KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES

“Teaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God. . . “ 

THE HEAVENS DECLARE

Part 30 

CAPRICORNUS—THE GOAT

(continued) 

             Capricornus, like all the Signs of the Zodiac, has three decans, or minor constellations, which surround it.  The Decans belong to the Sign and their message is part of the Sign's message.  The three Decans of Capricornus are”  Sagitta, Aquila, and Delphinus.  Sagitta means "The Arrow," but this is not the arrow of Sagittarius, for that is an arrow intended for the enemies of God, to conquer and subdue them unto Him.  Here the arrow is pictured in mid-heaven as having been shot by an invisible hand.  It is seen in its flight through the heavens.  There is a majesty and a mystery about it which startles and awes.  The wonderful work which the arrow accomplishes is seen in the dying goat and in the falling eagle.  It is a part of the great revelation of the life that comes out of death, or the death that issues forth into life.  It is the arrow of God which wounds in order to release life.  The Psalmist spoke of this in relation to the entrance of Jesus into this world of sin and death, "Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me sore” (Ps. 38:2).  Isaiah revealed the deep meaning in this when he prophesied of Christ, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:  yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. . . it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;  He hath put Him to grief:  when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His Hand:  (Isa. 53:4).  Job the patriarch spoke of a similar thing when he lamented, “The arrows of the Almighty are within me” (Job 6:4).  There is a spiritual piercing and slaying in the case of those who come to new life in Christ, akin to the piercing and slaying of the Christ Himself.  Isaiah received a revelation of this arrow in the Lord’s quiver, a wounding arrow which enters men’s souls and brings them down into death of the self-life, that Christ may be revealed in His glory.  The very arrow which poured out the life of Jesus our Saviour passes through Him to pierce also those who are joined in union with Him, also killing them to all that is contrary to God’s purpose, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in them.  

THE PIERCED EAGLE  

          One of the most prominent of the late summer constellations is Aquila.  Aquila is an eagle, but always pictured in the old Zodiacs as a wounded and falling eagle.  The eagle in this constellation is consistent with what we have noted in the whole Sign of Capricornus.  The slain goat of the sin-offering is followed by the arrow of God’s judgment and the pierced and falling eagle.  Under the Sign of Sagittarius the Harp was seen held by an eagle, or a Harp placed over the eagle.  The meaning was clear — praise shall ascend up as an eagle toward heaven.  And this praise is associated with the splendor of the Christ who is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person, who also sings praises unto God in the midst of the church.  Praise is heaven bound.  It has a power and a force that will bear you heavenward and carry you to the Throne.  In the midst of praise one finds himself lifted out of himself and beyond himself and above himself into the heavenlies, into celestial places, into new dimensions of the spirit, into new heights of reality and life.  In this place of ascension the praiser so becomes one with his praise that he BECOMES THE PRAISE  of God in the earth.  

          The eagle is the highest form of bird, the only creature able to look as it were directly into the sun’s dazzling radiance.  Aspiring to heights far beyond the physical or grossly material, this great bird symbolizes the upward flight of our journey into God.  The Lord Himself is referred to a number of times in the scripture as an eagle.  “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself”  (Ex. 19:4), and again, “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him” (Deut. 32:11).  Christ is that royal eagle, flying high, the One who is at the right hand of God; who thought it not robbery to be equal with God; that glorious One, the Son of God from on high.  Yet, that One humbled Himself and was pierced by the arrow of God’s judgment, and is seen here plummeting to the ground, the One who was so high becoming so low that we might be raised up into His heights, praise His wonderful name! 

THE SOARING EAGLE 

          In this message we shall meditate upon both the heights and depths of Christ the eagle—Head and body.  It is one of the loftiest of scriptural emblems.  The eagle’s courage and farsightedness is stated in Job 39:28-30.  Its swiftness is alluded to in Deut. 28:49.  The remarkable phenomenon of the renewal of its youth is mentioned by David in Ps. 103:5.  The likeness of one of the living creatures about the Throne was the likeness of an eagle (Rev. 4:7).  The eagle was the standard of the camp of Dan, which included Asher, Dan and Naphtali.  From the dawn of human history the challenge of flight has captured the imagination of man.  The conquest of the air in the past century has embued men and women with a sense of awe and romance unequaled in the annals of history.  Somehow the ability to fly has epitomized the longing of man to rise above the confines of the earthy and the mortal and soar into the realm of the spiritual and the supernatural.  God has made wonderful provision in His Kingdom for man to have this spiritual need met, and yet few believers ever discover the laws by which this escape is possible, few ever achieve the perspective of the eagle, an ability to rise high enough to see things that those on the ground can never see.  How can a man break into the high realm of the spiritual and the eternal—to soar in the heavenlies with Christ?  In response let us look at a beautiful illustration used by the prophet Isaiah.  “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;  they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). 

          Come with me now to a scene set in the West.  Black, ominous thunderheads move swiftly across a summer sky.  Jagged streaks of lightening pierce the darkness, followed by long peals of thunder.  Below, in the barnlot on the edge of the high sierra, two members of the feathered kingdom react in different ways.  Appearing similar in some aspects, the birds are actually as different as day and night.  The chicken, with her head down, scratches frantically in the barnyard soil, her beak picking up an assortment of grub worms, insects and scraps.  Her movements become more excited as the storm moves closer.  She knows that she must hastily finish her meal because soon she will have to take refuge from the storm.  Strange indeed and very different are the actions of the other bird.  The eagle sits on the naked limb of a dead tree, his head turning this way and that searching the scene, his sharp eyes piercing the clouds, scanning the heavens.  Suddenly he spreads his great wings and waits—testing the winds.  A gust of wind blows across his perch and he lifts into the air with a royal scream.  He soars into the sky, circling higher and higher above the storm.  On the barnlot below the storm breaks in all its fury.  The chicken fearfully scurries about hunting for shelter. She darts, with all the other chickens, into the safety of the barn were they huddle together in their misery, fearing every lightning streak and thunder bolt.  As the storm rages below the eagle rides calm and majestic in the bright world above.  

          True as this picture is in the natural realm, it is even more true in the spiritual realm.  Eagles are symbolic of a certain class of Christians.  The wise man said in the book of Proverbs that among those mysteries in the universe that were too hard to understand, one was the “mystery of the eagle in the air” (Prov. 30:18-19).  The symbolism of this passage points to the inexplicable potential of each and every son of God, which is like the eagle’s, which can fly higher than any other bird without once flapping a wing.  Did you notice that Isaiah said that eagles and eagle saints “mount up” and not  “flap up”?  Eagles were not made to go flapping about in soulish exercises, unprofitable self-efforts, or wasted fleshly energy—they were created to soar  high and free.  Eagles learn to fly without struggling because they instinctively understand the air currents.  When the right wind is blowing he lifts effortlessly into the air with a shrill scream of triumph and freedom.  “But they that wait  upon the Lord. . . shall mount up with wings as eagles.”  Herein is one of the eagle’s secrets in being able to mount up—waiting.  Those who wait  upon the Lord, it is written, who trust in His moving,  who respond to His promptings, who rest in His timing,  who move in His purpose,  will be the ones to mount up.  The “mounting up” process in important and necessary to each son of God who would take his place in the heavenlies, filled with the precious mind of Christ, conformed to His wonderful image, and caught up to the Throne of God to rule and reign with Christ over all things.  But it only comes to those who will wait in His presence until the glory that shines from His face changes them from the image of the earthly into the image of the heavenly.  Should the eagle fail to wait for the current that lifts, he would never get off the ground.  And the saint of God who does not wait for the moving of the Holy Spirit in the purposes of God will never get air borne or soar into the heavenlies.  Not everyone who receives Christ as Saviour and enjoys the blessings of His grace will forsake the idols of the earth’s lowlands that stand in the temple of the heart, to pay the price to follow on to know the Lord in the heavenly places.  But God has predestined those whom He hath foreknown, and has placed this instinctive and constant call within  to rise to greater heights in the celestial realms above.  

          But not so with the chicken.  If you were to search the Bible through and through you would discover that nowhere in the Word of God does the Holy Spirit applaud or honor the chicken.  Sometime ago I read the following story.  The writer said, “Five years ago when I was negotiating to buy our home in Mapleton, Utah, the owner gave me a tour of the property.  Near the house was a pen with a four-foot fence.  Inside the pen were some chickens.  There was nothing on top of the pen to keep the chickens from flying out.  I asked the owner if they ever flew out.  ‘No,’ he answered.  ‘Did you clip their wings?’  ‘No.  Their wings are perfectly good.’  While I watched, one of the chickens fluttered a few feet straight up in the air, then settled back into the pen.  ‘Why don’t they fly out?’  ‘Because they don’t think they can.  I once had a top on the pen, but after trying a few times to fly out, they quit trying.’  ‘Do they ever get out?’  ‘Yes, one of our kids left the gate open and they walked out.  But we caught them easily.  They didn’t know they could fly”— end quote.  Many people don’t believe they can fly beyond the invisible fences they build around themselves.  They snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Jesus said, “Consider the birds of the air.”  Don’t look at the birds that just eat on the ground.  The chicken doesn’t fly.  The eagle soars.  They can rise.  So can you!  Ah, precious friend of mine, I do not hesitate to tell you that YOU CAN MAKE IT INTO SONSHIP, INTO THE HEIGHTS OF GOD.  YOU CAN MAKE IT!  I say.  God is the God of eagle wings, and you are the sons and daughters of the Most High. 

          Some of you know what I’m talking about.  You are stuck in a rut.  Your life, naturally and spiritually, just isn’t going any place.  Some of you are trapped and stuck, mired down on your job, in your home, in your marital relationship, in family situations, in circumstances, problems, pressures, and limitations.  These have all become a restrictive fence around you, which like the chickens, you think  you can’t surmount.  The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of life grow rampant in the lives of men and women today, choking the spiritual life of the Kingdom.  The cares of this world have turned many peoples lives into a pressure cooker.  The strain of everyday living is steadily growing worse because of financial problems, higher taxes, inflation, government policies, the disturbing world situation, added responsibilities, sickness, hospital bills, rebellion in the home, unemployment, etc.  The pressures and problems of “this life” are too numerous to mention, we are all faced with them every day.  There are those seemingly needful involvements of daily living which which we cannot shirk, but when they so OVERWHELM us that we find ourselves so fragmented and frustrated that we are not able to gather ourselves together to walk in the peace, joy and victory of the Kingdom— then we need to be loosed from these things, escape from them, soar high above them.  Many of God’s precious saints are so encumbered with the CARES OF THIS LIFE that prayer and waiting upon the Lord have been shoved back into some remote corner of their lives.  They are utterly distracted by the responsibilities, pressures and problems of living until they are unable to serve the Lord with all their heart, mind and strength.  Praise God!  We find in Him a realm of freedom from all “these things”, so that whatever state we are in we can rejoice and not be bound by them or to them.  There is  an escaping from the cares of this life—if we remember that we are eagles, not chickens! 

          There is another area of limitation that is a restrictive fence around the spiritual chickens also—and that is the religious realm which can cause one to be so caught up in its programs and works that it literally is a bondage.  Well do I remember former years of pastoring churches when every weekend was crowded with a whirlwind of feverish activity, meetings, visitations, etc., that come Monday morning I was completely exhausted mentally and physically, needing another sabbath to rest and recuperate from the one I had just been through!  I suppose I will make some enemies, but I must tell you the truth nonetheless.  How much eager-beaver religious work is done out of a carnal desire to make good or appear successful!  How many hours of prayer are wasted beseeching God to bless and prosper projects that are geared to the glorification of men!  How much hard-earned money is poured out upon men who, in spite of their tear-in-the-voice appeals, nevertheless seek only to make a fair show in the flesh, building bigger and bigger castles in the sand!  I have no hesitation in saying that a charismatic personality and a shrewd knowledge of human nature is ALL that any man needs to be a success in the religious circles today, including the “spirit-filled” ones.  The church systems, for the most part, have accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster signify that something significant is being accomplished for God.  The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found.  In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, committees, board meetings, basketball tournaments, religious splash parties followed by devotions, Sunday School picnics, puppet shows, building fund drives, business men’s banquets, revival meetings and a world more of feverish activities which occupy time, energy, and attention, but can never satisfy the deepest longings of the heart.  The shallowness of the average Christian’s inner experience, the hollowness of his worship, the immaturity of his walk, his incredible ignorance of God’s great plan and purpose, the emptiness of his word, and the servile imitation of the world which marks the religious system’s promotional methods all testify that the whole program, instead of being the divine out-raying of the Christ life, is naught but part and parcel of “the cares of this world.” 

          So now man WORKS... and WORKS... and WORKS... diligently pursuing multiplied religious observances, external forms, activities of all sorts, and for all his effort he is able only to produce a pitifully small harvest of reality, eeking out but a meager spiritual existence!  How incredibly busy he is scratching and picking up the grub worms, insects and scraps out of the dirt of his little chicken yard!  Oh!  to escape religiosity that we might learn to walk with God in the Spirit.  And we rejoice to see how God is causing His elect to flee this realm.  And let me assure you, my brother, my sister, I have no intention of assuming the burden of paying for men’s programs, building men’s kingdoms, or joining in their efforts to save the world, when God already has a plan for the salvation of all nations which will work, while men’s efforts have failed.  To hear some preachers tell it you would think that they had almost completed the job of world evangelization, and with only a few more millions of dollars, another TV network, an expanded relief program and a few more crusades the Kingdom will be here.  The sad truth is, however, that the tidal wave of sin, sorrow, sickness, pain, ignorance, and death is greater in the earth in this hour than at any time since Noah entered the ark.  But to remain continually bombarded by the appeal of all this activity and not become caught in its snare, is an escape that only God can work in us and maintain for us.  And only “the way of the eagle” can reveal it!  Consider the birds of the air.  You can be like them—you can soar like an eagle!  Nothing is impossible to those who mount up with wings as the eagle.  Whatever it is that is weighing you down, whatever it is keeping you from soaring, it is possible to break away.  The ability to soar lies within—you don’t have to go anywhere.  You don’t have to tear down the chicken fence or kill the chickens, or sit on the fence and frantically flap away.  What I am saying is, YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHANGE ANY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ABOUT YOU.  You can rise above them.   The eagle is in you.  You are the eagle.  You can soar high above it all!  There is a life within that transcends all the lowlands of the flesh—it will carry you high if you give yourself to it.  It is the life of sonship, the power and glory and mind of the Christ within. 

           Many years ago Bill Britton wrote, “Chickens are symbolic of people.  The only time chickens are referred to in the Bible, Jesus used them as a type of those people in Jerusalem who could not bear His message nor heed His call. They traveled in crowds, in broods, and they were earthbound.  They kept their eyes upon the things of this world, scratching out a bare existence, and never lifted their heads to see Him who is from above.  They ate the handouts that were cast to them, and searched greedily in the crowded barnlot for more to fill their bellies, much of it unclean, unspeakable filth.  They are bound to their experience on the right and on the left by fences, and are satisfied.  But not the eagle.  For he has inherited a nature that cannot and will not survive in the confining capacity of the barnyard fowl.  To be happy and to fulfill his purpose in life, he must be free to soar in the wide open spaces among the clouds of heaven.  It seems lonely up there, for there are not many who will dare to rise to such heights, but the eagle does not care, for it is not in his nature to mingle with the multitudes or the majority.  God is delivering many today from their earthbound existence, lifting them by the Holy Ghost into heavenly places in Christ.  Things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.  They do not fear the storm.  The same persecution and tribulation that brings great travail upon a dead, backslidden church filled with earthly efforts, causes the eagle saints to soar to heights never before attained by man since the Pattern Son set the example.  ‘Fear not the storm, My little ones, for thou art not children of the storm.  Look up.  Lift up thy heads and rejoice, for thou art children of redemption, and thou hast inherited that heavenly nature.  I have loosed the prison doors.  Be thou free from thy captivity!  Be not ensnared with the evil ways of this world’s systems, but learn thou the ways of thy God, and follow Him alone.  Thus shalt thou rise above that which cometh upon the earth, to try them which dwell therein.  And thou shalt not fear, for I am with thee, saith the Lord’”—end quote.   

          “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.  As is he earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”  (I Cor. 15:47-49).  “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with open (unveiled) face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed (transformed, transfigured) into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Cor. 3:17-18).  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).  “Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:20).  “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”  (Eph. 2:6).  “To the extent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord”  (Eph. 3:10-11).  “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. . . “  (Heb. 3:1)  “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly (spiritual):  wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God”  (Heb. 11:16).  “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”  (Heb. 12:22).

           From these pictures we can readily see that our calling is a HEAVENLY CALLING.  Let others tend the things of the earth.  Let the dead bury the dead.  Let the few who are called to this High Calling be about their Father’s business.  WHEREFORE!  “WHEREFORE, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.”  As partakers in this heavenly calling let us consider Jesus the Apostle and High Priest of our profession.  As our APOSTLE Jesus Christ proclaims and opens up the way before us that we may walk in the calling ordained for us.  And what is that calling?  TO BE PARTAKERS WITH HIM IN HIS OWN H-E-A-V-E-N-L-Y CALLING!  Here are indeed great words!  “Calling” here, as always in the epistles, has reference not to an invitation to go to some far-off heaven somewhere, but to a present heavenly state of being.  For New Creation men, according to Col. 1:12, have already been made “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,”  and our “citizenship is  in heaven” (Phil. 3:20), and God hath  “raised us up together, made us sit together IN THE HEAVENLIES in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).  “Having therefore brethren, BOLDNESS TO ENTER INTO THE HOLIEST by the blood of Jesus. . . “  We, the Royal Priesthood, DO HAVE BOLDNESS TO ENTER IN.  We need not wait, and we do not have to go to some heaven far beyond the Milky Way.  This thing is taking place within us right at this time, blessed be His wonderful name!  For us it is a glorious privilege to enter into this heavenly realm, into this holiest place, because Jesus Christ, our High Priest and Forerunner, has opened the way and bids us enter.  Multitudes know Jesus as their Savior, Baptizer, Healer, Sanctifier and Blesser, but do you know Jesus as your Forerunner?  Do you know Him as the Forerunner of the MELCHIZEDEKIAN PRIESTHOOD, the eternal and heavenly Priesthood?  Now we hear the word to us and it is that we are to come in with boldness.  Come right in to the Holy of Holies.  Come right in to that heavenly place where Christ sits at the right hand of God.  Come right in to the presence of God.  Come right in to the glory of God.  Come right in to the authority and dominion of God.  Come right in to that high and holy realm where only HIGH PRIESTS enter!  We need not be afraid, for we have a High Priest who is now appearing in the presence of God for us,  not in our place,  but for us,  ON OUR BEHALF, for that is the true sense of the words “for us.”  This Apostle and High Priest of our profession  abides in this high and exalted realm and we are to come right in.  

          You may stand without.  You may wait for Jesus to return.  You may wait for the “rapture.”  You may wait for your mansion over the hill-top or your cabin in the corner of gloryland.  Some dwell in the Outer Court while others tarry in the Holy Place.  The Outer Court is crowded with Evangelicals and Fundamentalists.  The Holy place is flooded with Pentecostals and Charismatics.  But the Apostle and High Priest of our heavenly calling abides in the Most Holy Place and continues to invite us to come in.  We have been standing outside and we have said to one another, “Isn’t that wonderful and glorious and mighty — that place within the veil!  Multitudes do not dare because of fear to even look into the place.  They don’t know that the veil was rent, that Jesus our Forerunner has entered in for us.  And the word is to come right in, even into the Holy of Holies which is in heaven itself.  Sit down in the presence of the living God.  Sit down with the Christ as a Priest upon His throne.  For the great High Priest is there ministering, and we are to minister with Him, the Royal Priesthood, those who are made PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING.  If we can ever see this, if we somehow by God’s grace and the quickenings of the Holy Ghost can get ahold of it, we will not hesitate to yield ourselves unto the call of God to mount up with wings as the eagle and soar high into the heavens until we reign with Christ on high!  Not in some future day, or age, or world—but here and now. 

          Eagles prefer the heights when they soar, and when they rest.  His is a soaring spirit.  The eagle is the jet plane of the bird family.  It soars the highest, goes the fastest, and is superior to all other birds in this respect.  You do not have to prompt the eagle to fly, once he has learned how.  No need to sing a chorus twenty-five times, clap the hands, stomp the feet, in order to work up the spirit of soaring.  If he cannot fly, he is in misery—he was made for altitude.  He is born for the heights.  And flying is just as natural as breathing.  EAGLE SAINTS have their citizenship in heaven.  They live in the world, but their feelings, affections, desires, aspirations, conversation and actions are above it.  Their greatest impulses are upward, ever upward.  They build their nests in the heights of the Mountains of God, and prefer and long to be where they are no more annoyed with the noises, mundaneness and dangers of this world order.  Actually, we do not move in and out of heavenly realms at our whim.  Our citizenship is in heaven, we exist constantly in the heavenlies.  This is a spiritual state of constant existence, but because we are still in this flesh realm, we are not always conscious of the greater privileges of our heavenly existence.  In the Kingdom of God the heavenly man is the only man—the man is Christ.  “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believed not how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things.  And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which IS IN HEAVEN’ (Jn. 3:12-14).  Jesus Christ while on earth was still in the heavenlies.  That is not a strange statement to an eagle saint!  “He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”   He had eagle’s wings—the spirit of the heavenlies.  His body was on earth and His spirit joined to the heavenly Father far above all.  Those that have been swallowed up by Christ gravitate around Him.  His life is their life, His joys, their joys, His peace, their peace.  They have no other life.  “For me to live is Christ, “ said Paul.  Paul was an eagle saint.  Paul’s life was heavenly.  He was above.  He would not come down.

           Carl Schwing has written, “Sonship is not a message.  Those who proclaim such know nothing as they ought.  Sonship is not something sought after,  it does not come by a decision, man did not design it, cannot offer it and cannot attain to it.  Sonship is a birthright predetermined by the Father, within His Holy Courts, before there was an age!  However, there is a path which leads those ‘predestined souls’ to sonship.  It is a lonely path of rejection, suffering, humiliation and complete abandonment.  It is the path of the eagle!  It leads beyond the natural realm, the religious realm, yea, even beyond the spiritual realm, to a place of unity with Christ and His Father.  In this celestial realm of unity, we begin to learn and know Christ, beyond the scriptures.  Too long, we, like the Jews of old, have sought the scriptures for in them we thought we had life.  But now we are becoming one with Him whom the sacred page revealed.  In the stillness of the Dawn our spirits possess a freedom from all other influences... a freedom to soar into the high and holy places known only to our Father.  To enter into the storehouse of the Lord and learn the secrets of His wonders, to see the mysteries of the ages, far beyond the confusion of play-church, far above the strife of the land, and higher than the yearnings of the flesh, yea, even into the light of the Most Holy Place . . . the eagles soar!”—end quote.  

          In questioning Job the Lord said of the eagle, “Doth the eagle mount up at thy command to make her nest on high?  She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.  From hence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off” (Job 39:27-29).  The eagle saint has the advantage, born of altitude.  “Her eyes behold afar off.”  She looks out to the regions beyond, to heights and depths in God.  The call of God is upon her.  The life of God is in her heart.  There is response.  There are commitments, born of heavenly life.  Heaven is in control.   

The saint and the Savior share the same life, fly the same heavens, have the same destiny.  Heavenly bounty fills all.  Earth’s splendors are fading.  Earth’s treasures hold nothing for him any more.  Heavenly investments are sure.  Eternal values are in view.  "Her eyes behold afar off.”   Fear does not plague the eagle saint.  "She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock."   The  rock is Christ.  Her security is in the rock.  She draws her life from above.  Earth's hopes must fade.  They are made of poor stuff.  The saints of all ages have known this.  The Lord has taught them, in their hearts.  The Lord cuts His elect saints off from the world, and the  systems of the flesh, but in the same stroke, He grafts them on to heaven.  They are to live in their new found life.  The saints have found a new blood stream that will not be affected by death.  This new life flows out of the very heart of God, like a river forever.  It courses through the veins of the inner man, bringing life where ere it goes. 

          The heavenly life makes heaven.  The life of God is heavenly life.  The believer who says that should his body die, he will be dead like a dog, unconscious and non-existent, knows not that he has been born from above.   The born again one has life from above.  The impact of this new heavenly life determines everything. This life  governs the universe, and nullifies the kingdom of darkness. Satan is never in his stride, in the presence of  heavenly life. This is raptured life, the life from above.  Webster defines rapture as: “Extreme pleasure or delight, ecstasy.”   The eagle saint has  raptured life, the joyful life, the glorious life, the satisfying life—he is not waiting for a  "rapture" to come.  Every step that the Lord Jesus took on earth was a raptured step.  Every word that He used was a raptured word.  Every work that He did was a raptured work.  The life of Jesus Christ was a raptured life.  He was caught up all the time.  That's what gave Him the heavenly touch, enabled Him to hear the heavenly voice of His heavenly Father within.  That’s what made Him what He was—the heavenly man.  The eagle saint does not  need death, or a miracle, or a meeting, to get him on the wing.  He is in the heavenlies all the time.  That's all the  life he knows.   He shares with the raptured Christ, the heavenly life.  The eagle saint knows extreme pleasure, ecstasy, heavenly delight.  Those that are born from above move in the orbit of above life.  The problem is that there is a temporary outer life, a physical life that confuses many—a make believe, illusion, a mist that the wind bloweth away.  The earth bound life is very strong for expression.  This fallen life wants an outlet.  It is very aggressive and demanding.  The heavenly life is meek and lowly and humble in spirit.  The earthly life will force its way and scheme to gain its point.  The heavenly life is not so, but will take a back seat and wait the Lord's appointed time.  "They that wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings as the eagle.”  Saints are laboring with a double life—the old life and the new in the same vessel.  The low grade life must be given over to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The milk and honey of Canaan is the heavenly life of the Lord in the saints.  The newest cars, the finest homes, the most expensive clothing, the most beautiful furniture, the best paying jobs, and the largest bank accounts do not add up to heavenly life.  "For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.  But seek ye first the Kingdom (realm) of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mat. 6:32-33). 'Things are not life.   Life is not things.  Heavenly life has a monopoly on the needs of the human heart and spirit.   Abundant life  has nothing to do with physical health or longevity or with financial prosperity, material blessing, or any other earthly thing.  There is much religious activity that does not spring from heavenly life.  The counterfeit life is also very religious.  The eagle saint lives in the heavenlies in "the sweet here and now"; he is not waiting for something better in "the sweet bye and bye.  The heavenlies is no higher than the floor beneath your feet.  Life in the spirit is life in the heavenlies.  Jesus carried the heavenlies all the way to Calvary.  Before Pilot and Herod, Christ was never fearful or upset.   The heavenly life was in control, the life that stood up against Calvary and the stone-sealed tomb, and overflowed.  Heavenly life was governing Him from within, and because He had heavenly life within He could say, "I have power to lay My life down, and I have power to take it up again." 

          The heart of man is on a quest for a place where his heart is at rest and where there is life, peace, and contentment—the place called heaven.  The best word to describe heaven is "glory," and glory has been defined by one as: "Like it ought to be.”  Those that know glory are in glory.   They are in a state, "Like it ought to be."  They are in Christ and fashioned in His likeness.  They have tasted of heaven, for they have tasted of the heavenly One, and their hearts, have been ravished.  Christ is heaven, and heaven is Christ known and experienced in a living way.  Our measure of Christ is our measure of heaven.  The heart filled with God is full of heaven.  The more of Jesus Christ that is wrought in the saints by the Holy Ghost, the more heaven is come to earth.  Heaven is as large as the universe and as small as the human heart.  Heaven is both macrocosm and microcosm.  There is room enough in man to contain the universe (black holes are proof of that), and it takes the universe to contain  man—the man Christ Jesus and His body the church, the One New Man. 

Once heaven seemed a far-off place,

Till Jesus showed His smiling face;

Now it is here within my soul,

‘Twill be while endless ages roll! 

O hallelujah, yes ‘tis heaven,

“Tis heaven to know the Son that’s given;

O’er land or sea, what matter where,

Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there! 

          Learn to breathe the ozone of heaven—the rare, crisp, pure air of the heavenlies, that is sweet to the nostrils and life to the lungs and body.  Mountain air is good.  There is too much grime and smog in this low altitude.  There are so many respiratory problems.  There is so much low living and difficult breathing.  The environment is wrong.  It is good medicine to meet a saint that is above—a saint with eagle wings.  They quicken and refresh.  Spend time with those that live above.  You, too, will learn how to stay above.  Remember that the young eagles have to be taught to fly.  If they refuse to learn they are destroyed.  Learn to live the heavenly life if you would save your life.  You may not be able to stand the strong winds of the upper altitude,but go as high as you can and stay as long as you can.  Get away from the depressing order of the valleys.  Learn to live in your habitat—your elements.  Refuse to be embroiled in confusion and strife.  There is nothing to gain.  You may win the argument and lose the victory.  Gossip—no profit!  Tidbits of cheap news—no profit!  We should not be glorying in other’s shame.  If the other fellow falls out of the heavenlies, just do not follow him down to chew on his flesh.  If you stay in the heavenlies, you will help draw him back.  The wings of the spirit are eagle wings.  The Holy Spirit of God gives you these wings.  Learn how to use them.  “Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”  Abide in your true element.  Choose to abide.  You need, rich, healthy blood if you are going to fly.  Heavenly vitamins and minerals—the Word of God, spiritual conversation, prayer, praise, pure thoughts and holy living.  From what table are you eating?  From what well do you drink?  Where do you get your food supplements?  Jesus said, “He that eateth not My flesh and drinketh not My blood, hath no life in him.”  Feed upon Him.  He is food to thy hungry heart, drink to thirsty spirit, and strength for flight in the heavens. This king of the air (the eagle) eats only live meat.  You and I can scan the heights too, if we eat only live meat, the living word.  We are what the life in us makes us.  When the heavenly flesh of Christ becomes our life, life is no longer just an existence, or a religious exercise, it is heaven in manifestation, God in operation.  As the peace of God settles down within man, man BECOMES THE MILLENNIUM—the day of the Lord!  

A TIME TO SOLO 

          The sons of God must ascend to their heavenly environment.  Here is the place for which they were made, the place that was made for them.  They must be drawn above—forced above—driven above.  Drastic means must be used if necessary.  How can we get young saints out of Egypt into Canaan—the heavenlies?  They still long for the flesh pots of Egypt.  They still love the comfort of the nest—the church realm with all its meetings, activities, ministries, established creeds, security and mothering. 

          Picture with me a little eaglet snuggled cozily in a down-filled nest high in the mountain upon the crag of a rock.  Everything is just beautiful; the parents sally forth daily and bring back choice tidbits for that ravenous young appetite.  During the cold mountain nights the mother eagle settles over the nest and the eaglet snuggles securely under those warm, soft wings.  In its spiritual application, this little fellow is newly born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit.  He has learned about blessing, forgiveness, joy, gifts, healing, provision, and all the benefits of being a child of God.  Hallelujah!  Here life is wonderful and being a Christian sure makes life easy—no more problems or lack!  Should any problem arise the pastor or the church will promptly take care of it.  What provision!  What security!  What a wonderful arrangement!  The problem is just this—the young eaglet grows too fond of its nest and everything being done for it.  This must not be.  He must be roused up and trained to face the rough world.  He must learn to fly.  He must grow up.  He must become strong and mature.  He must learn to soar and discover His identity and being in the heights.  He must fulfill his destiny.  

          How can we teach the young eagle saints to take their position in the heavenlies?  How can we force them up if necessary?  If they will not ascend, then what?  Will the Lord use drastic means?  He built that trait into mother eagle.  That is the way eagles meet the situation.  If the young will not fly, they are destroyed.  And yet—this rarely happens.  One remarkable characteristic of the eagle is its tenderness toward its young.  No member of the bird family is more gentle and attentive in watching over its young.  It builds its nest high up on  a mountain crag. Both parents bring food to the little eaglets (the spirit and the word), and when they teach them to fly, both parents are involved in the training program (the right and the left hand of God).  Deuteronomy 32:11 tells us how the young eagle gets his introduction to the practice of soaring in the heavens.  Let the eagle saints listen carefully.  It says that the mother eagle  “stirreth up her nest,” “fluttereth over her young,” “spreadeth abroad her wings,” and “beareth them on her wings.”  The time has come for the young eagle to learn to fly and strike out on his own—but he does not want to fly, he is having it too easy up there in that nest.  He is given breakfast each morning in bed!  He is nurtured and protected by others!  All he has to do is warm the pew and watch the show!  Why should he want to leave?  The mother eagle knows that it is time to start flying.  But looking down from the dizzy heights of the mountain peak, he is not ready to begin such a new and dangerous enterprise.  He has “not passed this way before” and is reluctant to make a move. So the mother eagle begins to “stir up the nest.”  She grabs a piece of the nest and drops it over the side of the cliff.  Then she returns for another chunk, and another, and another.  Finally all the down that made Junior feel so secure is at the bottom of the canyon.  He is forced to sit on nothing but rough sticks with jagged ends.  This is rough treatment, completely unexpected, and not understood by the eaglet.  But there is a job to be done.  It may seem blunt and cruel, but the lesson must be learned.  She then takes the little one in her powerful beak and nudges him toward the edge of the ledge.  The little fellow wonders what is happening now.  The actions of his mother completely mystify him.  His little heart is beating faster and faster, and as he is pushed closer to the edge he thinks, No, it can’t be!  Mother wouldn’t do this to me!  But she does.  She takes him to the edge of the cliff.  It is a long, long way down.  Suddenly she pushes him over! 

          Bill Britton eloquently wrote about this amazing phenomenon in his book EAGLE SAINTS ARISE:  “Oh, saints of God, does it seem that God is dealing harshly with you?  Is he tearing up your soft, comfortable nest?  Does the place in God that once met such need in your life now seem rough, tight, and uncomfortable?  What is happening?  The Lord is getting ready to push you off into heights you never dreamed of.  Do the jagged edges of that which once was such comfort to you now stab you with grief and pain?  Have you been wondering what the trouble was, and perhaps doubt that you were ever in the will of God?  Doubt no longer, but expect in faith for the next great work of God to come forth in your life.  It is not the wrath of God trying to destroy you.  It is the love and wisdom of our God making you willing to take another big step in the plan and purpose of God for His church.  We, by nature, love security.  So the Lord has to make us utterly sick of our ‘nest’ in order to make us willing to launch out into pioneer spiritual journeys in the heavenlies”—end quote.  The mother does not push the young eagle over the cliff to destroy him.  He screams with terror as he tumbles through the air—but instinctively his wings stretch out in an effort to catch the air.  Down, down, down he falls as untried wings fail to function sufficiently to hold him up.  But mother watches that little fellow as he falls and clumsily flaps his wings.  When it appears that all hope is lost and he is about to be dashed on the canyon floor, she swoops underneath him and her might wings bear him up to the safety of the ledge from which he fell.  “Praise God,” he shouts within, “what a relief!”  Just as he is getting over his dizziness and decides that all is well, the bottom drops out again.  The process starts all over and continues until eventually the little fellow begins to fly as she has shown him.  Each time she flies a little farther and each experience brings a little more mastery of his wings.  He becomes stronger and stronger, until one day he spreads those wings and rather than flapping discovers how to catch the currents of air and finds himself rising up and up, riding the might winds far above his ledge home and the nest that confined him.  No longer a fledgling begging for tidbits, he is now one of the eagles—he is become a king! 

          Again I would share from the keen insight of Bill Britton on this beautiful theme of the eagle.  “Those who rule with Christ must rule from the heavens.  For that is where the throne is.  Many sing ‘I’ll fly away. . .’, and dream of a rapture by and by that will carry them from this sin cursed earth, past the moon and into the wild blue heavens to some geographical spot in this physical universe to a big supper all set and loaded with goodies for them to eat.  And they know nothing of the purposes of God for His eagle saints who will actually be caught up to the throne to rule and reign.  But the time is at hand.  And the Spirit is unveiling and revealing hidden secrets from His Word to those who are called to the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus.  So He is teaching us to move in heavenly places.  And sometimes it is terrifying.  But His glorious Presence is there, comforting, directing and reassuring.  Praise God! 

          “The chicken yard is very confining.  You can go so far, and no farther.  The Plymouth Rocks stay in the Plymouth Rocks pens, and the Rhode Island Reds remain in their alloted place.  It would be scandalous if Farmer Brown’s hens slipped over to Farmer Jones and ate his corn, or laid their eggs in the wrong place.  It doesn’t matter if you are in the Methodist pen, or Baptist, or Pentecostal, or whatever.  You may cackle and crow about the advantages in your particular chicken yard over the others, but just be sure and remain within your confines.  Not so the eagles!  No chicken yard could hold him.  He can only live and find happiness in the freedom of the uncovered and uncharted heavens.  There is lots of room where the eagles gather.  Unlimited revelation.  Truth flows like a mighty River.  No creeds, bylaws, or static statement of beliefs to separate the body of Christ.  Sweet fellowship with all who dwell in this place, and no divisive man-made boundaries exist.  The dull monotonous routine of a ‘chicken yard’ religious system is forever a thing of the past for those who rise on wings of eagles into this place in God.  What a variety of glorious treasures in the Holy Ghost there is for those who dare to believe and who ‘are called according to His purposes’”—end quote. 

          Israel was noted for two kinds of eagles in the Bible days—the golden eagle and the imperial eagle.  The golden eagle bespeaks of us as partakers of the divine nature and the imperial eagle bespeaks of us as kings.  The two go hand in hand, for none is qualified to move in the power  of the Kingdom of God until he has first been possessed of the righteousness of the Kingdom.  Many ministries have fallen because they sought Kingdom power apart from Kingdom righteousness.  But no son will ascend the throne until he has been perfected in the character of God.  The golden eagle and the imperial eagle will fly together or they will not fly at all.  Our divine right as sons of God is to reign as Monarchs—and this heavenly dominion begins right within our own lives.  The development of faith, rest, and triumph which lifts us above earth’s raging storms, is very precious.  The circumstances that frustrate, perplex and defeat the world become launching pads to new heights in God.  All that would come against us to discourage, defeat, or destroy, becomes the snake which an eagle rips open with one slash of his mighty talons or drops from dizzy heights to be crushed on the rocks below.  This is our inheritance! 

          Of the eagle the Lord said, “Her eyes behold afar off”  (Job 39:29).  The eagle is noted for great vision.  They are great watchers, with far-sighted vision.  And so are eagle saints.  The eye is the figure of light and illumination and it is as we know the truth and walk in it that we are purified to see God; for only the pure in heart see God.  They see the plan and purpose of God beyond the traditions and superstitions of religion.  To them the treasure house of wisdom and knowledge and spiritual understanding is opened.  The deep mysteries, the sacred secrets of divine wisdom are unlocked within as the Lord reveals His will, teaches them His ways, and show unto them His glory.  They can believe for things in God that others, whose eyes are riveted to the things of earth, cannot see or even conceive of.  There is keen vision—knowledge and understanding of the true nature of all things—with the eagle saints.  They are the pioneers of faith that break through into new realms in God.  And because of their sharp vision, it is difficult to surprise or deceive them.  The enemy cannot penetrate their defenses.  Jesus is the perfect example and pattern.  No one ever deceived Him with smooth words or flattery.  No pious hypocrite ever survived under the piercing gaze of the Christ of God.  Jesus knew what was in man.  Even one of His own apostles was filled with the devil and moved to betray Him, but Jesus was not deceived or taken by surprise.  No matter that he was one of the leaders, and cast out devils in Jesus’ name!  His innermost thoughts and the secret intents of his heart were laid bare in the sight of that great Captain of the Eagle Saints.  One of the marks of true sonship is the ability to see the true nature of all things and to discern the hidden spiritual source of all outward manifestations.  

ASCENDING AND DESCENDING 

          There is still much that could be said about the eagle saints, but I will close this message with one more word.  Aquila—The Eagle—in the Sign of Capricornus is pictured as a wounded or falling eagle.  The eagle in this constellation is consistent with what we have noted in the whole Sign of Capricornus.  The slain goat of the sin-offering is followed by the arrow of God’s judgment and the pierced or falling eagle.  First and foremost, our Lord Jesus Christ is that royal eagle, flying high; the One who is at the right hand of God; who thought it not robbery to be equal with God; that glorious One, the Son of God from on high.  Yet, that One humbled Himself and was pierced by the arrow of God’s judgment, and is seen here plummeting to the ground, the One who was so high descending so low that we might be raised up into His heights. 

          If we could only begin to fathom what this meant!  Being in the form of God and existing in the glory of His Father, He could have stayed there, He was the Word of God, He was Divine; but to leave the glory above to come down to this sin-cursed earth, this death-ridden planet, with all its sin, suffering and evil, was taking a giant step down.  He was not spared the lowliest kind of birth.  Jesus was not born to wealth, comfort or fame.  Into the arms of a gentle peasant girl He came, in a smelly stable with oxen and donkeys, yonder in a little land despised by the world, whose people were the helpless subjects of a foreign power.  If one has walked in Bethlehem and walked in Rome, he surely must be impressed by the contrast.  And for reasons good enough.  He came to found an Empire of which Rome, with her pride, and tyranny, could never be the symbol.  He came to win an allegiance that no legions in shining armor could ever compel.  That Empire is the Empire of Love and that allegiance the response that men can make to that which they know to be Love and which, because it is Love, commands their bodies by winning their hearts.  So down this costly route of unsparing Love Jesus came.  His birth-chamber a barn, His cradle a feeding-trough, and His lot in life cast among the poor.  Two thousand years ago God wrapped a human form around His dear heart and appeared among the sons of men that He might get a closer look at this tragic thing that was making havoc of man and earth.  He looked into the face of sin’s dark mystery, He gazed without any veil into the awful abyss of sin, sorrow, and death.  It was the cry of the wounded eagle, outraged yet outreaching, as He fell down, down, down from the heights of glory to get beneath the lowest depth to which any soul can sink.  

          The first thirty years of His life we know little about, but it was through these years that He suffered, being tempted and tested.  He had to learn obedience and be perfect as a man before He could start His ministry, and go to the cross.  The Bible tells us little of those thirty years; only about His birth and when He talked with the leaders when He was twelve years old, in the Temple.  But as a man, a human being, He lived through His childhood years, with all its problems and frustrations.  He lived through the teen years, and had all the problems of growing up, and all the temptations any teenager has to face.  He knows all about them.  He went through His twenties the same way, and I am sure that during these years also He suffered through temptations.  He was tempted in all points like we are, so He is able to succor those being tempted.  “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted” (Heb. 2:18).  He knows all about it, for He suffered through it.  He came down into this evil world unknown and unheralded, the masses of earth knew not that He had come during the years of His earthly walk.  And those to whom He came did not want Him, “He came to His own, and His own received Him not” (Jn. 1:11).  It is bad enough when strangers refuse to have anything to do with you; but when your own people turn you down and reject and cast you out, the pain runs deep.  To be made in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be found in fashion as a man, to empty Himself, to strip Himself of all His former glory, must have been a dreadful experience.  I doubt that we can begin to comprehend even minutely, the price He paid when He humbled Himself to fall into this dark world as the pierced eagle.  Now He shares a common humanity with us.  He became a man, not only to die on the cross for our sins, but after having redeemed us, to become the Captain of our salvation and lead man into the fullness of the divine glory.  He became the falling eagle to lift us up high into His glorious realm, praise His name! 

          Consider the deaths to which He fell!  At the last the deepest of all sorrows crushed on Jesus.  “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!”  Jesus then drank the cup He had asked to have removed.  He then sounded the depths of death.  The Father’s face was hidden from Him; He had gone as far as human suffering could go.  Sin and death had veiled the Father’s love from Him.  Sin could go no farther in its brutal demands than just that.  Yet none of this was unexpected.  The Bible tells of One who was to suffer.  In the book of Psalms, you see the cross casting its shadow down the ages.  There Jesus’ death in amazing outline is vividly pictured.  Read in the light of prophecy, who can ever forget the twenty-second Psalm?  “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”  “A worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.  All they that see Me laugh Me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying, He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him seeing that He delighted in Him.”  “They gazed upon Me with their mouths.”  “Thou hast brought Me into the dust of death.”   “They pierced My hands and My feet.”  “They part My garments among them and cast lots for My vesture.”  The strangest thing of all is that Christ’s death by crucifixion is pictured here and, yet, in David’s time, death by the cross was an unknown way of sending a soul out of this world.  It was left to the Romans, not the Jews, to invent that horrid method of capital punishment.  The cross, the gambling, the cries, the insolence of the crowd, the physical and soul suffering of Jesus, are all pictured in the twenty-second Psalm.  With gentle hands and sympathetic heart, we turn to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.  If the twenty-second Psalm tells us of the cross, Isaiah fifty-three gives the reason for it.  Seven long centuries before Jesus was born, in this fruitful chapter of Isaiah, we have Jesus’ suffering, death, burial, and resurrection foretold and the why of it all.  “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”  “He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”  “He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death.”  “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; HE hath put Him to grief; when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days.”  What a description of what actually happened, told in detail hundreds of years before it ever happened.  Surely it bears divine evidence in the very fulfillment of the validity and truth that the suffering One was the Son of God, the mighty One dwelling here on earth to save and restore, to bear us up on eagle’s wings into the glory of God.  

          The following words from the pen of the late George Wylie graphically express the deep and precious meaning of Aquila—the Sign of the wounded and falling eagle.  He wrote:  “But this is not all, this is not the end of the story, not by any means—there is something more wonderful to come.  A few years ago I was reading from John chapter twenty, and I read something that thrilled my heart, making me shout for joy as the significance of it dawned on my understanding.  I could hardly believe it, but oh how it thrilled me through and through.  It is the account of the time when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb where the body of Jesus had been laid, and discovered it was not there, and she wept.  When she looked into the tomb where His body had been, and saw two messengers sitting there, one of them said to her, ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’  She said unto them, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.’  Poor Mary, the One she loves so much, she wanted to be close to Him, even if it was only His dead body.  So she turned away from the tomb with her eyes full of tears, and saw someone standing outside, and he spoke to her and said, “Woman, why weepest thou?  Whom seekest thou?’  She thinking he was the gardener, said, ‘Sir, if you have borne Him hence, tell me where thou has laid Him, and I will take Him away.’  Then Jesus spoke her name.  He was just a blur to her as she looked at Him through her tear filled eyes, but when she heard that Voice speaking her name—she had heard it many times before, and it was the Voice of the One she loved, and when she heard it she turned to Him and said, Rabboni, which meant, My Master.  

          “I don’t know what she was about to do, whether she was going to run to Him and throw her arms around Him, or just kneel down and kiss His feet; but I imagine she was filled with joy and beside herself.  But Jesus said, ‘Don’t touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father  and your Father, and to My God and your God’ (Jn. 20:11-17).  How my heart thrilled when I read these words.  I pray the Holy Spirit will make them as real to you as He did to me.  He didn’t say, ‘Go to My disciples,’ nor did He say, ‘Go to My servants.’  Nor, ‘Go to My friends.’  No!  This time it was something altogether different, something far more intimate; a new relationship with Him.  He said, ‘Go to My brothers.’ He was no longer their Teacher; He was no longer their Master; no longer just a Friend; He was something more than that.  Yes, He was still their Master and Lord, but He was something more—He was their brother.  He said, ‘I ascend to My Father, and to YOUR FATHER, and to My God, and YOUR GOD.’  He was one of them.  He is one of us.  He wasn’t going to ascend just to His Father, but to their Father, and to our Father, and to our God as well as His God.  I pray you can see this in the true sense of its meaning, and that it will thrill your heart as it did mine.  He wasn’t going to ascend to God to present Himself as merely our Lord and Saviour, which He is, but He ascended as our BROTHER, as  human being; the firstfruits of the human race.  He represents us there at the right hand of the Majesty on High.  He is one of us, one who has gone all the way through to the throne of God, the first man to do so.  It is wonderful to think of Him ascending to the throne of God as our Lord and Saviour, one who is so far above and beyond us; but when we realize that it is our brother who is up there, and He has gone before to open up the way, how much greater is our assurance that we will get there also.  There is a wonderful scripture found in Rom. 8:28-29.  ‘Now we know that for those that love God He makes all things work together for good, for those who are called according to the Divine purpose.  Those He has foreknown He has also predestined to share the likeness of His Son, that He might be the eldest in a vast family of brothers’ (Weymouth translation).  Oh yes, we all belong to one family of many brothers, we are all brothers, and He is one of us, our elder brother.  

          “Before the eternal Logos left the glory above He was God.  When He became man He stripped Himself of His Deity, to become a human being.  After His resurrection and He had returned to His Father above, He did not put off His humanity that He had put on, He remained still a human being, still a man.  But I want you to notice something that He prayed for before He left this earthly scene.  In John 17, when He was praying to the Father, He asked to have the glory restored to Him that He had with the Father before the kosmos was.  I draw your attention to His words, and want you to meditate on them.  ‘And now O Father, glorify Thou Me, with Thine own self, with the glory I had with Thee before the kosmos was.’  He was asking to be glorified with the glory He had stripped Himself of, when He became a man.  I want you to notice these words, ‘Glorify Thou Me WITH THINE OWN SELF.’  He was asking to be clothed with God, to be enveloped with Deity again, to be completely swallowed up and filled with all fullness of God.  He didn’t shed His humanity, but He was going to put on the human being clothed with God, with the fullness of the glory of DIVINE BEING.  He is no longer God’s Divine Son, nor is He still God’s human Son; He is now God’s DIVINE HUMAN SON, truly a GOD-MAN.  This is the New Creation, not God and not man, but GOD-MAN.  This is God’s man.  This is God’s kind of man.  This is the kind of man God purposed from the beginning when He said, ‘Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness.’  And what our elder brother is now, we are destined to become.  We too are to become just like Him.  WE too are to be filled with all the fullness of God.  ‘That you may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that YE MIGHT BE FILLED WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD’ (Eph. 3:18).  We are partakers of the divine nature, the personality of the eternal, to be clothed and swallowed up into the divine, to be glorified with the divine personality as Jesus, our brother, has been”—end quote.

           Truly it is IN HIM, in His ascension, that we have power to ascend into the Mountain of the Lord.  The victorious life of sonship is a matter of ascendancy.  It has to do with getting above, and staying above.  It is a matter of altitude.  The sons have eagle wings.  Man was made for that.  He was made for altitude.  He was made for ascendancy.  He was made to be above and not beneath.  This is why humanity in the lowlands is continually wretched and miserable, always searching and seeking for some reality beyond and above.  If you want to stay out of trouble, rise up into the holy heights of God and don’t come down.  If you find yourself in trouble, then you know you have come down.  You can be beset on every hand by problems and pressures and still not be in trouble.  No problem is a problems unless it is a problems to you..  No pressure has any power until you allow it to press you.  Christ is above it all.  The saints are in Him.  The saints are above.  Stay were you are.  Stay with your life.  Stay with the real you.  Stay with that inner man who is risen with Christ at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1).  Stay above.  Defeat is to come down.  You must not come down.  Your position is in Christ far above all.  Christ came down  so that you and I can go up.  Hallelujah!  He is the Eagle of eagles, and we are the body of the Eagle.  He descended to us that we might ascend in Him.  

          To be continued. . .  J. PRESTON EBY   

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