We are glad for the visitors who come in our midst. The services we have may differ from what they are accustomed but we can’t apologize because if we tried to calm this down so people wouldn’t be offended, neither would we win anyone. We are not a glorified denominational church but actually are spearheading a whole new day for the Church. This is probably the only real vigorous return to apostolic Christianity in the last five or six hundred years, when the days of the Reformation started.
Only for a few hundred years did the early Church have an understanding of and walk in the mystical spiritual realm. The early Church had its prophets and seers; it had young prophetesses, like Philip’s daughters who prophesied. The Spirit was poured out on the sons and daughters, and it was a vigorous, youthful movement. Christ was only thirty-three when He was crucified, and Peter, James, and John were younger than He. It was the youth movement of the time, and the apostles concentrated on young men—wherever they went, they would pick out a young Timothy or Titus and would teach and lead him.
It was the first time in the history of the Church that, instead of promoting something for the young people, the young people themselves were the heart and core of it. There were always a few older, seasoned ones who moved in the Lord, also, but they understood something about the Spirit world and how to minister. They had been close enough to the ministry of Christ, who rebuked fevers and talked to illnesses as though they were personal beings, and dealt with the causes and the sources to loose people from their oppressions.
This hasn’t been the thinking of the churches down through the years. Even when they professed belief in divine healing, it was a doctrine only. They had little perception to discern and little understanding to know. We don’t profess to have it all, but we know that we are on the right track, and we will pursue it with all of our hearts. We are not setting up any standards except to contend for reality in the realm of spirit. We want the flow of divine life and healing. We believe that God is with us, and that we can minister the grace of God to help each other. We believe also that someone will move in enough perception to see an oppression and we will bind it together and see deliverance in the name of the Lord.
Recently the Lord began to challenge me toward a couple of new steps that can be taken. The Bible says that the outward man is perishing, but the inward man is renewed day by day (II Corinthians 4:16); and we are striving not to be unclothed in this mortal body, but to be clothed on with the body which is from above (II Corinthians 5:2–4). I have come to realize that this is not some hocus-pocus, but there is a way to move into it. I am positive it is directly related to our spirit, and that the abilities of our spirits are very great.
May I give you an illustration? If a person has real hysteria, how does he react? His ability to hear can be ten times greater than it normally is. A watch ticking across the room can be so deafening, that he will cover his ears. Hysteria can be so pronounced that he can see colors and auras until his head splits with the intensity of sight. He can see details far away that he could never see normally: read fine print that he could never read under normal circumstances. Anything coming toward him is frightening because he sees it so vividly it is as if it were right on top of him.
I am not talking about the effect of drugs or hallucinations, but about hysterics. It is not that the mind goes wrong, but it reacts intensely. I have seen a few people react under hysteria with such sensitivity that a current of air sweeping over them made them feel as if they were being drowned with water. All the walls are down in hysteria. Now, if we have such ability, why can’t we use it? Only when something is deranged, and the conscious mind and reasoning faculties are no longer in control, does the subconscious mind and the human spirit (when subjected to terrors and fears) come through with abilities that are latent within us.
We don’t want to have to be hysterical in order to have it. Almost everything wrong with an individual could be controlled through the human spirit. A weak person under hysterical pressure can lift weights that he could never lift before. There was a woman who lifted an automobile off her son when he was being crushed to death. In her desperate concern for her son, she picked up the car—her conscious mind reached in to abilities and capacities that may have been dormant in the human race from before the fall. Adam probably had abilities like that before the fall came. Two-thirds to three-fourths of the human mind is on a subconscious plane; we use from one to five percent of our brain power. In that moment of stress, something was relayed from her spirit which demanded and commanded a body that otherwise would not respond.
That was a human, natural illustration that I gave, but I have a deep conviction that we have to go to work on what we can do as children of God. Christians haven’t begun to do what is possible. They could move mountains if they would just believe it. We ought to declare war on our unbelief. We have to believe God for anything to happen. I am not talking about fanaticism; I don’t want you to go off on some emotional tangent. I want you to come to grips with the fact that God’s world is not believing enough!
Churches believe less and less every year. A church condescending to believe in one or two experiences in the Bible is persecuted. People who receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues are called fanatics, and pastors who open up to believe in the Holy Spirit are put out of their churches. That is only beginning to believe! We ought to go back over the whole list of miracles. The Word says, “The end of a thing is greater than the beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8), and I’m believing that.
The Church may go into apostasy, but there will be a true Remnant, a Church, come forth. We will contend earnestly for the faith that was once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). It is time to inspire ourselves with some new steps. We have learned to move along in the twilight zones, but let’s get out in the sunshine now and see what we can do. The world will be shaken by a few people who believe in God, who stand up and speak the Word of the Lord with fearless faith and great anointing. They won’t be seeking anything for themselves or looking for a place: they won’t be touchy, but loving an helping one another. With pure faith the world could be moved.
How much progress have we made? You have grown, haven’t you? And you will keep on growing, so open your heart to believe for bigger things than ever before. Your faith is going to be challenged. I see the young folks believing; they are really striving to believe. This whole walk could be lost if we become passive. That is the most deadly thing that could happen to us. We must believe. There are more and more steps to take. Believe the Lord!
We can produce enough people who can walk like the Bible described the seer prophets who could tune in and see and know things and prophesy them: who ministered and the dead were raised. People back off from that, but I believe people have been raised from the dead. I think these things are happening. We become so conditioned and respond so negatively to things that wear at us day after day, and month after month, instead of realizing things are going to happen and will change.
The whole trend of life is to produce an acceptance on your part of conditions that are imposing an unscriptural limitation on you. How many of you know that you should be ministering, you should be doing something, the will of God dictates a greater liberation in your life than you have? You know that you should have a liberty. Things should not be the way they are within you or about you. What are we going to do about it? Day after day these things beat in on us and if we accept them, it could be the most dangerous thing in the world. We become conditioned to believe in it instead of living almost daily under a protest—striving and believing God.
Our cries ought to come up like the children of Israel in Egypt until God says, “Your cries have come up to Me and I have come down to deliver you.” It ought to be that way. Yet how much more will He avenge speedily those who cry day and night unto Him? (Luke 18:7, 8) He is so willing to do it, but you are conditioned to accept things as they are. When the pressure finally becomes unbearable, then you push in a little bit. Why not press in day after day, no matter what is happening—disturbing yourself, troubling yourself with the demands of aggressive faith? “I am going to move in and see a change! The Scriptures declare this is what should be in my life, and I am not going to accept anything that I believe is unscriptural in limiting me in my walk with God! I am going to have that walk with God by faith!” It takes violence in your spirit. That is the way the Church is changing.