As God brings us into spiritual maturity, we experience many adjustments of growth. We experience blessing as well as desolation, over and over again. We may not understand this process, but it is evidence to us that the Lord is drawing us into a closer walk with Himself.
When you are trying to reach into a higher level, you sense the support of the whole family in Christ; but you also feel a loneliness, an unexplainable distance between yourself and others. This is not intentional on anyone’s part. The family spirit and our love for one another have not diminished; and there may be no serious problems of communication. Nevertheless, at a certain point a loneliness comes over you. It seems like a paradox. You feel as though the Lord is not as close to you; His presence does not seem as real to you as before. In reality, you are closer to God than you have ever been.
Chapters 13–21 of the Gospel of John are filled with references to this kind of loneliness. There, Christ was preparing the disciples for the time when He would leave them. He kept encouraging them. He said, “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). “I don’t want to leave you with a lonely feeling. I will come and manifest Myself to you” (John 14:21). “I am leaving this world, and you cannot follow Me now. But I will prepare a place for you. I want you there with Me” (John 13:36; 14:2–3). In His prayer to the Father, recorded in John 17:24, Jesus expressed His desire “that they also be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” As the disciples heard Christ speak about His departure, they were filled with sorrow and a troubling of heart.
Christ actually did leave them, not only physically, but also in the sense that He would no longer be revealed to them on the level where they were. No longer was it possible for them to relate to Christ as Jesus the Nazarene, who had walked among them. It was not until years afterward that Paul put it into words, “Though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (II Corinthians 5:16). It was quite a while later that John (that disciple who had leaned on Jesus’ bosom) was able to see Him revealed with such glory that he fell at His feet like a dead man. When you have a new revelation of the Lord, you are not able to relate to Him as you did before. This results in a lonely feeling.
One of the most distressing times in a young Christian’s life comes after he has been born again and has experienced wonderful times of closeness with the Lord. Then the bottom seems to drop out from under him, and he plunges into that first lonely period. He must reach out for help. He opens his eyes to see where he is. As an awareness develops of the new realm into which he is to enter, he struggles to adjust to it. He struggles to bring his awareness up to the higher level that God is demanding of him. If he does not do that, he will be like one who gropes in the dark because the light on the old level has become dim. At this point a person who is not hungry for more of God will find himself drawing back. If that hunger is not intense enough to drive him on to seek the Lord with all of his heart, he will become discouraged and wonder, “What is there for me in my walk with God? God must have left me.” No, He has not left you. God is beckoning everyone in His vast family to live in His Kingdom. He wants you to come into an awareness of His Lordship that you have not yet experienced. This goal is very important.
How does this relate to what you have been going through? Perhaps you are already applying these truths to your own heart, as you recall periods in which things became very lonely for you. You were no longer sustained in the same manner as before; ways of blessing that you had known were no longer effective. In your fellowship with others, you noticed that everything had changed; you seemed unable to relate to them as before. You discovered that you were also not relating to the Lord as you had. When you reach out to God and come into a new level of awareness, you change. Because you are no longer the same, you feel almost like a stranger when returning to former relationships and situations. Jesus explained it when He said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Don’t worry. I will not leave you as orphans. I will send you a Comforter. I will help you through this period.”
John 20:14–16 gives a good illustration of a relationship with the Lord which could not remain on the same level. After Jesus’ resurrection, Mary Magdalene stood weeping at the sepulchre because she did not know where Jesus was. Yet He was standing right behind her. When she turned and saw Him, she did not recognize Him. She thought He was the gardener, and asked, “Where have you laid Him?” She was unable to see Christ on the higher level where He had gone. On the level where she previously had known Him, He had forsaken her. He had left her. It had to be that way. He had to position Himself where a greater revelation of Himself was necessary for Mary Magdalene. When her eyes were opened, and she finally recognized Him, at once she was lifted up into a new level of awareness.
This happened also to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. As Jesus blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to them, their eyes were opened and they knew Him (Luke 24:30–32). A little later Christ suddenly appeared to the eleven disciples and others who had gathered behind closed doors. Until He revealed Himself to them, they had been totally absorbed with their sorrow and their fear of persecution. He appeared to them for one reason: to speak peace to them. He was not ministering to their understanding. He was ministering peace to their spirits so that they would reach out in that moment of revelation and see Him on a new level.
Is Christ the same to you as He was when you first began to walk with God? If so, that is very sad. But if Christ is constantly expanding in what He is to you, then you are growing and moving on in the Lord. Of course, it seems that we are never prepared for the next revelation of Him that is to come; we are not even prepared for the next revelation of our relationships together. As surely as we change, however, our relationship with the Lord and with one another must also change.
Change in a person brings a change also in relationships. If a relationship between two people is of God, and both seek the Lord concerning it, then their association becomes closer and deeper as they continue on. If two would walk together, they must be agreed (Amos 3:3); that one agreement must be that they will seek God together with all of their heart.
When God demands a change in your relationship with Him, the first thing that happens is that you feel as though the Lord has left you and you have been forsaken. You are devastated! Your first reaction is, “How do I cope with this?” You may want to draw back. If you do, He might be merciful and minister to you to some degree on the level that you have known Him. But the whole idea is that He is enticing you, so that you will say in your heart, “Draw me, and we will run after Thee” (Song of Solomon 1:4). You must find your heart responding in love to God as you seek for a deeper relationship with Him.
It is not enough that we fill our days abounding with labors. In the midst of these, our primary goal is to continually draw from God another higher revelation of Him. What will happen then? Our services will change. Intercession will change. Our worship will deepen. We should expect these things to happen. Someday you will look back upon these times—just as you now look back upon the days when the services were somewhat Pentecostal in nature—and you will say, “We had to pass through that phase because the Lord was meeting us on the level we were on at that time. Now He is drawing us and pulling us up to where He is.” Let this Word minister to your heart, because only in the awareness of His presence will your relationship with God be alive and real to you. Otherwise, a moment of disillusionment will come. Only His presence and our awareness of Him make this walk in the Spirit endurable.
The day that you lose the sense of His presence, or you are not pressing into the next level of His manifestation or revelation, then Shiloh (or wherever you are) becomes an “Alcatraz” to you; before long you feel closed in. Unless Christ is revealed to you and made real to your heart, Shiloh will mean nothing at all. If the joy and peace are gone from their lives, those who live at Shiloh will find themselves thinking, “Other people have nice comfortable homes. What am I doing here in this way of life?” Shiloh was not geared to draw you back to another way of life. It is the Lord and your awareness of His presence that make Shiloh. Even though you may find yourself being sandpapered to a raw edge by your brother and your sister, always the challenge is there to look beyond what you have seen and to see something more. Every challenge works on your spirit to make you press into the Lord and into each new step that He is bringing forth.
In my own life, I am continually reaching in and crying out to God; yet at the same time I know that I am positioned where He wants me to be. I watch the Lord hold before me goals which seem to be unattainable; but as soon as I draw close to these goals, it seems that He is positioning Himself a little further on. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord … he shall come unto us as the rain … Hosea 6:3. The Lord will bring seasons of refreshing (Acts 3:19).
God is concerned about your change and your growth, your advance into sonship. As you become aware of Christ on a new and higher level, you come into sonship. You change from glory to glory as He is revealed to you in a greater glory (II Corinthians 3:18). A little child is blessed as he prays, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look on me, a little child!” He sings and worships; Christ is real to him. But as he grows older, his prayers change because his awareness of the Lord is changing and growing. Is God different to him then? Of course He is. Perhaps you can remember the day when you decided that your father did not know very much. But as you matured, the more you learned, the more he seemed to be learning too. How amazing it was! One day you woke up to the fact that your father was quite intelligent. He knew a great deal, and so you listened to him even more. What happened? Had he really changed? Or had your awareness of him changed?
The Psalmist wrote, “Oh come, let us magnify the Lord together” (Psalm 34:3). Magnify Him and let Him be as great as He possibly can be to you! Stretch your spirit. Stretch it out so that you comprehend Him more and more, and expand with Him. You cannot reach a comfortable level with God in which you feel secure in your relationship to Him indefinitely. You will never reach that place. God will constantly trouble you until you have a greater revelation of Him. He will constantly disturb you until you have a deeper understanding of your brothers and sisters, a deeper love for one another.
Of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John gives the greatest emphasis to Christ preparing the disciples for the time when He would leave them. Especially from the thirteenth chapter on, we see that He was preparing them for the coming change. And it was a big change! Within a matter of only three days, the Lord Jesus Christ would be on another level completely. From that time on, they would never again know Him as they had before. He knew that He had to prepare them for the fact that He would be leaving them. But He promised not to leave them comfortless or without knowing the way to the Father.
The first thing He did was to shock them all. He said, “… He who has seen Me has seen the Father …” John 14:9. But they had not even been looking for the Father! They had been looking only at Jesus. They wanted a revelation of Him as the Messiah. He shocked them by pointing out this truth: “Look a little closer, and you will see the Father here in Me.” In the same way He asks you to look a little closer at one another and see Christ dwelling within. Always He wants you to have a greater revelation so that you will look beyond whatever is obvious to you on your present spiritual level and see what is on the next level. Always there is something more.
If you do not reach out for that greater revelation, you will suddenly have certain reactions. You will think that someone is failing you. Or you will think, “The Lord is failing me. He doesn’t care for me anymore. He doesn’t care what happens to me.” But He does care what happens to you! He does care. If He has withdrawn from you, it is not to forsake you, but to incite you to seek Him. He has created a loneliness that only He can fill. He has created a hunger that only He can satisfy. Has He done this to you? Probably, and He will continue to do it to you!
Do not be surprised if one day the Lord seems to be with you, and the next day He is gone. When this happens, seek Him. Reach out for Him. Intercede violently. Pray and worship. Keep drawing closer to God. Then you will be living in the climate in which change can take place.
All of us go through this process of development. Sometimes I find my own heart experiencing it. I cannot find the fellowship I want. I cannot find any answers when I talk with people. It is only in seeking Him that I find the answers I need. One thing is needful: I must break through and create fellowship with the Lord—and then draw others into it with me.
This has always been the pattern for growth. First, I must break through to something greater; then I share it with you. As a result, you are stirred, and you go through various dealings of the Lord. What you experience is not always joyful. Sometimes when you embrace an apostolic Word, a Kingdom Word, you are thrown into a place where it is almost impossible to walk in that Word. This seems to be true only because you must move to another level. You are pulled in your spirit, constrained by the love of God to reach up (sometimes through a devastation), in order to have a greater awareness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the Lord suddenly appeared to the disciples in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the manifestation was almost frightening. This happened at a time when their faith seemed to be exhausted, and they had no more confidence. You can always tell when you are approaching a new level because you realize that God has to impart a new faith to you, a new measure of grace. He has to take everything within you and boost it up to that higher level; otherwise, you will be inadequate for the situations you will meet on the next level. The Lord does all of this because He loves you. Don’t you see how He is drawing you? He is not tormenting you; He is actually positioning Himself so that you keep moving from one level to another.
Are you wondering, “The Lord was so real to me, but I don’t find Him that way anymore. What am I to do?” Concentrate upon seeking Him; and when you find the revelation of Him that He has for you, you will discover that you really are changing from glory to glory. With a fresh revelation of Him, you will be able to walk on that new level.
How sad it is if you go through difficulties and do not learn from them! The one principle that God wants you to learn through your circumstances is that you are to open your heart to Him more and more. Little else of significance can be learned from circumstances; they certainly will not make you wise! Through all of God’s dealings He is trying to teach you to trust Him, to love Him, and to seek after Him with all of your heart. He is not maneuvering you into a situation in which He will show how right you were and how wrong the other brother was, or how wrong your spirit was in a right situation. He is not trying to teach you any of those things. All that He does is for one purpose: to throw you into a situation where either you will become bitter and draw back, or else the hunger of your heart will prevail and you will press on into God. Little else matters. You must believe enough in the sovereignty of God to realize that your steps are ordered by the Lord, and the things which befall you happen so that He can be glorified in your life. You must believe that!
In John 13:33–38, Christ’s purposes and plans for the disciples unfold: “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You shall seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ now I say to you also. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you shall follow later.” Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a cock shall not crow, until you deny Me three times.” Despite Peter’s eager response to Christ’s question, he was not really prepared to follow Christ to the cross. He thought he was ready; in his mind he was convinced. But this level of dedication was not enough.
Christ recognized the disciples’ need of a deeper awareness of His presence and of who He was. And so He told Peter, “You cannot follow Me now, but later you will.” Every step which Christ makes is with the expectation that you also will follow Him. He has made you joint heirs with Himself (Romans 8:17); He will never rule and reign apart from what He has ordained—that you are to rule and reign with Him. The Kingdom is yours. He wants to share with you the glory that He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. He wants you to walk in this glory with Him. Where He is, He wants you to be also. All of this is in His plan. He is preparing the way; there is no way except Christ. He is the only way; He is the truth; He is the life (John 14:6).
Constantly we face challenges which seem unattainable. But the miracle of our walk with God is that He is ordering our steps in such a way that the unattainable becomes attainable! This makes it possible for us to be changed into the same image as the Lord Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 3:18). It makes it possible for us to enter into His glorification. It makes it possible for us to come into sonship. It makes it possible for us to enter into resurrection life. There is no way for you to maneuver circumstances in order to attain the unattainable. Every victory is found in Christ by reaching into Him. When He has revealed Himself to you on a new level, then you will walk with Him in the reality of that level. In effect this was what Jesus was saying when He told Peter that he would follow Him later. Jesus comforted the disciples with these words: “Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.” There are many different places where you can live. In other words, there are various spiritual “slots” in the heavenly realm. “If it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” John 14:1–4. In other words, He breaks through to the next level; then He brings us up into it, that where He is, we might be also. This is His whole vision. We see it again in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.” He wants us to be right with Him where we will behold His glory.
On occasion you may hear someone talk about having seen a vision of Jesus: “I saw Jesus in a dream. I beheld His beautiful face and beard. His eyes were so sad. His hands were outstretched, and I saw the prints of the nails in His hands. Oh, when I saw Him, I loved Him so much!” An experience like this (providing it was not imaginary) is beautiful in itself, but it pegs you exactly where you are—just about two degrees below kindergarten! If you want a true revelation of the Lord, read in the Word what happened to some of the prophets when they walked with God. The Holy Spirit had to appear and revive them because it was as though He had killed them! They fell as dead men. Even Saul of Tarsus was blinded by the glory of God. It took a miracle by Ananias, a prophet, for him to see again.
Do you want a true revelation of the Lord? Do you want to see Him? Are you crying out for revelation? Then reach for the next level. It will be devastating. When you have attained it, however, do not plan to pin a medal on yourself, for you will be devastated again—and again and again. Yet the Lord puts all the pieces back together. How He does it, I do not know, but each time you discover that you are moving on into something more from the Lord.
It is clear that the path of unfolding revelation of the Lord is a path of devastation. In Shiloh, for instance, you will not be able to come and go without undergoing devastation. (Inevitably, not a month will pass before you are experiencing it.) If the time ever comes that people can live in Shiloh for even one month without being devastated, it means that Shiloh is out of the will of God. Shiloh is a place of revelation, a place where God always seems to meet you and then jump ahead of you, leaving you stranded, so that you must earnestly seek Him again. Shiloh is a place of great revelation and great blessing, of great endowments of the Spirit that will fall upon each one—but only because He first draws you into it through this great pattern of loneliness, which Jesus referred to when He said, “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:1); and “Sorrow has filled your heart” (John 16:6). Remember that Jesus said also, “… I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” John 14:6.
In John 14:16–17, Jesus opened up the teaching about the Holy Spirit to the disciples. “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.” Always, there will be a change, but not a change in the Holy Spirit. It is the same Holy Spirit, except that He will not be standing at your side. He will be moving within your very being. The change is one of position, a change of your level. On one level you can be in a church service and see the Lord moving; but on another, higher level, you will sense the Lord moving through you!
The words which Jesus spoke pointed to the fact that everything would change. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.” John 14:18–19. In other words, when Jesus left, He left the world behind. Consequently, the world does not see Jesus walking around through the city streets, healing the sick. The world does not see Him doing miracles, but you will! You will see Him; He will come to you. When you go through a period in which you feel almost like an orphan, the Holy Spirit will give you the necessary thrust to bring you up to the higher level where He will be revealed to you. But He will not be revealed to the world.
Verses 20–21: “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.” Notice how Jesus again emphasizes the love and obedience. Love one another; seek after the Lord; then a revelation of the Lord will come to you.
You must receive this truth deeply into your heart! The Lord has made it so real to my own heart; and I know that unless you believe it, you can easily become discouraged. Discouragement comes because the blessing and the joy seem to be gone. But the Lord will return to encourage you: “I tell you all these things so that My joy can be in you, and your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). “I speak these things so that you may have peace” (John 16:33). Notice, however, that He does not ask you to understand. As I looked through these chapters, I could not find one instance where the Lord said that you will have understanding. To the contrary, He said that you cannot understand these things now, but that after a while you will know them; eventually your understanding will catch up. In the meantime, your hunger for the Lord must prevail until His peace and His joy fill you; then you can be thrust up to meet Him on the new level which He has both ordained and demanded that you walk in. Moving on with God is not optional anymore; you either move on with Him or you will be left behind!
What will you do the next time you feel desolate, alone, and lonely? The worst tactic is to discuss the situation with someone in the same position, because you will succeed only in talking yourselves right down into a mud hole of despair; neither one of you is on a level where you can minister anything constructive to the other person. Circling around and around together, eventually you will both become stuck in the mud. Get out of it! Go seek the Lord until you break through. If you need to talk, go to someone who has already been through an experience of devastation; listen to what he tells you. He will not try to give you any understanding of your circumstances; rather, he will help you to see why you are experiencing such desolation. You are in it so that you can move on in God.
Continuing in John 14:27–29, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe.”
After Jesus had disclosed that He would not talk much more to the disciples, He told them that it was time to go. More teaching did come, but all of it was designed to help them understand: “I am giving you peace. You will be troubled because I am going away. But I will come back to you; I will pull you up into a higher level.”
Have you wondered how Christ actually comes to us? I am persuaded that it is a matter of your taking the initiative to go to Him. A promise in James 4:8 reveals what you are to do: “Draw nigh to Me and I will draw nigh to you.” There must be a Spirit-inspired seeking on your part; and as you draw near to the Lord, then He meets you. Revelation is often initiated by the Holy Spirit giving you a drive to seek God. When that drive is there within you to seek God—the drive which the Holy Spirit has inspired—then God will meet you. If there is anything in your spirit that is not being met and you are constantly being troubled, it is your fault. All you have to do is open up to the Holy Spirit’s drive within you to seek God. The moment you express this drive, God will meet you.
Revelation, then, is the result of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration upon your heart. This is why the Holy Spirit was given. He is the Comforter. He will lead you into all the truth. He will reveal Jesus to you and bring you into the presence of the Lord.
In John 16:5–7, Jesus further prepared the disciples for the coming events: “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”
It is important that you understand more about the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit in your relationship with God. He is the Helper. He wants to help you along and push you into the greater revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. A popular idea, that the Holy Spirit is given only to create a Charismatic movement with an emphasis upon speaking in tongues, is missing the truth completely. The Holy Spirit is given as the Helper, as the Teacher who will lead you into all the truth. He comes to reveal everything that the Lord has spoken to you; He is the great Remembrancer who brings forth every Word that the Lord has ever spoken to your heart. He is given as the Helper and Comforter so that you will not be an orphan. He helps you during that loneliness in which Christ will no longer meet you on the level where you have been. He comes to make real to your heart the course of action to pursue so that Christ will break forth upon you a hundredfold greater than you have ever known Him before.
“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” John 16:8–11. In all of these aspects of His work, however, the Holy Spirit’s coming is not designed to convict the world of sin as such, and of righteousness as such, and of judgment as such, but as they are related to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin “because they do not believe in Me.” In the time when the Lord wants to be further revealed to you, when He wants your awareness of Himself to be greater, then you may find the Holy Spirit dealing with you. First of all, He will reveal sin in your life. As a result, you find that you become troubled about it. The Holy Spirit stirs you to repentance at this point because as Jesus said, one convicting work of the Holy Spirit is “concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.” Anything in your life that stands in the way of a greater revelation of the Lord is a sin of unbelief. You know enough about the Lord—you have enough of His Word, enough of His promises—that anything in your life which should not be there is a matter of unbelief on your part. You know that! You are not believing the Lord Jesus Christ! It is the Holy Spirit who uncovers the fact that you are not believing Christ. If you do believe Christ, however, then sins begin disappearing from your life.
The second aspect of the Holy Spirit’s convicting work is “concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me.” The disciples were to see Him no longer on the same level. When Jesus was here on earth, they could see no fault, no problem, no sin in Him. He was the sinless one. After He returned to the Father, they were no longer looking at the actions of the Son of Man as He walked among them as a human being. Then how would they get the sense of righteousness? The Holy Spirit had to reveal it. By revelation He had to bring to them an awareness of righteousness in Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to do that.
The third aspect of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” The Holy Spirit is constantly revealing to us that the judgment has already been provided in Christ. The judgment has been provided. The enemy, the ruler of this world, has been judged. How does this truth affect us? For instance, what should be our next step in intercession? The Holy Spirit must give us a revelation of udgment—an awareness of the truth that Christ has judged the enemy, and that we ourselves must enter in by faith, through the Holy Spirit, to execute the judgment. We do not pray our way through a battle; instead, we pray to reach a spiritual level from which we can execute what has already been committed to us. We must understand that when we bind the enemy, we must go through the victory of Christ in order to do that. We are manifesting the victory of Christ.
In the period of emptiness, the lonely period which lasts until Christ is revealed to us on a higher level, the Holy Spirit comes to help us, just as He helped the disciples. Because the prince of this world, the ruler of this world, has been judged, the Holy Spirit has to come and be a revealer of this judgment. Remember this: Satan has already been judged! But he is the biggest bluffer in the world. Unless you have a revelation of that fact, the manifestation of many things in the world will give the illusion that Satan is in control. It will seem as though everything lies under the power of the wicked one, under that dark area of iniquity over which the enemy rules. But this is not a true condition. The real picture must be viewed from the Lord’s side. Jesus won the victory long ago.
When the dispensations of time were fulfilled, Christ came, born of a woman. Then when He died for sin, God’s provision for the removal of sin was manifested in actuality, just as the provision had first been made in the heart of the Father before the foundation of the world. Eventually, in due course of time, you came into existence. You believed in Christ and you were cleansed from your sins. Although Christ’s victory over sin actually had taken place many years before, its personal manifestation for you came the moment you looked back and believed what the Father had prepared in His heart for you. When you believed in what Jesus Christ had done for you, His provision became a present reality in your life.
This is also the pattern of judgment. I believe in my own heart that Satan was judged when the serpent was cursed in the Garden of Eden. God told the serpent, “The seed of the woman will bruise your head” (Genesis 3:15). God’s judgment was spoken right there. It was as good as done. In God’s timing, Christ came forth. He resisted Satan, and He overcame him. That was the manifestation of judgment, but the fullness of it comes the day you believe it. The Holy Spirit makes it real; He comes for judgment because the prince of this world has been judged. The day that you believe this, and begin to execute judgment, is the day this world will change rapidly from one age to another.
More about the Holy Spirit’s work is described in John 16:13–15: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me.” Always the Holy Spirit is trying to bring forth the greater revelation of the Lord. “He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” All the fullness of Christ will come as the Holy Spirit leads you further into revelation. According to I Corinthians 2:12, “We have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.” The Holy Spirit desires to make real all that Christ has available for you. As you press in, as you appropriate, a greater revelation of Christ Himself comes to you.
John 16:16: “A little while, and you will no longer behold Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” The disciples were not able to see Jesus until their eyes were opened. Time and time again in the resurrection appearances, they did not see Him; but when their eyes were opened, then they knew Him. Why did He tell them that in a little while, they would not see Him, and yet a little while later, they would see Him? He meant that they would not see Him in the same way as they had before. They would not see Him just by their natural sight, but by a spiritual revelation, which was to be an ongoing process in their ives. How many times has this happened to you in your life—that unless you reached another spiritual level, you could no longer see what the Lord was doing? How many people have stopped walking on with God—and because they have stopped, the revelation has ceased?
I remember one man in the early days of this walk with God who eventually left us; when he visited one of our services five years later, I asked him why he had come. “I came back because I am curious to see what God is doing,” he said. But as he went out, he commented, “I see that God isn’t doing anything.” He had been unable to see anything of God—and yet the Lord had been moving in that service marvelously! It is amazing how many times people casually come to a service, saying, “I want to see a miracle. Show me a miracle! I want to see God moving.” In such situations you can be sure that the Lord will seem to shut the service down to them; nothing will happen for them that they can see. He will not convince you by what you see on one plane when He is demanding that you see on a higher level. Are you intent upon being shown a few miracles? We are experiencing many miracles—in the realm where the Lord is moving.
Some of His disciples therefore said to one another, “What is this thing He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you will not behold Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘Because I go to the Father’?” And so they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.” Jesus knew that they wished to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not behold Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy. Whenever a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more, for joy that a child has been born into the world.” John 16:17–21.
Notice that travail is not a penalty. It is one of the difficult experiences in life which has the promise of life in it. Travail is the kind of suffering which brings forth a life to a new dimension. Following travail, the baby is no longer confined within the womb. When he comes forth, he begins to experience life in the element and atmosphere for which he has been created to live. He is no longer submerged within the fluid in which he has developed and grown for many months. He is no longer sustained by nourishment passing through the cord which had been connected to his navel. Now his lungs will breathe air, and he will receive food through his mouth. Many changes will take place within his body because he has experienced a complete change of atmosphere. It takes travail to bring that child from one level to another. In the same way, it takes travail and intercession to bring us out of our old conditioning into an entirely new spiritual atmosphere.
We have been in travail because the time of the ages has come in which sons are come to birth, and there must be strength to deliver, to bring them out of the level they are on and to thrust them into the higher spiritual level that God has prepared for them. This birth must take place immediately!
In verse 22 Jesus compares the sorrow of travail and the joy of birth with the sorrow of separation and the joy which the disciples will have when He sees them again. “Therefore you, too, now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you.”
Verse 25: “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming, when I will speak no more to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.” Afterward, the disciples rejoiced that He had made so plain to their heart the revelation of His relationship to the Father and of their ongoing relationship with Christ.
The periods of loneliness that all of us go through are times in which it seems as though the flow of the Lord’s anointing in your life has been turned off. Our problem is to see beyond what is apparent and to become aware of the Lord’s expanding revelation of Himself, to go beyond the degree in which we have walked in the flesh, and then walk in the Spirit. We tend to think that we are always walking in the Spirit, until the Lord shows us how much we really have been walking on a lower level. The process of growth will necessitate these lonely adjustments; it is inevitable that they come.
Growth brings many lonely adjustments, but you must remember that the problem is not your environment. With God, the problem is what you are becoming. Everything that He does has one purpose: to bring you into sonship. On your part, all that you have to do is to seek the Lord with all your heart.
Are you lonely? Then run after Him! Reach up to Him! You will find Him on the higher level which He has prepared for you.