Moving from Babylon to New Jerusalem

 

By Ron McGatlin

Most of you reading this are probably aware that you, along with the rest of us, are at some stage of a spiritual journey from where we have been to somewhere that we are going that we have not before been. Abraham was called to depart his home land in search of a city whose builder and maker was God. Since then followers of God have been moving toward the spiritual reality of the City of God.

The journey actually is our becoming the holy pure city of God. It is our becoming one with and abiding with Spirit God in perfect union and relationship as a beautiful pure and holy Bride adorned with the love gifts of God. It is God with man abiding in His holy light where there is no more darkness and nothing that defiles. This is the city of God the New Jerusalem pattern of life as the spiritual wife of Spirit God abiding in His glory and provision.

Rev 21:9-11:Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God.

Rev 21:2-4: Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Heb 12:22-24: But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

Whether we realize it or not, we as a worldwide population living independently apart from God, having been born in the linage of Adam, are coming from the life of a spiritual harlot who has sold her purity to meet her own needs and desires. All of us, as a world population, are either still stuck in the life of making our own way apart from God, having not yet even met our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, or we are at some point on our journey to becoming the fully purified holy Bride without spot or blemish. We are traveling from being the old mystery Babylon toward becoming the glorious New Jerusalem.

This is a journey that no natural human being can make.Only God has what it takes to transform us from Babylonian harlotry to the purified holy Bride, New Jerusalem. God had to become a human being born of a virgin, live a perfect sinless life, and give that life at the cross to break the curse and provide the way for all mankind to be restored as the pure and holy mate of God, to be returned to the image and likeness of God fully alive in God and God in us.

Christ in you and you in Him is the only hope for the glory of God to transform us into His pure and holy counterpart on earth. It is Christ in us that empowers us to make the journey to total freedom from all the residue of Babylonian harlotry and take us into the fullness of God’s holy pure love as His wife, the Bride of Christ on earth. Col 1:27: To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

CREATED AND DESIGNED TO BE ONE WITH GOD

From the beginning you and I were built for the love of God. We were designed for His hope and His light. We are built for the love of God to flow into us, through us, and around us. We are designed to be carriers of His love and life. All of our physical, mental, and spiritual make-up can only function properly in the light and love of God. We are fully equipped to handle the life of God in and around us. We are made for His presence: for loving, praising, and worshiping our God.

We are not designed to handle darkness, strife, debate, contention, bitterness, hatred, death, and evil of every sort.We were not built for death and have no built-in capacity to handle these things. Religious debate and theological striving with one another is death to our natural bodily systems. Fear with its insecurity, anxiety, doubt, unbelief, jealousy, worry, covetousness, and the backside of fear, which is pride, arrogance, selfishness, self-focus, haughtiness. These and every other work caused by the lack of experiencing love bring death to our spirits, souls, and bodies. Our spirits, souls, and bodies were not made to handle grief, remorse, and guilt. Provision for dealing with death was not included in the original creation of man. You were never meant to endure these types of things. Sickness, disorder, and eventually death are the results of having to carry these things in our lives.

God graciously provides, through Christ in us by the Holy Spirit, the ability to be healed of all these things. However, we are not created to endure these things.

All of this darkness and hopelessness entered by sin, and death began to be upon all the descendants of Adam. Man’s attempt to deal with these things and overcome them through self-effort, human cunning, and natural striving are the foundations of Babylonian harlotry. Man trusting in his own strength and knowledge to meet his own needs and taking care of himself without God is man attempting to do the works of God. Babylon is man becoming his own god apart from the life and provision of the one true God.

New Jerusalem is the pattern city coming down from heaven into the hearts of redeemed man. New Jerusalem is the life of heavens ways coming to earth. It is the core or ruling city of the kingdom of God on earth in us as it is in heaven. It is life eternal now and in the life to come.

As New Jerusalem, the pure Bride city, comes forth into the earth, Babylon the pattern city of spiritual harlotry is being destroyed.

THE FALL OF BABYLON

Rev 18:1-10: After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. ² And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! ³ For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”

⁴ And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. ⁵ For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶ Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. ⁷ In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’

⁸ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. ⁹ “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, ¹⁰ standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’

Made for His Love,

Ron McGatlin

www.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net