Prayer Meeting December 6, 2008 : Discerning the Times into Which We Are Entering

God is preparing to offer humanity the terms of reconciliation. The

terms have already been established in his Word. He will speak with

clarity, and then people’s hearts will either be hardened and

inaccessible to His grace; or they will react to that movement, that

motion of love. There will be no middle ground.

A new order in history is being prepared. All the things that are

happening are to set up the scenario for what God is about to do. We,

God’s people, need to be preparing. I am myself possessed by a holy

sense of awe. It’s almost like a silence before a huge storm or an

earthquake. We should not be too attentive to the temporal processes

that are taking place, because really what is significant is what is

happening in the heavenlies.

Somewhere in our psyche, there’s this veil of incredulity. If you’re

like me, you feel it. I tell myself, “You know, it can’t be that way.”

Even though we declare the events of Scripture and the truths of

Scripture … I think it’s a biological thing, it’s a product of our

humanity, which prevents us from believing fully the things that we

declare.

Yet something in my Spirit says what we are about to enter into, to

live, in the next years, a decade, perhaps, of human history, will be

of the magnitude of the events that are written about in Scripture. It

really will blow our minds. When I think about those things, it is

like looking into an abyss. I get dizzy. The incredulous part of me

says, “No, it will never be like that. God will not manifest Himself

like that.” I have not seen him manifest Himself in the way that I

think He’s getting ready to do.

When we gather in these times, people, I think we should gather

believing that we are about to enter into something that we’re not

prepared for. Even those of us who are restless about these things and

declaring these things, we do not know what God is preparing. We will

be amazed.

As we pray, as we worship Him this morning, let us do it in that kind

of context, that kind of expectation. We are living in momentous

times; we are on the threshold of something unique and privileged. It

will be accompanied by great tribulation, distress, anxiety, panic,

persecution, conflict, death, unsavory things--which many of us decent

evangelicals don’t like to contemplate.

I’ve been reading Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. I believe that these

three books have a particular relevance to the times that we are

living in. Enter into them in prayer, particularly Malachi. It’s a

little jewel of a book. I call it a “Little Revelations”. The fourteen

chapters of that book hold an amazing amount of revelation for our

times.

These three books deal with the reconstruction of the Temple after the

Exile, and the restoration of certain things, including Israel; and a

call to God’s people to rebuild the Temple. These books are written in

the context of great financial problems, just like we’re living in

right now, which is an interesting coincidence.

The call is to put their priority into rebuilding the Temple. God will

take care of the financial part. There’s something about that

rebuilding of the Temple that’s crucial for us. We need to rebuild

God’s Temple with all of the elements that constitute true worship,

which constitutes the bringing down of God’s presence into the

physical realm. I don’t think that this is spiritualized. I think that

there is something dealing with the future Temple.

There’s a passage here that I think relates to the period of time that

we are preparing to enter into more fully. To usher us fully into this

time, let us read from the book of Haggai 2:1-5:

1 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first of the month, the word of

the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying: 2 “Speak now to

Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the

son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people,

saying: 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former

glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not

in your eyes as nothing? 4 Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the

LORD; ‘and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and

be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the LORD, ‘and work; for

I am with you,’ says the LORD of hosts. 5 ‘According to the word that

I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains

among you; do not fear!’

These words of encouragement are for God’s people today who are

emerging from captivity. The Church of Jesus Christ is preparing to

emerge from that time of waiting and delay. We have been in

parentheses, and God is preparing to take us out of the parentheses.

This is associated with rebuilding the Temple, and not fearing, and

believing that God is with us. There was a reason for that time of

shame and holding back and being in a type of Cinderella stage; but

God is preparing to bring His people into authority once more. We have

entered into the beginnings of that realm.

Continuing to the end of the second chapter:

6 “For thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while)

I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; 7 and I will

shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations,

[b] and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts. 8

‘The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts. 9

‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’

says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says

the LORD of hosts.”

“Greater will be the glory of the future house than the former, says

the Lord of Hosts.” Remember that. The manifestations of God’s glory

and power will be much greater in this coming time than anything we

have been up until now. That is the Word of God. “‘And in this place I

will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

Then in Hebrews 12:25, there is again the call. It’s a very serious,

solemn call not to take Him for granted, and to be possessed by a holy

fear, because God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The same

God who spoke to Moses in a terrible voice, to Moses and the people,

is the same God who is preparing to speak to us today, and to speak to

all mankind.

Consider verse 18:

18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that

burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest,

Here’s what God is saying to us this morning, and to the Church as a

whole:

25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not

escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not

escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice

then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more

I shake[f] not only the earth, but also heaven.”27 Now this, “Yet once

more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as

of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may

remain.

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken,

let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence

and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.

Haggai 2: 1-9 and Hebrews 12:18-29. So people, this is the context that we are entering into. These are

awesome, holy, reverential times. We need to take our garments of

casualness off, and put on priestly garments of reverence, awe and

holiness as we walk before our God. Let us worship Him this morning in

that sense. God is here. He is here with us. We are going to be

ministering unto Him.