Bill Johnson - Words That Make Thrones
Good morning, good morning, teacher! It’s good to see you. We had such a wonderful conference this week, the Open Heavens Conference. How many of you were a part of it at all? Yeah, it was such a great time. David Wagner was there, one of my favorites on the planet. I have a lot of favorites, but he’s on the list, and he did such a great job. Michael and Jessica Coolianos were there too, and it was just good. We got wrecked and then re-wrecked, and it was worth it; it was great fun. I will drink you under the table, that’s what I whispered to my coffee as I hid from morning people. That’s so dumb! This one’s even worse: Jesus can walk on water; I can walk on cucumbers! Cucumbers are 96% water; therefore, I am 96% like Jesus. That’s really dumb, that’s so bad, it’s funny. All right, last one: If you see me talking to myself, please go away. I’m self-employed, and I’m having a staff meeting.
Open your Bibles, if you would, to Isaiah Chapter 60, a very familiar portion of Scripture for us. I’ve taught on it so many times, but I’m going there today because I had a very strange night—a very unusual experience with the Lord in the middle of the night. Excuse me, I’m good; you can’t know the brand. This is Bethel brand water; there we go, sparkling, but nobody knows what kind. I had a very unusual experience around 1 o’clock this morning; I had this phrase going through my mind, along with what seemed to be a hundred different scriptures. I mean, it was a whirlwind of mental activity, which is not good for me in the middle of the night; I can hurt myself doing that. But I believe it was a God moment—a divine moment. I had so many scriptures going through my mind, concepts, ideas—things that I felt like He was impressing on my heart, showing me. Thankfully, it only lasted about an hour and I was able to go back to sleep until it was time to get up.
This is the phrase I heard, and then we’re going to unpack it: I heard this phrase, it’s kind of strange, but I heard this phrase: «Walled cities without gates are not completely safe.» Why don’t you say it with me? «Walled cities without gates are not completely safe.» We’ll get to that in a moment. Isaiah 60 has been such a monumental portion of Scripture for me. I had what I refer to as one of the two most significant encounters I’ve had with the Lord in my life; this one happened on Thursday afternoon in May of 1979. It has affected every day since then because it changed me so profoundly. It was an encounter with the Lord where He showed me His heart in this chapter, and it wrecked me.
We see in verse 1, He says, «Arise, shine, for your light has come; the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.» This tells me that this chapter, at least this portion of the chapter, is for the church—it’s for the church age. The reason we know that is He said, «Arise, take responsibility, get up, shine.» Why? Because your light has come. In John Chapter 1, it says Jesus is the light that enlightens every person who comes into the world. Jesus is the light that enlightens every person. The reason I believe this is for the church age— for us right now—is because there is not another light coming; Jesus is the light that came. That means His coming automatically ignites in me a responsibility to carry out the mandate in this chapter: «Arise, shine, your light has come; the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.»
It goes on, «For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.» It’s a wonderful promise that in times of difficulty, often the grace of God exceeds the difficulty, and the light shines where sin abounds; grace abounds even more. Yes, and so we know that the Lord will sometimes move on the scene when things look the worst, and He reverses the negative effects, and God is glorified. It’s not darkness and light coexisting; one is defeated openly.
We have that part of this chapter. Verse 3 is a favorite of mine—the New American Standard says, «Nations will come to your light, kings to the brightness of your rising.» The reason that moves me so deeply is that’s only happened one time in history that I know of. It was during Solomon’s reign as king. He gained such an incredible reputation for divine wisdom that people would pay any price to leave where they were to sit at his feet and learn. As Bobby Connor would say, «It’s not about somebody; it’s about His body.» This is about to happen where the nations will literally feed on the solutions of God for the turmoil, difficulty, and challenges of life. They will come not to an individual, but instead, to the people of God who walk in this kind of wisdom.
So this really moves me. But when you get down to verse 18, this is the last part that I remember reading where I really got wrecked in that Thursday afternoon in 1979. The last part of verse 18 says, «You will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.» You will call your walls salvation and your gates praise. Salvation is His part; praise is mine. There’s a co-laboring here in this metaphoric wall and gates that God is describing. There is a role that God has; He saves me; I cannot save myself. But my response is a response of praise. He says, «Your walls will be called salvation; your gates praise.»
Interestingly, if you follow this theme in Isaiah 60, by the time you get to Chapter 62—which is only like 15 or 20 verses later—He says, «And your wall—that wall of salvation—will be like a torch that is burning.» I love Bible descriptions because they challenge me. Here we’re working with walls that have now become fire, and I’m reminded of what the Lord said in Zechariah: He said, «I will be a wall of fire around you.» So the wall of fire around us is our salvation; it’s a beautiful picture. But there’s still a personal responsibility and a personal mandate, and that is the gates of praise.
When you get to Revelation Chapter 21, are you all still breathing? Everybody’s still alive, all right? Hopefully, this will make sense here soon. When you get to Revelation Chapter 21, verse 21, it says, «The twelve gates were twelve pearls, and each individual gate was of one pearl.» The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. It’s a very strange city; it’s a very strange wall where you’ve got streets that are gold but transparent. You have a wall of fire, the wall of salvation, and you have gates that are made out of—each gate is one pearl. I don’t know how big that gate is, like the size of a building or something; it’s very strange. But there’s a profound picture here that’s important for us to catch.
Pearls are developed through irritation; gates of praise are built by responding to difficulty and glorifying God. Anybody can give Him praise when you get a raise at work—and we should; we must. Anyone can give Him praise when our favorite team wins the NBA Championship or World Series or whatever; all of us know how to celebrate in those moments. The challenge comes when I face a challenge to my faith—I have suffered loss. I don’t know why it happened; I don’t know how it happened; I didn’t do anything wrong; this crisis happened; this tragedy happened. In those moments, to apprehend my moment and to give Him praise in the middle of those—there’s where the gate is built.
I tell you, it’s hard for me to communicate well what I had a sense of in the middle of the night last night because I don’t want to be alarming. It wasn’t a warning in the sense of «Oh no! Be careful what’s happening.» It wasn’t that. In fact, my wife sent me a text earlier today, helping me with language for something. It’s because of what’s coming; we have to make sure that we’ve got this area taken care of because of what’s on the way. We have to ensure that this mouth gate does not have salt water and sweet water coming from the same fountain, from the same spring. This is a biblical analogy; bitter water and sweet water cannot come from the same mouth.
Excuse me, I’m better! Psalms 22:3 says God is enthroned upon the praises of His people, right? He’s enthroned upon the praises of His people. So who is enthroned on our complaining? If God is enthroned upon the praises of His people, who then becomes enthroned—can I use the word «empowered"—through my criticism? The Bible reveals protocol; it’s not ritual, it’s not routine without purpose; it’s biblical protocol. Psalms 100 says, «I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart; I enter His courts with praise; I enter His presence with praise.» Whose presence do I enter with complaining? What gates open to me when I criticize? It’s not a light matter; it’s not a light matter.
James 5:9 says, «Don’t complain or grumble against one another, brethren.» So this is addressed to the church. «Brethren» is the word there. Then he follows it with, «Because the judge is standing at the door.» It’s like we know instinctively—we know biblically—that life and death are in the power of the tongue. But it’s a time when I get nervous. Thankfully, I’m being very transparent here; I don’t hear the kind of stuff in this room that I hear elsewhere. I become afraid for the people of God. I sometimes listen to someone who will accuse me or us or somebody I know of the most horrible things that I know for a fact are not true. I become fascinated with how long they can talk without realizing the Holy Spirit is not on what they’re saying. Maybe they’ve never had the moment in life where they were in partnership—co-laboring with the Lord—where they could tell something significant was happening, something that couldn’t be credited to them; it was God working in them and through them. Maybe they’ve never had that moment because what they’re saying right now is so opposite to the nature of Christ. I’ll sit there and I just become fascinated. I wonder how long they can do it without realizing God’s not involved, and it’s not to be mentioned among us.
This is my responsibility—for my spring, if you will, my fountain called my speech—to be that which edifies and encourages. In fact, one of my favorite verses on the subject in the whole Bible is Ephesians 4:29. It’s in that area, it’s right side of the page about two-thirds of the way down. He says, «Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.» A friend of mine did a word study on the «unwholesome» word, and he said basically it means «rotten fish.» Don’t let rotten fish come out of your mouth. That was his conclusion; it means rotten fish. So anytime you have something smelly coming out, just shut your mouth! Just shut up! Just don’t let rotten fish come out of your mouth. Just choose words that are timely and edify.
I feel like the opportunity the Lord has given us in this season we’re entering is a place of even greater responsibility, greater influence, and greater responsibility. Oh, Jesus put it this way. I put these two together all the time: Jesus said to Peter and the guys, they had left everything to follow Him, and He said, «I’m gonna add a hundred times as much into your life—with persecution.» So, income tax! That’s how favor works. Income tax; thankfully, He’s not a socialist, so the income will always be more than the tax!
I usually save my obnoxious statements for the 1 o’clock meeting, so I don’t know; you guys are very special today. When my dad died 14 years ago, he died at the age of 75. In our family, that’s extremely young. His mom lived to 97, and of all our family members, the one who was the sickliest died at 86 or something. I mean, it’s just crazy; they all live a long time, and he was the healthiest of all. Then he just got sick, and in six months, he was gone. He moved here; my mom and dad moved here to help us—to be a part of what God was doing. I remember, anytime you have loss—even if they die at 97, there’s pain and there’s loss, especially with well-loved family members, as my dad was—a real noble man, great, great man. Anytime there’s loss, there’s pain. But when it appears to be at least a 20-year premature loss like that—and to see that happen in front of our eyes as a family—we stayed around him, around his bed. I think we were there basically non-stop for three days, 72 hours—just being there with him, with the little kids, everybody.
I remember when he breathed his last. You have a decision to make. I know you’ve got pain; I’ve got pain. All of a sudden, I’ve got loss; I’ve got the greatest encouragement in my life that’s now gone. I’ve got the pain of loss, the disappointment; we prayed, we did this, we tried that, it didn’t work. We didn’t get a breakthrough; you’ve got the questions. We’ve seen others healed of this kind of disease, but my dad wasn’t. You’ve got the guilt: «Could we have prayed differently? Should we have done this? Should we have called a fast?» You just go through the list. We’ve got all this stuff going on.
I have a decision to make: I can either let these things infect me, or I can let the fire in my soul for God bring these things—the disappointment, the loss, the confusion, the pain—all this stuff close to the fire, so that as I give God my offering, I can give Him an offering with a flavor I’ll never be able to give Him in eternity. Because in heaven, there’s no pain; there’s no loss, no disappointment, there’s no confusion; none of that junk is there. It’s only here. So I’ve got a once-in-an-eternity chance to give Him that costly of an offering, and it’s in pain.
So I take all these ingredients of loss and pain, all this stuff—hold it close so that as I honor Him for always being the healer, the generous promise-giver, the one who is perfectly faithful and true—I can do it in the context of pain. See, the gates are made out of pearls. Pearls are developed in irritation; they’re developed in conflict. I’m thinking this; I burn with this. There’s a conflict, and so I’m going to yield my thoughts to what the Word of God declares, and I’m going to give Him an offering. Why? Because the gate is something He comes through.
I don’t think it’s a mixed metaphor here to use it in this manner. Psalms 24 says, «Lift up your heads, O you gates, that the King of glory may come in.» There’s something welcoming about this. «I trust in You, God, regardless of circumstances. I trust You, regardless of my disappointment in the turnout of this situation. I trust You.» Bottom line: You are good; I trust You. I’m going to celebrate way ahead of any breakthrough I could possibly have in my future. I’m going to give You that praise right now.
There’s this moment of celebration of God and declaring His greatness in the middle of pain and loss and all the junk. Why? I read a passage this morning that was quite important to me: Psalms 50. It was in the Passion Translation. There’s this one verse that says, «Honor Me by trusting in Me in your day of trouble.» Ah, man, that messed me up! I saw that this morning: Honor Me by trusting in Me in your day of trouble. We love to honor Him in song; we love to honor Him with dance or whatever, shout—whatever, you know, the stuff that we do. But He’s saying, «If I put it in my words, let that praise you give Me be in the context that you actually trust Me in your day of pain—in your day of difficulty.»
In that moment, determined with the focus of a soldier— with the focus of a disciplined soldier, with the focus of a Navy SEAL that says, «Salt water is not coming out of this mouth!» Salt water is not coming out! I am not going to misuse my moment, but instead I’m going to declare the greatness of God, as much as it may be in conflict with my fears, my ambitions, my disappointments—all the stuff. I’m going to yield all of this to the sovereignty of God, and I’m going to declare His greatness.
And the darker the cloud that I feel over my head, the more exuberant I will be in my declaration of praise. The other thing I felt the Lord spoke to me last night—again, you have to understand I was in a swirl; very hard to describe. I’ve only had this kind of thing happen maybe three or four times in my life. Yet, this one was the most bizarre in the sense that so many scriptures were coming at me. Usually, it’s one thought, and I just can’t shake it all night, but this was different—it was all these verses, all these statements, all these phrases.
I’m trying to have you feel my pain. That’s all I’m trying to do—just kidding. In that swirl, I found myself with this conviction that I believe was the word of the Lord: The key to mental health is giving thanks in every situation. I heard a psychiatrist or psychologist—I forget which now—years ago say he felt that 95% of all mental illness was traced back to trying to avoid pain. Giving thanks to God is not denial; giving thanks is letting faith rise above what you can’t understand, comprehend, or control and choose to give Him glory in the middle of it.
So the key to mental health is giving thanks in everything. The key to emotional health is rejoicing always, and the key to heart health—remember, «Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.» Proverbs 4:23 says, «Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the issues of life.» The key to heart health is to pray without ceasing. We have this passage in Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 5, where he says, «Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks.» He actually gave us keys of heaven, if you will—droplets of heavenly reality to get planted deeply in our soul to keep us in a place of continuous emotional, mental, and heart health.
The purity of heart is not a challenge for us. Why? Because we stay connected to the Spirit of God. There’s no off button to my prayer life; there’s no off button. Everything is worth talking about to Him, everything!
So I want you to stand! Feel it! Please don’t worry; you’re not getting out that early. «I will give You all my worship; I will give You all my praise. You alone I long to worship; You alone are worthy of my praise.» «I will give You all my worship; I will give You all my praise.» «You alone I long to worship; You alone are worthy of my praise.»
I want you to take whatever came to your mind when I was talking about giving thanks in the middle of difficulty. I want you to put it in front of you. My dear friend Dick Mills, who is home with the Lord now, would sometimes have a problem that was just overwhelming. He’d go into a room, take two chairs, put them facing each other, sit in one, and say, «Devil, Satan, sit down! I’m going to worship God, and you’re going to watch me!» I kind of like that approach to life.
So I want you to take whatever situation is the most challenging for you and put it in front of you. Right now, I want us to lift up praises to the Lord. I don’t need anyone shouting or yelling, but I’m also going to ask: don’t do this in the quiet of your heart. You were designed to reveal who you are through passion before the Lord. So I’m going to ask you to passionately pray, exalting Him, giving Him praise. Let me ask you to do this with the understanding. I love praying in tongues, singing in tongues—all of the above. But on this one, I’m going to ask you to use your mind and think through giving Him an offering. The most dangerous thing for us right now is familiarity with the blessing of the anointing of God; it’s the greatest challenge we have.
Because what happens is yesterday’s sacrifice is today’s norm, and I can just maintain now because I’m familiar. It’s the scariest moment to be in. So I’m going to ask you to lift your voices together. I’m going to ask everyone in the room to join with me in giving Him honor and a sacrifice of praise while facing that challenge and difficulty.
Let’s do it together: Lift your voices. Lift your voices; don’t do it quietly. With the understanding, lift an offering, declare His greatness. Be very specific: «God, You are so faithful! You are so honorable! Every word You say is true! We celebrate You, God! You never lie! You’re the promise-giver, the promise-fulfiller! We bless and honor Your name, God! You’re the God of abundance, extreme kindness—wonderful, wonderful God—wonderful Father!»
Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Stir up your own faith and declare who God is! Withhold nothing! Don’t stop, please! Please do not stop! We bless Your great name; we honor Your great name! Wonderful, wonderful God; wonderful God! Now just grab the hand of the person next to you, please. That person you’re holding hands with really needed to hear this today; they need your help right now. I want to ask you to pray for them. I want you to pray that God would give them such a great grace over the gate of their mouth that only sweet water would come out of that spring—that carelessness will not be found in us again.
So I’m going to ask you to pray for them, pray for the one on your right and left. Just pray for them: «God, give them the grace needed! Give them the grace needed! Great purity of heart! Purity of heart! Let our minds be used to build—to give place for the presence of God to rest! Do that great work in us, God! Do that great work in us here, Lord!»
Now pray for yourself the same way. Just honestly, make covenant with the Lord: «God, I have purposed in my heart to only let sweet water come out of this spring—to really honor You with what I say.» Put it on your lips; don’t just think happy thoughts; put it on your lips!
«Oh, come, let us adore Him! Oh, come, let us adore Him! Oh, come, let us adore Him! You alone are worthy! We give You all the glory! We cry out to You, Lord!» Father, I do ask that you’d give us a real unusual grace for this next season. Thank You so much for the increased favor. We even thank You for the tax; we thank You that we get to demonstrate our love for You regardless of circumstances! We thank You for the privilege; I thank You for the privilege of standing with thousands, and I thank You for the privilege of standing alone.
I do sincerely honor You for that, and I ask that You put a grace upon us as a church family to build gates that You’d come through—the gates of pearl developed in irritation, conflict. Help us to grab our moments and give You an offering that You’re worthy of. Amen.