Second Service — Judges 7:7

This morning I used an English Bible since the service was going to be broadcast on the radio, and we placed a little more emphasis on English. Now at least I have a little more freedom to do it directly in Spanish, and in the Book of Judges, chapter 7, we are going to turn to verses 9 through 23.

It says there, “Then the Lord said to Gideon, ‘With these 300 men who lapped the water I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hands; let all the rest of the people go, each one to his own place.’ And after taking provisions for the people and their trumpets, he sent all the Israelites, each one to his tent, and kept those 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below, in the valley. It came to pass that night that the Lord said to him, ‘Arise and go down to the camp, for I have delivered it into your hands. And if you are afraid to go down, go down with Purah, your servant, to the camp, and you will hear what they are saying; then your hands will be strengthened, and you will go down to the camp.’

And he went down with Purah, his servant, as far as the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. And the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the people of the East were lying in the valley, as numerous as locusts, and their camels were innumerable, like the multitude of sand on the seashore. When Gideon arrived, behold, a man was telling his companion a dream, saying, ‘Behold, I dreamed a dream. I saw a loaf of barley bread rolling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent—that is, the general’s main tent—and struck it so hard that it fell and overturned from top to bottom, and the tent collapsed.’

And his companion answered and said, ‘This is nothing other than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has delivered the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.’ When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped; and when he returned to the camp of Israel, he said, ‘Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hands.’ And dividing the 300 men into three companies, he gave all of them trumpets for their hands and empty jars with firebrands—that is, torches—burning inside the jars. And he said to them, ‘Watch me and do as I do. Behold, when I reach the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do. I and all those who are with me will blow the trumpet, and then you shall blow the trumpets all around the camp and say, “For the Lord and for Gideon.”’

So Gideon and the 100 men who were with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the midnight watch, just after the sentries had been changed. And they blew the trumpets and broke the jars they carried in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars, taking the torches in their left hands and the trumpets they were blowing in their right hands, and they cried out, ‘For the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’ And each man stood firm in his place around the camp. Then the whole army began to run, shouting and fleeing. And the 300 blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah, toward Zererah, and as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. And the men of Israel from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh gathered together and pursued the Midianites.” May the Lord bless His holy Word.

I hope that if you did not have your Bible, you were able to follow the chronology of this account. It is a fascinating account of war. I do not know why a good movie has not been made with Gideon as the main character, because the truth is that he is an exceedingly interesting figure, and his entire biography lends itself very well to many highly dramatic things. And it is like a distillation, a condensation, of many themes that we see throughout Scripture.

I love this passage, and I have preached before about Gideon’s life because God, as you know, records these historical accounts in Scripture not merely so that they may remain recorded there for the historian’s interest, but above all for a practical purpose—and you know what that is, don’t you? It is so that, as you read these passages, you may understand how God worked in ancient times, because He works in the same way throughout all of history, which means that just as He worked at that time, He can also work in your life today. Not only that, but God also wants you, as you study these passages, to draw from them the spiritual principles you need in order to unleash the power of God on behalf of your own life. And what we see here is a scene of great disadvantage and great crisis.

Israel, if you read all the preceding chapters, has been under the power and dominion of a very powerful army, a nation that, whenever it feels like it, comes in, plunders the nation, takes away everything it wants to take, and leaves the people poor; then, a few years later, it returns and does the same thing again with complete impunity because the Jews are too weak to do anything about it. The Word says that the people of God had prostituted themselves by pursuing idolatry; they had sinned systematically and repeatedly against the Lord, and God unleashes this military plague against them to warn and confront them about their ways, about the way they are dealing with Him. Throughout history, God did the same thing with Israel. Century after century, the Jews became corrupt, and God sent judgment upon them. Then the Jews repented because they suffered and saw the fire that was falling upon them; they repented and cried out to God, God sent prophets who confronted them, and then He sent someone to deliver them. A time of prosperity and freedom would come, and then the same cycle would return once again and repeat itself every time; and this is what is happening at this moment.

God has sent the Amalekites, the Midianites, and other tribal groups to attack Israel and keep it weak, because many times God sends judgment and punishment not because God takes pleasure in punishment, but because He loves us and wants us, through the trial, to come to our senses, seek God, and repent. And like this nation, we are in something similar today; and the Church of Jesus Christ—Israel being a type of the Church, or rather, what was true for Israel is also true for the children of God. And we read these passages because there are lessons of spiritual life here for us as well.

And what we see here, then, is a situation of great disadvantage. Israel is surrounded by the enemy, and God has sent this man, inexperienced in war, to deliver his people. And I draw a parallel to what is happening today here in the United States, and not only in the United States but throughout the Western world, with respect to the Church of Jesus Christ. In the same way, we, the Church of Jesus Christ in this time and in this nation, find ourselves in a disadvantaged position. We too, brothers and sisters, are surrounded by powers, by political and cultural currents that are contrary to the interests of the Church and the Kingdom of God. The Christian Church in the United States is weak, just as it is in all the countries of Europe, in Australia, and in Canada. The Gospel is losing ground. Every day the word of Christ is heard less and less. Churches are dying left and right in Massachusetts; they are closing their doors. There are many discouraged pastors with tiny, small congregations. I believe the average church size in Massachusetts is about 50 people at most. There is tremendous weakness. People regard Christianity with great skepticism and often with hostility.

Pastors are viewed negatively. Every day they want to relegate the Gospel more and more to the most remote room of the culture. And today, when the Gospel is not opposed and met with resistance, it is simply regarded as ridiculous and as though it simply did not matter. Here in Massachusetts we see all the currents currently at work, which show that the Church seems to have lost its power; and everything suggests that over the next 15 or 20 years, unless there is a powerful intervention from God, things will continue to go from bad to worse. And this is repeated throughout the Western world, where industrialization, technology, reason, and culture have penetrated the values of an exceedingly secular society, governed by the values of science rather than of the spirit, which every day moves farther and farther away from the values God has declared throughout His Word.

Today people say, “Well, if you want to be a Christian, that is your business. Live your Christian life in your private world, but do not expect the values of your Christianity to penetrate the broader sphere of society—say, the arts, government, the business world, or the world of science or knowledge.” In those places, the Church is simply expected to remain silent. And every day we find ourselves more and more hemmed in on every side by a force we cannot understand, one that is gradually diminishing the vitality of the people of God.

That is why it is very easy for the Church to feel as Gideon felt when the angel came and appeared to him while he was trying to thresh the wheat and prepare it for its intended use, hidden so that the enemy would not see him and come steal it from him. And the angel appeared to him and said, “God is with you, mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said, “Well, but if He is with us, why are we in such a terrible condition? Why are we so isolated, and what could I possibly do if I am the least member of a small tribe in a nation under oppression?” Gideon has been so beaten down by the enemy’s strength that he cannot believe God could be with him or with his nation to deliver it from the yoke. And that, I believe, is how we often feel here. How many Christians, if they truly examine their subconscious, do not feel that they are in a world that is moving farther and farther away from the faith every day? We feel besieged, as though we were in a castle and all around us could hear the cries of a great army that wants to destroy us, break through the gates, and eat us alive. We feel opposed, surrounded, and engaged in a struggle against powers greater than ourselves.

Well, brothers and sisters, I want to tell you that God has good news for us and that God has a blessing for His people. God wants to teach us how to wage war, and that is why I jumped ahead to this point here, where Gideon is already prepared to enter the battle. And what we see here is that God gives Gideon certain principles he can use to wage war against the enemy, and we too must use those principles in our time.

I want to share, very quickly, five elements I shared this morning that we as Christians must use to take the battle to the enemy. And not only that: I would say, brothers and sisters, that even for any situation in your life, there is something God can do through this teaching. It is a teaching directed primarily toward the Church of Jesus Christ, toward the army God wants to raise up, because God wants to bring revival to Massachusetts. God wants to bring revival to our community. Right now, as I look around, I see this place completely full, and glory to God for that. But do you know what, brothers and sisters? I see multitudes; I see this scene multiplied 5, 10, 15 times. That is what interests me, brothers and sisters. And do you know what? It is not because I want to see a large group of people or because that would somehow stroke my ego; it is because I know that when the Gospel enters lives and families, transformations take place, chains are broken, families are blessed, marriages are healed, rough edges are smoothed, and children are reconciled with their parents. Hope arises for a community; there is healing. And that is why we cannot allow the values of the Gospel to be isolated and put away in a drawer to be forgotten, because that is the only hope for this society, brothers and sisters.

Scientists, sociologists, educators, and intellectuals have something to say, but I tell you, brothers and sisters, that the solution to the problems of our cities and our communities lies only in the values of the Kingdom of God—in that Word that is there when it is truly applied. And that is why it is important for us to learn to use these principles and pass them on to others, because God wants to give us a tremendous harvest for the Gospel.

Brothers and sisters, I am straying a little from the thread, but I have a great sense of urgency for God to allow us to build our new sanctuary. I have not mentioned it much for months because we are conducting some negotiations and all of that. Pray: one of the things we need is confirmation of the loan we require to build this sanctuary, which is going to cost quite a bit, and right now the architects and engineers are drawing up the plans. Our great desire is that next year, by the end of the year at the latest, we will be beginning construction on our sanctuary, because I know that we need a larger place, for the coming harvest is immense. The things God wants to do in this season are tremendous. Right now we are on the verge of a revival. God wants to bring a very great visitation and an unprecedented harvest of souls, and we have to be preparing ourselves.

God is preparing this congregation. God is stirring the waters. You feel a greater intensity in the worship. You feel lives being touched, and I want all of you to be part of a great miracle that God wants to bring to Massachusetts. God is going to use the poor, God is going to use those who do not speak English, God is going to use housewives, God is going to use the uneducated, God is going to use those who do not have great financial resources, and He is going to glorify Himself through instruments who will put the great and powerful of the earth to shame. But what we have to do is learn the techniques of warfare, learn how to take the battle to the enemy, how to present a powerful Gospel, a Gospel full of life, a Gospel that is hope, a Gospel that is joy.

We have to say to the Lord: Father, fill me first. Heal me first. Heal my home first. Put Your vitality in me, put Your joy in me, put Your knowledge in me, so that when people look at me, they will say, “I want what that person has.” First we have to ask the Lord: heal our children, heal our families, heal our minds, heal our emotions, heal our relationships; enter, Lord, into the structures of my life, my family, my home, and then make me a demonstration of the abundant life that Christ can give me. I look at many of you, and I know what is happening in your lives: God is laying claim to you, God is visiting you, God is entering the inner chambers of your soul and is cleansing and healing your lives and preparing you to be an instrument of God. I ask you to let Him deal with you, to be people who are passionate about God. Invest, brothers and sisters, invest, because the harvest is great.

If someone told you, “Look, if you work hard and exert yourself, you will collect a million dollars within three years,” wouldn’t you get down to work with everything you had? Of course you would, right? Well, do you know what? The Lord Jesus Christ says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a great pearl, a precious pearl, and went home and sold everything he had to buy that pearl. And the Lord also says that it is like a man who discovered a treasure in a hidden place, buried in the ground, and went everywhere, sold everything he had, obtained enough money, and bought the land so that he could possess the treasure. Do you know what, brothers and sisters? God wants to place a harvest of souls in your hands. God wants to use you as an instrument. God wants to ennoble your soul, as He did with Peter, whom He turned from a fisherman of smelly fish into a fisher of men. God wants to make you an instrument of His grace in this city, but you need to invest in the Kingdom of God; you need to work, study the Word, pray, fast, come to church, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and interact with the Spirit of God so that He can use you, ennoble you, raise you up, and make you a counselor, an evangelist, a preacher, a teacher, a rescuer of young lives. But you have to enter into warfare for your inheritance. God wants to do it in your life. Wouldn’t you like to be one of the great men or women whom God uses?

In the Spirit of the Lord, stand up right now if you want to be one of those people. Do not do it out of courtesy; do it because you truly want to, and we are going to ask the Lord to impart it to us. Let us take a little moment here to do that. If you want to—only if you feel that God is calling you—do not do it out of courtesy, because it is not about courtesy at all; it is about truly wanting the Spirit of God to make you into a powerful instrument for His glory.

Make a covenant with God right now. Say to the Father: Lord, whether I am advanced in years and have only the final years of my life remaining, or I have many years ahead of me because I am young, I want to dedicate them, or my profession, to You. I want You to use me. And right now, Lord, I covenant with You to cast everything aside, like that man who sold everything to buy a precious pearl. I give You everything so that I may be used by You. I surrender everything to You so that I may be an instrument in Your hands. Heal me and purify me.

Just ask the Lord, “Father, make me an instrument for Your glory. I am willing to pay the price,” and that is a very big thing to say.

But use us, Father. Look at these people, Lord. We want to be used by You. We want Your glory to invade this community, Lord. Glorify Yourself in Your children, Father. I bless them in the name of Jesus; I declare Your gifts. I declare Your anointing over their lives, Father. Begin with me, Lord. Fill us; fill our cups until they overflow with Your Spirit, with Your anointing, with Your oil, Father. We want passionate people, Lord. We want people who will not hinder You. We want people who will not place time limits on You. We want people who hunger for the things of the Spirit. Send Your power, Lord. Send Your grace to those young people up there, Lord. Turn them into warriors; turn them into fierce people for You, Lord. Look at the newcomers who may be here for the first time; I consecrate them to You, Father. I consecrate their lives, I consecrate their families, their emotions. Heal, heal in the name of Jesus. Break, shatter, Lord. Right now we break the devil’s yokes. We break spiritual bonds. We break the steel helmets surrounding the minds of Your children. We break the weights, Lord, and the burdens that the devil has laid upon lives. Now, in the name of Jesus, I break curses in the name of Christ. Father, I declare families free, Lord.

I declare hearts widened and emptied of every impurity so that there may be room in them for Your glory and Your oil, in the name of Jesus. Say amen. Say amen. Receive it in the name of Jesus. Father, we declare Your glory, Lord. We declare Your glory this morning. Raise up a fierce people, Father. Raise up a people among whom one person will bring one hundred, O Lord, into the house of God. May one hundred bring a million, Father, into the house of God. In the name of Jesus, make us radioactive in the things of the Spirit, Lord. Make us magnetic, Lord, so that when this community testifies about You and opens its mouth, Father, things will happen. Lord, may miracles happen, may lives be touched, Lord, and may their mouths bear the mark of authenticity. When they open their mouths, Lord, may it be the Holy Spirit speaking through them. In the name of Jesus, we release a flow of Your Spirit; we release waves, Lord, that are like earthquakes, Father, to shake the foundations of this city and of this church, Father. In the name of Jesus, may Your ointment flow, Lord; may Your anointing flow, Father; may all fear flee, beloved Lord; may all timidity flee, Father. May every cautious and fearful attitude, beloved Lord, and every faintheartedness give way in the name of Jesus, replaced by passion for You. Thank You, Lord. We receive it, we receive it, we receive it. Receive it there in your heart. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! In the name of Jesus, thank You, Lord; thank You, Christ. Amen and amen. Give the Lord a great round of applause, because God does it.

Take your seats. This is not the end of the sermon, but I promise I will be very, very quick. There are five things that we need to have in order to possess the land and defeat the enemy. I am going to list them for you one by one.

We need to confront the enemy. We need to confront the enemy. We need the anointing; there has to be confrontation, and there has to be God’s anointing in our lives. There has to be prophetic discernment in our lives and in the church of Jesus Christ. There has to be visibility for the people of God, and there has to be a proclamation of the complete Word of God in the midst of the city.

Confrontation, anointing, prophetic discernment, visibility, and proclamation. These are the five things, among perhaps many others, that we need to use to counteract what is happening in our culture. And I want to clarify something for our visitors and for people who may not be accustomed to the vocabulary I am using. I speak of an enemy, I speak of war, I speak of confrontation, I speak of spiritual violence. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you something: I am clear about one thing, and that is that we are a people who must have the love of Christ in our hearts. I am not talking about demonizing anyone out there. What I see out there is, rather, confused people who, as the Lord says to Jonah, “do not know their right hand from their left,” because the Word of God has not reached them or because the enemy, as the Apostle Paul says, has blinded their understanding so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ might not shine upon them.

When I speak of the enemy, that is the sense in which I mean it. To me, the true enemy is Satan, the enemy of souls, who knows only how to kill, steal, and destroy. The enemies are not homosexuals; the enemies are not intellectuals who have simply been deceived by Satan; the enemy is not the politicians who are trying to close the door on the church. The Lord Jesus Christ said through the Apostle Paul that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. I am speaking above all of warfare on the spiritual level. I am saying that the people of God must be militant on the spiritual level. I am saying that we must be certain that God has given us a revelation different from the one He has given to any other religion or any other spiritual movement. We have a revelation that comes directly from the mouth of God. This does not mean that we disrespect anyone or consider anyone an enemy. On the contrary, we love them. Every day, what moves me more and more is the love I have for the souls being lost out there, including those who speak against us and are simply possessed by a deception of their minds and spirits. What we want to do is enter and plunder the house of the thief who has stolen their souls and bring them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but we cannot be timid about that. We have to confront; there has to be a confrontation.

At a certain point, Gideon decides to go against the Midianites, and we see him here in this passage, ready to enter into confrontation with the enemy. In the same way, the church of Jesus Christ has to confront. Brothers and sisters, we are here in the world to carry out a countercultural movement. The church has always stood in opposition to the world. The church has always been an army trying to wrest power from an enemy who is illegitimately occupying the land. Satan is the prince of this world, and Christ parachuted the church in and told them, “Take that territory, which belongs to Me.” That is why the church must see itself as an army, and it must have that same militant, confrontational attitude, but with weapons of love. It is an aggressiveness that, paradoxically, does not exclude love, meekness, humility, or the awareness of our own need for God’s redemption; but we have to confront society.

If we remain silent and take our Gospel and put it under a chair—as Jesus Christ says, a light is not placed under a bed, but is placed in a high place so that it may give light—then we fail in our task. We have to confront this society with the message that not everything is all right, that there are sins God abhors, that there are behaviors that must be changed, that there are laws and moral principles that are harming the very roots of our community and our society, and that those things must be abandoned if we want to have societies that are productive and blessed by God.

So the church has to confront; the church has to identify the enemy and tell it, “We speak a word from God to you, and it is that there must be repentance.” Many churches have allowed themselves to be emotionally bribed, and nowadays they remain silent and do not proclaim the Gospel clearly; each one is simply there trying to please everyone and say what people want to hear. And I myself, brothers and sisters, every time I stand here on a Sunday, look out and see new people visiting, some of them very nicely dressed and obviously very educated people who perhaps do not share our understanding of the Gospel. Many times, I feel tempted to soften some of the things I say so as not to shock or hurt anyone. But, brothers and sisters, God has told me clearly that I must preach the whole Gospel. That is the only hope for this society, and we have to confront; we have to speak clearly to the world, and we have to identify these powers of rationalism, humanism, rebellion, enslavement to lust and sexual debauchery, of trying to define what humanity is and rebelling against what God has decreed man to be.

Brothers and sisters, God made us. God programmed us; the Word says that God wove everything we are in the womb, in our mother’s womb. The moral and spiritual code that God declared over us is written into our being. We can no more change our spiritual constitution than we can change our biological constitution. It cannot be done. What we have to do is enter into what God has declared for humanity, and the church must announce to society what God’s plan is for us, what program God has written into the being of man. When man tries to rebel against the divine programming, what he does is get himself into serious trouble.

In fact, nature itself rebels, because everything in the universe is connected—the biological with the psychological, with the spiritual, with the geological, everything. I sincerely believe that for this reason humanity is experiencing so many disasters on the geological level, on the level of nature, even in this nation, because... and I am not the only one who says this; some psychologists who have gone deeper, such as Carl Jung, talk about how mental energy also often penetrates the physical world. I believe that nature rebels against every kind of rebellion against God. When nations practice things that are abhorrent in light of the way God, as God, has structured the universe, the universe itself is shaken to its foundations, and there are tectonic movements as well, because there is resistance to the divine energy that wants to flow freely through the rebellious and resistant structures that human beings put up; then come the upheavals, the great disasters, the wars. Because the spirit of humanity and society is running wild, it is in stillness, and nature feels it and performs prophetic acts that reflect what is happening at the level of social structures.

And that is why the church—the church is the salt of the earth, the church is the light of the world, the church is the spiritual authority, the church is the mother who tells the rebellious teenagers, “Get in line with what your father says.” In the last days God will send prophets who, it says, will reconcile the hearts of the children with the hearts of the fathers. The church is that reconciling power. What does it say to society? We confront you because we love you, because the Father wants reconciliation with you. Dad is not standing there with a double-barreled shotgun wanting to shoot you. Dad says, “Come, come, I want to be reconciled with you; I want peace, but I need you to respect me, to adhere to my values.” But if the church abandons its confrontational voice in love, it loses its salt, it loses its flavor, and then it is good for nothing. We must confront in the love of Jesus Christ. We have to be people who confront in our schools, in our workplaces, in our homes, wherever we may be; in the love of Christ we have to say, “No, that cannot be done because God forbids it.” In our lives, we also have to confront ourselves and ask the Lord to purify us more and more each day, to cleanse us when structures that are rebellious against God’s will arise within us as well. Confrontation has to take place in every dimension. Gideon confronted the enemy.

Second, the church needs the anointing of God. Gideon was an anointed man; the angel had an encounter with Gideon, gave him an empowering look, filled him with the Spirit, and the next day Gideon moved and destroyed the idol of Asherah, and the people immediately came and gathered around Gideon, and Gideon issued a call and 32,000 men came. Why? Because God had given him the power to summon people. When God anoints a person, a church, or a ministry, He gives it power, an attractiveness, because that is needed in order to do what God wants it to do. The church needs it; we need it. That is why we had this moment of standing up, because we have to ask the Lord, “Lord, anoint us; fill us with Your Spirit.”

The Word says, “It is not by sword, it is not by an army; it is by My Spirit,” says Jehovah, the Lord. Battles are won in the power of the Spirit, but we need a united church. Last Sunday we talked about how we have to be filled with God. We have to stop looking outward and look to the God who empowers us. We have to cling to God, plug into God, so that the power of God may flow through us and then be manifested outwardly. We have to ask the Lord, “Father, empower me.” (Don’t worry—that is background music over there for someone who is... I wish they had chosen some slightly softer music, but that’s all right, at least...). The point is, brothers and sisters, that we need anointing. The church has to be anointed. There are many churches that have a lot of equipment. We have many beautiful buildings, money in the bank, great sound systems, and educational pedigrees for all the leaders, but if we do not have the power of God in our lives, the church will not be able to do anything. That is why it is so good when we take time to worship the Lord.

You see, when you spend 40 minutes, 50 minutes worshiping... we have to understand what is happening there. It is not simply singing “Kumbaya” and having a romantic little moment with one another. When we are worshiping the Lord and the atmosphere is being charged with spiritual energy, you become like one of those batteries that is receiving power. Worship, the anointing of God, the energy being released into the air, is like a vapor penetrating through your pores and softening you, opening you up inside—in your mind, in your emotions. You are being filled with the presence of God. You are being massaged by the Holy Spirit. Your mind is beginning to think in different ways. Perhaps there is weeping; perhaps there is laughter of release; things fall away from you. It is not simply singing, because that would be tremendously monotonous and boring; it is entering that cloud of God’s presence, receiving the anointing of God, and then going out into the street to serve the Lord.

And the church has to learn more and more. God needs united churches; God needs united people. It is not merely evangelical people, it is not merely Protestant people, it is not merely people who come to church—no, it is people who carry the church inside themselves 24 hours a day; it is people who know how to move in the anointing of God; it is people who have been empowered by an encounter with the Holy Spirit. We have to ask the Lord each day, “Lord, make us more and more, each day, a Pentecostal church, a church that knows how to move in Your anointing, in the power, so that we may do the works You want to do.”

God told the Apostles not to leave. Jesus told them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Because He knew that in order to carry out the task of evangelizing the world, they needed something different. Understand, brothers and sisters, preaching does not give you that. Reading the Bible does not give you that. Discipleship study does not give you that. Tithing does not give you that. Singing does not give you that. It has to be a direct encounter with the anointing of God: receiving an impartation of power in your life, being filled with the Holy Spirit, moving in that anointing in your life. And that will give you authority to overcome the giants in your life, whether it is a marriage problem, a drug addiction, a mental problem, depression, or a physical or financial problem—whatever it may be. It is the anointing of God that destroys the yoke, that makes the other things possible.

There are so many people who know about God and know about religion, even in the pulpits, even in the service of God, but they are still living in defeat because they have still not been able to plug into that mysterious power of the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters. That is what we need more and more in our lives each day: that anointing. And Gideon had it because he received it from God, and the difference was immediately evident in his behavior when he met the angel, and afterward God gave it to him in other ways. We need that as well.

We have spoken about the third thing: prophetic discernment. What do I mean by that? I mean, brothers and sisters, that Gideon continually heard from God. He had an encounter with the angel; afterward he was told, “Go and destroy the idol of Asherah.” He did that. Afterward, he asked God to give him a sign of His favor, and God gave it to him through the fleece, which was full of water, of dew. After that, He also gave it to him by wetting the ground around it while leaving the fleece dry. And after that He told him, “Look, go now and listen to what is happening in the camp. I am going to show you there that I am with you.” These were all ways in which Gideon was in continual dialogue with God; he was receiving a word, he was receiving revelation from God. God told him what he had to do and how to move; He gave him the strategy of these burning torches, these empty jars, and these trumpets. Why? Because when God calls us, He wants to give us strategy. God wants to speak into your life every day.

Perhaps, for example, you have a rebellious teenage son and you do not know how to deal with him, and you have not found the key to enter his soul. You have to go to God; you have to say to Him, “Father, speak to me, teach me. How do You want me to deal with my son?” Perhaps you have a marital problem and do not know how to resolve it; perhaps you are emotionally distant from your wife; there are problems in you, in your character, in the way you treat others, and you need deliverance from those attitudes. You have to go to Him in prayer; you have to fast and ask the Father for specific counsel: “How can I break this problem, Lord?” Perhaps there are attitudes in your life; perhaps there is a financial problem. The church needs to be able to flow in God’s prophetic discernment. We need a word now. God wants to speak to His children. God wants to speak to you. God wants to have personal dialogues with you. Every day, at work, on the train, in the car as you travel, God wants to bring things to your spirit. God is speaking to us prophetically in this season.

This morning Pastor Basil Yarde came here and gave us a precious prophetic word. God is telling us that... He is telling me prophetically that this is the time now; we are on the verge of entering a great revival. That is why I feel this great urgency: God is speaking to me about that. God is telling me that He is doing new things in this congregation. God is telling me that when I went to Israel and returned, God did something in my life and is passing it on to you. God is telling us that there is something new in the air, that God wants us to relate to Him in a different way. God is telling us that we need to straighten out the patterns of our lives, put things in order, prepare ourselves for the harvest, stop playing at the Gospel, and get serious once and for all, so that God can do what He wants. God is speaking to me, in my ministry and in my life, about things I have to do in my own life, things I have to make right with God and put in order so that God can use me as He wants to use me.

And God wants to love your life in the same way as well, to do things in you so that you may live the victorious life He wants you to live. How are you going to attain it? You have to set aside time to seek God. You have to set aside time to pray, to fast, and to read the Word; and when you open the Word, say to Him, “Father, speak to me.” Do not read it routinely. God will speak to you through written words, and He will activate passages of Scripture so that it will be as though that passage suddenly stood out in relief and were speaking to you alone. And when you go into your personal prayer time, go expecting to hear that God will say something specifically to you through that time of prayer, and keep your ears alert. But what is needed is a church that flows in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which include the prophetic word, dreams, revelations, impressions of the Spirit, and images that will come to our minds. That is needed in order to rescue this society, because this world in which we live is too tightly bound by rational, intellectual, and cultural bonds.

Today humanity has been equipped to produce things in the arts and in every dimension of human existence that draw it farther and farther away from God. The hardness of the human heart today is greater than ever before in all of history, and therefore the church needs new tools that have to come from God, and they are going to be ridiculous tools, like these. How could anyone defeat an army that, it says, was as numerous as the sands of the sea, with burning torches and empty jars? Because that was what God wanted. And when God is in a specific revelation, you can take a rubber sword and defeat a monster with it, because the sword is anointed with the Spirit of God—but you have to know that this is what God wants. In the hands of an anointed David who received prophetic words from God, a sling was all that was needed to bring down a giant whom an entire Israelite army could not bring down. If we flow in God’s specific revelation, God will give us strategies and tools that will destroy the enemy in an instant, but we have to be attentive to those things. Perhaps all those years you have spent struggling, fighting against something in your life—God will defeat it in an instant, but you need to know what God wants from you and how He wants to use you in that way.

Confrontation, anointing, prophetic discernment, the fourth thing: visibility. We have to be visible, brothers and sisters. Right now, here, we are visible to one another, but out there the world does not know that hundreds of people are in this place worshiping the Lord. How are they going to know? When you go out into the street. Tomorrow many of you will be in a factory, in an office, in a classroom, out on the road driving, riding a bus; the church of Christ has to make itself visible. We cannot take refuge within four walls. We have to be out there, letting the world know that we are a presence. I thank the Lord for what has happened during this time with the whole issue of marriage and all that. I believe God is allowing all of it simply to compel the church to make its presence known. We have been hidden away for too long; meanwhile, the enemy takes the lion’s share and does this and does that, and only when we wake up and realize how he has taken possession of everything do we throw up our hands and say, “What a disaster!” and begin putting out the fire.

But God wants the church to be active, to be present, to be visible, to enlarge its tent, as He tells it in Isaiah 54: Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch out your curtains, strengthen your stakes, lengthen the cords of your curtains, because I am going to extend you to the north and the south, to the east and the west. He tells it: Do not be timid, because you will spread out, you will give birth, you will possess the nations, you will possess the lives of your children.

That is what God is saying to the church, folks. Wherever you are, be a visible presence. I tell the young people: Do not let your teachers intimidate you; God will give you wisdom to speak with authority. Do not let yourselves be intimidated by your classmates who are talking about this or that and parroting anti-Christian, unnatural, and anti-divine theories. Be a disturbing presence wherever you are. Tell people: I am a Christian—so what? Do you understand? Let us be clear about our faith. Let us not allow ourselves to be intimidated, because we have the power of God with us. The Word says: With them is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD of hosts. God has given us the Word.

Brothers and sisters, if we flow in that Word, speak with authority, stand up, and say, “Here I am, as a prince of the LORD, as a representative of the Kingdom of God.” Open your mouth and God will give you a word of authority, but we have to be visible, we have to be present, we have to be a church that is out there in the street, and we have to invite others to come to church. We have to testify in our neighborhoods. We have to advocate for the values of the Kingdom of God. Let us not apologize for what we believe. The enemy wants us to become afraid and tells us: Oh, you hate homosexuals, you are full of hatred, you are full of self-righteousness, you are continually criticizing. All those accusations are hurled against us like curses to intimidate us and make us accept the vision of the Gospel that the enemy is conveying to us.

And we have to say: May the Lord rebuke you; I do not receive that. I am a child of God. I have love within me; I love humanity, and I love you. I have the truth of God in my life; I have a revelation once given to humanity for all ages. I have the truth of the God who created the universe and laid the foundations of the planets. I have a faith that speaks both on the microcosmic and the macrocosmic level. I can speak both about matters pertaining to nature and about matters pertaining to the spirit. I can speak about the temporal and the eternal. I can speak about the scientific and about the moral. I can speak about the individual and about the collective; I can speak about the political and about the artistic, because I have the wisdom, the mind of Christ. That is the word we have to be speaking to the world today. Let us not apologize for what God has revealed to His church. If the world has not crumbled and broken into fifty thousand pieces, it is because the church of Jesus Christ is still present to preserve it. Let us not be intimidated, brothers and sisters. Let us not be afraid. Let us raise our voices. Let us blow the trumpets. Let us break the torches free. Let the light of our torch shine, and let the world see a man, a woman, filled with the revelation of God. Let us be visible.

I shared one last illustration with the brothers and sisters regarding this point, and then I have just one more left. In recent days, the mayor of the city of Boston, whom we appreciate because he is a decent man, and some city authorities wanted to remove the designation “Christmas tree” from a tree that has always been placed on Boystron Street every year to celebrate Christmas. But as you know, there is a spirit of antichrist in this society. In English, Navidad is Christmas, which comes from the word Christ, Cristo. So I know that today, brothers and sisters, the word Christ causes offense. You mention the word Christ and there is a spiritual movement in the air.

I have been at social gatherings of decent, well-intentioned, highly professional people, and when something that is very pure to the Gospel is mentioned, you can feel the discomfort in the air. Why? Because there are spiritual energies that resent the mention of the name of Jesus. That is the spirit of antichrist in society, and even well-intentioned and decent people are possessed by that spirit of antichrist today; that is why the church cannot submit to it. What happened was that they wanted to remove the designation “Christmas tree” and simply call it a “holiday tree,” because they supposedly did not want to offend people who do not share the Christian faith. Yet that tree has been sent from Nova Scotia, Canada, for 50 or 60 years in gratitude to the city of Boston for an act of assistance Boston rendered to Nova Scotia. And today you see this more and more. Everywhere there are attempts to eradicate every sign of Christianity from the public spaces and places of this nation, because the devil knows that when a nation removes the person, the name, and the blood of Jesus from its doorposts, it is open to every possible demonic incursion.

I can tell you that the only thing that makes the devil tremble is the name of Jesus. And over the years I have had many opportunities to see, in a demon-possessed person or a person infected by demons, how the demons abhor the name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus, because there is power in that blood. The name of Jesus is a magical key that opens doors and closes doors. The figure of Jesus is a sacred talisman; when you hurl it, things explode and burst, and the demons flee. There is power in the blood of Christ; there is mysterious power. We cannot be ashamed to say, “The blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus.” What happened was that the mayor wanted to remove that, and those city authorities, in their desire to be politically correct—but thanks be to the Lord, a group of Christians who are always watching precisely for that kind of action wrote to the city and told them: If you do that, we are going to file a lawsuit against you and take you to court. The mayor and the others backed down, and today it is still called a Christmas tree.

The polls say that in this nation, ninety-something percent—I myself was surprised—well over ninety percent of the people identify as being of Christian background, even if they do not practice Christianity, and there is a majority of people who say that they go to a Christian church every Sunday, even in this nation—listen. The percentage of people who identify as Buddhists, Hindus, and followers of other religions is about 5 or 7% of the entire nation. Why is over ninety percent of this nation going to allow the signs of the Gospel to be eradicated throughout this nation merely to avoid offending overly developed sensitivities? We are not saying that others should be excluded or trampled upon. We are saying that the majority also has the right to celebrate its roots, its symbols, and its beliefs.

Thank the Lord, brothers and sisters, that there are still militant people defending them; let us not apologize. Be proud of the Gospel that has been given to you and celebrate it, and let us be a visible presence in the nations, cities, and states. God is waiting, brothers and sisters, for the church to stand up and say, “Here we are.” When the church makes its presence felt, God will go into action.

When Gideon stood up, surrounded the enemy camp, and they broke the jars, and those torches burst into flame in the middle of the midnight darkness of that field where the enemy was, and they began to blow their trumpets and shout, “For the LORD and for Gideon,” the Spirit of God fell upon that declaration and set one man’s sword against another. Because when the church makes itself present and visible, it becomes an instrument, a present channel. That is where the power of God enters the hospital, the school, the office, the street, the home, the neighborhood. God does His work, but if we are hiding our light under a bushel and remaining quiet and fearful and do not want anyone to know, you have no idea how many people I generally know whom I have known for a long time, and only after a very long time do I discover that they are Christians; they are undercover Christians.

They need to come out of the closet too. Others are coming out of the closet, so let us come out of the closet too, brothers and sisters. Young person, do not apologize for your faith. Employee, laborer, professional, homemaker, do not apologize, because you have received a unique, exceptional revelation for all time. Let us be visible. When you walk, say: The Kingdom of God walks with me. Wherever you go, God has given you all the land on which the soles of your feet tread. Do not be afraid to be visible; dare in the name of Jesus. Dare in the name of Jesus. God needs visible churches, present churches, churches that are “in your face,” as they say in English—right there, proclaiming the Gospel in season and out of season. If they do not want to accept it, that is their business, but you discharge your responsibility before God.

The last thing—and everyone say, “Glory to God.” Proclamation. This is going to be very brief. Proclamation. I have already said it, in a sense. We need to proclaim the complete Gospel of Jesus Christ. Where do we see proclamation? In that display, that uproar that arose when Gideon and his men shouted and blew the trumpets, shone their torches, and broke the jars. At that moment we see that, in that proclamation of praise and worship, the presence of God begins to move and things happen.

The church has to proclaim the truth of the Gospel. So that you can see that I am serious, I am going to invite the musicians to come over here, come up, and begin now to bring us to a close in this.

The enemy wants to rob us of the Gospel. The enemy wants us to edit the Gospel so that people will not be upset. There are many churches—and I say this respectfully, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world—that today, out of a desire not to scandalize people, not to confront, not to offend, are removing a number of truths from the Gospel and sweeping them under the rug, because they are supposedly too confrontational and unpleasant for people. Why? Because people come in from outside, filled with this secular, rational spirit that rebels against God, and when they arrive and the Word is proclaimed in all its fullness, there is a clash of power. But unless we are willing for that clash to occur and willing to offend people—yet, you know what?—many times, by offending them, we shake the foundations of their spirit, and that then allows God to enter. Perhaps they leave fuming and cursing you, but afterward they reach their homes, and the seed of the Spirit is already in their hearts, and then God can begin to work in their lives. But if you are more interested in pleasing them than in pleasing the God who sent you, you will lose that opportunity to be a regenerating element in the culture in which we live.

If the church loses its flavor, it is good for nothing but to be thrown away. If salt loses its flavor, what good are we? We are not going to lose our flavor; we are going to proclaim, we are going to worship, we are going to seek fullness of life, and we are going to announce the complete Gospel that God has given us. We are not going to shrink back from proclaiming, as Paul says, the Gospel, the truth of God, to those whom God has entrusted to us. There has to be proclamation. We do it by worshiping the Lord freely; we do it by preaching the Word. I do not preach only to you, brothers and sisters; I also preach to the demons that are around listening. I preach to the angels of God in order to worship them. I preach to the Father to tell Him: I believe what You say. I preach to the air to send out waves that penetrate the spiritual world. We have to proclaim, we have to announce, we have to declare, and then let each person decide what they want to do with the Word; that is their business. We discharge our responsibility.

Anointing, visibility, prophetic discernment, proclamation, confrontation. These are the elements we have to use in the battle, both in our individual lives and in our collective lives.

Let us stand, let us give thanks to the Lord, and let us say to him: Father, we surrender ourselves to you as a church this morning; we surrender ourselves as a church. Brothers and sisters, I thank you for your time, but this is God’s time. Let that word enter your life; God wants to do great things with his people. This is the time of war; it is the time of loving warfare. Our weapons are not carnal, the Word says; they are mighty in God for the destruction of strongholds. They are not weapons of darkness; they are weapons of light, weapons of love, weapons of truth, weapons of justice, weapons of transparency, weapons of personally acknowledging our need for God. And when we humble ourselves and recognize that we are the first ones in need, then we can extend hands of mercy to others as well. May God bless us, and may his grace rest upon us this afternoon.

Father, I bless your people and release them from here to serve, Lord. Oh, may your anointing go with us this afternoon, Father. May these words that have been declared not fall to the ground. I believe they will accomplish everything for which you sent them, Lord. We treasure them in our hearts. I bless your people. Help us to be faithful and true, authentic and upright witnesses of the precious Gospel that you have entrusted to us. Thank you, Lord, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Brothers and sisters, may the grace of the Lord continue to be with you. Amen. Amen.

Sermon by Dr. Roberto Miranda recorded November 27, 2005, at Congregación León de Judá (62 min.)

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More presentations recorded Sunday, November 27, 2005:
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