Seasons Of Transition

2 Kings 22:1a-2, “Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem… 2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.”

I read this scripture and God began to deal with me about times of transition. How important is to go in the direction in which God shifts you. To have the ability to sense when God is trying to move you in a new direction. If you get to meddling and fighting with God, it can cost you a lot.

Josiah was the youngest king in the entire Bible. Yet even at such a young age, he was a power catalyst in for revival. This kid did what was right in the sight of the Lord. This speaks what I have believed all of my life: God wants to use our kids.

The tragedy in this Biblical account is that as he grew up, he became narrow in his thinking, he became outdated, he began to meddle with God, he could not understand the transition going on, and God invaded his comfort zone later in life.

He thought God was doing what He used to do and God was doing something entirely different that had to do with our salvation. It was God’s plan to send Israel into Babylon for 70 years of captivity. God as preparing Israel for something that was going to happen many, many generations later and that would be a revival to the Gentiles.

Josiah could not see what God was doing and he got stuck in his old thinking and he couldn’t make the change. You can’t judge the whole parade by what you see through the hole in the fence. God has a larger view of things than we do. We have a local view and God has a worldview. We have a right-now view and God has the aerial view. He is God and He knows what He is doing.

My grandmother used to have a saying that I believe applies to many people and churches, “Some people don’t think it’s smoke if it don’t come out of their chimney.” God is going to have a church and a people. God is going to pour out His Spirit on all flesh. The only question is, is He going to have to go out and find people who think different enough to love revival to where we can impact our nation and the world for God, or can He find it right here in the house of God.

If we’re not careful, we will not move with the transition of what God is doing now. God chooses men and women to enlarge His purpose in the earth. Every time God began a new dispensation, He found a man and He used that man to enlarge His purpose.

Think about the journey of the lamb. The journey of the lamb begins with Abel. He brought to God a lamb for himself. It was a lamb for a man. His whole concept was this lamb is for me. But later on, notice the journey of the lamb. It moves from that to the book of Exodus and we have the Passover.

Now God says, “I’m ready for transition. I know it’s always been a personal lamb, but now I’m ready for a household lamb. Are you big enough to make that transition? I’m not just going to bless you, but I’m going to bless your house. But you have to have a transition mentality. You can’t get stuck in me, me, me. I’ve something bigger. I want blood on the doorposts of the whole house and I’ll save the whole house.”

Now God comes to the Day of Atonement and says, “Let’s shift this thing a little bit bigger. We now have a lamb of atonement for the whole nation.” God is always moving and it’s getting bigger. Not different, just bigger. It moves from a personal lamb to a house lamb to a national lamb.

But when you get to the book of Revelation, you read. “These are they that follow the Lamb a number that no man can number.” The point is, that the only way that you can get to ultimate purpose of God is to get beyond the local view and move into the worldview that God has when John said, “Behold the Lamb that takes away not the sins of an individual, a household, or even a nation called Israel, but takes away the sins of the world.”

If you’re not seeing God enlarge you, it’s probably because your thinkin’ is stinkin’. You’re not broad minded enough to believe that He can move you from glory to glory; from faith unto faith; from victory unto victory.

We are in seasons of transition and if you try to think like you’ve always thought, then you’re not going to make the transition. God is saying, “Can anybody believe me for bigger things? For greater things? Dream bigger. Believe Me for more.” God has more for you in 2016.

Israel could not make the transition, so they had to go around in circles for 40 years. God said, “I’m ready to move you from a tribe mentality to a nation mentality.” God didn’t want them in tribes in the Promised Land, He wanted a nation. He couldn’t get them to cross over into the promised land, because they couldn’t make the transition.

There has to come a place where you believe that God wants to do more and you refuse to stay stuck in your thinking. Josiah was a powerful man. I thought about good preachers, good churches, and denominations. I’ve preached in some of these churches and they’re sweet people; their pastors are holy and Godly and they live a righteous life, but their churches are dying. How does that happen to a church?

Listen to Josiah’s resume: in 2 Kings 23, it says he brought down the idols in the temple. He burned them to ashes. He got rid of all the false priests. He put out the sodomites.

Josiah was a man of revival. He was a man of conviction and righteousness. He was a man of truth and Godliness, but he could not make the transition. The prophets told him that he would be taken captive and all of Israel would go into Babylon. He fought and meddled with God. The Bible says that he rode out and began to fight against what God was doing.

23 years later from when he first came into power, when it was time to make the transition, to go from Israel to Babylon, which is a type of the world for the expansion of the gospel, he couldn’t make the change. The Bible says he was mortally wounded with arrows and he died. I couldn’t help but think how many churches and how many denominations and how many Christians get locked in mindsets.

Years ago, immediately after I arrived at a new church to Pastor, I said something to a member and his answer surprised me. I said, “There’s a lot of changes going on around here.” He said, “Yeah, and I was against every one of them.” That’s the mentality that some people have.

If you think that your church is the only church and your denomination is the only denomination… I’m so tired of people telling me, “I’m Church of God. I’m Baptist. I’m Methodist.” “WHO CARES!!!” Saying that your church is the only church is like filling your bathtub with saltwater and calling it the Pacific Ocean.

God sent the prophet Jeremiah to Josiah and Josiah said, “Bring me my prophets.” Not every prophet is a true prophet. Some are non-prophets that belong to a “non-prophet” organization. These false prophets prophesied good things and said these things won’t happen. Jeremiah called these false prophets “windbags full of hot air.” He also said, “The people love it so.”

Some people don’t want to hear truth. They want this sweet little gospel that if I want to drink and get drunk, let me drink and get drunk. If I want to divorce my wife and sleep with my secretary, leave me alone. If I’m single and I want to fornicate, you just preach me a sweet little sermon on Sunday and tell me how I’m going to prosper. But don’t talk to me about living holy.

Jeremiah said they love those windbags full of hot air. When Jeremiah preached his message, they threw him in a pit. P.I.T. stands for “Prophets In Training.” Some prophets have P.M.S… “Prophetic Mood Swings.”

Josiah just couldn’t make the transition. I don’t care what your age is and how much grey hair you’ve got or even how little hair you have. You better not get stuck down so deep that you can’t go with the flow of what God is doing. The Bible says, “The Wind (Holy Spirit) blows where it will.” It may be blowing one way and all of a sudden it will unexpectedly change and go the complete opposite way. We’ve got to be “Gone with the wind.” Wherever He wills.

You don’t know where revival will show up. One of the greatest revivals happened in a graveyard when He said, “Lazarus, come forth!” It happened again on a permanent basis when 2 disciples went in to a tomb that was in use for the weekend and saw a revival of the Son of God!

You have to be open to what ever the Lord is doing and I want to tell you that God is doing a new thing. Now it shall spring forth! God is looking for people who will be open to whatever He wants to do and not get stuck in the mud and not get stuck in the transition. Some people say, “I’m so deeeeeeeppppp.” They’re not deep. They’re stuck.

The church reminds me of a woman going into labor. When it gets painful and the pain intensifies, don’t quit. Don’t say, “This hurts too bad. I’ll come back another time.” This is the time to push! You are about to deliver the promise that God has put inside of you. Don’t you abort that promise inside of you. You’ve come too far to give up! Birth this baby of Revival!!!

The Holy Ghost is saying, “You’re in a transition and it hurts the most right before the breakthrough comes! Push! Don’t quit! Pray, Pray, Pray and then Praise, Praise, Praise!!! God doesn’t want an abortion, He wants a birth!