176 The Ark Builder's Call - Rod Mills

We are in times that we've never seen before in history, spiritually, relationally, culturally, and politically. In these dark times, God is highlighting Noah and the grace he found in the eyes of God. Noah's family had a spiritual heritage of walking with God through the generations. In these times, God is calling our families to be ark builders, to be the center of gravity for influence and generational transfer, especially in spiritual matters.
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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):

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​Alright, as I mentioned, we're going to take a break from our seven pillars teaching. And go into this today. And if you guys would taller if you guys will remind me at the very end, after the discussion, we want to do some updates on some of the ministry things that are going on, and maybe even get a report Jennifer from Friday night as well. But we'll do that at the after the discussion. So yeah, today I want to talk a little bit about the art builders call the calling to be art builders. And really, this is really about how should we respond next, and how should we live? Now, in the times in which we live. If you have an ounce of awareness, which I think this group has the highest level of awareness, everybody knows that we're in times we've never been in before. And I'm talking about spiritually. Now, of course, that means relationally, culturally, politically, all these other leaves that are out there, but we are in times that we've never been in before. We see a rise of authoritarianism in the earth in many nations, like we've never seen before. And a lot of people are very worried and disturbed about this. And so this is probably a really good time to talk a little bit about it. Some of you know me, you know that. There's a cycle that happens in my life that God has done. And I've shared testimonies of this, where God will begin to speak to me about something major in life. And then that will come to pass 10 years later, and 10 years ago, and I've shared some of those stories with you. 10 years ago, the Lord began to speak to Beth and I, that He was calling us to build an ark. And we began asking the Lord, we were like Florida. What does this mean? No. And most of some of our kids have left home, Nicole, I think, you and Gabe and Dan was still there. And we were living in South Carolina at the time. And God began to speak to us and I was like, Lord and I, I kind of jokingly responded to the Lord, I really did. I responded, I said, Lord, I don't have any experience shipbuilding, knowing that he didn't, you know, he was speaking, prophetic. And metaphorically, not necessarily go build a huge boat. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I shared it with Beth and I shared it with the kids. And God began to confirm this word. I'm calling you to be art builders. And so we were like, oh, okay, what, how do we do this? And what does that look like? And thank God, he starts speaking to us early about some things. Now, a lot of people don't get this tenure, warning orders. Like I get on some big things. And it's probably because I'm a little slower to figure it out. Seriously, some people are quick to figure things out, and a little slower. But we knew that this calling was something deeper than just something physical. And I was like, Okay, I know spiritually, a little bit about art building spiritually, spiritual things. So we've been on this 10 year quest, and this is the 10th year to understand this calling. And over time, we've come to understand it to be a calling, that's not just us. A lot of times you guys we share this a lot that God will give you a calling or speak to you or have a dream or a scripture will come alive to you. And you'll get this calling. And it's it's so pointed that you, you're like, God is talking to me. He's talking to my family. And it's so precise that and so personal that we forget a lot of times, it's because he's speaking this to a larger number of people. Many times God will give a word and speak something to us and we love it. It's like whoa, this is awesome. And we're like wait a minute, this is not just for me. This is for a spiritual family or the body or certain people are different that different applications at different times. But I do believe there's a greater call the body of Christ to prepare There are four major shifts and world events, many of the things that happen, like if you consider when COVID came, many of the things we were doing, we were already prepared for it. We were arming a lot when people knew nothing It was zoom was we already knew we already used them. We were already operating doing different things. And there's a lot of things that we do that were prepared way ahead of time. And I believe more is coming. And I believe God is preparing the body of Christ to prepare for a major shift and world events towards certain things. Now, the kinds of things I'm thinking of. One is authoritarianism. That's a big issue right now, in in a growing number of nations. Another is corporate, what I call corporate and multinational rebellion against God, it's institutional rebellion against God. What am I saying? Rebellion is when a group of people decide to institutionalize and oppose what God says, Are you tracking with me? Guys, this is critical. This is important. If this is not important to you and your life, you need to hear the alarm bells and the sirens going off. Because when there is a five alarm fire going right now, and that means we need to prepare. And I don't mean to scare anybody. I'm just saying that whenever you pull the fire alarm, you pull it for a reason. It's because there's a fire. And you don't want to be caught unprepared. We don't want to be caught. We don't want our children to be caught unprepared. We don't want the next generations to be caught unprepared. And so preparing for what is happening in the earth number one, and preparing because when this happens, you look at world events. Look at biblical history, look at world history. And you will see that always when there is wholesale rebellion, institutional rebellion, corporate rebellion against God. Always, subsequent judgment comes in some form unless there's repentance. Now, when there's repentance, you remember Nineveh, the city repented, I don't think Jonah believed that Nana would would repent. It wasn't just that he didn't want to go because he didn't like the Ninevites, which he didn't. But he also didn't believe they would repent, Has that ever happened to you before you share the Lord with somebody think, Wow, this is gonna do a lot of good. Next thing, you know, they're crying, and they give their lives to the Lord. I was telling someone a story last night, a friend of mine, I was telling a story, how this happened in my life. And anytime you never know there is response, God does things. And I believe that God is bringing revival to the world. But I also believe he's especially bringing it to the Americas, north central South America. Now, he's, I believe it's on his heart to bring it in many places. But I have felt this way for decades. And it's not just a feeling on my part. It's it's a rumbling of the Spirit of God that has been so strong in my life, I cannot ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirit to prepare for this. And so I want to do this, before we get into the specifics. And this is how we're kind of going to do this, if we can't, I'm going to share some teaching, I'm going to share some basic principles and practices. And then at the end of that teaching, we're going to turn the recorder off. And we're going to have some discussions. And that's where it will become a lot more granular and specific different areas and things. Because usually we don't record all the discussions, we just record the teaching. So I'm starting in Genesis chapter six, and I'll read eight through 10, verses eight through 10. And the scripture says, but no have found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Let me back up and just say this, the setting here was the world had fallen into massive, massive wickedness. I was reading an article about a year ago of some scholars who were studying the numbers of multiplication, birth rates and all of this. In that day, based on the number they were just looking at the numbers of Genesis and tracking. And there are scholars who believe there were more there were more births of people than there are today. Now I say births because they didn't reach that population because there was so much murder. So a lot of scholars believe that there was a high level of murder based upon just how birth rates happen, and studying that. And so Noah was born in this age. And before we read the Scripture, I know I just started but the background is very important. Noah was born in a dark time. Very dark. Probably a lot darker than what we're experiencing now. You ever thought about that? So let's read Genesis six, eight, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah, listen, this is the genealogy of Noah. Now you think he's getting ready to name his father's. And he says, Noah was a just man. perfect in his generations that means blameless, blameless in his generations. Now the writer is telling us about Noah's family. He's telling us about the generations, he's telling us about a family with generational transfer of righteousness and walking with God. He says, Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and J fif. So the writers telling us, first and foremost that Noah, in this age, had a heritage, he had a spiritual heritage. This he was just he was blameless in his generations, there was something about this family. I've always been fascinated with the fact that it wasn't three families. Because I believe that if God, I believe if there were other families like Noah's, I believe God would have spared them. That's just my belief. The Bible doesn't say that. But I believe that if there had been three families that God would have said, hey, get together with this guy, no, go over here. God's done that stuff like that before, it's not hard for him. And he would had those three families build an ark. So it's a bit disturbing that there's only one family here. So I believe first and foremost, I do believe that art building is a spiritual enterprise. It's not a shipbuilding enterprise. It's a spiritual enterprise. First, before it's a physical enterprise. And before Genesis describes God's call to Noah, he identifies these points, and I just want to say something about each point we just read in the passage, one, that he found favor with God, this grace, he found favor in the eyes of God. It was something that was found it wasn't just by osmosis, right? Like, no actually found it. He, you find something because you seek it, you find something because you look for it. Are you looking for favor in God's eyes and age which we live? Are you looking for grace? Or are you on autopilot? I know I'm preaching to the choir. But I have to preach what God tells me. And then that means the choir will be able to do a really good job of helping people that were called to teach and minister to, we have to seek it. Right. In other words, if we're going to find that highway and build it, that place that highway we were talking about earlier, the Highway of Holiness and praising the way through the desert, we have to be looking for it and seeking it to find it, to find grace in the eyes of the Lord in His calling in that grace. Second, it says that Noah was just this means upright. It doesn't mean he was perfect, but he was upright. He lived according to God's righteousness. By the way, one of the English translations is perfect. It's important if you do a word study of this word blameless. It does not mean flawless. But it does have some meaning of really close to that. In other words, it's not that this person is sinless, but it's that this person is blameless in that. The idea is that even if you make a mistake, you recognize it, you repent, you turn toward God, you are blameless in that respect. So there's different kinds of perfection. Anytime we see the word perfect, it has a meaning of, of maturity, a spiritual maturity in this case, Noah was blameless in his generations, he and his family, were devoutly committed to God. This is big because I believe that much of the revival of what God will do in the earth will be through families and spiritual families. And the church is just now starting to get this message that we have to relearn how to live as spiritual family. Because God designed this way in order to endure that the C word the church, the church, that is the ship that can endure the storms is not just the 501 C three business church. That's part of the reason why the church is struggling intensely with generational transfer. Great churches, great programs, great pastors, great everything. And yet what's happening is the kids are growing up as as agnostics, and atheists and hyper grace, we can do anything, God will forgive it and don't understand the fear of the Lord and all these other things. And the reason why is is not because the culture, stop blaming the culture, don't blame the culture. There have been many Ages and Seasons of human history, when the church has endured extraordinary debauchery, and cultural rot. And the church has been able to walk in generationally transfer the faith in great power. Don't be intimidated by the culture. Don't be afraid by institutionalized rebellion against God. Don't be afraid of these things. Now, God doesn't promise us we won't be killed for our faith. Make that decision. Now, you know that there's a lot of things in life, if you make the decision now, it'd be a lot easier. Right? But God, he didn't promise us that, oh, you won't have any trouble, you'll have any struggles. But he promises to be with us. And having been in some dark places in the earth, and some bad bad places and bad people and bought bad things I can I can testify firsthand. It's way better to be in a bad situation with God next to you than in a good situation. And he's not next to you. Right? And I'm not talking about the omnipresence of God, I'm talking about a relationship in close proximity to God. And even when you think but even when people around you are dying, or they're losing limbs are bad things are happening, and there's wicked people and all this. You're going the presence of gods with me, like how did this happen? You know how It's Supernatural. Right? And God can God will be that way with us. And I'd rather be with him in any situation than without him. And whatever you think is good, right? Well, that's a whole teaching right there. Noah's family devoutly committed to God stark contrast to the generations around them. Like you're talking about the black velvet behind the diamond. There's a god, you know, God will draw the contrast, even though we were like, God, why are you letting this weakness move? You know, why are you doing this? Lord? Why are you in this darkness in the Lord is drawing a contrast because there are still some people who will repent, they'll they may not have repented for the last 20 years. And they go, oh, wait a minute. That's a lie. Wait a minute, that's a diamond. And they turn it's happening right now. There are people whose hearts I've been watching the news, and there are people whose hearts are changing every day, right now because they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is wicked. I thought this was good. This is wicked. And God will draw the contrast and he will let it happen. And so your call, like you said, Be the diamond, let God shine you as a diamond. And if he wants to put a black velvet behind it or whatever, that's okay. That's okay. We're all going to be okay, no matter what happens, you know, 100 years from now. You know, God's people, everybody here is going to be okay. We're gonna be doing pretty good right now. And I know some of you may live a long time. I'm not planning on being here in this body. 100 years from now maybe in a glorified body of Jesus returns. But my point is that 100 years from now, you have the best blessing and guarantee you can possibly have in your life. Let's do this thing. Let's do it. God's with us. Noah walked with God, that's my favorite state. You know me, that's my life calling. Help people will God. What is the we say this a lot? What does walk with God mean? His relationship and his lifestyle. We're immersed in friendship with God. That's what it means to walk with God. There are many Christians who don't walk with God. And the Lord's ready, he's gonna come on, I'm ready for you. I'm ready for you to start walking with me. And walking with God's way more than going to church. No, had children. That's another one. No had children. He was fruitful in generational transfer. Now. This can be applied spiritually and it can be applied physically. If you don't have children, physical children. That's okay. If God hasn't called you to have physical children, but have spiritual children. The scripture says Be fruitful and multiply. Now there are people on the earth I've heard recently, a well known billionaire who's thinking that we got to cut to the population of the earth and and all this or the whole world is going to not listen. A whole lot worse than the whole world's gonna die is coming If people don't turn toward the Lord, right, and the Scripture doesn't say Be fruitful and multiply until you get to 8 billion, and then stop, right? That's not, that's a demonic doctrine. And so people try to back it up with science, but even the science is skewed. And then they leave out critical facts which we won't get into now. But it's very important to obey what God says Be fruitful, multiply. Why do I bring this up? Some younger couples have been asking me we were out ministering in the Midwest, this fall, summer, fall, whatever it was. And some of the young people, the young couples were saying, we don't should we have children, this is bad, we should we have kids. And, you know, the Scripture says, Be fruitful and multiply, and raise up these generations. These aren't builders, because there's a whole lot of art builders, God's raising up and in this hour is going to be different. We'll talk about that. They say the outlook on the horizon is so dark. And I believe God is raising up an Elijah generation. Amen. And so to raise up and Elijah generation, remember Malikai chapter for the last two verses, the Old Testament, He said, The the Elijah will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the Father's Will in order to turn hearts to the next generation and the next generation to the previous generation. You got to have a next generation. So if you're in the childbearing years, pray and seek the Lord, about having children. And then the next thing and I know some of you may not want to hear this, but pray and ask the Lord, how many? You know, that's not you know, Beth and I were praying. And we were asking the Lord, how many kids to have it wasn't our decision was his decision. So we said, Lord, you tell us how many should we have, right? And then we walk this way. This is very, very powerful. Amen. Second, arc building was a physical enterprise. It involves doing physical things. Now this is challenging, because it's something that's usually revealed by GOD over time now, I'm pretty sure I don't know for sure. But I'm pretty sure that Noah was not a shipbuilder, when he got the call. You know, God likes to call us to things that we don't have a lot of experience with. And Tyler, I know you said amen to that. That's the story of your life. And then he doesn't just call you to it, he puts you in charge, and you're like, God, I don't know what I'm doing. That's, that's a good place to be. Because when we look to God, and we say, Lord, You've called me to do this, and I have no clue what I'm doing. God goes, you're right. We're on Nietzsche. Because now I can teach you and I can show you. So carelessness with this aspect of art building has led people off on some strange tangents. Now, I can imagine Noah, like, Lord, You've called me to build an ark. Okay. And the next day, you know, he's building a boat trying to get it done. Well, if he builds a boat in the first week, it's probably going to be about the size of a jon boat. It's not going to be what he needs. If you rush into this, and there's some people I know and I'm not making fun of people, but there are some people going there's major catastrophe coming where has the where's the Air Force selling Oh, missile silo, I need to get one you know. And, you know, if God called you to buy missile silo, God bless you go by. But my point is, that there are a lot of people who rush in. And they forget something very important. I said this on one of the prayer streams a few weeks ago, have you ever thought about this? God, called Noah to 120 year project, to build this ark for a 40 day event? So many times when God calls us, how many times in my life has God called me to something and I thought, Man, I'm gonna get this done in three or four years. And it took decades to get there. Right, that that testimony, Jerry was sharing with us that faithfulness, what Jerry's life is inspiring us. It's not just the faith, it's the faith that doesn't quit. It's the faith that just every day get up, okay? God, we're doing this next day. Okay, God, we're doing this next day, next year. God we're doing this next decade. God, we're doing this through faith and patience. That means endurance. We inherit the promises. So people who are called as art builders, are not project people. Now, I'm not saying you don't do projects, but I'm saying they do. Don't treat their calling as a project. Your calling is a life calling. It's not just a project. If you treat it like a project, you'll end up in a missile silo somewhere. I'm speaking metaphorically. You know what I mean? You end out just do this. But man, many things God call me to do you guys know, I've shared this a God will say, I'm calling you to do this. And then I start working toward it in the Lord's stop. That's not how you get there. And then have you ever noticed God takes us too long way? Right? You know, it's like when Moses came up out of Egypt with the people of God, Israel, he didn't go, Okay, I need to, I need a VFR direct Asmath from the air traffic control, we're going straight to Canaan, right? No, he goes up go this way. That's not the direction take them through this town. They get some battle experience with giants. Then another city, another town, same thing. And God starts preparing them. Now. Yes, God did not want him for two years in the desert. But he took them all round about to get there. Some of you feel like that when you're flying on the airlines, you're like, can we just go direct? I was talking to a friend of mine taken off this morning. He's like, I gotta get to the east coast. But I gotta go back to Salt Lake, then I gotta go up to Detroit. And then I gotta go back down to the eastern seaboard. And sometimes we feel like that, but God has a reason why he takes us these places. And it looks like random happenstance. And it's not random. Right? All right. Let me catch up in my notes. Let's talk about a little bit about understanding warnings and preparation. So in Jesus day, he warned His disciples to flee Jerusalem, and head to the hills. Do you guys remember this? There are several prophecies I'm especially going to be looking today. In Luke 21. He warned them He gave them a prophetic warning. He says when you see these things, I'm paraphrasing, but it was about like this head to the hills. He's like, go to the mountains go when you see this go. Jesus prophecy in Luke 21, is most likely also for the final generation, not just the generation that he was in, but they understood it in their generation. And it had a fulfillment in the first century. And it's really profound to see how it happened. Now, I will say this many prophecies have multiple fulfillments. So we'll see a prophecy and it'll have a fulfillment in that day, then it'll have a fulfillment at the end of the age. Some, I call this prophetic harmonics, because we see this and there are reasons for that we're not going to get into it today. But it's I find it very fascinating. I think it's, there are reasons for it, but we don't have time to talk about it. But it's interesting that in ad 60 666, ad, all these things begin to happen. That Jesus had prophesied Luke 21, I want to read this to you, Luke 2120. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that it's desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and net, let not those who are in the country enter her. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled, but woe to those who are pregnant to those who are nursing babies. In those days, there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon the people. And they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive unto all nations and Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. So the, the the, the believers there, the the Jewish believers who had follow Jesus, His disciples had trusted in Jesus and they followed his guidance to evacuate Jerusalem after they came in and begin to surround it in 66 ad, because they remembered the words of Jesus so they obeyed the words of Jesus. But what's interesting was, there was that that commander decided to to for whatever reason to back off and he backed off Jerusalem. So the church father, you see this, this is what he wrote. He said, the whole body of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, so they not only had the words of Jesus, but God gave them a divine revelation. This is what the church father Eusebius says. He says, given to men of approved piety meaning holiness, that there before the war before the war ensued. And he said they moved from the city. And they dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan called Pella. So in 66 ad when this Jerusalem was surrounded, the commander backs off in all of these believers receiving a divine revelation and remembering the words of Jesus said, Whoa, we got to leave town. And they left Jerusalem. The Christians left Jerusalem. In his work, Adam Clark, and his commentaries makes a keen observation. Guys listen to this. Let me let me just back up and say, four years later, the Romans came back in in 70 ad. And they surrounded the city. And it was very, very bloody. Over 1.1 million Jews died in the city. If you read the accounts, it's horrendous. It was so bad that the Roman commander Vespasian I read years ago, he actually I don't even remember the details around it. But I remember that he thought I did not do this because it got so bad on the inside of Jerusalem during the siege, they start doing things. Even the Romans thought they'll never do. And Vespasian, look to heaven. He goes, I did not do this. This is not you know, it was really, really bad. And his work, Adam Clark makes us observation. He says it's very remarkable that not a single Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. Though there were many there. When sestertius gaseous invested the city that means gas was the commander in 66 ad who surrounded the city to attack it. He said he had preserved he had persevered in the siege, but he soon he would soon have rendered himself master of the siege. But when he unexpectedly in unaccountably raised the siege, the Christians took that opportunity to escape. So literally, for whatever reason, says just gets backed off the city of Jerusalem. And the Christians go, this is it, we're leaving. Now, some of them probably didn't leave the first day. Some of them may not have left the first year, but four years later, and 70 AD, the scholars tell us, there were no Christians left in the city living in the city. Referring to Eusebius as account Clark also says in his commentary, the council he's talking about the Council of Jesus, the Council of Jesus was remembered and wisely followed by the Christians afterwards. You see, Bs and Epiphanius say that at this juncture, after sestertius, gay has had raised the siege, meaning he had backed off, and the space Ian was approaching with his arm, and he 44 years later, in 70 ad, all who believed in Christ left Jerusalem. So if they hadn't left by then they left and they went to Pella. And they went to other places beyond the Jordan. And they all and so they all marvelously escaped the general shipwreck of their country. Not one of them perished. Wow. To use a paraphrase of Jesus terminology, today, how do Christians know when it's time to quote, head to the hills? How do Christians know what to do? And when to do it? And how do we know when to begin intentional preparation for hard times? And what I would call a bifurcated economic system. We're going to talk about this during our discussion times. Have you ever thought about this, the Scripture prophesized the end of times and I don't know how close to the end we are, and different people estimate and all of this, but we should live like Jesus is coming tomorrow. Right? I one of my mentors, spiritual father said to me years ago, he said, live like Jesus is coming tomorrow and prepare like he's coming within the next 100 years. And that's pretty good advice. You know, that's pretty good advice. So I think that I'll do that. There are many questions who are asking? Many Christians are asking that they've never been asking before. There are a lot of Christians today going, what about this? What about that? What about this and they have never asked those questions in their life. Maybe their parents have never asked because they see what's happening in the earth. Now I I thought about this much over the years with a Scripture tells us that there is a time coming at the end of This temporal age, when there'll be a mark of the beast, you'll have to have it to buy and sell. Some people laugh at that. I don't think we should laugh at it. I think it represents a system. I think it represents more than a system. It's something ungodly, it's wicked understand this. God, don't just send to people because I accidentally got a tattoo on her hand, it's got to be deeper than that. But it's got to be a heart issue, something heart. And it's not just a heart issue, but it represents a system that has rebelled against God overtly and boldly rebelled against God. And I don't think we are at that place yet, personally. But I think that we should be thinking about these things and praying over them like the Christians did before the siege of Jerusalem. You may be alarmed by this. But you know what, it's better to be alarmed and be alert than to be complacent and be dead spiritually. I'm talking about spiritual death, right. So I thought about the this mark, and the systems and all of this that have been talked about for many years. If if there is a system that Christians cannot participate in, how do believers, one to 2 billion believers in the world eat? How do they drink? How do they survive? What do they do? Now, I don't think God is just gonna go with the whole church dies in the next 10 days or 20 days. Because Christians have a role in the in times. So something God will raise up something, and whatever he raises up, you and I are part of, I don't pretend to know what that something is. But I do believe that it's art building related, right? There's something God builds in our because when judgment comes because remember, judgment always follows corporate rebellion, without repentance all through Scripture, all through human history. That's been the case. There is some kind of art building that God does to prepare people for the judgment, and for the difficulty, because he had to get rough. And we need to be thinking about that. So let's talk about responses a little bit. I believe God's calling us to be more focused and more responsive. But he's not calling us to be frantic and fretting. There's a big difference. There's, we have many scriptures that say, don't fret because of evildoers. Now, Jesus does not I mean, the Scriptures, the writers of Scripture, especially in the Psalms, when David writes it, he's not saying, don't fret, just go about your life and do what you want. That's not what he means he means don't let them get you spun up all out of whack, and you can't function because you're fretting so much. There are numerous scriptures commanding us. But it doesn't mean we should do nothing. And much of the overreach of power and authoritarianism that we see manifesting in the world right now. And on the news and other countries, even more than this country, there are two dominant temptations, when we see these things arise in the earth. One is to just submit to the, to the spirit of the age, that's one temptation, well, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm tired of this, I'm just gonna go with the spirit of the age, you know, it's like the guy on any of you see the matrix years ago, and the one guy finally just got tired of it and says, Man, I'm tired of the war, I'm just gonna go live in the matrix and pretend everything's great. And the machine will give me a beautiful life. And there are people who succumb to that temptation, the spirit of the age, because they just don't want to deal with the warfare. Right? The spiritual warfare and then, there's the other temptation to overreact, because of a frantic and fretting heart of what's happening. And that's where people go up, I'm gonna quit my job, I'm gonna, you know, buy the missile silo, I'm gonna, you know, I'm using that as an example, as a funny example, illustration, but you get the point, I'm going to quit my job now I'm gonna, you know, we're gonna do the blah, blah, blah. Well, if Noah had taken that attitude, he probably had a hard time getting lumber. Are you with me? Right? Because you got he's got to figure out how to get all the supplies and all of that. So this is not the time to, you know, sell all that you have. I mean, there are actually in my lifetime. I've we've had several periods where people sell everything they have, and they get rid of it all and they have the money to go out and spend it and then they go out in their backyard. What was it 1988 88 reasons why Jesus has come in 1988 And literally, they were just shy of going outside in the backyard and start jumping waiting for them on one of their jumps to be raptured up, you know, that's not you know that that response is not where we are. We're talking about a long enterprise Right? Or a bit a big enterprise. We must be peaceful, focused. And some of you know this word because we've been passing along a teaching on it. creative art builders, who walk with God, in divine work, and divine rest, in righteousness, in peace. And in the joy of the Holy Spirit, think of Noah, think of Noah. Here's Noah, every day, listen, you can't build a ship for 120 years without some joy in your life. You got to like what you're doing. And Noah became a craftsman. Remember that teaching it where it was going around and create in war create. That's what Noah did. That's exactly what he did the same as we see in Zachariah one, it's like, okay, so this is bad, everybody's dying. There's lots of murder, the world is dark. And no one's like, God says judgments coming. And we're gonna build an ark. And so in that building, Noah became a craftsman. He became a spiritual craftsman and his walk with God. And he became a physical craftsman in his talents and skills and abilities that God blessed him with. And I love in that teaching, there was a pointed out the first guy in Scripture, what was in an exodus, who is spoken of described as being filled with the Holy Spirit. He was the guy who woulda coulda all kinds of craftsman abilities. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, it doesn't just manifest as some great preacher, you can be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I know some of you, you're filled with the Holy Spirit in it manifests in the beauty you create in your homes. I mean, you guys, some of you have a supernatural gift to do things that not everybody has. And to say it this way, I don't have. But each of us have supernatural gifts. Some of them are cultivated, and some of them are not to create, and start looking at Lord, what have you called me to be a craftsman in and to create in? But don't stop there? Because this is not just for ourselves, say, God, how does this fit in to Art Building? How does this fit in to providing for your people? How does this fit in to the concept of preparing us for things that will come to pass? And God will make the connection? Now, I don't know if God told no, it was going to rain. I can't remember. Does anybody remember in the Scripture? I don't recall. Imagine if God didn't tell him there was going to be a flood. He just said build a ship. I mean, I don't know what he told him. I, I don't know how much no one knew about what was coming. I'm sure he had a lot of people going dude, we're so far from the ocean. And you're building this giant boat. Like, I can't imagine the the mockery. You might be mocked for your skills and what you're doing. Now you won't be mocked for it if you go build the ship down on the ocean down by the ocean. But if God doesn't tell you to do that, you might get mocked. You see what I'm saying? If you use your gifting? Well, if you just go, oh, I don't really want to get mocked. I don't want anybody making fun of me. So I'll go down by the OSHA out, I'll compromise don't do that. Just look and say where is God calling me? And what is he called me to be good at or to be better at, and then start cultivating that. Now, wickedness and murder was running rampant. All around, he received no receive word from God. Catastrophic judgment was coming. We don't know if he knew what kind. And he didn't know when it would have been easy for Noah to react rationally, or irrationally. But instead, he responded in faith. Now, I don't know, if Noah understood what he was embarking upon, was 120 year project, I tend to think he probably didn't, you know, maybe he thought this is a 10 year deal. And then he gets to 10 years and goes, maybe it's a 20 year deal. And then it gets to 20 years. And he goes, Oh, maybe it's a 30 year deal. Do you think he was tempted to quit? Yeah, after 40 Especially if he thought it was a 10 year project, and then it gets to the 40th year. So what is God saying to us keep going. I mean, if you get to a point and you're thinking about this, you're thinking about the future, you're seeing where the world is going, and we are prepared. in families and spiritual families to build arcs, teaching them to build arch to avoid judgment, to walk with God to be Noah kind of people in our generations. And we get to our deathbed. And we're there. And we're, some of you probably live a lot longer than me. But you know, you're 105, and you're laying on your deathbed. And you're like, Wow, man, and just keep going. Because we don't know God's timing. And we will know in the appointed time, Amen. All right. So I already said this, he invested 120 years for a 40 year event. I don't believe this is the time to head to the hills. I know I said that. But I do believe it's time to start building. You go, I don't even know how to build well. Just start seeking the Lord. And if he says plant a garden, plant a garden, you know, whatever it is, we're gonna talk about some specifics. In our discussion time, it may look a little different for some than others. I believe, much better times our head, I'm gonna say this, again, I believe much better times are ahead. Now, here's what I mean, a 66 ad Jerusalem surrounded, they're like, oh, no, we didn't get out. And then divinely God gives him and he how at for whatever reason, that Roman commander pulled back. And better times came, right? Better times come, when times start getting good. Don't waver. God has to supply you the lumber, he has to supply you the expertise he has, he's going to supply you the talent, he's going to give you the gifting. And whether that's a four year period, or it's 120 year period, there is a time so I do believe better times are coming. I know some people have a hard time believing that right now. But I do believe that. But don't squander it. Don't squander it. Start praying, Okay, Lord, what do we do? You know, and instead of in doubt, in a missile silo, you'll end out with a an arc or system of arcs that will prepare the body of Christ. For what's coming. I never thought I'd be teaching on this in my life. I thought my grandkids would use the times of blessing and use the times of prosperity to prepare. No, I had to have some money, folks, I don't necessarily know if his money but he had to have something. He had had the ability to get the equipment and do what he did. You know, so it may not have been money, but you get my point yet to have resources, and that people are somebody to help him maybe just the three sons. I don't know how they did it. He had to learn he had to grow, he had to be able to do these things. A core part of this teaching is really the divine call to craftsmanship, spiritual craftsmanship, and physical craftsmanship. It's time to start creating an operating in our gifting with a daily sensitivity to God's instructions on how to prepare every time God gives us more ability, more talent, more growth, I would invite us to do this and say, Lord, how does this apply to the creative calling of craftsmanship spiritually and physically? And in preparing my family and the family of God? For what is to come? And the Lord will start answering those questions. Do you ever think about this? When Noah is building? He probably got he's probably like, I don't know how this went. But he's probably okay Lord, first of all, how do we make? How do we design this? Well, he might have been learning design for five years. I don't know. If he had to travel, he may had to go out and find shipbuilders and say, How do you do this? Well, how do you know when you build the whole thing? It won't just sink. You know, because they didn't they didn't know calculus? They couldn't shipbuilders use calculus to figure out buoyancy and all this other stuff, but he didn't have that. Right? And then once you learn that, it might be well, okay, now, how do we build a whole bunch of barns inside a boat? Right. And as you are walking out your callings and gifting and craftsmanship, the if you're asking the questions, Lord, how does this relate to the End Times? How does this relate to building a heart for our family spiritual archetype? And how does this relate to physical preparation for what God's calling us each step of the way, just do it each step just do it each step and before you know it, an arc appears now it's not necessarily a boat, but the process is what God's doing starts to come together. Have you ever done a puzzle? And you don't know what the puzzle looks like? There are you know, there are some people that most people have the the Add the picture in front of them. But some people who are puzzle crazies, they like to do puzzles without the picture. And be surprised. And they're putting that puzzle in. And we're gonna say, Well, I know these are bricks, there's bread, I see bricks and, and they just keep doing it, and the picture appears before them. And that's much like what it will be for many of us. It's time to start creating an operating in our gifting with daily sensitivity to God's instruction on how to prepare. Before this teaching came forth that we had passed around. The Lord had several of us in this holding pattern, Beth and I were just been in this holding pattern Zachariah one, and I even did a little bit of teaching and craftsmen, but the Lord is like, I've got more on this. And I was like, oh, and so I'm praying, Lord, how does this relate. And then when I heard that message, I thought this, this is important. And it really helped us connect more of the dots to study the significance of what we're calling divine craftsmen in our day. So we knew that this word was from the Lord. So as we look to the times ahead, we're embarking upon, can I say this? A long process? Is that sinking in? I hope that's one of the main things of sinking. This is a long process. And if you don't think of it that way, it's real easy that when the days of prosperity and blessing come again, that you go, Oh, no, well, guess not guess nothing happened there? What if they did that in 66? AD, or 67? Or 68? And well, guess that's over, we must have said, we must have got, we must have had some repentance. And now it's not going to happen. You know, it already happened and what Jesus said didn't come to pass. Don't do that. Right. All right. It's a long process. A long process of faithfulness, long process of prayer, a long process of hearing, and walking with God. And like I said before, in the work and the rest and the joy, and the creating, think of no one. This is a creative work. That takes time, enjoy the journey, and enjoy the call to that. metaphorical shipbuilding. Enjoy it. You're going to enjoy, you're going to do this, we're going to do this with God. And you say, what is this? And I go? I don't know. Right? It's like, Have you ever preached and taught on some you didn't know what you're teaching on? Well, today's the day. You know, I'm not really sure what I'm teaching on. But I do have a strong sense from the Lord that we need to be teaching on it. A few lessons from Noah. Noah's work, missy, where are times I know, I'm going a little long today. But I did not want to split this up into two sections. Noah's work was the work of one man and one family. Our work is the work of many people. I think that's our pizzas. Yeah. So Noah's work was the work of one man and one family. Our work is the work of many people. It's the work of many families. But it's also guys, let this sink in. It's the work of one very large, spiritual family, multinational in the earth. Don't forget that. So there's a lot of networking that's gotta go on here. There's a lot of connecting, that's got to go on here. It's, we can't all just head down to the closest missile silo in Oklahoma and gather down there. And, you know, that's not the way it works, right? I know. Everybody's like, What do you miss, I just thought missile silos would be a good example, because I've read the stories about people doing this. But the point is that we have to be connected to the greater body of Christ, our building will become the work of many spiritual families. Now, more and more people are going to get the idea as this goes on, more and more people will start getting the idea. But there are four runners there are people who are the early adopters, as they call them on the bell curve, we want to lean forward into the will of God. So many will will become many will be doing this work in in their in their work in ministry, in their profession, or trade. Can I say that again? The professional trade, what is your profession? What is your trade? Remember what God said to Moses? He didn't say Moses, come over here and I'll put you through a whole training program and I'll give you something to scare Pharaoh with and part two red sea Baba blah, blah, blah. He just looked at the shepherd man and he said Della, um, no, Moses, says Moses, what's that? in your hand, and that's what the Lord's asking you and me. Not do you need to go get 10 degrees and shipbuilding? But he's saying, What's that in your hand? I'll use what you have now. And I'll take you further than you've ever thought you would be. What's that in your hand? What is your ability, but don't stop there. Because a lot of times, God will just take what you have, and he'll grow. And pretty soon you find these other gifts and abilities and talents grow. And pretty soon you're like, Man, I didn't even know I could do this. And it grows from there. The lines that separate these areas of life, talking about ministry, talking about our profession, or our trade, talking about our family, talking about living in close community, the lines that separate these are going to be more and more and more blurred. For Art builders. More and more, they're going to merge, they're going to have meaning ministry is going to have meaning in your, in your your profession, your profession is going to have meaning in ministry, it's going to have meaning into your spiritual family and the expression of who you are and who your family is in those places more and more, you're going to become more and more relevant in each of these areas one to another. And the lines will get more and more blurred as time goes on. It will not be enough to just be organizational churches, I'm preaching to the choir here, people will have to function as spiritual families to thrive in this environment that we're talking about. Families and spiritual families must be the center of gravity for influence. Guys, listen, we have a whole teaching we do on parenting in this, the center of gravity must be the family, for influence for worldview. And for generational transfer. If the center of gravity is the classroom, if the center of gravity is friendships and culture, you have lost the war, before you begin, you cannot achieve generational transfer to your children, if you're raising young children, your grandchildren, your spiritual children, or any other children of any kind, physical or spiritual, if the center of gravity is not in the family, the center of gravity being that's where the that's where the greatest and most powerful. Can I say peer pressure and influence comes from. And we used to see this a lot with our kids, especially when they become teenagers. Because one of them will start hanging around with somebody who's like, you know what, it's good to witness to that person, but you don't need to hang around them. Or you know, one of them will get a boyfriend or a girlfriend and all the other kids are like, Oh, no, oh, no, I'm not going to tell you what you're going to do. But he's not going to be your boyfriend, Nicole. Right? Because I'm you're straight in front of me. It happened all of them. And so the point is, the center of gravity is in the family. Listen, this is important. If you want to have generational transfer, you got to have this in your family. Number two, if you want to have generational transfer, spiritually spiritual family, and you don't want to succumbing to the whole sale, institutional corporate rebellion against God that's happening in our nation right now. It won't work to do churches business, you got to have churches, spiritual family and spiritual families. And that circle of influence will outweigh anything the devil can throw at you. So this is very, very important in this calling. This requires a certain set of partners, what the Scripture calls holiness means set apart. It doesn't mean we never talked to people. No, it doesn't mean we don't witness it that way, no minister, but it means we don't live in the world. We don't come out from among them. The scripture says and be separate, says the Lord. And what he's saying is, is you need your own center of gravity. He said, Don't let them influence you. We've you know, we all have stories around this kind of thing. It requires a set of partners in holiness, which is the very culture of God that draws our attention to the dire need for spiritual fathers and mothers, mothers, the mantle of Elijah, and communities of Revelation. These are the spiritual families where this operates and works. Art Building is first and foremost, a spiritual altar building activity. If you set off to build ships before you build altars, it won't work. It has to start with this art building in our I mean this ultra building in our families. It's tempting to get that backwards, because we want to get straight to the work. Okay, I could take a poll right now and say okay, guys, when y'all buy something at IKEA, and your family who starts putting it together without reading the instructions? Yeah. And then there's the smart people like my wife, you know, I'm over there. And I'm I don't understand this is because that's not how it goes. And I'm like, Well, how would you know? And she's like, because I'm reading the instructions. Don't go straight to putting it together, read the instructions, you know, and saying, All altar building comes first. Altar building is where you will get the blueprints. We're not going to talk today in the recording about the Benedict option because of our time. But I have referred to this book, The Benedict option, it's a good it's a good book to read. I don't agree with everything he says in there, like most books, but I like a lot of the stuff he talks about in the Benedict option. And the story of Benedict is profound. It's a profound story. And in the five hundreds, the sixth century, he was disillusioned by the debauchery of Rome. And because of that, he went out and and really began what I thought I consider a prayer movement, you know, in prayer retreat and walking with God. So at this point, let's do this. I'm going to close in prayer, we'll turn the recorder off, we may talk a little bit about the Benedict option. But that will will I'm going to go into a little discussion time. But I want to say a few things first, before we do that, so Lord, we just thank you for what you're doing. We ask Lord for true spirit of wisdom, true spirit of revelation. Lord, thank you for putting us on the earth in this time, this generation. Lord, we thank you for what you're doing in your people in this hour. And Lord, we thank you that we are closer now to the coming to the Lord than we've ever been before. And we pray for every believer, everyone who is listening or participating in this teaching, those that will be listening to future the teaching library, that you will speak to each one and bring divine revelation and understanding. Lord, teach us how to walk this out how the applications work, and what will happen in the coming years and decades. In Jesus name. We give You all the praise, Amen and Amen. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network, and numerous international seminary scholarships. 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