The Old Testament tells of a time, like the restoration that God is giving His people today, in which the Jewish people laid the foundation for the temple after bitter years of exile. When they were captive in Babylon, they had no song, and so they hung their harps on a willow tree and wept, saying, “How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land” (Psalm 137:1–4)? But after they returned from exile, a younger generation, who had never known the former glory, came with them. As the foundation of the temple was being laid, a great sound of shouting and weeping was heard afar off. It was a mingling of joy and rejoicing for the young, but for those who were older it was a weeping for the glory that had departed (Ezra 3:13).
Today as God is establishing the foundation of His Kingdom, we shall see a reversal: joy and rejoicing for what we have attained and for what God has bestowed upon us so generously. There will not be weeping for what has been and is not, but there will be intercession for what will be. At the start of our being thrust into God’s end-time restoration, He focused us first on the emphasis of worship in the services. We worshiped the Lord and we sang our songs for years; then the hour of travail came upon us and we began to intercede and cry before Him. Our minds were not able to perceive anything else but the groanings and agony of intercession. It was not the gentle worship with our harps by a stream. We were not soothing sheep; we were stirring ourselves to the utmost, bringing forth the depths of everything within us to seek the face of the Lord. This has continued for some time and it will not lessen to any degree.
A change has come in our worship services. Along with moments of intercession and spiritual warfare, we find sweeter worship than we have ever heard. Like apprentices in a carpenter shop, we had to learn how to plane areas until they were smooth and how to make joints fit together in unity. We had to learn many things, and the Carpenter of Nazareth taught us well to use one building tool after another, with a special router for the devil. The Lord is saying that we have learned each tool well, and we can be a great Body of laborers before Him. We will be priests to offer up the most perfect sacrifices of worship that the world has heard for centuries, and we will also be warriors to win for the Lamb the reward of His sufferings. We will not only know spiritual warfare, worship, and work, but even within the scope of one service we will watch changes from intense intercession to times of refreshing, of drinking in the rain of heaven. Everything we have learned in part will now be made complete.
Never before has there been a liturgy that has not gone into a rut, nor a people who have not become eccentric on one doctrine or experience. Today God is liberating us to move in everything. The Body of Christ is becoming so versatile that it is like a fine instrument having many strings, like a harp to bring forth the glory and the harmony of the Lord. Although we have work to do and a world to move, that is not our biggest job—we have the Lord to worship!
The common knowledge of the Word that God is giving His people now is coming in a Body ministry. Sermons are being prepared, not by one or given only to one, but by many. Each person can have a burden for certain things, but the overall Word that comes through several witnesses is the safe, sure Word that we need. God has given us a guideline that we be dedicated to the oneness within the Body, a oneness that has never been seen before. It will be such a oneness in everything, that even when one Word is spoken, it will be spoken with such unity that it will bring a release.
A certain urgency is taking over God’s people as they hear and receive the living Word that God is bringing. It drives and torments and stirs them in such a way that they know they are not hearing words of man’s wisdom. An apostolic spirit is reaching through to them to bring in the Kingdom. The Kingdom will not come with soft wishes. It will come by the rugged, intense devotion of men and women who seek first the Kingdom.
We are beginning to know what it means to seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness. We are beginning to learn what it means to push, push, push to see the Lord glorified in the earth. We are living to see that the Bible is not a Book of platitudes; it is not to be a Book of doctrine; it is not to be a Book of comfortable thoughts to comfort people in their heavy times. The Bible is to go further than that; it is to be a Book that works. This is the first time since the days when Christ walked among people, and perhaps the first time in the history of the world, that so many people are dedicated and devoted to insist that God be God, that Jehovah be Jehovah, that the Word be real, and that it be fulfilled.
Let us not be content with anything short of perfect fulfillment. Too many of God’s people have lived their lives thanking God for a cupful when He has ordained that they should have overflowing blessings. If you consider Christ’s miracle of loaves and fishes, you realize that something is missing today. Something is missing because we do not have the blessings pouring in until we have to stop the people from giving as they did in the Old Testament when the people brought the free-will offering for building the tabernacle (Exodus 36:5–6). We do not have miracles of deliverance and fulness like the people did in New Testament times, when there were twelve baskets full left over after everyone had eaten all that they needed (Luke 9:17). Instead of believing for miracles, too many people cry, “Oh, pray for me. I am really going through something. Pray that the Lord will help me. I need a little lift!”
Now we must focus upon total, absolute victory. The promises of God must exceed our expectations, according to Isaiah 42:9: Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. We have a long way to go to see the promises fulfilled that we do know about. However, we must enter into days of such fulness that we are continually walking in New Testament surprises. The multitudes were amazed at the works of Jesus, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. Matthew 9:33b. They had never known anything like it before. That is what we are contending for today. We are contending for the superabundance that God promised, Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. Ephesians 3:20. God grant that His power working within us shall be released.
Each day I wonder, “Is this the day when the greater works begin? Is this the day when the exploits happen? Is this the time that God’s fulness will break loose like a tidal wave?” It might as well start now! Let us speak the word of the Lord and move in God.
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning. And the nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; and you will be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will designate. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”; but you will be called, “My delight is in her,” and your land, “Married”; for the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. Isaiah 62:1–5a.
The young sons of God, the spiritual sons of the prophets, are to marry the entire Body of Christ to bring forth in the earth what must be. They have come to travail and they have been born. They were not born without a reason. They were born to father the Kingdom. Can you grasp what that means? A wedding is taking place. It is a wedding that is taking place in many areas: with the various groups that God has been raising up; with the young sons that He has been raising up; with the ministry that He has been raising up as fathers. The sons of God who are coming forth as sons of prophets have been fathering the apostolic ministry who fathered them. On a human level Isaiah’s prophecy would be misinterpreted. How can this be: “Your sons shall marry you”? Can You understand that you are not brought forth to follow your fathering apostle; but at this particular time you are brought forth to father his full ministry coming forth. He may be your father, but you become a father of the release of his apostolic ministry to the Kingdom.
We find a mutual dependence as the nature of God is reproduced in us; we find its versatility even as it is with the Father. The Father is called El-Shaddai, the All Sufficient One, the Great Breasted One. All of us have known how God has mothered us. He says how He will suckle us, and we will feast at His bountiful breast (Isaiah 66:12–13). The blessing of the Lord comes as He mothers us; but we also know that He is a father to us in the way that He chastens every son whom He receives. We are well-acquainted with what seems to be ambivalence in God. Sometimes God chastens us, and we wonder if He really loves us when He is beating us. We feel His fierceness, His ferocity, His anger, and we realize that He hates sin and the flesh nature; He hates things that remain of the human nature. He wants to possess us. He is jealously angry that anything remains to dominate the life that He wants His nature to possess, and with His father-love He comes after us. With His mother-love, He comforts us. He is bringing us to the maturity of feeling a compassionate responsibility for the apostolic company in its entirety. At the same time, we feel like dear children, really beloved. We do not feel as if we are lost or on the outside, but rather that we are of God’s household, the family of faith.
Draw from the spiritual fathers. Esteem them highly. You have many instructors, but not many fathers (I Corinthians 4:15). Be grateful for them and love them. Do not worship them, but have an honest, deep dedication to the divine order that God has brought. This is not legalism. The father rejoices and finds a deepening respect for the fathering nature of God that comes forth in the sons and grandsons. There must be a mingling of responsibility and interdependence in the family of God.
In I John 2:14, we read, I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. In this chapter, John addressed the children, the fathers, and the young men, repeatedly. He mentioned the fathers twice because in the scope of growth, there are actually two phases of fatherhood: the experience of being fathered and the experience of being a father. All of us enter into it successively.
Those who are walking in submission to divine order are seeing the release from being individual segments in the Body. They will flow together in an interdependent expression that is mutual, and they will prophesy prophecies that will change the world. They will walk, as they never walked before, without being dependent on the gifts and endowments of the fathering apostle. But with their faith, their apostolic father will be strong to do anything that God sets before him. They will not be limited to their own spiritual experiences or endowments of specific gifts, but they will be able to move in anything as they reach out and move as one Body. This is what God intends that His people become, until they are no longer individuals attaining gifts, but the gifts are so manifested that the individuals within a Body can manifest by faith any gift that is resident among them, any gift that the Body has by a spiritual endowment upon it.
The day of the individual has ended, and the day of the Body has begun. Because the day of the Body has begun, there is an interdependence and an intermingling of ministry. We are becoming co-creators of the will of God in the earth and, therefore, co-creators of one another. The Body makes increase through that which every member supplies (Ephesians 4:16).
No apostle, prophet, or apostolic company will be established without the sons coming forth to father them. That is, the sons begin to father those who fathered them. Anyone who has the call and commission of God upon him for a foundational work is well aware that he will never come forth without the fathering intercession of his sons who come forth. He will never get anywhere without them.
We depend upon one another and become a product of one another’s faith, according to Isaiah’s prophecy: For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord (as His remembrancers, His reminders), take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Isaiah 62:5–7.
Consider this very carefully, or it may seem arrogant, or sacrilegious, or irreverent; but you must come to the place where you become God’s conscience. God is saying, “Come on, now—do you want to rule and reign with Me? I want to see how you can take responsibility. I want to see if you can find the principles in the Word, and then become so dedicated and so insistent that they come to pass. I want you to stand before Me and call upon Me day and night, reminding Me of My promises!”
In a way, we almost become a conscience to God, who is the source of all of our sense of righteousness to begin with. If the sons of the father ministry can father him, is it too hard to believe that God is saying, “Before you can enter in, you must show that you are faithful over a few things” (Luke 19:17). As sons of prophets whom God is bringing forth now, we must have the integrity of God Himself in what He has said and what He has proclaimed. We must declare to walk in it, to do it, and to be it. It would be easy for a young, inexperienced heart to misinterpret this, so that it seems arrogant; but what else is today’s spiritual violence except an expression of what God feels about this generation? If you feel doubtful and want to back off from this intensity, remember the parable that Jesus told of the widow who hounded the judge until he helped her. Jesus said, And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless (nevertheless! nevertheless!) when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Luke 18:7–8.
Will He find faith? Will there be anyone who will really believe that God will avenge those who cry day and night to Him? Millions of people claim to be Christians. At best, only a small percentage of people have a faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. However, that is not even what the Bible emphasizes. A few believers will really walk in a dedication and declare, “All right, God. You have a people for Yourself. We are going to walk with You.” Nothing else is worth living for in this generation. There is nothing to live for except the Kingdom.
Let us not put in our time just for an existence. Let us go after the Kingdom with all our hearts. Not only will that mean a lot of intercession; it will mean waiting on the Lord. The real test of the young sons of the prophets is not how loudly they shout during intercession, but how many hours they wait on the Lord, until they learn the voice of God and have ears to hear and sensitive hearts, so they can be true prophets indeed.
Wait on the Lord until the still small voice is your constant companion, until you know the violent eruptions of intercession that will change the world. Intercession can bring down satanic conspiracies that have built up through the centuries. This generation will see the top-heavy system of Satan brought down, demons destroyed, and witchcraft banished from the earth. The Kingdom of God will come forth, and you can see it happen. See it happen. Make it happen.
Remind the Lord. Give Him no rest. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (Although you may be weary of satanic assault, God made a promise.) The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm, “I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies; nor will foreigners drink your new wine, for which you have labored.” But those who garner it will eat it, and praise the Lord; and those who gather it will drink it in the courts of My sanctuary. Isaiah 62:6b–9.
What is this passage saying? The first attack against the Word that is sown is that it falls by the wayside and the birds eat it. The purpose of the satanic world is to take away the Word of God and the life of God that is given to you as fast as it comes. Satan is the father of a vampire spirit that is in the earth to drain it dry. Satan comes in a thousand ways to take away your blessing. After you have been blessed of the Lord, you may be aware of something draining you until you feel weak. It is due to witchcraft that is satanically directed against the people of God. When God gives you a harvest of blessing, and the sweet Word of God comes to you, the enemy comes to take it away from you. That was what happened to Israel in the Old Testament. The enemy came and took their harvests and let them starve, taxed them and carried their treasures away. When the king of Egypt took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made, then Rehoboam had shields of bronze made in their place; but everyone knew that the gold and the glory were gone (I Kings 14:25–27).
What happens to the glory? What happens to God’s blessing? The locusts, the cankerworm, and the palmerworm come to eat up the life, to take it away, to leave us until we would seem to die and there would be no fruitfulness or life left in us. But God says, “I will restore to you those years” (Joel 2:25). It is time for a reversal. Blessings that have been contended for in this hour have gone to feed bastards instead of sons. The illegitimate spiritual spawn that want to keep programs and Babylon going have perverted the living Word that God has given today. Because they have never heard anything like it, they take it and use it; but God says, “I will restore to you those years.” That life will be taken away from those who would pervert it and not glorify God in His Kingdom. Individuals who come and feed off the life of the Body, without any intention of doing the will of God, are bloodsuckers; they are leeches. God tells us that foreigners are not going to drink the new wine for which we have labored, and that He will never again give our grain as food for our enemies. Let us proclaim an end to that which takes away the life from the Body.
We read in Romans 15:1, We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let us try to please the Lord and our brothers, but not ourselves. Do not be confused about this principle. The strong do sustain the weak, and that is one of the reasons why young converts come into a church and can do so well so quickly. They receive a strength that comes from those who are mature in the Body. That should not be discontinued. But those who would pervert the way of the Lord, who would drain away life, are vampire spirits. They sap away the life of the Body in order to keep themselves going when they have no walk with God. They have no intention of being dedicated to walk with God or of paying the price.
But those who garner it will eat it (we will gather and we will eat), and praise the Lord; and those who gather it will drink it in the courts of My sanctuary. Isaiah 62:9. We will drink what we gather in the courts of His sanctuary. We will have times of prayer, of intercession, and of breaking our bread with one another. The principle of breaking bread is a key by which the stranger and the foreigner, who would make a prey of us, will not be able to feed upon us. The Lord’s Supper has taught us this truth, in the way that we feed upon Christ and break bread together.
What are we looking for now? We are looking for breakthroughs, so that what we get from God we will keep; and when we minister to an individual we will strengthen him, and also ourselves. There is going to be an end to witchcraft, an end to preying on and robbing one another. In Malachi 3:10 we read, Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. But do not forget this other promise which was given with it: And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes… Verse 11.
We will stand with authority against the evils and harassment of satanic government, and we will look to God to bring a new order of things. The day will come, if we walk softly and humbly before God, when no hand will dare to be lifted against the Kingdom of God. If we walk faithfully, the ministry of the ruling rod of iron will be given (Psalm 2:9). The prophecy in Isaiah 52:1–2 tells us, Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments.… Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne … O captive daughter of Zion. Realize who you are. You are no longer a prey; you were not created by God for the life to be drained out of you until you have no strength or might to stand against the enemy.
You are not to be like the pendulum of a clock, swinging from one extreme to another, or you will be lost. Maintain all the different aspects of walking with God: worshiping, seeking the face of the Lord, listening to the living Word, feeding upon the Word of the Lord, warring in the spirit, interceding, which has become a heritage of God’s people. You dare not relinquish any of these things. Above all, keep the intensity with which your whole spirit, soul, and body will be preserved blameless (I Thessalonians 5:23).
If we are not intense in what we do in the future, we will fall. We must be intense in what we feel; but that has to expand. In other words, we are to grow up into Him in all aspects (Ephesians 4:15). We will not feel less; we will feel more. We will not pray less; we will pray more. We will not worship less; we will worship more. We will not wait on the Lord less; we will wait on the Lord more. There is no way of going back.
The blood of the martyrs at this particular time is not a literal blood that is being drunk by Babylon. Babylon is keeping her filthy carcass alive by feeding upon the life of the saints. It is taking place on a psychic, spiritual level, and that has to end. It has to end within the Body, and it has to end within the world. Lord, release us from the filthiness of Babylon.
Galatians 5:15 says, But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This cannibalistic spirit must be broken. It can take over a person’s spirit until he is filled with a deep, deadly criticism, even though he may appear to be sweet and kind. It is a devouring spirit. People can be overwhelmed by little insidious criticism. A person’s faults do not warrant the spirit that is behind the criticism of him. Everyone has problems. We are all growing out of them. But this spirit comes to break the unity and the flow; and it has pushed people to a breaking point, again and again.
You have to be conditioned to reject the old serpent, and you have to face the fact that criticism and bitterness and feeding on the life of one another is of Satan. It is Satan—it is Babylon drinking the blood of martyrs! Many people will not make it unless this deadliness is changed right now. Criticism is not of God; it is of the devil. Whenever someone opens his mouth to criticize, have the faith to do what the Lord did to Peter: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Say it! Voice it! Have the courage to do that!
Take this commission that Paul gave the Philippians: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:8. Speak of these things. Edify one another. Curse the little insidious things that are preying upon the need of a brother and draining away his life instead of supporting him in faith. Stand against such things. There cannot be cannibalism in the Body of Christ. The Lord will pressure us until we are a ministering, feeding, warring Body that has closed ranks, so that the enemy cannot get through to destroy. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain… Isaiah 11:9.
You may not realize what you are doing if you do not have the proper focus; but the life of the Body is drained just the same. For instance, the head dies if a foot dies. If the heart dies, if the lungs die, everything dies. If you pray for the apostolic authority to be loosed, then at the same time do not bite one another or prey upon one another. The authority and ministry that flows out to keep the Body alive can sometimes become a futile effort, like pumping blood into a man who is dying of a hemorrhage. Let us close ranks—no biting, no devouring, no bitterness. Get rid of it now. No more misunderstanding. If there are problems, they will be solved through love with authority and unity. If we become an invincible Body that is not self-consuming, we will be able to destroy the cannibalism of Babylon too. The enemy will not be able to feed upon our grain. According to an old saying, we do not want to “hatch chickens for the hawks to eat.” Neither do we want to see any of our members so weakened, because we have not properly strengthened them, that the enemy can pick them off at will and take the life from them.
Let us make every man strong in Jesus Christ and do that which is edifying, not that which tears down. Let us proclaim the promises of God that are revealed in Isaiah. Let us rise out of the dust and put on our beautiful garments. We will take no rest, and give Him no rest until He makes His people a praise in the earth.