Spiritiual Science of Seven (7) Part 2 - The Glory; UNIFYING GLORY

THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCE OF SEVEN A Sabbath Sermon Rev. John Shane Vaughn First Harvest Ministries International "It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking YAHWEH... that then the house was filled with a cloud... for the glory of YAHWEH had filled the house of Elohim." — 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 I. THE GLORY DID NOT FALL ON A SOLOIST I want to start you in a room. Solomon has finished the house. Seven years of building, and it is done. The ark has been carried in and set down in the Most Holy Place. The Levites are standing at the east end of the altar — cymbals, psalteries, harps. And standing with them are a hundred and twenty priests with trumpets. Now count the noise in that room. A hundred and twenty trumpets. Strings. Percussion. Dozens upon dozens of men, every one — 1 — of them holding a different instrument, every one of them producing a different sound. And the Scripture records the exact moment the glory came. Not the hour. Not the day. The moment. And it does not say the glory came when they got louder. It does not say the glory came when the last board was nailed, or when the last coin was paid, or when the crowd reached a certain size. It says the glory came as they were as one, to make one sound. Many instruments. Many men. Many notes. One sound. And the instant that was true — the cloud came in, and the priests could not stand to minister, because the KAVOD of YAHWEH had filled the house. Beloved, hold that scene in front of you for the next hour, because everything I am going to preach is walking toward it. The glory of YAHWEH does not fall on a soloist. The glory falls on a chord. II. YAHWEH IS ONE — AND HE IS NOT SIMPLE Now before I can show you the chord, I have to show you why creation is built the way it is. — 2 — "YAHWEH is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Take light — pure, white, undivided light — and pass it through a prism. What comes out the other side? The bow. Bands of color, ranked in order, each one vibrating at its own rate. Red at one end, violet at the other, and since Newton men have counted those bands as seven. Now gather them and pass them back through a second prism. White again. Understand what that means. The prism did not create the color. The color was in the light the whole time. The prism only revealed what the light already contained — and when the bands are gathered, they return to the one. Now open Ezekiel and stand where the prophet stood. He is trying to describe the KAVOD, the weight and the glory, and his mouth cannot find any language for it except this: "As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of YAHWEH. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face." — Ezekiel 1:28 — 3 — And John, on Patmos, sees the same thing: "there was a rainbow round about the throne" (Revelation 4:3). Two men, separated by six hundred years, get a look at the glory — and both of them come back saying rainbow. That is the first thing creation preaches, and you must have it before anything else I say will land: YAHWEH is ONE, and He is not SIMPLE. The unity is real. The diversity is real. And they are not at war with each other, because the diversity was inside the unity the whole time. III. A SONG CANNOT BE MADE FROM ONE NOTE He wrote the same thing into sound. Seven notes fill the scale — Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti — and then the eighth returns to the first, an octave higher. And that octave is not a matter of taste. Middle A vibrates 440 times a second. The A above it vibrates 880. Exactly double, every time, in every nation, in every century. You cannot vote on it and you cannot reform it. But that is not what I want tonight. I want what comes after the scale. Because a song cannot be made from one note. — 4 — You can strike one note. You can strike it repeatedly. You can strike it loud, and with conviction, and with tears in your eyes — and eventually it stops being music and becomes hammering. Music requires relationship between notes. Difference. Movement. Tension. Resolution. And there are two different things happening in music, and the Body of Messiah needs both: Melody is notes in sequence — one after another, across time. That is your sanctification. That is what YAHWEH is doing in you, over years. Harmony is notes sounding together — at the same instant. That is character. That is this congregation. That is what YAHWEH is doing among us, right now. One is a journey. The other is a chord. And a man can be years deep into his melody and still have never once stood inside a chord. IV. EVERY ATTRIBUTE ALONE BECOMES AN IDOL Now apply that to the nature of YAHWEH, and watch how much of modern religion falls over. Love alone is not the whole song. — 5 — Justice alone is not the whole song. Mercy alone is not the whole song. Zeal alone is not the whole song. Wisdom alone is not the whole song. Each one belongs in the composition — and not one of them IS the composition. Take mercy out of YAHWEH and leave everything else, and what is left is terror. Take justice out and leave everything else, and what is left is indulgence. Take zeal out and you have indifference. Take patience out and you have fire with no season. Take holiness out and you have sentiment. Every attribute of YAHWEH is holy only in the chord. Pull one string out of the instrument, hold it up in the air, and call it the whole song — and you have not honored YAHWEH. You have carved an idol out of one of His attributes and hung His name on it. And beloved, that is the entire history of the modern church in a single sentence. One movement built itself on love with no law. One built itself on judgment with no mercy. One built — 6 — itself on zeal with no knowledge. One built itself on grace with no obedience. One built itself on prophecy with no character. Every one of them is striking a real note — I will grant them that, and I want you to grant it too, because it matters for where we are going. Those are genuine notes. They came out of the hand of YAHWEH. And not one of them is playing the song. V. SEVEN LAMPS ON ONE LAMPSTAND And this is not my metaphor. It is His, and He built it out of gold. "And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches... And six branches shall come out of the sides of it... And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof." — Exodus 25:31-37 Look at the construction and do not miss it. One piece of gold, beaten. One shaft. Six branches proceeding out of that shaft. Seven flames burning at the top. Not seven lampstands. Seven lamps on ONE lampstand. Now count Isaiah with me: — 7 — "And the spirit of YAHWEH shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of YAHWEH." — Isaiah 11:2 The Spirit of YAHWEH — and six named operations proceeding out of Him. One shaft. Six branches. Seven. Isaiah is describing the menorah in the language of the Spirit. Wisdom is a branch. Understanding is a branch. Counsel, might, knowledge, the fear of YAHWEH — every one of them beaten out of the same single piece of gold as the shaft they come from. And the Revelation says it plainly: "...the seven Spirits which are before his throne." — Revelation 1:4 "...seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of YAHWEH." — Revelation 4:5 "...seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of YAHWEH sent forth into all the earth." — Revelation 5:6 Seven bands in the bow. Seven notes in the scale. Seven lamps on the stand. Seven Spirits before the throne. Seven dimensions of divine fullness — proceeding out of ONE. — 8 — It is the prism again. One light. Many bands. And the bands were never additions — they were always inside the light. VI. SEVEN ASSEMBLIES, SEVEN NOTES Now we arrive at it. Because when YAHSHUA walks among the seven lampstands in Revelation and dictates seven letters, He is not addressing seven random towns in Asia Minor. He is showing us seven congregations — and almost every one of them is a congregation that got loud in one note. Read them that way and you will never read them the same again. EPHESUS had ZEAL. Works. Labor. Patience. They could not bear those who were evil. They tested men who called themselves apostles and found them liars. They labored for His name and did not faint. That is a real note, and it is a note most congregations in this country cannot hit at all. And He says: "thou hast left thy first love." Zeal with no love burns out. Every time. You cannot run on outrage forever. Eventually the doctrine is still correct and the heart is a cinder. SMYRNA knew SUFFERING. — 9 — Tribulation. Poverty. Ten days of it, and He tells them to be faithful unto death. He does not correct them once — not one word of rebuke in the whole letter. They knew a register of endurance that most of us in air conditioning have never touched. But hear me: a congregation that only knows how to bleed does not always know how to build. Endurance alone survives. It does not necessarily disciple. PERGAMOS held the NAME. They dwelt where the enemy's seat was. Antipas was killed among them and they still did not deny His faith. That is a real note and it is a rare one — holding the Name in hostile territory. And inside those same walls sat the doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. They guarded the perimeter and left the gate to the pantry open. Faithfulness without discernment gets eaten from the inside. THYATIRA had PATIENCE. Works, charity, service, faith, patience — and He says their last works were more than the first. They were growing. How many congregations can He say that about? And they suffered Jezebel to teach. Patience without judgment becomes permission. There is a kind of long-suffering that is actually cowardice wearing a robe. — 10 — SARDIS had a NAME. Reputation. Recognition. Everyone in the region knew who they were. "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." Their works were not perfect — not complete — before YAHWEH. They took the truth that was comfortable and refused the truth that cost. A partial obedience is a note held with the sustain pedal down over a corpse. PHILADELPHIA had FAITHFULNESS. The best review of the seven. Kept His word. Did not deny His name. An open door no man can shut. And even here the text records something that most readers skip right over: "thou hast a little strength." A little. Not much. And how is strength made? Against resistance. A man gets stronger by lifting what is heavy. Philadelphia had a beautiful register and a narrow one, because they had never carried the weight that widens it. LAODICEA — our age. "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." Now be careful, because most preachers get this charge wrong. The sin was never the sentence itself. YAHWEH says that sentence about Himself: "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 50:12). — 11 — There is nothing wrong with having need of nothing — if you actually have need of nothing. The sin of Laodicea is that they wore the confidence of YAHWEH over the poverty of a beggar. Wretched. Miserable. Poor. Blind. Naked. And "knowest not." One note, played at full volume, by someone who never earned it. VII. THE CHORD YAHWEH IS BUILDING Now here is the mercy in all of this, and there is enormous mercy in it. Every one of those assemblies possessed something REAL. Ephesus really had zeal. Thyatira really had patience. Smyrna really knew how to bleed and stay. Pergamos really held the Name in the enemy's own city. Philadelphia really kept His word. These were not seven failures. These were seven notes — every one of them genuine, every one of them out of the hand of YAHWEH, and every one of them alone. So play them together. Take the zeal of Ephesus and lay it against the patience of Thyatira, and you would have a congregation that could stand for four hundred years. — 12 — Take the endurance of Smyrna and lay it against the love of Philadelphia, and you would have something the gates of hell could not move. Take the confidence of Laodicea — that unbroken certainty, that refusal to be intimidated — and put it on top of the faithfulness of Philadelphia, and give it the riches to back it up, and you would have a people who could walk into any room on this earth and not blink. That is a chord. And that is precisely what YAHWEH is building. Not seven separate churches. ONE lampstand — beaten out of a single piece of gold — carrying every flame at once. Now here is where it gets personal, and here is where it gets uncomfortable. The note you are missing is not in you. It is in somebody else in this assembly. Harmony is not a solo discipline. You cannot get it alone in your prayer closet, because harmony by definition requires another voice sounding at the same time as yours. That means the man in this room whose temperament irritates you the most is very likely carrying the exact note you were never given. The patient one is not weak. The zealous one is not unstable. The one who has suffered is not bitter. They are branches on your lampstand. — 13 — And this is why the enemy's entire strategy against a remnant is not persecution. It is separation. He does not need to silence you. He only needs to make sure you never sound at the same time as anybody else. We are Laodicean by birth. Every one of us. We were raised in this age, we drank this age's water, and we will always lean toward it. But the calling on this remnant is to be the prism in reverse — to take the scattered bands and gather them back, until what comes out the other side is white light. Zeal, with knowledge. Patience, with judgment. Mercy, with justice. Love, with law. Endurance, with joy. Confidence — with the actual riches to back it. That is the whole song. VIII. AND WHY HE TAKES YOU THROUGH ALL SEVEN Now you understand why He will not leave you alone. Because spiritual maturity is not becoming louder in the one thing you already possess. — 14 — It is allowing YAHWEH to add the missing notes. Some of us have been singing one note for twenty years. We have gotten very good at it. Very confident in it. We have built an entire identity around the one note we can hit, and we have learned to call everyone who hits a different one a compromiser or a heretic. And YAHWEH is standing over us saying: I am trying to teach you the whole song. And this is why He takes you through the seven — all the way through. Not stopping at the fifth because the sixth is going to hurt. He is not wasting your suffering; He is widening your range. You knew faith before the trial. But after the trial, you know faith in another octave. You knew patience before the suffering. But after suffering, patience sounds different. You knew YAHWEH before the wilderness. But when the wilderness is finished, you know the same YAHWEH at a depth you did not have before. The note is recognizable. But the octave has changed. And this is written into His Law from the beginning. Watch it. Every time YAHWEH finishes a work of seven, He does not stop — He begins — 15 — again on the eighth, at a higher place than the first. Seven days the child lives; the eighth day, the covenant sign (Genesis 17:12). Seven days the leper waits outside; the eighth day, he is restored (Leviticus 14:10). Seven days Aaron is consecrated; on the eighth day, he stands at the altar (Leviticus 8:33; 9:1). Seven days of Tabernacles; the eighth day, the holy convocation (Leviticus 23:36). Seven sevens counted; and then the fiftieth — the trumpet, and liberty through all the land (Leviticus 25:8-10). Six thousand years of the government of man, and the Sabbath millennium of the Kingdom — and then the eighth. All things new. Beloved, the octave is not a musician's invention. The octave is the shape of the Torah. So when the seventh sounds in your life and it feels like you are right back where you started, understand what has actually happened to you: You are not back. You are UP. Same note. Higher octave. — 16 — IX. AND WHEN THEY SOUND TOGETHER So let me take you back into Solomon's house, and let me put the question to you plainly. A hundred and twenty trumpets. Harps and psalteries and cymbals. Dozens of men, dozens of instruments, dozens of parts. They were not playing one note. But they were as one, to make one sound. Many notes. One sound. That is the definition of harmony. And the instant the harmony was complete — the KAVOD came into the house. Not when they got louder. Not when they got bigger. Not when they got better organized, or better funded, or better attended. When they got TOGETHER. THE CHARGE So stop striking your one note. Stop defending the single attribute of YAHWEH that you happen to be comfortable with as though it were the whole of Him. — 17 — Stop calling your favorite note the song. Let Him add what is missing. Let Him bring somebody into your life carrying the note you do not have, and do not despise them for sounding different than you sound. Let Him take you through all seven — all the way through — and when the seventh sounds and it feels like the beginning again, sing it. Sing it on the eighth. There are seven bands in the bow, and they are one light. There are seven lamps on the stand, and it is one piece of gold. There are seven Spirits before the throne, and there is one YAHWEH. There are seven assemblies, and there is one Body. And when they sound together, heaven does not produce noise. HEAVEN PRODUCES MUSIC. And when the music is right — the house fills up. That is why I call this: THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCE OF SEVEN. Rev. John Shane Vaughn First Harvest Ministries International — 18 — P.O. Box 2757, Bay St. Louis, MS 39521 — 19 —