Repair The Altar And Command Answers From Heaven by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Commanding Answers From Heaven

1 Kings 18:24

I want to minister briefly on commanding answers, responses, from heaven. The flavor of prayer is the answers that accompany it. The joy of prayer is the responses that come with it. When prayers have no corresponding result, no answer, it is merely a ritual.

Also know that the power of God, the integrity of God, is revealed by His ability to answer. No god is established without answers. The answer from God reveals the integrity of God. The answers from God reveal the responsibility of God.

Elijah was in a season where six days of the week the people would go to Baal, and one day in the week they would come to God - a season where there was no difference between those who knew God and those who didn't know God. Elijah knew that the only way to separate those who knew God from those who didn't was the power of God. What is lacking in this day, this age and time, is power.

What makes God, God, is power. In that kind of atmosphere where the system itself imposes a measure of morality on people, what distinguishes God is power - the display of power to heal, power to change a life, power to transform a life.

Elijah was in a day and time where God needed to show up, and there are many of us today who are in that season of our life where God just has to show up - tired of explanations, tired of stories. The problem is not in heaven. If we don't see answers, it's not because answers are not available, it's because we don't know how to trigger the answers. Answers are ready for the man who knows how to activate the answers.

No matter what you ask for, God will not give it to you - you know why? He has already given it to you. He has given you everything. Your duty now is to take what has been handed over to you.

There was a wealthy man, a man of means, with infrastructures and companies. He had one son, his only child, and the boy was wayward, hooked on drugs, gambling his money away. The only one available to the man was his servant, someone he employed who was very responsible, and the man would look at this young man and say, "I wish this was my son." Nothing worked for the rehabilitation of his own son. When he was about to die, he wrote his will and said his son would pick anything he wanted, and every other thing would go to the servant. If he picked the cash, the servant would get the company. If he picked the buildings, the servant would get the cash. When the son saw this in the will, he started crying, and his senses came back by force. He had one month to make up his mind. He went to the elders and they told him what to do. When the lawyer came and asked what he had decided, he said, "I pick the servant." Now he has the servant - and the servant comes with everything, because everything was inside that one thing. There is one choice to make, and as you pick that thing, everything is inside it. If you make a choice for Jesus, in Jesus is favor, in Jesus is health, in Jesus is progress, in Jesus is peace, in Jesus is enlargement, in Jesus is expansion, in Jesus is advancement, in Jesus is longevity.

Wherever answers are needed in your life, answers will come. Answers will come from heaven. Your children will get answers. In your health, there will be answers. In your finances, there will be answers. God will show up for your life. Power will show up for your life. The Holy Ghost will show up for your life.

You don't serve a dead God, you serve a mighty God. He's the same yesterday, the same today, the same forever. When God says yes, no man can say no. When God lifts you up, no man can bring you down.

Repair the Altar

Elijah had given a prophecy that there would not be rain on the earth for three and a half years. He locked the heavens, put the key in his pocket, and walked away. It came to pass, but before he began to pray, he had to discern that it was time.

1 Kings 18

When he was praying, the Bible says he told his servant to go and check, and the servant said he saw a man's hand. There are many under the sound of my voice where, when you look at where your life is going, you notice there is an evil hand, the involvement of a strange hand at work.

Elijah knew that if the prophets of Baal were not confronted, the word would not come to pass. He knew that before rain would come, fire would come first. Fire first, rain next. There must be justice before abundance. There must be judgment before advancement. Over someone's finances - fire first, rain next. Over someone's health - fire first, rain next. Anything that needs to be consumed for you to access your next level, let the justice of God overtake it.

When there's a confrontation over your finances, that's a question - the intent of challenges is to question God's integrity. The intent of satanic confrontation and onslaught is to question the potency of God. So heaven has to show up and give you a result.

Isaiah 65:24

Matthew 6:8

If He knows what I need before I ask, why does He still want me to ask? He just wants to hear you talk. He wants that conversation, that dialogue. There are many things God gave you that you didn't ask for, many things God did in your life that you didn't ask for - He just wants to hear you talk.

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "You have gods, I have a God." What distinguishes them is this: a god that can't answer is a mere piece of furniture, because if it can't answer, why is it called a god? Its potency is in the display of its power.

Repair the altar. You used to be somebody passionate about God. You keep pursuing things - your papers, your permanent residence, your citizenship, your mortgage, a clean tax return, your children doing well in school, a good spouse for them, children for them - life is full of pursuit. But repair the altar.

What is the altar? The altar is the place where you meet with God. Every one of you must have your own altar. Thank God for pastors, thank God for men of God, but a man of God is not your God. A pastor is not your God. You must know God personally. Whatever the pastor tells you is only more information about God. You need that direct connection to God - that is your altar, that you know God for yourself. Even if you don't know me, forget about me, but know Him personally. Have a relationship, not that when there's a crisis you are looking for a pastor to come.

When Jesus was on the cross, He looked at John - John was not His relative, he was a disciple - and He handed over His mother to John. Jesus had biological brothers and sisters; He was the firstborn. He didn't hand over His mother to them, because in matters of destiny it is not about blood relatives, it is about heart relatives. His relatives were not part of His disciples; they didn't love Him enough to be part of His disciples. So He knew the ones who had His interest and handed His mother to them.

You must get to know your personal altar. You wake up in the morning and run to the altar. When things are good or bad, you run to the altar - your personal place of prayer, your place of concentration, your place of alignment, your place of devotion, consecration, communion, and interaction with God.

How do you meet with your God personally? Anywhere you find yourself - in the car, in the bedroom, at home - that is the church. You must have a devotion, a place where God meets with you. You create that. That is when God instructs you, corrects you. You wake up in the morning, and it's not to grab your phone or make a call, it's to go to that altar. It might be your bed, it might be you lying down or sitting down. You go to that altar.

Restore my prayer life. Restore my intimacy. Restore my life of study, my life of sensitivity, my life of meditation. Lord, you have my permission - invade my life. Deliver me from distractions. Restore my connection.

Power Is a Discipline

Prayer is not a gift. It's a discipline. Nobody has the gift of prayer.

Acts 6:4

So prayer is a discipline - intercession is a discipline, being sold out to prayer is a discipline. It's not a gift. God is looking for people who will build and repair the altar.

There are some who need to ask God for mercy, because they allow the troubles of life to affect their altar. Paul said, "Having done all to stand, stand." You do not have a choice. Don't allow your troubles to take you from God - they should move you to God.

The Kingdom of Power

1 Corinthians 4:20

The kingdom of God is not in words. I want to share briefly on the kingdom of power. Walking with God is not moral lessons. Walking with God is beyond good character, beyond good conduct. There are people who are not in this kingdom who are well behaved, moral, even rehabilitated - what distinguishes the kingdom is power.

The Corinthian church did not come behind in wealth or in education. They were the group of believers that gave Paul the toughest time - issues of marriage, issues of finances, the gifts of the Spirit, they held Paul to healthy debate. Paul had to explain. He got to a point where he told them there is one element they must take along: the element of power.

Power, in science, is the ability to do work. Power is an imposer - it imposes on you what it wants.

Psalm 110:3

What is power? Power is the scripture walking on two legs. And the Word was made flesh - tangible, touchable, feelable, embraceable, seeable. Power is the seeable demonstration of the love of God.

In basic mathematics, the sign before a figure determines the outcome of the figure. There are some people followed by subtraction, some by addition, some by division - but there is someone here who, after tonight, will be followed by multiplication.

Jesus was the best of teachers. As a young lad He could engage rabbis. He gave parables so vivid we thought they really happened - the prodigal son was a parable, Lazarus and the rich man was a parable, but He communicated them so expressly that they became true stories to us. He was called Rabbi - a Rabbi to rabbis. The Pharisees could not get Him in any confusion.

John 7:46

The soldiers who were sent to arrest Him returned without Him and said, "Never man spake like this man." We never heard a man speak like that. They went to arrest Him, but His words arrested them.

After teaching His disciples for three and a half years, He said to them, "I know I taught you, I unveiled scriptures to you, but tarry in Jerusalem - despite what I taught you, despite what I unveiled to you - until you are endued with power from on high."

This power is the Holy Ghost at work. The Holy Ghost is called the promise of the Father - the active force of God.

Acts 19:2

The Holy Ghost is the force that bypasses process. When the disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost, those around them heard them speaking their language - they didn't learn it. The Holy Ghost came and bypassed process. What would have taken three years structurally happens in three weeks when you have the Holy Ghost. What would have taken five years happens in five months. God will bypass process and give you speed, give you acceleration.

The House of Obed-Edom

When I get to heaven, there's one Bible character I want to ask questions of - David. David went to the land of the Philistines to carry the ark of God. When the ark was put on a new cart and the oxen stumbled, a man tried to support the ark from falling. The God I serve does not fall. He was struck dead right in front of the house of one man, Obed-Edom.

David took the ark into Obed-Edom's house out of fear, having just seen a man killed. David didn't have a good intention in bringing it there. Obed-Edom was one of the prophets of God whom Jezebel had chased - after Elijah killed the prophets of Baal, Obed-Edom ran from Israel and stayed around the borders close to the Philistines. He didn't deny his God, but he ran for his life. Hunger met him there, lack met him there, abandonment met him there. He didn't know that one day God was coming to his house.

2 Samuel 6:11

The Bible says God blessed his household, even those connected to him, in three months. God will branch out and bless your house - your household, your family, your children, your finances - between now and three months.

The Emblem of the Kingdom Is Power

John 1:12

There is a connection between belief and power. The Bible says with God all things are possible, but many of us don't understand that scripture - it doesn't say "to God" or "for God," it says, "to him that believeth." So long as I am with God, all things are not just possible to God, but possible to me also. So long as I am with God, turnaround is possible. So long as I am with God, greatness is possible.

Many years ago, sitting in a school of ministry in 1994, I heard a minister preaching about raising the dead, and I told my friend I wanted to do the same. I went looking in an intensive care unit for someone who had died, but found no one. As I was leaving, I saw a woman outside the door crying, with her child on the ground. The doctors had said there was nothing more they could do for the child. I prayed for the child, and as I finished praying, the child appeared to have died completely. I gave the child back to the mother in fear, but she discovered that a white spot that had been in the child's eye was now gone. She grabbed me and would not let me go. I was afraid and wanted to run, but the Holy Spirit said, "Call the name of the child." After several attempts, I called the child's name a final time, and there was movement - the child opened its eyes and began to cry, and the child's strength came back into my hands. The Holy Ghost covered my shame that day. Power covered my shame. Whatever has swallowed your confidence, by the power of the Holy Ghost, it shall be restored.

Power Changes Times and Seasons

Acts 1:6-8

Times and seasons are determined by power. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

John 5

There was a man by the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years. An angel came down at a certain season and troubled the water, and whoever stepped in first was healed. The man saw thirty-eight miracles happen in his lifetime and yet never received his own. When Jesus came to him, he was still saying, "I have no man." The God of men was standing before him, and he was looking for a man to help him. How can a child of God, who has the Holy Ghost living inside, feel they have nobody?

Philippians 2:13

He changes times and seasons.

Power Belongs to God

Psalm 62:11

Power belongs to God.

Acts 19

Paul saw great warfare in Ephesus over the goddess Diana, worshipped by the Greeks as Artemis.

Acts 19:35

The image was said to have fallen from Jupiter. Every confrontation Paul had in Ephesus was a confrontational place.

1 Corinthians 15:32

I have fought with beasts at Ephesus.

Ephesians 6:12

We wrestle not against flesh and blood.

But power belongs to God. I have preached the gospel around the world, on every continent, and I have seen things happen that made me know that power belongs to God.

Years ago, some brothers brought me a case of a teenage girl, sixteen turning seventeen, that no pastor could minister deliverance to - she would overpower the pastors ministering to her. I went to her. As I began to bind and command, the manifestation in her grew so strong that several men holding her down were lifted off the ground. The ministration continued from a Wednesday into the following days; the church could not even gather for service because the doors were supernaturally locked. On the Friday morning, the angel of the Lord appeared and told me, "Don't pray - worship, adore." As I began to worship instead of striving in prayer, there was a reaction and breakthrough within minutes. Powers are real, but the power of God is greater.

Romans 13:1

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.

I was in the UK once, and a woman who had been married five years without a child came to me at a hotel. I told her by that time the next day she would come looking for me, because the reason for her childlessness was in her own house. The next day, she had discovered that her mother was practicing witchcraft against her in secret. I'm talking of spiritual powers, but the real power belongs to God.

As you hear the sound of my voice, anything that is out of line, out of order, in your life or the life of your children - the Holy Ghost will fix it. The power of God will fix it.

1 Corinthians 4:20

The kingdom of God is not in words, it's in power. Where the doctors have given you a report, in your body you will see the power of God. In your life, you will see the power of God.

• Oh Lord, in my life, by your power, change times and seasons.

Word of Knowledge and Prophetic Ministration

In the season of prophetic ministry that followed, declarations were made over individuals present concerning the breaking of manipulation, deliverance from contrary powers, restoration of households, acceleration, healing of long-standing physical afflictions, breaking of premature death over families, and freedom from satanic monitoring and hindrance.

Your wilderness experience has ended. The place that was barren will become fruitful. Restoration is coming to your family - the demon of stagnation is breaking. For your trouble there will be double supply, by the hand of God. Whatever the enemy has stopped from coming to you will come, and it will come with speed. Every contrary power, every foul spirit, every familiar spirit, every witchcraft spirit, is commanded to release its hold in the name of Jesus. The end of wickedness, the end of manipulation, in your life has come. Bodies will be rolled away, and the power of the Holy Ghost will fall upon you - some will feel it like fire, like electricity, like wind, like cold; this is the anointing of God. What has not been done in your family, you will be the one to do it. The Lord is destroying premature death in the family.