I want to open with the scripture I also shared last
week. It says to everything there is a
season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, and a time
to pluck up what has been planted.
And today we're going to talk in our opening scripture about the
cycles of life. I've been sharing a lot of
historical information these last couple weeks, both on
Wednesday and also Sunday. As you know, I believe with all
my heart that the scriptures say without a vision the people
perish. So I Mount Zion.
We've always been a people that have followed a vision that God
has given to us. And yet I know with everything
within me, this is a transitional time.
It's not just a transitional time in the earth, it's a
transitional time in the body of Christ because I believe God is
doing something new, something fresh and something powerful in
the world. It's also a time of generational
change. And so I wanted to talk about
this, Tate. And I've been seeking the Lord
because I'm like, OK, God, I know what you have spoken so
far. Give me an enlargement in my
understanding so that I can help prepare this next generation as
it's moving forward. Because I believe that we have a
great future as a local church. We have a great future in God
because we have the God who holds the future.
Amen. That's why I like this scripture
because it says with God for everything there is a season and
there is a time for every purpose under the heavens.
We have a God of purpose and He has created us as people of
purpose. That's why we should
contemplate, well, what exactly is our purpose?
You will never know a satisfied life unless it's a life of
purpose. That's one of the things I've
learned over the years of being a minister, especially when I do
funerals. Oftentimes when you talk to
people, when someone has passed away, you can tell as they're
talking, they're wanting to know, well, this person did
serve a purpose or this was their purposes.
This what's they did in our life because there's something
inherent in all of us that we would have purpose.
Why? Because we were created in the
image and likeness of God. If God's a God of purpose, then
we also must be people of purpose.
I love the Scripture in the book of Job where it says that
because God is God, no purpose of his can be withheld from him.
So when I go into the Scriptures and I find out God has a
purpose, I know, hey, that's going to come to pass.
And just as I know in my life, if I have a purpose that's
God-given, that purpose will come to pass Why?
Because I know about God. But it's important for us to
understand how God does what he does.
At Mount Zion, as many charismatic Pentecostal
churches, we believe that God still speaks today.
We believe in the gift of prophecy.
But I have found out that even when God speaks to you, if you
don't understand how God thinks or understand his ways, you can
misinterpret what he's saying. That's why I love this story
about Moses because it says the children of Israel knew the acts
of God, but Moses knew his ways. And when you know the way God
works, then you can have greater understanding of what he speaks
to you or really even also what he speaks to us through his
scripture. And so it's important for us to
know that. It's important to know that God
is a God of purpose and God is a God of seasons and also times.
How many know we're in a winter season slapping us in the face?
Amen. I love the change of seasons.
Course. I have my favorite season.
My wife loves this movie that she watches at Christmas season
and it talks about I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.
I'm not dreaming of a white Christmas at any time in my
life, but I know she is. So I'm OK with a short winter
season so people can have a white Christmas.
And about January 1st, I think it's time for it to start
melting. How about you?
Got excited when I was a kid first hearing about global
warming because I'm like, Michigan's going to warm up.
That's all I could think of. I know people are worried about
the polar bears or whatever. When I was a little too young to
worry about the polar bears, I read somewhere where polar bears
used to be grizzly bears, but they turned into polar bears
when they went N. So I figured, hey, they can go
back to their old way of living, get new clothes, whatever.
So I decided that I wouldn't enjoy the winter season by
finding something to do because that's what people said.
Well, if you want to enjoy the winter season, you got to find
something to do in. For me, that was my Florida
vacation. I was shocked last week because
I was looking at contemplating by winter vacation that the
height in Orlando was 45 and the low was 25.
And I'm like that's not global warming, what's going on here?
So I was rebuking that in Jesus name and believing for something
to come and it seems to be working so far.
But anyway, the reason we have different seasons is because
it's a part of the natural order.
In order for nature to function well, seasons are necessary.
Now, in tropical states, they don't have the same seasons that
we do, or they don't at least operate the same way.
But you'll always find out there is a season like the winter
season, where it's time for things to die out, and then
there's the spring for things to come back to life.
And then there's the summer, which is the growing season.
And then comes fall, which is, well, the world's falling apart
because here's winter coming. But anyway, there is this
process of change that we're going through, and every season
has a good part to it. So we have to understand about
seasons and we have to understand about times.
Even with life, as you grow and age in life, you find out that
every era or time of our life is a season.
So you have to learn what season you're in and really make the
best of that season because life is meant to be good all the way
from the beginning to the end. Damian and I believe that God
gives us the good life. And so I'm always looking for
the good life. And guess what?
I found it because when I found Jesus, I found the source of
life and I'm walking in His Word and walking in His spirit.
I've been able to continue to walk in the life of the covenant
and that's why I love my job of encouraging other people to find
out. There is a way of life that all
of us need to know, appreciate and understand.
Now it's important again for us to know about seasons because
when you understand that life is about seasons and times, you've
realized that there's a good part to ever season.
Some you like better than others, but every season has a
part that you have to sew or prepare for the next season.
And so it's important for us to understand there are cycles to
life. I put up here something I wanted
to share because you can have cycles of life or circles of
life. What are you talking about,
Pastor Lauren? Well, it's important for us to
understand that history has cycles.
This is something I learned a few years back, and I've shared
the Scripture a couple times because I think it's so
important when we look at history that we see it in the
cyclical fashion, just like we do with the seasons.
Because history is an ongoing process of change.
And what seeds are sown at one season's going to be fruit to
the next season. Now, unfortunately, as
Christians, often times the emphasis is when is this all
going to end? People get saved so they can go
to heaven. They don't want to think too
much about what they can get in between there, but there's all
kinds of good things. And when Jesus Christ left the
earth, he said, I'm coming back. And so people have been looking
for him to return. And so we again, even in
history, think about when is the ending.
But God wants us to understand about cycles of time, sowing the
proper seasonal understanding so that whenever the end comes or
whenever there's a seasonal change, we will have done what's
necessary to bring about the best future.
And I've learned that history has cycles or seasons to it, and
that's a very important thing to understand.
You might hear this from time to time.
People will debate about history, if you would.
And I heard a lot recently in the last year or so, for some
reason people are saying, well, remember, history will repeat
itself. Then I heard, I don't know where
it came from, but usually on the media, they'll pick up some kind
of theme and everybody starts talking about it.
And they said, well, history doesn't repeat itself, but it
does rhyme. Well, it it kind of is the same,
but it's not the same. Well, when I was a kid and I
fell in love with studying history, I remember a quote from
Winston Churchill where he said if you don't learn from history,
you are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
So I always thought that the reason I want to know about
history is so that when you make a mistake, you don't make the
mistake over again. That's what civilization often
does. That's what people often do.
And God's saying to us as a people, you know, you need to
recognize that history does not have to repeat itself.
Now, what does repeat itself? And This is why it's good to
think about the seasons because the seasons repeat themselves.
There are good times and there are bad times.
And I'll just say there's in between times, if you would,
because that's the way life is. And we can be sure whether we're
in economics or whether we're studying politics or whatever,
there's going to be seasons. There are going to be times, and
those seasons will repeat themselves.
But again, history itself doesn't repeat because you can
make choices that will change your future.
Can I hear her name, men, on that?
When you give your life to the Lord, how many you know you've
made a choice about your eternal life.
And every time you come to church, hear the word of the
Lord, go to the table of the Lord, you have an opportunity to
make a choice about your now life.
And the more you're willing to adjust your life to God, the
more you're going to experience the blessings that God has for
each and every one of us. Now last week I also shared this
scripture. It says, but know this, that in
the last days, perilous times will come.
For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,
boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanders without
self-control, brutal despisers of good traitors, headstrong
hottie, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having
a form of godliness be denying his power from such a people
turn away. I put over this the last days
because that's what he's talking about here.
But again, so oftentimes because think people think in terms of
the last days is right before Jesus returns.
Whenever you read a scripture like that, you think it's only
about when Jesus is getting ready to return.
But again, if you look at history as cycles and seasons,
you'll understand the through history.
There's a lot of times what Timothy or Peter or Jesus talk
about concerning the last days. They've been true many times
through history because there's been cycles of history and
things get bad. But then calamity often times
will come, or judgment will come, or mad behave, bad
behaviors come to their fullness, and then it's time to
have an opportunity for something fresh in life.
And so This is why it's important for us to understand
that we should not just read a scripture like that and think in
terms of the end of time or the end of our life, but perhaps an
end of a cycle, But also to notice what it says here about
the power of godliness. That word literally means to
live a godly life. How do I live a godly life?
Will I study the scriptures? And I live according to the
word. If you want to have power in
your life, you got to live according to the Word.
As a charismatic Pentecostal Christian, I believe that
there's power after that. The Holy Ghost has come, and I
believe that through the many spiritual gifts that God gives
to us, there's added power to that.
But the foundation is the Scripture.
You got to start with that or none of the rest is going to
really add to anything. But as you build on the Word and
begin to walk farther in God, the more you do so, you're going
to find out you're going to lose the power of God in your life.
And that's why I love to talk about the church and our place,
because we have responsibility to change the world in which we
live. And that's why I've been talking
about the great awakenings in our country, because the Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the history of the
United States of America has been very vital in influencing
our world, both as salt and life to produce change.
And I don't know about you, but I want to continue to be that
influence. And the reason I do is not just
about my country, but it's about my children, it's about my
grandchildren, it's about the future.
We need to make that proper commitment.
Now in Revelation chapter 19. This is basically the sum of the
matter for God. I heard, as it were, the voice
of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, as the
sound of mighty Thunder, and saying Hallelujah for the Lord
God omnipotent ranked. Let us be glad and rejoice, Give
Him glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has
come. Why, well, his wife has made
herself ready, and to her it was granted be a raid.
And fine linen, clean and bright for the fine linen.
It is the righteous acts of the Saints.
Now the reason I put up here, the final chapter, because
people often talk about Jesus coming and they'll use the
scriptures that I mentioned earlier, ones like that.
So they're looking for the times of the end and often times
speculating about the Antichrist, the beast, many,
many different things. But these scriptures tell us
what the end is going to be like, because this is John
getting the revelation and #1 he understood that the Lord God,
omnipotent reigns. What does that mean?
It means that God is all powerful.
I mean, when you really believe that with everything within your
heart, it changes how you look at life.
It changes how you look at history.
That's why I can always go in history and I can see the God
part. And if I don't, I go and I pray
and say, Lord, I want to see the God part here.
And that's something I'll be talking about today is I have
done that. I know that God has given me
some understanding about some things so that I can walk with
more wisdom and understanding than the time in which I live.
But because I know that the Lord is all ruling in all powerful, I
never feel that the world is out of control.
My life is out of control. I need to just always sit back
and say, OK God, what is it that you're doing?
Because I know you're doing something.
And I know that he loves us. I know that he cares about us.
And I know that some way, somehow, all things work
together for good to those who love God and are called
according to His purpose. Now, I do preach something
that's very important, and that is, as a church, we want to
become everything that God has called us to be.
Well, that's so important because the end of the age is
when the Bride has made herself ready.
So how do you know? We need to know what that means.
Lord, we the church are your bride.
We want to get ready. What is it that you want us to
do? Now, I found out over the years
of ministry, all kinds of people have ideas about what we should
be doing, but we need to find out what the Word of God says we
should be doing. Amen, church.
And so the end of time comes when God says, OK, the bride has
made herself ready. Now this is important because I
mean, you know that you can only be saved because of the blood of
Jesus Christ. You cannot experience life
because of the power of the Almighty God.
But we also must understand that God is calling us to mature.
So there comes a point where we say, well, Lord, what can I do
to make myself ready? What can I do?
Just like when we have our baby dedications as parents, we
should be saying, well, what can I do so that my kids can have
the best life? What can I do?
So they they find the Lord because in the end, that's what
matters most. Amen.
And so we need to be looking at life and every aspect of it and
saying, Lord, what can I do to be ready to give glory and honor
and praise to your name? Now, having said that, I want to
make an important point here about something concerning the
Kingdom of God. It says again, the Kingdom of
heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and
gathered some of every kind, which when it was full they drew
to the shore, and they sat down and gathered the good into
vessels, but threw the bad away. So we'll be at the end of the
age. The angels will come forth,
separate the wicked from among the just, and cast out into the
furnace of fire. There will be wailing and
gnashing of tea. And so it's so important for us
to understand this very important principle.
And that is when God does something just like harvest, he
says it's just like a fisherman. And he's describing the
fisherman of his time because they would go out into the lake,
go out into the sea, whatever. And the best way to get the most
fish is, well, they'd have what was called a dragnet that throw
the net out into the water and they would drag it and then they
would try to get it full as they could.
And then they were bringing another boat.
The more the merrier. But as they put the dragnet of
fish in the boat, they obviously had to go through it because, I
mean, you know, sometimes you're not going to just catch fish.
You might catch garbage. You might catch fish that you
don't want or some kind of creature that you're like, I
don't even want to touch that thing.
So what do you do? You go through that sorting
process, if you would. Now Jesus said that's the way
the Kingdom of God is. God goes through a sorting
process in our lives. He does a sorting process
because as a part of him bringing you to maturity and
helping you in life, how many know there's some things He's
going to do from time to time to help you get better at what He
wants you to do. And so God works in our life,
and sometimes there's a pruning process that's involved.
And even as it pertains to the Kingdom of God, if you're a
Christian, any length of time, you know that not everybody that
starts, ends. A lot of times people will start
and before you know it, you don't see them anymore.
Why? Well, they didn't make the
commitment that was necessary. And God says my people need to
be committed. And so when we understand how
this works, there is a starting process all the time and we have
to unfortunately watch that because I hate it when somebody
has a good experience with the Lord, but then they give up
along the way. I remember years ago as they had
what was called the Church Growth movement, they said
churches need to understand how to close the back door because
people are coming in the front door and leaving out the back
door. Well, there is a place for
understanding. You need to help people the best
you can, but you also have to understand that not everybody's
going to stay and most of them aren't going to sneak out the
back door. They usually go out the front
door yelling and screaming or whatever.
There's going to be problems perhaps along the way, but you
have to understand this sorting processes all, all kind of
necessary and often times can seem in our mind busy, messy,
But sometimes these things have to happen in order for the best
to come. And so this sorting process is a
part of God's process in order to bring forth the best of what
he's building. Because God is into not just
quantity. How do you know he's in
equality? And this is one of the things
God wants to change concerning the mindset of so many
Christians. Because God says, I want to have
the right quality. I want a bride that's going to
make herself ready. I wanted people that say, wait a
minute, I'm a child of God, but I want to be a son of the most
high God. I want to be led by the Spirit.
And so we have to open up ourselves to do these things.
And that's our goal as a local church, to do these things that
we might fulfill the purposes of God.
Now having said that, I want to share this scripture again, a
part of last week's, but I'm going at a different angle with
all these. That's why it's necessary to
repeat them. Therefore he says, awake you who
sleep arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but
as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the
Lord is. Now for a few weeks now, and
both Wednesday and Sundays, like I said, I'm talking, talked
about the awakening. Why?
Well, because America was birthed with a great awakening
in the 1700s. Preachers came here and told
people you must be born again and formed a framework and a
spiritual foundation for our country.
That was awesome. And then from there there was a
second great awakening where people were learning about the
power of godliness. Now it's important to have a
Christian life as a part of this.
And after that came the what was called the holiness and
Pentecostal movement. That was the third awakening.
And today I want to talk about what some call the 4th awakening
and the reason I say some because there's some debate
about it and I'll explain why. And that is simply this.
As I mentioned before, awakenings are the church allows
something to happen in the the church that's so powerful it
impacts our society. Now it's important to understand
when it says we need to awaken ourselves because that means
sometimes we just get a little on the lazy side.
Sometimes we start falling asleep because that's what it
says. Wake yourself up, you who sleep,
because sometimes we just kind of settle into life and get into
our spiritual napping. If you would thus sayeth the
Lord. It's time to awaken yourself,
says the mighty God. Amen.
This is a time for a fresh awakening.
This is a time for us to open up ourselves to God as never
before. Not only do we need to awaken
ourselves, but we need to walk in the full wisdom that God has
given us for this time. And that's why I'm seeking the
Lord the way I am at this time, because I believe it's so
vitally important that we tune ourself into God.
Because these are, like the one scripture said, perilous times.
These are times when we need to be very aware what's going on.
Because if we don't, we'll respond emotionally.
We'll respond to how we feel about the situation, and we have
to understand that we've got to walk in the wisdom of God in
order for us to navigate the times in which we live.
And also we need to walk with understanding.
And this is such a vital time because I believe we can walk
with understanding in the things that God has for us.
Now one of the reasons I was mentioning how this is a time of
a new awakening, but looking back, what was the other
awakening was their 4th awakening.
And what they were talking about is something that happened in
the 1960s. I was born in 1954, so the 60s
were the time when I had my growing up years going to
school. And as I shared last weekend
many times before, I was very involved in current events and
history from a very early age. So I have a lot of understanding
about what happened in the secular world as well as the
church, even beyond my years. And when I look back, it was an
amazing time in the Lord in the 1960s we had which was called
the charismatic movement. And what happened is just like
the Bible says that God will pour out a spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophecy, your
old men will during dreams, for I will pour out my spirit upon
all flesh. And that was the theme of the
1960s. And Alloy was God pouring out
His Spirit in churches that were Pentecostal and charismatic, but
he also was pouring out his Spirit on churches that did not
believe in these things. Am I supposed to keep going or
what? Because it's so important for us
to understand God is the God of all the earth.
Amen, Church, Amen. And as we walk with God, we have
to understand that sometimes as God is working, he does things
that are strange to us. And when the Spirit of the Lord
began to be poured out upon all flesh, people were getting
filled with the Holy Spirit that in our circle, we didn't even
believe they were saved. We grew up and believed there
was a certain way to get saved. And when all of a sudden we're
finding out that the Lutherans are getting filled with the
Spirit and the Catholics are getting filled with the Spirit,
we're like, how can they get filled with the Spirit?
They're not even saved. How we know God had a different
mindset than we did, Amen. Thank you, Jesus, that you don't
think the way we do. But anyway, that was the times
in which we live. It was a great move of God.
And through the charismatic movement, they say that
literally 500 million people have been baptized in the Holy
Spirit. How we know that's an amazing
thing, Amen. Now, in 1968 or so, there was
what was called the Jesus People movement.
It was a counterculture to the counterculture.
When I was growing up in the 60s, there was a counterculture
movement which the people in it we called hippies at the time,
and they were against the culture of their parents and
they were involved in all kinds of demonstrations.
We had a war at the time. They were against the war,
against all the different institutions.
But God had a solution to that. He started the Jesus People
Movement. And again, it was, it's the same
kind of a thing because hippies start getting saved, hippies
start getting filled with the Holy Spirit.
And a lot of people didn't even want to let them come to church
because they're like, you can't come to church looking like
that. They had a style all their own.
Sometimes that style meant don't take a bath, don't use deodorant
kind of thing. So it wasn't just how they
looked, it was how they smelled perhaps as well.
But when people were open to what God was doing, there was a
great move of God. And I was raised in church, so
it wasn't that I found the Lord and the Jesus People movement.
But it was at that time, at age 17, I received the baptism of
the Holy Spirit and began to operate in the gifts of the
Spirit and was getting ready for the move that God had for me and
being trained for the ministry. And so it was this very awesome
time that God was doing amazing things in the earth.
There was also a revitalization in that time when people began
to say we need to do something about our government.
People get involved in politics. People got involved in all kinds
of social issues. Now, the reason that this is
significant is, as I mentioned, in An Awakening, it isn't just
that people get made alive by the power of God, but they have
an impact on the world. And when I look back, I'm like,
Lauren, it doesn't seem like I could call this an awakening
myself because it doesn't seem like we have that much of an
impact on our world. And that's when the Lord began
to speak to me because I'm like, Lord, how should I explain this
or what should I see? Having again, grown up in the
1960s, as I mentioned last week, you go to public schools, they
enforce Christian concepts and understanding and practice
because we were pretty much what you'd call a Christian society
at the time. And most people, because society
was Christian, everybody else was pretty much Christian as
well. So when I was growing up, if you
asked somebody, are you a Christian, almost everybody say
yes. Do you go to church?
Almost everybody would say yes. Did they go to church?
Not all the time, but everybody had A tag they could wear.
And everybody talked about going to church and they had some kind
of experience that they could relate to and say, well, I'm a
Presbyterian, I'm a Methodist, I'm a Baptist, I'm a
Pentecostal. And so we could talk about these
things. But as I look back and I began
to realize that even though we officially had this religious
culture, if you would, I remember one day thinking about
when I was a kid and people were talking about, yeah, that that
was so great when you were a kid, how everybody was a
Christian. I'm like, I didn't know any
Christians when I was a kid. Of course, my definition of
Christian was a little more narrow than it is today.
However, it was true that most of the young people were real,
just living like everybody else, as far as I could tell.
And as I look back at that, of course, there is a process when
even people have raised in the church, they go through
different phases of their life where perhaps they're not
exactly practicing what they preach.
But it is also true that there was a whole lot of people who
had just societal Christianity, but not the real thing.
And because of that, there was a big change that occurred in our
world. And I want to share some
information with you that I think is a very relevant When I
was a kid in the 60s, most people were what you call a
mainline Protestant. Mainline Protestant church
attendance, however, has experienced A profound long term
decline since the 1960s, dropping from majority of
Christian adults to only about 11 to 15% in the 19.
In the 2000 twenties, average weekly attendance has fallen
significantly with some denominations losing up to 50%
of the members in just two decades.
Now I want you to see this information because it's very
important. Some of the denominational
declines, and this is just since the year 2000.
If you go back to the 60s as it was reported, 50% of the people
were mainline Christians at the time.
Now it's more in the neighborhood of 11 to 12%.
So back since that time, since the 2000 year marker here, the
Presbyterian Church has declined 50% in attendance, United Church
of Christ 43 percent, Episcopal Church 32 to 36%, United
Methodist Church 24 to 31, Evangelical Lutheran Church 38
to 41. Now, the reason I wanted to
mention all these is because number one, a lot of people
won't even know these, the denominations were around that
much because most people do not attend these kinds of churches
anymore. But in the 60s, they were
mainline because if you were Protestant, 50% of the people
would have said they belong to one of these mainline churches.
About 35% of Americans would say they were Catholic.
And in between there were the Pentecostal full Gospel of
Baptist groups of people and other French groups as well.
But the important thing to note is since the 60s, there's been a
whole change in the church environment.
Now some secularists when they see information like this and
they will say, look at America used to be very religious and
very Christian, but there's a great decline.
And they'll say there's a larger number of people that are non
affiliated. There's a larger number of
people that don't really believe in God anymore.
And so they're wanting you to think that we're becoming more
and more secular along the way. But actually something it
happened that they don't always take note of for sure and don't
quite understand is that when God began to pour out his Spirit
upon all flesh, what happened is people were awakened.
They were making some choices along the way.
And that was, wait a second, where can I go to be fed?
Where can I go to experience something that I've experienced
in the Lord and actually build upon it?
Now, this is a very important observation because many of what
we call the main light churches, if you were to talk to their
leaders today, you would find out they're not too much in the
Bible anymore. Oftentimes social issues are
much more important than leading people the Lord.
They don't talk much about being born again.
They don't talk much about the need to live a Christian life or
that godliness I was talking about earlier where it says some
have a form of godliness, but they deny the power of living a
godly life. Well, unfortunately, that's what
happened to all of these particular denominations.
That's why the Bible says the Kingdom of God sometimes
involves some sorting, if you would, because sometimes an
organization can even start out very dynamic, as many of these
were in time. But in time, they also began to
move away from the things that they were originally birthed in.
And unfortunately, this change affected the fiber of American
Society and the pandemic added to that.
That's why I've shared since the time of COVID 2020 that God said
this is a marker, if you would, where there's going to be big
changes that are just from this. And the what the pandemic did is
it actually accelerated the decline of churches that were
not flowing in the things that God had.
And the most visible losses were in the United Methodist Church,
which literally experienced total schism with 62125
conservative congregations leaving the denomination.
Why did they do that? Why?
Because many of the denominational leaders had
decided, well, we don't need to live according to the Bible.
And again, they're becoming more humanistic in their approach,
humanistic as far as secular humanist versus truly humanist,
which God is a humanist because God loves people.
Can you say Amen to that? But God also loves us enough to
tell us we should live the way he wants us to live because
that's why he created us. Amen.
And so it's vital for us to understand that.
Well, again, as I was praying and saying, now, Lord, what
about the 60s seventy? What about my generation, which
would call the baby boomer generation?
And one day I just was looking at these statistics and Lord
says this is what your generation did.
Through my generation, the baby mover generation it was called,
they were very anti institutions that were not living up to the
purpose for which they were created.
And in the beginning, a lot of that was being anti government
and anti against the establishment of the government,
if you would. But when the Lord began to move
upon them as well, they did the same thing in the churches that
they were part of. Because when they went to church
and they found the Lord, they're like, I'm not going to stay in
this church if you're not going to preach the Bible.
I'm not going to stay in this church if you're not going to
teach me how to walk in the things that God has for me.
And so there was a breakdown of the former way of doing things
into a new move of God, which today the number or percentage
of people that go to church is the same as it was in the 1960s.
The only difference is there's been a whole lot of shaking
going on. There's what we have seen that
there. Well, it's just not the way it
used to be. And now something totally new is
transpiring because there was what I'll call the switcheroo
awakening, which is people like, OK, if this isn't going to give
me what I want in God, this is what I'm going to go and look
for. And so the Lord said to me, he
said, no, Your generation were the ones who understood what it
meant to be called out. And because they were called
out, they left what was established and have started new
things, says the Lord. But this is now the time for the
generational change and to celebrate what was there and
understand what is next. It says, and you are a what?
Chosen generation, A royal priesthood, a holy nation, his
own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who
called you at a darkness into his marvelous light, who once
were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not
obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Now put over this the new day. And he said, you're a chosen
generation. Every generation is chosen.
Now the word there means seed. So we, the people of God, how
many know you've been chosen of God?
But we also have to understand that every generation has been
chosen for something. And So what my generation did
naturally when God poured out His spirit, they did it for him
because he began, they began to demand of the institutions and
organizations, well, let's do this the way we're supposed to
do this. And that's why they brought
revolutionary change once they found the Lord.
Now the Lord says that was a generation that was chosen with
a very specific purpose, says the mighty God.
But now that you understand that you are chosen generation, you
need to understand there's an impartation to the next
generation. But it starts with
understanding. We are first of all a people
that have been called out of something.
Now I'm sharing this in a prophetic mode if you would,
because I believe that God said that we may need to make the
announcement that everyone of us need to know that God has called
us out of something. Can I hear an Amen on that?
Some are here today. I've never yet committed
yourself to the Lord. God says it's time to come out
of the world and come after me, says the mighty God.
For some, it's I've been living a certain way and doing a
certain thing and now you're hearing the voice of God and God
said it's time for you to come out, says the mighty God.
It's time for you to come out of your way and go God's way.
And there is a generational change right now.
And so there's a special call to the younger generation to
realize that there's something that your generation has to add
that the other generation could not add.
But God is building line upon line and precept upon precept.
Amen. Amen.
So once you realize that you've been called out, you need to
come to Him as a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but
chosen by God and precious for you also as living stones are
being built of a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to
OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ. Therefore it is a contained in
the Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief
cornerstone who is elect and who is precious, and he who believes
on Him will by no means be put to shame.
Now God says, not only do I want you to come out of something,
but it's time for you to start coming into something, says the
Lord, to realize that you've been chosen and you've been
chosen for a purpose. You've been chosen to experience
something in the Lord. You've been chosen to become
alive so that God can now begin to build this new habitation.
So when I was looking at the past, I knew God had moved in a
powerful way, but I thought he had to do certain things in
order for it to come under the heading of an awakening.
Lord says no, you need to look and recognize sometimes I'm
doing what you don't expect me to do, but I'm always at work,
says the Lord. And I did something in your
generation to bring a people out, and now I'm looking for the
next generation who will know who they are, the chosen ones of
God. Can we help our heads?
This is Pastor Lauren Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.
We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect
with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and
following us on social media. God bless you.