Great Faith in God and Great Unbelief Among Those Who See Only the Present

The Lord laid this passage from Second Kings chapter 6, beginning with verse 24, on my heart in a very, very specific way. And I sensed from the Lord that I was not merely preaching a teaching passage, but that it was actually a prophetic Word for our times.

I have preached on this passage before, but I feel that there is an urgency in this time to proclaim it, and when I did so, preparing it for the internet and for the many, many people who watch us in different countries—and you will also be able to see it there on God Speaks Today—you go to our page and there is a section there specifically called God Speaks Today; in fact, you can subscribe if you have not signed up for this tremendous, tremendous ministry.

Ah, well, I want you to hear it, and I am actually, as it were, declaring it into the atmosphere and declaring a prophetic Word, because we believe that when we declare the Words in the power and authority of the Lord, and we declare it in faith as coming directly from God, that prophetic Word has the power to bring about changes in the atmosphere, to bring about changes, to effect changes in time and space, in the here and now, and to effect changes in the very levers of society and the very structures of culture and government and every other aspect of our social and political life.

And in that spirit I want to share this Word from the Lord with you. I am not going to read verse 24 because it is quite a long chapter; this narrative runs from verse 24 of chapter 6 through chapter 7, to the end of chapter 7. But I am going to narrate it, and perhaps I will read a few portions from it as we go along. So, Father, we ask that Your Grace descend upon us and that Your Spirit be very present in this Word that You asked us to declare, that our spirits may be pierced, pierced by that Word, penetrated to the depths, Lord, and we believe in faith that You will use this Word so that Your Will may be done, Lord, and Your movements—Your powerful movement—may be unleashed in this nation, in this state. Thank You, Lord, in the Name of Jesus, amen and amen.

This is a story of faith and unbelief. We see both extremes manifested here. Great faith in the Lord, believing God at a moment when God is capable of doing extraordinary things that are impossible to human understanding, and also the great unbelief of people who look only at the here and now, at the surrounding reality, and are incapable of rising beyond it to the divine vision and to what God declares through His Word. And the story concerns an episode in the life of the prophet Elisha when there was a moment of great crisis in the life of the nation of Israel.

After King Solomon’s death, Israel had divided into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Judah, which was also called the Southern Kingdom, often led by godly kings but on occasion by ungodly kings as well; and the nation of Israel, also called the nation of the Northern Kingdom, which had almost an entire succession of ungodly, unbelieving, sinful monarchs who had turned away from God, and which was characterized by much sin and great estrangement from the Lord.

The capital of the Kingdom of Israel, the Northern Kingdom—and it can be a little confusing because both were originally Israel, but then it became the Northern Kingdom—was Samaria, and Samaria’s very existence was already an act of disobedience to the Lord, because the Lord had declared long before that this city was not to be rebuilt. Nevertheless, Samaria was a city that was somewhat ambivalent about the things of God.

And so we see here a situation in which Samaria, the capital of Israel, is under siege by an enemy army, the Syrian army under King Ben-hadad, and by this kingdom’s invasion. And remember something: God sent His punishment upon Israel and Judah from time to time. And these attacks by enemy powers were often ways in which God disciplined His People and brought them back to the knowledge of Him. Sometimes God allows negative things to happen in nations, but not because God simply wants to cause harm in people’s lives, for the suffering of people pains Him; rather, it is simply because God, in His mercy, often wants to break people of their pride, their arrogance, and their self-sufficiency so that, in their brokenness and desperation, they will look to Him.

It is like here in the United States: every time there is a major terrorist attack or a great natural cataclysm, the nation always seems to turn back to God, but it lasts only a short while; they return once again to the same self-sufficiency. And here Israel is now under siege by a very powerful nation. They have surrounded Samaria; no one can enter, no one can leave, weeks and weeks have passed, and there is a terrible famine within that city.

And it is a famine in which, it says, a donkey’s head was being sold—just imagine, a donkey’s head was being sold for 80 pieces of silver, an exorbitant amount—and a quarter measure of dove’s dung for 5 pieces of silver. These people had been reduced to eating unclean things and even paying for them. How terrible, isn’t it? When human beings turn away from God, it is as though we become like animals again. And God wants to give us abundance; He wants to give us blessing. God does not want our cities right now to be suffering from all the things we see.

God does not want young people to be killing in cities such as Roxbury, or our girls to be having children prematurely, or our children to be disoriented and taken off to prison, or the family to be falling apart as is happening in this nation, or our young people not to be studying and to be wasting the great resources that are available in the schools right now. God does not want that, but when a city, when a nation, abandons its God, judgment comes; attacks from nature come.

We have seen how tornadoes are striking many parts of the United States; even here in Massachusetts, where tornadoes have almost never been seen, they are being seen here too. We have seen the terrible terrorist attack that took place here in Boston. It is not that God sends those things, but when God’s covering is lifted from a family, from a nation, because God is not being sought as He desires, then who has greater power and who has authority and influence? Satan, who knows only how to kill, steal, and destroy.

So we see here that Samaria is under siege, that a terrible famine is sweeping through this city, and we are given a scene here showing how terrible that famine was. Aside from the fact that unclean things were so costly for people who wanted something to eat, it tells us here that the king of Israel—this king’s name was Joram—was walking along the street when a woman on the city wall said to him, “King, save us!” And the king declares his helplessness. He says to her, “Woman, how am I going to save you? If I do not even have enough to save my own life, how am I going to save you?”

And then this woman tells him a truly macabre story and says that she made an agreement with her friend that the two of them would eat their children, one woman’s child and then the other’s; that on the first day, the first time, they would eat the son of one of them, and later they would eat the other woman’s child. But afterward the second mother seems to have regretted it and thought about it and said, “Well, we have already eaten, so I am not going to give you my son.”

Terrible, isn’t it? It sounds funny, but the truth is that it was a truly horrifying situation. What is interesting is that this woman believes she should appeal to the king so that, in quotation marks, “justice” might be done for her by committing an act of cannibalism, and that also indicates, I believe, the state of moral and spiritual confusion the people were in. That it did not occur to this woman that appealing to the nation’s authority so that they would be allowed to carry out an act of cannibalism against a child and a son was something that justice should prevent—I believe that this also reveals something else, namely, the degree of moral disorientation that existed in Israel.

Just as I believe we also see in our times, when mothers kill their children in the womb, when maternal affection has sometimes been abandoned; when women and men commit acts that are terribly immoral and offensive to God, and not only commit them but take offense at those who tell them, “No, that is not of God,” even though they may perhaps say it. But we have reached that point of moral disorientation as well, because that is what happens when nations turn away from God, and especially, I also believe, when governmental authorities and spiritual authorities cease to seek the Lord intimately and receive revelation from God, and their hearts turn toward other gods.

Then, it says, the people become disoriented. And this king, King Joram of Israel, exemplifies a judicial, political, and spiritual authority—for kings were also spiritual authorities in Israel—an authority that has lost its bearings and is just as powerless as its citizens. For when the king is asked for this supposed help, he says, “Hey, how am I to save you?” he says; he replies, “From the threshing floor? From the winepress? I have nothing to give you.” He thought she was simply going to ask him for some food.

The authorities were just as powerless as the citizens, and today I believe the same thing is happening. Our authorities in our cities, in our nations, do not know what to do or how to deal with the crises that have come, in large part, I believe, as a consequence of abandoning the Word of the Lord. And this man—there is an interesting scene there in that passage—when he passed along the wall, the people saw the sackcloth, verse 30, that he was wearing underneath against his body. The king was covered with sackcloth. It was a kind of rough material that was used when there was mourning, and a person who was mourning, crying out to God in some way, would put on sackcloth as a sign of pain and also of an appeal to God.

And it is interesting that, although this king is quite ungodly, there is also a note of tenderness and fear of God there, but he is completely disoriented. And that is what I see as well: many of our governmental authorities are not bad people; they are people whose hearts are genuinely God-fearing, but they are completely disoriented and believe that they are doing good by passing laws that are truly harmful and whose effect is to drive God’s mercy and love away from their nations and their cities.

So this is the situation, and I believe that there, in that sackcloth, in the presence of the sackcloth on this king’s body, there is also a note of hope despite his ungodliness. I believe that today the Church of Jesus Christ must believe that God has called us, in some way, to be a prophetic voice to the authorities of our cities and our nations, and to use that tiny point of justice in the hearts of legislators and rulers so that one day, when the Lord visits His Church, we may speak to those people as well about true spirituality.

I cannot hold this back. This very morning I had an interesting conversation while we were waiting to walk up to the podium, to the platform, with a person who has played a priestly role, an important role, in one of these very secular denominations—very secular, very far removed from the Word of God; they are truly very far away—a denomination that, in my opinion, is apostate. And this person, with such a tender heart, such love for people, and such a thirst and hunger for justice, spoke about how she had left her ministerial work, rather because of disillusionment, and now has a secular job.

But the sad thing is that while this person was speaking to me, I was like, wow, saying to myself, “If she knew what I believe, she would not be so friendly toward me,” because I represent precisely many of the things that her denomination and her beliefs exemplify; I represent that conservative side that does not affirm homosexuals, although we love them; the conservative side that believes, believes that the Bible truly is the Word of God and that we must abide by it, and that the protection for our lives and for our nations lies in following the Lord’s commands.

And it saddened me because I could not speak to her about these things, but there are so many people like that in the world, brothers and sisters, who love people, love justice, love God, but are also completely disoriented, and people are needed who will proclaim to them, who will speak the true Word of the Lord to them. At that moment I knew that for me to tell her that would have opened up a whole swarm of things; it was not the right time—we were going up to... I almost said to her, “Look, I represent what you do not appreciate very much, and if you want to have a conversation with me, I am willing to do so sometime.”

But there is a great deal of that. I am waiting; I know the Lord will give us the opportunity at some point, and God is already doing it, God is doing it. And I believe that this time is coming, and that is why this passage is so important, because there are many people who are disoriented right now, and what we see later on is needed. And that is why I say: God takes His time. God has His moments to do what He is going to do in this nation, and we are patiently awaiting the Lord’s time.

But when this king realizes the terrible situation exemplified by these women, he is filled with anger and indignation. And do you know whom this man becomes angry with? Elisha, the prophet of God. And in verse 31 he says: "And the king said, ‘May God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today.’" Why does the king become angry? Because the king knows there is a connection between what is happening in Israel today and that man of God.

He knows that Elisha is a conduit of divine judgment and that Elisha has in some way been instrumental in declaring what is happening in that nation at that moment. But how interesting that, instead of repenting, this man conceives in his heart a murderous desire to cut off the head of God’s prophet. And that also happens many times in our day: many of these secularized people who have turned away from the Lord, instead of repenting when we speak to them about seeking God, repenting, surrendering their lives to God and their institutions to the Lord, and returning to the ways of truth, become angry with God. Then they complain that the Church has no mercy, that the Church is denouncing their sin, and ask how a merciful God can allow such suffering among the nations.

And this man wants to kill Elisha. And it is interesting; I say, wow, look, at least in this case the authorities knew there was power, even though the power they saw manifested was not the power they loved. I say that today we are worse off than they were in this case, because today we have a Church in which people do not really believe there is power to do these things. People simply think we are a bunch of Pharisaical people who want to shove religion down their throats, but they do not actually recognize power in us.

And I believe we must also ask the Lord: Lord, give Your Church power; may such power one day arise in the midst of Your Church that people will at least fear the Church. Do you remember the story of the time the prophet Samuel came to anoint the man who would become the new king of Israel, David? When Samuel comes and enters the city, the elders of the city approach him and say: "Do you come in peace or do you come in war? Do you come to harm us or do you come to do us good?" They are afraid of this man who is filled with the Holy Spirit.

I believe we must ask the Lord: Lord, fill Your Church with that power, with that prophetic authority; may it descend upon Your Church. The only thing that can change these nations is the manifestation of the power of God, and we must continue crying out to the Lord, seeking that power, and sanctifying our lives.

Then we see here that Elisha is sitting in his house, verse 32, and with him, it says, "the elders of the city were sitting, and the king sent a messenger to him." How beautiful it is to see the elders of the city come to the house of God’s prophet. That is what is needed: a powerful Church that summons the elders of the cities so that they come to the Church to seek counsel. I believe these elders of the city, these civil and religious authorities of the city, were there because they were seeking counsel and seeking the warmth of God with God’s prophet.

And I believe a time is coming, brothers and sisters, when God will give the Church such power and such authority that the authorities of cities and nations will come to us to seek a solution and counsel in times of need. And I believe that time is approaching, and that is why I am declaring this Word; I believe I am declaring it prophetically.

I am not merely declaring it; I am prophesying it, because I believe the time is very near when God’s judgments will be manifested in extraordinary ways upon the nations, and so will God’s power upon the Church and the prophetic movement of God in the Church of Jesus Christ. The authorities will come to us seeking healing and wisdom for the crises that will come. For financial crises are coming—not merely like those we saw about four or five years ago, but worse; even greater crises are coming.

I firmly believe in that passage from Hebrews where it says: "Behold, God will shake the very foundations of the nations, and everything that can be removed will be removed," says the Lord. That time is already near us. At that time, the Church of Jesus Christ will also receive such a great visitation of the power of God that people will seek out the Church, and we must prepare ourselves for those times. We must sanctify our lives; we must surrender ourselves more fully to the Lord; we must cry out more for the power of God in our lives; we must cleanse ourselves individually and collectively as a congregation, consecrating our lives to the Lord, consecrating our time to the Lord, consecrating our minds and our emotions to the Lord, cleansing ourselves in every possible way so that the Lord’s oil may descend upon His People and He may do what He wants to do.

Then we see Elisha, and Elisha realizes that this messenger of death is on his way to announce to him that the king wants to cut off his head. Then Elisha, moved by the power of the Holy Spirit—imagine that situation, in which there have been weeks and weeks of terrible famine; there is nothing, there is nothing left to eat in the entire city or in all the surrounding areas, and no one can go out or come in—and the Spirit of the Lord takes hold of Elisha, and Elisha, in the power of the Holy Spirit, says: "Tomorrow at this time..." It is as though he were saying: a pound of beef will cost 25 cents, and a pound of rice will cost 5 cents a pound.

And it had to be something from God, because, physically speaking, there was no way that could happen. Only the Word of God in the prophet’s heart could bring forth something like that, because they did not have airplanes that could come from another country and bring food; they could not plant crops or raise animals that did not exist. How was that problem going to be solved?

And here, I believe, is the essence of this, because the other day, before going to the studio to record this message, this series of meditations, I frankly had nothing to preach. I had just come out of several things during those days—one comes out of one thing and goes into another—and I had to go directly to the studio. So I asked the Lord: Father, give me a Word so that I can stand there and preach. And it was not one or two, but about six segments that I had to preach.

I placed my hands on the Bible while I was in the office, and I tell you that a very clear image arose in my heart. At the moment it arose, I did not know how to weave it together, but afterward I began to formulate and clarify it. It was this idea that at some point the Lord was going to grant an immense harvest, that it would not take much time, that God was going to do something.

I have always believed that, and there are other prophetic passages that I have always seen as saying that, in this time of God’s movement in history, I believe, brothers and sisters, that the transformation which will take place in this nation is not a matter of fighting endlessly in Congress, as this immigration issue, for example, has taken so many years and so many months; nor is it a matter of going to protest at the State House and exhausting ourselves there by going week after week, while these people who have nothing else to do wait a little while until we are tired, and three months later they come back again and raise up their filth once more until they wear us out.

I believe, brothers and sisters, that if God is going to do what He will do, it will be something—listen to me, so that when you see it, you will remember this—it will be something sudden; it will be something swift. It will be such a powerful movement of the Holy Spirit, combined with such great pressure upon the nations and governments, that this plague we are seeing—of homosexuality, of corruption, of a Church that becomes more apostate every day—will undergo a change, I would say, overnight; it will be something sudden. It will be something very powerful, and that will require a very great movement of the power of God.

There is a part we can do: pray, cry out, purify ourselves, and prepare ourselves. But there is a part that is exclusively in God’s hands, and at the proper moment He will release it. He has His appointed time for it, and we are waiting for that time of God’s visitation. But, brother, God can change things in an instant.

Nowadays it would seem—and again, it pains my soul to speak about homosexuals in this way; it is not that I am obsessed, but when I look at what is happening, when I look at the Boy Scouts—how many of you know what the Boy Scouts are?—when we see that the Boy Scouts of this nation have decided to support homosexuality, as happened this week... This is an association that, for nearly a century, has prided itself on being an organization of Christian origins, on teaching children to be moral and honorable people, not to be swayed by outside influences but to be moral leaders. And they are now doing exactly the opposite, surrendering to the existing social pressure and thus declaring themselves in favor of homosexuality.

I believe something is wrong, and one might think: well, this is unstoppable now; we have already lost that battle. And if one sees it from the human perspective, we have lost the battle for faith and the spirit in this nation. Not long ago, a study by the Fiu Foundation, I believe it was, declared that the number of citizens in this nation who do not consider themselves Christians, who do not consider themselves religious or members of any religion, has grown tremendously.

Then one would think it is like what we see here in Samaria. There is a situation so difficult, so closed off, so all-pervasive that one wonders: where will the solution come from? The solution will no longer come from human processes; listen to me. But God can change it in an instant; God will change it in an instant. When the power of God begins to move, I believe this plague, this infection spreading throughout the world, will yield to the Lord’s Will and to the supernatural movement of the Holy Spirit.

Because when Elisha declares that tomorrow this will change radically and that tomorrow what seems impossible will take place, a leader, a prince, says—the king esteemed him so highly that he leaned on his arm. That was a sign of great esteem and preference: when a king chose a person whose arm he could lean on during a procession or while walking, it indicated that person’s closeness to the king. This prince was so close to the king that the king leaned on his arm, and when this prince, who is there in that gathering, hears Elisha’s prophecy, he practically bursts out laughing and says: "Where could that possibly come from now? If God were to make windows in heaven, could this thing happen?"

Do you see why I say this is a story of great faith and great unbelief? Elisha represents faith: faith that God can move mountains, faith that God can change your situation in an instant. The faith that, no matter how difficult your life may be, God can change it in a moment.

Brothers and sisters, I believe in that God. I believe in a God who knows nothing of impossibilities, much less difficulties; everything in Him is yes and amen. Our only task is to determine whether or not we are in the Will of God, whether we are touching the heart of God, whether we are flowing in harmony with His purposes and His movement. If we are in the Will of God, God will do what He has to do.

And brothers and sisters, that is why I stand my ground concerning what I believe in the Spirit, and I will not compromise; I will not change my conviction. Because I believe that if one honors God, God honors that person. We do not need to be, as I was saying recently, changing one thing and then another to see whether people will come and arrive at the Church, and whether they think we are nice and good and affirming, and all those things. Sometimes we believe that by pleasing people, we will bring them to God. No.

People will come to a Church that clings to the Lord and stands firm in what God has declared, no matter if it seems that we are going to be left alone. But if we honor the Lord, He will honor us. Because God can change things. I believe that is what we must do; God is testing us. He is saying to us: Do you believe enough? While the enemy tightens the siege more and more, and it seems that he is about to break through the gates of the city, do you still dare to believe Me a little longer and hold on a little longer, until I come and break through with My Power and do what I want to do?

Because it is not easy, brothers and sisters, I tell you. I move in circles where there are people whom I appreciate and love who do not believe as I believe, and there are many distinguished people whose respect one would like to have. And one knows that if they sometimes knew what one believes... Just last night—and I share this so that you may understand the agony one feels when moving in the secular world out there or in the broader religious world, the agony of believing what we believe—

Just yesterday we were at a wedding, officiating at that wedding, and we were seated at that table with a beautiful couple, a lovely young American couple. We had a lovely conversation, and I invited them to come to the Church, but in my heart I was saying: I wonder, if they knew the things we believe here, the things we practice, whether they would be willing to come. I invited them, and praise God, I hope they come, but the truth is that this often happens.

That person I was talking with this morning was telling me—she was telling me about a course she took with Erwin Villafañe and Harvey Cox, a great theologian, about the Holy Spirit at Harvard Divinity School, where they do not believe in electric light even though they are a divinity school. And she said, “When I heard Doctor Villafañe’s teaching about the Holy Spirit, I began visiting Spirit-filled African American churches,” and she did not want to tell me this quite so plainly because, being a liberal after all, she does not want to criticize minorities; but what she meant was that when she went to those churches, she did not find what she was looking for. Of course, because she wanted churches that were liberal like her, but there is a price to pay for the power of the Holy Spirit.

People who have the power of the Holy Spirit are not preaching these secularist, humanist doctrines of error; there is a price to be paid for the power of God to move. So these people want the power of God, but they also want their liberalism and their humanism, and the two do not go together. So many people—there are many people out there—want to feel the Holy Spirit; they want this grace that comes from God, but when they come looking and see what a truly God-fearing church that preaches the Gospel and practices the things of the Holy Spirit is like, they say, “No, we don’t want that.”

And one has to say, “No, I am going to dig in here; I am going to stay here; I am going to put down roots in this, and if I perish, I perish.” But do you know what? The Lord does the work. If you stand firm, God will change your situation, whatever it may be—whether it is your family situation, your marriage, a child, finances, or health. Look, cry out to the Lord, stand firmly on what God has declared, desperately seek the glory of God, and believe that the Lord is able to do the impossible and change your situation overnight.

And that is what God is looking for: a people who will desperately believe the Lord and pay the price. Brothers and sisters, I urge you: let us not be mediocre Christians; let us not be lukewarm Christians; let us not be Sunday-only Christians—forgive me for throwing that bucket of cold water on you. Come to church at other times during the week, my brothers and sisters; seek God; take a discipleship class; come pray on Wednesday; come to a vigil and stay awhile. Step outside the ordinary; get out of the Sunday rut. Seek God with cries, with hunger, with passion, and let us become people who desire the Ark of God to come and descend upon our homes and our churches.

Because when God is present, things change overnight, and what seems impossible, God makes possible. What we must do is make sure that we have that antenna for the Spirit of God. And look: when Elisha gives the Word that tomorrow things will change radically, the Spirit of the Lord immediately begins to move, and then the camera shifts from Elisha’s house, where the elders are, to four leprous men talking among themselves—four men who have nothing to lose because they are miserable men, rejected by society. People want nothing to do with them; they do not want them to come near them—unclean people.

And these men, as hungry as the rest of the people in the city, say, “You know what? We have nothing to lose; we are going to die anyway. If we stay here inside, we will die. Why don’t we go to where the Syrians are? The worst thing they can do is cut off our heads, and then we will die more quickly; but who knows? If they have mercy on us, they may give us something to eat.”

And so they leave the city and head toward the Syrian camp, I imagine, thinking, “They are going to cut off our heads.” And what happens there? When they arrive, they find that the Syrian camp is completely abandoned. All the Syrian soldiers took off running because God had sent a noise that sounded as though an immense army were coming against them, and they thought, “The King of Israel must have hired a foreign army, and they are coming to kill and destroy us.” And the noise was so great that they thought, “This is something terrible, something immense.”

And they left everything behind. They left horses, they left clothing, they left enough food for an entire army, and they took off running, leaving all that spoil there. And when these four men arrive, they discover an abundance of everything. What do these four men represent? I believe they represent people who have died to every human appetite, rejected people. A church like this one, where educated, learned, liberal people in positions of power denigrate many of the things that take place here—but we are committed to this—and I believe those are the people to whom God will grant the revelation of the firstfruits of the harvests, the discovery of what God is doing.

Unless you—if you are immersed in the world and its vanity, and all you care about is a career, making money, working a lot, buying a house, and having a large retirement account when you finish—God will pass you by. But if you are a person who says, “You know what? I have nothing to lose. If I die, then let me die, but I am going to serve the Lord; I am going to honor the Lord; I want my life to count for the Lord and for His Kingdom,” God will honor you and place you where you will be able to enjoy that harvest.

And so these four men arrive, see all this, and it says that they immediately filled themselves with food—just imagine; they helped themselves lavishly—and afterward they took clothes and garments and hid them. I imagine that from then on these men were wealthy, because surely they did not tell anyone about that part of what they had done. They first... And do you know what? God blesses not only spiritually; God also prospers a people who believe Him.

Then suddenly these men are eating, and I think one of them still had a chicken leg in his mouth when he said, “Wait a minute. This is a day for sharing good news. We are here eating and drinking and taking everything. If the people out there find out that we did not tell them what is happening, they really will cut off our heads, so let us give them the news too; let us share the good news of what is happening.”

It says that they then said to one another, “We are not doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until daybreak, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the news in the king’s household.” Brothers and sisters, we are a people called to proclaim the good news; we are a people called to share what God has given us. We have an incredible message that no one else has: that Christ has broken the back of the devil and of his principalities and powers, and that in Christ Jesus, men and women find eternal life, salvation, wisdom, restoration, and transformation for their needs. We must share that good news.

Then these men return to the city and tell the king and the city guards what is happening. And listen, this is why I tell you that this is a story of great faith and great unbelief, because do you know what the king thinks—this disoriented man who does not know the power of God—when he hears that the entire Syrian army has escaped and fled, that they have left everything there, and that there is food, clothing, horses, and everything else? The King of Israel says, “Wait a minute, this is a trap they are setting for us.”

“The Syrian army must be hiding somewhere, and when we open the gates and go out, they will fall upon us and destroy us.” When there is no faith, brothers and sisters—when there is unbelief in a person, listen: when God wants to bless you and you are so far removed from experiences with the power of God, God can be looking at you almost face-to-face and you will not recognize Him. When you have been so conditioned by life’s problems, blows, and defeats that you no longer have the capacity to believe that God can move powerfully on your behalf, never lose faith. Ask the Lord to preserve your ability to believe Him for great things.

God can change your situation overnight; believe it. And I believe in the Name of Jesus that God is going to do it in our time, and I am going to see it, and you are going to see it: great changes in this nation and in the nations of the world. A great harvest of souls is coming, says the Lord. Before the Second Coming of the Son of God to the earth for the last time, there will be great transformations; there will be a great visitation of the Power of God upon the nations, and the Church of Jesus Christ will be the instrument God will use to bring about that great move of the Holy Spirit.

God will use His prophets, His apostles, to bring about those changes, and God will change things overnight, even though it may seem impossible. And there will be an unbelieving and apostate church whose members will deny it and say, “These crazy evangelicals, these crazy Pentecostals dare to believe that this is so, but this is more complex.” I read books by supposed experts on religion that say that, but I believe God can do it, and He will do it.

And listen to how easily He did it—how easily He did it. Who could have thought of it? Who can conceive of the things of God? The Bible says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Look how easy the solution was: there was food on the other side; it was simply in the enemy’s hands, and all that had to happen was for the enemy to flee under the power and influence of God so that the food would pass into the hands of God’s people. Let us ask the Lord to place the resources of the wicked into the hands of God’s people one day, so that the Church will not have to go around begging or getting by as though being fed with an eyedropper.

May God open the windows of heaven and pour resources down upon His Church, so that His Church can carry out the assignments, the great things God wants it to do in this time. God had the solution, but no one could have imagined that it could happen so easily. What made the difference was the intervention of the power of God, because no one could do what God did: produce an artificial sound at a time when there were no electronic speakers or anything capable of reproducing it. Yet God reproduced the sound of an enemy people coming to attack the Syrian army.

And then it says that on that day it happened exactly as foretold. Two things happened that day, and with this I will conclude. Two very interesting things happened: the first was that the food was sold exactly as Elisha had said it would be sold. It says, “Then the people went out”—verse 16—“and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the Word of the LORD.” That was the first thing.

And you know, I do not believe the people were setting the prices. I believe there was a group of civil servants, government officials, who said, “Well, how much are we going to charge for all this food? All right, let us sell the flour for this price and the barley for that price.” I believe those people did not know what Elisha had said, but what they determined concerning the price of these things was exactly what Elisha had said would be charged, because when God gives the Word, the physical world aligns itself with the spiritual world. All that is needed is the Word of God, and I believe that we are declaring the Word of the Lord at this very moment.

Not only that, but when this unbelieving man, this prince, said, “Hey, even if God opened the windows of heaven, it still would not be possible,” Elisha told him, “You know what? You are going to see it, but you are not going to enjoy it.” Another prophetic Word—judgment—because where there is unbelief, brothers and sisters, if you doubt God when God wants to move, be careful: you are grieving the Holy Spirit, and there is judgment as well. Let us not be found unbelieving when God demands great faith. Lack of faith in a living God is a terrible offense. When God tells you, “Move,” you had better move.

So what happened? Look at how the prophetic Word, Elisha’s judgment, was fulfilled. When these people—when the people ran out through the city gates to go where the food and provisions were—the king, perhaps so that he could direct traffic or be there in some way honoring this man, stationed this dignitary at the city gate. And when the people ran out, they trampled him, ran over him, and killed him. He saw the blessing but did not enjoy it, exactly as Elisha had said. When the Lord speaks, things come to pass, brothers and sisters.

When the prophetic Word of God sounds forth, the world rushes to align itself. The atoms rush, the spirits rush, human processes rush to align themselves with what God has declared, and then we see the result of this great prophetic Word. And I believe, brothers and sisters, that we are living in those times. Let us continue waiting on the Lord; let us pay the price. If we have to suffer a little, let us suffer; God will do the work, so do not worry. I want to prepare myself, and you also want to prepare yourself.

Let us prepare the containers for the Lord’s grace; that building is one of them. That sanctuary is one of those elements—this building, and the other one. These are containers for the Glory of God; the English-language ministry exists for that purpose. The Anglican service, which I know some of you have a few doubts about, is a container for the Glory of God. The programs we are preparing, the leaders we are preparing, the times when we come and pray and cry out, the moments when we cleanse ourselves and consecrate ourselves to the Lord, consecrating our marriages and our homes and strengthening our lives through prayer—those are ways in which we prepare the place for a visitation of the power of God.

Do not be left behind. Let us consecrate ourselves and surrender our lives to the Lord, and let us believe that a great visitation of the power of God is coming. The situation will change overnight. Say with me: The situation will change overnight. God will do it in the Name of Jesus; we believe it. What is more, by faith we declare that it is already changing, that the Glory of the Lord is already beginning to move; we declare it so in the name of Jesus.