Brother Gary Sunday Morning 9/8/13

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 9/8/13

Zep 3:16  In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

This was a powerful expression to the Children of Israel that went back to rebuild Jerusalem.  Not only is it to the literal Jew but it is also to the Spiritual Jerusalem and to Spiritual Zion. 

We have come to Mt Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem. (Hebrews 12:22)

Let not your hands be slack.  Every one of us makes a choice of what we let work in our life.  We make a choice of where we let our mind go.  Every time a temptation comes to us we make a choice whether or not to let that temptation work in our mind and heart.

When God visits with us, we make a choice whether we will let Him work in our heart and life.  We make a choice of what we let trouble our mind and make a nesting place in our mind.  There is a big message about the word ‘let’.

Let not thy hands be slack.  The first definition dealing with the thought of slack is ‘losing our grip’.  Every one of us here this morning have experienced many things in our life where we realized that we needed to get a grip.  We have to get a grip on our finances, on our yard work, on how to worship, on how to get to the house of worship. 

We don’t want to lose our grip this morning.

The next definition on the thought of being slack is the thought of becoming slothful. 

My mother preached well on slothfulness.  She had a grip on what slothfulness would do to you.  She had seen the effects of slothfulness in the Anderson movement.  She had seen what it had done to those that she and my father had been with in their early Christian years. 

That message is an old message.  Don’t be slothful; don’t allow anything to cause your hands to be slack especially in what all affects you spiritually.  Our spiritual life and natural life affect each other.  God help us to not allow anything to cause us to become slothful.

The third definition was ‘don’t become discouraged’.  What discouragement has done to souls would lead you to weep, to cry, and to pray.  The affects of discouragement don’t start with one and end with one. If you allow discouragement to come into your life and home it will not stop there. 

We closed last Sunday with the very solemn thought:  There is going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth if men and women allow slackness to get into their life and take its course.

These references will help us to hold fast and maintain our strength.  Every one of us must take the responsibility:

Heb 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

If we don’t have a tight grip on having faith in God then we will lose our grip spiritually.  There are things in the physical that will affect our grip.  Those that are young have a strong grip in their hands.  As you age you find that things affect that grip.  You don’t have to allow that to happen spiritually.

We must have a grip on faith in God.  Our grip on faith and our grip on prayer must not slip.  There is nothing probably more under attack in the Church of the Living God than faith and prayer.  May God help me and everyone in this congregation to get a grip and have the attitude, “I must have a grip on prayer.”

I’m not going to set the plan on your prayer or a schedule on when you go into the closet; that is up to you and God.  Have it determined, “Not only am I going to have devotions, I am going to pray.”

To help us hold fast and be strengthened:

Psa 46:1  To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

It is vital that we have this refuge and have a grip on the word of God so that when disappointment, discouragement, besetments, and other things that will come, come we do not lose our grip.

Speaking of Moses:

Heb 11:27  By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

The thought, ‘seeing the invisible’ has come to me several times this last week.  One thing that has helped me immensely is that when I am petitioning God, by faith I am seeing the invisible right there. 

That may sound a little, “How can this be?”  It has to be by faith, “God I am baring my soul to you and by faith I am seeing as Moses did the very presence of the invisible and these needs I am presenting to you.”

1Ti 2:1  I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;

By faith seeing the invisible:  I am trusting you dear God for a miracle.  Our hearts would have the open concern for the needs of this congregation.  Our concern for the need of each grandson is the same.  We have that same urgent care when we pray. 

We are praying for this man, Paul and Dave that have come into Brother Rick’s life.  Seeing the invisible we plead with God for these men and their respective needs.  There are the teachings in the Word of God that we are not to allow our hands to become slack in supplicating. 

It is important that everyone in this audience that is saved knows how to supplicate and knows the urgency of supplicating. 

The first thing that I want to deal with is the attack on children.  I don’t believe in being explicit in the pulpit.  I want to be careful in mixed crowds.  We are living in a day when children are being exploited, children too young to even know what is happening.  If you can’t pray then who can? 

I ask myself, “If I am not going to supplicate then who is going to?”  Don’t think that it cannot happen in your family; that thought is from the pits of hell.

Supplicate for souls that are in Babylon.  There were at least two requests for people that are in Babylon this morning.  Babylon is the habitation of devils and the hold of every unclean spirit.  This is what the scripture tells us. 

When an individual comes into a position of being recognized by those in Babylon in the thought, “They are not coming along with us.”  When they reach the turning point of walking in the light or Babylon, people that have no concern for their soul begin to pray and whatever spirits that they are sympathetic with go to trouble that soul. 

The hope of these individuals, whether it be these two men that Brother Rick requested prayer for or others that you are burdened for, is that you and I know how to supplicate.

There was a man in the church at Plains by the name of Brother Cole.  He had several children.  My dad told me, “Brother Cole loved God.”  Brother Cole was taken off the scene before he was very old.  Of His children there are two still living. 

I think of the cause and the effect of Brother Cole being taken off the scene and someone lessening their grip on God and on truth.  I know a few of the next generation and one or two of the next generation.  Pretty soon they will be, “God, who is God anyway?” 

Dear church, supplicate means you stand before God as seeing the invisible, honest before God.  “Father you see what is going on with this soul that I am so burdened for.”  Don’t think that nothing is going on or that there are not spirits that are attending.  Supplicate and plead with God to hold back that which will ruin their life, ruin children, and ruin young people.

I met a man that is not saved and has a beautiful daughter that is a junior in high school.  I thought, “Oh if he could only pray.”  When her dad introduced her to me she looked me right in the eye and shook my hand.  I thought, “Oh Justin, can you pray?”

I thought of the girl that was kidnapped in California and taken to a wilderness and I wondered if she had a dad that told her, “If you ever feel uncomfortable around a man you come to me and I will deal with it.”

Moms and Dads don’t give up on prayer.  Don’t lose your grip.  When it looks like your prayers have been in vain, go back and get a hold of the horns of the altar and pray as seeing the invisible.  That son may have gone totally the wrong way but you hold on and say, “Oh God I am supplicating and I am seeing the invisible I am crying out to you because I have a burden for a soul.”

Interceding means that we position our self before God for that one that is in desperate straits, for some one that made a mess out of everything.  They had so much opportunity and didn’t take advantage of the opportunity.  You cry out, “God have mercy in judgment.”  Judgment is coming both preliminary and final judgment.

You can walk a mile, supplicate, intercede and pray and then you need to walk another mile and do the same.  Let us not forget those that gave of their life and their resources and their time so that we could have the gospel.

Let us not forget what Jesus did for us.  God has been so good.  He has been there when death was approaching to take a young mother or a little child out of the home.

Heb 13:8  Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Faith expects a miracle.  As I look at some of our prayer requests, in the natural we see disaster.  Unless there is a miracle we see that the individual will spiral down and down and down.  Faith tells me that there can be a miracle. 

We must be willing to tell them in boldness, “You need a miracle, you need a total change.”  We have to bring the individual to God and say, “what we see is scary.  The invisible is Jesus.  However long they have lived they need to from this point live for God.”

Don’t be slack.  Have a grip on, “I am living for a miracle.”

The Holy Bible is a miracle that records miracle after miracle.  The miracle of the creation of the earth, it is a miracle.  The miracle of the creation of man, of the creation of woman, the miracle of the birth of a child, the miracle of being born again, the miracle of sanctification… John 21:25 tells us ‘if everything that Jesus did was recorded then the world could not hold all the books.”

Living faith seeks the Word of God.  This Word of God is a gold mine.

The living faith of a child:  to these little children, they have living faith.  That is the only kind of faith that God gives to people.  I challenge every one of us to be a godly influence that nourishes that faith.  I think of the total nurturing of my faith as a child.  It came from sources of those that loved and served God.

My older brother Jack was the best looking Kelly.  I don’t think that he ever told me, “Sonny, serve God and don’t follow the path that I took.”  You all know his sad story.

There were others that had a good affect on my faith: those way back in the fifties that studied for a Sunday school lesson. 

There are some that say that Mark is short and abrupt.  But when it came to the little children, Mark 10:13-16  he recorded more than any of the other gospels.  You will notice that those children wanted to be touched by Jesus. 

The bible has a wonderful scripture for the youth: “Remember now thy creator.”  It has scriptures for the aged and young men and women read the book of Titus over and over he tells them to be sober.

God told Abraham and it is recorded in Isaiah 51 to look to the rock from whence you were hewn and the pit from whence you were digged.

Most people don’t come from a family that loved and served God but there was something that with love and faith challenged them to break the cycle.

We are so blessed this morning to have a wonderful opportunity to get a grip.  Get a grip on our situations in life.  Get a grip on God. 

As parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters in this congregation, get a grip on where you are. 

I have been challenged to bring a very solemn closing to every message and challenge everyone in this audience to not let your hands be slack. 

Whatever our situation is, get a grip on it.

In the parable of the talents there were five, two and one given.  To this audience God has given everyone talents. 

One was given five, they used them and they gained.  You use a talent that God has given you and you find that right while you are using it you are learning and you are gaining.  You start working on getting a song and pretty soon you will have two songs.  Get a grip on your talents and use them. 

Jesus taught, “You have used what I gave you, enter into the joy of the lord.”  We want to have such a grip on what God has given us to do and do it so wholeheartedly and put such emphasis in it. 

The man that wrote that song, “I will sing of my redeemer and His wondrous love to me,” wrote it as he was riding on the train that got into a terrible accident.  He got out and then went back to get his wife and they both perished. 

As a man went back to see if they could rescue Mr. Bliss they dug through the train wreck and found the song.  It had never been sung.  What God has given you to do, do it. 

You precious parents, get a grip on being a parent.  If there is something in your life that you don’t have a grip on don’t just talk, begin to pray and then humble yourself and go to someone that can help you learn how to. 

Don’t have the attitude, “Sister so in so is not going to tell me anything.”  If you get desperate enough you will say, “I want to maintain my grip on God, I have to get to someone that I can talk to.”

If we let our hands get slack it will not just be one thing, it will be church, it will be the lost, it will affect every part of our life.

The fearful and the discouraged hid his talent and lost it.  What God has blessed you with, don’t hide it.  Don’t tell me that you cannot sing as well as Sister Alice or play your guitar as well as Brother Rick.  The man that did not use his talent lost it.

The solemn words of Jesus were this, “Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The intent of this message was not to condemn anyone, I don’t preach that way.  But I am serious.  Don’t let your hands be slack.  If you feel that something has happened to your grip then I wouldn’t wait until I got home, I would kneel in my pew or come to the front bench or the altar and pray, “I must get a grip on God.” 

My grip on God is the only thing that will save me and help me see my son in laws saved, my grandchildren, your grandchildren, my nieces and nephews.