Spiritual Warfare (Part 2)

Today I want to develop a thought that is actually serious, a little heavy in one sense, but it is the word of the Lord and the Lord’s call to His church in this time, for He wants to perfect us, purify us, and temper us to the measure He desires.

You will remember that the last time I preached, we spoke about Ahab, who finds himself besieged by this powerful king, Ben-hadad of Syria, who tells him, “Your children and your wife and your money are mine.” And he tells him, “Oh, yes, my lord, you know that it is so,” to get this man off his back because he is very powerful, a very powerful king. And then the king comes, this enemy king, and tells him, “Well, I want to put that into practice. I want to do it, to carry it out.”

And we viewed this text in the light of spiritual warfare, because we know that the Bible writes these things, sets these things down, not so that we will read them as though they were merely history, but to establish certain spiritual principles that, as we read it, we draw out and apply to our lives in appropriate ways. What matters is not the historical account in itself, although that is interesting, but the spiritual truth within the account, which we can apply to different situations in life. And this text clearly has connotations of struggle, warfare, conflict, and how we must conduct ourselves in those situations.

Ben-hadad is a type of Satan, of satanic attack, of spiritual warfare that wants to possess the church’s property, wants to rule your life, wants to establish authority over your life and say, “Everything you have is mine.” That is what Satan wants: he wants to possess, he wants to steal, he wants to kill, he wants to destroy, he wants to establish his lordship on earth over man by robbing God of His authority.

The church has been placed on earth to declare to principalities and powers that Christ is Lord, amen. That it is not Satan, nor his demonic powers, nor his illegitimate force, but the power of God that reigns over our lives.

And Elijah appears to him—or a prophet appears to King Ahab, who is frightened by this man’s threat of war—and tells him, “Do not worry, because the Lord is going to deliver the land to you.” Or rather, “The Lord is going to deliver that army to you. Today the Lord delivers it to you.” And He calls Ahab, who is an evil king, a sinful, rebellious, and idolatrous man, but the Lord wants to show Israel—and I see God’s mercy there—that He goes to an illegitimate and evil king and tells him, “I am going to deliver it to you so that you may know that I am Jehovah, that I am the owner of the land, that it is not Ben-hadad with his might, but that I can defend My people if My people trust in Me.”

And King Ahab’s servants tell him, “Do not obey him or do what he asks of you,” which, as I said the Sunday before last, is what we have to do. When the devil wants to control our lives and wants to take possession of some area of our lives and establish his lordship, we must not obey him or do what he tells us. On the contrary, what must we do? What does the Bible say we must do with the devil? Resist him. It says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Amen. And that is what Ahab does: he resists Ben-hadad, and the Lord gives him a great victory, as we saw in that passage.

Now, however, there is something interesting. Look at verse 22: “...after that great victory”—Ahab could have said, “Well, I have already destroyed Ben-hadad’s army; now I can rest for the remainder of my days. I am at peace now. Ben-hadad now knows that I am not such an easy target; now he is afraid of me because of the great defeat I inflicted on him.” But what does God’s prophet tell Ahab?

It says in verse 22, “...Then the prophet came to the king of Israel and said to him, ‘Go, strengthen yourself, and consider and see what you should do, because a year from now the king of Syria will come against you.’”

What does that teach us? What spiritual principle does this teach us, brothers and sisters? The devil never gives up. Listen to that. You throw him out one door, and he tries to come in through the other. Yes or no? The Lord Jesus Christ speaks and says that when a spirit is cast out of a person, it goes through deserted, dry places. Why? Because spirits mysteriously delight in human company. We do not know how or what benefit they derive from it, but there is something about human warmth that they do not possess, and about God’s grace, which they do not enjoy either, that causes them to cling to human beings. And of course, since their desire is also to harm, to do damage, and that is what they enjoy, they need human proximity.

Then the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Be careful, because when a spirit leaves a person, it wanders around looking for a place to land, a place where it can exert its evil influence, and it returns and says, ‘Let me go back to where I was, to so-and-so, to visit him again after they kicked me out of there—that pastor who prayed for him and rebuked me and cast me out. Let me see, even if only from a distance, how he is doing.’”

It says that it finds him with his house in order: God has blessed him, his marriage looks beautiful, his finances are doing well, he is going to church, he is serving the Lord, he is giving his offering and his tithe to the Lord; everything is in order, and his house is beautiful. Because what happens? When the Lord is in control, there is blessing. Amen. Yes or no?

When you are serving God, doing as God commands you, and obeying the word of the Lord, the order of God’s Kingdom comes into your life. Little by little, things begin to fall into place. Where there was disaster, where there was disorder, where there was conflict, things begin to change. Where before there was drinking and money was squandered in a single weekend on gambling or chasing women, or simply wasted, now the person begins to save and to work, and there is order in the home because the Spirit of the Lord is there.

And what does it say? That when this spirit arrives and sees the house in order, it says, “Wow, this looks nice.” It says that it then goes and finds other spirits worse than itself, and they come and occupy it, and that person’s latter condition becomes worse than the first. What happened? That person let down his guard.

The devil is always trying to.... You see? As I say, you throw him out the door, and he comes in through the window if you are not careful. That is why the Word says, “Be sober and watchful.” That is why the prophet here tells Ahab, “Go, strengthen yourself, and consider and see what you should do.” “Go, strengthen yourself, and consider and see what you should do.” Be sober and watchful.

Do you see the connection? Because we are—we are at war; there is an enemy who does not give up. The only entertainment, so to speak, that evil spirits have—and they exist and are real, brothers and sisters—is to look for ways to attack our lives, to sow harm, to soil what God has cleansed.

And I have seen people like that, brothers and sisters. When they come to church, God begins to bless them; they give themselves to the Lord, and you can see that they are on fire for the Lord. God begins to bless their children, and there is... and then some man or woman comes along and begins to sweet-talk them, and this and that, and they begin to stray from the path, from the Lord’s fold—a romantic interest, anything—and the devil gets started. And before long, when you next see them, you no longer see them in church; they have already disappeared, and the deterioration begins again, the crumbling begins again, and the enemy begins to tear down those walls that God was establishing. He begins to thrust in his hands, his steel claws, destroying the foundation, digging little by little until the house comes crashing down again. And that blessing which that person was experiencing, which that family was experiencing, all comes crashing down again because the person did not do what the prophet tells Ahab: “Go, strengthen yourself.”

If you are going to serve the Lord, look, if you have been in the enemy’s clutches and decide to enter the Lord’s ways, be careful, because you must strengthen yourself, because the enemy now hates you more than before and is resentful, and he knows where you live; he knows your address. He knows your weak spot. The devil is a hunter who knows the habits of his prey and knows the kind of bait his prey likes.

You know that every fish has its own bait. Every animal has the kind of meat, or whatever it may be, that it likes—its habits. And the hunter learns the habits of the prey in order to hunt it effectively. Satan is the same way. He is a schemer. The Bible speaks of the devil’s schemes, Satan’s strategies. He is a strategist.

So he is always trying to observe us and determine where our area of weakness lies, so that he can slip in through there. For some, it may be sensuality; for others, it may be anger. For others, it may be resentment. For others, it may be pleasing people, receiving homage, having the respect of others. For some it is prestige; for others it is money. There are different kinds of bait. Those who like gambling do not necessarily like liquor; those who like liquor do not necessarily like money. Each person has his own area. We have our weaknesses, and Satan is an expert at going to that area and focusing on it. He knows how to attack us and how to gradually destroy our foundations.

And that is why we have to—without becoming paranoid; we must not be paranoid, we must not be afraid of the devil. We are not talking about fear, but we do need to beware of Satan. Amen.

We have to watch our backs, and we must be sober and watchful. And that is what the prophet tells Ahab: “Go, strengthen yourself, and consider and see what you should do, because after a year....”

How good it is to have the counsel of people with spiritual discernment! How good it was that there was a prophet of God to advise the public order, the civil order! Nowadays, men want to remove the church completely from civil affairs, and they speak of the separation of church and state, using a phrase that was never coined with the intention of removing spiritual influence from civil government.

Right now, I am reading a book about the life of John Adams, the second president of the United States, an admirable man. The life of John Adams impressed me greatly; it has impressed me greatly. He was a man of integrity, a completely upright man, and that is precisely why he got into a great deal of trouble. But one sees John Adams’s life rising, and John Adams exerted a great deal of influence on the formation of the United States after its revolution against England.

And I am struck by the love that man had for God. He may not have been a Christian filled with the Holy Spirit as we would define it, but he was a man of spiritual integrity; he loved God. And once, when Benjamin Franklin, another great and illustrious man of the Revolutionary War and the colonial era, spoke badly of the Gospel, John Adams confronted him and said, “I am very disappointed in you—a man as great as you, as illustrious as you—and yet speaking about the Gospel in that way.”

And I see that in the formation of this country there was a healthy fear of God. These great men established separation between church and state because they did not want any particular church or any particular denomination to exert influence over the government as in England, but not because they wanted God to be excluded. There is a difference between a denomination and God. Do you understand the difference?

Nowadays, they are using the phrase “church and state” because they want to remove spiritual influence from the state. But that is not the way it is. Here I see that the state benefited from the sound, wise counsel of a prophet of God, a man of God who knew how to discern the spirit and who knew what God was saying, who could see the future.

Brothers and sisters, surround yourself with people who understand the movements of the Holy Spirit. Seek counsel from wise people, from people who are mature in the Holy Spirit. Do not gather, as they say, with fools and scoundrels who have nothing good to tell you. Gather with wise people, mature people, serious people, people who know the Holy Spirit, and let their anointing and their blessing rub off on you. Seek counsel from proven people, serious people, people mature in the Spirit who can give you sound advice and discern the movement of God.

When you are going to choose a partner, choose a job, or choose a place to move to, make sure first that you pray and seek illumination from God, but also seek out people who can counsel you wisely in the Spirit.

And this prophet told Ahab, “Prepare yourself, because within a year that man will return....” And notice, then, that the Bible gives us, as it were, a glimpse into the private counsels of King Ben-hadad’s council, the Syrian king. And there the camera comes in and shows us Ben-hadad’s advisers—you can read it for yourself—telling Ben-hadad, “You know what, Ben-hadad? What happened there, that defeat you suffered, happened because the gods of the Israelites are gods of the mountains, and this battle was fought in the hills, in places with ups and downs, and the terrain was uneven, and the specialty of the Jewish gods is the mountains. But you know what? Since that is the case, now try a level place. They are not gods of the plain; they are gods of the mountains only, and that is why they defeated him. If you fight them, if you fight against them on the plain, you will see that you will defeat them.”

You see here the enemy looking for the terrain that he believes gives him an advantage, the area where he can do the damage he wants to do. Now, these men are thinking that God, Jehovah, is like their gods, limited to the terrain, to the physical realm. Because that is how the pagan gods were: gods of corn, gods of the harvest, gods of the sun, of the moon. The carnal man thinks only in carnal and physical terms, but our God is above the physical realm, our God controls the physical realm, our God created the physical realm and is in control of all things.

So they advise him, “Prepare your army again, replace it exactly as you had it, man for man, sword for sword, horse for horse, and challenge them again; and this time fight them on the plain, and you will see that you defeat them.” How terrible it is to receive counsel from people who know nothing about spiritual things, who do not truly know how God moves!

And what happens? Then he comes again, war breaks out, and verse 28 says that “...then the man of God came to the king of Israel”—once again, the influence of the church, the influence of the Holy Spirit, the influence of spiritual understanding. Our leaders need good advisers.

We must also ask the Lord, brothers and sisters, for a church wise enough to advise the civil government. Because, yes, I also say that there are many people in the church—and just as I say one thing, I say the other—who allow ourselves to be bribed, who allow ourselves to be manipulated by politicians; they wrap us around their little finger and do whatever they want with us. They use us to win votes and then forget the values that we cherish and represent. And we must be careful about that too.

I long for prophets of God who will tell the president to his face exactly what they must tell him, not what he wants to hear. Because there are many men who have gained access to politicians and presidents by telling them what they want to hear, or by not telling them what they do not want to hear.

And I see something in the Old Testament: these prophets of God spoke to the king as though the king were under their tutelage. And that is how it is, because the church is above civil authority. Yes or no? Because the church represents the interests of the Kingdom of God, of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We do not have to fear or pay homage to any man, even if he bears the title of president of the United States or prime minister of England, or whatever else.

The church must speak the truth as God declares it. Not a church that allows itself to be bribed by the civil authorities, but a church that moves in the authority and the truth and the power and the integrity of God, brothers and sisters. That is the kind of church needed to advise the civil authorities. Not the church we have today; it is a decrepit church, brothers and sisters, a church that is afraid to speak the truth. And that is really what this... I do not even know whether I will get to the true subject of the sermon I had for this morning, but please bear with me for a little while, because this is very important.

So, I am not a ten- or twenty-minute preacher, brothers and sisters; forgive me. And I know that we are late with many things, and Miguel was telling me, “We have run out of time,” but this is the word... I do not believe that we have wasted time. Amen... not at all, not at any moment. So receive it, receive it, because this is the word of God, which can bless your life.

Then the prophet comes again and speaks to him, saying, “...Thus says Jehovah”—verse 28—“because the Syrians have said...” How good it is to know that God is present in the private counsels of men. When those advisers were speaking to Ahab, the Spirit of the Lord was right there listening. God does not need spies; he does not need satellites to know what men deliberate in their private chambers. He knows exactly what they are saying in their hearts.

And he spoke to him, saying, “...Thus says Jehovah: Because the Syrians have said, ‘Jehovah is God of the mountains, but not God of the valleys,’ I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, so that you may know that I am Jehovah.”

You see, there was apparently a merely geopolitical war taking place. Everything would seem... if there had been historical analysts, the only thing they would have been analyzing was the conflict between Syria and Israel—something merely political, economic and social, ethnic conflicts. They would have framed it in those terms. But little by little, as we read about it, we realize that there is a spiritual controversy beneath the conflict between nations. Like Lebanon and Israel today.

You know very well, brothers and sisters, there will never be peace between Israel and the Arabs until the Lord Jesus Christ establishes peace. The United Nations may do whatever it wants, and all the diplomatic minds may exert all the influence they want in the Middle East, but until the Lord says, “Peace,” there will be no peace there. I can say this because there is a spiritual dynamic beneath all of it. There is a controversy between Ishmael and Isaac that dates back thousands of years. And the devil has a hatred for the people of God that nothing can satisfy. And no matter how much men try to solve that problem, that problem does not obey human or diplomatic laws, because there is a spiritual controversy beneath it.

Likewise here, apparently in the struggle against Syria, notice that this idea of competing gods begins to emerge: their gods, our gods, Jehovah God, who wants his lordship to be established, and others who do not want to acknowledge the lordship of God. And there is also a controversy between God and his own people, led by an idolatrous king, Ahab, and a demonized woman named Jezebel, who is poisoning her husband’s mind because she is an idolatrous woman and comes from idolaters, and they are corrupting the Jewish people. And God wants to teach those hypocritical and rebellious people that he is God. And that is why he says, “I am going to deliver them so that they may see that it is not man’s power, but my power, that is in control of the nations.”

And then God... says, “I am going to deliver him to you.” And it certainly says that “...on the seventh day the battle took place, and the children of Israel killed one hundred thousand Syrian foot soldiers in a single day; and the rest fled,” verse 30 says, “to Aphek, into the city, and the wall fell upon twenty-seven thousand men who remained.” That is what you call effectiveness in war, because God was in control.

When God is on your side, it does not matter who sets himself against you. The psalmist says, “Though an army encamp around me, I will fear no evil; though war rise against me, I will remain confident.”

The word of the Lord says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me.” Hallelujah! When the Lord is on your side, when the Lord is defending you, when you are moving along the axis of the Lord’s will, there is no power that can come between you and the Lord; there is no...

It says that the enemy will come like a river, but God will build a wall between you and the enemy, because that is what the power of God is like. When someone is filled with the Lord’s grace, even if the enemy wants to do whatever he pleases, you can remain confident. I will remain confident.

“A thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you,” says the Lord.

The total destruction of that army. But look, brothers and sisters, there is something important here. Again, because it is one of the themes that begins to emerge from all of this: What do you do after the victory? I think that would be a good title for this sermon: “What Do We Do After the Victory?”

We were saying that there are people who, when they are being healed and life and everything is beginning to emerge and become a blessing, grow careless and let down their guard. You know what? Many times, the most terrible moments in life come after great victories, because that is when we let down our guard, grow careless and begin to rest on our laurels. And that is when the enemy trips us up and makes us fall and stumble.

Look at what happens. This man Ben-Hadad, the Syrian king, had blasphemed against God; he had unleashed his wrath and hatred against the people of God. God had a controversy with him; there was a spiritual controversy between God and Ben-Hadad. And what happens?

Look at what it says here in verse 31. It says that “...then Ben-Hadad’s servants said to him, ‘Behold, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us now put sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our necks, and let us go out to the king of Israel to see whether perhaps he will spare your life.’”

Ben-Hadad had serious problems. Israel had defeated his army; he was hiding from place to place, and he knew what was coming for him, because in those days there was no mercy, but rather an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You did it; you pay for it. And because Israel still retained something of God’s influence, it had a reputation for being a merciful nation, not as bloodthirsty as those other kingdoms were.

So these men, who are already in dire straits, tell him, “Look, they have a reputation for being merciful people, so let us put a rope around our necks as a sign of servitude, showing that we are at their disposal, that in a sense we are under the sentence of death, and let us surrender ourselves to their mercy. We will wear sackcloth, that is, black and tattered clothing as a sign of sorrow and mourning, and ashes on our heads as a sign of humiliation; and we will appear before them and ask for mercy so that they may spare your life.”

Now, this is where things get complicated for us as Christians because, brothers and sisters, as Christians we follow a Christ of love and mercy, who forgave the adulterous woman, who showed mercy to the great sinners in Scripture, and who, on occasions when, for example, the disciples wanted to call down fire upon the heads of those who had not accepted the Lord, rebuked them and told them, “You do not know what spirit you are of.”

What would we do? How would we write the rest of that text? This is where Scripture gets complicated, and that is why I love the word of God, because it is complex, multidimensional. What would the Spirit of Jesus Christ, viewed superficially, dictate to us? Well, let us forgive them. That is what the word of God says. Forgive, show mercy, let us... and that is what I have preached, what I preach and what I will always preach. We have already defeated them.

And in fact, there is a biblical precedent, because later, when Elisha, Elijah’s successor... You will remember that a band of Syrians comes to capture Elisha, and Elisha’s servant is trembling because suddenly they have surrounded them and want to capture Elisha and take him away. And Elisha tells him, “Do not worry, because there are more with us than there are with them.” And he prays to the Lord to open his servant’s eyes, and suddenly the servant sees an army of fire, of soldiers and angels, all around them. And it says that Elijah gave the word, and the Syrian army was struck with blindness; they were all left blind and confused and did not know where they were. He put them into something like a trance, and Elisha guided them right into the middle of Israel, where they were then surrounded by the Israelite army, and they captured that entire Syrian band. And Elisha’s servant says to him, “What do we do with them, Lord? Do we kill them?” Look, the same question: What do you do when you have the enemy captive, when you have defeated the enemy? What do you do?

In that other case involving Elisha, Elisha tells him, “How can we kill them? Would you kill those whom you have already defeated? No, do not kill them.” On the contrary, do you know what Elisha does? He gives them food, prepares a great dinner for them, humbles them, and then sends them back to their nation as free men, without touching a single one of them. One would say, “That is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”

But you know what? In this case, brothers and sisters, in this case here, it does not turn out that way. You know what? When these men appear before King Ahab in such a humbled state and completely surrendered to him, King Ahab tells the ambassadors sent by the king, “Look, if he is alive, he is my brother,” as if to say, “There is no problem; I forgive him, and not only do I forgive him, but I bring him into my inner circle; he will be my close friend.” And that is certainly what he does: he puts him in his chariot, parades him through the city, and King Ben-Hadad, very proud and happy that the problem has passed, returns to his nation honored and blessed by King Ahab, who thinks that he has done well by forgiving this man.

And look where things get really complicated. That is why—allow me... I hope you are not getting bored. I am not bored, but I am up here, so I do not know about you; this is very important. We are now getting to the heart of the matter. Look at what it says in verse 35, because this is a lesson I do not want you to miss, my brothers and sisters. It says, “...Then a man from among the sons of the prophets”—God was moving in Israel at that time. I ask the Lord, “Father, send the prophetic spirit in this time. May your prophets speak to the secular world once again; may your prophets speak again to the society of the United States and of the nations; may the truly prophetic voice be heard resounding among the nations once again, because it has still not been heard as God wants it to resound.”

And then this prophet approaches, and once again the camera of the word enters an intimate setting. We are no longer at the national, international level, but in a scene somewhere, in a house, perhaps in a school of the prophets. It says, “...Then a man from among the sons of the prophets”—verse 35—“said to his companion by the word of God...”

Have everyone say, “by the word of God.” This man was speaking in the Spirit at that moment; he was speaking in the power of God, with the authority of God, through the moving of God. It was God speaking through that prophet, because what I am telling you here is very important, so that you can see what happens.

“..... he said to his companion by the word of God, ‘Strike me now, hit me; pick up a stone, pick up a stick, whatever it may be—strike me, hit me.’ Listen, if one day a friend from here at church says that to you while you are there watching television, watching a video, or talking, and suddenly says, ‘Strike me, hit me,’ and you see the plate you could hit him over the head with—‘Mmmmm.’ Or you are going to think, ‘Is this guy crazy? What got into him? What wasp stung him?’ And you do not do it, right? But look, then it says:

“..... but the other man refused to strike him.” This is a mysterious passage. I have read this passage for years, and for years I wondered why God put this passage here in the Bible. Of all the things He could have included, why did He put that passage there? And I have asked the Lord for wisdom, and I believe He has given me an understanding of why. Because look at what happens:

“..... but the other man refused to strike him, and he, the first prophet, said to him, ‘Because you have not obeyed the word of the Lord, behold, when you leave me, a lion will strike you.’ And when he left him, a lion found him and killed him.”

Wow, brothers and sisters, is God unjust? Goodness, all this man did was something good. He did not want to strike another man. I do not think we can blame anyone if he is told, “Hit me,” and he does not hit him so as not to hurt him. Yet God sends a lion that kills this man because he did not want to strike that other prophet. What happened here? Do you see?

This text revolves around an essential truth, brothers and sisters. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “There is a time for everything. There is a time to kill and a time to give life. There is a time to love, and it says there is even a time to hate. The Bible says that; I am not saying it. There is a time to destroy and a time to build.”

Human history has its seasons. There are times to forgive and let the enemy live, and there are times to destroy him. There are times to be patient with the sinner, and there are times to confront him face-to-face and tell him God’s truth to his face. There are times to be patient with someone and wait years and years for that person to repent, and there are times to say, “Because you have continued to disobey the Lord, God’s judgment is falling upon your life, and either you straighten yourself out or the Lord is going to split you in half.”

There is a time for everything, brothers and sisters. And the important thing is knowing how to discern God’s timing. Listen to me. It is knowing how to discern when God is calling you to do one thing and when He is calling you to do the other.

There was a time to forgive that army and that man, but this was not that time. That man had already abused God’s mercy. God’s mercy toward him had already run out. What Ahab had to do was discern the moment and kill that man. And this prophet, who was supposed to have understanding, was supposed to discern that the other prophet who was speaking was speaking by the power of God, and he was supposed to obey the word of God.

Brothers and sisters, when the Holy Spirit is moving in your life, in a church, or in an atmosphere, look, extremely strange things happen. When God is present in all His power, God is ominous, God is fearsome, God is terrible. God has an aspect which, if you look upon it, will petrify you because of how horrifying God appears in all His glory, in all His power, and in all His authority. God is the most dangerous being you could ever imagine.

When the Jews heard the thunder, it says, and the trumpets sounding on the mountain when God was present there, it says that they became so afraid that they told Moses, “You go up and leave us down here, because we do not want to go in there.”

When Moses came down, his face was shining so brightly, and his appearance was so terrible, that he had to put a covering over his head so as not to frighten and terrify the Hebrews. Because when God is present in all His power, God is fearsome. And to me, brothers and sisters, that is something I have come to understand: I do not need my God to be pretty and attractive, lovely and sweet, with long blond hair, little blue eyes, and a pretty face. I have a God whom I know also has claws and teeth, and who is also terrible when He is offended.

The Word says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The church has lost its fear of the living God. The world has lost its fear of the terrible God, the Creator God, the holy God, the thrice-holy God, the God of the cherubim, the fearsome God who, when He manifests Himself, causes terrible things to happen.

And, brothers and sisters, I ask the Lord, “Father, help us, as a church and as individuals, to preserve a sense of Your holiness, of Your terrible majesty, of the fact that we cannot play games with You, that we walk upon terrain terribly laden with the land mines of holy things, and that this world is a mysterious world. There are demons, there are angels, there is God, there is Satan; we are at war for our souls; we are living in difficult times; we are living in times when the church is called to be a prophetic church, brothers and sisters.”

I see many churches and many preachers in the United States forgiving and healing and speaking pleasant words and words of peace when God is calling for war, calling for holiness, calling for confrontation, and calling us to speak His word clearly, to give a clear definition of what the word of God is, so that the nations may clearly hear the word of the Lord. Whoever wants to obey it should obey it; whoever does not is going to hell and will suffer the consequences.

The Lord says, “Come, and let us reason together.” He says, “I do not want the sinner to perish; I do not want the offender to perish.” But He also says, “If you do not put yourselves in order, I will destroy you.” And nowadays I see many preachers and many churches whose approach is to try to bribe people into coming to church. And they say, “Let us not talk about this; let us not talk about that. Let us not say this or that, because if we say it, people will leave us.” They do not want to hear that. So let us not say it, lest they become upset.

Brothers and sisters, I cannot be that kind of pastor or preacher. Forgive me. I believe we could possibly have many more people here of certain kinds and from a certain social standing if I toned down my preaching a little and kept a little quieter, but as long as I am able, in the name of the Lord, I will not do it, and I hope you will support me in this. Because I do not believe that the church of Jesus Christ has to apologize for proclaiming sound doctrine.

The Bible says that in the last days people will have itching ears, and it says that they will gather around themselves preachers who flatter their vanity and tell them what they want to hear, because they hunger for something spiritual but do not want to be told the truth. And the church has to say, “No.” If you want to enter the Kingdom of God, you have to play by the rules of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God does not conform itself to man; man conforms himself to the Kingdom of God.

That does not mean that we should not have mercy, that we should not have love, that we should not be humble, that we should not acknowledge our own sins, that we should not acknowledge our need for the Lord’s grace, or that we should not love the sinner. That does not mean that we should go around with our eyes raised and our noses stuck up, saying, “We are better than the rest of the world.” No. In a spirit of humility, mercy, love, and acknowledgment of our own sins, we speak the truth; we speak to the sinner, tell him the truth, and confront him.

God is calling this nation to judgment if it does not repent. And we cannot preach peace when God is preaching war. We cannot call blessed what God has cursed. We cannot call pure what God has said “is an abomination and a sin.” We cannot sit calmly by while the foundations of society are being undermined by man’s spiritual foolishness. And when the church adopts a mentality of accommodation, like Ahab; when the church refuses to do the violent things to which God has called it, like that second prophet who refused to strike the first because that was what God wanted at that moment, the church then brings judgments upon itself.

And that is why so many churches and so many ministries today are in decline, dying even though they are led by men who love God and His Word: because they are disobedient to God, because they are not preaching everything God asks them to preach; because they are cutting short and abridging the Gospel, removing certain things because it is not expedient to proclaim them from the pulpit. And every time you do that, every time you take something out of the word of God and put it in your pocket for another day, you are making a pact with the devil. And that is why we cannot do that. The church has to be clear; it has to be forceful. We are living in the days of Ahab and Jezebel. We are living in the days of Elijah, and the church has to possess that same integrity and that same violence.

I believe that the times approaching for the United States and for the nations, while they are times when God is calling man to reconciliation, are also times of judgment. And the church is going to be called to administer those judgments. God is going to raise up His prophets. God is going to raise up His voices to confront man, to tell him what must be said to him, and to be channels of God’s judgment if men do not repent. Listen to me: the church has to prepare itself, and we have to walk with great integrity before God, brothers and sisters. We have to walk very carefully before the Lord because these are dangerous times.

This prophet, who refused to move in the violent tone God required of him at that moment, stepped outside the will of God. And when the Holy Spirit is moving and telling the church, “Walk this way,” and the church does not walk that way, that church becomes a rebellious church against which God has a controversy, and God judges it.

I will end there. I wish I could continue with this text. But look, brothers and sisters, what is happening here is that this prophet, this first prophet, needed that man to wound him because he was going to appear before King Ahab and give him a parable to tell the king, “What you did by forgiving that king violated My will.”

That second prophet had to perform a service God needed, which was to administer an artificial wound to this first prophet so that the prophet could put on a bandage, appear before King Ahab without being recognized, and give him a parable that says: “King, I was told to guard a prisoner, and that if he escaped from me, I would have to either give my life for his life or pay a talent of silver, a very substantial fine; and I let him go.” And then the king, riding very proudly in his chariot, says to him, “Well, that is your sentence; you have pronounced it yourself.” Then suddenly the prophet removes the bandage from his eyes, and it says that the king recognizes him as the prophet of God. And he tells him, “Because you, King Ahab, allowed the man under My ban to escape, your life will now be for his life, and your kingdom for his kingdom.”

Do you see? Ahab did not know how to discern the will of God and fell into false mercy and false grace. Brothers and sisters, be careful not to fall into false grace and false mercy, because any mercy, any grace that is not administered in the Spirit and in the Lord’s timing is disobedience against God. It is not the grace and mercy that God accepts and applauds. It is sin.

If God tells you, “Jump over there,” you jump over there. If God tells you, “Destroy this,” you destroy it. If God tells you, “Preserve the life of something you hate,” preserve its life. If God tells you, “Do not touch that accursed thing,” do not touch it. Whatever God asks of you, you do not question it; you obey it. Obedience. Obedience is what God wants in our lives. He does not want your tithe; He does not want your church attendance; He does not want your service as a deacon; He does not want your service as an usher; He does not want your singing. He wants obedience, and everything else flows from obedience in every dimension of life.

Let us ask the Lord, “Father, make me obedient to Your will, to whatever You want, Lord, but make me obedient, because we cannot bribe God—not with money, not with praise, not with tongues, not with anything. The only thing we can do is obey the Lord in whatever He asks of us.”

That is my desire, and as a church, brothers and sisters, let us make a covenant. We want to be a church that is obedient to the Lord, obedient to God’s call. If God tells us, “Destroy,” we destroy. If God tells us, “Declare judgment,” we declare judgment. If God tells us, “Confront,” we confront. If God tells us, “Show mercy and patience,” we show mercy and patience. But we cannot disobey what God wants done at a given moment, supposedly placing our own judgment and our own mercy above God’s mercy. God knows to whom He shows mercy and to whom He does not show mercy. And God knows why He declares something acceptable and why He does not. And do not, out of false mercy, presume to call acceptable something of which God has said, “That is not of Me.” “I desire obedience, not sacrifice,” says the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, let us obey the Lord. Let us be a church that fears God, that fears the holiness of God, that proclaims the word of God, that moves with the seriousness of God. These are very specific times; these are very clear times; these are times to return to the ancient paths; these are times to reopen the wells, because these things have not been spoken of for centuries. These are times to use once again the weapons and vessels and resources that have remained hidden and dusty for many centuries because it was not the time. But now is the time. And now is the time for the church to move in the spirit of the pages of Scripture.

I say to the Lord, “Father, when, when?” continually crying out to the Lord, waiting for the moment when God’s visitation will come. As we have seen it in the pages of the Bible, so we want to see it move upon the earth once again.

I am not content with partial manifestations of God’s power, because I believe that what God wants to pour out upon the earth at this time is his genuine manifestation—unrestrained, unclothed, with nothing to impoverish it—his power laid bare, his word made clear, his prophetic word proclaimed clearly. A church that walks uprightly before him, with mercy on one side and judgment on the other; truth on one side and patience on the other; humility on one side and clarity concerning the things of God on the other. A church that moves in the power of the Holy Spirit, with all the gifts at its disposal to proclaim God’s purposes in the last days.

And I would like to be part of that church, and I hope that our church will be part of that greater church which God wants to raise up in these times. There is a price; there is obedience to be rendered to the Lord; there must be uprightness. We must lose our fear of people—of what they say, what they want, and their pressure. We cannot yield to the weak with their good intentions; they are weak and need to be strengthened. We must not side with them, but with people who are so close to God that they know what God wants and move forward gritting their teeth, even though they do not want to, simply because God says so. That is the people God wants to bless and use.

Let us ask the Lord to cause that spirit to be born in us. Let us stand. Let us ask the Lord, “Father, fill us with your power; fill us with that spirit of obedience, integrity, seriousness, and of fearing God rather than people.”

Please forgive me if I have gone over time, but... it is the word of the Lord that is falling upon us this morning. God is tired of games and wants seriousness in our lives.

Father, forgive us; forgive me for trifling with your extreme holiness and majesty, your fearsome lordship. Oh, Father, forgive us for presuming more than we should, and help us to be obedient, to have integrity, to be upright, Lord, in our walk with you. Certainly do not let us fall into pride, Father, but neither let us fall into false grace and false mercy or the timidity, Lord, that you abhor in a warrior people whom you have called.

Cleanse us, cleanse us, cleanse us. Cleanse us, Lord; heal us; forgive us. Help us to walk as you desire, Father, and to be obedient to the very end. Forgive this church, Father, for the ways in which we have failed you. They are many, Father; we acknowledge our sins, Father. We humble ourselves before you. We humble ourselves before you. Father, we acknowledge that we have fallen short of your holiness, but today we ask you to restore us and heal us and help us to walk according to your will—scrupulously, Lord, meticulously, Lord—doing exactly what you ask of us at the moment when you ask it, discerning the moment, discerning the specific move that you require at that specific moment, oh Lord.

We worship you. Thank you for your revelation. Thank you for your word this morning, Lord. Bless your people. Renew them, Lord, and lead us closer and closer to your will each day. Glory to God, in the name of Jesus. Amen.