I recently had a revelation of the Lord, and it was so real to me that I wept for hours. God gave me a revelation of what He is really like, and I had to repent over the fact that I have had such a misconception, in some ways, of the Heavenly Father. I had a funeral, and I buried my concept of God; I buried the image of God that I had that was wrong.
We have quoted the following passage many times because it talks about the rain, the spiritual rain even as Joel prophesied (Joel 2:23), that will come to the people of God, that holy remnant in the end time.
“Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” Hosea 6:1–3.
Hosea was prophetically speaking of the fact that the Church would go into an eclipse, in a sense, for two thousand years. This happened, and only in recent times has the Lord started to revive the Church. It has been only in the last few hundred years that the real reviving of the Church has taken place. Hosea prophesied, “And on the third day we will live in His sight.” In this age to come, we will be living before His sight. “So,” the Scripture says, “let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” This is very, very necessary. The people of God are not to seek for signs, nor are they to seek for various things in the way of some mystical powers or gifts; they are to seek to know the Lord.
“Let us press on to know the Lord. Then He will come to us like the rain, falling on us.” Concerning this, it says, “His going forth is as certain as the morning.” You cannot prevent His coming forth in manifestation in this end time any more than you can hold back the dawn. He will come to us as the rain.
I have found my heart crying this prayer: “O Lord, that I may know You.” Throughout his writings, John spoke so much about that. He was so concerned about knowing the Lord (John 7:27–29; 8:19, 28; 10:4; 14:17; 17:3; I John 2:3; 3:2; 5:20). Paul wrote about the same thing: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). Moses cried that he might behold the glory of the Lord (Exodus 33:18), but this cry is even greater. It’s the cry to know the Lord, to come to really know Him in your heart. And I found my own heart reacting the same way, especially since the Lord dealt with me. I came to see something about the Heavenly Father that I had not known before—or if I had known it, it had never registered in my mind. I had been going along on my way praying to the Father, and I had a certain image of what He was and how He responded and moved; and I was so wrong. I realized that I was as guilty as a heathen who had made an idol—because I had a false image of God. That was not true so much concerning my image of Christ or my image of the Holy Spirit; but the image I had of the Father was wrong. I am mindful of the Words God spoke in Exodus 20.
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:2–6.
This first commandment expressly forbade an idol or an image of God being made. Since the time when I realized the broad scope of that passage, I have refused to have a picture—an artist’s concept—of Jesus Christ in my home. I have refused to have a crucifix, or a picture of Jesus Christ according to some artist’s concept. The Word says, “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.” II Corinthians 5:16b. I am not picturing Jesus hanging on a cross, or in the days when He was limited by His humanity. He dwells in a light that no man can approach (I Timothy 6:16); He is exalted at the right hand of the Father and full of glory (Acts 2:33; Philippians 2:9–11). I determined not to have a false concept of Jesus Christ in my mind. So my consternation was great when I began to find that I had to repent of having an image of the Father that was wrong. This is going to shake you a little, too, because when you get through this message, you are going to be praying differently than you have prayed in the past. There will be no more prayers of petition and begging as though God the Heavenly Father were sitting up there on the throne ready to arbitrarily answer you!
The most startling thing I have ever heard was the voice of the Spirit saying, “Do not ask as you have asked, for God will give you nothing more. He has already given you all things” (II Peter 1:3). Somehow I had not understood the greatness of the Father. I had not seen the total thing that He had wrought in Christ. His intervention into things is not the way I had thought it is—that because somebody is down here praying, God arbitrarily makes a decision to move in on a situation. That is not so.
A man cannot go up to a banker and say, “Please, dear banker, I need a dollar; give me a dollar,” and expect that banker to give him a dollar. But if you have a checkbook in your pocket and the deposit has been made, and you write a check and present it to the banker, you will not get just a dollar; you will get as much as you want. It is there on deposit for you. I defy you to go up and ask a banker, “Give me a hundred dollars.” He will say, “What are you, a crook? Are you a robber? Are you a beggar?” But if you say, “No, I’m a depositor,” he will say, “All right, fill out this check and I’ll give you the money.”
This truth began to hit me so forcibly—God is not going to move the way I thought. I went into this period and I began to weep. I wept over the frustration of the years in this walk during which I have prayed for things to happen, for certain doors to open. I have prayed for the liberation of the apostolic company. I have prayed for the liberation of the churches. I have prayed for us to move into the dominion over the material realm. I have prayed for all of these things. But that moment I stopped praying for them.
I realized this: The responsibility is not resting upon God to answer my prayers; the responsibility is resting upon me to believe and appropriate it. It dawned on me! I had been so frustrated in what I had been doing. I became furious with myself because I realized that all this time I was walking in only a small percentage of what God had provided for me—simply because I did not see the provision. I did not see how totally and completely it had been provided. What a false image to have of God—to see Him as “Santa Claus” passing out presents! What a wrong concept we can have in our minds about the loving Father.
Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience. Hebrews 4:1–11.
On the seventh day of creation God rested, and there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. What does that Sabbath rest mean? It means that we cease from our labors. “Therefore,” it says, “let us labor (’be diligent,’ NASB) to enter into His rest, to cease from the labor and the struggle and the striving.” There are people who almost blaspheme God by the way they intercede, by their ways of intercession. We must go back and find the missing pieces. What we taught on intercession was right; there is a way of crying unto the Lord and calling unto the Lord. But there is also such a misconception as believing that you are earning it, or laboring for it, instead of just violently releasing the thing that is really yours!
His works were finished from the foundation of the world. Hebrews 4:3. Is there any Scripture which actually says that Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Is there any Scripture which tells us that He really did foreknow us? and says that those whom He foreknew, He has also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son? Is there? Read Revelation 13:8 and Romans 8:29. Does this mean that God actually had the thing all planned out? that before the foundations of the world were laid, He knew all about you and had made every provision for you, and that as far as the Father is concerned, even the redemptive work of His Son was already finished in His heart? that His whole plan for your life was finished, completed? Do you believe that? Do you? Then why do you pray as you do? Why do you act like a beggar instead of an heir? (Galatians 3:29; Romans 8:17; James 2:5.) Why do you pray as though the decisions and answers to your petitions were yet to be made? This way of prayer has to change. We have to sense the destiny and the provision of our position in God.
Hebrews 10:8–14: After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast not desired, nor hast Thou taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Thy will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. (He was talking about the old covenant and the new.) By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
Did you get that? For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Verse 14. The margin reads, “those who are ‘being sanctified.’ ”
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us … Verse 15. The Holy Spirit is bearing witness to this. The Holy Spirit is working to make all of this a reality to us, but what we need to see right here is that as far as the Father is concerned, and as far as Jesus Christ is concerned, the major aspects of our whole redemption are completed.
Ephesians 1:14 (KJV) says that God has given us the long-promised Holy Spirit, Which is the earnest (or the down payment) of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. This means that God gives us the Holy Spirit as the first taste of all that is ours to come. The Holy Spirit then comes with the express mission of taking all that the Father has given the Son (Jesus said, “All things are Mine”), and showing it, manifesting it, to us.
“He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” John 16:14–15.
There is something faulty in the way we let the Holy Spirit lead us, and in the way we think of the Holy Spirit. We still are not getting the right idea. Hebrews 10:14 says, concerning Christ, “He made one sacrifice that forever perfected the saints.”
The Father had finished the works before the foundation of the world, and in due course of time Jesus came, manifesting the fullness of the provision. Only one aspect of it remains in continuance: His intercession—“He ever lives to make intercession for us” (Hebrews 7:25).
This, too, is in the plan of God, because all of you—even the shepherds (this will humble you)—are still in such a carnal state that the Father cannot look upon you, at this particular stage of the work of redemption in you, with favor. So He still has to have someone who is ever living to make intercession for you. Isn’t that beautiful? “Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.” That is just because God knew that He needed someone worthy to plead for us. He loves us so much; but He also foresaw the problem that He could not look upon our sinful state, even as believers. So He not only sent His Son to redeem us, but to ever live to make intercession for us, to pray for us all the time.
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I John 2:1, KJV.
He is right there, seated alongside the Father to plead our case, to help us, to bring mercy to us. “By one sacrifice, then, He has forever—for all time—perfected them that are sanctified.” This means that every one of us has, in the divine provision of God for us, more than we realize. Isaiah 53:5 says, “By His stripes we are healed”; but when Peter quoted it, he said, “By His stripes we were healed” (I Peter 2:24). It has already taken place; at the whipping post it happened. The provision has been made. It is unequaled. Think of it. Somehow we must realize that as far as the Father and the Son are concerned, it has been worked out; there is not one thing wanting or lacking in the perfect provision for us. Is He concerned about us? Yes. Does He know all our needs? Yes.
I am going to tell you something that may sound like heresy: There are times that we feel sorry for ourselves and think, “Well, I’ve prayed, but I guess the Lord is just putting me through this to teach me something,” when that is not the case at all. Name something you have learned from it. Most of the time you do not learn much when you are going through those things. But there is one lesson you could learn. You would not have needed to go through nine-tenths of the things that you have gone through if you had known how to appropriate from God an answer. It was there for you, and it was your fault that you did not claim it.
This ticket to glory includes all meals, all tips, and every kind of service. It is all in the ticket. If you sit down in the hold eating cheese and crackers, it is your own fault.
There are people who go around saying, “I don’t believe that I can be healed. I don’t believe the Lord is going to fill me with the Spirit. I don’t think the Lord has gifts for me. I don’t believe He has prophecy, revelation, or any of the signs and wonders for today.” All right, then what does He have? “Well, I believe that by the blood of Jesus, when I die I’ll go to heaven.” Fine. If that is all you believe, then suffer. Grin and bear it, brother; because that is all you are going to get.
But on the other hand, you can believe so much that you get yourself in deep involvements. You say, “I believe that the Lord overcame, on my behalf, principalities and powers.” Do you really believe that? If you do, then tomorrow the principalities and powers will be around, and you can apply it! Do you believe that there is spiritual warfare, and that in it Christ has given us every provision? (Ephesians 6:12–18.) “Oh, I believe that!” Good! Then put on your armor, because it is going to work—and by spiritual warfare is the way it is going to work.
We came into this walk anticipating the restoration of many things, and it is happening. We prayed to the Lord. People had hands laid on them, gifts were prophesied, ministries were directed, and then everything seemed to fall apart for them—the bottom falls out and problems come. Is the laying on of hands and prophecy real? Yes, it is real; that is the proof. Are you going to believe what is yours? You had better believe, because you are going to inherit His blessings by faith.
We read in Hebrews 4 that the Word spoken did not profit them (the Israelites), because it was not united with faith in those who heard it (Hebrews 4:2). If you really believe the Word that has been spoken, it is united by faith in you. Faith unites that Word to you until it is indelibly written on your heart. Every Scripture is etched on your very soul, and you believe it. Then you can act upon it.
As a boy, I used to hear many statements made by the religious teachers of that day. Those statements misled me. That is part of what I have had to bury—some of the teachings of men that I read. One man said, “It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who is wholly sold out to the Lord.” That may be so, but that is like trying to back into a battle wrong-end-first. This thing is not being done because of just how much you are capable of giving yourself over to the Lord. This is something we are going to have to get hold of. We used to think, “If I just sell out to the Lord—pray and seek the Lord—if I give everything over, then the Lord will fill me with the Holy Spirit.” I found out that that was not so. I found out that many people were receiving the Holy Spirit who were not too dedicated—they just reached into it and took hold of it. They were not especially dedicated yet. So, I learned that that teaching does not really hold water.
The world is not waiting to see what happens when a man is wholly sold out to God; the world is waiting to see what is going to happen when a man really believes God!
In the first place, you are not capable of being sold out to God without faith to appropriate that. “By one sacrifice He forever perfected them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
That perfection is going to come by what God did for you, not by what you can come up with. I am not very much a believer in man’s faithfulness; but I believe in His faithfulness.
The real breakthroughs come when a man just hangs on to God. I have seen some people who seemed to be real losers make it because they just hang on to the Lord; and at the same time a lot of good, substantial people are just washed out, one right after another, because they are not really clinging to the Lord in faith.
The whole purpose of the Holy Spirit’s ministry is to constantly make us aware of what the Lord has for us. There is no other Scripture that shows this as well as the second chapter of I Corinthians.
But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. Verses 7–10.
We are not going to know these depths of God—we are not going to know much about the Lord’s provision or the Heavenly Father’s great plan and concern for us-except that the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. That is why we still have misconceptions. We are not trusting the Lord for revelation to come to us of what the Father really is. It comes through the Spirit, “for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of God.”
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Verse 11. Did you get that? Nobody really knows God’s thoughts but the Spirit.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. Verses 12–14.
This means that there is no hope of God being known of any man unless the Holy Spirit is the agency of revelation. There is no other way that we will come to know what the fullness of Christ is and what His provision is. Jesus said, “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He” (the Spirit) “takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” John 16:15.
There is no way that we are going to come to understand God or the depths of God, or to know the thoughts of God, or to know the provision of God or the completeness of that provision, or the experiences involved—there is no way we are going to come to be what we want to be in God and what God plans for us to be—except by the Holy Spirit leading us into it. Ponder this. This is the heart of this message.
The Holy Spirit was given to reveal the depths of God. The Holy Spirit was given to guide us into all truth. Jesus said that in John 16: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth …” Verse 13. This is what the Holy Spirit was given to do. It is a perfect provision.
This is what I saw during this recent period of waiting on the Lord, and it has opened up my prayers. I honestly believe that too many of you are trying to hold up the heavens; you are trying to work something out. You need to enter into His rest (Hebrews 4:11). You need to enter into the completeness of His provision. Face it—some of you are not doing that. Instead, you are trying to hold the heavens up; you are still worrying; you are still fretting; you are still reacting to things. And the reason you have so many troubles is that you do not believe that God has really provided for them. The reason you have needs is that you do not believe in the provision of the Lord. The reason we have illnesses is because we are not believing that by His stripes we were healed (I Peter 2:24).
You may be thinking, “Hey, you’re throwing it back on us now; you’re saying that it’s our fault.” Yes, it is. It is your fault. This, too, is something that we are going to have to open our hearts to. It is our fault. You don’t believe that? Then let me tell you what you will believe: You will go down the road, and in just a few days or weeks or months you will become rebellious because your system has not been working. You will have to come to grips with the fact that you have unanswered prayers, unfulfilled prophecies. There you will be, sweating and working and laboring in the flesh, begging God to do something that He said He has already done.
God is not going to honor the whines of beggars; He is answering the demands of sons and heirs.
He is the banker who says, “No, I won’t give you a hundred dollars—you write a check on it and then you’ll get it.” Are you getting the message? How many of you found that when you were begging for the Holy Spirit, you got nowhere? But when someone told you it was a gift and laid hands on you and said, “Receive,” immediately it happened.
Some of you once said, “Oh, I’ll never be able to prophesy.” Then the elders laid hands on you and said, “Prophesy the Word of the Lord.” You said a few words, and then prophecy began to flow from you.
Consider the sinner who just accepts the finished provision of Jesus Christ. It does not have to be any special decision in heaven; no one has been so bad a sinner that he has to have a special provision of grace that the blood of Christ has not already provided for.
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. I John 2:2.
Simply say, “Thank You, Jesus, I know that You love me. I know the Father loves me. And the Holy Spirit has made real the Word. I take You, Jesus; thank You.” That’s all. Is it that simple? It had better be that simple, because it is not going to work if it isn’t that simple. Otherwise we will all be put in a place where we are going to be crawling on our hands and knees up the steps of the cathedral to kiss Peter’s toe, doing penance or something similar. Let’s beware that we do not turn to something like that. It is grace. It is the free gift of God (Romans 5:15–18). We must start applying this, because there are so many ways that the Holy Spirit can make the things of God real to us.
Too often we hear the Word with hope instead of faith; we say, “Oh, isn’t that wonderful. I wonder when it is going to come to pass?” Instead, we should just violently demand: “That Word is mine. I take it right now! Right now that is mine!” There has to be a sense of appropriation: “I’m going to walk in it. I’m going to do it!”
There comes a time when you look in the Word and you say, “All right, Lord, You are going to be my God. If You say that I am this, then I am going to believe that I am that. If You say that I have this, then I am going to believe that I have it, now. And I am going to look to You for the Holy Spirit to channel Your fullness right through my life. I am not going to look within for inner resources, some hidden depth—no sir! I am just going to believe the Word of the Lord!”
There has to be a better way of appropriating than we have done. There has to be a better way of prayer than we have made.
The whines and groans have to be yanked out of our prayers. There has to be that violent, triumphant shout that plows through satanic walls, claims everything and walks in it, and believes it to be fulfilled in the name of the Lord.
That is why I had a funeral, and that is why I cried. I had to bury a God that had been an image which was not really true. I served a much better God and I did not realize it. I am not a “Philadelphia lawyer” trying to talk God into things; that isn’t to be my prayer life. I don’t have to cry out, “Oohh, God, please answer this prayer!” God put it in me in the first place to even want that: For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13.
You must get away from the attitude that you are trying to talk God into something. Realize that instead, all this time God has been trying to talk you into something, and you have to accept it.
You have to say, “Lord, I’m going to be what You want me to be. I am what You say I am. I’m not going to walk as a beggar. And even when the battle seems to go over me, I’ll take the testings of faith. But I’m not going to accept anything short of the full provision of the Lord.” Suppose you don’t take that attitude—what will happen to you if you don’t believe that? Down the road you will pray, and you’ll go up and you’ll go down. Some days, when things are going well, as you are praying you will think, “I’ve got a hot line to heaven now!” and you’ll feel like you have it made. And on other days when things are not going so well, you will get discouraged within yourself, because you feel that you are waiting for that mystical reaction from God—something that God probably is not going to give you.
I look back over the meetings with the Lord that were prophesied over me, and I remember that they did not come sovereignly, at a certain day and hour; they came when I began to fast and pray, “Lord, there is a promised meeting and I’m going to have it.” Then God came and met me. When the Lord revealed Himself to me, it was not because He had said, “On such-and-such a day I’ll meet you”; the burden was on my heart and I went out to meet the Lord. The Lord will always be there to wrestle with you and meet you (Genesis 32:24–32). Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. James 4:8a, KJV. That is the order in which the Scripture gives it. Move into the promises of the Lord. You can just stand at Jordan’s banks and say, “Well, it’s beautiful land over there in Canaan.” But God said, “You enter in and possess the land that I have given you! I’ve given it—you go possess it” (Joshua 1:3, 11).
“But there are giants and all those other things!” (Numbers 13:28–29.) God says, “I’ve given it to you; that’s enough.” Either believe God or don’t believe Him—one of the two. If you’re going to believe Him, go in and take it.
God is raising up some of you as His ministers, and you are still waiting for something to happen. You can make it happen! If you start thinking about this message, you will make it happen. Are you praying and waiting for God to suddenly bring beautiful visions over you and certain supernatural signs? He has set before you the open door (Revelation 3:8); you enter into it! You walk into it. You do it! This is putting the initiative upon your faith. The initiative is on your faith. Some of you young men want to preach the Word and be shepherds. Are you thinking, “Well, I’m just waiting for somebody who will come along and loose me into it.” Make a nuisance out of yourself. Shove in. Go through all the channels that are set before you, but do it. Move in! Insist! Push in! That is the way you are going to get something. Claim the thing that God has for you. Or are you going to sit on the sidelines, gathering moss? Do you want that? If not, then move in.
Do some praying. I suggest that you begin to repent for the wrong way of prayer that you have had; and that you go over your prophecies and over the Word that God has brought over the whole Body—instead of waiting for some voice from heaven to speak to you again and tell you just exactly how to walk in what was already set before you. Why not get with the things that God has already said? Believe them! Go after that; the initiative is yours.
This is a true walk with God. It is coming forth in the name of the Lord. You say, “But I still want to believe that it is to be in the sovereign will and the timing of the Lord. The Lord has a certain hour in which He is going to do it.”
Don’t believe that! I believe that if God’s people back away from the teaching in this message, it could possibly set the whole thing back a thousand years, until a people come along who will believe it.
Some may say, “But maybe this is a thousand years too soon!” That may be, but we can make it happen anyway. Why? And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. Matthew 24:22a, KJV. That verse is good enough; we’ll stand on that! So let’s make it happen. Begin now to believe God.
People can come along to actually stem the tide of events. In the eighteenth century, France had a great blood bath, the French Revolution, while England was completely spared that—even though up until that time, events in both countries were progressing along a similar course. Several historians actually attribute it to the fact that during the great declension of morals in England, John Wesley preached a Word from God and brought a great revival of faith. England had a John Wesley; the French people did not.
For years people have been saying, “This country is going toward destruction.” What can we do? We can stem the tide. We can move with all of our hearts into everything God has for us—or not. It is up to us.
I don’t like the passivity in people. I deeply resent becoming a victim of circumstances and events, and of people’s conniving and maneuvering. In the course of our lives, these things happen to people. Paul knew that. When he was on his way to Jerusalem, a prophet named Agabus told him what would happen to him there. What was his response? “I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:10–13).
Paul said, But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24, KJV.
I don’t want to be moved by people; I don’t want to be moved by circumstances; I don’t want to be moved by anything except what God says. That is what I want to be moved by. That is what I want to believe.
Faith boils down to one thing: A man has to come to the place where his emotions, his feelings, his spirit are not moved by what he sees, what he hears, what he feels, what he observes round about him, by any conspiracy of circumstances or anything else. Whether abundance or lack, nothing phases him or affects him. He is moved by only one thing: When God has given him a Word, that is the only valid thing in his life. That is what he believes. He is on his way then to appropriate everything God has for him.
“Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut …” Revelation 3:8. You say, “That is nice; I think I’ll make a little plaque of that and put it on the wall!” No, don’t make a plaque; go through the open door! Don’t say, “We have an open door. Isn’t that nice?” Go through the open door, and know that no man can shut it. God will see you through. He has promised; now you get up and move through it. You still have to get up and walk through the door.
This is the meaning of Pentecost. This is what Jesus was saying to the disciples in Acts 1:8: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses …” They prayed, “Lord, bring the Spirit of the Lord upon us,” and the place was shaken. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness! (Acts 4:24–31.)
That boldness is all some of us lack. You say, “Well, I’m timid.” Then be filled with the Spirit. “I don’t know whether I can do it or not; I’m afraid.” Be filled with the Spirit.
Every young person goes through fears. I can remember fears when I was a young man, but I can also remember waiting on the Lord and speaking in tongues, and just falling under the power of God. When I believed that I would have a new filling of the Spirit, I would have a new filling of the Spirit. When I believed that God would give me an open door to preach, I would have it. I remember often sweating and praying in a hot attic, “Lord, open doors. Open doors.” And before the day had passed, some pastor would call, wanting a week of special meetings. That was good; I would have an opportunity to preach the Word. Another door had opened. I prayed and I believed God to open those doors. I believed it. You can say all you want to about “pounding on the altar”; but some of us prayed and expected things to happen, and they did.
We should carry into the Kingdom the same thing. God gave us a Word and promises on an even higher plane. Let’s expect them to happen, and go about believing that it really is going to happen.
There is a humility before God that the kings of the earth count as arrogance. Everyone else on the face of the earth can say to us, “You are the most arrogant, presumptuous people we have ever seen,” but that does not matter; we are intent on God’s Word being fulfilled.
The false humility that we reject is the arrogance that parades itself in a passivity. We move into what God has said. There is a thing within us that is violently committed to the promise of God, that wrestles with God and says, “I will not let You go until You bless me (Genesis 32:26), until You give me the blessing attainable and available according to Your Word.”
The responsibility is not so much upon God to answer our prayers as it is upon us to believe and appropriate what He has already given to us.
God is not Santa Claus passing out presents; but He will cash the checks of faith that draw upon His unlimited provision for us.
The ticket to glory includes all meals, all needs, all things pertaining to life and godliness; if you sit in the hold eating cheese and crackers, it is your own fault.
The world is not waiting to see the man who gives himself to God, so much as it is waiting to see the man who claims what God has given to him.
You can never, never know all that God has for you until His Spirit reveals it all to you.
God does not honor the whines of beggars and cowards, but He does honor the demands of His heirs and sons.
By prayer are you trying to talk God into something? By His Word He is trying to talk you into accepting everything He has given you.
The prayer of faith is not based upon a desperate cry of need, so much as on the promises and provisions God’s Word says ARE OURS.
Faith is violently committed to God’s promises, attainable and available according to His Word.