WE BRING IT DOWN
In the sixth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is the prayer known as the Lord’s Prayer. There we can discover some deep truths in what seems to be a simple teaching.
Some call it the disciples’ prayer, because the disciples asked the Lord how to pray and He gave them this prayer.
Some say that the true Lord’s prayer is in John 17, where our Lord prayed to the Father. But the prayer in Matthew 6 is very much the Kingdom prayer.
The Apostle Matthew was raised with the Jewish concept about the Messiah who would set up the Kingdom. In his Gospel, he constantly points toward the Kingdom.
The book of Matthew yields many treasures to us. It seems inexhaustible, because it is deep, and there is much revelation in it.
No human wisdom can probe deeply enough to really uncover its truths. But further revelation will come as the seals are taken off the Book, and people will discover hidden truths in the Scriptures as they seek the Lord.
God is leading His people into a deep dedication to the revelation from the Word. This is in contrast to doctrinal interpretation and the process of trying to discover its fine points only by reason, by analysis, and by scholarship.
From the written Word today, God is causing revelation to burst forth like fountains. Unless the Word is revealed it remains concealed, no matter what human wisdom tries to do with it.
The book of Matthew reveals many Kingdom truths. Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 6:9–15, “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread’” (the margin reads: “our bread for the coming day”). “‘And forgive us our debts…’”
Jesus was speaking of more than just moral debts, the transgression of things that we should not have done. These are the obligations that we have in which we have failed: in other words, hamartia, which is the Greek word for sin meaning, “missing the mark.” We should say, “Forgive us, Lord, for every time that we missed the mark of what we should have been.”
“‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’” This means not only forgiving someone who committed a gross sin against you, but forgiving everyone who has fallen short in an expected relationship for service or dealings that you anticipated from them. Forgive them.
Forgive them of any debt they owe you because of their shortcomings in their relationship to you. That covers a great many areas. People often forgive sinners down the street for all their gross sins, and yet do not forgive members of their own family who fail to measure up to their expectations.
“ ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil’ ” (the evil one). “ ‘For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.’ ” Then Jesus said, “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
The minute that you close your heart to a neighbor, you build a wall that the floods of mercy cannot penetrate. If there is no forgiveness in your heart for your brother, you build up a wall against him. That wall also becomes a wall to God; then God cannot get through to you. That is what you create by having an unforgiving spirit.
If you put up a wall of unforgiveness against an enemy, no matter what he has done against you, you are only shutting yourself off from the blessing of the Lord. The Lord says that you must forgive even your enemy in order to keep the wall down so that the blessings of the Lord will continually flow to you. (Don’t worry; God will deal with the enemy.) “But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
THE KINGDOM PRAYER IS TO BRING IT DOWN
The prayer begins by dealing in the heavens, the highest spiritual realm. It is saying, “O Father who dwells in the heavens, we want Your perfect will as it is done in heaven.” This is where He rules uncontested. This is where He has the glory and the power. This prayer of the Kingdom is to bring it down: “Thy will be done—Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, it is Your rule that we bring down.”
This concept of bringing it down is very important. The Kingdom of God is not worked up. In every case the Kingdom of God comes progressively because God’s people appropriate it over and over, bringing it down, bringing it down, bringing it down, again and again. Then it comes down to a present release where the Kingdom of God had not formerly prevailed.
In the Kingdom, every man will sit under his own fig tree (Micah 4:4). Isaiah prophesied, “They will not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain” (Isaiah 65:25).
We read also that Satan will be bound for the time prescribed (Revelation 20:2). Then we will not know what it is to be agitated and aggravated by demonic assault and harassment, temptation, lies, and deception.
At the present time of transition, we pray and believe for the Kingdom of God to come, for His will to come down from the heavens into the earth, on the same level as it is in the heavens.
We also pray for our bread—which is a symbolic term—referring not only to the bread that goes into the stomach, but to the food that feeds the mind, that which feeds the spirit, and that which feeds the soul.
When you come to the house of God, remember that you do not come to recite repetitious prayers, but you would be wise to kneel and say, “O Lord, give me this day the bread for tomorrow: the daily bread, the bread that is needful.” Why? You come to the house of the Lord to feed upon the fellowship, to feed upon the word, to feed upon that which should give release to your emotions and to your spirit. You feed upon the Lord. You feed upon the grace that is ministered from the Lord through your brothers and sisters in the house of the Lord. That is even more important than natural bread.
We read in John 6:27, Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life… In Deuteronomy 8:3 we read that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Therefore we should pray, “O God, give me bread to feed me for whatever I need. Forgive me my debts where I have fallen short, where I have not been able to meet the obligation that You would lay upon me.” (This means much more than we could even express.) “Do not lead me into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one.” (In other words, at the present time, do not bring an encounter to my flesh for which I am not prepared.)
We may know that our spirit is to rule with God, but we are also aware that we cannot take too much pressure. There is not to be an open door for Satan to hit us with anything that he can. God deliver us from temptation.
Until we can reach a high spiritual level, God deliver us from the wicked one, from the evil one who would victimize us. God show us how to be alert. We want to encounter Satan wholeheartedly in the spirit level, but we would choose the area of conflict.
Let it be the will of God that the area of conflict not be in temptations to the flesh or to the human nature. We do not want to be defeated by anything that remains untouched in our own nature. We cannot prevail if the battle depends upon our moral strength and our human ability to meet the temptations of Satan. Only in one area do we want to battle him: “Thus saith the Lord God …” We want the battle to be on the word, because we can prevail if we hold onto the word.
Say in your own heart: “Deliver me from the evil one. Do not let me be led into temptation. Take me out of the conflicts of deception, lies, emotional disturbances, the invasion of my mind, that which sets off my basic instincts and drives, the hungers and the lusts of my body.
God deliver me from any encounters there!” Let us battle only on the ground where the word of God says He provided it all for us. He has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. There we are winners, because we overcome by that Word and by our testimony and by the blood of the Lamb and not loving our lives to the death.
The Kingdom of God must be brought down from above; we cannot generate it. An earthly, devilish wisdom is generated below, but God’s wisdom comes down (James 3:15).
If we are risen with Christ, we set ourselves in the heavenly places. We must position ourselves in the spiritual realm of victory, in the heavens where the Father is. Our Father who art in heaven—that must be our abiding place.
This is what Jesus prayed, “I will that they be with Me where I am” (John 17:24). This does not mean that we first die and then go off to the many mansions. It means that we live on the same spiritual level, the same abiding place where He is. We are drawn up.
In John 14:2b–3, Christ said to His disciples, I go to prepare a place for you.… that where I am (seated at the right hand of the Father), there ye may be also. This Paul emphasized when he said that we are raised with Christ to be seated in the heavenly places with Him. That is the place of victory and authority.
Revelation 12:9 tells us that Satan was cast down. We also read in Luke 10:18 that Satan was cast down. Jesus told the seventy, “I saw Satan fall from heaven.” They were rejoicing because they had authority over demons. But Jesus told them to rejoice because their names were written in heaven. They were enrolled as citizens in the higher level where Satan was cast out.
There are three realms for you to keep in mind: the higher realm of the heavens; the lower human realm of the soul, mingled with all of its various complications; and the still lower natural realm.
Satan at one time governed in the heavenly realm, in the heavens where the will of God is done. Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in the heavens. Satan has been cast down. He no longer has access to disturb from the only important realm that exists.
The physical, natural realm is important only in the sense that it is to be controlled, governed, and recreated through the spirit realm.
Satan was called the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). He could govern from that high realm over a mortgaged, forfeited world which man no longer was spiritually able to control.
When spiritual death entered upon man, Satan was able to usurp the control over all the world, and so he was called the god of this present world. He could govern it because there was no spiritual entity great enough to take over what man had forfeited. When man died spiritually, he lost his control over all things. As the sons of God come forth, man will rule and reign with Christ again.
That is what the battle with Satan is all about. Satan was cast down to the two lower realms. In this end-time battle, the secondary realm of the soul has been largely overcome. The battle now is in the natural realm where Satan rages.
In the meantime, those who forsake their allegiance to the natural realm are no longer covetous. They lack ambitions for money and position. Most young people have a dazzling deception upon them to be important in this world and to have a great deal of money. But those who walk with God desire only to glorify God in the earth. End-time believers are overcoming the natural realm and the soul realm, and they are walking with God in purity.
A new realm of authority has opened up, the realm from which judgment will be issued, because we are actually seated in that highest realm. There we are completely immune. There we are occupying the realm from which Satan has been evicted and cast down to the natural realm.
Revelation 12:12 says, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because Satan is raging, knowing that he has but a short time, that he is going to lose out in the world too. Overcomers are moving up to this place of rule.
On the lower level, Satan still dominates many areas in the natural realm. For instance, he dominates the field of politics in the natural realm, which also reaches into the soul realm. Satan tries to govern the area of finances. But in the heavens, Christ is the only exalted One. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and we are seated with Him. He is henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. Hebrews 10:13.
You will never win the battle by trying to make more money than a millionaire magnate. You will never win the battle by trying to get more votes than a presidential nominee. You will never prevail over the natural realm on that battleground, because that is not the way it is won.
The deceived, disinherited majority will prevail on that realm. The only place to prevail is where Satan once was and is not now. You have to assume Christ’s authority from the highest spiritual level.
From that highest level we will be engaged in many areas of conflict. That is where we open up victory in finances. That is where finances are loosed. Even though it may appear that we are worse off than ever, yet the finances will come in better than ever before.
In the realm of authority, we may be attacked more—physically and mentally—and yet we will prevail because we do not come down to the natural level to fight. We bomb it from above.
We maintain our high spiritual level where the authority is. Our authority there is as kings and priests of God (Revelation 1:6). Only that authority will prevail over all of the lower realms.
The realm of the arts and sciences will give way to this authority. In this realm of authority, the enemy will come against us one way, but he will flee seven ways (Deuteronomy 28:7). This means we will chase Satan out of seven categories, whatever they are or however vast they may be.
We will displace him because of the victory that we loose in the spirit realm. We will loose every other realm through the creativity that is ours. This is the time for it.
Sometimes you cannot find a natural reason for being so battled spiritually even though you are seeking God in the higher level. You are spiritually battled because you are driving the enemy out of the only areas left to him, out of the only stronghold he has.
God’s people are in the last push before they begin to see the domination of everything on the natural level. The whole created, natural world is chained with futility because God subjected it to futility, but with an expectation that it would be loosed by the sons of God (Romans 8:19–22).
Adam forfeited it, but God planned that one day He would bring forth His sons to recapture it and move into that place of authority. Sons of God, led by His Spirit, are to loose all creation from futility.
The natural realm can only be released by a spiritual people who have prevailed. The spiritual conflict taking place today is part of the first phases of the last crisis battle which will displace Satan.
Every time God’s people deal with a principality or a demon power which is operating over a certain area, a displacement will be created by the release of the controlling pressures; and they will move into that place.
They will move in and push out the usurper. Satan is the usurper. Dedicated believers are the ones who should be ruling this world as the agents and stewards of Christ, as the ones to whom He has designated authority.
There is only one way to prevail. Prophesy! Take your rule. Bring it down from above. Dominate by the spirit world, and you will dominate the natural world. On this higher level, there is less emphasis on praying for the sick, and more prophesying of strength and release. More is accomplished by prophetic proclamation than by prayer. You must bring it down from the higher realm. It is from the spirit realm that all things will be controlled.
You cannot solve your problems by human wisdom. You solve them as you go before God and have a walk with the Lord. That reaches down into the lower levels. People who are still trying to work out their problems have an abundance of them.
But people who reach up to walk with God find that their situations start changing. The natural realm starts giving way to the authority of Christ. As you advance in the Lord this way, you will keep opening up to various areas in the natural realm. One by one they will start giving way to what you command in the name of the Lord by His authority, not by human maneuvering.
In Christ’s authority we dominate this natural world by faith. James, in his Epistle, shows us where we should position our faith. Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. James 1:17–18.
The word that God spoke created us, and we are to be the first fruits. Everything that we do is the first fruits to bring forth the rest of the world, because we keep bringing it down from above.
Everything has to come down from the Father of lights. No variation is with Him, not even a changing shadow. God has no shadow—morning, noon, or midnight—because He does not want anything to come that shifts from His omnipotence over every situation. It all comes down from Him. We become the first fruits, and then we create that which is to follow us. First we come forth; then all creation is loosed.
James wrote of the wisdom that we bring down from the Father. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. James 1:5–7.
Farther along in his letter, James wrote, Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. James 3:13–17.
This shows the difference between two kinds of wisdom. There is a wisdom that comes down from above. When we lack wisdom, we ask of God; and He gives us His wisdom. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above.
Remember that nothing from the world system is a final answer for the redemption of the world. The world will be released by that which comes down from above and is appropriated. God’s people are here to bring it down.
When we say, “Thy Kingdom come,” we are saying, “from the heavens down to the earth, just as it is in the heavens.” His will is to be done on this earth, on every natural plane, as it is in the heavens. The wisdom to do it has to come down.
Those who will do exploits do not have to be very bright by the world’s standards. God has chosen the foolish to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:27). All He needs is someone who asks wisdom. Ask wisdom and He will give it. If you do not know very much, ask Him. Do not waver. Believe! Everything has to come down from the Father. Once you grasp this principle, you will find the Scriptures filled with this teaching.
Colossians 3:1a says, If then you have been raised up with Christ—are we raised with Christ? In the book of Ephesians, Paul said that God raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:6.
Our spirits are to live in that realm, and the physical body is to be quickened and made alive to God. It is no longer to be defeated by the usurper who has controlled a great deal of the natural environment in which the sons of God live.
Believers have coexisted long enough as wheat among tares. It is time for the angels to make the separation: bringing it down from above, as spiritual beings from above.
There will be no Kingdom come forth, there will be no separation within the Kingdom (like the great net separating the good fish from the bad), unless it is done from above. Everything comes from above. The purity of the Kingdom and the perfect will of God come down from above.
The apostle Paul wrote, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Romans 12:1. Out of that spiritual dedication, you can begin to know what His will is and begin to live it out in this world.
Colossians 3:2–4 emphasizes this truth. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
We are involved with the same thing that affects every dispensation or age that God deals with. We are here on earth, believing for the revelation of Christ that catches us up in the Spirit to the place where He is, in order that we can become the agents of His manifestation in the area where we live in the natural.
He is coming to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). We who are walking through this earth are going to bring forth the revelation of Jesus Christ, but that will not come until we are caught up to that spiritual realm.
Philippians 3 is a sublime chapter where Paul speaks in verse 14 about pressing toward that high call and reaching up to the realm of the Spirit. Then in verses 18 and 19 he tells about the people who are walking on the earthly plane and how their end is destruction. After that he makes a startling statement in verses 20 and 21. Few people really understand it: For our citizenship is in heaven.
It is similar to that which Jesus said to the seventy, “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Do not rejoice in what you are able to do down here, for behind it is the fact that you are citizens up there.”
If we are citizens in good standing, loving the Lord and submitting to Him, and if He is the absolute Lord over our lives, then comes the domination of everything we pass through (wherever the soles of our feet tread) to liberate it all unto God, to claim it for the Lord.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state (this is not speaking about our spiritual body) into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Philippians 3:20–21.
Does Jesus Christ have a body? A glorified body was exhibited at the resurrection, and He is now seated at the right hand of the Father with a glorified body. Do you believe that it is a body of flesh and bone, just as He had after the resurrection? Do you believe that is the same kind of body we are supposed to have?
We are seated with Him there. Do we have bodies up there? Not that kind. Where are our bodies? Our bodies are sitting here on earth, and yet in our spirits we are seated in the heavenly places. Christ is going to reign until everything is brought in subjection to Him and every enemy is made the footstool of His feet, including your body (Hebrews 10:13).
He is going to transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. What must we do? We must sit there with Him, and soon we will find that we are walking here with the same kind of body. How will the resurrection be accomplished? I Corinthians 15:23b says, Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming (or Parousia, the Greek word meaning “presence” and translated “coming”).
Would you like to break through more and more to resurrection life by the exertion of the power that Christ has even to subject all things to Himself?
Our citizenship is up in the higher realm, and as we are submissive to Him, He manifests His authority and His power to bring under subjection everything that is in our flesh. By that same process, through us He will bring everything in this world into subjection to Himself, so that His Kingdom comes and His will is done in earth as it is in heaven—in the earth of our beings first, and then in all the earth.
In John 14:2b–3, Christ said, “I go to prepare a place for you.… I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” If Christ is at the right hand of the Father, He intends that we be there with Him also. And when we are there, then the promises of John 14, 15, and 16 are true: “Ask anything; abide in Me, and ask anything.”
We have to abide in Him there—not just by reaching up and trying to draw a little life and strength out of the words, but by actually living with Him in the realm of authority at the right hand of the Father where He is also. John 14:13: “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
We are in the beginning of the end-time events that have been prophesied, that seemed so far away and so distant in fulfillment. This is the beginning of appropriating a glorified body, of driving death and the forces of death out of the natural realm, of displacing Satan and taking over as we ought to as the sons of God. We are in it and we have won it because He won it. Yet there is still a battle of faith to move into His victory.
Say in your heart, “All things were made by Him, and for Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made. The Lord made Him to be the Head over all things to the Church. We are His fulness. We rule for Him. We manifest His power. We move in His authority. It was all made for Him.”