Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
August 15, 2010
“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love (Revelation 2:4).”
These are the words of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ given in judgment upon the church even as it was in its formative years before there was any religion known as Christianity. She had not yet gone into captivity to the religious system, so that her good works, her labor, her patience, her intolerance for evil and a lying priesthood, were all done literally in the name of Jesus and not in the name of the religious system, called Christianity.
All these things would have been done by those who belonged to ‘the Way’, in love with Jesus, as first born of the apostolic church of Jesus Christ, totally standing on truth. Yet, the missing ingredient in such a church, as described from the throne of God, was the love for Him. This is where the first chink in the armor begins. The passion of the apostles began to wane with the next generation.
It was the point where Adam and Eve found themselves in relationship to God. They discovered there were other worldly things out there, which they loved more, once the lure was put in front of them. In fact, they were convinced of their own importance. How could there have been any single thing they loved more than life itself, which was their gift from their Father of Creation? If so, they committed the unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life that God breathed into man, to choose the spirit of death.
The moment the church lost its passion for Jesus, it was as susceptible to the lures of Satan as were Adam and Eve. Its position in the marriage bed as the bride of Christ could change in a moment to become a harlot to Babylon, passing from life to death as quickly as did Adam and Eve, on the dawn of creation. These are the only two positions man can take; one, as the lover of Jesus Christ or, two, as the harlot who belongs to the Antichrist. The first comes from a God who loved you first, and the second comes from putting love of self before the love of God.
Let us look at some of the great lovers of the Lord God, beginning with Noah. He came out of a world of sin and rebellion, because of his love for and obedience to God in loyalty to Him, to father sons who were founders of nations. Abraham left his country, his kindred, and his father’s house to be taken to a land the Lord would show him; God promised to make of him a great nation. The descendants of his grandson, Jacob, would come out of Egypt from slavery to liberty. The number one commandment of God was to worship only Him and to have no other gods before Him. In turn, He would lead them into the land of promise to Abraham and would make of them a great nation called Israel after their forefather, Jacob.
Who could forget one of the greatest declarations of love ever recorded in the Bible, when Ruth declared her love and loyalty for Naomi? “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me (Ruth 1:16-17).” The two of them, Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, went straight to Bethlehem where Ruth found and married her near kinsman and redeemer, Boaz, to bring forth an inheritance for the throne of Israel, which would lead, first, to David, and then, to Jesus.
This is the kind of love for which the Lord is searching and looking to find in His church, not just from the church in Ephesus during her early days of falling away, but here in America in her latter days of one of the worst fallings-away from God in all of spiritual Israel’s history, which began with Abraham.
Yes, God brought His church to America where He made of her a great nation. It was never a religious state, but rather it was always a church state. The laws were taken straight from the words and Law of the Bible. The settlers came to experience the liberty a world had never known in religious states; it was only found in a nation under God’s truth, such as Israel experienced when she came out of Egypt and entered into separation from the religious world as a nation, which God promised to Abraham.
But because she lost her first love for God and pursued the idols of the world, she was turned back over to the world empires of her day, only to lose her inheritance. It then went to the second Son of Man and of God, who established His church as the true Jew of the house of Israel, only to have it go into captivity to the Romanism of what was left of the Roman Empire. The empire was kept alive and survived as the Roman Catholic Church ruled by the pagan priest of Rome who was called the Pope.
Yet, the Lord had promised His church that the gates of hell would not prevail against her, and that from out of her would come the bride from mankind for Jesus, just as Adam had his bride Eve. But she would have to be a bride with a passion for her Bridegroom, and she could never be a harlot who would choose the devil and death over life.
As the break from Rome began with Luther and his kind, the romance between Jesus and His church was rekindled and once again, she looked toward her Lord in love and a pure spirit, trusting in the Word as her religious practices were put behind her. This was the church, which arrived with the Puritans to the shores of America.
It was this love for God, which brought church and state together as God’s nation for His people, separated in the West from the East. Incredibly beautiful and stirring national music was inspired by love for God and love for this nation ruled by Him. The music was penned to produce such great patriotic anthems as The Star-Spangled Banner, God Bless America and The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Hearts beat in love for God and nation, and patriotism was instilled into the hearts of little children, from a very early age, in their classrooms as they learned the Word of the Bible and saluted God and country in song. There was not one Muslim of the East in their midst in the West; this was by design, not by chance.
In the other American nation of Canada, even the less passionate Canadians stood at attention as the refrain of O Canada was sung and the people called on God, their supreme Ruler, to bless their land. Sadly, it was still mixed with the anthem of God save the King (Queen), a religious ruler who claimed headship of the church and state, but, in fact, lacked the authority to exercise his/her religious role in this country.
No one crossed over the borders of these great nations under God without swearing allegiance to Him and to country. You could not be double-minded and be such by remaining a citizen of the East, where men and their pagan gods were honored. It mattered little or not whence a citizen came, but it did matter as to where they were coming. God and the nation were one; all immigrants bought the entire package if they wanted to become a citizen in either country of America.
But now we have lost our first love for God and nation. Good is called evil and evil is called good. Most who call themselves Christians do not see Jesus as the Way and the only way back to the kingdom. It appeared to be a paradise on earth to the former prisoners of religion when they first saw this New World of liberty as their ships approached her shores. How did her passionate nature get lost along the way? It all began in the same way as it began with Israel; America developed a tolerance for cults and their gods known as multiculturalism, which has led us to worship mother earth and even the earth itself.
It was the stew (the meat of the beast), which Esau wanted more than his inheritance from God. It was the meat Israel wanted in the wilderness more than she wanted manna, the perfect food from heaven. It is the whole gamut of gurus, holy cows, endangered species and the Allah of Mohammed that we want today instead of the God of the cross, a Man called Jesus, who said of Himself that He is the way, the truth and the life and that no one can come to the Father except through Him.
After having lost our first love, we can easily see the downward progression that followed. What was once the church of Ephesus has become the Laodicean church of today. It followed a path of ‘devolution’ over time here in America and around the world, but to a lesser extent in the countries where the church is a persecuted church. As opposed to looking upward to God, it looked downward to the devil and, consequently, went into what we can only call a tailspin.
Persecution is coming, and the final result will be as sad for the church as it was for Israel. The first son, Esau, married the Canaanite culture. America is joining herself to eastern culture as she makes the choice to leave her first love and chase after the religion of the East from which the Lord had extracted His church like a tooth taken from the mouth of Satan. Now she wants to be like an implant back into the mouth from which she was extracted.
The Lord will resurrect His apostolic church from out of the ashes, to be His voice once again, speaking only truth as a testimony to Him – a true Ruth redeemed by her Redeemer. She will bring forth the child of the Spirit, snatched up to the very throne of God, as His adopted child into the house of Israel. It is as the child of Ruth in relationship to Naomi, carrying on the spiritual line of her mother-in-law, Mary, as the redeemed bride of Christ, birthing a spiritual son for God.
These are the redeemed of the world who have returned to their first love in the only way possible, having a passion for Jesus and a hatred, like He held, for the religious, priestly Nicolaitan system (see Revelation 2:6). They will be the church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.
They do not go to church, but rather are the church and voice for truth, raised up for such a time as this, to come against the forces of religion, as they testify in the spirit of prophecy, to their Beloved. This is a church, which holds hands with the apostles in a circle of light around the Light – the lesser and the greater Light of the heavens.
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent (Revelation 2:5).”