Judgment will begin at the house of the Lord. The twenty-first chapter of Matthew illustrates this, in which Jesus, after driving the moneychangers out of the Temple, gave the following parable.
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey. And when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?”
They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”
And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. And when they sought to seize Him, they became afraid of the multitudes, because they held Him to be a prophet. Matthew 21:33–46.
You can apply this parable to the first coming of the Lord. Before He came, Israel had stoned the prophets and those who were sent to them. They also cast out Christ, the Son who came. That was in the plan of God. Nevertheless, what happened to Israel? Israel was disinherited. For centuries the Israelites believed themselves to be God’s chosen people; yet God’s judgments which were to go over the entire world began with Israel, the natural Jewish people. To this day there is blindness upon most of them; only a few, a small remnant, are able to see what God is doing in the earth. Many of them are agnostics because they have turned away from the Lord.
The Lord is coming again, and today this picture is being reproduced once more. The Lord is coming to possess His people and to be Lord over His Church; but this is being rejected. The time has come that judgment is beginning at the house of the Lord.
A great visitation of the Spirit is upon a remnant of believers. It began with a word from God that has been largely rejected, a word about the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the Church. He is to be the Lord over the vineyard, for He inherited it. Yet most people insist on continuing in their ungodly ways. Most churches today insist on keeping to their traditions. They are mainly concerned about building up conglomerates of corporations to govern from their headquarters, because mystery Babylon the great is the mother of harlots (Revelation 17:5). All that Babylonian Christianity produces are harlots. It is not the virgin serving Christ; it is a harlot. A harlot sells herself, prostituting that which should be given to her husband. The book of Revelation emphasizes the difference between the Bride of Christ (who is a pure virgin, given only to Christ to serve Him) and mystery Babylon (the great whore who has committed fornication with the kings of the earth in order to gain an advantage).
Today’s message of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is the determining factor of judgment. God does not automatically destroy the abominations of denominations from the face of the earth. He does not tell the whole world that He is set to destroy them in a period of destruction that is coming. He first brings them a message, and if they submit to it they will be delivered. Their sins and weaknesses are not the issue. The deciding factor is whether or not they will surrender to Jesus Christ as absolute Lord over their lives. If they want Him to be Lord, fine. If they do not want Him to be Lord, then the judgments will come; and they will begin at the house of the Lord.
The ministry of judgment must come. The basis of judgment has never been as clear before as God is making it now. The issue is over the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Judgment will not start outside the Body. It must begin with those who are playing at walking with God. Too many still do not have a true revelation of what walking with God is all about. They do not really understand it yet, but God will deal with them until they see that He is going to be the Lord over their lives. Pleasing God is not just a matter of building a church structure. The blessing of the Lord is moving into one channel toward the restoration of the New Testament church, the divine order that is coming under Jesus Christ as Lord. With it there will be greater liberty and freedom.
Isaiah said that other lords have had dominion over us (Isaiah 26:13); but the Lord alone shall be exalted in the day of judgment (Isaiah 5:16). No other rule will be over the house of the Lord, not money or anything else. You will find yourself living for one purpose only: to serve the Lord with all your heart. You will become an oracle of God to go forth and speak the word of the Lord, to prophesy against the arrogance and the spirit of perversion that assaults God’s people until they are perverted from God and from that which He wants them to be. Prophesy to yourself that everything in your life will conform to His will and His purpose. Believe God for it. Believe God for your brother and sister also, holding them up before Him. Those who are believing God have a long way to go, but they will not get there by standing still. They will get there by moving with an honesty of heart and constant searching, by submitting themselves to the judgments of God, and by speaking the judgment of the Lord.
God grant that we be as pure as He wants us to be, that we be the instrument in His hand that He wants us to be, that there be no turning aside, in our hearts or in our thinking, for a single moment, from the purposes for which He raised us up. Let us exalt Christ as Lord. Let us exalt His Lordship. Everything fits into that one truth: He is the Lord. He is the Lord over our hearts—Lord of lords and King of kings. Everything is based upon this. All other rule is broken: the other lords who had dominion over us; the arrogant men who perverted the people of God and used them for their own purposes; the shepherds who fleeced the flock.
Nothing will ever be the same again. God will go through Zion, until Zion becomes like a plowed field (Micah 3:2). We may not like that. God is getting ready to deal with His people. We may believe that God will do in the earth what He has said. But are we prepared to walk in it? Only a few may be left when God is finished, but it would be better to see a few who could bring an end of one age and the beginning of a new one, than to see a great many struggling, yet never getting anywhere, never really getting the job done.
It would seem that we should prophesy against the wicked, but let us prophesy against the pride and the arrogance that comes up in our own hearts. A lack of humility and brokenness and yielding before the Lord will stop our walk with God. The only way we can walk with God is in our humble submission to Jesus Christ as the Lord over our lives. None of us realizes how we tend to become arrogant. We tend to be humble before God until He blesses us, and then we let self-sufficiency fill us, instead of an utter dependence upon the Lord. We must turn away from self-sufficiency and wholly lean upon the Lord. He shall be the only Lord and the only Master.
A pastor’s responsibility is for the house of God; but the church is not his church and the people are not his people. They are the Lord’s people, the Lord’s heritage, servants to serve Him and do His will. The pastor is the Lord’s servant, ordained to serve them. He must relinquish any sense of possession. He should lead the people as if he were a sheep dog, nipping at their heels when necessary for their own safety, yet remembering that the Lord is the Shepherd.
Let us prophesy against the arrogance and the pride and against that which is determined to do its own will. Let us prophesy against that which will not submit to Him as Lord and Master. We will be effective if we maintain a broken spirit without judging; for if we judge one another, we will be judged (Matthew 7:1). This is the danger of retaliation. Church discipline never worked in the past, because people did not do it in love; they did it with a harshness, criticizing and judging one another. Consequently, a church that practiced discipline, though it was a principle in the Word, found that it always backfired. Let us be careful that there is no vindictiveness in our own spirits. Prophesy against pride and arrogance, so that the spirit of humility will be upon all of us. God wants a climate of brokenness among His people.
Galatians 6:1 says, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit Of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. With humility and meekness you are to help or correct a brother. There can be no arrogance or pride or vindictiveness. Suppose you were to make a list of ten people you do not like, people you think should be judged. What would happen? The Lord would put your name at the top of the list. It would become a retaliation to you.
This same principle of transference is used in witchcraft. Satan has to operate in a universe where he did not make the laws, and so he tries to maneuver God’s principles. Satan did not make the law of transference; God made it so that it is possible for Him to transmit Himself to us and to take our iniquities upon Himself. Christ died for us, according to divine law. Satan perverts God’s principle of transference in witchcraft. He takes the world and its laws as they exist, and he perverts them to bring about something different than God intended.
Genesis 1:27 says that when God made man, male and female He created them. The devil cannot change that, but he can try to turn the natural state to lust or pervert it until it is mixed up in different channels. An illustration of that is found in homosexuality, where there is a transference to a man of that which is becoming in a woman—the fact that she respects a man and can fall in love with him. Things as they exist can be changed through transference. Many times the Word speaks about a spirit of perversion which works something else besides that which is normal and natural. Satan tries to twist what exists.
When you move into judgment, you face some basic problems. You cannot send something to someone without being affected by it yourself. If you judge or bless, it returns as a boomerang. You must be aware of the danger of praying for judgment; for there is a certain way that it will boomerang back on you. But if you know how to dodge what comes against you from the enemy, you can upset the enemy; he will be like a snake that bites himself instead of biting you.
If your heart is pure, you have nothing to fear. If you are without vindictiveness and revengefulness in your heart and you can love your enemies, you are safe. Christ said, “Love your enemies, do good to them who hate you, bless them who curse you, and pray for them who despitefully use you” (Luke 6:27, 28). If you do not have perfect love in your heart, your judgment will boomerang back on you. You cannot judge and try to use God to destroy your enemy who wants to destroy you, for God has set up certain laws. You cannot judge another person for hatred, if you are hating him. I John 3:15 says that if you hate your brother, you are a murderer. Not only that, it comes back on you too. It is a death-dealing blow to yourself. Galatians 5:15 says, But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
By judging, you start something that is self-destructive; therefore, the judgments of God must begin by you searching your heart and humbling yourself. You cannot judge another person’s pride if you are proud. You cannot judge another person’s hatred if you have hatred in your heart for him. If he is an enemy who is holding back what God is doing in this hour and you want God to deal with him, fine; but first you must come into a perfect love. Love your enemies; do good to them who despitefully use you.
Open your heart to the Lord and walk humbly. Walk without judgment in your own spirit against your brother, because God is going to bring judgment. When He does, only the pure in heart will come through without being caught in a backwash of that judgment. Already, judgments have been spoken that will fill the house of God. God has taken a long time to purify the spirits of His people, to prepare them for the greatest renewal and cleansing they have ever had. The worship and the purity that is going to come forth in the lives of God’s people will be glorious.
There are certain spiritual principles by which you can defend yourself against the assaults that Satan brings. Enough satanic force has been loosed against God’s people that if they all suddenly closed any openness in their spirits to the things Satan is throwing at them, it would boomerang. It would mean the destruction of everything that is organized to curse and minister death to the house of God.
You can absolutely reject what is coming against you and cause confusion to the enemy. Just shake off the assaults of Satan, as the Apostle Paul did when he shook off the viper that was fastened to his hand into the fire. Learn to shake off everything that comes against you. Apply the principle of the boomerang and duck from everything that is sent to destroy you. Through the scriptural principle of the boomerang, you can also accept or reject blessing. You can either be open or closed to it.
The tenth chapter of Luke tells about the seventy disciples whom Christ sent out. He said to them, “… Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ And if a man of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him; but if not, it will return to you.” Verses 5, 6. The Bible is full of examples of this principle. In Luke 6:38, we read that Christ said, “Give, and it will be given to you …” Proverbs 11:25a says, The generous man will be prosperous.
You can reject either the blessing of the Lord or an evil thing. Learn to open up to the Lord, and at the same time reject the satanic assault. Shake it off. Get rid of it. It will not have any power over you if you learn to cast it off in the name of the Lord. Just duck and let it boomerang back.
Judgments will begin by many of the ungodly destroying themselves. The spiritual principle of the boomerang is a good thing that God has created. An angry and arrogant person who comes against you will be hit with his own meanness. It is good that it retaliates. People reap what they sow. They will learn to be a little more humble and not so vicious when they get back what they send out.
Cast off all the works of darkness. Wherever you have been open to assault, throw it off. Wherever demon power, together with human psychic force, has come against you, it must be broken. Cast it off and completely reject it from now on. Live in a state of absolute rejection against the assault of the enemy. Walk in the victory and in the health of the Lord. Be open to that, and refuse to accept or to tolerate evil. Do not be cut off from one another in the family of God. Love one another, and do not be suspicious of one another. Open your heart to the oneness that God has for His people, and reject the enemy in the name of the Lord Jesus. Reject the destructive spirit that causes people to be accident-prone, and accept immunity. Accept immunity from disease, immunity from the assault of the enemy, immunity from circumstances, and immunity from judgments.
God has turned something loose. Nothing can stop it. Daniel prophesied that the enemy would seem to prevail over the saints, until judgment was given to the saints of the Most High and they took possession of the Kingdom (Daniel 7:21, 22). That time has come. Let us enter into it very humbly and reverently. Let us do it with only a complete dedication to the Lord. As soon as possible, we must arrive at that perfect dedication.
Sometimes a spirit of fear will come against you, even when you have quite a bit of faith at the same time. The enemy would try to dislodge the faith that God has brought to you. Reject the spirit of fear, for he that has fear has torment and is not made perfect in love (I John 4:18). How will you know that you have prevailed with the Lord and you have really possessed great treasure? Thieves do not come against a poor man, and robbers do not come against a pauper. Because the Lord has laid great treasure in your hand, the enemy comes to take it away. Loose yourself from any fear. As you are being enriched by the Lord, you will see the enemy come against you; but that which God has given, no man shall take away from you. No devil shall take it away from you. You shall cherish it, walk in it, and possess it in the name of the Lord.
The days of exploits and miracles are here; and as the waves of assaults come and God’s people pray against them, God will destroy devils and send them into the abyss. The people of God will prevail, so do not be afraid. Trust in the Lord, rest in Him, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the enemy.
The law of the boomerang really works. Therefore, what you accept and reject is very important. Believe in the blessings that are upon you, and do not allow the enemy to take them away from you. As judgment is spoken, many areas of creation will be released from bondage and oppression: but God will first loose the house of God from futility and bring judgment.