If You were the Devil, What Would You Do?

The idea that the millennium is a literal thousand years in our future is a distortion of the texts that teach we will reign with Christ as priests and kings.  Rev 1:5-6 says that positioning of ourselves as kings and priests, by the blood of Jesus, is a past tense event!   But dispensationalism not only destroys the thought of jew and gentile being together NOW in the CHURCH, since the entire mystery of the church age was for jew and gentile to be together in one body, but it also robs us of our understanding that Christ already made us kings and priests!

"Dispies" throw the millennium into the future, and thereby throw our ruling with Christ into the future.

Rev 20:4
(4)  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

But the fact remains that Paul clearly taught we are seated together with Christ in heavenly places (Eph 2:5-6).  And chapter 6 of the same book tells us that we war against principalities and powers in "high places".    "High places" in greek also means "heavenly places".   Check a good margin reference.

So we are ruling in heavenly places and wage war in those places since we are conquering kings and priests unto God right now.

Christ told the Laodicaeans that if they overcome, they will sit with him in his throne as he overcame and sat down with His father in His throne.  Overcomers accomplish their overcoming by faith, according to 1 John 5:4.  And Rev 12:11 says we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.  This all refers to the work of the cross that makes us powerhouses for God, if we have faith in it!    The blood of the lamb indicates Christ's death on the cross to demolish sin and save our souls.  And our subsequent testimony that coincides with that is that He died and shed His blood as us, so that it is our testimony that we died on the cross, and were buried, and resurrected again into newness of life... only to ascend to be seated with Him in heavenly places.  It was His blood, but our testimony! We died with HIM!!!!

And notice the singular tenses of the following phrase as well as the  plural..

Rev 12:11
(11)  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

They is plural.  But they have a single testimony.  That testimony is that we all died with Christ when He shed his blood.  How?  By faith!  (Notice here how faith is associated with overcoming as 1 John 5:4 notes.)  And they (plural) loved not their lives (plural) unto the death (singular).  Would it not rather be more correct to say they loved not their lives to their "deaths" (plural)?  No.  It is "spiritually" correct, since the death is Christ's death that we all lay a claim to since its the same testimony we all share as believers!
Notice what else is connected with the blood and overcoming.

Rev 5:9-10
(9)  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
(10)  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

We already noted that Rev 1:5-6 says the blood already made us kings and priests.  That is a past tense issue.  Christ is not going to make us kings and priests by his blood, but already has done so.  And where He did it is found in Rev 5, where He resurrected from the dead, as indicated by the lamb that was slain seen to be STANDING!  And he prevailed to open the book.

PREVAILING IS OVERCOMING!

And like a high priest, He proceeded to the throne (ark of the covenant's mercyseat), and thereby redeemed us by His blood.  This book is none other than the new covenant book of life!  He made atonement for us!

He went into the true tabernacle of Heaven itself!    See Hebrews 9.

And that blood made us kings and priests for us to rule on the earth!

He was the one who overcome.  And He just told the Laodicaeans in Chapter 3 that if THEY overcome they will sit on thrones to rule.  But here we read JESUS OVERCOMES and THAT causes them to sit on thrones and rule!  Why does it say this?  It is because BY FAITH, SINCE WE DIED WITH HIM AND WERE BURIED WITH HIM AND RESURRECTED WITH HIM, WE THEREFORE OVERCAME WITH HIM, since His overcoming was through defeating death, hell and the grave!

However, dispies miss all of that, and put our reigning into the future.

What would you influence believers who are already kings and priests, who are to wage war in heavenly places from the throne on which they sit with Christ, if you were the devil?  --> Tell the believers they are not yet kings and priests, and will not be so until an unknown future time.  And they never know when that time will be.

This does not mean we will not reign in a greater measure, beyond what we can imagine, after this life is over.  But it sure says that we are kings and priests right now, as well!

I HEAR A SNAKE HISSING, and its got a dispensational tone to it!