Dear Master, we come with confidence before You, knowing that the word that You give is not a product of our minds or thinking. Neither do we receive it that we might ponder over it as one who has heard a philosophical truth. These are days, Lord, that the flow of Thy word comes to us, both to speak it and to have it written indelibly upon our hearts. We rejoice in Thee, Lord. Thy Word is being made flesh again; within our flesh and on the fleshly tables of our hearts Thy Word is being written.
Loose us from every fear; bless us in times of spiritual conflict. We shall probably be in conflict until all things are made subject and brought under Your feet, but so let it be. If You choose that we should be the ones against whom the blast of the enemy should come in order that it shall please Thee to bruise him under our feet, we rejoice in this hour. We draw not back from the battle, but we enter into it to appropriate Thy victory. We shall be the ones who manifest and execute Thy victory. Lord, we shall go with Thy anointing to bring to pass in the earth the rewards of Thy sufferings, to see devils brought down and to see the sick healed, to see the spirits of men liberated that oppression shall end.
Show us the basic truths simply, lest we be overwhelmed with phrases and clichés. We must not be guilty of building theological terms that slowly lose their meaning. O God, show us again vividly, clearly, what it means to walk with God. Show us what the Walk really is to mean. In Thy name we ask. Amen.
We will look to the book of Daniel, chapter 12. “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. And those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Verses 1–3.
“They lead many to righteousness.” Every word of this is so significant to the Walk. We are not dealing here with a time past, because the resurrection of those who sleep has not taken place. We are living in the day when these things will take place. We live in the days when the glory will come forth in people, those who have insight. It is those who have revelation and perception who are going to come into the glorification of the sons of God. Keep in mind this connection between perception and the glory that is to come, they are directly associated with each other.
The Lord will lead us and teach us, and then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord… Hosea 6:3. It is that coming to know Him, coming to walk with Him, coming to have that deep spiritual insight that we are reaching for.
He said, “But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase.” Daniel 12:4. It is speaking of increase of travel and the great, worldwide manifestation of an increase of knowledge. We have never known as we know now. The geophysical year that ended a few years ago was known for the multitude of new discoveries. The exchange of knowledge now is unbelievable.
Textbooks are obsolete almost before they are printed. Stop and think of the advances that have been made in the fields of electronics, medicine, geography, travel in space and many other fields—all within a generation’s time. All the knowledge that the world had amassed and had been able to record from the dawn of history up to the year 1800, was doubled within the next hundred years, by 1900. Then the sum total of all of that was doubled within the next fifty years. Between 1950 and 1960, the sum total of all knowledge that had been compiled and printed doubled again. Between 1960 and 1963, it doubled again. Yet isn’t it strange that there is so much ignorance in the world?
Knowledge is increasing at a phenomenal rate, yet people do not know how to regulate their lives in this time of technological advances. The phrase is true that television is the great wasteland. Think of the technical skill and knowledge that goes in to broadcasting, and yet what a tremendous waste of time it is. Intellectual people are removing television from their homes because it introduces images and ideas so distorted and remote from any real, full kind of living that it introduces an arid wasteland into our lives. So we have knowledge increasing, but we do not know what to do with it. We do not know how to move into it. There is no problem of ecology or any other problem that the world could not solve if it would just apply the knowledge that it has right now. But people are not doing that. It is a sign from the Scriptures: knowledge shall be increased.
This is the day of distress that will come upon the earth. I don’t believe there is any valid reason for many of the shortages and problems that are happening. There is something disturbing here going on and it is way beyond the little man’s intelligence or ability to figure out. But the word came to Daniel, “Now Daniel, you conceal these words and seal up the book until the time of the end. Then the lid will be taken off.” You see, this is going to be the time of revelation. When it says that knowledge will increase, don’t just look for it in a scientific realm. Look for the knowledge to increase in the spiritual realm. Very humbly I say this, that teachings and the revelation that has come by the Spirit, by the Living Word during the short few years of this move have far exceeded the revelation and the deep perception that existed in the early Church. If it were not for the revelation that is coming now, even the New Testament would be a relatively sealed book to us. This is not to exalt man, but it is to say rather that God is turning things loose. I want you to understand this. Something is going to happen: those who have insight will shine brightly, like the brightness of the expanse of heaven.
A little further on in the same chapter, Daniel says (verses 8, 9), I heard but could not understand; so I said, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these events?” And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time. Many will be purged, purified and refined;… What has the Lord been speaking to us about lately? About being pure, getting ready, preparing our hearts. That is the whole message. Don’t say, “We don’t want to hear all of that teaching about holiness and righteousness.” You have to; that is the end-time message.
Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight (revelation) will understand. Daniel 12:10. Those who have revelation knowledge will understand. Those who have the spiritual perception of what is going on, they will understand. We should go back into the book of Daniel. If fact, we have to go through the whole Bible again. Do you know why? God is opening up the Book! We will find deeper teaching and knowledge that will make any commentary or true fundamental textbook that has been written on Bible doctrine in the past days of the restoration, look like kindergarten primers. Compare any commentary on Hebrews, or Ephesians, with the messages that God has given in this Walk. There is no comparison as far as the depth is concerned. Anyone who begins to read this word is suddenly aware that we are in the time of insight. The wicked will not understand, but the wise will understand. They who have insight will understand. They will be purified and made ready, and they will go on with God.
Do not let your heart be distracted to other things, because this is God’s move to prepare a people who will walk before Him in the end time. Do not get distracted into projects which work toward accomplishing other objectives. I am so concerned about this. If we could construct a program right now to reach all of South America, Canada, and the Orient, to move in through all of Asia and Africa, we still would be missing the mark if we became dedicated to such a program. Preaching the gospel of the Kingdom is something else.
The gospel of the Kingdom does not come by religious and spiritual propaganda. It is not the mouthing of principles and words. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. I Corinthians 4:20. The words have to be freighted with the power of God. And they will come through vessels that God has sanctified and prepared. Oh, we have to be sanctified completely—the whole spirit, soul and body will be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord (I Thessalonians 5:23).
If you have flaws in your nature that you have not overcome, God is allowing them to come up. He is emphasizing your need that you might seek His righteousness with all your heart. That is what the Walk is all about. It is to get a people prepared. These churches could do more by just standing in faith and prophesying the word of the Lord than by any other method. All of the money and all of the resources in the world cannot equal the spiritual authority that is coming forth through a people who are enlightened by revelation, and they prophesy, they loose in the name of the Lord.
Whether you believe it or not, God has chosen the Walk to change the face of the world. The changes that have taken place in the last twenty or so years have been accomplished, more than by any other source, by God revealing it first and then the saints prophesying it. This does not underestimate what other people have from God. God has many, many people, but the Walk is unique in that it was chosen to be a prophetic community, an instrument in the hand of the Lord, a handful of corn in the earth on the top of the mountains; the harvest thereof shall shake like Lebanon (Psalms 72:16). God had intended something to come forth out of it. Do not despise your place in this Walk. And do not marvel when you are tested so much that you wonder, “What strange thing has happened to me” (I Peter 4:12)? I will tell you—God has happened to you! He has chosen you and has anointed you for something, and your labors are not in vain. We are not working at old order projects. We do not have a conscience toward dead works. We dedicate ourselves first to be vessels of honor in the House of the Lord, then He will fill us and speak forth through us.
We should strive above everything else for a pure word from God to always flow. It is the adulterated word that loses its meaning—the preaching and sermonizing with the objectives of working out a program and a plan of man, the self-exalting thing that comes from words that are somewhat anointed, but diluted. Cry out, like a newborn baby; cry for the unadulterated milk, the pure word of the Lord that ye may grow thereby (I Peter 2:2). Because the pure word has been coming, the rate of spiritual growth in people is phenomenal. People experience in a few months time a spiritual growth that used to take years to enter into. You ask some of the young people, “How long have you been in the Walk?” And they answer; “Well, a month,” or “Three.” Yet they are already reaching out, prophesying, and flowing in the Spirit.
It is uncanny to see what God is doing. He is doing a quick work in the earth (Romans 9:28), but He is cutting that work short in righteousness at a time when the wicked will do wickedly, yet many are being purified and made white. They are standing out against the dark background of chaos and the end of an age and the awful tidal wave of judgment that is sweeping over everything man has ever done. In the midst of all of that, many will be made white and will shine as the heavens. The glory will return.
Don’t think that we have arrived in the Walk; God has just started! Great things will take place in the next very few years as we walk with God, letting God purify us to the very depth of our being. It is those who come to know Him who will be strong and do exploits. Even the youth shall faint … and the young men shall utterly fall. Isaiah 40:30. But those who wait on the Lord and come to know Him, they will be strong and do exploits. I am trying to convey to you that this is what the Walk is.
Let’s read the passage one more time: Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. And those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. Daniel 12:1–3.
We used to interpret that, “Well, we have to be soul winners.” Does it mean that the soul winners are going to shine like the stars? No; many are out doing what they call “winning souls” who are not leading anyone to righteousness. Leading men to righteousness is quite another thing. The Walk has brought something that is so essential. We embrace the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but another one of the distinctive things is this love of righteousness, this desire to be righteous, to leave everything of the old life of sin and come into a purification and purity before God.
The book of Esther tells how Esther was finally to be brought before King Ahasuerus. If he delighted in her, she would become the queen; otherwise if the king never called for her again, she would go into the second harem and be classified as a concubine. There would still have to be a relationship to the king, but it would not be the best. So before her presentation to the king, she went through six months of preparation with myrrh. Myrrh was the spice used in the preparation for burial. For six months she had to go through a dying; then came six months of beautiful spices and cosmetics. When she came before him, she was really prepared. God is putting you through the same preparation. Do you think you are still in the months of myrrh? You probably feel that you smell like a corpse! But be of good courage, one day the bride is going to smell really beautiful. God will bring forth His righteousness. He will have a Bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27).
The minute that we disassociate in our minds this righteousness from our human efforts and our human discipline and we come to the appropriation of His righteousness and our dedication to it, we will move right into it in the name of the Lord. We will have it when we want it, we believe in it, we embrace it with all of our heart as a Scriptural possibility, a divine provision of grace for us. Do you want to be righteous? Do you cry in your heart, “Lord, I want to really be righteous! I don’t want anything of a fleshly duty or discipline to be religious; I want to really be holy in the righteousness of God. I want to be a partaker of His holiness.” The Lord scourges every son whom He receiveth (Hebrews 12:6), that they may become a partaker of His holiness. Oh, there is nothing like the time when the Lord begins to lay the whip on you; you begin to cry out to God and He gives you His holiness.
Do you still find it difficult to get excited about holiness? I think I still have in my spirit what I picked up when I was a boy. “Lord, make the wicked people good. And Lord, make the good people nice.” Sometimes I felt I would rather go and associate with some of the humbler people that the devil had than with some of the pharisees that the Lord had. There was a meanness in their spirits. Oh, I want a winsome holiness. I want to be like Jesus! I do not want that phony thing that comes up. Some groups talk about a second and third work of grace, and so forth. Yet how many thousand works of grace He has been working in all of us! It isn’t a thing as identifying and numbering experiences. There are experiences, and there is also an unfolding progression into each one—into the revelation of it, into the appropriation of it, into the manifestation of it, into the outreach of it. O God, we want to be holy, winsome people. We have known the sanctification message that came from the holiness movement, and way down deep there was a heart cry for that which God was going to do. But we found little in it that was really satisfying. But now God is holding it before us, saying “Many will be purified! Many will be purged, purified, and refined! The wicked will act wickedly and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have this insight will understand.”
We are going to walk with Him. How are you going to relate that to problems that you have? Oh, it is very simple. Look in Zechariah 13:1. It has a dual meaning. Not only does it talk about the Lord’s first coming, but it talks about now. In that day (he is talking about the day of our Lord) a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. Do you want to experience that fountain? Do you feel that you need to be cleansed? The Bride is going to know that washing of water by the Word.
Now let’s look at Malachi 3:1–3. “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant (this is our Lord), in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming ? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.
I am going to give you one little secret: the worship will be as deep and real, and filled with the revelation of the Lord as we can possibly hope for, when we who worship are purified first. We must first come as priests of the Lord to the laver. In the wilderness the women were called upon to bring their little copper mirrors, polished until they could see themselves. They didn’t have glass, but they had beautiful metal mirrors. These were cast into the furnace and melted. When the workmen poured the mold, they made the beautiful laver. The laver in the wilderness was then polished, so that the priests could see themselves in it. The priests may have just come from the altar of sacrifice, their hands still stained with the blood of what they had offered to the Lord. The stench of the entrails that they had taken out of some of the sacrifices might still be upon their hands, but they saw themselves and washed.
When the priests were clean, they moved on into the holy place (Exodus 30:18–21), to the altar of incense and the table of shewbread. There they began to offer their worship to the Lord. First the cleansing; then the worship, and ultimately the holy of holies, the very presence of the Lord Himself. First you must have that laver experience, and this is what the Bride has, the washing of water by the Word (Ephesians 5:26). This is what you are going through when you sit in a service and you find something dealing with your heart. The word is coming and you say, “Yes, I see my need, but I see more than my need—I see His provision. I can be clean. I can be purified. I can be purged. It is a possibility.”
We have believed in salvation but we have not believed in righteousness. But know that this is a principle of the Kingdom: … seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness… The other things will be added (Matthew 6:33). All of the glory, all of the authority, all of the power of the Kingdom will come to those who seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. Everything else follows it. We are beginning to believe for His righteousness. We have not really touched it as much as we should. We must believe to the very depth of our nature. Nothing bold is going to remain—none of the human idiosyncrasies, propensities, none of the desires we have known, and hung onto, or found that they were still operative in our lives. They are going to go. He will sanctify you wholly … your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. I Thessalonians 5:23, 24. Lord, we love Your righteousness. We cry out for it. We cannot disassociate the great glory that is coming from the purification that precedes it. Believe, believe, believe to be made whole. Believe to be made whole! Believe to be cleansed!
May the Lord bless the word to your heart. Can you apply it? You may start out with some nasty little thing you want to get rid of anyway and say, “Well, this is a good place to start.” Start there, but don’t stop there. Believe for the Lord to heal in the Walk the hidden rocks, the things that are below the surface, the things that you do not even understand, or you will be sailing along one day in the old ship Zion and you will hit one of them. You will begin to go down or flounder and say, “I didn’t know it was there.” This is the time that the Lord is saying “Gather the stones out of the highway. Clear the hidden rocks out of the channel. Make a way for My people, a way of holiness and a way of righteousness” (Isaiah 62:10). We are going to do it, the Lord helping us, because this is His will. By faith we believe.
You say, “I want to believe for that righteousness. I am going to be cleansed. I am going to be purged, purified, and refined. Those were the words in the text. What did Jesus say? “Now you are going to be clean through a second work of grace”? “Now you are clean by long days of tarrying”? No. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. John 15:3. Will you believe that He can make you righteous? If you believe the word, you accept, “Jesus, Thou art my righteousness.”
The Lord Our Righteousness is one of the compound names of Jehovah (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16). The Lord Our Righteousness. Believe for it. Believe to become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Claim, “By faith I shall be purged. My old nature will be crucified. Christ will meet me. I believe for righteousness. I believe that He will reveal the very secrets of my heart to me. I am going to seek God and be purged, I am going to be purified, I am going to be refined. I will come out like that refined silver and gold. I shall be one of those who offers an offering to the Lord in righteousness. The days are to end that I come and stand before the Lord feeling a heaviness, guilt, and condemnation. I shall come with the righteousness of God, an awareness that I stand before God by His grace in His righteousness, and it has taken over. It is imparted and imputed.”
Can it be that He would know our hearts if we just worshiped Him? Can it be that we can look up and see how beautiful He is, how holy He is, and yearn to be like Him—not in similarity but we can actually partake of His likeness? We can look to Him and say, “Oh, Lord, invade me. Let Your beauty and all Your wonderful compassion and purity be seen in me!”