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Shalom
from Jerusalem!
"I Will Hasten My Word To Perform
It!"
(Jer
1:11) Moreover the word of the LORD came
unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said,
I see a rod of an almond
tree.
(Jer
1:12) Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast
well seen: for I will hasten
my word to perform
it.
The
almond trees (and other early spring
blooming trees) are in full bloom in
Jerusalem.
I believe
the Lord is truly hastening the
fulfillment of His Word in our
day!
 After the barrenness of
winter, the blossoming signs are
everywhere - in the natural and in the
spiritual!
God is at work to bring forth
what He has promised!
[This
picture is the front of our apartment building. We
enter on the 5th floor and take an elevator down to
the 1st floor where our apartment is.]
[This tree
in front of our building is a plum tree of some
sort. It is in the same family as the almond
tree.]
(Num
17:8) And it came to
pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle
of witness; and, behold, the rod of
Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and
brought forth buds, and bloomed
blossoms, and yielded
almonds.
May the Promises of
God that you have treasured in His
Tabernacle within you bring forth buds, blossoms
and almonds in this new
season!
Purim - Revealing the Hidden
God
Purim, the celebration of
the deliverance of the Jews as told in
the Book of Esther, has been celebrated all week long by
the children even though it officially does not start
until the evening of March 3rd in unwalled cities and
the evening of March 4th in walled cities like
Jerusalem.
This is a
Purim celebration at the grade school next to our
building.
The rabbis
like to point out that God is not mentioned in
the Book of Esther, but every coincidence shows
that there is a God behind the
scenes.
He is
usually hidden but always right with
us, like the unseen director of a play.
That is why they wear costumes - to remember the
hiddenness, but nearness of
God.
However,
in our day, God is revealing Himself by His
manifest Presence more and more - especially to those who diligently seek
Him. The veil between heaven and
earth is getting thinner!
Sermons
Posted
The
following sermons preached by Pastor
Shelley have been posted to his website, www.revival.org, since
my last update. You can click on the titles to
read the sermons in their entirety.
Here are
some quotes from these anointed messages . .
.
Ezra Series
- Discovering the Original
Decree
Sometimes God puts us between a rock and a
hard place. He places us carefully in a position
that looks like the worst thing that could ever happen
to us because He wants to reveal to us a purpose
that we could not see in our comfort zone. So
God moved the people of God out into Babylonian
captivity.
And
here they are, laying the foundation, in Ezra, chapter
3. They’re laying again the foundation of
the holy Temple.
They
are restoring the altar.
That’s where every
appointment with God begins. It
begins in intimacy. And intimacy begins at
an altar. Wherever you decide to build an
altar, that’s where you can meet God.
And
the altar that we need to be concerned about is not the
one in the front of the church with the big cross behind
it, but the altar that we need to be looking for and
reestablishing and rebuilding in our life is an
altar right here in our inner being, a place where God
meets with man.
The
spirit of man is the Holy of Holies. God wants to
enter into an appointment with you in the Holy
of Holies, and that is in your
spirit.
If God
can get all the way down into your spirit and there be a
transformation, then something glorious has taken place.
There is too much going on in the soulish
realm and not enough going on in the deep spiritual
realm.
Do you understand what happens
when the original decree is lost?
Do you understand what happens when we lose our original
purpose? Do you understand the seriousness of
losing the original vision? The work can
literally cease.
When
the frustrators of purpose came back
around to try to hinder, the prophets of God
were embedded among them, hallelujah,
to encourage them, to keep them on focus, to
keep them on track.
I want
to tell you that’s what God is desiring to do in this
hour. And that’s why there’s an unusual
re-releasing of the prophetic in the Body of
Christ.
He’s
embedding among us these prophetic gifts so that when
the enemy comes to frustrate our purpose, there’s
somebody, there’s something among us and with us to
remind us, "We’ve got to keep
our hearts settled on the original decree.
There’s a vision before us. There’s a calling, there’s a destiny,
there’s something that the sons of God must manifest and
accomplish in this
hour."
And
that’s why I admire Zerubbabel. I admire these men
of God.
They
said, "Listen, just let a search be made and let
us dig in the treasure house of the king, in
the treasure house of the rolls where the scrolls are
stored up, and see if someone can discover what the
original decree was. And if that original decree
can be discovered, may the king favor us by supporting
that decree and causing those things to come to
pass."
And
all you need is someone who has a burden, who has
a concern of the things that were spoken of
before his time. Do you see that’s what
God’s doing right now?
Do you
realize that like never before there is
an interest and an awareness being stirred up among
nominal people, among Charismatic and Pentecostal and
non-denominational people? Many hundreds and
thousands of them all of a sudden are being
stirred up for some reason to discover what has
been spoken in previous
generations.
Did
you know right now God has been raising up an
anointing for treasure-digging, and people are
beginning to dig in the recording room, in the treasury
room, of the King where these original things that God
has spoken have been recorded?
They
weren’t only spoken, but they have been recorded.
And people are now able to go back and
rediscover the Promises that God made to a prior
generation.
There’s a new generation of people that have
come on the scene that have no idea what Cyrus spoke
about. They have no idea what original decrees,
promises, were made for this generation.
They
have no idea . . . many of them have had no idea about
a vision that would produce manifested sons of
God, adopted little messiahs in the End-time.
They didn’t hear about these things where they were in
exile.
"How is it that I could I follow the
Lord and not even know these things that were promised
for the End-time?"
"How is it that I wouldn’t even know
about a tent vision, about going in and being changed by
the Spoken Word of God?"
"How is it that these things could
have transpired just a generation ago and I wouldn’t
even know about it? How is it possible that it has
happened?"
But it has. It has.
It has. And there’s a fresh
anointing on people to dig in the
treasure house.
Ezra Series - The Temple Raised
Up
And
God not only has a vision for what He wants you to
accomplish as an individual, but He has a vision for
what He would like for us to accomplish together
when we bring our gifts together and our
fragrances together, when we bring our talents
and all of the things that God has placed in us, when we
bring the corporate anointing together, those licks of
Fire that the prophet talked about.
You
get all of that together, there’s something
ahead of us. And the enemy, what he wants
to do is not only distract you from your individual
vision, he wants to distract us from
our corporate vision and ministry as well. He has
done it. He wants to distract.
We
want to pray every day faithfully that we can
stay focused. Amen, brother. We
want to pray faithfully that we don’t let anything,
anybody, anything we hear, anything we see, anything we
feel distract us from pressing toward the
completion of this building that God’s going to dwell in
in His fullness.
Now
potentially He is here. Potentially He dwells in
the fullness of His people. We know all of that.
But we’re looking for the capping
of this thing. We’re looking for the final
sealing. We’re looking for God to say,
"Okay, it’s in you and abounding, and
now I’m going to turn you loose for a quick
short work." That’s what we’re believing
for.
Someone said, "I have noticed in the last few
years when I would go to these conferences and
conventions, Brother Branham’s name would come
up more and more and more.
"And
they were always talking about the miracles. And
sometimes maybe talking about the gifts. But I am
so shocked when I find out that there is something that
is probably more important than the
miracles. There is something more
important than the gifts. There was a Message in
there."
Well,
why is that such a shock to people? It is because
they’ve not had proper teaching. Every
sign has a Voice if it’s from God. If
it’s from the devil, it has a message. Every sign,
everything that God does supernatural, it’s followed up
with the Word.
There’s not only a people who are determined
to go back and rediscover the original decree, there’s a
group of people who are determined to become the
original decree - not only to rediscover it,
find out what it is, but to be that, hallelujah
- to be that.
That’s
what I want. I don’t want to just find out what
Cyrus said, what the decree was, what it called for.
I don’t want to just be able to quote it by verse
and paragraph. I want to become
that.
That’s
what God’s doing. He is doing it right now.
He’s causing men and women to become the
Message, to become the original decree.
Somebody ought to shout, "Hallelujah."
Busting Out of Our
Containment
But
when you look up the Greek definition of the words
"soul" and "spirit," you’ll understand that really
the deepest part of you is your spirit
man, your spirit.
And
your soul is this place where the enemy can
access it through imagination and affection and
reasoning and memory and conscience and all these
different things. This is how he tries to get in -
through this soulish realm.
So
she [Sarah] didn’t laugh in her spirit.
"How do you know that?" Because her spirit
was pure before the Lord. But she allowed the
enemy to have access into her soul. And
from within herself she laughed at the Promise
of God.
She
was doing what you and I do. She was
doubting herself. She was laughing at the
possibility of herself, not at the possibility of
God. She knew that God could do
anything.
And
that’s because we are approaching too many
things from within ourselves, from the
realm of the soul. We need to let the
Word of God and the Promises of God and the Truth of God
go deeper . . . the Anointing of God go deeper
down into the spirit, to the inside of the inside, the
control tower of our life, so that when we hear
the Word of God and the Word of Promise, we don’t react
from the soul, we react from the
spirit.
The
enemy knows that once your spirit has been renewed with
the anastasia, with the resurrection power of Jesus
Christ . . . the enemy knows that he cannot
affect your spirit because it’s been bought
again. It’s been renewed. It’s been covered
by the Blood. You’re born again. You’re a
child of God.
He
knows he can’t access your spirit. But he
does have doorways . . . Just like there
are doorways into the flesh, there are doorways,
portals, openings, into the soul.
And the enemy knows that he can access the soulish realm
of man, of you and I.
And he
does that. It’s like a struggle.
Will the Holy Ghost rule our
life from our spirit, or will the enemy have control of
our lives through our
soul?
She
needed to get out of her tent of
containment. She needed to quit filtering the Promises
of God from her little part of the
world. She needed to bust
out. She needed to get out. She
needed to grab a hold of it and say, "It’s mine. Nanny,
nanny, boo-boo. This is
mine."
But
you just remember, when you live in your place of
containment and refuse to express to somebody,
"I need help," you have no one to blame when
you fall flat on your noggin-head but yourself.
Because without going into all of the detail, without
going in to every little bitter part, and every little
confrontation, and every little part, it doesn’t take
much to say, "I need
prayer."
And
let me tell you something about this church. There
ain’t a whole lot of sympathy here. And you know
why? Because we’ve been working to get it out.
Sympathy does nothing for the Body of
Christ. You want to help somebody stay
where they are? Sympathize with
them.
You
know, it’s hard to heed that advice, but it ought to be
easy. Do you know where eternity
is? You know where we’re living right now?
Just beside the realm of eternity. It’s not a
million miles away, it’s not eons of time away or
millions of light-years away through space.
It’s just another dimension that’s running
simultaneously through this place right
now.
Yes,
we’re close to eternity. It’s not far away.
It’s right here. That Spirit
realm . . . that Spirit realm that everybody
wants to get into and yet they feel like it’s so many
million miles away . . . It ain’t, brother,
sister. It’s
here.
That Spirit realm
runs parallel to the realm you’re living in right
now. It’s just to reach
into it.
And
I’ve just got a feeling that the Body of Christ is going
to have some eye-opening experiences in this
coming year where we are going to be so aware
of that other realm saying, "Come on. Get up, you
sorry sack of bones. Don’t you lay around
in your self pity."
It’s
amazing how just adjusting your perspective a
little bit . . . The thing that looks so
black and hopeless and defeated and ugly and impossible,
how hopeful it can look when you start looking
in the right direction, when you start
getting out of your little tent of
containment, when you start kind of busting
through the overwhelming feeling that the enemy
tries to stifle us with.
"I can make it.
I can do this thing. I can yield
myself."
Hallelujah.
Food for
Thought
 This is one of my
favorite quotes from the new book,
Generation, Remembering the Life of a
Prophet. It is a wonderful book of
testimonies about Brother William
Branham from people who knew him. The
testimonies were compiled by Angela
Smith, one of his granddaughters.
In the
mountains, I was always the slowest, as far as hiking
was concerned, but Brother Branham never let me
be the last. He was always behind
me. When we were riding horses, he'd ride behind
me.
We
were snowed in for a few days, and some of the guys
spent the time throwing darts. Being competitive,
some wanted all of us to play a tournament. I
noticed that every time Brother Branham played,
he never won, but I had seen him throw the
darts when he was by himself and he repeatedly hit the
bull's eye. I determined that the next time I
played him I was going to make him win. I threw
randomly, but if I'd make two, he'd make one; if
I made five, he'd make four. I asked him,
"Brother Branham why don't you win?"
He
said, "If there is any
pleasure in winning, why don't I give that pleasure to
you?" He also showed me in the
Bible the word "emulations" and told me
how it means competition. His
humility was sincere in all his
actions.
[One
of the major definitions in Webster's
Dictionary for "emulation"
is "ambition or endeavor to
equal or excel others (as in
achievement)."]
(Gal
5:19) Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication,
uncleanness,
lasciviousness,
(Gal
5:20) Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies,
(Gal
5:21) Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and
such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have
also told you in
time past, that they which do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of
God.
[The Generation book can
be ordered from Believers International
by clicking
here.]
In Closing
This has been
our most difficult month financially,
although the Lord has done some great miracles for
us! We were able to pay for two
months of the three months rent that was due
February 15th, although part of the money was borrowed
and must soon be repaid. And we
must pay for the third month as soon as
possible!
If you can help us
with a donation of any size, we would
appreciate it so much! I think that most of you
know that we are entirely a faith
ministry and depend upon the Lord to speak to
people's hearts to support us here in
Jerusalem.
Your giving makes it possible for us
to carry out our mandate in Jerusalem.
If you have been blessed by these
updates, would you please pray about making a
donation, no matter how large or small,
to help make it possible for us to send them
out?
Thank
you so much to those who
have given, to those who are about to give and to those
who are sincerely praying for
us!
Coming Soon . . .
Pastor
Shelley has just returned from a week-long trip to
Tucson, Arizona. He had
many divine
experiences in different places
there! This is the area where Bro.
William Branham had several dramatic supernatural
experiences in the early '60's.
God
willing, in my next update I will try
to share some of what Pastor Shelley shares with us this
weekend. Many of us are waiting with great
anticipation to hear what the Lord has
been doing and is about to do!
From the
little bit that we have heard so far, God is truly hastening His Word to perform
it! Stay
tuned!
(Hab
2:2) And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the
vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that
readeth it.
(Hab
2:3) For the vision is yet for an appointed time,
but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it
tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come,
it will not tarry.
Blessings
from Jerusalem!
Nancy Bergen
Jerusalem Revival
Center
PO Box 1402
Jerusalem 91013, Israel
Tel.
& Fax: 972-2-5825301
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