The Suddenlies Of God

Pick our Bibles up, as is our custom around here, and wave them around and make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Say this together say, heavenly Father, I give thanks for Wednesday night because I know that the Word of God is gonna go out and feed my spirit and develop my faith so I can walk in a higher realm with you in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, let's look at Acts, chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

This is one of my favorite testimonies.

I don't know how many times over all these years that I've preached out of these verses, acts 16.

And we'll start with verse 22, and this is Paul and Silas on their missionary journey, and they have come to Macedonia, acts 16, verse 22.

Acts 16:22

And it says they got there and the multitude rose up together against them, against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ran off their clothes and commanded to beat them, and when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison In other words, no windows, in other words way down in the depths of this stinking, horrible place and they made their feet fast in the stocks and at midnight, paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them.

And suddenly just think about that word suddenly and suddenly, there was a great earthquake, a mega, a mega quake, and so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loosed.

And so tonight I wanted to just share a message of encouragement entitled the Sudden Lease of God.

The Sudden Lease of God, you know the word is suddenly there and the Greek it just means unaware, it means unexpectedly, and it implies the stark difference between our spirit and our soul or our mind.

You know, I know that many of us are waiting for a breakthrough.

You're expecting a breakthrough, you're believing for a breakthrough, and many times when breakthrough comes, it comes.

You know, our spirit's been hanging onto it, our spirit's been calling it forth, we've been believing in our heart, we've been developing a good confession about it, a systematic discourse about it, and we know in our heart that we had the thing that we're believing for.

But somehow, when it finally does show up, then it becomes a suddenly.

But really it's not a suddenly, it's something that's been going on for a long time.

It's been going on every 10, ever since you believed and spoke, but the Sudden Lease of God.

And when it occurs it's not a surprise to your spirit, but it is a surprise to your mind many times the Sudden Lease of God.

So here we see Paul and Silas and we read the rest of the story, before and after Paul and Silas were on their missionary journey.

You know, paul and Barnabas, that relationship had blown up, they'd parted company and Barnabas went away, paul went another and Paul chose Silas to go with him and they began to pray about where to go.

And the Bible says that they are saved to go into byphinean.

And the spirit suffered them, not, you know, and what they didn't say, that anybody, that God told them.

I've been talking about being led of the spirit.

What are we led by?

Typically the witness.

So he just had a witness.

He had a hesitation, he had a red light, he lost his peace about going to byphinean.

And then it says you know, then we were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia Minor.

Well, again, how did that occur?

Was it an angel appeared to him?

No, really, I believe it was.

Just he lost peace about that too, and so he just waited.

Thank God, he obeyed the witness of the red light.

He obeyed the negative witness of the lack of peace.

And then spectacular guidance occurred, because he had a dream.

He had a night vision where a man of Macedonia said come over here and help us.

And then they assuredly gathered that that was the will of the Lord.

So they knew they were in the will of God.

They knew they were in the will of God when they made that journey and so they needed that spectacular guidance, because God knew that it was gonna be persecution on the other end of it.

God knew that there would be trouble on the other.

Did God transcend it?

No, no, not at all.

He just had his servants going to the right place at the right time for the right person.

And so when they were beaten with many stripes and thrown in the inner prison, their feet held fast with these stalks, these wooden things Usually, typically they were made of wood They'd clamp around your ankle and chain them together and you couldn't move and you can imagine their backs bleeding.

But at midnight, a lot of times you know that's when the worst of any circumstances are.

At midnight, it's the distance between sundown and sun up, as dark as it can be.

And they prayed and sang praises under God so loud all the prisoners heard them.

They were not silent, they were praising God.

And what do you suppose they were praising God for?

Because they knew that God was gonna accomplish his will.

They knew they were sent there not to go to prison, but they knew they were sent there on a mission.

About the Macedonian man.

He said come over here and help us.

And they hadn't been able to help anybody yet.

And so they knew.

I mean, they just knew that God was gonna do something.

Did they know what it was?

No, they didn't know what.

But suddenly that earthquake came and God invaded that earthquake and caused it to become a precision earthquake.

You know, earthquakes are not that precision, I mean, they destroy everything.

And yet they didn't destroy the prison, they just shook it so hard that all the cell doors came unlocked and those stalks unlocked and they were freed Amazing.

And later we find that the jailer and his family are saved and baptized and there was a church there that became a church there in that part of Macedonia.

So the jailer was the one that they were sent to help Praise God.

And so the subtleties of God.

I mean we all go through things where we want deliverance, we want this trial to end, we want this healing to manifest, we want these finances to show up.

And so let's just hang on to our faith and our confession, because they're gonna show up, they're gonna come to pass.

Really, when you get highly developed in faith, you'll have less of the idea of it suddenly, because you know what you get so glad when you've believed for something and you've praised God for something that when it does show up you thank God.

But I mean you've been thanking God all along and that means you're developing your faith.

You know, in Acts, chapter two, verse two, they were having a 10 day prayer meeting.

You know, the day of Pentecost and the Bible says suddenly there came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were seated and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

They all began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave.

The moderates and there were people there from every nation under heaven, gathered in Jerusalem for the feast day, the feast of the end gathering, and so every one of those people heard them magnifying God, speaking of the wonderful works of God in their own native tongue.

And they started asking the question what meaning is this?

And Peter stood up, that he was on the ground, drunk in the Holy Ghost.

He stood up and he said this is that.

And the Amplified says this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel.

And Joel spoke about rain, the former and the latter rain.

And if that was the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel, I believe we're living in the culmination of that spoken by the prophet Joel.

I believe it's beginning to rain for the harvest and I believe God's got a great harvest coming and it's gonna seem like suddenly we have revival.

But you know, it's been underway for a long time and God is not the one that's holding anything back and stopping anything from occurring.

No, no, no, we just have to keep on being patient.

Faith and patience inherits the promises, and so there's a lot of suddenlies we could talk about, you know we could talk about.

I'd like to talk about one that I found in Acts 28.

It's kind of the reverse of suddenly this is for Paul in Acts 28, where they survived the shipwreck and they rode into the Isle of Malta on broken pieces of the ship and the cargo were totally destroyed.

But God said you know, fear not, paul, for God has given thee, all them that sail with thee.

So you know, god's idea was that all that group of sailors and centurion and all the guards and all of that, they were sailing with Paul, not the other way around.

And so they were all saved.

And they got out on that island and it was cold and they built a fire and you know, he has this viper comes out of the fire and so they looked at Paul.

They saw it bite him and it says, after he should have swollen, see, they looked upon him and they expect him to be swollen or fall down dead.

Suddenly it says, well, that suddenly never happened and that suddenly did not occur.

You know, he just shook off the viper into the fire and felt no harm, praise God.

They expected sudden death, but instead that island experienced a revival and the father of the governor of the island was healed and there was a great revival on Isle of Malta and you know, praise God for revival.

You know everybody thinking, well, it's suddenly he's gonna die when.

No, suddenly revival came and so you might need a.

Suddenly tonight, praise God, you settle for a.

Suddenly I was thinking about all the years we were believing to pay off this mortgage on this church.

You know, we borrowed, I think, 3.4 million on phase one and we added to it on phase two.

We had a total, at one point in time, of $5.7 million worth of mortgage on this, these buildings.

And you know, we began to have our confession, we began to, you know, sow our seed, we began to give toward and so offerings in honor of retiring that mortgage.

And we did.

Over the years, we paid the mortgage down a little bit, but then, you know, during 2009, all the interest rates went up.

We had a variable rate mortgage.

The interest rate went up, our payments went up, our principle went down that we were paying.

The interest rate went up, so the interest went up.

And you know, in the natural it didn't look like there was any way.

But you know what God has a way and we just kept on.

We kept on sticking to our discourse, our systematic discourse this mortgage is paid in full in Jesus' name.

And so, when the day came and we had offers, we had several offers over the time of to buy a property that we had for sale, and one would go down the line a while and it would fall apart, and another one would go down the line a while and it would fall apart after a few days.

And I had one that stuck around for quite a while, like four or five months.

They lost, I don't know, $75,000 in earnest money that we got to keep and pay the mortgage down with that $75,000.

And so that was supernatural.

And then we had another businessman that just lied to me in my face.

He looked at me and said look, pastor, will you give us this extension?

And I'm telling you, I promise you we are going to close this.

Just give us a free extra 30 days of this.

See, they had come up on the agreed time and they weren't ready to close and they wanted us to give them 30 days free.

Well, 30 days is a lot of money.

I said, all right, I'll do it.

The Holy Ghost gave me peace about doing it.

You know what he lied.

And they didn't close and they just backed out of the deal after 30 days and walked away with no earnest money.

They didn't lose any earnest money.

You know you learn a few things selling real estate, but you know what it seems like it was.

On and on and on.

We finally sold it to a good buyer.

We sold it for a price that far exceeded anything we'd ever thought we would get for it.

And I mean we paid our mortgage off.

We've got money in the bank, praise God.

You know, god knows how to bring forth his word.

So the suddenlies of God really are not random.

I want to make that point.

God doesn't do random.

The suddenlies of God, again, the suddenly is all on our mind, it's all on our soul, but our spirit.

We're not surprised.

Why?

Because we've been trusting God all along.

We've been believing in our heart and speaking with our mouth.

So the suddenlies of God are not really random.

But they're triggered by three things.

First of all I've already mentioned it the believer's faith.

You know, you've got to believe in your heart.

Hebrews 11, one.

Faith is a substance of things.

Hope for the evidence of things not seen.

You need faith when you can't see it.

Anybody can have faith for what's there.

It's when things aren't there.

That's when you have to have faith.

The faith is of the heart.

Romans 10, 17,.

Faith cometh by hearing and hearing.

By the word of God, it comes by hearing and hearing.

Hearing and hearing, I mean I had to preach to myself, I had to preach to you during the years we're believing to retire this mortgage, and we had to do everything we could to just maintain our confession of faith in agreement.

And so it's triggered not by just it's not random at all, really it's triggered by the believer's faith.

Number two, it's the believer's words, your words, your systematic discourse.

You know, faith is not just mental agreement, it's not just knowing something down here.

You've got to speak it.

You've got to speak it.

You know Mark 11, 23,.

Jesus said who so ever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe those things which he saith.

Systematic discourse.

He shall have whatever he saith.

And so Jesus is the one that said it.

We kept speaking.

To the mountain of death, we kept speaking.

And Romans 10, 10,.

I mean you know you believe in your heart and you speak with your mouth.

And so the believer's words, what you have to say about your mountain, I mean your mountain's never moving until you talk to it.

Amen.

Your healing is never going to manifest as long as you're calling thickness and calling pain and calling no.

You've got to call the health, you've got to call healing, amen.

You got to believe in your heart and speak with your mouth.

So the believer's faith, the believer's words and finally, and this is really important, the believer's praise.

You know Paul and Silas, when they prayed, they prayed in faith, they didn't pray some.

Oh Lord, we're so sore, our backs are bleeding.

Why'd you put us in this situation?

Well, that didn't get them any deliverance, that wasn't.

They knew the prayer of faith would deliver them, so they prayed the prayer.

It doesn't say that.

Well, we know that.

We know they prayed the prayer of faith because when they prayed the prayer of faith, they believed in their heart and they spoke it or prayed it with their mouth.

And then, number three, they began to praise God and they were so loud about it.

The whole prison, all the prison, woke up and heard them.

At midnight.

Some of those guys were asleep.

They're so loud they woke them up.

Ha, ha, ha, ha ha.

You don't believe or shout before the walls fall down.

Amen.

And we've got to praise God.

While we're waiting for the manifestation of that for which we believe, we have to praise God, we get to praise God.

Well, he's worthy of our praise anyway, but praise is proof that you're trusting him.

Praise is proof that your faith is alive.

And so faith plus the anointing equals the suddenly.

Or we could say it this way the word plus the spirit equals the suddenly, the subtly's on the way.

God's not the one that's holding it up.

You just keep on holding on to your faith and your confession and your praise for it and your subtly is coming.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the subtly's of God.

Hallelujah, god is faithful.

He's a faithful God, hallelujah.

Thank you, lord.