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Praise the Lord. Please be seated in God's presence. And it's always a great honor and privilege to minister God's word and to speak to God's people. Uh but today is special uh because uh I'm speaking for my older brother. [Applause] and uh uh being part of what God is doing uh with him and through him uh in this part of the world. I believe that uh he is a man of immense grace and favor from the Lord and uh his best years are ahead of him. As he said, uh we are brothers from the same parents, same mother, same father and grew up together in the same house, ate the same food, >> wore the same clothes and have grown both to serve the Lord >> and it's a privilege to be here with him. and uh also my old colleague uh Reverend William Obin Daung who is here. It's a great honor.
Well, tonight I would not speak for too long. Um I would try to work myself within uh a time frame that will allow you to go home and sleep and wake up for church tomorrow. Um but the things we are talking about here are very profound and they are major things. Uh to talk about revival of a nation and of a people uh is not something that is easily said. Uh neither is it easily accomplished. But if you look at the history of the church that from the backside of Galilee, 12 men mostly of no reputation following a carpenter who is claiming to be the son of God and uh attempting to change the world from Nazareth. And yet they overthrew the greatest power of their day, the Roman Empire with the gospel. And so God has a way of doing major things in very unspectacular ways. And we trust that this is the beginning of such an endeavor. >> Amen.
My message today is titled, "Do you understand what you are reading?" Do you understand what you are reading? Ask the person next to you, do you understand what you are reading? I suppose all of you would say you understand what you're reading. But there is a very big difference between reading and understanding. >> Reading is a matter of phonetics and being able to recognize words and letters and how they sound. Understanding goes far beyond the words and the letters. Understanding goes to meaning. And meaning is not in the letters. Meaning is in the passing. Understanding is always internal not external. So the question I want to ask you is do you understand what you are reading? And my text is going to be from the book of Acts and chapter number 8. And I will be reading from verse 26 to verse number 35. Acts chapter 8 from verse 26 to 35.
I will give you a background to the passage before I read it so you can understand it in context. The church of Jesus Christ started on the day of Pentecost and uh over time they stayed in Jerusalem and grew. Then there was persecution and as a result of the persecution some people left uh Jerusalem and one particular man uh who was a deacon of the church called Philillip left because of the persecution to a place called Samaria. And when he went to Samaria uh he preached the word of God and there were signs and wonders accompanying the preaching of the word of God. Many people were saved. There was a massive revival. A whole city was transformed uh by the preaching of God's word including the village witch doctor who also got saved uh and uh got baptized. Uh they went to Jerusalem to announce about this big revival. This is the first international ministry of the church. uh and and and so Peter and John came down and came to pray for them and and the people in Samaria received the Holy Spirit and and prophesied, spoke in tongues and prophesied and um after this big revival, big revival, you would think that this is a place to stay. But the Holy Spirit spoke to the man he used uh called Philillip to go and do something that is very very unusual. And that's what we're going to read about.
So, Acts chapter 8 and we're reading from verse 26 to 35. Now, an angel of the Lord spoke to Philillip saying, "Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert." So he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia, a unic of great authority under Candes, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. The spirit said to Philillip, "Go near and overtake this chariot." So, Philip ran to him, heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And he said, "How can I unless someone guides me?" And he asked Philillip to come and sit with him. And the place in the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb before its sharer is silent. So he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judge justice was taken away. and who will declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth. So the unoch answered philillip and said I ask you of whom does the prophet say this of himself or of some other man? Then Philillip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture preached Jesus to him. Amen. Amen.
So, Philip encountered this man in the desert from a city revival. God took him to a desert. that when God would take you from multitudes in the city to go to a desert to meet one person, there has to be priority here >> because the normal thing is uh the city is better and and more people are better than one person. But God abandoned the city and he abandoned the the the multitudes and he went to the desert and picked one person. There is no name given to this person. The Bible doesn't tell us his name. The Bible just gives some descriptions about him. And there are seven descriptions the Bible makes about him. And I I would use that to create a picture of who this man is. The first thing the Bible says is that he's a man of Ethiopia. He's a man of Ethiopia. The description Ethiopia in the Bible does not refer to the current country of Ethiopia. Uh the when the Bible says Ethiopia, uh it's not the same as what we call Ethiopia now somewhere in the Horn of Africa. The word Ethiopia is from the Greek word and there are two words there. The first one is ethos. Eththeos means something that is dark or burnt. And the second word is pick and pick means face. So Ethiopia is eththeos pick or burnt face. It simply describes a people who are very dark in complexion like the people sitting here. So the first thing you note is that he's a dasking man or in today's language you would say he's a black man. The second thing you would note about this man is that he's a uno. He's a uno. That means he's unable to reproduce. He could not pass on his genes to any other person. He is a one generational person who cannot live beyond his generation. He's a you know third thing you would note about this person is that he's a man of great authority. In other words, he has significant position. He's a titled person. The fourth thing you would note about him is that he is submissive. He's working under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. The fifth thing you note about him is that he's in charge of the treasury. He is uh he has access to great resources although he's not the owner of the resource. The sixth thing you will note about him is that he's reading. He's not an illiterate. He's an educated person. And the final thing you'll note about him is that he has come from Jerusalem. He's a very religious person. If you put all these seven descriptions uh together, you can say that this man was an educated religious black man placed in a powerful position with access to a lot of resources and yet is unproductive because he lacks understanding. He's a man who has high title but is unproductive because he lacks understanding. So God sent Philillip to this man and the question he asked him was not do you have food or do you have water or do you have money but do you understand what you are reading? It is a terrible thing to have money without any understanding to be educated without understanding. to be able to read without understanding. And there are people who are supposedly very wellendowed but with no understanding. So the question I came to ask you is do you understand what you are reading?
After the second world war? And most of you may not know it but there used to be a second world war. It was fought in 1939 and it ended in 1945. The second world war was fought on two fronts. The first one was in Germany uh or in Europe. Uh the Germans uh led by Hitler instigated that war. And the second part of the war was in the east instigated by Japan. So there were two fronts of the second world war but the one we know most about is the one in Europe when Nazi Germany decided to take over the whole of Europe. Now you have to understand the context of the second world war. uh by the time the second world war was taking place, Europe had colonized the world. So a country like Ghana for example had become a British colony. Sineagal was a French colony. Others were Portuguese colonies. India was a British colony. Pakistan was a British colony and so on and so forth. The British, the French, the Germans, the Portuguese were ruling the world. They were the masters of the world, including the Dutch. So these are the major world leaders. All of a sudden, Hitler rose up in Germany and decided to colonize the colonizer. So Hitler uh started a war and his war was to bring the whole of Europe under Germany and he he started he took over countries like Czechoslovakia. He took over countries like Poland in 24 hours. He he was just taking over countries took over France and and started trying to take over England. What saved England was because it is separated from mainland Europe because of the English Channel. So this was the war and it seemed as if the people who had gone to colonize other people are now being colonized in their own continent. So the Europeans called the great United States of America, President uh Franklin Roosevelt was the president at that time and America uh put together what they call the Allied forces and they went to Europe, came through Normandy and took over uh Europe back and and and liberated Europe uh from from Nazi Germany.
Now what why am I saying that? You will get to know why I'm telling you this story very soon. So when they they did that the Americans and the British and and all those people put together a document called the Atlantic Charter. And one of the main reasons for the Atlantic Charter is to say that no country has a right to take over another country. Now you have to understand that in the past the only way your country could be great was to go and beat other people and take their country from them and that was the normal thing. But Atlantic Charter says you can't do that. You cannot take another person's country. that all people are have a right to self-determination in their own country. At the time they put together the Atlantic Charter, they didn't have India, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria in mind. They were thinking of Europe. They're thinking of France. They're thinking of Ger of uh of Holland. They think of Czechoslovakia and so and so forth that nobody can take over this countries and they put that into a charter called the Atlantic charter. A little Indian man called Moandas Gandhi who later was called Mahatma Gandhi found the Atlantic charter and read it and he understood what he was reading. And so he went to the Europeans and said you yourself have said that no one has a right to colonize another country. So why have you come to India to come and colonize us? So he took the same document that they had written for themselves and use it to liberate India. And it is from there that Quamin Krummer who was a student in England also followed India's example uh with with Gandhi with the Atlantic Charter and led to Ghana's freedom and led to the emancipation of all colonized people in the world. It all happened because one little Indian understood what he was reading. So the question is, do you understand what you are reading? Do you understand what you are reading?
I'm going to give you two case studies and then I will draw some conclusions and then we'll close. The first one relates to a man called Daniel in the Bible and uh we will read his story in Daniel chapter 9 verses 1 to4. And it reads in Daniel chapter 9 verse 1-4 in the first year of Darius the son of Aasserus in the lineage of the lineage of the Mides who was made king over the realm of the Calaldanss in the first year of his reign. I Daniel understood by the books. If the Bible you're reading is yours underline understood by the books. I know most of you are reading from the screen and you can't come and underline here. That's why you should always bring a Bible to church because you have to underline verses in a Bible. Now verse two I Daniel understood by the books. Note that carefully the number of years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplication with fasting, sackloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, "Oh Lord, great awesome God who keeps covenant and so and so forth." Note Daniel says in the first year of Daras, he understood by the books. He understood by the books. Which books was he talking about? He wasn't talking about secular books on economics and planning and so on and biology and physics. He he he's talking about the books the prophetic books of Israel, the prophetic books of Jerusalem. Now you have to understand that Daniel and most of his people were taken as captives from Judah into Babylon. At the time they went to captivity, Daniel was about 15 years old. He was a teenager. His king, the nobles, all of them were taken from Jerusalem and they were taken to Babylon. Some of them went to Egypt. Some of them just scattered uh all over. Later on, Babylon was also taken over by the Pians. Now Daniel is saying that at a particular time he understood something by the books. What books is he talking about? He's talking about the prophetic books. The book of the prophet Jeremiah particularly when Jeremiah started prophesying Daniel was a teenager. Now you have to understand that the way they prophesy then is not the way we prophesy now. You know because the way people prophesy and I used to tell people you know this is your name this is your mother's name this is your father's name and so and so forth that's not how they prophesy then they spoke about big purposes of God uh so Jeremiah used to prophesy in those days the prophets didn't just say things they wrote their prophecy it was written prophecy and that's why it's in the Bible because if they they just spoke it, we wouldn't have it here. They wrote it. So if God spoke to Jeremiah, Jeremiah will write the prophecy and what they would do is they will walk through the streets and be reading the prophecy. So Jeremiah will go through the streets of Jerusalem and say, "Thus says the Lord and and so and so forth, thus says the Lord." And every day he he will say so. Daniel remembered these prophecies he heard when he was a teenager in Judah. And now in Babylon he had gone to get copies of the prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah. I want you to understand this carefully because this is very important to what we believe God wants to do in our day in our time. Now if you read some of the prophecies of Jeremiah chapter 25 of Jeremiah from verse 11 and 12 Jeremiah said and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. How many years? >> How many years? Then it shall come to pass when 70 years are completed that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Calaldians, for their iniquity, says the Lord, and I will make it a perpetual desolation. And he gave other such prophecy. Jeremiah basically was saying because Israel had disobeyed God, they will go into captivity and particularly the southern kingdom that is Judah, they will go into captivity. And Jeremiah is saying when they go into captivity, they will be in captivity for 70 years. That's what God said. And after 70 years, God says, I will bring them out. >> I thought so. I'm not talking to you. So what happened here? Israel went into captivity in the year 605 BC. The year 605 BC. Daniel received his prophecy in the first year of Darius. And this is the year 538 BC. If you do the arithmetic, this is 67 years after Israel or Judah has gone into captivity. So it means that Daniel himself when he came into Babylon he was 15 years. It's now 67 years plus is 15 years. So he's not a young guy. This guy is about 83. 83 years old. the 67th year of captivity. Daniel's remembered, "Oo, I remember when I was a kid, the prophet Jeremiah was prophesying in our city and he was saying Judah will go into captivity for 70 years." So he goes back and collects the prophecy and starts reading and reading and reading and he says 70 years. He starts calculating, calculating, calculating. He says, "It's about time. And then he starts praying. >> Now I want you to get this. God doesn't just answer prayer. >> He only answers prayer that fits his purpose. >> You ask for rain in the time of the rain, not the time of the sun. So God works with times and seasons. When it's time, it's time. When it's not time, it's not time. And you can pray all you want. If it's not time, nothing will happen. >> So Daniel realized on God's timetable, we should be going home. And based on understanding what he was reading, he prayed and said, "Father, >> Jehovah God, you said we'll be in captivity for 70 years. It's about time. Let us go." And as he started praying, Darius who is the conqueror has a change of heart and makes a proclamation. And the next year after Daniel's prayer, the first batch of people started returning >> to the land of Judah, to Jerusalem. So God says they're going to be in captivity for 70 years. 67th year Daniel starts praying. 68th year they start going back. So in a sense but the going back didn't happen at one time. It continued for a very long time because there were others who came later like Nehemiah and Co who came later. But the first return started in the 68th year of captivity. Daniel shortened the years of captivity by two years because he understood what he was reading. >> Please get this. It's not about how well you scream or how long you fast. When God opens a window, >> you pray within that window. >> His purposes within that window. If the window is not open, you pray all you want, nothing happens. You have to understand what you are reading. First case study.
Second case study. Genesis chapter 15 Genesis chapter 15 from verse 12 to 14. Now when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and behold a horror and great darkness fell upon him and he said pardon me. He said to Abraham, "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them, and they will afflict them 400 years. Also, the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions." This is what God said to Abraham. It says, "Abraham, your descendants will become slaves in a land for 400 years." Now, at this time, Abraham has no child. So, you cannot say this is a punishment. In Daniel's in Judah's case, it's a punishment for disobedience. Here, they haven't. They don't even exist. But God says his purpose for Israel includes 400 years of slavery. It is not a punishment. It's just divine purpose. It's going to happen. You You can't pray against it. You can't bind it. You can't cast it out. This is it. So he says to Abraham, "Know certainly I'm telling you now that your descendants are going to be slaves for 400 years. after 400 years I will bring them out and I will give them money when I bring them out. So in the history of Israel God is saying there is a season of slavery there is a season of deliverance and there is a season of prosperity. Now if you were an intercessor or prayer warrior as we choose to call them this year uh this time uh and you were praying you have to first understand what is the season. If it's slavery time you are not praying for deliverance. You can pray for endurance. You can pray for strength. >> You can pray for mercy. But you can't pray for deliverance because this is the time for slavery in God's timetable. If it's deliverance time, you cannot pray for slavery. You have to pray for deliverance. If it's prosperity time, you don't pray for poverty. You pray for prosperity. Because God says they're going to be slaves. They will come out. I will give them money. >> That's what God says. And he says they're going to be slaves for 400 years. This is Jehovah God speaking. 400 years they're going to be slaves.
Exodus 12 verse 40 to 41. Very interesting passage. Exodus 12:4-41. Now the surgeon of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years. It came to pass at the end of 430 years on the very same day it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. Something doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. God says they're going to be there for how many years? 400. But when they actually got out in the book of Exodus, it was not 400 years. It was 430 years. 30 years have come to add to the 400. Did God lie? God is not a man that he should lie. How come God says you're going to be in bondage for 400 years and they end up in bondage for 430 years? something might have gone wrong. And when you search the scriptures is really difficult to find out what went wrong. And I used to be very perplexed by this. I I read everything I could on this subject. I've read all the commentaries. I read I read hundreds of commentaries. What happened? People said the calculations maybe it was numbers were not calculated well whatever. But you know it didn't make sense. But there is an answer. And the answer actually is not in the Old Testament. It's in the New Testament. A man called Steven is arrested. Steven was a colleague of Philillip. They were deacons of the early church. And Stephen is arrested and he's defending the gospel. So in defending the gospel he's those days when they started preaching they start narrating the story of Israel. So he starts from Abraham and so and he comes to Moses and Stephen says something very interesting about Moses that is pertinent to the subject I am treating. Acts chapter 7 from verse 23. Now when he was Now as he's talking he comes to Moses. He's talking about Moses. So in verse 23 he says when he was 40 years old that is when Moses was 40 years old it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong he defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian. for he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. So what is Steven saying that when Moses was 40 years old, God put it in Moses's heart, go and deliver the children of Israel. He went to deliver the children of Israel, but they didn't understand it. And they asked Moses, "Who made you a judge over us?" As a result, Moses fled from Egypt and went to Midian. And when he was 80 years old, God spoke to him again and he came back. But according to Steven, the deliverance should have taken place when Moses was 40 years old. Now, so there is a 40year added to the story which shouldn't have been added. And if you take the second 40 years old, uh for that extra 40 years, Israel came out in 430 years. If you take 40 years from it, when they were in captivity for 390 years, according to the prophecy, God's clockwork came in and said, "Moses, go and set the people free." But he went to set the people free. The people did not understand. They pushed him away. He goes into the wilderness and comes back. By that time they have increased their years of bondage by another 30 years. So by understanding Daniel shortened the years of captivity from 70 to 68. By lack of understanding Israel prolonged their captivity from 400 years to 430 years. Do you understand what you are reading? >> In other words, it is possible to suffer long beyond your allocated season of suffering. And it's basically because God shifted gears, but you didn't understand. Gears have shifted. [Applause]
I want you to think of it this way. You're going to the 100th floor of a high-rise building. You stand at the first floor, which is always confusing for me as a Ghanaian, which is first and which is ground, you know, because we are British and you are Americans. So when you come to America, first floor is what we call ground floor. But first floor, >> you press the knob at the lift, you're going to the 100th, the lift opens its door. Just at the time it opens the door, somebody gives you a call. So instead of entering, you step out and take the call and the door shuts and somebody calls it to the 100th floor. You have to wait >> for the lift to go through one full cycle to go up to the 100th floor. come back before you have a second opportunity to enter. Just because you miss it does not mean you can enter immediately. >> You have to wait for another season. That's what happened with Moses. When the people missed it, they couldn't have deliverance. >> They waited for another 40 years. And if you read the story of Israel, that was the most oppressive years they had those 40 years because they were unbudgeted for in God's economy. God had not planned for that. There was no grace for it. There's there's no God didn't plan for you to go through. So he didn't provide grace for that. So it is raw hardcore suffering. They started crying like they've never cried before. But God says, "I can't open the door now. You shut it because you didn't understand. And you have to wait. Moses has to go another 40 years to come back to deliver you." Do you understand what you are reading? >> God works with people, but more than people, God works with seasons and time. When God is working with you in a season and you are in understanding of the season, everything becomes easy. >> When you are outside the season, everything becomes hard. It's like walking on a travel later at the airport. That walking, that thing that moves. When somebody is walking a travel, apart from the steps he's taking, the travelator also moves him. The person who is walking without travelator even if he doubles his speed twice he can't catch up the one on the travel later. When you're walking on travel later is like a person who is who understands the seasons of God and steps into that season. And when you step into that season a little effort is amplified. But when you step outside of that season, everything seems to fight against you. Nothing seems to work. Do you understand what you are reading?
God deals with everyone and people in seasons. If you check church history from from even when you check the history of Israel, the prophets, they were not raised alone. See, at the time Daniel was praying, God raised a prophet called Ezekiel. And the prophet as Daniel was praying was taken to a valley of dry bones and he was asked can these bones live. The Bible says these are the bones of Israel and of Judah who have gone to captivity. And and you know the story of Ezekiel and and the the the bones came together and became an army. Now whilst Daniel is praying, Ezekiel is prophesying, the prophets, he zachariah raised together because God works in seasons and within a certain season he throws the door open and whoever steps into it, he may not be the best person. He he may he may he may be an idiot but all that you do is that the season is set you walk into it and God uses you. If you check the history of the church from the early church, the way Jesus called his disciples, you look at the way the uh the rest of the apostles came through. Even when you look at things like the reformation of the church which happened about 500 years ago, you'll find people a door opens and all of a sudden God raises people just like that. In this country, the same thing happened. In the 1940s, there was something called the healing revival. The door opens and everybody who jumps into it, >> God uses them. >> When you look at people, God uses, he calls them in seasons. >> In seasons. Almost everybody today who is in the forefront of Christian ministry started their ministries from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s mid to late 1980s. It's almost as if a door opened globally. You go to Australia, go and ask all the big Brian Houston, everybody, all the big players there. That's when God called them. You go to South Africa, you come to America, you go to England, you go wherever you go, everybody will tell you at this time we were praying and and God spoke to us. At this time, we what what was happening? These people didn't coordinate anything. It is just an open sesame of God. God opens the door and you have to understand what you are reading. [Applause]
What is he saying now? And do we understand what we are reading? Because when he opens the door, you just step into it. You just stay in the flow and he makes it easy. Do you understand what you are reading? at the time when they say Christianity is dying. I mean, the last three months have has been quite a sobering time for me. I'm trying to figure out what what am I reading? You know, because when everybody's afraid to give a Christian testimony in public, out of the far left, God picks a most unlikely person who has been a bad boy for almost all his life. and all of a sudden he says something and Christianity is back on the front page in the news again. When you see things like that, when you see things like that, you see Kanye West and the news focusing on him, don't condemn it too quickly. You have to read it carefully. >> Do you understand what you are reading? Because when you see an Egyptian killing an Egyptian to free a Hebrew, you must ask yourself what is going on. Because you see, to the Jews, to the Hebrews of Moses's time, Moses was not a Hebrew. He was an Egyptian, an Egyptian prince. If anything, this is Pharaoh's grandson. He's supposed to oppress us. He's the one supposed to be killing us. Now, Pharaoh's grandson has come to the Jewish camp seeing somebody he should be protecting, an Egyptian fighting, and he kills the Egyptian. >> If you were a Jew, you have to ask yourself, what is God saying? You remember when Moses saw that burning bush, the Bible says he tended because this shouldn't be happening. The bush shouldn't be burning >> with fire and nothing consume. And he goes to understand and that's when he gets the message. It's time to go the second time. Tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go." My theory is that Moses could have delivered them 40 years earlier. How do I know? Well, it's in the Bible. The Egyptians themselves, if you read the book of Exodus, they said the Jews, the Hebrews are more than us. That's the first thing they said. Second, they are mightier than us. Now, how can a people who are the larger population and mightier still be oppressed? Anytime Israel wanted to be free, they didn't even need a redeemer. They could just have walked out of Egypt. But because they outlived the purpose, now they need somebody to come. And all those miracles of 10 miracles and plagues, all of that happened because God has to realign the purposes >> in order to free them. So you live in America. Do you understand what you are reading? Do you understand what you are reading?
Most of you came here not for ministry but life brought you here. life, economic reasons. But you know, one thing I've known about God, he uses natural reasons to bring us into the supernatural. >> Natural reasons. So it will look as if persecution is what is taking Philillip to Samaria, but there is purpose in it. And God knows until unless I push these guys out, they're going to stay in Jerusalem forever. And the only way for me to move them out is to change the social system to be adversarial to them so they can move into destiny. >> So although natural forces might have brought you here, God was pushing you into destiny. [Applause] So when you come here, you have to understand what you are reading. Although economics is what brought you here, ministry is the purpose for which God brought you here. >> It is for his kingdom. It is for his glory. It is for his purposes. [Music] And I pray especially for your children >> that God will raise up >> a new generation >> of men and women, >> migrant children born in season. or those seemingly out of season but born in season >> that in that generation those who are in their 30s late 20s to late30s there is a band God is visiting in this age group if you are in that age group this is your season this is your hour this is your moment God is going to do amazing things through you's going to use you to raise up a new standard in this country. You have to be like the three Hebrew children. You will not bow to the image of Nebuchadnezzar and God will use you to bring Babylon on its knees. Do you understand what you are read? >> Lift up your hands to God. Just pray and say, "Lord, give me understanding. Help me, Lord, not to misread, >> not to misunderstand. Help me to be accurate. >> Help me to be accurate, Lord. Help me to be accurate >> in the name of Jesus Christ. >> Every darkness out of your eyes, every veil removed from your eyes. Every dullness of understanding removed from your mind in the name of Jesus. >> May the Lord usher you into a new season. Even if >> a door has been shut, may the door be open. Hallelujah. >> And so, Father, >> for this nation >> and the revival of this nation and the people group you have chosen, as feeble as they are to use in this season of visitation, may we understand our days of visitation. May we understand our day of visitation. May we understand our day of visitation. May we understand our day of visitation. May our children understand their day of visitation. May our children's children understand the day of their visitation. And so, Father, we pray, >> for the discerning heart, >> for the willing heart, >> for a mind that is tuned to you, >> and the courage to step into the opening that we will not miss it. Bless this United States of America and the people you have brought here to bless this land. Grant them courage. Grant them the boldness. Grant them the ability to make your voice heard. And let this be >> an hour of divine visitation >> in Jesus name we pray. [Music] >> Amen. >> Amen. Amen.
I want you to take time to really ponder over this, especially those of you who are in ministry. Because there is nothing in my years of ministry, there is nothing more important than divine purpose. It's not how anointed you are. If you are anointed in the wrong season, nothing happens. It's not just following the crowd. It is discerning this hour what God is saying and say it. Because if you say what God is saying, he amplifies your voice. If you go where God is going, >> he speeds you up. >> So just be in tune with him >> and he'll do marvelous things with you. >> God bless you. [Applause]