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.
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