How do we prepare for the Latter Rain? What does the Bible say about the Latter Rain? Is it happening now or is it in the future?

<p>How do we prepare for the Latter Rain? What does the Bible say about the Latter Rain? Is it happening now or is it in the future?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Granite Bay SDA Church

Jeff Walper

Prepare for the Latter Rain

This was recorded at the Granite Bay Hilltop SDA Church, located in Granite Bay, California.

Hope you are blessed by the message and that it draws you closer to God.

Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that your words would be in my mouth, in my heart.

We pray that the scripture would find entrance into our hearts, Lord, that we wouldn't sin against you, but that we would have a revival, that we would be ready completely for the latter rain that's about to pour out.

To that end, please help us, in Jesus' name, amen.

I wanna say thank you to all of you who have been praying for my wife and myself and our girls.

My wife had a major surgery about a week ago.

She's been on the mend, and I just want you to know she's doing well.

Just, we felt loved by our church family.

And I thank you so much for that, very much.

It seems like every day or every week brings new insights that we're going home very soon.

And we have some trials to pass through, some difficult challenges, the time of trouble just ahead.

Sunday laws are gonna be passed and there's gonna be a sifting.

We're living in this shaking, sifting time right now.

But while that's going on, there's also a sealing work that's going on, Amen?

And so it's kind of a challenging, intense time that we're living in because while some people are getting closer and closer to Jesus, we see some people drifting further and further away from Jesus.

And our hearts are mixed with both excitement and sorrow.

We live in this tension where we want all of our church, all of our family, all of our friends to be ready for Jesus' soon coming, and we wanna be faithful witnesses, amen.

I wanna talk to you about the Holy Spirit today.

The Bible says, and I invite you to turn in your Bibles, I have no screens today, but you have your Bible.

We're in church, you bring your Bible to church, let's use them.

The Bible says, be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month.

So here we see the prophet Joel describing that God's gonna pour out the early rain and the latter rain.

It's interesting that the call that Joel gives here is to be glad.

Now, it wasn't always like that when Joel was writing.

If you turn the page of your Bible back to the left, you'll find in Joel 1, it's a different scene, it's a different mood.

Joel 1, verse 4, it says, "...that which the palmer worm, " let me back up, verse 1 says, "...the word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

"'Hear this, you old men, and give ear, "'all you inhabitants of the land.

"'Hath this been in your days, "'or even in the days of your fathers, tell you your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

So verse 1, let me ask you, is this Joel's opinion, or is this the word of the Lord?

This is the prophetic word for God's people in Joel's day.

Does God have a prophetic word for his people today?

Do we have hearts to receive God's prophetic voice, his prophetic message?

Now, well, in Joel's day, the word of the Lord came to him and had a message that the Lord wanted the old men to listen to, but also the children as well.

And not only just that generation, but successive generations, it says, repeat this to your children, tell it to their children, and to the children of another generation, I would say even to our generation today.

That which the palmer worm hath left, hath the locust eaten.

And that which the locust hath left, the canker worm eaten.

And that which the canker worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

How in all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

For a nation is come upon my land, strong and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.

He hath laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree.

He hath made it clean bare and cast it away.

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord.

The priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn.

The field is wasted, the land mourneth, for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

Be ye ashamed, O you husbandmen, how, you vinedressers, for the wheat, for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

The vine is dried up and the fig tree languisheth, the pomegranate tree, the palm tree, also in the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

This is the introduction of the word of the Lord, the Joel.

And you say, well, Pastor Jeff, look, I just made it through another week.

I need you to give me some words of encouragement here.

Please, can you just tell me something funny?

Give me a fuzzy story and make me lift me up and gently put me down and take me around the room and just let me feel like I've got fluttery butterflies in my heart.

The Word of the Lord is saying here to Israel, Look, I am not blessing your unfaithfulness.

I'm sending the locusts, I'm sending the canker worm, I'm sending pestilence.

Have you noticed that sometimes that God can't get our attention with blessings?

Have you noticed that sometimes when things are just going wonderfully, the bank account has plenty, you know, you have your health, you're entertained, whatever value that is, and your stomach is full, your fridge is full, you have idleness of time, And we find that instead of getting closer to the Lord, we start to drift away from the Lord.

And our hearts and our affections start to be mingled with the things of the world.

And in the Lord and His mercy, because He loves us, He sends us locusts, leanness, drought, not to hurt us, but to help us to become teachable.

I won't ask you to raise your hand if you've ever been told you're not that teachable.

Magoon, sent the report card home and says, Jeff is just not that teachable.

I remember at Southern, Philip Simon came to me after class 1 day and he says, Jeff, we like you, but you sometimes are very unteachable.

And sometimes, sometimes it might just be discernment.

Well, I'm not gonna listen to this because it's not biblical.

But Here we find that God in his love and mercy sends drought, sends pestilence to his people, not to hurt them, but to try to get their attention.

I want you to turn in your Bibles with me.

We're gonna go to a covenant promise that the Lord made with Israel back in Deuteronomy.

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Prepare for the Latter Rain

Transcript

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