Second Service Judges 7:7

This morning I used an English Bible as the service was going to be broadcast on the radio and we put a little more emphasis on English. Now at least I have a little more freedom to do it directly into Spanish and in Book of Judges, Chapter 7, we are going to go to verses 9 to 23.

It says there “then Jehovah said to Gideon: “With these 300 men who licked the water I will save you and I will deliver the Midianites into your hands and let all the other people go, each one to his place. And having taken provisions for the people and their trumpets, he sent all the Israelites each to his tent and kept those 300 men and had the camp of Midian down in the valley. It came to pass that night Jehovah said to him: Get up and go down to the camp because I have delivered it into your hands, and if you are afraid to go down, go down with Fura, your servant, to the camp and you will hear what they say and then your hands will exert themselves. and you will go down to the camp.

And he went down with Fura, his servant, to the outposts of the armed people that were in the camp and the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east, were lying in the valley like locusts in multitude. , and their camels were innumerable, like the sand that is on the seashore in multitude. When Gideon arrived, behold, a man was telling his companion a dream, saying: behold, I dreamed a dream. He saw a barley loaf rolling up to the camp of Midian and it came to the tent, that is to say the general's main tent, and struck it in such a way that it fell and upset it from top to bottom, and the tent fell.

And his companion answered and said: This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given the Midianites and the entire camp into their hands. When Gideon heard the account of the dream and its interpretation, he adored and, returning to the camp of Israel, said: Get up, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hands. And dividing the 300 men into three squadrons, he gave all of them trumpets in their hands and empty pitchers with torches, that is, torches, burning inside the pitchers, and said to them: look at me, and do as I do. Behold, when I come to the end of the camp, you will do as I do. I will blow the trumpet and all those who will be with me, and you will then blow the trumpets around the entire camp and say: for the Lord and for Gideon.

So Gideon and the 100 men he had with him came to the end of the camp, at the beginning of the midnight watch, when they had just renewed the sentinels and blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers that they carried in their hands and the 3 squads blew the trumpets and breaking the pitchers, they took the torches in their left hands and the trumpets with which they played in their right and shouted: "by the sword of Jehovah and of Gideon", and each one stood firm in his station round about the camp. Then all the army began to run, shouting and fleeing, and the 300 blew their trumpets, and the Lord put the sword of each one against his companion throughout the camp, and the army fled to Bethsite, in the direction of Zerera and to the border of Abelmehola in Tabat, and the Israelites from Naphtali from Asher and from all Manasseh gathered together and followed the Midianites.” May the Lord bless his holy word.

I hope that if you did not have your Bible you could follow the chronology of this story. It is a fascinating tale of war. I don't know why a good movie hasn't been made with Gideon as the main character, because the truth is that he is a tremendously interesting figure and his entire biography lends itself to many very dramatic things. And it's like a distillation, a condensation of many themes that we see through Scripture.

I love this passage and I have previously preached about the life of Gideon because God, as you know, records these historical accounts in Scripture because not only so that they are recorded there for the interest of the historian, but mostly for a practical purpose and you know what that is right? It is that when you read these passages, you can understand how God has worked in ancient times because He works in the same way throughout history, which means that just as He worked at that time, He can also work today in your life. . Not only that, but God also wants you to study these passages to be able to extract from them the spiritual principles that you need to be able to unleash the power of God in favor of your own life, and what we see here is a scene of great disadvantage. and great crisis.

Israel, if you read all the previous Chapters, has been under the power and domination of a very powerful army, a nation that when it feels like it, comes in, plunders the nation, takes everything that he wants to take away and leaves them poor and then comes back a few years later and comes back and does the same thing with complete impunity, because the Jews are too weak to do anything about it. The word says that the people of God had prostituted themselves behind idolatry, they had sinned systematically, repeatedly against the Lord and God releases this military plague against them to warn them and confront them about their ways, the way in which they are working with Him. Throughout all of history God did the same thing with Israel. Century after century, the Jews became perverted and God sent judgment on them and then the Jews repented because they suffered and saw the fire that was falling on them, they repented, they cried out to God, God sent prophets who confronted them and then he sent someone that set them free. A time of prosperity and freedom would come and the same cycle would come back again and repeat itself every time, and this is what is happening right now.

God has sent the Amalekites, the Midianites and other groups of tribes to attack Israel and keep it weak, because many times God sends judgment and sends punishment, not because God likes punishment but because He loves us and wants us through the test to reconsider and seek God and repent. And as this nation, today is in something similar, and the church of Jesus Christ that Israel is a type of the church, rather, what was true for Israel, is true for the children of God as well. And we read these passages because here are spiritual life lessons for us too.

And we see here the following, that there is a situation of great disadvantage then. Israel is surrounded by the enemy and has sent this man inexperienced in war to free his people. And I draw a parallel to what is happening here in the US today, and not just in the US, but throughout the Western world, with regard to the church of Jesus Christ. In the same way we, the church of Jesus Christ at this time, in this nation is in a disadvantaged position. We too, brothers, are surrounded by powers, by political and cultural currents that are contrary to the interests of the Church and the Kingdom of God. The Christian church in the US is weak as it is in all the countries of Europe, in Australia, in Canada. The Gospel is losing ground. Every day the word of Christ is less heard. Churches are dying left and right in Massachusetts, they close their doors. There are many discouraged pastors, with minimal, small congregations. The average size of a church in Massachusetts I think is about 50 people at most. There is a tremendous weakness. People view Christianity with great skepticism and often with hostility.

Pastors are viewed in a negative light. Every day they want to relegate the Gospel more and more to the most remote hall of culture. And today the Gospel, when it's not thwarted and met with opposition, is just looked at in a ridiculous way and as if it just doesn't matter. We see here in Massachusetts all the currents that are going on right now that show that the church has kind of lost its power and everything suggests that in the next 15, 20 years, if there is not a powerful intervention from God, things will continue to go from worse to worse And this is repeated throughout the Western world where industrialization, technology, reason, and culture have penetrated the values of a tremendously secular society, governed by the values of science and not of the spirit, every day it moves further away and more of the values that God has declared throughout his word.

Nowadays people say: well, if you want to be a Christian, that's your business. Live your Christian life in your private world but don't expect the values of your Christianity to permeate the general realm of society, say, in the arts, or in government, or in the business world, or in the world of science or knowledge. The church is supposed to just keep quiet in those places. And every day we see ourselves as more and more surrounded by a force that we cannot understand that is reducing the vitality of the people of God.

That is why it is very easy for the church to feel as Gideon felt when the angel came and appeared to him while he was trying to grow the wheat and prepare it for its intended use, hidden for the enemy would not see it, so that they would not come to steal it, and the angel appears to him and says: God is with you, strong and brave man. And Gideon says: well, but if he is with us, why are we in this terrible condition? Why are we so isolated, and what could I do if I am the smallest of a small tribe in a nation that is under oppression. Gideon has been so struck down by the force of the enemy that he cannot believe that God can be with him or that he can be with his nation to free it from the yoke. And so I believe, that we often feel here. How many if they truly examine their subconscious, Christians, that is to say, do not feel that they are in a world that every day is further and further away from the faith, we feel as if we are under siege, as if we are in a castle and around us we hear the screams of a great army that wants to destroy and get through the gates and eat us alive. We feel in opposition, surrounded, in struggle, against powers greater than ourselves.

Well, brothers, I want to tell you that God has good news for us and that God has a blessing for his people. God wants to teach us how to wage war, and that's why I jumped to this point here where Gideon is already ready to go into battle. And what we see here is that God gives Gideon some principles that he can use to wage war against the enemy and those principles we must also use in our time.

I want to share, so quickly, five elements that I shared this morning that we must use as Christians to take the battle to the enemy. And not only that, I would say brothers that even for any situation in your life there is something that God can do through this teaching. It is a teaching directed rather to the church of Jesus Christ, to the army that God wants to raise, because God wants to bring revival to Massachusetts. God wants to bring revival to our community. Right now as I look, I see this place completely packed and praise God for that, but you know what, brethren? I look at crowds, I look at this scenario multiplied 5, 10, 15 times. That is what interests me, brothers. And you know what? It's not because I want to see a large group of people, without it giving me some kind of ego massage, it's because I know that when the Gospel enters lives and families, transformations happen, chains are broken, families are blessed, marriages are healed, rough edges are smoothed, children are reconciled to their parents. There is hope that arises for a community, there is healing and that is why we cannot allow the values of the Gospel to be isolated and put in a drawer to be forgotten, because that is the only hope for this society, brothers.

Scientists, sociologists, educators, intellectuals have something to say, but I tell you, brothers, that the solution to the problems of our cities, our communities only lies in the values of the Kingdom of God . In that word that is there when it is applied in a true way, and that is why it is important that we learn to use these principles and that we transmit them to others, because God wants to give us a tremendous harvest for the Gospel.

Brethren, I am getting a little off track, but I have a great sense of urgency for God to allow us to build our new temple. I haven't mentioned much about it for months because we are doing some negotiations and all that, pray, one of the things we need is the confirmation of the loan that we need to make this temple that is going to cost a lot and right now the architects, the engineers They are drawing up the plans. Our great wish is that next year, towards the end of the year at the latest, we begin to build our temple, because I know we need a bigger place, because the coming harvest is immense. The things that God wants to do in this time are tremendous. Right now we are on the verge of a revival. God wants to bring a very big visitation and an unprecedented harvest of souls and we have to be preparing ourselves.

God is preparing this congregation. God is stirring up the waters. You feel a greater intensity in worship. You feel alive that you are being touched, and I want all of you to be part of a great miracle that God wants to bring to Massachusetts. God is going to use the poor, God is going to use those who do not speak English, God is going to use housewives, God is going to use the ignorant, God is going to use those who do not have great finances and He it will glorify itself with instruments that will put the great and powerful of the earth to shame. But what we have to do is learn the techniques of warfare, learn how to fight the enemy, how to present a powerful Gospel, a Gospel full of life, a Gospel that is hope, a Gospel that is joy.

We have to tell the Lord; Father, fill me first. Heal me first. Heal my home first. Put your vitality, put your joy in me, put your knowledge in me, so that when people look at me they say: I want what that person has. First we have to ask the Lord, heal our children, heal our families, heal our minds, heal our emotions, heal our relationships, come, Lord, into the structures of my life, my family, my house and then make me a sample of the abundant life that Christ can give me. I look at many of you and I know what's going on in your lives, in terms of God is reclaiming you, God is visiting you, God is getting into the cubicles of your soul and cleansing and healing your lives and preparing you for be an instrument of God. I ask them to let themselves be treated, to be passionate people towards God. Invest, brothers, invest because the harvest is great.

If they told you, look if you work hard and make an effort, you're going to collect a million dollars within 3 years, wouldn't you get down to work with everything you could? right yes? Well, you know what? The Lord Jesus Christ says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a great pearl, a precious pearl and went home and sold everything he had to buy that pearl, and the Lord also says that he is also like a man that he discovered a treasure in a hidden place, buried and went everywhere, sold everything he had, got enough money, bought the land, so that he could possess the treasure. you know what, brothers? God wants to give you in your hands a harvest of souls. God wants to use you as an instrument. God wants to ennoble your soul as he did with Peter who turned him from a fisherman of stinky fish to a fisher of men. God wants to make you an instrument of his grace in this city, but you need to invest in the Kingdom of God, you need to work, study the word, pray, fast, come to church, fill yourself with the holy spirit, interact with the spirit of God so that I can use you and ennoble you and rise up and make you a counselor, an evangelist, a preacher, a teacher, a rescuer of young lives, but you have to go to war for your inheritance. God wants to do it in your life. Wouldn't you like to be one of his great men or women that God uses?

The Lord in the spirit, stand up right now, if you want to be one of those, don't do it out of courtesy, do it because you really want to and we're going to ask the Lord to convey it to us. We're going to take a little moment here to do that. If you want, only if you feel that God is calling you, do not do it out of courtesy because it's not about courtesy at all, it's about really wanting the spirit of God to make you into a powerful instrument for his glory.

You make a pact with God right now. Tell the Father: Lord, I want the last years of my life to remain, to see a person who is advanced in age or how many years you have, if you are young, or I want to dedicate my profession to you. I want you to use me. And right now I agree with you, Lord, to put everything aside, like that man who sold everything to buy a precious pearl. I give you everything to be used by you. I give you everything to be an instrument in your hands. Heal me and purify me.

Just ask the Lord, Father, make me an instrument for your glory, I'm willing to pay the price and that's a very big thing to say.

But use us, Father. Look at this town, Lord. We want to be used by you. We want your glory to invade this community, Lord. Glorify yourself in your children, Father. I bless you in the name of Jesus, I declare your gifts. I declare your anointing on their lives, Father. Begin with me, Lord. Fill us, fill our cups until it overflows with your spirit, with your anointing, with your oil, Father. We want passionate people, Lord. We want people who don't hinder you. We want people who don't put time limits on you. We want people who are appetizing for things of the spirit. Send your power, Lord. Send your grace to these young people up there, Lord. Turn them into warriors, turn them into fierce people, for you, Lord. Look at the new ones who are here perhaps for the first time, I consecrate them to you, Father. I consecrate their lives, I consecrate their families, their emotions. Heal, heal in the name of Jesus. Break, break, Lord. Right now we break yokes of the devil. We break spiritual ties. We break steel helmets around the minds of your children. We break weights, Lord, and burdens that the devil has on lives, now in the name of Jesus, I break curses in the name of Christ. Father, I declare families free, Lord.

I declare with wide hearts and emptied of all impurity so that your glory, your oil may fit in them, in the name of Jesus. say amen say amen Receive in the name of Jesus. Father, we declare your glory, Lord. We declare your glory this morning. Rise up a fierce people, Father. Rise up a people that one brings 100, O Lord, to the house of God. Let a hundred bring a million, Father, to the house of God, in the name of Jesus make us radioactive, Lord in the things of the spirit. Make us magnetic, Lord, that when this community testifies of you, open your mouth, Father, things happen. Lord, miracles happen, lives are touched, Lord, may they have a stamp of authenticity in their mouths. May when they open their mouths, Lord, may it be the holy spirit speaking through them. In the name of Jesus we release a flow of your spirit, we release, Lord, waves that are earthquakes, Father, to remove the foundations of this city, of this church, Father. In the name of Jesus let your ointment run, Lord, let your anointing run, Father, let all fear flee, beloved Lord, all timidity flee, Father. Every conservative and timorous attitude, beloved Lord, every smallness of mind give way in the name of Jesus replaced by passion for you. Thank my Lord. We get it, we get it, we get it. Receive it there in your heart. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! In the name of Jesus, thank you, Lord, thank you, Christ. Amen and amen. Give the Lord a big round of applause because God does it.

Have a seat. It's not the end of the sermon, but I promise I'll do it right, real quick. Five things that we need to have to possess the land and to defeat the enemy. I am going to list them one by one.

We need to confront the enemy. We need to confront the enemy. We need the anointing, there has to be confrontation, there has to be an anointing from God in our lives. There has to be prophetic discernment in our lives and in the church of Jesus Christ. There has to be a visibility of the people of God and there has to be a proclamation of the complete word of God in the middle of the city.

Confrontation, anointing, prophetic discernment, visibility and proclamation. These are the 5 things, among many others perhaps, that we need to use to counter what is happening in our culture. And I want to clarify something for our visitors and people who may not be used to this vocabulary that I am using. I speak of the enemy, I speak of war, I speak of confrontation, I speak of spiritual violence. Brothers, let me tell you something, I am clear on one thing and that is that we are a people who have to have the love of Christ in our hearts. I'm not talking about demonizing anyone out there. What I see out there is rather confused people who do not know how the Lord says, he tells Jonah: "they do not know how to discern his right hand from his left hand" because the word of God has not reached them or because the enemy, As the Apostle Paul says, he has blinded their understanding so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not shine for them.

When I speak of the enemy I am saying it in that sense. For me the real enemy is Satan, the enemy of souls, who only knows how to kill, steal and destroy. The enemies are not the homosexuals, the enemies are not the intellectuals who are simply deceived by Satan, the enemy is not the politicians who are trying to close the door on the church. The Lord Jesus Christ said through the Apostle Paul that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. I speak of a war on the spiritual level above all. I speak of the fact that the people of God have to be militant at the spiritual level. I mean that we have to be sure that God has given us a different revelation than he has given to any other religion or to any other spiritual movement. We have a revelation that comes directly from the mouth of God. This does not mean that we disrespect anyone or consider anyone an enemy. We love on the contrary, every day, what moves me the most is the love that I have for the souls that are lost out there, including those who speak against us and who are simply possessed by a delusion of their mind and of their spirit and what we want to do is enter and plunder the house of the thief of their souls and bring them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but we cannot be shy about that. We have to confront, there has to be a confrontation.

Gideon at some point decides to go against the Midianites and we see him here in this passage ready to go into confrontation with the enemy. Likewise the church of Jesus Christ has to confront. We are, we are here, brothers, in the world to make a movement against culture. The church has always been against the world. The church has always been an army that is trying to take power away from an enemy who is illegitimately possessing the land. Satan is the prince of this world and Christ parachuted down to the church and told them: take that territory that belongs to me. And that is why the church has to see itself as an army, and has to have the same militant, confrontational attitude but with weapons of love. It is an aggressiveness that paradoxically does not exclude love and meekness and humility and the sense of need for God's redemption, but we have to confront society.

If we remain silent and take our Gospel and put it under a chair, as Jesus Christ says: a light is not placed under a bed, but placed in a high place so that it shines. And we have to confront this society with a word that all is not well, that there are sins that God hates, that there are behaviors that have to be changed, that there are laws and there are moral principles that are hurting people. the very root of our community, of our society and that these things have to be abandoned if we want to have productive and God-blessed societies.

So the church has to confront, the church has to identify the enemy and has to tell him: we tell him a word from God and it is that we have to repent. Many churches have allowed themselves to be emotionally bribed and today, they are silent and do not speak the Gospel in a clear way and they are just each one there trying to please everyone and to say the things that people want. And myself, brothers, every time I stop here on a Sunday, I look and see new people who are visiting, some of them well dressed and who seem to be well-studied people and perhaps do not share with us what we understand. of the Gospel, many times I am tempted to soften some of the things I say so as not to scandalize and do no harm. But, brothers, God has clearly told me, I have to preach the entirety of the Gospel. That is the only hope for this society and we have to confront, we have to speak clearly to the world and we have to identify these powers of rationalism, of humanism, of rebellion, of lust possession and sexual debauchery, of trying to define what is humanity and to rebel against what God has dictated that man is.

Brothers, God made us. God programmed us, God wove, says the word, in his womb, in the womb of our mother, everything that we are. We have written in our being the moral, spiritual code that God declared about us. We can change our spiritual makeup in the same way that we can change our biological makeup. It can't be done. What we have to do is enter into what God has declared to humanity and the church has to announce to society what God's program is for us, what is the program that God has written in the being of man. When man tries to rebel against divine programming, what he does is he gets into big trouble.

Moreover, nature itself rebels because everything in the universe is connected, the biological with the psychological, with the spiritual, with the geological, everything. I sincerely believe that for this reason man is experiencing so many disasters at the geological level, at the level of nature, even in this nation, because..... and this is not just me saying, some psychologists who have gone deeper , like Karl Jung, talks about how mental energy also penetrates the physical world many times. I believe that nature rebels against all kinds of rebellion against God. When nations practice things that are abhorrent to what God as God has structured the universe, the universe itself is shaken in its foundations and there are tectonic movements also because there is resistance to the divine energy that wants to pass freely through the rebellious structures and resistance that men put up, then the commotions come, the great disasters come, the wars come. Because it is that the spirit of man and of society is unbridled, it is still and nature feels it and makes prophetic acts of what is happening at the level of social structures.

And that is why the church, the church is the salt of the earth, the church is the light of the world, the church is the spiritual authority, the church is the mother who tells adolescents rebels; put yourself in order with what your father says. In the last times God will send prophets that he says will reconcile the hearts of the children with the hearts of the parents. The church is that reconciling power. What does society say, we confront each other because we love you, because the Father wants reconciliation with you. Dad's not there with a double-barreled shotgun wanting to shoot you. The father says: come, come, I want to reconcile with you, I want peace but I need you to respect me, that you adhere to my values. But if the church loses its confrontational voice in love, loses its salt, loses its flavor, then it is useless. We must confront in the love of Jesus Christ. We have to be confrontational people in our schools, in our jobs, in our homes, wherever, in the love of Christ we have to say: no, that cannot be done because God forbids it. In our lives we also have to confront ourselves and ask the Lord to purify us more and more every day, to cleanse us when structures that are rebellious against God's will rise up within us. The confrontation has to go in all dimensions. Gideon confronted the enemy.

Second, the church needs God's anointing. Gideon was an anointed man, the angel had an encounter with Gideon, gave him an empowering look, filled him with spirit and the next day Gideon moved and smashed the idol of Asherah and the people immediately came and stood around Gideon and Gideon made a call and 32,000 men came, why? Because God had given him the power of summoning. When God anoints a person, a church, a ministry, he gives them power, an appeal because it is needed to be able to do what God wants them to do. The church needs, we need, that's why we made this moment to stand up, because we have to ask the Lord: Lord, anoint us, fill us with your spirit.

The word says "it is not with a sword, it is not with an army, it is with my spirit", says the Lord, the Lord. Battles are won in the power of the spirit, but we need a united church. Last Sunday we talked about how we have to fill ourselves with God. We have to stop looking outside and look at the God who enables us. We have to cling to God, plug ourselves into God so that the power of God runs through us and then manifests itself outward. We have to ask the Lord: Father, enable me. (Don't worry, that's background music there for someone who is, I wish they had chosen a little softer music, but it's okay, at least .....). The idea is, brothers, we need anointing. The church has to be anointed. There are many churches that have a lot of apparatus. We have lots of nice buildings, money in the bank, great sound systems, educational pedigrees for all the leaders, but if we don't have the power of God in our lives, the church isn't going to be able to do anything. That is why it is so good when we take time to worship the Lord.

You see when you spend 40 minutes, 50 minutes adoring... we have to understand what happens there, it's not just singing cumbayá and having a romantic moment with each other, it's when we're adoring the Lord, and the atmosphere is being charged with spiritual energy, you become like one of those batteries that is receiving power. The adoration, the anointing of God, the energy that is being released in the air is like a vapor that is penetrating through the pores and is softening them, it is opening them inside, in your mind, in your emotions, you are filled with the presence of God. You are being massaged by the holy spirit. Your mind is starting to think in different ways. Perhaps there is crying, perhaps there is laughter of liberation, things come off of you. It is not simply singing, because it would be tremendously monotonous and boring, it is entering that cloud of God's presence and receiving God's anointing and then going out into the street to serve the Lord.

And the church has to learn more and more. God needs united churches, God needs united people. It is not only evangelical people, it is not only Protestant people, it is not only people who come to church, no, it is people who carry the church within them 24 hours a day, it is people who know how to move in the anointing of God They are people who have been empowered by an encounter with the Holy Spirit. We have to ask the Lord every day: Lord, make us more and more a Pentecostal church every day, a church that knows how to move in your anointing, in power so that we can do the works that you want to do.

God told the Apostles, do not leave. Jesus said to them, Do not leave Jerusalem until you have been endued with power from on high. Because He knew that in order to do the task of evangelizing the world, they needed something different. Understand, brothers, preaching does not give you that. Reading the Bible doesn't give you that. The study of discipleship does not give you that. tithing doesn't give you that. Singing doesn't give you that. It has to be a direct encounter with the anointing of God. Receive an impartation of power in your life, fill yourself with the holy spirit, move in that anointing in your life and that will give you authority to overcome the giants that are in your life, be it marriage, be it drug addiction, be it a problem Mentally, be it depression, be it a physical or financial problem, whatever, God's anointing is the one that rots the yoke, the one that makes it possible for other things to come.

There are so many people who know about God and know about religion, still in the pulpits, still in the service of God, but they are still in defeat because they have not yet been able to plug into that mysterious power of the holy spirit, siblings. That is what we need more and more in our lives every day, that anointing. And Gideon had it because he received it from God and you saw the difference immediately in his behavior when he met the angel and then God gave it to him in other ways. We need that too.

We've talked about the third thing, prophetic discernment. What do I mean by that? I mean, brothers, that Gideon continually heard from God, had an encounter with the angel, then they told him: go and destroy the idol of Asherah. He did that, then God asked God to give him a sign of his favor and God gave it to him through the fleece that was full of water, serene, after that he also gave it to him by wetting the ground around him but leaving the fleece dry, and after that he said to him: look, go now and listen to what is happening in the camp, I am going to show you that I am with you there, all the ways in which Gideon was in continuous dialogue with God, he was receiving word, he was receiving revelation from God. God told him what to do, how to move, gave him the strategy of these burning atheists and these empty glasses and these trumpets, why? Because when God calls us He wants to give us strategy. God wants to speak to your life every day.

Perhaps you have, for example, a rebellious adolescent son and you don't know how to deal with him and you haven't found the key to enter his soul. You have to go to God, you have to tell him; Father, talk to me, teach me, how do you want me to treat my son? Perhaps you have a marital problem and you don't know how to solve it, perhaps you are emotionally distanced from your wife, there are problems in you, in your character, in your treatment, and you need liberation from those attitudes. You have to go in prayer, you have to fast and ask the Father for specific advice. How can I break this problem, Lord? Perhaps there are attitudes in your life, perhaps there is a financial problem, the church needs to be able to flow in God's prophetic discernment. We need word now. God wants to speak to his children. God wants to speak to you. God wants to have personal dialogues with you. God wants every day at work, on the train, in the car where you go, He wants to bring things to your spirit. God is speaking to us prophetically at this time.

Pastor Basil Yarde came here this morning and gave us a precious prophetic word. God is speaking to us that... He tells me prophetically that this is the time now, we are on the verge of entering into a great revival. That's why I feel this great urgency, God is speaking to me about it. God is telling me that God is doing new things in this congregation. God is speaking to me that when I went to Israel and returned, God did something in my life and is transmitting it to you. God is telling us that there is something new in the air that God wants us to deal with in a different way. God is telling us that we need to fix the patterns of our life, put things in order, prepare for the harvest, stop playing the Gospel and get serious once and for all, so that God can do what He wants . God is speaking to me in my ministry and in my life, about things that I have to do in my own life and settle with God and put in order so that God can use me as He wants to use me.

And God wants to love your life in the same way too, to do things in you, so that you can live that victorious life that He wants you to live. How are you going to get it? You have to set aside time to seek God. You have to set aside time to pray, to fast, to read the word, and when you open the word say: Father, speak to me. Do not read it routinely, God is going to speak to you through written words and He is going to activate passages of Scripture that will be as if that passage, for the moment, was highlighted and was speaking only to you. And when you go to your personal prayer time, go expecting to hear that God is going to say something specifically to you through that prayer time, and put your ears up. But it takes a church that flows in the gifts of the holy spirit, which includes the prophetic word, dreams, revelations, impressions of the spirit, the images that will come to our mind. That is needed to be able to rescue this society because this world we live in is too tied with rational, intellectual, cultural ties.

Today man has been enabled to produce things in the arts and in all dimensions of human existence that separate him more and more from God. The hardness of the heart of man today is greater than ever before in all history and therefore the church needs new tools that have to come from God and they are going to be ridiculous tools, like these. How could one defeat an army that was as numerous as the sands of the sea, with burning torches and empty vessels? Because that was what God wanted. And when God is in a specific revelation you can take a rubber sword and with that you can defeat a monster because the sword is anointed with the spirit of God, but you have to know that that is what God wants. In the hands of an anointed David receiving God's prophetic word, a slingshot was all it took to bring down a giant that an entire Israelite army couldn't. If we flow in the specific revelation of God, God is going to give us a strategy and a tool that will destroy the enemy in a moment, but we have to be attentive to those things. Maybe all the years of fighting that you have had, fighting with something in your life, God will defeat it in an instant, but you need to know what it is that God wants from you and how He wants to use you in that way.

Confrontation, anointing, prophetic discernment, the fourth thing, visibility. We have to be visible, brothers. Right now here we are visible to each other, but out there the world does not know that there are hundreds of people here in this place worshiping the Lord. How will they know? When you go out on the street. Tomorrow many of you are going to be in a factory, in an office, in a school classroom, on the street driving, taking a bus, the Church of Christ has to make itself visible. We cannot take refuge in the four walls. We have to be out there, letting the world know that we are a presence. I thank the Lord, what has happened in this time with the whole question of marriage and all that, I believe that God is allowing all of that simply to force the church to show up. We have been too hidden, meanwhile the enemy helps himself with the big spoon and does this and does that and only when we wake up and realize how he has taken possession of everything, then we put our hands on our heads and say: what a disaster!, and we began to put out the fire.

But God wants the church to be active, to be present, to be visible, to widen its tent as it says in Isaiah 54: widen the site of your tent, lengthen your curtains, affirm your stakes, lengthen the cords of your curtains, because I am going to extend you to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west. He tells her: do not be shy because you will spread, you will give birth, you will possess the nations, you will possess the lives of your children.

That's what God is saying to the church, men. Wherever you are, be a visible presence. I tell young people, do not be intimidated by your teachers, God will give you wisdom to speak with authority. Do not be intimidated by your classmates who are talking about this or that and parroting anti-Christian and anti-natural and anti-divine theories. Be a haunting presence wherever you are. Tell people: I am a Christian, so what? you understand? Let's be clear in our faith. Let's not be intimidated because we have the power of God with us. The word says: with them is the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord of hosts. God has given us the word.

Brothers, if we flow in that word and speak with authority and stand up and say here I am, as a prince of Jehovah, as a representative of the Kingdom of God. Open your mouth and God is going to give you a word of authority, but we have to be visible, we have to be present, we have to be a church that is there on the street, we have to invite others to come to church. We have to witness in our neighborhoods. We have to advocate for the values of the Kingdom of God. We do not apologize for what we believe. The enemy wants us to be afraid and tells us: ah, you hate homosexuals, you are full of hate, you are full of your own justice, you are continually criticizing. All those accusations that are thrown at us, like curses to intimidate us and make us accept the vision of the Gospel that is being transmitted to us by the enemy.

And we have to say: may the Lord rebuke you, I don't get that. I am a child of God. I have love in me, I love humanity, I love you. I have the truth of God in my life, I have a revelation once given to men for all centuries. I have the truth of God who created the universe and who laid the foundations of the planets. I have a faith that speaks to both the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. I can talk both about things that have to do with nature and also about things that have to do with the spirit. I can speak of the temporary and the eternal. I can talk about the scientific and I can talk about the moral. I can talk about the individual and I can talk about the collective, I can talk about the political and I can talk about the artistic because I have the wisdom, the mind of Christ. That is the word that we have to be saying to the world today. Let us not apologize for what God has revealed to his church. If the world has not fallen apart and broken into fifty thousand pieces, it is because the church of Jesus Christ is still present to preserve it. Let's not be intimidated, brothers. Let's not be afraid. Let's raise our voice. Let's blow the trumpets. Let's break the teas. Let our torch light shine and let the world see a man, a woman filled with the revelation of God. Let's be visible.

I shared with the brothers one last illustration regarding this point and I have one more left. These last days the mayor of the city of Boston whom we appreciate, because he is a decent man, and some city authorities wanted to take the name of the Christmas tree from a tree that has always been placed on Boystron Street, every year to to celebrate Christmas. But as you know in this society there is a spirit of antichrist, in English Christmas is Christmas, which comes from the word Christ, Christ, so I know, today, brothers, the word Christ scandalizes. You mention the word Christ and there is a spiritual movement in the air.

I've been in social gatherings of decent, well-intentioned and very professional people and when something is mentioned that is very pure Gospel you feel discomfort in the air. Because? Because there are spiritual energies that resent the mention of the name of Jesus. That is the spirit of antichrist that is in society and even well meaning and decent people are possessed by that spirit of antichrist today, that is why the church cannot be subject to it. The case was that they wanted to remove the name of the Christmas tree, Christmas Tree, and put simply a festive tree because they did not want to offend, supposedly, people who do not share the Christian faith. Although that tree has been sent from Nova Scotia for 50, 60 years, in Canada in gratitude to the city of Boston for an act of help that Boston gave to Nova Scotia and today you see that more and more. Everywhere you want to remove any sign of Christianity from the halls and public places of this nation, because the devil knows that when a nation removes the person, the name, the blood of Jesus, from its lintels it is open to all possible demonic penetration .

I can tell you that the only thing that makes the devil tremble is the name of Jesus. And I have had many opportunities through the years to see a person possessed or infected by demons, how the demons hate the name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus, because there is power in that blood. The name of Jesus is a magic key that opens doors and closes doors. The figure of Jesus is a sacred talisman, when you throw it things explode and explode, the demons flee. There is power in the blood of Christ, there is mysterious power, we cannot be ashamed to say the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus. The fact was that the mayor wanted to remove that and these city authorities in their desire to be politically correct, thank the Lord that a group of Christians who are always watching for precisely that type of action, wrote to the city and said: If you do that, we are going to sue you and we are going to take you to court. The mayor and the other people retired and today it is still called a Christmas tree.

The polls say that this nation, the ninety-odd, I was surprised myself, the ninety-odd by a lot of people identify themselves as of Christian extraction even though they don't practice Christianity, and there are a number Majority of people who say they go to Christian church every Sunday, even in this nation, listen up. The percentage of people who identify themselves as Buddhists, Hindus, and other religions is like 5 or 7% of the entire nation, why is ninety-something percent of this nation going to leave, not to offend sensibilities too much? developed, that the signs of the Gospel be eradicated in all parts of this nation. We are not saying that they exclude themselves, that they trample on others. We are saying that the majority also have the right to celebrate their roots and their symbols and their beliefs.

Thank the Lord, brothers, that there are people who are still militant and are defending, let us not apologize. Be proud of the Gospel that has been given to you and celebrate it and let us be a visible presence in the nations and in the cities and in the states. God is waiting, brothers and sisters, for the church to stand up and say: here we are. When the church makes its presence felt, God will move into action.

When Gideon stood up, he surrounded the enemy camp and they broke the vessels and those torches came out to light in the middle of midnight from that darkness, from that field, where that enemy was, and they began to touch their trumpets, and began to shout for Jehovah and for Gideon, the spirit of God fell on that statement and set the sword of one against the other. Because when the church becomes present, visible it becomes an instrument, a present channel. That is where the power of God enters the hospital, the school, the office, the street, the home, the neighborhood. God does his work, but if we are hiding our light under the bushel and we are quiet and afraid, and we don't want anyone to know, you don't know how many people I usually know, that I have known them for a long time and only after I find out for a long time that they are Christians, they are covert Christians.

They need to come out of the closet too, there are others who are coming out of the closet so let's come out of the closet too, brothers. Young man do not apologize for your faith. Worker, laborer, professional, housewife, do not apologize because you have received a unique revelation, exceptional for all time. We are going to be visible. When you walk, say: the Kingdom of God walks with me. Wherever you go, God has given you all the land that the soles of your feet can tread on. Do not fear to be visible, dare in the name of Jesus. Dare in the name of Jesus. God needs visible churches, churches present, churches "in your face" as they say in English, there, that announce the Gospel in season and out of season, if they do not want to accept it, that is their business, but you discharge your responsibility before God.

Last thing, and everyone say Glory to God. Proclamation. This is going to be very short. Proclamation. I have already said it in one sense. We need to proclaim the full Gospel of Jesus Christ. How do we see the proclamation? In that boast, that merriment that occurred when Gideon and his men shout and blow their trumpets and shine their torches and break their pitchers, at that moment we see that in that proclamation of praise and adoration, the presence of God begins to move and things happen. things.

The church has to proclaim the truth of the Gospel. So that you can see that I'm serious, and to invite the musicians to come over here and come up and start closing us down on this now.

The enemy wants to steal the Gospel from us. The enemy wants us to edit the Gospel so people don't get upset. There are many churches, and I say this respectfully, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, that today, out of the desire not to shock people, not confront, not offend, are taking out a number of Gospel truths and putting them under the rug. , because they are supposedly too confrontational and are unpleasant to people. Because? Because people come from outside full of this secular, rational, rebellious spirit against God and they arrive and when the word is announced in all its fullness, there is a clash of power, but unless we are willing for there to be that clash and to offend people, but do you know what? Many times by offending them, we remove the foundations of their spirit and then allow God to enter. Perhaps they start fuming and cursing you but later they get home and the germ of the spirit is already in their hearts and then God can begin to work in their lives. But if you are more interested in pleasing them than pleasing the God who sent you, you are going to lose that opportunity to be a regenerative element in the culture in which we live.

If the church loses its flavor, it is good for nothing but to be thrown away. If salt loses its flavor, what use are we? We are not going to lose our flavor, we are going to proclaim, we are going to adore, we are going to seek a fullness of life, we are going to announce the complete Gospel that God has given us. We will not shy away from announcing, as Paul says, the Gospel, the truth of God to those whom God has entrusted to us. There has to be a proclamation. We do it by worshiping the Lord freely, we do it by preaching the word. I not only preach to you brothers, I preach to the demons who are around listening, I preach to the angels of God to adore them, I preach to the Father to tell him: I believe what you say. I preach to the air to send waves that penetrate the spiritual world. You have to proclaim, you have to announce, you have to declare and then each one is in charge of doing what they want with the word, that's their business. We discharge our responsibility.

Anointing, visibility, prophetic discernment, proclamation, confrontation. These are the items we have to use in battle, both in our individual lives and in our collective lives.

Let us stand up, let us thank the Lord and we are going to say to him: Father, we give ourselves to you as a church this morning, we give ourselves as a church. Brothers, I thank you for your time but this is God's time. That word enters your life, God wants to do great things with his people. This is the time of war, it is the time of loving war. Our weapons are not carnal, says the word, they are powerful in God for the destruction of strength. They are not weapons of darkness, they are weapons of light, they are weapons of love, weapons of truth, weapons of justice, weapons of transparency, weapons of personal recognition of our need for God. And as we humble ourselves and recognize that we are the first in need, then we can extend hands of mercy to others as well. May God bless us and may his grace rest upon us this afternoon.

Father, I bless your people, I release them from here to serve, Lord. Oh, may your anointing go with us, Father, this afternoon. May these words that have been declared not fall to the ground. I believe they will do everything for which you sent them, Lord. We treasure them in our hearts. I bless your people. Help us to be faithful and true witnesses, authentic and integral to the precious Gospel that you have entrusted to us. Thank you Lord in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Brothers, may the grace of the Lord continue with you. Amen. Amen.

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More presentations recorded Sunday November 27, 2005:
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Sermon by Dr. Roberto Miranda recorded November 27, 2005 in León de Judá Congregation (62 min.)

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