“Do not be mismatched with unbelievers: for what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord hath Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will live in them, and move among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean, then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1)

Looking again at verse 16, the second half: “I will be their God and they shall be my people.” Now we know that God has a plan. Most of us have some insight into God’s plan. But do we also know that God has in His desire a people? And that those people have particular and specific marks to identify them as God’s people?

Among the peculiar marks of the people of God are unity and cohesion, as opposed to division. And coordination, a coordination that man cannot devise, a coordination possible only as individual men move in the Holy Spirit. Purity: touch nothing unclean, be ye separate, says the Lord. Blessing, power, and the presence of God. For it’s God’s desire to move in the midst of a people.

And do you recall when this desire began? Do you recall the Garden of Eden what God said when He created man? And it says that He blessed man. For God desires to bless man spiritually and to bless man materially. And man would not. Do you recall what God said to the people of Israel? That he wanted them to be a peculiar people. Why? Because God desires to pour out an unmixed blessing upon an unmixed people. He told them to be separate from the peoples of the tribes in the land that they would drive out.

(I don’t know if I’ve terribly thought out this message—is this in the Spirit? [man: Go ahead, John.] All right.)

Would you turn please in the Old Testament to Leviticus 25:55-26:6a: “For to me the children of Israel are servants; and they are my servants whom I have brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no graven image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to them: for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. If you walk in my statues and observe my commandments and do them; then I will give you your rain in their season, and the land shall yield an increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last to the time of the vintage, and the vintage shall last until the time of the sowing, and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land securely. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.”

And skipping down to verse 10: “And you shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new.” I want you to notice that particular. How do you make way for the new thing that God is going to do and is doing in this generation? Only one way: you clear out the old. “Behold, I do a new thing, saith the Lord.” Remember not the former things, nor the things of old; remember them not.

Now all of us are filled with things that we’ve learned, traditions of man. Do you recall how the Lord Jesus Christ anathematized again and again and again every tradition of man contrary to the revelation of God. And the traditions of man are almost always necessarily contrary to the revelation of God. “And you shall clear out the old to make way for the new.”

Now, are we willing? God is willing to have a people. God desires above all things to have a people. Now, look what he said to Israel, to this nation, in verse 11. If they do these things, what will happen? If they do these things, “I will make my abode among you and my soul shall not abhor you, and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk erect.”

Now, when God called Abraham to become a people called Israel, God desired a people who would be unmixed with the heathen or the practices of the heathen in any way. They would be separate. Because if they were unmixed, God could pour out upon them a blessing without measure. He could pour out upon them power without limit. What must be on the altar to draw down the fire and power of God? A holy sacrifice.

Turning again, if you will, to 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people; that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Now, notice the consistency here in the desire of God, because this verse 9 applies perfectly to the nation Israel of Old Testament days. They were a chosen race, they had a royal priesthood, they were a holy nation, or they were to be a holy nation. And they were to be God’s own people, so that he might show forth in them who He is, that He might dwell in them, among them. And that all the nations of the earth should know that they were God’s people. And Israel would not have it so. Israel would not be pure, Israel would not be separate, Israel would not be all those things that Israel had to be by way of obedience to permit God to pour out upon them the blessing that God has desired to pour out upon man all through history from the Garden of Eden forward to this very day and has been blocked again and again and again.

Now, one of the things that blocks God in the church of Jesus Christ today is called individualism. Now, there is a word individuality and there’s another word individualism. And God desires high degrees of individuality among his people. He has made us all different, we are all different, and his gifts in us are all different. But God despises individualism among His people. Because individuals with individuality move by the Spirit of God, move in quite perfect coordination, unity, power, and the presence of God is among them. But let individualism, a work of the flesh, come in, and the state of the man is no longer unmixed, but division and strife are introduced into the Body of Christ.

Recall the very closing words of the Book of Judges, the last chapter, 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did what was right in his own eyes”—individualism run rampant among the people of God.

Now, who is the king of which this verse speaks? Well, we know one thing for certain, the king of which this verse speaks was not a king after the kind of Solomon or any human king whatever, because that was not the kingship that God ever wanted for Israel. Israel saw that all the nations of the earth had kings, men leading, and Israel desired to leave off the kingship of God in their midst and to have a king after the manner of men.

Somewhere early in the Book of Judges the king of Israel appears and that king is marked by one peculiar mark and that is that he had a sword in his hand. And you may know that that is the sword of the Spirit, and Israel had a king. And the king was going to conquer all the defilements that were upon the earth. If you look in the early part of the Book of Judges as they went in to clear away the land from all rebellion against God, from all the heathen altars, from everything to purge it from everything that was contrary to God that had run its course and that God had decided at that point to judge.

In Judges 1:27: “Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean.” Verse 29: “And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.” Now, what’s the consequence of that? God was to pour out His fury upon those people. They remained among the people of God. Could God then pour out an unmixed, a pure blessing, a full blessing upon the people of Israel? He could not. At best He could pour out a limited blessing, and He will pour out upon us and He has poured out upon people all through the Christian Church age a limited blessing.

Now, you may have heard the phrase, which I heard some years ago and I was very struck by and I believe to be the case: “That God’s plan is always a man” or an individual. And as I gazed through church history, I thought, well, that’s true: Luther and Billy Sunday, all the various luminaries who have gone forth. And it was only very lately, though, that I began to understand that God’s plan is not always a man: God’s plan is always a people. But when he cannot obtain a people, his plan goes forth in limited measure with limited power, with limited blessing and with highly restricted coordination through individuals.

Now, God’s plan for the evangelization of the world at this hour is not the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. And no one knows that better than Billy Graham himself. Some years ago, 7 or 8 or 9 years ago (1957?), Billy Graham came to New York City and preached for 3 months in Madison Square Garden to 17,000 persons a night, and night after night after night, 500 or 600 or 700 persons went forward to receive Christ. He is an evangelist, he was evangelizing, he preached the gospel and souls were born again. Was the city touched? I lived here before, as a reporter for a newspaper, and I have lived here ever since, and I tell you, the city was not touched. Lives were touched, souls were saved, praise God. But the city has gone down and down and down. Because God’s plan is not a man, but a people.

Now, God desires as much today to dwell among a people, to show forth who He is through them, as He did in the time of Israel. And we know that this is going to come to pass, because we have the Bible assurance that “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.”

But that raises a question. We know that that will happen. But are we willing, are you willing to be among that people? Now, who are the people of God? The people of God are those among whom God dwells, among whom He walks in power. And He will have His people. But am I willing? And are you willing to be among this people? Now, if you are, you will have to clear out the old to make room for the new. This may take many forms in many lives, but it has to be done. “Ye will have to come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.” And if you are willing to be one of those willing people for the day of God’s power, you will be in the people of God for the plan of God.

Now, if you recall of the marks of God’s people are unity among them, unity, purity or holiness, blessing, power and the presence of God. Now, what happened before the birthday of the church in the Acts of the Apostles? We’re told that when the Day of Pentecost had fully come—this was the day of God’s power—they (the people of God) were all together in one accord in one place. And what happened? The Holy Spirit was poured out in power upon that people, because they were in one accord. And God can pour out upon that unmixed people an absolutely pure and unmixed blessing with nothing to hinder Him.

Now, trace that a bit on and look at Acts 2:41: “So those who received his word were baptized.” And that surely applies to us. Somewhere in our lives we received the words of God through the mouth of a man and we were baptized. But then what happens? “And there were added that day about 3,000 souls.” And then what happens? “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.” And then what happened? “And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all who believed were together, and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

It hardly needs comment. The unity was perfect, the individuality we can be sure was quite perfect, the individualism was utterly cast out and burned away. And God moved for a brief season among His people with tremendous power.

Now turn to Acts 4:32: “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul: and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them: but as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made to each as any had need.”

We know that this was the company of people who for a brief time turned the world upside down, who affected entire cities, who caused unbelievers to pour to the streets to be converted with the blasphemed or to be opposed.

Now, God has desired a people through human history, and He had one briefly at and near the time of Pentecost. And then what happened? Substitutions for the grace and the power and the blessing in the Spirit of God were brought in one by one until everything that God had done at Pentecost was virtually totally undone. And God didn’t hardly have a people in the earth anywhere. And He could not bless man. It came to what they call the Dark Ages.

And then by an almost precise reverse process, one by one, the lying traditions of men were uncovered through the word of God and called by their rightful names. And that process perhaps began around the time of Luther, perhaps a little bit earlier, with just that initial restoration of the fact that it is a lie that man shall be justified by works or by oblations or any such thing, but that man is justified by faith.

And down to this very hour, one by one, these things have begun to be done away with, the old has been cleared out to make way for that which is new and true. And yet still we see upon this earth, this darkened earth, that God does not have a manifest people. Now we know that God has a people, and they’re everywhere in the world.

If God has a plan and if God has a people, is it not equally so that Satan has a plan and that Satan has a people? The only difference really between the plan and the people of Satan is that the plan of Satan, regardless of its surface marks, eventuates necessarily and always in destruction and cursing. But it is a counterfeit of a very particular kind, because it bears many of the outward marks of what God wants to do by sending His King Jesus perfectly in the midst of His people.

Satan’s plan is to bring forth a people on this earth that will worship with one accord, with no dissent, his king, the anti-Christ. And he shall set his king up for this worship. And man shall go after this king and worship him and through him, Satan himself. For Satan’s chief desire has always been to secure for himself the worship to the God. And the Book of Revelation tells us that the people of Satan, the anti-Christ, shall be of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, the very same words used for the people of God.

Now, there’s a movement called the [Saikaigaika], I think, in Japan. And its principal mark is that the members are a people. They have something that’s a very interesting imitation of the Body of Christ. They come together in close fellowship. They bear each other’s burdens. Of course, it’s fanaticism. But it leads as a natural step for that surrender of man to Satan, which the Bible tells us is to occur, perhaps very shortly.

Very briefly, I just wanted to read you several sentences from news stories lately out of Red China, because they are unlike anything I’ve ever heard for fanatical movements anywhere. Here’s a man who’s going in to Canton, an Englishman, and he says, “When we began our descent for Canton airport, the stewardesses passed out song sheets and led us singing of ‘Sailing on the high seas depends upon the helmsman,’ a eulogy of Chairman Mao. Now, this is an airplane filled with people, some foreigners, and they all sing a hymn that is the eulogy of the helmsman Chairman Mao. And to make sure the people got the Maoist message, even while eating, a detachment of teenagers took turns in reading quotations from the Chairman throughout the dinner hour at the Otan restaurant, so that while they’re having their luncheon, a choir or a chorus of teenagers is reading quotations from the works of Mao into their ears. What a highly Satanically organized society. A notice says, ‘Every man must have a copy of the sayings of Mao Tse-tung, carry it with him constantly, study it all the time and in every circumstance of life, act according to his sayings.’”

On and on it goes, until it comes even to martyrdom. And a young man who wrote in his diary that every sentence that Chairman Mao says is true and every sentence is worth ten thousand sentences by any other. A man who wrote that he had come to eliminate the [blood] of self-interest for the interests of the Party and the People saw something on the tracks before a train filled with Red Guards, removed it and was cut down by the train and has now become a hero martyr of selflessness, of sacrifice to China and Chairman Mao.

Now, these are nothing less than the footprints of the anti-Christ in that nation. Because they do things like Christian things, like carrying their Bible with them and reading it all the time, like singing in airplanes, like giving their lives. The only difference is that it is absolutely counterfeit, though its outward marks are similar, and it shall come to cursing and to ultimate and entire destruction. And yet, God desires, as He has all through history, a people. And perhaps the best evidence of this is in the gospel of John chapter 17, where we have the Lord Jesus Himself engaged in intercession before the Father in verse 20. And what does the Lord Jesus say? He said, “I do not pray for these only,” those with him there, “but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one.” Now that “all being one,” to be sure, is not organizational unity. It is, to be sure, an organic unity. But it must be an evidenced and manifest unity, so that no one can mistake it. “Father, even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us.” Why? “So that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.” Does the world believe at this hour that God the Father has sent Jesus the Son? No, not at all. Why? Because God’s people, born again, have not been willing to go all the way, to clear out the old, to make room for the new.

Verse 23: “I in them, and Thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” Now, this is not the amalgamation of churches, corporation or administration merging with administration. This is the amalgamation of Christians, individual Christians coming into perfect unity and coordination with other individual Christians. “I in them, and Thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” Why? “So that the world may know that Thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as Thou hast loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given me, may be with me where I am; to behold my glory, which Thou hast given me in Thy love for me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world has not known Thee: but I have known Thee, and these know that Thou hast sent me. I made known to them Thy name, and I will make it known that the love with which Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Now, the Lord Himself is perfectly willing now as He has been throughout mankind’s life to have a people who are perfectly one and to bless them with the fullness of His presence and power. And He desires to do exactly this, so that the world may see and that the world may know. And the only question that remains is are we as born-again Christians ourselves willing to become the willing people of God.