FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS
In October of last year I posted a word I had forgotten about until some online friends recently reminded me. It went like this:
10/25/07 THURSDAY
I had the following sense: A mega-disaster is coming, like it’s edging closer, and it will strike before rising seas from global warming becomes a real issue.
Me: "If true, Lord, what to do?"
God: "Pray that they may see the true importance of it, that they turn to Me. Signs and wonders. Hidden tactics of the enemy. I am there to rescue you and you need have no fear."
Me: "When?"
God: "The near future."
Me: "Whose 'near'? Yours or mine?"
God: "Bush will not finish out his term before it strikes."
Obviously that disaster has overtaken us as the world financial system has gone into freefall despite the best efforts of world governments to stop it. In August or September 2004 the Lord told that me that George Bush would be re-elected and that His second term would be filled with problems and difficulties beyond the wisdom of any man to deal with. This, too, has proven to be an accurate word.
What does it mean for us now? Are we under judgment? Sadly, the answer this time is yes. As I prayed concerning the deepening fear - panic actually - that has enveloped the nation the Lord said to me, "I have put the fear in their hearts – a last warning before I do what I am about to do. I would break the yoke from their neck. I would open a way in the wilderness. Call on Me. I am near. I am for you, not against." In November of last year He told me the rollercoaster was coming and that we would be entering a time of fear, but that even in the time of fear, the economy would not collapse. See Prophetic Moments #3. God in His love has sent a warning that we might turn and be delivered.
I wrote in my book "Purifying the Prophetic" that the real religion of America has been recycled Baalism, not true Christianity. Baal was a fertility god who represented and promised prosperity to Israel. This false god, this demonic principality, seduced the people of God, gradually insinuating elements of idolatry into the practice of their faith in God until syncretistic compromise overcame them and they suffered the consequences of their idolatry. This same spirit has dominated the culture of our nation and has invaded even the church in America until self-serving prosperity has become an article of faith at the expense of the preaching of the selflessness of the cross. What we see happening now is a thunderclap of warning from heaven. For us this is a time much like that into which Jeremiah spoke in ancient Israel: Jeremiah 11:17 "The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to provoke Me by offering up sacrifices to Baal." And yet our present trials are only a warning, a taste of judgment sent in mercy. God has allowed a reaping of the sin we have sown in order to separate the precious from the vile, to reveal error and to move us to repentance as a people, especially in the body of Christ.
What must we do? First, we must pray fervently for a Holy Spirit movement of repentance, a purifying of our faith and our lives according to Paul's determination to preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. No other message has the power to break the bondage of the spirit of Baal by turning us from self to sacrifice. Sacrifice is life. Self is death. Matthew 16:24, "Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." Failing this, what has been but a warning will certainly become a devastation as we reap the fullness of the sin we have sown for so long in self-focus, greed and immorality.
Second, in 1997 as the Toronto Blessing wonderfully invaded New Song, the Lord told me specifically for my own congregation (and by extension for others') that if we would remember what we had learned in the season of easy favor He would privilege us to stand in the eye of the hurricane when it came and to gather in the refugees. Tonight I was nudged to tune to GodTV for a moment - something I seldom do. I got there just in time to hear Wendy Alec speaking of the eye of the hurricane - and I remembered what I had been told.
This leaves us with a choice. We can collapse under the weight of fear and so blame God for our personal difficulties as if God broke some contract with us that in reality He never made. OR, we can rise to the occasion and walk in the power of the kingdom of God, believing the promise of Jesus in Matthew 6:33-34, "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." In other words, because our loving Father promises to meet our legitimate material needs, freeing us from concern in that area, we are set free to focus on serving kingdom purposes and the goodness of God.
We may never see a more opportune time to minister the kingdom of God to a world seeking some form of security in a season of turmoil. We who have experienced the outpouring of God's Spirit in recent years have received and known the easy grace. If we have learned from it, if we have drunk from the power of the Holy Spirit, seen His miracles and experienced His power and His goodness - AND LEARNED FROM IT WHO HE TRULY IS - then we can and we must stand in peace in the eye of the storm raging around us to gather a harvest of souls made ready in desperation to turn to our Jesus.
Are we ready to do this? Will we make the choice? Can we begin in repentance and proceed to holiness, power and love? Will we rise in these days to our destiny in Him? We were born for this. We have been led into the things of the Spirit for such a time as this. As bad as it looks, it is the golden hour.
(Prophetic
Moments is an occasional bulletin produced by
Pastor R. Loren Sandford, New
Song Fellowship, Denver, Colorado. For previous
issues click HERE.)
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"Prophetic Worship"
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