Three can’t beat one. There are references in the Scriptures such as, “a threefold cord is not easily broken” which collaborate this principle (Ecclesiastes 4:12). This relates to the power of oneness when it is in Christ—not just one individual in Christ, but several individuals who have become one in Christ. This oneness is stronger than any triad that Satan could create to assault us. Satan would never need to make a triad if he could create oneness. We must realize that in the satanic realm, his channels use the power of agreement. All of that is more than the occult; it is Satan using principles that God established. Satan perverts and uses a principle or law that God established: “If two or three agree touching anything they ask, it will be done” (Matthew 18:19). Satan’s channels work together in agreement. The important thing is the authority that is loosed when the agreement of sons becomes oneness in the Lord.
This emphasizes why Satan sends the spirit of division to prevent that oneness. That spirit of division attempts to break our oneness. Our oneness is the thing that is effective; it is the important thing we are doing right.
We may not be doing anything perfectly in the mechanics of unity, but this we are doing right: We are reaching into this oneness in the Lord and we are breaking the divisiveness of our wrong bonds. That is why there could be a concentrated demonic agitation to cause us to see one another only as individuals. We must guard against that. We must guard against it because anything that is related to the fulfillment of the Lord’s Word to us is hindered by the spirit of division which makes us draw back into being separate individuals.
For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For the body is not one member, but many. I Corinthians 12:12, 14, NASB.
Everything now must be evaluated, not in terms of what it is as an action, but in terms of what the spirit behind it is. Whatever we do as believers in Christ, we should not move independently; instead, we should always act with confirmation. The one thing we must guard is a humble oneness. Then we will be unlimited.
Ephesians 5:21, NASB: and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
When that spirit of division comes, it is almost impossible to discern it or even detect it as satanic. You know that division is not of God, but you may not sense how much it is of Satan. Usually you feel, “This is coming from a human level.”
This happens because division is created by focusing on the distinction between human beings and between personalities and thinking, which only aggravates the distinction. Unity and oneness come only from the Lord. But those whom the devil would divide, he makes them take a second look at each other. Then you begin to react on a personal, human level to what is said.
It is always essential for us to understand what the enemy’s tactic is. Several years ago the teaching came that even after we had been delivered from the dominion of the soul, and from the dominion of our emotions and will over us, and had come into a level of pure spirit, there would be a cleansing of the filthiness of flesh and spirit.
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. II Corinthians 7:1, NASB.
I remember the truths that God made real to me when I was young, His Word about coming out and being separate, because it is in the separation that we will have our immunity.
Isaiah 52:11, NASB: Depart, depart, go out from there, touch nothing unclean; go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.
II Corinthians 6:17, NASB: “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.”
Revelation 18:4, NASB: And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues.”
This thing of breaking a wrong bond is essential. Paul wrote, “If there is some brother who is immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, do not associate with him—not even to eat” (I Corinthians 5:9–13). This has always been interpreted as some austere church judgment and discipline, but is it on that level at all? The Word shows you how you must hide. Hide from that which would defile you; put up a wall against it. But the oneness that we have in the Body of Christ should minister life to us.
A little leaven will leaven the whole lump (I Corinthians 5:6). It will move right through the whole Body. The level on which this occurs most is the physical level. Have you ever noticed that if one person comes into the room with a headache, soon other people present will have a headache also.
Our oneness in Christ should give us an immunity from oppression on the physical level, if we can break the old bonds thoroughly and completely.
In fact, what we should do, not in unbelief but in real faith, is to carefully review what we have done in breaking our bonds. It is like saying, “We are going to have a real deliverance, but let’s review and be sure. Let’s take the broom of hyssop once more (Exodus 12:22) and search out the corners to see if there is any leaven (I Corinthians 5:7), any bonding, any sympathetic spirit left which could be hurtful. Is there any way that we could be like Rachel when she hid the idols in her camel’s saddlebag?” (Genesis 31:19, 34.)
In Genesis 35 we read that God told Jacob to move up to Bethel, formerly called Luz, which means “light.” Before he moved up there, he said to his household, “All idols have to go.” If you remember, when Jacob and his family first left Laban’s household, Rachel stole her father’s idols and hid them in her saddlebag (Genesis 31:19, 34–35). Rachel in her heart was not truly one with Jacob, though he had labored for fourteen years to get her (Genesis 29:20–28). Her son Joseph was a favored child; but when Benjamin came she called him Ben-oni, “son of my sorrow,” and she died after giving birth (Genesis 35:16–19). Imagine a woman who could never feel the joy of oneness with Jacob because her own duplicity cut off that oneness. She could not get the roots out of her own heart. So when they were coming up to Bethlehem, to the place they were to inherit, “she died in the way” (Genesis 35:19). While en route, she died.
And the ones who will not succeed in their walk with God are the ones who are hanging on to some idol, those who will not be one with the Lord in the relationships that God has brought forth. There is some hidden idol which detracts from their walk with the Lord.
I suppose Rachel loved Jacob; but Rachel cannot love Jacob enough as long as she has a rival to the Lord in her saddlebag, her own idol that she has stolen. There must be a pure oneness with the Lord or else we do not attain it with one another. There is nothing that will really succeed or be blessed as it should until the people come all the way in a oneness with the Lord. We ought to look again—is there an idol in the camel’s saddlebag?
Before Jacob was going to move to Bethel, the first thing he did was to go through his household and get rid of all the idols. He destroyed them all (Genesis 35:2–4). He learned later that he had already lost the one he worked and labored half his lifetime to get. When we move on the next time, we must move as one, without anything pulling us away from the Lordship of Christ over us and our oneness with it.
It may be that the thing which holds us back is not an apparent idol. It could be something like a mistrust, so that if you tell a person you love him, he cannot receive it. There is a mistrust in which he thinks that although you are saying one thing to his face, what you really think is something other than what you are telling him. It is a demonic conditioning of unbelief and mistrust and fear, and no matter how much you minister to that person, what you minister does not get through to him.
That is a special type of spirit of division. There are different spirits of division, but there is none so effective as the spirit of division that lets you hear the truth and believe that the person speaking does not mean it.
This needs to be etched on our hearts. It is really a root of everything that we face as we relate and communicate. Of all the spirits of division, there is none more effective than the spirit of division that comes to convince you, even when you actually hear the truth, that the person does not mean it.
When a person is hit with this spirit, he hears the truth, but it is ineffective because he does not accept the credibility of the oracle. He does not accept the one who speaks it. Nothing that goes through the Body is any more deadly than that. People have said to me, “In the pulpit this brother really speaks the Word of God; he’s a man of God. But when he is not in the pulpit, different ones influence him; and what he speaks isn’t the Word.” Once they have been convinced that he does not really mean the thing that he says, then everything else he says outside the pulpit, they question. And when they do that, they do not get the benefit of what he says in the pulpit either. Once that happens it is almost impossible to redeem those people until God deals with them. There has to be a deep dealing of the Lord, and that is so disastrous. It must be that we hear the truth.
I can see what has caused this to happen. In times past, people took furloughs or breaks from the Lord. They felt that the intensity of being what God called them to be required frequent breaks or rest periods from it. He called them to be prophets, but it is difficult to be a prophet. When the going gets rough, the best of them say, “I’m going fishing.” And the rest say, “We’ll go with you” (John 21:3). What they are actually saying is this: “We don’t know what we believe; we don’t know what we don’t believe. We are right in the middle of the conflict, so let’s just take a break. We’ll pick up the things of the Lord again tomorrow perhaps, or the next day, but some other time.” Why is this? It is not because you are not sincere, but because you are. You just cannot handle the stress of consistently, twenty-four hours a day, being under the pressure. But how many years does it take before you finally say, “The final death worked in me is my consent, with all my heart, to be what God has made me, twenty-four hours a day.”
Relationships are like that. That is why in the world, even in the best of marriages, counselors will sometimes say, “Take separate vacations.” They are indicating that people have related so closely that they cannot handle the consistency of their relationship. That is why they sometimes advise, “Take a little vacation every day.” But when you have finally attained oneness in the Lord, your work is both the work and the vacation. It is all wrapped in together, and you feed on it. Like the Lord, you sit at the well, and when someone brings you food you say, “I’m already full.” What did you eat? “My meat is to do the will of the Lord” (John 4:34). It becomes something which feeds you. That is what we are trying to reach.
It depends on where your motivation comes from. If it is coming from without, then you are having to measure up to something that has been making demands on you. if the motivation is coming from within, that is when your work becomes play.
As you minister, you reach the point where you need something. In ministering, you may be speaking the Word continually, but you must have the exchange which is a lift to you, something which invigorates you.
What is it? You just come together with the brethren and talk.
Your spirit feeds on the flow of oneness from the Lord to the oneness with your brother. It is the need to give. You do not expand until you give out. You need both to take as well as to give.
There is a counterpart to this in the world. People need to feel needed and they hide behind that. When you look at it in the world’s sense, on the fleshly, human level, the statement “I don’t feel needed” may have a double meaning to it. When people say, “I need to be needed,” what they really mean is this: “I need to control somebody.”
“I’m not needed. I don’t do anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t lead songs or lead the worship service. I don’t counsel people; I don’t tell people what to do; I don’t direct every minute of the day for other people.”
But on the level of spirit, “I need to be needed” means that in my relationship with you, I flow in a relationship from the Lord, with the Lord. We flow together.
When you are with the brothers, you have many hearts that are reaching through to the voice of God. They are reaching through your spirit for the voice of God, and so the synergistic action of faith draws forth the flow which feeds us as well as feeding you. That must be the ingenious quality of this ministry of oneness that God is bringing us into.
It is going to be mysterious to figure out all of the things that this oneness does. What was it we said at the beginning? Three can’t beat one. We see this throughout the Scriptures. When we are one together, we can be outnumbered, but we cannot be defeated. When Jonathan and his armorbearer went up against the garrison of the Philistines, they were completely outnumbered. But they could not be defeated because they were moving “according to the same heart” (I Samuel 14:7).
You must consider also that our battle is not always caused by an assault by Satan but because God moves in your life and you are thrown into a new realm, a level you are not accustomed to. It may look to you as if all hell broke loose against you, but the truth is that you do not face the devils on different spiritual levels until you reach that level.
A little babe in Christ is born into the Kingdom, and it is wonderful; he loves Jesus so much. He sees a rosy glow on everything. He does not even see the faults of his brethren. Then, like a nine-day-old kitten, he gets his eyes open. And when he gets his eyes open, he begins to see so many things that he is overwhelmed. Every time he is thrown into a new level, he is thrown into it with the necessity of appropriating what he needs on that level. He is not born into that level with enough in his heart to handle it. He has to appropriate it.
Let me explain this. I Corinthians 10:13 says: No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. On the surface this seems to mean that you will never have anything hit you that you cannot handle. But that is not true.
Everything that hits you will be more than you can handle, unless you reach into the way of escape, the escape hatch. And the escape hatch is always to appropriate more from the Lord. In other words, you meet the problem on a new level by drawing more grace from the Lord.
Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel. In My name cast out devils” (Mark 16:15, 17). The first thing you do on each new level is cast out the devils. You do not move into Canaan, with all the promises that it is yours, without having to fight some Canaanites and see some Jerichos fall. Canaan is all yours; you have a sure promise, “Wherever the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours” (Deuteronomy 11:24). But you had better believe that there will be giants standing in the way of every footstep. This is what makes you great—that you have to appropriate His greatness. You never take a step without it revealing your need of more of God.
Every new level requires a new appropriation to meet the need of that level.
This is exactly what we face on each new level. Suddenly you feel like saying, “God help me, I can’t cope with this.” Yes, you can.
The impartation that comes to bring you into a new level includes with it, in the fine print, the guarantee that if you run into any trouble you can appropriate all of the victory that goes with this level.
He did not bring us forth for defeat; He brought us forth for victory. But victory is not automatic. Victory is a result of appropriating Christ’s fullness on the level where the need is manifested. Do you see how He makes us grow? He makes us grow.
When a child skips a grade in school, it seems wonderful; the child is so blessed, so understanding, and so intelligent that he can skip a grade. That can be a blessing, but it can also be the biggest challenge that child has ever had in his life. He faces the need to grow up emotionally to the level of the ones who are older than he is. The trouble with geniuses is often that they do not have an emotional development commensurate with their intellectual development.
And the problem with the sons of God is that they do not always have a faith development and a love development commensurate with the spiritual level into which God drew them.
The Lord is opening the door to a new level and all of us are facing great need. How are we going to meet it? Draw from Him some more. Our continuing to minister and impart to one another does not mean that we are being repetitious.
If we minister to each other and lay hands on each other day after day, we are acknowledging what has already been received and appropriating more. If we do it in faith, we are acknowledging, “We have taken a step, and we will make it in this step if we draw all that God can give us to meet us in it.”
Bitterness
It is important also that we guard against bitterness. The basis of bitterness is unbelief. If you get into the dealings of the Lord and then unbelief comes up, it is easy to start blaming everything on people and circumstances, rather than seeing that God has brought you into it.
But when you come into the Kingdom, you have to drop your sword; you have to drop your defenses; you have to drop any guard that you had through the Church Age; you have to drop your mistrust and your unbelief in your relationships. You really have to become a lamb in order to come into this oneness. You cannot be defensive and come into oneness; the Lord has to be your defense.
That is true. If you take a bone away from a dog when he is enjoying that bone, he will bite you. The same is true on the spiritual level. You know the dogs by the fact that they snarl and bite when someone takes away their special privilege, even if it is for their own good.
You may be taking the bone away in order to give them a whole ham, but that does not matter. They are so engrossed with what they have that they cannot be induced to lay it down by faith that they are going to get something better. It is a mistrust of the intent of the shepherd. They do not even trust discipleship when they see it. How can they trust Christ to be their Lord when they cannot even trust a servant of the Lord who has done nothing but bless them?
There is a Scripture which talks about our not forgetting “the pit from which we were digged” (Isaiah 51:1). In his walk with God, a person can reach a certain point where he thinks he has much to protect, and so the same hand that brought him out of the pit cannot be trusted any longer to lead him on into the Kingdom. It is like what happened with Saul. Samuel said, “When you were little in your own sight, God exalted you” (I Samuel 15:17). But after he became king, his jealousy was so great that he set about to kill anyone or anything that looked as if it threatened him and all he had attained.
This promise from the Lord came so often at the beginning: “What I give you, no man can take from you, if you are a faithful steward of it.”
If the Lord gave you something and you have to defend it and protect it for yourself, that is one thing. But stewardship is something entirely different. I have protected the Word and the ministry. I have fought like a tiger over it, but not to protect myself. To me, if God had laid that ministry in my hand, no one could take it away from me. He said, “Your hands will never be empty.” It does not make any difference what anyone else says or does, or how much I give to anyone else. When we move in God we have no rivals. If a thousand prophets can outminister me, it does not matter; that is not a threat to me. I rejoice because no one can take away from me what I have received. I could be unfaithful with it and the Lord could take it away, but as long as I am faithful to the Lord and I love Him, it is not a matter of possession; it is a matter of stewardship. And anyone who touches that is touching what belongs to the Lord. I belong to the Lord, the ministry belongs to the Lord, the churches belong to the Lord, anything He lays in my hand belongs to the Lord.
When you say, “It’s not mine; I’m a steward of it,” then you have the right motivation. But when, by the faith and the grace of God, He lays something in your hand, do not assume that it is your personal possession, or that will be the beginning of trouble.
Possessiveness in the Kingdom is a form of insanity. (Kingdom Proverb.) Whom the devil would destroy, he loads with riches or makes God’s gifts seem to be a personal possession or enterprise. (Kingdom Proverb.)
It may be people that you are possessive of, but if you collect people, you collect the people who can generate money to put in your pocket. There is really no difference.
Let’s look at this very carefully. For instance, you know that I am not collecting you for what you can produce financially. Of what value are you to me financially? But consider a pastor who is going through a transition, and he stops to reflect on how much tithe he is getting out of his church. When that is changed, there is no more manipulating and maneuvering he can do to get it. That becomes the most severe crisis of his life, because it determines, “For what do you serve the Lord?” Satan always puts the question to God, and God always responds the same way. “Doth Job serve God for naught?”
“Go ahead, try him” (Job 1:9–12).
When the pastors fail to make the transition into the pure motivation, they begin to hate the Living Word. They begin to preach to the people what the people want to hear, in order to get them to be big givers.
Sometimes pastors have refused to let people go, even when those people had real callings and anointings to fulfill a ministry, because it would mean that they would not get the money those people generated. What a deadly thing that is to the functioning of the Body of Christ.
If you look back through the years and watch what is happening now, you come to this conclusion: It is the Lord saying, “I am separating the good fish from the bad fish, the wheat from the darnel.” At this particular point in time we do not have another ten or fifteen years in which to go through some amazing process to see where everything is going to fall. At this particular point God has to do a quick work.
Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43, NASB: He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ’An enemy has done this!’ And the slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
Then He left the multitudes, and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” And He answered and said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”
Matthew 13:47–50, NASB: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down, and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. So it will be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth, and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This thing of people-collecting is based on a salesmanship-on selling the gospel of the Kingdom—and that is in the whole realm of manipulation. It is conmanship.
If the Word and the ministry are pure, it is a Word from God that creates in people’s lives; and there is never any feeling of having sold something or having worked so long on these contacts that you gradually converted them over.
True; the deceitfulness starts by using the Word to attain a human advantage. The purity of the apostolic ministry was manifested in the early New Testament church. Paul did not collect people, nor did he give favor to people for what they could do. He had whole churches which were generous and ready to help him, yet he often labored with his own hands as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). When he wrote to the Corinthians he said, “When I was among you I did not take anything from you, because of all the false apostles who came and made merchandise of you. There was no other way for me to go. They were working to take you. They take advantage of you. They smite you” (II Corinthians 11). That is exactly what happens.
Over and over again, I tell people one thing: “Take care of the sheep; take care of the sheep”; and I walk away grieved.
There is no adequate ministry until you love the sheep as the Lord loves them. Anything else is a perversion. Something is wrong until you love those sheep.
People ask me, “What are you doing now for the churches?” I am doing the best thing I could ever do for the churches: I am helping to bring forth pure shepherds. They have had enough hirelings who were working for what they could get out of it (John 10:11–15).
It all comes right back to the fact that it is the Great Shepherd and His sheep. That is what the issue really is. All God is after is someone who will take care of His sheep, someone who will love His sheep. He said to Peter, “Do you love Me? Tend My sheep.”
John 21:15–17, NASB: So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.”
There just isn’t anything else. I love those sheep in the churches. You cannot know what restraint I have imposed upon myself not to get involved in ministering as I have in the past. But I can’t, because that will not help. In the long run I will not help those sheep by ministering to their needs nearly as much as I will be able to help them by working with a few shepherds in the back room and telling them about the ways of the Great Shepherd and what it means. The shepherd gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11).
The worst thing you could say about any man who defects is this: “He was not a shepherd.” But the prophet declares, “I will give them shepherds after My own heart.”
“Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.” Jeremiah 3:15, NASB.
That is what is coming. He is raising up men to love the sheep. He is raising up shepherds after His own heart.
People-collecting, sheep-collecting, is what the hireling does. And cold-bloodedly, he would destroy any segment of that flock if they did not acknowledge that they were totally his possession. When a shepherd does not acknowledge the Lord’s possession of the flock and His ownership over them, we have something worse than any old order we have known. No matter what it claims to be, we have another insidious form of Babylon; and as we are coming out of it, that is what God will destroy. That is Babylon—“making merchandise of the souls of men” (Revelation 18:12–13, KJV); saying, “I own this man.” It’s the Lord that hath a stirring in His heart against these (Zechariah 10:3). And I do not think that we would be permitted by the Lord to be so furious against them if it were a human contest. The Lord would judge us for our feelings. But if we are zealous for the Lord’s sheep and the Lord’s interests and His place, then we view it with entirely another motivation. This takes off the pressure, because the more intense you become, the more the devil tells you that you are wrong—that you do not have a right to feel this way about a brother. However, we are not feeling this way about a brother; we are feeling this way about what the Lord is to possess, about His Kingdom and His heritage.
When the Word says, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), it does not mean that just a few of us as individuals strive to subordinate our human personal or family interests to the Kingdom. Too often that is the way it has been interpreted.
When we seek first the Kingdom, it means that we go to war against all the conflicting kingdoms which come up and say that they are the Kingdom of the Lord. It starts at the house of the Lord, purifying what is really His Kingdom (I Peter 4:17).
Ezekiel 9 records Ezekiel’s vision of the Lord sending executioners to go through Jerusalem with a slaughter weapon (verses 1–7). In the previous chapter is the vision when he went through the hole in the wall, into the inner court of the Temple, and saw the abominations which were being done there (Ezekiel 8:3–12). The story of Ezekiel is the removal of the glory and the return of the glory. The glory hovered over the Temple, then over the gate, and then over the mountain east of the city, and then it disappeared (Ezekiel 9:3; 10:4, 18–19; 11:22–23). But after a certain period of time the glory came back again (Ezekiel 43:1–5). Ezekiel is a prophet of the Shekinah glory of the Lord as it rests over the house of God, and as such the book is extremely symbolic.*
Ezekiel was concerned about one thing: the corruption that was prevailing within the Temple itself, as in Ezekiel 8. What happened in the ninth chapter of Ezekiel is what has happened or is happening to us. God is going through with a slaughter weapon because He has seen the abominations that they do in that hole in the wall. When you look into the sanctuary, you see that there have been inroads into the very worship and presence of the Lord. One fact stands out: Every one of these false shepherds, these perverted shepherds, has promulgated a type of worship; they have tried to invade the sanctuary. Every one of them desired to use music and worship to his own end. And of course the jealousy of the Lord is stirred over that. To use a song service in order to prepare the hearts of the people to hear what you want and what you demand of them may not seem very far from the truth; but it is actually far from what God wants. It sounds so good and it looks like such a perfect type, but there is something wrong. It is like what Ezekiel saw—the ones who find a hole in the wall so that they can make their way into the sanctuary, into the holy place, but not by the route of sacrifice, not by the route by which we are supposed to enter it. This is what has happened.
Underlying all of this is the truth of separation; we are separating ourselves unto the Lord in this. We cut off this level because it is not right. Let’s keep our hearts open to what God wants. It is a difficult place to find.
Either it will be His Kingdom, or else it will not be anyone’s kingdom.
Many times it happens that even when you have a Word from the Lord about something and you present yourself humbly to the Lord, there is no response. But even if God does not respond, you still should not abandon your search. You are to be vigilant, like Abraham watching over his sacrifices while the vultures tried to devour them, watching until God’s Shekinah glory moved among the pieces that he had laid out on the altar and God spoke to him (Genesis 15:8–21). There are delays; and we, like Abraham, have known delays after having done the will of the Lord and having presented everything to Him without receiving an answer. Sometimes when someone presents a problem and he does not get an answer by a certain time, he is upset because he did not get an immediate answer. I have things which have been unanswered for many years. Who dares to say, “You delayed four hours, or four days, or four weeks”?
It is a mark of an infantile approach to God, that people are not patient to lay it wholly, honestly, and completely before Him. Their hasty requirement for a quick answer is evidence again of immature manipulation for an answer.
When they do that, they do not have the fear of the Lord. I have felt a great fear in working with you and having you really get an answer from the Lord, because you do not touch the ark (II Samuel 6:6–7). I don’t think that anyone who really loves the Word and loves the channel who brings the Word can feel that he can touch you in a wrong way without God smiting him somewhere in his life.
No man learns the importance of doing the perfect will of God any better than a man whom God has allowed to walk in His permissive will.
Division is created by focusing on the distinction between personalities and thinking. Unity and oneness come only from the Lord.
Those whom Satan would divide, he makes them take a second look at each other.
Division and deception: when Satan lets you hear the truth, but makes you think that the person speaking does not mean it.
Deception results when the credibility of the oracle is questioned.
With each new level in God comes a new level of conflict.
You do not face the devils on different spiritual levels until you reach that level.
Every new level requires a new appropriation of grace.
Impartation includes the privilege of appropriation of victory.
Each new level in God requires more love and more faith.
What God gives you no one can take away from you, if you are a faithful steward of it.
Possessiveness in the Kingdom is a form of insanity.
There is no adequate ministry until you love the sheep as the Lord loves them.
To seek first the Kingdom of God is to be in conflict with all kingdoms that oppose or pervert it.
Either it will be His Kingdom, or else it will not be anyone’s kingdom.
No man learns the importance of doing the perfect will of God any better than a man who has walked in His permissive will.