Hebrews 2:6-8 But one has testified somewhere, saying, “What is man, that Thou rememberest him? Or the son of man, that Thou art concerned about him? Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the Angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, And hast appointed him over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
The prophecy which the writer quotes is not speaking of unregenerated man, but of man that has come back into the grace of God. He is talking about bringing many sons to glory, the sons of God in their manifestation and ultimate rule over all the works of His hands. There will be nothing that is not subject to them.
But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for every one. (We’re looking to Jesus, who has glory and honor resting on Him, because all authority in heaven and on earth is in Him). For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through the sufferings. Verses 8b–10.
Because Christ is at that exalted place, the future rule and place of these sons to be brought to glory are dependent upon His exaltation.
Our future or destiny in God depends upon the exaltation of Jesus Christ as absolute, sovereign Lord over our lives, because everything is in Him: all authority, power and rule, and all fulfillment. We are complete in Him who is the Head of the Body, and we can reach up in the name of the Lord and draw grace to help us.
There’s no indication at the present time of the great glory that is to be revealed to us, the things God will literally pour out on His people. God is putting us through many things and we must have faith that He is bringing many sons to glory. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (I John 3:2).
We’re facing a number of things in the course of the divine schedule very soon. We’re right at the beginning of the Parousia, the time of the presence of the Lord. It is a period of which many things will take place, including the great revelation of our Lord, the first resurrection, Satan’s imprisonment, the bringing down at the conclusion of great tribulation, principalities and powers, and the Kingdom reaching out and invading every realm and every nation.
We are now living in a time of overlapping ages. This brings great confusion to the Christians who want to analyze events and work them all out in their minds that as it was in the ages past, so it is now.
When God begins to move, He may move in that way for a hundred years, but in the New Testament, it lasted about one generation; then the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple was God’s signal to a whole world.
The Book of Hebrews went out to the Christian world one year before all of this took place and reminded believers of a better covenant, a better temple, a better sanctuary and better promises; the blood that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. Everything was pointing to it: “Get ready, because no longer will you be looking back to Jerusalem. You’re no longer to be half-breeds, worshiping half under the law of Moses and half under the grace of God in Christ Jesus. God is going to bring an end to it.”
All over the Roman world the apostles were walking into synagogues and talking on the Sabbath day to people who loved God, were moving in God, and upon whom the Spirit of God was resting. Yet it took a generation for God in His mercy to overlap it until He was saying to them: “Come out of Babylon. Come out of the old. The old covenant is passing away. Embrace the new that is about to come forth.”
In this day of overlapping ages, blessed are the people of God who have the Holy Spirit and the revelation within them to perceive that the Kingdom of God is coming and our Lord is returning.
They are like the ones to whom Peter cried in the day of Pentecost, “Save yourself from this perverse generation. Get yourself out of the clutches of this age.” Get ready for the Kingdom. Get ready for the thing that God has. Begin to gear to it.
You are not children of the night that you should be drunken and asleep. You are children of the day to awake out of sleep and rise from the dead. Be girded and ready for the day that is before you.
This overlapping age is requiring that you don’t judge anything by appearances, because the enemy would make you believe that things are in a terrible state. They’re only terrible for those who live in the old day, not for those who live in the new. We can choose which age we want to walk in. Do we want to be partakers of the powers of the age to come, or do we want to cling to a dying age?
We have to see in the Lord more than just enough grace to help us hold out to the end. “Help us, Lord, to be projected right on into this day that is coming.” The battle is very intense for everyone who is geared to this. The enemy is holding all the control he can over the economic system, etc., but we know that the Lord is going to bring down religious and commercial Babylon.
We are going to be redeemed from this present age and its hold upon us. We are going to loose ourselves from the hands of the servants of mammon. The money and finances will be loosed for the missionary work and for the things that come.
We are not going to live in a new age and submit to the oppressions and restrictions of the old; we will believe that God can set us free. The Word of God speaks of men in the past who have done this and we shall be among them. We are to reach in, not with dead works, but with real faith.
Genesis, Hebrews and Jude all tell us that by faith Enoch walked with God. This did not just happen to him. He believed to walk with God. By faith he was translated that he would not see death. He had seen the Lord coming with the thousands of His hosts and was so stirred by it that he thought, “It would be nice to be caught away and to be with the Lord.”
He looked down at all those ages in between and said, “Oh no, I’m not born 6,000 years too soon. By faith I’ll believe.” Right at the dawn of human history he believed for everything that God could give him.
You don’t have to be subjected to the age in which you live. You can rise into any age you want to. Jesus said of Abraham: “Abraham rejoiced to see My day. He saw it and was glad.” He didn’t like the age he was living in. He wanted to live in the age when Jesus would be living. The Lord said, “Before Abraham was, I am. He knew Me and walked with Me.”
I want to live right now but I want to reach into all of the things that are coming. I want to hear the shrieks and the moans of demons going into the pit. I want to hear the rumble and the groan and the sigh of an age that dies and the work of man crumble and come down. I want to see it. I want to hear the sound of bright trumpets on an early morn and see the rays of the Son coming up like a sunrise as He comes to His saints and meets their hearts and plants in them the principles of the Kingdom that’s coming; a way of life in which Christ is absolute Lord and Sovereign as He begins to bring forth His Holy Body, knitted, framed and joined together, compacted by the love of God.
I want to be a part of that army that shall not break ranks nor thrust one another through. I want to be alert. I want my ears in tune. I want to hear the things that God has to say because He’s speaking in the earth today as He hasn’t spoken for many centuries. Bless the name of the Lord.
What do we do in the meantime? Forsake this old age and embrace the Kingdom. Speak the word of the Lord. An angel came to the apostles, released them from prison and told them to go to the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life (Acts 5:19–20), and they spoke the word of the Lord to them.
Throughout the Book of Acts we read, “They spake the word of the Lord.… and the word of the Lord increased.” We can do that too, because it’s just as true now as it always has been—God gives a revelation and grants to His servants to stand and prophesy it into view.
It is a glorious privilege for us, to shake the universe. We just prophesy a word that starts a vibration that shakes all things. That God should be pleased to bring forth His word through these earthen vessels is a wonder.
Speak the word of the Lord. Get into the flow of everything that He has for you. A lot of things are destined for this age and I have a vigorous view of it: make it happen!
Satan is not wanting a premature encounter with the One who will slay him with the brightness of His coming. We don’t understand what a bluffer Satan is or how much authority is in the name of Jesus. Speak the word of the Lord. Prophesy it because these things are ready to come to pass.
The only knowledge that avails is that everything is in the finished work of Christ, the precious blood of Jesus and the authority of the name of Jesus, and we exalt it. We prophesy and pray and believe, not because we are struggling to a position of victory; we are not coming up out of the slime and the muck to become more than conquerors—we are more than conquerors!
We were born in Christ free, victorious, winners; and we come into all of these things. We don’t struggle, except to see the manifestation of it, because we are moving from a position of victory, seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
O Master, move upon us. Save us from this perverse and wicked generation. Save us from its ways of thinking. Save us also from its indifferent, lukewarm Christians. We’re not going to walk that way before the Lord. There’s something twisted in people’s minds that they try to hang on to just enough religious observances to keep their conscience salved before God.
The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. Let’s be violent with our own hearts and put down indifference and passivity as we’ve never put it down before. Let’s refuse in every way to be anything but red hot, on-fire Christians, loving one another with a pure heart fervently, standing together.
We can’t suddenly become cautious. We must live recklessly for the Lord, not hindered by fear of persecution or even martyrdom. Chances are, if you were martyred, that you would be resurrected within a decade, for that first resurrection will come along within ten years. What are you worried about? You would scarcely get rested up before you’d be right in the thick of seeing the Kingdom!
So, live it—go after it with everything that’s within you. “This is the day that the Lord hath made—rejoice in it! Be glad!”
Don’t, in your mind, put it into the future: every day have that awareness that you are God’s child of destiny, more than any other generation that has existed. You can do the will of God in this hour. You can speak the word of the Lord. Sons and daughters—prophesy! Old men—dream your dreams! Young men—see your visions! Get ready, it is going to rain. “Pour out Thy Spirit, O Lord, on all flesh.” Let us be prepared in our spirits for the things that are before us.