Messengers from Heaven—The Book of Revelation
Rick Joyner
As we
covered in Revelation 4:1-4, a door stands open in heaven with a voice calling
us up. When we enter, we see the One on the throne. This door is open for each
of us today. It should be a daily quest to see the glory of the One who sits on
the throne. As we do, we are changed into His image, becoming like Him and
doing the works that He did.
Jesus
walked the earth, but He saw it from the perspective of heaven with His
Father’s eyes. He lived to do what He saw the Father doing. In this way, He
touched earth with heaven everywhere He went. This too is our calling—to be
more at home in the heavenly realm than in the natural realm and to bring
heaven to earth.
There
is a theological principle called “the law of first mention.” More of a
principle than a law, it indicates that the first mention of something in
Scripture is usually a basic revelation of its purpose. The first place in
Scripture where it is revealed that God has a house, or dwelling place, is when
Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching into heaven. That is a basic revelation of
the purpose of God’s house—to be the place of access to heaven.
Jacob
also saw the messengers of God ascending and descending upon it. This is a
profound revelation of what the house of God, the church, is called to be—the
place of access to heaven in which God’s messengers ascend into the heavenly
places. They then descend back to earth with evidence of heaven’s reality.
Is
this not how Jesus lived? He constantly talked about the kingdom of heaven
because that is what He constantly beheld. He then demonstrated the authority
of the kingdom of heaven over any condition on the earth, even death.
Death
is the ultimate enemy. It is the last enemy destroyed in the coming kingdom, but
then death will have no place in creation under heaven. We can live in the
kingdom now, with all the benefits and authority of the kingdom that we grow in
as we mature in Christ Jesus. We only have true spiritual authority, or kingdom
authority, to the degree that we abide in the King. He has overcome death. As
we abide in Him, we are freed from the fear of death, the ultimate shackle the
enemy uses to keep us bound to the temporary and the earthly.
For
this reason, our main goal as we seek to understand Revelation is to see
Christ, to draw closer and abide in Him so that He can express Himself through
us. He is the Head, and we are the body that responds to the will of the Head.
Our goal is to see with His eyes, hear with His ears, and understand with His
heart, so that we become like Him.
In
Revelation, much of what John saw was the harlot church, “Mystery Babylon,” and
the antichrist. However, when he was carried to a high mountain, he saw the New
Jerusalem, the bride of Christ. So much of what we see is the result of where
we are. Seeing Babylon is important and a part of our maturing, but we do not
want to stay in the place where that is all we see. We want to learn the
lessons and use them to go higher.
It is
understandable that many want to just go to the mountaintop and skip the
valley, but that is not how it works. Like Israel, we must go through a
wilderness to get to the Promised Land. There are no shortcuts, but we can make
the journey either shorter or longer by how we respond to the lessons we must
learn. As Francis Frangipane said, “You never fail one of God’s tests. You just
keep taking them until you pass.” The trials and revelation about the evil of
man and the evil the church has fallen to is intended to prepare us for the
great revelation and authority He wants us to walk in.
So,
as we proceed we must cover some hard things. Do not run from them. Remember,
we are called to be overcomers. We need to let these things reveal the things
in us that must be overcome. Revelation about the antichrist is in this “Revelation
of Jesus Christ” because the antichrist is who we all are without Christ. It is
a necessary revelation of how much we need Christ.
We
all go through times of being drawn to Christ by His glory and goodness and
times when we are driven to Him by the evil in the world and in ourselves. Both
are part of the journey. There are seasons for each, and we will get much
further if we recognize the season we’re in and embrace it, resolving that we
will overcome—not be overcome. The victory comes by trusting in His cross and
taking up the cross we have been called to take up daily.
This
being said, the completion of our journey is a place of unfathomable glory,
peace, and joy in the Spirit. That is our home—the destiny of our sojourn. Our
purpose is to bring it to those still in darkness, those who desperately need a
touch from heaven. You are one of the messengers called to ascend and descend
upon Jacob’s ladder, who we are shown in John 1:47-50 is Jesus Christ.
A Personal Note from Rick Joyner
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