Restoration Day

Pick your bibles up, lift them up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I thank you for what you're doing right now.

Thank God for being led by the Spirit.

My confession is I'm led by the Spirit of God and I'm becoming more acquainted with your ways of leading me.

I'm not gonna ask for a bunch of spectacular things.

When I have the witness of the Spirit, the infallible way, in residence inside of me, I never walk in doubt.

I always know I'm no down in my knower in Jesus' name.

Let's look at Joel, chapter two tonight.

Joel, he's one of the minor prophets, and when I'm medium, I'm not gonna say that because I don't think that's very respectful.

Not sure whose idea it was to name these guys minor prophets, but anyway.

Joel, chapter two, verse 23.

It says be glad then, you children, zion, and rejoice in the Lord, your God, for he has given you the former reign moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the reign, the former reign and the latter reign in the first month, and the floors shall be full of weed and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil, and I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten the canker worm and the caterpillar and the Palmer worm.

My great army, which I sent among you, and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you.

And my people shall never be ashamed, and you shall know that I am the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord, your God, and none else.

And my people shall never be ashamed.

And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids.

In those days will I pour out my spirit and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth blood and fire and vapor of smoke, pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.

And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

Now let's pay a particular attention to verse 25, and I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.

And so I wanted to share a message entitled Restoration Day.

We sang about a better resurrection tonight and it's really hitting all around this subject, the song I think it's the first song.

I mean you know it's coming, it's coming soon and there's gonna be a resurrection day, but before resurrection day there's a restoration day.

There are two different things.

Everybody say restoration.

So Peter quoted part of these verses when he preached on the day of Pentecost.

You know, you remember the story.

They were all in one place and one accord in the upper room.

Jesus had told them to be there.

He paired to over 500 people at one time.

After the resurrection, only 120 showed up.

That's 24%.

What a dismal percentage, I mean, for Jesus himself resurrected.

Jesus as something to do, something.

Here he is, he died on the cross, he rose from the dead and he says you know, be there or be square.

And you know 76% were square.

I mean, they didn't show up.

I mean, what's your excuse?

Anyway, thank God for the 120.

But you know they were all.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.

It filled all the place where they were seated and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they all began to speak in other tongues as Spirit gave the mutterings.

And so there wasn't Jerusalem.

People from all around, jews from every nation under heaven.

The Bible says every nation under heaven.

Jewish people were in Jerusalem why?

Well, because it was this feast of harvest.

It's a feast of harvest and the feast of harvest they get the apples and the honey, they do the dancing, they rejoice, they have the little booths, they eat their apples and honey in the little booth and the booth is flimsy by design and they can look up through the booth and see the sky and it reminds them of being delivered from Egypt, where they went through the wilderness and all they had was the covering.

There was a supernatural covering in the desert that protected them from the harsh desert conditions, kind of similar to what we've been going through at Houston since June.

It feels like the Sahara Desert out there.

I mean, I looked at my temperature last night at 11, no, it was midnight.

I stayed up to watch the Astros lose.

I really was regretted.

I should have just gotten more sleep.

It would have been a lot more profitable.

But anyway, it was 90-something degrees at midnight.

I didn't go outside to check it anyway.

So so you know.

They came down out of the upper room, speaking in other tongues, and these Jews said what meaneth this?

These men are full of new wine.

It was nine o'clock in the morning.

No, they're not full of new wine.

And so Peter, standing up with the 11, see, he's on the ground, he's drunk.

It's scriptural to get drunk in the Holy Ghost.

It's scriptural.

It's not flaky.

Now, I've seen people be flaky about the Holy Ghost.

I've seen that.

But just because somebody over here is flaky doesn't mean the real.

The devil has counterfeits.

You know, we had an unusual demonstration of the spirit.

It seemed like we were in the Baptist church when we used to lease the Baptist church right down the street Used to be a champion of the forest Baptist.

We were there 13 months and we leased the building and we had.

You know that was one of the reasons they wanted to get rid of us because they saw that we liked the Holy Ghost and they didn't like it.

They didn't like us.

They felt like we were defiling their church.

Well, they're not worshiping there anymore.

They had moved.

You know, what are we?

You're going to sell it to somebody else.

What difference does it make?

If you don't agree with my doctrine, fine, what harm are we doing?

You know, I remember prophesying to that brick wall in there, bricks, you're going to see things and hear things you've never seen or heard before.

I mean anybody remember that I prophesied to the brick wall, the big old brick wall, hard on the sound, because it creates a lot of echo.

But, and you know, the spirit of God was moving one Sunday night and I mean people were laughing, people were kind of drunk, and one lady started cackling and it was the devil.

She had a spirit about her and I let her go for a while and then I just had to shut her down.

It was just like fingernails on the blackboard.

So, yeah, I mean you can focus on you know, negative things, but listen to the demonstration.

They got drunk in the spirit and Peter stood up and said these are not drunk, as you suppose, but this is that.

And the Amplified says this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel, and he preached from some of these verses.

He preached from some of these verses.

This is that spoken by the prophet Joel, and so this is the beginning of that.

So, when we take it a step further, the book of Acts was an example of the planting rain, the former rain.

As you know, israel is a agricultural society.

They, their wealth, depends on their crop.

No crop, no wealth, and the crop has to have a planting rain.

It's about an inch and a half to two inches.

First of all, it's the amount and the timing.

If the timing is too early, then the soil in the Middle East, it dries out and then you don't have any residual moisture that will cause the seed that you plant to germinate.

If it comes too late, yeah, the moisture is there, but it happened too close to planting time and so it's very difficult to plant in muddy conditions because the seed has got to be at a certain depth.

And I did not.

You know major in agriculture, economics, I don't know anything about farming, can't even grow a garden, I can't grow a house plant, so anyway, can't keep one alive, but I do know about that.

So the former rain was very important.

As to the amount and the timing, everybody see the amount and the timing.

See, god is in total control of that.

See, and as the, his people obeyed him and stayed faithful to their covenant with him, then he would send the rain at the right time and the right amount.

The former rain.

And so, in the book of Acts, peter is saying this drunkenness, these people speaking in other tongues that you're understanding, is what Joel was prophesying.

This is rain.

This is planting rain.

Well, let me tell you something If acts, 2000 years ago, was planting rain, then what we're in right now is the latter rain.

It's the harvest rain.

See, the latter rain is harvest rain.

Now that rain is a lot more plentiful because you, by the time the harvest rain falls, you've got a plant that's standing up five, six foot tall, it's got a lot of greenery on it, it's got a big root system underneath it and an inch and a half and not a drop in the bucket.

It's going to have to be closer to 12 to 14 inches.

And again, the timing is everything.

If it's too early, the harvest is stunted.

If it's too late, you can't really, you're going to leave some of the harvest alone because it's too muddy to get it in.

I grew up in South Texas and sometimes they'd have some furious rains at the wrong time and they'd lose a lot of the crop because it was too wet to get in there with a compound harvester and get it out of there.

So the timing and the amount is all under control by our Heavenly Father, who's the Lord of the harvest, amen.

Everybody say planting rain and harvest rain.

So this is that.

Say this is that.

What is that?

What is this?

Well, it's miracles.

It's the move of God.

It's signs, wonders and miracles.

He's talking about prophesying.

He's talking about miracles.

Rain is miracles.

We need miracles to get a harvest.

People are not going to respond to a debate, they're not going to respond just to some teaching.

They have to have evidence that Jesus is alive.

They needed it then and they need it even more now.

Everybody say miracles.

So now is the culmination.

If that's the beginning, this is the culmination.

How in the past, how can you possibly say that?

I just believe it's been that long.

We read that verse the other day about 2000 years.

The harvest will come in the third thousand years, and so it's coming.

This month, july, is the 19th anniversary of Dr Orle Roberts' visitation from heaven about the state of the church, and it happened in July of 2004.

I heard about it in August and he appeared on several Christian television programs.

When I heard about it I was all ears, because here's a general of the faith, here's someone that I think it was 1978.

His name was the third most known name on the planet.

So he's a very, very famous person.

Now, today, he's been gone since, however, what year it was?

I forgot what year it was that he passed.

He's been gone a while and so people forget.

You know Orle Roberts University.

They don't even remember there's an Orle Roberts and he was a preacher.

You know he was a great evangelist, one of the leading healing evangelists of the 40s and 50s, and his one of his favorite things to say was God is going to do something good for you today.

He preached that God is a good God and he came out of Pentecostal holiness that's where his roots were, pentecostal holiness and he would preach and pastor would say you know, I wish you'd quit saying that.

People are going to get the wrong idea about God.

See, they preach God mean they preach God as a judge, they preach the judgment side of God.

Well, you know, people needed to hear the love side of God.

Is he a judge?

Yes, he is, but Jesus took our judgment.

We need to hear about the love of the Father, and so religion does that.

I mean, you know, people, that they got the Holy Ghost, the Pentecostal revival, no question about it.

They got the Holy Ghost, but then they put a fence around it and they start having all these rules and women can't.

It's always the women.

Women can't cut their hair, women can't wear makeup I mean good Lord, but I'm the head beacon and I can be fog horn, leg horn.

I can prance around here with my red suit on, with a vest and a turquoise tie.

I have my hair with wild root cream or charlie all over it.

You know, y'all don't even know what that is.

See, I grew up where you had to put pomade in the hair.

You know, I had a flat top and I had pomade.

I put it on there.

It's like a tube of grease and you just go like that and when you comb your hair you got white all in the comb.

It's white grease Film at 11.

All right so, but anyway, getting back to oil Roberts, when I heard that he had had a visitation, he called it the wake up call.

Well, you know, in 2000, rather 1999, I had a visitation.

Wake up the church.

And I did my best.

I wrote a book.

I talked to everybody I could talk to.

I used my influences what far as it would go.

I was on, you know, tbn locally, daystar locally.

I would talk about it.

I couldn't get anybody to even want to have a conversation.

The church is asleep and it needs to be awakened.

And they didn't want to hear it.

I couldn't get anybody.

And when Robert says basically the same thing, I mean I got excited.

I said, oh my God, that's confirmation.

You know, I don't know if you've ever been in a place where you just seem like you're the only one saying anything and you wonder if you're even right.

But I wouldn't give up, I wouldn't quit because I knew it was right.

Didn't matter if anybody listened oh listen, most of you, some of them, you didn't.

Some of them left.

But it's not exactly a church growth subject.

Doesn't help you grow the church.

But anyway, that wasn't my problem.

Anyway, I'm not the church growth guy.

I mean I'm just here to do what he told me to do.

So God opened the door and I was able to go and I heard him being interviewed and the people interviewing him were preachers and they did all the talking and they didn't interview him.

That's one thing I did learn how to do is interview people.

I had a lot of practice interviewing people, asking questions, drawing out of them what God is saying to them and so forth and so on.

These programs, and I mean when we first started hosting the local TBN, that program was two and a half hours long, and so when Gladys and I arrived at that station and we I mean, I didn't mail it in, I was prepared, I had prayed, I didn't even I usually didn't even know who the guests would be.

So I had to get full of a Holy Ghost and then I'd get there and meet the guests.

We'd talk a little bit before in the green room, getting made up and all of that stuff, go out and start the program and have people call in for prayer.

We had people answering the phones and all of that kind of thing.

Stan Linda would go out there and be in the audience and how many of you ever were in the audience?

That, teresa, and all of that?

So we had a few people that would come and be in the amen corner, you know, and I learned how to interview people, and so I was so upset that they didn't ask him enough questions.

They didn't know what questions to ask him and it just seemed like he couldn't get out what Jesus wanted him to tell the church.

And so God opened a door for me to go to interview him and I got the interview out there on DVD and we went to his home there in Newport Beach.

He showed me all about what happened that day of the visitation and this has been like, like I said, 19 years ago this month.

It's hard to believe it's been that long ago.

But he said I was walking from this part of the house, my bedroom, over to the kitchen in this little hallway and he took me to it.

I was standing right here and I heard this loud, loud sound.

It was so loud that it blew my sweater and he was wearing that gray sweater that day and it was January in Southern California.

So it was this beautiful day and it was in the 60s.

It wasn't cold, but you know it's dry there.

It's on the Pacific.

You can see the Pacific Ocean out his window.

So I mean he wore sweater.

Is he older?

85, I think the time.

And he said I was wearing a sweater and that sound blew my sweater open, like like if you'd go out and watch the space shuttle launch, the sound waves traveling are going to blow your sweater.

That's what he was saying to me.

He said I felt it, I heard it and I looked up and I saw the only thing I could describe.

I described it as the blood and the fire and the vapor of smoke that we just read about in Joel.

That is quoted in the book of Acts Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

And he said it seemed to be over New York City, new York City, and it seemed to spread over the Eastern seaboard.

And then it spread over the rest of the country, this dark cloud, and then around the world.

And I heard God's voice.

And he said there's a wasting of power in my church.

My people are not ready for the second coming of my son.

And he said, of course, the second coming is in two parts.

He's coming for the church and then, seven years later, coming with the church.

They're not ready.

My people, my people, are not ready.

A man who's not ready for the second coming is in two parts.

My people, my people, are not ready.

America is not ready for the second coming of my son.

My people, the Jews, are not ready for the second coming of my son.

The world is not ready for the second coming of my son.

Well, you know, he went through this repetitively.

Well, how could anybody be ready if the church isn't ready?

We're the pillar and ground of the truth.

I mean, if we don't know, nobody knows.

We're supposed to know, we're supposed to know when he's coming.

I'm not saying the date, I'm saying the season, and as far as I'm concerned, 1999, I mean, that was kind of the beginning of the season for me.

I mean, I had my visitation when my pastor went to heaven and I knew, I knew that I was being prepared for something that I wasn't familiar with, and so, and then five weeks later that visitation, wake up the church.

So then this was confirmation.

So he said my people are living hand to mouth.

Tell my people to tithe.

They're not tithing.

If you look at Barna, you'll see that the church is not giving finances like it should.

If everybody that calls themselves a Christian tithe, we would be in a position to be a Christian.

We wouldn't have a shortage of anything.

But the wasting of power has to do with people taking God's money and building shrines and monuments to themselves and building these huge.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a mega church, but I mean I just don't understand why it needs to be a hundred million dollars.

I mean, what do we do?

And are we building?

Are we going back and building the Notre Dame?

I mean, all that was because there wasn't any Holy Ghost in the church.

They had to have a monument to themselves.

That's what those cathedrals were.

They weren't.

They weren't.

They didn't glorify God, they glorified the architect and the builders and all of that.

There wasn't no Holy Ghost in there.

None, it was the dark ages.

Why was it dark?

Because the Holy Ghost wasn't there, illuminating anything and talking about restoration day.

So when I look at at the clock, I mean you know, god is alerting one of the generals of the faith to get ready.

That we're not ready.

That's been 19 years ago.

We're done.

We're 19 years closer.

We're seeing Bible prophecy fulfill time after time and there's some things that have to happen and one of those things that hasn't happened yet is restoration.

It's big and I've been preaching this a long time, but this I'm not.

I'm not responsible for the time, for the clock.

I'm not responsible for the time.

I'm responsible for the truth.

I'm responsible for the revelation of this.

There is coming a restoration of the time.

Otherwise, god lied all over the Bible.

He lied in Acts, he lied in Joel, he lied I lied.

Lie.

No, god's not a liar.

He knows how to restore things.

God said here I will restore the years.

See, it's been years.

The devil has eaten.

He's eaten, he's destroyed.

What kind of animals?

Well, the caterpillar, and they can destroy a field like that.

Swarms of billions of them fly over and lie in a field and just a little while, a couple of hours, you don't have anything left.

They ate it all.

That's what it's talking about.

What is it going to talk?

What is being eaten?

The harvest, and whose harvest is it?

Well, it's God's harvest, because thatNow does own you, no-transcript.

I don't believe that God's gonna allow that to happen.

Instead, I believe he's gonna restore the things to the church that it needs to go out there and reap that harvest.

You know, jesus said the harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few.

He didn't say the harvest is skinny.

He didn't say the harvest is non-existent.

He said it's plenteous but the laborers are few.

Pray ye, the Lord of the harvest.

He sends laborers.

Well, he sent us.

We're here, we're ready to go, but there's something we need.

We need restoration, we need some finances, we need health.

We need things to be restored that the devil is eating.

Y'all getting this now.

He's eating years, the years.

Just think about that.

When I look at this country, I think about the years the devil has eaten this country and just almost destroyed it.

And so he says I will restore the years.

Well, when you look that up in your concordance, it means this I will surely make amends, I will surely prosper.

I will surely make restitution.

Hmm, I can, I can.

You know, I kind of like restitution.

I've got some things I want back that got stolen.

I will surely make restitution.

I will surely recompense.

You know there's compensation and then there's re-compensation.

I kind of like the re-compensation.

It's called payback.

Oh, hallelujah, you know God pays some really good interest, and he knows where, because he owns the cattle on Thousand Hills.

All the wealth on this planet is his sea.

So he knows how to reallocate things from the Biden crime family.

They're a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of this world.

But let me tell you something we're on God's list.

I will surely recompense.

I will make peaceable again.

Some people say why do you think God's not through with America?

Because of this right here.

If he's through with America, what do you think he's?

Do you think he's?

He's got a lot more patience with France?

Is Great Britain more pleasing to it?

How about Turkey?

I mean, turkey was Asia minor.

The church was all over Turkey, and look at it now it's a hellhole, led by a freak Erdogan.

Oh, what up?

You think Biden's bad, so he will make peaceable again.

Come on, let's lift our hand.

Father, we thank you.

We're not going to give up Because of the circumstances.

You know, when we, when we just look at our checkbook, when we look at where our money is going, it's just almost like you know, inflation's real, it's real.

We don't say that it isn't real, but the thing is, god knows how to recompense, god knows how to make amends, and it's on the way.

I'm telling you, it's on the way.

Let's not give up.

So I mean, I've got a few examples in the Bible of restoration.

How about Moses?

He spent 40 years learning the world's wisdom, highly educated in all the sciences, son of Pharaoh's daughter, royalty, and then he had to flee to the backside of the desert, or he became intimately acquainted with the language of sheep.

He got so intimately acquainted that he forgot how to talk.

He stuttered, he stammered.

When God called and read the deliveries, he said oh, I'm going to have to have a spokesman, I can't talk.

Well, he discovered how to talk, not very, I mean.

I think he used Aaron one time and the rest of the time when you read Exodus, I mean he sent Aaron out there one time and after that Aaron got fired and he did all the talking.

He found himself.

See, I think some of us are going to find ourselves.

I think, when this starts to be in, when things start getting restored and recompensed, I think some of us are going to find ourselves.

And then he spent 40 years learning his helplessness and you know, on the backside of the desert.

And then one day, you know, god talks to him out of the burning bush and calls him.

And then he spent 40 years in the glory of God.

That's a great example of restoration.

God didn't quit on him.

God, I mean, the gifts and callings of God are without repentance.

Whatever he's called this church to do, god didn't change his mind.

He didn't change his mind about waking up the church and he didn't want to wake up the church, for it to do nothing.

No, he didn't want to wake up the church because the church got something to do.

It's got a harvest to reap and there's a harvest coming.

God's not through with America and God's not through with the church.

All right, then you got Joshua.

He was alone for the ride.

He spent 40 years serving Moses and at the same time suffering with Israel.

I mean, you know, just think about it.

I mean he was one of the two, him and Caleb.

I mean they said let's go up at once.

They're bred for us, we can go, we can, we can go into the promised land.

All the rest of them outvoted them.

The other 10 spies outvoted them.

The other 10 spies died that day.

And then the rest of all these people, they had to I like.

I like the idea that they had to major in youth ministry because the older ones are.

God gave up on them.

They died in the wilderness because they wouldn't obey God.

He got got mad at them.

Read your Bible.

I mean he was done with them.

But then the younger generation, those people's children, I mean then Joshua and Caleb had to teach them about the you know, teach them the truth and they converted into youth ministry.

They spent 40 years being youth ministers and then, you know so, 40 years suffering with Israel, 30 years in the power of God, lord of God.

Just think about Joshua.

I mean he made time stand still for a whole day.

Man, wow, I'd say that's the glory you want Caleb the same way, caleb 40 years suffering with Israel, five years fighting for them.

After, I mean, he's 80 years old and he's out there fighting for the rest of these people to get, for them, to get their inheritance.

And finally he goes to Joshua and says, okay, now, if I have my mountain, I'm 85.

I'd like to go up on my mountain.

I'd like to go to Hebron.

Now, is that okay with you?

That if I go to Hebron, I can just go ahead.

That's my inheritance.

Up there I'd like to go kick the enemy off of my mountain.

Oh yeah, okay, he's 85.

Before he gets his inheritance, I mean, when he, most people would be looking for a rock and chair.

And he's looking for a rock, everybody say I'm going to possess my inheritance.

How about Joseph Talking about restoration, talking about things that look really bleak for a long time, and they suddenly turn.

They suddenly turn, they suddenly turn.

Well, did it just suddenly turn?

No, god already had it planned.

But Joseph, 18 years in his family, his daddy's favorite mom and daddy's favorite go to many colors.

His brothers hate his guts jealous.

God begins to deal with him, give him dreams about the future, makes a mistake, in my opinion, by telling everybody about it.

Sometimes you ought to be just holding on to what you know.

Not everybody needs to know it, but he did it and of course we know this.

You know they sold him into slavery.

13 years in prison, that didn't look too good.

Then Bible says in Psalm 105 his soul came into iron.

He had to deal with his thinking, had to deal with his mind.

He's not different than you and I.

Nobody likes prison, but he showed up every day.

I mean, if there was anything to do in the prison, he was the doer of it.

God gave him favor with the jailer and I mean you know he just followed his favor.

But let me tell you it wasn't easy.

It wasn't just wonderful, but he was faithful.

And then one day, boom, he went from a prisoner to the prime minister, second only to Pharaoh, and 14 years as prime minister of Egypt.

So my point is that, no matter what we've gone through, there's no wasted time.

God hadn't, god hasn't prepared us.

I said God has prepared us.

I mean, for years nobody listened to me and what I had?

Nobody listened to you dead, but no one outside of the church.

They just didn't get excited, they didn't care about it, they didn't want to know about it.

I remember talking to two preachers specifically about it and they almost mocked me.

They're both dead, bound.

By the way, they died early.

One died of cancer at 60 and the other one was a little older, not much older than that Heart attack, I think.

See, let me tell you, when God's trying to get your attention and you just don't have enough sense to listen, just because I'm not the pastor of a mega church, you need to make sure you don't judge the book by its cover.

But listen, there's no wasted time.

It didn't matter because all this time we were praying, praying, praying, processing the plan of God.

Until now we begin to see.

We begin to see that God is going to use us to wake up the church, to hold back the spirit of Antichrist.

In obscurity, we learn to trust God.

Don't despise the day of small beginnings.

Bible puts it that way.

So I've had to remind myself that, and God is faithful to restore the years.

See the years.

He is going to restore the years and it's.

You know, if the book of Acts is the planting, if this is the beginning of that, then this, what we're in right now, is the culmination.

The culmination, and before the culmination can finish, we've got to have restoration.

And once we have restoration, then we're going to have resurrection.

Come on, lift your hands and receive them.

Oh God, this is encouraging tonight, amen.

I just want to keep you encouraged in these, these evil times.

We're just assaulted daily by every bit of bad news that we can get, and I want to give you the good news.

God is in the restoration business.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Let's thank Him tonight.

Lord, we thank you tonight for restoration.

Glory to God, recompense.

It's payback, payday for the church, payback for the devil.

Amen.