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[ Part 5 ] [ Part 6 ] [ Part 7 ] [ Part 8 ]

[ Conclusion ]

Road to Jerusalem: Glorious Promises & Fatal Predictions

 

Mt. 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” …21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”… 28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom (Mk. 9:1 after it has come in power. 2 Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them).”

Lk. 9:43…But while everyone was marveling at all that He was doing, He said to His disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” 45 But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement. 46 An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest….

Mk. 9:32 They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, 33 saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. 34 They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.”(Lk. 18:34 But the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.) 35 James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” 36 And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” 37 They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.”…

 

These lengthy excerpts taken from the closing days of Jesus’ original visitation bring to critical mass the conflicting swirl of competing spiritual and carnal kingdom energies, purposes and beliefs driving the dynamic between Jesus and His followers. Each element reveals a piece of the kingdom contortion, giving us prophetic keys to understanding our same contortion inside Christ’s modern end time visitation. For, like our original apostolic fathers, we too now confusedly follow His Presence on what is in fact a final age-ending “trip to Jerusalem.”

Everyone today with spirit awareness of these end times knows that the world stage is set for an epoch-ending culmination in Jerusalem. This is especially true for those of us who have most welcomed Christ’s manifest Presence into our lives and assemblies. But as before among the first disciples, what is believed among us now about the coming culmination is “light years” apart from what Jesus Himself has said will in fact happen to the church once we reach “Jerusalem.”

In Part 4 and Part 5 we brought forward the understanding of the competitory kingdom motives found in both the outer masses and Christ’s inner discipleship, climaxing in the Triumphal Entry and the antichrist betrayal by Judas. We saw 1) how and why the crowds falsely adored and expected carnal satisfaction from Christ’s kingship; 2) how the antichrist spirit carried that lust forward to infect and manifest from within the power-wielding discipleship; and 3) why the carnally hampered but preserved disciples were blind to perceiving antichrist for who he was among them.

In this part, we drill down to look more closely at the spiritual vs. carnal intertwine over what the disciples were given to experience about the kingdom, what they were thinking as a result en route to Jerusalem and what Jesus actually told them would happen when they reached their destination—all crucial to our understanding what is happening in these closing generations of Christ’s modern world visitation.

Let’s take this apart then, making application to today’s kingdom experiences and beliefs as we likewise head for our rendezvous with “Jerusalem” under the Presence.



- Promises and Glimpses of Kingdom Glory

The first thing to see about Jesus’ original last trek to Jerusalem is that, despite their spiritually uncircumcised carnality, the disciples were still given real kingdom promises and glorified experiences. At the very beginning of the above excerpts, Jesus gives Peter the revelatory promise that he will be a foundation builder of the kingdom. (Note: Revelation 21:14 shows us that Peter was just one of those foundation stones among twelve. He was not the only “rock” on whom the kingdom would be built.) Jesus was essentially revealing to Peter his apostleship to come.   

Shortly after this, Jesus also gave three of His disciples, including Peter, not just a promise, but an actual experiential taste of glory associated with the coming kingdom. (Most readers are familiar with the mount of transfiguration story, and you can go back to read its details.)

Now, why Jesus took only three of his disciples up into that mountaintop experience is not told. He could have taken all of them there, including Judas. But He didn’t. The more important issue is that Jesus was willing to give any of these budding apostles such promises and experiences in view of their abiding blindness by carnal thinking and ambition.   

Observe therefore what happens resulting from these two encounters:

Immediately after Jesus promises Peter his kingdom apostleship, Peter becomes a mouthpiece for the antichrist spirit. When Jesus starts talking about what is really going to happen when they get to Jerusalem, Peter, on the strength of his fresh kingdom promise, rebukes Jesus! His carnal ambition takes over—as we already studied in Part 5.

But then, even in spite of this antichrist utterance, Peter a week later is yet trusted with access to an even greater kingdom glory experience on the mount of transfiguration. (Would you let Peter up that mountain after what he just did with his first kingdom promise? Would you risk stoking more of antichrist in him? Yet Jesus took that risk.)

Then what happens after the mount of transfiguration experience? As soon as Jesus and the three come back down, Jesus once more talks about what is really going to happen at Jerusalem. But the twelve, including the three fresh off the mountaintop, just blow right by this, to again start debating their positioning in the kingdom.

Here is the point: as the visitation was moving toward climax, Jesus was giving out genuine promises and experiences of kingdom glory to followers who were nevertheless incapable of rightly understanding or stewarding them. That the disciples were incapable of properly stewarding kingdom promise and experience did not stop Jesus from giving these to them. But conversely, that Jesus gave these to them did not mean the disciples understood the truth behind the promise and experience, or that they yet met the qualifications for their fulfilment.



- Kingdom Promises and Glory in the Modern Visitation

Now fast forward to today’s visitation of the Lord. Grasp the truth of what is happening “under the glory” regarding modern prophetic promises of apostleships and “now” testimonies of kingdom glory. The exact same dynamic is in play, and the wise will understand. Jesus is once again issuing revelations to many “Peters” about their places as kingdom foundation layers. His Presence is also taking some “Peters, Jameses and Johns” up into some exalted places of spiritual kingdom encounter. These are not all antichrist “Judases.”

The lesson falls upon us: Wilderness observers must refrain from labeling everything identified as “New Apostolic Reformation” as completely of antichrist. Christ’s Spirit is still baptizing carnal men with heavenly revelations under the Presence. We must therefore refrain from “dissing” everyone who claims to have been given a kingdom rock-laying mandate as a “false apostle.” A claim is not the measure of its validity or falsity.

What should the wise truly understand? We should understand that the greater number of those proclaiming a kingdom-building mantle or “glory” encounter, whether Peter of old, or a “Peter” (such as Wagner) of modern times, simply don’t understand the real truth behind what they may have been given or encountered. They have just come away with their own carnal interpretations of it.

It’s not that the encounters are necessarily false. It’s that the encounters have baptized men who still have filters of uncrucified identity and expectations over their minds. This applies to many culture prophets and culture-conversion teachers. Some of these are antichrists now and some will so become. But not all. Everyone is still being proven (“sifted”) under the Presence—everyone who receives a power encounter, and everyone who doesn’t, who can only observe those who do.

Remember the contrast between Peter and Judas in Part 5. Remember that all the disciples going to Jerusalem were carnal. They all had their own ideas under “the glory”—the lost one and the preserved ones alike. Judas became antichrist. Peter almost did but was kept back by grace. All the disciples argued about their imagined imminent “kingdom now” position. Yet their glory promises and experiences were true and real from the hand of the Visiting One.

It is the same now. The Peters and Judases can be hard to tell apart on today’s final approach on the Jerusalem road. Yes, many more antichrists exist now in proportion to the immature true ones. But not all the carnally-blinded are Judases. But again, neither are the carnal ones walking in the truth of what Jesus has said is really coming—to His church, to Israel, to America, to the rest of the world, as we turn now to witness.



- Predictions of Crucifixion and Death  

In the Lord’s inscrutable Mind, two concepts which to man are mutually exclusive are mutually inseparable. They are glory and death. To God, that which is truly glorious comes only by way of death. This is why, on this final Jerusalem trek, we see this strange prophetic intermix of kingdom promises and glory experiences together with predictions of death—all on a trip that will end in death before anything looking like glory ever comes of it.

Here, we now focus on Jesus’ utterances regarding His impending death. Three separate times, Jesus tells the disciples about His nearing death. He seeks to check their false expectations attached to His promises, especially over what will happen on arrival to Jerusalem. The promises and glory briefly opened to them en route come with a serious caveat. But it is a caveat that, from the vantage of uncrucified identity, they cannot grasp nor thus find room to contemplate.

We already saw in Part 5 what happened with the response to the first prediction of death. That prediction spurred Peter’s stumble into antichrist expression. This is extremely important. The word of the cross exposes the latent antichrist gene in the carnal heart. Before antichrist ever consummates in public denial of the Lord, it first denies the way of death predicted by the Lord.

May we say that one more time?

Before antichrist ever consummates in public denial of the Lord, it first denies the way of death predicted by the Lord.

And let’s remember—though Peter alone rebuked the Lord over His prediction, all the disciples felt the same way about it, including Judas. They all held that seed for potential public betrayal by first denying the way of the cross.

To reinforce therefore His contradiction of Peter’s antichrist outburst for everyone’s understanding, Jesus follows up with His famous discipleship exhortation:

Mt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.

Again we see the glory-death intertwine. “Yes, My kingdom glory is coming,” says He. “But it is only coming through the path of death. And it has nothing to do with ‘gaining the whole world’—which is what all of you still think.” (Jesus here builds on His own earlier refusal of “the whole world” on the mount of temptation. He teaches what He has already practiced!)

That’s the end of the first discussion of death, from which Jesus immediately proceeds to another prediction of glory experience a week later. Again, see the glory and death intertwine in the divine purpose. First was a kingdom promise, then a death exhortation, then another even greater kingdom experience.

Then what happens? Immediately on coming down from the mountaintop glory, Jesus predicts His death the second time. He puts another check and a caveat on that experience. But what happens? It says the disciples “did not understand” the statement. It says it was “concealed from them so they wouldn’t perceive it.” And it says “they were afraid to ask Him” further about it.

What’s going on here? Why didn’t they understand? How was it concealed and by whom? And why were they afraid to ask further about it?

The answer is clear. The disciples did not understand because they did not want to understand it. They were afraid to understand it because it contradicted everything they were believing out of what they had been promised and had been experiencing in this visitation. Therefore it was concealed from them—not by God, but by their own hearts. They hid it from themselves so they wouldn’t (have to) perceive it.

How do we know this is all true? We know because of the immediate next statement: “An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest….”

They didn’t get it—because they were afraid to get it, because they didn’t want to get it—because as with the first episode, it contradicted everything their natural ears were promised about being kingdom foundation builders, and now it contradicted everything they came away naturally believing out of the glory encounter on the mount of transfiguration. (For more on the inner crisis that ensues out of hearing God’s promises through natural ears, please see the major treatise on God’s Promises to the Hidden Man.) 

Finally, one last time, as they are approaching the city, just before the “triumphal entry” is about to break out, Jesus again tells the twelve about His impending death and what is really going to happen to Him, and by extension to them—something that no kingdom promise, no mountaintop experience and no ensuing triumphal entry is going to change. 

And what is the same predictable response? It says the disciples “understood none of these things.” The meaning was again “hidden from them,” and they did not “comprehend” it. (Can anyone say “thunder”?) Instead, it says James and John—the same two of the three off the mount of transfiguration—want to know if they can have exalted positions by the Lord’s side in His kingdom…

Are we ready for the modern day parallel?

 

(To be continued…)


Part 8




Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

10/19



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