This message gives a good perspective of what God is doing right now in the hearts of His people as far as the Word is concerned. It will also show the basis of intercession at this time; it is perhaps grim, but it is also victorious. There is a real flow of oneness right now between the churches. It looks as if a lot of the pressures that have been generated during the past two or three years—whether through litigation or persecution or whatever—are being resolved; and the churches are emerging with a greater spirituality, a greater sense of oneness than they have ever had. We are really finding out what God wants for us, and we are ready for the next phase. When the Lord heals us, He heals us for a purpose.
God is moving on us, and we are in a whole new realm. Devastation is not a permanent way of life, and neither is assault and warfare. God brings these things to us so that He can prepare our spirits for the next step that is to come. Are you still bitter or discouraged over the things that God has put you through? If you are, then you probably will have to go through a “second rinse” because you did not learn what He was trying to teach you and work in your spirit the first time. I would not be able myself to adjust to what is happening now if I had not gone through such difficult dealings in the past.
People are entering into the realm of effectiveness and efficiency. One thing that we are seeing as we reach into this level is that it all has to do with relationships. Haven’t I been telling you for four or five years that the Kingdom of God is relationships? It has to be a oneness with God and a oneness with each other. We have come through the threshing floor, and it has shaken us severely. Many a hand has reached out to steady the ark, and it has been disastrous (II Samuel 6:6–7). But we cannot avoid the shaking that we have to go through. God wants us to be shaken, so that the Kingdom which cannot be shaken will come forth (Hebrews 12:27). This has to be. Now after the shaking, we realize that we are ready to build, and to build strongly. When God’s dealings are effective, it results in our sending our roots down deeper in God, and we find that His Word means a lot more to us than ever before (Psalm 1:2–3).
There are people who assume that they have a walk with God, but they are in trouble. Some of them are in trouble because they have tried to take the forms of restoration but have not had His presence and His power in them. You can do that with the Living Word. You can begin to deify the Word so much that you lose the power of it. The Protestants accuse the Catholics of practicing Mariolatry; and they in turn accuse the Protestants of bibliolatry, saying, “You are worshiping a book.” Let me point out something to you. I love the Bible very much; I love it with all my heart. But I am not going to put it up on a pedestal and worship it. I please God best by honoring it as His Word and transferring it away from a Book and letting it be written on the tablets of my heart (II Corinthians 3:2–3). That is the way we can best please God. This Living Word cannot be an issue that you try to defend or that you just talk about—discussing the issues or doctrines involved. You must meet the God who is behind the Living Word.
You cannot distinguish the Lord Jesus Christ from His Word. In the book of Revelation we read: And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” Revelation 19:11–16.
How can we separate the Lord Jesus Christ from the Word, or from the Living Word?
What are we anticipating when we speak about the Living Word? It should be a meeting with God. It is a revelation of the Lord. If you really get into the Word, you do more than just think the Lord’s thoughts and truths with Him; you receive an impartation of God Himself. The Word imparts Himself to you. The Living Word must not become just an exercise in teaching; the Living Word must be a way of imparting the Lord to people. The Living Word must be a way of people participating in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
If it is anything less, it becomes at best a good explanation for your experiences—you say, “When I read a certain This Week I can understand what has happened to me, and why I’ve had to go through certain problems, and why there were certain needs in my life that had to be met.”
All of that is good, but the Word must be more than an explanation of divine mechanics. The Book was never intended to be a catalog of verses that you use for doctrines or arguments or disputes; neither is it to be only a compendium of truths. It is more than that; it is spirit and life. Jesus said, “My Words are spirit and they are life.”
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. John 6:63.
How can you tell if something is a Living Word? If Christ speaks a Word, it conveys Him and His life.
How ridiculous it is for people to argue about who has or does not have a Living Word. How ridiculous for a man to say, “I have the Living Word and this teaching that I used to think was a Living Word is not the Living Word anymore.” Anytime a person has had a Word from God and he turns away from that Word and says, “It’s not a Word from God,” there is something really wrong. Did he ever really hear the Word? Was it ever real to him?
We must be careful lest we find that what we are proclaiming is the same as saying, “This is our denominational creed. We subscribe to it.” Those doctrines are so dead that in another generation the people couldn’t care less about what those in the preceding generation were ready to draw blood over.
Consider the issue of entire sanctification taught by the Free Methodists. They believed that the old nature could be rooted out—root and branch; it was a real experience to people who really sought it. The last time I had contact with that teaching was in a tent meeting in the South years ago. There I met a man who declared that he could not sin anymore; that nature was gone, root and branch. I was young and probably unwise in what I did, but I goaded him, “Oh yes, you can sin.” Soon he was so angry at me that he was ready to hit me. You see, doctrines like that are things that can draw blood. People fight over them because they are doctrines. But those who come forth in another generation are bored with the whole issue.
A doctrine is born with an experience, and by the third generation it becomes a tradition. With us it has been the other way around: it is the third generation that is showing the greatest potential we have ever seen of walking in this tremendous flow of life that is coming in restoration in the Kingdom. The Living Word is working just the other way.
What is the Living Word? It is a revelation of Christ. And if it has not brought a reality of Christ into your life, then you have not read it correctly; you have not absorbed it. The Word which you read, the Word which you hear, is coming forth greater and richer than ever before. Something is coming in it that is more alive, because we are searching our hearts and praying over it all the more that it be exactly an anointed Word that will feed you. And people say, “There’s something in that Word that imparts to me.”
In John 15:3, KJV, the Lord said, Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you, indicating that an impartation had come through His Word which cleansed them. Sometimes you can sit in a service and wonder what is happening, but then the very anointing that brings life in a Word will really reach through to your spirit. When we read the book of John, we notice something interesting. It is not all teachings; there is also a lot of explanation of activities and events. You ask, “Well, is that the Word of God?” Yes, it is, because just to read what happened can become an exciting, living flow of revelation to our own spirit.
I want to talk to you about what has happened to us and what is going to happen because of the Word. If we look at the Scriptures correctly, we see how Christ kept emphasizing the importance of keeping the Word. He said, “If they kept My words, they will keep yours also. If they have rejected My words, they will reject your words also” (John 15:20; Luke 10:16).
In the message to the churches in Revelation, He said, … I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Revelation 3:8, KJV.
What is this Scripture saying? If you get a hold of this Word and you keep it, you have literally put a miracle in your heart; something is going to happen.
The Living Word has such power to it. Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:7.
If the Word is really living in your heart, it has to lead to a miracle life, to a miracle in you, to a miracle faith that you will walk in.
Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of John were the prelude to Christ going to the cross. These chapters contain tremendous underlying themes. There Jesus was speaking about keeping the Word, about His tremendous love and how it is related to obedience, about the joy and the faith that were to be theirs, about people receiving the Word and being identified wholly by either their reception or their rejection of the Word. He said, “If you keep My Word, the world is going to hate you. Because it hated Me, it will hate you also, because you have kept My Word” (John 15:18–22). We must see especially the underlying theme of joy.
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” John 15:11.
Most of us do not really understand yet those themes of love and joy and keeping the Word. I have read these things hundreds of times, but I am beginning to be very much impressed that we are in this same pattern now with the Living Word. The Living Word is coming and it will transform; it will impart to people. It is going to cleanse and purge their lives, and it will project them into many things.
We are ready for one of the greatest projections of the Living Word that we have ever seen, because our hearts are prepared to explode it. The Word does not hit virgin soil in us and then have to go through the processes of assimilation; rather, it is a living thing that hits the heart and brings an instant response because our heart is already prepared.
Your heart already has a Living Word in it. There is so much dynamite buried within you that all you need is to go into a service where somebody lights a fuse; you are ready to explode into something. You do not realize how much is really within you.
The heart-searching was intended to prepare you. Now you are clean through the Word (John 15:3). Now you can go forward. Now you can take the next step. Now you can believe for a miracle. Now you will not have your faith undermined and chipped away by the unbelief which was previously there. God has dealt with that to the depth. Have faith in what He has done.
We have never talked much about keeping the Word, but the Scriptures are full of this theme. In John 12:47–50, Jesus said, “And if any one hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” Notice that: “The Word that I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
How careful Christ was to speak just what the Father told Him. He was determined to speak what the Father spoke to Him, for He knew it would be a living thing. He was very careful to say, “I am not judging anybody” (verse 47). We know what the issue really is: people are getting stirred up over the Word, over a Word that was proclaimed, over something which they rejected. And it is beginning to judge them. We must appreciate the power of the Word that has been coming.
You say, “Are you talking about the Scriptures, or are you talking about This Weeks? What are you talking about?” Let me point out something to you: There are people who can quote Scriptures, yet you will not find the Word of God in what they are doing. There are also people who can get up and read a This Week, but you will not find the Word of God in their reading. There are many Scriptures interwoven in the Living Word; it is very Scripture-oriented. But if you look carefully, you will see that it is more than that. It is a living thing that is coming by the Holy Spirit, making the Word of God alive, transferring and imparting to you all of the time.
Does this mean that we in any way intimate that we no longer need the Scriptures? No, we need the Scriptures more than ever. And I am not saying that we need the Living Word as an introduction to the Scriptures, or that we need the Scriptures as an introduction to the Living Word. I am saying that we need them both, because the Living Word is something that is alive to make real to you what God wants revealed in the Scriptures at this hour in time.
Many people who preached the Word under a real anointing in former generations of the restoration did not see the truths in it that some of our little children in school see now. God has put the light upon the Word, so that you will know what is in the Book for you now, and it will be alive to you. It will not be just a collection of histories and writings; it is going to come alive. It is going to be a Living Word.
The Living Word comes because it is a part of God making alive His Word for this generation. The Living Word is an integral part of it. Open your heart to this in the name of the Lord. That Word can easily be rejected, but the Scriptures can also be ignored. Ignored is the same as rejected. And you can reach the place where you just ignore the whole thing; you don’t want anything to do with it.
Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” John 15:22. In John 9:41, Jesus told the Pharisees, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see’; your sin remains.” This was because He had taught them something. He had given them some teaching.
We do not realize the power of this Living Word. This Word can transform you into what God wants. There is no discipline known by which you can develop yourself to become what God sets before us in doing the greater works in the earth (John 14:12). The way it will happen is that somebody who has had a Word from the Lord lays hands on you and blesses you and imparts to you, or he speaks that Word to your heart and something is created in you. Believe; it is going to happen! Have faith in your heart.
This is exactly where the churches will be moving. They are going to relate themselves to the Word. Every church will experience a tremendous transition and transformation by sitting down like a family and sharing the Word together, and by working in the Word, becoming Word-workers. That is the way you keep the Word. And as you keep it, you will advance and move very rapidly in what God has for you.
You can either focus on what God has said or you can focus on what other people say. It isn’t always good to focus on what other people say, because there might be a little snake slipping around in their words, asking, “Hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1.) And just the questioning of it may be enough to deceive you.
Oh, blessed are those who have had a revelation of the Lord in a Living Word, and they know it is alive within them and they press on into it with all of their heart. We know that the battle is over the Word. It is over the Word! And God is turning this Word loose. The people who fight God’s Word will find that the Word is the thing that will judge them in the last day.
“And if any one hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak.” John 12:47–49.
We have talked about the ministry of judgment a great deal; and as we go along, we seem to understand more and more about it. Judgment is to be given to the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:22), but it is because of that sharp, two-edged sword that goes out of the mouth of Christ to slay the wicked one (Revelation 19:15). The Word of God is living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12). It became a Living Word to our heart.
Judgments will not come forth in the earth because someone decides arbitrarily to pray judgment on some specific thing. Judgments will come forth in the earth because God gave a Word and the Word was rejected. God spoke that Word; and because He spoke the Word through very humble channels, people received it as a Word of God, and then some rejected it. They did not keep the Word; and therefore, it was destructive to them. In a sense, that is why God always sent the prophets in the Old Testament. If He had not sent the people a Word, they would not have been responsible. He sent a Word, and those who turned their heart against it found that it was their undoing. Each time God wanted to bring judgment on Egypt, He sent Moses to Pharaoh, saying, “Here is a Word, Pharaoh.” Pharaoh would reject it, and then the judgment would come. It happened ten times until finally the Israelites were delivered (Exodus 7–11). The Word of God has to come; without it there will be no judgment.
The Word of God comes to us, and it puts us through devastation. Isn’t that a form of judgment? Hasn’t the judgment begun at the house of God? (I Peter 4:17.) Hasn’t God been straightening out your own life, emphasizing the things that have to be dealt with, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow? Isn’t that Word the discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart? (Hebrews 4:12.)
We know there will be persecutions; but with it, there is only one thing for us to do: follow the path of the early Church. Their attitude concerning the Word is revealed in the prayer made by the disciples after Peter and John had been threatened and then released. They prayed: “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Thy bondservants may speak Thy word with all confidence.” Acts 4:29. Notice that there was no prayer saying, “Lord, here are the issues; work out the problems for us. Vindicate us as being the good boys and our persecutors as being the bad boys.” Their prayer was just a simple request: “Lord, grant that Thy servants may speak Thy Word with all confidence, with all boldness.”
Speak the Word with all confidence. But don’t we want to be defended? That would be nice, but it is not necessary—it is the Word of God that is the issue, not us. Paul did not say, “I’m out here to defend myself.” He said, “I am set for the defense of the gospel” (Philippians 1:16).
He said also, “I am determined that Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” Philippians 1:20b, KJV. One thing was certain: he was set to speak the Word. He wrote to the Ephesians, “Pray for me, that I might speak the Word as I ought to speak it” (Ephesians 6:19–20).
After praying that the Lord would grant that they speak the Word with boldness, the disciples continued, Acts 4:30: “While Thou dost extend Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus.” Verse 31: And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. That is what we are after too. That is exactly what we want: “Lord, grant that we be filled with the Spirit of the Lord and speak the Word of God with boldness.”
There was a time when being filled with the Spirit involved the issue: Do you speak in tongues? Do you have tongues and interpretation? But now we have progressed to the place where we are more scriptural. We are not concerned about proving that a certain experience is the sign of the Holy Spirit; rather, we are emphasizing the real thing that is to come. All of the other we accept, absolutely, totally, and completely; but we realize that the important thing is this: “God, grant that Your servants speak Your Word with all boldness. Grant to us to speak the Word of the Lord—to speak it into this generation.”
Peter gives the warning: If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. I Peter 4:11a. The Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11). Once God has a humble channel through which to voice His Word, an oracle through whom He can speak, that oracle can even be out in the desert, miles from anyone else; but when he speaks that Word, it will happen. But doesn’t somebody have to hear it? Of course, to be able to respond in faith, a person has to hear it; that is an individual matter (Romans 10:17). But let me point out something: You can speak a thing into being. Through faith we understand that the worlds (literally “the ages”) were framed by the word of God. Hebrews 11:3a, KJV. Prophets prophesied it and it came to pass. We read their writings centuries later and wonder, “Did anybody in that generation hear it?” It didn’t matter. It happened just the same. But those who did hear, to them the message was plain; they knew what was to come to pass in the earth. God told the prophet: “Make the vision plain, that he may run who reads it, and he may partake of the deliverance” (Habakkuk 2:2).
As never before, what we need is not to declare our allegiance to the Living Word as far as the publications are concerned. Our best support of them is to see them exactly in the light of God’s intention and purpose for them. It is to bring Him into people’s lives. It is to bring light. It is to open up truths.
People say, “I read about that in the Scriptures many times, but I never saw it. But this Word flashed a little light upon it and I went back into the Word, and it came alive to me all over again.” It is the Living Word that brings Christ into your life. He is the Living Word (John 1:1). There is no Living Word apart from Christ, and there is no Christ apart from His Living Word.
We know that a double portion of blessing can come through the Word; but as we are before the face of the Lord in intercession, we will see how a double portion of judgment can come to remove those things that are our impasses. We must see judgment come to the things that try to cripple or stop the little lambs with their tender faith, the things that come in opposition to the Word until there is confusion. Where confusion reigns, the edge is taken off the people’s faith, and they wander through many dealings and problems that they would not need to experience otherwise.
There is no adequate ministry unless we love the sheep as Christ loved them. When the time came for Jesus to test Peter’s love (John 21), Jesus asked him, “Peter, do you love Me?” When Peter answered, “Yes,” Jesus said, “Then feed My lambs” (verse 15). “Tend My sheep” (verse 16). “Feed My sheep” (verse 17). In verses 15 and 17, the Greek word bosko is used, meaning “to feed, to pasture.” But in verse 16, the Greek word poimaino is used, which means “to tend, as a shepherd.” Jesus was saying, “Feed My sheep. Give them a Word. Lead them into the pastures. Take care of them.” The use of the word “tend” opens the door for us to see something in that Scripture which we ought to see right now.
God does not want the leaders just to feed you and set a lot of food before you. But He does want them to be shepherds, to lead you where you can feed upon it yourself. In other words, the shepherds must teach the sheep to feed themselves upon the pastures that are prepared for them. They must impart to the sheep, lead them, expose them to the Word. They tend them in the sense that they are really shepherding and watching over them and protecting them from the wolves. This is always a very important function.
People come and go; but those who stay under the word have their whole lives changed and transformed, and have an openness to God that they never would have had otherwise. They admit quite freely, “My life would have been a disaster, an utter failure, if it had not been for the Living Word.” Those who are still here, still exposed to the Word, have an opportunity to believe for that same miracle today and tomorrow and the next day.
Just as Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), so also is His Word eternal. He said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5:18, KJV.
We must enter into a new level of intercession in which we say, “Lord, now behold the threatenings. Behold all of the things that come against us. Lord, Thy will is going to be done. Grant Thy servants boldness to speak the Word more boldly than ever before, and to proclaim that Word until people come into the reality of it” (Acts 4:29–31).
The Lord does not want people who can just quote Scriptures; He wants people who are living epistles, read and known of all men (II Corinthians 3:2–3). That is when the Word really succeeds in what it is in power.
A walk with God is not a prescribed course of exercise that you follow day by day. A walk with God is an intimate oneness with Him that is based upon a communion with Him, a feeding upon His Word.
“It is not how much I read of the Scriptures, but how much of it I digest. I am going to read it until I find myself assimilating Christ, whether I have to read half a day, or only five minutes. When I have fed upon the Lord, then I have truly read the Word.”
Hear the living Word messages with this one determination: You are going to feast upon the Lord. In some way you are going to partake of Him. He is going to be your food, your bread. You are going to eat of the Lord, eat of His Word. He is going to become very real to you.
It is not enough to read the Word; you have to eat it. The prophet said, Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. Jeremiah 15:16a, KJV. There will be no joy without eating that Word. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” John 15:11.
You cannot have a spiritual life independent from Christ’s Word, or separate from it.
The Lord loose you into a full acceptance, a full openness in your heart, in the name of the Lord, to receive a new understanding of the purity of the Word of God that is coming. The issues before every one of us are not carnal; our battles are not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). The Word is where the warfare is now; and the Word is also where the Kingdom is now.
In the name of the Lord, we loose ourselves into that Word which God has given us, into that which He has made real to us. We refuse to let the Living Word become a conflict of doctrines or a carnal issue. We refuse just to dwell upon principles. We want it all to be alive in us! We do not want the theory of a New Testament Church; we want to be a New Testament Church. We do not want the theories and ideas of the Kingdom; we want to be the Kingdom. We want to possess it as a gift from God.
“But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:31–32.
Give us the Kingdom, Lord! God, Thy Word come. Loose us from divorcing truth from Christ and having only a shell of the truth. Lord, Thou art resurrection. Thou art life. Thou art salvation. Thou art the Word of God. Thou art the King of kings. Thou art the Kingdom. Thou art the Lord and Christ forever. We loose our hearts to see You, Lord. And we shall see that fullness is in You. Nothing exists apart from You. There is no truth except You, Lord.
We cannot speak the truth unless we speak in Christ, and we speak in love. Oh, we open our hearts to receive it! Now, by impartation, we receive it in the name of the Lord!
We extend the blessing to all the little flock everywhere that are reaching into the Living Word, that are struggling, some like little lambs not knowing how to go. We bless all of the young elders and shepherds who are coming up to diligently feed the flock. Their hearts are set not to be professionals, but to be just one of the flock, shepherding and tending the sheep, taking care of them, loving them as the Lord loves them. Help them, Lord! Bless them in that. Open the door for them to walk in it fully, in the name of the Lord.
If you receive the Word of God, you do more than think God’s thoughts and truths with Him; you receive an impartation of God Himself.
The test of the Living Word is: does it impart Christ Himself and His life?
You have hid the Living Word in your heart. Do you know how much dynamite in the Spirit is there?
The Living Word comes because God is making His Word alive to this generation.
Judgments will come in the world because God gave His Word and it was rejected.
A walk with God is based upon His guidance and communion and feeding upon His Word.