When you read Joel’s prophecy carefully, if you see that the prophesied end-time army is raised up as a judgment primarily upon God’s people, as well as on the earth, then you will understand the nature of this remnant coming forth. The message has been so completely grace: bringing people in, letting God meet their hearts. But the scene is changing. You know that it is changing because God is opening the door for the satanic hordes to fight the remnant. But with that, the prophecies are coming continually about judgment being committed to the saints of the Most High.
Daniel saw it long ago and we’re in it—right up to our ears. There is no way of getting out of it. If you don’t like battle and conflict, back out fast and pray that the Lord will help you, because you are either going to be administering judgment or receiving it. If you would rather be receiving it, back out fast, because everyone who comes into this walk will either move into what God has, let God judge the things in their lives, and come into the full dedication to be what God wants them to be, or they will find themselves on the receiving end of the purges that are to come to the earth. If those things seem far away to you, read the book of Judges. Read of the seals that are opened up, the plagues that come, the trumpets that sound. As you read that, the awfulness of it will overwhelm you. It is something so total you can’t believe it.
Satan has tried to kill some of the apostolic company in accidents. But God brought them through because the Body was praying. You don’t know how much authority you have. You don’t realize what God is doing.
God puts it to you: do you have faith? are you listening at all? If you are listening, you abandon the sense of values and the barometer of judgment that the world uses and you say, “All right, a handful of corn on the top of the mountain and the harvest thereof will shake like Lebanon” (Psalm 72:16). You know God is doing this and it moves your heart. It wouldn’t make any difference if there were only one or two—God would do it. God is faithful. He is bringing forth something in the earth that we still do not understand—yet we are a part of it. Every year this progresses. The earmarks, all the indications are there. Many times I have found myself shaken. It is so hard to believe that after all these centuries have rolled by, God is going to do this now; we have heard the Lord and we are going to move in Him. It is inconceivable by human standards, but we have had a word from God and He is leading us.
There is a song that says, The Answer is in the Wind. And it is. It is a breathing by the Holy Spirit, “Something is coming!” God is doing something that the earth hasn’t heard before, hasn’t seen before. And because they have not seen it, they can hardly believe it. An ancient world in the days of Noah was moved that way. Noah told them about floods; and do you realize that it had never rained on the face of the earth up to that time? The Scripture says that the earth was watered by an intense dew (Genesis 2:6). But there had never been rain before. The people scoffed at Noah during the 120 years he was building the ark.
Every civilization that has any kind of record at all records that flood. Archeological findings verify it. Don’t say that it is all a myth. Do you know that at certain times of the year when the snow melts on Mount Ararat the hull of a great ship becomes visible? An expedition is hoping to discover Noah’s ark, which has probably been preserved in that glacier all these years. That is interesting. Meanwhile, theologians are telling us that God is dead—why, He isn’t even sick! What He is doing now we can hardly understand.
An age is ending. A new age is coming. People sing about it and they wonder about it. The world talks about it. “Sometimes the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,” Jesus said (Luke 16:8). People of the world look at the stars and say, “A new age is coming”; while God’s people sit in cold mausoleums and talk about some small moving upon their denomination that happened generations ago. God is alive! God is moving! We ought to get with it with all of our hearts. There isn’t anything more important than that we believe God.
God had a purpose in bringing forth this younger generation. They are unattached to the world. They are not living for this world. They have all the problems of young people but there is also a dedication coming forth. I’m not marveling at it; I knew there would be those sons and daughters that would prophesy, and not just a little spouting forth, but the kind of prophecies that will knock walls down and end satanic dynasties that have ruled. Jesus Christ’s Lordship will be manifested in the spirit realm.
Have you noticed how bitter and intense the work of the enemy has been to keep us from entering into the things the prophecies spoke of? I’d like to call your attention to this fact: where has it been centered and focused? It has hit you, but only when you were supporting the apostolic ministry which has to be unveiled soon. It is one of the next steps; it is the thing that will bind kings in fetters of iron. You have read Psalm 149: “This heritage have all his saints.”
I wonder if we still have too many people! I wonder if God will bring us down to the water like Gideon’s army, to see how we drink, to see how alert we are. I wonder how many will stay when the going gets rough. How many will really have the vision? Satan hits people and rebellion and criticism come. The illusions and the lies of Satan are beyond anything they could believe. The pressures are put upon their own lives until they would like to back off. They look for a convenient place to drop out, or they try to be a little less committed and less involved. Many people get hung up with their self-centeredness. Their world is so small that they are not looking for any meaning to their lives. They are too wrapped up in themselves and in their problems—nothing was ever greater than the little wrong done to them, nothing is worse in their sight than the fact that someone didn’t pay back a five-dollar loan. What a little world they have, what a little horizon! It will close in on them.
The world is changing and the ages are changing. The Kingdom is coming! No generation since the days of Adam has had something so tremendous to live for, such an opportunity for service and dedication. This is the day when any man, even if he can scarcely read or write or hardly knows his right hand from his left, can find that moment of greatness in being a humble instrument in the hands of God. God isn’t calling for geniuses, rich men, wise or talented men. He is just reaching out to bless His people and say, “Whosoever will.” He gave a parable about it. Those who were invited to the wedding feast aren’t coming in, and so He is reaching for the lame and the halt and the blind—the outcasts—those in the highways and hedges. Hedges refer to boundaries—the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks, who are unacceptable: those who have sinned and failed, who don’t even have a sense of decency. They turn to God and He makes them His righteousness. He says, “You’ll be My instrument.” And the righteousness of God comes against the arrogance of this self-righteous, filthy world. He will use the base and the foolish to confound the mighty.
Do you know what’s in the wind? Do you know what’s coming? I wish I could call you to a deeper dedication, so tomorrow or the next day when some more of the awful rubbish of your own spirit comes up you would work at it again. You would keep working at it until you become that bride without spot or wrinkle in His sight. You would be like the 144,000 that follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, anywhere He wants to go, anything He wants to do, anything He wants to say.
I am rebuked, and I in turn rebuke. It is not a time for concern about ourselves. It is time to seek first the Kingdom. There is that within my heart which says, “Twenty-four hours a day—is there any of it that can be redeemed? Is there even a small portion that is extended in the wrong direction, that can be beamed toward God?” Oh, the Ancient of Days is coming! It is more than just a little move in the earth. It is more than a little singing in the Spirit. A new day has already dawned. God just hasn’t sent the garbage man to collect the rubbish of yesterday yet, to take it out to the dump and burn it with the unquenchable fire.
It’s coming down. It’s coming down. Who is going to save this world now? What political party will rise up? It’s too late. Hallelujah, it’s too late! It’s going to end and the Kingdom will come. There is such an ominous sense upon me that it could be minutes, it could be hours, it could be days—and then such a rapid succession of events will be thrown at you; the terror and the awe of it will fill the world. What about the time prophesied when the world will be on fire? Jeremiah saw those days and he said, “If the footmen have wearied thee in the battle, how wilt thou contend with the horses? If in days of peace it has wearied thee, what wilt thou do at the swelling of Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5). If we can’t handle this now, if we can’t come all out to serve God, if we can’t come to a real commitment now in God, what are we going to do in the immediate future before us? If we get so swamped that we can’t serve God with dedication when a few little things happen now, what about the swelling of Jordan?
What should we do in the meantime? Business as usual, carry on with your job, and do it faithfully—but that’s only in what you are doing for a living. The real living is something else: every day and every hour we give ourselves wholly to this. The King is coming! He is coming! We know it.
Will you give yourself wholly to Him? Will you say, “Here am I, Lord, whatever You have for me, whatever it is that You want of me I give. I’m nothing, but I give myself wholly into Your Hand. Refine me and use me, but above all, get rid of the things in my life that have to go, and bring forth that which You are building and creating within me. Do it, Lord!”
Aren’t you tired of the old way of living? Don’t you want it to end? Look into your spirit. Is it bitter? Is it so preoccupied? End it now. We’ve had enough time with bitterness; we’ve had enough time with pride; we’ve had enough time with defeat, with the lust and the distractions of the flesh; we’ve had enough time with seeking after the things of the world that are only empty doors when we have them. We’ve had enough of it. We want no more.
We cry out for a release in our spirits, O Father, so that nothing shall stand ahead of the Lord moving in our lives. Let’s move into the better day. If we are fearful and timid because the assaults come against us, forgive us, Lord, for we would be of good courage. Who are we not to be expendable and not to be a vessel in Your hand, for honor or dishonor—whatever it pleases You to make us? We ask You for the old to disappear, for the purging of the vessel; that You will bring forth Your will in our lives today.
I know God is speaking to our hearts. Do you find that you are under conviction? Lift your heart and do some praying, call on the Lord. Confess your sin to the Lord; confess your need. Say: “O Lord, not for any personal ulterior motive, but because I really want to do Your will, put an end to the things that stop me. Help me, O God, to walk with You today in this hour, to be a part of the remnant that will walk with You.
We have seen the beginnings of restoration. We have seen something the world hasn’t seen since the early church: the moving of God, the creativity of God and His mighty power. We must not be satisfied with such a little portion. We must press into the mighty flood tides—not a little stream, but rivers that cannot be passed over. Bring it to us Lord. How unworthy we are. Break through the barriers upon us, Lord. Move on our hearts. What manner of men must we be? Search us to the depth of our being so we may lay it in Thy hand.
Let us not forget this exhortation, nor put it aside, but let us heed it most diligently. I think we should let God speak even more plainly. Let Him rub down deeply within our hearts until we feel that anointing which strips us of the self-deceit. It may be pleasant to be fooled, but it is expedient that we know the way and we walk in it. It is most necessary that the little foxes that spoil the vines be discovered. It is very necessary that we be not distracted even the least little bit from the course. In this hour we are going to build homes in Sodom and Gomorrah. We are going to raise children in Sodom and Gomorrah, but not to be Sodomites; we are going to raise them to be prophets and prophetesses of the Lord.
O God, we know this task isn’t easy but we give Thee praise for every one of these young people who have renounced any allegiance to sin and the dominion of Satan. They have been released and set free. O Lord we come to grips, like Jacob of old. We cannot wrestle with ourselves, but we can expose ourselves to Thee with a relentless purpose of heart and say, “Lord, we’re going to wrestle until that damnable thing you find in us is dealt with in our spirits. We are going to walk with God. We are going to believe God and walk in the word He has spoken to our hearts.”
If there is criticism, if there is complaining, if there is rebellion, get it out of your spirit now! Curse it, in the name of the Lord. Expose it to the blood of the slain Lamb of God so you will be free of it. This unforgiveness, bitterness, distraction, living for secondary or third-rate objectives and missing the best; this idea of having no sense of values until we just exist, instead of living with the meaning of our lives being fulfilled in the will of God—put an end to it in the name of the Lord!
Are you repenting in your heart? I am. I am saying afresh, “O Lord, I would repent, if for a single moment my eyes should be off the goal, if I should fail to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” If anyone or anything draws my loyalty and allegiance away from my blessed Lord, God forgive me and deal with it deeply. If the fear of man is a snare to me and I am not courageous to walk in all of His Word, if there comes a day or an hour when I am the least bit ashamed of what He speaks or what He is doing in the earth—let my heart be rebuked before God. Let me be given wholly unto the Lord.
Let there be a boldness in our spirits. Let us be filled with Thy Spirit, O Lord, to speak forth Thy Word. Whether people will hear or whether they will forbear, they shall know that a prophet has been in their midst.
We are asking for a miracle compounded with a miracle, one upon another, that Thy frail people may be blessed of the Lord. We are like Ezekiel’s bones. Breathe on us, O God, and make us that mighty army You want us to be. Prevail upon our spirits, for there is nothing that we can hide before Thee. Lord, grant that we don’t hide it from ourselves.
Who understandeth the kind of ministry that the Lord shall require of thee? Who shall understand the days that are before His people when it shall come to pass that he that giveth a cup of cold water or a slice of bread shall be blessed in the name of the Lord? Who can know how the Lord hath blessed this nation? Wilt thou not stand in the gap and contend, that you shall yet be the instrument of God? Wilt thou see the land go on in its iniquity and not cry out against it and contend before the Lord for the sake of the remnant? that God should bring forth in this land a people that shall be dedicated to His name, who shall not be addicted to the ways of soft living and luxury, but shall find themselves enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ?
O blessed art thou, whose eyes see and ears hear what the Spirit bringeth forth in the earth; that thy heart shall be wholly given to it. Let your heart be searched, for the Lord is faithful. Thou hast hungered and thirsted after righteousness. Shalt thou not be filled? Thou hast contended before the Lord for a walk with Thy God. Is He not bringing it to thee? Is He not confronting thee even this day and saying, “Behold, I declare war upon everything within thy heart that is not submissive to the Lord.” Let thy heart say, “Amen” to it. Thou shalt cry: “Bring down, Lord, every arrogant and lofty thought! Bring it into captivity and make it subject to Christ.” Such are the weapons of our warfare, to see this accomplished.
Let the husbands and the wives, the fathers and mothers, the young men and young women be dedicated to the service of the Lord.
There are songs that the Lord shall give thee, O remnant of the Lord, that shall resurrect the dying and bring healing to the wounded. There is the word that the Lord shall give thee that shall keep men on their feet in the day of desolation. The Lord hath not abandoned His word concerning thee. Let not thy heart waver either, but let it be set upon God and account Him that has spoken to thee faithful and able to perform all of His word. Look not to the feebleness of thyself. Look unto Him that enableth.
Let the people of the Lord rejoice, to whom the Lord hath given a heart of repentance. If there be within thee that which weeps and mourns at the rebuke of the Lord, ye have occasion of great joy; that thy heart is tender, that thy capacity for repentance is being exercised before the Lord, for this too, is a gift from thy God. But if thy heart is adamant as stone, you would have reason to mourn if you had tears or a heart to mourn. For when the Lord hardens the hearts of those whom He would judge; is it not that they have no tears to weep and no heart to feel? God hath made of a sensitive heart, those whom He would rebuke, those who would listen to His Word. God hath blessed thee. Let there be within thy heart a tenderness. Be not arrogant against the Lord and harden not your heart as in the day of provocation. The Lord is saying to thy heart again: “Today is the day of salvation; now is the accepted time.” Now shall ye believe the word, for surely there are blessings that God would set before His people.
Who shall enter into that blessing and who shall possess it? Who shall he made a partaker of all of this goodness of the Lord? Is it not those who have humbled their hearts before the Lord? Is it not the meek ones who have come before the Lord and they that have mourned? In their spirit is there not found that thing which God shall bless? Shall they not inherit the earth? Is not theirs the kingdom of heaven? Shall He not smile upon them? Yea, the Lord hateth the arrogant way and He bringeth it down. But the man who humbleth himself before the Lord—who is mindful of his own weakness and excuseth it not, yet is made bare before the sight of the Lord like a sacrifice laid open upon the altar—that man shall be blessed and the Lord shall deliver him from all his iniquity and order his steps in the ways that God would set before His people.
Yea, marvel not. If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? For judgment hath begun in the house of the Lord and from the house of the Lord, and here shall it issue forth. He whose heart is right before the Lord, whom the Lord hath prepared—that man who hath purified himself because of the hope of His appearing—upon him shall the Lord lavish His blessing. He shall be an instrument in the hand of the Most High. He shall walk with the Lord in the earth, and he shall see the old day die and the dawning of the new. He shall not be given unto those things that are passing, but he shall be established in his way. He shall be like the tree planted by the rivers of water; he shall bring forth his fruit in season; his leaf also shall not wither; whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Thou shalt see how the ungodly, like chaff shall be swept away, and thou shalt behold how the judgment shall come (Psalm 1). And he that hath followed the Lord afar off shall be in jeopardy; he that hath refused the word of admonition shall perish in the way. He whose heart has been divided—whose spirit has mingled worship of this passing age and worship of the Lord—he too shall not abide. The Lord cometh as a refiner of silver. Who shall abide His coming? He purifieth all the sons of Levi so they may present a pure offering acceptable to God. Is it not the day that the Lord has brought this to thine heart?
Marvel not that thou hast been tested and tried and many things have befallen thee, until thou hast wondered at the strange thing that happened unto thee. But that testing and trial of thy faith is ordered of the Lord and the Lord shall cause His Word to rest upon thee, for thou art His handiwork. What He hath begun, shall He not perfect it? Yea, He shall perfect that which concerneth thee. He shall perform it. He hath begun the good work in thee, and is He not able to perform it unto the day of the Lord?
This is the hand of the Lord, that thou shouldst continually, without ceasing, submit thyself to the Lord and cry unto Him with all willingness of spirit, that that which the Lord hath begun He shall make a full end of it, that He shall bring thee forth in His image, that thou shalt be among those who shall receive of His glory in this day: the glory of the Lord that shall rest upon His people, the crown of everlasting joy which shall be upon their heads.
Rejoice! Yea, press on and let thy heart submit to Him. Abase thyself before the Lord in repentance, but let there be the exuberant faith within thee that God hath given thee a sure word. He shall not deliver thee to thy folly, but He shall make thee a partaker of His righteousness.