The God of the Suddenly!

God can change situations suddenly! Suddenly means that something is happening or coming unexpectedly; it is something marked by or manifesting abruptness or haste and it is something made or brought about in a short time. We need to know in our knower that God can change situations, answer prayer and do the miraculous, suddenly. Oh it may seem like we’ve been praying for something or someone for a long time, but when God moves, the answer is suddenly. When you and I accepted Jesus into out hearts and received Him as our Lord and Savior, our spirit man was changed suddenly. Today we are looking at the God of the Suddenly!

Acts 2:1–4 (NLT)

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 

Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 

Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 

And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

God Moved Suddenly on Pentecost!

There were about 120 including the eleven disciples. Jesus told them to wait for the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. So they did what people do. They had an election to pick the one who was to take Judas’ place. They presented two men Joseph who was called Barsabas, and Matthias. They prayed and cast their lots and Mathias was chosen. They were doing life in the upper room when the Day of Pentecost came. The Jewish holiday Shavuot, which is when the first five books of the Torah was given to Moses is celebrated 50 days after the Passover. The Passover was when the Israelites were “passed over” by the angel of death because they had sprinkled the blood of lamb on their doorposts. All the firstborn of Egypt died that night and the Israelites left under the leadership of Moses. The day of Pentecost is fifty days after Easter when Jesus rose from the dead after sacrificing His blood to cover our sins and thus having eternal death pass over us who are now heading for eternal life with Him. It was on this day that suddenly God filled them in the upper room with the Holy Spirit and the Church was born. Now the Good News of what Jesus did went public. They didn’t stay in the upper room they went out. Suddenly!!

Matthew 8:23–27 (AMP)

And after He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. 

And suddenly, behold, there arose a violent storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered up by the waves; but He was sleeping. 

And they went and awakened Him, saying, Lord, rescue and preserve us! We are perishing! 

And He said to them, Why are you timid and afraid, O you of little faith? Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great and wonderful calm (a perfect peaceableness). 

And the men were stunned with bewildered wonder and marveled, saying, What kind of Man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!

Life’s Storm Suddenly Disappear!

The disciples of Jesus grew up around the Sea of Galilee. Some were fishermen, like Peter, James and John, but they all grew up there and they all knew how the sea was. They knew the ups and downs of the sea the same way we are all familiar with the ups and downs of life. But sometimes in life there are major storms. Could be a health issue, a relationship issue, a financial issue, or the loss of someone dear to us. Life has major storms. But the Good News is that Jesus is in our boat. And the way He suddenly calmed the storm the disciple’s boat was going through, He can suddenly calm our life’s storms. Suddenly!!

John 9:1–9 (NKJV)

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 

And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 

I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 

And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing. 

Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?” 

Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.” He said, “I am he.”

We See Suddenly!

The account of this blind man is account of you and I. As the song Amazing Grace says, I once was lost but now I’m found was blind but now I see. Suddenly, this blind man encountered Jesus and when he washed in the pool of Siloam he instantly saw. The Siloam means sent. Jesus was sent to pay the price for our sins and anyone who receives Him instantly goes from the kingdom of darkness, where we were “blind” spiritually, into His Kingdom where we can now spiritually see. That transformation happens suddenly. One minute you’re serving self, the devil, and everything else and the next minute you’re a Child of God! Now our old habits and mindsets take effort on our part to change and align with God but prior to our suddenly, we didn’t even have the desire to change. Suddenly life takes on a different meaning and we actually feel bad when we do the things we used to do and thought nothing of it. Suddenly!!

2 Kings 7:1–16 (NIV)

Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.” 

The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!” 

Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 

If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.” 

At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, 

for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” 

So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. 

The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. 

Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” 

So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” 

The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace. 

The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’ ” 

One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.” 

So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” 

They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 

Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of the finest flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

Life’s Bad Situations Can Change Suddenly!

There was a severe famine in the land! It was so severe that a donkeys head sold for 80 pieces of silver and a cup of doves dung for 5 pieces of silver. The donkey was an unclean animal and the head was the worst part. Doves dung could either be food or fuel. There is some uncertainty as to whether this actually means "dove's dung" or not but some theologians accept it as is, doves dung, because Josephus reports that in one of the Roman sieges, the citizens were reduced to eating excrement. Note this quote from Josephus, Wars, V, 13, 7.

And they told him further, that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the poor, they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses, and shut them up therein. As also that a medimnus of wheat, was sold for a talent: and that when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by reason the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that terrible distress, as to search the common sewers, and old dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there: and what they of old could not endure so much as to see, they now used for food.

It was so severe they were even eating their children. That’s severe like we’ve never seen in Hawaii.

But God did a suddenly and reversed the famine in one day! They had abundance suddenly! There are times in life that we might have to face a “severe” famine. It might not be food, it could be a famine of relationships, a famine of health, a famine of hope. But God can change it Suddenly! We need to know the God of the Suddenly can change anything Suddenly. We must never lose hope because we serve the God of the Suddenly!!