Blog
Be encouraged saints of God. Some months ago the Lord gave a prophetic word at our Come Alive with Jesus Meeting. The gist of what He said was that there are those who wish to derail this country from it's divinely appointed destiny but they will not succeed! As we see what is happening all around us it is good to remind ourselves of this word. Amen? Amen. A direction from the Lord came while we were in prayer. He directed us to start sharing some our bank of messages as a blog. We are starting with sharing installments from the message" Pitfalls in the Promised Land." As an introduction we see in the the book of Joshua, in the Old Testament as Joshua then old and striken in years, was about to die,he advised and warned the people of God. They were settled in the promised land and he warned them about things to look out for. .Now, wait a minute!! Do you mean to tell me there are things to watch out for as you live in the promised land? In a word,yes! Yes there are pitfalls in the promised land.
(1) Joshua told them:Take good heed to yourselves that you love the Lord and don't go back to the practices of pagans around you.Even in our day we see churches allowing same sex marriages, support of pro choice positions and so on One so called church worshipped a feminine idol to at their services. As we live in our spiritual promised land in New Testament times we are not to "go back" and participate in the pagan practices of today. We are to live in our day, in our spiritual promised land by loving the Lord and rejecting the values and ungodly actions of worldly modern day society.
(2) During the rule of King Saul of ancient Israel, Saul became prideful and very politically motivated. He began to rule by doing what was popular among the people. He should have been ruling by what God(who have given him the kingship) was commanding and instructing him to do. King Saul even disobeyed instructions from the Prophet Samuel, who was giving him the Word of the Lord. Now Saul was the first human king in the Promised Land and this was the pit he fell into. Saul ultimately lost the kingship. In our day we must learn from Saul. In any level of leadership we are given we are to exercise leadership following God's Word and His Holy Spirit as He leads us. Wether or not what we do is popular in the polls so to speak, we still stand for what is revealed in scripture and God's way in life.
(3) Even the beloved King David found a pitfall in the Promised Land. He stayed home one year in the springime "when kings go out to war." During this time he fell into adultery with Bathsheba and in an attempt to cover up their sin King David arranged to have her husband fall in battle. You see David was not where he was supposed to be; doing what he was supposed to be doing. Consequently he was very vulnerable to tempatation. Now had he been out fighting the Lord's battles as king, he would have been right where God wanted him engaged in warfare.Well, what about us? What are we to learn here? We need to be fighting the good fight, engaged in spiritual warfare. We especially in this hour need to be battling on our knees interceeding as war rages all around. Remember Jesus was always about the Father's business and so should we be.
(4) Now in the Promised Land a remnant of the pagan nations remained even after the conquering of the land. One particular warning given by Joshua was that the children of Israel were not to intermarry with the pagan remnant around them. He warns them not to cleave to them and go into them and they to you. Intermingling with those nations would become a trap, a snare and thorns in their eyes. The judge Samson found out the "hard way" what good wisdom this was. Samson married a pagan wife Delilah. Eventually through the nagging of his wife he revealed the secret of the supernaturall strength he possessed and he was taken captive by her people. They bound him and gouoged out his eyes; blinding him. In our day the Bible tells us to not be unequally yoked with nonbelievers,"Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" 2Cor,6:14 If a believer is joined to a nonbeliever in marriage and other types of important relationships light is being attempted to be mixed with darkness. How do you suppose that will work out? John 1:5 says,"The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
