جارٍ تحميل الأرشيف الحي.
God's Pattern for Kingdom Restoration
واصِل الاستكشاف
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Let me read a passage from 2 Kings 6. The king of Syria was at war with Israel, but the prophet Elisha kept warning the king of Israel about where the Syrians planned to attack. The king of Syria was troubled—there was a spy in his camp. One of his servants said, "It's not one of us. Elisha the prophet in Israel tells the king of Israel the words you speak in your bed chamber."
So the king of Syria sent horses, chariots, and a great army to surround the city of Dothan where Elisha was. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning, he saw the city completely surrounded. He panicked and said, "Alas, my master, what shall we do?"
But Elisha answered, "Fear not. For they that be with us are more than they that be with them."
Then Elisha prayed, "Lord, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the young man's eyes, and he saw the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around about Elisha.
When the Syrian army came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, "Smite this people with blindness." And He smote them with blindness. Elisha then said, "This is not the way, neither is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek." He led them to Samaria.
When they arrived in Samaria, Elisha said, "Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see." And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw they were in the midst of Samaria.
The king of Israel said to Elisha, "My father, shall I smite them?" But Elisha answered, "Thou shalt not smite them. Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master." So he prepared a great provision for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away. And the bands of Syria came no more to the land of Israel.
The title of my message this morning is "Maybe It's Not How You Think."
When we think about this statement, we must understand two things. First, it's about your expectation of your outcome—how many of you have had an expectation that didn't work out the way you intended? It wasn't quite what you thought would happen.
Second, "it's not how you think" also represents the limits on our thinking. These are the conditions that blind us, the obstacles in our reasoning that impede us from having focus or clarity on the thing we're expecting. So many times we're impeded by a blindness that comes upon us. We can't see.
We're living in a time when most people are experiencing more than their fair share of the unexpected. We're in a very perilous time. Far too many people of faith are finding themselves struggling, being overwhelmed in trying to process what's coming at them. They try to fit it all into their expectations of how it's supposed to be.
Matthew 16:1-4 tells us about the Pharisees and Sadducees who came and tempted Jesus, desiring that he would show them a sign from heaven. Jesus answered, "When it is evening you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be foul weather today for the sky is red and lowering. Oh you Hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there should be no sign given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonas."
Jesus was rebuking the religious leaders for their inability to correctly read the signs of the times. It's not what they thought. It's not what they wanted. It's not how they understood.
Over the centuries, there has been a long list of scholars, theologians, and even leaders who have also missed the reading of the signs of the times. Many have taught erroneous end-time conclusions ranging from the imminent return of Jesus Christ to the beginning of His Millennial Reign. We have teachers today saying Jesus is coming back in September. We get all kinds of clickbait online about some religious leader with a prophecy or prediction.
But here's the thing: it's just not how you thought.
Even Jesus's disciples were given a unique ability to understand Kingdom Mysteries. They were close to Jesus, yet they were still very slow in their ability to understand. Again and again they fell short in grasping the signs during His earthly ministry.
Sometimes we seem to have become the embodiment of an old adage that says we are not able to see the forest for the trees. We're so caught up in everything that's going on that we're not actually seeing, even though we're being told.
Matthew 24 records Jesus teaching His disciples about the signs of the end. There'll be wars and rumors of wars. There'll be pestilences. There'll be all kinds of things breaking forth. And we're seeing that today. But it seems to me there's something in this interpretation that's missing.
We have believed that the sign has to do with tapping into the truths and events that are tied to understanding the times. But these signs have been happening for a very long time. During World War I, people knew it was the end of the world. Then World War II came, and they knew that was the end. Then the cold war came, and we knew that was the end. Then Israel became a nation, and we knew that was the end.
Do you see what I'm saying? As there's an increase in discord and disorder in the world, we are pushed even harder to these conclusions. But what if it's not how you think?
I have walked with the Lord for more than 50 years now as a pastor and a leader. In my early years, many of my expectations around the end times were shaped by ideas reflected in the wildly popular book The Late Great Planet Earth, written in the late 1960s and 1970s. Some of you may have been impacted by The Left Behind book series in the late 1980s and 1990s, which scared people immensely.
When we combine these theological depictions, they present a picture of a time so terrible that the only answer is to retreat and hang on for mere survival, hoping for some kind of escape plan.
But the longer I have walked with the Lord, the more this premise seems not to be how we should think.
Moses led the Israelites out of bondage from Egypt. They had been in slavery for nearly 400 years. At the end of their captivity, God imparted to Moses a plan, a model, a blueprint—a societal and governmental framework we know as the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.
The framework given by God to Moses was an alternative to their way of living in Egypt. The Torah detailed the principles of how a God-centric society should operate. Its design was specifically outside of the world system of that day, and God was at the center.
With that thought in mind: Could it be that our misfires on Jesus's return, or on the start of His millennial rule, are due to a missing link?
Are we waiting for something from God from on high when, in fact, there is something we're supposed to be doing and have failed to put into motion on earth?
I'd like to postulate that the missing link may be something like developing an alternate society—the principles of which are outlined not only in the Torah but throughout the whole Bible in its entirety.
I believe God wanted His church to be a body of people who had something more than a superficial gleaning of biblical principles. He didn't want us just to read the book casually and say, "Well, it's kind of a guide to my life." He wanted us to be established into a fully functioning governmental and social structure under His headship, rather than blending into the world system.
The rebirth of the state of Israel as a nation in the late 1940s held the potential of replicating God's original model. But Israel has now digressed from being an alternative society into one that is merging into the world system. It's only becoming a shadow of what the original design was.
The same is true with the birth of the United States of America. The founders espoused a belief in almighty God, and it was an experiment that riveted the attention of the whole world. Yet America has also wavered and moved from its moorings. Its foundations are crumbling.
The good news is that I'm now hearing and beginning to see some encouraging signs—a kind of grassroots kingdom representation that's beginning to emerge on many fronts. I have the opportunity to work with some in our own church and others in the church at large who are modeling kingdom-minded, self-sustaining, God-centered economic and community social models.
The scope spans from everything from rescuing street kids and those trapped in human trafficking to trauma training for abused and orphaned children, all the way to kingdom models of wealth creation against all odds.
Many of those we have adopted into our own extended family are orphans being trained and educated. They're graduating from high school and tertiary education to become productive citizens and community influencers. This year we've had students graduate from university. We have orphans being married together, raising families. These people who were once outcasts, who had lost everything, are now becoming very productive for the kingdom.
Many of our business leaders have developed successful hiring and mentorship programs for those who have been marginalized. Families are now being saved out of deep poverty. If you give somebody who has never had a chance a chance, you can save not only them but their whole family.
Once we put God's economic and social principles into practice, they're designed by their very nature to create and operate and help people build a self-sustaining lifestyle. What we've done is bought into the world system because of its comfort, and we don't want to be responsible for ourselves any longer.
Our Soccer for Souls outreach has given direction and hope to thousands of young people. Many young men and young women have been rescued from the drug-filled and crime-filled streets of our suburbs and towns. Our city is being swallowed up in drug and crime infestation, and our politicians like it that way because they do nothing to fix it.
But by ministering to young people, we are giving them an opportunity to become game changers.
I do not believe that the spiritual atmosphere in our towns and cities will be changed by large social programs rolled out by governments or by agenda-filled NGOs. Only as those of us who are filled with the Holy Spirit of God become givers of life in places where death and despair have held sway will we begin to see our communities, towns, and regions transformed.
Recently Pastor Taz and I have started a process of taking this life-changing and socioeconomic transformation message of Christ and overlaying it with a very powerful discipleship model. In developing our discipleship model, we're seeing a shift in the things we address.
Not only are we looking at the spiritual roots and understandings that have to do with the roots of our iniquities and sin—which are very important—we're also shifting our discussions and prayers to addressing more practical matters.
One of the realities we have to deal with in our ministry are issues related to poor health of some of our members. Thanks to Pastor Bonnie and others, it didn't take long to discern that many of the issues people were facing were tied to their poor eating habits.
More and more people are being led not only to change their diets—you have to stop the sugar, you have to stop the carbs, you have to stop the processed foods or you are going to be sick. Those are designed to make you sick. But it's moved beyond that.
Now we have people doing their own gardening. They're growing and eating from their own organic vegetables and fruits that they themselves are producing in their own backyards. The Bible said we could eat of every seed-bearing fruit and seed-bearing plant. That's why God hates GMO. That's why we should be fighting GMO. You eat an apple and it doesn't taste like an apple. There are no seeds in it. It won't reproduce.
You're supposed to eat the fruit and its seed. That's what the Bible says. Hybrids that God never meant for a company to control all the seeds—that's why you should have your own garden with its own plants and with your own seeds.
This is a small but, I believe, significant step. It's helping take believers outside of the system of control that is not health-driven or that is driven by profit rather than health. Most people are only thinking about money and profits. They say they want to feed the whole population, but there are more starving people today than ever before in the world.
I think it's time to take it out of their hands and try to do it ourselves.
My hope is that we're going to begin to see some of these gardens develop into farms, some into creating farmers markets so that we can begin the process of restoring biblical health and health models and bringing hope to those who have become hopeless. So many people are hopeless today. Their health is waning, and they don't know why.
Finding alternatives to the world system and looking at patterns found in the model outlined by Moses involves understanding the Kingdom mysteries spoken of by Jesus.
God is raising up a generation—I think a generation of out-of-the-box, outside-the-box thinkers. Thinking leaders that have spiritual eyesight—they see sufficiently as to recognize the forest for the trees.
Why is this happening? I believe it's nothing short of a group of people that have decided they're going to choose to trust the Lord and to live by God's principles—God's economic principles, His health principles, His eating principles, His social principles. They're going to create opportunities under God to create God-centered societies.
The truth be told, I believe that we have entered into a time that was described in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 60:1-3 says: "Arise, Shine, for thy light is come. The glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, the gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall rise upon thee and the glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light and the kings of the earth to the brightness of thy rising."
Although the darkness is getting progressively darker and bolder, simultaneously the light is getting brighter and more focused.
Each of us as a true believer of Jesus Christ must reflect on the potential that would be unlocked if the liberties we have experienced in our lives were now manifested further afield.
Some of you have been quite happy to have the liberty of Christ manifested in your life—maybe you and your family, us four, no more—and you've locked it down right there. But what if we would intentionally make ourselves available to impact the lives of those we encounter and to influence them?
The key attributes of being God-centric, the key attributes of liberty, freedom, and self-sufficiency outlined in the first five books of the Bible by Moses made up the foundational thinking of both the nation of Israel and America when they began.
Over time, the erosion and entropy of biblical principles has become evident in both societies:
One of the mandates of these two great societies was that at their inception there would be no poor amongst us. I'm telling you something: the streets of both Israel and America are filled with poor people today. Even 50 years ago, there were very few poor people on the streets of America.
I believe it's the mystery of lawlessness that is spoken of as an end-time indicator in the world. As that mystery increases, so too are the mysteries of righteousness becoming clearer for those of us that believe.
There's a power shift taking place right now. There's a birthing underway—the birthing of the restoration of biblical foundations, foundations that are outside of this world system.
What I'm talking about is the underlying premise of the Declaration that initially launched Jesus's earthly ministry. He came to Earth to model God's kingdom—what rulership really looked like. He modeled for us an entrance into dominion, and the supernatural accompanied by miracles and signs and real wonders.
The message He proclaimed then is the same message for us today: "The kingdom of God is at hand." The rulership of God is at hand.
We all have to understand that there's a dimension that's beyond the ordinary, beyond the natural order of things. That young servant couldn't see beyond the natural. He didn't understand there was a spiritual dimension.
The birthing of the kingdom of God is progressive, and it's tied to the restoration of all things. Jesus isn't coming back for a limping, weak church. He's coming back for a church that's strong and powerful and is resisting the devil.
We also have to understand that God's kingdom will not violate the spiritual model that was laid out by Moses. There's a lot of teaching today that says, "Well, that's just the law. That was just the Old Testament law. We don't have to follow it."
No. Jesus fulfilled the law, and the law has not been done away with. The law is the pattern for good governance.
The primary theme of Jesus's message to the lost was to bring mankind back to a place of being God-centric.
So we have to ask ourselves: How should we be thinking? What is the framework of our thinking? Is it God-centered? Are you God-centered?
Mark 9:23 records Jesus saying: "If thou can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. With men it's impossible, but not with God. For with God, if God's in the middle of everything, all things are possible."
Matthew 19:26 says: "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible—with God, with God."
Some of us have forgotten the "with God" part. God's no longer central. He's no longer centric.
Mark 11:22-23 says: "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you that whosoever shall say to this mountain, 'Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,' and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, shall have whatsoever he saith."
How many of us are saying to our mountains? How many of us are saying to our situations?
I don't think the problem is the saying. I think the problem is the "have faith in God" part. Is God in the center of what we're saying? If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say, and it will be done. You'll say to this mountain, "Be removed," and it'll be done.
We've seen revival moments and revival movements, especially here in Africa, and they've touched the hearts and lives of many people. I've seen some of you have lives that have been radically, radically changed. But now I believe that it's time for us to use our faith to reach for more.
We must incorporate this manifestation and operation of God at the center at a community level. Only then will we be able to spread and influence the greater society.
Only after we have seen the progression first in Jerusalem—us four, no more—to Judea, then to Samaria, will we ever see it to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Isaiah 58:12 says: "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of paths to dwell in."
This is more than just replacing brick and mortar buildings. The rebuilding of broken-down walls suggests the restoration and impacting of social infrastructure and economic dynamics. It speaks of the broad benefits derived from a jubilee thinking—God is the God of Jubilee, the God of Sabbath, the God who restores.
When we begin to practice those things outlined in the first five books of the Bible, I think we're going to see something happen. Even our farmers know that they have to let the land rest. Good farmers do it. It's only Monsanto that keeps selling you more fertilizers and keeps lateralized us to where we can't produce without fertilizer.
God created the world so that it would produce.
One of the challenges we as believers face is the challenge of becoming self-sustaining. Self-sufficiency is the only thing that gives us the ability to challenge compliance. Even within circles of believers, some of you—this world system represents your comfort zone. We tend to punish people who take steps outside the system.
Moses's encounter with Pharaoh required courage, toughness, and resolve. The same courage, toughness, and resolve are going to have to accompany those of us who are anointed and called to be reformers and game changers.
The key element of God's word to Moses in establishing a God-centric society was centered in being a self-sufficient model. You and I need to begin studying and implementing an alternative to the framework that represents this worldly system.
We say we believe in a king. We say we believe in a kingdom. But we act like this world is all there is, and we live in it like it controls us—and it does.
Abraham ran a God-centered economy, an economic community—in essence, a small, self-sufficient town. He even had an army of 300 trained in his own house.
When we go to Israel, we often visit one of the many kibbutzim—communal farming settlements. When Israel was first established, it built kibbutzim, and they had a degree of God-centeredness at the time they were established. Of course, today that model has lapsed.
But I have this deep sense in my heart. I think there's a stirring and an unsettling in the hearts of many believers across the spectrum of God's people—His truly called-out ones. There are many who are preparing. They're carrying Kingdom vision, and they're awaiting a birthing. They're awaiting a birthing, and God's about to bring it to pass.
When I first came to Zimbabwe, God gave me a vision. He showed me a light sweeping from the south to the north of Africa like a lighthouse. Pin pricks of light began to appear on the face of the continent of Africa. Then shafts, like those of arrows, began to pour out of Zimbabwe and touch all of Africa, then onto the world.
God spoke to me: "Something would emanate out of this nation."
I believe that these pin pricks and these lights represent God's pattern in motion—the model being businesses, communities, even towns and churches that are living outside of the world's system.
This world system is prophetic. There's a time emerging right now. There's coming a shift of power.
I, along with others, have described what I believe the Bible describes as a great wealth transfer. This wealth transfer will pave the way and be a predecessor for the restoration of all things. God Himself will use His willing people to initiate community building designed on Kingdom principles that will create safe places, safe cities, and even safe nations—nations of refuge.
Among all the changes that are going to afflict the world at this time, businesses, villages, towns, families, churches will adopt social and humanitarian structures derived from the outline and principles given us not only by Moses in the Torah but throughout Jesus's teaching about His kingdom.
As believers, however, we cannot grow weary. We have to continue to study. We have to continue to prepare. We have to align ourselves with Kingdom principles to the very best of our ability.
We need to begin to anticipate this power shift because it's coming, and it'll be initiated by almighty God Himself.
I believe that economic and social safe places will attract many who are in the world during these times of turbulence. They'll come to safety, only to find that the true safety is found in Jesus Christ.
I believe that there will be a birthing of businesses, communities, even new structures. We will begin to experience Joseph-Pharaoh alliances. When I say that, I'm talking about harnessing worldly resources to restore a God-at-the-center model.
What's amazing is that it's already happening. It's already transpiring. As many of God's people are finding each other—in the marketplace, in commerce—God's doing something. Many have already gone off-grid and are working off-grid. They realize we're not going to accomplish this inside the system.
The informal sector is more powerful than the formal sector today by the design of our own government, yet they're attacking the formal sector trying to get more taxes—the very sector they've destroyed by letting everything go informal. It's foolishness.
Let me get back to the message. I know I've gone on a bit of a rant. I hope you know I wrestled over this message. This is not how all of us are thinking. I understand that when it comes to understanding the times and grasping the spiritual dimension—and by the way, that dimension has always involved mysteries—it's a realm that operates beyond what is seen or what seems normal to the grasp of the natural mind.
In today's world, as we are learning the ways of the kingdom and being allowed access into this unseen spiritual dimension, unfortunately we still tend to try to process it based on our natural understanding of things. We're like that guy standing eating his donut: "Those that be with us are more than those that be with them. Oh really? Yeah, yeah. I hear Pastor Tom preaching up there, but I don't see it."
That's the problem.
We as believers must understand and realize that our natural grasp of reality has some serious limitations. I'd suggest that we need something more.
When the scriptures were originally being written, not only were these writings and authors and their societies—both opposed to and for the writing of these scriptures—operating with a supernatural worldview. They believed in a spiritual world. They believed that the spiritual dimension existed and that there were gods and interventions.
We don't believe that so much today. We give lip service to it. Some of you believe it more because you're going to the witch doctor thinking there's going to be an answer there. We do believe it in Africa. We still have this kind of dimension where we believe in something supernatural.
But the greatest leap for believers in this age is interpreting the mysteries of the kingdom through the prism of the spiritual and supernatural truth of the word of God. And it's the simple things that confound the wise.
The Josephs and Daniels of our day are being called to guide and to work with individuals of influence. Some of you have been fearful to speak, but you watch what our leaders are doing and you don't say a word. Yet God has placed you there to be the Joseph and the Daniel.
As we do this with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation and we begin to view things by the Spirit of God, I believe that we are about to impact the utilization of resources in such a way that as heretofore never been touched before—and has been only left solely to the world system—will now be used to really help people.
People are desperate, but our leaders have no idea what they're doing, and it's evident.
With God-directed leadership, I'm seeing a part of the world's system of finance being released to build something that goes beyond the role of just training but begins to put into practice types of structures and businesses and even touch into the fabric of our society that will prepare us for the Lord's return.
It's time for God's people to stand up and be counted. It's time to recognize that God is birthing something, and it's already in the birth canal. It's time for us to prayerfully begin pushing, with courage, with faith, with resolve. We need to face the opposition and take our role as the reformers and game changers.
I said this earlier, but I believe there are modern-day Josephs and Daniels, Esthers and Deborahs. It's time for you now to make the decision to embrace the mantle that has been given to you as people of influence among the worldly leaders to whom you've been assigned.
You must begin to build now. You must begin building the kingdom—the kingdom of God.
The Bible's filled with remarkable stories of what God does when His people expose themselves to take a stand against opposition—anti-God forces. They always have to put their lives on the line. They always have to risk something. But it's amazing what God does.
The times we are living in encompass far more than just barely surviving and retreating to some comfortable place for me and mine. We've been born for such a time as this. Our generation has been chosen to live during such a time. We've been chosen to take a stand.
I believe there has been and there is a coming shift, and my prayer is that those I have the honor of influencing—because I can't influence the nation, I can only influence a handful of you—but I believe that you will rise and you'll begin to respond to what God is mobilizing, to what God is building.
May there be a groundswell across the spectrum of all of God's people, and may they rise up with a battle cry: "Let God arise, and may His enemies be scattered."
When darkness covers the earth and gross darkness covers the people, God says there has to be a people that will arise and shine. The darkness will not be dispelled by us looking like the world, acting like the world, and saying and doing nothing.
I want to encourage us all to take this to heart today. I love you. I wrestled with this message. I didn't want to preach this message. God and I had a fight. But I felt it was a word that needed to be spoken to our congregation. This is for us. To unlock some of you—if you'll meditate on this, I think it can unlock something.
Our nation is in desperate need. The nations of the world are in desperate need. Let's not be like that young man and not see what God can do. Those that are with us are far more than those that be with them.
Father, I pray right now for those under the sound of my voice. I ask you, Lord, that you would cause this word to penetrate our hearts. Father, we would yes, thank you, and be grateful for what you've done for us as individuals and for our families. But Father, would you give us the courage now to really begin to be the ministers that you've called us to be?
Father, help us to see ourselves not just as ordinary people in an ordinary world caught up in a system that is evil, but Father, may we see ourselves as those that are reformers, those that can rise and be birthed and give birth to that which would cause your kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
Father, anoint those that have been spoken to in the night season, those that you've given visions to, those that have been prompted. Some have laid dormant for 20 years and have not fulfilled what they saw, and they've given up hope. But Father, I declare today that they are in the birthing canal. Father, today you're giving birth to them, and through them something that will enhance and develop our society for righteousness.
Father, we bind and we expose the deeds of wickedness in our land. We ask Father for the removal of those who willfully do evil, for those who willfully destroy, for those who cannot sleep without shedding blood. For the evil of the earth, we ask that you would remove them.
Father, we ask that you would grant to us righteous leaders—those, Father, who would fear God, that would become God-centric, that would understand that there is a God who engages and entertains the affairs of men.
Father, we commit ourselves today to be among those people that are God-centric, that are other-people-minded.
Father, we close today by saying: We love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, and with all of our soul and all of our strength. Now Father, help us to love each other, to help us to love others as we love ourselves.
I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
