Shout Unto God With A Voice of Triumph!

The Shout of a King!

Num_23:21 He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.

2Ch 13:14 And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

2Ch 13:15 Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

2Ch 13:18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.

In this account, we read how the kingdom of Israel was divided into the camps of Judah, under the leadership of king Abijah, and Israel being lead by Jeroboam. Abijah, set the house of the Lord in order, and served the Lord, according the manner prescribed in the Word of God. Jeroboam, did not.

So, there was war between them.

Yet, even as the battle lines were drawn, Abijah tried to convince Jeroboam to go home, because God was not with him in the battle. Yet Jeroboam attacked, in what appeared to be a great strategy, surrounding the army of Abijah, and attacking from the rear, in ambush. Yet he did not count the words of Abijah…for the shout of a king was among them!

They blew the trumpets and shouted unto God in the battle, and God delivered them, and the children of Judah saw victory that day.

Remember Jericho? Here a good shouting song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFb8LraKMMY

So I see in the earth today, a similar situation arising in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are those of us, pursuing Him, with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, determined to hear His voice, align our lives with His Word, and to live for Him, daily, in spirit and in truth.

Yet, enemies have arisen in the land: here in America they come from the political system espousing abortion, same sex marriage, lies, treachery, and compromise with Islam.

Many Christians say that we are too radical, that we just need to accept that the political winds have changed, simply live and let live…while our enemies seek to attack all that is right, true, noble, honorable, loving, kind, and righteous in this nation.

Up from deep within me rises a SHOUT!

It is a shout of Holiness unto the Lord, the cry of the Victory of Jesus over all of our enemies.

Do I look like a fool in meetings where conventional wisdom requests things be done decently and in order?

Perhaps, but I feel like David facing Goliath, and hearing his many brothers, and I echo his words:

1Sa_17:29 And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?

There is a cause!

The cause of Christ demands a shout!

There is a fight of faith to be won, for the fate this nation, the United States of America, hangs in the balance, as we rise up in violent faith, to fight for her, from ‘enemies within, or tyranny without!’. The battle is fierce in prayer, but we must win it here, or the payment that sin always exacts will be paid upon the soils of this land, for the wages of sin, is death.

We will win this battle, this war, for God is with us, and He that marches with us, is mighty to save, deliver, and prevail against wicked spirits, and godless men that serve them….

So?

Get in your car, your bedroom, your backyard and shout unto God with a voice of triumph! Scream your passion, your frustration, your cry for deliverance unto Him, and watch, like Jericho, the walls of complacency, containment, apathy, fear, and religion crumble at YOUR feet, as Jesus, mighty warrior, arises to fight for YOU, His child…SHOUT!

Party! Our Father is throwing a party!

Party! Our Father is throwing a party!

Ah, the age old story of ‘the prodical son’, told by Jesus Himself recorded for us in Lukes gospel, chapter 15. As I read this story again, these words leap off the page at me:

Luke 15:17 And when he came to himself…

We see there are moments in life, when a person ‘comes to themselves’, and see’s themselves from God’s perspective. At that moment, they get right with God, and the people they have been hurting…

2Ti 2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;

26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

Ps 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

As we read through the Bible, we again read the story of the prodigal. The wayward son, who believed a lie, and in his passion, pride and deception, thought that he knew more than his father. He demanded his inheritance, and off he went, out into the world, to let off steam, and party. Been there done that…UGH!

While I was in the bar scene, out from my parents authority, I had a man (who later brought me to an AA meeting) who said: ‘Son, the elevator in your life, is going down, but you can get off at whatever floor you want!’

One morning, after a 40 hour week on the end of a shovel working underground in a nickle mine, I awoke with a wicked hangover, and thought about those words. Where were my friends now? Where was my paycheck from the day before? Spent mostly in the bar the night before, and I was hurting…

Seems the best we can do sometimes is speak a word of love and truth into a person’s life that is going away from God, honor, and who they were created to be.

I repeat my version of repentance. RE means: ‘to return to’. PENT actually means five, but for the sake of the illustration (its my sermon!), it makes me think of a penthouse. In elite condominiums, the penthouse is normally the most expensive lavish unit in the complex, in a motel it is often the executive or honeymoon suite, the best room in the place.

We are children of the most high God, King of the Universe. Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: We are not worms groveling before a Holy God, but adopted sons and daughters called to come boldly before the throne of His grace, in joy!

Repent! Come back to the High place of privilege, promise, purpose and passion!

Notice in this story of the prodigal, the father came running out to meet the son, ordered the best robe, ring, and shoes for him, and threw a party for him.

We, who come to our heavenly Father, find Him running towards us in love, covering our shame with the robe of righteousness, placing upon our finger again, the family ring of covenant and love, and covering the filthiness of our dirty feet with new shoes, the gospel of peace! As if this was not enough, He then throws a party for us!

Well, one day, when I was driving home from a dry legalistic church service, as a ministry student, I saw a carload of college students in front of me, drunk, with the windows down, hanging out of the windows, singing! Suddenly, Holy Spirit spoke to me: ‘Do you miss it?’

I was suddenly reminded of the incredible pressure of engineering school, where on a Friday night we would work as hard as we could on our computer assignment, determined to get it complete by midnight, so we could literally run across campus, run into the pub, grab a pitcher of beer, chug as much beer as possible in 5 mins to get enough courage, to run over to the table with the prettiest girls at it, and grab one, and drag her laughing unto the dance floor, where we would dance like idiots, getting the whole bar in hysterics!

I used to say, ‘You can’t make a man go through several hours of brutal swim practices, then schedule every minute of every week with classes, homework assignments, and lab reports, without it coming out somewhere. Yep, when we entered the college pub, the crowded pub would yell: “Hurray, the engineers are here!”

Well, back to my conversation with God in the car, watching the party animals in front of me. There I was, having just come out of a Bible study, in my suit and tie, and truth be told, I did miss the scene. Church was strict, dry and boring. College dances, were alive, fun, but probably very excessive.

So, I knew God knew my heart anyway, so I said: ‘Yes, Father, I do miss it, but not enough to go to hell over.”

I felt Him smile.

I thought He would change my heart, purify me, and make me no longer desire the passion of the party, but I did not yet know my Father.

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis.

Instead of making me a dry, dead, leader, He threw me into the river of His love, being poured out in what became known as ‘The Toronto Blessing’. There I learned that when someone comes home to Him, there is a party thrown in heaven, with the best of everything supplied.

Learned to dance, shout, get insanely drunk in the Holy Spirit (He slammed me so hard one night, that me and a friend not only couldn’t walk, but the ushers had to carry us to the door. When we discovered that we still couldn’t walk, we laughed too hard, that we literally crawled a ¼ mile up the street to where our car was parked, and had to have a friend drive us back to the hotel.

Quite frankly, I miss that!

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

George Bernard Shaw quoted in: Jon Johnston, Courage – You Can Stand Strong in the Face of Fear, SP Publications, 1990, p. 171.

Lu 15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

I want to be around the joyful, drunk in the Holy Ghost, partying, harvesting, saints of God.

To join God’s party, we need to be around where prodigals are coming home. Hey, even the guests get to drink the best wine, enjoy the best steak (they killed the fatted calf), and there is such good will flowing, you might find yourself with a couple of new sets of clothes, shoes, jewelry. Can’t count the times we would go to check out of the motel, to discover that some other holy drunk, had picked up our tab, and paid our rooms. Fathers will, is Father’s bill!

Our Father is throwing extravagant parties all over the world, serving the best wine during these last days. Places of crazy, stupid drunken Holy Ghost joy, and extravagant grace, where free favors from heaven abound.

Last year I attended #AzuzaNow, hosted by Lou Engles in Los Angeles. 3 days drive each way, for a couple days of poured out weeping, dancing, shouting, drunken laughter in the Holy Spirit, crying out that God have mercy and spare the United States again…Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Watching my daughter dancing before the Lord I see her joy: the kingdom of God is a party, if you are getting your job done, seeing the prodigals coming home!

May you get drunk today! Crazy, stupid, falling down, insanely laughing drunk in the Holy Ghost, today!

Tomorrow night, I get to attend ‘Night to Honor Israel’ here at Victory Christian Center here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Got to thinking about the Old Testament passage:

Deuteronomy 14:²⁶ Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice

Get a harvest mindset, and it will happen. Share the gospel with someone, pray with a stranger, hand out a tract, and watch how quickly joy begins to well up again in your heart. Giving is the nature of Jesus, for God so loved the world that He gave…

Jesus will sing and dance with us in it!

Heb 2:12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.

“Father, throw me into the river of your love, your harvest, your joy, the river of life, abundance, refreshing, and extravagant grace! Teach me how to dance, sing, shout, and rejoice before you, as the prodigals come home, and the lost get saved. Come on Jesus, let’s dance!”

 

IT is Written!

It is Written!

Matt 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
v7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Matt 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

In reading of the temptation of Jesus, three times this morning we see Jesus, God the Son, led of the Holy Spirit, being tempted of satan, to disobey or sin against God our Father, Yet, He did not spend hours praying in tongues, worshipping, or binding and loosing, He simply said: It is Written!

How well I have learned that the fight of faith we are called to fight, is all about the Word. When we stand upon the written Word, or rhema Word spoken to us, and simply proclaim it, in the midst of madness, mayhem, and destruction as satan attempts to do what he always does, kill, steal and destroy. We can quietly solemnly respond, ‘It is written!’. When we do, it may seem that nothing has changed, but everything changed!

The very Word we were fighting for, suddenly begins to fight for us!

When Jesus overturned the tables in the temple, again, we read:
Lu 19:46 Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.

God cannot lie. If He said it, or spoke it to you personally, and you believe it, it will surely come to pass, as long as you, whether with shouts of praise, or in quiet solemn whispers, continue to proclaim: ‘It is written!’

Some years ago, when Karen and I were newlyweds, we pioneered a church in a government housing project. Filled with the love of God, we went door to door praying with people, and doing a series of summer concerts in the park/playground area. It worked too, we saw 54 people pray the prayer of salvation that first summer, and we bought an old van, and started bringing children to church until we had as many as 25 children in the basement of the community center where we met, mostly from homes where drug use was prevalent. Over the first four months of ministry two people died from drug overdose in our community, and there were seven crack houses operating. One weekend, the police sent in a SWAT team, and arrested 70 people, and that Sunday at church, we only had five or six people in church, and all of our children had been taken by police, and placed in the foster care system. We cried out to God in anguish asking for his care for these precious children aged 2-8.

Well, on Monday afternoon at 3:30, I received a telephone call from a Children’s Aid Society worker, (This is the Canadian equivilent of the Department of Human Services) saying they had ‘apprehended’ (like they were criminals or something) two precious children aged four and seven, and that after contacting family members, the children asked if they could come stay with pastors Chris and Karen. I said, ‘Let me talk it over with my wife, how long do I have to decide?’ “We close at 4:30, and if you are not here, we are placing them in the shelter” I could hear them crying in the background, and I quickly explained the situation to my wife, and then we jumped in the car, and headed across the city through rush hour traffic. Got there at 4:25, presented ID, and signed for 2 traumatized precious children, who’s parents were either in jail, on on the run from the law.

As we began the hour drive through bumper to bumper traffic with these children, intermittently crying and asking millions of questions, we tried to comfort them, but they really needed to be hugged and held, and it was not possible in our little Toyota Tercel. Finally, we reached downtown, and traffic was stopped, and these children began to scream, and I, having never been a parent snapped. I loved them, but felt so helpless!

I cried out to Jesus and said: “Jesus, You called me here! You must do something, NOW!”

And He did! Instantly, His presence and power swept into the vehicle. All the worry, stress, fear, terror, everything, left, and His power, presence, peace and joy blew in! We all felt it, and began to laugh, and then sang praises all the way back home for the next 45 minutes. I lit a fire in the wood-stove and Karen made hot chocolate while we built a snowman together. We had those precious children for 8 weeks, until mom got outta detox and into rehab, and dad resurfaced, then signed himself into a residential rehabilitation program. It was a rocky road with that family for the next couple years, but that is another story…

Yes, there are onslaughts, tests, and trials in this earth. I’m in one now. Yet, over the decades, the Word has proved entirely faithful and true, for He who spoke that very Word into the earth, ever liveth, and watches carefully over His Word to perform it, with power. I love when He does ‘Suddenlies’, savage breakthroughs of His power and might, yet I have learned not to mistake the spectacular for the supernatural. His Word, believed and acted upon, always produces supernatural results, no matter what we are feeling about it that day.

What was my: ‘It is written‘ that won the battle that day? It was not simply a memorized Scripture verse, no it was the realization that like Jesus, I was only responsible to do the will of our heavenly Father, and that I was in the center of His perfect will at that point, that we are the answer to problems of the day, never to run from them, for we face them in His power.

Proclaim His Promises today, and keep His Word ever before you. When you do, that very Word you placed before you, is working for you, fighting, creating, breaking through impossibilities, just because He can! You too, have a place of perfect obedience, in the will of our heavenly Father, where all hell will face you in your particular gift and calling. Your strength, knowledge, and ability was never designed to win the day, but your faith in God will cause you to prevail – scream at the darkness: IT IS WRITTEN!

Let’s Pray:
‘Father, we come before Your throne of grace today, and we bring Your promises before You today, knowing that You are faithful to honor Your Word, and our faith in it. We ask Y ou today for your direction, guidance, provision, prosperity, healing, strength, favor, protection, wisdom, instruction, counsel, knowledge, blessing, forgiveness, mercy, comfort, restoration, breakthroughs, gifts of the Holy Spirit, grace, and the hearing of your voice. We love you Father, and we love you Jesus, and thank you that all of these petitions, come directly from that which you have promised us in Your Word. We believe we receive it, and loose it into our lives by faith, for we have asked in Your mighty name Lord Jesus, Amen.’

Shout Unto God With A Voice of Triumph!

The Shout of a King!

Num_23:21 He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.

2Ch 13:14 And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

2Ch 13:15 Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

2Ch 13:18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.

In this account, we read how the kingdom of Israel was divided into the camps of Judah, under the leadership of king Abijah, and Israel being lead by Jeroboam. Abijah, set the house of the Lord in order, and served the Lord, according the manner prescribed in the Word of God. Jeroboam, did not.

So, there was war between them.

Yet, even as the battle lines were drawn, Abijah tried to convince Jeroboam to go home, because God was not with him in the battle. Yet Jeroboam attacked, in what appeared to be a great strategy, surrounding the army of Abijah, and attacking from the rear, in ambush. Yet he did not count the words of Abijah…for the shout of a king was among them!

They blew the trumpets and shouted unto God in the battle, and God delivered them, and the children of Judah saw victory that day.

So I see in the earth today, a similar situation arising in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are those of us, pursuing Him, with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, determined to hear His voice, align our lives with His Word, and to live for Him, daily, in spirit and in truth.

Yet, enemies have arisen in the land: here in America they come from the political system espousing abortion, same sex marriage, lies, treachery, and compromise with Islam.

Many Christians say that we are too radical, that we just need to accept that the political winds have changed, simply live and let live…while our enemies seek to attack all that is right, true, noble, honorable, loving, kind, and righteous in this nation.

Up from deep within me rises a SHOUT!

It is a shout of Holiness unto the Lord, the cry of the Victory of Jesus over all of our enemies.

Do I look like a fool in meetings where conventional wisdom requests things be done decently and in order?

Perhaps, but I feel like David facing Goliath, and hearing his many brothers, and I echo his words:
1Sa_17:29 And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?

There is a cause!

The cause of Christ demands a shout!

There is a fight of faith to be won, for the fate this nation, the United States of America, hangs in the balance, as we rise up in violent faith, to fight for her, from ‘enemies within, or tyranny without!’. The battle is fierce in prayer, but we must win it here, or the payment that sin always exacts will be paid upon the soils of this land, for the wages of sin, is death.

We will win this battle, this war, for God is with us, and He that marches with us, is mighty to save, deliver, and prevail against wicked spirits, and godless men that serve them….

So?

Get in your car, your bedroom, your backyard and shout unto God with a voice of triumph! Scream your passion, your frustration, your cry for deliverance unto Him, and watch, like Jericho, the walls of complacency, containment, apathy, fear, and religion crumble at YOUR feet, as Jesus, mighty warrior, arises to fight for YOU, His child…SHOUT!