Ever since the Garden of Eden, man has been trying to do things apart from God. All we like sheep have gone astray – we have all done things our own way. The whole world system has been set up to provide an alternative to God, but it is coming down.
The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of men will be abased; and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols will completely vanish. Men will go into caves of the rocks and into holes of the ground before the terror of the LORD and the splendour of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble’ (Isa 2:17-19).
God is going to arise and make the earth tremble, shaking it to its very core. When it crumbles and falls, what is left? The kingdom which cannot be shaken (Heb 12:28), the kingdom of God which is within us (Luke 17:21).
This is what is going to take place:
Now it will come about that In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. (Isa 2:2)
The house of the Lord is the church, and the mountain is kingdom authority. It will be established over and above all those other hills and mountains, over every authority that exists in the world, and everyone will stream to it because the church will have the answers that the world is looking for. Are we really up for that? We need to be. At the moment, evil spirits are controlling those world systems: those spirits need to be dethroned, and God is going to use His people to dethrone them.
Light and darkness
Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you (Isa 60:1). Jesus is coming for His church, and His church is supposed to be light to the world: we are to be children of light. There is going to be a period of great light where the harvest of harvesters is going to come in. But read verses 2-3:
Behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
When there is nowhere else to go, when we are shining in the darkness, when the glory of God is manifested through His church, when the Presence of God is manifest, then people are going to start to come. And then, in a great period of darkness, we are to shine even brighter for that end-time harvest. That is what God is calling us to. That is what He is preparing us for.
We need to start shining. We need to start getting the glory of God in our lives; we need to start letting the glory of God out of our lives. We must manifest the presence of God in our daily lives, not just in meetings, but everywhere. God’s glory must be so evident in us that people will start coming up to us saying ‘what must I do to be saved?’ They will come to us in desperation because everything they have put their trust in has come to nothing.
Choose
What must we do? It is time to choose who we are going to serve. A Joshua generation is being raised up, and we can be part of it. It was Joshua who said to the children of Israel:
Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served, and serve the LORD. Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:14-15).
It is time to get rid of the idols, time to decide to serve the Lord. At Freedom, as a church, we have made that decision. We are going to serve the Lord. No matter what it costs and no matter what it takes; no matter how much we have to do that we might rather not do, we are going to serve the Lord. And we want other people to be part of that, because God is going to raise up churches and ministries around the world to be part of this move, to equip this end-time generation.
It is also time to choose individually: who am I going to serve? Am I going to serve the idols of my past, or am I going to surrender and serve the living God? Have I been serving myself, have I been serving the enemy, or have I been serving God? Who am I going to serve?
As for me, I am going to serve God.
He is going to pour out His light, pour out His Spirit: He is going to equip us beyond our wildest dreams. Honestly, some of the things I have seen, some of the things the other prophetic people have seen coming – that shaking of the world’s systems – it will be like nothing in history, nothing that has ever taken place before, and we have to be ready for it. But God is asking, are we ready to volunteer in the day of His power (Ps 110:3)?
He is looking for those volunteers, because the day of His power is surely coming.