Joel 8 – Marks of the Last Days Church, Pt. 4 - Joel: The End Times Church

It's time now for the rope with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

There's something powerful about the ways of God in the areas of brokenness.

God breaks us.

You know why he breaks us?

So you won't depend on you.

It won't be about you.

It'll be about him.

Be an overcomer.

This year.

Welcome to another edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Steve is the head pastor of The Road in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It's our vision to make wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ and to see you grow in the grace and knowledge of his love.

If you're in the area, we meet at Chapel Hills Church, located at 2025 Parliament Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.

You can go to our website at theroad.org for service times.

That's theroad.org.

Here now with today's message is Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Okay, we're looking at the book of Joel.

We've been in the book of Joel now for eight weeks.

And we are looking at the marks of the last days church.

And uh number of weeks ago, we talked about the first mark being cultivating wholehearted intimacy with Jesus.

And I'll tell you, you know, the last three nights we had on Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday night to begin the year with fasting and prayer.

Many of you fasted and prayed during that time.

We had a huge crowd.

Each night it got bigger and bigger.

It was really awesome.

And we talked about contending for our inheritance.

Well, really, you could say under the rubric of all of that, contending for our inheritance in Christ is cultivating wholeheartedness, cultivating and a wholehearted devotion to Christ.

Intimacy with the Lord.

Men and women, that's getting up each morning, starting your day in God's word.

For you that are married, it's praying with your wife.

It's praying with your husband.

You have got to contend for your inheritance.

It's been given to you through salvation, but you're not going to experience it except through battle, becoming an overcomer, and contending for it.

Listen, the Christian life in the latter days is for the bold and for those that are assertive and intense in their relationship with Christ, or you are going to get taken out.

The forces of evil are rising exponentially even in the local church.

We are being wined and dined into hell.

I'm telling you right now.

And so we need warriors and we need worshipers in prayer.

We had a fiery war room here before the service.

I just tell you, I'm fired up tonight because of that war room prayer.

And if you want to learn how to pray boldly with faith, come at 515 and join us over here as we war in prayer.

Secondly, we talked about cultivating a lifestyle of prayer and fasting, being a watchman church, a church that is aware of what the enemy is up to and is fasting and praying.

I'll just say this, you know, you know, I was never an MMA fighter.

Um, I'm too little and too fat, but always.

But the reality is, is that in any endeavor that we look at as physical, in any athletic contest, you find people, and I'm talking about believers in that, they know how to fast and pray because they are disciplining their body to be under control for something they've got to do.

And in the same way, when we fast and pray biblically, we're controlling ourselves spiritually and the appetites of our heart so that we stay intense, so we stay focused in wholehearted devotion.

Because you will not, folks, I mean, Cher.

Cher Hindley and I, my great prayer warrior buddy, Cher's been with me for almost 20 years, always has my back in prayer.

And Cher and I were talking about rhythms.

How you get rhythms.

And it, you know, and what happens in the in a local church context is if you're not regularly in a worship context with others, if you're not in some kind of a discipleship group, you will atrophy spiritually.

And you'll just, before you know it, life has passed you by and you're having all kinds of issues at home.

You got all kinds of issues in your family because we're not doing the basics well of just an intimacy with Christ, an intimacy with others, and worshiping in the faith community.

Thirdly, we talked about cultivating an overcoming prayer-answering lifestyle.

And so when we talked about that, we said that as we come closer to the second coming of Christ, as we come closer to when Christ is coming, we are gonna see a church that overcomes, that doesn't quit.

It will be a church that becomes accustomed to answered prayer.

So this year, 2016, if you saw my video online that I believe God gave me the word, innovation and imagination.

I want to add another word to that.

Innovation and imagination through revelation.

You get imagination and innovation for problems in your life through a revelation of the Holy Spirit when you fast and pray and you seek the Lord.

We're gonna talk about that more tonight.

Then fourthly, we talked about supernatural restoration, and then we talked about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last day.

So you can go online, you can see those messages that lead up to today.

And so if you have your Bibles or the app, look at Joel 2 28, because this is where we're at right now.

I love this passage.

I remember the new believer reading this in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

At that time, I didn't even know what a Joel was.

I didn't know it was quoted from the Old Testament, I barely knew an Old Testament from a New Testament.

Except the old sounded really old and the new sounded really new, so I just kept reading the red and the new.

Okay, but it says, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Here's the sixth mark of the last days church.

An outpouring of the Spirit resulting in a prophetic lifestyle.

Men and women, listen to what I just said.

Innovation with imagination through revelation.

That's what he's saying.

He's saying what Joel is saying to us that in the last days, we are gonna have revelation from the Holy Spirit unprecedented in world history, unprecedented in church history, and we are seeing it happen.

We are seeing Muslims across the world that are having visions and dreams.

They're experiencing the Lord, they're experiencing it's gonna be it's a there's a revelation happening in the church, and here's what it says: your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

I think it's children.

Embedded in this is this work of the next generation coming up right now in our kids' lives.

Through, I mean, even through worship, through prayer.

That's what I love about what we did at Christmas Eve, what we do at Easter, where we have that mixed group.

And when God begins to develop and sustain and work out his work at the road and worship, I want kids up here.

I want, we had that, are you the drummer?

That guy can jam on the drums.

I love it.

Your sons and your daughters.

Revelation for you, son, when you're on those drums.

So there's something in that that's not just musical.

There's a revelation that we get when you play the drums that's a work of the Spirit of God in these days.

And so, men and women, as we see the instruments before us as revelatory, some of you are artists.

And you've got to get a hold of the fact that God made you creative in art by getting revelation from the Holy Spirit when you do art that touches your imagination that gives you innovation.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

So I talked about this a little bit last week.

The idea that J.R.R.

Tolkien, if you everybody probably saw Lord of the Rings, well, Tolkien was a believer, he was a Catholic believer.

He got saved through C.S.

Lewis.

Tolkien said something interesting in one of his books.

He talked about sub-creation.

And what he said was God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing.

That's true creation.

But then he gave us, by being created in the image of God, the ability to be sub-creators.

Now, what he meant by that is that we never, as human beings, create from nothing.

We always have to create with something.

Some translations said there's a creation aspect and there's a making aspect.

Doesn't matter.

So what he's saying is that every time you guys create, every time we create, it might be in writing, it might be in art, it might be as an engineer, it might be as a mechanic, it might be as a counselor, it might be as a teacher, whatever.

When you create something and you're innovative, you're tapping into God.

Because he's the original creator and you have his image.

And so God in these last days is going to give us prophetic revelation in our businesses, in our counseling, in our teaching, and in the work we do.

And I believe if we will start, if we'll be spending time in God's word, I don't have a Bible up here.

I've got iPads, so pretend like this is the Bible, okay?

And this is what I I don't use this in my quiet time, but I use this when I teach because it's easier.

But this is the word.

Okay?

As you're reading God's Word, ask for revelation.

Don't ask for information, ask for revelation that leads to formation, which leads to restoration.

Because as we begin to read God's word, he's gonna speak to you.

Okay?

So last week we talked about two different views of prophecy.

So the first one is cessationism.

Cessationism.

That comes mainly out of Dallas Theological Seminary.

Cessationism is the idea that the only prophetic word is what's taught from the Word of God by the pastor.

Let me just say this.

That is the most important prophetic word.

In other words, God, in his infinite wisdom, chose this ragamuffin outfit called the church.

So many say, why do you go to church?

You should say, well, because God made it.

Well, I don't like the, I like Jesus, but I don't like the church.

You've got a faulty Christianity.

Because the reality is he created it, we're following it, and he gave some to be pastors and teachers.

So the prophetic word from the pulpit is powerful.

We pray.

I mean, sometimes mine, you know, isn't, but I'm trying to be.

We try to walk in the spirit, we pray.

But the cessationist view is that all the supernatural gifts like healing, speaking in tongues, uh, deliverance from the demonic, a prophetic word given in the context of a church or a personal interaction with someone ceased, ended, it's called cessationism, ceased with the finished canon of Scripture.

I don't believe that.

I don't believe that theological viewpoint.

I am, in contrast, a continuist.

I believe that all of the supernatural, prophetic, miraculous works of the Spirit are available today.

And we have experienced it at the road on a regular basis.

We've seen people healed.

We've seen, we've cast out demons.

I was at a house not too long ago and cast out a number of demons in a young man's life.

And it was just like that.

Bam, bam, bam, bam.

It was really fun.

I really like that.

You know, like boom, they're gone.

They're out of here.

And so that's continuism.

We believe in the continuation of the prophetic gift.

So, what I want to do tonight is talk a little bit more about that so you have a clear understanding foundationally of what we believe at the road, but also what I believe is key in understanding what this particular verse is saying that your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Okay.

I started it last week.

I want to continue it this week with this idea that Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy is different.

And so I'm going to read some of this so I say it right.

Old, listen, Old Testament prophets spoke the very words, and their prophecies became scripture.

Don't miss this.

Old Testament prophets spoke and wrote with authority straight from God.

Now they they wrote in their own cultural context.

They wrote through their own personality.

Peter's, you know, when you study Greek, when you study Hebrew, Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah, they actually are written differently.

But listen, this is what don't miss this.

They wrote the very words of God through the inspiration of Scripture.

So in an Old Testament context, if someone called themselves a prophet and they were wrong, the scriptures say stone them.

Okay?

So that's how important an Old Testament prophet was.

If he was considered a prophetic, a prophetic oracle from the Lord, if he was a false prophet, you stoned him.

That's Old Testament prophecy.

Now listen, don't miss this.

New Testament apostles, that's the Lamb's 12 and a few others.

Okay?

Y'all know who I'm talking about?

The Lamb's 12.

New Testament apostles carried the same authority as Old Testament prophets.

And their words also became our New Testament scripture.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

So when Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter, that's straight from God, it doesn't mean it was dictated from God.

God worked through his mind, worked through his heart, but it was inspired by the Holy Spirit in the same way as it was in the Old Testament.

Does that make sense?

So, and I'm not calling that New Testament prophecy, by the way, because we didn't have the New Testament yet.

It was that time period where there was a transition from the Old Testament to what was going to become scripture in the New Testament, but at the death of all the apostles, we had the scriptures.

So, New Testament prophecy is not the same.

The way we're living in the last days today is not Old Testament prophecy.

It's not the prophetic words of the apostles.

We're not writing scripture anymore, gang.

The Bible is finished.

The Bible is closed.

You understand that?

There's actually a curse in the book of Revelation, which we're going into next, for those that add to Scripture.

So there's no more adding to Scripture.

But we do see a change in God's dispensation on prophecy.

The New Testament apostle, the Lamb's 12, had the authority of the Old Testament prophet.

But upon the death of the apostles and the closing of the canon of Scripture, we no longer have men with that kind of authority.

There's no Capital A apostles today.

Now there may be small A apostles today, meaning that they have an apostolic gifting for church planting and creating ministries, but it's different.

But in the New Testament, listen now, it's important.

It's clear that God still uses the prophetic gift and prophecy.

1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians 14, and Romans 12 speak of the gift of prophecy.

We have the word of God now, and only the Bible is inerrant infallible.

No prophetic word today is inerrant infallible.

That's why at the road we don't say, thus saith the Lord.

Nobody says, thus saith the Lord.

Like you have some kind of a mantle from God to give a thus saith the Lord?

I don't think so.

Now you can say, you know, when I was praying for you, I got this picture, you know, of something, or you share with them that word.

That's prophetic utterance, but it's not thus saith the Lord, because you don't have that kind of mantle anymore.

All prophetic words are judged by the scriptures.

I don't even like to use and don't use the word prophet, but rather prophetically gifted people.

Prophecy today doesn't carry the authority of the Old Testament prophets, but there's a very practical nature to New Testament prophecy.

So what do I mean?

Okay, I want to give you, do y'all know who Wayne Grudham is?

Raise your hand if you've ever heard the name Wayne Grudom.

Wow, awesome.

That's great.

About half of you.

That's fantastic.

Wayne's a close, we used to be a close friend.

We haven't talked in a couple years, but he wrote the book, Systematic Theology, which I think is the best book on systematic theology in the world today.

And he's spoken in the past with me when I did the conference, Dunamis.

Here's how Wayne Grudom defines New Testament today, New Testament prophecy.

Speaking, listen, speaking human words to report something God brings to mind.

Let me say it again.

Speaking human words to report something God brings to mind.

In other words, you're praying over something and you get a thought, and you know that thought couldn't have come from you, and you jot that down in your journal, that's a prophetic word.

That's a prophetic word.

You should bank on that.

When you're counseling someone, you know, and you're and you're listening to them, and you just have insight into that.

We say, well, I just had added, I have this insight.

No, I mean you can call it whatever you want.

I mean, that's kind of a cool way to say it where it doesn't make, you know, elevate you and say that you got wisdom.

But the reality is that's probably a prophetic word.

That's the Holy Spirit speaking to you guys.

And I want to challenge everyone here at the road that you should regularly have revelation like that.

And you probably are, but you don't even know it.

And the scriptures call it words of understanding, words of knowledge, and words of wisdom.

You guys have people in your life, you know, if you go to them and you say, I don't know, you know, should I marry this girl?

You know, that you're gonna get good wisdom from that guy.

He's gonna tell you something like, Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

That's probably someone who's prophetically gifted.

You just say, Well, they're really wise.

Well, they are really wise.

But in the Bible, it's called a word of wisdom.

And it's under that rubric of the prophetic.

Isn't that exciting?

So it says, your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Kids are gonna be doing this.

We've got to anoint our kids and give them room to minister in the prophetic.

We're gonna see that happening in these days.

Let me give you four things to note about New Testament prophecy.

Number one, really important.

So it's the most important of all.

Write down Revelation 19.10.

Revelation 19.

Really overlooked when people talk about the prophetic, way too much.

Revelation 19.10 says, the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.

Isn't that awesome?

The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.

That means every prophetic word should exalt the Lord.

If it's of the Lord, it should exalt the Lord.

If it's from the Lord, it should exalt the Lord.

If it's a word from the Lord, it should give glory to God.

So when you give a word to someone, it should exalt Jesus.

It's actually the testimony of Jesus.

Number two, the prophetic gift is available to everyone.

Our passage says so.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

So everybody has that ability to prophesy.

Anyone can prophesy.

But listen to number three.

Number three, it is also a spiritual gift given sovereignly by God.

Though all can prophesy, not everyone has the gift.

Of prophecy.

That's why we have 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 that talk about some that are prophetically gifted.

Now let me ask you this.

Nobody's gonna look.

If you want to close your eyes, you can, because I'm not trying to exalt you or anything.

But just if you feel like that you regularly minister in the prophetic gift, in other words, when you're talking to people, you you just often get stuff that couldn't be from you, and you're able to minister to that person, raise your hand.

Alright, so maybe a quarter of you.

You probably have a gift of prophecy, and I would encourage you this year develop it.

Guess how you develop it?

By doing it.

It's actually a verbal gift.

It is a verbal gift.

Some gifts are verbal, teaching's verbal.

You don't learn to teach except by teaching.

Okay?

So you learn to prophesy by prophesying.

Number four, prophecy is defined practically as being used to minister to others.

It's an otherly gift.

1 Corinthians 14, 4 says, prophecy is for edification, exhortation, and encouragement to the body of Christ.

So God simply brings to mind to a person using his own human words a report from God, something you need to hear to minister to others.

So those are the three E's.

It has an edifying function, it has an exhortation function, and it has an encouragement function.

So Wayne Grudham explains.

Every function, this is really important, every function of prophecy, edification, exhortation, encouragement, is also, listen, a function of several other activities, such as teaching, singing hymns and songs, and engaging in ordinary spiritual conversations.

So in that sense, we can prophetically be used of the Lord in that context.

Now here's what sets it apart.

I've added something to Wayne Grudom.

Sorry, Wayne, wherever you are.

This is what it is.

Now listen to me closely.

It's not the function itself that makes it powerful, it's the timely nature of the gift.

The prophetically gifted person is one who has a divine revelation for someone for a specific need at a specific moment in time.

It's a timely word from God.

So let me give you my definition.

So I would define the prophetic gifting as a timely word that God brings to mind, listen, either spontaneously or through study, that foretells or forthells for someone or a congregation.

Here's what I mean.

When I I study for hours to prepare a sermon, and I and when I get up here, I'm foretelling.

In other words, I'm proclaiming truth, right?

And we believe strongly at the road that when we proclaim truth, the only response is worship.

That's why we do worship in the second half.

So we proclaim truth, then we have worship.

Alright?

So that's a foretelling.

Now, there's also this function called forthelling, and that is you speak about the future to someone.

You have a word for someone that has something to do with their future you shouldn't know about.

Or maybe you do know about it.

I mean, maybe you do have, you're giving a word of wisdom based on a foundation of knowledge about that.

But as I shared last week, when, you know, 20 years ago, when Romy Zaret walked up to me at the Anaheim Vineyard as I was leaving staff meeting, and she gave me that word about the Rocky Mountains and going to the Rocky Mountains.

She didn't even know my name.

We had never met before.

And I was in fasting and prayer that day, and she gave me that word, and I fell on my face and wept for 15 minutes and then resigned two hours later and came to Colorado Springs of Planet Church.

That's forthelling and that's bizarre.

And I'm telling you, the more you're open to revelation, the more that'll happen in your life.

Well, that never happens to me.

Well, that's because you're not you're not in a position to hear it.

Seriously.

Because if you when you go into fasting and prayer, you're seeking God about something.

You think God doesn't see that?

You don't think when when when we're zealous and we're passionate, and I gotta hear from you, Lord, on this issue, he doesn't hear that.

Seek the Lord while he may be found.

He's so ready.

He's so ready.

He's speaking all the time.

I think I feel like Jesus, the Lord, the Holy Spirit is speaking all the time, but we're just not in the direction of where it's happening because we're so busy.

We're just busy.

And so I'm praying and fasting on a regular basis, and that's why I wear this little thing right here for a worship leader for our church.

God hears that.

He's setting up things.

I don't know who it's with or where it's at, but he's setting up things.

Some of you need to fast and pray about your healing this year.

You need to get healed this year.

You need to overcome that sickness, and you can through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You absolutely can, but you're asleep spiritually.

You just kind of my grandmother had it.

And my great-grandmother had it.

I guess I'm gonna have it.

Well, yes, you are.

Because that's about the level of your faith.

I'm just gonna, poor me.

I just love Jesus, but my lot is suffering.

My spiritual gift is suffering.

No, your spiritual gift is stupidity.

Because God has called all of us.

We're gonna go into Revelation.

You're gonna see that in the first three chapters in the next few weeks.

You're called to be an overcomer.

Okay?

You're called by God to put on all the armor and to be filled with the Holy Spirit and quit taking no and quit being asleep at the wheel and wake up this year.

Because God will give you revelation that's gonna lead to a new imagination, which is gonna give you fresh innovation in your life.

Some of you have been looking at stuff in your life right here this way.

And God's saying, No, it's over here.

Do an end around.

You keep running the same play.

The enemy knows your play.

All the linemen are right there in the middle section, and you keep losing ground.

Why don't we do an end around?

How about a pass play?

The Holy Spirit will give you that kind of revelation.

He really will.

So Charles Spurgeon can't get any more conservative than Charles Spurgeon.

Can't get any more reformed than Charles Spurgeon in the late 1800s there in London.

Here's what he said.

While preaching in the hall, on one occasion, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the crowd and I said, There's a man sitting there who is a shoemaker.

He keeps his shop open on Sundays.

It was open last Sabbath morning.

He took nine pence in, and there was four pence profit out of it.

His soul is sold to Satan for four pence.

A city missionary, when going his rounds, met with this man and seeing that he was reading one of my sermons, he asked the question, Do you know Mr.

Spurgeon?

Yes, replied the man.

I have every reason to know him.

I've been to hear him, and under his preaching, by God's grace, I have become a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Shall I tell you how it happened?

I went to the music hall.

I took my seat in the middle of the place.

And by the way, that tabernacle in London held 5,000 people.

So he's in the middle of 5,000 people at that time.

Mr.

Spurgeon, in his sermon, looked at me as if he knew me, and in his sermon he pointed to me and told the congregation that I was a shoemaker and that I kept my shop open on Sundays, and I did, sir.

I should not have minded that.

But he also said that I took in nine pence the Sunday before and that there was four pence profit out of it.

I did take nine pence that day, and four pence was just my profit, but how he should know that, I could not tell.

Then it struck me that it was God who had spoken to my soul through him.

So I shut up my shop the next Sunday.

At first, I was afraid to go again to hear him, lest he should tell the people more about me.

See how lucky you are?

But afterwards I went and the Lord met with me and he saved my soul.

Isn't that a great story?

Oh, but God doesn't do that today.

No, that was just all a coincidence.

And Spurgeon goes on to add in his autobiography: I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed out somebody in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it, and so striking has been my description that the persons have gone away and said in their minds, come see a man that told me all things that I had ever done.

Beyond a doubt, he must have been sent of God to my soul, or else he could not have described me so exactly.

That's a prophetic church.

That's a prophetic people.

Our sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Verse 29.

And also on my men servants and on my maidservants, I will pour out my spirit in those days.

You know what I love about this passage?

It has nothing to do with gender.

Men and women shall prophesy.

Men and women shall forthell and foretell the truth.

Men and women shall have visions and dreams.

It also has nothing to do with age.

It even has room for old guys.

It even has room for old women.

And you know, old men, you know, we we do, you can't you dream a lot of dreams because you sleep a lot more.

But your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Seventh mark.

Through the outpouring of the Spirit in those days, there will be a lifestyle of dreams and visions.

Dreams and visions will become commonplace.

God will be supernaturally, and he's doing it today, leading his people through visions and dreams.

Now, I believe two parts to this.

Visions and dreams are literal visions from the Lord where you're awake and you see something, and I've never had a vision.

I've never had a real, real unadulterated vision.

Like where I am, I'm right here and it's uh and I'm preaching a sermon or I'm walking to the store or I'm having a quiet time, and I see something literally like a technicolor movie clip.

That's the way people describe it, those that have had visions like that.

I do know of a man who is really anointed in this area, and even in the last two years, had a vision of tanks in our cities of America.

He saw tanks flowing through the cities of America, and he believed there's there's soon to come martial law across the land.

Okay, now I've never had that.

That's a vision.

But then dreams are literally dreams.

When you're asleep, getting a dream from the Lord.

I would encourage you to keep a journal, keep your PB and J journal near your bed.

When you get dreams, write it down.

Right when you wake up, write them down.

If you've been through a traumatic situation, if you've been through a difficulty or there's some transition happening in your life, God often speaks the most vividly in visions and dreams during a transition period.

He does.

So when we went into the 40 nights of prayer at the road after I resigned from the other church and everything, and I and we were praying and we're fasting, some of us at that time, that four months leading up to that, seven times, seven times God gave Liz and I the word, the road less traveled.

Weird stuff like Robert Redford.

I mean, if I ever had the chance to meet Robert Redford, I'd say, you are key in my calling.

I'm sure he'd be deeply moved by that.

But but Liz is in a time of seeking the Lord, and CNN or MSNBC or somebody was doing an interview with Robert Redford about his life, and he just said it was like a road less traveled.

And then, like a day or two later, she hears on the radio, a speaker on the radio talking about a road less traveled.

And then God speaks the road less traveled five more times.

That's what God does when he's trying to get your attention, guys, if you're willing to have ears to hear.

Because when you have ears to hear, he's gonna guide you.

I don't ever hear from God.

You're not listening enough.

Because God is speaking and he loves you.

You are beloved, and he's making you, if you'll let him, into a whole-hearted disciple.

Now he primarily speaks through his word, but he speaks through visions and dreams.

Now, that's literal.

Now, let me just say this.

I believe visions and dreams also speaks to the heart of each one of us a vision and a dream, allegorically, that you have for your own life.

Every one of you here have some kind of a vision or some kind of a dream.

Some of you have a dream of owning a business and being successful at that business and being a blessing through that business.

Some of you have a dream of a role that you might want to have as a teacher.

Some of you women have a dream of being a mom and you'd love to have a family, and you're not married yet, and you have this dream, you want a godly husband.

Some of you men want to have a godly wife and raise a family.

Those are visions and dreams, too.

God, you seek God, you you you you go after God intensely for those things.

Write them down, ask him for them.

And I promise you, he hears that prayer.

And some of you have died to your dreams.

You have died to the vision God gave you.

And let me just say this: many times before a vision comes to fruition, you have to die to it.

And sometimes in a dream that God gives you, you're gonna have to go through a wilderness to get to the fulfillment of that dream.

There's something powerful about the ways of God in the areas of brokenness.

God breaks us.

You know why he breaks us?

So you won't depend on you.

It won't be about you, it'll be about him.

Be an overcomer this year.

Be one who opens your heart to the Lord in worship and prayer daily.

Go there, watch what'll happen when you start doing that.

Watch how you'll get revelation that you never had before about stuff.

Well, I've asked Terry Lee.

Wake up, Terry.

Terry was asleep over there.

And uh Terry had a dream, and it was such a cool story.

And Terry, make sure you kind of give them a over here, give them a background about what you do, and then uh share that dream, a literal dream you had from the Lord.

I thought it was pretty cool.

I have to be careful what I say.

I can't give you a background because um what I work at, if I told you what I really did, I'd go to prison.

So I work for um Air Force Space Command special programs.

Most of what I do is above top secret.

Um, so I can't get the details, but I'll try to give you the generalities.

I want you to know that um we heard a lot better testimonies than what I'm gonna tell you today this last week.

Um Steve picked me because the mine had to do with a dream, but I'm I just want to say that the people who shared the testimonies about their struggles and their struggles throughout unanswered prayers are probably the most inspiring testimonies last week.

Keep that in mind.

So it's a it's an honor and honor.

I'm humbled by you asking me to do this because it's a dream.

But there were better ones than I'm about to tell you.

I call it the collateral damage of prayer.

Okay, so Steve and I have these really deep, intimate, holy convocations on the internet.

I say things to him like, if we don't know what we're doing for Christmas Eve, by next week we're screwed.

All in caps.

We have really deep, meaningful convers, don't we?

Pretty accurate.

So Steve loses weight because he goes immediately into fasting and he's got prayer going on.

He's got the blood room praying away.

And wasn't that a great Christmas Eve service that guy came through?

Because we really didn't know what we were doing four weeks out.

I mean, we were just totally clueless.

So okay, so what's this got to do with with a dream?

Well, we were ordered by um our four-star general and some people from way up in the Department of Defense to set up an allied uh cell at a war game in December uh that we weren't prepared to do.

We were going to play their weapon systems along with ours at above top secret.

It was way up there.

And uh the Marine running it was freaked out of his mind.

He goes, We've never done this, so we're gonna look like idiots if we don't know what we're doing.

Yeah, one thing uh I just want you to know, I don't sorry, Steve, but I'm not a dreamer and I don't like dreaming and I don't seek dreams.

Okay, so I think God likes to pick on scientists and engineers because we spend most of our time explaining away miracles or if they if they really happen, we're we're stuck in denial, right?

Kind of like Luke the physician.

I record what happened, I'm not looking for it.

So we got into the war game, and uh the adversary went full out against us.

I mean, it was a very legitimate adversary.

I can't tell you who it was, and use your imagination.

And uh I went home and we had to make our first move, and I had a dream.

I had a dream of exactly what oh, here's a fun one.

So last minute they made me the space weapon targeting planner for the Royal Air Force.

Try this one out.

Two weeks before Star Wars comes out.

I'm the royal targeting space planner for a bunch of British people.

So my wife asked me when Star Wars came out, do you want to see her?

Not now.

I had to live it for two straight weeks.

So I had this dream, and I tell my wife, I got in the morning, I had the weirdest dream about what we're gonna do.

And you know, I just went to work and I go into the vault, and there's this one British guy in there, I didn't know who he was, and he knew me.

He goes, Well, Terry, what you got for us?

Well, I didn't have the courage to tell him where I got it, I just put it on a whiteboard and what we were gonna do.

And he goes, British accent, well, Terry, that's that's really good.

I think we'll that's what we're gonna do.

And all these people walk in.

And he stands up, he was the commander of the cell, and I didn't even know it.

So all these people, he goes, All right, everybody, do you sit down?

Terry here is gonna tell us what we're gonna do.

So this is what we're gonna do.

So I laid out the thing for him.

So I sat way in the back, and the the three-star general comes in, a wall of space, and he's sitting there, and they're briefing him, kind of like Nebuchadnezzar.

And his eyes light up and he goes, That's the most amazing move of the game, because that's my number one target priority.

Do you know we just had an exercise, and that was the same number one target priority they had?

And uh it put our cell way on top.

We led the game from that point forward.

Um, and I just sat him back because I didn't want him.

I they briefed him, so it looked like their move, but I didn't care if they told them where they got it.

I just did it.

Well eventually uh I had all their generals talking to me.

They call me Dr.

Eagle.

I later had a hug from the three stars, so I it became critical clear, pretty clear they told them where they got it.

And then what it did is the move, and I had to be careful I say this, is very careful.

Uh the move took down the entire adversary network in a single shot.

It was the only move that did that to the network.

I can't get Any more specific than that because of a dream.

So if you don't believe me, um I'll let you see this message I got from them later.

Um, and you can read on it.

But please don't write the names down, don't put them on Facebook.

It's being addressed to the most highly cleared, highly classified uh space people in of the Allies from the United Kingdom, the US, and Australia.

They're on this list.

This is what it read.

It reads like this about this is from a hardcore marine leader who used to work for four stars.

This is what he wrote.

About six weeks ago, I didn't have much faith we would even be able to have an Allied high cell, let alone have it end up being a cell that received nothing but praise from everyone.

Um, I heard nothing but praise of the products and the target contributions.

He said it was the standout cell of the war game.

The Allied out brief was the pinnacle.

Numerous leadership tell me the brief was a home run.

It got the right message across to the right U.S.

leadership.

So that's what's in it.

I'll let you read it.

I mean, I brought the evidence.

Um because of that, I wound up in uh a vault meeting with the highest senior leaders of the Department of Defense Secretary of the Air Force, the NRO, um the deputy secretary.

And I don't like it.

I hate I'm like Harrison for it.

He hates snakes, I hate politics, so I did not enjoy that.

I did not enjoy that.

Um if if there's anything to take from this, um I would blame the boiler room prayer for this.

Um I would blame the Christmas Eve service for it because I was trying to get them to pray for that.

If you if you serve the youth, if you serve in this church and you get prayer, be beware of the collateral damages of prayer.

Really, I'm serious.

If you don't think that like Daniel, you're gonna end up, you could end up in front of Kep Nebuchadnezzar, uh, you might actually get hugged by him.

And and you don't even I don't even like stuff like that.

So that's the reason I I do the uh the youth ministries with the kids because because I see these things and um and that's how you're gonna get the collateral damage if you serve and you get the prayer on you.

You will I warn you about this, and it's not gonna be an uncommon event for you.

But I I know and I'm confident that our kids, our youth, I mean, I'm not saying this because of his message, I would have said it anyway.

I want our youth to have the same kind of life that we have.

You know, I want them to be instantaneously in front of the most powerful people in the DOD.

I want them to see the dreams too.

I mean, if it's out there, why not?

You know, we're not here, I don't come here and I don't work for this guy up here because I like to play church.

I hate wasting my time.

But I think, and I told the kids I had a youth worship planning meeting today, and I told them today, and then the wonderful team of youth we have, wonderful, I told them I do not like wasting my time, but I will tell you right now, and I told them up front that my work with the youth here, I would rank it on par with anything I've ever done for NASA or for the Star Wars program or Space Command.

I I consider it the same.

Okay?

Thank you.

Thank you, Terry.

Well, I believe that what we're gonna see is that kind of stuff happening.

Wouldn't it be exciting if the Joint Chiefs of Staff are coming to the church to have revelation about what's happening around the globe because they recognize there's power on the church.

That's the church God wants to raise up.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Steve Holt.

We pray that you've been blessed by the message today.

Our hope is to make wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ, and that's why we teach the Word of God verse by verse, scripture by scripture, and precepts upon precept.

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