One of the things that God is doing for us is taking away the self-consciousness, the withdrawal, the defensiveness, and the self-condemnation. Although we don’t think anything more of our flesh with its weakness than we ever did (we utterly despise it), we have come to greatly appreciate what God has become within us. We are conscious of being God’s people, the remnant of the Lord in the end time.
As he saith also in Hosea, I will call that my people, which was not my people; and her beloved, that was not beloved. And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God. And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved: for the Lord will execute his word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short.
And, as Isaiah hath said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.
What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling; even as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: and he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame. Romans 9:25–33.
Paul used this basically in referring to the Gentiles and Israel, showing how God had taken out of Israel only a remnant and through them had fulfilled among the Gentiles all the covenants and plans that He had purposed. We see that the prophecy had to have another meaning, because it speaks about what the Lord would do in the end time when He does a quick work in the earth and cuts it short in righteousness by the outpouring of His Spirit. Basically Paul was referring to the beginning of the age, but this passage deals principally with the end of the age. The Israel he is referring to is the Israel of God, the remnant who come into the things of the Lord. He is very careful to say that they are not all of Israel that are of Israel.
There is a spiritual Israel, a remnant that God has taken out of His people. We have to understand that not everyone is going to follow after that which God has brought to us. We are a remnant that God has taken out of the Christian world, out of His people; and he is doing something special in us. If I were pastoring an old-order church, I wouldn’t preach to them as I preach to you. There is nothing set for the old-order church except for God to bring judgment upon it. The prophecies say that in the end time God will judge the circumcised and the uncircumcised alike, and that His judgment will begin at the house of the Lord (I Peter 4:17, 18). A devastating thing will happen to the churches and within the next decade there will be many changes. It won’t be Sunday morning as it is now in many churches.
What is going to happen to the remnant that God has called out and is bringing forth in this day? That is another picture. Are you dedicated to the Lord to be that remnant? God always deals with a remnant, not with the whole multitude. Out of all of Jesus’ followers, He chose a dozen men, a little remnant, to shake the world. God blesses, not through the many, but through the few. There were 32,000 men gathered on the mountain to battle with the Midianites, but Gideon’s army of only 300 defeated the enemy, and God received all the glory in that victory.
Our success will not be based upon the numbers we attain or the large churches we build. The measure of victory now is determined by the way we separate ourselves unto the Lord and walk with Him with all of our heart, dedicated to be that restoration remnant God is bringing forth in the end time to do His work in the earth. When God gives the call for this, not too many people respond. With a few, God begins to work to do His will. He moves upon His people, accomplishing both judgment and deliverance to those who will listen.
Do you remember the prophecy of Joel 2:28? “And it shall come to pass in the last day, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” Peter quotes the rest of that prophecy in Acts 2:20, 21: “The sun will be darkened and the moon turned into blood before that great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”
The prophecy of Joel indicates that the remnant will come forth to do the will of the Lord and in them will be the deliverance (Joel 2:32). In them also will be the key of judgment that will come upon the earth. When God first gave this call, it was surprising how many people were excited about it, but in the final analysis there will not be many making the migration from Babylon to Zion, because they have too many roots in Babylon.
When God brought the children of Israel out of slavery, many wanted to choose a captain and return to Egypt, because Egypt was still in their soul. When Cyrus of Persia gave the edict that the Jews could leave Babylon after the days of exile, many of them didn’t want to go back. Under Zerubbabel in 536 B.C. there were 42,360 men, 7,337 servants and 245 singers who returned in the first migration. In 457 B.C. Ezra went back with 1,754 men. In 444 B.C. Nehemiah the governor went back to fortify the city and rebuild the wall with an army escort of only a few men. Out of an entire nation of people, less than 45,000 left Babylon to return home, even though they had the sanction of the king and help from the governor, and even had all the vessels of the temple restored.
What happened? Many had a thriving business in Babylon and that had become more important to them. The Lord said, “The cry will come, ‘Behold, the supper is ready; all things are ready’ ” (Luke 14:17). One man said, “I bought a farm, and I have to go see it.” Another said, “I’ve bought five yoke of oxen and I must go prove them.” And another, “I have married a wife; I can’t come.” Relationships, possessions, enterprises—the things in which we are interested—all creep in until we don’t have time for the greatest invitation the world has ever known: to be a part of God’s end-time remnant, to be a part of the army of the Lord. We’re too busy.
Not many people today will be coming back from Babylon. They will have too many interests. God isn’t making this walk a little luxury that we tack on to people who are so busy with many different enterprises that are unrelated to the will of the Lord. You are either called for the will of God, or you are not called for the will of God. You are either called to be a ministry in the end time and an instrument in His hand, or you are not. This does not mean that you won’t be able to do your job, teach school, be a lawyer, or anything that God calls you to be. I’m talking about the sum total of your life, becoming involved with so many different interests that you are diverted from anything that is important in God. You can’t have so many good things that you miss the best.
The more I look into the Scriptures and see what Jesus said about the end time, the more disturbed I am concerning people finding this walk. He said, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there be who find it” (Matthew 7:14). The multitudes out in the world don’t want God, but even the Christian world doesn’t want to be exposed to very much of the Lord. To them discipleship is to be abhorred because it means involvement.
God makes it possible for us to be in this end-time remnant, but how many will be really open for it? It requires a thousand times more anointing and spiritual effort to build a small New Testament church than to build a large flourishing denominational church with thousands of people coming every Sunday. You can belong to that church and come and go. There is a program and socializing; they pigeonhole you right away so you will have friends and become involved in their social program. They keep you busy with something you are interested in.
We don’t have that kind of a program. When you come in here, what happens? You experience the work of the cross in your life. You go through it from the day you walk into this church. When you see a group of people worshiping the Lord with that violence in their spirits, you don’t realize what it has taken to bring that about. God deals with you; then He blesses you and deals with you again. After He revives you, He blesses you some more and deals with you some more and then revives you again. He uses a process similar to that used for tempering steel. First it is heated to a high temperature. Next it is cooled rapidly by plunging it into water or other liquid. Then it is heated again and cooled again. God uses this same process of hot and cold with you. He sends fiery trials to try you, to try your faith, until it seems as though some strange thing had happened to you.
There are always some who react to God’s dealings as they would to a stove on a cold day. When the stove is hot, they back up to it until they smell cloth scorching; then they back away real quick! After a while the numbness leaves and the ears stop aching, but they don’t want to get any closer. That’s the way this fire is. It’s all right from a distance; you can warm yourself by it. Some who are on the fringe love the fire; they love the life. I appeal to them most sincerely: If there are some things that you do not understand, that are not real to you—if you do not understand what God is doing in the restoration, if you like the warmth of it, but fail to understand it—then ask the Lord to show it to you by revelation. Ask God to make a clear-cut revelation to your heart, and then when you actually see that you have a call to be a part of this remnant, you will be ready to go through the things that you have to go through in order to be a part of it. Go to the elders and ask them to help you and pray with you.
There isn’t any situation as desperate as being in this church, loving the people, feeling a part of them, sensing the love, yet without a revelation of the walk. You sit here Sunday after Sunday, week after week, becoming critical and upset over many things because you don’t have a revelation of it. Once you have the revelation of it, everything changes.
We can’t convert you into it. There is no way that anyone can talk you into it unless God makes it real to your heart. There is a whole new generation bringing forth a remnant that will walk with God. It is frightening. Out of so many will come so few.