We often encounter spiritual battles, and sometimes we think that the enemy assaults us only in our weak points. This is not always true. When you look into the Scriptures, you see that many men were not battled or defeated on their weak points. They were aware of their weak points and had built defenses against them; but they were not always aware that the enemy could find an open door and come in on their strong points. The Scriptures speak often of the apostle of love who leaned on Jesus’ bosom (John 13:23; 21:20), who loved Him very much and was loved by Him (John 19:26; 20:2; 21:7). Yet John was one of those who wanted to call fire down out of heaven to destroy the Samaritans. Jesus told him, “You do not know what spirit you are of” (Luke 9:54–55). Can you understand that Satan nearly defeated John, the apostle of love, through his love for the Lord, by causing that love to be manifested on a human, vindictive, retaliatory plane. How many times have we seen this kind of situation happen? It is not always our strong faults that cause the problem, but rather sometimes our strong virtues.
Consider some of the other men in the Scriptures who failed. Abraham was called a man of faith (Romans 4:9). Yet his problems centered around Satan attacking his faith, to the point that he even denied that Sarah was his wife, claiming that she was his sister (Genesis 20:2). Moses was called the meekest man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3). God Himself gave him that title. God also defended him on several occasions. He even caused the earth to swallow up Moses’ critics in the gainsaying of Korah (Numbers 16:26–32). Yet in a moment of vindictiveness, Moses excluded himself from entering into the land of Canaan (Numbers 20:9–13). It is important for us to remember this, because if we start defending our virtues, then our faults will rise to the surface and manifest themselves. “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Matthew 5:10), and still rejoice, because there is nothing in them which rises up to vindicate themselves.
An entire book could be written on the subject of defensiveness. Very few of us understand how defensive we are. If there is some area where we have experienced either great failure or much success, we are usually very sensitive about it. And when we rise to defend ourselves, we manifest not the good in us, but the vindictiveness. Our defensiveness is what leads to problems.
There are several reasons why defensiveness manifests itself. We become defensive over that which we ourselves question. No man argues louder for a cause than the one who is unsure of it himself. Defensiveness can also come when a man knows he is wrong. His pride rises up to the point that he would even kill his enemy because he knows that the real enemy is within his own heart, and he must not even acknowledge that to himself.
When parents are defensive concerning their children, they will oppose the pastor, the teachers, and everyone else who is involved with those children. They do not want to admit that the children’s problems have come as a result of their own problems. These parents feel that the children are their possession, and it is difficult for them to reach the proper balance in which they view their children’s problems objectively and also recognize the need of input from another person besides themselves. Usually they cannot see that need. They hang onto a defensive attitude where their children are concerned, without realizing that no one is trying to hurt the children; there is only a desire to bring them into a maturity.
How sad it is for any person in this Kingdom walk to view the loving efforts of another without interpreting them objectively. All of us realize that one of our greatest areas of failure is misinterpreting the efforts of those who love us very deeply. In our sensitivity, we do not understand what they are trying to do. They are not trying to be critical; they are trying to be helpful. It is relatively easy for us to overcome the accusations of our critics—which are actually the blatant, outrageous, obvious lies of the enemy. We throw them aside without much resentment. We may even rejoice over the fact that we are being “persecuted for Christ’s sake” (Matthew 5:11–12; II Corinthians 12:10). But the faithful wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6) we usually find very difficult to accept.
As you stood by, trying to help a friend, have you ever felt helpless, knowing that none of your efforts would be accepted? No one really understood what you were trying to do, especially the one you were trying to help. There is a sadness involved in love when you love someone and want to help him, yet you realize that you cannot help him solve his problem because of the blindness and self-deception that comes from his own emotional reactions. Those reactions usually are subjectively human, not objectively spiritual.
You may have helped a hundred people by leading them into a deeper relationship with the Lord. But could you also name a hundred people who have helped you, who have told you something you needed to hear, who have talked to you about attitudes you needed to accept, who have brought you forth into something you needed to become? Is it not true that we are usually much more willing to help others than we are to be helped? Yet in our heart is always a desire to be helped—a silent cry, “Help me!” The help can only come when the walls are brought down.
Why do you put up walls? Why are you defensive? It is because you have an open door. Walls are for our personal defense against our weaknesses and the places where we are vulnerable. Many of us have an openness in us, and that can let in the enemy and defeat us. For example, a young person who has been led into problems of moral defeat usually will put up more walls than anyone else, since he realizes that he has an open door which makes him vulnerable. He knows that if he is exposed to temptation, under the right circumstances he could yield to it and fall. Consequently, he builds walls. If he could get to the heart of his problem and receive a deep deliverance, the walls would not be necessary. There is an intricate mechanism by which we regulate our relationships and our functioning with one another. This mechanism may be only a wall of defense that we have built because we know our own areas of weakness and our areas of failure. When we reach the place on this Kingdom level where we have eliminated these areas of weakness, then we will need no walls of defense.
In the Kingdom, the truth—which is revealed by discernment and perception—may be voiced very simply, but it will be crucially effective. It will destroy illusions that we have about the rightness of our actions and attitudes. It will also ruthlessly destroy the attitude we have had about the wrongness of some action or attitude and our self-condemnation over it. Usually we are not defensive of any issue where we feel we are right, but we do tend to be defensive about anything over which we feel a deep guilt within us. We are defensive in areas where we fear we are not right, because we do not want the issue to be exposed.
In a sense, this has been my experience on a deep level. It has been told to me—and I believe it to be true—that even though I have walked with God for many years and I have taught others how to walk, I myself have had reservations about relating to people on the same basis that I teach them to relate to one another. It was not because my own heart was exclusive or withdrawn; it was just that I did not have enough confidence in my own walk with God. Everyone can give an excuse for withdrawing, but that may not be the real reason. An individual may withdraw because there has been an exposure in his own heart of areas that he does not want exposed to anyone else; consequently, he draws back. And in drawing back, he misses the cleansing and purging that comes when we confess our sins one to another, that we may be healed, as James 5:16 tells us.
As the day of the Kingdom is upon us, it is a day of deep revelation. Because it is the day of the Parousia—when the Lord’s presence is revealed to each of us—it will also be a time when we receive deep revelation of ourselves. When the great searchlight of the Spirit of the Lord penetrates deep into the inner recesses of our own heart, then we will discover the mixed motivation that is within us (Psalm 139:23–24). We will see how much of it is actually of God-and this we will rejoice in. But we will see also how much of it we have defended very religiously, thinking it was right, when it was actually a defensive mechanism to cover up the areas of our own suspicions and self-doubt.
Who is more defensive than one who has much authority and responsibility? I have felt responsible for all of you. I have had an authority and a commission to deliver the Word to you, and this I have done faithfully. I have also had to look deep within my own heart and see that I must also accept my own weaknesses and not be defensive about them.
This same attitude must prevail in all the pastors. The arrogance that tempts us all tempts them also, causing them to react defensively, “Who are you to challenge the rightness of what I have done?” They say that, not out of confidence, but out of a question in their own heart: “Did I really have the Word of the Lord?” The same is true of the elders. As they are groping to be elders and to please God, they sometimes become overly defensive, to the hurt of the sheep and to the limitation of their own effectiveness and love.
Fathers, too, tend to react defensively. How easy it is for a father to hide behind his authority as the head of the home, and refuse to listen to a word from his wife or his children which would be a blessing to him. No doubt the greatest defensiveness is found in a mother. Because she has borne her child, she never ceases to feel a sense of responsibility for him; and that responsibility is like an unseen cord which is never cut. If everything does not develop right in her child, she does not blame him; she blames herself. All of us are defensive in certain areas of our life. As we are delivered from our own defensiveness, we will open our hearts to one another, and the input that we receive from one another will be wonderful.
The walls which we put up, perhaps because of open doors and problems, could be destructive under the right circumstances. Those walls of defense are also divisive. They are destructive to the communication and unity which we must have with one another. We have learned that an open door is evidence of a deeply buried weakness within us, but it can be removed by deep repentance. When the day comes in which God has healed us up, then we will really be manifested as one Body before Him, and we will have no walls to one another. On this new level, we will be freed from the open doors within us. No more walls are needed when God removes from us the open doors we have to the enemy.
When someone in authority is confronted by one of the sheep who has a true Word from the Lord for him, it is easy for him to pull rank and say, “Hey, I’m the general. Who are you to criticize me?” There have been times when I have had a tendency to do this. Yet by opening my heart and listening to those who love me, I have learned more about the Kingdom of God in a few days than I have been able to teach you in the past year. To be a true teacher, a person must be teachable. I believe that the days of my true effectiveness as a teacher lie ahead, because each day I am driven to humble myself before God a little more. As I bow at His feet, I learn. I take His yoke upon me and I learn of Him (Matthew 11:29). I learn that meekness is not a pseudo-humility; rather it is an openness to hear. The openness to hear and receive eliminates the openness to error and deception. To the extent that we listen to the Word of the Lord, to that extent we are deaf to the lies of Satan. To the extent that we open our hearts to the truth, to that extent the lies of Satan have no effect upon us.
Can we understand fully what is happening to us? We must realize that the coming oneness will be very painful. It cuts, sharper than a surgeon’s knife. It crushes, with greater force than an elephant’s foot. It refines, more than the fires that refine silver. This is what has happened and is happening to you. Does it seem as if it is too much for you to bear? Then you are almost through it!
Now let us look very briefly at what is to come. In your heart was a dream and a vision of oneness and closeness. You may have interpreted that vision on a human plane and tried to visualize how it will be. But when it comes, it will be manifested in a thousand ways you never dared to dream of. Each moment will be tender and rich. Not only will there be a oneness with the special one to whom God has related you, and with all of those in the Body of Christ to whom He has related you, but there will also be a oneness with Himself. Then everything you do, even the breaking of bread with one another in His Holy Communion, will become an experience of joy unspeakable because of the glory and the oneness that can come only in the fullness of His revelation (I Peter 1:7–8). And a part of that will be a revelation of yourself, to yourself.
We determine to know one another not after the flesh (II Corinthians 5:16), but after the Spirit. Instead of looking at our brothers’ faults and problems, we will intercede for them; and that intercession will result in a revelation. We will know what the Lord wants for them. And when we have a revelation of that, then our faith will take hold, and all of us will receive a commission from the Lord’s hand. By this commission that He gives us, we will bring to pass the burden we had in our hearts when we first began to intercede.
As we face the problems of relationships, we must remember that relationships in the realm of spirit are not created by human whim, but by a Word of God. Even from the cross Jesus said, “Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother” (John 19:26–27). From that hour on, their relationship was established; John took Mary to his home and cared for her all the rest of her life. A relationship is created, not by a whim or by human affection, not by compatibility or a pleasing personality; it is created in the Spirit by a
Word from God.
When we realize this, we will remind the Lord, “You said that we are to be one.” The pastors, the elders, and the shepherds will declare, “Lord, these are Your sheep.” Then beyond human inclination on the natural plane will come the compulsive drive of the Spirit to relate to one another, because that relationship was created by a Word. After all, from the beginning of Genesis on, the war has been over the Word: “Hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1.) Find the will of God in your relationships. Concerning your brother, ask yourself, “Hath God said that this one is my brother?” Get a Word from the Lord. Then when the enemy tests you on it and asks, “Hath God said?” you will be able to answer very emphatically, “Yes, God hath said!”
Let us never judge a relationship by a compatibility on the human level, by the conflict of circumstances, or by the difficulties that are encountered because of that relationship. When a pastor takes the oversight of the sheep, he may encounter difficulties and problems that cause him to ask, “Why am I doing this? I would rather be back working at my old job where there was less conflict.” Then he must remind himself, “But the Lord called me.” When you have a revelation of Him, you say, like Isaiah, “Woe is me” (Isaiah 6:5). After He meets your heart and asks, “Who will go?” then you will say, “Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). You will go, even to a rebellious people, if that is His Word. Even if you have to preach for 120 years without anyone listening, as Noah did, you will do it (Genesis 6:3). What we are, what we do, and what we become in our relationships, are all dependent upon the way we listen with an open heart to the Word He speaks to us.
There is a need for us to relate to one another, with no walls between us. We know why we put up walls, but now we know also why we must be rid of the opennesses in us that have required the walls. The day will come that when the enemy comes against us, as he came against Christ, he will find nothing in us, no openness at all (John 14:30). Lord hasten that day and give us an understanding of it.