The battle at the present time is for your mind. If you come into the renewing of your mind you will receive something important that God is to release. Satan is doing everything he can to bind it.
Prior to the time God brings forth a truth, we find an Ishmael manifestation of it coming almost to full growth. The discipline of the mind has been approached by many modern religions for they all recognize the great potential of the human mind. The Eastern religions emphasize the discipline of the mind, thereby attaining a striking similarity to what God is doing today. Their concept differs from ours however, inasmuch as they strive for a very highly cultivated old nature and we begin with a new creation. No doubt, in past centuries the human mind was much more highly developed than it is now. Before deception entered in at the fall, the mind of Adam and Eve must have been rather fantastic.
Now we face a growing tide that is rapidly sweeping people along. The world is changing, with greater revolutions of thought and ideas than ever before in its history. The tide now is such, that if you are out in the world, without the Lord doing a work in your mind, you will be tossed along like a little cork on a huge wave. You will start thinking the way the world thinks, becoming tolerant of conditions with which the world is tolerant.
The current permissive attitudes here in America toward pornography, violence and immorality, could not have existed a few years ago. Now everyone is accepting them because they are conditioned in their thinking. Even Christians are learning to coexist with the present trend, believing there is nothing they can do about it anyway. However, there is something that God wants to do for you.
You don’t dare to think the way the world thinks now. You must have a different mind, a completely different set of values and attitudes than the world has. That’s why the Lord gave us the admonition in Romans 12:1, 2: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Education will not provide the answers you need. Universities in our country today are the centers of ignorance, when they should be the centers of wisdom and learning. There you will find deviates of every form, atheists, morally depraved derelicts in every sense of the word, exerting their influence as teachers. If you don’t believe that, just investigate the lives of some of the professors at a large university. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools—that’s the way the Scripture describes them (Romans 1:22).
A course is being set and the minds that think they are “hep” to what is going on are actually being driven down a path of no return. We should put anchors on the minds of every one of our people to prevent them from being swept to the world.
I know there is a wisdom that God will let us tune into. He will use foolish things to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:27). I hold that Scripture to be a prophecy. And the wise of this world, God will make as fools. How could a fool be wise enough to confound the wise man? If wisdom depended on what we could originate in ourselves we would all be totally inadequate, for not a one of the ministries is wise enough to govern and direct this restoration of the New Testament Church.
I know that many of you have a great deal of respect for my counsel, because you keep asking for it. The wisdom with which I counsel does not come from the gray matter in my brain. I tune in to a wisdom from God. I believe that very soon God will enable prophets and apostles, as never before, to tune into the mind of Christ. Colossians 2:3 tells us that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The course of action taken by the scientists in the laboratory, by inventors, engineers, designers, etc. is to first develop, and then try to improve their product, step by step, year after year, adding new ideas and innovations, discarding the obsolete.
What would happen if one of our boys would tune in to the Lord and be shown in the mind of Christ new inventions and the wisdom needed to make them? What if some of our young women would tune in and find secrets of nutrition that have never been discovered? What if by waiting on the Lord, the foolish could be made to confound the wise by receiving the wisdom of God?
For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. I Corinthians 1:26–31.
There’s a better way than for you to try to conform in some absurd, foolish way to the business world as it exists. There’s a better way than being a misfit in a system to which you must pay homage. We are so limited in what we see and what we’re doing. We must not be conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of our mind. There is still something that God must do to complete the thinking of His people.
What would the person who is transformed by the renewing of his mind accept as the basis of certainties? For the scientific world the basis of truth and fact is what they observe by experiment: what they can establish by some physical law, what they can measure in force or quantity or density, and the progressive actions or reactions. They make no allowance for God or for the spirit world. The evidence of the senses which view a natural realm (what the eye sees, what the ear hears, what the imagination of the mind can analyze) comprises their world. Most great scientists are usually not Christians. In the name of wisdom they have become slaves of their senses (eyes, ears, nose) so that their mind accepts only what the senses can perceive in their specific area.
That is not the basis of wisdom. The Scripture says, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. You’ll never find that with a microscope or a telescope. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.… Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. I Corinthians 2:9, 10, 12. You’ve heard that passage quoted so many times. The carnal mind cannot know the things of God; they’re foolishness to him (verse 14). The thought expressed in the Greek is, “Neither can he get to know them.” With his carnal heart and thinking he has no way of coming into it. What is real? What is the basis of fact? Medical research involves scientific analysis through experiments. Things are weighed, tested and proven to determine how they react: how does an invisible germ react? how often does the epidemic recur? People are trained to think by exercising their senses, reasoning and memory, concerning the world with all the accumulated facts known about it—but they are not trained to examine concrete facts that can never be measured to be a certain number of inches wide and so many inches long. Yet if we believe these simple facts implicitly and are not overcome by our sense knowledge, if we follow only revelation knowledge with minds that are transformed and renewed, we will deliver ourselves from this world, from this age, from the current tide that is sweeping minds along. Christians are being swept right down the line until they accept many illusions in the world today. That’s why every generation of Christianity, in believing less and less, has become more and more modernistic and liberal.
What is it that keeps us believing the Word of God? and has counteracted the trend? It is our believing in revelation knowledge, that which has come by the Spirit. The day will come, when a man lying on the floor with rigor mortis will be approached by three prophets of God, who will declare that he is alive and we’ll start thinking the Lord he is alive, and he’ll get up and move around. The day will come in which the Word of God will be more important to us than the opinion of anyone in the world. We’ll stand and say, “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). This is the faith we must have. To the world it seems fanatical, but it works.
We’ve been ruled by fear long enough. It’s time we became believers—real believers in the word of God. There’s still a war in the mind. The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Romans 8:7.
Faith is not controlled by the power of the mind, by the fact that some minds are strong and others are weak. It’s more than that: what is the basis of fact to you? Illusions can be created by Satan. Remember—Satan is defeated! The principalities and powers are defeated! We are endowed with divine health in the name of the Lord. You may say, “Oh? It doesn’t look like it.” Then you are leaning on your senses. There is too much fear, worry and anxiety in the people of God. How often the Lord rebuked that, “Why are you anxious? Why are you afraid? O ye of little faith.” He marveled at their unbelief.
Jesus didn’t speak with wisdom based on anything man knew about; it was based upon what God had revealed. Those truths were entirely different than man’s ideas. Read the gospels again in the light of what I’m telling you. They seem idiotic to the human mind. For example, when the people wanted to make Jesus a king so that He could keep them supplied with the miracle bread and fishes, He told them, “Unless you eat of My flesh and drink of My blood you have no life in you.” What does the natural mind say to that kind of truth? “How can we eat His flesh and drink His blood? We’re not cannibals; besides, Jews don’t eat anything with blood.” So offended were they, that they all left. Jesus asked the disciples, “Why don’t you leave too?” “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. We believe and we’re sure.” These words of eternal life were based on another kind of thinking.
The truth is not something you can learn in a science book or an encyclopedia. The truth is really a Person. That’s another kind of thinking. Too often we’re still involved with the natural way of thinking: that we reach God by way of religion, by a way of thinking and worship. No, the way to God is a Person. The truth is a Person. The life is a Person. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6). It’s personified. It’s alive. His words are truths; they are spirit; they are life. He spoke a word and things happened. May the Lord help us to see that there’s another way of thinking involved in this. If we stop and analyze our actions, we will realize that every day of our life the verdict and reaction comes from our mind, from what we see or feel or hear.
In the early days of this church it often seemed when we had marvelous services, few people attended. It could have been said, “What a church—they call themselves the army of the Lord, but if somebody would throw marshmallows at them they would be wiped out.” That was the way it appeared, but it was only an illusion. I learned that a church wasn’t to be judged from Sunday to Sunday. Only one thing was fact: regardless of how many came or what they looked like or what they were doing, if we sought the Lord and the Lord said, “Everything is all right,” then everything was all right. If everyone was standing and worshiping and looking mighty, but the Lord was troubled—then we’d be troubled. We learn to think the way God thinks and have the attitude toward things that God has.
There isn’t any truth outside of God. Everything that you see and feel has too much of illusion and deception in it. What do you really know concerning even your own life? There is only one thing you know: you belong to God.
I believe that by His stripes we were healed (I Peter 2:24). That is a fact. How do we know it? We receive it by revelation. What about that backache? I couldn’t tell you whether it is real or false and no one else can. Doctors will verify that many diseases are psychosomatic, based upon the mind, produced by people’s fears. People can have almost any kind of sickness they decide to have. They can be just as happy or just as miserable as they decide to be. Most of them need to be jarred severely and told, “Come on, wake up and start reaching for the things you can have.”
It is true—prudence, discretion and wisdom are all very necessary, but there has to be some basis of fact. I either believe I’m a man of God and that God watches over me—or I don’t. We run scared. We tell God, “Oh, the devil is chasing me. Are you looking after me?” Do you still have that in your thinking more than you want it? You must come to the place where you are really a believer.
If you have one word from God, that’s the basis of fact. Cling to that one word, for it can turn the course of nations and the world. God brought ages to pass and great visitations from heaven by His word. Principalities and powers were brought down; Christ made an open show of them on His cross. I do not believe I’m a victim of Satan. I believe in God’s good pleasure to bruise Satan under my feet. I believe he is loosed against me so that I can stomp on him, because God says it’s to be done.
When I look at the wars, the sin and wickedness in the world, I might see nine hundred ninety-nine out of a thousand running the course of evil and wickedness. That doesn’t move me from the fact that even if I see only one person walking with God, then God’s plan is moving on to perfection. It’s all under His hand. I believe and I refuse to be a victim of illusion.
I’ve found a new key to change. Get over the idea, “I’m no good and I’m going to change and be some good.” That is not to be your thinking. You must believe that you belong to Christ; you’re His creation, and the change you want to see is best effected by letting the life of God course through your being, rejoicing in the truth, rejoicing in His revelation. Study your prophecies—not questioning, “How am I going to make this work?” but rejoicing in them, praising God in them; as you let His life course through you. “God has said it and I am what He says. I believe it all. Whether I see any evidence of it or not—I believe it. I believe it because the only reality, the only fact and truth, is God and what He said; what He is revealing and what He is becoming within me.”
What about the rest of this old nature? Forget it. It’s like last season’s leaves, withered and twisted, but still hanging on. The more the new life courses through you the more last season’s leaves and fruit will drop off.
You’re not trying to make yourself over—you are becoming something different. The viper clinging to your fingers is like the one that fastened itself to Paul when he was shipwrecked on the island. Shake it into the fire. It’s a real viper, that’s true; but it’s only a Satanic illusion inasmuch as it tries to produce in your mind the illusion of death and destruction, of the power of Satan and of your own nature to defeat you. These things are only valid if you accept them. “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). If you believe in the Lord, and in His promises, they will bless you. This walk is one almost entirely of faith.
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for (notice the tense as it is in the Greek) believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11:22–24. God gave it to you. Believe that you received it. “Lord, you gave me healing. I believe it.” Believe in the divine endowment to you, reach in and take it. It is something you can have because God says you can have it.
That kind of faith has changed the course of families and lives in this walk. But now we have to believe even more. Any man who walks in unbelief or doubt is opening himself for a living hell of his own creation. He will be drawn into it.
This applies even in the realm of the natural. Fear, unbelief, and anxiety can open the door to physical sickness. It can open the door to inefficiency and almost create in you a will to fail. It can cloud your judgment in everything until you literally destroy your relationships completely. You’ve seen it happen. Then why can’t we believe the word God has spoken to us? Believe and live! Believe and become! You will change because you believe, because the life of God flows through you.
What is the basis of all fact, all truth, all life? It’s God. Therefore we believe Him; we believe what He says. What if you don’t have any word to believe? You believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That’s the basis of faith. We read in Hebrews 11:33, “Through faith they obtained promises.” If you don’t have a promise, have faith—and He’ll give you one. He’s the source of all life. If you lack wisdom, ask of God, for He giveth to all men liberally and unbraideth not. Don’t waver though—ask in faith.
One of the deepest chapters in the Bible is John 15 where Jesus says, “I am the vine and ye are the branches.” It’s not your struggle to become something independent of God, but it’s your organic union with Him that makes you fruitful. It’s the Father’s will that you bear much fruit. He purges, He clips you back so that you bear much fruit. But the life does not originate in you. You are only a branch. His life, flowing from the vine into the branch, is what makes it heavy with fruit. “Bear much fruit. So shall you be My disciples.” Disciples are those through whom the life of God is coursing. All that they become, all that they do and achieve is the result of their faith to live in Him. Then God pours through them to the world. That’s what this walk is all about.