It is difficult to understand our experiences while we are involved in them. Our understanding seems to follow later. God can often work within us while we are ignorant, in ways that He cannot after we come into an understanding. God does His greatest work within us when we are not aware of what He is doing. If we had understood all along what God was doing, it would not have been nearly as effective in dealing with our spirit. The Lord leads us through experiences to bring us into a new dimension. If we realize this, we will be encouraged in our spiritual battles in the future.
A passage in Matthew chapters 16 and 17 will help us to understand what is happening to us spiritually. Matthew 16:13–15: Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” This is an important question which is still being asked today: “Who is the Christ?” It became such an important issue that John dealt with it in his Epistles. He explained how we will know the difference between the spirit of antichrist and the spirit of Christ: Anyone who does not confess that Christ is coming in the flesh is the spirit of antichrist (I John 4:2–3; II John 7).
We realize how necessary it is to have revelation. I wonder how many “fundamentalists” have the spirit of antichrist. There are men who claim to know the dates for the imminent destruction of the United States. These men are not established as apostles or prophets; they are not moving within divine order as they speak their word. Suppose we were to ask these men, “Who is the Christ? Do you believe that He is coming forth in the flesh today?” No doubt they would not hesitate to declare, “I receive Christ”; but that kind of faith may be rather nebulous. The real issue is this: Do they accept the Christ who is coming forth now in His many-membered Body? If not, they are not accepting Christ.
The validity of their date setting is not the issue; rather, do they accept the divine order of the Kingdom? If they do not accept the divine order and the restoration according to God’s Word, then you can safely assume that their revelation of dates is only a supposition and that their prophecies have missed the mark.
What do the Scriptures teach about what will happen in the days ahead? The only revelation about the future that the Lord has given is actually already being fulfilled. It was not date setting; it was given by revelation. We have already moved into areas of the Kingdom. The family spirit and the prophetic community are coming forth, and by them we have survived.
In fact, when we consider date setting, we may wonder why God did not set many dates. Why did Jesus say, when He was asked about the time of His return, that no man knows, not the angels of God, not even the Son of Man, but the Father only? (Matthew 24:36.) Why is it virtually impossible to set dates? Because as long as there are two on this earth who will agree about anything that they ask in His name (Matthew 18:19), any date can be changed. Or the event can even be obliterated completely!
I do not believe that it is necessary for the United States to be destroyed. Do you remember back in the Fifties and the early Sixties when dates were set for California to slide into the ocean? Though a successive number of dates were given, none of the prophecies were fulfilled. Some who heard a prophecy of a date abandoned their homes and livelihoods and moved away. They were not aware of this fact: Right in southern California believers were gathering together to prophesy and intercede. We do not know how many disasters would have occurred without the intercession, but we do recognize the utter foolishness of anyone prophesying that something must happen tomorrow, when we can intercede today.
Judgment can be turned by the mercies of God, because He delights in mercy (Micah 7:18), and mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13). The judgments of God can be changed. This truth characterizes the true apostolic revelation for this day. Any other thinking would cause us to enter into a fatalism that must not be. We are not to be partakers of Babylon’s judgments; we are to prophesy that it come down. As we move into the Kingdom we need the optimistic and very intense intercession, speaking judgment upon the demonic strongholds in high places; otherwise God’s judgment upon our country will be inevitable. Our country is being governed by selfish interests, rather than by the will of the people and for their good. As long as we can rise up to intercede, we have an opportunity to determine destiny and change it.
We can change the course of events before us. Do you think we are doing something unique? No, we are not the only ones seeking to determine destiny; the devil is trying to do it also. Read about Daniel and the great prince of Persia. Demonic powers intend to change times and laws (Daniel 7:25), but we are the ones with the authority to change those times and seasons. This is the contest over the Word. Does Christ really have the authority, or will Satan continue to rule this world? The answer is simply this: There is only one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the one we serve(Ephesians 4:4–6).
The issue today is the same as when Christ came forth in the flesh of the Nazarene: Is Christ coming forth in the flesh? Is He coming forth in us? It is significant that one thing our persecutors and critics object to is the fact that we believe that Christ is coming forth in us. We rejoice in the Christ coming forth! The human nature has dictated and directed long enough; now let the divine nature take over. When the Word says that we are to become partakers of the divine nature, it means exactly what it says (II Peter 1:4).
When Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter” (a stone), “and upon this rock” (a large rock or bedrock) “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.” Matthew 16:16–18. The Lord was making a play on words by using two similar yet different Greek words—the first, Petros, a small stone that can easily be thrown; and the other, petra, a foundation to build on. Jesus was saying in effect, “Peter, you yourself are a movable object, but your revelation is immovable. The gates of hell cannot prevail against this revelation.”
Nothing can shake God’s firm foundation of revelation. As we come to understand this, our activities in the church will not be devoted to convince people to accept ideas mentally, but rather to work with them so that the teachings become a revelation to their heart. Some who have come into God’s end-time walk in the Spirit may appear to be really set—but are they? What someone talked them into, someone else can talk them out of. As we look back, we realize that the dedication of some was based on concepts that only seemed reasonable to them. After a while that dedication dwindled to nothing at all. However, if someone has a real revelation from God, the gates of hell will not prevail against him. To the contrary, his dedication will expand. Revelation has that unique quality of God Himself—it keeps expanding in a person’s life.
Jesus further told Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Verse 19. We must understand why Jesus used two different verb tenses here. When you take faith to do something, God has already anticipated your faith and made the provision for it. When you are moved by the Spirit to do something, God has anticipated that; He has already either loosed or bound the situation. This truth is rather difficult for us to grasp, but we accept it in the realm of faith. By the time we are ready to believe God for an answer, and we claim it, He has already loosed it for us. After all, God is God, and the dimension of the future does not restrict Him as it does us. We know in part and we prophesy in part (I Corinthians 13:9); but not so with Him. He knows everything. From the beginning of time, He has foreknown us (Romans 8:29). Before we ever were formed, our names were written in the Book (Psalm 139:16). This is why it is easy for His prophets to prophesy; the Lord tunes them in to what shall be.
The following verses reveal the key to receiving revelation. From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. But Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Matthew 16:21–23.
How could Jesus bring this kind of a rebuke to Peter so soon after He had commended him for his revelation, saying, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven”? Was it possible that Peter did not have that firm rock of revelation after all? This is the key: The levels of revelation open up progressively as we are dedicated to do the will of God. Peter could say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” because that had been revealed to him. But when the Lord gave the next revelation, Peter was not ready in his dedication to receive it. Very few people are dedicated to receive the experience of the cross being worked in their lives. Peter certainly was not prepared to see Christ crucified, to be killed and raised up on the third day. And because he was not prepared for it in his dedication, he did not have a revelation of it.
Your limited dedication will limit your revelation. Recently someone expressed the truth of that statement. He wrote me a letter, declaring his dedication to the Lord. He stated that at first, there were things in the church that he could not accept—particularly the intercession—because he was not dedicated to it. Then as he began to seek God, and as his dedication to the Lord deepened, his revelation also deepened. Now he has no problem with anything, including intercession.
Your dedication may have limitations. Later Peter came to the Lord and asked, “Lord, when my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him? Seven times?” (Peter probably thought he was being very generous.) Jesus replied, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21–22). Can you imagine being offended 490 times by someone, and still forgiving him?
It takes a great deal of faith to be able to say, “There will be no limitations on my dedication.” Are you having problems, as Peter did, with a limited dedication? The moment you move from revelation to your own feelings, your own speculations, and your own answers, you are open to Satan’s lie, just as Peter was when he protested Christ’s going to the cross. One minute Peter was moving with the Father’s revelation; but then when he was faced with something to which he was not yet dedicated, he became unintentionally a manipulative channel of Satan. What a somber thought! It is necessary for us to continually weigh the depth of our dedication. God wants to expand the areas of revelation to us, and if we are not prepared in our dedication to receive, it may cause us to stumble.
Our dedication is limited when we set our mind on man’s interests, instead of God’s interests. Peter was doing this, and Jesus rebuked him for it. When Paul told the Philippians that he would send Timothy to them, he explained why: “I have no one like him, who will look out for Christ’s interests instead of looking out for his own interests” (Philippians 2:19–21). As long as self-interest exists in a man, his dedication to Christ is not perfected; and when his dedication is not perfected, then deception is a possibility. This is why people who cling to their own little kingdom become so disturbed about a new phase of revelation. They are dedicated only to their self-interests. The only reason believers do not go on with God is that they do not have a revelation of the next step in their walk with God; and the only reason they do not have a revelation of the next step (provided they have had a revelation of previous steps) is that they have reached the limit of their dedication. The end of dedication is the end of revelation.
A higher level of revelation really does challenge your dedication. Can you see now that every time you have a problem with a new step of revelation, it is because you are holding back in your dedication? Be aware that the quickest way to enter into deception is by withdrawal. Withdrawal opens the door to deception. I have never seen it fail. When you say, “I have had enough; I’m backing out,” count on it that within a few hours the seed of deception will be in your mind in some way or another, if it is not there already.
This apostolic word comes by revelation to help us understand that Jesus was talking about our dedication when He said, “If you will to do His will, you will know the teaching, whether it be of God” (John 7:17). How important it is for us to be aware that our determination to do whatever the Lord wants us to do opens the door for us to understand with our hearts what He is saying and what He is bringing forth.
Matthew 16 concludes with this statement by Jesus: “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Verse 28. This verse has been a stumbling block to many expositors who maintain that even though Jesus said this, it was not true; all of the disciples did in fact die. However, when Peter later referred to Jesus’ Parousia and His Kingdom, he recounted how they had indeed been “eyewitnesses of His majesty” (II Peter 1:16).
Matthew 17 tells about this experience: And six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Matthew 17:1–3. When Jesus was transfigured, the disciples saw the glorified Christ. This transfiguration took place before Jesus went to the cross; yet it was also a revelation of the Parousia and Kingdom that was still to come. The sequence of these events is awesome and significant. Christ came down from that mountain to go to the cross. His transfiguration at that time was only momentary. What He experienced on the mountain would not be permanent, until He first went to the cross.
This experience on the mount is what Peter was referring to later, when he said, For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. II Peter 1:16. The Greek word translated “coming” in this verse is Parousia (presence). The Parousia, which we are now coming into, is not only a chronological event; it is Christ Himself!
How did the disciples respond when they saw Christ transfigured? And Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles” (booths or sacred tents) “here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; hear Him!” And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were much afraid. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus Himself alone.
And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you, that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist. Matthew 17:4–13.
John the Baptist was a rebirth of Elijah, as other related Scriptures confirm (Matthew 11:14; Luke 1:17). Elijah had already come (in the Old Testament); then he was manifested as John the Baptist, and he also appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration. When John the Baptist was asked if he was Elijah, he said no (John 1:21). Is it possible for a man to have an identity and a purpose in God without being fully aware of it on a human level? Let us accept Jesus’ word about John’s identity; if Jesus said that he was Elijah, he was Elijah!
Now we are approaching the heart of this message, which lies in the significance of the sequence of the following events: Jesus had been transfigured, He came down from the mountain, and soon He would be hanging on a cross. In chapter 16 He had explained that He must suffer these things; then He would come to the place of glory. Jesus moved from the mountain, to the valley, back up to the mountain, then back to the valley. We must change our thinking about the mountain and the valley experiences. We go to a valley that is spiritually higher than a mountain. Experiences, like the one on the Mount of Transfiguration, are only momentary. In order for those experiences to become a permanent state of spiritual blessing, we must apply them. It is one thing to see the glory of God in the heavens; it is another to bring that glory down to earth. It is one thing to preach pie in the sky; it is another to experience that pie on your plate.
And when they came to the multitude, a man came up to Him, falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic, and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.” And Jesus answered and said, “O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.” Matthew 17:14–17.
Jesus’ outbursts of anger are astounding. He seemed to be tolerant of almost any problem except unbelief. He was continually rebuking His disciples for their unbelief, not for any other problem. And they certainly had other problems; they quarreled like a group of foolish children over who would be the greatest. They had a great deal of growing up to do. Yet Jesus did not chide them for that. He only told them, “Whoever humbles himself as a child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4). At other times He patiently told them, “I cannot tell you about this now. You cannot bear it. I will tell you after a while” (John 16:12). When He did explain to them what was happening, they were often slow to understand, or they came to irrelevant conclusions. For example, when Jesus told them, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” they said among themselves, “Oh, we forgot to bring some bread with us” (Matthew 16:6–7). Jesus was merciful toward many of their faults, but not their unbelief. Unbelief really disturbed Him.
When the epileptic boy was brought to Jesus, Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.” Matthew 17:18–20.
Children are raised on fairy tales; and those stories usually end, “… and they lived happily ever after.” Have you ever wondered about this misleading propaganda that has been foisted on children down through the generations? Anyone who has been through the struggles of life knows that we do not necessarily live “happily ever after.” There is another saying, “After the dream comes the rude awakening.” That is not always true either. What about our dreams? They will not happen automatically; but they can happen if we aggressively make them happen. The door is open for us to take our romantic dreams, our spiritual hopes, and our deep commitments, and bring them to pass in the realistic circumstances of our lives.
Peter said, “Lord, shall we build three tabernacles on this mountain?” All they heard was a voice out of the cloud, “This is My beloved Son, hear Him!” When they came down from the mountain and tried to cast out a demon, it would not come out. Why couldn’t they do it? The Father had already told them: “Hear Him! This is My beloved Son, hear Him. Hear Him with faith.” (Believe Him in your heart.)
What happens when you come down from the mountain? You move up from the revelation to the fulfillment of that revelation. Greater is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof (Ecclesiastes 7:8). It was greater to see Joseph sitting on the throne of Egypt, saving a whole civilized world, than to see him as a young man with his coat of many colors (showing that he was his father’s favorite), hated by his brothers and dreaming a great dream. Dreams are fine, but reality is better. A prophecy in Isaiah 29:8 compares the ungodly to a man who dreams that he is eating, but when he wakens, his hunger is not satisfied. A dream in itself does not have substance; it does not provide any nourishment. You can only feed on reality; therefore, reality is greater than the dream!
After God speaks a Word to your heart, you seem to come down to the valley of struggle, of battle, of warfare, of intercession, taking dominion over principalities and powers, in order to make that Word happen. But it only seems as if you come down; actually you come up. From the mountain-top experience, from the dream and the revelation, you come up to a valley of fulfillment. Have you noticed that every time you have a breakthrough, the next day it seems that you are right in the middle of a battle? You can have the greatest breakthrough in revelation about a situation, so that you know exactly what to do to get it all worked out; but the following week you will probably be sick and physically immobilized. It is easy to say, “I have a revelation; I can do it. Here I go!” But let me remind you—if God would give you a Word to go down to the corner and buy a newspaper, you would have to believe for a miracle to do it. No matter how simple an action or project seems to be, you will be thwarted and hindered, because from the mountain top you must break through all of the realms where Satan has usurped an authority that is not his. You must displace them in order to reach the fulfillment of the Word that God has for you. That is why, while you seem to go down from the mountain to the valley, you are really going up to the peaks of fulfillment.
When you read the book of Revelation, keep this truth in mind. When John saw the vision of the new Jerusalem in all of its dimensions, he said, “I saw the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, and I heard a loud voice from the throne say, ‘The tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them’ ” (Revelation 21:2–3). Do you understand the significance of that? A pie-in-the-sky religion—a new Jerusalem in the heavens, in the sweet by-and-by—is not what God intends for us! Pull it down to earth! Bring it down to reality. Always God’s people are given a vision and then they bring it to pass with their faith. Do we believe that the Scriptures teach a rapture? Absolutely, after we have done our part here. Do we believe in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Most assuredly—first in us, and then in clouds of glory unfathomable.
Fundamentalists have many doctrines that I believe even more strongly than they do, but I refuse to approach those doctrines merely with wishful thinking. The Word says, “Occupy until I come” (Luke 19:13). We should live as though we have a full life ahead of us, yet as though we have only one second more. Those of us who were raised in a Pentecostal background were taught doctrines that made us fear we might be one of those left behind. Some probably did not get the education they should have received, because they believed that Jesus was coming soon; therefore, what advantage would there be in going to college? We were praying for experiences so that we could survive and persevere and keep on going. We did not realize that our battles could have given way to the fulfillment of all the visions and revelations and prophecy the Lord had given us. We used the prophecies only as an emotional stimulus. In a sense we were like the drug generation, and perhaps more guilty than they. We used our blessings for a “high,” rather than bringing them into a permanent reality in our lives.
That day is past. Now when we receive a blessing, we roll up our sleeves and go to work, because there will be a battle; we will go from this mountain to a valley that is higher. Do you sense in your heart that this is what God wants? Let us go on. To the battle? Yes, to the battle. To the devil we now cannot cast out? Yes, but soon he will be totally brought down! We will find the way, because yesterday’s revelation will have its fulfillment today, if we persevere.
This Word demands that we take action—physical action as well as spiritual. We must take the vision that the Lord gives and make it happen. That was the way Shiloh was built. Shiloh would still be only another vision, another promise to pray and believe for, if we had not taken action to produce it. We must view every promise and every prophecy this way. Until we get busy and get our hands dirty to bring those promises down on the physical plane, they will never come to pass.
This Word is the heart of the Timothy spirit. It asks, “What is the vision, the Word, the revelation in the heart of the man of God?” Then it takes that Word and it labors and battles until it produces, on a physical level, that which would otherwise remain only a spiritual principle or prophecy. We must gear ourselves to see fulfillment. The Church age is ending, but the Kingdom will always be only a promise and a potential until we produce it.
This is the heart of the prophetic community, the heart of Shiloh. Shiloh is geared to produce on both a spiritual and a physical level. The School of Prophets is not only involved with intercession; it is geared to work, to produce.
It takes all the areas of the vision and brings them into a physical manifestation. Whether in transcribing, editing, construction, gardening, or whatever, it takes the heart of the revelation and says, “Let’s go after it. Let’s produce it. Let’s see it.” When we begin to walk in the Kingdom, the manna ceases; this is what is happening to us (Joshua 5:11–12). The entire prophetic community God is raising up must reach the level where we are living off what we are possessing by our faith. Our food, as Christ’s was, will be “to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34).