The circumstances of heaven
escape our understanding. The scriptures make it clear it is a place of
joy, worship and contentment, better than any thing we can imagine. Satan
will never again be an evil force in the hearts of God’s children.
1 Corinthians
2:9
9 But as it is written:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of
man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." (NKJ)
If you believe God
exists and that His prophecies, fulfilled and unfulfilled are true,
and that the revelations of His scriptures are true, then what greater
priority exists than to seek His face and to enter into His presence?
Psalms 27:4
4 One thing I have
desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house
of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD,
and to inquire in His temple. (NKJ)
1 Kings 8:30,34,36
30 ...Hear in heaven
Your dwelling place; and when You hear, forgive.
34 ..."hear in heaven,
and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the
land which You gave to their fathers.
36 ..."hear in heaven,
and forgive the sin of Your servants (NKJ)
I suggest again that
you will be without excuse if you have not sought His presence in your
life. You know too much to claim ignorance as a defense. Those, whose
names are not "blotted" out, are those who "overcome." Sometimes
we feel we can "wait and see." No, the initiative is ours and Satan,
manifested in our flesh, is an enemy to be overcome. As it says in the
Bible, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Either choose to
"enable the Spirit" or be overcome by the flesh. Listen.
Revelation
3:5
5 "He who overcomes
shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name
from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father
and before His angels. (NKJ)
Revelation 3:7-13
7 "And to the angel
of the church in Philadelphia write, 'These things says He who is holy,
He who is true, "He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one
shuts, and shuts and no one opens":
8 "I know your works.
See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for
you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My
name.
9 "Indeed I will make
those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not,
but lie-- indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet,
and to know that I have loved you.
10 "Because you have
kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of
trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell
on the earth.
11 "Behold, I am coming
quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
12 "He who overcomes,
I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out
no more. And I will write on him the name of My God and the name of
the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven
from My God. And I will write on him My new name.
13 "He who has an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."' (NKJ)
Here, Jesus is telling
you that your name is in the Book of Life and that He will not blot
it out if you have "overcome." Then He defines "overcome" by saying
it includes those who have "kept my word and not denied My name."
Then Jesus says a harsh sentence. He says, "Indeed I will make those
of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie--
indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know
that I have loved you.
This last sentence
could be considered one of hope, in that a Jew that has not kept God’s
word and who has denied the Messiah, is present in the millenium, even
though as one who appears subservient, but that is not what the Messiah
prefers. In verse 10 He states that:
"Because you have kept
My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial
which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the
earth. Jesus does not want you to endure the "hour of trial." He
wants you to obey and to persevere, so He can keep you from the trial.
Then notice that He
refers to the trial as a "test." If you kneel to a false god, if
you accept the mark of the beast, you will have failed the test. But
He doesn’t want you to endure the test, He wants to keep you from it!
I know we await the
coming or the return of the same Messiah. It isn’t that a Jew can’t
be saved who denies Christ, because throughout history there are those
who have denied Christ and then repented. They changed their mind. If
we worship the same precise Messiah, The Christ, now and then, we will
both have seen Him as the Lamb of God, the only One who could redeem
us from our sin. We are going to come to the same point. But if prophecy
is true, the tribulation may be too much for you to endure, and certainly
Jesus Christ, the Judge, does not want you to endure it.
We see the word "overcome"
as a depiction of the act of repenting. In a sense, the will to overcome
is derived from the inner conflict between your flesh and your spirit.
The more "out of sync" you feel, that is, the greater the gap between
what you want to be and what you are, the more you are experiencing
both God’s love and His chastisement. Parents understand this perfectly.
We rebuke, if done God’s way, out of love. It is love first, then discipline.
Revelation
3:19-21
19 "As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
20 "Behold, I stand
at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
21 "To him who overcomes
I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat
down with My Father on His throne. (NKJ)
God’s elect will, in
heaven, be in the presence of the 144,000 young Jewish male virgins
representing the 12 tribes of Israel who have been beheaded for refusing
the mark of the beast; but before heaven is the millenium, here on earth.
He who overcomes will reign with Christ during the millenium. Those
who do so are referred to as priests to God. The "scroll," able
to be opened only by the Lamb, tells of the events of the end times.
Listen.
Revelation
5:9-10
9 And they sang a new
song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals;
for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of
every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
10 And have made us
kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth." (NKJ)
Read those two verses
very carefully. Jesus Christ is worthy to open the seals of the scroll,
because He was slain and redeemed us to God, by His blood. Then we who,
by God’s grace, love and obey, are made kings and priests to our God
on earth, during the millenium. I know the verse says "on the earth"
and does not say "the millenium," but the reign of Christ with
His saints on earth is during the millenium, only. It precedes the great
white throne judgment where the sheep are separated from the goats,
to enter into God’s presence in New Jerusalem. Listen.
Revelation
20:4-6
4 And I saw thrones,
and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw
the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus
and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image,
and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the
dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This
is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy
is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death
has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall
reign with Him a thousand years. (NKJ)
We read earlier that
those who overcome reign with Christ as kings and priests. Here we see
that the "rest of the dead" did not live again until the 1000 years
were finished. They were not part of the "first resurrection."
For those who are part of the first resurrection, the "second death"
has no power over them.
What is the second
death? The first death is our physical death, the second death is our
spiritual death, but the second death has no power over those who are
part of the first resurrection. Earlier I stated that you choose to
be born twice, once physically and once spiritually or to die twice,
once physically and once spiritually. Those who "die twice" will do
so on judgment day, when their souls are sentenced to an eternal place
whose full characteristics are known only to God, but we know it is
not a place to which you want to go.
We know that at the
end of the millenium, Satan is released and he deceives many again,
but not the blessed and holy priests reigning with Christ, nor God’s
children. Satan will cause the enemies of God to rally against Jerusalem
in an effort to destroy God’s people. God will fight the battle and
the enemy will be destroyed, finally and forever. Satan will be cast
into the lake of fire with the beast and the false prophet and they
will be tormented night and day, forever.
Then comes the judgment.
The dead will be resurrected and all will stand before God in the great
white throne judgment. Who is not included among the "dead?" It
will be those blessed and holy priests who have been reigning with Christ
during the Millenium. Now that means every soul will appear before God
to be judged. There are "two books" present at judgment. One is the
Book of Life. Anyone whose name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life will enter
into New Jerusalem. Listen.
Revelation
21:1-11
1 Now I saw a new heaven
and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away. Also there was no more sea.
2 Then I, John, saw
the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud
voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself
will be with them and be their God.
4 "And God will wipe
away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow,
nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have
passed away."
5 Then He who sat on
the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me,
"Write, for these words are true and faithful."
6 And He said to me,
"It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.
7 "He who overcomes
shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
8 "But the cowardly,
unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters,
and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire
and brimstone, which is the second death."
9 Then one of the seven
angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came
to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride,
the Lamb's wife."
10 And he carried me
away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great
city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
11 having the glory
of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone,
clear as crystal. (NKJ)
Skipping down a few
verses,
Revelation
21:22-27
22 But I saw no temple
in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 The city had no
need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God
illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.
24 And the nations
of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the
earth bring their glory and honor into it.
25 Its gates shall
not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there).
26 And they shall bring
the glory and the honor of the nations into it.
27 But there shall
by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination
or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
(NKJ)
Do you see that only
those names that are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will live eternally?
Who is the Lamb? The Lamb is the promised Messiah. Listen.
John 1:29-36
29 The next day John
saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world!
30 "This is He of whom
I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was
before me.'
31 "I did not know
Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing
with water."
32 And John bore witness,
saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He
remained upon Him.
33 "I did not know
Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom
you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who
baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34 "And I have seen
and testified that this is the Son of God."
35 Again, the next
day, John stood with two of his disciples.
36 And looking
at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" (NKJ)
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