God seems to move according to a certain timetable. The Word tells us, for example, that when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman (Galatians 4:4). In Habakkuk 2:2, 3 the prophet wrote: Then the Lord answered me and said, “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it …” We have conditioned ourselves to wait for God to fulfill the promises some time in the distant future. Hebrews 11 tells us about Abraham and Sarah and others of faith. It says of them that they died without receiving the promises. They saw them afar off and embraced them, and I believe they walked in a large portion of the promises.
Many people have that problem of failing to see the promises in their lives immediately fulfilled. So they develop a patience. However, that patience can become a passivity and finally lead to unbelief. If you condition yourself to look to the sweet by-and-by, then there is no real blessed now-and-now for you. All the blessing is in the future. In the former generation many of the songs were designed for the future. Revivals were filled with that kind of singing. The problem was that it always expressed a pie-in-the-sky philosophy. God has made it real to this generation that you are to say no more in your heart, “Tomorrow.” You are not to look about you with apprehension and some kind of a sanctified hope that you call faith. You are not to look for blessing only in the future. Learn to walk with God now. Learn to believe His promises now.
We used to receive prophecies and promises from the Lord and then wait two or three years before seeing the fulfillment. We were probably so far from really knowing how to walk with God that it took that long for God to prepare the vessel to receive the blessing. Now the interval grows shorter between the time that faith lays hold of a promise and the reality springs into view. Now we begin to see what the prophet meant when he prophesied the words of the Lord for the days of the Kingdom. It is no longer a matter of “Call upon Me and I will answer,” but now we see the reality of the promise: “Before you call I will answer. While you are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). God will start the answer in motion as He anticipates your prayers. Why shouldn’t it be that way? Instead of expecting to wait thirty days for delivery of your prayer, pray and believe that someone ordered your request thirty days ago, but did not claim it, and so it is yours today. Look at things differently from the way you have, for the Kingdom is upon us, a time when God anticipates His people. He says, “If the vision tarry, wait for it.” But He says also, “At the appointed time it hastens toward the goal. It will surely come; it will not delay.”
A most difficult aspect in walking with God has been this matter of delays. The time is upon us—the appointed time when God wants His promises to be fulfilled. How soon can it be? How long will it take? Will it take us a day? a year? a generation? Concentrate on what God says about a day. Cut it down to see what God says about an hour. Concerning the end-time events, they are prophecies that are to have an instant fulfillment.
The prophecy of Zechariah 3:8, 9 speaks of the purging of Joshua and of his priestly robes. God was going to remove the iniquity from Joshua quickly. This prophecy has an end-time significance: “ ‘Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you—indeed they are men who are a symbol’ ” (they were a sign of a company of people in the end time), ‘ “for behold, I am going to bring in My Servant the Branch. For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes’ ” (he was speaking about the ministry of Christ). “ ‘Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.’ ” God says, “I will take away the iniquity of the land in one day.” Nations usually do not move that fast. They do not make their way upward or downward that fast. It takes time. But this is not true in the end time. Then it will take place in one day.
It is not a matter of having to intercede and agonize for hours and months before the Lord will answer prayer. That is not the way it is prophesied in Isaiah 66:7, 8: “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she gave birth to a boy. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons.”
The sons of God are not going to come forth in a long painstaking process of spiritual development. Prophets are arising everywhere. Both apostles and prophets are being raised up today. In fact, more prophets and apostles and men of God will come forth within this next year than lived in all the generations recorded in the Scriptures.
Let our sons in their youth be as grown-up plants. Psalm 144:12a. God said that the day would come when there would be instant maturity, when the rate of change in people’s lives would accelerate as they grew. Our sons will be as grown-up plants in their youth. This is what the Lord is prophesying for His remnant today. The young men are taking responsibilities and entering into a maturity that hardly seems possible. Do not draw away from this. Do not think that growth must take a long time. In former days, some taught that the gifts of the Spirit are a gift from God, but the fruit of the Spirit grows very slowly. Why should it take a long time for the fruit to come forth? It is a divine attribute reproduced within our nature. Why should a gift which represents God’s ability come any faster than an attribute of His nature? Why should it take such a long time to have love in our hearts? It can come instantly. God can move upon us so that the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit spring forth in our lives. Anything wrong with us could be cured in one service. If we are determined to touch the Lord and appropriate what we need, it can happen immediately. A nation can be brought forth in a day—one day!
A good example showing how quickly God can move is the story of the four lepers sitting at the gate of Samaria (II Kings 7:1–20). The Syrians were besieging the city, trying to get at the prophet Elisha because he was frustrating all the military plans of Syria. The lepers sat there reasoning, “If we go into the city, we will die,” because everyone inside the city was dying of hunger. “If we stay here we will die also. Let us go out to the camp of the Syrians. Perhaps they will spare us. If not, we will die.” So they went out. During the night the Lord made the Syrians hear the noise of chariots and horses, and when the four lepers went out, they found that all the Syrians had fled, leaving all their food and provisions. How could God change a situation which was critical in only twenty-four hours? He knew how to do it.
Are you conditioned to believe that you are always going to have your problems? Shake them off as Paul shook the viper into the fire (Acts 28:5). Flip them off. It is time to get rid of them. You can change. You can grow much more rapidly. It can all happen in a day.
The name Jehovah means I Am that I Am. In other words, “I am the one who always manifests Himself in the present.” He is the right-now God. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is always manifesting Himself right now the same as He did yesterday, the same as He will tomorrow. He is the Lord and He changes not (Malachi 3:6).
No promise of God is abrogated because suddenly it went out of style or God decided not to answer that particular promise. Not one promise has been set aside. Every promise that God ever made is valid for you right now (regardless of what the Scofield Bible states). God gave many promises to Abraham and his descendants, but the Word says that if you belong to Christ, then you are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29). In Christ all the promises have their yea and verily (II Corinthians 1:20). What about the promises that belonged to David? Every promise is centered upon the seed of David, Jesus Christ, and therefore it is fulfilled in you when you are in Christ. All the promises and covenants were focused in Christ; and the minute that you are in Christ, you are an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:16, 17). Consequently, everything He won and everything that rests upon Him is yours!
Too many people want to give away all the promises. They insist that miracles were for another day, and that the day of miracles is past. Where does it say in the Word that the day of miracles is past? Preachers who oppose the baptism of the Holy Spirit like to quote I Corinthians 13:8: “If there are tongues, they shall cease.” They should also read the next sentence, “If there is knowledge, it will be done away.” They should also admit that they do not know anything, if they say that tongues will cease. In their unbelief they heap to themselves doctrines, claiming that every provision of God is either off in the millennium or back in another age. They have chopped up the Scriptures into dispensational teaching, and according to that we just happen to be caught in the crack where we receive nothing. They say it is all yet to be or it is all past; however, God is saying, “It is all available right now.” Unbelief can subtly parade as faith, saying, “Yes, I believe this will be mine in the sweet by-and-by.” Do not listen to that teaching. Everything is available for you right now.
In this day God deals in sudden things. Christ never wastes time. We have a hint of that in the Gospel of Mark where things were happening “straightway” and “immediately.” Another word that is used repeatedly in the Gospel of Mark is “amazing.” The people were often amazed; they marveled. The people were so absorbed with their old traditions that they could not believe God for anything. They were startled and amazed to see how quickly Jesus moved, what He was willing to do and what He could do. The same is true today, but in their unbelief people are drawing back from what God has for them right now.
Live with an appropriation greater than you have walked in up to this hour because God has opened the door to a time of fulfillment that has not been witnessed before. The gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to the end of the world. A remnant raised up by God will fulfill that function, a people known for their sacrifice as they proclaim to the whole world, “Thy God reigneth.” Joyfulness will be in their hearts as they set their hearts to do it, and there will be a release of all authority to do it. Nothing will be held back from those who are willing to enter into that covenant of sacrifice with the Lord.
According to Revelation 17:12, Satan will move quickly, and in one hour the kings will receive the authority of the beast. “And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.” In the next chapter we see what the Lord can do in one hour. Verse 10: “Standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ ” Verse 17a: “ ‘For in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste!’ ” Verse 19: “ ‘Woe, woe, the great city, … for in one hour she has been laid waste!’ ”
How fast can God move? The great religious system is deeply entwined with government. Vast wealth is controlled by religious corporations. How can such a system be broken? The power of money is in the minds of many religious leaders, and they will not hesitate to break men and churches if there is a threat upon the financial structure. Have no respect at all for the religious system that calls itself Christian, but do have a burning love for the people who are trapped inside the walls of Babylon! The cry is coming up strong in this generation, “Come out of her, My people! Be not a partaker of her judgments.” Those judgments are going to fall in one hour. And that is why the Word of this hour must be taken to them. The religious structures are weaker and in greater danger right now than people realize. They are going to come down. According to Revelation, the great whore, mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots, rides the beast. But the beast upon which she has ridden—the world system that has been her transportation and her slave—will turn and devour her. And it is going to happen in one hour.
There is not much time, but God has opened up everything for His remnant. Soon God’s people will come scurrying out of Babylon, and those who would have nothing to do with the remnant, who were a curse to it, will come, wanting help. Isaiah 4:1 tells about seven women who will take hold of one man and say, “Let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.” This prophecy is speaking about the denominational system that will be left without the man-made headship, without anyone to govern them. They will be a headless monstrosity. In just one hour it is all going to crumble.
And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, assembled to make war against Him who sat upon the horse, and against His army. And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast… Revelation 19:19, 20. It is going to end soon.
The Lord wants you to wake up the faith that is passive and let it become active, to wake up the full measure of expectation that you have of a meeting with God. Get over the idea that existed in the days past, that if you would fast for forty days, you might have a vision of the Lord. Instead of expecting just one shallow experience, learn how to live with Him and walk with Him and experience Him every single day. Live in another realm—a realm of expectation. The initiative is yours. The Lord says, “Draw nigh to Me, and I will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). Learn to enter into His presence with joy.
How soon can this happen? Right now. How long will it take? How many days? Begin to think of it in terms of today, this hour. Open your spirit to the fantastic thing that God can do for you. The promises of God are valid, and they are yours right now. At no time has there been such a day of attainable miracles, of exploits, of works even greater than those Christ did, as right now.
Can you believe for the rate of change to be so accelerated that you can grow up overnight? Can you believe to see changes in your nature? Or are you conditioned by past failures and by the past rate of growth? Is your mind so conditioned that you cannot accept instant change or a rapid rate of growth? Think how many disappointments you have had. How many days or years did you have to pray for the last real miracle? How many things are you believing God for that have not yet happened? Has your faith become merely a passive little hope within you—a hope that some day something will happen and things will change? Do you really believe that it can change right now? Do you believe that you can lay at the altar your temper, your rebellion, the inherited tendencies, and walk away from them? Do you believe that you can change—not in the distant future, but now? instantly?
God is willing and able, and has opened the door for an instant answer. Yet how much unbelief is still in the heart. The difficulty is to believe! You may believe that it will work in certain areas, or that it will work for the other fellow, but how difficult it is to break the impasses! What about the mountains that stand in the way? One of these days someone is going to command them to go into the sea, and it might as well be today.