God is putting His finger on the heart of our problems. His hand is on the spirits of His people until they learn how to walk with Him.
I see great potentials within a church, but I am looking for the young ministries who can come out of these churches—men who can pastor churches as true shepherds, who will have the faithfulness to go on in God, to do the work of the Lord in the earth, to speak His Word. I am looking for those who walk before the Lord with a broken spirit. When we have a broken spirit, we will also have the compassion of Christ that will fill our hearts.
No people, no matter how wonderful they are, no matter what God has seemed to mean to them, can become insignificant unless they reach a place of brokenness. You become insignificant.
It is very important that you not reach the place where you are engrossed in little things, little problems, little programs. Your vision has to be lifted to what God really wants.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17. Cry to the Lord for a broken spirit. There is a difference between bitterness and brokenness. Sometimes it is difficult for people to detect it. Some think that they are broken when they are bitter; and some conscientious souls think they have bitterness, when it is a genuine brokenness from the Lord.
In many instances, Job fluctuated between bitterness and brokenness. We, too, say, “I don’t want to be bitter, but look what has happened to me.” And looking back, we can see that God’s will was accomplished somewhat in the things that happened. Do you remember reading in the Old Testament that when King Rehoboam humbled himself and sought the Lord a little bit, the Lord said He would grant him “some measure of deliverance”? (II Chronicles 12:7.) Do you remember reading that phrase, “some measure of deliverance”? Our breakthrough into the Kingdom today has to be based upon something very deep that God does in our spirit, whereby we are totally delivered from that which holds us back.
When we are “locked in,” our condition is similar to that of the Corinthians when Paul told them, “You are not restrained by us; you are restrained in your own selves.” Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also. II Corinthians 6:11–13, NASB.
Paul was saying, “We did not hinder or stop you. Our hearts are open to you. It is within yourself; you have locked yourself in. You are restrained in your own love, you are restrained in your own spirit. Now we entreat you: Open your heart.” When Paul and the other apostolic ministries wrote to the Corinthian church, it was to get them to open up too. The ministries had to do that, because the people in the church were “locked in.” God is already working deeply within us, and we can open the door to a complete release—in every situation, in every local church.
There are many things coming now that people do not understand. Many do not understand the ministry in the Word that the Lord has given me and the reason He raised me up in the earth. They still feel sometimes that I am building a movement; I am not. I am not building a movement; I am speaking a Word from the Lord. Our goal is not to only build churches, or even develop the finest-programmed churches in the walk. A great deal of effort goes into each one of our churches; a lot of ingenuity, a lot of creative flow of the Holy Spirit. Even so, the churches are all going through a crisis. Perhaps I induced that crisis, because they were drifting toward a denominational pattern, and that could not happen.
Several of our pastors and different groups have met together and said, “This man seems to be standing against what we are doing.” It has seemed as though my hand has been turned almost against everything and everyone that was drifting from the Word God gave. This is the commission that I have had from the Lord. I cannot bear to see this go wrong at this point, feeling that I was at the helm and it was my responsibility. Some of us came out of the denominations, but not to withdraw or recede back into the position we came from; yet we were starting to drift toward that. We were beginning to do it. In 1975, or perhaps as early as 1972, the Living Word began to come very intensely. That Word was to draw us on out, and into what God has for us. It was much like the Lord’s confrontation with Joshua. Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No, rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” Joshua 5:13–14, NASB.
We stand now at the threshold of many Kingdom principles, Kingdom practices—things that belong to the age to come. God is making them very real to us. The Word is getting right down to the heart level where you know, “This is what is in my spirit. This is the way that I am going to walk with God, or that I am not going to walk with God.” God is giving you the option to almost deliberately pick the level you are going to settle on. We came into this walk with God because we had revelation to our heart. It was something God revealed to you. Because you loved the Word, and you knew the voice of the Lord or you knew the leading of the Holy Spirit, when the Word came, it came alive to you; so you called it a Living Word.
But this Word is still not a Living Word to many hearts, because they have no revelation of it. To them it is false doctrine or teachings that should not be emphasized, because they say, “This is what we ought to do instead.” They have their whole program—their evangelization program and the whole commercial package. In the fundamental Christian world everything is pretty well cut-and dried, with few variations—defining exactly what is acceptable and what is not. You must believe a carefully defined view of the rapture—that the coming of the Lord will take place a certain way. If you do not believe in that particular explanation of the rapture, you are rejected.
With us there is a great deal of freedom. We could not care less whether you want a rapture before, in the middle of, or after the tribulation. Our only concern is that each one be ready to walk with Him through whatever comes. Can you understand that it has to be this pure quality of spirit? The issue at this time should not be doctrinal interpretation, but our need for a breakthrough in God!
At the beginning of this walk in the Spirit, I spent many days waiting on the Lord at Holy Jim Canyon—a dry, barren place in the Cleveland National Forest. God met me there. I do not go back there now; I do the same thing almost every day that I did then: I just wait before the Lord and pray, “Lord, I meet You afresh today.” Revelation comes and I speak it very audaciously, when I stand before God’s people. I cannot do anything else! What you also do with this Word is so important. You must open your heart to it. You must realize the necessity of continually coming to the Lord for a fresh revelation that gives more light upon your path. Otherwise you will go in a little circle, establishing what has already been revealed, but closing the door-almost by the scheduling of your own life—to any future revelation that the Lord would give you. Do you understand how that can happen to you?
This message is for everyone, not for just a few. I have watched this process: When we are too busy to wait on the Lord, then our opinions and verdicts on things are a little less anointed. When we do wait on the Lord, how the Lord just opens the door for us, and we come up to the pure vision!
God has set before us this one thing: a broken spirit. This becomes the key by which we align ourselves—with all of our heart—with what God is bringing forth to us. Everyone should heed this message; it seems so important to all of the churches. It is a comfort to know that we have had a faithful Word. We have seen deeply into the need that was always here. We are not seeing some new offense; we are looking down into the heart of the thing that has been there all along. I believe this is true, yet the burden of my heart is so great for you. Open your heart to the Lord. With a broken spirit, there will come to you a new awareness of Him. The broken heart, the broken spirit, has ears to hear what God is saying, and to receive what the Lord is bringing.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? II Corinthians 13:5, NASB. If you are not hearing His voice, and you have not learned to wait before Him, and your heart isn’t broken before Him, you’re not making any progress. You are not into that which God wants. Examine your own spirit. When you do, pray for this brokenness before the Lord, and see what will happen. It will be great because all the Word of God is behind that.
When we read about Job, it is difficult to tell whether he was bitter or broken. Sometimes it was a brokenness, and sometimes it was a broken bitterness. Here is one of Job’s replies to his “comforters”: “I have often heard such things; you are all miserable comforters” (Job 16:1–2). Have you ever had people comfort you, and you felt, like Job, “These are miserable comforters!” You, too, may be thinking that this message is giving you “miserable comfort.” This Word is not intended to put anyone down; if that is done, then who will be the helper of your joy? Let this message be constructive to you, to help you attain to something greater from the Lord. Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand. II Corinthians 1:24, KJV.
If you are locked in spiritually, you had better find out why. It certainly is not because the Word is not rich and precious, or because the whole intent and purpose and function of your church is ignoble. Let’s not blame anyone, but look to yourself and say, “If I’m locked in, I have done this to myself by the way I have responded in my spirit to what God has put me through; the way I have responded to the way He has led me.”
The sensitivity that causes you to become offended is evidence of a wrong spirit. You can hardly ever offend a broken spirit, but you can hardly ever appease a bitter spirit without it twisting even the most sincere things. The most sincere encounters with a bitter spirit leave him frustrated and critical. Do you understand this? Reprove a friend, a wise man, and he will bless you. Reprove a fool, and he will smite you (Proverbs 9:8). It is not whether you are wise or foolish in a natural sense, because the only revelation wisdom that is going to come, is going to come to a broken spirit. It is impossible for a bitter spirit, or a critical spirit, or someone who is locked in in that manner—it is impossible for them to understand and correctly evaluate what is happening. Only in a measure do they comprehend it.
Job 16 and 17 help us to see the difference between a bitter and a broken spirit. “Will your empty words have no end? What incites you to answer? I, too, could speak as you speak. If you were in my place, I could compose words against you and shake my head at you. I might encourage you with my mouth and bring you comfort with my lips.
“If I speak, my sorrow is not lessened, and if I do not speak, does it leave me? Surely He (God) has deprived me of strength; He has disbanded my whole family. He has made me wrinkle; my malady testifies against me; it testifies to my face. His wrath tears me, and His anger pursues me; He gnashes on me with His teeth. My enemies look sharply at me; they gape at me with their mouth, and with insolence they smite my cheeks; they are all joined against me. God is delivering me over to the villains and is casting me into the hands of the godless.
“I was living at ease, and He shattered me; He grabbed me by the neck and broke me down; He set me up for His target; His arrows encircled me. He cleaves my reins asunder and pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with breach upon breach” (every wall of defense that Job had was broken) “and rushes upon me like a warrior. I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my horn in the dust. My face is red from weeping, and blackness hangs over my eyelids, though my hands are guilty of no violence and my prayer is pure.
“O earth, do not cover my blood; let my cry find no place to stop! Even now, my Witness is in heaven; my Advocate is on high. While my friends are my scorners, my eyes turn weepingly to God, that He might do a man justice between him and God and Justice between a man and his neighbour. For in a few more years I shall walk the path along which I shall not return.” Job 16:3–22. (The Revised Berkeley Version in Modern English.)
Job’s pessimistic approach to his situation sounds bitter, doesn’t it? There is a little difference in those cries that come up, which reveals the difference between bitterness and brokenness. In these chapters we see that the picture changes drastically within a few verses, and you see what was really in his heart. Sometimes when the pressure is on, you may scream real loud; it sounds as though you are very bitter and vindictive about the whole thing. Then you settle down to the weeping. That is the way a little child is. First there is the rage, because he is being spanked; then after a while it becomes the deep sob of a spirit who is willing to be chastened and trained. This is what happened with Job: “My life is ruined; my days are extinguished; the grave is yawning for me! Surely mockers surround me; my eye gazes on their contention.
“Give me a pledge; be surety for me; who will strike hands with me? But their heart Thou hast closed to reason; therefore Thou wilt not let them triumph. He who denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children shall see famine. But He has made me a proverb among the people; by them I am spit upon to the face. My eye has grown dim from sorrow, and all my members are like a shadow. Fairminded men are appalled at this and the innocent are indignant at the wicked. Yet the righteous will maintain his way, and he who has clean hands will grow stronger.” Job 17:1–9.
In this last verse Job nails it right down. You see, no matter how deeply he went, he did not become bitter and abandon his faith; but out of it came a brokenness. Job kept voicing something which came through strong in other chapters: “My hands will grow stronger and stronger. I will surely come through. The righteous will maintain his way” (Job 13:15; 17:9).
Job continued: “But you, come on again, all of you, though I shall not find one wise man among you.” This following passage is tragic: “My days are passing; my purposes, my heart’s desires are foiled. They would turn night into day, saying that light is near when there is darkness. But if I look to Sheol as my abode, if I have spread my couch in darkness, if I have said to the pit, ’You are my father, and to the worms, ‘My mother and my sister,’ where then is my hope, and my expectation, who can discover it? Will they descend with me into Sheol? Shall we go down together into the dust?” Job 17:10–16.
All the way through this, Job was facing the possible extinguishing of his life. He was facing the fact that he had reached an extremity that few men on this earth ever reached without passing over into the next life. There is no question about it: Job had everything heaped upon him; the boils, the suffering, the agony. In the midst of it all, while he was down in the dust, these miserable comforters were accusing him, “It is because you’re not right with God” (Job 11:13–15). They were throwing it right at him. Job came to the place where he said, “By them I am even spit upon to the face” (Job 17:6). He came to the place of such total rejection.
When Satan received permission to oppress him (Job 2:1–6), he did it to the full extent. And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to ruin him without cause.” And Satan answered the Lord and said. “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. However, put forth Thy hand, now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse Thee to Thy face.” So the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.” Job. 2:3–6, NASB.
As you go through trials, be sure that you do not form a conclusion about it until the purposes of God are accomplished in the brokenness of your spirit. It is so easy to form an opinion about what Satan is bringing against you. Satan did a thorough job with Job; he was laughed at, scorned, and mocked. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” Job 2:9, NASB. The miserable comforters came upon Job and they spit in his face, they made every possible accusation against him. Yet this was a man who had been honored above all men in the East, a wealthy man, a man who served God, a man of worship who was filled with repentance (Job 1:1–5). His way was perfect before the Lord, even according to the Lord’s own verdict: “This man is perfect before Me; his ways are perfect” (Job 1:8; 2:3).
You may wonder, “Why would a perfect man need to be filled with repentance?” In the purity of his own heart, even when he could not find anything wrong with himself—not out of self-righteousness, but in an honesty of heart—Job took upon himself the spiritual responsibility for his family and their needs. After his children had been feasting and fellowshipping, Job made sacrifices and repented for them: “Perhaps my sons have cursed God in their heart” (Job 1:4–5).
Was that a broken spirit? Yes. Job was not bitter; he did not complain, “O God, look at what my children are doing!” He was repenting for them, interceding for them, reaching to God for them. There is a great deal of difference between bitterness and brokenness. Look at the way Job worshiped. When he was hit with disaster, he bowed down before God and worshiped. Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. Job 1:20–22, NASB.
He bowed down and worshiped when all the problems came against him. Job was a deep worshiper. A broken spirit is the basis of worship. Job’s spirit was broken and perfect before the Lord, even before God put him through all of the desolation. If there was a trace of bitterness in him, the brokenness of his spirit was constantly causing it to melt away and vanish, to be purged from his spirit.
You may say, “I am going through this thing; I can’t help but be bitter.” Yes you can; you can be broken before the Lord, and the bitterness will leave. It is in the vessel that is not broken that the bitterness is retained. Bitterness does not evaporate on its own. The vessel has to be broken; and then the bitterness will fade away and disappear. There is no other way for it to go. That vessel is sealed—the bitterness in the heart is sealed in it—until the vessel of that heart is broken. Then the bitterness comes to nothing. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17.
We must meditate often upon this truth of brokenness. It cannot be repeated too often. Its repetition is our safeguard as Paul wrote: To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Philippians 3:1b, NASB.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14, NASB. We want Him to see us in a right way. All our life has been in vain if we have corrupted everything God has wrought within us by mixing into it some strange compound—a bitterness—that spoils all the miracle and wonder of what He is doing. Get rid of it, in the name of the Lord. Flee from it! When Paul wrote to Timothy about the evil in the world, he said, “O man of God, flee from these things, and pursue after the rightness of your spirit” (I Timothy 6:3–11). This becomes your choice too. You can pursue after a right spirit, or you can draw back from it. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Press after it! Reach in faith to be broken to such a depth that you pray, “Lord, all other desires and all other purposes of my life are totally subordinated now to Thy will. Thy will be done.” Job made it; he became a living fulfillment of this prayer.
I always like to teach from the book of Job—especially the first chapter and the last chapter; but I don’t like that part in between. I like to preach about the part where God finally gives Job a double portion and everything turns out all right. In fact, when I read the book of Job, I prefer to read the last chapter first. I want to reassure my heart that everything will turn out all right before I sort through the viewpoints of Bildad, Zophar, and the others who had so much to say. Various Bible scholars try to evaluate their speeches, “Now this one and that one were not so good, but this other one had a pretty good word,” and so when you read it, it all sounds right! On a cold, dark day you could swear that every one of them had a Word from God! The book of Job requires a great deal of discernment.
The person who will benefit most from delving into it deeply is someone that God is dealing with, so that he can begin to discover his own bitterness, and begin to discover the brokenness that God wants; and finally, so that he can realize how perfectly pointless it is to try to defend himself. Job repeatedly told the miserable comforters, “You’re not getting the message. You don’t know what is happening. This is not so. I’m not the wicked person you think I am.” But before it was all over, Job had to pray for them, and they received forgiveness (Job 42:8–9).
Job did not say anything for or against their ideas, because they were very difficult to evaluate. We could have a big blackboard and go over all of their accusations, point after point, to determine if they were right or wrong. We could evaluate it for a long time. But when God came to these “miserable comforters,” as Job called them, where did they stand with Him and what was His answer for them? God told one of them named Eliphaz, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends. Go to My servant Job and he will pray for you, lest I judge you for the wickedness in your heart” (Job 42:7–8).
It was not that they were that much right or that much wrong; they were in that shadowland where you can make a statement that is a generalization, and yet there are instances where your statement is not true either. After it was all over, God had to say, “You had better pray for them, or I am going after them; I am going to do to them according to their folly.” They were the ones who were bitter in spirit. They were the ones who did not have the right attitude.
It is easy to bear down on your brother instead of bearing his burdens (Galatians 6:2). It is easy to see it in a wrong sense. Job, you said a good thing: The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Job 17:9, KJV. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. Job 42:10, 12a, KJV.
A breakdown in your spirit will never bring a breakthrough to God.
The broken spirit has ears to hear what God is saying.
It is difficult to offend a broken spirit; it is difficult to appease a bitter spirit.
Brokenness brings fresh revelation; bitterness brings deception.
Bitterness is sealed in a vessel that is not broken.