Enforcing Answers: Sunday Service by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The God Who Answers

Nothing happens in the kingdom unless it is provoked. Your redemption is the only settled issue. Every other thing needs revelation to be empowered.

The end result of allegiance to any deity is answer. The benefit of commitment to a cause is result. The God that answers - so there are gods that do not answer. Elijah said: Call upon your god and I will call upon the Lord. There is a Lord over the gods. There is a deity to whom all other deities submit. Every idol, every charm, every talisman, every form of demonic operation must bow before one God. Romans 13:1: There is no power except that which is of God.

Answers are responses. Answers are solutions. Answers are supplies. Everyone cries for answers. The prophets of Baal prayed from morning until evening and began to cut themselves - because when answer is lacking, frustration is initiated. Bankruptcy of answer is the buoyancy of tears. When a man lacks answers to his marital questions, his financial questions, his career questions, his health issues - frustration is the result.

It is your responsibility to serve God. It is his duty to answer you.

Don't Look at the Place - Look from the Place

Genesis 13:14: After Lot departed, God said to Abraham: Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are. Not look at the place - look from the place. Not look at the condition - look from the condition. Not look at the battle - look from the battle.

Your standing point is your starting point. Your standing point is not a conclusion.

Condition must not corrupt vision. Even in a place where things are wasted, look from there. Even where things are battered, look from there. Never be swallowed by where you are standing - be inspired by where you are standing.

A man named R.G. LeTourneau was a mechanic in 1946 who invented the blade system for what became the modern tractor. He employed professors, had a private jet, and the American government would come to him for consultation. When asked his secret, he said: I pay my tithe and I teach in the school. He was known as God's businessman. T.M. Lewin - a legacy cloth brand - sold five million pieces of clothing in a season. It began with a man who sat down to look from where he was standing.

When you focus only on your condition, it corrupts your vision. Nothing attempts to corrupt vision like condition. Never be swallowed by where you are standing. Be inspired by it.

Enforcing Answers: The Elijah Model

1 Kings 18:30-38: Elijah said to all the people, Come near unto me. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Then the fire fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

Before calling down fire, Elijah repaired the altar. There are so many seeking the rain of abundance, the rain of blessings, the rain of plenty - but fire must precede rain. In the kingdom, it is fire that precedes rain. There was no rain of blessings until the fire of the Holy Ghost fell on the day of Pentecost.

Many have expectation without the fire encounter. The altar must be repaired. Order must be restored. The broken places must be addressed before the fire falls.

The Altar Must Be Repaired

Elijah gathered the people and confronted the confusion of their season. On one day the people were with Baal; on another they were in the temple - everything was without order. He said: We need answers. We need structure.

There are people whose lives move about without direction - discouraged, battered, without structure. God cannot properly answer a disordered life. The altar of prayer, the altar of the word, the altar of commitment must be functional.

• Answers are provoked, not assumed. Nothing in the kingdom operates on autopilot. Results are commanded.
• The broken altar must be repaired. The altar represents your place of consecration, prayer, and communion with God. When that is broken, answers are delayed.
• Fire before rain. The encounter with the Holy Spirit - the fire - must come before the abundance. Do not seek the rain of blessing while bypassing the fire of consecration.

Vision Cannot Be Held Hostage by Condition

Elijah understood that the condition of Israel in that season - the spiritual confusion, the idolatry, the wavering - was not the final word. He looked from where he stood and saw what God had promised.

The great men of history who altered their generation shared one thing: they refused to let their condition define their ceiling. They looked from their condition, not at it.

Condition says: this is all there is. Vision says: this is where I begin. Your standing point is your starting point - not your conclusion.

• Father, I declare that the altar in my life is repaired. Every broken place is restored in the name of Jesus.
• Lord, let the fire fall on my sacrifice - on my prayer, on my consecration, on my life. Let fire precede the rain of abundance.
• I decree that my standing point is a starting point. My condition will not corrupt my vision. I look from this place toward everything God has promised me.
• Father, restore everything that was taken. Dry bones shall rise again. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Word to the Impatient

Shortcut is the longest cut. Learn to be patient or you will end up impatient - and impatient people always return to where they started. It is better to be slow and sure than fast and fallen. Follow them through faith and patience who inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:12).

God has not forgotten you. Do not be deported by impatience from the very place you were meant to occupy. Never be too fast. When you are in a hurry, you always go back to where you started. Be patient. Be deliberate. Stay in position.

Your altar is repaired. Your altar becomes functional. I speak order into your life. I decree encounters in the name of the Lord Jesus. Fire has fallen. The rain is coming. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ.