AFTERWARDS

Joel 2:25-28, “ So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt, wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame. And it shall come to pass ‘afterward’ that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also on MY menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

God is bringing restoration. He has to bring restoration because there is such devastation upon this earth and upon this world. One of the things that brings restoration, as mentioned in the book of Joel, is that, you have to eat, “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”

I have seen people in different mission fields of the world and have seen their excitement to do something for God, and even though people claim great things in God, they become failures. They have lost their vision and their dreams have died, and I have asked God why many times because people come and go. If you have been thirty-six years in the ministry, as I have, you realize that sometimes the ones that have the ability and have great thoughts in their heart are not the ones that make it. I am not saying that they are not saved, but they never fulfill the destiny and purpose of their lives.

Today I am not talking to you about being saved. That’s the foundation. There are thousands of people that are saved but never fulfill the destiny and purpose of their lives. One day as we stand before God, having walked and lived in grace, some of us will find that we have not fulfilled the destiny and purpose for which we were born. God wants us to come to the full potential in our life, so that we don’t just settle down. There is great dissatisfaction in God’s people today, and the only way for satisfaction to come, is by the pouring out of His Spirit that we might eat and be satisfied. There is a new contentment, not in what we can receive, but what we can give because “greater is He that is in me than he who is in the world.”

What I want to speak about is the “afterwards” that the prophet Joel talks about. Some of us never come to the “afterwards”, after what? “Afterward I will pour out My Spirit.” That “pouring out of My Spirit” does not speak about a revival in a Pentecostal church. It does not speak about the baptism of the Holy Spirit where we discover “tongues.” It doesn’t even speak about the gifts given to the church for the perfecting of the saints. That verse speaks about a generation that will influence nations. After we have received restoration, the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon our flesh, not to satisfy us, but to make us a tool, an instrument, a prophet, a woman and a man who will make a difference in the nations.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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