If he's given us this weapon, I want to know how to use it.
Isaiah 58 if you're looking in the ESV, the title over it is
true and false fasting. It's, it's talking about the
type of fast God doesn't honor and the type of fast God does
honor. And so you look at verse one,
cry aloud. Do not hold back.
Lift up your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their transgressions to the House of
Jacob, their sins. Isaiah's writing down what the
Lord told him. Cry aloud.
Speak this to my people. Then in verse 2, listen to how
these people, these Israelites are described.
And man, when I read this, I think, man, those are some good
peeps. They're checking off all the
boxes, yet their prayers were not heard, so he says, verse 2.
Yet they seek me and delight to know my ways.
So these are people that sought God and they delighted in God's
ways as if they were a nation. Then he says as if they were a
nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment
of God. So he's saying that they want to
know about God. It's just not showing up on the
landscape of their behavior. They want to accumulate beliefs,
but they're not. It's not changing their
behavior. And so then he says this, they
delight to draw near to God. Why?
So here's the people that sought God daily delight to know his
ways and they ask of him righteous judgments and they
delight to draw near to God. Then that sounds like some solid
believers, doesn't it? Most of us would say, man, those
are some mature believers. The problem is that they did
that as if they were a nation that did righteousness.
He's talking about actions that there was feet to their faith.
They were producing fruit, they were doing things.
So then they ask in return, the Israelites ask God, why have we
fasted and you see not why have we humbled ourselves?
And you take no knowledge of it. I don't know about you, but if
I'm going to go without food for 21 days, I want something to
happen. I want to see it's, it's got to
be more than a diet because I'm telling you, losing weight by
fasting is a really bad way to do it because you will gain it
back with a vengeance. My, my weight has been going up
incrementally over the years because you, you, when you start
eating, your body's starving. So it's going to restore it.
It's got to be more than a diet. We're, we're fasting for a
reason. There's, there's a fasting for
intimacy. When I met my wife, I lost my
appetite. I was a man in love.
My wife says, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful?
It was like that all the time. I said no, I'd be dead.
I mean, I, I couldn't think. I had her on my mind that we had
to get beyond that and get to the, the rhythm of being in love
and, you know, being productive. So there is a fasting that's
connected with intimacy. There's a fasting there.
There's different forms of fasting.
But what we are about, we're wanting to fast to see things
happen. And so he says, they said, Why
have we fasted? We see it not, you see it not.
Why have we humble ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasures, and
oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast not only to
quarrel a fast only to quarrel and fight, and to hit with
wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will
not make your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the fast that I choose? A day for a man to humble
himself? Is it to bow the head, his head
like a Reed, and spread sackcloth and actions under him?
Will you call this a fast acceptable to the Lord?
Verse 6 Is not this the fast that I chose?
And then he begins to unpack the type of fasting that he'll
honor. So this begs the question, man,
if we're going to, if we are going to skip food, how do we
make sure that our fasting is heard on high, that this makes a
difference in our life? He says, is not this the fast?
I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps
of the oak, to let the oppressed go free, to break every oak?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the
homeless poor into your house when you see the naked, to cover
them and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then now listen. If we will meet that criteria,
listen to the fruit of this. This is glorious.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your
healing shall spring up quickly. There.
There is a release of healing in fasting.
There's a dynamic in fasting that will facilitate the release
of healing, that God will begin to release greater healing.
He says your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of
the Lord shall be your rearguard.
I thought, man, I want to be around people like that.
I want them coming in the rooms I'm at where the righteousness
of God precedes them and the glory of God follows them.
Where where they go, God goes and things happen.
And this is the promise to those who meet the criteria of God's
chosen fast. Verse 9 Then you shall call and
the Lord will answer, you shall cry and he will say, here I am.
So I want to go back to a a verse here.
Look at look at verse 3. And then we're going to jump to
verse. I believe it's five.
Why have we fasted and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourself and you take no, no knowledge of it.
Behold, now the Lord's about ready to give the answer.
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and
oppress all your workers. You're immune to the plight of
others around you. You're not touched with the
feeling of others infirmities if you can fast and not be touched
by the plight of others, moved by what they're going through.
Jesus was moved with compassion. I'm telling you one of the
primary ways God releases healing is when our heart is
moved with compassion. We don't need a word.
We follow his heart. And if we feel that compassion
well up, the power of God is present to heal, but we need to
be moved. We need God has to have access
to our heart. Many of you have heard of this,
this idea of compassion fatigue. There is a place where we can
have compassion fatigue. We've tried to help others.
We poured ourself out. We're dealing with the problems
of others so much that we become calloused and we're not moved by
what people are going through. And that will shut the heavens
over us. God has to have access to our
heart in order for us to have access to his.
The idea of a callous is is this disturbing thing because we use
it in the terms of of a calloused, a heart callous
disregard for others. A callous is a when your hand,
you know your feet where you've used it so much that your your
skin, the sensitivity becomes hardened so that you can have
contact without feeling. And we can live our life in such
a way that we have contact with people hurting, but we have no
feeling for them. And when that happens, we've got
to be re tenderized before the Lord.
Because what Isaiah is telling us is that the power of our
prayer and fasting is directly connected to our compassion and
our sensitivity to others around us.
We've got to be touched by the feeling of others, people's
infirmity, and we've all been there.
Charles Finney, the great revivalist, he said it is
crucial that leaders of revival continually be broken down
before the Lord because we it can become old hat to us.
We can become desensitized to both the moving of God and to
the plight of other people. And So what needs to happen is
our heart needs to be tenderized and fasting is one of the ways
that God does it. And So what he says is that in
our fasting, if we're seeking our own pleasure, even seeking
our own pleasure in the sense that Lord, I'm asking for
breakthrough for me. Lord, I, I want to have greater
intimacy with you. But if your intimacy with God
does not cause you to have compassion towards others, it
will actually begin to shut down the flow of God in your life.
Again, Jesus was moved with compassion.
That was one of the primary ways the Lord led him so that he
would know what God is doing. And so we have to be, we have to
be open to that. We need to tenderize our heart.
And what Isaiah is saying, he's saying, listen, if if the way
you fast is you skip meals and you want to know my ways and you
delight to know my, you know, have an understanding and you
want to draw near to me, but you don't stop being a jerk.
I know that's that's the Dave Olson version.
OK, if if you're fasting and your hunger for God doesn't
begin to solve the problem of your jerkiness towards people,
that's a new phrase we've coined today.
Jerkiness. If that doesn't change how you
interact with others, it will actually shut down your fasting.
We said it last week. We can actually cancel with our
behavior what we pray with our mouth.
And so when our cry our, our, our appeal to heaven, when we
begin to pray needs to begin to change us.
That's what Isaiah is saying. And there needs to be a
compassion, not just not just pity, where we look at all those
poor people and not do anything about it.
We need to be willing to get involved in people's lives and
help them out of the mess that they're in that we're moved with
compassion. And when we catch the heart of
God, I said there's a, there's a fasting of intimacy as you get,
you catch the heart of God, then you will begin to care about the
things he cares about. You'll be moved with the feeling
of other people's infirmities. And that's where you begin to
move into maturity and usefulness in the power of God
can flow through you. So this is this is an amazing
thing because Isaiah is telling us you can fast and pray mark
off all the right boxes, but it's all for naughty.
I don't know about you, but if I'm going to skip Mexican food,
I want something from it. I want to see God move.
If he's given us this weapon, I want to know how to use it.
So look at what he says in verse 4.
Behold your fat you fast only to quarrel and fight and hit with
wicked fist. He said you've got to.
The thing in you that wants to fight is what I'm after in
fasting. I'm after that flesh that's
rising up. I'm a real nice guy until you
take away my food. And it's God's opportunity to
say, OK, that little attitude there, that grumpiness, that
impatience, that short fuse, that's what I want to deal with
because it is a hindrance to me using you.
And if you will repent and go low, I will do a work during the
fast that will bring you out the other side.
That's why Isaiah says, is it only for a day to humble
yourself? He's saying, listen, if fasting
is just you humble yourself for a day and go back to the person
you used to be, then save the you don't save skipping meals
for a diet because it's not really going to be effective.
You're forfeiting it as a spiritual weapon because it's
not just for a day. The fast is to change us for the
rest of our life. That when I go into a 21 days of
fasting, I'm supposed to come out the other end.
I'm going to look different for a while and then but I should be
permanently transfigured in the way I interact with other
people. My heart is tenderized.
That is what Isaiah is saying. Now listen to how he puts us.
This. This is what I want to focus on
this morning, fasting this day. That's the last four.
B. The last half of the verse will
not make your voice to be heard on high.
The cold reality of Scripture is that there are many prayers that
are absolutely not heard by God. He said it will not cause your
voice to be heard on high and that throughout scripture we see
this principle. It says that Jesus voice was
heard because of his reverent submission and a husband's
prayers will not be heard because of how he treats his
wife. And in this verse he says this
type of fasting will not make your voice heard.
What he's insinuating is fasting is to enable your voice to be
heard on high. Now we don't think of it that
way. Well, God's omniscient and
omnipresent and of course he hears everything.
He knows everything. There's a difference between
hearing a sound and hearing what's being said.
Wives know that because they'll say, honey, I'll say Kath, say
my name and give me about 30 seconds here to kind of get my
focus on you. You know, she'll say, well, are
you going to do it or not? And I'll think that's a weird
way to start a conversation. I didn't hear the beginning, you
know? And so there's a difference
between hearing and knowing what's being said, that the idea
of the hearing ear in Scripture, hearing and being heard, hearing
itself is an interesting idea. Hearing is both a noun and a
verb. It's an action word.
It's hearing. I'm going to, I'm going to dial
in my faculties so I can perceive what's being said.
That's hearing. But there's also the noun of a
hearing. You're going to be granted a
hearing. And it's in this sense that we
really need to drill down on this because not everybody is
granted a hearing by heaven. Some of you have read Robert
Henderson's teaching and he's got some some great teaching on
the facets of prayer and the way in which we approach God.
And Luke, I want to say it's Luke 11.
Jesus is teaching on the Lord's Prayer.
And he teaches us, the disciples say, hey, Lord, teach us to
pray. He said, OK, pray this way, our
Father. So there's a facet of prayer, an
angle of prayer where we approach God as father.
We're the kids, he's the dad and we can ask him boldly our Father
who art in heaven. And there's a list of prayers in
that prayer. That's beautiful.
Maybe we'll do another series on that someday.
Then right after that, he has this parable of the persistent.
No, no, no, that's that's in chapter 18.
The next one is a friend that is in bed with his kids.
I've always wondered about that in bed with your kids.
I'm thinking there's there's a limit to that one right there,
man. They got to be really small.
But that's a sermon for another day.
But anyways, he's in bed with his kids and he hears this
knocking on the door. It's his friend, his from across
the yard saying, hey, I got a visitor.
We're out of bread. Get out of bed and give me some
bread. And he's like, hey, I'm in bed
with my kids, go elsewhere. You know what time it is.
He is going to keep on compounding.
So finally he gets up, but that's asking a friend.
There's a friendship with God. There's the father heart of God.
There's the friend he's our he's our friend that that sticketh
closer than a brother. There's that intimacy thing that
we have with God that is beautiful.
And this is the foundation and we need to understand that this
these are two facets of prayer that are very, very important.
And I'm not negating that, but I am saying that there are some
things that will not not move until you learn that God is also
the judge of all the earth. That is the phrase that Abraham
used when he was crying out to God for the preservation of a
city called Sodom. And he said, will not the judge
of all the earth do justly? We appeal to the justice of God
and God's God as judge. But here's the thing, the
context of a friend, which is very casual, and there's a place
in God for that. There are some people who don't
know God as friend, and it's all this exchange and this
formality, and they need to know the tender heart of Jesus as a
friend that sticks closer to the brother.
There's others that don't understand God as Father.
They actually think that Jesus protected them from the Father
and that God's really mad. But she's saying don't hurt
them, They're friends of mine and you need a revelation of the
tender heart of God. These, these are beautiful
expressions, but a lot of us do not understand that there are
certain things that will not move unless we understand God as
judge. Because this context deals with
the legalities of intercession and there are places enters in.
I want to read you a couple things real quick because we are
short on time. I'm acting like it's your fault,
but it's not. Let me read this real quick
here. Oh, that's the wrong one here.
OK. The word hearing is both a noun
and a verb. As a verb, it refers to using
the faculty of healing to hearing to discern intent.
As a noun, it carries a legal sense, meaning an opportunity to
present a case before a judge. And this shows up in Luke
chapter 18. It shows up in Moses crying out
for this, a nation, Abraham crying out for a city.
They're interacting with God as a judge and dealing with the
legalities of this, this need in, in Luke 18, there's it says
there's a persistent widow and she comes before the judge and
she says, listen, I got ripped off.
And he said, listen, I'm too busy to deal with your tiny
little discrepancies. Leave.
And the next day she's standing there again.
It's me again. And I'm telling you, and he
sends her and the next day she's there.
And it says after many days he gets worn out and he's a it's
he's called the unrighteous judge.
And what Jesus says, if she can get an answer from her
unrighteous judge, how much more can you and I get one from the
judge of all the the righteous judge in heaven.
But the persistence that she entered into was a key.
She was the persistent widow. And here's the thing, So many of
us only approach God as father and friend.
And if we don't get the immediate answer, what we do is
we get offended with God and we back out or we get apathetic
about the situation. I guess God said no, never
realizing that there's legal maneuvering that has to take
place. There's some legal precedents
that we need to discern and deal with so that we can see a
breakthrough. And that's why she had to be
assistant. There are a lot of believers
that we have a very short attention span, very short
determination and prayer. And we want to see God move.
We, we ask him a few times and then throw up our hands.
Well, man, why isn't God listening?
Isaiah tells us why he wants to change you before he'll use you
to change the situation and intercession.
But in that process that he draws us into, he begins to
teach us the royal protocol. Let me read you a couple of
other things and let me unpack this then.
OK, the idea of hearing has multiple interesting definition.
There is the physical function of an ear to distinguish sounds.
There is the added cognitive ability to interpret those
sounds into meanings, which is really wild.
I have thoughts in my heart and I grunt and I squeal at you and
you understand what I'm saying. And then you process what I'm
saying and you make these weird sounds and we can communicate.
It's an amazing thing how God created us and it's really a
fixture in the Kingdom because God created everything by his
word. And in fact Jesus was the living
walking word. The thought of God inside of him
he wanted to express to mankind. What did he do?
He spoke a word in the form of his Son.
Hebrews one says in the times past he spoke by prophets, but
now he speaks not through his Son.
It says in Hebrews one by his Son.
Everything Jesus did was a sermon.
It's not just what he said, but his actions were preaching to us
so that we can understand how the Kingdom works.
And so there's also the idea of hearing.
There's the relational component on the part of the hearer who
cares about what is being said and honors the speaker with
their personal attentiveness. That's where we say to someone,
listen, I hear you, I hear you, and we're validating what
they're saying. We're not just talking about I
heard sounds come out of your mouth.
Have no idea what you meant. Are we I heard sounds.
I you know, they came out of your mouth, but I could care
less. There's an added dimension that
I heard those sounds and listen, I hear your heart and I'm I'm
moved with compassion. I'm I'm I'm with you.
And so there's this idea of hearing that carries that
included in this relation element is hearing on the
responsibility of the hearer and the speaker to protect the
relationship so that communications lines remain
open. But then there is the legal
aspect of a hearing of granting legal audience based upon
adherence to clear legal protocols and precedents.
And that's what we need to understand.
I'm telling. So it was about probably nine
years ago now, there was, I had a, had a friend had powerful
ministry. We had done a lot of ministry
together. I had a deep respect for him.
There was a mutual respect and relationship we had.
And suddenly the guy has a heart attack and he's in a coma.
And I understood the significance of this guy's life.
So we went to prayer. Matter of fact, we went on a
fast. There's a number of us in the
church. We started to fast for this
individual and crowd to God to turn this thing around.
And I remember one night I was walking down this aisle and I
was frustrated and I said, God, this is illegal.
This cannot happen. There's something going on here.
I could sense there was a demonic element to this thing
and I said, Lord, how do we make sense of this?
How do we deal with this? And the Lord spoke to me clearly
and he said discern the legal precedents.
Now being the dull headed individual that I am, I didn't
fully understand what he was saying until afterwards.
What he was telling me is there was a legal precedent, something
there was a legal boundary line crossed that made that person
vulnerable to the enemy's activity and that needed to be
deal dealt with so that he could be set free.
And if we don't deal with those things, then we're never going
to be able to see the breakthrough that we so desire.
It's in this context that we approach God as judge, and the
Lord wants to raise up intercessors that will enter
into that process. And see, The thing is you often
this scenario, there's demonic issues involved where there's
legal precedents being enforced on the part of the enemy.
You see, when the enemy lost his position, he was fired.
You're no longer part of the team.
Get out, take your, take your stuff with you.
He walks out the door. But what the devil took with him
when he left the Kingdom of God was the trade secrets of the
Kingdom of God. He understands how the spiritual
realm works. And that's where that's where
that's what the occult is about. It's understanding spiritual
realities through forbidden knowledge, and it's not the
knowledge that is forbidden, it's the timing of your access
because God is good enough. He doesn't want to give you
understanding until you have the maturity to carry it.
That's why Jesus said at the end of his ministry, he said to his
boys, he said, disciples, there's so much more I wanted to
give you, but you could not bear it.
You couldn't stand under the weight of it.
So I'm going to send us my spirit.
I'm going to send an advocate that word advocate is a is a
legal term where the Spirit of God is our defense attorney.
He's the advocate and he knows the insurance and outs of the
legal code in the spiritual realm.
And if we're not seeing movement from father and friend, then
let's engage God as judge. And we need to say, God, what is
happening here? Why aren't we seeing movement?
Lord, I want you to teach me. I want you to train me.
I don't want to get offended and I don't want to be apathetic if
I can't get microwave answers and I just pull out and say,
well, I guess it's going to that's how it is.
God's looking for those who will be dogged about this thing and
say, God, I know this is not your will in the earth.
I know this is not your will in my my children's lives in the in
our nation, in the nations of the earth.
Lord, I know that this war is not your will.
So how do I deal with this? And our advocate will treat
teach us. Have you ever heard the the idea
in the court system, he who represents himself represents a
fool. Anybody ever heard that?
What they're saying is you need a lawyer because there are
dynamics in the court system you do not understand.
You're in over your head. The good news is that you and I,
even though we're in over our head, we have an advocate that
isn't the spirit of the living God will lead us into truth.
And he wants to reveal to us the entry points, the legalities of
this so we can have breakthrough, but it takes an
engagement and it's often a process.
And it's speed up greatly by fasting because in fasting God
begins to have access to us and bring us near.
And if we cooperate with what He's doing in us, we'll begin to
learn. Now I'm going to pause here
because some of you have some theological background and when
I'm talking about the dynamics of the judicial branch of
heaven, if you will, the dynamics of the legal system
that there are, there's protocol, there's ways the
spirit realm works that you and I do not yet understand.
Some of you have more knowledge than others of you, and the way
you got there was through yielding to the dealings of God.
You see, when the enemy gives forbidden knowledge, he loves
to, he loves to give you knowledge before you're mature
enough to handle it and destroy your life with that knowledge.
So we've got to be so careful. In fact, you can actually open,
you can open yourself to occult knowledge if you are fasting and
going without food, crying out to God for insight, but you're
not dealing with the issues of your life.
You can actually open yourself to the wrong things.
If you, if you're dealing with if you're not, if you're
struggling with sin. I heard someone say this the
other day. I loved it.
God is not frustrated with your struggle with sin.
He's frustrated when you stop struggling.
God is compassion. He knows your butt dust.
Stay in the fight and allow the Lord to deliver you.
And the sad fact is, some people get delivered immediately and
others have a process. But in the process, you're
picking up valuable things that you're going to be able to give
to someone else that's going to need that same deliverance.
And so we need to cooperate with the process.
And what the enemy loves to do is give you stuff that you're
not able to handle. And so if you are crying out to
God but resisting, if you're asking him things and you're
resisting what he's asking you, you need to stop it.
Either stop praying or start dealing with this stuff if your
heart is hard in this area that people get into weird stuff,
especially with fasting when they are coddling their flesh
and so the way of God first Peter says add to your faith
virtue and the virtue knowledge. Notice that middle thing virtue.
It doesn't say add to your faith knowledge because the Bible also
says knowledge. What puffeth up?
That's the King James Version puffeth up.
You don't want to be puffed up because God will pop you if
you're puffed up. He loves you enough that he'll
put the old needle from been there, done that, don't want to
do it again. And so the way of God is he adds
to your faith, virtue. He begins to work in you, the
character, so that when you come out the other side, you can
handle the knowledge that you're crying out for.
That's why for the believer, knowledge revelation is a
process that is is cooperated with.
It builds character in our life. And so when I talked about those
of you who are more theologically adept, it's when
we talk about this, sometimes you can smack of Gnosticism.
Oh, I'm one of those people that understands the spirit, unlike
you lowly ones. If that's your attitude, that
ain't God. If you really have knowledge,
you came about it the wrong way because you're lacking the
virtue in God's process. And what God will do is he'll
take you through a process of contending.
And it's through the wrestling that he's building the moral
muscle that you will enable you to stand under the weight of
that revelation in maturity and humility.
And you're not looking down at others.
You're saying, hey man, I paid for this and I want to use it
for others, Man, I want to give you some of this.
I've discovered something in my journey.
And so it's so very important because there are legal issues
that need to be unravelled. So this friend of mine, we began
to pray and crowd to God. So we gathered some prophetic
people and we waited on the Lord and up came some words of
knowledge, prophetic Intel that he had gotten involved in
something that had brought this on him, that he crossed over a
moral line. And you know what I said?
I reject that. I don't believe it.
I know this guy. It didn't happen.
The Lord told us in the prayer meeting and I said, Nope, not
God. Well, in a few months I found
out it was God and it was a heavy, heavy lesson.
He's not with the Lord. I believe he's with the Lord.
He's he's not here. And but what had happened is he
had crossed some moral boundary lines that caused him that
opened the door for some very demonic activity in his life.
And what he needed was some intercessors to enter into this
thing and do battle. But we couldn't unravel it.
We're like praying and praying. We're not getting any movement.
I could sense the demonic element to that.
And I'm like, God, where'd this come from?
And the Lord said, discern the legal precedent.
You thought you would have thought I'd have learned from
that. Then the Lord told us
specifically about some things. And I said, no, that's not.
And yes, it was. So we, we need to understand God
wants to show us these things, but we've got to enter into this
process because we have a Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that is
the advocate that wants to unravel these things.
It's much like deliverance. Some of you have been trained in
deliverance, have prayed deliverance over people.
And, and often I've seen where you're praying for someone,
they're starting to manifest a demon and you say, OK, if I
don't have a word of knowledge, I'll say, is there anybody you
need to forgive? Because 85% of the time it's
forgiveness. So you ask, is there anybody you
need to forgive? No, I've forgiven anybody,
everybody. And then I'll have a little
prick in my heart. I'll say, well, what about your
mother-in-law? Whoa.
I think maybe we touched a nerve usually.
So what the Lord is saying is there was a legal entry point.
What did Jesus say in Matthew 18 that if you do not forgive, you
are turned over to the tormentors?
That was what was going on when you said mother-in-law, they
thought the mother-in-law was the tormentor.
It's what they open the door through, through the
relationship with the mother-in-law.
And so we need to deal with these things.
We understand that in an individual level that there are
legal issues that need to be dealt with.
And I've seen it before, man. People are writhing and
manifesting and are terrified. But when you touch on that
thing, they need to forgive and they know it.
You know it. The devil knows it, God knows
it. And you ask them, are you
willing to forgive? No, I have every right to hold
this bitterness. They wronged me.
They're the ones that need to ask forgiveness, not me.
I have the right. I am going to hold on to this
and you got to tell them. OK, well then you know what else
You're going to hold on to that little thing growing inside you
that's freaking you out right now because you will not get
free. You have given over ground to
the enemy and gave him the legal right to afflict your life.
Now, we understand that on an individual level.
I'm what I'm telling you this morning is that this these same
dynamics are true on the grander scale, that these things need to
be dealt with. Well, then the question begs
itself, what? What if I can't?
So wait? We're praying for the United
States of America. We've been praying for six
years, crying out to God. God, preserve this nation.
Lord, we ask for mercy. We know we don't deserve it, but
Lord, we're asking, preserve this nation until she fulfills
every part of your will. God, well, how do we bring a
nation to repentance? If we tell the person, if you
don't repent, you can't be free, How do we, how do we bring the
nation to repentance? Well, Daniel, he repented.
He confessed his sins and the sins of his people.
There's such a thing as vicarious repentance.
It's an amazing principle in the Kingdom Jesus.
So you and I stood guilty before God, deserving of eternal
damnation. And Jesus said, you know what,
I'll take that. I will suffer the, the sentence
of that. I'll absorb the pain of this
sense he vicariously suffered with us on the cross.
It's a, it's a whole theological theme people have developed and
it's, it's legit, it's rooted in Scripture.
Jesus suffered for us and as us, Amen.
Here's the amazing thing, You and I can enter into that place
as an intercessor, and we can. So what Jesus purchased is paid
for. What it takes of the individual
is repentance and faith to enter into the good of what he did.
What if they won't repent? What if they won't exercise
faith? You and I can enter into that
space and just as Jesus hung on the cross for them and as them,
you and I can come before the Lord and repent for them.
And as them we can interact in a vicarious repentance where we
get under this thing and we begin to say, Lord, we are
asking your forgiveness. Lord, Lord, we, we, we bring
before you America. Lord, we know we don't deserve
mercy, but Lord, we know your heart.
We know who you really are. And Father, we're asking for
mercy on behalf. Lord, we confess our sins and
also the sins of the people, and God will begin to break in.
Let's look at one more Scripture real quick.
Oh my goodness, it's late. Look with me at Isaiah 40.
What is it, 4326? Isaiah 4326?
If you guys can put it up on the screen, it's an amazing verse.
I don't remember seeing this before.
When I went to it, I had notes written around it, so I
obviously did. But you ever done that?
I thought, man, I've never seen that before.
Well, yeah, I have. I've written notes on it, but
I've never seen it before. The Word of God is like that.
You know it. It's new every morning.
It's like fresh manna every day, man.
There's things in this verse I never saw.
Listen to this. This is an invitation to you
from God, you to get your faith up right now.
OK, God has opened the door and said, hey, come here, I'm giving
you an opportunity to have a hearing.
You can qualify. I'll give you an audience with
the throne of the universe. He says, put me in remembrance.
Let us argue together, set forth your case that you may be proved
right, clearly approaching God as a judge.
He starts with, put me in remembrance.
You say, hey, listen, remind me what I told you.
Remind me what I said in my word.
Come armed with the word into the court.
Come before the throne with my word in hand and hold me to my
word. That is not arrogance.
That is actually a form of worship because what we're
saying, God, I believe who you are.
I believe in the integrity of your character.
You cannot lie. So if you wrote it, you're going
to do it. And I bring it before you.
And I remind you, Lord, this is a check signed in your blood.
I'm asking you make good on this thing.
We bring it before Him. Remind Him what he said.
It might be something He said in His written word.
It might be a prophetic word, but I'm going to tell you, you
can't live on prophetic words. Because if you just are piercing
together the prophetic words you're getting, you are going to
have a very limited perspective. You're going to have a shallow
walk with God and you are not going to begin to understand the
protocol of heaven's court, the throne room.
You've got to get in the word. And if you get in the word and
you're hungry and saying, God, I want you to show me this Lord.
And, and it's amazing. God will begin to highlight a
verse and he'll speak to you. And, and as you begin to
accumulate understanding of the word, you actually build a
vocabulary through which you can talk to God.
And the tragic thing is there's a lot of believers.
This is their vocabulary. Gucci, Gucci go Gucci go.
Hey little guy. Tick tickle.
And if that's the level of your vocabulary, that's going to be
your interaction. But as you get in the word and
you understand the principles and the passages, they may not
mean much to you in the moment. But when you get into prayer and
you're crying out to God, God will highlight a verse that
never meant anything to you before, and he'll tie it to
another one. And he begins to show you, hey,
this is a principle that you can do battle with.
This is a principle of what's really going on here.
And God will lead you through and you'll begin to build a war
chest of understanding. You see, a police officer can
have a badge, that's his authority.
He can have a gun, that's his power.
If you won't honor his badge, you'll honor his his power.
If you don't honor the authority, you'll honor the
power. But there's another dimension
that we need to understand. That police officer must
understand legal code. There is an understanding we
have to enter into because if the criminal understands the law
better than the police, then they they will they will
leverage legal code to continue to act in a way that's
destructive to society. And the enemy is running rampant
because of the ignorance of God's people.
And so God is inviting us into a process.
If you will stay in the fight like the persistent widow, if
you won't get up, you won't get offended or get apathetic and
just say, I guess that's how it's going to be.
If you will enter into God's heart, God will train you and
begin to teach you so that you have understanding.
And over the years you will become an intercessor that God
can use. And God is looking for those who
understand these things. We need to understand the legal
precedents and the Lord is inviting us.
So he says, set, let us argue together.
Let me read you this. This is this is the Hebrew for
those two words. Let us argue.
It means to enter into a legal proceeding with another.
You see, Moses and Abraham, probably the zenith other than
Calvary, the man suspended between heaven and earth, trying
to merge them back together, Jesus himself.
That was the ultimate act of intercession.
Apart from that, there were two others, Abraham, who preserves a
city through his intercession, or he's he's, if he would have
went farther, he could have, I believe, if he would have kept
pressing it. But then Moses, who successfully
preserves a nation, an intercession.
And what he's doing is he's haggling with God.
He's arguing. If you read it, it's astounding.
We think it's just I make a request, he accepts or denies
it. It's much more relational than
that. God's saying, come in here,
argue with me, show me what I've said and use that as a weapon.
Come into the court and get your settlement so that I will move
in the earth. And there are things that are
happening in the earth that need someone to insert themselves and
vicariously repent for. There are things we need to go
after to be be very strategic. Sometimes there's whole
structures of evil that need one little pin pulled in a strategic
place and the whole system will fall.
I believe we're seeing that very thing right now in Iran that God
is going to, he's going to sabotage the entire structure of
radical Islam. And we're going to see Iran fall
and Persia rise again. You know, the Persian people
loved, loved the people of God. They rebuilt the temple.
We're going to see that. I, I believe we're seeing it in
this hour because there are people praying.
But I'm telling you, we need a lot more people enlisted in this
type of thing. We God is inviting argue with
me. OK, Stan, So you know, I'll
quit. Let me, let me.
He says let us argue that you may be proved right.
This is what the Hebrew word to prove right means, to be in
conformance with justice, custom, law or morality.
Let's bring this thing into line.
If the situation isn't in line, I can be and I can step in that
gap. And I can say, Lord, as a
representative of United States of America, as a citizen, Lord,
I know we have sinned grievously before you.
But Lord, as your son, I step in the gap and I'm asking you, God,
please forgive us now. Lord, lead us in this process so
that we can begin to unreal unravel the heinous plans of the
enemy so that you can visit us once again.
And that's the invitation of heaven.
Hey, thanks for watching. At Heartland Church, we love to
worship the Lord and we love his word.
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live or in person every week. See you next time.