Ezk 37 By the Spirit

a rattling sound and the bones came together bone to bone.

I looked and the tendons and the flesh appeared on them

and the skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath,

prophesy son of man and say to it,

this is what the sovereign Lord says,

come from the four winds of breath

and breathe into these slain that they may live.

So I prophesied as he commanded.

And breath entered them, they came to life

and they stood up to their feet, a vast army.

And then he said to me, son of man,

these bones are the whole house of Israel.

They say our bones are dried up,

our hope is gone, we are cut off.

Therefore prophesy and say to them,

this is what the sovereign Lord says,

oh my people, I'm going to open your graves,

bring you up from them,

I'll bring you back to the land of Israel.

Then you my people will know that I am the Lord,

when I open your graves and bring you back from them,

I'll put my spirit in you and you will live

and I will settle you in your own land.

Then you will know that I, the Lord have spoken

and I've done it declares the Lord.

Hey, strange, this entire chapter,

God is asking a man to prophesy on stuff that is dead.

And yet it is something that churches hardly engage in.

Where we begin to speak what God wants us

to speak into situations,

trusting that if he commands it, he can do it,

but he uses man to do it.

Over the next four weeks, we'll talk about stuff

that we think is either the realm of a few select

or is the realm of the Old Testament.

Instead, we'll find that a lot of what God says

in the Old Testament, and that is the old covenant,

where the spirit of God did not actually dwell in people.

It only came upon, the spirit of God only came up

on prophets, priests and kings.

And yet now we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

And yet this looks so alien to us,

this sounds so alien to us.

And yet time and time again,

the one phrase that is used often in the Old Testament

and the New Testament is that the spirit of God

came upon me, that the spirit of God lifted me,

that the spirit of God carried me,

that I was found in the spirit,

that I was completely in the control of the spirit.

The spirit of God showed me, I heard a voice of the spirit,

I turned around and I looked.

These are phrases that go throughout the Old Testament

and the New Testament, and yet it is not our experience.

How come?

Partly because I think we are scared of anything

that has to do with the spirit,

except perhaps now speaking in tongues.

And that took a while.

And yet speaking in tongues is one of the,

I don't wanna call it a minor gift,

but it's just one-on-one.

There's so much more that the Holy Spirit does.

Because at the end of the day,

the spirit of God didn't come necessarily to give us gifts.

He came to make us like Christ.

That was the intent of the Holy Spirit,

that we become like Christ.

I'm becoming like Christ in demands

that I walk like Christ, that I obey.

And so we'll touch on stuff that is normally avoided,

because it almost sounds like we're stepping into stuff

that's only the realm of a few.

And it's not true, man.

The entire church is supposed to behave a certain way.

God would rather have a people of God that are prophetic

than one or two individuals who are prophetic.

Just imagine that, eh?

If a people became prophetic,

as in if a people began to figure out

how to know what God wants,

and then how to bring that to pass on Earth.

That was the intent when God called Israel out of Egypt.

What did he say?

You are a kingdom of priests to me.

That I want you to use,

I want to use you as a people

I want to use you as a people to let other nations know

that Yahweh is God.

That was his intent.

And what if we stopped looking at one or two people

who play the role of prophet,

what if an entire community became prophetic in nature?

And what do you mean by prophetic in nature?

Being able to figure out what God's wisdom is in situations

and beginning to say it at any cost,

because it is the right thing to say.

The prophetic always involves truth

and it always involves persecution

if it is spoken clearly.

Name one prophet in the Old Testament

or in the New Testament who wasn't persecuted.

All of them were.

John the Revelator was thrown away

into an island called Patmos

and had to spend most of his time there.

Every other prophet was at some point put in chains.

What if a people began to work like this?

That's the intent.

It's not to make us prophets,

it's to make us a prophetic voice.

No, I'm talking about when a people begin to figure out

what God wants and when a people begin to stand up

for the truth and when a people begin to have

the boldness to speak that truth.

And it's happened over the ages, eh?

There were people who stood up and said

that we would rather die than not get baptized.

There were people who stood up after Martin Luther

nailed his thesis to the church door and said,

we would rather walk this way than go back to the old way.

There were people who did this.

There've been people in every age who found a leader

who told them the truth and then they began to stand up

and they paid a price.

Anything that we have today that is true

has already been paid a price for.

Anything we enjoy as freedom has been paid for.

I'm not talking just about Christianity,

I'm talking about any freedom that is really freedom

that comes from the nature of God has been paid for.

And the ultimate payment was Christ himself.

So if you look at Ezekiel 37.1,

it starts off with this idea of the hand of the Lord

was on me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord

and set me in the middle of the valley,

it was full of bones.

Now some say it was a vision,

some say it was an actual lifting up of Ezekiel

by the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, it says the hand of the Lord

was on me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord.

If you go to Ezekiel 11,

if you go to Ezekiel 11,

in Ezekiel 11 verse five it says,

the Spirit of the Lord lifted me up

between earth and heaven and in visions God gave me,

the Spirit told me about Jerusalem.

This is in the Old Testament.

In another place in Ezekiel it says,

the Spirit of the Lord came upon me.

Another place it says, I was in the Spirit,

the Holy Spirit took complete control of me

on the Lord's day.

In Acts chapter 10 verse 10,

Acts 10:10

Peter is hungry, he goes and sits up on the balcony

of Cornelius' house and as he's,

not Cornelius' house, Simon the Tanner's house,

and as he's sitting on the balcony,

he falls into a trance where he's transported

by the Spirit and he sees visions

of that sheet being lowered with a whole lot

of uncultured insects on it and creepy crawlies on it.

This was common man.

Where the Spirit of God would take people

and show them things that he needed to show them.

Revelations 1, 10, John is taken by the Spirit

and he sees a vision and in that vision he hears a voice

and he looks around and he sees one who looked

like the son of man walking amongst the lampstands

and he turns around and looks

and that is when Jesus begins to speak

and he then begins to tell him,

hey listen, I got seven letters I wanna write

to the churches and he begins to dictate the letter.

And after he dictates the letter,

the next line says in chapter four, one,

after this I looked and I saw heaven

and a door standing open and I heard a voice saying,

come up higher for I have things to show you.

Hey, one of the things the Holy Spirit does

is show us what awaits.

Who else to show it to than his own people?

When I'm talking about a people being prophetic,

what I'm saying is the Spirit of God wants to show the world

what God is up to and who God is through his own people.

Any questions?

Any disagreements?

Hey, wrap our hearts and minds around this thought

that if he is God and we are his people,

then the primary vehicle he will use

to express his ideas, his will,

his understanding of what's gonna happen

will come through his people, not through somebody else.

The primary vehicle, I'm not saying

it's the only way he does it,

but it is through us that he does it.

And the quicker we grow up into this

or wrap our heads around it or open our hearts to it,

the sooner we get to experience it.

The Christian life is not an adventure

as long as God is not involved.

It's just sheer religion, man.

And it is pathetic, it sucks.

Christian life becomes interesting

only when God is active in your life.

Our activity is very disinteresting.

I was talking about this yesterday.

I was saying every other religious has temples

that look better than us.

Their gods look better than ours.

I mean, they're all decorated.

Their songs sometimes have better beats than ours.

Their rituals are more,

even seances have more to do than some worship services.

We can't compete on any other level with other religions.

The only place where we can compete is two things,

word and presence.

We got the word of God and we got the presence of God.

And if that isn't active in our lives on a regular basis,

then it is very difficult then to continue as a Christian.

I would die, man.

That would be a good deal

because you're born again, you go straight to heaven.

All I'm trying to say is this, guys,

that God wants to speak, act, do, see,

show things through his people.

And the sooner we rise up to this, the easier it becomes.

And who does it do it through?

He does it through the Holy Spirit.

Through whom?

Nobody's like you and I.

Any questions, any comments?

What do you think happened in Acts chapter eight,

verse 39, where Philip has baptized the Ethiopian eunuch?

And then it says in chapter eight, verse 39,

and then the Holy Spirit whisked him away

or translated him or took him away.

And he found himself in a place called Asortus.

How does the Spirit of God do that, man?

This sounds so unreal.

We don't want to touch it because we don't understand it.

Man, if that was the criteria that we use,

we wouldn't touch the Holy Spirit

because we can't understand him most times.

And yet he is waiting gleefully to be embraced

so that he can take us along on the right.

If I didn't know you better,

I think you weren't listening

because these are exciting things.

You can show a little bit of excitement.

That's kind of what happens in Ezekiel 37, one,

where it says the Spirit of God took Ezekiel

and dropped him in a gleeful of bones.

Don't know how it happened, man.

And so what do commentators do?

They would rather call it a vision

than an actual transportation.

And nowhere in that scripture, in Hebrew or Greek,

does it say that it was a vision.

That this man was actually taken by the Spirit of God

and dropped in a value of bones.

Just like Philip was at one point

with the Ethiopian eunuch baptizing him.

And in the next moment was in a city

at least 18 to 20 kilometers away, instantly.

I'm not trying to say that that's what should happen to us.

I'm just saying that the possibility

that he was actually taken by the Spirit of God

is that he was taken by the Spirit of God

and dropped in a value of bones.

And so I'm saying that the possibilities

with the Holy Spirit are limitless, limitless.

When we went to New York on Friday,

we went to pray at a certain place

where, like I was saying, 140 years ago,

tons of rituals and it was planted in New York

and sensed before I went and I talked to a few others

that I should take someone from New York, go there.

We're gonna pray that, oh God, this city invited

a certain way of living with the reverence

given to this monument.

And just wanna pray that things change for the city.

That your ways begin to prevail in the city

and change for the ways that we're invited.

And finished praying that and yesterday morning,

in the sense that we should go to this shop

called Bergdorf Goodman.

It's on 57th and sixth of fifth.

And all we were told was go to this particular place

and look at all the window displays

because this shop has amazing window displays.

And that God would speak through the window displays.

And you might think, really, Jacob,

God does stuff like that?

Hey, go to Jeremiah 15.

Listen to what Jeremiah 15 says.

And then God said to Jeremiah, go to the potter's house

and stand at the gate of the potter's house

and I will speak to you there.

You think this doesn't happen now?

Why is it that we can believe it of Jeremiah

who lived in the Old Testament

and why is it that we can't believe it of ourselves

when the Spirit of God actually dwells in us, man?

And so we go to this window display.

Sheldon and I walked,

because Jane is not into walking nowadays.

So Sheldon and I walked to this place

and we're looking at every window display

and all we know is God is saying,

what you prayed yesterday,

I'll show you what happened today.

And so we go to this window display.

There are 12 displays.

And so we went around each display looking

and it didn't make any sense at all.

Then we come to this 12th display.

And it's got this amazing display in them

and that was so reminiscent of 1 Samuel 17, 51 to 54.

And 1 Samuel 17, 51 to 54 talks about how David

brings Goliath down and he takes a sword,

cuts Goliath's head off

and carries Goliath's head in his hand

and comes back to Jerusalem.

And guess what the display in the window,

it is of a man holding a head in his hand.

And as soon as we saw it,

I mean, it's exactly 1 Samuel 17, 51 to 54.

A man holding a head in his hand.

Of all the displays that you can put up in a shop,

that was the display.

I remember going to the guy who I went to pray with

and I said, guys, remember what we prayed for yesterday?

All of Goliath.

And to see 1 Samuel 17, 51 to 54

being played out in a window display.

What are the odds that God does stuff like this, man?

Where he tells you to go look at the window display

because he wants to speak through it.

And yet this is exactly what happens in Jeremiah 15

where it's Potter's house

and I'll begin to speak to you there.

God speaks through symbols.

God speaks through pictures.

God speaks through phrases.

God speaks inaudibly and audibly through words,

occasionally audibly.

And he does it all through the Holy Spirit.

And the sooner we get to know him this way,

the easier it is to get things done.

You fight less, you get better results.

How does a guy like Paul walk into a city like Ephesus

where Diana of Artemis is worshiped?

She is known as the greatest deity in the region.

How does he go there

and how does the economy begin to change?

Why is it that Demetrius the silversmith

has to gather the guilt together

because idols are not being sold?

How does the Ark of the Covenant

enter into the temple of Dagon

and Dagon fall flat on his face?

Shattered into three, four pieces.

How does the seventh sons of Sceva

who tried to cast out demons,

the moment they say that I cast you out

in the name of Jesus Christ that Paul knows,

that the demons beat him up

and the whole city turns around,

Ephesus turns around.

50,000 drachmas of sorcery material

was burnt in Ephesus that day.

How come?

Hey, there's a world out there that is demonic

and that is active.

Being ignorant of it may not affect us,

but it prevents us from setting others free.

Let me say that again.

You can ignore the demonic and still be safe

because you might have received Christ into your life

and he keeps you safe.

But the longer I ignore the demonic,

the harder it will be to set others free.

Some 49 puts it, Isaiah 49 puts it this way.

Say to those in prison, come out.

Say to those in darkness, come into the light.

Jesus put it this way.

Go raise the dead, heal the sick,

cast out demons, cleanse the lepers.

I love where we are going, guys.

We've got to show the world that this is real.

It can't be theory.

It can't be stuff in the Bible that isn't real.

Any questions?

Any comments?

Any disagreements?

The guy that we were staying with in New York,

he comes from a place in India where rituals are very common

and people use spells and magic and stuff like that

to harm others.

He was telling us of this story where

in that village there was a man who was like

in the book of Acts, known as the Great One,

the great sorcerer or the wizard.

What was that guy's name in the Bible?

Simon Magus.

He was that kind of a guy in this particular city.

And so his brother became a believer.

And when his brother became a believer,

he found that as an affront to the family

and he was a believer in the Bible.

And so he found that as an affront to the family.

So he started practicing all kinds of rituals

on his brother.

He would cut things, hoping his brother's hand would break.

He would break things so that he would hope

his brother's leg would break.

But every time he would try some kind of a magic

or a ritual on his brother,

every time he would try that, it would happen to him.

At one point he decided that he would take his dog

and break its leg and then broke the dog's leg

and wanted that to happen to his brother.

Instead, it broke legs in his family.

And that is when he realized that there is a power

greater at work than the power that he was known for

in that city.

And he goes to his brother

and begins to ask his brother, how come you're protected?

People come to me because they want others' harm

that I'm so successful.

Why is it that when I try to harm you,

it always rebounds on me?

And that's how he became a believer.

That city was stunned at how this man who was known

as the Great One, who was the Simon Magus type,

turned around.

This is happening everywhere, man.

We just dress it up better in the West.

It's packaged better.

The demonic realm is not in Africa and India.

It doesn't look at color.

The strange thing about the satanic realm is that

it's one realm that's non-racist.

It's equal to the white, black, brown,

everybody is fair game.

It's just that it's better packaged here.

I'm praying that a time comes in the life of this church

where the setting free of people who haven't been set free

will become common.

Will become common.

God really puts on the rits when you deal with people

who are not believers.

He really likes showing off.

So how do we get to a place where we now are able to hear

exactly what the Spirit of God is saying?

I begin to do, I mean, so absurd.

Just think of it.

If someone told me that,

hey, go to this place called Bergdorf Goodman,

the first thing I'd think is what kind of name is that?

Instead, what if you obeyed and actually went,

things begin to transpire.

The strange thing about the Spirit of God

is the moment he says something

and you know it is from the nature of God,

or you sense it is from God, take a chance and go.

What's the worst that can happen?

You look foolish, big deal.

Come and admit that you made a mistake.

Get up and start again.

We've got to learn how to hear a man

and that's something we've been practicing for years now.

There's almost nobody here who can't hear.

We sometimes doubt if it's God, even when it's God,

but most of us know it is God.

The strange thing is anything that God tells you,

he'll test you.

The reason he tests you is he wants to see

whether your faith can be translated into work.

Why did God test Abraham?

Why did he test Abraham?

Why did God test Abraham?

Why did he test Abraham?

Abraham was known as the father of faith.

He counted the stars in the sky and the sand on the earth.

But now that you've counted the stars,

which was an easy thing to do,

and now that you say that you believe

that I will give you sons that will populate the earth,

now God says, let me test you

and see whether you actually believe it,

because faith must go with works.

God tests only to see whether the words that I speak

in faith are actual words that can translate into works

or whether they're just words.

Words are easy, man.

Show me your works.

James put it so brilliantly.

Some people dislike James

because it's almost like he's contradicting Paul.

And yet he puts it this way.

Show me your faith by showing me your works.

And that faith without works is dead.

Here's a question I asked ages ago of us,

and I'm asking it again.

What is it at present in your life that you are engaged in

that requires oodles of faith?

And if you don't exert faith,

you're gonna fall flat on your face.

What is it in your life right now that you or I are doing

that you don't have the resources for the ability

for the manpower, for the gifts, for the skills,

for the wealth, for?

What is it that you're attempting

that you would actually need God for?

There must always be one or two projects in my life

always happening where it is impossible for me

to make headway if I don't depend on God.

Always, may your life always have an impossible project.

An impossible project.

Because otherwise who needs God?

I got the money, I got the help, I got the manpower,

I got the resources, I got the gifting, I've got the talent,

I got the education, I don't need God.

We asked this question in 2013.

Do you live by faith because you don't have any choice

or would you prefer living by faith?

And my answer in 2013 was,

I live by faith because I have no choice.

But the question is, would you prefer living by faith?

And my answer then was, nope, I don't prefer living by faith.

It's a dangerous way to live.

Jesus preferred living by faith.

As in hearing God, trusting his Father,

stepping out to see what will happen.

What a way to live, eh?

It's changed a little.

I don't know if it's my default,

but I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie.

It's my default,

but it might be getting close to preference.

Guys, some of the ways you can begin to cultivate this idea

of both hearing the Holy Spirit

and then obeying immediately, obeying immediately.

Nothing happens till you take the first step of obedience, eh?

Secondly, not secondly, nothing happens till you

take the first step of obedience.

And do not try to validate what the Holy Spirit is telling you

through immediate results.

Sometimes the results are not immediate.

It doesn't mean that what God said was not true.

Habakkuk chapter two, verse one, verse three says,

this thing that I have done,

I have done, I have done, I have done,

verse three says,

this thing that I have shown you is for an appointed time.

It will not tarry.

It will come to pass.

Every time God says something,

I don't have to try to validate it with an immediate answer.

Things can take time.

Hold on to it, nurture it, persevere, endure, nurse it.

Things gestate, man.

Divine things gestate so that they come into a place

of perfect maturity when it happens.

Isaiah 50, verse four, listen to it from the message.

It's brilliant.

This is one way, man, that you and I can begin to figure out

what the Holy Spirit wants.

Isaiah 50, verse four, from the message,

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.

He opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders.

I didn't go back to sleep,

didn't pull the covers over my head.

I followed orders, stood and took it.

The sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me in the morning, every morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed,

opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders.

I didn't go back to sleep,

didn't pull the covers back over my head.

I followed orders, stood and took it.

What if everybody sitting here

actually started doing this every morning?

Wake up tomorrow morning and the first thing you do is

lend them your ear saying, okay, God,

so what do you have for us today?

What do you have for me today?

Tomorrow's a holiday.

It's a great day to begin.

Diana was asking, how do you know Dallas?

How do you know New York?

This is how you know, man.

You get up every morning because God is a conversationalist.

God is a conversationalist.

He discovered the whole idea of talking.

Let him begin the conversation.

If he begins the conversation, you will go places

you could otherwise not go.

Because when I begin the conversation,

it usually concerns me and my people and my family

and my immediate needs.

When he begins the conversation,

those things are taken care of, but others get helped.

Hey father, so it gets to a point guys,

where our question would be, hey father,

so what do you want to do with me

in different parts of the world today?

Because here's the thing we've got to do.

On one hand, we have to be faithful

with the little jar of oil that you have.

On the other hand, you have to stretch out your hand

and ask for the nations, because that is the inheritance

that the children of God are being given.

And it doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter how little or more you know of Christ.

It doesn't matter if you're 26 or 86.

This is something that both David did when he was 16

and Caleb did when he was 84.

So it covers all of us.

Man, imagine a passionate life like this.

What it would do to people around us.

Leave alone how interesting life would be.

Isaiah 50 verse four.

The next scripture, Isaiah 50 verse four is when you get up

and because you have a relationship with God

and because you're engaged with him

in having the kingdoms of the world

become the kingdom of our Lord and King,

as it says in Revelation.

So you have this conversation with him.

In Habakkuk chapter two, verse one,

if you read it from the NIRV, it puts it this way.

I will go up to the lookout tower.

I will station myself on the city wall.

I'll wait to see how the Lord will reply to me.

Then I'll try to figure out how to answer him.

Habakkuk two, verse one.

I will go up to the lookout tower.

I will station myself on the city wall.

I'll wait to see how the Lord will reply to me.

Then I'll try to figure out how to answer him.

The point is this, guys.

There are some things where we engage in conversation.

There are some things that are very deliberate

and intentional where you are actually someone

who has a watch tower or a lookout tower

that you go and stand on

because you're fighting for something or someone.

And if you don't take a stance, then it does not work out.

Some of you have kids that need to be stood for.

Some of you have husbands and wives

that need to be stood for.

Some of you have nations and cities

that need to be stood for.

This church was birthed as a church

that is called to the nations.

It was not the pastor that was called to the nations.

This church was called to the nations.

And when I say the church was called to the nations,

here's what it means.

It means that this church was supposed to go into nations.

As it says in Isaiah 49,

God would send us as a light to the Gentiles.

If you want to use that word,

you can use the word,

you can use the word,

you can use the word,

you can use the word,

Gentiles, if you want to use that word Gentiles.

And two, when we are sent to the nations,

it is so that we can dismantle things

that hold nations in bondage.

It is so ridiculous a task for a church as small as this

and as limited as this,

that it must be God.

I don't mind your faces not responding to what I'm saying,

but my God, your hearts better ignite.

Gosh, man, this is what we live for.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

God, we are living for God.

Why do you think we want to pay the airfare

for people to come and be here for a little while?

This couple from New York who I said,

hey, do you want to come?

This pastor from Vietnam that we are trying to bring,

this pastor from Brazil

we've got tons of money? No. But because we are hoping that if they come and spend

a little time with us, something will spark that will help them go back and do

things differently. Not spend time with me, spend time with us. Almost any person

who comes to this church, I'm not the guy who spends time with them, I let them

lose on you.

Because meeting the pastor is always not real. He'll give the best picture

possible of his church man, meet the people and you'll really know where the

church is at. We're paying their effort and bringing them so that we are hoping

something will ignite and every one of these guys that's coming here is a

person who at some point will affect nations. I remember meeting Jeevan the

first time. This guy who you all like now. The first time he came into this

church, he came into the church, he sat behind someone big thinking I couldn't

see him. So he comes and sneaks in halfway through the service and sits in

the back row and sneaks and sits behind someone big. It was Don and so he sits

behind Don. I'm kidding. So Jeevan is sitting there and he thought I couldn't see him

but at some point I began speaking over his life and prophesying on him and then

for the next four months he disappeared.

And it didn't turn up for four months man and I sent Derek after him and Derek went

and hunted him down and then we met at Denny's and I remember sitting at Denny's

and saying this to Jeevan. I said Jeevan you will either be known as someone who

is doing work in Nandigama in India and you will be called to different places

to tell the same story about how God is restoring the Dalits in India. They'll

ask you to say the same story. You can either stay there or you can respond to

the call of God upon your life where you are a guy who'll go to different nations

and stir up a storm. That was three or three and a half years ago and he took

it man. He took it and ran with it and he's hardly called to talk about what he

used to talk about anymore. Why am I telling you this? Guys if you are in

this church for any length of time you have no choice. Two things or three

things are sure to happen to you. One there will be the ability to hear God.

Two don't be surprised that you start speaking on behalf of God because this

church was birthed in prophetic grape juice. You just can't help it. You'll come

out stained and three it is almost inevitable that you will at some point

be involved with the nations. Every tribe in Israel had a trait. Jacob had 12 sons

each tribe had a trait. You go read what Moses prophesized over them in Deuteronomy

32 or you go to Exodus 49 and you see what Jacob prophesized over them. Every

tribe had a trait. You think it doesn't continue now. This tribe has a trait and

if you are here it is impossible for you to escape these three things. Impossible.

And you didn't land up here by accident man because we've invited nobody here.

In fact we've tried to the way we do things most people don't want to stay

here but if you stayed it's either because you're thick-skinned or because

you're meant for this place. And if you're here for the first time you're

welcome back next week. Things get better next week. Simon you know the

only one there are other guests too.

So sometimes you've got to climb up the watchtower intentionally and start

looking for things. Stand there and fight man as God shows you. Fighting is

so much fun when God shows you what to do. And you're not going to be able to

fight man as God shows you what to do. You become the big bully. Fighting is so

much fun when God shows you what cutest do. Because you're not fighting against

flesh and blood eh.

Powers and rulers, spirits of darkness, spiritual hosts of depravity, rulers

of flowers, real beings. I hope one day God shows us what we've achieved over

the last 15 years and it'll stun us.

I hate the fact that I can't share everything.

Since events on the earth have their origin in heaven, seeing things from God is to be expected.

Since events on the earth have their origin in heaven, it's but natural that the

Holy Spirit will show you things. Since events on earth first transpire in heaven,

it's natural that the Holy Spirit will show you things. Guys I'm hoping that at the end of these

four weeks when we deal with Ezekiel 37 that you will realize that I now belong to a

people who have the ability to affect the outcome of nations, of cities, of people

groups, that we actually begin to think like that. That's my hope. Not through 12 hours of

praying through the night. That is so painful. But through simple, easy, effective prayer.

Because you know what God has shown.

I'll end man. Got so much more but I'll stop in a little while.

Some of you haven't heard this story. Some of you have. If you've heard it, too bad.

This happened 13 years ago. And if this happened 13 years ago and it was effective,

then imagine what we can do now.

It was shortly after the second tsunami in Indonesia where the first tsunami was December 26.

The second tsunami was May 6. And the Sultanate of Java in Indonesia,

the Sultanate of Java, in the middle of the country,

was devastated. There were cracks in buildings, floods that killed thousands.

And then the second time when the tsunami hit again, another 600 or 700 died.

And shortly after that, God had opened a door for a new tsunami.

And the tsunami hit again. And the tsunami hit again.

And shortly after that, God had opened a door for Act 29 in Indonesia.

Anne Elmer and I had gone there.

Heidi, did you come to Indonesia, too? You went to Sri Lanka, right?

Yeah. Anne Elmer and I had gone there and met with people.

And shortly after that, I was supposed to go to Bahrain.

And so here's what happens. I asked God,

Father, do you have any preference in terms of how I fly to Bahrain?

Because God may have strange reasons for routing you a certain way.

Ask him everything, man, because he's really smart.

He is. Because remember what he did with Jesus.

Jesus was supposed to go to Jerusalem and his father routed him through Samaria.

And because he routed him through Samaria, he meets a woman at the well.

And because he meets a woman at the well, an entire city gets saved.

So he's really smart at routing you. So I asked him, which way do you want me to go?

And I felt him saying, go via Singapore.

And so I'm saying, but Father, going via Singapore is going around like this.

Why do you want to spend more money and go around that way?

Because we think God is this miserly missionary who doesn't have much to spare.

So he just recycles money and makes everybody miserable.

But he has plenty of resources, man.

It's going out of your pocket. That is what hurts.

But he has the ability to provide.

And so I felt him saying, go via Singapore. So I go through Singapore.

And there was a pastor who used to visit this church ages ago.

His name was Alvin Chia. Some of you have met him.

And so I go to Singapore and I have a day and a half layover.

And so I call up this pastor and I say, hey, can I have lunch with you?

And he says he's in Indonesia. And he says, do you want to have dinner with me?

And so I thought I've got a day and a half. So why not hop on a plane and fly to Indonesia?

So I flew to Indonesia. It just takes an hour and a half.

And that evening, the Sultan of Java, the King of Java,

calls people from every religion

to join together to seek their gods

for the healing of his land.

And so at midnight we go to this atrium that faces the

South China Sea. And he's got this amazing resort by the sea.

So he calls us all and I go in there and there are Hindu priests

sitting in lotus position, Buddhist monks,

magicians banging sticks on the ground, Muslim Imams

chanting prayers and doing the beads. It is like a scene out of Nebuchadnezzar,

out of Daniel Chapter 2, when Nebuchadnezzar calls his astrologers,

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

sorcerers and all this stuff. And then the king comes and there's a lot of incense burning.

And he says, seek your gods and tell me what your God is saying.

And this king is supposed to be the earthly consort

of a demonic deity worshipped in Indonesia called Ratu Kidul,

or the Queen of the South Seas. And he is supposed to

go into an ivory tower that I've seen where he spends an entire day

once or twice a year. And he has this ritual that happens with his deity.

And the jewelry that he owns is so powerful, at least in terms of magic,

that politicians would come and borrow this jewelry to win elections.

This really happens in almost every nation, including Canada by the way.

Only you don't go borrow jewelry, you borrow other stuff.

And so he calls us and comes with his two wives, sits in front and he begins to say,

pray. And so we pray just one simple prayer. This is when prayer becomes so simple.

Once God tells you what to pray, it becomes so simple. And this is the prayer we pray.

Oh God, silence the prophets of Baal and speak through your children. That's it.

So we finish sitting around for two and a half hours and then he calls us

to his garden and he says, tell me what your God said.

And everybody knows that this guy is very tuned to the spiritual realm.

So all of them are scared to just blurt out anything. And so we sit there

and none of the others speak, not one. Everybody is silent.

I've got nothing to say. And this pastor had a dream and he relates the dream

to the king and I had four prophetic words for him and I prophesied over him.

He was educated in West Point so he knows English well, understood everything,

wouldn't show that he was understanding, but he speaks perfect English.

And so after we finished, we left. And four months later,

this king becomes so highly aware that what was spoken was God,

that the Sultan of Java gets baptized in this palace on February 11, 2007.

This is a Muslim king, an animist Muslim king who gets baptized

and gives his life to God. That began six years

of Java being open for mission work for anything we wanted to do in Java

for six years. When Anne Elmer and I went back, he sent his wife

and his wife sat through three and a half hours of Christ's life.

His daughter became a believer. And then the king started asking for

Christian businessmen to be sent to Indonesia because they got tons of gold,

coal and uranium. And he said, why don't you send us Christian

businessmen? And so someone approached the PMO's office when Harper was

the Prime Minister and tried to send Canadian businessmen from the UK,

British businessmen men. Right now, there are still businessmen in Indonesia

right now at this moment who are still earning the fruit of what happened then.

When God begins to do something in a nation, it's not just mission that happens.

It's not that churches that happen. It's economy, it's business, it's every area that is affected.

This was 13 years ago, guys.

Why am I telling you this story? Because some of you haven't heard this before.

Some of you have heard it 20 times. But then there might be 20 of you who haven't heard it once.

And this was when we had eight people in the church.

Time to step up our game, man.

The way we step our game up is to go down this road of Isaiah 50, verse 4,

Isaiah 50:4

Habakkuk 2, verse 1 to 3. Once you know it is God,

Habakkuk 2:1–3

have the courage to come and say, hey, I'm sure this is God.

But the thing is, if you're sure it is God, we will push you to the next level.

Meaning you'll have to prove that what you are saying you have faith for can translate into works.

Questions, comments, thoughts, disagreements, I'm done.

Okay, so we're going to go back to the beginning of the story.

So we're going to go back to the beginning of the story.

So we're going to go back to the beginning of the story.

So we're going to go back to the beginning of the story.

So we're going to go back to the beginning of the story.

As in?

As in?

As in?

If God shows me something that I don't know clearly,

I'll still take the first step and then I'll go ask somebody.

I'm waiting for clear understanding. I'm just waiting for the first step.

Yeah. Mongolia happened that way. I didn't have any idea what will happen in Mongolia.

All I knew was that we needed to go to Mongolia.

We've been praying for Mongolia for seven years. So land in Mongolia and see what happens.

Guys, it's only the first time you take the risk that it is scary.

After the first time you get used to it.

The first time it is scary.

And you know where the greatest fear is? Two areas where the greatest fear comes from.

Money and what people may think if I fail.

You get over those two humps and you're home free, man.

You're going to get the money from our shucks. What if I spend this?

How am I going to live next month? That's the first thing that scares you.

And the second thing that scares you is what if this isn't God? People will think I'm really foolish.

Get past those two because those two will happen.

Get past those two and you're home free.

So here's your homework.

Come back next week with...

I have to ask God, you can't do this with bravado. Come back next week with

something that God has prompted you to do that is impossible.

How do you know it's God? You don't have the ability to do it.

You don't have the resources to do it. You don't have the money to do it.

It doesn't have to be going to Indonesia. It can be something in Abbotsford.

Next week, come if you can.

Guys, all we can do is really try saying, Father, I really want to step into this realm

where I'm just ridiculously dependent on you because if I am not, this won't happen.

Ask God for a God-sized Endeavor Project dream walk

that He wants to give you.

That is impossible to accomplish.

Ask Him for it.

Because if you dream it up, it will be within your reach.

Ask Him for something impossible.

And guess what? It will be right up your alley because He knows how you're made. He knows your personality.

He knows your abilities.

It's highly unlikely that He'll ask me to run a marathon because that ain't my thing.

But to travel somewhere and do something,

I would be 84 by the time I get there.

Shush! Silence!

But it'll be up your alley so that you can get on it immediately.

You won't have to train yourself for the next three years before you do it.

Hopefully, you won't ask me to run a marathon. That would be terrible, eh?

So, come back next week with a project

and write it on a sheet of paper. Bring it. We'll have a box that you can put it in.

You don't even have to put your name on it if you don't think you want to put your name on it.

I don't know your handwriting so I won't call you out anyways.

It's time for us to

step into Hebrews 11.

Hey, and if possible, let it not be about you.

Let it not be about you. Let it be an impossible project that someone else will benefit from.

Let it not be about you. I've got to end with Hebrews 11, verse 35 to 37.

Hebrews 11:35–37

Listen to this, eh? This is just nuts, man. I know you've heard it before,

but man, every time I read it, I think to myself, this is nuts.

Hebrews 11, verse 35 to 37.

Hebrews 11:35–37

That's why I said, let this humongous project not be about you.

Hebrews 11, verse 35 to 37.

Hebrews 11:35–37

Let's start at 32.

Let's start at 32.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell you about Gideon.

I mean, you would think Paul would pick on Gideon, but he doesn't. Gideon, Barak,

Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel,

and the prophets, who through faith, conquered kingdoms,

administered justice, gained what was promised,

who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of flames,

escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength,

who became powerful in battle, routed foreign enemies.

Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released

so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging,

while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword.

They went about in sheepskin and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated.

The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

This is where we will live.

Yeah? Looking forward to your project next week.

All of us, eh?

And if you can't make it next week, send it in by email or give it to somebody

so that you don't miss out on this adventure.

And for the 30 people that are not here today, let them know too.

Let's pray.

Father, I'm not praying because we want to end with prayer. I'm praying because I plead with you.