Habbakuk 2 «I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart – Let us stand on the watch, brothers and sisters! – And watch on the tower – and the tower is the church of revival…- to see what He will say within me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.” Walk so that the Lord speaks within you.
“Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it”. You receive and write things not only for yourself, but write so that they may read and understand it.”
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry”.
This state of faith. What differs a prayer of faith? It continues to hold the radiance until the answer comes. A prayer of faith differs not in the speed of an answer. A prayer of faith is different in the whole process from asking to the answer being full of expectation of the things asked. This is a prayer of faith. Otherwise, you don’t believe. You pray and don’t believe – this is like fortune telling, what if it works, if not this thing than another. But a prayer of faith keeps holding the assurance, until you receive, the assurance in the unseen. You pray a prayer of faith and you hold it. You may repeat it, doesn’t matter how often, what is important is that you believe and expect. The Word of God says: “Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, It will not tarry”.
“Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith…
“Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, Who establishes a city by iniquity! – What is happening now. – Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts That the peoples labor to feed the fire, And nations weary themselves in vain? For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” They will once lift up their heads. All of their silver will rot, as it is written, it shall sink in Egypt (James 5:2-3). Today people are falling, stars are falling and losing everything. They had a lot of all things, but it all turned out just air. Nothing is left, he in jail behind the bars or on the death bed sick with an uncurable disease, betrayed by all his dear ones. This happens in one moment and nothing is left from the ashes.
And when this strength of men ceases, they will look up and behold, and then the earth shall begin being filled with the knowledge of the glory of God: then talks about God shall begin, heading to the night dreams, to the sensations, to the preaching of the Word of God, and all things on the planet shall be flooded with light. There is the promise – the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters fill the see.
And in conclusion of the chapter, before which can be anything people write or say, but after the coma it says: “But the Lord is in His holy temple. May all the earth be silent before Him”. So the earth shall be silent again, and the Lord shall flood it with His glory.
I want to say three things.
First is that when we pray, we always pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, Stephen said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”, and John spoke to Jesus in Revelation, but it was a straight address. Paul teaches us that we should pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We call Jesus our Lord and God, and you are gods – so says the Scripture. Therefore, think. We pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. Just believe what Paul teaches. You can take all the prayers of Paul – they are all to God in the name of Jesus Christ. And Paul is the Apostle of the Gentiles, we follow him, we follow Christ through Paul.
We do not pray to Jesus who is lonely in cosmos, a lonely throne in cosmos. Jesus is in the Kingdom, Jesus is not alone and will never be alone – He is always in the Kingdom. This important to embrace. Even when John saw Him on Patmos island he saw Him walking amidst the lampstands, which are the seven churches. There’s the throne, the twenty for elders, seraphim, cherubim, angels, nations – the Kingdom. And God doesn’t say, “Guys, I am tired of you, give me a day off, I want to stay alone”. No, He laid Himself up this way, because He is the blessed God, He is pleased to abide in all this. Those surrounding Him are the beings that never make Him tired, those are better beings than your wife or husband or children – even when you are tired you can’t do without them.
Therefore, when we pray to God we deal with the Kingdom. Both Jesus and Apostles speak so much about this – the whole Bible is about the Kingdom! I give three key places:
Jesus said, “Pray so: Our Father who is in heaven, may Your name be hallowed, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, may YOUR KINGDOM COME – this, guys, is a lot! This is bigger than planet earth. This won’t even fit in the Solar system, simply because this is in the spirit. Don’t try to distribute angels. May Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
“Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him”. (Acts 28:30) Paul taught about the Kingdom. When Jesus appeared resurrected to His disciples He revealed the teaching about the Kingdom. And when Paul made Bible schools in Ephesus and other places he taught about the Kingdom. Read carefully, look into the Acts – in every place Paul and the apostles taught about the Kingdom. This is what differs the apostolic teaching. He didn’t teach morals – how to behave in the right way at your job etc – we thus made up morals, Christianity= morality teaching. Didn’t godless philosophers before Christ do the same? They taught morals, so that there’s “a positive and profitable social element”.
But Christ is not morals. He is Life. And God gave man the desire to multiply so that it is beautiful and natural, so that life may manifest stronger and stronger, so that it turns into the kingdom of people. The growing Kingdom of God.
This is amazing. Jesus comes not alone. Jesus comes with the Kingdom.
This will help us conceptually not to see black and white schemes of mechanical drawing in God’s field. Compare mechanical drawing and painting. Painting involves colors! But drawers are usually people who didn’t succeed in painting.
So Paul preached the Kingdom. Begin to read, record, discover for yourselves the topic of the Kingdom, and you will see that the Apostolic teaching is the teaching on the Kingdom, not only about the King. The glory of the King is in the Kingdom! If you want to know what kind of king this is – look at what stands behind him. So Jesus comes with a wonderful Kingdom, this is amazing.
Even before the Calvary in Mathew 4:17 Jesus says: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”. He didn’t preach that the Father would come to judge the earth or, Repent for God is at hand. No, Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. And how the Kind was being at hand: first, Gabriel came to Zachariah and Elisabeth, then to Mary, angels to the shepherd, the star to the wisemen – the King is coming and before Him come the rolls of the glory, the Kingdom is all around. And when He comes again, He will come not with clouds in the sky, He will come in the cloud of witnesses, because Jesus comes with the Kingdom. This is crucial to understand.
Why do we need all this information? In order not to moralize the gospel. It is written that His work is glory and beauty, it is not morals. What we see is just a shadow of what really comes out of God’s womb… “in the beauties of holiness from of the morning: you have the dew of your youth”. And the Son of God is the manifestation of the beauty, and His work is glory and beauty – to adorn the Kingdom.
Man has a desire for beauty, all normal people like beautiful things, you never choose the worst. And this is good and divine, to love beauty and glory. For some reason we made Jesus tough. As we see Jesus hanging on the wooden cross only we stop the process, while He went through the process in order to take all our dark thing into Himself and come forth resurrected.
These things that I am saying, no matter how you try to turn it into heresy, this is an awesome beauty, because this gospel carries hope and life. This is how you can actually measure your gospel whether it is true – it gives hope to any kind of man, even the worst and dirty sinner, the true gospel is like a gulp of the living water.
If your gospel is not like this, and you have turned it into your own morals, which you can’t fulfill yourself, this sward will kill you if you turn it against yourself. No one can fulfill the law except the one led by the Holy Spirit.
Accept these things, and you will have a different idea of God, it has to take time, has to penetrate. Two, three, four six months will pass before you feel this is yours.
Second thing. There’s a feeling that we live and serve out of lack: we have last money, last shoes, last charge percent, last phone; many of us are in debt – all our things are out of lack, I am shocked. This is all because of our faith, the way we believe. The way we see things, we believe. They we believe, we live.
And we serve out of lack. The point here is that we don’t have things we would like to have, because those things are not in Him, but we do have things that are in Him. And we are called to serve out of His fullness and riches, and not out of His poverty and lack. Even so that ministers say, “this is my last leader. Don’t go! You will die there, it won’t work, it doesn’t work here with two of us… This causes certain prayers and life style. But there’s His fullness, the fullness of Hos truth. Does He spare to reveal the fullness of His truth? No, He reveals it all. Is God scarce for peace? No, but He gives His Shalom and strength.
We have it in Him, and we don’t have it not in Him – this is where the secret is. “You have fullness in Him” – so it is written. The Scripture says that we have the knowledge of truth against lie. “You have received the anointing from the Holy One and you know all this.” (1John 2:20). We have the power, “And you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit falls on you” – get filled with the Spirit, the power is upon you, why don’t you believe this. Manifestations of God’s Son through the gifts of the Spirit…
Therefore, move out of fullness, not out of lack!
Instead of having all last things, why don’t start having first things? This is all in our heads: things that are not in Him we count, and things that are in Him we don’t have.
And the last things, about synergy, which is combination. This is what we have to learn to move. “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down to him… – Prophets fall sick too. It happens when even best people can’t overcome – we do not judge them, we bless them. Pray and believe fiercely, but do not ever judge.
“and wept over his face, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!” And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took himself a bow and some arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.” (2 Kings 13:14-17)
There were three pairs of hands there: the hands of the king, the hands of the prophet, and what strength could the hands of the prophet have if God’s hands weren’t upon them. What would be the point? The king was simply a man. But a man from God comes to have his hands upon the king’s and says the words from God. And God’s hands are on the prophet’s hand, because otherwise there would be no sense. So the arrow is shot to deliver all, because God sent it. This is what happens when we co-work with the Spirit. We need to learn to move with the Spirit, co-work with Him, speak or do, or prophesy, or pray. When we do it with our own strength that’s the energy of our spirit. But this this synergy, when one who joins with the Lord is one Spirit with the Lord. And in joining with the Lord is multiple increase. And Paul said, “the one who joins with the Lord is one Spirit with the Lord”. We are co-workers to God. These are the things I wanted to share.