This message contains practical teaching about transference that you need to know in your fasting, in your prayer, and in breaking the oppressions of witchcraft and everything else that may come against you.
Our first great truth about transference is revealed in Isaiah 53:4–8: Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening of our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
Transference is probably the most basic truth in the Scriptures to reveal how God accomplishes His will in you and in your destiny, and how you in turn, as part of the spiritual Body, are able to bless each other.
The sacrifices of the Old Testament illustrate how transference works. On the Day of Atonement the priest laid his hands upon an animal and confessed the sins of the people over its head. In a very real sense, they believed their sins were transferred to that animal. Then the animal was slain, symbolizing the fact that the wages of sin is death. As you read about those sacrifices in the Old Testament, all of it will become very meaningful to you.
When the New Testament opens up, we find John the Baptist down in the Jordan River, baptizing. As he sees Christ coming, we hear him cry, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Our sins were to be transferred to Him.
In Revelation we hear the same cry, from John the Beloved, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And when he turned to see the Lion of the tribe of Judah, he saw a Lamb, as though He had been slain.
That is the key. Christ has a right to rule and to reign over us because He has redeemed us. And He redeemed us by having our sins transferred to Him. He suffered the utmost penalty and judgment for every sin that has ever been committed. That is transference.
We cannot understand salvation and redemption, or the sons of God, or what we are going to be, if we do not accept the fact that this is the way by which it happens.
The philosophies which teach that we must meditate and contemplate and work our way up to perfection may have some good in them. But the danger and the deadliness of them is that they start with the man who is heavy with his sins and his sin nature, and when they are finished, the man still has his sins and his sin nature, though he has become somewhat refined and cultured in the whole process.
God says we must start at the cross where He laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all. We start with a new nature. We start, not with a human nature to be refined, but with a divine nature that is imparted, and a human nature that is to be crucified with Christ.
When you fast and when you pray, you are struggling to absorb God. You are struggling for God to transfer what He is into you, until you become what He is.
Do not ever be tempted to get on that old self-improvement bandwagon. You become a new generation by God imparting to you His love and His faith, His light, His nature, and His wisdom. When you fast and when you pray, be a sponge that soaks up God. That is transference.
In Holy Communion you are also applying this principle. You partake of Christ’s body and His blood so that His virtue and His life might be transferred to you. He said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” John 6:57b. It all flows from Him to you.
Transference is basic to the ministry within the Body. Not much can happen with the Body until you learn that it works by transference. Out of the fullness of the Spirit within me and because I am filled with the Spirit, I can prophesy to you, and you can receive a blessing. The fullness is transferred. Words mean very little. Someone can talk to you all day; and it will not necessarily benefit you, unless he is able to give a flow of the Spirit to you. Jesus said, “My words are spirit and they are life.” If the life of Christ is flowing in those words, then they bring about a change. When you hear a prophecy, you want to absorb what God is saying.
Paul told the Thessalonian church, “The word which you received of us, you received not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectually worketh in you that believe” (I Thessalonians 2:13).
They did not listen to hear the words of a man speaking; they listened to hear God speaking to them through those human lips. And those words effectually worked in the lives of the people because there was a transference.
Ministry is effective because you minister God to your brother and sister. You draw from God and you impart to another. This is what I do every time I lay hands on someone. I know that God promised me my hands would never be empty. But believe me, these hands are just ordinary hands, except for one thing: God promised that He would minister through my hands. And it happens.
Why do we lay hands on people? Why do we prophesy? Why do we anoint with oil? We believe that by our faith we become a channel of transference to draw from God and minister to another. We draw from the Lord and we impart to others. It all goes back to the basic principle of transference.
I believe that I can minister God to another person. I believe that I can minister God to my brothers and sisters. I believe that we can draw from the fullness of the Lord. We can do this. It is not dependent upon the human qualifications or intelligence or education; it is just dependent upon our becoming humble channels to transfer God to another individual.
Paul writes in Colossians 1:24: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
He was saying that through transference, whatever Christ had to suffer for the Body, he could take upon himself. Can there be any intercession without a lot of agony being involved in it? Can I intercede for you without reaching out in the spirit, tuning in to your problems and taking them from you?
Perhaps you have prayed for me and become oppressed with headaches and stomach trouble. What you were doing, in your love and in your faith, was believing in transference. You were taking my burdens and suffering under them that you might take them in faith to the Lord. Peter wrote to the elders: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. I Peter 5:7.
What are the cares of the elders? They are your cares. The elders take hold of your cares, and then they cast all your cares upon the Lord. The Body ministers one to another by transference.
Now we go on to the next step. This not only applies to ministries, but within the Body itself we have to learn transference. Does this mean we will have to carry our brother’s problems? Yes, and we are going to like it, too. It is not always a pleasant task, but it is what God wants. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2.
The law of Christ is the law of love, and in that law I am related to my brother and sister. When I am under Christ Jesus as the Lord, I set about myself to bear my brother’s and sister’s burden. This is the positive side of transference.
Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached Thee fell upon me.” Romans 15:1–3.
That is transference. When a brother has a problem, we take that burden. We bear his burden. We bear the weaknesses of those who are without strength. We are not concerned about trying to please ourselves and have a life that is entertaining.
We could have much more fun if we did not have to carry anyone else’s burden. Normally people think they will get along better if they live for themselves and forget everyone else. Actually, that could be a very dreary way of living. The strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those who are without strength. Body ministry works through transference; thus the whole Body grows quite strong.
When we find one of the brothers who cannot handle his problems, we all get together and lift the oppression from him. Let me illustrate how this works.
Suppose a man is working under a car, and it slides off of the jack, pinning him under the car. He calls for help, and everyone around comes running. While some get hold of the fender and lift, one pulls him out from under the car. The man is grateful because he could not lift that car by himself.
Likewise, those in the Body who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those who are without strength. We ought to help one another. We cannot assume that we will never be subjected to problems that we cannot solve alone.
No one is self-sufficient in this walk with God. We will never get to the place where we do not need the help and the blessing of someone else. It is this interdependence in the great principle of transference that is important. Not one of us could make it if the Body did not carry our load.
Often the Lord will lay a burden on a local Body to pray for an outlying church. Although the local Body has no understanding of the specific need, the breakthrough comes nonetheless. No one person is responsible, but together we transfer the sufficiency of God to the situation. We appropriate it and send it forth. This is the way transference works. We become very deeply burdened for one another.
Not only does this principle work in Body ministry, but it creates a handicap for the devil. He cannot invent anything. He can only accept what exists and try to pervert, distort, or corrupt it, and use it for his own diabolical end.
Transference was made to be a tremendous guiding principle of the universe. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. Through the great principle of transference, the Father laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was bruised for us. He suffered for us.
Do not think that the act of Jesus dying on the cross was unnecessary. God had a world where this principle of transference was in effect. Someone had to die, and His own Son did it.
The devil tries to nullify what Christ did for us. He tries to reverse it and pervert it. He will try to transfer the abominations and the oppressions of the wicked to the righteous. He is able to do it only because he can use an existing principle and corrupt it. He can use it until the day he is put in the pit, which will be soon. Now he rages against the inhabitants of the earth by trying to oppress them. However, you have a real defense against it.
The Scripture gives an example of the principle of transference and the only thing God made that can interfere with it. Luke 10:5, 6: “And whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him; but if not, it will return to you.”
This explains why you should never send out hatred. It may come back to you. Remember that the gallows Haman had built for Mordecai were the ones on which he himself was hanged.
Verses 10–12. “But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.”
What Christ is saying here is very simple. The seventy disciples went out, two by two, to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, to heal the sick and to cast out devils. When they came to bless a house and the people there would not receive it, the blessing would return to the disciples.
They were utilizing the simple principle of the boomerang. By the same token, if they shook the dust off their feet against the city that did not receive them, it meant that the rejection was reversed and made a circle right back on the people’s heads.
In the final analysis, a man destroys himself. Man makes the hell in which he is going to live. Man does it. He set in motion the judgment that is brought upon himself. It is the boomerang principle in operation.
Satan wishes that these principles of the boomerang and transference did not exist, but he is stuck with them. He knows they work, so he perverts them, and they become effective in a negative way. Every good thing that God created, Satan wants to pervert.
I think God’s idea of sex was a good one. He created an amazing interdependence in the way the human race is propagated. What does the devil try to do with it? He twists it around and makes it a thing of lust and of evil, until it is often associated with the fields of crime and prostitution, with devil possession and all kinds of wickedness.
The promiscuous use of sex only opens up people to the creation of bonds and onenesses in the flesh that bring them to unbelievable confusion. I Corinthians 6:16 says that he who is joined to a harlot is one flesh. If a man keeps company with harlots, he will make a oneness with them in his very nature that will be extremely difficult for him to handle. He does it himself. When a man breaks the laws of God, Satan causes him to create a situation whereby the effect boomerangs back on him.
What can you do now to counteract all that Satan does to bring the evil upon the good? That is very simple. You set a counter pressure in motion. The whole key is found in I John 4:4b. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. Do not let Christ be only a small presence within you or a token experience, but let His presence fill your life.
When it fills your life, you create counterpressure which rejects everything that comes against you. You never need to move in hatred. You can love your enemies and do good to those who despitefully use you. With that great flow of love and the Spirit, you will heap coals of fire (not actual fire, of course) upon your enemy (Romans 12:20).
When you reject what the enemy sends at you, he heaps the coals of fire upon his own head. He does not intend for it to happen; he intends for you to be the one to get the hot scalp. But he gets it instead, because you are so filled with love.
Love has immunities and walls because it rejects evil and hides in God. When you reach out in love to bless your enemy, you have a wall against his evil; and it boomerangs back on him. If you want to overcome witchcraft, you have to remember the admonition in Romans 12:21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The good, the love, and the faith in your own heart turns back everything harmful that anyone would minister to you. This is not only the answer to overcoming witchcraft; it is also the answer for blessing in Body ministry. God will give you the wisdom to learn how to bear your brother’s and sister’s burdens and to minister the fullness of Christ to them.