The Word of God bonds us together, and the Word that God has been giving is on a much deeper level. As all the ministers become more closely bonded with the apostolic ministry and with the Living Word, the revelation in relation to the Word deepens.
Our relationships to each other, as they previously were, are changing. A deeper bond has been born on a new level. This has been the experience of almost everyone; we all passed through this transition. Everybody who had a relationship with anyone has seen it change, and now that relationship has had a new, purer beginning on a new level. That is what we experienced, and it is almost impossible for us to relate as we did before. We have attained a great deal more objectivity. Do you not feel as though you have nothing anymore to defend or worry about? You only know that you are a channel of the Lord.
When a person’s position is removed, then his or her relationships must change, because the basis of relationship changes when positions are removed. There are no pedestals in the Kingdom of God. The lack of pedestals creates a healthy objectivity in our relationships. The frankness in relationships at first seems unbearable, because it is a death to the ego basis of most relationships. That is why changes often result in confrontations and controversy.
The rejection of position and the relinquishing of position is called a revolution in the history of human governments. When the people reject the position of an entrenched leader, they have a revolution. For example, in Cuba in the past Batista had the position of leadership. The people on Castro’s side fought to remove the entrenched position. Then the land reforms and removal of oppressions were to take place, so that there would not be any positioned people. However, the Communists did not actually do this. They forced the people to reject position or to relinquish position, only to establish more oppression in its place. They replaced one oppression with another.
You must understand what position really means. Position in any government must give way to His Lordship: the principle of “one Lord” (Ephesians 4:5). His authority and our commission, combined with the ingredients of our faithfulness and responsibility, constitute the basic functional mechanics of the Kingdom of God. That is a basic formula.
John 1:6 tells us about John the Baptist: “There was a man sent from God.” He did not have a position, but he had a commission. That is also the basis of how we are to function now. Position now is not as valid as it was. We are becoming a movement without leaders. John the Baptist was just one who was “sent.” The word “apostle” means “one who is sent.” Jesus Christ too was One who was sent. The book of John uses that word “sent” many times, how Christ was sent from God. He said, “As the Father has sent Me, so send I you” (John 20:21). It establishes the apostolic ministry of Christ. He was a “sent one.” He had a simple commission.
Do you realize that Christ and the disciples never had any religious position? The Church became apostate when the Roman Catholic church established the positions of rule over the house of God. The restoration must eliminate these ecclesiastical positions and offices that the Roman apostasy initiated.
There was only one basis for Christ’s ministry. When Jesus stood up in the synagogue, as recorded in Luke 4:16–21, He quoted the prophecy from Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me …” That became the basis of His whole ministry—to follow not a position, but the anointing. He went on to explain to the people who He was, saying, “The Lord has anointed Me …” Then He told of all the functions that God had anointed Him and sent Him to do. Isaiah 61 and Luke 4:18–19 are the revelation of the Kingdom commission. The Kingdom will prevail on the earth by anointed commissions.
When Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, he offered Him a position (Matthew 4:8–9). It was the same position that He would fulfill by commission, according to what the Father had sent Him to do. He would receive all of the things that Satan offered Him, but He would receive them by commission from the Father. Satan had usurped a position of world rule that for him cannot validly exist. How do we displace Satan, the usurper? We come in the name of the Lord, who has “all authority in heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18). A man’s position or office will not necessarily enable him to do anything.
LAYING ON OF HANDS
This opens the door for us to the real questions that exist over the laying on of hands. Who can lay hands upon another? We have accepted an assumption that those who are not elders or qualified ministries should not lay hands on anyone. Actually, the laying on of hands was never delegated to a hierarchical position until the Roman Catholic church usurped it. They are the ones who originally delegated the laying on of hands to a religious position. However, a man can come forth like Elijah did, and throw his mantle or lay his hands on anyone he is directed to (I Kings 19:19).
A true elder seems to have an automatic spiritual filter, so that he does not necessarily transfer negative things, as others might, when he lays hands on people. From my past observation, I believe this is a true principle. However, there may be people who will come up in the midst of us who do not have any position of elder or any office at all. We use the term “office” from the Scripture in I Timothy 3:1b: If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. Although the word “office” is used, it is not referring to a human position. God has an office. An apostle or a prophet has an office, but remember that apostles and prophets were always to be directed by the Holy Spirit. Commissions to both apostles and prophets are to be given by a directive from God that has confirmation from other anointed ones.
The power of those in positions must be restrained in their self-initiated actions, by imposing on them the necessity of confirmation. If you are a pastor, should you not then stop doing what you are doing until you first get confirmation?
However, a commission starts with a Word from the Lord and a directive that comes to your own heart. Then the confirmation from the Lord comes to back it up. The confirmation is necessary. A brother may be commissioned to pastor in a certain place, but that commission should be brought before the people for confirmation. The submissive ones are often the greater voice of confirmation to the commissioned ones. They bear witness to the shepherd’s spirit in those who are being commissioned over them. They hear the voice of the Shepherd. Likewise, the submissive ones often give negative confirmation to those who exercise their position arbitrarily. His sheep know His voice, from whatever mouth it is uttered. They will not follow any other (John 10:27). The commissioned ones are to be submissive themselves. We will not be submissive to those who are not submissive to the Lord themselves.
Let us picture a commission as expandable, and a position as a straitjacket. Anything that moves under the influence or spirit of Satan’s kingdom immediately assumes a position. That is why Satan was defeated from the very beginning. In his rebellion against God, he assumed a position. And everything that moves under him always assumes a position. Satan and his ministers try to usurp, by position, those who have had submission to God’s commissions already worked in their spirits. And so he attempts to establish a position that usurps authority over the people who have become submissive. Very subtly he says, “Here is the one that you submit to.” Satan emphasizes a position in order to dominate God’s people who have been trained to be submissive to commissions.
This explains why the authority of the Kingdom can be so great. Authority, as we have known it, arose out of the perverting of position. Even though it was the position of a man of God, such as an apostle, it was still limited because of the way people received it. They received the authority that flowed from a position, instead of the authority that flowed by virtue of the divine commission.
Let us be like the Thessalonians to whom Paul wrote: … when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God … I Thessalonians 2:13. It was not received even as an apostolic word—to them it was a Word from God. Because they received it as a Word from God, it “effectually worked in those who believed.” If they had received it as a word of an apostle who had a position, it would not have worked so miraculously. Others who received Paul as an apostle may never have known the signs and wonders which the Thessalonian church did. The Thessalonians received his word as a Word of God. Let us bypass the idea of receiving a man, and instead receive the Word as a Word from God.
The children of Israel wanted a man with a position to rule over them. Samuel had removed all position so that the enemy had no network. Then the people asked for a king. The Lord told Samuel, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.” I Samuel 8:7b. They were asking for a king as an established position rather than a prophet with a divine commission to rule over them. A number of people are having trouble relating to the commission because they have been conditioned to accept those with a position and they want a “king.” Once again, as the Samuel ministry is destroying positions, they think that they want a “king.”
When a man of God walks into a release, into a new spiritual level, all of the people who were relating to his position are thrown into confusion. When God moves him into a place of liberty and his former position is laid down as he begins to move in the new commission, then all of the people who were relating only to his position experience personal confusion and disorder. They do not know how to relate anymore. It becomes very evident that their relationship to his position was not a pure relationship to the Lord. If the people are following him as a man, and looking for him to solve all their problems, be as God to them, then when he is not that to them anymore they are in trouble.
The Catholics established ecclesiastical position, and it has taken years for us to break the tyranny of it. Do you realize that this elimination of position is the next basic step into the Kingdom? This is probably the most important truth in the restoration since the days of Martin Luther’s revelation that “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Nothing is more important than what we are uncovering here now. We ought to put aside everything else and just have the brothers come together and talk about this one thing: Hear the Word of the Lord! When God rules over the earth, it will not be by men of position, but by men with a divine commission, just as He ruled over Israel. It will be by the great authority of a commissioning that God gives.
I must also add this: Apostolic succession became the great issue in the splits of denominations. If the first step of restoration had been a return to commission, and the reformists had not been so deeply indoctrinated with position, the restoration would have been different. But they yearned for that apostolic succession. John Wesley grieved that he was alienated from the Church of England. There were others, too, like Martin Luther who grieved over the fact that he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church because he believed in the apostolic succession.
I do not believe in apostolic succession, because it means the succession of denominational position and rank. Apostolic succession deals with position. But I do believe in apostolic commission with confirmation that emphasizes God’s calling, which is the way it happened at Antioch at the beginning. The Holy Spirit said, “Separate Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Our plan of ordaining is scriptural. A man who is set aside becomes an elder or a minister. Credentials and degrees usually indicate a process of human selection, without the major emphasis being God’s selection confirmed by revelation, and commissioned by His men with the laying on of hands. There is a big difference.
The origin of a thing is not the issue. We all know that the Church started in the Lord. But what has crept into the present manifestation? Should you go back and make an issue over the starting of apostolic succession and the popes and whether Korah was a man of God when he started out? Was Balaam a man of God? Was Esau a man of God? Was Ishmael a man of God? Were the denominations really a move of God in the earth? You can make an issue over who created Satan, if you want to go back far enough. But those are not the issues. The issue is not where did it start; but where is it, and where does God say it will go? The present manifestation of these things is the issue, and we must respond to it scripturally.
Was the serpent of brass of God? Yes, it was of God. Did Moses make it? Yes, at the command of the Lord. Did it save thousands of people? Yes. But it finally became an idol. That manifestation demanded that it be broken in pieces (Numbers 21:8; II Kings 18:4). This is what happens when something is perverted. Now we are concerned with restoration. We do not want to argue about whether you were born again in a revival and whether or not God started it. We want to know where you are now!
At Shiloh we live in the midst of a community who are descendants of men like Menno Simons, a prophet of God. Did those men really know the voice of God? I would say they did. But where is it now, and where is it going? That is the issue. We must go back to the basic things. The future which God determines is the important thing in our determination and our evaluation of the basic foundation.
This step of commission is the greatest step that has been made in the restoration since that first one: “The just shall live by faith.” The faith that brought a man into Christ on a basis of the blood of Jesus Christ was the first important step. But this step of commission looses him from being locked into man, so that he can develop freely into the son of God, because that is the reason he was purchased. This is the reason he was redeemed by the blood of Christ. And under His blood, by that one sacrifice He has forever perfected them that are sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). This perfection, unfolding for the sanctified, means the elimination of everything that stands in the way of it or perverts it or distorts it or distracts it from the ultimate purpose that God has for every one of us. This is why I believe that this is the great tremendous step.
When does God remove or replace a commission? Does He remove it or take it out of the way when that commission becomes a position, or when it becomes apostate? No, He never removes it. Like a mantle, it may fall on someone else. After God sends commissions, endowments of grace, anointings, and gifts of the Spirit into the earth, He does not call them back. “The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29). When Judas did not walk in his commission, Peter said, “His bishopric let another man take.” Who took Judas’ office? Someone who had followed the Lord from the very beginning and who was a witness of His resurrection (Acts 1:20–22). That was all it required. That man did not need to have any qualifications except that he was a follower, a true believer.
Does a man cease to move in his commission when he moves into position? When he moves into a position, is he cut off from the Holy Spirit’s flow? Haven’t we often seen evidence of that? Walking in a position is often the rejecting of your commission. Here is a new Kingdom proverb which we should remember: Whom Satan would destroy or make ineffective, he first exalts to a position.
After a man of God has been speaking the Word for a number of years in a church, we might wonder if the people have really heard the Word he has spoken. If they have not heard the Word, it is because they were relating to a position of a man and not to the Word he spoke. The reason that they may not be able to receive the commission of God and hear the Word of God from him is because they are not relating to the commission of God in his life.
Christ refused to assume a position. Once someone said to Him, “Lord, make my brother divide the family inheritance with me.” He answered, “Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbiter over you?” (Luke 12:13–14.) He would not take that position. This is what people do not understand about the ministry of Christ. He would not take a position, but He would turn around and lay down a principle and say, “Leave all and follow Me” (Matthew 19:21).
People who do not have the revelation of what Christ was really saying might think that the Bible contradicts itself. It does not contradict itself; it just must be understood on the level that Christ was speaking. He was not a judge or arbiter; He did not have that position. Satan wants to lock you into a position. This was what the priests and Levites tried to do with John the Baptist. They asked him, “Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet?” He replied, “No, I’m just a voice” (John 1:19–23).
The day will come when the brothers are going to feel the need to flow with one another more often. They will say, “We must be together!” It may not be for any specific purpose, except to sit and listen and share. Because we are commissioned ones, we break bread together, devoting ourselves to “fellowship and the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). When the apostles in Acts sat down to eat, probably all they had in front of them was a loaf of bread. Then God began to bring the Word and they broke bread with each other. That is what we are doing. When we feast on the Word together, and everyone has an input, the revelation begins to expand and expand. More and more I am finding how effective it is to sit down and talk with the brothers in the “back room.” Because the Spirit is conveyed, no one is intimidated; no one is put down. There are not any ranks, no sergeants or majors. Everything is freely shared.
We like to quote the promise in Psalm 149:8–9: To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the judgment written; this is an honor for all His godly ones … However, this promise is quite restrictive. It applies only to those who can meet the requirement: His godly ones. It is imperative that we all get rid of the leaven. There will be no authority in the earth if the Church is defiled. It will have to be without spot or wrinkle. Jesus warned the disciples, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6). Religious position is so deadly. In the book of Revelation, the whore and the beast are so linked together because they both rule in exactly the same way (Revelation 17:3). They rule through their position. We have been working to break this position orientation in people’s thinking, and we have only begun. It will take us awhile to establish the true principles, but God-willing we will see the breakthrough in this area.
Paul told the Philippians, Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 3:2–3. Then he talked about the position that he had and how he counted it as being dung (Philippians 3:8). The key of it is that we will not strive effectively, until we relinquish position totally.
Position is the basis of the malice and wickedness that Paul talked about. He said, “Keep the Passover with sincerity and truth, not with malice and wickedness” (I Corinthians 5:8). That is what Saul had in his heart when he chased David into the School of Prophets. The minute the Spirit of God came upon Saul, it took away his whole motivation in striving for a position over Israel. He lay naked all that day and night because the Spirit had just stripped him (I Samuel 19:24). But when he left, he walked right back into his position, just as any of us may do if we are not careful.
The only truth we have heard is the Lordship of Christ; isn’t that really what this is? Basically this is the Lordship of Christ. This is the birth of something significant. Many sons must come to birth (Isaiah 37:3). Everything that has been set in motion will stop as soon as position becomes our focus. If everyone assumes a position, we will have nothing but civil war. Position can be the dam that stops the flow.
When we move a pastor out of the entrenchment he is in, it is not to destroy his ministry, but to enable him to function and flow more effectively. When a brother is moved out of a certain area of ministry, this does not mean that he has failed. He is being loosed, and he must have a very positive focus. Each one of us will begin to function in a level that was unattainable to us before, because of the very place or position we were in. I was also so limited. My position in certain areas locked me out of what God wanted me to do. You will never do the will of the Lord perfectly when you are locked in like that.
The relinquishing of position equals revolution. That is what the world tries to do by violence and war, but they are not trying to establish the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God will replace all the other kingdoms—not by anarchy, but by a spiritual revolution. Once we understand this principle, then the people who have a commission will never be able to make a position out of it. A man who moves in a commission is never a threat to anyone; he is only a blessing. When you know you can turn your back on your brother without fear, the Kingdom is coming.
This revelation can become a line of demarcation. This step will bring out what is in people and determine why they are in this walk with the Lord in the first place. It is a real motivation-tester. This is the cross, and it nails the ego and uncovers the deep motivations of the heart.
Christ is the only One who is ruler over all things. Satan offered Him a position of the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:8–9), but Christ already had the kingdoms of the world. The Word tells us that “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ …” Revelation 11:15b. Satan was offering Him something that Satan did not really have, but Christ always had. Actually, it was not in Satan’s power to give it, because he had usurped it by illusion and deception; Christ was the rightful heir of the Father. He was commissioned to authority over the areas offered to Him by Satan. Satan offered Christ position, when He was in fact commissioned with authority over all that Satan had offered Him.
Let us look at the relationship of commission to confirmation. Elijah moved very often without any apparent confirmation at all. Did he have confirmation from other channels? Because he did not move by position, he did not seem to be restrained by confirmation. In many of his actions he was simply obeying a direct Word from God, without any apparent confirmation.
It appears that way with a lot of the men in the Old Testament, but it also opens the door to the realization that the School of Prophets did exist. You may not realize the force of what they were until you see that Elisha followed Elijah to the place where he was translated, and the School of Prophets met him at every place (II Kings 2:1–7). That man of God had established all kinds of means of confirmation. The Word does not say that he drew upon it, but it does give evidence that they voiced it. It functioned more in the Scriptures as an implied relationship. Some of these prophets came to Elisha and said, “Don’t you know that your master is going to go today?” (II Kings 2:3, 5.) They had the Word too. There were many who had the Word. The process of confirmation is not emphasized in each individual aspect and incident of it, but it was there. I think that this was something from the beginning of time, this need for a School of Prophets, for men of deep spiritual perception and revelation.
In this day we must see again those prophets that Elijah knew. The School of Prophets goes back to Samuel’s day. It ran through several generations of history. Peter talked about it in Acts 3:24: “From the days of Samuel on,” as though the days of Samuel were the beginning of what was confirmed in Acts 3. The unity and oneness they had in those times of the School of Prophets created a confirmation that was probably not drawn upon and voiced until afterwards. For example, what a breakthrough we will have in this day when a prophet feels led to go to the airport and meet a certain plane, only to discover that a brother is arriving; yet there had been no communication concerning his visit.
The twentieth-century concept of what confirmation is to be is on too low a level. Our thinking concerning confirmation has been more like a human system of checks and balances, instead of tuning into the one mind of Christ. Is true confirmation not more a matter of a separate voice raised up by God to document and verify what He has initiated? It is not merely a check-and-balance system. We are still in this immature phase to a great extent, where someone gets an idea and says, “We had better submit this and get it checked out before we move.” Actually, there must be some way whereby we find the greater divine transmission of confirmation.
The early Church was like another School of Prophets; it was in essence the same thing. They meditated on the Word and this brought them into a oneness where they all raised up their voices in one accord. That is probably one of the greatest examples of true confirmation. They were all in one accord, and they lifted up their voices and prayed the same prayer. That prayer was so ordered of the Lord that the place was shaken afterwards (Acts 4:24–31), as though God Himself was shaken by the evidence of His answer and response to prayer. It was so much united that it was self-confirmed at the time of its utterance by many voices.
Paul made this statement: But we have the mind of Christ. I Corinthians 2:16b. In other words, “We as brethren have one mind; we all have the mind of Christ together.” That is why he kept urging the Philippian church, “Be of one mind, striving together” (Philippians 1:27).
Confirmation as we know it will give way to this higher oneness that we are pressing into. Confirmation as we know it will or can give way to an instantaneous, unanimous voicing of prayer, prophecy, and revelation at the time that it comes from God. It is what we might call instantaneous, simultaneous confirmation to what God is speaking. Then we will all “see eye to eye” (Isaiah 52:8).
Do you realize that with most of us, if not all, revelation has been a delayed action of God in our lives? Most of the time we receive a Word and we struggle with it, and eventually revelation comes as a result of our faith and submission. If we are to equate revelation with confirmation, then we must face the fact that there may be a delayed action. Perhaps we are not ready for the full revelation of it, or God may be testing our faith to see if we will believe Him without wavering until we receive the revelation. Before God we have the right to delay action on any Word until we receive the confirmation of it, knowing that this will not be counted as disobedience. Let us go on from the democratic “vote-level” approach where we ask, “How many confirm this?” That is not the best way to approach true confirmation.
When we announce changes to be made in the location of pastorates, some may ask, “Is there confirmation on all these changes?” No doubt some will not agree with all of the changes. Actually they might not have been spiritually qualified to confirm or reject. Are you asking on one level what is happening on another level? You may not be able to figure it out.
The change that the Lord brings may not seem reasonable until after you walk in it; then it is the most reasonable thing in the world. The conclusions of our reason must often be delayed, like the processes of confirmation, until the obedience of faith has established the reality. Many times we wait for God to show us so that we can commit ourselves, but He is waiting for us to commit ourselves so that He can show us. The Lord spoke, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? John 11:40. Submission usually precedes revelation. First you submit, and then the Lord reveals Himself to you. Although the ultimate objective that we look for is pure and true revelation, yet submission and obedience often are required. God can give us positive confirmation if we seek Him for it, but first we have to move in the Word; then revelation follows. There is a way of thinking that can bear witness to your faith, even though you do not understand it.
Faith often bypasses the process of reasonableness. You have a right to move on a Word even before you have an understanding in your own heart. You can bypass much of the process through which the Lord would have to lead you to come to that spiritual level, just by taking a Word by faith and moving in it. In this recent transition, the confirmation to one pastor concerning a change he was to make proved to be that right way. If we had waited for him to have personal confirmation on it, it could have taken years. That is the way we have usually done things in the past—slowly. But because of his faith, this brother moved in the Word: now he has complete confirmation in his own heart about it, and he moves on a higher spiritual level.
Confirmation now should be deeper, because at the shallowest level you can rig confirmation. If you ask a brother, “Do you confirm this?” he will tend to confirm it just because he is your good friend. That is not the level of confirmation we are looking for. We need to have a series of studies on the Kingdom-age level of confirmation, because it is a deeper level than we have been walking in. It becomes much more than an intuitive consent or reasonable consent to a Word that comes. It will have to be a miracle confirmation that we can actually believe God for. It must be this way, because the principles of discipleship that the Lord imposes become more demanding all the time, and in the natural you may not want the Lord to confirm what is coming. If we receive a Word from the Lord and believe it, we can seek for confirmation. Then we also have the right to insist that it not be a shallow, superficial confirmation that can be rigged. If Moses had carefully selected the twelve spies, perhaps he could have had perfect agreement from all twelve of those who returned after spying out the land. The ten who brought back the bad report were on a very low, factual level. If they had all been one with him, they would have all brought back the same report (Numbers 13:17–33).
If that is true, then you should never seek confirmation from a man whose faith is less than yours. That statement may make a lot of ministries feel insecure in their search for confirmation. However, if we do not follow this, our pace and procedure will be set by the ones on the lowest level of faith and dedication. Then you are always limited by the input of the one with the least amount of faith; and he will always bring you down.
There is a covering in this higher confirmation. When one commits himself to confirmation, he is obligated to have faith to believe for it to happen too—and to the same degree. One brother received a Word from the Lord and he felt the need to submit it to someone with more faith than he had. He wanted to believe God, but he also had to have someone else who really believed that Word. We have come to the place where we sink or swim, survive or perish, live or die on the Word of the Lord. If a man of equal faith, or even greater faith than yours, has submitted to God and he comes up with the same Word, then you have something on which you can live or die—especially if you know that in the crisis hour, that man will be as willing to die for that Word from God as you are. At times God may allow things to turn out wrong, just to see if you are dedicated to the divine order process of confirmation.
Acts 21 tells us of the time Paul had a witness to go to Jerusalem. Several people with less faith tried to discourage him, but in the final analysis they proved to be wrong. They had less faith, yet they had equal revelation of what would happen to him. This shows us that revelation is not always an indication that faith is on the same level as revelation. Many people have come into a walk with God because they had a definite revelation of it, but they did not have the faith or the guts to follow through with it.
We have always thought that confirmation was kind of a function or outgrowth of revelation, so that you would go to the revelation ministries to get confirmation on a matter. However, the confirmation we need may be more the outgrowth of faith! Too much of the time we do not acknowledge or face the differences between faith and revelation. True faith is based on a Word from God, not upon our observations and evaluation of our circumstances. Revelation seems to take into account, to some degree, the appearances of things. It still has a little more to do with the human perception of the Word of God than pure faith does.
It is almost impossible to separate spiritual perception from the human input and observation; therefore revelation, no matter how great it is, is weaker than faith. We have been taught for years that authority is much greater than revelation. This is true. If an elder does not even know his right hand from his left, but he has faith, that faith will result in God giving him authority. Because he does not have a great deal of revelation, he relies wholly on the Word that God gave him, and he will succeed in his ministry. His wife, on the other hand, may rely solely on revelation, and her faith may not be that great. Although the woman often has more of an intuitive sense than the man, this does not mean that she is necessarily the strongest in faith.
We had better face that, because we have tended to say, “Look what God showed that person. Therefore they must have faith.” Many times I received a lot of revelation over people and could discern their physical afflictions. Then when all were not perfectly healed, I began to realize that revelation is one thing and faith is quite another.
When we are facing an issue that needs confirmation, we must ask ourselves, “Do I have the faith in my heart for this?” instead of asking, “Do I understand it?” Confirmation involves an obligation. You must be responsible to follow through into its fruition and fulfillment. After giving or receiving confirmation to a Word from God, you are totally committed. When faith is equal to the occasion, revelation will not be defective or aborted. This is where the problem often lies. If you have enough faith, you will not have a wrong revelation. To the degree that faith is lacking, revelation becomes faulty or unfulfilled.
The world tends to evaluate revelation more than faith. They look more to the psychics and to revelation about a thing, instead of the faith that should be involved. People do not want to have faith, because faith is an exercise. There is an energy and an effort that is exerted when you believe God. It does not take any effort for a psychic person to see. Revelation is more on a natural level than faith is. “Revelation” can be a psychic gift. It may be just an intuitive quality of the human realm. But faith is a spiritual quality. With faith, you have to draw on God. You cannot walk with God without faith to believe His Word. It takes faith to walk with God, but you can have revelation and still not walk with Him.
In the Kingdom, you do not accomplish anything by revelation; you accomplish things by faith. Hebrews 11 tells of the things the men of old did “by faith.” When you are surrounded by problems and you go for confirmation to someone with unbelief, he can restrain you. Jesus could not do many mighty works in His hometown because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58). They might have had other positive attributes, but they did not have faith to stand with Him. When God wanted to defeat the Midianites, He kept peeling down Gideon’s army until He had three hundred men who would have enough faith and believe the Word that He had given to Gideon (Judges 7). Then He would be glorified in the victory. This is what God is doing with us. Of course He is concerned about those who have had a revelation of this restoration move, but He is more concerned about those who are committed in their faith to stand with the original Word that has come.
Revelation without faith does not close the door to deception. A man who has revelation today will not necessarily walk in that revelation tomorrow. When God reveals a Word to him but he does not have faith, then he could easily be deceived. Delusion can never follow faith, but sometimes delusion can follow revelation. This is what happened to Peter, when he protested Christ’s going to the cross right after he had received the revelation of who Christ was (Matthew 16:16–23).
Revelation does not always stimulate you to action, but faith does. Faith is action. When the School of Prophets assembled, many of those men had revelation that Elijah would be taken, but they did not do anything about it. Elisha had faith to move on the revelation he had received. Faith is always challenged to act. Revelation, like knowledge, tends to puff up. Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth. I Corinthians 8:1b. It is better to have faith with love, for then we will have the combination that works. In the final analysis, it is not revelation that makes it happen, but faith that works by love (Galatians 5:6). Elisha had all three qualities. Because he had the faith to move on what he saw, he had revelation of what was going to happen. He had the faith to walk in it, but he also had the love. He was committed to Elijah and loved him as a father (II Kings 2:12; 3:11).
Faith is no good without a motivation of love. Many denominational preachers have had faith for finances, and they often obtained those finances; but they were not motivated out of love. So you can have faith with a wrong motivation. We must have faith with love (Galatians 5:6). The weakness of faith is the lack of motivation; the weakness of revelation is the lack of faith. The greatest of all is love (I Corinthians 13:13). The love counterbalances it all.
Actually, the whole release that brought about our recent “big trip” throughout the United States and part of Canada, and loosed us into a new Kingdom level, was not by revelation basically. We had had that revelation for a long time, but when we were challenged to have the faith to believe the Word, then the vision exploded into being. Revelation in itself is not enough, because something has to change the very elements. Even Satan can tune into the future to some degree with clairvoyance and extrasensory perception. So while we exalt revelation, we could be doing so only out of a soulish evaluation.
The Lord spoke that a “King Saul” situation would happen in the churches; because of circumstances, everything in some of them would turn sour. A few people would drop out and become bitter because they did not have the faith to face what God would bring in a sifting. The Lord also spoke to us that no longer would we walk essentially by wisdom or revelation, but we would walk by faith. That has been the basis of the bottom-line sifting. We have heard all of this, but the full realization of it is just now hitting us.
This is what has put down our focus on position. You can hold onto a position with revelation; but when God starts speaking a Word that demands a response of faith, you will either respond with faith or unbelief. Unbelief leads to bitterness, and faith leads to an openness to the Lord.
Revelation can actually destroy faith, because you can have just as much revelation of a negative thing as you have of the positive. By revelation, you might see something that God is going to do, or you might see the opposition that the enemy will throw against it. If you only have the revelation of the opposition, it can come against your lack of faith and cause you to back off from walking in the Word that God is speaking. However, if you have faith in your heart, then often you will be unmoved, even by the revelation you have of the opposition you are facing. That is exactly what Paul did when the people gave revelation of his going bound to Jerusalem. He said, “Why are you trying to break my heart?” (Acts 21:13.) Because of their lack of faith, their revelation resulted in wrong counsel. The same thing happened with Elijah and Elisha. Elijah turned to Elisha and said, “Go away from me” (II Kings 2:2). But Elisha would not receive his word. Because his faith embraced a double portion, it had to oppose every obvious hindrance.
The whole next step of the Kingdom is being revealed. It is as completely new as the Word about teaching worms to fly. Now the truths and the wonders of the Kingdom of God are opening up step by step, layer by layer. If all of this teaching is contained in the Old Library and the other tapes and we did not see it, would it not be good for some of us to listen to some of these choice tapes and then discuss them? We could expand into greater levels of revelation, for these truths are all contained in the Old Tape Library (1953–1969). It is the seedbed of everything we have walked in for thirty years. This would be one of the most fantastic things we could ever set about to do in Shiloh. Some of our prophets need to do something more in the research department. They must search out and listen and finally say, “I listened to a hundred tapes, but here are twenty-five that we should all do something about.”
A lot of the Old Library was a forerunner of the present “back-room” conversations. It often seemed to me like a one-man conversation with myself, but with a complete understanding of what was being said.
At that time there was very little faith united with what we were believing to see happen (Hebrews 4:2). Now when the Word is spoken, the faith of the brothers and the people can explode it. This is the secret of what is coming through men of like faith.