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Freedom Health Ministries

Gabriel Arruda

How to Prepare Yourself for the Latter Rain

All right, Church, what's the title of today's sermon?

How to Prepare Yourself for the Latter Rain.

You know before we get started on this topic, I suggest we have an additional word of prayer.

So if you could please bow your heads with me, I'm going to kneel up here.

Father in heaven, Lord, you have given this church a precious promise and we want to see every bit of its fulfillment and I just pray that your spirit would come to be our teacher this morning, that you would please use this weak earthen vessel to show forth your glory, Lord, and that we will be touched by your grace this morning, and that we would hear a message from the throne of God.

Okay, how to prepare yourself for the latter rain.

Well before you know how to prepare yourself for the latter rain, you first have to know what is the latter rain.

Before we get to that question, let me just set the stage.

The challenges of the church in the last days are not small.

They're so large in fact that it will be impossible for this church to do everything that God is calling this church to do.

For instance, preaching the gospel to the entire world.

For instance, perfectly reflecting the image of Jesus.

Enduring the tribulation, the time of trouble, these are not small things, these are really quite enormous challenges.

But God has made a promise, a precious promise, And he's promised that at the very end of time, he would give the church a special endowment of power.

A special endowment of power that would enable the church to fully accomplish everything that he's calling the church to do.

I'm looking forward to that and this power is called the latter rain, the latter rain.

Please open your Bibles to the book of Joel.

We want to see this teaching from the Bible.

Joel 2 23 it says, Be glad then ye children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he hath given you, notice, the former rain moderately, he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former and the what friends?

So the Prophet Joel is referring to something called the former and latter rain.

You see in biblical times in the Middle East there were 2 main seasons of rain.

There was a rain that came right at the beginning at seed time, and then there was another rain that came at the end of the season at harvest time.

The rain that came in the beginning at seed time was called the early rain, And that got the crop going.

The seeds just went in the ground and needed a good dousing.

The rain that comes at the very end is called the latter or later rain.

And what that rain did is it took the existing crop and it brought it to full maturity so that it could be ready to be harvested.

And this took place every single year over in the Middle East.

And the Bible writers, under inspiration, they picked up on this natural occurrence and they used it to foreshadow a special gift that God would give His church at its beginning and at its ending.

We're gonna see that this rain, this latter rain, early and latter rain, it's linked with Bible prophecy.

It says, "...and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my what?

My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." And so Joel in verse 23 he brings up this topic of this early and latter rain, and as he's going, he starts talking all of this prophetic language.

Did you know this verse was quoted in the New Testament during a very particular time?

At the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

When you remember the Holy Spirit was poured out and Peter got up and preached that sermon to all these people they're like what's going on we hear every 1 of you speaking in our own language Peter got up and guess what he quoted Joel 2 28.

Do you know what he was telling us by doing that?

That Pentecost was the fulfillment of this prophecy, the early and latter reign, and Pentecost would be the early reign.

It got the crop of the church going right at the beginning.

They were a bunch of scared, uneducated, timid guys whose leader had just died and they needed great power to do what God had told them to do.

Now if Pentecost was the early rain, then what is the latter rain?

And if it's going to happen, what determines when it's going to fall?

Is it something that we just sit around and wait for or is it something that we could actually actively take part in making come sooner, making happen.

Let's turn in our Bibles now to the book of a Zechariah chapter 10 and we're gonna read Zechariah chapter 10 in verse 1.

All right and it says, Ask ye of the Lord rain, when?

So the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of rain to every 1 grass of the field." So according to this passage, is there something we can do to help bring this power, this ladder rain?

And notice it didn't just say ask, it said ask when.

Right after that, ask the Lord reign in the in the time of the latter rain.

So don't ask just at any time, you have to ask in the time of the latter rain.

Well here's the next question, how do we know when we're in the time of the latter rain.

How do we know when we're in the time of the latter rain?

Remember, in the east, that last douse of rain, it came right before harvest.

So we have to ask the question, in Bible prophecy, is there a harvest?

Who knows what the harvest symbolizes in Bible prophecy?

And we're not going to go there, but in Revelation 14, right after the 3 angels' messages, we see Jesus and He's seated on a cloud, He's got a crown on His head, and He's got something in His right hand.

Bible scholars, who knows, what did he have in his right hand?

A sickle, very good, and then it says reap the harvest of the earth, and he reaped the harvest of the earth, and that is the second coming of Jesus, and the second coming is the harvest, and so the latter rain came right before the harvest time.

Does Bible prophecy tell us that we're living right before the time of the second coming?

And of course, we don't have time to go through all that.

I think most of you are aware of that, that there are multiple, multiple prophecies saying right now we're living right before that event, the second coming of Jesus.

So friends, are we in the time of the latter rain?

And so therefore what should we be praying for according to the prophet Zechariah?

We should be praying for the latter rain.

We should be praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out in tremendous power.

Friends, just like the disciples were completely in over their heads, they could not do what Christ had told them to do, so are we.

We are in completely over our heads, friends.

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How to Prepare Yourself for the Latter Rain

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