It is most essential that there be conveyed to us the vision and the dream, the sense of destiny, the sense of the hour in which we live, a sense of the purpose for which God called us, and above all, a realistic vision born of the Spirit of the Lord that we might know what is coming to pass upon the earth.
I am persuaded that we’re going to see days ahead of us in which the times of prosperity that we have been in will begin to be mingled with days of difficulties. It is true—the church is going to be in a wilderness, but we are in a very strange time in which the people have moved into unbelievable luxuries and joys of the world. Restraints have been cast aside. People are going to be shattered, going into the depths of despair, as they encounter difficulties, restrictions, and necessities. Don’t get the idea that everything over the whole world is going to be all of that. It will fluctuate back and forth.
Whenever a nation goes to war, they are concerned about shattering the morale of their enemy. They try to psyche them, so to speak. The enemy is going to do his best to do this to mankind to destroy them. I’m not speaking of the remnant, but of mankind as a whole. The remnant will go through their own version of this. The people of the world will know times in which inexpressible hopes will be set before them, only to be shattered.
Then they will come to the hour when they cry, “Peace and safety, peace and safety.” The desire of the world for security and safety and peace has been realized. Then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape. It is very necessary for us to see this.
There are all kinds of large, mega churches in America. Only one thing is missing, and now God is bringing it forth—the true moving of God’s Spirit.
It may not be easy for us to adjust to the sense of holiness and the awareness of what God is bringing forth, because of the phony glamour and the veneer that has been created in the church in America. The whole thing is just an extravagant paint job.
What are we going to do? We have been placed in America, in the will of God for one purpose alone: for the purity of a Living Word to come forth as God creates in the surrounding areas the thing that He wants. Years ago I understood God’s strategy, when it came by revelation. He said, “I will bring forth the New Testament Church in the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah, wherever you find it.” In fact, if we would follow the wisdom of the Lord and establish a church in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California it would probably be one of the strongest and purest churches of all. It is in the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah that God is bringing forth a pure people.
Let me explain something to you. Often people who live in a typical reserved small town, have a kind of pharisaic and legalistic attitude. If they were to be placed in a Sodom-and-Gomorrah environment, sooner or later they would crack under it.
We have to be very careful when the outlying churches send their young people to a church, when it has been planted in the Los Angeles area. Sometimes they want to get free, and when they come from a legalistic background and see some of the liberties our young people enjoy, they are shocked and often slightly annoyed to think that they themselves have not been able to do the same all this time. The truth of the matter is that something must teach us about the grace of God. As long as you are legalistic, you will never understand righteousness. Only when you understand grace, can you understand the righteousness of God that comes in the absolute abhorrence of evil, the turning away from it with all of your heart to walk with God in a purity of heart. You actually strive for perfection.
People who are legalistic will draw back just short of this idea and concept of perfection because they think “Oh boy, I can be righteous!” But the old efforts of the flesh to be righteous will not grasp the truth that we can be perfect. Once you see the righteousness of God, you believe that He can make you perfect. He is able to perfect that which concerneth you. He is the author and He is the finisher of that faith. It is in the climate of grace that God will bring forth His people without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. How they will love righteousness and love God! They will see through all of the phony sham that exists in the church now. Out of this valley of disillusionment all about us, God will bring forth people with great faith to walk with Him.
Our Scripture is from Philippians, where we will be reading chapter 1, verse 27 through chapter 2, verse 4; then verses 12–18. Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel (this is true of us—one spirit, one mind, one soul); in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them (notice that—the sign of destruction for your opponents is that you are in no way alarmed by them; you are hereby authorized to laugh and shrug your shoulders at your opponents), but of salvation for you, and that too, from God.
For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. This is the highest calling you can have, and you’re entering into it. You are entering into the sufferings of Christ. Paul said that he had to fill up in his body what remained of the sufferings of Christ for the Body’s sake. In one sense the sufferings of Jesus have been completed, but there is another sense in which the Body of Christ must go through an experience very similar to that of Christ. So it remains for the Body to enter into sufferings. The early Church, the apostles, and all the early prophets went through those sufferings. This is the highest calling—our entering into the sufferings of Christ. If we suffer with Him, we have the promise that we will reign with Him.
… experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me. After you walk with God a few years you certainly know what the Scriptures mean, don’t you? Have you experienced the same conflict in yourself that you’ve seen in those who God has set over you? What I go through, do you find yourself going through it too? This is what Paul is speaking about. You experience the same conflict, and that conflict accomplishes certain purposes from the Lord.
Now we come to the heart of the message. If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Notice that he refers again to what he spoke of in the preceding verses about this unity—one spirit, one mind striving together. The Lord is bringing us to that. We are ready for the most united efforts of faith the Body has yet experienced.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. This coming year will end the ego trip for the greater percentage of the remnant. In the beginning of a walk with God we see much ambition. I know that is how it was with me, the Lord sent me to a bible college of my favorite bible teacher, and the first thing I heard him say in the first church service I went to, was many of you in here, your ministry is and Idol, run down here and lay your ministry on the altar. When we are first filled with the Spirit, we begin to see the vision and what God would do in the gifts, but our idea is, “How can I get a hold of this and run with it? I have to do my thing.”
Now God brings a completely different attitude, and the end of the ego trip is upon all of us. If the Lord gives the word, any of our pastors the Lord raises up would be willing to move to another church and be the janitor there, and he or she would do it with a joy and an effectiveness. There is no ambition left in any of us when we come into a walk with the Lord. The Lord is bringing an end to the flesh, and that is a good thing.
As God brings forth a church out of Sodom and Gomorrah, sometimes, as Jude says, we reach out to rescue them, hating even the defilement and contamination of the flesh (Jude 23). It is not that we are unmoved with love, for we are willing to reach out to anyone in the world; but we watch them come in, reeking with that satanic oppression upon their flesh. It is like a bloated thing that is saying, “See me; here I am!” as they try to be conspicuous. But God does something to that conceit. How He deflates it, how he brings it down!
For years we have desired the Body of Christ coming together, in unity. But the reality and the depth of it is coming forth is right now. Now, like a great sleeping giant, that marvelous remnant of the Lord is beginning to waken. It has been asleep; it has been numb. It has not known its own members, but now it begins to awaken and examine its hands, flex its fingers, move its feet, and stir itself. It is becoming like a great army that does not break ranks nor thrust one another through. It is a marvelous thing that God is doing, as the Body is discovering its many members and its relationship to them. Instead of the numbness, the active flow of love begins, and every joint is becoming perfected and beginning to perform its perfect function in the Lord. We are watching something glorious coming forth before the face of the Lord, and we say, “Oh God, this is Thy doing and it is marvelous in our eyes!”
Believe in the reality of it. So you had a little problem last week with So-and-So; no doubt you will have another problem with another So-and-So next week. Don’t worry about that. The overall picture is what you watch. I have learned, as I walked with the Lord, not to be disturbed by any incident or any individual or anything contradictory to this Walk with God that arises within our midst, no matter how obnoxious or obtrusive it seems to be. These things come, and a person is a fool who discards the whole tide in order to focus their attention on one or two incidents that come from the other direction. In your life many things can happen to cause you to feel in your heart that you have suffered a complete wipe-out, and now you will have to start from zero. That is not so. You do not, and you should not, that easily set aside all the victories you have won. People are continually focusing upon that one time when they stumbled and fell in the mud, instead of looking to that which God has been consistently, generously, and perfectly doing within their lives.
In this Walk with God, we learn a new way of evaluating one another. For that reason, Satan attacks with such a viciousness everyone who comes into this Walk with God. If he can get them to do something that will make them say, “Even in old order, or long before I came into this Walk with God, I would never have done that; I must be the worst kind of a heathen,” they make an unbeliever of themselves over the fact that Satan has pushed and crowded and shoved them. We are in the resolution of the conflict of the ages. It is all falling upon this remnant that God is raising up. And when they are wiped out, they suddenly attach too much significance to what Satan has done, instead of looking to the fact that God is leading them. Our way of evaluation in the Walk with God must be based on this one thing: if a person is in motion, have faith for them. If they have stopped or have turned to the side of the road, and doesn’t want anything more to do with us, then God will have to deal with them and the dealings will be drastic. The pattern of repentance is a little different. When a man is running a race, and he slips on a rock and falls, he can still get up and win the race. For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again. Proverbs 24:16a.
It is very necessary that you keep the attitude of grace in your heart toward yourself and toward one another. If you keep that attitude, it is surprising how quickly these basic flaws are eliminated in a person’s life. They could come once in a while and you might be prone to overlook them. But this true concept of grace overcomes them, and does not simply overlook them. God helps you to overcome, but you must continually exercise the attitude of faith. There is a kind of despair that comes in the midst of defeat which wipes out your faith so completely that it is no longer operative. Do not lose faith in what God is doing in your life. He is the author and the finisher of it. No matter what seems to stand in the way of it, don’t lose faith in the prophecies over your life. Don’t discard them. Hang onto them with all of your heart no matter what kind of defeat seems to come. I am not talking about living in defeat day by day, but I am talking about what may happen when you are feeling a little proud, because you think you are doing so well, then the next week you do very badly.
I know what the young people go through. But they will keep coming back, because we have the words of eternal life. Even when their past experiences hang on them like a weight. Some can barely hold their heads up after they have taken a real decisive defeat from the enemy. That’s all right; just keep coming. Say with the Psalmist: Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Psalm 119:11, 9. There must be a diligence in your heart to continually expose yourself to God with no excuses, no cover-ups, no withdrawal.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. This unselfish attitude has to fill our thinking. It is a new day for people to even think this way. Oh, the hypocrisy of so much of religion that has professed to be dedicated and Christ-centered, of men who are seeking their own interests. This used to bother me because I didn’t want any part of it, and I thought there must be something wrong with me. But the Lord showed me the reality of the vision He had given me, and I wanted no part of self-interest. Then I went through a period when I wanted to rebuke this ambition; it bothered me because they wanted it. Now I can coexist with it because I see a new church coming forth in the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Don’t forget that Babylon is basically a religious system, not just a nation or country. When God brings it down, He will sweep away the refuge of lies in which men and women have trusted. Maybe I have become a little vicious, but I am going to rejoice in the way God knocks it down, even though many people are going to be hurt, for I realize that Babylon has been filled with the carcasses of godly men and women that have been destroyed. Rejoice, ye apostles and prophets, for God has given you vengeance over Babylon (Revelation 18:20).
I pray against it because this Walk with God has only one enemy, which is, the religious system and Satan’s efforts to use it to destroy. And don’t think that the religious systems are not able to immediately spot who their real enemy is. Wherever you find Babylon, talk to them about the people who have come into a walk with God, and have become a Kingdom church. They will have heard about it and they will begin to oppose it. When you finally finish, you will realize that they are more afraid of us than they are of all the wickedness of the world—the smut, the pornography, the drug scene—all of it. None of that is stirring the preachers as much as what takes place in the remnant God is raising up. Should it be that way? Surely! We are not choosing up sides to throw marshmallows. Babylon is going to come down! We are the avowed enemy because God declares it, because God is its enemy! We would not care that much one way or another. If our walk with God were not affected, but since it is, we pray and prophesy against Babylon and she will come down.
We know that God’s people are in Babylon and that many will come out. If I evaluated any brother or sister in that system, it would be very easy to just turn them off and walk away. But I believe that every one of these brothers and sisters will have chance after chance, and only God knows when they get that last chance. My heart cries for the people in the religious system, that they might have a clear witness stand before them, that they would still have an opportunity to personally examine this move of God, rather than to reject it on the basis of what someone else has said against it. I am believing that some of these people will come out of Babylon. I can’t judge them because in every one of them I can only see myself as I was a few years ago.”
There is a story in church history about one of the martyrs who was pitifully abused. As he was dying, he opened his mouth to curse his persecutors and God spoke to him, “Wilt thou curse these for whom My Son died?” About the time you get stirred up and say, “Boy, I just can’t stand these preachers persecuting us,” remember that the Saul of Tarsus of today may be the Apostle Paul of tomorrow. You don’t know what God will do. Reserve judgment, pray and believe God, but don’t let murmuring, complaining, vindictiveness, and bitterness get into your spirit. It is one of the deadliest things of all and so hard to recover from.
The cry to Babylon is, “Come out of her, My people! Be not a partaker of her plagues.” Do you understand the direction in which God is moving? What is your attitude to be? Tolerance? No! But neither are you to be vindictive within your spirit. The system of Babylon comes down, but the escape of God’s people will be great. I am expecting a host of people to come out. The leaders will cry, “Sheep stealers, sheep stealers!” I don’t care what they say, because their accusation is based on a false concept. In the first place, they are God’s sheep; they are not some man’s sheep. And in the second place, the prophecies say, “I will give you shepherds after My heart” (Jeremiah 3:15a). The sheep do not move around as much as you might think. It is God who puts apostles, prophets and pastors over them and causes them to be drawn to that pastor or God suddenly rejects the leaders and the people are scattered. It is God who deals, and He gives the sheep a pastor after His own heart. It is God’s doing. The pastors and the sheep will get together. Nobody has stolen anything from anybody. Babylon’s concept is to possess the souls of men. Read about it in Revelation 18:13. All of the money spent for all their promotion is to try to buy and control the souls of men, The Father is fed up with it!
I don’t own any people who study under my ministry, If there is any idea of ownership, it is reversed, and I know that very well. Christ gave men as His gifts to His Church. You are not a gift to me. I don’t want any ownership over you. I want the authority God has given me so that you obey God for your own sake. If anybody is given to anybody, I am given to you. The gifts and the ministries are given to the people.
Now the concluding Scripture: So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. In a sense this very much pictures this walk with God. You have to admit that the desire and the will you have for this Walk with God was divinely created. No man or woman in their right or should I say their carnal mind will get involved with the Walk with God unless it is an absolute perfect revelation that God plants in their life.
In these days, the Lord is saying, “Rejoice in the Lord!” Notice the verse that follows: Do all things without grumbling or disputing. The next step for us is to learn to live our lives without grumbling, without disputing, without criticism. We have come to the place in this Walk with God where a person who is critical in their spirit stands out like a sore thumb. Because God is so refining and perfecting the spirits of individuals, the whole atmosphere is such that you find yourself almost unable to tolerate criticism. When people start criticizing, you just want to walk away. It is very deadly.
If we turn to the Old Testament, we can see how God dealt with murmuring. Oh, how He hated that murmuring! I think He dealt as severely with His people for murmuring as He did with the enemy when they came against Israel. It is a terrible thing in the sight of God to have a murmuring, complaining spirit. I don’t know why, but I know that faith cannot operate in that atmosphere. It is a poison to every activity of faith or any initiative faith would take. It seems to give a sedative to love and put it in a stupor. When the criticizing, murmuring spirit gets into the hearts of men and women, a root of bitterness results and its powers of defilement are great, even as Hebrews 12:15 says, that thereby many are defiled. In a church, the purity of the Body becomes such an important objective for us. Whenever murmuring, complaining, or bitterness of spirit rises up, we must put it in an isolation ward as extremely contagious and deadly. If you have that in your heart, get rid of it now. Repent over that which causes you to murmur, to complain, and to be critical.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing; that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, … You won’t be blameless and you won’t be innocent if you have this in your heart. As you look back over the trail of a critical murmurer, you see that it is littered with the fallen carcasses of the lambs who couldn’t survive because of it. Such a person is like Typhoid Mary, who was a carrier of typhoid fever, but never contracted the disease herself. Finally she had to be isolated on an island.
That is exactly what ought to be done with people who murmur and complain. They are the enemies of this Walk with God. It’s a satanic thing that comes to eat at the hearts of people. We are far enough along in the unity of the Spirit that when something like that happens, we find ourselves staying away from it. We don’t want any part of it. That root of bitterness will defile many. As the Body becomes more and more a spiritual reality, we find that things travel from person to person. There is not so much of an attainment or development within your individual nature, as it is a collective thing in the Body. Whenever God speaks a word in our midst, everyone comes into it. If a stranger comes in, he or she catches it from us. After three days’ exposure, they are succumbed to it. They come in when everyone is moving in a flow of worship, and so they start worshiping. When everyone is moving in praise to God or some prophesying, they find themselves doing the same thing. The things of spirit are highly contagious, both positively and negatively, and therefore bitterness defiles many.
These people like to throw out their poison when everyone else is agreeable and cheerful. After they have contaminated the atmosphere, they go their way, apparently happy. The perversity of it. It is satanic! Does anyone in your family come to the breakfast table, grumbling and growling when everyone else is cheerful? They grumble until everybody else is down, and then they perk up and walk off. What a deadly thing that can be.
Learn to be cheerful before the Lord. Rejoice evermore and again I say rejoice (Philippians 4:4). It is not a matter of moods or of giving way to our old flesh; that is not the basis of our rejoicing or not rejoicing. Our rejoicing is based upon the fact that the fruit of the Spirit—the second one named in order of importance—is joy. So let’s rejoice in the Lord.
If you do all things without murmuring or disputing you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God… you will not be an occasion of another brother’s or sister’s stumbling or falling.
It sometimes takes great wisdom to deal with and help a critical person who has practiced that for years. Sometimes I don’t know what to do, for I don’t want to cause an overkill effect. I could come up to a brother or sister and say, “You’re not doing too well; you better look to the Lord,” and that would wipe them out more than their problem, if they looked up to me as an Apostle. Because they attach such significance to the fact that I am talking to them, they may be shattered when I speak one word of correction to them. I want to speak the word of correction when the problem is such that I feel it is necessary for me to do so; otherwise, I will ask a couple of the other brothers or sisters to go and help them and admonish them. If there is something seriously wrong, I will not hesitate in real love and kindness to speak to them to help them.
When we are young in the Lord, we tend to Idolize ministries we study under, I know that is how it was with me.
I am greatly concerned when I see that even good established ministries, who help a great deal, tend to grumble and complain and criticize. They don’t realize that they are not blameless and innocent, because harm comes from it. I have a sensitivity and the Lord has checked me on this when I’ve done it myself. If I were to start airing all the problems that I see in the church, even to some person who is fairly well established in the church, it could wipe them out—they couldn’t handle it. That is why not many people can become close to me, as far as my confiding the problems of the church. It can’t be done. Who is able to handle it? So, I see what I see, and I set about to do as much as I can about it. But if I were to murmur and grumble or criticize, I would destroy the very unity I am working to build up. This is not a matter of covering up; I don’t do that.
Now a word of caution to the parents: Don’t be so ignorant as to criticize anything in the churches God raises up in front of your children. You will wipe them out and then you will come and say, “Oh, I can’t do anything with my children!” You already have done something to them. Parents, learn to keep your mouths shut and don’t make the home a place of criticism and murmuring and complaining, or you will adversely affect the lives of your little ones. There are some things you cannot talk about. If some elder or ministry in the church speaks with criticism to one of the new ones, you know what it will do: it will mutilate the spirit of that new one.
I am trying to point out how we must come to hate anything of criticism. The unity is growing and the more unity we have, the more we despise that critical spirit, the more alert we are to it and the more we stand to rebuke it. If someone opens up to you to find fault, you should immediately caution them, “Don’t you know you are activating negative things of unbelief which Satan will use just as much as the Lord will use a prophecy or anything constructive that comes out of your mouth? Don’t talk to me about words being creative when you can turn around and destroy.” Let’s just speak the things that edify. Again, I say rejoice—this is the whole theme of Philippians. Chapter 3 begins: Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Finally—that’s like an attorney’s summation. We come to the conclusion of the whole matter, summing it all up—finally now, rejoice!
Holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. The thing that would have made the Apostle Paul’s ministry all in vain was the murmuring and complaining. It would have undermined and eventually destroyed everything that the apostolic foundation had laid. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. And you too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.
This word has a certain corrective element, but I am hoping that it will also serve as a kind of vaccination against future outbreaks of the epidemic of murmuring, and help us to root out any tendency we have, in days of pressure, to murmur or complain before the Lord.