Knowing God 2

I wanted to tell you something more contextually though, for a lot of what I'm saying. And I may not get to a lot of this, but I'm working on some, I'm working on arranging certain messages for an upcoming conference in Johannesburg. And these are the things God is showing me to try to, to bring forth. They're in the nature of context. So I want to show you something, if I can. In Genesis 1-1, it says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon us. Darkness was on the face of the deep. The language is specific. Darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light and there was light." God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night, so the evening and the morning were the first day. By the way, let me just go on to a couple of other verses. And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters." This is verse 7, "Then God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." And it was so. And God called the firmament heaven, so the evening and the morning were the second day. Now, then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place. Let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land earth, gathering together the waters. He called the seas and God saw that it was good and so on. And then verse 14, "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens.'" To divide the day from the night and let them, the lights in the firmament of the heavens, them before signs and seasons and for days and years. So one of the reasons that God put the lights in the firmament of the heavens was for signs. It says that. Whether we choose to believe it or not, it says that. The lights in the firmament, and just as they divide day from night and seasons and days and years, so they also are for signs. And that's the first thing that God said that they were to be for. I'm sorry, the second thing. Let them divide the day from the night. And the second thing is, and let them be for signs. And then the importance is that they are for signs. After that, for seasons, after that, for days and years. And let them be for the lights in the firmament and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so. God made two great lights. Didn't say it was the only lights He made. He said it. The light ones, two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesson light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and night, and to divide the light from the darkness, to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw it. It was good evening and the morning with the fourth day. Now, I want to make some comments on this. You notice that it's on the fourth day that he put lights in the firmament. So what happened when he said, let there be light on the first day and there was light? What was that light? Okay. Let's talk about it a little more. Let's attempt to unveil it a little bit more. What was the state of being as the creation was begun? The Bible says, in the beginning, God created the heavens, plural, and the earth. He repeats it in chapter 2 when he's giving the summary and says, thus the heavens and the earth were created in all their vast array. Isn't that what it says in chapter 2 verse 1? Yeah. Thus the heavens, plural, and the earth were created in all their vast array. Now it's normal for us to take a vantage point of the post-creation when we're viewing the statements about creation because we, after all, are on the earth. And we're looking up into heavens. So we have a mindset that is inaccurate because none of it existed. We are taking a post, an ex-post facto approach. To understand what is said, we have to somehow be moved away from that settled view. And one of the ways we have to move away from the settled view is to recognize that neither heaven nor earth existed before God said, before the statement is made in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You see? What does it mean to create something? To make it. You're not making something that already exists. That's called a rehab. When you're creating something, ab-initial, not having previously existed, then the thing by definition did not previously exist. You notice that your Bible always said, in the beginning, God created the heavens and reiterated in all their vast array. So all of what Biblically is defined as the heavens, Paul said, "I met a man 14 years ago, you read it, whether I was in the body or out of the body, I do not know, but I was caught up to the third heavens." That's one of the heavens. Because there are heavens around the earth, there is the dwelling place of God, and there are spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, according to Ephesians. So we know at least three heavens. The heavens of God, the heavens that are the realm of the demonic and the heavens surrounding. God created them all. There was a time when neither the heavens nor earth existed, but God existed. We have this mindset that God always lived in heaven, and from His place of living in heaven He created the heavens. No, that's not what it says. Because there was a time when there was God and neither the heavens nor the earth existed. So heaven is not eternal, and earth is not eternal, but God is eternal. That's why it says that. That's exactly why it says that. So when it was time to begin this epoch, it served the purposes of God for this epoch to create the heavens and the earth. Right? Now, what did God say was the purpose of God for creating this epoch? Well, the clue, you know that we have this duality. God is understood by reason, which is the soul's process, and one is understood by revelation, which is the spirit's process. The spirit's process is greater than the souls because the reaches of reason are within the bounds of the Creator. Whereas the reaches of revelation, are by definition transcendent. So when we understand what is written by revelation, we transcend the limitations of reason. And I simply want to point out that when we approach the scriptures by a reference to reason, we immediately place ourselves in what has already been created to view the post-creation condition of things. And we do that by immediately assuming God is creating in heaven. God is from heaven creating the visible heavens. You see, and that the realm, the thought of the heavens, that realm already contains God. I submit to you, no realm is capable of containing the existence of the ever-living one. No realm. And neither heaven nor earth-- neither the heavens nor the earth exist. God will be. He was beginning an epoch. And so it says, in the beginning of what, clearly not the beginning of God. But in the beginning of an epoch, for his convenience of what he intended to reveal in this epoch, God created both the heavens and the earth. So the heavens and the earth were created in consistency with what God intended to bring about in the epoch that he had initiated. Now, that said, what was the point of the epoch? The answer is darkness was on the surface of the deep. Darkness was on the surface. It did not say darkness was in the deep. And it wouldn't say that because of who or what is the deep. Now, the scriptures tell us deep calls unto deep. What does that mean in your understanding? What is the deep to which the deep calls? The deep in you is the recipient of the call of the one who is the deep. So you are able to hear God. God established you from the beginning. Spirit, endowed being, said he could call to you from the ages past. And he could give you the wisdom of the ages by the deep speaking to the deep. So the deep is personified. God is the deep. And he was creating that to which he could call as a father would call to the son. (audience clapping) Now, now, what was, yes. I just wanted to ask, what is it that's going to be like darkness was on the surface? I'm getting to that right now. (audience laughing) There's a man who desires to know that which is revealed. If I have, there is a table cloth upon the stable, a dark table cloth upon the stable, right here. (audience laughing) What is the nature of the table that is underneath the dark table cloth? How would you know what it is? Take the table cloth off and you will reveal the table. (audience laughing) - Let's do it. - Take the table cloth off and you've revealed the table. God said, let there be light. He's speaking of himself removing the veil that has covered the revelation of who he is because he is the deep. And darkness on him is simply the unrevealed nature of God. So when he commands, he's actually declaring his intentions for this epoch. In this epoch, I will choose to be known as I am. Let there be light. I am illuminating myself. God is simply saying, I have created this epoch. Hear me, this is critical to the whole purpose of your sufferings, your being in this world, everything. God is saying, I created this epoch. I'm about to create this epoch so that I may reveal myself as I am. And to do that, to facilitate my choice to reveal myself as I am, I'm going to create the heavens and I'm going to create the earth. Because I want to house in the heavens and I want to house in the earth the aspects of my being that I'm now choosing to reveal. I'm going to clothe myself in the heavens and I'm going to put a reflection of those things I've put in heaven of myself. I'm going to put a reflection of those things in the earth. And then I'll bring out of heaven the realities I've placed there and I'll fill the symbols that I've placed in the earth to contain the references to the heavens. I'll fill them eventually with the substance of what I've placed in the heavens. And I'll teach you to pray like that. That kingdom come, that I will be done. Exactly. But to whom is God intending to reveal Himself? He's intending to reveal Himself to the last thing He creates. To man, the first shall be the last. The last shall be the first. So He puts man at the very end of the process. But He puts both heaven and earth in Him. So He could reveal all that is in the heavens to Him in His place in the earth. Now there's more to it than that of course. Because everything starts in an initial state and grows and fills itself with the fullness of God. Did you not read? I know you did. I'm asking a rhetorical question because I read it to you. When we're talking about predestination, what I read to you was until the time when all that is in heaven and in earth is summed up in Christ. And in the infresual memory, Ephesians chapter 1, there's an intentionality. And by the way, it says of that very thing that He arranged all of this before He laid the foundations of the earth. Here, blessed verse 3, Ephesians 1, blessed be the garden father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blessed. What was His intention that spurned creation? This, before He laid the foundations of the world, this is what He did. He chose us in Him before that, so that the purpose for creating that was to host His choice. These things, you know, yes, there have been mysteries, but no, they're not meant to always be mysteries. Paul said, "The grace was given to me to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. God actually gives grace, economies of God, to reveal the mysteries of God because the mysteries of the children's bread. That's why we can't sell a revelation. It's why you can go on the website and download as much as you want and give as much as freely. And do all of it. There's no copyrighting of anything because mysteries are the children's bread. Man shall not live on bread alone. How does he live? By the word proceeds from the mouth of God. What is the word that proceeds from the mouth of God? Revelation. Revelation. He shares us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. Having predestined us to adoption as sons, the last one He created was meant to be in Christ included in what is called the Son. Having predestined us for adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of His glory, the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the beloved. You'll remember that. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and knowledge is what that actually says, another translation. Having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be the depraise of His glory. I submit to you that all of creation was meant to be summed up in Christ, in the heavens and in the earth. And so, when God sent His Son into the world, He meant for the Son to reveal the nature of the Father. And the summary of all that creation is the purpose for all of it, the summary was to be found in Christ. And you are in Christ. Why am I talking to you about these things? Because this is your inheritance. Says so. You're born into this. You strayed far from it and you have to be brought back to it. That is why it was worth the death of the Son of God to bring you back. Because you are the key in Christ. You are the key for the understanding of the nature of God, which is hidden in creation in both the heavens and the earth. I have led on the authority of Scripture. I think that's a little bit more than living your best life now, to coin somebody's phrase. I think that's a little bit more than a motivational speech, about how to get the goods while you're here. This is the purpose for which you were created. This is what was lost to you. And if you will believe, you will be the Son of righteousness who arises with healing in his wings. For you are in Christ, clothed in Christ. This is the habitation of God. And the world cannot. Neither the heavens nor the earth can resist the inevitability of the triumph of the sons of God. The only issue is whether this is the dispensation of time and we are the actors in it. And the fact that it's being revealed leaves no doubt. Because God is not in the habit of issuing advisory opinions and projections when it's time, he brings it into being. This is the day of the Lord for a people. Let's go on a little bit further. Let's go a little bit further with this. So what did God place in the heavens? What did God place in the earth? It is clear that there is an inevitability of connectedness between the heavens and the earth. That's abundantly clear. One is the veiled appearing and the other is where the reality exists in a more complete sense. Heaven, of course, is a spiritual realm. Birth is a realm bounded by time and space and is therefore definitive of the material. The other is more definitive of the spiritual. But keep in mind that God cannot be contained in all of who He is in either the heavens or the earth and that He pre-existed both heaven and earth and continues to exist apart from heaven and earth. But the portions of God that by His design, He has confined to the heavens and He has reflected in the earth. That was His choice to do that. So why did He create the heavens? What's unique about the heavens in hosting the intentions of God? Well, the very fact that the heavens are spiritual, meaning not bound by the limitations of time and space, the host aspects of the nature of God in a more complete fashion. Time and space would provide limitations on these very things. And we haven't talked about examples of what these things are, but we can agree or we can see right up front that if one realm is created to be more or less limitless in regards to time and space and if another is bound by both time and space, then one is inherently limited and the other not so limited. So there will be things God would place in the heavens that are better accommodated in the heavens in the placing of them out of God in two, a venue in which He means for them to become experiential. These are difficult concepts to put into human language, so your spirit has to understand, but I'm persuaded that God has prepared you already to understand these things. Some of these things you have to go through several times. Well, I shouldn't say you have to. I had to go through several things. I would say, "What? Tell me more, tell me more." And he would say, "You know, he'd have me back track and I'd ask the minute questions and he would give me more of the pieces." Like I asked him. So why did you create the heavens? Why did you create the earth? If your intention is to be housed in houses of heaven and earth, what's the difference? Why? And so he told me, he said, "Well, one is natural and the other is spiritual." And there are things that are better accommodated in a greater sense of completeness without the limitations of time and space. I put those in the heavens and there are things that are shadows of those things. And I put them in the earth because they're more tangible. I envisioned you, so I made them more readily available to you when you would come. I said, "Well, thank you. Thank you." I appreciate that. So I said, "Well, since we're on a roll, I'll ask you some more. Do you mind?" And he said, "Now, come on, ask me." So I said, "Well, what did you place in the heavens? What did you place in the heavens? In light of your determination to put the things that are better accommodated in a greater completeness in the heavens, what are some of the things you put in the heavens?" And he said, "Oh, my throne, of course." My throne, of course. And I understand that. God plays with me because he knows what I understand. He knows what I don't understand. Moment he said, "My throne, I understood a kingdom, a authority, governance, order, the benefit of the ones ruled over." I got that. I actually have a doctor's degree in stuff like that. But he knows that I would have had a predisposition to understanding that. So he told me, he put my throne in the heavens. Of course, moment he tells me that all these scriptures come to me. Do not swear by heaven because it's a throne of God, or by the earth because it's a swit's tool. I mean, the scriptures immediately confirm the revelation. If the scriptures do not confirm your revelation, something is wrong with your revelation. When it aligns with the scriptures and the Spirit of God in you who wrote the scriptures, then you have a revelation. One of the things I want to say to you, this is the season when all of you will have increasing measures of revelation. And we'll begin to hear it in your songs that you create, in the movies you direct, in the media that you control. We'll hear the sounds of revelation and it'll be brand new. It'll be so sparkling because the spirits of men yearn to see these things, that you will become those who change the game. Don't seek to change the game, seek to know God. Ask for revelation. Ask for wisdom. Ask for insight. Do not primarily ask that your sufferings be alleviated. Some of the most fruitful times in my life, in our lives, were the times when we had to pray for our daily bread. I don't mean to give thanks for it. I mean to have it come in. And I had to fight back my soul from being obsessed with what I needed for the day in order to hear God. In the midst of your suffering, you will meet the fourth man. I know you read that somewhere. It's in the fire that the fourth man will appear to you. There are three others by the way, Shedraq, me, she could have made me go. And the fourth man appeared in the fire. Don't waste your trials obsessed by what you don't have or what's wrong with you. God already knows where you are. You may not feel like he does, but I promise you, he knows it because he put you there. He put you there so he could fellowship with you for the reasons we spoke of earlier. So don't be surprised if God is not obsessed with your sufferings and seems to ignore your most persistent requests. He heard you the first time. But if you will command your soul to be still, it is always the richest environment for revelation. Because your soul is already being restrained and your spirit is unfettered and you can hear God. And he will talk to you. He's always talking to you. The problem is that you're distracted and say, can't always hear it. But if your soul will be still, you will hear God. I promise you. And revelation will abound. Some of your singing, some of the songs you write will come from the fires of your trial. And those are the ones that will transform the earth. Some of your ideas for the changing of system, some of your ideas for business will come when all you have left is the ability simply to listen. When you can't do anything else because he is the giver of every good gift. You know, God means to transform the world more than you ever thought that you wanted to. God is at least as interested in His will being done as you are. God's got that. You don't have to persuade God to make you great. He created you to display His glory. And He will play upon the instrument that you are to His pleasure. And the world will dance to the hypnotic beat of His sounds. Because it's what men have been waiting to hear. God will waste no good thing. And His choice to give to His children every good thing, not just to you, but to those to whom you are to be life. These are subtle issues. God created the heavens and the earth to house aspects of His being that He means in the sequencing of time to reveal. Let there be light. I will reveal myself in creation, in this epoch through my sons. And I'll sum everything up in them in the person of the Lord Jesus, the Christ. So what did you put in heaven? He said, I put my throne in heaven. The understanding that He gave me in respect to that is. There is in God, before there were the heavens, before there were the earth, always in God. There has been divine order. Divine order. Nothing good can come out of chaos. Nothing predictable. Nothing useful can come out of chaos. God is a God of order. And the proof of it is, you take a wildly erratic, you take wildly erratic human relationships. Bring order to them. That is, assign the order of the divine, of heaven to it. And you immediately go from pain and suffering and chaos and confusion and depression and anxiety and worry. You immediately go to productivity, to prosperity, to peace, to joy, to righteousness. You immediately go from the one to the other. What we're trying to do is to tell people to make nice and to behave while we do not materially alter their conditions of chaos. How long you think that's going to last? Till the next crisis. And when one crisis rolls into another, it creates hopelessness. And people fully intend to stay the course, have no reason to continue after a while. And people live in repeated cycles of brokenness for all the days of their lives. And that's why they become calloused. That's why they become insensitive. They cannot take people who were the very essence of the mercy of God, who have been exploited one time too many and they shut down. And they crawl into a hole. And all they want is enough to make sure that they're bills are paid and they can survive till they die. One of the things God hid in the heavens was the order that is in God. And when he hid in the heavens, he called it the kingdom of heaven. But he would bring the kingdom of heaven initially to the earth by his viscer eye, his son, to rule the earth from the throne of God, to rule the earth by the principles that are incorporated or inculcated into the heavens, but originally existed in the being of God. There's nothing in the heavens or in the earth that was not originally in God. It all came out of God. He put the vastness of those aspects of his vast being that required that vastness to have meaningful display, he put them in the heavens in all three heavens, the spiritual and the natural heavens. And then he put their reflections on the earth. Now, I was looking farther into the heavens and one of the things I saw was how the heavens are defined as circles. The Lamb was standing in the center of the circle around the throne. And in a circle around the Lamb were four of the angels. The third. living creatures. And in a circle around the four living creatures were 24 elders. And then there was a circle like a rainbow of emerald that surrounded the throne. Now we normally read these things and it's pretty cool. I wonder what that looks like when you're drawing up it. Circles are particularly important. Not just what constitutes the circles but the fact that they're circles. So we'll talk about that fact first and then what constitutes the three circles, the lam in the center, the four living creatures outside of the lamb immediately around the lamb and the 24 elders surrounding the four living creatures and the lamb. And then after that they're surrounded by in Dantean reference in Paradiso by concentric circles of angels. A circle is the picture is the way that God depicts an eternal reality. Without end. If you actually look at a rainbow from an airplane, flying in an airplane, you look down in the clouds and there's a rainbow. It's a perfect circle. Now God brought the rainbow into the earth to show us a glimpse into heaven. After the flood God brought the rainbow into the earth out of heaven and he used the rainbow as the sign of a sworn oath, a covenant. God made a unilateral covenant with himself making man the beneficiary when he said, I swear I will never again destroy the earth of the flood. So what we know about circles is that they are representative of covenants, eternal covenants that previously existed in God but were imported into the heavens and even subsequently imported into the earth to show what is in heaven to show what is in God. So God does everything by covenant. And the covenants of God are God with God. He will then give the promises that come out of these covenants to mankind. Occasionally God will enter a covenant with man. That's typically not a good thing because God is always faithful to what He promises and man has an unbroken record of being unfaithful. So it's not a good thing. You always end up the debtor to God in any covenant He makes with you. So Israel was carried into captivity because of a covenant at Sinai that they allowed to lapse in terms of their performance for 70 years or for 300 and however 70 times 7, 490 years. They let the covenant lapse for 490 years and God got his due in one setting by the Lonean captivity for 70 years. God, their covenant with God was to let the land lie idle every seventh year, to supply the widows in the orphans with a windfall. The land would grow, whatever would grow, let it grow and that would be the harvest of the widows in the orphans and it did not for 490 years and God took them into captivity and let the land lie idle for 70 years because they had a covenant. Mercy does not attend you when you're in a covenant. Covenant is law and law requires the punishment of the wrongdoer. But the covenants of God with Himself results in result in promises and those promises of very expression of God's mercy to you. So you don't ever want a covenant that binds you to God and covenantally in law, in a legal setting. You always want the mercy of God. That's just some free aside. So all of what God put in the heavens, He bound Himself to covenently before He put them there. So we see the circle of the throne, the very center of His authority is the representation of a covenant that all things in heaven and on earth God covenanted with Himself to summarize in Christ. So that we who have fled to take hold of this hope may be greatly encouraged and we have this hope as an anchor for the soul. It's form, it's secure, it enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain into heaven itself and in heaven it's represented by circles. Now there is the lamb in the center of the circle because the performance of all the covenants of God required the sacrifice of a lamb. Of Himself as a lamb, compliant to His own dictates. Everything in heaven and on earth is supported by that central fact. So around the lamb who stands in the center of the circle in which the throne is found at the very heart of the authority of God that is brought to earth by the lamb that is given to the lamb governing everything in heaven and on earth. I read that. It says, "For all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." That's why it's places Him in the center of the circle of the authority of the throne of God. Everything falls out of that in magnifying circles. But then right around the lamb are four living creatures. One has the face of an ox, one has the face of a lion, one has the face of an eagle, and one has the face of a man. So there's a representation covenantly of the being of man next to the lamb. The point of the authority vested in the lamb was to serve the interest of God in the corporate son. Four of them. Four is the number of man. And the presence of God was meant to be ported on the shoulders of four priests signifying the corporate man. So in a sense the lamb in the center is expressed farther out by the corporate man. And that corporate man is a spiritual man. That's why he has four characteristics. He has the characteristic of stubbornness, obstinancy, being steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. That's the face of an ox. So when you are confronted by waves and waves of doubt, be you therefore steadfast, unmovable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord and it's impossible for you to be ashamed. In the moment you may see him foolish, but in the end you will always be vindicated. God has put in you the characteristic of perseverance. It may not be apparent in your human form or appearance, but it is in your spirit to be unmovable. It is in your spirit to be stubborn, not in a rebellious sense but holding on doggedly in a determined fashion to what you know to be the truth. Do not throw away your confidence. It is within you. It is represented before God in the form of the face of an ox. It is within you to endure anything and everything because you're not just a human with the face of a human. You're a spirit that is a stubborn and unmovable and unshakable and though you may be pressed back and at times you want to give up, you have within you the capacity always to come back because it's the way he made you. So when you keep coming back, you're living out your design parameters. It is within you to change anything, not because you've learned some secrets from the guys next door, but because you've come to understand and agree with Heaven, this is who I am in my spirit. You can be a stubbornness in ox. You have the face of an eagle. The dwelling place of eagles is between the realms of Heaven and Earth. That is your prophetic self. You can soar above the circumstances that you presently find yourself in and see by your spirit from the 35,000 feet area where the Jamaicans would say, "Iry man, you can see from your area or your iree, both Heaven and Earth." You can choose because you're a spirit. You can choose to see reality from the viewpoint of God. That's the face of the eagle. The lion of course is the ruler in the fashion of the lion of the tribe of Judah, the ruler. When you can't rule anything else, you can always rule your own soul. And in fact, it's no surprise that our early trials are to teach us to rule our souls with consistency. I promise you this, if you can rule your soul, you can rule anything. When you learn to rule your soul, and that, my trials, my suffering, we already said that. I'm not just telling you things and saying, "You must do this. I've told you how." We went through so much of that when we talked about suffering. You can always rule your own soul because love is greater than fear. And you can always elect to be governed by love, and it will always extinguish fear that threatens and diverts you to some other things. The lion is the ruler. You don't ever have to ask anyone's permission to rule. All you have to do is align yourself consistently with the standard of the first born, that is simply again, calling your soul into alignment with your spirit by choosing the motivation of love over the motivation of fear. And when you do, you are the ruler in the place. You have to ask permission to rule, just be the standard. By the way, a ruler is what? Standard. Long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Some of us used to carry in our book bags a 12 inch stick called a ruler. You don't need that anymore because I'm sure that there are technologies that make that obsolete. The reason. There's an app for that. But the reason we called it a ruler was it took the intangible concept of distance and reduced it to measurable norms. You could get a hold of space, an intangible concept, or certainly, well, an intangible, you couldn't touch it. And bring it into dimensions that are useful. You could govern space, rule space, by applying the standards. And the standards are the same for everybody. So God made you to be able to be a ruler. And your spirit contains a component of it that is typified by the face of a lion. And all of that is packaged in the face of a man or a person. So in heaven, there's a representation of the corporate man. By the way, we know that that's a symbol that's in the earth because that's the vision of Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel begins with the revelation of that man not in heaven but on the earth. And the four move together in perfect harmony. So there's that inner circle that focuses everything upon the lamb. The outer circle that is the immediate beneficiary of the authority of the lamb is the corporate man, his body. In a circle outside of that are 24 elders. Twelve is the number of government. Twenty four and they're seated on thrones, by the way. Twenty four is a reference to both realms. That authority is in both heaven and earth. The mirror of the twelve is in the earth. It's twenty four. That's funny. Yeah, that happens zero. It happens when suddenly the Lord whom you see comes into his temple and the mist is blown away and you see it as it is. It's called the spirit of revelation. That's like when Jesus would say, "Verily, verily." It's true in heaven. It's true on the earth because he is the one who knows heaven and earth. So all authority in heaven and on earth is around the four and around the one because authority is for the benefit of the four as they relate to the one. An authority. Twenty four. Heaven and on earth exist for the benefit of the four in the one. Yes. All authority in heaven and on earth is for the benefit of the four in the one in the one. How many times did we read in Ephesians? In Christ, in Him, to the praise of His glorious grace, for you are created in Christ Jesus. Before the foundations of the world, you are in Him. It's the four in the one. And you see, the center is the focus of it all. And from the center, like waves that come from a rock and a pond, everything moves to a further and further ambit. But when you bring it all back together, it refocuses in the one. That's why heaven is a series of circles. That covenantal circles that function by the authority of the one and for the one. So whoever is in the one is the possessor of heaven and earth. That is why, I'll bring it to a conclusion. That is why God placed heaven and earth in one being. Because it's in this being that there is the capacity to receive and to understand all that is in heaven and all that is in the earth. That's why the Lord would say, "You, when you pray, you pray and you say, 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because whose benefit is that? You for your benefit. Because all that is in heaven, when it comes into the earth, will come into what? Into the corporate Christ of which you will remember." The kingdom of heaven comes into the earth and is administrative by whom. You are the current priest of the Order of Melchizedek, which is an Order of Royal Priest. Kings and priests in the earth, because you actually have the authority that God placed of Himself, the divine Order of God, by which the worlds were framed, were put in the heavens in the form of the throne of God, in concentric circles, which indicate that when the circles come back together, they come back together in the one. And the authority is not ever going to pass away because it is sworn to by covenants, endless circles that God would have a sea as the indication of the Kingdom. of his faithfulness, his unrelenting commitment to what he's established visibly, both in the heavens and in the earth, at least experientially when it comes out of the heavens, for our benefit. To what end then? To what end? Why is this so? We said that when God created the heavens and the earth, he did so to unveil himself. How is he unveiled in man for whom all what we're talking about is just all the things that were put to serve man, to explain who man is from God's viewpoint? Who is this man then? We know him as the Son of God, but why does God call him his Son? Because the Son is the way the Father expresses His nature. Who is the Son? According to Ephesians chapter 1 verse 2, the Son, think about it. God means to reveal Himself. I will be known. I'll take the darkness off. I'll take the wrapping off, the deep. So I will be known. When you're known, how is that to be understood? The Son is the radiance of His Father's glory and the Son is the exact representation of His Father's being. Is that not being known? That is how you define being known. That your glory radiates from the behavior of your Son and who you are is exactly represented by your Son. That's to be known. God's goal in creation is achieved through the Son. That I will be known. That I will be disclosed. That I will allow myself to be seen as I am to the extent that I can be seen in as much as I'm spirit. How does spirit assume visibility by exact representation? It has to be by representation and it has to be by exact representation. And what is known when representation is exact is the glory of God, the radiance of His glory. When Jesus was on the earth, He said, "Father, glorify Me." He asked God as He was about to die on the cross. He asked God to glorify Him. Because He knew that the purpose of God was to be seen in the Son and that the Son, when He revealed the glory of God, that He would be revealed with God. You've read that, of course. For you died and your life is now hidden with God in Christ. When Christ, who is your life, appears, you will appear with Him in glory. In glory. When Jesus was on the earth, as He faced the cross, He asked the Father to have Himself, the Son, be revealed with the Father in glory. What glory that He so loved us, the glory of His love, that He would lay down His life, that God would sacrifice the ultimate of value to God on behalf of those who had hated God. And Jesus wanted not to be robbed in any way from being a participant with the Father in the expression of the nature of God's love. So He said, "Glorify Me. Do not let Me fail in any regard. I will not." If it's possible that the cup should pass from me, then let it be so, but if it's not, I will drink the cup and do not let Me fail as I drink the cup because I will be revealed with you in glory. And by the way, when you're revealed with Him in glory, it's forever, from glory to glory. Now as He was getting ready to go back to heaven, He said, "Father, the glory You have given to Me while I was with them, I give to them." I give the same glory, when the world saw me, they saw you. I have given them that glory. That there may be one in the fashion in which you and I are one. So the world may believe that you sent Me, and the world may believe that you've loved them as you have loved Me. They'll come at time when heaven will have served its purpose, as all that is in heaven will have migrated into the earth and be found in the sun. And all that is in the earth will take on more than type and shadow. It'll take on the fullness of what is in heaven, and it too will be found in the sun. At that point, the heavens will pass away, and the earth will be dissolved, and there will be new heavens and a new earth because there will be a new man in the earth in whom the new heavens and the new earth are now found. And this is the dwelling place of the Most High God, and God will be all in all. Thus the heavens and the earth were created in all their vast array. That's crazy rad. It's against this that you were called. This is your inheritance. This is what matters. And this is why God called you. You're supposed to change the earth, but not by your doing. Ours is not the economy of the sweat of the brow. Ours is the economy of an inheritance. That's where we've been brought back to the understanding of Father and Son. Because without that, there is no basis for our being in this world or relating to God. We cannot first start out the perfected understanding of being a Son of God. You must first start out with being submitted to an earthly Father, who is like the Father in heaven. And your culture will be changed back to the understanding and practice of being a Son of God. My Father, my Father. Well, I think that's probably drinking from the fire hydrant. But here we go. Thank you, son. [Applause] I think we have a lot to chew on.