WHEN DARKNESS SOWS, IT REAPS ELIJAH

0:00I want to talk about something very quickly and that's this. The body of Christ is called to do more than just have their fire insurance. Okay? When you got born again, you are called to have a lot more than your fire insurance. You know what I'm talking about? You're actually called to take ground and take territory. We got the gospel where Jesus loves you. There's nothing you can do about it. You get born again and after you get into the kingdom through getting saved, now you have a kingdom assignment. A kingdom assignment. That's why you don't just go to the church of your choice. You go where you're called. Okay? Praise God. And a lot of people like, I used to go to this church or that church and then I got offended because I don't agree with this or that. Usually people that are offended came offended and they left offended, amen? They sing that song. I'm offended because I was mistaken. I'm offended. You wounded me.

1:00Gushing wound, how can it be? Every okay? That you would offend someone like me. You know the bridge, right? The bridge says, if it's the last thing I do, I'll get back at you, right? I said, yeah, a lot of people have that. Okay, I'll just keep teaching. What you recognize this though? Here, let me draw a picture of the body of Christ. This represents the body of Christ. It's just a simple Venn diagram, a picture of this. Let's say this represents Ephesians chapter 4, 11, 12, all that. You recognize this, that's the fivefold ministry. And then you have the seven gifts, the nine gifts. Okay, and you see this out of Romans chapter 12. You see this out of first Corinthians chapter 12. And when you put this all together, you got the nine manifestation of gifts, the seven motivational gifts, the fivefold governmental gifts. Okay? This I believe makes up the body of Christ fundamentally.

2:01That's 21 gifts altogether. Okay? 21 gifts. Now the issue we have today is a lot of people don't fully know what they believe. But if you're in this house, I believe you're going to get some great teaching, great understanding. And there's more than just what you hear. It's what goes beyond what you hear. The Lord will speak to you many times about things that you're not even being taught when you're in a revelatory teaching flow, which is in this house. Okay, when that begins to happen, the Lord will begin to direct your life, begin to guide you. He'll begin to give you breakthrough. And there's an anointing here for this tonight. Now let me talk about this. A lot of people, the issue they have in the body of Christ, is okay, they say I'm part of the body, they're working through it. But there's this interesting scenario that a man by the name of John Wesley came up with. John Wesley came up with a scenario that he believed created the life of the believer or what makes up the life of the believer. And it's based on scripture, tradition,

3:07experiences and irrationality. Okay, that's what he called the life of the believer. Okay, he believed that many people believe and their whole walk is based on this quadrilateral. It's called the Wesleyan quadrilateral. And this altogether really sums up the life of the believer. Now most people when they're in the body of Christ, when you ask them, why do you believe what you believe? Why do you believe it? This has been this big move about deconstructionism. Anybody hear about that? I've been deconstructed in my faith. How stupid. Now I get it, you get to ask yourself, why do I believe what I believe? And you need to come to those conclusions. I think that's good. But sometimes when you deconstruct things so far, you take the faith out of it and it becomes a linear, logical understanding. The word of God is not here to make just simple logic. The word of God is here to make faith. The word of God does make logic. It does create common sense.

4:07It does have tremendous insight logically. And you are to study to show yourself approved. But the highest purpose of the word of God is not to make sense, it's to make faith. Okay? So when people get into this and you ask them, okay, you're part of the body of Christ, why do you believe what you believe in? Everybody says, I believe what I believe because the Bible says. Every denomination says they believe what they believe because of what the Bible says, right? But if we're really honest, most of the time people come into the faith and they adapt the exact thing that the person who led them to Christ, what they believe. Okay? So if you come in under somebody's tradition, people say, no, no, I'm not a part of a tradition. Well, there's good traditions, but there's also doctrinal traditions that can shut down the faith of God for breakthrough for your calling, for your destiny. An example of this is, as many people say, I believe the scripture, but really, they believe the tradition of whoever led them to Jesus

5:10by and large most often. They come into the faith, they believe a tradition, and then when they run into something that doesn't agree with their tradition, they have a meltdown. They don't like it. Let me give you an example. Speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues. What a cura, shura, barahanda. Right? Many people, they get into speaking in tongues and then they say, well, the Bible's, I guess it. You know, don't you know the gift sees? And they do their own exegesis. It's not really accurate, right? They start to really pull stuff out and they do isegesis, where you add your thoughts into the text and you make it, you basically mutilate the text. You know, if you torture the data long enough, you can make it confess to just about anything. So if you begin to torture the data because of your tradition, you'll make it confess to things the Bible doesn't teach. Right? Right? A text without its context is a pretext.

6:10So you recognize that when you're in tradition and you have an experience, most people run right on back to tradition. They don't go on and say, what does the Bible actually say about this? Right? When you do this, you get to hold it and hold it with the scripture says, then a lot of people say, wow, but then they also need to use their brain, go through rationality, and then eventually, either their tradition changes, or it doesn't. But if you realize the scripture lines up with your experience, then you can add your brain and your rational thinking, maybe your tradition needs to change in some areas. Amen? Now, when it comes to miracles and breakthroughs and the favor of God and moving into the fullness of what He has for us, there's something I believe the Lord wants us to walk in, and that's a higher relationship with Him and walking through the revelation of His Word, through the written Word of God. But when you read the Bible until it starts talking back to you, it will wake things up inside you.

7:10If so many people come to me over the years and say, how do you begin to prophesy? How do you step into different faith gifts? And I say the same thing every time. Read the Bible until it starts talking back to you, it will help impact your convictions, it impacts your decisions, it impacts all these things, and you'll begin to find yourself in the gifts of God. And then sit under a great teacher. The best form of deliverance is ongoing, healthy teaching. Okay? Praise God. People are like, I thought I was going to be at prophetic meeting. Just wait. But you're going to recognize things about this. The Word of God is here to wake us up on the inside. It's the only tangible piece of spirit that we have in the natural. John 663, Jesus said, the flesh prophets, nothing, my Word is spirit, and it is life. You recognize that. When you start walking in this, it'll wake you up. Now, I want to talk just a little bit if I can, about what this looks like in this whole picture with the five-fold ministry.

8:10When we recognize this, and let's say we get all this stuff in order, what do we do with the calling God's given us? Well, every joint supplies, everybody's called to line up at a certain place in the body of Christ. That's why I say you don't just go to the church here choice. You go where God sends you. Most people, or many people, when they step out in life, they're looking for a job, a good career, they're going somewhere, and then all of a sudden when they go to a place, their kids, things aren't working out, life seems out of control. It doesn't really have significance or fulfillment. And I like to ask the question. Did you go and get that job or move to that area because it was simply an economic step for you? Or did you go because God was calling you as a placement in the body of Christ? Another good news is, if you've taken steps and it wasn't a placement for you in the body of Christ, you can turn that around right now. God will begin to give you plan B that's better than plan A. He'll do it, but many people say,

9:10I don't know why my family is not working out. I don't know why my kids don't have a connection. I don't know why things are happening this way. Well, the truth is, you sought first the stuff rather than the kingdom. And when you seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, all these other things are added unto you. And what does that mean? Well, fundamentally, it means you come into the body of Christ, every joint supplies. You find out where you're supposed to be and you get in there. Amen? Now, when we're talking about this, one of the things that we've got to talk about in this picture, when you find your place, you get past all the scriptural understanding, your tradition gets adjusted so you're really on track with what the Lord's calling you to be, is the understanding of how these gifts work. I can talk about a lot of them, but I want to talk, of course, about prophecy very quickly. You know, the only thing worse than no teaching is bad teaching. And we've got to get into a place where we start to understand what God's called us to do. And we've got to understand how these things operate.

10:11Very quickly, there are four fundamental flows of prophecy. You can get all this in my book demystifying the prophetic, but there's about four flows, four different functions of prophecy. The first one is Roe, very quickly. Okay? What is Roe? Roe is a visionary function from the Holy Ghost, where there's leaders. There's many times people, even in the world, CEOs will have an function where they just know how to lead. It's a prophetic trait. Now, prophets need to move in this, but everybody in the body of Christ can move in any gift the Holy Spirit impresses on them. Roe is when you have an oaksion to do something. There's a term called heuristic ability, where you begin to say, I have a gut instinct that I'm supposed to do this. If you look at our president, he has that. It's going to be great. It's going to be so amazing. You know, I ran, there's not going to be much left, right? Too much already yet. You know, he gets going and he just does those things.

11:12He has a heuristic ability. He just has a gut instinct. It's actually a prophetic trait, and it can work with leaders, it works with people. But when you're in the body of Christ, leaders and people, a Roe is a visionary, and they mobilize. They mobilize the troops. That's what they do. They have a vision. So the next one, very quickly, is very quickly Navi. What's Navi? That is an inspirational on the spot anointing. When the pastor says, I studied all night, I brought my notes in, and the Lord changed my message as I got into the pulpit. And they close their notes and go a different direction. That's Navi. It's a bubbling up. It's an inspiration. It's an inspirational on the spot, holy ghost leading. You know, sometimes you ever had that, you're driving, you're going somewhere, and it's just like, I need to go here. Or I need to do this. That's a Navi. And the more you spend time in the Word of God, the more these things come alive for you. Number three, very quickly.

12:12Chesa, okay. Chesa is a whole nother animal. Chesa in the Hebrew actually has a unique meaning, and it means to gaze. It means to stare intently. Chesa is where we get word of knowledge. It's where we get the word of knowledge. You look at things and it begins to happen. I'm reminded of this scripture here in, let's see, second Kings, chapter eight, second Kings, chapter eight. And just simply put, this is when Elisha is talking to Ben Hadad, King of Syria, he was sick, but then his servant came, and then he looks at this man. He looks at the man who came, has ale, and Elisha is staring at him, and suddenly, he went into a gaze. He went into a stare. He's looking at him until Elijah fixed his eyes on him, stared at him, and the man became uncomfortable. And Elisha began to weep. Why? Because he was gazing at him and then had a vision

13:14and saw what he was going to do with the kingdom. Right? And that's gazing, and that happens. Word of knowledge is how we basically operate this in this today. Now very quickly also, go to the fourth one. The fourth one is Choze. Very quickly. Choze actually means this, to lean and peer into the future. Choze is where you get Daniel the Prophet, John the Revelator, you know, Chesa's where you can get trances and visions, but Choze is an involuntary scenario. Nobody can just sit there and be like, let me tell you what's going to go on next year. Right? Too much? Like they look into the future, you can't do that voluntarily. The Holy Spirit is the only one that can take you up into trance and show you things that are to come. Okay? Am I losing everybody? You're with me still? So when you recognize these, these are some fundamentals of how prophecy works. And it's something that's very important. Now, when we're walking through all this, I want to flip the board.

14:16Is that okay with everybody? I think I can flip it. Let me do it. Here we go. Flip the board. Try, look at that. Boom. I want to talk to you about this very quickly because then we're going to get into some stuff here this evening. But I want to say this to you. Many times when people are prophesying this is very important. We put a lot of things and labels on things we don't understand. Very important you understand this right now. And that is this. As a matter of fact, I have a statement for this. Metaphores reign were mysteries reside. In other words, many times people give a really colorful label to something. They don't quite understand from the word of God or how it operates. They've never had first-hand experience with it from the word of God. So because of this, they just give it kind of a metaphor. For example, when they say, if you get a prophecy, just put it on the shelf. Now that's true because if somebody doesn't have a track record or if they come up to you in the parking lot, they give you one of them drive by prophecies. And they're like, you're going to be my spouse.

15:19God told me. Right? Ladies need to be like, yeah, talk to the hand, bro. But you recognize a lot of people have that. But there is something to be said about it. Who was it? What was it? Namin, the leper. The prophet said, go dip in the Jordan. And people say, well, prophecy should always be for confirmation. Well, that's true. And it should bear witness with your spirit. I mean, 99.9% of the time, that's true. But if that's true, why didn't the guy just know to go dip? Right? Or when you're predicting things and you're seeing things and all that, how about when Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and 70 AD? I don't think the disciples were like, yeah, I knew that. Yeah, I tied us, right? Okay, yeah, amen. He's going to level the place. Yeah, we know that, Lord, amen. That bears witness to us. Now, there's times that things will prophesy.

16:20And yes, if you don't know what to do with it, you definitely set it aside, but you do it in faith, and you go back to the Word of God. Not of the mouth of two or three witnesses. Let every word be established. It's very important. But when you're walking through these things, I want to give you just a quick, fundamental to this. Have you ever had a dream or a vision, and it really charged you or something, or somebody gave you a word? You weren't sure what to do with it. Can I help us hear this evening? Okay, let's say that you have an encounter. Okay? A little like, I'll draw a fire. Okay? You have a fiery moofasa moment. You know what I'm talking about? The spirit of God touches your life. You get the goose bumps, and you're like, ooh, moofasa. Right? It's just like, Jesus. Ooh, you know, a lot of people. I've been around some prophetic cancer. It looks like they might as well just pop an elka cell so they can let the foam come down and shake. No? You ever been around that? You know, I've been to meetings where people are like, shaking so hard, I think they're going to have like a cramp when they're down in their neck. And I'm just like, you know, you can do that. You just don't have to.

17:21If you say, I have to do that to prophesy. You know what that's called? Religion. Religion. There's another word for it too. I'll turn them into that word. Oh, yeah, stupid. That's the word. That's stupid. Now, if there's a flow you're in, and that's just kind of your thing, you got a little jerk in a shake. Like, I can't get that's your thing. God bless you. Just don't act like you have to do it to function. All right? Anybody offended? Yeah, don't raise your hand. Okay? So you recognize this. Okay? So you have an encounter with the Lord. We could call this, you know, a moment. It's a revelatory moment. Let's say you see something, you have an experience that's leading you in a direction, okay? So let's just say that you're looking at something. Here's what I'm going to draw like an eyeball here. Kind of a small one. But you're looking at this now, okay? You're looking at the experience. Whether this is a vision or where you receive from somebody else.

18:23You're getting information. And when you get a revelation, I need to tell you this. Many times when people get a revelation or a vision from God, they believe it means right now. And I mean right now. And there's not a lot of depth perception and prophecy. Do you know that? That's why, you know, I'll share words sometimes. And it seems like it's happening right now. There's been times I'm on my broadcasts, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's going to be the end of the world. But it's fall time. And the Lord's like, calm down. Because you see things. You see things. You feel things. You sense things. And there's been times the Lord has shown me things that were coming, and He began to warn me. But also, not for the purpose of agreeing with the darkness or agreeing with the devil, any carnal prophetic voice can be like, it's going to be bad. Right? And eventually, they'll be right. Right? I mean, a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

19:25You can say a lot of stuff, and it's going to be bad. But it's different when the Lord's showing you something specific about dark issues, challenging issues, whatever it is. And then your job is not to agree with the devil. Acts chapter 11, agabus, people like there are no prophets after Jesus. Have you read the Bible? For starters, let's go to the book of Revelation where there's two witnesses that many people believe are prophets. But then there's Judas and Silas who prophesied, next chapter 15. Acts chapter 11, you talk about agabus. And agabus stood up. This is a real faith statement. Agabus stands up in Acts chapter 11, and he said, a famine is coming. Right? But you know what the church didn't do? It didn't go, oh no, this is, we knew it. We knew it. And then go dig a hole and get their AR and get in there and be like, hey, when they come for us, let's take out our neighbors. That's the Christian thing to do. You know, like a lot of YouTube surfers that are like, you know what's going on?

20:32You know what Chew talks about, right? Nobody. You recognize that there's all this stuff going on. It's this. Here's the real conspiracy. Here's all that said. You know what time Pestmark doesn't have meeting? And the Lord said, hit the conspiracy demon. And so I'm in the meeting and I'm like, hey, that conspiracy spirit. I bind you. Because you know, a lot of the conspiracies we've heard are true. Right? There's been stuff that has been conspiratory and it comes out. You know what we're talking about? Chemtrails. We talk about the UFO narrative. We talk about, you know, crypto stuff. We talk about what's going on with all the 2020 stuff and on. And all the things we've seen in our country, our nation, and the world, you say, well, what's really happening there? Probably a lot of it is very true in the conspiracy space. But if you get obsessed with that, conspiracies will be used in place of your faith. And the same addictive ability to sit there and look at video after video after video. What really happened to Charlie? What really happened here?

21:33What's going on with Israel? If you got an issue with Israel on the biblical foundation, you got a problem. Now listen, I am not defending the government. I'm not defending spy activity. I'm not defending any of the stuff that they can do that's probably off. But every government has that. Okay? But you better be careful with Israel. I'm serious. When we're talking about God's covenant with the land, and we're like, oh, wow, we're just going to talk about that. I wouldn't. I'd rather be wrong, you know, with the world and right with God. I'd rather just default to the word of God. People like, well, is it really the Israel of God? Is it this? Is it that? It's like, there's so much confusion around it, and there's a conspiracy spirit that got on it. And if we're not careful, it's going to be the same journey that took us to the Holocaust. God bless you. But now listen, I was in a meeting one time, and I went to the board like this,

22:37and I started to draw a circle over and over and over again. As you know what conspiracies do, they hijack your faith. And I began to say, all they do is go round and round and round, ever learning, never coming to the knowledge, never coming to the conclusion. You're obsessed with something, and here we go, round and round, and round and round we go. As it's so come out, and Jesus, say, or something like that, a guy jumps up in the back. Ah! I was like, whoa! And he rushed the stage. I was like, wow! And he jumped up on stage with me, and I'm like, well, hello. I thought we were going to wrestle. You know? And they had to take him down. Bam! Out of there! And I've had that happen a few times. I've been in meetings, and I say things. The Lord's like, hit that spirit. So I do. I haven't had people rush me many times on stage. When I was younger, and I didn't have anybody traveling with me, I had to wrestle people as preaching intent meetings. If that's from Mark Adam, I try to get the mic from you, so I headlocked him. And I'm like, talk it. You know, I'm talking. You know? A lot of people have meltdowns. I'm like, now we're having a good time.

23:38You know? But... But be delivered to that conspiracy spirit. Again, with everything we see in the culture, use your brain. Look at what's going on. Glance at Goliath, but gaze at God. If you watch my program every day, you'll see some pretty unique things. Some pretty wild stuff. But we never land there and say, this is how it is. Everybody be afraid. That's not what we do. We go to the Word of God. We stand up in faith and say, just like Agabus, when he prophesied Acts chapter 11, a famine is coming, the church did not dig a hole in the ground, get their ARs and get their food storage, and be like, let's get our neighbors if they try to come. You know what they did? They sent aid to the area that he prophesied to. The church mobilized and acted. Not the government. The church did. And when they went, it said that it was fulfilled in the days of Claudius Caesar. It happened. But the church, because of good faith preaching, good understanding said, great, we're here for this. We're the answer for the world.

24:40Christ in us, the hope of glory. A lot of people think it's the great mission that Jesus just told us to go on a mission. But it's called the great commission. He's working through us. We're working in tandem with the Lord. As he is, so are we in this world, first John 4, 17, we are the body of Christ. And that means when he speaks something, we ought to act. I want to say thank you to our partners. Partners, thank you. We can not fulfill this great commission, which we call reaching a million clear-eyed clear-minded reformers, who will in turn reach a billion without you. Your partnership makes this possible and your support is so much more than financial. It's a family partnership. And together, we're raising up performers who see clearly in a culture that's trying to go mad. And through your partnership, you and your family are learning how to overcome, stand firm, and bring light where there is confusion. What you're doing isn't just for you.

25:40It's for your family and it's for the world. Your partnership is shaping culture, strengthening homes and advancing the kingdom. And from the very bottom of our hearts, we want to say thank you. We're in this together for them and for the world and for Jesus. And if you're watching and you'd like to join this partner family, please go to JosephZ.com today. And when you partner, we will call you back regularly, simply to pray with you. We're not going to solicit you and ask you for things. We simply want to call you to pray with you because I believe together we can change the world and make an impact on society that will be remembered for generations to come. So I hope you go to JosephZ.com, become a partner and we look forward to calling you back regularly.

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