By John Stallings
My steps had well nigh slipped. Psalm 73:2
Having your feet to slip unexpectedly is no small matter.
Its happened to me many times. I’ve slipped on rocks in swiftly running mountain streams. I’ve slipped on frozen ground, I’ve slipped in fishing boats, & I’ve slipped going down a flight of stairs carrying a large turkey that had just been taken out of an oven. [It’s a long story.]
The above doesn’t count the bicycles I fell off, & the swings & other playground maiming machines I flew off of as a kid. Suffice to say-I’m well acquainted with “road rash.”
No, I’m not a klutz; I think I can say I’m sure-footed. I’ve just led a very active life. In none of these falls was I seriously injured, just shaken up a bit. Thank you Jesus! One thing I’ve never done is to slip on a banana peel. Have you ever noticed they aren’t all that slippery?
Slipping is an awful experience; mainly that first instant you realize your feet are no longer underneath you where they’re supposed to be. Now it just remains to see how bad a landing you’ll have & how long recovery will take. It’s a great feeling after we’ve slipped & fallen to realize that the only thing that’s really been hurt is our pride.
Most, if not all of my slips happened long ago. I say that in humility knowing it could always happen again, to me or to any of us unless we take great care. As we grow older slipping takes on a more serious nature. In the elderly sometimes even the smallest slip can be life threatening. Paul’s admonition to “take heed lest we fall” is apropos in many areas of life.
Slipping is frightful, even if it’s not followed by a crash landing because, to point out the obvious, when you slip & fall, there’s only one way to go. We all know which way that is, & it isn’t up. Slipping & the law of gravity have been very tightly woven together since the foundations of the earth were laid. I think it’s true that “the bigger you are, the harder you fall.”
The bottom line is; to slip & fall is dangerous, to slip & fall is painful, & sometimes to slip & fall can be catastrophic.
PSALM 73
Since I first found this wonderful Psalm as a young man it has fed me in so many ways. The writer came within an eyelash of having a tragic slip. He starts off by saying,-My feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped.
He’s telling us that he came close to slipping catastrophically.
When did he almost slip?
When ENVY invaded his heart.
“My steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
ENVY
A number of years ago I saw the movie Amadeus. Though I could hardly stand some of characters, I was captivated by the story & brilliance of the actors. I could easily see why the movie was an Academy Award winner.
The story revolved around the musical genius Mozart, & a man named Antonio Salieri, a court musician to Austria’s King. Salieri was envious of the rich talents of young Mozart; talents he fell far short of. Though he could compose music it was not great music; consequently he was consumed with envy of Mozart’s talents. This led him to scheme & plot against Mozart at every turn.
He stole Mozart’s compositions, bribed Mozart’s servants & informed the King about Mozart’s indiscretions. Salieri’s envy eventually drove him to insanity. The movie ends with Salieri cursing God for denying him the talent which He gave Mozart. The story line shows what happens when a good man like Salieri is filled with & finally destroyed by envy.
As a minister, I’ve heard people admit to things that would make a sailor blush but I’ve never heard a person admit they had a problem with envy. So the first thing we know about envy is- it always travels incognito. We’ll see some reasons for that in this article.
1. One reason we envy is we assume that anything anyone has, we too should have.
In all probability we never even wanted the thing that someone else has until we noticed that he/she has it. Suddenly the fact that they have it, & we don’t have it is intolerable.
Another reason we envy is we don’t like admitting there are people who have greater talent or intelligence or skill than we have. We think that to acknowledge someone else as more talented or intelligence or skilled is to declare ourselves failures, which is WRONG!
2. A world system encourages us to envy.
What is advertisement if not something to make us unhappy with what we have? Want, anger, & resentment blended together becomes envy.
A Danish proverb claims, “If envy were an illness all the world would have a fever.” One wonders when we look at the present financial condition of our nation & the world, how great a part envy has played & continues to play. On Main Street as well as Wall Street there seems to be an envious spirit that feels merely being a millionaire is humiliating.
Envy is the twin of jealousy, though they’re not quite the same. Jealousy is concerned with not losing what it has while envy makes a rival of anyone who has what it wants. Both envy & jealousy stem from pride & deep self-centeredness so one sin begets another.
3. Envy poisons relationships.
Gore Vidal, a humanist author said famously, “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little part of me dies.” How sad is that, when even the good fortune of a friend can conjure up envy? How small is the heart that has no room to celebrate another person’s happiness?
You & I don’t envy people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or The Queen of England. We envy our dear friend or relative. Is this not tragic? If we have a friend who makes the same amount of money as we do, & he suddenly is making several thousand a year more than we earn, or maybe someone dies & leaves him some money, he appears less dear. In fact now he displays faults we never saw before. As we began to castigate this friend, we remain unaware of what’s going on in our head & heart.
The 800 lb.Gorilla in the room is we feel we’ve been left behind by our friend. We feel he has belittled us. In truth, he never intended to belittle us & in truth his money didn’t belittle us. But non-the-less we are as certain as we are that the sun rises in the east that our friend is now belittling us. Then, we think that we can restore ourselves to our rightful size by knocking our friend down.
Now we’re slipping are we not? Envy is always bent on leveling. So, end of relationship! Right?
4. The equation—Envy, belittlement, anger, self-rejection.
Envy causes us to be downhearted. Someone else having something we lack has caused us to feel like losers & now we find ourselves caught up in self-loathing. We think “how could they do this to me?” The more anyone tries to love us out of the mullygrubs, the worse we feel.
The Psalmist cries out— “my feet had almost slipped. I nearly fractured both legs, plus my spine & skull. I was nearly immobile. I almost went insane when I became envious of the prosperous.”
You may think “insane” is a little too strong a word for the Psalmist but if you read what he says next you’ll see how absolutely irrational he’s getting. He says,
“These prosperous people have no pangs. They don’t suffer. They aren’t as finite & frail as we non-prosperous folk.”
See how silly he’s getting? But let’s be honest; when we’re envious of someone don’t we think of them as if they’ve “got it made?” Not only that, we think they can never be “unmade,” right? They can never suffer misfortune of any kind. Because they’re protected from financial loss, they are also protected from human loss of any kind. We go on in our foolishness to assume these prosperous folk are riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels.
5. Envy blinds us to so many things.
We have no compassion for the person we envy because they’ve “got it so good.” They are totally pain free & affliction proof. See how crazy envy can make us?
Envy poisons, envy embitters, envy blinds, envy turns us into self-pitying, self-righteous snivelers. It’s no wonder no one will admit to being envious. Who would brag that they are a poisonous, embittered, self-righteous whiner?
Listen to the Psalmist;
“All in vain have I kept my heart clean”, the Psalmist whines in his envy, “I have kept my heart clean & I received nothing for it.”
The truth is, he hasn’t kept his heart clean. He may have kept his hands clean in that as yet he has done nothing visibly wrong. But his heart? How can he pretend to have a clean heart when he is envious & his envy has turned him into a pitiless critic? No, he hasn’t kept his heart clean.
ENVY IS A LARGE SUBJECT IN THE BIBLE
Envy is listed as one of the lusts of the flesh in Gal.5:21.
When envy is compared to anger & wrath, it’s so ghastly that the question is raised, “who is able to stand before envy?” It’s possible to be envious of anything; the ability to hit a baseball, score a basket, or water-ski. You can envy someone’s intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, & ability to talk or pray in public. You can envy another person’s possessions, spouse, money, children, family, job or career. I heard a preacher say once that some folk can be envious of the very “shine on your shoes.”
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of the New Testament defines envy as “The feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of the advantage or prosperity of others.”
Envy is one of the most subtle, & ugly sins of them all. Webster defines envy as;
“A chagrin or discontent at the excellence or good fortune of another.”
In other words, envy is feeling bad about another person doing well. When our neighbor gets a five bedroom house & we are upset because we only have four, that’s envy. Eventually the envious person will end up hating the person who is the object of their envy.
When someone you envy gets into trouble, it’s hard to suppress a feeling of satisfaction. The face of envy is never attractive. It is among some of the most debasing & degenerate sins that ever characterized sinful men mentioned in Romans chapter one (Rom.1:29.) In the Bible, envy is always in the worst of company.
PRAY TELL WHERE IS THE GRATIFICATION IN ENVY?
Envy is unique. Other sins are terribly destructive, but they at least have a few thrills & gratification, in the early stages.
Does envy, even for a minute ever make you feel better? As far as I can see, we gain nothing from envy. All you get from it is endless self-torment, yet its appetite is ravenous & ever increasing. The wise man said envy is “the rottenness of the bones.” Bone Cancer. (Prov.14:30.)
The awful bite of envy packs a double-whammy; for it causes you not only to feel bad because of someone else’s good fortune, at the same time it causes you to devalue your own good gifts. Isn’t that horrendous?
For example, I can hear another preacher who is outstanding, & if I’m envious, my first tendency is to think of myself as a very unskillful preacher. What I forget is-- that preacher didn’t steal his gifts from me. I’m just as good (or bad) a preacher as I ever was. That preacher hasn’t done one thing to devalue, or diminish my preaching. But that old devil envy has robbed me of the ability to appreciate what I have, & who I am in God.
Yet with this thing called envy, when you meet someone you think might have more gifts & skills than you, you start to see yourself as having fewer gifts. Such is the awesome power of envy to distort our thinking processes.
BUT YOU HAVEN’T HEARD THE WORST ABOUT ENVY
Just feeling bad because you don’t have something that the other person has isn’t the worst part. The worst part, the most tragic part is; you wish the other person didn’t have what they have so you wouldn’t have to suffer your “imaginary disadvantage.”
Jesus knew how harmful envy could be. Not only is He God, he was schooled in the Hebrew religion & its many illustrations of the destructive power of envy. The Bible abounds with examples of unchecked envy & its dire consequences. Envy has a very high mortality rate.
• The very first murder, the killing of Abel by his brother Cain, was sparked by envy.
• The 10th commandment is about envy-“You shall not covet.” If we’re not careful, envy will cause us to break the 8th commandment, “You shall not steal.”
• Envy is the big factor in the story Jesus told about the laborers in the vineyard, in Matt. 20. Look at the story. The owner of the vineyard, at the end of the day paid all the workers the same though some came early & some came later in the day. The workers who worked hard all day felt it wasn’t fair to be paid the same as the ones who only worked a short time. However, the owner reminded them that he hadn’t defrauded them in any way. They were paid what was agreed upon. The owner went on to say,
“Why are you envious because I am generous?”
The same thing was happening in the story of the prodigal son. The older brother said, “It isn’t fair for you to welcome this wayward brother home with a big party when I’ve stayed home all these years & worked hard. You never gave a party in my honor.”
• Joseph’s brothers were “moved with envy”& hated him so much they couldn’t speak a kind word to him, & finally they sold him into Egyptian slavery.
• The religious leaders were motivated by envy when they lead the Jews to crucify the Son of God. -Matt. 27:18.
• Rachel envied Leah because she was barren & Leah had children. Gen.30:1.
• The Philistines were envious of Isaac because of his large flocks & many servants. Gen. 26:14.
• James says envy is devilish. James 3:15.
All we have to do is look at the 73rd Psalm to see how unhappy envy can make a person.
One thing is for certain. We will never be able to find contentment in this life if we compare ourselves to others because there’ll always be things that won’t seem fair. Envy makes it impossible to be happy with another person’s good fortune. It makes sense that envy & depression are great traveling companions.
In the middle of Psalm 73 the Psalmist has a moment of clarity. He starts to realize how badly he’s gotten off the beam. He gets a revelation on what envy is doing to him & what it can do to those around him. The New English Bible puts it;
“Had I let myself talk on this fashion I would have betrayed the family of God.”
But the Psalmist needs more than he’s able to figure out on his own. He needs God. He says;
I went to the sanctuary of God & there I understood the situation the people I envy are really in.”
You will probably remember the death of John Kennedy Jr. in 1999. Kennedy was flying his wife & a friend of hers from New York to Massachusetts late one July afternoon. Not being cleared for flying on instruments, he made his plans to get to his destination before dark. However, because of delays he found himself flying over the ocean in darkness. The darkness made it impossible to keep his equilibrium by lining up with the horizon.
Expert pilots explained that Kennedy experienced disorientation or vertigo, a condition that allowed him to be flying upside down & not realize it. Then he lost airspeed & the plane stalled going into what pilots call the “graveyard spiral.” Kennedy lost his bearings in the darkness & kept saying, “where’s the ground?”
This is what insane envy did to the Psalmist. It caused him to lose orientation with “the ground.” He became spiritually disoriented. The only way you & I can keep from slipping & crashing is to re-orient ourselves constantly. For us that groundedness is God.
The only way we can avoid a crash is to stay in constant contact with God. As soon as that crazy thinking sets in, like the Psalmist, we must run to our heavenly Father for help. As the Psalmist enters the Sanctuary of God he is able to checkmate any further spin-offs & return to his “right mind.”
As we come to the end of Psalms 73, the Psalmist can scarcely believe how seriously absurd his thinking had became. He said,-I was stupid & ignorant,” he cries to God. “I was like a beast toward thee. I was insensitive to God & couldn’t see it.”
As his envy evaporates, sound thinking returns & he knows he’s been on the cusp of a catastrophe. He came within an eyelash of a “death-spiral.”
As Psalm 73 comes to a close, the Psalmist asks God,
“Whom have I in heaven but thee? God is the strength of my heart & my portion forever.
This Psalm is a study in the pathology of envy. It also shows us the way to be delivered from poisonous envy, which can be a fatal condition.
Listen to the Apostle Peter’s words;
Wherefore laying aside all malice & all guile & all hypocrisies & all envying & all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of The Word that ye may grow thereby, if ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. 1 Peter 2:1-2
Envy is a product of our old fallen nature. For that reason we can’t fight it in our flesh. Envy at its core is grasping, & godliness at its core is emptying.
Envy tells us that there isn’t enough & what we have & isn’t adequate.
Paul said;
But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:19
Instead of having a list of all the things you don’t possess, make a list of all you have. The writer of Proverbs reminds us;
……but he that is of a merry heart, has a continual feast.—Proverbs 15:15
Blessings,
John
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
If America Had Survived
By John Stallings
After the great depression of the thirties America crumbled into anarchy and another civil war causing her to be fractured into three regional sub-countries: North, South and West.
So, when World War 11 exploded, America simply didn’t exist.
By 1943 the tidal wave of German power had crushed all its surrounding nations, including the United Kingdom. Soon after that, all of Africa cowered beneath the Swastika.
Then the Nazis who’d been working on nuclear weapons unleashed them on sixteen Russian cities. Twenty-five million died in the atomic blasts and with them any hope of ever again living in a stable world.
The Japanese meanwhile were pillaging China in the Far East. The Imperial army then rolled south and overwhelmed India and Pakistan making surrogate armies of their vast multitudes. They continued their blood-lust crushing Southeast Asia and Australia with unspeakable violence.
By 1944 the empire of the Rising Sun ascended over Asia to the Hawaiian Islands, and Japan’s western boundaries extended to Pakistan and central Russia. Hitler’s Third Reich ruled everywhere else.
Now the world grid of satanic control locked in place plunging the earth into impenetrable darkness. Pieces of America were pulled back into place and she was ruled by Nazi Germany and policed by German troops and the Gestapo. Hitler’s dream of marching down Pennsylvania Avenue was finally realized. Democracy wasn’t to be found anywhere on planet earth, and the whole world sank into a totalitarian “black hole” void of any freedoms.
Mein Kamf, Hitler’s life story was taught and applied in the halls of higher learning. Hitler hasn’t just replaced George Washington as America’s founding father he’s taken the place of Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. The calendars were reset to coincide with Hitler’s birth year. American children entering school sang hymns to The Fuhrer.
Americans were duped into believing that their new world having been cleansed of Jews, Gypsies and other “undesirables” has now evolved into a purer form of humanity. Dark skinned non-Europeans have learned to accept their roles as “inferiors” and are classified as “servant races.”
All liberty was gone. There existed no freedom of the press or right to protest, no balance of power in government, no political parties, and no open debate or exchange of ideas.
There existed no open vibrant Evangelical church and Pentecostal was just another word for a “mental disorder.” There were some underground churches but people attended at the risk of their life. There is no Christian music, no religious books, no spiritual media and “Billy Graham” was a common but insignificant name.
There now existed –No Israel! A world without America became a world without Jews. Jews were hiding in nooks and crannies in the remote recesses of the earth.
One can’t help but weep when looking back all those decades ago. We rightly wonder what it might have been like Had America Survived.
Even though you know the above scenario didn’t really happen, minus the grace of God and His protecting hand, something like you’ve just read certainly could have happened. Indeed it could still happen, with different circumstances of course.
LET’S TALK INTERCESSION
God desires us to stand in the gap for our nation, positioning ourselves between the failings of man and the sufficiency of God’s grace and forgiveness, and then persevere until full restoration comes.
In God’s eyes, intercessors outweigh the need for immediate judgment on a society. Consider Moses. He interceded for three million rebellious Israelites. Moses indeed pastored a “trouble church.” Although the nation hadn’t repented, God’s wrath was turned away. [Num.14]!
Daniel prayed and obtained God’s favor for thousands of exiled Jews. Why did God respond to these men; because He seeks for one person to believe in mercy and cry for it. He said …
“He searched for a man among them who would stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it.
Notice, God wasn’t looking for someone to “point-out the gap.” We have millions of folk who will gladly serve as “gap pointers” but they’re not so anxious to be “gap fillers”. God is still looking for those who’ll “stand in the gap!” Ezek. 22:30]
God is looking for a people who are spiritually mature and plainly see what’s wrong, and begin to intercede for America.
When Job prayed for his friends, God fully restored him. Over and over in God’s Word we are told to pray for, not against.” You and I are to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” and “pray for each other that we may be healed.”
GOD’S FOUR CONDITIONS TO SAVE AMERICA
If you and I don’t want to see a scenario like the above where America slides into a living hell, we must do at least four things.
In 2nd Chronicles 7:14 God said,
“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
GOD HAS A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR A SPECIAL PEOPLE.
He said
1. IF MY PEOPLE
Under "if," there are four things His children called by His name are to do.
It is important that we understand fully each of them separately and then as a whole. Be assured that God is ready to do what He said He would do when we come in complete obedience with Him. “If my people which are called by my name will….
2. HUMBLE THEMSELVES
Humility simply means dependence on God, not self. This is a difficult position for any of us because we tend to depend on other factors than God only. We depend on our intellectual or physical strength. We depend on our education or our employment. We depend on family members or our friends. But God wants us, above all, to depend on Him.
Pride turned angels into devils in heaven. The bible doesn’t say-God resists prostitutes or God resists fornicators, or God resists murderers or God resists drunkards but Pastor James tells us that “God resists the proud.” A proud individual has both God and the devil against them.
Years ago Juda and I sat in the office of a well known denominational leader. We were together for a short period of time, and after a few minutes, he smiled and said something that stunned me. He said--"We're leaders,” speaking of himself and us, “and the “Little man” looks to us for answers.” Immediately my heart sank because I could hear God saying, "Don't ever let that idea cross your mind. And don’t ever let the words- the “Little man” creep into your vocabulary.”
This leader was using such high-sounding words and including us, consequently both Juda and I had to resist looking over our shoulders to see if anyone else had entered the room. The words he was using didn’t describe us at all.
If we’d been sitting in the office of the CEO of a large company and he alluded to “The little man” that would be understandable but we were sitting with a Christian leader.
At that moment, it felt as though the Lord had sent an arrow straight into my heart. I knew exactly what He was saying to me. This leader was speaking out of devilish pride. Pride brings destruction, and it does not belong in the life of a believer. At least, not the kind of pride that lifts self up and fails to glorify and honor God. Perhaps this man didn’t recognize what he had said. Or maybe he just spoke before he thought.
Or it may have been that God wanted to use this man’s words and attitude to send a word of caution to me. Regardless, pride can and does explode God's plan for our lives.
We heard a year or two later that this man had lost his leadership role and had been demoted to the boonies. I presume he went to pastor the “little people.”
Many times, we begin our Christian walk well. Our focus is set on God, and our hearts are fully committed to Him. Then without warning, pride begins to rise up, preventing us from being all God wants us to be. It tempts us to believe that we know better than God does. If left unchecked, pride will alter our attitude toward God and the route He has chosen for us to take.
Of all the sins discussed in the Bible, pride is the one with the most devastating results. If we’re not vigilant we can become prideful over the good things God has given us — jobs, children, and financial resources, etc.
Pride is at the top of the list of sins that God despises:
"Pride and arrogance and the evil way…And the perverted mouth, I hate" (Prov. 8:13).
Then God tells us to…
3. PRAY
It seems that much of the modern professing church would like to do anything except pray. Many of those who preach a lot of good doctrine and cross all their theological T's will do almost anything except pray! They'll learn Greek and teach Systematic Theology. They’ll study for doctorates and spend their time writing theological essays for seminary journals. Yet many of the very same ones don't seem to have enough time to pray!
How do I know they don't pray? It's obvious. Jesus said that what you do secretly God will reward you for openly (Mat. 6:6). When these men stand up publicly to teach and preach God's Word, if they were praying men there would be a power that would attend the spoken Word. Deep conviction from the Holy Spirit would go forth and seize the hearts of the hearers.
EPAPHRAS
We need a lot more men like Epaphras in the church today.
Paul said,
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. (Col. 4:12)
The word struggling is used of Olympic competitors who trained vigorously with all their might to press through and gain the prize (cf. 1 Cor. 9:25). This man was a prayer soldier of Jesus Christ. He was intense, passionate, and full of zeal in prayer (v. 13). Yet Paul told the Colossians that “he is one of you".
This man was no superhuman. He was one of us. He was buffeted by a fallen flesh that tempted him to think prayer was drudgery. He might have been tempted to doze off once in a while when rising too early and laying his head on his bedside in prayer. Yet he still pressed on, so much so that he won the commendation of an apostle and was thought worthy by the Holy Spirit to be etched on the pages of Holy Scripture for all eternity.
This man agonized in prayer. He pressed on with focus and stamina in faith to pray the burden through and win the prize. And not only did he pray intensely for a few moments before Sunday's service. Paul said he "always" struggled and labored in prayer for the saints.
We can study less, socialize less, play less, relax less, if we will only pray more. The person who breaths the air of the secret place of the most High as a way of life is a person through whom God grants His power and anointing.
We need to return to the prayer closet! Our every blessing, our every step, our every plan, and those of our children, the future of this great Republic, everything is dependent on prayer. Do you see it? Prayer is one of the four of God’s conditions to heal us as a nation.
If you and I could really grasp (Hebrews 4:16), it would revolutionize our prayer life.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
God works only in concert with the praying of His people. Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit join us when we begin to pray because they know the Father moves only in concert with the praying of His people. Then God says…..
4. SEEK MY FACE
I must confess right here that I really haven’t sought God’s face as I should have. To be honest I’ve sought His hands, asking for things more times than I should have.
Do you see any difference in seeking His hand and His face? There is a vast difference.
When you and I seek His face, we go before Him just to be with Him and not ask Him to do anything. There is a reason why it is important for us to come before Him with praise and worship. It’s important, first, to understand that adoration does not change God. God will never be any greater than He is and our worship does not add to Him at all. Adoration changes us. When we begin to praise and worship, we are changed and want to love Him more and walk with Him more closely.
When God commands us to "seek His face," He is commanding us to undergo a spiritual restoration in our hearts and in our vision -- He wants us to remove the grime of religion -- the soot of life -- the stuff of experience -- so that we can see Him as He truly is
-- We do this through His word -- we do this through His Spirit -- we do this by spending time with Him alone.
Just as Jesus had to carry His disciples up on the mountain, away from the crowds, in order for them to see Him in His glory, we need to remove ourselves from the trappings of this world and spend time with God if we are to see Him as He truly is.
Sometimes you hear folk say; “My God doesn’t let children get killed.” My God would never allow anyone to go to hell.” My God wouldn’t do this or that. When they use the words “My God” are they telling us that they’re worshipping a God of their own mental creation, not the one true High God of Heaven.
A god of our making will never bring revival -- a god of our making cannot heal or forgive or restore -- it is only when we seek out the true God of the Bible that we will see healing and restoration and revival in our land and in our homes and in our churches. The fourth of God’s conditions is….
5. TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS
Remember, God is speaking to His children, not unsaved people. Do you find it strange that sin enters the equation? Do Christians have problems with sin? Most of us understand the necessity of Christians dealing with sin in their lives.
Some folk will point their finger and say -Ya’ll have sinned, but the Bible says - All Have Sinned!
Until the Christian confesses and forsakes known sin in his life, he cannot pray for the healing of his nation. The Word is plain:
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me" (Psalm 66:18). "
God's hand is not short that He cannot save. Neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear, But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you so that He cannot hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2).
A person who wants to pray for America must confess and forsake sin if God is to hear their requests.
Becoming conscious of sin is known as conviction--and is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 18:6-11) who applies the Word of God as a mirror to let us see ourselves as God sees us. This is the beginning point in getting on praying ground.
DON’T BUNDLE YOUR SINS
If we don’t deal with specific sins and try to do it by wrapping all our sins in a bundle to present to God, we’ve simply run the lawn mower over the weed. The root is still there and the weed will come out again. The only way to get the root out is through biblical confession.
Following confession is forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9). The very moment you confess your sins, your record sheet in the ledger which contained them is now clean.
ONCE WE DO THE FOUR THINGS, GOD WILL DO THREE...
1. "I will hear from Heaven."
I equate Heaven with Headquarters, where the resources are kept. It is significant that God says that He’ll open up the store house. He does not have to put us on back order.
2. "I will forgive their sin."
Unconfessed sin robs the Christian of the joy of God's salvation. That is exactly what happened to David (Psalm 51:12). When the Christian loses the joy, he doesn’t worship well, walk well, work well, witness well, or war well. A heavy load will settle on him--even if he does not know what is happening. The word forgive means to lift and remove a heavy load.
3. "I will heal their land."
PRAYER NOT POLITICS
Healing change will come only when we as God’s people accept much of the responsibility for America. We must humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways. We must lead the way in SEEKING GOD’S FACE—remembering that God always STARTS healing revival with His people. It goes from the Christian to the church -to the community -to the county -to the country and then -to the continents. And let me just stop and ask, fellow Christian. Are you willing for it to start with you?
Alexander the Great once found out that one of his soldiers that carried the name of “Alexander” had proven to be a coward. He called the man to appear before him and told him to either live up to the name or change it. Fellow Christian...one who is called by God’s name...let’s live up to our name!
WE CAN’T EXPECT PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW GOD TO FIX THINGS
After all they don’t have God’s Spirit living in them as we do.
We are the salt...we are the light. The sad fact is the main reason America is where it is today is because we haven’t been doing our job. We who are called by God’s name, have not prayed long enough, have not followed Jesus closely enough, have not loved deeply enough, have not given sacrificially enough, and most of all—have not witnessed passionately enough.
We should vote for candidates who embrace Biblical convictions—but to rely only on votes and petitions is treating the symptom not the disease itself. Political remedies to our nation’s moral ills are not a real cure for the underlying spiritual problems. And of all people, Christians ought to know that. We should know that LIVES, not LAWS need to be transformed. As people who have experienced God’s grace, we should understand that a law cannot make people righteous. After all, Scripture is clear on this.
Galatians 2:21, 16 says,
“If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. No one is justified by works of law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.”
Wake up America!
A headline that appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 15, 1999, should give all of us hope. The headline read, “Comatose man wakes after 7 1/2 years.” It gave the account of police officer Gary Dockery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who had taken a bullet in the forehead and was in a coma for 7 1/2 years. What was remarkable was when he woke up, he immediately spoke clearly to his sister as if no time has passed. A family friend said, “There’s not but one way to describe it. It’s a miracle of God.” When officer Dockery awoke he asked for his sons whom he had not seen since they were 5 and 12 years old, then 12 and 19.
If a man who’d been in a coma for 7 1/2 years can wake up, there’s hope for America.
Are you concerned about the course our nation is taking under the current leadership in Washington D.C? I’m deeply concerned, thus this article. Again, let’s look at God’s four conditions…
1. HUMILITY
2. PRAYER
3. SEEK GOD’S FACE
4. TURN FROM OUR WICKED WAYS.
Some people trust in government and turn to national leaders for help but we are different.
As Psalms 20:7 says,
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
Blessings, and,
God bless America!
John
After the great depression of the thirties America crumbled into anarchy and another civil war causing her to be fractured into three regional sub-countries: North, South and West.
So, when World War 11 exploded, America simply didn’t exist.
By 1943 the tidal wave of German power had crushed all its surrounding nations, including the United Kingdom. Soon after that, all of Africa cowered beneath the Swastika.
Then the Nazis who’d been working on nuclear weapons unleashed them on sixteen Russian cities. Twenty-five million died in the atomic blasts and with them any hope of ever again living in a stable world.
The Japanese meanwhile were pillaging China in the Far East. The Imperial army then rolled south and overwhelmed India and Pakistan making surrogate armies of their vast multitudes. They continued their blood-lust crushing Southeast Asia and Australia with unspeakable violence.
By 1944 the empire of the Rising Sun ascended over Asia to the Hawaiian Islands, and Japan’s western boundaries extended to Pakistan and central Russia. Hitler’s Third Reich ruled everywhere else.
Now the world grid of satanic control locked in place plunging the earth into impenetrable darkness. Pieces of America were pulled back into place and she was ruled by Nazi Germany and policed by German troops and the Gestapo. Hitler’s dream of marching down Pennsylvania Avenue was finally realized. Democracy wasn’t to be found anywhere on planet earth, and the whole world sank into a totalitarian “black hole” void of any freedoms.
Mein Kamf, Hitler’s life story was taught and applied in the halls of higher learning. Hitler hasn’t just replaced George Washington as America’s founding father he’s taken the place of Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. The calendars were reset to coincide with Hitler’s birth year. American children entering school sang hymns to The Fuhrer.
Americans were duped into believing that their new world having been cleansed of Jews, Gypsies and other “undesirables” has now evolved into a purer form of humanity. Dark skinned non-Europeans have learned to accept their roles as “inferiors” and are classified as “servant races.”
All liberty was gone. There existed no freedom of the press or right to protest, no balance of power in government, no political parties, and no open debate or exchange of ideas.
There existed no open vibrant Evangelical church and Pentecostal was just another word for a “mental disorder.” There were some underground churches but people attended at the risk of their life. There is no Christian music, no religious books, no spiritual media and “Billy Graham” was a common but insignificant name.
There now existed –No Israel! A world without America became a world without Jews. Jews were hiding in nooks and crannies in the remote recesses of the earth.
One can’t help but weep when looking back all those decades ago. We rightly wonder what it might have been like Had America Survived.
Even though you know the above scenario didn’t really happen, minus the grace of God and His protecting hand, something like you’ve just read certainly could have happened. Indeed it could still happen, with different circumstances of course.
LET’S TALK INTERCESSION
God desires us to stand in the gap for our nation, positioning ourselves between the failings of man and the sufficiency of God’s grace and forgiveness, and then persevere until full restoration comes.
In God’s eyes, intercessors outweigh the need for immediate judgment on a society. Consider Moses. He interceded for three million rebellious Israelites. Moses indeed pastored a “trouble church.” Although the nation hadn’t repented, God’s wrath was turned away. [Num.14]!
Daniel prayed and obtained God’s favor for thousands of exiled Jews. Why did God respond to these men; because He seeks for one person to believe in mercy and cry for it. He said …
“He searched for a man among them who would stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it.
Notice, God wasn’t looking for someone to “point-out the gap.” We have millions of folk who will gladly serve as “gap pointers” but they’re not so anxious to be “gap fillers”. God is still looking for those who’ll “stand in the gap!” Ezek. 22:30]
God is looking for a people who are spiritually mature and plainly see what’s wrong, and begin to intercede for America.
When Job prayed for his friends, God fully restored him. Over and over in God’s Word we are told to pray for, not against.” You and I are to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” and “pray for each other that we may be healed.”
GOD’S FOUR CONDITIONS TO SAVE AMERICA
If you and I don’t want to see a scenario like the above where America slides into a living hell, we must do at least four things.
In 2nd Chronicles 7:14 God said,
“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
GOD HAS A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR A SPECIAL PEOPLE.
He said
1. IF MY PEOPLE
Under "if," there are four things His children called by His name are to do.
It is important that we understand fully each of them separately and then as a whole. Be assured that God is ready to do what He said He would do when we come in complete obedience with Him. “If my people which are called by my name will….
2. HUMBLE THEMSELVES
Humility simply means dependence on God, not self. This is a difficult position for any of us because we tend to depend on other factors than God only. We depend on our intellectual or physical strength. We depend on our education or our employment. We depend on family members or our friends. But God wants us, above all, to depend on Him.
Pride turned angels into devils in heaven. The bible doesn’t say-God resists prostitutes or God resists fornicators, or God resists murderers or God resists drunkards but Pastor James tells us that “God resists the proud.” A proud individual has both God and the devil against them.
Years ago Juda and I sat in the office of a well known denominational leader. We were together for a short period of time, and after a few minutes, he smiled and said something that stunned me. He said--"We're leaders,” speaking of himself and us, “and the “Little man” looks to us for answers.” Immediately my heart sank because I could hear God saying, "Don't ever let that idea cross your mind. And don’t ever let the words- the “Little man” creep into your vocabulary.”
This leader was using such high-sounding words and including us, consequently both Juda and I had to resist looking over our shoulders to see if anyone else had entered the room. The words he was using didn’t describe us at all.
If we’d been sitting in the office of the CEO of a large company and he alluded to “The little man” that would be understandable but we were sitting with a Christian leader.
At that moment, it felt as though the Lord had sent an arrow straight into my heart. I knew exactly what He was saying to me. This leader was speaking out of devilish pride. Pride brings destruction, and it does not belong in the life of a believer. At least, not the kind of pride that lifts self up and fails to glorify and honor God. Perhaps this man didn’t recognize what he had said. Or maybe he just spoke before he thought.
Or it may have been that God wanted to use this man’s words and attitude to send a word of caution to me. Regardless, pride can and does explode God's plan for our lives.
We heard a year or two later that this man had lost his leadership role and had been demoted to the boonies. I presume he went to pastor the “little people.”
Many times, we begin our Christian walk well. Our focus is set on God, and our hearts are fully committed to Him. Then without warning, pride begins to rise up, preventing us from being all God wants us to be. It tempts us to believe that we know better than God does. If left unchecked, pride will alter our attitude toward God and the route He has chosen for us to take.
Of all the sins discussed in the Bible, pride is the one with the most devastating results. If we’re not vigilant we can become prideful over the good things God has given us — jobs, children, and financial resources, etc.
Pride is at the top of the list of sins that God despises:
"Pride and arrogance and the evil way…And the perverted mouth, I hate" (Prov. 8:13).
Then God tells us to…
3. PRAY
It seems that much of the modern professing church would like to do anything except pray. Many of those who preach a lot of good doctrine and cross all their theological T's will do almost anything except pray! They'll learn Greek and teach Systematic Theology. They’ll study for doctorates and spend their time writing theological essays for seminary journals. Yet many of the very same ones don't seem to have enough time to pray!
How do I know they don't pray? It's obvious. Jesus said that what you do secretly God will reward you for openly (Mat. 6:6). When these men stand up publicly to teach and preach God's Word, if they were praying men there would be a power that would attend the spoken Word. Deep conviction from the Holy Spirit would go forth and seize the hearts of the hearers.
EPAPHRAS
We need a lot more men like Epaphras in the church today.
Paul said,
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. (Col. 4:12)
The word struggling is used of Olympic competitors who trained vigorously with all their might to press through and gain the prize (cf. 1 Cor. 9:25). This man was a prayer soldier of Jesus Christ. He was intense, passionate, and full of zeal in prayer (v. 13). Yet Paul told the Colossians that “he is one of you".
This man was no superhuman. He was one of us. He was buffeted by a fallen flesh that tempted him to think prayer was drudgery. He might have been tempted to doze off once in a while when rising too early and laying his head on his bedside in prayer. Yet he still pressed on, so much so that he won the commendation of an apostle and was thought worthy by the Holy Spirit to be etched on the pages of Holy Scripture for all eternity.
This man agonized in prayer. He pressed on with focus and stamina in faith to pray the burden through and win the prize. And not only did he pray intensely for a few moments before Sunday's service. Paul said he "always" struggled and labored in prayer for the saints.
We can study less, socialize less, play less, relax less, if we will only pray more. The person who breaths the air of the secret place of the most High as a way of life is a person through whom God grants His power and anointing.
We need to return to the prayer closet! Our every blessing, our every step, our every plan, and those of our children, the future of this great Republic, everything is dependent on prayer. Do you see it? Prayer is one of the four of God’s conditions to heal us as a nation.
If you and I could really grasp (Hebrews 4:16), it would revolutionize our prayer life.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
God works only in concert with the praying of His people. Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit join us when we begin to pray because they know the Father moves only in concert with the praying of His people. Then God says…..
4. SEEK MY FACE
I must confess right here that I really haven’t sought God’s face as I should have. To be honest I’ve sought His hands, asking for things more times than I should have.
Do you see any difference in seeking His hand and His face? There is a vast difference.
When you and I seek His face, we go before Him just to be with Him and not ask Him to do anything. There is a reason why it is important for us to come before Him with praise and worship. It’s important, first, to understand that adoration does not change God. God will never be any greater than He is and our worship does not add to Him at all. Adoration changes us. When we begin to praise and worship, we are changed and want to love Him more and walk with Him more closely.
When God commands us to "seek His face," He is commanding us to undergo a spiritual restoration in our hearts and in our vision -- He wants us to remove the grime of religion -- the soot of life -- the stuff of experience -- so that we can see Him as He truly is
-- We do this through His word -- we do this through His Spirit -- we do this by spending time with Him alone.
Just as Jesus had to carry His disciples up on the mountain, away from the crowds, in order for them to see Him in His glory, we need to remove ourselves from the trappings of this world and spend time with God if we are to see Him as He truly is.
Sometimes you hear folk say; “My God doesn’t let children get killed.” My God would never allow anyone to go to hell.” My God wouldn’t do this or that. When they use the words “My God” are they telling us that they’re worshipping a God of their own mental creation, not the one true High God of Heaven.
A god of our making will never bring revival -- a god of our making cannot heal or forgive or restore -- it is only when we seek out the true God of the Bible that we will see healing and restoration and revival in our land and in our homes and in our churches. The fourth of God’s conditions is….
5. TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS
Remember, God is speaking to His children, not unsaved people. Do you find it strange that sin enters the equation? Do Christians have problems with sin? Most of us understand the necessity of Christians dealing with sin in their lives.
Some folk will point their finger and say -Ya’ll have sinned, but the Bible says - All Have Sinned!
Until the Christian confesses and forsakes known sin in his life, he cannot pray for the healing of his nation. The Word is plain:
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me" (Psalm 66:18). "
God's hand is not short that He cannot save. Neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear, But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you so that He cannot hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2).
A person who wants to pray for America must confess and forsake sin if God is to hear their requests.
Becoming conscious of sin is known as conviction--and is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 18:6-11) who applies the Word of God as a mirror to let us see ourselves as God sees us. This is the beginning point in getting on praying ground.
DON’T BUNDLE YOUR SINS
If we don’t deal with specific sins and try to do it by wrapping all our sins in a bundle to present to God, we’ve simply run the lawn mower over the weed. The root is still there and the weed will come out again. The only way to get the root out is through biblical confession.
Following confession is forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9). The very moment you confess your sins, your record sheet in the ledger which contained them is now clean.
ONCE WE DO THE FOUR THINGS, GOD WILL DO THREE...
1. "I will hear from Heaven."
I equate Heaven with Headquarters, where the resources are kept. It is significant that God says that He’ll open up the store house. He does not have to put us on back order.
2. "I will forgive their sin."
Unconfessed sin robs the Christian of the joy of God's salvation. That is exactly what happened to David (Psalm 51:12). When the Christian loses the joy, he doesn’t worship well, walk well, work well, witness well, or war well. A heavy load will settle on him--even if he does not know what is happening. The word forgive means to lift and remove a heavy load.
3. "I will heal their land."
PRAYER NOT POLITICS
Healing change will come only when we as God’s people accept much of the responsibility for America. We must humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways. We must lead the way in SEEKING GOD’S FACE—remembering that God always STARTS healing revival with His people. It goes from the Christian to the church -to the community -to the county -to the country and then -to the continents. And let me just stop and ask, fellow Christian. Are you willing for it to start with you?
Alexander the Great once found out that one of his soldiers that carried the name of “Alexander” had proven to be a coward. He called the man to appear before him and told him to either live up to the name or change it. Fellow Christian...one who is called by God’s name...let’s live up to our name!
WE CAN’T EXPECT PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW GOD TO FIX THINGS
After all they don’t have God’s Spirit living in them as we do.
We are the salt...we are the light. The sad fact is the main reason America is where it is today is because we haven’t been doing our job. We who are called by God’s name, have not prayed long enough, have not followed Jesus closely enough, have not loved deeply enough, have not given sacrificially enough, and most of all—have not witnessed passionately enough.
We should vote for candidates who embrace Biblical convictions—but to rely only on votes and petitions is treating the symptom not the disease itself. Political remedies to our nation’s moral ills are not a real cure for the underlying spiritual problems. And of all people, Christians ought to know that. We should know that LIVES, not LAWS need to be transformed. As people who have experienced God’s grace, we should understand that a law cannot make people righteous. After all, Scripture is clear on this.
Galatians 2:21, 16 says,
“If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. No one is justified by works of law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.”
Wake up America!
A headline that appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 15, 1999, should give all of us hope. The headline read, “Comatose man wakes after 7 1/2 years.” It gave the account of police officer Gary Dockery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who had taken a bullet in the forehead and was in a coma for 7 1/2 years. What was remarkable was when he woke up, he immediately spoke clearly to his sister as if no time has passed. A family friend said, “There’s not but one way to describe it. It’s a miracle of God.” When officer Dockery awoke he asked for his sons whom he had not seen since they were 5 and 12 years old, then 12 and 19.
If a man who’d been in a coma for 7 1/2 years can wake up, there’s hope for America.
Are you concerned about the course our nation is taking under the current leadership in Washington D.C? I’m deeply concerned, thus this article. Again, let’s look at God’s four conditions…
1. HUMILITY
2. PRAYER
3. SEEK GOD’S FACE
4. TURN FROM OUR WICKED WAYS.
Some people trust in government and turn to national leaders for help but we are different.
As Psalms 20:7 says,
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
Blessings, and,
God bless America!
John
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