Then King David rose to his feet and said, “Hear me, my brethren and my people: I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it. But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My name, because you have been a man of war and have shed blood.’ ...Now He said to me, ‘It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father... Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the vestibule, its houses, its treasuries, its upper chambers, its inner chambers, and the place of the mercy seat; and the plans for all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of the Lord, of all the chambers all around, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries for the dedicated things... “All this,” said David, “the Lord made me understand in writing, by His hand upon me, all the works of these plans.”
And David said to his son Solomon, 'Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God – my God – will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.' (1 Chronicles 28.3-5, 11-12, 19-20, NKJV)
In 1993 I found in Siberia a nation almost totally without God, one of the least evangelised areas of the world – without church or Bible, where most have never heard the Name of Jesus or the Gospel. I then had a vision for mass evangelism, but it would require the support of so many people. When I asked Him, ‘What if no one will join me, what if there is not enough money?’ God gave me 1 Chronicles 29, where King David gives Solomon his son all the gold and silver, the materials and the men to build the Temple. At first, I was disappointed, because all my life I have seen myself as David, a fighting man, and I had the same desire in my heart as he had, to build a Temple, (but a spiritual Temple, not a physical one), to demonstrate the Glory of God on earth to an unbelieving world! I did not want to be Solomon, I did not ‘get the picture’ – until the Lord showed me that, in this context, He Himself was David, and I was Solomon. Here the Scripture gives a most precious promise, when God says of Solomon, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be My son!’ God’s promise to me, was that He Himself (as my Father) would give me (as Solomon, as His son) the men, the money and the materials to do the job! At that time, I had less than zero in the bank account – I had spent all I had on evangelism in East Europe and Ukraine – my database was only two thousand people, my German organiser had confused and lost the lists compiled from the great East-West Eurovision Conferences. But this venture would cost two million pounds sterling – in those days! When I fainted at the enormity of the task, God gave me 1 Chronicles 28.20, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and DO IT!’ I was reminded of a powerful song that sustained and meant so much to me through these years of change – ‘Jesus never fails’!
It is one thing to dream, but it is the reality which counts. God had so impressed on me over the years the importance of never making a statement unless I intended in the Power of the Spirit to carry it out. This was one of the reasons behind all my adventures in those early expeditions to Jerusalem which had opened the door for God to use me in Bible smuggling and had taken me so dramatically behind the Iron Curtain as it was in those days.
The hunger in my heart, which had driven me to go to Jerusalem all those years ago, is still the underlying reason for the whole vision which burns so deeply in my heart today: the desire to see the Power of God poured out today in greater measure than at Pentecost!
The greatest command is to evangelise! God pours out His Spirit for a reason – so that we can evangelise. Every revival has died out when they stopped evangelising. Possess the land! Preach the Gospel, heal the sick. God said it! Believe it! Act on it!