THE OPPORTUNE TIME PART 2
THE OPPORTUNE TIME
(PART 2)
“Then I
will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the
creeping locusts, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army
which I sent among you. And you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied and
praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then
My people, will never be put to shame.
Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I am the Lord
your God and there is no other; and My people will never be put to shame.” Joel
2:25-27
THEN I WILL MAKE UP FOR THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HAS EATEN.
1.
Many of us loath and have repented for the years
that we have wasted living far below our potential, living outside of faith,
living in the flesh, knowing the call of God but not responding because in
reality we didn’t hear His voice, nor did we know what to do.
2.
God knows all of this and yet, when He pours out
His unmitigated power upon us, He is going to cause us to do in a few months or
years, more than we did in all previous years combined. We will come to
understand that even our barren years have prepared us for our final destiny.
What we have tried to do without His Spirit and failed, we will now do with His
Spirit and power and might and we will fulfill our destiny… for we have been
brought into the world for such a time as this.
A.
Esther was not special. Other than the fact that
she happened to be beautiful, she was otherwise just another young Jewish girl
until God drew her into the courts of the king.
B.
There the king’s servants and eunuchs changed
her clothes and taught her the protocols of royalty. They bathed her in spices
and perfumes. They decorated her with
cosmetics as was pleasing to the king. And God brought her into divine favor. And
the king loved her more than any of the others and asked her to be his bride. And
then the God of Israel called her to offer her life for the salvation of her
people. It was a very deep struggle for her, but in the end she surrendered and
offered her life. She loved not her life unto death for the salvation of her people,
saying, “If I perish, I perish, but I will serve the Lord.” Esther 4:16
C.
Then God spared her life and the lives of her
people so that the enemy of God’s people ended up hanging on the very gallows
that Haman had prepared for God’s servant Mordecai.
3.
Many of us have lived rather ordinary lives. We
have not recognized our potential for royalty. But now we are being called into
the court of the King… to save many people. We are being called into the
presence and power of the King of kings. It is time to bathe in the spices and
perfumes of heaven… to wear the cosmetics that please our King… (Clean hands
and a pure heart and a contrite spirit, a garment of humility and praise) to
learn the protocols of royalty and how to operate in the powers of the age to come.
Many lives depend on it.
A.
It will not be easy because a new birth means
that everything that was, must go. Everything in our lives must change. We have
now died to the flesh and we must learn how to live totally by His Spirit… to
hear His voice and to obey… doing only what we see Him doing and saying only
what we hear Him saying. To have such power as the Lord is about to pour upon
us and then to rely on the flesh for our wisdom would be a calamity. It would
result in our death and the death of many around us.
B.
This is why such power has not previously been
poured out upon the church, such as we are about to receive. The Feast of
Pentecost is celebrated with leavened bread, not unleavened bread. This is
reflected in Jesus statement that the wheat and tares would grow together until
the harvest. We are a mixed loaf and that is why the leaven must be baked out
of us. The grain and its chaff must be separated… the Wheat and the tares must
be separated. Everything that can be shaken must be shaken, so that what
remains will be of God.
C.
And
when God has a purified church, that smells like the perfume and spices of
heaven and is clothed in His righteousness and loves not its own life… then He
will pour out that which the world has never seen since the creation of the
earth… when the sons of God shouted for joy. We are to be the new sons of God.
All of creation is waiting for us. Romans 8:19
AND MY PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE PUT TO SHAME
1.
We will suffer shame and reproach for His name.
Even in many Christian circles today, Christians and even preachers are
distancing themselves from the idea that we must be born again… that we must
repent… that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus…
that He is the only way to salvation… that it is His blood that covers our
sins… that we must live in the spirit and power of His resurrection… that we
must be Spirit filled and Spirit baptized. They are even distancing themselves
from the infallibility of scripture as the sure Word of God… and many of them
long ago discarded Bible Prophecy as being relevant to our times.
2.
But with the power that is to be poured out in
the harvest, Satan will be revealed for the liar that he is… the spiritless and
dead churches will be revealed for the whited sepulchers that they are. In that
day, the sons of God will not be put to shame. And thus they will know that the
Lord God is in the midst of them… and that there is no other God. He dwells in
the midst of them and His people will not be put to shame.
AND IT WILL COME ABOUT AFTER THIS…
1.
AFTER WHAT?
After the preceding verses, when He has poured out the former rain and
the latter rain upon His people… when He has poured new oil and new wine into
new wineskins, when He as restored the years of our unfruitfulness and returned
us to our destiny… when He has removed our shame and He has been revealed in
the midst of us…
2.
Then He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh.
All flesh means ALL FLESH! And that is
not saying that everyone will accept it or respond to it… in fact many will
violently reject it.
3.
But for those fish that we have worked so hard
for all through the night and have not caught… Jesus will have us cast our nets
on the other side of the boat and we will begin to catch so many fish that we
will have to call on all fellow believers to draw near and to help us bring in
the harvest.
4.
Those sons and daughters… those loved ones that
we have prayed for, for so long will return unto the Lord. We live in a
covenant that promises this.
AND YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS WILL PROPHESY
1.
Sons and daughters in Joel’s time were
represented by those prepubescent youths from birth to 12 or 13 years old. That
is the age when they become bar or bat mitzvah, sons or daughters of the Law,
and responsible before God. Before bar or bat Mitzvah, the parents are
responsible for their children before God. The point is that children of that
young age will prophesy in the last days and they will heal the sick and cast
out demons and do many of the mighty works of God.
A.
This means that we need to stop wasting time
entertaining our children with Sesame Street drivel and we need to start
teaching them from their infancy to do the works of Christ. We are training
children at a level far below their
capability and so they live far below their capability. And thus they pass on
into adulthood living far below their spiritual capability.
B.
From the 6th month of pregnancy on, a
child can hear in his mother’s womb. John the Baptist was in the sixth month of
gestation in Elizabeth’s womb and when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting the baby
leaped in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. John was called and
anointed from his mother’s womb to be the forerunner of the Messiah. We must stop neglecting our children’s
spiritual potential. You give a three year old a computer and he will soon
figure it out, but when you hand a computer to someone my age, we have a whole
lot of unlearning to do. Computers don’t work with levers and cranks and gears.
They are altogether different and so we who are old have just as much to
unlearn as we have to learn. But if you will train children from their infancy
to live by the spirit and minister in the Spirit, they will pick it up quickly
and they will operate by the Holy Spirit as if it is the natural thing to do.
C.
Children from infancy to 12 years of age are
going to play a major role in the outpouring of the final harvest. We need to
gear up for it. We need to train them in how to do the works of Christ and even
how to die as martyrs if need be. As it is, we are raising cream puffs… and
cream puffs, either young or old, will never make it through the coming
harvest.
D.
We like to think of the harvest as a glorious
time, but any farmer knows that harvest time, though wonderful is also violent.
Once peaceful fields of grain must now be cut off and violently threshed so
that the chaff will go one way and the wheat another.
E.
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of
decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun
and the moon will grow dark and the stars will lose their brightness. And the
Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem and the heavens and
the earth will tremble. But the Lord is a refuge for His people and a
stronghold to the sons of Israel.” Joel 3:14-16
OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS AND YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS
1.
Dreams and visions were very common in the early
church and even throughout the Old Testament. God is going to restore these
things and when He does, we will have to have the discernment to know the
difference between that which is from God and that which is from the silly minds
of people such as we often see on the internet. We will no longer be chasing
after supernatural phenomena, but God
will guide us through the wisdom of the dreams of the old, the seasoned men,
and through the visions of consecrated and Spirit filled young men.
EVEN ON YOUR MALE AND FEMALE SERVANTS I WILL POUR OUT MY
SPIRIT IN THOSE DAYS.
1.
In many of the mega ministries that we have seen
over the last few decades, very few of them have operated in the purity and
integrity to which God called them. Power goes to their heads and prosperity teaching has pulled them
off of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their ministries have often become distorted
as they have resorted to merchandising the Gospel.
2.
In this last move of God it will be carried by
the nameless, the faceless… the common everyday people. They will not be
motivated to build personal empires. They will not seek after titles. They will
not be motivated by fame or recognition, or wealth. They will be driven by love
and the power of God to save the lost.
3.
Judgment will begin at the house of the Lord and
He will thoroughly purge and purify His threshing floor. Everything that is not
of God will be exposed and cast out. The charlatans that have sold their snake
oil to the masses will be revealed and millions will come out of those hollow
shells of religion to join the armies of the Lord. People are hungry for the Word.
They long for the Gospel that was once worthy of living for and or dying for.
IT IS COMING! And it will be attended with power and great glory. Rev 18:1-5
In our
final article called (THE OPPORTUNE TIME (PART 3) we will discuss signs in the
sun, moon and stars and why it was that Peter used this chapter in Joel to
describe the day of Pentecost even though virtually none of it matched what
happened on that day.
Again,
we need to realize that this is not mere information to add to our files, but
urgent instructions to act upon… for the time of these things is at hand. Very
few Christians are ready for what lies ahead, but what God is telling us is
that you… little old you and me, can do this… for now He is calling upon the
nobodies to do what the somebodies refused or failed to do. All we need is
willing and open hearts.
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