August 4, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Dear ones, the Christian walk is one foot in front of the other. And many times, our breakthroughs come through just a long obedience in the same direction, just being a faithful disciple.
But I’ll tell you something, there are times, and we’ve experienced them, and we had a great testimony of Julie of the time where you’ve done a long obedience in the same direction, and then in an instant, in an instant, everything changes. And there is a breakthrough.
That’s going to happen when you die, by the way.
In an instant, everything’s going to change, but it can happen in this world as well. That could be something. You could have been struggling with an addiction or a problem for years, and in a moment, in a service like this, in a time like this, the Spirit can come and you can have breakthrough.
So I’m a both and guy on this. I believe firmly in Christian discipleship. Reading your Bible, saying your prayers, and two steps forward, one step back, and just keep marching forward and being a follower of Jesus through thick and thin.
But, man, I’m also a believer in the. We sang into that song, when heaven and earth collide, all of a sudden, boom, heaven is here, and something dramatic forever has changed.
So always be on your tippy toes of expectation for God’s breakthrough, all right? Be a person of faith, and then at the same time be a person of discipleship. I think we make a mistake when we just pick one or the other and we exclude the other one. Does that make sense? All right, good.
That’s a sermon. Good night. No, no, we got more.
But wait, there’s more. There’s more, all right? We’re going to be in Habakkuk this evening. Habakkuk. You know, there’s a thing about biblical names, all right? A lot of people got biblical names. And, you know, you name your kids biblical names, right?
You got an Isaiah, Jacob. Those are biblical names. your boy’s got biblical names, all right? And, you know, Mark, that’s a biblical name. Megan, Margaret, Pearl, Wisdom. You know, it has good meaning. It has good meaning, all right? Micah, he’s a prophet. He’s a prophet.
So, all right, so, you know, and there’s some biblical names that you don’t want to name your kids, all right?
Fathers don’t have a daughter and go, oh, she just looks like such a cute little Jezebel. You know, Jezebel doesn’t make it. Pontius Pilate. There’s not a lot of, you know, Pontius Pilates in school or Manassas or anything like that.
But there’s some good guys in the Bible and their names just don’t make it. And I like these names.
And, you know, I kind of wish I was back at the time when Jill and I were having children. I’d have thrown a few more options into the pot there, like Habakkuk. You know, why aren’t there a lot of Habakkuks out there? Or another one I like is Zerubbabel. Try to say that with a mouthful of M and Ms. Zerubbabel, you say that ten times really fast and you’ll start speaking in tongues.
I mean, so there are some biblical names that didn’t make it. But Habakkuk is a short prophetic book. It’s called a minor prophet.
And it doesn’t mean the minor prophets are less important. It just means that their books, their prophecies, are much shorter than an Isaiah or Jeremiah.
By the way, five books in the Old TestAment are recorded under the major prophets. One of them is actually very short, but it was written by the prophet Jeremiah. And so Jeremiah has credit for two of those books, Jeremiah and then Lamentations. The other major prophets are Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
And then you’ve got twelve minor prophets. Let’s see if I can get them now. Okay.
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah. I’m probably not doing them in a row here in Nahum, Micah. How many is that? Five? I got four. And help me out here, people. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah. Well, yeah, I got the HCHC at the end. You got Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Micah, Malachi, the Italian prophet. And so that’s five. You got Nahum and Micah. That’s six, seven. Hosea, Joel, Amos, 8, 9, 10, Obadiah and Jonah. Twelve. All right, there you go. We got all the minor prophets.
No, you got to just learn a little kids’ song that they play in Sunday school, and it’ll do it for you.
So, yeah, so Habakkuk. Habakkuk is a prophet to the southern tribe, Judah. The northern tribe, Israel, has already been exiled by the Assyrians. Habakkuk is a prophet. He’s a contemporary of Jeremiah, and he prophesied during the reign of, actually, one of Israel’s good kings, Josiah. In fact, Israel’s last good king, Josiah.
And Josiah is followed by three bad kings before Judah, the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom, is exiled by the Babylonians. Jehoiakim, Jehoiachim, and Zedekiah are the bad kings that follow Josiah and Habakkuk.
Though, even though Josiah is a good king, he sees that because of the sins of Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, because of those sins, and because of the sins of the kings that are going to come after Josiah, he foresees that the Babylonians are going to come and they are going to exile Jerusalem.
In fact, there are kind of two exiles. The first exile, they come, and they take away King Nebuchadnezzar comes, and he takes away King Jehoiakim, and he takes away all the leading scholars and all the leading soldiers and kind of the cream of the crop, and he exiles those to Babylon.
And that’s when Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego go to Babylon. He sets up Zedekiah as a puppet king in Jerusalem, and he just sets him up there, and he leaves the farmers and the laborers to keep the land productive. He leaves the temple intact.
And he basically tells Zedekiah, do what I tell you to do, and you can stay here and be a puppet king. Zedekiah rebels. He’s an idiot. Jeremiah tells him not to rebel, but he does. Nebuchadnezzar comes back, destroys Jerusalem, and destroys the temple.
Habakkuk sees it coming, and he prophesies about it, but he also sees God then bringing destruction on Babylon and bringing salvation to his people. And there’s a sense in the prophecies of Habakkuk of kind of a double prophetic fulfillment.
On the one hand, when he’s talking in this prophetic vision of the coming of the Lord’s army to destroy the Babylonians who destroyed Judah, it also has real similarity or a real sense of God’s final judgment of God coming to destroy his enemies and bring salvation to his people.
And so that is the. That’s Habakkuk 3. That’s the prayer of Habakkuk. There’s a lot of real poetic imagery here. I’m not going to just go into it all. We’re just going to kind of cover the big picture of Habakkuk 3.
1 This prayer was sung by the prophet Habakkuk : (Habakkuk 3:1, NLT)
He sung a prophecy. All right, so you can sing a prophecy. You can sing your prayers.
By the way, oftentimes, one of the best ways to pray is to put on praise and worship music and sing your prayers. Sing to God. We did it. You know, if prayer is talking to God, and if you sang the songs that we sang tonight, and you were directing them toward heaven, then you were singing your prayers. So good on you. There’s biblical precedent for that.
1 This prayer was sung by the prophet Habakkuk : 2 I have heard all about you, Lord. I am filled with awe by your amazing works. In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy. 3 I see God moving across the deserts from Edom, the Holy One coming from Mount Paran. His brilliant splendor fills the heavens, and the earth is filled with his praise. 4 His coming is as brilliant as the sunrise. Rays of light flash from his hands, where his awesome power is hidden. 5 Pestilence marches before him; plague follows close behind. 6 When he stops, the earth shakes. When he looks, the nations tremble. He shatters the everlasting mountains and levels the eternal hills. He is the Eternal One! 7 I see the people of Cushan in distress, and the nation of Midian trembling in terror. 8 Was it in anger, Lord, that you struck the rivers and parted the sea? Were you displeased with them? No, you were sending your chariots of salvation! 9 You brandished your bow and your quiver of arrows. You split open the earth with flowing rivers. 10 The mountains watched and trembled. Onward swept the raging waters. The mighty deep cried out, lifting its hands in submission. 11 The sun and moon stood still in the sky as your brilliant arrows flew and your glittering spear flashed. 12 You marched across the land in anger and trampled the nations in your fury. 13 You went out to rescue your chosen people, to save your anointed ones. You crushed the heads of the wicked and stripped their bones from head to toe. 14 With his own weapons, you destroyed the chief of those who rushed out like a whirlwind, thinking Israel would be easy prey. 15 You trampled the sea with your horses, and the mighty waters piled high. 16 I trembled inside when I heard this; my lips quivered with fear. My legs gave way beneath me, and I shook in terror. I will wait quietly for the coming day when disaster will strike the people who invade us. 17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! 19 The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me as sure-footed as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:1-19, NLT)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our rock, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen.
So there’s a lot in here about prayer and about vision and just about God’s agenda. And so I want to talk about that. And I want to talk about prayer based on revelation. Prayer based on revelation.
You go to church, and you’ve been to church for a long time. And, you know, when I first came to the Lord, my young life leaders gave me some great advice.
And here was the great advice they gave me. Say your prayers and read your bible daily. Right. How many of you were instructed when you first came to the Lord to have what, a daily quiet time, right. You come to church, and what does the preacher say? Well, say your prayers and read your bible. All right. And I’ll tell you what won’t hurt you none. It’s good advice. It’s good counsel. That’s good counsel.
But one of the things I think that the western culture has done with prayer is we’ve made it into something that’s almost impossible.
We have such a small, such a tiny view of what prayer looks like, and it’s not a biblical view of what prayer looks like at all. It is this view that prayer is silent contemplation and just talking inwardly in your inward silent voice to God quietly and on your knees or in your chair. But it’s silent prayer that just arises spontaneously from your heart, right?
And that’s what we tend to think of when we tend to think of prayer.
And then people come and say, you know, you ought to pray 20 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day or a half an hour a day, and we go, okay, man, I’m gonna do it. I want to have a close walk with God, and I’m gonna pray a half an hour a day, and then we try to pray that way for a half an hour.
And here’s what happens to almost all of us. We get about two minutes in, and our mind just starts to wander, and we get completely off base. And then the devil is right there to say things like this. you’re never gonna be a good prayer. you’re such a failure at prayer. Oh, you call yourself a Christian, you’re not a Christian. A Christian would be able to pray more. John Wesley prayed for 30 minutes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you just feel like an utter failure and defeated person.
And let me tell you, if that’s your experience, if you pray for two minutes and your mind begins to wander and you’re distracted, it clearly means one thing. you’re not a Christian. And you’re going to hell. No, that’s not what it means.
Here’s what it clearly means. It means you’re normal, right? Everybody in this room, right? Anybody not have that experience where you tried to pray and your mind started wandering? Am I the only one? I guess I am the only one who’s not a Christian and going to hell.
All right, well, so you’re all better than me. It’s like, all right, you all, like, smile like you’re in agreement, but you won’t dare raise your hands. Thank you. Thank you, my sister. All right, see what happens when you give somebody M&Ms? They like you.
All right, so here’s another way to think about prayer. Pray in response to revelation. Read your Bible and pray your Bible. I often find myself when I’m reading my Bible.
Some scripture will kind of stand out to me. All right, what I’ve learned to do is stop right there and say, Lord, that I want, that I’m praying for that.
You know, reading James 1, it says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously and without reproach. Don’t read that and go, oh, that’s interesting. Read that and say, oh, okay, I’m going to do that right now. God, I want wisdom. The Bible says, ask God and he gives generously.
And then have your daily quiet time, your devoted time of prayer. I have that almost every day. I don’t think there’s many days where I miss my devoted time of worshiping and praying and reading the Bible.
I have my daily quiet time, but then you can also just have a conversational prayer throughout the day. You know, people, here’s another thing my young life leaders taught me, which I did not find helpful. Do it in the morning. Well, man, I am not my best self in the morning. You morning people, you’re great. Go get them. But you annoy me.
You know, people will get out of bed and it’s like, zippity doo dah, zippity day. Wow. Today is a day, and I’m getting, you know, you know, people just get up at 05:00 in the morning and feed horses.
You know, I admire people like that, but what the heck’s wrong with them? What is wrong with those people?
All right, I am not a morning person. And dear ones, let me tell you, hot tamale, she’s not a morning person either.
My wife’s a wonderful person, but, man, you know, some people, you don’t want to interact with them until they’ve had that first cup of coffee.
Jill, it’s the shower. She’s got to get in the shower, you know, and once she gets out of the shower, it’s like, hey, how you doing? Okay. I’m doing all right. I’m. But don’t even talk to her.
You know, somebody once asked me, they said, are you a morning person? They said, no. They said, what are you to wake up grumpy in the morning? I said, heck, no.
I let her sleep. I’m not going to wake her up. That’d just be a mistake.
All right, so they’d say, have your quiet time in the morning. It’s like, I’m not having my quiet time in the morning. God wants me at my best, not my worst, but I do this. I do talk to him at the start of the day. And usually you’ve heard me say it many times. Usually the scripture that just immediately comes to mind is, who have I in heaven? But, you know, and besides you, I desire nothing on earth. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God, you’re the strength of my life and my portion forever.
Guess what that prayer comes from? Revelation. That’s right out of the Bible. I didn’t make that up. That wasn’t spontaneous. Me lying on my bed or on my knees thinking, you know, that’s Bible. You can pray the Bible.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and say, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I say, today I’m gonna seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness, and I’m gonna trust that all these things will be added unto me.
Habakkuk prays from revelation. He has a vision. He sees God doing something, and he prays from revelation. All right? And then his prayer issues forth from worship. It issues forth from worship. He’s singing this prayer. He’s worshiping God.
Notice when the disciples came to Jesus, by the way, you want to know how to pray? Here’s some great advice.
Go to the place where Jesus says this is how you should pray. And he gives us this simple outline. And in that simple outline, what does it start with? It starts with worship. Our Father who is in heaven, worship your holy name. Hallowed holy. We sang it tonight. Holy forever. your holy forever. Hallowed be your name.
Let your prayer life flow from worship. It says, when Pentecost came, the disciples were worshiping and praying in the upper room. Let adoration and praise and thankfulness be the springboard for intercession.
What kind of relationship would it be if all you did is you came to somebody and said, give me this, give me this, give me this? I’ll tell you what kind of relationship it would be. It would be of a spoiled child to a tired parent.
Mom, I was so glad that wasn’t my name when my kids were growing up. Oh, I was so glad I was dad. Because, you know, ladies, I just feel for you because I just walk through the house, mom, mom, mom, mom, … mom.
I’d just be sitting there going, man, I’m glad I’m not that. And every once in a while, my wife would just go to me saying, honey, honey, take charge. And I go, okay, I got this. And then I would do something, you know, really wise and deep and profound.
I look at the kids and I’d, she’d say, bark at the kids. And I would bark. I really. It would be a literal bark, honey. Bark at those kids. And I just look at them go, hey, hey, hey, hey. They’re like, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Works when they’re little. Once they’re teenagers, the haze loses. They’re not that. They’re like, yeah, he’s hey’ed before. Nothing ever follows the haze. But when they’re little kids, they’re like, like, ooh, dad’s barking. Is that all you needed, honey? Yeah, it’ll work for now. Okay. Glad to be of service.
But we come to God and we say, God, give me this. God, give me this. God, I need a new job. God, I need more money. God, I need this pain to go away. God, I need this relationship to be healed.
But that’s not how the Lord’s prayer starts. The Lord’s prayer starts with what? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
How much better a relationship when we come to God in thankfulness, worship, and praise, and then we submit our lives to Him. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, not my agenda, but your agenda is what I’m after.
Then we can come to Him and say, by the way, to accomplish your agenda, I need some daily bread. I need a car that runs or a new job, or I need this relationship restored. There’s nothing wrong with interceding. There’s nothing wrong with praying for your personal needs. The Bible tells us to do that.
But don’t make that the soul of your prayer life. Pray from revelation and pray from worship and then pray for revival. Hezekiah prays that God would revive Jerusalem, that God would restore Jerusalem.
Dear ones, I’ve listened to people on TV, and you know, I pray for revival all the time. And I’ve listened to people on YouTube and stuff and say, how dare you pray for revival? You have no right to pray that God revive America. God needs to judge America. You don’t deserve revival, church. You deserve judgment.
I’m like, I don’t pray for revival because we deserve it. I pray for revival because we need it. I pray, God, in your righteous anger at our sins, remember mercy. And God says, if there’s a remnant of people who cry out for mercy, God will remember mercy.
Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember that story? Sodom and Gomorrah is utterly wicked. And Abraham says, well, what if there’s 50 righteous? I’ll spare the whole city for 50 righteous. What if there’s 40? He gets them down to ten. What if there’s ten righteous?
Well, God, would you send a revival upon America that is so powerful, that is so strong, that is so significant, it would bring a cultural reformation, and we would turn from our wicked ways. We need you, God. Would you remember mercy and not bring judgment? He may. It’s worth asking, isn’t it?
I’d rather have mercy than judgment upon my land. Listen, when I see people who mock God, my initial reaction still at this point is not anger and God, oh, God, get them. Sick them, put them, you know, make them pay. All right? My initial reaction is, oh, God, they’re so lost. Show them mercy. Reveal yourself to them.
I pray that for everybody still at this point. Terrorists, corrupt politicians. I mean, there’s a part of my heart. I got to confess, there’s a part of my heart that’s like, oh, God, get them.
And then I just feel like, well, Kev, if I get them, I got to get you, too. It’s like, ooh. Well, God, as you have mercy on me, have mercy on them.
Pray for God’s mercy upon your land. While you denounce the sinfulness, pray for God’s mercy. While you recognize the sinfulness, pray for God’s mercy.
And let me tell you something about wrath and mercy or wrath and love. We live in a mamby pamby culture that has mistaken the fierce love of God with codependent niceness. What do I mean by that?
What I mean by that is our culture says, if you call anything wrong except the exercise of calling something wrong, you’re a hater. If you say, hey, that’s wrong, oh, you’re a hater. And what you did is wrong. You shouldn’t call things wrong. Well, what are you doing? Oh, yeah.
And we recognize the, what, the inconsistency with that, the illogicalness of that, but don’t be buffaloed by that. We can call balls and strikes. We’re required to call balls and strikes. We’re required to be light and darkness.
Listen, I know there are horrible circumstances that women find themselves in where they’ve been raped, or there’s been incest, or the child is next to dead in the womb. There are horrible instances where that happens, and I have mercy on that.
If that has ever been the case with you, don’t take anything I say here as judgment. But I do want to say this: abortion as birth control is child sacrifice. It’s the same thing Israel practiced when they followed the pagan cultures.
The demonic spirits always want the blood of the innocents, and we still do it. Don’t think we’re better than them. Abortion as birth control is child sacrifice.
Israel sacrificed their children. They burnt their children alive to the false god, the false pagan gods of the nations who surrounded them: Baal, Asherah, Moloch, and Chemosh. And those gods, they practiced child sacrifice. Pagan cultures have always practiced child sacrifice. Those cultures are wicked.
When the Spaniards came and they overtook the Mayans and the Aztecs and the, and the, who were the other ones?
Incas, the Incas and, you know, modern PC. Oh, these terrible Europeans, these terrible Christian Europeans came and they destroyed these wonderful cultures. You know, these wonderful cultures would murder thousands and thousands. They would tear people’s hearts out. And they would have archways into their sanctuaries made of human skulls of the people they sacrificed.
Listen, I’m not saying the Spaniards were these great saints, but I am saying that they brought judgment upon wicked demonic cultures. And yes, those cultures had advancements and they had good things going for them as well, but they were wicked.
They were bloodthirsty. That’s what paganism is. And God brings wrath upon that in His mercy to save humanity.
Let me tell you something. Wrath and love aren’t that far apart. Mamas, if somebody tried to hurt one of your babies, what are you going to do? you’re going to tear their face off, right?
Jamie, if somebody breaks in and tries to kidnap one of your daughters, are you going to say, oh, take them? I don’t want to offend. Yeah, right.
I go out walking. Not very often, but I go out walking. There are bears out there. There’s bears out there, right? Black bears. And black bears are mild. Black bears don’t attack anybody. They don’t want to mess with you. They run away. But what do they tell you? Don’t get between a mama and her cubs.
There was a great film years and years ago about the famous basketball player Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah Thomas was a point guard for the University of Indiana and the Detroit Pistons. He was small for basketball standards. He was six foot one, but he’s a great point guard.
And at the age of ten or eleven, he was already a basketball prodigy. You know, everybody knew he was going someplace. Single mom in the hoods and the gangs, at about ten or eleven, would start recruiting the young boys. You know, come with us, come with us. We’ll be your family now, we got your back, you know. And they were recruiting young Isaiah to become a part of the gang.
And these gangsters are out there talking to Isaiah, saying, hey, man, come on, hang with us. He goes, no, I gotta go home.
No, Mandez, you don’t have to listen to your mom. Come with us. We’ll show you where the money is. We’ll show you what’s happening.
And this little woman comes out of the house and she’s got her hand behind her back, and she comes out and says, leave Isaiah alone. And that guy cusses her. She says, get out of here, woman. You know, blah, blah, blah. He just totally, you know, says, go back to your home. You know, stay in your own lane. We got this now.
And she walks up to this guy, and before he knows what happens, she whips her hand out from behind her back, sawed-off shotgun right under his nose.
You stay away from my son. I don’t ever want to see you back here. Is that love? You bet that’s love. That’s the fierceness of love. That’s the fierceness of love. Yeah.
No, she knew that that was evil. And you know what? She’d have loved that boy who, she had that shotgun up his nose if he had repented and said, you’re right. I got to quit the gang.
I got to become a. You know, she’d invited him in. She’d have fed him dinner and taken him under her wing.
Let me tell you something. We call ourselves the firehouse church. And I remember when I first brought up that name. And my wife’s like, well, fire can mean judgment in the Bible. You know, hot tamales. She always knows something. She’s like, fire can mean judgment in the Bible. And I’m like, yeah, it can. But there’s two sides to fire, right? At Pentecost, the fire comes and lands on them.
And the Spirit says, don’t put out. Or Paul says, don’t quench the Spirit’s fire. Fire can mean revelation. Fire can mean power. Fire can mean passion. Fire has a good side and fire has a bad side. And it all depends on which side of the fire you’re on.
Meat cooked over an open fire is good food. Am I right, Brian? That’s the best kind of food, you know, meat cooked over an open flame. Right, Stevin? It’s good food, you know, boiled meat. Who would do that? The British, I guess. Who else?
Boil meat, cook it over a flame like it was meant to be cooked over. But fire that burns your house, that’s bad. Fire that burns you is bad. Fire that warms you is good.
Wrath and love are two sides of the same coin. And the real question isn’t whether or not God is a God of love. The real question is which side of God are you on? Because I think the Bible is really clear on this, not just in the Old TestAment, the New as well.
That God has incredible mercy, never-ending love, and overwhelming blessings. That eye has not seen, nor ear heard, or the heart of man conceived for those who love Him. But for the mockers, the rebels, the ones who will not repent and will not listen, they experience that consuming fire in a totally different way. And it is judgment, and that’s what Habakkuk sees.
Habakkuk sees both salvation and judgment, and all creation is displayed by God’s power. All creation is affected by God’s power in Habakkuk’s vision. And he uses a lot of poetic imagery.
Rivers parting, mountains quaking, the blood, the sun and the moon being affected, and the sea standing up. We look at this and we go, oh, that’s powerful poetic, that all creation kind of reacts to the presence of God.
I got a feeling at the second coming of Jesus, a lot of that stuff’s going to just be literal.
You know, if Jesus were to return in our lifetime, and we’re out on one of those sunny days in Washington looking at the beauty of Mount Rainier, and we all of a sudden see Mount Rainier bow in humility as the king comes in to. I’ve told you this before, but I am awed.
And the older I get, the more this just becomes just this awesome reality to me, that I am going to stand before the white-robed one with eyes that burn and feet like bronze and hair like wool, so white and so bright and so glorious, that normal human eyes couldn’t perceive him.
And he’s going to look into my soul, and I’m going to stand before him, and it’s like, ah, that’s great. But it’s also like, what are you going to, you know, I just don’t think it’s going to be, you know, Jesus. Hey, what’s up? You know, I don’t think that’s going to be the deal now. I do believe, because I’ve put my faith in him and I believe his word and his mercy, that when I look into those eyes, I will not be put to shame.
I will be embraced, accepted, and loved and forgiven in such a way that I will be completely healed and made well. And all the pain and bitterness and hurt and brokenness will blow away like chaff in the wind. And I’ll get that breakthrough, right? That’s the ultimate breakthrough.
And all will be well forever and ever. And even the struggles of this present earth will not be able to be compared to the glory that will last forever for each of us.
Listen, this story is big, people. This story is big. It’s like in the seventies. Whoa, heavy, dude. Heavy, heavy. No, it was, dude came later. Heavy, man. Man, heavy. I like what you’re saying. Right on. Groovy. I’m bringing groovy back. That’s groovy. Cool. Yeah. All right.
He comes to bring justice, and he comes to bring salvation. You want justice? We all want justice.
Face it. We all want the bad guys to get it. You know? We all want the bad guys to get it. We all want justice. That’s why we love westerns. That’s why we love Marvel movies. We want justice. We want the wrongs to be set right.
We don’t want lying politicians to get away with it. We don’t want bullies. We want all that lunch money they stole to be returned and for them to be humbled for their bullying and be forced to apologize and for them to experience what it felt like to be bullied. Right?
Don’t you hate it when kids get bullied? Want the bullies to, you know, we just want somebody bigger to come along and bully the bullies.
We feel good when the underdog wins. We feel good when the oppressed are no longer oppressed, and their oppressors get what they’re comeuppance. And God says, I will come, and I will bring justice, and I will bring all things to right.
But he also says, I will come, and I will bring salvation for those who fear me, for those who love me.
For those who obey me, for those who put their faith in me, I am coming, and my coming is good news. For those who reject me, my coming is bad news.
And then Habakkuk prays a second prayer, and this is a prayer of waiting. He knows that a couple of things are going to happen before the good days come. Number one, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. He sees it. Number two, Babylon is going to be destroyed. He sees that. And number three, God is going to bring His glory.
He says in chapter two, as the waters cover the sea, so your glory will cover the earth.
And so here’s what Habakkuk does. And it’s so beautiful in this time of waiting for things to be fulfilled, he says, even if the fig trees are not blossoming, even if the cattle die and the barns are empty, yet I will praise the Lord in the time of testing. In the time of testing, I will rejoice and celebrate.
Dear ones, there’s some things we can do on earth that we will not be able to do in heaven.
And I can’t think of anything apart maybe from sharing our faith in Christ. That’s an important thing we can do now that we can’t do in heaven.
All right. In heaven, you’re not gonna be able to go up to somebody and say, hey, man, have you heard about Jesus? He’s like, well, yeah, he’s standing right there. You know, he’s all over the place here. His light lights up the whole place. Like, nobody’s gonna be going, Jesus. Tell me about Jesus.
All right. You’re not gonna be able to evangelize in heaven, so you better get all your evangelizing done now.
But here’s another thing you’re not gonna be able to do in heaven, which is so powerful. you’re not gonna be able to praise God in the midst of pain. We have victories and praise God. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
You know, they win the Super Bowl, they interview the star athletes, and I just want to thank God, which is great. I’m glad they do it. I like the athlete.
When they lose the game, they say, I just want to thank God. I’ll tell you what, when Julie came and shared her testimony, I just wanted to thank God. Hallelujah. Praise God. What a great story. Really light filled up the whole room.
He came into the room. He answered our prayers. He delivered you. Wow. That is breakthrough. That is victory. Let’s all give God a mighty hallelujah. I tell you what.
I’ve been beside the bedside in a room full of Christians with a young woman who was in a car accident, 16 years old, brain dead. They’re about to pull the plug.
And parents, tears streaming down the parents’ faces, and we gather and we hold hands. And by that bedside, I’ve been there. This is an experience I’ve had.
We sing with faith and with conviction. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And something happens to us when we do that. And I think, here’s what happens.
I think we can’t handle all breakthroughs. You know, I’ve prayed for 17 years for revival in the Pacific Northwest, but here’s one of my convictions. Say, well, Lord, why haven’t you brought it? Because, Kevin, beware of what you pray for.
You know, I come out here on Sunday night and you guys energize me, but I drag out here after Sunday morning. I go home half the time. I fall asleep. I wake up at 04:00, halfway to my drive to Poulsboro. I’m going, oh, Lord, I don’t want to fall asleep. I don’t want to fall asleep.
I’m tired. I’m whooped. And then I pray for revival. What do I think revival means? More meetings doesn’t mean less work. Doesn’t mean less work means more work. Well, I need muscle to do that when I pray.
Now, when I pray for revival, I pray for the wisdom, humility, endurance, courage, faith, hope, and love to live in the midst of it. Sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayer because we don’t have the muscle to carry the answer to our prayer.
And so we have to pray for a long time in the waiting to develop the capacity, the humility, the grace to hold the answer. Sometimes the breakthrough will destroy us if we’re not ready for the breakthrough.
I remember when I was praying for the little Methodist church I pastored in California and I was reading Jack Deere’s book, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. In that book, Jack Deere talks about his transition from being a cessationist to being a charismatic and believing in signs, wonders, and miracles.
It’s such an inspiring book, and I’m praying for it. And he’s talking about healings, deliverances, and prophecies. And I’m saying, Lord, I’m just so hungry for this, and I’m hungry for this in the church.
It was actually a day when all the power was out in California, and I was reading just by the light of the window. I got so stirred up, I went into the sanctuary, and the sanctuary was completely dark. There was no power on.
And I went into the sanctuary, and I got down on my knees and I said, Lord, pour out your power on this church. Pour out your power on me.
And I heard the voice of God, and it was, they’re not ready. you’re not ready. If I answered your prayer, it would do more harm than good.
How could God’s spirit being poured out do more harm than good? Well, there’s things your kids aren’t ready for, right? When they’re young, they’re good things, but they’re not ready for them. They have to grow into those things.
And so I heard the Lord say that they’re not ready. And so this was my next prayer. The minute I heard God say that, I said, Lord, the instant we’re ready, pour out your power. And the instant power got out of my mouth, or I think I said, Lord, then do it when we’re ready.
Yeah. The minute that. Why? Finished. The minute we’re, boom, all the lights came on and the power came on in the building. Now, come on. Come on. That’s a sign. You don’t got to be too charismatic to buy that.
If you don’t believe that, you don’t even believe in Jesus, man. That’s a sign.
Lord, when we’re ready, boom, God’s saying, Kevin, I’m so eager to answer your prayer. The very second these people are ready for my spirit to be poured out, I’m coming. But you gotta wait, and you gotta grow, and you gotta develop to be able to carry the blessing that I’m going to give you.
Though there’s no blossom on the fig trees, though the barns are empty, yet I will praise you.
And the result, we learn to discover that in the midst of those times, God is our strength, and he then is the one who lifts us to new heights. We don’t have to climb there ourselves.
Dear ones, I have. When I was a young pastor, I took all the courses on church growth, how to make churches grow. And it was funny. Here’s what all the courses did. They all gave lip service to prayer and the power of God.
They said, well, if you really want your church to be vital, you need to pray and seek the Lord. Great.
And then for the next two days, they would give us seminars on how many parking spaces to have. And you know, how you’re not. Back then, we didn’t have web pages, but what your advertisements should look like. And, you know, it was all demographics and who should you target? And here’s how you target them.
Here’s how you should dress as a pastor, and here’s how the song should be sung, and here’s how your chairs should be arranged. And here’s, you know, and it was all, and I would just gobble that stuff up. Then I just went 180 the other direction, and obviously it’s working.
I just thought, you know, I don’t want people to come to the firehouse church because we got the best looking bumper stickers that say, follow me to the firehouse church.
And people say, I tried to come to Paulsbo, but you didn’t even have any signs out. I go, I know we should probably have signs out, but it’s like, I don’t even care. I care that people come. I want them to be here. But it’s like just invite them and drag them in. Show them. Here’s the door. Come this way. It’ll be the same door next week. You don’t need a sign.
And I’m sure I’ve overreacted, but I remember a story by John Wimber of the Vineyard Ministry.
And John Wimber had a dramatic conversion of the Lord and was an on-fire evangelist. Then he just got caught up in the whole church growth movement. He became a church growth consultant and one of those experts on how many parking spaces to have, what songs to sing, and how long your service should be, yada, yada, yada.
He was just getting burnt out, going all over the country. His marriage was in crisis, his health was in crisis, and he finally cried out to the Lord.
He said, Lord, I can’t do this anymore. And this is what the Lord spoke to Wimber, and he didn’t even believe in the voice of God at that time. But He spoke to him. He said, John, I’ve seen your ministry. And Wimber says there was no condemnation in that, but I had the sense He wasn’t impressed.
And then He said these words, and man, I love these words and I live by these words. He said to Wimber, He said, for the rest of your life, would you like to see Mine?
Dear ones, I want to see God do something. I don’t want it to happen because we’re clever now. I don’t want it not to happen because we’re lazy. But I don’t want to see it happen because we’re clever.
I want to see something that’s like, you know what? That didn’t happen because we knew how many parking spaces to have or because we had the snazziest sign or the best website.
You know, with all the websites that are out there and all the things that try to attract people, do you know, it has not changed one iota?
The number one reason people come to church is because they were invited by a family member or a friend. 90%. That number hasn’t changed. It’s always 90%. It’s always, you know, it’s never like, oh, I saw it on YouTube, or, you know, in the old days. Oh, I saw it.
You know, we used to spend so much time trying to figure out how big and what our advertisement would look like. Here’s one for you folks my age: in the Yellow Pages, what our Yellow Page ad would look like. Anybody remember that?
You ever find a church in the Yellow Pages? It’s a phone book. It had advertisement pages. Stone age men and women would look at it in their caves with fire, going, why, they’re roasting a dinosaur bone over the flame. We would do. We would. And you know what?
Back then, you’d ask people, how did you come to this church? Oh, the yellow pages. 10%. How’d you come to this church? Word of mouth. Word of mouth. That’s what does it.
I want to see revival, and I want to see it organic, and I want to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And I want to be able to say, I want to write a book one day called Insanity.
Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
I want to worship Jesus authentically, love people. Well, preach the gospel with faithfulness and watch. Watch the thing explode. And then one day, I’ll write a book and say, yeah, we tried this for 17 years, and we had a dozen wonderful, faithful people showing up. And now we have seven services, and I’m going, why did I pray for this? I’m so tired. Because it’s in the praying.
It’s in the waiting that you develop the muscle, the wisdom, and the grace to carry the answer.
So, dear ones, praise God in the good times. But when you don’t see the answers and you don’t know what’s happening, lift your hands and say, yet I will praise you and join the prophet Habakkuk, who also said, I see the day when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Lord, I don’t know when that day is coming, but I’d like to see the day when the glory of the Lord covers Kitsap County like the waters cover the sea.
And so, Lord, if it be thy will, in my lifetime, I not only want to see that, but I want to plan it. And so in your.
In your righteous anger at our sin and our denial of you as a culture, God, I plead to you with the people in this room and the good people who call on your name throughout this county and throughout this land. I plead for you for mercy.
And you would send a great awakening that would be the deepest and most significant awakening this nation ever lasted or ever experienced. And it would last through the lifetime of my grandchildren, Lord. And it would bring a deep cultural reformation, and we’d go, man.
I didn’t believe that could happen, but America actually changed. I pray it in Jesus’ name, and I pray we get to be a part of it, get to be right in the middle of it, and we’ll praise you in the waiting. And God’s people said, Amen. Amen.
On the night that he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, this is my body which is given for you.
And in the same way, after supper, he took the cup. He poured it out, gave thanks to his father in heaven, and said, this is my blood which is shed for you. And for many, it’s the blood of the new covenant for forgiveness of sins.
Dear ones, take this meal and be thankful. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. your sins are forgiven, and this is food for the journey. All right? This is more nourishing than Eminem casserole. It is better for you.
So, dear ones, take and eat and be strengthened for the journey.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
