From the dawn of human history, Satan’s tactic has been the assault against God’s word. He comes with one question: “Hath God said?” The conflict of the ages, as far as God’s people are concerned, points back to what happened in the Garden of Eden. There sin was introduced into the world because Satan was able to get people to question the word of God.
The seemingly endless battle that tests the people of God is over the word that God has spoken. They do not battle the things they seem to be battling. It may appear that they are warring against a set of circumstances or a continual harassment, just as the children of Israel appeared to be battling the wilderness.
Actually, God led them that way for forty years to prove them, to know what was in their hearts, and to show them that man does not live by bread alone (Deuteronomy 8:2,3).
It was not by the manna which came every day that they were sustained, but by every word which proceeded out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Believing the word that God had given them was the true battle, if they only could have seen it.
There is no defeat in a believer’s life except where they question what God has said. Where the word is not real to him, there he will have a problem. When a man trusts in the word of the Lord and believes in that word, all the problems are resolved right there. This is not oversimplifying human problems. The complexities of human life are very great, and they are multiplied endlessly when anyone comes into a real walk with God. But the one thing that makes the lives of many men a blessing is the fact that they are aware that they have a revelation of a word from the Lord. They believe that word. They prophesy and proclaim that word until it comes to pass. They are involved in the battle of the ages: “Hath God said?”
When Christ had to stand in our stead in the wilderness and overcome Satan in the vicarious battle He fought for us, He prevailed—but not because He had the stamina and moral strength to prevail as a human being. He prevailed by the same means that He gives to us. He said, “It is written” (Luke 4:1–12). In Satan’s war against the word, he tried to distort the Scriptures, saying, “For it is written….” But the Lord declared repeatedly, “It is written!” and thus He prevailed over Satan. Man was defeated when he gave up the word, but God brought restoration by our Lord Jesus Christ believing and keeping and honoring the word of the Father.
Those who believe in the complete restoration of the living, prophetic word are not exalting prophecy above the Bible; rather, they are exalting the Bible by prophesying. The word of God includes more than the Scriptures and the word of prophecy. It encompasses all that God is revealing to His disciples in this end time. It is being taught and preached, prophesied and proclaimed. If the people of the Lord will hold on to the principal truths that God is speaking in this hour, the entire realm of principalities and powers will be shaken. God’s people do not need to be like a church full of Solomons, filled with great wisdom. All they need is determination and understanding to cling to the word that God has spoken to their hearts.
When you hold on to the word God is bringing to you with all your heart, your life will have purpose and you will move in God. If you let go of the word or if you do not cling to it tightly, your life will drift and you will wander. When you judge a situation by your circumstances, you are like the children of Israel when they came to Kadesh-barnea and sent spies into the land to look it over. Ten spies came back with a bad report, and the people’s hearts failed (Numbers 13:25–33). But Caleb and Joshua were different. They came back, ready to trust the fact that God had said that the land was theirs. If the rest of the Israelites had only believed them, they would have received the land then. Because they did not believe, the promised land waited for another generation to come forth. That generation seized the words that had been spoken to their fathers, and they went in and possessed the land. So let it be with you. Do not waver.
If you do not have a personal word from the Lord, remember that God is moving more by the collective word and the collective commission in this hour than He is by the individual. No more does an individual come forth in a walk with God on his own. Each one is an integral part of a Body of believers that has a commission and an identity before God. It is the day of the collective ministry. From the moment that a man becomes identified as a member of the Body of Jesus Christ through a revelation to his own heart, he begins a walk with God. In an amazing way, a heritage of prophecies that have been spoken over that Body rest upon him also. This is a true principle enabling beginners to walk in gifts and ministries that took many of the older ministries years to achieve.
The beginning of the war over the word is vividly illustrated in the third chapter of Genesis. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (That is where the war started.) And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.’ ” (She contradicted Satan.) And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:1–15.
An interesting parallel to the above Scripture is found in Romans 16:20a: And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. As God bruises Satan under your feet, the fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in Genesis comes to pass. Christ was, in a sense, to bruise Satan’s head at the cross, but that was only in provision. The execution of it comes under your heels. Man himself, redeemed by Christ, will be the instrument to fulfill the ancient prophecy. It is given to man to execute the victory that the Lord provided.
Continuing in Genesis 3:16–21, we read: To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children; yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
In the timing of the Lord, now is the time that God’s people are concerned about blessing the earth and seeing all of nature loosed from futility. In a sense, God imposed futility sovereignly because of man’s sin. But it will be lifted through the faithful efforts of the manifested sons.
We are now on the threshold of the complete and perfect end of that which was started in the Garden of Eden. There God gave a word which Satan contested. Sin entered into the garden because of disobedience to that word. Satan always battles the word of God when it is received. His purpose is to get God’s people to turn from the word they have claimed.
When any man begins to serve God, and God gives him a word, one of four different things will happen to his life. These are described in a parable found in Luke 8:4–8. …He spoke by way of a parable: “The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road; and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it.” When the word comes, it may be devoured by the birds which symbolize the demonic spirits that come against the word. Many times while a person is trying to hear a word, he will have to fight distractions in his mind that are far beyond the usual mind wandering or lack of concentration.
“And other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.” If the word is received shallowly, Satan brings a blast against it—persecution, little difficulties, anything to make that word wither and die before it comes to maturity.
“And other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out.” This is a symbolical picture of someone who has a genuine reception of the word. The word has been a clear revelation to his heart, and the devil cannot steal it away or come with a blast of persecution and cause it to wither. Therefore he resorts to another tactic. He suddenly opens up extra overtime at the job or adds a few more responsibilities. He may make a man successful; then suddenly he has so many cares and problems that the word is being choked out as thorns choke out a plant.
“And other seed fell into the good ground, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” As He said these things, He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” When God gives you a word, all you have to do is hide it in your heart. This was the key of Mary’s faith. “Be it done unto me according to Thy word” (Luke 1:38). Whenever she heard something that she did not understand, she pondered it in her heart (Luke 2:19). It takes much diligence to say, “I will not let Satan rob me of this word, whether I understand it or not.”
Often the enemy tries to bring confusion or a false interpretation of the word. People do not know what to do with it, and so they abandon it, not realizing what a wilderness they throw themselves into when they do that.
The psalmist said, Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11. You hide the word of God in your heart, so that you might not sin against Him, so that you will not be overtaken with lust. Psalm 119:9 tells us: Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. The word is an antidote to the perversity that is within man’s nature and to the reasonings of the carnal mind. The word, hidden in the heart, becomes the supreme court. No longer does the final verdict come from the carnal mind with its reasoning of things, or from the emotional reactions to circumstances or problems.
Acts 5:17–21 tells how God gave the apostles a word and brought them out of jail. Then they went to the temple and continued to proclaim that word. First they were told to preach the word; then they were led by the Spirit to proclaim it. Their proclamation of the word began to shake everything in Jerusalem. The word of God within you is the same issue today. If Satan cannot get you to abandon it, it will fill your life so completely that it will become the creative and delivering force of God through you. Satan knows that the word God is bringing to subdue everything under Christ is going to come out of God’s people. Therefore, he battles that word.
The Bible, collecting dust on the shelf, does not bother Satan. He has people arguing about the Bible and even preaching the Bible, but they preach only the letter that kills (II Corinthians 3:6). Satan is concerned about people who are believing that word. He will come against you, saying, “Has God said?” If you answer, “Yes, God promised something to me,” Satan will battle that word to get you to relinquish it. Nevertheless, if you believe the word that God has spoken, it will become like a sword in your mouth.
When the battle is finished and everything is won and the Kingdom is established for ages upon ages to come, the prelude to it will have been the One who came on a white horse with a sharp two-edged sword coming out of His mouth. It is the word that prevails. This is the weapon, this is the power, this is the victory of God’s people: God has spoken a word over their hearts, and they believe. Satan may battle that word, but through every battle the true believer clings to that word with all his heart. He clings to those words, he walks in those words, and he believes in those words. Satan will test him on those words in every way that he can, but the man who walks with God holds on to them. He knows that the defeat of Satan is based upon the word that God has caused him to hide in his heart.
Faith must focus on a word from God to the exclusion of everything else. Every believer ought to be released to know how to receive a word from the Lord, how to review it and hold on to it and watch it explode into things beyond his imagination. The world will be changed by the word within God’s people. A new age will be born by a word within them. Through faith we understand that the ages were framed by a word from the Lord (Hebrews 11:3).
Speak the word! Speak the Kingdom into being! Speak the release of every heart! Speak the freedom! Freedom shall not be an illusive thing, for the word of God is not bound. It shall run swiftly and have free course.