A lot of people have walked in theory, but they did not have the courage to stand up and say, “We’re going to walk in it no matter what happens!” Finally, a generation has come through which God is going to move—you are the generation! You have been lifted out of every kind of situation. The Lord has put His Spirit in you and He has spoken to you. You prophesy, worship, and are willing to sacrifice. You are willing to lay your life on the line.
Don’t become sophisticated in this or you’ll lose it. Become like a little child. Don’t get to the place where you are a know-it-all. There are just too many in the world who think they know all the answers before they even hear the questions. Don’t do that! This is the day when the people who really follow on to know the Lord will know Him (Hosea 6:3). They are going to be taught of the Lord, and God is going to minister to their spirits.
I am so fortunate that God has uprooted from me any bondage to tradition so that I can approach the Word fresh, look at it again, and say, “Lord, what are You speaking to us?” I don’t need to make it conform to some mold that has already been predetermined by man. We are not going to take this new wine and put it into old wineskins (Luke 5:37). All over the country, churches are in trouble. There is trouble in any church where love for God is fostered in people, because they receive this wonderful new wine. They are filled with the Spirit and immediately trouble begins to happen. They try to make it conform within the structure of a denomination that has come up under a day of lesser anointing. When they try to do that the whole thing is spoiled, for God is restoring a remnant. He is really restoring it.
Denominational pastors can begin to challenge the audacity of believing that God would give a word to a man for another man—personal revelation and personal prophecy. Yet, you cannot read the New Testament without reading of personal direction and prophecy and illumination. People were directed by the Spirit of the Lord.
In the first chapter of Luke, angels were talking to people, pregnant women were prophesying to each other. Remember Elizabeth and Mary? They were simply speaking it forth. “What is this, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” (Luke 1:43). The baby was leaping within her with joy—the unborn baby who didn’t know anything yet. Remember Zacharias? As he was ministering, suddenly he was stricken dumb. Then when the baby was born they asked, “What are you going to call the new baby?” He still could not speak, but as he wrote John’s name, immediately his tongue was loosed, and he began to prophesy (Luke 1:5–23, 59–79).
In the book of Acts, the same thing was happening. A fellow was sitting in a little room, his eyes blinded, and in came a man, “Brother Saul, the Lord who appeared to thee in the way has sent me to you” (Acts 9:17). He knew all about him. God sent him and told him the street was called Straight, the house of Judas. That is pretty good, when you get revelation with addresses on it!
People say that God isn’t speaking, but haven’t you had God reveal things to you that came to pass one step after another? All this is a step of restoration. There is going to be a new emphasis on personal prophecy and direction, a real time of fasting and prayer and the prophets speaking again, for a host of people believe this and are ready to receive the word that God has for their own personal lives.
We have just begun a new course. If you want to walk with God, you could never have come into the Kingdom of God at a more opportune time than now. God has done something for the young people who aren’t spoiled by the old ruts. They are new wineskins who are ready for the new wine (Luke 5:38), and it will come forth. The only thing that bothers me is that all over the country there is so much disorder. People are trying to carry their rebellion with them into a walk with God. That isn’t going to work. This isn’t a time when every man is a law unto himself. There must be a restoration of divine order or everyone will come up with some weird scheme or interpretation that misses it. Real revelation and sound teaching comes forth in the climate of order. Remember that! Wherever there is a lack of order, only crackpot doctrines and schemes come forth.
For instance, two boys visited a service, and they wanted to argue. They argued about one thing, but that was not actually the issue. The real issue was the rebellion in their hearts to everything that is of authority in the house of God. I don’t want to be branded with that. That is not the order God is bringing forth. I don’t care how many people come along and say, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” They still have to do what the Father says. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 7:21. Doing His will crosses your will. It brings you under submission. It brings you under divine order. Otherwise, you will have only a momentary flash that will disappear. It will disappear completely.
The only thing that is going to stand is this New Testament Church, restored to what God wants. There will come your sound revelation. There they will submit one to another. There they will submit their revelations one to another. They did it in the New Testament. The young men who were visiting to argue would never have submitted their revelation to anyone except to try to force it upon them. But while we had a congenial spirit, there was no argument. This was a good illustration for our young people. They learned something by seeing that exchange. They learned that people who are rebellious will try to force their doctrine on others, but they won’t submit that doctrine for the rest of the body to judge. That is not the way God has done it in this whole walk.
Paul said, “This gospel which I preach, I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it.” But he tells how he received it by revelation. Then he came to Jerusalem and submitted it to those who were apostles before him “lest by any means I had run in vain” (Galatians 1:11–2:2). That is submission. You bring the thing that you are so absolutely positive God has given you and you submit it to your brethren. This divine order that He is bringing, this teachableness, this submissiveness, is very important. I am trying to convey to you how God has chosen you to be His chosen generation, to come forth and give your whole life to the Lord.
Do you know what I’m trying to say? I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid of going hungry, going without, or going to the ends of the earth with this gospel. Something has to loose you from that fear of insecurity and the thing that is a curse to this age. You don’t have to do anything but follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth (Revelation 14:4). You have to be ready to do it. God will take care of you. He is going to take care of you. He is going to share.
I’m trying to paint a picture of a changing climate and a changing generation. Look at some of the things that happened in the churches in days past. There were a lot of things that were phony. Now we have come into another sort of sophisticated age, where there isn’t anything—here is no life; there is no word. Yet when you come into this walk, there isn’t a bit of showmanship in it, but there is something so exciting about it. It really gets to you. It starts getting to you until you don’t know what happened. The adults look around and say, “What is it that takes hold of these kids to make them want to be that dedicated?” This walk takes hold of your heart, and you want to say, “Lord, I don’t want to hold back anything!”
Dedicate your whole life, not your time and energies alone. Don’t be a reluctant follower of the Lord. The mark of the prior generation was they would go out and work; then they would have nervous breakdowns. One great trend in this day is the number of ministers leaving the ministry and the few recruits joining the seminaries to be trained for the ministry. Major denominations are left with a deficit. There are literally thousands of churches without pastors in this country because there aren’t any available. We are living in the time of apostasy. Pastors want security. They can’t make enough money in the ministry so they make it somewhere else. Congregations are treating their missionaries to the old missionary barrel idea. They put out a barrel and whatever is thrown in gets sent. One couple ministering in Africa got a barrel, opened it, and in it was a can of tea bags with a note from a dear old lady saying, “These have only been used once.” Imagine, paying the freight to send tea bags that have been used only once. That day is over.
We’re going to believe and we’re going to sacrifice. We’re going to send the apostolic company to the end of the world. We’re not going to have denominational emphasis. There must be a thousand needy men in different countries to whom we could send people to strengthen them. We can send books in their language. We can send prophets and apostles who will teach and help them. If a man is open and wants what God has, we will strengthen him. We will not duplicate things until we have four churches on the same corner all trying to preach the same thing. But we will go everywhere and strengthen the Body of Jesus Christ.
The best way for the walls to come down is to ignore them completely. Another man may have a label on him that holds him back from us, but we are not going to have a label on us that separates us from any man on the face of the earth. If he loves Jesus Christ, we are one with him. We are going to name the name of Jesus Christ. We’re going to name it without any label or button or anything in us that sets us apart from anyone else. We resist any effort to pigeonhole us and call us Pentecostals or Fundamentals or Holy Rollers or Latter Rain or anything else. We are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in the Lordship of Christ, in the restoration of His Lordship to the remnant who are going to follow Him and speak His Word. We believe this is the hour and we’re going to walk in it. We are ready to strengthen the hands of every man whom God has called anywhere, to the extent that he’ll open his heart. If he will walk one mile, we will walk one mile with him. If he leaves us, we will still walk the other mile. That will be our vision.
There has to be something within you that is ready to sacrifice and do this. Are you ready to give your whole life to the Lord? You may have to have a profession or a trade in order to make ends meet. You may have to be a tentmaker as well as an apostle (Acts 18:3), but will you do it? No quibbling, no backing off. No grumbling, “You called me to this, Lord, but look at him. I’m driving a car that is five years old and he has a new one.” Forget that. That isn’t the issue. Follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. And everyone of us will strive to be brothers ready to share, ready to show that real spirit of charity and love toward one another in all things. We will not be legalistic to blow the whistle on anyone. We will not use doctrine as a sword to cut a man down. We will open our heart to exalt the Lord.
I’ve tried to paint a picture for you. You are going to start churches. Go out and sow beside all waters (Isaiah 32:20). God will teach you ways of evangelism that are far different from the old methods. Get out of that religious rut. Move in something that is spiritual and real. The world will see it and marvel at it. Believe for it. We can do it.
“Let no man say in this day, ‘Behold, I have made a sacrifice and the Lord hath not regarded it.’ Nay, but the Lord shall test thee even as He tested Abraham of old. Thou shalt know that thine offering is accepted if it be from thy whole heart. Yea, the Lord saith unto thee that the day thou shalt seek for Him with thy whole heart, then thou shalt find Him. Yea, and that which thou dost cast into the treasury if it be not from a sacrificial heart, then it be not regarded. But that which cometh out of thy very spirit, thy very heart, that thou dost lay upon the altar, the Lord shall regard it. The Lord shall receive it. Only thou shall let it lie. Thou shall not take it again and say, ‘Yea, the Lord hath respect of persons. He shall not receive my offering.’ Yea, though men shall look upon thee and judge thee after the outward appearance, yea, the Lord shall judge thee by thy heart. The Lord shall receive the offering which thou dost give and thou shalt not be ashamed. But thou shall be triumphant in the day that thou dost lay all that thou art and all that thou hast upon the altar. The Lord shall consume it with a fire. Yea, the Lord shall sanctify it unto Himself. It shall be precious in His sight. Only hold not thou back but enter thou into thy closet. Enter thou now into thy secret chamber and there shalt thou lay it out before the Lord. Yea, this is the hour to sacrifice. This is an hour to get before the Lord and present yourself as that living sacrifice unto Him.”