View Single Post
  #6  
Old 11-16-2017, 10:48 PM
n david n david is offline
Registered Member


 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 17,803
Re: What did you learn in church this past month?

Last Friday and Saturday, I visited a church which was hosting an Evangelist for weekend services. Great services with a couple powerful messages.

Friday evening: "Leaving the Fire in the Furnace"
Text - Daniel 3:14-27

This message was about going through fiery trials. "A faith which cannot be tested, is a faith which cannot be trusted."

The three Hebrew men were thrown into the fiery furnace bound, but later seen walking around free. A fiery trial has the ability to burn up that which has you bound. Anything you put your trust in outside of God is bondage. A fiery trial will also show you where your faith really is. The furnace was what set them loose of what bound them. Your trial is not meant to destroy you, it is to set you free!

Notice the 3 Hebrew men were thrown into the fiery furnace bound in their clothes - "coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments." Yet not only were they set free of their bonds inside the fiery furnace, but the Bible says "upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them."

When you go through a fiery trial, you need to leave the fire in the furnace. Some come through a trial and they have the stench of the smoke; they're bitter or angry over the trial they went through.

Leave the fire in the furnace.

Saturday evening: "Not Iscariot"
Text - John 13:21-30 and John 14:22

(Regrettably I wrote only a couple notes on this message. I was asked to get a song ready for after the message and spent most of the time trying to find something to sing and missed a lot of the message. Lord, have mercy. I had to borrow some notes from someone else who was there.)

The text brings us to when Jesus and His disciples were having the last supper. It is during this time that Jesus reveals to them that one of them would betray Him. As the the story was written, we find that it was Judas who would betray Jesus. The Bible says after Judas received the sop, he went into the night.

The Evangelist spoke of transference - how we project negative emotions and negative experiences on other people and situations.

He gave an example of how his own father was a drunkard and beat his mother. He has no happy memories of his father; only that his father was drunk most of the time and beat his mother. The Evangelist said he was in a service and the praise team began to sing a popular song "you're a good, good Father. It's who you are, it's who you are . . ." He said he couldn't help it, but he thought of his natural father and the terrible things which his father did. Another time he heard the song while alone in a gym playing basketball. This time, he stopped himself from thinking of his natural father and focused his thoughts on how great his heavenly father is.

He spoke of how the name, "Judas," was a good name before Jesus was betrayed by one named Judas Iscariot. In fact, the name means "the praised one." Likely many before Judas Iscariot were named Judas. In fact, there was one other disciple - the brother of James - whose name was Judas. He's known mostly as either "the brother of James" or by another name "Thaddeus."

There's a good probability that each of us can think of a name which brings negative memories or emotions.

John, when writing his book, must have understood people's tendacy to transfer or project their negative experience with the name, "Judas," so in chapter 14 he made a point to write, "Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,..." Such were the negative thoughts and feelings associated with that name, that John made sure to let his readers know that this Judas was not THAT Judas.

We project feelings from something in our past into the present, many times without even meaning or trying to do so.

He was speaking with another minister about this message and the minister broke down in tears and told of an experience he had in a service. This minister also had a father who was unsaved and a violent man. His father wore "Brute" cologne. During a service, a man came to the front for prayer and when he went to speak with him, this minister smelled his cologne and it brought back remembrances of his father and the minister pulled back and could not bring himself to speak with him at first.

He read Numbers 23 where the Bible says, "God is not a man that He would lie..." "...hath He said, and shall He not do it?"

We cannot bring things from the past into our lives today. We must let go of the hurts and issues from our past and believe that if God says it, He will do it.
Reply With Quote