II Chronicles contains an important passage of Scripture about the dedication of Solomon’s temple and the glory which appeared. Thus all the work that Solomon performed for the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things that David his father had dedicated, even the silver and the gold and all the utensils, and put them in the treasuries of the house of God. Then Solomon assembled to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ households of the sons of Israel, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. And all the men of Israel assembled themselves to the king at the feast, that is in the seventh month. (This gathering occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles.) Then all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. And they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the holy utensils which were in the tent; the Levitical priests brought them up.
And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark were sacrificing so many sheep and oxen, that they could not be counted or numbered. Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering over the ark and its poles. And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen outside; and they are there to this day.
There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of Egypt. And when the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves without regard to divisions), and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets (this same number, 120, were also in the upper room on the day of Pentecost), in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. II Chronicles 5:1–14.
Now we read in Chapter 7: Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. And all the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, “Truly He is good, truly His lovingkindness is everlasting.” II Chronicles 7:1–3. This passage goes on to talk about the sacrifices which followed. The seventh chapter is rich as it tells of Solomon’s meeting with God and the Lord making a covenant with him concerning the days which were to come.
We must understand that Solomon had taken seven years, spent a vast fortune, and expended unbelievable labor to build the temple. It took 150,000 aliens with 360 overseers serving at their posts many months out of the year to build the temple. The workmanship was fabulous. While the temple was being erected, the stones were cut out of distant quarries to the exact size needed so that there was no sound of the hammer while the temple was going up. The stones were fitted right into place and then the workmen overlaid everything within the temple with gold. This was a great miracle. The craftsmanship would rival anything we could produce in the world today, and they were working with inferior tools. They had to produce the molds in which they formed the solid gold vessels. The temple was a wonder of wonders. The service, the work, and the sacrifice were unbelievable, yet when they had finally completed their labors, the glory of God came and caused them to fall on their faces. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t minister, they were rendered helpless. As the fire came down from heaven they couldn’t enter the sanctuary.
There is nothing we can do to impress God. If Solomon thought he was going to impress God with that sacrifice of sheep and oxen without number, if he thought he was going to impress God with anything, he was mistaken. God moved on the scene and everyone was rendered helpless. We must remember this today. We have nothing in ourselves which can prevail; we have nothing in ourselves which can really succeed. We have no ability that is great enough by itself. The only thing that counts is that we be a humble people standing in the presence of the Lord so that the Lord can restore His glory to the house of the Lord. We cannot sacrifice enough to impress Him; all of our service will still fall short.
When God begins to move, we sense our helplessness. Only then are we ready to start on the path which He has prepared for us. The moment we sense our helplessness is the moment God calls us to unbelievable dedication and sacrifice. This picture of Solomon building the temple lays before us a picture of what God is demanding of us right now: that total enlistment or enrollment of everyone. (In fact, building the temple was so laborious that after Solomon died, the people came to his son Rehoboam and said, “Lower the taxes on us.” Rehoboam should have granted their request because the temple had already been built, but he refused because he was a smart aleck and had taken the wrong counsel. So, according to divine purpose, most of the tribes split off into the northern division of Israel.)
During this period the taxation and the demands of labor were very high because it was the time of the return of the glory of the Lord to the house of God. It was a time of a great deal of sacrifice and service, but it was also a time of dedication. The people had entered in to service and sacrifice for such a long time; finally they had come to dedicate it to the Lord. It is at this point that I want you to understand the conjunction of God and man in a situation.
We could give everything we have and it wouldn’t be enough. We could dedicate all of our buildings, we could dedicate our lives to the Lord and that would not be enough. There is a step that is beyond dedication. When God is working in a situation you are carried beyond dedication; you come into a place we would call consecration. And beyond consecration is the revelation of your own inability. I have walked in sacrifice for many years; and yet, when I look back on all of it I realize that there has been nothing I have given to God which would make me worthy. There is nothing I can do which would impress God. God’s moving in a situation is the only thing that will make it succeed.
When we see this, we realize how much this walk is the working of the hand of God. When God has literally stripped us down and we don’t have an engine left, why are we breaking all the speed records? Why are we growing so fast, when we don’t even have a promotion program? Why is it that people are flocking to the word, when everywhere we are being persecuted and spoken evil of? Have you ever seen anything in the world like the way the Lord is blessing this walk? There is no promotion, no marvelous organization; no advertising. What is it that makes this thing move so fast? Look at it. It’s like an old car with no engine and no visible means of propulsion.
This is what God does. When you give something to Him, He strips it down of anything that you could lean on. Like Paul told the Philippians, “If anyone ever had anything to boast about, I had more. I was Hebrew of the Hebrews, Pharisee of the Pharisees, circumcised the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin; concerning zeal, I was more zealous than all my brethren” (Philippians 3:5).
Paul had all those credentials with him on his way to Damascus, yet what did the Lord do to him? He knocked him to the ground!
“Who are You, Lord?”
“I am Jesus, whom you have persecuted.”
Jesus took the motor out of Paul and then said, “Let’s take all of his zeal. Let him grope about blind for three days. You know what will come out of this? We are going to have a great apostle.”
There is no one who can say, “I have given all. I have done so much and now look how God has blessed me because of it.” When we have prepared our heart and God moves on the scene, we find ourselves lying on the floor, unable to minister. We don’t have anything we can present to the Lord. And it is at this particular point that something comes into our spirit which is above dedication. This is what I have been leading up to. When we have given everything to God, and when God has moved upon our sacrifice and sanctified it with His fire and His glory, when we find ourselves helpless before Him, this is the moment that He begins to give us something which is beyond dedication.
You ask, “What can be beyond dedication?”
Motivation. Think of that for a moment. Motivation.
There can be an inspiration which causes two people to love each other. The romance begins and you see how they are drawn together. Then comes that devastating thing which love brings: dedication. As the boy finds himself dedicated, he throws away his little black book; and as the girl dedicates herself, she tears up all the addresses of her former boyfriends. It is just the two of them now as their dedication to each other begins. This will not be enough, however. As the years go by there must be something that is even greater. Love must give way to more than dedication; it must give way to a motivation.
This is especially true in our walk with the Lord. We are coming into such a fantastic love for the Lord that it is motivating us. It won’t be long before we will see our people laying down their lives and counting it as nothing. They will love one another that much. We have waited for the return of true discipleship, but the true motivation of the Body, love, is here now.
Perhaps you are going through very difficult things, and God doesn’t seem to be letting you out of the furnace of affliction. You have already had your pinfeathers singed and you don’t know how much longer it will be before He lets you out of the fire. He will burn out all the dross from the silver. Malachi prophesies that He will sit and purify all the sons of Levi as silver is purified in the fire (Malachi 3:2).
We do not set up our churches to try to rival any other church. If anyone has a program, they have a better one than we have; if anyone has a choir, they have a better one than we have. There is no contest. We are not trying to prove anything, because we have already lost our war. We came to the brook Jabbok, we wrestled awhile, and we lost gloriously! Now we are limping into the sunrise as princes of God (Genesis 32). It is a great way to lose. We have come to the end of a program, we have come to the end of promotion. It is nothing of ourselves now because it is all in His hands. The secret of why this walk works is that we have seen His presence; we have sensed His glory. And because of this, we have found ourselves unable to minister and function in the old-order sense. We find that we no longer have the proper requirements.
The Lord asked Moses, “What is in your hand?” The rod he had in his hand turned into a beautiful sidewinder. The Lord told Moses, “Pick up that serpent” (I think Moses probably picked it up very carefully), and it turned back into a rod.
“I am the Lord who can change all these things. Put your hand into your bosom. Now, take it out.” Moses’ hand was leprous. The Lord told him to put it back in his bosom and when he took it out, it was every whit whole.
“Now, Moses, let’s go down and deliver the people. I want you to bring them back out here to the desert to worship the Lord” (Exodus 4:2–8).
Moses was impressed with the fact that he was nothing and that God was everything. The success of this walk does not come from a self-imposed humility of which you are secretly very proud. The secret of this walk is that deep, devastating thing which God works in you until you know the absolute inability of man. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God. II Corinthians 3:5.
We must say, “Here we are, Lord. We are ready to do Your will.” Why are we here? The Lord put us here. What kind of a program are we going to have? We don’t have any program. We’ll have services and worship the Lord. God is going to meet people and He is going to speak through us. He will move through us.
“Well, you should do SOMETHING. Don’t you know it is the end time? You ought to have some program immediately for the people. You had better get busy!”
We are going to wait for a word from the Lord; we will be in that spot the Lord tells us to be in. We will stand still until He tells us what to do, then we will do it, leaving everything in the hands of the Lord and trusting Him with all of our hearts. We have moved through our whole lives to be standing in the unique spot of doing the will of God in the earth now.
Remember what Eleazer said after he had made that long trip, looking for a bride for Isaac (Genesis 24)? “I being in the way the Lord led me.” That means he was on the right freeway moving in the right direction! It is very difficult to steer a parked car. Little children try. They get into the car parked in the driveway and, “Chug, chug chug,” they have a lot of fun but don’t get anywhere. Children climb up into a train at the park and pull the whistle and have a great time. But when they climb down, they find their mother standing in the same spot where they left her before they began that “long trip.” It is hard to steer a parked car. But when you are in motion and are flowing along with what God is doing, it is amazing how He directs your life.
Eleazer was “in the way” when he noticed a beautiful girl beside a well. He thought, “Let’s see what she is really like. If this girl is going to be a good bride for Isaac she must be not only beautiful, but industrious also.” So Eleazer said, “Give me a drink.”
“All right,” she said, “and I’ll be very glad to water these camels also.” Eleazer thought, “Those camels can drink enough to last them for weeks. That’s a pretty friendly and hospitable thing for her to do. How did I ever stumble onto such a girl?” Did Eleazer join one of those “lonely heart” clubs which sends out addresses and exchanges pictures? No. He was just moving in the way he was to go, and the Lord led him.
Where are all the people who are going to find the Lord? Where are those whom you are going to bring into the walk? Open your eyes and keep moving in God, and you will find them right where God has them for you. Shouldn’t we get a list of prospects? Shouldn’t we canvas the town? Shouldn’t we go up and down the streets and pass out tracts?
That may be one way to do it, but I remember the days when I went up and down the streets knocking on every door and talking to everyone about the Lord. It was a hot summer. I ran into everything. I can recall many events that happened in that canvassing, but I can’t point to one soul who found the Lord, and I went to every house in town.
Canvassing may pay off sometimes, but the thing I’m concerned about is moving every day in the Lord. Don’t be a bunch of religious phonies going around trying to prove a point or put over a program saying, “Boy, our church is tops. We are the people and wisdom will die with us!” Walk humbly. Jesus is the one, and there isn’t any other but Him. Open your heart for the divine fires to burn. Give it all to Him. Give Him the service. Give Him the love. Give Him the dedication. Lay it all out before Him; die to yourself and give the Lord the glory. And when you get on your feet in the midst of that glory, you will be fulfilling something quite different from the ritual of the old priests of Israel. You will be an instrument in the hand of the Almighty. “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, for I will make thee into a sharp threshing instrument having teeth. And thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them into chaff” (Isaiah 41:14–15). Such a great thing to come out of such a weak instrument. Don’t forget He is the one who is everything.
We are all going to get busy; we will all be set in the Body just where God wants us, but be careful. We don’t want to get steamed up on some ego trip. We must not devise a man-made program. Walk humbly with thy God (Micah 6:8). When miracles happen you will know that God did it and He will get all the glory.
I feel the grimness that God has positioned us before His Presence and we are getting our orders from the Lord. We are moving into the most fantastic period this walk has ever known. I am going to do one thing now: pour water on the altars of Jehovah, and I want the fire to come down and consume the sacrifice. I want to see all the false prophets slain. I am putting water on the sacrifice because I do not want this walk to take off with human enthusiasm. The ministries God promised will be anointed people, moving into God. As we move in, like an army launching in to take its objective, we must not revert to human promotion and enthusiasm. We must be what God wants us to be.
Very carefully I will throw water on your fires of fleshly effort. I call upon you to be His disciples. Wait before Him. Love Him. Serve Him. Encourage one another. Get ready to move. We are not going to be lazy people; I’m not saying we will become inactive. I am saying, “Let’s put an end to the fleshly efforts. Let’s be led by the Spirit of the Lord in everything we do. Let’s stand in continual communion with the Lord.” This what the Lord wants. If we ever lose that, we are nothing. And as it is, we are nothing, but we are linked with Him.
Man can be dedicated, but he must go beyond the call of duty, beyond every demand of his dedications. There must be a driving force within him to do the will of God. God is calling us to a new level of discipleship. The Living Word is coming like a sharp two-edged sword, and it is cutting asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it is laying us open. “All things are laid open before Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). And it seems that all we have to say is “Lord, You have torn us; You have wounded us. You have brought Your word and You have cut us open. What happens to us now?” But, He hath torn us and He will heal us (Hosea 6:1). He will add the fire; He will add the glory and something a little bit beyond.
When I was a teenager and a young man, what I was able to do was fantastic. I started three churches in one year. I could expound every chapter of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation (you should have heard those fantastic sermons on Bible prophecy), and I dedicated it all to God. Then He began to chop it up in little pieces and put His fire to it. I lay quietly before Him and discovered all the areas of my inability. I began to see the vast areas of my ignorance; I didn’t dream it was possible for one man to be so ignorant. And that is when my walk with God began. When you come to the end of everything the blessing of the Lord has added to you, this is when your walk with God begins.
The step beyond your dedication and sacrifice is the step which comes of enablement and motivation. What makes people walk in this walk? I have seen great motivation among some of the brethren, and I know what has brought it about. I have watched them come before the Lord; they get the word, and they begin to struggle a little bit about submission. They say, “Oh, pray for me, I want to be submissive”—as though this were an end in itself. Submission is just a beginning. Then they come and say, “I’m finally submissive; I’m really dedicated to this walk now, and I’m submissive to you.”
But that isn’t enough.
“I thought that was the ultimate goal.”
No, then comes the motivation, motivation beyond what anyone would say or demand.
I know men today who are dedicated enough to lay their lives down for this walk. A few, who are motivated enough, are doing it. I know God dealt with me, and I have been dedicated enough to this walk so that if the Lord had said, “Would you lay your life down?” I would have said, “Yes.” But I know what has happened in recent months: I have become motivated now, and I am laying my life down for Him. Every day that I live, I am giving every bit of my life for this walk.
Motivation throws you right into the performance of your dedication. God is bringing this to us now. He is bringing His glory back, and He may bring great dedication and sacrifice and service. But this walk has reached the place where these things are not the issue. Now men are becoming motivated; they are giving their lives and laying them down for the glory of God. One brother who is doing this has been under awful harassment; no one will understand what he has gone through in physical and spiritual assault because he is literally praying as though the Apostolic ministry is dependent upon him. This walk will not go very far unless all of us have the same attitude.
It is not any one man who will succeed, nor any group of men; it is a Body contending for the faith which was once delivered to the saints (Jude 2). The members of this Body are not reaching for a theory, they are not reaching for a deeper dedication than they have known, they are laying their lives down. They are not trying to save anything back, and God has blessed them because of this.
God has brought us through days of preparation; we have gone through experiences just as remarkable as the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness. The Old Testament experiences and the crisis hours in which God has dealt with those in this walk can be compared equally. Many missionaries and many churches have come out of the faithfulness and the vision we have had in walking on with the Lord. But all of that is like a preparation, because the real days of fruitfulness are before us.
Let me take the mountain with its giants. Let me bring down that which has stood against the people of God. Let me come against the things that have been a bulwark against God’s remnant in the days past; let me go in and take the land in the name of the Lord. People who love not their lives unto death will wholly follow the Lamb whithersoever He will go. This is what God is bringing forth in your life. The day has come when this motivation is born in your heart, sometimes without your even realizing it. Is your whole thinking centered around living your life wholly for God? It must become increasingly so. This motivation will come, especially because you are not struggling for it to be there. It will just be there because God has worked it in your heart.
In a few years the number of martyrs will be increased greatly. We will find the Kingdom of God reaching into many areas. The days ahead may be trying, but I am not apprehensive because God has prepared the people to walk in these days. God is reaching into His people and motivating them until they are set on the course, the whole of their lives being given for God.
The time is very short. There is such an urgency. The world is aware that we are ready for a stock market crash; the whole monetary system of the United States and of the world is in jeopardy. The day in which great forces are turned loose like flood tides to swallow the people of the Lord are already upon us. And for any of us to hold back from the Lord to try to save our lives would only result in our losing them. The Lord said, “He that would save his life would lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it” (Luke 9:24).
I feel as if I am anointed of the Lord to direct troops into combat. The Scripture says, “The merciful will obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). One thing about the merciful, however, is that they are ruthless and unmerciful when it concerns the will of God and the manifestation of His grace through their lives; they go relentlessly toward what God sets before them. And God has set a challenge before us, a dedication. He says, “This is the way. Walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21). There will be no turning aside; there will be no counting the cost. Just move straight ahead. In the next few months, the course of many things will be set.
In a very short while you will see everything changing. It will be unbelievable. One country after another will fall to the assault of the Word of the Lord. In countries where people have been struggling in an old order, in an anointing that is obsolete, the Lord will gather those people together and anoint them with fresh oil. Great changes will take place on the earth. I am moved by things that I envision: He is standing with a drawn sword. The Captain of the host of the Lord is ready to lead us (Joshua 5:13–15).
Lord, we are occupying this land with a great deal of faith. You are the leader, You are the Captain. Make Your will known to us; let us know what You want of us. And then, after You tell us what to do, You work it through us. Help us, Lord, to go through the motions and to give breath to the words. But, Lord, You do the speaking. You do the moving on the hearts of the people.
Many are passing through a time of travail, the threshing floor of Onan, and the shaking. Breathe on them and help them. Heal the hungry and lonely ones, they are Your dear sheep; bless them and let their spirits be encouraged. Let such a tide of love flow that even the little brothers and sisters who have their walls up will take them down. O God, You smiled on us; now warm all these other hearts with Your love. It is going to be very cold in this old world. The desolate winds of judgment have already begun to blow and the enemy thinks to wear out the saints of the Most High. But we shall rise in Thy strength, O Lord, to do Thy will. We have never been many, but as we walk before Thee into the Kingdom, may we never be less.
Oh, blessed Jesus, pour out Your Spirit upon us. We want to give sacrifice beyond counting to You; we want You to fill Your house with Your glory. But above all we want You to motivate us to go about Your service with a total commitment of everything we are to God. Amen.