Praise the Lord, His promise is to be with us until the consummation of the age! This age is the age of mystery, and the Lord is with us in a mysterious, hidden, invisible way, until the consummation of this age! Hallelujah!
This week in our morning enjoyment we come to a new Holy Word for Morning Revival, this time on the topic of, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO, given online, during the COVID19 pandemic).
In the Lord’s speaking to the church in Philadelphia, the recovered church, He wants to bring them into a sensation of His coming, because she loves Him.
His promise is that He comes quickly, and He wants the recovered church to have the sensation of His coming, living a life at the consummation of the age with the inward realization, the strong inner feeling, of the Lord’s return.
When the Lord says, I come quickly, He actually means that He is returning very shortly, and He wants us, His believers and the overcomers to be, to live in the sensation of His return. When John heard the Lord saying, I come quickly, he responded with, Amen, come Lord Jesus!
By the Lord’s sovereign mercy, faithfulness, and forbearance with us all in His recovery, we in the church life can say that, to a real extent, we are in the recovered church – we are on the proper ground, we love the Lord, we have no clergy-laity system, we love the Lord’s word, and we love the brothers, having no other aim but the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
There is a need now that there would be an inward sensation develop, a sensation of the Lord’s coming.
This is not just a superficial feeling, something that stirs you up when you hear about it in a meeting or you read it in a book, and then a few days later there’s virtually no more such consciousness. Rather, there has to be an inner corporate realization, a sensation that the Lord is coming.
As Rev. 3:10 says, Because you have kept the word of My endurance, I will also keep you out of the hour of trial, which is about to come on the whole inhabited earth; we want to be kept from this hour of trial!
The Lord didn’t say He plucked them out of the hour of trial but rather, He keeps us out of it.
The hour of trial will come over the whole earth, but the recovered church doesn’t need to pass through this hour; rather, she is matured, transformed, gained, and becomes part of the firstfruits, being raptured before this time.
The Lord speaks directly to the recovered church concerning His coming and concerning the hour of trial, the great tribulation; He clearly makes know to the recovered church these things so that she would live with a sensation of the Lord’s return.
May we be the normal Christians today living a normal church life with the sensation of the Lord’s coming; may there be a sensation developing in us that our being longs for the Lord to return, for the age to change, for the human government to be eliminated, and for the kingdom of God to be manifested on the earth!
May we beseech the Lord that we may be raptured before the hour of trial comes, before this time of great tribulation takes place (Luke 21:36)!
The Lord Jesus is with us until the Consummation of the Age, until the End of the Age
This present age has three particular designations according to the New Testament: the age of grace, the age of the church, and the age of mystery.
The age we live in today, the New Testament age, is the age of grace; grace is based on the Lord’s mercy, and today everyone who is thirsty and hungry can come to drink and eat, for the Lord’s heart is save us by grace, give us grace, and supply us by grace (Rev. 22:17).
This age is also the age of the church; in this age, the Lord’s prophecy is being fulfilled – He said that He will build His church (Matt. 16:18), and we live in the fulfillment of this prophecy.
This age is also an age of mystery, and all the matters precious to God are a mystery.
We do not see our Lord Jesus, yet we love Him and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And the Lord Jesus promised, right before He was ascended to the heavens, that He will be with us all the days until the consummation of the age (Matt. 28:20).
Some translations say, “until the end of the age”; the end of the age refers to the consummation of the age, implying that there’s a process that will be brought to completion or fulfillment (Matt. 24:3).
We are in a process today, the process of the Lord building His church, the process of being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ, the process of being made the same as Christ in life and nature; this is an inward process.
Outwardly, the whole world is going through a process, and things and events take place in world history that will eventually lead to the consummation of the age.
The consummation of the age and the end of the age refer to the same thing; the consummation of the age indicates the end of the church age, which is the age of grace (John 1:14, 16-17; Rev. 22:10).
The consummation of the age is prophesied in Dan. 9 as the second half of the seventieth week; he spoke of seventy weeks of years, and the sixty-ninth week was completed by the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Now there is a gap between week sixty-nine and week seventy, and only God knows how long this gap will be; it has now been approaching two thousand years, and we believe this age will end in our lifetime.
What will inaugurate the seventieth week is when the nation of Israel enters into a covenant with a powerful European leader; this is prophesied in the Old Testament.
And then, this covenant will open the way for the temple to be rebuilt (we believe this will take place on the Temple Mount), and in the first three and a half years everything will be OK – peace and prosperity.
Then, this powerful European leader will be assassinated, resuscitated, and possessed by the spirit of Antichrist; he will break the covenant with Israel, he will sit in the temple and demand to be worshipped. And then the end of the age comes, which refers to the last three and a half years of this age.
Before these last 3.5 years, however, the manchild, the deceased overcomers, and the firstfruits, the living overcomers, will be raptured to the throne of God.
The Lord’s parousia begins, and His presence will first be hidden in a cloud, then at the end of these three and a half years, the Lord will come on a cloud, there will be the battle at Armageddon, the human government will be removed, and the kingdom will be manifested on the earth.
The consummation of the age refers to the last three and a half years of this age, and the Lord is with us until then.
It is much easier for the Lord to bring about a great geopolitical change in the world situation – just look at this last year with the pandemic, what is happening in the USA with the elections, etc.
Our focus is not on outward things and events but on the consummation of God’s economy in our Christian life and church life by living in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, especially by living in the reality of the Body of Christ, so that the new man would grow and be manifested and the bride would be prepared! Amen!
Thank You Lord Jesus for Your promise to be with us until the consummation of the age! Hallelujah, the Lord is with us and in us, and He desires to produce us as His overcomers, those who escape the hour of trial and are raptured to be the firstfruits for God’s satisfaction! Amen, Lord, we give ourselves to You today not merely to observe the outward signs of Your return but even more, to cooperate on the consummation of God’s economy in our Christian life and church life by living in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to live in the reality of the Body of Christ for the growth and manifestation of the new man, which will be the preparatio of the bride of Christ! Amen, Lord, instill in us a sensation of Your return so that we may live with the Lord’s coming in view and be saved from the hour of trial at the consummation of the age!
The Present Age – the age of Grace and of the Church – in the Age of Mystery; Everything is a Mystery in this Present Age
We need to realize that the present age – which is also the age of grace and the age of the church – is the age of mystery (Eph. 5:32).
In Rev. 10:7 it says that “the mystery of God is finished”; to finish the mystery of God is to close the age of mystery (Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:3, 5; 5:32).
In the dispensations from Adam to Moses and from Moses to Christ, everything was unveiled, and there was no mystery; God had a people on earth, He was manifested among His people, He spoke openly through certain ones in His people, and He had His glory among His people Israel.
When God gave the law, He wrote it on tablets of stone, He gave the offerings, and there was the priesthood; God’s glory was manifested, and all knew that He is God.
This will be the same in the dispensation of the millennial kingdom and in the new heaven and the new earth; in the coming dispensation, everything will be unveiled and there will be no more mystery.
In the dispensation from the incarnation of Christ to the millennial kingdom – which is the age of the church, the age of grace, the age we live in right now – everything is a mystery (1 Tim. 3:9).
Christ’s incarnation was a mystery (1 Tim. 3:16); God was incarnated in the flesh and lived a perfect human life on earth – what a mystery! Christ Himself (Col. 2:2), the church (Eph. 3:4-6), the kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 13:11), the gospel (Eph. 6:19), the indwelling of Christ (Col. 1:26-27), and the coming resurrection and transfiguration of the saints as the ending of this dispensation of mystery (1 Cor. 15:51-52) are all mysteries which were hidden in the times of the ages (Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:5; Col. 1:26).
Consider your own Christian life: don’t you think that you being a Christian is a mystery?
It is such a mystery that the Lord has led us to repentance, we gave ourselves to Him, we consecrated to Him without reservation, and we are in the church life today; we never intended to do this, we didn’t seek Him with our whole heart, and we are not better or more special than others – it is just a mystery.
God directs our steps, He causes all things to work together for good, and He leads us in this way or in that way; our steps are arranged by the Lord – how can a man understand his own way?
Our whole life is a mystery; we are immersed in mystery, others see us and watch us and are surprised to see how mysterious we are, for we live not just by our human life but by the divine life.
When we buy something and the cashier gives us more change back than he should, we return it back to him because the inner, mysterious, hidden, divine life in us doesn’t allow us to keep it; this is such a mystery.
We do not answer back to others according to their evil way of dealing with us, and we don’t keep a grudge against those who persecute us – all because of the inner, divine life that is in us.
Our regeneration is a mystery; our being forgiven by the Lord through repentance and confession of our sins is a mystery.
Our growth in the divine life is a mystery; being built up as the church is a mystery; we ourselves are a mystery.
We live in the age of mystery, and even though we don’t understand or fully comprehend this, we are mysterious people enjoying and experiencing a mysterious God in Christ as the Spirit, and we build up the mysterious church as the mystery of Christ, who Himself is the mystery of God. Hallelujah!
These are all mysteries, but by the exercise of our spirit we enter into the reality of all these mysteries, and in spirit, we are clear concerning all these things.
Lord Jesus, we love You. Thank You for coming to be the mystery of God, the incarnation of God, to manifest God in man. Thank You for passing through human living, death, resurrection, and ascension, so that You may become the mysterious life-giving Spirit to impart the mysterious divine life into our spirit. Hallelujah, as believers in Christ we are a mystery, and everything of our relationship with God and experience of Him is a mystery. Amen, Lord, may we realize that we live in the age of mystery, and may we exercise our spirit to enjoy, apprehend, and enter into the great mystery, Christ and the church. Thank You Lord for arranging our steps, leading us, and doing many things in us and for us and around us in a mysterious way for the fulfillment of Your mysterious economy to obtain Your mysterious corporate expression in this universe!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Revelation, msgs. 24, 26, 30 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO), week 1, The Consummation of the Age – the Age of Mystery.
- Hymns on this topic:
– That which for long the prophets sought, / The righteous yearned to see, / Has in these last of days appeared / In its reality. / And we’re now in the final stages, / ’Tis the completion of all the ages. / All those who believed the promise / Are perfected now in us. (Hymns #1319)
– Praise God, in this age we’re living, / Age of God’s recovery. / We are in the local churches, / Where the Bride prepared may be. / ’Tis a glorious age, the age of the ages, / Now, in this age, Christ will come! / So prepare ye now the church for the marriage, / Christ and the church will be one! (Hymns #1320)
– Christ is the mystery of God; / God is invisible, unshown, / His image man hath never seen, / But Christ the Son hath made Him known… / The Church the myst’ry is of Christ, / For He is now to man unshown; / No man on earth may see Him now, / But thru the Church He is made known. (Hymns #818)
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