I am very glad to be able to speak with you and share with you from the Word of God this morning, especially at this time in the history of the world, and particularly in the history of the United States.
I would like to read a few passages. First, in the prophecies of Isaiah, chapter 26, just two verses—verses 3 and 4:
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on Thee,
because he trusteth in Thee.
Trust ye in the Lord for ever;
for in the Lord, even the Lord, is an everlasting rock.
Then I would like to take you to the New Testament, to the Gospel of John, chapter 16, and the words of our Lord Jesus, verse 33:
These things have I spoken unto you,
that in Me ye may have peace.
In the world ye have tribulation:
but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world.
And in Jeremiah, chapter 25, from verse 30:
Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them,
The Lord will roar from on high,
and utter His voice from His holy habitation;
He will mightily roar against His pasture;
He will give a shout, as they that tread the grapes,
against all the inhabitants of the earth.
A noise shall come even to the end of the earth;
for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations;
He will enter into judgment with all flesh:
as for the wicked, He will give them to the sword, saith the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation,
and a great tempest shall be raised up
from the uttermost parts of the earth.
Just a further word of prayer.
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You that, when we come to the ministry of Your Word—both the speaking of it and the hearing of it—You have provided, as we have already prayed, an anointing of grace and power.
We praise You that it was nothing less than the life of our Lord Jesus, given at Calvary, that has won that anointing for us. Into that power and grace, into that anointing in full measure, we stand by faith for this morning.
Will You make Your Word real to every one of us? We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I am very interested in how a whole number of things seem this morning to have come together. It is not really surprising, since there was a planning meeting yesterday, and apparently this matter has been on the hearts of many: the coming of the Lord.
I have been warning people now for the last four years that the United States was heading for judgment. Whether it fell upon any real ears, I have no idea.
That judgment has fallen, and there can be no turning back. It is something which, in my understanding, the Lord has said: “Do not ask that I turn back this thing.”
What we can ask is for mercy in judgment. The United States and Canada could be the scene of one of the greatest spiritual awakenings in the history of the world. It is entirely possible.
There is buried within the prophecy of Joel a little word at the very end, when he speaks about signs in sun and moon and pillars of cloud on the earth:
And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
I have always felt that, in spite of judgment, in spite of a time when we will not be able to work freely for the Lord on this earth, there will also be, parallel with it, an enormous ingathering of souls. But they have to know the name upon which to call.
I think it is very interesting that our brother Tony spoke this morning about that amazing vision in Revelation 4 and 5. Unless we are centred in the enthroned Lamb, we will not be able to endure. We will not be ready for the rapture.
I believe that because we know these chapters so well, this vision can run off us like water off a duck’s back. We need to take it in. It is an amazing vision that God gave to John.
It is of tremendous interest, at least to me in my little way of thinking, that this vision, which underlies the whole Book of Revelation, was not in chapter 1, chapter 2, or chapter 3. Instead, we have the Lord in the midst of seven golden lampstands.
When we come to Revelation 4 and 5, we have the vision that underlies the whole. That scroll—better translated “scroll” than “book”—was a picture, a symbol, of a testament. To John, it was absolutely clear because he was a Jew and used to Jewish culture.
When you made a testament in the ancient Jewish world, it was written on parchment, rolled up, and sealed. If you had an awful lot to say, and a lot of relatives to whom to leave things, you put it on both sides of the scroll.
This scroll represented something. When John broke into weeping—and the word in Greek is loud sobs—it was because he understood that the whole eternal purpose of God was summed up in that scroll.
The seven seals and all the judgments that came—the first seven seals, then out of the seventh seal the seven trumpets, and out of the seventh trumpet the seven bowls—and then the New Jerusalem out of heaven, the wife, the bride of the Lamb: it is an amazing picture.
John understood that the whole original, eternal purpose of God was on hold when the angel cried with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to break the seals thereof?” Not a soul moved, neither in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth.
John broke into sobs because he understood that the whole purpose of God was paralysed—almost, you could say, frustrated, if it is possible to frustrate God.
Then an elder came. We do not know who he was, but one of the twenty-four came and put his arm around John and said, “Do not weep. Look. See. The Lion which is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath overcome.”
John looked for this Lion of Judah, this Root of David, and he saw—again, in the Greek it is a diminutive—a little Lamb. If you were to put it into literal English: a little Lamb, slaughtered.
Then, as Tony pointed out, the whole universe broke into worship.
Now, I am not going to say anything about the breaking of the seals, all the judgments, the trumpets, the bowls, and everything else that came. In all of it, what matters is what you are looking for.
If you are looking for the devil, you will find him. If you are looking for the deceiver, you will find him. If you are looking for Satan, he is there. If you are looking for martyrdom, it is there. If you are looking for judgments, they are there. If you are looking for unfaithfulness, it is there.
If you are looking for the overcomer, He is there. If you are looking for the Lamb on the throne, He is there. If you are looking for the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God, it is there. It is what you are looking for.
So I find it very interesting that I am asked to speak to you this morning, and somehow all these threads are here—from yesterday and now this morning.
It is of very great interest to me that the elder said, “Look, behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath overcome.” These two terms encompass and encapsulate the whole of Jewish history.
It seems, unfortunately, to be a trap into which many believers have fallen: that the Lion of Judah is an antique term, an ancient term, something looking backward, something to do with Old Testament history, and actually nothing to do with the future.
But when you come to the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, you hear the Messiah Jesus say:
I am the root and the offspring of David,
the bright, the morning star.
That is a new day. It is all to do with the future.
I say this is of tremendous importance for the simple fact: when did the little Lamb take His place on the throne? At the ascension of our Lord Jesus. That is when the Lord Jesus took His place.
That is where the most quoted Messianic psalm in the Old Testament, Psalm 110, was fulfilled:
The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
Send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Zion:
rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.
Our Lord Jesus has been ruling in the midst of His enemies ever since the ascension. All these visions of judgment, war, conflict, death, martyrdom, and all the rest are not because the end is in question.
The Lord Jesus is not in a kind of neurosis, wondering, “Will we get through? Will we get there? Will We be able to do it? Will We be able to finalise this thing? Will We reach the goal?” He has won.
The battle is because He has won, not because it is in question. Satan cannot touch the Lord Jesus any more. He cannot dethrone Him. He cannot frustrate the purpose of God for the Lord Jesus—to sum up all things in Him. He cannot do it.
Therefore, he turns to those who belong to Him: you and me.
Do you understand what I am trying to say? It would change your whole life: the kitchen sink, the problems of your household, your business, even in these economic woes, the financial meltdown, the climate change, and more to come.
It would change your whole attitude if you simply understood that Jesus has won. He is not fighting. He is not struggling. He is seated, and the Father is making His enemies the footstool of His feet.
Now, we have a job. That is another whole matter, and belongs to another conference at some point—if we are all still here in years to come, I do not know. How does God put those enemies under the footstool of the Lord Jesus? That is a tremendous thought, is it not? Think about it.
But Psalm 110 goes on to say:
Thy people offer themselves willingly
in the day of Thy power.
So it has something to do with the house of God, something to do with the church of God, something to do with the body of the Lord Jesus. That is a whole area over which the church has failed.
Since Satan cannot touch Him, dethrone Him, or in any way frustrate the purpose of God for the Lord Jesus to sum up all things in Him, he has us. And we know an awful lot of trouble—not only personally, but just get a few believers together when they start writhing.
What a job Satan has done, and how few understand the real issue.
If Jesus has won, that leads me to the second point. When you see these things beginning to come to pass, straighten up. As Tony put it, I still prefer the old version: “Look up.” When you look up, you have to straighten up.
It is, of course, the ancient way of prayer. You stood with your head raised and your hands up. In other words, worship.
You cannot worship if victory is in question. You cannot worship if the end is in question. You can only worship when you know it is done. Then, out of your heart, flows a genuine worship in spirit and truth. You can do no other.
It is in this way that the martyrs met their death, sometimes laughing, sometimes almost joking. Like Bishop Ridley and Bishop Latimer, both burnt by Bloody Queen Mary.
As the flame was put to them, one of them felt it and cried out. The other said to him, “Do not fear. Today we shall set a light alight in Britain which, by the grace of God, will never go out.”
It is in danger today of going out, as it is in danger here.
It is, I think, of tremendous importance to us simply to understand that one of our greatest callings as the church of God is to proclaim and enforce the victory of our Lord Jesus.
That is why we worship at the table. That is why there is the cup and the bread: to remind us not of something in question, but of something already finished. Wow.
Now, to backtrack for a moment: in Daniel, chapter 7, in the first verses, we read of a vision—a night dream—that Daniel had.
He saw the sea. The sea is always a symbol in the Word of God of the nations. He saw the sea, and he saw the four winds of the earth beating it into a fury.
It was a typhoon of typhoons. It was a hurricane of horror. Normally, a hurricane or typhoon is driven by one single wind. But this time, it was four. That meant the sea was a seething mass in turmoil.
As he watched, he saw emerging out of that turmoil four great beasts. It was the whole of world history as we know it: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
He saw the first as a lion, the second as a bear, the third as a leopard with four wings on its back, and the fourth was diverse from any creature he had ever seen.
These four empires were all satanically inspired. It is interesting that you do not have some empires of that day and time mentioned—only these four—because they were all attempts by Satan at world government. They were attempts at globalisation, to use a modern phrase.
In Revelation 13, John the Apostle stood on the seashore and saw a great beast come out of the sea. We are not told that there was a great wind, but I would imagine it was the same sea in turmoil.
The incredible thing about that beast was that it was a composite of the four empires. It had elements like a lion, elements like the bear, elements like the leopard, and the last diverse creature.
This was, and is, the last great empire of world history.
We are told that the stone cut out without hands came out of heaven and struck the statue. That statue was Nebuchadnezzar’s understanding of what was given to him in the dream.
He saw human history as a statue: a magnificent monolith, unable to move, without a heart. When God took a believer, Daniel, and showed him the same thing, he saw it as wild beasts.
Wild beasts can be unbelievably cute. They can be cuddly, sweet, and the next moment they can savage you. They are unpredictable because they are wild and undomesticated.
Daniel saw the real nature of world history without God, without the Messiah. Nebuchadnezzar saw it as a glorious statue of himself, basically. He was very happy when Daniel said, “Thou art the head of gold.”
Well, I do not know whether I am boring you, but we are exactly at that point this morning. I would be very, very surprised if I am wrong—well, that could be—but I believe we are at that point.
Globalisation is the whole world now. Everywhere, there is globalisation. Of course, the financial meltdown and economic troubles have made some people wonder whether globalisation is working. That is exactly what I mean.
The globalisation they have been promoting has not worked. In fact, it has brought about worldwide turmoil and confusion. So now we are at the point where a superhuman being has to emerge, who will have a superhuman answer to the needs of the world and the nations of the world.
Are you following me? This person is described in 2 Thessalonians 2 as the man of sin, the son of perdition. John calls him the Antichrist.
It is very interesting that Satan always works out of turmoil and confusion. Out of the collapse of the Weimar Democratic Republic of Germany in the early years of the twentieth century came Adolf Hitler, and Christians voted for him.
I know many German people—old folks now, many of them gone—who said to me, “I voted for him. Who else was there to vote for? We were carrying barrowfuls of marks to buy a loaf. We were unable to pay for things because the whole financial system broke.”
Then came Hitler with his programme: “We will build an infrastructure. We will give employment to everyone on roads.” The great autobahns of Germany were Hitler’s idea.
Only out of turmoil would the Germans have voted him in. But for the turmoil, it was exactly the same with Mussolini: the same confusion, the same wreckage of everything in Italy. Out of it came Mussolini, the autostrada, and much else in Italy. Franco was the same in Spain.
Out of the horrendous turmoil of the Tsarist Empire came Lenin, Stalin, and seventy years of violent and savage atheistic Marxism. Out of the confusion and turmoil of Nationalist China came Mao Zedong.
In my estimation, we are at the very threshold of the appearing of the Antichrist. This means that the rapture is much nearer than many of us may have thought.
Of course, there are some things which perhaps ought to be done. Sometimes we wonder whether we are really there. Does the temple not have to be rebuilt?
Some will say, “No, there is no need for the temple to be rebuilt, because the house of God is a spiritual house.” But it is very interesting that in the whole question of the seven years—three and a half and three and a half—this pattern has twice been literally fulfilled.
The first time was from 175 to 167 BC, in the incredible time of what we call the Maccabean revolt—the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the original antitype of the Antichrist.
He was an incredible man. The whole eastern Mediterranean worshipped him. His policy was very simple: war had come from economic rivalry, language difficulties, cultural difficulties, and a whole number of other things.
So he said, “We will have one language. We will have Greek as the main language and Latin as the legal language. We will adopt Greek dress, with variations of Roman-Greek dress, Egyptian-Greek dress, and so on.”
“We will have one religion. We will have Zeus as the main god; Jupiter for the Romans; the Lord for the Jews; Baal for the Phoenicians; and Diana for the Greeks.” For the Jews, it was total horror.
It is amazing that it won over a whole number of Jews. Levites ran naked in the games, in the hippodrome. They even underwent operations to reverse their circumcision. Unbelievable.
The high priest took a Greek name, Jason, and dressed in Greek clothes—just half-thigh. It is unbelievable. The whole world went for him.
Then he said, “The Jews are the problem. They are going to wreck the whole programme.” So for three and a half years, he made it very difficult unless they obeyed. You could survive, but in the last three and a half years, you could not survive. You had to be a martyr.
Thus began the great Maccabean revolt. That is history: seven years, actual and physical, centred in Jerusalem.
The same thing happened in AD 66. Titus took the temple. He did exactly the same thing as Antiochus. He sacrificed a pig, took the blood into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on all the holy furniture.
He ordered that a pig should be sacrificed in every town and hamlet at morning and evening, in place of the morning and evening sacrifice of a lamb. It was the original abomination of desolation.
It is very interesting that this also was seven years: three and a half years from AD 66 to AD 70, to the destruction of Jerusalem, and three and a half years from AD 70 to Masada.
That was when the nine hundred committed suicide rather than falling into the hands of the Romans. Thus ended Jewish history for the time. It did not end at all, but it ended as far as the Holy Land, the Promised Land, was concerned—only to be brought back in 1948.
So I sometimes wonder: if the Lord has allowed this to be literally fulfilled twice, is not this third time, in the way the Lord spoke about the abomination of desolation, still somehow in the end of the age?
Mr. Sparks believed it would be spiritual—in other words, the seven years would be a complete time period and not necessarily seven literal years. He did not believe the temple would be rebuilt.
I sometimes wonder myself, because when I read about the Antichrist coming into the house of God, the temple of God, and declaring that he is God manifest in the flesh, it does not sound to me as if that is spiritual.
Anyway, I might be wrong. In which case, the rapture could come this week. Well, I do not know if you are ready. I wonder if I am ready.
Let us come back to this whole thing again. Have we really arrived at that point in history when the Antichrist is about to come?
I have a friend, one of the boys who was with me for four years, who is now in one of these financial conglomerates. He is an aide to one of the top men, chairman of this huge financial conglomerate in Britain.
He had to phone me because he found it so extraordinary. In speaking with him, this chairman said, “We are facing superhuman problems, and we need a superhuman being to solve them.”
He believes, by the way, that the vast financial interventions in the United States and Britain will only stave off the financial collapse for another year.
Now, all that brings me to one other thing. If you take globalisation—I hope I am not depressing you. Of course, if I am, it means somewhere your faith needs looking at, your trust in the Lord.
In Genesis 11, you have the story of the first city ever built. It had an Aramaic name, Babil, which means “gateway of God.”
But God said, “Do not call it Babil. Call it, in Hebrew, Babel.” Babel means confusion. What God was saying was this: what they call “my gateway,” “divine gateway,” is confusion.
They built a tower. Now, it is very interesting: what was this tower? I am told that it was probably to do with witchcraft, really.
The idea is often that people near Adam were basically hairy, primitive, prehistoric, went around with cudgels and a few skins. I am not at all sure that is a correct picture of early humanity.
First of all, many of them lived to a thousand years. It seems to me as if they had an intelligence and an ability that has devolved, not evolved.
I wonder whether it was the first space programme. Now you are going to say, “Well now, fancy [the speaker] saying something so stupid as that.” I wonder if it was the first attempt at exploration of the heavens. I do not know.
All I know is this: they said, “We will build a tower that will reach to heaven, and make a name for ourselves.”
Well, whatever happens, the Empire State Building was the first attempt at a name for ourselves. I do not even want to be rude to you all, but I am just saying a fact.
This was followed by the Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Mahathir very definitely wanted to make a name for Malaysia. This was followed by the Mile High Tower in Taipei, and then by an even taller building in Shanghai.
Then, to crown it all, believe it or not, in Dubai and Doha, Qatar, they are going to build the highest building in the world. I cannot remember now just how high it is, but it is enormous.
Is this not interesting? Why do they all want to build something taller than the other? It seems to me that it is the expression of Babel: something to do with finance, something to do with economy—it is just the world.
When you go further into Scripture, you suddenly discover that this Babel reappears in its Greek form, not its Hebrew form: Babylon.
Whenever you read your Old Testament, remember this: when we read it in Hebrew, we read Babel; you read Babylon. It is, in fact, a continuation.
Babylon was the most magnificent city that the world had produced, with its hanging gardens, zoological gardens, botanical gardens, post-office system, stock exchange, and actual postal system over the whole area of Babylon.
It was an amazing city. They even had an artificially dug canal that brought seagoing ships up from the Persian Gulf right into the heart of the city. It had avenues and boulevards. It was magnificent.
God appeared to a man from one of the aristocratic families of Ur of the Chaldees. They had a major part in the idol-making business, which was very lucrative.
The top salesman, according to Jewish tradition, was Abram. One day God appeared to him, and he was never the same again.
This time, the God of glory appeared. It stunned him, redirected him, changed him, and spoiled him for anything less than God’s best.
He went out of Ur of the Chaldees, part of the Babel complex of cities, to wander as a nomad. He never lived in Jerusalem; we do not even know if he visited it. He bought one little plot of ground in which he buried his beloved Sarah, and that was all he ever owned.
As has been mentioned this morning, God took him out and said, “Do you see the sky? Do you see those stars? That is how many your seed is going to be.” This was laughable.
He was well beyond producing children, and Sarah was well beyond conceiving them. Yet here was the Lord saying, “Look.”
It says that he sought for the city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Architect is God. It was something spiritual.
I have often said it: in the God of glory, he saw the city of glory. He was never the same. Abraham had a greater understanding, if I may put it this way, of the purpose of God, of Christ-centredness, and of the house of God than most Christians.
Now, when you come to the New Testament, you see the fulfilment: those of every tongue, tribe, nation, and people who have been purchased by the blood of the little Lamb. They are that sea.
Nor is the physical seed forgotten. Why did the elder say, “Look, the Lion of Judah, the Root of David”? Why did he not say, “Look, see that little Lamb. He has overcome”?
Instead, he said, “Look, see the Lion of Judah.” Most Christians think of the lion only as majesty, strength, and power, and they see the Lamb as something else. But I think the Lion of Judah is the little Lamb. There is no dichotomy.
We have reached globalisation. Out of this turmoil will come a worldwide cry for something over the whole: a new financial system, a new economic system. The only ones who can buy or sell within it will have to be registered.
I do not believe that most Christians understand—may I put it this way, trying to make it as simple and short as possible?—how important the Promised Land is.
They think it belongs to antique history, as Mr. Bush does, as Condoleezza Rice, the daughter of an African-American pastor, does. “Promised Land? You mean the whole world is being held to ransom by these people at each other’s throats simply over one small plot of land, a little piece, postage-stamp territory?”
But if you look carefully, you will discover that this little postage stamp of territory—I am putting it very poorly—is a straw which tells which way the wind is blowing.
In other words, if you can contradict the Word of God, whether it was given thousands of years ago or only one or two thousand years ago, you can contradict anything.
You can change the whole question of the family unit: a man and a woman wedded to produce a family. You can change the limit to a person’s life by euthanasia. You can abort children.
You can take a child, sucked out of its mother’s womb and left to die on a table, and call that sophisticated modern philosophy. It is murder. It is nothing short of murder.
The Chinese believe that your life began with conception, so you have an extra year. Stephen is ninety-four, not ninety-three.
It is back in the Word: “I knew thee in thy mother’s womb.”
So all these floods, fires, tornadoes, and I do not know what else, before the financial meltdown and economic woes started, apparently have only to do with abortion, euthanasia, gay rights, and gay marriage.
Actually, the real key to the whole thing is the Promised Land.
When Mr. Bush became president, he said something which I wish with all my heart he had pursued. He said, “I will not get involved in the problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They must sort it out themselves. We will help them if we can.”
Instead, the State Department and a whole number of advisers, including so-called Christian leaders, persuaded him to become very much involved.
Mr. Bush became more and more involved. There is a book by a good friend of mine, Bill Koenig, called Eye to Eye. It documents everything that has happened in the last fifteen years between physical disasters in the United States and what has happened with Israel. It is stunning—absolutely stunning in its impact.
This means that the problem the United States is facing is not over, because the new president-elect is for the division of the Promised Land. So were John McCain and Sarah Palin.
It does not matter where you turn: all of them are for the division of the Promised Land, including Gordon Brown of Britain, Angela Merkel of Germany, Sarkozy of France, and Medvedev of Russia. They are all for the division.
That is why I read that amazing prophecy in Jeremiah: “The Lord hath a controversy with the nations.”
You cannot take a pact solemnly initiated by God Himself—unconditional, by the way. The Mosaic covenant is conditional, but the covenant God made with Abraham, and with his seed throughout their generations, is an unconditional covenant.
You will remember how the animals were divided and laid on either side. The Lord said to Abraham, “See the stars? This is how many your children will be.” Abraham said, “I am childless. What, are You joking? Do You mean Eliezer, my steward?”
The Lord said, “No, from thine own loins shall come this seed.” Then the Lord told him, “Take animals, divide them in two, and put them on either side.” Abraham fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke, there was a horror of great darkness. If you consider the suffering of the covenant people of God, both old and new, you can understand the horror of darkness that came upon him.
Then he saw a furnace going up and down, and a torch. God did not require Abraham to walk up and down. Normally, when a covenant was made, the two parties walked up and down. This time, only the Lord did so.
It was an unconditional covenant God made with Abram and with his seed: through Isaac, not Ishmael. With Ishmael, He made a separate covenant; and through Jacob, not Esau.
Then you have the little phrase, “throughout their generations,” which is open-ended.
Is it not interesting that right back in the beginning, when God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and spoke to him, He said that a great nation would come out of him—not merely in number, but in its calling.
This was the nation through which the Word of God was to be given to the world, both Old and New Testament. Even the New Testament, except for Luke and Acts, was written by a Jewish hand, humanly speaking.
So this people was given the law, the covenant, the promises, and the service of God. It is all in the present tense in Romans 9: “is given.” Through them is given the Messiah.
That makes that nation very special. Do you think God has thrown them away? I do not think so. Their salvation is very near.
That salvation is why Satan is hopping mad about the Middle East. He has to destroy that nation and that people before the promise is fulfilled.
Thank God Jesus has won. It means that the little Lamb slaughtered is for the Jewish people as well as for the Gentiles. It means that the little Lamb slaughtered is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root and the Offspring of David.
So if you ask me, “Do you think this financial problem in the States is going to pass?” I have serious doubts. I do not think it is over. I think the nations are on a collision course with God.
Now I must finish. Enough is enough. What kind of people ought we to be? I will tell you in a few words: we should walk with God.
Walking is a sign of life. It is a sign of progress. When you stop walking, you are in a wheelchair. When you stop walking, you are immobile.
Walking is a sign of life. So we are to walk in Him, even as we also received Him. How did you receive Him? By faith. So every step forward is by faith, by a living trust in the Saviour and Lord as our salvation and our life.
There is a lot in walking. The Lord Jesus said:
Take My yoke upon you,
and learn of Me.
A yoke is to do with movement. You do not hang a yoke on the wall—although I have seen them hung on walls in tavernas, inns, and hotels, especially rustic ones. But a yoke is all to do with movement. It is to do with the fulfilment of work.
This yoke Jesus is talking about is a double yoke. It is already on Him, and He says, “Take My yoke upon you. Come.” That means you have to keep in step.
If you are all the time fighting with the Lord, all the time rebelling with the Lord, you will get very sore shoulders.
Here is another thing about walking. Jesus said, “If any man would follow Me”—movement—“let him give up all right to himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Twice: follow, follow.
You cannot follow the Lord before you find a cross. You either accept it or you reject it. If you reject it, you become like Lot’s wife: a pillar of salt. You are memorialised; you are no longer moving.
If you accept the way, it is a new discovery of the Lord, a new experience of the Lord. Just because we are talking about Babel, globalisation, the Antichrist, and all the rest of it does not mean that we cannot walk.
We should walk with Him and in Him until He comes.
That is the second thing: we need to hear Him. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.”
Sometimes I try to talk to the sheep of the shepherd in one of the Greek islands where we have a cottage, and they look at me as if I am the dumbest person in the world. I always think sheep are pretty dumb, but they think, “You are dumb.”
I talk, and they do not know my voice. They do not do a thing. When the shepherd comes, he only has to make a sound, and they are almost immediately moving together.
It is amazing to me. I do not know what language he talks to them. It is not Greek, it is not Hebrew, and it is certainly not English. Yet they all understand him. The very tone of his voice means something to them.
Jesus says in those first chapters of Revelation, before ever we see the vision of the enthroned Lamb:
If any man hear My voice,
and open the door,
I will come in to him,
and will sup with him, and he with Me.
And the other word that comes seven times to the seven churches—that is, to the whole church—is this:
He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
We need to hear the Spirit. Now, I know there are people who seem to hear the Spirit all the time and are absolutely bonkers. I pray on bended knee, “Lord, deliver me from them.”
I have known a whole number of such nutcases. Israel is particularly a magnet for them. But it does not mean you should not hear the voice of the Lord just because there are some people who are crazy.
It is the voice of their own soul they hear, the voice of their flesh. Sometimes it is a demonic voice—not the Lord. But that makes no excuse for not hearing the Spirit.
You have within you a little receiver, a spiritual receiver in your spirit, which picks up the voice of God. You need to learn how to distinguish that voice from other voices. It is very important.
Lastly, do not give up on being built together. This work God is doing in us has very much to do with overcoming.
We need to be built together as a spiritual house, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus the Messiah, in the light of the coming of the Lord.
Well, these poor words of mine—I trust that the Lord will use them, blot out what is untoward, and use everything that is of Himself.
I challenge you, especially you young ones: do not give up just because you are young. God can do in you young people something in a few years that has taken twenty years in some of these older ones—and in some of them, it has not even got there yet.
He can do something in you that is so real and so precious, if you will only commit yourself to the Lord for His work. May He do it.
Shall we pray?
Lord, will You take these words and somehow register them in our hearts? We need them, Lord. We are living in tremendous days, tumultuous days, Lord, and there is often cause for fear and panic, especially if we are in danger of losing jobs or income or whatever else.
Here, Lord, we need You. Your Word is so beautiful:
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on Thee,
because he trusteth in Thee.
Trust ye in the Lord for ever;
for in the Lord, even the Lord,
is an everlasting rock.
Do that, Lord, for every one of us, we pray. Help us to have a mind stayed on You, and we shall know that perfect peace.
Lord Jesus, You said to us, “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but in Me ye shall have peace.” Help us to find our peace in You in a world in which we find tribulation.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.