But it is even more relevant today then it was back then.
It clearly delineates where the Church is at and where the world is at and their divergent directions.
I have added some relevant links to help the understanding of what is being said.
Even though the net did not exist for the public at the time of this message, the tip of the iceberg was still evident and obvious.
***
There are people who come into a Spirit-led worship service who are not sympathetic to the worship.
It seems strange to them.
We should respect their opinion.
They may feel that they want more dignity, which in their minds is the kind of reverence that is quiet in the worship services.
They are perfectly entitled to their opinions, and we should respect them very much.
We should come into the house of the Lord with the understanding that some people who come may not be accustomed to our way of worshiping.
We should be open to other ways of worship.
But we must also put the shoe on the other foot.
These people must be sympathetic to our way of worshiping, too.
There is something that is coming in the churches that is a direct contradiction to the spirit of this age.
You can go to church after church, and you cannot tell the difference between deadness that is on them and the deadness that is on the sinners of the world.
If God's people want to be ardently determined against that deadness, then they should be ardently determined against it.
Any dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim up against the current.
This is what is happening in several Spirit-led churches across the land.
People are going against the current.
They are standing against the spirit of this age.
If you wonder where this will end, it will never end.
This age is going into what has been prophesied over and over again, not only by prophets but by economists, by sociologists, by psychiatrists, and by many others.
We are facing the end of the United States of America as we have known it.
We are coming to the end of what has been a golden age as far as America is concerned.
People do not want to believe that.
They would rather curl up in a little ball and die.
They are like those little pill-bugs that we played with when we were children.
When we pushed on them, they would just curl up in a little ball and roll away.
That is what people are trying to do today.
They do not want to face anything that is happening.
God is raising up a people and giving them a spirit that is eternally set to resist this lukewarmness, this deadness, this spirit that God says makes Him vomit.
This age is filled with a nauseating thing of being neither hot or cold.
People say they are Americans, but they do not really want to work at it.
Instead they passively sit and watch America being torn apart.
They watch as politicians play football with their future.
They sit and watch the whole thing.
( Shekinah comment: Only 36% of eligible American voters showed up to vote in the last election.)
They do not really care that much.
They watch as newscasters come on the television and give their little spiel and look at each other with a smirk that says, "Well, what else is new?"
The sarcasm of this age is a spawn of something that was not born out of a human heart of compassion or patriotism.
I believe God can save America, but He will not save it with this indifferent spirit.
People may like to come on a Sunday morning and sing some quiet old familiar hymn.
We should respect their opinion, but we should not not be concerned about what they want to sing.
Church services should be geared so that everyone who comes will be confronted with what God says about this age, about the end of this age, about the Kingdom that is coming.
God's ministers must walk with an integrity that prepares the people for the fact that a new age is coming and the old age is about to end in disaster for everyone who is a part of it.
The cry of God's people has continually been one thing; "Come out of her My people! Save yourself!"
What was the cry on the day of Pentecost?
"Save yourselves from this generation" ( Acts 2:40 ).
"Save yourselves from this generation!"
You not only need the Lord to save you as far as a few sins are concerned, but you need the Lord to save you from the conformity to this age, your conformity to this generation.
You need to come into a place where you accept wholeheartedly that God is doing a new thing.
I do not believe you have even begun to see how totally dedicated the true believer will be in this age.
The people of God are not to be conformed to the covetous spirit that belongs to the American people.
The materialism that is an integral part of the way of life of America is no longer to be a part of the people who walk with God.
( People have lined up, and set up tents, days in advance of "Black-Friday," to get deals on materialistic goods.)
They are not to be bound by it.
Instead, they will have the desire within their hearts to rise and do whatever God tells them to do.
By this I do not mean that the believer is to get rid of everything.
Such an idea is foolish, because I believe in my own heart that God is bringing a stewardship to the remnant in this hour that will make them a Joseph company.
Instead of getting rid of everything, God is going to heap it on them.
(Thou shalt not steal is indicative that we can own stuff.)
The prophecy of Isaiah says that the wealth of the Gentiles shall flow to the remnant ( Isaiah 61:6 ).
The believer should not be looking for less; nor should he be rising in the mornings, saying, "Lord I don't know where I'm going to be fed today."
He should not even believe for a miracle of birds to come as Elijah.
The man of God today should arise in the mornings, saying,"O God, open the windows of heaven because I may have to feed a million people tomorrow."
It takes a great deal more to live than it does to die.
It takes a great deal more to be dedicated faithfully as a steward than it does to walk in utter poverty.
Anyone can go out and die as a martyr.
Anyone can simply go out and be killed.
But to take your life and live it faithfully for God day by day, year in and year out, that can be a living death; nevertheless, it is something that God is bringing forth for the Kingdom.
You cannot walk in such a manner as long as you find yourself drifting along with the whole spirit of this age.
You must rise up and go against it.
You must have the feeling in your heart that you want to go against it.
The greatest liberty a human being ever attains is the freedom from the fear of man. The fear of man maketh a snare ( Proverbs 29:25 ).
That is what is snaring the whole world.
People have been pressured and pressured into conformity until they do only what all their peers think they ought to do.
They think as they think; they feel as they feel; they fail to react as they fail to react; like a dumb herd of little sheep led to the slaughter- that is exactly the way the world is going.
That is what gives the communist their power.
That is what causes world revolutions.
That is why entire civilizations are being wiped out.
Cultures, ethnic groups are destroyed because the fear of man keeps the people from resisting.
What shall God's people do?
They must stand fast until the word that God has given is refined in their hearts seven times as pure gold.
Then they can stand and prophesy until the evil forces come down.
They can prophesy until the King reigns in Zion.
They will prophesy until the Kingdom of Gd comes forth.
Their prayer will not be a mumbling along of "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done."
It will be a cry, "Thy Kingdom come!"
It will be something that cries out from the midst of their spirits, "It's another day! It's another age that is different from the age in which we were born.
It's another day!"
Look around at the corruption everywhere.
Look around at the politics, at the covetousness, at the greed.
Look at it!
It is a dead, stinking thing.
If you want to live for that, if you find your heart still lusting after that sort of thing, you had better get down on your knees and search your heart and say, "What do I really want?"
Ask God to put the answer into your heart.
You will come up with one answer.
You will find your heart responding to that great word on the Sermon on the Mount; "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" ( Matthew 6:33).
No comments:
Post a Comment