How Do You Defend Yourself?
Defending Yourself Started In The Garden Of Eden
In what ways do you defend yourself? Have you noticed how easy it is to defend yourself, how easy it is to justify your actions?
In the world, even when a person does something he knows is wrong, by the next morning he’ll have a dozen reasons why he should have done it. Defending ourselves started way back, a long time ago in the Garden of Eden, and we’re still doing it (Genesis 3:8–13). The flesh will do whatever the animal world does. What do animals do? They growl, they snap, or they run. It’s fight or flight.
Why do we growl? Why do we snarl? Why do we fight? Why do we run? Because we want to preserve ourselves.
That’s why Jesus said, “If any man will save his life, he shall lose it; if any man will lose his life for My sake, he shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). What was He saying? If you’re trying to preserve your self life, you’re going to lose it.
How Easy It Is To Justify Yourself!
How easy it is to justify yourself! How easy it is to defend your actions! The Adamic bomb is more dangerous than the atomic bomb; The atomic bomb goes off and everyone is dead. The Adamic bomb goes off and its ripple effects go on and on.
It explodes and destroys at the wrong time. How many of you find out that when you’ve done something wrong, you try to justify it and blame it on someone else? That’s what Adam said: “That woman, she did it” (Genesis 3:12).
The Day Of The Individual Has To End
The day of the individual has to end so that the day of the Body begins. The day must come—when we are all set in the Body of Christ as it pleases Him. We are many members, but one Body (I Corinthians 12:12, 18), and those members will not glorify themselves or defend themselves.
How do you get into the Body? You are set into the Body as it pleases Him; but it helps a lot when the work of the cross is being done, and you die out to the flesh. They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24).
Are you tired of getting into a battle that you can’t win? Of defending something that God has already condemned. Your flesh has to die, do not prolong its death. Jesus has already said it’s going to have to die. The flesh is condemned already. For if you live after the flesh, ye shall die-Romans 8:13.
You Have Two Kinds Of Faith Warring Against Each Other
I’ve learned how subtle and deceptive the old nature is and what ingenuity it has. It is slick.
You have two kinds of faith warring against each other: with your spirit you believe to be crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), to be one with Him (John 17:21), to be able to lay your life down for the brethren (John 15:13).
But the flesh has another kind of faith. It says, “No, I’m not going to die, I am not going to do that. I’m going to do what I want to do! I’m going to be the old fleshly, carnal me!”
Let The Body Be Your Protection
What should you do? Hide? To run away and hide is usually wrong; it depends on where you hide. If you withdraw to protect yourself, that’s one thing; but moving into the Body and letting the Body be your protection is another. Open your heart to the Body, and let the Body to you.
When pressures come, hide in each other. Pull the strength of each other to meet it. You will not be on the defensive, because you won’t feel vulnerable any longer to the attack. The enemy won’t be able to touch you. There’s a place where they that are born of God will have to say, “The wicked one toucheth us not” (I John 5:18). Satan is not going to get through to us.
Crucify The Flesh With Its Defensiveness And Self-Preservation
Declare, “I want the work of the cross completed in me. I want to crucify the flesh with its affections and its lusts (Galatians 5:24), its defensiveness and its self-preservation.” What is the cross of Christ? It’s an instrument of death for you and me both. It’s a way of dying.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24.
But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14.
A Chance To Respond With Your Spirit
This wonderful thing of hiding one another in your hearts is solving a lot of problems, because it’s giving you a chance to respond with your spirit to God and to one another, rather than to respond in your flesh—on the defensive or withdrawn or rebellious or critical or judging.
Instead of judging your brother or sister, pull them into your heart to love them and to deliver them immediately. There is no place of deliverance or immunity as great as when you learn that you hide in one another’s hearts as one.
The Flesh Has A Limited Capacity To Love But Your Spirit Does Not
When we become one, we have broken through all the barriers, all the impasses, all the limitations. Those were on the flesh but they weren’t upon our spirit.
The flesh has a limited capacity to love but your spirit does not, because it can draw from God. Your flesh has a limited capacity to take stress, oppression and assault but your spirit does not, because your spirit will say, “The battle is not mine. The battle is the Lord’s” (II Chronicles 20:15).
There is no Kingdom without this. The Kingdom of God is relationships. And because it is, there will be no Kingdom, no glory, no manifestation of Christ’s greatness, until we are all one and one in Him, as He is in the Father (John 17:21).
When we defend ourselves, we cut ourselves off from a whole avenue of help. The way God is bringing a lot of His grace to us now is through our brother and sister; and if we won’t allow them to be our defense, we’re in big trouble.
Paul said, For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Philippians 3:18–19, KJV.
Paul was trying to tell people, “Walk as Christians,” but they were so living for the flesh and defensive of the flesh and glorying in that flesh that they were enemies of the cross.
And what is the cross of Christ? It’s an instrument of death for you and me both. It’s a way of dying.
How Long Will You Be An Independent Person?
How long will you be an independent person—an individual remote to any degree at all from the Body of Christ? How long will it be? The day that ends for you is the day that you stop reacting in the flesh to things, and you walk in the spirit. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5:16, KJV.
That word not in the Greek means never
I think that the answer for everything is on this level of perfect love. I think one reason why our intercession has not been more effective is that too many of us were praying almost from an old-nature level.
But now God is bringing us to the place where the thing is going to be so pure in the Spirit that we’ll speak it, and while we are yet speaking it will happen—before we call, He’ll answer (Isaiah 65:24). I think everything we’ve been looking for is coming in this oneness.
This Is A Step Of Faith Into Oneness
This is really a step of faith into oneness. There will be no Kingdom, no glory or manifestation of Christ’s greatness until we’re all one, as He is with the Father.
You can’t say that you’re in Christ if you’re not in your brother or sister, because Christ is in your brother and sister and you are in Him.
We’ve all been willing to be involved, but this also means laying down so much of individuality in order to become what God wants you to be in Christ.
How Do You Feel About Us?
“You are Nested in Our Hearts”
In II Corinthians 7:2–3 (Amplified Version), Paul says, Do open your hearts to us again—enlarge them to take us in. We have wronged no one; we have betrayed or corrupted no one; we have cheated or taken advantage of no one. I do not say this to reproach or condemn [you], for I have said before that you are (nested) in our hearts, [and you will remain there] whether we die or live, it will be together.
We’re getting the idea that we can’t close the door on each other, but more than that we could take faith to bang on our brother’s door until he opens up to us. Right? It’s the battering ram of love. Make him take his walls down and open his doors to you.
If you ever get discouraged and withdraw, the first thing you’ll do is begin to pull up your memories and responses of those old things that happened; and you’re going to be as bitter as you can be over what was a good thing that happened to you.
Go Into This With A Preconditioning To Forgive And Forget
We have to almost go into this with a preconditioning to forgive and to forget. If we don’t have that in our spiritual nature, the old nature has the memory of an elephant; it will never forget. It will constantly bring up old memories. Memory is built for conflict. That’s why wars would end if we stopped teaching history and traditions for one generation. It’s human not to forgive. What is the answer? True forgiveness has to be born by the Spirit. Therefore, you are looking for impartation. Appropriate that quality of spirit to forgive. I think God will give it to you.
Suppose you had a confrontation and an incident with someone. How do you recall it? Do you recall it by a response and a memory that you had from the old nature, or do you find that it has already been baptized in love and that you respond with a forgiveness and a love?
If You’re Going To Knock A Door Down, Be Prepared To Live Inside That Heart
When you confront, when you go into your brother’s heart to throw out the rubbish, love has to be predominant. If you’re going to kick someone’s door down, you had better have a valentine in your hand.
When you go to him in love, he’ll respond to the love and he’ll hear you. But if you don’t love him, he won’t listen to you.
If I go into my brother’s heart to throw out the rubbish, I’m also going to have enough faith to throw out the response that he would have to it. I’ve got to have faith.
You don’t hit and run. That’s illegal in the Kingdom. If you are going to knock a door down, be prepared to live inside that heart.
BE PREPARED FOR OPEN HEART SURGERY
If I’m going to do one thing for my brother and sister through intercession, I’m not going to stop until even those little roots of the old responses and conditionings and not forgiving one another or any memory of being offended is gone.
In other words, you not only get into the heart, but you also stay there until all that other stuff in their heart is gone. We are going to throw out a lot of stuff that’s got to get out of there. Change it.
But don’t be surprised if your brother has to do that to you, too. The bottom line is this: if you start opening your heart to each other, be prepared for open-heart surgery, because everybody’s going to wind up flowing in that love.
I Want To Forgive Because I Want To Be Forgiven
I love the Scripture that tells how the Lord removes our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). In Jeremiah 31:34 it says that He’s not going to remember them anymore against us forever. In Isaiah 44:22 the Lord says: “I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud.”
Matthew 18:21–35 tells the parable of the unforgiving servant. Jesus revealed how the Heavenly Father wants you to forgive your brother from your heart. I want to forgive everybody just as much as I can because I want to be forgiven everything.
It won’t work for you to say, “God, I’m going to live in Your heart and You’re going to live in my heart, but I’m going to hold this grudge against my brother. I’m going to remember his offense.” Oneness is broken between you and God and your brother simultaneously.
The Future Is Depending Upon The Way We Really Open Our Hearts To Each Other
But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. I John 1:7.
If I’m walking in the light, I’m going to have fellowship with you; and if I have fellowship and oneness with you, I’m going to be cleansed from all unrighteousness.
Oneness leads to perfection. Jesus said, “The glory that Thou hast given Me, I have given them that they may all be one—that they be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). Are you beginning to get the picture that everything in the future is depending upon the way we really open our hearts to each other?
It’s more than just relating; it’s reacting. How do you react: with the old nature or the new nature? If you want a perfect picture of the old nature, get a perfect picture of a person’s home life.
And if you want a perfect picture of the new nature, get a perfect picture of a person’s the home life.
That’s the way you tell how much of the old is dead and how much of the new is taking over—the way you still respond to each other.
Only This Deep Love Of One Another In The Spirit Will Enable Us To Recondition Our Past Responses
I Corinthians 13:12 talks about how we shall know, even as we are known. Love will give you revelation of a person as well as a love for them.
And when you have revelation of them, you will see not only their bad traits, but because you love them so much, you’ll see what God has for them and you’ll be ministering to help them into it. You will be revealing who they are in Christ, so that they can see that image and then they will be changed into it. That’s the whole key, isn’t it?
Resentment and bitterness, jealousy, vindictiveness, vengeance, grudges, even the remembrance of the wrong—all these things have to be blotted out or they will poison the flow of pure love to your brothers and sisters.
Only this deep love of one another in the Spirit will enable us to recondition our past conditionings—the responses which were formed under the negativity of our own independence and individuality. Oneness will bring a great change of attitude.
I’m deeply disturbed when I observe how, in a moment of stress, people will bring up an old memory, probably completely misinterpreting the facts with a negativity and a despair that is without faith.
When An Old Memory Comes Up, Shoot It Down By The Grace Of God
The greatest answer will be to lay hands-on people’s heads and heal the memory banks. And teach them how to “shoot ducks.”
When an old memory of bitterness comes up, shoot it down with the grace of God. Then it will go back into the memory banks, but it will never come out again with the same negativity.
Satan would bring the memories of the past constantly to hold you into something so vindictive that you can’t know what grace is for yourself or anyone else.
So, shoot the “ducks” every time they come up. Shoot them all down. Don’t miss one of them. Make the memories of the past like a shooting gallery, especially if they were accumulated under days of negativity, days of responding in the flesh.
Stand In A Readiness To Forgive
We want to open our heart to what God wants, to what He thinks and feels. We don’t want to hate a man as God’s enemy if tomorrow that Saul is going to be turned into an Apostle Paul.
We’re not going to be Pollyanna’s that are going to forgive one another of something that God hasn’t forgiven, or that the person won’t repent of, but we’re going to help him get to the place where he will repent.
We must stand in a readiness—a readiness to forgive or to be instruments of judgment or anything—all because we love the Lord so much. Whatever we are to be, we stand before God to be that.
Communion—Drawing Upon An Experience That Is In The Memory Of God
When we take the Holy Communion, we are drawing upon an experience that is in the memory of God. We could go back, with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and bond to Christ as real as if we were right there at that moment when He was crucified. You can do that with memories.
We have been talking about the negative power that can be created through a memory—how powerful a wrong conditioning or a response of bitterness to a past event or person can be. But we could also come to the place where we take Communion, and what was a memory, recorded in the Scriptures, a history, becomes a present fact and a present reality. This is the one thing that is made so real: you literally partake of the dripping blood and the body at the foot of the cross while Jesus dies.
Christ said, “I tell you; I’ll not drink this fruit of the vine until I take it new with you in My Father’s Kingdom” (Luke 22:18). This indicates that all of this was making real what Christ was, but that there was going to be a time in the Kingdom when there would be a newness of this participating together. Frankly, I think we’re in an overlap period in which we are reaching forward into the Communion of the future and bringing it back to our present. And we are taking the Communion of the past and bringing it up to the present also.
During Communion The Holy Spirit Can Activate And Make Real Words That You’ve Had from The Lord
We constantly review the Word, not just to try to retain a memory of it, but so that it can come through as strong as ever. People who make notes carefully of a Word that comes can go back and review those notes prayerfully, and those notes will come alive; they will remember. In fact, the Word becomes so much alive that it starts growing on in your mind, and you start thinking of things which were not even in the Word, but which are the next steps in the spiritual unfolding of that truth.
God can activate the Word so that when you go through things that you don’t understand, you can reach a certain place where the Holy Spirit, especially at an hour of Communion, can just make it alive to you. He can make real to you Words that you had from the Lord. I find this true all the time. While people are taking Communion, I’m generally scribbling, because things that I am to remember in the Lord come to me very quickly. And I think you should do the same thing. Just open your heart and let it flow.
Thank You, Lord, For This Grace That Blots Out The Past But Makes You Real In The Present
If a thing is real to your soul, there’s often emotion with it, and you feel weepy or joyful and so forth. But when a thing becomes the purest form of faith, that is your spirit reaching for reality. It is often without the emotions of the soul because it is lifted above a soul realm into the spirit.
Here is one appropriation that we’re making out of all this. It ties back to what we’re saying: “Thank You, Lord, for this grace that blots out the past but makes You real in the present. Every memory or conditioning that is wrong—we are released from it now. Your love will flow.”
You Really Do Love Me!
Our Mutual Love for the Lord Has Caused Us To Co-Create One Another As Bondservants
I have been reflecting on the faith and the confidence I have in the brothers who are coming up. I hold them in my heart and believe for them. And I know that I’m in their hearts as well. I believe in the commission that comes with impartation over a man. I believe in that more than I believe in the man. The man may be in the process of becoming a living epistle, a Living Word, but the commission with impartation is a Living Word.
It’s our mutual love for the Lord that has caused us to co-create one another as bondservants of the Lord devoted to the Word of God. It’s good to have a relationship like that. It’s a refreshing breeze from heaven to discover the mutual love and blessing and flow. We need to be thankful for the way we bless each other and understand each other.
It’s Going To Be Different; You’re In One Another’s Hearts Now
Maybe there have been disappointments in relationships because they fell short of the Kingdom, but we are entering into the Kingdom now and it’s going to be different. You are in one another’s hearts now. You can minister to one another and take initiative. You must realize that this whole move of God cannot remain under the supervision of one or two or three; instead, it has to be the spontaneous response of the whole Body to one another. Every one of you has to come into it.
How Wonderful It Is To Know That We Are In The Heart Of God
I don’t think we understand yet how wonderful it is for us to be forgiven by God of every trespass and offense, and to come to the place where we know that we are in the heart of God. We are written on the palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16). We are the sheep of His pasture, the children of His table (Psalm 95:7; 100:3). We are accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6). He loves us and rains that love upon us.
If we knew what this meant we would look at our brother and say, “Brother, do you know how much God loves you?” Our Lord’s love is not partial: it’s not just for me, it’s not just for one or two, but it is equally rained upon all of us.
The Love That He Has For You Becomes The Whole Foundation Of What God Is Doing
We don’t know yet how this “Unfolding” will affect the whole world, but if we are wise we will be very humble and keep rehearsing this in one another’s ears. God’s love is so real. To be blessed by God, to be forgiven of your trespasses and to know the tremendous love He has for you becomes the whole foundation of what God is doing.
When You Have A Clear Heart Before The Lord, Then You Have A Clear Heart With One Another
How can you believe to be one in God unless you believe that you have been totally, completely forgiven? Self-condemnation is the basis of division between you and God. It’s when you have a clear heart before the Lord that you are really free to love. And when you have a clear heart before the Lord, then you have a clear heart with one another. When we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin and we have fellowship with one another (I John 1:7).
You can’t love me and be one with me as long as you’re walking in self-condemnation. If you’re doing things wrong, then repent of them. God will give you the grace to drop them. Blessed is the man who knows what he has been forgiven of, and who has no self-guilt over it. We must remember with joy the forgiveness of sins that God will remember no more forever (Jeremiah 31:34). How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! Psalm 32:1–2.
You’re Not Going To Accept Me If You Can’t Accept Yourself
We need to get rid of a few more of the deadly poisons in our thinking. We’re going to remove from our minds the self-guilt, the inadequacies, the self-condemnation. We must know that we are accepted in God, and we must know that we accept our brother. When you know that God has accepted you, then there is no problem with accepting each other.
You’re not going to accept me if you can’t accept yourself. Those who walk in self-condemnation sooner or later reject just about everyone else too, because they can’t trust. They have no faith in God for themselves to be one with Him, so how are they going to have faith that God is one with someone else?
We Are Clean Through The Word Which He Has Spoken
We say, “Thank God, He has cleansed us. He has given us a Living Word, and we are clean through the Word which He has spoken unto us” (John 15:3). We are free, as free as we can be. I doubt whether there can be a good relationship at all between any two people unless they have a good relationship to God. It really starts there.
If you’re walking in the light, then you can just crawl into one another’s hearts. You don’t see a need to judge; instead, you see a need so that you are driven to seek God for more faith and love.
It’s A Triangle
The great commandment is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.” But the second commandment is very much like it: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:36–39). When we are loving God with all our heart, then we are able to love our brother as we love ourselves. But you can’t love your brother unless you love yourself, and you can’t love yourself unless you love God who loves you. It’s a triangle.
Face the fact that you can have no stable relationship with anyone if you are not loving the Lord first. You can’t be insecure in His love for you or in your own feelings about yourself. You can’t be walking under condemnation all the time or you’ll go nowhere. Believe that God loves you.
What Should Our Attitude Be Toward Repentance?
If we’re not going to be self-condemned, then what should our attitude be toward repentance?
The Bible teaches that there is a godly sorrow that works repentance (II Corinthians 7:10). You may be very, very sorry, but that doesn’t go far enough. You’ve got to get into that repentance which by faith turns you around. You say, “God, I believe. I’m going to go the other direction.” But you also believe for your brother, too. You change your whole attitude toward him. Your faith pushes him in the other direction. We are miracles ready to explode.
I should love you so much that I say, “I’m going to perfect you in God.” And you should say, “I’m going to love you so much that I’m going to perfect you.” We are going to be one another’s catalyst in this great thing of bringing forth the maturity of sons.
A Cold-Blooded Faith With Hot-Blooded Love
You determine that you’re going to be one. You determine that nothing is ever going to separate you from that oneness. Nothing will destroy it. This is the love that we are to have for each other.
We’re not one because we solve problems or adjust relationships; we are one by faith and love. You determine to walk in this oneness of love. We walk in a cold-blooded faith with hot-blooded love.
You either walk without love and criticize your brother, or you walk in faith and love and you believe to change him. You are going to be one another’s perfection. We are all going to be made perfect in one (John 17:23), because when we love each other enough and believe enough, we change one another. We must open our hearts so totally to one another.
The Kingdom Is A Jigsaw Puzzle: Every Son Is A Piece That Must Be Set In The Body As It Pleases Him
The Kingdom is a jigsaw puzzle in which every son of God is a piece of the puzzle—or a puzzle in himself. There is no individual or collective solution until each is joined to his brother in the Lord in one spirit. God cannot solve the puzzle of your problems or relationships while you stand alone. One little piece from a jigsaw puzzle never makes sense to anybody. The answer is to be set in the Body as it pleases Him (I Corinthians 12:18), to fit in, to be welded in, to be fused together into one.
The solution to a jigsaw puzzle is found when not one piece stands alone. The purpose of each piece in a jigsaw puzzle is only manifested when it is related to every other piece. In oneness, authority is not exercised to establish or perpetuate itself, but to establish the Kingdom for all of us under one Lord.
In You I Live, I Move, I Function, And I Have My Being, Because I Live In You
I’m going to live in your heart. The Scriptures say that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). We could say the same thing about one another: “In you I live, I move, I function, and I have my being, because I live in you. Without you I wouldn’t be what I am. And without me, you wouldn’t be what you are.”
Paul said, “I have you in my heart, always, to live or to die (Philippians 1:7; II Corinthians 7:3). We just want to become a living organism—one living Body! That’s what we are becoming. We have to bless each other; we have to love each other.
Don’t Accept Division; Don’t Be Exclusive
Have faith. Sometimes you make a desperate move and say, “I want to be included. I want to be in.” But there is a difference between working your way in and just entering in with faith. Don’t accept division. Don’t be exclusive. I’m going to live in you because I’m going to walk in the light, in that Living Word, as He is in the light (I John 1:7). I’m going to have fellowship with you. That means that I’m going to be inside of you; I’m going to love you.
I refuse to have any suspicion about you in my heart. “Love believes all things, hopes all things, trusts all things” (I Corinthians 13:7). Love leads to revelation. If we judge another person, then that leads to rejection and deception.
If You Repent And Change, Then I’ve Got To Adjust My Thinking About You
If I see you do the same thing over and over again and you repent and change, and I’ve helped you change, then I’ve got to adjust my thinking about you. I’m not going to have the same response in my thinking about you that I’ve had before. I must have a whole new image of a new person. I believe God for that. I’m going to expect that; I’m going to help it. I’m going to create it in you. Love is constantly anticipating great things for one another.
The love of God will never be as real to you as when it is revealed through an imperfect channel, and you say, “That person has the love of God for me.” We often say, “Lord, expose me to Your love! Let me see that love.” Then when He finally reveals His love, you see it in your brother.
Live Or Die, Sink Or Swim, We’re Going To Make It Together
We should feel a love for each other that prefers and takes care of one another, that doesn’t seek its own, but seeks the help of each other (Philippians 2:3; I Corinthians 13:5). And when that love comes forth, that’s what bowls you over; it just makes you go off in a corner and cry. You say, “God help me, they really love me. Why do they love me so much? Because Christ in them loves me so much.”
We’re one. You’re in my heart. “You are in my heart to live or to die” (II Corinthians 7:3). That’s where you are going to stay. Live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish, up or down, in or out—we’re going to make it together. There can be no defeat for any individual who is one with the rest of the Body, any more than there can be a defeat for Christ. When you’re one in Christ, there can be no defeat. If His victory is yours, your defeat is swallowed up in His victory (I Corinthians 15:54–57).
We Are The Temples Of God, Built Up For The Habitation Of God By The Spirit
You can’t open your hearts to God without opening your hearts to each other. I am a temple of God, and at the same time all my brothers and sisters are in my heart. And I’m going to be in their hearts, because we are the temples of God, built up for the habitation of God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21–22). What people can’t get by themselves, they can receive through the oneness.
I Receive It from Your Hands
A Defensiveness is Being Broken
A defensiveness is being broken down, and that is one of the first indications that this great step that God is bringing is truly dispensational in nature. It is the first time that people are taking their walls down.
You Stop Trying To Preserve Your Life By Walls
Have you noticed how you don’t seem to want to defend yourself now? The axe is laid to the root of that self-preservation, that self-defense, and you come to the place where you want to partake. You want to be in there. You stop trying to preserve your life by walls and defensiveness and you just say, “I’m in this thing.”
Individuality Has To Become A Thing That We Are Not Protecting
We don’t need to have a cloak of invincibility. We don’t have to build up our own system of immunity. We can say, “This is what I am. I’m not much, but I’m all God has.” So you just commit yourself to the Lord. This oneness is the key, of course. And individuality has to become a thing that we are not protecting.
No Hit-And-Run
If you’re going to go into another brother’s heart and confront him, stay there until his walls are down and the thing is solved in love. There can be no hit-and-run in this step.
There is no hit-and-run, and no dumping-and-run either. You can’t be a hit-and-run driver and you can’t be a litterbug.
If you need help so badly that you’re going to dump your garbage, for heaven’s sake stay there and help the brother clean it up!
You Feel Free With Each Other
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.
The Word just lays it open—you see what is good in there, and you find out what is bad. You feel exposed to it, but you feel free with each other.
Learn How To Take Care Of Each Other
We see our brother naked and we clothe him. We see him hungry and we feed him. Just give, doing it because you want to.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ ” Matthew 25:34–40.
There is going to be a way that we learn how to take care of each other. The real marks of sacrifice are going to be known right there—we learn to love each other. We become genuinely concerned.
We are going to have to be even more nosy than we have ever been before. We’ve got to penetrate in to find out what our brother needs.
God Does Not Want Anybody To Be Self-Sufficient
God does not want anybody to be self-sufficient. He doesn’t want me to be self-sufficient—financially, physically, mentally, spiritually, any way. He wants me to depend on you. He wants you to depend on me. He wants you to depend on each other. You are to take care of each other. The worst thing we could do is just withdraw to our own comfort.
See What A Need I Have
Declare a fast until for thirty days no one is going to pray for himself; for thirty days you don’t even have to believe for yourself. For thirty days you pray for your brother and impart to him, and you start with me. Bring me right down in your mind and your heart, where you see what a need I have. And you know I have to be the first one to break through. You’ve got to help me. I’ve got to get the door open for everybody.
There Is A Relentlessness In Our Spirits To See You Break Through
This whole week has been good, because we had gotten into a syndrome where you come in and you minister to us. Year after year, conference after conference, it has just been, “Okay, now John is going to come in and he’s going to minister to us.” (JOHN STEVENS: And you just get so full of it, you could hardly digest it for a year.) This week has been like a siege in our spirit to just continue in seeing you released. Like you said, you have come into our hearts, and there is a relentlessness within our spirits to see you break through, to see the fulfillment of every Word that has been spoken, to see you become the firstfruits of breaking through to the Word that is yours, to move into the thing of divine health, to see the books written, to see the intercession, to see every Word that has been spoken happen. It would be so easy to slip back into a passive state and say, “All right, John is going to come in, and he is going to minister to us.” In my own heart there is just a constant intercession to see you loosed, to see you break through and not so much to see what I can get because, like you said, we’ve been so self-motivated, so wrapped around our own problems—but our problems aren’t our problems. You’ve said that for years. Now we’re beginning to see it, that our problem isn’t our problem.
Pray On My Behalf
And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Ephesians 6:19.
Keep meeting in the services, and we will come for only one thing: you come to minister to me. Pray this same prayer: that I will get the utterance and I can open the door and I will have the Word; I will have the impartation.
You Are Going To Have To Carry The Ball
The Lord is saying, “Okay, this guy took care of a lot of things for a long time, but he isn’t going to make it into this next level without you being the ones who travail for it. Love him and relate to him and just open up to him.” I think you are going to have to carry the ball. You people are going to have to carry the ball.
We Stand In The Gap For You
Every door of utterance opens to you, John. Every area that has been closed to you, we open it up for you. We loose that door of utterance tonight. We stand in travail to see a whole new level birthed for you tonight—a whole new level. We loose it for you that you are able to minister to the ends of the earth. We stand as intercessors.
We stand in the gap for you. As one body, our hearts cry out for the release of this ministry, for the release of this Word to the ends of the earth.
The Double Portion Is Created In You
God, our hearts expand; we will not leave our habitation with John. We will not close our dwelling place with him. Lord, we irrevocably enter into a dedication to be a channel of his loosening, of his open door—that in every area there is going to be the provision because that is Your perfect will. The anointing is here to break every limitation. We have spoken about the double portion for many a year; but this day, we declare that it is created in you.
We Are each others healing
We are your healing right now. We declare you are whole. Be every whit whole right now. In your memory banks there is no bitterness, there is no touching that the enemy can get to you. We declare that you are free. We refuse to accept freedom outside of your freedom right now. We’re aligning our hearts with your breakthrough. We’re declaring that you are free right now. You are healed right now in your spirit. There are no memories that are a hit to you any longer. We go back to the day that God created Adam, and we declare that everything after that is erased from your spirit. You know only your relationship with the Lord and its purity.
You Have Your Deliverance
The Words that you are going to speak are not going to stop; they are going to overflow like a river that flows throughout the earth and throughout the land—the Words will go over the islands of the sea throughout the whole world. I proclaim tonight that you have your deliverance. You are made whole tonight. As sons of God, we stand behind you, holding you up one hundred percent that we are going to see the Word of God released totally. And whatever comes against that Word, we judge it right now. You gave us the authority and power to judge it, and we take dominion that you both have the free course of that Word to flow forth.
We Are Carrying You
We accept the commission tonight of carrying you. We take it as a commission that we are going to carry you, that this is the function of this Body, that this is what we have been raised up for—to see your release. We’re seeing the cry of your heart. Where there have been just a few that have carried you, we say now there are many. God, we accept this commission tonight. Within our very hearts we are carrying you. We refuse to let you go through another day of battle and assault ever again.
We Take Care Of Your Needs
We minister to you tonight. It’s your portion to walk in resurrection life. You have opened up your heart and let us come in, and we dwell in you, and we say that we take care of your needs. We are becoming shepherds to you. You are loosed—and that’s what we believe. We determine in our hearts that there is not going to be any limitation at all from any realm—whether it be from the spirit realm or whatever—but you are totally free. It’s necessary for us to carry you, because your release is our release, and we minister to you. And that is the key, because that is how the oneness is going to really work. That’s the only way.
God Has Given You A Commission To Create Me
Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. Acts 13:1–3.
There are not going to be any functioning apostles on a new level until there is an apostolic church that sends them forth, creates them, lays hands on them. That’s what you are doing: you’re laying on hands and prophesying; you’re imparting. It never was possible that an apostle arose to his place by himself; it was always in connection with faith from another. Even Paul, who seemed to walk in an independent way, was born into the Kingdom by Ananias laying hands on him (Acts 9:10–19). We become a creation of one another. God has given you a commission to create me.
We Dedicate Ourselves To The Intercession And To The Ministry To one another
We dedicate ourselves to this ministry. Our hearts are dedicated to this. We see the vision of it and we run with it. We dedicate ourselves to the intercession and the ministry to you over the next few days, that it become a way of life for us. We proclaim it to you tonight that our hearts are knit to yours, and you know where you can come to hide when you need it. You know where you can come for ministry. Just draw on us; we are right there. We are right there to minister to your need. We seal this to you. We stand to see every Word that was spoken tonight fulfilled in the name of the Lord. We believe it. It’s sealed to you. It’s exploding inside you—a mustard seed that grows into that great tree (Mark 4:31–32).
I Live in You and Create You
“Come Up Higher: Abide In Me!”
I would like to go over with you a transcript that I have edited of a message which came in 1973, which talks about where we are right now. I want to read to you what I have outlined as gleanings, and also read the Kingdom Proverbs.
The name of this message is “Come Up Higher.” And the chapters in the Scriptures that were involved were basically John 14, 15, 16, and 17, and Hebrews 9 and 10.
This, of course, is what the Lord is saying to us, “Abide in Me! Come on, live in Me! There are many dwelling places; but if you would only know it, you could live in Me. Come on up higher in the spirit realm. It is not a matter of distance. It is a plane; it is a removal of the thing that defiles. It is a removal of all the things that prevent revelation. If you can just abide in Me and My Words abide in you, ask what you will, and it will be done” (John 15:7).
We have a trip to make, and that trip is into the Father’s heart. How are we going to get there? Our Lord Jesus Christ is the way! He is the truth! He is the light! (John 14:6.) There are many abiding places; but there where the Son is, in the heart of the Father, He says, “I am making a place for you, that where I am you can be there also. You can live there. You can be a part with Us.”
There must be a new and closer relationship between us and the Lord. God give us a growing discontent that grips us and throws us into fasting and prayer and seeking God as no move of history has ever known, because there is a higher level to live on. There is a close place, right in the heart of the Father, where we can live. I know it is coming.
This is a great promise: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). This is a stupendous statement; but it has not always been feasible in our lives. We have asked for a lot of things that we did not get, and sometimes we thought that we did not even receive a return reply. Sometimes the answer was not even “wait a while.” But this powerful level of abiding in Him is coming. Then you can ask what you will, and it will be done (John 15:7).
“You’ll abide in Me.” We’re talking about living in each other, living in the Lord.
For Us To Hear Is To Become
In the Scriptures, miracles kept happening because the Word was alive. It is happening again. The Living Word is coming and it is creating in you. The time has come that for us to hear is to become.
A Collective Provision For Everyone’s Sins
It seems that we are being swallowed up by God, and we are so willing for it to happen. We come to a place by the leading of the Holy Spirit where we begin to abhor our own individual identity in what we are. It was this which the scapegoat, the goat of removal, actually took away in the Day of Atonement. It was a collective provision for everyone’s sins, for everyone’s limitations, because they were not what they were supposed to be as the Israel of God (Leviticus 16:7–10, 20–22). God did something for them so that they could come and stand before Him.
The Word That Was Promised To Us Will Be Fulfilled
All this means is that the world will have another view of God. This is what Paul was saying when he said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” People are going to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ in us (II Corinthians 4:6–7). That treasure is in an earthen vessel, and we will say just as Jesus said, “Do you mean that you have seen Me and you haven’t seen the Father? Believe the Words that I am speaking, the works that I am doing” (John 14:9–11). As He dwells in us, that oneness will happen again. God will have a people who will be delivered, wholly effective—a manifestation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Word will be fulfilled that was promised to us: “That you might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
The Kingdom Proverbs
Being one in the Father and the Son can be a permanent residence.
When God says, “Come abide in Me,” it is not by overcoming time and distance. It is only a breath away: “Come in, Lord.”
When believers live in the Lord, they will make believers of the world.
Be more concerned with your “abiding in Him” than “asking of Him.” When the asker is an abider, the answer is unlimited, and immediate.
To hear was to strive; now to hear is to become.
Christ is our Advocate; the Holy Spirit is our Advocate; the prosecutor is the accuser of the brethren. We pled guilty and our fine was paid. The Father’s verdict was, “Innocent by grace.”
Lord, You have said much; in You we will be it and see it.
You Are To Be My Sons, And You Are To Be My Strength
I need you. You had a Word—and sometimes you couldn’t have contact with me; others prevented it or denied it. You were like sons come to birth, but there was no strength to deliver you (II Kings 19:3). Yet the Lord had said that you are to be my sons and you are to be my strength. There was deception and division. Sometimes it was so persistent that it became blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, until men began to attribute to the devil the works that they knew had come from God. Only God can judge now, because with many it is no longer demonic oppression that is to be broken. Some have committed themselves to sin unto death (Mark 3:28–30; I John 5:16). But for the wounded sons who are still in travail, there is faith to see them restored and resurrected. There is to be for them a healing without scars.
I Love You And I Need You
As in the days of Titus, when they warned against those who were subverting whole households (Titus 1:11), so they must be confronted. But I say again as Paul said in Corinthians, “I have you in my heart. Open your heart to me. I have wronged no one; I have coveted nothing that anyone has owned. I have not defrauded you or hurt you in any way. Now open your heart to me” (II Corinthians 7:2–3). I have never denounced you. I have never rejected you. I remembered and inquired about you often, about the prophecies over you concerning me in the Living Word, and I need you. I need your faith. I need your love. As never before I need you to stand with me. If you had rejected me, I am still not embarrassed by telling you this. This is true and it is truly from my heart. This is to be sent as a Word, for others have confirmed this Word, and confirmed it before they knew that I had ever received it. But your own heart must confirm it that I love you and I need you. Something is being born, isn’t it?
I Have Become Your Burden
You see what is in my heart. I feel—not helpless, but inadequate until I have been met again. There must be something that God does, the creative breakthrough. It has to happen. That’s what you have been working on this week. This is your burden, your responsibility. I have become your burden.
Desperate Need Of A Miracle, A Breakthrough
This is more than just saying, “Oh, now we can talk to each other; we can relate.” I tell you this is a desperate need of a miracle, a breakthrough. It is our destiny. My destiny, everything I am ever going to be, is in your hands. But with it is such a thing of love and compassion. If we do this, we are going to be the healers. We are going to be that remnant on Mount Zion. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered” (Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32). We are going to make the difference.
God’s ways are so strange. I have said that I have labored to produce a thousand prophets who could outminister me, but they may become the thousand prophets who can outminister me by ministering to me.
A Sign Of The Kingdom
It is a strange thing how the sign has been coming all day. Every time the anointing comes on me and I lay my hands on somebody, the back of my hand is anointed as strong or stronger than my palm, which means that I am receiving as much or more than I am giving, that I am drawing from the Lord. It is as though I’m ministering to somebody’s faith, when in turn it is ministering to me. I wonder if this isn’t a sign of the Kingdom, until it actually is going to be more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), because you can’t give without receiving a double portion. Everything that you give will be multiplied, doubled, and given back to you again.
A Double Portion
I have always had one impulse: Whenever God is moving like this, I just want to bless people. I want to love them, to bless them; and yet I feel the restraint, as if God is saying, “No, don’t bless them. Let them bless you. This breakthrough will come that they will receive back again greater than you can give them, because they will have faith to do the will of God and bless you, and they will receive a double portion back.”
The Climate Where The Creativity Of God Operates
This is the climate where the creativity of God operates. It’s like a spirit that broods over all the love, over all the faith. And when you speak, by faith you are creating the ages to come and the men who will produce those ages.
I Am Totally Dependent Upon The Lord In You Meeting Me
The dependence that you have had on the Lord has been shifted until you are dependent upon the Lord in one another; and I have to be the first Fruits of that. I am totally dependent upon the Lord in you meeting me.
The Effectiveness Of Your Faith
It’s very important that you know that what God says to do and what you are anointed to do, you can do. It is never dependent upon your own sense of worthiness. You may not be different from anybody else in that matter; but you can be in the midst of self-condemnation, or in the midst of battles, or in the midst of many things yourself that you don’t understand. That doesn’t make any difference. It does not take away from the effectiveness of your faith. You can do it.
You’ve Got To Do It; You’ve Got To Help Me
I don’t think it is a matter of my personal worthiness that you are going to do this to me. Then neither should you think it is a matter of your personal worthiness that you are going to be able to do it. It’s going to be done and you are going to do it; that’s the bottom line. With faith, you’re going to do it. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to help me.
You Are Taking The Mantle On You
I have created door openers brought forth after my own kind. Like produced like (Genesis 1:24). I thank God for you, for what you are tonight. If you are saying, “I want to walk in the ministry like you have,” you have to realize that you are doing it tonight; that is what you are doing. You are taking the mantle on you.
We follow the Word, and it is creating us while we are doing it.
Oneness Defeats Satan
That Hypnotic Quality Means Satan Himself Enters The Battle
Have you noticed how something like a heaviness, or a weariness can come upon you beyond what would be normal for you? Have you noticed that it can be almost hypnotic to block your thinking about the Word or what God has said?
When you get that heaviness with almost a hypnotic quality to it, it means that Satan himself is so concerned about the breakthrough that he comes and enters the battle. Any other level, even Nephilim spirits, cannot disguise their effort; but Satan is a lie and the father of it (John 8:44). He can disguise what he is doing until people don’t pick up on it.
Oneness Is A State Of Being
This oneness that God is bringing, living in one another’s hearts, has been tested by old Split-hoof himself; and we have won it.
Oneness is not a matter of solving problems; oneness is a state of being. You’re just one—and when you’re one, then things have a way of falling in place because God is in it so much. You just ask what you will and it will be done (John 15:7).
Ways To Change Your Vibration Level
For a number of years, I taught ways in which you can break a certain assault on you, little keys that you can learn. For example, go for a good walk. I’ve done a lot of walking because I found that you have to change your vibration level. You can get locked into something that has to change. Another thing that will do it is a cold shower. Once you rise above the assault, you realize that you had authority over it all the time; but the enemy thinks that by his persistence he can wear out the saints (Daniel 7:25). His whole tactic in the Scriptures is to wear out the saints. He can’t defeat you unless he wears you out and you abandon your faith.
All You Have To Do Is Discern Him
With Satan, you hardly even have to rebuke him; all you have to do is discern him. The minute that you know that he’s a lie—he’s the lie of the universe and the father of it—you’ve got him beat. Therefore, all he tries to do is to conceal and hide what he is doing. That’s why he comes on with that hypnotic quality.
A Principality Of Deception Has Been Broken
As we overcome one principality after another, they are being taken out of the picture, and we’re coming to the place where the authority of the Lord is laying the axe to the root (Matthew 3:10; Luke 3:9). The sign has come that a principality of deception has been broken. The lie has been defeated.
The Fullness Of God Once Dwelt In The Body Of One Man; Now The Fullness Can Be In Every Believer
Jesus is capable now of filling any one person. To every believer He says, “My Father and I will come and take Our abode in you” (John 14:23). He said, “It is expedient for you that I go to My Father; for if I don’t go away, then the Comforter won’t come” (John 16:7). The Holy Spirit was to fill everybody, but Christ was to be released from the restriction of His humanity. The fullness of God once dwelt in the body of one Man (Colossians 2:9), but now the fullness of God can be in every believer (Ephesians 1:23; 3:19; 4:13). That’s one of the greatest truths you will ever find.
Why Satan Hates This Oneness
For years people have said, “Let Jesus come into my heart.” Now we’re saying, “Let’s take one another into our heart.” We have reached the level where our spirits are being universalized by Christ’s work, and Satan is furious with that. Satan’s great ambition was to have that omnipresence, the attribute of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and he was never able to make it. What can he do? Well, he’s a highly sophisticated, efficient, cunning spirit, but he can’t be omnipresent. He can move so fast that you couldn’t snap your fingers as fast as he can be in a hundred places, but he is still limited to only be in one place at one instant.
There Is No Oneness In The Satanic Realm
The principalities and the powers and the world rulers of this darkness are like Satan is. One principality could probably operate in ten thousand people, always present just at the right time; but there is no oneness, and there can be no oneness in the satanic realm. All you have to do is turn them over, by faith in the name of Jesus Christ, to the division and the rebellion that is in them. You can split them and conquer them every time. You can divide them because there is no basic unity in Satan’s realm. Satan’s forces can be united, but they are not one. We are more than united; we’re one. That’s why we are winning.
I want you to minister to me a strength, because we have come through this satanic attack for only one purpose: judgment is going to be voiced from these lips—and it has been. It’s going to be effective. Nothing can stop it.
You’re Going To Be One With One Another Always
You’re going to live in one another’s hearts. You can’t love the Lord and be one with Him and not open your heart to be one with one another. You’re going to be one with one another always. This is not a one-shot deal. You are one.
It was in the timing of the Lord that we would learn the greatest lesson we have ever learned in this oneness, because we are going to start functioning in a way that will change the world.
The whole basis of the Kingdom judgment in Matthew 25 is the ability of the sheep to minister to the Christ in one another, or the independence of the goats that didn’t do it (Matthew 25:31–46). That’s the way the Lord identifies it: “Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, My brethren, you do it unto Me” (Matthew 25:40).
Made Perfect In One
Christ prayed, “That they all may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). That’s the way our perfection is going to come! Let’s get over the idea that we’re going to perfect ourselves and then present ourselves to the Lord. That goes back to the tower of Babel: “We will not be forgotten because we’ll build a tower up to heaven” (Genesis 11:4). Well, I’m not trying to reach heaven in that way. I want the Lord to live in me; I want to be one with Him.
We Stand In The Victory That Is Already Accomplished
When we are one in Christ, we stand in the victory that is already accomplished. People don’t understand this. Did Jesus defeat Satan? Yes. And when we are one with the Lord, don’t we possess personally in that oneness all the victories, everything that He did? In Him we are made perfect; in Him we are complete (Colossians 2:10).
Crawl Into Your Brother’s Heart
When you have opened up your heart to every member of the Body, there’s that completeness.
Suppose they sass you back and reject you? It doesn’t matter. That doesn’t destroy oneness, because you can crawl into your brother’s heart. It may take a little while before he crawls into yours, but you’re one by virtue of any action that you make.
This Is The First Time A Person Doesn’t Have To Make It On His Own
What about being lonely? What about feeling rejected or isolated? You can withdraw and feel rejected, feel that others have withdrawn from you. That’s going to be overcome now because of this oneness. You’ll never be alone again. Jesus said, “I’ll never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). The Greek says, “I will not, not leave you, and I will not, not, not forsake you.”
He is one with you. You are one with me. We are more than stuck with each other; we are one with each other. We are the perfecters of one another (II Corinthians 1:24). This is the first time that a person doesn’t have to make it on his own.
We Need Each Other So Much
You are removing battle from me. And I’m also interpreting and showing you how to walk with this. We need each other so much. In this oneness, we’ve got it. We’ve got all the answers and we are going to see them manifest. I live day by day believing that we are going to start seeing things like we have never seen before. It’s not enough to say, “We’re one.” We’re going to see that the world will believe (John 17:21), and we’re going to see the principalities fall. We’re going to see the nephilim destroyed.
Think What This Is Going To Mean!
Once this is accomplished perfectly, then we’re going to start learning how to really carry one another. Think what this is going to do. Once that breakthrough has come for the firstfruits, the door-opener, think what this is going to mean! We’re winners! We’re conquerors! We’re going to love each other and build each other up. Revelation will come to the Father’s family. We are into a whole new level of the Kingdom!
Control or Change?
Some Meditations on Legalism and Government
I would like to give some meditations on legalism and government. This is particularly important to me because I live and think this Kingdom of God that is to take over the whole world. I am not claiming divine inspiration for all of this, but it will be obvious that these are the conclusions of meditating upon the Scriptures.
When we first understand the kingdoms of this world, we are reminded of Daniel’s account of Nebuchadnezzar’s image—with the head of gold and the feet of iron and clay.
We see that God has ordained for there to be a time when all of this ends (Daniel 2:31–45). In the words of Christ, “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24).
We know from this that we have passed the times of the great world governments thriving, and from now on they must decline. It may take a period of time for this to happen, but they must decline—and that leads us to determine the philosophy of government that we believe in.
Legalism Does Not Produce Righteousness
It has been my contention for some time that legalism does not produce righteousness. If the Law could have produced righteousness in an obedient person, then Christ would not have had to die (Galatians 2:21). But the Law came in order that men might be condemned and convicted under sin (Romans 5:13, 20). When the Law comes, sin revives and we perish in death, because if we transgress the Law, it is death (Romans 7:5). There seems to be no way that the nature of man can fulfill the true Law without the regenerating quality of the Holy Spirit in it.
What do governments try to do? They arbitrate that which is religious or spiritual or moral; and then they proceed to enforce it with punishment and say, “You are going to be righteous.”
Legalism Never Does Produce True Righteousness
All legalism is open to error because it never does produce true righteousness; it only punishes the evidences of the flesh nature. We are going to have something greater than that.
The Kingdom of God comes, not with legislation and law, but with the grace of God that can change the heart and bring a good motivation toward righteousness. And it is backed up by the most deadly instrument of execution that has ever been devised by the mind of God or man—a rod of iron to destroy; it is backed by the work of the cross.
The Adamic Nature Can Be Removed; Identify It With The Work Of The Cross
We know that the whole problem in the world is the Adamic nature. All that man has done, in thousands of years of human history, is try to bring restraints and controls on the Adamic nature. Yet God is saying, “I have made a way by which the Adamic nature can be removed.” The way the Adamic nature can be removed is to crucify it. Identify it with the work of the cross.
If we want to get out of the world system, we are going to have to do it by only one route. There has to be a death to the fleshly nature. When that reaches its total experience, there is no longer anything in us that will respond to the temptations of the flesh.
But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14.
Legislating Righteousness Will Not Work, But Impartation To A New Nature Will Be Very Effective
Legislating righteousness will not work, but the impartation of righteousness to a new nature will be very, very effective. This thing of camouflaging the old nature with what seems to be a respectable behavior is probably the greatest deception that Satan has ever brought upon the human race.
I’m not saying that we’re going to go out and break laws; I’m simply saying that just because you have suppressed the old nature, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are righteous. Until there is a change of heart, there cannot be the Kingdom of God. And any legal system, any government, any church, any denomination which does not deal basically with a change of heart is following the way of Satan.
It is not for the government or a religious lobby or anybody else to tell people what they can do and cannot do. This has to be a matter of conscience and heart before God. Stay out of people’s lives unless you can bring the grace of God and the righteousness of God to their hearts!
Impartation Is The Answer, Not Enforcement
It is not the place of the Church to create powerful political interests to play the whore with the beast (Revelation 17:1–3). We are not called by God to relate to the kingdoms of this world for an advantage, in order to enforce a code of ethics that can be performed without a change of nature—a change of heart.
The children of the Kingdom will have the responsibility to back off from any legalistic attempt to legislate and control another person’s life by any means other than by a divine change of nature wrought through the cross of Jesus Christ and the impartation of life.
I am not in favor of morals and ethics coming by law enforcement. Instead, I am in favor of righteousness coming by spiritual impartation, until a man can say, “I can kill as many people as I want, steal as much as I want, commit adultery as much as I want, and blaspheme as much as I want—but I haven’t done it because I don’t want to! The work of the cross took that nature out of me.”
People will change because they have heard a Word from God, and their motivation, their heart, is changed. I think impartation is the answer, not enforcement.
What Is A Cult? A Movement That Does Not Have The Anointing Of The Holy Spirit And Is Not Led By God
Some people have tried to evaluate us and belittle the fact that we are filled with the Holy Spirit and led by God and have the gifts of the Spirit. Sometimes, because they don’t believe, they label us as a cult. What is a cult? A cult is a religious movement that does not have the anointing of the Holy Spirit and is not led by God. A cult is not based upon the miracle of grace to reach people’s lives. I would say that the greatest cults in the world are those cults which have come up to persecute “cults.” While such persecutors may have academic degrees and be very learned professors in universities, it does not mean that they are spiritually qualified to pass judgment on another man’s walk with God. They may not even have a walk with God themselves. They don’t even know what they are talking about.
It is inevitable that persecutions come, because the child born of the flesh persecutes the child born of the Spirit (Galatians 4:29). The minute that people begin to move in the spirit, those who move in the flesh will persecute them. They are threatened entirely by their own ambitions, by their motivation to control people’s lives and to make them conform to their religion.
Christ Dealt With The Heart
The day of Law has passed. Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount changed everything: “The Law said this, but I tell you that this is true.” Christ dealt with the heart. He didn’t deal with murder; He dealt with the hatred in a man’s heart (Matthew 5:21–22). He didn’t deal with adultery; He dealt with the lust of a man’s heart (Matthew 5:27–28). He was saying, “Let’s get to the heart. Let’s seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).
The popular religious movements today are quick to use the phrase “born again.” But the real acid test for that claim is this: Do you really see the Kingdom of God? “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3). If you’re born again, you see it. If you’re not born again, you have an illusion of it and you go about to enforce your ideas on someone else.
Human Efforts Will Not Bring Forth The Kingdom Of God
The Kingdom of God, in its first act, will destroy everything that we have in the way of human culture, traditions, history, and legal and religious systems. Yet it will be a stone cut out of the mountain without human hands (Daniel 2:44–45). By our human efforts we will not bring forth the Kingdom of God. It will be God’s holy energy in us that works, but it will not be accomplished through human domination or human control or human legislation.
This “Unfolding” is establishing a new view of the grace of God. We will lay hands on one another. We will minister Communion. We will pray together. We will live in one another’s hearts. We will not control one another, but instead we will live in one another by grace. We are going to be one with the Lord and one with each other, and the world will become believers (John 17:21). When we, in oneness, truly believe, then the world is going to believe in the Lord.
We Can Recreate Others, Not Restrain Them
Let’s seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let’s get into the Word of God and find what we can do to recreate others, not to restrain them and lay upon men the chains of legalism. Let’s bring to them the wonders of impartation—that a person can actually come to the end of the flesh by the work of the cross, and he can move into a life in the Spirit by the risen life of Christ. “If you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Colossians 3:1).
What is Our Motivation—To Control Or To Change?
I think if we could sum up all that we are trying to convey, we would ask: What is our motivation—to control or to change? With laws or controls, you cannot get a man to the place where he will not look on a woman to lust after her. You have to change his heart to do that. You can’t get a person to the place where he will not be embittered and hate a man unless you can change his heart. Do we control or do we change?
How will Babylon come down? Someone might say, “Let’s go out and bomb Babylon.” Oh, God forbid! You can’t fight a carnal system with carnal means. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (II Corinthians 10:4). You will never bring down Babylon until you move into the authority of Jesus Christ in intercession and use the weapons which God has ordained to bring change. Change must come, but not control. When change comes, it means that God will bring it down. The Kingdom of God will prevail by change, not control.
“Come Out Of Her, My People; Let Me Change You”
The Holy Spirit is crying to those who are locked in Babylon, “Come out of her, My people, and be not a partaker of her sins!” (Revelation 18:4.) You can be locked into a system and perish with it. But God is saying, “I’m not condemning you. Come out.” God isn’t going to pull the same legalistic trip on you that Babylon pulls on everybody else. God is saying, “Come out. Let Me change you. Let Me bless you. Let Me make you righteous.”
If we love the Kingdom of God, we will have to hate the thing that has locked people into the religious and political kingdoms of this world.