Brother Gary Sunday Evening 4/7/13

Brother Gary Sunday Evening 4/7/13

Isa 57:13  When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

Isa 57:14  And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.

Isa 57:15  For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

It is wonderful to have a Bible.  The thirteenth verse here says to cry to whatever is supporting you to see if they will come to your rescue.  It is only those that put their trust in God that will inherit the Holy Mountain. 

Let those that put their trust in God have the attitude to lift up the Highway of Holiness to where it ought to be.  Isaiah 35 tells us that a highway is there, a holy way. 

People have such stumbling blocks getting on the Highway.  They have such stumbling blocks, “I’ve been such a failure.”  or whatever the stumbling blocks are.  Individuals work themselves into a position where they don’t feel that they can ever get right with God. 

They become in bondage to other people.  “You are the only one that I have and you are my savior.”  Don’t let others put you in this position.  If you do then you are in bondage all the time.  You must adjust your barometer all the time so that you are their savior.

Whatever stumbling blocks we have: if we have a point of contention all the time then we need to get before God.  There is abounding grace and there is the Holy Spirit that takes care of personal problems.  We can be brothers and sisters in Christ and go our way rejoicing.

“The High and lofty one”, this is from the eternal God.  This makes reference to the God that spoke to Moses and said, “I am that I am.”  Tonight starting with the back pew to the front, our needs would be so vast and varied.  The need of the youngest one in the audience tonight is unique to him. 

The needs of the school teachers, they have students that don’t all learn the same way.  They have needs that are teacher’s needs.  What might help one person may cause the other’s blood pressure to rise.  We are dealing with total different situations all the time.

Whatever your need is tonight, God wants to supply that need:  the need of the children, the young people, and the aged.  The mindboggling needs.  I don’t know how things are but I know that God is and He will supply every need.

God dwells in the high and holy place.  In a world that is so sick with religion so corrupt.  The spirits of Babylon, Magog and Gog: false religion makes people so strange.  It is wonderful that there is a God in heaven that makes people normal.

God dwells with the contrite, with the broken.  The times and events of our life, however much you love your family and however great you think that they are, some of them will break your heart and you will have to work to not become calloused.  We need divine intervention so that we are not a calloused soul that cannot be broken.  When we are not broken we will hear about what happens to our relatives and think that they deserve it. 

People are so fickle: you will be their best friend one day and the next when they are with someone else you are a total stranger to them.  If you are not careful you will become calloused, and hard, and so you cannot be broken.  The only way to not do this is to get before the throne and God and pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and God.

The scripture in Acts two is true; I’m totally convinced that the Holy Spirit was poured out on those people.  We know from about 1880 to 1930 it happened over and over again and happened even in the dark ages when people sought God with all their heart. 

What we need is to tarry until we be endued with power from on high and the Holy Spirit falls again.  It takes contact with God for you and me to be broken.

God dwells with the humble.  God dwells with us to revive us.  I was totally ignorant of what that word meant until I began studying.  It comes from the Old Testament Hebrew reference 2421.  There are seven emphases that I want to bring.

1.       The Holy Spirit is there to recover us or revive us. 

The thought is never, “I’m going to go out here and get myself in trouble and talk too much.”  Because we are human we can work ourselves into a situation where we need to be recovered.  It doesn’t mean that we are backslid but that the enemy has set the stage where we find ourselves entering into a conversation or we get all upset about what we can do nothing about.  We find ourselves loosing the joy out of our heart, our compassion to help the saints, and our zeal to help the lost. 

Most people have people in their life that want to put someone else in bondage.  We cannot be in bondage to anyone.  We love the saints and the true saints of God have no desire to put any one in bondage.  There will be someone come along that wants to put something in your mind that will put you in bondage.  God has a plan to recover you.

2.       The word ‘revive’ means to quicken us. 

We are living in perilous times but we have a promise that God dwells with us to quicken us and revive us.  We live in a unique place where we have about six months of the year to get our work done.  We have long winters and when the snow melts in February or March then we see all the work that needs done and it is always overwhelming. 

The leaves in the flower garden didn’t bother me a bit when it was all covered with snow.  This spring we saw that trellises were all falling apart when we walked around.  The fence was sagging.  I walked around and saw some of the posts were rotting out. 

Have you ever tried to replace a post that is sealed in cement?  You look at all of that stuff and all you can see is work.  We must have God revive us or pretty soon our mind is just work, work, work. 

We thank God for everything that has been done at the church.  Someone has already been out there working.  It is not so bad that some of the literal things don’t get done but we must stay quickened spiritually.  Only God can revive us.  We have to know how to get a hold of God.

3.       It is God that knows how to nourish us. 

The word Revive means to nourish.  Karen and I got to stopping at the Cole ranch.  We have stopped many years trying to buy manure for fertilization from the sheep ranch.  The gate is shut and there is a dog there that I don’t want to get acquainted with.  It seems that He wants to taste the calves of my legs. 

On our way we stopped and found no one.  When we came back my wife said that she saw someone.  We turned around and found Mary Cole and asked her if we could buy some manure.  We came by later just to see the lambs.  We pulled in there and there were baby lambs all over.  There may be six or eight bum lambs and here is Mary Cole with three bottles to feed the bum lambs with. 

She taught us that a ewe can take care of two lambs but if there are more than two then you have to bottle feed them.  They had a certain number of twins, triplets, and quads. 

We cannot have the attitude that I will take nothing that is not from a certain one.  We need to accept nourishment from whomever God uses to send it.  God used the songs tonight and the testimonies to send nourishment and He uses all the saints.

Les Gingery told me that he had a mother sheep that had teeth that were worn out and needed a special kind of food.  God knows what we need to eat.  My daddy told me that if you get a message from God it will feed the children, the older saints and also convict the sinner.

4.       Revive means to be preserved. 

I want to stay sweet, and have a burden.  I want to be preserved.  If I ever go back to Miami any one that I saw, the next time that they see me I want to still be standing.  Your family needs you to be preserved, your teacher needs you to be preserved, the world needs us to be preserved and it will only happen if we let God revive us.

5.       Revive means to be repaired. 

Sometimes we run into someone that wants to unload on someone and you are the one.  Sometimes you feel like Aunt Leila described that you have been filled with buckshot until the wind whistles through you.  You can be restored and repaired.

6.       Reviving causes us to be made whole. 

It is God’s work to revive the spirit of the humble and the heart of the contrite ones. 

One may ask, why am I found in the position that I need to be revived, have others needed this, did I fail God?

Psa 138:7  Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

Psa 138:8  The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

The word Trouble comes from the Old Testament Hebrew reference 6869.  It means adversity.  Every one of us faces adversity.  It is a part of life.  Every one of us faces affliction.  This means stresses and persecutions, hard places.  It means anguish. 

There are some things that I hear about that bring anguish to my soul.  That Jewish couple that hired the livery to take them to the hospital because the wife was expecting a baby and the parents were killed.  It caused me anguish.

When you see someone going down the wrong road is headed for destruction.  There is no exception.  It would happen in your family.  When you see someone headed toward destruction getting closer and closer, it will bring anguish to your soul. 

When I think of how different lives could be and how their different life would be such a blessing.  You all have individuals that it would be so wonderful if you had fellowship with them and had their love and care.  It hurts so deep inside.  Sometimes we don’t show it but that doesn’t mean that the hurt isn’t there. 

When you think of Sister Sue, her brother dying Tuesday night and the day after his funeral her sister dying.  They won’t work through that in a day.  It is not going to happen. 

There is lots of excruciating pain and unless we have God, we will handle it in the wrong way every time.  Trouble means stress and distress.  We are all going to face it and we may face it again this week.  When we are there we must get to God to be revived.  This is the only way.

Tribulation is going through what is necessary for us to go through.  When we walk right in the midst of it then only God can revive us.