Sober Spiritual Senses

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

Let's get into the word real quick here.

We got 1/2 hour and we're going to pray that God will make the

sun stand still like He did for Joshua.

Turn with me to revelate. I'm not revelation.

Where am I? Hebrews Hebrews 12 Hebrews 12

Hebrews 12:18

verse 18 we are looking at we've been, we've been looking at

Revelation 3-4 and five. The Book of Revelation is

apocalyptic literature. There's a long tradition of

Hebrew literature known as apocalyptic literature.

It is records of people's encounters, these prophetic

encounters, whether dreams or visions.

And so just like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John was taken

up into this encounter and he recorded it for you and I.

And so we've been looking at that in chapter 5, John is

pulled into the throne room. It's the epicenter, the

governmental seat of the universe, and he's allowed

access to the throne. And to be an influence on the

throne, this is heavy, man. We need to realize that God

wants your influence. He wants your voice.

And so there's this, this encounter that John has and

John's tears actually result in the the scroll being open in

God's operation being released on the earth.

And so they were singing, we sang the song this morning.

Is anyone worthy? I believe that that that song is

the anthem of the hour. I really do.

It's the anthem of this house for this hour.

And I believe it's it's wider than that.

It's a fairly new song. And the reason it was written is

because it's the now of God. God wants to teach his people to

ascend the hill of the Lord. And so John is in Revelation 5

and he looks and the the the one who sits on the throne has a

scroll with 7 seals and he recognizes the importance of

this thing. It is the answer to what is

happening on the earth. It's what God wants to release,

to turn things around. It's the judgments of God, but

it's the judgments of God against the opposition to his

purposes. For the believer, the judgments

of God are good things. Proverbs says the judgments of

God are pure, so God longs to release them.

But there was no one found worthy.

And John began to weep, and his tears released something.

It was then that the lamb stepped forward.

The elder stepped up and said, Hey, don't worry, the lion of

the tribe of Judah hath triumphed.

And when he said that he looks and the crowd parts and in

rather than a lion, he saw a lamb as though it had been

slain. And it was the lamb that was

able. But it was his tears that

activated that. God, you have a role to play in

God's government on the earth. And I know a lot of people act

like God's just going to do things.

And we sat idly by and watch as as though we're just spectators,

but we're not. We are participants.

That same passage, we were just singing it this morning.

It said he has made us a we have made us kings, kings and priests

to our God. It's all in that passage.

In other words, we are priests, we are go betweens before God.

We represent man and before man we represent God.

That is our role. We we are to be possessed by our

Creator and therefore be able to represent Him properly, but

before God. We represent humanity in

intercession, but we're also kings.

We bear authority to see things happen on the earth.

God delegated the earth to man, and he will not govern without

you. It's not that he can, it's he

won't. He will not violate the system

he himself created. God delegated the earth to man,

and he's looking to you to invite his intervention.

The theology of prayer can be summed up in this short

sentence. Divine intervention only by

human invitation. And that human invitation isn't

is called prayer, it's called intercession.

We invite him. And so it's not a coincidence

that that begins to happen in the midst of a prayer meeting

around, I mean, a praise, a worship set around the throne.

And so we've been talking about this last week, we talked about

how God has made us spirit, soul and body.

We are out of all creation. Mankind are the only ones who

have the equipment to deal in the spiritual realm and in the

physical realm simultaneously, we have a body.

But as born again believers, we also have a born again spirit.

God has imparted life to our human spirit.

That's what being born again means.

Our spirit came back to life. God created us with a spirit to

commune with him. It died in the fall when when

God warned Adam and Eve, he said to the day you eat of it, you

shall surely die. Their spiritual death was an

event and their physical death is a process.

And the older I get, the more I realize that's still at play

here. But in through the born again

experience, God energizes our spirit.

He weds himself to our spirit. First Corinthians 6 says he who

has joined himself to the Spirit has become one with them in

spirit. The Spirit of God lives within

you as a believer. But he's not just residing until

we get there. He wants to be active and so we

talked about how we need to grow up in the faith.

We're not merely born ones. The Greek word is Tecnon.

We are children of God. Tecnon born ones, but we're in

the process of becoming sons of God.

It's an entirely different Greek word and an entirely different

meaning. It means mature ones who have

been released authority to use the household name and, and, and

operate in the marketplace. And so you and I are called

Jesus didn't say go into all the world and make converts.

He said go into all the world and make disciples, grow them up

so they can represent the Father.

And so all of this is very, very important.

So I want to continue in this vein.

We're we'll probably swing back around and get into Revelation a

little later, but I want to continue in this vein from a

little different angle. We were talking last week about

developing our spiritual senses. And I know I'm at risk of

sounding really mystical up here when I talk like that, but this

is in the Bible. We've got to preach what the

Bible says. The danger is we talked last

week about Jacob, Remember where Jacob goes to a place called

Zlaz. He has a dream, he wakes up and

the first thing out of his mouth was this.

God was here and I didn't know it.

You know, that is the tragic state of many a believer.

They're walking around totally unaware of the spiritual reality

that surrounds them. They don't know their

inheritance. They don't know what's going on

around them. They are only locked into the

physical realm. And so all they can do is tinker

with earthbound realities when in actuality, God has given them

the equipment to move things in the spiritual realm that will

show up in the physical realm. And so we need to have our eyes

opened. We need to say, God, open my

spiritual eyes, open my spiritual ears.

Scripture talks about our spiritual eyesight being opened,

tuning our ear to hear. So we have spiritual senses that

need to be activated because there are things going on around

us we need to be aware of. It's like during worship,

something opened up and all of a sudden it was ripe.

God was calling people to himself.

But did you notice Jesus didn't show up and say, come to the

altar and get saved? He has to work through people.

And the only way we can cooperate if we can hear and see

and cooperate with him. And that's not just for pastors,

that's for all of us. We're a Kingdom of priests,

every one of us. It's not that there's these,

these few that are on the payroll of heaven and then the

rest are spectators. No, we're all called to

ministry. We're all called to operate in

the spirit, to be spiritual men and women of God.

And so the, the, the God does call apostles, prophets,

advanders, pastors and teachers, but they are called to train

others for the work of ministry. They're not the, they're not the

ministers. We think of those five people,

those five offices as ministry offices.

They're not, they're equipping offices.

What we do with what they tell us is ministry.

This isn't ministry this morning.

This is equipping. What you do with it tomorrow is

ministry. So let's do ministry.

But we've got to be awakened spiritually to understand.

And so I want us to jump into Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Look at what it says. Verse 18.

So all through. Well, let's look, let's read.

For you have not come to what may be touched.

A blazing fire and darkness and gloom, and a Tempest, and a

sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg

that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could

not endure the order that was given.

If even a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble

with fear, verse 22 But you have come to Mount Zion.

Pause right there. So what the writer is doing is

he's juxtaposing these two mountains in Scripture.

There was Mount Sinai and it's a clear, it's clear that that's

what the writer is talking about.

Mount Sinai was a place, it was called the mountain of God, and

they encountered God at the mountain.

And this is not an uncommon thing in the ancient world.

In the Old Testament, mountains were looked at as the meeting

places between heaven and earth. Literally, they were the high

places and people would climb the mountain and they would

disappear into the clouds. They're going up into the

heavenly places. They're going to encounter God,

and God would operate like that. You had Moses on Mount Sinai,

You had Elijah on Mount Horeb, which some scholars believe it's

another name for Mount Sinai. You had Moses, I mean Abraham on

Mount Moriah. It's a common theme through

Scripture, but there's one mountain that supersedes them

all, and it is Mount Zion. And So what the writer of

Hebrews tells us is we're not coming to Mount Sinai where we

get the law. And there's cloud descended and

peals of Thunder broke through and they heard a voice and it's

shaking. And they had to, they had to

cordon it off and said, if anybody even touches it, you

will die. And the people were terrified.

Moses was terrified. And so the people said, hey, MO,

this is too heavy. Tell you what, How about you go

up, hear what God says, and you come down and give it to a

second hand, never realizing what a tragic forfeiture of what

God intended. That was that they said we want

to get things second hand. God never intended for man to

get things second hand. He wants to put, he wants a

Kingdom of priests, not just one priest, but a whole Kingdom of

priests that are his representatives to be sent into

the world. So the writer of Hebrews

juxtaposes to say that's not what we're called to, but you

are called to Mount Zion. Now notice in the first verse,

in verse 12, he said it's not something that can be touched.

He said we're not called to this physical reality, this mountain,

but we're called to something greater.

It's Mount Zion. So what is Mount Zion?

It's both a physical reality in the Old Testament that is pulled

on into the New Testament to describe your and my experience.

So what is Mount Zion? Mount Zion was the mountain that

David conquered. It was originally, Yeah.

Salem and Melchizedek ruled from there.

Then it became Jabis, A stronghold for the Jebusites.

And then David went in and he grabbed that thing from the

Jebusites. It's a crazy story.

I wish we had time to get into it.

But David said what? This is the way we're going to

take it. We're going to go up through the

water shaft. Look it up online.

These dudes were crazy. They dove into a pool, swam down

the, I mean, they didn't have scuba gear.

They're it's dark, man. They're just going to swim their

way through the rocks and hopefully they can fit and they

come up and then they've got to climb up this well shaft and

they're in the city and the Jebusites were laughing at them.

The blind and lame could defend this city, they said to David.

And David told his boys, the one who gets goes up the water

shaft, you're made commander. So I believe it was Abner jumps

in and he goes, I mean, look it up online.

This is absolutely crazy. And not to mention that once,

once you get through the the tube, if you will, and you made

it, that gives me, I get claustrophobic just thinking

about it. And then he gets out and he's at

the bottom of this. Well, now he's got to climb up

the sides hoping that someone doesn't come and dip a bucket

and see you. I mean, you're pretty

vulnerable. You're dead.

And they take the city that way and it becomes the stronghold of

David. So Mount Zion.

And it says that Mount Zion is the envy of all the other

mountains. Now I think I mentioned this

recently. I went to Israel a couple years

ago and I remember seeing Mount Zion.

I, I've read about it. I was so fascinated by it.

I've, I've been just really ministered to by this motif of

Mount Zion. And then I saw it and I had an

internal conversation with the Lord.

I said, Lord, with all due respect, not saying you were

dishonest, but calling this the envy and even calling it a

mountain is pretty generous description.

It's like a little Knoll. It's it's not.

I mean, we have bigger mountains in Iowa and we don't we're not

known for our mountains. OK, So the only conclusion I can

come to Lord is that God doesn't have the same metrics he

measures by. And the psalmist would say all

the mountains. Remember what mountains meant.

Mountains were meeting places between heaven and earth.

There were places where men would go, and this is all over

the world. Men would go to mountains to

encounter the gods. And David says Zion is the envy

of every mountain. And you look at it, it's not the

physical structure that should encourage us because God has a

different metric by which he measures things.

It's not the size, it's the impact.

And that became what we see in Revelation 5.

The epicenter of rule of the universe was actually Mount Zion

on Earth. And now when you and I come into

God's presence, we are coming to Mount Zion.

It is, in actuality, David. And so here's a question I have

for you. I don't have time to answer it.

I'm just teasing you with it and you have to come back next week.

But what was it about David that recognized, perceived what God

wanted to do there? Why was David so fascinated with

Jabis, the Jebusite Center? David perceived something and

established something that you and I are stepping into, so much

so that Scripture actually says the throne from which King Jesus

rules from is the throne of David.

That blows my mind. It's a problem with these mics.

You can't do a mic drop. You'd have to fall over.

And I don't want to do that. But seriously, think about this.

This is an amazing thing that the God of the universe said

I've I'm so affectionate towards a human man that I'm going to

say the seat he used to sit on. I'm going to still call it that

when I sit on it. It's the throne of David, the

ability for man to touch the heart of God and for God his his

desire for relationship that he would connect himself.

And then you look at David's history, you might think God,

you know, Are you sure you want to be connected?

Yes, he was a man after God's heart.

It's an amazing thing. So the writer of Hebrews

juxtaposes over against Sinai, where you came and there was

judgement and fire and Thunder and they were terrified and

said, hey, let's get a go between.

He said, you and I don't come to that.

We have come to Mount Zion. What in the world does that

mean? Well, listen, he describes it.

He describes this dynamic that you and I are stepping into.

Look at verse 22. You have come to Mount Zion and

to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Now again he says this one can't be touched.

It's a spiritual reality that we're stepping into the heavenly

Jerusalem. And I love this two innumerable

angels and festal gathering. I'm not even exactly sure what

that means, but it sounds fun, doesn't it?

Festal gathering. See, the tragedy is that a lot,

there are a lot of believers who have never developed their

spiritual senses. They're born again, but they're

a carnal Christian. They're they operate simply out

of their own desire, their human desires.

They're still left a prisoner of what their body wants.

Oh, I'm hungry, I'm going to eat.

I want, I want this, I want that.

We just follow that and God wants to grow us up out of this.

Infancy Paul calls in First Corinthians 3 and move into

adolescence and then adulthood and adulthood is being spiritual

men and women. And what is hottest, Paul

defying that in Romans 8. They who are led by the Spirit,

they are the sons of God. They're the mature ones.

They're the ones that God releases the authority to

operate out of the family name. God's invited us into sonship.

We're born children, but we grow into being sons, and sons have

developed their spiritual perception so they realize

what's going on in the room and what the writer is telling us.

When we go into worship together, will we gather as the

church? We're not just tinkering with

earthbound realities. It's not reduced to the good mix

in the back. Sorry, Josh, it's not.

It's not reduced to that or to how good the guitarist was.

Well, you know, it helps, so we thank you.

It's not reduced to the preaching of the word.

Hallelujah, it's there is a reality we come into and he says

it right here and and what the reason I I, I'm, I'm keep

pushing on this these last number of weeks is we need to

get our minds around this. We need to renew our minds

because God wants us to do business for heaven.

When we come into this environment and we're

worshipping, there are moments where we can move things in the

earth. We can begin to appeal to heaven

and cry out to God, get marching orders that we walk out during

the week. But if we reduce this to oh, I

like that song makes me want to dance a little.

Oh, I hope, I hope he tells a good joke when he preaches and

it's not about it. We're we're stepping into a

spiritual reality. We need to discern what's going

on. So what does he say?

He says. But you have come to Mount Zion,

to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to

innumerable angels and festo gathering, to the assembly of

the first born who enrolled in heaven, into the God and to God

the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made

perfect. That's Speaking of the great

cloud of witnesses, those who have already gone before us.

We enter into the praise of heaven.

Heaven's not just sitting idly by thinking, I hope they do that

one again. They're already in worship.

We're stepping in. We're merging heaven and earth.

And to Jesus the mediator, renew covenant, the sprinkle blood,

that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them

on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who

warns from heaven. That's what I was feeling in

worship this morning. It's a serious thing to be

confronted by God. Here's my point.

When we gather, there is a dynamic that we enter into and

what God is doing is we He's inviting us to ascend the hill

of the Lord. We come to Mount Zion.

Mount Zion was the governmental seat from which David ruled all

his region. You know, when David conquered

Jerusalem, Jabis, you know how big it was.

I was shocked. It was 11 1/2 acre little walled

city. I think we got more land than

that here, 11 1/2 acres. Man, I thought it was this

glorious Kingdom and it was in the spirit, but it was pretty ho

hum from an earthly perspective. Now David extended that and he

really extended the rule of Israel under his reign, but

Jesus still rules from Mount Zion and He's inviting us into

this process. God wants you to exercise your

authority. He wants you to ask.

Ask of me, and I will give the nation's as an inheritance to

you. We got our missionaries here

this morning. Ask of me and I will give

Columbia to you. Ask of me and I will give the

Sudan to you as a gift. I will give Greece to you as a

gift. Ask of me.

Do we really believe that that is that is the result of

sonship? You look in that passage these

things God wants to bring us higher.

Give us a grid work so we can understand what goes on.

Amen. And in worship the Lord, there

are times where God will drop something in your heart and you

will go into intercession. Sometimes you hear people,

they're groaning under intercession.

That's what that is. Think, wow, that's weird.

No, that's scripture. That's the way it's supposed to

work. We move in and we begin to pray

and cry out to God. We see him and we we see him in

all his glory. And all of a sudden there's

something grips us. God, you deserve it all.

And we begin to look on earth. This has to line up with who you

are. And we begin to cry out to him.

And in those moments God begins to extend his scepter and begins

to move things in the spirit. This is no small thing.

Worship isn't because we like music.

Worship is because it's where God rules from.

And so we've got to catch this thing.

Let me shift gears just just for a second.

Here I was. This would have been, oh man,

probably 10/12/15 years ago. I don't know, I'm terrible at

time. I'll say the other day and if my

brother's here, he can tell me the date, the time of day, what

I was wearing. He's very irritating and, but so

I'll say just the other day and he'll say, dude, if it was four

years ago. Anyway, I digress, but I think

it was about 15 years ago. I was in my office and I don't

remember all that was going on. I think we had just come out of

a staff meeting, if I remember right.

But I was praying and I saw, I went into this vision and I saw

the Lord on this huge White Horse and he was intense and he

was riding fast. There was a ferocity AZ the zeal

of the Father's house was consuming him and he had this

broad sort of two edged sword and it was long.

I bet this thing was 7 feet long, but he was so massive it

didn't look as long as in his hand as it would have been mine

which would have been on the ground.

And he was, he was spinning it like a helicopter blade.

And he was tall enough in his saddle that he was putting it

around his waist. It would that would be

physically impossible for us because we'd hit our body.

But for him it looked perfectly natural.

And that blade was coming like this and it was at head level

and I knew, Oh my goodness, I've got to get down.

And I went down low as he came, and this is what he spoke to me.

And so I could tell you the date, approximate year, because

it was right after this hit the news.

Some of you will remember this. This is what he said to me.

He said Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.

Anybody know who I'm talking about?

Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.

If you look this up, you'll find that Eliot Spitzer was the

governor of New York and he had a reputation.

He had been a prosecuting attorney and he had a reputation

for being tough on white collar crime and and in fact had

dismantled a white collar prostitution ring.

It was call girls for, you know, Wall Street fellas.

And he dismounted it and prosecuted that, only to be

exposed for having frequented a high end prostitute.

And he lost his position. And I knew what the Lord was

saying. He was saying that when I come

and it was the word of the Lord, that that sword was the word of

the Lord being released in response to the prayers of the

Saints. And it released something.

And the Lord was coming in tremendous ferocity.

And I knew I've got to get down it.

It represented getting humble or I'll lose my head.

And the Lord, said Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.

Whenever you release the word of the Lord, you must make sure

there's no internal sympathies with the thing you're releasing

the word of the Lord against. Because once the word of the

Lord is unsheathed, it will remove everything and come back

and remove you if you have internal sympathies.

And I was terrified. I just went down, down low.

And I knew the Lord didn't say this, but it was around that

same time Ted Haggard had lost his position as the president of

the, I think it was Evangelical Association, or I don't know,

you know what I'm talking about. Look it up.

And Ted Haggard had been preaching against homosexuality

and he'd been talking about how we need to hold the line on this

and and not not normalize that. And I have great compassion on

those who are are, you know, struggling with same sex

desires. But we can't normalize it.

We've got to hold the line. Only to be found out that he had

frequented it, a male prostitute, and he lost his

position. And I knew that Ted Haggard was

the example in the church, even though the Lord didn't say it.

And what he was talking about is there is there are times in the

body of Christ where God releases great authority to

change things. And I believe this song we've

been singing is indicative of a time where we've entered a time

of great authority. And we need to have the fear of

the Lord and understand that we can't just sling hash, OK?

We need to make sure that when we are releasing the word of the

Lord, we have searched our hearts.

We need to have clean hands. And a pure heart doesn't mean

you are perfect, but it means that you are repentant and you

side against your sin because we can say things and actually

cause a boomerang effect and disqualify yourself, remove

ourselves. And so it's a very serious

thing. And, and God, I believe the Lord

is wanting to release greater authority on his church.

The last move of God in the mid 90s brought great power to the

church and a revelation of the love of God.

It was called the Father's love out of the Toronto revival down

in Brownsville. It was the Father's Day

outpouring. That's not a coincidence.

It was a restoration of the Father's love.

But 30 years later, we're in need of a correction, and we

need the counterbalance of the fear of the Lord.

And whereas the last move of God brought an impartation of great

power, I did ministry before that and after.

And I'm telling you, it was a totally different deal better

afterwards. But this next move, what God

wants to do is release great authority.

And authority and power are different, and authority must be

wielded with humility and the fear of the Lord.

God is looking to and fro throughout the earth.

He's looking for bodies of people.

Can I find a group of people that I can release authority to

and begin to use them to shape affairs on the earth?

It's not about headlines. It's not about anybody knowing.

It's about God finding a people that will catch the word of the

Lord and stay there until he sees it happen.

And I believe the Lord's extending that to you and I, but

we have to have a sobriety to this thing.

I'm going to ask you to go ahead and stand

to those of you that are thinking, why is he talking

about this stuff? Just hang with us for a while.

You'll, you'll understand God's called us to be more than it's

what Kevin said this morning. He wants to take us beyond being

born again and having heaven as our destination.

He wants to use you to pull heaven to earth.

Now. There are so many needs around

us. God needs people that will pull

Heaven's influence into earth and your personal life.

Your character is the beachhead of his invasion.

If he's going to break into your circumstance, if he's going to

break into our nation, he's got to 1st break into your heart and

get things in order there. This is for all of us.

I'm not preaching at you. So Lord, we're asking God, Lord

that you would deal with us and Lord, that you would align our

hearts with you. Lord, I ask that you would put

your finger on those things that are hindering your activity in

our lives personally so you can pave the way to come

corporately. Thanks for listening to our

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