God always has an answer when we seek Him!

I was part of a meeting this weekend as we are projecting our next steps in our walk with God. What has stymied us particularly is the Corporate Lack of resources. At every point we come up against this barrier of Lack. People spiritualize it, as spiritual warfare and pray against the spirits they see at work. 

The Lord has shown that this is DECEPTION. The devil is only at work when we let him. 

The Lord has taken a company of us to seek Him concerning these financial barriers, and He has highlighted to us the problem and the cause. 

The Book of Joel has the answer. 

We see in Chapter 1, that 4 types of locust came to ravage the fruit of the land. They ate and consumed in different ways. The ministers in the Temple had no meat, no animal to sacrifice, the ministers mourned for lack. 

Today we arrange every excuse for the situation we find ourselves in. Contemporarily we too are facing the locusts, which have ravaged our ministry, corporately. We find ourselves in debt. We find ourselves having to wait to fulfil even the simplest ministry objectives. 

The New Wine and Oil has been cut off…in that there is no true joy in the Spirit, and no true anointing…in many places. And who has withheld it all…is not the devil…it is God Himself. 

God challenges Joel to speak to the leaders to blow the Trumpet in Zion. The Trumpet is the prophetic voice…in Zion, that place where God met David in Covenant, now languishes in poverty…and no longer are the ministries working. 

In Ezra’s day, they looked for the Levites, God’s ministers, and found them working the fields..because in God’s House there was no bread and no meat. Indeed the situation was that the Temple had been destroyed. The prophetic must sound the alarm in God’s Holy Hill. No longer can we hide behind convenient doctrines which blind us to the truth. 

The reason there is lack here in Joel is the same reason today…God has dried and stopped the provision. It is time the true prophetic sound the Trumpet of alarm…of alert that there is sin in the camp. 

What sins are we included in?

1. Disunity

2. Deception

3. Destruction

4. Disloyalty

5. Duality

6. Discord

7. Deafness of the ears. 

The disunity I speak is church movements breaking off and breaking relationships…of two sides, those who leave and those who are left behind…the deception is overemphasis on doctrine…destruction of people’s reputations and dreams…disloyal to the Lord by adoring their own passions. A duality of living as the world during the week and crying out and praising at the weekend. Discord in leaders and with those who have true gifts, which threaten the status quo. And deafness to the prophetic word but living as though God does not exist, making leadership decisions based on human counsel. 

The dryness and lack of provision is to make us seek Him with all our heart. To come away from pet doctrines, and see that we are the cause of the lack and impoverishment in the House of God. 

Joel gives a directive from the Lord, to sanctify a fast…, directed at bringing our heart to the realisation what type of repentance there is needed. The ministers are directed to weep and rend their hearts…between the porch…and the altar…so that God hear and turn to His People with Tender Mercies. 

Call and Gather the people…it is time to gather the people. 

I always come back to the lovely story of the Hebrides Revival, which relates to men and an elder of the Church, who determined to pray in a stone barn in Barvas. They were troubled at the state of the islands…the state of the Church. They determined to seek God, for a turn around. They prayed, repented, for 5 months until God shook the whole island! WE need to gather in stone barns, homes, garages, shops, whereever we can to pray intensely. 

Gather unto the House of the Lord…I remember going to a Church to minister with a powerful Word of revival in 1994. The Lord showed me that the Church had to suspend its meetings…its routine and call a season of prayer. The Church however, rejected my Word, and it goes to show that after that they diminished in both spiritual terms and numbers…urgent times call for urgent measures! We do not need just the provision to live, but to accomplish the Work of the Ministry to finish the Great Commission. 

God promises in chapter 2 to look upon His People and restore the years the locust ate. There was a great restoration, and a new abundance…these are distinct…God restores, then He brings abundance. 

In Guatemala, a Church prayed, for revival…and God brought an outpouring so much so that the land was healed also, as it was so impoverished, and what was grown there were giants…giant carrots, giant vegetables, fruits…everything became fruitful overnight. God wants to bless our lands…but not only…

God will bring a latter rain…an outpouring of His Spirit in such a way that all generations living will feel it. There will not just be signs and gifts in His People but even in the heavens. 

It was said in the Hebrides that the revival was so great that the angels were seen, and balls of glory on the roads, and Yeshua Himself was seen. 

God says our impoverishment is our sin…let us come to Him, in His House!

Shalom!!!
Russell A Durose

23.4.2017