SHARING GOD’S GENERAL & SPECIFIC REVELATION: hope & community. (2 DEC 2016)

In 1990, when I began publicly exposing the World Order, I had 21 years experience of being a Christian. In the summer of ’78, I focused my prayers & study to determine by the Spirit how to understand the book of Christ’s Revelation (the Apocalypse) recorded by the prophet John. The Spirit clearly gave an understanding which I nicknamed “realized millennialism”. If I were to quote one Scripture that sums this up it would be COL 1:13: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” We have the benefits of the Kingdom now.(A) In the summer of ’90, I found myself back in prayer trying to get specific revelation on how we were to deal with the World Order. The answer made me feel slightly embarrassed for not realizing it on my own. It was that: “My children should function properly as the Body of Christ was meant to function. This will overcome the World Order.” If I were to quote one scripture that sums this up it would be JN 13:35: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

ALL ONE IN CHRIST. The Word teaches us that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”(B). In the NT, one can count the word “disciple” 269 times (in the Strong’s Concordance), showing how important discipleship is. So we discover that God’s people of faith are called to be disciples, not decision makers. We are to have a calling, not a church career. We are to use trust, not technique; and servanthood, not superiority. Our life is all about knowing Him, & sharing His love. Love & community are far more valuable than seminary training. With all this in mind, what was I to do with what the Spirit had taught me?

THE MISTAKE OF SHARING. I moved forward on God’s revelations in a number of ways. For one, I shared the Spirit’s answer about Christian community to a no. of people, incl. a brother, who then shared it with Bo Gritz. I have no doubt that Bo Gritz was an infiltrator sent by the World Order to co-opt & take control over the opposition to the New World Order, & promote Christians being violent. When this Christian shared what I said about community, the next thing I knew (c. 1993), Bo Gritz began the “Almost Heaven” “Christian community” in the Kamiah/Woodland/ Clearwater Valley area of Idaho. His Christians brought their weapons, formed militias, alienated the locals, & plotted violence. I heard an interview where he told his community they could hold off the U.S. army for 6 months…& I thought to myself how a National Guard F-16 could incinerate them in 15 min. from takeoff. After that mistake, I became more reticent about what God has shown me. Unfortunately, Bo Gritz was not the only infiltrator posing as a Christian who heard what I had been shown.

BESIDES LEARNING TO BE MORE DISCERNING in who I shared with, I also began studying successful Christian communities & the dynamics of successful community. Part of my efforts along this line were seized & destroyed in prison. The revelation about Christian community did not go over well when I shared it…most Christians (raised with American individualism & American church individual piety) had a knee jerk reaction that I meant something like Jonestown, or some other cult. I realized how true it was that unless God builds the house (or community), they labor in vain.

AN “INSTITUTIONALIZED” CHURCH. The Catholic church felt if you were physically born into the church, you should be baptized as an infant. The various Protestants that broke off from Catholicism likewise held to that. All down thru the centuries there had been small groups of Christians, hunted down & killed for their faith by the institutional church, who believed in a New birth, a believer’s baptism & an ecclesia of Spirit-led believers. From this small seed of believers came the Anabaptist movement, which in turn is where we get the Hutterites, Amish & Mennonites. They believed that one needed a spiritual birth, not a physical birth to enter the kingdom. Because they rebaptized Protestants & Catholics, they were called “Ana-baptists”, and if caught by either group they were drowned. They also had a no. of other ideas. They believed there were 2 kingdoms–God’s & Satan’s…light & dark…good & evil…the Kingdom of Life v. the Kingdom of Death. And the reformer Martin Luther also held to the 2 kingdom’s understanding (& so does this author). Long story short, the Anabaptists believed in community, & they saw this community of believers having: brotherly love, pure doctrine, obedience to the Word, believer’s baptism, a proper Lord’s supper, confessing Christ to the World, & persecution. And these various Anabaptist groups have much to teach about community, as many of them have been successful for centuries. Like West Point had the “long grey line” of previous classes of cadets, likewise the Anabaptists have a similar view of past generations of believers…a sense of heritage that the Protestants rarely have.

So I turned that specific revelation on “the Body functioning like the Body should” over to God to work on, but I can still share about His general revelations in the book of Revelations…which were given to the ecclesias of those in the Way of Christ as the new believers began to face incredible persecution. And for that reason & many others the book of Revelation is very relevant to our times. When John gave the church the scroll of Revelations (aka Apocalypse), the Emperor Domitian was taking emperor worship to its worst extreme. The Christians were suffering & giving their lives as martyrs. So the Book of Revelation was provided to give them courage & hope.

It’s messages were not offered as some kind of coded chronology, although the images could be viewed in a sense as a spiritual code: for instance “Beast” (rather than “world dictator”) and “Babylon the Great” (rather than the “Satanic hierarchy’s World Order”). One of its themes was to remain faithful to truth no matter what the opposition.(C) In contrast to Islam, which teaches its followers to lie to get out of persecution, Revelation strongly advocates remaining faithful until death. When we take the persecution warned about, and the need to be in a committed loving community of disciples…it is obvious that small authentic, honest, Spirit-led groups are what is best. It’s fun to go to a mega-church that is stocked w/ the full range of Christian “consumer” goods like a Walmart…but that is not in line with the Scriptural call. Success in the Kingdom of God is not defined as size of attendance or the size of the building. Worldly ambition wants bigger. The faith in the book of Revelation is not couch potato religion. The book of Revelation uses the word “throne” 46 times, showing the importance of the kingship/lordship of the King of Kings & Lord of Lords… to use Isaiah’s words “high & lifted up”.(D) A close knit band of brothers (& sisters) all lining up with the Spirit of God…their unity is from all lining up with the Spirit.

MORE THEMES. Allow me to share some of the other themes: 1. the victorious Lord is alive (E), 2. the devil is defeated(F), the saints will sing songs of victory in the future(G), & there will be a new world on earth with a godly people(H). This earthly reign is in line with prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures.(I)

FINAL THEME: A look at 20:1 (FROM THE MOST DEBATED CHAPTER IN REV). Before we discuss REV 20:1, let’s think about some things. The book of Revelation was sent to 7 churches, two of which had been founded by Paul & co-workers, Ephesus & Laodicea. So we know the churches were made up of ex-Jews & gentiles, and had the Hebrew scriptures, whether they had some of the other valued books of the time like Enoch, I don’t know. Interestingly, Revelation only alludes to the OT, it doesn’t quote it. In REV 13, John merges the four beasts of Daniel’s apocalyptic vision into one–I believe this synthesis is so the application of Revelation can be applied to any political system. This is one of several vaguenesses that strongly suggest Revelation was meant to apply to many generations, & offer hope to all of them. It is possible when the Revelation of Christ was circulated, that the Messianic Jews may have had other apocalyptic literature, (I think all told about 70 non-canonical ones have been discovered.) I bring this up because it was common thinking at Qumran & with Rabbis that Satan would have a short preliminary binding done by an Archangel, be released, and then come out for a final knock-out blow. This is what we see in REV 20, except chapter 20 just shows us a powerful angel on a special assignment to imprison Satan, & does not call the angel an archangel. Still, think of that people–it only takes one angel to imprison Satan in the abyss!! (By the way, just like we have card keys for hotel rooms, the key to the abyss may not look like a skeleton key and the restraining device (chain) may be some powerful binding.)

20:1-4. Luther & the Anabaptists felt the Millennial kingdom was symbolic of the church era. The problem with that view of the Millennium is that Satan is specifically chained (REV 20:1) in the abyss so he cannot deceive during the church era…their interpretation calls for a mighty long chain! (in Greek. “halysin megalen”=literally “great mannacle”, & translated in the KJV “great chain”). The NT Word says that Satan is still going about blinding the mind of believers (J), trapping the unwary (K), having his false prophet deceive (L), and having his merchants using sorcery/pharma to deceive (M). Other NT verses acknowledge his presence during the church era…so I have to reject the Luther/Anabaptist view that Satan is currently chained. That leaves us with a future Millennium to look forward to & hope for.

SUMMARY. During these end times, the more we can approach conforming to the image of Christ the better. The Apocalypse shows that we will succeed by suffering. It also has many themes to give us courage & hope for these evil times. The messages of Revelation worked in the past, & will continue to serve God & His people through these end times. Be blessed my friend, and if you read the book of Revelation it starts with promising a blessing & ends with a blessing for having read it!(N)

(A) GAL 3:14, EPH 1:3 & others (B) GAL 3:28 (C) cf. REV 5:9, 12:11 (D) ISA 6:1 (E) REV 1 (F) REV 12 & 13 (G) REV 14-16 (H) REV 21:1-22:5 (I) PS 72:8-14, ISA 11:6-9, ZECH 14:5-17 (J) 2 COR 4:4 (K) 1 TIM 3:7, 2 TIM 2:26 (L) REV 13:14 (M) REV 18:23 (N) REV 1:3 & REV 22:7