The testimony here is not what we can give for God but what He gives to us. This testimony is necessary to open to us a visiom that speaks to 20 centuries of generations of the Church. The “testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy” according to Revelation 19:10. The prophecy is not about prophetic words, nor projects, nor finances, nor peace. The testimony is about Jesus Himself.

Never before is it more necessary to have that clear testimony of Jesus than today

The effective witness for God is dependent in our witness of Him. Its demonstrated in chapter 1 of Revelation. For John to access the heavenly dimension in Chapter 4 John must undergo an encounter of a vision of the Glorified and Exalted Christ. He had already lived and heard Jesus physically over 3 years. Now Jesus must come and bring him face to face with a different Jesus, who having completed His Earthly Mission must now show John concerning His Heavenly mission.

The writer to the Hebrews says “He ever lives to make intercession for the saints “. Tells us as does Acts 3:19-21 that Jesus supervises every act of the Holy Spirit in the Church. For Christ to show a persecuted Church its call to a heavenly hope and a determination to carry through their devotion to His Eternal Mission they needed to have someone who could experience His Greatness and His Supremacy over all. John’s reaction to all this is to see his life energy seep out of him. Such was the power of this encounter. We can emphatically say that the key for our turbulent has to be a encounter with the Exalted Christ, Judge of all the earth. We have had the Saviour preached at the exclusion of the Exalted One, and we have seen evil erode our faith through deceivers, false teachers and now a governmental invasion on our expression of faith in the name of a so called pandemic. The pandemic has become a trojan horse by which Churches are threatened and conditioned in their expressions of worship and the Word!

The Exalted Lord manifests to the 7 Churches of Revelation in which needed and had specific attention from Jesus. They were confronted, exhorted, inspired and comforted. Many fell short, one Church had its Lampstand taken away, another Church who tolerated Jezebel and her false seed stricken with death and disease! The fact is Jesus, God the Father are zealous for His Church, and her play at faith will not be tolerated. In each Church Jesus manifests an aspect, corresponding to the type of aspects of His character to them and the discipline He metes out. He needs to transform His People into His witnesses.

The Witness God gives us is the substance of Christ Himself

The Pentecostal movement in the Churches focused on the reception of the Holy Spirit but did not preach on the need to become and transition into becoming a witness. What a witness sees, knows, interacts with determines the transition into the witness. The witness is the “root” of where our vocation, our provision, our gifts, our protection comes from. The more we “see” the more we transition. John had a painful preparation, he was boiled in oil, then because he would not die, was banished to the island of Patmos.

Imagine a man whose skin had been singed with the boiling oil, the pain. The trauma of that experience. We preach Acts 1:8 with fervour, missing the very purpose of the Coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church! We see that the purpose is to transform us into the “witness” for Jesus because we have “seen” His Greatness and Power. What we “see” we become. So if that is the case then it must by implication mean that the necessity to “see” the True Exalted Lord is imperative for our Day. In becoming the witness we begin to manifest the Greatness and Power of the Exalted Lord.

“I was in the Spirit on the Day of the Lord”

The witness causes us to be in the Spirit and ready for the Day of the Lord. We erroneously preach the Day of the Lord being the end. They are days where eternity manifests in time. It is a Day where a great manifestation of Kingdom is seen by all. For us to apprehend it, call for it, move with it we must first be in the Spirit! So what does that mean? It means not aligning and tolerating unrighteousness. It means ascertaining your Vocation and walking in it. I believe that there is a way, a life of obedience where we enter into that same dimension as John where “we are in the Spirit“. 2020 is a “Day of the Lord” moment just as 11th September 2001 was. Its a demarcation in the affairs of men.

“COME UP HITHER”

John is invited into the heavenly realms having had the Revelation of Jesus. That is probably a requirement. That for us to ascertain how heaven is moving to manifest Kingdom on the earth our Revelation of Jesus must be certain and true. There is an invitation for us to go up through the realms until we reach the Throne. We as witnesses are called to see that all purposes on the earth are flowed out from the Throne! The superiority of Jesus is demonstrated in heaven in chapter 5. In Chapter 4 there is a personal cost to this walk in the heavenly to John. In Chspter 5 we see the Lamb become also a Lion. These are the two aspects of Jesus we must reconcile as a Church. Being that the Lamb represents the earthly salvation mission, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah being the Kingly Judge who brings the eternal mission into manifestation.

In conclusion for us to understand the times we are living we must know Him and see Him, in doing so we transition to become His witness so that in doing so we walk in heavenly vision for our times. We are on the threshold of persecution and the full manifestation of the demonic. Without us becoming true witnesses we will simply fall away. We will not represent Him. We will not transmit hope. This hope that is our connection to Christ and eternity!

Shalom!

Russell Durose

russell.durose@thespiritandthebridesaycome.com

Paypal: russelldurose@yahoo.com