Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
The Day Of Restoration
Can life's lost opportunities and hardships truly be restored? In this episode, we explore the powerful themes of restoration, prophecy, and divine intervention through the lens of Joel 2:23-32. Reflecting on a recent visit by Dr. Guy and Ilka Peh, we discuss the impact of personal prophecy, healing, and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. With references to Peter's declaration on the day of Pentecost, we emphasize the profound fulfillment of Joel's prophecy and the significance of the former and latter rains in our spiritual journey.
Hallelujah. Let's reach down and pick up our Bibles. Everybody say this guy Say Heavenly Father, I do love you so much. That's why I'm here today to praise you, to worship you in spirit and in truth, to fellowship with you and with those of like precious faith that are in this room today. When I came into the sanctuary of God then I understood I'm here to understand more of your word today so that my faith will grow exceedingly, that I will bear fruit in these last days for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen, you can be seated.
Speaker 1:Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Joel, chapter 2. And that's on page 1088, in case you wondered, provided you have a Kenneth Copeland Bible like I do. Why a Kenneth Copeland Bible? Because 40 some odd years ago that's what I bought and I've been buying the same Bible every year. He changed Bibles about three or four years into. It messed me up for a while. But you know, after the balance of the 30 some odd years, I know where the word is on the page. I can find it without looking at the top. I mean, that's what. I'm just a person of habit, you know. I like the same arrangement. I'll read other versions of the Bible in my iPhone. But I, you know, I gave up buying Bible. You got. You know you can have 15 Bibles. I can have all the Bibles I need right in my iPhone. See, it just works better for me. But anyway, did you find it?
Speaker 1:Joel, chapter two, verse 23. And the prophet Joel some call him a minor prophet. I don't call him a minor prophet. I mean, who said they were minor prophets? I'm not sure that they would agree, but anyway, he's prophesying. And he said be glad then, you, children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord, your God, for he has given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, with the latter rain in the first month, and the floor shall be full of wheat and the vat shall overflow. Everybody shout full. Everybody shout overflow With wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten. Everybody say restoration. And the canker worm, the caterpillar, the palmer worm, that great army which I sent among you, and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be ashamed and you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord, your God and none else. And my people shall never be ashamed. Double annunciation of God. So we can put it in the bank and depend on that. I've had to choose not to be ashamed many times.
Speaker 1:And then we'll continue, verse 28,. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids. In those days will I pour out my spirit and I will show wonders in the heavens above and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, and for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
Speaker 1:And so today I wanted to share a message to back up what we heard last weekend. Dr Guy and Ilka Pei were here. If you missed it, you missed a monumental opportunity and I would suggest that you get the media as soon as possible and meditate on. And you know, right in the middle of all the preaching, we had demonstration. Many of you got personal prophecy, some of you got healing ministered to you, deliverance ministered to you. I mean, sometimes he would just read you know, read right down your your uh, read your mail, you know, read your mail. I went right. There's five things, you know, just go right down the list. Oh well, who did what's the Holy ghost? It's called demonstration of the spirit to back up what he's preaching.
Speaker 1:And as pastor, I wanted to back up what he was preaching. I agreed with all of it and this is a young couple that this is my first time they've been here. But they hit a home run. See, sometimes they hit a foul ball. So I've had people come up here and hit a foul ball and they had to come back and correct. One guy preached in my pulpit when we were in the Baptist church down the street and it did a lot of damage.
Speaker 1:I learned the hard way Don't bring people in here unless you know. And so that was. You know. I had to repent. I had to ask God to forgive me. And over tears I mean, I talk about being ashamed. You have to get over yourself. Sometimes, you know, because we're all we live in flesh bodies. Sometimes we make mistakes.
Speaker 1:But everybody say the day of restoration, joel is prophesying over that. You know, the day before they came it was Saturday I was with Gladys and we were praying a little bit and I started quoting these verses Joel, chapter 2. God's going to honey, god's going to restore the years the locusts has eaten. And so what did the prophet preach? He preached on restoration, acceleration and speed. So here in verses 28 to 32, when we started talking about he will pour out his spirit on all flesh, his sons and daughters will prophesy, and all of that. And talking about the wonders and the heavens and the earth, blood and fire and vapor and smoke, he quoted verses 28 and 32, peter did on the day of Pentecost, and so we can turn over to Acts, chapter 2. And so we can turn over to Acts, chapter 2, and I want you to see some things and I want to underscore what Brother Gee had last week and I want to give you some more information. My job is to see to it that you actually receive what you need. I mean, we're in the day of fulfillment of these things. Acts, chapter 2, he's preaching to the people there.
Speaker 1:People from every nation under heaven was gathered in Jerusalem for this feast day, the Fe, feast of Pentecost, and God was strategic in that he poured out his spirit on the 120 in the upper room and they came down out of the upper room, drunk in the Holy Ghost, speaking the wonderful works of God that all these different people understood. God did a miracle of hearing. They were praying in tongues. It was not a message in tongues. I've heard preachers say yeah, they all you know it wasn't 120 people giving a message. No, it was a miracle of hearing in the ears of all of these nations. And what did they hear them? They didn't hear the tongues. They heard them talking about the wonderful works of God in their own native language and they realized these guys, I mean, how can they do that? It was a wonder, wasn't it? And so Peter stood up. He stood up. Well, how come? He had to stand? Because he fell down on the ground. He's drunk. He's drunk in the Holy Ghost. And he said these men are not drunken, as you suppose.
Speaker 1:But this is that spoken by the prophet Joel, joel, chapter 2. And of course, these Jews knew all about Joel. They knew that Joel prophesied about the rain, the former rain and the latter rain together, which doesn't work. That doesn't happen. In the natural. You don't get two rains. You get the former rain for planting and you get the latter rain for harvest. But he's not talking about some natural harvest, he's prophesying about these days. And so here is Peter. I mean, he's still wet behind the ears, he just got filled with the Holy Ghost and 40 days before that he wasn't even saved. So he's kind of a baby Christian, if you really want to know the truth. And he gets up and he starts saying what you just saw was spoken by. This is that spoken by the prophet Joel, and the Amplified says it this way this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel. In other words, this is the planting rain that Joel was talking about.
Speaker 1:What is planting rain? Well, it's just to get the soil soft, to get it to have a little moisture. So just enough moisture, not a muddy mess. Can't plant in a muddy mess, but it's got to be moist enough so that when the seed goes down in the ground and is covered over, there's enough residual moisture for the seed to then germinate and send shoots downward. The roots downward and the shoots upward. That's what you got to have to have the crop. But then later down the road, after you've got the whole plant growing, you think about wheat. I mean, it's what? Five, six foot tall, big old stalk on there. It takes a lot of rain. It takes a lot of rain. After that, take an inch to two inches max for the form of rain. It takes up to 14 inches total, not all at once for the latter rain for there to be a crop. And you're talking about Israel. Israel is not a place that gets a lot of rain, naturally. So who has to send the rain? God has to send the rain.
Speaker 1:It's a symbol of his blessing upon obedience. See, they had a covenant that they could only get blessed when they were obedient. They had curses that went with it. And here it said I sent this army of locusts. Well, you know, that's in the permissive sense. God didn't send the locusts, god doesn't send destruction. He just lifts his hand of blessing off of you and the devil does the rest.
Speaker 1:9-11,. God didn't send the planes into the twin towers. The devil did it Because God's hand of protection was lifted off of this nation because of its anti-Semitism, you know, and all of the other things that are wrong in our nation. We've just gotten out from under God. But I'm talking about the day of restoration. But I'm talking about the day of restoration, and so here Peter is preaching this is the beginning of that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.
Speaker 1:Now, here we are today, in 2024, 2,000 plus years later, and we surely must be in the culmination of that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And what's going to happen then? Well, you know, our floors are going to be full of wheat. What does that mean? Your threshing floor.
Speaker 1:See, in the Bible they had a threshing floor. They usually had a big old, huge flat place, a threshing floor, and it was a community kind of thing. I mean, not each guy had a threshing floor and it was a community kind of thing. I mean, not each guy had a threshing floor, they just had a common threshing floor and they'd bring their harvest of wheat let's just say it was wheat they put it over there and they'd spread it out on that floor and they'd take teams of oxen with carts and the teams of oxen would tread upon those stalks of wheat and crush them and the wheels would roll over them. So the threshing floor had to be. It couldn't be dirt, it had to be wooden, it had to be a surface that was hard so that the wheat would be crushed and broken. And then they would take forks these big winnowing forks they call them and scoop it up and throw it up in the breeze and the wind would blow the chaff and separate the light stalk and chaff away from the heavier wheat and the wheat would fall down. You just keep doing that and doing that until you, finally you separate it.
Speaker 1:It was a place of judgment. In order to have a floor full of wheat, there had to be a heap full of judgment. What is judgment? Separation? Are y'all getting this now? We're seeing all kind of destruction. But it's necessary, we've got to. You know God's getting ready for a harvest. God didn't send the trouble, but this is part of the harvest. You've got to have judgment. If you didn't separate the chaff from the wheat, you wouldn't have a harvest. You'd just have it all mixed together and the chaff isn't any good, the stalk isn't any good, only the wheat, only the wheat. You can't make bread with all that other stuff.
Speaker 1:Then he said two other things. He said your vats shall overflow with what? Wine and oil. So you're going to have a wheat harvest, you're going to have a corn harvest, you're going to have all these different kind of harvests. You're going to have a grape harvest and they're going to crush the grapes and get the wine out of the grapes and the vats are going to overflow with wine, more than you can have, more than you can use. It's going to be overflowing oil. You're going to have some olives in there, not for martinis. You crush the olives and you get the olive oil out and the vats containing the olive oil are going to overflow.
Speaker 1:What is it talking about? It's talking about the richness of this great harvest. We're going to have a harvest of every kind of person on the earth. I mean every kind of people, group, every kind of color. Oh, glory to come on, lift your hands. Right now. It's all about the harvest.
Speaker 1:But what did it look like before that happened? Well, it looked bad. Years of destruction, years of devouring. Who's the devourer? The devil is the devourer. In Malachi 3,. I will rebuke the devourer for your sake.
Speaker 1:The word devourer means eater. He eats your stuff. He eats your money. Inflation is an eater. It's eating your money. If you've got money in the bank, it's worth less today than it was last week.
Speaker 1:They keep saying, oh, it's better. No, it's not better, it's horrible. They're lying. But you know there's some things that have to happen before the good stuff starts to come about.
Speaker 1:God is not wasting anything. None of the gears of ruin or ruination, none of the gears of struggle are wasted. You get credit for trusting God through all of it. Without faith it's impossible to please him. We walk by faith and not by sight. We don't focus on the ruination, we don't focus on all the trouble. We don't focus on all. But I tell you one thing where I'm focusing on, focus on restoration, because the word says he's going to restore the years that the locust has eaten. Glory to God. Now that word restore in the in the Hebrew, god says I will surely make amends. See, it's not just this, this is this word. Restoration is a strong word, it's a sure word. It gets back to our covenant with God.
Speaker 1:We've been talking about his faithfulness. What's he faithful over? He's faithful over his word. But he's faithful over his covenant. He's not like man, man, you know, sometimes if we look real hard at ourselves we can kind of find places where we weren't. That, you know, faithful. We'll put it under the blood and forget about it because he forgot about it. You can't go around thinking about your failures. You've got to keep going forward. He said tell my people, why are you crying to me? You know Brother Gee talked about that last week at the Red Sea. He said tell my people to move forward. What was forward? The Red Sea was forward. Tell them to move forward.
Speaker 1:I like that testimony about being stuck in the elevator. He took his shirt off. He's sweating, you know gallons of water, I mean. You know he's in that place hot. And God said why don't you use your authority, get up there to command that door, like you would if it was sickness or disease? I said why didn't I think of that? In the name of Jesus, push the button. We forget our authority.
Speaker 1:You know, this word that we got last week, and what I'm revisiting a little bit this week, is for you to start building a road with your mouth. You're going to have to build a road. What is confession? It's building a road over which faith brings its precious cargo. If your cargo that you're looking for is restoration, you have to have a road that you're building with your words. Are you with me now?
Speaker 1:He said I will surely make amends, I will surely prosper, I will surely make restitution, I shall surely make recompense. What's recompense? Recompensation, payback, really? I like to call it this way it's payback time for the devil and payday for us. We're going to get recompensated for all our trouble and he's going to get paid back for all the trouble he caused.
Speaker 1:I don't know, there's something in me that delights about that. I don't know, maybe it. You know, I want the devil to suffer. I want him to suffer more than he has. I know ultimately he's going to, but I want him to suffer right now. I will surely make peaceable again the years. See, it doesn't matter how long you've been suffering, doesn't matter how long you've been believing. I will surely make peaceable again the years. See, it doesn't matter how long you've been suffering, it doesn't matter how long you've been believing, and yet it seems like you know, it just hasn't come to pass Sickness, disease, infirmity, lack, career trouble, money trouble, relationship trouble, marriage trouble, kid trouble, child trouble, family trouble, I mean trouble is just everywhere right now, everywhere. But God said I will surely make amends, I will surely make restitution, I will surely restore Glory to come on, lift your hand right now, hallelujah. Everybody say he's restoring the years. Glory to God Years. Yeah, I like God.
Speaker 1:God can push fast forward on some things, things that would normally take longer in the natural. God can just go and he can do it. What speedily. There are some things that have to happen in this season, and you may. If you looked in the natural, your life is so far out of whack that it doesn't look like it's possible.
Speaker 1:But here, hold your place an ax. We're not through an ax. But go back to Joel. Where's Joel again, 1088. That's how I have to find Joel.
Speaker 1:Joel's a little book and it's easy to get lost, you know, and you just get right, you turn right past it. I've got a new Bible. It's still pages, still stick together. Now notice it says here, verse 26, and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. That word satisfied means satiated, it means gorged.
Speaker 1:I mean you get a hold of a really, really, really good chicken fried steak. I mean one that's been beaten down to about a quarter of an inch or less. I mean you take these round steaks that are half to three quarter inch, they're not even worth eating Because they basically you fry them and they just boil. They're too thick and they have too much moisture in them and so when you put the batter on there and you big old thick, and you didn't beat it with the mallet and you didn't thin it out and tenderize it, I mean I go into these, I call them Yankee restaurant. They don't know anything about check. I'm sorry if you're, if you're, from the North, but I mean you don't know anything about chicken fried steaks. Not.
Speaker 1:Some of you grow up with pot roast. You grew up with different things than what we have in the South chicken fried steak. If you don't know how to cook a chicken fried steak, you've got to get it thin, otherwise the batter, just it just. The steak doesn't fry, it boils the batter, the batter fries, the steak boils and then when you cut the meat, all the batter falls off and you eat a piece of boiled round steak which tastes terrible. And that's the place I never go back to, ever. For that. I might go back for pot roast. Maybe they have something else, that's better. But forget about the chicken fried steak.
Speaker 1:You'll eat in plenty. See, when you get the right chicken fried steak, you'll gorge yourself At least I will. I'll gorge myself, I will be satiated. That's what satiation is I mean. Get the picture You're filled to overflowing, your vats are overflowing, your belly's overflowing, everything's overflowing. You got more than you can eat. You shall eat in plenty and be gorged. You'll be satiated. Plenty and be gorged. You'll be satiated and praise the name of the Lord, your God, who have dealt wondrously with you.
Speaker 1:The word wondrously means he did something that's really hard to do. You can't figure it out. You don't know how in the world your life is going to change between right now and the end of the year. But I'm telling you, if you'll get a hold of this Word and if you'll begin to speak in line with it, what we got last weekend combined with what we're saying today, I'm telling you things can change drastically, speedily, wondrously, oh, come on, lift your hand right now. Don't really come. Oh, come on, lift your hand right now. Glory to God, doesn't it feel good when you stop hitting your finger with a hammer? I mean, it hurts so bad when you do it, but it feels so good when you stop. I mean you stop and you give it a rest. You give it a rest. You don't say, oh, back, before I was saved, I built my deck in the back.
Speaker 1:I did my whole deck myself, by myself, with just me and the hammer and nails and the saw. And that day, of course, I cursed more than I've probably cursed. My wife just went to the front of the house. I was in the back of the house, she just had to leave. Make sure the kids didn't come out there, because I was pinching the side of my hand, I was hitting my hand. I mean it just hurts. It felt so good when I finished that deck because I knew the pain was over and I never built anything again. I always had it done. I'm not talented that way.
Speaker 1:Everybody say satiated With the goodness of God. See, he's got good things for you. Maybe you've had, you know, maybe the eater has eaten and devoured and given you a lot of trouble. But I'm telling you he shall surely make amends, he will surely prosper, he shall surely heal, he will surely restore years speedily. I think about Jesus at the last supper. I mean you know he's. He's breaking bread with all, and with Judas too. And he told Judas, he said what you do, do quickly, quit fooling around, get on out there and do it. He knew he was going to betray, but it had to happen. That threshing floor, they had to get to the threshing floor. Jesus had to be rolled over, he had to be crucified. It had to happen. It had to happen right now. Now was the time. It was a now time. What you do, do it speedily. God is going to do some things speedily between now and the end of this year, because we're in the time. We're in the time of restoration. Alright, so let's let's get back to Acts. And so he said this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel. And he quoted. He didn't quote the part about restoration, but he did in Acts, chapter three.
Speaker 1:Let's turn over to Acts, chapter three, next page. This is where the man at the gate, beautiful, 40 years old, never had walked, lame from his mother's womb, was a beggar, certified beggar. If you gave him your alms, he qualified for you to meet your obligation, as a Jew, to give alms. And Peter looked at him and he said silver and gold have I? None but such as I, Jew to give alms. And Peter looked at him and he said silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And he didn't move fast enough. So Peter grabbed him by the hand and jerked him up on his feet. So you'd have to say it wasn't the man's faith, it was Peter's faith.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you can use your faith to get people healed. They don't have very much, you know, it's just, and so they. They're looking at him. Why are you looking at us? As though, by some power of our own, we made this man whole. Verse 16 and his name, the name of Jesus, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. He was quick to give all the praise to the Lord. They were ready to worship Peter and John. They all knew this man. They'd been laying there for a long time. He's 40 years old. How long has he been laying there? Most of his life. And so then he said verse 19,.
Speaker 1:He starts preaching to this crowd. And 5,000 men got saved. That's 20,000. If each man was married and had a couple of kids, I think it's not unreasonable to think that 20,000 people came into the kingdom of God over this one miracle. What did he preach? He said repent ye, therefore, and be converted.
Speaker 1:Converted, see. Converted doesn't mean fire insurance. A lot of people just want fire insurance. They just want to make sure they go to heaven. But they don't want to really repent and they don't want to be converted. They don't want to be changed into another person. They want to go on and they know they feel guilty, but they don't really have the gumption to really get out of the lifestyle they're in. They really don't want to change that much. They just want fire insurance. Well, god's not giving out any fire insurance. He's offering an opportunity for people to be converted. What does converted mean? Well, I studied engineering. I studied the scientific method and physics and all of that. And when something converts, it changes.
Speaker 1:Water is a what, a liquid, but water can be converted into what? Well? It can be converted into a gas by the addition of heat. It can be converted into steam. And what is steam? Steam is a gas. It's a property. Liquid properties behave totally different than gases. Liquids are incompressible. You can't compress a liquid, but you can compress a gas. So it's completely changed. Even though it's still H2O, it's been what Converted. What did it take for it to be converted? Heat, and what about ice? Ice is a solid. It's still water, but it's ice. But it can be converted. Into what Water? Are you with me now? Liquid, see, a solid can be converted into a liquid, into a gas.
Speaker 1:I mean, we have to be converted, we must be born again. We have to be completely changed. And what has to happen? Repent, stop being preached at all. What you hear on television is well, you know, jesus gets us, he gets us. Well, that's just an incomplete message. If you ask me in all humility, I know it's a good family that's doing this. They're spending mucho money on that and I just it pains me. Why don't you, why don't you people repent, use your money more wisely than putting out a little old message like that to people. It's not going to change one life to tell them that Jesus gets them. Yeah, he gets you. All right, you're. You're a sinner and you're on your way to hell, and the only way to escape it is repent and be converted. Oh, we need to preach it, no fire insurance being offered, there's conversion.
Speaker 1:I got converted, man. I mean, I changed and everybody knew it. That was around me, everybody that I officed with, all my builder friends, they all knew it instantly I'm one way one day, and the next day they see me, they're going. What in the world happened to him? All right, so he said verse 19,.
Speaker 1:Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. See, it's not just forgiven, they're blotted out, erased. You don't have a past. Oh, I'm praying, I'm paying for the sins of my past. Well then, you need to get saved when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Repent ye, therefore, be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord. Times of refreshing. Refreshing means cooling, it means comfort.
Speaker 1:When I got saved, that night, I'd had months and months of depression, months and months of fear, couldn't go to sleep at night. It was just like the Bible, you know, all day long you'd wish for the night and then, all night long, you'd wish for the day. I could get no comfort, I could get no peace. I could get no, I drink. I go to Mini Macs and buy me a six-pack at 9 o'clock in the morning and drink it by lunchtime. Get me another couple of six-packs after lunch, drink those. I never would leave the house and go out drinking, I just drink around the house. I'm building houses in the neighborhood. But I mean I'm miserable. But I mean the night I gave my heart to Jesus and I got saved. I was converted. I'm talking about it. All left me. All of that rolled away off of me. It rolled off of me. I became another. I was converted.
Speaker 1:You talk about a time of refreshing, the word time. There is a kairos. It's an appointed time. Times of refreshing or times of revival come from the presence of the lord and he shall send jesus christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive or retain. See, jesus went to heaven and he sent the Holy Ghost to take his place. The heaven is holding Jesus there Now.
Speaker 1:It's not to say that Jesus doesn't appear to people. He appeared to Brother Hagin, he appeared to the apostles after his resurrection, but basically Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. He's there until the Father and he doesn't even know when. But the Father's going to send him to get the church. So the heavens must retain Jesus until everybody shout, until Everybody shout, until five times, until, until, until, until. Until the times of restitution, the times of payback, the times of recompense, the time of restoration.
Speaker 1:So you have times of refreshing and times of restoration, that kind of work together. And they have not. You know, there is one giant one coming, but we've had others that were in part. Over all these 2000 years We've had revivals. We've had times of were in part. Over all these 2000 years We've had revivals. We've had times of refreshing where people, the church, got revived and cooled. You know, when I say cooled, I don't mean cool off, but I mean refreshed. Why? Because God starts to restore things that they've lost. God starts to bless them, god starts to, they start getting knit together. You know he talked about Dr Gee talked about you know that we need to wait upon the Lord.
Speaker 1:Wait means to be entangled with and to be woven together with, like a threefold cord twisted together with God. Another idea of waiting on the Lord is ministering unto the Lord. He that waits upon the Lord shall renew his strength. He shall mount up with wings as eagles. He will run and not be weary, he will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40, 19. So he mentioned that last week. It was very similar.
Speaker 1:So in every revival that God sends to the church, revival that God sends the church, there comes an opportunity for people to get saved and converted, and then there's a payback for the devil. The devil has taken over sometimes whole nations, whole countries, whole cities, and when revival comes, the bars close, the houses of ill repute close. I mean everything changes in the devil's world and the church takes back territory that it lost. Oh, come on now. Now he's done this in part over the 2,000 years, but we've got one more coming. I'm telling you this is going to be the greatest one of all. Glory to God. I can hardly wait, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Everybody say times of refreshing, times of restitution, and so you know the Bible's filled with all these kind of things. I mean he, you know he said he's done great works and it and it looked speedily when it, when he did it, but it took a long time for the time, for the appointed time, for the appointment to be due. Once it comes, then god can do wondrously. He can do things that really are hard to do and do it in a quick fashion. One good example is Moses.
Speaker 1:Moses spent 40 years as the son of Pharaoh, learned it in all the ways of Egypt and then, of course, he killed the Egyptian, fled to the backside of the desert and lived 40 more years in obscurity and fear. All he could do was talk to sheep. He didn't have anybody to talk to but the sheep. But then he encountered the glory at the burning bush and God called him to deliver and he spent 40 years in the glory and he was so revered that God had to hide his body when it was time for him to die, because he knew the Jews would turn him into an idol. They learned the art of embalming and they were going to embalm that guy, like they did King Tut and all the Kings. You know they'd embalm those Kings and and set them in their tombs and they'd go and you know they were, put them on display for a long time and they, they. That's that was the world that was there then at that time, and Egypt had a lot of, you know, israel had a lot of Egypt in it, living there 400 and some odd years, and so God hid his body. That's how revered he was. That's what a change was made.
Speaker 1:And look at Joshua. Joshua was his assistant for 40 years, lived in the wilderness, even though he was one of the two men. Him and Caleb brought the good report. But they still had to suffer with the children of Israel 40 years. But then God restored him and I mean you know. He was in the glory for another 40 years. Glory to God, same with Caleb. Are you all with me now?
Speaker 1:Look at Joseph. Joseph was a good son for 18 years and then his brothers sold him into slavery, lied about him, told dad that he was eaten by a lion. Here's his bloody coat of many colors. Boy cruel, you're talking about a dysfunctional family. Lord, have mercy. I've witnessed a lot of dysfunctional families, but I don't think I've witnessed anybody as bad as the 12 tribes. They were mean man and then so he was 13 years in prison. Potiphar's wife sold him out, lied about him. He was in prison for no good reason. I mean 13 years. He's in prisons 18 years as a good son, 13 years in prison, but then he got out 12 plus years as prime minister of Egypt, second only in power to the Pharaoh himself.
Speaker 1:God has a way of restoring us, like now, something that they've taken decades and decades to build up to. You're getting this now. Let's build our faith. Let's not be persuaded by how long this trial has gone on, let's not be persuaded about how long things have been all messed up. I'm telling you, it doesn't take God, but that long, speedily. Glory to God, woo, hallelujah, praise God. Everybody say day of restoration. Let's go over to Luke.
Speaker 1:You know this woman went to the judge and wanted him to avenge her of her adversary. You can read it there in Luke 18, but I'll just rehearse it. She went to the judge and said avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a while. And it was Biden's department of justice. He would not for a while. But then he changed his mind. He said, you know, I better go ahead and grant her her request, lest by her continual coming she weary me. Word weary means to beat him up, box his jaws. Gladys, his mother used to talk about boxing jaws and she never did it, but she talked about it. And so I mean she was determined, she was bold and she would not be denied.
Speaker 1:And so the Lord said here, verse 6, hear what the unjust judge said. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them, which cried day and night unto him, though he bear long with them. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. That's what I'm talking about. See, it's not speedily like you didn't go through something, it's speedily. When it's over with. There comes a day you're building toward and I'm telling you I'm agreeing with the prophet from last week it's now is the time of the speedily. Now is the time of fulfillment, now is the day of restoration. I don't care how long it's been, but look at the next sentence. I tell you he will avenge them speedily. This is Jesus talking.
Speaker 1:Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, will he find faith on the earth? Look at the context. Will he find a people who will have faith in their speedily restoration? Or will they just go by what they've suffered and they're just in suffering mode and they're going to continue to suffer? Because they're in suffer mode, they're in victim mode? They kind of forgot about the fact the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Godhead, dwells in them. I mean, he is in you to put you over. He is in there to cause you to get restored. Surely he will make amends, surely he will bring restitution, he will bring payback for the devil and your payday is coming. Everybody say my payday's here.
Speaker 1:So Dr Gee gave us some things last week that were just really good talking about being knit together with god, talked about wisdom, talked about systems and structures and, uh, talking about some things that are on our side, that we need to have in place in order to experience this wonderful uh, restoration, and we do have a part to play. I've got three things. You want to hear them. The day of restoration is payback time for the devil and payday for the church, and so the first one is found in Hebrews 12, verse one, wherefore, seeing, we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. I think about Joseph. He's in that cloud. Think about Moses, caleb, aaron, david, all the Old Testament saints that went through all kind of tribulation and yet God restored them. I think about Paul. I mean, there's a mighty cloud of witnesses.
Speaker 1:Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us and let us run with patience. Let's run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher, or we could say, the initiator and the developer of our faith. So cleanse yourself, number one. Cleanse yourself, in other words, lay aside the weights and the sin. What's a weight? Well, I've said this before, but I say it again Weight is something that we're doing. It's not necessarily a sin in and of itself. It's just not really God's perfect will for your life. You've picked up an obligation that you feel necessary to fulfill, and it didn't come from God. Not everything that's good is God.
Speaker 1:My example is Full Gospel Businessmen. I am a lifetime member of Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship International. When I first got saved, I got hooked up with a Conroe chapter and we would go there a couple times a month. I went to morning meetings, you know, and then evening meetings for the, for the public, and we had morning meetings for the membership. So twice a month I was down in Conroe at that and fellowship and, and so it was a. It was a track of discipleship. I got discipled by those men and got my, you know, got into prison ministry. We had a prison ministry that operated. Out of that We'd go to Huntsville. I went to Death Row one weekend and I'll never forget it, full of demons and so forth, and then God used that. And then of course I had Lakewood Church where I was, you know, on a track there with my relationships that I had there. So God had me on a dual track discipleship program. It accelerated my growth, accelerated my ministry and gave me. It was wonderful. And I became the president of that chapter in Conroe. And then when we moved to Corpus, I laid all that down. I didn't get hooked back up and Corpus, corpus had a chapter but I just didn't have time to be part of it so I didn't.
Speaker 1:When we moved back to Houston I started getting calls and I, you know, they wanted me to give my testimony. I started giving testimony. I went to Baytown one time. You know they wanted me to give my testimony. I started giving testimony. I went to Baytown one time and another time they had me at a regional convention here in Houston, a regional where you had a. It was a group of about I don't know 500 people and uh, and I didn't know it till I got there, I'm going to be the main speaker, give my testimony. That's that's the deal. You give your Christian testimony at Full Gospel as a businessman.
Speaker 1:And I didn't know it until I got there.
Speaker 1:Brother Osteen was there.
Speaker 1:I said, brother Osteen, what are you? Oh, they called me and asked me to introduce you. I said, oh no, you can't do that. I ought to be introducing you. You should be the speaker. Why are they having me? You know, I just didn't. It just got over my last nerve. I mean, I just, I was just, I was gave me the willies and he wouldn't hear of it. Oh no, I'm glad to do it. I'm glad to do it. And he just loved my. He hadn't really never heard my whole testimony and he, you know, it was just so awkward for me to have him introduce me, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So then the group in Conroe called me and said we want you back as president. Would you come in any way? You could be our president again. And I said you know I'm, and I didn't have a witness. And I went to pray about it and God said I'm through with full gospel in your life. You don't, you don't need to ever give your testimony again, you don't need to go to any more events, you're done. So what did he do? Well, he pruned something that had become a weight. It was good. God used it as far as he could, but it wasn't the center of God's plan for my life and when I cut that off, god opened all kinds of doors at Lakewood for me to do what I wound up doing there and of course, that led to this church. Are you with me now?
Speaker 1:So you know, when people ask you to do things, let's not be so quick to say yes, let's let's submit things that are going to take our time to the Lord, especially right now. Right now, time is short. He mentioned that Dr Gee last week about the time, and sometimes time is so critical for us to obey God that if we don't, we're too late and we miss something. Well, I thought God could restore. Well, yeah, he can restore, but that's going to take time. We don't have it now.
Speaker 1:You're fighting cancer and you have stage four and you've got a certain number of days that you're going to survive if God doesn't heal you and you go off and you do something that's not consistent with God's escape plan. I've seen this happen. I've seen people decide not to be treated and they died. I've seen people decide to be treated and they died. See, it's not about treating or not treating, it's about following the Holy Ghost. He's got a way of escape for you. We know that cancer is. We can defeat cancer with our faith, but faith is time, seed and seed time and harvest, isn't it? So it matters about your timing.
Speaker 1:Cleanse yourself, get your life in order. Good is the enemy of best. All right. Number two Cleanse yourself, stir yourself. 2 Timothy Paul told his son in the faith, 2 Timothy 1.6. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the puttingplified Bibles. Stir up the gift of God. Fan the flame. Rekindle the embers. Fan the flame. Rekindle the embers. Fan the flame. Stir yourself up. Stir up the gift of God. Remind yourself. The Holy Ghost lives on the inside of you. He's able to put you over and will put you over if you will trust him and no matter how difficult it is, stay full of the Holy Ghost. See, this gets back to the intertwining with the Lord. Stay full of the Word, stay full of the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1:You know God asks you what do you want? Well, you don't really know what to answer. Sometimes the needs are so great. If he asks you what do you want? We're not sure I've asked people what do you need from God? And they go uh, uh, see, get close enough to God where it just he fills you with his answer.
Speaker 1:God asked Solomon I just read this in my Bible the other day. God asked Solomon, see, solomon took over as king for David. David. It said David was great in age. Does anybody know how old David was when he died? You know, when you read the Bible it's not clear how old he was, but he was of great age. And so you think, oh, he must have been 150. He was 70 years old when he died. 70 is kind of young in Bible days, but the God said he was of great age. So he, you know, he was for a 70-year-old. He was aged. Well, think about all the battles, think about all the things that he went through, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So Solomon, his son, sat on the throne and he went to bed one night. In a dream, god asked him ask of me, what shall I do for you? In the dream he's not conscious, he's not awake. God didn't talk to him while he's awake. He's in a dream, and in the dream God says ask of me what I will do for you. And he said, lord, that you will give me a wise and understanding heart, because, as great as this people and I'm their king and I just don't know how to go in and come out. I'm just like a child. I need you to hold my hand. I need you to help me Now. He my hand. I need you to help me Now. He said that in the dream.
Speaker 1:He didn't say that in his consciousness, but God gave him credit as if he did, and he said you know what I'm really proud of you, boy. You asked for the right thing. You asked for the right thing and I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to make you the wisest thing that's ever walked on the face of the earth. And because you didn't ask for riches and honor, I'm going to give you riches and honor to abundance. You hang out with God enough he will put in your heart what to ask him for. Oh, come on, lift your hand right now. You know, if we left our own devices, we'd just get in the flesh. We'll just ask for some silly thing. That just really doesn't make a hill of beans. But I'm telling you, you get intertwined with God and you start. I mean, you know, listen, he'll give you whatever you ask for when you ask for it in the Holy Ghost, one of the things you need to think about is what are you going to do with all this abundance when he gives it to you? It's one reason why he staged it.
Speaker 1:The church has gotten a measure of relief over the centuries, you know, and then it dissipates. And another measure, and then it dissipates. We're the generation that's going to have the largest influx of finances the world has ever seen. Why? Because we've got the largest harvest to reap that the world has ever seen. Our floors are going to be full of wheat, our vats are going to overflow with wine and oil. We're going to need every dollar that comes in. We're going to have to expand what we're thinking now. So let's think about what we're going to do with all this abundance when it comes.
Speaker 1:I wonder what the church did when 20,000 people got saved, when the man at the gate, beautiful, got healed. Well, they had to have church in the house. That's what they did, because they didn't have a building. They didn't have a building. So you see, oh, I want to, I think. Well, I knew a couple one time. They believed in having church in the house. Well, that was the babyhood stage of Christianity. That's back before they had enough faith to know what to do with the harvest. No, you need a building. We built a building way bigger than we needed. Why? Because I'm looking forward to our floors being full of wheat. It takes a long time to build a building, so we went ahead and built it and it's going to get filled.
Speaker 1:Are you with me now? Cleanse yourself, stir yourself. The last one, give yourself. Peter said silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee. He gave healing.
Speaker 1:There's going to be people that you're going to ask what do you want me to do? So you, you know we, you know God asks. You know, what do you want me to do for you? And we're going to have people come to us asking us. Or we can ask them what do you want? What do you want me to do for you? What do you want me to do for you?
Speaker 1:The blind man came up. Lord, lord, have mercy on me. What do you want me to do for you? Wouldn't it be obvious? Well, he might have had a, you know toenail fungus or something. He might have had back pain. He might have had, you know, bursitis. No, lord, that I might receive my sight. You know God didn't just, you know, jesus just didn't assume. Just by looking at the person he said what do you want? What do you want? So we asked for his sight.
Speaker 1:Are you with me now? You carry the glory, your glory carriers. We have the glory on the inside of us and it's upon us right now, in this season, some people be drawn to you. Meet their need. You've got the capacity to meet their need Freely. You have received, freely give why? Because the day of restoration is here. The day of restoration is here for you. Come on, lift your hands right now. Lord, we thank you today. We thank you that we're positioning ourselves in this season to receive all that you have in store for us. We know we're living in that day, the time of restitution of all things. Glory to God, hallelujah.