Gather - April 23, 2025
Marcel Dion
May 4, 2025
As we explained in our first GATHER: Feb 19th​ post, this new ministry initiative is in response to a prompting from the Lord. The sense that remains with us is that the Lord desires us to “gather” fervent souls, seasoned spiritual warriors, to humble themselves and seek His face primarily by praising His Holy Name, trusting that He will intervene in our nation’s plight and “heal our land!” (2 Chronicles 7:14) The historical account in 2 Chronicles 20 beautifully models and illustrates what we believe the Lord is calling us to.
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During the reign of Jehoshaphat, three hostile nations decided to “come against Israel” (vs 1). Their goal; to completely wipe them out! Jehoshaphat, a God-fearing king, humbly “set himself to seek the Lord” (vs 3), and then immediately “gathered” the people to “seek the Lord” (vs 4). Once they were “gathered”, he lifted up his voice in prayer on behalf of the nation, and declared, “O Lord, our God, we are powerless against this great multitude…we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You!” (vs 12).
The Spirit of God then anointed a prophet to proclaim the Lord’s word, “Thus says the Lord to you: Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God’s…This battle is not for you to fight,; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the Lord on your behalf…” (vs 15, 17).
The king and the people “fell down in worship before the Lord” (vs 18), and “the Levites…stood up to praise the Lord…with a very loud voice” (vs 19). The following day king Jehoshaphat “appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise Him in holy splendor, as they went before the army, saying, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for His steadfast love endures forever’.” (vs 21).
This remarkable battle strategy - of placing the praisers first, ahead of the soldiers - resulted in a complete victory over the enemies of Israel; “As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against [the enemy]…and they all helped to destroy one another!” (vs 22).
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As we see, lifting up not only our hearts but our voices in praise is a powerful act of spiritual warfare that brings victory to God's people! Only God knows how our praise and supplication impacted the elections (one of the reasons we gathered) but there can be no doubt that God heard and answered our prayer! The prophetic words that were given to us testify to that. We're very much looking forward to our next gathering on Wednesday, May 28th.
PROPHETIC WORDS/IMAGES:
During the quieter worship time, Chris Zettel (who sings and plays keyboard on our ministry team) shared this sense:
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"The Lord is ministering to our hearts and has already begun to pour out His Spirit upon us. He wants us to get in touch with our hunger and thirst for more of Him. The more we know our hunger and thirst for Him, the more we should cry out to Him and ask for more."​
Nearing the latter part of the evening Linda shared with us that she had had a very strong sense of:
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...the presence of 'warrior' angels posted all around the perimeter of the assembly; angels who had been sent by God to protect us as we praised and worshiped the Lord.
The Lord also gave a prophetic image to our new friend Meagan, a non-Catholic sister in the Lord who has been praising and worshipping with us the past two months. She "saw":
...a man (symbolic of an angel) on horseback was swinging a lasso as he rode towards the city. He reined in when he reached the city limits and asked, 'How can I help you?'
Zechariah 4:6
"Not by might, nor by power, but my my Spirit" says the Lord