In the early days of what we term the Pentecostal Revival, there was an aggression, a tenacity, exhibited by the outstanding leaders of that movement, that has been lost in our present day. To illustrate this state of mind, I have begun this article with an excerpt from the excellent book – John G Lake: His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith.

“I saw a picture this morning as I was reading an article. I saw a company of men walk out, and I saw all the disease and all the crimes and agonies; I saw cancers and tumors and tuberculosis: and I saw a company of men and women walk down in the midst of it, and I heard them say. ”Here come the sons of God: here come the conquerors.” And the sons of God said to disease, “In the Name of Jesus, depart,” and disease fled.  It fled as it did before the son of God. It obeyed because the son of God sent them out and gave them His name as authority. I saw the company of men enter into the lost dominion. They put upon them the garments of their authority and dominion and walked out conquerors over death and hell and the grave. They were masters they were rulers.

Then I saw another picture .I saw David in the old cave of Adullam. I saw men coming down that were broken and in distress and in debt, and men that were in awful physical conditions. And they gathered four hundred strong around David. And out of that crowd David developed and trained the most invincible army that was ever seen (see Samuel 22).

Then my mind passed over a few years of struggle. And I saw from that company some mighty men come forth. I saw one man come forth and go forth and go where there were thousands and thousands of Philistines, men that were shoulders above him, men that wore shields. I saw that man go among those giants, and he slew hundreds of them. And I piled them up in hundreds until I had piled eight hundred.

Every one of those mighty men of David were simple men of extraordinary ability. There was no mark to indicate that they were more than common Jews, 5’11”, but they knocked down men 6’6” and 6’8”. They conquered them because they were blood covenant men.

That is the type of the Church of Jesus Christ. As I said,” Where are God’s mighty men today?” Then I saw a picture. David sat there a little way from the spring of Bethlehem, and the Philistines had got control of the water. David said, “Oh, that I had a drink.” And those three men came forth. He said, “Where are you going boys?” They just waved him off, and those three men conquered the whole company of the Philistines, filled their pitchers with water, and set them down at David’s feet.

I cried, ”My God, my God, where are the mighty men of valor of today, the men that can assail the forces of Satan?” God says they are coming out of you: they are going to arrive. God has in training some men and women that are going to do exploits for Him. Will you not come up and live in your realm?

God help you brother, this afternoon to throw your reason that has led you into all kinds of doubt and fear, to throw it to the wind and say, “God, here goes. We trust in your omnipotence to put it over.”

When we read accounts of the ministries of such men as John Lake, Smith Wigglesworth and John Alexander Dowie, to name just a few, we are in awe at the things they accomplished. We look on them as special – Generals of the faith, yet, they themselves would have laughed at such exaggeration. Yet, in many ways they were special, because they dared to step out and take God at His word and demonstrate the realities of the Kingdom the same way Jesus did.

In a modern army Generals do not fight, they plan the course of a battle, they plan strategy, and then hand those plans off to the ‘rank and file’ who actually do the fighting. In the church we have this all messed up. We expect our ‘Generals’ not only to do the planning but go out and fight as well while we, as rank and file, sit back in our pews and enjoy the fight.

The Lakes, Wigglesworths and Dowies were not equipped with any special ‘gift’ from God that is not available to us. What they did have, was an unshakable belief that what God said, He would do, and there was no deviation from that. This unshakable faith led to confidence, a tenacity, that set them apart from the average believer.

The backgrounds of these men differed dramatically. John Lake was an educated man who had a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. John Alexander Dowie was an ordained minister who did not immediately embrace the doctrine of Divine Healing. Smith Wigglesworth was an uneducated plumber from Bradford England who taught himself to read by reading the Bible, the only book he ever read. Much like David’s mighty army of 400, that we read about above, they were ordinary people, just like us, from every walk of life.

We have the same Word and the same Spirit that these men we call Generals had, and we are being called to step up into our rightful inheritance and start demonstrating the reality of the Kingdom. In the book of Genesis we are told that God created us in ‘His image and likeness’ and that we were made to have dominion over the things of this world. We are told we are to ‘Reign as Kings.’ This means that everywhere we see circumstances that are not in alignment with God’s will,  we have the authority to step in and command those circumstances to change. If it is sickness and disease we exercise our dominion and we command the condition to depart.

Some would describe this as supernatural living but it’s not, this is normal Kingdom living. This type of attitude should just be a normal day to day thing. So it is time to step into our inheritance, obey God’s invitation to ‘Come up here’ and go out and minster liberty as Kings in the Kingdom of Heaven.