February 7

GENESIS 40
In 2007 shortly before I left for Senegal, I had a very brief vision. It was rather cartoonish in nature, but it was clearly the Lord speaking to me on the approach to a significant time of ministry. In the vision, the Lord simply asked me with a smile, “So, you wanna be a door keeper? I have often pondered the meaning of it and whether it was just for that trip or for my life as a whole. To this day I am not completely sure what it meant. It is the pleasure of God to speak to the one who will listen and obey. Three things are clear from Scripture:

1) God speaks to people in dreams and visions. Examples? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Pharaoh, Moses, Balaam, almost every one of the OT prophets Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus. In the New Testament there were Zacharias, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, Peter, John, Phillip the evangelist, the leaders at Antioch, Paul.
2) Those to whom He spoke in dreams and visions seem to be people whom He could trust to be obedient, or who were at a crossroads in history in which He would use them as significant players, whether or not they were obedient to Him.
3) The number of people with whom it is recorded that He spoke that way are a significantly small number of people in relation the general population.

Joseph’s dad, Grandpa, and Great Grandpa had all been communicated with by the Lord through dreams. When Joseph had his dreams as a teenager and shared them with his family, his father’s argument was not that God does not do such things, but whether Joseph had really interpreted it correctly. Maybe that was why Joseph said, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” Maybe He was thinking of his father’s response to his early dreams. Maybe he himself was beginning to wonder if those dreams would ever come true. After all at this point, Joseph has been in slavery and/or prison for 11 years. Yet he obviously still believed; otherwise, he would not have insisted that they tell him their dreams. God was with Joseph, and I think Joseph knew and believed it. Do you suppose that Joseph thought that somehow the dream of his fellow prisoners might somehow be related to the interpretation of his own dream which had been rejected by his father and his own experience to this point? Yet he still had the audacity to say, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” God cannot lie, and Joseph knew it. God gave him the interpretations. Those interpretations led to the fulfillment of his own dreams.
Do you suppose that God really wants me to be a doorkeeper? Is there really any sense in which He will use me to unlock or lock doors of spiritual regions for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus? If He does, then it will only be glory for Him. After 57 years of life, I am convinced of one thing: If I accomplish any thing of significance, then it will not be because of me, but solely because of His mighty power. It will be only for His glory and none of mine. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PSALM 38
I do not know that I have ever experienced this kind of depression. I mean, look at what David says,

“There is no soundness in my flesh. . . my iniquities have gone over my head. . .my wounds are foul and festering. . . My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, And my relatives stand afar off. . . I am like a deaf man who does not hear.”

When did David ever experience this? Did this all literally happen, or in his depression does he just feel this way? Certainly when he sinned with Bathsheba and against Uriah, he would have felt the weight of his iniquities. But what wounds did he have? He had stayed home from war. That is what placed him in trouble with Bathsheba. When was he deserted by friends and family? Even when being chased by Saul, his cousins and the discontent of Israel joined and supported him. He had 600 men following him. When pursued by his son Absalom, he was still supported by his old guard who delivered him from Absalom.
When we are in depression, we frequently amplify our pain and make it greater than it is. I remember a time when I was attacked by those I was shepherding. It is hard to think straight when depressed. It was only a third of those, whom I was shepherding, that attacked, but it felt like everybody. If you have lived any amount of time, you probably know exactly what I am talking about. How do we triumph in those circumstances? David has the key: “In You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God.” When our hope is in Him, He makes the worst of circumstances tolerable because of His great presence. We will slop through the situation, but He will eventually come to us. In the midst of the attack He communicates His love for us. That communication is worth all the depression and pain. The smile of the Creator upon us creates inestimable joy. May the Lord make haste to us in our need. That is where we see His glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JOB 6
She had called a few minutes before and asked if she could come see me. She said that she had a word from the Lord for me. It was my first experience with a genuine intercessor. She said, “The Lord spoke to me this morning and said to tell pastor john, ‘You have been praying much for revival, but if I gave it to you, would you be ready for it?’” Apologetically, she said, “I do not know what that means. All I know is that the Lord wanted me to tell you that.” I didn’t really quite understand it either. That was in 1994, 19 years ago.
A year and a half later, I was at a prayer summit where Armin Guesswein was one of the leaders. At lunch time I told him of the experience, and I asked him what it meant. He guffawed and said, “Well it meant just that! Are you ready?” Am I ready? What is everything involved in being ready for revival? Is anyone really ready when it comes? The implication of the question is that I am not ready, and therefore, for God to send revival would not be a good thing, for God is always ready to give us what is good. Hmmm. . . Nineteen years down the road, I still occasionally think on that. What needs to change in me so that revival would be a request God would grant?
Job 6:8–10

“Oh, that I might have my request, That God would grant me the thing that I long for! That it would please God to crush me, That He would loose His hand and cut me off! Then I would still have comfort; Though in anguish I would exult, He will not spare; For I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.

Job had a request. He wanted to die. God would not grant it. I remember being sick in bed for over three weeks with mononucleosis. I dropped down to 130 pounds—pretty skinny for my 6’ frame. At times during that illness, I was pretty ugly toward my lovely bride. I expressed to her that I wished I was dead. She almost wished the same. God did not grant that request for either Job or me. Why? Well, He had something better in store for us. As awful as Job’s experience was, God had something better for Job. It is the mystery of suffering. Sometimes God does not alleviate it because He has something better down the road that the suffering will accomplish. The suffering prepares us for the something better. If God would have granted his request and crushed him, we would never have seen the triumph of the faith of Job, nor would we have seen that wonderful exchange between God and Job at the end of the book, nor would Job have received back all the new sons and daughters and the wealth that God restored to him.
I am still not sure that I know what God meant by His question, “Are you ready?” but I continue to seek to be ready. God will eventually give something better. I don’t know what that is, but I do know that if I ask for bread, He won’t give me a stone. It is the glory of God to not grant some of our requests, in order that He might give us something better. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

MATTHEW 24:1-28
In 19 B.C. Herod the Great sought to appease his Jewish subjects by making the temple one of the architectural wonders of the world. The main building was finished 10 years later but the temple complex was not finished until 64 A.D., shortly before its destruction by the Romans. The complex and temple were truly amazing by the time that Jesus visited it. It covered an area that could have supported 24 football fields (about 490 yards by 325 yards)! The gold and white stone shone so brightly in the sun that it was difficult to look directly at the Temple. The disciples were truly impressed. I think we would have been impressed as well.
Are we impressed as well with the glory of the Lord Jesus? He says here that these stones would be thrown down. History tells us that when the Romans burned the temple that it burned with such heat that some of the gold lining the temple walls melted down into the cracks of the floor stones. The Romans tore downs the walls and pulled up some of the floor covering stones in order to retrieve the melted gold. In another place Jesus said, "Tear down this temple and I will raise it up in three days," referring to the temple of His body.
How is His glory greater than the temple? Is not the building of great buildings a symbol of national prosperity and power? Before He comes, He tells us that the world will be plagued with wars and rumors of wars and nations will rise up against nation. Reasons for wars are often complex but is it not true that in essence wars are a violent struggle for power? Sometimes the struggle is self-defense and a nation must act to protect its citizens. But why must they protect and how do you differentiate protection from aggression? Yet I submit to you that if all the nations would submit themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, conflicts of nation against nation would cease immediately. He permits conflicts to exist in order to show us the selfishness of our hearts. He alone can change our hearts.
How is His glory greater than the temple? Plenty of food, health and security from the ravages of nature are things we all desire and crave. Yet He says that scarcity of those things will increase as we approach His coming. We currently have the farming technology to produce enough food to feed the world many times over. Yet, one third of the world goes to bed hungry every night. Why? The simplistic answer is lack of distribution caused ultimately by greed. We need our hearts changed. Why does He allow it? For those of you who have viewed the Transformation videos, or have studied the history of revivals, one of the characteristics of true revival is that land is healed and a general prosperity for the ones who have experienced the revival is more of the rule than the exception. Why? I think He is demonstrating for all to see that the greatest need that we need is a changed heart. He alone can change our hearts.
How is His glory greater than the temple? False prophets abound in our world today. They existed in the temple in His day. They exist now. There is no falsehood in Him. He is the truth. Why does He allow false prophets? Again it is to show us the depravity of the heart of man. People believe false prophets, more often than not, because they want to believe falsehood. It is a heart problem. He alone can change our hearts. That is why the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom must be preached as a witness to all the world. Every ethnic group must have the opportunity to hear the good news of the One who can change their hearts. When that happens, the end will come. That is why we must speak His glory to one another. Otherwise, we focus on the earthly glory of temples rather than His heavenly glory. The Lord Jesus is indeed glorious. Speak His glory to someone else today.
--Pastor John