Well, good morning once again, saints. Are we awake? Okay. Can I say it again? Good morning. Thank you, thank you.
Interesting—the very last verse in that song: “For me, Thou gavest Thyself; now I give all for Thee.” Wow. I have a hard time singing that. I think we probably all do if we seriously consider it.
But I do believe, brothers and sisters, it is time in our history—personally, corporately, and universally—that we step up to the plate, that we make that decision that we are all for Him. He is all for us, but we need to be all for Him.
With that thought, we have had the summer conference on our hearts for a while now. We have been praying about it. Leadership has been considering what might be on the Lord’s heart, and something that we will present to those coming Saturday is what we sense is on our hearts. We will see what the Lord does, for sure.
But I thought it might be good to share something of that sense of burden we have been sensing from the Lord with the saints this morning, considering the summer conference, the age in which we live, and our need to respond to the Lord at this hour.
The word I am going to give this morning is on the link. You will understand what that means shortly. I would like to begin by reading two verses.
One is from Isaiah 40:3. I am in the King James Version. Isaiah 40:3, a very familiar Scripture:
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” We know that this is a ministry John the Baptist, in particular, carried out, and it was spoken of in connection with John the Baptist. But preparing the way of the Lord is not just limited to John the Baptist, brothers and sisters.
For the saints down through the ages, and for us today, as the kingdom age is about upon us, preparing the way of the Lord is critical and necessary. I am thankful for all those saints who preceded us.
You know, I think of Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—all these saints down through the ages who have been preparing the way of the Lord. We are to enter into that great service as well.
Now let us read Revelation 1:3. My brother, when he was sharing last week, reminded me that I had had this thought on my heart, and it is still there.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know the time in which we are living. The sons of Issachar, it says, were men who understood the times and knew what Israel ought to do.
Brothers and sisters, we do live in a time, a period in history, where very soon the King will return to this earth to reign and rule for a thousand years. We should realize from what we have been seeing around the world that it is very soon.
With all the turmoil in the Middle East particularly, with the atmosphere extremely activated in the last four or five years, and tremendous increases in earthquakes, tsunamis, and things of this nature—signs that the Lord gave in Matthew about the coming days—we need to recognize the hour in which we live.
In Ezekiel 38, Ezekiel gave a prophecy about 2,600 years ago. That prophecy concerns a war that is yet to occur, but we see the beginnings of it even today. It is the one he speaks about concerning Gog and Magog.
As you look at the countries in Ezekiel’s prophecy in Ezekiel 38, today Gog and Magog are identified with Russia. He says in that prophecy that He will put a hook in his mouth and draw him down toward Israel, but there will be an alliance of nations.
Those nations include modern-day Russia, Turkey, Iran, Sudan, parts of Africa, and Libya. These are the ones mentioned. Russia is Russia, of course, but the rest are not just Arab nations; there are Persian nations as well. That is what Iran is. But they are all Muslim, and they are all turning toward radical Islam.
They are all against the nation of Israel and Christians. So we see all of this developing around us in the world today. Even the recent turmoil with Gaza shows us that what the Lord shared through Ezekiel 2,600 years ago is coming to pass shortly—a precursor to the Lord’s return to this earth.
This is the age in which we live. It is a critical age, an age in which we need to be serious not only about the events we see, but about whether we are really getting prepared for the Lord’s return. Or are we lethargic? Are we still asleep? Are we still passive concerning this matter?
I think, brothers and sisters, we need to awaken to this hour. That is on my heart this morning.
Down through the ages, when the Lord determined to change the age—to make a paradigm shift in the age—He sought those who would serve as a link.
Today we live in what is called the age of grace, because God has come; Christ has come in grace to save us and redeem us. But the kingdom age is on the way.
Just as John the Baptist was called to be a link from the age of law to the coming King, Christ, upon this earth, today the Lord is looking for a link between the age of grace and the kingdom age, which is soon to come.
As I thought about this matter of the link, the first one I thought of was Noah. Obviously, Noah was present at a great change in God’s way. We remember that in the days of Noah there was a great flood, when the Lord destroyed everything on this earth except Noah’s family and started over.
That was an age change. Noah became the link. But let me go back a little bit and give some history.
In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve. They were innocent. They were not yet perfect; they had not received the life of God, but they were innocent. They had not sinned, and they were clothed with the image of God. They were made in the image of God, and His glory shone through them.
But, brothers and sisters, when they sinned, when they fell into sin, something awful happened. Not only had they sinned, but they became sinners. The very nature of man had changed, and he no longer represented the image of God in which he was made.
That is why the Bible says they suddenly discovered they were naked: the glory of the image of God had gone. They recognized that, and they were afraid. They hid from God.
They were disqualified from God’s plan at that point. They were on their own, so to speak. They were outside the blessing of God. They were sinners, unable to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives. They were hopeless.
But we remember that God sought them out. They were hiding, but God sought them out. The Lord gave Adam a vision—a vision of the promised Seed who was to come.
The promised Seed would restore things back, restore the glory. Adam and Eve did not fully understand, but the Lord gave them clothing—an animal skin, most likely a lamb.
That clothing was a covering, a temporary covering, so to speak, until Christ would come. They were to maintain this covering in faith. In other words, by faith they were looking forward to Christ coming.
What was Christ going to do? Christ was going to die on the cross. The Word of God tells us that, when we accept Christ, we are given this golden robe of righteousness. We are clothed with the glory given to all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a robe of righteousness. We are restored.
But in those days, they had to take that clothing as a down payment, so to speak, on what was to come: Christ, who was to become their clothing. The Word says that when we accept Christ, we are put into Christ and Christ is in us. So He becomes our clothing, and that lost image is restored.
This promise of the Seed, the One to come, this vision given to Adam, was passed through his sons—Abel, who gave an acceptable sacrifice before the Lord, which was a slain lamb; and Enoch, who walked with God.
Enoch walked with God, and he was taken up before he died. The vision was passed on until you come to the time of Noah.
By the time we get to Noah, the world had totally departed from the Lord. In Genesis 6:6, the Lord says that He was sorry that He had made man. The departure was so great. Man had turned from the Lord, rejected God and His authority, so completely.
The Lord could have ended it there, brothers and sisters. He could have made another form of being. But He decided not to. He had a plan even from the beginning, knowing that man would fall and knowing man’s condition.
You see, men turned from God because they had that sin nature in them. Brothers and sisters, sinners. God bore with man until He could no longer stand it.
Now, He is a loving, patient God. I do not know how many years had passed—quite a few. There are all kinds of estimates for the number of people on earth at that time. But He decided to judge the world, to do away with it.
He was going to bring in a new age. He was going to flood the earth and start over. But He needed a link.
He needed that link to the new age. He looked and searched, and the only one He could find was Noah. Out of all the men, women, and children on the earth at that time, only one.
The Word says that Noah walked with God. In other words, that vision of the promised Seed was still alive in Noah. God recognized it and said, “Here is My link to the new age. My link.”
God found Noah. He gave Noah a vision. He told Noah that He was going to flood the earth, but that He was going to make a way of salvation. The vision He gave Noah was a vision of the ark.
Thank God Noah believed God. Thank God he had faith in God. We are so thankful that he believed the Lord. Not only did he believe what the Lord had shown him; he acted upon it.
Now I want you to get this. The ark: the Lord gave Noah extensive detail concerning how He wanted it built. Today, engineers tell us that, in looking at the way the ark was made and its size, frankly, it was unsinkable unless it got a hole in it.
It would just float like a fishing bob. It was made and designed that way.
It took Noah 120 years to build this ark. Now, this was not a little rowboat. It was 450 feet long—that is one and a half football fields in length. It was 75 feet wide, which is about from here to the porch on the other side. It was four and a half stories high.
The vision captured Noah. It became his vocation, his life’s mission. What he had seen from the Lord became his mission in life.
Now, he still had to take care of his family. They still had to gather food, plant things, and live their lives. But they engaged themselves in what was the priority in their hearts, and that was building that ark.
A lot of people believe the ark is just a fairy tale. It is not, because the ark represents Christ, and I know He is not a fairy tale.
Brothers and sisters, he built that ark. For 120 years, he was faithful to what he had seen.
The real point I want to make is that not only did Noah have vision, but he acted on it. It consumed him. He knew judgment was coming. God had given him a vision of the way through the flood—the judgment of God.
He shared this, I am sure. He preached for 120 years to others around him who would listen, but unfortunately, no one listened. At best, Noah was ignored, considered insane and crazy.
They did not even know what rain was. It had never rained on the earth unto that point. The dew would come down and moisten the earth every morning. When he talked about the flood, they had no concept.
This big ark—they ridiculed him, I am sure. Imagine, he was persecuted. But he remained faithful to what he had seen. He was the link, brothers and sisters.
After the flood, we know that God started again with Noah and his family, his three sons, to populate the earth. He made a covenant with Noah and told him, “I want you to populate the earth.” There would now be blood for blood.
In other words, God was going to have the age that scholars refer to as the age of government. Not only would man be guided by his conscience, which is what happened prior to that—the age of conscience, they call it—but there would be government.
When Adam and Eve fell, they became conscious of good and evil. So man was basically living under conscience, and that was the age of conscience. But man’s conscience had become so seared that he had no desire for God at all. He rejected God and wanted Him out of his life.
Now, not only would there be conscience, but there would be government to restrain lawlessness and government to support righteousness.
God went on to say that He would not destroy the earth again by flood. He set a rainbow in the sky as a sign of the covenant He made with Noah. We are still under that. The four seasons still continue. We still have government.
Unfortunately, government no longer seems to support righteousness and restrain lawlessness, but appears to support it. So it seems like we are headed back to the days of Noah, as the Lord said it would be.
So we have this age of government, and Noah became the link between these two ages.
But because of the basic flaw in man—man still being a sinner, and that not being taken from Noah—this flaw manifested itself. As people began to populate the earth, once again man began to fall away from the Lord.
They began to reject Him, wanting to be head of their own lives, to run their own lives. They did not want God in their lives. They decided they would get together and build a tower reaching to heaven, called the Tower of Babel.
What does this Tower of Babel represent today? It is humanism. It is man putting himself in the place of God. That is what they were saying: “We will be our own god.”
They built this tower—or tried to build a tower—and God came down and judged it. He did not wipe them out again. What He did was give them all different languages so they could not communicate and continue to build that tower.
Then men began to scatter over the whole earth. It was the Lord’s heart that, in scattering, these people might reconsider because of the judgment of God and might come back to Him. But unfortunately, they did not.
What did man do instead? He began to make idols—idols out of silver and wood, idols after man’s own image to worship instead of God.
Man’s conscience was becoming more and more seared toward God. Government no longer controlled lawlessness.
God once again decided to move to a new age, and He needed a link. The new age would be the age of promise. He decided to raise up a nation of people, a nation that would be a testimony to God on this earth.
But He needed a link. That link was Abraham.
He called Abraham out. It says the God of glory appeared to Abraham, and he left—not quite all—but he did leave and head out to the promised land.
Unlike Noah, Abraham was not walking with God when God met him. It is interesting: he was to be the link, but he was not a man of God and was not walking with God. History says that he was not only an idol worshiper, but his father was in the business of making idols.
Why did God choose Abraham to be the link, brothers and sisters? That is the question we should consider.
There are a couple of things we need to know about God. Vision is by God’s choice. Vision is God’s sovereign choice. He gives vision to whomever He will. It is His choice. He is God.
He does not have to give anybody vision. He does not have to reveal Himself, but it is His good pleasure to reveal Himself, and He wants to reveal Himself.
That is why most of us in this room today are Christians: because we saw that He was our Savior. We saw that we were sinners, that we needed forgiveness, and that we needed to be reconciled to God. Thank the Lord.
That came because God spoke to your heart. He sought you out just as He did Adam and Eve in the garden. He spoke to you and gave revelation of Himself to you, or you would never have known Him.
When God is looking for a link, one of the principles we need to recognize is that it is by His sovereign grace. Brothers and sisters, it was grace.
There appeared to be nothing in Abraham that qualified him to be a link, unlike Enoch and Noah, who walked with God. No merit—unmerited favor from God.
Think of Saul. Saul was actually putting Christians to death when the Lord revealed Himself to him in that vision on the Damascus road. Certainly Saul was not deserving either.
So why Abraham? Why Abraham, brothers and sisters? We know that it is the sovereign grace of God. When He gives us revelation, it is a tremendous gift because it brings us into connection with God Himself. It brings us into connection with His plans and His purpose.
We are not just called to be receivers, brothers and sisters. We are called to be part of His purpose and His grand plan.
When we receive vision, life changes. So we do need God to give it to us, and we need to be exercised over this matter. This matter of vision of the Lord is ever-increasing.
It begins with seeing Him as the Lamb slain for you and me. But there is much more—much more vision. Recently, I shared on the King, the need to see the King.
Yes, vision is a sovereign choosing of God. On the other hand, the heart of the one given vision must be ready to receive that vision. That is the other side of the coin. There must be a ready heart.
We can understand God appearing to Noah—he walked with God. Abraham was worshiping idols. So why did God choose Abraham?
Brothers and sisters, I really do not know. The Word of God does not tell us. But here is what I think I do know: God is always looking in the heart. He looks beyond the outward and sees deep into the heart.
I believe this, and I obviously could be wrong. I believe that in Abraham’s heart, among all those idols surrounding him, somehow an emptiness was there in his life—an emptiness that we have probably all experienced before we met the Lord Jesus.
Those idols probably did not satisfy his heart. Abraham was probably looking for reality. He wanted to know the living God, not just a stone or a piece of wood that he made in his own image.
Not the real God. Where was the real God? Who was the real God? I believe he was probably exercised in his heart. I believe the Lord saw it.
When the Lord appeared to Abraham, he did not hesitate. He immediately responded in faith to what the Lord showed him. No hesitation. His heart was ready. That is the point I am making: he had a ready heart.
I mentioned Saul, who became Paul on the Damascus road. When the Lord appeared to Saul, what did He say? He said, “Saul, it is hard for thee to kick against the goads.”
A goad is something people using oxen would use to poke the ox and make him go. What the Lord was saying was, “I have been getting to your conscience.”
“Saul, you have been persecuting My people. You have been persecuting Me, because you persecuted My body. You have persecuted Me. But it has been getting to your conscience.”
I believe that when Saul was there as Stephen was martyred—it says in Acts 7:55:
Being full of the Holy Ghost, Stephen looked up steadfastly into heaven,
and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened,
and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Saul was there. He was watching that execution. He had called for that execution. But I am sure he saw on Stephen’s face the glory of God. He had never seen that before. He had never experienced that before.
Brothers and sisters, I believe in his heart Saul said, “That is reality. That is what I have been looking for. I have been keeping the law all my life. I have tried to serve God by persecuting all these Christians because I thought they were wrong.”
“But I see that this one, whom I have sent to the death sentence, has actually seen something. It is on his face. I see the glory there. Something is real in this man’s life that I do not have—something that all the doctrines and teachings cannot give me.”
I believe it touched his heart deeply. When the Lord met him on the Damascus road, he was ready to receive the revelation.
It was because, I believe, both these men—Abraham as well as Saul, who became Paul—were hungry for God. They were hungry for reality. Hungry.
Saul knew all about the Scriptures, but he did not know the living Lord Jesus Christ until the Damascus road changed his life. We know he gave his life to the Lord and served the Lord faithfully.
Abraham became the link between the age of government and the age of promise. Two things: he was chosen by the sovereign grace of God to be the link, but his heart was hungry for God.
Oh, for a hungry heart.
I think of Moses, the link between the age of promise and the age of law. God had decided that it was time in the history of man that He would raise up a testimony to Himself.
The world was becoming evil once again—lawless. He was going to raise up a nation of people who loved Him, followed Him, and obeyed Him. It would be a testimony that there is a living God on this earth. He raised up the nation of Israel through Abraham.
But we know the story of how Jacob’s family had to be brought down into Egypt in order to survive the famine. They were in Egypt for 400 years. In the beginning, it was great.
They were well-liked, even though the Egyptians would not associate with them. They were given the best part of the land, the land of Goshen, for their cattle. They were well taken care of, and Egypt became a paradise for these people.
But unfortunately, in their prosperity, their hearts began to turn from the Lord. They were to be the nation that showed forth God’s glory on this earth, but they were turning from God.
As they turned from God, Egypt turned upon them. They were persecuted and made slaves. They were in bondage for 400 years until they began to cry out for the living God.
They cried out, and the Lord heard their cries. He said, “They are ready. But I need a link to take them out of Egypt. I need a link to make this change in ages that I am about to make.”
He chose Moses.
Now, brothers and sisters, we would think Moses was an ideal choice, would we not? He had been second to the king in Egypt. He was a ruler, a leader, a great leader, a builder, an architect, as he built cities for Ramses.
He was knowledgeable and eloquent. What an ideal leader to bring the people out, right? To make this change in ages.
Well, as it turned out, all that disqualified him. All that natural ability, learning, and background actually disqualified him in God’s eyes.
He was not the link that was needed, but God chose him sovereignly, and He was going to make him the link that was needed.
We remember how, after he had slain an Egyptian, Moses had to run for his life and went back into the desert. For forty years, he became a shepherd.
Brothers and sisters, it was forty years of discipline under the hand of God, that he might become the link. Forty years as a shepherd. The Lord broke him. The Lord humbled him.
When the Lord appeared to him and asked him to go back and take the children of Israel out, Moses said, “Lord, I cannot do it.” Before, he would have said, “Of course. I have led legions.” But now he could not. He said, “The most I can do is lead sheep.”
The Lord told him he needed to speak to the people. He said, “No, I cannot speak.” That is when the Lord raised up Aaron to do it. Moses had lost all of it.
Here is the point: he was going to be the link, and he had to become zero. He had to become nothing, so that God could make him into what He wanted him to be—the man God needed to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know what you think of your own Christian spiritual life and experience, but I do know this: if you feel like you are zero, that is a great place to be, because God can now make you into what He wants.
But as long as you think you are something, He is going to have a hard time. You are going to have a hard time, if you are serious about the Lord.
After all those forty years of discipline, the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. It was a thorn bush.
Oh, how ironic the Lord is. The Lord is almost funny at times. Moses was that thorn bush, really. He had just become a thorn bush. You know, thorn bushes in the desert—they are tumbleweeds. They are not good for anything.
But you know what? Fire was in the thorn bush. It was a consuming fire, but the thorn bush was not consumed.
In other words, He was going to raise Moses up to be that link, and He did. So it took all of that discipline for Moses.
We know that Moses led the people out of Egypt toward the promised land. On the way, we remember the tablets of stone. The law was given.
Brothers and sisters, the Word of God is very clear: the law was given in order that these people might see that they were sinners, that they might see their true condition before God. That is the purpose of the law.
That they might see their lack; that they might see, “Hey, boy, I have missed it. God is so righteous, and I am such an unrighteous person.”
The law should have humbled them. But they took up the law as something to be kept. It did not humble them at all; it made them proud. “Hey, we have got the law. God is on our side.” It made them proud and self-righteous.
In their self-righteousness, they ended up rejecting the righteousness of God, Jesus Christ.
They went many, many years with no vision. God began to put them back under His disciplinary hand. They came into bondage under the Roman government.
Once again, they cried out for the Messiah, that the Messiah might come, become King, reign on this earth, and deliver them from this bondage.
But you know what? God was ready to change the age, and He needed a link. These people were not ready for a King. The world was not ready for this King.
Brothers and sisters, man was basically flawed. He is a sinner. You are a sinner by nature. God had to deal with that.
It was not the physical bondage that He was concerned about. It was the spiritual bondage these people were in, and that mankind has been in all their lives.
It is the spiritual bondage you are in when you are born of your mother and father. You are a sinner by nature. You do not know how foreign you are to God and His nature when you are born.
Babies are great. They are gentle; they are precious. My grandsons—you know how precious I think they are—but they are sinners by nature. They are foreign to God.
But God loves them, and He wants to make a way for them just as He made a way for me: a way of salvation, a way to bring us into a new life, a new creation, a new mankind. That is what God was after.
He was not only going to have Christ come and die for our sins, but He was going to die in our place. It says that we have been crucified in Him.
Brothers and sisters, He not only died for our sins that we might be forgiven. He died as a representative in our place before God. He says the old man has been crucified in Christ.
In other words, the sinner—that old sin nature—it may still be in us, but the sinner himself has now been crucified in Christ. The sin nature has been made not to have a place to reside, basically.
He was going to deal with the spiritual issue of mankind totally—not just the forgiveness of sins, but the dealing with the sinner himself.
That is why the Word of God says, “You must be born again.” You are born into a new life spiritually in Christ, and that is the life that will go ahead and be with God.
The old man is crucified. Today, as Christians, we are still dealing with that because we have not yet been perfected. But daily, more and more, we should be living by the life of Christ and putting the old man under the cross of Calvary. It is by faith.
I do not want to get sidetracked, but this is what grace was needed for. The age of grace was needed to correct the spiritual problem with man—not just to get him out of trouble, not just to get him out of physical bondage. Spiritual bondage had to be dealt with in order to have a kingdom that could satisfy God.
God said, “It is time for the new age.” It was an age, according to the Word, that was hidden in God’s heart. It was hinted at in the prophets, but only hinted at. It became clear only after Christ was raised from the dead.
Brothers and sisters, this age of grace that we live under has been a marvelous age. Oh, how we have been able to come into being born again, becoming a new creation in Christ, being part of the kingdom of God, because something has happened fundamentally in you.
You become a spiritual being.
The Lord needed a link once again. I read about one link: John the Baptist. We know that the Lord sovereignly raised up John.
In fact, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit while he was still in the womb to become the link. That says something to me, brothers and sisters.
Not only do we need vision, but we need the anointing—the power of God, the Holy Spirit.
Fortunately, when you accept Jesus Christ, you receive the Holy Spirit. But are you listening to Him? Are you living by Him? Are you obeying Him? Are you moving in accordance with His life within you?
That is what the anointing is for. It goes deeper than our conscience. We still have a conscience, but our conscience can be flawed. The anointing is always right, because it is the Spirit of God.
The anointing is needed to live the life of a link.
But there were others. Amazingly enough, there were three kings—Gentiles—that the Lord used to come and testify that the King was here.
But not only the great men. There were shepherds in the field who gave glory to God in the highest. Oh, how they sang with the angels. This new One was here. The age was changing.
Mary: “Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word.” Just a willing heart.
Previously, I mentioned Simeon and Anna—links as well. So you see, there is more than just one link here.
The Lord had given Simeon a vision. He said, “Simeon, you will not die until you see Christ.”
That vision kept Simeon alive. He was an old man. He should have already died, but it kept him alive. That vision kept him alive, and it kept him daily, because he would come to the temple every day to watch those babies coming through.
I thought about it: I wonder how many thousands of babies he watched come through that temple. After eight days, the Jewish people had to come to the temple with their babies. He had seen thousands.
But when he saw Christ, there was no delay. He recognized Him immediately—just a baby in Mary’s arms. He said, “This is the One.”
He was there to testify that the King was here. The Messiah was here. He was a link.
Then there was Anna. I did want to say something else about Simeon. After he had testified of the Lord, he said, “Lord, let Thy servant depart, for I have seen the salvation of God.” He was ready to go.
But he called himself a bondservant. Vision is not enough. We need to become a bondservant, a love slave to the Lord, to be a link.
Then there was Anna. By the best of my calculations, Anna must have been around 106 years old. That assumes she was about thirteen years old when she got married.
She lived with her husband for seven years when he died, and it says she was in the temple for eighty-seven years, day and night, praying—travailing prayer.
This woman had a ministry. She had seen that the Messiah was coming, and she had this burden in her heart for the Messiah. She travailed in prayer for eighty-seven years until she saw Christ.
When she saw Christ, she said, “This is the One,” and she testified to Him. Another link.
So you see, there were multiple links as Jesus was introduced.
Brothers and sisters, God has always had a link for every age. The age is upon us now: the kingdom age. He is looking for that link.
Years and years ago, our brother Stephen shared about the epoch-making man. I was not sure what “epoch” meant at that time, but basically it means a major change in life.
An epoch event in your life would be an event that occurred after which things were never the same. Life had changed.
That happened to me when I got married. It happened to me when I had my first child and my second child. Things keep changing. Well, epoch times—links.
God is looking for a link. God intended that the church itself, just like the nation of Israel, would be a link.
But we know, in general, from what we see in Revelation, that the Lord saw the church had failed. It is not ready to be a link.
The Lord wanted the church to be that link: those born of the Spirit, a people changed into new creations, hungering and thirsting for the King, loving the King, not satisfied until they see the King.
But the church has failed. Brothers and sisters, today you need to know this: God is still calling.
The Lord is not just choosing one man anymore. He is calling for a link out of His church. The call goes: “He that hath an ear, let him hear.”
We should all desire to be a part of that. That should be our heart’s desire: a link to the new kingdom, the new age.
I do not know if you have heard the call. We need to be exercised about it. “Lord, You are coming soon. I want to be a part of bringing in the King. I want to be that link.”
Like the shepherds in the field; like Mary; like Anna; like Simeon; like Abraham, Noah, and Paul—all of these. We recognize that the call is going out.
I believe it is going out today: “He that hath an ear, let him hear.” A people of the link.
The one thing common to all of these people who were links is that they had vision. The Lord had revealed Himself to them.
The Lord has revealed Himself to all of us, I think. Maybe there might be some who are not saved. But is that vision growing?
Do you somehow hear the call that you cannot remain going on with life as it is? That you cannot leave yourself in neutral and kind of coast down the hill? That there is something going on?
A vision that will hold you, that will motivate you, like Noah building that ark—something that becomes your vocation.
It is God’s sovereign act to choose you, but your heart has got to be right. Your heart needs to be ready. My heart needs to be ready.
I was greatly exercised even in trying to give this. “Lord, only You know our hearts.” In fact, it says we cannot know our own heart. So I would not advise anybody to try to examine their own heart.
But we can certainly present ourselves before the Lord and say, “Lord, You examine me. If You find any evil, wicked way in me, Lord, You make me ready. I want to be that link.” The Lord knows our hearts.
We need to respond. I think of Moses, how he had to be humbled: forty years of discipline, forty years of discipline. Are you willing for the discipline, that you can be made a link?
The Lord is looking for that link.
Do you know what the cry of the link is for the kingdom age? It is right there at the end of Revelation:
Come, Lord Jesus.
That is the cry of the link: “Come, Lord Jesus.” I do not know if that has captured our hearts. I do not know if we even think about it very often.
The coming of the Lord Jesus—not for our purpose, but for His. It is for Him, for His kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus.
I am sure that if you talk to Abraham, John the Baptist, Anna, and Simeon—one day you will have that opportunity—they would say, “Yes, that was on our hearts all the time: Come, Lord Jesus.”
Lord, we just come to You today. Lord, it is time for an awakening of our hearts, back to the One who has saved us, delivered us, and done all this great work of Calvary that we might come into Your great purpose.
Lord, I believe in this last hour You are calling out for a link for the kingdom age. Lord Jesus, the nations are in turmoil. The economies are in turmoil. The world is in turmoil. The atmosphere is in turmoil.
It is all in an upheaval because the Lord is preparing to come back, and the enemy hates it.
Lord, we just come to You. You are our salvation in this hour. But Lord Jesus, we want to come to You and say, “Lord, there is nothing in us.”
Lord, we are zero, but Lord, You can make us the link that You need to have. Lord, we pray that You would exercise all of our hearts. In Jesus’ name, amen.