Because of what we know about the principle of transference, we can completely control what the enemy brings against us in the way of witchcraft or curses, and create counter pressure that brings absolute, total destruction to everything that comes against the people of the Lord.
Understanding these truths can result in overcoming any oppression that comes against us. If we get a hold of this message and really apply it, it can work like a short fuse that you would not dare light in your hand!
If it were not that God created all the laws and principles which govern us, and if it were possible for some other force to create the laws by which the world operates, the enemy would have destroyed us long ago.
But Satan is stuck with one very obvious law: the laws of God are immutable; they will not be changed until it pleases Him. There are certain things you know will happen under certain circumstances and conditions. We know that the Lord Jesus walked on water. But Jesus was love and because of that Creation obeyed Him.
One of these laws of God is the law of transference. Let me lay a foundation for it in Isaiah 53:4–8.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
This is a classic illustration of what the Bible is all about. It starts in the Old Testament sacrifices, where hands were laid on an animal with no consciousness of sin. On a poor dumb beast that was made subject to futility when Adam fell, his sons could lay hands on the animal, confess their sins over it, and God could accept it until Jesus Christ came to bear our sins, as indicated in Isaiah 53.
Everything has to work by transference: If God cannot transfer our iniquity to Jesus Christ, then we cannot receive His eternal life. If God cannot transfer His righteousness to us, a repentant sinner, we could never please Him, even if we did not commit a sin. We would still have a human righteousness which is unacceptable in the sight of God.
There must be a transference of divine attributes to us; there must be a transference of all that we have been to the Lord. If this is not a basic truth, then we have no salvation; we have no hope at all.
The word “transference” tells you how atonement and redemption work. God has to lay upon Christ the iniquity of us all. That is transference from us to Him.
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. I Peter 5:7, KJV. To whom is that written? Peter is writing to the elders (verse 1).
Transference has to work in a lot of ways. It has to work with ministries: they must be able to take your cares and cast them upon the Lord, because He careth for you. Do you understand that?
You say, “Well, I have been carrying So-and-so’s burden.” Christ carried them! Christ is the One to whom they are being transferred. Transference works only for you to be a burden bearer to the Lord.
Intercession is not you perpetually groaning as you try to share another person’s burden. You get under the load of intercession by using the principle of transference. You carry it to the Lord, and the Lord bears the burden.
There is no point in your trying to carry it; what could you do with it? You cannot carry anything. Get this in your spirit and mind, because it works and is basic to the ministry.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Colossians 1:24.
I believe Christ died for us as individuals, but in order for Him to bring forth His many-membered Body, through the work of the cross that is being done in many of the ministries, there is still a participation in the sufferings of Christ for His Body’s sake.
When we are comminsioned into ministry we carry vicariously (that is, by transference) the problems of many people. I think it was meant to be that way.
Paul said, Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations … Colossians 1:25–26.
The Greek says, “that I might fulfill what is yet lacking in the Word of God.” Paul knew that he was to write a greater part of the New Testament.
another basic way that transference is to work within the Body is through love. If you love God and you love your brothers and sisters, you practice a certain measure of transference constructively in the Body all the time.
You carry one another’s afflictions. I find that for hours after I have ministered to someone, I may feel little traces of his affliction and keep casting it to the Lord.
One reason the ministry of healing works is that it is actually enforcing the principle of transference. “The Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all; by His scourging we’re healed” (Isaiah 53:5). So we apply the sickness back to Christ’s completed atoning work, which actually means transference. By His stripes we are healed.
The ministry of healing and the ministry of laying hands on people for impartation is transferring to them what the Holy Spirit brings of the glorious attributes and anointings of the Lord to rest upon individuals, or to take from them their oppression and to bring judgment to it.
It is a beautiful thing. Everything, then, of the whole Word of God has meaning to us, and we see how it can work in our lives today when we understand this principle of transference.
Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2. Is that transference or not? Can you get under the load of another man’s burden? If you cannot, what is the purpose of the ministry of intercession, which is an integral part of every ministry of the Body?
Why does Paul say that he prayed for the churches day and night? Why does he say, with all the sufferings and beatings that he had received, “Above all this, the daily care of the churches” (II Corinthians 11:28). Their needs, their oppressions rested upon him.
Romans 15:1–3 nails it down bluntly: Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached Thee fell upon Me.”
Their reproaches fell upon Him; they came back. Christ carried our reproaches, and in the same way we are to bear the weaknesses of those who are weak.
Those who are strong reach out and take the load away from a brother who is contained in his defeat, because he cannot break out of it. You lift the load.
It is like a heavy weight from a car which falls off its jack and partially crushes someone under it. It takes several with a great deal of strength to lift that car up and pull him out from under the oppression. You see, they have to carry the load of that oppression. They have to bear the infirmities and the weaknesses. Now we begin to understand how Satan has to take this very principle to do us evil. He has to work through the field of transference, because that is the law God set up.
Do you want to see how this can work for you? Are you tired of being oppressed, tired of picking up something from somebody and not knowing what to do with it or not being able to handle it?
Some people go for weeks or months in a daze because they had contact with some force that transferred things to them.
We read in Luke chapter 10 of the seventy who were sent forth as disciples to proclaim the Kingdom of God. The true pattern of Kingdom teaching is laid out here, and in it is the principle of transference and of the boomerang.
“And 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”—it will boomerang to you. Luke 10:5–6.
Everything in the realm of spirit moves toward a certain objective and will accomplish its purpose or function. Or, if it is diverted, it returns. This is true of God; it is true of Satan.
If God sends a blessing to you and you do not receive it, the blessing circles back again. That is why the Lord tells you to bless and curse not (Romans 12:14). If you curse someone and he knows how to avoid the curse, you will kill yourself with it, like a snake that bites itself.
God says, “You send a blessing, and if no one receives the blessing, it will return to you.”
“But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.” Luke 10:10–12.
The Lord goes on to describe what was to happen in various cities because they did not receive the things of God. “It will be more tolerable for Sodom.” Why? The blessing was sent, it was rejected, and the blessing returned to the blesser-but it left them wide open for judgment.
Why does God say, “Love your enemies; do good to them who despitefully use you”? (Matthew 5:44.) Look to Romans 12 and see how this works. Why does He say, “Be careful that you never avenge yourself; be careful that you do not try to enter into a conflict where wrath and evil and hatred are coming against you; always minister love”?
If you send the blessing to your enemy and, because he is your enemy, he rejects it, we see in the Scripture that he is heaping coals of fire on his head (Romans 12:20). He brings himself into judgment by virtue of the principle of transference.
When a blessing is sent and is refused, it opens the door immediately to judgment. When God says, “Love your enemies,” He knows what He is talking about. If you hate your enemy, you will keep him alive. If you love the enemy, send a blessing to him. If God can use that blessing, the man is won to God. If he doesn’t, God still has an occasion by the divine principle of transference to judge the man and deal with him.
The problem has been that too many things in the Kingdom of God have had no resolution. God cannot do anything; there is a stalemate. When the enemy hates you and sends hatred to cripple you and you send back hatred, it is a seesaw. It is a draw; nothing can come out of it.
But if we get into controlling the principle of the boomerang, and we move with sanctified, pure hearts before God, we will see why it is the meek who will inherit the earth; it is the poor in spirit who will possess the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3, 5).
Let a man come up in his agitation, let him come up in his wrath, and watch what happens. Nothing. He is self defeated.
Are you grasping this? We are going to know just exactly how to bring an end to much of the oppression that has been coming at us.
Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room (or leave a place) for the wrath of God. (Let God settle it. Do not take your own revenge because you will stalemate the situation. Nothing will ever happen.) For it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Romans 12:17–20.
It is not initiated with wrath: “I’m going to burn him up—and if I can’t have coals of fire, I’ll get him with a teakettle of hot water.” The Word is saying, “By your responding in love, this is what happens: he is doing this to himself.”
If you look in the Word, God uses what a man sends out against another to boomerang back on him the occasion of his own judgment. Who built the gallows on which Haman hung (Esther 7:9–10)? Tell me, who built them? Who died by the sword with which Saul tried to kill David (I Samuel 31:4)?
If you become jealous and look for revenge, you turn that thing loose. What did David have to do to be a winner? He just stood over in a far corner and said, “Oh, I love you.” Saul would weep about it, but the thing was in his heart; he still tried to kill David (I Samuel 24; 26; 27:1). God rejected him. He heaped the coals of fire on his own head. There has to be a way that God allows this thing to run its course the way He wants. He doesn’t want you to serve judgment; He wants you to be flawless, perfect—the sons of God without rebuke (Philippians 2:15). He wants you to be like your Heavenly Father who ministers to the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45).
“But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:20, 21.
Now, here is the secret which really makes it work. People who are unconsecrated to the Lord often fall victims to transference; witchcraft could easily kill them. But there is a place of immunity in which a child of God can walk. John writes about it in his first epistle, when he says, “These are the sons of God, and the wicked one toucheth them not” (I John 5:18).
How can a man, by the very spiritual level he lives upon, position himself in an immunity where Satan cannot even touch him? If we know this, we can control transference. If Satan cannot touch us, he cannot get to us to oppress us. Oh, there must be some secret key, but it can’t be too mysterious because it worked in the Bible! It is so simple, but it is something we have missed.
Let me tell you something: you will not walk in this victory merely because you have had an experience. You will not walk in it because today you had a Word over you or hands were laid upon you. All of that happened before, and it did not give you immunity. There is a difference between some basic experience from the Lord and walking in the fullness of God.
It is only the fullness of God that creates the counterpressures so great that the force which comes at you is totally rejected. To the extent that you can ward off or send back the assault of the enemy by the fullness of the Spirit within you, to that extent the enemy is totally brought to repentance or destruction or judgment!
If the enemy comes against you, and you have a flow of the Spirit to prophesy, something happens. To some extent it returns on the head of the one who sent it and you see dealings of the Lord upon him. But we are interested in more than that. We are interested in really turning something loose. “Whosoever is born of God overcomes the world” (I John 5:4). Does he really? How does he overcome the world?
Let’s read I John 4:4: You are from God, little children, and have overcome them (the false prophets, the antichrist). How are we going to overcome the antichrist? Because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
“Oh yes, I know; Jesus is in me.”
He is not activated in His fullness. That is why it doesn’t work. It is one thing to have a token experience of a great truth; it is another thing to walk in the Spirit of the Lord.
“Well, I talk in tongues.”
Yes, one hundred and twenty people talked in tongues on the day of Pentecost, and Acts 2:4 says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. One hundred and twenty people filled with the Holy Spirit started a counterattack that swept thousands into the Kingdom the same day. Today four or five thousand people speak in tongues, and one hundred and twenty could listen and still say, “They’re crazy! Stupid!” What is the difference? “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spake with other tongues.” It is the fullness of God within us, it is being so filled with the Spirit of the Lord that creates the greater signs and wonders.
If you think that you cannot take seriously this walk with God, that you can sing along in the Spirit and prophesy and have an experience now and then and that we will overcome the world by that, you are badly mistaken. It will happen only when we learn to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit—the fullness of God.
The prayers which Paul makes in the book of Ephesians are significant. The prayer starts in Ephesians 3:14. He prays that they will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord, and that they come … to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. We are to be filled up to all the fullness of God. Then what? Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. Ephesians 3:19–20.
“According to the power that worketh in us”—Paul has been praying that we be filled with all the fullness of God; and then, according to that power working in us because we are filled with all the fullness of God, it turns loose something that exceeds our expectation: “Exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”
You may think, “If fifty percent of what I claim in prayer is fulfilled, I have done well.” The force that is released within you to appropriate and to bring the transference from God to you is not adequate. It is not strong enough.
“If you abide in Me and My Word abides in you”—it’s a living fullness—“ask what you will” (John 15:7). We eliminate the effectiveness of the promises because we play with them with a minimum of the Spirit. We are too concerned about arguing over experiences, about defending speaking in tongues, prophecy, and singing in the Spirit, instead of entering into all the fullness of it.… be filled up to all the fulness of God.
Do you want to see your enemies tied in knots? Then you must experience God in such a manner that your cup runs over in the presence of your enemies, according to Psalm 23. If you are filled to an overflow, the enemies are sitting there, immobilized, because in your fullness you have set up a force that they cannot resist. They cannot come against you; there is a counterpressure.
There has to be a corresponding counterpressure. In Acts 5 Satan moved to destroy the apostles; but they sought God, they were filled with the Spirit, and there was a countermove that overwhelmed him. When Satan makes a move, just worship God and be filled with the Spirit; then countermove. What has God asked you to do? Just be filled with the Spirit—filled to overflowing.
The churches need to concentrate on the spiritual level of the people. Get away from that reservation; get down to a hunger and thirst after the Lord. Cry out after Him! Hunger! You are too satisfied with the measure you have possessed of the Lord. Let that hunger be generated.
I tell you, this truth is so simple: They hungered for God in the Word, and the book of Acts is the story of people who so hungered after the Lord that they were filled with the Spirit. They walked in unity. They walked with an intense hunger after the Lord, and God was always blessing them and pouring out blessing. There was no limit to what He would do for them.
“Yes,” you say, “but I’ve got a lot of things to overcome. God wouldn’t bless me.” God blessed David and called him a man after His own heart (I Samuel 13:14; 16:12–13), and David continually cried out how his heart hungered after God like the hart panteth after the water brook. “Oh, when shall I come and appear before Thee?” (Psalm 42:1–2.) It was one earnest hunger. “I’d rather spend a day in Thy courts than a thousand in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84:10). He had such a yearning after God. He could fall into any kind of thing and God would bring him out of it.
God is not concerned about the efficiency of your flesh. He is concerned about your appropriation of Him.
You say, “Oh, that sounds like you don’t believe in holiness.” I believe in holiness, real holiness. “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
Fullness gives you the immunity from the assault against your flesh. You are more spiritual and have more victory than you realize; all you need is to be filled with the Spirit in order for that power and that release to be activated in you.
“Be filled up with all the fullness of God.” “Now to Him who (according to the power that is working in you in that fullness) is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think …” This is what makes it work. I believe that it will.
In Acts 4, at a time of persecution, the apostles were prohibited from speaking the Word anymore, and they came together and lifted up their voices in one accord (verse 24). They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and the place was shaken, and they all began to speak the Word of God with boldness (verse 31). A world was changed by filled men.
Philip was a man filled with the Holy Spirit and with wisdom and knowledge (Acts 6:3, 5). My, that’s a wonderful thing. He was chosen to serve soup to the old ladies, the widows (Acts 6:1–6). Did the church want someone who could pass a maitre d’ test? No. They wanted men who were full of wisdom, full of the Holy Spirit; men who seemed to be overqualified to dip bowls of soup. Out of that fullness something happened. The Jews couldn’t stand even listening to Stephen, and they stoned him (Acts 7:54–58). Philip went down to Samaria, and a whole city filled with people who were sick were healed. They all turned to Christ (Acts 8:5–8, 10). Can you explain that? The soup server was filled, and he wasn’t filled with soup. He was filled with the Spirit! People turned to the Lord by the thousands. Now, this is a key; this is the secret.
We have yet to see what happens when the people in this walk with God get down to business, wait before the Lord and draw His fullness. Of all the truths I have taught in the twenty-four years since I began to lay these foundations, you have walked in many of them to your blessing. Some of you are not walking in what has been promised because you have yet to do the basic things you were told to do. One basic principle was to wait on the Lord until you were renewed (Isaiah 40:31), until you were filled; yet the waiting on the Lord, with as much emphasis it had for twenty-four years, is still not practiced by five percent of the people. This walk will be effective when we follow the Word that has been given and we are obedient to the truths that are foundational. If this is not a walk in the fullness of the Spirit, it is nothing at all.
If we do not walk in the fullness, we are just embracing a few more experiences than the other churches, a few steps beyond the Charismatic, the Pentecostal, and the Fundamentalist movements. We don’t have to say, “See, we have experiences.” Let’s go on to fullness. That is what will make it work. It will turn the tide. You can indeed say I John 4:4, “Greater is He who is in you,” only when He is greater in you, when He has displaced self, when He has filled you to overflowing. I don’t see anything happening except by the overflow. That is the only way the counterpressure will come.
No one can stop a man or put a curse on a man who is filled. I know that I have been going through all kinds of assaults, all kinds of problems; but in the midst of all of it, because I’ve been constantly seeking the Lord, the Word has become richer, the flow of the Word greater. But that is not enough for me. I want to see a tidal wave created that will sweep away the refuge of lies (Isaiah 28:17). I want to see it come.
We have a very sobering truth, but I’m sure it is absolutely the way that God wants us to walk. I feel that I have brought a most precious treasure, that I have reached into the storehouse of God and have brought the most beautiful jewel of truth that I could ever set before you. I hope you receive it in the Spirit.
Let’s be careful that we not get so involved with our service to the Lord that we get a “Martha” complex. “I’m doing all the work. Lord, don’t You care that my sister is not helping me serve?” (Luke 10:40.) All that service, as important as it is, is not the answer. There is this drinking of the Lord, coming into the fullness, breaking through.
There are certain things which you notice about the enemy and about those who are oppressed, about those that endeavor to oppress you—and I have many such. I just don’t like my sensitivity to it. I want to set up such a force in the love of God. I cannot afford to be disturbed. I cannot afford to be knocked out of my full, loving, devoted service to the Lord. Can you?
I cannot afford to be sensitive to the assaults of the enemy. I want to be immune. I want to get to the place where the wicked one cannot touch me and where I can see the Lord deal with the situation (I John 5:18). This walk has to come to the level of immunity, and it will not reach immunity except by the route of fullness.
We will never reach the place of spiritual immunity except by the route of fullness. This breakthrough of teaching should be published to the whole walk. It has such a simple message to it, but it will work. You experience wonderful worship, you get a blessing, but that is not a tidal wave. I am hungering. I have never hungered so much. Sleep has been taken away from me for days because I realize that we do not make the next step until the overflow starts. We do not make it. There is no point in rising up and cursing the enemy; the Word of God is explicit in the condemnation of all that touches God’s anointed. “Every tongue that rises up against thee thou shalt condemn” (Isaiah 54:17). When? How? This is the route.
Let’s perfect our way before the Lord. May He trouble us with this Word continually. It is easy to get angry and begin to react when you are hit for so long, but God is doing something in us. He is teaching us the futility of reacting to the enemy on a human level; it just does not meet the answer.
We cannot meet him on a human level. You can get as angry as you want and it won’t do one bit of good, though you stomp and pray all day, until it is out of the fullness of the Spirit that you speak.
The counterpressure is the only thing that will boomerang back the assault until God allows it to be dealt with the only way that He will, until it comes back on their own heads (Ezekiel 22:31). It is a very solemn truth and very disturbing, because I realize that this is the truth we must live with. It will either rise up like a finger pointing at us, bringing us to the greatest condemnation, or it will shine like a lighthouse directing our path.
At the beginning the Lord showed me so much; and in the weight of glory that rested upon me there was nothing but just a love and rejoicing no matter what anyone said. He turned back all the fiery darts of the wicked one on my behalf (Ephesians 6:16). This doesn’t seem like a new truth at all, yet in another way it seems that we have been waiting for this Word for many years. It ties in with everything that God has been speaking to our hearts and gives us a view of what it’s all about.
We are going to walk by transference. The sons of God are going to learn how to draw His attributes and see His holy nature come forth within them (II Peter 1:4). They will learn how to be so filled with Him that the wicked one cannot touch them. These are days in which His sons shall be glorified, days when the Lord turns back all the powers of darkness on our behalf (Romans 8:19–21, 29–30).
We cannot say in these days, “Rejoice, because not a hair of your head shall perish” (Luke 21:18). Not when our brethren who love Christ are perishing all over the world. We must face it: that Word was spoken to filled disciples, men who loved God. We will be scalped by the first Indian or not a hair of our head will perish, all according to whether we walk with just a little residue of blessing, in only the memory of an experience that was once great, in a token, or we walk in fullness.
Lord, we seal this Word to the hearts of Your people. Let it not be a thing to be forgotten by mind, but let it be retained. Let the Holy Spirit bring it oft to our remembrance (John 14:26). Let Him trouble our spirits with the knowledge of a truth that we hold in the inner safe of our being like a most precious treasure. O God, we have desired Thy Word above choice gold (Psalm 119:127). Thy Word we have hid in our hearts, that we might not sin against Thee (Psalm 119:11). We cry for the fullness; we cry for the anointing.
Lord, we loose this people into the hunger and thirst which is the first step. We loose them by disturbing their spirits until they come to Thee and drink, until the rivers of living water are flowing.
The rivers of living water are flowing—out of us, out of our bellies. From us let the countertide come that sweeps all away. Amen.
When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. I Thessalonians 2:13b, KJV.
I am aware that this Word will mean only as much as our reception of it as the Word of the Lord. It is an apostolic Word that has come right from God to our hearts like a sword, piercing us through (Hebrews 4:12). It actually becomes almost a negative indictment: here we are, walking short of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We could well end up another movement, actually walking through experiences, having our own terminology and way of doing things, and we would be very self-limited.
If we are to become that Body of people who will do the exploits (Daniel 11:32), something has to break. Our limitations will be broken through by the counterpressure of being a movement so filled with the Spirit of the Lord. The more I look back and trace God’s movings in the earth, I cannot say that any of the sources had inherent in themselves the key of greatness—Billy Bray, who was a Cornish miner, the Welsh revival, the early disciples are examples. The Pentecostals talk about Azusa Street: it was an old stable, an old barn close to where skid row is now, where a few blacks and whites were gathered, praying and seeking God with a great hunger. The beginning of the Latter Rain movement was in Saskatchewan—there people began to seek God earnestly with fasting and prayer for some time. Their truths were very real, but the basic truths were not really adhered to. The Latter Rain movement disappeared from the scene completely. Much of the effectiveness of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements became a mechanical thing: “Now, all you have to do is open your heart, we will lay hands on you, and you’re going to speak in tongues.” Brother, that doesn’t mean the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
We have gone into a great manifestation of experiences, but we are still missing the real power that is going to reach through—the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Let’s face it, we must seek the fullness.
People we lay hands on receive an experience, but I saw some of the hunger of the saints in the old days. They sought God with weeping and emptying and crying, with such hunger. When they received an experience, it seemed much more potent, so much more forceful, but they did not have the restoration to the place of knowing what to do with it. At least they were hungry for God, and a great deal came out of it.
I am going to draw back from imparting experiences, gifts, and ministries to those who are not qualified and are not full of the Holy Spirit. If I do not, we will have elders and ministers all over the country who miss it a little. We will have bodies of people that are struggling along, being wiped out and not knowing why. I know God does something in this struggle, but there is too much of it. Too much of it is restricting you and limiting you. This should just be an overflow that sweeps through communities.
“Well, we’re not professionals, we are just beginners.”
Who was anyone else in the Bible but fishermen, ignorant and unlearned men (Acts 4:13)? Since when has that been a handicap to God? He picks the foolish things to confound the wise, the weak things to confound the mighty (I Corinthians 1:27). God is pointing out something that we have to walk in. We must seek the face of the Lord with all our heart. I appreciate this walk very much, but I do not want it to be something that is just a bit better than something else. Do you?
These are days of fullness. Let us brace ourselves to a determined hunger that will not be satisfied with anything else. We will not be satisfied with experiences, nor will we be satisfied with a lot of wonderful prophecies or fine singing in the spirit from empty hearts. The effectiveness is to come from the fullness. “Filled with all the fullness of God”—this we are going after (Ephesians 3:19b).
In the name of the Lord Jesus, I call upon you by this Word that has come to set your hearts to seek the Lord. Turn not from it until the fullness comes. We must contend for that hunger after the Lord. Everything within us has to be dedicated to it.
I do not want to find my heart becoming critical. I do not want to look around for excuses to criticize the people or the ministries, or even to criticize myself. I think we have done the very best we knew how. Let us face that the Lord has given us a bombshell. And because it is real, in my mind I will refuse criticism: I will not be self-critical and I will not criticize anyone else. But I am determined on the course of hungering after the Lord.
We can rebuke everything that comes against us. The enemy can come in like a flood, but the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against it (Isaiah 59:19, KJV). We must be sure that we have the Spirit of the Lord in full measure within us.
If we asked if you have received the Holy Spirit, spoken in tongues or prophesied, you would say yes. But this message is lining it out: Are you really filled?
It is a troubling Word, isn’t it? A disturbing one. It gives you such a feeling of unworthiness and inadequacy, because you realize that no amount of efficiency in the ministry can cover up the fact that what we really need is the fullness. Nothing can cover up that, and this is what the Lord is after.
Get yourself into the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Prepare your heart. Just empty out before Him. We need to have services of appropriation. We must have meetings with God in which we empty out, and that emptiness is known by the most awful, aching hunger.
Sometimes a little baby who is hungry stops the whole church service. Mother looks embarrassed, grabs the child, and runs out to the nursery where she can nurse her child. But that baby is wailing all the way. He is crying because hunger really hurts. And he may be only four or five minutes late for a feeding that he may get six to ten times in twenty-four hours. Oh, God make us like little children, that we get to the place where this hunger hurts and we have to continually come before the Lord. Then we will see the thing happen.
How long does it take? People have tarry for years; other people speak in tongues in five seconds. And neither one is filled.
Fullness is not a matter of experience only, it is an experience that has extended to the point that it has exceeded the human capacity to receive it. “I’ll pour you out a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).
To be filled to overflowing means that there is not enough of you to hold it all. So far there has been enough for the people to hold anything that has come in this walk with God.
Now let’s get with it until we are holding our sides and saying, “Stop, Lord, I can’t stand anymore!” then five minutes later we are saying, “Start it again, Lord.” I would like prayers like that to develop a capacity for God.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast (this is in the Feast of Tabernacles), Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man is thirsty (that is where it starts, if any man is thirsty), let him come to Me and drink.” It reads literally, “If any man is thirsty, let him keep coming to Me and let him keep drinking.” He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being (the margin reads “belly”) shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” John 7:37–38.
Until the rivers of living water are flowing, we do not have the countertide against all that the world is bringing. So we have to keep coming and keep drinking. We thirst, we keep coming, and we keep drinking; for when we get a blessing, it is easy to listen when the enemy pats you on the back and says, “Now you’ve made it.” It is easy to accept a partial answer and say, “Now the pressure is off. I was desperate! I needed help.” We want more than the answer to desperation; we want to go on till the overflow comes. Keep on coming, keep on drinking until it is flowing forth from you.
I prefer singing in tongues to speaking, because with singing in tongues there can be a great inflow. As some break into more and more fullness, then prophesying can serve because it then edifies others (I Corinthians 14:3). Others who hear heavily anointed prophecies coming can drink from that too.
Our course is a new level. We are moving into what God answers. This is the way it happens: we wait on the Lord with a definite hunger and a definite focus on Him and a moment-by-moment expectancy.
We keep coming, and we keep drinking, and we believe until the flow of rivers of living water begins from the belly. You are believing—not begging, not whining—you are accepting a fullness that He set before you. He promises it, He gives it; you come thirsting and you drink it.
No more begging. Hunger can lead you to a place of desperation in which you begin to whine instead of moving in and appropriating what He has provided. But hunger and thirst are very necessary (Matthew 5:6).
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11, KJV.
Years ago, there was a nature study in the tropics where a professor was watching a fight between a large spider and a lizard that wanted to eat the spider. The big lizard would come over to the spider, which would try to bite the lizard. They warred back and forth, and once in a while that spider bit the lizard. The lizard would slither off as fast as he could go, to eat on a certain leaf. He would come slithering back and get in the fight again because he wanted that spider dinner.
Can you see what the lizard was doing? He had to fight, but he had to keep an antidote because he was not immune yet. He was feeding on the thing that would make him immune, while at the same time he was going about the battle. This is what we will be doing.
It will please God to bruise Satan under our feet (Romans 16:20), so we keep drinking of the Spirit, we keep coming to the Lord and building up our immunity. Then we fight the enemy. It will be attack and counterattack, but when we are through we expect to have victories over this thing of transference and witchcraft.
We will walk in a whole new level. I am determined that it will be true of my life, of your life, of this walk, and of the churches. This is what God brought us forth for.
We can come under heavy assault. Because our fullness is not the only determining factor; we can become open to the assault that is hitting the whole Body because many are not filled with the Spirit.
Once we as a Body get this fullness, then as a Body, as well as individuals, we will have the immunity for the whole apostolic company and for all the churches in unity with us.
We will continue to be hit until we become the people in the Spirit God wants us to be. Otherwise, we will just be another movement. But God did not call us for that, it is not the Word he is giving us.
The only answer is that the whole Body of believers everywhere get into this fullness. Make it a very definite project: Operation Fullness is what we are after!