That ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing affrighted by the adversaries … Philippians 1:27b–28.
When the Spirit filled the early church on the day of Pentecost, they were all in one accord, in one place; with one spirit and soul they were standing together in the name of the Lord.
This is the same oneness the Lord must bring to us.
Satan tries to divide and distract. He cannot defeat because his defeat is already assured, but he can get us to relinquish our victory (there’s a difference).
Our heritage is victory in the Lord. That defeats him automatically. He was defeated two thousand years ago, yet the victory of Christ is not real to us if we forfeit that victory, if we don’t believe it, or if we fail to appropriate it.
It was provided, but it is not effective if people fail to accept or believe it. The Lord has brought us a tremendous, powerful victory, but if we become distracted or discouraged, we let it go.
If we become divided, we let it go.
What would happen in any service if everyone was really united in the Lord with every doubt and fear put aside? We want only the very best in every service, but how are we to achieve it?
The enemy tries to distract us and get our eyes off the Lord and on something else.
The best way to achieve that unity in the service is to join hands and open our spirits up to the Lord, take down the walls against the Lord and walls against each other.
While we must focus our love upon the Lord, we also must focus our hatred. That does not mean that we must hate our enemies, but there has to be a hatred of Satan.
There must be a hatred in this warfare and something almost deadly about the way we go about it.
We will see God move. Many people will be delivered and multitudes slain. This generation will see it happen.
The story in some nations is gruesome: millions slaughtered or left to starve. We are living in the period of tribulations. Terrible events will occur in this generation; God will bring judgments to shake up this earth.
It has been two thousand years since Christ’s death, and the world is still not converted. The world has had to remain in the state that it is because God has been training the kings and the priests who will rule over His Kingdom.
The Lord desires the precious fruit of the earth, and He hath long patience for it (James 5:7). When God has made up the executive council, when He has His kings, Babylon will fall and Satan will be bound.
We are already sensing the dawn. The dawn is approaching, and we need to realize that the bombs are set.
That is the way it was in the days of Noah. While Noah labored to build the ark, he had only one thought in mind: the word God had spoken concerning what He was to do.
Those great reservoirs of water were held in reserve, but when the Lord turned them loose, they had a flood.
Many things today are held in reserve. There will be judgments; but God is also reaching out to create the instruments of mercy—a remnant in whom there will be deliverance.
We have a big role ahead of us, and we must not become bogged down in our own personal problems. We must not become occupied in that which the enemy throws at us to disturb us emotionally or disturb us with our circumstances.
If things are not the way they should be, declare in the name of the Lord that they will change! But let us not be violent because we are frustrated; let us be violent in faith because we are determined to walk in the full victory of the Lord. We will walk in all of it.
People may support a ministry and pray for him or her until they cross out their individual plans; then the minister becomes the son of Belial as far as they are concerned. “How dare you say a thing like that,” they cry.
That must change. It will change. This walk is either a meaningless exercise, or it is God’s restoring of divine order. God is restoring the order.
We are through playing church. We will not back down and be evasive, trying to appease everyone. We are not appeasing anyone. It is not wise to appease because we are not interested in numbers unless they are genuine and one hundred percent.
They must be what God wants because this walk has to be closely knit. It is a matter of unity. We must walk together and walk together with one mind. It is not important what faults any of us have; we must walk together in unity. We will walk in order and in submission to what God has said. There will not be dictatorial government on anyone. This may be a movement and government of love, but it is still in divine order. We need to be united more than we have been. We need to be one.
You may not feel the full impact of what I am trying to express. You may not have experienced what I have. Everything is going along just fine until you cross someone, and then they move with a viciousness. Someone has crossed them.
This is the reason self-denial and the cross must be real in your life. That will be real, or the walk with God will not work at all.
I have to be dedicated, no matter what the cost, to stand up for that which I know is right. I do not want people to evade what God gives me as a word and start working around it. That is a devilish tendency. I want to stand for the word no matter what situation is created.
If I am not faithful to God, He will hold me responsible for that in which He tells me to lead the people. No matter who argues, “No, we’re going to do it this way,” I must hold to what the Lord has said. I must be dedicated to it. If it splits the churches, I must still stick to the word of the Lord.
If this move comes to the place where there is no apostolic leadership, no word from God, and no apostolic authority, where the confirmation given does not matter because one or two people want to lead it in some other direction, then it is not a part of the Kingdom of God and must come down!
God is raising up an army, and if that army is not under divine order it will become divided and not be able to stand.
Let us be united with every person who is willing to walk in divine order.
When the Lord gives me a word to be preached, anyone who is not in submission and anyone who is not in order becomes obvious. They come against me in every way that they can. That is the sign of Satan and of instruments who are yielded to his hand. Let us beware that we are not one of them. When the word comes we will walk in what God has said.
I have nothing to give to God except my life, and He has all of it. He has every bit of it, but I do not want it wasted in misdirected efforts. Whatever He tells me to do, I will do it. There is only one thing I cry: “Lord, You give the authority, and You back it up when the word is given.”
At times when my word isn’t being received, I pray, “Lord, You have given me the authority, and I exercise that word and authority, but there is no heed to it. Alright, Lord, only one person has to recognize any authority, and that’s me.
When I recognize it I don’t care what anyone else says.”
I shall voice what the Lord gives me to speak. I do not have to contend for it. I am not trying to convince myself or God. I shall stand and declare it, and people will walk in obedience with blessing, or they will do their own thing and suffer the consequences. That is the way it will be. I shall walk that way in the name of the Lord.
When God gives you a word and confirms it and you don’t obey it you are in trouble. It isn’t the man who gives the word; it is that God is trying to restore order. The world is filled with rebellion. People do not want the word of the Lord.
When the word of the Lord comes, submission is not because you okay it. Submission is submission, whether you like it or not. When you don’t like it, that is when you submit to it. I have submitted to the word of the Lord again and again when it meant nearly laying my life down to do it. I am determined to be submissive to it. You must walk in this. Submit your desires to Him. You must be dedicated to it!
Do what God tells you to do. No matter how much you suffer, do the will of the Lord, and God will bless you in it. Submission must be understood.
Someone has to have the spiritual perception. The Scripture says where there is no vision (or prophecy), the people perish (Proverbs 29:18). Where there is no prophetic vision, the people perish.
The people do not see the way to go, but the prophets, the leaders, and the apostles will see it and declare, “This is the way of the Lord. This is what God wants.”
Sometimes people start to walk in a word, but they aren’t willing, and God lets it sit a little. But there hasn’t been a prophecy spoken and sooner or later it will be picked up and fulfilled. In the meantime we do not run after a thousand different things.
A walk with God demands dedication. You must be dedicated to minister. When you say, “I want to go here to preach, or I want to be this way,” you run into trouble.
You will have a terrible time if you are not dedicated in your heart to do the will of God. You can do it no other way.
It is not like being an old-order missionary or pastor in that you can decide to go someplace and go and do the job. You will not do it that way. You must be dedicated and submissive to the Lord, or you will not make it.
You will run up against something that you cannot handle if you are not dedicated to do it. Don’t you desire to be sent forth?
You wonder at the mercy of God that holds some of these people back after they’ve had a call from God. Why does he hold them back? For only one reason: He had to do something in their heart until they were absolutely dedicated.
One man, who was called to be a minister, resigned from his former job stating, “This is what God called me to do all my life.” There was nothing backward about it because his dedication was complete to walk in it. His family wondered how they would live. That is ridiculous. Rebuke that idea which says, “What will happen to me?” You will lose your life for His sake so you can find it. You are not to worry about any of these things. Commit it all to the Lord. You are not to draw back in anything!
This is the hour of submission. The Lord is demanding, “Walk with Me!” Be dedicated to it. It will be difficult. The people almost have to be dedicated to fail. I have seen God lead people into an enterprise that failed, pick them up, and lead them into another enterprise that failed, and lead them into yet another failure. Suddenly the blessing of the Lord is on them. They did not miss God, they were being tested.
God will test you sometimes to see if you will walk in the way of the Lord or not. You say, “Well, if it succeeds it was of God, and if it doesn’t succeed it wasn’t of God.” God has been in a lot of failures. Out of the failures come the real victories. Out of those things that happen, you have to learn obedience. Our Lord learned obedience through the things He suffered. He is bringing many sons to glory. He learned obedience through the things He suffered. The Lord went through that. He just stands there, and you salute Him, “Yes, Sir! Lord, I’ll do what You want. You’re the Lord of lords, the King of kings. It’s what You want.”
There has not been the kind of submission there ought to be, but it will come. God will start dealing. Judgments will come; in fact, they have already been upon the church, and people have not had the wisdom to see what is happening.
They just wonder, “Why?” God is dealing with rebellion. He is going through His house with a fine tooth comb, and every heart and spirit must be right before the Lord! You will not get away with anything. The Lord will deal with you. He is bringing forth sons, and He is scourging them. God is sifting His people. Not everyone will make it; this is a select company that God is making. Don’t get the idea that you choose to be the select company. It is God who will choose you when you fit right into the order of what He has for you.
Some young people come into a walk with God, with their minds muddled with drugs; they are not too sharp yet. But they are opening their hearts to God and before they are through, they will walk as prophets. But the arrogant will miss it completely!
Ignorance is not just a state of intelligence or a lack of it; it is a willful activity. The man who wills to do His will shall know His teaching (John 7:17). A man who has turned his heart against the word cannot be reached. Chances are there is something wrong in his spirit already and until God deals with his spirit, he will never see that truth. One can never see the truth when his spirit is wrong.
What is a wrong spirit? it means you are not joining your spirit to the Lords, and it becomes defiled because your soul flesh is governing it.
I cannot accept a person’s defeat as being valid! If I see one of the brothers or sisters fall miserably, I still cannot discard the prophecies God spoke over them.
The righteous man falleth seven times, but the Lord upholdeth him with His hand (Proverbs 24:16, Psalms 37:24).
The mistakes people make, the ways they flounder are not important if their heart is open to God. When rebellion and that lack of openness to the Lord enter in, a man will fall.
Rebellion is a dangerous problem because God is building the Kingdom. The divine order of the Kingdom is coming and is being wrought within our hearts. Startling things will happen as we stand fast and believe the word of the Lord. We need to prophesy, to speak the word of the Lord. Let us not speak what we should believe for, but let us speak the word of the Lord as though the promises were already ours because in divine provision, in divine assurance they are ours! They will come into view as we waver not.
Prophecy is a way of encouraging one another. As the prophecy comes, open your heart to take the encouragement. Don’t stand out of tune with it, not even listening. You have created a smoke screen for yourself. You cannot see the light because you are so preoccupied with your problems. You cannot do that. Your own problems are not that important. Everyone, young and old, needs to shrink down this idea of self-importance and the idea that his own circumstances and problems are the whole sum and circumference of the world.
You are just one little person who is doing the will of the Lord. Everyone who has ever tried to do the will of the Lord has been hindered and battled in some way. That is not what is important. Loneliness is good for you. Maybe you are lonely but you are not alone—you are part of a living Body! Get over that idea of being alone! You must feel in your heart the presence of the Lord. God is directing you above everyone else. There is a false sense of security for those who trust in the horses of Egypt, those who are looking to all the resources of people to support them. In the day of battle those resources fail. But the people who walk, seemingly having nothing, come through when put in a corner. They have everything! There must be that faith in your heart. There has to be that desire to shake yourself, to get rid of your lethargy.
When you are not walking as you should you don’t have the contact with God. You know you are in the place of which God has spoken, but you have allowed something to come and make a bowl of brass over your head. You must shake it! The prophecies come, but they bounce off that brass bowl. You are not receiving the word. You are not stirring your spirit up in the Lord as you should. You can break that pattern right now. Reach up to the Lord and break through!
When the Israelites went into Canaan, they ate the old corn of the land; they had a new diet. New circumstances mean new problems, a new diet, and new relationships—everything is new. We will believe for that. The key of it is the blood of the Lamb. Only the precious blood of the Lamb can change us, change our lives, change everything. Each of us must look to the Lord and say, “Lord, put the blood on my heart. Cleanse me from all iniquity. Loose me from every sin. Judge the things in my life, Lord. Release me in the name of the Lord by the precious blood of the Lamb.” That is the way we overcome: the precious blood of the Lamb. We reach into God for it.
The Lord will give us wisdom that we will not judge and deliberately rise and cause contention in the Body of Christ. His wisdom is needed now. We need to know the evil forces which come against the Body in order to fight them. I need to believe God to bind and judge them. We need to know who the false brethren are. They come to snoop out the liberty we have in Christ. We need to know that. We need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16). We need to come to the place where we let God open our eyes to see spiritual wickedness in high places.
God has brought forth this whole move, but He is ready to sanctify the camp. He said, “Sanctify yourselves today because tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5). God is ready to do it. If there is anything wrong in your heart, get rid of it. When you see something in another’s heart, start praying for it. It won’t be long before God will either bring that thing down, or He will deal with it in some way, and that one will be released.
We will believe God with all our heart. I am so tired of coexisting with half-victories! I am not worried about the external Babylon; I’m worried about the Babylon that is in this walk yet! It does not bother me that the world won’t accept prophets, apostles, and the elders. What bothers me is the lack of submission in some of the people in the body. Their attitude troubles me. It troubles me that we can live in the middle of God’s blessings and never take our umbrellas down to get the rain coming upon us. If only one out of a hundred is missing it, that is one too many. We must all be in it! Upon us will rest the greater judgments if we do not reach into God’s provisions with all our heart. We seem to be so energetic and wholehearted, but we need to be even more so. Let us put away the apathy, the indifference, and this lack of awareness, which is so prevalent. Lord, give us the vision, give us the revelation; open our hearts to it in the name of the Lord. It has to be done!
Every service ought to be a meeting with God. We ought not to have one worship service that does not carry through. Even if the leader is missing the leading, we can break through to the will of God. If we have that meeting with the Lord, a leader could be superfluous. We would not need him or a sermon or anything else. We would have such a high level in the Body that there would be an awareness of the Lord and of His choosing. I feel it so much. I don’t see how people can be so casual about the services that they can come if they want to come, and if they don’t want to come they don’t. I know most of the people do not do that, but I see some who are going through the motions; they are self-deceived. They think, “I understand this walk. I know the principles,” yet, they can take it or leave it. It is not essential to them. We have a challenge before us right now, and we ought to stir ourselves as never before. If we start to become discouraged, we should be furious with ourselves. We are not going to think that way. We will move into the will of the Lord. We will order our relations in the will of God. We will be emotionally and spiritually prepared for that which God wants.
The elders will rebuke you if they see you step out of line. You were not raised up just to drift off on your own way with no one rebuking you. They will rebuke you because you were raised up to do the will of the Lord. We are to stand under any situation or condition and face whatever may come, doing the will of God as the remnant of the Lord. The only way we can do it is to exhort one another continually, while it is called today, lest there be any hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13). But we are partakers of Christ if we hold our faith steadfast to the end (Hebrews 3:14). We will do it in the name of the Lord. We will shake off the bonds! As people of God we will take hold of what the Lord has for us. We can do it! If it were impossible we would strive for it a little longer, but it is just a matter of reaching up and touching it. The glory of God is right here. Let us reach up and say, “Lord, You will cleanse us.” The yoke shall be destroyed because the anointing is on us (Isaiah 10:27). The bondage will be broken.
Many of the brothers have asked, “If you see me out of line, rebuke me. Show me.” There is a yearning and a cry. Let us suffer the word of exhortation. A cry within is saying, “Lead out! Lead out! Show us the way. We’re ready to do it!” It is not in just what we are to do, but it is the spirit that is to possess us, that identification, and that spirit of the cross which is worked in us. A day is coming beyond anything we have ever known, and one after another says, “Oh, yes. This is it. We have to have it. We must be taught. We must be exhorted. We must be rebuked.” Let us declare it because if we don’t, it will be just like quicksand—we will be sucked down. It doesn’t take long.
After a week or two of constant pressures you may find yourself losing the beautiful enchantment of this walk. First it is being intrigued with the Lord, and then it can become a lot of doctrines and experiences and little phrases that you mouth. When that happens you are dead! You walk with God, or it is nothing! There must be a carefulness; there must be a closeness to the Lord. There must be something within you that violently says, “Lord, I’ll deny everything! I’ll deny myself to walk with You, to be with You, to be where You really want me to be.” There can be no halfway measure. No desire on this earth can even rival, in your thinking, this walk with the Lord. Your walk must be above everything else. If you are using this walk for an ulterior motive, and you say, “I want to walk with the Lord because I want the Lord to work things out in my life,” you are on the wrong track. You are walking in a circle in the wilderness, and you will perish. You must desire the things of the Lord first and put everything else on the altar.
Many people do not receive the things God has actually promised them because they still put them in priority. Do you want to know how to get something from the Lord that He has prophesied or revealed you are to have? Bring whatever it is before the Lord and whittle it down and chop it up until it has low priority in your thinking; then you will receive it. When you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and you bring that desire into a much more secondary place, God will bless you and He will give it to you. Do you want that promise so much that it becomes your foremost thought? Then God may ask you to put your Isaac on the altar. God will not allow even the things He gives you, even the miracles He works in your life, to have a place ahead of Him. Nothing must get ahead of the Lord.
It is not difficult to prevent the things of the world from becoming foremost. But what God has brought, the blessings He has given, the creature comforts, the good job, being well thought of, the family, even your sweetheart, and the things you want to work out in your life—these are frequently put ahead of Him. “Lord, I’m continually praying about that. Lord, I’m continually seeking Your face.” And you will continually get “No” for an answer. If you exalt the Lord, if you delight yourself in Him, He will give you the desires of your heart. If you seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, all these other things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33). He must be first, always first. Everything else must take a lower place. Everything else shall be brought down. Then all these other things will be added to you. Ask and you shall receive. Ask largely that you may receive—He wants your joy to be full! He wants you to have the desires of your heart! But your joy won’t be full unless He is first. If you put something ahead of God and if He lets you have it, you will be miserable with it. In order for your joy to be full, everything has to be in its right proportion. The Lord is of high priority. He is everything. Everything else is lower.
I want to fight the propensity in my spirit to run with the fear of man. I do not want that fear, but it can come. It can come to any leader. He gets to feeling mean, ready to tell everyone off when everyone is crowding him and pushing him. They want this, that, and the other thing. Sometimes I feel like saying, “Get off my back. I have one thing to do, and that is to get the word from God. Why don’t you leave me alone until I get the word from the Lord?” But they begin to shout, “I want this. I want that. I want. I want. I need. I need.” I know everyone wants and everyone needs. After a while the fear of man comes, and I am tempted to run on the defensive. Help me. I have to do the will of the Lord! If I fail and the fear of man overtakes me, and I worry about what people will say—if I react to the persecution; if I am anything but rejoicing and exceedingly glad, I fail God. He must be everything to me. He has to be absolute Lord.
All of us have one common problem: we war against the flesh and the devil that we might be wholly set upon the will of God, to do it with all our heart. I have walked in it for many years and gone against many people. Will I keep on doing it? It is strange—just because one has done it, does not mean that one will do it tomorrow. The pressures are always fresh. There is always some new stress. It is just a little bit more than one thought it would be. I love the people, but it isn’t the love that does that; it is fear. I don’t want to cross them. I know if I walked up and gave a word in love to any of the brothers who say, “Rebuke me. Exhort me,” it would tear them to pieces, so I hold off. Would the cure be worse than the disease? When I see a little flaw, I ask, “Is that so bad that I should shatter them with rebukes?” No. There will be the rebukes too; but entreat in love!
Do you know how you can tell if you are really dead yet? If you flinch when someone sticks a pin in you, you are not dead yet. Lord, help us to die out to the old flesh. Give us that flesh that will really die out, really be crucified, really be set to do the will of the Lord! The only truly aggressive man in the world is a crucified man. Remember that. The only real, aggressive, ruthless man in the world is a crucified man.
One of the things you ought to remember is that you can even put a ministry ahead of the Lord. I am continually coming to the place where the ministry becomes so engrossing, so demanding, and there is so much of it that I could let that ministry and the ministering out of it get ahead of the Lord. You may say, “That is the Lord.” No, it is the expression of the Lord, but the Lord Himself has to be greatest. If I begin to protect the ministry, then I begin to seek outlets for it, and I run with fear. I must walk with the Lord even if it means I must walk out and never see any of the churches or people again. The walk with God is most important! I must do what the Lord tells me to do and be unto Him what He demands me to be, irrespective of money, ministry, position, place, people, churches, or the outlets of ministry. There is only one that must be preeminent: the Lord, Himself.
Elders and prophets leave the church because they worry about the outlets of their ministry instead of exalting the Lord. Other people exalt the Lord, and soon they have all kinds of outlets of ministry. The first sort of man says, “Why don’t I get any opportunities? Why don’t I get a break?” When that person is sent out, he splits up a church because he is so worried about his ministry. He is not related to the Lord and to the people; his only concern is about ministry. You can’t worry about the gifts and the ministry or anything else. When you come into a service, you prophesy to exalt the Lord. It is the awareness of the Lord and being in tune with Him that counts. He has to be first, or there isn’t anything at all.