An Invading Army Against the Church

I would like to go back to scripture, just in closing this message. And I want again to line this up with the book of Joel, which, as I’ve said in other studies, I believe is an outline of this latter-day visitation of the Holy Spirit. I’ve said in previous studies, the theme of Joel is desolation, restoration, and judgment.

The desolation is the desolation of the entire inheritance of God’s people. One day when I was meditating on this ministry and what it had brought me into, God asked me this question. He said, “You’ve preached on the desolation of the inheritance of my people many times.” Said, “Did you ever stop to think what caused that desolation?” And I said, “No, Lord, but I’ve got it right now. It was an invading army of insects.”

The Lord said to me, “My people have been systematically invaded by the forces of the enemy, and these are demons. It’s not an accident. It’s part of Satan’s strategy.” One of the great end products of the present move of the Holy Spirit in the church is to drive out Satan’s fifth column from inside the church. The church will never be able to function as God designed it to function while it has a fifth column inside it. What is true of the church collectively is true of believers individually. You cannot be the kind of Christian that God could make you when you have something inside you taking away your peace, fighting against what is true and good, disturbing and tearing down from within. You may have outward victory. You may be able to live a decent Christian life. You may be able to suppress this thing.

But remember one thing, God’s solution is not suppression. It’s deliverance. Lots and lots of Christians are suppressing something that shouldn’t be there. They make a good job of suppressing it, but it isn’t God’s solution. Now, look at the picture here in Joel 1:4,

“That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”

That’s the invading army. And the result of the invasion is summed up at the end of verse 12,

“Joy is withered away from the sons of men.”

That’s what demons do. A Christian cannot have deep, settled, abiding inner peace and joy while the enemy is there, like an insect nibbling away at the fruit of the Spirit.

Restoration is described in Joel 2:25,

“I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.”

This is the promise of restoration. It comes in direct association with the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the close of this age. And notice the summation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the climax of what is achieved by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Joel 2:32,

“It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”

God has shown me that part of my ministry is not to pray for everybody individually, but to instruct people how to meet God’s conditions so that they can call on the name of the Lord and receive deliverance direct from God for themselves. And this is in direct line with scripture,

“Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”

Now, let me just state in closing four results in my own personal life and experience which I have traced from being brought into this ministry. First of all, I have proved afresh the accuracy and reliability of the scriptures. Demons are just the way they’re described. They behave the same way, and they need to be treated the same way, and it works. It’s not a medieval superstition. It’s not ignorance. The Lord didn’t put himself down on the level of people of his day because he didn’t know better and they didn’t know better. This is exactly the way it is, and it’s exactly the same today as it was in the New Testament. It’s a fact.

Secondly, God showed me, many times through helping others, my own need of personal watchfulness and holiness in an altogether new way. So many times, I realized how people yielding to moods, like anger, bitterness, resentment, self-pity, had opened the way for evil spirits. God showed me how I had to cover my own life. And I’ll tell you, I may not be the kind of Christian I ought to be, but I am much closer to the Lord today than I was when I first moved into this ministry. I’ve covered up many, many gaps in my armor.

Thirdly, I have understood in a new way the significance of the cross. In the spiritual world, denominations mount to nothing. Labels are of no importance. All that matters in the spiritual realm is what Christ did on the cross: his shed blood, his death, his resurrection, and what that means for the believer.

And fourthly, I have to praise God and give him the glory that I have been able to help literally thousands of people whom I could not have helped until God showed me these truths which I have been sharing with you.