Joel 4 - Return to the Lord - Joel: The End Times Church

It's time now for the road with Pastor Teacher T.

Hope.

Church, I want to challenge you.

Get along with the Lord.

Take time daily.

Fast and pray.

Pull away from stuff.

If you are doing things or bottom things or occupying so much of your time that you're not spending quality time in God's Word.

You're spinning.

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 time.

That's thheroad.org.

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

We're in the book of Joel.

If you have your Bible or you're looking on the app, we're in the book of Joel and we are studying Joel.

The theme of Joel is the day of the Lord is coming.

It's really interesting.

Joel, really, as a prophet, we know nothing about.

He's a nobody.

He's a nobody that became a somebody.

Because he obeyed God.

Men and women, remember that when you obey God, God can use you in a mighty way.

And what's happening in our world today is being prophesied through Joel.

He is speaking not only of the day of the Lord capital D, he's speaking of the day of the Lord small case D.

You see, I think there's days of the Lord that are leading us toward the day of the Lord, and we are living in it.

Over 700 have been killed, murdered over the last uh three months through terrorist attacks around the world.

We have now had two shootings in Colorado Springs.

We had the thing in San Bernardino.

There is a rising tide of demonic powers that the restrainer, the Holy Spirit, is allowing upon our country.

And Joel is prophesying about that day.

He's saying there is a day of the Lord.

And we've already gone through this in chapter one of the locust coming through.

There's a days of the Lord devastation, and there's a day of the Lord coming.

Listen, you guys, as the darkness gets darker, churches that are empowered with the Spirit, rooted in God's word, are gonna be brighter.

It's our brightest day.

And so there's something if you look at chapter 1, verse 1, where he's speaking there of has anyone seen this in our day?

There's a devastating monumental work in the days of the Lord of darkness.

And at the same time, simultaneously, God is gonna raise up believers as a city on a hill that will be brighter.

And so what happens, you know, I was out hunting this week, and and uh, you know, right before the sun rises, it's the coldest.

And you're out there and it's really frigid, and you can't wait for that sun to rise, but right then it is the coldest temperature of the day in most cases.

And then the sun rises, and so we're seeing darkness and the cold of the demonic activity, but we're also gonna see a rise within the community of faith with greater empowerment.

These are great days.

Folks, these are great days we're living in.

Even as we see a church that will apostasize and compromise, we are gonna see churches that are filled with the Holy Spirit, empower of the Holy Spirit, being raised up by God.

And it is an exciting time.

And yet it's a sobering time.

So we're in Joel chapter 2 or at verse 6.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

We've read last week about blowing the trumpet.

And I mentioned that that was a warning trumpet.

And we're gonna see the blowing of the trumpet again here.

Before them the people writhe in pain.

All faces are drained of color.

They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war.

Everyone marches in formation and they do not break ranks.

And so I believe Joel is envisioning demonic activity.

This is an unhuman army.

This is not a real, this is not a human army, it's an unhuman army.

And yet we see human armies.

When you read this and you think about the hooded ISIS terrorist, a crazed mountain man who comes out of North Carolina into Planned Parenthood and does what he does, and then a Muslim couple in San Bernardino, and a Russian president who just recently came out and said the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the demise of communism in Russia.

We are seeing the rise all around us of evil.

And in spite of what our politicians say, folks, we do not have anything to fear.

What we have to do is be prepared because the Bible has already told us how it's gonna all end up.

And it's an exciting time because God is empowering the church even as demons are being empowered in the process.

And so this hordes, and we're gonna read more about it.

As I study this, I'm like, I don't really want to give this message.

But it is like a thief in the night, and there is Satan's organized.

Do you know that?

Satan is organized.

And so he has an organizational system at work, and God is empowering us to be ready.

And he's gonna give us what I believe is the key to revival, and the key to what I believe is a third great awakening.

I believe there's a third great awakening coming to this land if we'll heed what he tells us.

They do not push one another.

Everyone marches in his own column.

Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down.

So this horde, this demonic horde seemingly can't be stopped.

They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter at the windows like a thief.

And might I add, like a thief in the night.

Matthew chapter 24, Jesus speaking.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

The earthquakes before them.

Now, this is interesting.

The heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness.

The environment is going to be impacted.

Church, the environmentalists will actually be dumbfounded.

In one sense, the environmentalists are right about the changes that we're seeing environmentally, but this is going to be environmental changes that we're not on the grid.

That the moon is going to grow dark and the stars are going to diminish in their brightness.

And Jesus was asked in Matthew 24, how do we know the coming of the Lord?

How do we know when the last days will be?

And Jesus says at the end of the tribulation period, quote, the sun will be darkened.

Now that's a solar eclipse.

On March 20th, there was a complete solar eclipse.

And the moon will not give its light.

That's a lunar eclipse.

What John Hagee would call blood moons.

And I mentioned his book in the past.

We had two blood moons.

We had two lunar eclipses in 2014.

We've already had two complete lunar eclipses in 2015.

April 4th and September 27th and 28th.

Lunar and solar eclipses.

The stars will fall from heaven, Jesus says.

Remember the meteor that hit Russia?

That was February 15th, 2013, hit the Urals, a town in the Ural Mountains.

An impact of 300 tons of TNT, 3,000 houses damaged, and a thousand people sent to the hospital.

And the powers of the heavens, Jesus says, will be shaken.

I mean, is God trying to get our attention or what?

Folks, he's fed up with our sin.

It's Leonard Ravenhill, and then Billy Graham quoted Leonard Ravenhill so many years ago.

If God doesn't judge America, he must apologize for Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is every day now.

I mean, I'm anticipating something in the morning.

I got up today and there was a knifing in London.

Another terrorist attack with people hospitalized.

I don't think anybody was killed.

It's almost every day.

It's like, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.

And it's business as usual in Washington.

And it's business as usual in most churches.

And these are harbingers.

These are warnings.

Because God is so gracious.

And he's so slow about judgment.

God is so slow about judgment.

He's giving us a chance to repent.

He's giving us a chance for the church to come together and cry out for his mercy.

I love verse 11.

The Lord gives voice before his army, for his camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes his word.

For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible.

Who can endure it?

Men and women, God's in charge.

And his first line of defense in a nation is not the president and is not Congress.

It's the church.

He's looking for the church.

This is the church that he's looking at, and he's looking to the church, and it's the church that causes a nation to rise or fall.

The Lord is giving voice to his army.

And his army is the church, and that camp is very great.

I was driving in from hunting on Friday, and there along the streets were all those folks at the funeral with that massive American flag, you know, waving there in the wind, and everybody was there.

And God bless, God bless, God bless, God bless, and signs all along the street.

God's army is great.

We're a part of a great army.

And many have not lost faith.

Many are praying and seeking God and they're crying out to God.

And God gives voice to his intercessors and he gives voice to his leaders and he gives voice to his servants.

This is what's great about Joel is Joel's a nobody.

And God gave him a voice because he was in God's word, and then God spoke to him, and he'll do that in your life.

He'll do that in your life, you guys.

He wants to use you.

All God needs is any of us who are willing to obey him and listen to him, and he'll give you voice, and he'll anoint you with his spirit, and he'll flow through you, and you'll reach out to your neighbors, and you'll see miracles happen, and you'll see God move in mighty and powerful ways.

Guess what God does?

Amos said, the Lord roars from Zion.

The Lion of Judah church is roaring.

God is roaring, and it is a day that is great and very terrible.

What does that mean?

I believe that means that we are seeing terrible things, and for those that aren't going to follow the Lord are not going the ways of the Lord, it's going to be a terrible day.

And for those who are walking in the Spirit, it's going to be an awesome day.

This is not a time to be messing around in the darkness because the Lord is giving us opportunity to repent.

God is giving us opportunity to turn.

Don't let or don't confuse the toleration or the patience of the Lord to be toleration.

Because He's coming.

And so He's giving all of us.

I think it's like a sunrise.

If you ever get up early and you're looking at a sunrise, doesn't it seem slow?

It just seems kind of slow.

But it's methodical, but it's slow.

You see the sunrise.

God's slow about judgment, but it will rise.

And so God's calling us as his army, that he loves us.

Judgment will be severe.

Judgment will be as certain as the sunrise.

Let us repent.

The great day of the Lord is near.

It is near and hastens quickly.

The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter.

There the mighty men shall cry out.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers.

I will bring distress upon men.

They shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord.

Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like refuge.

Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath.

Men and women, this is God's word.

This is not the New York Times, it's not the Wall Street Journal, this is God's word.

And not one jot or tittle will pass away until all is fulfilled.

God's giving us a picture here of a day of wrath.

Recently, Rob Bell.

I don't know if y'all know who Rob Bell is.

Some of you have been with me for a while.

You remember when I did a critique of his book, Love Winds Years Ago?

I'm not against the emergent church per se.

I think there's aspects of the emergent church that are good.

But he was one of the original guys with the emergent church.

And he began to change theologically about 10 years ago.

And then he came out with the book Love Winds.

And I had heard about it through guys like John Piper and others, so I read it and read it twice in one day.

And I just kept going, I must be missing something here.

But he had become and he has continued to flow in the direction of what we might call universalism, that everybody's going to get saved.

And in this love wins theme, he's carried with him because as soon as he came out with the book, he had to resign from his church because there was such a riot and an uproar.

It was one of the largest churches in the United States at the time.

So recently he was on Oprah, and this is what he said.

They were talking about gay marriage in this particular context, and he said, God's word is irrelevant.

And who wants to read 2,000-year-old letters anyway?

Amos says, a lion has roared.

Who will not fear?

The Lord God has spoken.

The good news is that God's word stands forever and rob bells you wouldn't even know if I hadn't quoted it.

And the other good news is that you're going to stand before and in the presence of the Lord someday.

And I don't know where he's going to stand, but he'll be a footnote in church history.

God's moving church.

God's calling us to fast and to pray and to weep and to cry out to him, turn this thing around.

It could be our brightest day.

And so that's what verse 12 says.

Now, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all of your heart.

Wholehearted, wholehearted, turn to the Lord with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.

Even now, turn to me.

I believe we can turn this thing around.

This is about being wholehearted.

This is about being a whole-hearted disciple.

This is about being a whole-hearted church.

We need a whole-hearted church.

We need whole-hearted disciples.

And folks, you guys know when I talk about whole-hearted, I don't mean perfection.

I don't mean we've got our act together, or we try to be more religious than anybody else.

What we mean is that we come with our whole heart.

Sin and all.

Everybody in this room has compromised.

Every one of us in this room are ragamuffins.

Every one of us in this room are all messed up.

But it's coming to the one who's not messed up.

It's coming to the one who isn't a ragamuffin.

It's coming to the one who loves us and who's gracious and he's caring.

And he says, just love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And I'll show up and I'll start answering prayers and I'll start doing miraculous stuff in your life.

And you'll mess up again.

And you'll follow 1 John 1 9 and you'll repent and you'll confess that sin.

And in the process, you're actually becoming more Christ-like through your failures.

I know I'm a big, awesome failure.

I am.

Two years ago, I just began to pray and to fast and take prayer walks and just take total inventory of my stuff.

And there was a lot of crummy stuff, a lot of pride in everything.

Pride in my accomplishments and pride in what I had done.

And I had to repent and give that to the Lord.

Some of you are carrying pride, and some of you are carrying issues, and maybe it's jealousy, maybe it's envy.

See, one of the worst things I think in our whole Christian walk is comparison.

Because you're never going to measure up.

Take it from me.

I'm an expert, I'm a gold medal winner in the Olympics of comparison.

And uh and it forget it.

Die to it.

Surrender it all to the Lord and begin to be who God created you to be and stop trying to be something that you're not.

And so that's what being whole-hearted is.

And so he's saying here, come, I don't want you to come to me and rend your garments.

I want you to turn to me with all of your heart.

And here's what I know is true.

We're not responsible for what America does.

We're not necessarily responsible for what our politicians do.

We're responsible for the church.

We're called as the roe to be a church that seeks the Lord wholeheartedly, and we leave the results up to him.

Isaiah.

Isaiah in the situation that he was in looked up and says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

The king had died, and the Lord's still on his throne.

And so Isaiah looked up, and the Lord was on his throne, and his glory filled the palace.

Oh no, it didn't say palace.

Oh, the White House?

No, it didn't say the White House.

It said it filled the temple.

The church.

The church.

We need spirit-filled, glory-filled, word preaching, obedient, wholehearted churches.

He's still on his throne.

Ezekiel was in a refugee camp as an exile, sitting by a garbage dump.

And we read this.

Then I looked up.

I looked up, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself, and brightness was all around it, and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber out of the midst of the fire.

Also from within it, listen, it came the likeness of four living creatures, and this was their appearance.

The likeness of a man.

So Ezekiel, he's in a refugee camp.

He's on a garbage dump, but he looks up and he sees Christ in his vision with these living creatures.

He gets a vision of where the Lord is in his glory.

John is on the island of Patmos.

He's at a prisoner of Rome.

He's been boiled in oil.

Many believe that from the neck down, his entire body was just scarred from being boiled in oil.

He's been beaten.

There's probably scar marks across his back.

He's 90 years old.

And Patamus is like just, it's almost like it's a volcanic island.

It's really nasty.

Seen pictures of it.

And it says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.

And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man, who's that's Christ.

He sees Christ, clothed with a garment down to his feet, girded about with a chest with a golden band.

His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes are like a flame of fire.

His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.

He's brought into the heavenly throne room.

He's still on the throne, gang.

And right now, in 2015, he's still on the throne, and he's looking for a people who'll worship him.

And cry out to him.

So rend your heart, verse 13, not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm.

In my study Bible, I have that bracketed, and I wrote on the side, the character of the Lord.

This is the character of the Lord.

He's gracious, he's merciful, he's slow to anger, he's full of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm.

That's the Jesus we worship.

That's the Jesus we serve.

That's what he wants to do with those who will come to him wholeheartedly.

He wants to relent.

He wants to pour out graciousness.

He wants to pour out mercy.

He's slow in anger.

He's full of forgiving kindness.

Church, may we be a people who would come to him and rend our hearts toward him and begin to cry out to him, begin to develop war rooms.

You need war rooms in our homes and war rooms in our church.

That's coming together, and we're seeking God and we're returning to the Lord.

So Jesus says, Eat of me, eat of me, eat me, eat of me.

Let me nurture with the nutrients of my spirit and my word into your body and into your heart and digest it.

Come into me, rend, rend your hearts.

So men and women at the road, we are called to rend our hearts.

So starting next week, we've had a 515 prayer here in the sanctuary from 515 to 545 where the men come to pray before the service.

And I'm asking for the month of December to have prayer for our city and for our nation at 515, male or female.

Anyone wants to come, I don't care if kids come, you're all invited.

But here in this room at 515, all through December, and we'll see about January, let's just take it one step at a time.

We're praying for God to move in a mighty and powerful way in the churches of Colorado Springs.

I'm not expecting non-believers to repent.

I'm expecting non-believers to be awakened.

I'm expecting the church to repent.

And so we come together, we'll be over here in this corner and we'll pray and we'll pray until 545.

So if you have a heart for this, this is what we're called to do, I believe.

We're just gonna come and we're just gonna, some of us will probably kneel down over here.

Some of us will be on our faces, some of us will be standing.

I don't care.

It's not the position of our body, but the attitude of our heart.

But we're just gonna let it flow.

I'm asking Denny Hawk to lead it, and we're gonna pray from 5.15 to 545.

I I know how everybody's busy on Saturdays.

But folks, business as usual in a war is called stupidity.

My dad grew up uh in World War II in North Carolina, and you know, they started having these um, they had rubber drives and they had metal drives, and you know, they knew that we were way behind the eight ball um economically and militarily as we entered the war.

Germany had been building for 15 years, just like ISIS is doing.

Um, so while we kind of worried about the World Series, all of Europe went to Hitler.

While we worry about who's gonna win the U.S.

Open this year, ISIS.

Do you realize ISIS controls more right now, population-wise, larger than the country of England?

Do you know that's organized?

They have judicial courts, they have judges, they have governors, they have presidents.

They're in place.

It's not a bunch of bearded old guys walking around in the hills of Afghanistan bombing stuff.

It's actually really organized.

And it's getting more organized by the day.

And 81% of Americans in a survey two weeks ago said they believe there will be a terrorist attack very soon in the United States of America.

81%.

Verse 14.

Who knows?

Speaking of the Lord now, you guys, who knows if he will turn and relent?

It's the Lord.

Turn from his judgment, relent, and leave a blessing behind him.

A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion.

Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.

So the first shofar is a warning.

The second shofar means impending danger.

Folks, danger is around the corner.

It's the Lord's day.

It's the day of the Lord.

You can say it's the day of the Lord.

It's the Lord's day.

We switch it around.

It's the Lord's day.

The Lord's coming.

The Lord's coming.

I don't know how you feel these days, but I can't wait to go to heaven.

It's an exciting time.

Now, if you're walking in sin and you're messing around, this is not a good day for you.

You will be found out.

So repent.

Repent here.

Repent tonight.

During communion.

During communion.

Come up to one of our elders.

Come up to one of us that are up here and say, I am really messed up.

And we'll go, you're probably not that messed up.

And you'll say, No, you don't know how bad it is.

Oh, that's nothing.

We had way worse than that last week.

You can't surprise us.

You can't.

We got a lot of big-time sinners in this church.

And we got a bunch of messed up people that are finding Jesus and growing in Jesus with all their stuff.

And you know what's exciting about that is that when that happens and you become more Christ-like, there's a humble spirit and there's a wholeheartedness for those that are also suffering because you've had to suffer.

And that's a good thing.

Walk with a limp.

It says here, call a sacred assembly, consecrate a fast.

I think prayer, guys, is coming to the Lord, and fasting is giving up something to the Lord.

You understand that?

So prayer is you come to God and you cry out to God for stuff, and you cry out to God for things that are happening that you need his help and his power for.

But fasting, fasting is you part from something.

You give up something.

You give up, and it and we kind of think of it as just as food.

I don't think it's that.

It might have been then because that was about the most, that was the most important thing they had probably at that time was food, because it was subsistence living.

But now we have TVs and we have media and we have sports and so many things that complicate our lives.

I think God would say, What would he have you fast from?

What would he have you give up for the Lord?

Maybe one day a week you'd give up something to the Lord and you would part from that, and here's why.

Not to just part from and go, oh, I'm just so religious and I'm so spiritual because I don't watch, I'm not gonna watch Georgia football this week.

Because I know that'd be what a lot of you guys are thinking is giving up something that extreme.

But no, no, no, it's not what it means.

I think it here's what a fast is a fast is giving up something that occupies your time so that you can spend more time alone with the Lord.

God speaks to us primarily when we're alone with the Lord in intimacy with him.

So Noah was alone with the Lord when the Lord came to him and said, Build an ark, and he's laughed at, and he's ridiculed, and he builds an ark.

Abraham was alone with the Lord when God spoke to him of the promises of the Lord and the nation that he would build.

Abraham, who began to doubt that calling that he had from the Lord, was alone with the Lord when the Lord said to him, Abraham, go out into the night.

And so he goes out into this desert night in the wilderness.

He says, Cast your eyes into the heavenlies.

And he looks up into the heavenly, see, count the stars of the heaven.

That's the descendants that I will give you.

He was alone with the Lord.

Jacob was alone with the Lord as he wrestled with an angel and became the nation of Israel.

Moses was alone with the Lord when he saw a burning bush, and he went toward that bush and he got his calling from the Lord.

Joshua was alone with the Lord when he was told how to overcome Jericho.

Gideon was alone with the Lord when he was told how to fight the battle against the Midianites.

Elijah was alone with the Lord on Mount Carmel when fire came from heaven.

Peter was alone with the Lord when he was told to go to Cornelius.

Paul was alone with the Lord for three years after he became a believer.

Hearing from God and receiving from the Lord.

Church, I want to challenge you.

Get alone with the Lord.

Take time daily.

Fast and pray.

Pull away from stuff.

If you are doing things or involved in things that are occupying so much of your time that you're not spending quality time in God's word, you're sinning.

You're sinning.

You will be broken because you're not getting that inner strength.

I know some of you work out, so you know what I'm talking about.

You know, if you're not working out, if you don't regularly work out, you start to physically atrophy.

Well, sometimes we forget that we can spiritually atrophy.

Don't depend on my word from God that I got this week for our brief time on Saturday night.

You need to be feeding on God's word.

You need to be hearing from God.

You need to be eating God's word every day, spending time with Him.

I believe fasting is saying, I'm giving, I'm gonna stop doing this now so that I can spend more time with the Lord.

So here's another way to think of it.

It's not fasting, it's feasting.

It's feasting on the Lord.

We need to feast on the Lord.

We need to get, we need to get a Thanksgiving dinner of God's word on a regular basis.

And you know what that's like?

Oh, it's just, you're just so full of potatoes and brussels sprouts and turkey, and maybe you have ham and you're sitting there and you're watching the Detroit Lions for the 15th year in a row and they always lose.

And um just full of, you know, food.

Well, how awesome to just be so full of God's word and his love, his mercy.

That's how we break the power of shame.

That's how we break the power of pride.

That's how we break the power of envy.

That's how we quit comparing.

Because we start to realize we're beloved.

We're loved by the Lord.

He loves you.

He loves you so much that he gave his only begotten son.

He loves you so much that he'll forgive you of all the stuff you've done.

But he's looking for a church that's a prayer and fasting church.

The last days church will be a signs and wonders prayer and fasting church.

It will be a church that says it's not business as usual.

We're gonna come and we're gonna seek the Lord and we're gonna ask him for an awakening.

We're gonna believe him for an awakening, we're gonna ask him for revival.

Come back to the cross.

Guess what?

It's always a level playing field at the cross.

At the cross, it's always a level playing field.

There's no favorites.

We come to the cross as his beloved saints.

So the Lord is there.

So he says, rend your hearts, not your garments.

Gather the people.

Verse 16.

Sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders.

I want you to, as I read this, I want you to, he's talking about everybody.

He says, gather the people, that's everyone.

Sanctify the congregation, those were the believers.

Assemble the elders, those are the leaders, gather the children and the nursing babes.

Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room.

You know what he's saying?

He's saying, look, you don't have weddings in war.

If the enemy's at the gate and you're about to have a wedding, the bride and the groom get ready for battle.

They leave their dressing rooms, they leave their wedding feasts and they get ready.

He's saying, everybody, get ready.

Let the priest who minister to the Lord weep between the porch and the altar.

That's the temple, that's the door of the temple with the altar of burnt offerings right outside the door.

So he's saying, right there, right there, here's the door of the temple.

Here is the altar where the animals are being sacrificed.

Weep right there as priests.

What he's saying is, you're the mediator, you're the intercessor for the nation of Israel.

You come and you weep for the people there.

It's a call to pastors like myself to come and cry out for our congregations, to call a sacred assembly.

You see, the reason the church often is asleep in the pew is because it was asleep in the pulpit.

And so he's saying to the priest, come, because say this, spare your people, O Lord.

In other words, the priest at that time could see what's coming, the enemy at work, and they stand in the gap and they cry out to God to spare his people.

Now, have you got one of those underlining kind of Bibles?

Underline this.

If you've got a highlight kind of Bible, then highlight it or check it or star it.

And on your app, I don't know what you do, but okay, listen to what it says.

This is really important.

Do not give your heritage to reproach.

You have a heritage, men and women.

We have a heritage.

We have a heritage personally, individually.

By Christ, you have a heritage.

Don't give that away.

I gave it away.

Don't give your heritage away to anybody.

God has anointed you.

Each one of you in this room have an anointing and a gifting.

Don't sleep it away.

Wake up.

Wake up.

It's the day of the Lord.

It's the Lord's day.

And there's giftings and anointings that God has sovereignly given just to you.

Get equipped.

Grow in it.

Hunger for it.

Go after it.

Be a champion for Jesus.

Go all the way.

This is the only life we have.

Be wholehearted.

Because what the enemy wants is he wants you to be half-hearted, falling asleep, and some of you are sleeping in here right now.

But I want to say this.

I want to say this.

This is a good place to sleep.

I'd rather have you sleeping in church than in your bed at home.

So I'm glad you're here.

But wake up! I don't know what it takes.

I don't know what it takes.

And it's not the octave of my voice, but it's the circumstances of our country that wakes us up.

Do not give your heritage to reproach that the nations should rule over them.

So many of us, when you give your heritage away, something's gonna rule over you.

Don't give your heritage away.

And be careful who you share your heritage with.

What I mean by that is I believe all of us need trusted, what we call around here, blood-stained allies.

We need blood-stained allies that we are, that are our brothers and our sisters, and we hang together, and not everybody gets to be your blood-stained ally.

They earn it.

They earn it by having a relationship with you.

They earn it by going through the fire with you.

Not saying, oh, I love you.

Love you, brother.

Oh, I love you, sister.

I just love you.

Don't say you love someone if you don't really.

Don't say you love someone and then you're talking behind their back.

So we need bloodstained allies that have proved in the battle that they love you and that they're with you.

And everybody needs that, and you need that in this church, and you need that in your life.

You can't make it alone without bloodstained allies.

If you're living an independent Christian life and you're the man or you're the woman, you will fall in most cases.

You've got to have some men beside you.

You've got to have some women beside you.

We need each other, and we're gonna need each other more and more in the days ahead.

It's absolutely coming, and God is giving us the book of Joel as a warning, as a harbinger of days ahead.

Don't be caught in the cold.

Don't be caught alone.

We're here to be.

You need to be in a D group.

You need to be in a C group.

If you're not regularly gathering and getting discipled, you'll be at the same place or worse, a year from now.

If you gather, you're gonna grow.

Because it'll be like iron sharpening iron.

So do not give your heritage to reproach that the nations should rule over you.

Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God?

That's what we're doing in America.

We're giving away our heritage.

Our nation was founded by the pilgrims and the Puritans.

And you guys know I know we're not perfect.

So we're not the kingdom of God on earth.

But the Puritans called us a city on a hill.

And in the Mayflower Compact, before they set foot, this is one of the lines in the Mayflower Compact.

Having undertaken for the glory of God.

And the advancement of the Christian faith and the honor of our king and country avoids to plant the first colony in northern parts of Virginia.

We have a heritage in this nation.

And we have a heritage in the church in America.

Let us not forget that.

Let us not forget where we came from.

Let us not forget the men and women who have given their lives for the freedoms that we have right now to worship, for you to pursue your occupation, to make money, to be wealthy, to have an education for our children, to have an okay judicial system, you know, an okay government.

But it's still the best in the world, in my opinion.

I don't want to go anywhere else.

I want to say to half the people who hate our country, please go somewhere else.

I'm sure they would love to have you.

Let's reverse the pilgrimage.

Be a pilgrim in Russia, be a pilgrim in Syria, be a pilgrim.

Seriously.

We will gladly let you go.

But if you're here, then be on the team.

Now I'm not talking about the importance of critique, the importance of us working on our stuff.

Absolutely.

But the evil intent that it seems to be that pervades within our culture is tearing us apart.

We need uniners, not dividers.

Church, don't give your heritage away.

You're anointed with the Holy Spirit.

You have Jesus Christ living in you.

It can't get any better than that.

We worship Him and we discover Him.

I've asked two of our Air Force cadets to share here tonight about something they've been doing.

And I just thought it was really cool.

So, Ben and Nick, would you guys come up and take a moment?

These guys are both second-year sophomores at uh Air Force Academy.

Hey Church, how you doing?

So uh we're we're really up here to talk a little bit about prayer and a little bit about developing a war room.

So Nick and I, oh by the way, I'm Ben and this is Nick.

So Nick and I went to see the movie War Room um about a couple months ago.

And you know, think what you do with the movie, that's fine.

But we get back to our dorm room and I just look at Nick and I'm like, dude, I I I don't pray like the characters in that movie pray.

I I don't do that.

Um so I I was a little confused as to what to do.

I I really wanted to to start.

So I looked at Nick and I was like, dude, there's a closet.

Wanna go pray?

And and he was just like, yeah, let's do it.

So so we go, and there's the there's this little storage room in our in our squadron area.

Um and we just kneel down and we probably spend five minutes praying.

And it was kind of weird at first, and we were oddly persistent, and then we started staying in there too long, and then it just became this really cool habit.

So we'd love to talk to you just a little bit about kind of the effects of what having that space devoted to God does.

So hello everybody.

Uh yeah, I'm short, so I always have to fix it.

Um so one of the things that uh the prayer room has done for us is definitely make us more intentional about prayer in a huge way.

You know, we don't just go to the end of a, you know, to a hallway, a closet at the end of the hallway in the dark uh just to hang out, unless you like that sort of thing, but we don't specifically do.

Um but the prayer room has made us, the war room has made us very intentional about what to pray for.

It's a place that we can tangibly go to decide, hey, this is the time every day that we are going to pray.

And we go there because we know that Jesus is alive, we go there to uh to speak the gospel to ourselves, we go there to preach the word over ourselves and uh go to war.

And it's really become this safe haven zone.

You know, things will happen in Nick's life or my life, and one of us will run in the room and be like, dude, we gotta go to the war room right now, man.

Something just happened.

And it's become this amazing place of comfort where we can, just like Nick said, really tangibly cast our fears, cast our anxieties onto God.

And it's become just a very um, like he said, tangible thing that we can do.

And another benefit of the war room is a lot of people like to take notes or uh lists of who they're gonna pray for and what they're going to pray for, and that's made us very specific in how we pray.

And we've actually it's it's amazing.

Uh we've been able to see, and I think Ben's gonna talk about this, but we've been able to see God answer such specific prayers about people and uh circumstances, and it's just blown our mind.

This uh this one night, it was kind of in the beginning when we weren't used to praying on our knees, so we would walk out of the room kind of doing this little wobbly thing, and we walk out and we have the lights off in the war room.

So we walk out and it's bright in the hallway, and we're doing this little thing right here, and this guy looks at us and goes, What are you two doing?

And we're like, We're praying.

And um, but the thing is, when you're going to war, when you're intentional, it's loud and people start finding out.

So guys in our squad start seeing us come out of the closet all the time, and they're like, What are you guys doing?

And now we have all of these guys like, Wow, that's so cool.

Can I come?

So we've started having groups of guys come and pray in a closet.

And we have more people asking if they can come the next time.

People are going, hey, next time you go, can you send me a text?

And it's just been the neatest witness to get a to get a group of guys and girls just dedicated to the Lord.

I it's awesome.

It really is awesome.

And at first it kind of started out for us, like, you know, you spend five minutes in there be like, okay, yeah, we have homework to do, or hey, it's time to go to sleep.

But after a while, we just started spending like half hour in there at the time, which is easy for us now.

And, you know, at first it seems like prayer can be something that you have to force yourself to do, but after a while you get to taste and see that the Lord is really good and really good to those who seek him, and he's a reward of the rewarder of those who diligently seek him, and we've been able to see that.

And it's it's awesome.

And this is just the beginning.

So we're super excited for what God is gonna continue to do.

Thank you.

Here's what I love about that is that um I think there's secondhand faith and firsthand faith.

Secondhand faith is you guys hearing me give this sermon, and I tell you my stories, and you go, cool.

That's really cool.

And then I have this guy named Ben Paul and Nick come up, and oh, that's really cool.

And it just picks you up, and you feel great, and you go home, and it's neat that there's there's hope for America because there's some cadets out there that pray in a closet on a hallway.

Whoa! And that's as far as it goes.

That's called secondhand faith.

You're you're getting you know fed by somebody else's work.

Firsthand faith, what I want, I want to get into my closet, I want to get into my prayer room, and I want to seek the Lord and experience what these two guys are experiencing, right?

So I challenge you tonight, firsthand faith, go after God.

And here's what he says Verse 18, look at this.

This is what he promises.

And it, by the way, there's a there's a turn in Joel starting next week.

And he starts to share the beautiful power of the last days' church.

And he starts off this way.

Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people.

The Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them.

I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.

God will have zeal for this nation.

God will have zeal for his church.

God is looking.

The prayer and fasting movement is rising across the earth.

The praying church is rising in this city.

I believe God's gonna raise up praying saints.

And about, I think for Liz and I, it was six months ago, or maybe it's been eight months, that we started each morning.

It was related to something that was happening in our life, and now it's become a habit of starting the day praying together and seeking the Lord together.

And we go verse by verse through a book and we pray through those verses together before we gather and then we scatter.

And so I want you to have a firsthand faith.

I want us to all grow in a firsthand faith and not have a secondhand faith.

You see, Christianity is not a spectator sport.

God wants us on the field, God wants us in the arena, God wants us in the battle.

And that's how He strengthens us, is right there in the battle.

So I want to challenge you, maybe as couples, maybe in your school, wherever you're at, start a war room.

Start praying there, coming together and praying together and seeking.

Maybe it's at your workplace.

If you own your own business, maybe you need to dedicate a closet.

Maybe you need a dedicated room.

This is our war room.

This is where we're praying for our nation, we're praying for our own lives.

We're gonna cry out to God and watch what God will do because He will move and He will be zealous for you.

He'll be zealous for your family, He'll be zealous for your company, He'll be zealous for our church.

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 precept upon precept.

We're excited about all the things God is doing in the lives of our faithful listeners.

We understand that there are many trials and tribulations in this world, and we'd love to be able to pray for you as you encounter difficult times.

Please drop us a note and let us know how we can pray for you.

Write us at The Rogue, PO Box 88485, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908.

If you've been blessed by this message, please let us know as well.

Again, the address is The ROAD.

PO Box 88485, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908.

If you're in the area, please stop on by and join us at The Road.

We meet at Chapel Hills Church, located at 2025 Parliament Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.

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As always, we covet your prayers.

Thanks again for tuning in today.

And be sure to catch us again next time for another edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Hope.