By: General Deborah Green
On Target
Praise God, welcome to another message in the Revolutionary Way. We have been studying and we have been learning through these messages on the Revolutionary Way that Jesus was, is, and always shall be, the REVOLUTIONARY. A lot of people try to make Jesus into a good church boy, they try to make Him into a pacifistic churchite that has no individualism towards God at all. Then all He becomes is a denominational puppet to bring more men into slavery unto religious oppressors. But that is not Jesus of the Bible, that is a Jesus that is made up of the conjectures of men’s minds. The Jesus of the Bible, the true Jesus, the one that we are to follow, was a Revolutionary and is a Revolutionary. We are not to look at Jesus as though He was a “good man” who might have been a prophet that walked around doing good deeds. Jesus is the I AM God and He is right now, and the same Revolution that He brought then, He brings every place that He is declared as He is. Because when you let Jesus be Lord, you will find out that He brings change. This is the meaning of Revolution -CHANGE! Jesus comes to undermine and overthrow one kingdom and bring in another Kingdom. He comes to displace the kingdom of carnality, and He comes to implant the Kingdom of Spirituality.
When Jesus was training His disciples He taught them how to pray, and He didn’t have a book of catechism that they had to learn. He didn’t have all of these “Hail Mary’s” and all of these other prayers to saints and that sort of thing. No! The prayer that Jesus taught was very simple, and the ministry of Jesus was very simple. All of this religious gadgetry is the invention of man. Turn with me to Matthew 6:9-10. It reads, “Pray therefore like this, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed, (kept holy) be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
(Amplified version) So we see that Jesus gave them instruction how to pray, that God’s Kingdom would come, that God’s will would be done. Not way out in the sweet by-and-by, not way out yonder when we all get to heaven and it is a day of rejoicing, but RIGHT NOW! He told them to pray that God’s Kingdom would come. How is God’s Kingdom going to come? Is it going to be on some big space ship that comes down out of heaven and lands and all of these aliens get out and say, “We are the Kingdom of God”, alien beings that some people equate in biblical language with angels. And they come out with big swords and big breast plates on and lights on them, and brass, gold, and silver, saying, “We are the Kingdom of God and we have come to set in our order.” That is about how far fetched people can get with the things of the Bible.
But it’s all very simple. He said, “Pray this way, thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth (on earth) as it is in heaven.” How is God’s Kingdom going to come? Well we know it is not coming by some space ship and it is not going to come by a 747 Jet. We know it is not going to come by some rapture where we get to go up to heaven and eat lamb and throw the bones down on the perishing (that is what I was taught in Pentecostalism, that you got to eat a big feast after being raptured, with cherry pie and fried chicken. Is that what the Kingdom of God is? No! The Kingdom of God is going to come in those who are His People, those who are the disciples, those who are the followers of Jesus Christ. He instructed them to pray that thy Kingdom come, pray that thy will be done in earth. Now if you really want to get down to it, what are we but earth? What are we? What did He make Adam from? We are talking about an earthly kingdom and a Spiritual Kingdom. How is God’s will going to be done, except that the Spirit Kingdom come into the earthly kingdom and take over. We are talking about an invasion.
We are talking about an invasion of a Spirit Kingdom into the carnal, the earthly kingdom. We always want to put things in the wrong context. We want to put it as some “way out there” event, but it is RIGHT NOW. Because He told them, “Pray that prayer now”, and that is our instruction, even until this day, pray that prayer. We are supposed to pray that prayer right now, that the Kingdom would come and the will would be done, in earth and on earth. Do we think that just means the planet earth? No, that prayer relates to us, it relates to our lives, to our choices, it relates to the way that we walk and the way that we talk. Who do we choose to follow, what kingdom do we choose to be in, what kingdom do we desire to be recognized? What kingdom do we desire to prevail?
Why did He tell them to pray that way? If they began to pray for that Kingdom, if they began to ask for that Kingdom to come, then God the Father who is sovereign would hear that prayer, and God would begin to remold them, reshape them, refocus them and open their spiritual eyes that they could see and perceive the true treasure. If we are going to enter into and remain in the Revolutionary Way, then that should be our daily prayer, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”. “…Thy will be done in earth, in earth…” What did Jesus say? He said, “Nevertheless Father, not my will, but thine be done.” He showed us right there that even if it meant dying, even if it meant suffering great anguish, that the will of the Father be done.
When we are true disciples, true followers, true believers, we will not pray for our will, we will pray that the will of the Father be done, because it is only in the will of the Father that God is satisfied. God is not satisfied in our human will because it is death. There is absolutely no way that I can please God through my carnality. I can only please God by coming God’s way, and God’s way was opened up by Jesus Christ the Lord who paved the highway, the righteous way, the Spirit Way. The Revolutionary Way is the Spirit walk, and when God desires revolutionaries He is calling forth a Spirit People who will desire the will of the Father, the way of the Father be done in their lives. They will desire “Not my will, but thine be done. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, THY WILL BE DONE.” How is His will going to be done? In us. It is not by a space ship, not by an airplane, not by a rapture, but by a people who will walk in the Spirit.
Turn to Matthew 8:19-20, “A scribe came up and said to Him, “Master, I will accompany you wherever you go.” Now Jesus knows the hearts, and the hidden recesses of the heart, and Jesus knows whether we are speaking truth or whether we are deceiving our ownselves. He knows what we have to be broken free from to truly be His disciples. He knows the things that bind us to the carnal plane, that bind us to the earthly realm, that bind us in sins and iniquities and separation from God. God sets us free to follow Him. He does not give us freedom that we can do our own thing, but rather to follow Him and serve Him. We do not even know all the things that bind us.
That is the name of today’s message, “Breaking the Ties that Bind.” We don’t realize it when we enter into this Spirit walk but there are literally shackles on us, there are things that hold us, prevent us, and keep us from being freed in Spirit to follow the Master. You may not see ties on me, or handcuffs and leg irons, but God knows. in the Spirit dimension what things there are that I am so strongly tied to and connected to that I cannot even get my feet to move to follow the Master. Now we know from living together as a body, and the work that God led us into and the years of experience that we have had in the casting out of demons, we know that demons can hold people in captivity. Today the point that we will look at as we go forward in this Revolutionary Way is how that demons enter into the human emotions and convince us that if we were to give up certain things or abandon certain things that we would just about die from the anguish and heartbreak. How many of you know that to be true? You’re convinced that if you had to give up this or that you couldn’t take it. The devil will hammer at you, “It is more than you can bear”. So, that demon power enters in, plays on the realm of the emotions and binds the individual from going forward in the Revolutionary Way.
Jesus, through the Word, broke men and women free from demon powers, for it is through knowing the Truth that we shall be made free. There were other times He spoke the truth and the truth cut away the demon chains, the demon powers, cut away the demon forces that were holding the individuals in captivity. If Satan can keep you in carnality, he has got you. There are many carnal Christians who are not following God at all. They are saying that they are believers but they are not following God, they are following the intuition of the carnal man. When you hear people say, “When I retire I’ll serve the Lord,” you can know right there that a demon force has lit on the power of self love telling them, “You need all of these things, you need the security of your job, you need, you need! You need your fine home, you need your cars, you need your recreational vehicles, you need to keep your good job because it provides all of these things. You need medical benefits, you need funeral insurance, you need your insurance on your five cars and your motor boat and your motor home. You need all these things, therefore you have to remain in your bureaucratic, structural job, telling yourself that you will serve God when you retire”. So you are bound and you never go beyond your little muddled world of what self needs.
One of our listeners wrote to report that he lost his marriage of long standing, then God told him to leave his job of long standing. He said he didn’t want to leave his job because it was the only security that he had because he had lost his marriage. This was God trying to draw this man to Himself, trying to get this man to walk in the Revolutionary Way. Well he walked in disobedience. Then God turned his little security job against him and made it so miserable that he had to leave his job. Well we could say, “God would never do anything like that.” Oh, yes, God would do things like that. If we won’t serve God and yet our heart cries out because of the demons and because of the weakness of our flesh, God will literally take great measures to loose us from the ties that bind. God will take great measures to loose us from the ties that bind. This churchianity concept that God wants everyone to have their little security niche and live happily ever after is a lie. Get in your security niche, remain there and rock-a-bye yourself to hell. That is not the calling of God, that is not the Revolutionary Way.
When Jesus called His disciples He did not offer them insurance, He did not offer them vacations, He did not offer them regularly scheduled pay raises, He didn’t offer them anything pertaining to carnality. When you stop and consider, were they any different than we are in our generation? We like to think these days you need these things. Well you know in their days they needed those things too. They had fleshly bodies, they were working at their professions, and Jesus came and arrested them through Spirit Power. He brought their attention to Him and He said, “Come follow me.” He said, “Come follow me”. He did not give them any guarantees as pertaining to carnality. He said, “Come follow me”. They heard, they saw, they perceived the Revolutionary Way. They obeyed and they followed Him, and the only thing that He said to some of them was, “I will make you fishers of men”.
Now, how do you suppose Jesus’s offer sounded to the carnal mind? When you are used to earning your living from fish that you gather in your net, you bring them in and some you sell and some you eat, how are men going to do you any good? So you put out a net and draw in a bunch of men. You cannot eat them because you are not a cannibal, you can’t sell them because you are not a slave seller. What are you going to do with them? The carnal mind could dismiss the whole thing easily –“Fishers of men? I don’t want men, I want fish because fish means my food, my shelter, my provision for my family.” Jesus didn’t, care about that, He gave them the commission and they obeyed the command and they became His disciples. Did you know we are meant to be His disciples, because Jesus is the I AM, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. So often we have ties to carnality that bind us and keep us from going forward. What if I had my two feet shackled together and maybe I had on a long dress and you couldn’t see the chains on my ankles, they are like handcuffs with a chain. I can only walk little steps at a time. You can say, “Come on General Deborah, come after me.” But I’m bound in my steps and I can’t move fast. Yet when the Spirit comes and it severs those ties that bind then I am released, I am loosed to follow. In this particular instance, Matt. 8:19- 20, let us see what Jesus perceived about this individual. This scribe who came up and said to Jesus, “Master, I will accompany you wherever you go”.
In our last message we were talking about “Revolution against Recognition”, and I want to point something out in the previous verse. It says, “Now Jesus, when He saw the great throngs around Him, gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.” So what does this mean –that the scribe came up to make his bold declaration when there was a big crowd. He came up to make this bold proclamation to Jesus when there was a crowd who would recognize his great pious nature, his great humble religiosity. He could have done it in secret, he could have vowed it in his heart, he could have said within himself, “This man is the Master and I must follow wherever He leads.” But no, he waited until there was a multitude, a great crowd, then he came up and said, “Here is my offering.”
How many give their offerings to be seen and heard of men? You see them when the offering is being taken up, making a vain show to be seen and heard of other men– “Oh Pastor Big Beg, let me give you this check for a thousand dollars. Pastor Big Beg, let me give you this check for fifteen hundred dollars”. And Pastor Big Beg is in ecstasy because he is getting what he is begging for, so he will stroke them, pet them and praise them, “Oh this is Joe Porno, I mean this is Joe Blow, any way, he is a good member”. He may be a wicked man that makes his money off of porno shops but because he is giving a big check to be seen and heard of men, he is recognized, applauded, and approved of men.
So, this scribe came up when there was a big crowd, “I am going to go with you wherever you go!” (in a loud voice so all the crowd could hear and hold him in awe and admiration that he was such a man of God.) What did Jesus say? Did He say, “Oh I am so happy to have you on board, you are such a wonderful asset, you are so great. How much are your tithes?” No! It says, “And Jesus replied to him, foxes have holes, and birds of the air have lodging places, but the Son Of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” What He was pointing out to the scribe was, do you really think that you can follow me, do you really think that you can meet this condition, do you really believe that whithersoever I will go that you will go too? Do you believe that? He was putting forth the challenge because He knew what was in the man’s heart. He knew the things that bound that man, He knew where that man lived. That man was a scribe and he probably had a fine home. That man had the comforts of carnality, the comforts of the flesh. He knew also that the man was putting on a proud display to be seen and heard of men, because that is what he was used to doing. He was used to the crowds, he was used to strutting around, letting people know he was a scribe. Well, he offered that to Jesus and Jesus immediately detected it all. We better be careful what we offer to Jesus, because Jesus knows who we are, Jesus knows what we will and won’t do.
When Jesus sends that’s Word, the Sword of the Spirit, it will cut away that which is corrupted, that which is vile, that which is polluted, and His words were a sword to that man. He was using the sword to cut away the ties that bind. If a man, truly from the depths of his being, was called to be a disciple, and wanted to be a disciple in the agonies of his heart, then he was going to have to put aside his home. Put aside his home, because Jesus said even the foxes have holes they can crawl into, even the birds have nests they can crawl into, but I have nothing. What is the standard that Jesus is giving us in the Revolutionary Way through this one small portion of scripture?
He is showing us that if we are going to walk in His steps, if we are going to follow after Him, if we are going to be unloosed from the ties that bind, then we need to put aside that drive that is inherent in the carnal man, that drive to have a nesting place, to have that home, to have that place where we can crawl into and find our refuge. We are to find our refuge in God, we are to find our nesting place in God, we are to find our safety in God, we are to find our peace in God and our comfort likewise. I am not preaching to the air. I have been tested on this point many times. I don’t know how many times God has said, “Leave your home, leave your kindred, and go to a place that I appoint. Leave that which is familiar unto you and follow me.” When you follow Him what you truly find is that He can give you far more comfort than any home you could ever achieve, than any physical carnal dwelling in which you think you have everything just as you like it and just so perfect and just so wonderful. He can take you into the places and the realms of His Spirit and He can feed you with the most exquisite and blessed things. He can clothe you in His righteousness, He can give you His holiness and He can give you all of the treasure of His Kingdom if you will but follow Him! If you will abandon yourself unto that Revolutionary Way, if you will not fret over the things carnal but if you will acknowledge that your Father in heaven, who clothes the lilies of the fields, is able to provide for you, then you will be able to take on that homeless state that Jesus lived in. Jesus dwelt, as far as carnal interpretation, in the realm of homelessness. He did not say, “This is my home”.
How far Jesus lived from the American dream where every one is supposed to have their own home. Are we Christians, or are we Americans? Hebrews 11:13. It begins: “These people all died controlled and sustained by their faith, (not controlled and sustained by carnality, not controlled or sustained by the fears of man, not controlled or sustained by what they needed to have in the flesh, but it says that these people were controlled and sustained by their faith) but not having received the tangible fulfillment of (God’s) promises, only having seen it and greeted it from a great distance by faith, and all the while acknowledging and confessing that they were strangers and temporary residents and exiles upon the earth.” So in other words, they were in the pilgrim, stranger state, only journeying through this earth, only journeying through this realm.
That is what we are meant to be. We are meant to bypass the ties that bind on the carnal plane and enter into the Spirit plane with God. We are meant to look for, hope for, desire for that Kingdom, the Kingdom that we are taught to pray for, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven”. Going on in the scripture: “Now those people who talk as they did show plainly that they are in search of a fatherland –their own country.” Did you know that we are in search of a fatherland? We are in search of our own country, in the Spirit dimension, because we are pilgrims and strangers, passing through, coming to the realms of glory that God has foreordained for us. It says, “If they had been thinking with (homesick) remembrance of that country from which they were emigrants, they would have found constant opportunity to return to it,” That means if you dwell upon the flesh, you will find reasons to go back to the flesh. That means if you dwell upon the realm of carnality, “I need a house, I need a car, I need certain foods, I need, I need, I need.” then you will go back to that, and be the bondslave of those needs, and you will no longer be pursuing the New Kingdom. “But the truth is that they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country, that is a heavenly (one)…”
This is the message today, let us break free from the ties that bind. Let us aspire for the heavenly realm, for the heavenly dimension, for the Kingdom that shall come, for the Kingdom that will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven. Amen!