Month: April 2014

PRAYER FOR MISSIONS

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psa-2-8-web-watermarkedThis is a prayer from various scriptures for world wide missions and evangelism that I wrote and I plead you would pray with me.

Lord Jesus, we long for you to ask your Father to give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession!

And the entire earth will belong to you. All kings will bow before you, and all nations will serve you!

King Jesus, You are the ever living One able to intervene and save the lost masses of this planet for all time and eternity!

They will come to God through You alone and in the day of Your power, Lord Jesus,You shall have multitudes of willing, loyal subjects, among all peoples, kindred’s, tribes, nations and languages.

Oh LORD demonstrate your holy power before the eyes of all the nations. Let all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

Now show them your power; show them your might. At last they will know and understand that You are the LORD!

Your realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the ends of the earth and your people will live undisturbed, for you will be highly honored around the world and you will bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth!

Brother Stephen S. Gibney

FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES

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images“Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.” But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” (Jer. 20:9). 

A fire has been burning deep within the earth and anthracite coal fields of what used to be a small community called Centralia, Pennsylvania since May 27, 1962.  The temperature exceeds 1000°F and emits poisonous gas. There has been no success in extinguishing the fire and eventually the whole town was evacuated in 2012. At this rate the fire will burn in the earth for another 250 years. This is quite a phenomena.

It is like what we see in this passage.  Jeremiah does not want to preach anymore. He feels like a failure and no one is listening. One man said that Jeremiah is suffering, acute “prophetitus” because not only are there no results in his ministry but people are getting worse.  God seems to be giving him no words of encouragement at all.  Jeremiah said that he wanted to forget about preaching God’s words but there underneath the earth of his being there was a fire in his belly, a burning in his bones and he had to speak.

God told Jeremiah early in his ministry, ” I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.” (Jer 5:14). God also describes the characteristic of his word, “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer 23:29).  The word was like fire and there was not some dichotomy, some separation from what was in his mouth and what was in his heart.  The Word was a fire and He was on fire with the Word. The word in his heart was heaven birthed and nurtured and God deployed it from this man. He was made to do this. The more he held back- the pressure of the divine furnace in his bones began to force its way out of him.  He was worn out from holding back what was in his heart-he had to speak it!

A Christian, especially a preacher should be a person on fire for God. This does not refer to melodramatic public speaking but they are men who have been touched by the Holy Spirit’s fire. A Christian is deeply affected by the permanent work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth and being made right with God by faith alone.  Also, a person is deeply impacted by the baptism of the Holy Spirit as it comes with its life-giving wind and purifying fire.  But there comes a time for some when they realize the call of God to gospel ministry and preaching is God’s will for them.  There is nothing like it in the world. There is no vocation like it. You cannot think about doing anything else.

Those who have the call of God in their life to preach are precious and few. A man of God should be like a burning and shining light (John 5:35). When the Holy Spirit speaks through them after prayer and as they deliver the message their heart burns (Luke 24:32). The scripture is illuminated to them (Ps. 119:130), the anointing comes upon them (Isa. 10:27)  and Christ speaks through them and elevates their words (Luke 21:15). They become soul doctor’s to the needy and weapons against the forces of the devil. Satan and his emissaries will cease at nothing to hinder these agents of the gospel and discouragement and depression are his most powerful tools against them (1 Thess. 2:18). Thus he must use the sword of the Spirit to battle against those forces personally (Eph. 6:17; Heb 4:12).

A gospel preacher is very serious about what he says in the Lord’s name and he expects others to take it serious. If the man behind the pulpit believes that what he says is only a sermon and he does not believe that he should let God speak through him he obviously has not taken his responsibility as a messenger of God seriously (1 Peter 4:11). They need to get on their knees in prayer and ask God for his mercy to reveal his message through them (Dan 2:18). God says, “And I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be speechless and unable to rebuke them, for they are rebels. But when I give you a message, I will loosen your tongue and let you speak. Then you will say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!…” (Ezek. 3:26-27NLT).

© 2014 Soul Health Care Ministries. Give credit where credit is due.

GRAB HOLD OF THE HORNS OF THE ALTAR!

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 ALTAR“Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, so he rushed to the sacred tent and grabbed on to the horns of the altar.” (1 Kings 1:50NLT). 

In the Old Testament there is a piece of furniture referred to as the bronze altar. On it were four bronze “horns.” (Ezek. 43:15). It seems that all worshipers had access to the altar and fugitives seeking asylum might cling to the horns of the altar (Exodus  21:13-14).

The verse above come from a time where rightful King of Israel was Solomon. But one of his brothers Adonijah got it in his mind that he was to be King. Once David found out he proclaims Solomon as King and Adonijah was afraid that Solomon might kill him. His immediate reaction was to run the place of worship and grab the horns of the altar and ask for mercy. He received it that day.

The altar has two meanings: the first meaning was that the altar symbolized the cross of Christ (Heb 13:10) and the second is that the altar symbolized fiery prayer (Lev. 6:13). One man said that, “Altars were places where the divine and human worlds interacted. Altars were places of exchange, communication, and influence. God responded actively to altar activity.”

Simply put, when we use the term “grab hold of the horns of the altar” that means we go to God with all of our hearts and cry out for mercy based on the result of what Jesus did when he died on the cross. We plead our need before God until we receive it! How we in this day need to learn how to grab hold of that horns of the altar of prayer!  This is the place where God interacts with people on the basis of what Jesus has done not their misguided efforts. God the Father receives, shows favor and grants access to that praying person as he would his own Son Jesus into the throne room (Heb 4:16).  A person grabs the horns of the altar he consciously mentally and spiritually grabs hold of the sacrifice of Christ! He or she says “Heavenly Father because of Jesus and what he did on the cross I need you to answer my prayer.” That is why we always in Jesus’ name.

I realize that among many of my denominational brethren loathe the altar call and think that those who practice it have replaced it with true salvation. Not so.  If anyone wants the reality of salvation seen among them it is the people who love truth. Jesus Christ is the altar. He is the mercy seat. He is the high priest. He is the slain Lamb. He is the tabernacle of God. Jesus is everything.  The altar call is not to come to a certain part of the church that is holy. It is not a forward motion or kneeling up front that is holy. But what is holy is the act of faith in prayer. The altar call is a time of prayer. It is a time when we call for people to respond to the gospel. Where people can come and be prayed for as they lay hold of God for healing, deliverance and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  No one prays to be seen by man but public or private, the right kind of  prayer is where people do business with God! Grabbing the horns of the altar is where a transaction that takes place between heaven and earth! God and his sons and daughters commune together in sweet fellowship.

The Christian want to pray so somehow they are sedated or they just feel better or perform some religious exercise that is like therapy rather than communicating with God! But rather they want to grab the horns of the altar! They offer the kind of prayer that gets an answer from God. They seek to pray in the Spirit! To have prayers ignited by the Spirit. The Bible says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much! (James 5:16).  James says that the person who gets an answer to prayer has a sense of urgency. Their prayer has the intensity of a cry for help. That is why a person who grabs hold on the horns of the altar does it energetically. The prayer they speak is from the heart and it is red hot, it burns like the unyielding fire on the bronze altar. It is heated by the fire of the Holy Spirit upon the altar of the heart not manufactured by emotion. James says that this produces powerful results. It accomplishes MUCH.  Whether in private or in public when we come to the altar of prayer we lay hold upon the God of Jacob and will not let go until we get a blessing.  We go to the altar for our lost loved ones. We fear that they will die and go to hell and we beseech the God of heaven as we grab the horns of the altar until they are saved. We see the sick the diseased healed as we grab a hold of the horns of the altar.  The kind of prayer is grabbing hold of the horns of the altar!

© 2014 Soul Health Care Ministries. Give credit where credit is due.

SIN IN THE CAMP

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sin-in-the-camp“But there was sin among the Israelis. God’s command to destroy everything except that which was reserved for the Lord’s treasury was disobeyed. For Achan… took some loot for himself, and the Lord was very angry with the entire nation of Israel because of this.”  (Joshua 7:1).

This has become one of the most archaic and avoided terms in the present day church: “sin in the camp.” The actual term is developed from Joshua chapter 6-7. It was early in Israel’s military campaign against the land of Canaan. Israel just experienced a tremendous victory against Jericho. God instructed his people that after the battle there were certain things were to be left in Jericho they were not to be brought into the camp of Israel.  Those things were to be devoted to destruction, they were cursed by God and taking them would bring destruction upon Israel (Joshua 6:18).

The Bible goes on to say, “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.”  

Notice what it says Israel committed a trespass. Israel betrayed the Lord. It did not say the double-dealing Achan sinned but it said Israel as a nation sinned because one person sinned. Israel did not even know about this.  In many ways this was not the nation of Israel’s fault.

Yet, we should point out that Israel went to battle against Ai without seeking the Lord. If they would have prayed God would have spoken to them about this issue. But they saw Ai as a small easily defeated city but God wanted to make it clear to them that all their victories came from him not by their swords. So because of their arrogance and their ignorance their battle against Ai was a miserable defeat and thirty six men died. Then of course, they prayed and that is when God revealed to Joshua that Israel sinned (Joshua 7:7-13). So Joshua examines all the families of Israel one by one and Achan confessed to the crime. He stole a Babylonian robe, 5 pounds of silver, and 20 ounces of gold and buried them.

Without reading much into this it would seem that only one of these items-the Babylonian garment was under the ban of God. The other things were silver and gold they were of value but the point was is that he took them for himself instead of setting it aside for the Lord’s treasury (Joshua 6:19). So Israel had to exterminate him and his family and everything he owned and God’s anger was extinguished against Israel. It was an awful price he paid for his sin.

So this is what sin in the camp is: one individual’s unrepentant sin brings open defeat to God’s people.  Sin in the camp is referring to someone who is practicing a sin that is unknown to the church body. It is a sinful practice or false doctrine that is affecting the community of the church spiritually and hindering its ability to fulfill their call in operating in the gifts of the Spirit, worship and reaching the lost. I believe this is why so many Christians and churches are frustrated and lacking today and it makes me weep.

We are not talking about a person who struggles with sin or some thing in his or her life that he or she is attempting to get help for. This is not talking about a person who is grieved over their sin and desires freedom.  Galatians 6 tells us what to do with such a person. We are to help them, encourage them bear their burdens until they are able to walk maturely in the Spirit on their own. But in the church of today there are many people who have no understanding of how their actions affect the testimony of the people of God (1 Cor 12:25).  WE ARE TO HAVE A GOOD WITNESS IN THE SIGHT OF THE WORLD.  God is serious about the corporate purity and unity of his people and the Bible says, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Cor. 3:17).   People should realize that what they do as individuals they do as a church.

In Bible days, people claiming to be Christians were visiting the temple prostitutes in Corinth. Paul reprimands them, “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh.  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor 6:15-20).  The church has failed to insist continually and dogmatically that we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to Christ and his body, the church.  The church is made up of individuals that are not islands to themselves (1 Cor 12).

It is important especially during the time of the Lord’s Supper that the church prepares and examines the mettle of their hearts corporately. God offers forgiveness and healing through the celebration of the Lord’s supper.  THE LORD’S SUPPER IS ONLY FOR PRACTICING CHRISTIANS. It is an opportune time to have people embrace in love their brethren and check their hearts. But like any principle, this can be abused by overcritical legalistic, fault finders and we want to avoid that. But it is my firm belief in the scriptural teaching of the apostle Paul that people should be banned from the Lord’s Supper or asked to leave the fellowship of Christians (after a proper careful application of Matthew 18) until they are willing to repent for their sin. Then they are restored without question.  This is not referring to the uncommitted unsaved person. Paul says there is no other choice! Anyone who calls themselves a Christian and refuses to repent of open sin even after the hard work of others lovingly and patiently confronting them should be expelled from the community of believers. So there will no longer be sin in the camp and we can do our job as a Church.

 © 2014 Stephen S. Gibney

USED BY GOD

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inthehandsofthepotter-300x225“If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” (2 Tim 2:20-21).

God wants to use people.  In the past few years preachers have laid waste to this term “used by God” because of it’s lack of appeal (like they have done with many truths).  The idea of being “used” by anyone, is not an attractive premise at all because people fear being manipulated, exploited and  exhausted: used.  That is not the case! This is not what is meant by the word, “use.”  The word “use” is not only pronounced differently in the text but is (euchrestos) which loosely means easier to use. 

To be used by God is to be of use to God.

It gives us the understanding that as a practice God utilizes and employs people for his purpose. God wants to use you my dear Christian friend!

Isaiah said, “LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.” (Isaiah 26:12).

Notice that he has wrought all OUR works in us.

He is saying, “Lord, you deserve the credit for everything we have done-it was you doing it.”

When God uses a person he actually works through that person. So being used by God means He is working with you (Josh 1:9), in you (Phil 2:13), for you (Rom 8:31), and through you (John 7:38-39).  This should be our daily prayer.

The biblical pattern is that God saved us by the blood of Christ and placed his Spirit in us to make us a living witness to the grace and power of God.  Paul said it this way, “…for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” (1 Tim 1:16).

We have been saved as examples of God’s power to save such wayward, rebellious sinners such as we were.  We who belong to God by his Sovereign Grace have the privilege of God doing his work through us.  It is no longer, “I” but “Christ” for that “Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2:20).

God’s will is that we “be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” (2 Tim 2:21). A vessel had special meaning in scripture. A vessel, could be anything from a cup, dish, plate and utensil. God fashions shapes and moulds those that he uses. Isaiah said, “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”  (Isa. 64: 8).

God uses this analogy of people.  Paul was a chosen vessel or literally “a vessel of election” (Acts 9:15). He uses the phrase, “a vessel of honor” to describe how God uses people in this passage. He is the one who has the power to make us a vessel of honor or dishonor (Rom 9:21).  When God saves a person they become a vessel of honor in salvation. God calls some the “vessels of wrath” other the “vessels of mercy” (Rom 9:22-23).

This means that God can use anything or anyone for his purposes. Saved or unsaved, godly or ungodly-God can strategically move people into position to accomplish his plans. That is what we call God’s Providence.

But it is my firm conviction that God uses US in a way that the UNBELIEVER could never dream about.

The reason for this is that the one whom God uses is committed to “purge himself from these…”  The Christian can be used because the Christian is clean. The word purge is where we get catharsis. It means to clean out thoroughly. In the context of this passage, Paul is reprimanding Timothy to break away from attachment with false teachers that destroy the faith of others. If he completely cleanses himself from them, then God will honor him, set him apart, and equip him for service. We will address this another time.

Believers are loyal to Jesus Christ as their Master so they desire to remove everything from the old life that would disease the new being intolerant of contaminating influences. God desires to use vessels that are clean before him and that take holy living seriously.

Paul compares the church and those in it to being a great house and there are various kinds of furniture, containers and utensils in it.  They all serve a purpose. Some have an everyday common use. But there are others that have an extraordinary, special use. Some are silverware and some are gold ware. God calls us to become vessels of honor or sanctification according to our text. He gives us the choice.

“Meet for the Masters use…” That leads into the concept of Christ being our Master. The word master (despotes) means “one who possesses undisputed ownership and absolute, unrestricted authority.”  We are Christ’s peculiar people or his particular possession (Titus 2:14). Our Lord Jesus has undisputed ownership and uninhibited power over us and he has a design to use us for his glory!

We are “prepared for every good work.” This describes the vessel God uses as fit, ready and prepared for activity. They are outfitted and equipped. They are primed for action because they are trained and rehearsed to do what God has designed for them. A vessel of honor is not only made but trained. After God sets us aside we set ourselves aside so that he might use us in a greater way.  It is an exciting thought to anyone who loves God for Him to employ them in his service to help others.

© 2014 Soul Health Care Ministries. Give credit where credit is due.

WE HAVE LOST OUR WAY

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looking-at-map“My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray and turned them loose in the mountains. They have lost their way and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.” (Jer. 50:6)

Jeremiah in his prophecy begins once again to lambaste the spiritual leaders of his day for misleading and abandoning God’s people. These men are supposed to be men who knew the truth and knew the right way yet still misled the people of God. They have the people of God so twisted up in knots that they don’t even know how to get back to the sheepfold or where a true fellowship is. A true place of fellowship is that group of people that has Christ as their center who believes in the power of God and its application to every need and they teach the scriptures incessantly. But like them we have lost our way.

People today really rely on navigation. GPS in the car we drive (Global Positioning System) is very popular whether installed by the manufacturer or after market devices. Being a glorified car jockey for a while I saw that this is a nice selling point. It’s a great invention and is a tool. Now practically all cars have navigation. I don’t think it will be that far in the future that our cars will practically drive themselves.  People don’t see the need for a paper map anymore.

I don’t want to betray my age complaining about “the way things used to be” but a whole generation is being raised up that wouldn’t know North from South or East from West. It used to be that you had the map out when you were traveling long distance and figure out those routes before you even began to travel.  Not so now. You just enter your address and there you go. But having a actual sense of direction I think is gone. We just don’t want to have to think about how to get to where were going. We would rather someone else do that for us or in this case some “thing.”  I’m wondering what would happen to a person who has no sense of direction if they got lost in another state or God forbid in another country. Maybe a person can figure out that the sun rises in the east and sets in the West but I wonder-what would they do they got really lost and were unable to rely on the technology of today? It would be pathetic.

A growing number of Christians have no sense of direction. I don’t care on how much they insist that they are led by the Spirit. They would much rather have someone do the thinking about directions when it comes to any of the challenges that they face in life. They would rather go to church and hear a person give them instructions on what to do about their marriage, finances, parenting, employment and spiritual life rather than read the Bible for themselves. They will insist once again that it needs to be practical and relevant, when truth is always practical and it is always relevant. Now, there is much to be said about good teachers of the word of God.  How much in this day in our do we need people who stick to chapter and verse of the scripture. Without it we have lost our way.

People are lost in the sense of being disoriented. How can I say that? Have you ever listened to an average Sunday with men and women preaching.  it always seems that they have “the message. ”  It’s gotten worse and worse.  Not that there are not great preachers. It just seems that they are all saying something different. But I cannot blame them. I think the people who listen to them are far more culpable. We criticize people for going to church is that has priests but it seems that we ourselves instead of relying upon our great high priest Jesus we have people in between us and him. We have a third-party relationship. When God himself has blessed us with his word. No one denies the gift of solid teaching both ancient and contemporary. But those who lead have a solemn responsibility to lead us to Christ.

The Bible is the word of God, the Bible is God’s voice to us God speaks to us and tells us what to do. The Scripture seems to indicate that when a person lives right, when they guard their hearts and they take captive their thoughts by pondering, studying and seeking to apply the holy Scriptures- that in of itself provides direction and guidance. I do not think this is an oversimplification.

But we are not immersed in the word of God. We have sinned in this matter. It’s a great sin. I see whole groups fighting to keep the public display of the 10 Commandments and yet the Christian of today seems to have a poor relationship with the Scriptures. We want so much to know God’s will but we don’t want to make the effort in reading his word. We have every excuse possible. We excuse ourselves from studying the word then complain about our losing our way. I think we deserve to be lost. It’s our nature to  drift, our propensity to get off track. We have lost our way.

People say, “I try to be good.”  But what’s the test of that goodness? Doing good and doing the right thing is always tainted by our own selfishness pride and evil desires. That is why we need the word of God. It tells us that the only way that we can deal with that base nature is first through trusting in Christ. Complete and total trust reliance and dependency upon Jesus. Without that we have nothing. Without that we are lost.

One time Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them.  He told them they knew where he was going. Thomas disagreed. He did not think that he knew where Jesus was going.  I have heard people praise Thomas for his question. People tell me there’s no such that is a stupid question. I don’t mean to be crass but I think Thomas Estes stupid question. But you have to give them credit for not being a hypocrite.

Why in the world would Jesus think they knew where he was going? Why because in some way shape or form he must have told them. Jesus has taught them that he would be betrayed he would be crucified and he would be raised from the dead. Jesus believed they knew. Why? He made it clear.  Jesus insisted, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life.”  now I know we take that Scripture and we plaster it in the faces of people who are of other religions who believe that there are other ways and other truths and another life. We insist on the definite article “the” way and “the” truth and “the” life.  But the bottom line is is he are only way our only truth and our only life.

The son of God would not have us lost. He is searching for people relentlessly as it were. His Father he said is seeking for worshipers. The Holy Spirit leads us in the direction that we need to go. God is not lost. We are the ones that get lost. Why? Because our focus is not on Christ. Our focus is not the word of God and I don’t mean some legalistic study of the word of God. I don’t refer to some method of man in how to study the word of God. I refer to the Scriptures as imbibing it like water consuming it like food. Just as Jesus said his words are spirit and life and that they are his flesh and blood. They must become our flesh and blood as we meditate upon the Scriptures. for without Christ being the sum total of all that we are, we will lose our way.