The church failed to the extent that it has become mixed Christianity (Matt. 13:33; Col. 2:20-21). The Lord Jesus prophesied in Matthew 13:33 that this would happen. In this verse He spoke of a woman putting leaven into fine flour. The fine flour of the meal offering signifies Christ as food for both God and man, but Christianity has mixed leaven with the fine flour. The leaven includes sin, the world, the flesh, Satan, and all the fallen, negative things.
Christianity surely is a mixture. They have the Bible; they have the name of God; they have Christ; and they preach the fundamental gospel that Christ died on the cross for our sins. But there are many unscriptural things, pagan practices, heretical doctrines, and evil matters mixed with the teachings of Christ to leaven the whole content of Christianity. Today’s Christianity is an impure mixture. One of the biggest mixtures is the denominations. The standing of all the denominations is condemned and rejected by God (see 1 Cor. 1:12-13 and note 121; Rev. 3:8 and note 83-Recovery Version).
God’s judgment is His condemnation on the fallen church. The New Testament is full of God’s rebuking of the degraded church.
God’s judgment is also His cutting the deformed church off from the enjoyment of Christ (John 15:2a). Today’s Christianity has not remained in the original form of the church, so it is deformed. Among the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3, one was Laodicea. The Lord Jesus was not in that Laodicean church. He was outside knocking at its door (Rev. 3:20). That means the church in degradation is cut off from the enjoyment of Christ.
God’s judgment on the fallen and deformed church is to let the overcomers rise up. In God’s move through the Adamic race, through the Abrahamic race, and then through the church there was a failure. God’s judgment, however, was for the purpose of raising up the overcomers. This is why there is the last book of the Bible-Revelation. In the book of Revelation there is the unique call of the Head, Christ, to His believers for them to be His overcomers. At the close of each of the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Head, Christ, sounded out His call for the overcomers. He repeats this call seven times (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 20-21). The book of Revelation is not a book merely to tell us about the beasts or about the three and a half years of the great tribulation. The book of Revelation is a book concerning the overcomers. We need to pay full attention to the Lord’s calling for the overcomers.
God’s move on the earth for the accomplishment of His economy is ultimately through the overcomers. This message is on the vital groups and the overcomers. The vital groups should be composed of people who are overcomers.
God moves through the overcomers to accomplish His economy with the pneumatic Christ as the center and the goal (Rev. 5:6; Phil. 1:19b). The term the pneumatic Christ means that in the last step of God’s move, Christ was made the all-inclusive Spirit. Revelation 5:6 reveals that the sevenfold-intensified Spirit is the eyes of Christ. A person’s eyes are one with him, and he is mainly expressed through his eyes. Christ is fully expressed by His seven eyes, and His seven eyes are the sevenfold-intensified Spirit. This makes Christ the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the consummated and compound, all-inclusive Spirit. Philippians 1:19b speaks of the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is Christ Himself, and this pneumatic Christ has the bountiful supply. He is all-inclusive; He is rich; He is bountiful in His supply; and this is the very Christ in this age of the overcomers.
We need to realize what age we are in. We are not just in the church age. We are in the church, but we are in the age of the overcomers. In order to be an overcomer, we need to know the seven basic items of God’s recovery. God made Christ the pneumatic Christ as the center and the goal in the recovery of seven things.
Home | First | Prev | Next