[12]
V
Indicates Scripture or other reference inserted at the end
of this chapter.
Chapter 12
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In
the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall,
streams of water will flow on every high mountain
and every
lofty hill.
Isaiah 30:25 (NIV)
In Isaiah 30:25, God
promised He would pour blessings
upon our land “in the day when the towers fall.”
We have seen the towers fall. We have seen
that God always does what He says He will do. So we can be certain, by
the Word of God in Isaiah 30:25, that God began to pour out His
promised blessings on the morning of September 11th, 2001 –
even as the towers were falling.
God’s blessings are still flowing in America
today. Will we receive them? Or will we just let them flow by?
The blessings of Isaiah 30:25 are called
“streams of water.” Throughout the Bible, water is often
used as a picture of the refreshing flow of the Holy SpiritV1.
Because God promised us water in Isaiah 30:25, we know that the
blessings God promised us are Spiritual, not natural. And Jesus
tells us that when God’s Spiritual blessings are poured out as
water, they flow into the land through His people:
In the
last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,
If any man thirst, let him come unto
Me, and drink. He who believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out
of his bellyV2
shall flow rivers of living water.
(But this spake He of the Spirit, whom they who believe on Him
[Jesus] would receiveV3:
for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet
glorified.)
John 7:37-39
Isaiah 30:25 promises that streams of water
will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. Just as
water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, these high mountains and
lofty hills are also symbols – and their symbolic meanings are
made clear in the original Hebrew text. The Hebrew word translated as
“high” is gaboahh – it means “elevated, arrogant, proud.” The
word translated as “lofty” is marowm – it means
“self-proclaimed dignity.” By looking at these Hebrew words in the
context of today’s America, we can see that the high mountains
and lofty hills are symbols of people who once exalted
themselves against God, but now believe on Jesus. We who serve
in this ministry used to be “high and lofty”; but now, by the grace of
God, we are Christians[05].
God’s streams of water are now flowing on
every high mountain and on every lofty hill. This means
that no “special” person (and no “special” ministry!) has been
entrusted with all of God’s Spiritual blessings. If anyone ever
tries to tell you that God speaks through him and him alone,
beware. That person is grabbing for a level of power and glory
that belongs to God and God alone. That person is not even
serving the Lord – he or she is serving Satan. That is why Jesus so
strongly warns us in Matthew 7:15,
Beware of false prophets!
God is pouring out
His Spiritual blessings – right now! – in waves.
As each wave rolls across our land, God is waiting to see how America
responds before He pours out the next wave.
The first wave is conviction. Since
the moment the towers fell, the Holy Spirit has been showing people
that things are radically wrong and need to be radically set rightV4.
And, under the conviction of the Spirit, millions of Americans have
begun to ask questions along the lines of:
·
Why do we have “legal”
abortion when most Americans believe it should be illegal?
·
Why are homosexuals being
given special rights and consideration under the law?
·
Why do “Christian” churches
focus on social issues (and recreation), instead of on
Christ?
·
Why do the national news media
feature (and reinforce!) the opinions of the “liberal
elite?”
·
Why is pornography – but not
school prayer – legally protected as “freedom of
speech?”
·
Why do “white collar”
criminals keep getting away with multi-billion-dollar crimes?
·
Why do cigarette companies
target teenagers and pre-teens in their advertising?
·
Why do our universities
indoctrinate American students with ungodly philosophies?
·
Why do we, as a free people,
keep letting all these ungodly philosophies control us!
Are you asking these kinds of
questions, and demanding answers, right now? If you are, God
has blessed you! Because now – if you choose to do so – you may enter
in to the next wave of blessing from the Holy Spirit of God!
This next wave is
repentance. As you enter into
this wave, the Holy Spirit may call you to repent of standing back and
“giving your silent assent” while America was gradually sinking into
sin. Or, the Spirit may call you to repent for taking an active part
in those sins. Or, perhaps you’ve already begun to repent of your past
sins as the Spirit calls your attention to them. Whatever the case may
be, God has promised that you will be blessed:
If our
heart condemn us (at the call of
the Spirit), God is greater than our heart, and knows all things
(before we confess them, and is willing to forgive us for every
sin we do confess). Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we
have confidence toward God (that there is no un-resolved sin in
our lives).
1st John 3:20, 21
God’s forgiveness, and the confidence that
He is not holding any old sins against you, are glorious blessings –
but the blessings go on from there! Once your heart has been cleansed
of sin through confession and repentance[08],
you will be free to step aside from the world for a season, and repent
for the sins of America as a whole. God has given His people the
authority to repent on behalf of the nations they live in (that is, to
intercede for the land); and He also promised that He will
hear our intercessory prayers:
If
they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their
fathers, with their trespass against me, and that they have walked
contrary unto me; if then their hearts be humbled, then I will
remember my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. I am the
LORD.
Leviticus 26:40- 45 (excerpts)
How many intercessors will it take to get
through to God? How many Christian believers will have to come humbly
before Him and repent for our nation before the next waves of blessing
can be released? Perhaps millions. Or ... perhaps just one.
Centuries before Jesus was born, God sent
the entire nation of Israel into exile at Babylon as a punishment for
their sins as a nation. The prophet Daniel went before God to repent
for “the iniquity of their fathers.” God answered that prayer
by sending the angel Gabriel to give Daniel the “Messianic timetable,”
which foretold the exact times of the Messiah’s birth and death, and
promised that the resurrected Messiah would return to earth to reclaim
His Church. This passage of Scripture (Daniel 9:25-27) is one of the
strongest proofs in the Old Testament that Jesus is – and only Jesus
can possibly be! – the Messiah who was promised by God to the Jewish
people.
As you enter in to the blessing of
intercessory prayer, you may want to think of Daniel, on his knees at
Babylon, and dare to wonder: “What kind of answer would God send me
if I were the only person to repent for the sins of my nation?”
Some of the ongoing
waves of blessing that God will
pour out upon our land, are revealed in the prophecy He gave us when
He told us to begin this book. That prophecy says in part:
Meet together with My Son Jesus once a week.
And as you do that, I will give you new revelations of Me, and I
will enter in to new relationships with you – relationships of
love in the Kingdom of Love[14].
Each of you can become a citizen of His Kingdom, then a child at
His knee, then a disciple of His, then a Bride of Jesus Christ, then a
member of My royal family, then an anointed servant of the living God.
All of this you will understand as I continue to give you deeper and
deeper knowledge of Me; and all of this begins as you withdraw from
religious idolatry and seek Me in the lifeboat of your home.
The blessings underlined above may be
poured out in a different order, and at different levels of intensity,
for each person who chooses to receive them. We believe there will be
far more blessings than the ones God has chosen to reveal through us –
because our ministry is only one of the “mountains and hills” where
God’s blessings will flow. And we pray that you may become one
of the mountains and hills where God will pour out His blessings. And
why not! The italicized part of the prophecy does contain the
promise that God will continuously give new revelations of love to
those people who meet together with His Son Jesus!
Which brings us back to the questions at the
beginning of this chapter. Will you receive all of the
waves of blessing that God hopes to pour in to – and then out from –
your life? Or will you just let the blessings roll by? Will you
continue to meet with God’s Son Jesus and receive new waves of
Spiritual revelation? Or will you spend every anniversary of the fall
of the towers just asking yourself, “I wonder if anything really
changed in America since 9/11/01?”
Unhappily, not all
of the waves that will be rolling
across America will be from God. In times of change and uncertainty,
waves of false prophets always seem to pop up, announce they are “from
God,” and demand our allegiance (and our money!). Just as God’s people
are led by the Holy Spirit, so these false prophets are led by
satanic spirits. That is why the Apostle John warns us,
Beloved,
believe not every spirit, but try (test) the spirits [to see] whether
they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the
world.
1st
John 4:1
Try the spirits!
We cannot tell false from true prophets by their outward appearance,
their tone of voice, the car they drive, or the people who follow
after them – all we can do is test the spirits that flow out of
their “bellies.” And here are some Scriptures that can help us do just
that:
John
14:15-17
If ye love
me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall
give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive,
because it sees him not, nor knows him: but ye know him; for he dwells
with you, and shall be in you.
The Holy Spirit comes to us directly
from the Father – and He will never tell us anything that cannot be
backed up by the Father’s Holy Word, the Bible. So if anyone tries to
claim your allegiance (or your money!) “in the Name of God,” or if
anyone tries to place any obligation upon you “in the Name of God,”
the first thing you should ask is: “Do his or her words line up with
the revealed Word of God in the Holy Scriptures?” If they don’t, he or
she is a false prophet.
And, as the Father tells us in Deuteronomy
18:22, “[If] a prophet hath spoken [a word] presumptuously: thou
shalt not be afraid of him.”
John
16:12-15
I have yet many things
to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he
shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall
he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are mine: there-fore said I, that he
shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.
The Holy Spirit receives
guidance, visions and other Truth directly from Jesus, and speaks it
“as-is” to those people Jesus sends Him to. So if anyone tries to give
you (or more likely, to sell you) a “call from God” or a
“vision from God,” ask yourself this common-sense question: “Is this
‘calling’ or ‘vision’ something that Jesus would want any of His
people to be involved in?” And, if your common sense tells you that
Jesus would never ask you to do the things the “prophet” wants you to
do, you’ll know that you’re dealing with a religious swindler who
wants to take over your life for his own or her own (or Satan’s own)
purposes, not God’s.
And, as Jesus said to His disciples in Luke
17:22-23, “The days will come, when
ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man
(His appearance, either in Person, or in the
life of one of His people), and ye
shall not see it. And they (the false
prophets) shall say to you, See [it is]
here; or, see [it is] there: go not after them, nor follow them.”
John 16:13,14
When he, the Spirit
of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall
not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me:
for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
The Holy Spirit will always glorify
Jesus. So whenever a spiritual-sounding idea seems to pop into your
head, don’t waste your time wondering, “Can this possibly be
from God?” Just ask yourself: “If this project pans out, who will get
the glory from it? Me? The devil? The person who put the idea into my
head? Or the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ!”
Once you can see where the glory will go
to, you’ll have a pretty good idea of where the idea came from.
And once you know the spiritual source, you’ll know exactly
what it’s worth.
As the holy and un-holy waves roll across
America, we must test the spirits behind each wave so we
will know how to respond to it. Happily, God has made it possible for
us to do just that. As each wave rolls up to us, all we have to do is
ask the Holy Spirit to show us:
1: Does this line up with the written Word
of God?
2: Does this line up with the character of
Jesus? and
3: Does this bring glory to the Lord Jesus
Christ
If it does all three, then “catch the wave!”
If it doesn’t – just let that wave roll by.
V1
Sometimes the Holy Spirit is poured
out as fire directly from
Heaven. When this happens, it is called a Revival. Revival is
what happened on the day of Pentecost [08], and it happened hundreds of times
since then, all over the world. Many of these revivals have been
documented in the secular media as well as in church history, so the
reality of Revival cannot be argued.
Will the fall of the towers, followed by the outpouring of living
waters, result in a “Holy Ghost, Heaven-sent, repentance-producing
Revival” in America? We can’t say. Revival is always a sovereign act of
God – but all of God’s people have the privilege to pray for
Revival. So if you want to see the fire ... pray for fire!
V2
The Greek word translated as
“belly” – koilia – is often used to refer to the abdomen, womb,
or heart; but its core meaning is “a hollow place.” It is that spiritual
cavity in each of us that cannot be seen or touched by our natural
senses, and which God has reserved for His own Spiritual
presence.
When God is present, by His Holy Spirit, in our “belly,” we can
say to people “Thus saith the Lord!” instead of merely saying,
“This is my opinion.” And as we declare the Word of the Lord, the Holy
Spirit within us will confirm it. This is how the living waters
of God will flow out of us to touch all America.
V3
Everyone who believes on Jesus receives the
Holy Spirit, because Jesus sends Him to dwell in the heart of every
Christian believer: The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Romans 8:7-9:
“The carnal
mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of his.”
This “indwelling” of the Holy Spirit is not the same as the baptism in
the Spirit, which will be explained in a later chapter. The important
thing for now is: if you believe on Jesus as your Lord and
Savior, then His Spirit does dwell in you today, and He does
desire to pour out His Spirit – as “rivers of living waters” –
through you!
V4.
This is exactly how the Holy Spirit comes to everyone who is walking in
sin. He convicts us of our sin, and calls us to repent, in that order
[06].
The Spirit works in the same blessed way, whether He is calling a person
– or a nation! – to salvation.
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