–Take this true story of the history of Israel as an illustration today.

Here we have three kings from different parts of the promised land, together in a unity. The King of Israel-Samaria, the King of Judah and the King of Edom.

Edom –we all know– is Esau, the one who did not want what God had for him. Edom is a type, or figure, of the flesh, or of the body, or the natural man.

Judah, very clearly the power of Israel, followed after the Lord for a very long time, desiring to do what the Lord wanted them to do. Chronicles chapter 17 shows King Jehoshaphat as a mighty man with many good things being said about him; the Lord was with him because he had decided in his heart to go after the Lord.

And the king of Samaria, Jeroboam. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, although not as much as his parents, for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. He departed not therefrom.

For the following illustration, please consider the types:

Esau–Edom as the kingdom of the flesh, or body;

Jehoshaphat, the inner man, the spirit of man; the kingdom of Judah,

and Jehoram, the soul of man, the kingdom of Israel-Samaria.

The Soul of man got into problems and he called unto the inner man:

–Will you help me? and they said: –Yes, because we are one, we are family.

And they also called the King of Edom into the issue, because he also was part of the same family. Edom (the flesh) was subdued to Judah (the spirit).

It appears that the King of Samaria – the Soul of man– was in those times the strongest of the three and the Moabites, of which it is said that they rebelled against him, were under his foot. David had subdued the Moabites a long time before and they were paying great taxes: a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams with the wool. Samaria –the soul of man– was receiving a lot from the Moabites.

Suddenly the circumstances change, and Samaria –the soul– gets into problems, so he calls the other three.

Please remember considering the story as an illustration: this is speaking of us as individuals, as well as of us as the Body of Jesus Christ on this earth.

There is a body of flesh that has a spirit and a soul.

Let us have a look at some attitudes.

When this group is about to start this seven day journey, the question arose about which way they should go.

Some commentators say it was king Jehoshaphat who answered the question saying “We will go this way”, but from the text it is difficult to discern who gave the decisive answer. It is not clear who asked about which way to go, nor who answered to go by the wilderness –was it Jehoshaphat, representing the spirit or was it Jehoram, the soul?

They chose the longer way, because it appeared at the weaker side of the Moabites. The Moabites lived at the right side of the Jordan river, at the opposite side of the Dead Sea. They had to choose either to cross the river to confront the Moabites were they were strongest or they could go all around through the desert to hit the enemy’s weaker part; and the latter is what they chose.

Who chose the way for this triune body? It was not the flesh. Was it the spirit? Was it the soul? We do not know. However, they knew the area, and although the way through what the Moabites considered as a natural wall protection was much longer and deserted and tough, they knew that the crossing of it was possible, since at the other side of the terrible desert there was a waddy where plenty of waters would be available to get strengthened and refreshed. And the foe would certainly be surprised.

They start marching. But after seven days, when stressed to their limits they arrive at the waddy, –there is no water! Now it's not the enemy but they who have been surprised! Terribly surprised and thrown into despair!

To me that word: “Alas” should be re-enacted, –and more properly AS A YELL!

–Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! Where is the water? There is no water! Alas! Where is the water? Oh, God has done this! He has given us three kings to be defeated now. We came here sure to find, as it always is at this time of the year, but now there is no water. What are we going to do? Alas! What are we going to do now?

That was the king of Israel’s cry –the soul’s attitude when shocked by unexpected dangerous circumstances.

Here is the attitude of Jehoshaphat –the spirit of man.

“–Is there not here a prophet of the Lord to enquire by him?

The spirit of man, the renewed spirit of man, doesn’t cry defeat very fast. True, there is no water, but let us look for the word of the Lord.

“–Is there here a prophet to get that word of the Lord?” is the reaction of the spirit of man.

Although it seems a strange thing to ask for a prophet in the middle of nowhere, on the way to war. What would a prophet be doing in the midst of all those men drawing swords on their way to battle?

And yet, –Elisha is there! What is he doing there, seven days away from home and with a people going to a war? It looks like the Lord told him to be there, to stand by his brethren, although he maybe did not agree with the matter (considering the answer he gave to the king of Israel –the soul– a while later).

In this illustration Elisha represents the Spirit of God, who lives within us.

So the three kings come to him (observe: despite being kings, flesh, soul and spirit go to the Spirit of God), and we notice Elisha’s (the Spirit of God’s) reaction to them.

There is not even a look at the king of Edom –the flesh–, nor does he mention him.

To the king of Israel –the soul– he answers:

–“What have I to do with you? I have nothing to do with you. Go to your God.”

In other words, it is: “Go to the prophets of thy father, to the prophets of thy mother. You are fallen nature, so go to rhe prophets of your fallen nature. What are you coming to me (the Spirit of God) for?” Yet the soul is smart, and answers a flattering sentence (under the threat of great loss or even death the soul will use whatever necessary to bypass the harshness of the prophet and obtain its salvation):

“–Oh, no. The Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hands of Moab”. Which could be interpreted as: “–No, no, I am not going anywhere, we are great in danger –and you are the one to have the word for our delivery. I am the soul. I will come to hear your word.”

The Spirit of God is not deceived by the soul’s motivations. Nevertheless, He will answer. Although the answer (observe this detail) is given to Jehoshaphat –the spirit of man, for it was he who requested Word from God.

The prophet mentions cattle and animals. Why would he include these? Because the cattle represents what we need to survive, our provision, what we have made or gained in daily life; whatever the Lord has allowed us to have – they were also going to die too because of lack of water. And the beasts or animals are those strengths one has, with which things are accomplished –they were also going to die.

All the people were going to die of thirst or of weakness or under their enemies, and we are speaking here of around one million men with the king of Judah alone. This was a big group, a strong multitude, but their plans had failed.

The plan which the soul together with the spirit of man had designed, failed. The last link in this plan mastered for success, the water for the renewing of their strengths for the final assault against the rebels, was not there. They dry sand laughed at their faces: they were defeated even before the defeat.

But the Spirit of God was there.

And He said, “Make ditches”.

Let us consider this for a minute. To make a ditch one needs a spade. Let us imagine that they did have some spades. They surely had swords, spears and slings. But how do you make ditches with that?

Nonetheless, the Lord said, “Make ditches”.

So they started digging the ditches with whatever they had, and possibly with their weapons. Not having spades, they simply went out and started doing what was possible with what they had. It wasn’t time for arguing that there were no spades for doing what God was requesting, which was –for their salvation!

Besides, they didn’t have much time. It is not mentioned how long it took the kings to get to Elisha, nor how long their conversation with Elisha lasted, nor how long it took for the three kings to return and tell their people to start digging –it certainly took a good while. The Scripture states that the next morning the waters came into the valley and filled it, covering the whole place. If that happened ‘the next morning’, it means they had less than a day for this preparation; so they maybe began in the late afternoon and surely continued working well into the darkness of the night.

God said ‘dig’. How? There were no tools. When? Obviously, even with thirst and weakness and despair for the menacing fate, and for hours, way into darkness. The people were worn out. They had no will of doing anything; all they wanted was to get that needed to live again. They felt already dying. Have you ever been excessively thirsty? Desperation grips a man when he is without water for a long period?

When the kings made their decision of going against Moab by this longer way, it was surely based on what they knew about the desert and the waddy they expected to find with water. Because a waddy is like a valley, like a bed stream or like a low place in which usually in winter, as a result of rains in higher places, waters flow down; but in summer there are no rains and it is dry.

Have you ever started some work in your garden with your spade in the evening and when it got dark you had not finished? It gets difficult in the dark; you do not know exactly what you are doing. You know more or less where what you are doing has to be, and you know that you are making a hole; you can maybe touch it, but exactly what is being done? There is no certainty. Now imagine being in the darkness of the night trying to make big holes to contain the water promised to come tomorrow.

When they started digging, they did where they expected those waters to come. The valley mentioned in this Scripture is a big place, but it is a low place, so the digging is to be done in the low places. Waters usually flow into lower places –start digging here, they said, –Hurry! –Come on! Come on!

In the middle of the heavy task surely often the question arose among the diggers: Why are they digging ditches in this valley?

Of course, because Elisha had said so.
But what was behind that Word of the Lord?
Elisha said waters were going to come! Elisha said the valley was going to be filled with water. So that was what the ditches were for.
You know what happens when the waters of a river flow into a dry bed stream. It bursts in, and flows, and floods the sides. It bursts in and starts flowing and flowing and flowing… And then, as quick as it came, –it is gone! And the waters in which men with their cattle and beasts would rejoice, have passed, and are gone, and the bed stream once again starts to release the last damp places and dryness settles back.

What this story declares happens spiritually among the Christians so often, so often. In many places.

The Lord said: –Make, in this valley where you know the waters pass flowing by, plenty of ditches!

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(When this message was preached in Brisbane, at this point the Holy Spirit urged the preacher to leave the normal exposition of the Word; the rest of the message was to be exposed as a prophetic utterance. To understand some of the expressions below, please read again the Scripture above.)

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–Oh, Australia, Oh, Australia, Oh, Australia–make thy valley full of ditches!

–Oh, Church of Jesus Christ, leaders of the soul, leaders of the spirit, leaders of the body, speak unto your people, speak unto your people. Tell them to make this valley full of ditches. I am sending a wave. You shall not see rain. You shall not see wind. It will not be cloudy.

–People will not be falling around you, but waters are coming to you because I am sending unto you a wave. A wave that will touch, a wave that will hit men and women, a wave that will be very, very strong; a wave won’t know from whence it comes, but you will see it coming, and if you don’t make ditches you will regret it.

–You will say to the waters ‘–Stop, stop, stop! Remain, remain, remain!’, but they will have to continue on. If you don’t dig the ditches, if your hearts don’t prepare the ditches to contain the waters from Heaven, they will have to continue. It is not My will for them to flow away. My will is that you prepare and make the ditches and I have asked my servant to put this into an illustration because you have come to a place in which there is a drought.

–There is a drought in your land, there is hunger and there is thirst and no waters are being seen and you say ‘if waters do not come we will die. If those waters do not come what are we going to do?

–I have more in mind than what you have in mind.

–Reliance on the soul has brought you into trouble. You say ‘it is not my problem, it is the king of the Moabites who is rebelling against me and now Lord I need your help. Send Your Word and give me help. Give me the waters’.

–I will give you these waters because I love you.

You want the waters so you can be quickened again and go up to the Moabites and smite them and subdue them again. You want to continue a life of victory.

–Australia, Australia, Australia, I have other things in mind for you.

–I will give you the waters and I will smite the Moabites yet in a way that you are not expecting, because –you don’t want to smite the Moabites! You want to win the war to continue getting their lambs, their rams and their wool. You want to be victorious over things, but sometimes that victory does not last. The victory you want is the victory of the soul.

–You are crying for waters to live, to gain strength in your own arms; but I have other things in mind for you Australia. You want to smite the Moabites because they are rebelling against you, but, tell me: Did not I give that land to the Ruebenites? Where are My children the Ruebenites?

–The Moabites have taken over the land and you want to subdue them.

–Yet I will smite them.

–I told you when Moses was going into the land not to cut the trees, to keep the fruit thereof. But today I am saying to you: –Cut off the trees of this place and you will shut down all the wells and you will throw a stone in all their land! Yes, oh soul.

You will have no more gain from the Moabites. No more land. No more rams. No more wool. It has not been good for you to subdue the Moabites.

–Soul, you are not clean and you are still more unclean by wanting to subdue the Moabites. But do as I say. Dig for yourselves ditches and the waters will not flow away. They will stay.

–Princes of the House of the Lord, are you going to believe and live? Are you going to make the ditches?

–You say: I have water! Yes, you do. But your waters are finishing after those seven days. You need living waters coming down, rushing down again and I am sending them to you because I have seen that you have been seven days in the desert. I see that your waters are finishing –and you see that too!

–Your soul has brought you to a place where you thought you would get plenty of waters, but you have not received any and there is nothing you can do. You will not find them where you expected, and so, you have asked Elisha.

–Oh, Princes of the House of the Lord, now if you believe, go unto your tribes, tell your people, “Let us dig ditches, waters are coming, let us dig, let us dig, let us dig ditches. Let us dig places where these waters will stay and stay and stay.”

“–From whence will these waters come?”, they will ask.

“–I do not know. God said they are coming.”

“–But we do not see anything.”

“–I don’t care. I believe and I need these waters to live”, must be your answer.

–Princes of the House of God, go ye to your neighbors, go to the other Princes I have in this land, go ye from the East to the West, go ye from the North to the South. Go ye to Perth, to Adelaide, to Melbourne, to Hobart, to Sydney. Go ye to Cairns, to Darwin, to Alice Springs. Go ye to the biggest town and to the smallest town.

–Tell the people of the Lord “Dig ditches for yourselves. Waters are coming and put your heart into not allowing those waters to flow away because if you keep those waters in those ditches you have been digging during the night of your darkness, if you dig with your sword, with your spears, with sticks, with your hands, if you do that, when the waters come in the morning, they will bring new life, they will life also to your cattle and to your animals. Your supplies will not die but live and reproduce and out of the springs of your heart, all that which you have in front of you will be strengthened”.

–I will smite the Moabites for you. Do not cling to the Moabites, oh king of Samaria. It has not been good for you. Let be those who testify on earth: the Spirit, the Water and the Blood.

–When the day comes, which is near, waters will flow from the land of Edom and I told you and you have read it: living waters, rivers of living waters will be flowing from your belly –from Edom– the waters will come out into your sight and they will fill the valley, they will fill the ditches and it will be in the morning.

–You will be digging all night in faith, not knowing what you are doing, not knowing how deep, not knowing how large. When the morning comes the waters will fill you and you will start rejoicing and there will be singing and happiness and the cattle will drink, the horses and the animals will drink and all your life will be renewed unto you when the day of the Lord cometh and you have heard today that the day is today.

–It is a new day, you have heard, and you have heard you are to leave a lot of things behind. Many of those things I will smite, because you cannot leave them behind because you are not able to, because you cling to them, because you think they are good for you. I will smite them. I will smite them.

–It is a mystery, I know. How come these waters turned red? You say it is because the color of the soil. It is the testimony of the Spirit and the Water and the Blood! The water will purify. This wave of water coming from Heaven will purify the hearts of man, it will smash right into man and take away their sins and the sinful nature away and the man will stand there, empty of his sin, and he will say: “What is this? What is this? I am free. I am free. This is freedom. This is freedom!”

–What you have is not yet the complete freedom I want for you. I will free you. I will free your country if you make ditches in the valley. If you make ditches in the valley, the water will not only refresh you and make you rejoice. The water will not only live in you, it will also do what they did when My Son was crucified, when all hell in joy shouted “We have killed him, we have killed him.” Because they saw the blood. Yet it was the blood that defeated them, Hallelujah.

-Australia, Australia, Australia –the Lord says:

–I have come before thee not to help you to do it your way, but to stand before thee as the Captain of the Hosts of the Lord.

–As you have read in the book of Joshua –it will be done My way. That is, if you believe the Word and dig ditches for My water to stay.

–You say, I do not know how, Lord… How is the digging to be done? Use your body, use your eyes to read the Scriptures, use your ears to hear the messages, use your hands to lift them up, use your feet to go and preach the Gospel here and there, use your soul, use your intelligence, use your emotion, cry, laugh, dance, dig, dig.

–Jehoshapat! Send your soldiers too! Dig ditches. Do whatever is necessary until you know that those waters will stay. If you are not sure if those waters will stay with you, continue digging. If you are not completely sure that when those waters come they will not stay where you are, then continue digging, digging. That is what I say unto you.

–Oh Australia, Oh Australia, Oh Australia – go to Gordon Moyes, tell him! Go to Brian Pickering, tell him! Go to the pastor in the church at your side, tell him! Don’t say: “Oh, but it is not my church” –go, go, go and tell him! He may not be of your group but he is of My group; tell him! If he does not accept it, that will be his problem. You speak it out. Spread the Word: A wave is coming to this country. Spread the Word: A wave is coming to cleanse the church, to take away the sin.

–Will you believe? If you will believe, the waters will stay in you and when the day comes they will turn into blood and the blood will defeat your enemies against whom you have been fighting all the time. The blood will defeat your enemies. You will go and finish the job. You will go and finish what I have smitten. When John saw Jesus, My Son, crucified, he also saw a soldier, who seeing him already dead, pierced into His side and water and blood came out of that side of My Son. Yes, to this day for the knowledge of man –those waters are a mystery. Blood is understood to come out of the body but water? Yet John expressed it truthfully –he saw it! For I am demanding you, Church of Australia, this day –pierce with your spears the side of My Son and the water will give you life and the blood will be for remission of the sins of your country, for there is no remission without blood.

–Great Southland of the Holy Spirit, if you believe, I will make your country my dwelling place. You say: “it is already!”. Yes it is. All Israel is My dwelling place but in Bethany I loved to be. In Bethany is where My friends Mary, Martha, Lazarus are – and they are so different from each other and I loved to be with them.Yes, you are saying: “You are here with us” and it is true, but I say unto you, Great Southland of the Holy Spirit, if you make a place for Me, Oh yes, I will rejoice in staying with you. I will be so glad, so happy in being with you.

–You do not understand how great a desire I have of not only passing by and blessing you. You do not know how great that desire is in My heart to remain with you with great, with great, with great Glory and Presence such as you never have known before. If you believe and make a place for Me.

–God has brought you to a place where you cannot move any more. You cannot go back – it is too far away, and you cannot go forward without Me or you will be defeated in front of your enemies. Stay close to Me. I will cleanse the place for Myself. You just make a place for My waters and I will make a place for Myself in your hearts.

–Princes of the House of God, hear the Word and the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit will be named THE HOLY SPIRIT’S GREAT SOUTHLAND.It will be the Holy Spirit’s Great Southland.It will be the place where everybody will say: “The Holy Spirit lives in that country. Is someone looking for the Holy Spirit? Look for it in Australia. He lives there.”

–The nature of the Son will be seen in you and that is why you will be called The Holy Spirit’s Country.You will be called The Holy Spirit’s Country because My nature will be there in you.

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Prayer

Let us please stand. Lord, I have given the Word. For months and months You have prepared me to give it. I myself stand; I stand together with my brethren. Let me include myself with my brethren in the blessing You are going to give to them. Let me say: “we want You”. Let me put my feet at the same place where they stand. Lord, I want of this blessing too. I want to be part of this house of Bethany where you so love to be. Lord, you know all our hearts and I ask you this morning Lord, the 5^th of October 2004, for us here included, that if this has been the Word of the Lord, that these people receive it.

I know it is from You, but for them to be sure Lord, I request from You, Father, in the Name of Jesus, I request from you to put in them fire in their souls, their hearts, their beings, in their spirit. Lord, in Your Name I send the fire in the hearts that are open, fire that will burn, fire like the one that burned in the hearts of the two men on the way to Emmaus when you were talking to them; because we cannot see you unless you reveal to us. That fire in the hearts that have been opened will burn and will burn and will burn.

Father, I request that, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the hearts of those who have opened up to believe Your Word and you know, that if You do not help us, if you do not push us, Holy Spirit –You know us– if You do not push us we will not do it. Please, please, push us to do, to obey.

Lord, we come as we are, we will not cheat in front of You. We know what we are, we know what image we put out for others, but Lord, we need You to push us to do your Word.

So I request, and I thank you Lord, for the mercy upon this country.

What a beauty, what a beauty. I want to be part of this, Lord. I so want to be part of this, Lord.