Power To Catch Up by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Text: the sun that went backward

Isaiah 38:8

Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sun of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees by which the degree it was gone down.

Somebody say power to catch up.

Hezekiah's sickness and the fifteen extra years

Hezekiah was sick with a sickness unto death. Isaiah the prophet told him, Isaiah 38, "Put your house in order because you are going to die." Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, and God sent Isaiah back to tell him he would live 15 more years.

Most preaching stops there. But from verse six, God also told Hezekiah why he was being kept alive:

• His health was restored
• God would deliver the city and give him victory over Assyria

God said He would count days and weeks backward, backdate time, to give Hezekiah the health of a young man. A blessing meant for 25 years was compressed into what looked like months. Whenever God wants to update a man, He first has to backdate him.

The man who leaped instead of walked

A man at the gate had been carried there all his life. When God visited him, he did not just rise up and walk, he leaped and jumped, though he was only told to rise up and walk. He said within himself, "If I walk, how can I catch up with others who have gone ahead of me?" He decided he would not just catch up. He would pursue, overtake, and recover all.

Time was made for signs and seasons

Genesis 1:14

Let there be light in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, for signs and for seasons. Time is conscripted for signs, not for waste.

Jeremiah 8:20-22

The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Everyone has reached their season but you are still stranded. Is there no balm in Gilead, when it appears that time has left you behind?

Joel 2:25

I will restore the years that the locust has eaten. In several translations, "restore" means replace, repay, make you catch up, get back all the years. To compensate is to be paid for what happened before.

Sarah and Abraham: backdated to bear a child

Genesis 18:10-14

Three angels told Sarah she would have a son. Sarah, already old and past the way of women, laughed within herself, "Shall I have pleasure, my lord being old?" It was a talk of time being gone, of being unable to catch up anymore. But the Lord answered, "Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return to you."

The laborers hired at the eleventh hour

Matthew 20:12

Workers hired at the eleventh hour were paid the same as those who worked the whole day. Those who complained were told it was unfair, but as far as God was concerned it was not, because He was not only paying them for the hour worked but for the whole day they had been looking for the job. When God wants you to catch up, He loads you with benefit.

Psalm 103

He loads us with benefit.

Naaman restored to the flesh of a child

2 Kings 5:14

After Naaman dipped seven times in Jordan, his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child. God took him back in time, because that is the only way health of that kind comes, not forward, but backward.

Esau's cry to catch up

Genesis 27:38

Esau, having lost the blessing to Jacob, cried to his father, "Bless me, even me also."

Hebrews 12:17

He sought the blessing with tears.

Genesis 33:8-9

Years later, when Jacob met Esau again bringing gifts to find grace, Esau answered, "I have enough" — in other translations, "I have plenty." Nobody will meet you the way they left you. Those who expected you to stay stranded will not meet you the way they left you.

The wedding at Cana: the best kept for last

John chapter 2

At a wedding the wine ran out. Jesus turned water to wine, and the governor of the feast said, "Every man sets out the good wine first, and when men have drunk well, the worst, but you have kept the best until now." There is a breakthrough coming that will make you forget every day of waiting and pain.

Backdated strength for the battle ahead

You are about to face a fight you cannot win in this present body. God will take the years backward so that when you lift up the sword, people cannot believe you are 80 or 90. He will give you the energy of a 30 year old, the same energy Caleb asked for: "Give me this mountain."

Favor throughout scripture

• Genesis 39:21 — the Lord was with Joseph and gave him favor before the keeper of the prison
• Exodus 3:21, Exodus 11:3, Exodus 12:36 — the Lord gave Israel favor in the sight of the Egyptians
• 1 Samuel 2:26 — Samuel grew and had favor with God and with man
• Luke 2:52 — Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man
• Daniel 1:9 — God brought Daniel into favor

Favor is splendor, attraction, likability, to be preferred, to be accepted, to be valued. It is what God rubs on your life and destiny like seasoning. When heaven decides to make a man catch up for lost years, it gives him favor.

Two components of favor

1. Acceptance

   Favor manifests first through acceptance, being liked under pressure, loved without measure. No matter what you carry, if people don't accept you, it can't profit you. Romans 15:31 — Paul asked the church to pray that he be accepted of the brethren, because talent and gifting are not enough without acceptance.

2. A man

   When God wants to turn a man's life around, He connects him to a man. Job chapter 42:10-15 — after Job prayed for his friends, the Lord turned his captivity. His brethren and sisters came, ate bread with him, and every man gave him a piece of money and an earring of gold. Job traded what they gave him, and the Lord blessed his latter end more than his beginning, twice what he had before, 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand donkeys, seven sons and three daughters. Psalm 17:14 — men are the hands of God; to ask God for His hand is to ask Him to send a man.

Second element: divine intervention

Luke chapter 5, verses 2 to 6

Peter, a skilled and established fisherman, had toiled all night and caught nothing. Jesus told him to launch out and let down the nets. When heaven intervened, the catch was so great the net began to break, and Peter had to call his partners to help, because the kind of prosperity coming your way is what you cannot eat alone.

Angelic intervention in the famine of Samaria

2 Kings 6:24 to 7:7

Benhadad king of Syria besieged Samaria until a donkey's head sold for eighty pieces of silver and mothers were reduced to boiling their own children for food. Elisha prophesied that by the next day flour and barley would be sold cheaply at the gate. Four lepers, having nothing to lose, went to the Syrian camp to surrender, but the Lord had made the enemy hear the noise of chariots and horses as though a great army was coming, and they fled, leaving everything behind. The city was filled with provision within 24 hours, exactly as prophesied.

The God that changed the story of the Samaritans will change your story. All the years the locust has eaten, the Lord is restoring them to you.