City Central Church Podcast
Coming Into Alignment with God
Gerry Fry
of this mantle is a revival. We are people that God is calling for to lead a mighty move of God that will ignite the revival fire. The revival is when the church comes alive. A revival is when we are back to resurrection life. When the Holy Spirit is able to flow in freedom. When the church has such a passion for Jesus to glorify His name, such a passion for the Lord, that we then begin to say, "God, we want to reach souls. We want to touch the broken and hurting wounded lives. We want to see them loved. We want to see them trained. We want to see them disciples." This becomes a part of what happens in revival. Then the fourth part of this mantle is reclamation. That's the result of revival. When we truly are seeing revival right here in New Song, then the next thing we'll begin to see is reclamation, which means we begin to take back those things that the enemy has stolen. The enemy has stolen so much. He's robbed. He's plundered churches. He's plundered our city. He's plundered our youth, our marriages. He's trying to do everything he can to bring death and destruction. As we begin to be aware of this, then suddenly we are now so overwhelmed with the power of God's Spirit that we want to begin to take back what the enemy has stolen. Now, this is what God's calling us to do. That's why last week was so important. Awake. We have this week with the manual. Awake. What God was telling us is, "I want you to come awake and come back into alignment or come into alignment with the throne of God." So I shared with you that night, I begin to talk about the fact that we pray the prayer of Jesus. "Lord, let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Now, that's a powerful prayer and yet sometimes we just go through it and say, "Yes, your kingdom come, you will be done." Do you know what that prayer really means? It is praying that we will come back into alignment with the throne of God because it's where to see on earth what is being done in heaven. What's going on in the throne room of God? What's going on in heaven? What's taking place right now? If you walk into the throne and you had the privilege of going there and standing there at the throne, you would be so overwhelmed with the presence of God, the power of God, the glory of God, the praise and the worship that is ascending continually as a mighty fragrance into the Lord. It's an overwhelming thing, but God said, "What is going on there? I want to come on to earth." As the kingdom of God is in heaven, so it is to be done on earth. As is will as being done there, it's to be done here. So what we need to begin to recognize is we must come into alignment with God's throne. And that's why we begin to say God is calling us to awake because His desire is to so fill us with a passion of His power and presence and glory that He might establish us as His people, as His church, and that we then in alignment with God. Well, you see, that's being presumptuous. How can we expect God's throne to be here? Well, I do. God's divine plan is to put His throne right here in Newsom. Now, that's awesome when you begin to realize what God wants to do. I mean, He wants to put His throne. What is going on in heaven? You see, well, how can we do that? I'd say presumptuous to who we think we are. Any people and any church that is willing to come into alignment with the purpose and plan of God and what He wants comes into that alignment that's vertical. See, when you get into alignment with the throne of God, that heaven and earth, it becomes one, the vertical alignment. So here we try to work our church out here and we try to do all of these things. But when we get over here in the vertical alignment, we release the angels, we release the power, we release the presence, we release the glory, and suddenly God's glory is all over us because we're in alignment with the throne of God. Now, I shared with you that night six bullet points, and I'll just give them to you rapidly again. Here's the six bullet points to come into alignment with. Number one, come into alignment with the Holy Spirit. Number two, come into alignment with true worship in the Holy Spirit. Three, come into alignment with the truth of God's word of holiness and righteousness. Number four, come into alignment with God's love in our relationship and unity as a body of believers. Number five, come into alignment with God's purpose and plan that we be a house of prayer, that we be a place where the word of God is being proclaimed, that we're proclaiming it not only here, but we're proclaiming in the streets, on the street corner, in the schools, in the community, and that we become a people that will enable this wonderful truth to flow out of us as we begin to release ministries to accomplish God's purpose. Then finally, number six, alignment with God's power and presence of His glory. Now, when you get all these things into alignment, you are going to find that we are in alignment with the throne of God. God's throne is established in our midst, and when that happens, we will find ourselves in the greatest hour of history, our awakening, our renewal, our revival that will impact our city and enable churches to be affected by it, and actually we'll turn the city upside down. You have that potential the moment you come into alignment with the throne of God, then things are going to begin to happen. But how? How do we come into alignment? We come into alignment really very simply. In fact, God gave it to us in a very simple way and yet a very powerful way. When God came at the dedication of Solomon's temple and spoke to Solomon, He gave him the four keys, the four principles, the four concepts of what this could mean to come into alignment. When God said to Solomon, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. We'll forgive their sin and heal their land." That hasn't changed. When we come to the place of saying, "Lord, we're going to walk in humility. Humility is simply when a body of believers is willing to totally depend on God, come to the place of submitting to the Holy Spirit, come into the place we're going to obey the Holy Spirit." That's humility. And then secondly, to pray that we become a people, not just saying little prayers, but we learn to pray in the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. We begin to hear what's on God's heart. And then we begin to proclaim what God wants to do, not just our little prayer requests. And we become that place of prayer. The third thing is that we're to seek His face. We're to seek His face. And it's only as we truly have the veils removed from our eyes and can be able to see the face of Jesus that we're going to be changed and transformed so that God's glory can now abide and be manifested through us and that we can then declare His glory to the nations. And the fourth thing is turn from our wicked ways. Turn from anything that grieves the Holy Spirit, anything that quenches the Spirit, anything that hinders the Spirit, anything that holds the Holy Spirit under all my fear, pride, unbelief, inferiority, insecurity, self-centeredness, unforgiveness, bitterness, all the things that keep God from doing what He wants to do, I must repent of it, turn from it, and then we will hear from heaven. And when we begin to hear from heaven, things begin to happen because God is going to manifest His glory. Now, we're coming right now into perhaps the most critical and alarming days that I have ever seen. And I think really over many, many years there will be anything compared to what you're about to face. Things are coming. That's why I'm going to share with you. As a father would share with the Son say, and I want you to be, I want you to see. I've seen things in the Spirit that alarms me, but I've also seen things in the Spirit that excite me because it's really a two-fold thing that's going on right now. One is the Spirit of Antichrist. There's a Spirit of Antichrist. Now, the Spirit of Antichrist is nothing new. That's been operating ever since John wrote his epistles back in the first century. He said the Spirit of Antichrist is already working and he has been working. The enemy has always been working to that moment that he will be able to someway dethrone the worship of God, someway demean who Jesus really is, someway provide another answer, another substitute. And so he has been preparing the hearts of people. We've seen it rise and fall, but now we're seeing something of the Spirit of Antichrist that's at work in the world and at work in our nation as I never thought we would. Now, I preached about this through my 55 years of ministry and I said, you know, it was always something. It's going to happen someday. I never realized except God told me I was going to see it and now I'm seeing it. I could not believe some of the things that have happened in the last few weeks. I can't believe that some of the things that would take place and yet all I can say is God said this is what sets up the world for the Antichrist. He is coming. He may already be somewhere. I do not know, but I do know the Spirit of Antichrist is at work where people are looking for someone. What do they want? Somebody to comfort them, somebody to solve their economic problems, someone to provide for them, someone to take care of our comfort and our needs and what we want and we just want this and it's all centered around us and if anybody can promise us less than we're going to follow him. That's what the Antichrist is. Then, of course, it's then that the world will realize that he is the one that is going to bring death and destruction, but we don't realize that and though even the church gets deceived, even the church gets messed, but oh, at the same time when I look at the Spirit of Antichrist that has worked, I also begin to recognize that God is up to something big. He's finding a people and I believe he's founded a new song. I believe you're one of those places where God said, "I'm going to begin to do a work in you that you would never even imagine, that you could never even dream, that you would only think that really couldn't happen. But if you will come into alignment with the throne of God, he is going to pour out his Spirit. The glory of God is going to abide in you. It doesn't matter what facility we're in. It's going to abide whatever a people will open their heart and say, "God, we want you. We need you. We need your glory and we long for your glory." The question is ask what is the glory we need. In fact, did you notice the theme that went through last week and the week of awakening those four nights with Emmanuel? Did you notice what he ministered on night after night? There was not always his text, but that's what was being ministered. He was ministering on two things, the glory of God and the Holy Spirit. Did you see that? It was the glory of God. So what is the glory? If we're going to have this glory, we need to understand it. We need to recognize the glory. It's just simply who God is. It is God who he is and what he does, his acts. The glory is the radiance of God himself. It's a radiant and mighty majesty of beauty and infinite greatness and worth of his manifold perfection because of who God is, that glory. In the Hebrews called it the shekinah, it was just something that flew out of who God is. Now, God is also holy. In fact, he is holy. Holiness becomes the bedrock through which the glory is going to be released. See, holiness, the holiness of God is God's absolute, unique perfection, his infinite and unimpeachable moral purity. That's his holiness. In fact, when we read about the holiness of God, holiness is the fact that God is absolutely complete. I mean, get this. I mean, the God that you're serving, if you were aware, what a God has revealed himself. There's no, I mean, all of the religions and all the cults and all of the philosophies and all the other ideologies, there's no one. It has a God like the one true God that we serve who is absolutely complete. And what makes him complete is his holiness. Holiness is what keeps everything complete in God's attributes. So God then is absolute love. He's absolute purity. He is absolute justice. He's absolute mercy. He's absolute truth. He is infinite and power. He is a God of all wisdom. Everything about God's attributes, everything he is, it's because he's holy. And God can never be anything less. He can never be anything less than a God of love. He can never be anything less than a God of peace. He can never be anything less than a God of grace. He can never be anything less than a God of justice. This is the God that we serve in Jesus Christ. This is the one true God. Now the glory of that holy God is when God then displays himself publicly. God then in his love and mercy and grace who he is allows that to go public. And we begin to see the radiance of this infinite, majestic, holy beam that we can't even grasp with our mind. And yet this is the holiness of God being revealed in his glory. And we see God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and all the glory come to the place they're going to allow this glory to be made public display. What does he do? He creates the world. He creates the solar system. In fact the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. When you see the stars and you see the sun, the moon, the planets, you look at even our planet earth. When you realize everything here, the mountains, the streams, the things that we have, the oceans, the marvellous things, God created this. This is the glory of God. God's power goes there public and say, "I'm a holy God and I'm going to display my glory in the majesty of planet earth and the solar system." And then this wonderful God, who created man, created us then comes and says, "But I'm going to display my glory in an even greater measure." And that's the glory of redemption because then God comes to a world that had rebelled and a world that had sinned and lost the glory. And he says, "I'm going to redeem you to that lost glory. I'm going to send my son and my son's going to die for you." And rise again, triumph over death, hell and the grave. And he's going to ascend on high and he's going to send the Holy Spirit who is the very spirit of glory to abide within you so that you then can live in the glory of heaven on earth. And you can then begin to manifest that glory to your community. And then you could begin to declare that glory to the nations of the world, to the people groups of Tacoma, to the people groups of the Pierce County and Thurston County and King County and Kitsap County and throughout the Northwest. God will begin to take you and you begin to be that instrument through which the glory of God is going to be manifested because God redeemed us that we might be restored to that glory and that we might see it in all the beauty. Now God displayed His glory throughout the Old Testament and measures a glory there in the Moses dedication of Moses, tabernacle. He came to the Moses there on the Mount and Moses saw the glory of God and passed by and he just got to see his back parts but it was so glorious that his face began to shine with such a brilliance where to come back and look at in a moment and then of course when he came to Solomon's temple again the glory came down. It was so heavy people couldn't even stand up. They couldn't minister. They couldn't do anything because of the presence and power and the glory of God that came into that place. Oh the awesomeness of the glory of God but the greatest awesomeness of all the greatest display of God's glory came when God said I'm going to take my glory. I'm going to deposit in human flesh and I'm going to send my son to be born at a borrowed stable. They're born of the Virgin Mary but conceived by the Holy Spirit. He is going to be truly man but he's going to be truly God and he is going to be the man that God is going to allow us to see the glory. So when John writes in John chapter 1 verse 14 the word because Jesus has always been that living word all things were created by the word and he was with God but then he said that word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. What was the glory that John saw? This one full of grace and truth. They saw the glory of God flowing through human life, flowing through a event festival. They looked at him. He was like no other man. He spoke like no other one. There was something so unique about him. There was love. There was tenderness. There was compassion. There was something in the very life of Jesus that revealed the glory of who God is. They begin to hear it in his teaching. They heard it in his words. They heard it as he led them. They saw his miracles and his keylings and his deliverances. They saw it as he stood firm in the midst of the enemy that would want to attack and try to destroy and yet they saw the glory of God. And then of course John also saw it on the Mount of Transfiguration as man who was sharing with us last week. They saw the glory of God but remember that glory was deposited in Jesus for one purpose and that is that he might then bring us into that place of his glory. That's why he went to the cross. That's why he forgave you your sins. That's why he redeemed you. That's why he ransomed you. That's why he reconciled you. And then as he died on the cross and shed his blood for you and me that we might be made sons of God, then he rises from the dead triumphantly. And then after 40 days he ascends to the right hand to the majesty on high and then he sends this Holy Spirit, this person of the triune Godhead, this one that has been one with the Son and one with the Father through all ages of eternity. And yet this one was going to come because this one is going to come and take the deposit of the glory of Jesus that he won for us on the cross and by his resurrection and ascension. And he is going to come and live within you. He's going to live within me. The Holy Spirit is going to come and then we are going to become the awesome people that God destined us to be, that we might bring the glory of God to our world and that they might see. Because see this is what God's intention was. Take your Bible for a moment. I want you to turn to the third chapter and the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians. And I want you to keep it open now till the end of the message. All right, just watch this because this is what God wants you to understand. The truth of chapter 4 verse 6 is about this glory. Where is the glory of God right now? The glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where the glory is. Notice it. God who made who said, let light shine out of darkness, made his light, this light of God, shine in our hearts to give us what? The knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's where God's glory is. The only way we're going to be able to see God's glory and experience this glory is when we begin to seek his face. When we begin to recognize that God is calling us here at New Song to seek his face. This is something God's called you and me. Where to seek him? Throughout the pages of God's word, God had been speaking to his people, seek my face. In fact, he said it to David in the 27th Psalm. He said, "David, I want you to seek my face." And David responds, "Your face, Lord, I will seek." In chapter 24 of Psalm, when David writes it, he said, "Who's going to send to the hill of the Lord? Who's going to abide in the holy place?" And then he answers it. He says, "Those who seek the Lord, who seek his face." Job's transformation and restoration took place when he could stay on God. I've heard of you with a hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. What happens when you begin to see God? Then Job said, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." But at that moment, Job was lifted out of that place where he had fallen. And now, he became restored to the glory of God. That's what God wants to do. Why Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, "Seek first the kingdom of God in his righteousness. Then all these things shall be added to you." God knows you need these things, and God will take care of you. But we sometimes want to put that in the place of seeking God and say, "God, I've got to take care of this." God says, "Seek me first." Put me in priority. And that word "seek" that Jesus uses there and the Greek is not just a little casual seeking. It's the Greek word "zeteo," which means "passionate," burning desire, something that consumes me. I want to see the face of Jesus. That becomes the consuming passion of my life that I begin to realize why God would say through Jeremiah in chapter 29, verse 11, to the nation of Israel, "I know the future. I have for you the plans. I have for you to give you a future and a hope." But then he goes right on to say, "But you're to seek me, and if you'll seek me with all your heart, you'll find me." That's what God wants. He wants us to come into the place that we realize without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently, earnestly, seek him. This is what God wants. He wants us to come into that place that we begin to seek his face. And it's only there as I choose to seek the face of the Lord in my own individual life as I seek him that I'm going to behold his glory and that I'm going to be changed and transformed into that glory of himself. And King James says from one degree of glory to another, from glory to glory. It's a progressive thing. I haven't arrived yet, but I thank God that he's working in my life. And he wants to work in your life. And we're going to begin to see him more. And the more we see him, the more we're going to be transformed. And the more we're transformed, the more the glory of God is going to be manifested in us individually and then together collectively as a body until we're just not sitting in a church just as a group of another church and other social gathering, something. But we become a people that are alive with the presence of God and the glory of God that God is at work in. So we need to come into this. Now go back with me to chapter 3. I want you to see this carefully. Look in your Bible. In verse 16 of chapter 3 it says, "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." Now we don't have time to go through the whole third chapter. But all what he's been talking about in chapter 3 has been the veil. A veil that separates us from seeing the glory. He uses the illustration of Moses. He goes back and says, you know, remember Moses. He had this veil. He sees the glory of God. That glory that he saw was not really the fullness of the glory. He said that was only a glory that was passing away. That glory would not abide, but it was going to picture for us the glory that God is going to sin. So Moses sees the back part of God and his face begins to shine. So brilliantly was the light that shine for that little glimpse of God's glory that the children of Israel said, Moses, we can't even look at your face. It was like trying to look in the sun. It was so brilliant, so bright that he had to put a veil over his face. Now that veil of course kept them so they couldn't see it, but also then Paul says here that veil also meant that glory is going to fade away. That wasn't the glory that was going to come. That was only a foreshadowing of the glory that you and I are going to have, because he's going to talk about the glory that we have is that that is not going to perish. It's not going to be a glory that fades away. It's not going to be a glory that just comes and then suddenly it just vanishes. It's going to be a glory of Christ himself abiding in his church, abiding in you, abiding in me until the world begins to see. And that glory is what we're talking about. So he goes on to say, but back in verse 14, he talks about the fact the only way the veil that keeps us from seeing the glory is taken away is through what? Christ. It's what Jesus did on the cross, only in Christ can the veil be taken away. So what happened to you? You and I, for most of us are believers here. Most of us have received Christ. When I came to Christ, the veil that kept me from seeing the glory of God was removed at the cross by his resurrection and his ascension so that glory as the veil has been removed. So I can look in the face of Jesus. There's nothing now I can't say, Lord, it's not because I'm not worthy enough or I don't deserve it. Yes, it's simply because of what you've done. You took the veil away. When you died, the veil of the temple was split and now we can go into the holy of holies, into the very presence of God, and there's see it's glory. I mean, it's more awesome than any of us can begin to recognize what it is to go into that holy of holies and see the very glory of God and the presence of God. And yet some of it few of us see it. What happens? Okay, go back. Look at chapter three. Here it is. In verse 16, but whenever, in fact, go to verse 15, talking about the Jewish people, even to this day, when Moses is red, a veil covers their heart. A veil has come over their heart because they didn't receive Christ, but then go into verse 16. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now, here's the key. I don't want you to miss this. You said the veil was removed by Christ. It was. It's been done. But you and I know that it isn't long. We let the disappointments of life, the discouragements of life, the problems of life, the marriage and family and things that get into our heart, the feelings of insecurity and fear already, fear, etc. What happens? The veil comes back over our eyes. We can't see. We say, we're coming into the holy of holies, but we don't see anything. We leave the same way after church as we did before we came. We haven't really been changed. We had a wonderful service, but we've not changed. Why? Because we didn't get into that holy place because there was a veil over your eyes and over my eyes. But he said, when one turns to the Lord, but the thing here, who's the Lord here? Did you notice that? Go to verse 17 and you find out. Verse 17, Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. It is coming to that place of alignment with the Holy Spirit that he can show me those veils. I repent of the veil. He because he applies the truth of the cross in my life, I'm set free, but it's the Lord, the Holy Spirit, that now is at work to set me free. Why? He wants me to come into freedom. And this has been what this church is all about. Many of you come into freedom, but you don't go any further. See, freedom was not that, oh, I'm now free from all these strongholds and all these things that have cluttered my life. I'm now free to do what? You're free to come in to behold the face of Jesus and seek him face to face. That's what he is doing. That's the freedom. It's when we come into that place with unveiled faces. He says in verse 18, and where with unveiled face, I begin to see the face of Jesus now. The Holy Spirit has come. He's illuminated my mind, my heart, my emotion, my intervene, and by the work of the Holy Spirit, he enables me to see what I could not see with natural eyes, and my heart begins to perceive, and I begin to see the riches of the glory of my inheritance in Christ. I begin to see the Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I begin to see the glory of God taking me by the Spirit, and enabling me to see Jesus in all His majesty, and all His greatness, and all His grander, as John saw in the isle of Patmos. I begin to see that, and as I begin to see it, and I begin to see God, I've never seen so wonderful love. And as I begold that love, I'm going to be changed to a greater dimension of love. As I begin to see the peace, the peace begins to rule. As I begin to see the joy, joy begins to well up within my heart. Things begin to happen in my life and in your life when I see the face of Jesus. So this is what we're to do. We're to come into that place, and thereby the mighty power of the Holy Spirit at work in our life, because we're being changed from glory to glory transformed. So all that we might then reflect to the world. That's the only way the world's ever going to see Jesus. They're not going to see it in the church. We can't even build churches until we're blowing the face, but steeples have programs, preach servants, sing songs. They're not going to see until they see the glory of God in you and in me. When they see that glory, that's what's going to cause this revival, this reformation, this restoration, and this is going to enable us to begin to reclaim those things that the enemy has stolen. Did you notice? But don't stop there. Go into chapter 4. Are you still okay? Therefore, look at chapter 4. Chapter 4 verse 1. Many times, if you read the Bible thinking, well, I've finished chapter 3, now I'm going to go into chapter 4. It's not like these verses and chapters were added later. This is just one letter. This book of 2 Corinthians was just one letter. Paul didn't say, well, now I'm through with chapter 3. I'm going to take you into chapter 4 as if you're turning the pages of a book. So forget about that. Learn to read the Bible correctly and recognize that when he gets through, he's not through here. Therefore, that ties it immediately in there. Therefore, because of the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that glory that I'm in chains, the working of God's Spirit in my life. Therefore, since through God's mercy, we have this ministry. Now listen, I want you to get this. You have been given this ministry, the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of life in Christ Jesus. It sets us free from the loss and death. The ministry of the Holy Spirit that enables people to know the wonderful spirit of sonship, the spirit of adoption whereby we can cry out of Father. See, that's the ministry you have, every one of us. The ministry Paul's talking about, if you go back into chapter 3, you'll discover it. He's talking about the ministry of the Spirit. We are made ministries of the Spirit. That's where every one of us is. It's not just for an apostle or a prophet or a pastor or a teacher or an evangelist or a few here or on the platform. Every one of us, there's not a person in here that's a believer, that you have not been given the ministry of the Spirit. That's what God's given you. And we haven't been doing that. We think, oh, we'll leave it to Brian. We'll leave it to Chris. We'll leave it to evangelist Emmanuel. We'll leave it to others. Listen, if we're going to get this job done, you and I have got to carry out the ministry of the Spirit, where we are in our homes in our family, in our neighborhood, in our community, we're going to have to be that instrument. And then he immediately says this, and I've got to stop here for a moment. Please, let me unburden my heart. He said, don't do not lose heart. I'll have to confess with you. I've had some real problems the last few weeks. I had to deal with anger, I had to deal with, to keep disappointment. I really had to go through some things that, when I said, God, how do you handle this? Yet I knew I've been preaching some of these things we can hear us in now. Oh, come in the past. My anger was not towards God once you'd understand that. I had great anger towards the church. I got so angry at the church. The church is across the nation that they're so undesarning. They didn't discern the things of God. And they didn't seem to understand the true values of God's Word. And I really struggle with this until finally, God, I don't know what to do. I've such sadness and such grief in my heart. I really don't know if I could ever preach again. I don't know if I could. I don't want to go back to this song and preach. I don't want to go back to the churches and continue. I'm too sad. I'm too grief-stricken. And then the Lord in his tenderness and his love reminded me. If it's on, I know. I know if it'll feel the same way. He said, do you remember when I was on my way into Jerusalem on the triumphal entry on the Palm Sunday? What did I do? Do you remember me stopping and weeping over Jerusalem and crying? I was sad. I was grief-stricken because I wept and said, oh, Jerusalem, if you're only known the day of your visitation, if you'd only known what I came to bring you. You'd only know, but now they're going to be hidden from your eyes. And then he said, I had to prophesy the judgment of God. He said, I looked down at that city that I administered in for three years. I looked at that city and I saw it. I saw the greatest bloodbath probably in the history of the world up to that time. When Titus and his Roman soldiers in 70 AD would fulfill that prophetic word and they'd march in and they would totally destroy the city of Jerusalem. They would murder babies and children and men and women until it says the blood flowed down streets like a river. And historians that recount that said it was one of the greatest bloodbath. It was almost like all hell broke loose. And yet Jesus said, I saw it coming. I saw a judgment coming. And I weep over America and I love this nation. I've loved it all my life. He said, God, what a privilege I have. I'm growing up in a combination that was founded upon your principles and upon biblical values. And if we need to guard and then I saw them slipping away. Yes, I've watched them slip away ever since I can begin to preach. And I saw it through the cold war and through Korean war and through the Vietnam and through the rebellion and through all the things and through all this that happened. I watched it and I watched it eroding but I've never never seen it eroding so fast. I watched it in these last few weeks and I've seen it and I looked at a church and I looked at the American people. I would choose to vote for money over morality, choose to vote for health insurance over the murder of 50 million babies that have been aborted since we were going to aid all these things. And yet it doesn't mean anything to us now. Pornography spews out of this nation and this nation has become the center of pornography. That pornography on the internet that is snared. Not only millions of men and women around the world but even in the church. I've had to deal with pastors and leaders that have been destroyed and snared by this horrible thing of pornography that comes out of the pits of hell. And all of this that destroys, I've watched the increase, we're the most violent nation in the world. We have all this sexual immorality and we condone everything. We've got to be politically correct and so now you can't speak to certain things and we begin to lose the very sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of true relationships between man and woman and between husband and wife and all of this is going on and I begin to say God what do you do? God said I'm going to have to judge and judgment's already started. I don't understand. We don't get it. We haven't been able to get it. God's done this and he's done that and yet we just kind of back away and I thought when 9/11 happened I said now finally we're going to wake up especially when I got into church the next Sunday. The churches were full. I preached that Sunday and it was a packed out audience coming and I went back to the next Sunday. It was back to normal. It only lasted a week. Only a week. They could gather in safe coke field and sing amazing grace and you say oh God they finally are getting it. Now where are we? And God continues to allow these things to happen. Natural disasters, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires. You say well that kind of God we serve that he's a God that wants to hurt people. No that's not the God I serve. He's a loving God. He's a holy God. Remember that's why you want to make sure you understand that. Then what happens? This world because of its rebellion is under the curse. It's under the dominion of Satan and demon powers that want to bring death and destruction. The only thing that has kept him in advance up to this point is the hand of God and God's kept that on America but it's been slipping away. And when God begins to have to lift his protection and his provision it's not that God sends the judgment it's inevitable and it's inevitable. So where are we now? We are going to face some things that none of us want to really believe that going to happen. Not just economic woes, they're going to be astounding. There are going to be things that are going to take place. It's going to happen. Then I begin to say oh God what do I do? What do I share with new song? How can we, what do we do? God reminded me the second thing. Not only did he weep over Jerusalem and it said hey judgment is coming and beloved I can't you know if God doesn't judge America he'll have to apologize for Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean we can't we can't escape it. I mean whether we I love our nation we're still one of the greatest nations on and then I want to see this but it's going to come. But there was one more thing God said but remember between that moment and the moment of 70 AD what did I do? I sent a day of Pentecost and Peter preached and they had the under that 120 had the privilege of going out and sharing the wonderful good news 3,000 were saved a few days later 5,000 then multitudes. God began a word and God can still do it today. There is going to be a rise. So church it's time that we arise and begin to shine for our light is calm and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us and that we can be God's instrument in this closing hour to see the greatest visitation and the greatest outpouring of God's spirit. I believe the promise of Haggai is going to come to pass when God said in the last days I'm going to shake the earth and the heavens and the earth and what God's done he's shaking the heavens. The demonic powers are being released. What is going on in our city? It's the demonic powers that are seeking to destroy children, destroy youth, to deceive the church and to bring us all into bondage and so he's shaking the heavens, he's shaking the earth and the earth is begin the violence and all the things that are happening but at the same time he goes on into Haggai and said but the latter glory is going to be greater than the former. What was the latter glory? The latter glory was the book of Acts. That's where God began this thing with the display of his glory because the book of Acts is a revelation of God's glory in the early church and what's going to happen in our day just before Jesus comes and before the Antichrist is able to have what he wants to do to destroy. We're going to see churches rise up like new songs to begin to shine with the glory of God. We're going to begin to shine with that light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ because you and I have been in the holy place and with a veiled removal we stand before him and say Jesus I love you, I exalt you, I give you praise, I give you glory and as we begin to do that God's going to work. Oh, oh what a marvelous thing and we begin to see it. Can you imagine what's happened at New Song in the last two months, two and a half months? Can you remember August? You remember that night when I mean 100% of you gathered here in the front and I mean you just stayed here and said we want the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember that night? Something broke in the heavenly is that night. That was the breaking. When God saw people that were ready God began to thank who could ever believe that here in New Song you would be jumping up and down to some Pentecostal evangelist prophets that comes and shares. And yet you did because you want the glory of God. You wanted the power of God. We began to see an Emmanuel that that we long for and that's what that week was all about. Then you say oh you mean if we open to the Holy Spirit and we get an alignment with the Holy Spirit then are we going to become weird? Are we going to become some sector, some off the wall group of people swinging from chandeliers and doing all of these weird things? See I grew up in Pentecost. I've seen a lot of weird things. In fact I've seen some things that were not of the Holy Spirit. In fact that's one of the things that really bothered me because people say oh that's the Spirit. Not everything you see on TV and everything you hear that then say that's the Holy Spirit. No that's that's just man's flesh. That's just a lot of things that man wants to do and sometimes to see by the enemy that's not the Holy Spirit. You can begin to discern that and begin to know what is truly the Holy Spirit. God help me because see at the end of the 60s when I was 69 and I was entering into this new room here this Pentecostal preacher raised in Pentecost all of my life. Now God visits me and I have this transformation and I move into this new wonderful thing that I found out later is called the charismatic renewal. God was pointing out the Spirit on the Episcopal Church. Father bent it up here and it was in Van Nuys at the time but then came on up here St. Luke's in Seattle was a very personal friend of mine and administered for us many many times there in San Jose and I watched God pour out his Spirit among the Episcopalians. I watched him pour out on the Lutherans and the Baptists and the Methodists and the Presbyterians and then I went in and God began to do in our church and our church had the most phenomenal growth I've ever seen and people began to come and they were they were being filled with the Spirit in a marvelous way and I was really excited except for one thing I said God don't let us get weird. I see some things happening. I went back I was at a conference back in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and it was predominantly a lot of spiritual Catholics which we had a lot of spiritual Catholics in our church but I saw I saw a group that just really got wild. I mean they were wild you haven't seen anything like I saw and I thought oh God is that what I've got to expect at San Jose? Are we just going to become known as this wild church but if that's what you want Lord I'm open I wasn't resisting but I was certainly careful. I was cautious. I was trying to some way try to maneuver this thing. I wanted all the Holy Spirit but I wanted I wanted to keep it and that and the Lord took me to a wonderful verse and that's what I want to leave you with. I want you to see this because when I didn't know just how to how to walk this through how am I going to live because I walked this through for the next 22 years pastoring there but the Lord took me to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 and I looked at that and that became the key because he Paul had just finished praying he had prayed that we would be what strengthened according to his riches and glory can you imagine according to his riches and glory I'm going to be strengthened you're going to be strengthened with my by a spirit in the inner man that's the Holy Spirit we're going to be rooted in Christ and his love and all this fullness and then when you get to my two favorite verses in all the scripture here's the theme of my life in verse 20 and 21 now unto him who was able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you can ask or think according to the power that's at work in as the Holy Spirit go into verse 21 unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus there it is that's what I've been preaching tonight glory in the church by Christ Jesus that's God's destiny and then God took me into chapter 4 verse 1 therefore I beseech you brethren that you walk worthy and there it was in that word worthy because that word worthy is rooted in a word that we use is balanced balanced I'd never seen that balanced I mean it's just not it's you know people say well you talk about balance that's compromised no not this balance this balance is like a fine tuned chronometer that is so finely balanced that you can take that chronometer into the arctic into the depths of the sea into the tropics into the outer space and and then no matter where you take it it's going to keep perfect time why because it's perfectly balanced and so the Lord says if you will trust me I'm going to keep you perfectly balanced with my spirit and my word you're going to be filled with my word and filled with my back so I begin to see it what is the balance he's talking about you bring all truth to its ultimate height you don't see what happens why churches get off balance is because they begin to say well we just want this we just have these experiences we have this this and this and they don't keep it all in it and you get out of balance but when you can bring all the truth of faith all the truth of discipleship all the truth of submission all the truth of the Holy Spirit all the truth of all these wonderful things you bring them all to their zenith to their height you have balanced now one of the that's the reason well you wonder why we hang around here we want to make sure you stay on balance you're not going to get weird but you're going to go into the fullness of the Holy Spirit you're going to see this glory you're going to make an impact on this city as God allows his spirit so really that's what it is so let's let's really arise now into the light of glory of God would you stand and let's lift our hearts and praise would you thank him for it that you have lived to this hour that God is bringing you to that marvelous moment Lord we want to give you praise we want to give you glory we want to give you honor that you have called new song you have put the mantle on us now Lord we're going to rise up and come into alignment with a throne that we might see the glory of God so in Jesus name we're believing for that right now thanking you for it thanking you that you're going to do it in Jesus name I would like to just we're going to we're going to lift our conclude this with just some marvelous times of praise and I want you just to praise the Lord with all your heart I want you to abandon him the night I want you to exalt him tonight and we're going to lift up his name but what we're doing this we're also going to receive the offering and I because we may not get back to it again so those that are going to receive the offering let's just give because see God I mean what a joy it is to give to God you're giving to the one who is all glorious you're not just