Forerunners Operating in the Spirit of Comfort, Part 1

Transcription

1 FORERUNNER CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP MIKE BICKLE FORERUNNERS OPERATING IN THE SPIRIT OF COMFORT Transcript: 06/14/02 INTRODUCTION This week and next week, Lord willing, we re going to look at Isaiah. There are so many different facets of the forerunner ministry in Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 is the chapter that most describes the forerunner message. For those of you who are new to this idea, it s a really key chapter, and you want to spend time in it. You want to put energy into it. Tonight and next Friday we re going to look at the concept of comforting the people of God with God s tenderness. That s one of the critical dimensions of the forerunner ministry. COMFORT, YES, COMFORT MY PEOPLE I know men and women who have a real prophetic dimension to their preaching. There s a confrontational element to it, which is important; it s important to have that in preaching, on occasion. We don t want our preaching to be so focused on comfort that it never, ever confronts the issues, where it s watered down and diluted with the fear of men. There are times to be very pointed and strong, very confrontational. There are times to talk about the judgments that are coming; that s a very, very important subject for the forerunner ministry. Often the forerunners preach on judgment, and they preach in a confronting way, lifting up the standard of holiness and showing the people of God where they have fallen short. But they don t do it in the spirit in which the forerunners must operate according to Isaiah 40: Comfort, yes, comfort My people (Isa. 40:1). There s a tenderness; you can put the word tenderness. There s a comfort. One of the ways in which I think of it, as a preacher, is as creating confidence in the people s hearts to move towards God with absolute confidence even in their weakness. The word that I think of, even more than comfort, is confidence. They re really the same word, but I like the word confidence: producing confidence in people so that, even in their weakness, with a sincere heart they can run boldly; they can run aggressively without looking back over their shoulder, without questioning whether God receives them, or receives the sincerity of their heart. You may use the word confidence; that s the word I use a lot. Confident in love is a phrase that I use a lot. Because until our spirits are confident in love, we will always run from Him instead of to Him in our struggles. TWOFOLD CONFIDENCE IN LOVE Confident in love; that s a twofold thing. We re confident that He loves us when we re weak, but it s more that that. We re confident that we re genuine and sincere even when we re immature. Some people take half the message and say, OK, I m confident that God has grace enough to receive me in all of my hypocrisy. I say, Well, that s not exactly it. God does receive you in your genuineness. Though you re genuine in love, it s still weak love. CONFIDENCE IN THIS AGE AND THE AGE TO COME People feel better if they call themselves, Hopeless hypocrites. If they pay themselves back a little, they feel like they even up the score. We end up at the end of the day not confident that God receives us. Neither are we confident that we re genuine, because we re immature. Really, it s a twofold confidence in love. The word that the Lord gave Isaiah was comfort: Comfort their spirits (paraphrased). That doesn t mean that Isaiah wasn t allowed to preach on the judgment, because I tell you, Isaiah was an end-time judgment preacher second to no one except for perhaps the apostle John in the book of Revelation. But with that one exception, there s no one

2 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 2 who speaks on the horrific, terrifying, disruptive, painful dimension of God s judgment at the end of the age more pointedly than Isaiah. I m not talking about backing off of clarity about judgment. I don t know of anyone who speaks more clearly and directly about the necessity for righteousness, the need to raise the standard, to point out true hypocrisy, and to call the people to holiness and abandonment. I don t know anyone who does it in a more fiery way, or in a way that surpasses Isaiah. He s lifting a standard of holiness. He s very, very clear about the judgment that s coming. The difference is, he s under this wisdom of God. The Lord says, I want you to do it, but I want you to do it with a spirit of comfort. I want you to produce in them the confidence to run to God even in their weakness, and that there s a place of safety in the heart of God. They may actually lose their lives. Their physical lives may be cut short. Martyrdom may touch them. The shakings, the judgments may affect them and those around them physically in a very personal way. But their spirits and their hearts are safe in God. In other words, they won t fall away. Their hearts will grow and thrive in love. They will live forever, and forever, and forever, and they will have confidence in this age and in the age to come. The issue is comfort. THE HOLINESS OF LOVESICK WORSHIPERS The forerunner ministry has to have all three dimensions. There s a clarity about judgment and a clarity about holiness, which, really, is abandoned lovesick worship. The word holy is a very important biblical word. It s been so confused by so many people over the years that holiness is almost a negative term in our culture today, because it means cranky rule-keeping. It means cranky old preachers holding up rules and telling you, You re bad because you don t keep the rules here. That s how holiness is presented. I talk about holiness in terms of passion for Jesus. That s nothing but holiness. I use the phrase lovesick worshipers. That s holiness. I live to be fascinated with God. Living with a fascinated heart, that s holiness. We will never, ever preach on judgment in an effective way without the bridal paradigm. The bridal paradigm is a term that we use a lot. Paradigm means perspective, or point of view. It s a point of view of a confident bride before a husband, a bridegroom who cherishes her. We want to teach the forerunners to live in that spirit, to live in that confidence, to release that confidence, and to create that confidence in others by the preaching of the Word. THE GREATEST NEED OF THE HUMAN HEART I hear judgment preachers who are trying to get the Church prepared, but more often than not, I find that it repels the people of God. It doesn t prepare them; it doesn t make them say, You, know I m really going to get with it. It makes them grit their teeth and determine to hang in there with a mean God. There s a far more powerful way to prepare people. The A to Z, the beginning and the end of the forerunner ministry is encased, is wrapped in the garments of confidence, or the garments of comfort. It s part of the forerunner ministry, the spirit of Elijah, to preach on judgments. That s a very important part, and we never want to forget that. But when they do it without the revelation of the Bridegroom, without the confidence in their own spirit that God loves them in their weakness and that they re genuine even in their weakness, then they don t produce that confidence in others. The bridal message is more than something that prepares the Church for hard times; it s something that woos the lost. Because there s a part of every person s heart, of our makeup, that longs to be loved. The greatest need in the human spirit is the need for the assurance that we re enjoyed; the assurance that we re enjoyed by God, even in our weakness. When we have the assurance that God enjoys us: that s just another term for the love of God. Beloved, when we have that, something awakens in us. Something powerful takes place inside of us. We make our rules, we communicate our rules, we understand judgment, we preach on judgment; we lift up the standards of holiness in an entirely different way when our spirit is touched by the confidence of a lovesick bride. When our spirit is touched by that confidence, we call people to high standards, and we enter them ourselves in an entirely different way than if we don t have this revelation.

3 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 3 DEVELOPING A SPIRIT OF COMFORT IN THE MIDST OF THE MESSAGE The Lord speaks it to Isaiah so perfectly. He says, Mike, thanks for the compliment. Lord, it s brilliant! Comfort: bring comfort in their spirit as you call them to abandonment, which is called holiness, or lovesick worship. Bring comfort to their hearts as you prepare them for the crisis and the drama at the end of the age. Comfort, yes, comfort My people. But here s the key phrase: in a genuine believer. There are many people who name the name of Jesus, but they re not genuine in their walk with the Lord. They know in their heart. You say, Maybe I m not the one. If you re afraid that you re not genuine, well, then you re in the right group, actually. If you say Oh my goodness, I want to be genuine. Oh Lord, I m probably not! I want to be genuine! OK, relax, relax, it s you. The very fact that you re hyper about it is a backdoor proof that you re one of the ones to whom I m talking. There s a better way to have that genuineness: it s in confidence, not in a feverish fear that, I must be the wrong one! I must be the bad one! That s how so many of the really fervent and the really devout in the Body of Christ are. They re plagued with this kind of frenzied religious spirit on the inside: I m probably not the one. I m probably not the one. They re hyper, and somewhere deep down inside they think that God is saying, Wow, since you re that frenzied and that hyper, you know what, we re going to call it even. It s really just a soft version of a religious spirit. The Lord doesn t call it even if we re frenzied and hyper about our genuineness. He says, You know what? You don t really know who I am or how I view you. When you understand that, you ll have calm; you ll have comfort. You ll have a peace in your spirit as you re going for the wholeheartedness. I don t look at that in people and criticize them. I look at that in people and I want to see it healed. I want to see it healed. So, to the genuine, there needs to be a spirit of comfort inundated in the midst of the message. I don t mean that there are not hours where the Lord hides His face, His presence. There are those, I don t mean hours in one day, but seasons. When I say hours, I mean a season. There are those periods of time when you can t sense His presence, and you re genuine. That s a part of the Lord s strategy. There are other times when the enemy oppresses us. There are times where the pain of real life is so intense that we have tears and sorrow. I don t mean that comfort is 100 percent of everything we do. It s the spirit of comfort in the midst of going forward in preparation, and in preparing others. It s a spirit of comfort. The Lord says that from the very beginning. IHOP- KC is all about the forerunner spirit and the spirit of Elijah. It s preparing people for the judgments; raising the standard and preparing people for confident, wholehearted love. That s what I mean by the forerunner message. REMOVE THE ANGRY SPIRIT FROM THE HOLINESS PREACHERS Comfort. Beloved, I can t stress enough the power and the meaning of these words. When we touch them, they change us. They re powerful. The impact, not of the words, but of the truth that these words embody, is massive. It s powerful when we have a spirit of comfort touching us. The implications are vast, vast! My prayer is this: Lord, remove the angry holiness preachers. Remove the angry spirit from the judgment preachers. Your body will be prepared far more effectively. CALLING THE PEOPLE TO CONFIDENT LOVE He goes on and says, Comfort, yes, comfort My people! says your God (Isa. 40:1). I m reading from the New King James. This is the voice of God speaking. He s speaking. Really, He s speaking to the prophetic ministries from Isaiah all throughout the rest of history. I don t just mean the prophets per se. It s those people who are commissioned by God to prepare the people. We talk about forerunners as being really focused on preparing the people. I m talking about more than forerunners. It s certainly forerunners at the very core of

4 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 4 this, because the forerunner, John the Baptist, is highlighted in verse 3 in a very powerful way. It s those prophetic voices. Yes, in the most dynamic sense, the forerunners are locked in and focused in this message. Pastors and teachers and evangelists, all of us are called in some ways to participate in this message. We re calling the people to high standards. We re calling them to prepare for the shaking and the judgment at the end of the age. We re calling the people to confident love. SPEAK COMFORT TO JERUSALEM, AND CRY OUT TO HER He goes on in verse 2: Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her. There s a note of urgency in this: Cry out to her! There s a boldness; there s an urgency. It s not like, Send her an , or give her a tract. There s an urgency. Whatever you do, get this message to the people of Jerusalem. Cry out to her! Get in her face; make it so clear that she can t miss it. There s a tremendous urgency. It s interesting that God is commanding the prophetic voices to comfort. This isn t an option; this is a command. As He commands them to comfort, He s really specifying Jerusalem. But this message isn t limited to Jerusalem at all, though it s particularly important that we speak this to Jerusalem. In verse 9, it talks about all of the cities of Judah, meaning Jerusalem and the region around Jerusalem. JERUSALEM WILL BE A BURDENSOME STONE FOR ALL NATIONS We speak this message to all the people of God worldwide. The Holy Spirit is speaking, and He says, As I command you prophets at the end of the age to comfort My people in a general way (v. 1), specifically I want you to go to Jerusalem and make the message clear there. Why? Because the Lord knows the most troublesome city in the entire planet, the most troubled city on the planet in the final hours, the last decade or two, or three, however long it lasts, as it winds up in those last five or ten years before the second coming of the Lord, there will be no city with greater trauma than the literal city of Jerusalem. No city will have more trauma, percentage-wise. It s not a large city. It s not like the twenty million of Tokyo or Mexico City. I m talking about the intensity percentage-wise. No one will have more trouble and pain than the city of Jerusalem. I hear people often talk about their burden to go to Jerusalem. Some people are really being led by the Lord; others are being led by Western romanticism about Jerusalem. I don t want to be smart aleck with them, and I don t want to hurt their faith, but I do it with a pastoral concern. I say, Do you know much about Zechariah? Have you ever studied Zechariah 9-14? No Have you ever studied Jeremiah? Well, no; I read the gospel of John a couple times. My point is, you read Jeremiah, and Zechariah, and Isaiah. It s really crystal clear about the trouble on the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Isaiah 40:9 talks about the cities of Judah, right in the vicinity of Jerusalem. It will be incredibly intense in a negative sense. The glory of God will break out there as well. I say, God is sending people there, but don t go there in Western Christian romanticism. Go there by the mandate of God, or don t go there in terms of the permanent sense of living there. I don t mean visiting. I m talking about people who say, I want to spend my life there. I want to go and die there.

5 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 5 I say, It s really real if you go to Jerusalem. This isn t something that enhances your newsletter. This is real, if you know what Jerusalem is about. COMFORT COMMENSURATE WITH THE INTENSITY OF PAIN AND TRAUMA We ve looked at Zechariah on Saturday nights, and we re going to look at it a bit more. It s really intense. The Lord says, In the most intense place, I want the comfort to be commensurate with the intensity of the pain and the trauma. Wherever the pain is greater, the Lord says, Double the comfort. Send the message of comfort in ahead of time. We want to read it in context. Isaiah is speaking before the great, great trauma of his day. Isaiah lived in about 700 BC, and about a hundred years later, in 586 BC, Babylon invaded. He prophesied for fifty years, so he started in about 750 and went on past 700 BC, but let s just say 700 as a round number. He s prophesying in around 700, and about 100 years later they re going to have the most devastating judgment from the nation of Babylon. Isaiah is preparing them for the time, 100 years later, in 586 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came marching in. Babylon was in the area of Iraq today. He came in and decimated the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Isaiah prepared them for that. At the same time, at the very same time, it speaks of the decimation that s going to happen in 70 AD: the other horrible, horrible time in Israel s history when the Roman armies came in and did the same thing as Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar did it in 586; the Romans did it in 70 AD. Then the other really horrible time, when it happened in Europe instead of in Israel, was Nazi Germany. Three major, major times it has happened. What happened in 586 was a type of holocaust; 70 AD was another holocaust; and the 1940s was another holocaust. There have been three major holocausts, and some minor ones. How can you say minor in the context of a holocaust? There were three very, very major ones, and Isaiah was getting them ready for the first one, in 586 BC, 100 years afterwards. John the Baptist, who appears in verse 3, is getting them ready for the second one in 70 AD. The forerunners at the end of the age are getting them ready for the final one, which is related to the presence of this world leader, the Antichrist, who s going to go after Jerusalem with a vengeance. He s going to have an intensity surpassing, even Adolf Hitler in his hatred of the Jewish race and the nation of Israel. So if you re talking a long time ago, in 586 BC, Comfort! If you re talking about the second holocaust in 70 AD, Comfort! John the Baptist was preparing them for that. Or if you re talking about the one to come at the end of the age again, the intensity surpasses even what happened in Nazi Germany. The word comfort is for all three of those times. Of course the one we care about is the one, the great one, the tremendous trauma that s coming and the need for comfort, particularly to the city of Jerusalem. But this need for comfort is going to be a message for all of the forerunners worldwide. GOD WILL RAISE UP A REMNANT IN THE MIDST OF GREAT APOSTASY I want to introduce it just that way. This exhortation to comfort is really stunning. It s surprising, because the nation of Israel was so wicked. They were so sinful, probably beyond what most of you in this room are thinking. They were into significant demon worship. They would sacrifice their babies to demons. They would deny the God of Israel who delivered them from the land of Egypt through Moses. They worshiped demons and burned their babies. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. That kind of demon worship is going to happen again amongst the Jewish people before a false leader called the Antichrist. They ll worship him and it will be demon worship. It will surpass any other time of apostasy, or falling away from the Lord, that they have ever had in history. God will raise up a remnant in the midst of that.

6 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 6 My point in saying this is that God is saying, Comfort! to the people who are sinning beyond anything imaginable. If God speaks to them, He says, You know what? If you ll return, I ll take you back! He s speaking to Jerusalem, the city that s going to be destroyed, first in 586 BC, then again in 70 AD, and, finally, it will be all but destroyed by the Antichrist at the end of the age because of their sin. The Lord says, Even you, Jerusalem! I don t care what you ve done! I don t care what demon you ve worshiped! I don t care what murder you re involved in! I want you, if you ll come back to Me! Beloved, this message is to the city in the nation that should have known the most about God, that departed as far from God as you could imagine. He says, I want you! OUR GOD WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON EVEN THE MOST TERRIBLE SINS But then, of course, we make this personal. How much more, how much more does He want everyone else as well? When it says, Comfort Jerusalem, say, Jerusalem in your heart. Or write, really, really evil city. Say, Way worse then anything that I ve done. Therefore, the comfort applies to me too. That s the way you understand it. Because when He says Jerusalem, this is a really, wicked city, a wicked, wicked city. The way Jesus talked to the city of Jerusalem gives you a small idea of His opinion of the city of Jerusalem in terms of their wickedness. My point is, beloved, I don t care what you ve done, or what the person you re facing has done. You have the divine mandate to offer comfort to their spirits and to bring them back if they ll come. The Lord will forgive them. Cry out! To Jerusalem particularly, but to anyone who s stuck in sin who has a heart to respond to God. Maybe they re an unbeliever and they haven t responded yet. Say, Oh, I know of a city and a people who have gone beyond where you ve gone. Because maybe this person says, Well, I grew up in the church and I really know better. Well, God, raised up Moses, divided the Red Sea, and appeared to them on a mountain. They should have known better. If you want to make the analogy, they were raised in children s church, in a good church, all of their days. They had every reason to know better. Cry out! to this person. THE LORD WILL PLEAD WITH THEM FACE TO FACE IN THE WILDERNESS Here s the heart of the evangelist: Cry out! with urgency, with boldness. Cry out. Plead with them. I love what it says in Ezekiel 20:35. The Lord says, I will plead with you face to face in the wilderness (Eze. 20:35, paraphrased). It s almost like the Lord says, I will get down on My knees and plead with you to listen to Me. He did something far, far worse then getting down on His knees: He became human and was crushed by the wrath of God. That goes far beyond getting on His knees. Here He s talking about Jerusalem at the end of the age. He says, I will plead with you in the wilderness to come to Me. I ll beg you, please! Please open your heart to Me! When you talk to someone and they say, You don t understand, I ve done a lot of stuff that I don t even want to tell you about, I can cry out to them with confidence, Oh, God wants you! God wants you! I want to comfort their spirit. They look at you and they say, You don t really know what I ve done.

7 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 7 I say, You don t really know who I represent. You don t know what His track record is in forgiving Israel throughout all of history. You don t know how good He is, how established He is at forgiving. THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES Here s what we re going to say, particularly to the city of Jerusalem, but we can make this personal to an unbeliever. We can make this personal to a believer who needs to come back to God as well. This is a crying to people to come back to God. He says that as we comfort her, there are actually four messages. It s going to crescendo in the message of the tenderness of God. Number one, He says, As you comfort her, tell her that her warfare is over. It s ended (Isa. 40:2, paraphrased). He meant literal, literal warfare. In 586, when the Babylonians invaded, when the Romans broke in, in 70 AD, it was literal warfare. These are dates; I m talking now to those of you who are new with us, the Fire in the Night. You want to learn those dates. You want to learn 586 BC and you want to learn 70 AD. Those are easy dates. In 586 BC, Babylon invaded; Babylon is in modern-day Iraq. In 70 AD, they were invaded by Rome. Those were like holocausts for Israel. They were horrific, horrible times. Anyone even remotely familiar with Jewish history knows those two dates, 586 BC and 70 AD. IF WE LL OPEN OUR HEARTS, THE HARDSHIP IS COMING TO AN END Number two: it s spiritual warfare. He says, It s over. By the time of the coming of the Lord, it will be over. That s how it will end. He says, The day is coming, and it will last for billions of years. Some Bibles translate the word hardship. The years of hardship are over now, and they re over forever. Beloved, I don t know what kind of hardship you re going through, or the hardships of the person to whom you re going to cry out. But I can give you one piece of good news: if they ll open their hearts, the hardship is coming to an end. If they ll open their heart up to God, it s coming to an end. It s coming to an end. We comfort them by telling them the warfare is over. Again it was literal, political, and military warfare. It s spiritual warfare, and it s emotional warfare. The hardship is coming, number one. It s coming to an end. Number two: All of your iniquity is pardoned (Isa. 40:2b, paraphrased). Beloved, that s a stunning statement. Go and tell demon-worshiping, baby-burning sinners that their sin is pardoned. I hear people say, Abortion is the same thing. I say, Well, abortion is the same thing in the fact that babies die, and sometimes they die in the context of acid and fire. This was an overt act of demon worship. It was more than just wanting to live a lifestyle of convenience. This was a little more intense. It was an overt act of demon worship. Demon worship will again be very, very central in Jerusalem before the second coming of the Lord. It s very clear in the book of Revelation (Rev. 9:20), and a half-dozen other places as well. Demon worship is coming back, big time. I m sure that it s there now, but it s going to increase. God says, All of your iniquity, all of it, is pardoned. All of it! SHE HAS RECEIVED FROM THE LORD S HAND DOUBLE FOR ALL HER SINS He goes on and develops the idea of pardoning iniquity. He says, For she has received from the Lord s hand double for all her sins (Isa. 40:2c). You could read that one of two ways. Most of the commentators agree with this interpretation: the double is the double pardon, the double grace. He says, I will give them double forgiveness. I will abundantly pardon, is what He s saying.

8 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 8 I ve read a few commentaries that say that God is going to pay them double. They sinned at level ten and God is going to make them pay twenty. Then that will even the score. That s totally contrary to the Word of God, that we sin at level ten and then we suffer at twenty and the Lord says, OK, in that case That s the complete opposite of the spirit of the Scriptures. There are a number of places in the Scriptures where God says, I will give you double for all of your shame (Isa. 61:7, paraphrased). The Lord says, I am so outrageous in My kindness to you. You sinned at a ten and I will give you such blessing forever, way beyond twenty. It doesn t mean He s going to calculate ten times two; He says, abundantly beyond! He says, Here s what I will do: I will ruin you in love. You re going to live a life of disobedience, and then when you come to Me, I will anoint you, love you, romance your heart, exalt you forever, give you a resurrected body, and call you My favorite. I will wreck you with the revelation of My love, in a good sense. I will give you double. Of course the other famous verse is Joel 2:25, where God says He will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. The Lord says, I ll make it all up to you. The reason that the locusts ate all of the crops is because they were in sin. It s not like the Lord says, I overdid it. It s not like the parent who says, OK, you shouldn t have done that. You deserved one swat, but I gave you two. I ll make up for it and give you an ice cream cone, because I should have just given you one swat instead of two. It s not like that at all. That s not what the Lord is saying. The Lord isn t saying, I overdid it, so I tell you what, I ll take you out for ice cream and make it up. He s not saying, I ll give you double because I treated you wrongly. When He says, I ll make up to you for the locusts, He s saying, I m so indescribably, irresistibly good. I m outrageous in the way I measure life. You re going to say, I m sorry, and I will take your rebellion and crown you with glory. You deserve to be destroyed forever. No, no, I won t just forgive you. I will put robes on you; I will exalt you; I will ruin you with love. I will put crowns on you. I will call you My favorite before everyone. You re going to say, Lord! Stop! Ouch! This hurts so good! That s what He s talking about here. As I read some of these commentaries, I say the idea that God is saying, You sinned at a level ten; I ll give you twenty. Then, because you suffered so much and cried so much, I ll call it even, is completely antithetical to the spirit of the Word of God and the message of comfort. You deserve ten, I ll give you twenty. Comfort ye, comfort ye! You deserve ten years in prison, I ll give you twenty, comfort ye! That s exactly the opposite of what this message means. Most of the commentators agree with what I believe He s saying here. RETURN TO THE STRONGHOLD, YOU PRISONERS OF HOPE We looked at Zechariah 9:12 some Saturdays ago. We talked about the prisoners. He said, For all of your time in prison and in pain, I will give you double (Zech. 9:12, paraphrased). That s the Lord s economy. It s the Lord s math. The Lord looks at you and takes your backsliding. Here s the key: when you come back with all your heart, when you really come back, He says, I will so utterly forget yesterday and I will anoint you, and I will bless you and raise you up beyond anything you could imagine. I want you to go and bring that message to everyone, everywhere. Cry out! Take it to Israel especially. Cry out, everywhere you go! What a great message. Is that a good message of comfort? The first message of comfort, number one, is that the warfare is ended. The hard times are going to come to an end. In one sense, that difficult season in the Spirit is

9 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 9 going to come to an end. In the big sense, when the Lord appears, we have billions and billions of years, never another tear; forever and ever it s over. It always bugs me when someone says this, not because I m mad at them, but because I m zealous about this. They say, Oh, let s get practical. I say, Beloved, there s nothing more practical than the fact that you re going to live for billions of years in bliss. Believe me, that s one of the most practical realities about your present life right now, is that it s only a moment of tears. That s massively practical. If that s not practical, you haven t done the math right. It s massively practical to understand that. I don t mind it when they say, Let s be practical, because of them. I m thinking, Oh God, You planned this so awesomely, and it s so practical. In only a moment it s over. Number two: I don t care how great your iniquity is, it s pardoned. God says, I will pay you double blessing for all of the rebellion that you offered Me in that season. You ll say, Lord, if we re running a race, how can I win this race? Lord, how am I going to outrun You when You have all of the kindness and all of the goodness? Some people are trying to match the Lord. They say, I will be good. The Lord says, It just won t work. Finally I gave in and said, You know what, Lord? Just kill me with love. Just kill me. I love it! THE ESSENCE OF THE MESSAGE OF COMFORT: THE RETURNING KING The third message of comfort is in verses 3-5. The Lord is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord (Isa. 40:3). This is the essence of the message of comfort. It s right there in one sentence: He is coming; and, when He comes, He will rearrange everything. The essence of comfort is that the divine King is coming. He s coming, not to destroy us, because the warfare is over. He s coming with forgiveness; He s coming to make everything right. There s so much in this message of His coming. We ll look at some of the details more next week, because I want to get to another point, but there s so much here. We re about out of time. That s the essence of verses 3-5, the second coming of Christ. The King is coming in glory. That s the third message of comfort. THE ENEMY WILL WITHER AT THE BREATH OF THE LORD The fourth message of comfort is verses 6-8. That s the enemy; the hostile powers are really weak. When it says, All flesh is grass (Isa. 40:6). it s talking about your flesh, for sure, but that s not mostly what this is talking about. It s talking about those who oppose you. Because the message in the context of the book of Isaiah is that the hostile nation of Babylon was going to wipe them out. At the end of the age, there will be a worldwide government led by a demonic leader called the man of sin, or the man of lawlessness, coming against the people of God. The Lord says, Let Me assure you of this: every opposition raised up by the mightiest human army in history is nothing. When I breathe on it, it will wither and vanish (v. 7, paraphrased). He s saying it s foolish for us to burn our lives out on things that are sinful, but that s not mostly what He s talking about. That point is true, but it s secondary. The primary message is the demonic opposition and human

10 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 10 opposition that often work together. Those against you, human and demon, will pass away. He says, All flesh is grass, all of the human opposition that s being energized by demons. I will breathe on it and it will wither. There s that process. It will get weaker and weaker and go away and be gone in a moment s time. THE WORD OF OUR GOD SHALL STAND FOR EVER Look at the end of verse 8: The word of our God stands forever (Isa. 40:8). There you can write, The prophetic promises of God. It does mean the whole Word of God; but in context it means, I don t care what the demons or the people are threatening you with; My prophetic promises cannot fail. The grass fails. The hostile armies of the earth will fail. The people rising up against you will fail. My prophetic promises will never fail. It does mean more than prophetic promises; it means the whole Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. But in context it s talking about the fact that the promise that God has given for deliverance is far more powerful than the mightiest armies of the earth and the Christians being martyred. God says, I promise you, My word cannot fail. The enemy is weak and temporary. O ZION... GET UP INTO THE HIGH MOUNTAIN We re moving into the last moments. Isaiah 40:9-11 takes the theme of His coming from verse 3 and develops it. Verses 3-5 and verses 9-11 go together, because verses give five details of His coming that are critically important for comfort. First, The warfare is ended. Number two: Your sin is forgiven. Number three: He is coming, but He s not mad at you. He s coming and you re forgiven. The hard times are over. Then in verse 6, The enemy can t stand when He comes. His presence is going to vindicate you, and the enemy is going to be removed. Isaiah looks and really zeroes in on His coming. Verse 9 continues the message of comfort: O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain (Isa. 40:9). In other words, Get up where everyone can hear you. The idea of the high mountain is that we don t want this message to be missed by anyone. Make it as broad as you can; it s a good, good message. BOLDNESS TO SPEAK WITH DIVINE UTTERANCE Lift up your voice with strength (Isa. 40:9b). In other words, boldness! Resolute, unwavering, no question about it. That s the spirit of the forerunner, that holy boldness that Paul prays about in Ephesians 6:19, that they would be given boldness with divine utterance. He says, Don t be afraid, though the armies of darkness surround you. Literally, it s this one-world government that one day will emerge. Believers are being charged with treason for resisting the waves of darkness. We re being called religious fanatics because we re coming against the government. He says, Don t be afraid! With all of your strength tell the people the good news: another King is coming! The king that s here now is false, but God will breathe upon him so that in only a moment he falls away! The people will say, What if that gets back to headquarters? I would rather not say that. The Lord says, Lift up your voice! Be bold. Have strength in it! Don t be afraid! They may kill me. You may die, but this message is forever. Do it!

11 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 11 Here s the message: Say to all of the cities of Judah, Jerusalem, and the regions of Judah the regions that are being attacked Behold your God, the true King is coming! The true worldwide government is coming. The true worldwide worship movement is coming! A MESSAGE THAT WILL TERRIFY THE RANKS OF DARKNESS He goes on, and He gives four details in verse 10. Then the fourth one He develops in verse 11. Number one: Your God shall come with a strong hand (Isa. 40:10). He s coming with a strong hand. I can hear the ranks of the enemy. I can hear Satan s false counterfeit worldwide government, I can hear them saying, The King of Israel, they say that His name is Jesus, is coming? Someone says, What do you mean, He s coming? He is on His way. A king is coming? Yes, and He s going to oppose us. Well, what frame of mind is He in? Well, it s pretty intense. He s coming in the sky with billions of angels in fire. He s coming with a strong hand, but He s coming. Beloved, when He comes, it s awesome. The message of that, and we ll look at it more next week, is that He s coming with a strong hand. He s coming with fire and with angels and with the cloud, with vengeance in His heart against everyone who has laid a hand on the people of God. He s coming. That message will terrify the ranks of darkness. He tells us, Don t be afraid to say that there s another King. They ll call it treason. It doesn t matter. He s coming in the might of God Himself. A man from Nazareth who originally came from heaven is coming from heaven again. His name is Yeshua, Jesus. HE S COMING TO RULE THE WORLD IN RIGHTEOUSNESS Number two: When He comes in all of His force, He s taking over. He s setting up a new government, and He s replacing all of the governmental structures of the earth. He s coming to rule. He s coming to take over. He isn t appearing, dazzling the earth, blowing up a few cities, leaving and saying, I gave them a good shaking! No, He s staying and He s setting up a worldwide government. He s coming to set up government forever. The implications of that are massive to Jerusalem, to the people of God, and to all of us. The implications are massive! He s coming to set up a permanent government. He s coming to rule. HE WILL GIVE TO EVERYONE ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS It s more than that. Number three: His reward is with Him. He s coming to take the weak and broken people of the earth who said yes to the grace of God and giving them cities to rule. He s going to give appointments over the whole earth to His people (Lk. 19:17). It s going to shock some of you! Jesus said, When you re faithful in these days of small beginnings, I ll give this one five cities, and I ll give that one ten cities. It will shock them! They will literally share My government.

12 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 12 Someone will say, Lord, I remember that I had seasons where I wasn t really walking with You. The Lord says, Yes, but you came with all of your heart and I forgave you. When I come, I m coming with a reward. I m coming with a government, and you re going to help Me run everything. You re My partner. My reward is with Me. Then, number four: He says, My work is before Me (Isa. 40:10b). Someone says, Well, He comes, and He s setting up a government and He s going to bless all of us. What s on His mind? The Lord says, I m preoccupied with the work on My mind. I m coming, and I can t be deterred. I can t be sidetracked. I m determined. I m coming with fierceness and determination to bring everything to glory. I m coming. My work is before Me and I will attend to My work. HE WILL COME WITH THE TENDERNESS OF A SHEPHERD He goes on in verse 11 and describes the way He s going to do His work. The tenderness of verse 11 is the tenderness of the Shepherd. We looked last week at Jeremiah 3 and 31, and in several others places, at the three faces of God: the Father, the Bridegroom, and the Shepherd. Here s the tenderness of the Shepherd, and we ll look at this a little more next week. When He comes to do His work, the first thing that He s going to do is attend to the needs, the practical needs of His people spread out all over the earth. He says, I will feed them. I will take care of their needs immediately. I m the mighty God. I have all power, but I want to feed them. I will give them some food and I will take care of them. They say, Cool, we were hungry, Lord. It says, Well, when the Lord comes, everyone will be full. He meant it. You say, Well, that s figurative. It s figurative, but it s literal as well. When the 5,000 were with Him in the desert, He said, Give them some food and take care of them (Mt. 14:16). He had compassion on them. LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES, AND THE OPENING OF PRISON Secondly, He s going to gather them. This is so tender, because they re spread out. Again, so many believers are unfamiliar with the fact that there will be prison camps. There will be death camps around the world, especially for the Jewish people. What happened in the Holocaust is going to happen again. It s going to happen again. There are probably twenty verses in the Bible talking about the prison camps for the Jewish people at the end of the age. We make it all just spiritual and symbolic. When it says, I will release the prisoners in the year of the Lord (Isa. 61:1-2, paraphrased), He s talking about real prisoners. He s talking about walking into Alcatraz and opening the prison doors, feeding them and releasing them, marching them to Zion, delivering them, and then making them the leaders over cities in the earth. It s literally going to happen. He says, I will gather all of My refugees; all of My prisoners. These passages are everywhere. He says, I will gather them together. He says, Not one of those little ones will be left out. I will go and get every one of them. That s prophetic anointing. Just think of the way God is going to gather them from all over the earth.

13 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 13 Then I will carry them tenderly (Isa. 40:11, paraphrased). You think of John lying on the Lord s breast. He says, I will put them on my breast. I will tenderly love them. Then I will lead them in a manner that is unlike their former oppressors. I will lead them with great gentleness. I will show them that My coming means gentleness and greatness to them. Beloved, that s what His presence means in revival, even before His actual appearing in the clouds. This is the message of comfort, of the forerunner, the tenderness of God s heart. Amen. Let s stand. MINISTRY TIME We will look at this more next Friday. We ll take it up from here. You know, I m concerned that you receive comfort, but I m also concerned that you become ministers, preachers of comfort. Let s just open our hearts before the Lord. Father, Father, I ask You. We want to be messengers of comfort. We want to give this fourfold message: the warfare has ended, the sin is forgiven, the great God is coming, the enemy can t oppose us, the enemy will flee, and, when You come, You come with a strong arm; You come to take over. You come to share Your leadership with me. You come with Your work before You. You re going to be so tender as You engage in the work of gathering Your people. O tender God, we love You! Let s just wait on the Lord quietly. I want to invite those of you to come up who know that you re called to be preachers, forerunners in particular. This is for all the preachers, but you know that you re called to prepare the people for the end times, the coming judgments, the high standard of holiness, and the bridal message. Even tonight you re saying, Lord, I need some adjustment. I haven t really received into my spirit the message of comfort. That message of comfort isn t even in my spirit right now. The spirit of comfort isn t in my calling of the people. Lord, I want to say that I want this. I want my spirit tenderized with the message of comfort. I want to feel it, and I want to release it. You may say, I m not 100 percent sure I m a forerunner, but I think I am. This is a new challenge for you. You say, Lord, I believe in this, but it hasn t touched me yet, really; not much. I need this message of comfort. I want to invite you to come up here as a statement of saying, Lord, I will go after this. I will go in a different direction. Just come on up. Because beloved, we need to see millions of prophetic preachers, millions. I think everyone is a preacher in a certain sense, but we want to see millions delivering the spirit of comfort. Father, we ask You in the name of Jesus. First, I want to lead you through repentance. I don t want you groveling. When I say repentance, don t get into the old mode of saying, Oh, I m sorry, I m sorry! Don t grovel and get frenzied. You re not trying to win God s attention so that He ll know that you re really sincere, in the hopes that He ll forgive you because you re so sincere. That s not what we re doing. The repentance is breaking our agreement with wrong ideas. We re saying, Lord, I repent. I repent. There s error in my being. I repent of it. I m talking about breaking your agreement with wrong ideas: Lord, I break my agreement. I repent.

14 Transcript: 6/14/02 Page 14 Beloved, there s a place for godly sorrow, but in this, you didn t do it on purpose. It s not like you rose up and rebelled against God. You re saying, Well, that s how I was always taught. I didn t know about this. Talk to Him. Say, Lord, I will change something. I will change something in this season. It s more than tonight. Because it s like you peel the onion a hundred times, layer by layer. Say, In this season, I will make a change. I will feed my spirit on the shepherding heart of God, the Father heart. I will feed my spirit on the victory and the confidence. Holy Spirit, I invite Your presence. I invite Your presence to come now and put Your seal upon their heart dialogue with You. Put the seal of God on the dialogue of their heart. Beloved, this is something that I ve done a hundred or a thousand times. It s not something that you do once. I ve done it over and over again for years; I said, Oh wait, wait, I have to realign myself. I m back in the old mode again. Father, I ask You for the touch of Your hand. The Lord told us to raise up a Bible school. Although we train them in the Word of God and all kinds of things, the central message of the Bible school is the message of the heart of God, the emotions of God. It s a whole Bible school built around one major message. I m saying, Lord, I m going all the way with this thing. I m repenting from it, and I will bring fruits of repentance. I will raise up in the grace of God, with a lot of other workers, a multitude of people who buy into this and touch this. Father, I ask You for a new anointing. I ask You for a new commissioning. I ask You for a new commissioning now. I ask that their spirits would be touched by this message. I m asking some of the staff to come up, and we re going to lay hands on them. The Holy Spirit does more when the church prays for the church. We re going to ask for a new commissioning. We re going to ask for the Lord to release tokens of His presence on their heart dialogue with Him. Lord, I ask You to raise up friends of the Bridegroom. Raise up friends of the Bridegroom. Raise up forerunners like John who are friends of the Bridegroom. I ask You for the spirit of the friends of the Bridegroom.