When the manna ceases

Book of Joshua in chapter 5, verses 10 to 12. This whole series of meditations began with a thought that came to my mind, I say, like a meteor several weeks ago, where I heard the voice of the Lord in my mind. , in my spirit, with that message "because you have not passed this way before."

And we saw how that meant, in a more expanded way, that God has called us as a church to enter a zone, a dimension, a time that we have not been in before, qualitatively different, with different demands. , with a different way of operating, with different events and expectations from God. We haven't been down that road before. It's not something familiar, it's something different.

And after that the thought came to me, the image of the ark that if one is going to walk that path, as that text says, one has to be guided by the ark because it is the only one who knows where we have to go. The ark is going to be our GPS, so the ark is going to provide us with the instructions and guidelines that we need to be able to get to where God wants to take us on that path that we have not walked before.

If one is going to live depending on God, it is better for God to speak so that we can go where he wants us to go. One thing goes with the other. So, we talked about that, about the need for God to direct us. And God gave us a beautiful illustration of this by taking us to the original sanctuary and giving us instructions that he wanted that particular place to offer worship to the Lord that Sunday. And he used a technical event here, of the boilers failing on the coldest day I think we've had all year, and the weather there was glorious that we had.

Because it is that the Lord gives specific instructions and that is something that I believe that this modality where God moves, he speaks to his people. And he gives instructions. God is a -God who speaks and who gives instructions to a people who are engaged in war in favor of God, with God in their favor and against the hosts...

There is a passage in writing, I will flow in the spirit including sometimes outside of my notes. There is a passage in scripture in which David, at a time when he is going to fight against an enemy tribe – I don't remember right now which one it is – says to the Lord, “Lord, what do I do? When do I attack or stay calm, how?" And God tells him, "When you hear the wind moving over the balsam trees, it's time to attack." And then God directed it in a very strategic way. And so God does throughout all of scripture, when the people had to attack Jericho, we saw in other of those basic sermons, that God gave them the strategy. One day, every day one turn around, on the seventh day 6 times around, then shout, the priests blow the shofars and the wall will fall down and then everyone go straight, look neither to the right nor to the left and uproot everything, destroy all.

And we are going to see next Sunday possibly, and he told him, “Do not keep anything that you see in that land. Everything is cursed and they have to consecrate it rather.” That is anathema, it is consecrated to God in a way and if there is no curse. That is, specific instructions God gave them.

God is a God of strategy, God is a God of details. God speaks to those whom he commands to act in his work. If God does not speak more clearly to the church, I believe, it is because the church is not in his perfect will and then he does not send those instructions that we need, because why else are we using them properly?

So, that ark was that sample. We also saw that when the people cross to the other side and meet Jericho, again, he gave him a specific strategy. The madness of God wiser than the wisdom of men.

And today I want to talk to you about another moment, again, every so often I have been about to leave this, okay, I already preached what I had to preach, but God comes back and tells me, no, there is still material in that. Because? Because in these passages about the entrance of the people of God to the promised land and the end of wandering in the desert, there are... you heard me talk a lot about the word paradigms. A paradigm is like a prototype, some say a type of… a paradigm is like a very important model, a reference point that dictates the specific actions of the people who operate under that paradigm.

There's also the word prototype, it's the same kind of thing. In these Joshua passages they are written not only for us to say, oh, yes, that happened three thousand years ago, how nice, how nice. No, it is so that we can draw from them principles for the Christian life, fundamental principles that we can apply to any situation in life. They are principles for Christian living. That is what a spiritual paradigm is and all these passages of God's people in the desert, of the difficulties they went through, their entry into Canaan, the struggles, are all simply ways of God establishing paradigms and models for the life of the believer.

So what we're doing is decoding and taking the structure out of these passages and putting aside the external, incidental foliage to find the foundation, the foundation of these things, that we can then apply them to many different things. And so the Lord has been talking to me about, okay, there's something else in there that you have to look at, set your eyes on it and lay it out for the congregation.

Because I see how God is assembling a puzzle before our eyes of fundamental principles that we have to use in these times. And one of those fundamental principles is found there in Joshua 5, from 10 to 12 and that is why God is telling me, until you declare this, until you put it in its place, you do not have permission to release this topic yet.

And I want to talk to you about the manna, when the manna ceases. In chapter 5, verses 10 to 12 he says:

“And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal and celebrated the Passover on the 14th day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. On the other day after the Passover they ate unleavened bread from the fruit of the land, and on the same day new ears of wheat toasted.”

Here is something very important – it says that God called them to celebrate Easter and here the next time I preach, possibly it will be on Sunday, it is precisely around this theme of Easter, circumcision. It was like God was saying to them, before you can fully enter into what I have for you, there are certain things you have to do that are preparatory.

Then God called the Hebrews to be circumcised and to celebrate the Passover and he says that the day after celebrating the Passover, in other words, to be circumcised, to celebrate the Passover, to keep those days of rest and rest, was a prelude, a requirement to enter into something. And that had to be done before beginning the time of the final action that God wanted them to take, to enter as a people their identity and their maturity and their total stability.

And it's interesting that after they celebrate Easter, they eat the fruit of the earth for the first time and this is like it's easy to get over it, but that's where the Lord stopped me because look what happens. It says that they ate of the fruit, in other words, like they received permission in their spirit to eat of the fruit of the land. You have to remember that they had been in the desert for 40 years eating manna every day. And they had not entered the promised land. Now they enter the promised land and for the first time in 40 years...

Can you imagine if you have been eating plantains every day for 40 years, and at the moment they present you with rice and beans and a well-cooked meat, a salad, 4 plantains and a flan at the end, how do you feel? In glory, right? These people had been eating the same white rice every day for 40 years and now they are entering the promised land and can eat different things. The palate opened momentarily under the attack of all that different food.

They ate of the fruit of the land, the unleavened bread on the same day, new ears of wheat toasted. They made a good bun, with a little butter and olive oil. Wow! How rich did he know that. If they've been there for 40 years, they can't get fed up at once, you have to go little by little.

And so verse 12 is where we really have to get into, it says, “and the manna ceased.” Say with me, and the manna ceased. “And the manna ceased the next day since they began to eat of the fruit of the ground. And the children of Israel had no more manna, but ate of the produce of the land of Canaan that year."

You see why it is important not to omit this apparent detail. It is not a detail, it is something essential. And I believe that there is a very important principle here. That idea that the Israelites began to eat the fruit of the promised land and then the manna ceased. That food that God had provided him for 40 years stopped falling on his land.

As manna is such an important thing. Let me read you something I got from the internet about the meaning of manna and what manna was, because maybe some of you don't get the whole thing.

He says, the manna looked like coriander seed, a small seed. And it tasted like cookies, wafers, made with honey. It was like a cereal, I don't know how to describe it exactly, but I imagine it was like a cereal that could be used for different things. You could maybe make a little roll with a little bit of candy. It was something very simple and they picked it up, it was like little glitter.

By the way, I think, and here I'm going to go a little ahead, I'm not sure about that, but the Catholic Church with the wafer, which is like a finite little thing, I think they try to duplicate and allude and reference to that of the manna. I don't know if I'm wrong. You Catholics admit it. But there is a reference from the Catholic Church about that, with those little things.

So, it was something very simple. And it says that when the Israelites saw it, the first time it fell on the earth, they asked each other what is that? And that's where the name came from, in Hebrew it was, manú, mangú, what is that? It's mangú. The original expression was that, manú, maná. That's where the word manu came from, what is that? An expression of surprise what they were seeing.

That led to the name mana. In other words, what is that? Then that manna came down every morning except on the Sabbath. You could collect every day only for the day and only what could be eaten in one day. When the Lord Jesus Christ says, give us this day our daily bread, it is because the Christian life is supposed to be a life of faith. God was trying to instruct his people about depending on him for everything. So he said, this is not that you just come with a wheelbarrow and fill it with manna and bring it into your house for the whole week. Every day you only have to pick up for one day and your left for the other day could be.

God wanted to instruct, teach this people to walk by faith. I ask the Lord, Lord, help us to walk by faith, help us to believe that you are our provider and that as the Bible says, I was young and I have grown old and I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their offspring begging for bread.

Says the Lord Jesus Christ, why do you worry about tomorrow, what will you eat or what will you drink, because the Gentiles do the same. And many of the problems that we have in life is that we have not found that rest in the Lord, of being able to believe that God is going to give me my daily provision and that I will not lack it. That is a promise from God and he wanted to impress them with that dependence on him every day by eating only and gathering what they needed for that day.

And on the seventh day it says that you couldn't pick up that day, you couldn't work that day. If a person tried to gather 'more than necessary, I'm reading, or store the manna for future needs it would rot and smell awful. Thus it was impossible for the Israelites to evade total dependence on God or to greedily use the manna for personal gain. Miraculously, the manna could be preserved on the sixth day and eaten the next day, Saturday, and could not be found on Saturday morning.

In other words, on Friday, I could pick up for both days. On Saturday they were not going to do anything and that day the manna, for some reason, more manna fell and they could collect it for two days and it would not be possible the next day. The only thing that happened was because God was also teaching them. Rest in me and believe that I am going to supply you. That is something that is too deep, I don't want to go into it too much.

He says, eventually the rebellious Israelites got tired of the manna, and that's very important, because one would say, Wow! Lord, if I could so eating manna from you every day. We get pretty romantic, right? Sir, thank you, I prefer to eat a little rice with beans.

The manna was a temporary thing, it was an adjustment, it was something that God was giving them so they would not starve, but it was not the real thing that God had for them. He had something better, he had the tasty food from the promised land and in the meantime he made an adjustment and gave them that bland, monotonous food. That is important for us to remember.

The Jews, if you look at Numbers 11:6, came to loathe manna and they came to crave the rich foods of Egypt. One day they got tired of eating that manna at home, I'm sick of this manna. Lord, send us something different. I wish and we would go back to Egypt where we had garlic and onions and we ate all we wanted and the meats, the pots full of meat in Egypt. They did not remember the whippings of the Egyptians. They didn't remember the night they threw themselves into bed exhausted to get up at 5 in the morning and go back again to make straw bricks and all that for the pyramids. They only began to remember the tasty foods and that manna that seemed tasteless. There is a lot of spiritual teaching there.

They came to hate the manna. But God continued to give the Israelites a constant supply of manna during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. I can't suppress a thought about it. Do you know that when God takes a sensual people accustomed to spicy tastes and all the tasty and sensual things in the world, he knows what he does? It makes you fast, vegetarian even if you don't want to.

I think the manna was like a kind of fast too. To this sensual people who liked spicy, chili, jalapeños from Egypt, God told them, for 40 years I am going to put you to eat Cornflake cereal without sugar to wean you from your sensuality. I tell him, brothers, God help us, God has to... many of us need to eat less, fast more, wean ourselves from meat, there are many of us who do not live without those chops at noon. If at night we don't eat rice with beans and stewed meat, we don't feel like we've eaten. And in the morning another trip of whatever, tortillas with beans and fried bacon or whatever. And that is killing many of us, brothers.

God wants to give us health as a people and I throw this out as a word to you. Let's begin to become independent and emancipate ourselves from food. It will take you perhaps two or three years, brother, but God wants health for his people and I throw that challenge prophetically at you, my brothers, in the name of the Lord. Maybe I'm being nosy but forgive me. I ask you, Lord, help me to be honest with my brothers, let me speak what you put in my heart.

We have to learn to emancipate ourselves from dependence on garlic and meat and fight with that giant in the Lord. Say, I'm going to beat you. Appetite out, now, now. And enter into the rest of the Lord. Break away from Egypt's reliance on garlic and meat.

Now I don't remember where I was going but maybe you can remember me. They came to detest the manna and mourned the day they were delivered from their bondage, in Numbers 11. "Now our souls wither away, for our eyes see nothing but this manna."

They despised God's provision and for that they paid a high price. But God continued to give the Israelites a constant supply of manna during their 40 years of wandering in the desert.

When Joshua and the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River and entered the promised land at Gilgal, they celebrated the Passover and ate the produce of the land. On that day the manna ceased again illustrating its miraculous provision.

We have been drawn, brothers, to an extended reflection on the book of Joshua. In Joshua 5:12 it says that, “once the Israelites began to eat the fruit of the promised land, the manna that God had provided for them stopped descending.”

The manna was a temporary and humble provision by God's mercy to sustain the Israelites during their time in the desert while they waited for God's true and permanent provision that was the food of the land of Canaan. The manna had its uses but it was only while they were in the desert. When they finally entered the real land that they were to inhabit, those provisional supplies from God would cease and they would then be able to consume the real food that God had for them.

God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey where they would not lack any good, everything they needed God had in abundance. Meanwhile he kept them in provisional grace in the desert.

And God also provided other temporary modes of provision and guidance in the wilderness. We saw the cloud of smoke and the column of fire that guided them, illuminated them, it was electricity without having to pay a monthly fee. At night that column of fire shone over the entire camp and illuminated Israel and the column covered them in the desert of the sun and when it moved they had to follow divine direction.

God also made sure that the Israelites' shoes never broke, but unfortunately it was the same shoe all the time. And the Bible says that the women also began to protest because they had the same shoes and could not wear different combinations in the desert. I don't know, is that true or am I making it up? And the men, too, with their clothes never got old, and the young people complained that the same jeans every day, Lord, now... give me a short, a Jordan [inaudible], one [inaudible] over there, Father, although be an oasis

It was simply the same clothes but they never dried out, they never wore out, their shoes were always the same, because God had one… yes, they were the same but they didn't rot or break. A provisional grace from God. It was not the abundance of clothes that they wanted but God told them, there is nothing else. Get used to it. Thank God, the Lord said, they don't break on you and you have to walk around with holes in your butt or something. They had to wear the same boring clothes all the time but at least God's grace was manifested in them.

So we see this provisional grace of God while the true, the permanent, his permanent identity came. When that true and more permanent food became available after the Passover and circumcision, the temporary ceased, because it was no longer needed because it was only meant to feed the Israelites during their time in the desert.

In other words, and this is what I want to introduce into your sensitivity, when the true and the permanent come into force, the temporary and the imperfect cease to be necessary, cease to function, clearing the way for the most perfect manifestation of power. and the presence of God. That is the center of this message.

It clearly says here that when they began to eat the fruit of the ground, they no longer had manna but ate the fruit of the ground. That is, God brought them into a new type of existence. And as the Bible says, old things have passed away, behold, all things are made new.

God said, now you enter a new dispensation. Now you are no longer children with a provisional meal and enter your maturity. It is interesting that the cessation of the manna seems to be a sign of promotion rather, of being promoted, of being lifted up, of finality. The end of one era and the beginning of another.

The characteristic and humble, not to say humiliating, elements of existence in the desert, the lack of circumcision…. Do you know that this new generation that was born in the desert and those who came out, who were minors from Egypt, that generation was not circumcised in the desert, they were uncircumcised. Those who had been circumcised were those who came out of Egypt because the Lord had commanded them to be circumcised. But that generation that grows up in the desert and that is now going to enter the promised land, because all those of the first generation have died, but that generation has not celebrated that pact with God, circumcision was the mark of the pact. They were uncircumcised, so in a sense they were outside, to some degree, of full membership in the family of God.

When they are circumcised, when they celebrate the Passover, then they enter into a greater maturity and that is then what it says that they can begin to eat that deeper bread and then it is like a promotion of the people of God, the end of an era and the start of another Those characteristic, humble elements of desert existence, the lack of circumcision, the supernatural guidance from the pillars of cloud and fire, the lack of Passover celebration, once all of those are corrected, all of these things become in symbol of finality and new beginning. Complete something and start something new. It is the beginning of the state of maturity for the Hebrews.

The time in the desert had been more like an adolescence, between adulthood and childhood. God dealt with them but they were not full citizens of the Kingdom of God. And that state of eating from the land was their true destiny, not eating from the manna. That moment of starting to eat the fruit of the earth was his graduation moment. Now they were entering into the real existence that had been destined for them when they came out of Egypt, and even more, when God himself called Abraham and said, Come out of your kindred. That was when God began to prepare that people and the next 400 or so years of existence that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob goes on, they enter Egypt with Joseph, they are 300 or so years old, they leave Egypt, 40 years in the desert, all that trajectory of hundreds of years was God destining them to only one thing, to enter and possess the land.

That's why they existed and until they got there they weren't going to enter their true identity. Everything else was just a prelude. So, the cessation of the manna and the beginning of eating of the food of the earth was not like a degradation but rather a promotion towards maturity, towards the real and the true. It wasn't that God said, you know what? You can no longer enjoy my miraculous provision because you must now go back to normal and get used to the humbler existence of eating physical food on earth.

You know that many people who do not believe in the gifts that are for our time, there are Christians, there are Bible analysts and theologians who believe in what is called cessationism, who believe that the gifts, the supernatural provisions of God ceased as the manna once the church came into the use of the Bible, once the canon was completed and the Bible was constituted, all the documents. Now they say, now God tells the people, stop looking for miracles, stop looking for gifts because now this is what they have. And in a sense it is like the reverse. It is like telling us that now we are going to eat manna while before we were eating from the riches of the book of Acts.

And that is a way of putting the concepts of the Bible inside a very narrow theological drawer. Actually, God was telling them, now, I am going to bless you by eating from the ground. My manna was only temporary and that was like a sentence for you. Truly now is when you enter into the fullness of your maturity.

God was telling them, you have now entered into full maturity and no longer need the humble substitutes for your immature existence in the desert. Now you can eat real food.

A brother from the church last Sunday in the service in English, a humble, harsh firefighter, that the Lord I believe has saved him in the ministry in English. He met the Lord here? Michael is a rough guy, he looks like a mobster, a mafia enforcer who comes to your house to collect a debt. And the Lord is doing a marvelous work in that rough man. And I ask the Lord, Lord, give us 200 like him. Brands taken from the fire.

He shared a testimony of a vision he had. A rough worker sharing wildly exotic and artistic visions of the Lord. He says that he saw a young lion walking in front of him with a piece of bleeding meat in its mouth. And that's shocking because one would think it's a negative. But what do lions eat? Lions don't eat grain. They eat meat with blood. They tear meat and chew it. That's what a lion is meant for. And he says that he saw that lion with a piece of meat, a piece of meat in its bleeding mouth, and then he saw an inscription on top that said 'no more milk'.

Hey, don't you think it's extremely wonderful? A humble firefighter conceiving an image as eloquent as that. That's why I know that it's real because he couldn't make it up. If he was a Harvard grad, a Ph.D. in literature, I could say, he made that up. But this is a man that God has to have spoken to to see that. And there's a lot to that vision.

But it is the idea that God is calling us, is telling us as a congregation, no more milk. And at the end of the service, a very troubled woman came, new to the church, a lover of God, a precious woman of God but young in faith, and she told me... she was worried about that stark image of a lion with a piece of bloody meat in the mouth. She said, "I'm confused, what does that mean?" He told him, “Look in First Corinthians, where God says to the Corinthians, I wanted to give you meat to eat and I couldn't, because you could only digest milk. And having to be adults, you are like children and I could not share the deepest things of the Gospel with you, but I only gave you milk to drink.”

That image that this brother saw, I think a large part, is so much for him because God is calling him, and that man perhaps in 20 years, it is, if Christ has not come, he will be an elder of the church , but I believe it is also for all of us, where God is telling the Lion of Judah congregation, no more milk. Say with me, no more milk. Again, no more milk.

I am asking you, Lord, please, we want our stomach to be able to digest the deepest things of your mysteries. When Israel enters the promised land, to their destination, to what God has been preparing them for, He tells them, no more manna. Now to eat, to use that digestive system to eat the meat of the earth, to eat solid food, for you now enter into your true calling. They are going to fight battles now, they are going to possess the land, they are going to fight with giants, they are going to conquer what I have put in their hands.

And know that when one enters to conquer things for God it is a very difficult time. I can imagine how many Israelites died in that effort to conquer the land. Satan is not going to give up the territory he now occupies easily. If a church, I say this with fear and trembling, dedicates itself to doing the will of God in a more powerful way, get ready because it is to make war. And that's why we have to be terribly careful going into this.

Now one sees differently... I wasn't even going to say it but I'm going to launch it like this so that you will be frightened. But, one of the things that he wants to threaten is the parking lots that are so important to us, and I've seen little glimmers of complication there. Please pray that the Lord will cancel any ploys of the devil. Because when a people begins to emancipate themselves from the ties of Egypt, Pharaoh begins to tighten the screws. That is another paradigm of the Kingdom of God.

When the new child is about to be born, Pharaoh tries to attack. What did he do with the Hebrews? As they were prospering and the beans were very vigorous and they brought forth children like rabbits, and they were almost overwhelming the Egyptians, Pharaoh said, I'm going to load him with work and he put them to work harder and make bricks and everything. He wanted to exhaust them, he wanted to destroy them. He tried to kill the children and couldn't, and so he said, now we're going to grieve them with worries.

Many times when we are more seeking the Lord, more complications come to life. And we have to ask the Lord if we are going to enter into this, I also clearly understand that there is a greater demand on our part for more dedication to the Lord, more cleansing, more search for God's will. One thing goes with the other and that is why this time is such a dangerous time also for me and for this congregation.

We have to ask the Lord to protect us and have mercy on us because if you are going to come in to possess the land, there are enemy powers that are not going to hand over the land easily, but rather there will be a struggle and then we have to be more neat and clearer before God, before the Lord. Pray, and I tell you in a moment of honesty, for me so that the Lord will keep me, preserve me, purify me, sanctify me, cleanse me.

It is very important and that God also cleanse his congregation and remove everything that does not suit us so that then the enemy cannot have entry into our life as a church. Because we are going to enter that battle, the Lord now destined them to possess this land and it was not a free delivery of things, they had to fight for it.

God tells us, for the Lion of Judah congregation and for all my church of Jesus Christ in all the earth the time for milk has already passed. And the time to eat real, hearty, true food is at hand. Entering into our true identity for which God has destined us… we have been in existence as a church in this city and in Cambridge for 35 years, and God has led us through different stages. We crossed the river 20 years ago, we came to Boston as part of that… and we crossed a literal river, the Charles River, from Cambridge to Boston.

And now I feel that God is calling us to cross another Jordan, a symbolic Jordan, a spiritual Jordan, a virtual Jordan, a Jordan of a certain degree, yes, to be God's people in a very strong way, but not strong enough as were the Jews. That intermediate state of spiritual adolescence God is calling us to a greater maturity now, to a definitive maturity, to eat genuine, true, ripe bread. It is a time of great promise and also of great danger, of great potential and also of great trial, but it is a glorious time, and we do not want to stay in adolescence. God free us.

We do not want to be like the Corinthians that God gives us milk to drink and not meat because we are not capable of it. It is not a time, the Lord tells us, for generic, humble, provisional expressions of God's power, mediated by our dependence on a text, on programs, on human protocols, but a time of great power and glory in which the favor and the authority and power of God are in extraordinary manifestation and the church of Jesus Christ moves with great authority and prestige.

It is good to do what we do, brothers, but what if God calls us to another way of doing the church? That's why perhaps God has been speaking to me in this fight about... we have to open up, we have to learn to flow in the spirit, that when we get together if God tells us, look, I want them to spend the next 20 minutes at war spiritually, there is not 40% of the congregation stunned out there looking at the others doing things and they quietly watching. No, God wants us all to be there and for all of us to accept and embrace and embrace the call so that we all know how to make war, how to worship, how to get into the spirit of the Lord, and that there be a people that can come like we came on Friday, we're going to see what God does and what he wants, and that God's provision is not lacking. I know it's threatening, but that's what God wants.

There is a time for yourself, to do things in a certain way, but life in the spirit is a tremendously unpredictable life, where we become fragile to see what God has in hand, where we wait for what the Lord wants to tell us and do. at one point. And I believe that it is eating the most mature food of the people of God where the spirit is present and God then does things, there is healing, liberation, the presence of the Lord is felt because praise has brought that presence, has aroused it and there is a people that is willing to interact with the adoration that the people of God offer them, where prayer and intercession prepare the environment and then God does miracles, deliverances, healings, impartations, changes in the hearts of the people, but he has to there is a spiritual platform that makes this possible. The cloud of the Lord enters and covers the environment and then that cloud of God, shekinah, facilitates the works that God wants to do.

I do not believe that God is going to give his glory and then we are going to stop doing things. I think it's the other way, we're going to stop doing things and then God will send his glory. The true destiny of the church is not the one-sided and supernaturally devoid of God's way as God has done so far in the church, and thank the Lord for the programs and the protocols and the ways that He has provided during all these years of the church in the desert, praise God for that, because it's quite a convenient filler.

But when the manna ceases, God then demands another, and he is going to give us another type of food and other types of tasks. It is not that humble state in which we and the church in general find ourselves, but a state in which the church can find its true dignity as a people and move in all the power and glory that God has destined for it. There is a maturity that God is calling us to enter. That is our true destiny as for the people of Israel the promised land was their true destiny. Our promised land, which God calls us to, is our true entrance into the land flowing with milk and honey where manna is no longer needed because we are finally eating the glorious, ripe, wholesome food that God sets before us on our table.

Because that is the true thing that God has destined for his church throughout the earth in these last times that we are living. The Lord has said that the latter wine will be better than the first, the latter rain will be better than the former, God will pour out his spirit on his church. The young will see my dreams, the old will dream dreams, the maidens will prophesy, and he will pour out his spirit on all flesh.

Brethren, the world is ripe for a visitation of the power of God like never before in all of history, power of judgment and power of grace. In the world as in Egypt there will be darkness, in the tents of the people of God there will be light as in Goshen, in Egypt there will be frogs and the bloody river and mosquitoes everywhere and where the people of God live there will be peace and tranquility and protection.

And I believe that this is the time to which God is calling his church and we declare it in the name of Jesus. It is the time of strong food, it is the time of the promised land, it is the time of the glory of God before the desired of all nations comes. And the Bible says that God will first remove everything that can be removed. If something is not screwed to eternity and to the eternal principles of the word of God, it will be removed, because the tremor will be so great and the wind will be so great that everything that is not tight is going to be carried away. , everything that can be removed will be removed, says the Bible, before the Lord Jesus Christ comes.

I believe that a time of visitation, consummation, maturation has to come, in which the church of Christ functions as God designed it. God does not come looking for a weak people, He comes to look for a people without spot and wrinkle that functions as Christ designed it, a people with authority, a people that moves in prophecy, a people that governments fear when the prophets enter. and the Apostles of God in an environment, a town where the church speaks wisdom, knowledge, revelation to the nations and to the rulers.

And God is not going to take the church out of this world until his church has functioned that way. God calls us not to a vacation but to a job in the Lord, but with joy and joy. No one will get bored of that job because it will be so exciting, so glorious that we will want to be there all day. There will be no anxiety, this is the true state of the church of God, one in which the gifts of the spirit are in full manifestation, in which communion and intimacy with God is the matter of daily life, in which it gives authority to the people of God, in which the reproach of Egypt, the shame of circumcision and slavery is removed from the church and the church is restored to its desired glory, as Israel was restored. The opprobrium of Egypt has already been removed, he said, no more, now they are truly my children, you are my nation.

Brethren, but I want to declare this in the name of the Lord. I believe that all the supernatural manifestations and blessings of God that the church has experienced and expressed in the world up to now have been nothing more than manna, the merciful but humble provision of God while the true and more real manifestations of his glory and his favor to his church here on earth.

Everything that we have seen in terms of things that God has done in these 2000 years of the church here on earth, I believe that it is simply something very partial and very temporary and that before Christ comes in these last times that remain, there will be an opening for this creation to receive a visitation from the power of God mediated by his church. And the church will decree and declare, the church will speak judgment and restoration, it will speak blessing and it will speak curse, it will call nations and governments to submit to the word and the rules of Christ or it will curse them so that they reap the consequences of their rebellion.

And it is a time when the men and women of God will speak with great authority and with great power in the nations and a last harvest will come before the Lord Jesus Christ comes. If my prophetic discernment proves correct, there will come a time when the miracles we have experienced thus far will seem like humble manna in comparison to the more powerful and undeniable manifestations of God's power that will begin to unfold.

God has a rest for his church and that is what I have been asking the Lord for all these years of my life, Lord, now I want to rest from this expectation of something, from this interior agony of knowing within me that there is something more than you have for us, to think, to feel like yes, we are in the desert, Father, yes, there is that column of smoke, I have been seeing it for 40 years. There is that column of fire that illuminates us at night. And it is miraculous that my clothes have not undone during these 40 years, my shoes have remained. I eat manna and every day I go with my can and pick up a new portion and take it home and my children and I eat.

But Lord, there has to be something else. You have called us to be in the desert, you called us to a promised land. So, many times one's spirit, I believe that within one moans, with inexpressible moans. And one says, Lord, take this away from me, why this sense that there is something else, there is something else, that you have for us. I am not interested in the temporary, the partial.

Brothers, it does not simply want one to go to pastor a church, to direct whatever... the Christian life is not to go from one little thing to another, to another. That's not. You want something new, qualitatively, totally different. It is a promotion at the very root of your spirit. It is a new identity. It is a rest.

I know that when we enter into that true identity that God has for us, we will rest. My spirit, I hope, can rest. I have told the Lord, if I die without seeing what I feel that you have told me is coming, it is fine, God has allowed me to do many things, but in my spirit I will be sad because I believe not, that God has something older, something qualitatively different.

God's miracles are not so poor and so rejectable. When God moves and performs miracles, the unbelievers put a zipper in their mouths, moan and wag their tails like angry demons, but they cannot say, because God's miracles are so clear. And that is what God wants for his church, brothers. And that final oil is that it requires something very big from us but it will be a break. And that is the last image that I want to put in your spirit, the rest of God. There is a rest that the Lord wants for our lives.

I'm looking for a verse about that. Hebrews 4:9, says, "Therefore remains a rest for the people of God because he who has entered his rest has also rested from his works as God from his, let us therefore try to enter that rest so that no one falls into such example of disobedience."

We are going to ask the Lord for a rest because when we rest in the presence of God and rest in our true identity, He knows that then work does not wear us out. We can run in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and we wear out because we are eating supernatural food and we know that we have reached our identity.

I ask the Lord for the privilege of truly walking the roads of the earth as a pilgrim and dying on the road doing his will. I will have no greater joy than that. And that is what we have to be asking the Lord, Father, help us to live in the center of your will. Because when you are in the center of God's will you don't get tired, what tires us is anxiety, what tires us is Pharaoh's work on earth. What wears you out is 9 to 5 and sometimes 6 days a week working in a business or law firm because you are working a barren and sterile job, it is not your true identity.

When you flow in the identity of God, work will not wear you out. You will evangelize, you will be fasting and praying, you will come to church to watch and pray and that will not wear you out. You won't be looking at the clock because an hour and a half have already passed and you have to go home to watch the soap opera or the soccer game. It will be in the spirit of God.

A true warrior who enjoys himself more than being at war. That's what it was made for. It's a bird of prey and that's… Lord, help us get into your… it's an active rest. It is a rest that allows us to work but not get tired because we are in your perfect will.

Stand up, brothers. I declare that word with fear and trembling saying, Father, I am not worthy of declaring it but it is your word that is autochthonous and autonomous and it lives by itself. I declare it over this town, Lord. Oh God, we want to get into our calling, we want to get into our identity, oh Lord. A woman can't give birth because she wants to, it has to be at the right time, Father. And she is simply a conduit of the life of God.

And that is what we are, Father, we are a womb like Mary, on which you can place your creative power and give life through us. it is not in us to give life but you can impregnate this congregation, to be Mary with your visitation and your power and make something of us, Father.

Oh Lord. Look at our humiliation. Look at our poverty. Look at our sterility, look at our sins, look at our infertility, Lord, and send your spirit so that this barren woman can give birth and enter a family, Lord, and that her children are greater than those of the fertile and married woman. But Father, we recognize our poverty. We recognize that we are not worthy, but we ask you to visit us, Lord. Visit us on this day.

Knowing who we are we will exclusively give you all the glory and all the honor, because there is no possibility that you can use us and we will have to say, God did it, not us. Lord, deliver us from presumption and deliver us from desiring more than we have a right to desire, but we will not settle for less than our full inheritance and what you have destined for us. Pregnant us with your life, Father.

We ask that the time of adolescence pass, the time of milk, Father. Take it out of us, Lord, and enter us into the time of maturity, of solid things, solid food, the solid mysteries of your spirit. Father, our homes, our marriages, our work, our intimate life, our human and social relationships, our finances, our fatherhood, motherhood, our times of rest and fun, our times of solitude and meditation, we give them all to you Lord . Everything at your feet.

Oh my, don't rush out of this moment. I know we're already 24 minutes longer than the clock is supposed to say, but don't let us go so easily. Stay a moment there. Fight for this church, fight for our destinies, brothers. Let's fight for God's call. Let's not get out of this moment of crying out until God has done a work in us.

Speak to God, ask him for this congregation so that it can fulfill its destiny. Make a serious commitment to the Lord. I am asking the Lord, kill me, kill me, kill me, sincerely and do something new, something different, recreate me, reconfigure me, change my nervous system, reprogram me, that there is such a visitation from your spirit that I yield to something new and different.

We need to be changed, brothers, in order to do what God wants us to do. Oh, I call you who are new in the faith, you who are still basic in your walk with God and you who have been in the church for many years but have not started yet, you have not entered where God wants you, you that you have spent about 40 years in the desert wandering around but you have not entered into what God wants you to do. There are many like that. If it's me, here I am, Father, have mercy on me and help me because there are many who believe that we came out of the desert but no, we are still in the desert.

And we say amen when they say these things but God says, no, you are also in the desert. And we say, Lord, get us out now, get us out of spinning around in the same thing all the time, the same thing. And we have not entered maturity. Ask the Lord to visit you, ask the Lord to remove your mental and spiritual clumsiness, ask Him to remove the frost from your eyes. Ask him to remove that heaviness in your spirit that does not let you enter the totality. There should be a cry from God's people right now. Have mercy on us. We cry out to you, Father.

Forgive me, because when I get out of here I am going to have to fight with this vision that God is giving me now so as not to go back to the same old things, not to go back to everyday life, and say, yes, that was a sermon that you preached but… No. Father, help us, help us, help us, help us to live as a true people. Lord, have mercy on us, Father. Oh, Jehovah, we cry out to you, forgive us Lord. Forgive us for not being more useful to your kingdom. Change and Father, that this word does not fall to the ground, it does not return empty, it does not return to the drawer, Father, it is not just 5 or 6 papers put in a folder and put away.

Oh, Lord, tear that away from us. I hope that you are crying out with me, that you feel the pain and despair right now that is inside of me. We rebuke Pharaoh who is enduring us in Egypt. To that people that God is calling to go out and adore him in search of their destiny, on the way to their destiny. Pharaoh, we command you, let God's people out. Let my people go. Let the people go and worship Jehovah out of Egypt, in the name of Jesus.

Oh, Lord, we declare this about your church in all the earth. May your church come out of Egypt, Lord, and enter into its glory for which you have it destined, Lord. Help us, get us out of Egypt, Father, get us out of the desert and rebuke Pharaoh's bonds. Rebuke Pharaoh's ties, rebuke that giant who wants to keep God's people humiliated, impoverished, eating manna. Father, set us free, break the bonds, break the bonds, Lord. We want something more from you. We want more, Lord, from you.