Chariots of Fire 1987

That a prophetic church is to have the same impact on the world around it that Jesus had during his ministry of flesh and blood on Israel. That a prophetic church is to be a sign of the kingdom, so clear that nobody seeing that sign can ever again have an excuse. They can never say, oh, but I didn't know, I never saw, nobody told me.

Just as Jesus was assigned to Capernaum, Bethsaida, Jerusalem, of the kingdom of God. People watching Jesus heal the sick were seeing the kingdom. People listening to Jesus speak were hearing a word right from the mouth of God.

So, we, along with all members of the body of Christ in Detroit, or Metro Detroit, are to be assigned to the city and environs of the kingdom of God that clear so that people seeing what we do are seeing God's kingdom, and when they hear us speak, are hearing a word from God. Now, theoretically, that sounds okay. Everybody says amen.

How can you disagree with that? Beautiful, lovely. But, when we take this down and apply it to this specific congregation and say that this congregation here is to be a sign of the kingdom of God to Detroit, and it's to have an impact of the kingdom of God on this city, then, at least to the natural mind, it seems a little bit absurd. I mean, almost pretentious.

I mean, we're not big enough. We're too small. We don't have the resources.

We have the wrong location. We don't have the connections to make any impact on Metro Detroit. And really, in order to, you know, we just don't have what it takes to make even the slightest cent on the city and its environs.

If we were to meet for 50 years more and pack the place every Sunday and have a wonderful time of fellowship with each other and go out there seriously proclaiming the kingdom of God every day of the week, to the natural mind, at least, we could say Metro Detroit would go on about its business almost unaffected. They wouldn't even know we exist. Besides that, the industry is moving out.

Plants are closing. Here we are, three blocks from a huge Cadillac plant which is going to be a ghost town within a couple of years. And this is the location to make an impact on Detroit, even if we could.

But the answer of the Lord to us is have no fear. It's not your kingdom, it's my kingdom. And you will make an impact on this city.

You will be a stronghold and every sign of the kingdom of God, you are at exactly the right place and it's exactly the right time to manifest my glory. Reading from 2 Kings 6, starting at verse 8. Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, At such and such a place shall be my camp. But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, Beware that you do not pass this place for the Syrians are going down there.

And then the king of Israel sent to the place of which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, and so he saved himself there more than once or twice. And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing.

He called his servants and said to them, Would you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king, but Elisha the prophet, who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber. And he said, Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him. It was told him, Behold, he is a dolphin.

So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was rounded out the city. And the servant said, Alas, my master, what shall we do? He said, Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Then Elisha prayed and said, O lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. So the lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. To the natural eye it looked absolutely hopeless.

There was no way out of this thing, because the natural eye was incapable of seeing the horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And those horses and chariots of fire didn't shed a drop of blood. They were there simply to answer the prayers of this man of God.

And so, Elisha would pray and eyes would open. That's what he was there for. Elisha was at exactly the right place at exactly the right time to manifest the glory of God not only to his doubting servant, but to all Israel and to all Syria, to Jew and Gentile, to believer and unbeliever.

Reading on. When the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, Strike this people, I pray thee, with blindness. So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha.

Elisha said to them, This is not the way, this is not the city. Follow me. I will bring you to the man whom you seek.

And he led them to Samaria, which was the enemy, you know, Israel's, northern kingdom of Israel's capital city. As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, O Lord, open the eyes of each man that they may see. So the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw, and, lo, they were in the midst of Samaria.

When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, My father, shall I slay them? Shall I slay them? He answered, You shall not slay them. Would you slay those whom you had taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master. So he prepared for them a great feast.

When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away. And they went to their master, and the Syrians came no more on raids to the land of Israel. Now notice, Elisha didn't say, Well, I think it's time for us to have a revival and then try to make one happen.

He fit into the movement of the kingdom of God. He fit into the movement of the spirit of God. And as I said, those chariots of fire were not there to shed blood.

They were there to answer his prayer. And all Elisha did was pray. He prayed, Eyes open and shut by means of the chariots of fire.

O Lord, open this man's eyes that he may see. His eyes opened, he sees the chariots of fire and the horses of fire. Strike them with blindness, I pray you.

And the chariots of fire come, and they put a veil over the eyes of the army of the Syrians. Leads them into Samaria. Open these men's eyes that they may see, Lord God.

And the chariots of fire open their eyes. Isn't this exactly what Jesus did? In John 9, 39, Jesus says, For judgment I have come into this world that those who do not see may see and that those who see may be made blind. And when John the Baptist was was becoming panicky about whether Jesus was ever going to do anything significant, and sent word from prison, Are you the one who is to come or do we look for another? Jesus answers, Go tell John again the things which you hear and see.

And on top of the list, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. The chariots of fire are busy answering the prayers of our Lord, confirming his word. So how are we going to make an impact on this city? In exactly the same way.

It's by means of the chariots of fire. They make it possible for us to pray and eyes will open. And they make it possible for us to speak and ears will open.

What we need to understand is that the real work is not done by us, it's done by those horses and chariots of fire. In other words, from God's side, God in the realm of spirit, God at the throne of the universe, answers our prayers. We pray and eyes open because he answers our prayers.

We speak and ears open because he confirms our word. This is what Jesus is getting at in Matthew chapter 18, when he says, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Our responsibility as a prophetic church is to bring the horses and chariots of fire to bear on and the heavenly chariots to bear on earthly eyes and ears. We have two lessons to put into practice this week as we go about our ministries out there in the world, all of us. And to remember as we practice these two lessons that the power that causes it to be possible is the spirit of God moving through the body.

We're not individualistic. We're not lone rangers. We're not individuals operating independently of the rest of the body.

But we are part of the body. We're drawn together. Where two agree on earth touching anything they shall ask.

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst. We come together now. We're here so that he can fill us with what we need.

So that we then can go out and exercise the ministry. Lesson number one. We are to pray people's eyes open.

Open his eyes that he may see, O Lord. O Lord, open these men's eyes that they may see. Last Sunday night, Gene and I were turning in our tickets and boarding passes at gate 77 or whatever it was at the Toronto airport to get on a plane to go to Halifax to be with Gene's family after the death of her mother.

We get to this man and he says could you take them over to the counter? There's been a mix-up in the seating. And our first thought was, uh-oh, we're going to get bumped over this flight. How are we going to get down there? But when we get to the counter, we discover that we've been promoted from tourist class to first class.

That was fine until the flight attendant told us they were five meals short. Just take me back. But anyway, it worked out.

They had an extra meal and Gene and I split it. It worked out fine. But what I want to get at was that instead of sitting over here on the left side of the plane, two seats by the window, by ourselves, we're shoved up to the front in three seats.

Bigger seats, wider seating, but there's this man sitting by the window, then me, then Gene. So I sit down and mind my own business. It was a long day, and I don't want to talk to him.

You know, it's not street work time. This ain't the highway park. So I'm trying to relax and, you know, maybe take a little nap, and this guy starts talking.

What can you do? All right, Lord. So it turns out he's with Honeywell, and he's in charge of installing fiber optics communication system for the Canadian Navy so that they'll be able to see where all the ships are in the North Atlantic. And we're talking, and we find out about his family.

He's from England originally. He lives in Toronto. He has to fly down there every Sunday night and come back every Friday.

And the conversation goes on, and finally the conversation goes to religion. I find myself saying to him, when's the last time you read the New Testament? Oh, it's been a while. About 25 years.

I said, read it. Read it. What do you think of Jesus? I asked him.

And I think he was a little taken back. He was a bastard. Now it was getting to be a little unpleasant, but he said, well, I think he's a great man along with many other great men.

And I said to him, it's more than that. You won't find a man like Jesus anywhere else in history. Nor will you find anybody like Jesus in all fiction.

Search the libraries. You won't find anybody like Jesus. Get to know him.

And that was as far as I felt I was to go. And he didn't fall on his knees and pray the sinner's prayer. He didn't burst into tears.

But I really believe that at this point in, it's a matter of praying his eyes open. From here on, it's the horses and chariots of fire. They are to do the work.

So join me in praying for this man. His name is Peter Byford. And that he has these nights alone in this little hotel room down in Halifax, Monday night through Thursday night, to be praying that Peter would somehow be drawn to open up in the best of man and to meet Jesus.

We need to be specific in our praying for people. You know, Lord God, open their eyes that they may see your son, that they may know his glory, that they may experience his mercy. Sometime this week, your phone might ring and somebody will be on the other side, on the line, and they'll be discouraged or they'll be overwhelmed with guilt or they'll be all upset and nervous or angry about something.

And now you begin to speak. You listen and you speak, but as you listen and as you speak, you pray, Lord God, open his eyes, open her eyes, that she may see. Expect to get some exercise in opening blind eyes this week.

And even if it seems to go slowly, remember it's the horses and chariots of fire that do the work. We pray and they move. Lesson number two.

We are to open, we are to speak people's ears open. Open their ears with a spoken word. Now, true enough, not every ear is open to the word of God, a word from God.

And God alone knows who's open and who isn't, so Jesus would say, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. But some will respond. And the only way the ear opens is by the word itself, a spoken word.

I'm not talking about verse after verse after verse down and across. But I'm talking about speaking, whether it's directly out of King James or whether it's straight from your heart, a word that you know is a word of comfort or of encouragement, perhaps sometimes of rebuke, but a word. And trust that that will happen, that the word that you speak will somehow be confirmed.

Know that. You know, wherever we are, the exact place where we are, Tuesday afternoon or Thursday evening or Friday morning, to believe that there will be an opening, to speak a word of encouragement or a word of hope or a specific word about Jesus. And just speak it.

And trust that the chariots of fire will do the work just to know that it will be received. Some of it will, you know, there will be a response, there will be something. Just to speak that word and not to be afraid to do that.

If we speak, they will move and ears will open and hearts will melt and people will be drawn toward the kingdom. Our problem over the years has been that we have all too often gone through our days intimidated by the chariots and the horses of the Syrians up there in the hillside, and we say, oh, we're outnumbered. Nobody will listen to me.

I don't have anything to offer. I mean, my words seem so inconsequential and so pale and so weak beside the so-called great issues of the day. But the word is that those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Don't be afraid. Alas, my master, what shall we do? He said, fear not. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Our task is to pray the ear and the mouth and the eye loose first for ourselves and then to pray their eye open and to speak their ear open with a word from God.

We will make an impact on the world around us. Not five years down the road, but today, this week, those horses and chariots of fire will open the blind eye and will open the deaf ear in answer to our prayers and to confirm our words and the blind will see and the lame will walk and the lepers will be cleansed and the deaf will hear and the dead will rise and the poor will hear good news about Jesus who died and rose and lives and reigns. Let's wait upon the spirit of God just in silence now for a minute.