God started speaking to me as I read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth became a ruin and a desolation” (Genesis 1:1–2). I read just enough to realize that this was not some answer to science’s problem of dinosaurs and everything that took place back in that age. This went way back, before the challenges of science, to the revelation—way back to the beginning of those things. Suddenly, this question hit me! What was there that God had created and that He finally destroyed so cataclysmically? Why was there such devastation? Why was there desolation? Why was there ruin?
And this thought hit me: Why is it true with us, too? Why has there been devastation? We keep talking about how God is trying to bring something forth that is constructive; but I wonder how much God hated that unfruitful thing that we were doing—how much He really wanted to end it! This hit me, because I had been reading John chapter 15 where God says if you don’t bear fruit, He will cut you off.
“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. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:1–8.
Something came over my spirit as I realized, beyond anything I had ever known, that God was saying, “Son, this is a challenge to see whether you are going to do what I sent you to do. Are you going to strive to bring forth the Kingdom, or is it going to be some false, Ishmael thing that is going to take place?” This is not a contest between those who walk in the Living Word and those who reject it or have withdrawn from it. This comes right down to one issue. It does not make any difference what anyone else does; it is how we go on to be the Kingdom of God and see the Lordship of Jesus moving over what He has set before us. This hit me. The fear of God came upon me, and I thought, “This issue of the hour cannot be viewed as a matter of something personal. We cannot look at it that way. This is what the Spirit of God has emphasized—the Lordship of Jesus Christ—is it to be, or is it not to be?”
If we are to see judgment in the earth, it is for only one reason; if we have a Passover deliverance to walk out of Egypt, it is not because God has a spa out in the desert for us to lounge in. We are going to fight giants. We are going to go up against principalities and powers (Numbers 13:27–30; Ephesians 6:12).
Devastation is not without a purpose. God has been dealing with us because we lost the pure vision. To some degree, we slipped; and the Word about “the Lordship of Jesus Christ” came to mean less to us than the total thing it was to become in our lives.
He is either the Lord—the absolute Lord—or this Word is not going to be effective in us. There must be a rising in the Spirit, so that we can overcome. There is no other way for us to go except by absolute revelation, by absolute obedience, by absolutely being led by the Spirit of the Lord into sonship. To do this, I do not think that our eye can pity what God has punitively devastated. But our hearts must be very open with compassion for those whom He has devastated, so that His dealings may be corrective.
There are various categories of people who were devastated. There are those who have committed an unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31). They have gone against a Living Word, a pure revelation that God gave. Previously, they had voiced it themselves as a revelation from God, only to turn against it.
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.” Matthew 12:30–32.
Then the line was drawn. Those on one side of the line have been judged, but those on the other side of the line fall into various groups. God used the message “The Line Is Drawn” to release you, give you great victories, and cause you to advance. Some of you may still be going through something of the process of devastation to bring you into what God has for you. On the other side of the line, there are some whom God will deal with, and maybe some of you, too. He will lay His dealings on you to chasten you. If He can chasten you, you will be a partaker of His holiness (Hebrews 12:10). This will be corrective, so that you will not be condemned with the world. You will come to judge yourself and be loosed.
But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. I Corinthians 11:31–32.
God will always come out the winner. So far, He has not even won with us; He has not received what He wants out of us, let alone out of those who have become apostate.
God destroyed that first world that He made. But the scientists talk about millions and millions of years involved. Some of the prehistoric animals, the wooly mammoths, were dug out of glaciers, and they still had some green vegetation in their mouths that they had been chewing at the time they were frozen, 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. God brought ruin and destruction and desolation on the world so fast that undigested food was found in their stomachs. In Siberia, and in similar glacial areas, men actually have dug some of them out of the ice and have been known to eat them although sometimes disastrously. Only God knows how old they are!
That sudden judgment hit me! It hit me! And I began to realize, in this desolation, that the things we have been teaching and preaching have been coming on low-key. Now it is time to stand and shout the Word of God! Proclaim it from the housetops! (Matthew 10:27.) Get this Word out to the people, that we will be what God wants us to be! We had better be all that He wants us to be!
“It is enough for the disciple that he become as his teacher, and the slave as his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.” Matthew 10:25–27.
If you have any, then in the name of God impart faith to one another! Whatever you have, you have enough faith to give your brother something. And when he receives, he will give you back something. Keep blessing each other until you all move into just enough of God, so that you can move in what He wants—and that is this present intercession. Intercession has been very much in the will of God, yet it has been short of the perfect will of God. Somehow, we never got into the full expression of it, or the enemy would all be dead men. But at least we were interceding, as much as we knew how, to be obedient. Now let’s enter in and do it effectively! Let’s see the Word of the Lord fulfilled!
What about this present truth about position and commission? We have come to realize what those words mean. Now it is time to function as we are supposed to! Do you say, “Well, I have no ecclesiastical position; I just have a commission.” Then move on it! If you have a commission, then fulfill it! When You have a position, you can excuse yourself from not doing it. But if you have a commission, you were told in the Holy Spirit to do something. Woe be unto you if you don’t do it.
For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. I Corinthians 9:16–17.
The thing God will judge is if you did it, or didn’t do it. And if you do it, He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:14–30). This hit me hard, just like a flash! Immediately I thought about the talents, the things that God is bringing forth. These are the things for which He judges us—what we do with them! We have the commission. Let’s do it! I am excited! I am exploding inside! I want this Living Word from God to move through the earth, but not to be a success myself. I want the Kingdom! I want Him to be the Lord!
We came into this walk in the Spirit to bring forth a transition of ages; we were going to see the next phase of the Kingdom of God come in the earth. And we talked about violence of spirit. We were actually only a little violent. We were like that king who took his arrows and beat the ground only three times and looked at the promise, saying, “Didn’t I do fine?”
The prophet said, “You should have beat those arrows on the ground until there wasn’t a feather left in them,” because the victory was not based on what he could shoot with an arrow.
The victory was to be in his obedience—his wholehearted obedience—to respond to an opportunity of grace, an opportunity for faith to work, an opportunity for God to prevail through his life, an opportunity to be a channel of victory that could have ended the conflict with the Syrians forever. History would have been changed, except for the fact that a halfhearted king beat the ground only three times with arrows!
So Joash slept with his fathers, and Jeroboam sat on his throne; and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and arrows.” So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” And he put his hand on it, then Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands. And he said, “Open the window toward the east,” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot!” And he shot. And he said, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you shall defeat the Syrians at Aphek until you have destroyed them.”
Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground,” and he struck it three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Syria until you would have destroyed it. But now you shall strike Syria only three times.” II Kings 13:13–19.
We must be earnest about what God sets before us, to the extent that we are really focused on the complete victory. Delays can help us at times; but some have accepted delays with a tolerance that is not of God, when many times He said, “It is time! It is overdue!” If it is overdue, let’s find out why. Who is hindering it? What is stopping it? Kick it down! We are going to put the fear of God in the enemy, as it is in us. This is not a vindictiveness nor a battle between personalities. It is nothing other than teaching them this: “Stand against the will of God, and you will die!” And if we don’t do the will of God, we will die, too.
I feel the burden of this so much. I want all my heart given to this. I want everything within me to be set. God revive everything within you, even if you say, “Oh, I’ve been through so much. It’s smothered.” Listen—the smoking flax, the little smoking wick, He will not quench; He will breathe on it.
“Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not be disheartened or crushed, until He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.” Isaiah 42:1–4.
The Lord isn’t looking for just enough light to shine in a dark place (II Peter 1:19). He is looking for enough fire to light a fuse with. The judgments of God reserved from ages past (II Peter 3:7) are going to explode on this generation. Babylon must come down, be damned into hell! She has to come down! She has made her inroads into the churches, doing every wicked thing that can be imagined. That insidious, deadly, violent, filthy whore has to come down! (Revelation 14:8.) The people of God must be released! Come out of her!
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; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” Revelation 18:4–5.
The fear of the Lord is what will make us change. We all must change, but some grow so slowly that their rate of change is almost imperceptible over the years. We must seek the Lord with fire in our prayers, and determine that we will change into what God wants us to be. We can impart the Lord Jesus to one another to be created and changed into His image (II Corinthians 3:18). Some have changed rapidly, and very much, but not enough. We still are not taking hold of the authority that is in His name to bring down principalities and powers. We still are battling on a human plane with legalistic inadequacy and with self-guilt. We still look at ourselves as though our need were the issue, and it is not! Seek first the Kingdom! That is the issue! We must see this.
We may need to shift our emphasis. To some degree, we still have been seeking first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, especially as it relates to us (Matthew 6:33). We must free ourselves of such a limited vision. Let us seek the whole Kingdom of God and what He wants to do in the earth! We dare not even stop and think, “Well, I need healing; I have an affliction. I’m in a hole; I need a deliverance.” Get up and walk away from it! That is what the Passover is all about. We can walk away from being absorbed in ourselves or our oppressions. Forget yourself!
“What about all the good things we can have? I pray God will restore them.”
Sometimes the worst thing that you can do is to take all the good things with you into battle.
“I have a wonderful stereo set and a nice T.V..”
Go into war with those on your back, and see how soon you will be shot, stereo and everything. The point I am making is that no man who goes to war can entangle himself with the affairs of this life (II Timothy 2:4).
Wherever we are involved, let’s get out of our own thinking and into the life that God wants us to live, which must be totally for Him, totally and absolutely unto Him! We must forget about ourselves and move into the Kingdom.
One thing you must remember. A man went to buy a Cadillac. He looked at it, and he liked it; but first he asked, “How many miles does it get to the gallon?” The dealer answered, “If you have to ask that, you can’t afford it.” It is the same with us, if we have to stop and count the cost (Luke 14:28–33). We know it will be total, and we will always have to reach up and get enough from God to go on and pay the prices to come. We know we will never make it in ourselves, but we are determined to go on.
The price we must pay is not the issue, and our lives are not the issue. We lay ourselves on the altar (Romans 12:1). It is all over! We are through! We belong to Him! We have no right to ourselves. We can’t even count a cost at this point! We have to move into seeing the Kingdom come forth!
We do not know how many are in the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) because of an untimely death—untimely because the enemy did it. We do not realize how many have had things thrown on them, and they are crippled or maimed or limping—not because they encountered God (Genesis 32:24–28), but because this Babylonian whore contamination was like a curse of witchcraft on them. That is why bonds had to be broken. That was the beginning of an understanding of where our problems may be coming from. Probably at least ninety percent of them are coming from things that are imposed upon us. We are going to get rid of them without spending a lot of time in introspection.
If we failed, we can repent; all we have to do is say that we have done wrong. In a few seconds it can be taken care of. Let us repent before God, because it is in our hearts to have that brokenness before Him. But let us spend the rest of our time pursuing after the Kingdom, putting this Living Word to work, doing the will of God.
Again we are living in the book of Hebrews. Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Hebrews 10:7, KJV. That is why God has brought us together! The Body of Christ is coming forth to do His will, not to examine one another and see where there is a flaw. Loose one another to be the Body of Christ in the earth, to do His will in the earth! Curse the damnable legalism and religious condemnation that is ministered! It is deadly because it prepares people’s hearts to accept transference. Whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23)—the sin of opening the door unnecessarily to Satan’s oppression. That is going to end! Everything of oppression that is being ministered, just reject it and throw it right back. In the authority of Jesus Christ we are going to be free to do His will.
Do you remember the message in chapter 2 of Revelation, that the church in Thyatira tolerated Jezebel? (Revelation 2:20–22.) There we read, “She teaches and leads My bondservants to commit acts of immorality.” God says He is going to throw them into one bed, a bed of judgment. All those who commit fornication with her will be in great tribulation. Some of the desolation we have been in has been God trying to deal with the false teaching that came out of the Jezebel system that had its centers around the country. That is over with. We are not even hesitant about proclaiming it. On this day of judgment, Jezebel the whore comes down!
The ones who have really been interceding are the ones who have been hit the hardest. That assault can be traced right back to that Babylon whore spirit. We had been seeking to find the basic spirits that caused the assaults, and now we are seeing them brought down. Those who were assaulted are finding a release, for we are sending back their assault. We send it back to every channel that was a source of it.
I believe that events and circumstances in our lives don’t have to complete their cycle. On a washing machine you can throw a switch, and if it is on spin dry you can stop it; if it is on rinse you can stop it. Some people have been thrown into things that could go on and on and on until every bit of life has been soaked out of them. But we should not tolerate that. There is not going to be a cycle that they have to go through again. God is going to restore them. God is going to bring new life to them. God is going to change their whole way of life and bring a breakthrough and a blessing to them, in His name.
We are believing for the whole Kingdom, the whole end-time priesthood system that God is raising up (I Peter 2:5; Revelation 1:6). Every man who stands in God’s presence and lifts his voice in worship, in sacrifices before Him, is going to be established. God has a portion for each one from His storehouse: the blessing that sustains, the feeding from the Lord; and this includes finances (Leviticus 7:1–14, 28–38). We come to the altar with a hook, and we grab the best steak we can find (I Samuel 2:13–14; Exodus 38:3). We are going to feed ourselves to become strong, and then we are going to go after the enemy. We are going to snag a honeycomb (I Samuel 14:27). We are going to chase those ungodly Philistines into the sea!
In the spiritual conflicts of our warfare, we became conditioned to accept the oppressions of that warfare. We saw that the ones who stood in the gap the longest seemed the most destroyed, but we do not have to accept that assault. This is a true principle: If you believe that you have to bleed, then you don’t believe that He shed enough (Matthew 26:28). We do not have to bleed! We do not have to be suffering! We will suffer the sufferings of Christ with Him, but we do not have to tolerate Satan’s assault (I Peter 4:13; Ephesians 6:11).
The day of judgment is starting to explode. The heavy artillery is coming up. We are going to bomb; we are going to shell. In this conflict, we are not going to accept the lie that tomorrow is going to be a replay of yesterday. As victorious as yesterday was, we go on from there to a whole new battle, to a whole new attitude of ourselves as the army of the Lord!
On the first day of judgment in Egypt, Moses spoke judgment on the Nile, which the Egyptians worshiped (Exodus 7:20–21). This was a type of Babylon, because Moses made it turn red. It was typical of how the whore is drunk on the blood of the martyrs (Revelation 17:6; 18:24). But the day of feasting upon God’s people has ended (Revelation 18:4–6, 10, 19–21). It is not going to keep one whore of Babylon alive. It is not going to keep the battle system alive. We turn it to their destruction! Their source of life is over!
Our enemy has been strongest in places where the Jezebel spirit was allowed to manifest. The difficult thing was that in every relationship which people had, they were affected to some degree.
In Hebrews chapter 11 we see that the faithful saints of ages past will not be made perfect without us (Hebrews 11:39–40). Why? Because we must come forth and bring the vengeance that justifies the sacrifice which they had to make! Sometimes it was a sacrifice that was not imposed by God! And God has to restore! Nothing that has happened to us is a dead issue or a closed file. I am not accepting anything that has happened without believing that it was done unto the Lord, and He is going to open the book (Revelation 5:9). He is going to be vindicated before the people. He is going to have His vengeance, because He is the One who suffered. He is not interested in vindicating us in our personal causes; but He is very jealous for His name, and He is jealous for His glory (Ezekiel 39:25; Hebrews 10:27–30). He has identified Himself with us. And as much as they have done it unto the least of us, they have done it unto Him (Matthew 25:40). That will be the basis of judgment. Babylon is going to come down! God is going to deal with that spirit!
If a servant is doing the will of God, how much more does this apply than when David would not even touch that apostate, devil-possessed Saul. God said, “Touch not Mine anointed” (I Samuel 24:6; I Chronicles 16:22). If David would not even touch Saul, how much less can anyone touch God’s anointed! We do not have to justify anyone. They are the Lord’s servants. Before the Lord they stand or fall, but it is up to us to pray them through! Let’s believe God! Let’s see that they move on with God!
That spirit of comparing ourselves among ourselves, of trying to evaluate where everyone is, is wrong (II Corinthians 10:12). “Is this person in the walk, or that person?” No one has to evaluate. Who cares! If people are going on in the right direction, just believe God that they will break through. When God wants you to be concerned, He will say, “Help My brother.” The Lord will lay the burden on you, but not for you to judge carnally or to evaluate. You are not to evaluate even yourself. Paul said, “I don’t even judge myself. I don’t know! Only the Lord can tell me on that Judgment Day whether I did it right or not” (I Corinthians 4:3). Let’s forget this idea of evaluating, and have one attitude: We belong to the Lord!
We have more leverage if we wash the feet of a kneeling Timothy than if we wash the feet of someone who is sitting on a throne. And that is what we will do. We are through catering to people’s positions. We will help one another into what God has for us with no condemnation—no condemnation—just pure faith.
We are still clinging to a message of grace, but it is different. This is Kingdom grace. We had grace that did not overlook wrong, but helped us to overcome—that didn’t judge us legalistically, but ministered grace to change.
Now God is bringing a new level of grace. And this is grace to be His servants, grace to move after the withered hand has been healed. Stretch forth the hand. Stretch it forth (Mark 3:5). Be healed, in the name of the Lord. Be loosed, in the name of the Lord. That is the Kingdom grace. The maimed and the halt and the blind may limp up to the table (Luke 14:12–13); but when they lift their fork, they will have a whole hand to lift it with. Hallelujah! Lord, we claim it.
How long is it going to take for us to be healed? Luke 17:14 tells about the lepers whom Jesus told to go show themselves to the priests. It says, “As they went, they were healed.” We have heard this: “On your mark, get set”—we have heard the first shot. And I assure you, the first shot was a blank. But you had better run as though there were a real bullet in that next one. Let’s move! Let’s move on! Let’s believe. I am going to run—the fear of God is upon me. Is it upon you? We bless this Word so that we accept the fear of God—not just for the moment. We accept what God is saying. We accept the fear of the Lord.
Christ is coming forth to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). That is true. But when the line is drawn, it is because He is being crucified in some brother. And God will never stand again for His Son to be crucified afresh and put to an open shame (Hebrews 6:6). Those who have come against the Living Word, and against all of us as servants of God, would have crucified the living Christ that is coming forth in us. At least they tried, but they can’t do that, so they just crucified Him in themselves. And that is where the line is drawn. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit—to take what Christ is doing by the Holy Spirit and blaspheme it (Mark 3:29). That is what is happening.
We must move on, aware that Christ is coming forth in us. And everything we suffer, we suffer for His name’s sake (Philippians 1:29). We suffer for His name’s sake because of what is happening. Satan is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10). Satan endeavors to bring up a history which is under the blood of Christ. And for that he will burn for millions of years. What God has forgiven, what God has made clean, cannot be condemned; it cannot be called unclean (Acts 10:15).
We are judging the assault from that antichrist spirit that has come forth in this end time. There cannot be a Judas unless he was first a performer of signs and wonders and was chosen to be an apostle (Matthew 10:1–8). There cannot be a Korah unless he is one of the great leaders of the people (Numbers 16:2). Today we face another aspect of that antichrist spirit.
The Lord demands fruit: it is either purge and prune, or cut and burn.
The only issue really is this: Will we do what He has commissioned us to do in the earth?
Devastation in our lives comes to restore the purity of the vision and perfect the submission to His Lordship.
If the chastening of the Lord brings us to do His perfect will and partake of His righteousness, then there is no greater blessing He can give us.
If we fight the Living Word of God, we perish; if we fail to walk in the Living Word of God, we perish.
Repentance may take only a minute, but it can open up a whole lifetime of effective service to God.
We seek for more than our walk with God; we seek the whole Kingdom for the whole world.
We serve Him better by washing a young Timothy’s feet than by kissing the feet of one on a throne of position.