The basic things about a walk with God that bother people, is that they wonder, “Is it really worthwhile? How can I be sure about what God wants me to do in the will of God?” So much of this walk with Gold depends upon, “Will God bless this or that thing in my life?”
In the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, a young man came to the Lord and wanted to know what He had to do to have eternal life. So the Lord told him if he would enter into life he must keep the commandments; and he said he had observed all of them from his youth, but his big question was “What lack I yet?”
Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. But when the young man heard the saying, he went away sorrowful; for he was one that had great possessions.
And Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And when the disciples heard it, they were astonished exceedingly, saying, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them said to them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. Then answered Peter and said unto him, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee; what then shall we have? (That’s the question—what then shall we have?) And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life. But many shall be last that are first; and first that are last. Matthew 19:21–30.
“What shall we have therefore? Is it really worthwhile? What about this that you are preaching and teaching?” I know the question enters into your mind, as it did the disciples’. Peter was quick to say, “We have left all to follow You—what will we have?” How will we come out in this walk? We haven’t sought anything but to do the will of the Lord, to be disciples.
Peter was assured of a hundredfold in this present life. That is a difficult thing to interpret. Does it mean that if, in becoming a Christian, it costs me a certain amount of money, that God will give me one hundred dollars for every dollar I lose? That interpretation could be ridiculous.
Or, if you lost a house, the Lord would give you a hundred houses? With a blessing like that, you wouldn’t need any problems!
A hundredfold means that God enriches us by making our lives a hundred times more meaningful than before we came to serve the Lord. The sum total of all that it was then and all that it is now is a hundredfold more.
What have you received from a walk with God? Many of you were nobody, nowhere, and you had nothing. You became successful in altering the whole course and substance of your life into the channel of the will of God—one of the greatest blessings a person can get.
You can’t argue against something that produces the results that a walk with God is producing. It has been successful in loosing people from the effect of circumstances in their lives, and from their limitations. They just throw them off and violently enter into change that psychiatrists say is impossible at a level that we constantly see done. There is not a person in a walk with God who is not changing more than psychiatry affirms is possible.
God has opened the door until you are in a position where you know, whether it has all been worked out or not, that you can believe Him for anything. We are doing the impossible. No matter what discouragement you face or have faced, you could never walk away from a walk with God as an intelligent individual, if you have really opened your heart to it. It would have to be out of spiritual rebellion.
There will be a constant turnover of people being trained and sent out. It is a future unlimited, a potential of living for something else besides going to work, getting enough money to pay the rent and buy food to exist so that you drop exhausted in front of a T.V. for a few hours and call it living. Some people call it living—I call it just an existence. There is something so exciting about the demands that Jesus is making upon us.
What do we get, therefore? What do we have out of it? Already you have a hundredfold. Many of you would be deeply lonely and swallowed up in problems that you couldn’t handle. Many would be right down at the bottom, unable to survive at all if it hadn’t been for what Christ Jesus has become to you in this walk with Him. This makes the walk far, far greater in what it gives to every individual. In losing your life for His sake, you are finding it, even as He promised. This is nothing more, anyway, than just discipleship.
There isn’t anything that the Lord has demanded of the body of Christ that is not reasonable, according to the Scriptures, for Christ to demand.
If we do not take up our cross and follow Him, if we’re not willing to leave all, we are not worthy of Him. If we put our hand to the plow and look back, we are not fit for the Kingdom.
We can’t embrace all of the things that the Lord has set before us and say, “This is unreasonable. This is wrong.”
This message is not on a dispensational basis but on the reasonable expectation of giving your body as a living sacrifice, because this is your reasonable service. Anything less would be unspeakable. Anything less we cannot even countenance, nor can God countenance it.
We cannot give Him anything less than to present ourselves a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto the Lord. It’s our reasonable service, or as one version says, “It is our mode of worship” (Romans 12:1).
This is the way we worship; we give God everything. We not only do it with our lips; but when we worship the Lord, it is the worship of an individual coming forth in praise to God, who endeavors and intends that everything that he is be given unto the Lord. He is a living sacrifice to God.
God is not after your money, He wouldn’t settle for that little; He wants the whole total of you, all that you can do, all that you can think, all that you can give to Him, everything that you are.
I would walk away from a church where people thought if they just gave their money, that was the end of their obligations. Do as they did in Macedonia: they first gave their own selves in the will of God, and then they abounded in whatever they had (II Corinthians 8). First, we give ourselves.
It was David Livingston who, as a little boy in Scotland, when the missionary offering was being taken, asked that the plate be put in the aisle. He stood in it, saying, “I don’t have anything to give but I’ll give myself,” and he did. After his death, his body was brought back to Westminster-Abbey, but those to whom he had ministered buried his heart in Africa. He had given himself wholly in the will of the Lord.
Isn’t God demanding that of us in this day? You may say, “How can I be sure of this walk?” “Is it worthwhile?” If the Kingdom of God were a thousand years away, and we were missing this thing completely in every way, I would still believe in it; because it is working. And I believe in it because it is not based upon Scriptures of a dispensational slant alone. I would not tell you I believe in this walk because it just happens to be a certain year and before it is out, this and that will happen and we will be moving into a new era. I wouldn’t build your faith in that. “No man knows the day nor the hour.” However, I will leave aside the dispensational side of it, and say I know, I can be sure, because of the confirmed prophecies.
Do you know what a confirmed prophecy is? God gives you a word, and in miraculous unassociated sources, God brings confirmation; and then He finally gets through to you.
As a basis for this walk are the great Scriptural promises; promises of the Word that are beyond what we could cover in one message, but I’m going to give you a number of them.
The promises of God are based upon the great provisions that God has made that are complete and perfect for every area of our lives.
The promises of God are no less fantastic than the prophecies that have come over us. That which has always made this walk seem to be so sure and true is that the Lord has not set anything before any of us that is not set before all of us in the Word in a great measure.
I can prophesy over a person that they are to prophesy the word of the Lord and move in the gift of prophecy. Sometimes they draw back, and are furious. “Do you mean to say that I have to move in a gift of prophecy?” I’m not prophesying anything that isn’t in the Scriptures. For ye may all prophesy one by one. I Corinthians 14:31a. Where can a person get the idea that anything that’s come in the prophecies in this walk are so outlandish that they can’t be fulfilled.
I welcome that God brought forth prophecy as such a thing of controversy in the end time. When you prophesy to someone, he is face to face with the reality of the Word. He could ignore it while it was in the Scriptures. A prophecy comes to him directly that may be less great, less magnificent than many prophecies in the Scripture, but he is disturbed because, for the first time, God focused on him through the gift of prophecy. And as an individual he has to give an account for that Word.
“If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally” (James 1:5). That seems to exceed the prophecies that have come over me, as far as wisdom is concerned.
If you prophesy over someone and you say, “Now, the Lord is going to heal; the Lord is going to deliver through your hands,” that requires faith.
Nevertheless, the Scripture tells us “Whatsoever you ask in My name, you will receive it” (John 14:13). “They lay hands on the sick and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). “By his stripes ye were healed” (I Peter 2:24). “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases” (Psalms 103:3). Over and over, the prophecies are there. Will you believe them?
I can be sure that this walk is right, because I have never yet heard one prophecy that was more audacious than the promises that are in the Scriptures. Churches back away: “We don’t want anything of this walk, we don’t believe in it—it’s crackpot, it’s way out.”
We are maintaining it to be Scriptural. “He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets” (Ephesians 4:11). But they back off when someone becomes an apostle or a prophet—why?
They want it all locked up in a book where they don’t have to do anything about it. God is bringing it out and saying, “Believe My Word.”
It’s one thing to read about the gifts of the Spirit that are there, but how excited people become and don’t know what to do, when those nine gifts of the Spirit begin to operate in the church—that’s another thing!
As long as you accept it in theory but not in practice, you have no faith at all. If you can accept a thing in theory, then you should endeavor to see it in practice, or you have no faith at all. If you see the thing in theory, and the promises of God’s word, and you won’t earnestly contend to see the reality, your faith is small.
Do you believe in the complete provision for God in your life? By one sacrifice He hath forever perfected them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14). Do you believe that? Just by one sacrifice—forever perfected.
Your perfection is included. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises; in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust (II Peter 1:4). That’s a big promise.
People will not even believe in a temporary endowment of the Holy Spirit upon their lives to enable them to do signs and wonders, and yet the Word says that the promises are so great that we would actually partake of the divine nature—take on God’s very nature. That seems to me to be something beyond anything that we have heard prophesied over anyone.
Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God (I Corinthians 2:12).
What things has He given us? He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work. II Corinthians 9:8.
And yet this is not the basis of prophecies, but the basis of prophecies would be illumination of the Spirit by revelation, to point out what God really wants to do in a specific case, but the general provision is already here. That’s why you have to accept the walk. If you say, “Well, one of the prophecies failed,” does it mean the prophecies weren’t true or does it really mean that you failed to believe them? What about the Scriptures, do you think they have failed? Heaven and earth will pass away but that word will not pass away. Have they failed? Who failed? We fail to appropriate.
You can’t find fault with God’s Word. If there wasn’t one thing to this walk at all, as an end-time move, it still will have to work, because it is Scriptural. You say, “Well, you could be way off; you believe that the Lord is coming.” If we believe that the Lord is going to come six months from now, and we work like everything, and He doesn’t come in six months, we have been absolutely Scriptural, because we are to so labor as though we are expecting the Lord’s coming at anytime. That is the Scriptural position. If you say, “Oh, it may not be for five hundred years,” then you are going to be among those that say, “My Lord delayeth His coming,” and eat and drink and beat the servants. And when He comes He will appoint your portion with the hypocrites (Matthew 24).
I will live as though He were coming today. This is the way we should be doing it. And when you get right down to it, we are actually Scriptural and more true to the Word of God in our attitude, by living in constant expectation of the endtime events to run their course. It’s a way of saying you can’t be wrong if He came tomorrow or if He came a thousand years from now. Yet our attitude and our approach is exactly what the Holy Spirit ordered in the Word. Read it in Matthew twenty-four and twenty-five. You are to live in living readiness for the Lord’s return at any time. It’s an imminent thing to your heart and your mind. That is the way that you are to live, and walk before the Lord …the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall ye do; because I go unto the Father. John 14:12.
Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; Trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass. Psalms 37:4, 5.
And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Romans 16:20. Do you like that promise? It doesn’t say anything about dispensations does it? It says that is what’s going to happen for you.
…and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Romans 4:21. That promise that was given to Abraham—do you like it?
Wherefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the Lord. I Corinthians 15:58.
And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9.
Here is a very precious promise: For how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us. II Corinthians 1:20.
All of the promises of God are yea and verily—yea and amen. That means that God takes all of the promises and in Jesus they have their yea, and in Him they have their Amen, unto the glory of God. Amen means, “so be it.” Every promise has its yea and amen. It means that when God has a promise and you claim that promise, Jesus put a “yes” on it for you. Not a “maybe” or “no,” not a “wait a while,” just a simple “yea.” It has the yea on it because God gave it to you through Jesus Christ.
In Him is the yea, in Him is an amen. The basis of this walk is right there; the promises of God—the provision of God. You say, “Well, I’m not so sure about this dispensation and the way it’s heading, and I was taught prophecy different.” I was taught differently, too, but I know this: however things are supposed to go according to your interpretation, if you are filled with unbelief, I doubt what kind of a part you’ll have in it. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that if we believe enough, even if something weren’t supposed to happen, it would. The course of history has been altered by men of faith: everything changed when someone would get down before God and start praying.
I believe in this walk—and if there were no such thing, I would believe for God to do it because He is the kind of God that would make such a walk for His people in this day. You can’t believe in the Scripture, without believing in something that has to result in this walk. If you say, “I go to another church, and they believe the Word,” then, Jude 3 says, they have to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. They have to believe for restoration, if they believe the Word. If you don’t contend for the faith, you don’t believe in the restoration, and to that extent you are unscriptural.
Don’t be a doubter, a grumbler, or a complainer. Don’t be someone who is always looking for the dark side of things and always looking to find some excuse to do anything other than to believe God. You have to be a believer—you must be a believer. We still have not caught up to the early church. That’s what discipleship is supposed to be. We are putting out a living word, we are ministering. We are doing that which this walk involves.
But we are also just beginning to approach the things that true discipleship involves at any age. And what if we are a hundred years away and most of you would be in your graves? In the longsuffering of the Lord we are laying a foundation in true discipleship for those who will walk on in. And they will still not precede us, for the dead in Christ shall rise first (I Thessalonians 4:15–17). We’re going to get into it.
I can’t find a promise that isn’t mine. God made a promise to Abraham, but then it came down through Abraham’s seed to Christ, and so in Christ He stamps a “yea” on it for me.
God made a promise to David, it came down through the seed of David to Christ, and I’m in Christ, so stamp that with a “yea” for me.
Go to the Book of Jeremiah, Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3. We know that is part of the promise because this is the great time spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets, since the world began; put a “yea” on that, too.
Soon we have more yeas than we can say amen to. But they are all yours. And you cannot come to the place where you back off from this walk and say, “Well, I don’t believe in it.” That is why everyone that has become apostate from this walk has moved out of Christ. Because this is what Christ is saying.
People say that a man is a fool that doesn’t adjust himself to the world as it exists. Rather, a man is a fool that does not adjust himself to God as He moves.
That is what destroys nations. People in Sodom and Gomorrah were adjusting to the trends until the fire fell on them. You can adjust to the world and go to hell with it.
We will show you the real principles of being progressive: the only true liberalism there is, that which brings forth God’s perfect will in you. I think that this walk is the most liberal, progressive, true, beneficial, wonderful thing, that has happened to the world since the Lord ascended back to heaven. I can’t express my faith in it more. It’s a real walk with God.
Every one of us have moments in which we sit back and say, “It’s doing everyone else good, but God doesn’t love me.” The prophecies and the promises are there. It could be, that in a moment of the most subtle form of rebellion, you reject His love and the assurance that He loves you.
God could do a thousand things for you and you would still be wiped out by the one thing that you couldn’t understand at the moment. You should get rid of that rebellion and say, “Yes, I’ll accept Your love, Lord. I accept that I am a servant of the Lord, and I love You. I accept the fact that I am loved.”
Most of the problems that people have on any level do not come because they do not love but because they do not accept love.
Your problems in this walk may be because you are not accepting what He said over you, because some perverse thing within you is refusing to accept the fact that God really loves you, focuses His promises upon you and says, “This you can have; you can walk in it.”
…Whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. II Peter 1:4. He loves us.
All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11:24.
That’s big enough to stop you cold in your tracks, and it’s one of those promises that God put a yea on. And in Christ Jesus there is an amen, a verily to it.
For Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,”—the word in the Greek is “Amen, amen, I say unto you.” Verily, truly.
When you say “Amen,” you say, “Yes, it’s true.” When God puts an amen to a promise to you, it’s true. And what does Jesus call Himself? In the book of Revelation, He calls Himself the Amen of God. He says, “I am the great Amen to all that the Father ever spoke in promise.” Revelation 3:14. Enter in and possess the blessing. Don’t hang on the outskirts—the blessing and the manna are falling. Get in, and get your portion.
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 the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Ephesians 3:20, 21. Do you believe it?
For thou hast been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. Isaiah 25:4. I like that, because I have felt as if I were getting a storm against the wall.
They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. Isaiah 65:22. That has a yea on it for me.
That is what you feel: the Holy Spirit comes and puts Jesus’ stamp of yea on the promise. How many times have you read the Scriptures and felt that it is stamped on your heart: “There is a yea for me”?
I love this promise: …fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; (In literal Hebrew, “look not around thee, for I am thy God.” Just ignore what is around you.)
I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee: you, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isaiah 41:10. Verses 17 and 18: The poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them, I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and .fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry lands springs of water. Yea, amen; we will take it all!
In these days the Lord setteth before thee the fulfillment of many things. And the Lord shall be delighted that thy praise shall continually come up before His face; that thou shall be worshipers of the Lord that rejoice in all His word, that trusteth in the Lord with all of thine heart.
Thou shall not trust because thou art fearful of the enemy, but thou shall have an overjoying trust because thou believest in the bounty of the Lord. Let your heart rejoice, prepare thyself for the good things. If the Lord will perform a miracle, gather the vessels, not a few, that there shall be an overflowing portion unto thee and that thou shalt receive it. Yea, prepare your heart and order your steps before the Lord, for these are days of fullness.
These are days that the people of the Lord trust not in the horses of Egypt; neither do they trust in the strength of their sword arms. But behold, they rise in the Spirit of the Lord, and the word of the Lord in their mouth is as the sword of the Spirit.
Behold, they shall prevail against principalities and powers; they shall enter into their inheritance, and none shall withstand them. Behold, they are those that come forth in this hour, the Remnant of the Lord that shall walk in all the goodness of the Lord.
They shall walk in that which hath been prepared for them in ages past. They shall rejoice as those that have taken great spoil, for the day in which the Lord is glorified in His Remnant hath come forth.