We are so thankful for these times together, for the ministry that has already been ministered, sharing about the inward reality of how we are to be occupied until the King comes.
When I received the notice as to the topic, which the brothers and sisters prayed over and felt was the burden for this conference, immediately I sensed the Spirit speaking to me.
As I said before, I am thankful for our brothers who shared some of the other aspects of this matter of being occupied. But I believe part of the reason this topic has been chosen, and specifically the wording of it, is to bring home to us the Spirit’s challenge:
“Occupy till I come.”
This is the word of a commander in a battle: “Occupy till I come.” It has those inward realities and springs that our brother mentioned this morning, and that David has shared twice. But there is an outward working in terms of the kingdom of God: that the King would come to us and say, “Occupy till I come.”
Perhaps this is a sufficient word, if we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. Our brother Stephen mentioned this morning that one of our problems is that we are so busy, running around, that we do not stop and listen. Listen to what was given to us: “Occupy till I come.”
When the disciples heard this, I do not know actually how Jesus said it in Aramaic, or Hebrew, whatever it was. But there are some moments when phrases from the King James Version capture something, and I do believe they capture something of the Spirit’s burden.
When He shared this parable, as we have already heard, it was during a time of expectation. Our Lord was about to go down to Jerusalem. When He went down, they cast palm leaves in front of Him and started singing, “Hallelujah, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” There was an expectation that the kingdom would come immediately.
But to that expectation He spoke this parable and said, “Occupy till I come.”
Thinking of the outward application of that, I cannot imagine that the disciples had any idea what it would mean to occupy Jerusalem for the kingdom of God. After Jesus was resurrected and met with the disciples, they asked Him, “Is it now at this time that You are going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
The Lord said that it was not for them to know the times and seasons appointed by His Father in heaven, but that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. They were to occupy by that Spirit.
They stood as a testimony in Jerusalem against tremendous odds. Who were they? Fishermen, tax collectors, sinners—yet they stood as a testimony for the Lord. And they did.
When the fires of persecution were fueled by Saul and things got hot in Jerusalem, it turned out for the betterment of the kingdom of God. As the saints were spread throughout Judea and Samaria, it was like sparks from western wildfires. Everywhere those sparks fell, somebody occupied for the kingdom.
The apostles themselves, despite threats to their lives, decided to stay in Jerusalem. Who were they to claim Jerusalem for King Jesus? Then, as the Lord led them out and things expanded, the apostle Paul and his teams of men began to preach the gospel. They would stay long enough for the saints to sense the Spirit’s words: “Occupy till I come.”
Throughout the lives of saints down through history, beginning with those we read about in the Bible, there were times when they were all alone—Paul in jail, others in difficult circumstances. In the midst of temptation to discouragement, they heard the King’s whisper: “Occupy till I come.”
This is a tremendous statement. Right down through the annals of time, it comes to us tonight: “Occupy till I come.”
This beautiful phrase has three aspects that we see immediately: a command, a promise, and a warning.
First, there is a command: “Occupy.” In this command, it is implied that the Lord, by His grace, had placed them in a strategic position that needed to be held until He came.
There is a testimony to be borne in a strategic position. It is not merely that some saints have haphazardly come together somewhere. By the King’s ordering, they have been brought to a certain place, brought together, and made one. The Lord told them to occupy until He comes.
It is a command. I do not know, because the church has lost so much of the tremendous understanding of why this is so important, but to occupy in the kingdom of the heavens is a serious matter.
Many people in the church today know all about grace, the church, and salvation. But there is a great truth that is sometimes unpopular among people. It involves faithfulness, obedience, listening to the Spirit, holding your ground, and fighting the good fight. These are kingdom matters—matters that servants need to take seriously.
It is strategic for this very reason: in the whole earth, really, the only people who can declare with reality that the kingdom of the heavens has come to earth are God’s people who are occupying.
The Lord has gone back, and the world can look around and not see the kingdom of heaven at all, except where there are those who are not merely living in a place but occupying that place for the kingdom—for the King.
Where there is such occupation, there is a testimony. There is salvation there. There is love there. There is righteousness there. Indeed, the King, although hidden, is here upon the earth.
When you look around this world, it might be easy to become discouraged. When you read the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, you realize that much of this world has no idea what the King is presently doing. But those who are servants of the kingdom and faithful realize that God is still sowing for the kingdom.
Sometimes it is hard when you look around, but the fact of the matter is that there is still treasure buried in the field. God is doing something upon this earth that is creating a pearl of great price—a bride. It is strategic. It is a command.
The Christian life involves obedience to the King. There is a strategic testimony concerning the kingdom of the heavens that we are to bear on this earth until our Lord Jesus comes back and touches His foot down here, and the kingdom of heaven is manifest. Right now, it is in a mystery.
Without the church, there is hardly a testimony of God on this earth. What a strategic position, is it not?
The second thing about this little phrase is that there is a promise: “Till I come.” We have already heard mention of this promise.
Unlike a general who might leave a country and tell his soldiers to stay there until he comes back, we have a better than a general who is making a promise that He is coming soon.
I am sorry that we have gotten so wise that we realize He cannot come back until another temple is built in Jerusalem. Or we have become wise in our prophetic systems. I spoke to one dear saint who held what they call a mid-tribulation rapture view. I said, “So you are not waiting for the Lord Jesus to come back; you are waiting for the Antichrist to show up.”
We have gotten so wise that we think we can be lazy servants of the kingdom because we know when Jesus is coming back. “When one of these outward signs suddenly comes to be—oh, there is the Antichrist—let’s get our act together.”
The fact of the matter is, He can come back at any moment. Further, when we read the record in the Gospels and in the letters of the early Christians, they were all convinced that He was coming back in their lifetime. We should be so convinced.
Remember how Paul had to write to that young Thessalonian assembly? They were upset because they were sure the Lord Jesus was coming back by next month. But in the course of time, a few of them had died. They had not figured it out; they were all waiting to go home together. Paul had to explain that the Lord had a good plan for those who had already gone on.
They so believed that He was coming right back. The early church proceeded on that basis: “Occupy. Hold on. Be steadfast. I am coming back.” They took it as applying in their lifetime. Why should we not be the same way?
You say, “Well, because twenty centuries…” Ah, baloney. Those servants of the Lord down through the centuries have felt the immediacy of His coming. It is part of the hope of glory given to us as a wonderful bonus to our faith in our King.
That hope rises so strongly in the lives of obedient servants that they are sure Jesus is right around the corner. It is a promise. Does it mean anything to you?
Do you say, “Well, I am too young to worry about Him coming back. I hope He does not come back”? I hope you do not have that thought in your head. Our theme should only be, “Please come back.”
What a mess this world is in. Only a righteous King can set things straight. We need the King. Your children need the King. Your parents need the King.
A command, a promise, and—well, I am sorry, I have to be unpopular for a moment—a warning. Christians hate warnings. They immediately get terrified and afraid. But a kingdom warning always has a kingdom reward attached.
He says, in effect, “Be faithful. Occupy till I come.” It is a warning. You can be a servant and suddenly disappear, like those seven out of ten. We do not actually know what happened to the various ones. They vanished with the King’s money—that is all we know. Sounds like good Jews to me.
But there is a warning there, is there not? “Occupy till I come. That is My command. That is what I expect.”
Oh, my, my. It turns out the King is pretty tough, is He not? He is as exacting as that third servant who came back with a handkerchief containing a gold coin and said, “See, I kept it.” He said, “I knew You were exacting.”
That servant had such a low view of the King. Did the King need that extra gold coin? What is a gold coin worth anyway now—eleven hundred dollars? Is that what the King needs?
That servant underestimated what the King had in view. Do you know what the King had in view? “I want somebody to rule and reign with Me. I want to offer somebody that city there and that city there. I am looking for somebody. I want people to reign with Me.”
That is what He was looking for. When He puts us on the probation of a warning, it is with a reward in view. What a small-minded servant, to keep that gold coin in his pocket when all the time the Lord was looking for somebody with an obedience of heart who would trade so that He could reward him.
How much the Lord wanted for that man. How shortsighted he really was.
All of this is to say that I want to direct this spiritual question at you and me tonight. We have been so blessed.
I know a number of you, and some I do not know at all. But I know one thing: if you are a child of God, He has blessed you. He has blessed you—not just mercy drops around you. He has blessed you with finances, a home, health, education, friends, and so many things.
He has blessed us, but do you not know? He never meant for you to take those blessings and not occupy.
It is one thing to live in a place. It is another thing to occupy the kingdom in that place.
Here we are, people from everywhere in the Northeast, including Canada and all the way down to Florida—and some from the West Coast as well. Let us make it practical.
The Lord has blessed us as Christians, and we should not assume that we have been haphazardly put in the particular town or city where we are. A God-ordained arrangement has brought us to a certain place, a certain job, or a certain school.
Why? To occupy till He comes. That is the issue.
We have been so blessed here in the Northeast. How we need people who are occupying for the kingdom of the heavens until the Lord comes. His blessings have multiplied, but perhaps some of us have been blessed and gone into hiding.
Occupy is the problem, because around us here in the Northeast we are still under the sting of “Occupy Wall Street.” Now listen: the King is not talking about that. That is squatting. That is pretending you have a place that you really do not have.
Those young people came down and occupied Wall Street. I am only about three blocks away from Wall Street. They swarmed through our area like a nest of bees. What did it mean? They sat down. That is all. They sat there and squatted there. They said, “I dare you to take me away,” and the police took them away.
They had no right to it, no claim for occupation, and no power behind it. They were just squatting.
There are people in this country who enjoy the privileges of the system but take no responsibility for the well-being of the country. Speaking humanly for a moment, there are people making money and paying no taxes. There are people enjoying healthcare and other privileges while refusing to become citizens. They are using the system without replenishing it. They are squatters.
I am sure none of you are. But there are Christian squatters who take advantage of the Lord and His people—networking in churches to make more money, doing all kinds of things, bearing no responsibility, taking everything they can possibly take.
That is not what we mean when we say “occupy.” Neither do we mean that things are tough, so let us occupy and slowly retreat.
We know the world is attacking, provoking, and showing its fangs more and more as we draw near the end. The temptation is to go on the defense.
There is a defense in football called “prevent defense.” Ladies, I am sorry, I have to explain something here. When a team has gained the advantage of a few points, the coach sometimes decides to go on prevent defense.
What that means is that they do not defend like they used to. They do not try to tackle the quarterback or get in there. They back off a little, let the other side take a little ground, let them encroach a little, make a few yards, and hope that time runs out before they get to the goal.
There are a lot of Christians giving up ground all the time. “All right, we have to allow that in the church. Okay, let us take a step back. Now we hold our ground right here.” No, you are finished already.
Let us not occupy like that until He comes. There is a difference between living somewhere and occupying it. There is a difference between going to a school and occupying at that school. There is a difference between having a job and occupying at that job.
Our King has already occupied and overcome. He broke down the gates of hell when He died on the cross and rose again. Now He has passed this responsibility along to us, that by this one mina He gives to each of us, we are able to occupy until He comes.
That is a wonderful thing to think about. Everybody gets that same mina, and it is enough to occupy until He comes.
The reward in the parable is something I want to touch on for just a moment. The reward, as Jesus tells it, is authority over cities.
God is so concerned that we occupy cities in the name of King Jesus. I know many of you hate cities. You believe suburbia is paradise. But no—the Bible says in Revelation that paradise will be a city.
In 2002, I took a fateful trip with Christian Chen. There may be some other warriors here who have gone on a trip with Christian Chen—busloads of people going here and there. We went to all the places the apostle Paul went on his three missionary journeys. We covered them in one journey.
That is a trip with Christian Chen. If you want to come to the end of yourself, sign right up. We were exhausted. We would pull into motels after midnight for a two-hour lecture on the things we had seen during the day, and then they would have a meal ready for us. It was really something.
It changed my life. Here is what happened for me, speaking just for me: I saw something I had never seen before. As we went from city to city where Paul had preached, I saw how much God desires to conquer a city and then overflow into the suburbs.
I thought, “Well, if that is the case, the city is the place to be for me.”
I was fortunate. When I looked around, I saw a little group of people who were occupying until Jesus comes. They were in Queens. There is nothing against any other place; if you are in a place, I adjure you: occupy right there.
For me, the Lord changed my mind. I came home and told my wife. She got momentarily upset. I said, “Let’s go. Leave the suburbs. We have been there twenty years. Let’s go into the city.”
“Where?” “Well, there is a little group in Queens that is standing its ground. They are a little group. They are fighting upstream. The pressure is on. The fight is engaged. No retreat. I have to go. I want to be part of that.”
In 2002, I moved into the city. The Lord arranged things in such a way that we got bumped out of Queens and ended up in Manhattan, in a little apartment. That was twelve years ago.
I saw how much the Lord desired for some people to occupy a city in Jesus’ name and make the difference, so that people would know the King is there.
We cannot boast of anything big. In Manhattan, as well as in Queens, I meet with two groups—one in my own apartment. It is a fight.
I had never appreciated, other than theoretically, how strong the principalities over New York City really are. But dear young ones are gathering there, wanting to be all in for Jesus their King, wanting to stand their ground, bear testimony in a strategic way, and obey this command.
I tell you, it is a battle. There is so much temptation in the city, so much speed in the city, so much excitement in the city, and so many temptations in the city.
A few weeks ago, I told the saints, “We have to change our vocabulary.” Here is a typical comment by a saint in New York City—which, by the way, is the same in Richmond, Virginia, or Pooba, New Jersey: “How are you doing?” “I am overwhelmed.”
So I took out the vocabulary word overwhelmed, based on a hymn, but one that is true to Scripture. I said, “You are allowed to say that you are whelmed, but not overwhelmed.”
Because it says in the hymn:
His oath, His covenant, His blood
Supports me in the whelming flood.
We experience a whelming flood. But as soon as we say we are overwhelmed, we are going backward. The enemy has struck a victory in us. “I am overwhelmed. This is too much for me.” No. By the grace of God, you may be whelmed, but not overwhelmed.
When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand.
This occupation cannot be done by the strength of men. It is not by might or by power. You remember when Zerubbabel came back to build the house of God in the city of Jerusalem. Zechariah had to come to him and say, “Zerubbabel, listen. I know it is whelming.”
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
What art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.
The Lord would build His house and put the capstone of “Grace, grace” upon it. It is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
When some people gather and would occupy, it is impossible unless we are trading the mina we have. If we are merely standing there, it does not work. The enemy has us ten different ways. He can divide us, split us, cause this group to go one way and that group another way.
How the Lord is looking for people in this hour—especially, I am thinking, corporately—saints who are willing to stand together.
You heard our brother David share this afternoon something very wonderful. I am sorry to say these things. I know people accuse me of being negative about these things, but here we go.
The Lord is particular about what He will honor as far as an occupation. Division is out. If you have a fighting church, there is no testimony there.
Just because we build a building in the middle of a town does not mean we have occupied for the kingdom. It may be two or three who are standing there for the King, to be a testimony of the King. It takes more than building a building. It takes more than some man.
I was part of the old strategy of the church. I started out as a Baptist. I was saved because Julia’s mom and dad witnessed to me, and I got saved. I felt called to the ministry. Four years after college, they sent me out to get what they now call a doctor’s degree—screwed a halo on my head—and sent me out to a church.
They said, “Okay, now you are the one guy, and I want you to occupy, as it were.” But that is not the Lord’s model.
The Lord’s model is that every servant has a mina. It is only when we are invested together that the Lord can occupy and keep us there.
They announced this week that the largest church in the United States is now down in Atlanta. Sorry for those of you who are Houstonians. There are thirty thousand in the church and five different campuses. Why not? Because the pastor authored a book called Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend.
There are a lot of people there and five different campuses. This all came up when he divided from his father, who was a pastor, and started a church on his own. He decided, “Nuts to old people. The church should be for Generation X and millennials.”
So they brought up the lighting, the bands, the music, the style, the preaching style, the jeans—the whole thing. Now they have thirty thousand people looking at them on a high-definition screen all over Atlanta. But are they occupying?
I do not know about you, but I argue with the Lord about this. He comes back with the same answer all the time.
Every once in a while I see some event. For example, on New Year’s Eve, twenty thousand millennials gather in a huge auditorium. They gather at eight o’clock on December 31 and stay there all night worshiping and consecrating their lives. I am sure there must be some good done there.
I see worship going on throughout the night and say, “Lord, that is good.” Or I hear a preacher who is really excellent and gifted, who speaks a good word, and I say, “Lord, that is good.” Or I hear of a church that, for the last five years, has baptized more than ten thousand people a year. I say, “Praise God, the gospel is being preached.”
I get excited about these things and say, “Why do we not try something like that?” The Lord says to me all the time, “Where is My body?”
I take a second look, and there is a whole bunch of babes. There is a man who hopefully is a gifted man exercising his ministry, and a whole bunch of babes who are not ready and mature to be a bride. “Where is My body?”
Maybe there is a great preacher. Maybe there is great worship. But where is My body?
There are two portions in the Bible that are very difficult for me to read because they stir things up inside me. One is whenever I read about Jesus’ death in any of the four Gospels. It wipes me out. It is such a tragedy, and it was all my fault. It breaks me up every time I read those things.
But the other thing that breaks me up is Revelation 2 and 3, when I see Jesus standing in the midst of these seven churches that are not occupying and saying, “Where is My bride? Where is My body? Where is My life? I gave you the mina. Where is it? What are you doing?”
“What is all this business going on? I did not ask for business. I said, ‘Take My life. Invest it.’”
It breaks my heart to hear that, because I realize that today the Lord is looking out over this mass of Christianity and saying, even to us, “Occupy till I come.”
Whatever the church is called today, the Bible says that the church is Christ-like: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession.
This occupation cannot take place unless these people have the character of the Lord developed in them. It is not that just anybody can stand and say, “We are standing by the kingdom of God in our city. Jesus is Lord over…” Fine. They can say all they want.
But it is only when they are occupying in such a way that the life of Christ is able to take a stand there that there is legitimate occupation.
I want to be careful. I do not believe small groups are better than large groups. If a church is large, fine. I am talking about the spiritual reality of what is going on there. I am not against great preachers. Praise God, there are gifted men, even here in the United States, with deep insight into Christ and the Christian life. I am not against any of that.
I guess I am a voice crying by the seashore: where are those willing to occupy till I come, who are all in on this thing?
Where are My servants? Where is a family that I can plant anywhere here in New Jersey, and they will take a stand and be an occupation for the kingdom there? Where is such a family?
You are in school. Are you occupying in the school, or are you hiding there?
I remember a girl, perhaps in her sophomore or junior year, who decided at her hometown college to start a little prayer meeting every day with whoever wanted to come. She had Christian friends, and they began to pray. It was a small group, but I think they met Monday through Friday at seven o’clock in the morning. That is early for college students.
After a while, the group began to grow. Testimonies were spoken, and prayers continued to be offered. They invited me to one of their college retreats, and there were over two hundred people. Many had been saved. The captain of the football team had been saved.
That girl occupied for the kingdom while she was going to that school.
You work on a job. Are you occupying for the kingdom on that job, or are you just hiding—taking advantage of the job and its money, and not investing your mina?
This spring I went to a men’s retreat south of here. There were about one hundred fifty men. They had an opportunity to share their testimony of how they came to the Lord and fully gave themselves to Him.
Over thirty of these men talked about one man, an engineer who worked in an engineering firm. Thirty years ago, he decided to have a Bible study in that firm. About thirty men spoke of how they got saved there, or how they fell in love with Jesus in that Bible study.
This was simply a man working as an engineer. In any company, you can be lost in the thing, completely anonymous. Nobody even knows you are a Christian. But not this man.
“Occupy till I come.”
What does that mean? How can we make that practical? Tomorrow I will try to share a little bit practically, perhaps.
The Greek word that we are talking about—“occupy”—can refer to trading or doing business. Stephen spoke about trading, like stocks or something. Actually, the Greek word is a very basic word, the word from which we get pragmatic. It simply means, “Be doing till I come.”
Again, we could mistake that for merely being busy: “Just stay busy and I will come; that is all you have to do.” No, no, no.
Let us take a couple of little hints from the Old Testament. What does it mean to occupy? Let us look at the patriarchs for a moment.
What did Abraham do? Everywhere he went and met God, he built an altar.
You are working on a job. Have you built your altar there at the job? I do not mean you pray at home about that terrible day of work you are going to have to go through, and then go in graced for whatever you meet.
Do you actually set up an altar where you work? Do you let people see your Bible at break time, or see you pray before you eat lunch? These are very small things. You would be amazed what can happen if somebody sees a little smoke rising from your sacrifice over there in the cubbyhole on the right.
Have you built an altar there? In other words, you are saying, “Lord, I believe You have put me on this job. Therefore, there must be some way I can invest my mina here.” Do you believe that? Or do you know you are on the wrong job and cannot wait to get out?
There are no mistakes. Did we hear that somewhere? There are no mistakes in the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
What did Isaac do? He dug wells.
What does that mean by interpretation? When you get on your job or arrive at your school, say, “God has me here.” Start digging around, looking for the life of Christ.
He has put you there because His life is there somewhere. There is somebody hungry, somebody who needs to be saved, and perhaps other Christians hiding in the woodwork just like yourself.
If you dig around a little bit, you will find water. I hear students say, “My high school has eighteen hundred students, and there is not one Christian.” I do not really think they have dug. Because if you dig around, you find water—a testimony to God’s life.
Sure enough, there is somebody there with whom you can join, pray, and fellowship. We occupy this place, and then the Lord moves us on to some other place.
Brothers and sisters, I do not want you to move to another place and find out that the one you knew you should have spoken to, but did not, has died back at the old place. You knew all the time the Lord was telling you to put your quarter over there and witness to them.
Is there risk? There is occupational hazard. Is there reward? Absolutely.
I am not talking about going crazy—building some kind of tent in your office and acting crazy. You are a student in school. What do you need to be occupied with? Study, right? But you are also there for some kingdom reason.
If you are at work, I do not mean that you should say, “Praise God, Monday through Friday I did not do any work, but at the water cooler I was talking to people about Jesus.” You might as well take that water cooler home, because you will not be there long.
We do not mean something foolish. But surely there must be some reason that you are there. Somebody may be looking and watching you, though you do not even see them. They are saying, “Why is that person different?”
If you pray and ask the Lord, you will be surprised what you find. What did Jacob do? Wherever he went, he pitched a tent. He said, “Here is where I dwell.” There was a testimony about his family, or we could say a testimony about the house of God.
We have saints in Manhattan who share testimony. Somebody told us last week that a person said, “Hey, where are you going?” The saint said, “Well, I have to leave. I have to go to a prayer meeting.”
“What? A prayer meeting? Why? Where is the prayer meeting?” Well, it gets worse, you know. That person was outed. But there was a divine purpose there. At least they were willing to say, “I am going to a prayer meeting.”
Now all the work associates look at them a little sideways. Do you have the life of the Lord? If they start looking sideways, they are going to see something. There is somebody in there who is hungry, and they are there for you to show them.
There is something about occupying. Let me tell you something else we are learning. Right now, we are studying Daniel in Manhattan. One thing we see in the book of Daniel is this: as soon as you decide to occupy, the enemy comes and tries to make a peace treaty with you.
In Daniel, the Antichrist goes to Jerusalem and makes a peace treaty. If you are just hiding, nobody is going to bother you. It is just your conscience that will be bothering you.
But if you decide, “I know I am here for a purpose. I am going to occupy. I am going to start digging,” then somebody will show up and say, “Hey, let’s make a peace treaty.” They will tempt you: “Just stay worldly. Enjoy the things everybody else enjoys. Do not be different from everybody else.”
That is a deceiving thing. There is no peace treaty. Brothers and sisters, are we at peace right now? Are you at peace with the world?
I think we are at war.
In our assemblies, as we are trying, I hope, to occupy until He comes, the enemy is stealing some of our children. There is war going on. Some of our hearts are being stolen because of our busyness, our success, our problems—whatever it may be. Our time is being stolen. Perhaps the Lord’s harvest is being stolen. I think there is warfare going on here.
I wonder if we could hear the Lord saying to us individually, “Occupy till I come.”
I wonder if we, as assemblies—so many faithful people—can hear this word. I saw that dear little group in Flushing, Queens, when there were about forty of them, a hodgepodge of people meeting in a house. Now there are four hundred people. But size is nothing.
Are we occupying till He comes, or have we gotten lost in the business? All of us need to ask these questions.
It is not that the King is shouting this order at us. It is actually a very intimate request. Do you know why? Because you and I are the only strategic hold He has on this fallen earth.
We stand as citizens of heaven. We declare that Jesus is King. People call us foolish, and then they see Jesus do things when His name is mentioned.
The church in the book of Acts found that wherever they spoke in the name of Jesus, there was a reality of something from heaven touching earth.
Oh, that something from heaven would touch earth in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Canada—wherever you come from. Some of us are hiding. Why are you hiding? God says it is time to occupy.
Do you have that kind of obedience? Are you willing to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with in order to occupy till He comes? There is great reward, but it is a very strategic matter.
That inward working—all the treasures that so many of us have—needs to come forth in coin as we stand in the kingdom of the heavens and declare that Jesus is King now. For this, we will be rewarded.
May the Lord help us in such a struggle. Paul says in Ephesians 6—and I think it applies to this warfare—that to occupy, we are going to have to stand.
Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore.
Perhaps somebody here used to stand, but now you stand alone. There are Christians who try to make a statement by themselves. No. In this day, the Lord is looking for those who would gather and occupy till He comes.
May the Lord find us faithful when He quickly comes.
Lord, this we pray as we come to You tonight. We thank You so much for these words that are being spoken. We want to live by that life of Christ that we heard about this morning, and out of that life see some overflow of testimony that can be seen even in this darkened world.
We believe there is still a harvest to be done. We come to the Lord of the harvest, and we see that the harvest is plentiful. Where are those willing to go into the harvest, who believe in the harvest, and who believe the Master is coming soon?
Lord, we pray that You will work upon our hearts, especially if we have become casual about all of this, especially if we have become satisfied with our particular place. All the time, Lord, You are looking to see whether we are investing that which You have given us.
O Lord, for us who have been unfaithful, we would even turn around tonight, even before the handkerchief is taken away, and ask, Lord, for another chance to stand firm wherever You place us, and to build that place of testimony that You desire in our lives.
Lord, help us. Help us all. We need Your mercy in this hour. There is such raging warfare going on, more than we possibly could understand. But Your resources are greater than we possibly have ever imagined. Help us, Lord, be faithful. We pray in Jesus’ name.