But the righteousness which is of faith saith thus, Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down:) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.) For what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach: because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame. Romans 10:6–11.
How far away is the victory? How far away is the Lord? How far away are the answers? The Word of God and the presence of Christ in your life is not something far off. The Word is nigh you! It’s in your heart, it’s in your mouth. All you have to do is see that Word made alive and activated. You don’t have to say, “Who’s going to move this big rock for me?” Look carefully. There’s a stick of dynamite under it and a fuse. Just light it and keep a safe distance—that rock will move! God is saying that He’s set before you the answer. He doesn’t have to come on the scene to help you. People pray as though they were persuading God to take action on something. Believe me, God has taken action and when He gives you the word it’s like a promissory note based upon a great deposit of His very life and sacrifice for you. He doesn’t have to do anything more for you—really. You don’t have to pull Christ down out of heaven to get your prayer answered. Just believe God in your heart and start standing on the promises. See them open up and come alive.
What if I’m in a place of deep repentance, do you think God is going to hear me? That’s a foregone conclusion! If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9. He’s going to hear you. The issue is rather that you come into that condition and preparation of faith and believe God. What do we have to do for the prophecies to work for us? A lot less depends on the element of time and circumstance and a great deal depends upon us. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead—when you believe in a living Lord and you confess that—you turn something loose. Your confession activates the Word of God to become something that is alive.
It would be very easy for us to develop an educational program to train the minds of people on a level of mental acceptance of Bible stories and truths. But I don’t want to transfer what this Book says to your mind: I want to transfer it to your heart. I want it to be more than factual knowledge. I want the Word to live for you so that you believe in your heart, you confess with your mouth, and the very utterance activates the Word and makes it alive. This congregation is changing because the Word of God is being written on the very tablets of your heart—that’s the new Bible! The new edition! We’ll call this the Kingdom Bible because there will be so many copies in the Kingdom that is coming.
In II Corinthians 3 Paul writes: Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you? Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; (That was the only recommendation he needed; those people were written in his heart.) being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh. And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Verses 1–6.
Many a sinner with a closed heart, looking for contradictions, has read the Bible and never read the Word of God. God didn’t speak to his heart at all. John 3:16 might open the door of heaven to one man, but to another it is not even a word from God; it’s just cold print. But when the Holy Spirit puts the same anointing on it that was on the very men who wrote it, then God’s Word lives! Then the reverence is not for a book as such, but the reverence is for what God says by His Spirit through that book.
The Bible is more inspired than people know. But the best Bible is the one that someone has ministered. Paul calls such a one “an able minister of the new covenant.” And God has taken the fleshly tablets of the heart to write upon, not stone tablets as at the giving of the ten commandments. He didn’t take pen and ink; He took His Holy Spirit and wrote His Word right on the fleshly tables of the heart and made that person a brand new Bible. Many times you can look at such a man and know what the love of God means because it is shining through. He is a walking declaration of the Word of God, the love of God. This walk does not need to be defended—it just needs to be lived. You don’t have to defend prophecy, just go ahead and prophesy. You don’t have to tell people the day of the restoration has come, just be restoration, be restored. That’s all God is calling us to do. We’re not the champions of a cause—we are the cause! We’re not working to try to sell somebody on something—we are that something. We’re God’s free samples distributed liberally, that people might taste and see that the Lord is good, that the hungry can eat thereof and know the blessing of the Lord!
God is now processing the new Kingdom Bible. Every time an apostle or prophet, an evangelist, pastor or teacher ministers the Word of God to you, he is not just ministering for your ears to hear it and your mind to ponder it—he is ministering this Word of God into your hearts. Ezekiel had forseen this: A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart… and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you. Ezekiel 36:26. That prophecy is quoted twice in the book of Hebrews. It was the one thing that was so revolutionary that it probably caused the Jewish nation to rise up in indignation against the early Christians. The Jews would kiss the Torah when it was brought through the synagogue. They still reverence and adore it. A beautiful Torah is a work of art, but you have to do more than kiss a book; you have to keep it in your heart.
Christ told the scribes and Pharisees that they made null and void the Word of God. To them it was like reading a law book, arguing over the fine points—and that was not enough. The Word has to be written on your heart; you have to be that edition of God’s Word, the new Bible. The greatest answer to some of these modern versions that many times are produced by unbelievers is so fundamental: let God write His own Bible on your heart. Be one of those walking editions. The greatest proof that this is God’s Word and God’s walk, that this is God’s move in the earth, is the way you live it and walk it; the way the Word becomes such a living part of you. You don’t have to be a salesman. You find it pouring out of you because it’s written on your heart. It will come forth at the right time.
Jeremiah had the Word within him, but he was determined to speak nothing more, for no one wanted to listen to him. But what did he say? The word of the Lord, … is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forebearing, and I cannot contain. Jeremiah 20:9. That’s it—you can’t help yourself. The Word of God is like a burning fire shut up in your bones. You are God’s walking, living epistles of Christ to be read and known of all men. If that is really the case you will speak out when you’re to speak, you will minister when you’re to minister because that Word is written upon the tablets of your heart; it becomes the inner compulsion of your whole life, a living word that is coming forth from the Lord.
What will the Word of God do for you? A great deal, if you’ll learn how to read it, how to listen to it until its truths are transformed into living, burning truths in your life. Until it does that, the Word of God is of no value; you’re not receiving anything good from it.
The living word will come forth in this generation. First will be the foundational edition: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, pastors and teachers. After that will come the elders’ edition as they speak forth the word of Christ. Soon the Word of God will be found on the lips of even a lisping infant. We will be that edition of God’s Word that brings forth all the coming events. God has a people, a mouthpiece to speak His Word in a many-membered Body.
It is my conviction that the ministry of Christ to this earth, the word of Christ to be proclaimed, is to take place over a seven year period. As Daniel prophesied, in the midst of a seven year period Christ was cut off for the transgressions of His people. This means that the three and one half years of Christ’s ministry represented only half of the completed ministry. The Bible speaks a great deal about the three and a half year period. It may be that this will precede some period of judgment, or that they may coincide with each other—this God will reveal in due time. I think very shortly Christ will resume that direct utterance and living word to the earth for another three and one half years—this time not coming in the flesh of one man, but coming in a many-membered Body, in the flesh of many human beings that have been anointed. They will become that special edition to proclaim what Christ has to say to the earth. God is making you the proclaimers of the Word of God. The level of divine utterance is growing and rising every single year. Some people are blaspheming the Word of God more and more, but a remnant is coming forth as the oracles of the Lord, speaking His wisdom.
How far away is that Word? It’s nigh you, it’s in your heart, it’s in your mouth. If you stand on it, if you put it into action, you will be amazed how the power of God will be turned loose in this generation. Don’t neglect the Word; work at it. The process is something like the transfer stamps with pictures that kids play with. They lick them and put them on their hand and the picture is transferred, looking like a tatoo. Similarly, God is trying to transfer His life to you. That’s the way I read the Scripture. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7) I want to take that Scripture and make a transfer—right to my heart, and I want it to be there forever, written right on the fleshly tablets of my heart. When I preach to you I try to take something that you may have read a hundred times and make it live for you, make it burn, transfer it, write it on your heart. If I keep that up long enough, you’re going to be walking Bibles!
Some of you are more prepared now than you know. You have more of the Word hid away and etched on the fleshly tablets of your heart than you realize. Paul said, Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant. God wants you to be the living example of the Word of God, proclaiming it to the hearts of men and women.
You must respect the Word. Let it live. Honor it. Bow down to every word that God speaks. See that He fills every word. God is Spirit, and He infills all of His utterances. He gives them the same eternity that He has. They shall outlive heaven and earth; they’ll never pass away (Matthew 24:35). They’re filled with life; His words are Spirit and they are life. They’re living. I’m not quoting something out of a law book; I’m bringing something that’s alive out of God, and it becomes alive within me. I have reverence for that marvelous procedure by which God speaks and brings that Word to become a living, creative thing in my life.
The wonder of the process of birth, the conception and development of a child, the complexities of the human mind and nervous system—these are living miracles which fill me with awe. But far more miraculous than the miracle of birth is the Word made alive in your heart, bringing a transference of the divine nature.
Given unto us are exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. II Peter 1:4. These words start a process; they loose me from the corruption that is in the world through lust. They loose me from everything wrong in myself. They begin to radiate like inner buried radium, reaching out and destroying every hostile organism in my nature. They begin to live within me until I sense coming forth the divine nature, the life of Jesus Christ. I have great reverence for what the Word of God really means. I want to be one of those living epistles read and known of all men because the transfer was complete. Live in the Word. Use it the way it’s supposed to be used: for the transfer of divine revelation and life from a cold page to a living heart.