Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into the word real quick here.
We got 1/2 hour and we're going to pray that God will make the
sun stand still like He did for Joshua.
Turn with me to revelate. I'm not revelation.
Where am I? Hebrews Hebrews 12 Hebrews 12
verse 18 we are looking at we've been, we've been looking at
Revelation 3-4 and five. The Book of Revelation is
apocalyptic literature. There's a long tradition of
Hebrew literature known as apocalyptic literature.
It is records of people's encounters, these prophetic
encounters, whether dreams or visions.
And so just like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John was taken
up into this encounter and he recorded it for you and I.
And so we've been looking at that in chapter 5, John is
pulled into the throne room. It's the epicenter, the
governmental seat of the universe, and he's allowed
access to the throne. And to be an influence on the
throne, this is heavy, man. We need to realize that God
wants your influence. He wants your voice.
And so there's this, this encounter that John has and
John's tears actually result in the the scroll being open in
God's operation being released on the earth.
And so they were singing, we sang the song this morning.
Is anyone worthy? I believe that that that song is
the anthem of the hour. I really do.
It's the anthem of this house for this hour.
And I believe it's it's wider than that.
It's a fairly new song. And the reason it was written is
because it's the now of God. God wants to teach his people to
ascend the hill of the Lord. And so John is in Revelation 5
and he looks and the the the one who sits on the throne has a
scroll with 7 seals and he recognizes the importance of
this thing. It is the answer to what is
happening on the earth. It's what God wants to release,
to turn things around. It's the judgments of God, but
it's the judgments of God against the opposition to his
purposes. For the believer, the judgments
of God are good things. Proverbs says the judgments of
God are pure, so God longs to release them.
But there was no one found worthy.
And John began to weep, and his tears released something.
It was then that the lamb stepped forward.
The elder stepped up and said, Hey, don't worry, the lion of
the tribe of Judah hath triumphed.
And when he said that he looks and the crowd parts and in
rather than a lion, he saw a lamb as though it had been
slain. And it was the lamb that was
able. But it was his tears that
activated that. God, you have a role to play in
God's government on the earth. And I know a lot of people act
like God's just going to do things.
And we sat idly by and watch as as though we're just spectators,
but we're not. We are participants.
That same passage, we were just singing it this morning.
It said he has made us a we have made us kings, kings and priests
to our God. It's all in that passage.
In other words, we are priests, we are go betweens before God.
We represent man and before man we represent God.
That is our role. We we are to be possessed by our
Creator and therefore be able to represent Him properly, but
before God. We represent humanity in
intercession, but we're also kings.
We bear authority to see things happen on the earth.
God delegated the earth to man, and he will not govern without
you. It's not that he can, it's he
won't. He will not violate the system
he himself created. God delegated the earth to man,
and he's looking to you to invite his intervention.
The theology of prayer can be summed up in this short
sentence. Divine intervention only by
human invitation. And that human invitation isn't
is called prayer, it's called intercession.
We invite him. And so it's not a coincidence
that that begins to happen in the midst of a prayer meeting
around, I mean, a praise, a worship set around the throne.
And so we've been talking about this last week, we talked about
how God has made us spirit, soul and body.
We are out of all creation. Mankind are the only ones who
have the equipment to deal in the spiritual realm and in the
physical realm simultaneously, we have a body.
But as born again believers, we also have a born again spirit.
God has imparted life to our human spirit.
That's what being born again means.
Our spirit came back to life. God created us with a spirit to
commune with him. It died in the fall when when
God warned Adam and Eve, he said to the day you eat of it, you
shall surely die. Their spiritual death was an
event and their physical death is a process.
And the older I get, the more I realize that's still at play
here. But in through the born again
experience, God energizes our spirit.
He weds himself to our spirit. First Corinthians 6 says he who
has joined himself to the Spirit has become one with them in
spirit. The Spirit of God lives within
you as a believer. But he's not just residing until
we get there. He wants to be active and so we
talked about how we need to grow up in the faith.
We're not merely born ones. The Greek word is Tecnon.
We are children of God. Tecnon born ones, but we're in
the process of becoming sons of God.
It's an entirely different Greek word and an entirely different
meaning. It means mature ones who have
been released authority to use the household name and, and, and
operate in the marketplace. And so you and I are called
Jesus didn't say go into all the world and make converts.
He said go into all the world and make disciples, grow them up
so they can represent the Father.
And so all of this is very, very important.
So I want to continue in this vein.
We're we'll probably swing back around and get into Revelation a
little later, but I want to continue in this vein from a
little different angle. We were talking last week about
developing our spiritual senses. And I know I'm at risk of
sounding really mystical up here when I talk like that, but this
is in the Bible. We've got to preach what the
Bible says. The danger is we talked last
week about Jacob, Remember where Jacob goes to a place called
Zlaz. He has a dream, he wakes up and
the first thing out of his mouth was this.
God was here and I didn't know it.
You know, that is the tragic state of many a believer.
They're walking around totally unaware of the spiritual reality
that surrounds them. They don't know their
inheritance. They don't know what's going on
around them. They are only locked into the
physical realm. And so all they can do is tinker
with earthbound realities when in actuality, God has given them
the equipment to move things in the spiritual realm that will
show up in the physical realm. And so we need to have our eyes
opened. We need to say, God, open my
spiritual eyes, open my spiritual ears.
Scripture talks about our spiritual eyesight being opened,
tuning our ear to hear. So we have spiritual senses that
need to be activated because there are things going on around
us we need to be aware of. It's like during worship,
something opened up and all of a sudden it was ripe.
God was calling people to himself.
But did you notice Jesus didn't show up and say, come to the
altar and get saved? He has to work through people.
And the only way we can cooperate if we can hear and see
and cooperate with him. And that's not just for pastors,
that's for all of us. We're a Kingdom of priests,
every one of us. It's not that there's these,
these few that are on the payroll of heaven and then the
rest are spectators. No, we're all called to
ministry. We're all called to operate in
the spirit, to be spiritual men and women of God.
And so the, the, the God does call apostles, prophets,
advanders, pastors and teachers, but they are called to train
others for the work of ministry. They're not the, they're not the
ministers. We think of those five people,
those five offices as ministry offices.
They're not, they're equipping offices.
What we do with what they tell us is ministry.
This isn't ministry this morning.
This is equipping. What you do with it tomorrow is
ministry. So let's do ministry.
But we've got to be awakened spiritually to understand.
And so I want us to jump into Hebrews chapter 12.
Look at what it says. Verse 18.
So all through. Well, let's look, let's read.
For you have not come to what may be touched.
A blazing fire and darkness and gloom, and a Tempest, and a
sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg
that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could
not endure the order that was given.
If even a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned.
Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble
with fear, verse 22 But you have come to Mount Zion.
Pause right there. So what the writer is doing is
he's juxtaposing these two mountains in Scripture.
There was Mount Sinai and it's a clear, it's clear that that's
what the writer is talking about.
Mount Sinai was a place, it was called the mountain of God, and
they encountered God at the mountain.
And this is not an uncommon thing in the ancient world.
In the Old Testament, mountains were looked at as the meeting
places between heaven and earth. Literally, they were the high
places and people would climb the mountain and they would
disappear into the clouds. They're going up into the
heavenly places. They're going to encounter God,
and God would operate like that. You had Moses on Mount Sinai,
You had Elijah on Mount Horeb, which some scholars believe it's
another name for Mount Sinai. You had Moses, I mean Abraham on
Mount Moriah. It's a common theme through
Scripture, but there's one mountain that supersedes them
all, and it is Mount Zion. And So what the writer of
Hebrews tells us is we're not coming to Mount Sinai where we
get the law. And there's cloud descended and
peals of Thunder broke through and they heard a voice and it's
shaking. And they had to, they had to
cordon it off and said, if anybody even touches it, you
will die. And the people were terrified.
Moses was terrified. And so the people said, hey, MO,
this is too heavy. Tell you what, How about you go
up, hear what God says, and you come down and give it to a
second hand, never realizing what a tragic forfeiture of what
God intended. That was that they said we want
to get things second hand. God never intended for man to
get things second hand. He wants to put, he wants a
Kingdom of priests, not just one priest, but a whole Kingdom of
priests that are his representatives to be sent into
the world. So the writer of Hebrews
juxtaposes to say that's not what we're called to, but you
are called to Mount Zion. Now notice in the first verse,
in verse 12, he said it's not something that can be touched.
He said we're not called to this physical reality, this mountain,
but we're called to something greater.
It's Mount Zion. So what is Mount Zion?
It's both a physical reality in the Old Testament that is pulled
on into the New Testament to describe your and my experience.
So what is Mount Zion? Mount Zion was the mountain that
David conquered. It was originally, Yeah.
Salem and Melchizedek ruled from there.
Then it became Jabis, A stronghold for the Jebusites.
And then David went in and he grabbed that thing from the
Jebusites. It's a crazy story.
I wish we had time to get into it.
But David said what? This is the way we're going to
take it. We're going to go up through the
water shaft. Look it up online.
These dudes were crazy. They dove into a pool, swam down
the, I mean, they didn't have scuba gear.
They're it's dark, man. They're just going to swim their
way through the rocks and hopefully they can fit and they
come up and then they've got to climb up this well shaft and
they're in the city and the Jebusites were laughing at them.
The blind and lame could defend this city, they said to David.
And David told his boys, the one who gets goes up the water
shaft, you're made commander. So I believe it was Abner jumps
in and he goes, I mean, look it up online.
This is absolutely crazy. And not to mention that once,
once you get through the the tube, if you will, and you made
it, that gives me, I get claustrophobic just thinking
about it. And then he gets out and he's at
the bottom of this. Well, now he's got to climb up
the sides hoping that someone doesn't come and dip a bucket
and see you. I mean, you're pretty
vulnerable. You're dead.
And they take the city that way and it becomes the stronghold of
David. So Mount Zion.
And it says that Mount Zion is the envy of all the other
mountains. Now I think I mentioned this
recently. I went to Israel a couple years
ago and I remember seeing Mount Zion.
I, I've read about it. I was so fascinated by it.
I've, I've been just really ministered to by this motif of
Mount Zion. And then I saw it and I had an
internal conversation with the Lord.
I said, Lord, with all due respect, not saying you were
dishonest, but calling this the envy and even calling it a
mountain is pretty generous description.
It's like a little Knoll. It's it's not.
I mean, we have bigger mountains in Iowa and we don't we're not
known for our mountains. OK, So the only conclusion I can
come to Lord is that God doesn't have the same metrics he
measures by. And the psalmist would say all
the mountains. Remember what mountains meant.
Mountains were meeting places between heaven and earth.
There were places where men would go, and this is all over
the world. Men would go to mountains to
encounter the gods. And David says Zion is the envy
of every mountain. And you look at it, it's not the
physical structure that should encourage us because God has a
different metric by which he measures things.
It's not the size, it's the impact.
And that became what we see in Revelation 5.
The epicenter of rule of the universe was actually Mount Zion
on Earth. And now when you and I come into
God's presence, we are coming to Mount Zion.
It is, in actuality, David. And so here's a question I have
for you. I don't have time to answer it.
I'm just teasing you with it and you have to come back next week.
But what was it about David that recognized, perceived what God
wanted to do there? Why was David so fascinated with
Jabis, the Jebusite Center? David perceived something and
established something that you and I are stepping into, so much
so that Scripture actually says the throne from which King Jesus
rules from is the throne of David.
That blows my mind. It's a problem with these mics.
You can't do a mic drop. You'd have to fall over.
And I don't want to do that. But seriously, think about this.
This is an amazing thing that the God of the universe said
I've I'm so affectionate towards a human man that I'm going to
say the seat he used to sit on. I'm going to still call it that
when I sit on it. It's the throne of David, the
ability for man to touch the heart of God and for God his his
desire for relationship that he would connect himself.
And then you look at David's history, you might think God,
you know, Are you sure you want to be connected?
Yes, he was a man after God's heart.
It's an amazing thing. So the writer of Hebrews
juxtaposes over against Sinai, where you came and there was
judgement and fire and Thunder and they were terrified and
said, hey, let's get a go between.
He said, you and I don't come to that.
We have come to Mount Zion. What in the world does that
mean? Well, listen, he describes it.
He describes this dynamic that you and I are stepping into.
Look at verse 22. You have come to Mount Zion and
to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Now again he says this one can't be touched.
It's a spiritual reality that we're stepping into the heavenly
Jerusalem. And I love this two innumerable
angels and festal gathering. I'm not even exactly sure what
that means, but it sounds fun, doesn't it?
Festal gathering. See, the tragedy is that a lot,
there are a lot of believers who have never developed their
spiritual senses. They're born again, but they're
a carnal Christian. They're they operate simply out
of their own desire, their human desires.
They're still left a prisoner of what their body wants.
Oh, I'm hungry, I'm going to eat.
I want, I want this, I want that.
We just follow that and God wants to grow us up out of this.
Infancy Paul calls in First Corinthians 3 and move into
adolescence and then adulthood and adulthood is being spiritual
men and women. And what is hottest, Paul
defying that in Romans 8. They who are led by the Spirit,
they are the sons of God. They're the mature ones.
They're the ones that God releases the authority to
operate out of the family name. God's invited us into sonship.
We're born children, but we grow into being sons, and sons have
developed their spiritual perception so they realize
what's going on in the room and what the writer is telling us.
When we go into worship together, will we gather as the
church? We're not just tinkering with
earthbound realities. It's not reduced to the good mix
in the back. Sorry, Josh, it's not.
It's not reduced to that or to how good the guitarist was.
Well, you know, it helps, so we thank you.
It's not reduced to the preaching of the word.
Hallelujah, it's there is a reality we come into and he says
it right here and and what the reason I I, I'm, I'm keep
pushing on this these last number of weeks is we need to
get our minds around this. We need to renew our minds
because God wants us to do business for heaven.
When we come into this environment and we're
worshipping, there are moments where we can move things in the
earth. We can begin to appeal to heaven
and cry out to God, get marching orders that we walk out during
the week. But if we reduce this to oh, I
like that song makes me want to dance a little.
Oh, I hope, I hope he tells a good joke when he preaches and
it's not about it. We're we're stepping into a
spiritual reality. We need to discern what's going
on. So what does he say?
He says. But you have come to Mount Zion,
to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to
innumerable angels and festo gathering, to the assembly of
the first born who enrolled in heaven, into the God and to God
the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made
perfect. That's Speaking of the great
cloud of witnesses, those who have already gone before us.
We enter into the praise of heaven.
Heaven's not just sitting idly by thinking, I hope they do that
one again. They're already in worship.
We're stepping in. We're merging heaven and earth.
And to Jesus the mediator, renew covenant, the sprinkle blood,
that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them
on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who
warns from heaven. That's what I was feeling in
worship this morning. It's a serious thing to be
confronted by God. Here's my point.
When we gather, there is a dynamic that we enter into and
what God is doing is we He's inviting us to ascend the hill
of the Lord. We come to Mount Zion.
Mount Zion was the governmental seat from which David ruled all
his region. You know, when David conquered
Jerusalem, Jabis, you know how big it was.
I was shocked. It was 11 1/2 acre little walled
city. I think we got more land than
that here, 11 1/2 acres. Man, I thought it was this
glorious Kingdom and it was in the spirit, but it was pretty ho
hum from an earthly perspective. Now David extended that and he
really extended the rule of Israel under his reign, but
Jesus still rules from Mount Zion and He's inviting us into
this process. God wants you to exercise your
authority. He wants you to ask.
Ask of me, and I will give the nation's as an inheritance to
you. We got our missionaries here
this morning. Ask of me and I will give
Columbia to you. Ask of me and I will give the
Sudan to you as a gift. I will give Greece to you as a
gift. Ask of me.
Do we really believe that that is that is the result of
sonship? You look in that passage these
things God wants to bring us higher.
Give us a grid work so we can understand what goes on.
Amen. And in worship the Lord, there
are times where God will drop something in your heart and you
will go into intercession. Sometimes you hear people,
they're groaning under intercession.
That's what that is. Think, wow, that's weird.
No, that's scripture. That's the way it's supposed to
work. We move in and we begin to pray
and cry out to God. We see him and we we see him in
all his glory. And all of a sudden there's
something grips us. God, you deserve it all.
And we begin to look on earth. This has to line up with who you
are. And we begin to cry out to him.
And in those moments God begins to extend his scepter and begins
to move things in the spirit. This is no small thing.
Worship isn't because we like music.
Worship is because it's where God rules from.
And so we've got to catch this thing.
Let me shift gears just just for a second.
Here I was. This would have been, oh man,
probably 10/12/15 years ago. I don't know, I'm terrible at
time. I'll say the other day and if my
brother's here, he can tell me the date, the time of day, what
I was wearing. He's very irritating and, but so
I'll say just the other day and he'll say, dude, if it was four
years ago. Anyway, I digress, but I think
it was about 15 years ago. I was in my office and I don't
remember all that was going on. I think we had just come out of
a staff meeting, if I remember right.
But I was praying and I saw, I went into this vision and I saw
the Lord on this huge White Horse and he was intense and he
was riding fast. There was a ferocity AZ the zeal
of the Father's house was consuming him and he had this
broad sort of two edged sword and it was long.
I bet this thing was 7 feet long, but he was so massive it
didn't look as long as in his hand as it would have been mine
which would have been on the ground.
And he was, he was spinning it like a helicopter blade.
And he was tall enough in his saddle that he was putting it
around his waist. It would that would be
physically impossible for us because we'd hit our body.
But for him it looked perfectly natural.
And that blade was coming like this and it was at head level
and I knew, Oh my goodness, I've got to get down.
And I went down low as he came, and this is what he spoke to me.
And so I could tell you the date, approximate year, because
it was right after this hit the news.
Some of you will remember this. This is what he said to me.
He said Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.
Anybody know who I'm talking about?
Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.
If you look this up, you'll find that Eliot Spitzer was the
governor of New York and he had a reputation.
He had been a prosecuting attorney and he had a reputation
for being tough on white collar crime and and in fact had
dismantled a white collar prostitution ring.
It was call girls for, you know, Wall Street fellas.
And he dismounted it and prosecuted that, only to be
exposed for having frequented a high end prostitute.
And he lost his position. And I knew what the Lord was
saying. He was saying that when I come
and it was the word of the Lord, that that sword was the word of
the Lord being released in response to the prayers of the
Saints. And it released something.
And the Lord was coming in tremendous ferocity.
And I knew I've got to get down it.
It represented getting humble or I'll lose my head.
And the Lord, said Eliot Spitzer is assigned to you.
Whenever you release the word of the Lord, you must make sure
there's no internal sympathies with the thing you're releasing
the word of the Lord against. Because once the word of the
Lord is unsheathed, it will remove everything and come back
and remove you if you have internal sympathies.
And I was terrified. I just went down, down low.
And I knew the Lord didn't say this, but it was around that
same time Ted Haggard had lost his position as the president of
the, I think it was Evangelical Association, or I don't know,
you know what I'm talking about. Look it up.
And Ted Haggard had been preaching against homosexuality
and he'd been talking about how we need to hold the line on this
and and not not normalize that. And I have great compassion on
those who are are, you know, struggling with same sex
desires. But we can't normalize it.
We've got to hold the line. Only to be found out that he had
frequented it, a male prostitute, and he lost his
position. And I knew that Ted Haggard was
the example in the church, even though the Lord didn't say it.
And what he was talking about is there is there are times in the
body of Christ where God releases great authority to
change things. And I believe this song we've
been singing is indicative of a time where we've entered a time
of great authority. And we need to have the fear of
the Lord and understand that we can't just sling hash, OK?
We need to make sure that when we are releasing the word of the
Lord, we have searched our hearts.
We need to have clean hands. And a pure heart doesn't mean
you are perfect, but it means that you are repentant and you
side against your sin because we can say things and actually
cause a boomerang effect and disqualify yourself, remove
ourselves. And so it's a very serious
thing. And, and God, I believe the Lord
is wanting to release greater authority on his church.
The last move of God in the mid 90s brought great power to the
church and a revelation of the love of God.
It was called the Father's love out of the Toronto revival down
in Brownsville. It was the Father's Day
outpouring. That's not a coincidence.
It was a restoration of the Father's love.
But 30 years later, we're in need of a correction, and we
need the counterbalance of the fear of the Lord.
And whereas the last move of God brought an impartation of great
power, I did ministry before that and after.
And I'm telling you, it was a totally different deal better
afterwards. But this next move, what God
wants to do is release great authority.
And authority and power are different, and authority must be
wielded with humility and the fear of the Lord.
God is looking to and fro throughout the earth.
He's looking for bodies of people.
Can I find a group of people that I can release authority to
and begin to use them to shape affairs on the earth?
It's not about headlines. It's not about anybody knowing.
It's about God finding a people that will catch the word of the
Lord and stay there until he sees it happen.
And I believe the Lord's extending that to you and I, but
we have to have a sobriety to this thing.
I'm going to ask you to go ahead and stand
to those of you that are thinking, why is he talking
about this stuff? Just hang with us for a while.
You'll, you'll understand God's called us to be more than it's
what Kevin said this morning. He wants to take us beyond being
born again and having heaven as our destination.
He wants to use you to pull heaven to earth.
Now. There are so many needs around
us. God needs people that will pull
Heaven's influence into earth and your personal life.
Your character is the beachhead of his invasion.
If he's going to break into your circumstance, if he's going to
break into our nation, he's got to 1st break into your heart and
get things in order there. This is for all of us.
I'm not preaching at you. So Lord, we're asking God, Lord
that you would deal with us and Lord, that you would align our
hearts with you. Lord, I ask that you would put
your finger on those things that are hindering your activity in
our lives personally so you can pave the way to come
corporately. Thanks for listening to our
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