I am coming into a new understanding of what the Kingdom will be and what hell will be, because I am beginning to comprehend the responsibility which God has laid upon man. God has given man a responsibility: either he can choose to be a recipient and a vehicle of the Kingdom of God and all its blessings on the earth, or he can choose to create the hell which he will partake of one day. I have always found it difficult to believe that God created evil and then capped it all off by creating a hell. Could God create such a place of deep torment to put His creatures if He had to be the source of that evil Himself? I do not believe so.
That which is created through human and spirit channels does not die. In some way it has the capacity to generate a force that does not disappear. It may change its form, but it does not disappear. In that way, I suppose, the spirit world is like the natural world: matter cannot be completely destroyed. It can change its form; it can seem to be an entirely different thing, but it is not destroyed. Forces generated on the human and demonic realms can never be destroyed either.
I know this principle is true of God. Whatever He does is perfect. He says concerning His Word, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall not pass away. Matthew 24:35. He has set something in motion by His Word. It accomplishes His purposes and returns to Him; it never returns void (Isaiah 55:11). It is like a great, endless boomerang. It is like a cycle. As the force is sent forth, changes are made and other things happen, but the Word dies not. Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119:89. We do not fully realize how immutable are His counsels, how unchangeable are His ways. Nothing that He does or brings forth by His Word ever dies. There is not even one promise that is null and void.
The book of Hebrews describes quite clearly how God rested on the seventh day from His labors and promised a Sabbath rest to His people (Hebrews 4:4–6). Israel missed it; they did not have it under Joshua; and they also missed it under David (Verses 7, 8). The writer goes on to say, “There remaineth therefore the promise of the Sabbath rest” (Verse 9). Someone must enter into this promise. It will remain a valid thing hovering over the earth like a cloud with a beautiful golden lining—the gold of God’s promise and provision. The fact that no one has ever claimed it does not alter the fact that when God spoke a word it was a thing forever settled. Romans 11:29 says that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. God sends forth a provision for people to walk in. If they do not walk in it, it is to their own hurt and to their own destruction, but the promise remains true.
When someone prophesies the word of the Lord by the Holy Spirit, he turns loose a creative force that will never die. The book of Revelation speaks of the apostles and prophets who gave their lives; it says that they do rest from their labors and their works do follow them (Revelation 14:13). They died, but what they had done, what they had said, what they had created by the Holy Spirit coming through them as channels of God’s omnipotence and wisdom, did not die. It continued on and on.
A man, filled with the Spirit of God and directed by the Lord, could stand and prophesy in the desert, where there were no microphones to record, no printing presses to publish, not even any human ears to hear, and that man could change an age. He could bring a new era into being.
Through faith we understand that the ages are framed by the word of God, so that what appears is not made of what doth appear (Hebrews 11:3). Out of the invisible, out of just a word that comes from God, things come into being. While everything was in a state of chaos, the Spirit of God was brooding over the face of the deep, over the first creation. Then God said, “Let there be. Let there be light” (Genesis 1:2, 3), and it came forth. The end of the Dark Ages was marked by one man crying, “The just shall live by faith.” A whole age can he changed because people believe God, because they stand and proclaim a word from the Lord. It can change things because that word goes on and on and on.
Other things cry out too. We read of the souls under the altar that were crying out for vengeance (Revelation 6:9, 10). We read of the blood of Abel; God said, “His blood crieth from the ground to Me” (Genesis 4:10). The world is filled with many cries that do not end. The Word of the Lord does not end; it is forever settled.
The negative forces do not die either. Satan came at the beginning to generate torment and terror, evil and sin, and to bring all manner of hatred into the world. He succeeded. When men express that evil again and again, we realize it is not just the first Adamic sin that we are dealing with. We are dealing with that which is vomited out of hell itself, causing men to rise up and curse one another. God warns us, “You will give an account for every idle word” (Matthew 12:36).
Satan constantly moves upon men to use the name of Jesus Christ in blasphemy. Satan knows that every single word is important and a man will give an account of it; sooner or later he will answer for that word. Every blasphemy, every idle word, every bit of murmuring, complaining, and unbelief will circle back upon the heads of those who uttered such and become their destruction. Remember the children of Israel in the wilderness? They murmured and complained until the serpents rose up to bite them and they began to die (Numbers 21:5, 6).
God has made a way of escape. That is the reason the Savior came. Jesus is a way of escape from the evil consequences of your own sin. Even apart from what a man has inherited through Adam (and that force is great), a man can sin, and his sin will be visited upon his children to the third and fourth generations (Deuteronomy 5:9). The horror and the evil comes upon him again and again.
Sometimes you can observe an entire generation of a family locked in iniquity, and you wonder who is responsible. They (or their forefathers) have brought the evil on themselves. There is no soundness from head to foot. They are engulfed in the torment of their own sin.
In these days, Satan has brought forth much in the way of curses, witchcraft, and evil; and it rages against the people of the Lord. We are caught in a generation where evil is rampant. Never has there been such great viciousness and so many curses coming forth as there are today. Are they effective? Of course they are effective. Can innocent people be cursed by the wicked? Of course they can be. The force is a free force, and it works. Can people put curses on one another? Yes, and God is a righteous judge who will one day judge the wicked.
There are immunities and protections that God can give His people so that they are taken out of the dominion of darkness and are translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13). In that place, these forces no longer affect them, and they can gain a tremendous measure of immunity. To whatever extent they will accept the immunity, they can have it. If a man submits to oppression either consciously or unconsciously, it reigns in his life.
What is God going to do with this world? He does the only wise thing that He can do: He turns loose a handful of people and tells them, “I want you to create and to become channels. I want you to stand and prophesy My Kingdom. I will teach you to pray. Stand and cry to the Father, ‘Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Matthew 6:9b, 10. Cry it, prophesy it, speak it until it comes forth.”
God does very few things sovereignly, without human agency. He always has someone who will arise to do His will. At the very beginning of John’s gospel, it is written: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. John 1:6. God wanted to turn something loose, so while John was still in his mother’s womb, the Lord sent His Word and filled the little, unborn prophet with the Holy Spirit. God creates channels and agents who will come forth to speak a word from God and see it come to pass.
Through faith we understand that the ages are framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). If God wants to bring forth something, it does not happen by a conspiracy of circumstances nor evolve through social conditions and pressures. He does not bring forth His will that way. Instead, He sends someone who prophesies, who speaks a word from the Lord. If He wants to bring something down, He says, “Arise. Prophesy the word of the Lord against Nineveh. Prophesy against Tyre. Prophesy against Sidon. Prophesy against Babylon. Prophesy against Assyria.” These were civilizations that could have flourished for many hundreds of years. They had a stranglehold on every means of production that existed and upon the lives and liberties of men. But men of God prophesied, and those civilizations came down!
God has sent forces into the world that are resident within our own selves, and we do not yet realize their impact. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Ephesians 3:20, 21. Where is the power of God that will change this age? It is within us. We become the channels of the Kingdom; we become the channels to prophesy it. It will happen if we believe it and prophesy it. We will prophesy according to the proportion of our faith (Romans 12:6).
Many events are happening in the world today because a few people responded to a word, “Prophesy the word of the Lord.” As God’s people speak His word through the Spirit of God within them, they become the source of a force which will not die. It will live on and on in the days of the Kingdom. Often people are blessed by prophecies they have never heard nor understood, but the prophecies have turned loose a blessing that will not die, that will not cease.
We walk on with the Lord. We cry out, and we speak the word of the Lord; we speak it again and again. We walk around our Jericho. We give our shouts, and the walls begin to come down, one by one. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.… Isaiah 9:7. The stone cut without hands will grow until it fills the whole earth (Daniel 2:34, 35). The Kingdom starts as a little seed and grows until it becomes a tree in which the birds are housed (Matthew 13:31, 32). From little beginnings God can bring forth great things, and He starts by giving a word to the hearts of His people to stand and speak. We must understand the significance of our prophecies and of our psalms. We must understand what they generate.
The book of Revelation speaks of the four and twenty elders around the throne, of the four living creatures, and of all the hosts that are continually adoring and praising God. As they stand and worship, they are generating a force through which God is pleased to dominate all His creation.
When you worship, you are turning loose a force. Oh, how Satan hates worship! Satan hates worship because a real worshiper of God is one of the greatest forces that God has created. True worshipers turn loose the power of God.
Satan also hates prophecy; he will try to get you to despise it or think it commonplace. But your prophecies are being fulfilled to the ends of the earth; your prophecies are changing things. You may be discouraged because of the battle against you. But Satan must assault such an opposing source. Satan is continually trying to curse and come against it.
There may be times when Satan will rage against us, but it will only be for a short season because the tide is going the other way. We are not the defenders nearly as much as we are the aggressors. We are the aggressors, and we are definitely driving forward as never before. We are creating situations in which Satan rages, because he knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12). The raging of Satan will come against the inhabitants of the earth.
What will ultimately happen to all the evil of Satan? God will send it into the refuse pit. The Scripture says that the Lord will gather out of His Kingdom everything that makes an offense (Matthew 13:41). He will dump it in the rubbish heap, a special place that He has prepared for Satan and his angels. Satan knows that, ultimately, every vicious thing that he has brought against God—every bit of hatred, every evil thing he has brought against God’s People—will circle back into the abyss with him and his instruments; and there it will live on. The fires are not quenched the torment is unceasing (Mark 9:43).
Some people think God could not create such a tormenting place as hell. He has not created it; Satan and his servants have created it themselves. The worst thing that can happen to an evil man is that he becomes a victim of his own evil. God allows that to happen. Did God create hell? No, the universe has to have a place of refuse, a cesspool, a dumping ground where the worm dieth not (Isaiah 66:24). This reference to Hades (the Greek word “Gehenna”) likens it to the city dump outside of Jerusalem. In that dump the worms fed upon the filth and decay. But in the eternal dumping ground the worms will never die.
A dumping ground is necessary. As we shake loose the oppression, the oppressing spirits make their way into the abyss. God has decreed a gravitational pull for them; they are sent downward. God says of His people: “In My name shall they cast out devils. In My name they will heal the sick. In My name they will turn the tide” (Mark 16:17, 18). The things that have come against the people of God will be bound; into the abyss they will go.
What happens to us? We become those proclaimers of the Kingdom. We begin to positively create. We must take our position and prophesy to the people the mercies and the joy of the Lord. We must prophesy to them the release from confusion and prophesy to them the peace, the joy, and the love that is to flow. We turn it loose by God’s word. The force will not die; it will not fall to the ground. Let us become God’s force and proclaim His Word in the earth!
You bless, and people will be blessed; then the blessing will return upon you. That is the reason it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). The law of the boomerang will work. You bless, and the blessing lights upon a person, but a great portion of it returns to you again. Through faith, dare to become a channel of God’s grace, of His omnipotence, of His faith, for through faith you understand that the ages are framed by the word of God. Speak His word. Watch a new age be framed. See it happen before your eyes.
Prophesy and watch the bones come together and see an exceedingly great army stand (Ezekiel 37). Prophesy, sons and daughters. See visions. Dream dreams (Joel 2:28). Enter into what God has for you. Proclaim it. Turn it loose. Watch it bless you.