On the day of His wedding, Christ will marry His overcomers, those who have been fighting the battle against God’s enemy for years; He will marry the overcomers, who have already overcome the evil one.
This is what we are here for, and this is what the Lord’s recovery is for, to bring the Lord back, marry Him as His bride, and fully fulfil His purpose by coming with Him to destroy human government and bring the kingdom of God on earth.
Today we are in the church learning and practicing to build up the church, and there’s a spiritual battle going on, for the enemy is afraid not of individual believers who are spiritual but of the built up church.
With one hand we build up the church, and with the other we fight the enemy. Every step of the way in the building up of the church we fight the enemy, who doesn’t want to see the church built up.
Fighting always accompanied the building, and whenever the church is built up, we have victory in battle. When we exercise the keys of the kingdom of the heavens to close the gates of Hades, the church is built up, the enemy is defeated, and the kingdom of God is brought on earth.
Whenever we deny the self, take up the cross, and lose our soul life to enjoy Christ in this age, the enemy is defeated and the church is built up. Amen!
On one hand we are beautiful and lovely to the Lord as His church, His building, and on the other hand, we are terrible and terrifying to the enemy as an army with banners. Satan is afraid of those who love the Lord and who do not love their soul-life.
He is afraid of those who are built up and are building up the church as the house of God. He is frightened by the church built up as the city of God. The house of God is for God’s expression, but the city of God is for His representation with authority and dominion over the enemy.
The demons and the evil angels are terrified of the one new man who Christ created in Himself on the cross. This one new man will defeat the enemy and put him to shame, and this one new man consummates in the bride of Christ to bring Christ back.
Even if there were thousands of individualistic Christians who are good and spiritual, Satan is not afraid of them. He’s afraid of the built-up church, the Body of Christ, the corporate warrior that fights against him and his kingdom.
We want to be such ones, part of the corporate warrior, so that we may be the overcomers in this age who fight the battle against the enemy, overcome the evil one and be produced as the bride of Christ who marries Him and returns with Him to completely annihilate the enemy.
Christ will Marry His Overcomers as His Bride and They will Together Defeat the Antichrist and His Followers
On the day of his wedding, Christ will marry His overcomers as His bride, those who have been fighting the battle against God’s enemy for years and have already overcome the evil one (see Rev. 19:7-9, 11-16).
When Christ comes to fight against Antichrist and his armies, He will come as the Son of Man, and He comes together with His counterpart, His bride, composed of His overcomers.
In this age the Lord is producing His overcomers, those who are fully one with Him to defeat His enemy, those who overcome anything that replaces Christ, and those who express Christ and represent Him on earth to fulfill God’s purpose in and for the church.
Eventually, the overcomers will be a bride collectively to marry Christ; He will come to rapture His overcomers, and He will marry them as His bride.
We want to follow the Lord up to the heavens and then down to earth until He slays Antichrist and his armies with the breath of His mouth! We want to be part of the bride who marries Christ on the wedding day, and who becomes an army to fight alongside Christ, her Husband, to defeat Antichrist and his followers (Rev. 19:11-16).
This will be our honeymoon, after marrying Christ: we will fight the battle at Armageddon!
When Christ, the Bridegroom, sees that we as His overcomers have reached maturity, He will return, He will marry the bride, and then He will come with her to defeat Antichrist and his armies and to terminate human government.
In Dan. 2:34-45 we see the vision of the great human image, a type of human history with the four major empires or powers.
First there was the Babylonian empire, then the Medo-Persian empire, the Grecian empire, and finally the Roman empire.
The feet of the great human image were partly of clay (signifying democracy) and partly of iron (signifying autocracy).
What we see today is not full democracy nor full autocracy but a mix of both. Today we are at the feet of the human image, at the cusp of the Lord’s coming back.
He as a stone cut without hands will come and strike the image at its feet, and the human government will be crushed and became like chaff from the threshing floors, and the wind will blow it away – there will be no trace of it found!
And this stone, this corporate Christ – Christ with His bride, the overcomers – will grow and increase until it becomes a great mountain, filling the whole earth. The whole earth will be filled with the kingdom of God and the divine government! Hallelujah!
Christ will marry the overcomers, who have already overcome the evil one (Rev. 12:11); then, as the God-cut stone, Christ with His overcomers will return and strike the ten kings with Antichrist (Rev. 19:11-21), and the whole human government will be crushed and destroyed. Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, make us Your overcomers in this age, those who overcome the evil one and who will be raptured by You to be Your bride! Amen, Lord, grow in us until maturity, until we reach maturity in life and be prepared to be presented to You as Your bride! We give ourselves to You, Lord, to grow in life unto maturity and be prepared to be Your bride. Make us those who are part of Your overcoming bride who returns with You to destroy human government and bring in the kingdom of God on earth! Amen!
The Overcomers as the Bride of Christ Fight the Battle and Defeat God’s Enemies
The New Testament shows us that the overcomers – who constitute the bride of Christ – fight the battle against all the enemies of God, and they defeat God’s enemies (see Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21).
In Rev. 2-3 we see the Lord’s call for the overcomers, who need to overcome the loss of the first love, marriage with the world, etc and eat the tree of life, eat the hidden manna, and have authority over the nations.
It is one thing to be in the church life, and it is another thing to be an overcomer in the church life. There are at least five specific things that the overcomers as the bride of Christ overcome – at least five aspects of the enemy.
1. The overcomers fight against the self – the inward adversary and the most difficult foe – by slaying it by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. 6:17-18). The enemy is not just outside of us but inside us – the enemy is the self, the embodiment of Satan.
The way for us to slay the enemy inside us is by pray-reading the word of God. When we pray over God’s word, the word becomes the sword of the Spirit to slay the enemy of God inside.
2. The overcomers resist and defeat the principle of antichrist and the characteristics of antichrist (see 1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John 7; 2 Thes. 2:3-12). “Anti” refers to being against something or replacing something. he principle of antichrist is to be either against Christ or instead of Christ.
We may not be against Christ, but it is possible for us to be in the principle of replacing Christ. Maybe our good behavior, our natural philosophy, our culture, and our good manners have replaced Christ; we live these things automatically without living Christ.
We all have the anointing, which teaches us everything; the anointing is the moving, working, and saturating of the indwelling compound Spirit in our spirit. If we resist the anointing or are against it, we are in the principle of antichrist.
The Antichrist is the man of lawlessness; he is a man of sin (1 John 3:4). When we live in a lawless way, when we reject the rule of God over us and we reject human law, we live in the principle of antichrist.
Those influenced by Antichrist don’t received the love of the truth so that they may be saved. We need to receive the love of the truth, otherwise we may be led to believe a lie. May we be delivered from any replacements of Christ and may we follow the teaching of the anointing!
Lord Jesus, rescue us and deliver us from any replacements of Christ! Bring us back to Your anointing. We don’t want to be anti-Christ or anti-anointing in any way. Lord, we want to live and walk according to the anointing. We want to live and walk by the moving, working, and saturating of the Triune God within us! Make us Your overcomers who defeat the principle of anti-Christ and who live by the anointing!
3. The overcomers war the good warfare against the differing teachings to carry out God’s economy (see 1 Tim. 1:3-4; 6:3-5, 12, 20-21; 2 Tim. 2:3-4).
There are many differing teachings today, and unless we guard the good deposit, we may follow what is falsely called knowledge. We need to guard the good deposit which was given to us in the Bible, the healthy words of the Scriptures, both for ourselves and for the saints around us.
We guard the good deposit by allowing the Spirit to indwell us and fill us.
Along with faith, we also need a good conscience – a conscience that is without any offense (Acts 24:16). When we have a good conscience, our Christian faith and life are safeguarded.
Whenever there’s an offense in our conscience, our faith will leak away; we need a good conscience accompanying our faith for warring the good warfare against the dissenting teachings in a troubled local church.
4. The overcomers engage in the warfare of life against death and reign in life over death (see Matt. 16:18; 1 Tim. 6:19; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 John 3:14; Rom. 5:17, 21).
As we are looking forward to the day of the Lord’s coming when Christ will marry His overcomers as His bride, we are daily engaged in spiritual warfare against death in its many forms and byproducts.
We should hate death, stay away from death, and be people of life who minister life to others. We should not touch death, look at death, or spread death, but be filled with the divine resurrection life which is anti-death.
5. The overcomers conquer the destructive satanic chaos and triumph in the constructive divine economy (2 Tim. 1:9, 15; 2:1, 17-18; 4:22).
We may pray that the Lord would save us from our troubles and circumstances, but instead of being delivered out of the present chaos, we need to be the overcomers who conquer the chaos.
We need to be those who conquer the satanic chaos by the processed and consummated Triune God as our all-sufficient grace. We need to enjoy the Lord as grace, be filled with the Triune God, and we will conquer anything in our environment that stands against the Lord.
Lord Jesus, make us Your overcomers in the church life for the benefit of all the saints and all the churches. Make us those who overcome the self – the inward adversary – by the slaying word of God which we pray-read. Make us those who resist and defeat the principle of antichrist by living according to the anointing. We want to be those who war the good warfare against the differing teachings so that we may carry out God’s economy! Amen, Lord, may we engage in warfare of life against death, and may we reign in life over death! Make us more than conquerors in You, who love us, by enjoying You as grace, so that we may conquer the destructive satanic chaos and triumph in the constructive divine economy!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “Crystallization-study of Song of Songs,” chs. 9, 12, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Spiritual Warfare of the Church as the New Man (2018 Memorial Day Conference), week 4, Fighting the Spiritual Warfare through Living in Christ’s Ascension as the New Creation in Resurrection to Become Christ’s Duplication and Counterpart.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God needs the overcomers, / ’Our dear Lord Jesus’ lovers! / Make us those who live to turn the age! / God needs the overcomers, / ’Our dear Lord Jesus’ lovers! / Make us those who consummate the age! (Song on, God Needs the Overcomers)
# Th’ anointing’s here! It teaches us in everything; / The sense of life we always have within. / Obey this sense, and you will know what you must do, / And live by Life—Yes, clear in everything. (Hymns #1118)
# Overcomers Christ will take, / Those who all for Him forsake, / Those who of first love partake— / Win in time! / All the deadness overcome, / With the living Christ be one, / Toward the goal now swiftly run— / Win in time! (Hymns #1304)
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