We Need to Renew the Vision

Let’s turn to Joel chapter—we’re going to begin with chapter 1—and the other one is in chapter 18, in Kings 19, First Kings chapter 19, and I’m going to use these two passages as a starting point for our meditation. And again, we’re continuing with this theme concerning our week of fasting and prayer, and this morning I want to invite you to reflect on the need for times when we have to seek the Lord’s anointing, when we have to renew the vision.

And in this passage, which is a Book known as a Book of revival, we see in verse 12 of chapter 2—we’re going to begin there; I’m going to use that as my starting point—it says: "Therefore, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting and mourning; tear your garments and turn to Jehovah your God, for He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and great in mercy, and He relents from punishment. Who knows whether He will turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him? That is, a grain offering and a drink offering for Jehovah your God."

That is the call we must always keep in mind in our lives. There are times—(microphone change)—there are times when we need to recognize that something is missing, something we need from God that we do not have. There are times when we have to recognize that there is drought, that there is weakness, and that we have to return to the source; we have to return to the place where what we need can be found, so that we may be strengthened and continue along the path of faith.

Joel is a Book that speaks about a time of crisis in the life of Israel. Joel is a prophet whom God used during a period in Israel’s history when there had been a very great national disaster: a plague of terrible insects—locusts, lobsters in English—had devastated the entire land. That is very common in the Middle East; especially in times past, there was no pest control or things like that, and periodically huge numbers of insects could come, pass through like a cloud, eat all the crops, destroy everything, and leave the nation in a state of complete crisis because its food was lost and the nation entered a time of scarcity.

That is why the Book of Joel begins that way. For example, verse 11 says: "Be ashamed, farmers; wail, vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up and the fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree, and the apple tree as well—all the trees of the field have dried up; therefore, joy has vanished from the sons of men."

Later, verse 17 of chapter 1 says: "The grain rotted beneath the clods. The barns were laid waste, the storehouses destroyed, because the wheat dried up. How the beasts groaned! How troubled the herds of oxen wandered because they had no pasture! The flocks of sheep were also laid waste. To You, O Jehovah, I will cry, because fire consumed the pastures of the wilderness and flame burned up all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field will also cry out to You, because the streams of water dried up and fire consumed the meadows of the wilderness."

What do you see here? Drought, devastation, loss of crops. Everything that is supposed to bear fruit is destroyed, it is devastated; there is no food, there is no nourishment, there is no greenery in the land. And of course, that may be an image, judging by what we see later on. What is the solution to this national problem?

But what is important here is that drought. And from what we see later in this Book of Joel, Joel is concerned with more than merely the physical drought. The Book of Joel teaches us something: many times, physical drought in nations or spiritual droughts in our own lives are more than simply the product of an external situation, a crisis, an illness, lack of money, or whatever it may be. Many times, behind those things there is a need to seek the Face of God, to seek the solution in God, to examine our ways, as that text in Jeremiah says, where we must examine our ways and return to Jehovah; where we have to say: Why are these things happening in my life? Why is the blessing that is supposed to be there absent from my life?

And then we have to seek the reason. When there are crisis situations in our lives, when we are going through difficult situations, instead of seeking out the psychiatrist—and psychiatrists have their place—instead of seeking out the psychologist, turning to pills, or whatever else, first; afterward, if God tells us, Okay, if He gives us the freedom to seek a solution somewhere else, okay, but the first thing the man or woman of God must do is go directly to the Throne of God and ask: Lord, what do You want to tell me? What is happening in my life? Why this situation?

And we have to know that, in both the final and the first instance, the solution is always in the Lord. The man or woman of God who is convinced of one thing is the person who knows that the Lord is where we must go first. In everything that was happening in Israel at that time, Joel, directed by the Holy Spirit, knows and warns the people that the solution is to go first to the Lord.

The droughts in our lives—what happens when, as the saying goes, even the lilies no longer smell sweet to us? We come to Church and the choruses do not move us; we try to pray and feel nothing. The Christian life becomes a routine; our life does not reflect the distinctive quality of what a life filled with the Holy Spirit ought to be.

Perhaps there were times in our lives when being in the House of God was our great privilege and our joy; if a time of prayer was called, there we were. We came to know the Lord, and there was enthusiasm in our hearts for the things of God; we loved reading the Word. The little choruses we remembered came readily from our lips, and God felt very close to us. That is what the Bible often calls our first love.

But as with all first loves, neglect can come, and routine can come. And many times drought enters our lives, and then we simply come to Church because that is what we do and because it is right; or else we simply come every now and then, and if we do not go, we feel neither any need nor any sense of loss. We simply go whenever we feel like it, whenever we want to, or whenever we have the desire, and then our life falls into a spiritual routine because there is drought.

The devil wears us down, and life wears down our love for the Lord, our passion, our awareness of the Lord’s Presence; and that happens with all human things and all material things. You buy a new car, and for the first few weeks, that new car smell, the smell of the new car—how many know what I’m talking about, right?—the little car smells wonderful. The leather, the hide on the seats—you get into the car, and it immediately hits your nostrils, right? The dashboard is gleaming there, with all its dials and all its gauges perfectly clean, and so on, the carpet nice and fresh.

But what happens over time? The air begins to get stale, right? You spilled a little coffee one Monday morning while you were rushing to work; it stays there, it soaks in, and forget it—when summer comes and the temperature reaches 90 degrees, that is going to smell, and it will remind you that it is there. The day the car got its first dent, when someone scratched it—what pain, how much that hurts! Right?

Because that is the nature of life. All the things of the world lose their shine with use. Marriage is the same. The first time you saw the woman who was going to become your wife, you almost melted right there in front of her, didn’t you? All the poems you had read in childhood came pouring out at once. Then, over time, what happens? Familiarity sets in, habit sets in, that first love is lost, and we look at each other as though the other person were an old flip-flop lying there: we simply put it on, and that’s it. The passion is gone; the enthusiasm is gone, isn’t that right? We no longer go out to eat or anything; instead, we make the woman stay there cooking day after day, while the poor thing wishes someone would take her out, even if only to McDonald’s on a Sunday—but no, you pay no attention to that.

The enthusiasm has already been lost, because that is how it is with everything, and many times that is how it is with the Lord as well. Congregations fall into a routine, and now we come on Sunday, and the whole thing cannot do everything, and we go through this Pentecostal routine, right? We jump, we say this, we say that, but the heart is not behind it, and we cannot settle for routine. At that point we have to take stock: Where is the passion today? Where is the enthusiasm? What is happening?

I am always gauging the condition of the Congregation, its spiritual condition, and I know that there are times when people’s spirits decline a little; that also happens in my own life. In those times when I detect that something is happening in my life, I have to return to the source once again; I have to get myself going again, and I have to put on my sweatsuit and get back on the treadmill to get in shape. I have to seek the Lord’s anointing again, and that is how it has to be throughout our entire lives.

When there is drought, when the plants are devastated, when the caterpillar and the locust have eaten the food, we have to go to the Lord to seek blessing and a fresh visitation from the Lord. And that is also what happens with nations that are declining and dying away from their former glory, and they do not realize that the problem lies in their having drifted away from the Lord.

Joel, as a prophet of God, knew that what was happening in Israel, in Jerusalem, was not simply the product of a biological, physical, natural disaster, but that there was something behind it and that the solution was to go to the Lord.

This nation—I cannot neglect to say and point this out—the United States is a nation that is very much like Jerusalem was. This nation has been drifting away from the ancient foundations on which it was established. As long as the United States remained a God-fearing nation—it was never perfect. It bothers me when Bible scholars and theologians tell me that when I say, when it is said, "This nation feared God," they respond, "Oh, sure, this nation always oppressed Native Americans, Black people," and things like that. I know that. This nation was never perfect, nor was any nation ever perfect, and no nation has ever sought the Spirit of the Lord with absolute perfection. That is not the point. But when you look at this nation’s tone, at what this nation declared in its official proclamations and in its Constitution, there was a fear of God.

And in this nation, up to this point, no man who is an atheist has yet been elected, for example, because in some way there are still God-fearing people, there are committed Christians, and there are God-fearing people who are not among those who are committed, but they fear God; and nowadays, even if they are only pretending, they have to say that they are Christians because they know that there still...

In the future it will not be necessary; in the future there will also be atheist presidents, and there will be presidents from other religions who will try to impose their religions on this nation as well. But there is still at least a healthy fear—there has been. I do not believe there is necessarily a healthy fear of God right now anymore, but there has been. But what happens? As this nation has slipped farther and farther away from that national fear it proclaimed as the standard to follow—although it did not follow it perfectly, that was the foundational standard—as this nation has continued to slide, it has continued to lose vigor, lose vitality in the world, and lose respect in the world.

Nowadays this nation is the laughingstock of humanity, and there are many nations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America that see this nation as an exporter of all the filth and all the false doctrines that are corrupting our societies in other countries; and it wants to corrupt those societies with its—and it puts economic pressure on them so that those nations will adopt the garbage that has been adopted here.

And that is why this nation is declining more and more every day. A nation that others once owed is now a debtor nation; it owes trillions of dollars to people whom one cannot necessarily trust to have good intentions toward this nation. Do you know which nation the United States owes the most money to right now? China. And China is a sleeping giant that is rising, that has no love for the United States, and that one day may ask the United States to pay all that money in one lump sum, and there may be problems.

This nation has become a debtor nation, a nation with all kinds of national crises. Why? Because they have turned away from the Lord, and every day it loses more steam, loses vitality, loses anointing. Because when churches, nations, and individuals turn away from their spiritual foundations, that is what happens.

By the way, let me tell you something interesting; this is an extra for you. When the pilgrims came here, the Puritans, John Wincob, who would become governor of Massachusetts at some later point, wrote a document on the ship on which they were traveling, and he spoke about how—he said: God has brought us to this new world. And they were still only a handful of people; they clearly did not know that this handful of people who had come seeking religious freedom would become the most powerful and influential nation in all of human history: the United States.

But they knew in their hearts that God had brought them for something extraordinary, and he said that God had called them to be a city on a hill, so that people would look at that society that was going to grow here in the New World and use it as a prophetic sign. But he also said: And if we turn away from God’s calling, if we turn away from this covenant we have made with God, he said, we will become an object of murmuring and laughter and ridicule before the nations. He said that 400 years ago, and I believe that is how it will be fulfilled, and it is being fulfilled.

Because God ultimately affiliates Himself with no one; God affiliates Himself with His Truth. And as long as nations, families, and individuals align themselves with God’s Truth, then God blesses them and God supports them; but when they turn away, even if it is His people Israel, He casts them into exile, and this nation will have to pay for that.

But what I want to say, brothers and sisters, is that we must be very careful always to remain firmly attached to the foundations of our life. God has blessed Congregation Lion of Judah in many ways; He has prospered us and blessed us. But you know what? We must always be taking our spiritual pulse to see where we are and not rest on our laurels.

God has given us this beautiful building, but that is nothing. It is not so that we can walk around proudly with our heads held high. On the contrary, we must humble ourselves even more before the Lord. The Lord made this possible, and to Him we give all the glory and all the honor. What we need to do instead is humble ourselves more and have greater reverence, and say: Lord, You have visited us and blessed us; what do You want us to do now with what You have given us?

God wants us to walk around more humbly than ever. Let us not go around saying, “Oh, Lion of Judah this, Lion of Judah that.” We are nothing except what God wants us to be and what God blesses us to be. If we turn away from God’s anointing, God’s anointing will leave us, and we will be like any other decrepit church out there, with a building and 20 people here, all cold in our services. We must continue seeking the Lord’s anointing and always give glory and honor to the Lord.

We are in a time when we need to be refreshed spiritually. As I said at the beginning of the year, the work has been arduous, the journey has been long, and we are a little tired. But that is nothing, amen? Do not grow weary there. What we need to do is seek the Lord’s fresh anointing and be filled anew.

I beg you to understand that, as far as I am concerned, I am not in crisis, okay? Yes, I am a little tired and worn out, like soldiers are, but I am healing, I am recovering, and I am moving forward in the Name of the Lord, amen? So pray for me, but do not worry more than you should, amen? I have no plans to commit suicide or jump off a building—the Prudential or the John Hancock. That is absolutely not on my agenda, okay? I am more in love with the Lord than ever, and we are moving forward.

But I understand that when you have finished a marathon, you have to regain your strength, and amen, that is natural. Our church also needs to regain its strength. There are still many challenges ahead of us. Now is when the good part begins, brothers and sisters. Now is when you have to fasten your seat belts, because now the mission begins. This temple is merely a stepping-stone for climbing higher; that is all. The purpose, the ultimate goal of our church, is not the sanctuary. This is simply the starting point. What we need now is to seek more of the Lord’s anointing, a fresh anointing from God.

Lion of Judah needs to receive the Word of God; we need to unify, to consolidate. Do you remember that word we have used this year? I want to consolidate our church, because when I look—you know what?—when I look out from up here many times while we are singing, I see two congregations. I see an exuberant congregation that praises the Lord, and I see their lips moving, singing joyfully; and I see many people there looking listless, frankly. They do not move their mouths, they do not sing, they do not raise their hands, they do nothing. And you might say, “No, because I sing in my heart; I sing.” Stop that. God wants us to praise Him in spirit and in truth, with our mouths, with our bodies, and with our spirits.

If you do not know how to sing, at least sing softly. If you sing off-key, do not worry; the Lord receives it up there in purified stereo and high definition and everything else, okay? Lift up your voice; make yourself sing. Men, perhaps you are not used to singing; many of you are not accustomed to singing either, but practice it. You will see that it is easy, and you will discover that place within you where you can worship the Lord. Make an effort; develop the skills of a warrior, of a person filled with the Holy Spirit. I ask the Lord to give us a complete congregation.

When I look out from here, I want to see a people on fire for the Lord, and a people who live the Gospel not only in here but also out there, in life. I want all of you, brothers and sisters, to be on the same level. In this season, I am asking the Lord for a congregation that is even across the board. Listen to that; this is my prayer: Lord, help me develop a congregation that is even across the board.

What I mean by that is that the slowest should run as fast as the fastest, the least anointed should be as anointed as the most anointed, and the newest believer should quickly get moving and be crying out to the Lord like the person who has been in the Gospel for forty years. Do not fall behind. The Word says that the race does not belong to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest; it belongs to the person who has the Lord’s anointing. And a person with one year of life in the Gospel can be as powerful and as anointed as someone who has fifty years, so seek the Lord’s anointing.

So what I am saying is that when times of drought come into our lives, when we feel the thermometer dropping, when the spiritual temperature is dropping, we have to go back and seek the source. We have to fan into flame the gift of God that is within us. It is the Word I was referring to when Paul tells Timothy: “I advise you to fan into flame the fire of God that is in you,” and he adds, “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, love, and self-control.” We must always be fanning the fire of God in our lives.

And that, then, is what happens: when times of drought and need come, we have to seek the Lord’s anointing once again. Your life must be a periodic and continual search for God’s fresh anointing, because you are going to use it up. It is natural that when you work and strive, and you experience difficulties in life and at work, and you have gone through hard times, you run out of gas. That is natural.

How often do you put gas in your car? As often as it needs it. If I make a couple of trips out to the outskirts of the city, before I know it my tank is empty. I have to go back to the gas station and fill it up again, and that often happens in spiritual life as well. Spiritual life is very much like physical life, believe it or not. That is why the people who remain alive in the Spirit are those who periodically realize that things have become dry, that we need to return to the source and ask the Lord to open the heavens.

We are going to sing that chorus at the end of the service: “Open the heavens over us,” because that chorus is, in fact, based on that—it became clear to me this morning, right?—that the chorus is based on this passage here, where it says: “The field is laid waste, the land mourns, because the wheat has been destroyed, the new wine has dried up, and the oil is gone.” That chorus we sing: “The trees of the field have dried up, the wine and the oil are gone, Your people are”—how does it go?—“a wasteland without a wall; amid something, a cry is heard,” and then it says: “Open the heavens over us, open the heavens,” right? “Let rain fall upon Your new growth; let it rain, let it rain, Lord; send the rain.”

We have to ask the Lord periodically in our lives: “Father, send the rain.” If you want to have a life that endures and to last until the end of the race, you have to know when there are times of drought in your life, and you have to return to the source. If there was some crisis in your life, if there was some defeat, some situation that drew you away from the Lord for a time, if something you were asking the Lord for did not happen, if you experienced some failure, if something happened, if someone disappointed you in the church, if you had a fight with some brother or sister and became upset and went away for a while, and now you are searching—well, seek the Lord’s anointing again.

Ask the Lord to visit your life again and refresh you. Set aside one day; set aside two days. Fast, dedicate time to the Lord, take a morning off, call in sick for half a day—and it is legitimate, because you are sick and need to be healed; you will not be lying. Say, “I am sick,” and tell your boss, “I am sick,” and seek the Lord, okay? Because there is physical illness, and there is spiritual illness as well.

So if you take days off for other things—when you have a cold, you stay in bed there, tossing and turning all morning—well, if you are spiritually dry, call in sick for a day and seek the Lord’s anointing. Stay home for half a day and say, “I am not leaving here until the Lord visits me and blesses me,” just as Jacob told the angel: “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

There are times when you have to be that way with the Lord, you know? “I will not stop crying out and asking and pestering the Lord until He gives me the anointing.” And the Lord loves to be pestered about that. Perhaps He does not like you pestering Him for a BMW, but if you pester Him for anointing, you will see that He will give it to you, because that is how He is. The Lord loves it when we ask Him for those things.

Then Joel, after his grim diagnosis of the drought—“The beasts of the field also cry out to You, because the streams of water have dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness”—what response does Joel proclaim for this national agricultural crisis? What does he say? “Oh, let us find a new plan for planting again; let us establish a new economic plan to install more pipelines throughout the nation so that there will be more water; let us ask the economists to meet and announce a new national plan for restoring the land”? No.

What answer does God give Joel for the national drought, and what answer does God give you for your spiritual drought and for Lion of Judah? Look at what it says in chapter 2. Chapter 1 is the problem; chapter 2 is the solution.

It says: “Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound the alarm on My Holy Mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.” Excuse me, let us go farther ahead to verse 12. It says: “Therefore even now, says the Lord, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and compassionate.” Verse 14: “Who knows whether He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him?”

I like the way he says, “Who knows whether?” That is rhetorical. Many times, when we ask the Lord, “Lord, renew me,” there is a certain degree of doubt within us: Will the Lord restore me? Will the Lord bring me out of this drought? Will it really be as the Bible says—that if someone cries out to the Lord and devotes himself to seeking Him, God truly visits us and renews us and strengthens His Presence in our lives? The answer is always yes, brothers and sisters! If you seek the Lord, He meets you halfway. The Lord always responds to those who draw near to Him.

The words of James come to mind, where he speaks precisely about this same seeking of the Lord. Look here in James chapter 4, verse 2. It says: “You covet and do not have; you kill and burn with envy and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war, but you do not have what you desire because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your pleasures. Oh, adulterous souls! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity against God?”

Many people are ineffective in the Christian life because their hearts are compromised with the world—half a foot in the church, one foot in the world. Their hearts are corrupted by the things of the world and by spiritual lukewarmness. And James says: Whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. You have to take a clear stand. To be effective in the Christian life, you have to be fully committed.

Now look at what it says farther on in verse 7: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” When someone draws near to the Lord, the Lord always draws near to that person, brothers and sisters. God will never leave you there floundering, asking for His Presence without visiting you. If you devote yourself to seeking the Lord, He will renew you; He will answer your prayer. I know that if we as a congregation cry out to the Lord, God will visit us. God will refresh our life as a church and will give us fresh vision for the future.

“Sinners, cleanse your hands. You who are double-minded, purify your hearts. Let your laughter be turned into weeping and your joy into sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” That is God’s call to our congregation: to humble ourselves before God, to seek His Face, to recognize that we need to purify ourselves and close again that breach that has opened in our life as a church, to return to the ancient paths, and to cry out to the Lord.

And that is why Joel continues in verse 15, saying: “Blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast, call an assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his chamber and the bride out of her bridal room; between the entrance and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep and say: Spare Your people, O Jehovah, and do not give Your inheritance over to reproach, so that the nations may rule over it. Why should they say among the peoples: Where is their God?”

Joel says: call the whole nation together, call the priests and the people who are celebrating, the children, the women, the elderly, and let us come together as a people, and let us cry out to the Lord, and let us ask the Lord to renew and visit His people once again.

And verse 18 says: “Then Jehovah, zealous for His land, will forgive His people. Jehovah will answer and say to His people: Behold, I am sending you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied with them; and never again will I make you a reproach among the nations.” Verse 21: “O land, do not fear; be glad and rejoice, for Jehovah will do great things.” Glory to the name of the Lord. I believe that God wants to do great things among us, but we have to seek the Lord; we have to cry out to the Lord.

I told you at the beginning—and I am simply going to leave it there as one more thought for your own study—that I also wanted to base part of my meditation on First Kings, chapter 19—or is it Second Kings, chapter 19?—where Elijah, after his great victory against the prophets of Baal, is threatened with death by Jezebel, who tells him: Just as you did to my prophets, I am going to do to you as well.

And Elijah is tired. He has just slaughtered—I don’t know—400 men? How many prophets of Baal were there? 450—okay, 50 more. He slaughtered 450 men. Do not ask me about that, because it is very profound. But he had also spent the whole day there in that struggle with the devil himself and those prophets slashing their skin and shouting, while he endured the tension of that struggle. And of course, when he wins that great victory, triumphs over the prophets of Baal, and the Lord’s people return for a while to seeking God again, one would expect Elijah then to go throw a big party, but no; he was exhausted, tired, neurologically, emotionally, and spiritually burned out, and he is filled with dread at this queen’s threat and goes alone into the wilderness.

And there he collapses and says: Lord, it is enough now; take my life, because I am no better than my fathers. The man had reason to feel burned out and exhausted. And that is why I also believe Elijah went into the wilderness: because he was a man who found his healing in the wilderness, and that was where God spoke to him. Sometimes we have to go into the wilderness; we have to, as it says, weep and cry out, humble and afflict ourselves, stop eating so many sweets and so many tasty things that do nothing but give us calories and harm our bodies anyway, and we have to go into the wilderness for a time to seek God.

There in the wilderness, the Lord finds Elijah, and the first thing He does is put Elijah to sleep because his body was exhausted, and so was his mind. He puts him into one of those deep sleeps, anesthetizes him, and puts him to sleep and rest; then an angel wakes him, and there is a baked cake and a glass of water for him to refresh himself.

Notice that God did not give him chicken with rice and beans, salad, and fried plantains. It seems I’m hungry (laughter), doesn’t it? He gave him a baked cake, a couple of little tortillas there, some tortillas and a glass of water, because with God, what matters is spiritual food; we fast and abstain from delightful things.

Take one day, take two days, take half a day—whatever God places on your heart. Separate yourself from things you find appetizing and devote some time to afflicting your soul, seeking the Lord’s Face, and crying out to the Lord. What fasting does is underscore our petitions before God. It is not simply going hungry; it is saying to Him: Lord, I prefer Your things more than the things of the flesh. So cry out to the Lord during that time; seek renewal.

God put him to sleep again, and a second time the angel woke him and said: Arise and eat; and he had more simple but nourishing food ready for him. It says that Elijah walked forty days and forty nights until he reached that cave where God spoke to him. And after that fast and that time of solitude and brokenness, God showed Elijah—He gave him a revelation about who God truly is—because Elijah knew only the God of thunder, the God of the wind that shatters the rocks, the God of the earthquake, the God of fire, because that is the God Elijah knew. He was a violent man because he needed to deal with violent people, but God wanted to bless him, heal him, and restore him, and show him another aspect of His personality.

The tender, maternal God who gave His servant food, put him to sleep and allowed him to rest, and spoke to his emotional need. And in the cave, God appears to him through the gentle, quiet whisper—not through the wind and thunder and fire and all the violent things to which he was accustomed, but through the gentle breeze—because what his inflamed and distressed heart needed at that moment was stillness and peace; he needed God to take him in His arms, kiss him, rock him, and say to him: Elijah, I love you; you are not alone.

Elijah thought he was alone. When God says to him: Elijah, what are you doing here in this cave? Elijah says: Well, Lord, a great zeal has seized me because they have persecuted Your prophets, they have killed them, and they are also pursuing me to take my life. And God asks him the same question twice because God was not convinced that this was the true answer. Elijah was not alone; he was not as alone as he thought. There were seven thousand people in Israel who, like him, had not bowed their knees to Baal.

And God wanted to show Elijah; He wanted to renew him—his spirit, his life, his ministry—and that is what happens in your life. God wants to renew you; God wants to renew your vision; God wants to give you a new song, and you have to seek God. God wants to give Lion of Judah a new song, but we have to seek Him in prayer and with cries, and go to another spiritual level.

God is saying to those who are like that, who are double-minded: Look, unify your spirit; stop playing at religion now. Make up your minds once and for all and consecrate yourselves to the Lord. God wants to give you a new song in your life this morning.

And at the end, God says to him: Elijah, now I want you to go and anoint the king of Syria, the one who is going to be king of Syria, and anoint the one who is going to be the new king of Israel, and also anoint the one who will succeed you in your ministry. How about that, huh? In that wilderness, God gave Elijah a new revelation for his life and ministry; He renewed him, showed him love and affection, and told him: Now return to ministry, and now you are going to do extraordinary things at the international level, at the national level, and at the spiritual level. I am going to use you, and not only that, but you are not alone; there are seven thousand more whom I have reserved for Myself in this nation of Israel.

That is what happens when someone seeks the anointing of God. If you have experienced some failure in your life, I feel that God is speaking to some people here who have gone through a difficult time during these past few months or these past few years. Something has happened to you, and you have suffered a great loss; something has happened to you, and you have felt a trembling in your life. And God is telling you now: Well, if you seek Me, I am going to heal you and renew you, and I am going to give you the same joy and the same passion you had at the beginning. No matter what has happened in your life, I want to visit you again, I want to bless you, and I want you to begin again, refreshed, to seek My anointing. That is the Word of the Lord for us this morning.

Bow your head. Ask the Lord for fresh anointing; make a commitment this week. Let us seek God, let us seek His Presence, let us seek His Face. Thank You, Lord Jesus; thank You, Lord Jesus.