The transition from the Church Age into the Kingdom will come about because God has door openers just as He had in New Testament times. They will take the Word that has been committed and open the door so that you can understand the things that are to be.
It is interesting to note that in the earliest New Testament churches, they did not have a New Testament at all. It was still in the process of coming forth in epistles and gospels. But the early Church referred back to the Old Testament.
It would be excellent to take certain Scriptures and show how they have been interpreted and how the light upon them has unfolded from generation to generation. A good example of this is Isaiah 61. There are many wonderful chapters in the book of Isaiah, but that is truly one of the finest. It is one of the strongest chapters in the Bible to open up for us the truths concerning the days of restoration and the double portion, and to show how God is going to bring many things to pass. It is this chapter which Jesus read from in the synagogue at Nazareth. You will find it recorded in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me.” And Jesus began telling the things that He was going to do. But He quoted it only up to a point. He did not quote, “The day of vengeance of our God,” because the Lord had been brought forth to open the door to the prisoners and to preach the good tidings to those who needed it (Isaiah 61:1–2). Of course, we know what happened. They tried to throw Him over a precipice.
And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they rose up and cast Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, He went His way. Luke 4:16–21, 28–30.
Whenever the Word begins to live, there are people who become “filled with rage” and say, “How can we stop it?” and they persecute it. You can speak a Living Word, but if people did not hear His Word they will not hear yours either when you bring it forth (John 15:20).
I thought about the different periods of time and what these Scriptures have meant and what they are going to mean to us. A very interesting study is to take a passage and begin to open it up—what it meant at different times, and how people have preached about it. What did Luther preach about it? What did Zwingli preach about it? What did Huss say about it? What did John Wesley say about it? In days when the anointing began to unfold God’s Word and God was moving anew, what did these men find in that same chapter? Then what is God speaking today out of that passage?
We would understand that the Book does not change. The same Old Testament that was being read in the synagogue was also being read in the New Testament churches. Isn’t that interesting? But what a difference from “Rabbi So-and-So says this about that.” The rabbis in the synagogue went down through all of the various writings, interpretations, traditions, and different opinions. But Peter stood up and said, “This is what Joel wrote about; this is it.” He pointed right to it and brought something out of the Scriptures that was truly fantastic and a present truth for that hour. It took Peter to help us understand the book of Joel-how God would pour out His Spirit and people would prophesy and how many wonderful things would happen (Acts 2:14–21; Joel 2:28–32).
But twenty-eight years after Peter’s sermon, James quoted out of this reference in Joel 2 again when he wrote his Epistle. He said, “This is what is going to happen in the last day” (James 5:7; Joel 2:23). I don’t think you can exhaust this Book. There is no way that you can say, “We finally have all there is to know about this passage of Scripture.” You can’t do it. It is so deep and so wonderful.
In this message, we are going to begin in the Old Testament, and wind up close to the end of the Bible in the book of Jude. We will read passages of Scripture to show how the battle of nephilim spirits has come down through the centuries from the days before the flood. It was their satanic influence that occasioned God to send the flood to destroy all flesh. We are going to show that, as Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the time of the Son of Man when He comes.” And Jude pointed out these things again.
“And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.” Luke 17:26–30.
And about these also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Jude 14–21.
Since you love the Living Word, you must begin to understand why you are having so many battles over it. I must explain the deep contesting spirit that is in the earth which is battling against the Word. Every time you hear a Word, do you notice how the enemy fights you on it? But, you see, it is all over the fact that from the very beginning of time the war has been over the Word. The war is always over the Word (Genesis 3:1). And as the revelation is written of the victory, you see the great Conqueror with the armies of heaven coming, “and His name is called the Word of God.”
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.
It is impossible in this day for you to give a definition that will divorce the person of the Lord Jesus Christ from the Living Word that He is speaking. He said, “My Words are Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63).
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1, 14.
When a Living Word comes from Christ, He has put so much of Himself in it. That is why you come to hear a Word. You do not come to hear another sermon. You do not come just to get a little religion. Probably most of you would say, “I don’t want any part of that; I want God to speak to my heart. And when I leave I want to know that the Lord flooded my soul and disturbed me; and when the waters receded there was a deposit made of a seed that is going to grow, that is going to change me, because that Word is alive.”
Why is it that everyone who becomes involved with this Living Word finds himself in so many problems? Well, that is the whole purpose of this story: to show you why.
I did not really understand the nephilim until I began to realize that in everything Satan does, he is trying to imitate God. The best description of Satan is that he is God’s ape.
And he is an unwitting tool to bring forth the will of God in the earth. Of course, he doesn’t intend to. When you really begin to understand the nephilim, you see that there is one basic thing about them: There is a satanic input into their origin or generation, just as by the Living Word you are born of an incorruptible seed, the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever (I Peter 1:23). You have something of the divine nature in you. When the Jews said, “We are the seed of Abraham,” Jesus told them, “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:33, 39–44). There was a satanic input in their generation and nature.
You may not realize what a religious spirit the devil is. The further you go with God the less religious you will be, because religion is the Adamic nature rising up to produce a facsimile that men think is righteousness. But all of our righteousness is as filthy rags.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Isaiah 64:6, KJV.
Righteousness has to be an impartation and a change of nature.
But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:20–24.
If that were not true, then we could just say, “Every day in every way I will strive a little harder and grow better and better.” But you know that is not going to work, any more than you can take yourself by the bootstraps and lift yourself over a fence. You can’t do it. It is impossible. You are locked into your nature until the work of Christ’s cross begins to come, until faith begins to work in your life, until you become a born-again believer (John 3:3–7; Galatians 5:24). Then you can begin to appropriate that righteousness by faith.
A beautiful picture of this true righteousness is found in Philippians 3:9: And may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.
The devil is working for the same thing. He is an ape; he is trying to imitate God. So he is looking for a son. Judas was called the son of perdition (John 17:12). In II Thessalonians 2:3–4 the antichrist is called the son of perdition. Satan is looking for that one to come forth to be the world ruler. But he is defeated already because all authority in heaven and earth has been committed to the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18).
When we begin to understand these nephilim, we see that from the beginning Satan was trying to reach in to gain control. He wanted to usurp a place, actually fill the place that was a vacuum. When Adam sinned and fell, man no longer was able to function as the one who could control this world (Genesis 1:26–28).
After Christ had been crucified, a commission was given. Jesus said, “All authority is given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18–20.
Once again the world is to be brought under authority. The kingdoms of this world are to become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15).
Two commissions are given to disciples in the gospels. One is in Mark 16:15–16. “Go and preach the gospel to every creature. Whosoever will believe can be saved. And if he doesn’t believe, he will be condemned.” That is the commission which deals with the individual and his salvation, but the commission in Matthew 28:18–19 reads, “Go and make disciples of the nations.” Our Lord Christ was saying that there is not only a personal redemption involved in the work of the cross, but the redemption of the world is included. When Jesus Christ came forth from the grave He said, “All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me.” God was in Christ redeeming the world unto Himself.
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. II Corinthians 5:18–19.
Are you saying, “Every day I’m just believing that I can persevere until the end”? Believe for a little more. Believe that you are not only a believer belonging to the Lord, having great and precious promises that make you a partaker of the divine nature, personally (II Peter 1:2–4). Believe that you are also an instrument in the hand of God to see the Kingdom of God come forth, to see the nations come under Christ’s dominion.
Of course, you know that the devil controls or influences many things (Luke 4:5–6; John 12:31; 14:30). Or do you believe that? Do you believe that the devil controls most of the politics here in the United States? Do you believe that much of the music world is controlled by the devil? Do you believe that much of the art world is controlled by the devil? It is weird what strange things can pass for art. Doesn’t a great deal of it bother you and leave you rather confused? And you say, “Where is the wisdom, where is the intelligence in all this? Where is the worth of it? Where is the value of it?” You can’t find it.
And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’ ” Luke 4:5–8.
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out.” John 12:31.
We are going to learn what the nephilim are. Nephilim means “fallen.” So we have to understand that there is something of the downward pressure in a nephilim. The nephilim of the Old Testament were the closest approach to sons that Satan has had.
In Genesis 6:4, we read that the “sons of God” came down and had intercourse with the daughters of men, and the result was giants and men of renown. Almost every nation has some kind of mythology about a Hercules or an Atlas who was able to perform great feats—some being who was sort of half god. The Hawaiian people have legends about one called Maui, who did such things as lassoing the sun and holding it. The Greeks were great for stories about beings who were half god and half human. But you say, “Well, that’s all mythology. We don’t want any part of that.” However, it is surprising that there is a counterpart in the Scriptures. Look into mythology and archaeology, and you will find that almost every nation of the world has a story of the great flood. Some of these things must have happened on such a universal scale that people everywhere have passed down stories about them. You know that all of it is not true, but something must have happened to give rise to the legends.
When we read about it we will discover one thing: These nephilim are an input into the human race, so that they have in their generation something that is satanic, just as you have something that is wholly of Christ in you.
Do you believe that Christ lives within you? Do you believe that it is more than just bottling Him up in you? He is real in you. He is alive in you.
“In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20.
Then can you believe too that the same thing could happen in the devil’s realm? Do you believe that demons can possess a person to such an extent that his whole personality, his thought, everything about him is completely controlled? Likewise, it is true that you can be so possessed of the Lord, so filled with the Spirit, that walking in the Spirit you will not fulfill the flesh (Galatians 5:16).
Let us begin the story of the nephilim by reading Genesis 6:1–8. Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Verses 1–2.
It says “sons of God,” but be careful. This is a false term; it actually means the opposite of what it seems. It was a sonship that was being usurped, but it was not of God, because true sons of God would not come down to have intercourse with a lot of women. And where could these sons of God have come from, anyway? The human race was fallen. There must be something else that we are looking for here.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” If you have the New American Standard Bible or the original 1911 American Standard Version you already have a great deal corrected in your mind. For the next verse reads: The Nephilim (which the King James Version translates “giants”) were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. They were the legendary “giants”—great and mighty men of great feats. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Verses 3–5.
Follow this closely—because Noah comes on the scene just a few verses later. And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man (Luke 17:26). Twenty or thirty years ago no one would admit to being a witch or a member of a church of Satan. Today these things are out in the open.
Are you aware how much we are coming right into days of wickedness just as in the days of Noah? “As it was in the days of Noah …” Those days are coming again; and of course that includes the nephilim. What did these nephilim do? They were men of renown. They were the giants. They were the famous people of the earth at that time.
And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. And the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Verses 6–8.
We are going to skip over the irrelevant in these chapters, but we will study the verses that give the thread of the story. Genesis 7:1: Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household; for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time” (or “in this generation”). Why did the Lord say that only Noah was righteous? Ham was not righteous. We read that immediately after the flood, Ham, who was his youngest son, made fun of Noah.
We read about it in Genesis 9: Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan. Verse 18. You must understand this, because the curse that we are about to read, which came on Canaan, was the key of everything that happened in the promises that God gave to Abraham later on and in the whole book of Joshua (Joshua 11:10–23). God called Abraham out of Ur of Chaldees and sent him to the land of Canaan. He said, “You are going to inherit this land—but not yet. It will be four hundred years yet” (Genesis 15:7, 13–16). God was getting ready to deal as He had done earlier with the flood—to destroy. He set about to destroy the nephilim and the evil of that day, and start all over with Noah because he was the only righteous man He could find.
In the conquest of the land of Canaan we see the same intent of God to destroy. How could a loving Father above send Joshua in and say, “Kill them all. Anyone you leave will be a thorn in your side. Don’t spare one of them” (Deuteronomy 7:1–2).
“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come about that those whom you let remain of them will become as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land in which you live. And it shall come about that as I plan to do to them, so I will do to you.” Numbers 33:55–56.
How can we understand such a bloodthirsty command to annihilate them all? It was because of the curse on Canaan, the son of Ham, that we read about in this passage. This was apparently the one nephilim spirit that had made it through from the antediluvian world into the next one. It says that the nephilim were in the earth then and also afterward (Genesis 6:4). Follow carefully, because this is the most exciting story you will ever read in your life.
These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was populated. Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Genesis 9:19–21.
Today they don’t use a tent. They go right out in the open—bottomless, topless, every way. The days of Noah are being repeated (the days before the flood). Noah was a righteous man, however, and he did not do this intentionally. And Ham, the father of Canaan (you see how this is the only son identified here), saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. Verses 22–24. How did he know? It doesn’t say that anyone told him, but he knew it. Don’t forget that these men of God knew a lot more than you might think. They were prophets of God.
So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.” He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant.” And Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood. So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died. Verses 25–29.
The curse here was on Ham’s son, Canaan. We don’t have to go very far in the book of Genesis before we come to another reference to Canaan. Genesis 12:1–3: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
A little later we read that … they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. And Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. Verses 5–6.
The Canaanite becomes important because it was from the Canaanite that the nephilim came forth, and Hebron became their stronghold. Goliath was one of the giants, nine feet tall, that David brought down (I Samuel 17:4–10, 26–51). Jerusalem was possessed by the nephilim and it took David’s skill to capture Jerusalem so it could become the city of the Lord’s people.
Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day. Joshua 15:63.
Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and they said to David, “You shall not come in here, but the blind and lame shall turn you away” thinking, “David cannot enter here.” Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David. And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him reach the lame and the blind, who are hated by David’s soul, through the water tunnel.” Therefore they say, “The blind or the lame shall not come into the house.” So David lived in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built all around from Millo and inward. And David became greater and greater, for the Lord God of hosts was with him. II Samuel 5:6–10.
When Absalom became a traitor, he fled to the area of Hebron, to Talmai in Geshur after killing his brother; and there he received the nephilim input (II Samuel 13:28–39). When he returned (II Samuel 14:21–23), he succeeded in actually deceiving the hearts of the people until he took over the throne from his father David. And David fled for his life from the son he had forgiven for murdering his own brother (II Samuel 14:33–15:14).
Do not ever think that this nephilim spirit is not one of the most deceptive that has ever come on the face of the earth. A devil spirit has difficulty in relating to the human race. Even the good angels have difficulty relating to the human race. It says of the angels that they desired to look into the salvation. They inquired into it (I Peter 1:12). They could not understand man’s disobedience and the plan of redemption that was coming. They could not understand how a people, made much lower than angels, so very low, were going to come up to sonship, something that an angel himself could never attain (Hebrews 2:5–8).
Devils cannot understand that either; and so, in order for Satan to make his communication and his deception, he has to find a human being whose nature he can infiltrate. This combined human nature and satanic nature can be so subtle and so blended that in it we have probably the greatest satanic input and difficulty which exists in the whole world today.
That is why God was in Christ redeeming the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). In case you say, “The world doesn’t need redemption,” I would hate to think that what exists now is God’s will being perfectly fulfilled in the earth. I would say that God is working to bring forth His perfect will in the earth, and He is working in every one of you (Philippians 2:13). He is working in your life to bring forth His nature. He has plans for you that will loose you from human limitations.
For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13.
Jesus said, “The works that I do shall you do also, and greater works than these shall you do because I go to the Father” (John 14:12). “They that do know their God will be strong and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32, KJV).
We are speaking about the sons of God who are to come forth. You cannot understand Romans 8 and the sons that come forth, without understanding that they have to be delivered from futility within themselves, and then they are going to deliver all God’s creation from futility. They will be loosed into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Romans 8:14–21). But we have to get there first. Therefore, it is a race between the offspring of Satan and the sons of God coming forth.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:18–23.
This is the way it is to be. Who is going to win? From the very beginning, the Word was: “Cursed be Canaan. Canaan is going to serve Japheth. Canaan is going to serve Shem. Canaan is going to be brought down.” And yet when they came into the land of Canaan it was those accursed Canaanites with that nephilim spirit who so bluffed out the people of God that ten of the spies returned with an evil report. This was the contest there.
When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:25–33.
Yet Joshua and Caleb understood the nature of the nephilim spirit, and they said that even the enemies’ shadow had been taken away (Numbers 14:9, NASB, literal translation).
This means that Joshua and Caleb as prophets of God had seen that the aura and the demonic protection had been stripped away, and all that the Israelites had to do was go in and kill those giants—they were already defeated.
In the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, we read about Melchizedek, the king of Salem. What was Salem? What city was that? It is what Jerusalem was called at that particular time. Melchizedek came out and he blessed Abraham. And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High (El Elyon), possessor of heaven and earth” (“creator” of heaven and earth is what it really means—not “possessor”); “and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tenth of all. Genesis 14:19–20. Then the king of Sodom came on the scene. (Now we are back to the Canaanites again.) He said, “We want to give you a reward for what you have done.” But Abraham would not even accept a shoelace. He said, “Lest you should say that you had anything to do with making Abraham rich” (Genesis 14:21–24). Abraham was wholly dependent upon God, and he wanted nothing to do with those Canaanites or the things that were coming out of that satanic input.
Continue reading in Genesis 15: After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.” Verse 1.
And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” Verses 5–7.
Some time later God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs” (predicting the Egyptian bondage, that they would go down in Egypt and be slaves), “where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions. And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; and you shall be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite” (now we are back to those nephilim again) “is not yet complete.” Verses 13–16.
It had to be as it was in the days of the flood. Their iniquity had to come to a certain point, because then Joshua was commissioned to destroy them.
And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. Verse 17.
Have you ever heard of the Shekinah glory whereby God moved and also manifested Himself by fire upon sacrifices? (Exodus 13:21–22; I Kings 18:36–38.) Have you heard of the cloven tongues of fire which sat upon the hundred and twenty on the day of Pentecost? (Acts 2:1–3.) God manifests Himself in fire.
The Lord made a covenant with Abraham and promised him a great thing (we read this in Genesis 15:18–21). He said He was going to give his descendants all of the land: “the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite” (back to Canaan again, see?) “and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.” Verses 19–21. Abraham had the promise that his descendants would receive all of that land when they came out of the land of Egypt.
Let’s learn how this nephilim spirit operates. Understand that it is still going on. How can you describe the nephilim spirit? It is one of the most deceitful things. I have had a few years of experience with it, because the Lord brought me into a ministry of discernment. You can identify a demon-possessed person when he comes to you. Many are able to do that. But the trickiest thing in the world is the deceptiveness of the nephilim spirit that dominates people.
I saw an evidence of this once that left me in amazement. It was from a good, loving man, who loved God and was normally very gentle. Suddenly one little thing upset him. And He began accusing a couple of brothers.
What they had done I suppose they had done a thousand times and nobody took exception, but suddenly he was filled with wrath. He wanted to almost tear the church apart over that one thing.
This so-called righteous indignation can sometimes be an excuse, and is actually a nephilim spirit that Satan brings to stir up people. Much of the persecution coming against the Living Word right now is based upon a satanic input that stirs up people. There is no logic to it. They don’t become upset over terrible sins. They are not upset by some terrible thing that seems to be controlling finances. They are not upset about the manipulation that is taking place in government. They don’t become upset over many things. But when they see one person drink a glass of beer, suddenly they are furious and want to tear everybody apart.
A whole world lying under the power of the wicked one doesn’t even bother them (I John 5:19, NASB). It doesn’t make sense. Why do they suddenly become so irate? What makes men pharisees? They plot behind closed doors to kill Jesus Christ (John 11:47, 53). It is because He goes to a wedding and He makes some wine (John 2:1–10), or because they consider Him a glutton and a wine drinker (Luke 7:34). They draw back from Him because a woman who had an unsavory reputation is weeping on Him and bathing His feet with her tears. Yet the Pharisee who had invited Jesus did not even move to wash His feet (Luke 7:36–50). What is it that takes hold of people the way it did Judas so that Satan finally enters their hearts? (Luke 22:3–4; John 13:26–27.) Where did the Judas betrayal start?
And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them. And they were delighted, and agreed to give him money. And he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him to them apart from the multitude. Luke 22:3–6.
It started when a woman took some precious ointment a few days before Jesus was going to be crucified, and poured this costly ointment of spikenard on His body. What a wonderful thing that was. Jesus said, “Let her alone. Against the day of My burial she has brought this forth” (John 12:3–7). In some way her love foretold that even while He was staggering under the cross, mingled with the sweat and the blood would be the precious anointing that she had given Him.
Mary therefore took a pound of very costly, genuine spikenard ointment, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to poor people?” Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. Jesus therefore said, “Let her alone, in order that she may keep it for the day of My burial.” John 12:3–7.
What is it that makes people so furious against things like that? What is it that gets hold of them? God is not religious. It has taken the religious people every time to plot to put Jesus Christ on a cross and to crucify Him afresh, to put Him to an open shame (Hebrews 6:6). Think about that, and open your heart to the fact that God is not asking you to be religious. He is asking that He can fill your very nature and change you, transform you, make you the instruments of righteousness in the earth, make you a part of the great plan of redemption that He has for you to see this old world redeemed in the name of the Lord.
Numbers 13:1–20 describes how Moses sent men to spy out the land of Canaan. This was at the instruction of the Lord; don’t ever get the idea that the leaders of the people dreamed up this idea in their own minds.
Numbers 13:21–22a: So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, at Lebohamath. When they had gone up into the Negev (Negev means south country), they came to Hebron (remember what was previously said about Hebron, home of the sons of Anak—the nephilim) where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak were.
One of the first nephilim discerned by us was Ahiman. So we began to pray for the defeat of Ahiman.
We have been in war against the nephilim spirits that have dominated right up until this present time. Now the battle is coming to a head. And you know what is going to win it. Religious movements will not. The thing that is going to win now will be a Living Word that comes against the principalities and the powers, the spiritual wickedness in the high places (Ephesians 3:10; 6:12, 17). It is going to bring them down.
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 19:13–16.
If we could control the dominating force in the world and end it, people would turn to God by the thousands. How many people are held in bondage right now? Or do you believe that is true? They are held in bondage. Do you believe that there are plenty of sinners out there who would love to be delivered from alcohol? They want to be delivered from cigarettes. They want to be delivered from the way they are living. They hate themselves for what they are doing. They hate their cheating and their lying and every wicked thing they are doing. They hate it. But they are caught in something from which they cannot escape.
Let’s continue on. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) This shows what an ancient city it was. Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men (quite a few grapes, wasn’t it?), with some of the pomegranates and the figs. That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there. Numbers 13:22b–24.
The spies came back, and they made a report. And that report is important, because again we see that it was the nephilim that bluffed them out.
Never in the Scriptures is there a man who stands up and really beats the nephilim spirit which is controlling governments and the destinies of great bodies of people, but what he lays his life on the line. A prophet stood up on a hill and said, “If I be a man of God, let fire destroy these fifty” (II Kings 1:10). Then we have the story of Moses and the gainsaying of Korah, which is also to be repeated in the end time, according to the book of Jude (Jude 11). What happened there? Moses said, “If these men die a natural death, then God has not sent me” (Numbers 16:29). He laid it right on the line. Men like this were willing to die, they believed God so much. It is interesting that Caleb wandered around for forty years in the judgment in the wilderness; but when he returned to possess the land, he went right to the mountain where the nephilim were and killed them, because he wholly followed the Lord.
Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know the word which the Lord spoke to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh-barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought word back to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear; but I followed the Lord my God fully. So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God fully.’ And now behold, the Lord has let me live, just as He spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, when Israel walked in the wilderness; and now behold, I am eighty-five years old today. I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out as the Lord has spoken.”
So Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite until this day, because he followed the Lord God of Israel fully. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba; for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war. Joshua 14:6–15.
Now he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the sons of Judah, according to the command of the Lord to Joshua, namely, Kiriath-arba, Arba being the father of Anak (that is, Hebron). And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak. Joshua 15:13–14.
So Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba); and they struck Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai. Judges 1:10.
I have come to the conclusion that there is a humility, there is a dedication that the Lord has been seeking for a long time. Give your all over to the Lord—every bit of your life—because you are raised up to fulfill a destiny. That destiny is to bring down the forces of evil and see Jesus Christ exalted as Lord over the whole world. That is what we are raised up to do. If we are only aiming for a personal blessing, our goals are not high enough.
When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.” (Sound discouraging?) Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”
So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size” (the giants—just as it was back in the days of Noah before the flood). “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim).” Numbers 13:25–33a.
Now you can begin to see the piecing together of the story. This is the same line that existed back before the flood and which had caused such corruption until men’s hearts were only evil continually.
“And we became like grasshoppers … in their sight.” Numbers 13:33b. They always intimidate. One significant thing about a nephilim spirit is that it intimidates you until you are afraid to stand up. But the thing about men of God like Caleb and Joshua is that they would stand right up to nephilim every time. They would stand right up to that spirit! They would fight it right to a conclusion: “It’s either God or it’s nothing at all.” What made Caleb and Joshua so strong to believe that they could do it? Why did they come back to Moses with such a good report?
Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb are named in verses 5–6 of Numbers 14. Verse 9 is the key verse: “Only do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they shall be our prey” (or “our meat”). “Their protection” (the Hebrew reads, “their shadow”) “has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”
The aura about them of satanic devil-possession had already been judged. Don’t forget, the nephilim are not defeated by men like Caleb and Joshua. The nephilim are defeated by the fact that God strips these human beings in their protective dedication to the devil. He strips them of their aura, strips them of their satanic protection, and you move in. They are helpless.
Can a person lose that protection? Well, can a person lose his anointing? Then God can see to it that the devil’s crowd loses their aura, their shadow, their protection. “Well, I don’t know much about auras,” you say. Do you have trouble with the idea of an aura being blessed? Just read Acts 5:14–16. People lined up along a street so that when Peter walked by, his “shadow” might fall on them and they would be healed. Is there any power around a person? If you have trouble with the idea of an aura, don’t call it that. Call it a shadow. The sun of righteousness is smiling upon us and we are casting a shadow of healing (Malachi 4:2).
Never be afraid of it because the world already knows about it. The world knows it to such an extent that they have invented cameras that can take pictures of the human aura. But perhaps the most interesting thing is that the Russians, in trying to determine a death, have taken pictures of the aura departing from the body. It may take the Russians to find scientific proof that there is a human soul. The atheists themselves may have given us photographic evidence of someone’s spirit leaving his body upon death.
The nephilim are identified at the end of the thirteenth chapter of Numbers. The fourteenth chapter shows how that spirit had hit the people. In the sixteenth chapter we read how Korah was destroyed. The way in which Korah rebelled is interesting. How did he do it? He became so very religious that you would hardly believe it. No one was more religious than Korah. What did he say?
And they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown (how about that—men of renown). And they assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” Numbers 16:2–3.
Moses fell on his face. We read that Moses did this often (Exodus 34:8; Numbers 14:5; 16:20–22). Joshua fell on his face before God (Joshua 5:14). That is one way you can tell a man of God. No matter what you do to him, he starts worshiping. Take his children and everything he owns away from Job, and he bows down and worships the Lord (Job 1:20–22). Anytime you wound a real worshiper, he bleeds worship. There is no bitterness in him toward God, only a submission. So Moses bowed down. The Word says he was meek above every man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3).
Verses 28–30: And Moses said, “By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing …”
How are we going to deal with the nephilim spirit? It will have to be entirely a new thing. But it will be by people who lay their lives right on the line, who say, “I know that this Living Word that God has brought to me is real. It is a revelation to my heart.”
There will be only two classes in the world: the deceived who walk in deception and those who have revelation. There aren’t any other alternatives. Reason is never enough, because people will reason themselves into deception. It is going to take revelation. Revelation will bring you through. When you read a This Week or you listen to a Living Word tape and it lives for you and God reveals something to your heart, don’t put it down. Stay right with that revelation, because it will keep growing in your heart. It will keep on living. There will be something good that God will do for you in it.
Numbers 16:30: “But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord.” And that is exactly what happened to them (verses 31–32).
In Joshua chapter 14 is a beautiful picture. It describes Caleb taking on the nephilim cities. Forty years had passed since he and Joshua first saw the nephilim, the sons of Anak. When they came back, Caleb said, “Moses promised me that I could have any piece of ground that I want” (Numbers 14:24; Deuteronomy 1:36). He didn’t pick a fertile valley; instead, he went to the hill country where the nephilim were. He said, “That’s what I want.”
“Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out as the Lord has spoken.” So Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Joshua 14:12–13.
He never lost in his heart the Word that God was going to give a victory over those nephilim spirits identified with the curse that was upon Canaan. Of course, there have been all kinds of notions about the curse of Canaan—racists have used it in one way or another. But the Canaanites were actually a devil-possessed people, a nephilim race that came forth in the time of the Old Testament.
In the fourteenth chapter of Joshua, Caleb tells how he had wholly followed the Lord. Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know the word which the Lord spoke to Moses the man of God concerning you and me at Kadesh-barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought word back to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear; but I followed the Lord my God fully.” Verses 6–8.
At this particular time Caleb was eighty-five years old. So forty-five years had passed, and he still wanted to get at those giants.
“And now behold, the Lord has let me live, just as He spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, when Israel walked in the wilderness; and now behold, I am eighty-five years old today.” Verse 10.
Imagine an eighty-five-year-old man saying, “I still want to take on those giants.” I think that his desire to see God glorified where the children of Israel had been defeated made him strong in the Lord.
He said, “I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out as the Lord has spoken.” So Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. This is very significant; Hebron was the center of the demonic nephilim forces.
Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite until this day, because he followed the Lord God of Israel fully. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba; for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Verses 11–15a. The city was named after Arba. But Caleb changed it to Hebron after he took the city over. Joshua 15:14: And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak. He did it. He took Hebron.
Clearly, Caleb and Joshua were great men of God. But was there any place for the women? Yes. Look at Caleb’s daughter. And Caleb said, “The one who attacks Kiriathsepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter as a wife.” Joshua 15:16. So Othniel, the son of Caleb’s brother, captured it. What did Caleb’s daughter do then? She said, “If I am going to get this country, I want the water rights that go with it”; and so Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs of water. She obtained a husband, a good inheritance, and a good water supply in the land, all in the same day (Joshua 15:17–19). Caleb had some children who were ready to fight. They were ready to go after it with everything in their heart. They loved the Lord.
Now what about the end time? What about Korah’s rebellion as it relates to the end time? Look to the book of Jude, verses 10–11: But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
The book of Jude is a book for the end time. This brings us back to what we were discussing at the start of this message. Why do you have such a problem with the Word? Why are you battled when you hear a Living Word? Why are you battled in relationships and communication? You are battled in almost every area you can think about. Is that true? If you were not serving the Lord, you would not have nearly as many problems as you have now. Your problems come about because of the fact that you have had a Word from God, and that Word must bear fruit in the earth—not only in your own life; it must bear fruit in the whole earth (Isaiah 27:6; 55:10–13; John 15:16).
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10–11.
What do we do then? We say, “Lord, we are going to embrace Thy Living Word more than ever before.” How are we going to fight these nephilim? I think that Caleb gives us a key in the way that he wholly followed the Lord. Elijah gives us a key in the way that he stood up against Ahab and Jezebel (I Kings 21:17–24). The Jezebel spirit is again in the direct lineage of these nephilim (I Kings 16:31; 21:25–26; Genesis 10:15). And that same spirit existed in the New Testament times. In Revelation 2:20 we read that the church in Thyatira tolerated the Jezebel in their midst.
Did you know that there are two worlds? And both of them are very real in your life. There is a natural world, and there is a spiritual world. The natural world seems to be circumstances and problems and situations that you face. But if you could just see the spirit world behind it, you would understand much more. You would understand why, when Jesus Christ was in the wilderness, Satan came to Him and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said, “If You bow down and worship me, I will give them to You, for they are mine to give” (Luke 4:5–7). Satan knew that he had control.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, the world rulers of this darkness (Ephesians 6:12). We are facing something that is not flesh and blood. That is why you cannot say, “The government is all to blame. My wife is to blame; my husband is to blame. It is my kids. It is my job. It is my boss.” I grant you, there can be some real demonic input from all of them. The devil can manipulate to try to bring warfare against you. Many things can be happening to you that you cannot explain. Whenever you come up against witchcraft, you are coming up against a real force that is operating in the spirit world. But do you believe that we have authority in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ over this? Christ has authority over it!
I don’t think that authority works, however, until you have a concept of what you are fighting. Paul said, “I don’t just strike out, beating the air. I don’t run uncertainly” (I Corinthians 9:24–27). If he was going to win the race, he had to know where the goal line was. If he was going to win the battle, he had to know where the enemy was and not just strike out and beat the air. Paul called it “beating the air.” We do not want to beat the air. We want to be effective. Just as the Lord said, “Whosoever will may come” (Revelation 22:17), He said also, “Whatsoever you ask, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22; John 15:16). However, many people don’t even know what the “whatsoever” is. They don’t know what they should pray for. They don’t know what they are to intercede for.
If we understood this, the greatest tide, the greatest wave of intercession that has ever been seen in the history of all of God’s end-time dealings would suddenly spring forth. Everything around the world could be changed in a matter of a few months if there were just a few people who would understand this message and begin to intercede. That Living Word within you is not just to bless you and sustain you so that you will not stumble. You may very likely do that sooner or later, unless you understand the purpose of that Word, and you submit to its working in your heart, and you humble yourself under the hand of God, and you get with that Word with everything within you.
The next time you find yourself irritated and you can’t understand why—and you think, “I shouldn’t be irritated over a little thing like this”; or you find yourself discouraged and you think, “I shouldn’t be discouraged,” you will understand what is really happening. When you are under a heavy cloud and you wonder why—when you find wrong things within your spirit which seem to have no apparent cause because you love God so much, then you will wake up to the fact that there is a spiritual battle going on. The enemy does not want that Living Word to bear fruit in your life. The birds of the air come to pluck up the seed before it grows. The sun of persecution beats down upon it so that it will wither before it has any depth of root. The thorns and cares of this life grow up to choke it out. But if you will persevere, that Word will bring forth a hundredfold (Matthew 13:18–23).
I wish there were some way I could impart to each one of you and say, “Believe the Word of the Lord!” This is a Living Word that God is speaking to your heart, and He is telling you why the Living Word has come to you, why the nephilim battle is there. Every one of us who believes the Word is having this problem. There is not a one of us who is not experiencing this same difficulty. But “Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:57).
We can believe. I don’t think the battle for Canaan was as big as people think it was. I don’t think your battle is as big as you think it is. The Israelites probably thought that they were chasing the enemy, but they looked and discovered that hornets were stinging the Canaanites and that was why they were running (Joshua 24:12). Isn’t that fantastic? Suppose you say, “I don’t have enough time to finish this day!” Well, Joshua told the sun to stand still until he finished his job (Joshua 10:12–14). He was killing Canaanites. He was getting rid of nephilim spirits. He was going after the thing that was standing against the people possessing a promise which at that particular time was close to five hundred years old. Let’s go after it. What is the purpose of laying on of hands and of prophecy? Is it to astound you with some great revelation? Or is it to activate that Living Word within you, to bring a freshness to the anointing, a double portion to it and say, “Let’s go after this thing. Let’s battle through in the name of the Lord.” Lord, give us a true revelation of our battle and our victory over the nephilim.
From the beginning Satan has battled the Word God gives. God’s people in every generation share that same assault on every Word God speaks to them.
The battle is on between Satan’s sons, the nephilim, and God’s sons. The issue is the cause or the cure of creation’s futility.
History is repeating itself. Before the flood were the nephilim, and before the judgments of this age are the nephilim.
The nephilim are the most unique combination of the satanic and human natures. Likewise the sons of God are expressions of the divine nature in redeemed humans.
The nephilim with a religious spirit magnify trivia; the sons of God by revelation of the Spirit see the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation.
The spirit of the nephilim will intimidate you and make you feel like grasshoppers in your own sight; but God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and a disciplined mind.