All Things New
By Abraham Israel
There is a new wave rising among all the hungry believers around the world. It is not a wave where people will be spectators of the mighty movement of the Holy Ghost outpouring done through great men and women of God singularly chosen and used by God as in the times past. It is an earnest expectation of each apostolic saint of what the Lord will do through their lives in such a time as this, where the great deep darkness and depression is slowly engulfing the earth, like the sky before the biggest storm hits an area to devastate and destroy life in the world. But the good news is, as deep darkness is beginning to cover the earth, there is a mighty end time glory that is rising from the recesses of the heart of each apostolic saint of God and is beginning to come upon each of them in greater level of glory upon them (Isaiah 60:1-2). This glory of God and their lifestyle of light lived among the the people of the world system of governance will draw many and they too will come to experience the light of God in their lives too. The light is the life of God within each of the believer and this life will become the light of men who are in darkness without comprehending it (John 1:4-5). The kings of the earth will come to notice this apostolic band rising out of nothingness with the great glory of God upon them and they will be touched by the brightness of their rising (Isa 60:3).
Recently one Sister in Christ asked me, 'What so special and new about this apostolic move of God that is different from other moves of God that has come and gone?'. I said nothing is special except our God who enjoys bringing in new and fresh revelation uniquely to each generation in order to reveal Himself more and more in a new way. Never forget saints, Our God is a God of NEW BEGINNINGS. This is the reason the Bible says, "22the LORD's mercy....23It is new every morning. His faithfulness is great." (Lam 3:22-23, GWT). Think about it, if the mercies of God are new every morning, how much more the outpouring of the grace of God for each unique generation of people living on the earth? God himself has demonstrated through the first sign that Jesus did in His ministry, that the best wine of the Holy Spirit is stored always for the end (John 2:7-11; Eph 5:18). This is God's way of blessing people who come to join Him before everything is wound up for a eternal kingdom of Jesus to be established on earth forever (Matt 20:16). His ways and thoughts are totally different and higher than man's thoughts and ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). It also happened in the Old Testament times where the latter temple was blessed with the glorious Messiah's presence which the former temple was not priviledged to have but just the fire of God's shekinah glory (Haggai 2:9).
I want to bring out "All Things New" in this article.
1) New Creation
Once we recieve the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour and Lord of our life, God makes all things brand new in our lives. From the moment we have received Jesus in to our lives, the Spirit of Christ comes and dwells in our heart and we are positioned in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:9). We belong to Jesus and He belongs to us. We did not and cannot position ourselves in Christ Jesus, but it is God who has done it miraculously through His Spirit (1 Cor 1:30; 5:18-19). We lose our identity and become one with Him, but we still hold on our individuality. It is like a beautiful woman who was a spinster in the past has now got married and have become one with her husband. No woman loses her individuality after her marriage but becomes one bone and flesh with her husband and lives to please him, love him, enjoy his companionship and be enjoyed by him. When a woman becomes married, she holds on to name of her husband and calls herself after him. We call ourself a Christian not because of any religious dogma, but because we are betrothed to a person of love named "JESUS CHRIST" (2 Cor 11:2). A brand new life starts the moment a woman gets married. Apostle Paul beautifully described it by saying, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Cor 5:17). Once we become a believer, all our efforts will be to know, love, please, enjoy the companionship of Jesus and be enjoyed by Him. The old unruly and lustful lifestyle of indulging in excesses of this world becomes alien to us. Many testimonies that I have personally heard from many saints had these words which amazed me, "When I gave my life to Jesus, the next morning I felt everthing was new and lively. The singing and chirping of birds were so melodious to me, the sky looked so blue with a enigmatic warmth of God's love emanating from it and I thanked God for the beauty of life within me". Saints, what makes a person to confess the beauty of life on earth is the life of God bubbling out of a person after be gets born again in his spirit because of receiving Jesus Christ. This is the reason Jesus Christ is depicted apostolically as "...The last Adam [who] became a life-giving spirit." (1 Cor 15:45). God sees us through Jesus from the day we are connected in our spirit with Him (1 Cor 6:17). Our connection with Jesus is a spiritual connection that is deeper than a normal married physical connection and intimacy between a husband and wife in the natural. Just like a wife knows the mind of her husband more and more as she moves in intimacy with him in marriage, we slowly understand the mind of Christ as we grow in spiritual intimacy with Christ in our life. Even we slowly learn to see our life through the mind of Christ, which we experience within us because we have been made a new creation (1 Cor 2:16).
2) New Commandment
Once we become the child of God after receiving our Lord Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord of our life (John 1:12), we need not walk in the old way of living according to rule-based relationship of what we think as right which pleases God and the wrong things that displeases God. But we should start to live for the love of God which He has given freely towards us through Christ Jesus unconditionally. Apostle Paul was a man who lived just for the sake of the love of Jesus. He clearly expressed this by saying, "....Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life." (2 Cor 5:14, NLT). We should not fight against the old lifestyle that held us in its bondage to sin, sickness and death eventually, but we should remember and believe the word of God that says our old lifestyle has died in Christ Jesus's death and that we are complete in Him now (Col 2:10). When we start to live for the love of God, the old lifestyle fades away bit by bit. We should let the love of God which is poured through the Holy Spirit in to our heart to control us, when our old lifestyle tries to threaten us to take it in its hold again. As the Bible says, "Perfect Love of Jesus drives out fear because God starts to control us in order to build us in to His perfection through His Unconditional Love" (1 John 4:17, Paraphrased).
The love for God can be experienced only when we love others who are imperfect like us. The love and compassion of God starts to flow through us when we let God's love to control us. This is the one and only New Commandment that Jesus in the New Testament exhorted His followers to keep strictly. Jesus said in (John 13:34, NKJV), "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." Many make a big list of commandments in our churches so that people can walk with God as they think. But the very reason Jesus introduced this one and only new commadment in the New Covenant is to keep us away from the old type of legalistic relationship with God which becomes a substitute for a love based relationship of God which He desires to have with us.
Love fulfills all the commandments of God automatically. You may ask how? Apostle Paul explains, "8 Pay everything you owe. But you can never pay back all the love you owe each other. Those who love others have done everything the law requires. 9 Here are some commandments to think about. "Do not commit adultery." "Do not commit murder." "Do not steal." "Do not want what belongs to others." ( Exodus 20:13-15,17; Deuteronomy 5:17-19,21) These and other commandments are all included in one rule. Here's what it is. "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." (Leviticus 19:18). 10 Love does not harm its neighbor. So love does everything the law requires." (Rom 13:8-10, NIrV). When you love your neighbour with the love of God, the moment a wrong thought comes from the evil one against him, immediately you will say "How can I think against my friend whom I love?" and then you will reject this evil thought by bringing it in to subjection to Christ's authority (2 Cor 10:5). When you say "I reject this evil thought in JESUS name" out of your mouth, God will do it in the spiritual realm through His supernatural angelic agents and intervention (Matt 21:21). The very word that you have spoken becomes a prayer of faith to God (Matt 21:22). God will be pleased to intervene to help you live the love-life of God on earth as it is in heaven (Heb 11:6; Mat 6:10). Confession of faith precedes deliverance and victorious Divine love-life (Rom 10:10).
When a religious Jewish Pharisaical Lawyer tested Jesus with question, "36 ...."which is the most important commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind.' (Deuteronomy 6:5) 38 This is the first and most important commandment. 39 And the second is like it. 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' (Leviticus 19:18) 40 Everything that is written in the Law and the Prophets is based on these two commandments." (Matt 22:36-40). This preceding answer of Jesus proves that once we receive the Love of God to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and then love others with the same Divine unconditional love that we have received from God (Rom 5:5), we are automatically fullfilling all the commandments of God that are written through the first five book of Moses and all the prophetical writings of the Old Testament automatically. This is indeed a new commandment carved out of Old Covenant because all the commandments were kept to the point by Old Covenant pharisaical Jews except this one commandment of loving God through loving others. All the law kept without God's Divine love as its source of fullfillment is breaking all of it without anything left (James 2:8-10). As a New Testament Household of Faith member of God's family, if you keep this one royal law of love, you are definitely assured of keeping all the commandments of God without fail. The next time you feel like 'Am I measuring up to God's standard,' just say to yourself, "I measure up to God's perfect standard because God loves me unconditionally with which I love God and other people around me." So easy that you should be happy all the time with God and other people alike!
3) New Commission
Once we are start to live in the love of God, the first thing that God wants us to do as His dear children is to tell to others about His greatness that we are experiencing in our life which He has custom desined for us (Psalm 51:12-14). This is what is called in short as "Saved to Serve" (Eph 2:8-10). Carrying this message of the love of God is the greatest priviledge of a child of God because the child of God starts to partner with God to fulfill His mission to save the world from its rotteness of sin, sickness and death (1 Cor 3:9).
The New Commision is a command for every child of God and not just a option. Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me to reveal His unconditional love for you, I send you to all people to reveal the same love of God to others who have not yet experienced an ounce of it." (John 20:21, Paraphrased). Our love for God will move us to show His unconditional love towards others. To be biased, critical, judgmental, jealous, coveteous is the exact opposite of the compassionate unconditional love of God. Living with such base and mean character of our soulish desires will quench the Spirit's liquid fire of God's love and will deeply grieve the Holy Spirit who is appointed as our coaching instructor after we have become the child of God (1 Thess 5:19-22; Eph 4:30-32; 1 John 2:27; John 16:13).
Once we hear the word "evangelise" which means "declare the Good News [of Jesus Christ]", immediately the first throught that comes to many is how can I preach, teach and do great crusades to glorify God. All of us are not called to preach, teach and do evangelism like the limited five-fold ministers whom God has called to equip the Church (Eph 4:11-12), but all of us are called to be witness by being "conformed to the image of His Son [Jesus Christ]" (Rom 8:29, b). So the real meaning of fulfilling the new commission of Jesus is to live His God-life on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 1:8). Day by day we need to renew our mind with the truth of the love of God in order to be transformed in to His image (Rom 12:2; Eph 4:22-24). This type of being a witness and a testimony for Jesus by expressing the character of Jesus by our daily living to others is called as lifestyle evangelism. This is what it means to be a light of truth and taste of salty grace of God to the dark and tasteless world of deception, lies and meaninglessness of Satan (Matt 5:13-16).
Next type of fulfilling is by sharing the unconditional love of Jesus with all whom we come in to contact in our daily life. Jesus touched the heart of a Samaritan woman when He shared the love of God with her and through her many of the Samaritans of the city believed in the unconditional love of God (John 4:23-26, 39-42). Through Philip the evangelist's heart cry for each individual soul, God was able to share His unconditional love with a Ethiopian eunuch who was under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians. The Holy Spirit made Philip to overtake the chariot of the eunuch and thus get in to conversation with him that brought the divine appontment of God in to fullfilment (Acts 8:26-40). The Eunuch was a changed, tranformed and a joyful man after that one encounter. When we are in tune with the Spirit of God, God will use us to converse with people and share the divine unconditional love of God and then turn them towards God's love that tranforms them for eternity ahead (John 3:16; Rom 8:14). You can never know the kind of impact on others that will take place by sharing the unconditional love of God that comes through Jesus, until you are active in this type of ministry to fulfill the new commission. Only eternity will rightly reveal the unsung heroes of faith that made a mighty eternal impact by sharing the unconditional love of God to their fellow humankind that lived on planet earth. Unless we boldly proclaim the unconditional love of God, how can others come to understand the love of God we experiece. Truly the feet of those who cry out the unconditional love of God through Jesus Chrsit are beautiful in the sight of God because they choose to make a difference in this world of selfishness and lovelessness (Rom 10:14-15). Be bold and Be counted for eternity ahead!!! Why wait, tell it to the next person you meet today. God is truly smiling over you!
4) New Covenant
The word 'Testament' means 'a promise, tangible proof or evidence, statement of belief, will and a covenant between humans and God .'So hence the term New Testament means 'New Covenant'. The Old covenant was the law based on ten commandments given to Moses through angelic sources (John 1:17,a; Gal 3:19; Acts 7:53). The law of the Old Covenant was given to men of Israel to show their sin nature within them that is always in rebellion to God's will so that they can live in a restained way humbly submitting to God's love, mercy and grace to empower them (Gal 3:19; Mic 6:8). The Old Testament law was put in place as a temporary makeshift sign-board to show mankind of his inability to please God by his own efforts and labour so that Christ can fulfill man's righteouness and bring back the friendship with God that our forefather lost in the Garden of Eden by his sheer disodedience to God's clear command to not eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Rom 5:18-19; Heb 7:18-19; Gal 3:24).
The Old Testament very much promised blessings on obedience and curses on disobedience (Deut 28:1-2, 15). For those who wholeheartedly tried to be doers of the law to please God were justified by God for their sincerity (Rom 2:13). Many godly men by keeping the law were humbled to know about their innate unworthiness of their sinful rebellion nature against God and the need for God's righteousness to be justified before God (Luke 1:5-6). Even gentile men like Cornelius walked by the law of conscience and God heard his prayers (Rom 2:14-15; Acts 10:1-2, 4). But keeping the law doesn't go any further than this as far as closer relationship with God is concerned. Even tough these men seen above lived by law, they believed in God with fear and trembling knowing their innate sinfullness, eventually they were justified (Gal 3:11). So what is the defect? The law was not possible to restore the Spirit and the righteousness of God that Adam lost when he first sinned and fell short of the glory of God (Rom 5:12; 3:23; 2 Cor 3:6). Only faith life pleases God, without it nobody [I mean nobody] will be able to please God and grow in frienship with God (Heb 11:6). The law has no faith in it to impart to us (Rom 4:14-15), keeping the law keeps God out of our life as it makes us to depend on it as out tutor and also makes us its slave (Gal 4:1-2; 3:23). Nor it has the life of the Spirit in it to bring the voice of God to our spiritual ears, but faith has the power to bring the voice of God to us through Christ (Gal 3:26; Rom 8:16, 14).
Once we are born again, we receive a new spirit which takes the signal of faith and begins to connect to the voice of God from heaven (John 3:5-8; 6:63). Sin cannot mess with the New Covenant believers to condemn them and stop them from hearing the voice of God. There is no more condemnation for any New Covenant believer as long as he lives even to eternity (Rom 8:1, 9; Eph 1:13-14). One main thing that causes such a condemnation free life for a New Covenant believer lies in the effectiveness of the justification of the beleiver from sin. In the Old Testament the sins of the repentant believer were only covered for a period of time and therefore cannot make their conscience free from condemnation (Heb 9:7, 9-10; 10:1-4; Isa 59:1-2), where as in the New Testament through sacrificing Himself as the one sinless perfect sacrifice for sins forever Jesus has perfected the believers positionally justified for eternity ahead (Heb 10:12, 14). Hear the beautiful promise of God for the New Covenant believer, "15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin." (Heb 10:15-18). The Third Person of the Trinity Himself witnesses and assures to all of us the New Covenant believers that He will write the laws of God in our hearts and minds and will cause us to walk in it and He Himself will deliver us from all our uncleaness as we submit our lives progressively to Him (Ezek 36:2-27, 29). In other words, all our past, present and future sins have been once and for all time has been forgiven and forgotten by God unconditionally based on what Christ acheived for us through His atoning death (Eph 4:32). When we sin and lose the fellowship Presence of God, God has given us an assurance that if we confess it to Him He is faithful and just to forgive all of our unrighteousness and as a result restore the joy and fellowship with Himself back with a cleansed conscience (1 John 1:9, 3; Heb 9:14).
The Bible says “…Jesus has become the surety [guarantee] of a better covenant.” (Heb 7:22). The New Covenant of Jesus is the better covenant than the Old Covenant ratified by Moses (2 Cor 3:2-3, 7-8; Heb 9:19-20). The Greek word ‘diatheke’ is used for the English word ‘covenant’ in the New Testament. This Greek word ‘diatheke’ means ‘one sided covenant’. While one person gives, the other has nothing to give. Here in the New Testament God reached out to man and God in Christ fulfilled all that is needed to fulfill the covenant (2 Cor 5:18-19). Christ gave to us all that He had, while we give to Him nothing but our debt. The new covenant has completely made the first one [i.e. old covenant] as obsolete through the Mediator Jesus who fullfilled the old and reinstated the new by His own blood (Heb 9:15, 12; 8:13).
What more do we need, surely we shall not want a better deal than this from God.
5) New Heart Attitude
The Lord has promised in Ezekiel 36:26-28, "26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God." This New Heart attitude is a blessing that is unique to us who are all the new covenant believers. The old heart of stone is the soulish rebellious heart that is always in opposition to the will and purposes of God (Gal 5:17). God has promised to give the Holy Spirit's instruction, teaching, guidance, judgement, leading and strength for obedience to the new spirit man. We need not strive to keep the law in the new covenant, but just rest in the Lord by faith in the finished work of Christ. As we rest in stillness the Lord's strength will automatically cause us to obey Him supernaturally. Because of a restored new heart attitude, God calls us as His people and Himself as our God.
Apostle Paul has clearly instructed all believers to walk in this new heart attitude of faith in God's power by renewing our mind with the truth that has been fulfilled in us by the substitutionay death of Jesus Christ on our behalf when we first believed in Christ as our Saviour and Lord (Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:3). The truth of Jesus becomes the bread of sustenance for the new spirit man to produce the new heart attitudes of positive God pleasing faith (John 14:6; 6:56-58). It is our responsibility to take the fresh manna of the word of God and the voice of Jesus in to our spirit-man by the quickening supernatural power of the Holy Spirit (John 6:63).
This new heart attitude is a blessing that is already given to us in the heavenly places, we need not ask God to give us now but just take the truth of God's word by faith and renew our mind with it (Eph 1;3). Eventually the new attitude of heart will get activated in to our thinking system with transformation following our good decision od renewing our mind everytime (Rom 12:2).
It is a total unbelief to ask God to renew us when he has already blessed us with all the heavenly blessings to keep us fired up with the new heart attitudes of heaven on earth. It is like switching off the old pattern of soulish cursed thinking and switching on the new blessed pattern of the thinking of the new man which takes in only the knowledge according to the image of Jesus who created the living-spirit man inside us when we believed Him for our salvation (Col 3:8-10; 1 Cor 15:45, 47).
6) New Better Promises
The Old Testament has promise of blessings for the obedient persons only, otherwise there is only curse that will come upon them for their wayward life (Gal 3:10). But the New Covenant has no more curses for the believer because "13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"*), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." (Gal 3:13-14). The greatest gift a man can receive in this planet earth from God is His sweet Spirit because all the promises of God that is given to us as spiritual blessings in the heavenly places is received only through the executive ministry of the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:4; Luke 11:9-13). C.H. Spurgeon beautifully describes about the ministry of the Holy Spirit saying, "The efficient cause of our love is the Holy Spirit of God. We would never have had a spark of love for Jesus if it had not been bestowed on us by the divine worker." Abraham was blessed even before the law and 10 commandments ever came in to existence because of his faith in God's promise. He received the Spirit in great measure which even many in the New Covenant times have not received in such measure. So he has become a pattern and a source of all those of us who believe God's promise in this earthly life.
Abraham's was blessed in all these following five areas of his life. He was blessed spiritually with God's Spirit who then caused His soul to prosper and also quickened his and Sarah's body in his old age to produce a physical heir to inherit his blessings (Heb 11:11-12). Then this blessing manifested in the social and financial realm of his existence that even his servant confessed it saying, "35 The Lord has blessed my master greatly, and he has become great; and He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys. 36 And Sarah my master's wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and to him he has given all that he has." (Gen 24:35-36). Some people by unbelief make God's New Covenant as inferior to the Old Covenant by saying such statements such as, "The Old Testament promised physical blessings to the nation of Israel, but the New Testament promises only spiritual blessings." One should understand that the spiritual blessings that we receive infinitely in the heavenly places is in a higher realm than just the physical and soulish blessings because all spiritual blessings will eventually come to affect all the other four realms [i.e. Soulish, Physical, Financial and Social] of man's existence. This is the reason Apostle John who started to bless His apostolic disciples in the spiritual realm, then went on to bless them in the soulish realm and then bless them in all the other realms in their life by saying (1 John 1:2, Paraphrased), "Beloved, just as your soul prospers, I pray that you be in health and may you prosper in all things." Any spiritual blessing that does not manifest itself in all other realms of existence is not a real one from God, it is just a so called spiritual hype. A person may end up being poor or in a particular lethargic state because of neglecting to claim all the promise of God because of the fear of falling away, which is again unbelief (Prov 30:7-9; Luke 16:19-21; Ps 37:25). Because our spiritual life is a supernatural miracle that was started by God and He has promised to finish it until the end of our earthly life by His supernatural power, we need to claim God's promise in our everyday existence of this life in order to become blessed in all areas of our existence (Phil 1:6, 2:12-13; 1 Thess 5:23-24; Jude 1:24-25).
Some people of God easily forget because of their unbelief that we are now the true spiritual sons of Abraham because of walking in the steps of faith by depending on the promises of God (Gal 3:7; Rom 4:12). Apostle Paul expounds God's promise to Abraham in a revelatory way by saying, "8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." (Gal 3:8-9). This clearly portrays that we are not just blessed like Abraham when we believe in Jesus who is the promised Messiah, but we are blessed "with believing Abraham". If we are just blessed like Abraham, we have to live exactly in the way Abraham lived in great faith inspite of trials after trials in his life, to finally receive the blessings of God at the end of our life. In Galatians 3: 9, “with” is a key word. It is used when the Greeks wanted to say that “two or more persons share a common experience.” In other words, being a son of Abraham because of the faith seed inside us we have been priviledged to share the inheritance of the blessed life of Abraham who has become the "the father of us all" (Rom 4:16). In other words, without living life in the same sacrificial way we have been priviledged to receive His inheritance because of our faith in Jesus Christ who is the promised Seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16). O praise the Lord! In the new covenant we choose to sacrifice our life as a living sacrifice to God out of our gratefullness for all that He has already done through Jesus Christ freely (Rom 12:1;1 Peter 4:1-2; 2:1-3).
To live in the same blessedness of Abraham all we need to do is to believe that, "...all the promises of God [from Genesis to Revelation] in Him are Yes, and in Him [i.e. Jesus Christ] Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Cor 1:20). This is why I love sing this following great song often,
Every promise in the Book in mine
Every chapter every verse, every line;
All the blessings of His love divine,
Every promise in the Book in mine
When all the promises of God belong to you without any precondition on God's side, definitely this is the reason the new covenant is called as "better covenant, which was established on better promises." (Heb 8:6). Saints believe all the promises of God as yours and in the process of time all of it will be yours!!!
7) New and Living Way
Reaching God's throne room and His awesome presence doesn't require great efforts as in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament times the high priests were really afraid to enter the Holy of Holies which is the innermost sacred part of the temple where God resided (Exod 25:8, 17, 21-22). The priests entered this place only once a year and that too with great fear, because if God finds any sinful behaviour in their heart they could be immediately stricken dead (Lev 16:1; Heb 9:7; 5:3). The robe of the High Priest was to have bells on its hem so they made noise when he moved (Exod 28:31-35). If the other priests heard no sound of bells, it meant the High Priest was dead. There are even extra Biblical purely speculative legend which says that the high priest have a rope tied to his leg before he went behind the curtain into the Most Holy Place so he could be pulled out if he should die. But in the New Testament, because the sin problem has once for all has been removed from us (Heb 10:12, 14) and that before the eyes of God we have been made as righteous as He is through the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God on behalf of us (2 Cor 5:21), the writer to the Hebrews says, "19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." (Heb 10:19-25).
In the new covenant, the moment we call the name of JESUS with heart felt thanksgiving and praise which is the fruit of our lips (Heb 13:15), immediately we pass through the gates of the heavenly temple in to the Holy Place and then in to the Holy of Holies where the throne of God is and where the awesome presence of God resides spiritually in its fullness (Heb 8:1-2). The devil who is the accuser of the brethren has already been judged and thrown out of heaven (Rev 12:7-12; John 12:31). Some people wrongly believe that Satan is still able to accuse the believer before the throne of God. They base this wrong belief based on what has been revelaed by God about Satan in the first and second chapter of the Book of Job (Job 1:6, 2:2). Satan was able to appear before the Presence of the Lord after being thrown out of heaven due to rebellion initially during the creation of this earth (Isa 14:12; Gen 1:1), was because Adam again gave him the authority of God over the earth which gave him access to the throne of God again (Luke 4:6; Rom 5:12; Eph 2:6). On behalf of Adam Satan began to represend humanity before God (Job 1:6-12). But thank God for Jesus, the moment he stepped in to the earth, His only goal in life was to destroy the works of the devil totally and cut His access to the throne of God (1 John 3:8). Indeed He fulfilled this when he represented all the humans on earth before God on the cross as their Mediator and died for their sins and took the authority over the earth again from Satan and have started to represent humans before God (1 Tim 2:5-6; John 12:31-32). The moment Jesus' sacrifice of Himself on behalf of the humans was accepted by the Father, as a evidence of it Jesus got resurrected from the dead on the third day (1 Cor 15:15, 17; Rom 5:14-16; Gal 1:1; Acts 13:30-33). The Heavenly authority of God that the first Adam lost (Ps 115:16), the Last Adam Jesus Christ gained and therefore Satan and His demonic cohorts have no place in heaven again to accuse us the saints before God (1 Cor 15:45-49). This is clearly desribed by Apostle John in the Book of Revelation Chapter 12 where he gives the background of what happened in the spiritual realm of heaven right after the ressurection of Jesus had taken place and then Jesus was immediately glorified as the Highest Authority of universe when He was seated in God's right hand and was given a name higher than all other name in heaven, on earth and things under the earth (Matt 26:64; Phil 2:9-11; Eph 1:19-23; 2:5-7). The moment Jesus took authrotiy over the entire universe legally before God, war broke out in heaven in which Satan has been thrown out of it toward the lowest heaven, and has been disabled to never again be able to accuse any saints before God once and forever (Rev 12:7-10). If Satan and his demonic cohorts knew that they will be defeated once they crucify the prince of life, they would have surely not done it. For they have dug their own grave for eternal judgment and destruction ahead (1 Cor 2:6-8). Now Satan cannot accuse us before God anymore and so he will try his best to get us self-condemned by constantly accusing us of our sins, besetting weaknesses or even our past life which is under th blood and our conscience cleansed. It is up to us to overcome his accusation within us by the blood of the Lamb [i.e. by the confession of our present sins to God and getting cleansed to have unbroken and joyful communion with God through His presence (1 John 1:9, 7, 3)] and by the confession of our testimony towards Satan and His cohorts through the words of our mouth [i.e. by speaking to Satan the word of God and cancelling his lies through the word (Luke 4:3-4, 6-8, 9-12; Rom 10:10; Matt 21:21; Rev 12:11-12)]. During the ministry time of Jesus on earth the woman [i.e. the believing saints] fled in to wilderness of God's love and was protected supernaturally by His anointing from the rage of Satan and his demonic minions (Hosea 2:14; Luke 5:33-35; 10:17-20; Rev 12:5-6), and for the other half of wilderness time of the end after the abomination of desolation takes place (Matt 24:15), Satan will have a final three and half years of authority on earth in which the Church will be raptured and kept in the wilderness of the love of God in the heavelies away from the presence of Satan (Rev 12:13-16; 13:4-5; Isaiah 26:19-20). Satan will try to kill all the rest of the saints who will be left behind during the rapture of the Church because of their lukewarmness, and will try to kill them and many will die at this time for their faith (Luke 21:36; Rev 3:10, 16; 12:17; 13:7-10; Dan 11:32-36).
God has assured us that there is now no more condemnation for a saint before God forever because Satan's accusation has been thrown out by Jesus defeating them at the Cross (Col 2:13-16) and instead Jesus is interceding for the saints to receive abundant mercy and grace in times of their besetting sins and weakness times (Rom 8:1, 34; Heb 7:25; 4:14-16; 10:19-25). O Praise the Lord! Do not believe th age old liars accusation and be miserable the rest of your life in bondage to his fear, but arise and be bold to enter the very Presence of God and the Holiest place of God's Throne in heaven by the blood of Jesus spiritually to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Once you do it and are blessed tangibly on earth by all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3), you are indeed living in the new and living way which Jesus consecrated for us, through the veil of His flesh by the death of the Cross. Once you learn this newness of living life, you will be truly one of the most blessed man and woman of God on earth in these end times. Praise the Lord!!
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