1. Moving from Babylon to New Jerusalem

By Ron McGatlin

Most of you reading this are probably aware that you, along with the rest of us, are at some stage of a spiritual journey from where we have been to somewhere that we are going that we have not before been. Abraham was called to depart his home land in search of a city whose builder and maker was God. Since then followers of God have been moving toward the spiritual reality of the City of God.

The journey actually is our becoming the holy pure city of God. It is our becoming one with and abiding with Spirit God in perfect union and relationship as a beautiful pure and holy Bride adorned with the love gifts of God. It is God with man abiding in His holy light where there is no more darkness and nothing that defiles. This is the city of God the New Jerusalem pattern of life as the spiritual wife of Spirit God abiding in His glory and provision.

Rev 21:9-11:  Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God.

Rev 21:2-4: Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Heb 12:22-24: But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

Whether we realize it or not, we as a worldwide population living independently apart from God, having been born in the linage of Adam, are coming from the life of a spiritual harlot who has sold her purity to meet her own needs and desires. All of us, as a world population, are either still stuck in the life of making our own way apart from God, having not yet even met our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, or we are at some point on our journey to becoming the fully purified holy Bride without spot or blemish. We are traveling from being the old mystery Babylon toward becoming the glorious New Jerusalem.

This is a journey that no natural human being can make. Only God has what it takes to transform us from Babylonian harlotry to the purified holy Bride, New Jerusalem. God had to become a human being born of a virgin, live a perfect sinless life, and give that life at the cross to break the curse and provide the way for all mankind to be restored as the pure and holy mate of God, to be returned to the image and likeness of God fully alive in God and God in us.

Christ in you and you in Him is the only hope for the glory of God to transform us into His pure and holy counterpart on earth. It is Christ in us that empowers us to make the journey to total freedom from all the residue of Babylonian harlotry and take us into the fullness of God’s holy pure love as His wife, the Bride of Christ on earth. Col 1:27: To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

CREATED AND DESIGNED TO BE ONE WITH GOD  

From the beginning you and I were built for the love of God. We were designed for His hope and His light. We are built for the love of God to flow into us, through us, and around us. We are designed to be carriers of His love and life. All of our physical, mental, and spiritual make-up can only function properly in the light and love of God. We are fully equipped to handle the life of God in and around us. We are made for His presence: for loving, praising, and worshiping our God.

We are not designed to handle darkness, strife, debate, contention, bitterness, hatred, death, and evil of every sort. We were not built for death and have no built-in capacity to handle these things. Religious debate and theological striving with one another is death to our natural bodily systems. Fear with its insecurity, anxiety, doubt, unbelief, jealousy, worry, covetousness, and the backside of fear, which is pride, arrogance, selfishness, self-focus, haughtiness. These and every other work caused by the lack of experiencing love bring death to our spirits, souls, and bodies. Our spirits, souls, and bodies were not made to handle grief, remorse, and guilt. Provision for dealing with death was not included in the original creation of man. You were never meant to endure these types of things. Sickness, disorder, and eventually death are the results of having to carry these things in our lives.

God graciously provides, through Christ in us by the Holy Spirit, the ability to be healed of all these things. However, we are not created to endure these things.

All of this darkness and hopelessness entered by sin, and death began to be upon all the descendants of Adam. Man’s attempt to deal with these things and overcome them through self-effort, human cunning, and natural striving are the foundations of Babylonian harlotry. Man trusting in his own strength and knowledge to meet his own needs and taking care of himself without God is man attempting to do the works of God. Babylon is man becoming his own god apart from the life and provision of the one true God.

New Jerusalem is the pattern city coming down from heaven into the hearts of redeemed man. New Jerusalem is the life of heavens ways coming to earth. It is the core or ruling city of the kingdom of God on earth in us as it is in heaven. It is life eternal now and in the life to come.

As New Jerusalem, the pure Bride city, comes forth into the earth, Babylon the pattern city of spiritual harlotry is being destroyed.

THE FALL OF BABYLON

Rev 18:1-10: After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. ² And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! ³ For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”

⁴ And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. ⁵ For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶ Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. ⁷ In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’

⁸ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. ⁹ “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, ¹⁰ standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’

Made for His Love,

Ron McGatlin

archive.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net




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3. Ten Negative Consequences of Separating the Gospel from the Kingdom

By Joseph Mattera

Truly the greatest discovery I ever made in the Bible was when my eyes were opened to understand how the gospel relates to the Kingdom of God!

When this happened in 1995 it was after 17 years of preaching an individualistic gospel that conceptually reduced the gospel to deal only in terms of individual salvation. Missing was the societal and systemic impact the gospel is supposed to have, which is imbedded throughout Scripture.

Furthermore, I realized that the primary theme of the New Testament—and of the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus and the Apostle Paul—was the Kingdom of God. (Read Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; Acts 20:25; 28:31 to name a few passages.) The gospel Jesus preached to the poor resulted in systemic change that positively impacted cities and nations, not just individuals (read Isaiah 61:1-4 which Jesus quoted in Luke 4:18-19).

When we separate the good news of Christ from His kingdom we wind up with an individualistic mindset in the church that can easily lead to narcissism and self-focus. This is because a kingdom implies a king’s domain, which includes the systems of the created order such as economics, politics, education, business, family, science, history, psychology, the arts, and all the spheres and/or cultural mountains. Detaching the gospel from these systems of the kingdom leaves the church without an earthly purpose of stewarding the earth, leaving it only to strive for an individual focus of redemption and hope. Conversely, when the church lifts whole cities and nations with the gospel of the kingdom (Isaiah 61:3-4) we will have more souls go to heaven anyway!

The following is a summary of some negative consequences of separating the gospel from the Kingdom of God:

1. The church loses its purpose of stewarding the earth according to Genesis 1:28

I believe the Cultural Mandate found in Genesis 1:28 is the key passage that unlocks the rest of the Bible. Without this original covenant given to Adam we cannot understand the purpose of the church, the resurrection of Christ, and the purpose of the coming of Christ. The gospel of the kingdom Jesus and Paul preached was the continuation of this original covenant, which is why Jesus commanded His followers to disciple whole nations, not just individual ethnics (read Matthew 28:19-20).

2. The church tends to become self-focused and narcissistic

When we disconnect the gospel from an obligation to care for and steward communities and cities we are left with a Jesus who just came to redeem us for the sake of ourselves and going to heaven. Unfortunately, this has devolved over generations into the present gospel message which is more about self-fulfillment than serving others, leaving us with self-focused congregations that only come to church for individual blessings and good feelings.

3. Biblical prosperity becomes about individual blessing instead of spreading His covenant on the earth (Deut. 8:18)

This passage in Deuteronomy teaches us that God has given believers the power to create wealth so His covenant can be confirmed upon the earth. This obligates us to connect our finances with kingdom purposes instead of the present prosperity gospel, which is about having nice cars, homes and living a life of luxury and convenience!

4. We interpret the whole Bible with an individual mindset and lose its corporate intention

The Bible is not merely God’s personal love letter to individuals but a legally binding covenantal document meant to disciple nations. The Old Testament was written to the nation of Israel (individuals could not apply the covenant if they were outside of the camp) and the New Testament was written to the church.

Presently we have many believers with an individual mindset who attempt to interpret and apply promises and blessings in the Bible to themselves in spite of the fact they are not committed to a community of faith, something that is very foreign to the Hebrew mindset and original intent of Scripture!

For example, for years I preached that a person must be “born again” to go to heaven. But Jesus said a person must be “born again to see the kingdom” (John 3:3-8) which starts now on the earth, not in heaven. The moment you are saved your eyes are opened up to see Jesus as Lord over all of creation. When you don’t understand the kingdom you reinterpret the Bible to fit your escapist self-focused mindset; but when you understand the kingdom you apply the word of God now to the earth realm, which causes more folks to go to heaven anyway!

5. We win hearts but lose the minds of the next generation

It has been said that in the 1960’s “Jesus Movement” we saw hundreds of thousand saved and added to the church. The church may have won their hearts but the world won over the minds of the young people! Now, the youth of the 1960’s humanistic revolution are our nation’s leaders and have shifted our nation towards a secular worldview that marginalizes Christianity! Unfortunately, over the past 50 years the church has been asleep at the wheel in regards to cultural engagement.

This is only a portion of this article. For the full article Go Here:

Josheph Mattera
http://josephmattera.org/_blog/Free_Articles/post/ten-negati ve-consequences-of-separating-the-gospel-from-the-kingdom/




4. News Headlines


Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood banned; good news for Christians? - 9/25/2013
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is reeling from the stunning reversal of power it experienced this summer. They went from being the national darlings post-Arab-Spring to being repressed in the same vein they oppressed other minorities. "They've said it's not acceptable as a Non-Government Organization. Its activities are banned. That's a court ruling on a piece of paper."


Billy Graham Writes Letter to Iranian President on Behalf of Pastor Saeed - 9/25/2013
Now, the Rev. Billy Graham has joined with Naghmeh in asking President Rowhani to release Saeed, in a letter he wrote on Monday. I respectfully asking you to release Pastor Saeed Abedini from prison. Such an action would, I believe, have a positive impact in our nation, and might well be perceived by our leadership as a significant step in reducing tensions.


Saeed's Wife Has Chance Meeting with Iran's President - 9/25/2013
The wife of American Pastor Saeed Abedini, who is imprisoned in Iran, came face to face with the country's president Monday and asked him for her husband's release. She also gave a member of Rouhani's group a letter written by the pastor, pleading for his own release. The man said he would deliver it to the Iranian president.


Pakistani church bombing kills 81. Pray! - 9/25/2013
Angry Pakistanis blocked roads, burned tires, and barricaded roads in protest of the horrific bombing Sunday that killed 81 people and injured 140 others. People were completing worship and about to share a meal together when suicide bombers entered the church compound. Among the dead were 34 women and seven children, as well as two Muslim police officers.


Pakistan earthquake: Hundreds dead in Balochistan - 9/25/2013
More than 300,000 people have been affected over a total of six districts. Awaran, about 90% of houses in the district had been destroyed. Some 250 houses collapsed in the village of Dalbedi. Entire villages in the Balochistan district of Awaran are reported to have been flattened. killed at least 328 and wounded hundreds. A new island appeared off the coast of Gwadar.


Devastating quake kills 370, creates new island in Pakistan - 9/25/2013
Up to 370 people have been killed in an earthquake measuring 7.7 which struck southwest Pakistan on Tuesday.At least 30 percent of houses in the impoverished Awaran district have been destroyed. Roofs of two schools have collapsed in Awaran, according to The Express Tribune. The earthquake also created a new island off Pakistan's Gwadar coastline.


Nairobi Mall Attack Over, National Mourning to Begin in Kenya - 9/25/2013
The drama of the atrocious terror attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi entered the fourth day before it was finally declared over by Kenya's President Kenyatta. On Tuesday, Kenyan Security Forces conducted "mopping up" operations at the mall, while President Kenyatta addressed the public, declaring three days of national mourning to begin on Wednesday.


Nightmare siege in Kenya - 9/25/2013
The nightmare began around noon on Saturday. A group of ten to fifteen heavily armed masked militants arrived in cars at the mall, blocked several entrances, and then stormed the building. They threw grenades and tear gas and indiscriminately shot at fleeing crowds. On Monday, security forces fought for control of the four-story mall building from the terrorists.


Three Million Syrian Children in Urgent Need - 9/26/2013
Across Syria, the three year conflict has caused severe food shortages, making it nearly impossible for families to find even a minimal amount to live. "The children need milk, clothes, food? We have no electricity, no water, or anything and we're not getting any help." Save The Children says one in 20 children living in the areas around Damascus is severely malnourished.


Nearly 22,000 Churches Have Registered To Participate In My Hope America with Billy Graham - 9/26/2013
‘The Cross’ is set to debut Nov. 7. Momentum is building for My Hope America with Billy Graham, as the project has just six weeks until culmination in November. Nearly 22,000 churches – with more being added daily – have signed on to participate in the project, which is expected to result in thousands of individuals opening their homes and reaching out in their communities.


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