Appropriating the power of the cross,
Part 4 - The Power of Proclamation Ruth and I, when I'm ministering,
we always begin this way. God has taught us this and we've
discovered that proclaiming the Word in faith at the beginning of a meeting makes a tremendous difference
to the atmosphere in the meeting and to the anointing on the speaker. We're going to proclaim
Isaiah 55 verses 10-11 which is one of our
favorite proclamations. We use it frequently in connection
with our radio ministry and its outreach through the earth. So, here we are:
For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and do not return there
but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing
for which I sent it. Amen. Now let me say a little bit
about the word proclamation or the verb to proclaim. It comes actually from a Latin
word which means to shout forth. It's a strong word.
There are two related words in the language of the New Testament:
confession or to confess and proclamation or to proclaim. Now confess or confession
means to say the same as. And for us as believers in the Bible, confession means that we say
the same with our mouths as God has already said in His Word. We make the words of our mouth
agree with the Word of God. And in that way we line ourselves up to receive the full backing
and authority of Jesus. In Hebrews 3:1 the writer says that: Jesus
is the high priest of our confession. That's a very important statement. If you have no confession
you have no high priest. He's our high priest in respect
of what we confess. In other words, whenever we
say with our mouths whatever the Bible says about
us as believers in Jesus then we have Jesus
as our high priest in heaven releasing His authority and His blessing.
But if we remain silent in a certain sense, we shut
off His ministry as high priest. And if we make the wrong confession we do even worse. In a certain sense,
we invite negative forces to surround us and move upon us. Now proclamation is, as it were,
confession made aggressive. Proclamation is, in a sense,
a word of spiritual warfare. It's releasing the authority
of God's Word into a situation: Into our own lives, into the life of
the church, into a political situation whatever it may be. There are
countless different situations that need the power
of God released into them. And there is no more
effective way than to release the power of God into a situation
whether it's your own life your family, your church, your nation,
whatever it may be, than proclamation. Proclaiming is really
the activity of a herald. A herald is a word we
don't use very much today but a herald was a person with
authority from a king or a duke or some nobleman who
went to the particular area concerned and he made a proclamation of
the will and the decision of God of the ruler in that particular place. In the old days they used to say: Oyez, Oyez, and then make
the proclamation. When they said: Oyez, Oyez, everybody sort
of stood to attention and knew this is the voice
of authority speaking to us. And in the New Testament although it
doesn't come out in most translations, the word for to preach
is the word of a herald. It's a word that means to proclaim. One of our favorite Scriptures
is Matthew 24:14: This gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached We prefer to say: shall be
proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all the nations;
and then the end shall come. I've been a Bible teacher
for just about fifty years and I always felt my duty was
to interpret the Bible and explain it and help people to understand it. But about twelve years ago the Lord began to
impress upon me the word proclaim. I felt somehow that He was challenging
me to go beyond teaching and do proclaiming. And the result was my radio
Bible teaching ministry which started on eight stations
in the United States in 1979 and is now in ten languages and
really covers most of the globe. And that is really
a ministry of proclamation. I think the key verse that stirred me
was Matthew 24:14: This gospel of the kingdom
shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all the nations;
and then the end shall come. I came to see that the age cannot
close until we have done our job as the church of Jesus Christ,
His witnesses on earth. Which is to proclaim this gospel in all
the world as a witness to all the nations. And I have learned by experience
the tremendous power of the Word of God
simply proclaimed in faith. It just accomplishes
the most marvelous things. There was a woman in the United
States who was everything that a woman ought
not to be by Christian standards. She was a Marxist, she was a lesbian,
she was a feminist. And she took it seriously. I mean, she
was buying revolvers to shoot men with. And somehow or another she
found herself in a small ship in the China Sea with
some of her nefarious companions and they were going somewhere
to do something bad. And it seemed that a storm
was coming up and so the other people said:
Go down in the hold, turn on the radio and see what you
can find about the weather. She turned on the radio and happened
to get my Bible teaching on my proclaiming program
from Manila in the Philippines and got saved in the hold of the ship! It took no more than fifteen minutes
because the program is only that long. She is now as totally
different and radical the other way as she was the bad way. So that's just an example.
That was not teaching. I didn't do a lot of explaining. The Word proclaimed did its work. I want to take an example now from
Moses when God called him to go back and be the deliverer
of Israel out of Egypt. You remember God appeared
to him in the burning bush. Then God said to him in Exodus 4,
Now I'm sending you back to deliver Israel. And Moses had lost all his self confidence which
he had at the age of 40. At the age of 80 he had no confidence in himself. He said, Why me, Lord? I can't do it,
I've got nothing. What could I do it with? And the Lord said to him:
What have you got in your hand? Moses looked down
and said, It's a rod, just like every shepherd in
the Middle East carries. He didn't think there was anything
particularly important about his rod. But the Lord said: Throw it on the ground.
And when he did it became a snake. And Moses ran from his own rod. In other words, there was a potential in that rod he had in his hand which he
had never anticipated or imagined. Then the Lord said: Pick it up by the tail, and everybody who deals with snakes knows
you never pick a snake up by the tail. But Moses did.
I think he was trembling as he did it. And, it became a rod in his hand.
And God said to him in effect: Now go with your rod, that's all you'll need.
You can do the whole job with that one rod. And if you analyze the
rest of that part of the book of Exodus the entire deliverance of Israel out
of Egypt was achieved by that rod. Every time Moses wanted God to
intervene he stretched out his rod and God intervened. And the result
was, in a sense, that Moses wrested the rulership of Egypt out of Pharaoh
and had it in his hand in his rod. And the last scene was the passing
through the waters of the Red Sea. When the waters needed to be divided,
Moses stretched out his rod the waters were divided. When the Egyptians were in the water
pursuing them, Moses stretched out his rod. The waters returned
and destroyed the Egyptians. So, the only instrument he needed for the
entire task which God had called him to was that one shepherd's rod which he
didn't think had any significance when he first held it in his hand. Now what I want to suggest to you if you're
a Bible believing, committed Christian, you have a rod. Do you know what it is? It's your Bible. If you've got a Bible here
I'd like you to hold it up. And I'd like you to say: This is my rod. Will you say that? My Bible is my rod. With it I can do everything
God tells me to do. All right, you may put your
Bible down. Now, the first thing that we need to
realize from the Scriptures is the power of God's Word. We need to realize that
this is a supernatural book. Just like Moses' rod, it contains power which
isn't obvious when you first look at it. But when you begin to understand it,
its power actually is limitless. I'll just give you a few Scriptures
revealing the power of the Word of God. Psalm 33 verse 6:
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts
of them by the breath of his mouth. But the Hebrew word translated breath
is the normal word for spirit. Ruach. So all creation took place
through two agents: the Word
of God and the Spirit of God. Everything that exists or has
ever existed or will ever exist owes its origin to just two forces: The Word and the Spirit of God
working together. You see, the Word must
work with the Spirit. I think that's maybe why the psalmist
translated it breath and not spirit. Perhaps you've ever studied this.
But I had to learn elementary phonetics when
I was teaching English as a second language
to African students. I discovered some
interesting things about words. If you think of the tremendous power
of words and yet how simple they are. How do you speak? You release breath out of your lungs, it
passes through your mouth and your nose and the various things that it's subjected
to in your mouth and nose determine the word that comes out. But the basic truth is
you cannot speak without breathing. You have to breathe to speak.
And this is a picture of God. Every time God speaks
His breath goes with His word. His breath is His Spirit. So the Word and the Spirit
of God always go together. The Word and the Spirit of God
brought the universe into being. And they sustain the universe in being. There's a very powerful
Scripture in 2 Peter 3 which tells us three things:
That the Word creates, the Word maintains
and the Word abolishes. 2 Peter chapter 3,
beginning in verse 5: By the word of God
the heavens were of old and the earth standing out
of water and in the water by which word the world
that then existed, perished being flooded with water. But the heavens and
the earth which now exist are kept in store
by the same word reserved for fire until the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men. So by the Word of God the heavens,
the earth were brought into being. By the Word of God
they are maintained in being. And by the Word of God when God's
time comes, they will pass away. So the Word of God creates,
maintains and abolishes. I think sometimes when I look at the
mess that man is making of this planet I'm glad that the Word of God
can abolish that mess one day. The Word of God brought it into being,
the Word of God keeps it in being and the Word of God will
cause it to pass out of being. All that God does by His Word. Now a Scripture that Ruth and I quoted.
We might as well quote it again. Isaiah 55:10-11 points this out which I've just explained - that the
Word must come out of God's mouth. Otherwise, it's not effective.
So there we are, how do we begin? For as the rain.
-That's right. Thank you. If I'm preaching I always
find it hard to remember . For as the rain comes down
and the snow from heaven and do not return there but water the
earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but
it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper
in the thing for which I sent it. Amen. Now notice God says my word
out of my mouth. In other words my word when it's
propelled by my breath. Now in 2 Corinthians 3:6
Paul says: The letter kills. In other words, the bare word
without the breath doesn't bring life. It has to be the Word
and the Spirit together. So you can get some dry sermon which
is all Scripture but has no breath in it and it doesn't give life, it gives death. See? The two must operate together.
The Word and the Spirit. Now I want to parallel
with Moses' experience the way that we can make the Word
of God effective by proclaiming it. Proclaiming it is releasing it into
a situation. It takes confidence. It takes boldness. It's not for the timid. You have to make up
your mind, I believe this. It's God's Word and when I say it,
if I say it with a believing heart and through believing lips, it's just as
effective as if God Himself said it when His Spirit says it through me.
Can you believe that? Can you believe that? It doesn't
have to be God speaking. If the Spirit of God propels the Word
of God through your mouth it's as effective as it was when
God spoke the universe into being. Now the first thing that happened
to Moses was he got frightened. He threw his rod down on the ground.
It became a snake and he ran from it. And I want to say to you that before
we can be effective in proclaiming we have to learn to be afraid
of the Word of God. We have to learn to tremble at
the Word of God. Isaiah says this. Or God says it through Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 66,
the last chapter of Isaiah. The first two verses of Isaiah 66: Thus says the Lord: Heaven is
my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build
me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made,
and all those things exist, says the Lord. In other words, the Lord says, You
can't build Me any temple or building that will impress Me because
I built the whole universe. But He says: There's one thing that does
attract my favor, just one thing. He says: But to this one will I look. Another translation says: will I have
respect. Whom will God respect? Whom will He take into account? Him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
and who trembles at my Word. So you see like Moses,
our first reaction has to be fear and awe at the Word of God. There is far too little fear of
the Word of God in the church today. We are too familiar with it, we bandy it about and we quote it
but we don't show real reverence for it. And we have to change that attitude. Now let me give you two reasons
found in the gospel of John why we should tremble
before the Word of God. The first is in John chapter 12:47-48. Jesus is speaking. He says: If anyone hears my words and
does not receive them, or keep them I do not judge him; for I did not come to
judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me
and does not receive my words has that which judges him;
the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. So Jesus says, I'm not
going to be your judge. You're going to be judged
by the Word of God. Imagine yourself standing
before Almighty God having to give an account of your life which
I believe all of us will have to do one day. You would tremble.
You would be very concerned. What Jesus says is you should have the
same attitude toward the Word of God. For it's the Word of God
that will be your judge. Every time we open the pages
of this Word and read it if we can understand it, we're looking
at the thing that will judge us one day. No wonder we should tremble at it.
And then further on in John 14:23 Jesus makes another
amazing statement. He says: If anyone loves me,
he will keep my word; and my Father will love him
and we will come to him and make our home with him. It's one of the very
few places in the Bible where the plural noun is used about God. We, Father and Son, will come to him. How will we come? Through what? Through His Word. In other words, when we open up to
the Word of God, if we can believe it God Himself, the Father and the Son is coming into our lives
willing to make His home with us. If it should ever be that somehow,
even in a vision you were to see the Lord Jesus
maybe coming into your home you would be overwhelmed. You would have a sense of awe.
You'd want to fall at His feet. Jesus says, Not only will I come
but the Father will come. We will come. Through what? Through what? Through the
Word of God. You see? I have to say that most of
us today in the contemporary church have got to change
our attitude towards God's Word. We need to show a reverence,
an awe and a fear. And it won't be effective in our lives
in the way that I'm speaking about until we've learned
to reverence the Word of God. Now, that's trembling at the Word. That's the first thing
that happened with Moses. He suddenly realized the power that
was in his rod and he ran from it. He was overawed. The second thing that he did
was to take hold of the rod. By faith he gripped it and
it became a rod again in his hand. So when we've trembled, then we
need to take hold of God's Word. We need to take a firm grasp
on the Word of God. And there's a Scripture near the end
of the book of Psalms which to me is really impressive. Psalm 149 the last few verses. Psalm 149 beginning at verse 5: Let the saints be joyful in glory;
let them sing aloud on their beds. The saints, I believe,
is all true dedicated believers. The word saint, Hebrew word hasid. How many of you have ever heard of
Hasidic Judaism? Very ultra Orthodox. It means somebody
who trembles at the word of God who's totally committed to it. Let the saints be joyful in glory;
let them sing aloud on their beds. Let the high praises of God
be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand,
to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples;
to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron to execute on them
the written judgment. This honor have all his saints. It's an amazing series of statements
if you can identify yourself as belonging to the saints. It says that
we have to have the two-edged sword which is the Word of God, in our hands,
the high praises of God in our mouth and with it we can execute
vengeance on the nations, punishment on the peoples - are you
seeing yourself in this scenario? Do you realize that this
is something God has for you? To bind their kings with chains, their nobles with fetters of iron.
I do believe that means in part the satanic principalities that rule
the nations but not exclusively. And then it says in the closing verse
to execute on the nations the judgment written. And it says this honor or this
privilege have all his saints. Have you ever pondered on that?
God has given us the privilege of executing judgment on the nations. The prayer life of many would be different
if we began to see ourselves in that light. Now it says to execute the judgment
written, or the written judgment. Where is the judgment written, where
do we find the written judgment? That's right, hold it up.
That's right, it's in here. We are not the ones
to make the judgments. God has made the judgments.
But we have the privilege of executing the judgments
on the nations, on their rulers. In other words, we have a unique
and decisive part to play in history. See how important this is? And I'd have to say how far away
many, many Christians are from even beginning to understand
all that God has made available to us and all that God expects from us. But I want to emphasize we
don't make the judgments. We find the judgments in the written
Word of God, but we execute them. How do we execute God's judgments? By what one word?
Proclaiming, that's right. We release the judgments of God
that are already written in the Scripture. We proclaim them, we are the heralds. We stand in the marketplace of
the world and we say, Oyez, Oyez, and then we announce
the decree of God. Now I think I'm going to try to be
very practical and down to earth. We come to the next stage
after he grasped the rod. What did he do next
when he got back to Egypt? He stretched it out. He exercised the authority
that was in the rod. Now I want to suggest to you
that we need to do the same. We need to take the written Word of
God and we need to stretch it out in any situation where
the authority of God is needed. One of the ways - I'm not
saying it's the only way but I think in many ways the most effective way to release the authority of
God into a situation is by proclaiming in faith and under
the anointing of the Holy Spirit because remember,
the word must go with the breath. But when the two go together,
when the breath of God, the Spirit of God propels the
Word of God out of our mouths we can release it into a situation
and it has all the authority of Almighty God in that situation. God didn't step down off the throne, take the rod out of Moses' hand
and say, Moses, I'll do it. That's what most of us,
I think, expect to happen. God says, You've got the rod. You do it. But it is called the rod of God
in the book of Exodus. It was God's rod but Moses held it.
Moses stretched it out. Moses and Aaron together.
It didn't make any difference. It was the rod that did the job. So I'm going to take now a whole
number of potential situations beginning with those that are personal and going on to those that are
national and international and I'm simply going to show you different
ways that we can stretch out the rod. Now, I'm going to ask Ruth to
come again and stand beside me. And all the proclamations that
we're going to make now are proclamations that we regularly
make in our personal devotions. I tell you, our personal devotions
are not always quiet times. Sometimes we shout. After all, to proclaim is to shout out. I don't say there's more
power in shouting, it just depends on how the
Holy Spirit prompts you. We probably have somewhere between
one and two hundred proclamations that we make regularly. And
when Ruth was fighting for her life this was our number one weapon. Some of these proclamations
we have done thousands of times. If you've got a lot of negative
thinking in your background and a lot of negative influences, just
saying it once doesn't change much. Maybe you've got to go on
saying it until you think it. Until when any situation arises
that's the way you react. I'm British by background,
as most of you know. I tell my British people so I'm not
afraid to say it to Americans; British people tend to be
extremely negative. They're pessimists by nature. And I was a pessimist of the pessimists. God has been gradually revolutionizing
me; it's taken Him a long while. But one of my strange mental habits,
I think it must go back to childhood when I'm in a situation I automatically begin to think of all
the trouble that could happen, all the problems that could arise. I get in a car to drive and I think now if
there was an accident, et cetera. Maybe some of you have
the same problem. I've been using the weapon of the
Word in many different ways but there's a Scripture, I can't
give you the exact reference. It's in Jeremiah 29 and the
Lord is speaking to Israel and He says: I know the plans
that I have for you, plans of good and not of evil. Another translation says: plans
of prosperity and not of calamity. To give you a future and a hope. So every time I find myself beginning
to entertain some negative picture of some disaster, I say, I thank you
that I know the plans you have for me plans of good and not of evil, plans
of prosperity and not of calamity to give me a future and a hope. And
I may have to say it several times. But at the end of that
the negative has been dissipated. And I have a strong,
confident, positive attitude. Ruth, I don't think, has learned
this one. Have you? No. So I'll say it. It's not one of our
repertoires but it probably will be. But anyhow the Lord says: I know
the plans that I have for you. Plans of good and not of evil, plans of prosperity
and not of calamity to give you a future and a hope. You start to say that every time
you step into your car. You're going to have a good journey. You're going to accomplish
the things that you set out to do. Your attitude makes a lot of difference,
the way people treat you. You walk into a store and you walk
in with that attitude and they'll do something for you. If you walk in expecting
trouble or bad service or discourtesy, that's probably
what you'll get. That's just by the way,
but there's no extra charge for that. Now we're going to take some pattern
proclamations. But first of all remember it must be
the breath with the Word. In other words, it has to be
the Holy Spirit. And secondly what we do - a very good
thing to do - is we personalize it. So where the Bible says you,
we say we. In other words, we're saying
this applies to us here and now. Now, we're going to start
with self-defense. What happens when we're attacked. I could go on on this all
the rest of this period, but I am tired of moving
in the area of needs. So many Christians never
get beyond their own needs. So I'm going to go briefly through this
area and go on to what I call the area of aggression, where you're
not defending yourself, you're attacking. So, suppose that you have
a lot of dark negative foreboding. And you're continually thinking about
what would happen if I were to die. I mean, there are lots of people with this
attitude; some of them are here tonight. You've been told by the doctor: We can't
guarantee that you'll come through this. We'll do our best. Here's a Scripture we must have
used several thousand times. I mean, Ruth at certain times just lay
in bed and said that, that's all she said. Psalm 118:17: I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord.
Would you like to say that? That doesn't take much
memorizing, does it? All right. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Again. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Now, one thing you can do
to make sure you're really bold is to turn and face somebody,
look them right in the face and say to them, I shall not die but live. It takes a certain amount of extra
what the Jews call chutzpah or nerve. I shall not die but live and declare the works
of the Lord. Amen. You feel better now, don't you?
Suppose it should happen to you. Preachers are particularly
a target for this. They are criticizing you, speaking
against you and some are praying against you. So what do you do? Our remedy is Isaiah 54:17. If you want to find it in
your Bible we'll just say it. Now, we say it in our own particular
way, but it's based on this. No weapon that is formed
against us shall prosper and every tongue which rises against
us in judgment we do condemn. This is our heritage
as servants of the Lord and our righteousness is from you,
O Lord of hosts. Have you found it?
You see how we personalize it? I mean we actually, I'll tell you a secret
which is no longer a secret: Everybody is going to know it
all around the world sooner or later. We say this every night
before we go to sleep. No weapon that is formed
against us shall prosper and every tongue which rises against
us in judgment we do condemn. This is our heritage
as servants of the Lord and our righteousness is from you,
O Lord of hosts. That's why we can condemn
the tongues that accuse us because they're accusing God's
righteousness. And that's always losing. I'd like to say just to clear
the record, after that we say: If there are those who have been
speaking or praying against us or seeking harm or evil to us,
we forgive them and, having forgiven them we bless them in
the name of the Lord. We replace the negative with the positive
because the Bible says if people curse you don't curse
them back, bless them. Paul said don't be overcome by
evil, overcome evil with good. The only power strong enough
to overcome evil is good. So you have to learn to meet
the negative and overcome it with the positive.
But it has to be based on this Word. Now suppose, let's say,
our ministry is assailed. Or it could be our home or our family. We have one that we're
quite famous for in Deuteronomy 33:25-27. We do this in the NIV
which makes it very powerful. Deuteronomy 33:25-27: The bolts of our gates
will be iron and bronze and our strength will equal our days. There is no one like
the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help us and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is our refuge, and
underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out our enemies before
us saying, Destroy him! Amen! That really frightens Satan,
I'll tell you that. We have learned you
have to destroy him. God will drive him out,
you have to destroy him. You have to put your foot
on the enemy's neck. We won't go into the details of that,
they're too bloodthirsty. Let's point out we're
not talking about human beings but about spiritual forces
when we're talking about our enemies. Our enemies are not flesh and blood. Your pastor is not your enemy;
your husband is not your enemy. You might think so at times
but that's not the way it is! You have to learn that we're
not fighting human beings. These weapons are very powerful but
they have to be used in the right context. Now suppose you should have any kind
of need. None of you do, I'm sure but suppose it should happen.
Financial, physical or healing. We've got one proclamation for each.
First of all, financial. 2 Corinthians 9:8. And we just change the words a little
but basically they're King James. God is able to make
all grace abound toward us that we always, having
all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. See, it starts with three simple words.
God is able. Do you believe He's able? It's important. Then it says
what He's able to do. And that is such a tremendous verse.
The word 'all' occurs five times and the word 'abound'
or 'abundance' occurs twice. It wouldn't be possible to get
more abundance into one verse than Paul got into that, and it's grace. Notice that, how is grace
received, by what? By faith. By grace you are saved
through faith, that's right. It's not something we earn;
it doesn't depend on our salary although that may be related. But
we receive it by faith in God's grace. We'll do it once more. This is
the financial basis of our ministry. Whenever we are praying
for finance we start on this basis. See, then we have a positive attitude.
So we'll do it again. God is able to make
all grace abound toward us that we always, having
all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. And then suppose that you're challenged with something
that you can't do, it's too much. You're not capable,
you don't have the education you don't have the strength;
it depends what it is. And yet, God has challenged you with it. Well, we resort to Philippians 4:13. But this is the Prince version.
I happen to know Greek and I think the Lord gave me a really
good rendering of the Greek that brings out the meaning better than
any other version I've ever heard. But let me say it's not in print. I've got
people coming up to me and saying, Where can we buy it?
You can't. I can do all things through the one
who empowers me within. I'll say that again. I can do all things through
the one who empowers me within. I use the word 'empower' because
the Greek word is from 'dunamis' which is normally translated 'power'. So there's a source of power within you
that is released by your proclamation. I can do all things through the one
who empowers me within. I don't have the education, the strength;
but when it's the will of God when it's a task assigned by God,
there's one in me who empowers me from within. And then suppose the
problem is sickness. One of our favorites
is 1 Peter 2:24: Jesus himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we, having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose wounds we were healed. See, it puts it in the past tense. If you notice when it speaks
about healing in the atonement it never uses the future. 700 years before Jesus came Isaiah said through
his stripes we are healed. After the atonement,
looking back Peter said: By whose wounds you were healed. That gives you a
totally new perspective. It doesn't mean you
automatically cease to be sick but it gives you a different basis on which to encounter
and challenge sickness. Sometimes you have to keep saying it
a long while. You just have to decide which is more reliable,
God's word or your symptoms. Now we're coming into
a more aggressive area. We're going to talk about intervention
in national and international affairs. Ruth and I spend a lot of time
praying outside our own needs praying for various situations,
the destiny of nations. Here are some Scriptures
that will encourage you and help you. One of our favorites we almost always end
up with is Daniel 2:20-22 and 4:34-35. Spoken by Daniel and by Nebuchadnezzar,
but the message is the same. I'll say that reference again.
Daniel 2:20-22 and Daniel 4:34-35. Blessed be the name of God
for ever and ever for wisdom and might are his. And he
changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those
who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him. For his dominion
is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom
from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will
in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth. No one can restrain
his hand or say to him: What have you done? Consider that those words came
from an unbelieving emperor Nebuchadnezzar. I think he
was a believer by that time. But just think of the tremendous work
of God in Nebuchadnezzar's life. That should encourage us that God
can change ungodly and evil rulers if we learn how to pray. And then we have two
passages from 2 Chronicles each of them is just one verse.
We take them from the NIV. And they are both prayers. So, if we're going to pray for the situation
in the Middle East or whatever it might be, before we pray the particular prayer we tend to pray these prayers
because they get us going. All right, where are we? 2 Chronicles 14:11: Lord, there is no one like you to help
the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God,
for we rely on you and in your name we have
come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God. That's right. That's okay. Now, we've done that.
-Do not let man prevail against you. I didn't do that. Sorry, I missed the
last part out. That was my boo-boo. Lord, there is no one like you to help
the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God,
for we rely on you. And in your name we have
come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God
do not let man prevail against you. And then 2 Chronicles 20:6; 20, verse 6: O Lord, God of our fathers, are you
not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all
the kingdoms of the earth. Power and might are in your hand and no one can resist you. Amen. Ruth is right and I'm wrong, but anyhow. I'm just doing the Prince version. You got the message. Now we'll do Psalm 33 verses 8-12.
We've got to go quickly now. This is a tremendously
powerful affirmation when you're dealing
with the world situation. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world
stand in awe of him. For he spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord brings the counsel
of the nations to nothing. He makes the plans
of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation
whose God is the Lord and the people whom he
has chosen as his own inheritance. In other words, who's going
to come a winner out of it all? The nation whose God is the Lord. All the plans of nations and United
Nations and governments are just nonsense if they're
contrary to the plan of God. All right, now we're going to do
in closing some things that relate to the Middle East, which is one of
the areas that we pray most about. You might not have the same burden,
but you can take the principles and apply them in your situation. I want to point out, first of all that
the Middle East and North Africa is undoubtedly the hardest
single area of the earth to penetrate
with the gospel. And there's a very important reason and it's a reason that brings
out the power of proclamation. You probably know that
from every Moslem mosque there goes forth a proclamation
five times every 24 hours which says, There is no god but
Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. And, of course,
Allah is not the god of the Bible. Now, the Moslem calendar
started about 627 AD so it's been going
for more than 1300 years. And that proclamation has been made five
times every day from every mosque for more than 1300 years. Let me give you a little calculation. If it was made daily
for 1300 or plus years that would be 474,500 days. Let's say rounded off,
half a million days. And it's made five times every day
so that's 2.5 million times that proclamation has been
made from every mosque. And you take the number of mosques and I imagine there must be
at least half a million mosques in North Africa and the Middle East. You've got billions of times. Why is there such a tremendously
powerful anti-Christian power over that area greater than
any other area of the earth? What is the cause of it?
It's that's proclamation. You see, the power of proclamation -
negative or positive. How can we overcome the power of all those negative
proclamations? What do we have to do? Make the positive proclamation. So
we're going to give you an example. Remember, just in case you say,
Well, it's a hopeless task when Moses was confronted
by the Egyptian magicians and they all threw their rods on the
ground and they all became snakes Moses' snake ate up
the snakes of the Egyptians. So, in other words,
our proclamation overcomes every negative
proclamation if we know how to make it. So we're going to make two specifically
in regard to Israel and their land that are biblical. The first is from Psalm 25:3
from the New International Version. The scepter of the wicked shall not remain
over the land allotted to the righteous. What's the scepter of the wicked
in this context? Islam. What's the land
allotted to the righteous? The land allotted to God's people. The Bible says, no matter
what politicians may say no matter what they may do the scepter of the wicked shall not remain
over the land allotted to the righteous. Say that in faith. When everything
looks exactly the opposite that's the time to say it. You're
stretching out that rod and your snake is going to eat up
the snakes of the magicians. And then Psalm 129:5-6 Let them all be confounded
and turn back that hate Zion. Let them be like the grass
upon the housetops which withers before it grows up. And I serve notice on all those who
hate Zion, they'll never grow to maturity. They will never grow to full stature; they
will wither before they have full grown. That's the Word of God
and it's going to come to pass. And finally, let me give you
just one more passage about the restoration of Israel in Jeremiah chapter 31. And we're going to act on this. If we have time we're going to go through
with it. At least we'll do our best. Jeremiah 31. It says in verse 7:
Sing with gladness for Jacob shout among the chief of the nations.
Proclaim, give praise and say: O Lord, save your people,
the remnant of Israel. the remnant of Israel.
If you take those words it says sing, shout, proclaim, praise and pray. There are five things. Sing,
shout, praise, proclaim and pray. Proclaim is one of them.
And then it says in verse 10: Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; and declare it in the isles afar off
and that's Florida. He who scattered
Israel will gather him and will keep him
as a shepherd does his flock. That's what we say to the Middle East
at this present situation. The same God who scattered
Israel is gathering him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps
his flock. Let's say that, shall we? He who scattered Israel
is gathering him and will keep him as
a shepherd keeps his flock. Now why don't we do
what the Bible says? We've come to the end of the message.
Why don't we stand up, proclaim, praise, shout
and show ourselves happy. Come on, Carl, and help us
to do some praising some proclaiming
and some shouting.
