The Lord is placing authority upon His people in this day to bring forth His Kingdom on the earth. However, there is a certain procedure to be followed in order to see the purposes of God fulfilled. The job is not done simply by receiving a revelation and prophesying about it. After a prediction comes concerning a plan of God, there must be further prophetic proclamations with the kind of faith that explodes God’s plan into fulfillment. It is faith that makes it happen. There must be faith within the individual to believe the revelation and speak it into existence.
One illustration of this truth is found in the life of Elijah. He told King Ahab, “There will not be any rain or dew except by my word” (I Kings 17:1). When he prophesied this, the Lord moved and the heavens were shut up for three and one-half years. Finally when the drought was to be broken, Elijah went up on Mount Carmel and prayed. There would have been no rain even then if he had not prayed earnestly and turned the rain loose. God gave Elijah a great deal more initiative than we realize. In this end time, the initiative is ours also. We must accept the authority of Christ which is behind intercessory prayer to turn loose the will of God.
Moses gives us another example of this kind of faith. It was one thing for him to receive a prediction from the Lord, a revelation that God wanted to deliver His people; but it was another thing to see it happen. God did not sovereignly deliver the people. It involved a long procedure of Moses speaking the Word of the Lord and holding his rod over the land. Chapters 7 through 12 of Exodus tell of the many plagues that Moses brought upon Egypt, such things as flies and frogs and the turning of the waters into blood. It was one of the greatest series of judgments ever to happen, and all of it took place because Moses spoke a Word from the Lord. It was prediction followed by proclamation. No one could reason it out, because every step of the way it seemed unreasonable. As soon as Moses began speaking to Pharaoh the Word of the Lord about letting the Israelites go into the wilderness to worship, Pharaoh became so furious that he forced them to gather the straw for the bricks and still make the same number of bricks. When that happened, the people accused Moses of making their lives even harder (Exodus 5). From the standpoint of human reasoning, it seemed as if the Word of the Lord had thrown them into an even more difficult position.
Proverbs 3:5–6 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Once you start in revelation, you had better stay with revelation. Nevertheless, sometimes it is very difficult not to shift gears and try to assess and evaluate all the things that are happening to you. It may seem that every time you start to trust God, to serve Him and to seek His face, something happens to make your situation worse than ever before. Every believer experiences this. However, be encouraged; for this is a spectacular time when the will of God is to come forth on the earth very rapidly. It is a time when the futility of the demonic assault that rests over all creation will be broken.
An end-time remnant of believers will turn every area from a place of oppression into a place of blessing. God’s people will not continue to coexist with demonic oppression; they will prevail over it. This attitude must be in our hearts. We must have faith for it. Many blessings have been promised to those who will walk with God, but He cannot be blamed for their not being fulfilled. It is time to move into them.
The land of Canaan was promised to the fathers of the Israelites—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham had a promise, but it took four hundred years for the iniquity of the Amorites to come to the full so that God could bring His great judgment upon them (Genesis 15:13–16). We can understand a certain amount of delays, but the time comes when there is to be no more delay. When the four hundred years had passed in Egypt, then the cries of the Israelites came up to God. Yet they were in no condition to go in and possess the country of their inheritance. They were slaves in Egypt when those four hundred years were finished. God had blessed Abraham so that with only his own small army of servants he was able to defeat the four great kings of the east (Genesis 14). However, the people who had descended from his loins were hopelessly enslaved in Egypt, and even their male babies were being killed as soon as they were born.
God had promised to bless Abraham’s seed, yet it did not appear to be happening. Then out of a burning bush on the back side of the desert, God spoke to Moses, a hothead who had fled from a murder charge in Egypt. He was saying to Moses, “Now is the time for My people to be delivered. I will send you to Pharaoh” (Exodus 3:1–10). When it finally was time for God to move, He moved rapidly. Probably less than a year passed from the time that Moses went back into Egypt until the Israelites were set free from their bondage.
God always knows what He is doing, and all the while He is saying, “Trust Me. Walk with Me.” That is what He was saying to Moses, and that is what He is saying to us. Sometimes everything seems to be so fouled up that you do not know which way to go. The answer is simply to trust the Lord with all your heart, and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.
It is time for God’s people to move in and possess the promises. Revelation 3:8 contains a bit of history mixed in with a promise that really belongs to our time. To the church in Philadelphia the Lord said, “I have set before you an open door which no man can shut.” This also applies to the door-opening ministry of this end time. Fantastic doors to many of God’s promises have already been opened. The people who are led by God in this hour will face all kinds of difficult situations, yet they will never be without an open door for a pure Word of direction from the Lord.
The prophecy of Revelation 3:7–8 comes from Isaiah 22. The twenty-second chapter of Isaiah is called the oracle concerning the valley of vision. This was the valley in Jerusalem where God rebuked the people for not trusting in Him for their protection. Isaiah was prophesying about the assault of the Assyrians against them. The historical background of this chapter has been confirmed by archaeologists who found the story of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, etched in prism stones in his own words, telling what he had done and how many cities he had conquered in the land of Judah. Prior to this, the northern tribes of Israel had been taken by the Assyrians, a very brutal people. Hezekiah was the king of Judah during this particular time of Assyrian aggression. Although Sennacherib never took Jerusalem, he put much fear in Hezekiah who was residing there at that time. Those who came out of the gates to flee were turned over to the Philistines as slaves and brutally mistreated. Then Hezekiah sought God, and the angel of the Lord came and turned the tide against the army of Sennacherib. After hearing that 185,000 of his men had died, Sennacherib returned to his own country and was slain by two of his sons. Another one of his sons then took the throne immediately.
Before all this happened, Hezekiah had tried to reinforce the city of Jerusalem for a long siege. He had built tunnels and found ways to get water. He had torn down houses to fortify the walls. He had made amazing preparations, all in the name of defense. In Isaiah 22:10–11 we read, Then you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you tore down houses to fortify the wall. And you made a reservoir between the two walls for the waters of the old pool. But you did not depend on Him who made it, nor did you take into consideration Him who planned it long ago. They had not put their faith in the Lord. They had made every preparation necessary to face their circumstances except that of putting their confidence in God. Isaiah spoke out very strongly, and then Hezekiah put his faith in the Lord.
In verses 15 through 18, Isaiah’s prophecy was directed to Shebna: Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is in charge of the royal household, ‘What right do you have here, and whom do you have here, that you have hewn a tomb for yourself here, you who hew a tomb on the height, you who carve a resting place for yourself in the rock? Behold, the Lord is about to hurl you headlong, O man. And He is about to grasp you firmly, and roll you tightly like a ball, to be cast into a vast country; there you will die, and there your splendid chariots will be, you shame of your master’s house.’ ” This prophecy was fulfilled. Shebna, who had been like a treasurer over the house of Judah, was captured and taken away. He had thought he was all important, but God threw him out of the entire picture. God chose Eliakim to be Shebna’s successor, and He set before him an open door.
Isaiah’s prophecy continued: “And I will depose you from your office, and I will pull you down from your station. Then it will come about in that day, that I will summon My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and I will clothe him with your tunic, and tie your sash securely about him, I will entrust him with your authority, and he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.” Verses 19–21. All of this prophecy has a dual meaning. It goes immediately into a prophecy about the Messiah; and since it refers to the Christ, it also refers to those who are in Christ. It is the promise found in Revelation 3:7–8. This prophecy that refers to Christ in turn rests upon us; therefore the authority that rests upon Christ will also rest upon us.
The Lord continued speaking of Eliakim, saying, “Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, when he opens no one will shut, when he shuts no one will open. And I will drive him like a peg in a firm place, and he will become a throne of glory to his father’s house. So they will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, offspring and issue, all the least of vessels, from bowls to all the jars.” Verses 22–24.
Then Isaiah’s prophecy was directed back to Shebna: “In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “the peg driven in a firm place will give way; it will even break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.” Verse 25. In other words, there was to be a complete change in the establishment. The establishment involving Shebna was to be cut off. Everything that seemed to make it hang in place was to be removed; for God planned to take all the authority that rested upon the arrogant, established order—the order that was trying to exalt itself—and He was going to place it on Eliakim. God was going to give him the key of David so that he could open and no one could shut, and he could shut and no one could open. That is the prophecy of Revelation 3:7–8 which Christ knew was resting upon Himself. He was saying, “I am He that opens and no man shuts. Behold, I have set before you an open door which no man can close.”
It does not matter how things look. At the time of the prophecy in Isaiah 22, the situation was very difficult. Jerusalem was under the assault of the Assyrians who were very brutal. History records the fact that human skulls were piled up outside the great Babylonian capitol of Nineveh, as a warning of the ferocious way they treated all their enemies. In Amos 4:1–2, the Word of the Lord came to the women of Samaria, calling them “cows of Bashan.” God warned them that they would be led away with hooks. When the Assyrians conquered Samaria, they led the pampered, arrogant women of Samaria away as slaves with flesh hooks through their lips. When they ran out of flesh hooks, they used large fish hooks. It was when the cruel Assyrians were encamped outside the gates of Jerusalem that God began to speak to Jerusalem, “I am going to set before you an open door, a blessing.”
In the midst of wrath, the Lord remembers mercy (Habakkuk 3:2). He blesses the humble and the meek. He brings down the arrogant and the proud. That is what will happen now to the circumcised and the uncircumcised alike. It will not even make any difference whether or not people are professing Christians. The pride and the arrogance of nations all over the world is going to be judged—the pride and the arrogance of those who did everything else, but did not depend on Him who made all creation, nor did they take into consideration Him who planned it long ago. All the fortifications a nation can make, all the possible defense missile programs, are not enough to protect the people in this hour. Russia has the capability of destroying at least fifty million people in one assault. Where can a nation go today to look for allies in the world? God is saying today, as He said to Jerusalem long ago. “Your fortifications are not enough! You have not depended upon Me!”
Our faith and our dependence must now be placed in the Lord. Oh, how we must start depending upon the Lord and crying out to Him—not in fear, but in perfect confidence that God who speaks a Word will bring it to pass as we prophesy that Word. Let us speak His Word and bring it to pass. There are a thousand things that will try to come against us as we do. But let us contend to be humble, dedicated, and in every way honest and open before God. Let there not be any undercurrent of deceit, but rather let us always walk in humility and meekness and honesty before God to the very best of our ability, humbling ourselves before Him.
The Lord chooses a humble Eliakim and gives him the key of David. Keys were rather large in Eliakim’s day. Usually they hung from around a person’s neck. According to an old tradition that has come down through generations, the chief steward on a ship carried the key to the wine and all the delicacies on shipboard. He was the one who had charge of all that. God is saying to His people today that all His wealth, all His riches, are being made available to us because of the key of David. The key of David refers to the warehouse that David built to store the gold that was going to be used for the building of Solomon’s Temple and the forming of all the vessels and beautiful furnishings within it. Because David was the king, he could lay the authority of the key on whomever he chose.
God is laying the key of David on the Eliakim ministry of Christ in this day; and what He opens, no one will shut, and what He shuts, no one will open. God is making this end-time ministry to be like a peg in a sure place. The King James Version calls it “a nail in a sure place.” God is saying today, “I will put those I can trust as a peg in a sure place, and I will hang everything upon them.” He is saying to His dedicated ones, “I am giving you the authority to open the door to the nations. I will drive you like a peg in a sure place, so that I can hang anything I want upon you. You will stand firmly because I have made you to be My people.”
Today God is taking His sheep out of the hand of the shepherds who have displeased Him, and He is putting them under the hand of shepherds after His own heart. This has just started. It has just begun. As fast as humble, faithful shepherds can come forth with the key of David that can open and shut, shepherds who will be a nail in a sure place, God will start hanging the vessels. As fast as those ministries are established, God will hang upon them little vessels, big vessels, teacups and flagons, even bowls and jars, and anything else that He wants. It is difficult to imagine one peg holding that much, but that peg is a declaration of the authority of Christ. Every vessel that God brings forth is going to hang upon the ministry that can open and shut, the ministry that will be established in firm authority and firm responsibility in the Lord.
All of this will take place in these days when the enemy is storming the walls and would like to destroy everything that God has ever brought forth. May God make us like a nail in a sure place and give us that key of David. Let us proclaim it as ours. Let us have faith to believe that God is really driving us solidly into the walls of His temple. It is our responsibility to see that we are there with proclamations of faith that make it happen.
An open door is set before you which no one can shut, a door of authority, an open door of unity and immunity. God is setting His people free. Proclaim it. Proclaim that the Sodom and Gomorrah of today will be renovated by the judgments of the Lord, and God will set it aside. Shebna is through. Eliakim is in. The old establishment is dethroned. God’s faithful ones are clothed with the tunics of Christ’s authority. The key of David is ours as we are faithful. Let us voice it and open doors. Let us proclaim liberty and walk into the treasure of His provision. All things are ours. God has provided all things that pertain to life and godliness. Proclaim it and go in to possess it this day.