THE LION KING - Webs



THE LION KING

Lynn Hiles

One of my favorite books in the Bible is the Song of Solomon. Solomon wrote both the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. If you're discouraged, do not read the book of Ecclesiastes. Because if you're not discouraged when you start, you will be when you finish.

Ecclesiastes is about "life under the sun". It is about life under the heavens. There are probably two things you'll remember about the book of Ecclesiastes. One of them is because a famous singing group sang a song, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." Secondly, you may remember it because of the phrase "vanity of vanities". He said, "All is vanity and there is no profit under the sun." If he says that one time he says it a thousand times.

I'm glad Solomon didn't just write Ecclesiastes. He also wrote the Song of Solomon, called "the most excellent song". When he writes the Song of Solomon, he's no longer looking for life "under the sun", he's looking for life "in the Son". He's not looking for life under the heavens, he's looking for life in the heavens. There is a difference.

What he finds in Ecclesiastes is that life is full of cycles. He writes about how the water falls from the heavens into the rivers and they flow into the oceans, and yet the sea is not full. And he talks about how the wind comes from one direction and returns to it's place and moves in it's circuits. He says, "The thing that has been shall be and there is no new thing." He asks the question, "Is there anything anywhere under the heavens that you can say, see this is new?"

That's a pathetic vision of life. He finally concludes that the thing which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be helped. He sees that life is full of circuits; one generation comes and another one passes away. History seems to repeat itself. And that seems to be true. If you have a history in your family of substance abuse or alcoholism, many times it seems that the very thing you hate, that you saw your parents do, you find that you end up doing the very same thing. And there seem to be cycles that repeat themselves over and over again. We get caught up in these repetitive cycles and we seem to do what we've been raised to do, even though we do not like it.

If you're caught up in the cycles that humanity gets caught up in, and the downward spiral of looking for life under the sun, you need to know what conclusion Solomon comes to. At the end of Ecclesiastes he writes, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Eccl. 12:13). That’s the best you can hope for in life under the sun.

But while Solomon writes, “Is there anything anywhere that you can say, this is new?", I want to tell you that His mercies are new every morning! I want to tell you that there is a new creature in Christ. Old things can pass away. I want to tell you there is a new wine-skin. Revelation chapter twenty-one closes with one sitting on a throne saying, "Behold, I make all things new."

God knows how to step into your cycle; he knows how to interrupt your downward spiral. He knows how to invade families.

Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, is trying to find out what is the essence of life: Why am I here? What's this all about? What direction must I go? What is it that I'm looking for? Inside of every man there is a God-shaped void. And the hunger to fill that void will gnaw at a man until he finds God. And people will try to fill that void with things that distract, but there's only one thing that can fill that empty space in your life. And that's God himself. So in Ecclesiastes Solomon is trying to figure out how to fill that void.

I came in late one night after preaching and was so wound up from the service that I decided to turn on the TV and channel-surf a little bit just to unwind enough to go to sleep. As I was flipping through the channels I came across MTV. Now, I don't ordinarily watch MTV, but the Holy Ghost spoke to me. He said, "Stop and listen to the groan of creation." And He said, "I want to give you the interpretation to the unknown tongue."

There is, of course, a tongue with which we give a message and there is interpretation of tongues, but there is also a tongue which cannot be uttered. And the Lord spoke to me and said, "Until you can interpret the groan of creation, and understand why a man does what he does, you'll never be able to help him."

The song on MTV that night was called "To Hell in a Bucket". And the song was about a man who had given himself to alcohol and drugs and material things, and everything that a man exercises himself with, and the lyrics were saying, "I'm going to Hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoying the ride."

As I watched and observed I thought, "Yeah, you're really enjoying the ride. You're enjoying it so much that you're keeping yourself numb through it and you don't know whether you're in the world or out of it."

At the end of the song, as it was fading out, you could hear this man saying, "Help me...Help me...Help me..." And as I listened I could hear, not just this one man's voice, but the voice of all creation as it is groaning and travailing, waiting for God's sons to come into their own (Romans 8:19). Another translation says that "all of creation is standing on tip-toes, waiting for God's sons to be manifested."

If you ever hear the groan of creation, you will never be a passive Christian again. You will never be content to just sit and warm a pew. Because the whole of creation is groaning and crying for help.

After the Lord showed me that He then began to open Ecclesiastes to me and I found that in chapter two Solomon is trying to figure out the essence of life.

First of all Solomon decides to give himself to pleasure and to folly. He figures that if you can just have a good time, get drunk out of your mind and stand on a street corner and enjoy folly, then that must be what it's all about. So step one, in his youth, he gives himself to folly.

Then he graduates from that stage. He decides that the pursuit of pleasure and folly is vanity, so he graduates to the next stage and he decides that life must be about gathering material things. So he becomes a "yuppie". He buys lands and houses. He's got a BMW in the garage and he learns to play the stock market. And after he gets the house and the BMW and the dog in the back yard he's not happy, and he's says, "It's not about this. This is vanity and vexation of spirit."

So he moves on to the next stage and says, "What it must be about is power and authority." And so he gets women-servants and men-servants and he's intoxicated with authority. And he decides that all of this is vanity and vexation.

So he moves on to the next stage and he plants orchards and digs pools of water, and pools of water to water the pools of water with. He gets into musical instruments of all kinds. He gets singers of all kinds. He gathers treasure and wealth together. He has it all. He sees it all and he does it all. And at the end of all that he says, "It's not about any of this. I'm still not happy."

Everything that Solomon was not, inside of himself, he built outside of himself. Everything you're lacking inside, you will seek for outside of yourself.

There was no wine of the Spirit in him, so he gave himself to wine and to folly. There was no building of God going on in his life, so he built houses. There was no fruit of the spirit in his life, so he planted orchards. There was no refreshing water of God in his life, so he built pools of water, and pools of water to water the pools of water. He was looking for something in the external realm to satisfy a deficit in the internal realm. And what an illusion when you get to the top and you realize that you have it all, you've seen it all, and you've done it all, and there's still something missing in your life!

That's why people are compulsive. They're trying to fill that void inside. That compulsion is an expression of a spiritual deficit.

I know that when I'm not as close to God as I should be I feel an urge to go shopping and spend money, because I have a deficit that I need to fill. So then I see that what is happening in my external life is only an expression of my condition on the inside. So everything that Solomon did in Ecclesiastes was an attempt to fill up a deficit that was inside.

But Solomon did not only write Ecclesiastes. He also wrote the Song of Solomon. And the Song of Solomon is not about life under the sun, it's about life in the Son.

Song of Solomon 1:1-7

1: The song of songs, which is Solomon's.

2: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

3: Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

4: Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

5: I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

6: Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

7: Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon:for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

Now this next verse is Him speaking to her:

Song of Solomon 1:8

8: If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

When the King first approaches this woman he takes her for a walk in the garden. Verse four said, "The king has brought me into his chambers". And she does not know what is true of her yet because she says, "I'm as black as the curtains of Kedar". Now, that's not talking about race. That's not what it's about. Kedar is the second son of Ishamael. And Ishmael, in the scriptures, always is a picture of the dark side of our nature. It's that mentality that says, "I'm just an old sinner saved by grace, and I'm worthless, and why would the King even look at me? Why would he be interested in me? I have nothing of any value."

But while she sees herself as "black as the curtains of Kedar", the text also says, "I am as comely as the curtains of Solomon." So then what this is all about is her finding out how the King felt about her.

When the Lord opened the Song of Solomon to me he said to me, "Thou art all fair, my love, my dove. There is no spot in thee." I was riding down the road when he spoke that to me, and I literally opened up my mouth and said to him, "I don't believe that!" Because I know me! I'm a rascal sometimes!

I said, "I don't believe that there's no spot in me!"

He said,"I know you don't believe it. That's why you're acting like you've got spots." The scripture says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Prov.23:7).

I think that the greatest revelation that is coming to the church in America is not a revelation of what God is going to do. It is a revelation of something that he has already done.

This woman had a mentality that says, "I'm black". And we have that same mentality. We think we're not worthy. We're always seeing the dark side. We're always looking at what's wrong with us.

The scripture says, "Train up a child in the way that he should go..." But what we've specialized in is training up a child in the way he should not go. In the American church we're preaching the wrong man. We're always preaching what's wrong with us in Adam. But if we could ever preach what's right with us in Christ; if we could ever hold that view before the people, then faith would come. Because "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom 10:17).

And I want to preach Christ to you until you behold in a mirror the glory, not the doom and despair, but the glory of the Lord, and you'll be changed into that same image, from glory to glory (II Co. 3:18). We need to understand what is true of us.

In this Song of Solomon, he says to her, "Until the shadows flee away..." That is, until you get a revelation and the dawning of a new day, "...come with me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense." (Song 4:6).

To me, the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense represent Calvary. The myrrh was something that was brought to Jesus on the cross. It speaks of suffering.

If you ever come to this mountain of myrrh you will see that there is something that happened two thousand years ago that affected the entire human family. And then he says to her, "Let me take you to the secret places of the stairs." (Song 2:14). In the book of Kings it tells you there were six steps in the ascent to the throne of Solomon. I want to give you those six steps. I think this is the central focus of the gospel, and especially of Paul's epistles.

With every step there is a riser and a tread. That means that, first of all there is a revelation. That's the riser. Then there is the walking out of the revelation. That's the tread. It's not good enough to just understand. Once you get a revelation, you need to get on the tread and walk it out.

I want to give you these six steps. The first three have to do with who you used to be, and what happened to who you used to be. It's what happened to the blackness of your dark nature.

The first one is called "Crucified". Crucifixion is not just something that happened to Jesus alone. There are actually three ways of looking at the cross.

Firstly, we preach the cross as substitutionary. Let's say John is a mass-murderer, for example. John is a condemned mass- murderer, but Jesus steps up and says, "John, I'm going to take your place and die for you as your substitute." That's good, and partly true, but the problem is we've still got a mass-murderer on our hands; a mass-murderer that got off the hook.

The second way we preach the cross, especially to Christians, is as a pattern. Jesus died, so I have to do the same thing over again. And this is really a deception because what it really says is that we can atone for our own sins. If you remember, Judas was the son of perdition. Judas had the price of redemption in his own hands, but instead of receiving redemption, he comes back and throws it on the floor of the temple and goes out to hang himself, and tries, in effect, to do for himself what Jesus would do for him.

I want to tell you plainly that you cannot save yourself. You owe a debt you cannot pay, and He paid a debt He did not owe. You cannot suffer enough to atone for yourself. He did that for you.

That is one of the seductions of the Babylonian harlot in the book of Revelation. She has a cup that is full of abomination. Her message is, in effect, "He didn't really drink the cup. You've got to re-drink the cup again. You've got to drink it all over again. There is a beast in Revelation that looks like a lamb, but it talks like a dragon. It sounds good, but it's a deception.

I believe the correct way to look at the cross is this: He did not only die for you, he died as you. Paul said, "I was crucified with Christ..."(Gal. 2:20). That's the riser. If I can ever see that his death was my death, then I can get up on the tread and begin to walk out of what I understand about that death.

You need to understand what happened to who you used to be. The scripture says, "In Adam all die" (I Co. 15:22). It also says that Jesus is the "last Adam" (I Co.15:45).

Just before Jesus went to the cross he said, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." (John 12:32) He's not talking about worship and praise here. The next verse tells you what he really meant. "This he said, signifying what death he should die." What he is saying is this: "When I'm lifted up on the cross, I will literally drag every man into myself."

That is not something he is going to do. That is something he's already done. Of course, that does not mean that every man is already saved. We are reconciled by his death; we are saved by his life. (Rom.5:10). You're saved when you let his life work in you.

Nevertheless, he was lifted up for the sin and sickness of the entire human family, and there was not one of us that escaped that judgment. So then, John, the mass-murderer did not get off the hook because Jesus was his substitute. Jesus so identified himself with who John was, that God's judgment was fully satisfied. The scripture says "He saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied." (Is. 53:11). John got everything he deserved in Christ. The mass-murderer was crucified with Christ.

That's what's true of you! And if you can see that, you'll never again say, "I'm as black as the curtains of Kedar." You will say, "I'm as comely as the curtains of Solomon." I'm not who I used to be. The more I behold this view, the more I'm changed. The more I hold this view before the people, the more they are changed. All of the brow-beating and beating down from the pulpit has not changed anyone. But the Lord is saying, "Come with me to the mountain of myrrh. Come with me to the hill of frankincense and let the shadow flee away, and see what is true of you in Christ. Because if you will see what is true of you in Christ, you will be transformed by the renewing and renovation of your mind!"

It's not that something else needs to be done. Your problem is what you think about. Your problem is what you think is true of you.

So the first step is called "Crucified". I was crucified with him. (Gal. 2:20). The second step is called "Dead". I died with him. (Col. 3:3, Rom.6:8). The third step is called "Buried". I was buried with him. (Rom. 6:4). These first three steps tell you what happened to who you used to be.

If you don't see this truth, you'll be forever trying to get rid of who think you are. Of course, people always think you're giving a license to sin when you talk like this. But Paul said, "How can we that are dead...continue in sin any longer?" If you really ever see his death as your death, you can't continue to act like you used to. This is the substance; the "how to" of change.

The last three steps talk about who you are in Christ. "Quickened" with him; "Raised" with him; "Seated" with him. (Eph. 2:5-6). That's not something he's going to do. That's something he's already done.

We have believed who we were in Adam instead of who we are in Christ. And if we continue to believe we are who we were in Adam we will continue to act in wrong ways resulting from that faulty understanding.

I don't believe in modifying the behavior of the old man; I don't believe I can rehabilitate you. I want to kill that old you and bury him and speak to a new creation man.

The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. You can fluff and buff and cosmetically fix up Adam, but he's still Adam. He's like that beast in Revelation that looks like a lamb but talks like a dragon. The Babylonian harlot described in Revelation is an imitation of the real church. There is something attractive about her. She has a message that resembles redemption; she's riding a scarlet colored beast. This Babylonian system was so seductive that it almost fooled John, the apostle that leaned on Jesus' breast. John said, "I wondered after her with great admiration". (Rev.17:6). There was something that so resembled the true message that it almost seduced an apostle. But it preaches the wrong man.

I think the American church preaches the wrong man. I grew up in an order of Pentecost that beat us up every week. I got saved every week. Everything you could think of was a sin. You'd bust hell wide open if you drank a Coca Cola; coffee was a sin; we didn't eat devil's food cake; we shot the television set. We couldn't take physical education in school because you had to wear shorts to do that. I would honestly pray at the altar on Sunday night, "Now Lord kill me here at the altar. I know I'm saved now, but I can't make it until next week." Because I knew I'd slip up somewhere somehow during the week.

That message always told us who we were not, and beat us up for it. The world system can only modify behavior through psychiatric manipulation. Only God can translate you. Only God can transform you. The Holy Ghost can do more in fifteen minutes than man can do in fifteen years of counseling. You don't need another counseling session. You need to come into His presence. Go with Him to the hill of frankincense and the mountain of myrrh, and the shadows will flee away. Let this message get into your Golgotha, the place of the skull, and you will be changed.

I sometimes get up in the morning and watch the daytime talk shows. These are the craziest people! Where do they get them? (I've been to some churches where I think these people go!). If you have a substance abuse problem, or a sex abuse problem, or a relationship problem, they'll have seven psychologists there to figure out your problem. The first one will say, "I think they've got a self-esteem problem." And the second one will say, "I think they've got a self-esteem

problem." As far as the world goes, that's a pretty good analysis.

What they do is to try to get you some self-esteem; they try to give you definition in a new job; a new diet, a new pattern of behavior that will give you self-esteem. But the problem with that is this: if you ever lose that job that defines you and gives you self-esteem, you're ready to put a gun to your head and end it all. If you don't have anything else, you can only deal with the physical and the psyche, the psuche (the soul). You need to find out about the pneuma, the spirit of man. What the spirit man needs is not behavior modification. What he needs is regeneration. Re-gene-ration. You need some new genes.

They're trying to prove now that if you're a homosexual, you were born that way. But even if you were, you can be born all over again. And homosexuality doesn't run in the heavenly family. There are some new genes available! You don't have to be a pervert; you can be a convert. We've all got to be a "vert" of some kind, and I'd rather be a convert than a pervert.

I was watching those morning talk shows one day and the Holy Ghost said to me, "It's not a self-esteem problem. It's an identity crisis." We have been so robbed and so fallen from the image of God who created us, that we have believed the lie that Adam bought, and we do not believe what is true of us. A recent poll said that 97% of Americans see themselves as failures. There's something wrong when we define ourselves by the amount of money we have in the bank, and the car we drive, and when we measure ourselves by something external.

If you ever come to realize who you are in Christ, it will raise you up out of that "I'm as black as the curtains of Kedar" mentality. As long as you've got that "black as the curtains of Kedar" mentality, you're always going to be hiding from God. But if you'll see that, in Christ, you're as "comely as the curtains of Solomon" you'll run to him, instead of running from him.

I get great inspiration from movies. I've preached on the "Addams Family Values". (Adam's family doesn't have any values.) I preached on "Babies Day Out". That's a lot of our church folk turned out on the street. I preached on "The Flintstones". Yaba Daba Doo, got heads like flintstone. They've got dinosaurs in the living room and fellowship with the Rubbles.

I recently took my kids to see "The Lion King", thinking, "I'll endure this boring little Disney movie." But about halfway through that movie I feel like I wanted to shout!

It starts out with a little baby lion named Simba. And the prophet comes and anoints him with a cross and tells him, "You were born to reign." I want you to know that you were born to reign! You have a destiny with a throne. You have been made kings and priests unto God.

There is another lion called Mufasa. He's the king lion. He's the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. (I know they didn't call him that in the movie, but I know who he is!) Mufasa is the king and he says to his son, "You are in training for reigning." And he told his son, "Everywhere the light falls is your dominion. But over there where you see the darkness, have no fellowship with the hyenas..." (That's demonic spirits). "Don't you go to the graveyard of elephants...." (That's where great men have died; they didn't stay in the light; they got in fellowship with darkness.)

But there is another lion called Scar. He's like the devil. The devil is "like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." And the only way Scar can reign is to get the one whose right it is to reign to believe the lie.

And in our immaturity we run around like Simba singing, "I just can't wait to be king. Nobody saying do this. Nobody saying stop that.." That's our mentality. If I ever become king, nobody's telling me what to do! We're sure not ready to reign in that kind of mind-set. You can't have authority until you're under authority.

So Scar tries to get the little lion over into the kingdom of darkness and to fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. He plays to his immaturity and says, "I know a secret place...." So the little lion gets his girl friend and they go over into the elephant graveyard, where the darkness is at. All of a sudden the hyenas close in on them and their plan is to kill him whose right it is to reign, but when he gets in trouble he cries out and says, "Father, save me!"

All of us, in times past, have had fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. And demonic spirits are there. It's their job to be there to chase you out. When you go into the devil's territory he has jurisdiction there. But if you'll walk in the light as he is in the light, you won't have any problem with devils.

Simba cries out and says, "Father, save me!" And the Father comes over into the darkness and picks them up and saves them. So the Father begins to correct his son and teach him. And as they are talking and fellowshiping together, the son looks up and sees the stars and he says, "Father, what are those?" The father says, "Those are all of the kings past," and he begins to say, "Son, one day I'm going to die, and you are going to rule the kingdom. But I want you to know that I'll never leave you or forsake you."

But like all young, immature Christians, Simba got himself in another fix. Scar had plotted against him. He said, "Let's get him down in this valley and the wildebeests will attack him. And if we can kill him whose right it is to reign, then we can take the throne."

So Scar gets this young lion down in the valley and the wildebeests are stampeding and this young lion gets up in a tree and cries, "Father, save me." But this time, in order to save his son, Mufasa had to throw himself in the line of that destruction. He had to make himself the very sacrifice that would save his son. He had to die to save us! Even in our rebellion, he came and clothed himself in human flesh and threw himself in the line of the destruction that was yours and mine. He suffered the judgment that was rightfully ours, and in order to save us, he gave himself, a ransom for us.

Scar then came to him and said, "It's your fault. Run! You cannot rule! Never come back here. It's your fault. You killed your father!" We've all got skeletons in our closets. We've all got things in our past that we're not so proud of.

And we think, "How could God ever use me to rule and reign? How could God ever use me in this city? I've been this and I've been that." I want you to know that God knows how to remove your past far from you. You need to quit believing that lie. Someone may have told you as a child, that you'll never amount to anything. Maybe somewhere you bought into that lie and began to believe it. And you began that downward spiral.

Any kind of problem you have in the arena of sin is a problem of mistaken identity. Scar beat you up and browbeat you, and sometimes he came to you in the form of a preacher. Some preachers, if they don't have revelation, will abuse you. Some preachers have messed up more people than they've helped. They've hurt people. People leave their services and say, "I'm worthless. I'll never amount to anything. How could God ever use me?"

As long as you believe that lie the devil will illegally rule.

If this kind of a message ever got into the human family, and we could ever quit thinking that we've been oppressed and put down; if we could ever stop blaming someone else for our problems; our parents, our teachers, our past, our history... Somewhere you've got to stop the blame game. You might say, "But you don't know how I've been hurt. You don't know my problems." I would say that you don't know my problems. But I decided to get better instead of bitter. I decided to believe the truth, rather than believe the lie.

Because as long as you believe the lie, you'll be like Simba. You'll be hanging out with warthogs and meerkats. And you'll sing songs like Pumbaa did. He was the warthog. Here's the philosophy of Pumbaa: "I'm a big pig. You can be a big pig too." Pumbaa fed on grubworms and slimy creatures. And Simba got to eating a diet that wasn't for lions. And he adopted Pumbaa's philosophy. "I'm a big pig. You can be a big pig too." That's all in the Bible. Jesus preached to dogs and hogs. He said, "Don't give that which is holy to dogs. And don't cast your pearls before swine."

A pig roots in the earth; that's dust...humanity. And then he's got to get some water to mix with his earth. Water is spirit. And we come to church to get a little spirit to mix with our flesh and we create a wallow. That's the reason some people come to church. They've been rooting around in the earth all week and they come to church to soothe their conscience a little bit. But they're living in a muddy wallow. Prodigal sons always end up in that environment.

Another thing about Pumbaa is that he had a "wind" problem. I know that's a little bit vulgar, but it's the truth. That's in the Bible too. "Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab." (Is.16:11). Isaiah also said, "We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. All we've done is bring forth wind." (Is.26:18). We've got something and we aren't doing anything with it. So all we do is bring forth wind.

What's wind? It's doctrine. We get another revelation. And because we're not doing anything with the revelation, we sow into the wind and reap the whirlwind. So instead of becoming productive, it becomes destructive. In the American church we fight more over doctrine than doing anything constructive. We're like the woman with the issue of blood: we've got more issues than you can shake a stick at. And we want to fight over our doctrines. We sit around and "break wind" together and when we're done all we've created is a stinking vapor. And those slimy creatures make it worse yet!

I know what I'm talking about. I've been in some churches where they ought to write "PUMBAA" on top of the door.

So Simba hangs out in the wilderness singing "Hakuna Matata". It means "no worries". It's an attitude that says, "You're not going to get me committed to anything. No worries..for the rest of your days..."

We get this mentality while we're over in the wilderness, believing the lie...we'll go to church, but don't ask me to get involved...no worries...no commitment. We come up with more excuses about why we can't get involved with the success of the church. "Let somebody else worry about all that".

But there came a prophet on the scene named Rafiki. He looked like a monkey. And that prophet slapped Simba in the head. Sometimes we need a prophet to slap us in the side of the head.

So that prophet hit Simba in the head. Simba said, "Why did you do that?" He said, "Don't worry about it. It's in your past." So he took another swing at him and this time Simba ducked out of the way. The prophet said, "See, you learned from your past." Don't live in the past; learn from the past. Don't live in your past. Learn from your past.

Simba looked up at that prophet and said, "Yes, but my father told me he would never leave me or forsake me. And my father is nowhere."

Now while Simba's been believing the lie, there's been no rain falling at Pride Rock; there's a great famine there. And hyenas are taking over. As long as the church is rocked to sleep with a lie, the devil will rule and he will cause famine everywhere.

But that prophet said, "Your father never left you!"

And Simba said, "Oh yeah? Then where is he."

The prophet said, "Come over here and I'll show him to you." And he took that young lion over to the water.

And when that young lion peered into that pool of water he saw his own face. He said, "That's not my father. That's my own reflection."

The prophet said, "Look deeper. Look within. Because it's not him who's outside of you, but it's him who lives inside of you. Your father never left you. He never left you or forsook you. He will never leave you nor forsake you!"

So when Simba looks deeper, he begins to see the face of his Father. And a roar came up from his belly that shook that whole creation. And he got the word that it was not his fault; that it was all part of a master plan. And he is told that he has a right to go back to Pride Rock.

And if you don't go back and take your rightful place, the devil will destroy your family, your city and your nation. But God is raising up prophets to tell you God's plan is not a plan of evacuation; it's about taking your rightful place. Don't let the devil steal your family. Don't let him rob your finances. You need to realize that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Simba headed back to Pride Rock and there was a show down with principalities and powers. So he began to cast Scar off of Pride Rock, and all of his hordes. And then the fire fell! I tell you we have an appointment at Mount Carmel with the false prophets of Baal! We need to face the devil and show him we've got the goods!

Somewhere, somebody is going to begin to believe the truth, and take their place. We've got to see that we are not as black as the curtains of Kedar; that we're as comely as the curtains of Solomon; that we were born to rule and reign.

Somebody, some people somewhere are going to say, "This is the time, this is the place, and we are the people." We must come to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense and the secret place of the stairs, and see what is true of us in Christ.

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