Until we are precisely where God wants us, we will not move into what He has for us. When the Israelites were ready to go over into the land of Canaan with their battle strategy all planned out, God said, “Wait—sanctify yourselves today, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
The promises of yesterday and the preparation today give way to the fulfillment tomorrow. We believe in the prophecies, but we are not passive about them; we prepare ourselves today for tomorrow’s miracles. Believe God to meet you and fulfill the prophecies and revelation over your life. Act on it today because you’re expecting God to fulfill it tomorrow. When the pressure is on, we look to the Lord to tell us how to think, how to feel, and how to react. We’re not being rebellious; we just want the Lord to tell us how we’re supposed to think and feel about what we’re going through.
The story of Lazarus is recorded in John 11. Jesus stayed where He was even after He received the news of Lazarus’ illness. Then He told His disciples, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may wake him out of sleep.” They said, “Lord, if he’s sleeping, he’s doing well.” “No,” He said, “I mean he’s dead. But I go to wake him out of sleep.” And so He did. Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time the body decayeth; for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believest, thou shouldest see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me. And I know that thou hearest me always: but because of the multitude that standeth around I said it, that they may believe that thou didst send me. And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. John 11:38–44.
“Loose him and let him go,” illustrates how a man can come out of sin but still be bound with some of the trappings of the old life. It is good to loose him, to take off the wrappings of death and the old habits; to deliver him and help him. Christ has given him life; you give him the deliverance. That is one thing churches should be set to do in any revival or any time of stirring: look about and find the people who are bound hand and foot and loose them from the wrappings of an old life.
Before Jesus prayed to the Father, and before He ever called Lazarus forth, He said, “Take that stone out of the way.” Martha reminded Him, “Lord, he’s been dead for four days—he stinks.” Remember, they didn’t embalm the dead as they do today, and even though the body was wrapped, decomposition would already have set in. After four days, the stench would be terrible. Jesus answered, “Didn’t I tell you that if you’d believe you’d see the glory of God?” Don’t say “Show me and I’ll believe”; because God says, “You believe and I’ll show you.” The man who sees it is the man who has first believed it.
It wasn’t a very big cave in which Lazarus was buried. When God raised him up and he crawled out of that tomb, he stood, tied hand and foot with a napkin over his face. There was no brain damage, no decomposition. God healed and rejuvenated his body, making every cell a fresh living piece of tissue. What a marvelous miracle!
Why have we been praying? Why have we been going through it? Why the battle? Because we rolled the stone away. Now we’re looking for the miracle release. Slowly but surely we are being geared into greater activity than we have ever been in. Everything is moving forward. All we need now are a few miracles. Soon we will be moving in a continuous miracle. It is marvelous how God is leading the young people and blessing them and what He is doing in the lives of the families. We may be going through problems, but we’re changing fast. We’re becoming a different people. In this restoration we sometimes get the idea that God is going to restore it all while we sit calmly by, watching it happen. No—yesterday’s prophecies will be brought to pass tomorrow by today’s aggressiveness. God has given a word and we act on it accordingly. Action corresponding to faith in God’s word will be the combination and the formula that brings to pass miracles in the earth like the world has never seen.
Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones (roll those stones away); lift up an ensign for the peoples. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. And they shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called Sought out, A city not forsaken. Isaiah 62:10–12. God isn’t going to let us down. We get a little nervous and avoid rocking the boat too much, but God is saying, “Prove Me now herewith, and see if I’ll not open up the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing” (Malachi 3:10).
Prove God. Put Him on the spot. God puts us in a corner so that the action of our faith will put Him on the spot. God says, “Go ahead—let Me be God. Don’t tie My hands. Don’t preach about all the beautiful truths in My Word and then not do anything about them.” Put yourself out on a limb and saw it off. It is God’s business to take care of you and help you. You have to live boldly, aggressively, violently, and recklessly for the Lord. You will not find deliverance or get out of your difficult situations the way many of you are going about it. God gave you a word and you’re playing with it too carefully. You don’t win that way. Bold aggressiveness is the attitude of the battle. Weigh it carefully but when you know you have a confirmed word then step out on it and say, “From now on, Lord, I’m proving You. You’re going to be the One who’s on the spot—not I.”
What do you have to lose? God is the only one who has anything to lose because outside of the will of God you don’t amount to anything anyway. What is success, what is anything without the Lord? Let’s just lay it on the line, “God, we believe You. We’re standing on Your promises, believing the words You’ve given and what You’ve directed us to do; now it’s up to You to back it up.” With this kind of approach you are rolling the stone away and opening up a can of worms. You’ll get the stench out where everyone faces it; we’re going to face our problems.
It’s disgusting how religion is an evasive thing that people use for hiding their heads in the sand like an ostrich. There ought to be some way that we can bring the word of God right out into the open: “This is what God says; these are the principles that work; on this we’re going to stand.” We’ll roll away the stone, pray the prayer, and expect God to bring forth. That should be our thinking right now. Don’t be so timid. Don’t hold back. Get with it.
You can’t prove a prophecy of God any other way than by stepping out on it to see if it’s going to work. If you’re afraid, you should be more afraid of giving in to your fears than anything else. Don’t miss everything God has because you are fearful in heart. Let not the fear of man be before you. It will only make a snare. Move out and believe the Lord.
This walk is of God—that has been established and proven. God has fulfilled a thousand prophecies, but that will not help you for one second when it comes to the prophecies that are at issue now. What bothers you now are the many things that God is presently working in you for which you have a word. You’ll just have to believe. At no point along the road will it look any better by circumstances, nor can anyone convince you by logic that it is reasonable. You still have to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. There never will be a point where you don’t trust in the Lord like that. You’ll say to the Lord, “Lord, I’ve prepared my heart. I’ve prepared the scene. I’ve rolled back the stone and I’m ready for it.”
Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. Joshua 3:5. No matter how long you’ve waited, you’re ready for the action now. If you don’t have deliverance yet, He’ll deliver you; God has never been late yet. Though Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, yet He abode four days in the same place knowing Lazarus would die. So let your problems stink, but roll the stone away because God doesn’t want you to hide from them. God wants you to get ready for that which seems hopeless to come forth. Don’t think, “Oh, we’re too late on this; it’s past.” God always brings it around just the way He wants it to come.
The people prophesied about in Matthew 24 and 25 will always say, if they look at the circumstances, “We’re too late; there is no hope; we are like dead men.” Today people say, “If only we could have lived a hundred years ago. When churches held a revival in those days, they were full. Now it’s so hard; you can’t do anything. The day of miracles is past. The day of revivals is over.” People are absorbed with a holding action until the Lord comes. That attitude isn’t found in the book of Matthew. Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. Therefore be ye also ready; for in an hour that ye think not the Son of Man cometh. Matthew 24:42–44.
We are looking for the Parousia to break upon us. These are the days of the latter rain. If you are prepared to believe, we’ll roll the stone away and get ready for some action. We’ll open up the problem as it is and believe that God is going to do something about it because we are moving in faith.
How often the Lord tried to stir people’s faith that way and prepare them for something. He put clay on a blind man’s eyes and told him, “Go wash and you’ll come back seeing.” He told a man who couldn’t get out of bed, “Pick up your bed and walk.” How could he carry his bed and walk? He said to the man with the withered arm, “Stretch forth your arm.” How could he? Move to do what you can’t do. Roll the stone away. Get your problem out in the open. Believe for the solution. Either you will get God to help you as His child, or else the whole thing will fail.
God has kept us in a continual state of crisis and it is time We reversed the situation and said, “Lord, Your Word is telling us that we should challenge You with Your Word.” God is telling us, “Prove Me.” He wants to be God. Even His preachers are making excuses for Him and saying that He’s dead. They’re hushing Him up and sticking Him in the back closet. They don’t expect Him to perform anything of His word.
That attitude is not for us. We will prophesy, then wait and believe God to get the job done as He promised. In these past few years God has started the most active fulfillment of promises and prophecies that we’ve ever seen. But He will do more as soon as we dare to follow His principles.
You can read about the foolish virgins in Matthew 25:10, And while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him.… It is a matter of being ready, of preparing today for tomorrow’s miracles. Those who were ready went in but the rest of them missed it. They had fooled around because somehow they just didn’t feel the urgency of the hour. We’ve been in a constant state of preparation. We’re in a good position. We’ve done our homework. God has worked miracles in us. Little by little the word has stirred us and searched our hearts. Now we’re ready. Stand at that tomb, cover your nostrils and shout for Lazarus to come forth.
When we grow weary in the battle and wonder how long we can go on, the Lord wants us to partake of the honey as Jonathan did in the days when he fought the Philistines. He, too, grew weary in the battle, so he dipped his staff into a honeycomb and ate it. His eyes were enlightened, he was strengthened, and then he went on to chase more Philistines. God wants to prepare our hearts for rhythm in battle, in our personal lives, and the spiritual rhythm in our churches. By “rhythm” I mean a breathing in and out in a continuous appropriation from the Lord. We’ll continually press in, following this truth: having our hearts renewed and prepared, putting God exactly in the place where He wants to be as our God, where Christ wants to be as our absolute Lord. By this action we are acknowledging Him in a way that man must acknowledge the Lord. It is not irreverent.
… prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing … Malachi 3:10. Believe for God to anoint and open the windows of heaven on every one of us. Move in. God is with us. The joy of the Lord will be our strength. The battle will be wearisome, but God will help us. When circumstances look impossible, God will make a way for us.
Every family, every home, is standing in this place where they will either leave the stone in its place and continue in the ritual of what they have had, or they will cry out to God for the release. Believe for the miracle day. Believe that tomorrow God will do wonders among us.
Take the prophetic word to heart and let the Lord deal with unbelief, fear of man, and any cautiousness in you. Be bold as Gideon and Joshua, that no matter what comes, you’ll be faithfully, aggressively reaching into the will of the Lord. It will please God, for without faith it is impossible to please Him. If there’s anything in your heart of fear, reluctance, or weariness—get rid of it. Sometimes weariness takes hold of you, until you’d like to walk away, lie down someplace and forget everything. It can’t be done. Keep reaching in. The divine strength that God wants to give us will not come automatically. It will come to a people who must have it, who are desperate for it, who reach up and appropriate it.
Don’t waver. Don’t be weary in well-doing, for in due season you’ll reap if you faint not. You may have been in the biggest battles you’ve had in your life: foes within, circumstances without. It doesn’t matter—God loves you.
Roll the stone away and get ready for a miracle. Yesterday—prophecy. Today—preparation of heart. Tomorrow—unlimited!