Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Paul: You know who. Me. Lord, I don't have it.
I'm not with it. But you have it. And because you have it, I will move.
I'm your servant.
[00:00:21] Thomas: Hello, and welcome to the well an Elim Fellowship leadership podcast. My name is Thomas and I am excited that you are joining us as we hear part two of Brother Paul Johanson's message from the 2025 Oasis Conference.
In our last episode, Brother Paul discussed the first two types of well that are common in our lives, the wells of personal affirmation and of covenant relationships. If you haven't heard this episode, I highly encourage that you pause and go back and listen to it before we continue.
Today, Brother Paul will deliver part two of this message, highlighting the last three wells that are common in our lives. You don't want to miss this. So join us as we seek to open prophetic wells in our lives, in our churches and in the world today.
[00:01:06] Paul: Enjoy anyway. The well of covenant. Let us be brethren.
So out of conflict came covenant.
The first one was out of desperation came discovery.
The second one here, second well I'm looking at is out of.
Let me get the time here. Oh, yeah, put it on high gear now.
We're dealing with five wells.
We just covered three. We just covered two.
We got three more to go.
Not going to be hard. This is not going to be hard.
Well number three, never open that well.
Well number four, don't you dare open that well.
Let's have them up on the front there. The well of Issac is the well of contention, quarreling, and it's in Genesis 26:20. You'll see it there. And the other one, well of Sitna is a well of strife and accusation and territorialism. They said, that's our well. You get out of here.
We dig it. And this. And all the servants were arguing and fighting, and ultimately the whole thing is a sham.
And Abraham and Isaac did not open that well. No, no, that was Abraham's. They all did this. Now we're in a new day now. Abraham has died.
Now he died.
And God wants to do something new.
When God wants to do something new, don't open those wells.
I remember when, you know, when you have faith as a young person, immature faith, it's okay, it's faith.
But what you learn is that as you get older, your experience may rob from your faith.
I believe we can do that.
Old guy says, we tried that already. It didn't work.
Listen, why don't you just be quiet and let them try it.
You didn't do it. You Failed. It's okay. They give it a try.
When Henry Ford was looking for engineers, he said, I want people working for me that know, that have no idea that it can't be done.
And then they'll go do it.
People say, it can't do this. You can't do this.
The well of Hyssop and the well of Sitna.
No, lay down your arguments, your contention.
Get over it. Every family has it, you know, Elim family. We're at the oasis.
By oasis, I mean in the desert.
It's all desert. We found our. This oasis. And of course, one. One way we found it is we fell on our. On our faces like Hagar and said, I'm so. I'm so desperate, I can't take it.
I found out that Jesus said when he was teaching the Pharisees and scribes, and he said, you know, I just want to warn you, he said that all the things. The time is up for that person, but not for us.
I don't have a timer. I don't go with a timer.
Don't be limited. Don't be limited.
Costa there used to have one right up here in the thing, right there.
And it was a. Tell him they needed to end his sermon. And so when it went off, he said, it's only the beginning. It's only my first ending.
I got four endings. He said, and Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, you know, with everything that happened in the Old Testament, only two.
Only two widows, only two people were visited, and they weren't Jews. That made the people very happy.
And one was a widow and one was a leper.
And I decided to research that myself.
Why did Jesus call attention to those two people and nobody else?
And what I found is this.
I found that they were desperate.
The woman with the child said when the prophet visited her. The prophet visited. She had a visitation here. He visited. Nothing's happened yet.
Visitation means God is visiting you.
But the issue is not visitation. It's restoration and making you who you should be.
And so the prophet visited. The widow said, make me a cake. And she said, oh, sir, you don't understand.
I'm gathering a few sticks right here. I make a little fire, get a little meal, little oil, few drops of oil. I'm going to make it, and then I'm going to make up one cake. My son and I are going to eat it, and then we are going to die.
Those are the kind of people that God visits.
Naaman, with all his riches and everything. It says Naaman. Big.
When you look at his title. Naaman was this. And he was a ruler. And then they said, but he had leprosy. That's added on the end just in case, to let you know who we're talking about.
We don't talk about Naaman the ruler. We talk about Naaman the leper.
When the prophet came to him. That's called visitation.
But he's not healed yet.
Are you with me?
So don't get taken. We need visitation. Most of the time, visitation really takes place in a church. What we need is an awakening.
An awakening usually starts outside the church.
The Jesus movement was an awakening.
And so the prophet said to him, well, I'm come here to find his little maid servant told him, listen, Naaman, you try everything else. Why don't you try that?
So he went down to the prophet. The prophet said, okay, go dip in the river. Seven times he came back. He was so angry, so angry. Remember, he's had a visitation, but he's not healed.
I'm using these two because Jesus said, these are people who were visited.
And then he finally dipped in the water.
Not six times, seven times.
And he was healed.
Because every visitation comes with instructions.
Oh, it's all a blessing. I fell down. Sorry. Excuse me. Excuse me. What did God say?
What did God say?
So I guess I give you an illustration. Now.
When does God work and give you. Because the first thing is that desperation, what invites visitation.
The second point is only obedience guarantees restoration.
I know it's hard. I know it's hard.
I've been through latter rain.
All kinds of good things, wonderful moves of God.
But in each of them, when someone heard from God and did what he said, that's what changed their life.
Final one before I close.
They moved on.
Listen, one more point. Do not spend your time in any way ever opening these two wells.
The last two wells. If you open those two wells, you will never make it to the third well.
The first well is personal.
The second word is. The second well is relational. The third well is international.
Rehoboth. Now, Rehoboth, we know that's where Biden hung out at the beach, but we have another reason. We got another reason for Rehoboth.
Don't you understand? This is how people. We got half the church hanging out on the beach in Rehoboth.
Rehoboth is the place of possibilities.
No limitations.
The Lord said, I.
What?
I have made room for you.
I've been. I made a place to enlarge you. They were. The whole tribe was growing astronomically so they needed God said, I made room. I'm going to expand your borders. I made room. You don't have. I'm going to do something for you.
Most of the time people hang with that well.
When really they should go back to Lahoroi with Hagar.
Hey, God, I need help. Don't make it up in your head.
Know for sure what God wants.
So they moved away a little and they opened this well called Rehoboth.
And Rehoboth means the Lord has made.
In fact now, I told you, Abraham has died.
And they decide we're going to get on with God now. And now they're going forward.
They're going forward.
New well, fresh water, fresh understanding, a fresh move of God. We believe in all these things. What does God want us to do?
The Lord made room for us.
All these wells were dug in Philistine territory. Right in the enemy's territory.
No argument now.
No argument on this well.
Because in this well they went from old problems to new possibilities.
There it is.
Don't get taken with the old problems.
Dig a new well, but do it in grace.
The first is personal.
The second is relational.
The third is international.
And some of us sit around here and we talk about the world and you have no passport.
It's like a missionary went out from a certain organization and said, I'm going to light the whole thing on fire. I'm going to set the whole place on fire with revival.
Once she got out there, she couldn't even ask for a match. She didn't know the language.
Learn the language. Oh, I can't do that. Someone told me in Africa I'm not learning the language. The Holy Spirit is going to give it to me.
He never learned it.
I had to study it.
I'm a little hard headed. I had to study it.
But he is all going to come.
One of the gifts of the Spirit was going to be speaking in tongues and he'll be preaching.
There's all kinds of people in this world.
I just want to say to you tonight, this morning, out of these three wells, we need to ask God to help us.
There's a hat on the bottom of that one. Genesis 26 was. And then the key to that is very interesting. 26 and they went back to the well of covenant to reunite. And then they went forward.
These wells are, are very important in your Christian growth.
And you don't go on without going back.
We say this. There's a beaten path between the cross and the upper room.
I'm a holy Ghost. Excuse Me, if you want to be really a Holy Ghost person, you have to go back constantly.
Go back to the well of Hagar.
Lord, I'm. You know who me. Lord, I'm. I don't have it.
I. I'm not with. But you have it. And because you have it, I will move.
I'm your servant.
The wells.
So whereas the first one. Let's have the final word on there. Then my word to you is we open only the three wells.
Only open three wells.
Lahoroi affirmation. My God always know. God sees you.
If you don't know that you got problems.
You'll be thrown off pass. You won't even know what. You won't even know your name after a while.
Was I even saved?
No, no.
That well says blessed assurance.
Jesus is mine.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Jesus.
The next well.
The well of Beersheba.
Well of covenant promise.
God said that he would bless us, but he would bless us by giving us Aaron and Hur to stand with us in the battle.
Well, I can do it myself. I'm sorry you can't do it yourself.
Well, I'm like the song, I can do it my way. No, you're not going to do it your way. You got to do it his way.
There is no other way for you but his way.
And I wrote in my notes, no fishing in the well of Rehoboth. I mean in the well of Sitna and Essek and Sitna. No more fishing now. It's all over. It's all over.
The people that hurt me. It's okay.
My wife has told me, you know, sometimes men, they don't hold grudges like women, you know, we all have that.
That's good.
If you're going to move in God, you can't help grudges.
When you look at people and you think they're looking daggers at you. No, no, no. I always tell in public speaking. Look in the congregation with three people who are interested and look at them all the time.
The ones that said amen. That's a good sister. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Thank you. The rest of the people are staring daggers at you.
Always find one or two there and bless the socks off of them.
We need more blessing of God.
We need international eyes.
We need this well of Rehoboth. Says the final words of Jesus. Lift up your eyes.
Lift up your eyes.
That's the difference between Abraham.
No, between Abraham. Abraham and Lot.
Lot looked up and he saw in. Oh, I like that land. I Like that land.
When. When he's looking like that, God says to Abraham, Abraham, look as far as you can see.
Look as far as you can see.
It's yours.
So if you want to claim a little thing of your own, this little. This little thing is yours, go ahead.
But if you will hear Jesus, he said, lift up your eyes.
Actually, when Jesus said that was when the people, the disciples were all with Jesus and the woman of Samaria, and all of Samaria is coming out.
And Jesus said, well, oh, look.
Lift up your eyes.
The cities are full of people, and they want life.
And so Samaria was coming out in force when the disciples was kind of fearful even to go there.
We're living in a time when you're going to have to dig a deep well because some of the old wells got too much junk in them.
Too much junk in them.
Got to dig them out. Phil dealt very well last night with that. Any bitterness, resentment, get rid of it.
At my age, it's not worth it.
At your age, it's not worth it. It'll kill you.
I know people are out of the ministry because people didn't treat them right.
They let somebody kick him out of the ministry.
Some person who didn't call them in the first place, put them out in the ministry.
Oh, they stood against me. And I was asked, the boss.
Ask the boss.
Are you done with me, Lord? No.
I got a place for you to go.
And in the next three years, you will lead 1200 souls to Christ.
Isaiah prophesied this. And I close, therefore, with joy shall you draw water from the wells of salvation.
And in that day you will say, praise the Lord.
A missionary who had been in Africa for years and years was on a boat coming back to the States.
Just happened that to go to Africa, you have to go to Europe first. And from there down to Africa, which we did, was on a boat for 41 days.
But the fact is that that missionary was on the boat, and on the same boat was Teddy Roosevelt.
Now, Teddy Roosevelt was a hunter.
Early president. The end of the 1800s, the beginning of the 19, there it is, Teddy Revelle. And he's there enjoying himself. And the big ship is coming across into the harbor, into New York.
He looks out his little porthole and he sees thousands of people.
He sees a huge band, and he remembers who's on the ship.
And the band starts playing Hail to the Chief, and the people are screaming. Teddy is coming back.
And that missionary went to his little room, little cabin, looked out the porthole.
He saw it all going on. He said, lord, I've been out there for 10 years.
I can't see anybody that's there to meet me.
I've come home.
I don't see anybody that I recognize.
And here's this man, only been out there for two or three weeks, and he's coming and everybody's there to.
The Lord spoke to him.
He said, son, you're not home yet.
You're not home yet.
I don't know what you think, but I'm not home yet.
Both my brother and I were geared to make big money.
We said, no, we'll give it up. It's all for the kingdom. We were raised that way. My grandfather and my father. Mother raised them. My mother had a.
In our mind, why do you buy everything, all this stuff? Only the Antichrist will get it all.
But he gave all their money to missions and raised a family of five children in New York City.
When my father died, my. I took my mother's funeral. My brother took my. My mother's, my father's. He took my father's funeral. It was down in New York.
My brother stood up and told a story.
He said, My father was a printer. He worked for Newsday, the biggest paper on Long Island.
He was the one, the original founders. He was with them in the beginning.
And so there's a book written about Oppenheimer and how it grew. And in that book, in that book, he said, and he had the book right there. My brother had it right there. I didn't realize it. He had it right there.
He was reading it. The company was there. And we had these people. And there was one who was a foreman or whatever in the composing room, Paul Johansson. That's my father, Paul Johansen.
My brother took that book, slammed it down and said, that's all my father credit got for a whole life in that paper.
He was with him for 50 years, at least 50. I don't know how many years he was there, but he said, there's another book.
There's another book.
And when that book is open, my father and mother could be in that book.
I think today it's important because I don't know how many more years we have.
I like to challenge young people. I've been with them all the time. People tell me we don't act 90, you know, I said, how do you act 90? I'd never been there before.
I'm asking you now, wherever you're at, we're not home yet.
That's going to be some. Going to be someday, someday when you sit there around the marriage, supper of the lamb.
Is there anybody on the other side will say, because of you, I'm here.
I preached our church's missionary conference recently, and we had a banquet and I preached a banquet.
That's not important.
The story that I'm telling you is important.
I said there was a man, a young boy, that decided he'd walk across the ice to the other side.
He started out on the ice and he got quite a ways out.
And the ice broke.
And the boy fell in there, fell through the ice.
And he's freezing.
The temperature of that water is going to freeze. His body can't get out. He tries to get out. And the ice breaks again.
You know, you people in Newark, we know about that. The ice breaks again, breaks again. He can't get out. Then he sees a man walking on the edge of the shore, and he says, help.
[00:26:39] Thomas: Help. Help.
[00:26:42] Paul: That man looks. He knows the ice is treacherous.
He decides to help.
So that man comes out on his stomach, sliding out to keep the pressure from going on. One spot, he's sliding out on his stomach all the way to the boy, Gets to the boy and he puts his hand in that hole. The boy is freezing, shaking, and the man pulls him.
And when he does, the man breaks. The ice breaks under the man.
Now, the boy and the man are all in the freezing water.
And the man makes a decision because he's more intelligent, more experienced than the young boy.
He says, both of us are not getting out of here alive.
So with that decision, the older man who swam out to get him, crawled out to get him, drops down under the boy, and he pushes him across the ice to slide him out.
And as the boy is going, the man waves his hand and says, tell my wife I love her.
Tell my children I love them.
And with that, he goes under.
Now, my question to you and to me is this.
Does that boy have any obligation to that man?
I want you to think about that.
You know, he looked like he was another race. And I don't deal with other races.
You think that's. That's a good reason why he shouldn't tell a man's wife that he loved? That man died for him.
It looks like he comes from a different country, and I don't know that I'm sorry.
Is that sufficient why we can't tell people the final words of Jesus who got under us and slid us to safety?
Today, I just want to challenge you.
You may have to visit over and over again the well of Hagar Lahoroi.
Or you may have to go to Bathsheba. Bathsheba and Rehoboth is always offering you a new day, a new way.
But what is the motivation?
Let's pray together.
We are so in need of you, Jesus, more than ever, more than ever. We need you, Lord, when we see you face to face. We don't want to stand there with nothing in our hands.
With all that you did for us, we must bring our sheaves with us.
So today, for this body of people, Elim family, let them not be taken up with little differences and little territorialism and.
And let us get over it, Lord.
We don't want to be a denomination where. That's not where you send me. You can send anybody any way you want to.
I ask you that we live humble lives broken before you.
We. We'd be not interested in anything at all. We don't care about a title or about money. None of those things make it. It's only you that matter.
So I ask you to bless my brothers and sisters. Thank you for the. For the shoulders that we stand on those old brothers and sisters that went before us.
We're here today, Lord, and we want to.
To be able to take somebody and slide them free that they will serve you.
So today in our hearts, we commit ourselves afresh.
When we stand before you and you open the book, not only our name is going to be in there, be a long list under that belong list, because you did it.
And we continue to draw well water from the wells of salvation.
And in that day, in that day, we will say praise the Lord.
Amen, and God bless you.
[00:31:30] Thomas: Thank you for listening to today's episode of the well, an Elim Fellowship Leadership Podcast. I pray that you were blessed and encouraged by this time. If you'd like to hear more content just like this, be sure to give this podcast a like and a follow. Wherever you get your podcast and share this podcast with your friends, we have more exciting content from Oasis and beyond dropping very soon and you don't want to miss it. We are excited about what God is doing here at Elim and we would love for you and your friends to come along on this ride. So until next time, my name is Todd. And from all of us here at Elim, God bless.
