It is so important that the Lord cause our faith to center on the word that is coming, for it is literally driving us into the Lord.
We bless our reception of the word. When the pull of faith is as strong in the hearer as the inspiration is to preach the Word, receptive hearts readily change.
We say in our hearts, “I’m ready to change, Lord. Speak the Word to me.” As it was in the book of Genesis, when the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the face of the deep and God said, “Let there be light,” so may the Spirit of the Lord hover upon us. Let God speak, and the change and the creation that He would bring forth will happen immediately.
Let us look to the book of Genesis, chapter 7, the story of Noah. Let me remind you that in Matthew 24 as well as in Luke 17 the Lord gave two pictures of the end time. One is the story of the days of Noah, and the other is the days of Lot.
As it was in the days of Noah and as it was in the days of Lot, so it will be when the Son of Man cometh (Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:26, 30). Having been given those pictures, we can look back to the story and find many conditions existing in both Noah and Lots’ day and in our day that parallel each other. However, we will not dwell upon those conditions now; rather, we shall take the analogy of the story of Noah’s deliverance and compare it to our deliverance.
Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household; for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. You shall take with you of every clean animal seven pairs, a male and his female; Genesis 7:1, 2. The Lord proceeds to give Noah instructions. In verse 16 we read they entered the ark and the Lord closed the door behind him. Verse 17: Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark so that it rose above the earth. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came.
The numerical structure and meaning of this chapter is interesting, six being the number of man, and six hundred becomes the story of man at his extremity. The flood for forty days is also a number of judgment. It is the number of days chosen for hard fasts in the Bible: Moses fasted for forty days, the Lord fasted for forty days. “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed” (Jonah 3:4): forty days were determined to work out judgment. There is significant meaning in the different numbers as they appear in the Scriptures. The true numerology of the Scripture is not to be confused with numerology that is like fortune telling and often is a matter of superstition. But verse 17 lays it out: The flood came for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark. The ark literally pushed up, thrust upward.
Now we go from the book of Genesis to Revelation 12:5 and read of the manchild. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron;… The manchild is not just a picture of Christ but a picture of the Christ Body, the many-membered Body of Christ that is destined to rule.… and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. But remember that its being caught up is preceded by the story of the dragon, in verse 4: And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.
The child is caught up of necessity, because of the snapping jaws of the dragon below. The ark is carried up of necessity, because the flood waters are below and thrust it up.
There is a sense in which we are being caught up to the Lord and to His throne, because instead of believing for a rapture to come and automatically catch us out of the problems, the Lord is teaching that the problems will literally thrust us into a place of authority and rule.
The Lord does not intend to rapture us out of this; He intends to use the circumstances to thrust us into the place of authority and rule which God has ordained for His people to fulfill.
All the things that we are going through, if we can only understand it in the true Scriptural sense, are ordained by God to create a pressure upward.
Men’s hearts will fail them for fear, for there is no upward thrust with them as they look about at the things that are happening upon the earth.
But when you see these things, you are to lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21:26–28). The final stages of redemption, the final stages of the exaltation of the remnant who are to rule and reign over the nations, is coming about as you see the pressures build up. The more the pressure, the more you find it imperative to move in authority. Authority is no longer a luxury in a Walk with God. You do not dare sit back and say, “Oh, it is so bold for me to believe for God to bring down this principality and power.”
It is no longer small things that are turned loose against you, but principalities and powers. Right at your heels there is a snapping dragon, and you had better find yourself thrust up to that place of rule at the right hand of the Father.
It is in this connection that we read from the chapter on the manifestation of the sons of God. Notice the unique relationship between the sufferings with Christ and the reigning with Him. One cannot take place without the other. The sufferings are the flood waters which carry us up to the very throne of God.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:16–18.
If we suffer with Him, indeed then we shall reign with Him. The role that suffering plays in our spiritual growth is not really understood, but since the Lord thrust us into a new realm, we have noticed unrelenting conflict.
But at this point the efforts of Satan are less effective in affecting the human nature to aggravate it and produce defeat and depression. It seems to only serve to give us more thrust to get into the business of praying, walking in the Spirit, prophesying, and moving in authority.
I have seen films of spaceships being thrust into orbit, and they hardly seem to be moving. The fire flares from the pad when one takes off, and you see it disappear in a matter of seconds. The higher it gets, the greater the thrust, for the pull upon it is less, and finally it leaves the sphere of the pull of gravity.
In the beginning of a walk with God, the downward pull is very great. We labor and pray to see the things of the flesh overcome in our lives and the lives other believers.
As we progress in our walk with God, that pull downward is not at all as it was before; rather, there is enough upward thrust.
The upward push of our spirits is even stronger and the dealings of God seem to reach through more effectively in our lives. We cannot say that life is easier, but the Lord is literally projecting us into another realm by what He is allowing to come against us.
We are entering in to what He said in Psalm 91:14: “Because you have loved Me, because you have served Me, I will set you on high because you have known My name.”
All along, the Lord has been concerned with our being the heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ; and if we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. These are tied together in one package, and the Lord is working it out in our lives.
Jesus wants you to be seated with Him. He wants you to rule with Him. He wants you to be among those who through the whole age of the Kingdom will rule and reign over the nations with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:27).
In order to do so, He is teaching you faithfulness. He is teaching you integrity, responsibility. Anything wrong in you is being exposed. The enemy is allowed to come at your most vulnerable point and drive at you relentlessly. You may fail again and again, but the Lord will not let the battle end until you get the victory, until you get the righteousness of God in any area where you can be defeated.
Perhaps you have never before experienced such relentless attacks on your weak points by the enemy. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad! Open your heart to thank God that He is putting the pressure on you.
If you are to be included in the marvelous things the Lord is doing in our generation, then you must be included in the dealings that bring it to pass!
I think that our comprehension is slow. We are now in the position where we can take dominion over the principalities and powers, we can loose this move of God, we can loose finances, we can see the breakthrough into divine health.
We are being fought, we have been positioned. The battle is putting us at the right hand of Christ, where we are seated with Him in order that we can rule in the dominion and the authority that belongs to Christ.
You are an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ, and you are suffering with Him for the purpose of reigning with Him!
Do not concentrate on the sufferings; concentrate on the immediate exercise of the authority that is the result of the sufferings. I am not trying to comfort you—“Poor brother, we’re all going through it.” We will go through even more, but we have gained more ground than we know. We should exercise and loose by faith the place of authority that we really have.
You are not put in this position just to endure; you have been put in this position in order to rule. The purpose of authority is not like the Lord putting in your hand a fly swatter so that you can be less annoyed by the flies. You are not swatting flies. He has put in your hand a rod to rule, a scepter of righteousness to bind and to loose the nations in the name of the Lord.
We must see the purpose of what we are going through. The dealings and the circumstances we have been in are now actually more bitter and intense than they ever have been. There are assaults of witchcraft, for we relentlessly believe for the removal of the witches in the land.
The Lord is not putting any restraint on the way the enemy is hitting you, because this step is the operation to drive you into the authority that brings immunity. It is bringing you into the place where not only does the wicked one not touch you, but you have a great effect at touching him. The defensive role has changed; we are moving into the place of authority. We are taking the aggressive role. We are disturbing the balance of power in Satan’s realm. We are creating the situation more than you know.
There is not a person who the Lord has not allowed various things to hit at his spirit to bring about a certain condition within him. If we really believe, we can take a step in God to take dominion over all the limitations that we find round about us, and loose this country in the Lord.
Do not cease to pray for God to preserve this country, to deal with witchcraft, with the corruption in high places, with any devil-possessed people who would govern the country. Prophesy against them; bind them in the name of the Lord.
We need to read again Psalm 149, and get it in our minds once more. Let the godly ones exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds. (Does this sound as if we are in trouble?) Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the judgments written; this is the honor for all His godly ones. Praise the Lord! Psalm 149:5–9.
Let’s move into that authority. Let’s bind the political schemes of this country; everything which goes against the principles of the Kingdom will be bound with fetters. We can put the leaders in chains of brass. We can loose in God to bring forth His will in the earth.
Why are we being so bold? We had better be. What will happen if we are not? The gospel of the Kingdom will not come forth.
But, praise God, the authority can open doors to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. “I have set before you an open door which no man can shut” (Revelation 3:8). No devil can shut the door! We believe that the Lord is going to help us on this.
There is a principle of persistent prophesying and intercession upon us. The principle of motion has not yet been clearly defined to us. You have to keep in motion. The only way to get shot up in this war is to sit still and do nothing.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord… I Corinthians 15:57, 58.
Something within your heart must keep reaching in relentlessly. If you get knocked down, get up again. The important thing is not how many times you get knocked down, but that you get up and win the battle in the victory of the Lord, and that you move in His authority.
There has to be that relentless determination that everything is to be according to the will of God. Prophesy it! Stand fast! Prophesy it and do not stop! Satan will relinquish the pressure for just a little bit, and then you relinquish your prophesying and he comes back and hits you again. Let’s pursue the enemy. We did not gain the victory in the field of battle to hold back. Let’s press in. There is to be a release in the name of the Lord.
I wonder how many people in their hearts are carrying a deep feeling of defeat, because the enemy came up on a blind side and hit them at some weak point. After that he keeps goading you, “See, you’re defeated. See, you’re beat. You see what’s happening to you now.” He tries anything to take away from you that awareness that you belong to the kings and priests of God. Don’t let him do it.
When you see any of the brothers and sisters trip and fall in one way or another, don’t you react self-righteously. You don’t know what God is doing to actually push people into a corner. He is bringing out in them what is there so it can be dealt with.
This is not as bad as you think. It will keep us from drifting off into a state of ineffectiveness. If too many things corrupt the flow until it is not pure, there is no longer the force of our faith reaching through.
In the name of the Lord we are going to prevail. Do not back down no matter how defeated you seem to be. The persistent prophesying, day after day, the relentlessly determining that the victory is ours, and all that which has befallen us have thrust us higher!
The flood waters are rising, but they are only pushing the ark higher. Finally, it was fifteen cubits above the height of the highest mountain (Genesis 15:20). That is plenty of good clearance. The Lord does not intend for us to be trapped in this in any way. Believe that.
You say, “Oh, but the pressures are on.” Then follow the Scripture, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Colossians 3:1). There has to be the upward reach. I do not think we would have ever made it had it not been that the very conditions around us were already lifting us higher, pushing us up.
We read, “caught up to the throne,” but we could also say, “pushed up to the throne.” God is allowing conditions to give us a thrust from behind, and His upward pull at the same time is designed to bring us into the place and position that God really has for us.
Look at I Peter 4:12–14 carefully, and you will decide that these are your verses. You may want to initial them to indicate they are yours! Beloved (are you beloved?), do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you (isn’t is true that so far it is your verse?), which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
When they persecute you and say all manner of evil against you, what does that mean? That the spirit of glory rests upon you. You are chosen! When they say all manner of evil against you falsely, rejoice, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you prophets, you see. You have finally made it. That is why Paul said, From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Galatians 6:17. The scars of his suffering were indication of the validity of his ministry, and of the place to which he had attained. Oh, what a tremendous thing.
I do not believe the Lord wants us in any way to partake of the judgments of this earth, but He has His own way in subjecting us to certain things. Noah suffered ridicule from the world; he had the long labor of preparing the ark exactly as God told him, exactly according to the pattern given by God. It was not just slapped together.
How many years has God been instructing us to build the church according to the foundation, not just build it any old way. It has to be true to the pattern that He laid down. And so we labor with that, and we labor for the elders and the deacons and the whole Scriptural structure to be fulfilled exactly in the Holy Spirit in our midst. That is the ark.
Why must we have it so exactly? Because it is the New Testament Church restored completely, like the ark of Noah that is the only structure in Christianity that will stand to take us through to the next age. So we had better build it and build our lives right, and the Lord will see that we shall be housed in that which will carry us through. The Spirit of God is resting upon us.
Compare Noah’s plight with the world round about you, and you have the comparison between what you are going through, as difficult as it might be, and what will befall the world. The immunity and the protection that you are getting, along with the ridicule and the persecution, are one package. But the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us—nor are they to be compared with the judgments that will be upon the ungodly.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. I Peter 5:8, 9.
Doesn’t this compare to Revelation 12? The old dragon—you have to resist him. How long do we have to worry about that old lion snapping at us?… after you have suffered for a little, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. Verse 10. You see, it is all serving a purpose. It is the upward thrust, and it is the upward pull. We are caught in between: the devil is snapping at us and God is tugging at us!
We are moving upward, and in all the things that befall you, I encourage you not to just endure them passively, halfheartedly deciding to go on. I do not want meager emotion in you. I want you to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. I want you to keep in motion. I want you to keep moving upward. You know, in a space thrust the men in control do not stop the rocket halfway up into the space. “Now we’re going to stop and reconsider how everything’s going.” No way. You are doomed if you stop halfway up there.
A walk with God is like riding a bicycle. You cannot stop and look around at the scenery or you will fall off! Keep right on moving. It is a principle of motion; you stay with it, you press in. We are destined to authority, so voice that authority. Voice it persistently and consistently until you see it happen. Do not stop. Ask, keep on asking; seek, keep on seeking, knock, keep on knocking (Luke 11:9, 10), and it will happen.
I wonder if we are aware how deep we are into the Parousia. The Parousia covers many things, including tribulation and readjustments as the old establishments all over the world come down. We do not realize how far it is gone, how much the foundations have been destroyed of the nations and of their economies. There is nothing holding the house up. It has been so eaten by the judgments of God that nothing is holding the whole thing up but the wallpaper, believe me! There are no real beams holding it up. All it will take is just a little blow to cause its collapse.
The Lord is going to encourage you one of these days when you realize the workings of God that come about through our prophesying. They are still invisible. You prophesy, and nothing seems to happen. You walk around your Jericho and look at it, and there is not even a crack in it. You cry, “Come out of her, My people!” and nobody comes out. So you march and you shout and you pray and you prophesy, and it looks as if nothing in the world is happening. But at the appointed time, when your obedience is complete, and you have entered into that responsible place of faith and have been drawn up by the dealings of God in your heart, you will speak one word and realize that it was working all the time; God was honeycombing the whole structure by every word you said.
Keep on pressing in. How close we are to answers. Oh, how the enemy would like to make you feel that all your efforts, all your prayers, and all your prophecies are in vain. They are not! Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we will reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9.
May the Lord seal this word to our hearts. We have received an apostolic word to encourage us and bring us on in the name of the Lord. Lord, we are going to move and keep moving. We are going to be Your people.
We voice our determination to move in the Lord, because at this particular point, it is God who is working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He is working in you to set your will to do the will of God, and to do it without stopping, without any hesitation. The days are past in which we can waver in any way. We cannot afford to stay away from services when we are being hit. This is the day to press in. Let us reach and take hold of it.
This word will lift you right out of heaviness. We cannot have our eyes upon the thing we are going through; we must have our eyes upon what God is bringing us to. He is bringing us to this place of authority. The enemy has been bringing pressure against the delivery of the Word upon occasion, until if it were possible he would have stopped even the apostolic flow. But it cannot, and a liberty is being established.
The enemy is battling this Word because this is the final push. The apostolic word is more important than any of us can realize. I ask you to join together and keep claiming the full manifestation of authority that I am to move in. Claim it for your pastor, claim it for the apostolic company, take it for yourself, pray for the whole Body. Constantly hold them up and loose the flow of this thing in the name of the Lord. Do not be afraid of a few little signs of witchcraft coming at you. They are feeble little manifestations and will be less and less. We believe in God’s grace. Whatever force Satan is allowed to bring against us, there will be ten times greater force that will come back at the power of Satan to bring utter destruction.
Keep voicing that when Satan is coming against you, he is coming against Christ. He has identified Himself with you, and this means you can declare, “The Christ within me confronts you, Satan, for what you have done.” This is the encounter Satan wants to avoid, and he cannot avoid it. Of course it also means something else: When you have identified yourself this completely with Christ, you are caught up with Him to rule; you are caught up into the authority to deal with every encounter.
Thinking of yourself as an individual who is serving Christ puts you on too low a plane.
“But I am serving Christ.”
No, you are more. You are His hands, you are His feet, you are His mouth. You are the expression of His will, you are His many-membered Body.
Do not say, “I am working for Christ,” it is Christ who is laboring through us. Thus you say, “Satan, you are coming against Christ, against a member in the holy, mystical Body of Christ that is destined to rule and reign.”
Voice the authority over Satan with all your heart. This is a practical guideline, because if you say this and believe it, you take the pressure and the battle away from yourself on a human plane and put the area of conflict where it should be, which is Christ coming to rule and reign and to put down principalities and powers. Satan is resisting Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It is not Satan’s resistance against you. You only happen to be the member of the Body, the vessel that is housing this glory.
The assault is against Christ Himself. And when you refuse to take it on a personal basis, “Satan, you’re not hitting at me, you’re hitting at Christ,” you will walk into a greater awareness of victory, because Satan cannot face up to the victory of Christ. He cannot face up to it. But he can face up to you if he can bluff you out of that position.
In the name of the Lord we take that position. You may think, “But I am one of the least of these.” The Lord said, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40. If that is the basis of judgment within the Body, how much more it will be a basis of judgment against principalities and powers. Inasmuch as Satan has done it against you, one of the least of these, he has done it against Christ. In the name of the Lord, we take that position. From now on, we voice it in all battles, “Satan, you are confronting Christ!”
Remember this word from the Lord when you take Communion: “Unless you eat of My body and drink of My blood you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Literally, He is teaching us to partake of His life, to be sustained by His life, to become identical with it. In every way believe for God to meet you. If you have sin in your life, repent of it now; do not let anything hang on. This is not a matter of pride or holding back. Get rid of it. Say, “Lord Jesus, forgive me. Break every chain that is holding me back. I’m going to lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset me. Nothing is going to prevent me from walking on with the Lord. Nothing—neither life nor death nor principalities nor powers—shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.”
Lord Jesus, we lift our hearts to thee. As we prepare ourselves for the holy Communion hour, it is to partake of the body and the blood of the Lord. We rejoice that this is the day of the Sabbath of the Lord. We feel in our hearts the dawn of that seven thousand year period. We feel it coming; a new age is dawning!
We look up to this glorious Sabbath of ages coming upon us and say, “O God, we reverence Thee. Thou Lord of Sabaoth, we bless Thee. We lift up our hearts to exalt Thee. Thy will shall be done in earth as it is in heaven. We bow before Thee. Thine is the Kingdom and the power. Thine is the glory forever.” We submit ourselves so perfectly to Thee, not in passive submission, but we become the army of the Lord, aggressively, unceasingly pressing in, persistently prophesying. We ask and keep on asking, we keep on knocking, we keep on seeking, and we enter into a covenant with the Lord. Amen.