Bro Gary Sunday AM 2/20/11

Bro Gary Sunday AM 2/20/11

Ephesians 4:30 KJVR

(30)  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 KJVR

(10)  For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

(11)  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

(12)  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.

(13)  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

(14)  And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

Verse 11.  “I know the thoughts that I think toward you…” We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know that if we are rightly related to God He will perform His promise of visiting with us and He will hear our prayer.

God wants us to go further in prayer to the point of seeking after Him with our whole heart.  His promise is that when we seek with all our heart we will find Him.

The heart is the center of our affection.  There are many things that we think about and plan towards.  It is not wrong to plan toward your garden season or to have many other plans.  There are times though that God wants each of us to come to Him for the sole purpose of seeking Him to get our need met and seek Him with all our heart.  

There are times that God allows there to be areas in our life that He wants us to not only pray about but seek Him with that one thing on our mind.  When we seek with all our heart, He will be found.

Verse 14.  “I will be found of thee.”  There are four “I will’s”.  

There are things in our lives that are so important to God and to ourselves that we come to the point of focusing on praying for only one thing.  When there is one sick to the death in our family, there is not anything on our mind except for the one that is so sick.  When Kathy told me that, ‘I think the baby is going to be born today.’ everything else in my life became third or fourth place.  There are times when God places us in these situations and we pray with one focus.  

We realize that it is good to pray, “Men ought always to pray.”  There is real value when there are situations in our life or in our burden that put us in the place that we feel the urgency of “I’ve got to find God, I’ve got to hear from heaven, there is nothing else that matters other than me hearing from God.”

‘I will be found of Him.’  It is wonderful to find God.  We need to seek Him not only in a calamity and decision making time, but also in the good times.  We want to not just pray a little bit when we start out to pray, but realize the value of seeking God until He is found.  

“I will turn away your captivity.”  However free we are, God is always leading us into more freedom.  “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  Freedom from fears, for every age-group fear is a reality.  Little children are afraid of rejection; as we travel the road fears of what is going to happen to me if:  something happens to my wife, or if the economy breaks or if where I work shuts down.  No one knows what will happen, but God wants us to be free.  Fear is a captor; it makes you afraid to get old and afraid to die young.

God made a plan that we could get to God, and we thank God for it.

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.”  The Holy Spirit makes intercessions that cannot be uttered.  The Holy Spirit of God within you is seeking after God and drawing from God as you are praying.  You don’t even necessarily know the scope of what you are praying for, things that would have an effect on you or upon the whole world.

Isaiah 44:28 KJVR

(28)  That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

I don’t believe that Isaiah even knew who Cyrus was.  Yet here he was prophesying by the Holy Spirit of a man that God knew about.  God sent His message to Babylon unto Israel in their captivity, but also God was preparing a man.  God told Isaiah the He was going to hold the hand of a man and give him power to subdue nations and open gates that would not be shut.  

God is God.  If you and I will take the attitude that, “I’m not going to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.  I’m going to pray until I know that I have sought God with all my heart.” Then we don’t know how He will work, but we know that He will work.  

There are times when we find ourselves positioned so that nothing else matters.  At those times we need to seek God with all our heart.

Isaiah 45:1-2 KJVR

(1)  Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

(2)  I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

God knows how to free.  You might have a special unspoken request and you might not even know how bound that individual is.  God can break in pieces the gates of brass.  You and I cannot do anything to open the door at times but pray, seek God with all our heart, and desire to not grieve the presence of God.

God worked a miracle because someone got a hold of the promises of God.  He worked because someone got burdened for a soul.  As we get burdened for a soul, there is a duel action: we get burdened for ourselves too.

Many of the vessels of God were taken down to Babylon and God didn’t like it.  He said, 

Isaiah 45:3 KJVR

(3)  And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

God is invisible and He sees everything.  He knows where everything is.  He knew where the vessels were that had been taken.  I’m so impressed with God and I know that so are you.

Isaiah 45:4-7 KJVR

(4)  For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

(5)  I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

(6)  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

(7)  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

The seventy years of captivity had not yet expired but God was promising a turning of their captivity.

Ezra 1:1 KJVR

(1)  Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

I cannot stir you this morning, I am just a man.  If you are in this audience this morning, unless God stirs the heart, you will not be stirred.  You can hear a message on hell fire and brimstone; unless God stirs it will be of no lasting effect.  God desires to stir souls so that if they need to repent, they repent, if they need to be sanctified, they get sanctified.  If people are lazy, fail to worship God, or are neglectful, then God has a way of stirring their souls.

Ezra 1:2 KJVR

(2)  Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

God stirs us up because He wants to give us a charge.  He stirs us because there is spiritual ground to be gained.  

Remember Esther?  She was put into the position where she was the woman of the hour to be used to deliver her people from persecution.  If you are saved and seeking after God then you are a chosen vessel to be used of Him.  Sometimes people don’t want that responsibility.  They want someone else to be responsible.  Dear ones this is life or death.  If God stirs you up for your son or your daughter, you can call the saints to pray, but remember, God has stirred YOU.

I remember when God spoke to my heart as I was a young father one Sunday morning and said, “Son, you are not worshipping God in my service this morning.”  I was shook.  

We have a wonderful heritage of men that God stirred.  In Genesis it says, “Then men began to call on God.”  In the gospel day, God stirred men and women’s hearts.  We have other epistles than the four gospels because God stirred up men and women.

You may feel frail and limited and inadequate for any big task.  All those feelings open the door for unbelief.  

 You may be frail and limited and inadequate.  You may be busy.  Let me help you this morning.  When God in his mercy begins to stir our soul it is because He wants to do something; it is not that He wants you to do something, but that He wants to do something through you.

God stirs the saints to bring scriptures to stir us.  They bring them and we are stirred.  “God hath not failed of any of His good promises.“

Ezra 1:2-8 KJVR

(2)  Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

(3)  Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.

(4)  And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.

(5)  Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.

(6)  And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.

(7)  Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods;

(8)  Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

Verse 5. “Whose spirit God has raised.”  God has a way of raising our spirit.  Praise God.

God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus.  There is a God in Heaven that is real and alive today.  Our times are bad today and it was bad at the time of the Children of Israel in the captivity of Babylon.

What God has given you to use, God will honor for His honor and His glory.  Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.  When He begins to speak with you, go in to seek God and seek until you have searched for Him with all of your heart.

God has ordained that in the one body, and there is only one spiritual body, there are many members.  We do not all have the same gifts.  God begins to stir us up.  Our mind works against us in thinking that we don’t have much to testify about except being saved.  That is something wonderful to thank God about.  Unbelief incubates those thoughts.  Seek God.  Come to the place where you seek God with all your heart.  

“Dear God, it isn’t about material things, or about being misunderstood, it isn’t about pleasures or my financial concerns, I am stirred in my soul spiritually.”  You will first be stirred for yourself, then you will realize how quickly things change positions, what was so important is no longer so important.  It is God I need.  

We need to pray until we are before God seeking Him with all our heart.  We have daughters and son-in-laws to pray for.  We have grandchildren to pray about.  We have lots to be stirred about.  

Give freely.  Pray.  When you get stirred you will not be satisfied to just pray once.  “Lord I know you’ve heard prayer, but I want to come back again.”  Give so freely that you don’t grieve the Spirit of God. 

Seek God so that you come to the place where you don’t want to fail to seek Him with all of your heart.  

We cannot go to ask them of Babylon of their difficulty and bondage, but we know a little bit of difficulty and bondage.  It is wonderful when the Spirit of God causes you to be burdened for one soul and as you pray the Spirit of God is making intercession for more than we know.

Ezra 1:5-7 KJVR

(5)  Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.

(6)  And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.

(7)  Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods;

God raised them, they strengthened their hands and the king Himself got involved.  The treasurers brought out the treasures.  The vessels were returned.

Jeremiah 29:10-11 KJVR

(10)  For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

(11)  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

God is going to visit you.  He knows the thoughts that He is thinking toward you.  He is thinking thoughts of good and not evil.

Jeremiah 29:12-14 KJVR

(12)  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.

(13)  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

(14)  And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

When a spirit comes to hurry you away from prayer, seek Him with all your heart and He will be found of you.  

God has given us exceeding great and precious promises.  Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.  Seek Him until you have sought Him with all your heart.  

Psalms 27:4 KJVR

(4)  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.

Psalms 90:17 KJVR

(17)  And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

There is something about seeking God with all your heart; as you seek Him you are changed in your mind, in your heart, in your attitude.  He has given us exceeding great and precious promises.  He will not fail.  That stirring that God has given me, may I not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and may you not grieve Him.  May you take the opportunity to pray until you have sought God with all of your heart.