Volume 2003/1

 

The Harvest Is Ripe!

"He will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner"

(Mat.3: 12)

 

 

 

(From radio broadcast of Bro. Julius Adewumi)

Daniel chapter 11

I have been going through the Daniel series and have discussed Daniel chap. 10, where Daniel was visited by an angel. We have been learning how to exercise our faith, how to walk with the Lord to have the same reward that Daniel the prophet had. Remember Daniel was reported in his writing that angels manifested to him and was called a man greatly beloved. Before God can send an angel, and the angel says you are a man greatly beloved, you must have been doing something good. And those are the things we have been pointing out in the life of Daniel.

From Daniel chapter one, we talked about Daniel and his other three friends purposed in themselves to stand out for the God of Israel. Even though they were far away from their land, and they were slaves in this land, they stood their ground, to stand for God. Not in rebellion, but by presenting their case, and they were heard. It looked as if they were not going to be heard, but they used the wisdom of God. They told the man, "prove us ten days" and see that our countenance will still look just as fresh and better than the countenance of those people that were eating the king's meat. And they were proven to be right, so they let them eat whatever they wanted to eat. And in the end because they stood for God, God gave them wisdom and skill. Daniel had a special gift of interpretation of dreams and he also had divers kinds of dreams. Angels began to visit him. In the book of Daniel chapter 8, 9, and 10, were Daniel's writings of visitations, prophetic visions God gave to him, describing things that will happen from the time of Daniel 'till the end of the world.

And we can look back at this and understand it better. In the book of Daniel chapter 11 and 12, the angels told him: seal up this book. That is, "You may not understand it, the people in your generation may not understand it, but it is for the end times". The people at the end who are wise will understand these things. How? Because, knowledge shall be increased. The angels told Daniel knowledge shall be increased. Not only the knowledge of the worldly things, even the knowledge of God increased at the end times. We are able to look back at history and understand some of the things that Daniel prophesied how they were fulfilled.

He spoke about the Messiah would come. From Daniel's time till the Messiah would come to Israel was written, and it was to the letter. The rest of it also will take place, just as all that Daniel spoke of has taken place in history, as we looked back into history.

God has a kingdom and his kingdom will appear at the end of the world to take over the earth according to the book of Daniel. God will take over the earth and give it to the Saints. Who are the saints? Those that have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. If you are not a saint and will want to accept the Lord Jesus as your Lord and savior, I will pray for you at the end of this broadcast. As you pray the prayer inviting Jesus to come into your heart, from that day begin to read the bible daily, and the Lord Jesus will reveal himself to you.

"As many as receive him to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Christ gives inner power to them that receive him so that they will find it easy to live for Christ. This is the born-again experience.

Sinful nature will be removed from you.

From chapter 10, the angel made us to understand that prayers are sometimes hindered by satanic powers.

Daniel wanted to know what is the plan of God concerning Jerusalem. The angel showed, in more detail, what God has planned. The kingdom of Medo-Persia ruled the world. The satanic spirit that ruled the kingdom of Medo-Persia hindered Daniel's prayer until Michael came down to clear the way due to Daniel's perseverance -- 21 days fasting.

Dan.10:19. "O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.

Now the angel continued to talk.

v.20: Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo the prince of Grecia shall come.

Verse 21 is where I'm really going.

v.21: But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things but Michael your prince.

He said the "scripture of truth". What is that scripture of truth? I tell you, we are just walking through a drama that is pre-recorded. Everything we are doing in this world has already transpired in the mind of God who sees the end from the beginning. God knows your choice before you choose it. It is foreknowledge. God spoke to prophet Jeremiah "I know thee and have ordained thee a prophet before you were born!" You may ask, "are we predestined therefore?" To a point yes. However, God gives everyone opportunity to choose. If you go to hell, you will be the one who choose to go to hell. God leaves room for us to change situations or circumstances. That is the whole essence why he commanded us to pray. He leaves room for intercession and for prayer to change things. Of course if you are going to choose hell, God already knows you will choose hell. There are things that are predestined, but also He leaves room for overruling and changing things.

The Angel said there is a scripture of truth. He also said "there is none that holdeth with me in these things except Michael your prince". In short he was saying, "what I am telling you here, is exactly how it will happen." You cannot say the angel may make a mistake. He is saying "he is authority" in what he is saying here. In the next verse he also said he caused the Babylonian kingdom to fall by standing with Darius the Mede. "Also I in the first year of Darius the Mede, even I, stood to confirm and to strengthen him."

Even through those kings of the world, which do not know God, the Angels can still cause men to fulfill God's plan. They are the ones that do and undo things on this planet to fulfill God's purpose. When they receive command from heaven, they implement it on earth.

They control how far the devil can go on this planet. Shouldn't that make you confident in the Lord your God? Have faith in God, and trust the Lord for your situation. God is in charge of this planet! You may say, what about all these plagues or earthquakes killing people, is God still in control? God still is in charge of all things. Trust him with your life. Even when the apostles and the Christians were being killed for their faith in the earlier centuries, was God still in control? God is in control of everything. God knows everything and all will fulfill his purpose. His purpose was that these people really loved him and were ready to sacrifice their lives for his course. He could stop the persecution anytime he wanted to but he allowed them to lay down their lives for his kingdom, which pleased God. Whatever is happening, God is still in control.

The Angel started to describe the events through to the time of Christ. In verse 21- 22, he mentioned a king that will be a raiser of taxes, and that in the generation of that king will the prince of the covenant be killed. The prince of the covenant mentioned there is Christ. Remember the Roman Empire began the taxation of the whole world about the time the Lord Jesus was born, which was why Joseph and Mary went to Betlehem to register for taxation -- the story of Christmas.

He described much detail for us on the wars between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom (Roman empire, Egyptian empire). He mentioned how Jerusalem also will be destroyed. By the time he got to verse 29, he has jumped to the end of the world.

Now when he says, he shall not regard the God of his fathers, he was talking about the king in Israel.

He also mentioned "nor the desire of women". People have imagined the Pope as a ruler perhaps indicted here because they are monks. "But In his estate shall he honor the God of forces". The god of forces implied here is 'military build-up'. In Israel today, the government invests much in military weapons because of the wars that surround the country on every side, and they are not regarding the God of their fathers, the God of king David - which is a supernatural God. When king David went to battle, no matter how many chariots the enemy had, the supernatural God was fighting for David. But in this generation every country is depending on how much armament they can build up.

The secular Israel invests money in military, the god of forces, and not the God of their fathers. They invest in nuclear weapon -- which I believe was described by the angel as "strange god". The angel was saying they will be honoring the god of forces (nuclear weapon) rather than the God of their fathers, which we can see in the government of Israel today.

"At the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him."

All the skirmishes we see in the news every now and then on Israel and the Palestinians are just little troubles. According to this prophecy, at the time of the end there will be a big war against Israel. The book of Zechariah chapter 14 alluded to it also. At the time of the end, the king of the south shall push at him, the king of the north shall come against him. South of Israel is always Egypt and the Arab countries. The north will be Europe, Syria, Russia. People have been prophesying that Russia will attack Israel because they are not friends. There are so many Russian Jews who emigrated back to Israel due to persecution in Russia.

He did not mention the West nor East. West of Israel could have been western Europe, but now it could be extended as far west as America now. We can see in this generation that the west, America, is always supporting Israel, which is direct fulfillment of this prophecy. According to prophecy, the south and the north will come against Israel, the West will be standing with Israel, the East will be there to fight, and there will be a world war.

This is what we believe the Angel was describing.

v40: At the time of the end shall the king of south push at him: and the king of north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

v.41: He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and chief of the children of Ammon.

He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

He was saying the king of the north, or the king of Israel himself will go out to destroy much lands.

I can tell you this, if Israel is pushed to a corner, with their back to the wall, if they still have the nuclear weapon, they will use it to destroy everything if possible. The generation that returned to that land had sworn that "never again are they to be victims". They are "tooth for tooth, eye for eye". Their mindset is they will never go into captivity any more.

In the end, whether human beings like it or not, it is God's finger that will cause these things to happen. And here is what God has said also in the book of Zechariah chapter 14.

(Zech 14:2) "For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, (that sounds like United Nations) and the city shall be taken, (just like the Angel said to Daniel, "the king of the north shall come like a whirlwind" to overthrow all the land,) and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city".

When their back is to the wall and it looks like they are going to lose all, and they have the nuclear weapon left, they will use it if possible to destroy the whole world. That is why the bible said, the remaining half, the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. But it is actually the Lord God that will intervene for them.

v.3: "Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle."

It's not just the United Nations that will do it. God said he will do this. The finger of God at work, and men do not know what power moves them to act one way - whether for their good or for their destruction.

This is the scripture of truth friend. The angel said, he is showing that which is written in the scripture of truth.

I want you to know something, "the land they are fighting over, does not belong to the Arabs, nor to the Jews, nor to the United Nations. The land they are fighting over belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham to whom the land was promised by God." The land belongs to the Messiah, the great king of Jerusalem, who was cut off from his own land when the Jews did not believe him and they crucified him, but not for himself according to the prophecy. (Dan.9:26) He was cut off but not for himself, but for a purpose so that the gospel can go to the gentiles, so the Christians worldwide can be brought into the Kingdom of God. Now when they are fighting over the land, and it looks like they are taking it over from the Jews again, then the Lord will step in and say, wait a minute, the land belongs to me. And he will step in, and his foot will rest upon the mount of Olives to knock down all the armies that came against the land, because the land does not belong to the United Nations, nor to the Western nations. It belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he will give it to the seed of Abraham to whom he has promised it.

Let me ask you a question: Suppose you have a land which your great grand fathers owned several years ago, and then your great grand fathers moved away, and other people owned it. Who owns it now? Who owns the land your fathers claim to be theirs some 3000 years ago? You may say, well, when your tribe migrated to that part of the world, the land was vacant and they settled on it. God owns all the land, and he was there 3000 years ago when the previous dwellers were on the land. Even though they passed away and another generation inhabited the land, God can come back and say, "wait a minute, all lands belongs to him, and he gave it to this family first." It does not matter to him, because God is there then, now and later. You see what I mean? The land of Palestine they are fighting over was promised to Abraham and to his seed, meaning Christ, the Messiah, according to the writings of Apostle Paul. (Gal.3: 16). God can say he gave it to this man several thousand years ago and that is the owner. Christ shall come back and take over his land. When Christ shall appear, most of those Jews will have been destroyed.

The remnant that is still alive to see the Messiah intervene will have their eyes open to see that the same Jesus they had rejected, which the gentile Christians had been preaching to them and to their parents for 2000 years is the Messiah. They will then bow and worship him, and mourn before him for the ignorance of their fathers over the centuries. (Zech.12::9-12). As Isaiah prophesied, "Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." (Isa. 1:9).

Those elect few, through the mercies of God, whom God has numbered will be saved among the Jews, and then the Lord Jesus shall come down with the saints. The dead in Christ shall be raised to live again and the kingdom of God shall bear rule for the rest of time.

Pray that you may be accounted worthy to be a partaker of this glorious kingdom, which is soon to begin, and to escape the troubles that shall come upon the world. The Lord Jesus said "pray that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the son of man." He is coming soon. God bless you.

If you like to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, pray this prayer with me: Lord Jesus, I believe you died for me on the cross and took away my sins. I ask you now, dear Lord, to come into my heart and make me a new creature in Christ Jesus. I repent from all my sins, and confess you as my Lord and my

Savior. I denounce Satan and sin, and I belong to you Jesus from today. Thank you for making me your child. Thank you for washing me with your blood. Amen. ( Read your bible daily, and the Lord with minister to you).

 

WHEN DOES MIRACLE HAPPEN?

(From a sermon of Bro. Julius Adewumi, Night Vigil, 4/5/96)

(…continued…)

Let's look at some examples of miracles and differentiate the acts. When God performs miracles, I want to point out that some of the miracles are done by God himself without the faith of the minister involved at all. It will be God himself initiating the miracle. He basically needs a person to "bring him there", so to speak. He could have gone there himself and cause the miracle to happen, but sometimes God needs somebody to use. Like Isaiah said "here am I, send me." God could have thundered from heaven by himself to speak to the Hebrews. But he needs a man to go and to talk with the voice of men, or to lay hands with the hand of men. I will list three examples of miracles which happened in my ministry while preaching about in Nigeria, and I will try to differentiate between them. The first One: God initiated it, and did the miracle himself. He simply led me to bring him there. The Second: I was invited by men to come help them and I simply took authority upon the situation as a servant of the Almighty God. The Third One: I was involved in the situation and had to wrestle with the enemy for long before the victory was won.

It was either 1978 or '79, I was coming from Ibadan to my workplace in Lanlate one Sunday morning about 8 or 9.00 am. I had visited and fellowshipped with the Ibadan brethren on Saturday night, slept over, and rose up early to go back to my station. I want to point to this testimony to show that this miracle was not the faith of the minister. It's simply that God wanted to do something and saw one of his servants passing by whom he could use. There was a village on the road where I had preached before. I had been there only once. There were not many people in the village on my previous visit. As I was about to reach the junction to the village, the Lord told me to branch off the road to the village to preach. it was not customary for me to preach whenever I was returning on a Sunday morning. I was driving a mini-truck. I told the Lord that I have already preached in that village before. The Lord said "go there again!' So I branched into the village. Most of the villagers would have gone to a church in the big city at that time on Sunday morning, was my thought. However when I arrived and started preaching with the speaker/microphone, I was surprised to see a lot of people came out of their houses and gathered around me to hear the gospel. I preached and began to pray for them. There was one woman in their midst who had fresh sores of "leprosy" all over her lips, eyelids, fingers, toes. She was restless as she stood there while I preached. I began praying for everybody for salvation and for healing. I came to the woman and as I touched her forehead, the Holy Ghost spoke in tongues through my mouth and the devil troubling her jumped off from her and I felt it. I prayed for her and moved on. She was healed totally. I went past the village a week later and saw the woman. All the fresh sores were dried up and healed. Now this is a case in which I said it was not my faith at all. God wanted to deliver this woman, and he led me to the village. That was a miracle which I classify as God-instigated. I cannot claim any credit for that. The Holy Ghost spoke and rebuked the devil for the woman through my lips. I cannot claim any credit for it. I believe it was for the woman's sake that I was led to that village. Miracles like that happens but it was just God doing his work.

"O, that men will praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men". (Psa. 107:15 ).

What I'm pointing out here is that the above miracle was God-initiated -- being led of the Spirit.

The second testimony is a little bit different. I'm differentiating between "God does something", and "we believers try to do something". When we see a situation, and we try to arrest it, praying "O God, let this thing not happen", it will be like a tug-of-war against us in such cases. If we are personally involved in the situation, we most likely will hang in there and wrestle with the situation till we have the victory. In such cases, our faith is involved. That is where our faith comes in: How long can we hold on to the fence? Whereas, if we are passing by and the Spirit of the Lord instructs us to turn aside to a place and intervene in a situation, it is the Lord himself who wants to perform an action. It is God that actually does that, and so it occurs always instantly.

I went to a village in 1979 or '78 to preach one evening. As I was preaching Jesus and his power to save, to heal and to deliver, a crowd gathered. While talking to the crowd, one man tapped me on the shoulder and invited me to "please come and help us after you are done preaching." I said okay. At the end of the preaching, while I was still answering someone's question, the man called me up and said "please hurry!" So I followed the man to a house where he took me to a room. Now this case is what we will call "authority of the believer in Christ." I came into the town, the people had problem in trying to cure a man. They saw a preacher came to town who was boasting about Jesus can heal and deliver, they had some faith in what the preacher was saying, so they said to themselves "let's call this man to help us." Inside the room, a man laid down on a mat with one of his thighs swollen, almost twice as large as the other thigh. As I began to pray for the man that the swollen thigh should subside, a voice came to me from the opposite room where some folks were gathered. It was a female voice, and she opposed the prayer by saying "No, the thigh has got to be cut!" I heard the voice in the spirit, just as clear as if it was audible to everyone. I repeated my prayer and decree that "I AM SAYING, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THIS THIGH MUST SUBSIDE AND BE HEALED!" Physically now, a woman from the opposite room jumped out and yelled "AMEN!" The Lord must have smitten her in the spirit for resisting my authority. So I left the house. The man was healed and delivered. I believe the woman was behind the evil, which was happening to the man, as I was shown in a vision later. This is a little different from the first testimony. It is called authority of the believer to arrest devils in the spirit world. Let's call this "soul-level" intervention. God might have led me to that village, but it was indirect leading since the men called me to come and help them. If they had not called, I would have preached and gone out of the village not aware of a sick man in a room. The faith of those men helped their friend. I was speaking to the mountain and some satanic spirits were replying that it won't be so, and I insisted that "I am a son of God, it must be as I said". That was the summary of the drama on that day. That was based upon our stand on the word of God: if you shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and shall not doubt, but shall believe that you have received what you say, you shall have whatsoever you say.

The third example of miracle, is when we are personally involved, like when we are praying for ourselves or for our family members, or for someone close to us. That demands our own faith, because we are wrestling with the devil. If the devil does not give up, we need help from the Lord. In this testimony, I visited a Christian family in their house. The son of this family, who was then about 2 year-old, was sick. (The boy is by now grown up and gone to college). The father told me they were just coming from the doctor's office when I arrived. I was entertained with food on the dinner table, while the father was carrying the child in his arms. While I was eating, the brother called on me "Bro. Julius come quick!" He was arresting the child's mouth who was convulsing, about to give up the ghost. We held the boy, praying, rebuking the devil. Myself, the father and the mother of the child were the only adults in the house. We were praying and speaking in tongues, while the father held the boy's mouth. We held on, just praying over the boy. It looked like he was going to give up but we hung in there calling upon the Lord. It might have seemed to last for about 10 minutes or so, In this case, I was involved in the situation. I was right there when it happened; it seemed like a tug of war. In such case, your faith has to work. I could remember saying "O Lord!" I cried up "J e s u s !" That was a tug of war between saints and the devil. It now depends upon "will you give up easily?" In this testimony, while we were praying, the mother of the child, the lady of the house, was also there praying along. But after we prayed for a while and the child has not recovered yet, the woman started crying. Now that was "giving up!" She burst into tears and we had to say "Sister, stop it!" i.e. Don't give up yet. When I looked up and cried "J-EEE-S-UU-S!", I felt the hand of the Lord upon my shoulder, and the child recovered. (Till I left that house, I noticed the child did not take his eyes off me. He must have seen something in the spirit which we did not see.) Now that is the type of faith we are commanded to have in the bible. The faith that knocks, and keep on knocking. When it is like a tug of war, it is ourselves against the enemy.

The first case, the leprous woman could have been praying and crying to God, and God wanted to deliver her, but God needed one of his servants to go down there to bring God there. God saw a pastor passing by, and the Lord commanded him to branch there. It was God's doing. The other example, I used the authority of the believer, while in the third example, it was the saints against the devil: this kind requires the faith of the saints at work. This is the reason why we need to build up our faith so that we can last longer than the adversary. It's like in a boxing ring: The champion is knocked down and the count began. 1,2,3,4 ---, the boxer rises up and keep on fighting. If he finally wins, he has lasted longer than the opponent. That is what we need. We should not give up easily in any situation. The exhortation the Lord gave that we should knock and keep knocking is required when we are in such situation. Those situations where the devil has come against the household of faith usually demands that we hold on tough against the enemy in our prayers and intercessions. When we are ministering to the world, God will often show his instant power to dumbfound the world, so that sinners may come to the fold where there is peace. However, in the flock, the believers are to be trained and equipped with faith and knowledge necessary to subdue the earth, which will often be challenged and tested when the enemy found avenues to attack.

Overall, God is looking for whom he will send out to deliver his power and his grace to the inhabitants of the world. Like Isaiah said, "Here am I, send me." God is looking for people to send. When we are built up in faith and power we will be able to help our people, and to help the body of Christ. We must be ready to make the sacrifice: because there is a sacrifice involved when we say "here am I, send me." One sacrifice is the hint given by Christ: "this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." You must be ready to go through such sacrifice in order for him to put the power in you, to contain the power. The Lord Jesus gave us the example, because he did not need to fast 40 days to get power. But he said "For their sakes I sanctified myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth." (Jn.17: 19)

I pray that we believers everywhere will give ourselves to the Lord to be committed and to sanctify ourselves so that the Lord can endue us with the power we need to do exploits in his name, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Bro. Julius Adewumi

Gospel Distribution Ministry

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Radio-Log:

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Time: 5PM GMT for 30 minutes. Every Saturday. (6PM in Nigeria).

Sorry we have to withdraw the Radio East Africa and Radio South Africa broadcasts for now, due to budget issues.

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I want to thank those that have been sending offering to this ministry. Your investment and mine send the literature to believers and send the word on radio. That is one sure way we can send our money ahead of us to heaven. The Lord said: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Mat. 6: 19-21). "For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1Tim. 6: 7).