The prophecies are coming to pass; we are breaking through. I did not anticipate that the battle against them would be so great, but it will unfold to us to know how to move in them. I go through periods in which I feel such a breakthrough; then I get hit so hard. So I will stand in faith and then every symptom will leave.
I am convinced that there are two sides to this coin. One side is the facts of faith. Faith believes, and that’s the facts we hold. But with it—the other side of the coin—the enemy has lies; he has to question the Word. And while we have facts that may rest only on faith, Satan will prey upon fears, and he can produce symptoms that look like facts.
In the book of Jonah, it is rather interesting that one modern translation of the Bible translates one of Jonah’s statements in his prayer to be that he would not look at the “lying symptoms” (Jonah 2:8–10). It would be pretty hard to say, “It is a lying symptom,” when you are in the belly of a whale with seaweed wrapped around your neck. But he had moved in such a faith that he declared all of his circumstances to be lying symptoms. All of the circumstances were lying symptoms.
The hostility the enemy brings against us is challenging us to back off and say, “Well, I have to cope with a symptom, I have to cope with a circumstance.” I had maybe dozens of attacks like this in the last twenty-four hours, yet I found my spirit undaunted, standing fast in the Word, ready to prophesy.
When the prophecies come, we will sustain ourselves with them. Go back and listen to, “From This Hour On,” which came on October 27, 1981. There are little traces in that prophecy that are very illuminating. At one point He spoke that the people were going to be met in the churches, and the warmth and the love would start drawing people in “from this hour on.” It is happening. From that hour on it seemed that there was a warmth and a drawing in the churches, and the people entered into a worship and a love. And I don’t think we realized it because it moved rather slowly—these breakthroughs that have come in so many areas right now, in so many churches. But it is beyond coincidence; it is simply because the Lord opened the door for it to work.
There are other things that some of us have yet to see established—as far as the symptoms and circumstances are concerned—according to that Word, “From This Hour On.” But in every case there are little telltale indications that something did happen “from this hour on.” For instance, the assault changed drastically.
I think it is most significant that a great deal of what is happening to us now is related to a spirit of infirmity that shifts from one thing to another. We come back to the fact that God’s Word is true and we should utterly, utterly abandon an interpretation of any situation on a basis of circumstances or symptoms, and look entirely to what God’s Word is saying, and follow it totally and completely. God said it; we are going to believe it. It doesn’t make any difference what assault comes against us. We are witnessing many mighty things, such as this token of immunity that has come.
You are touching on something that is very important right now. We are saying that because of the Word, Satan will make his attempt at trying to get us to change our position with the Word right before the fulfillment comes; and we are not going to waver in what the Lord said. Just as you brought out, the wave of the assault would come, and then you would stand on the Word and it would be gone.
Years ago, you brought out a principle which I have never forgotten. You said that you would pray and believe for something, and the answer would start on its way to you. But there was a last thing Satan did; he did not have anything left to do except one thing: throw a discouragement at you that the answer was not going to come. And if he could trick you on that last phase, you might lose it.
Yes, it is that awesome heaviness that comes from Satan just before the moment of fulfillment.
Just before the answer comes. The answer is on its way and that is why this is so important right now, because we are facing the Word and its relationship to everything in the Kingdom. We are praying, and we speak it, and it is on its way; but then Satan comes in with this lying symptom that it is not on its way. And that happens right before the release, so we just go back and stand on the Word—the Lord said, “From this hour on.”
In Psalm 122 we read that “our feet stand within Thy courts” (verse 2). You see, we get to that place, and then the promise is, “For there Thou hast ordained to establish the thrones of judgment, the judgments of David” (verse 5). As I read that, I realized how true that is. We want the prayer of judgment. When we move into it, then we get hit, and we become discouraged, and we back off. Judgment, I believe, is going to be an expression of the most persistent faith we have ever had. You get a Word, and you begin to prophesy judgment and the Word is flowing and you know that you are speaking that judgment in God. Then immediately you are hit so hard, because you have moved up to that final area. If we suffer with Him, we are going to reign with Him (II Timothy 2:12). And so there remains that last attack, because that is the crowning thing. When He is glorified in us in judgment, and He is glorified in us in authority—His authority, His judgments—that means we have reached a level where no longer are we in a process. We have reached a place where God has tried us and proved us; we have been found worthy to enter into the realms of judgment.
“But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts.
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. And you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:2–5; 4:1–3.
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner? I Peter 4:12–18.
The highest level of deception that Satan has is right at this point, because it is the highest level of Christ’s authority, the truth, coming forth. That is why we have never faced it before. We can’t say, “Okay, Satan is gone, therefore we have the victory”; we have to be so aware of how high a level of deception he is going to move on. It is like his last card.
This one thing that I know out of it: there is a coming conjunction of the two worlds—the invisible church with the visible. In Honolulu during the early fifties, we released a number of messages on FM radio; and one of those messages was titled “The Conjunction of Two Worlds.” The Lord had brought such revelation that at the time of His Parousia those who slept with Him He would bring with Him (I Thessalonians 4:14). And that world would approach closer and closer—not in distance, because it is just a plane of spirit.
Gradually and progressively there has been more awareness of the saints of God, of the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1, 22–24). The time has finally come in which we will begin to see things happen. The seer prophets are going to see more than just prophecies and revelations and symptoms and spirits; they are going to be able to see what is taking place in the spirit world. We are going to see it. And if anybody objects to that, realize that it is exactly what Christ did: He would see the things the Father was doing; He would hear what the Father was speaking (John 5:19–20; 14:10, 24). He lived in two worlds. And we are living in two worlds, but they are coming closer.
And that is one reason why we have to believe very quickly for the Lord to give us this breakthrough where our faith in the Word is the facts. There is absolutely no way that anything can be correctly evaluated apart from that.
From this hour on, you cannot evaluate things by the way you see them in a test tube or a telescope or anything else. They can only be evaluated as they relate to the spirit. There is too much spirit input into everything that is happening. So you don’t dare trust what you would see or hear or feel; you only trust what God’s Word says. The time has come when the only weapon that will be effective, the only weapon of change, is going to be that sharp two-edged sword which comes out of the mouth of Christ (Revelation 19:15; Hebrews 4:12). And you are going to be the ones who speak it.
And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” Revelation 19:11–16.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.
The people declare their absolute loyalty forever to the Living Word. Then become positively the other way. What makes that much of a change in a person? Satan brings a fear, he confirms it with symptoms; and that becomes the fact, the lie that people live with.
If you are moved by a fear and you are convinced by Satan’s lying symptoms, those are the facts you live with. They are your facts. No longer say, “What are the facts? Let’s weigh them in court.” Those facts don’t exist anymore. The facts are either determined by Satan’s lies and fears confirmed by symptoms and circumstances or whatever he has created, or we have had a Word from God and we believe that Word, and because we believe that Word that is our facts and that is the way it will be.
Around the time that the Word “Is God Enough For Me?”1 came out, you brought another Word entitled, “If The Walk Exceeds Your Faith.”2 In that message you described this whole process, and you said that this walk with God would become the closest thing to hell people could have if they did not overcome the unbelief and fear. The fear would hit in waves; it would come like delirium tremors to a drunk, and eventually they would just blow out of the thing. Like Saul, they would enter into a type of insanity. You described it before it ever happened.
There are things of unbelief in us that keep coming up; they’re vicious.”
The Lord had given me a vision ,when you go to the garden and there are weeds growing, you take a hoe but you do not try to chop off the tops of the weeds; you try to get down and get at the root. Have you known times when you are hoeing in the garden and you chop the roots, but it doesn’t look like too much has happened? But you really did get to it. You look back and you say, “Well, it’s all still there.” Then you leave the hoe and you get the rake, and you just rake it all away. It all comes out now, and you rake it off. “That’s exactly what God is doing now. He is giving us a Word and the thing is being chopped right at the root. But it doesn’t look like it. And so here is where the persistence of faith rakes it off, and dries it, and burns it.”
Let me tell you, it is what I have been applying to my heart for days. I am not going to be moved by the fact that we whack away at something and it doesn’t appear to go away instantly. It is dead; it is gone, and you just rake it off and dry it up, and pile it up and burn it. It is done; it is finished. Its effectiveness is gone the minute you declare it. You put the hoe of faith right on the root of it. And that is what we do when we prophesy. If you prophesy and nothing seems to happen, prophesy again. The first prophecy will be the hoe; the second prophecy will be the rake. Just stay right with it.
We don’t try to discipline our flesh nature. God is going to show us a way whereby we lay the ax to the root (Luke 3:9). Rather than bog down in this self-condemnation and try to discipline your way out of your problem, move in faith. Because you hit that level in your faith and you speak it, that lays the ax to the root.
That’s true. Every one of us has different circumstances in which we dwell—although, probably no people in the history of the earth has ever been thrown into such a common experience in walking with God as we have, and in such a oneness. I doubt if there ever has been attained before the oneness that God is bringing. And yet we see that there is a diversity of circumstances which each one of us faces, and we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted, either by the individuality of our own ministry or by the distinctive individual relationships each one of us has in our circumstances to the battle.
Everybody has a different thing to face. And the victory is in the fact that we take the common Word that God has given and we apply it irrespective. We will not say, “Well, I have a different situation than the other fellow.” We say, “No, God’s Word is true.” God’s Word is true. Those are the facts. God says, “Victory.” It is victory for everybody, not just a victory for certain situations and no victory for others. The deterrent to faith is the fact that we begin to develop a self-pity or a sympathy for ourself as though our situation were unique, and then we are moved from the objectivity of pure faith into an emotional subjectivity in intercession.
Intercession can be subjective rather than objective, until you feel so sorry for yourself that you are yelling, and it becomes an expression of a lot of things that you are feeling. And all you are doing is just blowing off steam; you are blowing off the problems and so forth, dumping them. When it is over you say, “I feel better now,” but that doesn’t mean that the situation is changed. The situation changes when you approach it with an objectivity of faith and you say, “Thus saith the Lord. God is in this thing. This is what we say, this is what we do. We blast this thing loose. We are going to go after it with everything in us!” And we stand in that. That is the only way we can rejoice in persecution.
It seems that the basic makeup of the soul is to evaluate the circumstances and come up with a conclusion or a truth. Take this a little bit further and it becomes the basis of unbelief when it comes to relating to a Word from the Lord. The soul’s basic makeup, its propensity, is to do this.
It is self functioning and questioning, “How do I relate to this? What do I have to think about this? What am I going to have to do about this?”
That becomes the underlying basis of unbelief. This Word is actually exposing the way unbelief operates within our lives, which is this propensity to constantly be coming up with the facts that are based on the soulish observations. And that is the area of testing; it is coming in this area. That’s why Satan is hitting us there.
This is an exposure of the way unbelief can masquerade even in a religious response to circumstances. Out prayers could be actually an expression of unbelief, because they are based on a soulish observation or a religious observation of a circumstance; whereas the proclamation of the Word of God looses the faith of God in our hearts.
Yes, that’s it. You see, the faith of God has to operate through the objectivity of a person who says he believes the Word and knows that he does not have to do anything more about it. He believes the Word, so he does not have to react: “I believe that God is going to protect me; I am living in Sodom, but I am sure going to take out a lot of fire insurance.” There is that sort of thinking in which you still want to protect yourself: “I don’t know what is going to happen tonight, but I am going to be prepared for it.” You see, there is always the shadow of unbelief. But wherever self-interest is involved there is unbelief, isn’t there? And that is where your soul comes in. But when you get to the place in your spirit of really walking with God, there can be no fear (I John 4:18), because what can anyone do to your spirit—only God can; He is the source of it (Psalm 118:5–9). And you just voice the faith, objectively. You declare it positively. Then you don’t have to do anything about it.
You are confronting this whole level of fear. We are in probably the greatest battle that has happened in the last two thousand years, and it is just the direct confrontation against the fear. The thing that gets the enemy so upset is that he cannot get us to be afraid; so he just rages.
In no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. Philippians 1:28.
Aren’t you glad God created the oneness first? If He had not created the oneness, we would be singled out by the devil, one by one. But in this oneness we are all believing for all of it. We are one in this thing. I need never again know what it is for us to go through something and see somebody lost. This oneness eliminates that, because you can take them with you; you just walk along with them. In fact, you may be carrying them along, and the next thing you know they are carrying you along. That oneness is so perfect. The oneness had to come before this step or we would have been singled out like little ducks going along a shooting gallery; the enemy would have picked us off. But he cannot get us, because our oneness in Christ is giving what He says—immunity! (John 17:11, 14–23.) It’s all tied together. That’s the way we are making it now.
It is this key of oneness that is opening up the immunity for us. We have had bold proclamations about faith and the Word of the Lord in the past, but that Word has been watered down by our own independence. And it is because of independence that we have a vulnerability to satanic assault. A Word comes forth which is a true Word, yet it falls on independent ears and therefore the enemy hits.
We should pick the biggest mountain in the whole continent, Mount McKinley in Alaska, and say, “We are going to believe God and it is going to be moved. A big chunk of that thing is going to fall off.” Why? Someone has to start this thing someplace, that you can have faith to move mountains; and that is what we are going to do (Matthew 17:20). We are going to change things, totally, completely. And in oneness we will do it.
That’s the point. Oneness now is our immunity where independence was our vulnerability at one time.
When we are independent it seems that we do not stand totally in the faith of Christ; and even if we have a gift of faith, it is an operation of the Spirit, an endowment that rests upon us at our initiative (I Corinthians 12:4–11, 31; 14:1). But when we get into oneness, you notice that everything changes. When you come into oneness, everything changes then because you stop being an apostle by virtue of a calling and endowment of God, and you participate as one who is called to be an apostle in the ministry of the Chief Apostle, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:4–7; Hebrews 3:1). You stop just believing with an endowment of the Spirit to believe, a gift of faith or prophecy, and you move into a higher level. This was all in the teaching from the beginning. There is one level of prophesying in the Spirit, by the gift of the Spirit (Romans 12:6; I Corinthians 12:9–10); but the highest level is the Living Word of Christ coming forth (Revelation 19:9–13).
You see, we are moving into the ministry of Christ. Paul even brought that to the Corinthians who were more interested in gifts than probably any other church in the New Testament, as far as the epistles seem to indicate. And he said, “You seek proof of Christ speaking in me” (II Corinthians 13:2–3); but he did not refer to it as Christ speaking when he talked about prophesying. He said, “Everybody seek to prophesy. You can all prophesy one by one” (I Corinthians 14:1–3, 31). But he did not mean that all of them were going to speak Christ; it did not mean that Christ was speaking.
We are getting into this oneness, and little by little we are going to participate. You do not even need to worry anymore about what gifts you individually have or don’t have. Just be concerned that in the oneness there is the whole, complete, total endowment of the fullness of Christ. And that is what the Spirit of God keeps telling us. The provision of Christ is perfect. The riches of Christ, everything is there; it is all ours. We claim it—all things that pertain to life and godliness (II Peter 1:3–4). He is everything to us. He is the author and the finisher of it (Hebrews 12:2). He works mightily in us.
And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:28–29.
Do you understand that this is different than the endowments of the Church Age? We are getting into a oneness of the Kingdom, and we are going to eliminate what we started out to eliminate—positions: “This person has this great gift, this one has a little gift, and this one over here is sitting under the footstool.” Now everyone can partake in it. And you notice another significant change that has taken place in this. Who is the prophet and who is the apostle to lay hands on whom? A little child comes up and lays his hands on one who has been an apostle or a pastor and there is a great flow, because the fullness of Christ is taking away the limitations, limitations that existed even under the gifts. You are going to face it—or even if you don’t want to face it, it doesn’t make any difference—the ministration of the gifts of the Spirit was very limited. We had twenty-five years of watching it work somewhat.
They had an independent expression. Gifted people would come forth, and they would manifest their gift on an independent level.
And they would get hit the hardest. In some instances, a woman who could become a prophetess might become a witch.
It gave rise to all kinds of divisiveness and position and competition. But in oneness you forego the gifts and you just become literally the gift. We are merging into becoming the gift of God to the earth, and it is a oneness that is being expressed.
It is just amazing, isn’t it? This has been a flow of revelation teaching; but it is not new, because we have not said anything that you have not watched unfold before you for a long time. It is just beginning to solidify in the deep concept that in our oneness all we have to do is speak the Word of the Lord in faith, and believe that, and that is the facts. How are you going to bring forth a nation in a day? (Isaiah 66:8.) Processes are not the answer. One hundred thousand years will pass before we change much of anything in this world unless we just speak it in faith—and everything changes.
How is it going to happen? How can we see another age come unless there is a total breakthrough? In every dispensation there was some answer. How could God start all over again at a time when the nephilim filled the earth with violence and every evil thing you can imagine? Hybrids came forth until there were nephilim born giants in the earth—freaks. The giants of ancient times were freaks, born of a nephilim generation. They took the daughters of men, everything they wanted (Genesis 6:1–7, 11–12). How did God get rid of it? He just drowned the whole thing and started over with another man, Noah (Genesis 6:8, 13–18). How did God do it one time after another? Just look back. He had His ways of doing it; somehow they all have a familiar ring. He brought Abraham over to Canaan and said, “I won’t do it with you now, but give Me about four hundred years; desolation is going to be the key. I will bring you down until you are just crying out like a bunch of galley slaves under the whip, then I am going to do it” (Genesis 15:13–21; Exodus 3:6–10).
God has a way of bringing an age forth. How did He do it in the Church Age? He brought us to a place where we were in agony. We were probably the most gifted, most endowed people on the face of the earth, with the richest Word, and we became the most desolated.
We trust God. We are breaking through. We are just believers. What do we have to do to work the works of God in the earth? (John 6:27–29.) When all this thing is done, we will look around and say, “Well, we believed it. He created everything new.” If Satan succeeds in destroying us, it will only be because we have allowed the continual warfare to move us from our total faith in the Word of God (Revelation 12:10–12). This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? I John 5:4–5.
And we are going to overcome the world. We are born of God. We overcome the world because we are believers. We believe His Word. We prophesy the Word of the Lord. We loose ourselves from every bit of this deception. I predict and I loose at the same time that we are going to have more prophesying in the services than we have ever had, but on a new level. We are going to proclaim the things as they are to be by His Word. It does not make any difference how things look. It is only going to happen because you say, “This is it,” and you proclaim the Word of the Lord.
We are going to prophesy the Word of the Lord. We are going to prophesy that Word, and that is going to be the fact we believe—not the circumstances, not the doubts, not the fear, not any illusions.
People will get out their prophecies and say, “I believe it!” and then that’s the way it will be. We have waited for things to develop. We have waited for a process. Somehow we called it “spiritual growth” to excuse the unrelenting battle of unbelief against God’s Word. We can have a great deal more now by just standing on that Word once and for all and saying, “That’s our truth, because it is going to be according to the Word of the Lord.”
Get a prophecy. Get a declaration. Get a Word from the Scriptures. We are not on the defensive. Just declare, “We are the chosen of God. We are the Kingdom of God. We are the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ” (I Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6, NASB). Even if persecutors try to tear it all to shreds from now on, I would prefer one positive statement before God of who we are according to a Word from God rather than all of the defensive measures put together. Just declare who you are, declare the Word of God, and that’s the way we go ahead. Say to them, “I don’t know what you think we are, and I’m not going to judge you, but I have believed the Word of God and these are the changes that came in my life. This is what I have become because of it. Now you tell me the truth: Those who have believed what you have said—has it changed them into anything but fearful, apprehensive people?”
With no ability to discern right and wrong.
We have the determined belief that we are chosen ones; it does not make any difference what is said in persecution, because we know who we are. And that is the proclamation that just wipes out the fear which people have, “Am I going to be persecuted?” The world can’t deprogram me for what I am. This eliminates the whole fear which creeps in, and people are worried about what is going to happen. The facts are the facts; we know who we are.
We know who we are. And if we have a question about the future being in His hands, then the future is to be questioned. The future will be written by those who believe. If Paul and Silas in jail had doubted or been fearful, they would not have sung and caused an earthquake (Acts 16:25–26). Something has to cause you to transcend everything until you are rejoicing and you prevail because you know who you are. You know the facts; you know that you are invincible because Christ dwells within you (I John 4:12–18). You are speaking. And you had better believe it is a spiritual offensive, in every way.
You see, we have come to the place where we are speaking God into the earth. God is going to get back His earth as His footstool. This is the real ministry of reconciliation. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and we come in and say, “Be reconciled to God. You are not going to be rebellious. Your knees are going to bow. Broken legs or not, you are going to be bowing.” And it will be.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Corinthians 5:18–21.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11.
What we are saying will come about with discernment and perception. When the people in the world hear an analysis of their own life, they will say, “My God, nobody knew that. No one can know those kinds of things. No one can know the basis of my reactions unless that man is speaking from God.” In Corinthians it says that men will fall down and say, “God is in you, of a truth,” because the secrets of their heart are being unveiled (I Corinthians 14:24–25). It is not only the authority, but it is the perception to tell the people right exactly where they are at. They will hear it and recognize, “Yes, my God, that is the way I am. I do feel fearful. I do feel caught in a whirlwind of confusion.” You tell them right where they are at, and they are going to believe God, just as it happened in the story of the woman at the well (John 4:1–26).
This approach of positive faith is beyond anything else that I can ever defend. God help us, the fearful and the unbelieving are the ones who lead that parade into judgment, according to Revelation 21:7–8, KJV. We are not going to be among them. We are not going to be fearful; we are not going to be unbelieving. We are going to stand in the faith of the Lord. We are going to prophesy the release. Keep prophesying. Be free! Be free to speak the Word of the Lord! Faith has to have a freedom. Where the Spirit is Lord, there is freedom (II Corinthians 3:17).
Christ said, “When you see these different signs in the world come to pass, look up. Look up! Forget about those things. You are not going to look down anymore” (Luke 21:7–28). He did not say to examine them and preach on the signs of the times and put fear in people’s hearts. We have had a lifetime of hearing about antichrists and signs of the times. Preachers talk about the antichrist and signs of the times, but no one is talking about the Parousia! The Lord is here! But if you want to see how much unbelief there is, just tell people, “The Kingdom comes!”
“We didn’t see it.”
It is not supposed to come with observation. The little flock got it. And the fleecers didn’t.
Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
“But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.” Luke 17:20–21; 12:31–32.
We are making statements that create faith in the one who hears.
Amen! I loose you to believe! I declare that you are the greatest bunch of believers in the whole world!
Absolutely. Nothing less.
Yes! We are just beginning to see what is really going to happen.
This is a guideline for Kingdom evangelism.
We still have the idea that someone has to sell you on something, someone has to talk you into it through some soulish process, that it is a matter of salesmanship. It is a matter of, “I spoke the Word of the Lord.” How are they going to believe unless they hear the Word? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Who is going to speak the Word of Christ? You!
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17.
But there are things you can do. A thought about a person could come, and just as simply as saying, “I loose that person,” you can put souls in orbit. When you see them you just believe for them, and they can soon be in orbit with God; they will really start tracking. Just start believing for each other. God said to me, “Thou shalt have faith for every man.” It is not a matter of a hopeless concern; it is a faith that works by love that is going to believe for them to be something (Galatians 5:5–6). We are going to loose one another. Loose one another into pure righteousness, into doing exploits. I don’t think we know yet what we can do in binding and loosing (Matthew 18:18–20; John 14:12–14; 15:7). But we are going to do it. We don’t know yet; but when it comes out of our mouth, all we have to do is believe it. All of us.
“Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.” Matthew 18:18–20.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” John 14:12–14; 15:7.
This is the step we have waited for. We could not have done it before. We could not have done it without oneness. I tell you, we should thank God for the “Unfolding,” for every step that the Lord brought us to. That “Unfolding” brought us to the place where all of this can happen now. It is leading right into His Presence, to sitting right on the throne with Him. Watching this come forth is more than just an exciting experience. This is the travail that establishes us all in a new age.
The Lord kept speaking to us that we would not walk by wisdom but we would walk by faith, and we never have realized how true that was until we hit this level. But everything pointed toward it year after year.
Finally, the Lord spoke to me, “Now it is going to be by a gift of faith. You will never be able to function just by a Word of wisdom.” That should have been a very clear indication. At the beginning, when they laid hands on me in Tacoma, Washington, the Lord said to me then that He would give me a Word of wisdom and a Word of knowledge to lead and bring His people into the Kingdom of God. That stood with me all of those years. Finally we came to the place where He said, “Now no more will it be the Word of wisdom or Word of knowledge.” What does that mean? It means we have come to the Kingdom.
“Those of you who have lived in a mixture, the time is over. Now everything is going to look bad.” You said that we would never have enough finances, we would not have enough ministries, we would not have enough facilities, and you described precisely how things were going to be. Then you said, “And out of that will come the miracle of the Kingdom.” And that is exactly what has happened.
I remember one night when we were together seeking the Lord, an unbelievable wave of discouragement came in. We had tried everything—we tried worship, we tried praying; nothing seemed to work. And then you walked in and brought a word called, “Hath God Said? Or Thus Saith The Lord,” and it just lifted that whole thing and gave us a perception. I think our perception is related to our faith, because in Hebrews 11 it keeps saying, “Faith sees.” By faith Abraham saw (Hebrews 11:8–10). By faith Moses saw Him who is unseen (Hebrews 11:24–27). Our perception is not a psychic thing, but we believe the Word of God, and our faith breaks through because of it. It gives you another eye when you have faith.
It is such a matter of faith. There is almost a violent expression of the Word that God is putting in us; and there is such a total acceptance in our heart: “This is God’s Word. It is a Word we are going to follow. This is the Word.”
We had a glimpse into the future of the Kingdom, Lord, and we want You to cancel the past.
Reevaluate the present, too, Lord.
It is true that we do not believe enough. By the time a doctor finishes his internship, he knows forty percent of what he will have to know during the course of his practice. And the older the doctor gets, the less he knows, because that is how vast the medical books have become. This is true in electronics, also; there are children today who have a genius in computers that is almost frightening. A totally different world has developed since some of us were children. Look at all the changes that have taken place within half a century. Take some man who was an electrician in earlier days; he would not know enough now. He would not know the codes or electronics today. He would not know what to do.
The first century Church and the early apostles did not believe enough. The path of the just has to shine more and more to the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18). We have to get into the battle to believe more. God curse this religious conditioning that locks us in: “I will believe as much as the old-time religion.” That old-time religion is inadequate now. Look at anyone who dates back to that old-time religion, such as Cotton Mather, or Jonathan Edwards, who preached, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Those men had something; but what they believed is totally insufficient or inadequate for us now.
And if you really want something that will astound you, face the fact that no Protestant church has ever measured up to the revelation that the Wesley brothers had about entire sanctification and so forth. That teaching was so strong that a few following it gave birth to the Pentecostal movement and went on to whatever God was doing then. Much of what Charles Finney wrote is not to be compared to what God could bring out of any one of our brothers today.
It is fantastic what God is doing. We have to see the greatest breakthroughs. We have to sit and teach one another by revelation. We have to expand our horizons. We have to get into the Word. We have to learn to speak the Word. We have to get rid of this conditioning of unbelief. We are going to move. And the world is going to be moved because we move. For the time is now for God’s commitment of grace to man to bring back His world to Himself.
Faith rests on the Word that becomes the facts of our life. Fear interprets symptoms and circumstances falsely, but they become the facts to the fearful.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; that is faith’s facts.
The Kingdom cannot be correctly evaluated by what you see—only by what He says.
The issue has been the same from the beginning—“Hath God said?” You either believe God’s Word or Satan’s distortions and deceptions.
True faith is in God’s Word; unbelief is a result of our fearful evaluation of our circumstances.
Receive a Word from God and believe it, and that is what your life will be.
Receive a Word from God and move on it, and you will move the world.