For the Kingdom of God to come forth, we must speak His Word and walk in His victory. We must only accept as our reality all that God has said.
In fact, we must prophesy it into being. The initiative to prophesy is given to us by the anointing of the Lord, and we should not be defensive about it.
Although the enemy will battle us, we can be the winners and enter into real immunity. As we claim what God has said, we can re-create situations exactly as God said they were to be.
Let us review constantly the Word that God speaks, to keep it in our minds and in our hearts. It is very beneficial to voice continually all that God is setting before us.
There is always a certain pattern to the Word He is speaking. When He speaks a Word, we may receive a little light on it without grasping it fully. However, the Lord is very patient. He speaks that Word again, and even though we have heard that Word before, it soaks in a little deeper.
In this day, God is telling us that we wrestle against principalities and powers. We will face spiritual battles as we take the initiative to storm strongholds.
Satan will fight us to slow down our moving into higher levels, but he will have a difficult time trying to put us to flight or on the defensive.
The initiative now is not Satan’s; the initiative is ours.
Satan knows that he has only a short time, but he is trying to slow down God’s timetable, if possible; and unless these days are shortened, no flesh will be left alive (Matthew 24:22).
Be reminded, again and again, that these days must be shortened, or no flesh will be left alive. Do not be deceived about the deadliness of this hour.
Of course, it should not matter whether we live or whether we die, even as martyrs, if we believe in the resurrection and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He lives, we shall live also (John 14:19).
We are at the threshold of the Kingdom, and the first resurrection is near. If we die, we will soon be on our feet again.
Nevertheless, in this hour it is God’s will that a remnant of His people, the first generation of His sons to come forth, could enter into the Kingdom without death. Some will be alive and remain until the Parousia, the coming of the Lord (I Thessalonians 4:15). Wouldn’t you like to be one of them?
For a number of years, a living Word of God has come for this end time, with many messages and much teaching, now it is being recorded and published.
The Word God is speaking will begin causing revolutions in many people’s lives.
The living Word of God today has an effect on its hearers similar to that which the books of the Law had on the people in Old Testament times.
The people who first received the Law through Moses were those who died in the wilderness because they could not keep the Law. That first generation disappeared.
A second generation grew up in the desert, and they did not know any better than to believe God. They were the ones who went on into Canaan and took the land.
But the Lord raised up Joshua, and a new Joshua generation, that would go in and possess the Land.
God is teaching us laws or principles by which the Kingdom of His Son will come forth. We are now in the time when Moses (the one-man ministry) is about to die, and the Joshua generation (The 42nd-generation), will come forth and possess the earth for the Lord.
What was the difference between Moses’ ministry and Joshua’s ministry? Under Moses, it was easy for the people to survive.
Everything was provided for them, and they were even able to thrust off the attack of the Amalekites in the wilderness.
The big problem was keeping the Israelites from murmuring, so that the Lord Himself would not kill them all. Even so, He destroyed almost an entire generation of people. Hundreds of thousands of them died while they were wandering in the wilderness, but the new generation was getting ready for what God had for them.
Likewise, today’s army of the Lord can no longer wander in the wilderness with everything provided. Instead, they must become a company of people who are completely in order and under submission to divine authority as they go forth to possess each place that is to be theirs.
When the new generation of Israelites came forth—those who really moved in God—Joshua was the man God used to lead them. The spirit of Joshua, with that violent, aggressive faith, is coming forth now in the Body of Christ in order to see Babylonian systems come down.
The spirit of Joshua must take over, because conventional methods will not provide the adequate spiritual food for the people whom God is bringing forth today.
Walking with God today must be revolutionary.
The believer’s only hope is to stay away from Babylon, from her tactics and the way she does things. Spiritual death will come over the congregation that tries to incorporate into its services Babylon’s conventional ways of doing things.
The only way to keep from bogging down into old problems is to become true, Spirit-led revolutionaries—Zion revolutionaries.
Before Israel went into the land of Canaan, God warned them to go in and utterly destroy all the inhabitants of the land. Every enemy that they kept alive would become like thorns in their sides from that time on (Numbers 33:55). In the ninth chapter of Joshua we read how the inhabitants of Gibeon tricked Israel into a treaty to spare their lives. Joshua then made them servants to cut wood and carry water.
In Joshua 1:3 we read that the Lord told Joshua, “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.” Notice the tense, “I have given it to you.” He went on to identify the boundaries of the land; then He said, “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.” Verse 5.
Notice that God told Joshua, “No man will be able to stand before you.” This is the only difference between Joshua and the “Joshuas” of today.
In this day we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12).
If we rephrased what God said to Joshua for the dispensational level which we now experience, we would say, “No principality, no power, no nephilim, no deceitful worker, no lying spirit, no devil, no oppressor, and no human being who is motivated by satanic cunning will be able to stand before you.” We must interpret this Scripture for the level on which we are living.
Many years after the time of Joshua, people were still fighting on a physical level. David’s enemy was a giant, nine feet tall, whose name was Goliath; but he still was flesh and blood, and the battle had to be won on that plane.
Today we must fight spiritual battles against principalities and powers which assault our physical bodies. Believers whose spirits have been renewed, redeemed, and regenerated have experienced a glorious release in the saving of the soul life.
Now the breakthrough must come for the redemption of our bodies which still can be assaulted with accidents and infirmities and afflictions. Once this immunity is gained, we will move forward as sons in the Lord’s victory.
As fountains speaking the Word of the Lord, many have come forth already with an aggressive initiative, ready to move into their heritage and face the enemy.
The Lord is causing a report to go before them, as He did before Joshua and the people who walked with God around Jericho until the seventh day when the walls fell down. No one will be able to stand before them.
Like Jericho of old, conventional Christianity needs to be thoroughly shaken. There is death on it, but there is life in all that God is bringing forth by His Spirit today.
After the Lord promised Joshua that no man would stand before him, He gave him this command: “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you.” Joshua 1:7a.
The same command applies now. Do not turn away from the truths that God has faithfully given through a living Word. Every guideline and safety precaution is found in today’s living Word.
Principles by which churches can function have been revealed through the Word in a restoration of the pure New Testament pattern of the Church. More than that, guidelines and principles by which the Kingdom can come forth have also been revealed.
The truths that God is bringing now have not been learned in a seminary. Open your heart and you can absorb these principles in a very short time if you are alert and if you listen to the living Word that is coming.
The wisdom that God is bringing in this day was prophesied in Daniel 12 for the end time. Wisdom and knowledge shall be increased.
The righteous will have great wisdom and understanding, but none of the wicked will understand. Where will it end?
We who live in this end time are only at the threshold of revelation. We have learned much by the Word of the Lord that has been coming in these past years.
These guidelines and patterns are a foundation, a skeleton on which more wisdom and knowledge will be based. The beautiful fruitfulness that is coming to God’s people will be based upon the foundation that has already come. Guidelines have come forth and many will be walking in them. Next, they must go in and possess their inheritance.
The living Word that is coming forth in this hour is not the word of men, but it is indeed the Word of God. God is speaking!
God’s mouthpieces are writing a new book—they are speaking the gospel of the Kingdom that will become very precious. Without the light that God has been giving in the past few years, people would look in vain, although many Bible teachers have seemed to come close to the truth.
Today God is making the Scriptures come alive through humble brothers and sisters who are speaking the Word of the Lord.
The present disenchanted generation is troubled for valid reasons, and it must be reached with the living Word from the Lord. If it can take hold of this Word, it will live by it. If not, it will turn to crime and perversity.
The day is over in which people will respect the laws or the power of the establishment to punish. Many of the new generation have good reason to mock law and order and the present establishment.
However, this anarchy is of Satan, and it is not the answer. Anarchy is Satan saying, “We will have no one rule over us.”
But the King is saying, “I will rule over you with a rod of iron. I will bring everything under subjection, as My footstool, and every enemy will be brought under My rule” (Psalm 110:1–2).
There was only one instruction that Joshua had to follow: “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth” (this symbolizes the prophetic anointing today; never let your mouth stop speaking God’s Word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit), “but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:7–9.
A new day is coming forth. Do not worry about your problems. When the Israelites walked around Jericho’s walls, it did not make any difference whether or not they were well-adjusted people. They had received no psychiatric counseling. None of them were attending home-relations classes or were bettering themselves at night school.
They had not learned to evaluate the scene by discovering what Canaan was like, nor had they studied all the aspects of adjusting to their environment.
They knew very little; but when Joshua said, “March,” they marched. When Joshua said, “Stand still,” they stood still. (Even the sun and the moon stood still at his command—Joshua 10:12–14.)
Throughout the past months and years, one principle has been the salvation of a remnant of God’s people, and that is their recognition of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and their absolute submission to Him.
Listen to what God has to say and do it. Pray much for the leaders who are speaking God’s Word. An audacious path has been set before God’s people.
Like Paul, they must say, “Who is sufficient for these things? But our sufficiency is of God” (II Corinthians 3:5). No one is able to say, “I am going to lead you.” Instead, the leaders must say with a great deal of faith and submission, “The Lord says that we are to go ahead.”
God has set an unbelievable task before the leaders of His people. It is necessary that there be nothing in a leader’s spirit which could keep them from speaking the pure Word of God. That Word must be in their mouth, and they must meditate upon it in their heart, because the people are to go in and possess all that God has said is theirs.
The conquest of Canaan was not a defensive action; the Israelites took the aggressive initiative.
The first report of the Israelites was that they were like grasshoppers in the sight of the Canaanites, who were giants (Numbers 13:33). Thirty-one nations, many of them mightier than Israel, lived in Canaan. They fought among themselves occasionally, but while the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they were not bothered by them; only the Amalekites attacked them once or twice. Most of those nations assumed a live-and-let-live attitude toward the Israelites.
In the conquest of Canaan, the initiative was given to Joshua. God said, “Wherever the soles of your feet tread, I have given the land to you.”
This is the promise today too: “Wherever your foot treads.” If you have not been there, then you do not have it yet. It is only when you stand on the ground that God says, “I have given it.”
This places the initiative on you. God’s people must not purpose to stir up trouble, and yet they must take the initiative to go after Babylonian systems in such a way that those systems will know they have been dispossessed.
A few generations ago, Dwight L. Moody, an outstanding American evangelist, knew this principle. He sent the brothers out to preach on street corners or wherever they could find an opening. When they came back, he asked, “Did you win any converts?” Sometimes they had not. Then he would ask, “Did you make anyone angry?” It had to be one way or the other. Are you concerned about having a good reputation? Or do you feel that a good reputation is not worth worrying about? What are you trying to protect?
Do not be ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ; rather, be proud of your King. He is not coming this time to be poor little Jesus in us, so that we feel shrunken, like grasshoppers in our sight, and sorry for ourselves.
He is the King! He is coming forth to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in everyone who believes (II Thessalonians 1:10).
In order for this to happen, you must have this attitude: “I am the witness of the King! I am the voice of the Kingdom! I am the proclaimer of the Word that God has spoken! God has anointed my feet!” Isaiah 52:7 says, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Not only will you publish the tidings, but Romans 16:20 says that your feet will also be used to bruise Satan.