“They shall walk after the Lord; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, then His sons shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria. And I will let them dwell in their houses, says the Lord” (Hosea 11:10-11).
Today my prayer is that the Lord will give His voice like the roar of a lion. I want to hear the lion’s roar through the voice of the preachers. When a lion roars, the whole inside of creation trembles, because the king is coming. Today my prayer is that preachers may roar like a lion.
Ivan Prokhanov said that Christianity is a faith of hope, not of sadness and pessimism. I heard a lion’s roar in him.
Today there are many people who speak in tongues, but they have a “pig squeal”, “dog bark”, but not a lion’s roar. But Prokhanov roared, and the Church was bringing hope.
“The Lord will roar” – my prayer is for this to happen, and people start up. Like a deer jumps up at the roar of a lion: it doesn’t know where the voice comes from and where it goes, but jumps in horror, because the king has said.
This is how the Church should “roar”. My prayer is that those who are called will give their voice, their “roar”, and the churches of God as well.
We looked at the life of Amy Carmichael and came to the conclusion that this is not a legend, not a myth, this is not a story of some unusual person. I felt in my spirit that she was a simple sister, like many of us.
How important it is for a person to take up his calling, and then he blossoms. Many of us have “stayed too long” – they need to go out, take off, they need to do an exploit. I see people are afraid, they hide their eyes, don’t want the word “You go!” It hurts. This person will remain unhappy because he will never find himself, he will never meet his true self.
But if you feel this call, faith must be an exploit. This Sister Carmichael was a young girl when she traveled alone to India to minister to girls who served in Hindu temples as priestesses engaged in prostitution. She didn’t go where the climate was acceptable to her. She went where there was a need for pioneers. She began to do what no one else did.
I think that there were many such people – and the most powerful feats are hidden with God, people will never write about them. With God it is always like this: the greatest things are hidden.
Amy was lonely and miserable. One day she prayed and received an answer from God: those who walk with Him will never be alone. But it’s not like she got that word and never experienced loneliness again. She was lonely and miserable, but she overcame.
Do you think you received a revelation once and you live with it? – Well, you always need a new one! You won’t survive with the old revelation. You will not survive by the memory of goodness. Only fresh revelation, fresh bread satisfies.
It is normal when loneliness, adversity, doubts, passions come to us. We just overcome and move on, we prevail over it all. Amy Carmichael was like that – free in her will to do or not to do things. I don’t think that her whole life was strewn with exploits. No. It’s just that we learned about her. And many other like her have not been known and will never be known.
There are a great number of God’s people who were much stronger, but no one will ever know about them. This is normal.
We have been given our path. This is your book. Read it.
Today I am calling forth a new wave of missionaries. Especially those who are already in their sunset, who are over forty – perhaps this your the last leap. And if you are not able to leap forth, then perhaps your best years are gone.
Young people, as long as you have strength, use it for God, because that perhaps is the life. Evangelize – this is a great opportunity to glorify God!
We must hasten to complete our path, to complete our calling, which is from eternity and raise our eyes from earth to heaven.
“Then Elijah said to all the people, ‘Come near to me.’ So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying: “Israel shall be your name.
Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two seahs of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four waterpots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water. And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!” (1 Kings 18:30-39)
Look at your lives: if you used to have more prayer, more fasting, more evangelism – if there was anything more than today – more holiness, more time for God, more time for the Scriptures – and today you don’t have that – then your altar is destroyed. If your stones crumbled, then it is dust instead of stones. If today something has weakened in relation to love – there is no need to look for some sacred secrets – you just need to return to your first love – to do former works.
The Lord says that the key to returning to the first love is to do the first things. And that’s all. There is no need to complicate anything. The first love will return when you do the first things. And don’t look at others, look at Jesus. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”
Elijah took twelve stones. Scripture, prayer, holiness, walking in the circumcision of the heart, as it is written: “He who is Christ’s has crucified the flesh with passions and lusts.” Sacrifice of fellowship, personal worship, evangelism as a way of life. It is necessary to return all these stones, to cleanse them from leprosy. Brothers and sisters, the altar will not be in order on its own. If it is neglected, then it will collapse.
Restore the altars! Return to your past! If you have become less in love with Jesus – do not blame anyone!
Elijah said to fill the trench with water, that is, he called forth the supernatural. Try God. The Lord says: “Bring all the tithes to the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this, – says the Lord of host – if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such a blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it?” (Malachi 3:10)
The altar is always connected with prayer. It is impossible to put everything in order without praying. This is the same as a luxurious altar, but without a sacrifice.
If you go to church, but there is no prayer, it means there is no sacrifice on the altar. It must be set on fire – and not your fire, but God’s.
This is life on fire. The restoration of the altar is what the Lord is leading us to do today. When we forget, weaken, become slovenly in a spiritual sense, it means there is no altar.
Show me a man who has everything in order – I will say that he has an orderly spiritual life. This is a man of discipline, a man of acute memory, a man of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Because his altar is in order.
Show me a man who left the altar – he is in resentment, things of the soul , envy, darkness, revenge, carnal bravado comes from him.
The altar must be well-cared, well-built, serviceable, it must have a clean regular sacrifice. Superiority – the best belongs to God.
What a shame when God is thrown a penny. Save them for “your prince”! If a person doesn’t discern here, then, one hundred percent, in the same manner he prays to God. God is given the best – time, offering! If you are a believer. And if you are a non-believer, I feel sorry for you. Outside clean – but inside you stink.
It was precisely at such a time that Elijah came to restore the altar – everyone was well-cared, but the altar was ruined. First of all, to make it rain, he began to cleanse the stones.
He sorted the cobblestones, cleaned them, put them together, so that the whole thing stood firmly. He found a pure sacrifice, so that there would be a whole lamb, dry firewood. He did everything qualitatively, and then he forced everything to be filled with water. Do you think they were happy doing this? No, they were afraid of Elijah. Then he bowed, prayed, and the fire went down! The fire devoured everything – both stones and dust – everything!
What about your altar? What have you done with it? Did you have an encounter? A man can’t live, making things well, and not praying.
Establish an altar of prayer in your family. You impart the rules, but your child never saw your faith. Hard as a rock, such faith of yours your children never see.
So if your altar turns to sand, your life turns to sand. Return to the altar. It will provide the source of life. Only after that everything will begin.
Instead of giving time to prayer, he sits on the Internet. These are snake nests between stones! He used to spend mornings with God – and today he is watching YouTube. It can’t last like that, the deterioration will progress. If the nests were built by insects, then this is called “the abomination of desolation.” Prophetic people immediately see whether the man is praying or not.
Bring yourselves in order, people of God! We’ll talk about the great awakening later, let’s do an awakening in the heart first! Seek the Lord honestly! Why should we lie to Him?! Why should we be a bunch of hypocrites who listen and don’t act?! Let’s get back to purity! Let’s live a real life. Let’s spend time reading Scripture before sleep, not watching commercials! The heart will become holier and purer.
We need to restore the first works. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).
The lampstand is removed sometimes even slowly. The man just loses faith. He simply doesn’t see himself, he doesn’t position himself with reality. And you don’t have to quarrel with people, people are sheep. They don’t have teeth to “gnaw throats”, they don’t have such a “wolf spirit”. So stop blaming people. People are not to blame.
Let us return to doing the things we used to do. We will pray through “brass heaven”, but we will ask! We will get rid of evil habits. Many have been “tied by the Web.” You “stick in”, and “the furry monster is approaching.” Today, many sins are associated with the world wide web. Why reading a book is a waste of time, but watching endless videos is normal? Investing in prayer is investing in the future.
God’s people, today I want to call you to rebuild the altars! This is the key purpose of awakening.
Elijah took the stones, cleansed them, scraped the dirt of Baal off them. He laid the first stone – read the Word of God. He cleanses the second stone – pray alone, on your knees, cry out, be cleansed of sins, humble yourself. The third stone is the holiness of God – to refrain from bad habits, cleanse your life of impurity. Fourth – how to become stronger in the service of God, how to find your ministry, how to be useful in the church of God, how to be led by the Spirit. And he goes on and on to restore …
He prepared the sacrifice, the Lord blew with His wind – and your spirit caught the fire! And you feel the grace of the Holy One, and you live like a man of God – honestly before God.
We live in an age where everything is available. You just have to “click” your phone.
I know a lot of people live hard lives. But even there you can keep an altar. Work will not save us. You can’t plunge into work and save yourself. You must find time for God! This is the best time, the best place for God. Find it. Our faith must shine like a crystal.
My prayer is that our altars may shine. For the Lord to look at the shepherds, look at the worshipers, at the brothers and sisters who speak the Word, and see that their lights are burning, as in a clean camp.
Enough hypocrisy! Some people need a serious fast. You have become very defiled. Today your conscience doesn’t even judge you for what you used to literally “die” for… Now you are doing it easily. And not because God doesn’t judge you, but because your conscience is dying! You know that it is a sin, but you do nothing – you are close to death. We must return to the altar. Pray for the stones to grow again. Keep what is still alive.
This is Love.
Sometimes I languish: such a contradiction is all around, so much of human thing! I understand: the people need to return to the fire, not to activity. To the pure fire and not to fuss. And then we will only do what we have seen from the Father.