Second Kings chapter 2 is where we need to be at verse 20.
But I want to talk about some things first.
There's two groups that God has laid on my heart right now
to just push in on behalf of, and of course, Red Lakes, one of them.
But the other one is Lifewise Academy.
I mean, we'll be coming to this year's school ending.
But we're preparing for next year, doubling, tripling and size,
whatever it is that the Lord has.
And so this is where we've torn a wall down in the basement of TBO
and we're expanding and doing different things, not just for the school,
because there'll probably be a recovery cafe down in there.
And what recovery cafes do is you have peer specialists or people
who know how to give advice if someone's struggling with addiction
or something like that, and they're open so many mornings a week
and people can just walk in off the street and have a cup of coffee
and sit down and talk to somebody, you know.
And so these are the things that we're preparing for.
In the middle of that, Tuesday is designated for Lifewise Academy.
Now we are the first ones.
Word of Life TBO is the first ones in the state of Minnesota
to have Lifewise.
And so I think we're also the ones that are breaking the...
any misunderstandings about it.
Because you start something in a church,
then they think it's all whatever it is we believe
that we're trying to, you know, teach to their children
and everyone's got to debate whether they want their child.
Well, Lifewise is its own thing.
It's its own thing and it keeps it in a neutral zone
where the gospel is being shared in its excellent, excellent material.
And so right now we have the three classes going
and they're looking to expand it,
but it is already poppin' in Pine City.
Brayham is looking to open up in Iceni.
And when this happened in the state where it originated in,
a couple of the different states, it went like wildfire.
Like hundreds of kids would leave
for that one-hour period of time in each school, right?
To hear the gospel.
And what they found is that as the gospel's being shared
and shared in life principles and character,
you know, they may be working on a character, you know,
respect, for instance, or something like that,
that it actually changed the behaviors of the school.
Kids, it's just, everything started coming up
and the schools take note of it and became welcoming of it.
Well, we're the spearhead breaking through here in Cambridge
and we are looking at, you know,
expanding that to junior high
and moving into other places.
So it needs, we need prayer is what we need.
I don't know, you know, sometimes you can think,
well, that's just a nice thing.
They're doing a little thing for kids.
This is the gospel going to the unsaved.
There are unsaved children coming
and it's turning the children
who already know Christ into evangelists.
Because they're inviting their friends.
And I mean, it's pretty cool.
So that's something to keep on the radar for prayer.
And then this morning we're going to talk about Red Lake.
Pastor and I are headed there today.
He usually doesn't get an opportunity to go up there.
And some of the leaders will be up there today.
So it's an important day, you know.
So they're all important,
but I think a little bit more important.
And so what has been happening is
for the last couple of Sunday nights,
I have shared on spiritual growth and the wells.
And the thing that stuck out about the wells
for up there was the generational.
Going back and honoring the fathers
and going back and digging up the ancient ruins
and things that have been uncovered
and looking at their gifts
and all of those types of things.
And this is what came out of it.
Last Sunday the service ended up in deliverance.
And so Bonnie had just a lot of kids, didn't she?
She held the line.
Because there, you know, it's all age groups.
They're just piled in there and so she's wrangling
and we got some helpers that come up with.
So that's wonderful.
They get a free meal every Sunday night after service.
So we get the fellowship time with all the people.
But in this, there were some young ministers
in the group this last Sunday night
and they were seeing things.
Now, I know about Native people were seers.
It's just how the gifting works, right?
And it is interesting.
Different nationalities have different giftings
and it doesn't mean no one else can have it.
It just means it flows pretty intense there.
And they're seers and they're dreamers
and interpretations of dreams and things like this.
And so we were sharing about the wells
and I don't know if you can bring up some pictures of the wells
that Old Testament wells.
So I just wanted to show you the various different kinds.
So see, you could call that a well
just because water was bubbling up in that area
and you say, hey, and you just dig out around it
so you can get at the water.
And it's, you know, that's the end of that.
This is actually the well of Bersheba.
And, you know, they've got it covered over
so nobody falls in because it's a really long way down
and there's stairs that go down and around inside of it.
Something like that.
You know, when they said, and they dug the wells,
you know, think about our tools that we have to dig with
and what they had back then.
You're like, yeah, we're going to make one of those.
And it's like, ah, get at it, servants of God.
But this is how we mainly picture the wells.
Most people will, if you say, well, that's how we see it.
But there's, and there's so many more
different styles of the wells in different locations
and things like that.
Some of them had pumps, you know,
that they'd have an oxen, you know,
going round and round,
and then it had something to pump the water out.
And so, I mean, that's pretty extravagant for back then, too.
So, wells were everything to help sustain life.
Cities were built around water, you know,
because it's a picture and it's a type of the source.
And Holy Spirit is definitely, the word is definitely part of the,
you know, it's the well that we have here,
the stirring and the hovering and the brooding of the spirit.
He's told us and instructed us
to make sure the water stays pure
and how it stays pure is has to keep moving.
It cannot become stagnant.
Like, you know, well, we did this in 82.
So, you know, and it stays that way.
It has to keep moving.
So it doesn't end up looking like our swamp areas in July,
what they call the dog days or whatever.
I wasn't sure what that was when we moved back up here.
We didn't have that saying in Wisconsin, you know,
there's more swamps or something here,
but so I remember seeing that,
I was like, oh, that's what they're talking about.
I see now, you know, it's murky,
it's got moss growing in it,
stuff like that.
It's not always good to drink.
So I was sharing about the different types of wells
and the type, the picture that was there
and at the end of this service,
this young minister.
And I don't know, you can bring it up without playing it,
but just bring it up so they can see who he is.
He's a church planter
and he's in the area now up there.
And there's other people that are pulling forward
just out of the woodwork.
It's been kind of cool.
They're hearing about the services.
They're hungry and they're meat-eaters.
So what I mean by that, they're not coming like,
you have some milk, you know, alms for the poor kind of thing.
They're like, you got any meat here?
It's like, I need the meat of the word.
And what they do recognize
and what they know is out of the meat of the word
that's what's gonna sustain them
because they know they're about to embark
in a heavy spiritual battle.
That there's people gathering
and we're gathering up there for a reason
and the people that are coming together
understand spiritual warfare.
And it's no more evil there
than it is in Cambridge or Isanti or whatever.
It's just, you know, we live in our areas
and we think it's wonderful here.
Well, just pick a day and gather a group
and start doing some spiritual warfare.
You'll find some things will show up, right?
And you'll be like, I did not know
that was laying around here.
But for them, the oppression
and the being, you know,
being under rulership
or trying to avoid things being taken from them,
their concentration has been on survival.
And now God's raising people up
saying, you know, I don't want you to survive.
I want you to live and bring the gospel.
And so that's what the war is over.
They're like, wait a second, we do have rights,
spiritual rights, and we can dig up
the wells of our ancestors
and there were many of them
who understood the Creator.
Right?
And so there's much history
of Jesus appearing to them,
no different than there is right now
in the Muslim communities.
He's showing up continually.
People are getting born again
and there's no evangelists there.
So that's pretty cool.
So anyways, I talked about all this
and we ended up,
a person came to Christ
and in the end,
this young man stood up
and he shared,
and I'm just going to play a clip.
It went on for quite a bit.
I kept shutting my phone down,
starting to back up because it took up big spaces.
But he was sharing
of a dream
that he had.
And so he sat,
not last Sunday but the Sunday before,
he sat kind of with this look on his face
like, what?
And it was because his dream
was coming forward as I was speaking.
It was very prophetic
and he was like,
I've seen this, I've seen this.
So it starts out talking about
him in the dream carrying buckets
and they were heavy buckets of water
and he was trying to get
something started and he dumped the water out
and it just would suck away
and there was nothing.
He had to go back and he felt exhausted
and people were coming with buckets of water
just dumping and dumping and dumping
but it would just suck away
and nothing was gone in an instant.
And then
at one portion
the Lord talked to him about
deliverance
and becoming an artesian well.
See, there's no way
that I would have known that and he didn't know
that I was speaking on wells and this first time he came
to hear me speak, right?
And it had to do with an artesian well.
The Lord said, you're an artesian well.
Which flows up
and makes itself known.
And so
and he said there's many other people here
the same thing. He said
we've got to get in the river
right?
And then allow us
to be so soaked in the water
that we become
this well wherever we go
it just piles out.
So it was like one of these
revelatory moments where I was like
he was like that
because the deeper
picture of the well that starts here
and then he talked about rivers
flowing and trying to
find these rivers but the rivers that
they've looked for
are poisoned.
He said we've been
given poisonous water.
And so let's just play this one clip
so we can just hear him speak and kind of catch
the if we can if we can get it to go.
Elijah says bring
you'll have to turn it up.
I'll go back.
One day of the leaders
for the town of Jericho
visited Elijah.
We have a problem with my lord
they told him
this town is located
in a pleasant
surrounding as you can see
but the water is bad
and the land is unproductive.
Elijah said
bring me a new bowl
with salt in it.
So he brought it to him
and he went out to the spring
and he supplied
the town with water.
He went out to the spring that supplied the town with water
and threw salt into it
and he said this is what the lord said
I have purified
this water
it will no longer cause death
or infatility
and the water has remained pure
even or ever since
just as Elijah said.
So
someone
So we'll go ahead and read that same thing
2 Kings
chapter 2
verse 20 but to lead up
to it it's talking about Jericho
and
Jericho's waters were cursed
the land was cursed
and people died
when they tried to live there
and this kept going for generations
And so here we are now. And verse 20 it says,
this water was poisoned and it left things barren.
He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it so they brought it to him.
This is Elisha. Then Elisha went to the spring of water and threw the salt in it and said,
thus sayeth the Lord, ooh, this is speaking on God's behalf.
I not the Lord, but the Lord said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it so they brought it to him.
Not the salt have purified and healed these waters.
There shall no longer be death or barrenness because of it.
So the waters have been purified to this day in accordance with the word spoken by Elisha.
So what they had found out in history proves that even the women could not get pregnant
or they'd miscarry and it was a continual, it was like a curse there.
That's what I talked about in chapters before.
And so when he put the salt in it, amplified, make sure that we know it wasn't the salt that healed the water.
It was the Lord that healed the water.
And so it says, not the salt, have purified, the Lord has said this,
and not the salt said this, have purified and healed these waters.
There shall no longer be death or barrenness because of it.
And so his point was, you know, here they're trying to do all this work of hauling water in
and the Lord's saying, you know, you need to become an artesian well.
You need to become that water so full of me that wherever you go, it just springs up and it's pure.
But then it led him to know that there's barrenness all through the Red Lake area.
There's barrenness for the people and it's gone on for generations
and the Lord is about to purify the water.
And it was a very powerful moment to have that connection.
We can have these same problems here in our own personal lives and things like that.
So then, you know, I looked up, of course, the thought of salt is purification.
The miracle performed by Elisha is rich in symbolic meaning and theological implications.
Salt in the ancient Near Eastern context was a symbol of purification, preservation, and covenant.
All three of those things are huge. All three of those things is what's needed there.
It's also needed here in our life.
But, you know, and that the salt and God's word over the salt is what purified the water.
So this problem would stop.
By using salt, Elisha not only addressed the immediate physical need of the community,
but also demonstrated the power of God to bring life and restoration.
The act of purifying the water with salt can be seen as a divine intervention
that underscores God's sovereignty over creation and his ability to transform and renew.
Now, for us to make a difference up there or wherever we're ministering
when there's something that is cursed, then we bring the blessing to it.
But to bring the blessing, most of the time there's a purification that has to take place
so the blessing can rest or drive out the curse, right?
Even driving it out is a purification. It's deliverance.
So it's saying that God is going to bring deliverance, preservation, and covenant.
This runs really deep, so I don't know what's going to happen tonight.
I'm kind of excited about seeing the next part of the movie.
You're like, yeah, I don't know what's going to happen.
But when we look at this, these are types that we need to understand.
And if something's even, if something's bearing in our life, there's a process of healing.
We are the salt, right of the world.
We are salt. We should be and we should be the kind that people can taste.
Where they're like, whoa, that was really salty.
You know, when they walk away from us, they make a face even because they tasted us so well.
We're not just adding just a little bit, but we're clearly known that we're there.
And it's meant to bring deliverance wherever there's salt is that purifying factor.
So that's why when we lose our salt, our saltiness, nobody gets delivered.
When salt is heavy in the room, spiritual salt is heavy and something's going to manifest.
Because purification is going on. It's going to happen.
And so this is what we're gleaning from. This is confirmation to what we already know.
But it's based in covenant. It's purification.
And then it preserves what needs to be preserved.
And there's a covenant built around it.
That's what the salt represents.
And the water to begin with can come from the stirring of the wells
and then those corridors of victory, the rivers that flow out of it
through the prayers and everything that are going on here and other places.
They got to find that and get in it.
This is why if you're on a mission field or you're trying to reach a certain city or whatever
and the people there just stay there.
Can God move on that? Yes.
But it's a faster move if they're able to come through
and come to a place that already has the flowing water and they drink of it.
They'll go heat seeking it. They'll take some back there, right?
And they'll be life in it will sustain.
But the whole point will be for them to now have a well of their own.
That's the point.
And so that's why this has to say purified, sanctified and built in covenant.
Everything that we stand on regarding what we're experiencing here
and so much more is going to come up.
How I know that is because he's purifying the waters.
This is why we're in the stage of salt.
Not that that ends. We're like, well, we did that in 25.
So we never have to be purified again.
No, the world is always moving in on us.
And the salt in this story represents the fact that it'll purify and keep the water pure.
It'll preserve.
So that means for Christians, we stay in the knowledge of deliverance.
We stay in that purifying die to self mode the rest of our lives.
There's always something we can find in the water that's like, hmm, that's not so pure.
That's what the salt is for.
And yet we're the carriers of the salt and we're to be like salt to other people.
There's so much around the type of salt.
So there's certain wells that if they sit for a little bit,
there'll be certain bacteria that'll grow, you know, and then you end up with parasites
and you get sick and there's all, you know, we make sure the well here is checked
or different places are checked. You should do that to make sure that's happening.
And then they have to be purified.
And so there's nothing here that's like, if your brain thinks like, you know,
they're so sin conscious at word of life or we're always talking about something
we got to get rid of. Let's talk about something positive or whatever.
We're always checking the water.
We have a well to protect.
The well in us and the well that he's told us to dig.
Amen?
And so it's a big old well. It's not done.
I think it's going to expand. There's going to be all kinds of aqueducts
and things coming off of it.
I mean, it's, you know, I should have brought the one picture.
They just had rocks to mark the different areas where the water would come off this well.
They had created a system where you walk down into the well
and then the rocks on the upside would mark, here's where there's a flow.
Here's where there's a flow. And I don't know how they turned it on or off,
but it would affect everything. And I started thinking about Joseph
because we've moved here under the Joseph's anointing.
So you move to a land that has to have wells.
And, you know, what was his job?
He interpreted a dream, or the Lord interpreted it through him.
Zephanaphpedaea. So as that took place, now the fulfillment of that is like,
well, that was the dream. Now we got to go do it.
Well, how did they water all those fields? Buckets?
I'm pretty sure they came up with something.
Some kind of thing that just, you know, was able to move in that.
And so that's what's happening as we move into the north.
It's like, how do we get this over there?
Well, part of it is, come, see that the Lord is good.
Come taste of the water that's here.
So the corridors of victory have to be open
between the places we're reaching north for them to come here.
That was the prophecies that have been spoken.
We went through the vision booklet. That's what was talked about.
They shall come from far and near was the word.
Right? But they'll be safe in these corridors of victory.
So that's how I know I'm safe when I head up to Red Lake.
I still pray, but I know I'm safe. I'm in a corridor.
That's already been prayed through.
I'm just walking on through, driving.
And a couple of times I've watched people go right in the ditch in front of me.
The one time it was car rolled over.
I had to call the ambulance and all that kind of stuff.
But I'm in a corridor of victory.
And I'm bringing salty water.
Water that's been purified.
Water that has a covenant base.
Water that's there to sanctify.
And it's bringing deliverance.
You just show up with the water.
So someone asked me a while back.
So how do you know what to preach up there?
How do you know?
I don't.
I'm just a carrier of water.
The kind of water that if they drink of it, they'll never thirst again.
Or they'll drink of it and they'll be like,
I got to get some of this for my family.
Where can we go to get this?
So I believe that God is going to have us have more groups of people going up.
Water carriers, not just to go and sightsee.
Some people do that on mission trips.
They're like, I've always wanted to go to whatever, you know.
And they're on the mission trip, not really to be a water carrier.
They just want to take in the sights.
Or their parents made them go.
Or whatever the poor reason for being on the mission field is.
But those who are carriers, you're literally there.
With bags of salt.
Or buckets of water.
Or it's going to come out of you.
You are that artesian well and it's so pure.
It's so pure.
And it does taste different because we have a campground that we go to in Wisconsin.
And we're always looking for the artesian well.
It just comes flowing right out of the ground.
And it's just, I mean, it tastes different.
Especially compared to the city water with the fluoride.
That's like, what is this?
And man comes up with ways that we think we can purify the water.
Right? Like fluoride.
And all we're doing is hurting people.
God's purification comes through us being salt.
So for us to take on the salt, we had to be purified.
We can't be carriers of salt unless that purification affected us first.
So it comes to the house of the Lord first and we become carriers.
Do you see all this?
This is what they're starting to see up there.
They're like, there's something to these wells.
I just think it's beautiful.
And for this man of God to have had a dream.
And in the end of his dream, he really realized this.
I'm called to this area.
And there's other people that are saying the same thing.
I felt the exact same thing they said.
And so how did the service end?
Well, we ended it three times.
You know, we do that here too, right?
You know, it's like, okay, that was a pretend end.
And now we're gonna, for real this time, we're gonna...
But the last prayer line was for deliverance.
And we're seeing things like the weekend before,
when I spoke on the wells, there was a young man
that was sitting in the back and he just came forward.
And I said, is there anybody who needs prayer?
Whatever, he didn't come during that time.
And I started speaking on something else.
He was gonna close out the service and he came to the front
and just down on his knees and started crying and repenting.
It's God.
And the salt that touches it's like there's a purification going on.
It's so supernatural.
So here, Elisha went to the spring of water
and threw the salt in it and said,
thus sayeth the Lord.
See, that's where the prophetic part comes in.
But you can't just speak anything
and add the sayeth the Lord to it.
Prophecy means you're speaking on God's behalf.
So you must have heard from him, right?
You're not making up your own stuff.
And so thus sayeth the Lord,
I, not the salt, have purified and healed these waters.
There shall no longer be death or barrenness.
And so one of their biggest complaints is that
when they go to reproduce anything good,
it dies.
It doesn't work out.
It's stolen.