Corporate crisis calls for a corporate response

Excerpts from the sermon „Joel: Standing at a critical juncture“ by Allen Hood, preached at IHOP on August 30, 2009.

I believe we are standing at a critical juncture in history, much like in the days of prophet Joel. I believe we are standing in amidst a financial crisis and yet, another crisis is looming around the corner. The prophet Jeremija stated it this way: Oh my God, my God, I’m pained in my very heart. My heart makes a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace because you have heard, Oh my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

God is just and righteous. He’s the sovereign of nations. The ruler of all the affairs of men, he raises kings up, he tears them down, he changes the times and the seasons. He appoints the times and the seasons of the nations and he changes their boundary lines. He IS the sovereign God. The cross didn’t take him off of his throne, the cross vindicated his righteous throne.

So I ask this question: Have we heard the sound of the trumpet yet? Have we heard the sound of the alarm? Have we connected our hearts to the crisis or are we believing that the financial crisis is already on the way to recovery? I’m realizing that right now we could be at the crucial hour in history, and we need to do more than to develop a few more skills on how to engage with God in our quiet time more effectively.

What if we are in a corporate window where our response is a matter of life or death? Not only for us, but for our children? An individual and corporate history in God must be cultivated. And one must be cultivated that can bear the weight of rogue nations with nuclear capabilities. You know, I’d like to look at my children and say: You know what? Its gonna be OK.

But I look at the landscape and the history right now and I look at my nation and go: Beloved sons! You must have an inner disposition that can bear the weight of nuclear rogue nations, pandemics, flus. You gotta have an inner disposition that can bear the weight of an onslaught of religious wars and fanaticism. You gotta have an inner disposition that knows which way the wind is blowing and what’s God saying in the hour and be able to respond! Its not fair, but that’s the hour you find yourself.

Then, its not the matter of bearing God a little bit longer and a little bit better in your quiet time. You GOT TO KNOW HIM. You got to say yes to a corporate call! You got to respond. You gotta have an inner disposition that can deal with water shortages and biological threats, terrorist attacks, virtual perversion, dullness of Western humanistic society. And above all, you’ve gotta have an inner disposition that can bear the weight of the confrontation of the HOLY ONE if he decides to visit our nation. He sees all and hears all. He holds all men to account. And I hfind myself saying to my sons: „You must heed the prophet Joel’s warning!“ You MUST hear!

I believe prophet Joel was in a very similar circumstance that I believe our nation finds ourselves in. In Joel ch 1 a locust plague has visited, it didn’t direct itself, the wind drove the locust plague and God who directs the wind, orchestrated it and sent the locust plague. Back then, not every locust plague would devastate the nation. But we see from v 16, has not the food been cut off before our eyes? The crops are destroyed, the trees are stripped bare, next year’s seed is in jeopardy.

So, here we have a financial crisis. The agricultural engine for their financial system has just been wiped out and now Israel finds itself in a financial disaster, its a matter of life or death for them.

And the prophet asks this question: Has anything like that ever happened in your day or in your fathers’ day? Before they can start the rebuilding plan, before they can start the legislative process, the prophet cries out and says: wait a minute! Don’t disconnect from the urgency! Don’t kick into your pragmatic mode and begin to ask certain questions about rebuilding. That’s not the time right now. The time right now is to ask this question: Have you EVER seen anything like this happen in your day? If not, what is God saying?! Let the urgency pierce you! Don’t put up the defense mechanism too soon. Let the word strike you. Let it hit your heart. Let it kick you into a different set of questions.

Lest we say: our houses have been knocked down and we shall rebuild them. Our crops are destroyed, but we will overcome this with the ingenuity of the Israeli people! Sounds similar? Here we are in the midst of a financial crisis. Have we asked the question WHY? Why the intensity? What is God saying? Or have we just analyzed it and begun to legislate and find out the policies to make it all better?! Have we adressed the prime issue? The more fundamental issue... that there is a religious crisis and its manifesting in the physical financial shaking.

How many of you remember King Nebukadnezzar when God humbled him? You remember he grew out his hair and his hair was like the feathers of an eagle. And his fingernails grew out like the claws of an eagle. And for seven seasons he ate the grass of the field and the dew of the mornig would wet him each day, as he woke up, wild and insane, eating grass!

Beloved, that’s God’s kindness to Nebukadnezzar, that he allowed Nebukadnezzar to manifest outwardly what he was already spiritually inwardly. Do you know its a kindness of God to let a nation manifest outwardly what they already are internallly? So that you get connected? You see, the blessings in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 was to be an outward manifestation what Israel already was on the inside. And when the inside is off kilter, the outside would take a hit and the land and its devastation would reflect the inward landscape of their own hearts. What if our country today is showing outwardly what we really are as a church inwardly? Have we asked the question? Or have we just moved our finances to another, more safer place?

Have we stopped? Have we paused? The prophet says: Get in touch with it! Something monumental has happened. The prophet exhorts the community to awake. He says: Awake, you drunkards! Awake, you, farmers! Awake, you priests and wail! He says you must ask the question "What is going on"? And you must let it wake you up and it must move you to the place of intercession, wailing, mourning, weeping. And you must call, in a corporate crisis you must call for a corporate response of intercession, which is commensurate, equal to the crisis. You must shut everything down as usual and you must bring forth a prayer and fasting movement that is birthed in sincerity of heart, not in just a religious reform. (24:30)

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