Devastation or discipline is wrought sovereignly by God usually through human instruments. Those whom God has devastated, He will let stay devastated until they take the faith and the initiative to create, in the authority of God and by the authority of the name of Jesus Christ, what was lacking within them, so that they can gain their fullest potential.
We had gone as far as we could as a creation of God, so He devastated us. He pruned us like trees, cut us back, so that we could bear more fruit (John 15:1–2). And now we can actually produce a quality and a type of fruit which we were incapable of producing before.
Our pruning was sovereignly wrought by God to cut back all the wood from our lives, all the deadwood, all the branches which had only leaves and produced nothing.
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.” “By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:1–2, 8. God did that. And now He is saying, “You are laborers together with Me” (I Corinthians 3:9, KJV).
And more than that, we are saying, “I will accept the initiative to bring God into every area of my life and to become in God something more important to Him in His will than I ever could have been before.”
Ironically, what we become does not always look as good as what we were before. We cannot look at a branch which has been cut back and say, “That is obviously a better branch.” In reality it may be far more fruitful, more sturdy, and less susceptible to breakage under wind and stress, but it doesn’t look as big or as good; instead, it looks as if someone had mutilated it. This is especially true in a vineyard; they prune the vines and cut them back drastically. Then much fruit starts coming out of that vineyard (John 15:2). That fruitfulness is what God is after, but He is not going to accomplish it sovereignly. He will prune you and cut you back; but you are the one who determines just how much of a greater level in God you are going to have, how you are going to respond, how you are going to pull life and strength from God.
Before, natural processes caused us to be a very woody product. But God has cut us back to a remnant, and now we are becoming very much a divine creation of God at our own initiative, by our own hand. Sometimes people say about a man: “He is a self-made man.” And in a sense, to some extent this is true.
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. II Peter 1:5–8, 10–11, KJV.
This puts the initiative back on us. We add these various things. We can actually determine what we are going to be at this point. The devastation pruned us back so that this would not be another year of wood and leaves for no purpose. In light of this, each one of us can wait before God, or just review what God has said and what the potential of all this is, and realize, “I never made that before, but I can make it now; I can do it!”
Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Philippians 3:12–16.
God is not what we think He is, and that we are to repent of our image of Him so that He can reveal Himself to us the way He actually is.
The Lord wants to partner with us, we work with God. God does not have the end time perfectly scheduled and planned; and He Himself determines to work with us to see it fulfill His perfect will. He has laid down the rules. For instance, Satan could not kill Job; God told him, “You can take it this far, and no further” (Job 1:12; 2:6). Satan isn’t allowed certain things, and it is already predetermined that we have the victory; we are going to win (I Corinthians 15:57). Christ has already triumphed over Satan; He has the authority over him (Colossians 2:15; John 16:33; Philippians 2:9–11).
Nevertheless, the Lord has waited for years to have a people who will be so much one with Him, and be so audacious enough to believe this and move this way (Deuteronomy 10:14–15; 1 Peter 2:9; John 17:22–24). And you have come forth so determined to end this “religious restriction” which has been on us for generations, that you are audacious enough to proclaim what the Lord really is. The Lord has been looking all this time for a people to be to Him, by revelation, what His Word says; and now they are coming forth—they are coming up out of a wilderness (Song of Solomon 8:5), out of restoration, in an audacious way of relating to Him.
We cry to God with importunity, like the widow who went to the unjust judge to wear him out (literal translation, “to hit him under the eye,” Luke 18:1–8). We get His attention. We determine. We give ourselves. We determine to have His perfect will in our lives. God pruned everyone back, and everyone said, “Lord, You can do it again. We’re so determined.” We are more afraid not to serve God than to serve Him, and the fear of not being what He wants makes us even stronger to come to Him and do what He wants.
I wonder if the Lord has not waited for ages for an audacious attitude of faith to come before Him (Hebrews 4:16). Otherwise why should He so identify Himself with what we are doing? If it isn’t right, He will come and destroy it, just as He destroyed the creation before (Genesis 6:6–8; 7:21, 23); and then He will wait for a people to come to this point again. He is waiting for a people who will believe His Word and walk in it. And when they have reached a point where they are dedicated and have really shown their determination to Him, then He will come and work out the end time with them (John 16:19, 23–27). Almost everyone feels that this is already worked out and that God, whatever they think He is, is just watching. But I wonder to what extent the Lord has not yet worked it all out. It isn’t known yet. Is this why Jesus said that not even the Son knows about the hour of His coming? (Matthew 24:36.)
This is what I was saying about faith. Since God moves so much in the realm of faith, I wonder if the end time has been so fatalistically planned, or if God did not say, “The plan calls for you, by faith, to complete the plan.” In other words, God planned it; but to what extent did He sovereignly plan it?
This is the thing which is really puzzling: In Luke 18, Jesus talked about the widow and the unjust judge, and it has almost seemed as though there were something strange and inconsistent in that the judge was a type of God. Then He talked about God’s elect who cry day and night unto Him with faith, and said that the Lord will avenge them speedily (Luke 18:1–8). And then He added one more question: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8b. This means that Christ Himself knew that there is a certain point at which no one can say anymore that things are all cut-and-dried. Did He know what was going to happen? He said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Matthew 24:36.
There are some things that God has restrained even Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, our God, from knowing—for this reason: maybe it is not known yet. Maybe it is an undetermined factor. Maybe the blueprint comes all the way up to a certain point, and then it is blank; and He says, “You and I are to finish it.” And the only thing which will finish it will be faith.
We could almost summarize this whole idea, “Fatalism, or Faith?” We have to get over the fatalism in our thinking which says, “Well, it’s all going to work out.” No, it isn’t, because faith is going to be the determining factor of what the future will be (Hebrews 11:1).
In other words, in our minds the idea of faith, the word “faith,” means a certain thing. But when you say faith, you are speaking about Hebrews 11.
Through faith we understand that the worlds (ages) were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3, KJV. We actually take faith to speak God’s Word into it. Regardless of what anyone teaches to the contrary, we can to a large extent make this next generation what our faith will determine it to be. We order it ahead; we do it with God.
No matter what has been the course of events in the mind of God, faith can change it (Exodus 32:9–14; Jonah 3). At this point we could say that we do not know all that God had in mind, but whatever He did, or He didn’t, this is scriptural. The Scriptures tell us that although He was God, yet He emptied Himself and became man (Philippians 2:6–7).
The greatest exhibit of God on earth came by God emptying Himself. Maybe God has done the same thing in limiting His omniscience. Maybe He has said, “I will look ahead just so far; then after that I’m going to let My sons write it with Me.”
You have taught that the intervention of prayer changes God’s plan, even when He has a plan, or a law (Mark 11:12–14, 20–24; Exodus 32:9–14; Numbers 14:7–21; Jonah 3). And we are going one step further, saying, “Could it be that God has not set a complete plan for the end time?” But what He did do was anticipate a people (I Peter 2:9–10). He went to the right hand of the Father and sat down, waiting and expecting.
But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. Hebrews 10:12–13.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:16–18, 23.
Our Lord Himself has been waiting until He could join His Bride, join us to Himself (Ephesians 5:26–27), so that we can fulfill the end time out together. Although there is a certain amount mentioned in the Scriptures about the enemy’s part in the end time, and to a certain extent he has been limelighted, we do not really know what the end time will mean, except this: Will He find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8.) I think He has found the faith. He has found a people who are so audacious with Him that He can come and join Himself with them; and together, they can produce the end time, produce the end of Satan’s oppression.
And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Romans 16:20a.
Suppose we deal not only with the age and what is going to happen in it; suppose we deal with the new creation of God (Revelation 21:2–3). The greatest thing God ever had in mind was the Body of Christ.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. II Corinthians 5:17.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22–23.
And when we read Ephesians 4, we realize all the uncertainties, the intangibles, and the imponderables which are there. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father (Ephesians 4:5–6)—we have it all right there. The goal is that we come up to the measure of the fullness of Christ; therefore, He gave gifts such as apostles and so forth, so that the Body would start growing. It has to make increase of itself in love (Ephesians 4:11–16). And He said, “You can never reach the superlative heights of creativity as you create yourself and one another, as the Body makes increase of itself and creates itself, except that you have faith which works by love.”
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:14–16.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. Galatians 5:6.
When we get these two factors, it becomes more than faith for a deliverance. It is more than faith to go through devastation.
The purpose of devastation is that you come out of it realizing that you have two hands: faith and love. You can move the world! But more important, you yourself can become anything the Word of God declares that you can be.
We know that all of this is by the hand of God; God has taken us into something. It has also been a test before God to determine whether we too will say, “Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him” (Job 13:15). God is saying, “Let Me find out who really wants to walk in this next step.”
Either you are devastated to become bitter, or you take faith and you rise up and become. We had proclaimed a determination to walk with God, and God proved us. Out of that testing, we may have only a Gideon’s three hundred who lapped the water right (Judges 7:6); but God is saying one thing: “I want those who will really follow Me because their heart is so determined.”
Out of that devastation came the determination in our hearts to say, “Lord, we are going to serve You, no matter what happens.” Now God has the ones who are ready for something. He has already pruned away what was in our own lives, and He has threshed away the chaff and bundled the tares; now we are standing in readiness to do His Will in this hour (Matthew 3:12; 13:40).
We have talked about the restoration of New Testament Churches, and really it has been as it was prophesied that it would be: They have been like Noah’s ark. When the floods of devastation came, we saw that we would float around for a while; then the waters would subside, and we would create a new spiritual world, a new age. Now it is upon us to create it, because now there must be no bonds, no bondages, no chains, no bloodsuckers, no Pharaohs, no Achans and no nephilim (although supposedly one of the sons of Noah who came through the flood was a nephilim—Genesis 9:18–27; and evidently this is true, because Numbers 13:33 shows that the nephilim existed in the days of Joshua).
But what God is doing now is purging out, as much as He can, through devastation, the things which locked us into limitations. When we come through our disciplines and devastations, He says, “This is the end of your limitation.”
“Oh, fine, now You’re going to do it all for us, Lord.”
“No, it’s the end of limitation: Now you can do it if you want to. You can write the next chapters of the book.”
After the flood everyone had to create a life for himself. What each of them had to start with was exactly the same. And maybe a nephilim or an enemy came through in the flood, but the remnant of God also made it through. Maybe it will progress in a certain way with us as it did with them, and the enemy will loom up again down the road. We recognize that we are still in a heavy battle, but we are free to serve God. Now we have no one blocking or misdirecting us. We need fall on our faces before Him only.
We have the relationship individually with God that we have cried for. He heard us and He did that for us. Consequently, our relationships with each other had better not go back to the old thing. The relationship between husbands and wives—the whole marriage system—is totally different. And there will be a lot of shaking on this new dry ground that we have ventured to walk out on. We cannot go back to the old. But more than that, in our relationship with the Lord we can see how He is working now with us. God will walk with us and unfold the steps ahead of us.
When we say, “God working with us,” we still think of Him only as a big entity out there—we are the little mice and He is the big elephant. But that is not what we are talking about. We do not mean it that way. Rather, we are co-creators (I Corinthians 3:9). God has given us a release from our limitations by saying, “I am all the tools in the toolbox that you will ever need. I am all of the paper on the drawing board you will ever need. I am all the power you will ever need; just plug into it. Use Me. I will work with you, as an instrument in your hand.” But really, we are an instrument in His.
We cannot see the distinction, because we are so one in the Lord (John 17:21). There is no difference. We don’t put Him off in the sky somewhere and pray to Him out there; instead, we realize that He is in us (Romans 10:6–8). Therefore, we do have to go out in God and fulfill the end time.
In other words, a Kingdom Proverb: God becomes our willing servant, because we are His bondservants to do His will.
“But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43–45.
This is a new concept of God. We can use God, provided we want to do what He wants us to do—only. And we do this totally and violently, not passively.
We can say, “I’m going to draw on God.” And God says, “I am available to you. I am a tool in your hand. I am a charge of dynamite that you can light. I am anything you want Me to be, provided that you set about to complete My creation in the earth, to bring in My Kingdom” (Matthew 6:33). When we get down to it, this is very scriptural. I Corinthians 15:25–28 tells us that God had committed all things into the hand of Christ. Everything was made subject to Christ, except God Himself. Now, Christ will reign until all of His enemies are His footstool, and then He will deliver the Kingdom back up to God.
It is as though Christ is saying, “I am going to reign in the Kingdom, but you are My Kingdom” (Luke 17:21; Ephesians 1:18). “I am committing it to you” (Luke 12:32). “Go ahead—I know what you are going to do. You are submissive to Me as Lord, so you are going to go out and do it” (Matthew 28:18–20). “And I know that you will turn it back to Me, and I am going to turn it back to the Father” (I Corinthians 15:23–24, 28).
The commitment of authority, the commitment of the fullness of God Himself came down to the Church—we are the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:18–23). We are to be His fullness. We have it. We have God in our hand to use Him; and we know that He is using us best when we, by faith and love, use Him to create His fullness in one another, in the earth, and in the heavens above. How audacious is this! It is with humility, not arrogance, that we take it, because again, this is a stewardship. God has committed Himself to us that we would not just love Him, but use Him. I don’t think we use God enough. He wants to be a part of everything that we do.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:18–23.
When we say, “God works with us,” what we are really saying is that we work with God. We work using God, and God is using us.
He identifies Himself, “I am going to be in your hands. You do whatever you want.” Remember what King David was told when the anointing of the Lord came upon him, “Do whatever is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee.”
And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee. II Samuel 7:3, KJV. God worked it so that the initiative was his, and he was inspired to do it right.
But in the fact that he did it right or would do it right, God was with him to do it, to give the authority behind every word that was spoken.
If you use God to glorify Him, He is well-pleased. If you use God to glorify yourself, He will cut you off. By faith and love we build up the Body of Christ which glorifies Him in the earth.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22–23.
He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.
And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:18, 28–29.
God has waited for the ones to come forth whom He could finally come and dwell with (II Corinthians 6:16–18). He is waiting for those here on earth who will really worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:23). We are learning that we really are God’s authority on earth, with His help.
Now God finds a group of people who are so intense, and who honestly mean what they are saying, and so He comes and He wants to be a part with them. And at this point, it is largely up to us. The problem that we have now is that we must recognize how much God wants to come and dwell with us. We could miss it, unless we realize that He has created us to be what we are, and that He wants very much to be with us. Now we invite Him to come in; we say, “Come and be with us” (Revelation 3:20). And He now finds an acceptable people whom He can come and dwell with.
For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty. II Corinthians 6:16b–18.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 3:20–22.
Look at it this way: God reduces Himself from imposing upon us as God to come in the form of a servant (John 13:3–5; Philippians 2:5–8), and we have to open the door. He is knocking, saying, “I will come in and sup with you” (Revelation 3:20). “I will be your God. You will be My people” (II Corinthians 6:16). This is a strange thing. In the greatness of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, He is again humbling Himself and saying, “Now you have to invite Me in.”
This humility of God is found all the way through the Scriptures—it is amazing. In Genesis 18:1–8, God came down and talked with Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. They sat together and talked, and ate some bread, some curds and milk, and a calf which Abraham had prepared. People do not realize how much God wants to fellowship with us. He wants to commune with us and serve us. He wants to be our friend. He wants to be everything to us. But because He is coming as the humble servant, He sometimes almost withholds Himself from us, as He did with the two on the road to Emmaus. He is feeding us Scriptures, but He isn’t letting us know that He is really the “Big Wheel.” We have to invite Him in and say, “We are going to have something to eat now; stay with us” (Luke 24:13–32). Then we recognize Him as truly our Lord.
Even His angels are this way. They come as strangers. Hebrews 13:2b tells us, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. The angels wanted to have a certain humble concourse with us.
Do you know how we have shut Him out? We have made Him only a position—God or Christ Exalted. But besides that, you must also put Him down here as your best friend who will walk with you through the mud and help you through the battles, whom you can talk to, cry over, and admit all of your failures to (John 15:15; James 2:23; Exodus 33:11). Confide everything to Him, and let Him be your friend. This goes back to the first love that was emphasized recently. And it goes back to the fact that we have to invite God in, and see Him as the lowliest One.
And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. James 2:23.
“No longer do I call you slaves; for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15.
We look for Christ, and find He is washing our feet (John 13:5). We look for an apostle, and find he is serving everyone. And those apostles and prophets and elders who still will not take a turn in the kitchen or do jobs of that type, because they still have an idea of position, have to get over that.
And calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42–45.
There are no big wheels in the Kingdom; the differences between us are that the Lord put His authority here and there. But did He really put the authority there? Or was some man humble enough that he said, “I have to meet someone’s need,” and he reached into God and appropriated the authority? Almost everything that anyone is moving in, he had to appropriate. The Lord did not say, “Here, I give some of you great authority, and I give others of you none.” He just breathed on all of us, “All authority in heaven and earth is Mine. You go and you do it.”
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:18–19.
There will be people who will be bold enough to do it—they will take authority. We cannot say, “Well, if this is possible, then we are going to be the most important people that ever existed in the whole world.” We take the authority; we take everything that God is, everything that is committed to Jesus Christ in His great triumphant victory, and we use it to glorify Him. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17. Out of this comes a principle that ties in with our humility, with the bondservant principle, with everything we have been taught by His Word.
We still associate authority with position, and we cannot do that. Authority is one thing; position is another. Satan is called “the god of this present age” (II Corinthians 4:4). That is power. That is usurped position. And yet Christ has all authority in heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18), but He came as a bondservant.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5–8.
“Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29.
He was the lowliest; and if we see this, then we relate to Him properly. This means that we have to get the right perspective, to relate to the Lord, wooing Him, encouraging Him to come completely into our lives. We must relate to the Lord right. We must see Him right. We must go down there with Him. We must go lower to be with Him in serving our brother, in serving the flock. We have to be where the Lord is.
For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15.
And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But not so with you, but let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” Luke 22:24–27.
“But it is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43–45.
The opposite of darkness is to have the light, and to have the revelation of the Lord perfectly. And this is a fresh concept of the Lord. The judgments of God be against what is keeping the true revelation of the Lord from us, because once we see Him, the truth is going to set us so free with Him (John 8:32). We will have such a free communion with the Lord again, because that is what He is restoring to His people. And that is going to set us free into His presence. We will love Him with all of our heart. We will go back to our first love; we will commune with Him constantly. And there will be nothing that can break the authority which comes from this relationship. That is why Satan does not want us to get this revelation of our Christ. Once we get this, he is already judged (John 16:8–11).
It is a delightful thing to see how much people receive the Word that I give. Now they receive the Word, and that Word is with authority, because they do not have to relate to it as coming from the “apostle over the walk” or this or that; they just relate to it. And I am more than a voice in a box; I am one of His humble servants with them (II Corinthians 1:24). Because I am on the same level with them, I am able to minister Christ to them more.
It is very difficult to minister to a person in a high position. This is why that position thinking has to go. It is also very difficult to receive ministry from a high position, whether in your mind you are in a high position, or the other person is. It is hard to look up. If I had an audience with the hierarchies of the world, I doubt if I would get anything out of it, because God does not dwell up there.
For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15.
Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Isaiah 66:1–2.
This is why we always found the purest teaching and the purest flow among the humble people in the pews. When the pastors had a position and demanded respect, what they called submission was often a suppression of the people. They had to be the Noble and Lord; there was not that much of God in their ministry (Mark 10:42–45). And that is why there were not many signs following them, and not many people received any deliverance from them. Yet a humble man can move in authority and break the bonds when he does not even understand the language the people are speaking, because God is there; and he is correctly using God.
Now we can understand again why devastation took us so low.
To come out of devastation is all right, but we do not dare to come out of the lowly place that it put us in. We must stay there, but we can still rise in faith on that level of lowliness.
The devastation which He put us in, He did so that He could show us Himself. We will miss much unless we realize that the lowly place is where the Lord lives.
“However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8b.
This is a question we have to answer, because God did not tell us.
And I am wondering if He isn’t limiting His knowledge, if God isn’t saying, “I limit Myself to be the tool in your hand. That is the only way I can release limitation off of you. You will never be what you are supposed to be until I limit Myself just to be the tool.” You have to picture that God says, “I am not going to be the boss! I will be the saw, the hammer, the plane. I will be the drafting board. I will be the pen in your hand.” At some point, the initiative and the creativity of God have to come back to us as it was at Eden.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:26–28.
This is a very provoking thought, because this is exactly the way this whole thing of the Kingdom is coming. It has to come into this.
There cannot be any breakthrough of authority as long as there is any position. Even God Himself takes this attitude, because it is His own principle. When the usurper comes, he can never have authority. He has power, because he is the god of this present age (II Corinthians 4:4); but he does not have authority. But anyone who comes with simple faith and submission to God turns that around by having authority over all the power of the enemy.
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you.” Luke 10:19.
Authority is everything in someone who is nothing. The minute that you become something in your own estimation, it diminishes proportionately the effectiveness of what God is doing.
This is exactly where we have been brought right now. I believe this is why my laying on of hands is more effective now. There is more authority, because I am actually ministering where there is no position. This is good. This is what is happening.
We wanted the Kingdom to come, but we thought we were going to work up into it. Instead, we were devastated into it. We had to come down, in devastation. And now we have to get rid of fatalism or any negativity and get back to faith. Fatalism says, “Well, it will all work out.” It is not going to all work out; we will work it out. We have to be the tools in the hand of the Lord to do it. We have to understand that this is what devastation did. It enabled us to move into God, but also to move with Him because His authority is the tool in our tool belt.
We are going to build His Kingdom. We can put God in everything. We are going to have the initiative of faith to do it.
I am wondering if the chapter of the book in which Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” isn’t yet answered (Luke 18:8). It is up to us to answer whether there is going to be faith or whether there isn’t going to be faith. It is up to us what is going to happen, how it is going to happen, and to a great extent when.
God is insistent upon our prayers being insistent.
Fatalism or Faith?
Will He find faith on earth when He comes?
He is asking you.
God is our willing servant when we are His bondservants that do His will.
Christ will reign in His Kingdom; we are His Kingdom.
Come out of devastation into great faith, but never lose the humility that was worked in you.