THE MOVE OF GOD
1. HOW TO FLOW IN THE MOVE OF GOD
We are going to share on the positive side first on how to flow when God manifests Himself and what causes the manifestation of God. We will share from the Word of God. Let us look first in the Bible in Acts 5. There are 4 points that we would like to share on. Every time when there is a manifestation of God, there will always be different reactions from the humans’ soul as well as from traditions.
Acts 5:11-13, So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things. And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonder were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch. Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly.
Replace Fear with Faith
No. 1, we need to replace fear with faith. Whenever there is a manifestation, the natural reaction is fear. People are afraid; people wonder whether this is the enemy, the devil or is this God or is this in the flesh? Moreover, we need to be able to handle some of these things with faith, with wisdom, with love and with the absence of fear. Fear will stop a person from experiencing what God wants them to experience. That is why every time when an angel of God appears, one of the first things that happen is that the angel says, `Fear not!’ Even if a real angel were to appear right now in our midst and wave his hand at you, some of you would suddenly be filled with fear. It is a natural response to the supernatural world and supernatural manifestation. In the early days of the charismatic revival when people spoke in tongues and tongues were new, those who were not Pentecostal when they hear tongues it can send a chill down their spines. They could feel a holy awe and fear coming upon their lives and their mind would either interpret it as from God or from the enemy. So there is a natural fear that will always be there that we must learn to overcome when we confront the supernatural.
Let us look at Acts 2 when the Spirit of God poured out on all flesh and what I want to read are verses that reflect the impact it had on the surrounding people. Acts 2: 6-7, And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language.’ Now there is no guarantee that when the manifestation of the Spirit comes the people will not be confused. Therefore, it will not be right to say that when God moves nobody will be confused. Confusion is removed not by a manifestation but is removed by teaching the Word. When you have a manifestation without teaching, confusion will still come in. Now you cannot argue and say that because of the confusion the manifestation is not of God. That will not be a right argument. It is the same way where some people use the old argument - if it is of God, it will not divide. Jesus has come to unite people. However, at the same time Jesus has come to divide the things of the enemy from the things of God. He says He came with the sword and that He came to bring division even within the family. He came to divide those who stand for Him and those who stand against Him.
When Paul, the greatest apostle of the church age, was put on trial for leading the great move of God, one of the remarks made about him was that he was a man who has caused division among the Jews throughout the whole world. Let us look at the Book of Acts and see some of the things that were mentioned about the apostle Paul when he was on trial by people who were against Paul and against the move of God. Look at Acts 24: 5 For we have found this man a plague, (they were calling Paul a plague, a disease) a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. These are certainly not complimentary statements about the apostle Paul. There was a summary of the response of the world to the move of God in the Book of Acts.
So, do not expect when God moves today the whole world will cheer you up for that. There will be a division between those who are for God and those who are against God. There is no such thing that everyone in the world will speak well of you. There is no such thing that everyone in the traditional churches will speak well of you. Jesus says if all men speak well of you, you are a false prophet. At the same time, it does not mean when you do what is right and you do what is of God that everyone will be against you. There will always be those who are hungry, who are thirsty, who are sincere, who are open to God and they line up with what God is doing. I bring this statement to make a point that when God moves, there is no guarantee that there will be no confusion. There is no guarantee that people will not be afraid. When God manifest these are the human responses. That is why God says, “Fear not,” through His angels every time He manifest. We have to replace fear with faith. The teachings of the Word of God can only eliminate confusion and fear. That was the weakness of the Charismatic Revival in the early days, but not any more now. Today there are so many good teachings on Charismatic theology but that was lacking in the early days. Now in this move that God brings do not neglect the Word. Do not put the manifestation above the Word. The Word is still necessary to bring a move of God to His full provision that God wants it.
Now the question is how do we get into the manifestation of God? We come with an open heart and with an open mind and your only test is like Paul says in the Book of I Thess. 5 that applies to prophesy and apply to all manifestation. It says here in verse18-21, In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecy. Now here is the two words quench and despise. Remember when you approach any move of God in any prayer meeting, do not quench and do not despise. To quench is to go against it. To despise is to write it off and to treat it lightly. Quench speaks about sin. Despise speaks about pride. So, make sure those things do not hinder you. Then verse 21 is for all of us. Test all things and hold fast to what is good. You can be assured that when God moves, there is always a counterfeit. May God give us the wisdom to discern in order not to quench the Spirit yet at the same time not to be deceived by the enemy.
Therefore, the first thing to do is to remove your fear and replace it with faith. How can I have faith? Rom.10: 17, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’ The first check in your life is, it in line with the Word of God? Does it flow with the Word of God? If it is in line with the Word of God, then fine. Now being drunk in the Spirit and laughter you can find in the Bible. However, there are some other things you cannot find in the scripture, like barking like a dog or getting so drunk that you unbutton and strip yourself. That is not from God. That is the weakness of flesh being exposed in the spiritual atmosphere.
Now I explain how it happen, why it happen. We need to have wisdom. We need to be opened yet at the same time we must understand what is of God. Let me remind you again that the most important thing is to stay true to Jesus. We love Jesus, we love God above the manifestation. You thank God for the manifestation but you love Jesus. You keep your love for Jesus. You keep your love for the Word of God. Otherwise, you will not last 5 years in this move of God. Keep your eyes on where your eyes should be. If you look for a manifestation, the devil can counterfeit. You look for Jesus and there is no counterfeit. A line must not be crossed. Just like there is dancing in the Spirit. It is fine. Do any style you want but there are rules. You could be dancing in the Spirit and start kicking other people’s chairs. Of course, we have to stop you. Let us not lose our Christian common sense when it comes to the move of God.
May I remind you that among the greatest that God used in the Charismatic Movement was Katherine Kuhlman. There was no recorded incident of her speaking in other tongues but she herself was open to it and she permitted it in the meeting. When the whole Charismatic Movement was at its prime, she had a whole group of Pentecostal pastors behind her and then when she says, “Holy Spirit is here,” everyone became quiet. The Pentecostal pastors were so used to the noisy churches where they came from that they began to speak in tongues. To some people when the Presence of God comes, they began to speak in tongues and get louder and louder. Their loud tongues-speaking can bring in the Presence of God. For some it is the opposite. Some of these Pentecostal pastors were beginning to get louder and louder and Katherine Khulman say, `Shh…h…. h….’ she quietened down these Pentecostal pastors from all the big churches. She learned how to move in the Spirit and get even more results than most of them.
Let me remind you again. When God moves the manifestation is a side effect. Do not missed out what God is doing and at the same time do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecy. We are going to give some ground rules on what God is doing and how we need to flow. As I have said, first of all we need to replace fear with faith. If you come to a meeting fearful and you tell yourself, you are not going to do this, you are not going to be opened to this, God will not work. You just stopped yourself from being blessed by God. You just cut yourself off. You just quenched the Holy Spirit and you say, “I will have nothing of that!” Immediately you have cut yourself off. Maybe you do it because you fear losing face in front of people but there are some sorts of fear that will prevent you from being blessed by God when God wants to manifest. As for me, God wants to manifest. Go ahead, praise the Lord.
The first law is the law of faith that replaces fear in order to get into the move of God. As long as you are afraid about holy laughter and weeping in the sight of God and getting drunk, that fear will prevent you from experiencing it. So, remove that fear. Replace it with faith.
Law of Contagious Experience
Secondly, there is a law called the law of the contagious. In any move of God, all it takes is one person to contact the manifestation and the manifestation becomes a shared experience. All it takes is for one person to start laughing. Some will go hee-haw, hee-haw. We have to pray for them whether this is a new holy donkey. We do not mind being holy donkeys for God but we do not want to be a donkey. All it takes is one person to catch the experience and many others will catch it too. All it takes is just one person to cry and everyone will cry. I am sharing with you from the anointing of God. Jesus appeared to me in 1986 and taught me about the anointing of God and that is how the anointing of God flow. When the anointing of God starts touching one person and begin to have a manifestation, the others will be opened to it and have the same manifestation. Experiences are not taught. Experiences are caught and that encourages you. It can be a positive thing. If you are not able to laugh all the time I mean all the time, you go to church and for the first 20 years, your face is as long as a horse. After 10 years, you loosen up but you still need your smile being dealt with and when you look at people laughing, you said, “What kind of sickness is this?” Moreover, you are just not open to it. It is very easy, you say, `God I want it.’ Then you sit next to a person who has this holy laughter in the next meeting. It is important for us to understand that experiences are caught.
Now that applies to all other things. It also applies to, let us say vision, all it takes in a meeting is one person who has seen a vision. When one person sees a vision, many others will start seeing visions. When the person who sees the vision shares about that vision, everybody else will open up to it and start catching the vision. If one person sees angels, other people will start seeing angels. It becomes an angel’s meeting. Who knows a new revival of seeing angels? Remember the law of contagious. It is caught, more than taught. That also gives you a safety valve. If you do not feel comfortable with the manifestation, you do not want it. Just do not hang around. It gives you a safety valve.
Some manifestations are based on our soul quality. When there is an anointing to dance, not everybody will dance the same way even though it is the same anointing. This is just like none of our tongues are the same. When the same Holy Spirit moves we all may dance in the Spirit. We really feel like dancing in the Spirit but we end up dancing in different styles. Why, because our personalities are different! God works differently through us. He is touching us differently. Some of us may be healed by some way. Maybe for some of us we have been like a mouse all the time. I mean we have been oppressed from the time we were born. We are always neglected and oppressed. When we graduate, we work under a dominating boss. We experienced such oppression until our very voice is quivering and then, we need some sort of touch in our life to change us. We need the Holy Spirit to fill us. When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, 25 years of quivering voice is released at one go. So there are different responses to the manifestations of the Spirit.
Remember, experience can be caught. For example, if you have an anointing upon your life and when you associate with different people, the same gifting will start operating through some of these people. It is a law of association. In this teaching, I put it as a law of contagious experience and we need to understand that law is working all the time. It can be working positively or negatively. Nevertheless, when something is going on and you need to be touched, you need to have the experience, hang around that group. Hang around people with that experience, it will rub off you. If in your life, you want to experience the word of knowledge frequently or discerning of spirits or a vision in God, hang around people who do. It will rub on you. This is the law of contagious experiences and that law is operating all the time. On the positive side if you do not have that experience and you know that experience is good for you, hang around with people with that kind of experience. Join them; be next to them in the prayer meeting.
Right Place
Thirdly, to receive a move of God and experiences of God, sometimes, we need to go to a right place. There are sometimes experiences that are common to certain places. If you look at I King 19, in the life of Elijah when he was down and discouraged, God sent him to Mount Horeb. If you recall, Mount Horeb is when Moses was down and discouraged and when Moses began to meet the Lord and has an encounter with the Lord. That place speaks a lot about experiencing God. It is just like in Jerusalem, there is a sickness called the Messianic sickness because Jerusalem is a city of Messiahs, a religious place. Some tourists who go there end up thinking that they are the Messiah, and go around proclaiming themselves as such. A few of them have been locked up in the mental asylum. It happens frequently in Jerusalem. They have even identified it as a sickness. The atmosphere is such that everyone is looking for the Messiah. Sometimes they lock 3 or 4 people up in the same asylum and each think that he is the Messiah but it only happens to them when they enter Jerusalem. It is a kind of atmosphere over the place. Sometimes there is a place. It is just like if some of you take a trip to Israel and if you were to walk through the shore of Galilee. Who knows, you may be moved to tears while another person may not. It depends on your background, your experience as you visualize and see all the experiences of Jesus and you relate to that. So there is something about certain places. Sometimes a place becomes synonymous with an experience. Toronto has become synonymous with the experience of holy laughter and people go from all over the world looking for that experience. So what happen? When you exercise faith for something, you get it. The journey and that place bring them to a position to receive an experience. It is not only happening in Toronto. God is doing it all over the world.
Back in the early 1980s when God’s presence was very strongly felt, and the Spirit was moving, there were already the manifestation of holy laughter and these things were new. The only difference was that the Western world has the power of the media, so most of us assume that these kinds of manifestations originated from the West. Now here is where the danger is: when you publicize an experience, everyone starts counterfeiting. When you identify and label a problem, then people could begin to identify it. It may be there or it may not be there but that is what can happen.
We need to take note of point three. Sometimes we need to go to the right place to get the right experience. That is why we will not be having problem if anyone of you feel that you need to go all the way to Cho Yonggi’s church in Seoul or to go all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma to Kenneth Hagin’s campmeeting. No problem. To each his own to get that experience. I have to share that so that we will take a very balanced position. You do not take a position where you do not have to go anywhere. The Holy Spirit is here. You can go anywhere to get an experience. Just remember you need to base everything on the Word of God. It also answers to those who say that you do not need to go anywhere to get the experience. You could get an experience in your own closet but if God told you to go to some place to get an experience, then go. God told Elijah to go to the mountain. Why should God tell him to go to the mountain? He was under the tree complaining. In I Kings 19, he was complaining to God, Jezebel was after him, and he thought nobody was left. God sent an angel and fed him. For 40 days and 40 nights, he traveled all the way to Horeb. Why could God not speak to him under the broom tree? He could, but God did not want to. God wants him to experience all the travel. When he reached the mountain, there were the 4 manifestations of God, the fire, the earthquake, and the wind and then in the end a still small voice. So sometimes, we have to be in the right place to get the experience and God has ways of bringing us to the right place, the right group, and the right fellowship to get the experience.
The Right Time
Fourthly, the right time. There is timing for all experiences. It must not be hastened. I believe if someone is born again, immediately he can receive the baptism in the Spirit. However, sometimes, for some people, they need to get things sorted out first before they are ready to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and we say no problem. Just yield to God. We cannot make it a must and say that before you leave today because you accepted Christ, you must say something in tongues. That would become artificial. We know that the average gestation period of a human being is 9 months but there are many variations. There is a variation of 7 months to 1 year. Moreover, it is not right for us to say, it must be exactly that. It is important for us to understand that there is an average time. However, for some people it may take longer to reach certain point of revelation experience than other people and to each one of us there is a rightness of time. It must not be induced. It must be natural for each one of them that they come to a point of their life experience where they require that. That is why in our church we worship, we dance, we sing, we jump but we do not make them compulsory. You see, it becomes wrong when you make it compulsory. Any experience and manifestation becomes wrong even when it is right if you make it compulsory.
Neither does it mean that when you have a manifestation, you are more spiritual than other persons. It does not mean that. I can show you people who fall under the power who are yielded to God. People like Daniel when the angel appeared to him; the Presence of God was so strong that he fell in the power forward. He fell before God. I can show you in John 18 when the people and Judas and all the temple soldiers came for Jesus and they asked for Jesus. Jesus said, “Who do you seek?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, `I am He.’ They all fell under the power but they did not change. They fell under the power. John 18: 5-6, They answered Him, ”Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am He.” And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Now when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. It was the Presence of God. Jesus was just in Gethsemane. The Presence of God was so strong in His life. All He said was, “I am He,” and they fell under the power. They were not converted. They were not spiritual people. When they got up, they still wanted to arrest Jesus. Whey they got up, they still wanted to put Jesus and carry out all they intended to do to Jesus.
However, there are positive results like we see Daniel. For Daniel the Presence of God was so strong, Daniel fell under the power. Moreover, when we read the Book of Acts 9, When the great light came upon Saul, Saul fell from his donkey.’ So there are good incidents. Paul when he got up he was converted. Therefore, the experience itself does not prove anything. We are so natural. We keep looking with our physical eyes. We forget that the important spiritual experience comes from within. It is what goes on within.
Sometimes we see no manifestation but the healings and conversions are awesome. It is just like demonology and the deliverance. One decade ago, a group was so extreme that when they cast out demons, they must have the manifestation. That is not true. Demons can come out without much manifestation either. See it is when you begin to make a rule that everybody must follow, that’s when a truth can become an error. You apply Old Testament laws to New Testament blessings, then it becomes wrong. Therefore, we can worship in the Spirit, we can laugh in the Spirit, no problem but when you start imposing restrictions, then that is also wrong. That is the other extreme. The other extreme is to exclude all kinds of diversity and you only allow a certain type of experiences. That is being very narrow. You cannot do this; you cannot do that - you are quenching the Holy Spirit. That is wrong and it is always important to just be open and in every move of God, let us be mature.
The Methodist church is now nearly 200 years old. John Wesley who was the leader of the revival never forced everyone to get the same experience. Let me remind you that even George Fox the founder of the Quaker Movement did not force everyone to have the same experience. The Quaker meetings in fact, were very quiet. Nobody did anything unless they felt that they had the leading of the Spirit and enlightenment. Neither did they make it a compulsory experience. Let us be mature. Let us not backtrack to those old days just because people are insecure or just because people are trying to prove the point that they have it. What are we trying to prove? You already got Him. You have Jesus. You have tasted of the Presence of God. You have entered the holiest of all. You have vast experiences. The experiences will continue to grow in God but it is those who are immature, you are trying to prove something: I am one up if I got this experience that you do not have. My church has this experience, which your church do not. We are in the move. You are not in the move. They are not matured. They will not last 3-5 years I can assure you. The key is to handle the things of God with maturity based on the Word of God. So the 4th principle is right timing. There is a right time for all things.
Now would not it be foolish if we make all the meetings the same? Christian common sense tells us that every meeting is different. There is no problem about moving in the Spirit. Some of you have traveled with me to the conventions. We move in the Spirit. We worked the working of miracles by the gifting of God, etc. but we do not make all meetings like that. There are different meetings for different purposes. If all meetings are that kind of meeting, will we be mature? No. We need diversity of different types of meeting to cater for us. Sometimes, let us say, Wednesday Bible study, we also have a follow-up. There are different meetings for different purposes. Friday overnight meeting is for different purpose. Everyone come, travail, pressed through into the things of God, and pray individually. Saturday is a corporate intercession. We are led into different purposes on different days. On Wednesdays, we do not have long worship. On Wednesday, it is just to teach the Word. Why do we want to teach the Word? Why do we not do other things? Sunday is worship. Each meeting is different. It is wrong to try to make all meetings the same. If they are not the same, you say you do not have the Holy Spirit. Immaturity, childishness!! The church is nearly 2000 years old - let us not backtrack. Let us learn to be open to the things of God. Let God move and let all things happen at the same time. Some want to weep. It is fine as long as it is God touching them.
Now let me point to the dangers that are involved in any move of God and prove to you why not all manifestations and the anointing of God moves are of God. See when the anointing of God moves, demons get frightened and they start manifesting too. How we minister by the anointing of God and how we minister when we are praying by faith are two different things.
Fleshly Manifestations
Let us not do injustice to the Holy Spirit! You always ask this question, “What would Jesus do?” I can assure you will not find Jesus barking like a dog. Imagine you are coming to the throne of grace, you came before Jesus, you have prayed through, you have fasted 39 days. This is your 40th day. You came to Jesus. You finally in your spirit entered into the Most Holy Place and you have a vision of Jesus, sitting on the right hand of God before you. You said, “O Jesus, how I love you.” Jesus looks you in the eyes and He says, “Woof.”
Now, in the Book of I Sam., as Saul was pursuing David. In I Sam.19: 20-24, Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul and they also prophesied. And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time and they prophesied also. Then he also went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is in Sechu. So he asked and said, “Where are Samuel and David?” And someone said, “Indeed they are in Ramah. So he went there to Naioth in Ramah. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul among the prophets?”
It was the Spirit of God but what he did was in the flesh. So how can you have it? The flesh is mixing with the Spirit. He had that kind of ability before it came upon him in his early days when he was all right. In I Sam., when he was first anointed in 1 Samuel 10:10-11, When he came to there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God came upon him and he prophesied among them. And it happened, when all who knew him formerly saw that he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, “What is this that has come upon the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”
Now again those soldiers he sent to catch David, they were not prophets but they came into the atmosphere of people prophesying. I do not know what it was like but I could imagine some of them were playing the timbre and harp when the soldiers came looking for David. They were not enrolled in the school of prophets. They were those with swords in their hands looking for David. When they came, they heard the prophets prophesying and they too began to prophesy. Again, the law of contagious experience and then they go into a place where people gather and the anointing soaks into the place. The Presence of God was still very strong in that place but what Saul did was not right. The Spirit was right. The experience was right. Even the prophecy was of God but what he did was in the flesh. That is just an example to show that when the Spirit of God moves it does not mean that all the experiences can be of God. However, not all manifestation needs to be of God because all of us have different soul needs.
Dancing in the Spirit
In the same way, it goes for dancing in the Spirit. We do draw the line when it comes to dancing in the Spirit. Whether you dance gracefully like a ballerina or not, our rule here in the church is as long as you do not knock anybody down and it does not resemble any idol worship, we allow you to carry on dancing in the Spirit. By this, we are not saying that everything is 100% of the Spirit. Now let us be very analytical, when we say that something is in the Spirit, we do not mean that there is no human effort involved. When we speak in tongues, there is some human effort involved. Paul says, “I pray within my spirit,” there is some human effort involved. I had to release my tongues. God does not possess me and make me to say something. Now when I dance in the Spirit, of course, I have to cooperate with what I sense. The Spirit is flowing so there is still a part that is me. The difference is for those in the flesh it began to release more of the flesh than the cooperation of the Spirit. A person who has been brought up in an idol worshipping cult or witchcraft or religious paganism may start dancing in a pagan way resembling some idol-worshipping religion. Of course, we are going to have some of our ushers to carry you out. You can still be in your lotus position if you want but we will carry you and put you in one room. Nobody is going to scold you; we just carry you and put you there. That is the grace we would allow but there is a line that you do not cross. When it becomes what we discern to be false religious worship or it resembles the worship in other religion then we got to draw a line. So there is still a line that is flowing in the Spirit.
It is the same with the manifestation of God, you must not cross a line. There is liberty but that liberty is within the boundary of the Word of God. It does not mean that all manifestations are of God. I heard people make statement like that which I myself dare not make. Sometimes in our conventions, the anointing of God is so strong. There are demons coming out of people. These are three or four other people trying to minister to demon-manifested persons. The only time I stop people is that when I am ministering, I do not want anybody else ministering unless I instruct them to minister and flow along because they may be using different methods from me. It is more of a clash of methods than anything else. Normally I let it go because I know under the anointing, the demons will struggle a while and then come out by themselves. Where it becomes disturbing, I will personally take charge, take authority over the demon and cast the demon out before everybody. But that happens only when that is a demonic manifestation. I am not saying that all manifestations are of the devil. Some of them are just from the soul. People’s soul, people’s character and people needed inner healing for they got hurt in their life. Moreover, when you got hurt in your life and there is something in your life, do you know even in the natural, it shows out in the way you walk and talk? And we are not even talking about the anointing of God. If you got an inferiority complex, it comes out in the way you look. Therefore, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the manifestation will come out faster. Whatever is on your inside becomes reflected like a mirror in your manifestation. It is still the Spirit of God. It can be the enemy it can be the flesh. There is no guarantee that under the anointing of God that everything is of God - that is a wrong statement to make. We have the example of king Saul manifesting the spirit of exhibitionism and possibly the spirit of lust, a wrong thing that is not of God under the anointing of the Spirit.
Drunkenness in the Spirit
At the same time to be positive, when the people were drunk in the Spirit, the unbelievers said that these people are full of new wine in Acts 2:13. Obviously, when someone is drunk in the Spirit they cannot walk straight. That is within boundary. For me I call it half slain. You know you could be slain in the Spirit. What happens when you are half slain? You want to fall but could not fall. That is what it is like, there are different degrees of the anointing of God but then the manifestation is the side effect of the physical body contacting the power of God. Neither can you take it as proof of the power of God. Can you understand that? A side effect is a side effect. Why do people have to fall under the power is because there is a short circuit that takes place in the body when the power of God flow. Some people do not fall under the power at all. Yet, they can do God’s will and be anointed of God. The dangers are when you make one experience a must for all. As much as we all have different thumbprint, we will continually experience the Presence of God differently. There will be similarity but let us be opened to differences. So there is a positive side to it but even drunkenness in the Spirit has a certain limit. If you get so drunk in the Spirit and you start pushing everybody, and if you were a man and you sit on the lap of a girl, then the pastor says, “Praise God, everything is of God,” but the girl does not think so. You look at all those people who get so drunk in the Spirit. They get ushers to help those people. Why do they not say, “It is the Spirit of God. No need to help, the Spirit will do it.” No there is still a boundary of Christian common sense that we do not cross.
I need to point this out in case we get some queer manifestation and we do not shut them down. In the early days of the Charismatic revival, there were a lot of strange things happening and there are a lot of queer manifestations. Then one pastor wanted to stop those things and the Lord told him this, “Do not remove the chaff until it is time to remove the chaff.” Do you know what is the chaff? The chaff is the part of the wheat of the rice grain that protects the rice until it is ripe for harvest. The chaff is important. Without the chaff, insects will eat the rice before it is ripen. The chaff is the hard part that is called the husk. The husk of the rice protects the rice. Until you are ready to eat the rice, you remove the husk and then you shake it off. You separate the husk from the rice. Then you have the pure rice. The husk or the chaff is important in its early stages so sometimes peculiarity is important to the move in the developing stages. The rice is not developing yet. Whatever God was doing in their life, had not come to fullness yet. Do not remove the chaff until it is proper time. Then let God remove it or let the minister of God remove or someone who is in spiritual authority do it. You do not just go and do it just because it looks different from yours. Because when you remove the chaff, you may end up killing the wheat. Do not remove the chaff until it is proper time. That is an important principle to observe as we look into the things of God.
Prophetic Gestures
Now we go to Acts 11; this person who is a unique prophet, his name is Agabus. It says here in verse 28, Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in days of Claudius Caesar. Now the word here is showed. In the Old King James, the word is signified by the Spirit, which means that the prophecy could have been delivered by non-verbal means. We know that there is a character of Agabus later on in the book of Acts 21 he came and prophesied about Paul being in prison by taking Paul’s belt and tying himself and then saying this means to whom this girdle belongs shall the same thing happen to him. So he was quite a dramatic prophet. He prophesies through drama. The Bible does speak about unique gifts and ability, to each one the diversity of the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God manifest in different ministries, there may be peculiar manifestation in each person’s ministry and even individuals respond differently. We need to be open to what I call peculiarities of different anointing of ministers that will bring about different results.
Trembling
I met an elderly Indian woman. She has a very powerful ministry of prophesy, one of the most powerful I have ever seen. She operates in visions all the time. Whenever she enters deep in the Spirit, both her hands shake. It is almost like she goes into a trance, except that she is of God. She glorifies Jesus and she prophesies in the Name of Jesus and is all in line with the Word of God. I think Westerners may look at that and think that person is in cultic trance or something. Asians have gone into that kind of experience especially in India. People who have fasted and gone very deep in the Lord, they really go right deep in the Spirit. We know that it has happened to Daniel too. When the Presence of God came, he described the trembling of his hands in the Book of Daniel 10:9-10, Yet I heard the sound of His words; and while I heard the sound of His word I was in deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground. Therefore, he was under the power. Verse 10, Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands. See his knees were trembling and his hands were trembling. Therefore, Daniel was literally shaking under the power. So there can be peculiar responses and Daniel was a very wise man, one of the greatest intellects of that time, ten times wiser than all the wise men in that land. There is such a thing as a peculiar manifestation and peculiar anointing. I also found that different types of anointing produce different types of manifestation. Sometimes when in the intercessory meeting you may have more groaning and crying than laughter. See what God bring is more a refreshing and a kind of filling His people with unspeakable joy that causes laughter. But we do not stick to one anointing. There are diversities of anointing and different anointing produce different manifestation. We need to open ourselves to that.
Now as we conclude with all these understand and know how to move into God and yet not to be extreme but to be open to Him all the time. I encourage you to be part of what God is doing and just open yourself to God. Anything can happen and it is good and we should keep it going. Just let God move. We do not know what is going to happen and we just let God move whatever He wants to do. We want an open heart to God. At the same time, there is certain line that you do not cross of Christian decency and within certain boundary. That you can do with clothes on. If for you, the Spirit of God is so strong that you have to prophesy without any clothes, then we will probably have to find a room and lock you in. What do we look for? No. 1 is the Presence of God. You can have all the manifestation you want. Imitate all the manifestation you want but if the Presence of God is not here it ends there. A manifestation can be counterfeited. It can be emotionally created. It can be acted out. So, remember that. It is important not just to see the manifestation. We are not people who go by sight. We are people who go by the Spirit.
The Presence of God
Now manifestation is fine. The thing behind it is what is causing the manifestation, not the manifestation itself. Go for that. Let the Presence touch you, fill you and envelop you. Let it saturate you. Is that the Presence of God? It can also be very thick even in a healing service. The healing anointing is so thick. You feel you could reach out and cut apiece out and is a different anointing. It is the same Presence but a different anointing. Do you realize you can have different meeting but the same Presence because it is God showing Himself? God said, “I will manifest Myself.” Jesus said, “I will manifest Myself to those who love Me.” So I think that you cannot escape the Presence of God. Oh, let the Presence of God flow. It does not matter if you did not laugh, you did not cry but you will just soak in the Presence of God. Just worship softly even though the one on your right or left is laughing, the one behind is crying and another one is jumping up and down but not disturbing anybody. Moreover, you are just enjoying the Presence. Fine, the moral of the story is that the Presence touches everybody. That is what we want - that everybody sense God. Everybody have a greater passion for God and everybody love Jesus even more and everyone wants to serve God more and everyone want to yield more to God. That is what we want. The purpose of everything is that we all will have our hearts filled with God. Love Him that is no. 1, the Presence of God.
I have been to places where it is just a put on. I do not sense the anointing of the Presence of God. I have been to meeting where there is not much of anointing and the preacher is shouting until he got sore throat but there is not much anointing. There is but a little bit. At some other meetings, sometime I found there is a soft-spoken preacher and there is such power that flows. It is the Presence of God. You cannot replace the Presence of God. Neither can the Presence of God and the Presence of the Holy Spirit be artificially produced. It is more that something that comes and we just yield to it but it must have the Presence of God. That is No. 1.
The Word of God
No.2 we must give the Word first place. If you build your life around a manifestation, you will not last until Jesus comes. The Word of God still comes in first place. Many of the errors in Christendom over 2000 years and over the past decades have been because people with the right experience did not have the right scriptures to interpret it wrongly. We have a lot of wrong theology being taught by people who are actually been touched by God. It is because the Word is not being understood fully. Therefore, it is important for us to keep the Word first place. With all that experiences, we still need the Word of God. We still need to test all things by the Word of God. We do not build our doctrine on experiences. Why do we have a whole group of people in the early Charismatic move? One of the greatest false teachings I was combating and preaching against was people who were teaching that God sends sicknesses to people. They were anointed ministers who could pray for the sick and get some result and yet teach that sometimes God send you a sickness to teach you something. That is a theological error. They cannot prove it with chapter and verse from the scriptures. They could quote some incidences but it is out of context and interpreted wrongly. Now 20 years down the line we could look back and some of those people because they believe that they got sick and they have died. However, it still proves a point that the Word of God comes first place. Whatever manifestation, whatever things God done, you do not replace your theology with anything outside the Word of God. Unless you have chapter and verse, you would not last. We are here for a long haul. We are not here to last 3 - 4 years and then disappear. We are here until Jesus comes. We will have increasingly different experiences from now until Jesus comes and we need to build it around the Word of God that is No. 2.
Local Church
No.3 just because you got a move of God and the Bible touches you does not mean you do not need a church. It does not mean you flow from one place to another. Unless you are committed to a group of people and you could grow with them and work with them, there will be a vacuum in your life that is never developed. In a sense, we do not really choose our church. God chooses our church for us. This is why for me it is no problem. Where people come in and find this is their home church, it is fine. If people come in and say, “I was blessed but I have to go back to my own church now,” it is also fine. You know why? If God did not mean them to be here, by my keeping them here would mean that I am keeping them out of God’s will. If you love God, you love people. You want them to find God’s will but understand you never remove your commitment from a local body and local church because only as you relate in a local church can you develop character. You can receive gifts by being a church hopper. You can be touched and refreshed by different moves of God and be in the frontline and always be in everything that God does. You are in the front seat but 10 years will pass down the road and your character is not developed. Character development comes by working with other imperfect people as imperfect as you and learning how to love one another and work together in spite of imperfection. That is why only the local body can help us. It is so easy not to be committed to any group and every time people hurt a bit, you say, “I am not going there anymore.” In the end, you are the loser. By the time Jesus comes there are a lot of sharp edges that are not polished yet but as you relate closely, they hurt you, you hurt them but you still love one another and you put your arm around one another you say, `Praise God!’ We may have hurt one another and we may have misunderstood each other but thank God, we have learned to love one another. In spite of differences, I think you have gained something. This is something that money cannot buy. You have grown in love. Even in the natural realm by relating closely to your own blood brothers and sisters, you learn to overcome certain things. No.3 we need a local fellowship. We need a body of people whom we can relate closely. If you do not have friends to tell you that you are wrong, it is every dangerous. If all your friends are `Yes’ people who are not honest enough to tell you when you go wrong, I think you are in a very dangerous position. I always tell people, “If you disagree, just tell me but do not hide anything.” I may disagree with you but we can still be friends. That kind of friendship is valuable because there are checks and balances on one another. We need a local body to relate to. Revival comes, revival goes, but the church of Jesus Christ and the local church are here to stay. That is why when the move of God is rejected by denominations, what happens? A new church starts. See the church will always stay.
Seek the Purpose
No.4 there is always a purpose behind every move in every manifestation. It has to do with a manifestation of a truth or a revelation that God is bringing to the attention of the body of Christ that it has neglected. The Charismatic movement brought the church’s attention to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Word of Faith movement brought the church’s attention to the integrity of God’s Word. Every move is calling our attention to something. Let us not miss what God is calling us to. Into each different realm and each move tap on what God is actually doing. Not just a manifestation but let God bring you into the revelation that He is bringing forth.
2. HOLY LAUGHTER
Gal.3: 13-16, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,( for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.” ); that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Do you know that Christ is crucified on the cross so that the blessings of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles? In Christ Jesus, we receive the promise of the Spirit and the blessings of Abraham through faith.
Now we know some of the blessings of Abraham. We know the blessing of Abraham in provision, in healing, the gospel going forth in multitudes, revival of multitudes and the nations of the world being touched by God. These are all the blessings of Abraham. As we study the life of Abraham, we consider his life as an allegory of some of the things that will happen in the last days. There is a prophetic pattern that we can see and place ourselves in that which God is doing.
Turn with me to the Book of Genesis. First, we want to look at Noah’s life in chapter 6 and jump over to Abraham’s life. We know that Noah was told to build the ark. Noah generation and what Noah did was given as an allegory of the last days. Jesus says that the last days will be like the days of Noah, marrying and drinking, and buying and selling up to the time that the ark door is closed. These are the times that we live in. So there is an allegory from Noah’s life.
I want to pay attention to one thing that happened on the time scale in Noah’s life. Genesis 6:13-14, And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behod, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. God told Noah to build an ark of gopherwood and Noah did all those things that God commanded him to do. That was the first record of God speaking to Noah. Now God may have spoken to him in other ways but when the Holy Spirit records something, it is significant. The first record of God speaking to Noah was in terms of building the ark.
There was a second time that God spoke to Noah and that is found in Genesis 7:1 it says here, Come into the ark, you and all your household because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female, two each of animal that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of the birds in the air, male and female to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.’ Then notice verse 4, For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.
The second time that God spoke to Noah was seven days before the ark door closed and told him to get into the ark. He moved into the ark not on the last day. He moved into the ark seven days before the ark door closed and while he was inside God commanded all the animals to come and enter the ark. The whole process probably took seven days. Now the last seven days is one week. It is called the last week of Noah and that last week is symbolic. The world has entered the last week. The phrase last week can speak about the seven days or seven years’ tribulations and we know that there is a chronological time period for that. At the same time, the last week can be the last final call of the Spirit to the church.
Kenneth Hagin had a visitation from an angelic messenger riding on a horse who gave him a scroll to read. These are his words from his book, “I Believe in Visions.”
As I unrolled the scroll, which was a roll of paper 12 or 14 inches long, he said, “Take and read.” At the top of the page in big, bold, black print were the words “WAR AND DESTRUCTION.’ I was struck dumb. He laid his right hand on my head and said, “Read, in the Name of Jesus Christ.”
I began to read what was written on the paper, and as the words instructed me, I looked and saw what I had just read about.
First I read about thousands upon thousands of men in uniform. Then I looked and saw these men marching, wave after wave of soldiers marching as to war. I looked in the direction they were going, and as far as I could see there were thousands of men marching.
I turned to read the scroll again, and then looked and saw what I had just read about. I saw many women, young women, and teenagers. Some of the younger ones held babies in their arms. All of the women were bowed together in sorrow and were weeping profusely. Those who did not carry babies held their hands on their stomachs as they bowed over and wept. Tears flowed from their eyes like water.
I looked at the scroll again, and again I looked to see what I had read about. I saw the skyline of a large city. Looking closer, I saw the skyscrapers were burned-out hulls. Portions of the city lay in ruins. It was not written that just one city would be destroyed, burned and in ruins, but that there would be many such cities.
The scroll was written in the first person, and seemed as if Jesus Himself were speaking. I read, “America is receiving her last call. Some nations already have received their last call and never will receive another.”
Then, in larger print it said, “THE TIME OF THE END OF ALL THINGS IS AT HAND.” This statement was repeated four or five times. Jesus also said this was the last great revival.
He went on to say, “All the gifts of the Spirit will be in operation in the Church in these last days, and the Church will do greater things than even the Early Church did. It will have greater power, signs and wonders than were recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.” He said that we have seen and experienced many healings, but we will now behold amazing miracles that have not been seen before.
Jesus continued, “More and more miracles will be performed in the last days which are just ahead, for it is time for the gift of the working of miracles to be more in prominence. We now have entered into the era of the miraculous.
“Many of my own people will not accept the moving of my Spirit, and will turn back and will not be ready to meet Me at my coming. Many will be deceived by false prophets and miracles of satanic origin. But follow the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and Me, and you will not be deceived. I am gathering my own together and am preparing them, for the time is short.”
There were several other exhortations to watchfulness, to awaken and pray, and not to be deceived. Then I read, “As it was in the days of Noah, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be. As I spoke to Noah and said, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth’(Gen 7:4), so today I am speaking and giving America her last warning and call to repentance, and the time that is left is comparable to the last seven days of Noah’s time.
“Warn this generation, as did Noah his generation, for judgment is about to fall. And these sayings shall be fulfilled shortly, for I am coming soon.” Jesus repeated, “This is the last revival. I am preparing my people for my coming. Judgment is coming, but I will call my people away, even unto Myself, before the worst shall come. But be thou faithful; watch and pray, for the time of the end of all things is at hand.
God told him that He was giving America its last call. Now by last call we do not know what time span it is. Remember human time span is different from God’s time span and there was a mention of the last week of Noah in the scroll given to Hagin. Just as Noah was told to get into the ark the last 7 days so God was sounding the alarm and there were 7 prophetic more days. Seven may not be 70, may not be 7 years. It may have been any odd number, but it is symbolic.
Abraham’s life has seldom been used as a reference point for eschatology but we know that Abraham was a symbol of Father God. We know that whatever he did was pointing to Christ at cavalry. Therefore based on that pattern of Abraham’s life, the promises of God given to him that he shall walk through the land only took place physically about 400 odd years later when Moses led the people out of the land of Egypt and then later Joshua led them into the land of Canaan. God had given that land to Abraham but still there was something missing in Abraham’s life. He could have the land. He could have the cattle. He could have silver. He could have gold but when God spoke to him about the blessings that He was going to give him in Genesis 15: 1,“Do be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
God could give him everything but unless he has a male heir, he felt incomplete. The promise to Abraham, which point to Jesus, was Isaac, who was the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises. Abraham did not live to see all the land of Canaan belonging to him, it took place in Joshua’s time but Abraham had to have something. Something tangible, something within the framework of his experience that he could receive that what God said to him was going to come to pass. Something that he exercises his faith for that all the nations of the world will be blessed through his life. We know that it came to pass through Christ. However, in Abraham’s generation there was a tangible manifestation of the promise through the child Isaac. Isaac symbolizes everything. Isaac was symbolic of the coming of Christ who will fulfill the promise to Abraham that all the nations of the world will be blessed through his seed. Isaac symbolize all the physical generation and the nation that will rise up of his line that will conquer the land of Canaan and made it his. Isaac symbolizes all the fulfillment of God’s promises in his family life, in his physical life that God promised to him. Therefore, the birth of Isaac was very important. The birth of Isaac was a very significant time.
When God spoke about Isaac, Abraham was 99 years of age. Genesis 17: 1 said Abraham was 99 years old. There have been some failures in Abraham’s life when he fathered Ishmael. Ishmael is the type of the flesh. There have been failures in the flesh. He attempted to fulfill God’s promise by the flesh and it did not work. Instead, it caused hardship to his family and God was silent. Now suddenly God appeared again and he was 99 years old. In addition, God spoke about a child. When God spoke to him in Genesis 17: 17, Abraham fell on his face and laughed. Therefore, you are not the first person to fall on your face and laugh. Then later on the Lord appeared in Genesis 18, Abraham served God, Sarah was in the tent, and she was listening in verse10 Sarah was listening in the tent. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and advanced in age and Sarah has passed the age of child bearing. In addition, God says that Sarah will have a child next year. Verse 12, Then Sarah laughed within herself. Finally when the child was born, Genesis 21: 1-2, The Lord visited Sarah as He had said. Now notice the Lord visited Sarah.
The move of laughter is a visitation and it is to produce something more. Laughter is only the beginning. Something else is coming forth. The Lord visited Sarah as He had promised. Of course, no one in their right mind, over the past 10 years could have conceived that God will visit His people like that. We would have thought that when God visited His people it would be something like Azusa Street’s Revival. Of course, there are some of those features that are in but primarily you hear more laughing than any other visitation. I know some people can be great historians, look up in the church history and find some other visitation. However, never before do you find a worldwide movement of laughter. Occasionally, yes. God has His way of doing things. All we do is make sure it is scriptural, that is fine. As I have taught before if it is in the Bible then it is fine and if it is not in the bible then it is not fine. That means that if the anointing comes on you and you start waddling like a duck, then it is not fine. It is not in the bible. Any manifestation that is not demonic is fine. If it is demonic which sometimes happen because of the Presence of God, we have to deal with those demons. Sometimes we could allow it under control for the demons to be ejected out by the Presence of God. However, we need to recognize that some manifestations are demons reacting to the Presence of God and not something to be copied. Who knows one day when you are in the meeting and somebody start vomiting and you say that is a new move. I do not think so. It is not in the Bible and if it distracts others, our ushers take that person into a room and let them do all that they want. After sometime, it will become stabilized.
However, there is scripture for laughter. So those things that are scriptural and mentioned in the Bible are fine. Other things permit it; allow it. Do not remove the chaff beyond its time. This is not to say that people are making up. God could be doing something and that is a side effect. Isaac represents the visitation of God although Abraham had not had the land coming to his hand but took nearly 400 years over to be fulfilled. It took even longer time before Christ was manifested, some 2000 odd years. Thank God that what God is doing in laughter is part of the blessings of Abraham. You could classify it is a visitation that God is bringing forth a prelude to something else that He wants to do.
As I studied the Bible on laughter, I found something that the laughter and the groaning seem to be tied up together. This means that when the Spirit of God is moving in this kind of meeting in holy laughter you must also permit holy groaning. As I studied the Bible, I will show you from the Word that the groaning and the laughter happen together. That means that in a meeting we must permit both to take place because each one is a different place and when the Presence of God is moving, for some they will experience the groaning and for some, they will laugh. Go ahead, groan and laugh.
Look at Rom.8: 22, `For we know that the whole creation groans and labor with birth pangs together until now.’ Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of one body. Notice that Paul talks about the groaning of the Spirit. Now here we could logically put it in point form. The Bible says that the creation groans - Point one. Point two, that the groaning is part of the perfecting process of the creation, bringing us into the will of God. Point three is the work of the Holy Spirit within us, which we co-operate, that allows us to groan in the Spirit. That leads to Point four. If you do not have groaning, then you do not have perfection. Therefore there needs to be still that kind of intercessory burden and groaning and prayer to take place which will result in glorification.
Verse 30, Moreover, those whom He predestined, these He also called whom He called; these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. When you talk about the glory of God, part of the glory of God involves joy unspeakable. In the Presence of God is gladness of joy, fullness of joy. We consider a statement made by the apostle Peter about the working of the Holy Spirit in I Peter 1: 8, Whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
Now the process from groaning to glorification is under the working of the Spirit. This process will go on and on as we continue touching God. Many of us have been touched in laughter in our personal life. I remember in the early days when we first moved here and I was knocked out while laughing. We need to see its scriptural place. One of the first points that I want to point to is the connection between the groaning and the laughter. They seem to be connected in a marvelous way. Isaiah 61 was talking about the Holy Spirit. Now we have coined a new word and called it holy laughter but the Bible call this move of the Spirit the oil of gladness and it is the oil of gladness that comes into our hearts and makes us merry.
Isaiah 61:1-2 talks about the Spirit of God which Jesus quoted up to half for us too. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me. Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God.
Now notice these are the parts which were not quoted. To comfort all who mourn. (See there was mourning.) To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning. The word mourning has also been used in other ways to imply a groaning. There is groaning, there is rejoicing. It continues, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified. There was mourning and there was the oil of gladness. There is a groaning into glorification. There was a heavy burden and tears and there were laughter. The oil of gladness produces laughter.
Ps.126: 1 When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongues with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, we are glad. Bring back our captivity, O Lord as the streams in the South. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Moreover, when God visited Abraham and promised that Isaac would be born next year, and Sarah laugh, I would say that a visitation is an answer to many cries and God is strengthening His people and filling their mouth with laughter. But you notice the same pattern again. The groaning and the laughter are connected to one another. It was not just some mad lunatic laughing. It is the result of a constant prayer in the Presence of God travailing before God, hungering and thirsting for God - crying and weeping. Sowing in tears and then there was reaping. The Lord fills their mouth with laughter. The context of the story is the Israelites captivity. They lost everything. They lost their homes. They lost their land. They lost their temple. They were an anonymous people. Then suddenly God turned their captivity around and they were filled with joy. For them sometimes people in the early times have wept. Prophet Jeremiah who was there at the beginning of the captivity wept so much that in the Book of Lamentation it says my whole head is like running waters. My whole head is covered with waters and then when the generation that came in, they weep in joy.
Point one there is a connection with the groaning and the laughter. Some of us are asking, “Why are others laughing and I cannot laugh?” You know why? Unless you cry first you do not laugh. Some people ask, “Why is everybody else laughing and I am crying?” Its O.K. keep crying when you are soaked enough in tears, then the joy will come. Therefore, we need to understand what God is doing in this move. Do not compel anyone to have the same manifestation. It is just like give everyone time to reach into the things of God but let there be freedom and liberty and no compulsion. But in case if you do want it very much and you want a release you are so uptight, highly stressed, I think you need laughter. One thing for sure laughter is good medicine. You cannot laugh when everybody is laughing and you try to imitate. Do not imitate, all you do is to allow God to touch you and when God touches you, sometimes you weep first and you cry. When God touches, crying and weeping is very common. You get touched, you cry, and then sometimes we laugh, then we weep again then we laugh again. That is fine, just allow God to touch your heart and before you can laugh, you must be able to cry. Your heart must be soft. When your hearts become very hard, you do not weep. You cannot also laugh. Allow God to meet you first. Have a contrite spirit. Let Him touch you so that you cry and weep. As you allow God to touch and melt your heart until your heart is soft like running waters and when you have poured out all your heart to God, then He will turn your mourning into dancing, all of that gladness will come into your life and He will fill your mouth with laughter.
Cycle of Groaning and Laughing
First point is that the groaning and the laughter are connected and there may be a cycle of groaning and laughing that goes on in our life. Every time a move of God comes, I always ask God this question, “Lord, how do we keep it?” I am not just interested in having it. Having it is not a problem. How do we keep it? The Lord taught me that the way to keep it is to flow with this cycle of tears and laughter. Sometimes you have not laughed for the last 15 years. So your laughter may last 1 year but just remember what we want is 5 years later we still got this move. Any move of God needs to sustain and strengthen us. What God is doing is stretching our emotion so that there are periods when you will weep before God and then you rejoice before God. Then something new comes out. There is another mountain to move and you feel all stressed up again. You find hard to laugh again but easier to cry and you are in the laughter movement. You do not want to cry because now you are in the laughter movement. You felt that crying is old fashioned. There is no such thing as fashion in God’s kingdom. It is O.K. just flow with the Spirit and cry and as you cry again there will be rejoicing that comes to you. This cycle will go on until Jesus comes again and by that time, you have become a very pliable person. You become like pure gold. Gold is the most pliable of all elements and metals. You could take one tiny little bit and stretch it so thin, flatten it so flat. In no other way that any other element can do. That is what God is doing. He is bringing out the pure gold in our life. Groaning and glorification are connected. Tears and laughter are connected. Let it continue to flow together in the cycle of God working in our life. That is point one.
Laughter is Healing Balm
Point two is that laughter is a healing balm in the body of Christ. For those of us who are in organization administration, corporation, you know one thing that is if you cannot have humor with your co-workers, you cannot work together. If you cannot laugh together or if you cannot share clean jokes together, you will find it hard to work together. We know that is true in corporate life. In the same way, because of the stress and the many things of doing God’s works, we need that healing balm to come upon our life.
Proverbs 17:22, A merry heart does good like medicine but a broken spirit dries the bones. Have you notice the other part of the verse? We all know the first part. A broken spirit dries the bones. Now we all have to be broken and contrite. We have to have a broken spirit because Isaiah 66 did say a contrite heart is something He looks for and we need humility in the terms of a broken spirit. That is why God put the two together because if all we have is brokenness without a merry heart we will dry up. So God knows and He balances it that we are broken and yet merry so you never dry up. You remain contrite and yet refreshed so He put the two together but one thing is its healing. It is a medicine to our soul.
Proverbs 15:15, All the days of the afflicted are evil but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast. Notice it did not say that he who has a continual feast has a merry heart. He says that the merry heart comes first and then the feast. That if your heart is merry there will always be provision. There will be healing and there will be prosperity when you have a merry heart. That is why God restores laughter. For laughter, in point two break the curse. The curse came upon mankind when Adam fell and when Adam fell God cursed mankind to sorrow. In Genesis 3: 16, God said to the woman, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow.” To the man in verse17, He says, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Moreover, the word toil does not just talk about the hard work. It talks about hard sorrowful evil world. The same world has become a burden that causes grief. When the curse came into the Garden of Eden sorrow came. Now when God reveals His creation, the whole creation is groaning. The end result of groaning is laughter. Laughter breaks the curse. Allow God to fill you with His joy.
Now there is no standard laughter. It does not say that you have to laugh by rolling on the floor. There can be all kind of laughter but make sure its genuine. Cause a merry heart do good like medicine. A merry heart has a continual feast. A merry heart breaks the curse of sickness. A merry heart breaks the curse of poverty. Let God fills you with His joy. Enjoy the Lord’s Presence. Enjoy His fullness of His Presence. Laughter breaks the curse. You may be doing all right and God may be blessing you but maybe God wants to bless you more. So just be open that He could do a work in your life and He wants to bless you more and breaks the curse in your life.
Laughter Breaks Devil’s Strategy
Ps.2: 1, Why do the nation rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’ Listen to what happens in verse 4, `He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.’
Point three; laughter breaks the devil’s strategy against your life. Remember verse1-3, The people plotted against the Anointed of God, against Jesus, against God. How did God respond? God laughed and the word derision is not just an attitude that God holds against them because in the next verse He poured out His wrath but the word derision also implies that the Lord causes them to scatter. Remember the promise in Deut.28:7, The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come against you one way and flee before you seven ways. I could put point 3 as laughter scatters the enemy. It just upset the strategy of the enemy. In the same way like praise and worship does. When the people praise and worship God in Jehoshaphat’s time, the enemies were confused. When God’s people are filled with the oil of gladness and rejoiced in Him the enemies’ camp got confused. They do not know what is happening because all they hear is “Ho! Ho! Ho!” In addition, the enemies got confused. God scattered the enemies as He fill His people with laughter. Here God Himself laughed!
Ps. 126:2, Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad. Bring back our captivity O Lord, as the streams in the South. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing shall doubtless, come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. It is gathering time. The visitation of laughter is God telling us its time to gather in the sheaves. See when the enemy is scattered what happens? They leave behind the spoils. It is time for harvest. Now it is easier to fight against a fleeing enemy than a confronting enemy because an enemy that runs from you, all you do is go and pick up the spoil. Moreover, what is happening is that God fills His people with that joy. The enemy flees and you could go and gather the spoil.
Back to Ps. 2: 5, Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure. “Yet I have set My king on My holy hill Zion.” I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. Do you notice that its gathering time? You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. And it says here in verse 11, Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest He be angry. Now verse 11, He is telling us to rejoice and Ps. 126 tells us that rejoicing is involved with filling our mouth with laughter. Causes us to rejoice, because God is dealing with the enemy and when God deals with the enemy, He causes His people to rejoice. When the people of God rejoice, the angels of God work powerfully, scattering the enemy.
It is interesting to note that Ps.2: 7 refers to the Resurrection of Jesus. It was quoted by Paul in Acts 13: 33, You are My Son today I have begotten you,’ and he was talking of the Resurrection of Jesus. See when Jesus was crucified, Satan thought that he has won and now Paul gives us a different picture of the Resurrection of Jesus. Moreover, this full picture takes place according to Ps. 2, the whole creation was weeping because man has crucified the Son of God. The enemy is rejoicing. All the demons were rejoicing. All the Pharisees and all the evil people on this earth were rejoicing. They were mocking, jeering Jesus and all the disciples were weeping and all the women who loved Jesus, who supported Jesus, were weeping and crying but on the third day, suddenly they hear this noise coming form the throne of God.
Some of us think that all God did was that He came from His throne and said, “Arise!” and Jesus rose. It did not happen like that. Ps.2 gives us a different picture. While all the demons were rejoicing, all those good people were mourning and weeping and scattered. All the angels were weeping and all heaven was silent. Suddenly from the throne of God came this sound, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” A sound that has become very familiar to some of you. Then He says, He who sits on His throne laughed. Now lets be open to it. I am sure when God laughs, He really laughs. There is no pretence about it. I could never imitate because I never heard how it sounds like. And suddenly the oil of gladness started taking over and the holy laughter rings down to the earth and it reaches the Son of God and a light came to Him and the voice of God says, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” In addition, Jesus rises up from the dead and suddenly all the demons are crying. Then Jesus came down to His weeping, sorrowful, sad disciples and said, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” Moreover, he says in John 16: 24, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full.” Moreover, He was giving an indication the kind of joy that we could experience. He taught His disciples for forty days and rose to heaven. The disciples waited for ten days and as they waited for the ten days, they were very solemn-faced. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, some of them really became drunk, and all the people said that they were drunkard. Peter stood up and said, “This is not drunkenness for it is only the third hour of the day.” Nobody gets drunk at this time and said this is the Holy Ghost who fills you with His joy.’ Therefore, what we have is the visitation of God. Laughter is linked to the Resurrection power of Jesus. Ps.2 the enemy is scattered. That is point No. 3.
Laughter, A Sign of the Endtimes
Last point and then we close. After that, you can laugh all the way home and then laugh all the way to the bank and laugh all the way out of hospital too.
Point No.4, Heb.1: 9, “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness therefore God, your God has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.” Now when did that take place? The fullness of the measure of the Holy Spirit came upon Him when John the Baptist baptized Him. However, read Heb. 1, he is talking about after His resurrection. This is post resurrection because in verse 8, he has been resurrected and he says to him, “Your throne, O God,” talking about Jesus whose Name is now proclaimed. Jesus Christ to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father (Phil.2). Your throne O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is a scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, Therefore God, your God has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions,’ and that is the fresh measure of the Spirit that is only available after Jesus resurrection that He shared with us.
Now let us cross reference to where it came from. Ps. 45:6 -7, we know that this is not the only scripture because Isaiah 61 also talks about the same thing; the oil of gladness and that is after Jesus came to this earth. When He came into this earth, He only quoted Isaiah 61:1-2 but the other verses were not fulfilled. Look at the title of this Psalms 45. It is a special Psalms. It says,The Glories of the Messiah and His bride. He is talking about the last days and King David says, My heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You are fairer than the sons of men, grace is poured upon Your lips; therefore God has blessed You forever. Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility and righteousness. And your right hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies; the peoples fall under You.’
Do you notice that he talk about judgment in the wrath of God? Remember that Ps.2 also talk about the wrath of God when he talk about laughter. He is talking about end times. Verse 6, Your throne O, God is forever and ever, the scepter of righteousness is a scepter of Your kingdom. You loved righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions. All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad. King’s daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand sits the queen in gold from Ophir.’ Who is this queen? The bride of Jesus Christ!
This restoration of God’s joy is God clothing His bride and anointing His bride for His coming. He wants a cheerful bride. It is the sign of the end time because when God laughs judgment begins. Judgment has begun in the house of God. It has come. It has been completed. Now God gives His joy. Now the judgment is finished in the house of God. Judgment begins in the house of the world. People of God laugh but the judgment has begun. This is the sign of the end times and also of the preparation of the bride of Jesus Christ.
3. READINESS FOR GOD’S MOVE
We are going to look into God’s Word and see what causes revival and how to move with God when God moves. There are laws and principles in the bible that we have to flow along when God moves. A revival is a manifestation of God’s presence that He gives to us so that we could continue to walk on from there. The move of the Spirit can never replace the teaching of His Word or being established in His Word. Neither does the workings of His Word replace the move of the Spirit. We need to always combine the Word and the Spirit.
Lets look in the book of Leviticus 9:1-4 It came to pass on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel. And he said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a young bull as a sin offering and a ram as a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. And to the children of Israel you shall speak saying, “Take a kid of the goats as a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish as a burnt offering. Also a bull and a ram as peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with oil; for today the Lord will appear to you.”
It’s interesting here that Moses is speaking to Aaron about a special manifestation of the Lord. We know that these are the times of the tabernacle where everyday they can see God’s presence over above the tabernacle of the Lord. For it was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. So everyday they can see God’s presence over above the tabernacle of meeting where the ark of God was and where it was laid. But God was speaking to Aaron about a special manifestation. And surprisingly even though God promised a manifestation, there is an order by which you still have to approach God. Moses said to Aaron that God is going to appear to him, but before He does so He wants him to do some things and he gave all the instructions.
I wondered how many of us have heard the Spirit of God or perhaps a prophecy that came in your prayer meeting that said, “The Lord is going to meet with you. The Lord is going to appear to you. The Lord is going to do something.” I remember that months before the Lord appeared to me on January 1986 I had a sort of feeling in my life that God was going to manifest something. You know that God is going to manifest. You sort of know that something special manifestation of God is in store.
In the same way before God manifest, before God gives His special appearance and presence like He gave to Aaron over and above what He normally does, there are some indications of what He wants to do. He told Moses in advance and He will speak to your spirit. Sometimes you sensed that something special is going to happen in your prayer meeting. Sometimes you sensed something is going to happen in your home fellowship. But remember this just because you sensed it alone doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. What you sensed is only the first part.
God told Moses, “I am going to appear to Aaron. I am gong to show My glory to him.” But He is not going to automatically appear. Don’t confuse the word automatic with a revival. A revival has something to do with man and something to do with God, not just only all of God or only all of man. Perhaps God has been dealing in your family and saying, “I am going to do something special in your life. I am going to manifest My grace upon your life, something good is going to happen.” When you know that something good has to do with some special blessing, some special manifestation, don’t sit back and relax. It’s the worst thing you could ever do. Don’t sit back on your laurels and say, “Well, God said it, I believe it and that settles it. I am doing nothing about that.” You will receive nothing. I wonder how many people have missed God because of that attitude. I wonder how many promises of manifestation have been missed and aborted because the people had sat back and relaxed when that’s the time they were supposed to do more for God. What did they do? God will speak to your life from time to time. He is not going to appear to you continually all the time and keep you slain under the power for twenty four hours for three hundred and sixty five days a year because you won’t be a human being any more. You might as well go up and be an angel. No, God will not allow you to evade your natural responsibilities, your work and your calling that you have to do.
After He appeared to Aaron, the glory of God withdrew and he has to go about doing his work. But there is something that he kept - a greater presence of God. Every time God manifests, do you know what happen? You have a greater presence of God. There is something that cannot be taken away from my life ever since Jesus appeared. The awareness of His presence is everywhere I go. The more you have a manifestation of Jesus in your life the greater your sense of His presence. Every one of us carries inside us an inward sense of His presence. But we carry that sense to different degrees. Some of us sense His presence to that much perhaps one volt some of us two volts, some of us as hundred volts. There are different degrees of His presence and consciousness we carry.
The wonderful thing about balancing the Word and the Spirit is this. If all you have is the Word, do you know what you lose? You lose that freshness. You lose that touch. And all you have is a lot of knowledge boiling up but the acute sense of His presence is missing. The other extreme is when you are aware of His presence but you seldom read the Word. Or if you are aware of His presence but you are weak in the Word, you will grow to a certain extend but you will find that at a certain point you become stunted. Even common experience becomes stale. Christmas turkey tastes nice once a year. But if you have it everyday, you will be so sick of turkey that you never want to see a turkey again. Good food tastes nice but you can’t have it everyday. I know sometimes just out of an expression people says, “I could have that everyday,” but you know in our heart that’s not what you mean. If you have that everyday, you would get sick of it. I read about how one father wanted to get his children off ice cream. He got ice-cream everyday, ice cream for lunch, ice cream for dinner. And for one week, all they ate was ice cream. After a week, the children said, “Please, no more ice-cream.” And good food that tantalizes all your sensory organs is not good anymore when you have it all the time.
In the same way, the manifestations of God are periodic. They are periodic to freshen us up and then we go back to the Word. Then we go to His manifestation and then we go back to the Word. So, in the same measurement God will manifest to you from time to time. Do you know that even though He appeared in a vision to you last year or two years ago He still wants to appear to you. He still wants to meet and talk with you. Even recently, when He talked to me after my New Zealand trip, He talked to me about what He wanted to do in Asia. He continues to talk to you. He tells you what He wants to do and you flow along with His plan. Yesterday’s manna is no good for today. But yesterday’s manna can give you some lessons, some principles that will be good for today. So in the same way remember there will be an ongoing experience.
When was the last time you had an experience with God? When was the last time you wept in His love? That was about twenty years ago. When was the last time that you sang with all your heart privately to God with tears running down your cheeks to commit to Him? You do not commit yourself to Christ only once. The prayer of dedication is a prayer you have to say everyday. But there special times where He draws you with His presence. And those must not be too few and far apart. It is just like lovers who meet each other too infrequently. Absence can make the hearts grow fonder but out of sight, out of mind. Every English proverb has its opposite. So there is a certain separation where you don’t contact or write to even your loved one, your friend, your husband, your wife, see what happen. You contact each other to let the love blossom. We realize that there is such a thing as a period of separation that does make your heart grow fonder. But then there is a certain too much of it doing the same thing everyday it becomes no more special. So there is a balance between the special occasion and the normal occasion to keep the fire of love burning.
In the same way, when God has His relationship with us He balances between the Word and the Spirit. We need to understand that God wants to have a meeting with you from time to time. I do not think that it’s going to be once in your lifetime. Neither do I think that it’s going to be once in ten years. Possibly several times a year if not several times a month, God wants to have a meeting with you where He rekindles your love and your spirit in Him to keep the fire burning. So, if you have not had one for the last twenty to thirty years than afterwards when we sing a song you come right up and repent. You may possibly be in a backslidden condition. So that’s the first thing we see God will make a special appointment with you or give you special times when He witnesses in your spirit.
When God says, “I am going to appear to you,” some people take it lightly. When God says that, one of the things that we have to do to prepare for His meeting is to do more of the spirit realm and clothe ourselves in the Spirit. Get ready for what He is about to do. So that when He comes, you are ready. If you show up with mud all over you, God takes one look at you and says, “You are not ready for My meeting at all.” And what God has promised He couldn’t fulfill because it was conditional. You didn’t meet His condition when you meet with Him. If He ever manifest in your condition He will burn everything up that is imperfect including you. So, that is why in His mercy He withheld Himself even though He has said He will meet with us.
Notice that when He has said that to Aaron about what He wants to do, Aaron and the children of Israel had to do special offerings. It says in verse two he has the sin offering, the burnt offering. Then in verse three that day all the children of Israel also have to give special offering. Now Aaron and the children of Israel in that context are related. In other words, Aaron was going to establish the priesthood for the first time. For the first time God is going to manifest the priesthood. And so, the priesthood is for the benefit of the Israelites. And so, the Israelites and Aaron were like one big family.
When God speaks to you that He is going to meet you and perhaps, you are the father of the house. You know what you should do. Get the rest of your family members ready. They are the children of Israel in our context. When God speaks to you as a mother or as a wife He is going tell you to tell your husband, tell your children that God says He is going to meet with me at such and such a time. We all get ready for that. Otherwise, your own family members may hinder you to get that touch from God because a distraction will come right at that time. If you remember Anthony’s son, Eugene was sharing how when Jesus appeared to him in his room, He was sitting on his bed talking to him. Right at that time the mother came and knocked on the door, “Eugene go and hang up the clothes.” Jesus was right there and the mother wants Eugene to hang up the clothes. What is Eugene going to say, “Jesus wait for me. Wait for me to hang up the clothes.” You know what happened. Eugene didn’t reply, didn’t say anything. She knocked several times and didn’t know what was happening inside. I talked to the mother and she said, “I didn’t know what was going on.” Praise God Eugene didn’t go and hang the clothes. God continued to talk to him and prepared him for the ministry. That was just an incident that was not so bad. At least there was no interruption. But it could be worse. Good thing the door was locked. I wonder what would have happened if the door was not locked.
How many of you when you are so deep in God in His presence and the voice of God is so clear it’s just like someone sitting next to you and talking to you. You are talking to God, God is talking to you and there comes this phone call. Usually if I am praying I will tell my family to tell them, “I am praying; please, no disturbances at all.” My family understands what happen if somebody doesn’t understand and the phone start ringing. Urgent, very urgent. We found out that some of the very urgent calls were not urgent at all. The interruption comes when you are in the presence of God. So that is why it’s important that when God speaks to you, tell it to those who are close to you. Get them to be a part and parcel like getting the children of Israel ready. So that when God manifest you won’t be interrupted.
In the same way if you know that you have rented an auditorium and you know God is going to move that day, what must you do? Tell the people whom you rented the auditorium from, “Please on that day we may want to go on and on for several hours after that.” Otherwise, you know what may happen. At ten sharp, they switch off the lights just when Jesus was about to appear. You did not get those floor managers and technicians involved in what God wants to do at the meeting. So prepare, tell, get it organized for God to show up. Most of us are caught that way. It should never be that way. You would sense in your spirit that God is going to do something. And you will be able to prepare. You could pull the phone off the hook or tell your loved ones, “I sense or I know or I perceive that God is going to say something to me during this time. Please see that I am not disturbed.” People will be most willing to co-operate with you. But you need to get them organized.
That was what Moses got all the Israelites. The Israelites all have to give special offering that day. They also had to give a sin offering, they had to give a burnt offering. Do you notice there are two things sin offering and burnt offering. Sin offering represents those things that are not lawful. Burnt offering represents those things that are not expedient that you got to give to God. A burnt offering is voluntary, a sin offering is involuntary, and it’s compulsory. When God says He wants to appear to you it doesn’t mean you sit back and do nothing. It means you have to examine any area that you have broken God’s laws. Get that sin offering the blood of Jesus to cover you. Secondly, get rid of those things that are inexpedient. Perhaps you are due for a vacation. Right at the same time, that Jesus wants to appear to your life. Cancel that vacation. Your burnt offering is going to wake you up more than ever before. Or it will wake you up in the middle of the night to spend time with God. Or going aside during a certain in your daytime and getting prepared in God. A lot of gifts, a lot of signs and a lot of wonders have been missed when people didn’t prepare themselves.
Let me tell you the story of William Branham. He had a tremendous call of God. All his life he felt strangeness because he knew that God has something in his life and he couldn’t put together what it was. Until one day he told his wife and said, "I can’t stand it any more. There is something odd, special, and peculiar. I don’t understand all these things. There are strange things happening in my life. Strange manifestation but I don’t understand what it is.” And he took a flask of water and said, "I am going into that forest and I am not coming back again until God speaks to me about what these strange things are about." He went, he fasted, and he prayed. And during that time, an angel appeared to him and told him about his life. He told him about the two signs that God will always work in his life.
As I read that story, what came to my mind is this - what would have happened if he didn’t go aside and wait on the Lord? He would have lived and died without manifesting one tenth of what God wants to do in his life. Would God have permitted it? Yes, because He has given a free will to him. A lot of us have gifts and callings that God has on our lives with signs and wonders that God wants to do in our lives. Unfortunately we are not serious enough, we are not dedicated enough, to be willing to get aside with God and say, “God let me once and for all find out all these things that You want to do in my life.” We do not find out what instrument God wants to use in our life and the kind of capabilities He wants to work through our lives.”
And after he came out from there, William Branham was a different man. Every time he ministers, he would always wait for the angel to come. When the angel comes, he never missed it; he will tell you your name, your address and tell you what problem you are having. He never missed it because he ministered with a visual angel. What happens if he didn’t get aside and get an answer from God? He would have lived with a set of tools that are not properly used. Sometimes God has given you spiritual tools and spiritual gifts that are sharp, that are super, but unless you get aside with God and find out what those tools are you will be living the rest of your life not really using the tools like what you want. It would be like somebody giving you a brand new car. And you took it and decorate it and you put it in your garage as a decoration. In the same way, God gives us gifts but sometimes we are not making full use of the gifts that God has given onto us because we have not taken a time aside to find out the gifts and the calling of God that he has on our life.
So the second thing they did was prepare. Send a burnt offering plus several others special offering as in verse 4 also a bull and a ram as peace offerings. The bull and the ram represent those things that you do during that time that God wants to manifest to you. Just like if you know before hand that God wants to do something in your life so you began to prepare yourself for a month. Finally, it came to the D-day that God and you are to meet. Perhaps you fasted for forty days and forty nights. And you know God called you to that fast. And so, for thirty-nine days you fasted and went about doing your work. And this was the fortieth day you have to do something that is likened to the bull and the ram. In other words, take that day off if you can. It is a special day and gives the entire day to the Lord. Some people fasted for forty days and forty nights and everyday was the same. No, it’s not the same. Your beginning and conclusion are always special. Because when you do something for God, the beginning and the conclusion are always special. Your first day of the fast is most important and the rest of the way is battle. And the last day of your fast is vitally important. Now all that you have been doing for thirty-nine days have been very good, very dedicated, you really have been sacrificial. But what you do on your fortieth day must be super sacrificial. In other words, everyday you have been working and spending about four hours everyday with God. Then on that day, you take leave and you consecrate your whole life to God morning till night. Then some of you who have been saying that God did not speak to you in that fast begin to find He does speak to you.
But the difference is that you didn’t know these principles. And you got the burnt offering and the sin offering done but the bull and the ram offering represent what you do during that time He is going to meet with you. The others are the background. Now we are talking about the very day He is going to meet with you. Remember God is very particular about that. He told Moses to come out early and meet with Him on the mountain. He told Elijah to go to a certain mountain and meet with Him. Elijah also knows that God sometimes make His meeting place at this mountain, at that mountain. Perhaps on the last three days of your fast you took leave to go out to a mountain away from your family, away from everything to be alone with God. You remember the sins offering, you remember the burnt offering but you forgot the bull and the ram offering what you are supposed to do during the time He is going to meet with you. Do you expect God to meet with you in the supermarket? On the fortieth of your fast, you went to the supermarket to do shopping because on the forty first day you are going to eat. Of all days that is the day He planned to meet with you and you are out there in the supermarket. He is not going to appear to you while you are going around the supermarket.
What you want to do is to offer your bull and ram offering. You know that is the conclusion. That’s the time you get yourself ready for Him to appear. Just like one housewife, I call her Mrs. J. She told me of this experience one day. How she was really hungry and thirsty for God. One day she got up early and then she set a table as if Jesus was going to come that day. I don’t encourage that every one of you do the same method. That was the method she happened to use. So, that day she woke up early. She cleans the house as if Jesus was going to walk into the house physically. She cooks the best meal ever as if Jesus was going to come. After she set everything she knelt down and said, “Dear Lord, this is the day for Your welcome.” She said she felt a cold wind starting to blow. And she felt a presence like she never felt before and she wept and cried, she wept, she cried. The only thing she didn’t do is eating.
Like I said if you got experiences, it will remain with you all your life. If you know you are going to spend time with God, where do you want God to appear to you? Do you have a suitable place and time? Are there going to be physical logistic problem in Him meeting you. Set it apart as if He is going to meet you physically. Then you will never ever say again He didn’t keep His appointment. He always does. But we must do our part. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you.
Notice here when Aaron had done everything as required of him in verse 8, 9, 10 etc. Then verse 15 he brought the people’s offering. Do you know how much work was done from verse 8 to verse 22? So, they went to great trouble to have the Lord meet with them. Have you gone to much trouble to have the Lord meet with you? Or do you have a couldn’t-care-less attitude. The Lord wants to meet with me, so what? That kind of attitude will not engender a good relationship with the Lord. After all those hard work, God rewarded him in verse 23 Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.
Every time before I minister, I ask the Lord what He wants to do. Sometimes He had shown me exactly what He wants to do in the service. Then the Lord’s glory appeared. There is nothing like the Lord keeping His appointment with you. There is nothing like a revival God promised to your life. I sensed in my spirit that God wants to deal with your life and want to make an appointment in your life. Of course, we do meet with God while we gather together every Sunday but there are some things that can only come between you and God. There are some situations that only you and God can get together and be alone together. No one, no human vessel should stand between you and Jesus Christ. That’s where may God grant you the grace to be able to meet with Him.
This series is found at http://www.eaglevision.com.my/zmove.htm
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