>> Hi there, Jon Hamill here with Lamplighter Ministries,
and today I want to share with you a defining miracle
that has affected myself and my wife Jolene,
both in ministry and personally in a very profound way.
>> Jolene and I fell in love back in the fall of 2003,
and I asked for her hand in marriage.
She graciously accepted.
And then she told me an amazing fact.
She told me that years beforehand, actually,
seven years before we met,
she had actually received a wedding invitation
to our wedding.
>> I didn't really know how to process that.
I'm like, excuse me? But she had had a dream
where she received an envelope.
And when she opened up the envelope,
it was an invitation to our wedding.
And she didn't know who the person was in the wedding.
She didn't remember.
She didn't know what year she was going to get married,
but she remembered the date, December 20th.
That's the craziest thing. So we looked up December 20th
and we discovered that December 20th
was the first day of Hanukkah.
And my ministry, now our ministry, was called Lamplighter
Ministries. We didn't know too much about Hanukkah.
Maybe you don't either.
But we did know that there is a menorah involved
and some spiritual revolutionaries
retook the temple after it was desecrated
and they re-consecrated it to the Lord.
And we thought, wow,
Lord's really saying something with this.
And he wants us to re-consecrate our lives,
and in the re-consecration of our lives to him and in him,
to each other, he's going to set a new course for the future.
That's what covenant always does.
And so we decided to order a menorah from Jerusalem
to hold our unity candle.
And we were going to make the unity candle lighting ceremony
the centerpiece for our whole wedding.
So excited about this. And we were very careful
about selecting just the right menorah.
And we planned out where we were going to be
when we were going to look at our our friends
gathered in the audience
and when we were going to look at each other
and we were going to light the candle.
We rehearsed that more than we rehearsed the wedding.
Well, God has an unusual way about him.
>> And in our wedding, he actually kind of jumped
in ahead of schedule. Because we
decided to start our our wedding with worship,
and we selected this very precious song to us,
Glory, Glory, Send Your Glory, My Glorious.
And so during worship,
my best man Will Ford looks at me.
He kind of nudges me, and I'm like,
Will, I'm worshiping.
And he points over to the menorah
holding our unity candle, and in front of everybody,
as we were worshiping on the first day of Hanukkah,
God lit that candle.
>> I did a double take, and when I looked over,
everybody else saw that I was looking over at this menorah
and there was this collective gasp
is everybody saw that that center candle
had supernaturally lit in front of everybody.
God sent a holy fire to light the candle of our menorah
as we were singing Glory, Glory,
send Your Glory as we were coming in to covenant together.
You know, that was an absolutely memorable event.
>> But God has kept the passion of our hearts as fire.
He's also directed our ministry.
I began to research Hanukkah and discovered something amazing.
I discovered that these spiritual revolutionaries,
they were known as Maccabees because their leader,
Judah Maccabee, decided to come against the strongest army
of the known world at the time
to retake their desolate heritage.
Their heritage had been come under siege
and the covenant of God had come under siege.
The temple was defiled with Baal worship,
and they were compelled by God
to re-consecrate the temple to the Lord
and renew covenant with him.
The story of Hanukkah shows that there was only enough oil
to keep the fire burning for one day,
and yet the oil somehow was supernaturally supplied
so that the fire would burn for eight days
straight until they could get a fresh supply.
>> And there's some of you out there
who are worried about your fire, your flame.
You're worried that maybe the oil is run dry.
I want to say to you that God
is wanting to relight your lamp stand,
and he's wanted to provide you with fresh oil.
>> His heart is described as fire.
His love is described as fire. In Song of Songs,
set me as a seal upon your arm
and as a seal upon your heart.
>> For love is as strong as death.
Its passion is as ardent as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.
God wants to set you on fire for him,
that you can become a burning lamp, a spiritual revolutionary
to retake our desolate sanctuaries,
and retake our desolate heritages,
and to release a new beginning to them.
And I'm praying that for you personally,
whether it is your marriage, whether it is a family member,
who's maybe gone in a different direction,
or whether it is the desolate heritage of a church,
or maybe justice issues in your own life
and world that you feel have gone dormant.
>> The Lord is wanting you to pray and welcome his fire in.
We are in a season of Holy Fire right now.
He's releasing tongues of fire, just as in the Book of Acts.
He's going to relight your lamp of passion for him,
and he's going to relight your flame of passion
to see dormant destinies realized.
Let me pray for you. Father, in Jesus name,
we just thank you for the release of Holy Fire
that counters the enemy's fire.
>> We ask for grace to retake the essential aspects
of our heritage that have been so compromised.
And we ask Father God for each
and every person, in the midst of the chaos
and the confusion, that you make us burning lamps for you.
We love you, we honor you,
and we bless you in Jesus' name, Amen.