In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of the community of believers and their role in guiding and correcting one another. He encourages open communication and feedback within the community, highlighting the need for authenticity and naturalness in preaching. The preacher also discusses the power of belief and how it can impact the reception of God's word, not only within the congregation but also on a national level. He warns against the influence of devious and destructive forces, drawing inspiration from the prophet Isaiah's cry for righteousness.

Remember where Isaiah begins his whole prophecy with, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken? The greatest prophetic book begins not by an address to men, but by an address to nature itself. Dumb, inanimate nature. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. Why is he addressing the elements? Because the nation itself is deaf to God. But nevertheless, he doesn't say, well, it's vain for me to speak if people are not hearing. He still brings the word. The word still goes forth and will not return to God void. Talk about the efficacy of the word, the mystery of the word and its power, even to go forth into nature, let alone into men, and that the prophet is not discouraged. And in fact, you'll find in your experience that there'll be more than one occasion when you might just as well be speaking to nature when men are not hearing. But you're not at liberty to shut up. The word still has to go forth, even though it seems completely pointless and somehow affects something in the purposes of God. So, Lord, we just thank you for inducting us and bringing us into an Hebraic perception of the word, its reality, its mystery, its creative power, for it has not changed. We have. We have become modern, skeptical, secular, narrow, utilitarian. We look at all things only as it affects something and does something, and we don't understand the proportions behind it. So to be enlarged in this way, my God, is to catch a glimpse of you and the glory of God, who is the creator through the word, and gives us invitation to be also, at a lesser level, co-creative with you. So we bless you, Lord. Oh, precious God, change us, stun us, shape us, by the very word that we're hearing, that we will come into a new relationship with the word and the instruments for the word that have their origin in God, that is so desperate for this hour. Bless us now as we continue, Lord, give us a fresh second wind to go on and bring the line upon line, precept upon precept of your intention. And we thank you, Lord, and give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's look at Jeremiah chapter 23. It begins with a condemnation of the shepherds, and then it goes on to a condemnation of the false prophets. In verse 9, I'm reading from this version that I have. If yours expresses it a little differently, where it would be a benefit to hear that, pipe in and we'll compare even these versions. Concerning the prophets, my heart is crushed within me, all my bones shake. I have become like a drunkard, like one overcome by wine, because of the Lord and because of his holy words. That deserves some pause and reflection right there, to show that the man for whom the word comes is not some disembodied spirit or some mechanical instrumentality. He's flesh and blood, he has nerves and emotions, he's affected. How could a word be God's word and not ravage and have its effect on that one for whom it is coursing, even to the feeling like a drunkard and one overcome, my bones shake. And then, by contrast, for the land is full of adulterers, because of the curse the land mourns. Notice the prophetic way of understanding reality. The whole name of the game, the issue, is what is reality? What is in fact real? How is it to be understood? Is this man off on some far-fetched tangent, that he's seeing the land as stricken because of the false prophet and the false words that issue from them, and the social, religious, political conditions of Israel that makes the false prophets popular? That even the land itself will be affected and the land will mourn? What a mentality this is. What a way of perceiving. But if he's correct, and that is reality, we are the ones who are off base. We're the ones who are completely unrelated to things as God sees them. And no wonder we're like walking into walls. For the land is full of adulterers. That's not only just the sexual sin, that it transgresses the parameters of right sexual behavior, but also the word of adultery as adulterating. You know what that means, to adulterate something? To disfigure it by mixing. To lose its purity by adding, changing, mixing, is to adulterate. And in the prophecy of Isaiah, he says your wine is turned to water and your silver is turned to dross. And that is what was once original, was once pure, was once holy, was once invigorating and powerful, has now become adulterated. Your wine has become like water. You could spit it out. It has no value to bring scintillation or renewal or joy. Wine is a symbol of joy. And your silver, which is the symbol of righteousness and redemption, has become dross. The thing that was once skimmed off has now become the substance of it. So the two most precious things have become debased through mixing. And it's the prophet who's aware of this and speaks it to the nation that has no consciousness that that has taken place at all. And it was through a progressive deterioration, a process over a course of time, that this adulteration and debasing has taken place. So gradual as something like that frog that is put into a pot and the temperature increases, it doesn't know until it's cooked. But the prophet knows. He's aware from the very beginning. He's sensitive. So that what is otherwise just a commercial campaign of merchandising is already for him the beginning of the end. Excuse me? To allow this is the beginning of the end. The Star Wars thing is not a passing phenomenon because Star Wars Roman numeral 2 or normal numeral 3 is already in the works. He sees the beginning of the end. Something has already had its inception that is devious and destructive. It needs to cry out from its inception. When the prophet Isaiah cried out those things, there was no consciousness of them to the people who were being addressed. This way he says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. And then he predicts the judgment that will come long before there's any evidence that it's even on the way. So he sees, look at the acuteness of the seeing, what has passed the observation of his own contemporaries, and he sees what the consequence will be as judgment. And he speaks it with such a reality as if it's already present and already taking place. No wonder such men are dismissed as mad. It's either that they are mad or they are intensely sane. And that those who are going along with the present debacle, D-E-B-A-C-L-E, the corruption of the ones who are insane and don't know it. That insanity passes for sanity. Darkness passes for light. Lies for truth. And there's only one voice raised against it. It's the prophetic voice. Standing in identification with God for what is true. It's the plum line of God. But it's painful to bear this hue. It eats you up. The land is full of adulterers because of the curse the land mourns. And the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course has been evil and their might is not right. Both prophet and priest are ungodly. There's such a conjunction between prophet and priest. The religious functionary and the false prophet. I don't know where he says this. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means. They advantage one another. They compliment one another. They slap each other's back and confirm one another in what is religiously and spiritually false. And so they confirm one another as if they're true. But only the prophet sees through it. When one of the most celebrated prophets of today was beginning to become publicly known and someone came into the locality who was also considered prophetic and began to celebrate him, I wrote a little note and I passed it to the pastor who was sitting alongside me at whose church this was taking place. And the note that I wrote to him was, the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means. There's always going to be a conjunction between the false prophets and the religious functionaries who benefit from that relationship. They reinforce one another. They compliment one another. They establish one another. They become a fraternity. The true prophet is outside and looked upon with scorn and condemnation because these guys believe that what they are in is reality and that this other guy is mad or he's false or he's all the rest. So here is Jeremiah addressing the condition of these men. Both prophet and priest are ungodly. Even in my house I have found their wickedness, saith the Lord. He goes from his own statement to God's own interjection. He's probably so close to the heart of God that the Lord could not miss the opportunity to slip in his own statement. Isn't that remarkable? So much so you can almost say, where does the prophet end and where does God begin? So much so that we can come to an hour where the prophet can speak for God as God and Elijah can say, as the Lord my God liveth, it shall not rain nor dew but according to my word. That's either outstanding and unbelievable presumption and arrogance or it's a man who has become so subsumed in God you can't tell where he ends and where the Lord begins. That's the kind of prophet that is prophet. Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness in which they shall be driven and fall for I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment, says the Lord. In the prophets of Samaria I saw a disgusting thing. They prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. Where was Israel's discernment? What about the false prophets in Elijah's time who were absolutely persuaded that they were not false and when Elijah tested them at Mount Carmel you build your altar and I'll build mine and let that God be God who answers by fire. These men believed that the God that they were celebrating was God and they leaped on their sacrifice and cut themselves and yelled and screamed and went through all kinds of whirling dervishes to invoke God but there was no answer because they were in the shelves not only deceivers, they were themselves deceived and now it was being found out there was no answer. But Israel was celebrating them and celebrating Baal through them. Where was the nation's discernment that they could not recognize the falsity of this because the false prophets were speaking man-pleasing things syrupy, benevolent God is not angry with you this is the best of all possible worlds this will be corrected God is not going to judge but there will be a year of punishment says the Lord and the disgusting thing, they prophesied by Baal they must have had some kind of unction some kind of anointing, some kind of quickening but it was not from God isn't that remarkable? We can come to a state let me say this, this is so critically important where we are so tuned to the benefit and to the result and to the effect that we give little pause as to the source if the thing will work if it will have an effect if it will do something that seems to affect something to be desired we don't question its source and that's the whole experience oriented condition of the church today they'll run to the most distant places whether it's Toronto or Oshkosh if they can receive something that appears to be of benefit but will not give a serious consideration to what is the source of that which they are receiving I've heard terrible tales of the woeful after effects of what has been received a woman left that place shrieking, the husband had to pull off the car to the side of the road his wife had gone berserk because she had lost all sense of herself when they told her not to think not even to pray just to open herself for the experience that is the outflow of a man celebrated whose name I don't even want to mention who said we're so hungry for something to happen we don't even care if it comes from Satan yes and belly up to the bar and get drunk on it we're so starved for something to happen our Christianity is so grey so dull, so uninspiring, so without consequence let it even come from Satan but let something from God happen well if that's our mentality you'll get something but it will not be from God and you'll rue the day that you ever got it isn't it remarkable that nothing has changed? there's such a timelessness about these evils and the alternative to the truth and the true and false prophets and that's why it's so valuable for our time that's why when we advertised these days we said the title of the school was Jeremiah, prophet of the end days there's nothing more appropriate for ourselves than the issues to which he himself had to struggle they led my people astray but in the prophets of Jerusalem I've seen a more shocking thing it's one thing to take place in Samaria but Jerusalem itself, the holy city they commit adultery and walk in lies they strengthen the hands of evildoers so that no one turns from wickedness the very opposite of what should be the effect of God's word is men turning from wickedness to repentance unto God but a word comes that does not require a turning but rather confirms them in the evil so that they continue in it has got to be a false word a true word will always require of God's people change or leave off what they're doing or turn again to God the false prophets will reinforce men in their error and in their evil as if it has the approval and the sanction of God but the God is Baal and not the God of Israel and if that happens in Jerusalem woe for the nation itself if this is what's happening in the principal city, in the capital what can we hope for in the nation and if it's happening in the nation what can we hope for in the world for this is a nation to be a priest and a lighter to the world and if their own light has turned to darkness what can we hope for elsewhere and that's why the prophet is so jealous that's why he's so intense even to the verge of insanity because he knows how consequential this deviation is and the whole nation has gone running after it all of them have become like Sodom to me and its inhabitants like Gomorrah therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts concerning the prophets here is no longer Jeremiah expressing his heart that is chafed it's now God taking over and now making his own statement and I'm just by that inclined to say how often when we are intensely in something close to the heart of God we leave that point where it's no longer ourselves and God then comes in and maybe we don't see God enough and enough of his speaking because we don't give him that opportunity our conversation is not the vehicle through which he can then enter because it's not a godly conversation it's gossipy or chatty or shallow it's not where his heart and thought is we haven't begun the day with God in the place of communion and therefore we're askew we're out of sorts we're out of place we're not where his mind and heart is so what I'm saying is we would be hearing much more from God if men were in the place of God and that he could just as it were shift gears and move right out of that into himself and we would hear the oracles of God therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts concerning the prophets I'm going to make them eat wormwood to give them poisoned water to drink for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land notice the irony of God's judgment that he makes men to suffer the consequence of their own evil that they spread false things and it's not the water of life therefore this is the water that they themselves will drink it'll be poisoned that the judgment of God will be in exact proportion to their sin all the more because they are purveyors of the word that's why Paul says let not many men be teachers for the consequence for them is double it's a high responsibility now were these men always false? because God is addressing the prophets it's as if we can well consider that they may have been authentically called to truth and to true prophets but over a course of time as the silver has turned to dross and the wine to water they themselves have turned from true to false and not overnight but by a process of erosion and disfigurement of which they themselves are not conscious until they don't even realize that what is animating them is not the spirit of God but the spirit of Dale and that what they're speaking is not God's word but the word of that one who is anti-God and they don't even know the difference they have not only lost their own discernment they are the deceivers of others and are themselves deceived and it didn't happen overnight it happened over a process of time together with the nation as the priests so also the people as the prophet so also the nation so what is the message for us who are accused now of being false but a vigilance I shouldn't answer my own question how do we safeguard ourselves from the possibility of becoming false even if our calling was initially true and I would say one of the greatest provisions is Ben Israel slapdash, silly, weak and defective a collage of souls that the world would not even look up to take notice if this is the very salvation of the prophetic man if indeed it's a community and not a trailer court if indeed he can hear from them and they have the heart and the courage and the love to speak to him and to say I noticed the last time a few times now that somehow when you say this I don't quite get the witness or you're becoming professional or there's something you've lost your naturalness your voice is becoming affected there's something that doesn't sit well really I haven't been aware thank you, I need to be aware something is slipping I need to be conscious and be repentful before the Lord that I'm slipping from the authentic thing into some kind of professional thing I once sent out a letter I don't know if I can find a copy of it to 50 men who are either who either purport to be prophets or connected with the prophetic phenomenon in America and I gave 12 statements of what would distinguish the true prophets from the false asking their feedback and one of them was that the false prophet is never going to allow himself to be in this kind of a context in which he can find correction with brothers Amen but will be a kind of holiday in phenomenon who has an establishment or a ministry and surrounded by those whose salaries are paid by him and will not bite the hand that feeds them but will confirm him even in his error he will not want correction and will see to it that the conditions of his life do not permit it that man is on the way to being false and the one letter I got back was from one of today's most prominent prophets indignant at that reference that's the one thing that that gouged him with which he took issue but I believe it profoundly and very little is said about the Old Testament phenomenon of the school of the prophets in the time of Elijah and Elisha there were schools of prophets but the word school is not school as we presently understand it wasn't a place of instruction it was a collegium the word college is another synonym for community it was a life together of people who either had that call were sympathetic to that call were intercessors for that call or were being groomed in that call who related to the man who was in that call and were in that kind of relationship by which he himself could be a beneficiary as well as a teacher so God from the beginning gave prophets a protection to keep their integrity by being in a kind of authentic relationship with others who were jealous for the prophetic integrity and that was the beginning and that I think will be descriptive of the end the false prophets will be found in isolation living in their own petty kingdoms with their staffs of paid workers who confirm and applaud them even in their error but in the end they will be eating wormwood and drinking poisoned water and serving it and serving it providing it to others and so thus says the Lord of hosts do not listen to the words of the prophets in verse 16 who prophesy to you they are deluding you they speak visions of their own minds not from the mouth of the Lord and I had to correct a brother, a Jewish brother in Florida who sent me page after page of his faxed prophecies and they were full of good things and true things and I got no witness and I finally had to answer back and say dear brother, for all of your well meaning intention this is not the word of the Lord and it was like inflicting a grievous wound he truly believed that it was because what he was saying was true but it was clear it had not that source it came out of his own spirit his own understanding of things that need to be expressed but that does not give us leave to express them let alone to say, thus saith the Lord it's already on the road to becoming false through the misuse of truth wow thank you Lord that leaped out of my mouth talk about the anatomy of deception begins with the misuse of truth and not immediately with error don't think that because it's true that you have the right to pronounce it let alone to append the label thus saith the Lord wait for God to say it in his own time, you can offer it as an opinion and as a statement that needs to be made but don't address it and give it the appellation thus saith the Lord if the Lord has not said it you are already on the path to deception and to error through the misuse of truth and this young brother didn't know better and was doing it thinking he was doing God's service the question for him is will he receive my word of correction or be offended and at that juncture is the issue of his whole future well how is it that I have to from Minnesota send him a word to Florida wasn't there anybody in his messianic congregation who had heard his prophecies who did not witness them as coming from God to tell him so no not one had ever mentioned what I'm speaking to him from this great distance because what they were hearing sounds true you can find biblical support for it and the man says thus saith the Lord he believed he got it from God so let's not make an issue out of it they didn't love him enough to critique him and to correct him and the lack of love was proportionate to the lack of discernment so that they themselves are complicit with him in the deception and will themselves suffer loss because to receive that as the word of the Lord when it's not is to yourself become dulled and less capable the next time of exercising any kind of right discernment our life is charged daily and hourly with such issues that if we miss it we make ourselves candidates to miss it yet the more for the dullness that comes into us by allowing something to get by as being God's word when it in fact is not because we have not the courage or the discernment or the love to speak up in the moment that we first heard it and say no, and what's happening in the whole charismatic sleazy setting where prophecies come forth and tongues and interpret and thus saith the Lord and no one, either the minister the pastor or anyone finds fault or says well maybe I understand your heart but I don't have a witness that that was the Lord this is so critical that in the history of Israel in 2nd Chronicles 20 I think it is when they were faced with the greatest threat Judah from the three uncircumcised nations on their borders a word came to them, the king called the fast and called the people together and when they were assembled a word came to them through the prophet Jehatsiel saying the battle is mine saith the Lord but not yours but nevertheless go out against them tomorrow what a prescription for disaster if that was a man speaking out of his own soul or his own flesh and they went out tomorrow and got demolished but the priest it was a priest who prophesied and when they heard that word from the Lord they went down on their faces they knew it was the word of God because they knew the man and the vessel for whom the word came he had already established credibility, he was a priest, he walked before them they were in relationship, they knew his heart, they knew his spirit, they knew that this is not some amateur taking a shot at it and wanting some attention to be dramatic it was a tested vessel who had an authenticity whose character and life was tested and known and therefore they received it as the word of the Lord and went the next day what would have been their disaster three armies overwhelmingly against them that would have done them in they not only went forth but they went forth with the sweet singers of Israel in the forefront of their army and the king, I forgot which one he was, had to ask among the people who are the sweet singers of Israel and the people knew and identified them and he set them in the advance of the army and when the enemy heard their praise they were confounded and slew one another so that when the army came they were done in and they were three days in taking the spoil what a triumph can you imagine coming back with rejoicing they had not to lift their arms to win their victory the praise of God by the sweet singers of Israel had already won it and the prophetic word was true when they went forth the next day, go ye out against them tomorrow, don't go right now when you're all fired up and you're gung ho, hey the Lord has spoken, let's go get them tiger, tomorrow rest on this, take this into your spirit, sit on it, put it under your pillow, sleep it, see how you feel tomorrow morning in the cold grey dawn where the excitement and the flush is gone and the whole issue was was that God's word or not now you then you go we're going to face issues as epical as that in the last days where if it's a false word out of the flesh or soul of a man however well intending it will be disaster rather than victory and a critical issue is the man himself and our knowledge of him which we will never obtain as employees whose salary is paid by him, but as those who are living with him, not as a prophet but as a brother and the prophet has got to be willing for the humiliation of being only a brother though he might experience honor elsewhere, he's not going to find it in his own home, in his own country there he's just a brother whose defects and humanity is very evident to all and yet he's open for their correction and he's corrected even when they're not correcting he's corrected just in the matrix of community itself in the outworking and conversation and things that take place in the life together is itself a correction I can't think of a greater provision from God to keep a prophet a prophet and keep him from being forced in this if he's willing for the humiliation of it so I knew 25 years ago when the Lord called us to this property this was not going to be a picnic I knew it was going to be an exercise in humiliation and I knew that what I could have safely kept privately away from the attention of men would necessarily become public very quickly the condition of my marriage the condition of my children my own condition and however much anger has bucked against the same community she herself has been the beneficiary whatever our condition that she's alive and that we're still together is the honor due to the reality to which God had brought us and that is not finished yet so talk about celebration of community and it may well be if we knew the situation here that these prophets have become a clique and a professional guild apart from the people and honoring one another, celebrating yes brother you're the word of the Lord, oh boy I really witnessed that and they believe that, they confirm each other and deepen themselves in their own error and their own deception would you say this is where the community is where you take out the precious from the vile yep, it's a continual process so they speak visions of their own minds and not from the mouth of the Lord and don't even know the difference do you know the difference? could you know when the Lord is saying something or you're saying it? do you know the origin of something that comes up in your own spirit? that's a sensitive thing, especially if what comes up is true, they keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord isn't that interesting? their audience and the condition of Israel and Jerusalem is of a people who have come to such a place that they despise the word of the Lord because look at their reaction against Jeremiah, they're ready to kill him it shall be well with you and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say no calamity shall come upon you so the distinguishing feature of false prophets is false security, false comfort false assurance exactly the antithesis of what the true prophet is saying, whose words are full of warning of the devastating calamity to come, his words are not assuring, his words are threatening people want to be assured they want to be comforted particularly in an hour of insecurity the prospect of a Y2K crisis or a crashing economy or shootings in high schools, or bombings in Jewish community centers people want assurance, they want to hear something positive, they want to be comforted they want to believe that this is passing away and this is only a trivial phenomenon that need not alarm them this is characteristic of the hour, but our kids will grow up they're not going to become monsters and heartless and without natural affection though the word of God says so in the last days perilous times shall come, and men shall become lovers of pleasure and lovers of self more than lovers of God, without pity without natural affection, without regard for father and mother that's what the word says, but what are the false prophets saying, oh it's a passing phenomenon they're kids, they're growing up, this is only adolescence are you guys marking your bibles? are you putting in parentheses or in brackets it shall be well with you and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts they say, no calamity shall come upon you the false prophets speak the pleasing thing the thing that condones evil, error the thing that placates flesh, and gratifies men it has more the fear of man than the fear of God it's calculated to serve men rather than God and that's where men are, men need that acknowledgement they want to be respected honored, but to speak the word of God that is disagreeable to the flesh is to lose the prospect of acceptance of honoring, of a slap on the back of people celebrating you so the true prophet has got to be dead to anything in himself that demands or requires acknowledgement, confirmation celebration or honoring from men he's alive to one thing only well done, good and faithful servant, and he's not necessarily even going to hear that in the moment of his obedience he's more likely to hear silence from God and maybe in the day of his reward he'll hear well done, as in the day in which they receive their judgment, he will receive his honoring, but until then, he has to serve in the tension of God's silence believing that he's speaking the true thing even though every voice is raised against him from men who prefer what is false so where do you get the real word? the next verse, the next stanza tells us for who has stood in the council of the Lord, so as to see and hear his word who has given he to his word, so as to proclaim it if you don't put that in brackets you're fired Mark your Bible you ready? that should go on like a neon sign this is the heart of the matter what is the nexus the anatomy the origin of that word which is God's word and the answer is, in the council of God, wherever that is this young man from a missionary fellowship in Florida not only had never stood in the council of God, he didn't know that there was such a place and just assumed that what rose up in his own mind was the word, because their goal is true and needs to be expressed so, we shouldn't go any further today, let's end with this and burrow into this what does this mean? to stand in the council of God for if that is the only place where God's word is to be obtained, we had best have some understanding of what that place is and how to enter it and to find the word of the Lord in it or we ourselves will be added to the false what is it? how do you understand that? there's no explanation wouldn't it be wonderful if there were an asterisk and there's a footnote at the bottom of the page that tells you what the council of God is as a matter of fact, there is from the commentators that I'll share with you but what do you think it is before you look at anybody else's explanation? not c-o-u-n s-e-l c-o-u-n c-i-l the s-e-l is the council of God, like the advice of God, the kind of counsel that we can receive from one another advice, instruction but this is another word entirely don't miss it, c-i-l a council the King James says s-e-l the King James says s-e-l the American says c-i-l the American c-i-l and Amplified says c-i-l too c-i-l you know what I suspect? that the King James written in the Elizabethan times that at that time in the state of the English language, there was probably one spelling for both words it was the original spelling for the word that has since become distinguished from counsel, s-e-l by the spelling c-i-l but the fact of the matter is that God's c-i-l is God's s-e-l but you're not going to get the s-e-l, except you get it in the c-i-l who has? the fact that God has to cry out this is now God speaking, not Jeremiah who has? implies that there are not many very few in all of the multitude of prophets there were 400 for Baal and one for God in Elijah and probably that ratio is the same in all generations, it was the same in Jeremiah's time, the plentitude of the prophets were false but there was one Elijah one Jeremiah who stood in the council of the Lord who? when God says who? it's always implying there are not many very few well, why shouldn't there be more? why wasn't that council c-i-l as available to the false prophets as it was to Jeremiah? couldn't they find it? if he was flesh and blood like as they, did he have any special prerogative or privilege that was not available to them as prophets of God and Israel? how come they didn't find it? because they did not want it they didn't want it I was going to say they did not seek it why wouldn't men, if they know that they could get the real thing from God why wouldn't they want it? why wouldn't they seek it? it's not convenient it may actually contradict what they think to be the mind of the Lord or the word of God and are we willing to bear that contradiction, especially if what we believe about God is to us precious or important and has to do not only with our security but our identity our self-image are we willing for all these things to be threatened? when the real word would come? what I'm saying is a true prophet has got to be without any vested interest in himself he's got to have nothing to preserve nothing to continue nothing to be honored nothing to be celebrated he's got to be devoid of anything that he would clutch in such a way as would prevent him from seeking and receiving the word of God and whatever the consequence of that word is because God's word, if it's God's word will always require and will require radically, or it is not God's word the word of the false prophet requires nothing false Christianity requires nothing, your body at the service in whatever condition, you've stayed up late Saturday night, watching all kinds of filth, and come in on a Sunday and plop your body down and put a buck in a clay plate and say amen, it requires nothing, the true faith is always radically requiring, even unto death and so also the word of God is requiring, so the false prophet is not willing for the inconvenience or the threat to his own established vested interests, even his identity as a prophet he's not willing to open himself to a word that will come that will in any way threaten what is presently precious to him, so what then would a church be that has come to prophetic stature an entire church corporately in the stature of true propheticness that has no vested interest in itself or for itself, will seek and find and communicate the word of God, let without hindrance whatever way the chips fall courageously, even if it means their end what a church, what a presence the world will be transformed by the presence of such a church just by its presence, let alone its activity, when it will come to that prophetic stature so what is the council of God where is it ok we're talking now, this is where the rubber hits the road, this is the make it or break it, either we understand this and there is an actuality a place where we can come into war, we can hear God discussing with angelic beings who are called to governance the things of his mind and will for the church and for the earth, and hear that word and then be commissioned to speak it, or we're candidates ourselves for becoming false isn't it remarkable, as significant as this is, how little reference, just a passing comment, you would think that God would give us chapters of laying it out and telling us how to find it just a hint, a clue a sparse thing this is where we need to draw something out from God's heart this is where we need each other here is the collective and corporate activity of the church right here around these tables, to find our way into a realm of truth that has been lost virtually almost since the time of Jeremiah, and needs now again to be restored, because the false prophets who neither seek nor find that, are having a field day today in vast popularity and acceptance and their blab and their bladder is going out everywhere as being the word of God confusing the church and disfiguring it, and keeping it from the very maturity that we're speaking so it's time again to understand this is this actual, or is this a poetic figure of speech is there actually a place where we can hear and enter and receive the counsel c-o-u-n-s-e-l and bear it before men as God's own word would that be, I'm just attempting to, would that be behind the veil? could be whatever that means that is to say, what God is calling us to, is not a once and for all spectacular entry into the heavenly realm he may give that as an experience as he gave Paul, but it was too holy even to talk about, that makes you wonder how that another man in our own generation has already written two books and threatens us even with a third to come of what he is relating to having a comparable experience but no, that's not that's, I'm more disposed to say, within the veil, that there's a place that God has established through the blood of Jesus, which is a new and living way, that gives us priestly entree into the secret place of God's own presence and he even tells us in Exodus 25, when he gave Moses the pattern on the mount of the tabernacle of God, that the holiest place of all build a mercy seat and cherubim whose wings touch and there I will meet with you, above the mercy seat and between the cherubim and there I will speak to you in instruction and commandment for the sons of Israel I'm getting a Holy Ghost chill, so it must be God don't come now it is when I get a Holy Ghost chill I would safely say, we're touching something now, it's not some publicly available thing that's cheap this is the things that are withheld and kept by God it's not for the one who gazes cheaply or for the religionist who wants to employ it for the promotion of himself it's held for those who will come before him in a right disposition and spirit not because of any qualification they have in themselves but because of the blood of Jesus that's the new and living way but how many of us in this room now have ever been there or think and have the faith to believe that this is more than a poetic figure but that this is actually almost the heart of the matter and that there is an actual place of which the earthly tabernacle was only a shadow pointing to the greater reality which is in heaven that there is a holiest place of all that was closed to all except the high priest of ancestral derivation from the Levitical tribe but now is available to any believer by the blood of Jesus to come into the holiest place of all and to bow and to wait and to be before the Shekinah presence of God who hovers still above the mercy seated between the wings of the cherubim and he says there I will commune with you and there I will give unto you instruction for the sons of Israel so I just want to say I believe in my naive faith there is such a place and it waits on a faith to believe for it to have entry into it and to believe in the efficacy of the blood not only for the forgiveness of sins but for the entry into the holiest place of all for we dare not come in our own naked humanity and innate unrighteousness whose transgressions and iniquity is ever before us how dare we come into the presence of the Most High in that condition but by the blood of Jesus and in the Son and in His priesthood we can come and it's not a once and for all but as often as we will so can you believe on the last night of the meeting at Nuremberg Germany the city so celebrated by Hitler for his pagan Nazi rallies of what to speak that will conclude your final statement for those days without any assurance that they'll ever be returned to Germany or any other place and that there's a statement that God would bring that if you sought Him in prayer in Nuremberg and in the home where you're staying and in the attic where you're placed that you can have access in that place on the cold drafty floor at 5am into the secret councils of God in heaven and receive their inspiration disposition and encouragement for the word to be spoken later that night many hours after your early morning prayer time where though you were quickened and excited by the flush of a consciousness that came to you that by the time the speaking comes so many hours later at night and looking out onto the congregation if it feels like a figment of your imagination it's dissipating away it has lost its credibility and you wonder if that indeed was the word of the Lord because now it seems so inappropriate but at 5am it seemed like wow will you then speak it will you go out against them tomorrow on the basis of what you have seen and received in the early morning hours the just shall live by their faith and if the prophet is not a man of faith to believe which means to act on the basis of what he believes we're finished so this is nothing less than a dying that the hour has come you're being introduced and you're called up to the platform and you look out on the sea of charismatic faces that would be much happier with a false word that would confirm them to where they presently are as against the word that you believe God had quickened in the early morning hours out of his secret place and you have a choice to make in your freedom of which of the two things you will speak and address it's mortifying and fraught with fear and the prospect of rejection and failure every time but obedience unto death and the gratifying thing was at least on that occasion where the word had such a cogency such a power as I told you before the wife of the pastor who never liked me because she leads to worship there was always an unspoken kind of tension between us there was not all that gung ho for all that whipped up stuff she said from the mouth the moment your mouth opened your word was like a sword you can hear the tape and see if I'm exaggerating well that the inspiration came I believe from the holy place and from the secret place but you've got to believe that you're there in the realm of spirit while your knees are on the floor in an attic upstairs in Nuremberg there's such a disjuncture between what you believe by the spirit and what you're experiencing physically there's a cold draft on the floor you're conscious of your discomfort it's a ridiculously early hour you're tired you're out of it your mind is dull can you believe in that physical condition and setting that we in fact are actually more significantly than Nuremberg and that the issue of your believing will determine what people will receive that night not only as the congregation but as the key for a word coming through that congregation into the entire nation of Germany itself that word was of that kind that my interpreter Klaus who I've known for 25 to 30 years been with me through every circumstance even fishing here in Steamboat Lake where he turned over the boat when he pulled the hook too vigorously out of the mouth of a fish we both ended up that that man who has heard me time and time again and translated everything broke down three times I had to wait for him to recover to go on that's how much it was the word of the Lord so everything that I'm saying believe me is not in any way to draw attention to myself but the purpose of this school is that I have an experience and a history over a course of time in radical life and death situations where a nation is concerned because Germany is not just Germany, Germany is God's ultimate key to Israel's last day's redemption because didn't God say in Flushing, Queens, New York in the late 1960s when I was a missionary to the Jews and praying with a German brother in a moment of time that the nation which has cast my people into the fires of physical destruction is the nation that will keep them from the fire of my eternal judgment didn't God say that? Doesn't Germany have a significant destiny with regard to Israel because God spoke that all those years before and is this not an occasion now where something can be transacted that will affect that fulfillment in a word I'm saying the stakes are enormous and there you are in your BVDs 5 o'clock in the morning on the attic floor in a picture of complete foolishness and frailty and complete consciousness of your terrible humanity and yet you're going to bear that word before men that will affect a nation that will affect Israel and the establishment of the kingdom of God through their restoration and the Lord's own coming it could not be more loaded, the weight could not have been greater and the whole thing comes to pass in the word that will issue out of your mouth if the word says let not many be teachers what shall we say about let not many be prophets where every temptation is to be false because this is not only inconvenience this is death and what if instead of the people at the end pouring out of their seats and stretching out like dead people and groaning before God under conviction, what if they had continued to sit like this and had been visibly unaffected and your word was without effect and you had believed it to be the word of God can you go on or will you leap out of a window or call it quits because there's no assurance of anything visible to confirm that it's God's word or that you have been faithful and obedient you might actually right to the last moment have cause to think that you have missed it there's no guarantee and the prophetic man has to live with either possibility it's only the grace of God that I have the joy of seeing the visible effect of that word but I have had many more occasions under auspices of exactly the same kind where the issues were as great and where I had believed that I had sought the God sought the Lord in the holy place through the rent veil equally where there was no visible response but hard looks or disappointed faces and you have to be able to bear the one with the other if your obedience to God is predicated on the gratification that comes from seeing the visible effect of your word you will be disqualified and made a candidate for what is false for the false thing will always guarantee a pleasant response from them the issue of the prophet is the issue of the cross so I think we need to end on that note for now and let this word shall not go forth void and shall not return to the Lord void more is being transacted right now over this table over what the Lord has been building this morning and through these days than we can even begin to perceive who knows who these men are and what their destinies and callings are what about the tapes that are going forth what about the transcriptions that might come from this that will be translated into Chinese and other languages and touch men in distant nations and raise up in those nations authentic prophetic men for this final hour because of what we are discussing now and that word will not return to him void so Lord show me a bored Christian and I'll show you a man out of the faith so Lord we're so what shall we say that you've used this school and this these men and women you've gathered up to be a matrix a womb for the bringing forth of statements of a kind that I have never heard in a depth and acuteness beyond anything that I've shared before being brought into a new dimension my God of severity and sharpness because the hour is much later now than it was before and the stakes are yet greater and so we ask you to watch over your word that you will perform it let there be a birthing of authentic prophetic men and women because of the word that was just stated that has gone forth over these tables today in distant lands as well as our own even to the Indian nations that will affect things my God to touch both time and eternity seal it perform it let it not return to you void according to your own word bless these children here Lord as that word moves through their whole being and is brought to their consciousness and they weigh up and consider the implications of it and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God then I ask for a concomitant faith to the word that has gone forth that if the word was about the veil and the holy place and the veil that's rent and the access by the blood of Jesus let there be now a faith born by that word to obtain that entry and to avail themselves of that access that they might receive the counsel of the Lord in the counsel of God in the holy place and that the earth might again as well as your people here a true word from God where there was everywhere else a famine thank you Lord oh seal this my God as a piece of divine history beyond class that you have chosen in the poverty of this place and its nothingness to be the the auspices of something birthed in point of time full of ramifications till the day of your appearing and beyond we bless you thank you Lord seal it teach us how to walk the rest of the day out the fast day that you've chosen to bring this undistractedly and in quiet free from chores and labors and other things of pots and pans and just to let your word filter into our souls into our spirit into our thought into our consciousness and change us for your word when it is your word is beyond instruction beyond inspiration it is necessarily an event and we want that event and we're desperately in need of the event of God's word and we receive it as event and we thank you and give you the praise in Jesus name