The Vault of Heaven

The scriptures start out early on in Genesis by declaring the origins of our atmosphere. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so. What the book of Genesis describes as a firmament, we now refer to as our atmosphere. The atmosphere that we enjoy on this earth was created by dividing the waters. It was the space that was created by establishing the boundaries of water. It was the boundaries of the water below, which we have on earth and the boundaries of the water which we have above. But it is the space between those boundaries that we enjoy the air that we breathe. Every living creature on earth survives because of that space. It is an atmosphere of life. It is an atmosphere of abundance. And it is the atmosphere of the miraculous.

The definition that the dictionary gives us for this space that the Bible calls a firmament is the vault of heaven. Our atmosphere that God created is the vault of heaven. It is in this space that the mysteries of the universe are not just limited to galaxies and supernovas, but it also contains the roadmap for the miraculous, the space where the natural and the supernatural come together. This vault is unlocked for the man and the woman, the young and the old, the near and the far that hunger after righteousness.

We gather in this place to unlock the mysteries of an apostolic atmosphere. We are not content to just have church, attend conferences, assimilate in arenas, and go through the motions. We desire the prophetic and old fashioned outpouring of hunger and thirst. We do not come together to just see and to be seen, but we come together and assimilate our voices and our faith for one solitary purpose, and that is to be in the presence of an almighty God. We need him now more than ever before. And this is the place, and this is the moment.

Consider these three keys that unlock the vault of heaven. The first key is boundaries. In his book Slouching Towards Gamara, Robert Bork, the great legal scholar says, the absence of walls is not the definition of freedom, that is chaos, but true freedom is the space between the walls, the walls of law and order, the boundaries of morality and discipline. You don't have freedom without laws. You have social chaos, and you don't have freedom without boundaries. You have spiritual chaos, but this atmosphere, where the natural illustrates the spiritual, was created with the division of waters. The divided waters became the boundaries of life. He did it again when he divided the waters of the Red Sea. Those divided waters created a path of salvation, and the children of Israel walked on dry ground. It created an atmosphere of redemption.

This is why he told Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Those foundations, my friend, are boundaries. That's why the earth has order, because it has as a foundation boundaries. He went on to further illustrate who shut up the sea with doors when it break forth, who declared to the waters, you can come to this point, but no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed. It was God that created these boundaries, and these boundaries guard the space of deliverance. The bookends of this great Bible are the first two chapters of Genesis, and the last two chapters of Revelation. They describe a utopia society. It begins with the Garden of Eden, and it ends with the city of New Jerusalem. They are the boundaries of human existence, but between those boundaries is a redemptive story. It is the space of grace. It is the path of love. It is the dry ground of deliverance, and yes, it is the atmosphere of the Almighty, and it is our desire to inhabit that space, that atmosphere, and to leak arms with an Almighty God.

That space is not a place that God chooses to inhabit alone. He offers man the mind-blowing opportunity to cohabit the atmosphere of redemption. He chooses the foolishness of preaching to save the loss. He chooses to put a treasure in earth and vessel. Only God redeems, but man is his means.

This atmosphere does more than create a dome of physical protection. It offers man the opportunity to join forces with the Almighty and become a redemptive agent in the death-reversing work of God to restore his kingdom. Dare I say, it is the most exciting cause on this earth, and God is calling us to be a part of this exciting cause.

That vault is not unlocked without the key of boundaries. The apostolic movement is poised to unlock the treasures of heaven because we embrace boundaries. We're not afraid of self-restraint. We do not run from the boundaries of discipline. We choose to be a Christian. We choose to pursue righteousness. We reject the notion that this generation is addicted to instant gratification. We happily march on the dry ground of deliverance because we have a desire to dwell in an apostolic atmosphere. Deliverance from the impulses of our own flesh. Deliverance from remorse and regret. We desire to occupy the space of the supernatural, but it does not stop there.

After the fall of man, Adam gave his wife a name, and he named her Eve. In the Hebrew, it means to live, to give life, or to breathe. Breath is the second key that unlocks the vault of heaven. Breath is synonymous with life. The Bible says God breathed into Adam's nostrils, the breath of life, and he became a living soul. This breath of God was the source of life that we know of as natural life. We live in this firmament, this atmosphere, this vault of heaven, and we fill our lungs with every breath that we draw. It is a gift, it is a treasure. That's why Acts 17 said God that made the world and all things therein. Seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything. Seeing he give it to all life, and breath, and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and bounds of their habitation. We have established those bounds, but let's talk for just a moment about breath.

There is a mingling of the breath and the blood that produces natural life and spiritual life. When our daughter Sophia was born, she suffered from something called respiratory distress syndrome. Apparently while the baby is in the womb, the body that it has, it is a body that is drawing life from its mother. And the blood that it has is already oxidized. It has oxygen within the blood. An article from Harvard Medical School explains it this way, because the placenta does the work of exchanging oxygen O2 and carbon dioxide OCO2 through the mother's circulation. The fetal lungs are not used for breathing. Instead of blood flowing to the lungs to pick up oxygen and then flowing to the rest of the body, the fetal circulation shunts or bypasses most of the blood away from the lungs. But when the first breath of air is taken by that baby, the fetal circulation changes. And a larger amount of blood is sent to the lungs to pick up oxygen. And the grid work of veins and arteries that surround the lungs are constricted when the child is in the womb, because they're not needed to oxidize the blood. But when the baby is born, they've got to open up for business and go to work. Needed to get the oxygen from the lungs and to pass it to the blood and to get the carbon dioxide out of there. And if a baby is to sustain itself and to survive apart from the mother, it must have blood. And that blood must be flowing with oxygen or breathing blood. The blood must have breath.

The natural illustrates the spiritual. I have seen all my life people come to the altar, repent of their sins, and go right back out to the sin of the world. But my friend, if you are to sustain yourself, if you are to survive spiritually, you need to get oxygen in the blood. We need the breath of God in the blood of the lamb. We need the breath of God in the blood of the lamb. And you've come to the right place because the wind of God's breath is blowing in this house. This is the definition of being born again.

They put our daughter in the NICU unit and they began to work with her, but she was not improving. After the first night, they said her oxygen levels were not good. I kept thinking the great team of physicians and nurses would get her on track because of the amazing work that they do and the amazing work that they had done when our twin sons were born over five years earlier. And they were four weeks premature and they got them on track. But Sophia was not improving. On the third night, they said, if your daughter does not improve, we will have to move her to the Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando. I told my wife at the hospital, I got to go home for a night because I got to get hold of God. I went home and I began to pray. I asked God to heal my daughter. And about three o'clock in the morning, I was sure as I'm standing in this pulpit tonight, the Lord spoke to me and said, put your confidence in me more than others. I alone have the breath of life. I will breathe on her again. I feel like the Lord is telling somebody tonight, put your confidence in him. He wants to breathe on you one more time. You need popular opinion. We need the anointing of God. We need the spirit to flow in our veins.

I went to the hospital early the next morning, told my wife, everything's gonna be all right. God touched her. The doctor came in and said about three in the morning last night, her lungs opened up. She began to breathe like a normal child. We will be releasing her today. And she's been breathing ever since.

COVID tried to take our breath away, but God was merciful and God breathed on us again. And it's more than just a natural breath. It is a spiritual breath. We choose not to live in a spiritual coma. We choose not to live on the artificial oxygen of a spiritual ventilator. We want the breath of God.

Bible describes this breath as wind. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven. As of a Russian mighty wind, we fill our lungs with the wind of God's presence. We refuse to live in fear. We refuse to be still. We shake off the paralysis of past mistakes. We rise up.

We were not given breath to remain idle.

And the Lord said to Ezekiel, prophesy again. Prophecy unto the wind. Prophecy son of man and say to the wind, let us say at the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. If the first prophecy brought a unity in the flesh, the second prophecy brought an unction in the spirit. The first time Ezekiel prophesied the bones came together. But the second time life came, we cast off the notion that a mere gathering of bones is a revival. We are unified in this place for one purpose and one cause. But there's a second prophecy prophesied to the wind. It's time, my friend, to speak to the wind. Come from the north, come from the south, east and the west. Blow one more time on this nation. Blow one more time on this church. Blow one more time on this generation. Wind is blowing. The wind is blowing across the world that's tired of business as usual. Tired of just going through the motions. Tired of church without God. We apostolics know the blessing of a prophetic atmosphere. We know the power of the winds that blow at midnight. When the fever is spiking and your child is crying. We know the joy of that holy wind. That blows into any desperate situation. The treasure of heaven contains refreshing winds. Breath of life, the breath of hope, the breath of joy. So we gather tonight in this mobilization of millennials and ministers. And we say breathe on us one more time.

Finally, there is a third key to the vault of heaven. There is a blessing of abundance in this atmosphere. And that is the third key to this vault. Ladies and gentlemen, this atmosphere produces the blessings of abundance. This atmosphere has an aroma.

Job said, for there's hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again. And that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth. And the stock thereof die in the ground. Yet through the scent of water, it will bud and bring forth bows like a plant. Those bows are defined as foliage. That is abundance through the scent of water. That water is our worship. And this atmosphere produces blessings that are based on saturation of worship. When this atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, it reaches dew point. That dew point means that an outpouring is imminent.

Even nature can smell it. A dead tree can sense it. Dry bones can feel it coming. The rains are fixed to come. The outpouring of the Holy Ghost is imminent for those that will hunger at first. After righteousness, they shall be filled.

When we were in South Africa a few years ago during a terrible drought, our guide told us that the impalids would normally be given birth to their young about now. But because the rains have not come yet, they can delay the birth of their young until the rains come. He said that when the rains start to come, or even before the rain, when the smell of rain is in the air, there will be 15,000 little impalids running around. This is called embryotic diapause. It has been documented in about 130 species of mammals. God will pause the development of the unborn until the environment is sufficient to receive the miracle of birth. Nature through the hand of God does this so that the young don't die. The abundance of new life is put on pause until the atmosphere is saturated with the scent of water.

In spiritual terms, that scent of water is our worship. Ladies and gentlemen, we refuse to let this generation die because of a lack of worship. We will do our part to saturate this atmosphere with the worship of God's people. We sense an outpouring of abundance because the more praise you send up, the more the atmosphere is saturated.

The reason that Elijah knew that there was an outpouring coming was because on the top of Mount Carmel, they had offered up a sacrifice of water. That when the fire came from heaven, it consumed the sacrifice and it licked up all of the water. But everything you give to God is gonna come back down in abundance. That's why we worship when we're tired. That's why we worship when we're hurting. That's why we work. Because we believe our worship will produce an outpouring of the glory of God in an apostolic atmosphere.

Stand to your feet tonight. We refuse the philosophy that Christianity is based on minimums. We hear the sound of abundance of rain. We gather in this place for the next few days to create an apostolic atmosphere with our worship. You may not be able to see it, but you can smell it. You can sense it. You can feel it. It's in your bones. This vault produces life and life more abundantly. It's time to unlock the heavens with our worship. It's time to unlock the heavens with our faith. It's time to unlock the heavens with our expectation. You wanna set your voices now as a trumpet and shout. Shout. Shout. Shout. Shout. With the voice of triumph. Your voice right now. If you feel you ought to come down to this halt and respond. You don't have to take a mirror. It's here, it's here.