Brothers and sisters, it is indeed a glorious morning, and the weather helps a lot. It is nice. We like this less humid weather, do we not, brother?
Let us begin with a word of prayer this morning.
Lord, in these last days and these last hours, it seems that You want to intervene in our lives, Lord, because You find us not ready. You find us not prepared for Your soon return.
Lord, I do believe with all my heart You are trying to compel us to finally get in line with the hour in which we live, to be ready for You, and to prepare the way for You.
Now, Lord, I do ask that I not misrepresent You in any way this morning, nor Your heart. Lord, we do plead Your blood over all that we share, and we do ask, Lord Jesus, that the Holy Spirit might anoint the things that need to be shared with the hearts of men.
Lord, bless this time, we ask. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let us begin by turning to Revelation 22:10, almost the end of the revelation given to us in the Word of God.
And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book;
for the time is at hand.
Do not seal it up. Share it with the saints, that they might see and understand and know the One Who is coming soon. For the time is at hand.
Now turn to 2 Timothy 3:1.
But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come.
In the last hour, it will be perilous times.
Now, Matthew 24:44.
Therefore be ye also ready;
for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Be ye therefore also ready.
This matter of the time being at hand has been on my heart through many messages, as those who have heard the messages particularly on the Book of Revelation would know. Really, this is a continuation in the Book of Revelation concerning God’s overcomers.
The conference that we attended recently was on overcomers. There were things shared there that really touched my heart, and I did not want us to lose what the Spirit was saying to us at that conference.
I really felt like the prayers of our brother summed up the Lord’s heart and burden for us. Those prayers have been on my heart, and I wish to share the things with which the Lord touched my heart concerning the prayers that came at the conference.
Now, I want to be very clear this morning: it is not my thought in any way or manner to lift up man. These prayers came through our brother Stephen, and they came through an earthen vessel.
The full revelation that we have been given lies in this Book. It is God’s measuring rod for all that is shared through earthen vessels. God has revealed it all to the prophets and the apostles in the past: a complete and full revelation of Himself. Today, we can only receive revelation concerning what has already been revealed in His Word.
So, I do believe these prayers were from the heart of the Lord, and I believe that we need to consider what is on the Lord’s heart for this hour.
The Lord has spoken in His Word to us. The Lord today speaks through earthen vessels. He also reveals Himself, He says, through the glory of the creation that He has created.
I want to be very clear. As an example, I thought about the song “Amazing Grace,” and how much that song has inspired and touched the hearts of multitudes down through the ages since it was written.
John Newton’s famous words are:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
Amazing grace, brothers and sisters—a song given to the heart of our brother that has been shared with us down through the ages.
Have you ever thought about that song? He could have written, “Grace, God’s grace, how sweet the sound.” But he did not. It came out, “Amazing grace.” How did it become amazing grace and not just grace, brothers and sisters?
We know that our brother was a slave trader and actually became a slave himself. He was on a shipwreck and about to perish, at least he thought he was. The light of God shone into this man’s heart. He had despised God and God’s Word all of his life and lived the life the way he wanted to.
God’s light shone down into the heart of this man and showed him the depths of his darkness. Then he saw the Lord. It became amazing grace, brothers and sisters.
Last week, I shared on the need to have the light of God shine into our hearts, to show us if there is any way in us that is contrary to Him and that delays His return. It takes the light of God, and that is what happened to John Newton that day.
Oh, grace—it became amazing grace that day. And it should be so in our own hearts.
I thought of Horatio Spafford. You may or may not know Horatio. In 1871, he was an attorney in Chicago. He was fairly wealthy, as he had invested in a lot of stocks and things.
But in the Chicago fire of 1871, his investments went up in flames, and he lost almost all that he had.
A couple of months later, his four-year-old son was taken with scarlet fever. About a year and a half after that, in order that they might have some rest and respite, his wife and their three daughters were on the way across the Atlantic to Europe for a time of rest.
On the way, their ship struck another ship and began to sink. She gathered her three daughters on the deck of that ship, and she said, “Lord, let us be saved if possible, or make us willing to die if that is Your will.”
Finally, she was able to survive, but the three daughters perished. They found her barely alive. When she got back, she wrote the letter to her husband: “Saved alone.”
He, of course, wanted to be with his wife, so he immediately started sailing across the Atlantic himself. As he neared the spot where his wife and daughters had gone down, where he had lost his three daughters, the Lord met him in such a powerful way. His presence filled his soul.
These words were given to our brother:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
You see why that song is so powerful. It is the life that was behind it—the life of the Lord in our brother Spafford and his wife.
He lost the most precious things in his life. All that most men hope for was gone. He could have become a bitter, angry man, but the Lord’s presence met him so powerfully.
God opened His heart to this man, and his heart was so enveloped with the love and presence of God that his soul became totally at peace with God’s will for his life.
It is well with my soul.
Can we say that this morning? A song that came through an earthen vessel, but obviously the life of Christ.
I was also thinking of how God inspires us in various ways. Amazingly enough, He can inspire us through a television program.
I remember a number of years ago—I have shared something of this before—but I thought it appropriate this morning to help you understand where I am coming from.
It was one spring evening. The sun was going down and had just set, and I heard the sound of the whippoorwill.
“Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will.”
Then there was silence. Then there was a call again: “Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will.” Silence. No sound was heard.
Finally, I heard this: “Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.” It went on for over an hour—an incessant calling.
Calling for his mate, the one to be his bride for life. Calling out, “Whip-poor-will,” looking for a response, but none was heard.
They say they have recorded whippoorwills that have made their call over a thousand times repeatedly without stopping, just crying out for a response.
A few nights later, I heard the whippoorwill again: “Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.” And off across the lake: “Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.”
Ah, his voice returned: “Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.” And again we heard, “Whip-poor-will.” The voices got closer and closer. He had finally found the one whom he had been calling to.
Brothers and sisters, I believe in this last hour we are finally beginning, maybe, to hear the call of our Lord Jesus Christ—that incessant call that has been going out down through the ages:
I am coming soon.
I am coming soon.
Where is the response?
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
That is what He is waiting for.
I believe all these inspirations we receive from human vessels, of course, have to line up with the Word of God. So test all that I have to say based on the Word of God this morning.
I want to say once more, I do believe that the Lord summed up His heart in the prayers of our brother. I do not lift him up, but I am so grateful to the Lord that He spoke to us in these prayers.
I began with a perilous time, a privileged hour. Why is it perilous? It is because the enemy knows the Lord is coming, and he wants to delay it as long as he can.
The only way he can do that is to attack the saints, to take us out, to take away the response, “Come, Lord Jesus,” in our hearts.
He is after, particularly, those who are willing to prepare their hearts for His return and willing to prepare the way of His return. His fury is focused on them. They are the ones whose hearts call out the response:
Come, Lord Jesus.
It is a privileged hour. We just sang the song that we may be the ones who have the opportunity to be raptured straight to the throne without passing through earthly death. What an amazing opportunity and privilege we have, brothers and sisters.
It is a privilege and a purpose for this specific hour, and we are here today. It is an honor that God has called us to this hour in which we live.
I believe those who are called and chosen are willing to give up their lives for the Lord Jesus Christ, to make Him number one. There is that sense that the time is short. The closeness of His return is here.
In 1 Chronicles 12:32:
And of the children of Issachar, men that had understanding of the times,
to know what Israel ought to do.
The children of Issachar were men who had understanding of the times.
Brothers and sisters, do you understand the time in which you live? Is it a time to take care of our houses, build our wealth, and do all of these things for which men strive in this world—to gain power and recognition? Or is it a time that we understand that the Lord is about to return to set up His kingdom, and we need to be prepared?
Are you a son of Issachar?
Also, brothers and sisters, I think what the Lord will use is represented in Psalm 42:1. This deep longing and passion for the Lord—we shared on this last week, but I think we need to be reminded.
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:
When shall I come and appear before God?
Oh, our brother David—was he not one, brothers and sisters, who had this apprehension in his heart? A deep longing for the Lord Himself, and to meet Him face to face.
I believe, brothers and sisters, there is a longing in the heart of those who will be prepared and ready. It is a cry, and I think that cry resonates just like the whippoorwill’s call:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
No pauses.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
On the Lord’s part, He is calling out:
I am coming soon.
I am coming soon.
What is our response?
So we come now to this third prayer. I will read it.
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee that it is Thy mercy and grace that have brought us to this last full day of the conference. We thank Thee for the past, and we look forward to the now.
We do pray that if Thou hast still something to say to us, or if there is still something in us that needs to be dealt with, dear Lord, this is Your time. We commit this time into Your hand and pray that You will open our hearts to Thyself.
Search us, O Lord, and know our hearts. We do pray that we will remove every hindrance that may still be in us. Claim us, O Lord, for Thyself, that we may be the link that Thou art able to use to bring in Your imminent return.
O Lord, how long to see Thee face to face? We ask in Thy precious name.
There are a number of things with which the Lord touched my heart in this prayer. One was the continued call for the searching of the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts—the continued call that all the hindrances might be removed, and that the stumbling blocks that delay the Lord’s return would be taken from our lives.
Brothers and sisters, this matter of asking the Lord to search our hearts is not a one-time thing, and then it is over. It really is daily.
Oh, the Lord cannot show us all at once, brothers and sisters. We would be so crushed we would probably never recover. But the Lord is merciful, and His light is glorious, brothers and sisters, because what it shines on, it burns up. It frees us.
Let us turn from our fear of being searched by the searchlight of God, brothers and sisters. Let not the enemy hold us back. Let us be serious about this matter. The Lord is trying to intervene in your life, and the stumbling blocks have to go.
There were four other things that I saw. One was that word now. The prayer said, “We look forward to the now.”
It is a bit strange. I think most of us would have said, “Lord, we do thank You for our past life, and we now look forward to the future.” But the word used was now.
We look forward to the now.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord’s imminent return is now. Now. Not next year, not next week, not in the next moment, but now.
It is the spirit of rapture. If we are really given to the Lord, if we are allowing the Lord to remove these roadblocks and stumbling blocks in our lives, we allow our hearts to touch the Lord and resonate with His heart.
I think we enter the spirit of rapture even before the event occurs. Why? How is it possible that in the spirit of rapture, in your spirit, you experience that even before the actual event occurs?
Because the spirit is not limited by time and space. With the Spirit, everything is now: the past, the present, and the future. It is all now in the Spirit.
How important that our hearts be joined to the Lord’s heart in this hour and resonate with His.
I do not know if you know this, but scientists have taken the heart from an embryo and dissolved it in a certain fluid. It breaks the heart into individual cells. As they look through the scope, they see that all these little cells have a beat, like the heartbeat, and they are beating.
Each one is beating by itself. The beats are different, different rhythms.
But they leave that in the dish for a few days, and usually within forty-eight hours, all the cells have come together and are touching each other. As they touch each other, they beat in unison. They beat in unison.
Is that not what our lives should be with the Lord Jesus—that we touch His heart? You touch His heart. I touch His heart. Then our hearts are beating in unison with Him.
We must learn to live in the Spirit, to live in the now. Now, I am not trying to be mystical at all, brothers and sisters. It is very practical.
In Hebrews 11:1, it says faith substantiates the things that we hope for. In other words, we may be hoping; we do not have them yet. But in the Spirit, it is substantiated in our heart, and we know it is ours. That is faith.
Now faith is assurance of things hoped for,
a conviction of things not seen.
Not yet occurred, not yet seen; but in our hearts, by faith, we have evidence that the Lord is coming soon.
The now—living in the now, our hearts resonating with Him, the stumbling blocks being removed in our lives—it must be now. The word is now, not tomorrow, next week, or next year. These things need to be removed now.
Your time and my time is now, because the Lord’s time is now.
Secondly—or thirdly, I do not know which it is—the prayer says, “Claim us, O Lord, for Thyself.”
Claim us, O Lord, for Thyself,
that we may truly be the link that Thou art able to use
to bring in Thy imminent return.
Claim us. Claim us, Lord. That is the cry. Claim us for Your purpose, Lord, to be this link. Lay claim to me, Lord.
Oh, brothers and sisters, our prayer should be:
Lord, search me.
Remove all the stumbling blocks.
But, Lord, I need more.
I need to know that You have claimed me for this purpose.
I need to be claimed. I need more. Oh, I sense the weakness in my heart, the unfaithfulness in my heart. I have no confidence, Lord, in myself. But my confidence is in You.
You have laid claim to me, Lord. You have purchased me with Your precious blood, and I have confidence that I am Yours forever. Thank You, Lord.
Now lay claim to me. Lay claim to us, that we might be those who are able to hasten Your return. Lay claim, Lord, for this specific purpose. Then I will have confidence—confidence in You, Lord.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know the Lord has laid claim to us for this very purpose of His: to be used to bring in the King. Assurance that He has laid claim to us is needful.
Assurance has to come from the Lord Himself, and it only comes when we realize in our hearts that He has laid claim to our lives. We are a purchased possession.
You know, back in the days of the gold rush, the miners went out west to find gold. When they found it, they had to register a claim upon that piece of property and upon the gold they had found.
Once they did that, nobody else could claim it. Nobody else was supposed to have access to that property. The gold was his, and his forever. There could be no dispute. It was his once he had registered the claim.
I want to tell you this morning: if you took this Lord’s Table, it means that the Lord has laid claim to your life. You are registered in the Book. He has claimed you for His own and for His own possession.
Oh, what blessed assurance comes when we can rest in the fact that the Lord Jesus has claimed us.
I could not help but think of Fanny Crosby, who wrote that song:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
He is a covenant-keeping God. Today, we would say He never breaks a contract. He has a contract with you, and He has a contract with me. He will not break His end. He will not break that covenant.
Brothers and sisters, amazingly enough, even when we fail, the covenant is not broken because He says, “I am going to do it.”
In that covenant is His Word, and His Word says that what He has begun in us, He will finish. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. Blessed assurance—how we should thank Him.
I think of the covenant that God made with Israel: a people, a nation, a seed out of Abraham; a nation God raised up to be a testimony to Him on this earth, a people for possession, set aside and apart for Him.
Does that sound familiar? Are we not a people of possession, set apart for Him, brothers and sisters?
He knew the faults. He knew the dangers and unfaithfulness that might occur. But the Lord loved them, and He disciplined them.
They went after other gods, other idols, and we talked about that last week. Idols in our lives—things that we put ahead of the Lord—are our idols. It can be many things, precious things in our lives.
So He disciplined them. He scattered them among the nations. Brothers and sisters, the nation of Israel disappeared. All the nations around them also disappeared—the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Amorites. All of these nations are gone, and they are gone to this day.
But in 1948, God honored His covenant with the nation of Israel, and He raised it up as a political entity once again. It became the nation of Israel, and the Jews began to come back to that promised land.
Brothers and sisters, it will be completely fulfilled in the millennial age, when they will be the lead nation on this earth during that thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ. Why? Because the Lord laid claim to them. He claimed them for His own.
That is the assurance that we have in the claim on our lives.
Now, brothers and sisters, I believe we need to ask the Lord, “Lay claim to us, that we might be part of that link that will bring in the King, that we might be those prepared for Your return. Claim us for that, Lord. I need it.”
I am aware of the time. I am aware it is perilous. I am aware You have called me. But, Lord, I need You to claim me—claim me for this purpose of Yours, this purpose of this last hour in which I live.
Then, Lord, I can have confidence—not in myself, Lord; not assurance that I have arrived at anything, but assurance that You have claimed me for Your purpose for this hour.
I think our brother Paul really caught this in Philippians 3:12-14. Listen to our brother:
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect:
but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold:
but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind,
and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
The apostle has assurance. He knows the Lord has laid claim to him, has apprehended him for God’s purpose, and he knows that. He has that assurance.
But he says he does not count himself to have apprehended. He is forgetting the past, brothers and sisters. He has set aside his lineage, his heritage, his own desires, and his purposes for his life. He has forgotten all of his failures and successes.
He says, “Lord, I want to press on. I want to set my entire being on Your claim for me, for Your purpose.”
Lord, today I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. From this day forward, I lay claim to Your claim on me. I have not obtained. I am not perfect. But I am pressing toward that high calling in God, that Your purpose might be fulfilled.
The third or fourth thing—I am not sure—concerns mercy and grace. The first thing that came to my heart was this: with man, it is impossible; with God, all things are possible.
In the beginning of this prayer, he mentions mercy and grace. Brothers and sisters, when the Lord does return, what are you going to say to Him?
You cannot say, “Lord, I made it here by my good works and efforts,” can we?
Lord, it has been Your mercy and grace. If there have been any good works, it has been Your grace. If there has been any achieving of Your purpose in my life, it has been Your mercy and grace.
Lord, it is Your mercy and grace that called me. It is Your mercy and grace that chose me. It is Your mercy and grace that claims me even this hour. Lord, it has all been Your mercy and grace.
I think of Paul’s response when he felt so limited. He was limited and imprisoned. They think he had malaria, as he wrote such large letters himself, and malaria is very painful.
He felt like this was limiting his purpose in God, limiting his ability to serve the Lord. He asked the Lord to remove that thorn three times.
The Lord said, “I can remove your thorn, but I want to show you something much better. I am going to leave the thorn. You are going to learn My grace is sufficient.”
My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Do you believe that, brothers and sisters? Do you really believe the Lord’s grace is sufficient?
Do you believe what you believe in? I know up here we believe His grace is sufficient, but here—excuse me—do we believe in our hearts that His grace is sufficient?
Oh, we say it is sufficient, but there are times in our lives when the circumstances are overwhelming. There are things before the Lord that we do not understand. They make us wonder what is going on. We cannot seem to grasp it. Our will and determination have fallen and are crushed in the dust.
Are you then able to say, “Lord, Thy grace is sufficient”? Are you able to believe what you believe in?
I believe the Lord allows these many challenges in our lives so that we may learn that His grace is sufficient. If He has called us and laid claim to us, brothers and sisters, for this hour, then His grace is sufficient regardless of our limitations.
I remember the nation of Israel when they left Babylon. Those few—I have spoken on it before—about four percent of the population returned to build the house of God.
Brothers and sisters, they were pressed out of measure. They had a very difficult time. The enemy was against them. The peoples around them were against them. They had real difficulties. For fourteen years, they stopped working on the temple.
But finally, the Lord spoke to them through Zechariah 4:6-7.
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.Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain:
and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings of,
Grace, grace, unto it.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord recognizes this great opposition—the mountain that stood in the way. But before Zerubbabel, it would become a plain; it would be leveled.
Never discount the power of the Holy Spirit working in your life. Never discount the grace of God, brothers and sisters. In the end, ultimately, when we get there, our mouths will only be able to utter, “Grace. Grace, Lord. Grace.”
Lastly, at the conference, there was sharing on the hidden ones. We shared on some of what we would call spiritual giants. We shared on Samuel. We shared on John the Baptist. Both were responsible for bringing in the King: Samuel brought in King David, and John the Baptist brought in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, sometimes we get a false understanding, fostered by our enemy, that we do not count, that we cannot attain to this calling and claim that the Lord has made upon us.
I want you to understand, without any reservation in my heart, that it is the lie of the enemy. It is his way of delaying the Lord’s return—to convince us that we can never be part of His purpose, to be prepared to prepare His way. It is a lie.
The Lord Jesus is speaking to His Body, brothers and sisters, and we are all members of the Body. How could any part, any member of the Body, be excluded from the call?
We are all members, called to be prepared for Him and His imminent return; called to hasten His return, no matter how small or hidden we may seem.
We mentioned Zacharias and Elisabeth, John the Baptist’s parents. Let me just read quickly what it said about them:
And they were both righteous before God,
walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
That is the life they lived. They had a heart relationship with God, not just a legal one.
Brothers and sisters, as they began to pray for a son because they did not have one, the Lord began to show them that He needed a son. He needed a man to prepare the way.
Their prayer began to change: “Lord, we need a child, but You need a child.” They were faithful, and the Lord heard them.
Simple Christians today—they would be called righteous, wanting to keep the commandments of the Lord.
I think of Mary and Joseph. Mary loved the Lord. As you read the account in Luke, you see how much she loved the Lord. She was a teenager.
Did you expect a teenager to take up such a high calling—to be one who would bring in the Lord Jesus Christ? But she did. I hope our teens eventually hear this.
The angel shared, “You are going to have a child by the Holy Spirit.” Brothers and sisters, she understood the implications of being pregnant and not having a husband. It meant stoning—death by stoning—and the first stone to be thrown by your betrothed.
But her response was so glorious:
Behold, the handmaid of the Lord;
be it unto me according to thy word.
Is that not simple? “Lord, just be it according to Your Word. You have called me. You have laid claim to me. In my life, Lord, with all of its activities, there is one thing—one thing, Lord: be it according to Your Word in my life.”
A pure and simple heart.
Joseph, too. It said of Joseph that he was a just man. That is how simple: he was just. Not willing to make a public example of her, he was thinking of privately putting her away.
You know, he believed in justice. In his day, he was to be the one to throw the first stone. But, brothers and sisters, this brother was not legal. He had a heart for God. He was not legalistic. He had a heart for the Lord.
He knew somehow in his heart that stoning her was not justice. She had shared with him; difficult as it was to believe, it struck his heart. The Lord reinforced it and had an angel share with him that what Mary had said was true.
He immediately took her, and they left. A young man simply trusted and obeyed the Lord.
The shepherds in the field—the angel appeared to them, saying, “A Savior has been born. You can go and find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
You know what their response was?
Let us now go even unto Bethlehem,
and see this thing that is come to pass,
which the Lord hath made known unto us.
They went with haste.
“Let us go experience what the Lord has shown us. We are not going to do it tomorrow or the next day. We are going to make haste now. We are going to lay hold of it now.”
The shepherds’ hearts—so simple.
Simeon and Anna were great intercessors in the temple day and night. Simeon was the first one to recognize Him, other than His parents, of course.
All those babies he had seen down through the years, waiting to see the Christ, the Coming One. Then he sees this baby, seemingly no different than all the multitudes he had seen before, and he says, “This is the One.” He announces Christ.
Oh, brothers and sisters, do you not want to be the one who says, “This is Christ. This is the One”?
Anna prophesied over our Lord. Just simple saints given to intercessory prayer.
Revelation 17:14:
These shall war against the Lamb,
and the Lamb shall overcome them,
for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings;
and they also shall overcome that are with Him,
called and chosen and faithful.
Three simple words: called, chosen, faithful.
The first two, we know the Lord’s hand is there. You have been called. You have been chosen. You have been laid claim to for God’s purpose in this hour.
What remains? Are we going to be faithful? Are we going to be faithful, brothers and sisters? That is what remains.
If we find ourselves faithful, we will only be able to say, “Grace, God’s grace.”
Our brother ended with this prayer:
Our hearts do cry out, How long? How long? Thy people have been waiting for Thee for centuries. Yet, Lord, it is not because of Thee; it is because of us.
We look to Thy mercy and grace. We confess that in ourselves there is no strength, but Thy grace is manifest in our weakness.
O Lord, we want to look to Thee, to strengthen us, to enable us to be used of Thee, to be that link that will prepare Thy way.
Lord, we do not want to expect without being prepared. So prepare us, that each and every one of us, none excepted, will offer ourselves to Thee and allow Thee to work out that purpose in bringing back the King.
Hear us, O Lord, we ask in Thy name.
Lord, as we come to You this afternoon, the time is now. Lord, lay claim to us. We do declare Your grace is sufficient.
Lord, prepare our hearts. Prepare us, Lord, for Your return, and prepare us that we might be those who hasten Your return.
Lord, I do believe in this last hour, as You speak to Your people, You are trying to do an intervention. You are trying to turn us around, Lord; trying to awaken us; trying to show us our condition; trying to get us ready.
Lord, it is a compelling word that You have given to us. Lord, in Your Word, You say:
I come quickly.
Lord, may there be that response in our hearts:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.