There is an important truth about judgment which we must understand: our speaking the Word of Christ into the earth—Christ speaking with His voice once again in a many-membered Body—will be the determining factor in judgment (Ephesians 3:10).
But how does prophecy of that caliber come? I am very much impressed that it does not come as the predictive element, to foretell things; instead, prophecy comes to interpret the spirit world and turn loose all the power and authority of Christ into a situation, so that things no longer remain dormant, unsettled, or inert, and people say, “There is no resolution of problems; there is nothing happening!”
I don’t say, “Well, God is going to sovereignly do everything.” We are His agents to do it—Christ in us will do it. But the force by which this judgment comes will not be because we see something to come, and we predict it; it will be because in the spirit we discern, our perception sees it.
The mind of Christ begins to invade one realm after another, and so we do not predict; instead, there is a deep, perceptive analysis which turns God loose into each area. That is why the Scripture says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10).
Christ is more concerned about speaking, and about what the Word turns loose as a force, than He is about the prediction of some chronology. Do you follow this?
Many theologians and Bible students are of the opinion that the prophets in the Old Testament missed God, because they did not predict “correctly.” By many theologians’ standards, the prophets’ only value lay in the fact that they could interpret social conditions; they were a voice to interpret contemporary times and peoples. That opinion is not true, but these men do touch on one valid point. Though a true prophecy can come, it is very difficult for us to really understand a predictive prophecy until after it has come to pass. For example, we are sometimes surprised to look back and see that the things we are experiencing now were prophesied in previous years.
When a prophecy comes to pass, it is not always according to the human concept or according to the way it was interpreted by the human mind when God first spoke it.
This is true of the Old Testament prophets too. They prophesied all the details of Christ’s ministry, but those men did not understand fully what they were speaking about. They diligently inquired about the times and peoples to which they prophesied.
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look. I Peter 1:10–12, NASB.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. II Peter 1:20–21, NASB.
The real purpose of this present prophecy, of this anointed proclamation, of our giving Christ His voice, is not so much to predict as it is to turn loose the judgment and authority of Christ.
It is more the mind of Christ analyzing something, and Christ speaking it. We become channels of it.
We are not like seers, simply to predict. We do see it and we then proclaim it into fulfillment.
What we are doing is not so much predicting the future—as though our vision would leapfrog over the mountain and see what is in the next valley.
What we are doing is determining the present, bringing the present to pass. And thus we control the future.
This is another whole concept; when we understand it, prophecy becomes very clear and very practical in our thinking. It is what Christ is actually speaking in the earth.
In that way, we are determining the future. We are not simply viewing a happening that someone else has caused; we are the ones who cause the future.
You have actually determined the future by what you are saying and controlling by faith right now in the present.
There seems to be a vagueness in understanding the judgments that the Old Testament prophets—and even John in the New Testament—proclaimed. They probably did not see this day clearly, the way we dress and travel and live, our whole lifestyle. Instead, they were seeing what needed to be judged, so they simply spoke that judgment. It was not necessarily a big, panoramic picture that they were seeing; instead, they were proclaiming the judgments. That is what they were seeing.
Prophecy is not really complicated. This takes a great deal of the strain away. We are still retaining a concept that prophecy has to be predictive, but that is not true.
Prophecy has to create a thing. We are not changing the world; we are creating the force that is displacing the present rule of the world. We determine the future by what we minister in the present.
We are going to fill the earth. The stone has to hit the image; then it keeps expanding until it fills the whole earth (Daniel 2:34–35, 44).
The Kingdom is loosing God into the earth. It is a tremendous takeover. It is a principle of displacement in operation, rather than a predictive thing that determines a chronology of events. It is a displacement.
God is displacing everything that Satan has done, everything that the world system has done. God is going to replace it. It looks impossible—and it is, if you try to tackle one thing, then another and another and another until you have toppled ten million things. We do not have enough time in the next thousand years to analyze all those millions of things and hit them. But we can turn the Lord loose.
Our faith can turn Him loose. He is waiting for that. He is waiting to move through His many-membered Body, to be glorified in us and to be admired in us (II Thessalonians 1:10).
This becomes much more positive than merely predicting an outcome of negative things in the earth. That kind of prophecy is negative in itself. We are positive, saying, “We are the fullness of Him that fills all things, and His Kingdom will fill the whole earth.”
For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16, NASB.
“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware.’ ” Psalm 2:7–9, NASB.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6–7, NASB.
This becomes another whole approach—God’s approach—instead of the carnal thinking about the way things are to be. Look back to the New Testament. Christ never did tackle the social evils; He did not tackle slavery, He did not tackle the Roman empire, He did not tackle prostitution, He did not tackle corrupt tax collecting—look at all the social evils He did not tackle! All He did was come and bring the truth.
He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the ground, yet when it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.” Mark 4:30–32, NASB.
We have proclaimed something that will grow. It will grow, and it will displace; it will split mountains apart before it is through. It will keep on growing.
The seed falls in a little crack in the rock and begins to grow. We do not know what kind of a structure is there but yet unseen. After the seed is planted, it may be some time before we see the fruit of it.
We do not realize even now what a tremendous potential God has created in us.
We have doubled our potential spiritual intensity. The remnant today has doubled the potential that we had ten years ago. The reason is a very simple scriptural explanation: They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. I John 2:19, KJV.
God removed those people who were not really in it.
What God is doing is not very visible now. All the visible signs look negative. What you can see is the pruning and the sifting; the gathered-up dead branches lying around, and several fires where the Lord is burning bundles of tares. The appearance looks negative. But something else is happening which is positive. Something is growing.
And He answered and said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Matthew 13:37–43, NASB.
Where is the fruit now? Where is the Kingdom evangelism? When you plant the tree, it may be four or five years before you find fruit on it. It grows a little, then it goes through winter, and then in spring it grows again. You watch over it and keep the bugs away from it as much as you can; and after a while you find a few blossoms—the first fruit is coming forth.
We are going to be like a firstfruits unto the Lord in the earth. 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 1:18, NASB. We know that. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. I Corinthians 15:23, KJV.
Christ was the firstfruits and then afterward they also, on that first resurrection. So we know that this term is not wrongly applied, to me or to any of us. We are all in that category of the firstfruits of I Corinthians 15. Yet we do not look like firstfruits.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. I John 3:2, KJV.
It does not appear yet what we shall be. But we have our roots into the Living Word, and they are going deeper and deeper; and as a result we are sustained, like a tree that is planted by the water. We are like the blessed man described in Psalm 1:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season. Psalm 1:2–3a, NASB.
We will bring forth our fruit in season. The season is beginning to come now, and the authority and effectiveness we are moving in now is not the result of some sudden new revelation. This is a result of a tremendous amount of growth, over a period of years, which has been unseen. All through these years God has been bringing forth the root structure of the Kingdom. It has been coming forth even when you have not been able to see it, when you have been struggling with the Living Word messages on “oneness” and “relate and communicate.” Now we are coming into it. We are getting loosed from our restrictive bonds.
Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:20–21, NASB.
People are seeing this, and some hate what is happening because they love bonds. They love bonds; bonds are all they know. They hate it that we are being freed, because they have had no way to control people other than to put them under bondage. Bonds lead to some form of bondage. Even for the ruler over his serfs, it is a form of bondage. You find that you are ultimately bound to the limitations of the people that you control. So in no way do bonds lead to anything but bondage, whether you are controlling or being controlled. Positions—high or low—inevitably lead to types of bonds and bondage. God is destroying that.
Now a whole new creation is coming forth. But it was there all the time; the growth was just being generated. It is just now that we see it. Now we begin to see it come forth to the moment of fruitfulness, firstfruits in the earth. It is a happening to us. We cannot say, “This is an event that finally came to pass somewhere in the sovereignty of God.” Rather, these are events that are happening because they are the inevitable result of our walk with God, of our feeding upon the Living Word. We cannot go anywhere else but into the manifestation of the sons of God.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Romans 8:14, 19, NASB.
We have gone through the basic preparations. We are rooted in God (Psalm 1:2–3). We are rooted in Him. There is no question about it: Christ is speaking forth from us. Christ in His very nature is so deeply entwined in our nature that we have become partakers of the divine nature.
For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. II Peter 1:4, NASB. We can speak and Christ speaks; Christ can speak and we speak.
Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. I Peter 4:11, NASB.
When we get this in our mind, with all faith and acceptance, that is the first manifestation of Christ’s being the Captain of our salvation.
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Hebrews 2:10, KJV.
He has brought many sons to perfection. Perfection! He bypassed all the “little islands,” so that we do not have to fight the enemy on every little atoll until we have exhausted ourselves. The Word does not say, “You have to go through a dozen works of the cross until every little part of your nature is out,” because you are not dealing with one characteristic of the old nature after another; you are bypassing them as the principle of displacement takes over. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but it is Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). When Christ takes over in our nature, it is not a possessing of us; it is a nature—His very nature, His very being—coming forth in us (II Peter 1:4).
You see, you cannot stop with a negative ambition, negatively voiced and negatively applied, of just striving to be rid of the old nature. Your efforts will be largely the flesh fighting the old nature. Our true victory is a matter of faith, a matter of believing God.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. I John 5:4, NASB.
We ought to give less time to overcoming the flesh, and believe that Christ’s victory be the overcoming factor—in us, in the world, everyplace. Now is the time for it.
When you come to the Kingdom, you come into oneness. The problem now is how to move in the Kingdom; let’s move as the Kingdom of God. In the Church Age we were dealing with Babylon, to get free from the traditions of men.
Now everything’s coming under one head!” You can be assured that it is. Christ is going to rule over us. He is getting His churches back.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22–23, NASB.
Satan always sends an Ishmael thing to make us fear the true thing that is coming, and to even make us resist it. We have seen the centrality of the denominations and we hate it. That has been just an Ishmael which was designed to keep us from being ready and willing to move into the true oneness that is now coming.
The greatest doctrine ever taught in the first place was the centrality of Christ.
The centrality of the denominations has prevented Christ from ruling over His churches. But as we come to the time of the Kingdom, Christ must be central. Everything has to be brought under Him.
God’s purpose is an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ. Ephesians 1:10a, NASB. This is what we are after. Make no mistake about this; our objective is to bring everything under His Lordship (Ephesians 1:18–23).
We see how the enemy worked within the local church level to make each one like a little castle, a little manor that was usually ruled over by one man. There cannot be anything in the minds of such leaders except an utter distaste for the people. But when we come under the centrality of Christ, then the sheep are truly loved (John 21:15–16). For the first time, they have true shepherding.
He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” John 21:16, NASB.
We need to have a line of teaching on the “Relate and Communicate” series which would bring the principles that were taught all together into just one or two messages, so that the people can begin to feel that the laws of God govern the Kingdom. We see this in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. Jesus was always comparing the time of the ancients with the present time. Several times He said, “This commandment was given before, but today this is the way it is to be fulfilled …” (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28, 31–32, 33–35, 38–39, 43–44).
All through the Bible, the Word has come to govern the lives of God’s people. First, it regulated the behavior of people under the laws of God (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). Next the Word came to regulate not only their behavior but their thought (Matthew 5:17–48). Now the Word comes that involves their relationships—a relationship which excludes independent individuality. Actually it brings individuality forth, but brings it forth in the laws of the kindness and gentleness of Christ, with care and concern for one another.
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” John 15:12, NASB.
We will begin to find a greater sensitivity to each other. We have broken out of our bondage into liberty, but we have broken out of it in an uncouth way. As we broke out of the religious ruts there was a liberty, and people began to feel that liberty; eventually they became a little unorthodox in their approach to things. There has been quite a bit of freedom—freedom to do many things, freedom from the conventional restrictions, and so on. Now that freedom will be out, because the great, deep kindness and love will prevail. Every conversation we have will be, not an exchange of words, but a source of blessing and a flow. We will all just love one another. There will be no corrupt communication coming from our mouth, no foolish jesting, none of the things that are not to be (Ephesians 5:4).
And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against any one; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:12–17, NASB.
I never felt restrained from those things before; yet I have found my own heart drawing more and more away from these things. As the Kingdom expands, you find, “It is true that I had liberty to do this, and maybe I still do; but I am forsaking that liberty because there is a greater freedom to minister Christ on another level now.” This is not legalism; it is the greater vision of the Kingdom. It is accentuated in our relationships every day; there is no time that we are not aware that we are to show the compassion and love of Christ.
In the past the first emphasis was a control of people’s behavior. The whole focus was on the legalism of behavior. Then people break out of that, and they break into the Kingdom. When Christ talked about transgression, He first likened it to the Law, which just involved the physical action. Then Christ took that into the next level, and He talked about the thought (Matthew 5). When people break out of that legalistic control of just the behavior only, it can take time for the Spirit to restructure their thinking. Then we move into a freedom, into the maturity of being able to choose the highest, to choose the best. This is not done by manipulating your behavior; it is done by having a whole new way of thinking about it. People may have to swing to the opposite extreme to get free and to get all the legalism out of their thinking, in order that it can be restructured by the Lord.
The dispensations in the Scriptures teach us about three levels: body (physical), soul, and spirit. The Old Testament says that a man is not to kill anyone (Exodus 20:13; 21:12). Murder is very much a physical thing although it involves the soul, but perhaps unwittingly. The law even made provision for a man who got into an unintentional, unpremeditated situation where he killed someone; in that case there were cities of refuge (Numbers 35:11). Everything in the law regulated the actions of people.
Then Christ’s teaching came, “Let’s move it up to the realm of soul. Let’s move it up to your motivation—your feelings, your mind, your emotions” (Matthew 5:21–22). You can have reality of the sin without ever committing the actual physical act. That was what Christ was saying.
Now at the time of the Kingdom the teaching moves up to the spiritual level: “Look, it’s even stricter now. You may not have the physical, you may not have the soulish; but if you have a wrong spirit, that is what is judged now.” All the way through, the preparation for the Kingdom has been a right spirit, and worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). If your spirit is wrong, everything is wrong.
That is why we were not worried about controlling physical actions. We did not even worry too much about the soulish emotions, because we knew that if we have our spirit right, we please the Lord; then the other things are soon brought into a right pattern. Everything will be based on laws of spirit, rather than on soulish or physical laws.
The Kingdom is actually more exacting than legalism, but it is also a hundred times freer. When you walk in the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:18). This means that all the laws which regulated everything else are no longer binding on you, because if you walk in the Spirit you are under one law that supersedes all others.
James identified it right when he called it the law of liberty. So speak and so act, as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. James 2:12, NASB. The law of liberty—isn’t that paradoxical? When you move into that level, the issue is what is in your spirit. He that is without mercy will be judged without mercy. For judgment is without mercy to him that hath showed no mercy. James 2:13a, ASV. Down on the physical level, you do not have to have mercy (Leviticus 24:19–20; Matthew 5:38). On the soulish level, you may still carry grudges and reactions in your emotions. But when you get into this realm of your spirit, then you will have to be right before God (Matthew 5:39–48). Go back and read the Beatitudes again (Matthew 5:3–12). The Beatitudes never belonged to the Church Age—at least not in the sense that they could be fulfilled in that age.
The Church Age never took the Beatitudes seriously. They were viewed as just a theory: “Wouldn’t it be nice if life was like this?” The Church Age never took them seriously—as something that a person could actually walk in, because they never really knew that deep grace of God.
In the Church Age we did not have the force to execute and fulfill the law of God. We saw the flame of the carnality of the flesh—but it was a four-alarm fire, and we had nothing but water pistols. We wished that we could put the fire out, but all we could do was shoot a few squirts at it.
But when you get into this level, you realize that the spirit realm completely controls the fires that burn in a person’s soul, the instincts that war within his body. It reaches into the realm where, in God, that regenerated spirit comes forth (Romans 8:2). Christ is the second Adam, a life-giving Spirit. The first Adam was a life-giving soul (I Corinthians 15:45–46).
About all that people get, until they really come under the rule of Christ, is that they believe for their souls to be saved. Their spirit, though regenerated, is not the controlling force. It is not the dominating, controlling force over all the other aspects of their life. Now we come to this time; this is the day of Spirit. This is the age of Spirit that is opening up. Everything that will be attained in the earth will be wrought through the realm of Spirit. If you have a mountain to be moved, it will not be moved because there is a soulish enthusiasm, or even a mental concentration on it. It will be moved because in the realm of Spirit you have authority over that mountain.
We will understand what the Lord meant when He said, “My Words are spirit; and they are life” (John 6:63). He meant that His Word is not only a Living Word, but His Word is Spirit. This is why impartation is coming forth more and more through the Living Word.
Christ is speaking a Living Word and it is Spirit. The Living Word is not merely sounds, or words; it is not ideas, it is not concepts; it is a Spirit which imparts. It is a creative force of God turned loose. Everything will be done through that realm of Spirit, and therefore through the Word of God. There will be no defeat of Satan except that He comes who has the name, “The Word of God,” and out of His mouth goes a sharp, two-edged sword (Revelation 19:11–16).
The sharp, two-edged sword first lays open the thoughts and intents of our heart (Hebrews 4:12), but ultimately its purpose is to slay the dragon (II Thessalonians 2:8). It is to bring everything down, all through a Word.
The Word of Christ is more than a prediction; it is a force that determines the future.
God’s seers will see and then proclaim the fulfillment of what they see.
The Living prophetic Word controls the future by determining the present.
The Word of God in the mouth of His Humble is the cause of the future.
The Word of God spoken is the seed that will split mountains.
The greatest doctrine of the Kingdom of God is the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ.