The throne of God
Daniel 7:9 – I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the ancients of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto them, and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Daniel 7:13 – I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
The kingdom of heaven is established around the great throne of God. In this kingdom all truth is perfect, absolute, and immovable. It is this divine design, the one that Jesus Christ is establishing upon the earth, so his saints will govern with him. We are all waiting for the return of Jesus in the flesh; nevertheless, the government of Jesus is manifesting now to prepare his coming. God is equipping those who will sit in his throne to judge together with him.
Revelation 20:4 – and I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them
He has purposed that a magnificent church be seen by every nation, upon which his own glory will shine. The kings of the earth will walk in her light, and the riches of the nations will be given to her – Isaiah 60 – paraphrased
He is training a warrior church that will bring to the feet of Jesus the greatest harvest of souls of all times.
Daniel 12:1 – and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that should be found written in the book.
Those who are wise, as Daniel calls them, act and exert themselves. And it will be clear in their eyes what God wants to do at this time of destiny for humanity. Later on, we’ll speak about the difference between the presence of a divine virtue and God’s open manifestation among men. Let us see, from this point of view, the most important part of the kingdom of heaven: the throne of God.
Psalm 97:1 – the Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of aisles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goes before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightning’s enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory
The cry of every believer is that the government a God be visible upon every nation. We pray for his kingdom to manifest among mankind. For this to happen, the first thing he manifests on the earth is his throne.
Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne. And these two principles are inseparable and operate in harmony with the designs of God, in order to bring his glory upon the earth. When these two foundations descend upon a place, the enemies of God are put under the soles of his feet, and the glorious manifestation of his presence is felt, bringing his will and his kingdom among us.
Righteousness is one of the attributes of God himself. God is just. Righteousness is latent (dormant, present but unexpressed) upon our lives, and, although we are justified and declared righteous before God by his grace, we do not enjoy the benefits of righteousness until God establishes it upon our lives. As opposed to iniquity, in which is engraved unrighteousness, curse, offense, calamity, sickness, etc., when righteousness is established upon our lives, all the benefits of the kingdom of God come upon us.
That is why many believers read the impressive promises of God upon the righteous, but the truth is that there are few that enjoy their fullness. The reason is that positionally they are made righteous before God, but righteousness has not yet been established upon them here on the earth.
When I speak of establishing, I mean something that is founded in an immovable way upon a life; when it is made visible in the earthly realm; when a celestial (heavenly) truth is made evident in a person or in a people. Jesus said we were not to be worried or anxious about anything, not about what we were to eat, or for what we were to drink, or wear. All of these things are going to be added to us if we seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.
What Jesus is saying is that when the throne of God is truly founded and established in the heart of man, everything that pertains to the kingdom of heaven is attracted towards that throne. Now, the conflict is that, just as love cannot stop loving, righteousness will inevitably judge. The purpose of righteousness is to align all things to the designs of God. On the one hand, it establishes the kingdom of God and his government upon the earth, and, on the other hand, sentences that which opposes him. The problem with which we find ourselves is the word judgment. We prefer to the erase it from our Bibles. Due to fear, or for religious reasons, such an enormous misunderstanding has been created about this word that we avoided at all costs.
One of the greatest offenses that someone can give a Christian in tribulation is to say to them: this is the judgment of God upon your life. We look for all the super- spiritual reasons in order to justify what is going on in our lives. Anything is better, then to accept the word judgment.
We have converted it into a horrible word that catalogues the Christian in question as “bad”, or undesirable, as one who has left the “perfect holiness” in which the entire church, without exception, walks ( as many ironically believe). Now he is singled out by the destructive wrath of God. And then, we need to be careful of that Christian, since he, most surely, must have something hidden that was what attracted this terrible “judgment” to them.
Nothing is more incorrect and less understood than the paragraph you have just read. The judgment of God is a divine foundation and, since it is part of the very foundation of his throne, it has to do with the main designs of the government of the kingdom of God.
God is good and everything that is, and everything that surrounds his throne, is sublime (awe-inspiring) and wonderful. There is nothing horrible in heaven and much less in the foundation of his government.
Therefore, I’m asking you to set aside any previous concept you may have had about this word, and open your spirit to something glorious that God wants to do in our lives.
Let’s imagine a scene that illustrates what is happening in the spiritual world. You receive official notification that you have inherited a multimillion dollar ranch. The problem is that it is located in an area in which the testator had many enemies, you do not want to be the new owner of the ranch. You get up your courage and go there to claim what is now your inheritance. The ranch is occupied by innumerable roughnecks, who have begun to ransack the house, and, from the first moment you arrive, they grab you among several of them. They tie your hands and feet, and they say to you, these ropes are because of what your parents did. Then they begin to poke you and to hurt your body. And another one shouts, this is for what your grandfather did. Another one arrives, takes all of your belongings, and begins to yell, this is because you deserve it, due to your own wickedness.
then, you, who are angry and indignant about what they are doing, start shouting at them that you are the owner of the property and that you have the authority to throw them out and put them into jail for what they have done. They look at you, tied up on the floor, and laugh at you, while the leader of the group sits in the land owner’s chair and destroys the ranch at his whim.
You begin to feel the oppression of the offense and of the injustice, of the plunder, and of the terrible evil that has been done to you, when you innocently decided to claim your inheritance. You are the true owner. All the riches of the ranch are yours, together with all of the future earnings. But you can’t enjoy it because the injustice and your own sin have bound you and will not permit you to manifest the power that you rightly possess.
The only way that you will obtain victory, is if your case goes to court. Until the court decides in your favor, justice cannot defend you.
All judgment has a winner and a loser, and the good news is that in Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors. And it is time for the defeat of the devil to be seen in its entire splendor.
David said:
Psalm 7:6 – arise, O Lord, in thy anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of my enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that thou has commanded. So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about: for their sakes therefore returned thou on high. The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mind integrity that is in me. Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just
We have, as our inheritance, all things that pertain to the kingdom of heaven, but we do not enter into possession of them until righteousness is established upon us, through the Supreme Court that executes God’s justice.
David fully understood the meaning of this word. He said again:
Psalm 19:9 – the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, then much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
How can we talk about desirable and sweet judgment? The earth, as we saw previously, is covered by strongholds of iniquity. And this iniquity has been rooted for generations upon all human beings, including Christians. Judgment has to do directly with iniquity. God is sending a judgment or wrath upon the iniquity that governs this world, and he is loosing a judgment of mercy upon those who seek his kingdom and his righteousness. This is in order to cleanse us from the spiritual dross that impedes all of the blessings of God from being loosed upon us. Judgment is sweet when it brings a revelation of those areas of our heart (that we don’t even know exist) that the devil is using to rob us of the bounty of God. There is no greater virtue in a man than the humility to recognize his own iniquity. David said:
Psalm 51:2 – wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speaketh, and be clear when thou judges.
Jesus said:
Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
God wants to bring his kingdom upon us and all the splendor of his glory, but he needs to root out iniquity in order to establish his throne. The times in which God would descend in order to establish his kingdom and how he would act among his people were revealed to the prophet Malachi.
Malachi 3:1 – behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, sayeth the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like Fuller’s soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Let us note in this passage that God is showing us a visitation of Jesus Christ that is not the rapture or the second coming. It is a visitation that is the result of a people that cries out and seeks him desperately. He comes in order to prepare the church. Here, he sits down in order to refine. This means something done in detail, done with love and delicacy. A presence of fire is manifest, but it is not a destructive fire or a fire of wrath, but a fire that subtly burns off the dross.
We’re going to see that the response to this treatment is the establishment of righteousness in the heart of his people, and the response of their children is an offering, an act of Thanksgiving in worship that proceed from one of the foundations of the throne of God, righteousness.
Once the dross is removed and the gold of his children is shining, he can proceed to the judgment of wrath that will destroy his enemies and establish his throne.
Malachi said:
Malachi 3:5 – and I will come near to you to judgment; and I’ll be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.
My heart groans when I see so many of God’s children attacked by witches, how they are defrauded and suffer injustices. They get sick, and even die, and their prayers appear not to have been heard. The attacks are so continual that many of the servants of the Lord are at the point of fainting. The Lord has heard from heaven, people of God, and he is coming suddenly to his temple! It is good that it is written that judgment begins in the house of God! But judgment does not come in the same measure upon those who are seeking to be clean and are judged, and upon those who do not have the fear of God in them.
Malachi 3:16 – then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord Harkiened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.
I came to judgment before the great judge of the universe
It was 1998, and I was still trying to recover from the greatest battle that the Lord had taken me through, the ascent of Mount Everest. This is the highest mountain in the world and is the location of one of the most important seats upon the face of the earth of the Babylonian queen of heaven.
The risk was extremely high and the level of battle without equal. We saw the glory of God descend visibly, when he sat upon the high places of the earth, and the fruit of that battle has been extraordinary. Brother Alberto Motessi told us of his surprise when he went to Nepal in 1998, the country in which Mount Everest is located. He said that from a sparse population of six pastors in 1996, that in 1998 there was an alliance of 250 pastors, and they brought together for his crusade 150,000 believers.
Brother Morris Cerullo visited India shortly after our expedition. He told us that unprecedented things happen. God gave his ministry team access to television during his crusade named mission to the world, and revival broke out as never before seen in India. To the north of Everest, in China, where several have lost their lives as martyrs smuggling in Bibles, today, there are Christian printing presses, authorized by the government in order to distribute the word of God in China.
In Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran, while prayer teams from the woman aglow visited these nations, shortly after our dissent from Everest, they witnessed the great commotion in Arabia because the high hierarchy of Islam had a personal visitation from Jesus, revealing himself to them as the Messiah. And at Mecca they declared it to millions of Muslims.
We have glorious testimonies from nearly every nation surrounding the Himalayas. The veil that held the 10/40 window captive has been broken by millions of warriors that have united our prayers for this great liberation.
What I’m trying to say is that God does not judge or submit the forces of evil, without first a deep cleansing from God of his warriors. Light dispels darkness, and light will also make dross visible. The most intense moments I’ve experience with God followed this great battle.
Before entering into the testimony of my judgment, I want to copy part of the words that God revealed to the prophet Rick Joyner of the United States, in his book the final quest, the impressive story of when this great servant of God of our days was caught away to heaven. He finds himself before the white throne of God, and Jesus is talking to him:
There is a lot that you need to understand about my judgments. When I judge, I am not seeking to condemn or to justify, but that my righteousness be established. My righteousness is only found in perfect union with me. Those are my just judgments, to bring man into union with me.
My church is now dressed in disgrace, because there are no judges within her. And there are no judges because she does not know me as Judge yet. I’m going to raise up judges, so that my people can know my judgments. They will not only decide between people and events, but they will bring uprightness and righteousness. This means that they will make every case lineup according to what I am.
… I never come to take sides with anyone, but to take the authority and to put things in order. I appeared to Israel as the captain of the Army so they could enter to possess the promised land, and I will come again as the captain of the Army, because the church is about to enter their promised land. When I do it I am going to remove all those who force my people to take sides between one and another. My righteousness does not take sides.
… You must be able to see my righteousness in order to walk in my authority because righteousness and judgment are the foundation of my throne.
As I mentioned before, God had used me, together with a beautiful team, for one of the battles of greatest spiritual relevance that had ever been fought: Mount Everest. We knew that it was not due to anything special in us, but by his grace and his mercy. We had been exposed to such an extraordinary level of light during the battle that, inevitably, our turn came to look at ourselves before that shining radiance of his throne.
The strongest and most important shaking of my Christian walk was coming to me, but it would bring the fruit of the establishment of righteousness in my life. The greater the level of light to which we are exposed, the greater the level of holiness required. The greater the calling, the greater is the light of his righteousness, and the greater also will be his dealings with us, which will conform us more and more to his image.
It was February 1998. I had returned from a research trip to Turkey and in Rome, where God took us to study strategy in order to confront the queen of heaven. We had been in the jail where Paul was, and kneeling there on the floor, the Lord spoke to me about the great price and about the level of cross that this battle required. During the whole return flight, I pondered the words of the Lord. In the balance was an undefined, but gigantic, level of suffering and, on the other side, seeing the fall of the stronghold that I most desired to see overthrown. And with it, the consequent liberation of millions of captives of the queen of heaven.
Without knowing very well what I was going to be confronted with, I told God that, whatever the cost, I wanted the liberty of all those souls. God would bring shortly what would also be one of the most important revelations of my life, the relationship that exists between being a participant in the sufferings of Christ and producing the light in the authority that dispels the darkness, of which I write later in this book. I found myself in deep prayer in my house, when a man appeared before me with white, shining clothing. His face was like the sun, but I could see his eyes. They were like two peaceful lakes of blue water and a flame of fire shone through the depths of his gaze. It was Jesus. He took me by the right hand. In his look could be felt stability, combined with an abundance of love. We entered into a place (I don’t know if in body or outside of the body).
There was a spiritual staircase built of stone. We began to descend. He did not say anything. As we went down, light was becoming more and more scarce, until reaching a point of total darkness. Noting the fear in my heart, he turned and said to me, “don’t be afraid. This is also me”. He did not say I’m here, too, but this is also me. I understood that he wanted to reveal something to me about himself, that perhaps would not be easy to understand.
When we arrived at what would be the bottom, there was no light at all, only a luminous sign that said “direction loneliness”. Although there was no light shining on it, I could see the Lord by the light that emanated from his face. He was looking at me with deep tenderness, as when one wants to infuse someone with courage. Then he added, it is necessary for you to be here for a time for the work that I’ve prepared for you. While you are here, you will not be able to hear my voice, or see me, but know that I will be here, and that I will not leave you nor forsake you, and that the appointed time, I will raise you to great glory.
Then he took a sheet of paper and, in front of me, he tore it into little pieces, and he said to me, do you see what I’m doing? It is necessary that I do this with your life and with your ministry, but I am in control, and I’ll raise you in great glory, he repeated. Then he disappeared and I found myself back in my house. I knew that something terrible was about to come upon my life, but I didn’t know from what direction this hurricane would enter. I called the presbytery of the church and the intercessors, and I told them what had happened to me, so that they would prepare their hearts, and so that they would know that everything that would come was part of a divine design.
Two days later, the earthquake came. In a matter of hours, my whole world came apart. Chaos shook in every direction and, before I knew it, I lost everything in my life. It was difficult to reconcile all that was happening. I had lived a Christian life in the greatest holiness and uprightness that I understood, and suddenly, everything crumbled before my eyes. How could tragedy, slander, and treason beat so mercilessly against a life consecrated to God in such an unjust manner?
My life became an unending nightmare, and only the word of his visitation sustained me. Fortunately, no matter how many injustices and horrors the devil tried to bring about, the design of what God had prepared was so beautiful and so powerful. I would not exchange those months of cross and intense pain for anything.
God organized a glorious defense in order to preserve my life and my ministry. Dr. Morris cerullo, Dr. Peter Wagner, and Dr. Rony Chaves closed ranks in a deployment of love, as I never knew it existed. If I thought that these three men were worthy of great honor, now I believe it even more. Many are perhaps great in name, but true greatness shows itself in humility and love and in a life nailed to the cross of Calvary. To them were added many more from other nations, and God has been powerfully glorified.
For more than a year that the judgment of God lasted, my life was broken to the deepest levels. My twin sister suffered a sudden attack of multiple brain tumors that took her to the threshold of death and, from there, the Lord raised her up. Years later, the Lord called her to his presence. My home was violently destroyed. I wound up homeless, broke, and robbed of my possessions, and of my car, practically without friends. Those who I thought were the closest and most faithful, stab me in the back and left me alone. Others took sides with the lies of the devil and tried to tear the ministry into pieces, and I did not understand why.
God writes his books in a different way in heaven, and his wisdom is higher than ours.
Acts 14:22 – it is necessary that through many trials you enter into the kingdom of God.
The revelation that God gave me to write this book is the product of the impressive visitations of God during my judgment. And it is with deep thanks to my beloved husband in heaven, Jesus, that I can now tell the depths to which he carried me, and that, through a life of peace, it would have been impossible to understand. He never left me or abandoned me, and there were no lack of “Simons of Cyrene” who assisted me in carrying the cross and the most difficult moments.
I also want to clarify that what happened to me is not what is going to happen to everyone who comes to judgment in mercy. What happened to me has to do with the design of God for my life, and with the level of light and holiness that I have to manifest in the call to which he has called me. And to break ground always involves an additional price, beyond that paid by those that walk upon ground already trodden.