By: General Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD! Welcome to Battle Cry Sounding! Today we are marching forward in the Lord, giving praise unto His name. You know, it is a blessed thing to serve the Savior, it is a blessed thing to bow before Him, it is a blessed thing to recognize that He is our King. And that’s what God desires, is a people that are His.
We have really deviated in these times from the purposes of God. And what I mean by that, is, if you really study the Word of God-not according to someone’s theology, but according to what it says-what you find out is that God’s desire from the very beginning was to have a people, a people that would recognize Him as King, a people that would fellowship Him, a people that would obey Him, a people that would love Him, and a people that would serve Him! That’s always been God’s desire. Now that desire did not stop with the New Testament dispensation, but that desire continued and does continue even until this day. But the majority of those who profess that they are God’s people in this generation do not do the will of God. They do what they want to do, they live their lives as they desire to live them, they live where they please, how they please, when they please, and why they please, and they don’t please God.
But you see, God’s desire has always been and always will be for His own people, because when Jesus came, He came as the “firstborn”: it says that He is first born among many brethren. So that means that God the Father has ordained that there would be a people-hallelujah!-who would come after Jesus, who would be as He is, and therefore be the sons of God.
Now when you stop and think about what Jesus was with His Father, and is with His Father, it’s total and complete unity, it’s total and complete submission to the authority of His Father, it’s total and complete abandonment of His life, His will, His goals, His ambitions, to the desire of the Heavenly Father. Now that is a complete people. If you see a people that will obey that, those people are complete in the Lord. And that is well pleasing unto God because that is what He sent His Son to do, is provide the pattern-provide for us the pattern of how we can enter into that realm of sonship, how we can enter into that realm of oneness, how we can re-enter into the place that was in the Garden that Adam threw away by his sin. And because God has so desired that we enter that place, God sent us Jesus as our blueprint.
Now if we look to Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith, we find that many of us, or all of us, fall short. We fall short of the glory that God has ordained for His people. We fall short in our obedience, we fall short in our submission, we fall short in our willingness, and it is God’s plan that we would bring up those areas that we could be brought into the stature of the Son, And that doesn’t mean that we are perfect, but that we are aspiring to come into perfection, because none of us is perfect yet. But we can aspire to gain that complete stature of the Son of God. But in this generation, men and women have so perverted the truth that they have taught God’s people lies and hypocrisy, and taught them that their individualism is more important than the will of God. Now that’s the truth about today. You go to any church, and they will teach you that what you want is very important. They’ve fallen under the spirit of the age, the spirit of me-ism, the spirit of self-worship, the spirit of “I am the I am”, whereby we put the preeminence upon humanity rather than upon God. And because of that. God mourns over the condition of those who say that they are His people. And not only is He mourning, but He’s grieved and literally vexed by the fact that people are so wayward, so rebellious, so self-willed that they will not obey Him.
Now you find, because of this age, because of this Spirit, because of this distance between man and God, that when true vessels come along in simplicity and in truth, and seek to obey God, that they are scoffed, they are mocked, they are rejected, they are despised because they have chosen obedience rather than disobedience. See, we are living in a time, in an era, in a dispensation, when the role model is rebellion. Yes, it is, even in those who claim they are Christians. The role model is rebellion. The role model is complete disrespect for the authority of God. The role model is “I’m important because I am a human, be I male or female, I am important.” And then they cover it over in the Christian sector and say “I am important to God.” Well, when you’re disobedient and you’re disorderly and you’re willful and you’re stubborn and you’re hateful, YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT TO GOD. You may be important to the Devil, because you are going to Hell where he is, but you are not important to God.
And we’ve gotten the idea that we can do anything at any time against God, and God has to take it. How deceived we are, and what fools we are to imagine that God has to take our misbehavior! You see, Jesus died to save us from our sins, not that we would continue in sin. We need to right our thinking and line it up with the will of God, with the fear of God, with the purpose of God, realizing that we need to be subject unto Him. Because we have been brainwashed, we have been deceived, we have been falsely convinced that we are so important. But you know what? NONE OF US IS IMPORTANT. The only thing important is the will of God the Father. And if we will cooperate with that, we will find that our lives are blessed, we will find that our lives are prospered in Him, we will find that our lives are full of the abundance of His presence. But if we choose any other way, we choose vexation, we choose torment, we choose hatred, we choose jealousy, we choose strife, we choose pride, we choose a number of things that will only lead us to our own damnation. There’s only one way that we make it into the Kingdom, and that is the straight and the narrow way.
You know, when people have been used to meandering out there in the broad way, just going every which way at every which time that they desire, and they hear the straight and the narrow, did you know that’s utterly repulsive to them? And if you’re in the straight and narrow, most people will hurl a rock at you or rocks at you that say, “You’re a cult! You’re separate! You’re this . . . You’re that!” And those hurlings come because, yes, you are separated, and yes, you are a cult, because you believe in your leader, who is Jesus Christ the Lord, and that’s what a cult is-it’s people that follow one leader. What’s so dirty about that? Every Christian church should be a cult. Did you hear me? Isn’t it funny how we let the media take a certain word and turn it into a curse word, when in reality it isn’t? In Spanish they call many churches cultos-“cults”-and it’s not a derogatory term, it just means they’re following one leader.
We are meant to follow one leader. We are not meant to follow many masters. The disciples of Christ were meant to follow Christ. They weren’t meant to follow, you know, Buddha, or go find some other god in some other country and follow that god. They weren’t meant to go to India and sit at the feet of the “masters” to learn the way, because Jesus said, “I am the Way”. Amen. But because we have been forced into false beliefs through acceptance of the broad way, whenever people hear about the narrow way, they immediately start getting fearful, they get doubtful, they get accusatory. Why? Because the narrow way is the way of life, and the Devil knows if he can keep you in the broad way, he keeps you in deception. And he knows that if he keeps you in the broad way, he can easily ensnare you and trap you and take you into devastating sin and damn your soul.
The biggest culprits against the narrow way are those professing that they are Christians, those professing that they love the Lord. Those professing that they are His people are the ones who will pick up the biggest stones to hurl at those who are on the straight and narrow. But you know, God’s principles do not change. The Bible says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” And the principles of God are true, and the principles of God will keep us in His Kingdom. Amen.
We’ve been reviewing, through the series called “The Necks of our Enemies”, how that we can learn the principles of God, and that when we are walking in those principles, that God will show His favor over us, even in disfavorable circumstances. This message is part five in that series.
Now I have been sharing and relating a missionary journey that General Jim and I took about 30 years ago. In this journey, God taught us many of His principles that are complete obedience to the will of the Father. And in those principles, we learned that when you really do what God tells you to do, that you will not be accepted of men, and you will be rejected, and you will be hated; you will be evil spoken of. But that’s been wonderful preparation, for when you walk the straight and narrow, that’s what happens to you. You are not accepted of the world. Jesus said, “The world will hate you because they hated me.” And He said, “When you are spoken evil of, and when men make all manner of accusation against you, for my name’s sake, you are blessed.” You see, it is because we are blessed to be fellowshipping His suffering. And what is His suffering? His suffering is separation from the world and separation unto God. And the only suffering is if you want people to speak well of you. If you get to the point where it doesn’t matter to you, then that no longer is the suffering. Amen! Because what does it say? It says that “our life is hid with Christ in God.” OUR LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD! Anything else is not life.
If people say that I’m a foul thing, or a vile thing, a wicked thing, a perverse thing, a mean thing, a hateful thing, a murderous thing, that doesn’t matter, because that is not my life. The opinions that men or women have of me is not my life. My life is hid with Christ in God.
Now we do not learn this all at once, because you take for example, Peter. Now when Peter was in the presence of the Lord, he thought that he would be loyal, that he would be true, that he would even be willing to die for the King. We’ve studied that-the actions of Peter, how that Peter was so reactive in the presence of God that he was sure that he was sure. But Jesus knew that he was not sure. He knew that Peter had to go through the fire to be revealed for the iniquitous fool that he was, that he would be humbled of his pride and his religiosity and realize his utter and complete need of God.
God takes us through things to teach us our need of Him, amen, and to realize that it is not we who are in control, but it is Him who is in control. And to find out that God is in control, it’s wonderful, it’s blessed, it’s beautiful. Praise God!
Now you see in the life of Peter, that Peter thought, in the presence of God, that he would endure. But when Peter was put in the presence of wicked men, of wicked women, when everything was turned against the Lord (or so it seemed), he denied the Lord. And you know, many people do that: they hear from God that God wants such and such of them, and they say, “Oh yes, Lord”; but the minute the presence of evil comes, they turn. They turn and betray the very promise, the very dedication, the very consecration they vowed unto the Lord. And see, God will take us through the testing of our faith to find out what it is that we are made of.
As I said, we have been going through a missionary journey in this series, that General and I were on, all those years ago. And in this series we have found out that God desires that we learn principles, principles of operation that will keep us, time and time and time again. We found out that we are not meant to be loyal to men, but we are meant to be loyal to God. That is, that we are meant to do the will that God ordains us to do, despite what men will say about us. Because when we enter into the narrow way, we enter into the Jesus way. And when you tell men and women that you are in the Jesus way, and they are in the denominational way, or they are in the missionary-society way, or they are in the self- appointed way, they think that you are insane. But the truth of it is, that anybody that is out of the Jesus way, is out of the will of God. And the only perfect will of God is TO DO THAT WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO DO BY GOD, AND OBEY THE SAME.
Now we find that a lot of people do not seek for the Lord but they seek for that which they want to do. They seek for something that they enjoy doing, or they want to do. They do something because they want to travel, or because they want to get a paycheck and act like a lord over foreigners, etc., etc. Then they call themselves missionaries. But that is not the will of the Father. The will of the Father is that we are willing to lay our lives down in obedience to His command and go withersoever He speaks.
Turn to the first chapter of Joshua. The army that was going to follow Joshua into the land said, “We will go withersoever thou leadest, and we will obey whatsoever thou commandest.” That’s exactly what God desires in His Army in this generation. He does not desire a self-willed, sottish, rotten, spoiled, hypocritical mass that calls itself His people. He desires a people that are fine-tuned enough to obey His commands, to will themselves unto His will, and to go withersoever He sends them.
Now I’m sure if you looked at that army that Joshua had, there were probably vast multitudes of enemies all about. For, as you read on, you find out that this certain king had heard of the children of Israel. Well, how did they hear about them, except that the enemies had spies, except that the enemies had delegations sent out to investigate these children of Israel. By these spies and delegations, the word spread abroad about what the children of Israel were up to and that they were victorious. Yet all of these enemies that were about them were seeking for one thing, and that was to alleviate themselves of the threat of the children of Israel, of the threat of this conquering force under the commandship of Joshua that was going through the land, knocking out enemy after enemy.
You see the principle of God was true then, that’s true now, and that is, that the army of Joshua was in the straight and narrow, and so they were victorious. The command was, “Don’t look to the left, don’t look to the right, but look unto the Lord.” And those who were in his troop said to him, “We will obey, we will follow.” So you see, with Joshua, meaning Jesus, things haven’t changed. If we are going to be in Jesus’ Army, truly, then we’re going to obey, we’re going to keep our vision single, and we’re going to be in the straight and narrow. Praise God! So, as we go on in our chronicle of this reminiscent story, let’s gain some more principles.
Now, as we have told you, we went through a war-torn nation where everything was terrible, and then we ended up in the next place, and they were absolutely astounded that we got through there without being molested, that we got through there without the loss of our lives, the loss of our goods, without imprisonments, etc. But again God showed that His hand was upon us, because we were in the narrow way of believing and trusting in the Lord.
When you consecrate yourself to God, and believe in Him, He is able to keep you. When you consecrate yourself to the arm of flesh, you will find confusion, you will find delusion, you will find madness, and you will find that you are not under the direct, protective covering of the Lord, because you are not relying upon the Lord. So the best thing is to rely upon God and be a troop in Joshua’s Army, ready to come under command and be obedient and go withersoever the Lord leads, that you can be kept by the Lord.
So after we went through that peril, we faced another situation not far down the road, which I still marvel at until this day, that is, that the Lord is the miraculous, He is the One who is able, He is the One who shall provide.
As we were going through a particular country, we passed up a town, and in that town there was a gas station. I said to my husband, “We should stop.” He said, “Oh no, they’ll be a bigger town on up the way, and we’ll stop there.” Well, as soon as we got on the other side, and went up another mountain, the gauge hit empty-totally and completely empty. There was nothing left, and we didn’t have a reserve tank like an old Volkswagen. In an old Volkswagen, when you hit empty, you could press this little button and the other tank would flow in, so you would go over to that other tank and you would keep putting along. But in this big old hog, once you exhausted the gas that was there, there was no more gas.
So we had no gas, and we had no knowledge of where the next fueling station was. And we had no real knowledge of how to get back to the town we left. And we didn’t even have a big enough gas can to help. And we weren’t apt to try hitchhiking. So what did we do? We began to cry out to God, and we besought God to keep us, dear God, to help us, dear God, to protect us even though we were ignorant, and even though we should have stopped; to forgive us for that, and to take us, Lord God, onward.
So as we cried out unto God, God kept us going mile after mile after mile after mile; and when we finally arrived to a town, as we checked it out on the odometer, we had driven over 50 miles on a completely empty gas tank. Now this was not with a little small car. This was with a truck that had a good-sized engine and took gas. It took gas. It was not a compact car. I mean, the only compact cars in those days were Volkswagens. This was a big American hog vehicle. This thing I think was antiquated back to the 60’s. It was an old, old guy, back when American cars were nothing but gas drinkers.
Now this may seem silly to you, but it’s not silly. If you’re caught in the middle of a foreign country, going through jungle area, which the road was, through jungle area, winding around mile after mile after mile, nothing but a deep cliff on one side that went to a river, and high mountains on the other side, and you’re praying the whole time, it is a great miracle to you, that God takes you over 50 miles with no gas in the gas tank! Our credit cards wouldn’t have done us any good, and we didn’t have any anyway. And our missionary society or our denomination wouldn’t have done us any good, and we didn’t have one anyway. BUT OUR GOD DID US GOOD, and our God kept us, and He kept us in joy in Him, somehow believing that He would get us through, praise God!
So when we finally got to the town where the gas station was, we jumped out and we were thanking God, rejoicing in God, praising God. We looked at the odometer, and we were just excited that we had gotten that far by God and God alone. And when the man came to help us with the gas, he looked at us and was asking, “Why are you so happy?” We said, “Because God got us here! Because God helped us to drive our vehicle for 50 miles with no gas!” Well, the man just shook his head because he couldn’t understand such things. But you know what? We need to testify of the miracles of God, and we need to glorify God because God is the One who does great and wondrous things for us when we believe.
Did you know that God desires to do the miraculous for His people? Now that doesn’t mean that I go out there and get a hose, and siphon out all the gas in the vehicles, and then tell the people, “Get out of here, drive on, because God will help you!” No, that’s not it. That’s me trying to make the miracle. But when these things happen and we look to God, God is the One who is able to provide.
It’s too bad we couldn’t get a patent on it-we could probably make a billion dollars with “God’s free gasoline”. But the thing of it is, that God will provide. God does make a way, and God is wonderful.
And then on top of it all, at this same place, on the other side of the jungle-you’re not going to believe this!-in this gas station, they had a little freezer, and in the freezer they had some little packaged ice creams. So, not only did we get fuel for the vehicle, but after that long, hot drive (and believe me, it was hot, because we were praying the whole way), God provided. God is wonderful, God is good, and God is glorious! And every time that we look to God, God will make the way.
It wasn’t that we were anything except fools. It wasn’t that we were anything except naive enough to believe in God. It wasn’t that we were anything except focused in the straight and narrow, focused in the will of God, focused to obey the command of the King. Praise God!
We journeyed on, and of course, in that place, we visited with different Christians and found we had the same wonderful reaction and response. So the Lord delivered us from our strong enemies, the “Christians”, and from them which hated us, for they were too strong for us, and kept us going in Himself (see Psalms 18:17).
God will deliver us from those who oppose His will. God will deliver us from those who say they are believers, but are not. God will deliver us. Why? Because He loves us when we seek to go in the straight and narrow pathway.
So as we went on in this journey, we entered into another country, and we were still seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord. Well, we got into this country and we found out that the road, which we had been told would go all the way to our destination, stopped in this country. It stopped in Panama, and did not go on through the lower end of Panama, which they said was like total jungle, full of wild and savage Indians. They said no road was there and that they’d given up building the road because too many Americans had died of malaria in their attempts to continue this road. So they just quit and said, “That’s it.” So it stopped at Panama City, there at the canal zone in Panama.
Well, in those days, the canal zone was owned by America, so it was full of American military, and it was full of prosperous churches. It was full of churches that hated the Spirit of God and churches who hated people who obeyed the Jesus way. So we found that we got the same wonderful, warm reception we had been used to getting!
We stopped there for a while, and we went to a missionary camp. We knocked on the door, and we pled with them to let us rent a cottage, and they gladly obliged, because they were glad to take the money, and then it justified their luxurious existence in that place. This missionary camp, the cottages were not too elaborate, but it had beautiful grounds, a huge swimming pool, and it had all manner of recreation available there, for those days. There it was-a missionary camp. So I guess once you’ve been on the missions, you’re supposed to come in and have recreation, instead of drawing close to God-just come in and play.
Anyway, we pleaded with them and rented a cottage there, and we sought the Lord and sought the Lord and sought the Lord; and it is there that the Lord spoke to us and told us that He would make a way for us if we would go to the docks and wait. Well, before we were willing to do that, we got attacked one night, severely, by fear. Now you have to realize that we were in an unknown place among an unknown people, taking a journey that was literally unknown to us. We were doing an Abraham thing, following God.
So we got savagely assaulted with fear. Everybody that we had spoken to said, “Well, the best thing you can do is go back, because there is truly no way you are going to go forward. You can’t get from where you’re at to where you think you are going at all.” So, believing the counsel of men rather than the counsel of God, I will confess that we grew weak and enfeebled. We checked out of the missionary cottage and we decided we would drive all the way back. So we started out, and we again went through different nations, but the country that was in civil war had closed its borders and even the country after that country had closed its borders, because there was so much tribulation. So we hit that border and the border was closed. You couldn’t go any farther. That was it-we were locked out. We were forced to either go on or die right there, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that we could do.
We tried the coward’s way and God blocked it. We tried to turn back on God, and God blocked it. Now does that give glory to us? No, that gives glory to God. How many of us are cowards and need God to block our back way that we would go forward? Amen. You wonder why God turns things against us, why God closes borders, why God shuts doors? It’s to drive us onward in the will of the Father; it’s to keep us in the straight and narrow way. Praise God!
