The Destiny of the Bride of Christ - Part 13
“Jerusalem, get up and shine! Your Light is coming! The Glory of the Lord will shine on you. Darkness now covers the earth, and the people are in darkness. But the Lord will shine on you, and his Glory will appear over you. Then the nations will come to your light. Kings will come to your bright sunrise. Look around you! See all the people gathering around. Those are your sons coming from far away, and your daughters are there beside them.”—Isaiah 60:1-4 (ERV)
During the 1,000-year reign of Jesus Christ, Jesus will establish His throne in Jerusalem, making it the capital of the world and the center of the world’s activity.
At that time, Jerusalem will be the place to be. It may seem like *everyone *wants to go to Jerusalem! In addition to being the seat of government, this city will be the center of culture and education.
Neville Johnson has had visions in which he saw enormous aircrafts, much larger than our planes today, regularly shuttling people to Jerusalem for in-person education and cultural experiences.
“In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be the highest of all mountains. It will be raised higher than the hills. There will be a steady stream of people from all nations going there.
People from many places will go there and say, ‘Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. Then God will teach us his way of living, and we will follow him.’
His teaching, the Lord’s message, will begin in Jerusalem on Mount Zion and will go out to all the world.”—Isaiah 2:2-3 (ERV)
This very same prophecy is found, almost word-for-word, in Micah chapter 4, further confirming that this will happen. This will be a reality on this earth.
Education will get a significant upgrade during Jesus’ reign. No longer will people waste their time in courses of study that have no relevance to life. Education will be grounded in the Word of God and centered on the true words of life from Scripture.
Jesus Christ, the Word of God Himself, may personally teach people His ways. Can you imagine it? You may have wondered what it was like to be one of Jesus’ twelve original disciples, living with the Son of God Himself, listening daily to His teachings and learning at the feet of the Master.
Those who qualify to be a part of the Overcoming Bride of Christ may have the opportunity to experience that reality during the reign of Christ on earth! The experience of the Bride will far exceed what the original twelve disciples enjoyed during their time of living with Jesus!
In addition to that, technologies of the age to come will far surpass our current technologies. There will be new discoveries and advances in the sciences, inspired by God’s Spirit, that will solve problems and elevate the quality of life beyond what we can imagine in this age.
As Jesus reigns in righteousness and His words of life, justice, and truth are spoken to people from Mount Zion in Jerusalem, His words will go out to all the word, as we are clearly told in Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2. Astounding spiritual power and technologies that we can’t imagine today will take the Lord’s teachings around the world so that no one will be left out.
During this time, even though the Bride of Christ may be living in the spiritual “powers of the age to come” with resurrected and spiritual bodies, there will also be people living on earth in natural human bodies. There will still be needs for technology, for infrastructure, for farming, transportation, clean water, and everything else that is needed to support human life.
You can imagine that, as knowledge increases and technologies explode with astonishing, new capabilities, people will be constantly receiving training in order to install, maintain, and operate these new technologies.
All areas of learning will advance at astonishing rates. The reign of Jesus Christ on earth will be filled with activity, and all activity will be grounded and centered in the Word of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself.
“And it shall be in that day that the Root of Jesse shall stand as a signal for the peoples; of Him shall the nations inquire and seek knowledge, and His dwelling shall be glory [His rest glorious]!”—Isaiah 11:10 (AMPC)
The Annual Pilgrimages
There will be annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. These pilgrimages will be required of all the nations, and there will be punishments for those families who do not obey this requirement.
The main purposes of these pilgrimages will be to personally give honor and worship to Jesus Christ and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
**“**And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”—Zechariah 14:16-19 (NKJV)
There does not seem to be a requirement to celebrate the feasts of Passover or Pentecost. Only Tabernacles is mentioned. Tabernacles is the Feast of the Lord that most represents the age to come in which God Himself “tabernacles” or dwells with His people. The age to come will not primarily be focused on the sacrifice for sins represented by Passover or the sanctification of the Spirit represented by Pentecost. Those two feasts are essential, but in part, their purpose was to bring us to the reality of Tabernacles in which God Himself lives in us, and we in Him!
The Feast of Tabernacles will characterize this age to come. We will not discard Passover or Pentecost, but holding on to those truths, we will move on into the perfection of Tabernacles in the age to come. As Paul exhorts us,
“Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity.”—Hebrews 6:1 (AMPC)
The Feasts of the Lord have never lost their relevance. In fact, as we move closer to the time of the Lord’s return, the Lord’s feasts take on even greater significance, because it is at this time that we will finally witness the fulfillment of all that these feasts foreshadowed for us in Scripture.
“Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For I assure you and most solemnly say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke [of the pen] will pass from the Law until all things [which it foreshadows] are accomplished.”—Matthew 5:17-18 (AMP)
