We left off beginning to look at Saul’s life.

Remember, when the Israelites begged God for a king, God warned them what having a king would entail for their lives, but they still wanted to have a king like all the surrounding nations had kings. Of course, God had given them a good system of government, but they wanted to be like the others. Saul was the best choice God had at the time for king for his people.

1 Samuel 10:6-7 Then the Spirit of the LORD will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs come to you, that you do as the occasion demands; for God is with you.

Before Jesus Christ died and sent His Holy Spirit for all, the Holy Spirit did not reside in a person, it came to rest upon a person for a period of time and empowered the person situation by situation. When the Holy Spirit came upon Saul, he was a changed man. With the power of the Holy Spirit we are not who we are before we are changed by the Spirit.

Pastor Don mentioned about marriage. How people tended to love the person, then they wed the person, and seek to change them. That for a marriage to succeed the person has to keep in mind the things that they loved about the person before the wedding and remind the person of their love for them, that it hasn’t changed since when they courted. If all they do is focus on changing the person, the love will feel very conditional.

God is different, He loves us as we are (He knows our past, present, and future), and when He sends change into our lives, He does not love us any less if we don’t change, or any more if we do change – but He wants the best for us, so He will keep challenging us to change for our own good.

1 Samuel 10:10 When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God came upon him and he prophesied among them. And it happened, when all who knew him formerly saw that he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said one to another, “What is this that has come upon the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

The difference in Saul when God’s Spirit was on Him is very noticeable. Once God’s Spirit came on Saul, he was turned into a king and a prophet.

1 Samuel 11:6 Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news and his anger was greatly aroused.

Saul heard of disrespect to the people of Jabesh Gilead, and he burned with righteous anger at the reproachful offer Nahash made to the men. Saul takes an Ox and cuts it into 12 pieces and send one to each tribe of Israel telling them that this is what will happen to the oxen of the tribes that do not go into battle with Saul.

1 Samuel 11:13 But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the LORD has accomplished salvation in Israel.”

Here Saul gave proper credit to God for winning the battle.

1 Samuel 12:20-25 Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart and do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. For the LORD will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you His people. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

This speech by the prophet Samuel took place at Saul’s coronation. God picked Israel to be His chosen people, and even through today, God has a special love for Israel. God knows that the people will not always follow Him perfectly, but when they choose what is not of God, they are wasting their time going after empty things. But to love the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all their heart and thanksgiving, will keep the people walking with God. If they choose to do wickedly, they will be swept away and so will their king. (Heather’s note, but God does preserve a remnant in all situations.) We will see this happen over and over in Israel’s history.

1 Samuel 13:11-12 And Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, then I said, “The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the LORD. Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.”

Samuel had told Saul to wait on him to come down and offer up a sacrifice to God. When Samuel did not show up on Saul’s timetable, Saul decided to do the sacrifice himself, but a king was not to be a priest/prophet/king all three roles until the one who was to come (Jesus) would come to fulfill all those roles. What Saul did was to forget who he was fighting for (God), to forget that it is God who is in control, to trust that God had the situation in hand.

Whose army was it? God’s? Why was Saul telling God’s personnel (Samuel) what to do? Saul was not the pastor/priest. Saul began to feel self-important, forgetting that his accomplishments and skills came from God. Saul turned the situation to a personal one, I FELT, I SAW, YOU DID NOT COME, PEOPLE SCATTERED FROM ME. Saul should have realized that God was fully in control, even though the circumstances may not seem to agree with God’s truth.

1 Samuel 13:13-15 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you. For now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people present with him, about six hundred men.

Saul had disobeyed God, and that disobedience cost him dearly. Saul’s kingdom would ultimately pass to David. Saul had choices to make here, he could have repented, asked God’s forgiveness, and accepted what God ordained. Instead we will see Saul nurse his anger against David. Saul could have been a King until his last days and spent his time grooming David for his future kingship. Instead Saul spent year after year, after year seeking to kill David, chasing him around the wilderness, and ignoring the kingly duties he should have been doing.

Saul did not learn from the previous mistake. He then gets into a battle where his troops are losing mightily. The ark was never meant to be used in battle, without God’s express direction, but Saul orders the ark to be in the battle. The people were trembling, but instead of getting help from God, Saul told the priests to withdraw their hand (Verse 19). Even with that rebelion of Saul, God preserved the people of Israel. It is here that Saul opened up the door for satan to enter in and cause confusion. When we do not seek God’s desires, we are open to the desires of those who seek to harm us, guided by satan.

1 Samuel 16:14-15 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.”

We asked Pastor Don about this passage because it sure looks like God is putting the distressing spirit on Saul, but Pastor Don explained that in Hebrew there is no permissive verb. So he gave an illustration using someone in our group. He had someone pretend to pull another person’s hair, and Pastor Don pretended to stop the hand of the hair puller. Then he set up the same scenario, but instead of stopping the person from pulling the hair, Pastor Don pretended to be not involved in the situation, instead looking at his nails.

In the first scene Pastor Don actively intervened, but in the other, he let the circumstances occur. The person was outside of the hedge of Pastor Don’s protection.

In Saul’s case, Saul’s disobedience was so severe that Saul removed himself from the covering of God’s protection, and God did not intervene. God let Saul face the repercussions of his disobedience.

In Hebrew there is no way to express the permissive – it is done by a I did not stop it.

The reason the image of God looks so radically different in the Old Testament and the New Testament is partly a language factor. In Greek (the New Testament) there are permissive verbs, so the same sentence would read differently if it was in Greek.

Satan is wandering the Earth looking for opportunities to kill, steal, and destroy. Our job is to prevent him. Satan can’t be everyplace, so we need to be prepared, and do our best to defeat his plans for us.

When Saul had the Holy Spirit removed from him and lost his kingship authority, Saul had choices. He could have helped David in David’s new role. Instead, Saul chose to nurture his hurt and people around him noticed the difference. Saul killed more ruthlessly, he kept the door open for the demon spirit to oppress him, he was distressed and oppressed.

Both Cain and Saul could have had different outcomes to their lives if they had repented. Saul kept sinning and disobeying God, culminating with a visit to a witch and divination from some sort of spirit (might have been Samuel, might not), but God prophesied Saul’s death. In 1 Samuel 28:19 “Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also deliver the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.

(Heather’s note: If you continue to read you will see the major difference between Saul and David was that David kept consulting the Lord. He did not act on His own, and He kept His relationship with God, repenting for sins when committed, and putting God first. God called David a man after His own heart.) It all boils down to choice.

Hoping you had a great Sunday.
Heather

We had a great Bible study today as well as a Thanksgiving Lunch. I was able to get a picture of most of the people who were at Bible study today.

Pastor Don is in the blue shirt on the right, Pastor Ted is in the white shirt to his left. I am in the black shirt in front of Pastor Ted.

Today Pastor Don talked about Spiritual Warfare. He started by saying that the body of Christ runs into trouble if they look for a demon under every chair. Not every thing that causes us trouble is caused by demons.

Genesis 4:4-7 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

So often the Body of Christ is looking for an excuse for what they are going through, so the devil gets blamed, but he hasn’t shown up in the particular situation yet. Satan can’t show up until we invite him in.

We need to discern how things operate in the two kingdoms, how they operate with good and evil.

If you look at the above passage you will see that Cain was on his own, satan did not show up until later. Cain had presented an unacceptable sacrifice to God, and God did not respect the offering. Cain’s response was to get angry and his countenance fell (depressed). These reactions were all Cain’s flesh and carnality. The carnality of Cain’s heart, and our carnality is what leaves the door open for satan to oppress us. But when Cain got angry and his countenance fell satan wasn’t present yet, he is lying at the door waiting for a way to get in.

When God gives us a calling, often the ability to perform that calling does not show up until we need God’s provision for the ability. We usually want God to give us the power before we take a step in fulfilling our calling, but that is not how God works. He won’t give us the power until we start doing and recognize the need for God’s help. We need to know that God did it, so that He gets the glory and we are not puffed up in our flesh.

(Heather’s note, I used to have a problem with this idea until I realized that the reason God needs to get the glory is He doesn’t have insecurities. He can handle the glory and do well with it. If I managed to gain the glory, I would in my flesh, misuse the glory or get sidetracked. It is far safer for me to give God the glory that He deserves than it is to hold onto it for me.)

In Verse 7, God tells Cain that if he would do well, he would be accepted. At this point, Cain could have repented, brought God an acceptable sacrifice and God would have been pleased. Instead, Cain nursed his anger and depression, and satan was lying in wait at the door. Cain had to do something to make the sin manifest, it couldn’t force it’s way into Cain’s life without him opening up the door to sin. God is showing Cain that he has to rule over that demon waiting at the door. Instead, Cain chose to respond to his fleshly feelings and murder Abel.

When we come across people who are in need of spiritual warfare, we know that they have already opened up that door. They have gone through the process and have already fallen for the demonic. They have made a decision based on their flesh and carnality, and refused to take authority over the demonic. Thus the demonic is activated because they permitted it. There is a line to cross in order to sin, to be in lust, or perversion.

Pastor Don asked us how many of us have been in a hotel room with the clicker for the TV. When you go through the choices, you can have ordinary TV, new movies, older movies, and then there are the X-rated movies. If we take the clicker and select the X-rated movie, then we have opened the door for the demon of lust. We have crossed that line. And often the decision to give way to the demonic is just a split second decision.

What happens when we give way to one of the demonic forces is that at first we have a choice, but as we give way more and more times, the demonic forces begin to take over in us. We often have to work ourselves into the spirit of rage, starting out with being upset, and then feeding those upset feelings, mulling over them until they emerge as full blown rage.

We have to remember that the devil is a defeated foe and he needs permission to impact us. That is why God told Cain that he should rule over it.

Pastor Don had us raise our right hand and say, “All my thoughts are not my thoughts.” Then he explained by saying haven’t you been driving down the road and gotten a sudden urge to crash into a tree? That thought was not from you, but from satan trying to get you to do something that decreases your efficiency. Or have you done something, and then spent a lot of time undermining what you did, worrying about things that you ordinarily don’t worry about? We are  not to claim every thought that is in our brain, for all thoughts do not originate from us.

Pastor Don talked about a recent experience he had on the throughway. He was driving and saw a huge truck trying to merge onto the road, but a pickup truck refused to give way to give the truck a chance to get onto the highway. The pickup truck could have either slowed down, or moved over a lane to give the trucker a chance to merge. Instead the pickup held its ground and the trucker ended up scraping against the guard rail. The trucker, once he got on the highway raced after that pickup and forced it off the road before speeding on. (When Pastor Don was asked what he did, he said when he saw what was going on he decreased speed to put great distance between the two trucks).

Pastor Don said that there was a point where that driving situation opened the door for a reaction that allowed satan to influence it, when the anger overtook rationality.

There is a split second moment when we realize a desire is not of God, and we have to discern in that split second moment and make a choice – do we go with God or do we open the door for the demonic. That split second moment is in the realm of my responsibility to decide.

We all have stuff in our flesh that we need to discern in a split second so we don’t open up the door. When the door opens the demonic presence brings thoughts our flesh wants to believe.

Kenneth Hagin says that an evil thought if it is not repeated will die from lack of activity.

Thoughts can’t hurt us, can’t harm us if we watch words and are aware of the fact that what we say affects what we get. We need to be cognizant of what we are saying.

Pastor Don pointed out that not everyone likes him, and he had to learn that their dislike of him often has nothing to do with him. For example, some people do not like authority figures, others might have had a bad day and chose to take out their feelings on Pastor Don. Pastor Don said that he cannot control who likes him, but he can control how he reacts to that person. If he acts from a point of Christ’s love or if he reacts in the flesh. He chooses to act from a godly point of view. One example was a angry email that he received from a new visitor to the church who did not like something that affected his daughter. The person writing the email wasn’t even present, but heard about the situation from his daughter. Pastor Don responded to the email, apologized, explained the situation so the person had the whole story and saw that it wasn’t what it seemed. The person who wrote the email responded back immediately surprised that Pastor Don would care enough to answer such an angry email, the situation was diffused, they were impressed by Pastor Don’s loving response, and the door was left open for that person to come back to church. But Pastor Don pointed out that he also had a reaction to the angry email that was not a godly reaction, but he chose to do what was right, not what his flesh wanted to do. He could have gotten up in the pulpit and preached against the situation, or he could have fired back a nasty email to the person, or he could have let it affect his dealings with others. Instead, Pastor Don kept the goal of the harvest of souls in mind and responded correctly.

(Heather’s note, I feel such empathy for pastors, because I suspect that they get lots of negative responses, and not enough positive responses for the good that they do. Just from my time as a Girl Scout leader or president of a few organizations, I know that people jump on any little thing you do wrong, and forget all the thousands of right things that you do.)

In Genesis 4:8 we see “…sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

There are different types of demonic oppression. There is the kind Cain experienced, reaping what he sowed and then refusing to rule over his fleshly impulses. Then there is the Job kind of oppression, where God permitted satan to oppress Job, and Job went through the experience. In order to know which is which, we have to ask ourselves if our heart is right or is God allowing something. God has a plan for us. When God lets us go through an experience that is uncomfortable there is a growing for us, and a preparing for a new position. One example is that it took 11 days to walk from Egypt to the Promised Land, but God led the Israelites around the wilderness for 40 years until they reached a level that they could be successful in the Promised Land.

Pastor Don gave us two word pictures for how the devil seeks to oppress us.

1. A scab. When we get a cut, the cut scabs over, and that area is tender, sensitive, and still healing. The devil looks for scabs on people, wanting to irritate the scab. If we have the scab of rejection in us, we look for others to reject us, so satan sends someone our way who will  reject us. Or we spend our time rehearsing what we will say when we are rejected, end up working ourselves into a bad attitude which causes  people to reject us, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. People have different scabs in their lives, many of which are not obvious to the outside observer. But satan is there ready to make a mental suggestion to someone, who might unknowingly come over and address us in the area of our scabs. Some people do not want to acknowledge their scabs, they pretend they don’t exist, or feel that they have to be perfect. If a person attacks you and you discern it is from a scabbed area of their lives, it is important not to take it personally, for that attack comes from their emotional baggage.

2. One of our members has a dog. If she brings the dog to Bible study and the dog comes into the room, Pastor Don, pointed out that the dog would come around smelling our scabs, and then the owner tells the dog to go lay down. The dog lays down, and doesn’t move and we can continue our Bible study. But then when would the dog move? When the owner called it. The dog would remain quiet until the owner calls, then the dog has permission to move. It is the same with the demonic forces in  our lives, we call them into action, before we call them they do not have permission to move. That is why Pastor Don is careful what subjects he allows to be preached from the pulpit, not wanting to stir up the demonic influences. Some subjects when brought up in the pulpit would have the capacity to take the focus off of the main issue of Bible teaching and Jesus. One such subject is politics. If Pastor Don took a particular political point of view, it could alienate other members who did not agree, and all of a sudden there would be division in the congregation. Far better to teach God’s view of the world and the world’s situations and let people make intelligent, Biblical choices.

Carnal things feed the old man in us, but God’s plan is for us to move beyond the old man, to die to self, and live in the power of the anointing.

We then looked at this process in the life of King Saul. Remember God warned the Israelites that the idea of a king was not desirable, but they kept insisting, so God gave them the desires of their hearts, and later they would regret the choice.

I think I will save the discussion of King Saul for tomorrow so that this post is not too long.

 I hope you have a wonderfully blessed weekend.

Heather

Each plague escalates in it’s impact on the people. But from now on, the plagues will affect only the Egyptians, God is going to set apart the Israelites from the rest of the plagues. This underscores the fact that God set the Israelites apart from the other nations, but it also should serve to let Pharaoh see that there is a divine hand behind the plagues that can direct them. If Pharaoh was really god incarnate on earth, he should have been able to do something about the plagues, but he couldn’t. God is showing Pharaoh that God is Sovereign and Pharaoh is not. So many of the new agers today spout off words about how they are so in control of their lives, but the fruit of their lives testifies otherwise about their control. We kid ourselves, and it is only when we finally realize that God is God and we are not, that our lives begin to make sense.

Exodus 8:20 And the LORD said to Moses, “Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water. Then say to him, “Thus says the LORD: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Or else, if you will not let My people go, behold I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand. And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall be.

There are some truths to consider. The Israelites were God’s favorites, and they still had to live through some pretty horrific plagues, lice, frogs, blood, etc. Sometimes being a child of God does not stop the troubles from coming, it just means that we walk through the troubles with God by our side. But there are other times when being a child of God insulates us from what bugs others. Pharaoh and his people are going to be bugged big time. But they are going to observe that the Israelites will not have the problem of flies. It has to indicate a divine hand, because we know that no matter how careful we are, when we open our doors in the summer flies get in. These flies are going to land on the people of Egypt, their floors, their houses, their things. For the fastidious Egyptians, and the priests who are so concerned about purity, this is going to be a major problem.

It is true, when God comes into our lives, He does make a difference in them. We are set apart from the world and Egypt is symbolic of the world. We become people who walk IN the World, but not OF the World. We are going to see Pharaoh try and convince Moses to go a bit out to sacrifice, but not stray too far from the world. I think you remember how Abram and the other  patriarchs tended to go where God told them, but to stay at the border of the land. That always ended up getting them into trouble. God wants us to whole-heartedly follow Him, not hang around on the edge.

You may notice in your Bibles that the words “of flies” is in italics. That is because those words are added to make the passage make more sense. Sometimes the words are accurate, other times they aren’t. In this case we aren’t certain exactly what the swarms are, but it is assumed flies of some sort. But what kind of flies? It could have been the scarab – also called the dung beetle because the scarabs would roll up their eggs into cocoons made of dung, and then the babies would emerge from these balls of dung, so it represented life. The scarab beetle had mandibles that could saw through wood and destroy property much like a termite. The creator god amon-ra had the head of a scarab.

I think it might be the gadfly, a blood sucking fly that tended to hang around the eyes and caused a lot of blindness. And we, by now, have seen that the Egyptians and the Pharaoh were spiritually blind. Others say it could be a dog fly which fastened itself to the human body. One thought crossed my mind is that beelzebub was called the lord of the flies, so there is an element of satan in this too.

Sometimes I wonder how dumb Pharaoh was. When he saw all the signs and wonders, didn’t he figure out that he was not god? Didn’t he realize that something was nudging him to make a decision. Moses has come through. But this is part of God’s plan to restore what satan meant for harm. When the Egyptians finally walk out of Egypt, they will walk out wealthy, having received 400 years of back pay for their slavery.

Please note that today people are acting as dumb as Pharaoh. God is showing that He is true to His word, the Bible, and people are still choosing to ignore the prominent signs and wonders that are here on earth, they cling as tenaciously as these flies to their sins, to their false beliefs, figuring that if they believe it hard enough God will change His mind. God will not change. We can choose not to believe in gravity, but if we step off of a building, we will fall to the ground regardless of our beliefs. People could save themselves a lot of grief by accepting God at His word.

Exodus 8:24-25 And the LORD did so. Thick swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh, into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God in the land.”

I guess the flies bugged Pharaoh enough that he now wants to play “Let’s make a deal” with God. This is a game I think we all attempt to play with God, but God does not play Let’s make a deal. He knows what is best for us and guides us to that. The land was corrupted by the swarms.  Remember flies are dirty creatures that spread disease, and also makes it impossible for the priests to maintain their “purity”. So the first deal Pharaoh tries to make is to allow the people to sacrifice to your God (notice it is your God), in the land. Pharaoh is not acknowledging God as God for himself. We fool ourselves, I sure did, thinking that I could pick the god I wanted to worship. That all gods are the same, it didn’t matter, but that the Christian God was not my god. How wrong I was, God is God is God. We can pretend not, God won’t force Himself on us, but there is only one God. Pharaoh wants Moses to stay in Egypt (in the flesh, in sin, in the world) and do the motions of sacrifice. But that is not what God has called Moses or us to do. God wants a total commitment, we can’t give ourselves halfway to God, he wants us all. He will take us, clean us up, and help us, but He can’t do that unless we are willing to die to ourselves, to die to our flesh.

Exodus 8:26-27 And Moses said,”It is not right to do so, for we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God. If we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, then will they not stone us? We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as He will command us.”

Three days journey, Jesus was in the tomb for three days. God’s plan was not to have the Israelites leave for three days and then come back, no, God was planning on total liberty for His people. But first God wanted to show how unreasonable Pharaoh was being, that He would not allow this short respite in work. The three days into the wilderness is a way of separating oneself from the World. Remember when Joseph’s family first came into Egypt to escape famine, Goshen was given to them as a good place to raise sheep. But shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians, they wanted nothing to do with shepherds. It was God’s way of keeping the Israelites from commingling with the Egyptians and becoming corrupted by their ways. God used Egypt to preserve the Israelites, even though their life was hard. But now God is going to separate His people for Himself, and the first step was to separate the people from the plague on Egypt. It serves as a not so subtle reminder to the Israelites that sin stinks (the frogs), and that there is no good reason to spend time with the Egyptians. Swatting flies is a good deterrent.

Exodus 8:28 So Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away. Intercede for me.

Pharaoh is still trying to get Moses to compromise. Satan will do that. How many of us have made a resolution, and then the next thing we know we are tempted to make a tiny compromise? Over time those tiny compromises add up. Moses will not bite into Pharaoh’s plan for compromise. Notice, Pharaoh has told Moses, “Intercede for me.” It is a command. I think Pharaoh is a bit above himself, thinking he can order God around. God may choose to remove a plague, but it is not because Pharaoh ordered him to do so.

Exodus 8:29 Then Moses said, “Indeed I am going out from you, and I will entreat the LORD, that the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. But let Pharaoh not deal deceitfully anymore in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the LORD.

And of course we know the outcome of this entreaty by Moses. I think Moses really wanted Pharaoh to deal honorably. Remember, Moses was raised with this man, they probably played and studied together as children. I am certain Moses would rather have Pharaoh make the right decision, to repent, and save himself from all this distress.

Exodus 8:30-32 So Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the LORD. And the LORD did according to the word of Moses. He removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. Not one remained. But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.

Notice, who hardened Pharaoh’s heart – Pharaoh did. There was no attitude of thankfulness for a plague removed, there was no gratitude to God. Pharaoh just hardened his heart.

Notice something that is missing from this plague. NO ROD. The first three plagues were brought about using Aaron’s rod. Here it is speaking forth. There is also a progression. Plagues 1-3 dealt with the people’s comfort. Plagues 4-6 their possessions, and then the last three is death and destruction.  In Revelation the plagues also progress in severity. It is as if God is holding back His hand, wanting people to repent. But if they don’t then He increases the pressure to change. Kind of like when I deal with my kids when they are disobedient. The first repercussions might be a word in season, but if the behavior persists it results in loss of privileges.

I am hoping you have a great Friday. We are having a Thanksgiving Pot Luck before Bible study, and I am looking forward to the fellowship.

Heather

Tonight I had to miss Wednesday Bible study because my son’s school had a financial aid for college workshop, and this is his senior year, sigh. They grow so fast!

 Let the plagues begin. Our cliffhanger so far: Pharaoh has taken a hardened heart stance, and refuses to let the Israelites go. God has shown that this stance was unreasonable because the first request was to go three days out into the wilderness to sacrifice to God but Pharaoh refused to give the Israelites even one day off. God showed His power by turning Aaron’s rod into a serpent and swallowing up the magician’s imitation serpents, then He caused the water to turn to blood, and then we saw the plague of frogs. At the end of the plague of frogs, Pharaoh hardened HIS heart and refused to honor his promise to Moses. Remember, God does not harden Pharaoh’s heart at first, that is a choice that Pharaoh makes. But, God – knowing the end from the beginning – knew that Pharaoh would choose the hard heart.

The next plague is one where we see the last of the magicians – they are unable to replicate it, and recognize that God is God. It is a plague of lice.

Exodus 8:16-17 So the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron,’Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’”  And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

Again, this is not a Egyptian specific plague, all the people (including the Israelites) and animals suffered from this plague. I don’t know if you have ever had to deal with lice. One day my daughter brought home the lovely pest from her preschool class. She shared the lice with my husband, my three kids and myself. Trust me, some things are better NOT shared. We used the shampoo, picked out nits, washed clothing and toys, threw out a lot of stuff and many of their favorite toys were put into plastic bags for months until the infestation was quelled. My scalp still itches just thinking about it, and the funny thing we learned was that lice tended to like clean hair and moved much easier to clean hair than dirty hair. Trust me, having lice is no fun and every time that letter came home from school after that, we would check out heads for the first signs of infestation. Those eggs cling tenaciously to the hair.

The Egyptians valued cleanliness of the person so much that, even though their pictures display long hair, the hair was really wigs and men and women shaved their heads. I was researching lice on the internet and found a Egyptian comb that resembles the lice nit removing comb of today, only this one was found in a tomb, and one scientist even found the dead bodies of lice on the comb! Yech!

Head shaving had benefits, one was the climate was hot and bald heads were more comfortable, and bald heads helped to keep lice from infesting the people (except when God intervenes).

What is interesting is that Egyptian priests were fastidious about cleanliness. They went so far as to not only shave their heads, but to remove all body hair including eyebrows and eyelashes. They shaved every third day to avoid the danger of lice and other uncleanness. So this plague of lice also impacted their “ministry.”

Exodus 8:18 Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast.

Remember, the magicians up to now were able to replicate what Moses and Aaron did through God’s instructions. But creating more lice was not really a solution to that pesky problem, in fact it would have made matters worse. We know that that is satan’s plan, to make things worse.

Exodus 8:19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them just as the LORD had said.

The magicians realized that God’s work was in this plague, and they acknowledged God. But Pharaoh hardened his heart again.

Before I got saved, in my first reading of the Bible I used to bristle when I saw Pharaoh’s heart being hardened, thinking that maybe God had hardened my heart. I was so wrong. Having kids of my own, I sort of understand why God could predict that Pharaoh’s heart would harden. I know my kids so well that I can predict their reactions in certain situations. One son is best approached in the evening and is a poor morning person. Certain words can trigger certain reactions. I know what will make their tempers flair, and where their sensitive areas are.  God knows us so well that he has numbered the hairs on our head. He knows how we will react in certain situations, but gives us the chance to choose to react differently. God also knew the numbers of hair follicles on Pharaoh’s bald head.

The finger of God is seen in various places in the Bible. God fashioned Adam from the dust of the ground with His fingers. We know that God wrote the first set of the Ten Commandments on stone with His finger (Exodus 31:18). We see God’s finger in Daniel 5 when King Belshazzar had a feast using Israelite sacred items, and the finger came down and wrote on the wall MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Which meant that King Belshazzar had been weighed in the balance and found wanting by God.

When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, he stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger, telling the woman’s accusers that whoever was without sin would cast the first stone. (I really wonder what he wrote). In Luke 11:20 Jesus talks about casting out demons with the finger of God.

The magicians were not heard of after they acknowledged God. I guess Pharaoh felt that they were no longer useful to him.

I used to marvel at the blindness of Pharaoh, I certainly by now (I tell myself) would realize that something was afoot, and that maybe God meant what He said about letting the Israelites go, but not so. I also suspect that there are times when God gives us warnings and we don’t heed them, ultimately dealing with the consequences of our disobedience.

Today, with so many of the prophesies in the Bible having been fulfilled, those prophesies that are remaining loom. People believe that God is not going to act on them, so they walk through life making God into their image, assuming that there won’t be the judgment that Jesus and God have shown will happen. They assume that, since God hasn’t stopped some of the sinful behavior that is rampant in our culture today, that God doesn’t care. They try to assume that God’s word is not relevant today because times have changed, so God’s feelings about issues would change. This is not so. God is true to His word. When He says there will be judgment, there will be. It is just the mercy of God that He is withholding judgment until more can come to know Him. But God will fulfill every prophesy. He fulfilled hundreds of prophesies in the life of Jesus, so many that statisticians say that it would be 1 to the 157th power to have all of them fulfilled. But that is exactly what God did. Why would He leave prophesies hanging? God is true to His word.

Pharaoh should have recognized the finger of God and saved himself and his people some grief, but he did not care, his heart was hardened. I pray that God keeps my heart tender to His will so that I obey.

Have a blessed night!

Heather

I am taking a Beth Moore Bible study called Living Beyond Yourself, and in the process of the study we were discussing faithfulness. Beth pointed out that God is faithful and we can trust Him. She mentioned that at times we have difficult circumstances that God delivers us from, or gives us the option to go around, over, or under them. But there are those times when it is difficult and we have to go THROUGH them. In Exodus, Moses and the Israelites are going to have to go through their circumstances, many of which are uncomfortable. Besides showing His glory to the Egyptians, God is also helping the Israelites to develop their faith and trust in Him, and also to develop spiritual muscles. Sometimes the tough circumstances are where we do our most spiritual growth.

I feel like I am sharing a cliffhanger movie with you, and Exodus is a wonderful cliffhanger. The people’s lives have been tough during their 400 years of slavery, and Pharaoh has just made their lives more difficult as they have to keep up the brick quota but also scramble for hay to make bricks. Pharaoh has been shown two signs that God gave Moses and Aaron to show him – the rod turned to a serpent, and the first plague, water turned to blood. Instead of realizing that these requests from God needed to be honored, Pharaoh chose to harden his heart. Pharaoh did not see why he should honor the God of the Hebrews, and feels that he is on par with God. The next plague has some surprising results. Remember, many of these plagues are also seen in Revelation. But for now, we will find things hoppin’ in Pharaoh’s kingdom.

When God made the plagues He also was showing that He was more powerful than the Egyptians’ animal idols. The first animal idol that God tackled was the frog. In Egypt, the frog goddess was called “heqet” and she was shown as a frog-headed woman or as a frog. Because the Egyptians saw that many frogs appeared in the Nile, they associated the frog with fertility, so this goddess was the goddess of childbirth. There were four other male gods that were frog gods: “nun” (water), “amen” (invisibility), “heh” (infinity) and “kek” (darkness). As a god, Pharaoh should have been able to command these gods to obey, but we will see that in the face of Almighty God, Pharaoh and his magicians were impotent.

Exodus 8:1-4 And the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Let My people go, that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold I will smite all your territory with frogs. So the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into your house, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the houses of your servants, on your people, into your ovens, and into your kneading bowls. And the frogs shall come up on you, on your people, and on all your servants.’”

The Egyptians worshipped nature, and God is using nature to show that Pharaoh is not God! The frogs would be in every aspect of their lives, and even the Pharaoh would not be immune to the plague. This is one plague where not only the Egyptians but also the Israelites would suffer through. Later on, God will put plagues on the Egyptians that do not touch the Israelites, but in this case that was not so. Sometimes liberty comes at a price of some discomfort. But Pharaoh and the Egyptians exemplify Romans 1:20-23 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man–and birds and four footed animals and creeping things.

Frogs, in Egypt, helped to control bugs and the Egyptians ate frogs as a delicacy. What was once a pleasure now became a plague to the Egyptians. It is very much the way sin works in our lives. A little sin seems momentarily pleasurable, but over time it becomes a plague, invading our lives in ways that are unimaginable. No temptation from satan starts out with: if you do this you will find that you will be inundated with troubles. Sin starts out with a sweet temptation, a little thing, that grows exponentially, leading one step after another away from God’s best for us.

How easy it is to make an idol of things. And today, we are doing just that, especially in the new age movement. New agers make gods of themselves, deciding what they will believe, what they feel is true and good. They believe they are the masters of their own destiny, or so they think (but not one of them has created life out of nothing, not one of them has spent even one day totally controlling all their automatic bodily functions, they are deceiving themselves about being gods.)We are so focused on animal rights, but neglect the human rights of a fetus. We use euphemisms like “woman’s right to choose,” instead of murder of an unborn baby. I am still heartsick over the abortion that I had before I got saved. I think if God gave me one chance at a do-over in my life, that momentary choice would be the one I would change. I had all the “right” reasons for taking that action, my primary one being I was still emotionally unstable because of my past and did not want to perpetuate my past onto a child. But it meant putting myself in the position of a god to decide life and death.

Today we have the American Idol tv show, we have made idols of rock stars, actors, and political figures. We have made idols of our own version of God, picking and choosing what we will act on from the Bible, doing supermarket religion by taking the “best” of all the religions, shaking it up, and forming something that makes sense in our own imaginations. Our imaginations are so limited and filled with error that once we take that step we tread on dangerous ground. We can make an idol of our own religious musings or doctrines and be totally in error. So in error that we are blinded by the error and keep walking, not realizing the pit we will fall into.

Exodus 8:5-7 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.’” So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt.

Well, our magicians are at it again! They are able to replicate the creation of the plague of frogs, creating their own frogs. I want to remind you that that is just like satan – when he comes into a situation in imitation, he does not make the situation better, but worse. Now, if they were really powerful, the magicians would have gotten RID of the frogs, not created more. Imagine laying down and squishing frogs, kneading bread with frogs in it, frogs everywhere. Satan only made matters worse, but wait until you hear Pharaoh’s response!

Exodus 8:8 Then Pharaoh called to Moses and Aaron and said, “Entreat the LORD that He may take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the LORD.

Pharaoh is lying through his teeth. Thank God we serve a God who does not lie, and holds His word above Himself.

Exodus 8:9 And Moses said to Pharaoh, “Accept the honor of saying when I shall intercede for you, for your servants, and for your people, to destroy the frogs from you and your houses, that they may remain in the river only.”

Ok, Moses asks Pharaoh WHEN should he intercede for the Egyptians. If you were crawling all over with frogs, finding them in your water pots, your bedding, your clothes, your bread, when would you ask Moses to ask God to remove them? I don’t know about you, but immediately wouldn’t be soon enough. Let’s see what our compassionate Pharaoh suggests for the timetable of frog removal.

Exodus 8:10-11 So, he (Pharaoh) said, “Tomorrow.” And he (Moses) said, “Let it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God. And the frogs shall depart from your houses, from your servants, and from your people. They shall remain in the river only.”

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! Let’s live with the plague just a little while longer. Isn’t that just like us, aren’t there things in our lives that are out of kilter, out of control, and we want to change those things, but not just now? We are comfortable with the situation, and change involves giving up things that we might like, so we put it off until tomorrow. That is one of satan’s best techniques, that of delay – making us think we have all the time in the world, that it isn’t important to make that decision to accept Christ now, that decision to give up that sinful behavior, that decision to give up that self-destructive behavior or habit. We have all the time in the world. It is true, we have all the time in the world, but the world’s time is short, and eternity is forever. Some decisions should not be put off until tomorrow. And what kind of compassion does this show pharaoh has for his people, pretty little.

Exodus 8:12-14 Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh. And Moses cried out to the LORD concerning the frogs which He had brought against Pharaoh. So the LORD did according to the word of Moses. And the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courtyards, and out of the fields.  They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.

Sin stinks. Tons of dead and rotting frogs. When we sin, there is death, and the repercussions of sin often hangs around us with a terrible spiritual stench. We end up reaping what we have sown. (That is why we need to pray to God for crop failures when we come to our senses and repent.)  It takes God to come in and help us to clean up our lives, to move us from the sins of the past to the promise of the future. Our futures are bright and joyous, but while we were still in sin, we left a trail of stench behind us.

Well, God honored Moses’ request, and the frogs were again in their place. I suspect it was a long time before frogs were considered a delicacy in that region. But let’s see how Pharaoh keeps his promise.

Exodus 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the LORD had said.

Notice who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Not God, but Pharaoh himself hardened his heart. And he also did not keep his promise.

I am so glad that I serve God who keeps promises!

In Revelation 16:13-14 we see frogs again when the sixth angel pours out his bowl over the river Euphrates. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

Don’t miss the fact that they are spirits of demons. So many of the gods of the ancient people were really demons in nice forms. Satan appears at times as an angel of light, but in the light of God’s righteousness he is exposed for the evil one that he is. If you are in the new age, a book you might want to read is The Beautiful Side of Evil. You may find that things are not always what they seem.

Have a blessed night,

Heather

Hannah was my 30,000 visitor, and an incredible site she has when I went visiting to tell her that she was the one.

But kudos goes to a wonderful friend who always has an encouraging word for me when I post, and I think she needs a mention too, and I enjoy her site, Leanne.

Truth be told, there are so many wonderful people that I have met through Xanga. I count myself incredibly blessed. I have been challenged by your posts, moved to tears by things you have shared, and laughed at your joy, and learned so much that has helped my walk with God. This time on Xanga is so enriching for me, and I thank all of you! I am just glad that God has given me a place to share His Word and incredible teachings of my pastors.

Heather

Oh my, another milestone – 15 away from 30,000. If you notice you are the one, let me know!

Later today I will type up another Exodus study, but for the meantime, I thought it might be fun to do something that I love to do periodically:

Feel free to ask up to three questions (tasteful and within reason) that you want to know about me, and I will gladly try to answer them. If you want me to ask you a question or questions, I would love to do so.

Have a blessed night.

Heather

Pastor Ted taught Friday’s Bible study. He pointed out that Patience is a fruit of the Spirit.

James 4:13-14 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Things on this earth are here one minute and gone the next. So why is patience so important considering the fleeting nature of life here? Patience is what holds us up until the glory of God comes. It is the devil’s plan to get us to move by a sound. There are two sounds, the sound of the enemy and the sound of God. We can only listen to one.

Satan got Adam and Eve to move by his suggestion about the forbidden fruit. Man was made in the image and likeness of God and put in the Garden, able to have dominion over it. They were given one simple rule which they disobeyed because of the suggestions of satan. When God came into the garden, He called out and asked “Where are you?” God knew where Adam and Eve were, but He wanted them to realize that they had moved out from under God’s perfect will for their lives. They moved from dominion of the earth to oppression under satan.

The devil wants to get us impatient. In a previous Bible study, Pastor Ted spoke about two dimensions Time (where satan is) and eternity (where God is). Satan’s time is short, so when he sees that we are patient it frustrates satan, and he moves on to try and stir up impatience in someone else. Satan has no time to waste on those who have decided to wait on God. Satan wants us to think about our past, to let our past distract us so that our past becomes our present, and we do not move to the future, to the promise of God.

Time is the realm of possibility – and not all possibilities come true. Eternity is the realm of the Promise, and all of God’s promises come true.  If satan can stir up stuff so that we begin to doubt God and focus on possibilities, he has succeeded. We cannot be double minded, we cannot let fear, doubt and confusion in because of what we perceive our circumstances to be. We need to focus on what God is saying. We need a revival in our Spirits, not listening to false spirits.

So often, when we go from place to place seeking where the current move of God is, we are in error. The true revival is within us, with our relationship with God, not chasing someone elses’s revival. What so often we want is a cheap imitation of effects, not working for the real relationship. It is more than just a feeling. We want to come in through the back door, where others have worked for the revival. But for real revival to occur, we need to be the ones working towards it. It isn’t about going to a church where revival has caught on – God can create revival where we are. He can move wherever we are. We need to carry our cross, to die to ourselves. To realize that there are three levels of salvation – salvation that we accept when we accept Jesus Christ died on the cross for us. But then there is resurrection (where the old self dies and God revives the new creation in Christ within us) and ascension (where we are worshipping in Spirit and in Truth).

When there is a true worship atmosphere, we move out of the realm of time and into the eternal realm of God. And eternity then touches our time.

Have you ever gone to church and been buoyed up by the worship to a point that you lose track of time, then you reach the parking lot and someone cuts you off or you are blocked in and have to wait – and you lose that sense of worship that you just had?The question is, how can we sustain that atmosphere of worship and be in it all the time? We need to have the presence of the Lord, and that entails hoping, believing, and knowing.

We see this a bit in Peter. Peter heard Jesus curse the fig tree (and he listened, hoping), on the way back he saw that the fig tree had withered (and he believed), then it helped him to Know that Jesus’ words came to pass. Peter heard and saw.

Peter was in the boat with the disciples, all the disciples heard Peter ask Jesus to tell him to walk on water, only Peter believed and got out of the boat.

How does faith come? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

When the atmosphere of God invades time, you become whole. It is a place of deliverance, and we do not want to go back to the past.

The woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was made whole. Jesus Christ, in His fleshly form, revealed the deep things of God to the people, but He also concealed them (which is why He spoke in parables.)

You have to cross the border or you are dealing with carnality. You get a KNOWING when you cross the border. Worship is important to God. When we are in true worship we will not worry about circumstances. Faith brings us into the presence of God. We have two different choices, we can focus on the past or on the future. The atmosphere of God swallows up the past.

Pastor Ted pointed out that you can’t just read your Bible or just go to church and expect this atmosphere of God to arise. You must seek it.

If you look at the order of worship in the Old Testament you see that the High Priest does not give a word to the people before he goes into the presence of God. First the Priest goes into the temple, the glory of God fills the temple, then the priest comes out and gives the Word. Only then is the glory of God in the Word given.

Peter would not have had the revelation of who Jesus was without the anointing of God to show him the revelation.

Pastor Ted reminded us that we would be judged for every idle word we speak. (Heather’s note, every time I hear that verse quoted I think idle/idol for so often our idle words are really remnants of idols in our lives). Don’t forget that satan is listening to what we say, and some words are good, others carnal. Satan will pounce on those carnal words seeking to accuse us before the Lord, or making those carnal statements come to pass.

The Words we speak quicken and there is little time here on earth. If our mind is focused on the past, it will never catch up to eternity. Faith is outside of our time frame. When the Promise and destiny kiss, you have what you say. You are saved by grace, through faith, and that allows us to step outside of circumstances. All things are in bondage until we step outside of time.

People are most comfortable hearing preaching that deals with common, everyday circumstances, so that they can stay in their comfort zone. But God takes prophets to speak words that can shake up our circumstances. God works from the end to the beginning. We look at life from the seed to the harvest. God sees the harvest and looks to the seed, calling the harvest into existence. My destiny is moving toward me because of my faith. Unbelief can keep me going around and around in the wilderness, never going forward to meet my destiny.

God puts us in the wilderness for seasons to develop our character, and to help us move toward our promise. PATIENCE helps the Body of Christ. For it helps us to hold fast to the promises of God and move toward our destiny, even when circumstances do not match what we see is the promise. Patience is cheerful, hopeful, endurance. Joseph did not understand that the prerequisite for the promise of God was to be in the pit and a slave to Potiphar. Unless our insight lines up with our foresight, we won’t have what God has promised. In the pit you sometimes forget about the dream, you get distracted. So you have to keep your focus on the promise and patiently endure the pit.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

In the pit, we can get distracted. Joseph went from the pit to be a slave, and then seduced by a woman, and falsely accused, ending up in jail. He had to keep his focus on God or he could have been lost in the wilderness.

Church, prayer, and reading the Bible can only take you so far to the border, but you have to cross over the border, part the veil to see what is on the other side. We have to be firm so that satan and others cannot talk us out of our peace and bring us to fear and torment. Fear and torment make us move outside of God’s will. Nobody can stop the promise of God unless we give them permission to stop it. If we listen to the carnal voice, we stay on this side of the veil. And the flesh is enmity against God. We have to discern.

Job held fast to God, no matter what satan threw at him.

In spiritual warfare there is reaping and sowing. If we get lost, lose the focus on God, how do we get back? We have to keep track of what God has said when satan is sifting us like wheat. God has a plan, and God allows satan to tempt us to help us stand on faith, and bring us to another place, it is a way of helping us to grow.

Believe it or not, the church is used not only to provide comfort, but to persecute us, people in church are used to kill our fleshly nature, to point us to areas that we have to work on. That is why other saints rub us the wrong way at times. So, when we have trouble in a church situation, moving to another church is not always the best option. See, God uses other believers to refine us, to finish us for His kingdom. If we move to another church, we bring our problems with us, and we will most probably have the same issues in the new church.

Every day we are moving towards God’s promises if we keep our focus on Him, and go deeper into the Spirit. The Glory of the LORD , is an inward expression that gives us the image of God. We do not focus on the outward circumstances. Remember, it isn’t about signs and wonders. Jesus gave a parable where he mentions people who say, “But I cast out demons in your name, etc.” and Jesus will tell them, “I do not know you.” More than the signs and wonders, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, want relationship.

Matthew 18:21-35 is the parable about the servant who owed his master a large sum of money (millions of dollars in today’s currency). This servant begs the master’s patience to give him time to pay back the debt. The master forgives the servant of the whole debt. Then the servant finds a lesser servant who owes him a small sum of money (about $20 this day’s currency), and requires payment from the servant. When the servant begs for time to pay back the debt, the servant who was forgiven of the large debt throws the other servant and his family into jail. When the master hears about the what the servant did, the master puts this servant into jail, into the hands of the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. And Jesus ends with verse 35 “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

This is the process, when God has touched our lives, we are to give Him all of us, we become the Body of Christ. We often do not have patience with who we come into contact with in our lives. Yet, God wants us to extend the same level of patience and forgiveness that He has given us, with each other. We cannot do it in our own strength, which is why we need the continual infilling of the Holy Spirit. Our body has pores – so the Spirit passes outward from us, and in order to keep filled with the Spirit, we need to keep filling ourselves with His Spirit through prayer, the Word of God and our Spirit language.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.

God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. Our lives and plans are ordained by God. we can run from the border. We are not given the anointing for our own selfish purposes, but for God’s glory. If we are not yielded to Him, He cannot use us.

Sometimes we don’t see God when He shows up, or become aware of His anointing, because we are so caught up in our own programs, that we miss Him. One example was during kids day at our church a few kids who normally don’t do much worship, grabbed banners and were waving them, God was in that worship. Some adult chided the kids for doing that and being disruptive. It was the adult who was disruptive, not the kids, for the kids were doing the pure worship, not the adult’s agenda.

We have to realize that the Word will judge us. When we are broken, God will reshape us with the potter’s hand, and apply heat and pressure to get us to become what He wants us to become.

When Jesus was baptized, he was then brought to the wilderness to be tempted. And every temptation satan gave Him, Jesus responded with, “It is written.” Satan did not completely give up, but satan is powerless against God’s Word. Satan left Jesus until a more opportune time. Satan deals with us the same way, waiting for moments of weakness, moments of doubt, moments of fear. That is why we have to hold onto faith, and the promise. Moses was called to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but he was not chosen until Moses chose to turn aside and see the burning bush. Our adversary is waiting to pounce at any moment of our weakness. Just because we have been saved, or received the anointing of the Spirit, does not mean that our life will be without trouble.

Remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were put into the burning fire of the furnace. They did not know if they would survive the experience, but they chose God over their lives, and when the king looked in the oven he saw four people in the fire, for the Angel of the Lord (a pre-incarnate Jesus) was walking in the fire with us. Our walk with God will have problems, but the difference is that when we walk through the problems, He is walking with us.

We have to have patience in our trials, knowing that God will show up.

I hope this lesson blesses you. It is so encouraging to be reminded that God is always there, even when I am faced with challenges. Hope you have a blessed day!

Heather

I enjoyed last night at our Girl Scout lock in at the skating rink but did not get a lot of sleep. The girls had fun, some skating until 3:30 in the morning. Besides roller skating, the other activity they thoroughly enjoyed was sitting on sleeping bags and sliding down the ramps in the skateboard park attached to the skating rink.

On Wednesday, Pastor Don was talking about discernment, and how we need to know what voice we are hearing in or minds, is it the flesh, the Spirit, or the Lord? When we know the source, then we know what to believe and to reject. In order to do this we have to have honesty and awareness as who is in operation. In the Body of Christ we accept the whole person, but some people want you to validate their emotional constitution as real, or want us to accept, “That’s just the way I am.” or to accept that what they think in their carnal nature is true. That is not what we are to do in the Body of Christ. We have to discern when people are thinking in the carnal nature, and separate that from the truth. Sometimes prayers prayed in church are prayers of the flesh, prayers of performance, prayers of attention getting, prayers of emotional nature, prayers of gossip. Paul says that we have to discern what is in operation.

Sometimes we can see a pastor on tv or in church start preaching – they start out with a physical agenda, but we can tell when the Holy Spirit takes over, and sometimes (not always) the agenda gets set aside so that the person speaks what the Holy Spirit is telling them to say. We can tell when a service ceases from being flesh centered and turns toward the Spirit.

We have to know what lines up with the Word of God, and what doesn’t. In the last days, we are going to see the church get more out of balance. Pastor Don pointed out that when he has guest speakers at our church he makes sure he draws from the pool of the five fold ministry, Ephesians 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. If a church only focuses on prophesy, or on evangelism, the church gets out of balance. God wants all of the five fold ministry to be in the church. (In fact, in discipleship class, Pastor Don points out that if you are the pastor of a church and you do not function in a particular area of the fivefold ministry, then you need to find someone who is so that the body of Christ is fed a balanced diet.)

2 Corinthians 10:2-6 But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Notice that it mentions walking – we are to be a walker, not accepting people according to the flesh, but walking in the way God wants us to walk. We need to repent from our carnal nature, making a 180 degree turn around. Sometimes we forgive in the flesh (in our head) but do not feel it in our hearts. In a pragmatic example, if you treat me bad in the flesh, I do not ignore that I was treated badly, but I choose not to react in kind. We need to know that the battle is not in the physical, but in the spiritual realm.

With the person hurts us we need to see who is speaking or acting in the person who hurts us. For example, with a person who is nice in the morning, but after lunch comes back nasty, and with a strong scent of marijuana on their person. You know that it is the spirit of addiction that is controlling that person, and speaking to them in the flesh won’t do as much good as binding the spirit of addiction in that person, but without a covenant relationship, you cannot bind totally, but you can prevent it from interfering in your work place.We have the authority to bind and loose on the earth, but it has to be in accordance with a covenant relationship.

 Jesus was aware of the the spirit within him and who was in operation. During a walk through a city the woman with an issue of blood came and touched His hem. He was thinking about the crowd, the people around Him, etc, but when she touched Him, His Spirit knew that virtue had passed from Him, so He asked, ”Who touched me.” Jesus was saying, who linked their spirit with my spirit for I felt virtue going out of me. The woman then confessed, and Jesus healed her. It was her faith in the spirit reaching to Jesus’s Spirit.

Not everyone believes Malachi 4:2…The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.”

We are not to just look for signs and wonders, God wants us to participate, to see what needs to be done and walk it out.

Pastor Don pointed out that everyone who is born again isn’t born again in every area of their lives, there are strongholds that still need to die to the flesh. We need to learn to trust God so that we know that we can give it to God help us handle it. If we do not keep discerning what areas are weak in our lives, we will end up leaving ourselves open in those areas that satan can come in and influence. Satan wants to bring people down, like Haggert, for then satan casts doubt on the whole body of Christ. When God trusts us, we need to make sure that we stay in line with His word, and that our actions are according to His word.

Pastor Don pointed out that one verse makes him sad, when Jesus asks, “In the last days, will I find faith in the earth?”

We have to watch our words and our thoughts because the more we focus on things that are not of God, the more real they come, until the day that we believe the lie. Prophesy is only a prophetic possibility, some unattainable goal, but we won’t reach the prophesy unless we believe it.

The conversation turned to intercessors and how if someone is an intercessor it is usually and undercover sort of thing, if someone comes up to you and gives you a song and dance about how they are interceding for you, they are probably not intercessors – a simple, “I’m praying for you” is enough. An intercessor is not always an outwardly rewarding task, for often God will have you pray for people you won’t meet in the flesh. You lift up people that God tells you to pray for. You are kind of a secret agent against the kingdom of darkness.

Sometimes when someone speaks a word of prophesy over you, you get caught up in the lust of the flesh, especially if the message is one that is particularly ego gratifying. A true prophesy is a Word spoken about something you are waiting in hope and faith for. The word of prophesy needs to line up with God’s word, with what God has already spoken about your situation. Usually a true word of prophesy is something you already know in your Spirit, and God sends a confirmation. But you have to be careful not to lay out fleeces which can be imitated by satan. And we also need to realize that it is a word in season, that sometimes there is a significant period of time between the spoken word of prophesy and its fulfillment. For God will fulfill it at the right time.

Sometimes satan will bring someone into your life to speak a word of prophesy that puffs up your ego to pull you off track from the perfect will of God in your life. Anything that keeps you from fulfilling your plan from God is not a true word of prophesy.

Satan had a plan to kill Living Word Chapel. Pastor Don had a word from God that he would be a pastor of a church, but at the time, Pastor Don was youth minister and did a Bible study under a pastor of the Living Word Chapel. At some conference, a woman came up to him with a “word from God.” She told him that he was to pastor a church and should leave Living Word Chapel and start his own church immediately. Pastor Don thanked her and filed it away in his mind, later discussing it with his wife. She told him that she did not feel comfortable with this woman’s prophesy, so Pastor Don tabled it and kept seeking God. He too came away with a feeling that that was not the time to do this, so he stayed at Living Word Chapel. As time went by, the pastor moved away and Pastor Don was appointed pastor, and I and many others are certainly glad for that!

But Pastor Don pointed out to us that just because a word of prophesy is spoken over us, it does not mean that we accept it as true, or that we act immediately on the word of prophesy. We need to seek God before any move in our lives, to make sure it is His Perfect Will for our lives. If we don’t we may end up on a sidetrack and not be working as effectively for God’s Kingdom, even if what we are doing is “good” works. If God isn’t in it, it is not as effective.

Don’t forget that satan is wandering to and fro listening to us, and his time is short on this earth. He hears our words, and sees our actions and can discern what is most appealing to us, and can use that through a false word of knowledge to pull us off track.

Matthew 12:22 Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw.

Pastor Don asked us why this man wasn’t healed on his faith. I mentioned that it was because he could not hear and faith comes by hearing. I was wrong, I assumed incorrectly that if a person was mute that meant they couldn’t hear, but that is not necessarily so. One of our members works with children with speech problems and she pointed out that with mute people, some can’t speak, others have an inability to form words, others are tongue tied, others speak at home, but not in school, some have selective mutism.

He had to be brought to Christ for healing, someone had to bring him to Christ.

Matthew 12:23-24 And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David? Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

They assumed that satan could cast out satan, but this doesn’t happen. Satan’s kingdom is not that powerful that he would do that.

Matthew 12:25-26 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them; “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If satan casts out satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

Jesus knows their wrong thinking about the spiritual realm, realizing it was argumentative but nonsense –the devil reproduces what God did on a kingdom basis, and sets himself up as ruler, and he rules and reigns. His kingdom is in a state of constant rebelion, so when we feel beset by the devil one of the most effective prayers is to pray confusion in the enemy’s camp. There are Biblical precedents for that, Giddeon where the enemy fought itself is an example.

Satan’s plan is to thwart God in the brief time remaining, seeking whom he can devour and destroy, to bring death.

So often when we are in a spiritual battle, we end up dropping the sword of the Word of God. Our strongest weapon is to stand on the truth of God. Because of his limited time on earth, satan is looking for the weakest person to pull astray. He is not seeking to divide his kingdom, but to pull more people down to his kingdom. If satan can get us to react in a situation with fear, then he can cause a circumstance to enlarge in our lives.

Pastor Don pointed out that if a ghost were in the room (not that there are ghosts), but if there were it could pass through all the people in the room. If a person said to themselves, “I feel a ghost,” than that evil spirit could clamp onto that thought, and increase the feelings, until there is a tangible presence. We need to watch what we focus on in our thought life, for our thoughts often become words. The sooner we can stop a wrong thought, the better, for then we will not act it into manifestation.

Matthew 12: 26-27 If satan casts out satan, he is divided against himself, How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?Therefore they shall be your judges.

The Bible speaks strongly about not seeking out soothsayers, witches, etc. Remember Saul went to the witch of Endor, who brought up either Samuel or a familiar spirit, so Saul violated God’s law. The devil does not intersect with what God has in our lives, if it is not God, then don’t let the devil draw you away from God’s will.

Matthew 12:28-30 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

Jesus points out that since He is of God’s kingdom, if He casts out a satan, it is to show that God’s kingdom is here on earth. If one wants to plunder a strong man, the man has to be bound. When we refuse to believe God’s word, we allow satan to bind us, and then satan can affect our lives. Only if we are with Jesus, only if His words are in our mouths, are we able to defeat the enemy, if not, we become divided and scattered and chaotic.

We, when we are saved, have a clean house – temple (body). Remember that when Jesus cast out the demons, he told the man to be careful because if there is an opening, satan will come back and bring many others demons. When we are washed by the Word of God, we have to keep our minds clear of thoughts and feelings and actions that are not of God. We need to discern if something is from us or from the pit of hell. We cannot afford to fall asleep at the wheel.

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

Heather

Pastor Don started Bible study by talking a bit about the election. He pointed out that the world has changed since 9/11 and because of the reaction of fear to that event, there is now a world wide platform for Revelation 13 that has been created on the earth. The United Nations and the US are creating a system that will be perfect for the antichrist to step into. And what is sad is that good people have done it, with good intentions. Anyone today can be arrested as a personal threat to the United States. Out of fear we have set aside the guarantees of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We have given up liberties, willingly submit to searches of personal property, airline security, all in the name of safety. And while we need safety, we are also giving up liberty and making it easy for an unscrupulous ruler to step in and take over, depriving us further of liberty.

Since the Bible prophesy is true, we are seeing it begin to take effect today. Many people hate the Church, and hate Church people, labeling us as the enemy. When we state the truths from the Bible that conflict with the values of today’s society, we are considered the enemy. There is much confusion around the gospel and the spreading of the gospel. We get a lot of this confusion from television. One example is that a church of 25 people made accusations against Rod Parsely and his church of 20,000 regarding how charity works money was spent. The church of 25 people got media attention, for the media often looks for ways to discredit Christians, so they ended up forcing Pastor Rod to come on the air and defend his position.

Pastor Don mentioned a news article about a church who sent through the mail fliers speaking the Biblical principles behind marriage and showing that same sex marriage is wrong. The postal workers in that town refused to deliver the letters, and refused to show up for work in protest.

We Christians have to wake up and realize that IT IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL, the church has to deal with the world according to what the Bible says, but the World is not going to like that. But we have to be aware of what is going on.

When the world looks at the Church, they see the physical and political aspects.

When the Church looks at the world, they see the physical, political, and spiritual aspects. There are spiritual things at play that also affect us. The World wants to call the spiritual unjust, and unfair. And if a tyrant gets on the throne, he could make life very difficult.

When we see something happening in our world, we have to realize that there is more going on under the surface than what meets the eye. Not everything you see is what you get.

We cannot solve a spiritual problem in the natural unless the natural is made spiritual.

There are spiritual things that are in play that also affect us. If government starts saying that a spiritual group is unjust or unfair, then laws can be put in place that a tyrant can use to block Christians.

The way the world system is set up now, to change the source of power from the president to a world order would not involve rewriting the Constitution, they would just ignore the Constitution. As we start, in the name of freedom, submitting to violations of our rights, we end up becoming sheep, and we know that sheep can be led to slaughter.

We make assumptions that other people in other cultures will have the same values that we do. We are wrong in this. For example, if a person moves into your neighborhood, you may assume that they will put out their garbage according to the garbage pick up schedule – never clearly asking them if that is what they intend to do. What if they come from a country where the mode of getting rid of garbage is pitching it out the window?

There are Muslim cultures here who are beginning to gain power, and one of their first actions would be to ban Christian worship. In Muslim cultures there are taxes that Christians have to pay, and rules that have to be followed. People who are not Muslims in that culture are not seen as equal. At one point one country wanted to have Christians and Jews wear a special badge, but there was a major complaint that that was too much like happened in the past.

We are in a spiritual battle that deals with forces that we can’t see.

Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Then we got into the content of the Bible study, and it is a very powerful one. Pastor Don is pointing out that we have to be aware of who is talking within us – the carnal nature, the spiritual nature, God, the Holy Spirit, the emotions. Whenever we deal with a situation we are getting responses from many of these sources, and we have to be fully aware of what they are, for we want to respond only to the truth.

The first example that shows that Paul was aware of who is speaking, is 1 Corinthians 5:1-2 gives the background:  It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

Key verses; 1 Corinthians 5:3-5 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I was present) him who has done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Paul was writing from Macedonia, and knew that he was present in the spirit among the people of Corinth. It would be similar to someone having a praying grandmother, and setting out to do something sinful, but hearing their grandmother’s voice in their head restraining them.

When someone is in flagrant violation of God, their spirit will be saved in the Lord Jesus Christ, but sometimes we have to turn them loose to reap the actions of their sinful actions. If a person is deliberately disobeying God, then that person is out from the covering of God’s protection, and left open for satan to buffet them. Satan is not nice to those who are in his camp, and our sins do lead to death. Hopefully the people will repent, turn around 180 degrees and change, but if not, their sins will find them out.

Your spirit has the ability with the help of the Holy Spirit to have impact on people you are not even present with.

Another example of knowing when our spirit is not present in our body would be John on Patmos, was taken up in the Spirit and the Revelation given to him.

There is a power with the anointing, but those who are in satan’s camp can imitate that with familiar spirits. That is why we have to discern where our information is coming from. Is it from God, or is is from another source that isn’t God. In these end times it is going to be harder to discern.

Another example is when Paul and Silas wanted to go to Macedonia, the Holy Spirit restrained them, and then later a man from Macedonia appeared to Paul in a dream and told him to come.

A discussion came up about deliverance, and it was pointed out that not all deliverance is deliverance, some of it is stir-up-ance. In order for a demon to be removed, it has to be in manifestation. Demons do not remain with a person all the time, they come and go which is why someone can be very nice one day and seem to be a creature from the dark another day. Not all the deliverance ministries or prophetic words that we see on television are real, some are more like entertainment or feel goodness, we have to use our discernment. Later Pastor Don will cover how to discern.

We then moved to 2 Corinthians 10:1 Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you.

That is either the worst grammatical sentence, or Paul is saying something with the redundancies. Paul is pointing out that He is acting through Christ, and is present and bold, even though he is not there in the flesh.

Romans 7:14-17…For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, the, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good, but now it is no longer I who do not do it, but sin that dwells within me. …

This is an example of being aware of who and what is doing and saying. We need to be aware of this. Are we acting from the flesh? from the Spirit? from God. So often we are going through motions without any thought, reacting to things. We need to be more deliberate and judge what we are thinking, saying, and doing.  There needs to be an honesty and awareness in us about who is speaking and who or what is operating through us.

There is much, much more, but I have to stop here. Tonight my girl scout troop along with others are having a sleepover in a rollerskating rink, complete with pizza party, rollerskating, movie, snacks, games, etc. It will be fun, but I suspect not much sleep will occur.

Have a blessed night. If some of this is not yet making sense, wait until tomorrow when I can post more about what I am sharing. It didn’t quite come together for me at first, but when I finally got it, it really blessed me.

Have a great night, and pray that I snatch a few hours of sleep on that hardwood floor.

Heather