Isaiah 9 contains a powerful prophetic message. God has established a balance of order in the universe. Yet there are many who do not like the whole picture of this balance.

Some want to think that Israel is a picture of the Church and that the Church has replaced Israel. This is not true. If Israel permits sin, God will let evil come - and if you look at the history of the nation of Israel, you see that many nations came against Israel and attacked them. God gave the people time to repent, but when they did not repent, judgment came. But then God has also promised to save a remnant, and restore Israel. He will do this and gave the people of Israel the following awesome promise.

Isaiah 9:6  For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,  Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Notice, that this passage mentions judgment and justice forever. The zeal, enthusiasm, of the Lord will bring this to pass.  God is a God of LOVE, but He is also a God of JUSTICE. Some read this and fear that they will commit the Blaspheme of the Holy Ghost, and fall away and not come back to God.

Pastor Don wanted the people to know that most of us are not at a point where we can Blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and he took us to the passages that show us who qualifies for that. In our walk in the Lord we struggle so much with unworthiness. People are afraid that God has discarded them, that God heard that negative thought and pushed them away.  But if a person is concerned about blaspheming the Holy Ghost they probably have not done it.  Those who blaspheme the Holy Ghost do it deliberately and do not care or fear that they have done it.

So, how do we know if we have committed the unpardonable sin?

Hebrews 6:1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

These are ELEMENTARY principles of Christ that lead to perfection.  Repentance from dead works - or sin and anything that we have done in the flesh.  If we do works in the flesh, even if they are godly works, Jesus could say, Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ These would be dead works.  Some things we did as believers just for show. Jesus did most of His spiritual works in private.  We are to do works to glorify Christ, not to make it all about us.  The dead works will be burnt off like the hay and stubble.  It is important that we examine our flesh and ask ourselves why we did what we did. As we bring the Gospel to others, it gives us an opportunity to examine ourselves as well. 

FAITH TOWARD GOD, faith in God.  It is not faith in faith, but faith in God.  Mark 11:22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.

Hebrews 6:2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

The DOCTRINE OF BAPTISMS.  There are several baptisms in the Bible.  THE BAPTISM INTO CHRIST - making Christ the CEO, and obeying Him.  We don't do things our way, but we seek to do what Christ wants us to do. Jesus is our boss and if He tells us to not touch something or to not go there, we don't.  BAPTISM INTO GOD - Jesus told us that He did what He saw His father doing and if we know Him, we know the Father.  BAPTISM INTO THE BODY - we are part of the whole Body of Christ, and we need to love the brethren.  There are many who come to Church and don't want to connect with other people, but God has told us to not forsake the assembling of the brethren.  This is what God has given us, and we are in a benevolent dictatorship - we don't get to vote.  When we are immersed in the Baptism of the Body, and we subject ourselves to the flow of God, knowing that Jesus is the Head, and we all have a part.  WATER BAPTISM, an outward manifestation of the forgiveness of sin that we gained by accepting Christ into our lives. BAPTISM INTO THE HOLY GHOST where we gain an endowment of power.  There are two kinds of power, exusia - which is authority, and then dunamis power - which is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with power.  In John we are told that the Spirit and the Word must agree. John 3:5-8 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

We know that the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and that requires an action of the Holy Spirit.  But what is the water?  Pastor Don had those who already know keep silent, but we went to various scriptures to look at what is meant by "water" so that people can see for themselves.

We first looked to see if it was being born of the water of the womb.

We then went back to John 3:3  Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus is teaching the things of God, and Nicodemus as a rabbi should have known the things of God to teach them to his people.

John 3:4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus did not understand, thinking Jesus was talking about the physical womb.  But it was not the water of the womb.

John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Being born of the womb leads to death, and thus the water of the womb is not the answer.

John 3:7-10 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

Jesus points out that Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel and doesn't know this mystery.  Jesus likened it to the wind where we don't know where it comes from our where it blows.

John 3:11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.

Therefore the answer to the puzzle can only be figured out by someone who knows the answer, and Jesus knows the answer for He is God.

John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

You can only receive the answer by spiritual revelation.

The Bible is its own dictionary, and thus the same truths are expressed in other places in the scriptures. When we think of healing today people want to get the person saved first (and salvation is tied up with dying and going to heaven. But Jesus never said that.  He never went up to a person and asked them, "Do you want to be saved?"  He asked them if they wanted to be healed. Jesus healed the sick and touched lives, and through that salvation came.  Salvation means wholeness, deliverance, freedom, peace.  Not just being taken to Heaven when we die. People try to get people to confess Jesus, and then the people walk away, but they may still have their health problems - marriage problems, financial problems.  When Jesus comes into a life He wants whole salvation - wholeness, peace, deliverance, and comfort.

To understand what is meant by the water, we need to get a revelation of the mystery, and the Bible as it's own dictionary will help us to understand.

Ephesians 5:26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,

washing of water by the WORD.

1 Peter 1:22-23 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,

John 15:3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Titus 3:5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

By looking at these scriptures we see that the water is the Word of God - and we know who the Word of God is - Jesus.

When the person first hears the Word the seed is sown, and what the person does with the Word determines the outcome.

Someone mentioned that in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 that if the seed sown does not get wet it cannot begin to grow.  The more that we sow the Word of God into people the more they grow in God.

Sometimes churches only focus on certain scriptures and other scriptures of the Bible that make the pastors uncomfortable are not dealt with.  In those churches the people can starve to death eating the same seed over and over again. We need to eat from the WHOLE Word of God, vary the diet.  Give a varied diet of fundamental teachings. 

We then continued in Hebrews with the fundamental doctrines.  I think I will write that part tomorrow.

I am praying you are all preparing for Thanksgiving, we sure do have a lot to be thankful for - number one JESUS!!!!

Praying your day is blessed.

Heather

We all need the Authority of the Believer in these days to a greater and greater degree. We want to have anything and everything - all that God has for us. We want His healing, relationship, power, presence and manifestation.  People want to receive a touch from the Lord, fall in the spirit, enter into worship, but without proper work and knowing how to receive we won't receive what we are seeking.

Giving and receive requires acts and basic things.

We can have a love relationship: Husband to wife, pastor to congregation, mother to daughter, parent to child.  All these relationships should be based on love.  Every love relationship does not have the same dynamic.  Not every one in a love relationship has a clear understanding of how to give or receive.  For example there is a book out regarding love languages.  Some people feel that the only way person can demonstrate love to them is by a public act of affection such as holding hands when walking down the street.  Others think that small acts of service demonstrate love. If you give the person who seeks a public act of affection some act of service they will not perceive that as an act of love for you are not speaking their love language.

Sometimes a person seeking a particular kind of love language gets frustrated and says, "This ....... is what I want."  The person trying to please the needy one does that action only to have it rejected because the person wanted the other one to do what they wanted without having to be told to do it. So it becomes a situation of yes you did it, but it wasn't enough. That person needs to learn to receive within the dynamics of what is acceptable.

This inability to receive puts a strain in the relationship and the person feels they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

If we can understand how to receive and give, then we can understand how God stoops down to give to us.

Mercy is God giving something to the pitiful, giving something from the bigger to the lower, God pities us. We can either receive what God is giving or be prideful and reject it. We can in effect tell God, "I don't want your pity."

How you receive is very important.  The problem is receiving and God gives us good and bad examples of receiving in His Word.

Peter and John arrested.

Acts 4:23-30 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: ‘Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the LORD and against His Christ.’ “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. (29) Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, (30) by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

Verse 29-30 - Believers are to speak God's Word, and stretch out their hand, seeking His signs and wonders, waiting to receive. They ask for what has already been promised, and now they receive from God. When you ask God for what He has promised it releases great power.

Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

If we want to receive from God, ask what God has already promised. We are asking God for Churches and He wants to give us the planet.  We ask Him for money, and He wants to make us prosperous. Ask God for what He has promised. Ask Him for a ministry and a calling and we know that out of the 12 Spiritual Gifts there is something for everyone.  Acquire what has been provided.

They had asked to start a Church in Damascus, but did not get an instant response to that. They asked for Boldness and the Lord shook the building and gave them an infilling of the Spirit with boldness.

The Lord is looking for one who is listening.  He is calling someone and is prepared to give us what He knows we need, not what we FEEL we need.  We ask God to show us His love, but we also have to be ready to receive it.

Ask God for what He wants to do, and tell Him you will take what He wants to give any way He wants to give it, and be ready to receive it. Find out what the Word of the Lord is on this issue. God has provided signs and wonders, and when we pray His Word to Him in the Name of Jesus, He shows up.

John 16:23-24 And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

The disciples - after Jesus goes to Heaven to be with His Father, ask in Jesus' Name.

The fullness of joy does not come by satiation of an emotional moment. God wants us to be JOY FULL.

We can ask God for a car, but if we are using it for some illegal purposes, God probably will not give us the car. 

John 16:26-27 In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.

To receive from God is based on our relationship to Him. It is based on I know He loves me. We don't have to earn God's love. If we aren't assured that He loves us, if we aren't assured of our relationship to Him, it makes it difficult to believe we can receive in the fullness of Joy.

We mess it up every time.  Something good happens and we think we did it ourselves. Something happens and we blame God, which is not honoring the Holy Spirit. Every good and perfect gift comes from God. Some people fear that they have blasphemed God.  Pastor Don spent some time showing people the qualifications of what it takes to do that, to show us that few believers do blaspheme God like so many fear that they have done. We need to know we don't qualify.

Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.

We do not want to go back to laying a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God. We do not need to relay the foundation. That is a phoniness out of the flesh. We are seeking to move to perfection, and we are to move beyond the Elementary principles of Christ - these Paul considered elementary.  The first principle is FAITH TOWARD GOD. The second principle is the DOCTRINE OF BAPTISMS.

There are several baptisms mentioned in the Bible There is the BAPTISM INTO CHRIST - the fellowship of the revelation of who Jesus is, it is when we are born again.  Just because we believe in Jesus does not mean that we have made Jesus our CEO. Jesus is Lord of our life, our Chief Executive Officer.

BAPTISM INTO THE BODY - the Body of Christ (the Church).  There are some members that attend church but never connect with others at church, don't volunteer, don't spend time with other members.  They come to church and just want to worship and go home, but have their walls up regarding others in the church. Pastor Don shared how one time he and Cynthia went to hear a friend speak at another church. After the service they had a coffee hour, no one greeted Pastor and Cynthia, no one welcomed them, offered them coffee or anything.  Finally Pastor Don and Cynthia took a cup of coffee, no one smiled, shook hands or anything. His friend came by and said isn't this amazing - they didn't even greet me and I was the speaker. People should not come to church and be ignored.

We are part of the WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST - it is nondenominational.  When a person is Baptized into the Body, they aren't baptized into a denomination. And as they look at the members of the Body, they need to realize that they should be treating others of higher importance than themselves.  To look out for the welfare and offer kindness to others in the Body of Christ.

The BAPTISM INTO THE FATHER - as we know Jesus, we learn about the Father and develop a relationship with Him.

BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT - which gives us the fruit of the Spirit.

WATER BAPTISM - The baptism of John the Baptist, immersion in water as an outward sign of what happened inwardly when we were forgiven of our sins when we accepted Jesus.

The other ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES - laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead (yes, that is an elementary principle), and Eternal Judgment.

There are some who are teaching there is no hell, that even satan will be forgiven in the end. That contradicts the Word of God. When a brother in Christ moves out from the foundations of faith, begins to believe doctrines that do not agree with the Word of God, we can be nice and sweet to them, but our fellowship with them can't be the same for they are not in agreement with the Word of God.

Hebrews 6:3 And this we will do if God permits. The "this" is keeping the foundations of faith.

Hebrews 6:4-5 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,

For those who are enlightened about the basic, elementary principles of faith, that fully understood them, have operated in the signs and wonders, and have received the Holy Spirit and operated in the power of the Holy Spirit. - it is IMPOSSIBLE to:

Hebrews 6:6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

The only way that you can blaspheme the Holy Spirit is if you do all the five things mentioned in verses 1-3, and the fall away, it is impossible to renew into repentance.  Why?  Because you can't crucify the Son of God a second time - Christ died ONCE for our sins.  The bulk of people do not qualify in all five of the areas - so if they fall away, they can repent and return.  It would have to be someone who flowed also in the gifts of the spirit - one example Pastor Don gave was Judas Iscariot.  Also lucifer who knew God, knew Jesus, did signs and wonders, but fell.  There is no way back - it is eternal judgment and ETERNAL JUDGMENT is ETERNAL. Jesus spoke of dead men's bones, white washed tombs. Not everyone would qualify.

Hebrews 6:7  For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God;

We receive blessings from God like the rain that the earth drinks, what comes upon it. We receive the blessings that come from God, we drink and cultivate them.  We drink what God gives - the blessings and authority.  God will not bless what he cannot condone.  Pastor Don spoke about a friend of his who always bought lotto tickets, hoping for the big win. Pastor Don offered to invest the money for this friend, give him the increase in advance, all the friend had to do was to promise not to buy lotto tickets. The man did not do that, and ended up dying of cancer in a state of poverty.

How do we receive?  We receive BY FAITH, BY THE RELATIONSHIP.  We have to know God's heart and when we do then we CONTROL DOUBT AND UNBELIEF.  We fight the feelings of unworthiness, doubt and unbelief.

Pastor Don had us lift up our heads and hands O/ and open our mouth to receive.  We need to look around every corner in life, knowing that everyday something good is around the corner that we can't see. We can't see what is around the corner until we get there. We walk through life expecting to receive from God with positive expectancy, fulfilling the joy of our daily existence. We are happy we get up to see what God is going to do. Expect it, it is just around the corner.

SILENCE THE MIND. Our thought life can be our worst enemy.  We need to take our thoughts captive. Pastor Don gave the example of what kind of mental thoughts go through our mind when the phone rings at an odd hour.

SILENCE THE MIND - pay attention to our idle thoughts. (Heather's note I keep mistyping idle as idol - but in reality our idle thoughts can be our idols.) God holds us accountable for our idle thoughts, and he doesn't want to hear our inner chatter such as - if she says this, I will say that. God wants to give you good things - don't disqualify yourself by idle thoughts from the blessings God wants to bestow on you.

To silence the mind and receive.

1. Enlarge your spiritual activity. How often do you casually speak in tongues? Some of us only pray in tongues during a church service, but it is not a lifestyle for us. We can speak in tongues quietly, under our breath, as we go through our daily activities. When we are speaking in tongues we kill the idle thoughts that can come in our mind, it helps to empty our mind of garbage.  We are told to pray without ceasing. We can't pray with our understanding incessantly, we would run out of things to say, so when we pray in the spirit, it permits the Holy Ghost to pray with purpose what He knows we need to be praying. It is like turning on a cell phone, and that will guarantee that you receive the call that is coming to you. If you turn off the cell phone, the call won't get through. If our radio is constantly tuned to an AM station with all of it's static and business, we won't be able to hear the still small voice of God. We need to attune ourselves to God's voice.

2. Take time to meditate during the day - this is not the empty the mind buddhist sort of meditation. Meditation means to quietly mutter the Word of God. We focus our mind, not empty our minds.

Pastor Don spoke of his college days when his roommates were experimenting with the ouija board, and it never worked when Pastor Don had his hand on it. He felt that that spirit of the ouija board hated him. Pastor Don asked his friends to ask the spirit of the ouija board why it hated him, and it was that Pastor Don (who wasn't a pastor at the time) had a different spirit, and then it informed him that his friend Rita was at the door. Even the spirits know when we are not open to receiving from them, when we have the spirit of God active in us, the other spirits do not want to deal with us.

We don't empty our mind, for if we empty our mind we can let anything or anyone into our minds - and if it is anything other than God it is dangerous.

When we meditate we can sit for a few minutes each day and think of scriptures. We can look at nature's bounty and thank God for the beauty of His creation, we can look at bits and pieces of the Psalms and quietly mutter one of them. We are focusing on the Spirit and beauty of God. The Holy Spirit will tell us what He wants us to learn through this.

3. MENTAL PROCLAIMATION - We must make our minds come in line with the Word of God - tell our mind it is willing and ready to receive from God. Mentally tell our spirit man what the Spirit of God is wanting him to do. Dictate to our ind and spirit, that I am going to hear from God. God speaks to me. Proclaim it.  We bring our mind, body, and spirit in line with the Word. We can reduce hypertension, increase our health and wisdom. Pastor Don recommended praying Daniel 2:20-23 ...Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him. I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers;  You have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of You, for You have made known to us the king’s demand.

4. Choose your PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT and control it - the time and place where you get something from God. Pick the times and places. For example, Pastor Don expects to receive from God on Sunday, that he will get a Word from the Lord for the people. The world is a noisy place, and we need to find a place where we can get quiet before God.

MAJOR DON"T DO - DON'T GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT.

You grieve the Holy Spirit by formulating assumptions and ignore the commands of God, not taking His Word as commands. Taking what you learn from the Holy Spirit and then assuming another thing later on. Here are some examples from Scripture.

Acts 5:38-42 And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.” And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

The Pharisees and Scribes grieved the Holy Spirit because they said that what the apostles were teaching was not of God. Gamaliel told them to leave the apostles alone, for the fruit of their work would show it to be false or not.

Acts 6:12-14 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law;  for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”

They accused Stephen of sin, and lied. He would be the first martyr, which we see in Acts Chapter 7.

In Acts 12, Peter is in prison and the church is praying for them.

Acts 12:5 Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.

An angel releases Peter, initially Peter thought it was a dream. Acts 12:11 And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.”

Peter walks to the disciple's place of residence and knocks at the door.

Acts 12:13-16 And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her gladness she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate. But they said to her, “You are beside yourself!” Yet she kept insisting that it was so. So they said, “It is his angel.” Now Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.

Peter knocks, but when Rhoda answers the door, she is so excited she leaves him standing outside and runs to tell the others.  They don't believe that he really was released, but he kept knocking and then the disciples find that it is true and it astonishes the believers.

They were praying continually for something to happen but not believing that it would. They rejected it when it did happen, initially. This is mild in comparison to the following example.

Acts 5:1-3  But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?

They lied to the Holy Spirit. There was nothing wrong with holding back money for their own use, what was wrong was pretending that they had given all to the Church when they had held back some.

Acts 5:4-5 While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things.

Ananias' wife did the same thing and lied to the Holy Spirit.When Born again members of the church lie, it grieves the Holy Spirit, and in this case he killed them.

Pastor Don then mentioned about Simon the Sorcerer who wanted to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit, and Peter says:

Acts 8:20-24  But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.” Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.”

Judas Iscariot took the bread dipped in oil (the Holy Spirit) and ate it, then went out and sold the Savior for 30 pieces of silver.  This grieved the Holy Spirit. Judas had formulated the assumption that God's not doing what he prophesied he would do, and assumed that Jesus would come in a certain way, and Jesus came in a different way.

One other thing that believers do is pray for one thing with their mouths but want something different in their hearts.  They are not sharing their real issues with God.

They are making the assumption that they are afraid to bring their hearts desire to God, for fear that He will not respond to this desire. We need to share with God what we really want. He wants us to be honest with Him.  Some are afraid to ever pray to God about their real concerns, and the devil is waiting there to come in and cause havoc, for the people haven't been honest with God.

We will reach deeper levels of trust only when we can trust God. We don't need to tell God how to do what we need. We can trust that He will do what He's going to do, and He's going to do it in His perfect time, His perfect way. We can trust that He has it under control.

The devil hears us when we pray.  Pastor Don gave an example from the movie Ghost Busters where everyone had to keep their minds empty, and one person decided to think a seemingly harmless thought about the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man - and had no idea that it would turn into something so huge that it destroyed cars and people.

We can't do that to God. We don't want to box God.  Give God free reign in your life. If you try and tell God how to do it the way you think that it should be done you will be in serious trouble. We want to do it God's way in God's timing.

Jesus could have avoided the cross had he chosen to bow to satan - and Jesus would have had the rule of the Kingdoms of the Earth, but He never would have rose to greatness if He did not go by way of the Cross.

Paul suffered much for Jesus, and was willing to go through what he went through, although probably in his flesh he would rather have had a different answer to prayer.

We do not want to tell God how to do what He wants to do for us.  Instead, just be ready to receive and trust Him. God is not out to hurt you or withhold from you.  Sometimes receiving your blessings takes time. Never confuse the fleshly desires with God's desires for you. God wants to feed your soul more than your ego. 

We then went up to the sanctuary and sat waiting on God, with the prayer in our minds that He will bless me tonight, and we are praying to receive what God has for us, and we are ready to receive.

God showed up big. 

Heather's note - take some time today and ask God what He wants you to receive, and receive it. He has great blessings for you.

Heather

We were blessed to have Pastor Ernest Fink speak at King's Fire in Lake Katrine. Pastor Fink spoke some one line wonders that I have placed in all caps.  Some statements are so incredible that they are well worth noting. His whole message is well worth hearing - for he has shared truths so valuable for these end times.

2 Chronicles 20:20c Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.

Pastor Fink spoke about how he needed to learn how to fight like a Christian.  He met his wife when she was 15, she prevailed over him, and they have been married for 39 years.

He told us that FAITH WITHOUT EXPRESSION ISN'T FAITH.

God is a family man, and we need to be tougher sheep - Lambos (rhymes with Rambo).

The river is refreshing and many love to be in the river, but we need to be harvesting the minerals from the river and all the good stuff in the river and taking it out into the world.

When Pastor Fink was younger he met Jesus, but from the age of 16-20 he spent some time doing what he calls "stupid."  This gave him a testimony, and fortunately for him there was a person in his life who kept praying for him and helping him to come back to the Lord.

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO HELL IF WE DO NOTHING. The Gospel is about people.  Pastor Fink praised God for those who prayed for him when he was in rebelion.  When he was 17 years old a friend of the family cornered him in the kitchen and spoke with him.  This man had prostrate cancer, but God would later miraculously heal him. This man told Pastor Fink that God had a call on his life.  The man's words were like deep calling to deep in Pastor Fink's life.

There is a difference between Facts and Truth. The facts were this man had cancer, the truth was that Jesus died for us 2000 years ago and the man was healed. We need to believe the truth, not look at the outward facts of our circumstances. This person who spoke into Pastor Fink's life was miraculously healed.

We can get into a dangerous place if we are not careful what we hunger for.  YOU HUNGER FOR WHATEVER YOU FEED ON.

There is nothing like the Church when it works.
There is nothing like the Church when it doesn't work.

It is good to spend time in the River, but we need to get out of the River.  Often we use our reasoning to make excuses for why we are not doing what God has called us to do. We need to discern the difference between good and evil, and the Bible will help us to do that.

The Spirit of God speaks mysteries to us, and these mysteries are not always completely revealed.  Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

We need to remember the lyrics - Great BIG God, little bitty devil.  God wants to touch you.  We need a paradigm shift, asking for greater grace to expedite the transition to greater glory. We need habitation from God, revival.

He had us laughing about a dream he had as a child about a witch flying around on a hot dog.

Then Pastor Fink told us how one night he was tired and went to bed and had a dream about being in a hotel room with 2 Godly men and a prostitute. He knew that the 2 Godly men had partaken of the prostitute, and he could feel her trying to seduce him as well. She was trying to pull him into her spell. But he knew to resist the devil.  James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. He resisted, but there was shame on the other two men. He woke up thinking that it was time for revival.

At 5 AM when he woke up thinking about revival, he looked up the etymology of the Word revival and saw:  from Latin:  revivere "to live again," from re- "again" + vivere "to live". It comes from the root of the word for VITAL, as in revitalization.  In revival, those who are dead become alive.

Pastor Fink prayed about the meaning of the dream and God showed him that the prostitute was some of those in the Church who have been seduced by things of the world, the lust, pride, etc. 

We want to be the generation of the Church that is revived, alive, ready for the rapture.  WE WILL NOT GO UP UNTIL WE GROW UP. In the last days the elect will be revived.  If it isn't broken don't fix it.  Stick with the foundations of the Church.  God wants us to take the resources He has provided for us and use them.  We are called to occupy until He comes.  We are to become equipped and then go out and reach the nations.  Take the Gospel into the market places.  To use our resources wisely, not just financial resources.  But remember, IF IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOUR NEED, IT IS YOUR SEED.  Make your calling and your election sure.  The 5-fold ministry will help to mold you.

There is a shifting and movement in the Body of Christ.  Some of the church splits are of the devil, others are of God.  IF THE CHURCH IS NOT OF ONE VISION THAT BRINGS DIVISION. 

The Baptism of Fire is one of the 7 baptisms in the New Covenant.  It is a type of Christian Experience.  John the Baptist preached a Baptism of Repentance - he totally immersed those he baptized, he didn't just sprinkle them.  Where did we ever get the idea of sprinkling?

We need to realize both the goodness and the severity of God.  God does not want adultery either toward the Church (wrong teachings), Himself, or your wife. 

The great revivals were brought into being because of repentance.  We need to repent of sin, a sin consciousness destroys our sense of righteousness. The war with sin is over - we need to wake to our awareness of rightstanding with God.  We have a new freedom IN CHRIST. Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

People need Jesus to find their freedom, and there are so many that do not have Him. Every 90 seconds a teenager takes their life by suicide, the elderly are also alone and many take their lives as well.  We need to get out of the river and take Christ to the people who need Him so badly. Eighty percent of those who come to Christ come to Him because they were brought to Him by a friend or relative. 

The Holy Ghost gives us power so we can be a worker in the field.  The fruit of a Christian is another Christian.  We need to be discipling people and bringing them to Christ. Take the anointing - revive and refresh ourselves in the river, and then take it back into the world to reach others for Christ. Our financial lack is often indicative of a lack of evangelism.  Sheep reproduce sheep - they don't reproduce shepherds. 

The things we know, the Word of Knowledge, and the other giftings are not for ourselves, but to be used to reach others.  We are not to be a dry boat rider, but a wet road worker.  Jesus came to bring people to wholeness.  Take what God gives you.

There is Davidic worship which is uninhibited worship.  We have the things in the Spirit, but lately we have gotten in the habit of worshipping worship.  We are washed in the Word, and need to bring this out into the world.

1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. We have the anointing from God, and do know all things.  This gifting is for the revival, and using of the Word of Knowledge to reach others.

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

There are two different words for "knowledge" in the Bible.  Gnosis -which is informational and epignosis - which is experiential knowledge.

All the patriarchs died in faith, having seen the promises from afar off - they knew them, but did not experience the promises.  They believed them BY FAITH.  They went beyond feeling.

We need to go beyond the need to just feel good about ourselves. Don't define our life by our circumstances and environment.  There is a difference between happiness (circumstantially related) and joy (the joy of the Lord).  We are on a Christian journey - some things will seem good to us, others challenging, but we want to savor the JOURNEY, not the circumstances.

Pastor Fink spoke about his time in the Pentecostal Holiness church, and how people would come up to him and tell him the things that he needed to do to be holy - things like read 10 chapters of the Bible a day.  This seems like good advice, but what if he can only read 8 chapters a day?  Does he feel condemned for lack of two chapters?  There were laws about fasting and clothing styles, haircuts, etc.  Because of the legalism, the laws, sin abounded. 

We need to remember that we are no longer under the law, under sin.  Every sin we committed in the past, in the present, and will commit in the future is covered by the Blood of Christ.  Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.

The shed Blood of Jesus speaks better than Abel, for there is redemption through Jesus, and that gives us access to the Throne of God. Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Colossians 1:12-14 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.  He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,  in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

We are qualified and accepted in the Lord.

Pastor Fink reminded us of the song lyrics:  He paid a debt He did not owe; I owe a debt I could not pay; I needed someone to wash my sins away; and now I sing a brand new song; Amazing Grace all day long; Jesus paid a debt I could not pay.

There is potential for your life.  We don't want to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ and tell Him why we did not use the resources He provided for us.  We seem to think that we will be totally happy in Heaven, but the Bible tells us that He will wipe away our tears.  He will wipe away the tears that we will shed for all the opportunities we have passed up to serve Him here on earth, where we were just splashing around in the river, having a good time, playing games, but not reaching out with what we acquired in the river to reach souls. 

God is not interested in us feeling good about ourselves. Yes, we have the joy of the Lord, but there are times when things will not "feel" good on earth as we go about doing His business. Pastor Fink was poisoned 2 times serving God, attacked by the Hindus, and had challenges in his ministry.  He kept reminding himself.  1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

The Patriarchs in Hebrews 11 viewed the promises afar off.  REVELATION IS CAUGHT NOT TAUGHT.  We have to have an open spirit.  All revelation is from the Word.  ALL WORD - NO SPIRIT = DRIED UP.   ALL SPIRIT, NO WORD = BLOWN UP.  THE SPIRIT AND THE WORD ARE NEEDED TOGETHER AND MUST AGREE.

The devil used to make Pastor Fink nervous, now he makes the devil nervous. He uses the gifts, the power of God, and the Word to get people saved. Many in the Body of Christ accept Jesus' death on the Cross for our sins, but are not receiving ALL the promises He has to offer.  We have the answer to what this city needs.  We do not need to all remain within the walls of one church - we need to be equipped to be scattered. 

Pastor Fink spoke about the vision of Jacob's ladder where the angels ascended and descended. Jesus saw Nathaniel under the fig tree and told him John 1:50-51 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” The angels are already here. 

God told Pastor Fink that the greatest sin he has ever committed is the sin of prayerlessness.  If we ask we shall receive.  John 14:13-14 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. Luke 11:9-10 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

If we ask we shall receive, we can't use finances as an excuse or a problem to keep us from doing what God wants us to do.  If we ask we shall receive. We will receive enough money to scatter it. Joseph sowed seed in a time of famine.  There are the principles of seed time and harvest.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF 12 MONTHS FROM NOW?

We are YO-YO CHRISTIANS - if things are going good we say, "Hallelujah."  If they are going badly we back away. 

We need another paradigm.  Once we have become born again, as the scriptures tell us old things have passed away.  2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Pastor Fink started telling us at one point he said things like, "I try to do things like Jesus. I got knowledge. I this and I that."  He said that when he realized that what he was doing in his legalistic way of pursuing Christ was focusing on himself - me, me, me, - it caused him to become all puffed up. He had to change what he was saying about himself, focusing on God, not on himself.

As a Pentecostal Holiness believer - he did not watch TV - considering it the one-eyed devil, or called it DevilVision.  But he found recordings of sermons - at one time it was reel-to-reel, then cassette - and he listened to all the teaching of Alexander Scourby, and started listening to the Bible all the time.  Much of what Pastor Fink did at that time was to say, look at me. But then he got convicted when he remembered: Philippians 2:5-8 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Pastor Fink realized he had to get out of the river and do something.  He shared about a man who came to Christ two years ago.  This man was an addict and his addiction had destroyed his family, all he had was the church.  He came to a point where he decided that he did not want to follow the "rules and regulations" of the church, and withdrew.  He came back to the Church and Pastor Fink told him that if he went back to his sin of addiction, that God was going to remove his hand of protection from the man.  The man took drugs and died of a massive heart attack. It really hurts us when we see people withdraw from the church and turn back to those things that once bound them, and then proceed to destroy their lives. We would rather they take their freedom of choice and choose to stay close to Jesus.

When we fall back under the law it is demonic, and makes it hard for us to get free.  Christ came to fulfill the law, and it is through Christ that we gain salvation.  No one can keep the law in their own power.  We need to get back to what is foundational in our faith, to use everything Christ has made available to us to reach people for Christ.  Let our lights shine before us.  Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Get refreshed - renewed - encouraged - equipped - and then get out of here to reach others for Christ.

We are all aware of man's inhumanity to man, without Christ it becomes quite barbaric.  But Christ came to bring peace, and we have wonderful visions of that peace - Isaiah 11:6-8 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

We want to live in righteousness, not iniquity.  Now is the time to occupy, to anoint with oil.  THE DEVIL IS A DREAM THIEF.  WHATEVER HAS HURT YOU CAN HEAL YOU. WHATEVER YOU HAVE SHIED AWAY FROM, DRAW CLOSER TO.  WHATEVER YOU HAVE SEEN FROM AFAR OFF, YOU NEED TO LAY CLAIM TO.

Paul speaks to Timothy and tells him 2 Timothy 1:6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

We need to stir ourselves up, encourage ourselves, pray over ourselves, so that we do His will on earth. Philippians 3:12  Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

We will face challenges as we go forward to do good in Christ - for the devil will check us out to see if what we say we believe in, we really believe in our heart, not just our head.  We can do warfare by proxy.  Pastor Fink told us his father told him, "Son if you think you are going to hell, you're in the wrong family."  We need a sense of destiny.  When we look at someone who is hurting, we need to see them differently than what appearances show - we need to see them as Christ sees them. 

We can have a thought that is not of God, but it doesn't have to take root  in our lives.  A bird can fly over our heads, but we don't have to let it nest.  Some will die and not get the revelation by faith.  Others will hold to the promises that the scriptures give us. Don't say anything different from what the Scriptures tell us.

Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Pastor Fink shared about how he and his wife went through a rough spot in their marriage, and he almost left her - reminding us how wives seem to "change" after the marriage. (this made us laugh) He and his wife went into separate rooms and prayed, and he came out realizing that the devil was the one trying to rip apart their marriage - his wife had already told him that, but it confirmed what was happening.  They made a decision to not give into the devil and they are still together 39 years later. 

YOU NEED TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO STOP YOUR DEVIL. 

Psalm 37:23-24 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.

We need to get equipped and submit to God.  The principles of Christ create peace, give prosperity, but it can also mean sacrifice. 

We need to begin to meditate on the truth, on the Word of God. It all starts with a seed thought.  It is not like the meditation of the buddhists, where they seek nothingness, we meditate by taking the Word and the promises of God and reflecting on them.

Pastor Fink prayed for Haiti, and saw it in prayer, before he ever went to the country.  He saw it afar off, and knew that he had won the victory for Christ in Haiti. 

When God gives us instructions to go into the world, we need to know that we have the revelation to do what He says.  We do not come out of the river dry.  We embrace the vision for God, confess it before we ever see it.  We see it before we do it.  We need to stir ourselves up.

Speak in tongues, pray in tongues for that builds us up.  Tongues will help us to battle whatever satan throws at us.  James 4:2c Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

Prayer is the key to Heaven.  At one point Pastor Fink was under spiritual, demonic attack, and he prayed in tongues - loudly.  He asked in tongues what he didn't know how to articulate in English.  He prayed with groanings and utterances in tongues. The demonic fled.

Romans 8:26-27 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Pastor Fink closed by praying a corporate prayer with us, equipping us to go and do Christ's work in the nations, to step out in faith.

Praying your day is blessed!

Heather

Below is the transcript for the Say Amen TV Show on TBN East Coast. Remember what is in [brackets] is what the congregation says.  This is typed verbatim.  Praying your day is blessed.

Say Amen
Show 132
ATONEMENT FOR SIN
9/27/09

Tonight when the sun goes down I will enter into the fast for sundown to sundown.  So, Pastor Don won't be eating.  Is it required of you Gentiles, those of you that are Gentiles?  No, it's not required, but why do we do the Jewish holidays when we're not Jewish?  We do them because the Bible tells us that these Jewish things, the feasts and the holidays, were sent to the Jews as a tutor.  They're to teach us something.  Therefore, when a Gentile comes and knows that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.  Whoa!  What a novel idea.  Jesus was Jewish.  [hallelujah]   Whoa!  What a novel idea.  Ought not we then know some Jewish stuff?  [right]  It is required of us to understand that if our Savior was Jewish, and lived in the Jewish land, and ministered to the people through the Jewish text, and revealed and then fulfilled the feast holidays, if He was the fulfilling of all the things that were Jewish, then we ought to know some Jewish stuff. 

It doesn't make us a Jew because it says that we are grafted into the tree.  Which means that originally we were something else.  And then we were joined to someone else and we became a new creature in Christ.  Didn't we?  [yeah]  Didn't we?  I said, "Didn't we?"  [yes]  And so I ministered to you from 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if you are in Christ, you are a new creation, old things are... [passed away]  ...passed away, and behold, [all things]  not a few things, how many things?  [all things]  All things become new.  Therefore, we have to understand, what is this newness that God has given us, and why has He given it to us? 

Why can't we just stay the same old person, doing the same old stuff?  Well, the reason is, we'll get the same old results.  [come on]  And if we keep doing, it's a definition of insanity, if you keep doing the same thing, you think you're going to get a different result, you're crazy.  If you keep doing the same thing, the same way, you're going to get the same result.  But in Christ, He has come to us as a Jewish Messiah, trying to give us, through the Jewish law, an understanding of what He was really about and what His goal was, and what was He trying to accomplish.  So, let's do a little bit of basic, basic little mind game here and see if we can't go all the way back to the very beginning and understand a few things.  Are you ready?  [ready] 

Eternal God who sits in Heaven is a supernatural being.  He is a spirit being.  And in our understanding, God knows that we couldn't fully understand Him.  There is no way that the creature can understand the Creator.  That's a basic principle.  The creature cannot understand the Creator.  Ladies, if you make an apple pie, the apple pie has wonderment as it bathes in it's juices and sauces, and it looks up at you.  It goes, "What is she?"   The apple pie only knows about apple seeds and trees.  It has no comprehension of the wonder of the creator of the pie. 

Therefore, you as a created creature, how dare you think that you can understand and define God.  [amen]  So we have to realize then, that the reality is that we don't understand everything.  [amen]  We only understand what God reveals to us at the time that He reveals it to us.  Can you live with that?  [yes]  Obviously, some people cannot...

Some people's faith stop at their level of knowledge... I'm going to let that just sink in for a minute.  Should I say it again?  Some people's faith stop at their level of knowledge... They only have faith for what they know, the way they know it... And when they get into an area where they don't know everything, their faith is... weak.  Amen!  [amen]  Hallelujah!  [hallelujah]  Praise the Lord.  [Praise the Lord]  Glory to God. 

So, God steps out into space, or wherever He steps, whenever He steps.  We don't know where He steps, because no man has really, truly seen God.  So we don't really know where He stepped to, when He stepped out in space.  [laughter]  And He gets a great idea.  He says, "Let Us...make man in Our own image."  We can't really wrap our heads around that.  We are a Spirit  being who lives in a physical body.  That's a problem.  Because our physical body then tries to comprehend and understand the Spirit.  Problem.  God though, doesn't have that problem. 

So God gives us a little information when He says, "Us,"  He is talking about this triune being.  He's talking about this great Spirit, the Father, who also has a Spirit, the Son, who also has a Spirit, the Holy.  [Spirit]  Right, no I'm just calling Him the Holy, He's just the Holy.  The Holy Spirit.  And then we find out that there are seven spirits of God.  That's Isaiah, Chapter 11 if you want to look it up.  So, now, what does God say?  He says, "Let Us make man."  And then He says, "Okay, we're going to make man.  Good idea."  And He makes man. 

Only difference is that man is a spirit who is in a physical body.  God is a Spirit, but He's not in a physical body unless He wants to be.  [right]  Come on, somebody.  I said, unless He wants to be.  [amen]  So, God is a Spirit, who can be in a physical body, if He wants to be.  But His general condition is God is Spirit.  The Son of God, is a Spirit.  He is a Spirit who chose to be in a body. 

Now we have to ask ourselves, why would the Son of God, who is a Spirit, He is the Word, the Logos, that's His real name.  His real name is the Logos.  He is the Spirit or the voice of God.  He is the Angel or the Messenger of God.  In the Old Testament, that's what Jesus is described as.  But Jesus doesn't exist until Jesus goes into a physical body.  Therefore Jesus technically, watch out now.  Let me shake you up.  Jesus is not the direct definition of who the Logos is.  [right]  The Word.  It says the Word was God, the Word was with God, and the Word is God.  Well, wait a minute, if the Word is God, who's Jesus?  Jesus is the Word who came into a physical body  [right]  2000 years ago...  He put on a man suit, for a reason, 2000 years ago. 

We would be more appropriate when we pray to pray to the Word... Or to pray to Adonai, or Elohim.  The old Jews knew that there was a problem because the word, "Us," is multiple as opposed to a singular.  So God expresses Himself as a singular God, multiple manifestations.  So we run into a problem when we, the created one, wants to understand this sovereign God.  And so great debates, great theological debates are raged over who is God, what is God, how are we going to define God?  And we're going to reduce God down to something that we can comprehend.  You cannot comprehend the Creator of the universe.  [right]  How are you going to do that?  How in the world are you going to understand the multi-faceted, supernatural, all powerful, omnipotent, omniscient, gracious, holy, merciful, great, expansive, all knowing, super ability, super power, unlimited capability.  How are you going to grasp that?  How are you going to wrap your brain around that?  You don't even understand your wife.  [laughter]  How can you understand God. 

We can only go by what He says that we can kinda, kinda hope we can understand.  [that's right] ... You know, one of the greatest men that ever lived was Job.  And Job goes through all this wonderful, great wisdom, and talking and God finally interrupts the conversation, and says, "Hold on a minute."  He says, "Now I will question you.  I will question you.  How did I put the stars in the sky?  How did I make Leviathan, and Behemoth?"  And He starts asking Job these questions that he can't answer. 

So, when you listen to the radio and TV to these guys who wax eloquent about there is no God, and they understand God, and whatever.  You need to laugh.  I just laugh at them.  I mean, I laugh at them.  They don't even know how their bodies work, let alone they're going to understand God.  But we can understand what God has said in His Word that He wanted us to know.  And here's what He wanted us to know.  When He stepped out on space, He decided He wanted to make man, cause He wanted to hang out with us.  [amen]  That's about as far as you can get to the purpose of God making man. 

Because God, unto Himself, is fully complete.  He needs nothing and no one else.  He is El Shaddai.  He is Jehovah Rapha.  He is Jehovah Tsidkenu.  He is all of those Jehovah's, but even before we found out about all the Jehovah's, He said, "I AM THAT I AM."  [amen]  And that means He was the all-sustaining One who needs no one and needs nothing else.  He always was, always is, always will be.  He is the great I AM.  He is the ever present, all powerful One.  I could go on for hours, and still not define Him.  [bring it on]  Not even touch Him... But for some reason, the great I AM said, "I want some idiots to hang out with."  [laughter]  "I want some prideful, obnoxious, stiff-necked people, that think they know everything, and don't know nothing.  But I'm going to surround myself with billions of them, for some reason." 

God has to do something about our sin, about our uncleanness, about the way we talk, about the places we go to, about the things that we do.  He's got to get rid of that so He can hang out with us.  [yeah, hallelujah, applause]  He can't take us the way that we are because sin is in our nature.  It's what we do.  It's what we think about.  Our minds are in opposition to God.  We live a mental life of unbelief and doubt.  When God says you can do it, we go, no we can't.  When God says, it's yours, you can have it, we go, no, I'm not worthy of it.  When God says you're mine, I love you, I'll never leave you or forsake you, we go, oh no, I don't believe it.  I'm not ready for that.  [Jesus] 

He's got to get rid of all of that, so He can hang out with us.  Because, given an opportunity between choosing right and choosing wrong, we just gravitate over and we'll pick the wrong thing.  We'll just go over there and then we're so smart, we'll justify it.  We'll make excuses for why we did it.  And we'll blame somebody else.  The wife will blame the husband.  The husband'll blame the wife.  The kids'll blame the parents, and everybody's a mess.  There aren't enough shrinks to fix all of our stuff.  At some point it has to be atoned for.  At some point it has to be forgiven.  At some point we have to turn it over to God because He can fix it because He knows what has to be removed. 

Therefore, Jesus says to the Father, I will go down on the earth.  I will put on a human suit.  I will pay for their sin.  I will pay the price to remove the packaging so that we can get to the good fruit.  Somebody that understands that, say, "Praise the Lord."  [Praise the Lord, applause]  We're not all that. 

The only thing that you have control over in your body is your blood... [thank you Lord]  God created everything else and He maintains control over it.  But God gives you blood, which is the life force.  And the life force runs through your body...  And what you do, while you live in your body, concerning your blood, which is the carrier of life.  It carries life, throughout your body, or it carries death throughout your body... That's the only real thing that you have to control...

But God, since He has given you the life force, and He has declared that life is in the blood.  When He gave that blood to you, that blood was holy.  That blood was clean.  When you came into the world it was only carrying disease if you were born of a parent who was a disease carrier... And that's why things are moved from the first generation to the second, to the third, even unto the fourth generation.  So the life force is in the what?  [blood]  The life force is in the blood.  The blood. 

And therefore, what happened in the Garden of Eden, wasn't that it was a physical sin.  As much as it was a sin against the life force.  For God designed your body to carry blood throughout your body to bring you health, to bring you repair, and it was supposed to remain sin free... And that's why throughout the Old Testament there is, when you kill an animal, you are to drain out it's blood before you eat the steak.  The reason is because, that blood is the domain of God.  It is the thing that he has given to the individual  animal and therefore, you have no rights over its blood over the life force that is in it, so the blood is to be drained out. 

Because the blood is the carrier either of the sin or it's the carrier of the blessing.  And you have no right over the authority of it to take another human's life because you are taking his God-given life force.  [yes]  And that's why murder is a sin.  Because you are not to kill and stop and destroy the blood of the life force that God gave that you could not create.  How many of you created the blood that is in you?  You didn't.  You only recycled it, by either eating healthy, you recycled it.  Your body made more blood, or it didn't.  You are a blood factory.  Your body is the only, your body replenishes the blood.  It moves good things through your system, and around and through your body. 

Therefore, when a man sins, and God is going to punish him, watch this now.  The only thing that he has to deal with is the life force is what you have corrupted.  Your sin has perverted and corrupted the life force that is in you, which is the blood... And therefore, God says, your blood will be required of you if you sin. Because why?  Watch this, it's the only thing that you produce that you can use as payment. 

Well you say, why, if I sin, why can't I pay with money?  Well, wait a minute.  That money didn't come from you... The money came from, maybe the sweat of your brow, but what did you do?  You grew tomatoes.  You took the tomatoes to the market place, but guess what?  You say you grew the tomatoes, but you didn't.  [yeah]  You didn't grow them.  God grew them by designing it so that that thing would reproduce.  So you say, "I'll kill a goat, and I'll sell the goat."  Wait a minute.  You didn't grow the goat.  I don't care if you even cloned him.  The cloning process is still something that we fell upon due to what?  Knowledge of science, of the process of life that God put here.  [amen] 

I'm trying to help you.  If you get this, it'll change your life.  Because most of us don't understand why God punishes us, why sin is a problem, and why we have to pay for our sin.  You have to pay for your sin with something that you produce.  The only thing in life that you truly produce was the blood system in you, that God designed.  But it's the only thing that you have total, absolute control over.  Therefore, it's the only currency that you can use to pay for sin, is your blood.  [come on] 

What are you going to do?  You sinned, you're going to go get one of your kids and bring them over there?  You didn't birth that kid!  That kid came from the process that God designed.  That's God's kid.  You can't take the kid over and say, UNHNN, take my kid to cover my sins.  And that's why God hates abortion.  That's why He hates human sacrifice.  That's why He hates, it's an abomination to Him, because you are taking something that is not yours and you're using it to pay for your sin.  [come on]  How are we doing?  Are we alright?  [right on] 

You are the only thing that you have to produce is your own blood.  And it came from God, but your body produces it, therefore, your blood is required of you when you sin.  [yeah]  So God says, if Pastor Don is mean to his wife, I sinned against my wife, I curse her, I abuse her, and whatever, whatever.  God then says, His blood is required of him.  What am I going to pay with?  Her car?  I'm going to take her car and give it to God?  God don't need her car.  And I get really personal, I go, I'll take my car.  God take my car.  Receive my car for payment of my sins.  God says, wait a minute.  That won't work.  The only thing that you have that you have full control over is your blood, Don.  Give me some blood, that'll pay for the sin against your wife... What else can you pay with?  What currency can you pay with?  You're going to do good works to pay for your sins?  I don't think so.  The only currency that you have is that which you really have. 

Cain slew Abel.  What was the problem.  Abel brought his sacrifice willingly to God.  Cain didn't want to bring it at all.  And so he gave God just some stuff.  And so, what did God say?  He says, "Satan is waiting.  Satan's waiting for you to slip up.  Guess what's required of you now?  Your blood."  It says that Abel's blood was crying out from the ground.  Abel's blood was crying out.  What's it crying out for?  He's crying out that his debt of death, the taking of his life, of his blood, the only way that Cain could pay for it was that Abel's blood is crying out from the ground, that Cain's blood should now be spilled to pay for Abel's blood, his death. 

We're still fussing and fuming and acting like little kids because why?  The only way Adam and Eve could pay for their sin would have been to die.  God would have had to come in the Garden and say, "You guys sinned."  And He almost did. You know.  Adam says, "This woman you gave me."  So Adam was already trying to get her killed.  [laughter]  "This woman you gave me.  It's her fault."  And what did she do?  She was slick, she says, "That didn't work.  The woman/man thing didn't work.  The serpent."  She blamed the serpent.  Right?  [amazing]  Come on.  How many of you all read your Bibles?  She blamed the serpent.  He blamed her and she blamed the serpent.  [right]  ... They both got kicked out.  And the only way they could have paid for it was with their blood. 

Does anybody understand what I'm telling.  That's the only thing they have.  Adam could have done this.  He could have said, "Lord, You're right.  I sinned.  You made me ruler over the earth, and she's a part of the earth.  I should have taken dominion over this and said, "No, honey.  Don't listen to the serpent.  Matter of fact, the serpent is (stomps)  under my foot.  We'll not listen to Him baby.""  [amen]  "We'll not listen to him. Today, let's go get some mango and papaya. [laughter]  God made it for us and it's right over here."  But they didn't do that.  Therefore, their blood is required of them, is the only currency they had in the Garden, they would have had to pay. 

But what did God do?  God accepted a substitute.  [right, right]  He accepted a substitute.  God, Himself, killed an animal, took the skins so that they could cover their shameful bodies.  So that their sin would be covered.  And He accepted it as an atoning sacrifice, the blood of the animal that was slain to cover their sin.  I think somebody's getting this now.  [yeah]  That was the first atoning sacrifice.  Was it perfect?  No!  It was substitutionary.  How many of you all can say that?  [substitutionary]  A little louder.  [substitutionary]  A substitutionary sacrifice is a good one, but it's not the best. 

When you go to court for an infraction, and the judge says, "Listen, we're going to postpone this, we're going to postpone this, in contemplation of dismissal."  That is substitutionary.  Because he could fine you, or he could lock you up as a direct payment for the crime you committed. But he is saying, "We will accept a substitute.  I will take your word that for the next 18 months, you will not violate the law.  Therefore, as a substitute, we are accepting that.  But guess what, it's still on the books.  If you blow it, we're coming to get you."  [yes]  Did anybody get that?  [yes] 

Therefore, the sacrifice of animals, the blood of animals was a substitute, but it really wasn't direct payment because animal blood and human blood are not the same.  [yeah]  Everybody got that?  [right]  Therefore, animals could only be a substitute.  They could only be a postponement for the penalty of sin.  A postponement for the penalty of guilt.  A postponement for evil done.  We'll accept animal blood for awhile. 

But the ultimate goal was what?  I want man to hang out with me without the box, without the plastic, without the seeds.  Therefore, at some point in time the substitute has to be done away with, and we're going to have to have some real blood, honey.  We're going to have to have some real clean, purified blood that is able to pay for the sin of man.  We're going to have to have the real deal at some point.  No credit card, it's going to have to be a direct blood transaction here.  There's gonna to be no phony promises.  You're not going to wave a chicken over your head and that's going to get it.  You're not going to do some voodoo ceremony and that's going to get it.  You're not going to be mad at God and think that that's going to pay for it.  You're not going to work real hard in the harvest field.  You're not going to work hard in the church and that's going to do it.  Some real, down, red blood is the only thing that's going to pay for that sin. 

And aren't you glad Jesus the Christ gave up His blood to pay for your sin?  [cheering]  Jesus, the Holy One, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, lived a life without sin, and He gave everything He had for you.  [hallelujah]  That's what we're celebrating.  That's what this week of atonement is about.  That we recognize that the real blood was paid so that we could go free.  So that we could get out of the box, rip out of the plastic, and destroy the seeds and step forth into the light of God and say, "I am purified by the blood of the Lamb."  [hallelujah]  "I'm made righteous by the blood of the Lamb."  [hallelujah]  And when He comes He will see no sin in my blood... When the Father comes, He will see the atoning sacrifice of the Son.  He will see that my sins have been paid for by His sacrifice.  And I will hang out with Him forever.  [amen, amen, amen] 

Our women's luncheon was awesome - as always.  We begin with a pot luck lunch, go upstairs for praise and worship and have a guest speaker.  This month's speaker was Cynthia Moore - Pastor Don's wife - and boy did she give us a message that was so convicting - homework too!!! Our next meeting is November 21 and you are welcome - we begin at 1 and are pretty much done by 4.  It is a good group of women, and there is plenty of fellowship and friendship.

To begin the meeting we were each given an index card and told to anonymously write a recent negative event that happened, and record what we said at the time of the event and what we said to others after the event.  We passed those cards in to be used later in the meeting.

Cynthia held up the Bible and said, this is the Word of God.  We have it.  We need it.  It teaches us.  We need to hear and obey. God's words are life to us. 

1 Samuel 15:22-23 So Samuel said: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebelion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.”

When we do God's word we receive blessing, favor, and He makes our paths more smooth. If we don't do His Word our lives are not very god.

God tells us:  DO NOT WORRY, and He tells us to FORGIVE those who offend us.  We often say, "I can't help worrying.  How can I forgive them?"  But when we don't obey God in this we will find that worry and unforgiveness can lead to stress which leads to disease.  We need to obey what God tells us or we end up harming ourselves.

BELIEVE, KNOW, TRUST God's Word.  When we do deal with our experiences through the truth of God's Word, God works supernaturally in our lives. The more experience we have with God and following His Word, then we learn how beneficial it is, and we begin to trust God more and more, and know that He has our best interests at heart. We need to trust Him even in our bad situations.  He will get us through.

To follow God's Word in our lives means we have to KNOW GOD"S WORD.  If we don't know what the Word says, how can we follow it?  We need to read the scriptures so we know what to say and believe.  The Bible is the Living Word.  It is not imperfect, it is the pure Word of God - it is real and accurate.

If we don't know what we should pray regarding a situation, seek the scriptures for a story or a verse that shows us what God has promised.  Cynthia also told us that when God repeats something in His Word it is for emphasis and should be taken to mean that God means it. 

Our tongues speak our words and thoughts, and we need to master what our tongues say. Look in a concordance to see what God has to say about the situation, believe God's Word, speak God's Word.  We want God's Word to be the Word that comes off our tongues.

Even if we read scripture and know His Word, we don't always speak it. Why?  Sometimes it is our upbringing. We might have spent our formative years with people who always viewed a situation as negative.  And without thinking we model ourselves after that kind of negative behavior and thinking.

God wants us to give the Glory to Him, for what He has done in us.

Cynthia shared how someone told her mother that Cynthia looks like her mom, and her mom's reply was, "Oh poor thing."  What kind of message did that send to Cynthia?  When she was growing up her best friend's mother used to respond to every situation negatively.  That becomes a habit, and we need to break the negativity habit. 

Some people don't know how to say something in a positive way.  Some think people don't take them seriously if they are too positive, that they have to be mean, negative, or strong to be heard. 

We need to believe God's Word and say what God's Word says. Then, no matter our circumstances, we can have the peace that passes all understanding.

There is a big difference between TRUTH AND FACT.

They can run in parallel directions.  The worldly and spiritual are always going on at the same time.  When we perceive that something is wrong in the world, we need to put the WORD above the World.  The TRUTH of God's Word in place of the fact.  The fact may be that it seems to be a bad day, but the TRUTH is that we are blessed and highly favored.

Cynthia read from a book called Hung by the Tongue Written by Francis Martin.  He tells us that to control our mouth we have to control our mind and what we think.  Proverbs 23:7a For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. There was more that she read from this source, it seems to be a good book, but may not be easy to obtain.

We need to accept that Scripture is literal.  These are spiritual principles that the Word contains that God set forth.  They are always operating. For example, the principle of sowing and reaping.  Sometimes knowing these principles does not make it any easier to follow them.  But God's Word is truth, and as we follow these principles we learn that we cannot beat God at giving.

Luke 6:37-38 Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

If you spend your time criticizing people, you will reap criticism and receive judgments yourself.  That does not mean that we don't judge, but how we judge is very important, and God knows our hearts. 

If we want to be blessed, sow blessings to others and we will reap blessings.

There are three things that will help us with our tongues:  1) prayer; 2) awareness; and 3) work and yieldedness.

PRAYER- God helps us, we can't do anything without God helping us.  It takes time and effort on our part to learn our scriptures and open up the Word, but God will use the Word to teach us, guard us, and help us to change.  Invoke God's love.

1 Corinthians 13 is the Love Chapter - and it tells us that Love never fails. We can't do anything without love. If our life is not moving the way we want it to, we need to check our love walk.  We want things to come from a heart of love. We don't want to act out of anger and resentment.  Let our words be words of love.  If we have to say tough words to someone, we may have to say them a different way so that they can be received. Speak the truth in love.

AWARENESS:  We need to be aware of what we are saying.  Listen to ourselves, get a monitor (a friend or family member) who will point out when we are speaking negatively.  Ask their help. Tell them we are trying to learn to speak more positively and ask them to let us know when we are not.  It can be tough to have someone point it out, but if we really want to change, we need to be aware of when we are being negative.

Cynthia then pointed out that there are times when we need to vent - and the way to do that is to get with someone that you have a positive relationship with and let them know that you are venting.  It has to be a trusted person who can then pray with you, and one that you know that what you are venting will not be repeated to others. And when you vent, don't do it with character assassination.  Hopefully they will help you to find constructive things to say or do.

When you do have a legitimate complaint and need to speak it to someone, be aware of how you are saying what you want to say. Don't NIT PICK OR NAG.  Choose your battles. Sometimes things are not worth getting upset about.  Some things are so small you don't want to let them get you upset.  Overlook the small stuff.

It does take work to change our tongues.  We have to do it though, to make the effort to retrain our mouth, learn how to say things a different way, and try to learn to use positive phrases. 

For example if you want your husband to take out the garbage - don't nag and question him repeatedly, "Did you take out the garbage?" Or say something like, "You never remember to take out the garbage." A more positive way of saying things is to say something like, "I love it when you take out the garbage.  Or thank you for taking out the garbage."

And even if a person doesn't do the perfect job, say nice things about the good parts that they did.  People are more motivated by complements than they are by negative things.

Avoid killer phrases such as:  You ALWAYS..... or I'm just sick of you when you.....

Ecclesiastes 12:11 The words of the wise are like goads, and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd.

A goad has a sharp point on the end and is used to drive cattle, prod sheep, and get them doing the action that you want them to do, to move them along.  Words that are carefully spoken will be heard and produce results.  If something is said in a negative way it produces withdrawal and negativeness.

We can cause the person to BLOCK what we are saying if we are not careful how we present it.

We don't know what they are saying, and sometimes we react to what they are doing but without knowing what is in the person's mind. We can carefully ask and probe - saying things like:  I am glad you did this today.  What do you mean by that? (Heather's comment: check your tone of voice when you say that though) Or, Oh, thank you for that.

We can cause them to BLOCK us invasively if we say things the wrong way, they can deliberately do the opposite.

They can be BLOCKING US DUE TO PAST HISTORY.  Either their past or we box them in with statements like "You are never any good at fixing the car, I'll have to deal with it myself. With the car you might want to ask the person if they want to look at it or do they want you to get a mechanic.

Change your words, your attitudes, your heart, and you will begin to see results.

TRY NOT TO ACT IN RETALIATION.  You can get angry, but before you retaliate, go back to the book.  Read Psalm 30 & 31.  In times of trouble the Psalms are a good place to go - The psalmists have had their problems, write about them, but they always end up back at the truth that God is there.

We looked at some selected verses of Psalm 30 & 31.  I will share the ones Cynthia highlighted.

Psalm 30:1-2 I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me.O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.

Psalm 30:5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

There is a richness and fullness in the Psalms.

Psalm 31:3  For You are my rock and my fortress; therefore, for Your name’s sake, lead me and guide me.

Psalm 31:5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.

Psalm 31:7-8 I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, for You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities, and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a wide place.

Psalm 31:20 You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. 

Love is so important, it is in Love that God's promises are fulfilled.

We then broke up into small groups and divided up those index cards that we wrote at the beginning of the session. We read the situation and discussed what the person did, if they did it correctly or if they needed to say things a different way.  It was interesting to think about situations - even though we didn't know the whole story behind the situation it was helpful to think about ways to present the response in a positive manner. Also we could figure out that certain responses probably didn't get results and others did.

Then Cynthia gave us the following handout that contained some scriptures about the tongue, not all of them were the usual ones.

A WHOLESOME TONGUE IS A TREE OF LIFE.

James 1:26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

James 3:2-10 (excerpts) ....If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body...Look also at ships: and though they are so large...they are turned by a very small rudder...the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how a great forest a little fire kindles...no man can tame the tongue..Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not be so.

Psalms 15:1-3 Who may dwell in your holy hill?...he who..does not backbite with his tongue.

Psalm 34:13 Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.

Psalm 39:1 ...I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle...

Psalm 119:172 My tongue shall speak of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteous.

Proverbs 6:16-17 These six things the Lord hates...A proud look, a lying tongue

Proverbs 10:19-20 In a multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver...

Proverbs 12:18 There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.

Proverbs 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

Proverbs 15:23 Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from trouble.

Cynthia told us that it is a psychological fact that it takes 30 days to break a habit.  She gave us note pads and told us that we should write down every negative statement that we make.  And suggested that we find trusted individuals to tell us if they notice negative speaking in our words. Also to find an accountability partner to answer to regarding our negative words.

She suggested that we can tell the impact of our words by having an awareness of a person's body language after you make a statement. 

She also pointed out that there are going to be people who do not want us to change, and that could cause challenges for us.  She gave us some good techniques to deal with issues.  For example if you want to get  your car to a garage to get repaired and you want to make sure your husband isn't offended by that.  You could ask him, on a scale of 1-10 how badly do you want to repair the car rather than have me take it to the garage?  Some things are not as important as other things for people.  When you can begin to realize what really matters you can adjust your requests accordingly.

Another technique is the third person technique - ask yourself how you would speak to another person regarding the issue, and what advice would you give them.  Communicate using those words instead of your words. Suggest that you and your spouse try to get out of yourselves and figure out how you would advise someone else with the same problem. 

We should either be assisting or be absent. Walk away if you have to rather than speaking negativity into the situation. 

You have to take the first steps so that you begin to speak more positively.  Tell yourself that you can add the negative later if you have to.

We stood up and read the following verse:

Psalm 39:1 1st three lines:  I said, “I will guard my ways, lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,..."

Then we sat and looked at the following verses:

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Mark 11:23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

We need to guard our tongues like a tiger with a muzzle. 

We were given the following equation:

God's process + our process = God's provision.

God's grace is sufficient and we will prosper when we work and daily use His guidance.  We will not be victims.  We will be blessed.

Cynthia gave us much to think about and do.  I know that if we apply this teaching to our lives that we will make dramatic changes in our lives.

Have a blessed day!

Heather

This lesson was taught on 10/16 - I missed the previous Friday Bible study due to taking my daughter to visit colleges.

Pastor Don went to Isaiah 8:19-22 to lay a foundation because the Bible was not written originally with chapter and verse but as one long scroll.  The chapters and verses were placed to make it easier to find our place, but sometimes the translators put the chapters and verses in peculiar places.

Isaiah 8:19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?

Today we are seeing this as well, people seeking mediums and wizards, and trying to talk to the dead. This is not possible and there is much deception.

Isaiah 8:20-22 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

This is an End Times prophetic passage.  In this day and age Israel is in a drought, has been for 7 years.  Right now Israel is a secular nation, and God is seeking to move them to the place where they seek God.  In Isaiah's day, God needed to bring in the Assyrians to cause the people to finally reject their idols and turn to God.  History is repeating itself.

Our President is trying to force Israel to a peace agreement.  The lines are more clearly drawn, and the repercussions will be tremendous.

Isaiah Chapter 9 is dealing with future events - the Messiah and the future, the end times. It is a near and a far fulfillment of prophesy.

Isaiah 9:1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles.

The gloom will be raised.  Zebulun and Napthali is part of Northern Israel.  Galilee, from the Jordan East to West.  The Jordan River runs North to South through Israel.

Isaiah 9:2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.

Darkness in Galilee and the Gentiles.  The Messiah came into Galilee of the Gentiles, and emerged from there. Pastor Don pulled out a map to show us where he was talking about.  The See of Galilee is where he is pointing, and below his hand is the Jordan River which feeds into the Dead Sea (the other large body of water)  We used maps in the back of our Bibles to get an idea of the geography of the land of Israel.

Pastor Don spent some time with the map of Israel showing us the surrounding countries.  Jesus came out of Nazareth and the Scribes and Pharisees did not believe that anything good could come out of Nazareth.  Nazareth was on the direct route that the traders took to deliver goods from Egypt and other points to points further inland.  Because of that there were many languages and nationalities that came through Nazareth, and the scribes and Pharisees did not think that the Messiah would come from such a diverse city.  Also, the small amount of water that Pastor Don is pointing to is the Sea of Galilee - it is the only source of fresh water for Israel.  The countries that want Israel to give land that is near the Sea of Galilee to other countries do not realize that that could jeopardize Israel's livelihood - for without fresh water, Israel would not be able to exist.  The Jordan River flows from the sea of Galilee and dumps its water into the Dead Sea (that large mass of water near the bottom of the map).  If enemy nations managed to get access to the Sea of Galilee they could pollute, bomb or destroy the water source.  Those countries that traveled from Turkey, Europe, Egypt, or other points depended on the Sea of Galilee for fresh water, because water is scarce in the surrounding countries.

Then there is the Palestinian issue - there was never a nation of Palestine from ancient times.  In 1948 the League of Nations made Israel a country, and the surrounding nations around Israel were not happy with this for they did not like Israel. They took their poor people from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, etc. and gave them guns, telling them that the Israelites were not military people, kill the Israelites and you can have their land.  In all honesty, the only native people in Israel at that time were the Bedouins, small tribes of nomads that have no nationality or country and travel around.  Well, the plan to kill the Jews did not work, and what happened is that some of those people who had been given guns decided to be loyal to Israel and were assimilated into the land.  Others tried to go back to their native countries, but their native countries did not accept them back - they were left in the wilderness in no nation - because they did not like the Jews they could not be assimilated into Israel, and they were just kept in camps - but the Israelites fed them.  The surrounding nations realized that Israel was feeding these poor people, so they sent more people into the mix - figuring let Israel take care of them.  Unfortunately the disenfranchised people were also angry and kept attacking Israel.  There were many wars, 1962, 1967, 1972 and Israel won them all. 

People in Jordan, if they are honest also point out that they only are in their second or third generation - the Jordanians do not go back to ancient history either. The trouble is that the surrounding nations want Israel completely annihilated, but America needs to be aware that Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East and without Israel, we would have challenges.

Back to Isaiah, the Pharisees did not think any good could come out of Nazareth because of all the various peoples who traveled through it.  Jesus spoke 3 languages, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.  He may even have spoken some Latin to deal with the Roman soldiers.

The Jews in Jerusalem lived in an orthodox atmosphere, and did not think anything good could come out of Galilee.  The People from Nazareth dressed differently, had a pronounced dialect.  It would be like being able to tell in our country if someone was from the deep South or the North. 

Isaiah 9:2  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.

The land of the shadow of death, this would be the Jezreel Valley - a flat plain where Armageddon will be fought, near Megiddo.  There is a narrow mountain pass leading toward there, and it is called the Valley of Decision.  In this area there were also altars to idols and babies and small children will killed in temple worship. 

Isaiah 9:3-4 You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy; they rejoice before You  according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You have broken the yoke of his burden and  the staff of his shoulder the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

Judges 8 speaks of Gideon and his army defeating the Midianites. Judges 8:28 Thus Midian was subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted their heads no more. And the country was quiet for forty years in the days of Gideon.

Isaiah 9:5 For every warrior’s sandal from the noisy battle, and garments rolled in blood,  will be used for burning and fuel of fire.

Pastor Don spoke of how Isaiah tells of the light shining, that the Messiah will come from the rejected area and the believers will multiply making the Kingdom of God - Jews and Gentiles together.  In the last days there will be a harvest from God.  There is a misunderstanding of what this harvest will entail.  The harvest will be a supernatural act of God.  God will respond to men's hearts and pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh.  Not all will accept God, but God will be sending people to to reap a harvest of souls at such a weight that the reaper will not be able to keep up with the sower.  There will also be a great judgment.  It is up to us to sanctify ourselves to be in the proper position for us to be used as a minister of the Gospel, for the multitudes are coming to receive from the Lord.

Isaiah 9:6 An incredible verse!  For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Notice it is a Child - a Son - GIVEN, it doesn't say "birthed".  There is no human factor, the Son was GIVEN by God.  And the Government would be on His Shoulder, it is a benevolent dictatorship.  Democracy is insane and hasn't worked.  The United States is a REPUBLIC, and it is run by the people in power, but it masquerades as a democracy - it lets you vote, but that is more to keep you quiet. 

God's rule is right all the time, for God rules right and what is best for us, we don't get to vote.  Orders come from God.  God does not say, "Would you like to ...?"  Democracy is slow and inefficient, but under God we are a benevolent dictatorship.  What comes down to us are dictates, not suggestions. 

As lawlessness increases in the land we are going to have to be strong enough to know where to draw the line.  We all have to decide what we will accept or not.  Sadly, some people only want some of the traits listed for Jesus - Some are happy to have a Wonderful or Counselor, but don't want a Mighty God.  The truth is, when Jesus shows up again He is going to be Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Wonderful, Counselor.  He will come in His Might - not as a little lamb. 

Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice  from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

There is a specific order in this - right now the Church is in disorder.  He will bring order, clean it all out.  If you permit any infestation on any level, you perpetuate the infestation.  There will be order - judgment - justice.  You don't judge unless you are ready to be judged and can judge rightly.  If there is no judgment, chaos happens. 

In the shows that have judges on TV, the people are separated by the law giver - we need to know the Law Giver, and then we will have no problem agreeing with what is right and wrong.  We know that God's Judgment is just.

Praying your day is blessed!

Heather

This is from Pastor Don's Friday Bible study 10/2/09

Romans 6:18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

This is the last phase of spiritual growth. God changes the way we worship.  Our outlook, purpose and will can get in the way of our worship.  As we grow in Christ our view of sin and death change, and our purpose of life changes.  We begin to see death as but a doorway to eternal life.  Finally we will get to see Jesus face to face.  Our view of death changes, and also our way of looking at sin changes. 

Jesus conquered sin and death.  Therefore, sin which leads to physical death isn't leading to physical death but to spiritual death.  If we sin there is a penalty and a price to pay. 

Physical death leads to spiritual life.  We are a spirit that lives in a body, but when we face physical death we are moving into spiritual eternal life. 

Life itself changes.  What you used to fear, now you no longer fear.  Things that used to seem important are not so important.  Pastor Don told us that if we do not believe in eternal life, then we might want to consider doing the bucket list.

God has programmed us so that we believe in the hope of life after death, and we want to try and make our lives count for something.  The more mature you are in the spirit, the more you see death as a doorway.  Jesus did not get moved by the opinions of people, for Jesus knew that the worst thing they would do is kill Him, and he had no fear of death.  Jesus also knew that people would not be able to kill Him until His time had come.  They did not kill Him until He was ready to die, and even on the cross He died when "it was finished."  Not a moment before or a moment later.  The timing of His death was Jesus' choice. Because Jesus was not a sinner, death had no authority over Him. Death only has authority over us if we are afraid.  The Romans expected that Jesus would be on the cross 2-3 days dying a slow death and were surprised at how quickly he died.  Death didn't kill Him, He gave up the ghost.

You are the final authority over the moment of your expiration.  Our physical body is programmed to keep us alive.  The physical body is programmed to exist.  Crucifixion is a horrible way to die- and those on the cross would painfully lift their bodies up to gasp in a breath, it was involuntary - they struggled to breathe even when the pain to do so was horrific. What kills us is disease, death, or lack of will to live.  It is not the point of death, but the cessation of life.

Revelation 20:13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.

The death spirit and hades had possession of the people.

Revelation 20:14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Death and hades were where the spirits went - but then death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. That was the second death.  The first death is physical death, the second death is when those who desire to be placed away from God will stay eternally in bondage in hell, the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

If people do not want to be around God, their names are not in the Book of Life and they will be cast into the lake of fire.

It is our lack of spiritual understanding and spiritual immaturity that we do not realize the truth of God - even Creation shows God's existence to everyone.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

To go to hell you have to reject God, to deny the manifest truth of God, and that takes some doing for all of creation declare's God's existence.

Romans 1:19-20 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 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 they are without excuse,

What is here in the world is created - it didn't just happen.

Romans 2:12-16 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;  for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Romans 6:19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Our flesh (mind, will, emotions) all of us is tempted and said, "yes" to sin and this was not to our best outcome. Our mind will sometimes lead us into dangerous places and cause us to make mistakes.  We want to become slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Romans 6:20-21 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

The end of these things is death.

Romans 6:22-23 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When we get more spiritual our attitude toward death changes, we pray for people in a different way, and the desires of our heart changes. If we are earthbound we might pray for people to live even when it is to their detriment.  After 70 years some people are ready to be with God, and they look at their lives with different eyes than those who are not so sure about death, who want to keep the person around so that they do not have to be grieved.  Pastor Don said that his mom wants to live a long life only if she has her mind and her health.

We do not have all the answers and we need to trust God.

Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Pastor Don described life as like a puzzle in pieces.  You may not even know if you have all the pieces to the puzzle and to build the puzzle you need to start at the outer edges - at the corners, and piece them together, then begin to build the middle.  We may not even have the picture on the cover of the box.

In faith we start with the outer edges and leave the rest of the puzzle up to God until we get there.  Your expectations can disappoint you, for your expectations may not be built on all the pieces of the puzzle.

Pastor Don's father, Ivor Moore,  used to always say:  Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

Our view of sin is not the end of all life and death, but it is part of our learning process.

THY WILL BE DONE.  God's got the plan and the picture on the top of the box of puzzle pieces we have been given. 

Philippians 1:20-21 according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

We need to recognize spiritual maturity is a process that we go through.  Our will is important and our level of maturity is important, but we need to accept this growth toward maturity as part of the process.  We sometimes wonder why alcoholism, sickness, disease, dysfunctional families and things have happened in our lives.  Our flesh screams out that we want the perfect life NOW.  We have to die to self to attain the perfect life.  Why do we admire movie stars and give them accolades for their beauty - they didn't do anything to achieve it - it was given to them by God.  And movie stars who supposedly have their beautiful lives end up doing ugly stuff.  It is as we die to self and mature and grow in Christ that we begin to build the character that really matters.  All the beauty and glamor without character is tarnished.

Romans 6:22-23 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is the conclusion.  We are set free from sin by the Blood of Jesus.  We have the faith that sin no longer encumbers us. Yes, we will mess up and make a  mistake, but our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. Jesus has eliminated our sins. We can go before the bench and claim, "not guilty."  The case is dismissed because Jesus paid the price.  If we accept this fact, we are set free, and as such have become slaves of God.  We should, as we grow in Christ, sin less, recognizing our new spiritual nature.  We have chosen a different master, and as a child of Christ, we do not have to sin over and over and over again.  We are not serving our old master Romans 6:19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. Our old master is the flesh.  Our flesh is designed to kill us. we will sin in the flesh over and over and over and over - there is no way to stop the flesh meter, there is no eject button.  It is only by the spirit that we can stop it, by saying that we have chosen a different master - now we are a slave to God.

We need to take our thoughts captive to Christ.  Thought leads to sin, but it is not sin until it comes to our mouth.

We then read romans 6:23 - 7:1 Pastor Don pointed out that the Bible was not originally written in chapter and verse - and 6:23 runs right into 7:1.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

As long as we are in the physical body the laws of the 10 Commandments exist.  Jesus conquered sin and death.  He lived under the law and obeyed the law without sin.  He has shown us it is possible to do this, and through Him we can.  As long as we are alive we are to live by the scriptures.  It is never ok to lie, cheat, steal, kill, commit adultery, use God's name in vain, etc.  We are told to not be afraid or worry.  It is not ok to be stressed out.  Worry is forbidden. Jesus did not say, I wish you wouldn't worry, He commanded DO NOT WORRY. 

We tend to fall into drugs, pills, drinking to escape from ourselves, and our self-imposed stress.  We have to volunteer to let the circumstances in our lives lead us to the pint where we feel we are stressed.  Some people say things are too much for them, and what they are saying is too much is what we consider basic life.  The worry and stress is self-made.  DO NOT WORRY.  It is not a suggestion made by God, but a command. Worry brings death. 

If we are fixing to stress don't jump into the mess.  Pastor Don told us to make sure we pray and speak with God before we get out of bed so we don't jump into a mess.

Praying your day is blessed.

Heather

Yvonne shared this with our Bible Study group on a Thursday night when Pastor Don was teaching about the authority of the believer.  I asked her if I could share her poem with you and Yvonne wrote this to me:

"I don't call this a poem.  It came to me in one fell swoop one night. It has phraseology and terms, that I had never used.  I was struggling with unworthiness, and asked God for help.  I just call it a piece of writing."

Well, this "piece of writing" is powerful and a blessing to me.  I pray it also blesses you. 

UNWORTHINESS

Moving through life as unworthy IS the sin.
Unworthiness is not just a psychological or emotional block that has to be processed or worked through with therapy.

Unworthiness is against Jesus' teaching.
Unworthiness is against Scripture.
Unworthiness is satan's way into our soul.

Unworthiness is a trick of the devil to keep us from our spiritual inheritance.

If we feel unworthy, then we can't stand in the authority of the believer.
If we feel unworthy, then we really aren't able to receive the Love of Christ.
If we feel unworthy .....

Unworthiness is clever, it can look like humility.
It can look like we are caring more about others than ourselves.

Pastor Don began the Bible study by giving a recap about Isaiah because we had a lot of new visitors to the study.  He reminded us that Isaiah was a prophet who was prophesying that there was going to be a punishment coming on Israel because of their disobedience. The nation of Israel was divided into the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah).  Israel (the Northern Kingdom) never had a king that did not resort to idol worship, and as a nation it was the first to go into captivity, but Judah soon followed.

After Solomon died, Rehoboam who was king of both Northern & Southern Israel chose to follow the counsel of young men, not the elders, and he caused a great tax to be given to the people of Israel, this caused the nation to divide into two.  But this created a problem for Jereboam who rebeled against Rehoboam and became the king of the Northern Kingdom (the 10 tribes) and he feared losing his power when the tribes would want to go to Jerusalem for the Feasts.  So he created two golden calves for the people to worship and placed them in the land - this was repeating the sin of the Israelites in the wilderness, for God did not want idol worship.  This lead to greater and greater sins, and more and more idol worship.  And ultimately led to the nation being led into captivity.

God gave the Israelites the Law as a tutor to show them their need for a Messiah, and ultimately God wanted to write the law on their hearts, but the Israelites turned the law into legalism, and persisted in their sins. 

There were a few kings in Judah who did "right" in the sight of God, but idolatry kept returning to the land.  But because of those kings that sought to obey God, Judah remained in tact a bit longer than the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom.  The prophets kept warning the people, but the people chose to ignore the prophets. 

The truth is that violating the law would kill them, but people felt that that would not happen.  Jesus took the law and boiled it down to two commandments - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, spirit, and love your neighbor as yourself.  But the people kept rebeling.

Isaiah is prophesying to warn the people about the impending judgment of God for their disobedience and idolatry.  We picked up on Chapter 8.

Isaiah 8:1-3 Moreover the LORD said to me, “Take a large scroll, and write on it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. And I will take for Myself faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.” Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz;

The footnote at the bottom of my Bible tells us that Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means "Speed the spoil, hasten the booty." Principles in the Old Testament are clouded, but we see more what they are in the New Testament.

The real question is:  Is God sovereign or not? What happens is that we want God to be sovereign as long as God is good to us, as long as He is blessing us, and it is going well for us.  It is kind of like a teenager who is getting what they want.  But all that changes the moment things do not go our way.  Then we do not want God's sovereign will.

The truth is God will use good and evil to accomplish His purposes.  He will permit the destroyers to come if people are not in obedience and if they remove themselves from His covering of protection by disobedience.   The devil is happy to comply, to kill, steal and destroy.  It is not God doing the destruction, but God can remove His hand of protection and destruction will come.  God will use the Assyrians to punish Israel for disobedience and idolatry.

Elohim, Adonai, Jehovah God, does want to protect His people, but if the people are in rebelion, in disobedience He is no longer responsible to protect them.  When evil comes because we have moved outside of God's protection we often ask, "Where is God?"  It isn't that God has moved, but we have moved outside God's protection.  We don't want God to be sovereign when things are not going well for us.

God will permit evil if it will help to bring about a good result (change that is beneficial for us for it brings us to obedience), and then after we get that good result, then God will turn and destroy the evil.  The devil will be destroyed ultimately because the devil permits himself to be used to hurt others.

Babylon will be used to destroy Israel, but a remnant of Israel will be saved, and we see in the end times that Babylon will be destroyed. If you read current events you see that the devil is again trying to raise up the city of Babylon, but ultimately that will not succeed.

God will never permit evil to attack us with a plan to destroy. Instead, God wants the evil to help to destroy the idolatry and evil, and bring us back to God.  We need to get the revealed truth of obedience.  We need to obey God whether we understand why or not.  We need to believe God.  As time goes by, we will look back on those periods of obedience that we do not understand, and God will reveal His purpose behind His desire for us to obey Him in that way.  All that happens to us is to fulfill a higher purpose and greater plan over our lives. 

Obedience is better than sacrifice. Obedience is better than knowledge.  Obedience is better than wisdom.  The only way to survive life on earth is to get the revealed truth of obedience.  King Nebuchadnezzar got taken up with pride and felt that he obtained power on his own, and as a consequence he spent many years living in the wild like an animal until he finally became wise and acknowledged that God was God and that he needed to be obeyed. That it is God who raises up kings and removes kings, that God is sovereign.

Belshazzar had no respect for God and for the things of the Temple.  In fact, he used the plates and cups from the Temple for a pagan party, God wrote on the wall that Belshazzar was weighed in the balance and found wanting and that his rulership was finished.  King Darius (the Medes and Persians) came in and took over. 

Those who came in and destroyed the Israelites were ultimately destroyed - the Babylonians and the Medes and Persians. 

We do not always want to confess up for all the things that we have brought upon ourselves.  There is no deliverance without repentance.  Pastor Don spoke about how he once attended a deliverance meeting and the spirits would leave one host person and before the people left the church parking lot, the spirit had found another host to reside.  Unless a person fills up the space where the spirit resided with the Word of God, and repentance, they are still open for the demons to return, and often the demons return with others and the person is worse off than before.

We are taught some bad theology in some churches.  Yes God loves us, and He is always there for us, but that does not mean that we can do whatever we want to do without repercussions.  God can remove His hand of protection and we can end up facing the consequences for our actions.  Consider Samson who God blessed.  Samson had taken a Nazarite vow, and as time went by he started violating the various parts of the vow until he ultimately began sleeping with pagan women such as Delilah.  He ended up blinded and in chains because he got out from under the protection of God. 

God can only be with you in a Godly way.  Jesus will never help you buy cocaine or do something that is outside the covenant relationship with God.  When we are outside the covenant relationship God cannot be with us the way we want Him to be - He is sovereign.  God is in the background and He will tell us things like, son if you keep it up I will remove the hedge of protection from around you and you will experience the consequences for your actions.

Jesus went to the Cross for us, and because of that we can understand the Covenant of God, the Promise of God and the trustworthiness of God.  If we go through a hard time, He is there to help us.  If we keep covenant, He will help us.  We need to trust Him, no matter what it looks like in our circumstances. 

God is the God of our circumstances. Even if you have a hard time believing that, He is there for you.  You need to believe that God will never leave you or forsake you.  No matter what people have done to you, you need to forgive and be quick about forgiving.  Obey God's Word.  God will destroy the destroyer who comes against us.

Isaiah 8:14  He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Pastor Don spoke about the duality in the heavens, the divine constellations in the heavens, that portray facts about Christ, even to those who do not have the Scriptures. 

The sanctuary is a place of divine miracles and peace.  Yet for those who do not accept Jesus, He is a rock of offense. Those in the new age water down God - they make God what they want Him to be - a rock, tree, or whatever they choose.  But that is not the real God, and when they are told about Jesus, they don't want to hear about Him for then they would have to give up their idols and worship Jesus.  Jesus becomes a rock of offense to them.

If you speak Jesus' name to them it strikes a chord, and often they do not know how to respond.  The Name of Jesus can offend those who do not understand.

Isaiah 8:15-16 And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken.”  Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.

The law is sealed among the disciples.

Isaiah 8:17 And I will wait on the LORD, who hides His face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in Him.

He will not show His face to covenant breakers.

Isaiah 8:18 Here am I and the children whom the LORD has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion.

This is referring to the prophetic generations.  God will always preserve for Himself a remnant, even in the breaking of the covenant, he will reserve a remnant church.  God will not save all the people, just a remnant. 

Statistics show that 84% of people in America say they are Christian, but only 4% participate in Church on a regular basis and consider themselves born again.  Only 34% of Christians say they are Born Again, the rest claim they are Christian by cultural heritage, coming to church at Easter and Christmas and for some special occasions, but they do not participate in spiritual life on a regular basis.

Our job is to preach and spread the Gospel, so that people can hear the Gospel.  Whether they are saved or not is not our job - our job is to share the Gospel (good news), to cast our hooks into the pond of life and disciple those who choose to bite, those who God has called. 

Isaiah 8:19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?

There are those today who claim that they are talking to the dead when all they are speaking with are familiar spirits.  This is forbidden by God, and in the time of the Israelites, those who were mediums were taken outside the camp and stoned to death.  New agers think they are talking to God, but NO THEY ARE NOT!  God would have to violate His own law to talk through a medium at a seance.  It is satan and his minions who are speaking through mediums - and yes they will tell you the truth, but only so they can get you to buy a lie later on down the road.  Ultimately those who choose the new age will end up destroyed.  For example Dion Warwick spent time with the psychic network and she lost everything.  The author of the satanic bible - Anton Levy died from one of the worst types of stomach cancers, and died in great pain.  He never made his 60th birthday.  Anyone the devil uses he will ultimately destroy.

Isaiah 8:20-22 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

Pastor Don brought us to Numbers 13 for an example of what these verses were talking about.  This was when Moses sent the 12 spies into the land to search out the Promised Land the spies were the cream of the crop from Israel, and they came back and told the truth - in part.  The grapes were huge, the land had much food and was developed.  10 people gave a bad report, reporting on the giants in the land and how the Israelites seemed to be like grasshoppers in their eyes, that there was no way for the Israelites to succeed in taking over the land.  But two people came back with a good report, saying that they could conquer the land because God was for them.  Those 10 with the bad report were guilty of idolatry and unbelief, for they spoke what was contrary to what God said.  Because of them, Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness, and only two people Joshua and Caleb from the original Israelites were able to cross over into the Promised Land - they believed God. 

We are not to look at our feelings or circumstances, but instead believe the Word of God and obey the Word of God.

Praying your day is blessed.

Heather

Here is a fantastic sermon by Pastor Don Moore that I closed captioned.  I made it a bit more easy to read by forming paragraphs. Remember what is in [brackets] is what the congregation says.  I seem to be having problems downloading the video onto Xanga from the dropbox videos I get. 

Say Amen
Show 131
Feast of Trumpets
9/13/09

Ah, it is the Fall, and those of you that are watching by television, by the time they release this it may be Spring, but [laughter] it's a Fall message.  Amen.  We have a great, great  season here.  This is the Fall season. This is the time of the Fall harvest.  And the Fall harvest is a very jubilant, but it's a very serious time.  The reason is because God, in the first of Genesis, in the beginning, He said that I give you these days, as for seasons of time.  But the words that He uses, and the way that He uses it, He is not saying that the sun and the moon and the stars are here just to do a 24 cycle.  What God is talking about is He gives us Sabbaths.  He gives us time periods.  There are seven Sabbaths of the Lord.  And they are all significant.  Those of us that read the Bible need to read it with a Jewish eye and get a Jewish understanding of Scripture.  He's given us seven feasts that describe all time.  It is the literal fulfillment of these seven feasts that will result in the return of the Lord, and the presence of the Lord. 

Those that do not believe in the return of the Lord, or the rapture of the Church, and the coming of the Bride, and don't understand God coming to Tabernacle with us, if you miss any of those parts, then you are in great darkness and confusion.  For the whole purpose of times and seasons is that we have a physical event that will be paralleled by a spiritual event.  And all history is marked by these spiritual events that have a physical representation as well as a spiritual representation.  In other words, what God does in the natural, by giving us seven feast days, and seven holidays, is He is saying to us, I am giving you these as a representation of prophetic truth.  That what I'm prophesying to you, it must come to pass and be fulfilled.  All of the holidays will be fulfilled, all of the Feast Days will be fulfilled by Christ Himself.  By the Messiah, the coming of the Messiah determines each and every one of those events. 

So, what we're looking at today is the first of the Fall feasts.  The Lord Jesus Christ completed Passover, the spiritual representation of Passover was that Jesus Christ came as the Passover Lamb, and sacrificed Himself for the sins of the World, as the representation of a way for man to get back to God.  To have his sins covered.  And then the blood of the Lamb was put over the doorpost in the sign of the cross, and wherever the Angel of Death at Passover, please don't use the word "Easter,"  in my presence.  It is the Resurrection of Christ that we are celebrating.  [amen]  Not the goddess oestara.  And Easter is a pagan celebration, so, throw out the Easter eggs, get the bunny.  Catch him, make him a pet, but let's eat him because he tastes like chicken.  [laughter]  Moving right along, forget the colored eggs and all of that nonsense, it comes to us from pagan things, and you know, the fertility goddess and the eggs and the bunnies and the baby chicks. 

So, let's remember, we're celebrating the Passover Lamb.  [amen]  The Passover Lamb.  Jesus Christ is the Passover Lamb.  So, we had the physical holiday, and for centuries the Jews celebrated the Passover Lamb.  They celebrated it with a feast of eating and making unleavened bread, and they did all that and they completed it.  But, Jesus comes to fulfill it spiritually.  In that He comes breaking through history and time, breaking through the confusion of theology, and He comes to earth and He offers Himself as the Passover Lamb for the sins of the people and therefore the Angel of Death passes over wherever the Blood of the Lamb is in manifestation.  [thank you, Lord.  applause]  Lord have mercy.  Now, He fulfilled that. 

The next holiday coming up is that of Unleavened Bread.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread includes a number of things.   It is when the bringing in of first the barley harvest, representing that general people could come, and then representing the wheat harvest which was after that, representing that the Ecclesiastical body, the clergy could come, representing that the kings and the priests are acceptable to God.  Well what are the acceptable to God?  Because of the unleavened bread.  The Bread of Life, without sin in it.  And then He comes as a picture.  Christ comes as a picture, He comes as a picture of the perfect, pierced, but unleavened bread.  In other words, leaven represented sin, He was without sin.  And though He was pierced, and beaten, striped, just like that Matzo the Jews ate, even though all of that occurred, He represented the next Feast Holiday, that of the Unleavened Bread. 

And that Unleavened Bread Holiday is followed by Pentecost.  Pentecost.  The Jews believed that Moses ascended to the Mount, where God was.  And he received, at Pentecost, he received the tablets that gave man the Law.  That gave man a clear description of what is acceptable to God, and what is not acceptable to God. Abraham was the Father of Faith, and during the time period of Abraham, man could be saved only by believing God and therefore having a heart for God, being obedient to God in the way that the rest of the people on the earth during Noah's time failed.  And during the time of Abraham, many failed also.  So God said, I have to obviously be more specific with man.  I will write down the Law.  I will give him the Law on tablets so that he can remember it, so that he can teach it to his children's, children's, children.  And so the giving of the Law on Pentecost is a physical event that did occur, representing a spiritual event that God was going to send the Messiah to come and fulfill the Law.  He was going to live by the Law and fulfill it in that He would not transgress it, showing that God's Mercy and justice was necessary for those who did not keep the Law, but also proving that the Law was good and that it could be kept.  [yes, yes, yes] ... It could be kept. 

But man is stubborn and thick headed and we are slow learners, and disobedient children.  And so, God said, they need help.  Can you say, "help?"  [help]  Come on, they need what?  [help]  They need help.  And so, He said, even though the Law, that Jesus came and fulfilled the Law, He said, they need help.  They need a Helper in order to keep the Law.  And therefore, we have physical Pentecost representing the Law being given, and then we have spiritual Pentecost that Jesus Christ comes and gives, what?  Help.  He sends the Helper, the Comforter, He sends the Teacher.  He sends the One that they need in order to live this life in victory in the earth.  [amen, thank you, amen]  Anybody get that?  So Pentecost then was completed and fulfilled by Jesus coming as the unleavened bread, as the Passover Lamb, and then coming at Pentecost, sending the Holy Spirit into the earth, completing what?  Those three holidays.  Completing them. 

Now, just to back up a little bit.  You'd say, well, what was the first Sabbath?  The first Sabbath was the keeping of a Day of Rest, keeping a Holy Day.  And that is called, "Keeping the Sabbath."  We come to church on Sunday, but Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath.  [that's true]  The Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday evening, as the sun sets, that is the Sabbath day.  And so, He says, you will keep that day holy, so on sundown on Friday into sundown the next day, which would be Saturday, it is a day of Sabbath Rest.  You very well would have gotten in a lot of trouble doing the lawn and watering the plants and cleaning the house on a day that was designed for the Jews as a holy Sabbath.  A day of rest. A day in which you were to do no work... It was a day of [rest].  Rest.  So we have the physical Sabbath which is fulfilled in the culmination of all the holidays in that they were given these regular weekly Sabbaths. 

We celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord on the Lord's Day, which in this case is Sunday.  And since we're Gentiles, most of us in this room, we are permitted to do so.  When Jesus Christ rises from the grave, He conquers sin and death, and He also completed the day of Sabbath, for it points us back to resting in Him, and then Hebrews tells us then that every day becomes a Sabbath Day.  [amen]  Christ's purpose in coming was to tell us to rest and rely on Him everyday.  So, what day is a good day to sin?  [none]  No day.  What day is a good day to praise God?  [everyday]  Everyday.  And so, whether you are a Seventh Day Adventist, or a muslim or whatever you want to be, if you are a Born Again Believer, every day is a Sabbath Day of rest for the Christian.  For the believer in Yeshua, as your Jewish Lord, then you are to recognize the Day and you are to set aside a day as a Sabbath rest. 

You are to have a day where you say, "Baby, this is the Lord's Day.  Let's do something righteous and holy today."  And she says, "Well, we're going to clean the garage every day this week."  [laughter]  And you have to say, "No, we're going to have a Sabbath Day of rest."  I want to point out to you that the violation of the Sabbath Day rest cost the Jews more than any violation of any other holidays.  [that's right]  It cost them more.  And so, I just want to encourage you, don't violate that because you still need a Sabbath rest.  [amen]  Ok, now.  If we are wise, we would then realize that Jesus, the Messiah, has completed that phase of Sabbath rest during the physical seven day week.  Everybody got that?  During the physical seven day week, but there is a spiritual Sabbath that is to be completed, [that's right]. 

So when we look to the Fall Harvest Days, He has completed Pentecost - let me go straight, keep in order.  Passover.  He's completed Unleavened Bread.  And He has completed Pentecost.  They've been completed.  Why would you think that God would go through all the effort to complete the Sabbath, to complete Pentecost, and those days, and that He's not gonna fulfill and complete the Fall harvest? ...  Is He a God of incompletion or does He finish things?   Doesn't He put a period at the end of a sentence?  Doesn't He say, every jot and tittle has to be fulfilled?  [yes]  Alright. 

Then, let's talk about the Summer.  So, we have a physical summer which his hot, dry and is usually a fairly dead period of time.  The crops don't need that much tending, they just need some periodic weeding.  Come on, somebody.  This represents the 2000 year period of the Gentiles where God has fulfilled certain things, and now we are in this long dry summer that is two months or 2000 years.  Everybody with me so far?   [yes]  So we have this period that represents two seasons, in this case two months of the Summer, out of the 12 months of the year.  And those represent the 2000 years of the time period of the Church.  And the Church is in that period.  We are in that period now of dryness, we're in that period where life is difficult.  Where the forces that are lined against us are taking hostage to those who do not stand strong in the Blood of the Lord, or don't stand strong in the Word of the Lord.  And during that time period, He is bringing us into a Fall season. 

Now, let's talk about that Fall season.  The Fall season, the people call it the time of the Harvest... People get upset with Pastor Don because I keep telling them, and I'm going to tell them until Jesus comes, we're not in the time of revival.  [right]  We're in the time of awakening that will lead to harvest.  The prophetic time that we're in.  The next event to occur on the calendar of God is that He must fulfill the Fall harvest.  The harvest, the bringing in of what?  All that has been sown in the 2000 years that the Church has been on the earth.  All of that is to be gathered.  Some from far away lands and some from this great land, and some close by. 

A lot of people go to church, been in church all their lives, but they are dry.  They are without sustenance, they are without the infilling of the Holy Spirit.  They're without the water of the Word, because they're just parched and dry. For the Jews it is a picture that is dry bones, Ezekiel talks about dry bones.  But the Jewish experience is what, a picture of what is the Gentile experience for Jew and Gentile cannot be separated as two different people, but they do have two different historical, written down, prophesied outcomes.  They're different.  The timing of them is different. 

But, in the Fall, comes the harvest time.  And how do we announce it.  What do we do?  Well what happens is, right before ... the harvest is complete, it begins with the blowing of the trumpet.   We call it the Shofar.  Originally they blew two silver trumpets.  They had to all be made from the same source or the same lump of silver.  And they made two silver trumpets.  And they blew that.  But over time, they switched and they began to use the Shofar which is made of a ram's horn, so to speak.  Okay? 

Now, the blowing of the trumpet was significant, because God decreed it.  Man didn't invent this holiday.  God decreed it.  Let me just read to you what God said.  "The Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying:  "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets....a memorial of blowing of trumpets....You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.""  So, we have in the Fall, the harvest is being gathered in from the fields and there comes this thing that we're going to have a blowing of trumpets and the trumpets are supposed to declare something. 

The trumpets are to declare the beginning of a new year.  The Jewish New Year does not start in January. The Jewish New Year starts in the period called Elul and that is our late September, middle September, October, it swings around in there.  The reason it swings is because as Gentiles we've accepted a Gentile calendar that has 365 days, and one 365 1/4 days.  But the Jewish calendar is 360 days, cause it's based on the lunar cycle.  So, periodically, the Jewish and Gentile days will be close, other times they'll be 10, 20 days apart because of the difference in the cycle of 360 days verses 365... So, and that's why, if you look at a calendar and remember Easter will fall on Passover but most of the time it falls close to it, but not usually lining up right on it.  We should have taken that as a sign right there, that should have been enough to say something's wrong.  Okay. 

So, now what are we supposed to do then on this holiday?  There is a blowing of trumpets, declaring a New Year, a new celebration, declaring the gathering in of this harvest.  A completion of the fall harvest, gathering it in. They're gathering in the harvest.  The trumpet (trumpet blowing sounds)  A New Year.   (brrrrp, trumpet sounds)  can you do that?  [brrrrp, trumpet sounds, laughter] .... People need help.  [laughter]  I know.  You know, sometimes when I'm in a warfare situation, and I don't have my Shofar, I'll be just in the car going (trumpet sounds)..... I'll be blowing the trumpet, man.  I'm just, you know, I don't take no mess.  [whew!]  Alright, so, let's look at a few things. 

The main purpose then of the Feast of Trumpets is to announce that time period.  It's to bring it in.  And what is it to prepare the people for?  The blowing of the trumpets is to prepare people for the next holiday, which is the Day of Atonement, which is followed then by Feast of Tabernacles.  So, God says, the fall harvest, blow the trumpet.  But what did this holiday look like?  It just says, blow the trumpet.  So the Jews would just start blowing the trumpet.  They'd blow it all day.  But they blow it different now.  They would blow a long blast, and blow with all the energy and force they could put behind it.  And they would blow all day.  So they say in ancient times, back in Jerusalem, you would hear the blowing of trumpets all over the city, blowing all day. 

Just all day signifying what?  It's a new year.  [amen]  Signifying what?  The coming of the time of atonement when we will be forgiven for our sins, a time when the heavens are going to be opened.  That's what the blowing of the trumpets are blowing and saying, God we know you hear us now, and the heavens would open so that man could atone for his sins, because the High Priest was going to go into the Temple, he's going to atone for his sins, he's going to pay for his sins, then he's going to pay for the sins of the people, then he's going to come back and he's going to announce he's been in the Holy of Holies with the presence of God and he's going to tell them how the Shekinah glory fell.  The whole city would know it.  And the whole nation, all the Jews would know that their sins had been forgiven. 

And why would their sins be forgiven?  Because, the heavens are open, their sins are forgiven, now God is going to come and Tabernacle with man.  [glory!]  He's going to live with man, He's going to be with man.  So the blowing of the trumpets announce this is a new year, the King is coming.  Well, what's He coming for?  It's the same way of blowing the trumpets to signify He's coming for His Bride.  [amen]  He's coming for His Bride.  Blow the horn.  (horn blowing sounds)  Blow it all day.  Why?  So that heathen, unbelieving unbeliever, and every Jew would know that the time of atonement, it's now time to get serious about all of your sins, for the whole year.  It's time for you to think through your lifestyle.  It's time for you to think about your servanthood.  It's time to think about what you have failed to do, and what you're believing God for because why?  When those heavens open in atonement, every prayer will be heard and God will hear the cry of His people. 

And when He hears the cry of His people, guess what.  Then miracles begin to happen.  Finances begin to change.  Healing begins to be distributed among the people.  Debts be forgiven.   People begin to realize, my God isn't far away.  He is here.  And what happens then, the heavens open and He comes to dwell with His people.  [yes]  Glory, have mercy.  [hallelujah, amen]  It's exciting time. 

If our spirits would just get a hold of this, then realize that God is completed these, He sent Jesus into the earth to physically complete those things, then why would you not believe that at some point in history, at some time in history, in the Fall Harvest, He will hear the blowing of the trumpets and He will fulfill His holiday and He will come for His Bride, and He will complete this series, our sins will be forgiven, and He will come and dwell with us.  [amen]  Glory to God! 

My heart breaks for people that have no hope of the rapture.  Have no hope of the coming of the Lord and the completion of things.  I don't want to live a day without believing that what God said, He's going to do... [hallelujah]  Especially when Jesus has given us so many ways of figuring it out.  He's given us so many different ways.  The Fall Feast of Rosh Hashanah or Rosh Hashanah, it begins with the new moon.  But there's a problem.  You can't see the new moon.  It's dark.  It's all dark.  You can't see the new moon cause it's dark.  So, what the priests did, Jewish priests were wise.  And they would calculate the 30 days and they would watch the coming of the days and then one of the rabbis at some point said, you know, what if we miss it?  What if it's so dark that we can't see, we can't tell that it's the new moon?  What are we going to do?  So they came away, Jews love a party.  So they say, we'll celebrate two days.  Then that way, either way we got it going on.  [laughter]  Now, how would they know what day to celebrate? ... [count]  They would count.  But how would they know? 

They wouldn't know, only until the High Priest would go in the tower, and says to the best of my ability I believe we're going to start Friday. [laughter]  And what do we do on Saturday?  We'll do it again Saturday.  [laughter]  That way, for sure, we've got it covered.  And they ask the rabbi, why?  And the rabbi said, because no man knows the day or the hour.  [hallelujah] ... People get so confused.  Oh, you are a date setter.  You're a this setter.  No man knows the day or the hour.  They're saying that from a Gentile perspective, and they need a slap.  The reality of the situation is Jesus gave that in the telling of His return, the coming and the gathering of the Bride to Christ, in a Jewish context.  He was saying, I'll be coming back in the fall, during the time of Rosh Hashanah, the blowing of the trumpets, will herald in my coming.  And because no man knows the day or the hour, because the High Priest would set the day, as the Father over the nation, he would set the time of His coming. 

The Jewish wedding is a picture of the rapture, in that the groom gets betrothed to the woman, leaves her to become a better bride, he goes off and prepares, He says, "I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to take you unto myself.  For in my Father's house there are many mansions, were it not so, I would not have told you."  [applause]  He's gone to prepare a place for His Bride.  And He's coming again to claim her at the blowing of the trumpets which will announce His coming, because He plans to Tabernacle with His Bride and then Tabernacle with all other people. 

And so, Rosh Hashanah, was the hint He was giving us, He says, at the holiday that no man knows the day or the hour, until the Father sets it.  And so the groom is waiting for Father to look at the house He's built, and say, "Nice house."  [yeah]  "I like the two sinks in the bathroom concept.   I like the balcony overlooking, I like that."  And the Father looks it over and He says, "You done good.  You done good.  Jesus, go down there and get your Bride."  [amen]  And Jesus says, "Ah ha, thank you Daddy." 

See, God told us in His Word.  He said, you'll know the season.  Why would Jesus say, "Watch?"  What are you watching for if nobody's going to know the day or the hour?  He says that the only people that will be fooled will be the unrighteous.  He says, He says for the righteous, He says He does nothing in the earth unless He tells His prophets.  What you talking about?  He wants us to know when He's coming.  He's coming at the blowing of the trumpets, the heavens are opened, till people atone for their sins, phfew, He's going to come and Tabernacle.  [amen]  Pshew, this is powerful stuff.  Therefore, Rosh Hashanah, is the time period wherein the believer can, at the sound of the trumpet enter into spiritual warfare to destroy the successful acts of the enemy at a time when the enemy is weakest and God is strongest.  Because when the sounding of the trumpet blows, His voice trembles and demons shake. [thank you Lord]  Glory to God.