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May 7, 2020 - Jim Bakker Show
08:22
Three Ways People Are Responding To This Crisis - Larry Sparks
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Time Text
God Never Sends Judgment? 00:06:59
What do you see?
You're talking about three ways people are prophetically responding to this crisis.
Can you share a little more about that, Larry?
Yep.
Yep.
I'll do my best to be as concise as possible with this.
But, you know, me and Dr. Lance Walnut were talking about this, and the Lord gave me, just so I could help navigate people, three ways, not just this crisis, but three ways people tend to respond to disaster crisis prophetically.
Number one, you have people who say God never does stuff like this.
God never shakes things up.
God never sends judgment because he is good.
Now, we know he is good.
And I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth gave us a model.
He went around doing good, healing all who are oppressed of the devil.
However, I am very hesitant to make a statement like God never sends judgment because obviously we see what he did in the old covenant, but we also see what happens, not just in the eschatological end times, the final days of God's wrath being released in the book of Revelation.
We see Ananias and Sapphira.
We even see that scripture in Peter where it talks about judgment beginning in the house of the Lord.
But I want to theologically contextualize it.
In other words, I want to help you understand what that means.
It's not always God punitively judging people.
In other words, I do believe right now, I personally am convicted that we are in a time of judgment.
It doesn't necessarily mean, this is my perspective on this, it's not always God proactively, intentionally sending evil, but I do believe right now judgment is beginning in the house of God.
God is evaluating people.
God is evaluating and shaking determines whether or not we have two feet to stand on.
In other words, what does the scripture say?
Everything that is shakable will be shaken.
So only that which remains is that which is eternal and that which is the kingdom of God.
So there's that perspective that God never does this.
Well, I can't make that statement because obviously throughout scripture, God does and he has the right to send judgment and he has the right to evaluate.
But number two, I think can be just as dangerous is that every crisis and every disaster is the punitive judgment of God.
Well, obviously that's not true because not everything that happens is God.
I do believe that there is a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
I do believe God's heart is to heal, restore, deliver people.
I do believe Jesus is the perfect model of Father God and revealed who he is and what he is like.
But so I do believe that we can get a little bit outlandish sometimes with that, saying everything is a judgment of God.
Well, not everything is, but at the same time, God has the right and he does judge.
And I do believe as we move towards the end times, that we will see judgment.
And especially if we want to see more glory.
John Bevere has this great book called The Fear of the Lord, and he talks about a process where there is order, there is glory, and there is judgment.
Why did Ananias and Sapphira drop dead in that time?
People wonder about that.
Well, he makes this observation, and I would agree, when you have that level of glory being released, which they were obviously walking in a supernatural realm with the Holy Spirit just after the day of Pentecost, you don't have the luxury to lie to the Holy Spirit, lie to God, do something like that when there is that level of presence being poured out.
We pray prayers like God, send your presence, rend the heavens, come down.
But when he does move like that, we do need to move circumspectly.
We do need to move with the fear of the Lord and a trembling before God.
So again, yes, there's kind of a hyper, there's this idea that God never does this.
Well, I can't agree with that.
There's this idea that God is always sending judgment, and that's not always true either.
But then there's the third perspective, which is, well, it's just an epidemic.
It's just a sickness.
We've, you know, how long have we been on the earth?
Thousands of years.
We've had sickness.
We've had plagues.
We've had issues.
There's nothing spiritual.
There's nothing prophetic.
There's nothing significant about it.
You know, let's just deal with it.
Let's just respond.
Let's just, you know, agonize over it, cry over it, and that type of thing.
And you know what?
Sometimes it just, sometimes it just is a plague.
Sometimes it just is something like that.
I don't believe that's the case here.
I believe there's so much activity going on right now in the spirit realm.
And again, those three things, I summarize them to the best of my ability, but those are the ways we tend to navigate times of crisis, times of disaster.
What's the secret?
Which one of those is right?
Which one of those is wrong?
I believe there's truth in all three of those.
The key, and this is my encouragement for all of the viewers, is we need discernment.
We need to recognize, God, what are you doing?
Because I know this.
Everything that is shakable is being shaken.
We obviously saw what Emma Stark prophesied.
This is a pivot year.
God actually, another prophetic words not in the book, but she shared is God is actually investing in the shaking, whether God caused it, whether God, you know what?
At the end of the day, this is what God told me.
And I'll kind of finish up here because I've seen on social media, I have the luxury and the blessing of navigating and talking with prophets and prophetic people of different theological perspectives.
And of course, on social media, everybody's kind of debating.
And, you know, well, did God send this?
Did the devil send this?
And I'm like, God, I don't even know how to navigate all this.
And this is what the Lord told me in the midst of all this coronavirus, kind of the one thing he gave me clarity on.
He said, Larry, go back to that scripture in 2 Chronicles 7.
Jim, you read it.
And I said, okay, I'm familiar with it, God.
He said, no, read the verse beforehand.
And it does.
It talks about pestilence.
It talks about locusts.
And I'm like, okay, God, are you telling me you sent this?
Are you telling me the devil sent this?
He said, don't focus so much on the why, but focus on the what.
In other words, if we focus so much on why is this happening, I think we're going to get into debate.
We're going to get into argument.
We're going to get into all sorts of discord.
I feel like we need to focus right now, folks, on what do we do?
We see this happening.
We saw the locusts.
We saw the fires in Australia.
We obviously see plague around the world.
What do we do?
The scripture says this: humble yourself, pray.
We turn from our wicked ways.
We repent and we actually turn towards God and we actually cry out like they did in the Hebrides revival.
And I'll just read this little bit here.
They all came together.
One of the prayer meetings, this is what our prayers need.
One of the prayer meetings, they came together and they had this blacksmith guy leading the prayer.
He says this with his cap in his hand, John the blacksmith rose to pray.
And in the middle of the prayer, he paused.
He raised his right hand to heaven and he said, Oh, God, you made a promise to pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.
Moment Of Truth 00:01:37
And he said, Lord, it's not happening.
It was not happening.
That revival that was taking place in the Hebrides was actually not happening in their province.
It's actually okay to come before the Lord and say, God, you said this in your word and it's not happening.
And that's what this guy said.
It said he paused again and then he continued, Lord, if I know anything about my own heart, I stand before thee as an empty vessel, thirsting for thee and a manifestation of thy power.
It says he halted and after a moment of tense silence, he cried out, Oh God, your honor is at stake.
And I now challenge you to fulfill your covenant engagement and to do what you have promised to do.
And literally right after that, it says, at that very moment, the house shook physically.
Dishes rattled in the sideboard and waved after wave of God's power swept through the building.
I want to encourage you, remind yourself of the promises God has made.
I do believe God still has plans and unfulfilled prophetic words for America, for your nation.
But here's what he's saying: we need to pray.
We need to remember people like the Lord saying, even right now, I remember the prayers of those Smith sisters.
I remember them.
And the Lord says, even now, Hebrides was a first fruit.
Hebrides is a first fruit.
Where are those who will prevail in that measure of prayer again and hold me to my promises until they come to pass?
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