We're just going to go as deep as he wants us to go, and I don't know where that is yet.
Let me start by sharing this. This happened, I believe, in 2015.
Dr. Thurston was here, and he had a huge layout of the tabernacle.
That was a miniature version of the tabernacle that he had up front here.
Some of you probably remember that.
The key thing to that whole presentation is he felt the Lord had shown him how the tabernacle lays out over America.
And the gates where you enter is New York, because that's where all the immigration by and large came in through.
Which then he laid it out across the nation, which makes California and the West Coast the holy place,
is why it's so under attack with unholiness.
So he laid that all out, and he said, we're right in the middle here.
And this is what happened in the middle of the tabernacle.
He called it the threshing floor, but the element that was there was the labor.
And the labor was on its own stand. It was like a big sink or basin.
And up in the middle it rose up, and it was really polished shiny so you could see yourself.
And the priests, before they could go deeper into the holy place or the holy of holies,
they had to wash in the labor, seeing themselves and cleaning themselves
to be able to withstand the glory of where they were going.
So it was part of the process of moving toward the holy of holies.
That lays right over the center of the country, Minnesota included.
So now you're all aware, I presume if you're not, you'll get a little picture here.
It's been prophesied numerous times, there's even books written,
that there will be a move of God in Canada, and it will come down through the center of the nation.
Specifically the spearhead will be Minnesota, and will go out through this nation and to the world.
But it will enter the United States through Minnesota.
Tie that in with the wash basin, which pictures sanctification.
And seeing yourself for what you really are, and cleaning yourself,
washing yourself with the water of the word, and getting ready to step into the holy place and the holy of holies.
That's the emphasis on Minnesota.
And if you go back to the founding of Minnesota, you find some of these things,
they didn't even know what they were doing, but they're already kind of in the founding documents,
and in the founding, isn't that right Dale?
The early people who founded this state were more led by God than we want to care for sometimes.
And they planted us in this mindset, so to speak.
Could you bring that verse up in Haggai please?
So we started on...
Did you have any clue that we've been talking about offence and persecution and stuff like that?
That's been rattling around you?
Yep.
Cool.
Well, it works hand in hand with what...
And the reason is, we're going into that vision book now.
And re-establishing in everybody's... because things are about to change.
Re-establishing what our vision is and what we're here for and what God wants to do through us.
If you go to the... it shows up numerous times, but if you want a summary of it,
if you go to the last two pages of the vision book,
it lays out that we feel... we felt it for years.
We're an end times church. We're a last days church.
Which fits perfectly with Matthew 25 and the stuff that's going to happen, okay?
We're an last days end times church.
A remnant bride church is what he's asking us to strive to be.
Not just be a church, but be the bride church, which there's a difference.
And you touch that briefly.
And how that he wants us to move toward that because of things that he wants to do that he hasn't shown us yet.
We... even through the meetings and after, we put a heavy emphasis on the presence anointing in the glory of God.
It's good.
And it is good. And we tend to look at it excitingly.
And it is exciting.
Very much so.
But I want you to see this verse.
By the way, the author, and I apologize to interrupt your Passover.
By the way, the author in Hebrews quotes this exact same verse.
This is Hebrews 12. He talks about a shaking of God to remove all things that can be shaken.
And I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations, which I agree.
I looked up some things while you were saying it, pointing to Jesus.
100%.
And I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts.
Now the temple today is us.
We're the temple.
Now, yes, the Israelites are going to reestablish a temple.
And boy, I don't want to get sidetracked because there's some new developments that have just happened there too.
But I don't want to get sidetracked.
We are the temple where God lives in.
We're the spirit of bides.
Says the Lord of hosts at Jehovah's of both, the Lord of war service in the appointed time,
the God of covenant of war service in the appointed time.
So he is calling on his warfare attributes, character, to implement what he's going to do here.
This isn't Abba father that he's talking about.
This is Jehovah's of both.
The covenant God of war service in the right time.
He brings this forth.
Okay, so he's going to shake all nations.
And I will fill this temple, this temple referring to, he wants to fill the whole earth with his glory.
He said that other places, the nations included.
He wants to fill us with his glory.
In that verse, he's telling us, for us to receive the glory he wants us to walk in,
he has to shake the gunk and the crud out of us first.
I'm letting you talk. That's why I'm silent.
No, you go ahead and you can act it out. I'm good with that.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Yep, he's going to turn it upside down so he can get it right side up.
Can I also underline something?
Go ahead.
It's not to hurt us.
No.
It's not to hurt us.
And the spirit hasn't left when he does it.
In fact, he intensifies.
Because in that shaking, hold your thought just for a second.
In that shaking...
You said I can talk so.
In that shaking, he has us...
I'll say a couple of things. I'll try to bring it together.
In that shaking, he has us in front of the labor washing,
getting ready to go into the Holy of Holies.
And if he doesn't shake us by the labor or wash us by the labor,
we will be destroyed and die when we go into the Holy of Holies
because we won't have the capacity to carry what he gives to us.
It'll kill us.
Okay?
So with that thought in mind,
it is a privilege and an honor
for the glory and the presence of God to show up heavily.
But it is also a huge responsibility
because what he wants to do,
and I'm going to just say in Minnesota,
I'm not going to say we want to be part of it.
We want to be in the front edge of it as a church.
But what he wants to do is he sweeps that last day move
in through this state, which it's, to me, it's just funny.
You know, it's just the way God works.
There's many, I just heard this last week,
there's many states around the nation
that are beginning to abhor Minnesota
because of the moral stance we're taking.
And wouldn't it be just like God to say,
let's go after the dirtiest one first.
And we'll clean them up,
and then we can go for the rest of the nation.
I mean, he doesn't pick the easiest job first.
He many times goes for the worst.
He chose me.
Well, I wasn't going to say anything.
But throw some thoughts in and then I'm going to finish.
So watch this.
You were saying we must go through the shaking
and it's a privilege and an honor to have the presence of God
come upon and rest on a church.
But it's all to responsibility.
Yes, so watch this.
I was talking about the way that you can really say
that a church is successful.
And I quoted Proverbs.
Let me read it to you.
I just quickly want to elaborate.
This is Proverbs 31-11.
The heart of her husband safely trusts her.
So he will have no lack of gain.
The reason why I'm reading this verse
when a presence of God comes and rests on a church
to the measure that you guys have been and are experiencing
is one should not be taken lightly.
Like Pastor Werner is saying.
That's why we're experiencing the fear of the Lord.
Can I tell you one of the things that my wife and I
have been experiencing prior to the conference
but even more after the conference
is a spirit of the fear of the Lord.
It sobers you to understand
what's going on.
That this is a rarity.
This is not something that everybody has.
You know what I mean?
And you really begin to be like,
whoa, this is no joke.
God is actually trusting me.
He's trusting me with this.
And if God finds trust in us,
friends, we're doing something right.
I just wanted to kind of quickly share that
when you were saying
to really sober your congregation to...
We were at a church last Sunday.
Can I quickly share this?
We were at a new church last Sunday.
My son, Benjamin, we drove by this church often.
And Benjamin goes,
Papa, Mama, I want to go to that church.
So I'm like, all right, cool.
You know, let's go visit this church.
It's a progressed Catholic church.
They're saying all the right stuff.
They even have the contemporary worship.
And I'm not here to...
I'm not here to speak badly about a church.
I hope that's not how I'm coming off.
I'm not here to speak badly about a church
because truly the church was beautiful.
The worship was beautiful.
The sermon was good.
But there is an absence of the presence of God.
And I want you guys here at Word of Life to understand,
don't take this lightly.
Don't take this lightly.
Let this be something that you really...
you have reverence to this.
Because God has found trust in you.
And I believe that as you're transitioning,
you're going to see a greater level of trust,
which means a greater level of presence
that's going to rest on this house.
I am so honored and privileged that my wife and I
got a chance to meet this house
and to meet Passover and Mary and meet you guys.
It's a great honor for me because I get to be part of this.
I walk in and you guys got it ready here.
You guys think that I'm bringing the presence,
the presence is here and I'm walking into it.
So I'll say this as a jump off point
to where I'm going because it fits perfectly.
When we went out to eat with you and Tanya.
Monday.
The one thing that you said.
Oh Lord Jesus.
Yeah, let's not.
I'm sorry.
I'm sure Mary remembers.
You're going to get my saliva glands going here.
The one thing you said early in the evening
was what is happening here is a rarity.
Almost every speaker that comes through here
who is in touch with the Spirit,
so to speak, flows with the Spirit,
says the same thing.
I say that because we could get in the ditch on this
and get proud and go,
oh yeah, we're a rarity.
We're some of that.
No, no, no, no.
I say that to say this.
Two things.
One is if we as a body don't continue to go together,
the rarity will cease.
Because it's not just Mary and I.
It is us.
When the day of Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit was poured out
it wasn't because the disciples
or the apostles in the upper room were in unity.
The 120 were as one.
You want to hear something more?
Ephesians 3 talks about the fourfold love of God.
It says the length, the height, the depth, the width.
Now, few verses down.
If you have the...
you can put it up on the screen.
It's Ephesians 3.
It says with all the saints,
meaning that with all the saints,
we are to know the fourfold.
The love of God is the presence of God.
Because that's who God is.
So what I'm saying that literally
to know the presence of God
takes more than just one person.
It's a group of people.
A company of people.
Yeah, that's good.
And when you were talking about Proverbs 31,
my mind went immediately to Revelation 2 and 3,
the seven churches.
And how that two of the seven
Jesus said,
good, he had nothing to say,
change this or improve this.
But five of the seven,
I mean, even threaten some of them.
If you don't get it together,
I'm out of here, kind of thing.
So it is, there is a responsibility
in a holiness that goes with this.
Okay, so we're saying,
yeah, we want the glory.
We want the presence of God to show up.
We do.
And it's awesome and exciting.
But to actually facilitate that,
he's going to require more of us
than he is of other churches.
If we genuinely are a rarity,
he's going to ask more of us
to in house or to carry what he's doing.
He will shake us harder.
Why?
So that the junk that is in our life
that shouldn't be there,
go back to the labor picture,
gets washed off or gets shaken off.
Why?
Because that's the preparation
to go into the holy place
or the holy of holies.
You don't just waltz in.
You say, but we're all bought by the blood
and we're all good enough.
Positionally, yes.
Our spirit man is made perfect.
Yeah.
But when it comes to the deep,
heavy things of God,
to whom much is given,
much is required.
So if we're actually saying,
yeah, we want much, much, much deeper and more,
we're actually saying,
God require much, much, much more of me.
That's the responsibility side to this.
The exciting side is,
you never know what's going to happen.
The responsibility side can be,
oh God, you never know what's going to happen.
He's going to shake some things,
turn us upside down.
To turn us right side up.
So that he can shake all the stuff out of our pockets
and everything we got hidden.
That's right.
So he can turn us around.
I can demonstrate.
No, don't do that.
I got some muscle.
I have things hidden.
Do you? Okay.
All right.
You want a mint?
I actually will, please.
Thank you so much.
I have some of my hidden stuff.
Is this the fresh mana from heaven?
Yeah.
It's...
I'll explain it to you later.
All right.
Anyway...
I've never had a pastor share this with me before.
So when we are pressing deeper into what he wants to do,
what Igor's talking about is absolutely vital,
he will throw...
that the enemy will throw more opportunities
for us to be offended
than other churches.
We will be picked on more.
We will be mocked more.
We will be laughed at more.
He will throw more opportunities for us to pick up offence
while the master of the church is watching and saying,
come on guys, handle that the right way.
Because if you handle that the right way,
you are being shook free of the junk
that will keep you out of the glory.
Watch this.
Hebrews 12 says,
if we are chastised and disciplined by the Lord,
in other words, shaken by him,
then we are legitimate children.
If we are not being shaken by the Lord,
then the Bible tells us in Hebrews
that we are illegitimate children of God.
Yeah, exactly.
Can I say something?
Cool.
The reason why I say that the strategic plan of God
is the greater thing.
See, the devil doesn't have plans.
The devil has schemes.
That's all he has.
God has a plan.
We say, oh, the devil has a plan.
No, no, he has schemes.
He doesn't have plans.
This is why the strategic plan of God
and what's occurring is far greater
than the demonic attack,
because God has a plan orchestrated.
The devil is simply putting pressure,
putting his schemes on these things.
He's not in control.
So that's where I'm saying the two collide.
It's both a demonic attack,
yet more than that, it's a strategic plan of God.
Just wanted to throw that in there.
What he intends for evil,
God is working in that all the time.
Romans 8, 28.
Yeah.
It's not like God's sitting back going,
oh, what are we going to do with this?
No, he's saying, watch me.
You go ahead and play.
I'm going to turn this whole thing.
I'm telling you, in the days ahead,
the unpopular topic of what I said,
beauty and suffering.
Friends, you're going to see sermons on that.
There is beauty and suffering.
Let me just give you a sneak peek of what I say.
When you learn the beauty and suffering,
you're giving the devil a bad day.
Because that's what purifies us, sanctifies us.
You can't reach you.
Yeah.
First Peter 4, the beginning of the chapter,
to die to the flesh,
never happens without suffering.
There's suffering involved.
We have to learn how to do it.
We have to learn how to do it well.
Because as that happens, then the glory comes
and fills those spots.
So, let me go back to my thought.
Sorry.
No, I think it's all weaving together.
It's good.
Numerous people have said what we discussed
on Friday night with the covenant partners.
In a nutshell way, you just...
I came up here and you were right.
When the praise band was done...
Oh, it was shaking like a canary.
It was... my legs were weak standing on this platform.
And I was thinking, boy, they're doing good to stand that long.
Because it was heavy up here.
It was heavy.
But when I came up after the message,
you parroted something that others have been saying.
And I say this again in the fear of the Lord.
Not to say, oh, look at something that God's doing.
No, I'm saying we have to understand
the gravity of the responsibility of this.
You said, I feel like the Lord is about to catapult this church forward.
And there's been numerous people who are saying the same thing.
There's a feeling in the atmosphere.
Don't know how soon or when,
but there's going to be a leap forward in some things.
Can I jump on that?
Okay.
No, on the catapult.
Oh, I thought you were going to explain it.
Sorry, that's Russians we sometimes...
You can get on the catapult with us.
That's fine.
You want any special seat?
I'll go low. I'll go low.
Can I be the guy that's pushing it?
That's a good answer. That was a really good answer.
But I do want to say actually something
because you're saying this and I'm brought back to one of the conference nights.
One of the nights I said that we often ask God for a greater fire.
But a greater fire won't come until a greater sacrifice is laid on the altar.
And the reason for it being that if we do not lay a sacrifice that is to match the fire,
the altar will burn.
And God doesn't want to do that.
So when you're talking about responsibility, here you are as a church.
You're saying God, we want more friends.
You got to get ready to lay down more.
Because when God's going to send down a fire on the sacrifice,
you got to be there.
You can't be doing one of these.
Maybe, maybe not.
What if things get a little weird?
That's okay.
Pastor Vern will deal with it.
Give me Romans 12-1.
And you can't have one foot in the world and one foot in the earth.
No, you can't.
It'll make you get off that neutral spot one way or the other.
Can't do it.
And what you said is exactly what I want to apply here.
Present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God.
He's going to require more of us because He wants to give us more.
And we could have a prayer line, but this is not a...
What we're doing that needs to be shook out of our life,
chances are we're not doing it at church.
We're doing it at home.
Behind closed doors.
We're doing it behind closed doors.
Can I say a quick thought?
He's asking, give me just a thought.
Yes, sir.
Just second for a thought.
He's asking us to lay those things down as a sacrifice so they can burn.
Just what you just said.
He is going to shake us to get those things out and off of us.
Why?
Because of the Scripture we read in Haggai,
the reason he's shaking the earth is so he can invade it with his glory.
And this is our little piece of it right here.
Go ahead.
What we do behind closed doors is far more important than what we do in public.
This is the Matthew 6.
I touched on this at the conference as well.
If we do what we do here at church, if we do this at home,
you will experience the presence of God like no other.
Why?
Because God is going to begin to reward not just 10 of you,
not just 15 of you, but the full congregation is going to be rewarded with this presence.
Because he says,
Seek him in private and he will reward you in public.
Openly.
With his presence.
Yep.
So my point to everything you said this morning and everything we just kind of wove through
is the areas of our lives where we're messing around.
And God is going to start shaking us to quit, to get us to quit that.
Not because he doesn't want us to have any fun.
Because that's why we mess around.
It's fun for the flesh.
Sin is joyful or if sin is fun, pleasurable for a season, Scripture says.
And that's why Christians mess around in stuff they shouldn't be messing around in,
because they like it.
They didn't like it.
They wouldn't do it.
They like it.
We like it.
It's us.
And what God is saying is where I want to take you and what I want to do in our lives as
individuals, in our families, in this church body, in this area, this region, this state.
What I want to do here is going to require more...
I'll try to use some adjectives.
You jump in and help me if you have to.
It's going to require more commitment.
More willingness to die to the flesh.
And not just the willingness, but doing it.
More of us not messing around.
But getting serious.
It's not a game.
Getting serious.
And offering ourselves a living sacrifice.
Sacrifices are something that are painful.
Especially if you are the sacrifice.
And he's asking us to suffer.
Let him shake us.
Let him clean us.
Let him get us into the position so that, just like it said in that verse, more glory can come.
And the people and the churches who get stubborn on that and are not willing to go there.
The presence leaves.
You're either moving deeper in God or you're going the other way.
From my understanding...
There's no standing still.
You can't stand still long.
Because you'll start sliding backwards or you're focused on moving deeper.
And I include all of us in this because...
If he's going to do something with us as a church, he's going to do something with us as a church.
It's not going to be, oh, let's see how amazing Pastor Mary and whoever else can be.
No, he is going to shake all of us in our personal lives at home saying, I've been after this.
Some things for years, some things are new, whatever.
I've been after this.
Let it go.
Now you know why.
So that more glory can come in your life.
More glory can come here.
We can have a bigger effect on what his kingdom is trying to do.
Do you want to add anything to that?
You're good.
Your wife said you're good, so I'm in agreement with your wife.
You said that you like when people agree with you.
I agree with your wife that you're good, so we're good.
I think that's the message for the day.
And when God gives me grace, I would love to come back and share the other two major things.
Oh, he'll be back.
Are you sure?
All right, be blessed. Have an awesome day.
And don't forget what we ended on.