A Powerful Word from the Lord...

The following is a word for today's church from a obedient brother after God had showed him a vision. My spirit bore witness to it. I thought I would share it with you today.

The church sits in self-fulfilling comfort, yet in darkness. We have made the church about us, our comfort, our desires, and left Him, His will, His plan, and His command to carry out the great commission out of the picture. As a result of this, the church is in great darkness.
This enables the enemy to approach us unrecognized and unchallenged. He comes boldly and with him the spirit of this age. The spirit of this age is attractive and often looks no threatening. We do not recognize this because we are not on guard. We are not ready to do battle. With the spirit of this age comes an attitude that causes us to be self-serving, spiritually lazy, and leaves us wide open to spiritual attack.
The enemy attacks through the back doors of our lives...the unguarded areas. He is attacking the church through the Internet, through the media, through our family, through our recreation, and through situations that may appear harmless, but lull us to sleep.
The enemy has entered, gained a foothold, and is not impressed when we tell him to leave. We don't have the power to make him leave and he knows it. We go through our religious motions and might even say, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," but our lackadaisical Christian lives causes our words to have the same effect as the seven sons of Sceva. He might as well say, "Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you?"
We grab our familiar weapons, shout loudly that we are going to defend ourselves, but they are of non-effect for two reasons.
First, we don't know how to use them. In fact, the Word is all too often used wrongly rather than for the proper purpose. Used wrongly, it often does more harm than good.
Second, we are paralyzed by fear. We do not take charge because of fear. We do not witness because of fear. We do not take the gospel into the world because of fear. The enemy doesn't fear us because we ourselves are paralyzed by fear. Even when we confront him, the attack continues because we function by fear rather than faith.
Even when we don't see the hand of the enemy, we know he's there, yet we are gripped with a feeling of helplessness.
This is the church of America. This is us. God has focused on our lives and says we have come up wanting.

What must we do?

I. Turn on the light.
A. Let God illuminate our lives.
B. Hear what the Spirit says.

Revelation 3:1-6 “Write this letter to the angel[a] of the church in Sardis. This is the message from the one who has the sevenfold Spirit[b] of God and the seven stars: “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. 3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.
4 “Yet there are some in the church in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.
6 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.

C. What is God saying?
1. I know all
2. You’re not as alive as you think.
3. Wake up
4. Strengthen what remains.
5. Go back, repent
6. If you don’t, I will come suddenly as a thief.
II. We have to learn how to fight right.
A. We have ignored the Word too long.
B. We love to sing, shout, dance, and all the fun stuff.
C. But we don’t know how to use the Word. It’s just not been that important to us.
D. As a result, even when we try to use it, it carries no depth in our lives. It doesn’t live within us.
E. We have to learn how to use the weapons.

II Corinthians 10:3-6 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

III. We are bound by fear.
A. We fear the devil when he should fear us.
B. We function by fear rather than faith.
C. We are paralyzed when we should be moving.
D. As a result, our threats to the devil are meaningless, because our fear is saying, “I don’t really believe what I’m saying.”

E. Do we really believe that no weapon formed against us shall prosper?
E. Do we really believe that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world?
F. Do we really believe that we should be pulling down strongholds?
G. Then where is the evidence? Where are the victories?

IV. Why does God give visions?
A. For warning
B. For correction
C. For instruction

V. What shall we do with this?
A. We can hear and forget it?
B. We can hear and say, “Maybe we need another program.”
C. We can hear the meaning and say, “It’s for the other person, not for me.”
D. We can hear and let it sink in and transform our lives and thinking.
E. Or this vision can be the beginning of the turnaround.
1. The light is on. The Holy Spirit right now is moving in your heart. What will you do with this vision? What will you do with this prophetic word.
2. I am in the army of the Lord. I will recommit myself to the study of the Word both privately and corporately, The teaching and preaching of this Word. The application of this Word. The walking out of this Word in my life. I have all too long let it be a religious charm rather than the very food of my soul.
3. I will not be bound by fear. What replaces fear? Fear must be replaced by faith and confidence. That comes with a relationship. That comes with trust. That comes with a hands on walk in which you go into the enemy territory and put yourselves out there for the kingdom of God.
F. What might happen?
1. Our TV’s might not be on as much.
2. We might be more tired until we get into shape.
3. Our favorite activities may be replaced by something much more exciting.
4. God might call upon us to do things that we’ve never dreamed.
G. The strong man will be bound.
H. The devil will fear us.
I. The gospel will go forth.
J. His kingdom will come down.
K. How will you react to this?

It's time to get on our faces before the Lord!

-Pastor