The last moment before you gain a victory, Satan will throw a device against you like a smoke screen, which I’ve seen him use a thousand times on the people to get them to murmur and become discouraged, to feel as if nothing will happen. A wave of it hits that last attempt right from the bowels of Satan, the stench of hell that makes people murmur. Again and again I have seen a wave of murmuring try to settle over the people just before the Lord moves.
In several chapters in the book of Exodus, I found how the people would murmur just before God was ready to move, just before a victory came. Where the people are much wearied because of the rigors of the way, they are ready to be discouraged or murmur. Why does Satan hit you with discouragement? Why is that his last trick? When he can’t knock you out by hitting at your flesh, he tries to provoke you to do something in your spirit for which God will judge you. When you get to murmuring, God moves on the scene and the devil sits back and laughs. He can’t defeat you, but he can provoke you in your spirit to do something for which God would eliminate you. That is his last trick, the last thing he can do before the victory comes.
When the Israelites stood at the Red Sea, ready to murmur, they didn’t realize they would see the biggest miracle of their lives the very next day. In the wilderness, when they came to the bitter waters of Marah they murmured but God provided the tree that made the water sweet. Again at Rephidim they murmured for water and God started fountains out of the rocks. Although God provided again and again and again, in all these things they came to provoke God.
And this is what I now see, which I’ve never seen before. The book of Numbers tells how God finally made the decision they were to die in the wilderness, and we get the idea: “Well, ten spies came back and discouraged them and then they were filled with unbelief and it happened.” No, God said, “Ten times this has happened—ten times.” They murmured, they murmured, they murmured—ten times they did it. Finally God said, “That’s enough! You’ll never get in! You’ll die in the wilderness!”
Murmuring and complaining can become a way of life to you. You can become an old sorehead, complainer, griper, murmurer, and miss out because it becomes so conditioned in your spirit that every time you’re scratched, you bleed a complaint.
There has to be something in you that rejoices and gives thanks in everything. Exhort one another daily. Give thanks. In everything rejoice! If the battle is bitter, who cares? Let’s go on in. God has given the promises; we will walk in them. But God reverses His promises to the murmurers.
Neither let us make trial of the Lord, as some of them made trial, and perished by the serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer. Now these things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it. I Corinthians 10:9–13.
All that happened to these people in ages past is written for an example to those upon whom the ends of the ages have come. When James referred to this he said, “Murmur not brethren, against one another, that ye be not judged. The judge stands at the door. Behold, we count them happy who endured. Remember the long-suffering of Job?” (James 5:9, 11).
Because of what will happen in the future, you will be tested and tried to the utmost; therefore, I am going to suggest something practical, a way of life for you. I think you ought to become almost fanatical in the way you exhort one another, in the way that you deliberately set yourself to speak positively and create faith in the vision and revelation of the Lord day after day, service after service.
There will always be those going through it whom you will have to pick up off the floor. But this is “Operation Pick-Up.” Pick up and exhort one another while it is yet called today (Hebrews 3:13). Go after it with everything in your spirit, because this is the time of which Daniel prophesied that Satan would seek to wear out the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:25).
Because he seeks to do that, people can become so discouraged that they don’t know which way to go. And if they begin to murmur—that’s it! That will close the door faster than anything else. The Lord is long-suffering for a little while, but He moves in fast on murmuring.
I think we had better make this a way of life: good encouragement, positive exhorting and prophesying to one another. Put the fear of God and also the rejoicing and grace of God in one another because both of these should be before us continually. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. These things were written for our examples.” Let’s study and preach them; let’s exhort one another. Let’s strive with everything within us to see the positive approach continually presented, nothing negative: “Well, I don’t know.” It’s not what you don’t know; it’s what you do know.
That’s what saved the day when Job was ready to be dragged off looking like an animated boil—nothing good that you could look upon. And what did he say? “I know my Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25). One thing came out that saved his whole skin: “I know my Redeemer liveth, and I’m going to see Him. I know it, I know it.”
Don’t speak what you don’t know because you really don’t know how ignorant you are. It’s what you do know that matters. Although Paul had all kinds of problems he wrote, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded (II Timothy 1:12). I know!” That’s it—“I know.” If we get right down to this business of exhorting and encouraging one another, we’ll go after the impossible.
The Lord Jesus had it easy when He had five loaves and two fishes compared to what I think has to be done in this end time and the resources that will be needed. We would have to say, “Oh, greater works than these You’ll have to do, Lord. That first time around You had it easier than You do now.” Now is the time for the great exploits Christ will perform through His many-membered Body.
We go ahead because we believe God. Nothing is impossible. It is the day of exploits. It is the day of moving ahead. I have never seen devil activity more forceful than it is right now. Is that to discourage us? Or is it to encourage us that we will find more answers than ever before? I believe there is something around the corner. I can either sit down and murmur, or I can say, “Tomorrow it comes. Tomorrow it’s here.” You may say, “You’re living in the future.” No, I’m talking about tomorrow—twelve hours from now—eighteen hours from now. We should live in continual expectancy.
We see circumstances and we begin to interpret them. There is a difference between facts and the truth. The devil is a liar, and there’s an old saying, “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” Do you know what is meant by that? People can begin to present statistics and facts to you to establish a lie.
You could point to the various problems in one another, “Look at this and this and this!” We don’t have to look at them—they’re going to disappear.
A pioneer goes out, and what does he do? He looks at all the trees, but he doesn’t see the trees. By faith he sees them all cleared off and a beautiful crop instead. He starts to work, cuts down the trees, and builds himself a cabin. Then he has to get rid of all the stumps. If you’ve ever had to get rid of stumps, you know it’s a hard job. When he gets rid of the stumps he then plows the land. Now, it’s all because there’s a vision. Those stumps aren’t the truth; they are just momentary facts that will disappear. What is the truth? The truth is the vision that is in his heart.
What is the truth today—the state of the church as it is? God is the God of truth. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). How does God look at you? He doesn’t look at you as though you were filled with all kinds of faults. He sees you the way He saw you before the foundation of the world.
Whom He foreknew, them also did He predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). That’s the way He sees you. And He is working all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11). You get wiped out because you don’t see the vision God sees of you. But the vision God has of you is the truth. Things that you see and observe with your senses are not the truth; they are passing facts.
Look at the world and say, “I don’t believe all these facts of the world, because the world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (I John 2:17). You are standing upon a word, you are standing upon the Scriptures, and yet you look around and see all the other things that are not the truth. Heaven and earth shall pass away—it will all pass away—but what we believe won’t pass away. It is the truth.
We must learn this concept because it enables us to speak the positive. “Speak the truth every man to his neighbor” (Ephesians 4:25). That does not mean speaking discouragement or about things of the passing scene. It means speaking of the things which are eternal. When someone comes to me criticizing another, “Do you know this and this, and that about him?”—I say, “This is what I know about him: God has called him to be a prophet. That is the truth.” A man’s faults and what he lacks are not the truth. They are momentary hindrances which will disappear.
When an artist paints a picture, he paints out the stumps. An artist may paint a rural scene with a beautiful barn, a house, and cows—but I’ve never seen a painting with an outhouse in it. Why? It is not essential to the picture. Who wants to look at an outhouse? There is no beautiful revelation of God’s great scheme in nature there. So, paint them out.
Never be discouraged, but encourage one another while He still calls it today. Exhort one another. He said, “Now’s the time” (Hebrews 3:13).
The book of Hebrews keeps talking about that word, “now.” “Now” doesn’t mean a fixed point—it means whatever is present at any single moment in the creation of time that God made, until the day an angel stands with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea and declares that time shall be no more. So, “now” is “right now”—or, tomorrow can be “right now.” Yesterday was “right now.” This is the right-now generation. It’s a time when God says, “Do it now. Exhort one another now. Encourage one another now.” Whatever you see that’s wrong in the picture, curse it. But more than that, believe and bring forth.
It would be better to minimize the ministry of deliverance of temper, lust, greed, withdrawal, rebellion, etc., and emphasize the positive in discerning what the Lord has for a person.
Believe God, and exhort and encourage one another. We’ve concentrated on repentance and it has become pretty much a way of life to us, but we need something added to it. It is good to repent. It is good to be constantly aware of the need for it, but it is not good to be negative. We are not merely creating a vacuum by sweeping the filth out of the house; we are bringing the fullness of Christ into it.
Emphasize the positive side and discern what God has for a person and bless them with it. It is good to minister to those who have been praying and seeking the Lord on that which they know is going to come. When they pursue after it, they come into something that is really of the Lord.
These are the days that we seek after these things with all of our heart. We go after them when God’s going to give them to us. Keep moving in the Lord; be seeking the face of the Lord. If we do that, we will bring forth strong exhortations and encouragement, prayers and prophecies, and anointed songs—we can’t get into a rut of just going through a service. Every time there should be such expectancy that it literally lifts everyone up. Be encouraged for one another and press in. We have no right to be discouraged.
There’s a time to pray, and there’s a time not to pray. This struck me so forcibly as I was reading in the book of Exodus how the people were murmuring when the Egyptians were coming after them at the Red Sea. Moses stood there with his problems, crying, “O God, what are we going to do now?” What did God say to him? “Wherefore criest thou unto me? What are you praying for? All of this has taken place, and now, wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak to my people that they go forward” (Exodus 14:15).
God asks you a “Wherefore?” “Wherefore are you squealing like a pig caught in a fence? Why are you howling now? What’s the matter with you?” But you say, “Well, there are a lot of problems.” “Paint them out. What I’m telling you is the truth. That’s what goes into the pictures.” It’s time to paint your outhouses out of the picture. Take a big brush; paint them out. You don’t need them. Paint out the stumps. When you go by some of the old farm houses you see all the cars that have been in four generations of people—junk sitting there, rusting. Paint them out. You don’t want them in the picture. That isn’t a part of the picture.
What is a part of the picture? Your hopes and visions! Make them so plain and clear that people can see what God has spoken more clearly, and that it reaches your heart more fully than all the passing scene around you, like it did with old Abraham. Abraham probably seemed like an absentminded professor: “Abraham!”
“Huh? Hmmm—oh!”
“Where were you Abraham? You were somewhere, but you weren’t here.”
“I was in the day of Christ and I saw it and I’m rejoicing in it” (… Abraham rejoiced to see my day … John 8:56).
“Abraham! Abraham!”
“
Hmmm?” “What were you thinking about, Abraham?”
“Oh, just thinking about all my seed, how all the nations are going to be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).
“Don’t you know you’re an old man? Don’t you see how old your wife is?”
“Hallelujah! Praise the Lord” (on he goes).
There are men who have enough faith to walk with God; and the rule of their life is, What saith the Lord? “What does the Lord say?” That’s what they live by. The Lord’s word—that’s what I live by. That’s what will thrill my heart; that’s what will move me.
There was a man—Job—perfect in all his ways. News came from couriers telling him all his herds were gone and his children killed. The wealthiest man of the east was now a poor man—do you like those facts? But there was also the truth, and the truth was: He bowed down and worshiped the Lord. He walked with the Lord.