Ray Hughes 6/5/2016 2nd Service
I want to start by saying that I believe today is not a sermonette for the Christianette. I think today that the Holy Spirit wants to do something profound and powerful in every one of our lives in this room. I don’t think…I’ll just say it like this, I don’t think we are ever going to change this culture by becoming like the culture. You can’t change culture by becoming like the culture. Nashville is a very unique culture and in the bottom of this basin, there are gifting and graces and anointing that you will not find in any other places in the world, especially in the concentrated nucleus of them as we have in Middle Tennessee. And I don’t think we’re ever change culture by becoming like the culture any more than we will ever change church by becoming like the church. And so I believe also that the Lord is waiting for some places that will carry a signature sound that will awaken culture to who they are created to be. And I believe we are living on defiled land but defiled land is not our focus. I believe that we have the authority by the power of the Holy Spirit to pull down strongholds, but strongholds are not our focus. It’s our job and the commitment of our spirits to pull down heaven. And when we pull down heaven, any strongholds or anything that has been erected against the purposes of God will have to yield to the power of His presence. So we’ll never change culture by becoming like the culture, even trying necessarily infiltrate darkness. But when we walk in a sense of God’s glory and it exposes His light or reveals His light, it will always expose darkness. And so get ready for a lot of strongholds to fall without any effort of our own. Because worship releases glory, and everything in the demonic realm will be revealed and we know what that is. See the enemy has erected these empires and constructed these constructs around darkness, secrecy, hiddenness and lies. And we’re not going to let that be our focus. Our focus is the glory of the presence of the wondrous God who is more than able to deal with our enemies and enemies of future generations. And they will not have to walk a journey into the same kind of levels of darkness that maybe we’ve had to walk through. In other words the point is as God’s glory gets even brighter and brighter, it’s going to get a whole lot better and better.
And I want to just say to you that we’re living in a time where everything is in this shift and in this season of transition, of course. And transition is not a new word to the Body of Christ, is it? As a matter of fact, let me type something in here. I may want to define transition here in a minute.
See, we have anchored ourselves to old knowings at the risk of tomorrow’s revelations. And one of the things we’ve also done is in the church, we have become addicted to revelation without application. So what we do is we bring profound new revelation but there’s never enough application to implement the purposes that God wants to bring. And now in this generation, He’s going to awaken the poets. He will awaken the poets that carry the truth that will ignite atmospheres into glorious explosions of His presence. And revival is coming.
And we are in a time of transition right now. Times of transition in life are often spoken of as times of birthing, as you know, and described in birthing terms. Most of us see life’s transitional seasons as difficult and trying times filled with all kinds of painful unknowns. But I see them as times when old knowings are still alive and are whispering their dying breath and the new day is already born but unable to speak clearly enough to be understood. And what makes it difficult is the confusion as to who to listen to. Do we listen to yesterday’s wisdom or tomorrow’s hope? They both have something valuable to say, but if we lean back and try to just regurgitate the old knowings of the seasons of pain that bring birthing, we’ll get caught in remembering the trauma, rather than remembering the promise.
And this is a day for the birthing of the promises. Some of you in this room today are going to experience a divine infusion of God’s enablement for the prophecies that you have put on the shelf for twenty and thirty years of your life is about to be awakened unto new truth, new light and new release. I want to remind you of something. The prophetic is not about telling you what to do but the prophetic is about awakening who you are. And this is a day of awakening. And there are some people in here that are carrying “arrrrs” in their life and it’s time for you to become who you really are.
And this is part of what this looks like. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me a word to declare in this room this morning. This is a day to awaken the sleeping poets that have become intoxicated with pain and disappointment. And they have fallen into a slumber of unsanctified hiddenness. You are not supposed to be hidden in this day. It’s the time for a new birth to take place in your life. It’s the time for a new song to be heard coming out of your heart. And I’ll just say it like this: Lawgivers don’t shape culture. Lawmakers don’t shape culture. Do you know who shapes culture? Not lawmakers and lawgivers. Lawgivers, what they do is they look at….Lawgivers will react to something dark in a culture and try to create rules and regulations, rails for a new generation to run on. It’s born out of rules and regulations and restrictions. They’ll never shape culture, they’ll only confine culture. And it happens in the church.
What we do…We attempt to confine God’s doings within the limits of our knowings. And we create parameters and trails to run on and we can wrap it around our theology or we can just wrap it around our rhetoric. Either way it puts a limitation on the dream of God in a lot of people’s hearts. And now is the time for the dreams of God to come alive again and it won’t be born out of a law-giving kind of a thing. You know, Moses didn’t come down and give the law until the worship leaders had started worshipping the works of their own hands and then it was necessary. The worshippers, did you get that? And so there had to be something to set the tone and tempo, but now there’s a new sound and a new tone and a new tempo being set in this house that will span beyond time and territory and reach into something powerful and profound in days to come. And this house right here is a symbol of a new sound. This house is a symbol of a new sound and it’s going to resonate out of this basin and it’s going to shake things all over the world. Because it’s transition time.
Lawgivers and lawmakers don’t shape culture. Artists do…
And in fact, we are created by the Creator to be creative. And so we are also created to worship. So the overflow of our worship should awaken the creativity within us and therefore worship should be creative rather than sinking us all to the lowest common denominator creatively and turning it into church. What we need to do is we need to find the pure expression of who we are because there are people in the room that are carrying something so valuable that they will not only impact culture, they will influence culture for generations to come….
The night before last I had an encounter with the Lord and I’m just going to share some of it with you, not all of it. But I woke up at 4:31 am the night before last. And at 4:31, the Lord began to move on me that there is coming a…that we are getting ready to move out of song into a corporate sound. And it’s not coming, it’s here. Heaven and earth are aligning now for purposes of worship that we never expected because God is about to reveal Himself in ways that no other generation has ever experienced God. And we are living on defiled land. And it’s been defiled and poisoned in many ways, but that’s not our focus.
There is a supernatural grace coming upon the artists and the singers and the poets again. There’s a supernatural grace, and you know what grace is? Grace is not just unmerited favor. Real grace is a divine infusion of God’s enablement into your life, a deposit, an infusion made in such a way that it will enable you to fulfill what God created you to fulfill in the earth. And no enemies of your life and no devil in hell can keep you from that because there’s a grace. A divine infusion of God’s enablement to see to it that it comes to pass. And I’m not just playing prophetic puns with you here this morning when I tell you that I see…after this encounter the other night, the Lord showed me that this is an epi-CENTER. This is an epicenter in the bottom of this basin for a grace to be released.
And He showed me this picture with a cymbal. I’m not talking about a symbol as in a metaphoric type symbol, I’m talking about a cymbal, like a cymbal. And see the oldest business in America is Martin Guitar Company. They’ve made guitars since 1833 non-stop. The oldest company or business in the world is Zildjian Cymbal Company. In the entire world. You have a percussive sound and a string sound. Now you can look throughout the word of God throughout the days of the Tabernacle of David which…each one of those instruments that were built carry a particular nuance or an expression for God’s purpose for a generation and they were struck in such a way according to the Word of God they would create a selah or a sustaining or a suspension of a sound, of a song, or a poem or a lyric or a truth born out of interaction with God. That’s what was happening with David. Seven times a day he would get up and just begin to sing and by the time he would get through with the song, he would hand it over to the zakar girl who was appointed to follow him around and scribe every word of the song and hand it over and say Here, get this to the chief musician upon. Because this was a truth that will endure to all generations. So that means in David’s day, they were carrying promises that were undergirded with this prophetic mantle or this prophetic weightiness of sound that would suspend it unto the next generation unto the next generation unto the… And now, all of those songs were many times different instruments. It might say to the chief musician upon Sheminith. That is a double bass, eight string harp, the low thunderous tones. Or it might be to the chief musician upon “Noaloth”, a flute. Or it might be upon neginoth, a string. to the chief musician upon “Shosheniduth”, a trumpet. There was a sound that was known in the spirit realm when his poetry would come alive. This will carry the sound to the next generation.
Now I don’t want to convolute this too much with too many images here, but the other night I had this encounter at 4:31 in the morning. And the Lord showed me that this Grace Center is a cymbal. And at the striking of that cymbal what happens is in wave form, sound moves the air. And I saw the cymbal being crashed like this. And this room was full of word. And everybody in this room had the sound and the song as they would embrace the song that they were created to sing, it would fire up into this concave-ness of the cymbal. And when the cymbal would be crashed or splashed. It was a splash cymbal and it would send waves that would splash all over the world. And as this thing would go out it was coming out of the notes and tones that were spoken and sung of the word into the cymbal from this basin of Tennessee.
Now I don't want to, some of y’all, I haven’t met a lot of y’all, and if you do know me, I don’t take these things loosely or lightly and I have no intentions of trying to stage anything other than just speaking to this room this day.
There’s coming a…another thing that was in this encounter…it was not a drumstick. It was a baton, like a conductor’s baton. And it just touched the thing and the rest of it just happened.
And it’s time for us to become bold in the language of our worship. The timidity that has shut down the sound of the poet. Now, when I talk about the poet, I’m talking about…let me say it like this…it’s time for the sound. It’s not way off down there somewhere. There’s a sound coming now. It’ll be a revival of the Holy Spirit doings. And it’s going to be so Holy Spirit we’re not going to have to put our hand to it at all. And furthermore if we do, we’re going to find that we will not have the ability to manage it, manufacture it or manipulate it. There’s a movement coming right now in the movement of the sound that we will not be able to MANage. We will not be able to MANufacture. It will not be something we can MANipulate. Are you hearing it?
There are defining moments of encounter that have happened in days past and there are people in this room now as corporately let’s try to think corporately. Let’s don’t be singling ourselves out although we carry singular tones of this thing. This is not about that. This is about a corporate encounter I believe that will cause…here’s the way encounter works. If you have an encounter with God, now you carry encounter. If you have a defining moment in God, now you carry defining moment. Whatever you value in that encounter with God is what you always have access to. And God wants to give us access to heaven throne room kind of worship. He’s not wanting one more generation of church people learning how to do church better. We can’t do church better than we do church today. Look, I go to places where you will not believe the productions that are happening. And I thank God for every one of those people that are part of those productions bringing their particular expression of their skill and their craft and their gift to the house. And it’s wonderful. So let’s don’t get on some arrogant milk stool over that deal. You know? But let’s see that for what it is. Let’s thank God they’re there. And they are bring their gifting, their calling, their anointing. And a lot of times some arrogant preacher will come along and try to correct everybody when none of us know what we are even talking about anyway. We’re all living our lives dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God to awaken something in us. And everyone of us guys, we can call ourselves great men of God but…we’re living from maybe to maybe not glory to glory. We live our lives, you know, maybe God would do this, maybe…cause we hear something that awakened in us. Why don’t we embrace that with just a little bit of humility and say Lord, if this is You, well maybe, yes. And then you start finding a yes in you that rises you up out of the identity crisis and insecurity that’s yours. And then you start….
This is the day to awaken the sleeping poets that have become intoxicated with their pain and their disappointment. You’ve fallen into a slumber of unsanctified, unholy hiddenness. Rise up with something pure and powerful and you won’t have to be apologizing for it. Rise up with something that’s born out of that place in Him that’s only in Him, a real encounter with God. You look down through generations past, there were some of those. Did I get something? I think I got enough of that said. There’s some more to it but I want to hold on to that a little bit….
Well see some of us make waves and we think it’s a big…see you live in a culture here, Nashville’s all about being the next wow. You’ve got to be the next big deal to matter. So everybody strives in an atmosphere. And in a defiled atmosphere they will strive to rise above the poison. Pretty soon, some rise up but they’ve been bathing in some of it. And that’s not a criticism.
It’s just I’m telling you know now there’s a wave coming. And it’s a cleansing wave. And it’s going to hit this bowl. Some are going to make waves, some are going to ride the waves and some will become the waves. But either way, either way, you are blessed to experience the wonder and the beauty of the sea that is about to wash over Middle Tennessee. And it’s going to be a sea of His glory. And it’s going to be the dream of God to come true in a lot of people’s lives because everything is just going to be paled to this wave that’s coming. And for some of us, we’ve got to just realize, you know what? I’m not a wave. I don’t make waves. I don’t have to be the big deal. I can just be a mist and still bring life. And just be the mist you’re called to be. Oh I tell you what, mists have long, long term effectiveness and influence in the kingdom. Don’t strive towards something that’s not the authentic you. Let your song be true, let your song be real.
And there’s coming days now, as the cymbal is crashed. There’s coming days now that those waves are going to go all the way around the world. And I want to remind you now, it’s not going to happen out there in the future somewhere. It starts on this day. And I feel like, I want to say away from presumption on that, but I just feel like today is a day that a sound, there’s a touch of God upon a cymbal that’s going to be a release that’s going to resonate for generations. And the important part for us is to say Lord, what note am I? What tone am I? What is the tone in the tune of your heart that God is waiting to awake on this day?
Now Wednesday night I’m going to take this a lot further, but I’ll just say it like this. There was a crazy happening that happened in Scripture…
There is a prophetic mantle, a weightiness of God that is waiting to be alerted in our lives, even back to the tabernacle of David there was a guy named Keneniah who instructed about the song because he was skillful. He instructed the musicians about the song. Song, the word masah, That is the prophetic mantle, the weightiness that was to rest on the poet musicians so when they played the very glory of God would be demonstrated and expressed. When they sung, when they interacted with God and captured His language and dialect in the Spirit realm. And then that dialect determined their destiny, just like yours does. Your and my, our dialect will determine our destiny. The life that is imparted onto us interacting with God creates the lyrics of who we are and then we carry that out. Jesus is sitting there as a picture of the Son of David about to renew, restore and repair generations and generations and generations of poisonous wells that were not fulfilling the full purpose it was intended for. And there He sits at the well, and this women being the first one to experience number 7 at this well, that was sworn over thousands of years before. They were sitting there the day that the song was heard in the the water….
I want to tell you on this day, there is something awakening in those that have been wandering, going from man to man, all the stuff that never met the need in your life, you’re coming back to the well today. And when you look into that old well, you’re going to see heaven, you’re going to hear heaven and you’re going to feel heaven. It’s a coming back to who we were always created to be.
I also remember as a child getting still enough to put my ear over that old well and I heard the world’s oldest music. And I want to ask the Holy Spirit to release the world’s oldest music to the cleansing of who…that woman’s getting a drink of water. May we get a drink of water in here. Why do we need this drink of water so bad? Because we’re like she is, we’re trying to figure out how to match our theology to something that is actually life. And in fact this is a day to experience Spirit and truth worship in life.
Now here’s the kicker, something that we overlook so much of the time. We identify so much with this woman at the well, when in fact we’re not the woman at the well. We’re Jesus at the well. We’re not the woman at the well. If we live our lives identifying with that brokenness, we will always go back to the well to try to satisfy our brokenness. But we are created to be the Jesus at the well. So where are the poets, the prophets? Where are the ones who carry the sound that up out of the world’s oldest song be heard in our lives in such a way that at one touch, strike of His hand, sounds can be released out of this well. This is a well.
And so Lord I ask you to awaken the tones and the notes and the sounds and the songs of every life in this room just as this gal right here. She experienced Your presence and Your presence alone caused the awakening of who she was created to be to come alive. So Lord I speak that over every writer, I speak that over every every dreamer that’s in this room. I speak that over every father, every mother. It’s not about personal giftings You’ve deposited in us. It can be but it don’t have to be. Every person in this room created to be creative in their worship. Lord I pray that you would unbridle us today. Let us run with you in ways that we didn’t know that we had access to you. That lady sat down that day not even knowing she had access to eternity and she found it. Lord I pray as we are sitting in the seats that we’re sitting in right now, may we right now access Your eternal purposes for every one of our lives.
There are nation shaking, culture shaping individuals in this room who don’t even know who they are. And they could just be a mist that brings so much life that it shapes future generations in their own families. Or they could be a Charles Spurgeon. They could be a George Whitfield. They were just young guys who spoke up because something had happened in their heart. And so Lord I pray that in this room there would just be some of us who would begin to speak up with what happened in their heart. And may something happen in our heart that we can never forget, and this be marked as a day of remembrance where something shifted. And all the days of our life we’ll remember the tenderness of what You did when You met us at the well that day. In Jesus’ name, I declare that over this house. Amen….
Jesus met the lady at the crossroad at the well and it became a turning point not only for her, but for a whole town and a whole region to come to Jesus. And today we’re at a turning point, we’re at a crossroads in this room. And there’s people who have been driven by the dust in days’ past that are going to leave walking today with the wind rather than driven by the dust in your next season.
You can go ahead and embrace the kindness of God in this season to come. And don’t be afraid to embrace the kindness of God in this season. Don’t live it out of yesterday’s disappointment and dust. So Bethany and Carol and Chris and Brice, if your name is Bethany, Carol, Brice, Chris, you are four examples of coming back to the well today and receiving a new beginning. That new beginning for you is going to be much like the beginning of that woman at the well. She went back and told everybody, you’ve got to come and see this man. He told me everything I ever did. Today Bethany Carol and Chris and Brice, you are the ones who will carry the remembrance of this in your life. You’re not going to go preach to a city. You’re just going to go tell somebody about what happened at the well. And now that’s not just for those, but the Lord wanted to touch those cause those are some of the ones who have come from being driven by dust. No more drivenness guys. I also think that’s a word for me too. It might be a word for all of us. How many of us have lived out of a place of driven trying to do something good for God?
I don’t know…I’m not going to wrap this around a yay verily or anything, but I think drivenness needs to become something like this. The Lord showed me and I’m just going to read it to you. And it’s real personal. And maybe it’s supposed to be for all of us.
I drove out of the city, out past all the things to sell and things to do. And I stopped by the road land looked across a silent field at a majestic old tree, standing in the distance like a custodian of the calm. There was a day when I would have ran across the field just to climb it. But not today. Today I walked respectfully toward it. Not to interrupt, but may I sit here under your shade and watch the stream sneak past your shadows. The old tree said if you must. And I said thank you but I must.
I know there’s a lot of us in this room who have given a lot of years to ministry. This is my 45th year in ministry. And there was a time that I wanted to run and climb trees but there’s also a time, you know, you feel like…I used to want to walk on water, but now I just want to dip my feet in the creek you know. And so I want to speak peace to some lives today. Just walk with the sound of your song and let it awaken people to the well of pure water that He’s deposited in your life. I think that’s what I’m here to say today. And I’ll pray this prayer of agreement:
Lord, crash the cymbal. Crash the cymbal over our lives and let us hear the sound of heaven. And let the tones and the notes of who we are rise up as a praise unto You. And let those songs and notes and tones of who we are, because of who You are, go like waves out across the Earth. And Lord let our lives be fully lived because of peace and the kindness that You are in our lives. And take away the striving from every weary soldier in this room. Take away the striving from every weary father, every weary mother, every young one that’s trying to climb trees. Align our lives in such a way that we walk as a wind, not as a driven dust. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
