Mike Bickle emphasizes the critical role of prayer and wholeheartedness in responding to global crises, drawing from Joel 2:12-17. He explains that God desires genuine repentance and intercession from His people, highlighting the dignity of free will and the impact of collective prayer on national and international events. Bickle encourages believers to gather in solemn assemblies, emphasizing that their choices can either invite blessings or open doors for judgment. He reassures that God's heart is gracious and merciful, always ready to relent from harm if His people turn to Him with sincerity. The sermon calls for a radical commitment to prayer and unity in seeking God's will during challenging times.

And we're looking at the session notes, number nine. It's our seventh class, page 79 in the syllabus. First, I want to take just a few moments and give just kind of a brief overview of the importance of prayer. I won't cover all the notes, but just kind of remind you how significant prayer is, because prayer is at the core of how we are to respond in a time of national or international crisis. God has revealed to us clearly what He wants us to do. And yet, many of His people do not think of this passage when a crisis comes or a crisis is looming. Joel 2, verse 12 to 17 isn't the only thing God tells us to do, but it's the foundational thing that He tells us to do as the people of God. Paragraph A, it's based on this principle. The response God wants is based on this principle. God has given the human race great dignity. In other words, He's given us a free will. We can make real choices that really make a difference, that really make a difference. That's the dignity of our free will. If we want to sin with our free will, God will honor us, the dignity of our free will. He will let us sin. He will try to persuade us not to, but He will actually let us exercise our free will all the way to the lake of fire. Because that's how much dignity He's given the human spirit. And that's the real perplexity to the philosophers and theologians as to why there's evil in the earth. They say God is good and God is powerful. Why did He stop it? And the thing they don't reckon on, the thing they don't take into consideration is the dignity that God has given the human spirit and allowing us to make choices that are real, that He honors. Even choices He disagrees with, but He allows us to make them without stopping us. Again, He'll try to persuade us differently, but He will not make us choose obedience towards Him. Our choices for sin and righteousness really do bring blessing or evil to us and to the people near us. I'm talking about innocent people who have nothing to do with our choices except they're related to us physically or socially or in ministry. And our choices for good or bad affect them because we're connected as human beings in the earth. Our choices provide the legal entry point for angels and demons to be involved in the natural realm in a greater way. If we choose righteousness, angels have greater access to activity in the natural realm. If we choose sin, we open legal entry points for demons to have more involvement in the natural realm. It's real. Our choices are real. B, God governs the universe in partnership with His people in intercession. This is a dramatic point. Now, we all know that. I mean, here at IHOP, that's a foundational point. God governs the entire created order in partnership with people through intercession. If they ask Him, He does more. If they don't ask Him, He does less. He not only honors our free will in terms of righteousness and sin, He actually listens to our prayer or our lack of prayer and acts accordingly. Now, not only does He act in regard to our choices and our prayer, but He does consider it dynamically in what He does and does not do. Paragraph B, I call it the mystery and the majesty of intercession. The mystery of intercession is that how simple it is. We simply tell God what He tells us to tell Him. That's mysterious how simple it can be. It's so simple, everyone can do it, but so simple that most people don't. The mystery of intercession, we tell God what He tells us to tell Him, and He does more. The majesty of intercession is the fact that Jesus does it. We're talking second person of the Trinity, the eternal, uncreated God. Jesus, it says here in Hebrews 7, lives forever, or He always lives to make intercession. You know, Jesus will be making intercession as the mode of releasing power even a million years from now. He will still tell God the Father what the Father tells Him to tell Him. That's majestic, that God would act in intercession to release power. God the Son would intercede to release the plans of God the Father. We need revelation as to how majestic this simple thing called intercession is. And if we do it, we can shift history, or what happens in geographic regions of the earth. If we don't do it, then less happens. If we do it, more happens. Look at Psalm 2, verse 8. Jesus says to the Father, I mean the Father says to Jesus, Ask me, and I'll give you the nations. Now you would think that after Jesus died on the cross, the nations are just His. The Father says, No, you've paid for them. Now through your intercession, I will release them to you. And of course, the intercession that Jesus engages in, we are in partnership with Him in that intercession. I find it amazing that Jesus still is in a position of interceding that the nations would be His. We would think by now we'd be on kind of automatic pilot by now, but it's not like that. He's still making intercession. Beloved, the majesty of intercession. That's what Joel 2 is about. It's really about wholeheartedness, connecting with God, and then interceding from the place of wholeheartedness, and then changing history. That's really the message of Joel 2, 12 to 17. Wholeheartedness is what God's really after. Then out of that wholeheartedness, partnership and intercession to determine what happens in geographic regions of the earth, I mean large regions of the earth, are in the balance of the people of God living wholehearted and interceding according to God's will. And if they do it, greater blessing happens in that geographic area of the earth. Paragraph D. We'll just make another point or two. I mean this isn't a message on intercession. I just can't avoid that because it's such an important part of Joel 2. D. God has already determined many of the primary events in His eternal plan. He's already determined them. And regardless what people do, there are some events that will not be stopped no matter what demons or people do. Jesus is returning. The devil is going to be thrown in the lake of fire. Jesus is going to rule every nation of the earth as king. The new heavens and the new earth are coming. There are major things that are bigger than our participation. But having said that, paragraph E, He gives us a dynamic role in determining the quality of life that we experience in the natural and the spirit. By our choices and our partnership with Him, we have a role in determining the quality of life we have in the spirit. It's not only us, God's sovereignty is involved, but we have a dynamic role. It's a dynamic involvement. He says, I will let you determine part of the quality. If you want more, your hunger and your obedience and you cry out according to my will, you will have more. If you are happy without more, then you can live without more. Even though I will continually persuade you, otherwise, I will allow you to live in less. Top of page 80. Paragraph F. He opens and closes doors according to prayer. He opens doors of blessing. He closes doors of oppression if we ask. The simple passage, James 4. You do not have because you do not ask. There are doors of blessing, the Lord saying, I really will give them to you if you ask me. Not just once kind of on the run, but if it becomes something important to you that you can't live without and you ask me in a persistent way, I will open doors of blessing if they're in my will. But there are doors of blessing in God's will that he will not open until we ask him and they're in his will to open. And there's doors of oppression that will be closed if we ask them to be closed. We ask the Lord. We rebuke the enemy. Paragraph G. This is one of my favorite verses on prayer. It's Isaiah 30, verse 18 and 19. Just look at this. This is absolutely remarkable. It's been one of my favorite prayer verses for many years. It says this. And interesting, in context, Isaiah 30, in context, this is for another day to talk about, but Isaiah 30 in context is related to the generation the Lord returns in the second coming of Christ. So it's a passage that is very relevant to the generation the Lord returns, but the principle is relevant no matter what. Paragraph 18, I mean, verse 18. The Lord longs to be gracious. I mean, he says, I long to. It's in my heart. I want to give you grace. Therefore, God waits to have compassion on you. God's waiting on us. Well, I thought we were waiting on him. Well, in one regard, we're waiting on him. He has timing for some things, but he's, but part of that timing is related to us asking. The scripture said he longs to be gracious, to give more, but he's waiting. Verse 19, look at this. He will surely be gracious at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, then he will answer. He will surely answer you. Now, this is individually, but in context to Joel 2 and even Isaiah 30, it's corporate. It's the blessing of God even in geographic regions being released, a spirit of revival, a withholding of a spirit of judgment, the stopping of the work of the enemy. The Lord says, I long to be gracious. Let's read this again. I wait for you. You think you're waiting for me, and in part you are, but part of what I'm waiting for, says the Lord, is for you to ask. Your asking figures into the overall timing of what I'm going to do to you in terms of releasing blessing. Verse 19, for he will surely be gracious. He will be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, then he will answer. Well, let's skip a few pages. Let's go all the way to page 82, which is Roman numeral three, the response that God requires. Let's look at Joel now. Roman numeral three, the response that God requires. It's the top of page 82 in the syllabus, but those that have the visitor's notes, just look for Roman numeral three, the response that God requires. He requires solemn assemblies. Now, we already looked at that in the session six, the session six notes. We just developed that just last week, so we're not going to go through the solemn assembly in detail again, but just make a few points that are not made from Joel chapter one, verse 13 and 14. Now, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all of your heart. Turn to me with fasting and weeping and mourning. So, rend your heart. That means tear your heart. Don't tear your garments, but tear your heart and return to the Lord. And here he gives five reasons why we should have confidence and courage to tear our hearts. Because he's gracious, number one. He's merciful. He's slow to anger. He has great kindness, not kindness, but great kindness. And even if he prophesies judgment and destruction, it's in his heart to relent, to change. That's what that means. He'll change it. God changes from the judgment that he's even set to release. He wants to change. It's in his heart to change. Give him a reason to change. He's so kind, but he wants a response. Verse 14, who knows if he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind. Now, Joel leaves a bit of the mystery of sovereignty here. He says, you don't know to what degree the blessing will come or the judgment will be reversed. Press in and trust him and ask him and move into his heart. Who knows? Maybe he'll relent, which means change his mind. And he'll leave a blessing. Instead of a disaster zone, it will be a revival center. The place that was scheduled for judgment becomes a place of revival and blessing. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Call a fast. Call a sacred assembly, etc. Paragraph 8, Joel 2, 12-17, God tells us what we are to do. Again, we looked at this in the notes, session notes 6. Joel 1, verse 13 and 14, we looked at the five different responses. So you can put these two sets of notes together and get the whole picture. He wants us to turn in wholeheartedness and then from wholeheartedness to cry out in intercession. That's what he wants, to partner with him in prayer. In crisis, he wants or rather he requires that his people gather in solemn assemblies. It's not just a one-off intercessor, though God values the lone intercessor. He wants the people in unity together, laboring together because God is a father with a family. He's not just a captain of the army and he just wants soldiers. He wants a family. That operates together. So he says, I want you to gather. Well, I don't really like their way and style and this and that. He says, that's okay. Just kind of put that aside and gather because the answer is in your collective response, not just in your individual response. Now, it is individual responses, but there's a bigger dimension. There's a collective response in a geographic area that God's after. We can't do it alone. We need each other. That's beautiful. I mean, God loves his family and he runs his kingdom from a family perspective. Turn to page 83. God doesn't leave us guessing to what he wants. He wants solemn assemblies. Roman numeral four. Now again, as simple as it is, it's crystal clear, book of Joel, but it's often neglected and often never thought about, even in the midst of fervent people. I've talked to many people through the years and when they heard this group or that group was gathering for a day of prayer and fasting, a couple hundred or a couple thousand or whatever, it was so intriguing. They'd never heard of such a thing. I'm talking about people that have known the Lord for years. They've never, ever heard of anyone that's done that. Now the exciting thing is that in this hour of history, solemn assemblies are springing up all over the earth and there's no passage that's more clear and instructive on solemn assemblies than Joel chapter two. Right here, the passage we're looking at, verse 12 to 17. Turn to God with wholeheartedness. Verse 12. Now therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all of your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Tear your heart, not your garments, and return to the Lord. Now the reason they, he said not your garments because in ancient Israel, to show grief, they would rend or tear their garment. I mean, it was so much grief, they would just like tear their shirt off and that's how much anguish they rend. And it was symbolic of their pain. It was a physical demonstration of the pain they rend and what the Lord was saying is, that's not really what I want. I want you to do that to your heart. I want you to radically confront the issues in your heart that are not in agreement with my heart. I don't want a symbolic demonstration. I don't want just a public show of grief. I actually want you to tear your heart. Now that's the most challenging and the most costly, but the most powerful part of what God wants is the tearing of the heart. It's the rarest part, but it is the most powerful. It says here in verse 12, now therefore, says the Lord, now there's urgency. People often plan to tear their heart tomorrow. They really mean it. That after I have this one more weekend or one more month or one more this or one more, I'm really going to get around to it because I know it's right, but I kind of have one more short season, a few days, a few weeks, a few months, where I have a few things I want to do that are not in agreement with God. God says, now, now, turn to me. Now, right now, because there's a dynamic that many people really don't define that when the grace of God woos us to respond and we feel a little bit of inspiration to respond and we don't, we're not the same. We are actually a little bit harder or a little bit softer every time we hear the invitation. We never stay neutral. We never stay the same. Right now in this building and those that are joining us with the eSchool, the internet. The very fact you're hearing this, there are issues in most people's lives, that one issue, that two issue that's a challenge. If we hear, feel a little inspiration, but don't respond, actually, our heart is suddenly a little bit harder. It's not the same. Or if we do respond, it's a little bit softer. Maybe not dramatically, but a little bit. We're always moving forward or backward. We never stay the same. So Joel says, now, now respond. It's important. Don't put it off. There's an urgency now in their context. The Babylonian invasion was around the corner and it still might have been 5, 10, 20 years. We don't know. Nobody knows exactly when Joel was prophesying, but it was near the time of the Babylonian invasion. And what the Lord is saying is, Israel, Jerusalem, you need to respond now. Don't wait for another prophet to show up now. Because things are getting progressively worse and it's always harder to repent tomorrow than it is today. Especially after you've heard the message a few times because the message doesn't move you as much the more you hear it. He says, turn to me with all of your heart. Now it's interesting to me, or not interesting, but important that the first commandment, the turning with all your heart, is consistently what God wants from Genesis to Revelation. If you ask the Lord at any time in history, what is it you want most? All their heart is what I'm after. Jesus came and made it crystal clear. Matthew 22, He says, this is the first commandment. Loving God with all your heart, that's what God wants most. Always that's what He wants most. It's what He wants first. And so with consistency to His heart, He says, turn with all of your heart. I want your heart. Paragraph A, He wants our love. God loves us and wants love. He wants us to respond to His love by responding in love. He wants us to love Him with all of our heart because He loves us with all of His heart. He says, I don't ask anything of you I have not done first in the relationship. Now His all is bigger than our all, a lot bigger, but it's still our all. As small as our all is, it is our all and that's all He asked for. Now, turning to God with all of our heart or wholeheartedness involves repenting. Some people think of loving God with all their heart is enjoying worship songs that have love themes in them. I mean, if they're really tender worship songs, they really like them, that must be love. I think that's cool to like anointed tender worship songs, but at the end of the day, enjoying worship is not the same thing as loving God. Loving God must be, when it's all said and done, at the core, must be coming in agreement with Him. And enjoying the worship songs is certainly a good thing and a plus, but some people enjoy the feeling they get in worship with actually loving God. So they enjoy God in a worship service or a big conference, then they go out and do what they want and they have this dichotomy in their life and they're in confusion about what's really happening in their life. What it is, they love good music, which is not the same thing as loving God. They even cry when the music plays. But turning to God with all of our heart involves repenting, coming into unity. Now repentance sounds negative, there's a negative dimension to it, but repentance basically means breaking our agreement with darkness and coming into agreement with His heart. Repentance means agreeing with His heart. It involves fasting, involves prayer. Now we don't fast to prove we're dedicated, we actually fast because that positions us to be tenderized, to receive grace in a faster way. Fasting doesn't earn us anything. Some people fast to prove to God they're sincere and then they get confused. You fast because fasting is a way in the grace of God that positions your heart to accelerate the process of becoming tenderized in your spirit. And it's the tender heart that moves God's heart. It's not the fasting that moves God, it's your heart of agreement, it's your heart of tenderness, and the fasting is what helps that happen. As I fast regularly over the years, I find it easier to agree with God. I have a greater, I have far less resistance in my emotions and a far greater desire to do what's in His heart. Fasting really increases that in your heart, it really does. Jesus, in Matthew 6, He came and talked about repenting, prayer, and fasting. He validated this verse in Joel 2, verse 12. He didn't use, He didn't comment on the verse itself, but in Matthew 6, verse 1 to 18, He talks about prayer, fasting, repentance. He lays it out. It's really the Joel message that Jesus is validating. See, the place of safety in the time of judgment is in the midst of a company of people that have long-term corporate wholeheartedness. Now, I'm not saying that if somebody is with people like that, no trouble will ever come their way, that's not what I'm saying. But when I look across the earth, and I want to encourage you to do this, I did it in the other class, wherever God, wherever you land, this year, next year, five years, ten years, make sure you get with people who are pressing into God. Does it matter if they're not cool? What matters, do angels come and demons leave when they pray? That's what you care about. It doesn't matter how cool they are, or how cool their PowerPoints are, and all their technology. That doesn't matter. What matters, do angels come and demons leave when they talk to God? Yes, they do. Get in that group and be a part of it. I determined this years ago. When I was just in my early 20s, and newly married, I just said, I am going to be with the people who cry out a whole bunch of people, I don't care if it's a couple hundred, it doesn't have to be thousands, but they do it long term, a lot of them, not just for a summer, not for just one year, a long term history of seeking God together hard. As you plan your future, don't just plan where the weather is good, and the ocean is cool, and the mountains are nice, and the hunting and the fishing, plan where there's people who are fervent for God. If God sends you somewhere and there aren't any, guess what? Start it. Start it. Really, do it. Start. Start with three. Grow to four. Grow to five. Meet the other group down the road. Hang out with them some. Start it. Roman numeral five. Wrench your heart. Well, I've already mentioned this. The tearing of the heart. A, people in Joel's day, they tore their garment, but the tearing of the heart is to deal radically with the issues of the heart, the matters of the heart. This is the most challenging, the most costly, the most powerful part of what God requires. I mean, it has power. I mean, the result of connecting with God, there's power in it. It really moves God. It changes history and moves God. It really does move God. When your heart's moved, it moves his heart. It really does. But this tearing of the heart is the most neglected part of the book of Joel. This one verse, 13, I mean, there is so much, there's so much love in that one verse because it's the declaration of our love for him. B, to rend means to tear, but it means more than tear. Tear violently. Tear forcibly. We tear our heart away from everything that quenches the spirit. If something's quenching the spirit in our life, there's always some guy somewhere that will come up with a Bible verse to prove why you can do it. If you're looking for a Bible verse to back up your compromise, there are thousands of believers that will give you Bible verses to help you back up your compromise under the banner of the grace of God. You're not looking for Bible verses to feel good about your sin. You're looking for Bible verses to help you get free from your sin. It's really true. There's so many today. They're champions of the grace of God, and what they really are, they find Bible verses to make people comfortable sinning and living in compromise, but they live powerless in their spirit. Matthew 5, verse 29, Jesus talked about the tearing of the heart. He said, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Now He's speaking symbolic, but because some people actually take the cutting of the right hand off, which is the next verse, you know, they do extreme things. He's not talking about altering your body. He's talking about radically, consistently dealing with issues of the heart. That's what He's talking about. Because you can cut an arm off and your heart's still enraged in sin. So I'm not talking about altering your body. I'm talking about a consistent, steady, long-term resolve to deal with the issues of the heart. Because you love Him. Say, Lord, You love me with all of Your heart. I love You. My love is weak, but I want it to grow. I'm in this thing for love. I'm in this thing for You. And He says, well, this is what I want you to do then, deal radically with the issues of the heart. C, the tearing of the heart is personal. It's painful. Some people want to get free from their sin patterns, paragraph C, or they want to get free from sinful relationships without requiring any personal choice that tears their heart. I'm going to say that again. Some people, what they want is they want to get free from sin patterns, sinful patterns in their life, or sinful relationships without having to choose anything that tears their heart. They want to wake up one day with no desire whatsoever for what they're doing wrong. And when they wake up and the desire's gone, then they say, I'm in. The Lord says, no, no. I want you to choose, and I will help you. You could even ask me to help you to make you choose. But when you do that, say, Lord, be gentle when you help me to choose. He is gentle. But you can ask him, say, Lord, there's something I'm not happy with what's in my heart. I am not happy with it. I don't, I'm not there yet. I want to get rid of it. Help me, help me. That's totally legitimate. But sooner or later, and sooner than later is best, you must make choices, and those choices tear the heart. They really do. They go like, ouch, ouch. I don't like what I just chose. Ugh, yuck. It's real, though. That's what love is about. It is the theater for which you show your love for him. Those choices is the theater of love. It's the platform for which you show him and demonstrate your love to him. D, we cannot pursue wholeheartedness in a casual way. There's no such thing as tame, easy wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness is more than a banner, and it's more than a song. It's more than a dance at a conference. Wholeheartedness is radical. It's not tame. It's real. Of course, you know that. Top of page 84, paragraph E. Jesus tells us to tear our heart. Why? He tore his heart. When he came to the cross, he tore his heart. When he went to the cross, it tore the Father's heart when Jesus went to the cross. God knows about a torn heart. When he calls us to this kind of love, it's not like he doesn't understand or did not do it himself. He gets it. The extreme love that Jesus showed in becoming human and going to the cross. The God of the torn heart, the rend heart, the God who rends his heart for his people. He wants us to rend our heart for the relationship. But I want to say one more thing. I don't have it in the notes here. That we will either tear our hearts in breaking our unity with sin, our agreement with sin, to come into unity with God, or judgment and sin will tear the land. There is a tearing coming one way or the other. A tearing is coming to our nation and the nations of the earth. It's already here. The tearing is happening right now in the earth. It's not future, it's present, but it's going to get far more dramatic in the future. There's going to be a tearing of the nation or there will be a tearing of the heart of God's people. And this is a global type of situation, not just one for America. The answer is for us to voluntarily tear our heart in love as the covenant people to come into that wholeheartedness and then in the place of intercession to release blessing. And the covenant people, the born again believers in the earth, they are the ones in the position to release blessing. Yes, I believe that secular society needs to stop doing some things, but my focus is on the covenant community responding to God in wholeheartedness. Roman numeral six. Now this is the part that I like the most. Roman numeral six. It's the fivefold revelation of God's heart. It's tearing our heart with confidence because of these five things. And I'll just mention them. Every one of them could warrant several hours of teaching and many of you could teach on these five things. I mean, you could go on and on on each one of them. So I'm just going to just mention them and then leave it to you to spend your life going deep on these five things. I mean, my whole life I will spend drinking from the well of these five things of God's heart, these five revelations of God's heart. Return to the Lord because or for, here's why you have confidence to return. You've been in immorality, you've been in darkness, you've been in compromise, you've been in drunkenness, you've just been in passivity. It's time to turn. Why do you have confidence you should do it or that it will matter? Here's why you have confidence. Because He is so gracious. Because He's very merciful. Turn now. Why? He's slow to anger. He will actually push, delete and make it like it never happened. He's so slow to anger. Turn now. Wow! Beloved, there is a chance for a new beginning starting now. It's what Joel is saying. The new beginning is yours. He's slow to anger. He's of great kindness. And number five, He relents. He changes His plan to release the judgment or the discipline. The harm, it's a holy harm because it's coming from Him. He's talking about judgment or discipline which are, they overlap, those ideas overlap. He changes His plans to discipline or to judge a person or a nation. And He really will change. That's why we have courage for us to change because the change matters. That's the point. It matters to God. If He was harsh, unforgiving, quick to anger, there would be no point in changing. We're dead anyway. But it's not the truth. There is a reason to change because we have a great future. I mean, starting now. It will change. I mean, wow. I love this verse. Paragraph eight. Joel summons the people to return giving them five reasons why it's doable and why it's wise. The knowledge of God's heart, it gives us courage to change because it's worth it because it moves God. It matters to God. It changes our life. It matters. That's why it's worth doing. If we take one step, He, towards God, He will take ten steps towards us. I tell you it's the truth. You take one step, He will take ten. B, this is just ever so brief. I just put a sentence on each one. You could put paragraphs on each one of these five different revelations of God's heart. He's gracious. He evaluates us differently than anybody else does. When a kind person would write you off, God gives you yet another chance. He's so kind in the way He evaluates. When a good person says you're a failure, God looks at you and sees the cry of your spirit and says, I like what's in your heart towards me. I see good seed. I see fruit in your life. I see the seeds, the yes in your spirit, and it matters to me. Psalm 103. He has not dealt with us and He's not punished us as our sins deserve. That's what that verse means. He hasn't given to us according to our iniquities. Iniquity and sin is the same idea. You could just put the word sin instead of iniquity. What David is saying here in Psalm 103, God does not deal with us like our sin deserves. Man, that is great news. I mean, He does not deal with you like your sin deserves. That gives me a chance to start over and I can be a first-class citizen in the kingdom with God's favor and His delight no matter what I've done. Yes. I have courage to repent. Yes. That's what Joel's saying. Look at what David says in the same psalm just a verse or two later, four verses later. God knows our frame. He knows the human frame, how weak it is. He remembers our humanity is but dust. We say, but we're so weak. And God goes, yeah, I know. I know your frame. I know how weak, I know how prone you are to weakness. So we're dealing with the God who understands our constitution, who has a tender, gracious evaluation of us. See, He delights in mercy. He's merciful. Psalm 7, I mean Micah 7, verse 18. Who is like God who pardons iniquity? That's the word there again, sin. Why does God pardon sin? He so enjoys mercy. He loves it. God would rather give mercy than judgment any time. He delights in mercy. He doesn't like judgment. He delights in mercy. It says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, none whatsoever. In Ezekiel 33, verse 11. I don't know if that's on the notes there, but you might put that down. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He has no pleasure in judging the wicked, Ezekiel 33, 11. But He delights in mercy. And here's what I, this is how I read that. God looks down at your life and my life. He gives us mercy. And it connects with us. We go, God forgave me. He's tender. Oh, wow. And He's watching, and He goes, I love it when that impacts you so much. It says my favorite thing is when it hits you. When it dawns on you how He feels about you, He delights in that. It's one of His favorite things to do is show you mercy and for it to connect with you and you to go, oh, I love you. Oh, I'm yours. Oh, yes, thank you. He goes, oh, that moves me when it moves you. It's true. He delights in it. D, He's slow to anger. Look at the verse in paragraph E. Jezebel in the church at Thyatira in paragraph E. Jezebel was an actual person in the early church, was a teacher, a prophetess. But she was turning the grace of God into licentiousness is what Jude calls it. She was teaching people that in the grace of God, immorality was fine. And many of the saints in Thyatira were buying into it. And the Lord appears to John here in Revelation 2 at the island of Patmos. He goes, that teacher, Jezebel, I mean, now, you got to give her a little mercy. Her parents named her Jezebel. I mean, that's a tough beginning. This isn't the Jezebel back with Ahab and Elijah, you know, a thousand years earlier. This is a new Jezebel, but she was named that. Don't ever name your daughter Jezebel. But anyway, she's teaching and she had quite a following. She obviously had some dimension of influence and power in her life. She had a large following. And she was telling them, well, if you understand grace right, immorality isn't exactly what people say it is. They're being a little bit legalistic. And Jesus says, tell her and those people that I love in that church, stop it, stop it. Look at verse 21. I gave her time to repent. Jesus gave Jezebel time to repent. I mean, my goodness, talking about slow to anger. I mean, when Jeze gets a chance to repent, you know everybody does. It's real. If the Lord, if he gives her a chance, he goes and tell the saints that thy attire are the same. I will give them chance to repent. I will give them chance to process it, make sense of it, but they better be in earnest about it. I don't want to destroy them. That's not what I want to do. But look what he says he'll do. Verse 22, if they don't repent of their immorality, here's the Lord speaking, I will cast her onto a sickbed and I will put the other believers on the sickbed with her. I will do it, says the Lord. And he goes on to say, actually, I will kill her children. I will take them home so that they don't end up going so far, they deny their faith at the end. I will take them home early in severe mercy to keep them from denying their faith because when people get on that track where immorality and grace is all the same, they get into a dark realm of deception where it just gets worse and worse as the years go by. I've seen many people in my years of ministry where immorality and grace seem to be okay together. I mean, unrepentant of immorality. And those people, five and ten years later, they end up with a dark way of understanding after a few years. And so the Lord says, I'll make her sick and I will actually kill her and her children, her disciples, in order that they would not deny the faith over time. So it's actually severe mercy. Up at page 85. Number four, kindness. God is great kindness, is what he says. Our repentance will never be met with rejection. God is kind. There's so much to say about that. H, the fifth one, he relents from harm, meaning he changes his plan. The Lord sees how we respond. Now, God knows everything. But God sets plans into motion according to what we're doing. Say, well, if he knows everything, how does he really change his plan? It's difficult for little guys like us to figure out the omniscient God, so let's not go there. I mean, when our little minds try to comprehend the God of Genesis 1, but the Bible is clear. God makes plans according to our choices. Though he has profound, great all-knowledge, but when we change our choices, he changes his plans. And that works inside of his economy of the kingdom. He understands what's really happening. And with great kindness, he will change his plans, and he will relent. For an individual as well as a nation. Roman numeral seven, the Lord relents. He relents from doing harm. This is a vast subject. We only got a minute on it. Ezekiel 22, look at this. The Lord says, I sought for a man, an intercessor, who would make up a wall, talking a wall of intercession, a spiritual wall is what he's talking about. Not talking about building a physical wall, but a wall of intercession. God says, I sought for an intercessor who would stand in the gap on behalf of the land. Here's why. That I would not destroy the land, but I didn't find one. God says, my eyes are looking to and fro for a man or a woman that will stand before me, wholehearted, because wholehearted, it's not just somebody that would go to a prayer meeting, but the idea is somebody living in unity with God who would intercede from a place of wholeheartedness. And the Lord told Ezekiel, he goes, I couldn't find anybody. I wanted, I was seeking for it, I searched for it. I want to save the land, but I won't violate my own justice when I do it. I look for somebody to stand before me, a man or a woman or a group that had unity with my heart, that would agree with my heart, and that I would hear their prayer, and I would move on their behalf and spare the land. I couldn't find one. A, God desires to relent. He wants to cancel the decree of judgment. He really does. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Again, Ezekiel 33 11. Just quote that verse again. Now, there, paragraph B, Zephaniah chapter 2. I see two stages in God's decrees. Not that there's not many stages. There could be many more. I'm not trying to simplify it. I'm just trying to distinguish between two things. I'm sure in God's economy, there's many stages. First, there, a decree of judgment is decided on in the heavenly court. It's established. God decides on a decree of judgment in his heavenly court. Then later, he issues it. When he issues it, he sends the angels to execute it. So there is a decree of judgment decided on over many lands, but the issuing of the decree is yet another matter. You know, in a very poor analogy, have you ever written an email and you didn't quite send it? Your finger was on the send button. Above it, I mean. Hmm. You say, you know what, I think I'll sleep on this. You've decided it, but you're going to sleep on it. Maybe a day or a week or a month, but maybe you don't send it, maybe you do. God decides decrees of judgment, but he does not issue them at the same time. When they're issued, then it's over. I mean, the judgment is released. The angels that execute the judgment are released. Like in Ezekiel 9, I don't have that in the passage here. Ezekiel 9, the executing angels went forth because the decree was released. Look at Zephaniah 2. Gather yourself together. Of course, that's the solemn assembly. But do it before the judgment decree is released, before it's issued, before it's released is the idea. Gather together before the anger comes. Don't gather afterwards. Well, do that too because you do before, during, and after. You gather. The same response is before the judgment, during the judgment, then after it, so the judgment doesn't compound in its impact in a negative way because most judgments have a compound impact that multiplies over weeks and months and years. So we gather together, Zephaniah 2, Zephaniah is saying, have your solemn assembly beforehand, and if you miss it, if you miss the window, have it during, and if you miss that window, have it after, but the wisdom is to do it before the decree of judgment is released. See, a coming disaster can be changed. It really can be. Let's go to the top of page 86, Roman numeral 8, Roman numeral 8, the perhaps of God, the perhaps of God. That's just a term I use because one translation said, perhaps God will release or perhaps God will restrain judgment, and I just love that phrase. I don't even know what translation was. I heard it years ago, and it just stuck with me. The perhaps of God. Joel 2 says, rend your heart, for he relents from doing harm. Who knows? And that's where you would put perhaps. He will turn. Perhaps. He will make the disaster zone a revival center. Perhaps. Then we're going back to the same verse in Zephaniah 2 that we looked at a minute ago. Seek the Lord. It's the same verse that we talk about the issue being decreed. It's just the next verse. Zephaniah 2, verse 3. Seek the Lord, all you meek. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden. This is a dynamic principle. You will be hidden, meaning protected in the tower of wrath. God says, you seek the Lord. He's talking to a group of people. When the judgment comes, perhaps God will put his hand over you and a geographic area, and he will hide you from the judgment in that area. I call it, it's a pocket of mercy. And when God releases judgments, there are pockets of mercy, and they may be maybe a family, maybe a neighborhood, maybe a city, maybe a 500-mile region. Who knows? There are pockets of mercy. And again, that's not a biblical term, but it's a biblical idea. Where God releases judgment, but there are those that are spared of the judgment in the midst of an hour of judgment. And again, there's a bitter debate going on in the nation. And to me, it's a, it's, what I want to say, how do I want to say it? It's a debate that's not that helpful. Let's put it that way. The debate is, is judgment coming? And the reason I say to America, it's not that helpful. It's already here. I mean, it's a debate that I don't even grasp the relevance of it, because judgment's been on our land for years. It's just compounding. It's building. It's building to a crescendo. It won't be in a crescendo in a year, but it's building. It's building in Europe. It's building in Asia. The judgments of God are in the earth right now. It's not like, will America be judged? It's like, well, will? Has been. Is. But there's pockets of mercy, and there's the Lord's patience, and there's revivals breaking out. And so the issue is, what will your geographic area, how will it respond? And it will determine the measure of judgment and the measure of blessing for that geographic area. And it may be a 500-mile radius. Who knows? It may be 100 miles. Nobody knows those boundary lines. God leaves us with the perhaps of God. Perhaps. So I don't know what's going to happen in Kansas City or America or the nations, but I know one thing. I'm going to get a group of people as big as I can get who press in as hard, as consistently, and believe in faith and first commandment love and New Testament faith, and I'm taking my chances with the perhaps of God. And we could have the greatest revival. Maybe it will be greater or not so great. I don't know, but I'm going full blast and I'm not looking back and I'm burning the bridges, burning the boats, not looking back because we can see great change. Maybe our region, maybe our nation. I don't know the boundary lines. All I know is that God says, if you come according to Joel 2 and you do it consistently and more people do it, more will happen good that will be a blessing to you. Well, let's just end with this. You can read the Gather the People. It's a bit like session six, but I want to mention one thing. The last page, I give you a couple examples of some guys who repented. So just look at that. Individuals, Josiah, just turn to the very last page, top 89, just so I point that to you. Josiah, paragraph 8, Roman numeral 12, examples of responding to God. Josiah was a good guy, obviously. And I looked at the notes and I couldn't believe it. I forgot to put the Solemn Assembly on the notes. So right there in paragraph 8, put 2 Chronicles 34, verse 29 to 32. I don't know how I don't have, why I don't have that up. I looked at my notes, I go, where's the Solemn Assembly at? He called a Solemn Assembly. He did Joel. Here I have my Joel class, my Joel notes, and I left out the Solemn Assembly. So here I am in paragraph 8, 2 Chronicles 34, look at it, verse 23 to 28, but it's the next three verses, 29, 30, 31, 32. It's those verses, those next four verses, that the Solemn Assembly is described. But the two guys I want to point out is B and C. These guys, Ahab and Manasseh, were very wicked men. I mean really bad guys. Ahab and Manasseh were two of the most wicked kings in Israel's history. They humbled themselves, and God says, even you, the most wicked in Israel's history, I will forgive and give you a new beginning. This, I mean, Ahab, you don't think you'd ever get blessed by Ahab and Manasseh, but I'm telling you, part of their story will bless you. If God will forgive Ahab and Manasseh, and He calls them the most wicked, I mean things like that of all of Israel's history, I mean terms like that are describing them. But God, both of them, came to a point of repentance at the very end, and God gave them grace. I mean, like, wow. Amen. I just wanted to point those out to you. Let's stand. I'm just going to just respond for a minute before we release. Just stand for just a moment. I'm going to take a 15-minute break, but just let's take 60 seconds here. Jesus, Lord, I want to respond with all of my heart. Oh, I love that song that Misty sings, How Far Will You Let Me Go. Father, what level of obedience and abandonment will you give me power to live in? How far will you let me go? I'm not trying to get away with stuff. I want to be more anointed to be more radical. How far will you let me go? Asking that. I want to be more focused, more consumed. I want to spend more of my strength on you and your word and your kingdom and your ways. How far will you let me go in seeking you and fasting and prayer and the word and obedience and how much money will you let me give? I want to give more. I want to give more of my strength to this thing called abandonment to God. How far will you let me go? How abandoned will you let me be, Lord? I don't even want that question in my heart of what can I get away with? How far will you let me go? Amen and amen. Let's just take a 15-minute break and we'll come back and take on the next passage.