THE DAY OF SPIRIT HAS COME
The spirit level is Christ living through us. The soul level is the will, mind and especially the emotions of man building a little kingdom around themselves.
In the early Pentecostal movement, everything had a certain theatrical approach with entertainment appeal. We would hear sermons such as “Bronco Buster” by an ex-cowboy who would pull out his six shooters and shoot them in the air, or “Public Enemy Number One” by a preacher wearing his Sing-Sing stripes.
In Los Angeles, Hollywood evangelism was quite the thing. Illustrated sermons were presented at Angelus Temple with the help of a stage crew. Aimee Semple McPherson produced versions of many Hollywood plays and stories, such as “Too Hot to Handle,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and “Pinocchio.”
The productions always tried to bring some sort of Hollywood appeal: “Everybody is doing it; why don’t you? Come on and accept the Lord.” It was like trying to lubricate the people so they could slide into the Kingdom with no friction.
Feuds between churches resulted in bigger and bigger newspaper advertisements as they competed with each other, trying to attract the “move of God” crowd. Of course, the “move of God” people were not really in the move of God; they were sensation seekers.
There is another advertising approach that is still prevalent today. The whole business of advertising and selling the gospel is promotion on a soulish level, for the benefit of the individual.
A walk with God is not on a soulish level at all, and is usually not understood, it can only be experienced. Most people are so advertisement and gimmick conscious, that they don’t realize that all of it is being portrayed on a soulish basis. Soulish people are the ones who buy the products and keep the programs going. There is nothing intelligent about television commercials.
Advertising is completely designed to reach the soulish level, to create feeling. A study made on human responses shows that people do not respond from the intellect; they respond from the emotion.
God is bringing His move of spirit right at the peak of the soulish era and saying, “I am starting a new age, an age of spirit.” The whole approach to it must be in spirit; it cannot be in soul.
The separation of soul and spirit is the key of getting into a walk with God. It is the key of the preaching, of the teaching, and of the worship. We do not worship on a soulish level. We may praise God and be very joyous, but we will not get anywhere until we shift gears and worship from our spirit.
In this hour we can win people quicker by a right spirit than by right words. If we show them love, right from our spirit, we will win them. People say, “Oh, I have problems.” So, what’s new? We all have problems. “I am confused about my circumstances.” They are confused because they have tried to get into the kingdom from a soulish approach and they can’t.
The ministries must help them, as we disregard what the people are saying on the soul level and help them open their spirits to the Lord. What people really need is to approach God with an open spirit. There is no other way to bring anyone into a walk in the spirit. `We can’t convince them or talk them into it. The Holy Spirit must reveal it to them.
When people have problems with illness or difficulty in their homes, we can’t say that these are problems of the spirit, yet they are dealt with from the plane of spirit.
They are not answered from the level where the problem exists. The problem is met from a realm of spirit. If something is wrong in a person’s spirit, where the life of God is not flowing through it, it is making them open for physical harassment, we can get them healed; but they will be right back with other ailments until we find what is blocking the flow of the Spirit in them. This closes the door to the physical harassment.
Another age, a great new dispensation, is opening up. It is a beautiful thing. Come and let us return unto the Lord; for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him. Hosea 6:1–2.
This is a wonderful promise, and it is exactly what happens. The Lord has revealed a truth to us concerning these three days about which Hosea prophesied. The first day is twice as long as the second, and the second day is twice as long as the third. Figure it out: four thousand years, two thousand years, one thousand years. Seven thousand years constitute the three days in which God brings men up from the plane of body, to the soul, to the spirit. We are at that time in which God will causes us to live in His sight, to live in dual realms, heaven and earth, to have a spiritual walk on the earth and in heaven, to have a spiritual awareness of the presence of the Lord all the time, as our spirit communes with His Spirit and we worship Him in spirit and truth for this is what He is looking for.
The first four thousand years man lived primarily on the natural, physical level. His enemies were physical enemies, fought on a physical plane. David put a rock in his slingshot and killed a giant, nine feet tall. You can’t find anything more physical than that!
When the Israelites came to the Red Sea, they had to go through it; it was a physical situation. Although there are soulish and spiritual implications of that experience, not too much is said of them.
With the coming of the Lord, the soul realm opened up. As one reads the New Testament, they are impressed with the fact that Jesus and His disciples were casting out demons. There was an awareness of a whole new realm.
Weren’t there demons in the Old Testament? Yes, now, and then we read about an evil spirit, but that realm was not very open. The people were commanded to stone anyone who went after familiar spirits. The Word mentions that an evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul (I Samuel 16:14). The Lord sent it. The demonology of the Old Testament is entirely different from the way people preach today.
When Jesus came, He cast out demons and healed the sick, rebuking afflictions and infirmities as though they were living things. A new realm had opened up which the people did not understand. They were looking for the Son of David, but they expected Him to come with a slingshot, like the David of the Old Testament. The Son of David did not come that way.
They expected Him to be of high and noble birth, but when He was born, He was laid in a manger. They expected Him to conquer Rome, and He ignored it. They anticipated that He would exalt Israel as the chosen people, but out in the wilderness His forerunner said, “Forget that kind of thinking. God can raise up a seed of Abraham from that pile of rocks!” What kind of language was that? They were receiving no recognition at all for what they had attained. “God can do that with a pile of rocks! Forget it; let’s get ready for the Kingdom,” John exclaimed.
The last two thousand years have been very soulish. A thousand of them were spent under the darkness of Rome’s pageantry, oppression, and ritualism, all of which were soulish. Protestantism has been struggling to come up to a higher soulish level, but it is still soulish, all the way through. Finally, we come to the restoration, and it too is still on a soulish level.
The Pentecostal movement was quite soulish. Was God in it? Of course, because He was still moving in the soulish day. We danced before the Lord with all our might. We went to prayer meetings that lasted all night. There wasn’t anything greater or better happening anywhere at that time. Now and then a man left the soulish realm, to encounter God in the spirit.
At first there is an overlapping period of soul mixed with spirit, but then the day of pure spirit starts to come. In the past, when we were blessed, we would dance and shout and praise the Lord, and then go home hoarse.
Suddenly a new anointing comes. It seemed as if we want to dance, but our feet will not move; we want to shout, but there is a restraint upon us. Inside, though, something is lifted up to the Lord and a beautiful worship comes forth. It is a different realm, a realm of spirit
Don’t try to see people baptized with the Holy Spirit in the old way either, thinking they have to shake and have a big emotional experience, because it is not going to come on the level of soul.
There is more power to walk with God in some convert who comes into this walk with God and receives the Holy Spirit very simply on a plane of spirit than there is in one who has a soulish experience.
It seems that the way you receive an experience is the way you manifest it afterwards.
After I came into this walk, I felt that I was saved over again on a spiritual plane. The gifts that I had—prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation—were transformed and moved up to another realm. Everything was reborn as I came into this walk in the Spirit.
That is what you must remember when you bring people into this walk with God. This great move in the Spirit is not an extension of the Pentecostal movement. It cannot be, for the two approaches are absolutely opposite.
A Pentecostal approach of whooping it up and working up the emotions is never used in a kingdom church. You would not respond to it at all. You don’t realize the wisdom of God that comes to you with the leading of the Spirit in this walk.
Fundamentalism is also soulish, though its approach is from a different angle than Pentecostalism. Roman Catholicism is soulish. For two thousand years everything existing in Christianity has been operating on the plane of the soul. Now in this move God is bringing forth something different—a walk with God.
We are reaching into the third day, the day of spirit, and therefore the approach is different.
Have you noticed it in the interpretation of the Scriptures? You may say, “Why, I have heard that preached for years, but now there is something fresh and different in it.” What has actually happened is that we have moved up to a new level—a level of spirit—and your understanding of the Word, your worship, and the preaching is all on a different level.
When you approach soulish people and start arguing with them on the soulish level, you almost feel contaminated, not because of arrogance, but because you are grieving the Holy Spirit when you approach anyone in that way.
You must meet others with a right spirit, a spirit that is filled with the worship of the Lord; and in a strange way that will either win them or it will infuriate them, one of the two.
This walk has a most decisive, final effect on people when they hear of it. That is why I know it is really of God. It opens the door right now. If you begin to talk to people about the walk and they have a good open spirit, they will be open to you, no matter what their background has been.
Doctrinally we should be closer to the Pentecostal movement than to any other group. They teach salvation, healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and at least in theory, the gifts of the Spirit. That sounds just like what we have, but in actual practice, it would be more difficult for us to have fellowship with a Pentecostal church than with an Episcopalian church that is open to the Lord.
When the Pentecostal movement remained soulish instead of progressing on into the spirit, they went into denominationalism so rapidly that within a short time they were highly organized, but without any divine order.
They remained very soulish and emotional. They have a higher rate of splits and discord than any other movement in the history of Christianity.
Although technically and doctrinally we should be closer to the Pentecostal groups, in practice we are closer to the Roman Catholics. Their doctrine and teachings are far apart, yet Roman Catholics, though soulish, have had impressed upon them one thing that is the foundation of this walk: the submission in their spirits to authority.
And on that one point—your spirit being submissive to the Lord, the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your spirit—everything else rests. It is not just over your body or over your soul, but over your spirit, that the Lordship of Christ predominantly prevails. That opens the door to the new realm.
Once you understand this, you will not talk to people about the doctrines you have in common. Get down to the one thing that will help them. Talk about Jesus as Lord, what it means, how He is really the Lord over your life, what He has done in your spirit. This confounds them because they do not understand submission.
The reason the charismatic renewal began in the Episcopalian churches, as all over the country their people were filled with the Holy Spirit, was because they were closer to that level.
Though some people still want to manipulate God on the level in which He moved in the past, God is moving on.
The quicker we learn how to walk on the plane of spirit (I’m referring to our spirit now) instead of soul, the quicker we will break into the blessings and riches, the rain that belongs in this walk.
Paul’s prayer for the end time was: … I pray God 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 will also do it. I Thessalonians 5:23–24.
People in denominational churches have probably never heard about the spirit realm. Their whole terminology is different. The average church is not conditioned to understand the plane of spirit. They say, “We don’t understand all this talk about the devil, about demons and oppressions. We never talk about that. We never had any of that happen to us.” That’s true.
We could compare them to two fish down in the ocean talking to each other, “What is all this talk about accidents on the freeway? We never see any freeway; we never see any cars.”
They are in another realm. Let them flop up here onto the freeway and they will soon find out what it is all about. But as long as they are down in the ocean, they can’t understand, for they are living in another realm.
Those who walk in the Spirit are living in a different realm. They don’t know it, but when you open up to the spirit world, the first thing you become aware of is demons.
Demonic vibrations are closer to the human level than are angelic vibrations. The vibrations of the angels are higher, and higher yet are those of the Lord Himself. When people get into this realm of spirit, something new happens to them.
I never realized this in the Pentecostal movement. Oh, I felt blessings—engulfing, gripping experiences in the Spirit, marvelous meetings with the Lord. Sometimes He met me as a man meets a man. As I prayed, He would knock me down and tell me He loved me. I enjoyed it; I loved it. But when I came into the realm of spirit and He came near, I found my face and hands burning, and I knew that my spirit was communicating with God and coming down through soul and body; it was subduing all things unto Him. I knew it was another realm.
The Pentecostals never experienced this. They felt goosebumps and had emotional reactions, but they never felt these signs. They never communicated with God because they weren’t living in the same realm where God lives.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24. This is the key. That is why this walk is so different. That is why people can come to a kingdom church, be saved, and suddenly they are feelings signs in the Spirit. They are saved to a spirit realm, not to a soulish realm.
When people are saved in a Baptist church, they get saved into a Baptist level. When people go into a Pentecostal church, they get saved on the Pentecostal level. They are born into the level that is preached there.
When you come into this walk with God, you are born into a new walk. That is why we have young people coming in straight from addiction to dope, from serving the devil, and before long they are moving in God.
Some of the religious people who have been going to church all their lives may say of them, “Hmm, it can’t be real.” It is real! They have bypassed a lot of ritual and form and come right into a walk with God, because it is in the realm of spirit.
The young people must recognize this too, and not think that they are better than everyone else; they just happened to be born at the right time. Some of the older ones will appreciate this walk more because of what they have come through.
We will never again see the revivals of past generations, when people came to camp meetings to “get religion.” They had a glorious time, but a month later it was all forgotten, because it was on a soulish level. The best that the churches can do now is to try and hang on. They give an altar call, get people down praying, and get them saved. Even if some are already Christians, they make unbelievers out of them so they can be saved over again. Becoming saved all over again is a soulish experience; it makes them feel good.
We have never done that in this walk with God. We do not make unbelievers out of people or get them stirred in their soul. Instead, we tell them, “Here, you’ve started; you’re growing. This is where you can come up, up, up.” And until they break through into the spirit realm, they don’t really seem to know what it is all about.
If you are looking for the right approach, you should pray, “God, help me to be, not a soul winner, but a spirit opener.” There is a big difference.
The terminology, “We believe in saving souls” is all wrong. We often hear the criticism of this walk: “You don’t believe in soul winning.” No not particularly. It doesn’t excite me very much. I would much rather see a spirit born into awareness with God, for that is real transformation.
The term “saving souls” isn’t really Scriptural. In the New Testament we read of the early church: “The Lord was adding to the church day by day such as were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Your soul continues in a saving process long after your spirit is born of God, but the church today still tries to remain down on that soul level.
Consequently, people do not have much confidence in their experiences. If they are concentrating on the salvation of the soul, which is a progressive process, they never really feel saved. So, they must try to talk themselves into it and accept it sort of by faith.
If there is any negative trait in the disposition, any bad habit, any temper, any inconsistency of adjustment in the home life, they lack assurance in their salvation experience.
If you lose your temper at your wife or the children before coming to church, you don’t feel saved. The soul still is not saved—not entirely; it is going through a process of salvation. Because the soul is more closely related to the flesh, and you are still in a body that is not yet glorified, these reactions come up.
After you come into this walk, you have an awareness that your spirit is alive; it is born of God. That was true in the old order too, but then you were analyzing your soul life. Now you analyze your spirit life and realize that you have a walk with God, while the soul is going through its regenerating process. Eventually the last thing to be redeemed will be your mortal bodies.
We teach repentance, and we are turning away from the human nature (soul). We can really see it work because in our spirits we are walking with God.
Because our spirits have this awareness of God, there is a real security and a sense of salvation. Under the dealings of the Lord in this walk, you may often wonder whether you are coming or going, but you never have any doubts about being God’s person. Even when you stumble and fall, you know that you have a walk with God, and so you get up again because that relationship with God is in your spirit. This is where the assurance really comes.
The following are keys to help you in your walk with God, as the day of spirit unfolds:
What should we do when people are intent only on arguing with us? Paul wrote in II Timothy 2:24: “The servant of the Lord must not strive.” We notice, however, that when Paul went into the synagogue, he began to dispute and cause contention.
That was a day of soul and because people lived in a soulish realm, that is where he met them. But he never did it again, he determined to know nothing, but Christ crucified. It is best not to argue with anyone, for you will not win him that way anyway. You do not approach this walk through the mind. In fact, you must learn almost by revelation, and that comes through your spirit. That is why the preaching must be by revelation. You must hear with the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17).
You cannot just open your spirit to someone hoping to reach them and minister to them. You must learn about openness, about being closed, and about restraints, all of which are things of spirit.
For example, an individual who has lived a rough life may have come out of it apparently unscathed, but you can see why: in his spirit he is as hard as nails. He has walled everyone out so that nothing can get to him.
Another person may not have been exposed to as much of the world or to sin or to as many wicked people, but because his spirit is so open, it was right “it affected him deeply”.
You cannot explain what happens to different people until you understand the realm of spirit. When you come into this walk, you first must learn how to be open to God. Then you must learn not to be open to everyone, or you will be getting hit all the time. Learn to build defenses.
When God leads you to someone, open your spirit to them, but don’t go around continually with the door open. You don’t leave the doors and windows of your home open all the time. At the very least, you will get flies in the house if you do. When someone comes to visit, you open the door to them. Do the same thing with your spirit: open your spirit to those whom God is leading you to. It is a very technical thing to learn.
You can go to someone and see their need, and then open your spirit to them and win them. But if you open your spirit first and there is hostility in that individual, you will go away with a headache or pain that they have transferred through the openness you had to them.
Sometimes it is a calculated risk; you help someone even if he does whack you. In the realm of spirit, the drain comes when your defense is down at the wrong time. You must know how to keep your defenses.
There is a difference between being open in your spirit and being unrestrained in your spirit. A restraint is something you may impose on yourself or someone else may impose upon you; it might also come from the spirit world.
Just because something bad is not restraining you does not mean that you are open; it just means you are not restrained.
Openness is a definite action of your spirit opening up to something. Your openness could be compared to a door. It may not necessarily be locked, but that does not mean the door is open. The door is there; it can open or close because it is unrestrained, and you can use it as you will.
If you are restrained, it is like a door being locked, and try as you will, you are not able to get that door open until you remove the restraint.
Although believers are born of God on the spirit level, it seems that some do not rise above the soulish level. They could if someone would teach them how in the beginning.
Sometimes a new convert has an almost unbelievable experience and reaches a high level of joy for a few days, until the church he is in pulls him down to a soulish level.
He was born on the right level, but people can soon bring him down to their level. They don’t think he is really established until they have ruined the beautiful experience of his spirit when he was first saved.
The same thing happens when people are filled with the Holy Spirit. Some have glorious experiences that lift them up and give them a walk with God, but then they are taught certain ideas about the Holy Spirit that are wrong, and they begin to gravitate to a lower level. This they should not do.
Every experience should be considered an open door. Salvation is not an exhaustive or final experience; it is the initial experience that opens up the whole realm of growth and development in God.
When you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, it just opens the door. You have not attained God’s fullness; you have just arrived at an open door and now you can explore the great realm of the Holy Spirit.
It is difficult to define the difference between the soul and the spirit. There are some things that you just know but you can’t define them. Could you define God?
God is a Spirit, and you know that you have a spirit. But what is a spirit? Even books on theology do not give a satisfactory definition. Most theologians still do not believe that the spirit has faculties and senses.
Your spirit has arms, legs, feet, and a mouth, yet it is not limited by size or shape, by time or distance. If you are a free spirit, you can make contact with someone anywhere, instantly, with no time lapse.
The soul is much easier to understand. Even animals have souls, and that is why soulish people like dogs and cats. Animals are capable of a certain amount of affection and emotional response.
The Greek word for soul is “psuche,” from which we get the word “psychic.” People who are psychic (for example, those who practice witchcraft) use their soul force, not their spirit. Spiritualists move entirely from a soul realm, and that is why they swoon and go into trances. Some of them have no awareness of God; they are not born again.
They are only developing the psychic soul force which is a very capable tool. Witchcraft can kill because it operates on a soul level with great psychic force emanating from an individual.
The soul of a witch may be completely unregenerated and unsaved; “You who were dead in your trespasses and sins,” Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1. Her spirit is literally dead, but her soul is very much alive, and she is operating all her force from that soul realm.
God told Adam, “The day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). When Adam sinned, it was his spirit communication with God that died that same day, but his body lived on for nine hundred years.
People who are saved on a soulish level will go to heaven. They are saved. It makes no difference what level a man lives on if he has accepted Jesus Christ with all of his heart. He can live primarily on a physical level, until he is just doing what is right because of pure legalism and discipline; he can live on the soul level; he can live on the spirit level.
God dealt differently with men in different times. In the Old Testament, it was through exact obedience and law. The New Testament ushered in the church age and a new approach. But now we look to the New Testament and read it on a spiritual level. As we move into that, we see something far superior to anything that has appeared in the past.
That is why our approach to ministry is very different. People often come with serious personal problems, after consulting psychologists and others unsuccessfully. They have confidence that the word of wisdom God gives in our personal ministry services will give them the counsel they need.
Sometimes the answer the Lord gives seems strange or even a tricky strategy, but when it is followed, we see the wisdom in it.
When you minister to someone and you see that there is demon power involved, you must first bind the strong man (Mark 3:27). After you bind that spirit, you can minister to the individual.
Most of the time people create openness with their feelings. They talk, think, or feel themselves into the problems that affect their spirit. You can be affected in your spirit by what you listen to. When you talk to some people, you soon feel beat down and discouraged. They get to your spirit, little by little.
You can do that to yourself too. If you think, “Oh, I’m no good; I feel terrible,” long enough, you will get to feeling that way, and your soul will put a cloud over your spirit. You have come down into the soulish realm and your spirit is restrained. That is why people who go by their feelings are up and down, up and down, easily talked into and out of things. Anyone who walks in the Spirit can walk much more consistently.
Developing a selective openness in your spirit, so that you are not wiped out by demon power, yet are open to the Lord, is like using the fine tuner on the radio. Dial out everything else and just dial in the Lord. Let the range of your focus be set more sharply on the Lord.