Mike Bickle discusses the primary and secondary causes of national crises, emphasizing that in the generation of the Lord's return, every nation will face significant crises alongside a spirit of revival. He highlights the importance of understanding God's role in judgment, asserting that while crises may stem from various sources, God's zeal for relationship with His people is the primary cause. Bickle warns against the tendency to attribute crises solely to natural disasters or human actions, urging believers to seek God's favor through repentance and alignment with His will. He stresses that the church must not shy away from discussing God's judgments, as they are expressions of His love and desire for restoration. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a collective response from God's people to turn back to Him in humility and faith.

It's number four. Sometimes we'll do two or three, I mean two session notes in one class, so that's why the numbers won't exactly correspond. It's our third class, but it's session notes four. Father, we ask you in the name of Jesus for revelation of your heart as the Bridegroom, King, and Judge. I ask you, Jesus, to reveal your heart to us that we could live in agreement with you, that we could honor you and love you by agreeing with what you say and what your word says about you. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. In this session, we're looking at the primary and secondary causes of a national crisis, and the reason that is so relevant is that in the generation the Lord returns, the whole earth is going, every nation of the earth will experience a very significant national crisis. There will also be a spirit of revival happening in every nation of the earth too. It'll be the most unique time in history where a great revival and a great crisis will be happening in every single nation of the earth. And the accumulated impact of every nation with both, the greatest revival and the greatest crisis in every nation at the same time. Now that's what we mean by the unique dynamics of the generation the Lord returns. And that's why the Lord's raising up forerunners to help people make sense of it ahead of time and then help people process it during it as well. That's what forerunners are about. And the book of Joel is a mini book of Revelation, three chapters, yet many of the primary themes from Old and New Testament related to the end time events are in the book of Joel in this little mini apocalypse. So this mini book of Revelation. Well we're going to start here with the session of verse 15 with this key verse and we'll begin soon to get into the verse by verse. Matter of fact it will be the next class we'll get into the verse by verse. We'll start it and then we'll go to the rest of the classes we'll be going verse by verse through it. But this is one more class still giving an overview of the book. We start in Joel chapter 1 verse 15 in the most offensive doctrine in the Bible. Here it is. Joel chapter 1 verse 15. For the day of the Lord is at hand. And here, here's the offensive doctrine. It shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. The most offensive doctrine in the Bible is the fact that God judges. That God claims to have the right to set the absolutes and then the right to determine when and how he confronts that which refuses the absolutes. The church is as troubled by the judgment of God often as the world is. The temporal judgments of God, those are the judgments he releases before the second coming. And then the eternal judgments of God are even more offensive. And of course the role of the forerunner is to help make sense of the reality that Jesus is bridegroom, king, and judge with no contradiction. As a bridegroom he has great desire for his people. As a king he has all power. And as a judge he confronts that which opposes love. So bridegroom, king, and judge, he never suspends one attribute to exercise another. But in the full unity of his heart he expresses himself as a bridegroom, king, and judge with no contradiction at all. And that is a, that is a dilemma to the unrenewed mind. That is a dilemma to the mind without revelation. How a bridegroom with love can function as a judge with zeal to confront that which is against love while he manifests his power as king. Paragraph A. Many in Israel, this is in Joel's day, were very troubled at the crisis that was happening. But they were more troubled at Joel's interpretation of the crisis. Now the crisis, there was a locust plague. Then drought. Then raging fire. Because when the drought happened, the dryness, the lightning would strike, and brush fires would start, etc. Then famine brought on to starvation. And I mean the, the land was in crisis. I mean it was an economic, it was an agricultural crisis, it was a political crisis. Undoubtedly there was civic issues and tensions because of the food and the money. And then Joel comes on the scene and says, it came from God. And they looked at Joel and they undoubtedly were so angry. There's no record that gives, that tells us what they said, but just knowing the human condition. The reason this is important for us to study this book and grasp it because the end time forerunner messenger calling, it will be offensive just like it was in the days of old. It will be very offensive to see the crisis and then to attribute the hand of God as having something to do with the crisis. As we'll see in a moment, God isn't fully responsible for the crisis, but he has a role in the crisis that unfolds in the generations. A very significant role. I don't want to minimize his role, but neither do I want to set it into context. It's not biblical because as we're going to say in a minute, which we'll probably say over and over, the four different contributing factors to a crisis in a nation. And we'll look at that in a few moments. Paragraph B. God does not apologize for his judgments. Matter of fact, he boldly takes responsibility. He says, it's me. And then his servants go, it's not God, it's not God. God says, it's me. Then his prophets go, it's not God, it's not God. God says, tell him it's me. He repeats it over and over in the scripture. And he's not pleased, I have in paragraph B, when his servants yield to the spirit of the fear of man. Because it is the spirit of the fear of man. Sometimes it's just plain lacking knowledge of the Bible, but more times than not, when it's those that are of national platform ministries, it's the spirit of the fear of man. Because it's politically incorrect to talk about God's judgments. Nobody likes the subject. And your ratings in the polls will go way down if you agree with God. Jeremiah 23, I don't have this verse on the notes. I'll give you several verses in these classes that I don't have on the notes, and you can write them down, look them up later. Jeremiah 23, the classic chapter, and Ezekiel 13, put the two together, Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 13, describing the false prophets. And in our context we'd call it the spirit of a false prophet, because a person can be a genuine believer, but still operate in the spirit of a false prophet. I don't mean they're not bored again. I don't mean they're not sincere. I don't mean they don't have fruit in their ministry. But they still operate in part in the spirit of a false prophet. They're not a false prophet per se, because that's a little higher level, but they operate in that spirit. They operate in that attitude. And here's what the false prophet said. Jeremiah 23, verse 17. I'll just hit it real precise. He says, the false prophets say, peace, peace, good, good, everything's great, don't worry. And the Lord says, it's not the truth. It's just not the truth. But my prophets in my name are telling everybody, and the people are applauding, and nobody's preparing. That's in Jeremiah 23, 17. That's a classic verse. Then in chapter 23 again, which is the main chapter in the whole Bible on the false prophets, Jeremiah 23, and of course Ezekiel 13. Those are two gotta know chapters for forerunners. Because they challenge us to hold the standard and be faithful to truth. Then in Jeremiah 23 again, verse 22, he said this. If you would have told the truth to my people, you would have turned many of them from their sin, but you flattered them. So you could gain the benefit of their approval, and they didn't turn from sin. So now the judgment will not be minimized. He said, if you would have told the truth, you would have turned some of them. Ezekiel 13 says the same thing. Ezekiel 13, the passage, the verse that strikes me is verse 10. He says, you say, peace, peace. You're seducing my people. Everything's good. Everything's good. Yes, a spirit of revival is coming. Yes, we are going to have some significant advancements in the kingdom, even in its impact on society. There will be places and spheres of society where great advancements and increase will come, but there will be great calamity at the same time in other places of society. He said in Ezekiel 13, verse 10, if you tell them it's only good, you are seducing my people. You're seducing them. And then in verse 22 of Ezekiel 13, again, these are the classic verses. The chapters are classic. He says in verse 22, my prophets lie. They tell lies to my people and they're not turning my people. Matter of fact, it says in that verse, they strengthen the heart of my people to do wickedness. And I wanted them to convince my people to repent. But they're strengthening wickedness by their lies. That peace, peace. Now the good news is there is an element of breakthrough coming, but it's not the whole truth. And heresy and error is not just blatant falsehood, but it's a distortion of truth, significant distortion of truth. Heresy and deception are half truths. Half of it's true. And the devil's way is almost always a half truth. Yes, there is peace if peace means breakthrough. A breakthrough is coming. But not only a breakthrough. It's not the whole truth. It's a half truth. And it seduces the people of God. And it keeps them from turning from sin into wholeheartedness. And it tells its lies. So, God's not pleased when His messengers will not agree with Him. God is not embarrassed about His judgments. We are, but He isn't. Honestly, we're embarrassed by them. He's not. We like, the judgment of God is kind of like, you know, the friends come over and we want to talk about the love of God, the love of God, which we do. That's our primary message as a matter of fact. Because the judgment of God is actually an expression of the love of God. He's confronting the things that hinder love. That's what it's about. It's not an opposite of the love of God. It's a, it's an expression of the love of God, so that love increases. So we like to tell everybody about the love of God, which we should. That is our primary message. That's the goal. That's the eternal, that's the eternal relationship with God, is the ocean of His love. But it's like the neighbors come over and, and the, you know, that one, you know, family member that's acting unruly. Let's just tuck him in the back room, you know. Let's not let the family member see this part of God. I mean, the neighbors see this part of God. You know, he's the drunken uncle that came over. Let's put him in the back room and put him to sleep for an afternoon and invite the neighbors over. We don't have to hide Jesus in the corner. He's not embarrassed about His judgments. We are, but He's not. He's bold about them. Because to Him, they're love. They're no contradiction in Him. It's only the mind without understanding, which is, you know, again, you could be very sincere, but lack understanding on this. And everybody lacks understanding on this to some degree, because it says in Psalm 36, God's judgments are like the deep. They're like the ocean. There's layers and layers of complexity to all the reasons and the levels of what He's doing in His judgments. I mean, nobody grasps all the judgments of God. Paragraph C. People like to interpret the crisis simply as an natural disaster. You know, when trouble comes, it's only a natural disaster. There lacks a spirit of revelation. There's more going on than a natural disaster. Job prophesied, it's not only is this from God, the agricultural crisis, but a military crisis is coming around the corner. It probably didn't come for a couple decades, but in the economy of God, that was a minute later. I mean, we don't know how long it was from, Joel said, the military crisis of Joel 2, the Babylonian invasion. We don't know if it was a few years or even a decade or two. All I know is that when the crisis came, it came in three waves over 20 years. So when the Lord says, I'm about to visit, and it's trouble, it doesn't necessarily mean next month, but to God, it's in a minute. Just in a minute, I'm going to visit, so be warned. Another verse I'll add to the notes, Amos 3, 7. God says, He does nothing unless He tells His servants, the prophets. One of the key requirements of us declaring a natural catastrophe or disaster or a crisis in a nation, one of the keys to declaring it as a judgment of God is that it was told in advance by prophets. It was told in advance with clarity. Amos 3, 7, God says, I won't do anything unless I tell the prophets first. And He means I won't do anything of prophetic significance, of salvific or salvation implications. I won't do anything of salvific importance in my salvation history unless I tell the prophets. I mean, key things might happen in the nation, but if it relates to the unfolding of the salvation history of God, He goes, I will tell the prophets. And if God tells the prophets ahead of time, and then it happens in a specific way, we are mandated to stand in agreement with God. Now there's many times, undoubtedly, God releases His judgment, but He doesn't tell us in advance. So on that, we take a step back in where we, we can see God's hand in it, but we can't say with clarity, it was the Lord. We say we know God's character enough, it's the sort of thing that in history He has done, but we have to be silent where God has not given us a testimony by the prophets ahead of time. I'm talking about contemporary prophetic voices, warning about catastrophes ahead of time. And so, there are negative things happen, and people ask me, what do you think? I said, I don't know for sure. It looks like a judgment of God. My assumption is it is, but I can't be bold about it because I don't know, Amos 3, 7, what the prophetic word that came a couple of years in advance, or it doesn't have to be a few years, that gave warning of it. Why does God tell us in advance? Paragraph C, He wanted Israel to know that just as the locust invasion was more than a natural disaster, so the military invasion is more than just a political power play. Yes, there are political power plays, and nations get invaded. But God is involved in some of these invasions. It's more than a political power play. He's judging or disciplining the nation to wake them up in love, because He loves them. Let's go down to paragraph E. Now it says, notice the word, it's a destruction from God Almighty. The word Almighty, it's the name El Shaddai. Many of you are familiar with that, the all-sufficient God. It's the God who provides the covenant blessings that He promised. And what, the reason Joe uses this name, I believe, he's saying God didn't forget the covenant blessings. He's God El Shaddai. He's the Almighty. He has power to uphold the covenant. Matter of fact, it's the covenant God that's taking away covenant protection in order to wake you up to the covenant, because He's so jealous for the covenant. Let's go to the top of page 40. F, when the Lord identifies a national crisis as a day of the Lord judgment, like in the scripture there's a number of crises. There's not so many, but there are a hundred references to the day of the Lord. But in the scripture, when it's identified as a day of the Lord crisis, God is saying, I am the primary source of that crisis. I want you to know that. And the reason we have several examples in history is so that now that the Bible's written, Old and New Testament, for the last 2,000 years, we can look at the canonized examples of God's judgments. And now that the whole canon of scripture is in place, the last 2,000 years, there's not new scripture talking about, you know, events throughout the last 2,000 years. But we read the canonized examples, and that gives us insight and a framework to understand the contemporary situations. Like, for instance, World War II, the greatest tragedy in terms of scope of murder, of human death, 50 million people in six years. That was one of the greatest judgments of God. Nowhere in the Bible does it call it a judgment of God. But we look back at similar situations of far less scope, of course. No, nothing like 50 million people have died in six years in a military exchange like this. And so we look back at the examples of, of, of the day of the Lord examples, and we go, ah, this is the model. This is a framework that we can now interpret contemporary events in our day and in our time. Now, what God's saying is that, paragraph F, is that the locust plague, the Babylonian invasion, is not Israel's greatest problem. I mean, if you've got a locust plague, it's a problem. Because you've got the famine and the economic crisis. That's not their biggest problem. Even the invasion of a hostile army. Israel's biggest problem, as long as they stayed in sin, was God. Their problem was God, not Babylon. They got right with God, Babylon would be taken care of. All the other sources of their problems, the other sources are secondary sources. The primary source is God. And again, this is the hugest point of offense. To believers and unbelievers, it's God's zeal for love. That is the, the number one source of these plagues in Joel chapter 1 and Joel chapter 2. Paragraph G. God called the locust invasion, in Joel 2.25, my army. He said, I, He, I, He said the locust, He goes, that's my army. They go, your army? We stood up in the name of Jesus and bound it. You can't bind Jesus in the name of Jesus. You can repent, cry out for mercy, and get His favor in the name of Jesus, but you can't bind Jesus in the name of Jesus. And that's what ends up the dilemma many are in when the Lord is the primary source, not the only source, but the primary source. We have believers binding Jesus in the name of Jesus without knowing it, and they're just in confusion, and there is no answer. Because the answer is God's favor. And God's favor, He gives in Christ, but He gives it in Christ, and the spirit of being in Christ is that we live in agreement with God. That we're in Christ, it is a free gift, but that free gift, when properly received and understood, motivates us to live in agreement with God's heart, then all is well. But it's when people are in Christ, they're not motivated to live in agreement with God, and God says, you need my favor on the land. Believers and unbelievers alike, you need my favor on the nation, the region, the continent. And you need me to break in with favor. That's what you need. And I will give favor when my relationship with me is honored by my people in those geographic areas. Paragraph H. God wants His people to know He's the one acting. The people don't know that God is the primary source behind various crises. Not every crisis, but various ones. They won't respond in the right way. If they only think it's the devil, they rebuke the devil. But if it's God, and they're rebuking the devil, they're trying to bind Jesus in Jesus' name. It's confusing. It doesn't move, it doesn't change anything. If it's only the devil, then their approach to the problem is only to rebuke the devil. Have prayer meetings to rebuke the devil, and that is part of the solution. That's not the whole solution, if God's part of the crisis. If it's only evil men, if what happened in, you know, in a terrorist attack is only evil men, then we get better security strategies. We guard the nation better, and that is a right thing to do, by the way. But if it's only evil men, we get better security. If it's only the devil, we get prayer meetings that focus on the devil. But if it's God, if He's involved as well, then we have to search ourself as the people of God, and line up with God, and therein is the primary answer. You don't do that if God is not in the equation. And you're thinking, if God never judges, as some think, then there's no thought of searching ourself in terms of where our relationship with God is. They're searching for answers in the prophetic realm as to what the devil's strategy is, or they're searching for better security methods, or better economic methods, where they ought to be searching out their relationship with God. They don't focus on the right area, if they don't have a paradigm that God's involved in it. So it really matters. Paragraph J. God fights against His enemies, and God's main enemy is sin. Look at this, Isaiah 63, 10. This is intense. They rebelled. They grieved His spirit. It's talking about the children of Israel, the covenant people. So He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them. God says, I became their enemy. The truth is, I mean, I mean the whole story, if you're going to interpret it right, Israel put themselves in an adversarial position by resisting God. God loves them. God wants to relate to them. They say no. They put themselves in an adversarial position that says God became an enemy. And that doesn't mean that God had an intrinsic animosity towards them. That's not what He means. Isaiah means God became an enemy of their purposes as a nation that they had that did not have God in the center of it. He says, I don't dislike the individuals, but a nation that I have called like this, that will not put me in the center. I become the enemy of their national purposes and their national agenda. I'm the one resisting them to wake them up because I love them so much. A verse you can add to the notes, Revelation 2, 16. Jesus appears to the church, I mean to John when He's speaking the message to the church of Pergamos. He says, tell them, the church, I, the Lord, will fight against them. I love them, but I will fight against them. I will contend with them to wake them up if they don't repent of their immorality. I love them enough to fight against them. They're putting themselves in an adversarial relationship to me and I love them too much to walk away. I, the Lord, Jesus, new covenant, after the resurrection, I will fight them because I won't let them go on without contending for their heart. I'm coming after them. Paragraph K, God's role in judgment is so controversial. You have to know that. If you're saying yes, or even the early stages of saying yes, to the forerunner calling, the messenger calling, the, the message is bridegroom, king and judge, Jesus, bridegroom, king and judge, the unique dynamics of the generation of the Lord return, the great revival, but also the great trouble. But of that message, the heavy burden is the judgment part of it. Jesus, the bridegroom, a few people say bah humbug. Jesus, the king with power, most everybody applauds that. Because they imagine the power making their life better. So they're thinking, hey, cool. But Jesus, the one who confronts with zeal, I don't know. If I agree with that, then my, my, uh, popularity will go down. A preacher's popularity will go down on earth. But God in heaven is in, has pleasure that we agree with him. We're not embarrassed by him. We take our stand for who he is, what the scripture says. Now here's what we can be sure of, the end of paragraph K. God will use the least severe means to reach the greatest number of people at the deepest level of love. There it is. That's another phrase, uh, sentence, uh, I say over and over through the years. He will use the least severe. If there's a crisis in the nation and it looks severe, God says that was as least severe as I could do, as I could do to still get the, the impact. To win the largest number at the deepest level of love. And I don't, I will not violate their free will. I won't make them say yes. I will make them stop and pay attention and ask questions, but I won't make them say yes. I could get them in a corner where they have to think on it. Beloved, you don't want to get in a corner where you are forced to think on it. God won't force you to say yes, but he will force even his people to think on things. Gives them a little time out. He distracts them from their personal agenda by another agenda so they have to think it through because he loves us so much. Roman Emerald two, here's the four factors. Again, we'll mention these over and over. Now the, the question always comes, these four factors, God's zeal. Let's just look at them. They overlap by the way in a national crisis. God's zeal, Satan's rage, man's sin, creation's groan. Four things. They overlap many times. Not always, but many times. Now it's hard to discern the percentage of the overlap. Four factors. Is it 25% each one? No, it doesn't work that way. In one situation, it's more demonic attack and less the judgment of God. In another situation, it's more the judgment of God, less the demonic attack. We don't know, but often all four of them are present. And somebody may say, give me the breakdown. What percent is God? You can't. But the real issue is that if we turn with all of our heart, that's the, the, the one response works for every single one of those four problems. Turning to God and getting in the place of his favor is the response, the successful response to whichever one of those four are contributing or whatever the percentage of the way they interact, the way they come together. Crying out, Joel 2 verse 12 to 14, that is always the answer. So we don't have to know. Somebody says, Katrina, was it mostly God or mostly the devil? I says, I don't know. I didn't hear a prophecy ahead of time that God was going to judge that city. So I don't know that it was God's judgment in terms of a, a, a clear prophecy ahead of time. But it certainly looks like it to me. And my assumption is the judgment of God was in it. Very strong assumption, by the way. Was it mostly the judgment of God or mostly the rage of Satan or mostly the creation's grown? I don't know. And I don't want to go past the point of understanding in Revelation. We need to be silent when we simply don't know. On some occasions, we will have great clarity. Other occasions, a very similar crisis, we won't have clarity because every situation will have its own unique makeup of what was behind it. We have to be people of the spirit, of, of spiritual revelation before we can have boldness. Some people are so excited about the judgment message, they just want to say, judge, judge, judge, because they want to get out there and kind of make a name for themselves and make a big splash in the water and have everybody go, all right, get a lot of attention. And, and that's not the goal. The goal's not to show how bold and strong we are. The goal is to be in agreement with God. And normally that real kind of overzealous, bold approach only works for a few years and then people go, whoa, this is way too heavy. I think we better back up and try another approach. But over the years, I've seen a few guys kind of break out there and get real excited about judgment, and they're going to be fearless, and they're the one guy that won't ever back down, and everything is judgment. You know, high on zeal, low on discernment, and low on impact, and low on longevity as well. They kind of die out after two or three years. They go, whoa, that was a bad decision. Okay. And again, this isn't bravado stuff, you know, to show that we're not afraid. We don't fear man. We don't care what man says. We, but that's not it. We want to be faithful witnesses of his glorious heart and his brilliant mind. His heart is filled with love. His mind is so brilliant. And his muscles, his power is amazing. And we want to be witnesses to that. We don't want to be witnesses to how bold we are, and we're not afraid of somebody. So watch. Watch this one. That's, that's not it. That's just the flesh. Paragraph B. God's zeal. Zeal for relationship. He disciplines his people because he wants relationship with them. It's a relational reality. It's a relational problem. But it's not just God's judgment isn't only relational for his people. In that sense, he also judges to deliver the oppressed. That's relational as well. But, I mean, sometimes it's to wake up the redeemed so they walk in love. Another time, it's to deliver the oppressed. Those are two different facets of why he breaks in with judgment. Because it's not always to wake people up. Only many times it is to deliver the oppressed. And often they overlap together, even while the devil's rage is involved as well. Tell up at page 41. The second factor is Satan's rage. And I have the verse there in Revelation 12, verse 12. You can read on your own that, in the generation the Lord returns, in those final years before the Lord returns, Revelation 12, 12, Satan will have great rage. It says wrath. You could put the word rage or anger. Because he has a short time. And that specifically is the last three and a half years. He will have so much anger and rage. And that rage he has now. But that rage really is going to intensify. God allows Satan to vent his fury. More than any other time in history in those final years relating to the Lord's return. But that fury is already building. God in His sovereignty, He sets the boundaries of which Satan can operate. Satan doesn't have a free reign. But God gives him the boundaries. It says, within these boundaries you can vent your rage. And inasmuch as my people walk in agreement to me, you will be restrained and hindered. So even though He gives the enemy boundaries, He tells His people, you can contest those boundaries by the authority you have individually. But especially collectively, you can resist and restrain the activity and rage of Satan in different geographic areas. So there's many levels going on all at one time. Paragraph D. The third factor is man's sin. People really do violent acts. People with a free will. They really do wrong things. And God puts so much dignity on the free will of man, the free will of man. He puts so much dignity that He literally lets people act. Again there are certain boundaries, but they really get to act out their love or their hatred. People can really live in immorality if they want. He says, I will let you. It won't go good for you. I will not stop you. I can get you in a corner and hand you in for a while and make you think about it. But I will not make you say no to it. It's your choice. And those choices of violence or immorality or covetousness, they really do affect other people in a world in which God gives every human being a free will. It's a real battle zone down here. It's real. It's not a practice game. It's not just poetry. The battle's real. And men and women have real free wills. And I have here, paragraph E, that the man's free will is the legal entry point into the created, into the natural realm of angels and demons. Meaning, you get a human being in this age, down on the earth, they choose righteousness in the name of Jesus. It opens up doors for more angelic activity. They choose sin, even as believers. It opens up doors for more demonic activity to touch their world and that which they influence. Our decisions are real. Very, very real. The consequences are real. You, by choosing righteousness, you don't feel good about it. You feel left out and bummed out and feel bad, but you still choose righteousness. I tell you, you are opening up legal points of entry for angelic ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, no matter how bad a mood you're in and what it feels like. When you choose, you choose. It's a legal action. And it opens the door for blessing. You can feel bad all the way in it. I mean, I've made choices for righteousness, and it sure didn't feel very anointed. They don't have to feel anointed at the hour, because it's a legal access point for the realm of God's glory to touch my life and those I impact, or your life and those you impact. Same with demonic. A believer can choose the wrong stuff, and demons are involved more, and they really impact their friends and family. They really do. It's real. F, the fourth contributing factor, Romans 8, is creation's grown. Look at this. Creation itself will be delivered. Did you know creation needs a deliverance? The created order will be delivered one day. The cross has already paid the price. It's already been purchased, but the created order still needs deliverance. The full manifestation of the deliverance is yet future, though the price has been paid, and the title deed is in the hands of the Lamb with the seven scrolls. I mean, the scroll with the seven seals in his hand. The title deed is in Jesus' hand. Creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the children of God. Here it is. We know that the whole created order, it's the land, the atmosphere, the sea, the whole created order groans. The whole created order labors until now, and the groan and the laboring of the created order is weather patterns and storms and volcanoes and earthquakes. It's the earth saying, we don't like that the human race brought sin onto the planet because we are under their authority. We don't like this, because God gave the earth under Adam's dominion, and then Adam opened the doors to Satan, so the earth was impacted. And so there's trouble everywhere across the earth, and the trouble is bigger than any one individual at any one place. When the weather or the earthquake or the hurricane, it affects the righteous and the unrighteous. We have a connectedness that many people don't have understanding that there's there's a connectedness we have to each other as humans, to each other in geographic areas, to each other in this time for this generation. We are connected more than we think by our actions, so it's not a hundred percent if you do good, no earthquake will ever hit you. So the earthquake will hit, it will only hit the house next to you and the house on the other side, but your house will kind of stand in midair and just be completely safe. Doesn't exactly work that way, because we're connected together in a fallen world, and part of this is that when the other guys aren't pressing into God, it is going to impact your life. It's true, we are connected. The body of Christ does not wake up, the body of Christ as a whole feels the backlash of it. And so it's, it's those that understand what's happening, part of their task is to wake up the others, because together we make a greater impact, not just more people get saved, I'm talking about more safety and creation itself in our geographic areas receives the impact of it. It's, again, it's, it's a vast subject, it's a glorious subject, but when Adam sinned, a curse came on the ground, and the more man sins, the curse escalates in its manifest impact on the, on the land. Look here in Matthew 20, I mean Isaiah 24, Isaiah 24 verses 5 and 6, this is talking about the generation the Lord returns, the generation the Lord returns. The earth is defiled under its inhabitants, the, the land, the sea, the atmosphere are defiled under the sins of the people who live in those geographic areas, because they sin. Therefore, the curse devours more and more of the earth, and the curse devours regions of the earth more than other regions of the earth related to the sin in those geographic areas. And it's not just if your neighborhood does good, you're great, and if your neighborhood does bad, you're in trouble, it's bigger than that. There's a mysterious connectedness of the human family to one another and even to the geography. But the Lord says, you cry out for my favor, it will make a big difference. You say, okay, what's the, what's the critical mass? What's the turning point? If we get a thousand, are we all safe or mostly safe? Or is it two thousand? What's the number? And the Lord never gives that number. He says, you just keep getting more people on board. Come on, Lord, tell us, what's the number? How many intercessors do we get? It's not how many people we get at the one meeting, that's not exactly it. It's how many people in geographic areas and nations will say yes to God and line up with it. Is it 1% of the people? Two? Three? What's the number? And the Lord's answer typically is, I'm not telling you. You press in and you get others to, and you leave it to me because I'm a wise and loving God, but it does matter if the others press in. We are impacted by the rest of the response of the body of Christ. We don't need the whole body of Christ to respond right, but there is a, I don't know the number, the percentage, but there is a place in the wisdom and the government of God where more protection happens when His people collectively respond together. Well, I wish it was just me and my situation. The Lord says, no, I'm a father. I have a family. My family's one to me. I care about my family. Go wake up your brother. You are your brother's keeper, meaning the verse in Genesis 4. We have responsibility to help wake up our brother, and it actually impacts us if they wake up. And if they don't wake up, it actually impacts us. Always? Not always. Most of the time? Not sure. How much of a time? Don't know. Ah! What's the answer? Wake up your brother. How much? As much as you got strength. Wake him up. Well, I wish I knew the day and the hour was coming, how many people had to wake up, and where. It doesn't work that way. He goes, no, I'm gonna leave those things just undefined. You come after me, and you will be glad. You'll never regret coming after me hard and waking up people. Just trust me. Anyway, you could read the rest of Isaiah 24. It's pretty intense. It's talking about the end of the age where few men are left at the end of verse 6. They're talking about a death toll across the nations that's unprecedented. Top of page 42. J. Well, how do we respond? First, to these four contributing factors to a national crisis. We receive God's correction with humility. We say yes to God. We agree with Him. We resist the devil. In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. We repent of sin. And then I could add there's a human dimension of making precautions, meaning a nation when terrorist attacks happen, they do put security measures in place. That's legitimate. There are natural things to do. There are precautions that we take. Someone asked the other day, if a big weather storm is coming, do you get provisions? Do you get some extra water and stuff? Yeah, just book of Proverbs wisdom. There are things we can do that are precautions because we see man sitting where we get locks on our doors. We take measures, but that's not going to get us all the way there. Those human practical measures are important, but we repent of our sin. We rebuke the devil and we submit to God. But we don't want to get those out of order. We don't want to be rebuking the devil when God says wrong conversation right now. You should be talking to me about you, not to the devil about the problem. You need to be talking to me about you right now and about my people. And again, I typically believe they all go together. Typically, I can't say every time, but I just assume the whole set of responses, they, it's a good approach just to assume all these responses we take hold of in our life together. Paragraph K. Jesus is the primary actor, the primary cause of the judgments in the book of Revelation. It's the lamb. It's Jesus who opens the seals for the great day of wrath. L. It's not the devil breaking the seven seals. It's Jesus. He's revealing himself as the lamb. The judge in the book of Revelation is a lamb. He is as meek and filled with love as a lamb. That's why he's a judge, because he cares about love. M. God says that there's so many verses. We don't hear them often, but there's so many verses where God takes full responsibility for his judgments. Again, he's not ashamed of them. We are ashamed of them, but he's not. Says Isaiah 45, I make peace and I create calamity. Now, that's not a completely balanced statement. I mean, there's other places in Scripture where he attributes calamity to the devil and to man's sin as well. Evil men doing evil things hurt people. They really do. Exercising their free will in the wrong way. But God says, I create calamity. It is part of what I do. Amos 3 verse 6, if there's calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? There's so many verses in the Bible about this. We get real shy about it because it's politically incorrect on steroids. I mean, it's politically incorrect. Well, what about the New Testament Jesus? Well, the New Testament Jesus has zero contradiction to the Old Testament God. He's the exact same God. There is no contradiction. That's all an argument in men's minds to present their argument so they can dismiss the judgments of God. The idea that God's different, that somewhere God changed, the God who changes not change somehow? Absolutely not. He was a God of perfect love in the Old Testament, a God of perfect love in the New, a God of justice in the Old, a God of justice in the exact same God. We don't have a new God. He didn't change his personality. He didn't go through a 12-step program. He's exactly the same God. There's nothing renewed in him. He doesn't need it. I'll just give you a couple, the Jesus of the New Testament. Luke, I'll just give you a couple verses that I have on the notes. Luke 2, verse 34, Simeon said about the baby prophesied, he will be destined for the fall of many. The New Testament Jesus, he will be destined for the fall of many. Because of him and the response of the people to him, many will fall. That's negative. Luke chapter 19, verse 43 and 44, Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This is the New Testament Jesus prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, just like the destruction in Joel chapter 2 of Jerusalem. It's the New Testament Jesus prophesying it. Luke 12, verse 49 and 51, Jesus said, I came to send fire. I didn't come to bring peace. I came to bring division. Now, of course, he came to bring peace. He's the Prince of Peace. But he doesn't give the full counsel of his will in every passage. He emphasizes different facets. We bring the whole counsel of Scripture together to get the whole picture. He says in Luke 12, 49, I came to bring fire. Fire's bad. I mean, it's trouble. Fire is not good fire, what he's talking about here. He's talking about fire on the earth. It was just in Luke 9, where James and John went to call fire down from heaven. He said, you got a wrong spirit because your motive was wrong and your reason was wrong. But here in Luke 12, he goes, I will call fire down at the appropriate time. Fire is on my agenda. Well, we know that in Acts chapter 2. You know the verse about the wine of the Spirit? Well, he said, blood, fire, and smoke are the primary signs of the end-time move of God. Blood, fire, smoke. Well, fire of the Holy Spirit, honest in the prayer meetings. I think the smoke means cities burning smoke. Yes, I go for fire in the meetings too. But that fire means more than filling the power on our hearts in a meeting, though it does mean that because right there in Acts 2, the fire of God came on them. But Jesus did not limit it to fire imparting something to our hearts. Smoke is in cities when that fire hits. And this is the Jesus of the new covenant. He said, I came to bring division. Aren't you the prince of peace? Yeah, but I've got to bring division in order to establish lasting peace. I got to make men decide, and then when they've decided, I will bring peace among those who line up with me. Of course, the big one is Revelation 19. We looked at it last week, verse 19 to 21. Revelation 19, where all the kings of the earth come to one geographic area, Jerusalem, and he kills all of them. Like, whoa, we're talking about the Jesus of the New Testament. He kills them all. Jesus. The Jesus of Christmas is the same Jesus of Armageddon. He's the same exact man. It's true. The Jesus that brings goodwill to all men is the Jesus that confronts evil in the nations in order to bring goodwill to all men. Okay, we're going to bring this to an end. We've got a few more pages, but I'm just going to summarize the pages to you. Then we'll take our break. Come back with a little shorter session. Look here, Roman number three, the most terrifying problem for a nation, a nation that lives in sin, their biggest problem is not terrorists. Their biggest problem is God's zeal for relationship with them. I mean, if they don't want to repent, I'm talking about, if they repent, it's their greatest, it's their greatest asset. It's their greatest privilege. If they don't repent, and God's zeal will not back up, they are in a heap of trouble. They can get homeland security going. Beloved, the best, this is not funny. I mean, it might be funny, but this is a sincere, I mean, it's not a joke. The best homeland security for real is solemn assemblies. It's true to get God's favor on the land. It's not the only strategy, but it is the best one. The cheapest way to save a nation is to fund intercessors to cry out to God. That is far cheaper. That may cost a couple billion, but it won't cost a hundred billion. It's way cheaper and way easier and a whole lot more fun, but it is homeland security. It is real. It's not a joke. It's not the whole plan, but it should be at the front of the plan. Top of page 43, the first line of defense, the people of God. Meaning, it's not those old sinners in California or Missouri or Florida or anywhere. It's the body of Christ is who God's looking at. Yeah, He is looking at sin in society. He looks at sin in society amongst the unbelievers, but the thing that troubles Him most is the passivity of His covenant people to those sins and their participation in them. God says, you're in covenant with me. You're participating in the sins fully or in part in various ways, and you're passive. You're not concerned that they exist. You're not stirring up anybody to take a stand against them. You won't agree with me boldly for them. You won't cry out with me against them, and that's the number one trouble that God has. I mean, the number one point of responsibility in a land are the coveted people to break their participation, all their agreement, to take a stand against it tenderly. I don't mean with an angry spirit, but tenderly, but boldly, and to rally their resources to gather the people together because it takes time and energy to gather together to pray and fast. I mean, it's just a hassle in the flesh to do it. I don't just mean you're hungry. It takes money. It takes time, and if you take the time to go to the prayer thing, that's other things you can't be doing. You missed good opportunities because you drove over there to the prayer meeting. You know, it's all time consuming and costs a lot of money. The Lord says, I want my people lining up with me, not a little bit, fully in agreement with me, and if they do it, I will heal the land. I will give grace to those outside the community. But the problem in a nation is when the coveted people who understand God's heart, who have a relationship with Him, are passive or they're participating in the very things that the unbelievers are indulging in. And so, in this passage, God says, I want you to turn to me. The Joel 2, 12 to 13 passage. Look here in paragraph B. He said, with all your heart, turn to me. This is the heart of the judge right here. He's gracious. He's merciful. He's kind. He relents. The heart of the judge in the book of Joel is tender and kind. He wants relationship. He doesn't give up on us. He's fighting for us. That's why sometimes He's fighting us, because He's fighting for us. D. We often focus on secondary causes and not the primary one. A national crisis cannot be solved by solving, removing only the secondary causes. We could get better security. And we need to as a nation. We could get better economic systems. And we need to as a nation. Those are secondary causes. And we need to look at them, but not at the expense of denying the primary cause, which is our relationship to God. God doesn't look at a nation and say, you just aren't wise on your security plans. Therefore, you have trouble. Our problem is not our lack of wisdom. We have profound lack of wisdom. Humans do. God says, with my favor, I will make up a lot that you lack in wisdom. You get my favor upon cities and nations, etc. E. If we only focus on secondary causes, we only come up with secondary solutions. We can march on Washington. Good. Picket abortion clinics. That's good. I've done it many times. Call our senators. Write letters. These are good. They do make an impact. They're really right to do this. But they don't solve the primary dilemma. And that's God looking at a region. And first looking at his people. That's why we don't go to the unbelievers and point our fingers. You all immoral people. You get right with God. Says, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not exactly it. Get my people connected with me walking out the first commandment, standing in the gap in their covenant authority, crying out to me with mercy and meekness. For mercy, but in meekness. And I will do surprising things to get those little sinners. My focus is on us. I mean, we want to win the unbelievers. And we want to transform society. But the transformation, I want to focus on getting us lined up with the first commandments in our covenant role, crying out to release favor and mercy in that priestly, kingly position. And many things will happen in the land. And I believe great things are going to happen. Well, you can read the rest of this on your own. Amen.