priesthoods
4) Two aspects of the Holy Spirit
5) Two Witnesses
NOT FOR SALE
PUBLISHED FREE ONLINE @ BOOKSIE.COM by daysman 2015 copyright
Feel free to distribute - but not for profit.
Myth, Religion, and the Flood
So much going on, and for so long.... What do you perceive? What do you think happened on this planet? We are born here with no idea what this place is or why it is here, or how we got here, or where here is, for that matter. It is left up to us to figure out this puzzle... and nobody helps too much with that, because your parents before you were thrown into the same life, the same way, and the trail goes back for centuries, millennia, ages, star cycles, Good Lord, how long has man lived down here? one million years? two million years? and we only have records of the past 5000 years or so. After that, its conjecture, deductive reasoning, guessing, and instinct.... and we suck at all those. Well, we do have myths to draw on.... stories passed down, with no idea who started them or what really happened. It is fairly obvious that there was a great destruction, probably by flood, that wiped man out on this planet, at least, human civilization as far as it had progressed... and this was recent.
What we donāt know, is how long civilization progressed before the flood wiped it out. Again, we have myths, we have artifacts pulled out of pyramids, we have pyramids and cut stone in incredible size and construction, we have the Vedas which were definitely written pre-diluvium, and we have watchers still watching over us. Maybe the most powerful witness left us, circles the earth daily, in polar orbit, like an ark set in motion to remind us of what we were capable of, and when we were that capable. It is dated by the stars, it transmits a message to future engineers, and they can graph that transmission, and we have done that already, some 80+ years back... and the transmission is a star graph, okay but what no one seems capable of doing is simply looking at the zodiac for the time when that constellation was the age, when they launched the low orbit satellite. We have a lot of testimony throughout history to the watchers. Isaiah wrote of their communications to him. Christopher Columbus recorded that they were watching him as he sailed across the Atlantic. They have been there down through the ages, watching us, and they didnāt come from Mars, they were placed there as a post flood witness, and possibly as a guardian of the race... and so many myths speak of angels or gods visiting them... and teaching them.
What appears evident from tracing the population and trail of civilization back in time, was that there was a great physical calamityā¦. somewhere like 9000 years back... that destroyed advanced civilizations of mankind and left behind utter desolation. This gave birth to superstition, fears, and religion built upon myths that attempted to explain why God would destroy mankind. The mantra of those times seems to have run like this, ābe very afraid of God.ā Those myths told tales that attempted to explain how we came into this human condition; and how we got the rainbow and the promise that God will be good and not kill us all again. I love an Almighty God who promises not to get angry and wipe mankind out again. I guess the spirit that gives us life, loves to kill us offā¦ and maybe thatās the lesson of Genesis; you donāt know how you got here, but you damn sure know, it wonāt be long, and you will be leaving.
What got built from all the superstition, fear, and confusion was religionā¦ various commandments to follow, if you want to stay alive. And in manās primitive state, religion was about all he had that could be relied upon to rebuild civilization. Religion gave the lands a semblance of order. Sects that never encountered each other in daily life could find common ground, a way to relate to each other. Traditions were built up that provided comfort, a sense of security, a way to be recognized as a good person that was not a threat to othersā¦ so trade could take place. Civilization is the direct result of tradeā¦ kingdoms and empires are the direct result of wanting to control and tax that tradeā¦ government is the direct result of wanting to control taxationā¦ and banking is the direct result of wanting to control government.
Human endeavor is the result of human desire. Our outward behavior stems from our inward thought. We are driven by a spirit.
This book is an attempt to follow the development of the human spirit from the recent past, aka; recorded history, as expressed through biblical passages and ministries, as well as the outward forms that resulted from those scriptures. I donāt want to exclude other faiths from the human spirit, indeed that would be impossible, but I can only give you what I have to offer from my background as a born again Christian, evangelical preacher and minister, and yet, very much an outsider to mainstream religion. Call this a retrospective meditation of my own 35 years in the faith and a collective approach to the covenants and priesthoods of the old and new testaments with a focus on the living content of those ministries. Or simply, I want to get down to the nitty-gritty of what God is really doing with us and what we are instead doing with ourselves.
Two Covenants
Whatever God did or didnāt do in creating the Universeā¦ or creating this planet to be a habitat for living speciesā¦ or just filling this planet with life and life forms and packing those experiences with amazing facilities, such as light, colors, sound, forces, smells, tastes, instincts, communications, hearing, pressures, the elements, electromagnetics and the wave spectrum, growth and recall, thought and conjecture, awakenings, emotions, interactions, relationships, hardships, achievements, death, and rebirthā¦ whether this universe first existed and we popped up in it, or whether it was fitted and molded around us, or whether thereās more to that picture that we have not yet dug into, one thing is certain and amazing: we are alive.
So what does it mean, to be alive? First of all, and most elementary, we have a being, we exist, we are whatever we are, and it is more than what the rocks are doing, we have motion and a mind and a conscious self, the idea of being alive is itself the same as being a spirit, to be part of Godās existence, the more we look out into the universe, the more we realize that being alive is a very special quality. When you consider that you were conceived from something as small as an egg and a sperm, - you could fill the groove formed by a scratch on a pin head with 10,000 of those ā or even smaller, as in the molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid ā we literally came from nothingā¦ and whatās harder to grasp is the appearance of our peculiar identity out of nowhereā¦ suddenly I have a voice in the river of humanity that is constantly flowing; how did I pop up into being? The human experience begins with this sudden emergence onto the scene of life and none of us constructed our own souls, it is the gift of the living spirit that fills this tiny planet.
Our common past is so mysterious. I am so thankful I was raised an atheist by my parents because it forced me to seek out where I came from and to examine all the evidence available that hints of what history mankind has on this planet. Within that history thereās an even deeper mystery; the history of faith. Faith is what connects our spirits to the Great Spirit, it is the direct result of holiness, which is our walk with God. Holiness begins when God intercedes into and generally interrupts our existence. This creates a rebirth and, hopefully, a new walk of life, a new way of being, wherein, we no longer walk alone, but become the company of and enjoy the presence within of the Holy Spirit. For mankind as a whole, this interruption happened when God came to a man in ancient UR of lower Babylon, spoke to him, and told him to leave off of living his life there in UR and head out to a place he would show him, beyond rivers, and beyond Abrahamās wildest dreams.
For two to walk together, there must be an agreement, some kind of pact that bonds the two parties together: corporations write mission statements, governments draw up constitutions, small groups agree on a teaching or view of life, religion builds cathedrals where its constituents can congregate, fishermen adhere to a time, place, and way of fishing, and then build boats to do that inā¦ likewise God made covenants with man, which directly resulted in priesthoods, whose primary service was to maintain that relationship between man and God.
The old priesthood of the old covenant, which Jesus likened to the old wine, was a relationship between carnal man and God. While the new, and much more mysterious, priesthood of the new covenant, which Jesus likened to the new wine, is a relationship between reborn (spiritual) man and God. The old ministered carnal things while the new ministers spiritual things. The old dealt in things you could see and touch and taste, while the new deals with hidden things inside us and the mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit amongst us and upon us. The old covenant maintained a regimentation that restrained life to works and deeds allowed by God, while the new covenant unleashes a transformation that slowly changes our constitution into a completely changed life, one that wants to work with God and teach others how to follow him.
While individuals may have their own personal relationship with God, as, for instance, Abraham had (hence, he was the father of faith) ā¦ Godās covenants were not with each individual but the entire church following him at any given time. The old covenant created a practicing religion of priests, lawyers, and prophets. The lawyers tended to the letter of the law, while prophets tended to the faith, extending the living document of the law, and getting regularly executed for violating the letter of the law. The framers of the new covenant were caught up in a whirlwind of faith, preaching through the spirit, and releasing that spirit to spread as a wildfire throughout the earth, even while they were mostly in bondage to the old covenant.
The covenant provided a framework and laid the foundation for the work of God to be carried on. When man went about utilizing the contents of the priesthoods to build religions of his own making, as it were, outside the covenants God had established, civilization inherited religions that had no agreement with Godā¦ and therefore no relationship with God, devoid of his presence, and really, devoid of any value to God. Hence, Old Testament Jews who were not sons of Abraham but merely gentiles who set up a āJewishā religion, gave us a religion that was outside of Godās covenant. Likewise, New Testament Catholics who were not born again but merely secular pew fillers following the state religion set up by Rome, gave us another religion that was outside of Godās covenant.
Jesus said we had to abide in the vine, and by this he meant our faiths had to be drawn upon the covenant God agreed to. To all these man made religions of manās own doing, without Godās participation or agreement, Jesus said he will tell their constituents that he never knew them, which, in fact, since they never entered covenant with God or walked with God, is exactly the case. Without a genuine walk with God, we are never going to learn each other. The foundation for beginning that walk is the covenant God laid out for his people.
What God did was give us platforms to use, to discover avenues into his spirit. What man did was build institutions that restricted that discovery and regulated a religious view and structure for man to live by. When we return to what God is doing, we enjoy the presence of, and build a relationship with, Godās Holy Spirit. But when we cling to the old institutions of religion, framed upon manās devices for civilization and not abiding in Godās covenants, we end up fighting against the people who are following God and enjoying his presence.
This is true also of our individual ministering, even within the covenant, and even of those abiding in the vine. The priesthoods were set up to maintain the relationship God was building with the faithful. Too often, the priests in that ministry lost sight of that mission and fell into religious practices to replace their daily walk with God. New Testament ministry is based upon entrance into the body of Christ, hence, each member of the body is, or should be, a functioning priest. Having lost sight of the covenant and the standing it gives us, which the Apostles called our inheritance in the light, most Christians have no idea how to function as priests, they walk on in darkness, completely blind to the covenant and ministry established in Jesus Christ. Either they sit in pews with no function whatsoever, or they speak at podiums, giving orations of their testimonies, expounding on all their experiences and tribulations and frustrations which they have had walking in darkness, with no clue that there is a completely different operation of God established for the body of Christ, one that actually functions to guide and build each other up in the Holy Spirit. To begin with, thereās nothing being taught in bible colleges or main stream universities that enables the New Testament ministry of the body of Christ, or, for that matter, points in the direction of the covenant and priesthood. Instead, we have been trained to perform as orators, as if God had given us standing above and over the sheep, and we are under the delusion that our weekly orations are somehow performing what God intended for ministry. The entire church of Jesus Christ has fallen away from the covenant and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Although attempts were made in the renaissance era to reform the church and return to the covenant and priesthood of the New Testament, the secular forms for meeting and schisms in the body along with the flawed doctrine of priesthood continued in the reformed congregations. The church as a whole failed to perceive and align themselves with the operation of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ. This didnāt prevent individuals from getting saved and added to the body, but it stunted their growth in the body and generally failed to provide the nurturing and care that the body of Christ is supposed to provide new members. The priesthood still functioned, but only in small groups that met apart from the structured meeting hallsā¦ and both were mostly clueless as to what God wanted them to do.
The idea that God wants us to live a new life that walks hand in hand with the Holy Spirit is not lost on anyone. Even the unsaved are familiar with that concept. But how to do it, is the problem. And arguing over how to do it, has been a big source of contention that resulted in divisions and denominations. Infighting over doctrine started as early as the apostles, even while they were following Jesus. Luke is at odds with Matthew, Mark, and John over where the ascension took place. Paul split up with Barnabus over bringing Mark along on the 2nd journey. There has always been battles in the new covenant. The old covenant was issued through dictatorship via Moses, but the new covenant was a product of democracy via the apostles, and as such, it was a much messier affair. How to walk in the old covenant was dictated directly to Moses, then all the people had to do was follow the laws issued. But the new covenant emerged from a flurry of writings and meetings of the apostles, as they searched for the intentions of the Holy Spirit for the new church. 2000 years later, we still have no consensus for what God wants us to do under the new covenant, the church is still divided.
Two Priesthoods
When God brought the children of Abraham out of Egypt, across the Sinai Peninsula, across the Red Sea, to the mountain of God there in Midian, where the Holy Spirit first spoke to Moses, and delivered the Law to the entire church in the wilderness, he was separating a people for himself. A priesthood was set up to carry out the ordinances, in order to keep the people in the covenant that God established through Moses. The idea was to become a people where God could dwell, so to walk with God and live a godly lifeā¦ grow in grace, wax strong in the spirit, live and grow the way Jesus didā¦ under that same covenant. And provision was made to call any man into the priesthood, by becoming a Nazariteā¦ which was the path John the Baptist followed, even though he was born in the line of the priesthood.
I was called to ministry, in as much as God spoke to me and told me to enter this one year intensive training for ministry, but thatās all it was, just another thing God told me to do. I say this because it is a misnomer to say anyone in the New Testament priesthood is ācalled to ministryā. Thatās a calling that took place in the Old Testament priesthood when God wanted to bring someone into the priesthood that wasnāt born in the line of the priests. (like Samuel) In the new covenant priesthood, there is no calling to ministry, every true believer should be immediately baptized into the body of Christ, and automatically becomes a priest and enters the priesthood and ministry of the body of Christ.
Under the old covenant, tithes were brought to the priests of 1/10th of the annual crop. Offerings were made of the livestock to be sacrificed to God by the priests. Most of the animal sacrifices and most of the meal offerings ended up as food for the priests; the priesthood was a functional butchery and commercial grade kitchen, cooking the meat upon a huge open pit grill (the brazen alter) after washing the meat in the sea, which was a huge vessel of water. In the new covenant, initially, everything was shared and the saints gathered for feasts that were ordained under the old covenant. Remember, Jesus was only sent to the nation of Israel, the initial church went right on living their lives under the old covenant. They added the things Jesus taught them on top of their Jewish traditions and offerings, so the Apostles continued to live under the old covenant, even as they built the new covenant. Even after all his journeys, when St Paul returned to Jerusalem, he was forward to show his fellow religious zealots for the law, that he kept the law also.
But it took St Paul to realize that God had set up a new covenant and that the new covenant would issue forth a new priesthood. In his structured religious mind, Paul felt the need to set forth a new order, so he chose Melchizadek as a representation of Jesus high priesthood to the church, and we all share in that service. Jesus never mentioned that he was establishing any such order, he just told Peter to feed his sheep, that got the ball rolling, which has been a hallmark of the New Testament Ministry, to just do the work, donāt set yourself up as some high and mighty priest more important than the other members of the body. The Apostles never did that, but many in the ministry have fallen into that pit, and it appeared as fast as meetings took place. But there is no pecking order in the new covenant priesthood, we all serve the Holy Spirit and serve each other, there is only one member of the body set in authority over the body; the high priest Jesus, the rest of us are joined to the service via the holy spirit, there is no hierarchy. Elders and Deacons were established in order to handle the administration of local finances and operations, but these were offices to handle practical matters, not to be confused with the priesthood ministering to the body of Christ.
There is no clergy and laity in the body of Christ, those are the products of man-made religion. There is no such division in the spiritual assembly. Meeting places structured to set up a ruling class in the church are completely outside of the New Testament covenant. Likewise the āservicesā they hold are not attended by the Holy Spirit. They walk on in darkness.
The New Testament ministry is a straight forward continuation of the Old Testament prophets. The priestly service is the work of the anointing upon the body. The members of the body are given gifts of the Holy Spirit for the work of the ministry, the power to do the work rests upon the body, the same as it rested upon Jesus and John (from his motherās womb) and Elijah and all the prophets. The works testify of Godās presence. The testimony of prophecy began with Moses and continues to this day. The testimony of Jesus Christ is that same spirit of prophecy, God hasnāt changed, heās the same yesterday, today and forever.
āThe Day of the Lordā is the central vision for all prophecy of the old and new covenants. When St John said he was in the Spirit on the Lordās Day, he meant the Spirit was upon him, showing him the vision of the Day of the Lordā¦ and thatās exactly what the apocalypse of St John is; it is a vision extending to, and then covering in detail, the Day of the Lord. Thatās why the vision keeps referencing Old and New Testament prophecy, it is the central vision of all the prophets under both covenants. It is important to note that the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon the church is clothing us with more than just prophecy. And thereās more gifts of the Holy Spirit than just those St Paul rattled off in his epistles (letters). All the works of God are performed through the clothing of the Holy Spirit. Prophecy is just one of the many actions God performs through the priesthood.
The culmination of all the works performed via the priesthood build a testimony to Godās presence amongst his childrenā¦ so the priesthood is supposed to be taking care of, and training up, the members of the body, while also performing the outward testimony of the church. Thereās not supposed to be any hierarchy in either of those, and yet, thanks to Rome, you would be hard pressed to find any functioning priesthood that is free of overlords.
Mostly, the Nicolaitans are concerned with money and their own tiny testimony, or what they perceive to be their testimony. Jesus hates their money handling and doesnāt care much for their testimony either, so it is not a pretty picture. Prophecy calls this condition an āapostasyā ā¦ a falling away from the faith. And Jesus asked the question in the gospels, āā¦when the son of man returns, will he find faith upon the earth?ā So let me ask youā¦ looking around at the condition of todayās churchesā¦ will he find the faith he planted in those? I donāt think so, I donāt think Jesus would recognize what is happening today as the same ministry he started, it has fallen so far away from what he was doing with the apostles, thereās no way he says, āwell done, you faithful stewards of my grace.ā Thereās a big difference between meeting as the body of Christ where the priesthood is allowed to function ā and ā running a corporation where you are building cogs in the machinery.
Two aspects of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit never leaves the body of Christ, this is his rest, his Sabbath, just as the atmosphere rests upon the earth, the wind isnāt always blowing but the atmosphere is always thereā¦ in like manner, the power of the Holy Spirit is always present upon the body, we are clothed with power, the gifts in operation are always changing according to whatever God is doing, and just as often, the wind is still, but the Spirit never leaves us. And the spirit of the prophets is subject unto the prophets, which is to say, we have command over our spirits, even as they are driven by the moving of the Greater Spiritā¦ hence, we are holy men speaking what God inspires us to say, the same way all the word of God was written/spoken. The anointing that rests upon us is the outward aspect of the Holy Spirit, this anointing powers the works that witness to all mankind the testimony of God. The works also build up the faith of the members of the church... this happens by measure, the anointing is always present, but the power is measured out, God may thunder one thing while addressing another with a still small whisper, sometimes he raises the dead, other times he heals the snifflesā¦ sometimes he does nothing at all.
God wants us to have faith in his presence, but not to pretend we have this power in and of ourselves. Even Jesus said he could do nothing of himselfā¦ that the works come from the Father. All things are possible with God, but he chooses to do stuff that builds up our faith. So he had Solomon build him a temple, but even as Solomon finished the building, he realized that God is too great to be contained in a space. Elijah had a mantle that clothed him with power, and Elisha picked up that mantle with twofold the Spirit. Was the Holy Spirit really in the mantle or was he just building up their faith in that mantle so they would believe in his presence? Wasnāt he also residing in the ark of the testament, not very far away in Jerusalem? So you canāt quantify Godās Spirit, while at the same time, God is measuring out his Spirit in everything he does, the same Spirit that rested upon Elijah and then Elisha was sent back to rest upon John the Baptist and then Jesus. Eventually, the same Spirit will reappear upon two more witnesses. You can identify this anointing in scripture by the trademark ascension that it pulls at the end of the life of the witness whom it rested uponā¦ well, four of the six, anyway. Jesus explained it this way; the Spirit descends from heaven, testifies, and then ascends back to heaven, all the while, God remains seated on the throne in heaven. Elisha had twice the power that Elijah had, the final two witnesses have seven fold the Spirit that rested upon Jesusā¦ each ministry is measured the power to do the work at hand.
God with us, amongst us, upon us, living together with man, is the governmental aspect of his Spirit, ruling over our outward lives in all that we do daily with our hands and feet, and what we speak with our tongues, and how we behave ourselves in our daily walk and disciplines. The law and the prophets are the application of the outward aspect of the Holy Spiritā¦ a cloud by day to cool the desert heat and a pillar of fire by night to heat the cold desert nightā¦ it regulates our daily lives. When the tongues of fire baptized the new church at Pentecost, it was the same anointing that came down as fire upon Solomonās brazen alter and Elijahās wood and water trenchā¦ it was the same anointing that lighted down upon Jesus as a dove and will light down again sevenfold upon the next witness. We are joined to that ministry via the clothing of the Holy Spirit, our discipleship is our obedience to those testimonies. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the vehicle through which God is ruling his kingdom.
The mystery of the faith is how God plants his laws inside our hearts. To properly understand this, we have to borrow from Egypt. Originally, obtaining immortal life was a privilege reserved for pharaoh. But the circle widened to include the royal court, so by the time Joseph became 2nd in command to pharaoh, Joseph would have been embalmed for the after-life. Thatās why Joseph told the children of Israel to take his bones with them when they return to the Promised Land and bury him there. By the time of Jesus, they were wrapping the dead in linen cloth and oil, but not performing the entire ritual and mummification process that lasted a couple of months for the early kings of Egypt, some 3000 years prior to Jesus. The hope of resurrection from the dead, as prescribed by the book of the dead, was that the soul would be born again through Isis, a divine birth that was only granted to the pure and sinless souls that survived the judgment of their hearts. Members of the royal household could sneak into eternal life in service to the souls that obtained eternal lifeā¦ thatās why they were put to death with the kingā¦ and resurrected with him to serve him in the afterlife. All these concepts were accomplished a new way by the God of Abraham, via the seed of Christ: which was planted in Mary, went through the death of the cross and then resurrected through its own power (not needing Isis) and subsequently was breathed into the apostles. Essentially, the faith of the New Testament is the receiving of this breath of resurrection from Jesus. The inward aspect of the Holy Spirit is the planting of this seed of Christ (germination of the anointing) into our hearts; where it should take root and grow up into our new man, slowly wearing away our old man and old identity. The growth of the Holy Spirit inside us, changes us into that new person, with a whole new natureā¦ eventually bearing the fruits of the
Spirit. The exact same germ that grew up into Jesus was passed by Jesus to his followers, and it continues to be passed on to each new believer.
So our faith begins when we receive Jesus into our hearts. The rebirth of eternal life is planted inside us, cheating death, because it happens while we are still living our carnal lives. We enter eternal life before ending our carnal life, breaking all the rules of death. The book of the dead is mightily pissed off at this, we cheat the whole process, conquering death without enduring the test. Not only did we sneak into immortality with Jesus, we also are outwardly baptized by the church, identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that obedience to the faith is counted as righteousness, and rewarded with the gifts of the Holy Spiritā¦ the clothing of power needed to do the works and perform a share of the ruling by and governing of the church. So the inward aspect comes first, we must be born again of the resurrection spirit inside our hearts, then, once we have entered into the faith, we can be baptized into the body of Christ and be empowered with the outward aspect, to execute the discipleship of the Christian walkā¦ which is how we enter the covenant of the New Testament.
The germination of the Holy Spirit, which was planted inside Mary, grew up into Jesus. The testimony of Jesus, which began with his birth and encompassed his whole life, was the testimony of the inward aspect of the Holy Spirit planted inside Mary. The testimony of the Father, which rested upon John the Baptist from the womb of Elizabeth, which was the same anointing that rested upon Elijah and transferred to Elisha, was transferred to Jesus when John baptized Jesus. At that point, both witnesses were there with Jesus; the inward and outward aspects of the Holy Spirit. When we receive Jesus, we are supposed to receive both aspects of the Holy Spirit. The inward aspect germinates a new life inside us, and that is life eternal, which grows up inside us and transforms our nature into Jesusā nature, eventually bearing the fruits of that nature. The outward aspect joins us to the body of Christ, the church, via baptism, which is our obedience to the Father and entrance into his kingdom.
Two Witnesses
When Christians congregate in Jesusā name, they should be feeding each otherās spirits. Holding a āserviceā is really just performing some adjunct ritual for appearance sake, God isnāt being served by these services and never asked us to carry out rituals or services, he told us to feed the sheep, not put on shows. We have an inner man that needs to grow, God placed Christ in us to do just that, grow in glory until its nature shines through our being. Only mature fruit trees bear fruit, but once that happens, people will feel the love, and they will flock to the testimonyā¦ to feed on the fruit of the Spirit. The mature inner aspect of the Holy Spirit is one of the witnesses of Christ. The Gospel is just the passing around of Jesusā spirit of resurrectionā¦ which, when received, becomes Christ in you, the hope of glory. Meditation, prayer, spiritual songs and hymns, whatever draws upon the Christ in you, turning to him in earnest, calling upon his name, reading the scriptures, and hearing the word of the spiritā¦ all are facets of our inner walk. The idea is to be transformed, from glory to glory, until we more resemble Christians than whatever we were fashioned after in the flesh.
The inner aspect of the Holy Spirit is just Jesus himself, his person and spirit, growing up inside us. You ask, how can a man breathe himself out into other humans? I guess in resurrection, the spirit is the same as God breathing out the angelsā¦ the spirit is something breathed. This breath comes inside us and begins a new life in us, an eternal lifeā¦ that has an immortal natureā¦ that will pass through death. This is the witness of the Son of God. Jesus said, āI am one that bears witness of myself, and my Father that sent me bears witness of me.ā We see these two witnesses in the inward and outward aspects of the Holy Spirit. They are two aspects of the same spirit, the Father and the Son are one and the same Spirit, working in us and upon us, to create a new creature in Christā¦ building the kingdom of God. When Christ returns, to manifest that kingdom, he sends forth his two witnesses, the two anointed ones, and the same testimony upon Elijah and Elishaā¦ that returned upon John and Jesus, returns again, upon two of the brethren, to testify all over again. Only this time, his two witnesses will have both aspects of the Holy Spirit, so the only difference between these two witnesses and any other member of the body of Christ is the measure of the outward anointing resting upon them. Beyond that, they are just two more sinners saved by grace. In order for the witness of the Son to have a mature full testimony, I would think he/she (there is no gender in Christ) needs at least 40 years of transformation. In order for the witness of the Father to live a normal Christian life, there needs to be the hiding of his power until the days of his testimony.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, so the hope of glory inside us produces that glory. Our practice of the Christian faith should build a substantial amount of glory inside us. The target of our Christian walk, indeed the whole purpose of the Christian faith, is the transformation of our soul by the Spirit of Jesus growing inside us. The testimony of Jesus is not dogma and doctrine of the clergy, but the living Spirit of grace passed from believer to believer and growing to maturity in our present lives. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, and it is more than just the hope of resurrection from the dead, it is the substance of that resurrection building up inside us. We donāt go to heaven when we die, heaven is planted inside us when we receive Christā¦ and we are placed in heavenly places through our baptism into the body; which is the assembly of all the saints as one new man, a spiritual creation that has formed from the growth of that germination of Godās essence first placed in Mary, it just continues to grow and build the kingdom, almost like a human virus from the God of Abraham.
Likewise, the clothing of the Spirit began as a promise to Abraham, certainly God spoke through a multitude of people on this planet and in a multifaceted splendor of variety of ways, but the program of the prophets in Israel can be traced back to Godās first speaking to Abraham. Genesis is really just a history of the house of Abraham. Hebrew is just a stylized form of the Chaldean language; itās the dialect created by one man leaving Babylon and adapting to strange lands, while communicating with the Most High God. Language is recorded in two manners; phonetic alphabets such as Hebrew, Greek, English, Mayan, Spanish, French, German, and a host of others where the written word forms the sound of the spoken wordā¦ and picture alphabets such as hieroglyphs found in Egypt, China, Japan, and Mayan (both types; the picture forms the sound of the words). The phonetic languages fit manās step by step reasoning, while the picture languages fit manās AHA reasoning; the so-called gifted thinking process where the whole picture appears at once in the mind, so we ask the question, āGet the picture?ā Something like 15% of mankind is picture oriented, the rest of us plug along step by step. Thereās a tremendous amount of suffering that happens when the two reasoning processes are forced to mesh gears, such as happens in learning centers and schools. In the ancient world, man built temples to his gods and these were the learning centers. Jesus learned letters in Alexandria, Egypt, where twice as many Jews resided than in all of Palestine, and the world library was located. Both Abraham and Jesus grew up in highly advanced cities, only to be called to a land of hillbillies and misfits. Can any good thing come from Nazareth? Not really, but Jesus didnāt really come from Nazareth. In the beginning, God began his work with man by speaking words to him, his whole form was communication. In that communication we find his Spirit, and the Spirit is hard at work, planting his substance into the carnal creation. Invisible to our eyes, but plainly seen by our minds, there are two witnesses of the Spirit, growing inside and working upon mankind. This is the Christian faith. We grab onto Godās Spirit like a baby grabs onto your finger, we lay hold of the word of God, handle those words, work with those words, and build faith in others. We apprehend the living Spirit that spoke those words, sometimes we learn step by step, sometimes we are given visions; the whole picture at once. Faith is the living word growing inside us, connecting us to the spiritual body of believers and Godās throne in their midst.
Jesus told his apostles to keep the Passover feast and to break the bread and pass the wine in remembrance of him. The Passover feast was itself a memorial to God bringing the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Jesus brought those same children out of bondage to sin. In so doing, Jesus terminated the old covenant, nailing the law to the cross, ending that walk with God and started a new walk with God; one that incorporated a new way to follow God, through his resurrected Spirit breathed into us. Then the Spirit of prophecy was added to the church for direction and discipline. 300 years later, Emperor Constantine instituted a new government program to add the Christian god to the official gods of Rome. So it was no longer illegal to worship the Christian God in the Roman Empire, instead, it now became mandatory to attend the state built temples of worship, just as it had been for hundreds of years with all the official gods of Rome. The manner of worship in those newly constructed temples for Christians was the Roman way of worship; rituals were carried out the same as they always had, only this time they changed the content of those rituals to align with this new Christian god. Thatās how the Roman Catholic Church ended up performing the Eucharist on every Sunday, thinking that was somehow keeping the commandment of Jesus at his last meal with the apostles. What is missing in that ritual? The Holy Spirit. The entire covenant, priesthood, and witness left behind by Jesus. The rebirth, growth, and fruits of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, as well as the clothing of the spirit of power from on high. In short, God is missing, because it is the work of manās government, not the movement of God started by Jesus.
Tomorrow morning, Easter Sunday, some pastors from Michigan will attempt to start a new church way out here in Downers Grove, IL. They will bring guitars, graphic designers, and a preacher and attempt to build a new daughter of the whore, that they hope will pay them enough salary for the pastorās wife to keep up her love for shopping. Iām not making this up, they put it right on their website, which they created before they held their first meeting. They advertise this as a new movement of the Holy Spirit sweeping through Chicago. Whatās missing in this picture? For starters, any actual movement of the Holy Spirit in Chicago, which was what pricked my attention to their brochure. (mailed to every resident in Downers Grove) When will all the sheep wake up and discern the difference between corporations of the state, running an enterprise (to make money) in the name of Jesus, and the Spiritual New Testament priesthood? When will the sheep realize that polished shows with guitars and singers are not building up their faith, they are pulling on their pockets? As long as the believers continue to dwell in the reincarnated Babylon, following after hirelings with college educations, who are building their businesses for filthy lucre, and pretending to be great leaders of faith, when in reality they are not even serving the faith, they are serving themselves mammon, and totally ignoring the faithā¦ when the blind lead the blind, they both end up lost. They know not, neither do they understand, they walk on in darkness.
God sent us two witnesses; the Father and the Son, two functions of the operation of the Holy Spirit. The resurrected Spirit of Jesus planted inside us, transforming our nature and the heavenly Father upon us clothing us with power. These two witnesses are real. The practice of the Christian faith is entirely focused on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in these two aspects. Meanwhile, the practice of running a business in the name of Jesus is entirely focused on making money. Does your āchurchā have a business office? Was your church incorporated (placed into the body of the state)? When a body of believers are placed into the body of the state; thatās called spiritual adultery, when you do it for money, you have a spiritual whore. If you reform the whore into a bunch of denominations that go on incorporating into the state and running businesses for money, performing services for rituals, and collecting tithes as if they were old testament priests, those are the daughters of the whore. If the daughters of the whore, know what they are doing is wrong, and they hide the business office, and hide their incorporation, but go right on holding services, ruling over the sheep, collecting tithes, paying themselves salaries, working a business in the name of Jesus, it is still whoredom, it is still the model of Rome, it isnāt the New Testament ministry. If there is no real operation of the Holy Spirit, why attend those services? Come out of her, my people. Where-ever two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, he is there in their midst. Go where the witnesses are. Go inside you and gather together free of oppression and bondage. If you keep following Jesus, he will teach you his true ways and set you free of the hirelings.
