Bill Johnson - God Is Restoring Everything the Enemy Stole From You
The couple was Christmas shopping. The shopping center was packed. The wife walked around and was surprised to discover that her husband was nowhere to be seen. She was quite upset because they had a lot to do, and hence she became so worried that she called him on her mobile phone to ask him where he was. In a quiet voice, he said, «Do you remember the jewelers we went to about five years ago, where you fell in love with that diamond necklace and I told you we couldn’t afford it, but I’d get it for you someday?» The wife choked up and started to cry. She said, «Yes, I do remember that shop.» He replied, «Well, I’m in the pub next door; some guys just don’t have an ounce of sensitivity in their body. Oh, that’s funny! Oh goodness!
All right, open your Bibles to the book of Job. Job, I’ve got a friend whose favorite book in the Bible is Job. I read it because it’s in the Bible. Here’s what I want to do. I want to guess that about four or five times in the last almost 20 years, we’ve had a service where I felt the Lord prompted me to target certain things that we were to pray for. While praying for them and making specific declarations over people, we would see a release of miracles in specific areas. Some of you were part of the church family. I don’t remember now; it’s probably been eight years ago when I did the infamous message in this house, „I want my knife back.“ It was where God restored things that were lost. It was unusual for me because whenever I see a principle like that in the Word, I immediately apply it to our spiritual development, our maturity, or things of that nature, like people coming to Christ or restored family members, that sort of thing.
It was very awkward that morning. I felt restrained; „restrained“ is too strong a word, but I felt a caution not to spiritualize it. God wanted to demonstrate Himself in the natural first, and we would learn from the natural about what He was like, which would apply to the spiritual. We did this entire offering reading, our number one offering reading, which has been the longest. It was taken off the tablets of stone—not really our oldest offering reading. We read through that, made decrees, prayed for people, and we saw unusual miracles. In fact, I can say that in the 40-some years that I’ve been pastoring, that particular service had the most measurable breakthroughs of any service, probably to be honest, any five services we’ve ever had. It was the most unusual message because it wasn’t really a sermon; we would just declare a principle, get people to stand up, and pray.
Well, today is going to be similar in that I’m going to talk to you about the subject of restoration. I love— I don’t know how many of you have actually studied restoration in the Scripture, where God restores things. It’s almost scandalous. God is so good at restoring that things are better than before the fall. Paul, in trying to reason this out in Romans, actually raised a question. He presented the case for grace, asking, „Now, does that mean that we should sin so that we see grace abound?“ In other words, his ability to restore is so great that, in the natural mind, it would almost look like you should make a mess so He could fix it because He fixes it better than before there was a mess. So Paul asked the question, then he said, „God forbid! May it never be!“ In other words, don’t fall into that trap; but the point is, the logical, rational mind would look at grace and come to that kind of conclusion because it is so extreme.
When God restores, He restores to a place better than before—yes, He does! I don’t get this, but even sin, when the Redeemer came and restored us, made us members of His own personal body—not just a people He dwelt with, but now the fullness of Christ dwells in us. And that was after He restored us to Him. We see stories throughout the Bible about restoration. A really good one, one of my favorite verses that I feed off of and have prayed off of for years is from the book of Haggai, where it says, „And the glory of this latter house will be greater than the former.“ That’s something I latched onto the first time I read it a whole bunch of years ago. I just kind of adopted it, grabbed it, and started praying it, believing that the glory of the latter house, the people of God in the last of the last days, will be greater than Pentecost, than the first hundred years of the church when they experienced so much. The principle carries through all of Scripture—the early days of the early church had such massive breakthroughs; there was the Dark Ages, great difficulty, a great falling away, and then the last days where the Lord actually restored to a place that was greater than before. That’s been my heart’s cry forever.
The way it was given in the book of Haggai was actually initially addressing the building of the temple. I’ve used this illustration before: do you remember what it’s like to have an initial target so that you can have an ultimate target? In bowling, I’m not much of a bowler, but I used to like it as a kid. There are markers in the lane, and a good bowler knows how the ball comes off his hand. He has an initial target, and if he hits that well, he’ll hit the ultimate target, which is the pins at the end of the alley. So there’s an initial target, then there’s an ultimate target. When you got born again, that was the initial target that set you up to have the fullness of Christ living in you; that couldn’t have been possible without that.
So there’s an initial and an ultimate target, and that concept of initial and ultimate is all through Scripture. Here’s this promise out of Haggai, where he says, „And the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former.“ The application, if you look in context, is concerning the temple—Solomon’s temple, a great, unbelievable building. The prophecy is that it will be greater. The temple that was built after this prophecy was actually twice the size of Solomon’s temple, so when it was restored, it was restored to twice the size; but how many of you know for a fact that it didn’t carry near the majesty or glory of the early house? It was the immediate initial fulfillment of that word. Are you tracking with me? The initial fulfillment, but it wasn’t the ultimate. The ultimate is the house of God— you and me.
I read today out of the Passion Translation the passage in Psalms 84, where there’s this great statement. The passage declares, „God, God of heaven’s armies, you find so much beauty in your people; they’re like lovely sanctuaries of your presence.“ What a great statement! That’s really the ultimate temple—so much more glorious than anything man could build. What we’re going to do is look at the life of Job, and the reason is because of what happened to him. I read through Job; I get some of it, but I don’t get a lot of it. Yet, I am overwhelmed by God’s sovereignty and how He is so aggressively desiring to portray who He is through restoration.
Before we read, I was just going to read that, but let me stall for a moment longer. I’m stalling. There’s an aspect of God’s nature as a restorer that needs to be seen on the earth. There are two passages: one is Hosea 3:5, the other is Jeremiah 31:9. Both of these passages describe a fear of God that will come into the earth in the last days, which comes from His goodness. Now, just think with me about that. We hear a lot about earthquakes and all these things causing the fear of God; however, what is promised for the last days is that the goodness of God would bring a measure of fear of God into the earth that didn’t exist before. I’ve heard people say, „You can’t have fear and love; you can’t have a love relationship with God and fear Him at the same time.“ Whoever said that must not be married. I’m pretty confident that came from some single person. Just saying. Just saying, based on my experience. Yep, things are crossing my mind right now to give evidence, but you get the point.
Here’s this thought: if we talk about the goodness of the Lord being manifested in your life through your life, let’s take real simple things— a promotion at work, an open door where you become favored by someone of significance that brings you into an opportunity, you just seem to run into a great investment, and you don’t know how because you didn’t earn it—you’re not that smart, but it just happens. Your kids just seem to excel in what they’re assigned to do, and it’s just all this stuff dripping all around you. If it’s gradual blessing, people will think it’s your talent; if it’s extreme, they’ll look at you and say, „Yeah, you’re not that good.“ I’ve got a sense that what the Lord is actually doing is so liberally that nobody in their right mind could take credit for it, and that’s the point—people will actually see the hand of God, the favor of God upon a people, and they will stand back and say, „There is a God!“
Now, here’s the story of Job. The Lord considers Job the most honorable man on the planet. In a whole series of events, he loses everything. Oftentimes, when I teach on parenting, I start with Job in chapter one. One of my favorite stories is here; Job’s sons and daughters are having a birthday party, celebrating together. Job comes before the Lord offering sacrifices on their behalf—not because they were doing anything wrong, but just in case. I thought, „That’s it, that’s brilliant! Just cover them, just in case!“ Job’s heart as a dad shows so many rich things about his life, but he ends up losing everything.
We come to the last chapter of Job, and we see the Lord restore. We’re going to pick up the story in verse one. Job 42:1: „Then Job answered the Lord and said, 'I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, „Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?“ Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.'» Let me just put this in question form: how many of you have talked confidently about things you later discovered you didn’t know what you were talking about? Yeah, you just feel kind of stupid, huh? Yeah, it’s like, «I have a right to an opinion.» Yes, you do. You have a right to be stupid if you want to, and it’s Job’s position here. He was confident in his opinion and is realizing in this moment, «Yeah, I didn’t know what I was talking about.»
Verse four: «Listen, please, let me speak. You said, 'I will question you, and you will answer me. I have heard you by the hearing of the ear; now my eyes see you.'» This is interesting because he has an actual encounter with the person of God. «Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.» He goes on and he rebukes the friends of Job who had been counseling him for this season of time. His wrath is roused against those friends; in verse eight, he says, «Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job. Offer up for yourselves burnt offerings, and my servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept him.» I don’t know—it’s not part of the story, but that’s amazing!
God says to someone, «You’re to go repent, and you need to do it before him because I’m going to listen to him. By yourself, I’m not listening to you, but I’ll listen to him.» That’s kind of what the Lord’s doing here. He says, «Just go talk to Job; he’s got My favor right now. I’m a little ticked at you because you’ve been giving him all this bad counsel all this time.» That’s amazing; just tuck it away into the sovereignty of God. Don’t try to figure it out; just go «Amen» because He’s always right. Amen? Say «Amen» with me. Amen.
All right, here we go. Verse nine says that they did as the Lord commanded. The Lord accepted it. Verse ten is our verse, and the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Look at it again, just read it again: «The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.» It’s such an incredible story; I know probably a lot could be worked out in his story. His friends had been blaming him, telling him he had problems because of sin in his life. You hear the phrase—even today, it would be a coined phrase in secular society—Job’s counselors, Job’s comforters, which basically means they were there just to harass you and not help at all—and that’s what these guys were to Job. Day after day, some of them sat silently for a long time, and finally, they couldn’t hold it anymore, and they let him have it. There was secret sin in his life, and on and on and on. The Lord finally shows up and says, «Job had issues. I’ve dealt with those,» and He sees them. «You guys, the whole thing was wrong.»
He brings this rebuke and says, «You bring your sacrifice to Job; he’ll pray for you.» But here’s what God did for Job: He wanted to restore everything to Job and more. He required him to pray for the guys that sat there day after day after day, giving him horrible counsel and confrontive criticism. When Job prayed for his friends, God restored twofold. Sometimes, the Lord just steps into a situation like He did with one of the great stories—Joseph, who you know was sold by his brothers into slavery. He ended up in prison and eventually came out. It’s a great redemptive story; he’s in a high position of leadership in Egypt. His brothers come before him needing food, and they don’t know who he is. He makes this statement: «What you intended for evil, God intended for good.»
I don’t believe that God orchestrates evil, but I do believe that anything that comes our way, God positions Himself to redeem— not just to help us through it, but to actually make it benefit us. It actually becomes an asset, which is just mind-boggling that God could take the worst thing. Joseph lost about 13 years of his life to this nonsense, and he comes out. From where Joseph was, if he wanted to work to be an assistant to Pharaoh, it could have taken him a hundred years and never arrived there. But the 13 years of delay launched him there because the enemy cannot destroy the purposes of God. God steps in and uses the very evil that was intended for destruction to propel us into breakthrough and promotion.
The two stories of Joseph and Job present this: in Joseph’s case, he looked at his brothers who had betrayed him and forgave them. In Job’s case, he prayed for his friends for their restoration. What does God do? Job forgave them, and God restored twofold. Joseph was launched way beyond what he could have earned or worked for on his own. The whole point is that God’s heart is 100% set on restoring every broken and lost thing in our lives. He is a restorer. This is who He is, and the revelation of His goodness in the last of the last days is something that must be seen to be part of the message for the one billion-soul harvest— for people to see what He’s actually like. There’s a draw; it’s not casual; it’s not careless because it’s a fearful draw. There’s an overwhelming sense that once I yield to this One who is so good, I will serve Him all my days. So, there’s that fear and trembling kind of thing, yet there’s this rich affection to run towards Him. It’s that strange combination that the Lord is using in the last days to woo people to Him, not to join a gathering of believers or an organization, but to actually woo people to this Christ.
The Lord’s heart has to be seen, and when He takes a broken part of your life and restores it, you are honored for receiving, but He is exalted for being good. There are specific situations I felt we were to pray for today, and that within 120 days we would see massive miracles and breakthroughs in these areas. We’re going to pray for relational issues, financial issues, and health; those three things.
There was a statement I read this morning that I like so much. Brian— I don’t know how to say his name well—Brian Zand said, «Our task is not to protest the world into a certain moral conformity but to attract the world to the saving beauty of Christ.» Oh come on! Let me read it again in case you were daydreaming: «Our task is not to protest the world into a certain moral conformity but to attract the world to the saving beauty of Christ.»
There’s an incredible story I heard. A prophecy years ago marked my life. Dick Joyce, who was one of our dear friends and a great prophet of the Lord, has been connected to our family for over 40 years. He told me this word he heard once where the Lord said, «I’m not going to remove the scars from your life, but I’m going to arrange them to where they have the appearance of carving on a fine piece of crystal.» That messed me up! He’s going to arrange them. What’s the point? The point is, He doesn’t always hide the faults—the broken things, the things that didn’t work well in our life, the things we didn’t succeed at. He doesn’t flaunt them for our shame; He flaunts them to promote His grace, to reveal who He is as a Father. When He restores, even though Job was wrong in some of his dealings with his friends, the Lord came to him and restored everything twofold.
So, this is what I believe: the Lord is going to release a breakthrough anointing on specific situations today, and we will watch some of these unfold within a week or two, some of them in the few months to come. When we did this before about eight years ago, we had the most awkward and wonderful miracles. People had properties and estates held up in probate for years. They would not be released the next week. People with inheritances they couldn’t access were the lost relatives that were part of this family, and they couldn’t find them. A week after we prayed, they were found. It was like so many different things of that nature just turned instantly. I believe that the Lord is giving us that kind of grace this morning. That’s why I’ve been kind of excited for today—to just pray and make some declarations.
So here’s what we’re going to do: God, the Restorer, is going to restore broken things. Here’s a big part of it—some of the things we will be praying for this morning in the next few minutes, some of you caused the problem. All right? Like finances, you know? How many of you have ever been in painful debt that you caused? Oh, I can write a book on what not to do! I’m always a giver; we had that part down, but that doesn’t mean I had common sense in the rest of my financial world. So, the book wouldn’t sell much, but it would be fun to get it off my chest, you know; it would be my confessional.
So, here’s the deal: forgiveness is essential to restoration. I’m not going to say He’s going to withhold it; I’m just saying there’s more He wants to do that only your forgiveness can make room for. For some of you, that means forgiving yourself. Shame hasn’t restored you, so let’s try something else. I heard someone say once, «Would you criticize someone else and condemn them to God’s judgment?» «Of course not!» And then I said, «Then why do you do it to yourself?» Because it’s the same sin! Somehow, self-condemnation is considered humility when it’s nothing but deception. True?
So we’re going to undeceive ourselves into breakthrough. All right, you ready? There are a bunch of folks in the room with relational disappointment, loss, and broken stuff in relationships. It may be a child that’s wandered away; it could be a broken marriage—whatever makes sense to you, and you want the Lord to restore. It may not be about restoring you physically; you’ve got people that went and got remarried; I’m not talking about restoring that. I’m talking about the broken part in here that’s the result of that—the broken internal things that need to be healed up so that we can taste the blessing and favor of the Lord throughout our lives.
So, if you have relational stuff, stand. If that’s you, stand quickly; we’re going to pray. All right, there are a whole bunch of people standing. Those of you sitting, you have two hands for a reason. I want you to go to someone who’s standing. If there’s a pocket of people together and nobody can get to you, then put your hand on the shoulder of a person next to you or something. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to call for the restoration of the Lord on the broken things in relationships. We’re calling for the restoration of God.
Now stand before the Lord on this right now. We call for the restoration of God in relationships—the marriages that were broken and destroyed, the issues with children and relatives, business partners, relationships of all sorts that just did not work out. We call you, Lord God, into a place of restoration. We make confession; we forgive ourselves for being the cause. We contributed to the problem, and we just say, «Lord, let the guilt and shame issues that have kept people in bondage be lifted off now in Jesus' name.» We call for full vindication of loss. Full vindication of loss, in Jesus' name! In Jesus' name! Thank You, Lord! In Jesus' wonderful name! Beautiful!
All right, you did good. Go ahead and sit down. Now we’ve got two more things, so you’ll be standing again in a moment. This is our aerobics class this morning!
In Proverbs, he says, «We don’t fault a person who is starving to death for stealing something to eat, yet they still have to pay back.» Solomon said, «seven times,» for anything stolen. I like to use that as a standard. I talked with Rick Joyner two days before my dad died, and he told me on the phone, «This loss is going to give you access to a seven-time greater anointing in that area.» My whole point is: don’t waste your pain; don’t waste your sorrow. It gives you access to vindication—a vindication that you can’t bring about.
Let me warn you here: if you’re sitting there with a wounded heart, it’s tough to pray for vindication accurately, because you’ll want it against people. The vindication of the Lord is to expose the works of darkness and to put you in a place of honor, and it’s always undeserved honor—that’s what grace does. Seven times greater.
Okay, money: bad investments, betrayal—somebody ran off with the money, someone didn’t hold up their end of an agreement in a contract. Financial crisis that is due to mistakes that either you made or someone else made: if you would like a financial breakthrough—not just the need for money, but you’ve had the disappointment, loss, or betrayal—stand.
If you’re sitting close to them, lay hands on them. I want you to call for a return of more than what’s owed. Call for it to be returned to them with interest—increase, increase, increase! Our desire isn’t for people to suffer; our desire is for the people of God to be honored, to be released with favor and grace. We call what is due them because of grace; we call that home with interest, with increase, God. In some cases, we declare even up to seven times greater breakthrough than what would normally be anticipated. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, we have one more thing: health—health loss, health disappointment, health issues that have plagued you or perhaps your family line. It may be just part of your history. You go from one disease to another. For many of you, it’s a generational thing. If that’s you, just stand because we’re going to pray for triumph and victory for you.
The common response to this kind of thing is, «I don’t know how many times I’ve had somebody say to me, 'I’ve been prayed for a thousand times.'» When I pray for them, I say, «Oh man, that’s a whole lot of unanswered prayers to carry along into this breakthrough.»
So, I tell people, «Let’s do this: pretend that this is the first time anybody’s ever prayed for you.» They look at me like I’m the town’s drunk! But it still works! Yeah, we do this. Let’s declare this: this is a new season; this is a new day. There’s a new mantle for a new day. Some things have been prayed for over 20, 30, or even 40 years that are going to have breakthrough right now in this next season.
Go to someone who’s standing and just pray that prayer of breakthrough over them. Pray that cycle of disappointment off them. Lord, we pray for a miracle that You would heal that part of their life, emotionally and mentally, just carrying that burden for some of them for years. We just say, «Lord, release the grace that this would be the season of the greatest breakthroughs we have ever seen in this house.»
We have all kinds of things happening to visitors that come from around the world, but we declare, «Lord, let the hometown victories multiply in number, and let it start with these who are standing now, in Jesus' amazing and marvelous name.» Release the breakthrough! Release the breakthrough! Release the breakthrough! In fact, Lord, we say, «Make up for lost time! Make up for lost time! Make up for lost time!» Let even this answer come with renewed strength, renewed vitality, and an insulation against affliction, disease—even the common cold. Let the common cold be uncommon. Amen!
Let’s have everyone stand. Yes, that was wonderful! It would be appropriate for us just to give thanks to the Lord right now in advance. We do give You thanks; we give You thanks, God. We bless You; we honor You, Lord. Wow!
In my position, when these certain days come, I hear stories that never get back to you, and I regret that we somehow don’t post them because whenever we’ve taken time to corporately pray and make declarations like this, the greatest in-house miracles are from our family. Not as compared to out house, as Jack Hayford pointed out once when he was here. Out house and family business miracles are probably the most extraordinary I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been here. Whenever we make this kind of corporate prayer together, I am expecting unusual breakthroughs. Unusual breakthroughs! I mean, we’ve seen people who could never buy a house, buy a house—literally out of nowhere! People who could never fulfill a certain dream or obtain a certain kind of job, whatever—despite impossibilities, we’ve had money appear in people’s bank accounts, gemstones worth substantial amounts of money appear in people’s homes. I mean, it’s just strange but glorious!
I just believe that the Lord is fighting on our behalf in a fresh new way. So we declare that in Jesus' wonderful name! One quick question, though, before I turn it over. I know that whenever there’s a crowd this size, there’s always a good chance we have people here that don’t know the Lord, and that’s actually the greatest miracle of all. It’s more important to us than anything we’ve prayed about so far, that every person here would know the incredible privilege of living with perfect peace with God—no shame; no guilt; the realization that all has been forgiven. So much so that He’s brought us right into His intimate personal family. That’s available for every person who simply calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
If you would be one that would say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I’m right with God,» then I want you to raise your hand where you are. I’m just going to wait about 30 seconds. If that’s you, put a hand up. You say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know that I’m right with God.» Right over here. All right. Beautiful! Anyone else? Okay, all right! The entire day is worth it just for you. If you could have somebody next to her walk her up, because I’m going to have someone minister to her and pray for her. I need a young lady to minister to her on our team, so just walk her up here if you would. And she’ll need someone to go over there—Tom, would you head on over that way? Thank you. Excellent! Beautiful! All right! Oh, thanks, Lord! Thanks, Lord! Thanks, Lord!