So, we're going to talk about something really exciting tonight, and angels are the after effect of it.
They work with it, but they're the after effect of it.
Remember, I'll just briefly review. This is message number four in a little series here on the word in the supernatural.
When we moved up here, God said, this is what I want you to build the church on up here.
The word in the supernatural.
The first message, we talked about what we believe supernatural is according to Scripture.
We gave some examples of things, gave one example of a vision that a man had concerning our property and the modular and angels there and so forth.
And then we had the second message was basically examples and answering questions that had come in and that pop up around this.
And then last Sunday, we talked a little more about the supernatural and watched some videos and things like that to kind of say, here's how it really got rolling here. Here's what happened.
Side thought, we have three or four series. Well, there's one individual and there's two or three series on angels.
If you go to the main message tab on our website and in the search bar, you just put in angels, it'll bring them up.
So this is a repeat of some of the things you've heard me say before, and then we're going to talk about some things you haven't heard.
We'll have some others join in.
But before we can talk about angels, we have to talk about open heavens.
So guys, if you could do me a favor and hand these out.
I think we've got enough one per family unit of your single. You're considered a family unit.
So we've got Abbey made 50 of them. I think we've got enough.
Whenever you have an opens heavens setting in scripture, you have angels active.
And of course we talked already about how that with the human race, God uses angels a lot.
Believers have their own angels that are assigned to them.
I don't know how far that goes into the unbeliever realm, but I know for believers scripture says we have that.
But what we're going to talk about tonight, there is a huge amount of angelic activity that takes place in this room.
I haven't seen so much elsewhere, but then I don't spend enough time in the rest of the building when things are going on.
So I don't have any input there.
But the reason it's here is because of the open heavens.
So I want to go over just briefly this booklet.
This was the one that I was referring to that I wrote for 2009, the open heaven meetings then.
And there's a few things in here that will be helpful for us to understand what we're talking about tonight.
So if you go to page one, top of it says open heavens.
Roman numeral one a little over halfway down. What is an open heaven?
An open heaven is when God is spiritually unrestricted in his ability to move and work in our lives.
His blessing flows freely. The land is free from curse.
Things of the spirit are easily brought into the physical realm.
What is a closed heaven?
A closed heaven is when God is spiritually restricted in his ability to move and work in our lives.
Curses develop. The land and heavens become hard and unresponsive.
Prosperity in all areas of our life, wanes.
And demonic activity becomes strong and seemingly unbeatable.
So when we're talking about open heaven, we're basically talking about an unrestricted access to God.
Jump over to page five.
Actually, we'll start at page four.
What causes the heavens to be open or closed?
Open heavens come from, and I have a number of things listed there.
Number one, covenant plays a huge role in opening the heavens spiritually.
Through the covenant of Jesus, we have the right to unrestricted access to the kingdom.
That has been bought for us. That's one of our rights.
And that's why Jesus in the Lord's Prayer said, we need to just, it's open, just call it down.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Covenants play a huge part of this.
The one thing we have to remember is if we have ambassadors in a different country...
Let's say we've got an ambassador to China.
Who are they, what country are they a citizen of?
United States. Whose rules do they live by?
United States.
They are exempt from any Chinese laws.
Now it's good to not just go out there and thumb your nose at the rest of them and say,
Na na na na, you can't touch me.
But in reality, ambassador is exempt from that society and how that society runs.
They run according to the U.S. society and their citizenship here.
We are ambassadors of that kingdom here.
We run by, our citizenship is in heaven, Scripture says.
We run by the rules of that kingdom, not this one.
And when we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light,
this kingdom of that, that rules and reigns in this earth too much of the time, the kingdom of darkness,
it has no rights over us. We are exempt from it.
It has no right to touch us. It has no right to mess with us.
The only rights it will ever have is if we give it right.
So that's why we walk circumspectly, how the King James says it, so that we don't give it right.
Covenant plays a huge role. We have to know who we are in God to experience an open heaven.
So Covenant plays a huge role. Number two on page five, faithfully obeying God is part of this.
Number three, obeying God. And their Scripture is listed for that.
Prayer and repentance, of course, that's what's needed. Number four, to be able to obey God.
Number five, huge Scripture there that explains some things, humbling ourselves, praying, seeking God's face,
turning from wickedness, you know, obeying God.
Malachi three, number six, obedience to God.
Well, now surprise, surprise, letter B on page five, closed heavens come from the opposite.
Not listening to God, turning away from God, not obeying God. Number four, sinning against God.
Number five, being a rebellious unbeliever.
So just because we have something doesn't mean we can't lose it.
The way we establish it is the way we can lose it.
Works same way. Just want you to understand that will play in a little bit later.
Page number 12, angels in open heavens.
Scripturally, there's a lot of angelic activity that takes place in open heaven situations.
Letter A in the Old Testament, specifically Genesis 28, Jacob's Ladder.
We're going to refer to that more directly going through the PowerPoint, so I won't take much time here.
But it is one of the big examples in the Old Testament of an open heaven.
Letter B, New Testament, John chapter one, verse 50 and 51, if you drop to the last line in that paragraph.
Jesus told Nathaniel that he would see an open heaven over Jesus with the angels ascending and descending on him.
We don't know when that happened.
There's no scriptural reference. Nathaniel wasn't on the Mount of Transfiguration.
So I don't think he was referring to that time when everything opened up on the glory.
The Lord got so bright and Jesus' clothes glistened and that was all an open heaven thing going on.
So I don't know when Nathaniel sought, but Jesus had unrestricted access to the Father.
He lived under an open heaven.
Nothing ever closed over him and made it difficult for him.
The only thing that made it difficult for him was his flesh, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane.
When he thought, oh man, I just really don't want to do this.
But it had nothing to do with the heavens.
So you've got Old New Testament, it works together, page number 14.
Roman numeral three at the bottom. Angels are to be highly active in the New Testament church.
We're going to bring this up a little more again in the PowerPoint, but I just wanted to point it out here.
In Hebrews 12-22, I'll give you the context in the PowerPoint. I just put the verse in here.
The NIV says thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.
The King James says an innumerable company of angels.
The Amplified says to countless multitudes of angels in festal gathering.
This is the three ways the different translations describe the angels that are gathered with the church of the firstborn, which is Jesus church.
This is speaking of angels involvement and what God wants, how God wants angels involved in the New Testament church.
Thousands upon thousands, innumerable company, multitudes gathered in festal gathering.
So we'll hit that a little bit more, but I wanted to point it out and get you thinking about it a little bit.
Now jump over to page 48. If any of you still have the original one, I edited this a bit.
I did not say that on the title page, but I added some things.
Starting at page 48, I added some things here. I ran across this. It's a few years back already.
I don't remember if it was sent to me by someone or how I found it. I don't know who wrote it.
But it's got some good points.
What will sustain in open heaven?
That is an important question because we have one here.
We don't have to ask for one. We already have one.
It's already established. We just need to sustain it.
Intro, open heaven is not simply a sovereign act of God, which can happen,
but is the expected result of the application of a specific biblical principle.
And he refers to the one in 2 Chronicles 7.
We are to stop waiting for the sudden leaves and begin aggressively to pursue his presence
till we see the transformation of our church community nation and nation into a...
and to have a global impact too.
There is a wrong belief that God simply chooses a place.
He will pour out his spirit and whamble.
We get an open heaven.
Number one down below. Some believe open heavens outpouring is simply a sovereign act of God.
That is not scriptural.
There are certain things that open the heavens and I gave them to you.
Of course, covenant is huge in that. We have to know our covenant rights
so that we can pursue what is ours by faith.
Number two on page 49, you must get to the place where you don't care what it looks like, sounds like, or manifests like.
That is probably the biggest hang-up for churches and why heavens won't open in churches.
Because we want to make sure we have control of what this thing is going to come out like.
And you can't do it.
It's going to go where it wants to go and the only thing we can do is follow it by the spirit and steward it.
If it gets off, bump it back on.
But we can't start it or stop it or put limits on it.
We'll do this, but we won't do that. Things like that.
Number three, open heaven is the most delicate of things.
It's very, very solid and powerful in one hand.
But on the other hand, many greatly misunderstand the nature of an open heaven.
Go to the paragraph below.
Open heaven outpouring is simply the Holy Spirit coming closer to us.
The closer he gets, the more of God is manifested and the more people are changed.
However, the closer he gets, the easier it is to grieve him.
To him who has been given much, much is required.
Our God is a jealous God.
He wants to be the total center of our attention.
If we don't stay humble, hungry and broken, the Holy Spirit will withdraw and the open heavens will cease.
That is absolutely true.
There's a few more points here you can read through them. They're very good.
I just wanted, you know, you can take this home. I think all of you can read and work your way through it.
The basic thing I want you to remember is as we get a deeper understanding of covenant and who God is to us and who we are to him
and what he wants for us in this dispensation.
Our job is to follow in on that.
To submit, to obey, to follow.
If we don't, that's where a problem is going to come in.
So I want to show you something that the Lord pointed out to me, showed to me.
And I thought that's really good. In fact, he showed to me this week during the night.
So I'm going to add it into what we're talking about here.
Opening the heavens and sustaining and open heavens.
At this point, just by our brief overview in that book, you should see obedience is one of the key things that will open the heavens.
And I've always said because of the book of 1 John, if you drive obedience deep enough, you will eventually end up in love.
If you love me, you'll obey me.
So obedience is rooted not in rules and regulations, and this is what our church demands.
Obedience is rooted in we love God. That's why we obey Him.
To have obedience, you have to have repentance and submission.
This may be a surprise, but none of us automatically obey.
We obey after the Holy Spirit works on us.
And if we don't have repentance, and they could have been two lines, but I put them together because if you have repentance, you're going to have submission.
You can't have submission without repentance.
So I put them together.
Obedience directly stands on. The first layer underneath obedience is us being willing to get a change of mind, realize what we're doing is wrong, turn around, go the other direction and submit to what God's asking, obey Him.
There are a lot of things that show up in between.
I've listed a few of them.
Because God loves us and because we love Him, He is going to John 16, the Holy Spirit is going to work on convincing us of three things.
What is right, what is wrong, and that the devil is judged.
That is way down at the bottom.
So once we're convinced what's right and what's wrong, then the Holy Spirit will start sifting us to separate what's wrong out and keep what's right in our life.
That's the point you and I have to make decisions whether we're going along with this or we're going to stop right here.
Unfortunately, my perspective is the greatest bulk of believers stop right there.
They're not going to follow in deeper.
I'm a believer, I don't have to follow in deeper.
We're going to follow in deeper.
Once we realize, whoa, I'm wrong and the Holy Spirit starts shaking on us a bit and we decide, okay,
I'm going to deal with this. The first thing we go for is God forgive me.
Forgiveness and repentance are not the same thing.
Forgiveness is receiving pardon, receiving the blood on our life to wash us clean.
Repentance is the change of mind of how we were living.
So we ask for forgiveness for our sins.
Now we have the chance to discipline ourselves to repent, change our thinking,
change our lifestyle, change our habits by the Holy Spirit.
And rather than going this way and the Holy Spirit, no, you can't go this way.
He starts convincing us and he starts sifting us and he starts working on us.
And we come to a decision. Do I want to keep going this way or do I want to turn around?
The reason we're going this way is because we want to go this way.
Folks, we like our sin.
Or we wouldn't do it.
Don't look at me so shocked.
You like your sin.
That's why it's so hard to give it up, to die to it.
But he will convince us, you can't do this and he'll start shaking on us a bit.
Now we need to make a decision.
Okay, I realize this is wrong.
I'm going this way in life. He wants me going that way.
I realize this is wrong.
The first thing we do is God forgive me for going this way.
I was wrong. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Forgive my sin.
Cleanse me.
And we have to make the choice.
God is not going to grab us by the head.
Now go that way.
We come to the realization that way is wrong.
I have got to change. God forgive me.
To make that change is not always easy.
It requires discipline.
And then we start moving the other direction.
The turn and the movement is repentance.
It's submitting to his will rather than doing ours.
That turns into obedience.
If we don't have that as a church, we won't have open heavens.
This is not just a nice title for a set of meetings.
This is something we want in place to live by.
If you don't have that as an individual, you will never experience open heavens in your life.
Those things have to be there and the Holy Spirit may even add a few more.
And say we got some other things here I need to work with you on.
So with that in mind, we'll go back to what we were talking about.
So now that we have the concept of open heavens,
let's talk about angels in this a bit and show you how these work together.
And if you can, give me the PowerPoint at this point.
See if it works. Here we go.
So let's see if the PowerPoint works. It does.
Okay, so that is a reminder.
Okay, now can you jump me ahead? I don't even want to start back there.
You got to jump me all the way up to where it says God's designed for the human race.
It's about halfway, maybe not quite.
We used this, that we used last Sunday.
Now we need to move forward to... there it is.
God's designed for the human race is that angels work with us.
We operate from and in the physical side.
They operate from the spiritual side to help us as we're living in the physical side.
This room is full of angels right now. None of you can see them.
Well, I can't say none of you. Some of you might be seeing something.
But typically speaking, we don't see them.
But they're all here. You have angels with you all day long, every day of the week.
When you're in bed, there's one right there. At least one.
They're working with us from the spiritual side to help us as we're going through this physical realm.
That was God's design.
I mean, there's so many examples of Scripture we could spend the whole night talking about them.
Old Testament is full of them.
Jump to the New Testament. Jesus' birth. Angels.
Jesus and the wilderness. Angels.
Cornelius. Gentile. The first Gentile to get saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit.
How'd that come about? Angels.
Paul on the shipwreck. Angels.
John's revelation. His vision. Angels.
Angels are very active with humans.
I mean, you can just go on listing the time Scripture talks about angels working with humans.
He gives us enough input to show us this is how it works.
But he doesn't, you know, he doesn't, not every time is there example of what an angel is doing.
But angels are spirits and ministers of flame of fire.
That's what angels are. That's what Scripture calls them.
They're in the spirit realm and his ministers of flame of fire.
Well, the Holy Spirit baptizes us with fire, so they work right in hand with what the Holy Spirit's doing in our life
and what he wants done and etc.
If you jump down to I believe verse 14 in that chapter, it says that angels are sent to those who are going to be heirs or inherit the kingdom or eternal life.
So they're sent to us.
Psalms 103.
Bless the Lord you as angels who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice of his word.
That's how you activate your angels.
The ones that have been assigned to you, they don't respond to us telling them what to do.
There's no place in Scripture that I can find where it says I have authority to tell any angels what to do.
And I hear Christians doing this all the time.
And it's like, well, I can't show me in Scripture.
Well, I'm sending my angels to go do this, sending them to go to, they're not going to do a thing.
They're going to stand and look at you like what's wrong with you.
You need to read the word.
That's what they're thinking.
Angels do his word.
So now put two and two together.
We're supposed to confess the word of faith is in your.
If we will speak his word.
Boom, they go.
They get active.
Heeding the voice.
They're listening for someone to say his word.
That someone is us.
They're sent to minister to us.
A lot of angels are really bored.
Because you're not giving them anything to do.
We have to speak his will, his word over our life.
And they kick into gear to accomplish his word.
We cannot dispatch them.
We cannot give them orders.
I find nothing in Scripture that tells us we can do that.
But when we hear the rama word, we get the revelation.
Oh, that's what God wants from me.
And we let that drop into our heart and we begin calling that by faith.
That just revs them up.
Because now they're working with us to get what we're calling to take place.
Bless the Lord all you, his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure.
And it's talking of angels.
They don't do our pleasure.
They don't minister for us.
They minister for him and they do his pleasure.
And here is the Old Testament verse that I quoted to you out of Hebrews 1.7.
I just thought I'd give you the reference on that.
So I want you to see something here as we're talking about this little bit.
Revelation 22.
And I, John, saw and heard these things.
And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
Do you realize that the entire revelation that John wrote down that we look at as the book of Revelation?
He was guided through that whole thing by an angel.
An angel showed him all this, explained to him what he could.
And John was overwhelmed.
So he fell down to worship.
Verse nine, then the angel said,
See that you do not do that.
We don't worship angels.
We don't submit.
Offer yourselves a living sacrifice, which is your spiritual worship.
You don't offer yourself to angels.
We don't worship them.
We worship God.
They are, read on, fellow servants.
Don't do that.
Don't worship me, for I am your fellow servant.
They're serving God with us.
They're just in a different realm.
And I, and of your brethren, the prophets and of those who keep the words of this book.
And I want you to notice those three things.
I am your fellow servant.
That's John.
That's not you.
The angel wasn't talking to you or me when he made that statement.
That was to John.
Said, I am your fellow servant.
And of your brethren, the prophets.
Prophets have angels assigned to them so they can prophesy clearly and accurately.
In case any of you are wondering, where's the scripture that says, I'll just use Jim as an example,
that says God would use an angel to help him prophesy or speak what God wants spoken into a person's life.
Right there it is.
Angels help prophets say what God wants said.
I am John's servant, fellow servant.
I work with John, not servant, but fellow servant.
I'm a fellow servant with prophets.
And here we are.
Those who keep the words of this book.
Believers, angels are fellow servants of believers.
Not just believers, but those who keep the words.
Oh, there's a difference between believing there's a God and actually doing what he says.
Angels work with you when you do what he says, not just because you believe there's a God.
I mean it's right there.
So he says worship God, don't worship me.
One more verse on that.
Let no one cheat you of your reward.
Do not worship angels.
Colossians chapter two.
It has to stay about Jesus.
And we don't get all puffed up that angels are working among us because it's not supposed to be an exception to the rule.
The angels were given to minister to the New Testament church.
I'll show you that here just real clearly in a bit.
But it's something that seems to happen so rarely from our understanding that we can actually get proud about something that we shouldn't be proud of.
Why so an angel? I have an angel.
That's normal.
You shouldn't get all wound up about that.
That's normal.
If you don't have one, you should be concerned.
Something's wrong.
It's available to every believer, every church who will allow it to be.
Now since the beginning, and I'll just start with Minnesota, I won't go back into Colorado, just start with Minnesota.
We've had a lot of supernatural activity taking place at Word of Life.
A lot of angelic activity with that.
People besides myself, numerous people, see them, hear them, see what they're doing.
They can watch their activity.
Numbers of people have been touched by them.
Who was it? Somebody just told me the other day.
It happens so often. It's just like meh.
I don't hang on to the details that well, but they were...
Somebody spoke behind them, and I can't remember if they said something to do or what the deal was.
But somebody was behind them, spoke behind them, and they turned around and there was nobody there.
Well, that was an angel working with the person.
Let's look at Genesis. Here's Jacob's ladder.
Jacob is on the run.
He's afraid his brother is going to kill him.
So he's headed back to his home country, and he stopped for the night,
and he dreamed to behold a ladder was set up on the earth.
This was in his dream. He saw this.
And it's top reached to heaven, and there were angels of God that were ascending and descending on it.
And behold, the Lord stood above it and said,
I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac.
So you got Abraham, Isaac. Now he's talking to Jacob.
The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants.
Who did he say that to before?
Abraham.
He also reaffirmed it to Isaac.
That's why when you get past Jacob, God often refers to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They're the foundation of this covenant that was in place.
That right there, we experience every time we're here.
It's just not a ladder.
I'll explain to you what it is in a bit.
It's a ladder, but angels ascending, descending the heaven open and so forth.
We experience that all the time.
Something interesting, God in this section, every time the word God shows up from here on down, it's speaking of Elohim.
Lord is Jehovah, verse 13.
And behold, Jehovah stood above the ladder and said,
I am Jehovah Elohim of Abraham.
And I'm Elohim of Isaac.
It's good to know what those names mean and plug them in.
Now, it would make perfect sense he'd refer to himself as Jehovah.
Do you know why? He's talking covenant.
Jehovah is the name of the covenant God.
So it always makes things clearer if you plug them in.
It's like, oh, now I see it.
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep.
Let me get past that.
Then also your descendant shall be as the dust of the earth.
So he's still talking to him about this covenant.
And you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and north and the south and in you and in your seed.
All the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.
And will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.
He's making covenant with him.
He's re-expressing the covenant that was made with Abraham.
He's establishing it with Jacob.
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,
Surely, Elohim is in this place.
Who is Elohim?
Go deeper.
Trinity, the God of who is all sovereign, the God of creative or creation.
God of creative power, creation.
Elohim.
Surely Elohim is in this place.
Wow, and I didn't know it.
And he was afraid and said,
How awesome is this place?
Awesome meant, it's freaking me out.
This is none other than the house of God.
And this is the gate of heaven.
So he knows what's going on here.
Then Jacob rose early in the morning,
took the stone that he had put at his head
and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.
He's reciprocating on the covenant offer.
And he called the name of that place Bethel,
which means house of God.
But the name of that city had been Luz previously
because it, here's an interesting thing.
From my research, where Jacob slept
was either right there or right in the vicinity
of where Abraham built the altar
when he came from the ear of the Keldees.
He built an altar, said,
Okay, God, we're here
and God made covenant promises to him.
I'm going to give you the land.
I'm going to give you descendants this, that and the other.
Times got tough
Bethel means house of God.
Abraham called it Bethel.
Times got tough. Abraham went to Egypt.
God into all kinds of trouble
because I don't think he was supposed to go to Egypt.
Egypt is a picture of the world.
He wasn't supposed to go to the world to get help.
But he did.
And once that played out
the first place he went to when he came back from Egypt
was that altar he established at Bethel.
And it says he cried out to the Lord.
I'd love to know what he said.
I'd love to know what that played out like.
But he cried out to the Lord.
This is found, I believe in Genesis 12.
12 in the beginning of 13.
My opinion, that's when the heavens opened.
Or shortly thereafter in 15 when God actually laid,
Abraham laid the pieces out
and God came and made covenant.
Him and Jesus walking through the pieces.
The heavens opened there.
Isaac came.
Jacob came.
Jacob got in trouble.
He's headed back to the earth.
Kelly's headed back to Abraham's relatives.
And he happens to stop at the place
where Abraham built the altar.
Jacob didn't open the heavens.
Abraham did.
Jacob just was part of the covenant
of that open heaven.
In other words, I am going to do in you
what I'm going to do
and there will be nothing that will restrict this.
It will flow and the picture of that
is angels going up and down.
It will flow.
There will be no restrictions
on what's going to happen here.
Now notice this.
I think this is really good.
I'll have to throw this into.
If I ever get to that last message on tithing,
put this in there.
Then Jacob made a vow saying,
if God will be with me
and keep me in this way that I am going
and give me bread to eat
and clothing to put on
so that I come back to my father's house
and peace, then the Elohim
shall be my Jehovah.
And all that you give me,
I will surely give you
the tithe, a tenth.
Anytime there's an establishment of covenant,
the exchange on the human side
is the tenth.
They knew that.
We don't always, but they knew that.
That is a description
of open heavens.
Let me take you through
a couple more scriptures
then we're going to give stories.
For if you have not come to the mountain,
this is the one where
open heavens, it's on the page 14
at the bottom where I said
angels are supposed to be active
in every church.
Here's the context of it.
He's comparing the Old Testament
Mount Zion to the New Testament
Zion.
New Testament Zion is the church.
For you have not come to the mountain
that may be touched and that burned
with fire and to blackness
and darkness and the tempest.
See that was the Old Testament
Mount Zion where the law,
the Mount Hermon the law was given on
or referred to as Zion.
The people were told to stay away from it.
Don't touch it if you touch it
you'll die blah blah blah blah blah.
He goes on and explains that up
through verse 21.
Verse 22 he says,
but you didn't come to that one.
You have come to Mount Zion
to the city of the living God
the heavenly Jerusalem
to the innumerable company of angels
to the general assembly
and church of the firstborn
who are registered in heaven
to God the judge of all
to the spirits of just men made perfect
to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant
and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaks of things that
are better than that of Abel.
So without taking it all apart
let me just summarize all that by saying this.
He's saying in the Old Testament
they had a physical mountain
that they could not go to
or they could die.
He said in the New Testament
here is what I'm bringing you to
as a church and it involves
an innumerable company of angels.
The church in the New Testament
is supposed to be loaded up
with angels.
It's part of the promise.
It's part of our inheritance.
They really first manifest greatly
when the heavens will open.
For the heavens to open
we have to understand what's available
to us in covenant
and go for our covenant rights
our inheritance
and obey him.
Which we've done.
Mark chapter 16 verse 20
and they went out and preached everywhere
the Lord working with them
and confirming a word
through the accompanying signs, amen.
Signs are supernatural workings of God.
When you find supernatural workings of God
in Scripture you a lot of times
find angels.
I think angels work with
the confirmation
of the signs.
So now
we're going to talk about things
that some of you have seen.
Some of...
I think probably most of you have not.
But God wants us to talk about it.
We're going to talk about angelic
activity around us.
It's really prevalent in Scripture
and it's fairly prevalent with us.
Remember the end of 2008
the vision the man had of the angels
at the four corners of the property
and things that were happening
when the church was in the modular
back at our house.
I'm not going to go back over that
but we're going to use that
as kind of a starting point.
Then we went into the open heaven
meetings 2009.
Had all kinds of things happen.
I've got a picture or two to show you from that.
It was a Saturday night, July 18th.
In the modular
there were two angels stationed.
They were there continually.
If you'd look at the front
it was at the door that left
the sanctuary on this side
and by the drums on this side.
They were there continually.
Pretty much normal human sized angels.
They might have been six feet
little over whatever, normal.
The one at the northwest side
during the summer fest on Saturday night
asked, so he was talking to me now,
asked if he could come out
and join us outside.
His station was, I'm pointing there
but that's where it was
in the little building there.
So I gave him permission
and this happened on Thursday or Friday.
Well on Saturday night during worship
and I'm just going to read it
in a number of stories.
I just want to get the details right.
I noticed that in the middle
of the tent
this angel was dancing
in like a war like fashion
with its sword.
Just the one angel
and it would spin.
It would hold its sword a lot of times
with two hands, sometimes one
and it could go either hand
but a lot of times with two
and it would spin.
Well I'm not the only one who's seen this
but when angels get going
for whatever reason
there are times they spin like a top
just
and they actually become a blur.
They spin like a top
and he wasn't going that fast
but he was spinning
and while praise and worship was going on
he was dancing
but his actions with the sword
were very war like
like stabbing and cutting
and very war like.
And I thought, huh, it's interesting.
I wonder why I'm seeing this
because you're not going to see it
if God doesn't want you to see it.
So I'm wondering, I wonder why I'm seeing this.
Then all of a sudden
he twirled
this would have been north
in the tent with the stage.
He twirled
this way I believe.
He took his sword and he threw it
and I watched it go
and it went out into the field
and stuck into some kind of demonic being out there.
And I thought, huh,
that's interesting.
So now I'm not doing a lot
of praise and worshiping
I'm just watching the movie
and I thought, well now he's going to
have to go all the way out there
to get it.
And just like Thor's hammer
he was looking at it
and he turned
and as he turned
it just spun back
he grabbed it
and he started throwing it
in different directions
and it started coming back fast
and he was throwing it over and over
and it was going out
beyond the property
and sticking into
demonic beings.
Well, apparently one wasn't enough
all of a sudden I saw him
going with two
and just back and forth
going with two
and then more angels came
by the time it was done
there was about 20 angels
they were all doing
the same thing
all directions
just whipping the swords
the swords come back
they'd whip them
and whip them and whip them
and just warfare stuff going on
Now if the band
at that point is sensitive
that's when you need a warfare zone
that's not a time
to get into soaking music
you're going to miss everything
because they are in the process
This is the first sentence of defending the atmosphere. To keep it open. To keep it clean.
Remember they do the bidding of the word of the Lord.
It's time for us to be led by the Spirit to begin to declare warfare things.
Which gives them more right to do what they're doing.
I didn't use one of the clips because I thought it might freak you out.
But there was numerous times in that 2009 Open Heavens. Jess was the predominant drummer.
Numerous times we went into a war beat. Numerous times. Nothing playing, just the drums.
And it just felt like we need to do some warfare right here, right now.
If the heavens would be open to us every time, we would see why.
But we're just following in the Spirit by faith.
In the Holy Spirit saying you need to get into some warfare here.
And start declaring who you are, what you are, and the victory, etc.
If we don't, that's when you wander off what the Spirit wanted to happen.
And the service will start slowly. It might be winding up.
If you catch it, it'll just go. If you miss it, it'll just slowly start winding down.
It's just how it works.
Here's a picture of that sanctuary in the modular.
Again, it went from about that flag to that flag. That was the full width.
And it went out to about the second row. That was the whole sanctuary.
Notice Mary and Felicia were over there cleaning this particular day.
Do you want to share anything about this?
Felicia might remember some other details of it.
But in the modular, because everything had to be just so, we rearranged these chairs 15 different ways.
Every possible formation just to try to fit more people in.
And so we were out there cleaning.
And at one point I said we got to take, because after a while you mark the floor where the chair is going to go.
Because we could never get it right if someone else came in and cleaned.
But we took a picture of the chairs. We were just out there cleaning.
And then this is what happened.
This was later, I believe, Felicia caught this.
So they took a picture. Are you able to expand it at all from the computer? No.
Bottom left-hand corner. I might be able to screen share that.
Let's try it, because I can expand it then.
You took the picture. Do you remember? Did you take the picture?
Okay, there's that one.
They caught a piece of an angel wing.
Now is that the one that stood in that corner? I don't know.
It doesn't look like bird feathers, but they're not a bird.
They're angels.
So there was a lot of activity, and I also want to say not all angels have wings.
A lot of them don't have wings. That particular one did.
So there was... that's just a piece of some of the activity.
I don't have time to get into a bunch of it.
Let's jump ahead and go to this building.
Talk about some things here. I'm going to borrow the mic.
At our first open heavens in 2013, that's when Jim was here.
It was our first one in this building. Jim saw a well being dug.
Could you describe that, please?
Yeah, I was ministering on the platform, and all of a sudden the Lord gave me a vision out in front of me.
And it was from the steps there, from the platform, all the way into the front row.
So I don't know what that is. 10 feet, 12 feet, something like that.
And it was round and circular. It's not like a traditional well.
We think of a well now like an 8-inch pipe. You dig down and that's the well.
That's where the water comes from. No, this was an open well that was like 10 to 12 feet.
It was radius, round in diameter, and it was there.
And then what I saw was it was an open well.
And it had, as I would stand there and I would look this way toward the steps,
it had steps going down into the well.
It's kind of like those old wells maybe back in Jesus' time, way back when.
And I don't know why, but it had steps that went down circular all the way down and around
and around until it got down to the water.
And then there's angels that are around that area also and around the rim of it.
And they were like peering into the well. They were looking into it.
There's water there. There's water there.
Many times Mary has shared too about the wells.
We got to re-dig the wells that were here before revival.
And so there's a big well there.
I know one time when I was ministering in one of the classes,
the Lord even reaffirmed that because I was standing up there
and it was really tough to stand anymore.
I had to grab onto the platform and the stand that was there.
And he said, well, you're standing in the well.
He gave me a reason why it was so tough to stand there.
You're standing in the well.
And this is right where the angels were at also.
I don't know if you want to go any further on other stuff.
Hold the rest for a bit.
So 2013, that was our first...
We moved in here in December of 2012.
So this was our first open heavens here.
Our desire is for the open heavens that was at the modular to come here.
And to establish here.
And we were praying for that.
We were, this is our right.
This is our inheritance.
This is our promise just because we moved locations.
Doesn't mean it can't happen here.
Remember how it happened over there?
The guy saw a vision where the heavens were ripping open
and the angels were placed.
God rarely does the same thing twice.
Here he said, you guys need to dig a well.
If you want to open heavens, you need to dig a well.
And that first open heavens meeting in 2013,
I have no recollection that anything opened at all.
Here.
Our assignment was to dig a well.
Now if you go to the book of John,
the well that springs up is speaking of what?
Nope, that's the river.
John 4, I believe it is.
And there will be a well.
I think Jesus was doing evangelism.
And he said, there will be a well in you springing up
to eternal life.
Wells in God's realm can depict a number of things,
but it always starts with salvation.
A well springs up for salvation.
So at the end of 2010,
he asked us a question that probably should be asked again.
End of the open heaven meetings 2010.
He said, why don't you love the lost?
And see, that's one of the typical downfalls of churches.
We get inward.
We lose the outward.
And everything becomes about us, our comfort.
God bless me club.
And so then at 2011, then Randy Mitchell came
and he spoke on that specific subject
of why don't Christians love the lost?
So just as, and I don't want to raise hands,
just a thought.
How many of us have people in our lives
who are unsaved that we are pursuing to get saved?
Don't, I don't want to see any hands.
Just, this is a check.
Do we love the lost?
Are there any unsaved in our life
we are pursuing to get saved?
Even something as simple as
how many of us have
two to however many,
unsaved people we're working with,
we're in the family with,
whatever, that we pray for regularly
for their salvation?
Do you know that statistically
most Christians don't do either one?
We're not praying for the lost
and we're not trying to befriend them
so we can get them saved.
Do you know who we buddy up with?
Other Christians who think just like us.
Because see, that's what's comfortable.
And as a result, we lose our evangelism edge.
The church was never designed to be exclusive.
You guys all stay away.
One of you wonders in now and then we'll rejoice.
But other than that, it's all about us.
The church is the evangelism tool of the kingdom.
And evangelism should be at the forefront of everything we do.
That well is representing salvation.
And digging down until salvation start flowing.
That was our assignment. That was our job.
Go after that.
Side thought, this is interesting to me.
There's four or five people who have seen that well
and described it just like Jim described it.
Without ever having talked to him.
They've seen it and they explained it to me and this how it looks.
Pastor, do you know there's a well in the middle of the...
I said, yeah. I have never seen it.
I have never seen it.
But numerous people have.
So God picks and chooses what He wants us to see.
Why did we get the assignment to dig the well?
It directly correlates to why God wants to open the heavens.
Why does God want to open the heavens?
Why did God give Abraham an open heavens so that his lineage would continue to carry on?
Because all the families of the earth would be blessed through him.
How did that happen?
How did all the families of the earth get in a position?
They could be blessed through Abraham.
Who brought the Messiah into the earth?
Abraham's lineage.
God exchanging Jesus giving him to die for us on the basis of Abraham gave Isaac to die.
That exchange symbol was about one thing.
Getting Jesus into this earth, Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
We needed his sacrifice so we could be saved.
Open heavens are not about a blasphemy club.
They're not about a badge we can wear.
Well, if people just knew what we have, that's how you lose it.
It's called pride.
Open heavens open for a reason.
To keep a heaven open, you have to stay in the reason.
So let me jump ahead.
This is 13, so let me jump ahead 12 years now.
Last spring, when we said,
okay, if we absolutely need to,
if you absolutely want us to set up a building and get ready for what's coming, fine.
We'll do that.
If we would have said no,
the open heavens would have closed right here.
No reason for them, no need for them anymore.
There's no purpose.
They're given for a purpose, and I'm just hitting the basic one now.
You have to keep obeying God.
You have to keep following God.
If you don't, then what happens is
everything closes up and goes dry.
Because the reason, and it's right here, it's right above the well.
I've never seen the well, but in a bit here I'm going to describe the open heavens that I've seen.
And there's, again, about six people who've described it to me,
and I never told them anything, and they described the exact same thing to me.
Oh, it's Julie who was here. She's one of them who described it to me.
But I want to play a little video for you.
It comes off of Instagram.
And let me see.
I don't like Instagram because it automatically starts playing when it wants to.
So let me see if I can get this set.
I want you to notice something because it has to do with the angels that were at the property
that either they came or others came in their place.
But once the angels finally came, so I want you to notice the size,
and I'll point them out to you.
See if it brings up the right one. There we are.
Okay, so now I will try to screen share this.
When it's happening, I'll say that one.
Did you know that God assigns angels to watch over certain people?
According to Hebrews 1.14, angels are heavenly beings sent by God
to serve those who will receive salvation.
Those who belong to God are supported by health that comes directly from heaven.
It's not about a winged figure hovering over your shoulder,
but a spiritual truth.
God sends messengers, protectors, and helpers from above
who step in during key moments of their life.
Psalm 34-7 reminds us that the angel of the Lord surrounds and defends those
who step in during key moments of your life.
Psalm 34-7 reminds us that the angel of the Lord surrounds and defends
those who honor him.
You might not see them, but when something works out against all odds,
when peace replaces two.
And the size that we're talking about.
Because it'll give you something to correlate with as I share this.
The open heavens of 2014.
This is a year after we got in here.
The first one was 2013.
A year later, first week of January 2014, we were having meetings again.
We were focused on digging that well
and doing everything we could to follow and obey what God was asking us to do
all of 2013.
2014, Thursday evening, the 9th.
During praise and worship, I saw a large 20-foot-plus angel.
That's about like those two you saw in there.
Just massive.
With wings on the west side of the building on the outside.
He was one of the angels who came Tuesday night when we welcomed them
and asked for those who are commissioned to be here.
So this was Thursday.
So on Tuesday, as a congregation, we asked for the angels
that are given to us, assigned to us.
You say, how do you know they are?
Book of Revelation, the seven churches.
Look up the word messenger.
And to the messenger of the church of Thyatira,
to the messenger, that word messenger is angel.
Every church is supposed to have angel one, for sure.
Of course, if you go to Hebrews, there's supposed to be
innumerable number of angels here.
So we were asking for what is our right.
We want these angels here.
We did that on Tuesday night, Thursday night.
When I saw him, he was spinning in praise and worship,
right outside, just almost like right behind the platform.
He was just spinning.
He was motioning exaltation toward the heavens.
He'd spin and then he'd stop.
And with his arms and his wings and unison,
he would offer up exaltation to the heavens.
Now remember, he's about 20 feet tall.
This wall is about 12 feet, 11 and a half.
So he's way up there.
Big kid.
Then in one of the songs, he began doing something different.
He would be standing on the ground,
just kind of like looking this way when he's out there.
And he'd quickly lift both wings straight up.
Not his arms, just his wings.
And he would rise up into the air
so that his feet were probably about 30 feet off the ground.
Then he would put both wings down very quickly
and he...
It's like driving a post into the ground with a post driver.
He just went...
and hit the ground.
And I could feel the things shake.
And he put his wings up and up and down.
Up and down.
Up and that's when I realized there was more than one
around the property, doing the exact same thing.
Hitting the ground with extreme force.
I saw three on each fence line besides the corners.
Every corner had one.
And then in between three on each fence line.
I don't know if there were more or not.
They were doing this in unison over and over.
And I was wondering, what in the world are they doing?
And the Holy Spirit said,
they're causing the demonic spirit realm to be terrified of this place.
That would do it.
I remember once he crashed down so hard he couldn't stand
and he went down to one knee.
He hit so hard everything just would shake in the spirit.
I asked, well, why are there so many of them
compared to the modular we had four?
Here we've got five and then
well three and three and three and three and then one on each corner.
So you've got 16.
He said because he knew what was coming here.
I didn't see any weapons at this time.
I knew they were some kind of warrior guarding, protecting angels.
Not sure what. Didn't see anything.
So then this was Thursday the 9th.
Saturday night the 11th.
I'm on the floor over here like I did tonight face down
and I saw his boots.
And they were like Roman style boots and they went up to the knee
and during praise and worship the one on the west side here
I presume they were all doing this in unison.
I only see this one.
He was oscillating his arms and wings in worship
and his wings and his arms were in unison
and it looked like this.
And he was in time with the song.
It was a slower song and he was just oscillating in worship
and when the song was over he bowed down
and totally covered himself. Couldn't see him at all.
He covered himself totally with his wings.
The next day Sunday the 12th.
Before service I saw his lower half.
He's standing with a large sword, point down
both hands resting on top of the heel of the sword.
So he's got a large sword now.
Both hands resting on top, point is down.
During praise and worship Dean and Eugene and Sam
not that same different Sam
started dancing around the sanctuary.
You remember that Dean?
I don't know if you remember that.
It's back a few years already.
You guys started doing around.
As they did that his sword which he had both hands resting on top
began to burn like it was on fire, a flame.
So he took it and he lifted it.
The flame height was a few inches off the sword.
We continued to praise and he would move the flaming sword
around over his head in the front of him.
The movements were a mixture of smooth and warlike.
Some were like praise, others were like war kind of stuff.
He did this for the rest of the faster songs.
I noticed during this time that his wings were almost not visible.
He is able to fold them up on his back
so that they are almost not able to be seen at all.
When we all knelt in worship he knelt down
with his face to the ground.
He covered himself again completely with his wings
which we see that happening in the book of Ezekiel.
He covered himself totally with his wings.
He laid the sword out in front of him.
The point was pointing towards us.
And the fire, it was still flaming a few inches off the sword
it just continued to burn as we were praising and worshiping.
So this was a year later that the perimeter angels
established here.
It didn't just happen because oh God we want them to come
this, that and the other.
There is a pursuit after the rights that are ours.
After the things that belong to us.
We want them.
So you have to know it belongs to you.
Or you can't pursue it.
So that's the first time I saw...
I like sitting over here.
In case you haven't noticed we sit over there.
That was the first time I saw this thing right here.
It's an upside down funnel shape.
It comes down to about here.
It goes up and down a little bit.
But generally it's about right there.
Upside down funnel shape.
That is completely comprised of angels.
It's totally made of angels.
There's a hole that goes up in the middle of it
that goes all the way up to heaven.
There's angels that surround it all the way up.
And this thing is always working.
Jim, have you ever seen this?
You've seen this?
Okay, I'll have you share it here in a bit.
Julie has seen it.
There's a few people who have seen it.
Like for instance, Tuesday night prayer.
I was sitting right here.
And as we were praying
it's like the funnel closed a bit.
And it typically is about the size of the well you described.
It closed a bit.
And I couldn't see any individual angel.
Everything was spinning so fast
that it was just a blur.
And I was looking up into the inside of it here.
Just the blur.
And it was like a big vacuum cleaner.
It was just sucking.
As we were praying and interceding
it was just sucking it.
Right into heaven.
It is the most...
When the Lord lets me see it
it's the most entertaining thing
because it's always different.
They're always different.
One time during praise and worship
and space is not like it is on earth.
You can't describe how size or space works in the spirit realm.
But the angels in the funnel
all were with their wings out
and they were fluttering.
And it was row after row after row after row after row.
And they're just fluttering their wings.
And you can see the praise and worship
come from different people
like light, like little strands of light.
And it would come
and as they fluttered
it would suck up in there and go
it was gone.
And they were fluttering.
This may sound odd.
That's why I say it's entertaining sometimes.
When we get going in good praise
and it's lively, it's moving
they oftentimes will dance in choreography.
Every row is doing...
There's different rows.
They're kind of stacked.
And every row is doing something different
but everyone in that row
is doing the exact same thing.
And one row will be spinning this way
and they'll be making motions
and they're all exactly doing the same thing.
The other row is spinning the other way
and they're doing...
I almost laughed one time
because it was...
it was like almost...
how can I compare it?
To like an Egyptian thing.
And they were...
everything was with the hands
and they were bopping a little bit.
And the other row was doing that.
Mostly in white, but their outfits change.
They change color.
This is active all the time.
You want to speak into it a little bit?
Sally, have you seen that?
I know you've seen things, but...
Yeah, there's times you mentioned
before the angels twist.
Spin, I think he is.
I use the word twirl.
There's twirlers that come here.
Has anybody ever seen twirling angels?
Maybe in this house?
Here's one.
A few of you.
A few of you here.
They'll come.
It is entertaining.
It's when you really get into an atmosphere
of praise and worship
and then up they go and whoop.
And then they go...
you know, come back down.
And it's just, it's exciting to see
what they join in with us.
Just like last Friday night
we had where we played a little bit of the music
at another Rodney's place
where the angels joined in
for praise and worship there,
singing with them for two hours.
And we had that experience personally
with us when we went down to Brazil
and we were at a meeting.
That same thing happened.
The angels sang with us.
I'm sure there's times when the angels
have sang with us here also.
And so I encourage you to be praying.
You know, it's one of the gifts of the spirit
is discerning of spirits.
You know, that's seen into the spirit realm.
And so pray for that.
Pray for that to take place.
And for you, as God wills.
Remember?
In 1 Corinthians.
As God wills.
Don't be pushing, pressing.
I got to see an angel.
I got to see an angel
because the devil will provide you
with what looks like that.
I had that happen a long time ago
when I was a young Christian.
Like a light appeared on my wall
in my bedroom.
And it wasn't from God.
And so you want to be careful.
And the other thing you want me to do
is tell them about the river now.
Go ahead.
The well was here.
Then again we were in some meetings
with the open Holy Spirit meetings.
And I was up there and the Lord
opened my eyes again.
And I saw the well.
But then I also saw the river.
And that's when we changed kind of the
even the abs for it.
If you see it now for those that says
come join us.
Jump in the river.
Come, you know.
And we have John 737 and 8.
And I saw a river coming from those
doors over there, the north doors
and flowing right through here
and going all the way out this door.
And then I saw the other river
come from the platform here
and go out this way and go out the double doors.
And so there's like a crisscross
north, south, east, west river
that's now extended there.
And that is where I believe like
what God is wanting us to jump into the river
get into the flow of the Holy Spirit.
And that's where we need to be.
We need to be there.
We can't be content with where we're at.
There is so, so, so much more
of God that we have not tapped into.
That we haven't pressed into.
We've lost that first love.
We've lost that passion on the inside.
We've become content with what we have.
And God's not happy with that.
He's not happy with that.
You're getting to that place of being lukewarm.
Even in a full gospel spirit field church.
So you got to be careful.
You want to keep on pressing in.
Anything else you want me to go subject-wise?
That's good for now.
Okay.
I might come back to you.
All right.
I sent you an email.
So, I'll need that in a bit.
Remember, we don't worship angels.
Yeah, amen.
Seeing angels is not the big thing.
It's getting into the presence of God
to where they, remember,
they do the bidding of the word of the Lord.
Yeah.
When we are in heartfelt,
spirit-led worship,
they go totally to work.
I mean, it's just like giving them assignments.
It just releases them.
When we sing to God
and declare what he has for us,
they are being given their assignments.
There's times...
I don't know if it was you or who somebody...
I've seen this once, maybe twice.
I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit,
but it's there somehow, say it.
It's like a dome.
And all you can see is basically from this up,
heads, and it's just a dome
of thousands of angels watching us.
You say, well, where would that be in Scripture?
Well, I'll show you Scripture here in a bit in the PowerPoint,
but it talks about angels are longing
to look into what we have here.
And there's times they gather and they just look in.
Seeing them, is that in Scripture?
It's called a vision.
Last days, Acts chapter 2.
In the last days,
I will pour out my spirit, God says.
I think it's about verse 10 or 11.
And he talks about three things that has to happen
in the last days.
Dreams, visions, and prophecy.
It is our mandate to see visions,
to dream dreams, and to speak forth for God.
It's a mandate.
It's what is supposed to be happening in the last days.
Well, when you start seeing visions,
then you start seeing stuff that's going on around you.
It just happens.
I'm going to give you one more.
And we'll see where it goes from there.
This was December 6, 2015.
There was a strong move of the Spirit in praise and worship.
No preaching happened that morning.
It was just all praise and worship that morning.
During the singing, I saw pulses of light
going out from this funnel.
It's like it was instead of going in,
it was pulses of light coming out.
Just not all the time, just pulses of it.
Let's see.
During the singing, I saw pulses of light
going out from the earthly and angelic bands.
So it was coming out of here.
As this would pulse,
there would be a pulse of light that came off the band.
And we have our own angelic band.
They're over in this area on the outside of the wall.
And I'll give you something interesting
to mull on here in a bit concerning that.
And there was pulses of light coming off of them
at the same time.
They all blinked at the same time.
Pulsed.
And I thought, that's really odd.
Really strong presence of the Holy Spirit.
Really good praise and worship service.
So since I was seeing this,
when you're seeing it, you can sometimes interact with them.
So since I thought, well, give it a try.
I don't know what's going on.
I was standing there.
So once I was seeing it,
I turned to the one who leads the band over there.
And I said, what's going on? What's happening?
And he said, it's a God thing.
Oh, I figured that much.
I said, so what does it mean?
He said, I don't know. God is about to do something.
And the pulses of light started getting stronger.
And it was like shock waves that happened.
And the best thing I can describe...
Did any of you watch the Star Wars film series?
The Death Star.
When they activate the Death Star to blow up a planet,
it goes...
It just releases.
I heard that sound.
It's like they started getting more intense
and a little slower.
And it would just blow through the place.
And I'm going, what in the world is that?
I turned around and if they show up,
they're usually on that wall, north wall.
A group of witnesses had gathered, Hebrews 12-1.
They were sitting on the north side of the sanctuary
and the outside of the wall.
Of course, the wall is not there to them.
It's non-existent.
From what I could tell, there was probably
10 to 12 people watching.
They were not there the entire service,
but they were there when this was happening.
The gathering of the witnesses to see what's going on in here
had not happened since the end of 2009 in the modular.
So this was six years later,
the first time it happened again.
And it just went, it was just wild.
It was just, whoa, whoa, whoa.
And it would just, in the spirit realm,
it would just blow back.
It would just blow back.
The angels that I could see, it's like it just hit them
and blew them back.
And then it started dying down.
And once it had died down,
the Holy Spirit just dropped it in my heart.
Manasseh has now been born.
So to understand that, you have to understand
the story of the Joseph's Anointing,
which God had talked to Mary about.
And we were waiting for Manasseh to be born
because there were certain things that would come with that.
Specifically, Manasseh represents
forgetting the toil of your youth.
And we were waiting for that change to take place.
Now we're waiting for Ephraim to be born.
Ephraim means to abound and super abound.
So we're waiting on that.
That's a whole different story.
Can't go into that tonight.
And as it calmed down, after service I told Mary,
I said, Manasseh was born today.
She said, I had a feeling something was going on.
It was really intense.
Angels work with what God is doing.
We have...
It's up to God to decide when and what and where and how.
But we have the right to see what they're up to
from time to time.
It was bought for us.
And we have the right to do it.
Again, you got to know who you are in covenant
and what rights you have.
It's just the way it works.
Did you get that email?
There's a song there.
Okay, so let me describe this.
Jim played one from Rodney Howard Brown's church.
This one came...
Give me a second.
I might be able to
give you the story behind it.
One of them had it.
Okay, so you're going to hear...
This goes on for five minutes.
This happened probably 50 years ago.
I think it was in the 70s when this took place.
And they recorded it on a little cassette tape.
He's going to describe it.
It's a little bit hard to understand what he's going to say.
But we've played it here before,
but it's been years.
There was a choir, a band,
a praise band in a church in Texas.
They were practicing,
and it was before service,
and they were trying to get their sound right.
So they acapella sang
Alleluia.
No instruments, nothing,
just as the band members who sang,
they sang Alleluia.
Alleluia, Alleluia.
And then they stopped and they took a break,
and the guy was making adjustments,
this, that and the other.
And then they sang it a second time, acapella.
No music, nothing.
They recorded the whole thing
because they wanted to see what it would sound like
if the balances were there.
So the guy who got the tape
from a friend is going to describe that at the beginning,
and then they're going to,
he's going to say they did this,
and then they played the tape to see how their balance was.
And lo and behold on the tape,
there was an angelic orchestra
that had joined in.
And the tape picked it up.
None of them could hear it, but the tape picked it up.
And the interesting part is,
he will say it, but he's a little garbled,
it's a little hard to hear because it's an old recording.
There's a verse
between the two choruses,
and nobody sang that verse.
Nobody knew that verse.
Nobody knows where that verse came from.
An angel sang the verse
while they were readjusting the sound.
And then when they started singing Alleluia again,
they were all in time.
And it's like, wow, amazing.
Go ahead and play that.
Hopefully I sent you the right one.
Well, I listen to this tape, I listen to Reapers.
And every time I listen to it, I still can't believe it.
But I go entirely by the integrity
of the good friend of mine
who knows the people that recorded this.
And if it wasn't for him and his reputation,
I would say something is really weird about this tape.
What happened was,
and as it relates to me by Dr. Schneider from Kansas City,
a group of seven people in Kansas City
got together for fire practice.
Have you heard this?
Okay, a few people have.
Every while I go around the country,
one or two people have heard it.
Or I've heard about it.
But this is the tape of it.
Seven people got together for fire practice
in Kansas City.
And they were checking the sound equipment
and their harmony.
And they sang the chorus Alleluia through.
They paused and then they sang it through again.
That was the autopilot, no instrument.
And when they started playing it back,
they thought something went wrong with the system
until they realized that there were thousands
of voices singing with them.
There was a harp, bass guitar,
trumpet, all sorts of things in there.
And then during the time that they had paused,
there was a solo.
To complicate matter,
one of the men that was singing with them
a few months later went down to Haiti
on a mission trip.
And when he was down there,
the church that was ministering at,
the song leader was leading them in the
the Alleluia chorus.
And during the middle of it,
he started singing this chorus,
or the verse that's down on this tape.
And he went up to the song director afterwards
who didn't speak any English
and asked him where he got the word
through that verse that he sang.
And he said, I didn't sing a verse.
How can you explain it? You can't.
I have a friend in Lubbock, Texas.
I'll be with him next weekend. He's a music professor.
And he listened to this tape and he said,
there are voices on there that are higher
than the human vocal range can go.
And they are sustained for a longer time
than what the human voice can sustain
one note with that much clarity.
And so there's no other explanation
for it except...
...being transformed.
What's it do with the rivers?
A well, like you were saying before,
a well is generally a benefit
of the people that live on that land.
Like farms or wherever.
You got a well on the farm.
It generally is the benefit for the landowner,
the people that are there.
Now in the Old Testament days, they had wells
that everybody used, but I'm talking about today.
So a well is generally for the landowner use.
Rivers are different.
They're for everybody.
Anybody that comes by them, through them,
you got a river out here, Mississippi River,
all the way from up here north,
by Bemidji, all the way down to New Orleans.
And everybody can benefit from that river.
And that's now the stage, I believe,
that we're going into is the river
where the rivers are going out,
north, south, east, west.
It's going out.
But it's going to be carried by you,
all of us here.
We've got to take the river out
to all the other people.
Salvation, healing, deliverance.
All those miracle signs, wonders,
all those are going to be...
We must be the hands and the feet of the Lord, right?
Yeah, and so that's what's got to flow out
through that river.
And you are it.
God chose you.
And if we disobey taking it out,
it's going to dry up.
Because there's no reason for it.
So I actually have something to share,
but then it's kind of a question,
maybe you'll go over this,
but during one of the Holy Spirit meetings,
I think it was in the summertime,
there was an angelic activity happening
and there was a prayer line here
and I came up, Jim called me up
and we were laying hands on people
and somebody tapped me
on my shoulder and I turned around
and there was nobody there.
And so Bruce Fanata is somebody
that I learned a lot from, he mentors me
and I asked him about it
and he laughed and he said, oh yeah, he said,
we have a lot of angels do that
during these meetings.
So my question is, what are you supposed to do
when they tap you?
Well, what he said, he said they want to do something.
There's something they want to do,
so do you just ask the Holy Spirit,
what do I do?
What do they want to do?
Do you speak like a reema?
Is the Lord going to give you a reema?
The Lord may give you...
The tap is to get your tension.
Stop, think a little bit here now.
Of course don't think in the physical,
Lord is there something I should be saying
because they're going to activate
through the word of the Lord
that comes out of your mouth.
So it's get your attention,
get you to stop
and let the Holy Spirit speak something
through you.
Could you bring up
1 Peter 1.12,
I want to talk about one thing here yet
and then we're going to start wrapping this up.
Because sometimes
it's one of these things of
is this really real?
And I think I'd shared this with you,
Jess, I'm not sure.
If not, this will be your first run at it.
I think I did though.
The second time you went to Afghanistan
you were deployed.
They had told you
a number of months before
the word became official
that it could happen.
Remember that?
And you came and said, hey,
they're thinking of deploying us again
to Afghanistan and blah blah blah
and they're not saying if it's going to happen
not going to happen
when whatever.
It was a Sunday morning
almost a year before
you were deployed.
All we knew is it was a possibility.
The one who
leads the orchestra
said to me that Sunday
morning, he said
you won't see me for quite a while.
He said I'm leaving this my last
time here for now.
I'm leaving to get ready.
I'm being trained
to go with your son when he goes
to Afghanistan.
And I thought, wow.
Got home, I told Mary.
I said Jess is going to Afghanistan.
Don't tell him, but Jess is going
to Afghanistan.
Of course, she started binding it
and taking authority.
Not my baby boy
going to Afghanistan again.
And it was like five or six months later
he came with the word
well, now we've got official deployment
official day and then it was
a number of months and they deployed.
That was the one where
everything was
pretty much cool as far as what he shared
with us until they were
coming back and then that missile
hit the airport.
And
you'd say, well, why would he tell you
that? Well, a couple of reasons.
One is to confirm
this is really
happening.
I mean, this is real.
Because
sometimes you start going,
am I making this up? Is this real?
Well, when they predict something
out like that and then it actually happens
it's like, whoa, that was real.
Number one
and number two, it's a heads up.
You got to start
praying about this.
So that's when I asked for a
rainbow word. What's the rainbow
word for this trip?
I'm going to believe he comes back
unscathed.
I gave it away. I could believe he comes back unheard.
And
what's the rainbow word? It took a few weeks
and he gave me this word. On a Sunday.
It's amazing how much stuff
I'll get when the people are
together
in corporate anointing.
On a Sunday
he said unscathed.
That's all he gave me
for his trip.
Unscathed. I got to go home and look it up.
It's like unscathed.
What does unscathed mean?
Okay, so now he's going to
Afghanistan.
He's going to be in harm's way.
He said
you start calling unscathed
over him.
What in the world is unscathed?
Let me read it to you. You will be amazed.
Holy
unharmed
not injured.
He will come back
W-H-O-L-L-Y
Holy completely unharmed
not injured.
And that's how he came back
even though
that missile had exploded
way way way too close
as far as I'm concerned.
There's the verse that talks about
angels wanting to
they want to look in
and see what's going on in the church
in God's people.
And I said that
sometimes like a dome
there's just thousands of them just watching.
There's the verse that says
yeah, they want to do that.
A bunch of other things to talk about
we've gone long enough. Let's start
bringing it to a close.
Two things
God showed me that I want us to agree
in prayer here on before we're done.
The last Friday night
after Christmas
when they had the Holy Spirit meeting here
I just felt like the Lord wanted
and I'm not going to go into this much
I'm going to go into this one on Sunday morning
a little more.
It's a Sunday morning thing but I want to bring it up.
I felt like the Lord wanted to talk to me
so I thought well I'm here I'm going to do that.
So I just in the back row there I just kind of laid down
and
a way of tuning everybody out
and just me and God
and he made this statement to me
and we're going to deal with this Sunday morning
but I wanted you to see a pattern.
He said there are people
in this church
who are not getting healed
and they're trying to get healed
or something but they're not getting their healing
because they have attitudes
with other people
and they've taken communion
in that condition.
So they violated
1 Corinthians 11 principle
and Paul said if you do that
weak, sick and some are dead
because they violate that
I'm going to talk about that Sunday morning
well that kind of bothered me it's like
that's not good
we got attitudes floating around here
that just turns into division
and strife stuff like that.
Monday night
at the meeting
prayer meeting
I'll just read to you what I got
some of you've heard this before
but I'll read it to everybody
I'm sitting over there
part of the prayer meeting
and I started writing
I find myself highly disturbed
as I am in our prayer meeting tonight
there's nothing wrong with anything
the people are praying for
it's what the Lord is telling me
Today, as we're in His presence, tonight, as the people are praying and specifically asking
God to move in the upcoming meetings next week, the Holy Spirit started asking me. They say,
Lord, we, you know, I'll just... hypothetical. Lord, we pray that you just move in power
next week. And the Holy Spirit started asking me, why? Why should I? And Lord, we pray that
people get, you know, people come and they sense your presence and it changes their life.
Why? Why should I do that? And everything they were praying, he kept following it up with,
why should I do that? Why? And he directed me back to 2 Chronicles 7.14, if my people
who are called by my name shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity
my face, which that is explained in the Open Heavens book that you've gotten. Those are yours
to keep. So you'll want to read that part. It's really fascinating. And turn from their
wicked ways. Then will I hear from heaven forgive their sin and heal their land. The
words humble themselves stuck out to me. So I looked it up. The word humble means
to bend the knee, to humiliate, to vanquish, to bring low, bring into subjection,
bring under, to subdue. And then I felt like he directed me. He said, if they humble
themselves. So put the definition in with yourself. If you will humiliate yourself.
And that we applied directly to quit trying to hide your sin and keep people from seeing it.
If we will confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us. And if we confess
our sins one to another, we will be healed. Well, it's humiliating to do that. Well, humble
yourself. If we will bring ourselves down low, if we'll bring ourselves into subjection,
which could be talking of attitudes, could be talking of emotions, could be talking
of the flesh. If we'll bring ourselves under, if we'll subdue ourselves, then
he will do these things. And I started asking myself the question, and I just wrote, wrote
as it was coming. Have we lost the repentive attitude at word of life? Have we picked up
the laodicean attitude of the church that says, we're good. I mean, we're good.
I'm good. I'm good in my spiritual life. I'm fine. I'm good. Have we become nonchalant
or complacent towards the supernatural and the presence that God has given us to where
it's like, well, you just take it for granted. It just happens and it's all exciting,
but we're getting kind of complacent towards it rather than reverencing God's presence,
honoring it, holding it holy. Have we become spiritually sloppy and we're allowing
sin and other things to come into our life because we're good. I mean, we're good. We're
fine. I mean, it's good. But yet if Jesus was standing right there, we probably wouldn't
do what we do now because we're just getting kind of sloppy. Are our motives beginning
to slip in why we seek him, why we seek his presence, why we seek his guidance,
his leading. We talked about a lot of supernatural stuff that happens here. We usually just sense
the spiritual side of it. I believe we can enter in deeper than that. Scripture tells
us if you will pursue it, God will show you some of your rewards he has for you
in heaven. Scripture says that. I is not seen, ear is not heard. I is not seen,
heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. What God has prepared for them. But
by his spirit, he will show you. Look it up, Corinthians. God wants to show us glimpses
of what we're running toward. A lot of times the church presents the gospel of what we're
trying to run away from hell. Well, that's not a bad idea either. But we have no clue
what we're running toward, and yet Scripture specifically says God wants to show you
what he has prepared for you. Keep running. Keep pushing. The open heaven thing that we
have, and there's numerous speakers that come, one of the last ones was Charles Carucu.
When he was here last year, it opens heaven. After that second night, of course he was
drunk in the spirit. They had to kind of carry him out. And as he's going out
those back doors, he looked at me and he said, you got an open heavens here. I said, yeah,
I know. He said, wow. And he staggered on. We've had numerous people pointed out, this
is not again something for us to go good for us. This is an impartation of responsibility
and authority and something that he wants to spread, to envelop the area, to envelop the
community, to spread into the region that he has asked us to work in. This is all the
angels do just the bidding of the Lord. It's not about the angels because without
the Lord, they're powerless and useless. He empowers them to do his word over
our lives. And the more that happens, the more people's lives are changed. We are honored
to have this thing, but you know what? He expects more of us because we have it. To
whom much is given, much is required. And one of the reasons he shows us what we
have is so that we can go, you know, maybe we shouldn't horse off too much here with
spiritual things. We better take this very methodically, carefully, making our choices
willfully trying to follow and please the Lord because it's open through obedience, it
can close through disobedience. And the same thing that's here, he wants over
every one of us, our home, our lives, where we go, there should be no restrictions between
us and God. Folks, if we have lost a repent of heart or it's just not as strong as
it should be, remember that. I can show it to you again because I want to make
a statement now that those of you who know Brother Caseman, this will make sense to you.
There's something he says over and over and over. He says, I am quick to obey. When
God shows me something, I'm quick to obey. We can get bogged down in our lives,
in all the stuff. Our love for God is motivating us to do something, but we never really get
up to repent and submission and obedience because we get bogged down in all kinds of
stuff. His point is, once the Holy Spirit convinces you or convicts you of something,
just go straight to the top and obey. Don't get bogged down in between. Getting
bogged down is what shuts down the moving of the spirit. We don't want to shut down the
moving of the spirit. And there's other things you could add in there. That happened.
Different people go through different things while they're working their way up toward
okay, I'll repent, I'll submit, I'll obey. I refuse to let the Holy Spirit
insubmission, disobedience, lack of reverence, lack of the fear of the Lord. I refuse to let
those kind of things slowly creep in and grab our body and we lose what He's given us.
I refuse that. And a body is made up of all kinds of individual parts. So here's
the question. Is there areas you are not living in the fear of the Lord like you should? And
repentance has slid on some things. You're not always obeying quickly, sometimes you're
not obeying at all. In other words, take inventory of your life. Do I have attitudes
with people that are not godly attitudes? These are the kind of things, there's only
one thing, there's only one tool the kingdom of darkness has against the church of Jesus
Christ. It's division. The only thing he's got is to divide us, get us fighting with
each other, get us on different pages, we're just not in agreement, and it's
the only tool he's got. And the way he wiggles in is through the flesh. It's through our flesh.
Lord, if there are any areas where we as a body are sinning, number one, we ask forgiveness
and number two, we ask show us what we're doing wrong. Any areas, it may be just
in a very seed form of an attitude or a very seed form of an emotion. It might not be even
active yet, but you see it's there and it's trying to grow. And you're pointing it out
and saying, humble yourself. Humble yourself. Don't pick up the laodicean thing of I'm
good enough, I can do this, I've got this. Humble yourself. Seek his face. Call upon
him. Turn from our wickedness. We can't play games with what God has given us and is asking
us to be responsible for in Stuart. We can't play games with our own personal lives.
So Lord, we very sincerely as a body come and we say Lord speak to us, correct us.
Direct us. Show us. Speak to us. Anything we could be wrong in as a body. Lord, we pray
as a body. Come and speak to us. Correct us. Counsel us. Show us. Lead us. In anything
we could be doing wrong as a body. Okay folks, I'll just give you a heads up.
I'm going to keep repeating it until we as a body agree. I'm praying a prayer for the
body that's you and me, all of us. Lord, we pray that you come and speak to us. You
teach us. You guide us. You lead us. You correct us. You do whatever needs to be done
to show us what we could be doing or are doing wrong as a body.
Do we agree? Yes. Forgive us. Even before we know. Forgive us. And Lord, we will be quick
to repent and obey. We will be quick to repent and obey. Lord, I pray specifically for any
individuals who are struggling to gain their healing. We can be so blind to ourselves.
Myself included, if I or any of us have an attitude towards someone, point it out and
help us clean it up so the healing can come. Again, it's basically saying the same thing
as 2 Chronicles 7.14. And then he will come and heal the land. Well, that's what
we're asking for. Lord, that's what we're asking for. That's what we're asking for. We
are going to be a people who will accomplish our purpose here on this earth. We are not
going to be thrown into the ditch. We are not going to be sidetracked. We are not
going to end up in some kind of wreck spiritually, so to speak. We are going to fulfill the word
of the Lord over us. We are going to accomplish what he's asking us to do and be in this
area. We are going to be a body that is going to walk in power. Individuals all the
way up to the corporate. We are going to, by walking in power, I mean we will
demand our rights and promises as heirs of Almighty God. And we will not stay under
discipline, as Hebrews 12 talks about as a bastard child, where we do not walk in
the supernatural because we're being disciplined. An illegitimate child as an illegitimate
child would. We will not be stubborn. We will not be rebellious. We will not be
headstrong. We want to hear what you have to say. We want to know what you have to
say. And we are asking for you to come and administer to us by your spirit in whatever
way we need. This is not about us having a week of exciting meetings next week. This
is about us taking another step closer to fulfilling why we're here. And Lord
whatever that is, whatever that's about, shove it into us next week. Put it deep into
our hearts. Get it on us and in us and over us so that we will rise up to another realm
of obedience and freedom and submission and life and the flowing of your spirit which
is supposed to take place in us and among us. We commit it to you but we know it starts
with us. So Lord between now and Sunday morning we're taking inventory. Talk to us. Open
our minds to see our hearts to understand our ears to hear. Anything you want us
to know. For we absolutely refuse to turn loose of the covenant and all the things of
the covenant that are available for us. We refuse to turn loose of it in Jesus name.
The north is ours and we will invade it. We will influence it and there will be
people, churches, lives changed for eternity because we refuse to turn loose of what you
have asked us to do. We're going there. We're going to do it. We will be quick to obey.
We're not going to fuss with you. We're not going to make excuses. We're not going
to hang on to our favorite petty sins. We're going to repent and move on and get changed
to become more like Jesus. So open our hearts and minds to receive this. This isn't at
its core. This is not about angels. This is about open heavens and that comes from
obedience and taking a stand on who you've asked us to be and obeying it and taking a
stand in covenant of what you have bought for us. And we're not turning loose of either
one. We will be a people who do whatever you command. And we will be a people who
will take a stand in what you bought and paid for because it's our right. And
we will hold on to both with everything within us in Jesus' name.