August 2001

The Bible foretells of the coming of the Spirit of the Lord to the earth, which also is the coming of the kingdom of God to the earth (Acts 2:17). God's Spirit, as well as His kingdom, comes to the earth in many different forms and manifestations, and does so progressively and in stages. Every visitation or outpouring of the Spirit has been the coming of the Lord, or the coming of another portion of the kingdom of God, to the earth. The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom and includes all the many manifestations of the Spirit of God. When the sick are healed or other miracles take place by the Spirit of God, Jesus said, "the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you" (Mt. 12:28 & Lu. 10:9). We also understand that the kingdom of God is the realm of our Father's dominion and includes the heavens of His Spirit. In the heavens of God's Spirit, there are the seven Spirits of God, and the new Jerusalem with its many parts. And that heavenly, new Jerusalem realm of the Spirit, with its many parts, is seen coming down from God out of heaven to the earth (Rev. 3:12).

The kingdom of God not only comes "down" from God out of heaven to this earth, but His kingdom is also increasing with the dynamic, aggressive and all-powerful increase of God (Is. 9:7). Everything in and of the kingdom of God is increasing, enlarging, multiplying and growing in the earth; for it is the nature of God and His kingdom to grow and increase. The kingdom of God will continue to increase and grow "from henceforth even for ever," until the whole earth is covered and completely overwhelmed with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And our own, feeble works are not needed to cause the kingdom of God to grow and increase in the earth, for His kingdom grows and increases of itself. The kingdom of God has all the power of God necessary for its growth within it, for God has decreed, "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."

The kingdom of God does not grow and increase in the earth and in the whole universe by the zeal of man and his empty works. Man's carnal, religious works are not needed in the greater fullness of the kingdom of God. Every part of God's kingdom grows and increases OF ITSELF! The kingdom of God grows and increases in the earth solely and exclusively by the might and the power of God. It is the nature of the kingdom of God to increase, for the Life of Christ is its driving, compelling and motivating Force! His kingdom grows to reach out and touch everything everywhere, according to the sovereign purpose of our Father. Our Father has purposed that His kingdom shall be the predominant kingdom anywhere and everywhere, by the omnipotent might and sovereign power of the Lord of hosts! And "the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this!"

The kingdom of God is increasing in the earth, from its spiritual beginning as a small Seed in the hearts of men, to become the great kingdom tree that shall restore and sustain the multitudes of this world (Rev. 22:2). And that kingdom tree will be the predominant force anywhere and everywhere. All of nature demonstrates the great truth of the growth of God's kingdom. Plant a seed in the ground, and it is the nature of that planted seed to grow to become a flourishing plant, identical to the vegetation from which that seed was taken. Jesus used this same illustration to help us understand the kingdom of God.

He said, the kingdom of God is "as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up, HE KNOWETH NOT HOW. For the earth bringeth forth fruit OF HERSELF; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear" (Mk. 4:26-28). A farmer may spend the entire day and some of the night as well, interrupting his work or rising from his sleep, checking on the growth of the seed he planted. But he may never be able to describe the process that causes that seed to grow. Nor can he change the whole process or increase its growth, except as he furthers the same process, such as by cultivating, watering, or adding fertilizer. A seed will simply grow of itself, for that is the God-given power at work in all of creation!

Jesus likened the kingdom of God to the planting of a seed in the ground. And since any seed planted in the earth has the necessary life within it to reproduce itself, then we must accept the fact that the kingdom of God also grows and increases OF ITSELF, without any outside help. Within the kingdom Seed is the very Life of God, which causes that divine Seed to grow and increase in all the earth. That divine Seed of course is Christ, and He who is within us needs no outside help to bring us to maturity and fulfill Father's purposes. He is the firstborn and the chief corner Stone of this divine family of sons. He is making every one of us exactly like Himself! He also is the foundation structure of that Heavenly kingdom that shall break in pieces and consume all others. As a natural seed planted in the ground will bring forth a plant of the same kind, so the Christ Seed, when planted within us, will reproduce Christ in all His glory from within us. But the growth of that Seed of Christ does not end with us. That Seed, which is Christ, will continue to grow and increase everywhere until His kingdom has become the predominant and only kingdom anywhere in all the earth, and eventually in the whole universe.

The kingdom of God is the realm of Father's sovereign and omnipotent dominion! In the kingdom of God, our Father works while we cease from our labors and enter into HIS REST! Our works must end so that God can do HIS WORK by His Spirit and without the interference of our flesh! We are moving from the obsolete Pentecostal order, where man worked by the leading of the Spirit, to the new and greater Tabernacles order, where God alone works while we REST! Our feeble efforts of the old Pentecostal order, or of any other obsolete order, are not needed in the kingdom of God; His kingdom has all the power of God within it that causes it to grow OF ITSELF!

What does this mean? It means that when we truly come into the new life of the kingdom of God, and our Father begins to order our spiritual walk according to kingdom order, He will once and for all rid us of the old church-order manner of doing things. We must leave the realm of Pentecost and progress spiritually toward Tabernacles. This we will do by quitting the old religious, church-order works of the past. God's way is: "He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second" (He. 10:9). Once we move on beyond the old ways of Pentecost, as good as it was in that realm, we may then move on spiritually toward the blessed realm of Tabernacles. As we do so, we then allow the holy Spirit to wash out of our minds all the former, dead concepts of church order, thus eliminating from our minds and also from our lives in this world all the old order practices and religious works of the past. Our old order works are not needed in the kingdom of God, but our new spiritual life is!

We recently discovered a speech given by William Jennings Bryan, titled "The Prince of Peace." That speech was originally published by Zion's Printing and Publishing Company of Independence, Jackson County, Missouri in 1925. As you may remember, Mr. Bryan was involved in the famous trial of John Scopes, the public school teacher who had been arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee public schools, contrary to the state law. Since some of his remarks closely parallel what I have written here, I would like to quote portions of it for your edification.

In this speech, William Jennings Bryan spoke of Christ, of His sinless life, and of the effects of His life on this world. Then he said of our Lord, "He taught and performed miracles for a few brief months and then was crucified; His disciples were scattered and many of them put to death; His claims were disputed, His resurrection denied and His followers persecuted; and yet from this beginning His religion spread until hundreds of millions have taken His name with reverence upon his lips and millions have been willing to die rather than surrender the faith which He put into their hearts. How shall we account for Him? Here is the greatest fact of history; here is One who has WITH INCREASING POWER, for nineteen hundred years, molded the hearts, the thoughts, and the lives of men, and He exerts more influence today than ever before. `What think ye of Christ?' It is easier to believe Him divine than to explain in any other way what He said and did and was. And I have greater faith, even than before, since I have visited the Orient and witnessed the successful contest which Christianity is waging against the religions and philosophies of the East.

"I was thinking a few years ago of the Christmas which was then approaching and of Him in whose honor the day is celebrated. I recalled the message, "Peace on earth, good will to men," and then my thoughts ran back to the prophecy uttered centuries before His birth, in which He was described as the Prince of Peace. To reinforce my memory I re-read the prophecy and found immediately following a verse which I had forgotten, a verse which declares that of THE INCREASE of His peace and government there shall be no end. And, Isaiah adds, that He shall judge His people with justice and with judgment. I had been reading of the rise and fall of nations, and occasionally I had met a gloomy philosopher who preached the doctrine that nations, like individuals, must of necessity have their birth, their infancy, their maturity and finally their decay and death. But here I read of a government that is to be perpetual, a government of INCREASING peace and blessedness, the government of the Prince of Peace, and it is to rest on justice.

"I have thought of this prophecy many times during the last few years, and I have selected this theme that I might present some of the reasons which lead me to believe that Christ has fully earned the right to be called the Prince of Peace, a title that will in the years to come be more and more applied to Him. If He can bring peace to each individual heart, and if His creed when applied will bring peace throughout the earth, who will deny His right to be called the Prince of Peace? I am glad that our heavenly Father did not make the peace of the human heart to depend upon our ability to buy it with money, secure it in society, or win it at the polls, for in either case but few could have obtained it, but when He made peace the reward of a conscience void of offense toward God and man, He put it within the reach of all. The poor can secure peace as easily as the rich, the social outcasts as freely as the leader of society, and the humblest citizen equally with those who wield political power. Christ promoted peace by giving us assurance that a line of communication can be established between the Father above and the child below. And who will measure the consolations of the hour of prayer?

"Science has taught us so many things that we are tempted to conclude that we know everything, but there is really a great unknown which is still unexplored and that which we have learned ought to increase our reverence rather than our egotism. Science has disclosed some of the machinery of the universe, but science has not yet revealed to us the great secret, the secret of life. It is to be found in every blade of grass, in every insect, in every bird and in every animal, as well as in man. Six thousand years of recorded history and yet we know no more about the secret of life than they knew in the beginning. We live, we plan; we have our hopes, our fears; and yet in a moment a change may come over any one of us and this body will become a mass of lifeless clay. What it is that, having, we live, and having not, we are as the clod? The progress of the race and the civilization which we now behold are the work of men and women who have not yet solved the mystery of their own lives.

"And our food, must we understand it before we eat it? If we refused to eat anything until we could understand the mystery of growth, we would die of starvation. But mystery does not bother us in the dining room; it is only in the church that it is a stumbling block.

"I was eating a piece of watermelon some months ago and was struck with its beauty. I took some of the seeds and dried them and weighed them, and found that it would require some five thousand seeds to weigh a pound; and then I applied mathematics to that forty-pound melon. One of these seeds, put into the ground, when warmed by the sun and moistened by the rain, takes off its coat and goes to work; it gathers from somewhere two hundred thousand times its own weight, and forcing this raw material through a tiny stem, constructs a watermelon. It ornaments the outside with a covering of green; inside the green it puts a layer of white; and within the white a core of red, and all through the red it scatters seeds, each one capable of continuing the work of production. Who drew the plan by which that little seed works? Where does it get its tremendous strength? Where does it find its coloring matter? How does it collect its flavoring extract? How does it develop a watermelon? Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too sure that you can set limits to the power of the Almighty and say just what He would do or how He would do it.

"The egg is the most universal of foods and its use dates from the beginning, but what is more mysterious than an egg? When an egg is fresh, it is an important article of merchandise; a hen can destroy its market value in a week's time, but in two weeks more she can bring forth from it what man could not find in it. We eat eggs, but we cannot explain an egg.

"Water has been used from the birth of man; we learned after it had been used for ages that it is merely a mixture of gases, but it is far more important that we have water to drink than that we know that it is not water.

"Everything that grows tells a like story of infinite power. Why should I deny that a divine hand fed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes when I see hundreds of millions fed every year by a hand which converts the seeds scattered over the field into an abundant harvest? We know that food can be multiplied in a few months' time; shall we deny the power of the Creator to eliminate the element of time, when we have gone so far in eliminating the element of space? Who am I that I should attempt to measure the arm of the Almighty with my puny arm, or to measure the brain of the Infinite with my finite mind? Who am I that I should attempt to put metes and bounds to the power of the Creator?

"But there is something even more wonderful still, the mysterious change that takes place in the human heart when the man begins to hate the things he loved and to love the things he hated, the marvelous transformation that takes place in the man who, before the change, would have sacrificed a world for his own advancement but who, after the change, would give his life for a principle and esteem it a privilege to make a sacrifice for his convictions! What greater miracle than this, that converts a selfish, self-centered, human being into a center from which good influences flow out in every direction!

"And immortality! Who will estimate the peace which a belief in a future life has brought to the sorrowing hearts of the sons of men? Christ gave us proof of immortality and it was a welcome assurance, although it would hardly seem necessary that one should rise from the dead to convince us that the grave is not the end. To every created thing, God has given a tongue that proclaims a future life. If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its prison walls, will He leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator? If He stoops to give to the rose bush, whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope to the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to his tenement of clay? No, I am sure that He who, notwithstanding His apparent prodigality, created nothing without a purpose, and wasted not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for a future life in which man's universal longing for immortality will find its realization.

"In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at them this thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its lineal descendants had been planted and replanted from that time until now, its progeny would today be sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life connects the earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we sow and reap. There is in the grain of wheat an invisible something which has power to discard the body that we see, and from the earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that we can not tell the one from the other. If this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust. I am as sure that we live again as I am sure that we live today.

"I can imagine that the early Christians who were carried into the Coliseum to make a spectacle for those more savage than the beasts, were entreated by their doubting companions not to endanger their lives. But, kneeling in the center of the arena, they prayed and sang until they were devoured. How helpless they seemed, and, measured by every human rule, how hopeless was their cause! And yet within a few decades the power which they invoked proved mightier than the legions of the emperor and the faith in which they died was triumphant o'er all the land. It is said that those who went to mock at their sufferings returned asking themselves, "What is it that can enter into the heart of man and make him die as these die?" They were greater conquerors in their death than they could have been had they purchased life by a surrender of their faith." (End of quotation.)

It is my sincere prayer that all who read this inspired speech by William Jennings Bryan will also be inspired by the holy Spirit and encouraged of our Father to press on to the ultimate goal in Christ. Our wonder-working Creator-Father is working within us to change us into His image and likeness! And by the daily processings of this present "life," some of those changes are taking place in our lives each and every day. The same Almighty Father Who can create a forty-pound water melon from a small seed in a few month's time, shall also successfully change us into His image and likeness in whatever time frame He has purposed to do that wonderful work.

The Fullness of God Coming "Down" from Heaven by His Spirit

The kingdom of God, with all His many parts, is coming "down" from Heaven to the earth. The kingdom of God is the realm of our Father's dominion and includes all that He is. When His kingdom comes from heaven to earth in a greater way, it is also God coming to the earth with His seven Spirits and all His power and glory. As His Kingdom comes so also shall all the hosts of Heaven come, each according to their own rank or order. Each segment or part of our Father's dominion will come to the earth progressively and in stages, according to His timetable, until God shall fill the whole earth with all that He is. God and all that He is presently fills all the heavens with Himself; so also shall He ultimately fill all the earth with all that He is (Mt. 6:10). This is the predestined and predetermined goal and purpose of the ever-increasing kingdom of our Father; it is a divine purpose that is bigger and greater than anything we have known in the past. It is a holy purpose in God that is worthy of our total and absolute commitment and dedication; it is a cause and a purpose that demands our total submission to the perfect will of our Father in Heaven.

Here is a cause and a purpose in God that is greater than the church, greater far than any of the gifts of the Spirit, or a combination of them; it is greater than any of man's ministries, and much greater than any personal call of God given to any individual. Here is a Purpose that demands everything from us, but which promises to return much more to us when it is fulfilled! Every apprehended and chosen son of God, within whose heart dwells the spirit of sonship, has been seeking for something greater than anything they have ever seen or witnessed in the past. I will never be proven wrong when I declare to you that THIS IS IT! The ultimate purpose and intention of our Father for the total control and dominion of this earth, and of the entire universe, is worth the absolute and complete surrender of our lives. And all who have received the glorious vision of the ever-increasing kingdom of our Father in the earth are making this positive commitment!

I hereby renew my dedication to my Father in Heaven! And I have purposed, by His grace, that I shall continue to walk this walk, and will talk this talk, writing the vision clearly, as the Spirit reveals it, so that all who read it may run with me to the appointed goal in Christ (Hab. 2:1-2). The vision He has given us promises absolute victory and involves no failure and no defeat. The reign of Christ on His Father's throne in the kingdom of God shall triumph over all, to the glory of God! I want to be a part of that kingdom that shall overwhelm and overrule all the kingdoms of this world, and I know you do too! The time has come; the Day is here. This is the hour when Father is raising up a chosen and anointed firstfruits remnant. He is preparing them and equipping them to lead the multitudes into the greater fullness of the kingdom of our Father, as that kingdom continues to come to the earth in ever-increasing power and glory.

The coming of the kingdom of God to the earth is also the coming of the seven Spirits of God to the earth. The coming of His seven Spirits to the earth is also the coming of the Presence of the Lord to the earth. And when the Lord's Presence comes to the earth, all the many millions of unbelievers and hardhearted Christ-rejecters in this world will literally melt in His Presence. The hard, stony hearts of the unbelievers, skeptics, agnostics and atheists will be melted by the Presence of the Lord to become hearts of flesh (Eze. 11:19-20). Then they shall bow before the Lord, because of the greater power of the Presence of the Lord, which has come "down" to earth from the heavens of His Spirit. He who reigns over the multitudes of this world shall then be their Savior and their Lord, in truth and in reality. They shall then be transformed to become spirit, by the omnipotent Spirit of the Lord our God. This is not an impossible task, for we know His power! We know He is well able to do all this and more, for the seven Spirits, which is all that He is, are greater than any other power!

When the Lord gave the law to Israel at Sinai, the scripture tells us "the Lord DESCENDED UPON IT in fire." We also read that "the Lord CAME DOWN upon mount Sinai" (Ex. 20:18, 20). And Nehemiah, when telling of Israel's history, said, "THOU CAMEST DOWN also upon mount Sinai" (Neh. 9:13). In other words, the Presence of the Lord came "down" from God out of heaven to the earth, specifically to Mt. Sinai, to give the law to Israel. His Presence was so great and so mighty that the fire of God, even the holy fire of the Lord, was manifested at Sinai. So great was the power of His Presence that the people feared for their lives, and refused from that time on to be in the Presence of the Lord when He spoke to the nation (Deut. 5:24-27, 18:16). The people then appointed Moses to hear the Lord speak, rather than being in His presence to hear Him themselves. And that wayward tradition still afflicts God's people today!

When the Lord delivered David from his enemies and from the hand of King Saul, David wrote a psalm to tell of that experience. When he began his prayer to the Lord asking for deliverance, David first acknowledged the Lord as his rock, his fortress, and his deliverer. He acknowledged that the Lord was his strength, his buckler, the horn of his salvation and his high tower. After praising the Lord and exalting Him, David called on the Lord for deliverance from his enemies and from Saul. He said, "the sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about... In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken... He bowed the heavens also, AND CAME DOWN. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire." (see Ps. 18:1-13).

Can you imagine all these spiritual manifestations taking place in the earth, solely for David's benefit? David alone, of all the thousands upon thousands living then, was delivered from his enemies by a glorious manifestation of the presence of the Lord. Only one man experienced that deliverance, which was marked by an outstanding manifestation of the Spirit and power of God. Yet, David's deliverance, above all others, was necessary for the ultimate good of his own nation and people. So it is with us! We may be few in number, but our deliverance is a vital and necessary part of the deliverance of the whole creation. David was able to see in the Spirit to realize that all this spiritual activity took place so that God might deliver him from his enemies and from the wrath of Saul. And we have yet to witness the transcendent, awesome and mighty power that our Father will bring forth when He delivers us from this corrupt, worldly order by giving us a new body. This will end our Father's long and detailed work of creating His sons into His full image and likeness (see Ge. 1:26 & 1 Cor. 15:49). What a mighty God we serve!

Only Adam, of all the people of the earth, was originally created in the image and likeness of God. Adam, as he was originally created, was created fully "in Christ," for he was declared to be "the son of God" (Lu. 3:38). But Adam "fell!" Or, to be scripturally and spiritually correct, we should say that God in His sovereignty brought Adam, and the whole creation with him, down to this lowly realm of sin and death OF HIS OWN WILL. It was not by the will of any man, including the disobedient will of either Adam or Eve, or the will of both of them together, that they along with the whole creation were brought down to this low estate. By the sovereign will of our Father, Adam and Eve, and the whole creation along with them, were brought down to this low state of death. We may also correctly believe that this world, and everything of it and in it, is exactly the way God designed it and purposed it to be, for the present time, from the beginning!

Paul tells us, "the earnest expectation of the creature (which is every created thing) waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature (you and me and all of creation) was made subject to vanity (the vanity, depravity or corruption of this present world, including sin and death), NOT WILLINGLY (or not by any person's will, desire or mistake, including Adam and Eve's), BUT BY REASON OF HIM (God) who hath subjected the same (all creation) in hope, Because the creature (all creation) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Ro. 8:19-21). Referring to the truth of this scripture, George Hawtin wrote the following: "The transgression (in Eden) is not a mistake! It is part of the plan of creation, and God's great redemption is also a part of that same plan of creation." (End of quotation.)

Ever since God brought Adam and Eve, and the whole creation with them, down to this low estate, God has been working with man, through His redemptive purposes, to bring us back to the glory of Eden. Yet, when God reconciles and restores, He does not simply take us back to that which once was in past ages. Through His redemptive plan of restoration and reconciliation, the Lord has purposed to take us forward, onward and upward to a glory in Him that is greater far and more glorious than anything mankind has ever experienced in the past. God's supreme work of creation, redemption and restoration has been going on in the lives of mankind from the day that word was first spoken (Ge. 1:26). And that same divine work has continued unhindered and unimpeded unto this great Day in which we now live. Our omnipotent and sovereign Lord of all is creating man in His own image and after His likeness, and He has already begun that work with us, His firstfruit saints. Our Father is doing that creative work by taking us through this realm of death, which we erroneously call "life," for it is through death that He shall destroy the power of death (He. 2:14). He who is the Alpha began it, and He who is the Omega shall finish it, that the Lord alone may be glorified!

Of our Father's promise to make all men in His image and likeness (as in Ge. 1:26), Bro. Hawtin wrote: "Let us make man in our image," said the Lord, and in saying so He spoke not of one man only, but of all mankind, even every far off son of Adam's race. Through the valley of the shadow of death, through death itself, through correction and just punishment and tribulation, through hell and the grave, through the resurrection of the just and the unjust He leads man steadily toward that distant goal of which He spoke, saying, "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness." Even our Lord Jesus Christ, the redeemer and reconciler of things in heaven and things in earth, walked this way before us as the first born of every creature. He, too, was made perfect through the things He suffered, and, being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all who obey Him. Heb. 5:8,9.

"Once your spiritual mind is able to grasp the truth that it is God who ruleth all, then your very existence will take on new dimension. Your tribulation will be recognized as but a light affliction ordained by Him, daily working for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, as you look not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor. 4:18. What man, sweltering in the consuming heat of the fiery furnace of his affliction, can understand that naught but his shackles are being removed, but not one hair of his head is being singed? What man, receiving stripes, can know that the devastating stripes themselves are becoming the marks of the Lord Jesus? How pitifully few of the masses of mankind, now walking in weariness through the valley of the shadow of death, really know that "Thou art with me!"

"Let me repeat a truth I have stated many times before! Death is not the grave. Death begins in the cradle and ends in the grave. This whole experience which men call life is the death that was promised to Adam in the day of his transgression. There is much scripture to substantiate this truth. This whole realm from the cradle to the grave is the valley of the shadow of death, yet all through this dim valley of outer darkness the Lord is with us, leading us by the hand, supporting us with the staff, feeding us betimes in green pastures, refreshing our souls at the gushing streams of the water of life, and anointing our heads with the oil of the Spirit; and in the knowledge and glory of it all our cup runneth over." (End of quotation.)

Regarding the great truths that it was God who brought Adam and Eve, and the whole creation with them, into this valley of the shadow of death, and that "all things are of God," Brother Hawtin wrote this: "There are many thousands of people who do not like to believe that all things are of God. 2 Cor. 5:18. They much prefer to believe, as the harlot system has taught them, that in the beginning God made man perfect. Then Satan came in and destroyed the work of God's hands and so degraded the darling of His creation that the Lord Almighty Himself was hard put to the test to discover some way to rescue the man He had made from the clutches of the devil. Those who hold this view often do so because they imagine that to hold any other view would make God responsible for the transgression and fall of the man He had made, and, not knowing that `through death He would destroy the power of death,' they think that such a thing could not be. They prefer to believe that the almighty, omniscient, and omnipresent God was in some manner tricked by a creature vastly inferior in wisdom and power, making this inferior creature responsible for man's fall, instead of believing that `all things are of God.' They prefer to believe that God's will can be thwarted and disannulled, but, if this be so, how then are we to believe the scripture which plainly tells us that `the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope?' Rom. 8:20.

"If you prefer to believe that God's will was thwarted by Satan in the Garden of Eden, then I ask if you have ever considered the jeopardy into which such doctrine would lead you. If God's will could be thwarted even once, could it not be thwarted again? If Satan was able to enter the Garden of Eden in spite of God's omnipresence and regardless of His omnipotence, may he not in some like manner enter that paradise which is yet to come? If Satan was able to get the better of God once, should it be thought impossible that he may do so again, for God is not more omnipotent now than He was in the Garden of Eden? You see where all such reasoning leads you. Indeed, it jeopardizes our whole future, making our foundation shaky, uncertain, and disappointing. If, on the other hand, you see the fall of man as part of the plan of creation, and the redemption of man as also an integral part of the creation, then all the many pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into the proper place to form the master portrait showing how man comes into the image of God. Then and only then do our rejoicing minds grasp the truth that all things, absolutely all things, are of God." (End of quotation. From his book, "Creation, Redemption, and the Restitution of All Things.")

The prophet Isaiah also spoke the anointed word of the Lord regarding the omnipotence of God. Leaving no question or doubt about whom He is, the Lord gave forth this anointed word of authority through His chosen prophet, Isaiah: "I AM THE LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I AM THE LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I THE LORD DO ALL THESE THINGS" (Is. 45:5-7).

When once we truly grow and mature spiritually to know just who our Lord is, we will then know, without a shadow of a doubt, that He is the Lord of all and the Creator of all things, including that which we might consider to be bad. He created all things; all things are of God, including light and darkness and good and evil. All things everywhere are in His loving, merciful hands, and without Him all that now exists could never have been. When we understand this, by the wisdom of the mind of Christ, we will then also know that our Father will bring all things everywhere, including all mankind, to a just and righteous conclusion. In doing so, He will bring those same all things into conformity with His righteousness and His holiness, to cause all mankind to experience the fullness of His Life in His appointed time and season. "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this!"

Isaiah's anointed prophecy continues with this word, "Let fall in showers, you heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness [the pure, spiritual, heavenly-life possibilities that have their foundation in the holy being of God]; let the earth open and let them, skies and earth, sprout forth salvation, and let righteousness germinate and spring up (as plants do) together; I THE LORD HAVE CREATED IT" (Is. 45:8, Amplified). When God speaks forth this word, the Heavens shall indeed rain down upon the earth "the pure, spiritual, heavenly-life possibilities that have their foundation in the holy being of God." What a manifestation of glory that shall be! Again it is clearly written for all to understand: our sovereign and omnipotent Lord of all created all things (Col. 1:16-17). Therefore, all things are totally under His control and are awaiting His instruction, His command, "to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever" (Is. 9:6).

There were times in the past when the Lord spoke to the hosts of the heavens, saying, "Let fall in showers, you heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness." No doubt, this happened when the Lord appeared on Mt Sinai to give the law to Israel, and perhaps at other times of outpourings also. But there is coming a more glorious hour when God will again speak that anointed Word of power and authority to the heavens. Then, righteousness will indeed pour down from the heavens, thus establishing true righteousness everywhere and in the heart of every person on earth. Unless the purity and holiness of the Lord's righteousness comes down from the spiritual heavens above to the fallen realms of the earth below, there will be no manifestation of His pure righteousness on this earth, for there is none of it here, except within us. And that which is within us now is only in part; we have yet to receive the fullness of all that God is!

What is it that Comes Down From God Out of Heaven to the Earth?

Return to: Home Page    Kingdom Resources