True Friendship with God—The
Book of Revelation
Rick Joyner
We have been covering
one of the most important emerging issues of all time—the sounding of the seventh
trumpet in Revelation. “Our God Reigns”—this is the preaching of the Gospel of
the kingdom. Even though much from this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled,
according to the unfolding timeline, we are coming to the time for this last
message to go forth across the earth. What we do not know is how long this will
take to unfold or be completed.
The basis of this
Gospel is the King Himself. We are not just proclaiming the coming of a new
system, but we are proclaiming the Coming of the Lord Jesus Himself. This is
crucial to keep in mind. If the coming kingdom gets reduced to a system, or
just principles, then we fall far short of the message. We can have the best
form of government, but we can still have bad government if good people are not
in it. The Lord builds on people, not just systems or principles. The method He
demonstrated from the time He walked the earth is to not just seek to change
people’s behavior, but to change hearts so that people do the right thing for
the right reason. As the historian Will Durant observed, “Caesar sought to
change men by changing institutions, but Jesus changed institutions by changing
men.”
For this reason
it is important to understand what the Lord is doing. Even more important is to
understand why. This is where we grow into true friendship with God. We want to
be obedient to Him as our King in all things, but He is looking for more than just obedience from His
friends—He is looking for us to be of one mind and heart with Him.
We must have faith
in Him, and in the power and authority of His kingdom, to demonstrate the power
and authority of His kingdom. We must always keep in mind that we seek to build
people’s faith and trust in Him, not us. The first century apostles did this by
preaching “Jesus Christ and the resurrection from the dead.” That was their
whole message. It is the apostolic message, yet it has rarely been preached
since their time.
The message of
the Gospel is about a Person, not just concepts and principles. It is also
about His overcoming death. The devil controls men by fear, and the ultimate
fear is the fear of death. If the fear of death is broken, then all the other
yokes of fear will be easy to break. These yokes must be broken for a person to
come under the Lordship of Jesus. If fear is controlling us, then fear is still
our lord in place of Christ. So the purpose of our message is to compel men to
believe in the Lord and live by faith in Him in place of the controlling fear.
Of course, this begins with us having faith in Him and freedom from fear. These
are both things that we grow in. In II Corinthians 13:5 we are told to “Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith.” How do we test ourselves
this way? There are ways that we evaluate our spiritual growth, and there are
ways that we evaluate relationships. These do not need to be complicated, but
if we really care about something we will do this.
A primary way we know that we
are getting close to a person is that we know their voice. I could give you all
of the technical details about my wife’s voice—she is a soprano, speaks in so
many decibels, with a certain tone, etc.—but I doubt that you would be able to
pick her out of a group of women talking just by knowing these facts. However,
she can be talking in a group of dozens of women and I will know where she is
because I know her voice so well and we have spent so much time together. That
is the only true way that we can get to know the Voice of the Lord too—spending
time with Him.
Knowing His Voice is crucial. He said in John 10 that His sheep follow Him
because they know His Voice. In Romans 10:17 we’re told, “Faith comes
from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” The faith to do His works comes
by hearing Him. Just as Jesus only did what He saw the Father do, the faith to
do the works of Christ come from getting His orders to do them.
This is why a core devotion of our ministry has been to help all believers know
the Voice of the Lord. We do this by being resolute in our main purpose as
human beings to love Him. If we love Him we will be driven to get closer to Him
and do His will.