The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 49

Three-legged Stool

Why will a three-legged stool sit flat on an uneven floor when a four legged chair won’t?

The site twentytwowords.com in their 658 word article titled, “A mathematical explanation of a 3-legged stool’s complete inability to wobble,” explains why. Here are a few of those 658 words.
https://twentytwowords.com/a-mathematical-explanation-of-a-3-legged-stools-complete-inability-to-wobble/, 9/4/18.

(1) If you hold a cane in the air, you can move it in any direction, twirl it, and so on. Its motion isn’t constrained at all. That is, the top of the cane can move freely in three dimensions.

(2) If you put (and keep) one end on the ground, now its motion is constrained: you can’t lift it, or rotate it… although you can swing the top around in a variety of different arcs. That is, the top of the cane can move freely in two dimensions.

(3) If you connect the tops of two canes together and place the other ends on the ground, you can still move the tops, but only along a single (straight) arc, back and forth. That is, the tops of the canes can move freely in one dimension.

(4) If you try the same trick with three canes, now you can’t move the tops at all. This is basically what’s happening with a three-legged stool. The tops of the canes can move in zero dimensions…which is to say, they can’t.

So since the top of a three-legged stool can’t move in any direction, it doesn’t. A three-legged stool will sit stably on an uneven floor while a four-legged chair won’t.

People have great difficulty living a stable life. How does a person control his human spirit?

With a spiritual three-legged stool.

We have discussed how people naturally have a spirit like Satan instead of like Christ.

Rom 7
22) For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
23) but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
24) What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

Even if we want to obey God’s law, our nature gets in the way.

Rom 8
1) There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Yeshua, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua made me free from the law of sin and of death.
3) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;
4) that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5) For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6) For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;
7) because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

The way to become like Christ instead of being like Satan is with the Spirit of Christ. For “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua” makes us ”free from the law of sin and of death,” Paul said. That spirit can give us a nature of selflessness to replace our natural self-centered nature.

As Stephen had.

Acts 7:53-60
53) You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”
54) Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
55) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Yeshua standing on the right hand of God,
56) and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57) But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord.
58) They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59) They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!”
60) He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen castigated the religious rulers for their carnality, but then when they killed him, he asked that they be forgiven. He did not share their selfish carnality. He had a different spirit.

The natural man does not receive things from God’s spirit. Only when God’s spirit is added to the spirit in man can a person receive spiritual strength from God.

1 Cor 2
11) For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
12) But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13) Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14) Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The earliest flock certainly had God’s spirit in abundance.

For instance, Peter’s shadow passed over a man and the man was healed. Peter and Silas were freed from prison when an angel threw the gates open. People were healed just from anointed pieces of cloth sent from Paul. Paul shook a deadly poisonous snake off his arm into the fire with no effect, other than to roast the snake.

And in their common meetings, people spoke with other languages and prophesied.

1 Cor 12
4) Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5) There are various kinds of service, and the same Lord.
6) There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.
7) But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all.
8) For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit;
9) to another faith, by the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healings, by the same Spirit;
10) and to another workings of miracles; and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; to another different kinds of languages; and to another the interpretation of languages.
11) But the one and the same Spirit works all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires.

1 Cor 14
26) What is it then, brothers? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has another language, has an interpretation. Let all things be done to build each other up.
27) If any man speaks in another language, let it be two, or at the most three, and in turn; and let one interpret.
28) But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and let him speak to himself, and to God.
29) Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.
30) But if a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first keep silent.
31) For you all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.

Amazingly, their assemblies had a problem trying to keep all their prophets from speaking at once. ‘All right, prophets — line up! Be quiet over there prophet number three — wait your turn!’ Those prophets did not just have an opinion on a Bible verse. They received revelations from God, so many of them that they had to prophesy one by one.

God gave an abundant early rain of His spirit on that earliest group of Christianos, to get the flock off to an energetic start. And there in Corinth, even in their weekly meetings the Spirit of Christ was powerful, with gifts of healings, languages and prophesying.

Yet —

Those Corinthian Christianos, even with all that spiritual power, still had incredible problems of carnality — with the self-seeking human spirit outweighing God’s giving spirit. In chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians they were setting up denominations; in chapter 5 they allowed gross sexual immorality; and in chapter 6 they were suing each other. Even with all the abundant spiritual power that the early flock had, they still needed to seek the spirit of Christ with all their hearts to control their own human spirits.

All those Corinthian problems did not include facing the persecutions of the Jews or the death threats of Nero and Rome. How much more spiritual power did they need when facing that?

As we will soon.

How can we have our own spirits changed, from law breaking to obedient, from naturally selfish to naturally selfless, from putting ourselves first to putting God and others before ourselves?

Paul said, ”the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua made me free from the law of sin and of death.” Christ’s spirit changes us to be like Him. Yet Paul also said that this spirit given to Christ’s followers is given as an earnest or down payment of the full spirit.

2 Cor 1
21) Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God;
22) who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.

2 Cor 5
1) For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
2) For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven;
3) if so be that being clothed we will not be found naked.
4) For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5) Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.

After that early rain of the spirit came a long dry spell. Miracles were not common, prophets were fake, and people talking in other languages was usually just gibberish. As North American Christianos now come toward the latter times, we again face imminent persecution and torturous trials. As if we don’t have enough problems just dealing daily with our own human natures, with people conflicts, pressures of life, and then facing the end of life! On top of that, to now face persecution just for trying to follow the Son of God means we need to be overwhelmed with the nature and spirit of the Son of God. We flat out need a change of spirit from us to Him, to be able to face conflict without revenge, trials without despair, and death without panic.

God gives us His spirit at our repentance, baptism and laying on of hands, yet we also spend a lifetime trying to grow in that spirit. Elders were old men, having learned from experience and longer spiritual growth. In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, seven times Christ said that eternal rewards come to those who overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome. That’s a lifetime of spiritual growth to overcome yourself. This growth is not just head knowledge. It is a dramatic change in the way we are — a change of spirit.

How can my spirit be changed? Even in Corinth during the early rain of the spirit, they still had great problems with human nature. God gives us the down payment of His spirit, but to face life we need a full measure of His spirit.

What can I do to change this spirit? How do I seek God with my whole heart?

Simple. Use a three-legged stool.

Pioneer settlers used three-legged stools instead of chairs with four legs, as in this description of a pioneer log cabin.

Our chimney occupied most of the east end; there were pots and kettles opposite the window under the shelves, a gun on hooks over the north door, four split-bottom chairs, three three-legged stools, and a small eight by ten looking-glass sloped from the wall over a large towel and combcase. Our list of furniture was increased by a clumsy shovel and a pair of tongs, made with one shank straight, which was a certain source of pinches and blood blisters. We had also a spinning-wheel and such things as were necessary to work it. It was absolutely necessary to have three-legged stools, as four legs of anything could not all touch the floor at the same time.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/LogCabin.html

When log cabins had wood floors instead of just dirt, they were generally made of puncheons, which were logs split in half with the flat side turned up. That left big cracks between the uneven sides of the logs and a floor that wasn’t very smooth. Logs don’t split perfectly in half, you know. So settlers preferred three-legged stools to four legged chairs, unless they wanted a four-legged rocking chair. The three-legged stool sat evenly on their uneven floors. They were stable.

Our spirits need to change from being like self-loving Satan to being like Yeshua, who gave Himself up. That means we have to take in the spirit of God, and that means we have to use a three-legged stool to be stable.

What is this three-legged stool?

The three-legged stool for Christianos is studying about God, talking to God, and fasting to become like God.

The stool must have all three legs.

If a stool has just one leg, like studying, the top can move in all directions. If a stool has two legs, like studying and prayer, the seat can move back and forth in one direction. If a stool has three legs, the seat cannot move at all.

The spiritual three-legged stool must have all three legs. You can never be stable sitting on a one or two-legged stool. Studying, praying, and fasting is the three-legged stool that gives spiritual stability to the rocking human spirit.