“CREATE IN ME A BROKEN SPIRIT”
Satan’s Lies Won’t Be Effective Unless We Are Disturbed In Our Spirit To A Wrong Attitude
I don’t want anything to come that will touch this oneness that God has given. I don’t want there to be any lie or presumption of Satan that is sufficient to get us off the track. Satan’s lies won’t be effective unless we are disturbed in our spirit to take a wrong attitude. It’s the reason, then, that we’ve got to get into our complete understanding of marriage—because, you see, Satan will continue to divide these marriages, and he’ll continue to create a little wrong atmosphere, so that the real miracle work of God won’t work.
There’s A Pure Kingdom Atmosphere That We Create For What God Is Going To Do
Satan wants you to say, “Well, the atmosphere isn’t that important; you just break through with faith or you don’t break through with faith.” But that’s not true. The pure Kingdom atmosphere must be important, because the Scriptures say that Jesus could do not many mighty works at one place because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58). And in other places, He healed them all (Matthew 4:23; 8:16; 9:35; 10:1; 12:15; 15:30.) What made the difference? It was because of an atmosphere of unbelief. If unbelief can do that, then it is important that we create a pure Kingdom atmosphere for what God is going to do.
A Pure Spirit Can Purify The Atmosphere
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. You could also say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will not be deceived; their perception won’t be veiled.” A pure spirit, then, can purify the atmosphere.
To The Pure, All Things Are Pure …
To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. Titus 1:15. People can actually create good or evil by their own spirit.
The next point is that the defiled and unbelieving defile the atmosphere. Jude verse 12 says, These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love-feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. Some things don’t show up, because they’re so subtle and so small—apparently.
Then you see in Galatians 5:9 and I Corinthians 5:6 that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. That’s when you begin to see the tremendous power of defilement in the Body. It’s like an epidemic that goes through the Body. This is what we must be concerned about.
Faith And Love—The Two Factors Working Together
Ephesians 4:15–16: But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Galatians 5:6 says, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. So you see, someplace we have to see the two factors working together.
This Pure Spirit Can Be Like An Epidemic In The Body
Death can be swallowed up in victory (I Corinthians 15:54). We know that a little defilement is like an epidemic to the Body; but this pure spirit can also be like an epidemic in the Body. We’re out to create the pure atmosphere where God can work.
The Formula For Purity—A Broken And Contrite Spirit
It’s the small foxes that spoil the vines (Song of Solomon 2:15). It’s the little things in the spirit, just a little folly in him who is reputed of wisdom and honor (Ecclesiastes 10:1). There is a formula for purity and a right spirit in Psalm 51. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17. These are the sacrifices that we give that purify us to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God. There is the magic formula right there: a broken spirit, a contrite heart before God.
Brokenness Becomes The Sacrifice To Take Care Of The Little Leaven
This is the thing that you see, that people come so close to this atmosphere—they have enough revelation in the Word, they have enough perception, they have enough motivation—but they lack the brokenness that becomes the sacrifice to take care of the little leaven.
Cain’s Service Created An Atmosphere Of Murder, Because There Was Nothing Right In His Spirit
In Genesis, in the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, God said to Cain, “If thou doest right, wilt thou not be acceptable?” (Genesis 4:7.) It was the rightness of spirit that God wanted from Cain. In Jude it refers again to the way of Cain (Jude 11). Cain’s service created an atmosphere of murder, because there was nothing right in his spirit. So he went through the motions and gave his sacrifices, but he created an atmosphere of murder.
“If You Hate Your Brother, You’re A Murderer”
Now we know why John says, Every one who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. I John 3:15. When you hate, you create the atmosphere by which people die. The prophets and prophetesses of this generation will not be killed so much by a sword as they will be killed by the murderous spirit that’s generated in the atmosphere about them. Can you see how this takes just a few principles of the Word and puts them together?
The Two Of Us Talk And God Is Showing Us Things
Now we can begin to understand this thing of atmosphere for the first time. God is showing us things; sometimes He shows things to Marilyn, sometimes to me; sometimes we get together on it. But Marilyn has a way that God has given her in this Word of feeling it intensely and deeply, and projecting it to the people with that same spirit. I have a way of going in and laying out the scriptural foundation for all of it.
The Teacher Has To Have The Experience
There’s a reason for why God encourages us to stay into the tapes and the Word and track with it. You can have a dozen different tapes on a certain step. One tape, theoretically, could impart it; but in the days to come, the scribes of the Kingdom are going to be those who can go back and track through these steps with the people. They will handle the Word, not as a doctrine, but as something that just leads people step-by-step right into a walk in the Spirit. It won’t take long to bring many people into it, because we will know it and be functioning in it ourselves. You can impart to somebody more quickly this way than by saying, “Well, I haven’t read the textbook, but let’s sit down and read it together and see what we can come up with.” The teacher has to have the experience in it; that’s what I think is happening to us here.
A Word came which I don’t think we listened to carefully enough—that from now on we’re confronting God, not Satan. I have been having these times of being drawn off with the Lord; then I’d come back and be like a dead man. I would say, “The devil is sure fighting me.” But today I realized that these have been meetings with the Lord. They are so tremendous that it’s like in the Scriptures—you’re like a dead man afterwards (Daniel 10:8–10; Revelation 1:17). You just fall at His feet as one who was dead. I realized that it had been the Lord, because after I began to recover, the Word was so real.
This can’t be Satan now, even though you feel things happening in your body and in your mind and in your spirit. You’ve got to face the fact that the Lord can lance wounds and make you heal. He can hurt you; He can sew you up and bind you. “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. We’re following on to know Him. It really is happening!
What Is Keeping These Marriages From The Oneness That God Wants?
I’ve had a feeling that there’s such a need to help these marriages, but we’ve got to have something that goes back to God’s Law of Marriage. I thought to take that as a basis and begin to make a whole tape on marriage. There are probably hundreds of kids out there who have had checkouts by prophets of God on their marriages, and yet they’re still having trouble. We have to find out what is keeping these marriages from the oneness that God wants—not break up the marriage, but go after the answer. The answer is generally found, again, in the same thing we’re talking about—couples can create an atmosphere of failure in one another.
These Women Are Going To Create The Atmosphere For Their Husbands
Marilyn started tracking on the women, because I think that at this particular point, there is a competitive spirit among women and it is particularly directed against wives of ministries; they feel jealous and competitive. And it’s difficult, because it seems to be more difficult for a woman to get into oneness with another woman than it is for a man to get into oneness with a man. I don’t know why that is. But the way Marilyn is going at it is almost going to reverse the process, and these women are going to create the atmosphere for their husbands. It’s going to liberate them a great deal. She’s doing the job, don’t you think? She just has that way. It is really of the Lord. And I know where she got it; many times I’ve laid hands on her, imparted to her, and blessed her, just because she had such a love for the Word. And that’s where it starts—that love for the Word. God gave that to her; it was imparted to her by the Lord.
You Can’t Evaluate Your Life. All You Can Do Is Evaluate The Motivation Of Your Spirit
We’ve got a lot to do, haven’t we? You come to the place where you can’t even evaluate your own life. All you can do is evaluate the motivation of your own spirit, how you tried. How many thousand things did we all do wrong—all of us? But in it is that brokenness; and we are saying, “Lord, heal it totally. Forgive it. If it was an offense to Thee, forgive it.” But at this point, we cannot afford to let any of our stumblings in the past, or even our victories of the past, be a hindrance to us. We have to forget those things which are behind (Philippians 3:13); even your victories you have to forget. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Philippians 3:7.
Forget Those Things Which Are Behind
Now we come into this level where you say, “Lord, I started out as a kid, and I loved You with all my heart.” I just want one thing: He knew my heart. I want to continue to walk as I have from a boy, with a broken and contrite spirit, wanting to do the right thing. I want that for everybody else too. It’s just like that has to be the broad expanse of saying, “Henceforth, we know no man after the flesh” (II Corinthians 5:16). Just live in each other’s hearts (II Corinthians 7:3). We can.
The Sacrifices Of God Are That Broken, Contrite Heart
I think I have the key in Psalm 51. The sacrifices of God are that broken, contrite heart. Don’t you think so? That’s the thing that’s going to cover us. It’s like we make a sacrifice so that we can be the living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. We present ourselves to Him by His mercies (Romans 12:1–2).
We’re Really Talking About Becoming, By The Grace Of God, The Atmosphere
What can we do for the kids to help them participate in this? Why don’t we let Marilyn go talk to them? She’s a mother, a mother in Israel.
A mother always knows how to relate to her children.
Yeah, one thing the Lord spoke, that God made her the atmosphere for me, and me the atmosphere for her. And that’s what we’re really talking about, aren’t we? We’re becoming, by the grace of God, the atmosphere. I think it’s because both of us have been so repentant in our spirits. A thousand times we have laid each other on the altar and wept before the Lord. Then you finally reach the place where you believe for restoration and renewal and revival. We gave ourselves to the Word. We went through the struggles and the battles, and aged before our time under the assault of the enemy who sought to wear us out. Now I believe something can come that will revive it, and make us live in His sight.
The Body Will Have To Be Brought Into A Place Where It Can Stand These Meetings With The Lord
We all came in it together. I’m just broken all the time before it. Outside of going into the Word, I’ve just been weeping and broken before the Lord. But you see, this isn’t Satan. The body is going to have to be healed and revived and brought into a place where it can stand these meetings with the Lord. And I want to come to the place where I live in that all the time.
We’ve taught those teachings on practicing His presence. Years ago they came. They were tremendous teachings. They should be carefully gone over and printed up in a book now. We knew what it meant then, but now we’re hitting a new level of it. It’s one thing to see just a glimpse of the truth, and it’s another to see a burning and a shining light coming forth (John 5:35). That’s what we’re seeing. We’re into the process of the greatest revelation of the Lord’s presence that anybody has ever had. It just didn’t happen the way we thought it would, I guess; although we have dropped a lot of pre-conceived ideas of how God has to meet us.
The Spirit That Raised Up Jesus From The Dead Is Quickening My Mortal Body
Within the last couple of weeks, we went through five assaults of Satan, and then the Word came that it would be no more. Then we got into the meetings with the Lord, and it looked like the devil was still trying to kill us, and it was not that at all; we were wrestling with God Himself. It was just as He said. During this time we could feel physical changes in our bodies. Today, I was drawn again before the Lord; the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead is quickening my mortal body (Romans 8:11). But I’m also determined to resist the enemy. My meetings are going to be with God. I think we passed over a line, don’t you? We’re going to come into that place where the wicked one will touch us not (I John 5:18).
It Will Spiral Higher And Higher
Did anybody see the new This Weeks that came out that have the gleanings in them? They’re printing up “the Unfolding” from last year, and it’s timely, because that’s really what we’re in now. The Word was all basic and foundational in “the Unfolding.” Now we’re in “the Unwrapping,” and we come back to living in one another’s hearts; we come back to knowing one another in the Spirit. The Word was that it will spiral around, higher and higher.
CREATE IN US
We’re Studying to Understand Our Spirits
I’ve been real burdened, not just for the women, but burdened generally about what the Lord has been teaching us. I think we should be aware of it and I don’t know that it’s been spoken in as much detail as I want to this morning.
What we’ve been studying for the last two or three years is to understand our spirits, and I’ve been burdened the last few days to just put it in words. If we’re coming into a spirit age, then I think the Lord is trying to show us to understand our own spirit.
It’s Important That His Ministry Not Be Touched
I have been in a deep repentance because the one thing I don’t want to be is anything that’s a little bit of an infiltration to John or to the Word, or anything that isn’t totally perfect. To me, it’s important that his ministry and his spirit and his meeting with the Lord and his communion with the Lord not be touched. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought how important it is that all the women feel this in their relationship to their husbands. We have to be so intense about our purpose in a marriage, or about our relationships in the family.
How Can You Rule Your Spirit When You’re Not Aware Of It?
There has to be something that we understand about relating. I don’t think that the Lord is giving us an option anymore. Every time I think about it, I think, “I wish I could get you guys over a hurdle faster in understanding your spirits, and what the Lord has been teaching about controlling and having the rule of your own spirit.” But how can you, when you don’t know your own spirit? You see, you’ve got to find it, and train it, and get it right. With all these things, you think, “My, it’s going to take me forever.” But I think I got just a little key today.
In the Kingdom we are looking for the spirit age; we passed through the Church age and we’re coming into the spirit age. In the Church age we could do things and never be aware of anything that was going on in the realm of spirit. You could go through your walk with the Lord and have your devotions and go to church and really love God and stay into worship and practice His presence, but now that isn’t enough. God has just been hitting us over the head and saying, “You’ve got to get out of that, and understand that you can be the rulers and reigners with Christ.” I think that’s what He’s looking for; the perfect spirit is the goal. He’s been perfecting our spirits, and making sure that we keep our spirits right. Now that’s difficult, because you don’t know what’s happening to you, but that’s going to get easier because repentance is the answer to everything.
What We Want In Our Spirit
The Lord wants an honest repentance. The first thing we have to be in our spirit is submissive to the Lord totally, and totally given to Him, okay? That’s simple. That’s our requirement—the relationship to Him, first. Then if we’re studying a spirit, our own spirit, I think we have to figure that we want an aggressive, violent, free, disciplined, in-control spirit that is familiar to us, where we rule it. That doesn’t cover all of it, but that’s pretty hard to get totally and perfectly. A free spirit, to me, is one that is not suppressed; it’s not contaminated by bonds; it’s not doing its own thing. If it is doing its own thing, then it shouldn’t be free. You see, the Lord has given us a gauge; when you finally become a free spirit, then you’re free to do what the Lord wants. You’re submissive to the Lord and His perfect will—what He wants you to do. I know this sounds real hard, and I don’t think it’s that hard, but I’m laying this out because it is still a goal that we have to reach.
Then I started thinking about how our battle comes. I don’t want to go into all that, but usually our vulnerability is based on God’s dealings, and from things within our own self, and from the soul-level. The soul-level that we’ve talked about for the last few years has been the battleground of Satan—our own soul and other people’s soul-level that they move through.
We’re coming out of it even more—especially its ability to affect us. The more we understand it, the more we’re free from it, I think. But I think basically we’re undisciplined spirits because we haven’t understood our own spirits. We’re just now learning them.
Truth In The Inward Parts
I think the first thing to get down to in your own spirit is that you’re going to have to have truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6). Between you and the Lord, you’re going to have to be honest, see? You’re going to have to decide, “This is the way I honestly feel, and this is why I feel that way.” Then you’re going to say, “And let’s go one step deeper. Let’s be more honest, and then even more honest.” Really get into truth in the inward parts. That is the only way that we’re going to get a pure spirit. In it, don’t kid yourself; you’re certainly not kidding God, so you might as well not kid yourself.
That’s the only way you’re going to really find your own spirit. If you can get down and find yourself in an honesty before God, in your motivation, then it’s going to be between you and the Lord. There’s your repentance. If it’s not right, then stay in repentance until you can feel that you’ve gotten whatever you need delivered out of your spirit on any situation.
God is not kidding about the way He wants us to come into the freedom that He’s giving us, so that we can be what He wants us to be. He does not tolerate anything else, and that’s your open door of warfare; that’s where you just go crazy inside, because you really haven’t gotten down to the truth of what’s really, really bothering you. Now, if you don’t do it, then you’re being evasive before the Lord, and you’re really only avoiding repentance.
Perfected As We Live In One Another’s Heart
This is all groundwork. We were told for several years that we couldn’t bond, that we had to get into the oneness. Before, everyone bonded; that’s how we functioned. Now, bonding is so wrong that it’s a killer level for you. You can practically lose out with God over it because He’s not giving any immunity to it. Then, with His demand of no bonding, immediately there was a little transition, and we came into oneness, even though we hung in mid-air for a little bit. If you can get into the oneness, it overrides everything of bonding. Everything that the Lord is moving in right now is oneness.
Last year in “the Unfolding,” we really surged ahead in the thing, and we had the series, “Come Into My Heart.” That’s where you open your heart; that’s where we also fight it out. Because you live in one another’s hearts, that’s where you have problems, too, because you won’t let another person go. That’s how we’re going to get perfected. You stay there, but you have to love so much in that. Despite our imperfections, we can’t put each other down, or withdraw from each other’s problems; but this is where we’ve really got to face what the oneness means, and it’s difficult. Confrontation and creating each other with love is where we really are right now, and I think we’re doing pretty well with that. We’re going to have to be the ones to unwrap each other; that’s why this process is happening.
The Unperfected Soul
How have we been being hit? I’m not really wanting this to be like a witch-hunt; but the sad thing about it is, that while in the Church age we would be hit and it was the devil, now we’re facing the fact that the soul-level and somebody’s unperfected soul—that’s not given over to the cross—becomes an avenue of how we’re going to be hit. Let’s just face it—in the Body of Christ we get hit a lot by each other. And this is the point I’m going to make: we have such an intensity, and if we don’t get ourselves really clean, then we are avenues to be used by the enemy to hit one another. If you’re angry at somebody, or you have a problem, you’re hitting them, you see?
Now, I’m going back to something that I said at the beginning: I am more concerned that I have nothing in my spirit that contaminates John, because my responsibility is as great as yours—not any greater, but as great—and I’m just making you see how important you guys and your responsibilities are. This is not to put us under condemnation, because we haven’t known any better; but we’re knowing it and we’re going to shape up fast, okay? And we women are not going to be instrumental in anything except being a blessing to our husbands.
We’re Going To Create An Atmosphere Of Total Freedom
I am not saying all of this to show you what you aren’t, or what bad wives you are. I’m trying to show you how I think. It’s been almost impossible in this last phase to be such a perfect wife because the soul-level has come through, and there have been hits on us because of our husbands’ ministries and the importance that they have in the Body of Christ. It’s not position, but there is a calling and the required dedication that’s on their lives. Now, we’re a target, definitely a target, and I determine we’re not going to be a weak area. We are going to be a strong area. We are going to create for them an atmosphere of total freedom, total understanding and relationship with the Lord so that they can move freely, because we determine to be so clean.
I feel what the Lord is showing me is that we should look very carefully at all the things I’ve said so far—that’s our homework. But my main concern is that we are going to be free. By God, we’re going to be free, because we’ve got a job to do and we are so submissive to the Lord in our spirit, and we are so determined to be what we’re going to be, that nobody is going to touch us.
I’m concerned about ministries’ wives, and that takes in everybody because everybody in the Body turns out to be a ministry. We don’t have anybody left over. My first question is: “How have we been being hit?”
Now, you’re fighting for oneness with your husbands, right? This has been the battleground for two or three years, because there’s a lot of disintegration that is coming from the enemy that is not the Lord. But the Lord is taking you out of bonding, and you’re in a little transition blank spot now where you cannot relate the way you’d want to relate. You have to give that up; when you come into the oneness, then you’ve got something.
To come into this oneness is what the enemy is trying to block; and there’s got to be a way we get into it fast, because the enemy is really moving in on this. Getting past this hurdle is what I’m determined that we’re going to come through—I mean, like yesterday. And I’m taking this time as not only a meeting, but as a point of intercession that makes the declaration that this is over. We’re sealing the marriages and we’re tired of Satan’s inroads. We haven’t known and understood what the Lord has been doing in it, and Satan has come and used that as an excuse or a reason for marriages not to work. And that’s over. If we take control of that in the Body, then we’ve ended a lot of problem areas. They will be reversed and they’ll start taking another course, and the Word is going to be heard by the couples. And the truth is going to be seen and heard and known and visible. It may not be visible right now, but it’s going to be seen.
You Control Your Own Spirit
Now, you are going to start studying how this has affected your life. Be honest! You’ve got more revelation than you give yourself credit for. A woman has a built-in instinct that has to be perfected. You have to make sure it is the Lord, and so you go through a really heavy time of God just killing you about acting on your feelings. He perfects them, so that when you have feelings and it is revelation, you’re not driven to act out of your control. It should be a sign of discernment, not a sign of flip-out and un-control. See, that’s where you control your own spirit; you rule what you know and what you do and you have a way that you can approach it correctly. But you had better get free.
We can talk about our husbands and wonder if the male spirit is coming through or not, or how things seem to conflict with the love that they have for us, but that’s not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to have a perfect spirit before the Lord. Go back over everything we’ve just said. You must control your own spirit, and then you have your right to minister to your husband, to make the changes that he needs. If there is a little lack or an open door or a lack of understanding or a problem there in his own spirit, you had better find the root, and not beat him in the leaves and branches. Find the root; that’s where the Lord ministers, and it’s not you beating him.
A Pure Spirit Before The Lord
This is where you come in and the Lord shows you how to do it because you have an answer in the Lord! That’s because you trust the Lord. You will not be shaken by this thing; you won’t even be touched by it, if your spirit is pure before the Lord. See, that’s why we have to go back over everything I said: we have to be free spirits, untouched, violent—but if you’re violent, you had better be violent where you’re not hitting somebody, too. Now see, this is the fine line of the Kingdom, and it is so hard because there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. But you will have a perfect spirit before the Lord, and you will go through all your repentance and dealings. You make sure to stay in that. It’s a day-by-day vigil, under the microscope, concentrated observation. Check on yourself, every day. You can get out of it real easy, but it’s something that you maintain daily.
The Word talks about the way we walk in the Spirit. It’s something that we have to aggressively be able to do. But this is where I want to make sure that everybody is also aware of the negative side. You can be hitting people if what’s in your spirit is not of the Lord.
If we understand it, then we can break through into it quicker so we can help others. Our whole purpose of seeing their need is to go to them, lovingly, delightedly, ready to bring them into it, because their root-base is the same as your root-base. They love the Lord. They’re sheep. They’ve listened to the Word and no one gets cut out just because they have an unperfected side. Plus the fact that John says you’d never want to come into discernment or revelation without love.
Our Repentance Will Be A Lifestyle
I want to help you get into this thing, but I’m laying it before you guys as if it’s done. I said we would get into repentance, and we’ll stay in that. It is a process that we’ll stay in so that it will help us live this way. Our repentance will be a lifestyle. But I say done. It’s something that’s going to liberate us, on the phase we’re in now, in this stage of maturity and growth.
Because we are ministers’ wives, other women can come and hit you; but we should also be asking, “How have we affected other women, or other men?” See, you can’t have that wrong spirit towards anyone. How have we affected our husbands? That’s probably the most important thing; that’s probably the summary of it. That’s how I felt we can’t be anything but the Lord ministering to them at all times. Anyway, that probably summarizes what I was wanting to do this morning.
How Do The Hits Affect Us?
How do these hits really affect us? They affect you to make you ineffective, and it does totally cloud your life. First of all, they eliminate your repentance and your growth in the Lord. They eliminate your ability to get into the presence of the Lord to find out what you are to repent of.
If you look at it, John and I never really come out and tell you what’s wrong in your spirit, unless there’s really an impasse. Now generally, if you’re really going after the Lord, most of the impasse is really the satanic thing that’s on you. I think all of us are more willing to repent and walk with the Lord than we are resisting it. And the truth of it is, we’ve cried to walk with Him. But there you go back into the truth in the inward parts, and you can do a lot of your own repenting. But you’ve got to get these hits off you. We’d be glad to tell you what’s wrong with your spirit, if we could see it. But there are a lot of times when you can’t see what’s wrong in a person’s spirit; they can be so much a target and damaged, and destroyed, and clouded in the thing. Now that’s going to end. When you are under a hit, you could try to analyze yourself from now on, and still not find the right area of repentance to even get started.
First of all, there has to be this thing that will come and deliver you out of the enemy’s hands. You will find your own place to change, if you have a free spirit, and you’re untouched. That’s why it’s so important that we’re keeping John out of hits. We’re keeping a created atmosphere around him.
Break Through To The True Heart Of The Situation
If there is a hit coming in, start being alert to the spirit. Don’t go on a witch-hunt, but study it and then get to the root of it. Find out what God thinks about it and what to do about it. Check your area and look at your people and start studying to see, “Why is this person going through something?” Maybe that person is so buried with hits that they’re acting this way; you can have somebody in a hit who will act a completely different way then he does when he’s out of a hit.
A lot of times people will misdiscern a situation because they’re under a hit. You can have a lot of people misdiscerning you if you are living under a hit all the time. They can’t see you. John has explained that. That’s like the ring of devils that can surround a person. You’ve got to break in to see what that person is like and not feel the hit around them. You might even be feeling the disapproval or hatred of another person ministering to a sheep, and misinterpret that. You’ve got to go in and find these situations and break through to the true heart of the situation. That’s what we’re doing; we’re unburying years of accumulation. Before now, we’ve never had the authority, the understanding, the determination or the persistence to go in and unwrap John. And I think if we knew what we were doing even more, in our awareness, we would do it faster, because it would be more real to us. That’s where we’re effective. It’s not just a theory that we beat the air, but we know what we’re doing. This is going to make our intercession ten times more effective and real to us.
Too Much Unfocused Relating Will Dissipate Your Force
If you can find your own spirit and keep it under your observation all the time, then you can be free to start expanding out to venture into certain things.
Maybe this is not the only way to do it, but it’s the only way I know of because it’s the way I did it. The first thing you have to do, if you ever know how to do anything, is to pull yourself back into yourself. That’s pulling your spirit back in, okay? You just pull it in, and then don’t dissipate or don’t touch in conversation at all, unless you want to. You can have conversation, you can do anything you want to; but you don’t have to put your spirit in it. When you want to, then you can see how you do that. Too much unfocused relating will dissipate your force because you won’t understand it and you will kid around, the playful thing, and lose your spirit.
Just study it; study yourself, and put yourself before God—not in condemnation, but just a determination to change, to love yourself, no matter how you did something wrong. You’re learning something!
Focus Your Spirit On The Release
You’re going to minister perfectly in the intercession for John, and you’re so given and you’re so determined that that’s all you keep in the back of your head. If you keep that as a plumbline, and you keep this other, then what you talk about and what you do is with this purpose. If you’re set to do that, then everything else will fall in line. And that’s where your highest level of discernment about yourself is.
This is a way that you can identify what you’re doing. Try to stay in a focus for twenty-four hours a day, which is pretty hard, especially when you have to cook meals and you’re on the phone and you have to do this and that. Every minute you check yourself, pull yourself back, focus your spirit there—on the release, with determination. You don’t even have to put it in words; you can talk in tongues in the back of your head or you can just know—you can feel yourself. Everything else, I swear, will fall into place if you live that way. It’s difficult to stay there because that’s where the battle keeps you from doing it. You get within yourself, and under condemnation, and all that.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see how much trivia is eliminated in this back side of our life in hits and transference of thoughts? Ministry can come through that is very negative against your own walk with the Lord, but you can just determine that there isn’t anything that is going to distract you.
Stay Before The Lord
That’s where you stay before the Lord. That’s where the Lord shows you what you need in your own spirit and whatever. Be honest. You may not want to be concentrating on this release all day. Then you’ve got to decide whether you’re going to be dedicated to what is important, or not, see? There’s another point of a repentance there, just to keep yourself and have Him help you. There’s a lot of things you can learn.
I think that this would be excellent for us to get some of the younger kids to understand. I’d like to teach this in school! Someone should teach our kids how to do this. But if it was just taught to our little kids to know, then we would have the most aware-of-the-spirit-realm creatures on earth in these little people. It will be such a way of life; they won’t know anything different.
Let me tell you something else you could do to lock into this thing. You become aware of the Word, and of John, and it’s the Word coming forth, and can feel yourself just ministering. You can feel yourself drawing. Have you ever sat before the Lord and just wanted to cry and draw Him right into your very being? You can be doing anything, and when you can draw that way in the Lord it ministers to the Lord. It ministers to the Word and to John just as much. The cleaner you are, the more effective you are, and the more of your spirit you can give. You’re standing in the presence of the Lord with it. You recognize that you’re ministering to the Lord, and it’s an amazing thing. On the negative side, your little outbursts don’t just go up like a big firecracker into the sky and explode. They do not. Your spirit reaches out and it hits somebody, totally!
Make Sure You’re Not Hitting, But Freeing That Person
I can be seeing what a person is doing by not ruling his spirit, but I also know I would lay my life down for that person so that he could be free to make it in what he’s called to be. You have to make sure that you are not hitting that person; instead, you’re freeing that person.
You’re not ever going to have a handle on situations. You can’t kill Satan all over the world. You’re going to kill Satan in your heart. So what God is trying to teach you is to get a handle on your own spirit about the thing.
At some point it seems like your repentance will come to a point where you’ve reached a depth, and then you can just watch for the change in your own spirit with it. When the Lord shows you the cry of your heart, at some point you hit the bottom and then it’s like a foundation. At some point you will have to be told that is is finished. Then if the enemy is telling you something, that’s where you can say, “But that’s a lie; I know that I’m not ministering wrong,” and then you just keep ministering. You watch for the change where something’s done in you, because you’re not going to live in condemnation forever on that subject. That’s where the enemy comes in. If you repent with faith, knowing that you’re repenting to get something over with and it’s done, then watch it, because the enemy will do anything to keep you from ministering to John.
We Have No Right To Be Hit
We have no right to be hit because that means there’s a button that the enemy can use. We—in our walk with God and dedication—are so targeted by the enemy, that when the flood of the enemy comes in, it is an avalanche of satanic feelings, not just human. It just takes over in a hit that is almost uncontrollable. We block that right now from coming to John because we stop it right there, and we say, “This is not going to get through. It is not even going to be ministered, or erupt.” It’s all designed to hit John. But if we can get rid of our hits, then we have stopped that from being a channel on the backside of our life. We become the filter system that will keep the enemy from hitting John at all.
We cannot afford a hit. We can’t. It’s not wrong to be hit; it’s wrong to be in a wipeout, because to be hit should be discernment enough to know how to handle and send it back or repent of what was an open door. It goes back to having the responsibility of what it ministers to John, to the Word, to the Lord. It’s like walking into the throne room with dirty clothes. It is our responsibility to create the atmosphere for John, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and that’s our ministry in the Lord. God is using our love for John and for the Word and for the Lord to be perfected to the very most that we can, one hundred percent, a perfect spirit back on earth that the Lord can use as vessels. Do you know what this is going to be? God is getting out of it what He wants from us, and He’s got us tied to the altar.
I think we’re in the last stage, really. I really do. But stay in the repentance, okay? I draw that repentance for all of us, that root repentance. This is one repentance for a million answers, to close the door to the satanic inroads in our life, and imperfection, immaturity, lack of awareness, so that we can be a pure vessel of the Lord before His face. That’s what it boils down to. That’s what we should be driving into every minute until it’s done; and then when it’s done we maintain it.
We’re making our declaration that our wipeouts are over, as of today. We make one declaration, and a repentance is just a matter of change.
CREATE THE PURE KINGDOM ATMOSPHERE
The Power and the Effect of an Atmosphere
We are talking quite a bit lately about the right atmosphere. You are saying, “We want to create an atmosphere that will be a blessing to John, but we don’t want to be anything that will be a hindrance to him. We want to create the right atmosphere for each other in the Kingdom of God.” And in this that we are doing, you have to understand the power and effect of an atmosphere.
“Offenses will come,” Jesus said, “but woe unto him by whom an offense cometh. It would be better for him that a millstone be put about his neck and that he be cast into the sea than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Matthew 18:6–7). So we know that our lives can have an effect, but we are reaching into the broad expanse of it. What does God really say about the atmosphere that we create? What does His Word tell us?
An Atmosphere In Which God Can Do Anything Or An Atmosphere Of Unbelief
In Matthew 13:58, it tells us, “Jesus could not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” It says that He laid His hands on a few people and healed them; and other times it tells us that Jesus healed them all. In the concordance I found basic references where it says that He healed them all. Matthew 4:23; Matthew 8:16; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 10:1; Matthew 12:15; Matthew 15:30.
At other times we see a contrasting thing. The Lord Jesus Himself was unable to perform miracles because of the atmosphere, because of their unbelief. And if you read in Matthew 13:55–58, you will understand. The people said, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? We know who this guy is. We don’t have any faith in Him.” Their unbelief eliminated the possibility of them having any miracles. It wasn’t that Jesus wasn’t willing; it was that the atmosphere hindered.
There is an atmosphere in which people come hungry for God and God can do anything for them. And there is an atmosphere of unbelief where I think Christ Himself is hindered and handicapped from blessing.
There Has To Be A Purity In The Atmosphere
When we talk about a pure Kingdom atmosphere, we are talking about the right thing. We don’t want to enter into it with unbelief or limited dedication, or any reservations in our heart, or any wrong spirit, because if we do, we are going to find that we are just hindering the flow that we really want to see come. Now, here is the importance then of the pure Kingdom atmosphere. You must understand that there has to be a purity in the atmosphere or we don’t really begin to track in the Lord.
Purity And What It Leads To
We are talking about the purity and what it leads to. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8. The pure in heart shall see God. That means the veil on your perception, the thing that unbelief clouds, all of the things that are wrong in a situation that you would look at and judge adversely—all of it goes when your own spirit is right. “Oh,” you say, “if I am pure in spirit, then the problems are all solved.” I didn’t say that. I said that the atmosphere is right for perfect revelation. The pure in heart are going to see God.
To The Pure, All Things Are Pure; To The Defiled And Unbelieving, There Is Nothing Pure
To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed. Titus 1:15–16.
“To the pure, all things are pure”—it is saying that if your heart is pure before God, you see the thing the way that it is. But if your heart is defiled and unbelieving, then nothing is pure; your mind and your conscience are defiled and everything looks bad.
A man whose mind is defiled is a great contrast to a man whose mind is pure. Jesus said, “If you look on a woman to lust after her, you have committed adultery with her already in your heart” (Matthew 5:28). What you do in the state of your spirit becomes the actuality, the reality of your life. You can say, “Well, I have had times of real lust.” I know that the best Christian can watch some of these bathing suit scenes and will at least be alert to what is in those suits. But a man whose mind is defiled can see a nun walking down the street in all of her habit, and lust after her. What we are talking about is, “To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving there is nothing pure.” Everything becomes defiled by the wrong spirit.
We are going to create, by our spirits, the atmosphere in which God can work or God can’t work—in which there is going to be a release of things, or there isn’t going to be a release to them.
Because We Have The Promises—Our Spirit Creates The Atmosphere To Fulfill Those Promises
I know this ambivalent thing exists: the purity and the defilement. But the Word says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. II Corinthians 7:1. We have such great promises: the preceding verses tell that God is going to live in us and walk in us; we are going to be His sons, and He is going to be a Father to us, as we separate ourselves and come out from the unclean thing (II Corinthians 6:16–18).
It’s because we have the promises of God that we go about to see that our spirit creates the atmosphere in which God can fulfill those promises. Because we have these wonderful promises from God, we go about to perfect our spirit so that we have created an atmosphere in which God can bring them forth.
A Wrong Spirit Creates An Atmosphere In Which God Can’t Work
I Corinthians 5 talks about something very deadly in the house of God, a sin that the whole body knew about but did nothing about. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan (how important this is) for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast (now notice this), not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I Corinthians 5:4–8.
It is pointing out that just a little yeast, a little leaven in the lump, causes all of it to respond.
Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? I Corinthians 5:6. How deadly a wrong spirit is, inasmuch as it creates an atmosphere in which God can’t work, and the people can’t move. There has to be in our hearts a diligence that our spirits are going to be so right that God can move. A lot of intercession has not been effective because there was just enough in it to defile it, just enough of a wrong spirit in it. But as God refines and purifies your spirits, your intercession is coming through. You start praying, and in five minutes you find a very drastic, dramatic change in the whole spiritual state of things.
The Miracle Is Created By Faith Which Worketh By Love
By the same token that we can see a little leaven leavening the whole lump, we can also see in Ephesians 4:15–16 how that the Body builds up itself in love. Ephesians 4 starts out with the idea that there is one faith, one Lord, one Body, and it talks about how the ministries are given to bring us all to the unity of the Spirit, the unity of the faith, to bring us into what God has. Galatians 5:6 again emphasizes the same thing that the miracle is created by faith which worketh by love.
You Have To Be Tracking In The Righteousness Of God If You Want To See The Defeat Of Death
We must see death swallowed up in victory (I Corinthians 15:54), and the only way that we are going to see death swallowed up in victory is that we are going to have to see other things swallowed up first. If there is any hindrance that prevents God from working, we have got to see it gone.
When God begins to move with this resurrection life upon us, we are still going to find the situation of Lazarus; when he comes forth, they have to unwrap him because the wrappings of death will still be upon him (John 11:44). I think that is the most deceptive thing that you can find, because those wrappings may still smell like a corpse, but inside is something alive that is coming forth. We have to loose it; we have to free it. In other words, we are the atmosphere in which resurrection life can come.
For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. So it comes right back to the fact that you have got to be tracking in the righteousness of God if you want to see life, if you want to see the defeat of death. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. I Corinthians 15:53–58.
A Little Defilement Can Be Like An Epidemic Within The Body
A little defilement can be like an epidemic in the Body. It can be like a nerve gas that renders us all helpless to move as fast as we want to move. As it says in the Scripture, Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines … Song of Solomon 2:15, KJV. You can have the whole vineyard, but if those little foxes run through and nibble away at the tender roots of the vines, they spoil them, and that is what God is telling us now. There can be just the little things that spoil the whole atmosphere.
Satan Will Do Anything To Induce Inefficiency In The Body
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. Ecclesiastes 10:1, KJV.
The satanic world does anything that it can to bring forth a few flies in what is going to be the expensive perfume, the beautiful aroma that Christ is trying to produce, and it causes it to send forth a stinking savor. Satan will do anything to induce the inefficiency of the Body as it appropriates the promises of God. Satan does not want you to have what God has for you. He does not want you to function in the faith and the authority that you have, so he will try to create just a little thing that will be enough to negate what God is really bringing forth in you.
A Right Spirit Is A Result Of Repentance And Faith That Claims God’s Provision
Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:1–2.
A right spirit is not a result of discipline; a right spirit is a result of the prayers of penitence and repentance before God, and of faith that claims God’s provision.
“Purge Me Until You Get Right Down To The Little Corners”
Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:6–7.
Hyssop may not mean very much to you, but hyssop is one of the best blood purifiers there is, as a tea. The Jews would use a little hyssop brush and clean out the corners of all leaven before they kept the Passover. David was saying, “Purge me until you get right down to the little corners. Every little thing is going to be clean before God. I am going to be as white as snow.”
There Is Only One Sacrifice That Gets Me Into This Flow—That I Come With A Broken And A Contrite Heart
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.… Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.… The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:10, 12, 17.
We come and offer to the Lord a sacrifice. We don’t slip a five-dollar bill under the table so that we can get a seat in the Kingdom. Instead, we come and say, “There is only one sacrifice that gets me into this flow, and that is that I come with a broken and a contrite heart, and I cry out to the Lord for my spirit to be right before Him. When I get to that place where I really, really mean this with all of my heart, then I have sacrificed to God that which makes me an acceptable sacrifice in His sight.” Always the Lord is dealing with one thing—your spirit.
It Isn’t What You Do—It Is The Purity Of Spirit With Which You Do It That Is Important
For the Lord God is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. I Samuel 2:3b, KJV. It isn’t what you do, it is that purity of spirit with which you do it that is important. The widow could give her two mites and give more than anybody else because she gave all she had to live on (Mark 12:42–44). The rich man could come and cast his offering in ostentatiously and have everybody say, “What a big gift he gave.” Yet it may not have been that much, because his heart and spirit were not totally dedicated. It isn’t how much or how little you give, but it is what is in your spirit that is the key. This is the secret; this is the thing that is going to take the whole Body and let it become one of the most efficient forces of faith that the world has ever seen.
Beware, Lest There Be Anything That Will Harden Your Heart Through Unbelief
As long as there is something wrong in your spirit, the devil will sic you upon each other like a pack of dogs. As long as there is anything that he can use as a leverage to create division, he will. Satan has leverage as long as there is something that he can put in any one person to have a critical spirit that draws him away from the presence of the Lord and the worship to the Lord. Beware, lest there be anything that will harden your heart through unbelief (Hebrews 3:12). We have the promises of God; we must keep those promises and bring them into fulfillment.
The Fullness Of God Is Not Reserved By The Intention Of God
The fullness of God is not reserved by the intention of God; it is reserved because the flow is clogged, because of something of a wrong spirit. Or it may not be your spirit; it may be just one little thing that is defiling the prayers of intercession so that the atmosphere is not created for that tremendous breakthrough of the Body into the things that God has for it.
If You Hate Your Brother, You Have Created The Atmosphere For His Destruction
The story of Cain and Abel was very interesting along this line. Abel and Cain went out and made sacrifices to the Lord. They made them differently because Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd, so they offered whatever they had. We think, “Well, I have heard this many, many times,” but I think that there is something more to it than just the fact that God wanted the blood offering. I think there was something in the spirit of them, because you read in Genesis 4:6–10, Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”
The spirit of Cain created the atmosphere for the first murder. And that thing runs throughout the Scriptures, because you find in Jude 11 that in the end time there will be those who will go in the way of Cain. I John 3:10–15 talks about Cain being a murderer, and then it swings around and says that if you hate your brother, you are a murderer. You don’t even have to kill him. If you hate your brother, you have created the atmosphere for his destruction.
A Wrong Spirit Creates An Atmosphere For Wrongdoing And Unbelief
In the end time that we are living in, and the beginning of the Kingdom, it is very important that we understand what the Scriptures are leading up to. A wrong spirit creates an atmosphere for wrongdoing and for unbelief so that faith doesn’t become effective.
A Right Spirit Is Never Deceived
The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I John 2:10–11. What was the first Scripture that we read? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8.
When your heart is not pure, deception and blindness come upon you. No one has ever been deceived who has had a pure heart. A right spirit is never deceived.
I Am Alive Because Of The Pure Spirit Of A Great Host
By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: any one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. Do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Every one who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. I John 3:10–16.
I think that I am getting through to you. I think that I have given you the clearest scriptural picture of the Kingdom atmosphere in which the power of God is loosed. I think that my problems have resulted basically for years from the murderous spirit of rebellious children—an atmosphere of death and murder is created, because that’s the spirit of Cain. But I think that I am alive because of the pure spirit of a great host that are believing and praying.
“I Am Going To Be One Of Those Who Creates A Pure Atmosphere”
I think that we are going to prevail because, whatever others are doing, you can have a pure spirit and track on this and believe and say, “I am going to be one of those who creates a pure atmosphere in the Kingdom, in which John can be delivered, Marilyn can be delivered, and I can be delivered (say it for yourself), and all the others can be delivered.” It is not saying that you have to be pure in all your actions. It doesn’t say that you may not have deep needs. It doesn’t say that you may not need deliverances. It is talking about your spirit. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8.
Keep The Broken And Contrite Heart So The Spirit Can Be Right
We have said from the beginning that a right spirit is what we are after. A lot of people are right by certain evaluations, but they are right with a wrong spirit; therefore, they are just as wrong as they can be. But we want to be right, with a right spirit before the Lord. There has to be some way that the Lord makes this real to you so that it doesn’t become a thing of condemnation, but it incites you to keep the broken and contrite heart so the spirit can be right. I don’t want you to feel, “I got slaughtered tonight because there are things wrong with me.” I don’t care what is wrong with you; I want you to have that right spirit, and that right spirit will see that everything else will eventually become right. The thing to do is to have a broken and a contrite spirit, that humility before the Lord.
It Is A State Of Spirit That Is The Right Spirit
This is a very real Word to me, and I trust that it is a real Word to you too, something where you feel in your heart, “This I am not going to ignore. I am going to be broken before the Lord.” That is what He wants out of you, not for you to stand up and say, “Look what a good job I am trying to do!” He wants you to come before Him and just be broken. It is a state of spirit that is the right spirit.
Always Assume That Nothing Wrong Can Be Allowed In Your Spirit Before The Lord
Sometimes it is just this little contrite spirit, that little broken spirit before the Lord, that helps people become sons of God. It is that easy. You can have everything going wrong, but look to the Lord and He will help you. It is all based upon a faith in what God has. You are not going to get it if you are consistently saying, “God, I thank You that I am not like anybody else.” Beat your breast and say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:9–19). Always assume that nothing wrong can be allowed in your spirit before the Lord. As you receive Communion, eat of His flesh and drink of His blood and let it be the purifier of your spirit before the Lord. As we partake, we will partake of mercy, grace, cleansing, life.
Pursue Staying In The Presence Of The Lord
An impartation came in the Word, and I’d like for everyone to recognize the impartation of something that is happening more in your spirits than in your understanding. Just keep yourself before the Lord, and out of it will come the spirit that the Lord imparted to you. Don’t worry about what you missed in your understanding. Certain things will come back to you, as they were spoken, in the next twenty-four hours and let’s see what the Lord is really speaking in your spirit. It should bring the opportunity and the privilege of the depth of repentance that John is walking in, because that’s really what is imparted in this whole thing. You don’t have to understand it, and you don’t really have to feel it. All you have to do is pursue staying in the presence of the Lord. This repentance which the Lord is bringing is a true, honest repentance to change, and you have that seed within you if you pursue that.
This is a turning point for you. This is going to render your prayer one hundred percent effective. This means that if you get this right spirit and this brokenness before the Lord, you will be surprised how everything that has stood as a hindrance to your prayers and your spirit will begin to unfold before you.
“Search Me, O God! I Want My Spirit Perfect Before You”
You have heard a Word from the Lord. It has penetrated into your spirit, and is creating a change. I declare that in the Lord. I declare it with faith. I am not preaching to tickle your ears or give you doctrines, I am speaking the Word of the Lord to you and I am imparting change to you. I am making you a living epistle, something that is a force in the Kingdom of God; and it starts right here with saying, “Search me, O God! I want my spirit perfect before You.”
I’ve spoken the Word, and I think I can say it honestly, with humility but with real faith: now you are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you.
THE INNER-PURIFYING
When We Talk About the Pure Atmosphere Of The Kingdom, Maybe We Need Something More With It
Last night I was talking about creating the atmosphere, and I’m torn tonight between two things. I don’t want to preach on control until we have it; I don’t want to go into some positive assertions when we’re in the battle to possess it. Everything that we’ve done has been foundational, but when we talk about the pure atmosphere of the Kingdom, maybe we need something more with it. Maybe we need to talk about what we can do to control the atmosphere that we move in.
Overcome The Defilement Of A Little Leaven
Can we find some way to overcome the defilement of a little leaven? There were times when Paul turned people over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh (I Corinthians 5:5; I Timothy 1:20), but you see, we’re not dealing with sin of that nature; we’re just dealing with the fact that there’s a failure in spirit, a falling short of something in the spirit.
We should do something to complete the foundation of people’s spirits. There has to be immunity and control. There has to be. But you see, I don’t really understand immunity; I don’t know how much of it can be imparted or how much of it we have to appropriate for ourselves. If we read the Scriptures correctly, we get the impression most of the time that we put on the armor or the attributes of God (Ephesians 6:11; Colossians 3:10, 12–14). We put on things like a heart of compassion, the helmet of salvation, or the breastplate of righteousness.
We Can Clothe Ourselves With Immunity
I know that when I speak, the Lord will give me the revelation that will help us in this step. We’re going to have to discard the idea that we are vulnerable, and we’ll have to embrace the idea of the Scriptures that we can clothe ourselves with immunity.
Each Individual Has To Do It. We Minister To One Another And Become The Helpers
We can create an atmosphere; but still, individually, we have a role to fill that creates the atmosphere of the whole. If a little leaven leavens the whole lump (I Corinthians 5:6), then we’ve got to find out how to cope with that. It’s almost like each individual has to do it. And yet there also has to be a way of faith that we minister to one another and become the helpers, like Paul said: Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy. II Corinthians 1:24a, ASV.
It Is A Mutual Faith
Maybe it’s a mutual affair. We’ve always assumed that we could create one another’s protection; but there has to be something more—that the individual appropriates his protection and immunity too. A linking together is like a chain, and it’s very strong. I think deception can come at either sweep of the pendulum—if you think that it’s all dependent upon you, or if you think that your welfare and destiny are all dependent upon someone else. But it is a mutual faith.
If you think it’s all dependent upon you, then you’re out there isolated as a sheep and the wolves can get at you. On the other hand, if you depend upon everybody else to do it for you, or some shepherd to do the whole thing for you, then you are in a state of passive faith that just doesn’t reach into God.
The Time When Heredity And Environment Can Work Together
That’s the time when heredity and environment can work together. A certain amount is programmed in at birth but Peter wrote, “Add this: add virtue; add faith; add knowledge” (II Peter 1:5–8). It has to be an individual thing, but it’s always tied together collectively. We do it together; we help one another. You can’t do it yourself, and yet there’s so much that you have to do.
That’s true. It’s like learning. A person can have a good heredity, and then somebody creates a good atmosphere for him so that there’s not a harassment and bickering and violence in the home; but in the final analysis, he’s the one who actually learns.
The Importance Of Knowing What Our Spirits Are Doing
This is really important, to know what our spirits are doing, and keeping our spirits clean and not touching each other wrong. We’re so mutually dependent. God is never going to change that—and yet that’s where the thing of leaven comes in, because if there’s something we don’t take care of in our spirit and we don’t keep the purity, that thing will run so fast through the Body. That is what stops the atmosphere from being a pure atmosphere.
All the covenants and provisions of the Scriptures are basically for families, but they must be appropriated by individuals.
The Limelight Shines On Each One
That is where this thing hides, though. Everybody seems to be able to just move along as a group and function. But if you are in a group and think you’re not seen, then that’s where it’s imperfect. But if the limelight shines on each one, and you get down to the very root of the spirit of each person and perfect it, one after another, I wonder what we’re going to create in the Body? We will move in that spirit deliverance and really become something in the Lord.
The Lord Is Letting Every Little Chink In The Armor Be Exposed
As long as we’re a mass crowd just kind of moving along, assuming that we don’t have to do that much individually within ourselves, we would get by with it. That’s what we’re facing with some of the things that we’ve unwrapped in this period of unwrapping. If you move like you always have been, it doesn’t work that way anymore. Now it’s coming down to every little button inside, or every little chink in the armor, or every little speck that the enemy can use; now the Lord is just letting it be used and exposed. You can get rid of it yourself, if you do your homework. But if you can’t get to it, the help is there; however, if you refuse to get to it, then it’s a demand on you.
The Kingdom Survives In Its Oneness
It really comes down to this thing of love again. But you see, you have to have enough love for a person that you make him see these little things that are going to keep the Body from functioning. That’s what you’re talking about, the little chinks in the armor and the little weaknesses in the Body. I would describe it in several areas:
1. The Kingdom is one and it survives in its oneness.
2. The Kingdom is vulnerable to the weakness of everyone in it.
3. Everyone else becomes the first to perceive the need of the individual, and they minister the perception of that to the individual.
The whole Body is one, and it is vulnerable to the problems of anyone in it; but everyone has responsibility to see the need of each one in it, and their responsibility is not to crash down on a person, but to minister to that one a revelation of his need.
And the love is what makes the revelation of yourself palatable when others minister to you.
And then that would be the next point.
4. The love in the Kingdom pulls down any resistance to the revelation in the individual.
The individual, in other words, is not going to balk against the revelation of his need, if it’s spoken in love (Ephesians 4:15). But it won’t work if everybody goes crashing down on the individual. We don’t need a Gestapo or an Inquisition; we need something that comes lovingly and pulls down the barrier so the individual can see his need. He won’t see it just because you tell him—especially if you do it with a wrong spirit. And the last step, of course, is this:
5. The right spirit of each individual in the Kingdom becomes the secret of the authority and control the Kingdom has over the whole world.
I think the Church Age must have given the prelude to that in Acts 2: they were all in one accord, in one place, in the unity that existed there (Acts 2:1). And even in Ephesians 4, when it talks about the apostles and prophets, etc., it’s talking about one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one Body—all of these things (Ephesians 4:4–6, 11). The first emphasis is on oneness, which somehow has escaped the attention it should have had.
First The Oneness
Usually we tend to jump down to Ephesians 4:10 to start reading, but maybe we should have spent a lot more time on the first verses. You see, it’s first the oneness, then the apostolic ministry that brings about the unity and the functioning of the Body; and then the Body functions within itself. There you’ve got the whole picture of Ephesians 4. Of course, we all want to come to that place where the Body is flowing and functioning, but I think we’re just not doing it. There hasn’t been that much.
The Weak Link Is Strengthened
You said that the oneness is what’s helping to reveal where the weak link is in the chain. You mentioned earlier the vulnerability of the weak, and that’s a saying: “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” This oneness and this love is helping to show where the need is, not to eliminate that link. Through oneness, it can have the same strength as everyone else. You can have a dozen strong ministries, but that one link may have the key of faith.
Then we must strengthen it.
We strengthen it, not eliminate it, because if God has put it in the chain, then it’s part of the Body, and it is our responsibility to see that it’s strengthened.
We see this in Songs of Solomon 8:8–9: “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we shall build on her a battlement of silver; but if she is a door, we shall barricade her with planks of cedar.” Because she can’t function in maturity, we set about immediately to help her as much as we can. We help each other, don’t we? So that the weak link is strengthened. Let’s look now at one other point.
Rebellion And Stubbornness Are Things Of Spirit
6. The problem of a bad spirit is its built-in resistance to revelation and to help. Haven’t you seen people like that? You can’t help them. It’s in their spirit; they just start resisting you.
I Samuel 15 talks about a stubborn spirit. And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination (or stubbornness) is as iniquity and idolatry.” I Samuel 15:22–23a.
The Closest Parallels We Have Within The Body
Stubbornness is a thing of spirit. Rebellion is a thing of spirit. So here you have idolatry and witchcraft, rebellion and stubbornness, lined right up together as the closest parallels we have within the Body.
“Erga”—The Energies Of The Flesh
Read about the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. It deals with this same thing. The fruit of the Spirit is one thing, but the works of the flesh are another. The other day somebody was just talking about the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. They are not the fruit of the flesh, they are erga—the energies of the flesh.
Now the deeds (the erga, the energies, the outworkings) of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19–21.
When Somebody Comes To Unwrap Us, Don’t Put Up A Guard
This is a real call for repentance. It is throwing us into an atmosphere where we should be living. When somebody comes to unwrap us, we can’t put up a guard; we’re set to have this.
The False Always Precedes The Truth
This could also be why the false always precedes the truth. The false doesn’t have to wait for a maturity; whatever is there just comes out. But God is always building towards a purity in our lives, and it seems that we’re always being perfected and the world is waiting for the fruit to come forth. This erga just keeps flowing all the time. So that’s why the false precedes the reality.
A Defiled Spirit Is Going To Prevent The Whole Flow Of These Promises
This is what II Corinthians 6:11–7:3 is talking about. In verses 1 and 3 of chapter 6, Paul says, And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.… giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited. So again we’re talking about the defilement that can come, the thing that louses the whole thing up. In verse 12 he says, You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. The restraint was self-imposed; they just never got the door open to be a blessing to each other. And then he talks about the bonds—“Do not be bound together with unbelievers”—and about the unequal yoke, and about what God wants for us (verses 14–18). And then he says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. II Corinthians 7:1. The whole implication is that a defiled spirit is going to prevent the whole flow of these promises.
Always The Lord Is Dealing With One Thing—Your Spirit
The first sentence of the summary of last night’s message is, “Always the Lord is dealing with one thing—your spirit.” If you summarize the walk, you couldn’t say it any better than that one sentence. And that’s what you’re saying. Everybody has to understand that really all God is doing is dealing with your spirit. That’s personalized.
The Individual Can Never Know Perfection Until He’s Perfectly Related To The Body
The problem I’m really trying to face is so simple: “How do we get this immunity for the Body and create the atmosphere?” It’s going to have to be collective and it’s going to have to be individual, because in the first place, the second place, and the third place, the individual can’t be perfect until he’s perfectly related to the Body.
7. The individual can never know perfection in his spirit until he’s perfectly related to the whole Body.
Doesn’t that make sense? I can’t say that “I’ll be working on my spirit”; for if I’m not perfectly related to you, my spirit will still be wrong.
This Explains What A Wrong Spirit Is
This is wonderful. This unravels confusion. It is wonderful. If you never get anything else, get this last part. This explains what a wrong spirit is. You can go around with a perfect right spirit before the Lord, in your opinion, and you can be slaughtering people around you. That’s when God says, “Sorry, you just missed it one hundred percent.”
It’s An Illusion That You Have A Right Spirit When You’re Not One With The Body
It’s an illusion that you have a right spirit when you’re not one with the Body. Isn’t that right? That’s an illusion; you’re deceiving yourself. We’re talking about the Kingdom level now. Churches can get along with some kind of unity, and a lot of individuality, and little cooperation together; but the Kingdom can’t. You get into the Kingdom and the levels of discipleship are demanding—very demanding—because this is the perfecting of the kings and priests.
PURIFYING THE ATMOSPHERE
We’ll Come to the Place Where The Wicked One Touches Us Not
In the things that are happening in the spirit, we are coming to cope with certain nephilim spirits and so forth, leading up to confronting Satan in this thing of his power to kill and to hurt. The miracles are coming, but I don’t like being vulnerable. I don’t like the enemy being able to touch us like he does. However, we will come to the place where the wicked one touches us not (I John 5:18). We’re really reaching into a spiritual level that we’ve not had before, and we’re going to really move into it.
This next step in which we’re dealing with the atmosphere—how to purify it and make it so effective in God. I would like to make an expansion on this in the Scriptures, if I could. In fact, much of this will have to be expanded at great lengths, because it is important for you to get this.
Be Concerned About Anything That Would Hinder
You are concerned about the effectiveness of your intercession, of your prayers; you’re concerned about anything that would hinder. The Scripture speaks about us laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and about running with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Now that’s good, and I think we focus a lot on the sins that we have to get rid of; but we often don’t give enough attention to those little weights or hindrances that keep us from being more than conquerors in the Lord. That’s the thing we’re dealing with now: what is it that God wants to work in our spirit? How do we get that pure atmosphere in which God is going to work?
We Want To Be In That Category Where Everything Happens
We looked last night at how some things can actually spoil the whole flow. We gave one illustration out of Matthew where it said that Jesus couldn’t do many mighty works in Nazareth because of their unbelief (Matthew 13:58); but then we proceeded to show how there are many more Scriptures which said He healed everybody—cast out all the devils and healed all the sick (Matthew 4:24; 8:16; 12:15; Luke 4:40; 5:17–19; 9:11). So we’re concerned—we want to be in that category where everything happens, everything works, everything just begins to move in our lives. If we can find one thing that we are lacking, that’s causing us to fail to receive the full power, then we want to get rid of it.
We Want To Lay Hold Upon The Power And The Promises Of God, Effectively
One of the biggest illustrations that has come recently is how you can put your hand on two wires and nothing will happen if the insulation is good enough. But if you scrape the insulation off those wires and put your hands on them, then you’re going to get the full benefit of the power that goes through those lines. That’s exactly what you have to do in this. You have to say, “I want it to come through. I don’t want a trickle; I want a torrent. I want the thing to flow.” We don’t want to come for a little tickling sensation, but we want to lay hold upon the power and the promises of God, effectively. And that’s the great thing that is happening.
A Great Deal Is Not Based Upon The Shortcomings Of The Flesh But Upon God Purifying Your Spirit
I know that in the Scriptures there were various ways of dealing with things. For instance, in I Timothy chapter 1 and in I Corinthians the 5th chapter, Paul refers to those who were to be turned over to the devil. That’s drastic. They were turned over to the devil for the destruction of their flesh (I Timothy 1:20; I Corinthians 5:5). And I admit, the sins were pretty bad, but I don’t want you to misinterpret it; they were dealing with gross sin, not with some little impediment in spirit that was keeping people from getting into what God had for them. We don’t want to deal with this harshly and say, “Well, if somebody isn’t tracking with the Lord, let’s kick them out of the church.” No, we want to say, “There’s a way to see this person helped, and a way that he can help me.”
There’s a great deal, at this particular point, that is not based upon the shortcomings of the flesh, but is based upon God purifying your spirit, and you coming into something that’s better. What would happen if we said, “We’re going to put up a standard of behavior for everybody, and everyone who has walked for five years and never done any of these things can be a part of the whole Body?” I have a feeling that nobody would be showing up, because in some things we sometimes fail, even with good intentions. There is a saying, “The road to hell was paved with good intentions.” I think Cain had good intentions; I think up to a certain point, Judas had good intentions—at least they thought they did. But when we get into this, we determine: we’re going to find a way to be one Body before the Lord, with one Spirit. And that’s important, because a little leaven defiles the whole lump (I Corinthians 5:6).
Kingdom Proverbs On Body Ministry
Here are some general principles that I’d like to have you listen to:
The Kingdom of God is one, and it survives in its oneness.
The Kingdom of God is vulnerable to the weaknesses of everyone in it. It’s just as strong as the weakest link.
Everyone else becomes the first to perceive the need of each other individual in the Body; and they must, in faith, minister the perception to the individual.
You Can Have Something Wrong In Your Spirit And Not Know It—But Everybody Else Will
I say this because you can have something wrong in your spirit and not know it. You can be under such deception that you never perceive it—but everybody else will. Don’t you think so? Everybody else will see it. They’ll all be aware of it.
Your Love Will Pull Down The Barrier And Help Me To Perceive My Own Need
Then what is the answer? If I can see your problem and you can see mine, but I can’t see my own problem and you can’t see your problem, then we’re sort of locked into a stalemate of wondering, “How is this thing of oneness going to work?” That’s where we take the love—and everyone has the responsibility to see the need of each individual—and to bring deliverance to that one, in love. Now, face that in your mind. If I see your need and you can’t see it, and you see my need and I can’t see it, then you’re going to have to take action to take authority over that, in love. But you can’t just come up and slug it out with me, because I will resist that. However, your love will pull down the barriers and help me to perceive my own need. It’s love that makes this ministry palatable to one another.
The Body Purifying Itself Is Not By Confronting But By A Ministry Of Love
We are getting at the things of the Body finding a way of purifying itself, edifying itself, in love. It is not by confronting; but it’s by a ministry of love. So here is what we’re facing in this. We’re coming, step by step, service by service, message by message, to the place where we are learning how to minister to one another. There are a few who have experienced this, and they’re very happy about what happened. The usual remark is, “Well, I just didn’t see it before. I didn’t realize it before.” Somebody gets to them, and suddenly it’s just like lights go on, skyrockets are exploding. They begin to see their need.
One of the finest things that could be is that you would face this possibility and come for ministry and say, “Penetrate this area of imperception, this lack of understanding. Just penetrate it and show me what I am to do.” If you approach somebody who is not going to be critical to judge you, but who will have perception and love to help you, you’ll be surprised that there will be no condemnation involved in the whole process. There will be no condemnation that anybody has over it. The person who comes to you will be so happy, and rejoicing so much in what they’ve received and what you give, that it will be just like a love feast.
The Body Has Its Own Method Of Purification
We pointed out last night that those who are deliberately rebellious and stubborn are often as Jude called them, “hidden rocks in your love feast” (Jude 12). Because of their refusal, they open the door to a great deal of problems. So we’ve got to find the way in which the Body has its own method of purification. From the very beginning, the teaching was that the Body of Christ was like the human body: it has three processes. There’s intake—you breathe, and you eat, and you drink. Then you assimilate—it all goes into the belly, and you assimilate. And after you assimilate all that you can, then you must eliminate. Everybody has to have these three processes functioning properly. So the Body has to know how to eliminate the problems within itself that are going to defile it. They must know how to do that.
We Function Both Collectively And As Individuals
This is not a matter of our judging one another; it’s a matter of being very keenly aware that we function both collectively and as individuals. If you’re going to be an individual all by yourself—that’s one end of the pendulum—you’re going to be one little sheep out there that the wolves are going to have a picnic on. Or you can swing to the other end of the pendulum and say, “I’m going to get lost in the crowd; nobody’s going to see me.” I know people who are very close to becoming invisible. Marilyn says that you can look at them and not see them in a crowd. They are so determined that they’re not going to be seen. That is because they don’t want any attention; whether they have problems or not they’re going to keep them to themselves, and then remain very passive. The wolf gets at that kind of a sheep, too, because passivity fails to activate the faith that you really need to function and move as a member of the Body.
We have to put the two together. We have to take the being an individual and being a Body, and put them together and say, “I’m going to receive ministry from the Body. I’m going to be alert to the Body’s needs and minister to it, and it will be alert to my needs and minister to me. This is very much an individual matter of my walking with God. I have to have a walk with God. And it’s also very much a matter of my walking with my brothers and sisters.” So it begins to boil down to the fact that we’re really learning how to function in this Body ministry, and we’re learning how to get rid of the things in our own spirit that are wrong.
When You’re Rebellious And Stubborn, You’re Creating A Problem For The Whole Body
Before we get into the positive side of this, I’d like to point out something a little further on the negative side. If you think that this is not serious, look at I Samuel chapter 15, where Samuel talked to Saul about his disobedience.
In verses 22–23 Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offering and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination (witchcraft), and insubordination (the King James Version reads “stubbornness”) is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” Now why would the Lord place such a terrible slant on rebellion and stubbornness? Why? Because when you’re stubborn, you are resisting the very thing that will be your own salvation. When you’re rebelling, you’re going against the Word that will be your own deliverance and your own salvation. But you’re doing more than that; when you’re rebellious, you’re creating a problem for the whole Body. When you’re stubborn, you create a problem for the whole Body.
All The Devil Has To Do Is Get You To Become Rebellious And God Won’t Bless You
Balaam was a true prophet of the Lord. But the trouble with Balaam was that he wanted to make some money by cursing Israel, and he couldn’t because he had too much integrity as a prophet. How did Balaam become a number one false prophet? He went to Balak and said, “This is what you do. I can’t curse them; but if you just get them to be rebellious and stubborn and not follow the Word of the Lord, God will destroy them” (Revelation 2:14; Numbers 25:1–3). Balaam was using this same principle I’m telling you about.
All the devil has to do is get you to disobey and become rebellious and critical. Then he has something going that will be destructive; it will be an epidemic, and God won’t bless you. But if you set about to keep the peace, if you strive to be one in Spirit, maintaining the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3; Philippians 2:3), God will bless you, and keep on blessing you. Go back and read those stories about Balaam; and when you read them, you realize that thousands of people were killed at Baal-peor (Numbers 25). Thousands died there. The sin of Balaam is even mentioned again in the books of II Peter (2:15), Jude (verse 11), and Revelation (2:14). It’s one of the classic illustrations of God’s wrath coming against people. They lost all of their defenses; they lost their immunity; they lost the smile of God upon them. Everything went sour for them because a few people were rebellious. They were committing a fornication before God that had spiritual overtones to it; it was far beyond just a physical sex act. God moved in on them and the judgments came.
We’re More Than Our Brother’s Keeper, We’re The Keepers Of The Kingdom
We still do not know how much we are our brother’s keeper (Genesis 4:9). But as this dispensation is opened, we’re more than our brother’s keeper; we’re the keepers of the Kingdom. We’re keeping the blessing and the immunity. We’re opening the doors of grace to a lot of people, and we do it because we’re faithful. But we’re not just faithful on an individual basis; we’re doing it collectively. We’re not concerned only about ourselves, but as the Word says, “Let each of you regard one another as more important than himself” (Philippians 2:3). In other words, the evaluation of your brother in importance has to be great. You have two good reasons to prefer your brother above yourself. Your brother could be a source of defilement that can trip you up, but your brother can also be a source of cleansing that can heal you. We just tear away every bit of discord, every bit of judging one another, every bit of criticism. Instead we come into the unity of the faith, trusting God together, walking with God together.
II Corinthians 6—There Are Some Things That We Need To See In It
II Corinthians chapter six was one of the great passages that opened up “the Unfolding” a year ago, right here in Haiku. But there are some things we need to see in it that we have not noticed before. Listen to the way Paul related to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 6:11–18. Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are rcstrained in your own affections. II Corinthians 6:11–12. It was in their own feelings that they tied themselves up. God can give you a Word, and the ministry can flow to you, the Body can love you; but the restraint is of your own doing. You’re restrained in your own feelings, emotions, affections. It’s in yourself that this restraint exists.
Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also. II Corinthians 6:13. Actually, “to us” is not in the text, just “open also.” In other words, he’s not saying, “Just open to me”; he’s saying, “Just open up. Come on, open up to each other. Open up to receive blessing from each other. Open up to take care of one another.”
And then he goes on, right down to this defilement in relationships and the way you relate: Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. Now he’s talking about the wickedness and the unequal yoke. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. II Corinthians 6:14–18.
This leads into something very important in the next verse: Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one. II Corinthians 7:1–2. “Make room for us.” Do you see what he’s trying to say? It swings into a wide application. As an individual, you come clean for God, separate. And as a believer, you open your hearts to each other and you begin to minister to each other. You see, the basis of it is “having these promises.” That’s it—“these promises.” I want them to work. God has given us so much in a Living Word that is actually going to work. And the way we’re going to make it work is by getting rid of anything that would prevent it from working. In other words, this Word is one more step in creating the pure atmosphere of the Kingdom for the greater works to come. God is going to move by His Spirit in all the earth. This is the way it’s going to happen.
When You Cut Yourself Off From The Oneness In The Body, You Cut Yourself Off From The Lord
Don’t fool yourself. You can say, “Oh, I’ve got a good spirit.” How do you relate to the Body? “Well, I don’t get along with the Body, but I’ve got a right spirit toward God.” No, you don’t. You know that you don’t. If you’re born of God and you love God, then you’re going to love that which is begotten by Him (I John 5:1). The thing has to work both ways there. And they have to love you. When you cut yourself off from the oneness in the Body, you cut yourself off from the Lord. Remember that. And whenever you have hatred in your heart, you’re not going to be blessed of the Lord. Read the book of I John again, and see what he says about those who hate or who don’t love their brothers. It becomes a very touchy point there, because some of those things are pretty strong.
I Wanted You To Realize The Value Of Having A Right Spirit Before The Lord
What I really want to do is just smite you in your heart, and make you realize the value of having a right spirit before the Lord, and a right spirit toward each other. Believe the Word. Open up to your brother. We’re going to be co-creators with God of one another. You’re going to create me.
We Anoint One Another, And We Create One Another
I used to feel that there might be some restrictions in this business of our laying hands on one another. Do you know what I mean by that? Who can lay hands on each other? This business of anointing one another with oil—the elders can anoint, and in the gospels the disciples anointed people with oil too. In the Old Testament they anointed with oil. “Thou anointest my head with oil” was a part of the twenty-third Psalm. This is what God is trying to say about us. We anoint one another, and we create one another. You can say, “John, I want you to anoint me,” and that’s fine; but I want you to anoint me, too. I feel that we come to the place where we don’t make it anymore as individuals; we make it as a Body in the Kingdom. But also, we don’t make it as a Body without we become created individuals with a right spirit. It’s both. We put it together. Everybody has to move in this.
We can’t afford not to get to the depth of what you’re saying, because God is not going to honor anything less.
I think we’re just touching it, really. We’re just beginning to see how miraculously we can appropriate and impart and move in together as the dear flock of God, with a pure spirit.
The Key Is That You Love Each Other So Much That You Get Down To The Root Of The Thing That’s Bothering Your Brother
Realize that the people who have problems are not aware of them. They will be able to see everybody else’s problems, but they don’t see their own. The key of this is that you love each other so much that you get those walls down. In love you don’t offend one another, but you minister to one another and get down to the root of the thing that’s bothering your brother. And just about the time that’s done, he starts getting to your roots. Everybody tends, in the flesh, to be defensive. But on the other hand, I don’t want you to wallow in self-condemnation or in condemnation of your brother. We’re not talking about condemnation. We’re talking about the pure spirit of the Kingdom, the atmosphere in which it all happens. There’s a difference.
A Synergistic Action Of The Body
This becomes so critical to us, that if the devil could pick us off one by one he could win. But we have enough faith to give immunity and to give deliverance and to give healing to any one individual involved in it. We have great power. There’s a synergistic action of the Body, but that synergistic action requires that there be no neutral, passive forces in that Body. Each one of them, whatever potential they have, must move forward in it.
We Have To Be Bold With A Love That Knows
We have to stir one another up to see what we can be doing. And that takes a lot of love, because usually passivity means we’ve accepted our limitation, what we can accept. And we just have to be bold with a love that knows.
We Insist On Being Receivers Of The Grace Of God Together
We can’t be passive. The Word says, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3.) So, the neglect of any individual is a deadly thing. But also, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (I Samuel 15:23). You can have somebody that may not be particularly rebellious, but they’re just passive; they don’t really care. If something is loose in the Body, at either extreme, it’s deadly. We can help each other. There must be this persistence. We insist on blessing one another. We insist on being open to one another. We insist on being receivers of the grace of God together.
It Becomes A Matter Of Love More Than People Really Know
There’s a Scripture that says if a father doesn’t discipline his child he hates him (Proverbs 13:24). Well, you don’t love each other if you’re not willing to function as a brother and a sister to one another. And you don’t really love God if you cut yourself off from your own brothers and sisters. It becomes a matter of love more than people really know. The disciples were filled with such love and faith, and the Word says, “They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spake the Word with boldness” (Acts 4:31). The boldness overcomes our reluctance, because we really love God and we really love one another.
TO THOSE IN THIS ROOM
This Word Has Been Fought Bitterly
Lord, we just look to You that this Word is going to have free course. It’s not going to be a thing that will be hindered.
Probably one of the reasons why this Word has been fought more bitterly than any other Word I’ve received here in Haiku is because it reveals something that is still an open door for the enemy to hit us. And if I could go further—I’m going to be kind of blunt about it—I found something satanic in certain things.
Creating The Pure Atmosphere Of The Kingdom
In creating the pure atmosphere of the Kingdom, we do not start with the world or the churches; we’re going to start with those that are right here in this room. The soundness and the strength of the whole Body depends, of course, upon sterilizing the infection in each individual in the Body and bringing their healing without scars. This is a revelation. We have to sterilize these wounds and heal them. And where do we start? We start right here.
We Eliminate The Psychic Soul-Level
Philippians 1:12–20: Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well-known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
It is evident that we’re going through the very same thing Paul did. There are those right now who are making prayers and preaching sermons against the very ministry that is set to open the door for them. And there are others who are earnestly praying for my deliverance, that I may speak the Word of God with boldness, as I ought to speak (Ephesians 6:19–20). Now that raises a question—how do we eliminate the hindering things in the very atmosphere and get a free flow? How do we turn back those that are bringing some kind of weird prayers or psychic forces? Well, the answer we got was this: those who turn loose a psychic force from a soul-level against the true level of the Spirit have a force, but only psychic force; they’re not really of God because they’re born of a soul-level. Therefore, they hinder and assault the true ministries and are usually outspoken against them.
Ephesians 5:13 gives us a key: But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.
Things Which Are On A Soulish, Psychic Level Give Opportunity To Satan
The things that really cause the trouble are the little things in the Body which are on a soulish, psychic level and have not met the work of the cross. These are the things that give opportunity to Satan; and these do not work the will of God, but they are very effective in hindering that which would.
If soulish pride and position-orientation are the keys to this soulish, psychic force, then this takes it back to what has been coming for several years. We’re talking about position and how we relate to each other. The Lord wants to remove position, but people say, “Why can’t we have position and organization of that nature?” Because you see, the soulish pride and position-orientation are the keys of this soulish, psychic force that hits so hard.
The Soul-Realm Interprets As Discernment And Almost A Superior Wisdom What Is Really A Prejudiced Judgment
This is the thing that has probably caused more problems and trouble in the churches in this restoration move than anything else. The soul-realm interprets as discernment and almost a superior wisdom what is really a prejudiced judgment. It’s a prejudiced judgment; it’s a slanted observation with suspicion.
Input And Influence Coming From This Old Soul-Flesh
Until you get through the work of the cross on this soulflesh, I don’t think that you are ever in any position of pure discernment, where it does not have a certain input and influence coming from this old soul-flesh that is slightly slanted. Until the work of the cross is done in the soul-flesh, you still go by conditionings, reactions, your old psychic level, and memory.
We Have Such Perfect Faith For One Another
I want to see that some way we get to the place where people are not programmed by their own prejudices that give a certain slant of suspicion to their evaluation of everybody else; instead we will have such perfect faith for one another.
When somebody gets delivered and is tracking right, we don’t have to watch them for six months and decide, “Well, maybe they’re doing all right.” It is in that time that they need prayers. But you see, the thing that is really needed is the work of the cross for the people who have contributed to the problems of other people—they have contributed to them by this prejudiced judgment and a slanted observation of people, with suspicion all wrapped around it. That has to go! And usually it comes right back to a soulish pride.
True Discernment Refuses To Judge; True Repentance Is The Way Of The Cross
True discernment refuses to judge in this manner. Every ministry that is not moving on this level of love is a ministry that needs the work of the cross done in him. He is locked into a lack of love, and he will never break out of it until he humbles himself with a real repentance; and I mean a real repentance, because that’s the way of the cross, isn’t it?
The soulish mind, this psychic level of people moving, is self-deceptive. It’s self-deceptive. It imagines offenses against themselves from those whom they have wrongly judged.
Here’s a Kingdom Proverb, if you’d like to have one: Everything offends one who judges his brother.
The Tendency Of This Soulish Flesh, Psychic Level Is To Judge Harshly
The tendency of this soulish flesh, psychic level is to judge harshly. They especially judge the bondservant ministries and those who are related to some apostle or some man of God.
They tend to be preferential, these that do this. They will prefer one against another, because it is on a soul-flesh level. If you have two who are prophesied to be apostles, they will prefer one and almost put the other one down. And then they’ll strive to be the only important one to that ministry that they prefer. And then they like to take the credit for it.
This Soul-Flesh And Psychic Level Is Willfully Independent, And Deliberately Undisciplined
This soul-flesh and psychic level is willfully independent, and deliberately undisciplined. That’s why it must be crucified, because it has no intention of changing; it doesn’t intend to change. You’re not going to get that soul-flesh to be submissive to the Lord. These ministries will have to come through people who have had the work of the cross in them.
It might be of value for us to see how we reach into God; then we’re capable of dealing with these other things. This passage is very vitally related to it. Colossians 3:1–10: If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.
It’s Difficult To Repudiate Until You Appropriate
It boils down to a work of faith. Sometimes I think we simplify it because God wants us to, but you see, we appropriate. We appropriate, and we can also repudiate. We can put off, we can reject things; but sometimes it’s very difficult to repudiate until you appropriate. Isn’t that right? It’s difficult to get right down to the root of the thing until you’ve reached up into the things that God really has for you.
Your Whole Spirit And Soul And Body Is Going To Have To Be Completely Cleaned Up And Made Right Before God
I was so aware of I Thessalonians 5 again, because I know it deals prophetically with the transition period between night and day, when some would walk in the night and others would walk in the day; and we’re certainly in that right now. It deals with this transition period between ages, basically. Although it was true then, it’s amazingly true now and it boils down to this—you’re going to have to be sanctified wholly, your whole spirit and soul and body is going to have to be completely cleaned up and made right before God. Paul said, “Faithful is He that called you who also will do it” (I Thessalonians 5:23–24).
Become The Cleansing, Purifying Factor That God Wants Each Of Us To Be To One Another
It’s so easy for soulish religion to be so self-deceived that a person will claim that he has everything when he has just begun to track in the things that God has for him. But you see, if we can be deceived in this, we’ll go on without laying ourselves open before the Lord. Go before one another and become the cleansing, purifying factor that God wants each of us to be to one another.
Two Extremes Satan Uses In Self-Condemnation
We’ve talked a great deal about self-condemnation, and it is terrible, condemning one another and condemning ourselves when God has really done such a wonderful thing in us. And I’ve passed through this experience where you ministered to me that I’d have to learn how to love myself and love the place that I have in God; that was important. And I think that the self-condemnation hangs on sometimes and we confuse it as being true repentance, and we just forget that there’s two extremes Satan will use. If he can’t get you to condemn yourself, then he’ll throw another curve at you and get you on this psychic level to believe that you’ve got it all when you haven’t got it at all.
You’ve got to track right in the middle. You’ve got to search your heart, you’ve got to walk with a crown on your head and tears in your eyes and a broken spirit before the Lord. We’re avoiding the place of self-condemnation, and we’re avoiding the place of assumption without possession.
Even every good experience can deteriorate by too much assumption. Presuming would be the word, wouldn’t it?
It comes to the place that you’re not going to get into this new level without going back to the roots of your walk with God and reconstructing yourself in God.
If Revelation Doesn’t Lead To A State Of Repentance, Then You Didn’t Get The Revelation
What you’re saying is this: in the revelation of this Kingdom or this step—this is all Kingdom Teaching—if the revelation doesn’t lead to a state of repentance, then you didn’t get the revelation.
Change Our Nature
You’ve said that everything we come into affects the relationship, the ministry, the flow of the Lord that’s pure. If we come in unclean, we’re contaminating everybody. And if everybody can see what the Lord is requiring of them right now, it’s going to be the simplest way to get into this. But you can’t do it unless you’re ready to change your nature.
Losing Your Life For His Sake
Every age sees that, I think. When they came into Canaan, they had to pass through the River Jordan, and through the Red Sea. When they became disciples they had to leave all. If you were a disciple, you left everything, and the issue was that you would have to lose your life or you wouldn’t find it (Matthew 16:25). And when you get to the Kingdom, it’s the same devastating, demanding thing. You call it the work of the cross, taking up the cross, losing your life for His sake—call it anything you want to, but it all comes out the same thing.
We’re getting the way to move into control. That’s it! We’ve had more and more evidences of signs and answers, real releases. We’ve got to go all the way in.
If We Don’t Change Our Roots, We Won’t Make It Into The Kingdom
I feel like the question that everybody has to face is, “Do you really want to go through this? Do you really, really want this?” I think that everybody could say, “Oh yes, I want to walk with God.” But you know what you’ve got to put yourself through in this to go through a real re-establishing of the way you’ve ever evaluated anything—the way you’ve evaluated anything of yourself, the ones around you, your walk with God, the Word—because you’re going to have to have a new understanding in God’s thinking about what’s happening right now. You cannot carry into this level what you’ve had from the past. And do you want to be unwrapped? Do you want to have confrontation where there’s going to be a creating? Do you want to have yourself exposed by other people the way that they’re going to come and say, “This is the way you’ve done it in the past, and it may have been right up to the level that we were then walking on, but right now it is wrong”? And you’re going to have to go back and get into the roots, and change—not just change what you did in the past, but you’re going to have to change your nature. That’s all you taught in “the Unfolding.” It isn’t a matter of disciplining the nature; it’s a matter of changing. And if we don’t change our roots, we won’t make it into the Kingdom.
Only In The True Honest Repentance Before His Face Is There A Change In Our Spirit
You said here that self-condemnation sometimes can bring you into tears, but it isn’t a true repentance. And therefore, if it’s not true repentance, there isn’t change. Because only in the true, honest repentance before His face and in His presence is there a change in our spirit. And we have got to have this drive to say, “Whatever it takes.” All of it is coming back to do one thing, and that’s to minister with a pure spirit, broken before the Lord, with a Word from God, with the Lord’s Spirit ministering back to the pure vessel that’s ministering to us.
You’re Creating The Right Atmosphere And Creating Yourselves
The Lord is saying, “Here’s an order. You get John going in this. And to do that you’ve got to create the right atmosphere; but while you’re creating the right atmosphere and creating yourselves, you’re going to be stepping on his heels coming into it, too.” We’ll all come into this together.
Learn To Create The Atmosphere
Once you learn how to create the atmosphere, you’ve got it. I was reading an article telling that there’s a type of plant which grows around the Arctic Circle. They found that this plant may only grow once in four hundred years, because the temperature may never warm up enough for the seed to grow. But if it ever gets up to a certain temperature (and even then it’s still freezing weather), that little plant will grow. It’s been known to lie dormant for four hundred years, waiting for a time to bloom. I think that this is what God has had to put up with in a lot of people. The atmosphere hasn’t been right. But the Word has been sown, and if we create the atmosphere, we’re going to see a lot of things come forth. God has done a real work in people’s hearts. It’s just that they need to get into the full change. They need to get into the flow.
It’s so difficult to make the transition, because God Himself takes His own time in transition. It’s like Jacob moving along slowly because of the cattle with young, and the little children (Genesis 33:13–14). How many years did it take, a generation or two generations, before the early Church really dropped the rituals of the Old Testament religion and really broke into what the Church was to be?
Led As Quickly As Possible Into A Pure Expression Of The Kingdom
How much are we carrying with us from the soulish Church level into this spiritual level of the Kingdom? How many of the churches are still in a transition period? I tell you what we must do: we must not crowd them, lest we create a vacuum, but we must see to it that they’re led as quickly as possible into a pure expression of the Kingdom. We have to help them into it. You can’t just take one thing away unless you’re going to see another thing given.
Our Persistence Is The Key Of Our Own Change
I’m sure all of this is in progress. It’s like Luke 18; it’s our persistence that’s going to shorten the time so that He answers us speedily. And that’s what we’ve got to get into. Our persistence does more than just bring the answer. Our persistence is the key of our own change, too. Don’t just say, “Well, we have to change.” Persistently stay at it. In everything that God sets before us, let’s just stay right on the course and not deviate one bit. Just push the whole thing with all our heart.
A BROKEN SPIRIT CLEARS THE AIR
Pure Channels to One Another
The time has come that we’re really protecting one another. We’re really searching our heart that we be a pure channel to one another.
It’s a very deep thing we’re into with this atmosphere; we don’t want to lose the trend of creating the atmosphere.
Continually Live In That Spirit Of Repentance
This afternoon’s Word is something that just opened the door for me to stay in a state of repentance. I just continually live in that realm. It was significant. It was a Word from the Lord. I can’t bring a message like this without being on my face before God repenting. I can’t help it. And I don’t see how anybody could hear it and not feel that spirit of repentance. This was Kingdom level, wasn’t it? You realize that I can hardly talk or speak or teach without it being that deep Word that cuts asunder (Hebrews 4:12). I’m devastated myself from it. It’s the thing that God is going to honor.
Everything Has To Start With A State Of Repentance
I remember how this walk in the Spirit started, with a state of repentance. Every book on the gifts of the Spirit starts with lessons on repentance. Everything has to start that way. John the Baptist and Jesus both came preaching, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). I don’t see that we go out and blow trumpets and say, “The Kingdom is coming.” But we create the flood with our own tears. We have to do it. You just don’t know what to do, so you say, “Lord, we wait before Thee.” You don’t even feel that your responsibility before God as His servants entitles you to take as much initiative as you did in the past: “Lord, here are my plans; You bless them.” Now it is simply, “Lord, You lead me; You tell me”—and then we move with fear and trembling, lest it not be the right spirit within us.
We Come To Be Broken Before The Lord And Then We Minister To One Another
The passages out of Psalm 51 were talking about the right spirit and what God wanted. It wouldn’t take long to read all of those verses because I only picked the ones that show that there’s a crying out for the spirit to be right, inwardly. “Truth in the inward parts” (verse 6). “Right spirit, renew a right spirit within me” (verse 10). “Broken and a contrite heart; these are the sacrifices of God” (verse 17). And if you couple that in with a passage out of either Matthew, Mark or Luke, where it talks about, “Repent for the Kingdom is at hand,” this is what we’re doing. We come to be broken before the Lord and then we minister to one another, praying that we minister with a pure spirit.
It’s a strange thing. There’s nothing that stirs the heart of a sincere person like talking about repentance. When I say talking about repentance, I mean bringing it out of your own heart. It takes a hard heart to reject that.
Arrogance And Pride Still Succeed In Building Double Walls
“Break me, break me, Lord, and then shall I teach the transgressors Thy way. Then the sinners shall be converted unto Thee” (Psalm 51:13). It’s the arrogance and the pride that still succeeds in building walls. The boundary lines are covered with walls where there’s not repentance.
Presumption And Self-Condemnation Are Both Traps Of The Devil
One thing I have felt is that through the years I’ve been a repenter. I’ve done as much heart searching before God as I have seeking His face—and not with that thing of self-condemnation. You can condemn yourself or you can assume that you’ve got it; but there’s a middle course of repentance and brokenness before the Lord. Presumption and self-condemnation are both traps of the devil. Nothing pleases God more than that sacrifice with a broken spirit before Him.
We Can Draw That Perfect Gift Of Continual Repentance
You know, that’s no little thing, because I think there are a lot of people that go one way or the other, but I don’t think there’s too many that have that thing of the brokenness and the repentance that stays on a right level. You can easily get off a little bit, and open the door for a condemnation that you can’t get out from under; or you can go the other way and get into an arrogance where the Lord or anybody else can’t touch you. We can have that perfect gift of continual repentance; we can draw it. I don’t know how else we’ll make it.
You get to the place where you say, “Lord, we’re reaching in to live in Your presence and for the control, for the authority”; and instead you find yourself just repenting and broken before the Lord. It sounds like a paradox. I guess this is the path for it.
When You Stand In The Presence Of The King, That’s Where You’ll Have The Total Fulfillment Of Every Promise
I was reading one of those “Unfolding” gleanings from July of last year; and it says in there about how, when you stand in the presence of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that’s the place where you’ll appropriate resurrection life. And it is also the place where we’ll have the total fulfillment of every promise. I think it’s interesting that this whole thing of our repentance and our standing in the presence of the Lord is something that’s inseparable. That’s why we’re into it, because we’ve been wrestling God to stand in His presence.
The Greatest Faith Was, “Lord, I Am Not Worthy; Speak The Word Only”
The greatest faith in all Israel was expressed by this opener: “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof. Speak the Word only” (Matthew 8:8). See, it’s that sense of, “We’re not worthy,” but the faith that says, “Speak the Word.” It’s right there. The gospel of Luke records that the Jews came to Jesus and said, “Lord, he is worthy that You should do this for him, for he has built for us a synagogue” (Luke 7:4–5). That wasn’t the verdict the centurion had of himself. The Jews were saying just the opposite. The Jews said, “He’s worthy that You should do this for him.” And He said, “Lord, I’m not worthy that You should come under my roof” (Luke 7:6). Did you ever notice that?
That’s an inseparable: “I’m not worthy. Speak the Word and my servant liveth.”
There Is No Real True Repentance Without This Revelation Of The Lord
When you stand in the presence of the Lord you have the revelation of Him, and you have a right revelation of yourself, and you repent. Otherwise, you fall guilty of your own evaluation, that you don’t see your need, or you see needs that aren’t there. You either assume that you have no need, or you condemn yourself instead of recognizing yourself as a miracle of God in the earth. So there is no real, true repentance without this revelation of the Lord. There just isn’t.
If you want to repent, it seems the only thing you can do is just seek the Lord for a meeting with Him.
Repentance is like the will of God. It’s a state of spirit more than an evaluation of actions.
Repentance Encompasses A State Of Spirit
Some of the greatest repentance that I’ve ever done, and if you’d ask me after, “What did you repent of,” I couldn’t tell you. It’s something so deep in your own spirit. It encompasses a state of spirit that your mind may not know fully what actions or what thoughts or what deeds or what lack or what neglect, what arrogance, what self-condemnation you’re repenting of. In time I think you come to see it. But most of the time you’re in there repenting before God, because you know that you’re not right in your spirit, and you seek God to be right in your spirit. So it becomes a positive thing. “Search me, O God. See if there’s a wicked way in me.” The Psalmist is not even conscious of it himself. “Lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24). Don’t you think that’s where we are right now?
We’re Confronting Satan—The Accuser And The Lie
It’s like we’re confronting Satan, who is the accuser and the lie, and it seems like Satan is standing in the presence of the Lord like he was in Job and like he was in Zechariah (Job 1:6; Zechariah 3:1). It seems that the closer you get into the presence of the Lord, the louder the devil’s voice gets, because he’s up there accusing you.
Satan was standing at the right hand of Joshua—remember, because Joshua was a high priest—ready to accuse him. He’s always right there.
It Doesn’t Matter How Right Or Wrong You Were—You’re Standing In His Righteousness
The other day I found myself really searching my heart, going back over things that had happened these past years. I thought I was doing right, and maybe I wasn’t. See, if I did do wrong, it was misjudgment; it wasn’t due to a heart that was wrong. And then it came to my mind by the Holy Spirit, “But you’ve taken Communion; you’ve taken the blood of Jesus a thousand times. You’ve cleansed and purified your soul before God. It doesn’t matter how right or wrong you were. You’re standing in His righteousness.” That’s the way we have to look at it. But we have to look at it the same way for others, because you see, if we stand and say, “Lord, forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who sinned against us also,” then you can’t remember those sins (Matthew 6:12–15). Or if somebody says, “Well, I remember John did this and I thought