A revelation came today. The man of God came to the place called “Jehovah-Shalom”.
Try to see this. When I asked the person to explain to me in more detail, what kind of place it was, he could not. Because this is God’s revelation.
I can’t ask in an earthly way – where it was, tie it to geolocation, what the landscape was, what kind of Angel – most likely, the prophet will begin to lose power. Therefore, I don’t «attack» with my curiosity. You shouldn’t get attached to anything. The revelation is losing its power. Many people start to turn on the Internet right away, they want to check everything. These are spiritual thieves. Don’t do that.
This is a bad quality. You will be rejected not only by people, but also by Angels. Therefore, you better stand still, listen to the Lord and seek your way. Sometimes I try to ask if I don’t understand. But often the prophet himself doesn’t understand – he is releasing things for you. Therefore, the reasons why many don’t receive revelations – they have an earthly mind. They need a “tie” to the ground. To reach the treasure by illegal means. There is only one honest way – when God gives you a gift.
If you steal other people’s revelations, you will forever speak other people’s revelations. In order to release your own revelations, you have to be a man of high nobility and honor. God’s man “doesn’t claim someone else’s territory,” he dominates his own. In this sense, Paul is saying that “he doesn’t boast in another man’s sphere of accomplishment», because God had given him“ to reach you ”. This was his Apostleship.
“The man of God came to the place called“ Jehovah-Shalom ”. It is very important. Only one Scripture place says Jehovah Shalom. “Peace to you! Do not be afraid, you will not die! ” – these words were addressed through the Angel of God to Gideon. These are powerful words. The Lord said to me: “Peace be with you! Do not be afraid! You’ll not die!” I think it’s a blessing to come to this place of Shalom.
This requires self-control. Before the Internet era, it was a little different in churches. Confessors, priests received confession of the people’s sins, which is now unpopular. In many churches this is not practiced any more, and that is not the way. Because, first of all, this is Scripture. Second, the Apostles, before baptizing people, asked their confession. Third, the Scripture teaches in the New Testament that we should confess our sins to one another and to the priests, because the Blood of Jesus Christ washes us.
When a man is on his death bed sick, it is desirable for him to confess his sins to the elders, especially on his deathbed. This must be done and practiced. When a church practices confession, it is constantly cleansed. But many churches don’t do this, I think the reason for this is ignorance, as well as the fear on the part of the priests – because they will have to confess too. The priest first offered a sacrifice for his own sin, and then for the sins of the people. Likewise, churches that practice confession are churches that “go poor” for the sake of the strength. They keep moving in a broken spirit, moving in strength, because they understand that their weakness is their strength.
The “stars”, which “accumulate” their “stardom”, are in a very dangerous position, because every man is a sinner. When a man doesn’t confess, he simply risks falling very seriously one day. Therefore, I encourage you – confess. It is not dangerous to confess in our church. The priests don’t change their attitude towards you. This is very valuable. Such a church stays in the Word and is being washed by the Blood, in the stream of Christ’s Blood. Be washed with the washing of the water through the power of the Blood of Christ!
Self-control is not just a loss of something. Today God’s people have lost their fear – they often watch content that seems to make them knowledgeable. Sometimes we go into territory that is not just sinful, but it’s not useful – it steals time. It is curiosity, but it was because of curiosity that Eve fell. It was interesting for her to listen…
Therefore, self-control sometimes seems to be a non-beneficial affair: it seems to you that “life is passing,” but the Scripture says that “self-control is of value in everything.”
It is very important to restrain from certain things. An abstinent person seems to be very poor. The world enjoys sin, fun, sweets, while we seem to have a “grey life.” But, in fact, this is a big error. When a man abstains, but doesn’t live according to the Spirit, then you have it neither here, nor there. But to abstain for the sake of Christ brings you righteousness. And a righteous one is strong as a rock.
The world is shaking. Cities are the most dangerous places on earth. Every day we face many dangers – the pursuit of enemies, the fear of losing our job, being left without money, ruining our health … That is, there are fears all around. And under this stress we live in cities. We sometimes “knock down” control and begin to taste what we should not.
Therefore, self-control is essential to revelation. Self-control is the protection of an area that should only receive revelation in our spirit. It protects revelation.
Therefore, chastity can’t be without self-control. This is the reason. You are chaste because you are abstinent. Therefore, especially those people who seek for more in Christ, and not just maintain the “status quo” – they seek intimacy with the Lord, they seek a living relationship in love, and not just in faith and keeping the commandments, they want to flow the path of life. So they need to understand that self-control is important.
Today there is such a false understanding of freedom, when you can, as it were, do whatever you want, because the Lord “forgives” and “washes” it all.
Thus, sort of a “church sectarianism” has developed, when the “churchmen” don’t have spiritual wealth, but at the same time they don’t sin. Such a person is uninteresting, he is empty, he dries up. He observes things, but lives not by the Spirit. It’s just a very uninteresting life. He has nothing to tell. He can’t talk about the spiritual, he doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know another life either, because he is afraid to go to hell. Being in church and stay unsaved is the worst madness ever! Being in church all your life and stay unsaved is scary.
Therefore, those of you who abstain – know, “abstinence is good for all things.” “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self –control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”
Self-control is a path of love. An unclean person can’t abide in love. You can’t be unholy and love. You will love for yourself. This is all the vile face of “churchianity” – people shy away from such an idea of God and they do right. Living by the Spirit is the highest creativity, the highest quality of life.
“Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.”
An impoverished church.
The Midianites came and plundered Israel when the harvest came. They attacked with their troops and took everything. Then they feasted again and waited for Israel to work again.
Today we can likewise watch an impoverished church. All things in the church are in a mirror image – the more it is drawn to wealth and to the material, the poorer it becomes.
This can be seen in Christ’s words: “you say you have become wealthy, but you don’t know that you are poor.” This is the focus of the modern church on the material things. Today we listen to preachers, they promise job, knowledge and business if we “stay on their channel.”
Imagine – the Lord who created the heavens and the earth is so “interested” in our business so that we succeed, that we don’t get sick and eat quality food! As if Jesus died for our bellies and for our happiness! It’s amazing how the church has become impoverished! The more she talks about material things, the more poor we find ourselves – “Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites.”
“And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.” This is important. Today I would ask the Lord to “press” as much until the church cries out.
Carelessness and indolence – absence of awakening. When Jesus came to Israel, He also saw an incredible desolation. Can you find where the epicenter of revival was? When even Zechariah the priest was numb from the coming of the Angel, because he did not believe! Where was the epicenter of revival? – There was none!
Jesus came into the very darkness. He came to the temple, to His place, the House of the Father, and He had to make a whip of cords to drive out “impurity” from there. But Jesus made a revival – right in the middle of the darkness!
What could He do? Waste all! And He had only Himself. Here is His Body, here is His soul, here is His spirit, here is the relationship with the Father. Everything, there was nothing else. He had no education, business, acquaintances. All He had was His Body and His faith.
He made a whirlwind. You have to spin the wind. You need to get it from somewhere. You need to open the way for the wind. There are places where the wind doesn’t blow – it’s too deep, it is a dead end. In order for the wind to blow, you need to open the dead end, knock out the bottom, break that walls. To have a draft, you need to either open the windows, or knock out windows and doors. Here we need to do something similar: “knock out” something, “destroy” something.
“And it came to pass when the children of Israel cried to the Lord because of the Madianites, that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them:“ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land. Also I said to you: “I am the Lord your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell”. But you have not obeyed My voice ”(Judges 6:7-10).
The modern church has become impoverished. I see serious impoverishment. There were movements that were really born of the Spirit – like Jesus People, prophetic movements. And the real prophets would rise. I think now there are prophets as well.
And so the Lord said: “I brought you out” – drug addicts, miserable women, the weak, the sick, etc., – I delivered you out of the hand of the oppressors, gave you the land, but I told you not to honor the worldly gods, that is, not to focus for worldly purposes. I don’t think Israel directly worshiped Ashtoreth and Dagon – I think they combined that with worshiping God. Somehow they connected these images, connected matter and Spirit. God never was in this conjunction – He says, “you do abominations, because I will never “marry” Dagon or Ashtoreth. These are My enemies. And you worship them along with worshiping Me! “
“Also I said to you: “I am the Lord your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell”; but you have not listened to my voice”(Judges 6:10). That is, God announces the reason for the impoverishment: “You serve mammon.” You ask, “How do I serve? I don’t serve it directly, silver is not my god!” But to “move” God in this direction, to “push” theology there, “to press” for it, to gather prayer meetings around it. I think this means serving mammon.
God says, “You didn’t obey.” That is, first the prophet came and said. It is not clear which prophet, but although this is the Book of Judges, a prophet came – this is very interesting. This means that there were prophets in Israel during the time of the judges. He spoke the Word to them. And after that came the Angel of the Lord.
Look: there came “the cry of the impoverished Israel”, then the prophet comes, declaring to them the Word – the reason, and then the Angel of the Lord comes.
“Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under terebinth tree, which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threashed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites ”(Judges 6:11).
Angels come when we cry out. I wonder how people talk about the supernatural, but they speak theory, they don’t believe in the Angelic world. You can immediately feel whether the person moves with the Angels or he speaks human things. I see it when someone talks about Angels, and he does move with them, or he has just “picked up the fashionable wave” and is moving with it
Angels come when we cry out. We need to turn our prayer into a cry. You can cry out even silent, in a whisper, you can cry out in a prayer meeting, in a secret room, you can cry out even with your mouth shut. We should learn to cry out. A cry out is the key to awakening. You will find – whenever Israel cried out, God came. And you will find many places where the Lord took Israel to a cry out. Normally, nothing happened until Israel started crying out.
I think the church needs to get to that point today – when she cries out. But for this something has to be brought up – you cry out when external circumstances lead you to this: a loss, an incurable disease … But can you cause hunger if you are not hungry? – Yes! By crying out!
Try to stay alone, in order to give your cry. You will see the result. The weather won’t be the same. You will change it. Perform such an act – separate yourself, go into nature and cry out to God. One hundred percent – there will be a return.
It is written: “Around God is awesome splendor.” A breath of splendor will come, the clouds will dissipate, everything will become clearer. Because the cry cuts through the fog like a laser beam. It cuts through our ordinary grey life. Fear dullness, it leads to depression. A tasteless, grey life of the layman wise gudgeon. This is a terrible life. Know everything – and do nothing. I think the scribes were like that.
We need to arise. And crying out is a powerful key. This is not about the volume of the voice.
The Angel sits down under the terebinth tree where many prophets fell. He sits under the terebinth tree, he chooses the one in Ophrah. It belonged to Gideon’s father. The Angel didn’t pursue Gideon. He caught his attention.
Gideon was making bread in secret somewhere. Today there are those who make bread in secret. And God comes to our secret places, even if we hide, even if secret services or secret bread production are performed. The angelic presence can be away from human eyes.
“And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him: “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor! “Gideon said to him: “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles, which our fathers told us about saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites ”(Judges 6: 12-13).
This is the prayer of a righteous one – if the Lord is with us, then why are we in shame? It is amazing when we cannot admit our failure. We, as believers, must be the first to recognize it.
Gideon was just that kind of person. He freely told the Angel that they were in shame. God liked it! This is the vision of an awakener.
A man of awakening is not someone who says that everything is fine and that we should believe in awakening. The awakener knows the heart of God. While Israel was being oppressed by the enemies, God turned His back on her.
The one who sees the truth and declares that truth is an awakener. Gideon was an awakener, only unrevealed. This is the purity of an awakener.
Today many “revivalists” proclaim that everything is fine, everything is excellent. I understand that we are on different paths, what they say is not true. The truth is that the church has become impoverished and needs to return to the Cross. This is the truth. Return to the Cross and start from Calvary. Leave material goals. Stop deceiving people that they will be healed and become rich. Stop copying the Western or any gospel, whatever it may be. I remember talking with brother Ivan, a prisoner. He told me: «Don’t run anywhere, dig under yourself. There is the Rock. Dig down to it, conferences won’t help you».
This is why in his prayer Gideon asks: “Why has it all happened to us? Where are all His miracles? ” – this is the real cry of an awakener. We need to admit, we need to start praying – that’s what I call a cry. You can’t cry out at the sweet life. You can’t cry out if you’re doing super well. This is the cry of a gorged turkey: he fell on his back and yells that he cannot roll over.
There has to be a need. And not artificial, but natural. It was a cry out. Gideon got identified with the cry of Israel in this prayer. He said that “we are in shame,” “why has all this happened to us,” “where are all the miracles,” “the Lord delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
But how could he not deliver, when they scream around the corner, here they beat, there they rob … And here is him sitting, threshing bread, and watching all this. Will he say that everything is fine?! Will he say: “No, we will go through it all! We will prosper! ” No! He understands that God has abandoned them. And proclaims these things.
From a global point of view, it was a disgrace. Gideon, a real awakener, sees it. Gideon is a real prophet. I call him that. Because a prophet is not one who speaks in words, but who by himself identifies life with God – His thoughts, His heart, His mind. His grief was the cry of the real awakener. Grief because of the loss of the glory of the Almighty God of the Covenant. And the correct view of what is happening is what he says: “The Lord has left and delivered us!”
“Then the Lord turned to him and said:“ Go with this strength of yours and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”(Judges 6:14).
– What strength are you talking about? I was just crying about Israel, You caught me around the corner where I secretly threshed bread. I’m hiding. I am gone. I am persecuted. I thresh bread to feed myself! Turn on YouTube, that’s where people have glory – they have subscribers, go to them!
– No! Go with this strength of yours!
– But where is the strength? I have nothing to say but negative things!
– With this strength of yours, go and save Israel! Because what they see is a lie, and what you are is true. God thinks the same way you do!
This is the perspective I ask all of us today for. This is the cry I ask for – that we cry out today. We still have to come to this, grow higher, get closer. It is not that easy to go up the mountain and start shouting: “Give me awakening!” Do you know what you are asking for?
Here Gideon released all this to the Angel. And the Angel encouraged him, saying: “Yes, you see correctly! Go and save, in this strength of yours!” Gideon asks: “How? My tribe is the smallest in Israel?!” The Lord does not choose who is ordained and who is not. He looks at the voice of the cry. He reads your heart in it.
“And the Lord said to him:“ Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man ”(Judges 6:16)
That is, you’ll do it easily! Just like that!
I’ll tell you one thing based on the revealed Word. Awakening is not that difficult. We are the most difficult. It is much more difficult to awaken the church than to make a revival. The hardest ones are us. We are so mischievous, so smart, so obnoxious. How can God tolerate us! As Jonathan Edwards said, these are his words: “You are like a vile spider in the hands of God. He keeps you above the flames of hell, and it takes incredible efforts not to leave you!” Do you think Jonathan Edwards’ listeners stoned him? – No! They grabbed hold of him and prayed for salvation! There was an awakening there.
It doesn’t matter you are small in your own eyes. What is important that God is with you, and He is sending you. But we need to come to this. Come to the cry, to the real truth. Our prayer has to arise from the innermost of God’s heart. Not from our mind or experience. Today there are righteous people, but there are those who are very far away. The more we are inclined to material things – we keep talking about this, focusing, preaching – the more poor we are.
“Gideon said to Him: “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me: do not depart from here until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.” He said, “I will wait until your come back” (Judges 6: 17-18).
Here Gideon is already on the way. That is, it’s not “give me”, but “take mine.” The sign is not what You gave me. Things are opposite today. “Give a sign” means “take what you gave me!” A faithful son looks for a different sign of God’s favor. The Angel has to wait for his offering. The faithful son brings cooked food.
The Angel says to Gideon: “I will stay until your return.” Gideon did not go to rest. He ran to cook. We may not make it to see the Angel, because we live too lax.
Why did Gideon make broth? He could have brought silver, a valuable item. But he brought Him food. Gideon himself cooked the food – a goat and unleavened bread.
“Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; The meat he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth and presented them ”(Judges 6:19).
How interesting! Meat in the basket, a pol with the broth and unleavened bread. That is, he cooked a full meal for Angel. Is this Jewish culture? This is the kinglike culture!
«The Angel of God said to him: “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. The Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand, touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread; and the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight”(Judges 6: 20-21).
Gideon did exactly as was told. He tested God, he wanted to know whether God was speaking to him or not. I think Gideon wasn’t an ordinary man. Angels do not eat offerings, but can pretend to eat.
“Now Gideon perceived that he was the Angel of the Lord, so Gideon said: “Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.” Then the Lord said to him: “Peace be with you, do not fear, you shall not die.” So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it Jehovah Shalom, The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites to this day”(Judges 6:22-24).
That is, in Gideon there was this superstition – to see the Lord is bad. It was the ancients to think so. Samson’s mother also feared. They all thought they would die if they saw an Angel. But the Lord removes superstition.
Today God removes our superstitions. There are so many of them! The Lord said: “Peace be with you! Do not fear, you shall not die! ” The appearing of God to His faithful sons and daughters is not for evil, but for good. Gideon built an altar there. The faithful son builds an altar at the place of God’s appearing. Where God appeared is a portal. The faithful son gives a name to the altar himself. It wasn’t the Lord who said it; this is what Gideon calling it “Jehovah-Shalom.” The shalom of God is what Gideon needed, it was the condition for successfully waging the war. Gideon needed Shalom, he had no peace. He was making bread somewhere, hiding a young goat, he was in a state of negative understanding of Israel. Shalom of God is what he needed.
It is written that “to this day” – this means that today these principles work and remain in force with us.
“The man of God came to the place called“ Jehovah-Shalom ”. And there he had an encounter with the Angel of God. “
One can make up a sermon out of your head, or you can broadcast what God reveals. There is a difference. I broadcast this grace for our Mantle.
“And they had two-edged swords in their hands, which they sharpened even more strongly on the rock. Then the Angel of God gave the Man of God a garment as bright as a rainbow, which covered the Man of God to the toes. “
The rainbow symbolizes grace. It is the symbol of this Shalom. We need to get rooted in the Shalom of God. He called it once in the Bible: “Jehovah-Shalom.” That is, “Jehovah is the Peace of God.” We greet each other: “Peace of God!” This is Shalom. Our “Jehovah” is Shalom.
Even praying like Gideon doesn’t mean losing peace; it doesn’t mean praying out of despair or praying out of a terrible state of uncertainty, concern and fear. We must stand on Shalom and from there cry out to the Lord! Is it possible? – There is a cry of pain, there is a cry of despair, and there is a cry of awakening! These are different cries. We don’t have to start crying in order to get hit. We can start crying now out of our peace, seeing the situation with God’s eyes.