 |
回復の年!
使徒 ロナルド・サーカ: 2007.02.11: 佐野
(日本語訳は近日中に載せます)
Today I want to talk about the word the Lord has been speaking for 2007. Our good friend Alex Florence from CI Canada was praying about this. He said, “Lord, what’s the theme for 2007?” Almost immediately the Lord spoke to him a word he’d never heard before. The word was “replevin.” He had to look it up in the dictionary, and when he told us about it, we had to look it up in the dictionary. The Japanese – setsume – isn’t really what I want. He looked it up, and it says this – it’s a legal word, a word for lawyers. It says, “Owner or people who are entitled to repossession may recover those goods from the one who has wrongfully taken them.” It’s a very unusual word. He was excited about that and shared it with Bishop Hamon. Bishop Hamon has been preaching about that. Recently I was reading Chuck Pierce. He never talked about this word, but he talked about the same thing. In 2007 God is focusing on giving back to you things that have been stolen from you.
In John 10, it says the devil has come to kill, steal, and destroy. You may not have any money stolen from you, or someone stole your bicycle from the station, or anything. You might not have had anything stolen from you, but the devil has stolen things from most of us. What God is saying this year is, “Focus on getting those things back.” Here’s a listing in Japanese of what kind of things might have been taken from you.
- Something that was lost or stolen will once again come back.
- Your health comes back – maybe for some of you, you need to focus on, “God is going to give me my health this year.
- Authority comes back to you. Where you’ve lost authority or your position, that comes back to you.
- If you’ve been betrayed, or you’ve fallen from a position wrongfully, the Lord wants to put you back in that place.
- This is even talking about land, and things and people (like family members) that have been taken from you. God wants those kinds of things to be restored.
I don’t want you to think this is very spiritual, or a very narrow meaning. There’s something here for everybody. I think also we need to ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes so we begin to understand what we’ve lost. A lot of times the devil steals from us, and it’s like computer fraud, or identity fraud, or something like that. It’s stolen from you and you don’t even realize it until long afterwards. God wants us to begin to notice what the enemy’s taken from us. Put your hand on your eyes. Of course it’s not your physical eyes, it’s your spiritual eyes. “Lord, open our eyes so we can see what’s been stolen and take it back. Amen.”
The other thing we need to do is to say, “Open my eyes, Lord. So I can see what you have already been restoring.” Alex Florence was telling us recently somebody gave him a 2004 Jaguar. He got this Jaguar; someone just gave it to him. But he said this is replevin, recovery. Because when he was a young man, someone stole his car. When someone gave him a Jaguar he said, “This is replevin.” If we don’t notice that God is restoring it, it won’t be the same. There may be things already that God has restored to you, and you just haven’t noticed it. That’s too bad. Because if you know God did this, then your faith will be increased, and more and more will be restored. If you’re boketeru about this, then you’re not going to see it, and the miracle will be much smaller than what God wants.
Are you beginning to sense, “Oh yeah, maybe some things have been restored for me”? The Lord says to you guys standing up – This is just the beginning. You’re going to see – almost every month – something restored, and afterwards, it’s almost going to be every week. The Lord says, “I’m a restoring God.” Thank you Lord. Everyone stand and say, “Yeah, that’s for me.” Say, “Lord, thank you that you’re going to restore for me.”
How does this restoration process work? There are 3 scriptures:
- Joel 2:25 – The people had suffered from years of devastation from locust invasion. This was the judgment of God because they had turned away from God. But God wants to bless His people. God wants you to have plenty, so you’re full of thankfulness and praise to him. Look at verse 25. Restore to you the years the locust has eaten. I feel there may be people here you say, “Lord, my life has been wasted. All these years, and nothing to show for it.” There may be people like that here this morning. God says, “I want to restore that for you.” I don’t want you to be focusing about the repentance part. The fact that you’re here show’s you have a heart for God. I want you to focus on that promise that God’s going to restore. If that’s you, God says He’s going to restore that. You’re not going to go back in time, and live those years again. But God will begin turning things, and the pain of all that will be gone. He’ll change it so you’ll be at a place of great blessing. That’s one point. This is a powerful message that we have.
- 2 Kings 4 – Here’s another story – of the Shunammite woman. 2 Kings 4 – starting at verse 8. This is a very wonderful story. It says there was a certain notable woman. Notable. Turn to the person next to you and say, “You are notable.” Look at verse 9. She saw Elisha, and noticed he was a man of God. In verse 10, she and her husband made a special room for him. She just decided to do this by herself, but she respected the things of God. This is like many of the people here. You have made a room for God in your life. One day Elisha called this woman, and he said, “What can I do for you?” And she said, “I don’t really need anything.” The servant said, “Well, she has no son.” So, Elisha said, “By this time next year you’ll have a son.” She said, “Don’t joke with me about that.” But sure enough a son was born. When we become a Christian, God does something very special, more than we expect. You don’t become a Christian because you want big money – you become a Christian because you want to follow God. But God gave her this son. The son got bigger and bigger, and one day he went out with his father during harvest time, and he got sick and died. I guess he got sunstroke. Verse 19 – the father said take the son home, and verse 20, at noontime he died. This is a very sad story. But here we have another example of recovery. She asked her husband for a donkey – without telling him anything – it was too deep of a sorrow. Some of you are carrying pretty deep sorrows. You really can’t tell it to people. And God wants to heal that. Let’s look at verse 27. She came to him, and she caught him by his feet. Like she was bowing down at his feet. His servant was going to push her away and Elisha stopped her – he said, “No, no, no. Leaver her alone. She’s grieving.” Now may people here today who are grieving. And other people can’t understand you, and they say, “Get over it. Have some faith.” But Elisha knew she was grieving. Verse 30 – she said, “I’m not going to leave you.” Elisha rose up and followed her. Gehazi went ahead, and he couldn’t resurrect the boy. But Elisha stretched out on the boy, eye-to-eye, mouth-to-mouth, and the child came alive.
This is the second kind of recovery. God wants you to hang onto Him. Just hang onto his feet. Just lay there. “Lord, I need you to do this.” She didn’t know how he was going to do it, but God’s going to bring it back. God wants to bring that back for you. This is really wonderful. Lord, there may people here with real grief. Help them. Help them grab onto the feet of Jesus. Reach out and grab the feet of Jesus. Say, “Lord, I need you to restore this, and thank you Lord that somehow you will do it.” Lord thank you that you’re here right now, and there are some people who are really hanging on. And they’re not doing it for themselves; they’re doing it for their family. And Lord, thank you for the story of Elisha – he laid down on the boy. Lord, you can cover this situation. Come and cover this situation. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen
- Now we have one more to go. Turn to chapter 8:1-6. This is about that same woman. This is many years later after her son is restored. Elisha spoke to her and he said, “There’s going to be a famine, so you better move to another country. It will be here for seven years.” Verse 2 – she went to another country and lived there for seven years. In verse 3 – again, after seven years she came back. Seven, as you know – is the perfect number. It also represents a full cycle. Seven days in a week, and then the new week starts. So she was in this cycle of famine. I really feel that this number is very significant for all of us in this church. That’s there’s a certain cycle we’ve finished, and we’re entering into a new one. What year did we enter into this building? 2000. Seven years ago. Our first Sunday here was the first Sunday in April. We’ve had a cycle. It’s been a great seven years in some ways. But in some ways it’s been a little bit challenging. “Challenging” is a polite way of saying “difficult.” There have been difficulties, but we followed God. God is saying we’re in a new cycle. Turn to the person next to and say, “new cycle.”
Verse 3 – she came back and she went to the king and said, “Can I have my house and my land back?” On her way to do this, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of Elisha. And he was telling the king about the miracles surrounding this woman – he was given miraculously, and resurrected. Right at that time he was telling the king this, the woman came in to talk to the king. It seemed random, but of course it wasn’t by accident. Gehazi said, “Oh, this is the woman I was talking about.” She said, “King, can I have my land back?” Look at verse 6. “Restore all that was hers. All the proceeds of the field from the day she left the land until now.” It wasn’t just “restore back so you can start again,” but all that when she wasn’t there, you can have. Seven years of harvest, you can have it. That’s pretty great. How much faith do you have right now? Do you feel like you lost some harvest the last seven years? Do you feel like there was harvest that was there, but somehow just didn’t come in? God says, “I want you to have it back.”
God says, “The harvest that should have come in the last seven years will come in.” You heard that, right? You asked me if I had faith, I said I did, and I said it. I declare to you that whatever harvest was lost the last seven years, this year will come in. This year will come in.
Let’s finish this up. If you want to get back what you should get back, there are four simple steps, and I’ve said them many times.
- You have to know that this is what God wants to do. You have to know that this is a year of restoration.
- Declare that this the year of restoration. Declare it for everybody. Declare it, not just for yourself, but for the whole body of Christ, “Hey, this is the year of restoration.” Are you ready for bigger things than that?
The whole church of Japan has been in a downhill slide since 2000. The harvest has not been there. We need to declare to the church of Japan that this is the beginning of harvest. That lost harvest, God is restoring it.
- Pray, “Lord, open my eyes to see.” To see what you’ve lost. To see what God has already brought back.
- You need to ask. When you notice – this was lost, this was taken away, you have to ask for it back. This woman went and asked, both times. She cried out to God for a great miracle, and she got it. It was such a deep deep thing. But for most of us it’s going to be like chapter 8 – asking for land back. She went before the king and said, “Can I have it back?” And he said, “Here it is.” You have to ask. Be thankful and joyful that God is bringing it back.
Amen.
|
