I listened quietly, without anger, without feeling much of anything while my pastor taught from Phil 2:14... Do all things without murmurings and disputings. I'd studied this verse in depth and understood a little more the meaning of this in a more personal way, than the direction he took. Funny how God can minister the same verses very differently to each individual. Sometimes when God deals with us about things we can have this inward argument, an inward disputing, with Him, because we tend to focus on our own inadequacy instead of His power. He doesn't make mistakes nor expect us to supply what is needed to do what He requires, outside our faith and obedience. We can end up like Moses-disputing with God and murmuring because our focus is on ourselves and our weakness instead of His strength and faithfulness. But perhaps the direction pastor took was what the rest of the church needed to hear. And I needed to hear it, too or God wouldn't have had me there to hear it, because the last verse he finished up with was:
Gal 5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
We sure do need to pray for one another not talk about one another. And then when I got home, I had Acts America still playing on the computer, and BH Clendennen was on by then, and he began to talk about how the church can murmur and complain and bite and devour one another...I thought, okay, Lord, You are trying to tell me something here. I went back over and read that "Hatching Snake Eggs" by David Wilkerson again, (http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880321.html) for it had been on my mind. I read it again, and realized that my own mind was infected and needed cleansing as well. I had asked God to do this before I went back to church with the kids Sunday morning. As I reflected on how hopeless I felt, He also reminded me about the message David Wilkerson preached "The Death of A Promise". I had listened to them years ago, but had forgotten. It's hard to keep them straight when you have listened to thousands of messages preached by dozens of people. (If listening to preaching alone could perfect you I'd be perfect, let me tell you).
So I went back and listened to that "Death of a promise" and I found myself being encouraged, and seeing a small glimmer of hope. It is enough to keep me going. I began to understand why HE keeps reminding me of certain things He's taught me or showed me. I know there is a reason. He shows us the promise, causes us to want it, then sentences the promise to death-in effect showing us there is no humanly way possible to make His promises come to pass in our lives except HE do it. Human nature is such if it were any other way, self would rise up and glory as though we had brought it to pass. Such has been the downfall of many a preacher God has used to heal people, and minister to others. People get their eyes off God and on the man and start thinking more highly of the man than they should and less of God.
Then a friend of mine in North Carolina called me and for the second time asked me if I'd heard the song "The Promise" by the Martins, and said I needed to listen to it. I did and it was so encouraging, I could have cried with relief. I remember the promises He's made to me. It was a gentle reminder He knows very well what I'm going through and it has to be this way. All hope of humanly bringing His promise to pass must die before He will fulfill it. What a painful process this has been. You know for years I have prayed God circumcise my heart like You promised in Deu 30:6 without understanding this was what I'd been praying for.
Deu 30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
I know crazy things are happening in our country right now, and it's going down a dangerous and sad path that will result in some really bad things happening to a lot of unsuspecting people. God forbid we should ever put our faith and hope in government or anything else except our Creator. If you are a conservative, you watch in dismay as the United States Government is tearing apart the very fabric and foundation this country was built on. If you are not conservative, or don't really pay attention, you will be caught totally by surprise by what is coming. It's truly going to be worse than we can imagine.
Beloved, these things must come to pass. America must get on the "global" bandwagon, under liberal, anti-christ leadership for what God said would happen in the end times to happen. He foresaw it long ago before there ever was an America. But, God has a people in this nation He wants to rescue just as surely as He had a people in Egypt He wanted to rescue. Before He could get Israel out He had to destroy Egypt. Indeed, the principles and lifestyle this Nation was born on was glorious. People's blood run red, white and blue all the way. Still, He has so much better for us. This country is changing into one we won't recognize a few years from now. It will get hard, it will be heartbreaking to watch, but like Jesus, we must endure, despising the shame for the glory set before us because He must pry our clinging fingers from the things we hold dear if we would live in eternity with Him. There will be shame, for never in this nation's history will those who stand for what is right be so persecuted and villified-as some are finding out even now.
Yes, something wonderful, something historic, something we've never seen before is about to happen...in the heavenlies, in the spiritual realm...read on and I pray God help you see..I had been in some of the Scriptures studying and digging and God helped me understand the feelings and thoughts I've been struggling with though they made me at times feel backslid but that was because I didn't understand. ...
Feeling spiritually dry, knowing the church is, as well, knowing there isn't enough power of God to help the needy in our own midst much less the lost and dying in the world out there. But, because it is so, then ONLY HE will get the glory when He moves and revives His people. Our helplessness, our dryness, our despearte need makes us prime candidates for a move of God. I heard Pastor Clendennen preach this message this morning, and I had it on my pc, the text of it.. so please, take time to read it. You can read the full text on Pastor Clendennen's School of Christ International Web site, http://www.schoolofchristinternational.com/classes/cotw/week109.html The title of the message is the Sound of Marching.
The church is hopelessly locked in a religious routine, so are many of His people, and we can't change ourselves. Many are satisfied with the routine and don't want it to change, because it would rock the boat. It's hard to leave one's comfort zone, especially when that is all they know. But there is a people God has been busy at work creating a dissatisfaction and discontent in their soul. He has opened their eyes to see how totally ineffective their Christian life is, and they are grieved by this. Because we have no hope but HIM we are prime candidates for it is time for God to arise and work for we have all made void His law...HE is merciful and He is good and He will not fail us or forsake us. He is faithful though we haven't been. His love for us blows my mind...
I just want to share some highlights from this message that renewed my hope, greatly encouraged me, because this man of God described exactly what I've been feeling, thinking and praying about, mostly in confusion. These are just a few excerpts from "The Sound of Marching".
They concern the signs God is about to send a revival. Revival is not a series of meetings where people get encouraged or excited for the duration of the meetings, but nothing in their hearts or lives change. That is religious activity. This is not about getting excited and marching in the church, or shouting or running in the aisles. It's about an almighty, Holy God manifesting Himself to individual believers. In so doing, they become painfully aware of their own iniquity, and His holiness, which is so other than what we are or ever could hope to be. This can lead to great despair. But because human nature is what it is, God must help us see ourselves as we are, so we know when He moves, people can't ever take the credit or glory in anything they did to help God for we can never help God.
- Prevailing deadness among believers and abounding lawlessness in the world are not an indication that it is impervious. It is time for God to work. The hopelessness of the situation was, to the Psalmist, one of the strongest arguments in favor of divine intervention, for he saw those conditions as a challenge that an omnipotent God could not ignore. To him the very need of the hour cried out, "It is time for the Lord to work." So that is one of the real signals and sounds of revival.
- Another sign of revival is a spirit of dissatisfaction. A sure place of impending revival is where the spirit of dissatisfaction becomes apparent among believers. God places this spiritual restlessness, this holy dissatisfaction in the heart. Many of you know what I am saying. There is in the heart this spirit of dissatisfaction. That didn't come from your flesh, it didn't come from the devil, it was placed there by God. It is the birth pangs of that new thing God is about to do. It is the travail out of which revival is born.
- The profound dissatisfaction with which these believers view themselves and the work of God around them is actually a thirst for God. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for the living God,"cries the Psalms 42:1-2. There is a thirst for the holiness of God, for the power of God, and for the truth of God. In times of impending revival, there comes to hearts that are hungry especially, a thirst for the holiness of God. A longing fills the soul for victory over sin and deliverance from the corruption of this carnal mind.
- The desire is to be broken before God, to be wholly sanctified and conformed to the image of God's Son, to be like Enoch and walk in unbroken fellowship with God. That's a real mark of revival; a thirst for the holiness of God.
- There is also this thirst for the power of God. Believers begin to view with growing concern the ineffectiveness of their own efforts to serve the Lord. They become conscious of the reproach of the ungodly that God is not among them. David said, "My tears have been my meat night and day, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?"(Psalms 42:3). The more we examine the pages of the New Testament, and the lives of those whom God has used, the more convinced we become that we ought to be clothed with power from on high. A thirst is born to be filled with the Spirit and to speak the words with boldness. There is a thirst for a holiness, a thirst for the power of God.
- Then there is a thirst for the manifestation of God, to see His power and glory displayed before the eyes of men. There is a longing for Christ to be vindicated, for Him to stretch forth His hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done in the Name of Jesus for one reason, that Jesus Christ may be glorified. Before revival will come, such a thirst must come to the elect. There is also a thirst for truth birthed when revival is impending; not only a thirst for holiness, for power, for a manifestation of God, but for truth. It's always prevalent, when the church has lost her identity, that there is a downplay of truth. This pursuit of unity on the grounds of something other than the truth of God becomes a prevalent thing. In times of impending revival, there comes this thirst for truth. There is born a healthy unwillingness to accept without question all that is taught as truth.
- Every age is imprisoned in its own conceptions, and has to be set free by the masterminds who refuse to be enslaved. Such minds are raised up by God preceding times of revival; times when hearts have been unconsciously made ready to receive fresh light from God.
Finally, the one great mark and feature and revival is a spirit of sin consciousness. Before revival, in those darkened times, sin is treated lightly. In the church, a cheap grace comes that makes sin legal in the minds of many. But when hearts are being readied for revival, there will be evidenced among those a sensitivity to sin.
I pray God encourage you who are hungry and thirsty for the reality of God in your own life. Don't settle for less.
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