Heaven, We Have a Problem!

II Kings 2:19-22

And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.

20 And he said, bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.

21 And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.

22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.

In the passage in II Kings, the men of the city come to Elisha the prophet and they tell him in essence, “We have a problem. From the outside everything looks pretty good, but we have a problem.”

I'm just going to get straight to it this morning - some of you have a problem!  How long are you going to keep going around the same mountain, fighting the same battles, struggling with the same addictions, wrestling with the same fleshly lusts and desires, falling down at the same place, and giving in to the same temptations again and again, before you are willing to admit you have a problem?

If you can’t look at a pretty woman without lust rising up in your heart you have a problem!  If you can’t see somebody else blessed without becoming jealous, critical, and envious, then you have a problem!  If every time things don’t go your way you get drunk, or high,  or run to the fridge and gorge yourself, you have a problem!  If you still get angry and resentful and hold a grudge every time somebody says something about you or disagrees with you, you’ve got a problem!  If you can’t keep your gossiping tongue off your brothers, sisters, and pastor, then you have a problem!

My question for you today is: How long are you going to put up with attitudes, addictions, hang-ups, and lusts of the flesh that are self-destructive, and in absolute disagreement with the Word of God before you call on the only name that can release you from your chains? You need to cry out to Jesus and say, "Heaven, we have a problem! “Help me Jesus, I have a problem!”

The only problem that cannot be overcome in Jesus’ name, is the one you will not admit to having. The first major step to a turnaround and a breakthrough is admitting, like the men in the text, that you have a problem.

The next step is taking your problem to the right place.  I believe in AA and other 12-step programs.  They save lives when the person following the steps understands that the only power that can change our situation is the power of God.  But recovery programs are just Band-Aids applied to the surface if you don’t go spiritually deep enough and deal only with the fruit, but not the root.  The only power that can change the root is the power of God.

These men in II Kings took their problem to the right place.  You have to know where to go when you have a problem. You don’t take your car to the dentist to get it fixed, you don’t ask a plumber to fix your teeth, and you don’t want a preacher operating on your brain.  They may all be nice people, but you have to go to the right person when you have a problem or the problem just gets worse. 

You may have some good friends that will pray with you when you ask, but I don’t care how good a friend they are, you are not going to get the deliverance you need sounding out your problems to people who are struggling with the same problems you are.

David said: when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to that rock that is (higher) than I.  When you’re in a fight, in a struggle wrestling with an Issue, whether it’s spiritual, financial, emotional, or sexual, whether it’s an addiction or a bondage or a habit.  You better go to someone that is higher than you, someone who has that under their feet, someone who is not wallowing in the same mess, you need someone who can show you what it looks like to be free. You need Jesus!

They said to the prophet: This place is pretty, we like the neighborhood. It is a nice place, we like the view, and from all outward appearances, everything looks good.  But the water is naught, the water is cursed, it carries some kind of poison in it and it is making the ground barren.  In other words: It’s killing our future.  It was not killing the men, the women, or even the trees, it was killing the fruit.

We need some men in our country who are concerned with more than pretty, we need some men who desire purity and power, and that more concerned about being good, than just looking good.  We need men who cry to God, “We have a problem!”

The Word says that the water was causing the women to miscarry.  That means nothing was being carried to full term.  Nothing was being birthed.  I’m writing today to some of God’s people that have let something into your heart and it has poisoned your lifestream.  You’ve become unproductive, your life has become barren, you have no joy, no peace, you have no passion for life, and you’re full of bitterness and anger and resentment and unforgiveness.  You’ve let envy, jealousy, and strife creep into your heart, and now even when something good is initiated, it ends up drying up and dying because your lifestream is poisoned.

Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (KJV)

"Above all else, guard your affections. For they influence everything else in your life." (TLB)

Until you get that poison out of your heart your life is going to be barren, you will poison every relationship, every endeavor will be fruitless, and you will make people miserable.  You will poison your ministry, and everything you say and do will carry the toxin of the poison in your heart, and no one will want to be around you.

The biggest problem that most people have is that they want to blame everybody else.  We want to blame it on the preacher, the boss, the wife, the husband, the rebellious kids, all those hypocrites in the church, or the devil.  We want to blame it on our environment, where we were born, what we didn’t have, or what we couldn’t do.  The truth is that we all have things we could complain about, but there can be no change or deliverance until we admit, the problem is me.

There is an old spiritual that says, “It’s not my brother or my sister but it’s me O lord, standing in the need of prayer.”

These men said: Everything around us is not the problem, it’s in the stream, it’s the bitter waters that are cursing the ground and we are losing our future: no babies are being born, no fruit is being produced in our lives.  These men made a decision that day to fight for their future and to fight for their destiny. 

One of the devil’s greatest fears is that you will become who you are destined to be and do what you are destined to do.  You have a divine D.N.A. that was put in you when you were born again. Every time the devil looks at you, he sees your potential.  The devil believes in you more than you believe in yourself and he is afraid of that seed you carry, that potential to become what God has ordained you to become, and he wants to kill the seed before it’s ever born.  Satan is a dream killer! He wants to destroy your future!

The men of the city said in essence, “This is not right and we do not accept it.  It is not normal and we are not satisfied just to be in a pretty place and watch our destiny being stripped away from us.  We have a problem, but we’re going to the problem solver.”

They decided their future was worth fighting for!

I wonder how many reading this believe that your future is worth fighting for?  How many are willing to fight for your children to be delivered from the hand of the enemy, and fight for the destiny of your grandchildren?  Fight for your marriage, fight for your health, fight for your ministry, fight for your God-given destiny?

I’m trying to tell you, if you want it you are going to have to fight for it.  The devil ain’t going to sit back and watch you waltz into your destiny without a fight.  Those children, grandchildren, future prophets, apostles, pastors, teachers, and evangelists are not going to walk into their callings without somebody fighting for them.

There are so many today who have lost their fight, lost their fire, and lost their passion.  They’ve settled down, and they’re satisfied just to know they're saved and not going to hell. All dressed up on Sundays, looking apostolic, maintaining the standards of the church, "having a form of godliness, but denying its power" (2 Timothy 3:5). They don’t care about anybody else.  They’ve become barren, unproductive, sterile, and unable to reproduce.  No spiritual births, no power to heal the sick or cast out devils or deliver the bound and the oppressed.

We need in the church of Jesus Christ, both men, and women, believers who are willing to stand up and say:  We are not satisfied with pretty, we don’t want to just be politically correct, we don’t want to draw a crowd just to watch them wither and die on the branch because the water is bitter.  We need believers who will come to Jesus and say, "Heaven, we have a problem!"

Come and heal our land, Jesus, come heal the bitter waters of our hearts through the purifying power of your Word.

Principle and Power

Principle and Power

The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of Power

Read: Ezekiel 37:1-10

Zechariah 4:6 “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Ezekiel wrote that, “The hand of the Lord upon me,”

This means that he was led, guided, protected, and empowered by God. It is a wonderful thing to know Gods hand is on your life.

He also said that he was carried out in the Spirit. If we are going to see the glory of God revealed, we must get out of our flesh realm and into the spirit realm. I believe that the reason we don’t experience more glory and more power, this is the reason why we experience so little of the demonstration and the manifestation of the Power of God, is because we are fixed on our flesh. God works through us by the Power of the Holy Ghost, and the only way to participate in the manifestation of His power is to get out of our flesh and walk in the Spirit.

The spirit is not just the feeling of God touching you, or even God moving inside of you, by the Holy Ghost: the spirit is speaking of the realm, and of the dimension and of the environment of God.

The Apostle John said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lords day.”

When John got in the Spirit, he began to see the glory of God. Ezekiel was in the Spirit when he had the vision of the dry bones coming alive and when he saw the great whirlwind of fire, the living creatures, the throne of God, and he saw the appearance of a man who was on fire, from his loins upward, and from his loins downward as the appearance of brightness as the color of amber. I know this is going to sound a little crazy, but that’s where we belong, that’s our environment, I’m not talking about dying and going to heaven, I’m talking about living in the realms of the glory of God.

Galatians 5:16 “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”

Galatians 5:25 “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying, I am not insinuating that we should all walk around seeing angels everywhere, and hearing voices and trumpets, and that if you’re not experiencing these things that you’re not spiritual.  I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying is that to experience the operation of the Spirit, we must be filled with the Holy Ghost and walking in the Spirit. I am saying that the realm of the glory of God’s presence must become more important to us than this flesh realm.

Healing, deliverance, miracles, signs and wonders all emanate from the Spirit of God. All supernatural activity of the Spirit of God belongs to the Kingdom of God. Jesus revealed to us that Power over the enemy, or power to destroy the works of the devil, or power to cast out the devil was the direct result of the Kingdom of God being present.

Matthew 12:28 “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.”

The command to do these things, the authority to do these things, is the principle, but the Holy Ghost is the power. Jesus said that everything He had done, His disciples would do, and even greater things. He said, “these signs shall follow them that believe.” That was the authority, the principle. But he said to wait for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and when the Holy Ghost came upon us, we would receive the power.

We may talk about the kingdom, sing about miracles, preach and teach about deliverance, because we have been given the authority – we have the principle, but principle is not enough. Principle won’t heal the sick, Principle won’t deliver the bound and the oppressed, and principle won’t set the captives free. Principle is important: Principle is the foundation on which we stand, principle stabilizes us, and holds us in the right place. Principle is truth, but just the knowledge of truth is not enough. You can know all the truth about healing and live all your life sick. You can know all the truth about salvation, and still go to an eternal hell.

The Kingdom of God is both principle and power. I Corinthians 4:20, “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”

I Thessalonians 1:5, “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, (Not in principle or truth only) but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.”

Jude 1:3, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Jude knew by the Spirit that the time would come when the body of Christ would slip into a state of complacency that it would begin to settle into a powerless faith, a faith without substance, a faith that consisted only of words, and ideas, and philosophies. This is a head faith, and head faith is dead faith, it’s a faith that nods its head that the bible is true, but never presses in to experience it personally.

Everything the bible says is ours is ours by right of inheritance, but even though you hold the title deed to a property, you will never benefit from it until you press your claim and take possession of it. God has willed his power to the church, it’s our inheritance. But the majority of the Church World is satisfied just with the principle, satisfied to know it’s true, just happy to know that it’s there, and that it belongs to us by inheritance.

Jude warned us to not accept that powerless message, and not be deceived, and to contend for the original faith that the early church had which was a vital living faith that produced the miraculous. He pleaded with believers to contend for the Apostolic Faith.

I’m not pointing fingers at anybody because I have fallen into that trap. The trap of believing that because I knew it, I had it. I believed that because I could quote it, I had it. The problem was that I was lying to myself. It makes a comfortable cushion, and I began to believe that I had it just because I could say I had it. But the truth is, if you can’t manifest it and demonstrate it, then you don’t really have it. All we have a profession, and there’s a big difference between profession and possession.

Wherever the Kingdom of God is truly present there is a manifestation of power. In other words, it produces what it speaks of. True faith is not just in word alone, not just in the profession, not just in the principle – true faith manifests itself when the principle walks hand in hand with the power. This is the only type of faith that glorifies God and edifies the body of Christ!

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

Good things happened, the bones came together, things got shook up, there was some noise, and sinews and flesh came upon them and the skin covered them. But there was no breath in them. In other words: Principle, truth, knowledge, did some good things, it brought them together, it shook them loose from some stuff, it made them look good. But there was no breath in them. They were dead, pretty but dead, all put together but dead, smelling good, but dead, looking good but dead. Had on a suit and tie but dead, had their favorite pew but dead, sang in the choir but dead, payed their tithes but dead. Principled but dead, knowledgeable but dead, biblical but dead.

I don’t want to say this, but I have to say it - The devil is not afraid of Pretty bones! He doesn’t care how many scriptures you can quote, or how programmed we are. The devil doesn’t care that we got all dressed up and we smell good. None of that bothers him because dead is still dead. You can have the biggest church in town and be dead. If all we have is principle, we’re dead! If the kingdom of God is present, where there is principle combined with power, there is manifestation.