Joseph Prince - Get Ready For a Time of Restoration
This is an excerpt from: Much More Restoration Is Coming!
So during this kairos moment, another thing that God wants to do for us, and this He impressed on me for a few weeks now. I've been wanting to share this but never got a chance to because I believe God, whatever I release in a particular service, all right, is actually what God wants for that service. Even though I've prepared way ahead, can be a few years even, right, but I only get to release that word if He allows me, I have the release, okay? And I have the release to share this with you, that it is also a time of restoration; that whatever you have lost, whatever you feel like you have been robbed of, someone cheated you, you've been scammed, that's a big word nowadays, especially in Singapore. You've been scammed, right? You say that, "It's my stupidity. It's my foolishness".
Maybe you subscribe to a teaching that says if it's because of your stupidity, God is not obliged to help you. Church, the very fact that Christ died for sinners means he dies for our stupidity, amen. He didn't wait for us to become smart and then He died for us. He didn't wait for us, so I have a message I preached years ago, very long message. The title is, "How God Helps Us Even in the Mistakes of Our Own Making," something like that. Very long, right? So God helps us even with the mistakes of our own making. God helped Adam and Eve redeem them, putting on coats of skin, that means blood sacrifice, amen, to cover them, their sins, while they were still in the their sins. They were hiding from God. God provided for them, amen? Are you listening to what I'm saying?
So all our mistakes don't... You see, that's self-righteousness coming in again, by saying that, "Oh, you know, God only help people who help themselves". That's not from the Bible. "Oh, yes it is". It's not. Okay, it's from Benjamin Franklin, lah. Okay? And the truth be known, God helps those who are helpless. We come to a place, in that area you think you can help yourself, there's no grace there. There's no power of God released there. It's all you. It's all your own charisma, your own skill, your own talent, which is actually based on man has expiry date. Won't go so far. With God's grace, it goes on, and on, and on. And that's why the Bible says, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles," even though they are old, because wings as eagles in Psalms 103, verse 5 says what? God renews your youth like the eagles.
So, "Those that wait upon the Lord, they shall renew their strength," amen? "They shall mount up with wings as eagles". Now, listen to this. "They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint". Then in case you are wondering, "Oh yeah, of course this is true, lah, for the young people". No, he's not talking about young people. Especially he's talking about elderly people. You know why? The next verse says, "Even the youths shall faint and the young man shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord". Oh, the verse that precedes this actually. It's the verse before this. It says, "Even the youths shall faint and the young man shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength". You see?
So the contrast with young people. It's not young people running and not be weary, walking and not fainting. It's referring to people that wait upon the Lord, amen. Praise the Lord. So the word there, "Shall renew their strength," in the Hebrew, is, "Exchange their strength". Literally, exchange their strength, strength for strength. What does that mean? If you have strength, that's good, isn't it? But no, your strength has an expiry date. Why? Because it's human, amen. It won't last the race. So when you're before the Lord like you are right now, waiting upon the Lord, amen, every time you spend time with God, there's an exchange of strength, natural strength for His omnipotent strength. No wonder you stay young and strong. You will run and not be weary, amen? You'll walk and not faint. Praise the Lord. So that's restoration in this "eth," Hebrew, "kairos" moment, okay?
All right, where do you find that, Pastor? I wanna share with you a beautiful story that happened in the Old Testament, and this is a story, the time of Elisha. Elisha is a picture of grace. It's a picture of Jesus Christ. Elijah is a picture of the Old Testament, amen. That's why the vast majority of his miracles are actually judgment, all right? Judgment, with a few miracles of grace, but basically judgment. And the foremost, of course, to call the famine upon Israel because of their idolatry, okay? But his successor, Elisha, has a double portion. He did double the miracles of Elijah. And his name, Elisha, has Jesus' name at the end, "Sha," Yeshua, which means, "My God saves," all right? Jesus is Yeshua, Yahweh saves, all right, the covenant name of God, but Elisha is from Elohim, God the Creator saves. Elijah is, "My God is Yahweh," amen, but here, God gets personal and He comes to save. And that's why all the miracles except for one, the miracles of Elisha are all miracles of grace.
So we follow this story now, 2 Kings chapter 8. "Then Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, 'Arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can; for the Lord has called for a famine.'" Just like right now, we are in the midst of a famine, okay? There's a lot of financial upheavals happening all over the world, a lot of financial instability. One time I was driving, I told you all before, I was driving in my car. I heard the news and it says, "We're gonna share with you crisis in the market," you know, in the financial market. I heard, "Christ is". Yes! We don't have to worry, amen? In everything, He has the preeminence. Yeah, for those who don't know, it's "crisis" actually what was said, but for the anointed ear, all right, it is "Christ is". So when you hear "crisis," don't worry. He is, amen? The Great I Am is with you, praise God.
Then Elisha says, right, "Stay wherever you can". He told the woman, all right, the woman whose son he had restored to life. Remember that woman? She actually built a little place. She told her husband, "This man that passes by every time, he's a man of God". Wanted to make a little room for him, so they did so, all right, and a little room for him. And they have uncovered Elisha's bedroom, by the way, all right, in Israel, and I have taken pictures lying on his bed. Okay, not his bed, lah, the soil where his bed was. It's like a bedform. Am I right, Lawrence? We were there. You can see Lawrence nodding his head, okay? And we were there. The pastors were there, all right? Just uncovered. Just uncovered.
So the last time we were there, they just uncovered it. They have to cover it because of the pollution and all the birds might just make holes in it and all that, so they have to cover it. But they opened up and they invited me to have a chance to go into his room, praise God. I felt the anointing, hallelujah. If Elisha asked Elijah for double portion, there and there I prayed, "God give me a double portion," amen? Hallelujah. So the woman had no son and her husband was quite old at that time, so Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, said, you know, Elisha was saying, "This woman takes care of us, given us a place to stay and all that, provide for us. What shall be done for her"? Gehazi the servant says, "Oh, they have no son". And Elisha called her, and she's standing at the doorway. "This time next year, you will embrace a son," amen.
Recently, a lady brought a baby and the testimony was, she was telling me, that, "This is the baby that you said, 'This time next year, you will have a baby,'" when they couldn't have a baby, all right? And I was speaking the word, almost the same word as Elisha did to the woman. "This time next year, you'll be holding a baby". And she was holding it, and next year she was holding the baby. The child grew up, and went to the field with the mother and the father, and has sunstroke. I believe it's sunstroke. The Bible doesn't say it. All of a sudden, he held his head and he fell, and the mother rocked him in her arms, and he died. And you know the story, God used Elisha to raise the boy. This is the story, okay? Let's follow on.
"So Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life. He says, 'Arise, go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can; for the Lord has called for a famine, and furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years.'" How long will it be? Yes. Have you noticed seven cycles of famine, seven cycles of plenty? What are you saying, Pastor Prince? Moving right along. "So the woman arose and did according to the saying of the man of God, and she went with her household and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years". Then, go on. "It came to pass, at the end of seven years, that the woman returned," now, at the end of seven years now, "that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines; and she went to make an appeal to the king for her house and for her land". Why? Because squatters came into the land. She left the house, right? Left the house vacant and all that, the land. Other people came in and took her house, her lands.
"A woman returned from the land of the Philistines; she went to make an appeal to the king," right? At that time, the king, "for her house and her land. Then the king talked with Gehazi". At the same time, the king was talking with Elisha's servant, and the king was saying to the servant of Elisha, Gehazi, "Tell me, please, all the great things Elisha has done". So of course there are a lot of things Elisha did, right? As he came to the part where Elisha raised that woman's son from the dead, guess what happened? Next verse, "Now it happened, as he was telling the king how he had restored the dead to life," how Elisha had restored the dead to life, "that there was the woman whose son he had restored to life". There was the woman. This reminds me of a church I know whose theme this year is... no, not kairos. You must say the whole thing. Kairos year of the right time, right place.