I'm just going to take a moment to go to Joel's book because that little chorus that started this whole process, I believe that God has a purpose with it, and I want you to know where that chorus comes from because it also has biblical content and is very close. It's in tune with what we're talking about about baptism and the filling of the Holy Spirit. God wants a town filled with the Holy Spirit, God wants a town that has his anointing to be able to carry out the tasks that he has destined for that town.
These times we live in are times of spiritual sterility but they are also times of imminent harvest. Now, how are we going to go from desert and barrenness to harvest and rain? There's something interesting here that you and I need to know.
How are we going to go from barrenness to abundance, from drought to abundant fruit to harvest? It is not the first time that the church finds itself in trouble like the ones we are in, because today we look at the scene of the world church and we see a powerless church, we see a church that has no definitive influence on society.
When we look at the countries of the world, the countries that influence modern history, we see that the influence of the people of God determines the decisions that are made at the governmental level, at the cultural level, at the academic level At the level of the arts, at the level of the laws, at the level of the media, it is minimal. There is a whole segment of humanity that is living as if God did not exist, as if the word of God had no validity for this world.
It's like the church lives on an island within society and in our temples all kinds of processes take place and the gospel is preached and the Lord is praised and many things happen, but the world out there It is not taken for granted, it is not taken for granted, society continues its course, and man continues to develop scientifically, technologically and makes all his decisions without taking God into account, they pay God what they say in English lip service, They mention God but from the mouth out, there is no true fear of God.
Statesmen and stateswomen go to churches and many of them pretend to be Christians because it suits them, because they know that there are Christians who are eager to see God's justice installed in the corridors of the world. government and they are eager and looking for someone who embodies the values of God and who will get on the government seats and they manipulate the church and they tell the church that they are Christians and they even talk about... and they choose the denomination that most advantageous it may be to them in terms of numbers and they claim to belong to that denomination so that innocent Christians eager to see the glory of God will vote for them. But after they are in power, they forget about the promises made and rule like any other ruler, according to the interests of the nation, according to the interests of the party to which they belong, according to calculations about the next election, but not govern according to God's values.
And the church continues to carry out its processes but it is not affecting humanity. The image of a growing desert comes to my mind, a desert that is spreading more and more every day. Do you know that many of the great deserts that exist today, such as the Sahara and the other deserts that exist in the world, thousands of years ago were not deserts, they were flowery places, they were places where there was great vegetation.
The Bible makes us understand that this is practically the case, for example in the Negev desert, I was in the Negev desert a year or so ago, when I was reading there in the Negev desert and I was up on a mountain and I saw the desert expanse that was under my feet, I remembered and read the words of Isaiah, of Ezekiel, where he spoke that God was going to turn those flowery places into desert if God's people did not repent. And so it happened, today the Negev is a totally desert area like a dead, dead, dead sea where it does not flow anywhere and all the salt accumulates and the water evaporates and that sea becomes more and more salty, as a symbol of the sterility of that Jewish nation that has not wanted to recognize its Messiah.
And so there are many deserts that have been spreading little by little, the vegetation has been dying, ecological processes have been unleashed and what was before fertile land and lush vegetation has been drying up and has been been eating the desert and the desert has been expanding.
And so we can say that is the prevailing image for humanity today, especially in the Western world, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, North America, Canada, developed countries above all, are a spiritual desert and every day they become more and more desert, every day they move further and further away from the word of God.
And the church, in turn, has also been dying. The church in these places was a powerless church, it is a dry church, it is a barren church, we celebrate the great acts of God but we celebrate them only in theory.
It hurts me when I read the word of God and I see that our churches, including ours, it must be said, we do not see the signs, the wonders, the life that God has given us the right to wish for our congregations, and something is wrong because either we close the Scripture and stop dreaming and desiring the great deeds of God and we say: look, these are simply things that happened in the past but that is not for now, we are going to settle with a routine religious life, and we stop celebrating these things and singing those choirs that we sing, send your rain or continue touching the Lord, believing that this is for us, that this is for this time, that God wants to do the same feats because he is the same yesterday, today and forever says the word.
I believe that God wants to make the desert flourish, brothers, but he also needs a church to flourish first.
The prophet Joel saw something similar in Israel at the time he prophesied, Israel was also a spiritual desert, the word of the Lord did not flow, there was no manifestation of the spirit. There was even drought at the level of nature because nature many times symbolically expresses the spiritual state of humanity that rules over it, and the earth had become barren and dry. As today, we see something different, we see today that the earth is also in crisis; the scientists talking about global warming, global warming that is melting the ice floes in the arctic and talking about imminent disasters that will continue to happen here on earth as man harms the earth.
We see here in the United States, crises like the one that occurred in Katrina, the terrible flooding, the sea is moving at this time, volcanoes are activating everywhere, earthquakes, there have been more earthquakes in recent 100 years than in the rest of human history, nature... something is happening in nature, because nature is also expressing, I believe, the cry of this humanity that is lost.
So Joel in his book also writes about that same drought there is. Look in chapter 1, verse 11, it says: "...confused farmers, groan vineyards for wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field is lost, the vine is dry..." Do you remember the little song we sang? Your vineyard is deserted or dry, "...the vine is dry and the fig tree perished, the pomegranate also, the palm tree and the apple tree, all the trees of the field dried up, so that the joy of the children of men is extinguished..."
What Joel paints there is an image of drought, of desert, of loneliness, but that physical drought of nature is a metaphor, it is an expression of the drought that exists in the people of Israel, as today there is also a growing disorder in nature that speaks of the disorder that is in the church of Jesus Christ and that is in the whole earth at this time, as man strays more and more from the ways of the Lord.
So what are we going to do in that case, are we going to stay like this? Are we going to get used to just being church, playing church like we always do?
Brothers, do you want to live a merely religious life? Are you happy with your state? Are you happy with what you see in the church? I am not happy, I am not happy... some would say: oh pastor, you have a church that has grown, a blessed church, a church that has this, that has that.
Brothers, I am not a very happy person ministerially speaking, I thank the Lord for everything he has given us and glory to God and if I die, I will die peacefully but there is discontent in my spirit , which is dissatisfied with not seeing what God has told me that I am supposed to see, there is a dissatisfaction in my soul because I want to see more, I don't want to go to sleep and say: ohh we already have hundreds of people, now we have this and now until I retire just to keep things as they are, God forbid. In your life and in my life there must be a hunger for something more, there must be a desire to see the glory of God manifested. I cannot bear to see the name of Jesus Christ put to shame and rejected and denigrated as so many people are doing in this day.
Today people laugh at evangelicals, intellectuals laugh at people who believe in the word of God, we have been ridiculed in many ways, they have laughed at us and sometimes we have laughed at them. helped to laugh and sometimes I think that the church of Jesus Christ is like the Jewish people when Goliath, when they were fighting with the Philistines, a great soldier rose up from the Philistines, a staunch enemy of God, Goliath was about eight feet tall, he was a tremendously beefy fellow, a seasoned warrior, and the Philistines took him out of some village out there and brought him up and put him up... the two camps were looking at each other, and the Bible says that every day this The great warrior, Goliath, came out of his tent and stood in front of the camp of the Hebrews and there were all the Hebrew soldiers and this man began to insult the people of God, insult God, and challenge them to send him a man who would dared to face him. And every day the people of God had to, quietly there, eat their pride while this demonic being cursed the army of God and brought shame to the people of God.
And brothers, and sometimes I feel that this is the state of the church at this time. Technology has given atheist, secular, rational, humanist, unconverted man a great weapon to make fun of all that we, as God's people claim, to laugh at our claims that Jesus Christ is Lord, that Jesus Christ comes a second time, that he died and rose again, that he heals and frees and baptizes with his fire and that he creates men and women filled with the Holy Spirit with transformed lives, healthy families, prosperous people, young people who do well in their studies and who respect The authority. And every day people out there who don't believe in God see that, they see our decrepit churches, they see our marriages there just rickety and clinging for goodness, they see our children who don't share our faith and our values, they see our finances. undone, they see the disorder in the houses of the evangelicals, they see our dysfunctionality and they say: where is the God that you boast so much? When they get into your churches they say this and they say the other, but we don't see it, show it, send us someone who dares to confront our claims.
What's going on? Why can't the church of Jesus Christ have the same power that we see in the pages of the book of Acts? they upset a handful of people, it upset all of Jerusalem and caused consternation in the Sanhedrin and in all the rulers because the Holy Spirit was with them and miracles, signs, wonders were seen. The order of the kingdom of God invaded the church, their goods were shared, there was love between brothers, there was anointing of God, the kingdom of God was advancing, God was doing feats in his peoples, there was authority when testifying, and the nation He took notice of that people anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit.
But today it is not like that, brothers. Yes, we are honest, Goliath stands in front of the camp and insults us and here at the estate house we didn't even have enough strength to promote a silly, silly amendment because the senators and representatives of the state house have no respect for us because they don't We give them respect, because they know that we don't have the strength to enforce our values and since they don't respect us, they do what they want, do you understand? And the church has not been respected.
Brothers, I want a church and God wants a church that inspires respect in the world out there, remember? I spoke about this last Sunday with the 9 o'clock service, when... once Samuel arrives in a village, he comes to anoint David because God has sent him to anoint David as the new king that replaces Saul and when Samuel , a prophet of God, recognized as a prophet of God, arrives in the village, in Bethlehem where David lives with his family. When the elders of the town see the prophet of God coming and entering the village, do they know what they say to him? Do you come in peace or do you come in war? Is your peace coming? What were they telling Samuel? They were saying we know that the power of God is with you and we want you to tell us right now, have we offended you? Have we done anything but throw ourselves off once and ask for forgiveness?
Because you see that when the power of God is over the church, the church commands respect even from unbelievers, because the power of God it has two knives, one knife blesses and heals and the other knife cuts the entrails and destroys if it has to destroy.
I am tired of that image that the world wants out there of a little church that approves all the follies and all the little shame in society. That is what they want from us, that we put our seal of approval on all the crazy things that secular man comes up with who does not have God's blessing to think as God wants him to think. But God is going to raise up, when the power of God falls on his church, it is a church that is going to command that the things of God be respected, you know? Because a church that is going to have the power of God, oh yes, it is also a simple and loving church, but brothers, everything I see in the scriptures, perhaps the temperament that God has given me, but God is a God who is love but it is also a consuming fire, and his church cannot be more tender than the God who created it. The church of Jesus Christ has the love of Christ but it also has the fire of Christ.
Christ is both, when he comes in his second coming, he will not come as the little shepherd of sheep that the suffering servant came, no, he will come with all his power and with all his authority to judge the nations and to hand over the authority to the Father that has been handed over to him and the whole world will have to give him an account, that is the Jesus Christ with whom I identify myself and that is the church that I believe God wants , that church needs the power of God, we need the anointing of God, but there is a price to pay. The desert has grown and the fields are deserted, the locust and the insect have eaten all the crop and it is a desert and that is what Joel declares here.
Now look at what is the answer, what is the solution, how are we going to go from the desert to the fullness.
Verse 13 says "... gird and lament priests, moan ministers of the altar, come sleep in silicon ministers of my God, because removed is from the house of your God, the offering and the libation..." the drink offering is the oil, the offering of oil that is given to the Lord.
Look where the answer is for the desert humanity is in. It is for the servants of God to strengthen themselves, to gird themselves, to prepare, to surrender to a search for the Lord, for the priests to groan before God, for there to be a cry from the leaders of God and God is raising that cry and I want to be part of that cry and that's why I work with groups out there, North Americans, Asians, African Americans, everyone who listens and worked hard because I want to be part of a cry that rises on this earth for God to visit this land again and put an end to Goliath's insult. Until the church does not cry out to the Lord, until the church does not gird itself or raise a desperate voice and say: Lord, we no longer want to live under the oppression of the enemy, we do not want any more.
And that you can say, as David said: "... as the deer bellows for the streams of water, so my soul cries for O God...", until the church cries out in that way, it will not go to have liberation, the ministers, the priests, the leaders have to cry out to the Lord.
Look at what verse 14 says: “…proclaim a fast, call an assembly, assemble the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord…” < /p>
You see brother? there it begins, there the miracle begins, it is in the cry, it is in crying out to the Lord, it is asking him to visit his people. What does Second Chronicles chapter 7, verse 13 say: “…if I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, and if I command the locusts to devour the earth, or if I send pestilence to my people…” you have heard these words before , that is the context, he says: “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land …”
That is the promise of the Lord and that is what God tells us: cry out to me, pray to me, seek my face and I will answer you, that is a promise. Either God lied or he fully intended to honor his promise. If we do our part... our part is to pray, cry out, seek the face of the Lord, ask him to forgive our sins, take the word of the Lord seriously, order our ways, stop playing spiritual dolls, and start to take the Christian life seriously, brothers.
We have to ask the Lord to change the program of our mind, to change... because it is difficult brothers, we have become so accustomed to sterility and spiritual death that we already believe that this is normal, we are like a woman who can't have children and has stopped wanting them because it hurts too much to want them, so she just kills that dream and gets used to not giving birth. But God says: no, I want you to cry out, I want you to ask, don't settle for the minimum, I want to give you what you want.
What does the Lord say to that woman in Isaiah 54? the children of the forsaken are the ones of the married, the Lord has said. Enlarge the site of your tent and the curtains of your rooms be extended, do not be scarce, lengthen your ropes and reinforce your stakes because you will stretch out to the right hand and to the left hand and your descendants will inherit nations and inhabit the devastated cities says the Lord …”
The cities are devastated, our young people are shooting each other, killing each other in the cities and the church is powerless. The church has no influence and that is why politicians do not respect it. We pray and have all kinds of parties within the four walls but the world out there continues... and God says: No, I'll leave you... keep calming down, raise a sterile song because I'm going to give you influence, I'm going to put you so that you inherit the nations and inhabit the devastated cities.
Brothers, God wants to give authority to his church, I don't know your theology, mine tells me that God has placed the church as the mother of the nations. The Lord Jesus Christ before leaving said: all power is given to me in heaven and on earth therefore go and preach the gospel and make disciples of the nations. Either he was wrong and exaggerated or that is what the church has to do. What happens is that the church has always wasted the anointing of God.
At one time we discipled the nations, the medieval church for example, had dominion over Europe and the Middle East and practically the entire known world, but it was corrupted, perverted, and allowed itself to be corrupted by values of the world and it became a perverse church, a corrupt church, a church from which the spirit of God moved away and we wasted the anointing that God gave to the church, to govern the nations and we have had years... centuries of desert . We are paying the price, we are in exile in a sense, because we wasted the anointing of God.
But I believe that God now wants to remove his church and put it back in authority and inherit the nations and inhabit the devastated cities. As I told you, my eschatology becomes more and more complicated every day, about the future of what God is going to do because I read the scripture and what I see is that, that promise of the Lord... it is for Israel but also by extension, It is for the people of God.
It says “…because the mountains will move and the hills will tremble but my mercy will not depart from you, nor will the covenant of my peace be broken…” said the Lord who has mercy on you. The Lord wants to bring his anointing on his people again, the Lord wants to bless his church and fertilize it again.
Then he says “…proclaim a fast, call an assembly Joel, assemble the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of Jehovah your God and cry out to Jehovah. There is a day, says the Lord, because the day of the Lord is near and it will come as destruction by the Almighty...."
There is a day that is coming, it is the day of the Lord, it is a day terrible. When the United States experienced the destruction of those two towers on 9-11, the most spectacular disaster that has ever been seen in the history of mankind, the whole earth saw it, those planes crashing into the two symbols of American power; technological power, because those towers were wonderful technology and the financial power and influence of the United States, destroyed by the Arabs that God has always used to whip his people.
You know that? Always the Arabs... when Israel, whenever it rebelled, it sent one Arab or another and how interesting that today it is sending the Arabs to make trouble for this nation as well. They are warnings that God has given to this nation, Katrina is a warning to this nation. God is lifting his cover from this nation and humanity. God is preparing his judgments, because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he has been enduring his judgment, waiting for as many as possible to convert before he sends.
Remember what I said at the beginning of this series of sermons? God does not want anyone to be lost, God does not want the wicked to perish, he says, tell him to repent because I do not want the death of the wicked, tell him to repent, says the Lord, to repent and live. God is telling humanity: I want reconciliation with you but the day of my judgment is coming and if you do not reconcile with me the judgment will come. Woe to the day because the day of the Lord is near.
“.....The grain rotted under the clods, the barns were devastated, the alfoliades destroyed because the wheat dried up, how the beasts moaned, how disturbed the herds of oxen were because they had no pasture, the flocks of sheep were also devastated...."
Now look at the answer, and with this I am done, chapter 2, it says: "...Blow the trumpet in Zion, give an alarm on my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble because the day of the Lord is coming, because it is near, a day of darkness, of darkness, of cloud and of shadow…”
Now let's move on to verse 12 of that chapter 2, how are we going to avoid that terrible, that scenario? How are we going to move within that scheme that God establishes? And he says: ".... therefore now, says Jehovah, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and lamentation, tear your hearts and not your clothes..."
Brothers, the The repentance of the people of God is not a cosmetic issue, it is a matter of the heart, it is not a matter of simply walking around putting on warm cloths. There is much for which we have to repent, there is much for which we have to cry before God. The first thing we have to repent of is our superficiality towards God and I am going to get involved if you want, in the worst sins, but I believe that what hurts the heart of God the most is a church that takes liberties with his honor and with his glory, that we do not have the right to take ourselves, that we come to the house of the Lord and we are thinking of 20,000 things except worshiping him, that we love our jobs more than the place of prayer so that God visits our houses and bless our marriages and heal our lives. We love our high-definition color TV more than coming to God's house and worshiping him, and we love earning money for a new toaster or a new air conditioner or a shinier car than the last one we bought and run away with God. we run away with his glory, we don't love him enough, we don't give him everything we're supposed to give him.
And God is an offended Father, he is a neglected Father, he is a Father who says: when are they going to call me on the phone?, when is he going to congratulate me on my birthday? When are they going to bring me some flowers? When are they going to give me the place that I deserve, and are they going to express love to me as I deserve? When are you going to give me the respect and reverence that I, your creator and upholder deserve? I give you food, I give you life, I give you the mind that threads thoughts and when the time comes to give me my tithe, I only ask for a portion, you become accountants and give the minimum when I expect to be respected and be honest. When I invite them to come to my house and honor me with their praise, they say: I'm too tired, too busy, I have too much work, I'll go another day, Sunday is enough, settle for that.
The Lord is not happy, the Lord is offended, he is sad, his spirit has moved away from the church because it is a church facing an odyssey, it is a lukewarm church and to that church the Lord says: hopefully You were cold or hot but since you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth, it is a lukewarm church, it is lukewarmness that the Lord hates most in his church. I wish you were cool because then you wouldn't have to deal with her. I wish it was hot because it would bring joy to your heart, but it is a church that has one foot in the world and one foot in heaven and they believe that with that they have done what they have to do and God wants a church that is calling, crying out "...tear your hearts and not your clothes, return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and clement, slow to anger and great in mercy and pained by punishment..."
Brothers, God does not want punish the earth, God does not want to spare his gifts and his blessing, God wants to pour out his oil and wine on his church in abundance, he is not satisfied, he is not happy with the state of his church but his church has to pay the price, you have to ask the Lord... the church has to convert again, are we?
God is tired of a comfortable, conforming church, a Sunday church, a religious church, a church that has not died, a church that does not live as the Lord says, “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice , holy, pleasing to God, which is your true cult, do not conform to this century but be transformed through the renewal of your understanding…”
The church of Jesus Christ has to stop thinking as it thinks the culture out there, there is a new thought pattern that God wants, God wants us to live like a torch, burning out day by day. That our body be a living sacrifice, that as we walk we leave the drops of blood as a trace of our walk on earth because we are dying before our God, as a sacrifice every day, wearing ourselves out before God, burning with love for the Lord .
Is that how you feel? for many of us the answer has to be: no, we've gotten used to it. We see so many mediocre and lukewarm people and we believe that this is the Gospel and we say: -I'm not so bad-, but God wants something different, God wants a people that establishes a different pattern, that says: no, I don't want to settle with the least, I want the most from the Lord, I am going to stop playing evangelical, I am going to take that evangelical card and I am going to burn it and we are going to be a great pile of evangelical cards and we are going to become faithful Christians of the Lord that we love God with all our hearts, with all our minds, with all our souls.
“.....Who knows, says Joel, if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him, this is an offering and drink offering to Jehovah your God. Blow trumpets in Zion, proclaim a fast, call an assembly, assemble the people, sanctify the assembly, assemble the elders, assemble the children and those who suckle, leave the groom from his chamber and the bride from his thalamus, between the entrance and Let the priests, ministers of the Lord, weep at the altar and say: Forgive your people, O Lord, and do not deliver your inheritance to reproach so that the nations may rule over it, why should they say among the people, where is their God?
Why does the unconverted man out there laugh at the church and say where your God is? Let it make a difference in their lives.
We evangelicals love to flaunt victories but they are victories so small, so tiny, so ridiculous, that the man out there with his critical ability, he fires on them and destroys them in a moment. Something much more powerful is needed to convince this super-developed humanity that is the humanity of the 21st century, miracles of unusual proportions are needed like never before so that God can manifest his presence before his people, who shut the devil's mouth, that shuts Goliath's mouth once and for all.
Why should they say among the people where their God is? That is what eats me many times, why do I have to walk with my head down many times? Why do I have to keep my mouth shut? because you don't really see the miracles and the things that God has promised to be done in the midst of his people. And we don't just go around with rhetoric all the time.
But I don't think that's what God wants and says: “..... and Jehovah pleaded for his land, he will spare his people and Jehovah will answer and say to his people, 'behold, I send you bread, must and oil and you will be satisfied with them and I will never again put you in reproach among the nations'...”
Brothers, I cry out to the Lord and I want you to cry out to the Lord , Father, remove the reproach from above your head, remove the shame from your church, remove the shame from your church, your name is insulted, ridiculed, left by the unconverted, incredulous man and your church has to eat that cable every day and lower your head and just inside, when you lock yourself between the four walls, only then can you declare your greatness but they know inside that it is not as they say.
And brothers, I believe it is time to do something, it is time to cry out. I ask the Lord: Father no, no, no, do something, because we are not satisfied, I am not satisfied and I know that God is not satisfied with the state of his church.
“..... I will drive the northern one away from you, I will cast it on a desert and dry land, its face to the eastern sea and its end to the western sea and it will exhale its stench and you will raise its rottenness because it made big things. Earth do not fear, rejoice, rejoice because Jehovah will do great things. Animals of the field you did not fear, because the pastures of the desert will turn green, because the trees will bear fruit, the fig tree and the vine will give their fruits. You also sons of Zion, rejoice and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the first rain in its season and he will bring down on you early and latter rain as at the beginning, says the Lord..."
“…The threshing floors will be filled with wheat, the presses will overflow with wine and oil and I will restore to you the years that the caterpillar, the hopper, the revolt and the locust ate, my great army that I sent against you, you will eat until you are satisfied and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who did wonders for you and my people will never again be ashamed and you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is no other, and my people will never again be ashamed …” says the Lord.
It is a definitive visitation, receive it in the name of Jesus, we declare it in the name of Jesus. We declare that the Lord is preparing to lift shame from the head of his church, but it will be in response to crying, it will be in response to fasting, it will be in response to repentance, it will be in response to confession of sin, it will be in response to confession of irreverence, mediocrity, spiritual lukewarmness, spiritual conformity, pretense of spirituality when there is none, will be in recognition of all these things. And he says:
“..... and after this I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream a dream, your young men will see visions and also on the servants and I will pour out my spirit on the servants in those days.
And so that there is no doubt that it is at this time, he says, and I will give prodigies in heaven and on earth, blood and fire, columns of smoke, the sun will become darkness, the moon in blood, before the great and dreadful day of Jehovah comes, and everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved, for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be salvation, as Jehovah has said, and among the remnant whom he will have called… says the Lord.
That is what that is the scenario that God wants for these times, it is the scenario that consumes my heart, it is the desire that is in my spirit, it is the cry of the spirit within me. I hope it's inside you too. We cannot do church as if, as if we were in normal times, these are times, these are times of pregnancy, these are times of giving birth. The woman has to give birth and the baby doesn't want to come out brothers, if she doesn't give birth, she's going to die. It's time to give birth Church, it's time to give birth and we have to feel uncomfortable like when the woman has passed her time, if that baby doesn't come out soon, it's going to die and the woman is going to die Also, the church has to give birth, the church has to wake up, the church has to pay the price, the church has to start seriously living the word of God.
I invite you, brothers, to take the word of the Lord seriously, I invite myself, Father, have mercy on me, I say to the Lord, because when one preaches like this, imagine the weight that falls on one, but it is the only way brothers,
awake church says the Lord, wake up you who sleep, Christ will light you up. Fallen knees bow, fallen hearts rise before God.
I ask the musicians to come here, it's time brothers, a worldly church will never be able to do the work that God wants that church to do.
“...You covet if you don't have, kill if you burn with envy if you can't reach, you fight and you fight but you don't have what you said, because you don't ask, you ask and you don't receive church, because you ask badly for spend on your delights. O adulterous souls, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity against God? Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God...”
Christian, you cannot have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God, friendship, the love for the world, love for the things of the world, the desire of the world, the passions of the world, the interests of the world, the glitter of the world, the fabrics of the world, the metals of the world are abhorrence before God, they are abominations In front of God. If your heart is there, your heart cannot be with God because you cannot serve two masters.
That is why the church has lost power, we ask and we do not receive, we covet and we do not have, there is internal warfare between us, our homes within us, our church because we love the world and we are enemies of God In a sense or do you think that the scripture says in vain the spirit that he has made to dwell among us longs for us jealously, you believe that it is in vain they say you will love the Lord for your God, all your heart, your mind, your strength, only you will serve him, you will not have idols before me. That's a game from the Lord, are you saying that just because you like them? No, he really says it, he says it because that is what he needs, but he gives more grace, he says
“…submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, come closer to God and he will draw near to you. Sinners, cleanse your hands and you double-minded purify your hearts..." says the Lord.
The double-minded, hearts must be purified, hearts must be unified because the double-minded man receives nothing from the Lord, the double-minded person cannot receive anything from the Lord.
"... Grieve and lament and weep, your laughter turns into tears, your joy into sadness, humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you..."
Will the Lord this afternoon brothers, create in us a contrite and humiliated heart, a heart that desires the glory of the Lord. I ask the Lord: Father, we can't go back, we can't go back to the old, we can't go back to comfort, ask the Lord to change your heart this afternoon. Young people, put your batteries on…
Young people, stop playing around the Lord, this is no playing time, this is not about pretension, has to be more than that, take God seriously, God wants a young generation that can take the nations and that can do marvels, but it will come only as a result of the power of God, descending on your life because you have paid the price, you have taken God seriously, you have spend time with Lord, you have submitted to him your dreams and your preferences, your mind, your mouth, your body, your emotions. It's the only way that God is going to visit you and do something powerful in your life.
God is calling a new people, a people so he can do what he wants to do. I feel the presence of the Lord in this place calling the people of God, calling me as their pastor, calling our pastors of this congregation, our spiritual leaders, to a more intense search for the Lord, to a seriousness with God, to pay the price. At night ask the Lord to visit you, to wake you up and when he is there at night, raise your prayer between sleep, Lord and ask him to restore the earth, to restore your life, to bring revival to León de Judá, that bring revival to the city of Boston.
He wants to do something and I'm not sure… I know he wants to do something and we have to ask the Lord: speed up your process Father, speed up your process.
Lower your head for a moment, I want to invite you to surrender your heart completely to the Lord, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God .
If you have not received Christ as your savior there in your heart, right now ask the Lord right now, right now to enter your heart, ask Jesus right now tell him: Lord Jesus, say it like this gently, quietly right now with me, tell him: Lord Jesus come into my heart, come into my life, take possession of my life, ask him to take possession of your life, and to speak to you at night, and to seal your life for him , to set you apart for him, and promise him that you are not going to be mediocre, you are not going to be simply a symbolic achiever, but that you are going to love the Lord passionately and that you are going to take your walk with God seriously, ask him to visit you , ask him to take your dreams and your plans and make what he wants from them.
It is no longer time to be longing for vain dreams, the Lord is preparing to come with all his power and all the ambitions of the people, all that is going to stay here, all the great achievements, the great towers, the great museums, the great works of art, all of this is going to burn, everything is going to burn, along with matter itself, all of this is going to burn and nothing will remain, so don't kill yourself too much longing for vain things , dedicate your life to giving to the Lord, give to the Lord and live in the living fire, in the red hot. Give the Lord everything and ask him to fertilize you and visit you like Mary and turn you from a virgin who has not borne fruit to a woman who gives birth to life, to a man who gives birth to spiritual children, ask the Lord now that touch you, visit you.
Father, visit your people, fill us with the Holy Spirit. This word that has been uttered Lord, mark it in our hearts now, seal it in our hearts, put it in the depths of the spirit, Father, let it reverberate. Father, I pronounce it not only for this church, I pronounce it for the whole church in New England, I pronounce it for the church in America, Lord, I pronounce it for the church in the West, Lord.
This word Father I declare in the spirit as a prophetic word Lord, I unleash it in that way and declare that it is not a local word Lord, it is a word to run outside of this church and to be translated in the spirit into different languages, if necessary Father, in the name of Jesus and Lord I activate the prophecy of Joel, I activate the words of Joel Lord in this congregation, in my life, in the life of my brothers Lord, in the life of Boston, in the life of Massachusetts, New England, the entire Northeast United States, and all the rest of this nation, in the name of Jesus I activate the prophetic move of God, I declare that your word Lord rises like a giant in the midst of time and assert your message, Lord in the name of Jesus.
Father, fill us with new strength and fill us with a vision that comes directly from your spirit Father, forgive us.
Stand up and ask God for forgiveness Let us ask the Lord for forgiveness, let us ask the Lord for forgiveness. And if you want to come forward here and kneel, come and let's, as a church, ask the Lord for forgiveness. Come, come close, those who can because I know that not everyone will be able to do it, and if you can do it there in your chair too, but come and let's ask the Lord for forgiveness, as a deposit. We are going to ask the Lord for forgiveness for our families, for the church of Jesus Christ throughout the earth, for the church of this nation, for the sins of this nation. We are going to ask the Lord for forgiveness, we are going to ask him as a church because we have neglected his glory, Lord I have neglected your glory, Lord I have neglected your glory, forgive me, forgive us, forgive us Lord.
We ask you this afternoon Father, that you remove the condemnation of your church, remove the sin of your church Father, because we have sinned against you Lord, we have offended you, we have not lived up to what your You have given us and you have called us to do Lord, now cleanse us, cleanse us, heal us, forgive your church Father. We afflict ourselves before you Lord, we moan before you Lord, we cry before you, Lord we tear the interior of our heart, Lord we tear our interior because we know that we have offended you and we have not been the children that you deserve us to be.
Wash us more and more of our wickedness and cleanse us of our sin, because we recognize our offenses and our sin is always before you Lord. Against you only we have sinned and we have done evil in front of your eyes. Purify us with hyssops and we will be clean, wash us and we will be whiter than snow, make us hear joy and gladness and the bones you have crushed will be recreated.
Hide your face from our sin and erase all evil Lord, wash us more and more, clean us, clean your church Father, your church humbles itself before you this afternoon, your church repents Lord, we repent On behalf of our brothers, we repent on behalf of this nation, we repent on behalf of the state house politicians here in Boston and the politicians in Washington Lord, we repent of the sins of Roxbury, of Marapan, of Brookling, of Lexington, of Wesley, of Newton, we repent of the Southend, the sins of the Southend, Father you know well.
We ask for forgiveness Father, we identify ourselves because we are not better than them, only by your grace and your mercy, but we have also failed before you and we repent and ask that you forgive us and heal, heal your Lord people, as you have said in your word in second Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 14, "...we humble ourselves and pray, we repent and cry out and you have promised that you will heal the earth Lord..." heal the earth, heal the earth Lord, heal your church, heal your people Lord, cleanse us, cleanse us, we repent Lord, thank you, thank you Jesus.
We believe in your forgiveness, we believe in your forgiveness, forgive our children, Lord, forgive our families, forgive our homes, Lord, we repent, O God. Heal the earth, heal the earth, heal your church Lord, heal your church Lord, heal me, heal your people, heal this tribe Lord. We repent, we repent Lord, forgive us and raise up a new people, a restored people Father, a people with a sincere heart.
Oh have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, Lord. Visit us again even though we have no right to even expect that Father, we repent simply because it is the right thing to do, we don't want to manipulate you. You do not have to visit us but we do have to repent and we do it obediently Lord this afternoon. Cleanse your people, heal your people, let your work on earth be seen, Lord, and for the love of your son, heal the nations and bring a harvest of souls, Lord, that they do not perish, that they do not go to hell without knowing Jesus. Give your church the effectiveness it needs Lord, we love you and we bless you, thank you, thank you Jesus, thank you Lord.
