Musical instruments must support the worship service, rather than dominate or drive the people into worship. The initiative to worship comes from the people.
When we have difficulty in breaking through to worship the Lord because of spiritual warfare, the instruments should not be used like a bulldozer to plow through a service. If the people’s faith is generated, they will break through to the Lord themselves. The people break through. They are not shoved through; they break through! We do not want to miss what God has for us in our worship. The prophecies have said that we will break through into the highest level of worship. This breakthrough will not be created by musical instruments. A jubilee worship service is a breakthrough, but we do not “jubilee” to break through; we “jubilee” after we break through.
This guideline is not meant to quench the Spirit, but to establish a way of thinking. It may quench some mechanics, but that is of no interest. We are interested in the worship that will come forth. The church must be the cradle of liberty for the people of God. Therefore, we must have a deep, intense faith in our hearts when we walk into each worship service. If the service is laboring under demonic assault, let the authorities of the church loose the people into their worship; and let the people generate worship with deep faith from their hearts. Let there be unity in the way that the service is approached. When the service reaches an impasse, take authority in the Spirit over the impasse rather than trying to break through by some mechanical means.
We should never have the type of service where the leaders use tricks in order to secure a certain conformity. I have been in churches where they clapped their hands and went through certain motions in order to attain an agreement. The mechanics should not be the means to break through; they should come forth as a spontaneous result, as an expression of worship.
When the Spirit of the Lord falls, then you can do what you feel like doing. You can dance, or jump up and down, if it is not a matter of exhibitionism, but a result of the spiritual breakthrough you are feeling. And I am not saying that we should now sing only some of the old hymns at the start of our worship services. What I want you to realize is that using loud instrumental music to try to break through is not the answer. Authority in the service and the unity of the service bring the breakthrough. The oneness we have in our hearts will break the service through to high worship.
If I were a stranger coming into one of our services, I would respond to the authority that brings the presence of the Lord to prevail over everything. I would not care what the music or anything else was like. If I were hungry for God, I would feel, “Let this people bring the presence of the Lord into this house by the authority and the faith with which they come into His presence.”
The church may have a problem breaking through to worship on a Sunday morning; but if the leaders try to follow the pattern of a free jubilee service, this will not help. Whenever we come before the Lord in a service, we want all the dealings of the Lord laid out before us. We want our hearts broken and melted before the Lord, so that we are one before His presence. Then we will believe, and people will be met. The service is to be a table that is spread for everyone. The Lord spoke years ago: “It is a table that is to be spread for all, young and old, beginners and elders alike.”
A babe in Christ can come into a service and receive a blessing. He may not understand much, but God will meet his heart if there is the warmth of love and unity. Little babies are like that. They respond to affection. You know they do not understand much. When you talk to them they look intelligent, and they smile and respond. They just want to say, “I am trying to understand. I am responding to your love.” They could not even put this into thought; but they are doing it.
Likewise the babes in Christ can come into the service and feel our love and oneness. They will feel our breakthrough to the Lord in the Spirit. Therefore at the start of the service we must not for one second submit to the demonic oppression that tries to hit. If we reach into God for the love and the moving of His Spirit, then we can sing anything. Then the musicians can reach in to support the worship that comes like a wave from the people.
We should not need worship leaders as badly as we apparently need them. Worship should be spontaneous, flowing from the hearts of the people automatically. I am giving these guidelines because I want us to break through into that high level of spiritual worship that I believe is coming. I believe that it is coming, but still people try to use some kind of gimmick or lever to open a service. For sure, overpowering music is not to be like a can opener. Faith opens up the service to us.
One church was having difficulty with the intercession, not because they did not want to intercede but because they did not know how to intercede. So sometimes they stood for an hour at a time and spoke in tongues. Even when they knew the emphasis of the Spirit, they still spoke in tongues, instead of praying with their understanding. They were in a rut. Tongues is a mighty way of interceding and praying when you do not have a knowledge of what to pray about. The Scriptures teach that speaking in tongues is giving thanks well in the Spirit, but others are not edified (I Corinthians 14:17). I have seen people in the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches stand and speak in tongues and shake. I do not know how much progress they made. Maybe they used tongues as a crutch to help continue on.
Let us mature, so that we use nothing as a crutch. When we come together, the service will be filled with the presence of the Lord if we have faith to bring it to pass. Then the deep worship will come forth. There should be no burden or restraint upon our singing in our worship, except that we must realize that the music is a support; but it is not the breakthrough.
Restraining the instruments will not mean that we will be going back to dead services. In many of the services the music was overpowering, and the people were struggling! In a time like this, stop everything and break through in the Spirit. Whatever you do afterwards will be fine. Instead of struggling, draw near to the Lord to be one with Him and with one another; and take authority over the demonic enemy! See that he does not restrain the services, and you will have liberty. Then will it matter if you stand on your head and worship? Whatever you do, do not use mechanics to get into worship; use faith! Jubilee music could become a form and a tradition to us, and we would die out. It would perish. We cannot go back to the traditional pattern of choirs and anthems. That has been proven dead.
Now I am beginning to understand why God gave me the following Word. There are two streams—one up and one down from the middle course of what today is the orthodoxy where God is moving. I am not talking about the denominations or the Charismatics; I am talking about us, where we are. “Orthodoxy” means what is right and what is true. From this course and level of orthodoxy—the true revelation of the Lord, the true moving of God in the earth, the true Kingdom message, the true breakthrough into the Lordship of Christ—from all of this, there is an upward stream, and there is a downward stream. Those of us who stand in this area can go up or down.
The upward stream is the path of revelation. If we go upward, it is because there will be a path of revelation with an increase of light, a oneness that comes in the Lord, so that no matter what God has done for us, it constantly grows and expands into a greater awareness of the Lord. Nothing diminishes. But the path of the righteous is as the dawning light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:18.
Every day, every month, every year, we look back and say, “How much God has added to the Word that He has given us! How much we have increased, and how we are abounding in what He has done even from the beginning in our lives!” I rejoice in what is happening now! Though the tests have been very great, I have never moved in greater revelation or ministry, or closeness to the Lord than I have this last year because there is a path and pull upward. This is the path God wants you to take.
There is also a path downward. The lower course leads into almost a gradual apostasy. “Apostasy” means falling away from what you have. It becomes a dead, traditional orthodoxy. You talk about “the good old days” and the things that you heard. You defend the teachings that you have received, but all the time the truths are a dying tradition to you.
Yesterday’s truth can be today’s immobilizing opiate, which can put you to sleep. The experience in God that was alive and real to you yesterday can immobilize you today. Note the people who are looking back to doctrines and revivals and movements of the past; but usually there is very little alive in those doctrines today. These people are defending something that is dead to them, but it was once alive to their forefathers. The lower course can lead to this. Even Modernists cling to things that happened a generation or two ago. They look back to their beginnings; but they themselves are immobilized spiritually. There is nothing new or alive or active within their lives.
Our struggle is always against conforming to this present age. The truths we receive from the Lord can become a religion to us, or else they can become a greater revelation to us. We can take the upward course, or we can take the downward course.
I was raised in a movement which, at the time, was one of the closest to God that existed on the face of the earth. But year after year after year it went down, down, down, until the leaders had to start preaching loyalty to the movement. They preached about what had happened in the past, and people began to abandon the movement because it was already dying. They had a name that they lived, but they were dead, as the Scripture says about the church in Sardis (Revelation 3:1).
Our search will be manifested along two or three different lines. First, we must have a breakthrough, and worship in His presence. This breakthrough will come because we believe for it. The presence of the Lord is not an end result of putting together a chemical formula. Some people actually believed they could get an awareness of God on an LSD trip. To sharpen their awareness, they took such a large dose that they went mad—screaming and digging their fingernails out on the wall. Some awareness! A chemical formula will never lead you into an awareness. The hippies who went on that route abandoned it. There is no chemical formula to break through to God. Some followed the meditation route, as taught by the yogis and maharishis: “We will contemplate our navels until we break through to God.” No matter how noble it seemed, this did not lead them to walk with God.
We must not substitute something for faith and say, “This is the way we will break through to God.” We come into His presence by faith—by our faith in God, by our faith in the Word He has given us. We come to the service to meet Him; and because we believe, He will move upon us. God has given us such a Living Word that all we are required to do is stand before Him and take dominion over everything that would restrain our worship. We do not realize how much authority we have from the Lord to break through and to be one. Instead of struggling to be one, accept oneness by faith! Accept it with a faith that refuses division or separation from the Lord and from one another. Determine to walk in it. If you take the approach of faith, then you will not use or need the mechanical approach.
It does not matter whether or not you are in the right mood, whether you are rested or tired, or even if you are in such a period of depression that you cannot be encouraged. These things are irrelevant to your coming to meet the Lord. God meets everyone who approaches Him by faith.
We see this as we read the Psalms. One Psalm is sung by someone who is flat on his back or immobilized in his problems. In another Psalm, someone is rejoicing in victory; but in another Psalm he is crying out, “God, You have forgotten me! Why are You so far from me?” The Psalms are a reflection of people in different moods who broke through to God, but only because they sang with faith. The psalmists always sang with faith.
I am fearful of seeing the music used as a device to try to break through to God. Let us use our music as a support and expression of faith. Keep crying for that faith. Reach into that faith! Yearn to see a breakthrough to that highest level of worship with the presence of the Lord filling the place until people are in awe. We are close to this; we can reach it!
We know how deadly spiritual warfare is. We will either break through Satan’s assault or we will break down. The Scripture speaks about the carefulness we must have in fighting. We must not go into the motions of fighting without the basic ingredient of what the fight is all about. Paul told Timothy, “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Timothy 2:3). We tend to emphasize the discipline; but some movements with much discipline will never survive, and others with no discipline will not survive either.
What is our spiritual battle all about? Paul gave one of the greatest keys to Timothy, when he told him, Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life… I Timothy 6:12. I believe that Timothy would have done anything Paul told him to do because he was so open to Paul’s father ministry. Paul told Timothy that the fight was a fight of faith. This is true—it is a war over the Word: will you believe God or will you not believe Him? The fight is not in the mechanics. You can wave your hands from now on, and you can yell your lungs out; but behind what you do must be the faith that prevails. This is the only thing that will count. There must be the faith that prevails. The battle is a battle of faith. As we try to break through, let us be sure that our intensity has faith behind it. Let us be sure that we are really believing God.
I Kings 18 tells us about the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Until the time of the going down of the sun, they danced around upon the altar. They even cried aloud and cut themselves. Meanwhile, Elijah stood by and mocked them. They did not believe in Jehovah. They were praying to false gods who were not even there to answer them. When Elijah prepared his sacrifice, he made it doubly hard for God. Twelve barrels of water were poured upon the sacrifice and around the altar. Then Elijah began to pray. The fire of the Lord fell, and afterward Elijah slew all the prophets of Baal.
Elijah was probably as violent a man as we could find. Talk about conformity—he did not conform! We do not see anyone in the Scriptures quite like him again until we come to the New Testament and find John the Baptist in his rough garb out in the wilderness preaching the Word. That spirit of Elijah was upon him too. Elijah had one goal that he was reaching for: to stand in the presence of the Lord. This was his only credential. “I am Elijah who stands in the presence of the Lord” (I Kings 18:15). He did not try to out-violence the prophets of Baal. When he broke through, he took a sword and hewed down 450 prophets; he slaughtered them! Was that not violence? Yes, but behind that godly violence which came upon him was the faith that reached into God. Spiritual violence without faith is nothing.
Our breakthrough will come because we believe this Word without wavering on it. Do you become angry because the battle is great, and then try to break through by becoming a little noisy? I am not putting that down. But you must realize that you cannot use the mechanics such as volume, noise, music, or jumping to replace faith or to bolster your faith.
Even prophecy comes as a result of the anointing of faith. You cannot take some form of moving and try to use it to break through. You break through first, and the prophecy flows out of the anointing and faith in your heart. You prophesy according to the proportion of faith (Romans 12:6). If you have been defeated, do not use prophecy as a form to pump yourself up. Do not come into the house of the Lord contaminated. In the Old Testament times, if someone who was contaminated should spit on you, you would be unclean until sundown (Leviticus 15:8). According to the Mosaic Law, a person who had touched a dead carcass or an unclean thing could not approach the house of the Lord or His people. First he had to wash in running water, and still he was considered unclean for a certain period of time (Leviticus 11:24–40).
The human tendency is to say, “I need a breakthrough! You do not know how low I have fallen. So I will go to the house of the Lord and throw it off by prophesying.” Go somewhere and wait on God, but do not throw your defeat on the people. Repent first. Then approach the altars of the Lord with faith. Paul said, … whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:23. Anything that is not done with faith in your heart is sin. Paul pointed to various things which people could or could not do, but the issue was, did they do them with faith? He was writing specifically about someone who would eat meat. But if he had a doubtful mind, it became sin to him because he was not filled with faith when he ate it.
I believe that a man with faith could bless a pork chop, no matter what the old Law said; and it would be cleansed by faith. He could sit down and eat that pork chop with faith, and it would bless him if he did it with faith. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” This is not to say that we can go out and do any unclean thing and say, “I believe God that it will be all right.” We move with faith in our heart. God looks upon the faith.
We are justified by faith, not by the works of law (Romans 3:28). Nor are we justified by the mechanics of worship. When we are moving in faith related to the Lord, then the mechanics we use can be a blessing to us. David danced before the Lord and threw off his clothes, but his wife, Michal, despised him because of the nakedness with which he danced, abasing himself. Then he said, “I will be even more base in my own sight than this” (II Samuel 6:20–22). The religious spirit of his wife resulted in her barrenness until the day she died. God put a curse on her. Never again could she have opportunity for fruitfulness or goodness, because of her critical spirit.
Watch your criticalness. If you are critical of the music and the way the brothers lead, you are as much a problem as anyone who tries to use the music as a gimmick to get to God. The issue is that you have faith. If you have faith, you will not care what mechanics someone else uses. If he is doing it with faith, and his spirit is reaching out to God, it is probably all right.
Do not take this Word as a reprimand, but as an enlightenment to sons who have become mature enough to receive it. Reach into this Word to walk in it with all of your heart. Draw it with faith. Behind this Word is our great love for the Lord and our desire to reach through to Him. If His presence is not in the service, we have lost everything. The degree of His presence depends upon how we believe. And the way we hear the Word of the Lord is by “the hearing of faith.” Galatians 3:2–3 says, … Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?… having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? This Scripture has a thousand applications. We have come so far in the Spirit that fleshly activity or energy can do nothing to perfect it. We must still have the faith that reaches in and draws the anointing from the Lord so that we can walk with Him in His creativity.
The best songs are yet to be written! For a long time, the Lord has been speaking about the unlimited dimension of His music, and now it is starting to come. In the world, musicians are combining jazz, western, and “rock ‘n’ roll” music to discover a new sound. The world is reaching out to do this, because Satan always tries to create an Ishmael to discredit what God will bring forth. Musicians in the world find it easy to grasp this combination of sounds; whereas other people are having a problem accepting it. In the same way, there will probably be many among us who will not understand when we break into the new music which God will reveal. We could be among the firstfruits of those who break through to what the Lord really wants.
Let us keep expanding until we reach the music which opens people’s hearts to God, a music that supports and lifts them up and up. It will not dominate them or drive them into a corner where their own feelings can be given over to negative emotions. God’s creative sounds reach up, up, up, up!
Bless the musicians; bless the worship leaders—not for a good service, but for the presence of the Lord to fill it and be with us. Let us never lose sight that this is what we want. We come to meet the Lord!
Oh, the great breakthrough in worship that is to come! Be dedicated to this breakthrough. When you come into the service, open up your spirit to the leader and have faith with him that God will bless him to lead you. Follow this basic spiritual procedure. Open up your spirit to the Lord and to one another. Basically, you reach into God, not to be a congregation, but to be one Body; and then you worship together because of the faith that is in your hearts.
Take down your walls to the Lord and to one another. Then bless one another. We need to get out of our own little thoughts and be right, in the Lord. If we tear the place down, no matter! If we fall in silence before God, no matter! What matters in a service is the amount of His presence that breaks through. We are looking for this with faith, faith to believe God.