Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: But the good news is that old wells can still bring out new water. Amen. Come on. New moves of God's spirit, new anointings, new leaders. Old wells can still be a part of new moves of God's spirit. But to re dig a well is incredibly costly.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the well an Elam Fellowship Leadership Podcast.
My name is Thomas and I am excited that you're joining us today as we hear a powerful word from one of our elders, Pastor Josh Finley. Today we are excited to bring you part one of two of Pastor Josh's message from day three of the 2025 Oasis Conference where he teaches on how the enemy will attack prophetic wells in our lives if we allow them to dry up.
You don't want to miss this message. So join us as we seek to open prophetic wells in our lives and in our churches and in the world today.
Enjoy.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Lastly, I get to introduce our speaker, our first speaker this morning. Now I'm introducing the same guy I did last night, but I'm gonna do a better job of it today.
I'm doing better. Joshua Finley. He's a speaker and author.
He's a leadership coach who specializes in personal growth and organizational health. And I can vouch for Joshua Finley.
He has been my leadership coach for the last three and a half years that I've been lead pastor here at Elam Life Church and he has been an instrumental part of me having success as a leader. As a pastor. I love and so appreciate Josh. His passion is living a brilliant life that glorifies God and inspires people to reach their redemptive potential.
His sweet spot is serving growth oriented kingdom minded leaders.
He has a unique gift for making complex issues simple and actionable.
I definitely believe that and have seen that in my life. He is pastorally led in large multi site churches, taught as an adjunct professor at Elam Bible College, pioneered a leadership training school, and he's regularly sought out by organizations and business leaders for his strategic insight. Holds a Master's degree in Global Christian Leadership. He serves on the board of several nonprofit organizations.
He's been married 24 years to the same girl he's had a crush on since he was nine.
It's pretty cool.
They're both raising two adult sons out of Baltimore, Maryland.
And if you want to connect with him, if you want to get to know him, if you want to tap into his expertise in helping you to take next steps, if you want to invite him to come speak, check out his website, Joshua finley.org, you're going to want to after you hear him speak this morning, I guarantee you. Would you please stand to your feet and welcome Joshua Finley to the stage?
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Amen. You may be seated. Aren't these family moments amazing?
I bring you greetings for my wife Anna, and we're celebrating 25 years this fall. Our goal was to be the youngest empty nesters in the movement.
So our youngest son is graduating next week. We're about to pivot into a whole new season of life.
Yes. Wow. I just hear a lot of wows. Wow. Wow is right.
Pastor Phil, I love this theme, and I'm so grateful. Have we not already received so much?
I mean, hearing about the crucified life, talking about courageous leadership, like Caleb from Bishop Peoples yesterday with Brother Paul. My goodness. And then last night wasn't a great introduction to Sean Smith. I mean, come on, he's already family. I knew it would be a DNA match. I'm so, so grateful for you.
So let's jump into the word today. Wells. I love this theme because wells can be a place of revelation, right? Hagar says, the God who sees me.
How about the servant of Abraham, Eleazar, who had a revelation of who Isaac's wife should be, Rebecca. When he saw her serving with excellence and hospitality, there was a revelation. There was an epiphany at that well.
And we heard last night about Jacob's well, where she saw the son of God for who he was. Wells can be a place of revelation, but wells can also, in scripture, be constantly surrounded by warfare all the time.
Wells that God designed for refreshing the enemy, made sure to surround with resistance constantly.
When I was about 12 years old, see, my father was a mechanic, and so he could. He could. He could fix anything. And he had a hard time passing up junk. If he drove by stuff on the side of the road, he's like, oh, we could fix that, get that working.
But I got excited one time because he drove past a backhoe and all this huge equipment that we never had that we really shouldn't have had on the size of property we had. But he fixed up a backhoe and started digging a well in our backyard.
And I came home one time. Ann and I were newly married. We were visiting later in life, and I'm like, dad, what are you doing with this piece of equipment? He goes, I'm digging holes because we can.
You know, he's just got this massive equipment, just moving dirt. Well, when he started digging this hole, before we got to water, all kinds of snakes started coming out of the ground.
Let me Just tell you when you start digging wells, you're going to run into some things that you didn't anticipate.
Wells are surrounded by warfare.
Moses, he shows up at a well. What happens? He gets into a fight with a bunch of people. But he ends up meeting Zipporah. He ends up getting a wife out of the deal. So it was worth it. But wells can be a dangerous thing.
Joseph and the prophet Jeremiah learned that dried up wells can become prisons.
We've got to guard the wells that God gives us. Wells seem to be constantly surrounded by warfare. And Sean so well talked about last night. Genesis 26 in the Hebrew it says they camouflage the wells. The those wells weren't stopped up by by time or neglect or chance. It was an enemy strategically shutting down the wells.
Elam, There will always be a spiritual fight over the places and people who contend for supernatural flow.
Always.
But the good news is that old wells can still bring out new water. Amen. Come on. New moves of God's spirit, new anointings, new leaders. Old wells can still be a part of new moves of God's spirit. But to redig a well is incredibly costly.
Two of my friends recently had to re dig the wells on their property. Listen, you don't want to see that, Bill.
It's incredibly costly to re dig a well. I want to just make a few comments just to piggyback a little bit on last night. Just to show a historical example.
Wells that have not been kept well and guarded and stewarded become a breeding ground for demonic occupation.
So watch this.
1831, the Rochester Revival. The greatest documented revival in US history.
Incredible things happened. But also out of Rochester, years later, the first freestanding abortion clinic.
Incredible racial turmoil and uprest.
When I lived here, the mayor said on the news a spirit of murder has come over the city.
Rochester is always in the top five or six per capita for murder in the nation.
What is that? That is exactly what we talked about last night. The demonic trying to stand over wells and occupy territory. But this isn't the first time this has happened in history.
In fact, maybe little known fact, when Finney came through the region, every Masonic lodge in the territory shut down.
Except for one in Lima at the crossroads here.
What is that? That's the enemy holding on for one last piece of stronghold in the territory.
Think about this. The the Welsh Revival of 1904. 1905, Evan Roberts praying God, bend me, bend me. Just the humility. The move of God. Then it moves over to 1906. April 9, 1906, Azusa Street Revival sweeps across America. It moves to India and other places around the globe. Then In North Korea, 1907, the Pyongyang revival. One that we don't even talk about very much. But that was incredible.
So much so that Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, attended the International Mission School in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The capital city of North Korea was a revival hub. Today in North Korea, if you are found with the scriptures, your life expectancy is two weeks.
What is that?
The enemy is being more strategic than we are and trying to occupy those thin places between heaven and earth.
Warfare always surrounds wells. And so I want to ask this question.
What old wells is God calling you to re dig?
What spiritual wells is God calling you to freshly dig, to protect, to steward, to pioneer by faith? And here's what I really want us to focus on today. What happens when God turns your wilderness into a well?
You could create a well wherever you are, led by the spirit of God. And here's the thing. If you find yourself in a wilderness right now, I just want to say to you, join the club.
God sends his best friends into the wilderness, right? Think about Moses in the wilderness, Elijah in the wilderness, John the Baptist, his own son in the wilderness. Just because you find yourself in a wilderness doesn't mean you took a wrong turn.
You actually may have been led there by the Spirit.
So don't mistake, don't judge where you're at in the story right now as the end of the story. Because, listen, everything in the middle looks like failure.
You got to keep going.
So I want to turn to Second Kings, chapter three, where we'll hang out for the rest of our time.
Second Kings, chapter three. I'll give you just a little context.
Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, the husband of Jezebel, he dies. His son takes over as the king of Israel and neighboring Moab at the time of transition. The sensitivity of transition that Sean talked about last night. Moab said, hey, listen, the king of Moab was a sheep herder and a breeder, and he had to pay an annual tax of 100,000 sheep to Israel and 100,000 wool from 100,000 rams. So they gotta send the live animals and they've gotta send the wool every single year. And at the time of the transition, they're like, listen, you got a new leader. We're not paying your tax. We're done with that. And so Ahab's son decides he's gonna call up a couple kings and go to war with these people.
So he Calls up the king of Edom, and he calls up the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, who is a godly man.
And I don't even know why he said yes and agreed to go to this battle. How many of you know godly people can do stupid things sometimes.
Listen, if we're gonna walk with God, we have to allow the discernment of the Holy Spirit to help us not distort some sense of empathy so that we end up in unholy alliances with people.
We end up partnering. Listen, that is not my fight. That is not my. That is not my circus or my monkeys.
But here, Jehoshaphat gets pulled into this thing that he never should have been at.
So here they are, the kings. They. They go out to fight and they march out and they. It says they wander in the desert for seven days and they run out of food, they run out of water, and they haven't even gotten to the battle yet. They're about to die because they have no food and water.
What happens when God can turn your wilderness into oil? Let's look at this story here. Second Kings, chapter three, verse nine.
So the king of Israel went to the king of Judah and to the king of Edom. And they marched in a roundabout way for seven days.
And there was no water for the army nor for the animals that followed them. And so the king of Israel, Ahab's son, says, alas, not a word we use very often, for the Lord has called us three kings together to deliver us into the hand of Moab. You know, neuroscientists tell us that left unchecked, our brains move to the negative at a ratio of 14 to 1.
Here is the king blaming God for his bad choices.
He embraced the weak leadership, the victim mindset of his father, Ahab, the passivity. I mean, just so many such poor leadership, right? When in doubt, blame God.
Is there anyone thankful that God has a different perspective for your situation?
Is there anyone thankful that you have the mind of Christ available to you? Listen.
Check. Check. Anyone thankful for the mind of Christ?
God has a different perspective for your problem and your situation in your wilderness.
I was born in the natural to think like a Finley, but I've been born again to think like God.
Your perspective is your choice. Here is the king with this victim mindset, and I'm telling you, your mindset is greater than any skill set you can have. Why? Because if you have an ungodly mindset in the spiritual warfare surrounding a well, every gift you have will be sabotaged.
So we Need God's perspective. I'm gonna give you four keys. The first one is this. We have to seek God's perspective. When you are trying to re dig a well, seek God's perspective. Look at verse 11, it says, but Jehoshaphat, who actually was godly, he said, is there no prophet of the Lord here?
Can't we find out what God thinks about this situation?
Through whom we can inquire of the Lord? And an officer of Israel said, hey, hey, hey, wait a second. There is Elisha, son of Shaphat, who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.
Isn't it amazing that they remembered the act of service more than just the spiritual gifting? Come on, Saved people serve people. It doesn't even have to be supernatural and it can mark people. It says, isn't there a guy who washed the hands of Elijah?
I love that in verse 12 it says, the word of the Lord is with him. Come on. A fresh word from the Lord can create a fresh well.
Let me tell you this. I was here last year and I signed up for a prophetic session with Sister Sylvia and Chris Lidline.
And they gave me an incredible word. It was like 23 minutes of a prophetic download, right? But I recorded it on my phone. I came in ready.
But when I went home and I wanted to steward this word and transcribe it, I realized to transcribe a 23 minute word, it's gonna take you like three days. Cause you listen to like four words, pause it, write it out, I mean.
So my friend said, hey, drop that audio file in this AI app and it will transcribe it for you.
And it's free. I said, oh, awesome. So I drop it in there.
What blew me away is when I went to read the transcription, not only did it perfectly transcribe the word in English, but Sister Sylvia, before you prophesied over me, you were praying in the spirit.
And the AI app said new language detected.
What you didn't know before you prophesied over me in English is you were speaking fluent Italian.
Get this. And the app said over and over in your tongue, I will fill your heart with the song of the Holy Spirit. I will fill your heart with the song of the Holy Spirit. I will fill your heart with the song of. Of the Holy Spirit. Come on. How many of you know sometimes when you pray in the spirit, you don't even know what you are setting in motion. And you're digging wells.
So Sister Sylvia, add that to your list of languages you are fluent in. Italian apparently, when you speak in tongues.
Let me ask you this question.
Where are you facing conflict right now?
Where is there a wilderness area of your life?
Let your heart be filled with the song of the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you, worship will dig a fresh well. That word has been so life giving to me, Sylvia. I can't sing worth a lick at all. That is not my gift. But the song of the Holy Spirit has carried me through moments where I am digging a fresh well. I'm not waiting for the worship team. I'm not waiting for a conference. I'm out in a wilderness. I'm saying Holy Spirit right here, right now, with just us, we can get some water flowing.
Amen.
What happens when God turns your well, your wilderness into a well? We've got to seek God's perspective. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, they. And the king of Edom, they went down to Elisha.
You gotta love this. The prophet's a little salty. Elisha said to the king, why do you want to involve me?
Why do you want me to bless your fleshly plans? Go watch. This gets even better. Go to the prophets of your mother and father.
Go to the prophets of Jezebel.
Oh, that's right. My mentor killed them all.
This is Elisha. Elijah just killed all the prophets of baal. There are no more prophets of B. I mean, he is trash talking like you can't even believe. Oh, that's right. You do now need to turn to the Lord. Because on Mount Carmel and in the valley of Jezreel, we killed hundreds of your. Your prophets.
No, the King of Israel answered because it was the Lord who called us three kings together to deliver us into the hands of Moab. Again blaming God. And Elisha said, as surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, I wouldn't pay any attention to you. How many of you know prophets still speak truth to power?
I thank God for the stiffening spine of prophets to help us in moments of craziness. Are you with me?
Number one, we gotta seek God's perspective. The second thing you're gonna see is we've gotta set the atmosphere.
Verse 15. Elisha says, Bring me now a minstrel.
Bring me a musician. And then it happened. When the music played, the hand of the Lord came upon him.
Martin Luther said that worship music is the handmaiden of theology and the servant of the church family. We will sing things before we believe them.
Anointed Worship has a way of expanding our capacity to believe God and to re dig wells.
He said, bring me a minstrel. Have you realized that not every atmosphere is created equal?
I could go to Denny's.
I don't really recommend it very much, but you could go into Denny's and they'll hand you a menu. You walk into Denny's, and it's kind of like, what do you want? It's like, oh, okay, I guess I'm welcome here. They hand you a little menu. It's sticky from the syrup of several customers before them. You know, you sit down, you may or may not get warm breakfast. And if you work at Denny's, there's no offense, but not every atmosphere is created equal.
If I take my wife to Ruth. Chris. Steak. We come in.
The atmosphere is set. Oh, Mr. And Mrs. Finley, come on in.
They have different linens for every course of the meal. The. The lights are. Are dark enough where I don't have to see the other people at the tables, but I could still see my beautiful wife. There's music playing, but it's not too loud. They bring you out a steak on a 500 degree sizzling plate. It's. It's a little bit different of an atmosphere, but I want to just encourage you. I don't know where you lead. I don't know which zip code you live in, but setting the atmosphere is not on them. It's on us.
We always love to talk about how rough an environment we're in, or our people want this, or you, as the leader, get to set the atmosphere in that place. You are not a powerless victim. Amen.
He said, I will turn your wilderness into a well. One prophet and one musician is about to save three nations.
Set the.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: What?
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Paul and Silas. What did Paul do? Paul said, silas, come on. Come on. Hey. Let's set the atmosphere.
Let's worship in this prison and see what God will do.
It set off a chain reaction in an earthquake.
It set everybody free.
Worship will refresh the wineskin of Elam and help us re dig wells like nothing else. Prophetic worship.
Prophetic. Where are the songbirds that we have to raise up that will sing and prophesy before we even step into it?
I'm gonna ask my man who was on the keys. Come on, just play with me here. Just come set an atmosphere.
I said. I said, I'm not Bishop Garlington. I won't make you stay the whole message. But you gotta hang with me, bro. For a long time, because watch this. It just changes the atmosphere a posture of worship.
Just because we're receiving the Word doesn't mean we can't host his presence in worship at the same time.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to today's episode of the well An Elam Fellowship with Leadership Podcast. I pray that you are blessed and encouraged by this time. If you would like to hear the rest of today's message, be sure to tune in next time. You will be blessed.
If you would like to hear more exciting content just like this, be sure to give this podcast a like and a follow wherever you get your podcasts and share this podcast with your friends. We will have more exciting content from Oasis and beyond dropping very soon and you don't want to Missing we are excited about what God is doing here at Elam and we would love for you and your friends to come along on this ride.
So until next time my name is Thomas and from all of us here at Elam, God bless.
