What we have received so far is not the final answer. It is better than we have seen before, but it is not enough! I pray to God, telling Him that I love Him, that I fear Him, that I reverence Him, that I worship Him—and that I am embarrassed for Him; and I say it very honestly. Many Scriptures illustrate the fact that a promise was fulfilled when someone stood up to God and said, “Fulfill Your promises or else kill me.” They pinned God down, “You can take these people out in the wilderness if You want to, but if You go not with us, then don’t You start something You can’t finish. You’re the author and the finisher of it and You’re going to come through for us. You’re God, so You either play ball or You lay the bat down—one of the two.” If you think that sounds sacrilegious, let me remind you—that kind of prayer prevailed. The twelve tribes of Israel owed their blessing to the fact that Jacob had that kind of a heart. He persisted, “I won’t let You go until You bless me.”
God is honored by people who make demands on Him. When the Syrophenician woman (who would have been sent away if the disciples had had their way) entreated the Lord, He said, “I can’t give the bread that belongs to the children to the dogs.” That did not discourage her; nothing would discourage her. Do we know what was involved when some of those people came to the Lord Jesus Christ for healing? A woman, who was weak and anemic because she had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, worked her way through a big crowd of people until she came right up to Jesus and touched the hem of His garment. She put forth a most desperate effort. What do you do?
If you want things from the Lord, you cannot play church. You have to demand that His promises be fulfilled. We do not want any of that pseudo-humility either, “I’m not worthy.” God knew what you were, He knew all about your problems when He made the promises to you. Therefore you must say, “So—I’ve got a problem. I believe God to show mercy, grace, forgiveness, and longsuffering to me. I expect Him to be patient with all my mistakes, but I do not have to be patient with God. He cannot make any mistakes—I won’t let Him. I have a right to demand that He be everything that I am not (after the flesh) and that He move with integrity.” The Scripture says that God cannot lie. God is not a man that he should lie, Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and will he not do it? Or hath he spoken and will he not make it good? Numbers 23:19.
Every time something happens that makes you realize you have been shortchanged in this, are you content to just limp away, turn your face aside, and make some excuse? You have a right to go before God and say, “God, show me the answer! If there is something in me, let us have it out and get it dealt with. If there is some other situation, let us find out. I’m going to cry day and night unto You until You avenge me speedily.” That is the kind of faith the Lord honors, for He said, When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8.
Our commitment to walk with God needs some real backbone, or it will slide along for the next twenty years, with things not being fulfilled any more than they are now. True—the tide is growing and accelerating; but still it is a token where it should be a torrent; it is a drop where it should be a deluge. God wants a people whose faith will move the earth. He must have patience with us, but we are not going to have any patience with Him (and I say that in a truly reverent sense). Travail before God in prayer—not the kind of prayer that is waiting, waiting, just to exist, to survive, to be sustained—but an intercession that will dynamite the dam so we can have a flood.
Lest we overemphasize the negative side, dealing with oppressions, witchcraft, etc., we will put that aside for God to deal with. I am not fighting the devil—I am contending with God.
We have entered into so much, but it is just not enough. We will not be content to take half a cup when the Scripture says, “Your cup runneth over.” Let’s not be satisfied to say, “Thank God we paid the bills”; we want to be able to exclaim, “What are we going to do with the money?” We want the forces of the Gentiles to flow to us. Promises which have come concerning many things should be fulfilled by now. Some of God’s promises have a time element, “Now is the time; this is the year.” Do you think they have been fulfilled as they should have been? Much has happened and we praise the Lord for it—but it is not enough!
I do not think it is enough to please God, either, God will not be satisfied with the glory He receives until He is so linked with His people that the flow of His omnipotence and wisdom moves the world. This is the generation for it; it is time for it. History has seen too little of God, too few men of God, too low a quality of discipleship in the church. We are striving for something better, and I do not like the way this chapter is being written. It ought to be written gloriously! This time of trouble and judgment upon the earth should find in us the highest level of discipleship that has every existed on the earth. I would like to see us driven to our knees until we reach it.
I am not satisfied with myself and I am violent about it because there is reality in a walk with God. For the first time in centuries, people of God have something real, beyond anything they have ever had before. God is bringing forth a word that I marvel at, and I am not going to be embarrassed for that word, or ashamed of it. It is not intended that we walk in this word a hundred years from now. We are going to walk in it now. There is an urgency to reach out and rend the heavens until He comes down and rains upon us. There is nothing irreverent in this, but the day of little sweet prayers has ended.
Are you walking in what you should, or are you just limping along—husbands praying for their wives, wives praying a little for their husbands, parents praying for the children to keep them in the church? We need more than that. We need to be a violent people that will shake the world. We cannot do it until God releases more of His power and wisdom. The promise and the provision is there but God has to release it. By faith we believe that He has released it and we are going to have some answers.
The issue we are concerned about is this walk with God and what it is going to be. Anyone who emphasizes some legalistic regulation is using that as a dodge to avoid the fact that he must explain something: either you’re going to walk what you talk or else find out what is wrong with you or with the word, and what is holding back God’s hand. You can become so absorbed with introspection, with searching your heart, that you fail to focus upon the Lord and demand that He be great in your midst. God used men in the Bible who were far less sanctified than you are. Samson got up from a bed with a prostitute, picked up the locked gates of the city, and carried them to a hill ten miles away. The character of some of these men in the Bible was not very savory. They had weaknesses just like you and I have.
We must be a people contending for the righteousness of the Lord as much as we possibly can. In addition, we must get the thing God has for us and walk in it and see it flow. We will not have problems building churches or anything else; we will have growing pains in every direction, but that is not the main issue. Our concern is that there must be more of God flowing in the services, more of God in our lives, more of His power, more of His nature, more of His love. This walk with God will not be limited to a token fulfillment.
We will not get any place with this if we just say, “That’s true,” but do nothing about it. Let’s set a course of some real prayer. In the first place, are you satisfied with the way you are pressing in? Probably if I were God I would not do any more for you either. We ought to set our hearts to move in, to have that time in the Word, to bolster our faith and pursue after this. Let’s have wet feet from trying to walk on water until the day comes that we are doing it! We are going to reach in through prayer.
If something does not happen to change you fast, a few will forge ahead, but some of you will still be sitting year after year with not too much happening in your lives; yet the promises were great. Do you want that to happen to you? As a church do you want to come so close to being an instrument to reach the whole world and miss it? It is not a matter of ambition. Someone has to break through. Prayer will do it! We do not have to live on this border line. We cannot live this way. Men of God coming on the scene have to do what God says—not for their personal glory, but because God is expressing His will of what He wants of these vessels of clay that He is raising up. What is holding it up? We are not going to philosophize about that. We will pray it into existence. It is ours; it is provided; it is flowing—but not enough. It must become a floodtide!
Our prayer will be one of importunity, of insistence. We do not have to submit to anything less than God’s best and we will stand and yell until we get what is ours. If the trouble is in us, God deal with it. If the trouble is somewhere else, God deal with it. If it is the devil, deal with him. After all, God knows our wisdom and understanding is limited and His is not. If He is the only One Who knows the problem and how to solve it, then let Him speak up and tell us what is the matter. If there is something we have yet to hear, we are ready to listen. Before you hear from God, there must be almost a determination to hear. God does not seem to speak to those who are not determined that God shall speak to them. God’s fullness does not come to those who are not determined that God’s fullness shall come to them. Heaven is reluctant to give what we are passive about receiving.
Father, we lift our hearts to You. Let your Spirit help us that the purpose of our heart will be fulfilled. The psalmist cried, “Where are Thy signs,” and we are going to cry the same way until it happens to us as it has happened a few times in the history of man—but in a greater way, because You prophesied it. Lord, we need a double portion. We are not going to be embarrassed for the word of the promises that come, but we will believe to see them released into their fullness. Lord, we thank You for the flow; but how about those floods on the dry ground? Everything speaks of something more, something greater. And I cry unto Thee that the burden of prayer should be laid upon all our hearts.
The governing ministry of the church will not be embarrassed because we do not have what it takes to minister to the people in fullness. Lord, we loose ourselves as these ministries. They cannot be token ministries coming forth only for people to marvel and wonder at.
Lord, You are going to confirm that word with great signs and with great releases. You have ordained that we go forth and bear fruit and our fruit shall remain. No assault of Satan will come against it and tear it down. I will not try to sell this walk with God to anybody. I am going to preach it and believe You to back it up with such signs and wonders that we never have to sell it to anyone. It is all of God. But it will be more of God in everything we do. Amen.
If the Lord had not provided, and if He had not promised, and if He had not specified you as the recipients of this provision and promise, than you could well be at peace. But let anger fill your soul that you are walking short of what the heavenly Father has declared is yours, of what He has gone to great lengths to give unto you. You shall be stirred in your spirit. It shall not be a restlessness, but it shall be a violence in your spirit until you shall possess what is yours by the commission of God. Amen.