The Spirit Bears Witness

Yesterday I was speaking to you about the use of testimony as one of the tremendous spiritual weapons or instruments which God has provided us with to fulfill the work of the Lord, to win the battles of the Lord, to bring to pass the will of God in the earth. I pointed out to you that we are Christ’s ambassadors, we are His representatives, we are sent by Him into the world as He was sent by the Father to accomplish His will, to demonstrate His authority. We are His personal representatives invested with His authority and restored to His likeness. This is the position, this is the privilege, this is the responsibility of the church. And I’m convinced that in almost every area where the church of Jesus Christ is established there are people that are longing to do this, but they just don’t know how to do it. And I’ve made it my sincere endeavor to tell people how they can do it.

I heard a preacher some time ago—this is in no sense to criticize him but it just was the way—he preached about the terrible situation that the United States is in, and speaking for well over an hour he took about three-quarters of an hour to tell us how bad the situation was, and believe me by the time he’d finished you knew it was bad. And then he told us that what we needed was a Holy Ghost revival. And I didn’t disagree with any of these statements and he spent the last fifteen or twenty minutes telling us we needed a Holy Ghost revival. But I do not recall his giving one sentence of instruction as to how we could have a Holy Ghost revival. And I believe the majority of those people went away discouraged, depressed and perplexed. ‘The situation is bad, we ought to do something, but what will we do?’ Nobody knew. You know in moments of crisis when everybody loses their head and everybody says to everybody else, ‘Do something, somebody!’ And you don’t really get any results that way. I believe the Bible makes it perfectly clear what we can do, and I believe that when God’s people find out what they can do, there’s a lot of them that want to do it. That’s my conviction.

And so I have been trying to present to you the basic truths about what God’s people can do to change the course of events from bad to good, to dethrone satanic power where it should not be, and to enthrone and uplift and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said as I told you last time,

“I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

And He said, ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and ye shall be my witnesses unto to the end of the earth.’

We are here to uplift and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ by our witness, by our testimony. This is the primary purpose of our existence. Everything else is secondary. We may be here to raise a family, earn a living, and do things like that, but those are all secondary. The primary purpose is to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ and so to uplift Him that He will draw, by the Spirit, all men unto Himself, that the whole world shall feel the drawing, attractive power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now when I spoke to you yesterday maybe I did what the Lord wanted me to do. I trust I did, but I didn’t even get to the text that I wanted to preach on. So this morning I’m going to be safe and start with it. In Revelation the 12th chapter, verses 7 through 11 we have a picture of this end time conflict upon which we have even now entered. And I’m telling you these last days are days of conflict. I was reading the 55th Psalm this morning where David found himself involved in a conflict, and he said,

“I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and the tempest,
I would go into the wilderness and take refuge there if I could.”

And I believe a lot of people could be feeling like David this morning. I’d like to get out of this, but there isn’t any way out. You’ve got to go through. David prayed when he’d come to this conclusion, Psalm 55 verse 9—he turned on his enemies, praise the Lord, and he said,

“Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues: …”

And that’s the most effective prayer you can pray about the forces that oppose God in the world today. ‘Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues.’ I pray it every day. ‘Lord,’ I say, ‘You know the people that oppose You and resist You and reject You and Your Christ and Your Word and Your Spirit, and oppose Your people and Your purposes in the earth. Lord, now I’ve got them identified, this is my prayer. ‘Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues.’ Turn their tongues one against another.’ And God is doing it. You don’t need anything else. They’ll overthrow themselves when that is done. It’s such a short simple, effective prayer—undercuts their whole foundation. ‘Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues.’

David had this moment of fear. He said, ‘Lord…’ Well we might as well read it. You see I just… I tried hard but I didn’t do it. Psalm 55, just a few verses. David cries out,

“Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise; Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. [Verse 5:] Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.
He wanted to get out of it all, and if you read a little further on he says,
Lord, I have seen violence and strife in the city.”

The whole scene was occupied by men of violence and strife, but David found the answer—not to run away. It’s to turn and attack. And in the 9th verse he prayed,

“Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues: …”

And if God’s people would pray that they would win the victory. This one prayer, actually, would overthrow the forces of antichrist and atheism in the world today. ‘Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues.’

I’ve prayed it and I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen the Russians turn against the Chinese. I’ve seen the East Europeans turn against the Russians, and I’m going on till the job is done. I say every day, ‘Lord, in the name of Jesus, destroy and divide their tongues.’ And He’s doing it. So you don’t need to run away. Turn and fight, be a man, the Bible says.

Now we come to Revelation 12:7 through 11—the end-time conflict. It’s not just global conflict, it’s universal conflict. The whole universe is involved—heaven and earth. Verse 7:

“There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon [the devil]; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

Notice, heaven and earth, Michael and his angels, the Devil and his angels, the saints on earth—all are involved together in this one closing conflict. And in the course of the conflict the Devil is dethroned from his realm of authority in the heavenlies and cast out upon earth. Without going into all the details of this situation we read concerning his dethronement and his casting down the summary in verse 11, ‘they overcame him…’ And if you look at the context and study it for yourself, there is no doubt that they means the saints on earth. They, the saints on earth, overcame him. Here is a clear proof that we come into direct conflict with Satan. It’s person-to-person. They, the saints, overcame him, Satan.

And notice though the archangels and the angels and the forces of heaven were involved, the final victory is won by the saints on earth. So you can’t say we are unimportant.

This is the amazing paradox. God has chosen the weak things, the base things to bring to naught the mighty. The angels are too mighty for the Lord to give them the final victory. It’s got to be given to us so that all the glory will go to the Lord. And here is one, in my opinion, one of the greatest secrets of spiritual victory anywhere in the Bible—how they overcame him. How did they overcome him? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they were committed. They loved not their lives unto death. As I said yesterday they were like Esther. It didn’t matter whether they lived or died, that wasn’t important. This doesn’t apply to uncommitted Christians. This is for those that are determined to do the job regardless. If I perish, well, I perish. That’s it.

Now I want to take a little time this morning to explain to you as clearly as I can what it means to overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of your testimony. I have considered this and I have sought to make it plain and practical and I’ve put it to the test and I’ve discovered it’s the most amazingly effective weapon you can imagine.

I’m going to try to paraphrase it this way—To overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony, is to overcome him by testifying personally to what the Word of God says the blood of Jesus does for you. Now I’ll say that again. You testify personally... And incidentally you’re testifying to the Devil. This isn’t a testimony meeting when you stand up in front of the brothers and sisters in the church and say, ‘Well, you know this happened and that happened, and I prayed and so on.’ That’s wonderful, but this is where you’re telling the Devil. You’re testifying to the Devil. Your testifying what the Word of God says the blood of Jesus does for you. You’re applying the blood. You see, under the Old Testament, probably the greatest single type of the slain lamb and his shed blood was the Passover Lamb. And this is referred to many places in the New Testament—Paul says, ‘Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.’ He uses that. John the Baptist said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God…’ with reference to the Passover Lamb. But this lamb doesn’t just take away the sin of one household in Israel. This Lamb takes away the sin of the world.

And if you go back to the 12th chapter of the book of Exodus, and read the record of the Passover, you’ll find that each house had to slay its own lamb and that the blood was caught in a basin. But that God said to Israel, ‘The blood will only protect you when it is struck upon the front of your house, upon the lintel and the two side doorposts.’ And then He said, ‘When I see the blood, I will pass over you.’ And very, very simply I want to bring to you this thought: The blood in the basin protected nobody. No Israelite was saved from wrath and judgment while the blood remained in the basin. Every Israelite family had by an act of their own volition and faith to transfer the blood from the basin to the place which God had appointed where it was publicly displayed openly for all to see, good and bad, and there was one God-appointed means by which they were to do it, and they were not to use any other. And the means was a little herb which grows abundantly in the Middle East called hyssop. And they had to take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin and strike it upon the lintel and upon the two doorposts. Notice they did not put it on the threshold. We are not to walk over the blood. And notice, they were to strike it. It was to be a firm, decisive act.

Faith is not an experiment, you know that. It’s not ‘I will see if this works.’ A lot of people try divine healing, but a very great preacher of divine healing herself a medical doctor Lillian Yoemans, said, ‘You don’t try divine healing. Divine healing tries you,’ and that’s the truth. This is not an experiment. This is a decisive act of obedience. They took the blood and they struck it on the lintel and upon the door posts, and when they did that and retired behind the blood, and remained all through the hours of darkness behind the blood, they were safe. And the same is exactly true for us. This is a pattern.

Now Christ, our Passover, has been slain for us and, figuratively, the blood is in the basin. But the blood in the basin doesn’t avail one person. It doesn’t protect one person. You have to apply it individually, personally with your own act of faith before it becomes effective. You’ve got to transfer the blood from the basin to the place appointed where it’s publicly displayed over your life, and then it’s a protection.

Now under the Old Covenant, God appointed a little bunch of hyssop to get the blood from the basin to the door posts. Now in the New Covenant you don’t use hyssop, but you use something which is available to every person. You know what that is? The tongue. That’s it. It’s the words of your mouth that do it. The blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. It’s when you say the right thing about the blood that you’re taking it from the basin, putting it over your home and over your life. So they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. And I’m going to give you a few examples—ones that I regularly use.

I have a few friends that use this. I gave it to a Baptist layman, a friend of mine and probably known to some of you, Bob Engle of St. Louis, Missouri. I wrote it out on a yellow piece of paper and about a year later he said, ‘Brother Prince, that piece of paper is absolutely worn out.’ He said, ‘I say this every day before I go out to business.’

I’m just going to give you a few examples. Now in order to do this you have to know what the Word teaches about the blood. If you’re ignorant, you can’t do it. And I’m going to give you just a few statements in the Word about the blood of Jesus, and how to apply them personally. I’m going to do it as example. Ephesians 1:7:

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”

Notice your redemption is positional. It’s only in Christ. If you’re not in Christ, you don’t have it. You’ve got to be in Christ—in whom we have redemption. We are bought back by His blood. Redemption means to be bought back. It’s like a ransom paid. People kidnap a little child, the parents go out, they pay a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, they buy the child back. It’s a ransom. The sinner has been captured by Satan—Jesus paid the ransom. It was His blood. And through the blood we are bought back out of the hand of the devil. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

There’s two tremendous statements about the blood in that one verse. First of all, through the blood of Jesus—now I’m going to make it personal. I’m going to take the bunch of hyssop and I’m going to start striking it over my life. ‘Through the blood of Jesus, I am redeemed.’ And then I never fail to put in Psalm 107 verse 2:

“Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed out of the hand of the enemy.”

You see you’re not redeemed until you say so. It’s ‘believe in the heart,’ that’s wonderful, but ‘confess with the mouth’ is salvation. Until you say so you haven’t any. You can believe it all, keep quiet about it and have none of it.

“Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed out of the hand of the enemy.”

I have no doubts where I was. I was in the hand of the enemy. But through the blood of Jesus I have been redeemed out of the hand of the enemy and it’s my delight to say so. Through the blood of Jesus I am redeemed out of the hand of the devil. I am not in his hand any longer. That’s my first testimony.

Secondly, having redemption is having my sins forgiven, and that’s through the blood. Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. ‘Through the blood of Jesus my sins are all forgiven,’ and I like to put in that one little word of three letters: A-L-L, because it makes all the difference. ‘Through the blood of Jesus all my sins are forgiven. And then in 1 John 1:7:

“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son [continually, regularly, permanently] cleanses us from all sin.”

This is a continual present tense. As long as we are continually walking in the light, it’s conditional. This morning I am walking in the light, so the blood of Jesus Christ is cleansing me now and continually from all sin. That’s my testimony.

Romans 5:9 says that we are justified by the blood of Jesus. Justified means made just or righteous. I have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus. Through the blood of Jesus the righteousness of Christ is imputed to me by faith.

“Second Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who knew no sin; to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

And that’s my righteousness this morning. It’s not my own righteousness. It’s not the best that I can do. It’s the spotless righteousness of Jesus Christ received through His blood.

‘Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I’d never sinned.’ That’s it! That’s justification, justified, just-as-if-I’d never sinned, and anything less than that is condemnation. That’s the only righteousness that can boldly approach the throne of God—the righteousness which is just-as-if-I’d never sinned. All my sins are blotted out, God says He will remember them no more, and I’m clothed with a spotless garment of salvation and a robe of righteousness. And after that it’s just a little to put on the garment of praise too.

And then in Hebrews 10:29 and in Hebrews 13:12 we are told that we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 13:12:

“Jesus that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”

To be sanctified is to be made holy. These words—their meaning has become obscured, but there’s no question about the literal meaning. And you know God showed me the other day that just as you have the assurance of salvation, you can have the assurance of holiness, and we need it. It’s by faith, by faith you can reckon yourself holy if you meet God’s conditions.

‘Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God.’ That’s what it means to be sanctified. I’m not in the devil’s territory any longer. God said to Pharaoh about His people Israel in Egypt, ‘I will put a redemptive difference between My people and your people.’ And that’s what’s between the devil and me, the redemptive difference—the blood of Jesus. I don’t belong in his territory. I’ve been translated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, through the blood of Jesus.

Now you ought to be very, very bold provided you’re being bold about the right thing—not what you’ve done or your denomination, but what God says the blood of Jesus does for you. You cannot be too bold about that because you’re giving all the glory and the honor to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me summarize this for you and I’ll give you the privilege of joining with me in this confession. After all, why should I have it all? To me, it’s the most tremendous privilege to be able to stand in front of people and say these things about the blood of Jesus, but I’m willing to share it with you. So let me give you an example. I’ll go through it briefly.

Through the blood of Jesus I have redemption. I am redeemed by the blood of Jesus out of the hand of the devil. Through the blood of Jesus all my sins are forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ is continually cleansing me from all sin. Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I’d never sinned. Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God. And I add this because I have proved in praying with people for deliverance that if there’s one testimony the devil really dislikes it’s this. And some of you that have actually been present when this has happened you will bear me witness. It’s fantastic how the devil reacts against this. When people are seeking deliverance they say to me sometimes, ‘Brother Prince, am I free? Have they all gone?’ I say, ‘That’s not my business to give you a certificate, but look, if the Spirit of God is moving, and I want to be very emphatic about this. If the Spirit of God is moving and you begin to make the right confession, that devil will get so stirred up that if he’s there you’ll know he’s there.’

I want to point this out. It’s not just a routine or a formula. There aren’t any such things in the Christian life. It’s lived in the Spirit. And before I give you this testimony again, let me point out what it says in the 5th chapter of 1st John about Jesus. ‘This is He that came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood and it is the Spirit that beareth witness.’ Jesus came by water as the Great Teacher. And even before He went to the cross, in John 15:3 he said to His disciples,

“Ye are clean through the word that I have spoken unto you.”

But He did not come only as the Freat Teacher as a lot of cults would lead you to believe. He also came as the Great Redeemer, to lay down His life a substitutionary sacrifice and to shed His redeeming blood. He came by water, but not by water only, but by water and by blood, and it is the Spirit—capital S—that beareth witness both to the water of the Word and to the blood of the sacrifice. And when the Spirit begins to bear witness, believe me, all hell trembles.

There is a book that’s written called The Challenging Counterfeit, by a former rabbi who became a spiritist medium who then came into the salvation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and he points out the devil isn’t the least bit afraid of people talking about the blood of Jesus if it isn’t in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no little safe formula that will get you by. It’s the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost that must be present to make any of these things effective. It is the Spirit that beareth witness. But when the Spirit is bearing witness, then the results are truly fantastic. I’ve see this. I’ve seen people delivered from twenty or thirty evil spirits, one after another, when they made this testimony. First of all, when they began to make the testimony the spirit wouldn’t even let them say the words. It would choke them. And as they began to plow through with the testimony, one after another these things would come out. Oh they were so unhappy. Praise the Lord! Glory to God! Would you like to know a way to make the devil unhappy? I would and this is it. This is one of them.

“Now this is what I give people to say. It’s directly based on the Scripture.”

My body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus. The devil has no place in me, the devil has no power over me.

And every one of those sentences is absolutely scriptural. Believe me, when the Spirit of God is moving, you begin to say them, you’ll get reaction.

“Well we’re going to say it all again.”

Now then—well I’ll say that sentence again. All right. I could build it up out of the Scriptures, but I won’t take that time. Every sentence is based on Scripture.

My body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus. The devil has no place in me and no power over me through the blood of Jesus. Amen. All right, now then. I’ll say these sentences once and you say them after me. If you want to. You have to keep up saying it sometimes, because it’s not because there’s any change in what you say, but as you repeat it you begin to believe it. This is a fact. You see, talk about learning things by heart. How do you learn things by heart? By repeating with your mouth. And as you say them with your mouth they get down into your heart. When they get into your heart then they’re operative. It’s and amazing thing in Romans 10:9 Paul talking about salvation didn’t put believing first, he put confessing first. It would be contrary to our thinking, but he said,

“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Then he turns it the other way around. He says:
For with the heart man believeth, and with the mouth confession is made.”

But if you’re not quite sure whether you believe a thing, start saying it. That’s right, and when you say it you’ll believe it. Smith Wigglesworth used to say, and he was simple but tremendous insight, he said, ‘Faith cometh by hearing and heaving by the word of God.’ So he said, ‘If I want to believe something in the Word of God I start to say it out loud. And as I listen to myself saying it I begin to believe it.’ It’s perfectly logical and scriptural. It’s not silly by any means.

“All right. Now I’ll even give you the Scriptures.”

Ephesians 1:7. Say that. ‘Through the blood of Jesus I am redeemed out of the hand of the devil. Through the blood of Jesus all my sins are forgiven.’

“1 John 1:7, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son is cleansing me now from all sin.’ Romans 5:9, ‘Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I’d never sinned. Hebrews 13:12, ‘Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God.’ And then we add this little sentence that I gave you, ‘My body is a temple for the Holy Spirit,”

redeemed, cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus. The devil has no place in me and no power over me.’

“All right—that’s how we overcome by the blood of Jesus.”

Now I’m going to close by just turning to an example in the Scripture of total victory by total spiritual means. Just as we turn backwards through the Scripture, let’s turn for a moment to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3 and 4. Second Corinthians 10, verses 3 and 4:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.)
If you’ve got your Bible open at 2nd Corinthians 10 verse 4, let’s read it together.
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.)
[Lets say it again.] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”

All right—now we’ll turn to 2nd Chronicles chapter 20, just close by a brief examination of a situation in which in the Old Testament the King of Judah and his people gain total victory, a total military victory without the use of a single carnal weapon, by nothing but spiritual weapons, and this victory was total. Second Chronicles chapter 20.

Now I want to point out to you that under the Old Covenant it was normal and acceptable by God that His people should use the carnal weapons of war, for that was the dispensation in which they lived. But in the New Testament we wrestle not against flesh and blood, we are not fighting human beings and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Now if, under the Old Covenant, they could win total military victory by purely spiritual weapons, how much more should this apply to us when we are living in the age and dispensation in which this is appropriate?

Now if you turn to the 20th chapter of 2 Chronicles—I will not read the entire chapter. I’ll just skim through it and I suggest that you could take time to study it for yourself afterwards. But you’ll find that at the opening of this chapter Jehoshaphat, a righteous king, leader of God’s people Judah, suddenly was informed that a tremendous army was advancing and invading their kingdom from the east, and they realized immediately that they did not have the military resources or the numbers to resist and overcome this invading alien army. And so Jehoshaphat turned entirely to the spiritual realm and by a series of spiritual weapons he and his people obtained total victory, to the extent that they never had to shoot an arrow, cast a spear or wield a sword. All they had to do was take the prey from the dead bodies of their enemy. And it says there was not one of their enemies that escaped alive. If that isn’t total victory, I don’t know what it is. The only labor they had was three days spent in gather the spoil, it was so much.

Now this is the most perfect pattern and it’s exactly applicable to God’s people today. There’s not one sentence of this as far as I know that’s out of date. If God’s people will do the same thing they’ll get the same results today.

All right. We find that Jehoshaphat’s reaction is recorded beginning in verse 3. ‘Jehoshaphat feared…’ He was not a fool. He looked facts in the face, and he realized there was good cause for fear, in the natural—and so there is today. In certain respects we might say the forces of evil are overwhelming. It’s not inappropriate to fear. We have to be objective. We have to see things as they are, but when you turn to God, there’s another solution.

“Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to see the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”

Weapon number one—fasting. Always has been employed by God’s people all through the ages. In moments of crisis God’s people have always known this is the way. Verse 4:

“And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD:”

The next great tactical move—get God’s people together. And this is why I, today, am particularly happy to speak to groups like CFO, the Full Gospel Businessmen, and other groups where God’s people come together, because I have see this is what God requires. He is no longer blessing where people are just out to promote their own particular church or add to the number of members. And you see, you just can’t get God to bless what He isn’t interested in blessing. But you start to do what God wants you to do and you’ll be amazed how God will bless. It’s no effort then. And God demands today that His people come together.

After all I’ve said, if you’re going to be put in prison for being a Christian it isn’t going to be too important whether you were imprisoned for being a Methodist or a Baptist, or even a Roman Catholic. So it is demanded of God. And you can see how the Spirit is leading all over the world, and in many different ways, because God isn’t too much concerned about the name. All He wants is a platform to get His people together on. And normally the interesting thing is this is provided by lay people, not by ministers. CFO is really a lay organization. Full Gospel Businessmen is a lay organization. When I went to New Zealand and Australia it was mainly lay people that got together and brought the many denominations together. God doesn’t care, I don’t believe too much, whether the label is CFO or FGBMFI or any of these other things. He’s not interest in the label, but He is looking for a platform on which His people can meet. So they gathered themselves together, that’s the second great step.

“The third great step, verse 5 and following,
Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and said…”

He prayed. We will not read his prayer but it is a model prayer because he prayed entirely on the basis of the written word of God. He said, ‘God, You said this, and You said this, and now we are holding You

to it.’ As I’ve said before about David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 17, the key is in those words, ‘Lord, do as thou has said.’ When you can tie God down to what He’s said, you know He’s going to do it. But if you pray in ignorance of the written word of God you’re prayer is very, very weak and uncertain. See, there’s no way around it. You’ve got to know the Scriptures. You can’t testify to what the word says about the blood if you don’t know what the word says. And you can’t pray on the basis of the word if you don’t know it.

Now Jehoshaphat knew the word of God. He knew the revelation existent in his day and he prayed on the basis of it. He reminded God of the historical events, he reminded God of the promises, and he said, ‘Now Lord, it’s up to You.’

All right—the fourth phase, the miraculous supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Verse 14:

“after they had fasted, after they had come together, after they had prayed came prophecy. Verse 14, Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph came the Spirit of the LORD in the midst of the congregation; And he said…”

But it wasn’t him talking. It was God talking through him. It was a directive word of edification, exhortation, comfort and direction. And praise the Lord it was exhortatory, it was comforting. It was not condemnatory; it was encouraging. I don’t need people to prophesy over me and condemn me. I have enough sources of discouragement without people prophesying discouragement over me.

“He said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid…”

Oh how many times God says, ‘Be not afraid.’ I’m told it’s three hundred and sixty-five times in the Bible. That’s once for every day of the year. The first time I ever got a message in prophecy myself I was lying on the floor of a military ambulance, moving up across the western desert to the front line in preparation for the battle of Alamein and I was just wondering what would happen and felt this wonderful burning in my stomach, and I thought, ‘Now I’m going to speak with tongues,’ and out it came in prophecy. The Lord said, ‘Thou shalt not be afraid.’ That was the first thing He said.

“Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”

And then there comes direction as to how they’re to go forth and go down and where they’ll meet the enemy and what the enemy is doing. We don’t need to go into these details. You can read them for yourself.

Verse 18, this revelation was quickening, it was life-giving, it changed the atmosphere, and real genuine prophetic utterances don’t leave you feeling like a wet blanket’s been dropped over you. They quicken, they make the air electric. That’s a good test. I’m going to deal with these subjects a little bit this afternoon, but a genuine prophecy is quickening. It’s stimulating, and it’s in line with the purposes of God. Verse 18:

“Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD,”

You could read that half a dozen times without picturing what it means for several thousand people simultaneously to fall to the ground. In a lot of churches it would be considered disorder. We were talking last night about why people fall under the power of God. Well, here’s an example. There wasn’t some minister saying, ‘Now let’s all get down on our knees.’ Something moved into that assembly that they just couldn’t stand in the presence of. We read in other places when the glory of the Lord came into the temple of Solomon, the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the glory of the Lord. After all, all flesh is grass, and when the wind of the Spirit blows upon the grass the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. The flesh just withers in the presence of the Spirit of God. All right, what happened next? We’ve only got one more weapon and it’s sufficient. Verse 19:

“The Levites of the children of Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the LORD God of Israel with a loud voice on high.”

I’m glad for the loud voice, aren’t you? Some people tell me, ‘Well, Brother Prince, I praise the Lord in my house.’ Well that’s wonderful, but don’t keep it there. Let it come out. Not always, but in appropriate seasons let’s all praise the Lord together with a loud voice. I can’t sing much, but my voice is pretty loud and I’m prepared to use it for the Lord.

“…they stood up to praise the LORD God of Israel. They rose early in the morning, [Verse 20] and went forth … [Jehoshaphat had a word of encouragement for them, he said,] Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth forever.”

By modern military standards that might have been considered superfluous, but actually this is the key to the whole victory—praise. And listen to what it says in the next verse:

“And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.”

Exactly what I’ve said, ‘Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues.’ Turn them against themselves and we won’t have to bother with them. Let them do the job. People are distressed about what’s happening in Czechoslovakia but I point out to people, after all it is Communists fight Communists. So maybe we should just stand back and wait to see what will come out of it. At any rate as far as I’m concerned it’s the answer to my prayer.

But notice, when did victory become effective? When they began to sing and to praise the Lord dealt with their enemy. I like to read the rest,

“When Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.”

And I think it’s significant that the enemy got as far as the watch tower in the wilderness. Now you hardly need to be told that I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness, but unfortunately people have taken over so many biblical phrases that you can use almost any prophetical phrase—you talk about the Latter Rain and it’s a dirty word to some people, you talk about the manifestations of the Sons of God, they want to know what doctrine you’re in, and if you talk about the Watch Tower somebody will think you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, but that is not so, believe me.

But it says when they came to the watch tower, the enemy got as far as the watch tower, and I would like to give you just a spiritual thought about this. The watch tower is the place where some child of God has kept watch in prayer, vigil. And I believe in the United States of America today and in Britain there are some consecrated saints whose names we may never, never know who’ve taken their stand on the watch tower like Habakkuk. ‘I will set me on my watch.’ And that’s the place where the enemies going to be stopped. While these saints are holding out, the body of God’s people are grouping themselves for the victory. And I do not know how to pay sufficient tribute to precious, consecrated saints of God that in spite of all the falling away and the apostasy and the carnality in the church, have held on day and night to God in prayer. And I would not doubt that they’re found throughout this nation, up and down this land, and when the victory is won we’ll discover the enemy was stopped at the watch tower.

So dear saint of God, if you’ve been on your watch tower just stay there a little longer. Help is coming. It’s on the way. Don’t give up. Only in the resurrection will you get your medal, but it will be a wonderful one. People on earth won’t appreciate it. Many, many, many that have benefited by your prayers will never know anything about it till eternity, but you hold out. Amen.

Well there it is. Victory is for the people of God. It never was otherwise. It’s in our power by spiritual means. Let’s just summarize briefly some of the methods that God has given us—prayer, fasting, testimony and praise. There are others, but believe me, when we’re using those they’ll prove sufficient to win the victory. And I want to challenge you and encourage you as I close this series of talks to go and do something about it. Don’t wait for the whole church to be convinced. If you’re convinced, find somebody else that’s convinced and start together—two of you.

In the Hebrides there was a tremendous revival. Our daughter, Elizabeth, has been up in the Hebrides, she’s visited these scenes that I’m talking about. And there came a tremendous move of God in an area called Louis, where every tavern was closed, every dance hall was closed. You know why? Because all the people who used to go to the taverns and the dance hall were in the prayer meetings. What’s the good of keeping the tavern open if everybody’s in the prayer meeting? This is a fact. It happened round about 1948, ’49, ’50. This is an established historical fact. I’ve heard Duncan Campbell, who was the minister whom God used in that, describe it at first hand. But you know what provoked that? The prayers of two old ladies, both over eighty. And they held onto God day and night, year by year, and they said, ‘God, You’re a covenant-keeping God. We hold you to your covenant.’ They didn’t wait for everybody to be convinced. Two people convinced can change the situation. God never really does anything that’s tremendous by the majority—always the minority. The only problem with Gideon was he had too many. When he got down to the right number then God had no more problems with the Midianites.

“Praise the Lord. Let’s stand to our feet and take a little time to praise the Lord with a loud voice.”