Chnatel was asking me why I thought this year’s convention will be important…. So I went and asked the Lord and this is what I feel like He said.
This convention is all about crossing over. At Rosh Hashanah we entered a new era. We moved from the dispensation of the church into the dispensation of the kingdom. This has been prophesied for many years, but Rosh Hashanah marked the change. Since then we have been in the transition. Passover 5772 (falls during our convention) will be the line in the sand that we cross and there will be no turning back.
Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, they were rejoicing that the prophesied exodus was happening. But it did not take long for them to reach the Red Sea – a seemingly insurmountable barrier to their deliverance. As they were contemplating this, they hear the sound of Pharaoh’s armies…
We are in that place right now. God has brought us into a new era, but we are hearing the sound of the armies that are coming to make are war against us. Those enemies (the fears, the lusts, the lies) from our past, who do not want to let us go, have followed us into this new era. And although we can see God has brought us into a new place, we feel trapped and the deliverance we believed to be ours, is not. The test in this place is – WHAT SOUND WILL YOU BELIEVE?
The sound of the armies of Pharaoh? A sound that strikes fear into our hearts because we believe that he is all powerful and able to destroy us in a moment. Or will we believe that the God who says, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” (Exodus 14:13 – 14) In this place, can we believe that God will make a way where there seems to be no way. Are we able to believe His word or is the sound of Pharaoh’s armies louder in our ears?
We know that the Israelites were not able to believe God. They expected Him to kill them, they were not expecting deliverance, even after all that God had done for them. Their fear of Pharaoh was greater than their trust in God. Today, many of us are at the same place.
God has brought us into this new era that we have longed for, prayed for, prophesied about, fasted for and laid down our lives for. But now that we are here – the fears of the past are louder in our ears than the voice of the Lord that declares He can and will deliver us. We are afraid to trust the Lord completely. We believe the lies of the enemy before God. This unbelief is the very thing that disqualified the Israelites from entering the Promised Land. They got to the place of transition, but could not cross over because of their unbelief and stubbornness.
We cannot afford to fall into the same trap. If we continue to hold onto past hurts and fears, they will become the deafening sounds of Pharaoh’s army that keep us in fear and unbelief of God’s Word. If we do not let the fear and the hurt and offense go, they become the door through which the enemy will enter your life and bring upon you the very thing that you fear! “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me.” (Job 3:25)
The enemy will try to tell you that if you follow God, He will bring destruction on you. He will lead you into trouble and trial. The enemy convinces you that following God and trusting Him will bring about your worst fears. BUT I want to tell you, that if you believe this lie, it will open the door for demons to bring that destruction that you fear into your life. The only way to be delivered from your fear is to turn and face it and trust God in the midst of it!
In Exodus, He says to the people, “STAND STILL and see the salvation of the LORD”. This is the Hebrew word yatsab which means ‘to place, set, stand, set or station oneself, present oneself’.’ We firstly need to present ourselves before the Lord and set ourselves in a position where our eyes are fixed in Him. We need to only watch Him. Here is what He says in the rest of the verse, “and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.” We must set our eyes on what Jesus is doing and not on what the enemy is saying!
Then He says, “The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” The Lord is going to do the work, our part is to HOLD OUR PEACE. These words are the Hebrew word charash and one of the meanings of this word is ‘to be silent, to be speechless, to be deaf’. We have to close our ears to the sound of the enemy AND we have to shut our mouths! We are not to speak! It is interesting that this is the same strategy that God gave Joshua when the Israelites went to take Jericho. Do not listen to the lies of the enemy. Instead WATCH what the Lord will do. Do not speak and get into discussion with people about how close the armies of Pharaoh are, how strong they are, the things they will do if they catch you. Do not allow your mouth to lead you into unbelief. BUT watch the Lord fight for you!
God has allowed these enemies to pursue you into this new era. In fact He caused them to follow you (Exodus 14:8). He has led you and them to the Red Sea because He has a plan to deal with them once and for all! Just when you think your enemies are going to overcome you, God will drown them in the waters and allow you to cross over! You just have to BELIEVE Him.
The safest place right now is to look at God and trust him. Believe that if He has brought you this far, He did not do it to kill you now. He brought you here to take you over into this new land where we can fully manifest His Kingdom purposes.
It is time to cross over- do not get left behind.
