Build Before The Rain

Rain was a rumor for Noah, yet he still built an ark plank by plank. That’s our starting point to rethink how we build communities, gatherings, and personal lives that can carry presence without warping under pressure. We’re wrestling openly with pace, materials, and motive—because speed without seasoning makes joints fail.

We share a working vision for The Resting Place as a gathering house where hungry people arrange life around Jesus. Locally, that looks like roots, family sanity, and a healthy rhythm of worship nights and regional gatherings. 

Scripture offers a blueprint for heart-work. The Shunammite woman built a room and turned visitation into habitation; Mary’s quiet “be it unto me” shows consent under mystery; Zechariah’s imposed silence becomes the surgery that heals cynicism so he can father a voice that chooses wilderness over a safe priesthood. We reflect on unusual moves of God that confront control, the danger of double-minded confession, and the simple assignment between promise and fulfillment: tend the fire. Keep the flame alive, and when the moment comes, throw out nets not net.

If you’re aching for community that burns hotter than hype, for gatherings that honor presence over polish, and for a steady way to build before the rain, this conversation is for you. Listen, share it with a friend who’s hungry for more, and if it speaks to you, subscribe and leave a review so others can find their way into the room.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Noah’s Blueprint And Holy Pace
• 6:45 Seasoning Wood And Unhurried Building
• 13:40 Structures That Don’t Fall Apart
• 20:30 Build To Receive And Release The Dove
• 27:50 Vision For The Resting Place
• 35:20 Community, Fire, And The Midwest Mandate
• 44:20 Gathering Cadence And Practical Roots
• 52:30 Barn Dreams And Regional Outpourings
• 1:00:10 Comfort Versus Control

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi everyone, I'm Ben. And I'm Logan, and we're the Robins. Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. Was it like in the days of Noah? And what did Noah do? Noah received a visitation from the Lord and was told there was a flood coming and didn't know what a flood was. It had never rained before, and the Lord said, Hey man, it's gonna rain so much you're gonna need a boat. And he said he said, What's rain? What's a flood, and what's a boat? And was told to build something he didn't have a grid for, to prepare for something the earth had never seen before. Okay. And to make matters worse, he's told to gather pairs of animals, and I think he was told to gather seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean animals. I think it was seven clean and two unclean, two by two. It's we get told two by two, but I'm remembering I'm I'm almost certain it was seven clean animals and two of the unclean animals, I think was the numbers the Lord gave him. You guys can fact check me on that, but I'm fairly decent at remembering those things, and that's what I seem to remember. So he gets told to gather all the all these species of animal, all these species of land animals. How in the world is he supposed to gather them? And how in the world is he supposed to build a boat to prepare for something he's never seen before so that the earth can be preserved from something it's never seen before? And we're gonna talk uh a little bit uh today from from Luke 1, but I want to start here because if you'll go through Scripture, and this isn't the point of this scripture, but if you'll go through Scripture, most of the time when the Lord visits someone and gives them a word, he does not give them then a grid to complete the word. Now he gave he gave Noah uh kind of the length and width of the boat that he was supposed to build. But we don't have any other clarity on what he received from the Lord other than hey, make it out of gopher wood. And it's supposed to be this long and this wide, this tall. Go for it. What do you mean? Go for it. What are you talking about? It's no wonder it took him 120 years. Can you imagine a hundred and twenty years of sawing and planing wood and putting it to it took him 120 years to build the ark. 120 years he preached righteousness by being faithful to a word to build something, to build something the he had never heard of before, to prepare for something the earth had never seen before. A faithful son receives a word, gets given instructions, and given no blueprint to complete the instruction. And as it oh a hundred and twenty years he sat there, he's he cut trees down, he cut those trees into usable planks. It's called, you know, you plank them out, and then he planed them so that they could be put together.

unknown: 3:43

Dry them out too.

SPEAKER_00: 3:44

You dry, they have to dry. There's a period of drying. They probably I don't know exactly, but a lot of times there's a year drying process for lumber alone or more, Lance said. So in order to be used, you cut the tree, and you can either let it dry or you can cut it into boards and then let the boards dry, but it has to dry in order to be usable. Otherwise, when you put it together, there's a process by whereby it's gonna become disjointed. You put it together too fast, and what you build will become disjointed. Man, you put it together too fast, and what you put it together too fast, and what you build will be disjointed. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. What was it like in the days of Noah? Noah got given instructions to build something he didn't have a grid for, to prepare for something the earth had never seen before. And in order to do it, there was a pace that the Lord required him to follow in order to build something that would not then become disjointed for the sake of speed. For the sake of speed, you can build something, but if you build too quickly and with the wrong materials, those wrong materials or those improperly prepared materials will cause what you build to become disjointed. And we wonder why much of the church goes up quickly and falls apart even more quickly than it went up. It goes up quickly and it falls apart more quickly than it went up. Why? Because it's completely disjointed. We've had no process of seasoning. It's called seasoning your wood. If you if you if you're like me and you don't want to go out and cut down your own firewood, you call a man. He will bring a pickup truck and fill a pickup truck bed full of either half full or full of wood for you. You'll pay him either$50 or$100, depending on the size of the lumber, the size of the amount of wood that you want, and he'll deliver it for you. It'll cost a little more if it's seasoned. It costs a little more if it's seasoned, but it'll burn a whole lot better. The seasoning process of wood causes it to be useful for what you want it to be used for. So if it's wood to be put into a fire, you don't want it to be holding moisture. So what you do is you cut it and you leave it in a dry place for you usually want a year if you're gonna use it for firewood. About six months to a year. Does that sound correct to you, Lance? Six months to a year is a good seasoning process. If it's been seasoned for a year, you're gonna pay a little bit more for it, but it's going to be the best burning wood you've ever used because it's holding no moisture and is perfectly positioned for the use that you need it for. Now, and I'm not an expert in building, so don't, I'm not gonna pretend to be, but there is also a seasoning process required for wood that gets used in building. You cannot cut a tree down and then immediately use that tree. You can't. I think he actually lived there into the 90s. He lived in Alaska by himself, built a log cabin with hand tools by himself, and filmed his process of building his cabin and his process of fishing, his process of going out and photographing wildlife, and wrote journals. You can look him up. Dick Prinnicke is an outdoor legend. Do you know about Dick? But he cut trees down a year in advance from when he would build his cabin. He cut them down in the spring, let them season for a year, and didn't come back until the following spring. So he had another place to stay. He didn't come back until the following spring to build his cabin with the lumber that he had cut down because it had to be appropriately seasoned, because he knew that if he built his cabin before the wood was seasoned, what would happen is that he would get his cabin completely constructed and it would work for a few months, and then all of a sudden, gaps would start to show. And in the walls, there'd be gaps, and he'd have to fill those gaps in an with something that was not designed, it wouldn't be appropriately designed for the use that he wanted it for. So what he's doing is he's letting it season and he's letting it rest in order to be useful. He's letting it rest in order to be useful. So as it was, Dick, you guys gotta go look up Dick Prinickey. He's I watch his I watched so many Dick Prinickey videos in the last year and a half, it's almost embarrassing. I've spent a lot of time watching Dick Prinickey. They've very and the the cadence that he talks at is amazing. But while he was there in Twin Lakes, you can still go to Twin Lakes, Alaska and see the cabin he made in the 60s. It's still standing, still in perfect condition. Actually, the Alaska uh, I don't know, it's their DR outdoor department, whatever it is, still maintains his cabin as a historical site. They actually, Dick left when he was 89 years old because he said it's getting a bit too cold up here for me. At 89, 89 years old, he's still living in the wilderness all by himself in a cabin he built by in Alaska. In a cabin he built by himself with a food cache he built by himself, with that he used a ladder that he built by himself to climb up into and carry food to and get food out of. He he would dig into the the permafrost layer to have his cooler. So he had a little cooler and he had a there's a permafrost layer there that it'll keep your goods about 38 degrees if you dig low enough into the dirt. And he'd dig down into the dirt, and that's where he'd put his bacon and his other stuff that he had to keep cool, and he'd just walk out to his yard and grab some bacon and throw it on his cast iron when he was hungry. So, anyway, I'm getting a little bit distracted here, but Dick is an absolute legend. Absolute legend in the outdoor community. And you can still go to his cabin, and it's been at this point 60 years. Plus, since he built this thing with hand tools, with an axe. He cut notches in the woods so they'd fit together. But if he hadn't let them season, they would they'd fit together for a short period of time. But when they began to dry, what would happen is gaps would show. When they began to become when they actually became mature for the use they were designed for, what would happen is where they were put together in immaturity, gaps would begin to show. So, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. What will it be like in the days of the coming of the Son of Man? Sons will be asked to build something they've never seen before, to prepare for something the earth has never experienced before. And how do you prepare the earth for something it's never seen before? Right? So Noah built something, he built a structure that he could call what the Lord required him to call into and release the dove from. This is what it will be like at the coming of the Son of Man. And in this hour, this is what the Lord is asking faithful sons to do. Build something you've never seen before to prepare for an outpouring the earth has never received before. You're going to have to build a structure that's capable of that's capable of receiving who the Lord wants to send to your structure and release the dove from that structure into the earth. That's what the Lord is asking faithful sons to do in this hour. That's what he's asking them to do. And I feel I feel like I've seen a couple of things structurally wise for the resting place. I don't know if I should share them. So I'm y'all pray. Y'all pray for me, though, because I feel like I feel like the Lord's asking us to start building something before. See, Noah had to build before they came. He had to put his hands to the thing that the Lord asked him to put his hands to. And I don't feel like we haven't been putting our hands to the resting place, but I feel like the Lord is inviting us into beginning to put a little structure around it and building out a little bit of what this may actually look like in the in the years to come. None of this is set in stone. These are things that I'm that I'm feeling. So I need y'all's help to pray into a couple of the things that I feel like I've been I've been feeling this for some time and have not had language to put to it. Um but I think primarily the resting place, the word we've the word we were sent with, and what the resting place is is a gathering house. More than it's even a local expression of a church. I feel like it's a gathering place for hungry and thirsty people. And I don't know, I've I want to build out the communal aspect of that as as much as I possibly can and gather in those that are hungry for community inside of a context where people's hearts burn for Jesus, and Jesus is the central thing in their lives. They don't add Jesus to what's already in their lives. They order their lives around Jesus and around maintaining a burning heart. I want to have a community for the resting place that is a community of a communal burning of our hearts, and we come together, and one fire feeds another fire, feeds another fire, feeds another fire, feeds another fire. And those that need a little bit of help, we blow on the flame of their heart just by being around one another. That's what the community of this thing looks like to me. You come together and the burning of your hearts ignites further burning in one another's hearts, and we can, those that need a little, those that need a little encouragement, you just blow on the flame of their heart until they're sufficiently encouraged to the place that they need to be. I want to add as much as I can to that local community. I feel like there's a local piece to that that is absolutely 100% right and good. But I also believe we've, and it seems silly to say this with 10 people in our living room, but I know that the Lord sent us here to gather the whole of the Midwest together. I know that he did. I we were sent here as an olive branch to declare to the Midwest that there will not be judgment on the Midwest, but there will be the rain of revival across, I feel the Holy Ghost across the whole of the Midwest. You're gonna see something you've never seen before in a move of the spirit here. And the Midwest, guys, gave the United States Pentecost. Topeka, Kansas, New Year's Day, 1901, the first documented baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues in the United States. So I think we got we got that's what we got, that's the purpose for we the purpose for which we were sent was to be an olive branch, right? So peace. Generally, when you send someone an olive branch, it's a peace offering. So what does that then look like? I want to build out a local community here. W listen, Logan and I, the word that we have been resting our hearts on over the last two years now, two and a over two years, but over two years now, we've rested our hearts. The Lord spoke to Logan very clearly. You are not here to plant your ministry, you're here to plant your family. So as soon as we get our taxes done, we're gonna buy a house. We're gonna be here. Unless the Lord says, hey, go somewhere else. I I really I really would prefer to stay in this house. We're gonna see if we can make that happen because I just don't want to move again. I've moved so many bleep times. I I edited myself for you, Lucy. You proud of me for that one. Lucy's proud of me. If one time in my life she shook her, I'm proud of you, son. You didn't say swear. Um I've moved so many times I don't want to do it again. Like I'd I'd be good not moving for the next 10 years. Um, but we know that there's property in our future. So we need to be in a place where we can let a house accrue in value to the point that in five or ten years we can sell that house and then get to the ultimate end. Um or perhaps sooner if the Lord accelerates things. We're open to that as well. Lord, if you want to accelerate it, we'll take it. Um, but we're gonna set our roots down and we're gonna be here. We're going to be here and we're going to build out a really healthy local expression here. A really healthy local expression. Does that look like gathering weekly? I don't know. But it it can look like, and it's listen, it's been sporadic, and we've got small kids, and so you can only do what you can do in a in a way that is is healthy, right? So you can't stretch yourself too thin and all those things. But we also want a healthy local expression here, around us here. But what we're also going to start doing is we're going to start holding gatherings where we gather people. We're going to start holding, we had a weekend with CJ this last fall. I felt like that was profound for a for really a first gathering of people. I felt like that was profound. I was so pleased with that. I believe I believe the Lord's inviting us to start periodically, consistently gathering the hungry and thirsty. So, y'all pray with me about what that needs to look like because I feel like we are to start doing some of that and start pre start consistently hosting gatherings for hungry and thirsty people to come consistently. I don't know what that looks like. I'm not going to do it monthly. I've, guys, I've got two other jobs, and I've got a bunch of small kids, so we're not going to do it every month. It's not going to be like that. But we want to consistently start to do that because I feel like that's part of the mandate of this thing. And I want to be very sensitive to what the Lord does because I don't want to get stuck in a rut where we're just doing one thing, right? I don't want to do that. So, y'all, this is all kind of very fresh. And I'm not. Yeah, generally. Generally, yeah. No, yeah, generally, that would be kind of the cadence of what I would like to do. I think that would be the cadence of what I would like to do, but I want to know what's on the Lord's heart. So I need everyone to pray. I need, I need y'all to pray and to hear and to help me with that. Um, because honestly, it's gonna take a village to make something like that happen. It's gonna take it's gonna take Lou carrying chairs. Being a pack mule for all of us. Doing the heavy lift, I'm joking. I would never let Lou carry a chair. I would never Lou, I know he, but I'd also lift him over. Lou is also so much Lou Lou is also so much more important than me that I can't stand the idea of Lou carrying a chair. So um y'all be praying with us about that because we're going to start consistently doing, consistently doing that. And there's I'm telling you, I saw uh from the Lord this weekend, there's an expression of worship that the Lord is sending to the earth. There's an expression of worship that the Lord is sending to the earth that the earth needs. Um, and I believe there's an expression of worship that will come from this house that the earth needs. Um, so we may, we may host worship gatherings, which I will be no use to. I'll just sit in the corner and be off-key all by myself. Um we're gonna have, we're gonna have, we're gonna have the masters. The masters, the masters has amen corner, we'll have off-key corner, is what we'll have, and we'll have a little corner where all the off-key people go, and we'll all just make our own sound. It'll be joyful, but it'll be awful. Oh, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. I will say that. We can't sing on that leave. The one time we heard it singing on key is a beautiful thing, but it's not beautiful. It's it is it is not a beautiful noise, that's for sure.

unknown: 21:44

We're gonna pick a corner by the cloud, Mike.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. All right. Oh man, that feels like about all I need to say, but I want to say one thing from Luke One because I said we were going there. Um, let's go to Luke One. But y'all Please be praying with me about that. Um, because I really want to move forward with the heart of the Lord and not like my own designs on things. But as we're groping and trying to figure out what this looks like, groping and grasping in the dark, Lance, stop it. Um geez, we're way off track. We just went so far off track. Um as we're as we're trying to build this the best that we can without having um without having you know what I see, I'll just I'll just share a little bit of what I see. What I see is eventually we'll do these we'll do these gatherings in different states. We'll host we'll host an Iowa and we're gonna have we're gonna have the Lord's going to give us a gathering place in Iowa that we can host these things. The Lord's going to give us that. It will happen. I'm telling you, it will. It's gonna be a barn because I want a barn. And we're gonna finish it out really nice, and it's gonna be cool, but it's gonna, by God, it's gonna be a barn where we gather in a barn. It'll be insulated and awesome and better than most buildings, but it'll be a barn because that's what I want. Um, it's gonna exactly right. Um, and and uh but eventually what I see is us holding these in different states and hearing from pastors who are hungry saying, would you bring that to us? And bringing that into place. Gee, I feel it, man. Bringing that into places that need an expression of the outpouring of the spirit and being able to act as act like a midwife for Jesus, being able to act almost like a midwife for different houses that are needing to bring something new into their region and being able to bring that with us, bring the move of the spirit with us, and bring the power of the Lord with it in Jesus' mighty name. You guys feel a witness on that? I feel I feel a witness on that. So, and I don't, again, I this is all very fresh, so I'm just sharing uh what I what I'm feeling from the Lord. So I need I need y'all's help to pray and discern. So um but because the Lord has asked me to build it, it will be unconventional and it will be a little bit outside of most people's box and can make some people uncomfortable. So we're just gonna have to be okay with that. Alright, Luke 1, and we know Luke 1 really well. I'm gonna just I feel compelled to say this, and I don't know why, but I'm gonna I feel compelled to. If all we do is stay inside the lines and stay where everyone is comfortable. Comfortable. It's an interesting thing. We stay inside of structures that are completely empty of presence and call it comfortable when he's our comforter. Um we we actually don't like comfort, we like the illusion of control, and we call that comfort. Um if all we do is stay inside the lines and never dare to see what it would be like if we put a little splash of color over here or over there, all we'll be left with is the same structure we have now. All we will be left with is the same structure that we have now. So we have to be willing to do things no one has done before, or uh people have done what I'm suggesting before. That's not something new, but the way in which you do things, the process whereby you the process whereby you come to what you're doing is what I'm talking about. The burning heart, the presence-led people, those sorts of things. Guys, if we don't step outside of normal structures, what will happen is we will miss our hour. We will miss it. We'll miss it. We'll miss our hour. The hour of visitation is here, just nobody recognizes it yet. The hour of visitation is here. And if you treat an hour of visitation correctly, it becomes a place of habitation. The widow of Zarephath. Oh, not not the I'm not gonna go with the Widow of Zeraphath. What I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about Hold on one moment. I need to Google it. I need to Google the the passage real quickly. In Second Kings 4. We're going to 2 Kings 4. Luke 1, we'll be back. 2 Kings 4. I had it right here. Look at this. I'm so good at this. I had I had it right here. I had a bookmark in it. I just didn't have it high enough for me to see it. One day, Elisha went to the town of Shuma Shunum. This is 2 Kings 4, 8. One day Elisha went to the town of Shunim. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. One day, Elisha, the prophet, went to the town of Shunim. A wealthy woman lived there. And she urged him to come to her home for a meal. She had an hour of visitation because of an invitation she made. She made room for him, the man who carried presents. This is a representation of the presence of the Lord. She made room for presents and compelled the presents to come to her home and she fed him a meal. Because of her proper handling of her hour of visitation, every time, every time Elisha came to Shunam, he went to her house. He didn't go anywhere else, he went to her house. There was one family that invited him to come, and because of the way they hosted him, he came every time he approached that town, he'd go to their house. I'm going to Shunum, I'm going to that particular house, I will eat there. She said to her husband, I'm sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. That's the most obvious statement in all of the Old Testament. I'm sure Elisha is a holy man of God. That's very observant of you, Shun Shunamite woman. Let's build a small watch this. Let's build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by. They built him a habitation. They built him a habitation before he had moved in. They were preparing for him to come and stay. They wanted to create a habitation for the holy man of God to come and to stay in their home. They were creating room in their home for the presence of Almighty Yahweh to come and rest. One day Elisha returned to Shunim and he went up to this upper room to rest. Went up to this upper room to rest. He said to his servant Gehazi, Tell the woman from Shunim, I want to speak to her. He gets his servant and says, Call her in here. I've got to talk to her. There's no mention of Elisha asking what he could do for this family before they prepared a habitation for him. They simply built the habitation out of honor. They honored the presence of the Lord, and so they built a habitation for the Lord. And in building this habitation, the Lord then turns his heart towards them and says, What can I do for you? In building this habitation, they so honor the presence of the Lord that the presence of the Lord compels Elisha to say to Gehazi, Call that woman here and ask her what I may do for her. When she appeared, Elisha said to Gehazi, Tell her we appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army? No, she replied, My family takes good care of me. I don't need your favors. Gehazi replies, This gets to the heart of the matter. Gehazi replies. She doesn't have a son, and her husband is an old man. She doesn't have a son, and her husband is an old man. She doesn't have a son, and there's no ability for her to have a son because her husband is incapable of having a son with her. That's what Gehazi is saying. They've missed their moment to be productive. They've missed their moment to produce an heir. And because they've missed their moment to produce an heir, she'll now be a widow and completely without someone to care for her in her old age. It will not happen for her. Call her back again, Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, Next time, next year at this time, you will be holding a son in your arms. Jesus. Next year at this time, that takes. Listen, to say that to somebody, I've only done that a couple times. To say that to somebody, you better be, you better be sure. You better be sure. You better be sure. Thankfully, I got it right both times. I didn't have to like go back and be like, ah, my bad. Sorry, guys. I got overly excited. Those conversations are not the best kind of conversations, I promise you. Um but to be but to have integrity, you need to have those if you miss it. This is the whole problem with the prophetic, is no one has enough integrity to say, hey, I messed up. I was wrong. Sorry, guys. The Lord uses, Dad Hagen said it all the time. The Lord uses imperfect vessels. Sometimes we miss it. And if you're too arrogant to be willing to humble yourself and say, hey, I missed it, you're you're not going, you're just you're not going to be, you're not going to be a vessel the Lord can use with honor. You're not going to be an honor of a vessel of honor, the the Bible says. Oh man. Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms. No, my Lord, she cried. Oh man of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. She doesn't even believe. There's this thing, there's this theme over the last three months. People not believing when the Lord announces to them, you're going to have a son. This woman didn't believe him. Zechariah didn't believe him. And Mary was like, we all celebrate Mary. Like, yeah, she believed the whole thing. No, she didn't. No, she did not. She said, How can this happen? I'm a virgin. It's not like she was like, oh yes, Lord, of course. Whatever you whatever you say, Gabriel, this will be what comes to pass in my life. This will be the thing because you have appeared and I've heard the word of the Lord. I, of course, I believe. No, she said, How in the world is this even supposed to happen? Gabriel then replies to her and gives her the way in which she will become pregnant with a child. The power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and you will become pregnant with a son. And that thing that is born from you will be called holy, the son of the son of God. And she says, All right, whatever. Be it unto me according to your will. Sure. It's not like that's a resounding that, guys, that's not a resounding statement of faith. What she said was not a resounding statement of faith. What she said was, okay, if you say so, I'm not going to argue with you. Be it unto me according to your will. That's I have no clue what you're talking about, Bub. I might, I don't know what you're talking about, but if that's okay. If that's what the Lord wants, okay. But I have no clue what you're talking about. I just know enough not to put my foot in my mouth. That's what I know. That was maybe her greatest skill in that in that encounter she had with Gabriel, was she didn't put her foot in her mouth. She didn't then sit there and argue with him when he said, The power of the Lord will overshadow you, and you'll become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary. What, huh? Oh, okay. Be it unto me according to your will. And then Elizabeth has the audacity to say to her when she walks into her house, You are blessed because you believed the Lord would do what he said. You're gonna have to show me the statement of faith. You're gonna have to show me the statement of faith from Mary that would lead Elizabeth to believe that what she said, that what she that her heart was so turned in faith toward toward what the Lord had said, that she was this great figure of incredible faith. Guys, in the moment of impossibility, it is normal to have questions. The best thing that you can do, the best we've been taught faith so incorrectly that it actually angers me. The best thing that you can do in the moment of impossibility, and the Lord bringing the announcement, I'm going to deliver you from this impossibility, I'm going to do this impossible thing for you, or through you. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do the best thing you can do is like Mary, say, Be it unto me according to your will, and then allow the Lord to do it. What we do instead, oh boy. I'm all over the map, and I'm sorry. I'm going forever. And I didn't mean, I thought I'd be done in 20 minutes when I started. Shut up, Debbie. Oh my God. What we do instead is we contradict ourselves. And we wonder why the impossible thing never happens, because our hearts are never fully turned toward what the Lord says. What we'll do is we'll be people of double minds, where our confession will say, Yes, of course, I receive. Yes, Lord, let's do that thing. And then when the Lord starts to move in unusual ways to do something unusual in your life, you start to fight him. While your confession, oh boy, while your confession and your confession is important, don't get me wrong, that's a piece of faith. Your confession is a piece of your faith. It's a piece. It's a piece. It's not the whole thing. If it were the whole thing, oh boy. If it were the whole thing, we could just confess, confess, confess, confess our way into whatever we wanted. And many have been taught that that's the way that you receive from the Lord as you just confess your way into it. That's a piece of how you get there, but that's not the whole thing, Bub. That is not the whole thing. And what we end up with is a double-minded confession of faith where we're confessing with our mouth, but when the Lord moves in us in unusual ways, we fight against it. And in fighting against the moving in unusual ways, what we do is we oppose the word of the Lord with our heart.

unknown: 39:18

What would be an example of him moving in unusual ways?

SPEAKER_00: 39:21

In unusual ways. So, all right, for example, I'll just we'll use Mary as an example. I don't have the ins and outs of how this worked, but it would be unusual for the Holy Spirit to overshadow someone in such a way that they became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And what will happen if we're not careful? Um, I'll use another example. Heidi Baker is a really good example of the Lord moving in unusual ways in someone's personal life. She was out on her feet, she was out on her back for seven days. Seven days and seven nights. She was out. She visited Toronto. Randy gave her a word. She said, Yes, Lord, and then she was so powerfully overcome by the Holy Spirit, she's out for seven days. I've heard her talk about it before. People had to get words of knowledge to go give her water. She had to have people help her to the bathroom, and it would relent just long enough for her to be in the bathroom. And then as soon as she walked out, she's completely useless again. Roland is carrying her around for seven days. The Lord delivers a word to her that I'm going to do something impossible in your life. I'm going to give you the nation of Mozambique to a starving woman. I'm going to give you and your husband who can't even feed yourselves a whole nation. They couldn't feed themselves. They relied on the Lord bringing miraculous provision for them and one orphanage.

unknown: 40:42

And they were really burned out for this.

SPEAKER_00: 40:43

Really burned out. They weren't healthy. She's begging the Lord, let me work, let me quit and work at Walmart. Kmart. Kmart. Even worse. Even worse. They weren't in the kind of condition that you would expect someone who's going to be given a nation to be in. And the Lord comes with an impossible word. But in order to fulfill that impossible word, he had to do something unusual in her. And when he moved in an unusual way on her, she did not resist. She didn't resist him. And what we'll do is the Lord will come in ways that make us uncomfortable. Either with, hey, go do this, and it makes us uncomfortable. Or he comes powerfully and a new manifestation comes to us, and we're like, holy crap, what's happening? I don't know what to do. And we resist the grace that is offered to us. And what happens is we're resisting the word of the Lord when we do that. Um boy. The Shunammite woman says, No, Lord, no, Lord, don't get my hopes up like that. Don't get my hopes up like that. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time, the following year, she had a son, just as Elisha had said. Just as Elisha had said. The word of the Lord came to pass in her life because she appropriately honored an hour of visitation that created a habitation that caused a son to be born. Okay. That is such an aside. The thing that I have to say is I'm going to be done because I feel like I'm all over the map. And I've got one more thing to say from Luke 1, but I'm not turning to my Bible to do it. Luke 1, and I apologize for how scattered this has been. Dear God. So we're getting we're getting ADD today from me, I guess. So it's your favorite one. I'm glad it's your favorite. It's so uncomfortable for me when it's like this. At least normally it looks like I have ADD. I'm actually really pointed in my mind, and I'm just actually going a thousand directions at once, and I'm really cool there. But when the Lord's like, hey, you're gonna, and I'm like, all right, well, cool. Um Luke 1, Zechariah. We know the story so well. We've been talking about it for three months now, and we're we're talking about it again today. Zachariah is at the temple in his hour of service. He has been faithful to the Lord, but it looks like he's under the judgment of the Lord. It looks like he and his wife are being judged by the Lord, and the entirety of his priestly community would have agreed that they had angered the Lord and that the Lord was unhappy with them, and this is why they had no children. He's unhappy. The Lord is he's he's however, however, the Lord looks like he has judged. Him. However, that man remains faithful, that man remains diligent, and that man remains faithful. He does not hold the Lord hostage to removing what he perceives as his judgment on his life in order for him to follow the Lord to the best of his ability. And there's an integrity in that that caused the Lord to peer into Zechariah's heart and decide this would be the father of my messenger that would prepare the way for my son. Zechariah was chosen long before his visitation in the temple. Zechariah was chosen years before his visitation in the temple. I believe the Lord saw two faithful hearts. And when Zechariah and Elizabeth were wed, the Lord had already predesigned that these two would be the ones from which the greatest man ever born of a woman would come. This union is going to produce the messenger that will prepare the way for my son. My favor is on them, and because my favor is on them, they're going to be barren. Because my favor is on them, it's going to look like I'm judging them. The Lord comes to Zachariah and through the angel Gabriel and says, Good news, your prayer has been, your prayer has been answered. And he says, What prayer? I thought you're here to kill me because I'm under the judgment of the Lord and I'm in the holy place and I've all obviously angered you all these years, and you've never given me a son. I'm preparing for my own death. Of course, he's afraid. He's preparing for the ending of his own life. This is the angel of death that comes and slays the priests that have made the Lord angry, and they'll have to pull me out by the rope that's attached to my ankle. The bells are soon to stop ringing under on the hem of my garment, and they'll pull me out by my ankle, and that's how this will be. And the angel says, Good news. The favor of the Lord is on you, and your wife is going to become pregnant. How will it how can I be sure that this will happen? How can I be sure that this will happen? I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of the Lord. It was he who sent me here to bring you this good news, and because you did not believe me, you will be silent until your child is born. Goodness. So Zechariah comes out of this encounter with the Lord and looks like he's under further judgment from the Lord.

unknown: 46:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:33

He's struck dumb by he's struck dumb by this encounter with the Lord, and it looks like he's under further judgment when he's actually been invited into a place of healing. The Lord, hallelujah, it looks like the Lord is judging him. And I'm acting, I've been staring at Luke 1 for long enough at this point that I've come to a couple of conclusions. That most of the time when we receive a word from the Lord, most of the time we follow a very similar process that Zechariah had to follow in receiving the in receiving the word of the Lord and then following it through until fulfillment comes and we hold the thing that was promised to us by the Lord. There's a process whereby you have to allow, there's a process whereby you have to allow the Lord to draw you into his heart in order to one, heal your heart and expand your heart. And most of the time when the Lord is drawing you into his heart in order to both heal and expand your heart, it's going to look like you're under the judgment of the Lord from those around you, because you will have received the word of the Lord. And then it looks like the Lord removes himself and is completely disinterested in fulfilling the word of the Lord. It's so interesting how these, it's so interesting how the prophetic promises of the Lord work. The Lord comes and promises you something. You're going to be king, David, now go back to the sheep. You're going to be king, David, now go back to the sheep, and your brothers are going to go off to war, and you're not even going to get included. How in the world is he going to gain enough reputation for the people to acclaim him to be king? It looks like the Lord is disinterested in making him king. Then he's going to kill Goliath. And Goliath, that's a moment right there, surely now. And no, the Lord's actually going to cause you to be chased by the one you're going to replace, David, and it's going to look like you're under the Lord's judgment. It's going to look like he's judging you when actually what he's doing is he's seasoning you and he's causing you to become the man, Jesus. He's causing you to become the man that knows his heart. This is what the Lord is after. The Lord is after someone who can know him well enough to birth the thing that's going to prepare the way for Jesus. The Lord had to have Zachariah in such a place that he was able to understand Yahweh's heart to the point that he could teach his son that this, listen, this seat, this priestly seat that I'm leaving you, it'll give you wealth, it'll give you reputation, it'll give you a secure life. It's going to the best of our traditions, it will cause you to be under the favor of the Lord, son. But what it won't do is allow you to see Jesus. John had to be secure enough to look at the most secure inheritance in the nation of Israel. The most secure inheritance at that time in the nation of Israel would have been a priestly inheritance. It's secure, it's wealth, it's a good reputation, it's a life well spent, right? It's a everybody's gonna think well of me. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be a man of renown. People are gonna bow when I walk by, they'll show honor when I walk by. And John looked at it and said, No, I think I'll pass. What did Zechariah have to know about the heart of the Lord to prepare a son to be able to look at that and say, I think I'll live in the wilderness instead? So what had to happen with Zechariah is the kindness of the Lord had to shut his mouth so he couldn't tell the people around him what was going on in his heart, because had he told them, they would have either called him crazy or a heretic. He would have either been dubbed, he would have already been deemed to be crazy, or he would have been considered a heretic. So what the Lord did was silence him for a season in order to heal his heart of his misconceptions of the Father's nature. He had to think differently, he had to have a healed heart, he had to have a heart that was whole in order to have a son who could see Jesus. He had to have a whole heart in order to teach his son the heart of the Lord to the point that he could look at someone that the priestly class completely missed and say, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And he had to expand his heart. He had to heal Zechariah's heart, and he had to expand Zechariah's heart. And the whole time he was healing and exp healing and expanding that man's heart, it looked like Zechariah was under judgment. Most of the time in our lives when we receive the word of the Lord, it comes in a moment that is. Remember it forever. I remember when it came, and bless God, it was the most powerful thing. And then I spent the next X amount of years wondering where in where I'm just edited myself again. I'm doing so good at editing myself today. Where in the world did he go? Because I feel totally left out in the cold. And I don't know how this is gonna happen, and I don't know, I'm confused by what's going on. And in those moments, what's important for us to understand is that we fumble, Jesus, because we have we have a role to play in the fulfillment of the word of the Lord in our lives. We do, we have a role to play, and our role to play is simply this tend the fire of your heart. Tend the fire of your heart, tend the fire of your heart, and his favor will do the rest. His favor will do the rest. Tend the fire of your heart. Keep your heart burning before the Lord, and his favor will cause the rest to come to pass. There will be a moment where you will have to put foot put one foot in front of the other, put one hand where it needs to go. You'll have to begin to build the thing that he asked you to build. But if you keep your heart burning before the Lord in the time in the Jesus, in the time between the revealing of the word and the fulfillment of the word, what will happen is you'll be perfectly positioned to receive what the Lord has promised. And what we do in these moments, most of the time, is we agree with everybody else around us and decide that we must be under judgment. I don't know what's going on. And it must, I must be wrong. Must never be gonna happen. It must be that I got excited in the moment, and the Lord actually really didn't say that. And we start to compromise. And we we start to we start to do what Peter did when the Lord said, Cast out your nets, Peter. But Lord, we've been fishing all night. Cast out your nets. The King James Version says he cast out his net and the Lord said, Nets. Said, cast out more than one, Peter, and Peter cast out one and he broke his net because he only cast out one. Said he he he caught so many fish that the net the net began to break, and the Lord had asked him to cast his nets out. And what we'll do is we'll start to sell the word of the Lord short so that we never see the complete fulfillment of the word of the Lord because we begin to compromise on the word, because we have not kept our hearts in the place of burning. We've allowed ourselves to be mispositioned in the nine months of you're going to be silent, and it's going to look to everybody around you like you're under judgment. But what I'm doing is drawing you into my heart, teaching you, healing you, teaching you and healing you, teaching you and healing you, and expanding the capacity of your heart to receive all that I have for you. So, Zechariah, in those nine months, what do I think was going on? Because we don't have a record. What do I think was going on? What do I think was going on? I think the Lord was healing his heart, expanding his heart, and then furthermore, drawing him in to the heart of Yahweh so that he could reveal the heart of the Lord to his son so that he could recognize Jesus. And it's only 319. And that's all I have to say about that. So that's a terrible ending to how this went, but there we are. Lucy's like, oh my God.

unknown: 55:13

Bill Johnson is saying that this is gonna be a crash landing.

SPEAKER_00: 55:16

We're crash-landing this bad boy. This has been a flight with a lot of turbulence, so we're just gonna go ahead and crash land the landing gears off and we're gonna crash land it. We're gonna crash land and we're gonna take communion. But I want to encourage y'all in this. The favor of the Lord is significantly different than we've been taught that it is. The favor of the Lord is significantly different than what we have been taught it is. Good news, Mary. You're highly favored. Oh, really? Oh, really? They're gonna want to stone her in about three months when they can start seeing what's going on in her belly. It's gonna take a visitation from the Lord to keep her marriage intact. The Lord's gonna have to go to her husband and say, Hey, don't be afraid. This thing that's in her belly is born of me. You don't be afraid, you go ahead and move forward. And then she's gonna have to raise a son, who then becomes the most controversial figure in all of Israel. Some people love him, some people hate him. The people that hate him look like they win because they kill him. She's gonna have to watch him die. You're highly favored, Mary. Talk about talk about a difficult road. But the grace that comes with that, man. So the favor of the Lord, what does it do? What does the favor of the Lord do? The favor of the Lord puts you in uncomfortable circumstances on purpose and hold you there by grace in order for you to transform uncomfortable circumstances into what the Lord has promised you that he will transform it into. So be encouraged if you're uncomfortable. Be encouraged if there's an uncomfortable situation in your life. Now, I I realize how that can be twisted, and we can say, hey, I'm uncomfortable, and there's some things that are hard in my life, and it must be the favor of the Lord. It might be your own dumb decisions. It's possible. It's possible. You cannot be a dummy and then claim that the discomfort that comes from being a dummy is the favor of the Lord. I'm gonna just make that disclaimer right now for all the world to hear. You don't be a dummy and then say, hey, it's the favor of the Lord that caused me to have to be uh without my power this month because I didn't pay my power bill. Right? Well, we didn't, that's not exactly what I mean. That's not exactly what I mean. Oh man. The favor of the Lord rested on Zachariah and caused him and his wife to be barren until the appointed time. And when the appointed time came, it looked like he went under further judgment. And the Jesus, the invitation into the heart of the Lord to unlearn everything a lifetime of priestly learning had taught him. What must that process have been like for that man to endure? I'm going to cause you to relearn everything that you've ever learned about me. And for someone of the priestly order, that would have been God, that would have been a baptism of fire. That would have been, I've been wrong my whole life. I don't actually know you. And what must that have been to a man who prided himself on having the true knowledge of the Lord? His favor caused him to be barren, his favor made him look like he was under further judgment, but when they handed him the tablet, he had so oh man, he had so held his heart before the Lord appropriately that when they handed him the tablet, they said his name he said his name is John. And the first thing out of his mouth was to start to declare the mercy of the Lord. The first thing out of this man's mouth was to start to declare that the the new day is about to dawn and he's about to lead us into the path of peace. We're about those who have dwelt in darkness are about to see a shining light, and you, my little son, I'm gonna teach you how to recognize it. God I think one of the reasons historically, moves of the spirit are short-lived. It's because we do the thing Abraham did. And we set up our tent and we don't move on. We do we do the thing that Abraham's father did. Abraham's father set up his tent at a place of his son passed away, and he set up his tent, and the Lord had to come to Abraham and say, Hey, I want you to get up and move from your father's land. What we do is we declare that this is the knowledge of the Lord. This is what this is this is the move of the Spirit. This is what the move of the Spirit looks like, and we set our tents up right there, and we never move. And I think moves of the Spirit are more of an invitation into the heart of the Lord. And if we hold them all intensive like our understanding, yeah, our understanding, yeah, our paradigm. Yeah, so it would be it would be like the logic would be like our paradigm, our understanding, our revelation of what the move of the spirit looks like and what it's for. And people that were deeply impacted by Brownsville will write now. And Brownsville was God is profound and incredible. Um Steve Hill was such a such a man of God, and John Kilpatrick still, still a man of God, and incredible move of the spirit. And they'll write now say revival's about preaching hell hot enough and judgment hard enough, and you gotta preach them into the altar. And I just think that the knowledge of the Lord is more expansive than that, and our unwillingness and moves of the spirit to be malleable in the hand of the potter causes us to become leaky vessels. And what we ought to do with the move of the spirit, Lou, is take in what the Lord is teaching us, take in what the Lord is revealing to us, and then teach the next generation how to see Jesus with what we're learning. And allow them to then, allow them to then lead the way and say, Hey, there's there he is. Follow him. Let's go that way, and be flexible enough to move when he moves, and not be so stuck that we stay.