One of the greatest generals of all time was Joshua. Of course, West Point and other military academies came about long after his time—schools where men are taught the strategy that generals learned as they fought wars, changed the destinies of men, and directed the course of history. But there is nothing more important that we could learn about Joshua, who overcame thirty-one nations greater than Israel (Joshua 12:7–24), than to get the secret of his success.
Joshua simply received a Word and gave a Word from God, and the Lord made his way prosperous. His meditation upon the Word was continuous, and the Lord gave him great success (Joshua 1:8).
“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” Joshua 1:8.
But there were people who did not hear the Word, and there were even some back under Moses who entreated that the Word should not be spoken to them anymore (Exodus 20:18–19; Hebrews 12:18–21). Today the Lord is giving a Living Word that will shake the heavens and the earth, and everything that can be shaken out will be shaken out, and we will receive a Kingdom which cannot be shaken.
See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” And this expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reference and awe; for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:25–29.
This introduces a devastating message, because it reflects upon how many of the people who want a walk with God are ignoring the Living Word by which that walk can be attained.
There are many ingredients to the success of moving into the Kingdom. The army of the Lord, in the first place, has to be welded together by one common experience—the drawn sword at Jericho. When the captain of the host of the Lord stood before Joshua with the drawn sword, Joshua had to ask the question, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” because the drawn sword was pointed at him.
Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries” And he said, “No, rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” Joshua 5:13–14.
None of you will move into the victories of the Kingdom—you are not going to possess your Canaan—if you have neglected the ministry of the Living Word.
There has been a long period in which that Word has been so rich. But who was listening to it? You have missed all of the good teaching and the School of Prophets Words that led us through these days of desolation. Many of the people are going to be lost because they never did have the Word to explain what God was doing for them.
I predict that unless there is a deep, deep dedication to the Living Word—and to going back and reviewing it—you are not going to make it. You need to hear the messages that came which are essential to where we are right now. Unless you have this revelation from the Lord, you are not going to make it. Even though you may muster up great determination, you will not make it, because you are not going to understand what God has been doing, what He has been saying; your spirit will not be prepared for it. Only the Word can prepare you. These days of desolation have been the Lord standing before us with a drawn sword (Joshua 5:13). We are either going to be conquerors, or we are going to be casualties.
People will settle on separate levels. Some would go on in to possess the Kingdom on the high level; and others would remain at a position relatively stable to where they were—accepting the teachings and experiences and blessings of the Living Word that had come, but not adjusting themselves to the serious Word of the Kingdom that was coming. And that is true right now.
And I lay the responsibility right at the feet of the pastors. If you have not led your people step by step in this Word that has been coming, they will inevitably settle at a lesser level, and you will be responsible for it.
The only one who can lead them will be the shepherd, the apostle, the pastor, the prophet of God who says, “Here, this is what God is doing, and this is what He wants. This is what He has said.”
There are a number of churches which have not been listening to the Living Word, and their local diet is not adequate to prepare them for the Kingdom.
Only the door-opener Word is going to open the door for you to move on. And many of you had better have some serious thoughts about how you intend to line up, at this particular time, to fight. Although the enthusiasm runs high, you will find that the spiritual preparation you have made is going to be the final test of whether you make it or not.
There are problems internally with a number of the churches that do not seem to be too serious—just problems of relationship and communication. But they go a lot deeper than that; they go right down to the fact that we relate to an apostolic company. The way people open their hearts to relate to me is important—not as to a man.
If the Pastor says, “My people will relate only to me but not to the Apostle,” if you stop the flow of revelation and communication down the line, you are going to find that your people will be stifled.
This self-centeredness of each local church has to give way to an utter abandonment to the Kingdom apostleship that opens the door for the people to go in.
The open door is not a relationship to a man; the open door is a relationship to the oracle of the Word of the Lord so as to be transformed by the Word and move into it.
Many things must be done in these churches, but just putting out brush fires is not what God wants now. He wants a serious relationship in every church whereby the people are united in one front to go in and possess the Kingdom. It is a good time; stand up and be counted. And consider whether you have been playing church when you should be in the Kingdom, training and preparing for the whole assault that brings the Kingdom of God upon the earth.
The Messages that are coming are a Word from God. The issue is not the man, and it is not the local pastor. But the people have to become very much aware that this is a Living Word from God for the Kingdom, and it has to be stressed. Preach it as such. Don’t use it as sermon material that you are going to preach. We are receiving a Living Word from God to lead us into the Kingdom.
Let all the glory and all the credit go to God, that the Lord is speaking in the earth today. That is enough. No man need have any other relationship to the Lord than this: If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. I Peter 4:11a, KJV. It does not say, “Let him preach as though he were the minister.” Likewise, I do not speak as though I were the minister. We speak as though Christ, the living Lord and King, is speaking to His people to lead them today.
We must have a new concept of the value of the messages, the value of the Word that is coming. Only those who have a real appreciation of this Living Word that is coming will go to any sacrifice to hear and act upon the Word.
We have been through deep dealings of the Lord; yet often there is not the reverence, there is not the heart that is dedicated to this Word that God has been bringing. Is it possible that we will back off from this battle and go into another forty years of wandering because we have not listened to what God has been saying; we have not been following the pillar of fire?
If that is the case, then like Joshua I am believing God that I will live to see the day when there will be another people raised up who will say, “I love that Word. It is a Living Word from God, and that is what I am going to speak. God is speaking in the earth today.”
If we really believed in what has been coming, I think our attitudes would be far different. Have we begun to look on every Living Word as just another word?
There has been an unfolding, day by day and Word by Word. They have not been extravagant or irrelevant Words, but every Word has been a key. Every Word has come to lead us step by step. What God has been doing is a fantastic thing, and there is not a very big percentage who really understand it.
The people are limited by a restricted local church emphasis; and you wonder why when people sit under a living Word, they become discontented with their local church. It is not because there is anything wrong with the pastor or the people except that they are not Word-oriented; they are not Living Word-oriented.
I am aware of the problem that exists in denominational churches—even good, orthodox Christian churches. The people are like starving sheep because they are getting crumbs. They are not receiving what they really should. The richness of the diet that would cause them to grow is being denied them. And we look at those churches and we condemn their pastors. Well, what about the days of the Kingdom, the Gospel of the Kingdom that is coming forth, and the dedication of our men to preach it?
As the denominational pastors have been guilty of holding people back, so our own pastors are just as guilty of holding back from the sheep that which will feed, lead, develop, exercise, and train the army of the Lord and make them come forth victoriously.
I really believe this with all of my heart; and I am going to lay it on the line. In church after church, you need to be confronted. You can stand with the Word or not. But if you are going to stand with it, I do not want you playing church. I want you thoroughly filled with the Living Word, until you live and you think and you move and you act and you war according to the Spirit and by the Word that is coming, and you walk in that Word immediately.
The living Word describes every step and phase we are all going through. And yet in church after church there are people who have not even heard a living Word from God; they do not even know what is going on.
You are not going to be much of an army without any swords and without any shields. You will have to know what God is saying, and have faith in it, if you are going to quench the fiery darts of the enemy (Ephesians 6:16). And it will have to be a living sword coming forth from your mouth, a Living Word, living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). If you do not believe this and do not prepare for it, you are going to send your people into a battle that will be disastrous for them. They cannot cope with principalities and powers with the meager preparation they have had so far in the Living Word.
To the pastor who feels that he must be self-sufficient, let me give this one word of warning: Your place will not be threatened; it will be enhanced by the use of the Living Word. Churches are built by the living Word. This is the way they always have been built. They will not be built any other way. And if you think that you can abandon this and hang on to your sheep, you are wrong. You will lose them, because the cohering factor has always been the Living Word.
We have no excuse for our existence if we are going to be like any other movement. If we have not had the Word from God to move on and bring in the Kingdom, then of all people we have been tormented with a vision that is unattainable, because we as pastors have not prepared the army of the Lord to go ahead in battle. I feel this with everything that is within me.
We are facing the confrontation with Babylon, with the nephilim, with the principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12). The issue is not just who is willing to stand up and be counted. The issue is how many will be lying dead on the ground when the battle is over because we did not make our preparation in God. Many will go out, marching to drums, believing that they can win; but they have not been prepared by the devastations of God that would thoroughly prepare their hearts until nothing from the pit, no force of hell, would ever be able to defeat them.
This thing is the burden of my heart. I am speaking this because it is the burden that God laid upon my heart. It is time we believe that we are going to get into Romans 8 and win. Read Romans 8 and read Romans 7 with it, and see that God is demanding that our lives come into a holy state before God, into a maturity of sonship if we are going to prevail. Read of the intercession, of the groanings in the Spirit and the mighty promises of God. And as you read, realize that this has been the thing which God has been trying to do in us for the last two or three or four years. We have had no other Word. But the emphasis has not been given to it. We are often shocked by the Word when it comes, but we have come to the place where we do not really care enough to hang on to every Word God gives (see Hebrews 2:1–3). If we did that, we really could become—overnight, in a miracle—the army of the Lord that could take the world for Christ.
We need to prepare the people for battle. We have heard a trumpet in Zion, and we are ready to march. But we should have learned how to fight. We should have learned more about what our enemy is, what our goals and objectives really are in this warfare. We should experience the Lordship of Jesus Christ over more areas of our life. We still live too independent and free of His absolute, sovereign control. If we are going to confront the world, let us make quick preparation to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ (II Timothy 2:3). Do we have the eyes to even see the enemy? Do we have the weapons to destroy him? Do we know what our objectives really are? Or have we just somehow been stirred to some nameless, undefinable dedication that we don’t understand ourselves?
O God, make us wise in the ways of the Spirit. Teach our hands to war so that a bow of bronze is broken in our hands (Psalm 18:34). Teach us to fight a troop and leap a wall (Psalm 18:29). Give us the courage but give us also the understanding that we go into this battle prepared for it and knowing what we are going to do. The Living Word has come, but who has heard it?
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. Hebrews 2:1–4.
The Living Word will shake us all, but we will possess the Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Can we really walk with God without walking in His Word?
The little flock will possess the Kingdom if their shepherds feed, lead, and exercise them in the Word God is bringing.
The Living Word of God has come; who has heard it? If not, why not?