When we experience the purification which God is restoring to the Church, our hearts are encouraged that the days of visitation are truly upon us. Our purification has prepared us to move into what has been labeled “Kingdom evangelism.” It is not so much evangelism that we are entering into, as it is an ingathering. We will not be in an evangelism that reminds us of the past. Rather, these will be the days of the glory of the Lord resting upon His people, that the world will believe that God has sent us. This manifestation of the glory must take place. Therefore, the Lord has begun to speak of a great coming Pentecost of oneness.
The whole difficulty in the Church age has been that people did not know what Jesus meant when He spoke of oneness; much less did they know how to attain it. So they created human bonds with one another. When people do that, they usually slip into the “personality cult” to some extent, and the church becomes more exclusive because the relationships within it are on a personality level. When people come into a church, they eventually experience great difficulty. At first they feel one with everyone and love everyone. Then they soon begin to gravitate toward only one or two. That is exactly what happened in the Corinthian church, where people said, “I am of Apollos,” or, “I am of Cephas,” or, “I am of Paul” (I Corinthians 1:12). They would bond to one ministry or another, and such bonds were so much on a human level that they could not endure. When people relate on that level, they will in time become disillusioned. No matter how inspired they once were or how much the Lord has moved upon their hearts, they cannot thrive in a church that exists only by human bonds. If they create human bonds and know one another after the flesh, preferring one ministry over another, sooner or later the relationships break down.
It has been very common for a pastor or an elder to make a bond with some new convert and say, “This is my spiritual son.” That spiritual son is taught to relate to this ministry whom he loves. However, because there is a bond instead of a spiritual oneness, that relationship will never go beyond a certain point until the new convert comes into a pure oneness with the Lord. Consequently, the Lord may sever the bond in order to create the oneness with Himself.
This teaching on oneness is one of the most important, perhaps even profound, truths to come in these times. In it the Lord is showing us something new, something that we have not known before. If our relationship to the Lord is right, it will pull others into a relationship with the Lord too. Check this out for yourself: If you feel that you are involving yourself with the church and working hard at what the Lord has shown you to do, then examine the fruit of your labors. Does your labor bring others into a walk with the Lord? When we relate in oneness to the Lord, then everyone we relate to will come into a oneness with the Lord.
This is exactly the picture Jesus presented in John 17. He said to the Father, “You and I are one.” He prayed that the disciples would also be made perfect in one and come to know the Father as He knew the Father. Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord, the holy Son of God, did not bring people into a relationship to Himself alone; He always related them to the Father. In John 14:23 He said, “Love Me and keep My commandments, and My Father will love you, and We will come to you and make Our abode in you.” It became a living experience to walk with Christ and to realize what He was really doing. And it can become a living experience for us too.
When we comprehend this, we can understand the apostle Paul. Never did he pull men unto himself. He very carefully rebuked those who were following after one leader or another. He wrote to the Corinthians, “I thank God that I did not baptize any of you, except a family or two” (I Corinthians 1:14–16). He did not want people to exalt him because he was an apostle. Wherever a true ministry has been established and has authority resting upon him, you find the focus upon that ministry definitely receding, so that the focus can be upon the Lord. Then the relation-ships that come forth within the people who sit under that ministry are brought into a oneness—a oneness with the Lord.
We do not even understand that oneness yet. We do not understand the power of it. But we do know from the Word that the world will never believe that God sent Christ into the world until that oneness exists (John 17:20–21). Consequently, the oneness has to precede the exploits; the oneness has to precede Christ being glorified in the earth. If our relationships are based upon bonds, they will never bring the glorifying of Christ that will make the world believe. Instead, they will create a bottleneck. If I draw men unto myself, I am the greatest failure that has ever existed. But if I lift up Christ, so that the focus is on Him, then He will draw all men unto Himself.
We have had a particular problem with this in the past. Over the years, when I would minister to an individual, I would open the door so that others could minister to him also. However, when a wrong bond exists or a ministry tries to bond men or women to himself, the flow of ministry will stop there. When another comes to minister to those people, he will find that the door is closed; he cannot minister to them. We have not understood this problem before, but this is the principle behind it: If I am one with the Lord, I can bring others into that oneness.
All of us may have failed in this in some way, and at this point you may be feeling uncomfortable as you search your heart and wonder, “Lord, have I made the wrong bonds that have not brought men through to Christ?” Do not justify yourself by pointing out all the people who are walking with the Lord because of what you have done. There is a mingling in our hearts of that which is good and that which is not so good. Every one of us is being brought to the great tribunal of our conscience by the Holy Spirit to say, “Lord, help us so that we really walk in oneness with You, and in oneness with our brothers and sisters. Help us so that we do not create relationships so human that they become exclusive.”
Christ’s prayer in John 17 was not an exclusive prayer. He prayed, “Father, I do not pray for these disciples only, but for all of those who are going to believe in Me through their word.” Thus He was reaching out, down through the years, over color distinctions, over denominational divisions and every other distinction, praying that they would love the Father and come into oneness. When we come into this oneness and see it in our hearts, then we will suddenly see the end of our “individual kingdom” and the coming forth of His Kingdom!
Let me make a statement which I believe has come as a true revelation from the Lord and is firmly established by His Word. I believe that the miracle of Pentecost did not come only because of the sovereign will of God. It did not come only because Christ had prayed to the Father, and therefore He sent it. The miracle of Pentecost came also because the disciples did what they were told to do: they came into this oneness, so that they were “all in one accord in one place.” When we trace the fantastic moving of God in the early Church, we are aware that in every instance there was a oneness among the believers.
I do not believe that oneness is the result of miracles. I believe that it is the climate and channel for miracles to happen. Oneness is not only an effect; it is a contributing cause of the sovereign moving of God in the earth. It is the basic reason why some people will make it and some people will not. Whatever God does sovereignly in this age will be appropriated only by those who are abiding in this oneness in the Lord and thus have become the channels and a cause of that sovereign moving of God in the earth.
At this point the question arises, “Where do we go from here? How does this oneness come to pass?” We could spend much time counseling together, we could enter into much intercession, and these things would be very beneficial. However, worship becomes the principal channel by which oneness of spirit with the Lord really comes about. The quicker we move into this high plane of worship before the Lord, worshiping Him with all of our heart, the sooner we will come as individuals into that oneness with the Lord. Then, and only then, the oneness with one another also becomes a possibility.
There may be strong bonds between us, but if we do not have the oneness with the Lord, we cannot be truly one with each other. Only when we walk in the light as He is in the light can we have fellowship with one another and be cleansed from all unrighteousness by the blood (I John 1:7). In effect, this same truth was voiced by Christ when He prayed, … that they may be made perfect in one. John 17:23a. We will be made perfect when we are one! We will never get over the last hurdles, we will never break through these last impasses—individually, or as churches, or as the Kingdom of God—until we are made perfect in one.
Years ago the Lord showed me that the great experiences in the future would be collective experiences, that is, experiences which we have together. At the time I did not understand it because my observations, as well as all I had been taught and all my training, indicated that everything in a walk with God was a personal experience. First you accept Christ as your Savior. Then you begin to search for your own walk with God. You have to be personally baptized in water. You have to receive the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit as personal experiences. However, now that we have come a little further, we are realizing that some of these experiences should or could be collectively shared. We read in the Scriptures that the disciples were all in one accord and the Spirit fell upon all of them at one time. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to move in a oneness as a result of all of them experiencing it together. I believe that if we begin to look to God to come into a oneness with Him, we will be surprised that as congregations we will experience things together. Our main concern will not be with individual impasses and problems; we will not be concerned with our needs as individual families. But we will stand in oneness as worshipers of the Lord and see God move upon us. That is what we are striving for—to see the glory of the Lord descend upon us.
In the comprehensive view of the prayer in John 17, we must understand two themes which are presented by several verses. One theme is the Word. Christ emphasized the fact that He had given His disciples the Word which the Father had given Him. We can trace this theme in verses 6, 8, 14, and 20. In verse 6, Jesus said, “I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me, and they have kept Thy word.” Verse 8: “For the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me.” Verse 14: “I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them.…” Verse 20: “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.”
This prayer points out the importance of the fact that Christ had given His disciples the Word from the Father. Without the Living Word, the oneness seems impossible. If God had not been preparing us by bringing a visitation of His Living Word for the past several decades, we would not be ready now for this message on oneness. We could not even hear it, much less be able to enter into that oneness, if we had not had our hearts opened creatively by the Living Word.
The other theme in Christ’s prayer is the oneness itself, which is first mentioned in verse 11: “And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are.” Notice the things that Christ mentioned in this prayer, such as His name and the glory that He had had with the Father before the foundation of the world (verse 5). These things had been given to facilitate the oneness. Verses 20–21: “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.”
A bond is a glue that causes individuals to adhere to one another on a psychic, spiritual, or mental level; and some good can result. However, oneness is something beyond bonds. It must be considered as a fusion of being. Christ prayed to the Father, “I am in You, and You are in Me; and they are going to be in Us, too.” We cannot comprehend this until we realize that this is the end of individuality. And that is achieved not by a bond, but by a oneness.
Verses 22–23: “And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them” (the Lord is letting His glory rest upon us too); “that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.” These words preceded the event on the day of Pentecost, when they were all in one accord in one place and the cloven tongues of fire came and sat upon each one of them. In Jesus’ prayer for them, He had said, “I have given them this glory.”
It was no doubt the Shekinah glory of the Old Testament that rested upon them, and many things happened that day which removed forever a repetition of former differences. How few days before this had the disciples argued over who would be the greatest? How often had they murmured among themselves over that issue? Yet they loved one another, and they loved the Lord. They had a bond; there is no question about that. John and Peter had a particularly close bond with each other. James and John did also, for they were brothers. There were little relationships that existed among them. There was an “inner circle,” comprised of Peter, James, and John, that pressed in a little closer. But you do not find these things mentioned after the day of Pentecost.
We read of only one incident where they disagreed (Galatians 2). Paul felt that Peter had done the wrong thing by conforming to the kosher Christians who came up from Jerusalem. Peter had been eating with some of the Gentile Christians, enjoying their foods; but he did not want to offend the Jews, and so he withdrew. Because of this duplicity, Paul rebuked him. However, even in this disagreement they maintained their oneness. In his second Epistle, Peter referred to Paul, saying that he spoke some things that were difficult to understand; but he encouraged the people because of the wonderful Word and grace that rested upon Paul (II Peter 3:15–16).
A oneness existed between Peter and Paul even though there was a contrast in their ministries. Paul was an apostle to the uncircumcision, and Peter was an apostle to the circumcision. Yet in an amazing way God brought an overlapping of their ministries in their oneness. It was Peter who opened the door to the uncircumcised; and Paul always began his ministry in a city by entering the synagogue and preaching to the circumcised. Paul loved the Jewish Christians so much and felt such a oneness with them that he said, “I could wish myself accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren in Israel” (Romans 9:3). He loved them, yet he built the churches among the Gentiles, for that was his calling. But the oneness did not stop there; it reached out to embrace everyone. When the Jewish believers in Jerusalem were starving because of famine, Paul traveled all over taking up offerings for them. There could have been many differences and contentions between Peter and Paul, but they had entered into a beautiful oneness in Christ.
We must be determined to be one! There must be a dedication in our hearts and a striving by faith to reach it. Walking in oneness is just as simple as walking in any other provision that Christ has made for us. If you believe that Christ gave us salvation, that He provided healing for us, that He gave us the Spirit in abundance, then realize that in this prayer of John 17 He also made a provision for us to accept and appropriate a oneness in God, a oneness which is yet to be the great universal experience of the Body of Christ. It is there for us to attain. Remember, however, that this experience is final; for after the Lord fuses us into one, we cannot become individuals again. Nevertheless, we pray, “O Lord, swallow us up irrevocably in the oneness with the Father and with our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Jesus’ prayer is concluded in verse 26: “And I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them.” We know that we do not love one another enough. Yet we wonder, “How can we come to love one another more?” This is the only way—that we seek and we come into the oneness. Then we will love as we have never loved before. We will love without reservations. When we relate on the level of bonds, the door is left open for us to judge one another after the flesh, and then we evaluate one another, elevating some and lowering others in our thinking. The bonds by which we have survived and lived in the past must give way to a oneness. This is a truth that is part of the Kingdom Gospel. We are not calling for individuals to walk with God in their own independent way. We are calling for the Lord to move upon us to make us one, and so we will walk with Him as one.
We frequently quote the Scripture, “They do not break ranks nor thrust one another through” (Joel 2:7–8, KJV); however, this problem still happens to some extent. It is difficult to reach the level where you never set yourself up to evaluate others. Will there then be any personal initiative left? Yes, because the disciples never had as much initiative as they did after the day of Pentecost, when they began to flow together by the leading of the Spirit. Under the direction of the Lord, they stood up and proclaimed the Word of God as one.
Acts 2:1–4 records the experience of the 120 believers on the day of Pentecost. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. (The King James Version reads, “They were all with one accord in one place,” which is a better translation.) And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
I have weighed the following statement carefully, and I lay it before you to pray over: The oneness which came to the early Church, as recorded in the book of Acts, did not follow the Holy Spirit’s coming; it preceded it. Out of the 500 believers who had seen Jesus after His resurrection (I Corinthians 15:6), and who had been commissioned to wait, the group had been reduced down to 120. In a beautiful way, that group of believers reached into the grace of God and they were together, waiting on the Lord as they had been commanded to do, when the day of Pentecost finally came. And when it came, they were “in one accord in one place.” That oneness preceded the coming of the Holy Spirit. If this was the case, then we can conclude that our humble efforts to be one and to flow into one can also be honored by God with a visitation, a visitation of fire and wind and the Spirit of the Lord, which will make our oneness effective.
As much as we know how, let us come together now. As much as we know how, we cry for this oneness. We reach into God with all the grace we have now, believing God to pour out His Spirit upon us so that we will have a Pentecost of oneness. A Pentecost of oneness will launch us into what we cannot do with the measure of grace that we have at this point. We can start where we are, with a dedication and a determination to be one.
This may be an area of battle and conflict in our mind. How can we be one? This end-time walk in the Spirit has been held together by a Living Word, by a vision, by a revelation from the Lord, but attaining the oneness has been difficult. Unity has been slow in coming, and yet for years God has been speaking to us about the oneness and about our relationships, directing us in the way we are to go. Now the time has finally come when the Lord is giving a prophetic Word, declaring that we are coming into the Pentecost of oneness. This Word is prophetic. It is a practical Word which we can follow with dedication and determination.
What happened after the Spirit fell upon those early believers? They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42. They worked at it! Many things can come to cause a relationship or an experience to diminish or to become something less than what God wants it to be for you. Whatever Word God gives you, you must work at it. When He fills you with the Holy Spirit, you must seek to remain filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Everything that God does for you is capable of a great amount of expansion and growth. If you have had an experience from God and you are walking in something less than what you received, you should be rebuked for it. It can grow. If you have received something from the Lord and you are now walking in a greater measure of it, you are on the right track. You are to grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (II Peter 3:18). You press on into more.
The oneness that we have attained thus far is a good place for us to start. The measure of faith that we have is a good beginning for us. The love that we have is the only place where we can start. We start from here and we declare, “We are going to love more. We are going to believe more. We are going to be made more perfect in one.” We are relating to one another, hopefully not on a level of human bonds, but with a reaching into God to be one with Him. Of course, to repeat, that is why our worship is so important. Every time we worship, may the Lord be more real to us; we should look to be more one with Him.
The fourth chapter of Acts relates how Peter and John were arrested after healing the lame man at the Temple. They were warned by the Council not to speak any more in the name of the Lord. And when they had been released, they went to their own companions, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord… Acts 4:23–24.
Now let us consider intercession. The restoration of intercession is at a crossroads. Intercession can become the voice of one people, in one accord, crying unto the Lord very effectively; or it can become a pattern that does not even reach into the presence of the Lord. It is like anything else that God directs us to do; it can become something that is empty, a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (I Corinthians 13:1). If this was said about the gift of tongues, then how much more could it be true of intercession! The truth is that the intercession can be either the most effective tool we have ever known, or the most ineffective.
Those believers lifted up their voices in one accord, and they prayed, “… grant that Thy bond-servants may speak Thy word with all confidence, while Thou dost extend Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:29–31.
The book of Acts records the miracles and other events that took place after this. The judgments on Ananias and Sapphira were a consequence of this, because divine judgments begin to come with unity, with oneness (Acts 5). The end-time judgments will not take place as long as only a few individuals are praying for the judgments to come. God wants everyone to enter in. He wants each one to lift up his voice with a unity of purpose and a unity in the Spirit, crying out, “Grant the signs and wonders!” Then the miracles will come forth. I believe that if we pursue after this oneness that God has set before us, doing the best we can in love and in faith, we could break through into the exploits and the signs and wonders. I believe that God will honor this Word He has given, and we can move in to see the signs and wonders come in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Where did Philip and Stephen come from? Where did all the brothers who were prophets and teachers in Antioch come from? The oneness at Pentecost opened the door to create a generation of ministers. The signs and wonders that filled the earth resulted from that oneness. Do you see the significance of this? How we should repent of everything we allow in our spirit that creates a distance between us! How we should repent of everything within our own heart that would make a false bond because of some personal need that we have. Perhaps there is an insecurity or immaturity within us, so that we think we need people to be something special to us, instead of realizing that those human bonds will all fail. The only thing that will meet everyone’s need is the oneness of Christ. When we truly become one, it is inevitable that we will see the fullness of Christ manifested through every member of His Body.