The Raising up of Women “for such a time as this” Part II

Why did God make Zechariah mute?

            Zechariah and Elizabeth were from priestly families, Zechariah from the division of Abijah and Elizabeth from Aaron (Luke 1:5). Thus, they ministered before the Lord.  It says, “And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord” (v. 8).  They were both qualified by righteousness to prophesy of the coming Messiah!  Zechariah was briefly disqualified by unbelief!  In other words, he lost his chance at being the first to prophesy.  He did not lose it altogether because he prophesied when John was born.  Yet what happened in the interim?  How did God orchestrate the story? 

            So, why did God make Zechariah mute?  I believe it was so Elizabeth could open her mouth to declare divine revelation.

            Indeed, as soon as Zechariah’s mouth was closed the Lord began orchestrating a meeting between Mary and Elizabeth.  The Lord chose 2 women to bring about his promises.  2 women get to prophesy first about Jesus!

            First, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit had not even come yet.  No one else had yet been filled with the Holy Spirit.  She got to touch the glory of the Lord.  The extraordinary happened to a Jewish woman.

            Second, she prophesied the Lord was in Mary’s womb.  She declared, “why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43).  She knew and spoke before anyone else that Mary was carrying the Lord Jesus Christ.  Elizabeth prophesied the coming of Christ! “With a loud cry” a woman broke 400 years of silence.

            Fourth, she paid attention to what God did in the natural with her son.  She knew that her son was leaping for joy (v. 44).  She was aware that this was significant and she was not making it up.

            I see from this story that the Lord uses righteous vessels.  I broke into Zechariah and Elizabeth's lives because they ministered before him.  They were near to his heart and their lives showed it.  Yet man alone cannot bear the weight of what the Lord is going to do in this generation.  I need to realize as a woman I am more than qualified and seek holiness.

            From Zachariah's disqualification and Elizabeth's blessing of Mary I learn that our response to the knowledge that God is in our midst should be both humility and belief.  Belief means that our words and actions follow.  We don’t hide what we believe the Lord is saying and doing.  We are explicit about what the Lord is doing in the natural.  We are called to make known what the Lord is doing in our wombs. 

If the Lord used two women to prophesy about his first coming, how much more will he use women to prophesy about his second coming?  Today, the Lord has something for us.  The nations are raging against God (Psalm 2).  The land is crying about because of the bloodguilt of abortion.  I truly believe after 40 years of silence the Lord is raising up a “loud cry” again.  This time it will not just be two women.  It will be women across this nation.  To YOU women: raise your voices!

"For such a time as this" Part I

Marching to a Different Tune

            We are all seeking for something, but for what?  When 52 million babies have been murdered in the US through abortion and 400 million forcefully aborted in China, how can we stand by and watch?  My blood boils just thinking of the atrocities that we allow to happen just because we choose not to be aware.

            But then there are those that choose to stand up in the face of the atrocities of modern day genocide.  On March 17^th 39 brave young women set out an intercessory trail of tears, walking for family members, friends, races, and their own babies that they had aborted.  Every bloody and blistered foot was symbolic of the bridge of blood that Jesus already built. 

            As they marched up to the courthouse steps of the Earl Cabbel Federal Building where Roe vs. Wade began, I watched them chant: “Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation.  God, end abortion and send revival to America.”

            We applaud them but do we really receive what they gave?  Personally, they gave me hope that I can stand up for what the Lord has placed in my heart.  When the world rages (as Psalm 2 prophesied it would), I know where my allegiance lies.

            I will no longer be complacent.

            I cannot stand idly by.

            The America dream is not big enough for me.

            The enemy is raging.

            I will not sit around and pretend he is not.

            I want to be on the frontlines of battle.

            God, use me!

Identity, The Esther Call, and the release of Great Power

When we walk in our identity we are unstoppable

On the drive back from Dallas, I had an epiphany moment.  I turned to my friend Aaron and I asked, “If I was completely delivered from the fear of man, nothing would keep me from fulfilling my destiny would, it?”  I think the answer goes without saying.  This is a great way to introduce what I think the major thing the Lord was stressing for me and my team during the Esther Call, which was identity.  If that's what God was doing when he planned to raise up Esthers, he was going to deal with us first.

It all started for me on the drive to Dallas.  I hate to admit it since I am, after all, 22 years old, but...I was really nervous about driving.  So I made sure at least that I was caravaning with one car before we left.  When we headed out, my partner car took off in front of me and before I knew it was no longer in sight.  The Lord used that moment of panic to teach me a very important lesson.  As I turned to him and let him search my heart over this issue silently in the car, he broke through and gave me such a peace as he reminded me that he is my Father and he will never abandon me.  I realized that I did not need to live in fear!  My identity is secure.  God used that as I did end up, through a course of events, driving the rest of the way all by myself (with all girls in my car).

Tornados and Power

The enemy threatened multiple times or the Lord presented multiple opportunites on the trip for us to acknowledge who our God is and who we are in him.  Another one was when two tornados touched down in Dallas.  Although at the time we were a couple miles out in Parker, Texas, we could very well been driven by fear (especially for 39 friends who were walking at that time in the Back to Life Movement).  Instead, all of us were actually quite the opposite praying and praising the Lord, knowing in our very core that he was sovereign over the situation.  

We knew, as Daniel's companions knew, who our God was.  They said, "Our God is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king" (Daniel 3:17).  We stood on the porch making decrees over the weather, dancing, and singing.

Just as the Esther Call signs read: "Release the pain, release the power," we discovered an important biblical truth about identity--it can only be fully realized when we are fully repentant.  Interestingly every moment of repentance was very spur of the moment and clearly released by the Holy Spirit.  The first was before we even got to Dallas.  When we were praying in the side room the week before we left, the Lord revealed to one of the TCIers that she had bloodguilt on her hands.  As soon as she confessed to all of us that she had medicated herself in order to force an abortion when she was younger, she was almost instantly delivered from the spirit of death and set free.  Immediately following this the Holy Spirit manifested in a powerful way in the group so that even late into the night when we were kicked out of the room, people who walked by would fall on their faces weeping.  Confession leads to revival and we got a taste of that!

This happened to me on the trip also!  I was actually about to go to bed one night in the house we were staying at and started talking to these two guys on my team.  I don't really remember what happened but it seemed so abrupt. The Holy Spirit fell on me and instantly I was confronted by an area in my life where I had defiled myself by watching something years ago.  I repented and one by one the people around me started falling out in the spirit, weeping and confessing their sins.  This rose out of a normal conversation!  

I firmly believe also that it was a Holy Spirit inspired direct counter-attack on the enemy, who was desiring to bring disunity by comparison because many of our confessions centered on comparing ourselves to each other.  Unity was literally restored to the group.  Our confession was a powerful testimony to me of the foreshadowing of coming revival.

I truly believe this happened on a massive scale at the Esther Call.  Women got up on the mic and confessed to having abortions.  Tracy Eckart, who leads the Dallas house of prayer, told us how she had had an abortion.  A young woman shared how abortion had led her to contemplate suicide.  A pastor's daughter confessed to taking the morning after pill.  In response, women across the room gathered in small groups, wept, confessed aloud to each other, and prayed for one another.  I hope to hear down the road a testimony from some of these women.  I do know that it is a huge milestone on the road to revival.

A sort of side note...

When the actress who played the birth mother in October Baby shared, Tracy shared something about releasing pain that stuck with me.  She said her son walked up to her and told her that the movie touched him in a deep way.  When she prodded him as to why, he immediately let out this gut-wrenching wail.  He identified with the leading girl in that he lost his sibling to abortion.  For the first time in his life he was actually able to let this pain out!  This was all because someone made a movie that addressed it.  Our identities cannot be released if we do not pray for the arts and entertainment world to be stirred in their spirits about these issues!

Key Confessions and Prayer Points

Each segment of the Call had key focuses to pray for and confess over.  I think a few (not already mentioned) are worth noting here, if anyone is interested in praying into these things long term (as I feel convicted to).  Here they are in no particular order:

1. Feminism--we need to repent from using our sexuality to manipulate and control
2. A release of the Biblical mindset that children are a blessing from the Lord
3. Contraception--read what it actually does and pray about it (Luke 1 says that "immediately" after the spirit hovered over Mary, she went to Elizabeth.  John leapt in the womb at a zygote!)
4. Expose Planned Parenthood--Carol Everett (a former leader in the organization) spoke about their agenda to actually perform more abortions by targetting children at a young age through pornography, and, when they kids do become sexually active, giving them cheap forms of contraception that they know won't work.
5. End the one child policy in China and the atrocious forced abortions that occur there
6. A release of an adoption movement