April 29, 2013

Rich Warren and I have just returned from a three-day FGBMFI men's retreat where we led worship for roughly 120 men. This was our third year of being involved with this particular retreat, and it is safe to say that we saw and experienced a dimension of the presence of the Lord in worship the like of which we've never seen in a corporate setting like this.

 

You know that Holy Spirit is at work when you have a variety of different individuals tell you that they visibly saw demons fleeing the place in the midst of the worship. You know that God is at work when His Glory is so thick that it rests like a huge blanket over the assembled group, and people's lives are transformed, men receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and others receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit -- all in the midst of worship.

 

We've shared this before, but what we do is to allow ourselves to become the instruments that Holy Spirit plays. My guitar and Rich's bass are nothing more than extensions of ourselves. We become the instruments that are played. The sound of the Lord goes forth bringing healing, deliverance, restoration and wholeness to those who will hear His voice and respond. We don't always sing. Much of the time we prophesy with our instruments. People see visions. At times they are transported into the heavenlies. Others hear the voice of Holy Spirit speaking into their spirits ministering life and breaking bondages. The music becomes the voice of Father bringing His authority against the power of the Enemy.

 

We've had the addition of Craig Manley on drums, along with three young lads from Heritage Christian High School who've joined us with their instruments. Every time you add another musician to the mix -- normally, at least -- you add another layer of complexity and another individual (or individuals) who must respond and play the same heretofore brand new music they've never played, heard or seen before, and have no sheet music in front of them.

 

As I noted in sharing with someone else this afternoon, it's akin to having a group of people all speaking in tongues at the same time -- the difference that everyone is speaking the same tongue at the same time, and no one has a clue as to what comes next. In this case the tongues become the music that we've never heard before, never played before, and have no idea whatever where we're going with it. Nevertheless it literally flows like a river with the presence of the Lord.

Anyway, Good Morning! Pour yourself a 16-ounce cup of that java and let's get started with today's discussion.

 

6. The doctrine of “Eternal Judgment” is the sixth stone in the foundation of our new onoma. We have already talked about the Spirit of Judgment and Burning as being one of the seven spirits of the onoma of Jesus Christ. Just as it is foundational to His character and makeup, so must it also become foundational to ours.

 

Because of His unique perspective, and ability to see across time from beginning to end, He makes (and has made) judgments which will stand through eternity. “The judgments of the Lord,” David sang, “are true, and righteous altogether.” (Psalm 19:9)

 

He has pre-judged (from our perspective in a time-space world) His Bride, and all those individuals who corporately consist, as righteous. In the same manner, He has pre-judged all those who have accepted Him as Lord and Saviour, but have not (or will not) overcome all things in order to become a part of His Bride. Even though they have not been incorporated into His Bride, the invitation has gone forth to them to attend the Wedding Feast as His guests and friends.

 

Those who have refused Jesus Christ, those who have rejected His claim as the Bridegroom, those who have rejected His payment of their dowry, and those who have continued their willful walk of agreement with Satan’s lies have all likewise been judged. Their judgment is as final and eternal as those who are a part of His Bride.

 

In what I sometimes call “The Letter to the Bride” (better known as The Revelation), John graphically describes the unfolding of events which we have all been living through. He underscores the judgment of the Lord to all who accept the thought processes of the Beast (which we understand and define as that system and power by which the world operates in this present age), or function and do business after the manner of the Beast (i.e., take “the mark of the Beast” in their forehead or right hand).

 

That judgment is the lake of fire. John likewise speaks of the judgment of the Antichrist (that pervasive spirit of humanism which saturates our society today), and those who succumb to that spirit. Likewise do we read of the judgment given to that great whore, the spirit of Jezebel, which has led or driven so many of God’s people to destruction. And on and on it goes.

 

So, how is all of this foundational to our onoma? The judgments -- the decrees of the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ -- must be so integrated into our character and makeup that we live them daily. His judgment towards His people is mercy and truth. His judgment towards His Bride is love and power. His judgment of those wicked spirits (and their father, the devil) which permeate today’s world is imprisonment and containment in a bottomless pit for the next thousand years, a short span to be let loose to try the generation of that age, and then final destruction.

 

For the Bride of Christ, those judgments must be ingrained into the very essence of her existence. She must live – today – His judgment and authority in the realm of the spirit. The millennium to come is only the staging ground for eternity!

Now do you understand that these are only the very basic foundations for relationship with Jesus Christ? Now do you see why there must be a “going on to the completion?” These fundamentals set the stage for relationship with Him, but they are not that relationship.

Isaiah prophesied of the onoma of Jesus Christ, saying, “The government shall be upon His shoulder, and His shem (onoma) shall be Wonderful (Pele -- miracle), Counselor (Ya.ats -- advisor, resolver, deliberator), the Mighty God (Gibbowr -- {see previous discussion of gebuwrah} -- the champion warrior), the Everlasting (Ad – perpetual) Father (Ab – founder, the progenitor, the ancestor: hence, the source of creation), the Prince (Sar – the head, the source of all dominion) of Peace (Shalom – health, wholeness, soundness, safety: and, as a direct consequence thereof, peace). (See Isaiah 9:6)

No prophecy could have better underscored what Jesus manifested during the years of His public ministry as well as the two millennia that have passed since. His shem is Miracle. There is no aspect of the natural realm over which He does not exercise complete dominion. The laws of science as we know them -- the laws of physics – are subject to His will and His word. Jesus was and is naturally supernatural! So are we to be.

 

His onoma is the Spirit of Counsel and Might! Jesus described Himself as the first comforter, and then said that He was sending “another comforter” (Paraklete) whom we have come to know as Holy Spirit. We are both recipients and bearers of that spirit of counsel, that ability to resolve, that ability to deliberate in every situation, not to mention the ability to war in the spirit as champions.

 

Jesus infuriated the religious people (the Pharisees and Sadducees) by saying to them, “Before Abraham was, I AM!” In so saying, He made clear that His existence was perpetual. But He was more than perpetual: He was and is the founder, the progenitor, the source of creation!

 

It was Jesus who spoke the words of creation (witness the mathematical demonstration of His number, 8-8-8, incorporated into the phraseology, “And God said…..” throughout the Genesis account), and it was He who fathered Adam, forming him by His hand from the dust of the very same earth He had spoken into existence. In like manner, Jesus Christ – as our Bridegroom – has fathered us, has brought about our ability to exist in Him, with Him, and for Him as His counterpart, His co-equal, His beloved Bride! And He has seated us with Himself, giving into our onoma that same creative power which went forth by His Word!

In Him is all dominion. In Him is all health. In Him is all wholeness. There is nothing about Jesus Christ that is not perfection. In Him is soundness. In Him is perfect safety. He is, therefore, the Prince of Peace – the King of Glory – the great I AM! He is the Alpha and the Omega – the Ab (pronounced, awb) and the Achariyth (pronounced, ahk.ar.eeth) – the beginning, the end, and the future!

 

He is the originator, and He is the reward. No wonder He could speak the word, and disease would flee. No wonder He could speak the word and storms would cease. No wonder He could say, “I AM the Way, The Truth, and The Life.” He was. He is. It is His onoma. And it must be ours!

 

And by the Plan He set in motion before time began, in spite of all that Jesus Christ is, yet has He been incomplete. It sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Under any normal circumstances, and unless it be revealed to you by Holy Spirit, it is impossible to see Jesus Christ as anything but complete. Yet, He has been anything but sub-standard.

 

Have you begun to understand this new onoma – this new name? It is new because it has never been up to this time. It is a new onoma, and though envisioned by our Bridegroom and shown to us in the realm of Holy Spirit, it has always been a Plan and a promise of Father to the Son.

 

Father promised to the Son that on the day of His reward, He would receive a Bride who would complete and fulfill Him – a Bride who would have become Him, even as He had become her. And thus it is unfolding before us.

 

Hence, the promise of the Son, the Bridegroom, to that people called out and formed unto Himself, the Bride: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the onoma of my God, and the onoma of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God; and I will write upon him my new onoma!"

 

This is a conditional promise, made to the overcomer – not to those who seek to escape tribulation, not to those who run from the fire, not to those whose thoughts are focused on “the rapture,” and escaping from the “wrath to come.” It is a promise made to those who rise above their afflictions, the tribulation of this day, and the terrors which are befalling the wicked generation in which we live. It is the promise to those who have overcome the seven nations – the principal ruling spirits of the Enemy.

 

It is a promise made to those who speak Life and Truth in the midst of increasing death, those who bring health and mercy to the afflicted, those who live agape, might and soundness. It is made to those who overcome all and endure all until they be presented to the Bridegroom by the Paraklete: those who can say in Truth to Him, “All that I am is yours. I am One with you, and you are One with me. We are complete!”

 

This is not a boast. It is not being presumptuous. It is an absolute necessity, and Jesus Christ has so ordained it. While we certainly are beneficiaries of this reward, His completion in and with us is His reward. This Plan was set in motion by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for their sake!

 

Do you understand the significance of this promise to the overcomer? It is multifaceted and all-encompassing. First, the promise is that we will become a “pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” This statement is a parallel to some phraseology used by Matthew. Matthew, being an orthodox Jew by birth and upbringing, used a typical Jewish metaphor when he quoted Jesus, saying, "shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens." John, on the other hand, uses a Graecism to identify the very same thing: "...make a pillar in the temple of my God..."

They both identify "rulership in the house of the Lord." They both illustrate becoming part and parcel of the dwelling place of the Lord. And this promise is to "the overcomer." For those who have learned to rule in the midst of every situation in this present age, a new dimension of rulership lies ahead.

The very next part of this promise is, "...and I will write upon him the onoma of my God..." The phrase, "I will write upon him," is unique to middle-eastern thought, and is found in the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean languages. It means: to strike a visible mark with the identifying characteristics of a person, place, or thing. In this case, the identifying characteristics are seen as, "the onoma of my God."

But that is not the end of the promise. "..And (I will write upon him) the onoma of the city of My God, which is New Jerusalem..."

From the time of Shem, the son of Noah, and throughout the history of the nation of Israel, Jerusalem has been a picture of the Bride. Shem initially established this as the city of Salem, building it as a citadel – a place of protection and honor for his bride. Because of Shem’s extraordinary stance and reputation as a representative of righteousness, the Canaanite peoples who dwelled in the land, referred to him as Malkiy-Tsedeq, “The King of Righteousness.”

 

Anglicized in modern translations as “Melchizedek,” Shem demonstrated the heart of the Lord for His Bride with Salem. Hundreds of years after Shem’s death, David took the city away from the Jebusites, who had renamed it, Jebus, in honor of their ancestor (one of the sons of Canaan). He called the city “Jerusalem,” and immediately set up his tabernacle with the Ark of the Covenant on Mount Moriah. He thereupon established a picture of the Bride which has stood throughout the ages.

 

John’s picture of the New Jerusalem was a picture seen in the spirit. The natural city of Jerusalem represented a physical picture of that which has been being established in the spirit by the Bridegroom. What John saw was the Bride of Christ coming down from Heaven. He saw Father presenting Jesus with His long-awaited Bride and counterpart. The promise, therefore, to the overcomer was that they would be incorporated into the Bride.

 

The final phase of this promise was, “and I will write upon him my new onoma.” And here we are! This has been what it is all about: our change, and His change. Together, we make up one new being!

 

The transformation has resulted in a people whose entire existence revolves around what the Lord desires of them at that moment – a people who are immersed in Him. This is a people who eat from "The Tree of Life" -- "life" being, in this case, the living presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is a tangible, definable, discernible, quantifiable reality, experienced in the realm of the Spirit – one which we have all tasted of and experienced in true worship!

 

With this completion of His onoma, His character and makeup, comes a new dimension for all of us – a future radically unlike that which we have known. With that future awaits an expanse of rulership as spiritual beings which transcends the natural, physical realm – and yet encompasses it.

 

The New Onoma is for the overcomer – and the overcomer only!

 

My beloved brothers and sisters: for Jesus’ sake, and for yours, let nothing stand in your way! Let there be no whim of the flesh, no attachment of the past, no afflicting or tormenting spirit, no vain imagination of any kind prevent you from being that overcomer. Let us together go on to the completion.

 

When Paul was writing to the Philippians, he put it like this: “I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

 

“Brethren, (Sisters), I count not myself to have apprehended, or to have laid hold of that total completeness. But this one thing I do: forgetting the past, and reaching forth unto those promises and goals which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (i.e., being One with Him)."

 

“Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect and complete, have this attitude; and if in anything your attitude differs, God shall reveal even this unto you."

 

Blessings on you!