DAY 11 of 90 Days Watching With The LORD
The Corporate Sword, Part Two
The Open Door and the Threshold Covenant
Scriptures: Revelation 3:17–22; Revelation 4:1; Genesis 14:18; Joshua 5:2–10
Yesterday we saw how the LORD summoned Israel's seventy elders to ascend the mountain, where they stood on a sapphire pavement and ate a meal with God. That meal is unfamiliar to us, but it was common in that culture and era. Two parties ate a meal to confirm and seal a covenant, and you see the same imagery in the New Testament at the Passover table with the bread and wine, which we call holy communion.
Meditate on that reality. An Old Covenant people stood on a sapphire pavement, beheld the LORD, and ate a meal with God. Now we in the New Covenant have a better covenant with better promises (Hebrews 8:6) and as the Apostle Paul declares, should manifest a greater glory than Moses, whose face shone with God's radiance. (2 Cor. 3:6-18)
I make this point again because the Lord is summoning His covenant people to ascend His Mountain called Zion (NOT Sinai) and stand before Him regarding the future of the nations. It's back to the imagery and calling in Jeremiah 1:9-10.
Jeremiah 1:9 Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: 10 “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms..
I want to be clear about the nature of this summons. This call to the global church is not a call to salvation. It is a call to habitation which will enable us to operate unhindered as the authoritative unsheathed corporate SWORD, His governmental Body releasing His Kingdom upon the eARTH.
A COVENANT THAT WE DIDN'T KNOW WAS COMPROMISED
Laodicea was in covenant with God, but their covenant was compromised, and they didn't discern it. Now meditate on that, how's that is even possible.
Revelation 3:17–18 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ — and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked — I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
They thought they were rich, yet they were devastatingly poor. They thought their vision was accurate, but He told them they were blind. They thought they were clothed in His righteousness, yet they were naked, not covered by the Lord's finished work. Most likely none of it was outright deliberate rebellion. You can have a compromised covenant without realizing it, and refuse to believe it, because you hear God, feel God, and have been used by God, and those things feel like confirmation when they are actually mercy.
Anyone familiar with revival and church history knows the stages of restoration that have already taken place and are still unfolding. I believe this is a season when the LORD restores His original intent and design for His covenant body and delivers us from nineteen hundred years of cultural mixture and restores us (ONE GENERATION) back to the Kingdom mandate of replicating His lifestyle in disciples and in sent ones.
THE LORD OF THE SWORD IS KNOCKING AT OUR DOOR
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
That is covenant-meal imagery again, and it is important to understand who He is addressing. This is not an evangelistic appeal to the unconverted. He stands outside the door of a people already in covenant with Him and knocks.
We must understand who's knocking at our door: it's the Lord of the Sword. He comes to that threshold to cut a covenant with us, and the same sword that cuts covenant will cut away everything in us that hinders love and covenant fidelity. So let me say it as plainly as I know how: we have to yield to the sword of the Lord before we will ever wield it.
And read what He actually promises. He does not say He will come into our house. He says He will come into him. He is not asking for access to our buildings, services, or calendars. He is asking to come into us, to take up full residence, to possess what He already bought. He purchased us with His own blood, so when we open that door, we are not doing Him a favor; we are a purchased possession finally saying to the Owner, come in. You redeemed us to God by Your blood, and we are Yours. And when He comes in like that, He fills the house with the latter glory, greater than the former.
THE GREATEST PROMISE OF THE SEVEN
Here is the amazing thing about the letter to Laodicea. The lukewarm, blind, and naked church is given a promise greater than any of the other six receive.
Revelation 3:21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
To sit with Him on His throne, in the same way He overcame and sat down with His Father on His throne. And watch what happens immediately after that promise is spoken, because John does not pause.
Revelation 4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.”
A door opens on earth, and a door opens in heaven. He knocks at one, and He summons through the other, and I believe that is the reality we are standing in right now. The letter to the seventh church is key for this hour, especially in these ninety days and now that we have entered the Hebrew year 5787. All sevens are holy to the Lord. Seven speaks of the covenant, the sword of the Lord, and the voice of the Lord. He is knocking at the door of the church.
A COVENANT MADE AT THE THRESHOLD
But the key is what happens at the threshold, because a door is not merely an entrance in Scripture. It is a place where a covenant is cut. Israel put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintel, and the household under that blood entered into covenant at its own threshold. When Israel crossed the Jordan into the land, the LORD first required the knife of circumcision, the covenant sign, and only then did they keep the Passover in the land (Joshua 5:2–10). You do not walk through a threshold in Scripture. You cut the covenant at it.
So when He stands at the door and knocks, He is not coming empty-handed. He comes as Melchizedek came out of Salem to meet Abram after the slaughter of the kings, bringing bread and wine (Genesis 14:18). He comes to the door saying, “Open, and I will come in and dine with you.”
Bread and wine at the threshold, a covenant meal at the door. The same table the seventy ate on a sapphire pavement is now offered at the entrance of a lukewarm church.
The Lord is SUMMONING HIS Global Bride (church) to renew their covenant vows with Him. Just as a husband and wife renew their vows at twenty-five or fifty, and as Israel renewed the covenant at Gilgal after entering the land. There also a summons out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4) and a call to fully divorce the spirit of this age, and to open the door to His circumcision sword.
When the door is open He will come in and take possession of His people and then we will become the habitation generation. Only then do we become the authoritative corporate sword, the corporate covenant body capable of wielding the word of the Lord with precision, cutting cities to the heart and bringing forth the fullness of the Father's redemptive plan for every bloodline and family tree.
QUESTION
Where might your own covenant be compromised in a place you haven't been willing to look, simply because you still hear God and still feel Him there? What would it cost you to open that door and let Him come in, not to your house, but into you?
PRAYER
Lord, I hear You knocking. Anoint my eyes that I may see what I have not been able to see. I renounce the spirit of this age, and I renew my covenant vows with You at this threshold. Come in, not to my house, but into me, and take full possession of what You already purchased with Your blood.
DECLARATION
I am a purchased possession, redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb. The door is open. He comes in with bread and wine, and we will become the habitation of His glory and the corporate sword of His mouth.
The Jeremiah Generation • Zion Gate Ministries