Step 6 Seated - Six Steps to the Throne Series

SIX STEPS TO THE THRONE

Gary Garner

Lesson Six: SEATED

Of all the things that we are about here, if we can get these six steps and the foundational truths revolving around those steps, we’ve got what really is the heart of this part of the body of Christ: the six steps to the throne.

We’ve just looked at I Kings 10 as one of many different places that we could have started from.  We could have started from the six paces that David went with the ark on the way back to Jerusalem.  He went six paces, stopped and prayed.  Six steps to the throne.  We could have started from the Book of Ruth, where Boaz gave her six measures of barely.  It’s the same principle.  There are many places in scripture.  We’ve chosen this place because it is a picture of Solomon’s kingdom at its height, which parallels the kingdom of God.  Jesus is king, ruling and reigning over all the earth on His throne.

Understand something as we proceed with this message: God’s throne is not a seat somewhere in heaven.  It is not a natural seat, or chair, in some natural heavenly somewhere.  It is a place of authority.  It is a place of ruler ship.  We’re not sitting in some big old golden chair somewhere.  It is much deeper than that, much higher that that.  But here we find a principle or a picture of these six steps seen in Solomon’s throne.

1 Kings 10:18, 19a Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold.  The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind...

We’ve used this to teach the progressive revelation of Christ as seen in this redemptive work revealed by the Apostle Paul.  These steps are all obtained from looking at the overall view of the Pauline revelation.  If you look at all that Paul said, you can break down the redemptive work into six specific areas: crucified, died, buried, quickened, raised and seated.  Three of those things are God doing away with us; three of those things are God producing a manifestation of Christ in a people.  Before God could make us the new creatures that we are, he had to fist do away with who we used to be.  He did that through the crucifixion, death and burial; we call that the dark side of the redemptive work. 

It is the negative side.  It is what He had to do first before God could make His son into the head of a new creation man.

II Corinthians 5:21 says that He was made to be sin.  Some people say He was made to be a sin offering; it doesn’t make any difference whether you say “sin” or “sin offering.”  The Old Testament sin offering, even though it went to the altar as a sinless offering, in the sight of God that animal bore the sin, took the place of, and died the death of the one doing the offering.  It is the same thing.

Studying these six steps to the throne is, to us, the easiest way to see our union with Him.  I don’t doubt that there are other ways; but it is the easiest way to come to the realization of being one with Him.  If you can see Him two thousand years ago as He opened His pure, lovely spirit to the fallen condition of us all and identified with us there, then you will see that you truly did die with Christ.

There are far reaching truths that God knows, that we haven’t seen yet.  There are some truths that the Holy Spirit already knows.  The only individuals that don’t know it are the body that those are true of. If we knew these things to be so, we wouldn’t have some of this end time eschatology stuff that we hear going around.  We wouldn’t believe that we’re going somewhere that we’ve already been for two thousand years!

Now we are going to deal with the idea of “seated together with Him.”  Let me tell you how the Lord has progressively unfolded this truth to us in scripture.  When you first look at these six steps to the throne, it would be your understanding that this “seated together” wasn’t all that important.  There are more than one scripture for all the others.  But it is only in Ephesians 2 that we find this statement that we were seated together with Him.  Our carnal thinking was that it wasn’t really that important.

But that verse in Ephesians is a little hole (like a worm hole in space) in the world of the Spirit; and once you go through it, it opens up the whole Bible to you because that is the end of the matter. 

When Jesus sat down, the work was done; it was finished.  The program had been completed.  Then as you began to realize that, you began to see it wasn’t just in the one little place; it’s everywhere.  We could use many scriptures for this, but we will just launch into this with Hebrews chapter one.

Hebrews 1: 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

“Who” speaks of Jesus, who is the brightness of His (the Father’s) glory.  The purging of our sins is something He did by Himself.  Every truth in this line of thinking is just endless in its scope.  Just think about this; He did it Himself two thousand years ago.  “This day have I begotten thee.”  Jesus was begotten in the resurrection.  We are going to teach this “seating”, this entrance into the heavenlies, as the ascension that occurred in John chapter 20. 

Mary went to the tomb, and Jesus met her there.  He told here “don’t touch me; I have not yet ascended unto My Father.”  The three days and three nights that it took to bring redemption’s full work wasn’t over until Jesus ascended the morning of the third day into the heavenlies with His own blood.

Let’s proclaim it simply by reading the verse that says it’s true.

Ephesians 2: 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with

Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

This is a past tense statement.  He hath quickened us, He hath raised us, He hath made us sit together with Him in the heavenlies.  Have you ever heard anybody explain this by saying, “Oh, that’s positional truth?”  What they’re saying is, “That’s the way God views it, but that’s not really the way it is.”  But God sees it the way it really is; either I am seated together with Christ in the heavenlies, or I’m not.

If I’m not, I’m not and if I am then I’m going to live that out.  Positionally simply means that I am seated together with Him in the heavenlies.  That is a truth.

That is one of those truths that we were talking about earlier, that God knows, but we have yet to find out.

Did you know that the Bible boldly proclaims that, if you are in Christ, then you are where He is?  You can’t be in Him and not be where He is.

Philippians 3:20 For our conversation (we talk like a citizen of) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some people don’t like to hear it, but the truth is that the Bible boldly proclaims that we are already in heavenly places. “We look from heaven  (not to heaven) for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”  That boldly tells me that I have the ability to look from that dimension.  How could I look from that dimension if I’m not there?

Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.

It says we are already come to the heavenly Jerusalem.  The problem is not where I am, but what people perceive to be this place called heaven.  It is not some physical planet several billion miles off somewhere.  It is the realm of the spirit; it is the unseen place that is more real than the place you are viewing with your eyes.

The place Adam was in at the beginning, the Garden of Eden, didn’t go anywhere.  The Garden of Eden didn’t leave; Adam left it.

It still exists; it is still the spiritual dimension, still a place.  Adam went from the spirit world; he died spiritually and left that place behind.  The place is still there, and we’re being brought back to that consciousness and that awareness and that heavenly-mindedness, moment by moment as this trump sounds that you and I are in.  We are in the last trump, during the last trump, being brought back to a consciousness of the heavenlies where we dwell.  Adam didn’t even know he had a physical body until after he left that place, until after he died spiritually.  Then he began to clothe himself.

We, on the other hand, as the Body of Christ, are born back into that dimension through the new birth.  We were unaware that we have a spiritual body.  Now we’re covering that with Him.  We don’t want to be found naked.  The first thing that God did was killing a little lamb and cover that physical man.  The spirit man that we are in Christ has a lamb that we are to be covered with.

There isn’t any way to jump in this half way.  These far reaching truths are too awesome in their scope to just back off a little bit. 

You can’t just slip in there and talk about being seated together with Him in the heavenlies and just make this a nice little lesson that won’t rock any boats.  You can’t do that; you’ve just got to teach it the way it is and let the chips fall where they may.  People are hungry and they can hear!

Revelation 3: 20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any men hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

 Chapter 4

1 AFTER this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

“Come up hither” - that’s not direction; that’s dimension.  “A throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.”  If we are seated together with Him in the heavenlies, if He is the head and we are the body, then the one that John saw on that throne was a many-membered one.  The unveiling of the Christ, the many-membered man throughout the Book of Revelation, includes those that are one with Him.  It is all the way through scripture. 

As we ascend in the spirit, not naturally, not geographically, but spiritually, we will also see our union with Him. We will also see ourselves seated together with Him in the heavenlies.  That’s the exciting thing.  That’s really when we take off as a Christian; it’s when the growth process starts.

The reason this age that we are coming into is called the “kingdom age” is because the veil points to a time in God’s purpose that people understand what it is like to be one with the King.  We are being drawn to live in the Kingdom of God and not the kingdoms of this planet earth.

They come to the realization; they’re caught up in the spirit to see themselves as one with the king, and that produces a manifestation in this earthly world of the spiritual King Jesus. 

It is not called the “kingdom age” because that’s when Jesus becomes King (He’s always been king); but it’s because His body comes to a point of understanding their union with Him who is seated on the throne and their involvement with that.  They draw their life from that Kingdom and it’s king.

He then begins to out-work His life and nature through the Body.  We believe we will see Jesus Christ but not until He has manifested Himself through His Body. That is the revelation that He gave Paul and we need to understand that.

He must and will have His body.

“Seated together with Him in the heavenlies” is not just something we proclaim; it is not just something that we get happy over.  If you understand it and really believe it, it will change your thinking.  I am confident that it will change the way you deal with the enemy.

In Romans 16 Paul said that the enemy would be placed under our feet shortly.  How shortly?  The very second that we see Paul’s revelation; it will be instantaneous, just as soon as we see ourselves seated together with Him.

The church world today is, almost without exception, doing it backwards. Many are thinking they have to pull a devil down, pull down his strongholds, pull him out of the heavenlies and put him under our feet down here.

But that’s not the program.  God has raised you above him and is giving you a revelation of that.  If you are seated together with Christ in the heavenlies, since the enemy walks in the dust, he will automatically be under you.

Putting him under your feet is not something you do; it is something you discover has been done in your union with Christ.  As long as the Body still believes that this “seating together” is only going to be fully manifested with a physical departure from this earth, they will never come to understand that the enemy is under their feet now.

Isaiah 35: 3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you.   (On the Cross)

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

6 Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

8 And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

These “blind eyes” and “deaf ears” are not physical; it is speaking of being able to see and hear what is happening today.  Thank God for healing physical lameness, but the saddest thing today is the Body of Christ limping around, not being able to “walk the walk.”  The thirsty land in verse 7 is you.

Verse 8 says, “An highway shall be there, and a way.”  Who is that way?  Jesus said, “I am the way.”  Verse 9 says, “No lion shall be there.” 

1 Peter 5:8 calls the devil a lion.

Verse 10 says, “Everlasting joy upon their heads.”  David said, “Thou anointest my head with oil.”  Saul was anointed with a vial of oil.  A vial is a manmade instrument.  Saul didn’t last (1 Samuel 10).  David was anointed with a horn of oil, and God said, “That’s a man after my own heart.”  “God is anointing the head”; He’s changing our minds; He’s renewing our thinking, because this oil of the Spirit now that is touching our minds comes from the horn.  Where do you get a horn? It comes off of a dead sacrifice. 

Out of that death comes that anointing that is anointing our heads today.  That is the difference.  The first man Adam, the man inside me that wanted to rule and reign, was anointed out of a physical, manmade vessel.  It was the way we thought it ought to be done.  “We’ll rule and reign this way; this is our thinking.”  But David comes along out of obscurity and is anointed with a horn of oil.

Verse 10 refers to everlasting joy.  What does “everlasting” mean?  It’s not having the joy of the Lord one day but not the next.  “The joy of the Lord is our strength.”  They shall obtain gladness and joy.  Hebrews 1 says that Jesus, the head, is anointed with the oil of gladness.  “Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”  That will touch the world!

How much more practical can it be than to know that you are above the enemy!  You are not fighting him all the time.  You are fighting an imaginary enemy.  Just rise up above him and consider Jesus.  It is possible to spend more time thinking about a devil than about the Lord.

Psalm 110 is referred to seven times in the New Testament.  Seven is the number of perfection in the scriptures.

Psalm 110: 1 (A Psalm of David.)

 

THE Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent; Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.

6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.

7 He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

Jesus is seated there.  What is the last enemy that will be put under?  Death!  What is Zion? It is the church, the highest order. Zion is the over comer; it is the rod of His strength.  Verse 3 says, “The day of thy power.”  That’s the third day.  “The power of the resurrection.”  Paul said, “That I might know him in the power of his resurrection.”

In Genesis 14, when Abraham met Melchizidek, that is that fist time that Melchizidek is mentioned in scripture.  He is not mentioned again until 1000 years later, when David writes this Psalm.  Then he’s not mentioned at all until we get over to the book of Hebrews.

This Psalm, “Sit thou on the right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool,” revolves around this statement in verse 4, “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”.

Verse 7 says, “He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head.”  Because we drink of that stream, the river of life, therefore shall He, that many-membered “He,” lift up the head (Christ).

We have to get this message to the people so that they can understand the implications of being seated together with Him.  You could teach a year on this thought and never exhaust any of it.  In fact we have taught before and have on tape as well as Pastor Garner the Pauline revelation, which is a very detailed study.

Psalm 2:4 he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?”  Why do we get so down about certain things that happen in our lives?  He that sits in the heavens laughs.

When man or thoughts speak in your ear and says, “You will never make it; you’re a fool for even believing you can grow up, “He that sits in the heavens laughs, because it shall come to pass.

The prophet Isaiah got up one day and said, “Do you know what?  A virgin shall conceive and bear a child.”  I’ll bet his wife said, “Honey, don’t go tell people that!  Just write that down in a book somewhere, and then they’ll find it sometime.  Don’t go tell them that!”  He thought, “No, I’ve got to.”  He died, and what he spoke happen seven hundred years later.

Psalm 2: 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Here is the Father saying to the Son, “I’ve set my king on my holy hill.  I will declare a decree.”  God said, “Ask of me, and I will give you the heathen, and the uttermost parts of the earth.”  This earth belongs to the Lord.

The Body of Christ is going to rise up to understand exactly that they are in the One who rules and reigns. 

One day they will rise up, not presumptuously, but because their Head is anointed with oil.  They will declare a decree, “Father, give me the heathen and the uttermost parts of the earth.”  They won’t do that until they find out that they are in Him.

We are sitting back thinking. “Come on, King Jesus, declare that decree.” What God is doing is revealing to us that there will come a time when, by the faith that is only of Him, we understand that through the voice of many waters this promise will be fulfilled.  (A people trumpeting the finished work are that voice of many waters.)

A good line of thought would be to read Psalm 1 and see that unrighteous man, that Adam, who sits in the seat of the scornful. There are only two seats.  There is a seating in the heavenlies that says.  “I can and I will”, and there is a seating in the earth that says, “Nobody should even think about doing that.”

Why would anyone say that, because they have never seen anyone seated? Someone must take their place first, someone must step in and lead the way.

Paul wrote, in 1 Thessalonians that the old man, the unrighteous man, will be found sitting right in the temple.  Some folks have located him.  We’ve found him, and it was the “I”, that old “Judas” in us that wanted to crucify self.

Judas had thirty pieces of silver in his grip. 

Silver speaks of redemption and thirty is the number for maturity. Judas threw away his maturity and went out and hung himself. We must not think that maturity comes by something we do it comes by something the Lord has already done.  Maturity comes from you seeing and understanding some things.

May the Lord reveal to His people that finished work.

Amen

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