LET’S PRAY
Father we ask for Your anointing on us today. Place Your anointing on me as Your messenger today. God move in our lives. Help us to see things the way they are and understand that we need to prepare for the day you send your Son to bring us home. Rip open the heavens and visit Your people today.
Open our eyes so that we may see Your Word. Open our ears so that we may hear Your Word. Open our minds so that we may understand Your Word. Open our hearts so that we may receive Your Word today.
AMEN
It has been almost 10 full years since Debbie and I became your pastors. It seems like the last 10 years have just flown by. Time flies when you are having fun!
Debbie and I have watched our immediate family grow and change and we have watched our church family grow and change.
It has been stated by many people that the Winfield Open Bible Church is not the same church that it was 1 year ago, 10 years ago, even 30 years ago.
We have gone through many changes that have brought us to the place we are today.
Where is that place? I believe that today, the Winfield Open Bible Church is at a place in its existence that it is hungrier for the move of God than it has ever been in the past.
It has been at this place in times past but during those times has only allowed a little bit of the move of God to satisfy it.
It has been at this place before and apathy caused the church to hunger for other things.
It has been at this place before but because of a lack of action and a lack of vision, the things God wanted to do never were accomplished.
Once again the WOBC finds itself at a place that we are hungry for a move of God. God is doing some awesome things in our church and this is something that needs to be talked about and this is something that needs to be acted upon.
God wants to move in a fresh and new way in Winfield, Iowa and what you have been seeing and what you have been hearing is just the beginning.
One of the members of our church had a dream on Monday night that they shared with me on Tuesday. In her dream we were all in church worshipping God. Most of the people worshipping were at the front of the church and as they were seeking God, the heavens opened up and a cloud filled the church and in the cloud was God. Not God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, it was God the Father.
What I found most interesting about the dream was that the people who were seeking God at the alter were not afraid. Instead she described the reaction of the people as being in awe of what God was doing. God was pleased with what he witnessed and she remembered His first words was “My people.” Then she woke up.
I believe that this is a prophet dream. God is doing something. God is visiting this church. And as a church you are beginning to grasp what God is doing. You are waking up.
This dream prompted me to remember the dream I had a few months ago about an army that was attacking the church. God was calling the church to be ready and to wake up.
Another prophecy that was given the first of the year was that we need to wake up or the thing that God wants to do in Winfield and in our church, that thing He will pass by us if we do not wake up and grasp it.
Many people in the southeast Iowa area have been feeling that God is up to something and southeast Iowa is important in God’s plan.
Fires of God’s presence are beginning to ignite all over southeast Iowa and it is exciting. Winfield is one of those places.
A number of us who have been praying on Tuesday evenings here at the church have felt for some time that God is up to something and that God has put a time table to what He wants to do.
The month of June is key to what God is doing and today I want to help you make sense of all that is going on.
June is a very important month to Open Bible Churches across the nation. June is the month of the 75th anniversary of our organization. It is also the month that our national convention is taking place, in Spokane, Washington.
This year at our national convention Open Bible is considering a major change in the constitution and by-laws. It is a merger and revision of those documents that is over due as the current documents are out of date by about 30 years.
President Farmer recently wrote a letter to Open Bible pastors and part of that letter spoke directly to what God is speaking to our church.
He writes, “ God’s Spirit is at work preparing Open Bible to participate in a great harvest. Her best days were not in the early years of the last century – her best days are yet to come.
As our number of intercessors grows, God is giving us the ark of His presence to seize new land.
Out of the loins of our fathers and mothers is coming forth a new child, a new day, and a new fruitfulness. Do not be afraid. Do not shrink back. Release the gift of faith and move with God. God is making Open Bible a fruitful womb – impregnating her to bring a new generation of leaders and churches.”
He continues by saying, “These things are clear to me:
Open Bible has not missed her day of visitation.
A promised season of blessing and increase draws nearer with each passing day.
The older generation of living Open Bible fathers and mothers is not impotent, but is reproducing (as with Abraham and Sarah). They are giving birth to a “new child” – a new generation.
We are to move forward in faith, not fear. The new generation is waiting to be released.
Pruning (restructure) is not about downsizing or shrinking back. It is about increasing fruitfulness. The stirring of our waters is a good thing. We learn from John 5:1-8 when the waters are stirred up, it is because that which is unhealthy is about to be restored.” End quote.
I don’t know about you but those words resonate in my heart.
I believe with all my heart that President Farmer is not only speaking about Open Bible as a whole, even though this was sent to every minister and every church across this nation, I believe that he is speaking words of prophecy to the Winfield Open Bible Church.
June is an important month for the Winfield Open Bible Church. Why is it so important?
It is important because it is the 6th month of the year and in the Word of God we find an interesting principle in regards to the number 6 and the number 7.
Be it in days, months, or years 6 always sets up the day of completion. The day of completion is always the 7th day, month, or year. 7 is the number of completion and perfection and the number 6 always sets up the blessings of 7.
This may be a little weird but let me point this out to you; this is the 7th year of the new century. The past 6 years we have been preparing the ground and sowing seeds within the surrounding communities.
We can see in the Word of God how this principle of 6 and 7 works. God spent 6 days creating the earth and all that is on it. His 6 days of work set up the day of completion.
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” Genesis 2:2-3
Do you remember what God created on the 6th day? All the living creatures including man and woman.
If you don’t think that God follows a timetable then you need to look at Daniel 9:20-27.
There we see a direct prophecy from God given to Daniel by the angel Gabriel. It was a prophecy that gave Daniel a look into the future. It was a prophecy that pinpoints the exact moment in history when the Jewish Messiah would present himself to the Jewish people.
In verse 24 of that chapter, God reveals 6 things to Daniel that God is going to do. There are six major phases of God’s total redemptive plan.
“Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to (1) to finish transgression, (2) to put an end to sin, (3) to atone for wickedness, (4) to bring in everlasting righteousness, (5) to seal up vision and prophecy, (6) and to anoint the most holy.” Daniel 9:24
God’s plan includes what Jesus did on the cross. He put an end to sin and He atoned for wickedness. But it also refers to the total scope of God’s plan in the future, when, during the 1,000-year reign of Christ, righteousness will cover the earth, when all visions and prophecies will be sealed up (finished).
So you must understand God is giving Daniel a glimpse into the future that takes us up to the very end of the world, as we know it.
Do you know what happens after the 6 things mentioned in Daniel 9:24 take place? Blessing. It is the Second Coming of Christ as He raptures the church.
6 and 7.
6 sets up the day of completion, the 7th day. This is a Biblical principle that is so important for us to understand because as we enter into the next three months, May, June and July we need to be prepared for what God wants to do.
What does He want to do? He wants to bring to completion that which has been set in motion in the heavenly realms for the past 6 years.
Debbie and I have been here since 1997, but it was in the year 2000 that God began to speak to my heart about the future. The first three years was the honeymoon. Since the year 2000 God has been preparing me and preparing this church for something big.
We have seen an increase. The desire to be a church of prayer has increased, words of prophecy have been increasing, people being healed have been increasing, people being saved has increased, and people growing in the Lord has increased.
We are in the 7th year, the year of completion, the year of God’s blessing.
In the Word of God we see that God does a lot of things in seven.
In the Old Testament there were 7 prophecies concerning the birth of Christ. The reason of His birth was given. The nation from which He would come was given. The Tribe from that nation, the family from that tribe, even the mother was mentioned. He name was prophesied, His name will be Emmanuel, and the place of birth was also foretold.
When Jesus hung on the cross Scripture records seven different sayings that He spoke as He died.
He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34
“Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43
“Woman, behold thy son! [And to the disciple] behold thy mother!” John 19:26-27
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
I thirst. John 19:28
“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23:46
It is finished. John 19:30
God likes to do things in sevens.
In the Old Testament Naaman was told to dip in the dirty Jordan River 7 times before he would be healed.
In Joshua as Israel was coming into the Promised Land and they had to conquer the first town which was Jericho, there was 7 priest with 7 trumpets, on the 7th day and the people were told to march around the city 7 times and on the 7th time they were to shout to God and the walls of that city came down.
In the Gospels, Jesus said seven times “I am.”
“I am the Bread of Life.”
“I am the Light of the World.”
“I am the Door.”
“I am the Good Shepherd.”
“I am the Resurrection and Life”
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
“I am the True Vine.”
In the Gospels, Jesus gave 7 different parables about the Kingdom of God.
In the book of Revelation there is 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 angels, 7 bowls, and 7 plagues.
Jesus fed the multitudes with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Five plus two equals 7.
Even in science and nature.
7 different colors in the spectrum of a rainbow
Even in music. There are 7 notes in a musical scale.
I am telling you that God is up to something and it has already started and in May and June God is going to increase what He is doing and in July God is going to complete it.
What does it have to do with you? Everything.
“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive…” John 7:37-39
The Feast that is mentioned here is the Feast of Tabernacles and it began on the 15 day of the 7th month and it last for 7 days.
During this feast, a priest would fill a golden pitcher with water from the pool of Siloam and carry it to the alter at the Temple where he would pour it through a funnel leading to the base of the alter.
It is believed that it was after this ceremony that Christ gave this invitation to come and drink. Not only would they be satisfied when they came to drink but that person who was obedient to Christ would then become a channel of blessing to others. Living water would flow out of their life into the lives of others.
In the Old Testament the Spirit of God came upon people, but today, because Christ was glorified and ascended into heaven the Holy Ghost can live in God’s people.
God is doing a new thing. He is setting it up according to His timetable and He is bringing it to completion.
Philippians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
1+6=7
It is clear, what God begins He will finish. God is doing a work, He is regenerating, He is sanctifying, He is glorifying, He is unifying, He is confirming His purpose, His power, His glory and His unbreakable promise.
Are you ready?
Are you hungry for more?
Are you willing to open up your heart and life to what God wants to do?
CLOSE
