Brother Gary Sunday Evening 7/6/14

Brother Gary Sunday Evening 7/6/14

Mar 4:8  And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.

Mar 4:9  And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

We know that the seed that fell was the Word of God.  It fell on all types of soil.  The good ground has a marvelous attitude.  In order to become good ground and maintain good ground there are tools we must have close at hand and use.

The plow: we can thank God for how much we have been tilled by the plow of the Word of God, for how much the soil has been broken up, and so on.  There is something about deep plowing. 

It is necessary to have the tools and to use the tools.

Every once in a while we find ourselves digging out quack-grass, dandelions and other things.  Some of them you don’t just get out with the hoe, or that little shovel that you can use when you are digging to plant a little plant.  Sometimes you have to get a shovel that you can get your foot on. 

It may be painful but you have to make the choice, “This is painful but it has to go.”  The goal is to get to the bottom of the root.  Get to the bottom of what is growing on your garden.

It is not enough to get it out of the ground but removed it so that it doesn’t start regrowing when you water.

It is not enough just to weed but to get it into the wheelbarrow and if you compost weeds you have to have something that is really hot to kill the seed.  If you use compost without doing this then all around the plants that you use the compost on you will have weeds. 

The fire to burn the weeds is the Word of God.  It takes you and I being willing and the fire of the Word of God.

If we are satisfied with shallow living and Band-Aids, then we will be shallow and there will always be someone that will put a Band-Aid on us. 

If we are satisfied with shallow living then the three unclean spirits like frogs will place on us something that we feel comfortable with.

When God puts his Word on us, He is not mistaken, it is how it is.  We take the attitude, “Dear God, this must be dealt with.”

Life is life and will be difficult at times.  People tried to teach me that because we are Americans then life should be chocolates and strong coffee.  But that is not life.  Life can be difficult.

In Isaiah 37 it was a time of great difficulty.  It is a figure of speech, but ‘everything was going wrong’.  There were people getting together and uniting against the people of God and finally someone said, “Let’s get a hold of a prophet.” 

The prophet said, “This looks bad, but God has a way of turning a situation around and helping to work good in difficulty.”

Isa 37:31  And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:

Isa 37:32  For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

The reason that some people fall over easily is because they don’t have their roots down deeply.  May God help you and me to realize that life literally and spiritually will have designated times of extreme difficulty.  It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love me or that he doesn’t love you.

Without difficulty, we will drift and become lovers of ease and of good times.  When difficulty comes instead of bearing down, those in stony places look for an easy way out.  There is no easy way out.

The remnant shall take root downward:  everyone here that has planted a tree or knows anything about planting knows that if you want to plant something and it to grow and get a good root, you must get a deep hole.  You have to dig about twice as big and as deep as the root.  You have to get down deep and work up the soil deep. 

It is the same spiritually, we have to dig deep.  It is tough to dig deep.  After you get past where someone has worked and tilled and tilled we reach soil that is really hard to dig in.  Sometimes you have to get the Pulaski. 

You can only dig so far with a Pulaski.  Then you have to get a bar.  Then it is harder and harder to use a shovel, and then you can either borrow a posthole digger or you have to get down there and begin to use your hand tools.

Dig.  You may find something a foot below where you have ever worked before, dig, sweat, get down there because your roots have to go down.

1Co 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

God has good things in store for everyone that serves Him past what they can envision. 
 

God Himself has plans of fruit of blessings, of wisdom, of anointing, of endowment, of the God of heaven flowing in and flowing out.

He has prepared these for them that love Him.  You have to love trees to dog deep to plant them.  It is worth it.  If you are to grow pears that make your mouth water to talk about it, you have to dig.  If we want depth, it is dig; dig past the rocks, past the thorns, past self.

Isn’t it something when you are on your knees and God speaks to you of something that you had never dreamed of?  A revelation from God.  Whatever God tells you is a thrill to your soul.  We don’t think mega church, we think of a soul being saved.  We would love for all the world to be saved, but if we can help one prodigal then we will be thrilled.

Don’t limit God as to what He can do for you as an individual.  How blessed children of the church are.  They are blessed to be trained to pray, to have manners, and as little Samuel, to hear the voice of God. 

It is a choice to say, “I will take the lesson.”  There are times that It will be easier to become disobedient, to think that mom and dad is too strict or, “why can’t I have my way.”  There will be those in the world that say, “Your folks are too strict making you wear dresses and all that, you don’t have to put up with that.”  They are not your friends.

When someone thinks it is funny when you talk back to your mom they are not your friend.  If they make fun of your standard then they are the ones with a problem.  We need a standard in our heart that says, “That is wrong.”

We have been silent too long.  You say, “I am afraid of offending anyone.”  What about God?  Don’t lose your opportunities.  People find themselves so that they cannot talk to anyone. 

I want more than pansies on my salad.  I like pears on my salad.  Candied pecans on a salad are good.   Spiritual depth:  The storms will come to me and they will come to you.  This week may bring the biggest disappointment that has come this year yet. 

Say, “I am believing God and digging.” 

‘There is joy in the service of the master’, this song was written by DS Warner who went to visit his son’s mother with his son and she didn’t want to see them.

The world looks for a moment of pleasure for a lifetime of sorrow.  They say, “This is the greatest thing since chocolate.”  No it is just temporary.  All the fireworks that were on the fourth of July went out.

1Co 2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

God has wonderful things in store for His church this week.  Get rightly related to God and see what His hand gives to us.

I believe that there will be some doors opened this week.  The God I serve will bind some spirits.  We will run into some ugly spirits but remember that we are good ground, we took the old shovel and got another foot down, and we got those roots down there. 

We are to be as a tree planted by the rivers of water, to take root downward.