Prophecy not only foretells or proclaims; it does more. It brings the word of faith that generates. Let us prophesy the judgments of the Lord. The Passover is the feast of judgment, for it was by the judgment of God that slaves became free men at one midnight stroke. It was by the judgment of God that those whose lives had been controlled by others were suddenly following a pillar of fire and a cloud into all that God wanted them to be. It is significant that after the story of the Feast of Passover in Exodus 12, chapter 13 begins with God’s claim on His people. God was not only interested in killing Egypt’s firstborn; He was interested in the Israelites’ firstborn belonging to Him. The important thing was not what He was getting rid of, but what He was acquiring—lives that would belong to the Lord.
We too must prophesy judgment with faith. From the least of us to the greatest, God is requiring us to make haste to get out of Egypt. We must forsake her. We must come out of Babylon! When God brings deliverance, He also gives a word of instruction: “Have your loins girded and your staff in your hand, for you’re going to travel.” We will move out as fast as we can, for we must put some distance between us and everything of the past. Somehow we will bury the past. We will not think the way we used to think or even live under the same restrictions we used to live under. It will not be easy, because we are going to achieve the promised land through hard wilderness wanderings where the sands burn our feet and where we are thirsty and hungry. But I would rather be one of God’s struggling free men, than a slave gorging myself on the fleshpots of Egypt. We will not back away from freedom just because it means a lot of responsibility. We will prophesy. We will stand up and be counted as one belonging to the Lord. There may be many things we do not understand, but we do not have to understand them. We do not need a road map nor a conference with the Lord to find out where He is going to lead us. All we want to know is that we are moving and there is a pillar of fire to guide us.
In the meantime, we will prophesy against everything that stands in the way. With violence in our spirits we will say, “Lord, bring Your judgment in the earth. Loose Your people. They have been downtrodden, oppressed, and harassed long enough. It is time for something else besides dead rituals in services. It is time for something besides sermons that are no sermons, preaching that is no preaching, that does not even have faith in the Word.” We will be believers. We will believe God with all our hearts. Who knows how far we are going, but we will go every inch we can. We will move into a walk with God and not let anything hold us back.
How far will we go? I do not know, but we must prophesy against everything that stands in the way. We do not have to submit one more minute to limitations and restrictions. The full manifestation of victory may be this week, next week, or next month—I do not know when it will come—but we must drop these restrictions in our thinking. Every time our minds go back to those ruts of limitation and restriction, we must rebuke them in the name of the Lord. We will believe God to be free men. We will believe to be the people God wants us to be.
We have attained many things in our walk with God. However, we must remind ourselves that the reason we have come this far is because there has been a burning hunger in our hearts. If we would now suddenly be satisfied with so little, with just a measure of deliverance, with only a small portion—may God help us.
Satan’s favorite trick seems to be to take the people who are moving in, when he knows they are going to make it, and give them just a little and then hit them hard. They say, “I had a terrible infirmity, but thank God I feel a little bit better.” That is all they get, just a little bit better, as they limp along. God forbid! We must believe the Lord for something better. Jesus said “every whit whole.” We will not be satisfied until we can smite down the hosts of iniquity in the name of the Lord.
You cannot accept a half-victory. You cannot accept just a partial blessing. You cannot think that way. There can be nothing within you, no conditioning in your mind or heart that for one single minute allows you to accept a partial victory. If you do, you will become passive, and one of Satan’s greatest deceptions will have been wrought in your heart. You cannot afford that. You must be more than a conqueror. That is what the Word says, “We are more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37). To accept anything less is to deny the Scriptures. Do not say, “Thank the Lord I have a little portion.” Thank the Lord when your cup runs over, and when you have contended earnestly. It is true, many prayers have been answered, but you must glorify God for answering exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think.
There may be many battles to face. We may have our hearts broken, our bodies crippled and scarred, bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus; but we will never stop until we can look up and say, “Lord, it’s too much; there isn’t room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). If God talks that way in His Word, then that is the way we intend to experience it—exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, ages without end. (Ephesians 3:20, 21). That is what we are believing for.
This is not a temporary objective. This is the way it will be written in the annals of eternity: “Our God prevailed.” We are to think differently. We are not to accept the limitations and restrictions that are upon us. We are to believe that we are leaving Egypt behind, and we are leaving Egypt’s thinking behind, too. God help us if we think like an Egyptian slave one day longer. We will not think that way. We will think like one of the conquerors of Canaan. That is the way God wants us to think. That is what He wants us to be. We shake loose from every fear.
Like the prophet Jeremiah, we too are weary with forbearing. He declared he would not speak any more in His name, but His word was like a burning fire shut up in his bones (Jeremiah 20:9). A bonfire is burning deep within us. We have to make it. There is one big problem that I see in the whole thing, and it is not with God. The problem is with our unworthiness. We could go after this with all our hearts, but the enemy is like the devil standing beside the high priest in Zechariah 3, accusing him because he was wearing filthy garments: “You’re not worthy; you’ve failed.”
Very deep within every young person are the youthful lusts. They cannot help it; they are just human. Everyone goes through the torment of becoming an adult, the pull of instincts in adjusting to a world that is in the devil’s hand. Every believer faces that, in spite of the fact that God has called him and loosed him to serve the Lord. Nevertheless, something within our hearts is saying, “I want to do the will of God and move in it with everything that’s within me. I want to be what God wants me to be.”
We must know exactly how to think, and how will we know how to think unless we look to the Word of the Lord? The old carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7). If we try and reason things out in our own carnal mind, it will not work. If, however, our minds are not conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, then we will know what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2).
An important part of John the Baptist’s ministry was not the baptizing of all the other people, but the baptizing of Christ. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John would have hindered him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? But Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it now (King James says, “Suffer it to be so now”): for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffereth him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:13–17.
There comes a time when every man of God is faced with the fact that God has called him to do something that he is not ready for, not able nor qualified to do. When God laid it before Paul, he said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God, who has made us able ministers of a new covenant” (II Corinthians 3:5–6). When he spoke of his ministry, again he said, …who is sufficient for these things? II Corinthians 2:16. Who is sufficient for them? John the Baptist was saying the same thing, “I’m not worthy to baptize You; I have need that You baptize me.” As the Word describes, surely the lesser is blessed of the greater (Hebrews 7:7), yet John the Baptist was to bless Jesus. Many people are troubled by this. According to Matthew 25, a day will come when Jesus will be saying to some, “I was sick and you did not visit Me. I was in prison and you did not visit Me. I was naked and you did not clothe Me.” Lord, when did that happen? “Inasmuch as you did not do it unto the least of these, My brethren, you did not do it unto Me” (Matthew 25:35–45). Yet many people hold back when they could be serving because they sense their unworthiness. They say, “Who is sufficient for these things?”
When we come into a walk with God, there are often words of prophecy over us. Often these prophecies are confirmed in several different places by different people. They all prophesy the same thing. Our reaction is much like that of Mary when the angel Gabriel told her she would conceive and bear a son, who would be the Son of the Most High. Her reaction was, “How can these things be?” Tradition tells us she was not over fourteen years of age, maybe younger. How can these things be? Then the angel made one little announcement: “With God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).
We say, “Lord, I don’t see how all this can be? How can I minister to You?” The young people say, “I can’t do much for the Lord. I can’t even prophesy without taking a beating over it after I get home. Every time I prophesy in the service, the devil prophesies my defeat all night long.” Who is sufficient for these things? But there is a message from the Lord: “Suffer it to be so now.” This is the way it is going to be right now. If the Lord were to wait for a perfect people to do His will, the Kingdom would be a long time coming. God will take the weak things to confound the mighty—base things, things that are not, and foolish things (I Corinthians 1:27–28). That means we are in! We have made it. We have qualified. We have passed the test. The Lord is not looking for people to come along who will be qualified, yet we have this overwhelming feeling of our unworthiness for a place of ministry. The passage we referred to earlier speaks of this.
And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Zechariah 3:1–2. A phrase from that Scripture was printed on John Wesley’s stationery. He knew from his praying, godly mother that he was chosen of the Lord. When he was quite small his family had been miraculously rescued from their burning house. On his stationery he had printed, “A brand plucked from the burning” along with a little sketch of a burning house. That is what you are too—a brand plucked from the burning, but it was not a burning house from which you escaped. It was hell itself. Jude 23 tells us to save some by snatching them from the fire.
As Joshua stood in filthy garments before the angel, the angel said, Take the filthy garments from off him. Zechariah 3:4. After he was clothed in rich apparel, Zechariah said, “Put a fair mitre on his head,” the turban worn by the priest. What could Satan do? God took an unworthy man. Shall that man say, “I’m not worthy, Lord, to minister to You.” Shall that man say, “Who is sufficient for these things?” No. No man ministers to the Lord because of his worthiness, but because he is raised up and told to minister before His face. If you are waiting to be worthy, you never will be. If you are waiting until you have no more problems with the lust of the flesh, until you can say, “When I have victory, then I’ll stand up to give a witness to someone else,” you will never give that witness.
I know I am preaching dangerous doctrine. People misconstrue this and say, “Fine, I won’t bother with the teaching of being righteous and sanctified, set apart for God. I’ll just go ahead and do my own thing.” I am not saying that. I am talking about the sincere, earnest people who are striving, and I am asking, “When are you going to start being citizens of the Kingdom? When are you going to start being the army of the Lord? When are you going to start doing the thing God called you to do? by-and-by when you’re feeling better?” There are two things that are fulfilled in conjunction with each other: one is your spiritual growth, and the other is the development of the ministry that you minister out to others. They do not develop independently. You do not go along until you can say you are perfect and then run down the street to do something for the Lord. It does not happen that way. God called Philip and blessed him. Philip went to find Nathanael and said, “Come and see.”
Nathanael probably said, “Go away. You don’t even know your catechism yet.”
“Come and see.”
“You’re bothering me. Go away.”
“Come and see.”
“All right. I’ll come and see” (John 1).
Some personal worker! Philip didn’t even quote any Scriptures. Good soul winners have to quote some kind of Scripture, don’t they? How can you get anything done unless you quote Scripture? (Pardon my sarcasm.)
In a census taken in the late 1800’s, it was found that ninety percent of the converts were won by ministers who had been in the ministry less than five years. Why? Because they go out and preach the word of the Lord. They do not know any better. Others are preaching sermons filled with wherefore, whereas, and wherein. Young ministers are busy getting the job done. God does a great deal with unworthy people.
When Nathanael came to Jesus, the Lord said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile.”
“How do you know me?”
“I saw you under the fig tree.”
“You did? Surely you must be the Christ.”
Let the Lord bring the revelation. You just say, “Come and see.” Then God will do something: He will help you grow and bring forth your ministry at the same time. You may say, “I’m not ready yet. I haven’t set my life in order.”
That is all right. You set it in order in a hurry. Start setting it in order now, but in the meantime move out. Do the thing God called you to do. That does not mean you are going to abandon the goal of having the Lord bring forth the perfection in you that He wants. It only means you will not wait for it until doomsday. You will get busy doing what God called you to do—right now.
This is a liberating word. You are to be perfected while you are ministering. Do not say, “I can’t prophesy very well.” The worst thing you could do would be not to prophesy at all. Get started. Prophesy what you can. Minister what you can. Do what you can. The gifts develop in usage. Remember that. As you exercise your faith, it grows stronger. As you do the will of God, you become the will of God.
The Israelites were delivered from Egypt to serve. Before they ever had a Passover, they talked to Pharaoh about going into the wilderness a three days’ journey to make sacrifices to the Lord and to serve Him. Pharaoh offered a number of compromises: leave your wives, your children, and your herds behind. When Moses refused, Pharaoh gave in a little: take your wives and children but leave the herds and flocks behind. That involved a great deal because God had blessed the Jews, and they knew how to build up their dairies and their flocks of sheep. Moses insisted that not one hoof be left behind. When God finally worked it out for them to leave, they all left—every one. They all got out of the country as fast as they could. They were delivered to go into the wilderness to serve the Lord, and it was too bad they did not realize it. Instead they went out to gripe. Why were they griping? Because they did not go out to serve the Lord, their eyes could be on everything else and on their own problems and needs. If you have gone out to serve the Lord, you must not gripe. You have been delivered to serve, and you will serve while you are being delivered. Those two things go hand in hand.
Are you unworthy to serve the Lord? Are you going to serve Him anyway? Victory is won by people who are in motion. One of the greatest deterrents to the lust of the flesh is a walk in the Spirit. When the devil tells you, “You better lust a little today,” answer, “Sorry, I’m too busy.” If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). There are people who wait to overcome every weakness before making their first move. Go ahead and act as if you are delivered. If the devil is going to get at you, make him hit you for doing the will of God, and then he cannot hit you in the flesh. If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. How important it is to be occupied in doing the will of God, to be occupied in serving the Lord with all your heart.
I Chronicles 29:5 asks …who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? Will you? Will you say in your heart, “I’m not worthy, but I’m going to do the will of the Lord anyway!” Will you start right now, right this minute, and say, “Lord, lay the burden upon me. Burden me for the people I should minister to. Give me the word, and I will prophesy it even though I stand in fear and trembling in my unworthiness.” That is the way Isaiah did it.
Isaiah came into the temple in the year that King Uzziah, a great leader, died leaving Israel without leadership. He worshiped the Lord, high and lifted up, and God’s glory filled the temple. Isaiah said, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips.” So the Lord sent an angel who took a little coal of fire off the altar and laid it on his lips and cleansed them. “Who will go? Whom will I send?” asked the Lord. “Here am I, Lord, send me” (Isaiah 6).
Will you go even though you know you are unworthy? The Lord will meet your heart and touch your lips with a coal of fire. The Kingdom will be won by unworthy people—a people who will say, “Who’s sufficient for these things.” The Lord will say, “Suffer it to be so now, to fulfill all righteousness.”
You need the Lord to heal your backslidings, to loose you from your failures and from your lust. You need the Lord to loose you from that fickleness of heart that tells you that you cannot sustain your walk with God. You try, yet it seems you blank out. How many things are bothering you? Is there some old habit or oppression from the past that comes up to make you curse the day you were born? Do you wish something would happen to get you out of it? The Lord will set you free. You are not sufficient, you are not ready, but you can be set free. You can move into the will of the Lord with all your heart. Nothing can hold you back for …God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work in the Lord. II Corinthians 9:8. Say good-bye to that reluctance. You are going to start serving Him, and as you serve Him, you will change. As you do the will of God, things will start working out in your life in a beautiful way.
Do you hate the way you think and the way you are? By faith you are going to change. By faith you are going to do the will of the Lord with a violence in your spirit that demands things be exactly the way God says. You are going to believe Him. Churches will be started, not by people who are worthy, but by people who believe God and whose worthiness will be of the Lord.
Let us stake our claims before the throne of God. It is not he that willeth, nor he that runneth, but it is God who giveth grace (Romans 9:16). We could misinterpret this message completely and say, “I have many faults, and that’s too bad; I’m going to do the will of God anyway.” That is not it alone. We must believe to do the will of God, and we must also believe to be what God wants us to be. We are not abandoning either goal. We are believing for that perfection which God is going to work in us. Just because it has not been completed yet, we will not stop from making every motion we can toward doing the will of God, because it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. Both are taking place at the same time, and we are going to believe the Lord for them. We must dedicate the entirety of our lives to the Lord right now.