Changes come as we are suddenly confronted with something we have not seen or experienced before, and we say in our hearts, “Why can’t things just be normal? Why can’t they go on as they were?” You may cry a few tears when you see that things are changing.
When I was eleven years old I had a lot of fun playing war with a Jewish friend named Irving. We melted lead to make toy soldiers; then we painted them. We built guns and fortresses. Sometimes we played soccer, using empty milk cans and sticks. Each day our playtime lasted until we heard his grandmother call, “Irving! Irving!” That meant he had to go home and our fun was over for that day. One morning when he came over, he looked very sad. He said, “I can’t play with you anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Bar mitzvah.”
That meant nothing to me, and so he explained, “My uncle says I can’t play these games anymore, because I am a man now.” Tears streamed down his cheeks as he walked away. Neither one of us played war anymore. It was time for change, and our toys of war had to be put away.
The Bible talks about change. Paul wrote, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11.
The world is an intriguing place for children, and no doubt all of us occasionally look back to our childhood. If you want to have some fun, go to Disneyland. If you want to have some real fun, take your grandfather along, or your great-grandfather if he is still alive. When he rides in the horse-drawn carriage, watch the tears roll down his cheeks as he remembers his youth and the days of his courtship when he rode in just such a carriage. As he looks around, he will see life as it was in his youth. Do not ever get the idea that Disneyland is just for children. Grandfathers and grandmothers enjoy it too, because they had to grow up fast and work hard when they were young, and now they sometimes like to glance back at a world they had to say good-bye to.
No people have ever seen as many drastic changes as has that generation. It is difficult to believe that the world could change that much in one lifetime—from horse-and-buggy transportation to flights to the moon. Yet the real change is coming in our generation, specifically from now on. A door has been opened, never to be shut again. Sometimes we may wish for the days when life was a little different, but if we take a good look, we will realize how deceptive nostalgia is.
Some may cry out for the good old days. Wasn’t it wonderful to live on the farm? Remember the thick cream we poured on the fresh strawberries? Yes, but I remember also getting up before dawn and doing chores with a lantern. I remember going to sleep with my head leaning against “old bossy” while I was milking; and at night, falling asleep at the supper table. Good old days? I can tell you all about them.
It took a long time to get to town with the horse and buggy, even though it was only a few miles away. How much things have changed. Now we get on a plane and almost before we have adjusted to that, we can find ourselves in a tropical environment. What a different world we are living in!
The greatest changes to take place in the history of civilization probably will occur within the next decade. God is saying to you, “Come on, you must adjust to something besides the horse-and-buggy days; you even have to adjust to something besides this current year.” You must adjust yourself to the age of the Kingdom and live like a person already adapted in his spirit and mind to the transition period leading to the Kingdom. You will watch not only the destruction of civilizations and cultures, but also the creation of the greatest inventions yet to be brought forth. The greatest books are still to be written. The most marvelous presentation of Christ will be brought as this gospel of the Kingdom is preached in all the world for a witness. The most effective sermons will be preached. Everything else will be obsolete by comparison as God opens up His Word. Daniel saw this age; he saw that the Book was going to be sealed until the time of the end. As the Spirit of God begins to take the seals off the Book, men will learn the ways of God once again. They will learn what God has to say to His people. They will learn His ways as they look in the Word and the Spirit of God enlightens it to their hearts.
You are living right on the brink of the days of the Kingdom. How much will you really change? Are you content only to leave a life of sin behind? Do you just want to be loosed from the old life, free to go along and sing in the Spirit and prophesy a little? Or do you really want to become a son of the Kingdom—a person who thinks, moves, and lives with an awareness of the Lord, with an awareness of every activity that is taking place in the world round about you?
In my heart I feel a little sadness; yet it is mingled with infinitely more joy than I can describe. It is a feeling of “Good-bye, yesterday; I must be transformed.” Paul expressed this feeling in Romans 12:1–2: I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
We want a new way of life and a new way of thinking. We will see churches in a new light: as struggling little groups coming forth in the great Body of Christ. We will stop thinking about our own little world as the Kingdom becomes real to us. It is an entreaty by the mercies of God that we come and present ourselves to Him. We know that we must give ourselves as a living sacrifice, but the main objective is the renewing of our minds. Our mind tends to run in old channels, resisting change. The changes required of us for a new age are drastic. Do you have a vision of the things that are to come? Do you have the capacity to perceive how much things are going to change within your day? Every force existing in the world today is ready to resist change, including financial interests. What was the force that connived and followed through with the plans to crucify Jesus? It was the financial interest of those who benefited from the Temple sacrifices—the high priests and their families. Secular history substantiates this fact. Fantastic fortunes were made by the money changers and those who sold lambs and other animals for sacrifice in the Temple. Jesus said that they made it a den of thieves. They resisted the change that they saw coming. What about those who stoned Stephen? They saw a loss of their money and their position in the Roman government, and it infuriated them.
People protested against the change that was taking place in the days of Christ and in the times of Stephen, and they will do the same today when things start to change. Babylon, with its commercialism, will come down. Religious Babylon will fall, and vicious persecution will be involved with it. The minute you endanger the financial interests—the minute one voice rises up to protest the commercialism of Christmas or Easter—you will have real persecution. The profit of Christmas sales is enough to make the difference between many business interests making it or not making it. Christmas—with all of its expenditures and borrowing of money, with the inevitable recession which occurs after every Christmas and the layoffs which occur at the end of the year—brings many problems. Why doesn’t someone get wise to the fact that Christmas is not the birthday of Jesus Christ? Perhaps you love Christmas with its festivities and decorations and customs. Cry a tear and grow up. The world is changing. The age is changing, and your ideas will have to change. You will be jolted; everything within you will be shocked. Your very nature will recoil from change. You may wonder whether or not you are capable of adjusting to this. You can. You must—if you want to serve the Lord. Your heart must beat for the King, anticipating His return.
Let us pursue the thing God wants—the spreading forth of the gospel of the Kingdom. What will it take? You may have a burden to go as a missionary to Indonesia, to India, to China, or to Pakistan. But do you give certain specifications? “I want a guaranteed salary. I’ll need jeeps, equipment, and comfortable living facilities. I must have enough money to build a little missionary compound and install an electric plant for refrigeration and electricity. Only then will I go to the heathen land.” That is the wrong attitude. You will have to endure hardness as a good soldier.
How much do you really want to change? Do you want to be a part of this move of God? Do you know what it is all about? Does it appeal to you only because it is so much more fun to be with these exciting, inspired young people than back in a dead church? Remember—these inspiring young people are going all the way. Are you? It will mean hours of work. Your life will have meaning to it, but it will not be easy. You have your hand on the plow. Do you want to look back? If so, you are not fit for the Kingdom. People must come forth in this generation who will rise up and say, “O God, what You see coming forth—give me a heart to match it. Give me something in my spirit that will help me to walk in it. I want to be everything You want me to be.”
Do you have any idea what God will be doing in the earth during the next few years? It has been rather enjoyable watching churches pop up here and there. But how much fun will it be when this move gets out of hand? How much fun will it be when we have a funeral a week, for those who have been martyred or killed for this move? How enjoyable will it be when we walk through a shattering, shaking time, when the Word that God brings shakes everything that can be shaken in order that we will receive a Kingdom which cannot be shaken.
In our thinking, the words of Jesus have become so clever and polite, so sweet and chic, that we forget the impact they must have had. One man told the Lord, “I will follow You any place You go. I’m waiting for that kiss on the cheek, that medal You’re going to hang around my neck. I’ll follow You anywhere.”
“Oh, really?” replied the Lord, as He looked at him intently. “If you see a little fox scurrying up the side of a hill, just remember that the fox has his hole, the bird has his nest, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”
“Good-bye, I’ll be seeing You, Jesus.” Another person came up and said, “I’ll follow You, Lord. First, though, I must bury my father.” You can hear the Lord saying casually, “Let the dead bury their dead. Come on, let’s preach Christ. Let’s preach the gospel.”
Can you feel the discipleship and what it meant? Can you bear the Lord saying, “Come, follow Me”? Can you picture Matthew, sitting with money piled up in front of him? He takes one look at the Lord and then quickly looks at the little carts lined up along the road, each one paying his small custom. He calls to the tax-collector next to him and says, “Take over,” as he gets up and walks off down the road, never looking back.
Are you crying in your spirit for this kind of discipleship? Do you know what price you will be required to pay? Are you ready to present your body as a living sacrifice, without even being concerned about its comfort? Everything it is—the coursing of its blood, its heartbeat, its energy and strength—will all be given to God. We are going to walk transformed by the renewing of our minds until we shake off the old cobwebs, the old ways of thinking; until every day is a new day in which we think and walk as a people born to live in an age which is only beginning to dawn. We think and move, we live and breathe, like the children of the Kingdom, while all about us is decay, and all creation is subject to vanity. In the midst of the darkest hour the world will ever know, we are going to rise up to walk as children of light.
Are you really dedicated to change? Do not say, “Lord, I will give You my all” unless you mean it, because He will take you up on it.
This move of God could easily become such a beautiful little organization. However, that is not going to happen. Every time we get ready to settle down and be at ease, the Spirit of the Lord will drive us into a new frontier and a new level, requiring more sacrifice and more living for God. This move will never stop until the Lord Jesus Christ is personally heading the army of the Lord.
We must change in five areas. First, we need to change in the discipline of our bodies, as Romans 12 implies, so that our bodies will truly become the real temples of the Holy Spirit.
We also need to change the way our time is spent. Look upon every hour of the day as the most precious commodity that God has given, as the clock on the wall is ticking off the last hours of an age. Everything that is to be done in bringing a witness to the world will have to be accomplished in the hours that remain. Every hour that ticks away is bringing the Kingdom that much closer. In this, the dawning of a new day, there is so much to learn, so much to do, so much to become. The time must be redeemed. Do you want to be a faithful steward of your time, living for God with all of your heart—reading the Word, praying, and doing His work? Discard everything that is trivial and nonessential. Ruthlessly analyze your life and cast out the junk that consumes your time.
The third discipline we should be concerned with is that of our minds. We must learn how to think God’s thoughts all the time. We know that we will not make it if we think the thoughts of the world. I seldom read a newspaper or watch television, because I do not want the news media to influence my thinking. I do not want to fear their fears. I do not want to hope their hopes or want their wants. Everything within me is crying for change. I want to he transformed by the renewing of my mind. I want to read the Word and think God’s thoughts. I want to feel what He is doing in the earth and be in tune with that. Instead of tuning in to an hour of television news, I would rather spend that hour tuning in to see what is the mind of Christ. I do not want to live with my mind adjusted to this human world that is so mixed up, so perverse and confused. We might as well face it—we have to be different.
A fourth change we want to see is in the discipline of our whole interest and our focus on it. All of us are probably still too complicated, working in too many directions. What really changes the world is a man who is determined, “This one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth to the things which are before, I press toward the mark.” There is no other direction for us except to find our interest focused on the Lord. You may have a few other projects going on the side. Forget them! Unless it is an interest for the glory of the King and the Kingdom of God, forget it. Even your little hobbies must go out the window. How can you go back and try to revive a pastime, an interest, something to relax you? You have only one interest: you are living for God.
The fifth concept in which we need discipline and change may sound strange to you. There is very little chance that millionaires and rich people will get into this end-time walk—unless God takes their money away from them. Then we will welcome them. Many of them were good people until possessions and riches took control of them, and what they could do with their money ruled their lives. We do not need millionaires. We have enough money. Five loaves and two fishes were more than enough to feed five thousand people, for even then they gathered up the fragments. We are coming into the day of the miraculous, but there is an economy involved too. We have wasted our strength and our substance on Babylon. When Babylon said to us, “Sing one of your songs, Zion,” we could not. We hung our harps on a willow tree and said, “How can we sing the song of Zion in captivity?” But now we are free, and no longer will we be playing little harps as they did then.
Let me give you a picture of what you will be doing. Everything you are and everything you have will belong to the Lord. When your brother has a need, you will give him the last dollar you have. You will not count anything as belonging to yourself. The days of pure Christianity are upon us again. Your songs will he the marching songs of soldiers, beautiful songs of pilgrims making their way to Zion. That is what you want to hear as you go on into the other realm. Good-bye, yesterday. We greet the Kingdom. Good-bye, world. We cannot think your thoughts anymore. We cannot dream your nightmares anymore. We must dream the dreams that the Lord will give by His Spirit. We must see the visions that Joel prophesied—the visions of the new day.