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"And
a man
shall be
as an
hiding
place
from
the
wind,
and a
covert
from
the
tempest;
as rivers
of water
in a
dry place,
as the
shadow
of a
great
rock
in a
weary
land"
(Isaiah 32:2) .
~
The
stakes
are
high!
The
souls
of
mankind
are
hanging
in the
balance.
We
must
not
get
weary
in
well
doing!
~
We
have a
great
cloud
of witnesses
who
have left
a legacy
for us
to follow
and be
encouraged,
(which
includes
Jesus Christ),
that we
can be
numbered
amongst
those
who
triumph! |
|
We began to examine more closely in the November issue of the Overflow the
work of God to strengthen and to establish His people in their places of
responsibility and authority, whilst the enemy has answered with a
counter-attack of weariness.
This is a day and an hour when the Body of Christ
is being sorely tried by weariness ~ it is a major attack of the enemy to
de-rail the work of God. YET this is the hour in which the Bride is
turning the tables on that wicked one and setting him to flight as we wear
him out. Satan walks around as a lion, but Jesus is the Lion of Judah.
Never forget, far greater is He that is in you than he that is in the
world. We are born of the same invincible, unconquerable, valiant, kingly
spirit as our Lord Jesus, and as He overcame, so shall we!!!
As a member of the Body of Christ, you are valuable, even if you do not
yet realize your full value ~ you are extremely valuable. The
enemy knows that God is walking you into things that threaten his demonic
kingdom, and knows you will overcome him.
Every place, appointment, every role within the Body of Christ is a great
work. Each member is strategically placed, and vital to the overall
success of the entire work of God. When you do something for God, you have
a great adversary. Also, as we each mature into the fullness of our
calling, the adversary's resistance becomes even greater. Paul said it
this way in 1 Corinthians 16:9, "A great and effectual door is opened unto
me and great are the adversaries!"
I became very aware of this as I began to
specifically operate in the anointing and mantle to minister to
heads-of-state by God's appointment. The first time I did this, I led a
king in Nigeria to the Lord, and then my battles really began in
greatness! Ezekiel Chapter 28 shows us that Satan was involved in
government with authority in the administration of government. He was also
the leader of praise and worship, and of trafficking riches, which is
business.
When God has anointed, appointed and mantled you with
one of those areas in a great way, the devil is going to work against you
to try to keep you from being the leader that God has called you to be in
order to prevent the gift in you from being used to set people free, and
to accomplish all the will of God.
Consider Job, a great statesman in Israel, who also
operated in all three of the aforementioned anointings. Worship was a
daily part of his lifestyle and very demeanor before the Lord, and Job
Chapter 29, particularly verses 7-17 in the New International Version
describe the mantles of governmental administration and finance he
operated in to relieve those in need:
When I went to the gate of the city and took my
seat in the public square, the young men saw me and stepped aside and the
old men rose to their feet; the chief men refrained from speaking and
covered their mouths with their hands; the voices of the nobles were
hushed.... Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me
commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the
fatherless who had none to assist him. The man who was dying blessed me; I
made the widow's heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing;
justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the
lame. I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger.
I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth.
Job's life exemplified Isaiah 32:1-2, "Behold a
king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And
a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land." In the New Covenant, we are become the Lord's
kings and priests in the earth today (Revelations 1:6), as deliverers of
the weary!!!
We are familiar with the account rendered in the Word
of God concerning the enemy's intense assault to try to wear Job down, and
to cut off his position in order to cut off the help of God through Job to
Israel.
It was also a proving time of Job's character. Would he become
disillusioned and fall into unbelief and criticism towards God, or would
he trust and hold to the Lord? Job 13:15a answers this for us, as Job
cries out, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him...." He was
under great assault ~ indeed a violent assault which was directed against
multiple areas of his life simultaneously.
Job's experience of "proving" lasted nine months,
during which time he lamented, "My soul is weary of my life..." (Job
10:1). Weariness makes you tired of living, and then the spirit of death
goes to work and the spirit of suicide goes to work because that is the
ultimate result of the full work of weariness ~ to steal, to kill, and to
destroy you. Satan wants to destroy you because you are a precious
treasure of the Lord appointed to establish God's kingdom on the earth and
to destroy the works of the devil.
Job continues, "I will leave my complaint upon myself;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul." Beware of bitterness of
soul! We can see that if we become weary of our lot in life and in what
transpires in our circumstances, we become bitter. The root of bitterness
comes from weariness. We have got to guard our spirit, our soul, and our
body and not allow ourselves to become weary in well doing because the
bitterness will set in.
The danger of bitterness is outlined for us in Hebrews
12:12-16, warning that of which the enemy attempts to usher into the Body
of Christ through such an infection:
So then, brace up and
reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands
and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees, and cut
through and make firm and plain and smooth straight paths for your feet
[yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right
direction] so that the lame and halting [ limbs] may not be put out of
joint, but rather may be cured. Strive to live in peace with everybody and
pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will [ever] see
the Lord. Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look [after one
another], to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God*s
grace (His unmerited favor and spiritual blessing), in order that no root
of resentment (rancor, bitterness or hatred) shoots forth and causes
trouble and bitter torment and that many become contaminated and defiled
by it- That no one may become guilty of sexual vice, or become a profane
(godless and sacrilegious) person as Esau did who sold his own birthright
for a single meal.
The Amplified Bible
The battle really comes when you are weary in your physical body and in
your soul. The enemy comes at this time to take advantage of your
vulnerable state to tempt you to sin ~ to step out of God's will. God also
says that you cannot afford to be weary, because when you are worn out you
are not able to function properly in what He has called you to do.
Remember the final outcome for Job. He was established
in a double anointing, with a double portion to administrate as he came
through this trial. Great assaults come because the enemy is in earnest to
see that none make it through the test to this greater level of anointing
in the kingdom of God. But we have a great cloud of witnesses who have
left a legacy for us to follow and be encouraged, (which includes Jesus
Christ), that we can be numbered amongst those who triumph!
Towards the end of February of this year, I was led to
call missionary Pastor David Hammonds in El Salvador, who said to me, "I
ask you to pray because our nation is having elections and sixteen of
those running for president we cannot have! They are either for the drug
cartel or for the communists. We have one man, but he is number 17 in
popularity - he is last, and he is running on a ticket that is only four
years old. Please pray for God's will."
Saints, within two weeks, number 17 moved to first
place and was elected president. He is the first Christian president of El
Salvador, and he stood in his acceptance speech giving all glory to God
and he set God's authority over the nation of El Salvador.
In May 2004 I made my first trip to El Salvador,
whereupon God opened a great and effectual door to minister to this newly
elected president of El Salvador. (The enemy is so angry at what God is
doing in the earth!)
The El Salvadorian pastors had never seen their
president face to face, but Wednesday morning, May 19, there they sat with
their president, President Tony Saca, and I was at his right hand around
that long conference table in private. The president poured out his heart,
and God gave me utterance to speak into his life. The Lord instructed me
saying, "I want you to lay hands upon him and transfer the apostolic
anointing for the presidency of this nation upon this man that I have
chosen."
I asked the president if I could do that, and he gave me his permission. I
laid both hands on his shoulders and prayed and prophesied over him. He
had shared of the leadership responsibilities and the battle that was
coming against him already, and as he shared I heard "weariness."
The Lord spoke to my heart and had me to say to him,
"And when that burden gets so heavy be still and know that I am God." This
is another weapon in our arsenal to defeat weariness, saints of God, "Be
still, and know that I am God... " (Psalm 46:10).
Zechariah 3:9 says, "I will change a nation in a day."
What God did in El Salvador He is doing in many places all over this
world. But Zechariah 4:6 says, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." He says also, "You are going to
speak to the mountain and to every hindrance and tell it to get out of the
way, but you are going to do it by My Holy Spirit."
We have nations in the world today that are 100%
Christian nations, which has only happened in the last few years. I am not
talking about Christian in name only, but born again, tongue talking, Word
walking Christians!
The stakes are high. The souls of mankind are hanging
in the balance. We must not get weary in well doing! First Corinthians
15:58 exhorts us in this manner,
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be firm (stedfast),
immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord [always being
superior, excelling, doing more than enough in the service of the Lord]
knowing and being continually aware that your labor in the Lord is not
futile [it is never wasted or to no purpose].
The Amplified Bible
Isaiah 5:26 states, "...he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far,
and will hiss [whistle]...." When God whistles, something is going
to happen! It deafens and silences the gates of hell. "Behold they
will come...swiftly." Your Word today is "suddenly," "shortly," and
"swiftly." Those you have prayed for, even those cold backslidden
people in the churches, when God whistles, they will come with everything
in them! When the Lord whistles, verses 27 and 28 tell us that:
None shall be weary nor stumble among them;
none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be
loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: Whose arrows are sharp,
and all their bows bent, their horses* hoofs shall be counted like flint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind.
Having not the "girdle of our loins loosed" means that our minds are going
to be the way they are supposed to be. Having shoes without "broken
latchets" means we will not be hindered in our walk of faith!
When God whistles, He sends His whirlwind anointing. In
the early '90's in Scandinavian nations, God's whirlwind anointing was
poured out. The people were in a place where the enemy had become
intertwined within their "bundle of life" and God in that whirlwind got a
hold of them and slung out their enemies, but the people remained
enveloped within God's bundle of life ~ as Abigail said to David ~ "Don't
take things into your own hands. God has been your vindicator all this
time, let God do it!"
We must pursue what God wants, but we do not take
vengeance. If we will obey this, God Himself will sling your enemies out
by His whirlwind. When He whistles the enemy has to go!
If God be for us, who, indeed, can be against us? Luke
18:1-8 shows us that we can weary the adversary! We shall roar like lions
~ "...they shall roar like young lions" (Isaiah 5:29). Not old, toothless
and drooping around lions! And He says, "...yea, they shall roar, and lay
hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver
it." This means when all of this begins to happen, as in Matthew
12:32 ~ we will bind the strong man and take the goods out of his house ~
out of the world, and we will bring it to the house of God, and we
will bring them to the house of God. Just as no one can take
the prey out of the lions mouth, nobody shall be able to take them or it
out of the house, the kingdom of God!
In Nahum it also says that when God passes through with
His whirlwind that your battle vanishes away ~ what came against you one
time will never come against you another time. We must stand the test as
Job did, and truly, that which God restores will be greater and stronger
than it ever was before!
"You are going to speak
to the mountain
and to every hindrance
and tell it to
get out of the way,
but you are going to do it
by My Holy Spirit."
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