The Elijah Paradigm

1 Chronicles 12.

And the sons of Issachar, the sons of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.

The sons of Issachar understood the times and knew what to do.

We must understand the times we are in if we are to know what to do.

Moses had to understand the times he was in to know what he was to do.

Elijah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Paul.

And to understand, we must understand where we are if we are to know what to do and how to stand for such a time as this.

You are an important ministry, and you are an uncompromised ministry.

And you need to know the times, and that's what I'm going to share.

Much has happened since I was last here on a Wednesday night of great significance.

What are the times we live in?

We sing, these are the days of Elijah.

These are the days of Elijah.

But the days of Elijah weren't just days of miracles, they were days of a nation that had once known God, but had turned away from him, turned inside itself, at war against its own foundation.

Ancient Israel was founded by God for his glory.

Yet in the midst of its blessings, it forgot God, turned away from God, and drove him out of its public squares, drove him out of its culture, brought in gods and idols, and began to call what was evil good and what was good evil.

They performed, or that they actually profaned what was sacred, and they sanctified what was profane.

They celebrated immorality.

They offered up their children as sacrifices to the gods.

There have only been two civilizations in human history that were founded solely for the purposes of God.

The first was called Israel, the second was called America.

America was founded by the Puritans to be a city on a hill, to be a civilization that existed for the glory of God.

It was founded after the pattern of ancient Israel, to be an Israel of the New World.

But as ancient Israel in its blessings fell away from God, so too have we.

We have driven God out of the public square.

We have driven God out of culture.

We have brought in other gods.

We have served idols.

We we too have called what is evil good and what was good evil.

We too have profaned what was sacred and we celebrate what is profane.

And where Israel offered up thousands of its children, we have sacrificed millions of our unborn children on the altars of self.

We become a nation at war against the foundation on which we were established, and these are the days of Elijah.

Ancient Israel moved away from God to judgment and called, God called to them, he sent prophets to them.

They ignored the prophets, and then he sent warnings, harbinger, signs of judgment.

God has done the same to America.

For those who haven't read the harbinger in a nutshell, the same harbinger, signs of judgment that appeared in the last days of Israel have now appeared in America.

Some in New York City, some in Washington, some involving American leaders, each one identifying a nation that has known God but has fallen and increasingly at war with his ways and in danger of judgment.

And the harbingers have not stopped, as I will show.

Even the Shemitah, for those who know, has continued.

For those who don't know, the Shemitah is the seven-year biblical phenomenon that has marked some of the greatest financial economic crashes in history.

This last and most recent Shemitah marked the first time the stock market collapsed into the red in seven years since the last Shemitah, not just in America but around the world, witnessing some of the greatest crashes in history, the crash of global trade, industry, earnings.

In fact, the last Shemitah was the worst year for the for money all around in 78 years since the Great Depression, 1938, which was the year of the Shemitah.

But the word Shemitah literally means the fall or letting fall.

There was another kind of fall.

One of the most pivotal changes that just took place.

The American age began in 1871 when America became the strongest economic power on earth.

That age came to an end with this last Shemitah.

America's crown was removed as the strongest economic power, and it was passed to, you can guess it, China.

And then there was a fall of a different kind.

There is a date on the biblical calendar that marks calamity.

It's called the ninth of Tamuz.

On the ninth of Tamuz, the armies of Babylon broke through the protective walls of Jerusalem, holding back the nation from judgment.

They breached the walls and then judgment came.

The ninth of Tamuz is a day of mourning on which the nation's hedge of protection from judgment came.

The ninth of Tamil, in the year of the Shemitah, the ninth of Tamuz fell on June 26th.

On that day, the United States Supreme Court broke down the hedge that defined marriage as we know it.

The protective hedge of judgment.

The day of the hedge being broken down was removed on that day.

On that same day, the President of the United States ordered the White House lit up in the colors of the rainbow to celebrate the striking down.

But the rainbow does not belong to man.

The rainbow belongs to God.

It is the sign of his throne, it is a sign of his authority.

And a nation that desecrates that is saying, we are not under the authority of God.

The rainbow is the sign of the covenant of God and his mercy in the face of judgment.

A nation that breaks that is proclaiming it stands in defiance of his mercy.

These are the days of Elijah.

And we're gonna get to America, but let's first go to Israel.

There is a covenant that has determined human history for 4,000 years.

If you bless the children of Abraham, the Jewish people, Israel, you shall be blessed.

If you curse them, you shall be cursed.

America, more than any other nation, has blessed the nation of Israel.

And therefore, America more than any other has been blessed by God.

But under the last presidential administration, not only has America his fall from God accelerated, but America's relationship with Israel has deteriorated to its worst state.

And then just recently, just a while ago, at the very end of his presidency, the last president did something of prophetic import.

In front of the United Nations, America abandoned Israel to be condemned before the world in a resolution that said Israel has no right to the city of Jerusalem.

And that Jerusalem was, quote, Palestinian territory.

Israel was the occupying power.

Now, if any city has ever belonged to any nation, it is the city of Jerusalem to the nation of Israel.

More than London belongs to England or Paris to France.

It is the only capital in the world that the nations of the world refuse to recognize.

And yet the only capital in the world whose real estate deed is the Word of God, the Bible.

America, under the former president, not only allowed this to happen, but actually engineered it.

The United Nations spoke as the authority over Jerusalem.

But the United Nations is not the authority over Jerusalem.

The European Union is not the authority over Jerusalem.

Barack Obama was not the authority over.

There is only one authority over Jerusalem, and his name is the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Holy One of Israel is his name.

And his word is the final word.

Long before the United Nations ever existed, the Lord of hosts issued his own resolution concerning Jerusalem.

And no law, no UN resolution will ever overturn that concerning the United Nations resolution.

Barack Obama refused to veto it, but the Lord God Almighty, He has already vetoed it.

And even this is prophecy, a sign of the times.

For two and a half thousand years ago, the word of God through the prophet Zechariah said, In the last days I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling, a stone of stumbling, and all nations that try to move it shall be injured.

The Bible says that in the last days, Jerusalem will be back in the world, the world will be fixated on it, the nations will gather against it.

Amazingly, this is exactly what has happened, even in the United Nations.

What other city does the world so focus upon?

Does the peace of the world hang upon?

Two thousand years ago, Messiah said of Jerusalem, he said to the Jewish people, You will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes to the name of the Lord, Baruch Ababa Shem Adonai.

For that to come true, four things had to happen.

Number one, the Jewish people had to survive against all odds, against all hell, to say those words, and they did survive.

Number two, the Jewish people had to return to the land of Israel against all odds from the ends of the earth to say those words, and they did return.

May 14, 1948, back in the world.

Number three, they had to return to Jerusalem to say those words where he said those words.

June 1967, in the midst of the Six-Day War, for the first time in 2,000 years, Israeli soldiers enter the holy city, and Jerusalem is returned to the Jewish people who say we will never leave our city again.

Number four, the Jewish people have to return to Messiah Yeshua, Jesus as their Messiah.

That is beginning as well.

If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here at Gateway.

It is written in the prophet Hosea the children of Israel will dwell for many days without king or prince, but afterwards they shall return to the Lord their God and to David their king, that's Messiah, and will come trembling to him in the last days.

That day is now dawning.

Jerusalem is the city of the Moadim.

That's the appointed meetings between God and Israel.

They have returned because there is one more appointed meeting to come.

And that day, the Bible says, in that day, all nations will gather against Jerusalem, and the Lord Himself will defend his people, and they will look upon him whom they have pierced and mourn for him.

If the Jewish people even build a house in Jerusalem, the world goes crazy.

Why?

Because the enemy is going crazy, because he knows the signs of the times.

If the Jewish people come back to Jerusalem, it means that someone else is also coming back to Jerusalem.

Messiah, and that's the end of the devil's kingdom.

And you people of God, you are God's Jerusalem too.

And so the enemy will war against you.

And so when all hell is breaking loose around you, don't be discouraged, be encouraged.

What it means is that God has a calling and a purpose on your life.

If not, the enemy wouldn't worry about you.

If he's attacking you, great is the calling.

So hang on because God has something great coming.

In three months, it will be the 50th anniversary of the Jerusalem, the prophetic event, the restoration of Jerusalem.

The ancient Jubilee of God is exactly that: the restoration to your ancestral land.

It took place on the interval of 49 and 50th years.

If you go back 50 years, Jerusalem is restored, 1967.

A Jubilee, the restoration of the possession.

If you go back another 50 years, it is 1917.

Battlefor declaration gives the land of Israel back to the Jewish people another prophetic restoration.

Does anything have to happen in this coming period?

Well, you who know me, you know my answer.

Nothing has to happen, but it's worthy to note.

Now we go to the nations, from Jerusalem to the nations, and even to a nearby land, to an island where something else happened since I was last here.

The longest ruling political figure of modern times died, Fidel Castro.

Now I can tell you the story that you'll never hear in the news concerning the real story behind it that God actually determines even the not just the years but the actual days.

A number of years back, Fidel Castro wanted to show the world that there was religious freedom in Cuba, which there really wasn't.

So he would open up the land to the gospel for one month for believers to gather publicly.

In a secret meeting, they asked me to go to Cuba and open it up with the sounding of the shofar.

So I did.

And I shared the gospel across the land, and for one month, and I prayed, Lord, give me a word.

What's your word for Cuba?

I got the word Jubilee.

So I proclaimed Jubilee throughout the island, which on that island was not politically correct because it was revolutionary, because the Jubilee proclaims freedom, liberation, restoration to the land that you lost.

Not exactly the message that the communist government wanted.

I'm preaching the Jubilee's coming all over Cuba.

There are there are posters of me sounding the shofar saying, El Hubaleo Tiene, the Jubilee is coming.

And then we got word back, the Fidel Castor was watching me and was asking, Who is this man with a beard who's causing such a ruckus?

Then something strange happened.

A man comes off the street to give me a message.

He said, The believers of Cuba were praying on the mountain.

So the Spirit told them that there was a curse on the island, and there has to be a Jewish return to the island.

There had to be a breaking of the curse.

Then he points to a mountain and he says, That mountain is cursed.

There's witchcraft, there's sacrifices, voodoo, all on there.

But the prophecy said that the curse will be broken and blessing will come down the mountain.

I said, Okay, Lord, I guess you want me to go up this mountain.

So the next day I go up the mountain with Pete with others.

I carry my shofar.

I'm gonna sound it on the top.

On the top of the mountain is a pavilion, a house of idols, the gods of Cuba.

A man is standing outside the house of idols, and he shouts to me, Hola Jonathan.

And I'm thinking, that sounds like hello, Jonathan.

I don't know Spanish, but and again he says, Oh, Hola Jonathan.

Then he comes over to me and he says, I've been waiting for you.

I knew you would come.

And it turns out he's a believer.

He said, The spirit told him, Get on the top of the mountain that I'm coming there, and he's holding in his hand a ceramic plate.

On the plate is a painting of me sounding the shofar, which I had brought up that day to the mountain.

He tells me, he said, God told him to paint the picture, put it in the house of idols.

He said, Something happened the night he put it in.

The plate came crashing down, struck the head of the idol, the chief god of Cuba.

The next morning the worshipers opened up their pavilion, they found their chief god, the god Ochun, on the floor with her crown removed.

Next to her was a plate of this Jewish guy with a shofar, and the shofar was cracked just where the sound comes out.

That's where it struck the head.

Now, the people, you know, people will tell you the Bible is a bunch of stories, like that time when they placed the ark in the temple of Dagan, and the next day they found their idol broken.

Well, the Bible is true, the God of the Bible is alive and well.

And the idol that was broken on the mountain was the goddess that was linked to Fidel Castro's rise to power.

And the shofar that struck it was the shofar of Jubilee.

So we made our way to the capital city, Havana, where Fidel Castro was to join there in that last meeting.

Now, before I left, a man from Cuba shows up at the congregation, gives me a word, he says, You're gonna go into the palace of the king.

It happened that I received an invitation to go into the palace of Fidel Castro.

So I entered the presidential palace and I gave him a Bible and a shofar of Jubilee and a prophetic word about the Jubilee and the island and freedom of God.

But the Jubilee contains a mathematical countdown.

It's written in Leviticus, you shall count seven times seven to the 49th year, and then will come Jubilee.

The message of the Jubilee was of a prophecy.

God is sovereign.

Here's the thing Fidel Castro came into power in 1959.

A bondage came over the land.

If you count seven times seven years to the 49th year, it comes to it comes to 2008.

The reign of Fidel Castro began in 1959.

When did it end?

It ended in 2008 when he stepped down the Jubilee.

Seven times seven years.

And since then, there's the beginning of a release.

Well, if you get even more exact, seven times seven, you go to a jubilee of years and a jubilee of days, seven times seven years and seven times seven days.

Ket the day when he first came to power, January 1st, 1959, New Year's Day.

Count the exact days, it brings you to February 19th, 2008.

Fidel Castro stepped down on that exact day.

What weapons couldn't do, what America's military couldn't do, the Jubilee of God did.

What happened?

God is exact.

The numbers in Leviticus.

And what happened to the people who worshiped the idols when they saw that idol fallen, they took it as a sign from heaven.

And we got reports that people in the city began coming to their churches, bringing their idols, and telling the pastors, smash our idols.

We heard what happened on the mountain.

There was revival that broke forth.

And that revival has not stopped to this day.

What does it tell you?

No matter what it looks like in your life, the final story is God is totally in control.

And He is greater than any problem and greater than any obstacle and greater than any bondage.

You have freedom in God.

You need to claim that and you need to walk in it.

God is the God of freedom.

And it tells you in the world that He is the one who raises kings to the throne, and He's the one who removes kings from the throne, which brings us to America and what just happened.

We spoke of the Jubilee and the timing.

Well, the Jubilee, the trumpet sounded throughout the land.

Well, there has been a trump that's been sounding out this land.

How's that for a segue?

When I wrote The Harbinger, long before this election, I was led to put something in there that most people missed.

Donald Trump is actually in the Harbinger.

I won't say where you can find it, but he's linked to the mystery.

Is it possible that this amazing outcome of the election was not caused by Donald Trump, but by a covenant 4,000 years old?

Let me show you.

The Abrahamic covenant is not just a of blessings and curses, it's of reciprocity.

What you do to Israel shall be done to you.

A little over a year before this election, there was an election in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu running for re-election.

Article after article came out that Obama was supporting a group trying to defeat Netanyahu, if you remember.

And to end his legacy, end his position.

And that he was interfering in the election of a sovereign nation, Israel.

But the Abrahamic covenant says, whatever you do to Israel shall be done to you.

So if you intervene, listen, if you intervene in the election of Israel, God will intervene in your election.

If you seek to end the legacy of the leader of Israel, then your own legacy will be undone.

The Obama administration claimed that the election was interfered with.

There was Russian intervention.

Now, if any election showed signs of intervention, it was this one.

But it was not the Russian intervention that determined it.

The intervention was a bit higher.

The media will never tell you the real story.

But as the sons of Issachar, we are to understand the times.

The stakes in this election were colossal.

It threatened to seal the future of America, the future of the Supreme Court, the future of religious liberty.

It threatened to seal the acceleration of America's apostasy.

Now, this is not about politics, it's about the ways of God.

The platform of one party was the most brazenly anti-biblical in the history of that party, including the pledge to strike down the Hyde Amendment, meaning your money would go literally to the funding of the killing of unborn children.

And then you had these words, these words.

Deep-seated religious beliefs must be changed.

Who said that?

Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, no, Hillary Clinton said it.

Never had any major candidate in the history of America ever uttered such word, deep-seated religious beliefs must be changed.

Why?

So that abortion may expand.

The stakes were colossal, it looked hopeless.

Pole after poll showed a decisive victory for the Democrats, and then came the election, and something happened.

The media was in shock, the White House was in shock, the Democrats were in shock, the Republicans were in shock.

Even Donald Trump was in shock.

God's people have been praying for God's intervention.

And what happens stunned virtually everybody.

When something like that happens, so against the odds, it is usually a sign of the hand of God.

Has Donald Trump been an example of a Christian life?

Absolutely not.

Are there concerns?

Absolutely yes.

But can God use those who haven't known him or served him to serve his purposes?

Absolutely yes.

He does so all the time.

And whatever you feel about Donald Trump, the fact is that through this election, that ceiling of America's faith away from God has been for a moment stopped, held back, stayed.

It tells you something for your own life.

Listen, even when it's hopeless with God, there's always hope.

Never, never give up.

We must, as the children of Issachar, know the times, lest we grow complacent.

It is important to know and keep in mind the template of the harbinger of ancient Israel.

When it was heading to judgment, God, in that template, God gave them reprieves.

God gave them windows to turn back to God.

But what they did in their reprieve was crucial.

The election, brothers and sisters, is not the answer.

It is a window for the answer.

If we put our trust in politics or government or a man, we will have missed it.

We only put our trust in the God of Israel and a God of Messiah, the name of Messiah.

The answer is not man, the answer is revival.

This window is for revival.

And if there is no revival, America's progression to judgment will continue.

The nation has not yet turned back, and there's a great warfare, and the harbingers have not stopped.

In the last days of Israel, as in the days of Elijah, the people of Israel were worshiping the god Baal.

Could the sign of Baal actually manifest in this land?

Well, the answer is it already has.

The arch that led the worshippers of Baal into the temple of Baal was actually erected in New York City.

The Arch of Baal.

I was there, I witnessed it.

As they unveiled the arch to Middle Eastern music, they had a sign that proclaimed the Temple of Baal.

These truly are the days of Elijah.

The sign of Baal are the signs of a nation that once knew God, but is rapidly moving away from God to judgment.

We've got a window, and we must use that window.

What time is it?

It is time to go all out for revival.

It is time to go all out praying for revival, interceding for revival, ministering for revival, all out proclaiming the gospel for revival, and we must do something else above everything.

It is time that we don't just pray for revival, we actually start living in revival.

Because if you live in revival, the revival starts now and nothing can stop it.

The time is late, my friends.

If there is anything in your life that has no place in the life of one so-called as you, you must get it out.

If there's anything that God has called for your life and you've been saying no, not yet, Lord, the time is now to get it in and say yes to God.

Give your commitment today before you go to bed.

Make take one step, do what you have to do, commit what you have to commit, and God will anoint you.

God will anoint you, for the eyes of the Lord are searching the entire earth, looking for the one whose heart is completely his.

You be that one, you be that people, you be that one, for these are the days of Elijah.

It is time that we become the Elijah's of the day.

Be strong, says the Lord.

Be of good courage, be bold, take the stand, live uncompromised.

It's the only way to live, and God will anoint you.

These are momentous times.

It is time we become a momentous people.

These are the most challenging times, yes, but these are exciting times.

These are biblical times.

And if the bad is going from bad to worse, it is time for the good to go from good to great.

What time is it?

It's your time.

It's your time to rise to it and become great in it.

And remember what I have shared with you this day.

No matter what you see, no matter what you feel, no matter what you hear, no matter what you see on television, no matter what, God is still on his throne.

And he's never out of surprises.

He is stronger than kingdoms, he is higher than kings, and though the mountain shall fall into the heart of the sea, we shall not fear, for the Lord our God is our refuge.

And though everything that can be shaken will be shaken, you who trust in the Lord, you who stand in his name, you shall not be shaken, and you shall not be moved.

Today, tonight is the feast of Purim.

And what does that tell you?

Purim tells you though that all hell, though all hell comes against the people of God, in the end you hold on, you don't give up, and you shall prevail.

It is written, you are a citizen of Israel.

If you are born again, you're a citizen of Israel.

And from ancient times, all the forces of hell have warred against that nation.

The pharaohs of Egypt tried to try to destroy them.

The emperors of Assyria tried to obliterate them.

The armies of Babylon tried to crush them, the legions of Rome tried to wipe them off the earth.

The Nazis of Hitler tried to exterminate them.

The Soviet Union tried to erase them, and the terrorists vow they will make them perish from the earth.

But we are here in 2017, march on Purim to bear witness this day that the pharaohs are gone, the Assyrians have perished, Babylon has fallen, Rome has crumbled, the Nazis are gone, the Soviet Union is gone, the terrorists will be gone, but but but the nation of Israel lives, Amni Israel High, because the God of Israel lives, because the Messiah of Israel lives, because the nation of Israel lives, and you shall live, and you shall stand, and you shall overcome, because he lives, and he stands, and he overcome, every kingdom, Yeshua, the bug of the bottom, the bug of the show, the king of all kings, the border of all, Yeshua, king of the stomach, praying, praise the Lord, come up the season, come up the season.