“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20.
Have you ever asked yourself this question: “How long is this going to take? I believe in the work of the cross, but how long does it take?” That is exactly what this teaching will unfold for you.
Mark 15:22–39 records the crucifixion of Christ. The cross was raised up with Jesus on it at the third hour or nine A.M. (verse 25), and verse 33 says that darkness came over the land from the sixth until the ninth hour, or from twelve noon until three o’clock in the afternoon, as we tell time. The ninth hour is significant because it is the hour of prayer; it was about the ninth hour when Peter and John went up to the temple to pray (Acts 3:1).
The cross experience of our Lord ended at the ninth hour. At three o’clock in the afternoon, the cry came forth, “It is finished” (Mark 15:34, 37; John 19:28, 30). Then the darkness seemed to fade away into the twilight of a sunset. Christ was crucified.
The cross of Christ means so much to us. When we read the New Testament and look into the cross and see what He really did, we find that it was a perfect provision for us.
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. Ephesians 2:13–16.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Colossians 1:19–22.
Having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:14.
The cross is an experience for us, a way that our faith identify with what He did and we can possess it (Galatians 6:14). The greatest appropriation a person can make is to appropriate the work of the cross that Christ accomplished.
It took Christ only six hours to die. The soldiers who came to break the legs of the three who were crucified (John 19:31–33) marveled that He had died so quickly, because people had been known to hang for four to six days on a cross, dying an agonizing death, It took Christ only six hours from the time that He hung there until He said, “It is finished,” and gave up His Spirit. John 19:14–18 indicates that the time might be as little as three hours, that Pilate’s judgment was made at the sixth hour or 12 noon.
Now, let me ask you a question: If it took Christ six hours to die, and in three days He came forth in resurrection, how long is it going to take you to appropriate the work of the cross? How long have you been working at it? There are people who have been working at this for thirty years and they are not dead yet.
If the cross of Christ was a provision for me—a perfect provision because Christ did a perfect work—and I can appropriate it, then why should it take me a lifetime to appropriate what He accomplished in six hours or less?
Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the work of the cross is a process that is to be an interminable or an intermittent or a repeatable experience. The work of the cross as it is proclaimed in the New Testament is to be an experience that happens. It is expandable, I will agree—everything God does for you can grow and expand—but it is to be a definite, exact experience. Don’t miss this point. Every experience in God is expandable, but not necessarily intended to be repeatable.
For instance, you can have a new birth in God (John 3:3–7). But does that mean that every time you slip, you must go back and be born again all over again? That is the old-time religion—you get converted in the spring and again in the fall, or whenever the evangelist comes around. But that is not what we believe. We are not going to make unbelievers out of one another. We are believing that what Christ did on the cross was complete, that He was offered once for all time (Hebrews 7:26–27).
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. Hebrews 10:10–14.
By one offering, He has accomplished it. The provision is perfect. It is something that we can claim just one time and we will receive it for all time. And we are never going to lose it and in faith we are never going to question it. The work of the cross in our life does not have to be an interminable process, so that we always wonder, “Will it ever be finished?”
How many times do we have to leave all to follow Him? (Matthew 19:21.)
How many times do we have to be circumcised? (Colossians 2:10–14.)
How many times do we have to be born again?
(I Peter 1:18–23.)
How many times do we have to be sanctified? (I Corinthians 1:30; 6:11.)
If we are always sanctifying that which is already sanctified, is something wrong?
Why is it that we always are believing something, and yet in our faith we do not completely grasp the completeness of it or the total experience of it? One thing that we do believe is that we are redeemed. Don’t you believe in the blood of Jesus Christ that has taken you from death into life? (Romans 6:3–4.)
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiueness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. Ephesians 1:7–8a.
If you accept that much, then why don’t you accept that what He provided is a total, complete package? By one offering, He forever perfected them that are sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). He intends for us to have it all.
Romans 8:29–30 tells us that those whom God foreknew, He also predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified.
In God’s heart, the provision was perfect. But here is the issue: If Satan can delay you, he can defeat you. If he can get you to postpone the fulfillment of something until you become tolerant of Satan’s hindrance, that is the same as unbelief.
In Romans chapter 1, Paul said that he had purposed often to come to them, but he had been hindered (Romans 1:9–13). In I Thessalonians 2:18, he speaks again about Satan hindering him.
Revelation 10:5–6 says that the angel stands with one foot on land and one foot on sea and swears, “There shall be no more delay.”
We begin to get the idea that we have been acquiescent to Satan’s hindering us. We have consented to it. And when a Word comes and someone says, “Instant appropriation—let’s lay hold of it!” we back off from it because we are conditioned. Our response to positive scriptural declarations of faith is often negative. We back off from them.
I don’t like the idea of being restrained or hindered; I don’t want any more hindrance. I want to find out what it is that hinders us, and I want to get right down to the basic faith where we are claiming His total, complete provision.
I want to win this race, not come in second or third.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. I Corinthians 9:24.
Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call upon Me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.” The margin of the American Standard Version says, “things which are fortified.” Another translation says, “garrisoned.” A literal translation of the Hebrew is “walled off.”
I wonder how many things are held back from us like water in a dam. But God says, “You call on Me, and I will show you these things—great and mighty things that seem to be walled off for you.” Wouldn’t you like to get at those things? Don’t you want to begin to claim those things that you believe are really for you, but which you have not been aggressive in taking right now?
There is something you must see in this. Satan cannot prevent your appropriating the things God has for you, but he surely tries to delay it. Many of the things that you are going to receive Satan knows about. And he will even go along with you and whisper in your ear, “You are going to get that—eventually.” In the meantime, you get warfare from him—immediately. He knows that we usually accept delays; we have learned to live with delays.
Here is a Kingdom Proverb: What God has provided is available and attainable.
We are going to read several Scriptures about this, and we are going to change by them. This is the thing that explodes doctrinal limitations in dispensationalism—it does away with all of it.
But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but is yes in Him. For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him (that is in Christ) they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. II Corinthians 1:18–22.
What is Paul saying here? How many who read the Bible try to relegate the promises it contains into some time slot other than now? Read The Scofield Reference Bible, or Larkin’s Dispensational Truth. Listen to what some of the modern day ministers are preaching. Dispensationalism is an obsolete doctrine that most real believers in the Scriptures should not even believe anymore: “Everything will be ours in the sweet by-and-by. You can’t be perfect now. You can’t claim the covenants of God now. Those Old Testament promises were all for the seed of Abraham, and we just ignore Galatians 3:26–29 which says, ‘Now, we are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise.’ We ignore that as though the promises are only for the circumcision.”
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs according to promise. Galatians 3:29.
Paul wrote, “We are the true circumcision who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). All the promises and Old Testament covenants have been designated in Christ; everything is fulfilled in Christ. And that is what Paul said: “In Christ, it all has its yes, and we say amen to it.
For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. II Corinthians 1:20.
Everything that God has ever provided is available and is to a great extent, if not completely, attainable now.
“What about the blessings of Abraham?”
We are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:26–29). And that was written to Gentiles. They were told, “There is neither bond nor free, neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female.” They needed that teaching because they were beginning to believe that they had to be circumcised and almost become orthodox Jews in order to be Christians, which is not so (Galatians 5:1–8). Christ opened the door for all of us.
Dispensational teaching either evades or delays the fulfillment and the reality of God’s provision until you end up with the philosophy, “Just grin and bear it, and be happy, happy, happy! Love Jesus, but don’t expect too much from Him now.”
But what about believing for perfection?
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who arc sanctified. Hebrews 10:14.
What about attaining to maturity? (Ephesians 4:11–15.)
But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. Ephesians 4:15.
“Oh, we’ll never attain to maturity. We are resigned to the fact that we are just babes. We have an altar call in every Sunday night service. We either convince the people that they have slipped out of the Kingdom and should get born again once more tonight or that they never were in and they had better start tonight. We don’t know how to preach anything else.” Always this is that basic error.
What about presenting every man perfect in Christ Jesus?
And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:28–29.
What about all the things that we should be doing in the Lord?
For we arc His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10.
What about the Kingdom?
“Well, the Kingdom is somewhere.”
The Kingdom of God is now.
Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:20–21.
Who gets it? Is it the big groups? No, it is the little flock who receive it.
“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.
We have it. The Kingdom is ours. And we need to be aware that the nephilim spirit will attempt to hinder, delay, and discourage the appropriation and the experience of God’s provision.
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had speed out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:31–33.
The nephilim spirit works right along with the religious spirit to hinder, delay, and discourage the appropriation and the experience of what God has provided for us. It will hold you back. It will always make you feel that you are nothing; that you never can quite attain what God has provided; that if you work at it, after a while you might be ready to claim it. That is such a lie! You will receive it because you appropriate it, because you just reach up and take it in the name of the Lord.
Let’s look in the Word and see what the Lord really lays before us.
I Corinthians 2:12: 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.
We can know the things that are freely given to us by God. They are freely given—they are ours. We see that same thought expressed in John chapter 16, when Christ spoke about the Spirit of truth.
“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.
The whole purpose or function of the Holy Spirit is to show you constantly how much God provided for you in Jesus Christ, to bring all of those things and show them to you, to just disperse them to you. The Holy Spirit is to take everything that belongs to Christ and give it out, make it freely available.
Are you beginning to realize, “I have to change my thinking; I have unwittingly accepted delays; I have been tolerant of not possessing things that are really mine”?
If Satan cannot instill unbelief in the provision of Christ, he will attempt to instill the acceptance of a prolonged process or a delay, or a spirit of resignation. Then you say, “Thy will be done, O God,” but you are actually accepting something else besides His will. If Satan cannot instill unbelief in the provision of Christ, he will attempt to instill an acceptance of a prolonged process or a delay. Do you see this?
You can say, “I believe this is mine,” and the devil may not even contest that.
“Okay, it is yours. Just wait a while, and you will be ready to claim it.”
Okay, but I believe it is mine.”
“Yes, it is yours. Wait a while—next year you will get it.”
“It is still mine.”
“Yes, it is still yours, but wait a while.”
Satan tries to instill the acceptance of a prolonged process or a delay, or he tries to get you to be very religious and to be resigned to accepting the situation until things work out. Change that way of thinking! God has provided the change. Take it!
The Scriptures indicate that it does not take a long time to get saved. You just say, “Lord, I open my heart to You. Come in, Lord, and take over” (Romans 10:9–10). How long does oneness take? I just open my heart to my brother and say, “Come in.” How long is all of this going to take?
I have seen people change more in one service now than people used to change in ten years. We are in the processes of God that are more instant than we know. In fact, I wonder that it takes so long for us to understand how much we have changed. We are changing so quickly that other people have to explain to us how much we have changed. We cannot grasp how fast it is happening. We are like Moses when he came down from the mountain: he “wist not” that his face was shining. Someone else had to tell him about it.
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sina; with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him. Exodus 34:29–30, 33–35, KJV.
If Satan can get you to accept a delay, he is not going to come and pat you on the back for it. Instead, he will come around and mock you and say, “You fool, you.” The scoffers will always say, “The Lord has delayed His coming. Where is the promise of His coming?” (II Peter 3:3–4.)
Jeremiah 17:15 says: Look, they keep saying to me, “Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come now!”
Does that sound familiar? Some have said, “Where is the judgment you’ve been praying for all this time? What happened?” First they are vicious because you are praying for something. Then, if they don’t see it, they are vicious in saying, “Why didn’t it happen?” What the scoffers say, however, is never the issue. We simply say, “It’s going to happen. We are taking it now.”
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! Psalm 1:1.
There are many things that God has done for His people that we have not claimed. We are not laying hold of them fast enough.
The quickest way to receive something from the Lord is to believe God for your brother to receive it. Take a good look at him in the Spirit and say, “I see that all these things have been provided—God has them for my brother.” Then you impart it to him and you let him impart it back to you. This will break the deadlock of your accepting a delay in the full appropriation of what God has given you, of what you are to be, and of what you are to claim from the Lord. Something has to break that once and for all time.
Ezekiel has something to say concerning this.
Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, what is this proverb you people have concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are long and every vision fails’? Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “I will make this proverb cease so that they will no longer use it as a proverb in Israel.” But tell them, “The days draw near as well as the fulfillment of every vision. For there will no longer be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel. For I the Lord shall speak, and whatever word I speak will be performed. It will no longer be delayed, for in your days, O rebellious house, I shall speak the word and perform it,” declares the Lord God.’ ” Ezekiel 12:21–25.
Like the angel who straddles the sea and the land, we are saying, “No more delay!”
And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, and@ the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there shall be delay no longer. Revelation 10:5–6.
No more delay—especially when we are believing for the appropriation of a perfect provision of Christ that is clearly stated in the Scriptures. Our perfection is already assured; it is there in the Scriptures. By one sacrifice, He has forever perfected them that are sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). It is done! The writer of Hebrews loves that term “once for all time.” It took just one sacrifice. You do not need to have two. You do not need to have two resurrections. One is enough. You do not need to have two circumcisions—just experience by faith the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:9–11).
We declare that the day of delays is over. We refuse to deny the fullness of Christ within us, and the abundant life that He gave to us, by accepting delay any longer. We declare that we accept our Lord’s perfect provision in its fullness now. This is a complete thing; it is the end of delays.
It took Christ six hours to die on the cross; how long will the work of the cross take in your life?
Christ on the Cross made a perfect provision. Can we make it a perfect experience, or will it be a prolonged process?
Christ’s provision was perfect and attainable; if Satan can delay your appropriation of it, he will very likely defeat you.
To be tolerant of Satan’s hindrances is the same as unbelief.
“In the day that you seek for Me with a whole heart you will find Me.” Yet the words “Instant Appropriation” frighten us.
No more delays, Lord! I want to win this race, not come in second or third.
What God has provided is available and attainable.
Beware of doctrines that evade or delay the fulfillment of God’s promises.
The Kingdom of God is now.
Being resigned to long delays can be the same as unbelief.