God established the Feast of Unleavened Bread as part of the Passover (Exodus 12:17–20), signifying that we must be concerned about eliminating the leaven from our lives—everything that would prevent our moving into the richness of all that God has set before us. One type of leaven with which we have been contending is the leaven of position. The Lord is removing positions, that He might send us forth under commission. This has resulted in somewhat controversial experiences, yet it is the keynote of the greatest step that has come to us in the revelation of the Lordship of Christ. This step will unfold to us a depth in the Scriptures that has not been revealed before, teaching us exactly what it means to be a believer sent from God.
When God wanted to change the world, He sent a man whose name was John. John the Baptist had received a commission; he was sent to preach a certain message (John 1:6–8, 15). Although he was of the priestly order, he never mentioned that. When priests and Levites, sent by the Jews, tried to pin him down concerning his identity, they asked, “Are you Elijah? Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.”
“Who are you then?”
“I am a voice” (John 1:21–23). It was difficult for them to argue with that. Who wants to be just a voice? That is no position of significance. When a man is only a voice, he is in trouble half the time. John was sent by God to do the will of the Lord, and he did not accept any position. This was the pure spirit behind his ministry.
The Church lost its unity, its purity, and its effectiveness when the simplicity of the early Church was degraded and defiled by the Roman church’s creation of positions and ecclesiastical levels for people to follow. From that time on, the laying on of hands became a travesty. It was anything but what God wanted it to be. Before that time, humble hands were being laid upon humble brethren. Afterwards it became an administration of arrogance, until eventually men even bought and sold ecclesiastical positions. That is not unusual; even in this day, there is enough of Babylon left that people with positions still strive to control finances.
It was so from the beginning. When Jesus was eating the Passover meal (the Last Supper) with His disciples, Judas was there among the disciples who were contending for the best position. The Lord rebuked them and told them not to seek for the highest position (Luke 22:14–30). John was reclining on one side of Christ, leaning on His bosom (John 13:23–25), but the preeminent position was held by Judas, against whom Christ Himself was reclining. Thus it became evident that Judas had won the argument over who was to have the highest position and place. And it was only a short time later that Satan entered his heart, and he went out and betrayed Jesus Christ (John 13:27–30). The first step in betrayal is often both the greed for finances that deceives a man, and the striving for position that will eventually destroy him.
By revelation we are understanding many things that God is doing now, at the threshold of the Kingdom. He is moving many ministries from one locality to another because He wants to eliminate the entrenchment of position that would lock in both the ministers and the people. Everyone who has humbly accepted these changes as part of a new commission will walk more and more into the authority of the Spirit in this day.
As for myself, I can give you witness that I have moved in more authority, more revelation, and a deeper Word from God since I laid down everything of position. I may still have a measure of authority, but not a position. The present effectiveness of the ministry is due to my humble obedience to the commission the Lord has given me. This is how I want to live. I do not have anything else to defend, nor would I want to defend anything. More and more, the brothers are coming into this same state of heart.
The decline and fall of the New Testament Church could be marked, generation after generation, by the fact that positions became more and more preeminent. Were they effective? Yes, for even in the days of the apostles, there were those who had risen to the level of deacons or overseers of the church who would not even allow John to come into their church. They had finally achieved such a total position that they could reject the commission of an apostle. John wrote of this in his third Epistle, verse 10.
I have supported for many years those who had a commission without having any position. In every situation that has come up, I have always tried to see the commissions over those involved. And many of the ministers have done the same for me. From the very beginning the Lord has thus led us, and He is still leading us in this way. He is keeping us from becoming entrenched in ecclesiastical positions, for they are the key of Babylon and of denominationalism. The whore and the beast both operate on the same level. The beast is jockeying for position, and the whore rides on the beast—the governments—committing fornication with the kings of the earth, because she too wants a special position (Revelation 17 and 18). There will never be a separation of church and state as long as the church is corrupt, seeking for position and privileges. When the church stopped suffering persecution, it began to make alliances with the beast. We must be free of that!
The Feast of Passover is a search for leaven as much as it is a miracle of deliverance (Exodus 12). We appropriate the deliverance by the blood of the Lamb, but we are also very careful to keep searching out the leaven; if we still have leaven within us, the deliverance that we move in can backfire on us.
One type of leaven that we are warned against in the New Testament is the leaven of the Pharisees. We read in Matthew 16:5 that when the disciples came to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they realized that they had forgotten to take bread. And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And they began to discuss among themselves, saying, “It is because we took no bread.” Matthew 16:6–7. How many people keep listening to the Words of the Lord and yet do not hear anything? Let us listen to what He is saying! Let us meditate on it and pray, “Lord, give us a deep understanding in all things” (II Timothy 2:7).
But Jesus, aware of this, said, “You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many large baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:8–12.
The account in Luke 12:1–3 tells that Jesus explained that the leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy. The Jews’ desire for position was the reason they took counsel together to have Him put to death. They said, “If we do not stop this man, the Romans will come and take away our position” (John 11:47–48). They were concerned about their franchises in the Temple for money changers, for the sale of lambs and other livestock necessary for the sacrifices. When the Lord upset those tables and drove out the money changers, He was finalizing in their minds their determination to kill Him (Matthew 21:12). Religion seems to be wrapped around position and the control of finances. The satanically influenced Communist doctrine which says that religion is an opiate of the people has an element of truth in it. Religion as a system has become a great instrument of heaviness to deceive and to exploit the people. The Pharisees knew how to manipulate and control the people and finances through religion.
Let me point out to you that by this definition we do not have a religion as such. The Lord revealed that we would be a company without leaders, a movement without established leaders, and it is more true now than ever before. Leaders who are entrenched in position easily become a part of Babylon. In the restoration, there has been an anointing to destroy the ecclesiastical positions that Rome established in the falling away of the Church. We are ready for another step in the restoration; and now that God is bringing forth His Kingdom, we must take this step.
Would you like to know what is happening? Like the Apostle Paul I have been saved by the grace of God (Ephesians 2:5, 8). I thank God who has saved me, who is saving me, and who shall yet deliver me (II Corinthians 1:10). Not only has the Lord saved my soul, but He has also delivered me from the pedestal; He has delivered my spirit from accepting a pedestal. He is delivering your spirit from putting any man on a pedestal. As long as the pedestal exists, people argue for or against the man who is on it. When there is no pedestal, but only a lowliness of spirit in that man to speak the Word of God, then he can say, like Paul, … 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, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. I Thessalonians 2:13. A miracle was worked in them because they received the apostles’ word as a Word from God.
If you receive a word only because you believe it is the word of an apostle, it will not work many miracles. The miracles will come the day you have the revelation, “This man is a voice, and I am hearing the Word of God from him.” When you hear a Living Word from God, rather than the words of a man, that Word will work a miracle. As long as you hear someone who has a position and influence, someone whom you recognize on the basis of the brothers’ recognition of him, you will miss what God has for you in this transition into the Kingdom.
Listen to the Living Word audio’s. Throughout the past years we have received keys and teaching concerning the danger of position, but we are just now realizing and understanding deeply what the Spirit was talking about. Positions are being blasted, and out of this the humble commissioned ones are coming forth, the holy ones who will wreak havoc upon the kingdoms of this world until they become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15).
When God wanted to do something, He sent someone to do it. And because of what position does to a man, very few of those who were sent by God with a Word, both in the Old and New Testament, ever had a position. What about Amos? Wasn’t he a great prophet? He himself said that he was neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but a gatherer of sycamore fruit (Amos 7:14–15). He did have a Word though, and he was sent by God. When John the Baptist was asked, “Who are you, John?” he replied, “Just a voice” (John 1:22–23). What did Jesus say about Himself when He stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth? The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me (for what—to be the Christ? yes, but note how He described His commissioning) … he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives… Luke 4:18. Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, was sent.
What about all of the early apostles? Were they not men of great office? Only in our thinking do we see an apostle as a man with an office and a position. The Greek word apostolos means “one who is sent.” The apostles were sent with a commission, sent with a Word. After the disciples were miraculously released from jail, they were told, “Go stand before the people, and speak this Word in the Temple” (Acts 5:19–21).
A transition is taking place. We have been on the right track, but we have carried with us misconceptions from Babylon. What we need now is a Gilgal experience, a circumcision of heart (Joshua 5:8–9). God will circumcise our hearts until we forget what we brought with us. We are out of Egypt, and now we will get Egypt out of us, for the Lord is getting ready to work through us. Ask God to continue the purging. Be determined to let Him complete it.
If we wanted at the present time to put a man through almost indescribable agony and subject him to unexplainable defeats, we would put him in a church and give him the position of pastor. But when we say to him, “You are a shepherd; the Lord sends you to lead the sheep,” then he has another concept of himself. Some of our terminology must change, so that the words in our vocabulary which have been defiled by Satan can be redeemed and recovered, and we can see exactly what a commissioning is and how it will rest upon the whole Body.
The Pharisees had position. They were as zealous for their position as Judas was for his place. When they felt that it would be taken away from them, they turned and bitterly persecuted the ones who had been sent by God. How difficult it is for a man who has a spiritual position to be submissive to someone who comes in the name of the Lord! Let us all say very humbly, “I do not want any position. I just want to be one of those whom God sends out to do His will, and then I want to do it.”
Where did the great miracles take place in New Testament times? Acts 8:5–8 tells of Philip going down to Samaria to proclaim Christ. Who was Philip? A dishwasher and one who waited on the widows (Acts 6:2). We give him the term “deacon,” but Acts 6 does not call him a deacon. The twelve apostles summoned the congregation and said, “Find some men who are full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, full of love, full of faith, whom we can put in charge of this task” (Acts 6:3–5). Philip, being one of these, went down to Samaria, healed many, and brought multitudes to believe on Jesus (Acts 8:5–13). But since he did not have any position there, Peter and John were sent down to lay hands on the new converts, that they might receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14–17). Meanwhile, after being directed by the Spirit (Acts 8:26), Philip wandered off to the desert. Next we see him explaining a passage in Isaiah about the Messiah to an Ethiopian, and then the Spirit caught him and carried him away (Acts 8:27–39). No doubt you are looking forward to the day when we will be able to travel in the Spirit as Philip did; but we must first become nothing in ourselves except people who are led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14). To be led by the Spirit may make it possible also to “fly” by the Spirit.
The average religious man would have stayed there in Samaria, formed a church corporation, and built himself a kingdom. Before another year had passed, he would have had ten businesses, all feeding money into his pocket; and when he was called to account for it, he would have protested that he was being persecuted. (I’m sure you sense the sarcasm in this.)
The Lord has set before us a vision of the Church in the Kingdom to come. Therefore be determined that this move of God go in the right direction. If it does not, I will be as zealous to tear it down as I have been to speak a Living Word to it. Take a look around at what has been kicked down lately. It must always be that way! Pray for the ministers, because we want to be faithful to do only what the Lord has commissioned us to do. If we are faithful to that, we will break through into the Kingdom!
There are no pedestals anymore. Those who in the past had put me on a pedestal in their minds did not intend to, and I did not want it, but it resulted in my becoming an issue. There is no better way to frustrate and make ineffective the Word of God than to cause the issue to be something else besides the Word. I determined to move out of that predicament, and God has helped me; I am finally free of it. From now on, we move on with one focus: the Living Word from God. That Word, in direct application of the commission by the Holy Spirit over each one of us, is what we follow. If the Lord raises you up and commissions you, I will be as submissive to your commission as the Lord is asking you to be to mine. There are no preeminent positions among us. What the Lord speaks to our heart to do, that we will do.
When God was ready to send the Israelites in to possess the land of Canaan, Moses died. Then God came to Joshua and told him, “You do not have to worry about anything. Just keep meditating on the Word day and night. This Book must not depart out of your mouth. You will meditate on it continually.” (Joshua was willing to do that.) “As I was with Moses, I will be with you. Nobody will be able to stand before you all the days of your life” (Joshua 1:1–8). This looked like a wonderful place for a man to strive for. Then the people came to him and said, “We know that God is with you now. Whatever the Lord tells you to do, we will do. Wherever you send us, we will go” (Joshua 1:16). They were submissive to the commission that God had given to Joshua.
This scriptural example illustrates a truth that must be established. It is very necessary that those whom God sends be submissive not only to their own commission as shepherds; they must also be submissive as sheep to the commissions of others. Right at this particular point, there is a careful analysis and evaluation going on, which should lead you to ask yourself, “Am I being submissive to a position which this man has, or am I being submissive to the commission of God over him?” This question goes rather deep. Perhaps you hardly know the difference. It takes a revelation from the Lord to understand it, but you soon realize that there is a divine anointing upon a commission which liberates you.
Now that I am moving more fully in my commission from the Lord, I am freer than I have ever been before. I speak the Word of the Lord frankly and without fear. The fear of man would be upon me if I were in a position of control, but I am not. In the absence of that fear, do you not find that no matter how direct the Word, there is no fear either in the heart of the speaker or the hearer? This elimination of position is a great leveler. A man who has an exalted position dominates a great deal by intimidation, until there is only a respect for him as a person rather than for the Word, and that must disappear.
We do not want to become an organization with ranks. We want to be a body without dominating leaders, all able to hear the voice of the Lord. There is a difference between commission and position. Those who are commissioned move more by a direct Word from the Lord that has been confirmed by their brethren. However, those who have positions tend to move more arbitrarily and to do things at their own initiative, and often they must be cautioned very carefully to seek for confirmation. Confirmation is a way of life to a commissioned person, but it is a threat to position.
If you do not understand this now, let the Lord give you wisdom to see that this is an important key of the Kingdom.
You are being liberated, little flock. We never read of Jesus saying, “Rejoice, all you big shots!” But we do find Him saying, “Rejoice, little flock. It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Become like a little child; then enter in, unassuming and unpretentious. You may have noticed that your big battle has been over relationships—how you relate to the church, how you relate to me, how you relate to the elders and the pastors. You even have a problem when you look in the mirror, wondering how you should relate to yourself. All kinds of relationship problems are coming up right now because the Lord is destroying position. A token submission is all that a father receives from his family when he bellows, “Be submissive to me! I am the head of this family!” He seems to have forgotten the last part of verses 23 and 25 of Ephesians chapter 5: “Just as Christ is the Head of the Church, and gave Himself for it.” Relationships have been brought under the fire because there was one missing ingredient: People were assuming a place by position and subordination to position, instead of humbly saying, “The Lord raised me up and told me to do this, and so I do it.”
I know that God has given me an authority and a commission. I do not have to assert my authority by giving a Tarzan yell and beating my chest. All I have to do is speak the Word and bind every circumstance and problem over to the will of God. I do not have to defend a position. I am concerned about the end result: As the people of God, we will walk with Him and bring all things into subjection to Him (I Corinthians 15:27–28). Even Christ is not seeking to be Lord of lords and King of kings for any other reason than to deliver it all up to the Father when the proper time comes (Revelation 17:14; I Corinthians 15:24). This is the picture you must see.
In light of all this, what are you to do about your relationships? First, realize that relationships are changing, because the basis of relationship is changing. With positions being destroyed in this restoration, and the anointing and the commissions coming purely in the Spirit, people cannot relate to one another the same way they did before. In the past, some tried to bypass the apostolic company, insisting that they had to get a Word only from me directly. That will not be the procedure anymore. Now you must relate to the Word. Those who relate purely to the Word have learned what God has to say better by listening to taped messages than many who have been in services and counseled with me week after week. The Living Word is either the Word of God to you, or it is not. Do not accept me on a personal level; I am not the issue. The issue is this: Have I spoken a Word from God? When you hear it as a Word from God, it will work (I Thessalonians 2:13). The Kingdom will prevail, and we will see the greater works and the effectiveness of our faith, when we are relating properly to those who bring us a Word from the Lord.
If you are having a difficult time relating to a certain brother, then open your heart to this truth: That brother furnishes something. Every joint supplies. This is how the Body makes increase of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16). Listen to what the men of God have for you. Forget their eccentricities; forget all about the human level. Simply listen and learn. You may not even know who you are, or who your brother is. During this time that can be rather confusing, because you cannot judge by the way people appear. Satan can approach you, looking quite beautiful, and his spies and workers may seem very sympathetic to you. Do not listen to them. If you can be deceived into pouring your heart out to them, they will leave you poisoned and bitter in your spirit.
Matthew 24:24 tells us that Satan would deceive the very elect, if it were possible, through false prophets. II Corinthians 11:14–15 tells how Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness. An imperceptive Christian may ask you, “Have you listened to this great evangelist on television? He looks pretty good, doesn’t he?” Discern his spirit. A real man of God may not have the charisma or the presentation that you want, but listen to him. He may be one of those apostles who are evil-spoken-of, yet well-spoken-of; who are poor, yet making many rich (II Corinthians 6:10). God has made me poor, but by the same token, I am making many of you rich in spirit.
I believe that God has sent me to set the local New Testament churches into a Kingdom order. Divine order does not come as long as ecclesiastical positions are locking the people into any kind of bondage. Assumption and presumption were the problems with some of the Timothy ministries. As they began to make the churches into what God wanted, some of them wrongly assumed that they were supposed to take over the position of pastor. God does not want to replace the pastors with another position. The Timothys were raised up to help the pastors move under an anointing and a commission. The minute they assume a position for themselves, they are frustrating the whole purpose that God sent them to accomplish.
The Lord is bringing a disillusioning objectivity to our relationships now. Those who have been disillusioned with me should take another look. I never was the big leader some thought me to be. You have been blessed by the Living Word that God has spoken through me. Now is the time to look at yourself. Develop relationships that are based upon what God has said. Review the prophecies and commissions over your pastors and ministers. Know what God has said, what He is saying, and what He reveals is yet to come. The emphasis is not upon who has served, but what is his commission from the Lord? What has God said? You will not have to reanalyze all of your local pastors and elders. Just do one thing: Review the prophecies that God spoke over your church and over each of the brothers, and have faith for those prophecies to be fulfilled.
Blessed are those who learn to think constantly of a person in terms of what God has revealed over him. Once hands have been laid upon him and prophecies spoken over him, then no matter what he goes through, remember the Word over that man. This must become the basis of your evaluation of him. Determine that you will never know a man by his position or his performance; you will know him only by his holy commission in the mind of God. Even if his record is not the best, you cannot hold that against him. Anytime someone says, “Forgive me,” you are in trouble if you do not do it, for that is the basic law of the Kingdom. Jesus tells us to pray in this way: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. Forgive us our trespasses, just as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:10, 12).
The frankness and truth that is coming forth in relationships is almost overwhelming. The day of the Kingdom is coming, and every person entering in feels a sense of humility and unworthiness, as though he were standing in a muddy lake, stripped naked before God. Pride does not flourish among commissioned ones as it does among those who have positions. Pride seems to flourish in one whose position demands, “You respect me!” But when someone says, “Just open your heart to my love,” then you realize how much more effective is an open heart that loves you than someone who is forced to respect you. We are willing to lay down our lives for one another because we love the brethren (I John 3:16), not because we respect their positions.
This anointed Word speaks of a whole level of the Kingdom that apparently has not been uttered or voiced before. It is the greatest truth I have known since the early revelation of the Lordship of Christ, and it is related to that revelation and is the outgrowth of it. It is the next step to which we must give ourselves, until He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and no other lords have dominion over us (I Timothy 6:15; Isaiah 26:13).
Through confrontations and controversy, most relationships are experiencing a death to the ego. On occasion I am confronted by those around me. They have a respect for me because they know that I am a man of God and that I hear from the Lord. When they believe that God has really given them a Word for me, they feel free to speak it. To me, the greatest evidence of a breakthrough in the relationships of the Body is the fact that people everywhere are no longer afraid of me or of anyone else; instead, they are opening their hearts to speak the Word of God to us. We are all becoming one. Even the spiritual father-and-son relationship must be understood in the light of Jesus’ admonition, “Call no man ‘Father’ ” (Matthew 23:9). You can have great respect for your spiritual father, but do not make that a position or a title. Blessed is the spiritual father whose sons call him brother (Kingdom Proverb).
Revolution could be defined as the rejection and the relinquishing of position. Think about that for a minute, and it will suddenly hit you, “Why, we are in a revolution!” What will come out of it? The Kingdom! The relinquishing of position!
How did the Communist revolution in Cuba happen? How do revolutionaries seize control of a government? First they cast out those who are entrenched in positions and have financial control of the land, in an attempt to get rid of the former corruption. Then they welcome in the Communists to take over the government and establish new positions. That is the way Satan operates, because he rules by position. His workers start a revolution in the name of an ideology; then they in turn create more positions, a hierarchy worse than the first. We are not to be guilty of that. If we pull down anything, it is only so that Christ can be the Lord over us (II Corinthians 10:4–5).
How are you to react when someone over you relinquishes a position and steps down? Do not arrogantly reject his position out of a self-motivation. If you are unsubmissive and rebellious, then you see the rejection of position as an excuse to say, “Now nobody will have authority over me!” That attitude of anarchy is not the solution either. We are in a revolution that is giving way to the Lord’s Kingdom. You are not to reject authority, but you are to reject the position that blocks authority. You are to submit to the true authority. A position in any government must give way to His Lordship. There is one Lord, and He has all authority (Ephesians 4:5–6). As stewards and bond servants of the Lord, we accept His authority over us. Keep this in your mind.
Remember this basic principle: The Kingdom of God never positions you, even though it may commission you, bless you, and do many wonderful things. The mark of every man who ever walked with God was his rejection of position. The Apostle Paul expressed this attitude in Philippians 3:5–8: “As a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, of the tribe of Benjamin, serving blameless before the Law, I had it made. But whatever things were gain to me, I count them all but dung, just to win Christ.” Paul was once an eminent man with position beyond our understanding. Under authority he received documents from the Jews to arrest any Christians he found (Acts 9:1–2). He knew what position was and what the authority of religion was. But after the Lord met him, he wanted no part of it. He said, “I reject being a Pharisee of the Pharisees! I reject this religious usurping of authority, this position of intimidation and domination over the people of God.” From that time on, he was persecuted (Acts 9:22–23). The Pharisees would have persecuted any man who rejected a position like that!
The phrase for fear of the Jews appears often in John’s Gospel; for example, John 7:13; 19:38; 20:19. Those who wished to follow Jesus often hesitated because they were afraid of the Jews. The common people were not afraid of Jesus, for they heard Him gladly (Mark 12:37). They feared the religious leaders. The “fear of the Jews” was upon the people to such a degree that when Jesus healed a boy who was blind, his parents were even afraid to answer the Pharisees’ questions (John 9:22). We are to be loosed from that fear which dominates people! We will not be afraid of what man can do to us! (Psalm 118:6.) We will walk in liberty as the children of the Kingdom of God, as bond servants of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:21). The Kingdom of God will never position people so that they dominate others by fear.
This Word can be marked as one of the highest levels of practical revelation to move us into the Kingdom. This will lead us all to the right attitude. Everyone in the churches has been devastated because pastors, shepherds, and sheep alike are being prepared for a whole new moving of the Lord. Our pastors have never yet moved in the pure authority that they will move in now.
When Paul was trying to get the Corinthians to open their hearts, he said of himself and of Apollos, “I have applied these things to Apollos and myself, so that you will learn not to think of a man above that which is written, and not to esteem one person above another” (I Corinthians 4:6). He told the Romans something similar, “You are to think soberly, as God has given to every man a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). Each one in the Corinthian church was saying, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ” (I Corinthians 1:12). They were all pursuing a level of relationship which was wrong. Therefore Paul told them, “You are children, and I cannot talk to you as anything but children” (I Corinthians 3:1). That is what God is saying to us too. As long as we relate on the wrong basis, we are locked into spiritual immaturity. We must relate to one another as brothers and sisters sent by God and raised up by God.
Although God has raised me up as an apostle, I prefer to be called a door opener because the Word that God has given me opens doors for you to walk with God in the Spirit. This Word which you are reading is one more open door, and you will walk through it. You will not glorify the vessel who brought this Word, but you will glorify the Lord who has set before us such a door to walk through (Revelation 3:8). This Word sets before us a whole new picture, a totally different way of relating to one another. We can no longer relate to one another after the flesh. Henceforth we know no man after the flesh (II Corinthians 5:16). We are coming to see one another in the Spirit by the will of God, by the revelation of the Lord.
Pray for the people who feel they must place their pastor on a pedestal so that they can look up to him when they come to church. They are in trouble, and we might lose them if we do not pray for them. Beware of the opposite attitude as well: “I am so irritated with my pastor. I want to put him down and criticize him.” If this is how you feel, you are in the same jeopardy. You are looking at the man instead of looking to the Word. And until you get rid of that attitude, you will not move on in the Lord. You will be caught in undercurrents that are divisive and deceptive. We are breaking this spirit of division and deception which has preyed upon people. It has established in their minds the categories of position. That is where the deception comes.
Once this spirit of division and deception is broken, you will look upon one another’s commissions differently. You will not be an anarchist trying to knock everybody down, but you will fix your eyes on the Lord and on what He is saying about you and about other people. You will not try to exalt anyone’s flesh, because that is not right either. Listen for those who speak as the oracles of God (I Peter 4:11). Be listening to hear what God has to say. If any man has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches (Revelation 2:7).
Be concerned because some are not hearing God speak, but they are hearing the voice of men. If you hear a sermon with sympathy for the man who is speaking, it will eventually poison you and put a root of bitterness and criticism in you. If you are listening to man, sooner or later the sum total of it will be disastrous to you, and you will be drinking of a mingled cup of bitter and sweet (James 3:11). But if you listen to God, if you listen for God’s voice in one another, you will prevail. Forget about your failures and the failures of your brother. Put them all under the Passover blood. Sweep out the leaven (I Corinthians 5:7). Let us get ready to take Canaan now. This is the preliminary step: “Sanctify yourselves today, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).
One who is commissioned by God to an apostolic ministry does not have to be “sold” to the people as an apostle nor defended as one. His responsibility is to pray for the people to have a revelation of the Word that God speaks through him. That will be effective. They do not have to think anything of him as a man. The Apostle Paul confirmed this when he said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God” (II Corinthians 3:5).
What happened to Israel when they rejected Samuel, who was unassuming, and demanded a king just like the other nations had? The Lord said to Samuel, “Do not grieve. They have not rejected you, Samuel. They have rejected Me” (I Samuel 8). Samuel never did present anything but God to them. Samuel was many times the ministry that King Saul ever thought of being. Still the people said, “We want a man with a position. We want a king like the other nations.” They got their king, but it was a long time before they had a Word from God to lead them again.
Do you realize what is happening to us? We are leaving human authority and returning to divine authority through men like Samuel. We will not have kings. We will not have leaders on a human level. We will have men sent from God to minister to us, shepherds to lead us, and the sheep will hear his voice (John 10:3). The day will come that nothing will be spoken but an anointed Word from God, and we will all be able to discern it. There will be revelation on our hearts, and we will walk in the Living Word. We cannot look at the past and gauge it by today, or we would be minimizing nearly thirty years of teaching and leading that God has given us. Let us realize that our eyes are being opened to a new level. We thank God for it, and we shall walk in it now.
In the past the people were often exhorted, “Now you’ve got to believe that this is a Word from the Lord. You must believe that this brother is a man of God, that he is speaking the Word of the Lord.” When that type of persuasion is brought often enough on a human level, it backfires. It causes the people to wonder, “Is he a man of God?” We do not need anyone to preach about “the man of God”; we just need ears to hear the Word of God that he speaks.
The entire Gospel of Matthew is related to the Kingdom.
The parables of the Kingdom are recorded in Matthew 13. Interjected among them is one of the most inexplicable passages you will ever find. The disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Why do You teach in parables?” (Matthew 13:10.) I am often asked a similar question: “Why do you teach in Kingdom Proverbs?” Because the ones who have ears to hear will hear them. The rest will not hear them. This is exactly what Jesus said He was doing. Though He explained some of His parables, He confided to His disciples, “I speak in parables, so that while hearing, these people will not hear; while seeing, they will not see; neither will they understand” (Matthew 13:13). It is an established fact that you can see only what you have a capacity to see and what you are open to receive by revelation. The ability to receive a Word from God is a condition of the heart and of the spirit. Jesus did not cast pearls before swine, but He gave them a Word (Matthew 7:6). The Lord has given the Word, but who has heard it? This has become a timeless problem.
Blessed are your ears because they hear. Prophets of God have desired to see the day that you see, and to hear the things that you hear (Matthew 13:16–17). Blessed are you, because the Lord has opened your ears to hear and given you a heart to perceive, a heart to understand what the Spirit is saying.
Read the message to the church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:18–29. The promise is that you will rule with Him with a rod of iron and you will see the Kingdom come, but first you must be rid of Jezebel, that spirit which has such depths of Satan that it is almost indistinguishable by the people. Do you know what we have done in ridding ourselves of the Jezebel spirit? We have thrown off religious darkness! Woe unto us if we ever again call that darkness light (Isaiah 5:20). There is only one light, and that is the revelation which comes by the Holy Spirit (John 8:12). Everything else that comes by the reason of man or by man’s input is bound to have a certain twist to it that diverts us from the real purpose of the truth. We open our hearts to hear the truth, and to continue hearing it.
May God help these truths to be planted in our hearts and to come forth again and again, as the Spirit brings to mind the things which God has spoken, making them real, living, and vital (John 14:26). This Word in our hearts will bring down the powers of darkness and bring forth life, removing forever the shadows of hypocrisy and religious domination, so that we may be brought into the free flow of the Spirit of God.
The devastation brought by a Living Word signifies the removal of the days in which we walk in only part of a blessing. We do not want just a token deliverance, or half an answer, or a partial fulfillment. We want our cup to run over (Psalm 23:5), exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). This will happen as we apply ourselves to these words.
I love you very much. If God had not put a love in my heart, I could not love you; nor could I love myself enough to go through the life that is set before me. Because we love Him, we find ourselves loving one another (John 13:34). And by this we recognize the reason for criticism and bitterness in people’s hearts. They went through devastating experiences, but they did not love God enough. If they had, they would have learned the lessons He was trying to teach them. When a man becomes bitter because of the problems he has gone through, it means that he was not listening to what God was trying to tell him while he was going through those problems. He may have listened to a lot of other people, but he was not listening to God.
When a man listens to God—even though his heart may have become bitter—he will find himself brought to a total submission to the Lord. The past then is submerged under the blood, and he is not bitter about it anymore, because he finally sees that the hand of God ordered all things well (Mark 7:37). God finally taught him what He was trying to teach him all along. Then that man rejoices as a son who has been scourged, because he knows that he is truly a son, not a bastard (Hebrews 12:5–6).