If you carry deep guilt and self-condemnation for stumblings or falterings along the way, look for the cause of them. Those failures were probably only symptoms of a deep-rooted unbelief in the Word. Believe the Word over you, for the Living Word is the issue, not the weakness of your flesh.
There is nothing more deadly than the guilt and self-condemnation that people walk under. It is so important that we grasp this message on guilt and self-condemnation. This is a pure Word from the Lord with deep impartation and creative power to create in us the very mind of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ in each one of us.
We will be studying I Timothy, chapter one, verses 18 to 20. While this passage deals with the ministry, it deals also with the ministries who make shipwreck—the ones who do not make it. This is important because there are people who feel that they have not made it, and they become discouraged. They feel, “I failed God, so I am out of everything now. There is nothing more that I can do.” This will give them an answer.
I Timothy 1:18: This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight.
When we refer to spiritual warfare, it is important to understand the nature of the fight. When people talk about being in warfare, about being defeated, about being withdrawn and all of those things, what they are really saying is just one thing: It is a battle of faith in the Word (Philippians 1:27–28; I Timothy 6:12).
There is no other answer. Notice that Paul said that the prophecies come so that by them you might fight a good ight. You may say, “I’m going to do the best I can.” That may be a good way to be defeated. Faith says that the battle is over. Faith says that Christ won it. Faith says, “The Lord said it; therefore, it will come to pass” (Isaiah 55:11). Faith says, “All authority in heaven and earth is in Him (Matthew 28:18), and I refuse any defeat because of Satan, or adverse circumstances, or anything else.”
Any defeat that you face in spiritual warfare comes because you are not believing.
The Jews asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” John 6:28b–29.
There is nothing else. If you do not believe that, then you waver. That is why Satan will try to make you focus on people. When you get your eyes on people, you get them off the Word.
If you look to a leader or a pastor or someone else, you will begin to be critical, to murmur and complain. All of these are symptoms of the fact that your focus is not on the Word (I John 2:5; John 14:23–24). If you believe the Word, you do not have to be troubled by any problem. What difference do the problems make? You are believing God. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His Word will not pass away (Matthew 24:35). You will see a lot of good things happen when you believe the Word.
Speaking of the prophecies that had come, Paul continued, … that by them you may fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience (now he begins to deal with this thing of self-condemnation), which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. The shipwreck came about because they did not maintain the faith. If you maintain the faith and a good conscience, you are all right. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. I Timothy 1:18–20.
When a person makes shipwreck, he could easily go into blasphemy. He could fall back so far that he blasphemes the Holy Word that he has heard. This is what Satan wants. You are a people who have had much commission and impartation to you already; and if you do not hold all of that, but you turn against it, then the next thing you will be doing is going against the Word. And if you go against the Word, that is blasphemy. These two men were turned over to Satan for destruction, because their blaspheming the Word was with a great deal of force (I Timothy 1:20).
More than I dread all of the antichrists and false prophets out there, I dread the blasphemy of those who blaspheme the Living Word that they have heard (Acts 20:26–32). It is deadly because it affects those who have an openness to or some degree of oneness with that one who blasphemes the Word.
This message is so important because we must deal with this thing of guilt and self-condemnation. First of all, we must understand the nature of the battle. The battle is not over your flesh; it is over the Word.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” Genesis 3:1.
You say, “I really love the Word, but I am so condemned. I know I have failed, but I love the Word. The Living Word is the only thing that ever reached my heart. That Living Word has come to my heart and I believe it. I know it is of God, but I have confusion.”
Why?
“Because I slipped the other day and I went back to old habits. I got involved with a wrong relationship. I have lost out with God now.”
Self-condemnation comes when you withdraw a little, or perhaps you do or say things you should not. You are overwhelmed with guilt, with self-condemnation. You feel, “How can I ever look to the Lord?” Just do some repenting, because the basic problem was not what you did; the problem was a lack of faith in the Word. If you had held to your faith in the Word, you would have been all right. But even now, if your faith remains in the Word, you will still come out all right.
Peter was in that position. Jesus told him, … Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted (turned around), strengthen thy brethren. Luke 22:31–32, KJV. After Peter denied the Lord three times and Jesus turned and looked at him in that moment of trial, he went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:54–62); but he still had faith. Jesus had prayed that his faith fail not. And I can pray for you that your faith fail not. You can pray for one another that your faith fail not.
What about the sin of Peter? Wasn’t it a terrible thing that he did, denying the Lord? Yes; but Christ chose not to make it a crucial incident in Peter’s life, and we never hear it brought up to him again. On the day of the Lord’s resurrection, one of the first things that was reported to the disciples was, “Christ is risen, and has appeared to Peter” (Luke 24:34). The Lord had a love for Peter that never stopped. And Peter had a love and a faith in the Lord that never stopped. It did not take much to restore him, because his denial was like an isolated incident. It was unrelated to the whole plan of his life and the whole of his dedication. It was unrelated to all that he was going to do and all that God had for him. The Lord did not allow Peter to be destroyed with self-condemnation.
You can be in the place where you say, “Oh, I prophesy, and I am going to move in the gifts; I am really set to go. But every time I start, I remember some things I have done that I should not have done, or things I have said that I should not have said.” God can make them like an isolated incident; He can simply wipe them out.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:10–12.
These transgressions do not need to have any permanent effect on your life. They do not need to have any permanent input in the way you live. Falling into something like that does not mean that it has to be a habit or a state of life. It could be treated as an isolated incident. Where the danger really comes is when you waver in faith afterwards, and you say, “Well, this does it. All God’s Words to me are forfeited. Everything God ever spoke goes out the window; all the tapes I have listened to do not matter now. All the prophecies over me do not matter now, because I failed God once.”
You may even have had this happen for a period of time. I have seen people leave for a while and maybe be gone for months. Then they come back in, pick up and go on with God. The restoration takes a little bit of time, but it does not mean that God has rejected you. It just means that you got your eyes off the Word that God had spoken and you began to drift; you began to wander (Matthew 14:28–31).
Notice how Paul said this: This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight. I Timothy 1:18.
It is by the prophecies that you fight the fight of faith. It is by the Word. If you get your mind off what God said and you focus on your various circumstances and tests and trials, then you will do just exactly what the Israelites did in the wilderness: you begin to murmur and complain (Numbers 13:1–2, 30; 14:1–4, 6–11). You forget your destiny; you forget the promises of Canaan. You forget all the good things that God has done; and you murmur and complain, wishing that you had never gotten involved with it. And that kind of sin—where you do not keep faith and a good conscience—is what will cause you to make shipwreck like those two men whom Paul had to put under judgment so they would learn not to blaspheme. They had gone that far against the Word, and that is why they could be delivered to Satan for destruction (I Timothy 1:20).
None of you are blaspheming the Word; you are not standing up and swearing by Satan that this Word is not true. But you may be saying, “I made mistakes and I cannot get over it.” Guilt and self-condemnation linger where there has not been the proper repentance. If you repented deeply enough, they would be gone.
I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. II Corinthians 7:9–11.
And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. II Timothy 2:24–26.
“Well, I’ve repented of those mistakes.”
But you did not repent of the cause. The weeds grew in your garden, and so you went out with clippers and clipped them all down. Don’t you know the root could still be there, and next week the weeds will grow back up again? You may have obliterated the manifestation and tried to think differently, but what was the real root of your sin?
“Well, it was fornication. It was drugs. It was withdrawal. It was things I said.”
Those things were not the root. They were the branches and the fruit. The root was that you wavered in your faith in the Word. If you had not wavered, those things would not have happened.
“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree rotten, and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit.” Matthew 12:33.
Paul said to Timothy, “Keep faith; keep your heart. This command I entrust to you, that in accordance with these prophecies you fight the good fight. It’s by the prophecies; it’s by the Word, keeping faith and a good conscience” (I Timothy 1:18–19).
Even with our stumbling, a good conscience can be maintained without self-condemnation. Some of the people who have the best conscience in the world are stumbling around half the time. But they are not wavering on the Word; they keep pressing in. They may get knocked down, but they keep a good conscience because the Word is what they are focused on.
Does this mean that you can be excused to do anything you want to do? No, it means that you look upon sin as the result of unbelief. Sin is a matter of unbelief.
The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin. Romans 14:22–23.
Your faith has to be in the Word.
We are talking about guilt and self-condemnation. Guilt and self-condemnation may only be dealing with the leaves and the fruit. The real root, which you must see, is this, “O God, I have sinned against You, because I have not believed Your Word.” In the fifty-first Psalm, which was David’s psalm of repentance, he said something that is very difficult to understand.
Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned.… Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Psalm 51:4, 6.
If David was repenting because of the sin he had committed against Uriah the Hittite in taking his wife Bathsheba and then having him killed (II Samuel 11), then why did he say, “Against Thee, and Thee only, have I sinned”? It was true that he had sinned against people, but the real basis was that he had sinned against the Lord in not believing Him. He had wavered in his faith. If he had not wavered in his faith, the other things would not have happened.
You say, “I was not wavering in faith, but I did slip a little.”
Then you were wavering in faith. Face that. And your repentance has to be because you were doubting what God said. But if you get back on the main track with real repentance and say, “Lord, I am going to believe You; I am never going to waver again in what You tell me; I am going to stand true to that Word” (Proverbs 4:4–6), then the Lord will bless you. And the thing that you have done can be considered an isolated incident. It can be compared to having some poison in your bloodstream and developing a pimple or a boil. There is something wrong someplace, but the boil is not the thing that is wrong. The root of it could be an infection, or a virus, or something else; and the treatment might be to correct your way of eating, or maybe you will have to take an antibiotic. Maybe there is some area where you are not taking faith to believe God in the warfare and for the immunity that He has given. And you will not cease to be troubled until you do take faith.
Self-condemnation and guilt will not help in this matter, because that is not an honest approach that will bring an answer. There has to be something more than guilt and self-condemnation. There has to be a digging deep to find out what it is that we are not believing God for, and there has to be a repenting because we are not believing the Word. I hope this is getting through to you, because I want to shift your attention away from the things that you stumble at, and get it right down to the thing that could cause the problem which would be more disastrous than just the symptoms you are going through now. This has to be understood.
Many people have failed at a moment of testing and trial, only to get up and go on again. I did that one time. I came to a test and I failed; and I grieved. I said, “Well, I am out. I am all through. I am washed up. That is the end of the ministry.” But the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “No, that isn’t true. You did not cross the river this time; but I will bring you to the river again.” After that I went through a very severe sickness on a trip to Iowa. When I got there I was so weak that I could hardly stand up, because I had been hemorrhaging for days. As I was leaning against a table in the church, the anointing came and I began to heal the sick ones. That night the Lord spoke to me, “You crossed the river this time.” I kept on trusting Him ever since; I continued to minister to the sick.
There may be times when you come to the river and fail to cross it. But you will come back to it. You will come back because the Lord is concerned for you. He has a lot invested in you. He loves you so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die for you (John 3:16). That is how much the Father loves you. He is not going to abandon you just because you are a failure (Deuteronomy 31:6). He is not going to abandon you; He has an investment in you. What He wants to do is bring forth a son. So instead of saying, “Well, look how much I have failed,” get right down to the thing that will bring the victory: your faith in the Word.
There are people who have done a lot of things wrong, yet they are still walking on with God. There are also some who have stumbled just a little bit, and it was disastrous. They accepted it as a final thing, when all it was was just a boil erupting, indicating, “There is something wrong; correct it.”
The whole thing is that the Word has to become the focus, and that is the basis of the successful warfare. Paul said the same thing. He told Timothy, Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. II Timothy 2:3. He went on to tell what it is like (verses 4–6). Then in the fourth chapter he told how he had fought a good fight and finished the course and kept the faith.
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. II Timothy 2:3–4.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. II Timothy 4:6–8.
I am deeply impressed with this revelation: In the warfare (Ephesians 6:12 says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers), in fighting Satan, we must be aware of his devices (II Corinthians 2:11). One of the first things recorded in the Scripture was the devil coming to Eve and saying, “Hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1.) The great victory that Jesus won over Satan in the wilderness came when He answered, “It is written” (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10). The relationship to God was lost by mankind because they doubted what God had said, and they listened to the lie of Satan about it. But Jesus Christ won the victory over Satan when He said, “It is written. It is written. It is written.” He came against Satan with the Word, and He prevailed. He did not stop to argue issues; He did not stop to look at the situation. When Satan offered Him all the kingdoms of the world if He would bow down and worship him, Christ did not stop to say, “The kingdoms of this world are not under your power.” Instead, He said, “… it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ” Matthew 4:10. He did not compromise for one moment. That is why He has the name written, “The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13; John 1:1, 14).
The Living Word is the seal and the mark of the victors and the conquerors. Revelation 12:11 says, “They overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.” That Word is in their mouth; it is the thing they confess before God. They confess the good confession.
Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I Timothy 6:12.
They believe God. They say, “God’s Word is the truth,” even when things look different. No matter what is coming against them, they stand on the Word.
Psalm 105:19 says about Joseph, Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.
The Word always tests us. The testing, the warfare, is always over the Word. It is not over the lust of the flesh, because if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). But when you stop walking in the Spirit, and you stop following the Word, then you slip down to an old level and you say, “I must be in trouble because it looks as if old things are reviving in my life.” No, you are just getting back into the flesh, and the input of the world round about you always produces that same thing of the flesh. The flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that you cannot do the things that you would (Galatians 5:17). You have to walk in the Spirit so that you do not fall back into that level.
I am trying to help you, because the thing that happens with some of you who were dug up out of a pit is that you always tend to go back to the thing that you came out of. The first thing that happens when somebody gets discouraged and quits is that he goes right back to the exact same habits which God had delivered him from. Peter expressed it a little differently and said, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.” II Peter 2:22b. That is just about what it amounts to. But when you find yourself drawn back into that, just realize, “Uh-oh, I am in danger. I am not wholly following the Word of the Lord.”
This was the thing that brought Caleb through. He wholly followed the Word (Numbers 14:24). It brought Joshua through also. God told him, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” Joshua 1:8a. He never got his eye off that Word. He faced thirty-one nations mightier than he (Joshua 12); but he conquered them all and brought them all down because he never stopped thinking about the Word. The war was not against thirty-one nations. The war was this: Could he be distracted from that Word, that he would not give himself to it day and night? Or would he walk with that Word never departing out of his mouth?
If you really receive this Word, you will always have the key of victory. We will overcome by that wonderful word of testimony and by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11). This message will eliminate guilt and condemnation and will enable you to say, “I’m going to the root of this thing. What am I doubting? What am I rejecting? What Word has God spoken that I am not really listening to?” And then when you find that out, get rid of that unbelief. The minute that unbelief is gone, everything else starts shaping up.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. I John 2:16–17a, KJV.
But what about the Word? “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35. What a contrast! We hold to that Word.
I loose you from guilt. I loose you from self-condemnation (Romans 8:1). Where you have wavered in faith, I loose you into the deep, penetrating revelation of the Spirit. You do not need to come up and say, “Pray for me because I’m weak in the flesh.” Who is not weak in the flesh? Everyone’s flesh is flesh. That is all it is. But we come to God, and we have hands laid on us, that there will be a new revelation.
You say, “But I have had a lot of confusion.”
That is because you do not have revelation.
“I have a lot of withdrawal.”
That is because you do not have revelation. Come to the place where you say, “It is not opinions; it is not what this person or that person says.” When the Lord asked Peter, “Whom do you say that I am?” Peter replied, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Flesh and blood did not reveal that to him, but the Father in heaven; and the gates of hell would not prevail against that revelation (Matthew 16:13–18). When the Living Word comes to your heart, it has to be a revelation. God brought that revelation to your heart and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it either (Matthew 16:18). They won’t prevail against the Word, if you will believe that Word.
“Well, I am having trouble.”
Then go back to the Word over you. Get back to the Living Word. Get into the Scriptures. Do some digging in.
Has this Word relieved a great deal of the pressure in your mind which condemns you that you are a reprobate, that you can never attain sonship and that you are never going to do God’s will? This Word will sustain you as long as you live.
The self-guilt and self-condemnation have to go. Just repent of one thing: “O God, I am sinning against You when I do not believe Your Word.” Recognize the awfulness of that sin and repent of that, instead of letting the devil defeat you and stomp on you because of anything—anything—that has happened in your life.
It is not important. I don’t care what you have done; I don’t care what the devil has tried to tell you that you are. It doesn’t matter, if you will come back with faith in the Word and you believe that Christ died for you; if you believe that chosen place which you have in Him; if you keep that faith. You will come up out of the hole of despondency, and you will walk with God, because you are putting your faith in His Word.
Peter opened the door of a new age on the day of Pentecost, and yet just fifty days before, he had denied the Lord (Acts 2:14; Luke 22:54–62). Imagine that! With a record like that he still came forth as the apostle who opened the door to the whole Church Age. How did he do it? Jesus said, “I have prayed for you that your faith fail not” (Luke 22:32). Peter’s faith did not fail. It was still there. What he did caused him to go out and weep bitterly, but his sin was absolved.
Do you believe that there can be real release for you too? This Word will give you a freedom to prophesy and to speak the Word again. You can do it.
If someone asks, “But didn’t you have a time of real defeat not long ago?” just answer, “Yes, but that doesn’t matter. I have my eyes on the Lord. I have my eyes on the Word. My guilt is gone. The self-condemnation is gone because I got at the real heart of my problem. I am on my way now.”
Our battle is with unbelief more than with the weaknesses of the flesh. Our faith is our strength, but our unbelief is the root of the flesh’s transgressions.
Believe God’s Word and the war is won; doubt it and you will have a thousand battles to fight.
Only two things will be permanent: The Word of God you believe, or the problems of the flesh.
Your basic problem is usually not what you did, but your lack of faith in His Word.
Little failures should never lead you to abandon your faith in the Word, but to renew it.
Don’t abandon God’s Word and He will never abandon you.
Don’t carry on your back the load of past failures, when faith in His Word will bring victory to today and forever.
Condemnation focuses on our weaknesses, but deep repentance of our unbelief shifts our focus to the Word God has spoken.